The Solution Is The Gospel

welcome to faith bridge sermons podcast this sermon features founding pastor ken worlein and was recorded on sunday june 6. thanks for tuning in and if you live close by we'd love to meet you in person next sunday at either 9 a.m or 11am and if you can't make it in person join us online at faithbridge.org live here's pastor ken there we go all right thank you roger thank you everybody so glad that you're here so i want to um tell you about a friend of mine i'll call him nick nick is uh well he's a young man and he's trying to get a go on life and and uh i tell you he's got the mo the foulest mouth i i think i ever heard he can he uses more profanity and drops f-bombs so just like it's impressive and and you know i can't count them all in in 30 minutes you know that we'll talk and he loves to hang out with his friends on the weekend and and do you know have get high on marijuana and and there's women and yeah it's all sorts of stuff it's it's it's it's you know it's always educational and and he knows exactly what i do and uh so we talk about god sometimes and and uh he likes to tell me all the reasons that he doesn't doesn't believe he said no i'm not ever gonna be a believer i said never not not even just like maybe no i'm never gonna be a believer really okay well i'm sorry but anyhow i still am and he says as a matter of fact you probably can you should have me come over and preach to your people i'm like now that would be really interesting i said but you can't do that unless you have a relationship with jesus do you have a relationship with jesus yet no i'm not gonna have that i've told you i'm not gonna have a relationship with jesus and i'm gonna come and i'm gonna preach why you shouldn't have a relationship but how can you preach why you shouldn't have a relationship with jesus if you never had a little relationship with jesus to know that'd be like me trying to tell people why you shouldn't enjoy bananas foster who never had it before right if i never had it how could i preach that sermon you got to taste and see that the flusters is good and and you realize hey there's something here you you got to try it but you don't have a relationship with jesus and so you don't really know but i'm still praying for you because i know that he loves you and i know that he would love to be in a relationship with you now some might say well why do you hang out with him i said i'd say probably two reasons one tell you the good kid deep down in there i love yeah i aware he doesn't have a dad like my boys have and he could have used one and so i just have a place in my heart for him and i want good for him better than what he has because another would be so much good and so much better if he could come to know the lord second reason is because jesus tells me to tells you to as well i think the challenge for many of us who follow christ is that we tend to pull back from people like my friend nick and yet that's not at all what jesus said we're supposed to do um yeah we act sort of like the religious folks of jesus days you know the pharisees they were asking why are you hanging out with these people these sinners why do you hang out with them and he would say things like well it's not the healthy who need a doctor it's the sick right i've come not to call the righteous but the sinners and he'd say in another place for the son of man that's him i came to seek and save the lost that's why i hang out with them because that's the mission that's why i came into this world to seek and save the lost to bring lost people into a relationship with me that could transform the trajectory of their lives and then of course he gave us that commission all of us he says now i want you to do the very same thing the great commission let me read it to you from gene peterson's message just so we hear it through a little bit of a different tone god authorized and commanded me jesus says to commission you go out train everybody that you meet far and near in this way of life marking them by baptism in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit then instruct them in the practice of all i've commanded you and i'll be with you as you do this day after day right up to the end of the age but you know i'm troubled i'm troubled by how many i think american christians have taken this commission this mandate that he he gave to us to i think they've taken it to mean something different than what he meant i know a lot of christians who i think they've taken it to mean in their own mind i'm supposed to take the already converted people the people who've stepped across the line of faith i'm supposed to take them and i'm supposed to get them into a little huddle and i'm supposed to disciple them and bring them along and teach them here's how you walk as a follower of jesus christ and then when i finish discipling them i'll pass them off to this next person and this next person will take them for a year and and they'll disciple them and then when they finish they'll they'll take them and pass them to the next people and and they'll keep getting discipled but you know i was thinking about it that would be sort of like if you took a load of laundry and you wash it and you dry it and then you just took it out and you put it right back in the washer and you washed it again and you dried it again you took it out you put it right back in the washer the problem is there's a world full of dirty clothes piling up and i'm trying to figure out where the christians who are going to go out and get the dirty clothes that's what jesus said we're supposed to do we're supposed to go out and be fishers of men and women he said we're supposed to befriend the sinner and tell them about what a relationship with our savior could mean for them and so i wonder how are you doing at that again i see so many christians and i love them and they tell me oh i'm really growing in my discipleship really yep this semester i'm in two bible studies two bible studies yeah one of them i've been in about 15 years and but i'm starting a new one as well okay but how many like lost people have you brought in lately people who need jesus people who don't know the lord people don't have what you have you brought any of them in the last week or month a year no last five years no that's 10 years 20 years the rest i mean your whole life have you ever let anybody have you ever brought anybody to jesus in t niles the great old preacher said it's only it only makes sense that when you get good news you want to share it with other people in denial said it would be sort of like one beggar who finds the source of food what's that beggar going to do he's going to run back and find all the other beggars and say hey you got to come here you've got to see what i've discovered because it's more and it's better than you've had you've got to come to the source that's what we're called to do as followers of jesus but again i'm concerned at how many christians are deluding themselves and saying well i'm really a strong christian because i only huddle with believers and i just go deeper and deeper and deeper yeah but the the most spiritually mature person in history of the world jesus said that's that's not just it i want you to learn and grow yes but i came to seek and save the lost and now i'm commissioning you i want you to go out i want you to bring them so that they might know me as well seek and save the lost so let's pretend that the spiritual journey is sort of a continuum uh okay here's where a person dies here where a person's born and somewhere along the way a person trusts in christ we'll call this their conversion moment okay maybe it happens like with one of my kids when they're nine uh uh you know maybe in their thirties or or maybe not until like one guy that i'm good friends with who i've been friends and discipled for years not maybe not really serious about the lord till till uh i don't know he was in his 70s it doesn't matter where the x is the question that i'm raising is what do you call the pre-x portion of a person's life you call it discipleship whoops okay dyslexia and uh so [Laughter] still recovering and uh so you say well no no i don't think this is discipleship i think this is discipleship after they've trusted i think this is called evangelism well let me ask you something if you've had children and many of you have had children what did you call it when you had family devotions or you were teaching your child to pray teaching him the stories of scripture did you call it evangelism i bet you didn't i bet it was just i'm trying to disciple them in the ways of the lord see what i want you to understand is that the whole thing is a discipleship process i think we do get con uh you know a little bit scared of the evangelism side of it but what i want to try to do is take this away and just see the whole picture as followers of christ we're supposed to go and make disciples who make disciples who make disciples that's what we do as followers of jesus why because we're the people of good news now like i said i think a lot of people they tend to say i'll stay kind of over here but if we all stay over here who's going to go out and get all the dirty clothes who's going to go out and catch all the fish that haven't been cleaned yet see this is the problem and i think this is uh something of of what's going on in our country if i can go macro just for a minute i i'm concerned of making an observation you could challenge it and i don't know maybe it's off but but i'm observing particularly in this day and age more and more believers people who profess christ are sort of kind of going into the castle drawing up the the the drawbridge around the moat and saying i just only want to hang out because the world is getting bad out there it's getting wicked it's getting evil and occasionally they take a hand grenade and they throw it over the moat the bad center peoples out there and and and they post mean things about and and i want to ask well how could you expect non-christian people to act christianly i think the job christ gave us is to drop the drawbridge go over the moat and be the salt and be the light of the world that he called us to be how can we stay back here and expect that the world is going to get better if we're never bringing the hope of christ into the world full of sinful people who were lost and they're just doing what lost people do this is the problem i think that's going on a lot in the american church particularly and so i have any number of christian friends and yeah the world's going to hell on a hambust well yeah what are you doing to get out there and make a disciple and then make another disciple and then make another disciple this is the mission that he gave us to be jesus would say to us my plan all along was i'm sending you out to be winsome joyful hopeful people because you know of a different story that's going on at a higher level than just the level that you're existing at here on planet earth remind yourself remember who you are and whose you are this is your story this is your narrative stay up here and bring others into the reality of this good news i'm telling you if we would do this we would see transformation in our land i know it because i've studied enough history you look back in the great 18th century revival of england and you had two men john wesley and george whitefield and god just lit their souls on fire with love for christ and they started telling people about jesus who started telling people about jesus and and more and you have to understand england was a wicked place there was child slavery and and all sorts of stuff that you see a little bit of in the musical oliver twist right or the book and so um this was the world and yet christ came and 50 years later when wesley died even the the non-christian media even the newspaper people would write that little man john wesley has changed our nation he's changed it for the better how did he change it not by posting things not by yelling and raven just by going out and telling people about jesus and helping them see there's something more and there's something better better better you have to come into a relationship you have to try jesus because until you do you're selling yourself short and and in the early church just go back all the way to the beginning we tend to say what's going to happen to christianity i had a lady after church a while back she said what's going to happen to christianity here in america you know they're going to close the walls in on us and and and kill it off i said no no that's that that will not happen now they may take some ground from us we've enjoyed a very comfortable existence christians have really for all of our history and and that is changing the tectonic plates have been moving on us but let's just play out the worst case scenario let's suppose that we just become a downright secular culture which some would say has already happened right okay now let's just go back to the original biblical early church what was going on then the roman government wicked persecution of christians they were killing the christians so these were not getting killed yet in this country right but even if we did would that snuff out christianity no quite the contrary happened if you study church history you realize oh my gosh the more that they were persecuted the more the christians would go towards the people they would show the life and the love and the joy that comes through knowing christ and people would say you know i think i do want to join your thing and they would come in and they would get baptized and more people would come in and finally the one of the roman emperors was like what in the world is going on no matter what we try to do to snuff them out we can't snuff them out they keep spreading it's because the early believers were doing what jesus told us to do they weren't isolating themselves they were infiltrating into the world and that's what we're called to do in the name of christ to bring the message of salvation and transformation to tell our own story of how christ touched our heart and how we live with hope even if the world is going hopeless lee we're people of hope you say well i know that that is true but i'm not yeah i was in a bible study or a small group i guess a couple of months ago and one of the ladies was candid enough to say i've been a christian for decades i've got a this bible study that bible say i don't know how to share the gospel i've never i don't know how to just like how do you get into it how do you like share it and i remember thinking hmm june 6th that is what we're going to talk about because i figured if you don't know how to do it there's a lot of other people doing how to do it and so what i want to do is try to spend the last few minutes just explaining to you how i do it when i talk with people about the gospel which i love to do which if you've ever seen me in a starbucks or a restaurant you've probably seen something like this on a napkin because i've taken many a napkin and many a paper chinese restaurant placement and and i try to share the gospel with people because i want them to know the life that jesus came he said i've come that you might have life and have it more abundantly so there's a verse in romans 6 23 says that the wages of sin is death but the gift of god is life eternal through christ jesus our lord so typically i draw a picture sort of like this and i explain okay mankind is over here and we have this problem we have this sin problem and nobody these days tends to deny that they're like yeah well you know i don't i can't you know even i have some of it you know if they're honest they'll admit yes all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god and then you have god on this time now there's no sin in god he's perfect he's holy he's set apart and so the questions begged well what is it that separates us it's this sin that's the problem and the interesting thing is you can study all the world major world religions and you see everybody tends to have some sense of awareness that yup that is true now they may not call god god they may call god something else but but there's this sense of you know i'm not quite one with the spirit you know whatever it is and and something is wrong but i want to i want it to be right i want it to get there so and that's where you get there the different religions that have come in you know one religion came along and said okay we think we figured out how to close this gap yeah how well you have to pray oh really yep if you pray then you'll be closer all the way no not all the way we don't know really what it would take to get all the way but but it'll get closer that's for sure well how do i pray five times a day one religion says really any other rules yep you got to face this direction never that direction because you is that direction they don't count you got to face sister that's only where they get logged and so it's like okay it's kind of complex but gotcha another religion comes along and says nope that's not it we've realized the way that you close the gap is you give alms to the poor that's it you give away your your your arms to the you take care of the poor people you give away your money and you be generous oh really okay so that would mean that that would bring will bring you closer well how much do i need to give well more than you're given that's for sure okay and so this religion there's there's always this kind of vagueness to it and that's the problem and then another religion comes along and says nope that's not it either in our religion we practice being really good really good really like how good is good enough we don't know that but we've got a long ways to go all of us do so join our religion and we'll figure it out together it's like okay well i s you know i appreciate all of you trying to solve this problem i just would i'd like something more in something better and this is what sets the christian message apart from all the others because the christian message is about a god who said you'll never be able to mend this gap you'll never be able to close this gap only i could do it and i will do it and this is the gospel he says somebody's got to pay the price for your sin you're quite right we are separated it's not because of anything i did it's because of what all of you did you shook your fist at me you still do but while we were yet sinners god had mercy on us and he sent us his son jesus christ he said now only i would be qualified to wipe all the sin out somebody's got to pay the price for it so i'll pay the price myself i'll send my own flesh and blood to take the hit for your sins whenever i share this people are like kind of makes sense so like how do i go over well this is what we call faith the bridge of faith a church i know called faith bridge you put your you put your trust in christ and you ask him to come and to take all the punishment that you deserved and you trade all of your sinfulness onto him and you absorb from him all of his life that he came to give you it's the best trade you'll ever find that's how you come into a relationship with god you pray you just tell him lord today's the day i'm stepping over the line i want to have a relationship i want to learn what it means to have a relationship with you and to like read the bible and and hear from you and stuff like i hear some people talking about i would like to have that i would like to go through life with a little bit more of a sense of purpose a little bit more sense of why you put me here anyway a little bit since more of hope and and just an outlook that pulled me forward yep you're looking for jesus that's what you need as a relationship with jesus christ now i'll tell you one more uh shortfall i think to american evangelism of the recent 60 70 years um this little picture that most ministries i've ever been a part of they all use utilize some variation of this they leave out something that i think is so so important because usually right about here when i share this somebody will say yeah but if he's so good why didn't my grandfather die why did my daughter have cancer why is there suffering the world why is there so many starving people on and on and they and they want to talk about the suffering and i i say i don't know suffering is one of the the great mysteries i mean i know on a macro level it's because we live in a fallen world and but i don't know why you're somebody had to go through what they're going you yourself i don't know but even here the gospel can be transformational i typically say at this point what do you call one person who comes over this bridge to right here i don't know well you call them a convert or a believer forgiven you can call them any number of things but the bigger question is what do you call a lot of people who are on this side a lot of converts well yeah but there's a different word the scriptures give us it's the ekklesia as the greek word that means the called out ones we refer to it as the church the body of christ and so typically i say here when it comes to suffering i don't know why anything happened that you want to talk about i wish i did from heaven's vantage point someday maybe we will but the question is who are you going through that pain with some people say well sounds like you're saying i could have community over here and i could have i got some friends over here like my friend nick i'll say well yeah you get high together and you do all you but how's that working for you i mean is it pulling you up is it moving you closer to hope into life into christ [Music] or as you sit around doing the stuff that you do as you sit around you know seems to me everything you describe about your community you'll get matter and matter and matter and that's what you see with various causes uh you see the the blm the gay pride you know all these groups what are they doing they're trying to create a community that's saying this makes me feel good and i look at them all and i say you don't look so good it's not convincing me what you really want is the body of christ because we're the people who have the hope we're the people who have the life we're not exempt from the suffering no we get cancer too we have heart attacks too we have loved ones who die too yes that happens but when we get to those places we don't grieve as those who have no hope we grieve as people full of hope that comes through christ jesus our lord so why don't you come and just see if this side isn't better because i think you'll find it's better better better now my challenge is this i want you to share this story like i could never do it yeah you can you might always know how to do yeah you can do this just re-watch the sermon you can it's like okay you can you can do this it's it's really not that hard but i would challenge you how's the world ever gonna get any brighter how's the world ever gonna get more hopeful if we don't go out and start fishing for people who are lost and hopeless and bringing the light and the love and the joy that comes through knowing christ and living as forgiven people not angry people hopeful people that's the only way it's going to get better so my challenges go you could tell somebody this week at work hey can i show you this thing that i learned at church i found it really interesting boom you're in you know maybe you're talking to another person and and the conversation has a lull and you say well i got a question for you what do you turn to when you're feeling overwhelmed with discouragement or hope or anger what do you look to at that point i know what they'll tell you you know what they'll tell them you know go get wasted you know and and okay well how's that working for you let me i gotta i got something i'd love to show you it's a message of hope it's a message of life it's a message that's changed me and i know it's a message that would work in your soul as well that's my challenge okay this week why don't you just pray lord give me an opportunity try it you can practice with your family you know at lunch today or do you want to use the paper napkin or you know place matt wherever you go why don't you practice it there must be people who are doing what christ told us to do all along let's pray lord thank you for the gospel the thought that you would live a life of sinlessness that we couldn't live because all of us are tarnished by sin but then willingly lovingly you would die the death of consequence and punishment that all of us deserved you would step in as our substitute to mend that gap to bring us back into relationship with you thank you god thank you for that thank you for conquering the grave signifying and signaling to any and all around the world if you would link yourself to me i can save you to the uttermost and give you a life that is abundant on this side and everlasting on the other side lord my prayer is that every person here today would consider this commission that you gave to us which in many of our lives has become an omission we'd rather curse at the darkness than bring your light into it forgive us lord for our selfishness transform us give us a heart of love that we might move towards that person that neighbor that schoolmate that jim rat whoever it is that we're like that's a person who needs the lord why do i keep it going so superficially day after day week after week year after year when i know the truth i've got something that could bring them hope won't you give us the nudge to do that lord and if you're here today and you've just heard this message and you're like i think that made more sense than i ever understood what christianity is about in the first place then i invite you right now in this moment in this prayer why don't you just cross that bridge so to speak and take the hand of jesus and say i want to become your follower i want to learn what it means to live in a relationship with you to know you to love you to understand more about what's in your word and how to live life that you've put me here to live with purpose we pray all of these things in your strong name jesus [Music] amen

Channel: Faithbridge

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Id: kuVZEjJkfOw

Length: 35min 36sec (2136 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 07 2021