No Partial Message

As promised, pulling at the thread we started yesterday, let’s talk about the FULL Gospel. Paul had declared, as the King James puts it, all the counsel of God. Are we also sharing the full message? Do we say “God Loves You!” and smile as we walk on? There is absolutely no salvation in that statement.

Do we say, “Jesus can forgive you” as we continue on our journey? Again, not the Gospel.

Do we say, “God loves you” to someone obviously suffering in sin? This can potentially give the impression that God doesn’t care about their sin; that He loves them just the way they are. Yes, this is true, but He doesn’t want to LEAVE them like that.

Remember, the Gospel is the fact that Jesus DIED for us! Why? Because we deserve death, not love. But He loves us anyway; even though we are His enemies.

Now how do we communicate this? The older I get and the more I witness to people, I realize how important this verse is…

Matthew 7:3-5 NIRV - “You look at the bit of sawdust in your friend’s eye. But you pay no attention to the piece of wood in your own eye. How can you say to your friend, ‘Let me take the bit of sawdust out of your eye’? How can you say this while there is a piece of wood in your own eye? You pretender! First take the piece of wood out of your own eye. Then you will be able to see clearly to take the bit of sawdust out of your friend’s eye.

To put this even simpler, I might see the sin in someone else’s life, but what right have I to point it out when I’m not willing to remove the even larger sin in my own life? If I am obviously not living a Christian life, then why would anyone want to believe what I have to say about sin and the punishment for it?

Do you remember as a child one of the worst things a parent could say to you was, “Do as I say; not as I do.” This is so very hypocritical! Don’t be that way to your neighbor! Don’t live one way while you pretend to live another. It’s living the life of a hypocrite to say to someone not to do something while you are doing it yourself, or something even worse!

Let me ask you something serious. Is adultery wrong? Then why do you watch pornography? Remember that Jesus said if you look with lust then you have committed adultery in your heart. This was something God had to give me the strength to get past. I’m not proud of the way lust was a part of my life and my thoughts, but thank God I’m not that way any more!

I don’t even want to sing songs that glorify it. Two songs are old favorites, but I have stopped listening to them because I realized they were poisoning my mind. George Jones’ song Her Name Is and Bobby Bare’s Tequila Shelia. It may not be a sin to you to listen to them, but to me it is. They glorify adultery and I want no part of them any more.

Be On Guard

I want to share all four of these verses -

Acts 20:28-32 NIRV - Keep watch over yourselves. Keep watch over all the believers. The Holy Spirit has made you leaders over them. Be shepherds of God’s church. He bought it with his own blood. I know that after I leave, wild wolves will come in among you. They won’t spare any of the sheep. Even men from your own people will rise up and twist the truth. They want to get the believers to follow them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning you. Night and day I warned each of you with tears. Now I trust God to take care of you. I commit you to the message about his grace. It can build you up. Then you will share in what God plans to give all his people.

There is so very much in this passage we need to unpack! First, those that you have helped lead to Christ are now disciples of Christ. But we can’t watch over them forever. It is up to them to find a church and grow and learn. Now if you are the leader of a small group or even a pastor of a church, this obviously doesn’t apply to you, but to the majority of people sharing the Gospel, you won’t be there tomorrow to help them.

I think about the role of evangelist as opposed to a pastor. A pastor is there to lead the flock day after day and week after week. Your local pastor fits this role, but someone like Billy Graham was an evangelist. He would go and share the Gospel and help people see the truth. He didn’t stop in every city and start a church and help them grow; he trusted that they would find a local flock to be a part of.

Two roles to play - different, yet similar. I consider myself to be an evangelist. I have had a few opportunities to “preach” and if God wants, I will do more. I don’t, however, feel led to be a pastor of a flock.

But the bottom line here is that Paul couldn’t keep speaking to them day after day. We all have a date with death. I wanted to help my kids and I am proud to say that I helped Vanessa raise two fine boys. But there comes a time you stop making their decisions for them.

It is the same with making disciples. Make sure you are in the will of God so you can make the right impressions and help them grow, then they have to go on their own to their own flock.

There is a local pastor that I have tremendous respect for. He is having health problems and it is hard for him to speak. He knows now better than at any time before how important it is to say what God tells you to say while you still can! Don’t do like me and realize years later that you wasted so much time.

Brother Clyde - if you’re reading or listening - I love you brother and pray for you often. Let me know if I can ever help out.

More Preaching

That finishes up the Sunday School lesson. Since we’re on the topic of preaching, though, I will point out that last week I shared three ‘sermons’ that I brought. I put them on YouTube and they are available on my channel. Since I am now publishing this as a podcast, I will be sharing the audio of them very soon.

A Challenge for Us

What’s the takeaway here? Let Jesus sweep your house clean from top to bottom! Give Him full control of your life and let Him rearrange in whatever way He decides. Remember that He is the Creator and He knows best for us!

Once you have done this you will be in a better position to share about sin. Remember, it’s not just that Jesus loves you, or Jesus died for you, but that you are going to hell for your very sins if you don’t trust Him and repent! That is the Gospel message! What good is a salvation message if you don’t know what you are being saved from?

Get some gospel tracts - get something catchy. I love to carry the Million Dollar Bills from Living Waters Ministry. They are eye catching and people generally enjoy receiving them. The message on the back is very blunt though, so it gets the message across with no pretty words or pretense.

Make sure you have read the back of them too! Make sure you know what they say and why they say it. You can then use the same approach to talk to someone about Jesus.

I also highly recommend the Way of the Master series from Living Waters. They can be found on YouTube as well and is a great training course on how to boldly speak up for Jesus. Though I’m not a pastor, if I were I would likely be using it to train my flock to witness effectively.

Until next time, be Blessed and strive to do His will."Almost New" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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