World Challenge Sermons

For centuries, God kept a mystery hidden, and he chose Paul, a former persecutor of the church who called himself “the very least of all the saints,” to reveal it. In Ephesians 3:1–13, that mystery comes to light: people who were once far off, outsiders considered unclean and without hope, are now fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus. This message invites us to see every good thing in our lives as a gift we never earned, to believe that no one is too far gone for God’s relentless grace, and to come into his presence with bold confidence instead of fear or formulas. It also shows how deeply God loves his church, imperfect as she is, choosing her to display his manifold wisdom to a hurting world and even to the angels in the heavenly places.

Main Points:

• Grace means receiving what you don’t deserve. Your calling, your family, your home, and even the breath in your lungs are gifts, not wages, and the faithful response is to steward them well for God’s glory.
• The mystery of Christ is that those once far from God are now fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise. To first-century ears this was outrageous news, and it is still glorious news for us today.
• No one is too far gone. The same grace that relentlessly pursued Augustine and transformed Nicky Cruz from a violent gang leader into an evangelist can reach the person you’ve been praying for, so don’t stop praying.
• At the foot of the cross, everyone stands equal. Whether you’ve followed Jesus your whole life or for just a few days, your deepest identity is being in Christ, and that calls us to fight for unity without compromising true doctrine.
• You have bold, confident access to God. The door that was once closed is now flung wide open, so you can come to him freely and unashamed, not weighed down by rules and have-tos, simply enjoying his presence.
• The riches of Christ are unsearchable. Nothing compares to knowing him, and through faith you become his treasure and a fellow heir who shares in his inheritance.
• Every believer is called to the ministry of the gospel, whether pastor, construction worker, nurse, or stay-at-home mom. Live it out at work, at home, and in your neighborhood, and give it words, because kindness alone doesn’t tell people what Jesus has done.
• The church is central to God’s eternal plan. Through her, his manifold wisdom is made known even to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, and despite her flaws and the wounds of church hurt, Jesus loves his bride. We need each other, so don’t neglect your brothers and sisters in Christ.

https://wcmin.us/WS261028c

A city can look completely alive: deals closing, crowds moving, parties running all night. But God looks at the heart and hears the quiet question underneath it all: “Is this all there is to life?” In this message, David Wilkerson says plainly that sin pays its wages in death. It shows up as empty pleasure, boredom, failed marriages, and souls past feeling. Then he points to the living proof sitting in the pews: people who were once dead in trespasses and sins and have been raised to new life. They include prodigals pulled back from the edge, marriages declared dead and then restored, and a hardened heart that finally learned to cry. No one is here by accident. God, rich in mercy, has had you on his radar all along, and his love is knocking at the door of your heart. Open it, and the one who is the Resurrection and the Life will raise you up.

Preached: August 2, 2009

Main Points:

• Spiritual death doesn’t always look like death. A busy schedule, a full calendar, and a night of fun can hide a heart that is empty inside and asking, “Is this all there is?”
• Sin can be pleasurable for a season, but God means it when he says, “The wages of sin is death.” What starts as excitement ends in boredom, emptiness, and loss.
• Christ still raises the dead today. Lives that were wasted, marriages headed for divorce and ministries wrecked by sin are being brought back to life by his power.
• It doesn’t matter how far you’ve fallen or how much you’ve lost. A single honest cry for help in your darkest hour is enough for God to begin restoring what sin destroyed.
• Salvation is not earned by good works. “But God, who is rich in mercy,” reached down while we were still dead in sin, raised us with Christ, and seated us with him in heavenly places.
• You are not here by chance. The Holy Spirit arranges divine appointments, and he has been pursuing you long before you ever thought of seeking him.
• Even the coldest, most bitter heart can be broken open. When God touches someone who is dead inside, the tears that come wash out years of rejection and bitterness.
• God is calling his prodigal sons and daughters home. Put away the old life, be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and receive the abundant life found only in Christ.

https://wcmin.us/SS261025c

With fear spreading across the world after 9/11, David Wilkerson turns to Isaiah’s warning that gladness is taken from a proud nation under judgment. But the same prophets also saw a holy remnant who would “obtain joy and gladness.” This sermon calls believers to the mountain of prayer to feast on Christ, who was anointed with the oil of gladness. There they can lose their fear of death and stand at peace while the world reels.

Preached: July 28, 2002

Main Points:

• When a nation becomes proud and forgets God, one of the first things lost is its gladness. Fear moves in, the singing stops, and even prosperity can’t buy back the joy.

• People reach for distractions, pills, parties, and screens to numb their fear, but when morning comes, the emptiness is still there. Lasting gladness can’t be manufactured. It has to be received.

• In the same days the world loses its joy, God promises a holy remnant who will “obtain joy and gladness,” a joy no headline, crisis, or judgment can steal.

• Jesus was anointed with the oil of gladness, and he has enough for all of us. Walking in the Spirit means walking in that oil.

• The strongest witness in a fearful world isn’t a forced smile or a quick Bible verse. It’s quiet peace in the middle of real suffering, the kind that makes people ask what’s different about you.

• Many believers talk fear instead of casting their cares on the Lord. Our homes and marriages need a baptism of joy, so the people we love come home to gladness, not gloom.

• God lovingly asks why we fear a man who will die and forget the one who parted the sea for his people. He is still the deliverer, and his people are safe in his hand.

• The only way to keep this joy is to go up to the mountain of prayer and feast on Christ daily. When you lose your fear of death and live for the day you’ll see him face to face, nothing can move you.

https://wcmin.us/SS261018c

Jesus is not a distant priest who stands apart from human pain. He is the great high priest who has felt every weakness we carry, and he is praying for us right now. Walking through Hebrews 4:14–16, Evan Wilkerson speaks to anyone tired, distracted, or tempted to let go when life gets hard. Like the pressured believers to whom Ephesians was first written, we can drift away, telling God we’ll come back once we’ve figured things out. Evan answers with the gospel. Because the veil was torn, the throne of judgment has become a throne of grace, and we are invited to come boldly, speak frankly, and receive mercy and grace in our time of need.

Preached: August 23, 2026

Main Points:

• Picture walking a bridge 150 feet up and gripping your phone tight. Now picture a car coming toward your daughter in the street, and the grip you’d use to pull her to safety. That’s how tightly we’re called to hold fast to Jesus.
• Play a note on one piano and the same note hums in another piano across the room, with no one touching it. Jesus put on our human body and carried it into heaven, so when the chord of our fear is struck, it resonates with him.
• He was hungry, thirsty, and sorrowful to the point of death, so stressed that he sweat drops of blood. Whatever you’re facing, he knows what it’s like.
• C.S. Lewis said that only those who resist temptation know how strong it is. Because Jesus never gave in, he alone knows temptation to the full.
• Once a year, a high priest stepped into the holy of holies with a rope tied to his foot. If the bells stopped ringing, they pulled him out. Now, because of Jesus’ blood, every prayer brings us into that same holy place with confidence.
• To “come boldly” means freedom of speech: frank, honest prayer. You don’t need polished words or a cleaned-up life, just your heart, told to a God who wants to hear it.
• Evan shares how a confusing season about his work exposed that he’d placed his identity in his job. His distracted prayers ended up stirring a deeper hunger for God’s presence, until he could say, “God, I want only you.”
• Like a dad who loves it when his little girls run up to show him their drawings, God delights when his children come near and tell him what’s on their hearts.

https://wcmin.us/WS261014c

In a season of fear, when Newsweek reported that most Americans could no longer sleep and New York braced for the next attack, David Wilkerson stood before a congregation of weary, faithful believers and spoke to those who had done everything right and still found themselves face down in the dust. Drawing from Isaiah 51 and 52, he describes God looking at his people, the ones who seek him and love him, and asking in loving disbelief why they have let the enemy walk over them. This is a message for the afflicted who are "drunken, but not with wine," the ones staggering under a crisis they did not cause. God has already spoken the word of deliverance. He is taking the cup of trembling out of their hands. Now it is time to shake off the dust, put the beautiful garments back on, and rise up in faith.

Preached: June 9, 2002

• Some believers have laid their bodies down like a street while the enemy walks over them, and God says plainly, it's enough.
• "The hardest part of faith is the last half hour." Just when God has already spoken the word, we feel the most burdened, and that is exactly when we must not give up.
• One of David Wilkerson's kids called asking, "What do you do when you've done everything right but nothing seems to turn out right?" It's a cry that echoes from pastors' studies to living rooms everywhere.
• After more than fifty years of ministry and fifty years of marriage, through fires, floods, and distress, David Wilkerson declares, "My God has never once failed me. Never once!"
• The root of our fear is forgetting the Lord our maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth. We rush to be set free instead of asking to see his majesty inside the trial.
• Not his wife, his family, his books, or the ministries he built could satisfy the deepest hunger of David Wilkerson's soul. Only a fresh revelation of Christ can do that.
• Even after an angel strengthened him in the garden, Jesus was still in agony and prayed more earnestly. The strength didn't take the cup away. It carried him all the way to victory.
• A young woman with a severe facial disfigurement had prayed for years for a husband and a child. She handed her pastor a bar of soap and a baby rattle, the symbols of that dream, and said she had laid it down because Jesus had become her husband and children now flock to her.

https://wcmin.us/SS261011c

David Wilkerson traces the manna that bred worms overnight to expose a deception sweeping the modern church: that Christ can be had while his commandments are ignored, warning that any gospel offering only bread and miracles without the convicting word of judgment produces nothing but stench and self-deception.

Preached: April 8, 2001

Main Points:

• God fed Israel manna daily as a test of obedience, not merely provision. It came with restrictions: gather only what you need, keep nothing overnight. Those who disobeyed and stored it woke to worms and a stench that filled the camp, a picture of what happens when people want the miracle without the Word.
• The crowds who wanted to make Jesus king after he fed the 5,000 wanted his bread, not his word. Jesus told them plainly he is the true manna, but that same manna, divorced from obedience, still turns to worms today, no matter how much someone claims Christ lives in their heart.
• Antinomianism, meaning anti-law, nearly destroyed the church two centuries ago through preachers like Dr. Tobias Crisp, who taught that believers could commit adultery or even murder and remain fully pardoned, with sin reduced to nothing more than a scarecrow meant to frighten children.
• A 1906 prophecy from the Azusa Street revival predicted three dangers for the last days: an overemphasis on power rather than righteousness, praise to a God people no longer actually pray to, and a fixation on spiritual gifts rather than the lordship of Christ. All three are fulfilled in modern crusades where crowds wait impatiently through the preaching for the "good stuff" of signs and manifestations.
• David Wilkerson recounts a well-known evangelist heard on tape cursing anyone who opposed his ministry, and warns of thousands who defend such men against clear evidence of sin, unable to be persuaded because, as 2 Thessalonians says, God sends strong delusion to those who take pleasure in unrighteousness rather than loving the truth.
• When Satan tempted Jesus to turn stones to bread, he was quoting Scripture accurately but divorcing it from obedience, the same trick this whole message is built around. Jesus refused because he came to do only what his Father commanded, every word, not merely the comfortable parts.
• David Wilkerson confesses he has had to shut off books and even sermons mid-read when he sensed a spirit minimizing sin creeping over him, and closes by saying he recently went through the entire New Testament studying every command of Jesus, praying not for excuse but for power to obey every word that proceeds from God's mouth.

https://wcmin.us/SS261004c

Evan Wilkerson opens with Corie ten Boom's stunning encounter with a former SS guard to show that only the agape love of God can dissolve real hostility, then traces Paul's picture of the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles torn down by the cross. Christ himself is the peace that makes former enemies into one new family.

Main Points:

• Corrie ten Boom, who watched her father and sister die after hiding Jews from the Nazis, later faced one of her former camp guards reaching out his hand after a sermon on forgiveness. She felt nothing but rage until she prayed, "Jesus, I cannot forgive him, give me your forgiveness," and love flooded through her at his touch. Reconciliation was never her own doing.
• Circumcision marked the Jews as God's covenant people, but Moses and the prophets repeatedly called Israel "uncircumcised in heart," showing that the outward sign could never change an unresponsive heart. Paul says a true Jew is one inwardly, circumcised in heart by the Spirit, not by the letter.
• Paul lists four ways the Gentiles were hopeless before Christ: separated from Christ, alienated from Israel, strangers to the covenant promises, and without God in the world. Evan connects this to a Harvard study showing 58% of young adults report lacking meaning and purpose, and to a business student who told him through tears he wasn't sure his life had meaning.
• At Herod's temple, an inscribed wall warned Gentiles that trespassing into the sanctuary meant death. Jesus tore down that literal and spiritual dividing wall of hostility in his own body, abolishing the ceremonial law and creating one new humanity out of two hostile groups.
• No human effort has ever permanently solved war or division because the real problem, sin, can't be legislated away. Every peace treaty in history eventually gave way to renewed conflict, because only Christ himself, having paid sin's penalty, can actually be the peace between people.
• Forgiveness is rarely a one-time event. It's often a lifelong process of returning to God again and again for help to forgive, and that process, however long, leads to real freedom. The love required to forgive someone like an SS guard was never Corrie's own; it was the Spirit's love flowing through her.
• Believers from every background are no longer strangers but fellow citizens and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ as the cornerstone. Evan imagines a future family table in heaven where Peter, Deborah, and Esther are simply brothers and sisters.

https://wcmin.us/WS260930c

David Wilkerson confesses that even sincere counselors and desperate parents secretly doubt the miracles they urge others to believe for, then shows through the demon-possessed boy, Jairus's daughter, and a coin found in a fish's mouth that nothing, not a dying marriage, a wandering child, or a perverted heart, has ever been too far gone for God to fix.

Preached: September 19, 1999

Main Points:

• God asked Abraham why Sarah laughed at the impossible promise of a child: "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" That same question is aimed at every believer today, and the answer changes everything about how we face our own impossible situations.

• It's easy to tell someone else to hold on and trust God, but the real test is whether you believe it for your own crisis. David Wilkerson refused to counsel anyone unless they first admit they genuinely believe God can fix it, because without that belief, all counseling is in vain.

• The disciples failed to heal a demon-possessed boy that the whole neighborhood had already given up on. Jesus simply told the father, "If you can believe, all things are possible," and one word from him raised the boy up, healed. That story exists in Scripture specifically for parents who feel they've lost a child to addiction or the streets.

• He describes fathers who walked into drug houses pleading with sons who wouldn't even look at them, and mothers riding buses upstate to visit children in prison. To every one of them he says plainly: your child is not too far gone from God.

• Jairus's daughter had already died by the time Jesus arrived, and the mourners' unspoken assumption was the same one many Christians carry: God can handle anything with a little life left in it, but once it's completely dead, don't bother calling on Jesus anymore. Jesus raised her with a single word.

• Desperate for $5,000 to pay off a debt as a young pastor, David Wilkerson believed he heard God promise an angel would deliver the exact amount on a specific street corner. No angel came. Days later, ordinary human means, a bank loan through a church member's connection, supplied the exact need, teaching him that God fixes things his way, not the way we script it.

• A prisoner wrote confessing decades of sexual perversion and addiction, hating what he did while somehow loving it, desperate to escape but unable to find the door. David Wilkerson told him directly that no habit, no lust, no clutch of the devil is beyond what God can break and restore.

https://wcmin.us/SS260927c

David Wilkerson confronts a church culture obsessed with counseling everyone else's marriage while nobody prays the one prayer that actually works. Paul's teaching on the veil reveals that real change never comes from waiting for someone else to shift, but only from crying out, "Change me, O Lord," and letting the Holy Spirit do what no counselor alone ever could.

Preached: August 15, 1999

Main Points:

• David Wilkerson confesses deep discouragement with modern Christian counseling, not because it's wrong but because so many troubled believers sit through months of biblical counsel and simply don't get it, treating God's commands as suggestions instead of commandments.

• In every marriage feud he's mediated, both spouses say the same thing about the other: they're stubborn, they don't get it, why won't they change? Everybody is waiting for somebody else to change, which is precisely why nothing ever does.

• Paul describes a veil over the heart that blinds people to Scripture even while they study it diligently. That same veil sits over sincere Christians today who read commands about forgiveness and reconciliation and still can't apply them to their own lives.

• No amount of unforgiveness, however justified it feels, escapes the judgment seat of Christ. A thousand sympathetic counselors telling you that you have the right to leave your marriage means nothing if it contradicts Scripture. God hates divorce, not because he's harsh, but because he's already promised all the grace needed to make any marriage work.

• The Greek word for "turn" means to change course entirely, not merely feel sorry. You cannot wait for your spouse to change first. God changes you, and then your circumstances stop having the same power over you because you've been changed above them.

• Change requires an "open face," an honest, intense desire to reverse course and let the Holy Spirit expose everything hidden, even things you didn't know were there. Wilkerson admits the digging never really stops until the day Jesus returns.

• When real change begins, God commends the changed person to everyone's conscience, meaning a spouse, boss, or child will know without a single word being said that something genuine has shifted. That quiet, undeniable witness is what Wilkerson calls the real power to change people.

https://wcmin.us/SS260920c

Evan Wilkerson opens Ephesians 2 by tracing his own decade-long addiction, showing what it actually means to be dead in trespasses. Then walks through the drastic contrast Paul describes: not just forgiveness, but resurrection life, seated with Christ in the heavenly places, all by grace and not by works.

Main Points:

• Evan grew up in a long line of pastors, then spent ten years as a drug addict, cycling through rehab and relapse with no way to get free on his own. One day, simply saying, "Lord, I'm sorry," he felt heaven open and God's love pour over him in a way he had never experienced.
• Before Christ, our spirit is genuinely dead, not merely damaged. That doesn't mean people without Jesus have no value or can't do good. Jonas Salk cured polio and never knew Christ, but no amount of good works can raise a spiritually dead person from the dead.
• Everyone marches by nature toward the wrath of God, not because of some external threat but because sin already produces spiritual death in every human being. This warning becomes, for the believer, not a threat but a precious reminder of exactly what they were rescued from.
• The contrast in Ephesians 2 is drastic: God didn't just forgive us; he made us alive together with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly places. Our bodies remain on earth, but our spirit is already seated in glory, given the identity of royalty as a chosen race and royal priesthood.
• Salvation cannot be earned, illustrated by a construction worker being handed his paycheck: nobody calls a paycheck they worked for "a gift." Grace only remains grace if none of it is owed to us. Even our good works look like filthy rags compared to what actually saves us.
• Many believers know intellectually that salvation is by grace, yet still feel, after sinning, they must earn their way back into good standing with God. That's not the gospel. God's grace saved you, and God's grace sustains you; the correct response to failure is to run to his mercy, not to a new performance plan.
• Good works don't save anyone, but they inevitably follow genuine faith. If someone claims faith in Christ but shows no change over time, that raises a legitimate question about whether saving faith is actually present.

https://wcmin.us/WS260916c