Getting Out of the Stands

Let's open our Bibles this morning to Acts chapter 1. The book of Acts chapter 1, wanna read verse 8 this morning. Acts chapter 1 verse 8. Familiar verse to many of you, I'm sure. The last words Jesus ever spoke to his disciples before he left this earth after his resurrection and went back to heaven. These last words Jesus said, noticed them in Acts chapter 1 verse 8. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Al Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Ron Hutchcraft in his excellent book called The Greatness begins one of his chapters on evangelism by talking about his duty as the chaplain for the New York Giants football team. I want you to listen to what he has to say about that experience. He says it looked like a crowd of New York Giants and one New York dwarf. Those times I spoke for the chapel service of our local national football league team. It was obvious who the football players were and which one was the speaker. I could look some of them in the eye only when they sat down. But I am grateful for the many opportunities I've had to speak for NFL chapels over the years. Hutchcraft goes on to say the chapels were optional, usually held on Sunday morning before the team meal and often surprisingly well attended. The players are very attentive and receptive, but it's also obvious that they are very focused on game day. Some come to chapel with their playbooks. All of them range in mood from tense to intense. After all, their careers, their bodies, their futures are on the line for just 16 game days each season. The Giants have always been kind enough to give their speakers two tickets to the game as a thank you. Since those tickets are hard to get, that's a great thank you. During my visits to the Middleton Stadium, the Giants Home Field, my first impressions are always of the fans having all those tailgate parties in the parking lot. They're cooking their hot dogs on little grills, laughing loudly and acting macho and downing their six packs of beer. Many are wearing the number jerseys of their heroes, hoping I suppose that somehow they can be a hero vicariously. Each time I go, I'm struck by the obvious contrast between the intensity of the players I was just with and the party-hardy attitude of the fans who have come to watch them. That contrast becomes even sharper as those fans enter the stadium and the game begins. As soon as a player makes a mistake, fan man is bellowing expert advice, boisterous criticism, and demands for the player to go somewhere else. Meanwhile, I'm thinking of the players, especially some who have become good friends. It occurs to me that all the heroes in the stadium are on the field. None are in the stands. It's so cheap to be a fan. It's so easy to criticize when you're in the stands. For the spectator, it's no risk, no pain, no sacrifice, no sweat, just a party. That makes me want to stand up and say something to Mr. Fanman with his big mouth and free advice. Hey, buddy, why don't you get out of the stands and get in the game if he took me up on the offer? I suspect he would be a permanent part of the astro turf in about 30 seconds. When I read that, I thought, I wonder if Jesus looks into the stands filled with his fans and thinks the same thing. I wonder if Jesus looks at us because Jesus has many followers, he has many fans. We come to his events. We go to his meetings. We believe his beliefs. We sing his songs. We sometimes give to his work. We sometimes cheer for his team. We sometimes criticize the players on the field. But in the desperate battle to rescue lost people from the road to hell, Jesus does not need people in the stands. He needs players on the field. And so Jesus is saying to us today, get out of the stands, get on the field, get in the game, be a part of the action. Don't just watch, get involved in the action. You see, every one of us has a position on the team. Jesus rescue team. We all have a position. We've all been given a place to play, a position to play. Every one of us is divinely positioned by God to be his voice to someone who needs to hear about him. Every Christ follower, everyone who knows Jesus as savior has been divinely placed. You, me, all of us have been divinely placed somewhere where he wants us to reach somebody. Because you see, the playing field is not just a church. This game, this contest is being waged at your workplace in your neighborhood, at your school, in your universe, your personal universe where you rub shoulders and bump elbows with people every day, that's the playing field. And God wants us to get out of the stands, onto the field, involved in the action, part of the team, fulfilling the position he's given us to be his voice to somebody that needs to hear him about him. You see, in the verse we just read, Acts chapter one and verse eight, Jesus did not even give us a command. There really is no option here. It's just an expectation. Jesus does not say, it kind of like for you to be my witnesses if you would, would you consider it, would you think about, would you pray about it? No, he just says, you shall be my witnesses. No option. There is no option to sit in the stands. We are to be his witnesses. Now, a witness, if you look it up in the dictionary, you would find two parts to the witness, to what a witness really is. A witness, first of all, is someone who has seen or heard something, he knows something about the evidence in a case. Secondly, a witness is someone who's willing to testify as to what he has seen or heard. If you were to look up the Greek word, Marturion here, it would be the same idea. The Greek word means the same thing as the English word, someone who has seen, heard, experienced something of the evidence of what Jesus can do in a life and is willing to testify about that, willing to tell others about that. That's what a witness is. And Jesus gives us no option. He says, get out of the stands, get on the field, you are my witnesses. Now, if that's true, we need a playbook. We need to know what's going on on the field. We need to understand what we're supposed to do. So this morning, I'd like to give you the playbook because you're one of the players, you're part of the team. Nobody's a spectator in this Colosseum of reaching the world for Christ. So what's the playbook? What are we supposed to do? I want us to talk this morning about a biblical pattern for witnessing. And then we're gonna make it very practical and give you a biblical plan. But let's start with a biblical pattern for witnessing. There's another passage we need to look at in our Bibles to see this biblical pattern. It's in 1 Peter, chapter three. So I invite you to locate 1 Peter, chapter three. There's one verse here that gives us a biblical pattern, lays it out for us as to exactly what we're to do in this contest of winning people to Christ. Now, I'm gonna talk about being a personal witness this morning. I'm not talking about the church as a whole being an outreaching church, although that's important too. And we may talk about that a little bit later in this series, but the church must be an outreaching, we have to be an outreaching church. If we don't think outreach, if we don't exist for the people who are not here yet, then we don't yet know the heart of God. Did you get that? If we do not exist for the people who are not here yet, not for us, not for our convenience, not for what's best for me in my little circle, but if we do not exist for the people who are not here yet, then we do not yet know the heart of God. Because the heart of God is described very plainly to us in Luke 15. There's one sheep that's lost. There are 99 in the fold. And what does the shepherd do? Say, well, got 99 to one. It's pretty good odds. Let's stay here in the sheep fold. Now he goes and he risks life and limb to find that one that's still out there. That's the father's heart. The father's heart is for that coin that rolled under the bed or under the dresser and is missing. He's still got some coins left. Sure, why not just be satisfied with those? No, his heart is for the one lost coin. His heart is for the prodigal son that's wondered away and gone from the home and is far away from God. He's still got a son at home, but his heart and his passion is for the one who's away. That is the father's heart. And we do not let know the heart of God if we are not an outreaching church. We've got to be outreaching. We've got to think beyond the walls of this church. We've got to think to the people who aren't here yet. What can we do to get them here to reach them with the gospel? If we are not doing that, we are not sharing the heart of God. We know nothing about the heart of God. But that's not the message this morning. That's just a little throw in. I want to talk about personal witnessing this morning. What are we to do personally as witnesses of Christ? What's the biblical pattern? First, Peter 315 gives it to us very plainly and very clearly when it tells us, first of all, the foundation for witnessing. The foundation for witnessing is our lifestyle. Look at it in 1 Peter 315. But in your hearts, set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have, but do this with gentleness and respect. Notice how the verse starts? It starts with talking about our lifestyle. This is the foundation for witnessing. This is what we build on. This is where our witness really has power, where it comes from. And it talks about setting apart Christ as Lord in our hearts. So the foundation for witnessing, that which we build from, that which we, the platform from which we witness, has to be Jesus Christ is set apart as Lord in our lives. Now, what does that mean? We talk about that, we use those words. What does it really mean? I believe what that means is that we purpose that we will live only to please and glorify Him. That is our passion. That we live to please and glorify Christ. It's not to please and glorify a certain population segment or a niche group. It is to please Christ, to know and understand the Father's heart and to live with a heart that beats with His heartbeat. That has to be our passion. That's what it means to set Him apart as Lord in our lives. It means that we will be obedient to Him as the primary focus of our lives. That more than anything else, we want to be obedient to Jesus Christ. It means that we fear, displeasing Him more than we fear man. You see, the issue in witnessing a lot of times is that we're afraid of what people will think of us. Well, what's Jesus gonna think of us when we get to heaven? And we stand before Him at the judgment seat of Christ. I mean, isn't that what really counts? You see, a person who sets apart Christ as Lord in his or her heart says, I'm more concerned about what it's gonna be like when I stand before Jesus. And I look into His eyes, the one who gave His all for me, who gave His life for me. And I couldn't say anything to my neighbor about Him. You see, the person who has Jesus Christ set apart as Lord says, I'd rather fear what He's gonna think than what my neighbor thinks, for what anybody else thinks. That's a person who set apart Jesus as Lord. And you know where that leads to it leads to a lifestyle of hope. That's also a part of our lifestyle according to this verse. You see the middle part of the verse? Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have. You see, if a person is living in such a way that we're setting apart Jesus as Lord, we're really living with His Lordship in mind, obedient to Him. We fear Him more than we fear any man. If that's the case, then that leads to a lifestyle of hope, of hope. And what does that mean? What's a lifestyle of hope all about? I like to define it this way. I believe a lifestyle of hope is a lifestyle that has its eyes on heaven. It's a lifestyle that's always looking at eternity and eternal things. So it means that every day of our lives, we live by heavenly values. We make our decisions based upon what would God think about this? What does God's words say about this? I mean, after all, heaven's mind is what I want on this. See, that's the way we're gonna live our lives. That's living with hope. Hope is setting your lifestyle, setting your eyes, focusing on heavenly things. It means that we will live our lives day in and day out, trusting God through difficulties because it's not the trial of the difficulty that's important. It's how are we gonna grow through this to be more like Jesus Christ and to glorify Him better? That's hope. A hopeful lifestyle is a lifestyle that has its eyes on eternity and says, I'm not going to live just for what I can get here and build up here and store up here because I'm gonna lay up treasure in heaven and that's more important anyway. And so I'm gonna do whatever I can to make an impact for eternity. That's hope. That's living a lifestyle of hope. So if our lifestyle is the platform from which we witness, it's got to be a lifestyle that focuses on Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives and lives out the hope that we have of heaven in everyday life. That's what Peter says it is. Now if that's the case, if that happens, if we're living that way, then we get to the second part of this pattern for witnessing. And that is the method of witnessing. The method of witnessing according to this verse is very plainly related to our normal conversation. Just normal day in day out, conversation with people. Now notice what he says in verse 15 again, but in your heart, set apart Christ as Lord. If that's gonna happen, you're gonna have a lifestyle of hope. Always be prepared, he says, to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have. Now if you follow the train of thought there, you're setting apart Christ as Lord, living in obedience to him and submission to him in fear of what he thinks, more than what man thinks. That means you're living out a lifestyle of hope with your focus on heaven, eyesight on heaven. If that's the case, people are gonna start asking questions. And notice, notice, it is not even you initiating the witness here. Now that's fine and we ought to do that when God gives us the opportunity to do that. But the point here is not that I'm going out trying to find people, it's that the people who are already around me watching the way I live with a lifestyle of hope are beginning to scratch their heads and say, why? What's that about? And questions begin to be asked, why do you not feel the same way? Why is your church so important? Why do you go all the time to church? Why, you know, those kinds of questions start coming up in the presence of people who are living the kind of lifestyle we've just talked about. You know, when I read that, I asked myself the question, does my lifestyle ever generate any questions? Does the way I live ever create any curiosity on the part of other people? Am I really salt, am I creating any thirst in anybody's life to have what they see? Is my lifestyle distinctive enough so that others start scratching their heads and asking, why? Why do you talk that way or why do you not talk the way we do or why? Why? What's going on with you? They're asking for a reason. See, the unbeliever initiates the conversation here in our normal conversation in the opportunities that God opens up as we rub shoulders and bump elbows with people, the Bible says, be ready to give an answer. Be ready to give an answer. The word answer is a very interesting word. It's the Greek word, apologria, we get our word apologetics from it. Apologetics is a defense of the faith. It means to be able to give reasonable arguments for our faith. And there's a place for that, but that's not what Peter's talking about here. There's a place for a well-reasoned defense of the faith and people like Ravi Zacharias and Lee Strobel and Josh McDowell have done the church a great service by writing books on those kinds of issues, but that's not what Peter's talking about. Because he says, be ready always to do that to everyone. He's not talking about a specific audience that has serious questions about the faith, although there's a place for addressing that, but he's talking to us as individual believers with people that are at our workplace and that are in our neighborhood and that go to our school and that are in our universe of where we shop and where we live and work and all of that. He's saying to those people, when you live a lifestyle of hope and they start asking questions, be ready to answer. Be ready to give a reason why you think differently, why you speak differently, why you react differently to certain situations, why you go to church like you do, why be ready to answer? Don't miss those opportunities he's saying. In our normal conversation, be ready. And it doesn't mean that every time you're gonna give a full-blown step-by-step presentation of the gospel, it may mean sometimes that you just answer the questions, been asked in a way that will somehow hopefully point to Jesus Christ. And that may generate other questions, give you further opportunities. But it just means in the normal flow of life, in your normal sphere of influence, people that you're around, you take the opportunities that arise in the moment, you take those opportunities to say something, to do something that will reflect who you are as a Christ follower and will reflect well upon him. That's the method of witnessing. It may mean sometimes actions more than words, heard about a fellow by the name of Charlie, who wanted to witness to his neighbor, he'd got real concerned about his neighbor. And he tried to go over and witness to him and talk to him about the Lord and his neighbor laughed at him and said, anybody with any sense in these days doesn't believe in myths like that. Why would anybody want to go to church and believe in that stuff about Jesus? And Charlie was kind of upset, you know it, heard him and he went back home and he said, well I gotta start reading all these books on, you know how to answer this guy and come up with good arguments and so forth. One day he was out, Charlie was out cleaning out his gutters, leaves gathered in his gutter, he'd clean it out and he looked over up on the ladder, hoping to happen to look over and saw that his neighbor's gutters were pretty cluttered up too. One day he asked his neighbor's wife, saw her out in the yard, the asked her, he said, hey I noticed, could I help with the gutters over there but she said, you know, my husband is deathly afraid of heights, he will not get up on a ladder and so Charlie without another word, just pull his ladder out and went over, cleaned out all of his neighbor's gutters, never said a word to his neighbor, cleaned out all of his gutters. The next Sunday his neighbor was in church and a few weeks after that he came to know Christ as a savior. You know sometimes it's not really verbal answer, it's just the answer of a life that says, I will step in to be a servant in any way I can to help to show the love of Jesus Christ but it's taking advantage of opportunities that arise every day that we live. That's the method of witnessing, our normal conversation, normal way of life. But then Peter also says something about our attitude in witnessing. You see that at the end of the verse, our attitude in witnessing has to do with our approach to other people, how we're gonna approach them as we talk to them about the Lord. Peter says, but do this with gentleness and respect, with gentleness and respect. Two very interesting words that describe how we approach people when we talk to them about our faith. First of all with gentleness, that's a difficult word to describe. It probably can best be described by noting the opposite of what gentleness is. Gentleness in reaching out to other people means that you are not arrogant, you are not belligerent, you are not like a know-it-all, you are not trying to put someone down, you're not going after someone, you see we're not the prosecuting attorney, we're the witness. Holy Spirit is prosecuting attorney. He's the one that does the hard work in the heart of convincing a person of the gospel and it's truth. That's the Holy Spirit's job. Our job is to testify about what we've seen and heard, be willing to tell about it. That's our job. We're not supposed to do that as though we're trying to win a case, we're to do it with gentleness, with gentleness. It means that we don't argue with people, but we present Christ in a loving way. So Peter says, when you do this, when you give your answer, when you're ready with that answer, do it with gentleness. And then secondly, he says, do it with respect, with respect. That's an interesting word too. It means don't run over people. It means don't be condescending. In other words, you're way up here and they're way down there, poor benighted sinner who doesn't see the light yet, I can help you. It's not that. It's not condescending in any way. It's not like I'm way up here and you're way down there and I've got something that you need. It's not that. It's not that I'm better than you. It's not that you are a sinner. You need to get saved. It's really, the respect is really us. We all need this. Treat the person with respect as you talk with them. After all, they are an image bearer of God. They are created in God's image just like you are and we are all sinners, right? Some of us are saved by grace and we ought to thank God for that. That doesn't make us any better than anybody else. So treat that person with respect. And I think that does mean using a lot of we, rather than you, when we're talking to people about Christ. It was a verse in Romans 3.23, I think that brings us out very well, very familiar verse to many of you, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Now that's a verse that's often used in witnessing to people. I've used it many times in talking to people about the Lord. Many of you have too. But notice the verse says, all have sinned. Whenever I'm showing a person this verse or using this verse and talking to someone, I really emphasize that word all. Because I don't want them thinking, with their defenses up, oh, you're calling me a sinner. I'm as good as that, deacon in your church. I better than my neighbor, he goes church all the time. No, no, no, no. We are all sinners. We're all sinners. Yeah, I am too. We're all sinners. And by the way, friend, the standard is not someone in the church or your neighbor. That's not who we compare ourselves to. The standard in that verse very clearly is the glory of God. So the standard is, am I as good as God is. That's the standard. And you know what, when we compare ourselves to that standard, we all fall short. That's what it says. We all fall short of that standard. Including me, everybody, we all are sinners. Now, when you deal with a person like that, you're showing respect for that person. See, I often use the illustration of a pole vaulter, you know, even the best in the world. You know, the pole vault and track and field, where they put that bar up and they suspend it on two standing bars and guy runs down the track and he has that pole in his hand and he puts it into a pit and vaults himself over. The best in the world can do about 20 feet. Let's say the bar is put at 50 feet. Now, there's some who will look better than others. There will some who may come a little closer than others. They look better doing, I wouldn't get off the ground. But nobody's gonna meet the standard. Nobody's gonna reach it. We will all fall short. And so, you see, friend, it doesn't matter how good morally you may be. It doesn't matter how good you look to your neighbor. And you may be a better person than half the church members in town. Morally, law-biting, kind, decent, respectful person. But you'll never reach 50 feet. You'll never reach God's standard, the glory of God. You see, treat a person with respect as you talk with him about Christ. Peter says, we gotta do that. It's gotta be our approach, gotta be our attitude in witnessing. So, there's a very clear biblical pattern laid out for us. Our lifestyle gives us the platform then to be ready to answer whatever questions or curiosity or thirst or interest may come up. And as we are ready to respond to that, make sure we do it in the right approach with the right attitude of gentleness and respect. Now, you say, okay, I think I've got that, at least I'm gonna be working on that. Okay, what do I do? What do I say? If I get a chance to share the gospel with someone, what do I actually say? Well, let's move to a very practical application of what we've seen this morning. For the next few minutes, I'd like to just give you a biblical plan for witnessing. I think a part of being ready to give an answer is being able to clearly think through how you would present the good news about Jesus to someone else. What would you say if you get the opportunity? Now, it's not like you'll always have a chance to go through everything in every opportunity you have. Maybe you only have a minute and you just get a little bit in there. But if you have an opportunity to explain to someone how they can be saved, how they can know Jesus and know they're going to heaven, how would you do it? Do you have something in mind? Are there lots of good plans out there? I think the very best or one of the best is to be able to share your own personal testimony. I'm gonna spend a whole message on that next week. We'll talk about that next week, so I'll save that for next week. I think it's one of the best ways. But there are lots of other good plans out there about how to share Christ with someone else. Campus Crusay developed the four spiritual laws, evangelism explosion, developed the concept of if you were to stand before God and he were to ask you, why should I let you into my heaven? What would you say? And then a plan for sharing Christ after that. Some of you know the Romans rode, few verses in Romans that very clearly you can use to present the gospel, contagious Christian training series that we've used here at the chapel, uses the bridge illustration. You're separated from God and the cross bridges, the gap. Those are all good plans, but this morning I'd like to very briefly just give you a very simple plan of how to share the gospel with someone. And I'm just gonna talk as though I was, I were sharing the gospel with someone. Let you fill in the blanks and it's on your outline. You just gotta have a very simple, a very clear plan about how to share the good news of Christ with someone. I believe this particular plan is culturally relevant. People will understand it, they'll relate to it, but it's also biblically sound. It's culturally relevant because it deals with relationship. People are hungry for relationship. They have a longing for a relationship that works because so many people have been burned by bad and broken relationships that they will latch on. When they hear you talking about a relationship, that you were designed to have with God, they'll latch on to that. So it's culturally relevant. It's also biblical because the Bible presents the gospel in terms of a relationship. Look at these two verses in 2 Corinthians, chapter five, verses 18 and 19. Paul says, all this is from God who reconciled us to Himself. Now notice this word reconciled, how often it appears. Who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them, and He is committed to us the message of reconciliation. Four times in those two verses, he talks about reconcilation. What is that? It means to bring someone into relationship, it means to actually bring someone back to a relationship that's been broken. Reconciliation, we use the word even today in that way. So Paul is saying, one of the ways that the gospel can be viewed is in terms of a relationship with God, which has been broken and needs to be restored. And the whole message of reconciliation, the ministry of reconciliation is to tell people, how people who don't have a relationship with God can have a relationship with God. So let me build on that and give you very simple statements. For simple statements about how to present the gospel to someone who was without Christ. Number one, there's a relationship you're made to have. There's a relationship you're made to have. You were built for this. You were created for this. Colossians chapter one, verse 16, the very end of the verse. Look at just the end of the verse there. All things were created by Him and for Him. Jesus Christ created all things, all people, all things. And He created Him for Him. You see, you were made to have a relationship with Christ. You were made to have a relationship with God. And until that's there, you've got a hole in your heart. There is something that's missing in your life. If you don't have this relationship with God because you were made for that, this is the one relationship you cannot do without. You were made for this. God created you for this relationship and He loves you very much and He wants you to have that relationship with Him. But there's a problem. Number two, it's a relationship you don't have. It's a relationship you don't have. And none of us does when we come into this world. We come into this world without that relationship with God. We were built for that. We were made for that, but we don't have it. We were created to live for Him, but our natural way of living, what we're born with is to live for me. We were made to live for Him. We were for Him as Colossians once said, but we come into this world, kick it in screaming to live for me. There's a Bible verse for that, by the way. Isaiah 53 and verse six, which says, we all, you, me, everybody else in the human race, we all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has what, turned to his own way. So the life that God was intended to run, we try to run. And the essence of that self-focus, self-centeredness, selfish lifestyle that I wanna do my own thing, run my own life. It's my life and nobody's gonna tell me what to do. I love Burger King so I wanna have it my way. That's what they tell me. I have it my way. Nobody has to tell me how my hamburger's gonna be fixed. What I wanna do, what I wanna do, it's my life. That whole, the essence of that whole philosophy is sin. Sin, because we were designed to live for Him. That's what Colossians once said. So if we're doing it for me, that's rebellion against God. And that's how the Bible defines sin. So see the problem is, because we're born wanting to live my way, do my thing, live for me, we're sinners. We're in rebellion against God. And you know what? If something is not done to take care of that problem, if something is not done to remedy that broken relationship with God, we will be separated from Him forever. In fact, it is our sin which separates us from God. Look at this verse in Isaiah 59 and verse 2, but your iniquities have separated you from your God. Your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear. Does that sound like relationship to you? No, it's broken. The relationship has been broken because of sin. You do not have a relationship with God when you come into this world because sin has broken that relationship with God. And if nothing's done to take care of that problem, to remedy that situation, then we will forever be separated from God. You know Roman 623, most of you would know this verse. The first part of it is for the wages of sin is death. In other words, the result of this broken relationship with God, the sin that's broken us off from God. The result of that is death. Now that's not just physical death, that means eternal separation from God. So that's the wages that we get because we've sinned. That's what we deserve. That's what we earn. You know, wages you work for, you earn them, you deserve them, you work, you get paid. You deserve that. You're supposed to get that. The wages for our sin is eternal separation for God. So it's a relationship you were made for, but it's a relationship you don't have. But thirdly, it's a relationship you can have. It's a relationship you can have. You don't have it now, but you can have it. You see God loves you so much. He wants you to be reconciled. He wants you to have a relationship with him. He doesn't want sin between the two of you. And so he has a perfect plan to take care of it. He sent his son, Jesus Christ, to actually pay your debt, to take the penalty for your sin, to take the punishment for your sin. You know those wages we talked about? Eternal separation from God, Jesus has already paid that for you. He's already taken that for you. When he came to the cross, he took your place, died, suffered God's wrath and punishment. For you, took your place. One of the greatest verses on this in all the Bible's first Peter 3, 18, look at it. It says, for Christ died for sins, once for all, the righteous, for the unrighteous. The righteous in place of, instead of the unrighteous. And what was the result of that? To bring you to God. That's reconciliation, that's relationship. Jesus died in your place, took your punishment, paid your penalty, so that you could be brought back to God. So it's a relationship you can have because of what Jesus did for you on the cross. But fourthly, it's a relationship you must choose. It's a relationship you must choose. The Bible says, you have a decision to make, as to whether or not you will accept this relationship that God offers you. Look at these verses in John chapter 1, verses 11 and 12, great verses to use with unsaved people. He came to that which was His own, it's talking about Christ. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, to those who received Him, to those who accepted Him. You see, you do have a choice to make, you have a decision to make, to accept God's offer of salvation, God's offer of life and forgiveness because of what Jesus did for you. You must accept that. It's not automatic. It's not like, well, Jesus came and died for everybody, so we're all in heaven, right? No, no, it's not right. There's a decision you must make to accept that gift. And when it says receive Him, as many as received Him, and then believed on His name, the believing on His name is more than just saying, okay, believe in His name, Jesus Christ. Yeah, He existed, historical person I believe in Napoleon, I believe in George Washington, I believe in Abraham Lincoln, I believe in Jesus Christ. It's more than that. To believe in Christ, as we saw a couple of weeks ago, means actually to put all of your trust, your faith, your confidence in Him, to be your Savior, to be the one that takes you to heaven. That means you stop flailing around in your own self-effort and your own works, trying to get better and do better, join a church, get baptized, get religious, and all that stuff, so that you can somehow stand before God someday and say, you know, I think I got a pretty good case for being here. Means you stop that, and you rest all of your weight, all of your hope, all of your confidence on Jesus, and what He did for you on the cross to get to heaven. A lifeguard on one of our beaches in America was someone to the shore to go out and rescue someone who was having trouble, obviously, it was clear to people on shore, this person was struggling and flailing, about to go under, and the lifeguard stood there on the shore for a few minutes, and people were saying, don't you see Him, He's right out there, He sees arms, and the lifeguard's asking, why aren't you going out there to get Him? Why I'm gonna wait a minute? Why would you do that? Because He's got to give up first. He's got to lose His strength. I mean, if I go out there and He's flailing and all that stuff, He'll take us both down. When He begins to lose strength, I'll get Him before He goes under. Because then He'll just wrap His arms around me, all His weight will be on me, I'll take Him in. It's exactly what salvation is, my friend. You give up your own efforts, you quit trying on your own, you say, I've got to rest all my confidence on Jesus, all my trust, all my hope of heaven is on what He did for me on the cross. It's a decision, it's a relationship you must choose. So it's a relationship you were made for, it's a relationship you don't have, it's a relationship you can't have, but it's a relationship you must choose. Now that's the gospel, very simply, very plainly, you can share that with other people. But I wanna urge you, this message is urgent, this is serious, this is something we have got to get out. This is information the world needs to hear. We can't just sit in the stands and be silent when people around us are searching. We have got to get this message out to other people. Jesus did not give us an option, he said, you are my witnesses. And Paul said, you've been given this ministry of reconciliation, this message of reconciliation, we don't have an option, we've got to get the word out, urgent that we do so. In the film, some of all fears, which is based on the Tom Clancy thriller, a terrorist group gets an atomic bomb. And they're going to use that as leverage to try to get Russia in the United States against each other and they find their opportunity when a new leader comes to the head of the Russian government, a leader that really very few people know anything about. In fact, the world kind of wonders who is this guy. And then the terrorist group says, well, this is our opportunity. So they use the atomic bomb to level the capital of Chechnya. And everybody thinks the Russians did it. They've had trouble with Chechnya for years, the Russians did it. And then there's an attack at the Super Bowl in the United States, a terrorist attack. And our government's thinking, the Russians are behind this, we don't know enough about this new president over there, something's going on, and both nations are tense and on edge. In fact, there is a showdown toward a nuclear war. They have punched the buttons to start the process of attacking Russia, but there's one CIA agent who understands, Jack Ryan, who understands. It's not the Russians. It is this terrorist group trying to get both countries to blow each other up, they'll move into the vacuum. And he's desperate to get this message to the president. But he's being held back. He has to fight his way out of a situation. He has to commandeer a helicopter to get to the Pentagon. But he is desperate to get this information to the right people. In fact, he's so desperate. Let's watch how he risks his life and limb to get the message to the right people. Just watch it for a second. HELLO I can do that for you. That's fine. I got it. Got some dirt on the car. It's happening. Can I see that car, sir? I know, I understand. Sir, if you want to put the car down, please, let's take a step back off. Get a step back off. Hold on. I got a back off. Take a step back. Now, I have ordered you to take a step back immediately, sir. What? General, there's Dr. Ryan from the CIA. He wants to enter NMCC. He's on his court, sir. What's he want? You, sir. Sir, my name is Jack Ryan. I have an urgent message from Director Cabot that I need to transmit up to the hotline immediately. What's your authorization? I don't have an authorization. Well, then where's Cabot? Cabot's dead, sir. I just need to get this information sent, please. Not without authorization. You don't get them out of here. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. General, the president is basing his decisions on some really bad information right now. And if you shut me out, your family and my family and 25 million other families will be dead in 30 minutes. My orders are to get the right information to the people who make the decisions. I just need to send some information. And the information you have, the information I have is much more urgent than keeping two superpowers from obliterating themselves with nuclear weapons. The information we have could mean the life and death difference of where someone will spend eternity. It is urgent that we get the information to the people who need to hear it. Whatever it means, whatever it takes, we've got to do that. Let's pray together. Father, help us to be as urgent about this as the early church was. We'll be willing to go anywhere, do anything, do whatever it takes. Take advantage of every opportunity we can to reach out to people with the message, the information of the gospel that could keep them from a Christless eternity. Or it helps us to get out of the stands and quit just watching the game, help us to be on the field, knowing the playbook, ready to be a part of the team. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.