The Church That God Blesses

Lk 14:7-14

This year we are emphasizing evangelism. That is going to be a reoccurring theme in my sermons and every month we will offer opportunities for you to put your faith into action.

We have already had 2 opportunities. One has gone well, the other has not. Our Sunday school attendance is up 10% as people have responded to the push to be here to learn in our classes. I am so very proud of that effort. The other opportunity didn’t meet with the same success. We are offering a marriage class for people to invited friends to so they can build their relationship with their spouse and God. Of roughly 30 people in the class, only 1 has invited someone to come. I didn’t say only one got someone to some, only one INVITED someone to come. That is a very sad failure on our part.

Next month we have His Kids day, a chance to reach out to the families of our preschoolers. We also have the men’s retreat. There is a great chance to bring your male friends and neighbors to spend a weekend with us and get to know God better.

In April we are going to start a couple of prayer times here at the building. The first time will be 6 hours of 30 min. segments for people to come to the building where we will have gathered prayer requests as well as your own and pray for people we know about. I hope to add more hours each time we do this throughout the year.

At the end of April we’ll have Jerry Tallman from Rochester, MI come and really talk to us about evangelism. He’ll talk about the need and ways to be effective reaching out to the lost around us. That will be a Sunday to Wed. workshop starting Apr 29. Please mark your calendars now for that date.

We will be doing this kind of thing throughout the year. Why? Because as this passage alludes to, I want us to be a church that God blesses. We can only be that if we will do what God calls us to do.

PRAYER

I. It’s All About Souls

A. Paul

1. When Paul was writing to the Philippians, he talks about what is most important.

2. He tells them about other preachers out there who are trying to cause problems for him.

3. There were even some who were preaching simply for greed and fame.

4. But in verse 18 he makes an incredible statement that showed how focused he was on spreading the gospel

5. READ Phil 1:18

B. Jesus

1. Paul was simply carrying on the mission that Jesus himself started and was all about.

2. In Lk 19 we have the story of Zacchaeus.

a) Zacchaeus was called many things behind his back, but “godly” wouldn’t have been a word used to describe him.

b) Yet, Jesus intrigued him and he wanted to see him. Being a short, I mean, vertically challenged man, he climbed a tree to see Jesus.

c) Jesus comes up to the tree and tells the man to come down so he could go to his house and talk to him.

d) That got the crowd buzzing, and the phrase that seemed to be most heard was “he has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

e) Oh my, imagine the Messiah wanting to have dinner with a sinner!

f) Jesus knew what his first and main priority was and made it very plain to the crowd around him.

g) READ Lk 19:9-10

3. Jesus had come to seek and save that which was lost.

a) Before Jesus came there were war, disease, oppression, and disaster. But none of those were his main priority.

b) He was here to save the lost, the sinner.

c) Jesus was about salvation of souls above anything else.

d) We need to remember that in our efforts.

e) It’s good to feed the hungry, but if all we do is feed them, they go to hell with a full belly.

II. Gospel in a nutshell

A. Luke 15

1. Marvin Phillips uses a phrase whenever he talks about Lk 15.

2. He calls this passage the gospel in a nutshell.

3. People again were muttering about the kind of people Jesus was dealing with.

4. They weren’t the important people, they weren’t the good people, they were the sinners!

5. He looks over the crowd and see the shepherds there, so he tells a story about a shepherd who sees one of his sheep is missing, so he leaves the 99 in the safety of the fold and searches out the lost sheep.

6. He sees the women in the crowd and so connects with them by telling a story about a woman who has lost one her coins, probably part of her dowry, and tears the house apart looking for the lost coin.

7. He knows families are there, so he tells the story about a father whose son treats him so disrespectfully and leaves home to waste away his father’s money. Yet, this father never gives up on his son and waits day after day looking out the window for his lost son to return. When the boy finally comes back, the father runs down the path to welcome him home.

8. Each of these stories ends the same way, a celebration over the lost being found.

B. Church is supposed to be the celebration of the winning of lost souls

1. Each of us here today is a lost soul that has been found by the Savior.

2. This church’s most important task is to seek the lost and celebrate when they are found.

3. We’re not doing a very good job of that anymore.

a) In this month’s Christian Chronicle, it reported that in the last 26 years the population of the USA has grown 36%. Members of the churches of Christ have only grown 1.6%

b) In Indiana, the population is up 15%, yet church membership has DROPPED 9.6%

c) If we are supposed to be seeking the lost, those numbers present a very sad fact. We aren’t looking very hard.

4. A story is told about an elderly lady who visited the Westminster Abbey in England. The abbot there talked about how fine the building was. He told her about how different furnishings were imported from all over the world. He told her about all the dignitaries who had sat in the pews and so on. Finally she stopped him and said, “That’s nice, but have there been any souls saved here lately?”

5. We have a beautiful building, but more importantly, when asked if we have saved any souls here, we need to be able to give a resounding “yes!”

III. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

A. Matt 22

1. In Matt 22, Jesus gives a very interesting parable.

2. The good people were all invited to a wedding banquet, but none of them wanted to come in, so the master sent out his servant to fill the wedding hall.

3. READ vs 8-10

4. He wanted his wedding hall to be filled and was willing and desiring to take the bad as well as the good.

5. We aren’t here just to focus rich and prominent, but on EVERYONE!

6. History shows that the church grew the fastest and strongest when it was mostly poor, unimportant people.

7. The more affluent we got, the less we grew.

8. The downtrodden know they need a savior. The rich and powerful think they ARE the savior.

B. Find the lost, don’t look for the prominent

1. We need to find the lost.

2. Rich and poor

3. Powerful and powerless

4. Good and bad.

5. Kevin Odor tells about his moving to Las Vegas to start a congregation there. He really didn’t want to go, didn’t want to raise his family there, but felt that God was calling him there. So his family and a couple of other moved to Las Vegas and planted a church there. One of the things they did was dress very casually to fit in the people who lived in the area and any tourists who might come while in the area. They also focused on zeroing in on the rougher looking people and encouraging them to sit with them and make them feel at home as much as possible. One day a young lady came in with hot pink short shorts and a matching halter-top. Her outfit spoke for her occupation long before she said what it was. She was sobbing as she came in and was holding a wad of money. One of members came over to her to talk to her and she told the woman her story. She was here to make a deal with God. She wanted her daughter back, but she knew her life was a total mess and she couldn’t get her back until her life was straightened out. At the moment her mother was keeping her little girl in Missouri and regularly begged her to clean up her life. Today she was going to buy cocaine she saw the church. She gave $800 that was to buy her drugs and begged God and the church to help her. Long story short. She studied with people from the church and was soon baptized. She continued to study and grow and eventually married one of single preachers there and began a ministry to the hookers of Las Vegas. She also has her daughter back.

6. God wants the lost.

7. It doesn’t matter if they are good or bad. If they are lost, He is seeking them.