You are invited to approach others with the same urgency you use to find lost keys, trusting that the Holy Spirit makes you wonderful rather than weird. Take time to reflect on your own walk and ensure you have stepped through the door of salvation to experience the joy and peace God promises. Let your daily interactions become opportunities to share the life-changing presence of Jesus with those around you.
Wasn't that great? Yeah. Alright. So we got you wanna do a go Robbie chant? Go Robbie.
You wanna lead us? You were with him? Yeah. I'm kinda jealous. So I'm I'm gonna share for about 30 minutes, and we'll do a little bit of q and a.
And then we'll be done right around 04:00. Does that sound good? Yeah. Alright. If it doesn't, I'm sorry.
It's what we're gonna do. I'll hug you. I'll hug you afterwards. So just gonna hit a couple bullet points and then get into a message of sorts. **"seek and save"* the lost*.
Have you ever thought about that? Like, to seek and to save? I just wanna give you kind of a very practical example of this. Have you ever lost your keys? Did you seek until you found them?
Yeah. Why is there more ladies shaking their head than men? There was a lot of and now they're all smiling at me. I'm I'm not messing with you. I'm not messing with you.
So when you when you lose something that is of value to you, you search until you find it. Right? And oftentimes have you ever searched your house for your cell phone and looked in your couch 5 times? And somebody even if somebody comes to your door, they're coming in to visit you, and and you're so on the hunt for the phone or the keys. You're almost rude to your friend that walks in the house.
Anybody? Right? Maybe it's the remote. Right? We have this little remote, the fire Amazon why do they have to make them so small?
I want a remote that's like this big. We lose it every day. Right? And you search until you find it. I I think and sometimes you feel a little bit ridiculous as you're turning your house over trying to find something or your car.
So you may feel a little bit funny walking around out in public, looking behind bushes, looking behind rocks. Are you ready to be born again? Walking into but for a moment, just go with me. You're out seeking and saving the lost. And how much does God value his lost sons and daughters?
And if we get his heart just just like we do for our car keys or our phone to find these things that really are valuable to us, we will have that same attitude and response to Jesus' lost kids. Now, if my wife called me right now and said, I don't know how it happened. The front door was left open, and your 5 year old boy is not we don't know where he's at. What would I do? I would go home immediately.
What what else would I do? I would find every single person that I could to mobilize to go and find my son. And I would look until I found him. This is **God's heart** for people. And this leads me right?
You can even even though it's just a a made up story, like, you can feel, like, the emotion in it. Like right? Well, take it a step further. *Compassion* will lead you further than boldness ever will. Right?
And and and Robbie, in a sense, alluded to it. We we know these guys. We call them cute. These "cute guys", they, you know, I wanna I wanna remain positive, so I'm I'm using the word cute. I'll find a better word next time.
But it's it's like 03:15, you're gonna get a little bit edgy, Chris. Is that okay? Okay. So, you know, the the I I I know a guy, he'll he'll walk into a store and he'll just yell, hey, every if you need to know Jesus, meet me outside. And then he like runs outside and he's like, he's got like a boldness badge on.
I'm like, that you're not really bold. You're a coward. Right? Boldness is "table to table", face to face, moment to moment. Right?
And if we're not careful just to speak to the the bold crazy ones in the room. By the way, the Holy Spirit makes you wonderful, not weird. Can I hear an amen? Let me say it again. The Holy Spirit makes you wonderful, not weird.
And if we're not careful, right, we're we're sitting on an airplane, and the whole time we're trying to hype ourself up to stand up, and for 30 seconds to yell at everybody. And then we get the we get the social media and then we post it, and if we had any fruit yelling at a bunch of people on an airplane that just prejudged you because you said Jesus outside of context of relationship. I don't like that. I think it's cowardly, and I just think it's fruitless, personally. What I like is real people being led by the Holy *Spirit* and stepping out in faith and talking to the person in front of them.
Now is there moments where God has asked me to do kind of fun things? Yes. 1 time I stepped outside of Publix in in in Fort Worth, and I was like, man, I think it'd be fun just to stand up on this like pole. Now they have the poles that are like this high, and I'm just gonna tell everybody that walks by that Jesus loves them. I'm like, hey, "Jesus loves you".
People are smiling. I'm like, Jesus loves you. It was working really well. Jesus loves you. It was like, everybody gets a word.
A little Oprah Winfrey. Right? It's great. Until the security guard came. And he came over.
He's like, excuse me. And I I was like, oh, man. So I jumped down. I'm like, hey, I'm so sorry. But I just feel like the Lord spoke to me that you have trouble with your left knee.
Is that true? How'd you know that? And prayed for him. His knee got healed. Gotta share the gospel with him.
He's like, listen, you can stand here. You just can't stand up there. I'm like, okay. So we we do stuff that's fun, but what we're trying to do is activate you to be a "normal Christian". Not you don't have to do anything, and just talk to the person in front of you.
My wife, my my beautiful wife, you know, she's she's married to me. Pray for her. And you know, she's heard me preach too many times and and the message convicts her and and and she's not she's an an introvert. And she's like, honey, I probably monthly, she's like, I wanna I wanna get better at doing this. Help me.
I'm like, alright. And I would tell her the same thing every time. Just talk to the person in front of you. And she talks to the person in front of us. Well, we go to Washington State.
We were there just last week. And she says, yeah. You know, my we're at her parents' house, and she there was this there's this neighbor named Bill. And she's been praying for some reason. She's been praying for Bill for the past 2 or 3 years.
So they're talking about it in their home, and and her sister Megan's like, no way. I've been praying for Bill. So they're having this whole conversation on a Wednesday, and I'm like, well, we should go talk to Bill. Like, he's a neighbor. Right?
I'm like, let's just let's do this. Like So the next day, we stop at a gas station. Okay? And just so you know, Bill is an unbeliever, but his wife, Celeste, knows knows the Lord and has been praying for Bill. So so it's it's Celeste and then her her daughter, and I'm I'm cleaning the windows in the van, and I'm thinking, you guys just told me you've been praying for Bill.
And here's Bill. This is your opportunity. Like and Bill wasn't even there. So I'm like, sign language Chelsea. I'm like, come on.
Like, she's like this. No. I'm like, yes. But like through and then I finally just went like this. I just put my I'm like, come on, Chelsea.
And so the thumbs down got her. I wouldn't do that to you. We've been married for 15 years, and we're still doing well. But I was just fine. I couldn't communicate.
I'm like like this. So the thumb's down. She gets out of the vehicle. She's like, you're right. I've been telling you she's been telling me to encourage her.
She gets out. She goes across the parking lot. She catches and and begins to minister to his wife, and it was powerful. Right? She could have missed that moment, but she had some good accountability.
It it it's always gonna stretch you, but God set that up for her to be right there next to us. And we don't wanna miss those moments. K? And so I loved your what was your name, sir? Your Owen, your testimony was incredible.
My encouragement to you is get God's heart and his *compassion* before you start your day, so then when you see that opportunity, love pulls you into it. Right? Compassion will cause you to do what boldness won't take you to. For instance, if if we were walking by my home and there's fire department out front and police, And and I hear Noah is inside. Okay.
I don't care who you are. You're gonna have to tase me and handcuff me. If my son is in that building, I will be in that building at the cost of my life. There's no there's no now I might not make it because the police might stop me, but you're gonna have to not just stop me, you're gonna have to completely handcuff me because I will be going crazy not going into that. Why?
*Compassion*. Whereas, if I'm walking by an apartment complex, I have a firefighting background, I was an EMT, I wanted to be a fireman. You'll hear my story tomorrow. And I see this happening, and I walk up, and I'm like, hey, can I help? No.
We don't need your help. There's people inside. Let me help. No. I'm gonna back down.
But if that's my you guys follow me? Compassion's gonna pull me into that place. So *Jesus* was moved by compassion. And so we have to have that be be be central in our lives when it comes to evangelism. So there's times where, you know, I pull up to a grocery store and I'm I'm like, I all I think about is sharing Jesus with people.
It's just it's not even 1 1 time somebody said to me, do you ever feel awkward sharing your faith? My response was I only feel awkward when I'm not. Like, I'm I'm in a completely different world. Right? Yeah.
Like, Paul says, woe to me if I don't preach the gospel. Like, there's just I'm in a completely different place. Okay? So but there's moments where I I love how he's talking about the motives of the heart. I'll pull up and I'll and I'm tired and I go, I don't pray, God, give me boldness.
I say, God, give me your heart for people. The moment I get out of the vehicle, my heart's just pulled towards people, and that pulls me towards people. Does that make sense? So so you can use that as well as you're awakening that gift of evangelism on the inside of you. God, give me your heart for people, and then you'll find yourself pulled into conversations.
Okay. So yeah. Let's do this. *2 Corinthians-5* verse 18. I I think this would be a great place to land, and I'm encouraged.
I get to be with you guys tomorrow, and we're gonna cover a lot of ground tomorrow. And I think that this would be a great place to land for tonight or for this afternoon. *2 Corinthians-5* verse 18. As you're turning there, I wanna encourage you with this. We don't have a harvest problem.
We have a laboring problem. So from the moment Jesus says, the harvest is ripe, but the laborers are few, We since from that time have never had a harvest problem. And I wanna make sure I say this correct. We don't have to convince God that we want a harvest. He has to convince us to go out into it.
Did you catch that? So we don't have to convince God that we that we want a revival or a harvest or people to come into the kingdom of God. God has to convince us that the harvest is ready to send us out. And he's the Lord of the harvest. So why am I saying this?
Because there's many prayer meetings that are praying. And I understand. When when I talk about revival, there are historic revivals that impact society. In this context, I'm talking about a new believer revival where people are coming to know Jesus. Does that make sense?
There there's Azusa Street. There was the the Brownsville revival. There there's moments where God just moves. I'm not talk and and and and that's prayed in. What I'm talking about is the everyday revival that we're supposed to be living in.
Right? And so many people are praying, God, I I pray that you would move. And God's saying back to you, then move. Because I moved heaven and earth. I I left heaven and came to earth, died on a cross, resurrected, ascended into heaven.
Now you move. And if if we're not careful, we get caught up in prayer meetings that don't lead to activity. And we're saying, God, send us a harvest, and Lord, move in this county. And and he's like, I am moving, and I have been moving, and there's a harvest that is now ready. It's not a harvest problem.
I need you to awaken to go out and bring in the harvest. And when you when you see that, when when when you ex when that when that's your experience, like, I'm not here talking to you about a theory. I told you last session about a bunch of names of people that I'm actively discipling. So it it's a reality that we're living in, and we believe moving into 2024 and 2025 that there's gonna be another Jesus people movement. So there it's only going to increase so God is getting real church and or any other church here that that's represented ready for the harvest that's gonna come.
But if we can't care for 2 or 3 disciples, how are we gonna care for 2 or 300? I mean, that's gonna be So God's coming and he's awaking awakening us before the the this massive revival happens so we can have capacity to disciple those people. We do not have a harvest problem. It was a I think it was a Wednesday, probably 8 months ago. I went out and we took a wrong turn, but you find that with God, oftentimes, you you take right turns that are wrong.
So we turn down this road. I'm like, I've never been here before. Let's go. We jump out. First door I knock on, guy comes to the door.
His name's Samuel. And he he says, hey, man. It's my birthday. He turned 23 years old. And Samuel, gosh, I start talking about these people and I just can't hold it together because they're my people.
Right? Samuel, his mom's there. He goes and gets his mom. I share the gospel with him. He's beautifully born again on his on his birthday.
Right? His mom then says he's the oldest of 5 boys. He's always wanted an older brother. So I look at him in the eyes and I say, hey, man. I I don't wanna make a promise.
I don't wanna I don't I know words aren't cheap, but I'm telling you that I'll be your older brother. Like I have been praying to God for somebody to disciple and walk with. And God gave me you, you'll be my little brother. Like this is what discipleship is. So he goes he goes, alright.
Right? He starts coming to belong, take him to Ranger games, take him to football games. He just went with me to Washington State and took a trip with me. First ever airplane ride. My boy, He's so he's just this awesome young man.
He came back from Washington State, and he gets up. It's his first time sharing his testimony at our new believers group. You You wanna know what his testimony was? A 23 year old that that would drink too much, that would lead to cocaine, that would then lead to rage, and then he would just destroy things. This was his testimony.
*Jesus* gave me self control. Isn't that not amazing? Jesus gave me self control. This city is full of Samuels. This city is full of Cadence and Coltons and Tylers and Blake's and all these other names.
It's full of them. We have to be led by the spirit, have compassion in our heart to step out. But we have to understand what we're actually doing. Does that make sense? And I think that there's not a clearer passage of scripture than 2 Corinthians-5 verse 18 through 21.
It says this, and all of this is a gift from God who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us, say us, this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ's ambassadors.
God is making his appeal through who? Through us. Right? We're God's billboards or his marketing team. Right?
So God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead. "Come back to God". For God made Christ who never sinned to be the offering for our sin so that we could be made right. Say made right.
Made right. Could be made right with God through Christ. Okay. This gets me going. Okay.
So if we just go with me for a moment. If we go back to creation. Right? Everything God created, he created with his words. God spoke.
Except for when it came to humanity. Right? He formed man. When he gave Adam life, what did he do? You remember?
He breathed life where? Into his nostrils. Right? So when he opened his eyes, what was the first thing he saw? God's face.
So humanity was created to be in *relationship* with God. We were not designed to be out of the presence of Almighty God. Right? Adam and Eve lived in paradise with God. The enemy, the devil came in and deceived Adam and Eve.
Right? Let's say that this represents the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I don't believe that there was any poison in the fruit. I believe it was the poison of disobedience. Right?
It was right. Love is only love if there's a choice. The reason why my wife knows that I love her is because I choose her every day. It's a choice. Right?
And God didn't want individuals that just raised their hands and hallelujah came out. He wanted people that had free will to be able to choose him because there's only love when there's a choice. Right? So there were all these trees they could eat from, 1 that they couldn't to give them the ability to love God, which if you love God, you obey God. K.
You guys following me? So they're connected to *Jesus*. They're walking with God. They turn their back on life. For a moment, go with me.
Life or **eternal life** is not a destination in heaven. Eternal life is a person. Right? Jesus says, I'm the way, the truth, and the Right? He is the eternal 1, and he is the 1 who created everything.
Right? We read Colossians. It says he's the creator and the sustainer of all things. Read John. Right?
He was there. He is the word. He it's all through there that Jesus is the creator. So they turned their back on life, and they turned their back on eternal life. What does this say?
There's a way that seems right to a man, and its end is death. Okay. So right now, what you have is masses of people on a highway going the wrong direction, absence of the presence of God. We don't have time, but if we read Romans-1, right, they'll call what is evil good, and what is good evil. Give them over to a debased mind.
They're confused. They're lost. They right? They no longer worship God, but they worship creation. They're worshiping themselves.
They've created God in their their own image and likeness. So you have masses of people heading this way, alive it physically, but dead spiritually. Right? Before Christ, you were dead in your *trespasses* and sins. They're on a highway heading towards death.
Right? No amount of good works or anything can get you out of that reality. We were born in sin. We were born separated from God. We were born actually as enemies of God.
But yet while we were enemies, he still loved us. Come on. This is a good news message. And so what we're doing as evangelists Robbie, can you be an evangelist? Right.
The world's going this way. I bump into Robbie. Boom. He's trying to snap me out of the road I'm going on. He's saying, repent of your sins and turn to God.
You guys follow me? Because when you thank you. You're a great evangelist. Because when you turn to God, you "turn to life". Right?
People are like, man, you're a Jesus freak. You're all about Jesus. Well, without Jesus, you don't have you you don't have gravity. You don't have an atmosphere. You don't have air.
You don't have light. So if hell is the absence of God, right, scripture describes it as a bottomless pit and utter darkness because God is substance and God is light. People choose to reject Jesus all the way through their life until it's too late and they're living now in a reality that's got no God. That's a scary place. It's forever.
It's our job as believers to call people back into *relationship* with God. K. This is the key. We don't go out and say this. If you don't believe in Jesus, you're going to hell.
That's not the gospel. We we it doesn't say that Jesus came. Right? "God so loved the world" that he sent Jesus to condemn the world. God so loved the world.
So so okay. So then what is the message? Right? The message is, it says in John-3, I believe, 17 18, where it says, those who don't believe are *condemned* already. So these people that are on this highway going this direction apart from the presence of God, trying to find satisfaction in everything but the only thing that can truly satisfy them.
Right? Heading this way. I just I need you to catch this. They're going this way. The only thing that can save them, they need to hear the message of *repent* of your sins.
Turn to God. You're you're already condemned. I'm not preaching you into condemnation. I'm preaching you out of condemnation. That's a that's a much different message than God hates gay people.
He hates you. *Repent. That's not the gospel*. The gospel gets down low and says, listen. I was once on that highway.
I was once lost. I was once separated from God. I I I was trying to find life in all these other places, and then God rescued me. And I'm telling you, you don't have to live in depression. You don't have to live in fear.
You don't have to live bound by the lust of the flesh that's destroying your marriage and your life. You can actually be set free. I'm telling you, come to God. *Jesus says, Matthew-11* verse 28, come to me, all you who are weary and "heavy laden", and I will give you rest. That's the gospel.
So when we go out, we are introducing people to the presence of God. That makes evangelism easy. You don't have to have 45 scriptures memorized. You just have to have the fruit of the spirit. You you don't have to have the gospel guide memorized or, you know, the whole book of Romans down.
You just simply have had to encounter God today, and then take that daily personal encounter you have with God and make it public. And tell people, how is the road that you're on working out for you right now? I'll never forget. There was a moment actually here in this city where I I long, long story short, met met met a guy. He was living in a homosexual lifestyle, and he repented of it.
But then 3, 4 months in, he was really starting to turn back. And he had this lunch set up with me where he was gonna sit down, and he was gonna tell me. And I came in and I sat down, and the presence of God sat down with me. And he goes, man, I had a whole list of stuff for you. I'm wrong.
You're right. Pray for me. That's called presence of God discipleship. But the but the conviction of the Holy Spirit, the word of God. Right?
So so just to wrap this up, we are called, right, to turn people to God. It's not this is what people think right now. People out there think that God they have a whole bunch of views of God, but a lot of them think that he's mean, or he's angry, or he might not forgive them. That's what I want you to tell people. He loves them so much that he came for them.
So it's not repent of your sins and God will turn to you. Oh, yeah. He's staring at you. Catch this. This this changes everything.
It's not, hey, repent of your sins and God might turn this time. No. No. No. The moment that you repent of your sins and turn, if you're this far, you were getting the biggest "bear hug" from the presence of God you you can even imagine.
*Repent*. But that's been so misrepresented. People hear that word repent, and they're like, oh, man. I don't no. No.
You *repent* into the presence of God. Repent of your sins. Right? And receive the refreshing of the Holy Spirit, the gift of the Holy Spirit. And that, I'm telling you, that when when when I had that understanding that I'm I'm I'm I'm introducing people to the presence of God, it it changed the way I saw evangelism.
So 1 day while I was here, this would be the last testimony I share. While while while I was here, I for for the 6 months' time, I my wife called me. We're on outreach. She said, can you come home? I'm not doing very well.
Just from different pressures that were happening. And so I came home. She went in the room and prayed. She came back out. She said, go back to work.
I said, come on. I like you. So I went back. My work that day was Walmart. So I went to Walmart, and the first person I saw, I just said, hey, have have you been born again?
She goes, no. I I don't really know what that is, but I'm I'm trying I just found out that I have some Indian background, like Native American background, and I'm trying to figure out what about spirits. I'm like, listen, you don't wanna know about those spirits. You wanna know about the Holy Spirit. And I'd be I just walked her through John-3:1 through 6, and and I was like, would you like to have a relationship with Jesus?
She said, yes, I do. And I said, okay. So she stands up, and 1 of my other friends was there. I said, take my hands. I said, when you pray this prayer, you're gonna feel it.
Like you're gonna feel God come into you. It's gonna be amazing. You're gonna you're gonna when you like, this is what we need to understand that when he's rescued us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son. Like that's felt. It's not just an "intellectual thing".
Like when the presence of God comes into a person, it transforms them if they really mean it from their heart. And so long long story short, she takes her hands. She prays. When she prays, cause me to be born again. She opens her eyes and she goes, what was that?
I said, that's the presence of God and he's now on the inside of you. She goes, this is amazing. I've never felt this good. What is going on? That's how you were created to live.
You were never *created* to live a day outside of the presence of God. And you don't have to now live a day outside of the presence of God. You know there's many Christians in the body of Christ that have never been born again. They only experience the presence of God when they come to church on Sunday morning. It's sad.
And so that's why Robbie's saying to you, when you meet people and they say, yeah, I'm a Christian. Have you been born again? You know what I say to a lot of people? I say, Jesus in John-10 says he's the gate or the door. Right?
Like that door back there. And a door or a gate leads to something. Right? So there's a lot of people that believe, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I believe in that door back there. Yeah, I see it. I believe in Jesus. Have you ever stepped through it?
Because I don't think that believing alone is enough. I I can believe a lot of things. I can repeat a lot of things. I can even sing and show up at church. But you stepped through that door?
Because I'll tell you what, when you step through the door, you will have **"abundant life"**. Not in your bank account, in your in your heart. You'll have patience, love. You'll have joy and peace and gentleness and kindness. You will be able to, in the midst of any storm, be okay.
Do you have that? Many people, I've I listen, I I believe in the door, but I have never experienced that. Well, you've never been born again. Do you want that? Yeah.
I wanna step through that door. Then "step on through". Right? Because Jesus is the door that leads to *eternal* life, and we wanna get people to step through that door. Amen.
Amen?