Tuesday, October 3, 2017

“What Next After Being Saved?” – Matt. 28:18-20


Hey, really quickly before I get started, I have another announcement to make.  This may not be the best time to say this but I want you all to know about something that has been going on with me personally.  I didn’t want you to hear it from somebody else and I don’t want you to make a big deal out of it but I have been dating a real sweet lady for a while now and it looks like it may develop into something more and so I want you to know about her.

She, too, has been married before.  She has several kids.  She’s about my age and most of the time she actually lives in California.  Some of you may have heard of her before.  She’s been in several movies.  Her name is Angelina Jolie.  Have y’all heard of her?  No, seriously, after Brad Pitt left her, she was really torn up and needed some counseling and so I was there for her.  She knew how much I love kids and we just started spending some time together and then one thing lead to another and we have been dating for several months now.  It’s nice.

Y’all believe me, don’t you?  Okay, I know most of you believe me but some of you may not and so I want to level with you.  I’m just kidding.  I’m not really dating Angelina Jolie and let me tell you how you can know that I am not telling the truth about this.  While it is entirely plausible that I could be dating her and me not dating her has nothing to do with me being short, fat, bald, poor and thousands of miles away, how you can tell that this is a made-up story is that I supposedly went months without telling anybody, right?

Because if I was really dating Angelina Jolie the beautiful, glamorous, movie star, trust me, I would have mentioned it before now.  I would have told everybody after the first phone call.  I would tell everybody.  I’d put it on Facebook.  Shoot, I might even put it on my business card.  Can’t you see it?  Todd Blair, Pastor, Christ Fellowship, Lake Bridgeport, DATING ANGELINA JOLIE!

If you are married, you know how it is.  You want everybody to know.  You’re proud of your spouse.  You’re proud of being married to that person and you should want people to know.  Now, what’s even more ridiculous than me dating Angelina Jolie and not saying anything about it is people who claim to be Christians, who the Bible calls the bride of Christ, and yet never tell anybody…about Jesus.  That’s unthinkable.  If you truly have a relationship with the Savior of the world, you will want to tell others about Him.

You don’t have to know everything about Jesus to tell others what you do know, do you?  I know that quite a few of you regularly tell other people about this church and that’s good.  You invite people to Christ Fellowship often and yet I bet you have no idea how many light bulbs are in the Fellowship Hall.  I bet you don’t have a clue what longitude and latitude we are or how many boards there are in the back deck.  And do you know why you don’t know that stuff and yet still invite people?  Because you don’t have to know.

All you have to know is that our church is, as the inmate said, the church that helps people.  All you have to know is that Christ Fellowship preaches, teaches, sings and talks about the truth of the Gospel, that we love people and love Jesus and our goal as a church is to do whatever it takes to lead people to have a life-changing relationship with Jesus.  Now, if you can tell others about this church, why can’t you tell them about Jesus?

Sure, I know you have to start somewhere and I know not everybody that sows will reap and all that stuff but at some point, we all have to do better; we all have to start saying the name of Jesus to people who are not Christians.  At some point, you have to say His name.  Don’t answer out loud but how long has it been since you started a conversation about Jesus with somebody that was not a believer?  Well, as the chili commercial said, “Well, pardner, that’s too long!”

Let’s look at the last few verses of the book of Matthew today and we will see the last few words Jesus spoke to His disciples while still on the earth.  Yes, I know you have heard and read and have listened to sermons many times on these verses but you are going to hear it one more time, at least.  Matthew 28:18-20 is the Great Commission but we go back over it again today because it has become the Great Omission in too many lives.  Too many people claim to be disciples of Jesus and have gone their whole lives going to church and singing in the choir and giving ten percent in the offering plate as it goes by and yet have never once witnessed to anybody.

That’s exactly the type of person that is going to die and see God just long enough for Him to say, “Get away from Me.  I never knew you!” (Matt. 7)  I love you all too much NOT to tell you that and I will explain why I say that after we read Matthew 28:18-20.

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

So, we know how people get saved by now, right?  How are we saved?  Ephesians 2:8 says we are saved by grace and through faith.  We know who can be saved.  We know that nobody is too good or too bad and that everybody can be saved.  Revelation 22:17 says, let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.”  We also know that not everybody is going to respond to the Gospel message in the same way.  Some will accept it and others won’t.  Jesus told us that in His parable of the soils in Luke 8.

Today we answer the last question in our sermon series, “What next after being saved?”

Let me ask you a question.  How many of you like to have fun?  Of course you do.  That seems like a dumb question but we all know some people that put a little more priority on fun than others, right?  When I go on vacation with my family, we sometimes like to play a game where you search for things as you go or you do things as you go, all in the name of fun.

We make a list of things like sing or dance in public, ask a stranger to scratch your back, get your picture taken with a cop, fall down or tell the biggest lie.  Stuff like that.  You get points for doing each one and everybody votes on how many points you get depending on how much effort you put into it and the one with the most points wins.  It’s a whole lot of fun but the only problem is that it takes a lot of energy to have fun.  Sometimes you just want to relax.

It’s the same with making disciples.  When you see the light bulb go off in somebody’s head and they realize they are a sinner in need of a savior and they ask Jesus to forgive them and to be Lord of their lives, that is the most fun you can ever have.  Period.  That’s a great feeling to know you helped change somebody’s eternity! But it takes some effort – just like everything else in this life. 

So, if you were to ask, “What next after being saved?”, the answer would be, “Go and make disciples.”  We have talked before about what a disciple is.  A disciple is simply one who learns from Jesus and then tells others what they know.  That’s it.  You don’t have to know everything about God and the Bible.  You don’t have to know the difference in pre-trib or post trib.  You don’t have to know what happened to the dinosaurs or if all dogs go to Heaven.  You just have to learn something from Jesus and then tell somebody else.

How cool is it that the main thing Jesus tells us to do is also the most fun thing in the world?  That’s great.  But it takes some effort…and it takes some love.  I’ll tell you what you do.  You mix all of your effort together with all of your love.  Put it in your hands and say to God, “Lord, this is all I have.  Will you please do the rest?” It’ll be like Jesus feeding the 5000 with a few loaves and fishes but He will do it.

That doesn’t sound too hard, does it?  Take the effort to tell people what you know just because you love them.  Yet, I have seen two different polls this week that both said 98% of professing Christians don’t ever tell anybody else how to be saved.  Only 2% are really carrying out the Great Commission.  I bet there are at least 98% of the people that want to complain about the shape our country is in.  I bet 98% are concerned about the eternity of their children and grandchildren.  I bet at least 98% of professing Christians want God to bring a revival to our community but only 2% are obedient to make disciples.

Gee, I wonder why we don’t see revival around here.  But the good news about the Good News is that it’s not too late and it’s not too hard.  I want to share two surprisingly easy ways to do it.  You can witness to somebody biblically or relationally or both.  Let’s look at the biblical way first.  Grab your Bibles.  You might want to underline or circle or highlight a few verses but they are easy to remember.

This is just one way.  There are lots of others.  But this way is easy to remember and tells people the minimum they need to know to become a Christian and start to be a disciple themselves.  First, they need to recognize they are a sinner.  Explain that sin is simply anything that displeases God.  Point them to Romans 3:23 that says we are all sinners and all fall short of God’s glory.  Then point them to Romans 6:23 that says the wages of sin – what we deserve for our sin – is eternal death and separation from God in Hell.  That’s bad news, isn’t it?

But then tell them that the Good News, literally the Gospel or Good News of Jesus Christ is found in good old John 3:16.  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  All we have to do is believe in Jesus but that belief goes way beyond just believing that He lived and then died on a cross.  That belief will manifest itself in a changed life; one that continues believing and changing to be more like Jesus every day.  It’s not perfection but it is changed.

That’s easy.  We can all remember three verses.  Bookmark them in your Bible and have them ready for the other person to read when they show an interest.  That’s all you have to do.  They may or may not believe right then but if you are prayerful through this, God will give you what you need at that moment and their decision is up to them and the Holy Spirit.

Now, the other way is by giving your testimony.  Honestly, you’ll probably use this first before you go through the biblical way and so you must, must, must have this down.  All you are doing is telling the other person your story and that story has three aspects.  It needs to include what your life was like before you became a Christian, how you came to know Him and then what your life has been like since.  It’s not complicated and there’s no magic way but there is a right way and a wrong way.

Let me illustrate the wrong way by first telling you my plans for becoming a millionaire when I retire from pastoring.  I’ve told some of you this before but if I ever do retire, I’m seriously thinking about how to start my own business just listening to people.  I even have a name picked out: Ears To You.  I’ll go to nursing homes or peoples’ houses or businesses, wherever I can and just listen to them talk about themselves.  I guarantee it’s a money-maker because everybody loves to talk about themselves but nobody wants to listen.  In my job all I will say is, “Yes” “Really?” and “Tell me more.”  Then I’ll charge you a dollar a minute and leave.  Money in the bank. I tell you my plans because nobody wants to hear your life story when you give your testimony.  It’s the number one, biggest mistake that everybody makes.  I know it’s important to you.  I know it’s truth and it’s powerful and it really shows what God has done in your life but if you can’t tell it in less than a minute or two, it’s not your testimony.  It’s your biography.  That goes in your memoirs. 

Your testimony is not about you.  It’s about Jesus and what having Him in your life has done for you and the others around you.  I’m sorry to tell you this because I know you want to talk about all the good things God has done in turning your life around but the person you are witnessing to needs to only hear a one or two sentence version of what you were like before, then tell them how you came to know Jesus, which is telling them how they can know Jesus and then what your life has been like since.

I went on a little weekend retreat a couple of weeks ago with another church’s men’s group.  It’s a long story why I was there but I was sitting at lunch across from a guy I didn’t know.  He had said something about God to somebody else and so, just to avoid some awkward silence between us, I asked him to tell me what God was doing in his life.  He said, “Well, the weekend’s not long enough.”  I said, “Okay, just give it to me in a few sentences while I finish my sandwich.”  I said, “You have three minutes.  Go.” No kidding, twenty minutes later, he paused just long enough to take a breath and I acted like I had something I had to do and I got up and left.  I felt bad because I know it was meaningful to him but he was boring me to death.  The guy actually followed me around trying to tell me more.  It started to make mad.  I enjoy hearing about what God is doing in your life as much as anybody but when you start out, “I was born at a very young age and when I was two, my mother took me to so and so church and at four, we moved and then…” Just stop.

Let me give you an example of what a good testimony should be.  I’ll make up a scenario.  I used to be a drug-dealing, alcoholic, bank-robbing outlaw biker who went by the name “Slash”.  I spent years and years in prison.  I did a lot of mean and nasty things but none of it ever brought satisfaction or contentment.  I had no joy or peace.  I was miserable and about to kill myself but I met a man in jail who explained that Jesus loved me even though I was a sinner.  He explained that sin was anything that displeased God and he told me that if I would just repent – turn away from that sin – that God would forgive me and that if I would make Jesus Lord of my life that I could be forgiven and spend eternity with Him in Heaven.  Since then, my life is not perfect.  I still have problems and I still sin sometimes but when I do, I ask God for forgiveness and now I have joy and peace even in the difficult times because I know God loves me and He is in control.  Is that something you would be interested in?

Ninety-nine percent of the time that’s all you have time for.  Any more than that and you will lose them.  If they ask for more then you tell them all about it but let them ask.  Again, your testimony is not about you.  It is about what having Jesus in your life has done for you and others around you.  Customize it to fit you.  Make it your own.  But keep it under three minutes because rarely will even the most dramatic story be beneficial after that.  Save the whole story for when I come visit you in the nursing home as CEO of Ears To You.

For some of you, even telling somebody else the bare minimum of your life scares you to death.  What if I mess up?  What if they don’t respond?  What if I can’t answer their questions?  Look back at Matthew 28:20. Jesus tells His disciples that He will always be with them.  For us, we have the Holy Spirit living in our lives all day every day and His main job is to guide us and help us as we go making disciples.  James tells us to ask for wisdom and we will get it.  We just have to be willing.  But now, as the music plays, I would love to pray with you about whatever is on your heart today.  Maybe you don’t have a testimony because you have never asked Jesus to be Lord of your life.  You have never truly trusted Him today.  You know how.  Do it right now.

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