In your Bibles, if you would join me in Acts chapter number one, we're going to hit part number two of our mission statement today, which is our mission statement is to know Christ and to make Him known.
Last week, we looked at a message entitled, To know Christ today is to make Him known. In Acts chapter one is Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. He is getting ready to ascend into heaven, and he gives them some final words. Verse four says, And being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which saith he, Ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days from now or hence. When they therefore were come together, they asked him, saying, Lord, will thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
They were so focused on that earthly kingdom. He said unto them, It is not for you to know the time and the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power. And verse eight is really the key here. He says, But you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you.
And notice the effect of it. What will happen to people when the Holy Ghost comes upon them? He says, You shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem. That's your local city.
That's the Xenia. And in Judea, that would be your region. That's like Greene County.
And in Samaria, Samaria was like their enemies. That would be like Michigan. If you're from Michigan, don't write me a letter. We love you. We know you need Jesus.
I'll get a letter this week saying Ohio State could beat everybody but Michigan. I already get it. I get it. But this is the idea. You go to those people that maybe you're at odds with and unto the uttermost part of the earth. That's gospel outreach. Father, we want to just pause in your presence and thank you for your word.
We believe this is not a suggestion. We've assembled together because we believe this is the most eternally important thing going on in the world, the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we pray that our hearts would be riveted with truth today. Let me not say anything that would not be according to your desire, but let me preach only what you would have. And may our lives be fully surrendered to the use of our King. Raise up godly men and women in this church to go into the ministry. I pray that young men would feel the call to preach to those who would be called to the mission field, those who everybody here would feel a burden for their neighbors, their co-workers, their friends to bring the gospel. Lord, let us not be comfortable, but unsettle us today for the glory and advancement of Jesus Christ. We know you and there's no greater gift we can give to others than to let them know Christ. We ask it in Jesus' name and God's people said amen.
You may be seated. A man named C.T. Studd had become a famous cricket player in England in the late 19th century. One day his father was radically saved while attending a revival meeting by Dwight L. Moody. He had three boys and he was a wealthy man and he began to invite different evangelists and pastors to his house to try to witness to his boys and his kids didn't want to hear about it for a long time, but they eventually came to know Christ. But C.T., after he got saved, really became somewhat of a nominal Christian. He really, in some sense, became backslidden for about six years. No real burden for God.
But while in college, he became a celebrity for being known as Britain's greatest gifted cricket player. But he began to feel so empty in that world. Fortune and fame had left him feeling unsatisfied.
He wanted his life to count for more. And after hearing a message by none other than Hudson Taylor, the famous missionary to China, C.T. Studd was gripped by God along with six other Cambridge students.
They formed what became known as the Cambridge Seven. These young athletes, all from affluent families, renounced their comfortable lives, promising professions and blessing to go and serve as foreign missionaries alongside Hudson Taylor through the China Inland Mission. He would spend his entire life ministering in China, India, and Africa.
C.T., going off the scene for 13 years, had no interaction without anybody from his homeland. After his father died, he passed a large inheritance on to C.T. But instead of receiving the funds, he gave all of it away to different ministries. He said, if Jesus Christ be God and died for me, there is no sacrifice too great for me to make for him. It's an incredible story. What would cause a kid, after getting saved, living as a nominal Christian for six years, to be so gripped the rest of his life? It seems that he saw Christ in some way. That he began to know Christ in such a way that he was consumed with making Christ known.
He penned a famous poem that expresses his heart. It's entitled, Only One Life. It says, two to the lines I heard one day traveling along life's busy way, bringing conviction to my heart and from my mind it would not depart. Only one life will soon be past and only what's done for Christ will last. Only one life, yes, only one.
Soon will its fleeting hours be done. Then in that day my Lord to meet and stand before his judgment seat. Only one life will soon be past and only what's done for Christ will last. Only one life, this still small voice, gently pleads for a better choice, bidding me selfish aims to leave and to God's holy will to cleave. Only one life will soon be past and only what's done for Christ will last.
Oh, let my love with fervor burn and from the world now let me turn, living for thee and thee alone, bringing thee pleasure on thy throne. And when at last I hear the call, I know I'll say twas worth it all because there's only one life that will soon be past and only what's done for Christ will last. If you would have met him in his early life you would have thought this is not going to be a guy that's going to give his life to the things of God. And I just wonder who today God may grip, that God may get a hold of your life and cause you to do something that is irrational in the eyes of the world that makes perfect sense to God because you began to see life through the lens of eternity instead of the temporary. It was in May of 2000 that John Piper preached a sermon entitled Boasting Only in the Cross of Christ.
It sent waves through a crowd of 40,000 students that gathered for a one-day conference in Memphis, Tennessee. In the words of Tim Chalice, the sermon turned moneymakers into missionaries, American dreamers into cross bearers, and lovers of the world into lovers of Jesus. He said, you don't have to know a lot of things in order to make a huge difference for the Lord and the world, but you do need to know a few things that are great and be willing to live for them and die for them. He said people that make a difference in the world are not people who have mastered a lot of things, but they are people who have been mastered by a very few things that are very, very great. And he goes on and shares with them how in this moment, he said, there are many hundreds of you in this crowd who do not want to make your life make a difference. He said, maybe you want to finish school, get a good job, find a husband, a wife, a nice house, nice car, long weekends, good vacations, grow old, have a good retirement, die easy, and know hell. And that's all you want, and you don't give a rip, he says, about making your life count for eternity, and that's a tragedy in the making. He then shared about two old ladies that were in his church, who in their 70s were gripped by God to go to Cameroon to be missionaries.
It's 70. And they spent the next decade of their life bringing ministry and the gospel to these impoverished people. And one day they were driving down an old road, and their brakes went out, and they went off a cliff and tragically died together. And he says, is that a tragedy? That is not a tragedy. To give your life to eternal causes, and to die, and to know you live the end part of your life, sacrificing for the gospel. He then described a tragedy inciting a certain article named, Start Now, Retire Early.
It said this in the Reader's Digest, Bob and Penny took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59, she was 51, now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot yacht, play softball, and collect shells. And he said, that is a tragedy. And there are people willing to spend billions of dollars to try to get you to buy that dream. And he pleaded with them for the next 40 minutes, don't buy that dream.
Don't buy that dream. It's a tragedy. If at the end of your life, before you stand before the eternal God, you're going to tell him, look what I did with the last portion of my life. I learned to swing a good softball bat.
I had a nice boat, look at my shell collection. That's a tragedy. Because there's only one life will soon be past, and only once done for Christ will last. This month, my preaching and desire is that we as a church live our lives for the eternal, not the temporal. I confess, this will sound crazy to the world. To a world that only looks through earthly eyes, they can't understand it. There will be people who come today and think this preacher is nuts.
I'm okay with that. I think Watchman Nee wrote a book called Normal Christian Life, didn't he? I want to press upon our hearts and minds the weight of eternity. I want us to feel the weight of eternity pressing down, that your clock is running out. Psalms 90 verse 10 says, the days of our lives are 70 years if by reason of strength they are 80 years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow.
It's soon cut off, we fly away. And he says this, so teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. God, you would give us wisdom as we examine the length of our days and not waste it. Genesis 25 chronicles two Old Testament brothers named Jacob and Esau. Esau was the oldest son of Isaac, and Isaac was the son of Abraham.
The blessing of God was given to the oldest son, and the oldest would always receive a double portion of the inheritance. One day the younger brother Jacob had made a pot of bean soup, and Esau came in from hunting and was extremely fatigued and hungry. He asked his younger brother for some soup, and in Genesis 25, 31 it says this. And Jacob said, sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, behold, I'm at the point to die, and what profit is the birthright to do to me? And Jacob said, swear to me this day, and he swear unto him, and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils.
Lentils are very much like, look like a little bean. And he did eat and drink and rose up and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. When you get to Hebrews chapter number 12, the author uses Esau as a warning of a life that traded the blessing of God for a bowl of soup.
Instead of Abraham, Isaac, and Esau, you have Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He missed the eternal blessing of God for a bowl of soup one day. I would ask, what kind of soup is the world offering you in place of the eternal glorious plan of God to live a life that really counts for eternity? And that's all the world can offer you, temporary satisfaction at best.
Very temporary, very fleeting. It's a bowl of soup. And the tragedy is we have parents that are spoon feeding their kids the bowl from the world. They'll rip them out of church to put them in the things of the world. They feed them this.
We feed our families. Instead of focusing on the eternal things, you have one life. And I wonder in that day, we'll look back and say, what could I have stopped giving myself to in the world that I could give myself more to God? This month, I believe God is calling us to stop and focus on what really matters.
It almost seems to me when I read things about C.T. Studd and those thoughts from Piper, it's like I heard the same voice from God when I was a 17-year-old, as though almost in detail some of those same things God was laying on my heart. I felt so vivid the choice, living a successful life in all these other things or giving all that I have to God and just glorify Him with all that I can do. And I have failed in always surrendering to Him like I should, but I am so thankful. I have followed the path that is the most sacrificial and most glorious and most wonderful. You know, the month before I surrendered to full-time ministry, I made more money than I had ever made in my life as a young 20-year-old making $1,000 a day. And to walk away from that to most people, I remember bosses of mine that were millionaires, they'd say, you're crazy, why are you doing this? There's so much potential, so much future. I would not be here this morning.
Lighthouse would not be here, friends. And it's not because I'm good. It's because God's so good that He called me to do something more than just make money. Nothing wrong with making money, nothing wrong if you have nice things.
There's nothing wrong with that. It is wrong when those things own us, and our driving purpose is to gain more of that stuff. Shouldn't we give ourself to more than what the atheists can give themself to? Shouldn't we drive for something greater than what the world has to offer? Anybody can pursue the temporal.
Anybody can have that. Hebrews 11, 24, by faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. None of us understand the weight of that because we don't understand how rich that would have made him. He was choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy pleasure of sin for a season. Why? He esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.
It sounds a lot like C.T. Studd when I read about Moses. No wonder God used him in such a mighty way. You think Moses regrets that?
You think C.T. Studd regrets that? Last Sunday I preached on the all-surpassing value of knowing Christ. You know, after Paul came to know Christ for who he was, he looked at everything he gained in life, and he said, Those things which I gained I counted loss for Christ, yea, doubtless I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. And he said, I count them but dung that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, that which is through the faith of Christ, a righteousness which is of God by faith.
He says that I may know him. Everything in his life was without any value once he came to know Christ. Christ changed his perspective, and he actually began to see reality for what it really was.
What it really was. You know, one day when this life is over, we will immediately know what was worth it and what was not worth it. And I'm pleading with you, consider it now.
Consider it now. Stop and think, January, three and a half weeks in, what am I living for? How is my life being defined? One month into this, next year, 2026, what if Jesus comes back even this year?
All of the things that we've been focusing on in the temporal realm. And I'm not here to tell you it's wrong to have retirement. I'm not here to tell you it's wrong to have a house that's nice and those things. I think it's wise to plan ahead.
I think it's wise to have retirement. The Bible speaks about those things. But what I'm asking is that we take our eyes off the pursuit of stuff, and focus it on eternal things.
I want to look at the second part of this mission statement. Not only to know Christ, but God has called us as a church to make Him known. To make Him known.
And there's four ways that we can do that. And the first way is through evangelism. Evangelism comes from the Greek word, euangelion. It means good news. It can mean to announce good news. When Jesus came into the world, the Bible says, as the angels said unto them, the shepherds in Luke chapter 2 verse 10, fear not, for behold, I bring you euangelion. I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
And what was the good news? For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior which is Christ the Lord. The good news from heaven is salvation came. It's what Matthew 1 21, His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.
That's the greatest thing we can ever propagate. The salvation of sinners was the purpose God sent the Son. 1 John 4 14, we have seen and do testify, the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. John 3. And Jesus understood this.
He knew why He came. He said in Luke 12 27, as He was approaching His crucifixion, He said, now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour, He said, but for this cause came I unto this hour. He said, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost, Luke 19 10. Paul said, Christ Jesus came to the world to save sinners of whom I am chief, 1 Timothy 1 15. And so the gospel is the mission that Jesus came to present. He came to give truth of Himself to the world, that He is the Savior, and that message is what God has now given to the church.
It is the mission of the church to carry that message out. That's why He says here in Acts 1 8, He says, you'll receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you. And in Acts 1 8, He says, and you shall be witnesses.
He doesn't say you might be witnesses, He says you shall be witnesses. In John 20 21, He says, as the Father has sent me, even so send I you, Mark 16 15. He says, preach the gospel into all the world. The early church understood this.
They were driven. I would encourage you, if you haven't read through the book of Acts recently or haven't, just read through it and just look how they respond with the gospel. They go everywhere preaching. Acts 5 42, daily in the temple, in every house they cease not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ. That early church had an all-consuming desire to tell other people about Christ.
Acts 8 verse 4 and 5. They come under incredible persecution. It says, after they were persecuted, therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word.
Persecution didn't stop it. It just spread it more. Acts 8 25, Phillips is preaching the gospel in the villages of the Samaritans, fulfilling Acts 1 8 by doing so. Acts 8 40, Phillip was found in Azathos passing through. He preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea. Romans 1 15, Paul said, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that at Rome also. This burden was in their hearts.
They were so impassioned and inflamed. I'm so encouraged, I feel like God is raising up this stirring in our nation again. There is a sense of divine enlightenment that God is like opening some eyes around the country. I was just encouraged after the football game last week that not only that Ohio State won, which was very fantastic, but that both teams had key players that were confessing Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. That they were both saying, more important than the game is the Lord Jesus Christ.
I mean, I was like, this is awesome. You got people being sworn in to office right now in our country, confessing Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. I don't remember one person in the previous administration saying that.
I say that boldly and clearly. That was a pagan situation. Praise God that there are around 30 people who prayed outside of abortion clinics that got put in prison under the Biden administration were let out of prison this week. That's a good thing. And I don't agree with everything with every president, but I'm thankful, and he should be able to be thankful for some things, amen? I can't believe he said that out loud. Well, you must be new to Lighthouse.
We don't whisper around here. The early church saw exponential growth. In Acts 2, they were added about 3,000 souls. Acts 2, 47, the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved. Acts 4, 4, the number of the men was about 5,000. Acts 5, 14, believers were more added to the Lord, both multitudes of men and women.
It just continues to explode until you get to Acts 17. It says, these that have turned the world upside down are coming to us. It's always encouraging, I think, when you go around town and people are like, man, what's going on at Lighthouse? Your parking lot's always full. Anybody ever heard somebody tell you that? In 2009, LBC was launched because we felt the call of God on our lives to come and preach the gospel here, to see people saved, baptized, and discipled.
We've seen about 1,000 people baptized through the ministry here. I'm not here to build a good life for myself. I'm not here to get you to build a good life for yourself. I'm not here to help people overcome life's many challenges. I'm here to see people come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. That's why I'm here. There's other ways I could try to figure out building a good life, but I can tell you there is no greater life I have seen God create for me than the life that He has chosen through serving Him fully. Charles Spurgeon said, Christian people, your one business in life is to lead men to believe in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, and every other thing should be made subservient to this one object.
I think it's fascinating that the guy who was an atheist that I visited for a year and a half is now preaching the gospel over in Honduras this morning, that when Eric got saved and he came here and helped me start this church, he gave himself to something more than what, and it was interesting because right before he came here, they were making him a manager at this store he was in, and as a young man, had very high potential, very smart young man, would have done very well. His dad was a manager, and he didn't want that. He came here.
I remember him moving here, and he didn't share these things with me till like years later. He said, I was so poor when he came here. He said, I would eat bread and peanut butter, and he had nothing. He had nothing. I'm like, why don't you, I would have shared some of my jelly with you.
Shit. We didn't have much. It was faith, I'm telling you.
It was, quite frankly, pretty crazy. He moved here before I came here. I said, what if I backed out? I'm like, sorry, Eric. No wonder God's used his life. No wonder God's used so many of your lives because you have given yourself to more than what the world has to offer, the advancement of the gospel. Friend, I want to ask you, who was the last person you told about Jesus Christ?
We have been given this divine command to tell others about the Lord. Sometimes people say, well, I'm not quite sure what to say. Well, don't stay there.
Like, how could you be okay with, don't be content with that. Come to foundations today. Right after this class, I will go through things that will show you how you can tell somebody how to be saved. Come to class.
I will show you. I will give you information you can take home and read and study and learn. You'll learn to write out your testimony and share it with others. You could bring a lost friend to class and say, hey, come to this class with me and you know the pastor of your church will sit down with them personally and spend time with them, sharing the truth with them. Our junior high, high school, young adult classes are in an evangelism essential study right now. Great book to read is Share Jesus Without Fear.
Bill Faye has a great book that will help you with some tools there. You can go online, The Way of the Master, Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron, have a good old way of sharing the gospel there. 242 memory verses. Anybody enjoying their memory verse studies? Isn't that great?
I hear people. I have one lady text to me yesterday, texting the staff saying how they've gone through 17 verses already and just so excited and encouraged they're passing even those on to others. There was a survey from the Institute of American Church Growth that showed 75 to 90% of new believers come to Christ through a friend or acquaintance who explains the good news. It's always a one-on-one basis, 75 to 90%. Very few people get saved just like in a church service or at some event. It's almost always a personal thing.
Let me stir up maybe some discomfort if I haven't yet. Some of you have been saved for years and you need to ask yourself who's the last person you shared Jesus with? Some of you have lived in the same house for decades, but you have never cared enough to walk to your neighbors and talk to them about Jesus.
That's a tragedy. If your neighbor had cancer and you had a cure for cancer, would you not bring it to them? What if they reject the idea that they have cancer? What if they reject the idea that they're a sinner? What if they reject Christ?
Your job has never been to save them. It's only been to tell them. You bring them the truth.
Some plant, some water. God brings increase. I've been rejected much more than I've been accepted when I've shared the gospel.
Not unkind rejections, just people that are not into it. Not for me, not for me, not for me. It takes on average 7.6 times for somebody to hear the gospel before they get saved, the study was shown. People have to hear the gospel on average at least seven times before they hear the gospel. You don't know if you're the fourth person, fifth person, but you're planting that seed and God promises the word will not return void.
Keep planting it, God will bring the increase. I had said somebody reach out to me who moved out of state. They used to bring their nephew to church. He was the most outspoken, agnostic slash atheistic kid. Eric was extremely atheistic, but this kid was very ardent and he would sit there and like it's in the service we like bow your heads and he would just look at me like real irritated like that. He would never bow his head. One time I looked at him, I said, bow your head. He's like, okay. His dad came in and just rejected it and we talked and so I would just nice and kindly sit down and talk with him.
That was like 10 years ago. I just found out he just this last year fully and unreservedly gave his life to Christ and is radically in love with Jesus Christ now. That's the grace of God, isn't it? I didn't lead him to Christ, but it's just throwing some seed and water on that and you don't know where you are in that line and we plant, we water, and God brings the increase.
We just plant water. God brings the increase. We need to have a burden for souls. I think about Romans 9. Paul says, brother, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.
He said, I bear them record. They have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. They're going about to establish their own righteousness and in verse number, actually Romans chapter 9 verse 1, he says, I say the truth in Christ. I lie not my conscience also bearing me witness on the Holy Ghost. He said, I have great heaviness and a continual sorrow in my heart.
It just because in chapter 10, he says, they're going about. They're lost. They need to be saved and the sorrow was just burdening him and he said in verse 3 of Romans 9, I could wish that myself were a curse from Christ for my kinsmen and my brethren according to the flesh. He was so broken over them being saved that he just passionately kept bringing the gospel to them. I would ask the question, who's the last person that was lost that you prayed for? If God's people are not praying for the lost, they won't be telling the lost. Prayer precedes proclaiming. We have to first pray and be burdened for the lost. I want to ask you this question. If every prayer in your life was answered over the last week, would anybody have been saved?
That's great if it is. And so ask yourself that on a regular basis. If all my prayers were answered today and this week, would anybody come to Christ? And there should be and I'm so thankful for the prayers that are going on through our church. I had a pastor say this the other day and it's true. You know, I get prayed for more than anybody in the church. Not because I'm deserving of it, just because probably most people are like, let's pray for the pastor. That is so humbling to me.
I don't like preach because I can do this out of some power of my own. This is the grace of God that is called a sinner who saved me and allows me to do anything for him. Thank you for your prayers. What a mercy that is. You're like, well, we know you need it, pastor.
Appreciate that. I think about Matthew 4 19. Jesus told the disciples. He says, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Follow me and I'll make you fishers of men.
The equation is easy. Followers will be fishers. Followers will be fishers. If we're not fishing for men, how can we truly be following him? How can Christ sit on the throne of our hearts and his burden not be sitting there?
If Christ be on the throne of my heart and he was a fisher of men, how could I follow and not fish? A study was done that only 2% of church members have ever led anyone to the Lord. And why is that the case? One of the reasons is because 50% of professing believers don't feel like it's their responsibility.
I mean, think about it. Have you ever been to a church that never challenged you to win others to Christ? I grew up in churches that never encouraged me to share the gospel and I didn't even think about it. If Jesus came to reach the loss with the gospel and gave it as the great commission, Matthew 28, verse 18 through 20, go into all the world and preach the gospel, how could we be in a church that doesn't focus on that?
It's an incredible thing. If you're saved today and you know Christ, somebody loved you enough to bring you the gospel. And so the first way we can reach people is through evangelism. Everything we do here, we want to be evangelistic. We do funerals, we preach the gospel. We do weddings, we preach the gospel. We have teen events, the gospel's preached.
We have anniversary service, we preach, whatever we do. Christ is going to come up. We're going to tell people they are sinners in need of a savior because there's nothing more loving than God and there's nothing more loving than that. If a doctor knew you had stage four cancer and there was a remedy for you and he didn't tell you that, who cares what the weather is like?
Who cares about what's going on? You're going to die and you need a remedy. That's the gospel. We must be a part of that. Secondly is through discipleship.
And I'm just going to have to carry this second half into next week because I got three more points and it's not going to work. I want to close with an illustration that I just remember years ago. There's a man named Oscar Schindler. A movie came out in 1993 called Schindler's List.
It's pretty graphic. But it's about a man who was an industrialist, owned a big factory during the Holocaust. And he would buy Jews to come and work in his factory for him. And he would buy them off the trains that were going to be killed at Auschwitz. And he would have them work for him while they were making weaponry for the Germans.
But instead of making weapons, they were actually sabotaging all the weapons and the things that the Germans were going to be using. At the end of the movie, which is a true story, after the Germans lost, he had 1,200 Jews there working for him that he had purchased with his money. By doing that, he basically bankrupt himself. He had really nothing left. And he went in and he told all the people that he had basically purchased with all that he could do, he said, you guys are now free.
And the most impactful portion of that movie is at the very end, his right-hand man, who was a Jewish man, he begins weeping to him. He says, why did I not do more? He says, why do I still have this vehicle? He said, I could have sold this vehicle and bought 10 Jews with this. He said, why did I not do more?
And he took his ring off. He said, I could have bought another Jew with this. Why did I not do more? And I think about that, the moment that we step into eternity, I just wonder if we will say the same thing. Why didn't I do more?
I mean, we did some things, but was there not more that we could have done? I just want us to consider how we're living now to impact eternity. I think it starts with praying, fasting, giving of our heart to God, and when he owns our heart, he owns our life.
Friend, this week, take some time to fast something. Get our life lined up with what really matters. Begin a prayer list that has lost souls on it. Get a burden for souls to be saved. Get a burden so that other people can know Christ. Begin to pray for them. If you ever want me, I would come over and sit down with a lost person with you, and we'll talk about Jesus, and I love doing that. But every one of us need to be equipped to do that. Let's begin to live now like we would have wished we lived when we step across the line of eternity. Lord, teach me to number my days that I may give myself to wisdom. Only one life will soon be past, and it's only those things done for Christ are gonna last, amen? Let's all stand this morning.
