Introduction / Review:
zeal
Def: great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective.
Romans 12:11 - Do not be slothful in zeal...
Romans 9:1-3 – I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
Exodus 32:32 - But now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.
Why I Am Fired Up to Share Christ (2 Cor 5:14-21):
- I am Controlled by Jesus' love. (2 Cor 5:14-15)
- I see people as Spiritual beings. (2 Cor 5:16-17)
- I Represent God to people! (2 Cor 5:18-20)
- I have a Life-Changing message! (2 Cor 5:21)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:38-00:42
Our sermon series is Bible Basics.
00:42-00:49
And we are looking at ten people from the Bible that you need to know, trying to get a panoramic view of the Bible.
00:50-00:55
And with these people we have been studying, we've been learning some very important lessons.
00:59-01:02
Abraham taught us what it means to have faith in the Lord.
01:04-01:08
Joseph taught us what it means to trust in the Lord, even when things look horrible.
01:10-01:13
Moses taught us what it means to be dependent on the Lord.
01:15-01:19
Joshua taught us what it meant to have courage in the Lord.
01:21-01:26
Saul taught us the consequences of being disobedient to the Lord.
01:27-01:30
David showed us what it was like to worship the Lord.
01:30-01:34
And Solomon showed us how to get wisdom from the Lord.
01:36-01:42
Jesus taught us that He is the salvation of the Lord.
01:43-01:52
And last week we saw Peter showed us what it looks like when we have messed up bad.
01:53-01:56
Peter showed us restoration in the Lord.
01:57-02:08
Well, this past Thursday I was on my way to pick up Cade from school when the gas tank was on E, pulled into sheet right there on 910 and 79.
02:09-02:11
And every pump was full as usual.
02:11-02:13
That place is always hopping.
02:13-02:16
And waited, found one open, pulled in.
02:16-02:23
And as I'm standing there pumping gas, all of a sudden this silver Jeep Grand Cherokee rolls up right in front of me.
02:23-02:26
And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, like really close.
02:26-02:30
And this guy leans out the passenger window.
02:30-02:33
He's like, oh, I was starting to roll up on you like that bro.
02:34-02:43
I'm like, "It's all good?" He goes, "Hey, we get some overstock that we gotta unload.
02:43-02:55
"Do you wanna buy a home theater?" Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking, Rich, was I learned my lesson from buying the $500 worth of meat out of the back of that guy's truck.
02:57-02:58
Hey, the Lord is growing me.
03:00-03:27
So I'm like, I just smiled, I said, "Hey, no thank you." you didn't even hear the price yet bro! But here's the thing, even if it cost a nickel, I have zero use for a home theater. Right? I don't want to be rude to this guy, but I have zero use for a home theater. It could have been the greatest home theater system ever!
03:30-03:33
But I have no use for a home theater.
03:36-03:40
And I just said, you know what, man, I'm just not outfitted for it, but thank you.
03:40-03:48
And he just drove over and started trying to sell home theaters to the tow truck driver in the pump beside me.
03:50-03:59
But you know, as he left, I'm standing there pumping gas, and I was thinking to myself, I was thinking, "Alex, how would you like to have that job?
04:00-04:10
"Could you imagine showing up to work "and you're punching in and your boss is like, "'All right, step into my office.' "Like, 'Okay, what do you got for me today, chief?'
04:10-04:11
(laughs)
04:12-04:19
"'I need you to get onto the gas station "'and sell some home theaters.' "I'm like, 'That sounds like a terrible job.
04:20-04:31
"'A terrible job.' "Like, just going pump to pump to pump, asking complete strangers if they want to buy a home theater.
04:31-04:32
And then I was thinking about it.
04:32-04:34
I'm like, what's the demographic there?
04:34-04:40
Like, how many people at a gas station buy a home theater on impulse, right?
04:41-04:47
I mean, I can understand buying like a pack of gum or a Milky Way Midnight or a bottle of Coke Zero or whatever on impulse.
04:48-04:52
But I just can't imagine being at the pump and being like, you know what?
04:52-04:53
I haven't even thought about a home theater.
04:53-04:59
that you're offering me one, sure, how much? I just don't...
04:59-05:15
Then I got thinking a little more about this, and you're like, "Man, you thought about this a lot more than maybe you should have." And I thought, you know, that's something great about my job, and I would say Harvest Bible Chapel, that's something great about our job, is we have something that everybody needs. Right?
05:16-05:36
We have something that everybody needs, literally everyone, whether you're young or old, whether you're a man or a woman, whether you're black or white, whether you're rich or poor, no matter where you've been, no matter what you've done, we have something that we are offering in this establishment that literally everybody needs.
05:39-05:43
And the last guy on our list, the guy we're looking at today, has a man named Paul.
05:44-05:46
And this guy totally got it.
05:48-05:51
the greatest missionary of all time.
05:52-06:00
We spent three years in the book of Acts, and a huge chunk of that time was talking about this man.
06:01-06:09
He had the message, he had a plan, but there was something that made Paul effective.
06:11-06:24
On top of just having the message, which is absolutely essential, on top of having a plan, which is crucial, He had something else that made him so effective that without this thing, nothing happens.
06:24-06:30
And if we don't have this thing here at Harvest Bible Chapel, nothing is going to happen.
06:30-06:32
And that thing is called zeal.
06:35-06:36
What is zeal?
06:36-06:37
What is that?
06:38-06:48
Well the definition is it's great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective.
06:50-06:54
Great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective.
06:55-07:01
I would suggest to you in our mission of making disciples, I would suggest to you there is no greater cause.
07:03-07:17
We're doing, you realize, the thing that we're doing, the work that we're doing, if the Bible's true and I believe it is, the work that we're doing here changes lives for eternity.
07:19-07:29
And if zeal is greater energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective, then I would say there should be no greater energy or enthusiasm for what we are doing here.
07:32-07:34
Because what we are doing here matters more than anything.
07:36-07:45
Romans 12, 11, Paul says, "Do not be slothful and zeal." And he was a guy who lived it.
07:46-07:48
Look what he said in Romans chapter 9.
07:48-07:51
He said, "I'm speaking the truth in Christ.
07:51-07:51
I'm not lying.
07:51-07:58
My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
08:00-08:15
Or I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh." See, Paul was Jewish, and many Jews at this time had rejected Jesus Christ as Messiah, and it grieved Paul so much.
08:16-08:26
He said, "You know, I'd be willing to go to hell if it meant they would receive Jesus Christ." Church, that's zeal.
08:28-08:33
And we know such a thing is not possible, transferring your salvation, that's not possible.
08:34-08:37
But what I want you to see is the heart behind that.
08:38-08:43
He says, "That's how much I care about these people." Moses had that going on too.
08:44-08:48
Remember back in Exodus 32, the whole golden calf incident?
08:49-08:49
Remember that story?
08:50-09:07
Moses is up on a mountain talking to God and Israel's like, "Hey, let's make a God." They craft this calf out of the gold, and Moses comes down and busts it up and makes them drink it, and it's just a horrible scene.
09:08-09:11
But I want you to see Exodus 32.32, what Moses prays to God.
09:11-09:25
He says, "But now if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written." Just like Paul, Moses was like, God, if you have to condemn somebody, condemn me.
09:26-09:27
But save your people.
09:28-09:29
And church, that's zeal.
09:29-09:32
That is compassion for lost people.
09:32-09:38
Even, and Paul and Moses both knew this well, very wicked lost people.
09:40-09:43
But can you imagine giving up your salvation for somebody else?
09:43-09:45
That's not like donating a kidney, right?
09:47-09:53
Like that's great enough to do something like that, to be willing to go to hell on behalf of someone else.
09:56-10:07
I look at Paul and I look at Moses and I think, "How much does my heart break for lost people?" I think you have to ask yourself that.
10:07-10:09
How much does your heart break for lost people?
10:09-10:10
You know lost people.
10:10-10:15
They're in your family and you're working with them and they live across the street from you.
10:17-10:19
But yeah, the last people I know are nasty.
10:19-10:23
The people that Paul and Moses dealt with were nasty people.
10:26-10:30
But today we're looking at one of the richest passages in the Bible.
10:30-10:32
This is one of my favorite passages in the entire Bible.
10:34-10:35
So rich in theology.
10:37-10:43
But today what I want us to look at is the zeal that's behind this passage.
10:43-11:43
church when you really get the theology, when you really understand spiritually what is being taught in this passage, you get fired up. You get the zeal to share the good news of Jesus Christ. So in your outline today I want you to jot some things down. We're gonna come alongside the Apostle Paul here, why I am fired up to share Christ. Why I am fired up to share Christ. First of all, number one, I am controlled by Jesus' love. I am controlled by Jesus' love. Look at verse 14. Paul writes, "For the love of Christ controls us." Stop right there. The love of Christ controls us. Understand This is such a foundational statement to everything that follows.
11:44-11:44
We've got to make this clear.
11:45-11:50
Paul is saying we are motivated not by our love for him.
11:50-11:54
He's not saying, "I love Jesus so much that this is what I do." That's not what he's saying.
11:55-12:13
He's saying, "I'm motivated by the love that Jesus has for me." He says, "The love of Christ controls us." That word control literally means pressure causing action.
12:15-12:24
In other words, with this bottle of water, we can make the action of a fountain coming out of the top.
12:24-12:28
And what is the way that happens?
12:29-12:30
Watch yourself.
12:34-12:35
I didn't mean it to shoot that way.
12:36-12:36
[LAUGHTER]
12:37-12:39
I thought it was going to go up.
12:39-12:43
But do you see how the pressure causes the action?
12:44-12:47
Please tell me you saw that, because otherwise--
12:48-12:48
[LAUGHTER]
12:49-12:52
I just-- we don't do it that way, Alex.
12:52-12:53
[LAUGHTER]
12:54-12:59
Please tell me you understand the illustration, because otherwise I'm going to take a tail kicking for nothing.
13:01-13:02
Did you guys see it over here?
13:03-13:09
Look, pressure causes action.
13:10-13:11
Do you need paper towels or anything?
13:12-13:12
We good?
13:12-13:12
All right.
13:13-13:13
All right.
13:14-13:30
And what Paul is saying here is Jesus Christ, I put the cap on, Jesus Christ is like this pressure on me that when it comes to sharing the love of Christ, it just like shoots out of me all the time and I can't help it.
13:30-13:32
Like, can you shut up about Jesus for a second?
13:33-13:39
He's like, I certainly cannot because the love of Christ has just, it's got me.
13:39-13:42
And it's this pressure that's on me and I can't let it go.
13:45-13:57
And as soon as we talk about witnessing evangelism, mission work, local outreach, I know, as soon as we talk about that, there's gonna be somebody that's like, oh, here comes the sales pitch.
13:57-13:59
Here comes the guilt trip.
14:00-14:10
to witness, "He's going to guilt me into evangelizing, and I'm not going to do that at all today." Because here's the thing when it comes to evangelism.
14:13-14:15
The love of Christ controls us.
14:16-14:20
And when you've got the love of Christ, you can't help it.
14:22-14:28
It's like telling a Pittsburgh Penguins fan to get excited that the season is starting.
14:28-14:30
Is such a thing necessary, Corinne?
14:30-14:30
No.
14:32-14:38
It's like telling a bride-to-be to think about her wedding.
14:38-14:41
Hey, hey, could you spend some time thinking about your wedding?
14:41-14:43
Is such a thing necessary, Kaylee?
14:43-14:44
No.
14:46-14:51
It's like telling a mom of a special needs child to be protective of that child.
14:52-14:53
Is such a thing necessary?
14:55-15:03
You see, that's what it's like trying to convince someone who knows Jesus' love to share Him.
15:03-15:20
And if you don't know the power that love has to motivate you to the point that it feels like it's controlling you, if you don't know what that kind of love is like, then you haven't met the right person yet.
15:23-15:24
And you certainly haven't met Jesus.
15:26-15:28
Because nothing moves a person like love.
15:28-15:29
Nothing.
15:31-15:33
How does His love control us exactly?
15:36-15:38
Well look at verse 14, he explains it.
15:39-15:49
"The love of Christ controls us because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died.
15:52-16:04
He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who for their sake died and was raised." How does His love control us?
16:04-16:06
He says, "Because we've concluded this.
16:06-16:12
Yes, we are alive in Christ, but yes, those who truly live in the Spirit live by this truth.
16:12-17:01
Being alive in Christ means being dead to myself." See, we're going to have baptisms here next week, and that's the whole thing behind the picture. That's why we don't do it this way Alex. That's the whole point of this picture is when you're going under the water you're saying I am dead and when you come up out of the water you're saying I'm identifying with the new life in Jesus Christ. That's what he's talking about in this passage. I don't live for me anymore. You know once upon a time I had all kinds of goals and dreams and And Christ came into my life and saved me and changed me and all the stuff that I had planned, but that ship really sailed.
17:04-17:10
My life belongs to Jesus, and because it belongs to Jesus, His mission is what matters, and that's what controls me.
17:11-17:12
You see, it's not obligation.
17:13-17:15
I'm not saved by evangelism.
17:18-17:20
It's not like Jesus has a quota for me.
17:22-17:24
I'm saved by His grace.
17:24-17:30
I'm saved because I experienced His awesome love and I received that by faith.
17:30-17:37
And it's that love that saves lost people like me that I just can't keep it to myself.
17:40-17:46
And I know many of you know this, but being a preacher was the absolute last thing I ever wanted to do.
17:46-17:49
Like, no! I told God no!
17:49-17:52
And I just can't seem to shut up about Him!
17:54-17:56
Because of His love!
17:58-18:02
So Harvest Bible Chapel, we ain't selling home theaters out of the back of a Jeep.
18:04-18:09
We're reaching lost people because we are controlled by Jesus' love.
18:10-18:15
As I heard one person put it, he says, "You know, I'm just a nobody that's telling everybody about somebody that can save anybody.
18:16-18:17
Controlled by the love of Jesus.
18:19-18:22
Number two, why I'm fired up to share Christ?
18:22-18:24
Because I see people as spiritual beings.
18:25-18:28
I see people as spiritual beings.
18:29-18:30
Look at verse 16.
18:32-18:41
He says, "From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh." Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.
18:42-18:46
He's saying we stop seeing people as external.
18:49-18:49
Just seeing the outside.
18:50-18:52
Paul's like, you know, we used to do this to Jesus, right?
18:53-18:55
We only looked at him from an external standpoint.
18:55-19:04
We looked at Jesus and we're like, that Jewish man is a radical teacher and a troublemaker.
19:04-19:08
And he says, I thought Jesus was just some guy.
19:09-19:15
And then my eyes were open and I'm like, I don't regard Christ according to the flesh anymore.
19:16-19:18
And then when you do that, you can't regard people.
19:20-19:27
See Paul says, "I see people differently." And people controlled by the love of Christ see people differently.
19:29-19:41
See you don't walk around and look at people and think, "Well, there's a worthless teenager." Or, "There's an annoying kid." "There's a stupid politician." there's a hopeless addict.
19:43-19:44
You see people as eternal.
19:46-20:00
You look at people and you think, "That person is going to spend eternity somewhere." And I have a message that God is going to use for that person to...
20:01-20:02
to what?
20:03-20:05
To make that person religious? No.
20:06-20:09
To make that person moral? No.
20:09-20:10
Now look at verse 17.
20:11-20:14
"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
20:15-20:17
The old has passed away.
20:17-20:20
Behold, the new has come." New creation.
20:21-20:25
Jesus didn't come into the world to turn bad people into good people.
20:25-20:27
And I've thought that my whole life.
20:27-20:28
That's what Jesus does.
20:28-20:29
He turns bad people to good people.
20:29-20:31
And that's not what He does.
20:31-20:33
He turns dead people into alive people.
20:34-20:36
And more on that in a minute.
20:39-20:41
Church, you've got to get this. People are spiritual beings.
20:42-20:44
Because of that, they're eternal beings.
20:46-20:48
And that fires me up to share Christ with people.
20:50-20:51
Because they're spending eternity somewhere.
20:54-20:55
Mike, can you bring me a chair up here, please?
20:56-21:02
At Harvest Bible Chapel, we encourage you to look for red apples.
21:03-21:04
What are red apples?
21:05-21:06
Thanks, Mike.
21:07-21:14
"Apples" refers to people who are ripe to the gospel.
21:16-21:22
That you need to learn to look for people who are ripe for the gospel.
21:24-21:29
And I want you to listen very closely because it took me a very long time to learn this.
21:30-21:32
A very long time to learn this.
21:34-21:35
and persuaded of better things for you.
21:38-21:40
This is what it took me so long to learn.
21:41-21:43
Some people just aren't ready to hear the gospel.
21:45-21:47
They just aren't ready.
21:50-21:53
Like, "Well, how did you learn that lesson?" I can tell you the exact day I learned that lesson.
21:55-22:03
At my old church, I stopped to get gas at the Sunoco, and you're like, "Well, Pastor Jeff, Servant has a lot of gas station stories.
22:06-22:08
I got like four more before we're done today.
22:11-22:21
But I went in to pay and the cashier, he said, I don't even remember how we even got into this.
22:22-22:26
He said, I need you to help me buy Christmas presents for my grandkids.
22:28-22:31
And I'm like, is this some kind of promotion that they're offering at A+?
22:31-22:36
Like, fill your tank, buy presents for somebody's grandkids.
22:36-22:37
Like, do I get a punch card for that?
22:37-22:44
Or it was, can you just agree with me that that's a really weird thing for the cashier at the gas station to say?
22:44-22:47
Okay, some of you are looking at me like, that's how they do it.
22:49-22:50
What?
22:51-22:55
So I'm thinking, all right, gospel opportunity.
22:56-23:01
I'm like, yeah, you come to my office and we'll give you some gift cards or whatever.
23:01-23:17
and I'd like to talk to you about Jesus Christ." And he's like, "Okay." So he comes to our office and we're sitting in the conference room and I'm sitting there and I am giving him the gospel with like both barrels.
23:18-23:22
It was the greatest gospel presentation I ever gave in my life.
23:22-23:40
I mean, you talk about thorough and passionate and I was laying it out The entire time that I was giving this man the gospel, this was his body language, and I am by no means exaggerating this.
23:40-23:44
This is what he was doing while I was sharing the gospel with him.
23:45-23:46
(exhaling)
23:47-23:48
(inhaling)
23:49-23:50
(exhaling)
23:50-23:52
Didn't even look at me.
23:53-23:53
(exhaling)
23:55-23:56
(exhaling)
23:57-23:58
(exhaling)
24:00-24:07
And then I got to the part of death on the cross, and he's just like, "How much longer?
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How much longer is this?" I'm like, "I'm almost done, I'm almost to the boat!" He's like, "All right." So I rolled the gospel out to him, hardcore.
24:21-24:27
And he, of course at this point, Billy Graham in me is looking for a response.
24:27-24:30
And he's like, "Yeah, I got to go to work now.
24:30-24:41
Can I get those gift cards?" I gave him his gift cards, and I was just like, "What the heck happened there?" I mean, I had the right message, and I was fired up for it.
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And the next time I saw him was the following November.
24:49-24:55
He said, "Hey, can you help me get presents for my grandkids for Christmas?" You want to come and hear the gospel?
24:57-24:59
That guy taught me something.
25:00-25:04
He taught me that some people just aren't ready to hear the gospel.
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Now, don't misunderstand me.
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Yes, yes, yes, we share with anyone.
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Yes, church, we take every opportunity the Lord gives us.
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Yes, for sure.
25:20-25:23
But in Red Apple evangelism, here's what I want to encourage you towards.
25:23-25:26
Look for people who are hurting.
25:27-25:31
Look for people who are experiencing the emptiness of life.
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Look for people who are saying, "My thing ain't working!" Look for people who are looking for the very thing that you know Jesus Christ offers.
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And here's the good news.
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There's no shortage of those people.
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They're everywhere.
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Those people are everywhere.
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You're related to some of them.
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You work with some of them.
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Some of them live in your neighborhood.
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Look for them. Invite them to church.
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Invite them to small groups.
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Invite them to the life transformation, the new creation that Jesus Christ gives people who recognize they need it.
26:10-26:11
So why am I fired up to share Christ?
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Well, I'm controlled by Jesus' love.
26:14-26:16
I see people as spiritual beings.
26:17-26:18
Look for the red apples, people.
26:20-26:26
3) I represent God the people. I represent God the people.
26:27-26:29
Go to verses 18-20.
26:29-26:54
"All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation." That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
26:55-26:59
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us.
27:00-27:07
We implore you, or we beg you, or we urge you.
27:07-27:08
Do you see the zeal?
27:09-27:15
We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
27:17-27:33
So, God in heaven wants to broadcast the news of the gospel to all the earth, to all of these lost and hurting people that need to know His love, and the way God chooses to broadcast the message is through you.
27:35-27:38
That is incredible!
27:39-27:41
But that's how God would choose to work.
27:43-27:46
That's why verse 20 says that we are ambassadors for Christ.
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You know what an ambassador is?
27:48-27:55
An ambassador is somebody that goes to another country and represents their own king to that country.
27:58-28:02
That ambassador doesn't go to another country for a personal agenda.
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Like here's what I was thinking, that ambassador is not there to change their culture to say I'm here to whip you in shape to be...
28:12-28:16
No, that ambassador is there to communicate a message on the king's behalf.
28:17-28:22
And church, really, at the end of the day, that's our job too, is to represent the king to another culture.
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Represent the king in another culture.
28:26-28:26
That's what we do.
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I had a friend one time who, more like co-worker, "Did you meet him at a gas station, Pastor Jeff?" "No, I didn't." Okay, but I had this friend just through sports, the one time we were getting ready for the event, he came up to me and we were talking and he just very sincerely, he said, "You know what, man?" He goes, "You are Jesus to me." And immediately I was like trying to downplay that, like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm just, I wanna, I like to talk about Jesus and share Jesus and I'm trying to, I'm really trying to downplay that whole thing, but...
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But there's a real sense in which that's true.
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And I don't just mean of me.
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I mean biblically of everyone who follows Jesus Christ.
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He said, "You're Jesus to me." And I say to you, "You name the name of Christ, you claim He's your Lord and Savior, well then listen, you're Jesus to somebody." In your homes, dad, you're Jesus to your kids.
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At the workplace, you work with a bunch of lost, selfish people, anybody?
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You're Jesus to them.
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And they might not verbalize it like this guy did to me, but it's true.
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You represent Jesus to people.
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For some people, you are the first impression that they have of Jesus Christ.
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What is Christianity about?
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What does the Bible teach?
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Who is this Jesus that they follow?
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They're evaluating all of that by the way that you act at work, the way you act in your home, the way you act in your community.
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Part of that, of course, means getting the message right, obviously.
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You gotta get the message right.
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And what's the message?
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You know, a lot of times in evangelism, this is the message.
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It's like, do you want to have meaning in your life?
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Do you want to have your best life now?
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Or do you want to know purpose in your life?
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Or would you like to be happy?
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A lot of times that's how evangelism is presented.
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And the gospel is about none of those things.
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But what's the gospel about?
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Well, look, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but in those verses that we just read, 18 through 20, Paul said the same thing under inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
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He said the same thing five times, what the gospel's about.
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Did you catch it?
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Five times.
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One word begins with an R.
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Reconciliation.
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That's what the gospel is about, okay?
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You come to know Jesus, yes, you're going to experience joy and happiness, and yes, you're going to understand meaning and purpose and all of that, but those are leaves on the tree.
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The root, the foundation, the very essence of the gospel is found in the word reconciliation.
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That's the gospel.
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Like, "Well, that reconciliation, that sounds like there's some hostility going on." There is!
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That's the problem.
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We have sinned against the Holy God.
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Every nasty thought, every rotten attitude, every harsh word, every time you avoid doing the thing that you know you should do.
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It's like spitting in God's face.
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It's like saying, "You're not God, I'm God!" You've sinned against Him, but He provided the means of reconciliation.
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See that's why verse 19, you better have this underlined in your Bible, where He says, "In Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself." Here's the thing, look, "Not counting their trespasses against them." Not counting their trespasses against them.
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See everyone knows deep down, everyone knows that they are flawed people.
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Everyone knows they're heading to death.
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And everyone again verbalizing or not is wondering what happens when I stand before God?
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What happens when the day comes that I have to answer for all of the wicked things that I've done and all the mean things that I've said?
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What's going to happen on that day when I have to stand before God and answer for my nastiness?
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Well, see, here's the good news.
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I get to represent God now.
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And in representing God, I get to say to that person, "What if I told you," sounds like an infomercial now, "What if I told you there's a way that God will not hold your trespasses against you. Doesn't that sound like good news? There's a way that God will not hold your trespasses against you. How could that possibly be? And that takes us to our last point. I have a life changing message. Look at verse 21. I've referenced this verse probably more than any other verse in the Bible over the last 20 some years or whatever because Because this verse is the gospel.
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He says, "For our sake, He made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." See the apparent dilemma that we see that God has to face is that justice has to be satisfied, right?
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Justice has to be satisfied.
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We know that.
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There has to be justice.
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We understand that even on an earthly level.
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Imagine a man goes to court and he's been accused of violent murder.
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This man goes to court and he says, "You know what, Your Honor?
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I did it.
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I confess.
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I did it and I'm sorry.
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Can I go?" And the judge is like, "Sure.
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Go ahead." What would happen to that judge? Tell me what would happen to that judge?
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Do you think he's going to be judged very much longer? He's not upholding the law, right? On a personal whim he decides to let a confessing murderer walk out? He's not going to be serving for long. Somebody's going to make sure of that.
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What's the problem? The problem is there's no justice.
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But see that's the most beautiful thing about the gospel.
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So in the gospel, God in his love provided justice.
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That's why verse 21 says, "God made Jesus to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." You see there's a swap that takes place.
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The Bible says that when Jesus was on the cross, He took all of your and my sin on Himself.
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And in exchange, He gave us the very righteousness of God.
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In other words, when Jesus was on the cross, God treated Jesus as if Jesus was guilty.
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Though He was not.
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Jesus never committed one sin.
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But God treated him as if he was guilty of all of the sin.
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And instead, God treats us as if we live Jesus' life.
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We are treated as if we are righteous, though we are not.
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That's a life-changing message, people.
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That is a life-changing message.
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I'm not shy about sharing that. Are you kidding me?
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Hey, it doesn't matter what you've done.
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and God loves you and wants to forgive you.
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And he made the way that that can happen.
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So when I think of the love of Christ, who took our sin on himself so he could give us his righteousness, I have no problem telling people of such an awesome God.
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And when I think of Harvest Bible Chapel, a place where Christ is worshiped and people are loved and his word is taught, I have no problem inviting people to check this place out.
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I don't have a duty to share Christ.
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I have a delight.
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No, that's not the word either.
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I have a zeal to share Christ.
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Let's pray.
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Father in Heaven, I just simply pray today that we would grow in the understanding of Your love.
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I realize that I can't guilt or motivate or give some kind of a sales pitch to get people to be evangelists.
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The only thing that controls us is the love of Christ.
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Father, help us to grow in our understanding of that.
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And when we truly understand what Jesus has done, when we understand who He is, when we understand what He saved us from, When we see people as eternal beings who are heading to hell, apart from the intervention of Christ, like Paul, it fires us up.
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So Father, I pray that as we leave here, You'd give us eyes to see the world as a mission field.
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We see the lost for what they are, but Father, I pray that we would see ourselves for what Your Word says we are as well.
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We are ambassadors of Christ. We are Your spokespeople.
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We represent You, God, to a lost and dying world.
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Father, Your Word tells us You are pleading with the world to come back to You.
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And You're pleading through us.
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Let us not be slothful and zeal. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read 2 Corinthians 5:14-21
1 - On a scale of 1-10, rate your zeal for Christ (1 = no zeal, 10 = on fire sharing Christ with everyone). How can you score a higher rating?
2 - How do you recognize a “red apple”? How can you start a conversation with them about Jesus Christ?
3 - Explain the Gospel using 2 Cor 5:21. Could you explain that to someone who needs to hear it?
BREAKOUT
Pray for: zeal, ability to spot “red apples”, and boldness to share Christ!