SPEAKER_04 0:00

Hey, we're gonna go ahead and start. And um I'd I I want to pray for us. And then I'm going to ask a few questions to Josh. Um I don't want to give it away. Let's just pray. Dear God, thank you so much for your love. Just thank you for just all that you do for us. Thank you for your son. And just just Lord, just thank you for the joy you put in our hearts. And Lord, help us be about sharing the gospel like we're talking about here, just as we go through our normal conversations. Lord, I love the stories of all the people that you're stirring in their hearts. In Jesus I pray. Amen. Amen. Okay. Hello. Last uh Saturday, Joshua is move, or Josh is moving into an apartment, and he said he needed some help. So I went over to help, and we're doing this, and he says, I've been waiting. I got to tell you this story. And he started telling me the story. So I'm going to. Okay, so last week, Pastor was encouraging us about maybe some phrases that we would hear where people would hear the phrase and stiff arm us. So listen to this. Joshua shows up to work. He's working with a guy that first time there, right? And he comes up and tell us, he's listened to a podcast. Tell us a little bit about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

So I have a I have a guy, and it wasn't his first time there. He would he's been there longer than I have, but uh it was our first time actually working together. And uh tells me that he's listening to this podcast about money management and how if he sacrifices today and holds off on things, he can have better stuff in the future. And I was like, okay, it's money management, but I'm not gonna rain on your parade, whatever you think this is, by all means. So I walked away and God touched me and I got to thinking about it. I'm like, well, that's my life right there. I sacrificed everything just so I could have a better future with Christ. So I went back to him a few minutes later and I said, you know, I'm like, that reminds me of something in my life. And he was like, Really, what's that? And I was like, Again, you know, that's I sacrificed everything so I could have a better future with Christ. And he was like, I can see that. He's like, I understand that. So we're trying to work, and he kept coming up to me and wanting to talk. And one of the things he came up and asked me was the same thing that the pastor had told us about was the questions that people have for us. Well, what about the Bible? It's written by man, so that automatically cancels it out and makes it fallible because man's fallible, and I'll end it. No, like that's not how it works. So I pulled out my little Bible app that I have on my phone and I pulled up 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 16, where I showed I showed him, I said, this, and again, going off what Pastor said, never to say, I believe. I said, This is what the Bible says about itself. And I said, All the word of God is divine or profitable for it profitable for reproach, for study, for knowledge. And I told him straight out, yes, man is fallible, but with God, God's spirit moving these people to write it, it's they're writing what God's telling them to write. It's not just their interpretation. They are literally God's spirit is moving in them to write exactly what God's telling them to write. Like, listen, I want this sentence, so you're gonna write this. And they say, okay, sure. And they write it. And I explained that to him, and he was thrilled because apparently, I don't know where he's been going or who else he's been talking to, but he's been asking this question for quite some time, and nobody could give him an answer. Nobody could. So I actually took the time to look it up. I even showed him, had him read it from the Bible so he didn't just take my word for it, so he had something to look at. And we ended up having a great conversation from that point on. We're still currently talking. He's uh he hasn't decided one way or the other, but the door is open. I've he was you know, he's kept it open, and I haven't pushed or prodded because I don't want to lose him. And so, yeah, that's thank you.

SPEAKER_04 4:46

So we're we're in it, we're in his apartment, and um he's just like less than 24 hours. The pastor challenged this, and I got that. Man, that was the first question last week. I got that question. And what was I and I I appreciate Joshua telling me this and coming up willing to share, but what really struck me is Joshua, while we were up in his apartment talking, he said, before I would have told him what I thought of everything. And this time it really wasn't about me, as this is what scripture says. And the guy even said, You told me this, the guy even said, Normally people want to argue with me or whatever, but this they you just told me what scripture, thank you. And so it opened a door. So that was I thought that was pretty cool, just a testimony of, and I will tell you this in the the last couple weeks have just been phenomenal with just people saying, Hey, I was here and I got to share the gospel. Hey, I was here and I got to share, and and um I'm Adam. I mean, it's like I'm a little jealous because like three or four times a day, he's like, Hey, I got to share the gospel today, or I got to pray with someone today. But um, and right now, Jerry's gonna come up. Come here, Jerry. Tonight, we're gonna take tonight to um we've had multiple people come to us and say, you know what? I'm ready to share the gospel. I just don't know exactly how to do it. Okay, so tonight we are going to uh Jerry was a part of the EE for years at First Baptist Church, and so uh he is going to share the gospel to me. He didn't want to just do it, so I'm gonna act like we're at a restaurant. He's gonna share the gospel. We got three or four other, listen, there's only one way to be saved, and that's realizing that Jesus died for my sins, okay? But there's ways to share it, and so Jerry right now is going to uh just so hopefully tonight you're gonna be like, you know what? I like that way, I'm gonna study that way and be prepared that way. But Jerry over these years has done EE, and so we are sitting at a restaurant. Now he told me to be nice to him, so we'll see. So we're sitting at a restaurant, and go ahead, Jerry, how would you share the gospel? Oh, I want to say this though. As we came into my office, as he came into my office and talked about this, he said, Matt, when I was doing EE, the gospel's on my mind all the time. I was sharing the gospel, asking the question a lot. It's been a while, and isn't this what we do sometimes? Jerry is like, you know, it's been a while. I've invited people to church, but I quit asking the gospel question. So he said the other day he was at his ear, ear, what'd you what's he called? The ear doctors not. I was at the audiologist. Okay. And the lady comes in, does things, they were talking about church, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Well, I'd asked her where she went to church, and uh she told me she went to OK Church or Cowboy Church up north of Ambirn. And I said, Well, I'm sort of familiar with cowboy church. Uh how do you love it? I said, I don't see you got any boots on, and she said, No, I don't even have a pair of boots. And uh so we got talking, and I asked her, I said, Well, you know, Ariba McIntyre's sister is really involved with Cowboy Church, and she said, Really? And I said, Yeah, it's a it's a really working deal. And uh, so we got through at the test, and she was finished, and I said, Well, you know, you told me you go to the cowboy church.

SPEAKER_04 8:10

Oh, no, no, no. I want to add to what he told me in the office. She walked out, and he thought, you know what? I didn't share the gospel. You remember you told me that?

SPEAKER_00 8:19

So then she comes back in. So she comes back in, and we were about finished, and I said, Uh, Doctor, I had a question for you. Have you come to a place in your spiritual life where you know for certain that if you died today you'd go to heaven? And she said, Yes. And I said, Well, what would you tell him? And she said, I'd tell him that the Lord Jesus Christ is my personal savior. And I said, Well, thank you for sharing with me.

SPEAKER_04 8:46

So that was it's just on his mind. That's what if we all, if it's on our mind, our conversations, it changes what we're thinking as we share with someone. So go ahead. I'm sorry, Jerry, that was a great story as you're telling me. So go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Well, I was gonna share one other thing before I before I shared with Matt. Uh I really have struggled all this week because of having not shared it in a long time and working on it. But last Wednesday night after church, I was meeting with some grief share people, and then I was leaving. And as I was leaving, I walked by, a homeless guy walked right by me and asked if I had any extra money, and I said, No, I don't really. And I didn't think about it. I walked on and I didn't get to my truck, and the Lord said, I gave you an opportunity. Brom Sunday, I'll tell you one other thing. Brom Sunday, and this is happening. I was standing in line waiting for my order, and the guy looks at me and he said, Uh, I bet your order is 666, isn't it? You got the magic number because he said, I got 665. Two seconds later, I thought I wasn't thinking quick enough. I could have said, Yeah, but I have 777 to override that. But let me get in here.

SPEAKER_04 10:10

Okay, Jerry wanted to sit down to do this. You can do it standing up, but we're sitting down at a restaurant. Jerry tried to back out of this twice because he said, I can share the gospel with someone at the restaurant, but now we're doing it in front of people. So uh I don't know if you noticed, but his hands are shaky and he can't even get anything on his phone. So he's got this.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Matt, have you come to a place in your spiritual life? Well, you know for certain that if you died tonight, you'd go to heaven. I I think so. Well, let me uh let me just follow up with another question. My wife has always said, I always have a lot of questions. Let me ask you another question. Suppose you were to die tonight, and we don't like to think about death. Uh, but suppose you were to die tonight and you was to stand before God, and God doesn't say, Matt, Passmore, why should I let you into my heaven? What would you tell him?

SPEAKER_04 11:07

Well, I'm I'm pretty good. I try to be nice to everyone. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Uh I understood that when you were younger, you went to church. What did the church teach you the way into heaven? I don't remember. Well, I understand that. As we get older, we have a tendency not to remember these younger things. But, Matt, when I heard your first comment, I thought I had some good news for you. In fact, the matter, I probably got the best good news you've heard in a long time. And that is that heaven is an absolutely free gift. For it says, For the wages of sin is death in our word, but the gift of God is eternal life in the Lord Jesus. And then in Ephesians, the second chapter, it says, For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest we should boast. Now, man, what's your idea of a gift?

SPEAKER_04 12:13

Uh like at Christmas, where someone gives me a Christmas gift.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Okay. Um, what in getting a gift, what has to happen before you get that gift?

SPEAKER_04 12:29

Uh someone has to get something ready to give it to me.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Okay. Let's suppose that you went to the store today and you bought Lisa a beautiful ring and you brought it home, and you said, Lisa, I've got this beautiful ring for you. But you can have it just as soon as you fix my dinner. Now, is that a gift?

SPEAKER_04 12:54

No, it's like uh why isn't it? Because uh she has to do something to receive it.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

Right. Somebody has to pay a price for you to get your gift, and because of that, let's in our life we have been kind of taught that we have to earn our own way. And in math in Proverbs, it says there is a way that seemeth right unto man. But in the end there, that's the way of death. And so while it seems right that we earn our way, when we look at what God says about man, he says that man is a sinner. He said, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. And then it says, For by faith, for by faith are you saved, for grace are you saved through faith. And not of yourselves, it's the gift. And then he says, For the wages of sin is death. And we know, I don't know about you, but I know that I'm not a I'm a sinner. I know that I've done things wrong, that I should have done, things I know I should have done right and I didn't, and things that I do wrong. And he said, in in Romans, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. You know, and I told you early on that gift was free, but then he said that there's none righteous. God said that there's none righteous. I know about, I don't know about you, but I know that I'm not. But he also says in Matthew, be ye therefore perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect. And I know Jerry Clark is not. And I don't know about Matt. I've never met a perfect person, and the only perfect one that I ever knew about that crucified him. So I've never been there. Matthew said we had to be perfect. And John 3.16 said, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Then it says, He who believes, he who believes in the Son has life. And he who does not believe does not have life. John 9, six Psalms 9:16 also says the Lord is known by the judgment he executeth. Now I told you I had some good news for you, and I told you heaven's a free gift. I also told you that according to the word, we are sinners. And we know that we're not perfect. So God, in the ends of time back, God looked down and saw that man was not going to be perfect. And there had to be, there's a verse over there, and I can't remember them right where it says with the scripture right now, but it says that there is no remission of sins without the shedding of blood. And Jesus looked down, or God looked down, and knew that we were going to need help. First John chapter 1, verse 1, said, and the word, and if you look at the word, it's capitalized. And it said, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And then if you go to John 1.14, it said, and that word, the same capitalized, became flesh, and he dwelt among us. So we know that Jesus came. We know that God provided a way that we get to know him personally. There's a scripture, I guess two of my very favorite scriptures, and I'm going to read this one to both of these two of you, because in Isaiah 53, 6, it says, all we like sheep have gone astray. And Matt, growing up, I raised sheep, so I know what he's talking about. I have to raise sheep. It says, and we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him, on Jesus, the iniquity of us all. Let me give you an hold up. You know, let's let's suppose this is you, and this is God. God is saying, I've made Jesus to be sinned for you. So he's covered, he covered Jerry Clark because of I needed that sacrifice. But then there's another verse that says, For he made him. God made Jesus. And I'm going to put it personally there, God made Jesus to be sin for Jerry, that Jerry might become the righteousness of God in him. So God made Jesus to be sin for me. You know, and I told you that heaven was a free gift. That man is a sinner and he cannot earn his way into heaven, that he has to have a sacrifice. God in himself became man and lived on this earth. So he might provide that sacrifice for sins. No matter all that I've shared with you. Does that make sense to you? Yes. Well, if it makes sense to you, I got one other question. And that is question, how do you get that? You know, in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, it says, For by grace are ye saved through faith. That not of yourselves, it is the faith. God even provides the faith for you that you might have the belief in Him. And then in Romans 10, 9 and 10, it says, basically, if you'll believe in your heart the Lord Jesus and confess with your mouth that he is the Lord Christ, that you can be saved. Matt, would you like to be saved tonight and receive that free gift?

SPEAKER_04 19:11

Yes. Okay, thank you. So and here's the cool thing I like that and Jerry's phone was messing up. He says, Can I use my phone? Yeah. But it's not a secret. You know what I'm saying? Let them see it. Like Josh pulled out and showed them. Thank you, Jerry. Good job. Good, good, good. And um what what I love about Jerry's testimony or how he shared that is he was prepared. You know what I'm saying? If we're gonna share the gospel, we gotta be prepared to be able to do it. Now, can there be a question we get stuck on that we don't know the answer to? Yes. Hey, I'll get back with you and get back with them, you know. Um, okay, another one I'd like I I got a video I want to show you, Bobby. Hold on just a second. We're gonna show a video. This is called the Three Circles. The guy that wrote this, that came up with this, he moved to a place in Florida that was uh, I think it was Florida, that was a pretty secular area. And he said he would go up and ask the question, hey, if you were going to die tonight and you're standing before God, what would you say? And he he said people would say, I don't even believe there's a God. I don't even believe there's heaven. Like, I'm not scared. You know what I'm saying? Type deal. So he had to kind of in a way come up with a different way to start the conversation. And so he kind of, this is something he they they've taught it before, where you can pull out a napkin and draw this. So, Bobby, can we play that?

SPEAKER_03 20:34

If you turn on the television or look at your Facebook feed, it's very clear that we live in a broken world. There's a lot of death, a lot of disease and suffering. But we also see traces of beauty, like the beauty of a sunset or the laugh of a child. And that's because God's design was perfect when he made it. There was no death or disease or suffering. But starting with the very first people, we as humans chose to go our own way and leave God's perfect design. And that's called sin. And sin is what led to brokenness in our world and us and sinfulness. Well, we don't like to be in brokenness, this state that we're born in. So we try to get out. So for some, they try to get out on their own by climbing the ladder of success at work or school, thinking that'll get them out. Others try to get out themselves by doing good things or being religious and going to church and helping people. And while those are great things, they don't get us out of brokenness. Some try to drown out the brokenness with drugs and alcohol or attempts at suicide or maybe even relationships. And these attempts to get out of brokenness are. End up snapping us back in like a bungee cord. But God loved us so much, He didn't want us to stay in brokenness. So He did for us what we could not do for ourselves. He provided the only way out. And that is through His Son, Jesus. You see, Jesus came down into our world and allowed Himself to be killed on a cross, taking on our sin. And three days later, He rose from the dead. And he declared that if anyone would turn from their way and surrender to Him and believe that Jesus came and died on the cross and rose from the dead and would be willing to make Him their King or their Lord, that they would be forgiven and made new. And would then be able to experience God's perfect design for their life. And I want to ask you, which of these two would you say you're in? Are you still in brokenness? Or have you repented and believed in Jesus and are now back in his design? Okay, you're in brokenness. Well, which one of these two do you want to be in? Okay, great. Well, is there anything that keeps you from turning from your way and believing in the gospel of Jesus and making him your Lord, your King? Okay, great. You know, when I chose to make this decision, I prayed a simple prayer, very similar to this picture. I just told God that I'm sorry for my sin, that I left your design, and for the ways that I've tried to get out of brokenness on my own. I'm ready to turn from my way and surrender to you. And I believe that this is true, and I want to make you my Lord so I can become new and experience your design for my life. Is that something you'd like to do? And then just pray with them. So this is the three circles gospel presentation.

SPEAKER_04 24:06

Okay, and that that again, the guy that even wrote this would tell you this is the beginning, and the Lord works through this, and then there's scripture that follows. You know, I've heard people say this, well, where's the scripture in it? Well, this is talking sin, and it's the gospel as they get in, realize, hey, I'm a sinful person, this leads to scripture. You know what I'm saying? Salvation comes through Christ alone, you know, and that but that's the picture of it. Um he said there, that's something I've uh over the years, have you ever heard, and we used to say this a lot. I remember when I was in a kid, I prayed the prayer. You know, some I, you know, the salvation, I prayed the prayer. And um, you know, over the years I was convicted a little bit by that because it's not the prayer that saves, it's the condition of the heart. And so over the years, you know, a lot of times there's a prayer in the back of the track that they can say or read. And um, over the time it was a lot. I would say three words, the little kid would say three words, and I would say three words, and and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Listen, but the Lord kind of convicted me because it's not about what they pray, it's about what's going on in their life. And what do I mean by that? It's amazing. The last little bit of my children's when I was doing children's ministry, I would have a little girl, little boy, and I would say, now, do you want to give your life to Christ? Do you want to follow him? And we talk about their prayer. And I'd say, well, you just need to tell him what you're wanting to do, and what is it? And I'm gonna tell you, some of these little kids, it was just a powerful prayer of Lord, I am so sorry, I'm sinful, and they list their sins and they said, and I know Jesus came and he died for me, and thank you for that. Will you come and to be my Lord? And I'm talking when they're done, tears are coming down your eye because that's them and what the Lord is doing in their life right then. And so I think a part of the prayer is not the part that saves them. It's the idea of I'm ready to give my life to Christ and ask him to save it. And so, so that's a piece some people say, where do I go next? Because we didn't demonstrate well, Jerry, but the part of the prayer is the idea of I need Jesus that I can't do it on my own. Okay, another way I want to I want to, and then Pastor's gonna do one more or a couple more, and then we're gonna use this time to answer some questions. But if you have your Bibles, I we're at a big student event one time, and I'll never forget this. Kids were going, uh, or you can just jot notes down, but we're gonna be in uh Romans. Um, I'll never forget, you know, when you're with students, it's like, how do you share the gospel? And they're always trying to do hip cool, you know, get attention and all that. And this guy goes, he said, I will always just use the Roman road. Because I can almost read all the verses in the Roman Road, and I don't even have to explain anything because it's that self-explanatory. Okay? So here we go. So I would like to just read it to you, okay? So Romans 3.23. I mean, I think we start with this, the same question. You know, someone's struggling with uh their walk with the Lord, they're just making bad choices, you know, and the same question, you could ask the same question Jerry asked. And then we get into this Romans 3.23. The Bible says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And as I as I talk to a student, the next question is, have you ever sinned? Now I will tell you this if they say they have not sinned, they don't need Jesus. You know what I mean? That was our deal. If a kid does not realize they're a sinner, they gotta realize what sin is first. And as adults, usually they're like, oh yeah, I mess up. And then it's funny that I brought my Bible that I this was the Bible I got in high school when that guy was teaching. And so when I got back to my room, then it tells me right there by that to go to Romans 6. I have it right next to Romans 3.23. It tells me to go to Romans 6. So it tells me exactly what to do in my Bible. See it off, see the little circle right there? Then Romans 6.23 says this, for the wages of sin is death. So before that we said we all sinned, and then we see it says the wage of sin is death. Now, I could even say with an adult, what is a wage? Well, it's something I deserve after I've what? Done something. So it says here, because of our sin we deserve to die. But we don't want to stop there, we'll keep reading, because then it says, But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And like Jerry said, it's a gift. God's given it to us. And then my arrow says, or my deal then says, go to Romans 5. So now we're going to go to Romans 5, 8. But God demonstrated his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Even as a sinner, Christ died for me. And then it tells me to go to Romans 10. So then I would go to Romans 10, 13. And it says this. For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And then my thing says to go to, then I go to uh Romans 10 9 and 10. And then it says this if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. And then I think after just reading that scripture, the idea of, I mean, if you read that, it's pretty much you need Jesus. And then the great thing about that, if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, I think there's a piece that you explain in the confession or the belief that Jesus died for you. And then I will say this there's been times that I've been going through this and just sharing it, and you can see the Lord working. They ain't listening to a word I'm saying, but they're wanting to get to the part of I need Jesus. You know what I'm saying? When the Lord is stirring, and so um then at that point, depending on where they're answering questions, are you ready to confess right there? And I would I would like to say this. My numbers lately, it was funny. I saw Jerry, this is why I thought of Jerry to do this. We used to have the uh was I think it was the every Tuesday, people came in and um we would counsel them and help them, just people off the streets. But in order to get or receive a gift or you know, financially help them, they had to listen to the gospel. And um, you know, a lot of times as you share the gospel, I would like to say every time you get to the point of ready to share the, you know, ready to say the prayer, they're like, I'm all in. But a lot of times they just cut it off right there. And um one thing I've learned just recently though is if they cut me off right there, like they're not interested. I still want to say this. Hey, can I just pray for you? You know, and just pray for them right there. You know, stop. The Lord's maybe working. And um, there's been a few times after that prayer, they're like, well, you know what? Can I ask you some more questions? There's been other times as soon as we pray, they're ready to leave. But you know what? I I think it goes back to the idea, like Pastor said last week. We are not the one that saves them. The Lord saves them, we're just sharing. And Adam keeps as he's texting me, he's like, Man, I got to share it again. I think someone else is gonna reap. Maybe the chance of saying it, but he did he was faithful. So, Pastor, if you want to come.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

Thank you, uh, you guys, for sharing this morning this evening. It's great to uh have y'all get excited. Matt and I are excited every morning. Almost we're getting texts from people, hey, I shared this today, and hey, I met this person shared this today, and it's exciting to see everybody um just buy in and getting excited. We talked last week about living in the tension of am I supposed to share or not with this person and embracing that intention and starting to dive into that to share. Uh, those were several different ways that you we modeled tonight how to be saved. Uh I'll give you two more just for fun. And the point is there are so many ways to be prepared. But if you think about every one of these, what uh Jerry modeled with the EE, what you've read online as you've been doing those classes, the three circles that you saw, uh the ones we've talked about, they all have the same elements. We're all sinners. Romans rode, we're all sinners. Wages of sin is death. The gift of God is a salvation through his eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. God demonstrates love towards us while we're yet sinners. Christ died for us. And so he is the gift of salvation. Uh, and so every one of those goes in that same pattern. Uh, a number of years ago, Southern Baptists created another one. I guess some people felt like uh EE needed to be updated or something. How many of you ever took faith training? Did anybody hear faith training? Take faith training. And so here's what they taught you to do. It's similar to the three circles, but the gimmick was on your hand. F-A-I-T-H, right? Everybody's got that? F-A-I-T-H. And so F is forgiveness. And so, as Jerry talked with uh Matt about, we all need to be forgiven. We all know that we've sinned. We all know that need to be forgiven. If we're adults, you know there's stuff you've done you need to be forgiven for. It's not real hard to understand that. And you can't forgive yourself, you can't fix your own sin. But God has made a way of forgiveness. F. A, forgiveness is available to everyone who would uh turn to Jesus to be saved. It's I impossible. It's impossible to forgive yourself. It's impossible to create a means of getting rid of your sin. You need forgiveness, it's available to you. It's impossible for you to do it yourself. Well, then how do I do that? How can I be forgiven? T is turn, it's repent. That's what that word repent is. It means turn from, just like in the three circles, from the things that you're trying to do to fix yourself or to be worthy or whatever, and you turn to Jesus and make a choice of faith to place your faith in him. And a lot of times we'll say in church life, faith is forsaking all, I trust him. And so that's how you turn to Jesus. And heaven is the promise of salvation. We have a relationship with him, we can never be separated from him, and when we die, we'll spend an eternity in heaven. And so there's a way to do that. There's another method that people use called the net. How many have you ever heard of the net? You ever heard of the net? And the idea is this is the net change in my life. And so you share who you were before you met Jesus, you share your testimony, how you met Jesus. This is a testimony-based thing. You share how God has impacted your life now because you've trusted him as your savior. And then you ask someone, has there been a point in your life where you've done that? And so there's a lot of these ways to do that. So what we're trying to illustrate is preparation. That's what Matt told you. Be prepared. Prepare yourself. You can do that. And so there's a lot of ways to do that, but you need to have in your mind when God presents you an open door, you need to be able to dive through it. And it's all really simple. The Romans wrote: you probably most of you know those verses already. For the wages of sin is death. Everybody, I mean, come on. You've been in church, you know that verse, right? You can do a lot of these with just John 3.16 and 3.17. For God so loved the world, he gave his only son, whosoever believes in him will never perish, but have everlasting life. Why do we perish? We perish because of sin. Sin broke the world, broke us. Sin's got to be judged, right? God judges sin. 17. Jesus did not come into the world to contemn the world because the world was already condemned, but that the world through him might be saved, right? We're already condemned in our sin. But God so loved us, he made a way of salvation. He sent his son to die on the cross for us, but that the world through him might be saved. And what does that mean? He died for us on the cross. How much does it mean that Jesus loves you so much that he took your punishment on the cross? That's that substitution that Jerry was talking about in that EE thing. And then you go to uh, well, how do you accept that forgiveness? How do you receive the forgiveness of God? For God so loved the world, he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him will never perish, but have everlasting life. And so you place your faith in Jesus Christ and trust what he did for you on the cross. I mean, you don't have to memorize 47 scriptures. I mean, it's cool if you got them and you should have them, but you don't have to have all of them. You can have a few and do it quickly and really rely on Scripture to share the gospel. And so the important thing is you have in your mind a way that you have done some practice with. So when God opens the door, you can step right in and you're ready to roll. Does that make sense? All right. You guys have been doing good question time. That's a good question. Uh I think what he is saying there is not that his salvation covers his family, but that with his salvation, it enters into the conversation in his family. And so I think what you have to make clear is that every person has to be saved on their own. Uh every person has to make that choice. And so what I think he's introducing there to the Philippian jailer, that's the jailer, um, is that this idea when you get saved, you give your life to him, you have brought the gospel into your home, and now you can bring it to them. And they, in fact, went back to his house as the story unfolds, and that's what happened. Paul shared with his family, and his family got saved. And we see that in church. Uh we have we've had a number of testimonies in our church where one of the members of the family is saved, and then the rest of the family starts coming and they get involved, and you see them baptized one after the other. And so it is very much a real experience that happens. And you can share with that question. Hey, that happens in our church all the time. Right? So that's a good word. Uh, that's a good thing. But every person has to do that. Now, sometimes you will get this question. Uh someone has a loved one, it may be a recent thing that you just bump into and they say, Are you telling me that my mom, my brother, my friend, my coach, my uh child, my whoever went to hell. And so you will get that question at times. Y'all with me? When you bring that up and they'll say, Do you tell me they went to hell? And what you what I will usually tell them is this I will say, Listen, I have no idea, and you really don't either. Uh, because it is something that happens personally between a person and and Jesus when they give their lives to Christ. And you don't know every moment, every time, whatever in their life when that may have happened. And so what you do know is that God loved them, and you do know that there were opportunities, and that's all we know, and that's all I know for my family, and that's all I know for your family. And so that's really not a question for you. The question for you is, are you gonna go to heaven or not? And you just kind of worked through that. I had a uh when I first became a pastor, uh, I was on staff at my home church, and one of the longtime pastors who was on our staff, really a great leader. He was on there for pastoral experience and all that for young guys like me. He was incredible, Joe Jernigan. I love Joe. And so Joe taught me a lot of stuff, and uh, so I was doing my first funeral service where we weren't sure about that person's spiritual condition. And so the first time, it's never comfortable, but when you're a brand new pastor and you're trying to figure out how to do that, it's really difficult. And so I went to Joe, like I did often. I said, Joe, would I do this? And he said, Here's what you do, Greg, here's the rule. Um, number one, you never preach someone into heaven, is the way pastors would say that. You don't manufacture some salvation testimony for them trying to minister to the family or make it less painful. You can say nice things about them, you can encourage them, you don't make them sound perfect. You can share the gospel without creating or bootstrapping some testimony that nobody knows for that person. You talk about how nice they are, and you talk about what their family means to them, and you say in times like this we're confronted with the frailty of life, and we are all acknowledged that all of us are going to be here in one day. And here's what the Bible says about this, and then you share the gospel. You don't preach someone into heaven. And he said the other side of that is you also don't preach them into hell. You don't know you weren't there. There could have been any number of times when they could have given their life to Christ. And so you don't artificially send them to hell either. You do the same thing and you just give the explanation of what the gospel is. Does that make sense? I thought it was incredible advice and it's been very helpful to me throughout my ministry. Pastor Joe was awesome, and I love Joe Jernigan for what he taught us. And so I think when you get that moment, if you have that in your mind, the answer is you don't know, and they probably don't know either. You know, if they push you and they say, well, they were so-and-so, and they said they weren't, and they were going to reject and all that, then you just stick with the gospel and you say, Look, I don't want to be disrespectful to your family member or friend or whoever it is, but what I can tell you is that this is the truth of Scripture. And that Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. And so the question for you is your life. You can't do anything about anybody else's, and you can't do anything anybody else's that has moved on to eternity, but you can deal with your life. And where will you be? And have you placed your faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior? Yeah. She's shared a testimony that she had a friend recently who had a son died, and she had the same, she did the same thing. She was prepared to share that with him. That was good. That was a good word. And so I think that's how you approach that if you get that question. That's good. Yeah. Others, you have any other questions? You guys have been doing great with questions. Uh just uh one more thing I appreciate about Jerry's uh sharing. He shared from Isaiah 53. In his testimony. I think that you said that was your one of your wife's favorite. Yeah. And so I'm preaching on Isaiah 53 on Sunday. So there's a little bit of a kind of a thing there. So they get a little inside baseball as we get started. One other thing I want to just kind of walk with you through is the sinner's prayer part of that. You hear a lot of discussion about that, and Matt talked about that some, and I just kind of want to reiterate that. What you're doing is you are trying to help them say what their understanding and decision is. Okay? You're trying to get them to articulate that so that they have ownership and they, in their minds, understand what they're doing. There is no magic word to the sinner's prayer. It is not some spiritual incantation. There is not some specific words that you're supposed to say or anything like that. And it's very important that we understand that there's a lot of discussion on the internet and places and all this kind of stuff, and you got people railing on, you know, the sinner's prayer and easy believism and all this other kind. That's all just ridiculous conversation. That is not what the sinner's prayer is. It's not, that's not what anybody means when they're talking about the sinner's prayer. Someone asks you the question, how do I give my life to Christ? How do I get saved? What you're trying to do is walk them through that. They are not theologians, most likely. Sometimes they may are trying to figure out and understand what you're explaining to them. You do not have to be a theologian to get saved. You just need to know you're a sinner and you need to know that Jesus loves you so much that he died for your sins, and you repent of your sins and you give him your life. That's it. That's all there is. That's the theology. It's not magic words. You're not trying to make it easier. You don't want to put words in their mouth and that kind of a deal. Again, I will model that at times on Sundays. And so what I will usually do is say, tell them, look, I'm going to give you a prompt, and I'll tell them this isn't there's no magic to these words. This is your heart. You're having this conversation with Jesus where you're telling him you're sorry for your sin, you believe he died and rose again for you, and you're trusting him as your savior. That's what you're doing. And so it's just your words. And so I will tell them you can say it out loud or you can say it in your heart. Either way, God hears you, right? And so just tell him you understand what sin is and you're a sinner in your heart. And like Matt said, sometimes kids will run the whole list, right? You know, but that person can, you know, I know I'm a sinner. If it's meaningful, that's good enough. If they want to list some or say they understand it, fine, tell the Lord that. He wants to hear that. Tell him in your words. And then I'll say, I want you to tell him that you're sorry for your sin. Apologize to him for him, ask for his forgiveness. And then I'll tell him, tell him you know, you understand that Jesus loved you so much. He died on the cross for your sins and rose again. Just in your words, tell him what that means to you and what you've learned. And now tell him you are giving your life to him. It's now his life to do with it whatever he designs. And just let them say that. You you, you know, it's just a simple, easy way. But what you're trying to do is help a person give voice to in their hearts and minds this decision that they're making for the first time they've made this decision in their life. Does that make sense? And so that's what you're trying to help them walk through. You're not trying to give them some specific words or some incantation or something that's magic or spiritual whatever. It's not that kind of a deal. These are not Hail Marys and you gotta say them all this time and repeat this thing. It's not that kind of a deal, right? You're just helping them give their own voice to this decision that they're making. Does that make sense? And it's very simple. You may just track along with however you got there. If you use the Roman road and that's what popped into your head when you're talking to this person, then just have them pray each one of those. Wages of sin is death. I know I sin. Salvation is your gift. Lord, thank you for that gift. God demonstrates love for us. And why were you at sinners Christ died for us? Tell them that Christ had died for you. If you confess through the mouth of Jesus the Lord and believe in your heart, God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. So, okay, let's tell him that you believe that he lived and died for you and rose again, and then tell him, You are the Lord of my life. I give my life to you. Just track that however you did it. It's very simple. And so that's what you want to do is walk through that. But keep in your mind what you're trying to do is help them give voice to this decision that they're making. And so that's what you want to help them do. Uh, as we uh move core closing time, two things I want to do. I want to say thank y'all for uh being here. Thank you for diving in. Thank you for sharing testimonies like we've had almost every week. Thank you for sharing with us when you have opportunities to share. It's incredibly encouraging to know that's happening in our church, and it allows us to pray for y'all as you are ministering to people in that process. I want you to go into your Sunday school classes or choir or you know, people that you teach Sunday school with or whatever it is that you do. I want you to go in and start sharing those testimonies. What we need to do is take this stirring that we have, and then we need to poke around in our church and get other people to be doing the same thing. Does that make sense? Because the church really grows and evangelism will really happen when the church is involved in that process, when our people are the ones doing that, right? We are not ever going to baptize 200 people based on my preaching. I mean, I've been preaching a long time, that's never happened. I don't expect it to begin, right? Maybe I should, but I don't. That's not how it works. Jesus said, I will build my church. And we know through Ephesians 4 and all these other scriptures how he builds his church, and he builds his church through the people in the church growing and flourishing spiritually. That's where the fruit comes from. And so what we want to do is really move this discussion through our church. Okay, so I would really love it. And the way that you guys share with us, go in and share with your Sunday school group or your men's group or your women's group or people you teach Sunday school with or whoever it is, share it with them what's happening. Tell them to embrace that tension. Get them to sign up for the course and do that if they need to, or share with them the Romans Road or whatever. Uh, I mean, there's all kinds of training stuff that we have. But what happens is when we encourage that, the collective we encourage that around the church, that's when it really starts to move through the church. Y'all with me? Does that make sense? Will you do that? You do that for us, share it with your classes, share it with the people you're around. When you get these opportunities, share it with them, encourage them to be a part of it. Encourage them to embrace that tension and to step in and start to share in those moments and invite people to church and all that. That's really important. Now, what we'd like to do is give y'all a little bit of time to finish that course. And so those of you who have been here every week, you know, remind us you've been here every week. We know most of you have, and then the ones that finish the course, when we get into September, uh, we want to have a Sunday night where we come together, we have dinner together, and we want to celebrate with you guys and give you a blessing for having done this and being a part of it. So this is the first time we've ever done it this way. So we want to give a little bit of time for people to finish the course and that sort of deal. And then we'd like to really be a blessing to y'all and get you together for a dinner on a Sunday night. So we'll probably do that in September. Is that good? So watch for that. Yes, ma'am. Yeah, that's a great question. If somebody gets saved, somebody says, yes, I want to be saved. All right, so like for me, about half the time I have to pick myself up off the floor because I'm in shock that they did. Like I shouldn't be that way, but you know, really? Are you sure? Like you really want to do, you really understood this? You know, so when you get through that, you you you you pray with that, and then you want to be positive, and then you do want to have some idea about how to follow up. Okay. Some people keep, you know, some New Testament Bibles in their car, they keep some tracks in their car, you know, or in their purse or whatever, and they have something quickly that you can hand them. There's a great book. I've got a few of them in my office. I didn't bring them here, but uh, we can help you get a stack of those. Uh, Dr. Rogers wrote a little booklet. It's real simple, it'd fit in a purse or Bible or whatever, and it's called a no-so salvation, and it just walks them through what happened. Scripture's just affirming in a simple way what happened. Really simple, you know, this size. I mean, it's not a book, it's a booklet. Uh, but some version of something like that. Ask them if they have a Bible. If they don't have a Bible, offer to get them a Bible. Right? If you can get their phone number, it is helpful to get their phone number. The way I would do that is say, look, uh, if you'll give me your phone number, I can give that to my church, and they sell all those numbers and they make a lot of money on that. So it'd be really good if you would. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But you say, if you wouldn't mind, I would love to pray for you. I would love to check on you in a day or two. I would love to be available to answer questions or encourage you. Would you mind if we swap phone numbers? That's a good way to do that. Make it a serving type of thing. Like I want to be able to be a blessing to you. I want to check on you. I'd like to pray for you. Can I do that? And then I think there are two things that you want to do. Uh, you want to first just encourage them. Listen, this is awesome that you make this decision and you've started this journey with Jesus. And I want you to know it's a lifelong learning journey. You do not have to know everything right now. You don't have to, you know, give all your stuff away or whatever kind of stuff. You don't you don't have to do all that. Don't be overwhelmed. What you want to do is start learning to get to know Jesus better and start in that relationship with him. And we do that through prayer and Bible study. And so I can help you know how to start to study. I can read with you. I can give you something, a book that you can follow along with, I can help you with those things. But it's very simple. It's not homework, it's not hard. It will bless you to start reading scripture and learning more about it, and then you want to pray. And I would encourage you if you get a little legal pad or something, and just jot down some prayer requests that you have so that you remember and you give those to the Lord and you just ask him to teach you and you ask him to do this, and that's as about as simple a relationship thing as you can get, right? You just want to encourage that. Uh, where they start that relationship in a positive way and not overwhelmed. Second thing you want to tell them is you want to get involved in a Bible preaching, Bible-believing church. When you get saved, the Lord becomes your heavenly father, you're adopted into his family, and that means you got a whole bunch of brothers and sisters, and they're going to love you because Jesus loves you. And he's bonded us together. And you can come to my church, or if it's somebody done live near, or whatever, you go, I will help you find one wherever you're comfortable. And there's a lot of great churches in our area. Uh, churches are all different because people have different personalities, but if they're preaching Jesus and they're preaching the word of God, teaching the word of God, what you want to do is you want to get involved there because you want people to help you grow and answer your questions and pray for you. And you want to start to serve and be a part of that family and have ownership as well. That makes it your family. And so you want to get involved in a church. Would you like to come to ours? Would you like to visit ours just to see what it's like? Um, you know, I can help you find another one, whatever. So I think those are the things that you want to do. If you can get their number, great. You want to take sort of the boogeyman and unknown thing out of this. Don't get overwhelmed, just start learning, start growing in the Lord, that kind of thing. Uh, and then you want to encourage them to get a Bible. If they don't have a Bible, offer to help them get a Bible. And uh, and then you want to encourage them to get in a church. That's kind of the plan. Does that make sense? If you have a little booklet that you keep, like the Adrian, if you want to get that, or I'm telling you what's really good. I know that people have opinions about whatever, but uh I've sp I had a long time where I just picked up at every flea market when I ran across a two-dollar copy of the purpose-driven life. I I pick those up and keep them in a truck and give them to people. Because it's very much effective for a person who is starting from scratch. And so it's a very easy read, it gets them into word, it gets them in that direction, and you know, you're just looking for something simple like that. Does that help? That's a great question. Thank you for asking that. That good? Any questions about that? Yeah, I want to do that. Um I do think you want to get them, you want to try to get them in the word and in church. Those are very, very important for how we grow. We talk about triangles here all the time, and I won't put you through all that, but that's basically what you're doing. If you remember what I said, getting a reading scripture, prayer, that's the relationship leg of your triangle. Prayer, Bible study, faith choices. I do think it's important to tell them not to be overwhelmed and get started. If you want to talk to them about where to read, how to read, here's what I would suggest. There are two suggestions that I've used a lot. Okay. The first one is uh start with the Gospel of John. They can read the Gospel of John, it's very readable. You can any of the Gospels will work. They're all fine. I mean, it's like God wrote all four of them, so it's not like it's hard to pick between them. But John seems to work. It talks a lot about the love of Jesus, and the pictures of Jesus are really good because it's pictures like um, you know, the conversation with Nicodemus and stuff like that. So there's really good pictures of Jesus in there. Don't tell them not to get overwhelmed, just read one chapter a day. It's important that you do the discipline of it. If they want to read more, have at it. But just do, you know, one a day, one chapter a day, and just get in the habit and read, jot down notes. We just swap phone numbers, text me if you got questions, whatever. So you just go through John. Uh, I think now what you want to tell people is do not go to Instagram or TikTok for your spiritual questions. I think you have to say that in our world today because that's where everybody's getting their information, and it's just rampant lunacy on TikTok. Every nincompoop that has a goofy idea goes on there, and you know, they call themselves pastors and all kinds of stuff, and they're just lunatics. And so that's what everybody's used to doing in our culture. You may not be, but everybody else is. And so you just tell them, read the word, text me, or when you go to that church, introduce yourself to the pastor, tell them you got saved, um, and you know, get somebody's phone number on staff and ask them. Ask a real person who walks with Jesus. Do not Google this stuff. That's exactly right. That's what she's saying. Don't start in Genesis, that's not great. Uh, and don't just tell them to read it and not give them a plan. So John is a good plan. Here's the second plan that I would tell you. Uh, Philippians is a great book. It's only four chapters, it's like five pages you can accomplish reading that book. Uh every chapter has multiple, what I would call, power verses that we quote all the time in the Christian life. Every single chapter has incredible verses in it. I mean, you know, chapter one, he who began a good work in you will complete it until the day returns. Uh chapter one, uh, to live is Christ, to die is gain. Chapter two, do nothing through selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. Have this mind uh in you which was in Christ Jesus. You got the whole gospel there. He thought it not robbery to be equal to God, but he stepped out of heaven, he humbled himself, became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. You have in there work out your faith with fear and trembling. You get my God shall supply all your needs through his riches and glory. I can do all things through Christ, he strengthens me. I mean, I can go on and on and on. Every one of those chapters has these incredible power verses. It is not hard to read. It is not hard to read. If they're reading, what I will tell them sometimes is here's what I want you to do. I want you to break Philippians into seven verses. So I want you to take ten minutes, and on day one, just read the first seven verses over and over and over and over and over. Next day, do the next seven verses, do it over and over and over and over and over and over. And you just you break it down. If you break it, it breaks down incredibly well into seven verse chunks, and those are bite-sized pieces, and they can walk through that. You can tell them to read one chapter a day, and in four days, you got everything you need. You got the gospel, you got what God does in our life, you got all this incredible stuff in Philippians. So Philippians is a good verse. Do not send them to Galatians. I don't care how much you love Galatians, do not send them to Galatians, it's too hard. Do not send them to Ephesians. It's too hard. There's too much stuff in there, it's too broad a structure to go through the book and all that kind of business. I love Ephesians. I absolutely love Ephesians. That is not what you give to a first brand of Christian. I just wouldn't do that. Philippians is easy. Anybody can read Philippians. You can give to a kid. A fifth grader can leave, can read Philippians. It's not hard. John, anybody can read John. If you can read John, you can read John. That'd be my suggestion of two books to go to. Um and start them on a plan. Start them on a plan. Good? That's great. All right. We will uh check in with us if you hadn't heard from us a couple of weeks about when we want to do the uh we want to do the dinner together. And so we want to do that, so we'll have dinner here and we'll bring everybody and come hang out and do that. So we want to give some people time to finish the course because we're trying to really encourage everybody to finish things when we go through it. One thing as we close in prayer, um, we got a text from Pastor Joel in England on Monday. They started VBS at one of their churches this week, and uh a mission team that was supposed to come in and help through a series of events got jammed up and couldn't get there. So they had a VBS that they were counting on help with that they don't have. And so they have been scrambling around doing that, and since we are partners with them, he texted us and said, Will you pray for us this week as we are doing vacation Bible school? And so I prayed for Joel that day. Uh Pastor Dave put that on the prayer list for our prayer requests, our prayer force for every day, and then every event we have this week, we are praying for Pastor Joel and our partners in ministry. So, yesterday at Business Luncheon, we pray for them. So, tonight that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna pray for them. Tomorrow at 60 plus, you guys will pray for them again. And so we're praying for them as our as our partners in ministry. So, will you do that with me? So, for our closing prayer tonight, we're gonna pray for the ministry. Pray for Pastor Joel and for the VBS going on in London. Lord, we thank you for uh we do thank you for a brother in Christ and a partner in ministry. We thank you for the relationship that we've built with uh Pastor Joel and Stone Baptist and Ainsford Baptist over these several years. And uh some of the people here have been uh and we've prayed for them and we've done ministry with them and we've even done vacation Bible school with them. And so, Lord, we know how to how to pray. We do vacation Bible school here. We're praying for our students tonight, doing vacation Bible school at First Baptist Radcliffe. So we know how to do this. So, Lord, we come to you with all of that knowledge and all of that passion and love for VBS and all of that heart for souls to be saved and for boys and girls to come to know Jesus as their Savior. And so, Father, tonight we are praying for that vacation Bible school. Father, we pray that you will expand their hands. We pray you'll give energy to the people who are serving and who are probably doing more than they signed up to do because they thought they had more help that couldn't get there. And so, Father, we pray that you'll sustain them. We pray that you'll bring more people to come and help. We pray that what Satan would mean for evil in interrupting this VBS plan that you will use for good. And so turn it around to something mighty. Take what didn't look like it was gonna go right and put your thumbprint on it supernaturally and do something that only you can receive credit for that can only be defined by your work. And everyone will know that God stepped in and moved. We pray for boys and girls to be saved. We pray for workers to, as they're sharing Jesus and they're loving on these kids, for you to speak into their lives and turn them on to a passion for evangelism and speak to their heart through the things that they're teaching. We pray that you'll do something in that church that will stir the heart of the church and strengthen their faith to see you're at work there because what they thought starting out was not going to be great turned out to be a blessing because you stepped in in the midst of their church and you did what only you can do. And so, Father, we pray for them as they work. I pray you'll sustain Pastor Joel as he's trying to lead the network and his two churches and all the things that are happening there. And Father, I just pray for your blessings there, and we pray for souls to be saved. We've talked about in here how your word commands us that we are to pray for an effective open door for the preaching of the gospel. And we pray for that with these boys and girls, with their families, with other people who may be involved in the ambit of this whole VBS going on there. Father, we pray that you'll step in and show people that you did demonstrate your love towards us while we're yet sinners, and you sent Christ to die for us. Lord, that's our prayer. We pray that for our brothers and sisters in Christ in London. In the name of Jesus, we pray this. And everybody said, Hey, thank you again for y'all being here and taking this journey with us, and thank you for sharing with us. We want to keep hearing those stories.