Unashamed of the Gospel

Scripture Reading: Romans 1:16-17

Today we're going to the very next verse. I'm actually going to read two verses. We're going to hone in on Romans 1:16. But I'm going to read there beginning in verse 16 of Romans 1. I do invite anybody that would like to stand with me in honor of the reading of the word of God. We're in the book of Romans again, chapter 1. We're going to read beginning in verse 16 there.

The word of God says, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith."

Thank you. You may be seated.

A Personal Journey into the Word

You know, I love that opening verse that we read, Romans 1 verse 16. All of God's word is powerful. You know how there's some verses in the word of God that just hit you though that they're just really good nuggets of scripture? Well, I'll tell you, when I became a new Christian, God I was changed. When I surrendered my life to Christ, I was 27. It was 3 days after my dad died. God had been dealing with me a lot of years and I had not surrendered. But finally 3 days after my dad died, I surrendered my life to Christ and I was on the shores of Carolina Beach.

And I remember having this yearning to draw closer to the Lord. I remember having a call to fellowship is what you might call it. I didn't realize that's what was going on. But ultimately what was happening is God had called me to salvation and I'd give my life to Christ. And then once God had called me to salvation, God was calling me to draw nearer. Have you ever experienced that as a Christian where you felt that call to fellowship? Okay, it's real. God calls the believer to draw closer.

Well, what God was calling me to was to get in the word. And I never really grew up reading the Bible. I grew up in the Roman Catholic church and it just wasn't a focus in the church I grew up in. The Bible doctrine was a focus. Saying rosaries was a focus, but I never grew up where I grew up in church with a focus to read the Bible. So, I did not know how to read the Bible.

I remember Crystal and I, she grew up in Free Will Baptist and she grew up hearing the word of God. And she had a Bible. I didn't. Well, I remember the first time we tried to read the Bible. It was we were about to fall asleep and she said, "Well, let's read." And I'll tell you what else I had trouble when we started to read. I remember reading, we were reading King James. It's a great version. It translates the text well, but I've got to be honest, I struggled with it. I struggled with the language of the these and the thous. I just struggled with it. I know a lot of people that have grown up with it. It's what you read and it translates well. But for me, I was having a hard time.

So eventually a pastor gave me a Bible was a New King James. I'm still preaching New King James to this day. I could understand it better. I could read it better. But I remember poured in the word of God. And I'm so thankful how good God is. God can bring people into our lives, other believers. When he is already dealing with us about drawing closer, he can bring other people in their life.

This verse Romans 1:16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. That is one of the first verses I ever memorized. And the reason I was brought to this verse was cuz God used a pastor. We were new at the church we were at. And this pastor came up to me one day. He said, "How would you feel about meeting every now and again?" So, we started meeting for lunch two or three times a month.

And one of the first things he said one time we met after a few visits. He said, "What would you think about memorizing scripture?" And he had these things that you can still order them on Amazon today if you ever want to do it. And it's basically these scriptures where you memorize two a week and they tear off. They have perforated edges and they're about they can fit in your wallet. And you have a little book that explains kind of techniques to memorize scripture better. And you memorize two a week. And when you get the first two scriptures down, the next week you go to the next two, but you say the two from the week before, by the end of the year, you memorize over a hundred verses.

Romans 1 verse 16 was one of the very first verses God ever helped me to memorize. And I want to tell you, there really is something special about writing scripture on your heart. Anybody agree with me? When you say a verse and memorizing two verses a week, who thinks they could do that? I'm telling you, it's not that difficult.

If you wanted to memorize Romans 1:16 this week, just see if you can do it, have it written out. Have it somewhere and just throughout the week say it over and over and say the first for I'm not ashamed. Say that over and over. Then once you get for I'm not ashamed out, say for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. And just keep saying a little bit more, a little bit more. You'll get it down. I remember I said that verse hundreds of times in that first week. So I memorized. But you know what God does as you say God's word over and over? It speaks to your heart.

And I tell you, this verse is a powerful verse in the word of God. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. That's the verse I want to hone in on.

Not Ashamed – The Power of the Gospel

You know, something I'm just reminded of as I read that. I think you'd be reminded of as you read it if you're a believer is we ought to be unashamed in sharing the gospel. Amen. We ought to be unashamed. Paul was unashamed. Why should we be unashamed in sharing the gospel? Well, it tells us in this verse, for it is the power of God to salvation. In other words, we should be unashamed and eager to share the gospel in our everyday lives because that's how people are going to get saved. And you know what? There's no other way people are going to get saved.

People aren't going to get saved by being really good. You can be a great person, but being a great person won't get you down. You know, people aren't going to get saved just cuz they go to church. As believers, we're to gather. We're to worship. That's biblical. But that's not how we get saved. People, there's only one way to get saved. And it tells us in the gospel. We get saved because of what God did for us by sending his son Jesus Christ down from heaven to this earth. And Jesus came for a purpose. He suffered. He hung on that cross. And he died for our sins. He was God in the flesh on this earth. And he laid down the one and only perfect sinless sacrifice that could be made for you and I to be forgiven. He was the only way. His sacrifice made the way and he rose on the third day and anybody who believes in him will be saved.

I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. As believers, we should be able to say that. Do you feel unashamed of the gospel? For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Why? Because it is the power the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. There's no other way. So, we should be unashamed of the gospel and we should be unashamed of sharing the gospel because that's how people can be forgiven of sins. That's how people can be made right in God.

We're sinners, right? We're like filthy rags. Every single one of us, the Bible tells us that we can't stand before a holy God and go to heaven apart from what Jesus did for us. And if we have that news, we ought to be unashamed to share it.

Paul, he was unashamed. If you look at the verse before verse 16 in Romans 1, we read it last Sunday, but in verse 15, he's talking to the believers in Rome, he says, "So as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also." Paul was ready to go to Rome. Hey, I mean, sometimes I'll be honest, I just don't feel like as a whole, as a church, we're all that committed like we need to be. I really don't. I mean, Paul, he was committed.

Paul was going to wake up probably despite the weather and share the gospel with anybody. I mean, Paul was he was all in. Paul went everywhere preaching the gospel. He's like, "I'll go to Rome. We won't even fly to Rome because we're scared." I mean, you know how hard it would be to get to Rome in those days? Paul would walk miles and miles and miles to preach the gospel. Paul would journey all over the place to preach the gospel. Why? Because he was unashamed and he knew people in this world need Jesus.

But a lot of times, you know, we struggle to even go out the door and tell somebody in our neighborhood about Jesus. We got to be unashamed because we've got good news. You know, Paul, he got saved. We read about it on the road to Damascus. And if you go to the New Testament to the book of Acts, and after you read about Paul's conversion, what do you see Paul start doing? He's sharing the gospel because he was unashamed from the get-go. He was sharing the gospel. In fact, he was sharing the gospel in Damascus. And you remember, he started to be persecuted. They were trying to kill him, but other believers protected him and got him out.

Then he went to Jerusalem. And when he went to Jerusalem, were the disciples ready to welcome him? No. Cuz he'd been the one leading persecution, they thought he might kill them. He's like, "No, I'm saved. I've been changed." They're like, "Yeah, right." I mean, I don't know exactly how they put it, but Barnabas, we read, kind of put his neck out for Paul. Said, "No, he's really saved." So Paul started preaching in Jerusalem.

You know, then we read about how he went to Tarsus and then later Barnabas brought him to Antioch and in Antioch he was pastoring and preaching with Barnabas and they preached there for a while. Then we read all through the New Testament in the book of Acts we read how he went on a missionary journey. He sailed to Cyprus. Acts 13:5 says, "And when they arrived in Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogue of the Jews." Then they sailed to another island called Paphos, the Bible says. And Paul boldly preached to a sorcerer, to a false prophet. And he said that because he didn't believe him. And because he was basically teaching a false gospel, he was going to be blind. That magician was blinded. And then the proconsul there believed. Paul was bold for the Lord. He stood up against people that opposed him.

He it says he went to Iconium and he preached there and people got saved but then once he preached there they wanted to stone him. So then did that stop him? No. He went to the next town he went to Lystra and he started preaching the gospel. The book of Acts tells us then in Lystra Jews from Iconium came and stoned him and they thought he was dead. Did that stop him from preaching the gospel? No. He got up and he went to the next place. He actually went back to Iconium and to Antioch in Pisidia, the places where people had come to Lystra to stone him. He went back to those towns or those places where those people were at that had stoned him and he preached the gospel again. I mean, he was unashamed. He was bold for the Lord.

We could go on and on in the New Testament how Paul was unashamed. But I hope that as we read this verse as believers, I hope it motivates us. Man, God can do so much with even a small number of people. Think about the 12 disciples. Think about the disciples and then how that multiplied to 120. How that got to 3,000 and now today people are all over the world as Christians. God can do so much through one person, through two people, through a small number of people who are on fire for the Lord.

Are you unashamed of the gospel message of Jesus Christ?

Why We Often Hold Back – And Why We Shouldn't

You know, I can't speak for anybody but myself. But when we look around today at believers throughout this area we live in and in many respects throughout much of the world, you might even be able to say we seem to be ashamed. Not unashamed. You know what I mean? And I'm not speaking for any one person, but in a certain kind of way, we seem to be a little bit ashamed of the gospel. Now, maybe we're not ashamed. Maybe we're just not sharing it. I don't know. But when we think about how we're proclaiming the gospel, are we really unashamed?

I heard some statistics that are pretty much the same. I heard these years back, but they're pretty much similar today. It says that of SBC churches, Southern Baptist churches, nine people or less are baptized each year in 80% of the churches. Nine or less are baptized each year in eight of every 10 churches of SBC. Now, I praise God that we had a little over 10 the last two years, but just barely. But eight out of 10 have less than nine. Three or less are baptized in about 50% of SBC churches per year. Nobody is baptized in about 20% of SBC churches.

Now you know I hear those statistics and honestly what I think I don't know how you feel but when I hear that what I think is we can do better. Do you all agree? Like, and honestly, even though we had 10 or 11 or 12 the last each of the last two years, I still think we can do a lot better. Like, y'all know what I'm saying? We can't make a person give their life to Christ. I'm not saying that. What when I say we can do better, when I'm talking about me, too. I saying I can do better. I believe if every one of us are honest, we all know we can do better.

And what I mean by doing better is being unashamed. What I mean by doing better is that we could share the gospel, Lord. Right. Share the gospel, Lord. You know, of course, we're going to share the gospel on Sunday morning at worship, but that's I'm not talking about just Sunday morning. I'm talking about in my everyday life. I'm talking about your everyday life. Talk about in your everyday life, your everyday life. Like in our everyday life, if we are unashamed and we're proud to tell people the best news ever, God's going to work.

You can do better, right, brother? I know you know that you can. Does everybody agree? Like if we are unashamed, we can't make a person give their life to Christ. Not saying that. But if we are faithful to proclaim more and more and more, God is going to work.

You know, I think about the law of the harvest. I just think about this. I feel like the more gospel seeds we sow, the more we're going to see people getting saved. Do you all agree? Now, I remember when I did fundraising for the Boy Scouts, it was all about having enough prospects and then enough manpower that had relationships with those people to ask them to give to the Boy Scouts. And it was all about numbers. It was all about the more people you had each making 10 contacts, invite them to a breakfast for a fundraiser and they had that relationship with them. You're going to raise more money if you have prospects.

We got prospects, guys. The harvest is plentiful, right? But the laborers are few. And it says, "Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest will raise up laborers." And by the way, laborer, when you think of a laborer, you think of someone going to work 8 hours, sweating, working hard. Like that's how we should labor for the Lord. When is the last time you shared the gospel with a lost person?

I read a statistic on that that basically said only about 80 or 90% haven't shared the gospel with somebody in the last 6 months of Christians and only about 5% or 10% of Christians share the gospel regularly. And I mean I could kind of see that being true because I do feel this way. This is just in my heart. I feel like and I'm not just talking about our church. I mean honestly we're doing better than 80% of the Southern Baptist church. Praise God. But we're still we can do better.

Like I do feel if we get on fire for the Lord and we're unashamed that we are proclaiming the gospel when with the people God brings us in the path of I feel like we're going to see fruit from it. I know in my own life when I'm more faithful, you know, God's blessed me to be able to do chaplancy, too, and to be able to go talk to people every week. So, I get around a lot of people. And what I've seen is I'm sharing the gospel more and I'm seeing more people getting saved. I'm seeing more people get baptized. I'm seeing more people come to church. Like, if we are faithful to ask God, help give me opportunities and let me see them when they come my way, God is going to work.

We have much better news than a cure for cancer. Do y'all believe that? If we had a lot of us have been lost loved ones to cancer. My mom died of cancer, you know, and cancer is something that touches a lot of us. And if we had the cure to heal our loved one who had cancer, we'd give it to him in a heartbeat, wouldn't we? Wouldn't we? Man, if we had the cure to heal somebody's knee, we'd give it to them in a heartbeat. If we had the cure to help somebody's back pain, we'd give it to them in a heartbeat, right? We got the cure for forgiveness of sins. We got the cure to be made right before God. We've got the cure to spend eternity in heaven with Jesus.

We aren't to hold it in. We should be telling everybody about it. And by the way, this verse, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. The gospel is for everybody. Even that person that you think, man, I can't stand them. They're a nasty sinner. That's who Jesus died for. Even that person that you think so gross and full of sin, God is full of grace and full of mercy. We are all sinners. Even for the beggar lying on the street, the homeless person, the gospel is for them. You know, even for the addict, the gospel is for them. For all races, for poor, for rich, the gospel is for everybody.

Are we acting and are we going out unashamed like we're eager to share this gospel with everybody? Paul said in verse 15, I'm eager to come to Rome. Are we even eager to go to our neighborhoods? The gospel is for everybody.

Would you all agree that who thinks they share the gospel as much as they should? Who thinks they should share the gospel more? Who thinks they should share it more?

Why don't we share the gospel more? Why don't you share the gospel more? Maybe you know some reasons you don't share the gospel more. Because when I think of being unashamed, I think of sharing the gospel, right? What keeps you from sharing the gospel more?

Have you shared the gospel? We're almost through January. Have you shared the gospel with anybody in these first what 25 days of January? What about last year? And when I say share the gospel, I mean like you're telling somebody what Jesus did, how he died for them, how he rose on the third day, and you're telling them that if they believe in the Lord, they can be forgiven of sins. They can be saved.

By the way, I've got copies of a sample gospel presentation up there. Doesn't have to come out like that, but it can give you some pieces that can help you if you want to run through it. Also got helpful Bible verses up here for sharing the gospel. But how many people did you share the gospel with and then say, would you like to trust in the Lord? Give them a chance to trust I'm not asking anybody else out loud, but like have you done that this year? Did you do it last year?

You know, a lot of Christians never share the gospel with anybody. It's crazy. Isn't that crazy? Like, if you know you're saved, think about what God did for you. And this is something that we got to help each other with because this is what we're supposed to do. We're to make disciples. We're to go. We're to go here and to the ends of the earth. And by the way, when we go locally and the church grows, then we can go even further. More of us can go even into the nations.

I think sometimes there's different reasons we don't share the gospel. Sometimes I think the enemy will put fear in us. God didn't give us the spirit of fear. But sometimes maybe we'll feel led to share the gospel with somebody. We're just worried about how it'll come out. We might be fearful that they'll reject us, that they'll say, "No, not everybody's going to accept Jesus when they're given the chance." Paul went all over and a lot of he would preach and a lot of people would get saved but a lot of people would oppose him. And by the way, he faced a lot of opposition. He was dragged out by mobs. He was beaten with rods. He was beaten in other ways. He was locked up. But he kept sharing the gospel. Paul understood just the more he shared, the more he preached. Yeah, there's going to be people that don't like it. But was that going to stop him from sharing? No, he's going to keep sharing. And he understood the more he shared, the more people weren't going to get saved.

For it is the power of God to salvation. If we're not sharing the gospel, how are people going to give their life to Christ? If we as the church aren't sharing, how are people going to get saved?

So sometimes I think fear can get in the way. Sometimes we just don't make it a priority. You know, we'll make all kinds of things priorities in our life, right? A lot of us probably turned on the TV last night. I was about to go to bed and then I saw that guy climbing up that skyscraper. I said, "I'll stay up and watch this." He climbed up 101 stories. We'll make a movie watching a movie. We'll make that a priority. We'll make going to the ball game a priority. By the way, on a side note, don't want anybody to be unsafe in weather. But you know what? I woke up and thought I said, "Well, if this was a Friday and the roads were like this, I'd be going to the ball game in a heartbeat if Gabriel was playing." So, like, I'm definitely going to go to church and worship, right? Because I'd be going out to do that and everybody's got to be careful, you know, what they feel safe with. But I think for me, I want to say if I'm willing to go out and do this or do that, shouldn't I be willing to worship? And also, shouldn't I be willing to share Jesus?

You know, I think sometimes we have we can so easily set we can set work as a priority and you say, "Well, of course I got to work. I got to pay the bills." Yeah, but while we're at work, we could probably share the gospel with people, right? Or we might make going on vacation a priority. Well, I got to relax. You got to let me relax. Well, we can still share the gospel on vacation, right? Think about if we were on the beach on vacation. How many people we could share Jesus with, right? If that's our priority.

We're I don't know if we can figure it all out. All my siblings are wanting to go to Ireland this August cuz it's 20 years of my dad going to be with the Lord and he was a big Irish guy. I remember saying to Chris, "Well, if we go, I'm going to try to make it a mission trip." You know, when I went to Ireland the first time, I was college age. I was going to party. But now, if we get to go to Ireland, I'm going to share Jesus. I'm going everywhere we go, I'm going to make it a point, and Crystal will hold me accountable to tell people about Jesus there. I mean, it could be a mission trip when we go on vacation, right?

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Sometimes we don't make it a priority. Sometimes I think the reason we don't share the gospel is we get out of fellowship with God and we're not as bold for God. We're thinking about worldly things. Sometimes we've got sin in our life and we're living in sin and we don't feel worthy and it's that we need a better walk with God. Sometimes we don't share the gospel. Maybe we don't feel comfortable. Maybe we don't feel like we know how to share.

Now I'll say this. We should keep it simple, you know, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. I will say though, it helps me when I start memorizing some verses like the Romans Road. There's some verses here. If you want to get serious about sharing the gospel, keep it simple, but get some verses on you. I mean, take these with you and study some of them. Look at that. That's just a sample gospel presentation there. That's that if you get it down, it'll start. Okay, it's good to talk about sin. Okay, the Bible says in Romans 3:23, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. If you read through that, you'll start to get more comfortable sharing the gospel.

So, if the reason you're not sharing the gospel is you don't feel comfortable, we can work with that, right? But I tell you, there's all kinds of reasons. Who wants to share the gospel more in their life? Like, I feel like every one of us could do better if we're being honest, no matter how good we do or how bad.

What will help us share the gospel more? I certainly don't have all the answers, but I think one thing that helps me is spending time with the Lord. If we're in the word of God daily and if we're praying, we're going to be more bold for the Lord. I think also just making it a habit. You know, a lot of times people come to the new year and say, "I'm making a New Year's resolution. I'm gonna go to the gym or I'm gonna eat better." Right? Do that. And when you're successful in that, it's cuz you make it a habit.

If we want to better share the gospel, we should make it a habit. I mean, a habit just to every day just wake up and say, "God, let me see those opportunities as you give them." Maybe making it a habit when we talk to people just say, "Hey, have you ever trusted in Jesus?" Maybe there's one question you can have that works for you that can help you bridge into a conversation about Jesus with people. Cuz see, when we're unashamed, what we're thinking about when we're going about our day is, "How can I tell the people that God brings me in the path of about Jesus?" When we're ashamed, we might not do that.

But when we're unashamed and we want to be used by God, we're thinking, all right, with whatever people God brings me in the path of, how can I get to telling them about Jesus? Why? It might be the question you want to ask everybody. I mean, you could ask this question to everybody. You could say to everybody, "Have you ever trusted in Jesus as Lord and Savior?" And see what they say and understand, you're going to get different responses. One person that says they believe in Jesus, the more you talk to them, they might believe you can believe in anything even though they say they believe in Jesus. So then you start to say, "Well, no, the Bible says Jesus is the only way." Or they might say, "Yeah, I'm born again. I'm saved." Or they might say, "No, I believe God." And the more you start talking to people, the more I do, the more you start to be able to respond. But I mean, that one question that we could ask everybody, have you ever placed your full faith and trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior? It's going to get opportunities to share the gospel.

So, is there some way you could make a habit in your everyday life with people you talk to to get into the gospel conversations? And I'll tell you what else I think getting comfortable sharing the gospel, saying it to yourself in the mirror with somebody else. And I think having accountability partners, you know what I think would be awesome for us to do as a church? I think it'd be awesome if every time we see each other, we say, "Hey, did you share the gospel with somebody this week?"

Hey, I would y'all can say that to me and that'll hold me on my toes. And you know what I mean? Say, Josh, did pastor, did you share the gospel with anybody this week? But I'm saying you're saying to me, I'm going say to you, too. You know, Jerry, did you share the gospel with anybody this week? Jack, did you share the gospel with anybody this week? I got a thumbs up. Can you imagine if we do that as a church family? Like, I really think we should do this. Like, I'm serious. I saw a lot of hands saying we want to be more unashamed.

Wayne, did you share the gospel this week? What if we what if every time when we're seeing each other, I'm like, "Hey, uh, June, did you share the gospel with anybody this week?" Yeah. Everybody's getting nervous right now. Becky, did you share the gospel with anybody this week? Hey, hey, Rea, did you share the gospel with anybody this week? Seriously, we should do that. Do y'all know how that would help us?

Jimmy, did you share the gospel with anybody this week? Let's start doing that. Like when I think about this is a message that it's not this shouldn't just we don't want to just preach this and say, "Yeah, I want to be unashamed." And then we just don't change. No, this is one that if we can really get this and we can really take something from this and help each other in this, we're going to see a lot of people get saved. Like really, like if our church, there's still a third of our church here today even though it's weather. If everybody in this sanctuary that's a born again believer, if every one of us start doing things like everybody we talk to, say, "Hey, have you ever trusted the Lord?" And if every one of us help each other and say, "Hey, every Sunday we come together, every Wednesday together, did you share the gospel with anybody?" And not judge them if they didn't be like, "Well, I did." But in all honesty, can you imagine what'll happen?

Having one another hold each other accountable be so helpful. And I just want to kind of say this. God works through people. Let him work through you. And there's no greater way for God to work through you than to see people come to faith in Christ. Nothing more important you can do. The angels are rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents. God works. God is so cool that he doesn't have to do this, but he allows us to be the vessels that share the gospel.

Paul took that challenge on. And Paul was unashamed. He said, "For I am not ashamed." And if there's anybody you ever think about that's not ashamed, it's the Apostle Paul. Man, I tell you what, when I die one day and go to be with the Lord, I would love it if people are like, "And Joshua, he was unashamed to share the gospel." Wouldn't you love that for people to say, "Man, Jerry, she was unashamed to share the gospel." Like, wouldn't you love that, Rea? She was unashamed to share the gospel.

God works through people all the time. Let him work through you. And if we want to see God work for salvations, we're not going to see it if we're not sharing Jesus. But if we're sharing because remember what it says. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. And again, when I think about the law of the harvest, if you don't plant any corn, you ain't going to get corn. If we don't plant gospel seeds, we aren't going to see people come to Christ. We've got to sew seeds. And when we do, God is going to work.

I'm so thankful for the people that sowed seeds in my life before I was a believer. Do you have somebody do that for you? I remember my fourth grade friend Jonathan Foster. Some of y'all have heard this story. I was in the mountains. We were there. We've been there a year. And he looked at me and he said, "Joshua, the Lord has led me to tell you, you got to be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven." He was fourth grade. He was full of the spirit. It's like, "My dad's taking another church. We're leaving town tomorrow, and the Holy Spirit has told me to come to you. You have to be born again." And I had no idea what that meant. And then he quoted John 3:16. I had grown up at church every Sunday. I had never heard John 3:16. I'd never heard about being born again. I was I didn't give my life to Christ, but I remember it got my attention. Jonathan's a pastor, though.

I remember Crystal sharing the truth with me and I said, "You're so close-minded, saying there's only one way to heaven." She said, "Well, Jesus said, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life.' No one can come to the father except through me. And she's like, 'I believe Jesus is the way to heaven.'" I'm so thankful for Crystal, for Jonathan, her mom, pastors that we start going to church and I would hear the word preached. I went to her church she grew up in so many times. I was gripping those pews. Why? Because the gospel was being preached. It is the power of God to salvation. But I didn't let myself surrender. I kept fighting. But those people along the way sowed those seeds and finally this old stubborn Irish boy gave his life to the Lord.

When you keep sharing the gospel, it's going to lead to people giving their life to Christ. You never know when. And you never know when you share the gospel with somebody, you might never know 10 years down the road. I mean, Jonathan Foster was fourth grade and I'm telling that story now. You never know how God's going to use it.

I just want to close just by challenging me and challenging every believer in here. Let's be unashamed. Let's be unashamed in sharing the gospel. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. And it says in 2 Timothy 4:2, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season. We ought to be ready all the time to share the gospel every day as we go about our in Acts 1:8 says, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me." We are to be witnesses for the Lord. And when we do, God is going to work.

If our church family, we praise God, we've seen more salvations of baptisms than statistics say 80% of SBC churches the last two years. But really, we're really just on the cusp. Like God will do so much more if we really get bold for the Lord.

Hey, as you're going about your day, invite people to church. I carry these with me all the time. I invite people to church all the time. They're going to hear the gospel here. But also, as you're going about your day, try to get into gospel conversations. The kingdom of God will grow if God's people are sharing the gospel more. More people are going to get saved. I don't know when it's going to happen, and it's not by anything good we're doing. It's just the gospel. And when the gospel is shared, it's the power of God to salvation for everybody who believes.

Closing Prayer and Invitation

God, we love you and I just thank you and praise you for this day. I thank you for the gospel. God, I thank you for how good you are. Thank you for saving a sinner like me. God, I do pray today if there's somebody in here today that's never fully given their life to you, Jesus. I pray that as they hear the gospel, today would be the day. We are all sinners. We are all flawed. But God, I praise you that you made a way that as sinful as we are, a way to be forgiven. And that way is through faith in Jesus Christ. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

God, thank you for the gospel. And I pray right now just as we have a time to pray and a time to have a time to respond the Holy Spirit to move in hearts right now. If that's to come to this altar and just pray to be more bold. If that's to come to this altar and lay something down. If that's to go and pray with somebody else. If that's to come forward and have me pray with them. If that's to come forward and share they're ready to give their life to Jesus. God, right now I just pray, Holy Spirit, move in this place and have your way. I pray in Jesus name.