Have Jesus than anything this world affords.
Well, how are we going to fill up these chairs?
Either we bring somebody, or we all gain a lot of weight.
The devil always likes to applaud when he walks in and sees
empty chairs.
But at least you are in your place where you ought to be.
And a lot of people are spread out.
I have to get used to that.
Different rooms, doing, different ministries.
But just thank God for faithful people like you.
Some are out of town on vacation and some are sick.
And so there's lots of things.
But we praise God for who is here tonight.
You know, Jesus sometimes had big crowds, big multitudes, and sometimes
he had a few.
And when he finally got to the end of his life on the cross, he
only had one.
I remember when the crowds began to disperse one time, and Jesus
looked at Peter and said, will ye go away also?
And he said, lord, where will we go?
And so if you're not here tonight, where would you go?
Where else would you rather be?
And so I just praise God for those that are with us.
You know that song, the Regions Beyond?
I only heard it a couple of times, but it is a great mission
song, and I need to try to memorize a great song.
But, you know, there's levels of this thing of going.
Sometimes people sing a song like that and they say, I should
go.
Probably that grows across their mind.
Then somebody else will come along and say, well, I must go.
And that's a little bit better.
I must.
And then there's a third one that says, I will go.
And you think, that's good enough right there.
I will go.
No, there's still one more.
I'm going.
Okay, I'm going right now.
Wherever you are, you don't have to cross the ocean to go and
share the gospel.
And so we praise God for that song and that we have a great outreach
here at Heritage through our missions, and we hope to even see
that grow in the years ahead.
We don't have a lot of time left.
Jesus is coming soon, sooner than we've ever, ever, ever imagined.
We are right there at the edge.
Take your Bible and go to First Peter, chapter number four.
I'm going to read several passages, and I'd like you to try
to turn with them, turn to them with me, because it kind of
sets.
Paints a backdrop of what I want to speak to you tonight for.
For a few moments.
Have you ever heard.
Has anybody ever come to you and say, hey, how you doing?
You said, fine.
Say, how's the world treating you?
Anybody ever ask you how the world's treating you.
People ask me that all the time.
And usually we always say, I'm doing all right.
But, you know, stop and think about it for a moment.
How the world treats us sometimes is a good indication of
how we are doing spiritually.
It really is.
Because the Bible says, when you get saved, we're peculiar.
We're peculiar people.
And sometimes people raise their eyebrows, and sometimes people
make fun, and sometimes people mock us.
And sometimes people say, oh, great, another Christian.
How's the world treating you?
For the world to really treat us the way we'd like to be treated
and to be liked.
We all like to be liked.
Let's be honest.
We don't really want anybody to hate us.
We like to be liked.
But, you know, if we're living like Christ, Jesus said they hated
me.
And he said, they'll hate you.
They persecuted me, they'll persecute you.
Don't raise your hand.
But how many of you could honestly say, tonight, I was persecuted
this week for being a Christian?
I think we have to stop and really take that serious for a moment.
And here's what really hurts.
And I was always taught, if a sermon doesn't hurt, throw it away.
What good is it?
Amen.
I mean, we need to hurt.
We need to get under conviction.
We don't have to be negative and.
And down on everything.
But when come under the preaching of the word of God, we
ought to feel something kind of sticking in our heart a little
bit.
And the fact of the matter is, a lot of times the reason Christians
aren't persecuted like they used to be.
And I know around the world right now, as we're sitting here,
there are Christians giving their lives for their testimony in
Christ.
But we're not used to that.
We don't see that usually much in Fort Worth or Haslett or Weatherford,
read the news.
Somebody was killed or stoned or locked up because they were a
Christian.
We don't hear that much.
Why?
I think sometimes because we compromise to avoid conflict.
We keep our mouth shut, we blend a little bit.
How do you think that makes the Lord feel?
It's not time to pray.
You can look up.
Some of you are looking down.
But I'm gonna be positive tonight because it's something we
ought to think about.
How's the world treating you?
You see, sometimes we need to understand it's not strange for strange
things to happen to us when we are strangers in a strange world.
But a lot of times we want to fit in.
And I don't Mean we ought to go out and pick a fight.
I don't think we ought to go in and out and offend people on purpose.
The Bible doesn't even teach that anywhere, that we're just to
go out and say, I'm a Christian, you want to make something
of it?
No, it doesn't say that.
But Jesus said, if you're going to follow me, you might as
well take up the cross because you're going to to suffer some kind,
at least to some degree.
And I think probably the closer we get to the return to the
rapture of Christ, the rapture of Christians to meet Christ in the
air, I think the closer we get to that, we're gonna feel more and
more of being alienated, of being shunned, of being mocked.
Can you handle that?
Somebody mocks you, somebody laughs at you.
Can you handle that?
Is it easy for you if somebody was to criticize you and call you
holier than thou, or call you this or thou or the other?
We have a different breed of Christians today.
They're not as vocal as they used to be and they don't stick out.
Years ago, I remember as a young teenager, I hear preachers
say, you can't hardly tell the Christians from the non Christians.
That was years and years ago.
And you walk into a crowd and I know you can't see their heart
and all that.
I understand that.
So don't hear me say something that I didn't say.
But if we're followers of Christ, the world is not going to
roll out the red carpet.
The Bible says that this world, and it's not talking about
the earth, it talks about the world system, the world philosophy,
what makes the world go around, all that goes on, what people
think about unsaved people.
When the Bible speaks of the world, it's speaking of unsaved people
who live different.
And we're in the middle of that.
We're not to isolate.
Paul said, go.
But we're to be in the world, but not of the world.
We're not to keep staying here and lock the doors and pull the shades
and hide out.
We're to go out, but just not just necessarily.
Although we need to hand out tracts and speak to people and talk
to people.
I understand that, but the way we live, I think God gave us a mouth
and a tongue so we could share the Gospel.
But is it more important or not?
You make the call how we live.
But does it matter how we live?
I think you would say yes, both of them.
It's important that we Speak it and it's important that we live
it.
But here in First Peter, chapter number four, look at verse
12.
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which
is to try you.
Trials.
Trials come in all different kinds of ways.
Don't think it's strange as some strange thing happened unto
you.
But rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's suffering.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Rejoice.
When we have to suffer because we're a Christian, we're demoted
instead of promoted, we're overlooked, we're declined.
Nobody wants to speak to us.
We're to rejoice in that.
Well, let's just keep reading and let the Holy Spirit speak to
our hearts.
Rejoice, he says, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's suffering,
that when his glory shall be revealed, speaking of the coming
of Christ, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy if ye be reproached
for the name of Christ.
Now again, let me.
I can't emphasize this enough.
Most of us are not real.
We're not real experienced with that.
Most of us do not suffer a lot of reproach.
We hang out with Christians and certainly birds of a feather
flock together.
And our best friends are Christian friends.
I understand that.
But we work with unsaved people.
We live in neighborhoods filled with unsaved people.
And reproach.
Do you suffer reproach most teenagers today, thank God, we, the
teenagers of this church, I've been impressed with them from the
very first time I came here.
No perfect teenagers, but a good group of kids.
And our youth director doing a fine job.
And what a great number he's taken to youth camp, told me today
they're just not very far away from that.
Most kids today are not interested in any of those things.
But can our young people.
Most young people today can't handle reproach.
They want to be accepted in the crowd.
I'm not talking about our kids, I'm talking about the world.
Unsaved kids.
And if they are saved, if they make a profession of faith in Christ,
many times they keep it a secret.
You remember the story of the little boy that had an old hound
dog and one ear was missing and he was a real, real bad looking
dog.
Little Tiny wasn't a very big dog.
And somebody came to him and said, what kind of dog is that?
He says, police dog.
Police dog.
You don't look like a police.
Secret service.
How many Christians are in secret service for the Lord?
Oh, if they ask us we'd say, yes, I'm a Christian.
But how many of us suffer reproach?
If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye for
the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you.
On their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is
glorified.
Let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an
evil doer.
By the way, Jesus said, if you hate your brother, you've committed
murder.
I'm just quoting Jesus.
Bible says, if we don't honor God with our tithes and offerings,
we are robbers.
We're thieves.
That's what we just read.
Let none of you suffer as a murderer, as a thief, or as an evildoer.
He that knoweth to do good and doeth it not is a sin.
Or as a busy body.
You ever met one of those?
As a busybody in other men's matters?
Again he says, yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not
be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf.
For the time has come that judgment must begin at the house
of God.
And if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that
obey not the gospel of God?
And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly
and the sinner appear?
Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit
the keeping of their souls to him in well doing as unto a faithful
creator.
Now go back to the Gospel of John, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.
I'll give you a minute cause I want you to see this.
I'd like us to read the Scriptures together.
And don't just sit and listen to somebody.
Follow along in John, chapter 15, verse number 18.
These are the words of Christ himself.
If the world hate you, anybody hate you, you know that it hated
me before it hated you.
If you were of the world, the world would love his own.
But because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out
of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
Remember the word that I said unto you.
The servant is not greater than his Lord.
If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
If they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake.
Because they know not him that sent me.
Second Timothy, Book of second Timothy, Chapter number three, Verse
number 12.
I quoted it a moment ago.
But I want you to see it right where it is in 2nd Timothy, chapter
3, verse 12.
Yea, and all that Will live godly.
How would you define that to a 10 year old godly?
If some little boy came up, a little girl came up to you and says
what does godly mean?
How would you explain that?
What does it mean to you when you read that?
Oh, that will live godly.
Would that be some way somebody would describe you?
Oh, they're such sweet people.
She's so wonderful and so kind and, and all that and she's such
a godly person.
Men, you know, many times we say men of God, we thinking of preachers
and a preacher ought to be a man of God, but what about the rest
of the men?
You don't have to be a man of God.
Don't you want to be known?
Don't you want one day your kids, your grandkids, your great
grandkids say my dad wasn't perfect, but he was a godly man.
He was a man of God.
He wasn't ashamed.
But all, not most, not some, but all that live godly in Christ
Jesus shall suffer persecution.
How's the world treating you?
The world is against everything Jesus stood for, everything
he preached about, everything he did.
The world believes just the opposite.
The Book of James, chapter number four.
Some of you will maybe remember this one.
James chapter four, verse four.
Ye adulterers and adulteresses.
And he was speaking to Christians and he wasn't necessarily
speaking about a physical sin, a sexual sin, but what he's implying
here and if we had time, we could read many other scriptures.
The Bible says that when we fool around with the world and we
live like the world and we hang out with the world, the unsaved,
it's like committing adultery because in a way, in a sense, we're
married to Christ.
He's the heavenly groom, we're the bride.
God is jealous when we go out on a date with the world.
And you don't have to necessarily go on a date, sometimes
you can go out on a date with, with the television right into the
world.
He says, you adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the
friendship of the world is enmity, the enemy.
We don't use that word a lot.
The friendship of the world is enmity with God.
Whosoever therefore shall be a friend of the world is the enemy
of, of God.
Does that make sense to you?
Well, let's keep our thinking balanced, okay?
We're not going to win people to Christ by making them enemies.
We're to go out and hate sin, but love sinners.
Amen.
We're to go out with compassion.
Jesus, with moved compassion.
He had dinner with sinners often.
He didn't avoid people that weren't saved.
That's not what this is saying here.
But it says if we try to win their friendship, if we try to get
their approval, if we want them to think we're somebody and
let them know that we're followers of Christ, he said, you're
an enemy of God.
It doesn't mean that we have a bad attitude and a negative critical
attitude.
In fact, part of our testimony is our expressions out in the world.
When we're out there and bumping into people and introducing,
meeting strangers.
That's part of our testimony.
But to what?
The world's approval?
You see what happened years and years ago.
And I remember very distinctly as a teenager that a lot of evangelists
started saying, hey, you know, if we could just drink a few beers
with somebody, we might be able to win them to Christ.
And that really ignited it.
Said, we got to do what they do, join in with them.
If we'll send with them, we'll win them to Christ.
And a lot of people swallow that hook, line and sinker.
It never works that way.
What they never tell you is they think, hey, you're just like
me.
You just go to church.
I don't.
But we live the same.
Does that mean that we meet people that live ungodly?
That we say, don't touch me, don't breathe on me, don't get near
me, get out of my way.
I don't want anything to do with you if you do that.
No, but we don't walk up to somebody who is living an ungodly
life and tell them, why are you doing that?
You're going to hell.
No, I can't picture Jesus saying it like that.
Go back to first John, not the Gospel of John, but near the end
of your Bible, 1 John, chapter number two.
I think I maybe got your attention at least 1 John, chapter
two, verse number 15.
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
It doesn't say, God doesn't love you.
If you love the world, God doesn't love you.
It says, the love of God is not in you, it's not flowing through
you.
People are not sensing God and the love of God in you.
If we love the world, Look in verse number 16.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of
the eyes, the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the
world.
Look in chapter three, same book, verse 13.
John says, Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.
I don't want to be hated.
I don't like to be hated.
But I don't want to sell Jesus out.
And I don't want to hide Christ.
I don't want to deny Christ, keep my mouth shut.
I don't want to do that just so somebody won't hate me.
I don't want to make people hate me.
Chapter four of First John, verse number five.
They are of the world.
Therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.
Verse 17.
Herein is our love made perfect that we may have boldness
in the day of judgment.
Because as he is, so are we in this world.
That is where we want to stop.
And that's what I want you to remember in this message tonight.
As he is, so are we in this world.
How's the world treating you?
The apostle Peter tried it for a few moments when he denied Christ,
but he couldn't follow through with it.
He wept bitterly and got his heart right with God.
And my, what a great, great apostle and preacher Peter became.
Even though he cursed and said, I don't know him, by the way.
You know how that happened?
You say, well, I'd never do that.
Well, if you go back and read that the Bible says Peter followed
afar off.
He wasn't right up there against Jesus.
He was way in the back, kind of looking out, and somebody said,
hey, you're looking at Jesus.
I know you.
You're one of his followers.
Said, I am not denied him three times.
The last time with a curse.
The beloved Peter.
Yeah, but he wept bitterly.
You see, God does not just watch us when we do wrong.
He watches what we do after we do wrong.
Does that make sense to you?
He can see us when we sin.
We think we get by with it and God doesn't know it.
It's in the dark, and we're doing this and that and the other.
Well, he does see.
But God wants to watch our heart, watch our reaction to it.
Because if we're really saved, the Holy Spirit is in our heart.
We start feeling almost sick.
You ever said something you shouldn't have said or went somewhere
you shouldn't be?
It's hard to enjoy it.
You're feeling, oh, I'm not where I ought to be.
God watches if it bothers us, a true child of God.
But when we go out into the world, it's like a testing ground.
We're in the world, but we're not of the world.
We're to live a.
A contrasting life, a better life.
People ought to be jealous of us.
They ought to go, I don't understand it, man, if I could be
like you.
But you know what most people say, don't you?
I don't wanna be like that Christian.
You ever heard that?
You ever heard people use the word hypocrites?
What does it mean to live godly?
How's the world treating you?
The world will often ignore you and avoid you.
If you're really close to Christ because you don't fit in,
you're a misfit.
God's changed you.
You didn't change your life.
You and I can't change in our life.
But God can change our life.
And when he changes it, it's not just a little tune up.
Old things have passed away.
Behold, all things become new and we're different.
And then as we grow and learn more and more about what it's like
to be like Christ and how to handle temptation and how to carry
ourselves and where we should be and where we shouldn't be.
As we grow, we become more Christlike.
That's his workmanship in us.
That's why he hasn't taken you to heaven yet.
He's still working on you to conform you to the image of Christ.
Don't get your feelings hurt when you're left out and overlooked
or mocked or made fun of.
Take it as a compliment to rejoice.
They must have seen something of Jesus in me.
I don't know how, but they must have.
The world will mock you.
Laughter and scorn are hard to take.
Jesus was mocked even as he hung on the cross.
They were mocking him, making fun of him, laughing at him.
Historians tell us that it was a big thing in Jerusalem when somebody
was crucified and that a lot of times whole families would go
to watch it.
Josephus, one of the history Christian historians, or not a Christian,
but a historian of that time, who had said they would go and the
children would laugh and throw rocks and mock.
That's kind of hard to imagine, isn't it?
The world will mock you.
How do you handle that?
Well, you don't mock them back.
You pray hard under your breath, but you keep going.
You go on, you go on, you go on.
The world will criticize you.
The world loves to find fault with Christians.
That's their goal.
If they can catch you in an inconsistency.
Aha.
I knew it.
I knew you wasn't a good Christian.
You got everybody else fooled.
But you didn't fool me.
I caught you.
The world loves that.
We don't have to.
We're not perfect.
We're never going to be perfect or get to heaven.
But don't make it easy for people to find fault in our life
as Christians, the world sometimes will become very angry
with you.
It's kind of strange, isn't it?
We love them and they hate us.
Or do we really love them?
How do we show?
How do you convince a lost person that you really love them,
that you really care about them?
I'm just asking.
The world sometimes will falsely accuse you.
You ever been falsely accused?
So is Jesus.
You're in good company.
Doesn't mean you enjoy.
Doesn't mean you send out everybody and say, hey, guess what
a great thing happened to me today?
No, it still hurts.
But then what we're talking about in these scriptures is we ought
to rejoice that we could be in hell were it not for God's saving
grace.
And if there's anything good in us, it's Jesus in us.
That's all.
Paul said, I am what I am by the grace of God.
He said, I'm the least of the apostles.
I'm the least of thy servants.
I'm the chief of sinners.
And the world sometimes will seek ways to get rid of you.
This world, especially this nation we live in, is not going to
tolerate.
Are you listening?
They're not going to tolerate true Christianity very much longer.
They will tolerate your normal, average churchgoer.
But to live for Jesus to respond as he did and to treat people
the way he did, and to live a godly, Christlike life, this world's
not going to.
They're not going to tolerate that much longer.
Most preachers, if they preach the Bible, are considered hate mongers.
You've heard of hate mail and things that people do well, it's
coming quickly down the pike to where any preacher that preaches
against sin and preaches about hell and preaches about morality.
Is full of hate instead of love.
Isn't that something?
We love people and yet we are called.
We're told that we hate people because we name sin.
We don't throw rocks at sinners.
But we preach and teach the Bible and try to live by example.
And God says the Bible said, we just read it several times.
If you live like me, if you follow me, the world is not going
to put up with it very long.
The world will tempt you.
Am I right?
I don't even know if that.
Do you remember growing up some of you remember in the old carnivals
you'd go to and they'd have them, what do they call them, barkers
or something?
They'd be out and step right up and you know, three rings for
10 cents and man, you know, and they're all hollering and screaming,
come on over here.
Don't be afraid.
Come on.
You look like a winner.
You ever read Pilgrim's Progress when he walked through that
city?
It's just like the carnival.
And that's the way the world is.
Waiting for Christians to walk down the street.
And they want to tempt temptation.
Sometimes we can't escape temptation.
Sometimes it'll come out of nowhere.
You ever had an evil thought and just almost embarrassed, you
wonder, where in the world did that come from?
The world.
We're saturated.
We live in a world.
We're not of the world, but we're in that world.
And they're constantly, constantly trying to lay traps and
temptations.
You know, if they can get a Christian to fall, they feel better.
Men love darkness rather than light.
If they get around an honest trouble, goodness, real Christian,
they're uncomfortable.
They don't want to invite you to their party.
Not if it's one of them worldly wild parties.
Why would they want a Christian there?
That's the last person they want there.
But if they can get you to come and they can get you to fall
into sin, makes them feel better.
They want you to sin with them.
John Rice used to say, it is never right to do wrong in order
to get a chance to do right.
A lot of people say, well, I'm going to do it wrong.
Because if I do wrong with them and they'll like me, then I'll
give them the gospel.
It's never right to do wrong in order to do right.
That's a good thing to live by.
The world will misunderstand you.
You ever been misunderstood?
100% here tonight.
Every one of you has endured that pain of somebody totally misunderstanding
you and judging you wrongly.
That's not what you meant at all.
But they believe it reminds me of that old song I sing.
I think I've sung it here probably a couple of times.
In the midst of faults and failures Stand by me in the midst
of faults and failures Stand by me When I do the best I can but
my friends misunderstand Thou who knowest all about me Stand by
me and you know something?
We'll probably never really see this or know this, but if we're
the right kind of Christian, if it's Christ in us.
We're not acting like Christ.
Christ's in us.
We want Christ's life to come out of us.
We don't need to act.
Amen.
That's what a hypocrite is.
It's an actor.
We know how to act, but to be real and genuine and authentic, It's.
If we'll really think about it, the world will almost miss us
when we're gone.
Even though they would deny it, even though they'd say no, good
riddance.
But deep down inside they know better.
You ever had unsaved people that you try to get in church that
won't come?
And you try to do that, but when they're in the hospital, could
you come pray with me?
Could you have your church pray for me?
Could I get on that prayer list you have?
That's a pretty good testimony.
That's a good thing to brag on your church about.
You ought to brag on your church all the time about everything.
But to say, well, I'll tell you one thing.
Our church is not perfect, but it's a praying church.
It's a Bible believing church.
It's a church that loves people.
It's a church that's striving together to do right.
Sometimes people work as a Christian, they're Christians and
they work with people.
And sometimes somebody at work will come in the next day and say,
guess what happened to me?
What?
I got saved yesterday.
And a man will go, really?
Praise the Lord.
I'm saved too.
You are?
What you talking about, Willis?
Saved.
Come on.
You know, we laugh at that, but that's a sad thing to be living
next door to someone or working with someone for a long period
of time and they don't even know that you're a Christian.
Ouch.
That hurts.
How I'm through.
But you know, I'm talking about, how is the world treating
you?
How does it treat me?
How are you treating the world?
We need to be careful when we go out in the world.
Say, I don't care what they think about me.
Come on now, you know better than that.
You know better than that.
We ought to care what they.
We're not to please them, but we ought to care about how people
perceive us as Christians because we are supposed to represent
Jesus Christ.
We need to be careful.
The Bible says walk circumspectly toward them who are
without.
Circumspectly comes from the word circumference, the distance
around the earth, around the circle, the circumference.
We're to be walk we're to live like this all the time, looking in
all directions so that we'll make sure that we're seeing people,
that we need to make sure that we're living for Christ.
We need to treat them with compassion.
People need to feel that we care.
They do say, well, I care.
Yeah, I know you care, but that's not what I said.
Does people know you care?
Does your unsaved friends, your boss, wherever you go, can they
feel that you care?
We ought to walk humbly.
I can't say enough about that word.
Sometimes Christians have that proud look.
I don't smoke and I don't chew, and I don't go with those that
do.
And that's how we carry ourselves sometimes.
And it makes unsaved people almost throw up, pardon the expression,
God hates pride.
When we humble ourselves.
I remember some of the first people I witnessed to when I was
a new Christian as a teenager.
I didn't know how to do it, and I didn't want to come across
as proud.
And I'm better than you, and you need to be like me, and you'll
be a lot better.
No, but I remember many times, distinctly, I remember one person
I'm thinking about right now, and I'd say, look, I want to talk
to you about something, but I don't really know how, and I'm a
little nervous, and it's important, but can I talk to you?
I remember doing that way when I first started.
And I wasn't trying to be humble.
I was humble.
There's no way.
I didn't know what I was doing.
I didn't want to come across, hey, you need to get your act together,
boy.
And a lot of times they go, no.
They would respond, okay, tell me, talk to me.
I'm listening.
We need to be consistent.
Not like a light going off and on and off and on.
We need to be convincing in our Christian walk.
They may not believe what we believe, but they ought to be convinced
you believe what you believe.
And then approaching people as a servant.
Jesus, the son of God, the creator of the world, got on his
knees and washed the dirty feet of his disciples.
And he said, now you go and do that.
He wasn't talking about literally, get you a towel and some
water, but he was saying, get down on your knees and serve people.
You ever thought of yourself like that?
You ever thought about maybe a way to win somebody that you have
a burden for is maybe to serve them do something that cost you to
do for them?
A lot of times people don't know how to handle that.
Makes them feel kind of weird.
No one's ever done that before.
You want to do that for me?
A second miler?
Jesus told those early Christians, if, if those Roman soldiers,
you gotta keep the law.
You're required.
You gotta carry their bags for a mile.
But Jesus said, but when you get to the mile marker, look at him
and smile and says, I'm just gonna keep on carrying for you for
a couple more miles.
Sounds like a kind of ridiculous, doesn't it?
Like a man that's a fanatic.
Instead of doing what we just have to do, go beyond and beyond.
You don't win many people on the first mile.
Usually anybody you ever win to Christ, usually it's in the second
or third mile.
And then be patient.
Be patient with people.
Sometimes we get angry at lost people because they don't do right.
That's what we would do, what they're doing if we weren't saved.
We get real impatient with people.
We almost make people think, you need to live like a Christian,
then you'll become one.
Well, we know that's not right.
That's not right.
Need to meet people where they are, love them and be patient.
You may not win them the first time or the second time or the third
time.
Maybe not even the 10th time, or maybe a year or two, maybe longer.
But you never know.
Somebody dying in the hospital calls you up.
Some woman.
My husband's dying.
You're the only Christian he ever really cared about.
Respected that he knows.
I know it's a lot to ask, but you think you could come and pray
for my husband and maybe you could lean over the bed with an open
Bible and tell them how to be saved because you were patient and
you didn't check them off and you didn't have the attitude, well,
go to hell then.
If that's what you want to do, just go.
No, no, you wouldn't do that.
I know you wouldn't do that.
I'm just making a point.
I'm exaggerating on purpose that we don't do that.
But it takes patience to win people to Christ.
Amen.
And you're looking at a very impatient person right here.
I want everything today, this morning, early.
I want it the way I want it.
I don't have patience with people that set at a green light
and they won't go.
And I almost.
I'm not really a horn honker, but I almost.
Well, you can't do that.
And you can't do that if you're going to Win people to Christ.
It takes patience.
Let's stand with our heads bowed and eyes closed for just another
moment, we'll be through.
Thank you for listening.
I don't know if it's helped tonight or not, but spoke to me.
We'll have a verse of invitation.
And we always, most of the time, do that.
If for some unusual reason, we wouldn't.
But most of the time, give you an opportunity to maybe just come
and pray about somebody that's not saved or pray about your life.
You want to be more effective in your Christian life.
You want to go that second mile.
Maybe you'd like to come and say, lord, if I could just win one
person before the end of this year in 2026, Lord, could you let
me do that?
Maybe you'd like to come and ask that.
You can ask him where you're at.
You don't have to come forward.
Maybe God's touched your heart.
You need a burden.
You need a revival in your heart.
You haven't wept in the years.
You haven't really reached out to anyone.
You're busy.
Your life's been.
You've had a lot of problems and trouble.
You haven't had time to hardly even think about somebody that's
not saved.
But maybe tonight God's touched your heart.
How's the world treating you?
How are you treating the world?
Heavenly Father, I pray these last few moments before we go home.
I pray you would touch our hearts, Lord.
We wouldn't just file it away in another sermon, but, Lord, you
might help it to stay in our heart and our mind.
Tomorrow and the days ahead and the weeks ahead, we walk out
into that world.
We're walking into a mission field.
And we may be the only hope a person has.
Lord, help us to be human.
Roadblocks to get in the way of people going to hell.
Help us, Lord, to do what we want to do.
But we need grace to do it.
I pray you would touch every heart in Jesus name.
Heads are bowed, we're almost through.
But still some praying.