Paul had a sense of urgency when it came to sharing the gospel. In 2 Corinthians 5 and 6, he tells us that we will all appear before God one day and give an account of how we lived as witnesses. He also says that our job is to persuade people to believe in the gospel because “today is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). But today, few of us live with this sense of urgency.

Rather than fearing God and His judgment, we fear other people and their opinions. We also write people off as being unlikely to accept the gospel if we were to share, and most of the time, we simply forget to live our lives as witnesses. But witnessing is not an optional practice. Both Paul and Jesus teach us that to be a disciple is to be a witness. When we learn to examine our fears, our flesh, and our forgetfulness, and then bring them to God, we can become effective witnesses who lead others into the Kingdom through the practice of Invitation.

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It’s the biggest regret of my life. A few Sundays ago, I told you about my mission trip to Virgin Islands when I was 16, and I was making fun of my youth pastor who forced us to go to the mall and share the gospel to 10 people or else I wasn’t allowed back into the van. You guys remember that story?

Yeah. Well, that actually wasn’t the worst part of the trip. On our very first day on the island, we had one simple plan. It was to go to the projects and to make connections. So that’s what we did, and we went to the projects and we quickly found there was a soccer field and a basketball court. The whole team went to the soccer field, and I know what a real sport is, so I went to the basketball court almost right away.

I still remember it to this day. I felt the Holy Spirit tugging at me. Today is the day to share the gospel, especially as we were playing five on five. Two more teenagers rolled up and the whole atmosphere changed. These were the leaders. Immediately. Right away people were saying, take my place. Do you want my.

Let him play. And so in our prep for the trip, I was keeping this in mind. My youth pastor taught me this important missional concept of identifying the person of peace is this idea that in every community there’s people of influence. And God often calls you to reach that person of peace because the logic goes, if you lead that person to Jesus, it becomes a whole lot easier for everyone else in that community to be open to the idea of repentance.

And it was very clear these two individuals were the ones we prayed for for the few months leading up to this trip. And that’s when the Holy Spirit went from whispering to shouting, share the gospel to these two. Today. I responded in my mind, not today, Lord, we’ve got 10 days, plus they haven’t seen my three point hook shot.

Now remember, I’m a 16-year-old filled with arrogance and a good hook shot. Okay? And so Holy Spirit again now. Bring up the plan of salvation now. Alright Lord, but if I push too soon, I’ll ruin my chances later. I need to develop a relationship. And at one point I did strike up a conversation, but the feelings of discomfort overcame the stirrings of conviction.

And so that first night ended with zero gospel conversations to soothe my guilt. I assured God I’ll share the gospel to them this week. I promise you that I just need to build a relationship with them first. Fast forward, 10 days goes by and I never saw those two again. Months later, I confess my guilt to my youth pastor and he took a long pause and with tears starting to well up in his eyes, he finally said those two were shot and killed in gang violence.

That first night. I didn’t tell you because I wanted you to stay focused on the rest of the trip. But that’s why I made you share the gospel at the mall a few days later. I just found out that day that we missed out on this opportunity. Trey, we can’t waste the moments we have with people, and that has haunted me ever since.

According to the scriptures, which we believe, everything from front to back, there’s a very real chance that those two are eternally separated from the presence of God. Shut out from his glory. As it says in two Thessalonians one, nine, or in the words of Ezekiel, I was a watchman, and yet I stayed silent.

And the scriptures are pretty clear. Their blood is on my hands. And you may be thinking you were just 16 years old. It’s okay. Friends. We have so diminished the severity of sharing that we have softened the edge. But no, this is a serious error, a serious. Anytime I think about that trip, I plead with God.

We met with them at 10 in the morning, so God please, I know they got killed that night. I pray that Christians, someone else encountered them that afternoon and actually shared the gospel. Now, I don’t share this with you to shock you. I share this to wake all of us up to a very real reality.   📍 That witness is not an optional practice.

 I think for a lot of us, we’ve fallen for the lie. I need to get better at Sabbath and then I’ll start sharing the gospel. Or I need to finish my one year Bible reading plan and then I’ll become a witness. Or I need to wait until my own anxiety issues are resolved, or I need to make sure my family is intact and healthy and then I will share the gospel.

But Paul writes, no, now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation, and that’s why we’ve been working all month to recover. What does it mean to be witnesses for King Jesus today, sadly, is the last day of the teaching, but what we always emphasize, every single time we go through a practice, we pray this is not the end of the practice.

We wanna make this a regular practice in our lives if it isn’t already. Our working definition that we’ve been building out all month is the following.   📍 The practice of witness is leading from your witness to talk clearly about the gospel and leaning into your weakness to invite others into God’s grace.

 And let me just say, I know we started real heavy, but it has been a joy to build this practice with you all month. Leading from your ness is crucial because the gospel is in incarnation, meaning it’s life on life. It happens in the everyday life. When we actually connect with people relationally talking about the gospel is essential at some point in the parable of the four soils, as we are sowing seeds, if we aren’t sharing the fullness of the gospel, we are not sharing the right seed.

So we need to know what is the full gospel story. We’ve covered that. We also, pastor Caleb last week talked about leaning into your weakness, which is super helpful because let’s be honest, we’re not inviting people to us. We are pointing to the savior. He was so much better than us. But today I wanna remind us inviting others into God’s grace.

That’s not optional. At some point, we have to make the ask. The second Corinthians, chapter five, I think, is the perfect reminder that witness is not optional. It’s a part of the very DNA of who we are as Christians. Paul here in this passage seems to be answering the following question.   📍 If the gospel really saves, why don’t we make the ask?

Well, it’s because of fear, the flesh and forgetting the task.  So we’re gonna look at that line by line starting again in verse 10. We’re gonna see how fear plays a part and then the flesh, and then forgetting the task. Let’s start with fear two Corinthians chapter five, verse 10. I’m actually, I don’t do this often, but I studied it all week.

Also in the NLT translation. I found it to be very helpful. So we started with the CSB. Now pay attention to the screen. If you didn’t bring an NLT, it says the following, for we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body.

Because we understand our fearful, fearful responsibility to the Lord. We work hard. To persuade others. God knows we are sincere, and I hope you know this too. Are we commending ourselves to you again? No. We are giving you a reason to be proud of us, so you can answer those who brag about having a spectacular ministry rather than having a sincere heart.

He’s addressing here at the end these false teachers like Pastor Caleb shared last week. It was all sophisticated and great big words, but they actually had no substance. Paul is saying we’re preaching from substance. But look here in verse 10, Paul actually begins with the good kind of fear and it’s the judgment seat of Christ.

This Greek word here is bema. It’s this courtroom picture where the judge verdict, judge, uh, excuse me, the judge’s verdicts are rendered and Paul says, and even as Christians, we have to wrestle with this. Every single one of us one day will stand before the judge Jesus and give an account. He says nothing will be hidden.

Everything will be exposed. Now hear me, because of the power of the gospel in Christ, you are forgiven. You are made right with God. If you are in Christ, you are making it, uh, with God for eternity and the new heaven and the new earth. And yet, a good balance here is the Bemo reminds us what we do here on earth still matters.

It still matters how we steward this gospel. There is some sort of judgment, some sort of, uh, verdict that’s passed on to us. And so Paul uses this to motivate us by saying, we understand because of the judgment seat, our fearful responsibility to the Lord. So we work hard to persuade others. He’s not trying to sugarcoat it.

He’s saying Sharing isn’t easy. But eternity is on the line, and we will be judged how we deal with this. So let’s do the hard work because of the fear of the Lord, but why don’t we work hard to persuade others? Why don’t we take the time to study the gospel and learn how to share it with our neighbors?

Well, because we’ve swapped one fear with another. If we don’t have fear of the Lord, which produces reverence, courage, conviction, passion, persuasion, we will give into fear of man. Fear of man leads to silence and shame and compromise fills you with anxiety and paralysis when it comes to sharing the gospel.

To be human is to live in fear. The question of the Bible is, who will you live in fear of? Of man or of God? So some in Corinth here, the context is Paul was being mocked. They kept saying about Paul that he was out of his mind as it says here in chapter five, that he’s too intense or other passages talk about how he’s too weak.

He’s not that good of a leader. But Paul, he doesn’t fear man. He knows this is all mockery from Satan. It’s Satan’s strategy to silence him from sharing the gospel. But Paul actually in the timeline before Galatians was written before one and two Corinthians, Paul already settled this in his heart.

Galatians one 10 says, obviously I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of Gods, if pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ servant. As Paul is saying, man, it’d be a bold witness. You have to get over your fear of man. There’s no way to please both at the same time. And so for Paul, since that issue was already settled in his heart and ministry, he goes on to write with clarity and conviction in verse 13, if it seems we are crazy ’cause that’s what he was being called, it’s to bring glory to God.

And if we are in our right minds, it’s for your benefit. So he is like, I don’t care what you call me, all of it is for the glory of God and the building up of other people. Verse 14. Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life.

He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ who died and was raised for them. There’s so much here, a lot to meditate on. But notice Paul isn’t controlled by people’s opinions or accusations ’cause he’s died to the old self.

He’s died to his old agenda. If we had time in the room, we would probably share. There’s been a lot of deaths in our congregation. The good kind we have died to the fear of slander. We have died to old habits and destructive relationships. We have said no to those things in order to say yes to Christ.

And Paul is saying his fear once controlled him, but now it’s Christ’s love that controls and compels him. In other words, I want us to see this. You can’t receive God’s love and live in fear of man at the same time. Put it another way,   📍 we only fear our fellow man when we fail to receive our savior’s love.

 So if you have a fear problem, you really have a love problem. Do you know why we fear others’ opinions? Think about it. Why are we so worried about what other will think? Why was I so worried that those two would reject me if I brought up the gospel? At its core, all of us, we crave acceptance. What we need to be reminded of is God himself has accepted us in Christ Jesus.

We have all the acceptance we need. We have been welcomed in the kingdom. We’re redeemed, we’re made new. And so I just wanna ask this really simple question this morning. Do you know that Christ loves you? And here’s the thing, Christ doesn’t love who you pretend to be. Christ loves who you actually are and here’s what’s great ’cause You’re thinking, yeah, I’m not a Christian.

He doesn’t love me. The scriptures say in Romans that in fact, he loved you so much. He died for you while you were still his enemy. He died so that you can be reconciled back to him. And and the battle we face, it’s not just in our own flesh, it’s not just in our own minds. We have to remember, we also have.

Satan, we have the devil who knows you and I would be set free and empowered to witness if we truly knew the depths of God’s love. So it’s always his agenda to condemn you, to make you forget his love, and for you not to remember who you are in Christ. That’s why in Second Corinthians four, the chapter before what we’re reading today, if we had time, we jump into it.

But essentially Paul says, Satan is the God of this age who has come to blind, the non-believers. And so we have to remember as we’re engaging gospel conversations, there is a blinding that has already occurred. And so Matt Sme Thit and one of our recommended reads, he connects the dots and tells us   📍 the devil is busy keeping sinners from opening their eyes.

And he does so by keeping you from opening your mouth. He knows he can prevent sight if he can simply prevent speech.

 Guys. In other words, we won’t open our mouths for Jesus until we’ve opened our hearts to Jesus. But here’s what’s amazing. You see this in two Corinthians five and all throughout the gospels, love knowing how much we truly have been loved by him empowers us to get uncomfortable. Knowing his love empowers us to make the ask.

Apostle John says it in one John, he says, perfect love, which comes from God, cast out all fear. So before we move on, lemme just put it simply, I know this witness practice has been intimidating going to your group. Did you share the gospel this week? Ah, you know, it’s just so terrifying. But look, maybe your courage problem is a love problem.

Because when you know how much God’s grace has been poured on you and how much he loves you, despite your sinful nature, despite the fact that you were running and rebelling against God, but he has made you new. When you know the depths of his love, you can’t help but speak what you’ve seen and heard. So let’s keep moving in the text.

So fear is an obstacle that convinces us. Our witness is optional, but fear isn’t the only reason we stay quiet sometimes. It’s not our silence, it’s our sight. Notice what Paul says here. We’re looking at people through a worldly lens, or as what the scriptures would call the flesh. Let’s start again in verse 16 Now.

So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time, we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view, how differently we know him. Now, this means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. I love it. Theology a new person means you have new desires, you have a new purpose.

Your your past has been wiped away. Then he goes on to say, the old life is gone. A new life has begun. Paul’s hitting here is from a worldly perspective. You and I, we often judge people ahead of time based off their appearance, based off their status or their reputation, and the scriptures are clear. God doesn’t look at people that way.

If you guys know the story of one Samuel 16, when the Lord tells Samuel to find David to be king, he says, quote, man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart, and I just wanted to challenge all of us today. That means the very person you and I are likely to dismiss this whole month as we’re thinking about who to share the gospel to is likely the one God wants you to share the gospel to.

And we have two different categories. Some of us, some people, they’re too well off. They don’t think they, they don’t need anything. You’re so wrong. Read Ecclesiastes. Or they’re too far gone. They have sinned so much they hate God. Read the gospels. Look at Paul, the one who’s writing this. He killed Christians.

Now he’s become one. Nobody’s too well off or too far gone. Honestly. Again, the person you’re most resistant to sharing is usually the person you should start with first. Because it turns out   📍 when we nitpick, we miss out on God’s pick.  Just a couple months after returning from the Virgin Islands, it was my junior year at Queen Creek High, and so I committed to God.

Once I found out that I missed that opportunity, I told God, God, please, I don’t wanna lose your voice. I want you to gimme more promptings this year. I will share the gospel. And of course, in his humor, he prompted me to share the gospel to the most popular kid in school. I was a junior. He was a senior. He was the captain of the football team.

I was not, uh, he was a state champion wrestler. I played basketball, you know, and so. I shared the gospel to him one day. ’cause I thought, God, if I miss out, if I keep saying no to you, you’re not gonna, I wanna be used by you. God, I, I want my life to matter. And so I shared the gospel to him, and he believed, I was like, wow.

Way easier than I thought. And so I shared the whole nature of, of, of the gospel and the whole story. And he became that person of peace. And it was crazy. It was during football season, we were on the same team. And, uh, we go to team dinners the night before and he would literally go up. He, he, he would walk up to a guy, bro, you look like your life’s a wreck.

Hey, Trey, come over here. Uh, this guy needs Jesus. Uh, can you? And I was like, okay. Hey man. And so I would do it. He would do it all the time. I remember one time after a football game, after a win, he goes up to me and says, let’s share the gospel to our head coach. I was like, I don’t know if that’s legal.

You know, I don’t know what. Goes, we gotta do it. So he goes up to him and says, Hey coach, I think you’re relying too much on these wins. Like you have an idol in your life. So hey, Trey, have you, can you share Jesus to this guy? And I was like, I want more playing time. But sure, you know, and so shared the gospel to him, and it was incredible.

But I promise you, I never would’ve thought God had him on his mind. I, I would’ve thought, he’s too popular. He doesn’t need it. And so this passage reminds us, we often look at people from a human point of view, oh, they’re too stuck in this other religion. Oh, they have too dark of a past, or, oh, they have no interest.

You would be shocked. Don’t nitpick, or else you miss out on God’s pick. So before we move on, who have you written off? So if the gospel really saves, why don’t we make the ask? It’s because of fear, the flesh, but also forgetting the task. Verse 18. And all of this is a gift from God who brought us back to himself through Christ.

And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. We believe when Jesus died on the cross and rose again, he made it possible for us to be reunited back to God. And I love this next line, no longer counting people’s sins against them.

That’s the good news of Jesus. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors. God is making his appeal through us, and so we speak for Christ when we plead, come back to God’s a lot here. What Paul is summarizing, he’s saying, our task is essentially this title of being an ambassador in Paul’s day.

We have ambassadors today as well. But in Paul’s day, an ambassador wasn’t just a fancy title, it was a role of honor and responsibility. Essentially the. The ambassador, he was a very high ranking representative sent by the king to represent his kingdom or empire to foreign lands. And here’s what was interesting.

Their words weren’t just their own opinions. They, they carried the authority of the king. So whatever they said, they treated it as actual words from the king himself. And also, as a result, if you were ever to dishonor the ambassador, you had that whole empire now against you to dishonor. An ambassador is to dishonor the king.

And so Paul’s word choice is very intentional. Notice, he doesn’t say We’re advertisers for Christ. We’re ambassadors. Ambassadors. We just deliver the words given to us by the king. We don’t spin the message for better. ROI, we don’t change it. Or, or, or, or emphasize something and hide another. That’s what Paul addresses to you.

All these other false teachers, they’re, they’re trying to be advertisers. We’re ambassadors. But it also means with ambassador is not only do we speak the gospel, we embody it. We represent the Kingdom of God through our unique values, our perspectives on life, our habits in the everyday, in all of our worldviews.

And this has so many implications for the task God has given us. Mainly, hear me,   📍 the gospel saves us from the pit and sends us out with purpose.  I grew up hearing a gospel and I’m not mad about it, just about how you have been delivered from sin, satan, and death. And that alone is good news. Enough, praise the Lord.

We’re no longer morally depraved because of Christ. We’re no longer spiritually deprived because of Christ. But also, we’re now dignified. We’ve been given a purpose. We’ve been sent out by the king, and we get to do the thing that heaven rejoices over. What do the angels rejoice over when someone enters into the kingdom?

When they get saved, when they say yes to Christ? There’s a party in heaven, and you and I get to play a part. What I love about Second Corinthians chapter five is it’s very clear God is the one at work. Way before we talk, we’re just like kind of invited to play a small part. Notice it says, God’s reconciled in the world to himself.

God is making his appeal through us. So our job, this word here, is really helpful, is to plead verse 20. Plead or to beg, or maybe your translation says to implore, uh, this word means to ask with urgency, but never with force. Which is a huge value at our church. We, we ask you urgently start serving here, but we’re not gonna force you.

But, you know, urgent, uh, I was reading a book this week, the Patient Ferment of the Early Church, A wonderful book by Alan Kreider, and he defines, he just kind of tracing how the early church grew so much in their witness. And he says the style and tone of their witness in the first few centuries was quote, a combination of relaxation and urgency.

What a paradox. Relaxed and urgent. I just got to thinking, what would it look like for Passion Creek to reorient our lives and our conversations so that they would always be relaxed and urgent? How is it relaxed? Friends, you and I have nothing to prove. I love it. Whitney. Uh, Whitney, uh, Heidi shared a wonderful story last week and she said, I realize all I have to do is just invite.

It Doesn’t matter if they say yes or not. That’s not up to me. That’s relaxed. It’s up to God. God’s the one who does, gives the growth. God’s the one who does the saving. I just have to do the ask. But with urgency, because eternity is real. Christ’s love controls me. It compels me. I, Jeremiah, it’s like if I hold it in, it’s like fire in my bones.

I have to actually go and make the ask. And so relax and urgent means we get uncomfortable for the sake of our neighbor. Imagine if Passion Creek became the type of people who witnessed without pressure, but never without passion. That’s the heartbeat of what I hope we’ve been building up as a congregation.

And that’s why we’re calling it invitation. It’s not to force people into the grace of God. It’s not to manipulate people into the grace of God. It’s just to invite and what do we invite people to to come back to God? The message of re reconciliation. If you were here week two, we said the gospel is not just a slogan, it’s a story.

And so we’ve been showing you what is the gospel on a napkin, and it starts with the kingdom. So when we’re telling people to come back to God, here’s the story we’re sharing. Hey, the God, when he created this world, he created us to dwell with him in his kingdom, for us to live and rule under his loving rule and reign.

And yet sin entered into the picture, starting with Adam and Eve and everybody ever since. Because we’re born with a sinful nature, we rebelled against his kingship. As a result, death is now in the picture. You and I are morally depraved. We don’t do what we wanna do. We do what we don’t wanna do. We’re spiritually deprived.

We’re lonely. We’re hopeless on our own power. And so now the world is always trying to give a different version of salvation. Buy this product and you’ll be saved. Do this thing and you’ll be saved. And the gospel is no. Every other option. Will not save you. But God sent his son to live the life we couldn’t live to die, the death we deserve to die.

And through his resurrection, he does defeat sin, Satan and death and offers us resurrection life. But the question is, what will you do with this gospel? And that’s why we say it requires repentance. What I love about reconciliation, it’s also true in our everyday life. Reconciliation requires a response.

It’s one thing to forgive someone, it’s another thing to be reconciled. God is saying, be reconciled to me. Come turn and come to me. And so in repentance, what we’re doing is we’re dying from our old self, our old way of living, our old idols, the ways that we thought we can save ourselves, our own view on life.

We’re saying, no, I trust you Jesus. You’re my Lord. You’re my savior, you’re my teacher, you’re my rabbi. It’s all for you. So I’m turning away from that filth and I’m asking you to give me life. And that’s what he does. He gives us eternal life. We argued in week two, eternal life starts now and lasts for eternity.

What this means, we’re adopted, we’re forgiven. We have a new life filled with new hopes and new purposes. And this eternal life starts now. Jesus calls it His yoke is easy and his burden is light. And now, as a group of people who has said yes to Jesus, who have repented and received eternal life, we are now on the path of formation.

Day by day, little by little, we’re being formed by Jesus together for others. ’cause what we’re trying to do here on earth is to be reconciled back to God, not just individually, but as a people and as a community. We are seeking to bring the kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven. That’s why the arrow goes back to the kingdom.

This is the invitation. Look at everything. Let’s just look at Second Corinthians five. Are you with me? Okay. We’re   📍 inviting people into a new motivation. Paul says, it used to be in fear of man. Now you’re controlled by the love of Christ. Verse 17, A new identity. We have a new creation, not the old self anymore, a new vision.

In verse 16, we see life in people totally different. We see Christ totally different. Verse 18 and 19 shows us we have a new relationship. We now have peace with God, which leads to overall flourishing a love. Verse 19, it also shows we have a new record. Our sins are no longer counted against us. Verse 18 and 20 shows us that we have a new calling, that we are ambassadors of reconciliation.

So it’s not just that we’re saved from, but because of the gospel, we’re saved too. In verse 21, we are given a new status. We literally swap our sin with Christ’s righteousness.  We give God all of our mess, and he gives us his righteousness. A perfect record, a clean life. And that’s just Second Corinthians chapter five, witnesses.

As ambassadors, we are called to invite people into God’s grace, and I just wonder, are we doing that this month? Will we do that this year? And I was, I was praying, how do we land the plane here? I really wanna remind you a huge way we invite people into God’s grace is we invite people into God’s family.

Don’t miss Paul’s communal language here. He says, we are Christ’s ambassadors. God is making his appeal through us. And the reality is this witness is not a solo sport. For the last few years, um, Jordan, there, there’s been a fight in the home, so pray for us. Um, but Jordan, that’s my wife. If you haven’t met her, we’ve been fighting about lighting in our house.

And for years I’ve just been team yellow. You know, like, let’s go like soft warm. Like when I see them movies and TVs like the yellow Hairlight, I’m like, butter, you know, it’s just beautiful. And so I’m like, yellow’s where to go. Like when I come home, I want to be like a warm environment and inviting. And Jordan’s always like, no.

It needs to be blue. Like we need to look like we’re an avatar or something. You know, we’re all just, she doesn’t say that, but that’s my response. And, uh, I’m like, no, blue is not the way to go. And so we, all of our lights have been out. And so we’re like, okay, so we went to Costco, which is the answer to most of our problems.

Amen. Um, and so we went to Costco and I thought, oh no, we found lights. And they’re the ones where you can change the color on the bulb. Yeah. So like, we’re gonna settle this debate once and for all. And so we changed, it was, I think we bought 24 lights and we literally put them all up. I was like, I did not know we had that many lights in our house.

And so we put ’em all up and, you know, ’cause I’m the man of the house and the leader, I’d made ’em all yellow. And Jordan was like, Hey, you know, love you. Uh, what if you, you know, change the Kelvin rating? Let, let’s go to, to a little bit more blue. And so I thought, you know what I’m gonna prove to her once and for all.

That this would make us look like avatar. So go. Okay, babe. So I, I, I put one on, and especially if you do this and you see yellow, yellow, yellow, and then this other one, it is blue. I mean, it is ugly. It stands out. It doesn’t look good. And I’m like, you want me to keep going? Like, ugh. Like, look at this nastiness.

And she said, give it a real shot. Do all of them, not just one. I thought, huh, okay. So I burnt my hand because I love my wife. You know, I was going up and I switched them all. And about halfway through I knew I was in trouble. This looks so much better than the yellow. Oh, no. So that’s halfway through. I’m like, how do I recover?

How do I somehow claim this was my idea all along, you know? So I finally ha, I looked out at Jordan and I just like, like a wounded puppy. I’m like, you’re right. She goes, what’d you say? I said, you were right. You, you were right. Okay. And, uh, we don’t look like avatar. It turns out now the home is happy all of a sudden.

And actually we don’t wanna sell our house anymore. We actually like it. It was just the yellow color that made us despise the place. And so all of that to say, there’s an illustration here. Hold on, stay with me. Stay to the light. I do think when we think of ourselves as as ambassadors, we often just go to a world of darkness and we just show our light.

And sometimes that’s all we can do. But the reality is, is non-believers, those who have been blinded by the God of this age, in order for them, I really do believe this. To see the full picture of God’s grace, I think it requires a whole lot more of us in the room. It’s one for one light to be different than the rest.

And it, and it sticks out and it doesn’t seem fine. But when you begin to show the whole, when you invite them to the community, you get to see the full picture of God’s grace and people’s lights turn on. Or as Jesus says, you are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. We are a city.

We are called to all shine our light at the same time. And so I just wanna encourage you, we’re not just asking you to invite people into the faith. We’re asking you to start inviting people into the family. And that’s this week’s practice.   📍 We want you to invite someone to something. Okay, we’re gonna give you three steps.

 We have the guides in the back. If you still haven’t grabbed one, we encourage you to grab one on your way out. It’s kind of over by the donuts. Um, we have three ways for we want you, let me be clear. We think it’s one thing to hear a sermon and think, okay, great. None of this has happened yet. We have to actually do the word Jesus says.

That’s where the power comes. And so here’s the three things we want you to do this week. Number one, choose one person the spirit has been bringing to mind during this practice. I would even argue bringing to mind during this sermon when I’ve been saying, don’t nitpick. Who’s the person? God’s brought up.

I’m telling you. Hear me? God’s already been sharing the gospel to them. God has already been finding ways to, uh, soften that person’s heart, but he decides to make his appeal through us. You know that word appeal is parakaleo, para means comes alongside. Kaleo means call. What God does is he calls people, but he does it with us.

He used and okay. Anyways, okay, so number one.   📍 You make the appeal, find the person. Number two, invite them to something. Okay? That’s a great step. Look, I don’t know. Let’s go to dinner. I don’t.  Let’s go watch preseason football, which nobody cares about, right? Let’s go do something. I don’t, I don’t know. That was an unfair jab to my wife.

She loves, I like it’s preseason. Okay? Invite them to something.   📍 Number three, invite them to follow Jesus.  And my prayer all week has been, may our invitations be relaxed and urgent for we are inviting people into the greatest news ever told, but the time is short. Let’s read the last part, verse 21. For God made Christ who never sinned to be the offering for our sin so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

That’s the gospel in a sentence, he’s the hero of the story. Friends chapter six, as God’s partners. How incredible is that? We beg you not to accept this marvelous gift of God’s kindness and then ignore it for God says at just the right time. I heard you on the day of salvation. I helped you indeed. The right time is now.

Today is the day of salvation, and I want us to stand because we’re gonna now enter into our time of response. There’s a couple ways I want to invite you to respond to this gospel call that he gives us here in chapter six.

As we stand, I just hope that you kind of turn your attention to Jesus. I wanna help guide you into what maybe the spirit of God is doing in the room. But the reality is, is some of us, we have never received this gift. Today’s the day. It’s not, I need to get better. I need to do this. I need to prove my worth.

No Christ has done everything in your place. The only question is, will you let him? Will you receive him? Will you turn to him to let him be your savior, your hero, your God? There’s others of us in the room. We’ve already done that.

I beg you not to accept this marvelous gift of God’s kindness and then ignore it.

I think part of us for repentance today is to repent of the conversations we haven’t had to ask God’s forgiveness for the ways that we have written people off, but also hear me just to ask God to give us his love so much that we have courage to share this week. Father, would you do that for us?