Activating Evangelism: A Call to Seek and Save

Today we’re going to be in Acts chapter two. Because, as you may know, this is Pentecost Sunday. Yeah. That’s awesome. Sometimes we don’t, realize the importance of this, but it’s all important. So without the Holy Spirit of God coming and living in us, we have no power to follow Jesus. We have no power to be any different than we used to be.

We have no power to be bold and extend the gospel. And so we’re going to talk today about, the story, the account in Acts chapter two, and how that’s relevant to us today. because I see it as such an opportunity every time I get the chance to, to come address you and to come speak with you guys, because I believe God is starting a movement, and I believe he’s on the march.

And I believe that each and every one of us is part of this. And if we’re not all united and we’re not all fighting together, we will not win. We will not accomplish the purposes that God has for us. But together, the gates of Hades, the gates of death will not prevail against the Church of God. They will not prevail.

And that implies that we are on the offense. When the gates can’t prevail, we’re smashing through the gates. We’re on the offensive. Okay, so the message title today is this is how we win, this is how we win. We’re finishing a series on spiritual warfare. And my assignment was to talk about how Pentecost and really the witness and the evangelism that came from Pentecost.

How is that a part of spiritual warfare? How is that a part of tearing down the works of the devil? How is that a part of bringing people into the place where the Spirit of God fills them? And they have hope, and they have life, and they have peace and they have joy. But if we don’t know the goal of our war, how can we win?

If you don’t know why you’re fighting or how you win, how can you sustain the war? If you don’t know how to actually accomplish your objective? You’ll give up eventually. You’ll burn out. You’ll turn inwards and you’ll you’ll look only at yourself and how you’re doing. Okay. so we’ve been talking a lot about spiritual warfare in weeks past.

We’ve been talking about more of the internal elements of the war. The war at home. Okay. The war zone called home. Okay, we talked about how the devil is at work trying to split up marriages, how he’s at work, trying to split up kids from fathers and mothers, how he’s at work, at your job, how he’s at work.

In your own thoughts. Pastor Shelly shared with us how is that work in the church? Pastor Shelly again last week shared about how, the enemy wants to divide the church and divide us from one another through unforgiveness. Right. And a lot of that is internal stuff. But what we’re talking about today is the outer war getting out of the barracks and fighting the enemy and taking souls back for the kingdom of God.

Because how we win is we empty the kingdom of the Prince of Darkness, and we make him the Prince of nothing. That’s how you win. You transfer souls from one kingdom to the other. That’s end game. And it’s also Avengers end game, because it’s the best revenge that you can have against the enemy. So I actually know just from what I know about some of your lives, that many of you have been under attack and you’ve been under assault, and the enemy has taken things from you, and that was not your father that took that from you.

That was the enemy of your soul, that took something from you. If you wonder why this world looks like a war zone, why is there disease and famine and genocide? Why? Why are there people that are dying by their own hand? Why are there people locked in despair? That’s the work of an enemy. It’s a war zone. That’s why it looks like a war zone.

Yeah. The god of this age, it says in Second Corinthians four is Satan. We believe in a real devil. We believe that he holds people captive. We believe that he works through family lines. We believe that he goes after the weak and the helpless. We believe that he preys on children. We believe that he’s a liar. We believe that he’s a charmer and an accuser and a condemned.

So we believe that he is the Lord of death. Amen. But we believe that Jesus has broken his kingdom of death. Jesus descended into death, and death could not hold him. He rose victorious. And that was the message of the church that was proclaimed on Pentecost. See, Peter said this. He, he, he preaches, he bears witness once the Holy Spirit falls on him.

And he says in Acts 2:32, this Jesus God raised up. And of that we are all witnesses, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. So he gives testimony to the fact that Jesus, one of his best friends, his disciple, master, his God, his Lord, died, was crucified.

When that was happening, Peter couldn’t say a word. He couldn’t make a little peep. He couldn’t say, oh yeah, I belong to Jesus. He denied Jesus three times. If you know the accounts in the gospel stories, and then we find them later, after Jesus’s death, locked in a room for fear of the very ones that had killed Jesus.

But on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit fell upon him, brought him to newness of life, filled him, changed him, transformed him, made him bold. And he said, this Jesus, whom you crucified, God has appointed Lord and Christ. And there wasn’t a smidge of fear in him. There wasn’t even a bit of fear in him. He knew what Jesus had been teaching, that whoever lives and believes in me will never die.

We’ll never be separated from God again, will never go back to the old ways of fear, will never go back to the old ways of bondage and addiction and despair and depression and anxiety. He knew whoever lives and walks in belief in me will never die. So there was nothing that the enemy could take from him. And he said, you have brought Jesus to death.

But death couldn’t hold him. He raised him up. God raised him up. So their death is not the end of the story. There’s newness of life and all. Peter had to do was was bear witness to it. All he had to do was talk about what he had seen and heard and experienced. He didn’t have to go to seminary.

He went 40 days. Jesus Seminary between when Jesus was raised and when he ascended

into heaven. And he had been taught for three years before that. But all he needed to do was was talk about how Jesus had affected him and what Jesus had done. All he had to do was bear witness and talk about it without fear.

And what happened? The key scripture I’m going to read to you, which is which is linked to spiritual warfare, is at the end of this account. Peter challenges them. The people hearing him to repent leave behind their sin. It can’t come with you. If you want to follow Jesus, your sin can’t come with you. Your idols can’t come with you.

You. You must actually follow Jesus. All right. You have to imitate Christ. It’s really that simple. This is what this is our belief system. Okay? If you’re new here, Jesus will save you. He’ll completely take away your sin and you’ll be clean. And then you imitate him. You. That’s it. All right. There’s obviously a lot of a lot of depth to that.

but so he says, repent, don’t keep living the way you were, repent, change and be baptized. Bury the old life, receive a new heart, a new mind, a new self. Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, so you’ll never be afraid. So you’ll never be alone. So God Himself will always pour love into your heart through the Holy Spirit who’s been given to you.

And that love will cast out your fear. You’ll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And it said, with many other words, he bore witness, and he exhorted them. He said, Jesus is really alive. There’s really a new path for you. There’s really hope. Death is really not the end. And he said, save yourselves from this evil, twisted generation.

Leave the power of darkness, leave the kingdom of Satan, be baptized and come out a new person. Come out a follower of Jesus Christ. Okay, that’s what he said. And what it said was the response in Acts 2:41. There were added that day about 3000 souls.

Father, help us today. Help us today to see the mission. Help us to define victory, empower us to win in Jesus name. Amen. Okay, so the soul here, it’s not talking about the mind, will and emotions. It’s this the Hebrew concept of soul, which was nefesh, the word in the old, the Old Testament. And it really means the whole life of the person.

So another example in Acts, Paul said, there were, you know, the people that were on a ship that sank. He wanted to save all their souls. Okay. There was a certain number of souls that were on the ship, okay? And it means the whole life. It means spirit, soul and body. So there were added that day to the kingdom of God, 3000 souls.

Where were they taken from? The kingdom of darkness. The Jesus said, if you’re not with me, you’re against me. If you don’t gather with me, you scatter. You can’t be deceived to think I follow Satan, but I’m really one of God’s. If you leave this room, you’re going to either leave in the kingdom of God or the kingdom of Satan.

There’s only one way you can leave. Is everyone hearing me? There’s only one way you can leave. You can’t leave like, oh, I’m kind of in this kingdom, and I’m kind of in that kingdom. Oh, I look like, you know, really strange. Okay, it’s not going to happen. Right? So you have to decide, are you going to transfer your life from your former owner, Satan?

He owned you because of your guilt. You chose the ways of sin. You committed yourself to the Lord of death, the Lord of sin. You became an imitator of Satan, so he had charge over you. But Jesus said, I’m taking you back. I’m going to die the death you should have died, and I’m going to live the life you should have lived, and I’ll trade you.

I’ll trade lives with you. Some of you need to just take the trade today and say, I’m done being under the thumb of Satan. I’m done letting him ruin my family line. I’m done letting them ruin my kids. I’m done letting them ruin my own heart. I’m done letting them condemn me and call me worth nothing. I’ll never amount to anything.

I’m done listening to that liar and that verbal abuser. I’m done. I’m coming to the Lord who sought me, who laid down his blood to buy me back. You see, the devil’s job is to take souls. I’m going to take souls. And Jesus said, I came to take them back.

You’re like, oh, cool. Jesus did that, right? You are the body of Christ. You are his agent in the world. That is how souls will be taken back. That is how souls will be transferred. I’m talking about lives here. I’m not just talking about praying a prayer. I’m talking about your whole life getting converted. Your whole life getting converted.

You understand that God does it through us. He’s commissioned us to do it. Remember? We know this. Matthew 28. I hope we know it. Sometimes you say, like Paul said every time in Romans, Paul said, don’t you know they didn’t know? Okay, so sometimes we don’t know. But at the end of two gospels, Matthew and Mark, Jesus said, go preach the gospel, go make disciples, train them all nations, make disciples, replicate yourself, multiply yourself.

That’s an active role that we are taking to take souls back. This is how we win. We? I mean, a lot of times we focus on the internal elements of spiritual warfare, and we should. If you’re a wreck at home, you’re a wreck in your family. You’re a wreck in your thoughts. Well, you’re not going to even have the first inclination to share how good Jesus is, because you’re letting the devil take it away from you.

You’re letting him deceive you into thinking you really have it bad. You’re a victim, you’re miserable, everybody’s against you, and you’re buying into his narrative. That’s really his narrative. Oh, I really should have been the King of heaven, and God took it away from me. And that’s really his narrative. So when you buy into that, you’re giving up all the freedom that comes in Christ.

And if you give that up, if you lose the internal war, you’ll lose the external war. Jesus had to go to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. But then it said he came out of the wilderness in the power of the Holy Spirit. In Luke chapter four, he was led into the wilderness full of the spirit.

He resisted the devil’s temptations to say, I’m not really a son. I’m not really going to do this. I’m not really going to go for this mission that the father’s given me. I’m going to take a shortcut. And he said, no, get behind me, Satan. And it said he came out from the wilderness not just full of the Holy Spirit, but in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And he preached the kingdom of God in the synagogues and towns. And he cast out demons, and he healed sicknesses. And he bore witness that God was on the move, and God was taking souls back because he said, it says in first John three, for this reason he came to take away sin and to destroy the works of the devil.

Evangelism is spiritual warfare, and it’s external warfare. If you only fight inside, it’s like you’re great at training and you’ve never fought. You know how to use all your weapons, and you’ve never contacted the enemy. You’ve never gone out and tried to take someone back. Okay? And what I want to encourage us today is that we need to do this.

We need to obey this commandment. I’m hearing awesome testimonies this week of people going out and doing this. I want to bless what God is already doing. I know back there he’s on fire. He’ll lead you out any time or place. Well, you got to ask Holly first, but, you know, he’ll lead you out, and he’s praying for people.

We go every Monday, and we just share the gospel with people. We pray for people. We get their names so we can follow up and we pray for them. Okay. I know Christina and Angelina are on fire. They’re going after it. I know Jerusha is making disciples where she is at. I know Shawn Burrows getting after it in his auto shop.

Okay, so stuff’s happening right now, people. You guys are doing what you need to do. I’m here to encourage that. And if you say, oh, that’s not really me. It’s not. It’s not my gift. I just want to tell you it’s not your gift. It’s your commission. It’s like it’s not an it’s not an option. You’re like, oh, I’m a follower of Jesus, but I don’t make disciples.

But did Jesus make disciples? Yes.

You got to actively do it as much as you’re intentionally avoiding lust and avoiding greed. And, you know, being a good husband and being a good father, coming to church, all great things. The priority Jesus gave was to take souls back from the enemy, make disciples so they can do it. And by the way, if you’re a new believer or you’ve just encountered God, it could be today you encountered God.

You’re like, I’m really going to live for this right now. Go make disciples. Jesus drove a legion out of the guy. Remember this account? He drove a legion of demons out of a guy. The guy lived in the tomb. He was. Nobody could bind him, even with chains. The guy was a full-on demonic. And Jesus drove out the devils. You might have heard this account. They went into the pigs. They’re like, just send us into the pigs so we can cause one more bit of destruction. All right? So they go off, and then the guy is clothed and in his right mind. He’s healed. He’s sitting at the feet of Jesus, and he says, Jesus, let me go with you.

Let me learn from you. Let me enroll in your school. And Jesus says, go to the Decapolis, to the ten cities, and tell people how God had mercy on you. He didn’t say, go be a rabbi. He didn’t say, go start a synagogue. He didn’t say, go learn Hebrew so you could read the Torah. He said, just tell people what happened.

Go tell people what God does. Go tell people God healed me. I had a legion of demons in me, and he cast him out. What are you going to say to people you know? I had no hope, and God healed my marriage. I had no hope, and God freed me from addiction to pornography. I had no hope, and now I’m not a drunk anymore because God showed me a better way.

You know, I used to be crippled in depression, and now I’m a youth pastor. What? You know, what are you going to say? Okay. Like, what are you going to say to that? Right. Like, you need to bear witness of what Jesus has done. There’s this pastor, Robert Morris, and he said he’s got some good stuff.

And he said, many of you, you’re all witnesses as Christians, but we need to get you to stop taking the fifth because, you know, you can do that. You have the option to take the fifth and be like, yeah, you know, I had a testimony a while back, and, you know, if somebody asked me, maybe I’ll maybe I’ll do it.

You know, I just want to break those excuses off because you should go tell people. Is this, like, pretty simple? This is what you should be doing. So if you’re a Christian, you have a ministry. It’s called telling people about Jesus. You don’t have to know everything you can say. I don’t know anything about him.

I just know that once I was blind, and now I see I’m giving you scriptures here that’s in John nine. Okay, and if you need help, I’m here. Pastor Pat is here, pastor Shelly, pastor John, pastor Celine, jazz. There’s people here that would love to walk with you. They would love to get you plugged in. They’d love to teach you the Bible.

We actually have a discipleship school here. Okay. So there’s something where people say, and I’m just going to risk offending some people, right? Because I hear this a lot. I’m an evangelist, and I work in a church, so sometimes it frustrates me a little bit. Right? Because I want to get out there and do stuff and all that.

But anyway, sometimes people in church, they say, you know, it’s really easy to get people saved. The hard part is disciplining them. Yeah. Like, have you tried getting people saved? It’s a lot harder if somebody just got saved and they got baptized in the love of God, and they’re hungry, they’re like a newborn babe.

They’re like, give me the Bible.

I want to know this. That’s easy. It’s hard to convince an atheist that there’s a higher power, and his name is Jesus. A historical flesh and blood Nazarene man. That’s like, do it if it’s easy. If you know how easy it is. Let’s get 800 new babies in here, because we actually have the infrastructure to disciple these people.

Yeah, let’s do it. Okay. I’m not trying to offend anybody. I know I’m not the worst pastor, but I’m not trying to offend any pastors here. Because I am one of you, okay. And it is very hard. It can be very hard to disciple someone, especially some of you people out there.

You know, it says, especially David. Right. They’re trying to disciple me, and I’m not getting it, you know. But I just want to tell you guys, it is critical. You have to birth them if you’re going to raise them. Like, okay, I’m not going to name names here, but there’s somebody close in my life.

Not in this church. Lives in a different state, actually. And just him and his wife are like, oh, when is the right time to have kids? And, you know, it’s like my or. I just did it. Hopefully, they never hear this, but, someone was like, oh, did the spreadsheet say it’s time? You know, you’re just like, how can we get it all figured out before life will come?

And we have it pretty good figured out here. Let’s get after it. Let’s bring people in. All right. So that’s that’s my I wasn’t on a soapbox, but I’m I’m getting off of it. people are called to different specialties. All that. Okay. All right. so this is my thing is we need to know how we win the war.

It’s by transferring souls, and they have to stay transferred. So we do have to discipline. If you’re inviting someone into the kingdom of God, you’re inviting them into your life. This is what they did. In acts chapter two. The Holy Spirit came. They had boldness. The people were added, and then they fellowship with them. Yeah, they met in the temple and they met house to house.

They didn’t just multiply disciples, they multiply churches. They they multiplied small groups. Okay. I believe that there is a call on our church to multiply churches, not just a multiply individuals. There’s many people here so qualified you could be the pastor, your neighborhood. You could be the pastor, your job, you could be the pastor where you’re at. And you don’t have a title, but you’re a shepherd.

Amen. And you can gather people in fellowship if you’re willing to tell them who Jesus is. If you’re willing to say, like, hey, come over to my house and play Settlers of Catan, and maybe at some point I’ll tell you about my life, you know, and first ask them about their life. That’d be a really good, good thing to do.

Okay, so you don’t have to be what I call the cringe Christian. It’s like, here, I’m going to give you this and you need to pray right now. You know, like we all of our skin crawls when we we think about that. Maybe maybe not everyone. Maybe if your skin doesn’t crawl, you’re cringe enough. I don’t know, but, I mean, we need to be normal people.

We need to be, like, asking questions and actually caring about the answers that the people give us. We need to actually be relating to people. But here’s another one I want to break down. Is that people say it’s not effective to share with strangers. It’s not effective. Yes it is. Oh, thanks for all I know. I know, you know, I know, I know, you know it.

It’s okay. but guess what? After after I meet somebody, are they a stranger anymore? Okay, so there you go. Right. So if your goal is actually to have a friendship with someone, you’ll have to begin the friendship at some point. And you can practice this in church. You see someone come in and you actually make friends with them.

That would help us retain people. Not just not just get them out if they are actually like, there’s decent people here that they wanted to be my friend. None of this is rocket surgery. Like none of this is crazy. You know, it’s like none of this is like that hard. It’s just what the problem is. The problem is.

And we’ll be real, right? Like, the problem is fear and embarrassment. The problem is, I don’t want to stand out because I could get slapped down a Peter. Peter wasn’t afraid of that because he already knew. What happens when you give in to that? He had already been down that well and Jesus said, hey, I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you, feed my sheep.

He Jesus wants to say that to you. If you haven’t been sharing or you’ve been, you’ve been shut down. I’ve gone through long periods where I was really shut down in this, you can get shut down by disappointment, by wounds, by direct attack from the enemy, but you can get shut down. And the Lord wants to restore you.

The Lord wants to get you back in the fight. Anybody ever watch a little movie called Top Gun? That was good. The Lord gave me this last night. I was like, I was praying deep, you know? And he’s like, Top Gun, you know, Top Gun is going to is going to do the job here. I was like, that’s right.

Amen. Okay. So remember in Top Gun when Maverick, you know, in the training accident, they get in a flak spin and goose has to punch out gooses the guy in the back seat of his, his fighter plane, and goose hits the canopy and he dies. It’s his best friend, and he’s just shaken up by it. But Maverick’s the best pilot that they have.

And so when it’s time to go on mission, they say, well, we got to have Maverick, even if he’s just as a backup, even if he doesn’t have, goose with them anymore, we got to get him out there just in case. And then what happens is they get in this fight, this dogfight, they got all these enemy fighters in the sky over the sea.

and and the American planes are outnumbered. There’s only one of them left. So they got us and Maverick out. And Maverick’s a bit traumatized. Okay? He doesn’t want to go out there. And he’s like, okay. And he goes. And then when he starts, he starts entering in the dogfight. He starts fighting. And he just. He freaks out completely.

He he flies through another plane’s jet wash. You guys, you’ve seen this. I we should just play the clip. But anyway, it’s so good. There’s a lot of cursing in this clip, so I’m not gonna. That’s why I’m not going to play it. he flies through the jet wash. He goes back in that flap. Then all you hear is a.

And he’s just he’s spinning around and and it’s like the guy in the command post on the aircraft carrier is going. Maverick, reengage. Maverick, what are you doing? ReEngage. You’re leaving your wingman reengage. And he he all of a sudden he just he’s like who? When he just he spins back in. Right? And he’s a gun in him.

Down. So good. Right. Highway to the danger zone. You know splash for he does. He does so good. Right. But maybe some of us you know, maybe we’ve been hurt in the past. Maybe we’re in a flat spin. We’re rubbing our dog tags are going to talk to me, goose. Start to make us not going to talk to the stranger.

He’s not going to do that. It’s not going to work. Not effective. Not. And God’s like, reengage. ReEngage you Maverick. You know, like reengage. It’s Gabriel’s kid. He’s going to be a good evangelist, I think. Maverick. but I don’t know if that makes sense. Anybody. It really made sense to me, but, you know, if another analogy will help you, then then use that.

but I just think maybe the Lord’s calling you, like, reengage. I’ll be honest again, because we’re. Are we within family here? Okay.

Like, I don’t come from this church. You know that. I’m from the beaches of Santa Barbara. Okay? I’m from somewhere else. Pastor Pat is also spent time there. It’s a good place. Okay? And whenever our church people talk to outside people, we talk about the wounds that we’ve received.

We talk about the rejection that we’ve received in the past. Was that a long time ago? Looks like a long time ago. That’s over. Okay. But I know many of us in this room. You know what it’s like to stand out and be slapped down. You know what it’s like to not be appreciated for your faith. I won’t be able to enter into that fully, not not having gone into it.

But if you stay conscious of that, you’ll be in the flat spin. You won’t come out, you know, you got to come out of that. You got to be Jesus conscious love conscious, not passed conscious, not wound conscious, even how deep that wound was. And it was deep, you know, and Jesus is a healer. So I really believe I debated sharing this, but I really believe the Lord wants to finally healed us, that when we’re talking to people in our community, we’re talking to other churches, we’re saying, here’s what we’re doing now.

We’re preaching Jesus Christ. Amen. The stuff that was set against this house is a lie. It’s a slander. I would not serve here if it was true. Okay. And if what I’ve heard is true, I would just never be here. I’ve read all the notes. I’ve heard the stories. I’ve been baptized here. I would never have done that if that stuff was true.

Did you hear what I’m saying? Okay, the past is done. It’s okay to stand out again and to stand out for the right reasons. Not to stand out because you bug people and you’re making people cringe and you’re you’re backing them into a corner and you kind of show them your concealed carry and you’re like, hey, you want to read this prayer, right?

Yeah. All right. Jesus, Jesus loves you right there. Okay. There you go. There you go. Got another one. Lord took another took another soul today, you know, did you know people will will agree. And they’ll pray your prayer just to make you go lay. I mean, I could get a prayer out of any of you right now because you’ll be like, get this.

Get this guy away from me right now, you know? But if you actually connect with people, most people want to talk about Jesus. Most people have an opinion about him. Most people have some sort of spiritual life in our county. Most people say they’re Christians. And you can ask a simple question, oh, so are you a follower of Jesus?

And that, I think, kind of draws a line where it’s like, oh, I don’t just believe I’m being asked. Not just do I believe, but do I follow him? Yeah, because many people are unchurched, even though they say even though they say, hey, I know Jesus, they’re not following him at this moment. At this moment, they’ve been taken captive by the enemy for good reason.

Many of them been really badly hurt, real badly hurt inside the church and outside the church. But there’s a season I can bear witness to this. Hearts are open. Hearts are open. Don knows. Don’t solve it. He knows anyone that’s out in the community that you share. Jesus. You ask people if they need prayer. You ask if you can help them in any way.

You tell them, hey, Jesus loves you. You’re you’re so important to him. Yeah, just take a minute and you look him in the eye and you say, you’re so important to your father, and the sincerity is what you need. If you’re really sincere and you just share that with him, you’ll be having great conversations. You’ll be able to invite them over.

You know, maybe start by inviting them to coffee or something, get their life story. You’ll be able to invite them to a small group to church. You’ll be able to get them in the family if you’re willing to, to just start talking and really express a sincere interest. Okay, this is how the tables start turning. This is how souls start transferring.It happens through love. It happens through having time for people. It happens through sincerity. I just want to tell you today, if you’re here and you don’t really know if you’re a follower, sincerely, I appeal to you. Give your life fully to Jesus. Step in. Give him your life. You know if you don’t want to live it anymore, give it to him. Let him restore you. Let him be your best friend. That I’ll never leave you, never forsake you. Let him give you a direction and a purpose you never knew you had. Let him say, hey daughter, I’ve called you to be a rescuer. Hey, son. I’ve called you to stand tall. Hey, son. I’ve called you to lead. Hey, daughter. I’ve called you to lead, okay? Hear him say that when the whole army gets rallied, if filled with the Holy Spirit, the lions will move forward, will threaten the enemy. I want us to get some hope in our eschatology, our view of the last days. Okay? Many times we look at the end times. We say, you know, we’re in the end times. It’s getting real bad out there. Sorry. I’m touching a lot of sacred cows today. All right. but in our religion, we can eat the sacred cow. But, you know, respectfully, not in a way that would that would offend anybody, you know, you know, but a lot of times, people, the end times talk is all about things are going to go from bad to worse. And, you know, we need to survive it and we need to get rescued from it. We need to get raptured from it. Okay. The Bible actually has a eschatology of hope. And then the Bible says the fullness of the Gentiles will come in Romans 11. Then all Israel will be saved. Now, is there going to be a final bad day? Is there going to be a final rebellion? Yes. Okay. Revelation 14, though, says before that there’s a harvest. There’s a massive harvest. so what’s this defeatist attitude? Right. What is this? Oh, we can’t do it. Here’s all our reasons. What is that? You’re not a survivor. You’re a conqueror. You’re more than a conqueror. And if you’re like, if you don’t have a target for that, though, what I just said, if you’re like, oh, man, yeah, I need to conquer. But what? Well, what you need to do is take back territory from the enemy in the form of bringing people to the love of their father, saying, come home to the father, gather into one the children of God that are scattered abroad. That was why Jesus died. According to John chapter 11, he died to gather and one the children of God that are scattered abroad. Okay, if you just say, oh, I’m a conqueror, that means I’m not going to sin this week, okay? I’m a conqueror. I’m going to go to ten prayer meetings. I’m a conqueror. I’m going to fast seven days. Okay, good. Like that. That could be very helpful. But really, you’re like, I need to go conquer territory. And that’s not an abstract concept. Do you hear what I’m saying? It’s not an abstract concept to take territory or to occupy. It’s get people to the kingdom of God, connect people to Jesus, introduce people to relationship with God. It’s not religion, it’s relation ship. It’s coming in. It’s understanding that you’re loved. That is not based on what you can do. All you can bring to Jesus as a sinner is your weakness and your sin. And he says, thank you, I’ll take that and I’ll give you grace. And eternal life is a beautiful exchange. That’s that’s all you have to do is give him that. He’ll make you clean. Okay? And that’s what it means to win the spiritual war, to bring in the fullness of the Gentiles, to have the gospel of the kingdom preached to all nations. And then the end will come. Matthew 24. Did you know that the enemy knows that? Yes, he he knows what game is. So sometimes people ask this question, and right here I’m going to be paraphrasing Doctor Michael Heizer, because, yeah, he really opened my mind on this. But somebody asked, you know, what does the devil actually think he’s going to win this war? Well, he doesn’t have to win. All he has to do is keep us from winning. Yes. All he has to do is stall and things are going to stay exactly the way they are right now. Okay? All he has to do is stop the fullness of the Gentiles and the salvation of Israel. And he’ll be good. All he has to do is keep dividing the church, keep focusing us on things that are not the Great Commission, keep stopping foreign missions. Oh, okay, you guys are going to church and you’re happy in there. All right, I’ll take the rest of the world. I’ll take the rest of the nations so that he can stay forever. Because the Bible says in first Corinthians 15, Christ must reign from heaven till all enemies are put under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed will be death. Yes. And how does God do that? Does he just do it with miracles? No. It says in Romans 1620, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet and under your feet. We are the plan of God to win the harvest, to usher in the Second Coming, the leaven of the kingdom must expand through the bread till it fills the whole thing. This is what Jesus taught in his kingdom parables. All right. Does this make sense to everybody? So the enemy would love to just stall and delay. He’s happy. He’s the God of this age. He’s the prince of the power of of this age. He controls the culture. He speaks lies to us. 24 seven he accuses you. He knows which buttons to push. He’s got power, he’s got pride. What’s going to really upset him? For us to go and say, no, it’s not all right. I’m not going to let you have this person. They’re coming home. They’re being saved, right? They don’t belong to you. They belong to Jesus because he paid his blood for them. Right? So our strategy needs to be an offensive strategy. Do you hear what I’m saying? Yeah. So take a minute and just think. What does it mean to you? What does it mean in your with your relatives, your extended family? What does it mean with your old friend group? What does it mean with your current friend group? What does it mean with your athletics? What does it mean with your gym? What does it mean in your neighborhood? What does it mean on your street? You need to get out of the comfort zone. ReEngage. ReEngage. Right. Enter. Step out of the room. Okay. Almost. Let’s step out of the closet. Okay. Step out of out of. Step out of the closet with closet It’s not about okay, just tell people. Tell people who you are. Tell people about Jesus in Acts chapter two. When the Holy Spirit fell, they were in a room. They were having church, and they spilled out of the church. And people said, these guys are drunk. And Peter’s like, we’re not drunk. We’re filled with the Holy Spirit because we’ve been raised to new life. Amen. Anybody want that? Okay. That’s what they did. And then they went back to church and they assembled together and they broke bread and they grew. And then they went out again, and then they got arrested. Okay. So just have that. Okay. so that’s what’s that’s how the I mean, this is how the church conquered the Roman Empire, and it did. Okay. So I just want to go through a few things here, and then I’ll conclude Jesus spoke of conversion, bringing people to him. He spoke of it as spiritual warfare. He said in John 1231, now is the judgment of this world. 2000 years ago now will the ruler of this world be cast out, that Satan and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself? In Matthew 1228 he said this if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods? Unless he first binds the strongman, then indeed he may plunder his house. Jesus said, I came to bind the enemy and take all his people from him, because they don’t belong to him. They weren’t created by him. They weren’t designed by him. They’re not loved by him. He said, I’m coming to take them back at the cost of my own life. Can you say the same? Say I’m a prophet, but I’ll make you a better evangelist. I’m a pastor. That’ll make you a better evangelist. I’m a teacher. I’ll make you a better evangelist. Okay, I’m going to Postle. That’ll make you a really good evangelist. I’m an evangelist. Evangelist? Well, they’ll make you a good president. We’ll make you a good inmate, okay? Because you’ll be arrested finally. All right. but everything is for the mission of God. Paul said the same thing when he was converted in acts 2618. He. Jesus said to him, open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. Okay, Colossians 113 he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins. So this is the testimony of the New Testament. This is what you are called to do. How is it going to become real in your life? How can you go into the highways and byways? Let me just say I like if you think, hey, this strategy isn’t going to work. I mean, it’s a biblical strategy. Luke 1423 the master said to the servant, go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. Amen. Okay, so we actually got to just go out and try things. And I’m not I’m not saying the hype up here. I’m saying you’re going to run into someone at the store right after fellowship. You’re going to run into someone at the gas pump. We have church invitations. We have father’s love letter tracks. We have Gospels of John. If you have one minute, you can just hand it to him.

That’s so easy to just start this. You might feel afraid. You might say, oh, I’m not going to. Oh, man, I’ll be I’ll be slapped down. The mission is to follow Jesus. Jesus did this. Jesus is calling you to do it. Can I say it more times? Like, this is, I want to be like, does anybody have any questions here?

But, no, we are here to train you and support you. I’m here if you feel like David. I really just don’t know where to start. I would love to talk with you about that. I’d love to help you. Okay. There’s so many people in this church that are equipped that can do it. Anybody that’s gone through our ministry training school, how many people have done that, by the way?

Oh my gosh. Okay, how many people in here have been filled with the Holy Spirit? Oh my gosh.

So what what are you supposed to do? you’re supposed to follow Jesus. Supposed to actively, intentionally, creatively make disciples. Did you know I can’t figure out the strategy for this? God can give me some stuff. God can give other evangelists some stuff. But you guys have to figure out the strategy for your neighborhood, for your job. This is not top down.

Peter didn’t figure out how to reach every sector in Jerusalem. You are the messengers. We’re here to equip you and send you and impart to you. What would it look like next year if you made three disciples? Ask too many? What would it look like if you made one? What would it look like if you made ten? All right, we would need more churches here.

I you’re like, we’re in Milwaukee. There’s there’s enough people in me. What we might have to send you somewhere else, too. Has God ever said anything like that? Okay. All right. Yeah. So God said that he’s going to send us other places, but that’s going to require us to be on mission, and that’s going to require us to move beyond the things that we’ve believed that aren’t in line with the Scripture, and take some risks and say, hey, you know, you’re talking to someone at Walmart if you don’t do self-checkout, which is much better.

But, you know, you talk to somebody that’s, you know, you’re interacting with them and you go, hey, you know, I go to this church at Word of Life. It would mean a lot to me if you came. You and you invite somebody. It’s not about the church, necessarily, but why not? We have a church that I’m proud to invite people to.

This God’s moving here. The spirit is here. People are getting healed now. Voice of God. Like two people were miraculously healed. That’s been happening. Why not bring people where the glory of God is coming? And why not come to them with the glory of God? The people? You have to take a risk. You have a nice conversation with someone.

I like to throw a little joke out there, okay, you know, we’re laughing all this and you go, hey, man, just let me ask you, are you a follower of Jesus? Most people are like, oh yeah, it’s interesting question. Very few people just shut down. If you’re in a different city, that would probably be a different case. But up here in to all, I mean, most people go, oh yeah, you know, I believe in Jesus.

I’m just telling you, the harvest is ripe out there. Don’t say four months to the harvest. Look up. The harvest is white. So what will you do this week to reach people? What will you do on Monday? What will you do after fellowship? How will you harness the conversations that you’re going to have on a daily basis? To tell people the whole reason that you’re on this planet, this is the only time you can do hand-to-hand combat, evangelism, talking with someone, persuading them, leading them to Jesus.

You’re filled with the Holy Spirit. You have the power. You have the boldness. You just have to engage. This is the only time to do it. When you’re in heaven, you’re going to worship God. You’re going to be, you know, supplicating. You’re going to be praying. You’re not going to be persuading people to turn to Jesus, because everybody up there is saved.

You guys have heard this before. They preach. But this is your chance to get your hands on the enemy and get some vengeance from what he took from you.

This is how we win. Do you want to win or are you okay with letting him keep everything that he’s got? Are you okay? When you see somebody, they’re not okay. The people out, the good people in your life are not okay. They’re disconnected from God. They have no hope. They have fear of death. They’re miserable. This is how we all are.

When we’re not filled with the Holy Spirit, we’re no better than anybody. But you have to look and say, this is my opportunity to save this person that God loves. Where is your jealousy? Where is your jealousy? For the name of Jesus? Where is your jealousy? When you see people worshiping false gods or watering down the name of the Lord, where is your jealousy for him?

Where is your jealousy for them that they’re under heaviness and oppression, and a taskmaster that wants to silence them? Where is your jealousy to say you’re coming out right now? There’s something better. He loves you. He loves you with an everlasting love. You guys are trained. You guys are filled. Where’s your jealousy? Oh, let me stir you up.

You’re filled. You’re ready. Where’s your jealousy? Where is it? All right. Now? That was my angry part, okay? That was it. That was a godly jealousy. Okay, now you feel that you’re going to feel that when you’re around people like, okay, Paul’s spirit was provoked because the city was full of idols. And he goes up and it said he reasoned with them.

So you’re like, whoa, the people are lost. I remember when I was like this, how can I deny them what the Lord gave me? Okay, look, look at that KFC. Yeah, look at it. Okay. You know, start joking. You start reasoning with them, you just start having a human interaction. But you’re like, By God, if I get a chance, the name of Jesus is coming out.

This is. This is why we’re on the earth. I don’t know the reason I’m talking to you all like this is because I don’t know how much time I have. I don’t know if I can impart this to you ever again. It’s time to heal up, get the eyes off the wounds and get out there. Use your training.

You’re you’re fully trained. If you’re not trained, we can help you. If you need a coach, we can coach you. But man, your neighborhood’s crying out like this community is crying out. The Bay area is crying out for rivers to roll down the mountain. Yeah.

This is it’s about more than what you’re experiencing. It’s about taking back what the Lord has purchased.

Get the jealousy for this. Don’t let your friends live under the dominion of darkness. You’re like, oh, it’s easy to get home. Okay, fine. Go home and start making calls. Go home and start inviting people out to coffee. Make a list. Okay, I’m going to talk to these people this week, and I’m maybe I can only write one down, but I’m going to do it.

I’m going to make sure I, I pursue them. Okay, here’s my last point. We need a total mindset shift as Christians. Not just that word of life. We need to seek and save that which was lost. Luke 1910 Jesus said, The Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost. We hear a lot of talk in the church today about are we ready for the seekers?

What are we going to do when the seekers come? They’re not going to come, okay. They’ll only come if someone sought after them. They’re only coming in because they’re dead in sin. They’re only coming in if the Holy Spirit has been seeking them, if the father has been seeking them, if the father has been drawing them.

And we are not those that get ready for the seekers, we are the seekers themselves. You have to accept that identity. I have to accept that identity. I’ve gone through seasons where I said, no, I’m not going to. I’m not going to shoulder that mantle. Am I really even an evangelist? I’ve done it. Do you guys hear me?

I’m not condemning, but we have to stand tall today and say I’m a seeker of those that are lost. I’m a fisher of men. That means I need to put bait on my hook. That means I need to cast. That means if they run, I got to give them some line. I’ll just come back over here. I’m going to tell you, you know, to just let him go.

Right? And you have to actually try it. You have to sow the seed. If you don’t plant, you probably are not going to grow anything. All right. So there could be more messages on this. But anyway, I can I can get into this whole thing. But it starts real simple. You just go, oh, it’s not about people coming to us.

We need to seek them. That’s a mindset you put on and you go, oh, the Lord is there. When the war is there, it’s a lot easier to handle this war. By the way, this is how you keep your momentum going forward. If you start turning in and you’re like, how do I fix everything I’m doing wrong, the enemy will put a thousand more things that you’re doing wrong and he’ll keep you under bondage.

But if you’re like, hey, my point is actually to seek and save the ones out there so that they might be in here. So we might be one. Then you’re like, okay, well, I guess my life should probably be sanctified. So I’m not a hypocrite. I guess I should, you know, get rid of the secrets in my life so I can walk in the light and share the light.

I guess I should be praying because it takes a miracle for a blind person to see, and for a dead person to come to life and be saved. It sanctifies your whole life. When you begin to orient yourself outward, then that’s why the Holy Spirit comes. The Holy Spirit comes to regather the nations that were scattered. That’s why the languages went out.

That’s why they were interpreted. Because he’s saying, come on back, everyone come on home. I’m going to I’m going to end it here because my wife will be mad at me, because she has done a great job setting up a fundraiser up, for pizza over in the fellowship hall. but I just want to. I want to pray for us, that we would walk in this because it’s not just something you have to get psyched up about.

You have to just get a conviction and actually start doing it. Does it make sense? Like, it’s like a no nonsense thing. You just you’re going to do it or you’re not. Okay, I’m going to do it or I’m not. All right, father, I just I thank you for your word. I pray that you would encourage us. And I pray that you give us first fruits that would really encourage us, father, as we go out and as we start fishing and we start, just inviting people and taking steps to talk about you and your son, I pray that you would just, that you would open every heart, that you would open the hearts

to pay attention to the gospel that is being sent to father. I pray, Lord, that this would be a day that shifts our focus and that gets us started on the war path to victory, father, that we would see this region revived. We would see this region converted. We would see this region liberated from the powers of darkness.
I pray in the name of Jesus that you would go before us, and that you would bind every strongman that’s in our way. As we agree together and prayer as we agree. Would you bind every hindering spirit and every spirit of fear? And would you send us forward with the message of life for those dearest to us, and for those that don’t even have a clue?

God, I pray, Lord, that they would, oh Lord, that they would just know. They would know the God that paid everything for them. Jesus name we pray. Amen, Amen