Happy Feet | Sharing God's Love

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Sign up at harvest.org. It's so important to do. It's not just for the person, it's for you as well. In so many things of life, there are winners and losers.

In the stock market, selling real estate, selling a car. If someone gets a good deal, someone else may have suffered a loss. But when it comes to sharing Christ, we gain as much as we give. When we share God's love with another person, we both win. Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie helps us see the benefit and joy that come from being generous in sharing the love that has so changed our lives. Turning your Bibles to Romans chapter 10.

The title of my message is Happy Feet. We're going to talk about that in this message and I'll explain why I picked such an absurd title for my message in a few moments. But we must tell people that they need to be saved. Go to Romans 10 verse 14. How can they call on Him to save them unless they believe in Him? How can they believe in Him if they've never heard about Him? And how can they hear about Him unless someone tells them?

And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? This is why this Scripture says how beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news. Beautiful feet. You know, we don't generally think of feet as beautiful, do we?

But maybe another translation will help us understand it. To have beautiful feet is speaking of something that's in full bloom. So think now about a blossoming flower.

That is the picture that is here. When you share the gospel, you are like a blossoming flower. A fragrant flower.

I mean what is more beautiful than flowers? And you see them and it is just such a wonderful thing to behold. And when you engage someone in a conversation about Jesus Christ and you share what God has done for you, you just blossom.

You come to life. Actually the word beautiful can be translated lively. How lively are the feet of those that preach the gospel of peace.

So if you want lively feet, if you want yes happy feet, if you want to spring in your step then share the gospel. You know we are leading a tour to Israel and I am looking forward to it. People ask me, oh you must love leading tours to Israel. I say, yeah I love it. What do you love most about it? What site do you love the most?

Well I have been a few times now and I have seen the sites and I enjoy them. You know what I love most about leading a tour to Israel? Falafels. That's it. No. I like the falafels.

No. The thing I love the most is watching other people see it for the first time. I love it when we come up on our tour bus and people for the first time in their life see the city of Jerusalem. It is just magical. It is like a fairy tale come to life. But it is not a fairy tale.

It is a Bible story come to life. So I see it through their eyes. And as they discover it for the first time I am rediscovering it.

I am watching them more than I am looking at the site that they are looking at because I love to see the joy in their face. The same is true of evangelism. I know these things.

You know these things. But as I see somebody else hear these things for the first time and see them come to life it revitalizes me and brings me back to life. That is why it is so important to do. It is not just for the person.

It is for you as well. Proverbs 11 says, those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed. And then Jesus of course said it is more blessed to give than it is to receive. And as you know the word blessed can be translated happy.

So it would not be inaccurate to say it is more happy making to give than it is to receive. And the way we do that is throwing out spiritual see. 1 Corinthians 3 says, the one who plants and the one who waters they are not anything. It is only God who makes all things grow.

The man who plants and the one who waters have one purpose and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. Throwing out the seed to as many people as you can. Planting that seed. I have a bird feeder in my backyard.

I have mentioned this before. And I fill it with seed. And I found some seed recently that is supposed to attract more colorful birds.

And I found it is true. Except I am attracting some other creatures. Now pigeons are coming. I don't want pigeons. I have nothing against pigeons.

They are just kind of big and they kind of overpower the feeder. But now I have got this squirrel. This squirrel is out of control. He is a big fat aggressive squirrel. And the other day I saw him trying to get into the bird feeder and he took a flying leap at it. Hit it and fell backwards on the ground. I wish I could have filmed it.

It would have been a great post. But anyway this squirrel wouldn't give up. Then the other day he jumped on it again. This time he brought it down to the ground. It crashed.

All the seed spilled out. So I started Googling how do you kill a squirrel legally. I mentioned this story to my grandkids Allie and Christopher. And I said yeah. And they go, what are you going to do Popeye. I said that squirrel is going to go to his reward.

That is what is going to happen. And then Christopher said you shouldn't harm God's beautiful creatures Popeye. Then Allie says maybe she is pregnant. Oh it is a girl now. Maybe she is pregnant. No she is just fat from stealing seed.

She is not pregnant. So now I Googled yesterday squirrel proof bird feeder. I am going to let the squirrel live but I just have to find a way to keep that squirrel out. The squirrels steal the seed.

I don't know if they had squirrels in Israel in the days of Jesus but I know they had birds. And when the seed would be thrown out the birds would come and eat it. And Jesus said, these are they that hear the Word of God and the devil snatches it away.

So as you are throwing out the seed of the Word of God the devil is going to be there to oppose you as well but just persist you see. But how do I throw the seed? You know it is interesting this phrase sow a seed. We get our root word broadcast from it. Sow seed. Broadcast. The idea was throw it out to as many people as you can broadly. Cast it.

But then we get our English word broadcast as in radio broadcast or television broadcast or a podcast or any way you throw it out that is casting your seed. You can cast the seed out on Instagram. You can cast it out on Facebook. You can cast it out on Twitter. Which works very well with birds because they love tweets right. But you get the word out there to as many people as you can.

Well how do you do it? Verse 14. How will they hear unless someone tells them. King James translation. How will they hear without a preacher.

This is where we are apprehensive. Preacher. I don't want to be a preacher.

Can I tell you honestly believe me when I say this. I never wanted to be a preacher. I never aspired to preach.

Maybe it is because they had nothing to say. I had other plans for my life. But I have come to see over the years that I have had the privilege of preaching and teaching. I have seen the power of the Word of God to change lives.

And that is what keeps me going. Because there is power in God's Word. And the primary way that God chooses to reach nonbelievers is through the verbal articulation of the gospel. Don't ask me why. It seems to me there is more efficient ways God could have chosen.

But no. God chooses to work primarily through this preaching of the gospel. 1 Corinthians 1 21. God was well pleased to the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

But when you start to talk to someone what do they say. Hey man don't preach to me. I don't need your sermon.

That is a negative. I don't want a sermon. And I don't want you to preach. Ok. Well let's use a different word for preach. In an earlier message I remember I used the word recommend.

Let's make a recommendation. An encouragement. But listen. To preach doesn't mean you have to yell. I think when we think of preaching it is screaming. Well you can scream and preach. Sometimes you have to speak louder to be heard. But you can say it quietly. You can say it in a conversational way.

But in one way shape or form the way God wants us to reach people is through verbal articulation. You will say well I am just not into that. I don't like to talk to people about things like that. I don't think it is really right for me to impose my views on them so I will just be a good example.

I think if I am a good example they will just come up to me and say I like the way that you live and I want to know how to become like you. Well that may happen. And occasionally it does happen. And by all means please be a good example. Because what we need less of today are bad examples. One of the things that keeps more people probably away from Christ than any other thing is hypocrisy. And even Jesus said if salt has lost its saltiness what good is it? So we want to be a salty Christian. It is like having a Coke without carbonation or having a decaf soy latte.

You know why? The only thing worse than a decaf soy latte is a decaf almond milk latte. Almond milk. I have tried them by the way.

They are not actually that bad I have to say. But now it is oat milk. What are they going to make milk out of next? And then people go into coffee places now in order of the craziest things.

I don't know why I looked this up. But I looked at strange things people order at Starbucks. And these are things that baristas said.

And baristas are the folks that make your coffee. When barista said a person comes in every day and orders an iced venti caramel macchiato with 15 pumps of vanilla syrup. Fifteen pumps? Heavy whipping cream.

Barely any ice. One shot of espresso. And add whipped cream and extra caramel drizzle. Another person orders a 25 pump chai latte.

People go to 31 flavors. Ok. This is coffee. Start with coffee.

I mean if you are going to drink that stuff. What is next? Kale lattes.

I am sure they are coming. You can drink your kale latte in your Prius with your cat. My squirrel will join you if you like.

You will have a great old time. So I am not critiquing a bad example. We want to be a good example. We want to start there. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. I don't know if you know about this but we have a weekend service called Harvest at Home exclusively for people that are tuning in literally from around the world.

Listen to this. We even have Harvest groups where you can get into a small group with folks from all around this planet of ours and study the Word of God. So join us this weekend Saturday and Sunday for Harvest at Home at Harvest.org. Well today Pastor Greg is bringing some important encouragement about the joy of sharing the love of Christ with others.

Let's continue. Oh I don't reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It is just so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ. So be a good example. And that builds the bridge that you can walk over to now bring the message of the gospel.

So you earn the right to be heard. A great example of this is the man that we call the Philippian jailer. We don't know his name. But he was tasked with taking Paul and Silas into custody. They were incarcerated in a dungeon. He whipped them first. And then he put their feet in stocks. Took them to the furthest part of this hellhole. And then the Bible says at midnight Paul and Silas began to sing praises to God.

Wow. He had never heard anything like that before. And the Bible says the other prisoners heard them and it can be translated the other prisoners listen with pleasure. You have a favorite song. Comes on the radio. You turn it up. I love this song.

I love this. That is how they were listening. These two men singing the praises of God in a prison. It was better than Johnny Cass at San Quentin right? They are listening.

Taking it in. But then a mighty earthquake came. It was so powerful it shook the walls on the foundation of the prison and the doors flung open. And that Philippian jailer knew he was dead. He knew he would be executed by the Romans for losing his prisoners. He took out his short sword. He was ready to plunge it into his chest and suddenly Paul says, stop. Don't kill yourself. We are all here still. And that Philippian jailer said, sir what must I do to be saved?

Why did he say that? Because Paul and Silas earned the right to be heard. Listen when a Christian suffers and we do suffer and our faith remains intact and we give glory to God that is a powerful witness to a lost world.

I can think of many times I have been in the hospitals and visited people who are literally dying. And how their faith is so strong and vibrant and how they talk to everybody. And I can tell you stories of nurses and doctors and other medical professionals who believed in Jesus because of the faith of a Christian who was suffering. A faith that did not diminish but actually grew stronger.

You earned the right to be heard. So when you go through a hardship and you keep trusting the Lord nonbelievers watch with great interest. Why would you still have your faith? Why would you still believe after what you have gone through? And they might come and ask you that beautiful question.

Man I want to know more about having a relationship with God like you have. They earned the right to be heard. And they were heard.

And that hardened Roman jailer believed. What must I do to be saved? Paul's answer. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

And that goes to your household too. Let me close with a story. One of the most well-known events in history. The sinking of the Titanic. Now when we think of the Titanic we think of Jack and Rose right. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. We think of Celine Dion.

You know my heart will go on. And there is Jack at the bow saying he is king of the world. Well this is all fiction. There was no Jack and Rose.

Sorry to break that to you. But there was a Titanic. And it was a real ship and it really sunk and a lot of people died.

And there was a real hero on the Titanic you probably never heard of before. And his name was John Harper. John Harper was an evangelist from Scotland. He was on the Titanic and headed to Chicago to preach at the Moody Church there founded by the evangelist D.L.

Moody. So John Harper would always tell people about Jesus. And so during the beginning of the journey he would talk to folks.

Engage them in conversations. Very helpful. Very kind person. People noted that about him. And this was such a magnificent ship. It was the largest human object ever created by man up to that point. It was certified unsinkable. Some fool said even God Himself couldn't sink it.

Well you know the rest of the story of course. The Titanic hit the iceberg. It began to take on water. The first thing that John Harper did was he took his little daughter who was traveling with him and placed her in a lifeboat. His wife her mother had died so he put her in a lifeboat. Then he took off his life jacket. And there weren't enough life jackets for everyone. He gave his life jacket away to another. And then he began to go up and down the decks of the Titanic as it was sinking asking people are you saved. Are you saved.

Believe in Jesus right now. So at this point the Titanic has now sunk beneath the surface of the ocean. This man John Harper grabbed hold of a piece of wreckage and would make his way over to survivors also bobbing out there in that cold ocean. And he would say to them are you saved. He went up to one man. He said are you saved.

The man said no I'm not. He said believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Shortly afterwards John Harper drowned. That man that he spoke to survived and was rescued. And he remembered that fateful night and he said to the people who were gathered in a meeting quote there alone in the night with two miles of water under me I believed I am John Harper's last convert. Who will be your last convert.

When's the last time you engaged someone. And let me ask you the same question that John Harper asked. Are you saved. What must I do to be saved.

The same answer Paul and Silas gave to the Roman jailer is true for us now. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

Have you done that yet. Now there might be some here or watching wherever you are. Well see well I was raised in a Christian home and I was baptized.

That's all great. But the only way to know you're saved. The only way to know you're going to heaven. The only way to know you're right with God is to put your faith in Christ and Christ alone.

Nothing else. Well you've said I am a sinner and I ask Jesus to forgive me and I ask him to come into my life and he's taken a residence in my heart and I've proclaimed him. I've confessed with my mouth that Jesus is Lord.

Have you done that yet. If not why don't you do that before we're done. And I'm going to extend an invitation for you to believe. An invitation for you to be saved.

An opportunity for you to say with complete confidence I am saved and I am going to heaven and I am a child of God. That's a great thing to be able to say. Let's all pray. Father thank you for your Word to us.

Thank you for your love for us. And I pray for any person listening wherever they might be. If they don't know you yet Lord. If they're not saved yet let this be the moment they believe.

We would ask in your name. Amen. Pastor Greg Laurie with an important word of prayer. And if you'd like to make a change today in your relationship with the Lord. Pastor Greg would like to help you with that and he'll do so before today's edition of A New Beginning concludes. Well Pastor Greg Jesus Revolution is out on DVD now. Yeah.

And I know our listeners are excited about that. So many people have asked about that. It's such an extraordinary movie. In fact it was extraordinary even as it was being filmed.

Yes. Tell us what happened at Pirate's Cove during the filming. Well we all know that art imitates life. In other words an event happens and maybe a painting is made about it or a book is written about it or a film is made about it.

But then sometimes life imitates art. So in this instance you know we used to have these big baptisms. We still do actually at a place called Pirate's Cove.

It's a little rocky amphitheater off of Big Corona Beach in Newport Beach California. This is where all the baptisms were done back in the day of the Jesus movement. And so we went down there with our cameras to recreate these scenes. We had extras on hand. We had people who had gone through wardrobes so they looked like they were around in the early 70s and were baptizing extras. I had to do a little class on baptism for Kelsey Grammer and Jonathan Rumi.

Kelsey played Chuck Smith. Jonathan played Lonnie Frisbee sort of showing them this is how you baptize a person. But the amazing thing is as we're baptizing these extras people want to be baptized for real and people were actually accepting Christ and getting baptized in real time.

That's R-E-A-L as opposed to R-E-E-L. In fact one of the people that was there played a role in the film was baptized in character for a scene in the film but then came to me right after that happened and said I want to be baptized for real. I said well you need to accept Christ. Baptism is for believers only. I shared the gospel with him. He said he wanted to follow Jesus. We prayed together and I baptized him.

He was still wearing the clothes he wore in the film. It was quite quite a moment. So I think that comes off in the film because you know a lot of times when you watch Christian type films and they show church scenes they have sort of a I don't know an artificial kind of a feel. It feels staged but this doesn't feel staged. This feels real and I'll tell you why it feels real. It was real.

It was really happening. God was really at work and I think that comes across in the film. We've heard so many stories of people wanting to get baptized right after they saw the movie and of course as I said baptism is for a Christian. So once you've accepted Christ this is a way of publicly acknowledging it in the waters of baptism. I want you to have your own copy of this movie so you can watch it over and over and show it to your friends and your family and your neighbors and people you know that are not believers. You can have an evangelistic outreach in your house and in the special edition of a DVD that we want to send you from us here at Harvest there's also a message that I filmed on the beach as the sun was setting. It's very beautiful and cinematic actually and I present the gospel and tell people how to accept Christ even lead them in a prayer. This all comes in this special edition of the Jesus Revolution DVD that we're offering. Now I know it's streaming now you can see it on Apple you can see it on Amazon but this edition we're sending you has features that no one else has and I want you to get a copy for yourself and I'll send it to you for your gift of any size. Whatever you send it will be used to help us continue to preach the gospel and teach the Word of God. So order your own copy of the Jesus Revolution film on DVD. Yeah that's right and we'll send it right out when we hear from you. You'll get the movie on DVD along with a free streaming code and if we can be candid this resource costs us more than we normally pay for other resources so if you can be extra generous with your donation that would really help. Thanks for considering that and you can contact us today at 1-800-821-3300.

Call anytime 1-800-821-3300 or go online to harvest.org. Well Pastor Greg you spoke today about having a relationship with the Lord. Yes. Someone can enter into that kind of a relationship with God right now can't they? Yeah they really can that's the amazing thing I think people are surprised that it doesn't take years to become a Christian it doesn't take months it doesn't take weeks it doesn't take days it doesn't even take hours you can believe on the spot and I would like to lead you in a prayer where you can ask for his forgiveness a prayer where you can receive Jesus Christ into your life as your Savior and Lord. So if you want Christ to come into your life if you want him to forgive you of your sin if you want a second chance in life if you want to go to heaven when you die stop what you're doing and pray after me these words Lord Jesus I know I am a sinner and I'm sorry for my sin and I turn from it now and I choose to follow you from this moment forward as Savior and Lord as God and friend thank you for loving me and calling me and forgiving me in Jesus name I pray amen. Amen and listen if you have just prayed those words with Pastor Greg the Lord has heard you and forgiven you of your sin the Bible says Jesus is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness and we'd like to send you some materials to help you begin to live this new life we call it our new believers growth packet just ask for it and we'll send it your way free of any charge if you prayed for the first time today with Pastor Greg you can call us anytime night or day at 1-800-821-3300 that's 1-800-821-3300 or go online to harvest.org and click the two words know God well next time we'll focus on the promises of God Pastor Greg Pastor Greg points out we often treat them like forgotten gift cards so much potential but often overlooked and never redeemed join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher Greg Laurie. Thanks for listening to A New Beginning with Greg Laurie a podcast made possible by Harvest Partners helping people everywhere know God. Sign up for daily devotions and learn how to become a Harvest Partner at harvest.org.