Hey everybody, Greg Laurie here. Let me ask you a question. Are you eager to make a difference in the spiritual lives of others? When you give to Harvest, you become a part of our mission to make God known through unique avenues like television, radio, and large-scale evangelistic events.
Support us today at harvest.org slash donate, and help us to continue to spread the gospel around the world. Reading God's word bolsters our faith and it renews our hope. You show me someone that has lost hope and I'll show you someone that is not reading the scriptures. Pastor Greg Laurie speaks to those trapped in hopelessness. Coming up today on A New Beginning, he offers biblical encouragement.
Romans 15 for whatever things were written before were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. If ever there was someone who had reason to be hopeless, it was Jesus. He left the glory of heaven to come to earth. He was tempted like us, felt pain like us, felt betrayal like us. The world he created turned against him, and he was sentenced to the death of a common criminal.
How's your day going? Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie points to the hope found in Jesus' sacrifice for us, a message Pastor Greg has been sharing in his Harvest Crusades for over 30 years. When we started our crusades, things were a lot different. George Bush was president. Not George W. Bush, but George H. W. Bush, his father, and Home Alone and Pretty Woman were the movies showing in the theaters, the top TV shows, and we started our first crusade where Seinfeld, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and The Cosby Show. My, how things have changed.
The top songs were Ice, Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice, You Can't Touch This by MC Hammer, and Vogue by Madonna. The internet was just coming into its own and social media did not yet exist. America Online had just launched. And the way you access America Online, which is a way to read this new thing called email, was through a modem. And the cutting edge technology was a 56K modem.
So you would start it up anyway. You have got mail. Right? How many of you remember that? You are old. And we did our first crusade. Well a lot has changed since then. But other things haven't changed. The basic need of humanity hasn't changed. And the answer to the need of humanity has not changed either because God never changes. Jesus says He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And the gospel is still the answer.
And I will tell you what. We have a generation before us right now that is looking for those answers. Do you know that experts have described this young generation today as the hopeless generation. Wow.
What a title. According to one article I just read it said quote, decades ago young people had few real worries. The biggest issues were getting a driver's license, passing the next exam, going to a party on the weekend, or finding someone to take them to the mall. But the age of innocence is gone. The stats are sobering. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the leading cause of death for people ages 15 to 19. More teenagers and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, strokes, pneumonia, influenza, chronic lung disease combined. The U.S. suicide rate has increased 30 percent since the year 2000. And it has tripled among young girls. These young kids are dealing with depression.
They are dealing with anxiety. And the one thing that seems to permeate is as I have already said a sense of hopelessness. But we have that hope. We have it. And we need to deliver it. We need to tell others there is hope in this world. There is purpose. There is meaning. And that is the focus of a good part of Romans 15.
So if you are taking notes here is point number one. We as Christians should be very hopeful. We as Christians should be very hopeful.
Romans 15, 13 says, Paul speaking, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace and believing and that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. You should be a hopeful person. But not just some hope. Having overflowing hope. That is what abounding hope is.
And sometimes we lose our hope. The story of course is in the Gospel of Luke of this two downhearted disciples on the Emmaus road. In their mind Jesus had failed in His mission. He had been crucified. He was gone. They had pinned their hopes to Him thinking He would overthrow the tyranny of Rome. But now He just went and died.
What a disappointment they thought. And as they are walking along this road leaving Jerusalem to Emmaus a stranger joins them. They don't know who this guy is but it turns out it is Jesus walking with them. And Jesus says to them, hey guys what is up? What has been going on?
Why the long faces? You look sad. They said, don't you know what has been going on? Haven't you heard about Jesus? Jesus says, no tell me about them. So now they are telling Jesus about Jesus.
And by the way they are not doing a very good job. Because they said, well we hoped. Past tense. Hoped He would have been the one to deliver Israel. But it has been three days since He died. And then Jesus gave them a guided tour of all of those Old Testament passages that pointed to Him. And as He is talking with them on the road they are having the hope return. And they are feeling a little bit better. And they get to the end of their journey and it is time for dinner. They said, hey come and join us.
They still don't know it is Christ. And He says, no guys I have got to go. No, no, no.
You are not going anywhere. You come and have food with us. So they sit down at the table. They break bread and boom. They realize it is Jesus and He disappears.
And I love what they said. They said, did not our hearts burn within us while He walked with us on the way? Luke 24 21. How did Jesus restore the hope of these disciples?
He restored it through the Scripture. You show me someone that has lost hope and I will show you someone that is not reading the Scriptures. Because reading God's Word bolsters our faith and it renews our hope.
Let me say that again. Reading God's Word bolsters our faith and it renews our hope. Romans 10 17 says, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. And out of that springs hope that keeps us going.
Romans 15 4. Whatever things were written before were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. So number one, we of all people who are followers of Jesus should be filled with hope. Number two, we are to be heralds of this hope to those who need it. We are to be heralds of this hope. A herald is someone that announces something. Verse 16, that I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles ministering the Gospel of God at the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
Now here is an interesting thing. Saul of Tarsus raised in a good Jewish home. Very devout. A member of the Sanhedrin which was sort of like the Jewish Supreme Court of the day. Schooled under the legendary Rabbi Gamaliel.
He had everything going his way. You might even describe him as a Jews Jew. And then he comes to believe in Jesus and he would think the logical thing would be to call this man, this scholar, this expert to his fellow Jews to bring the Gospel. But instead the Lord says, no Paul. He changed his name from Saul to Paul. I want you to take the Gospel to the Gentiles. So that was his primary mission.
Gentiles were non-Jews. So God took Paul out of his comfort zone to a people he probably really didn't want to go to. The Lord did that with Jonah too. Jonah was not as cooperative as Paul.
Jonah drug his feet the whole way and wasn't happy about it even when the Lord said a spiritual awakening. But Paul embraced it and went at this mission with abandon and with great passion. And his greatest joy was that people believed. Look at Romans 15 verse 18.
I am reading from the New Living translation. Paul says, yet I dare not boast about anything except what Christ has done through me. Bringing the Gentiles to obey God by my message and the way I worked among them.
This is interesting. Paul could have boasted about a lot of things. I mean it would have been easy to brag if you are Paul. You could have said, hey I am Paul. The greatest theologian in all history. It was true.
He never said anything like that. Or hey I am Paul. I wrote more of the New Testament than any other apostle. Peter are you listening? Or you could have said, hi I am Paul. I have established churches. How about this?
The ultimate trump card. Hi my name is Paul. I have been to heaven and I have come back to earth. I was caught up under the third heaven and saw glorious things. Those are not the things he boasted of at all. Here is what he boasts in. He boasts in the fact that God had allowed him to share the gospel and lead people to Jesus Christ. And even more had seen them completely changed by Jesus.
Look at verse 18 of Romans 15. Bringing the Gentiles to obey God by my message. You see Paul understood that his calling was to tell people about Jesus. Seek to lead them to Christ and get them on their feet spiritually.
And by the way that is your calling and my calling as well. The great commission is to go into all the world and preach the gospel. But it is also to make disciples of all nations. Jesus said teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. Teaching them. So our job, our calling, our mission is to tell people about Jesus and get them up on their feet.
And here is the thing. Young believers need old believers in their life. And older believers need younger believers in their life. We need each other. Younger believers need older believers in their life to stabilize them.
And older believers need younger believers in their life to energize them. You want to see a bunch of cranky old people complaining. Getting together.
Moaning and groaning about their aches and pains. Get some young people in there. Mix it up a little bit. Bring a little life into this conversation. Older folks need that in their life. Are you listening to me grumpy people? But kids, younger people, you need older folks in your life. They can provide so much wisdom to you from their life's experiences and be heralds of this hope to those who need it.
Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. Hey everyone, I want you to know about our app called Harvest Plus. Think of it as a harvest version of Netflix.
We have all of our resources in one place. We have our movies like Steve McQueen, The Salvation of an American Icon, Johnny Cash, The Redemption of an American Icon, A Rush of Hope, and much more. Then we have our television program, Daily Devotions, and much more.
So go and download the Harvest Plus app. And now Pastor Greg continues his study called Hope is on the Way. Important insight from the final chapter of Romans.
Point number three. We are to be examples of this hope to those who are watching us. We are to be examples of this hope to those who are watching this. Romans 15 18. Bringing the Gentiles to obey God by my message and by the way I worked among them. Paul understood he was not just called to preach the gospel. He was also called to live the gospel. Christians are walking epistles written by God and read by men. What does that mean? That means you're the only Bible some people are ever going to read.
You're it. You're the Bible to them. They're going to literally form an opinion about God based on what they think of you.
Well that's a lot of pressure man. Yeah I know. But you are his representative as I am. And so what has your Bible opened up to?
Has it opened up to John 3 16? That's the message you're giving out or is it the verse you know Lord by now he stinketh. I mean I don't know but the idea is you know you're an example. You can't escape the fact you're an example. All you're going to determine is is if you're a good or a poor example.
But you are an example. So Paul says hey you know I live this. You know I lived it out. He wrote elsewhere in the book of Romans. We loved you so much we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel but our lives as well. You are witnesses of a holy righteous and blameless we were among you. Another thing I would add to this is Paul gave the whole gospel to them.
Not just part of it. In verse 19 he says I fully preach the gospel of Christ. Here's a problem we have today. Sometimes we edit the gospel.
And by that I mean we leave out things we think will offend people. But if we're going to give the gospel we need to give the whole gospel and nothing but the gospel. So help us God.
Right. So any gospel that promises the hope of heaven without a warning about hell is not the gospel. Any gospel that offers forgiveness from God without telling you you need to repent of your sin is not the gospel. And the essential message of the gospel is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's our message. That's the message we need to convey.
Point number four. Paul took the hope of the gospel everywhere and anywhere. Paul took it everywhere and anywhere. Verse 20 of Romans 15.
I have made them. I aim to preach the gospel not where Christ was named lest I should build on another man's foundation. Paul went to some really unusual places to bring the gospel to them including Mars Hill which was actually sort of like the public forum in Greece which was the intellectual center of the world at that time.
And there at Mars Hill various people would get up and give their ideas and philosophies and Paul took the gospel right there. You know as I think back over the crusades we've been all over the United States and around the world. We've been to New York City. We have been there a number of times. We went to Madison Square Garden and saw the Lord pack it out.
It was fantastic. We've been to Chicago. Philadelphia.
Of course Dallas. But we've been to some unusual places like Wollongong Australia and Newcastle Australia. I'd never even heard of Wollongong when I got an invitation to go over there and hold a crusade. Some of our most successful crusades were in places where they should not have necessarily been successful like Seattle. One of the most unchurched cities in America. Someone said there's more dogs in Seattle than Christians. And yet I remember that not only was our attendance great but the percentage of response was far higher there than it normally is in other places. So that was exciting.
We went to Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. I had more than one person warn me. One said Greg Los Angeles is the graveyard of evangelists. You don't want to come up here and do it.
It won't work out with the Lord blessed. I remember that the attendance was so strong they had to shut the doors. And so many people went on the field to accept Christ the fire marshal locked up the gates so no more could come.
I don't think that's ever happened before. Amazing. So one time we even did a harvest outreach in Disneyland.
Do any of you remember that? We took the whole park over. And on every stage we had a Christian band with an evangelist and we saw many people come to Christ throughout the day and into the evening. So you know we have tried to go to places one would not normally go to.
Point number five. We are to be helpers so others don't lose hope. We are to be helpers so others don't lose hope. Romans 15 verse 25. But before I come I must go to Jerusalem to take a gift to the believers there for you see the believers in Macedonia and Achaia have eagerly taken up an offering for the poor among the believers in Jerusalem.
They were glad to do this because they feel they owe a great debt to them since the Gentiles received the spiritual fruit of the good news from the believers in Jerusalem. They feel it's the least they can do in return by helping them financially. You've heard the expression put your money where your mouth is. You know it's one thing to say I love you you're my friend but your friend is doesn't have any clothes on their back or they're hungry.
Hey man love you bye. No wait if you're their friend if you love them help them with food help them with clothing help them financially. And so we say I love the gospel I want the gospel to go out.
Well do you ever invest in it financially? Notice that Paul says in verse 26 they eagerly took up an offering. Then he later says they did it gladly. We need to understand it's a privilege to invest in the work of the kingdom.
A privilege and it should not be a a mere duty. And so this was something they enjoyed doing and they raised raise this money and sent it to the folks that were in need there in Jerusalem. Pastor Greg Laurie with good encouragement about supporting God's work. And you know we hope you might remember the work that we're doing each day here on A New Beginning.
I'll pass along our contact information in a moment. Consider how God may be directing you to support this outreach. You know one of the hallmarks of this ministry one of the ways to see that this ministry is bearing fruit is by the number of people who've surrendered their lives to the Lord after hearing Pastor Greg's teaching. We know that over a million people have made professions of faith in the 50 years of Harvest Ministries. But Pastor Greg it comes down to individuals doesn't it? Each person seeing their need to come to the Lord to have their sins forgiven and to know Jesus personally. Yeah.
In fact someone can enter into that kind of relationship today can't they? They can and it's so simple and I think because it's so simple people think oh it can't be that easy. Well look Jesus did all the heavy lifting. He carried the cross for you. He died on that cross that he carried.
This isn't about what you do it's about what he's done. But here's what the Bible says whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. So let's just say that you're caught in a riptide out in the ocean and you need help and there's a lifeguard at the stand and they see you. You've got to call out to them and let them know you need saving.
And the same is true when it comes to eternal life. Jesus is ready to save you. Will you call out to him?
You say well okay how do I do that? You do it through prayer and prayer is just talking to God. So listen I'd like to lead you in a simple prayer and if you pray this prayer after me I believe God will hear it and answer it and Christ will come to live inside of you. Thousands of people have prayed a prayer like this over the years that we've been doing this radio broadcast and have seen their life change.
There's no power or magic in a prayer. It's all about your commitment to Christ but this is a way to call on the name of the Lord in this prayer. So if you want Jesus to come into your life and forgive you of your sin, if you want to know that you'll go to heaven when you die, if you want to fill that big hole in your heart just pray this prayer after me. You could pray it out loud if you like. Pray it in the quietness of your heart but pray these words if you would. Lord Jesus I know that I'm a sinner but I know that you're the savior who died on the cross for my sin. I am sorry for my sin and I turn from it now and I choose to follow you from this moment forward. Be my savior and my Lord. Be my God and my friend. Thanks for hearing this prayer and answering this prayer in Jesus name I pray.
Amen. Listen if you just prayed that prayer I want you to know that God has heard you and has answered it. The Bible says these things we write to you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. That you may know it's yours now.
God has given it to you because it's the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Congratulations and welcome to the family of God. Yeah yeah that's right and listen we want to help you get started in this new relationship with the Lord.
Would you let us send you something? It's free of charge. It's Pastor Greg's New Believers Bible. Millions have read this edition of God's Word. New Believers love the study helps written just for them and they appreciate that it's in an easy to understand translation. We'll send it to you today. Just ask for the New Believers Bible when you call 1-800-821-3300.
You can call anytime 24 7 1-800-821-3300 or go online to harvest.org. And Pastor Greg we're so thankful for the work God is doing through this ministry. Yeah. We're touching lives for eternity and we're really thankful for our friends who see the fruit of this ministry and invest so this work can reach even further.
Isn't that right? Absolutely. When you invest in Harvest Ministries you're investing in the souls of men and women, boys and girls. And what is the value of a soul?
Well let me personalize it. What's the value of your soul? What's the value of the soul of your husband your wife your son or your daughter or your mom or your dad or your best friend?
Well I would say you probably couldn't put a price tag on it. It's so valuable. Well listen God says all souls are mine.
God loves us and sent his son to die on the cross to pay the price for all of our sins so we could be forgiven and come into a relationship with him. I can't think of a better investment of my resources of my money than in the work of the kingdom of God. So we would ask you to prayerfully consider investing in Harvest Ministries as we continue on to fulfill the great commission. Yeah that's right and you can make your donation right now at harvest.org or write us at A New Beginning Box 4000 Riverside California 92514 or call 1-800-821-3300. That's a 24 7 phone number 1-800-821-3300. Well next time more great encouragement for the times of challenge when hope is in short supply. Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher Greg Laurie.
