A Passion to Proclaim Him - Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, December 15th.

Gratitude for salvation should naturally pour out of a believer's life in all kinds of ways. Today's podcast highlights the overflow of joy that produces a passion to proclaim him. What do you like to talk about most? Is it your wife, your husband, your children, your vocation, your hobby, politics? What is the subject that excites you most of all? Well, does the name Jesus Christ surface automatically in your conversations?

Or do you sort of have to work at that? Are you one of those persons who is a little bit embarrassed about talking about Jesus and so therefore not to hurt other people's feelings and to make them uncomfortable? You just don't say anything about Him.

Let me ask you this. How could you and I keep so quiet about someone who was crucified for our sins, who has forgiven us all of our sin, who was risen from the dead to give us hope that we'll be resurrected, who indwells us in the very presence of the Holy Spirit, who answers our prayers, who walks with us day by day and on and on and on we could go? It seems to me that somehow Jesus ought to be our favorite subject. That is, He should continually be upon our mind and very frequently upon our lips. And that's what I'm going to talk about in this message, a passion to proclaim Him. And if you'll turn to Colossians chapter one, the apostle Paul was a man with a passion to proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ, a passion to know Him, as he says in Philippians chapter three, and to obey Him, to serve Him. And then Colossians chapter one, he states very clearly what his passion concerning this proclamation.

And the 28th and 29th verses, the last two verses of this first chapter, listen to what he says. And we proclaim Him admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom that we may present every man complete in Christ. And for this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power which mightily works within me. The apostle Paul was a man who had a passion for the Lord Jesus Christ and a part of that passion was to know Him, a part of it was to obey Him, a part of it was to serve Him in any fashion, but surely a major part of that passion was to proclaim Christ. That is, his desire was to get the message out.

And you'll recall we said that a passion is a strong, intense, overwhelming desire for something or someone. And the apostle Paul certainly had that. And if you'll notice what he says in this passage, he says, and we proclaim Him, then he tells us how. He says, by admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom. Then he says that we may, this is his goal, that we may present every man complete in Christ.

And then he says for this purpose I labor, wearisome labor, I strive, he says, tirelessly according to His power which mightily works within me. Now as you think about that, I want to share about four things out of this passage with you. And the first one is this, that our passion, that is, this intense desire that you and I have and should have to share the Lord Jesus Christ should be born out of our conversion by Him.

And I want you to think about that for a moment. It should be born out of our conversion by Him. Somebody says, well, what motivates you to want to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ or to share it on a one-to-one basis?

First of all, it ought to be because of our own conversion experience. Think about this, as the Apostle Paul preached the gospel and you read this throughout the book of Acts, the 22nd chapter, 26th chapter, Paul in his testimonies always brought people back to his own conversion experience on the Damascus road. He never got over it. Here he was on his way to Damascus to imprison and probably to kill Christians. And God reached down, struck him down, saved him right there and called him to share the very gospel he tried to destroy the rest of his life.

Now think about this. Here's a man who was absolutely and totally committed to the destruction of the Christian faith. And the next thing you know, he's talking to the Lord Jesus Christ. The next thing you know, he's out preaching the gospel. And even the Christian said, watch out for this man because this cannot be true.

The last time we heard anything about him, he was imprisoning us and now he is claiming to preach the gospel. That is the grace of God. And that's why the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, he says, by the grace of God, I am what I am.

He never got over his salvation experience. It was always a part of his passion, his intense, strong, motivating desire to proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ. You remember what he said in Romans? He said, I'm a debtor. He says, I'm a debtor to the Greeks.

I'm a debtor to the Romans to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he said, I'm unashamed to do it. Motivated about what happened to him on the Damascus road. He never got over his conversion experience. And it was always a driving force in his life because the Apostle Paul realized that when Jesus Christ saved him, he didn't save him because of anything he saw within him. It was a pure act of God's grace.

Now let me ask you a question. Do you just sort of take for granted that back yonder years and years ago God saved you and you've been living a Christian life all these years? And I wonder if sometimes because we forget that we don't get the idea, well, you know, I've been saved now for about 30 years or 25 years and surely God must be slightly impressed. Oh, no, he's not. Well, I mean, he must have seen something good back then me as a little boy or a little girl and saved me.

No, he did not. My friend, listen, the only reason God saved you is the only reason he saved the Apostle Paul. The only reason he saved the Apostle Paul is the only reason he saves anybody and that is by his absolute pure grace he chooses to reach down and do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Listen, do you realize that the same grace that it took to save the Apostle Paul is the same grace it takes to save an eight year old boy? It doesn't take any more grace to save a murderer, a revolutionary, a total atheistic unbeliever, who is absolutely opposed to everything you and I believe. It doesn't take any more grace to save him than it does an eight year old boy.

Because my friend, sin has separated all of us from God. And the Apostle Paul was so grateful for what God did for him. It just kindled within him.

It's like throwing gasoline on a little spark. Something exploded within this man when he trusted Jesus Christ as his Savior. He never got over it.

I wonder if you've gotten over yours. Well, I don't mean that you cease to be saved or that you don't care, but I mean, do you ever think about the fact that he saved you? Do you ever think about the fact that he didn't have to? That he didn't see anything in you worth saving? That wasn't the issue that God in pure grace decided to save you.

Does that not motivate you to want to share with someone else? Paul never escaped. He was always burning within him. It was a part of his motivation, his passion, this overwhelming intense desire.

You know why? Because the Apostle Paul knew that if God could save him, as he called himself, the chief among sinners, if God could save the Apostle Paul, Paul knew that it mattered not to whom he preached. They were a likely convert because if God the Father in Christ could save him, he could save anybody. And once in a while we get the idea that people are too old to be saved, too sinful to be saved, they've been at it too long and therefore God won't save them. And I want to tell you, he will save you.

No matter who you are, he will save you. And you see, part of our passion should be to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is on a one-to-one basis in our home, in your business, wherever it may be, a passion is an intense, strong, overwhelming desire to get the truth that has revolutionized their life and given us eternal security. That ought to be on our lips and continually in our mind and in our heart.

You get up on Monday morning early or Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, whatever it might be, you open the Word of God and tell God, Lord, speak to my heart. Show me something that I can share with someone else. God, speak to my life. I want you to work in my heart. I want you to continue the sanctifying process in my life. And I want you to so work that something will be bubbling up in my heart that I can't wait to tell somebody else and not have to struggle to do it.

Listen, when something's burning in your heart, you've got to tell it. And the Apostle Paul was, listen, what was burning in his heart is if God the Father, Jesus Christ, will save me on my way to persecute Christians, He will save anybody. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Get all kinds of mail from all kinds of people. I thought this was a very interesting note that so fits this message. This lady wrote this letter about her husband and here's what she said. Dear Dr. Stanley, my husband calls his name, was saved in April of this year. My husband has cancer and at that time he was confined to bed. He called for me to come to him and he said, Mommy, I've been saved. At that time he was unable to be baptized and two weeks ago he was able to be baptized and stay for church service. We feel the Lord helped him get well enough for this because the doctors had told us he would never walk again. With the aid of his walker he was able to walk into church, into the pool to be baptized.

Everyone in church was overcome with joy and praise that night. Now listen to this. He has read the Bible old and new and is now reading it for the second time.

Thanks to your TV ministry he was saved and is able to worship with you since he's unable to attend church. Here's what I want you to hear. It is never too late to accept Christ as my husband will be 78 years old in November. Now listen to me. How many of you have said, you know, I just don't know the Bible very well.

Well get started. I mean, here's a man, listen, here's a man who is 78 years of age and when he got saved, God put a passion in his heart. And what has he done? He's read the Bible all the way through. In less than three months he had read the Bible all the way through and is into it the second time. What do you think motivated this man, sick of cancer, to get up when the doctor says he can't walk, walk into a church with a helper, walk into the baptismal pool and have somebody baptize him and then start reading the Bible and read it all the way through. Listen, 66 books, it's a big book, read it all the way through in less than three months back into it again.

I'll tell you why. Something is going on in his life. He has a passion for Christ. Let me ask you, you're 25, 30, 40, 50 years of age and you've got a Bible and eyes and you don't have to even use glasses, but you're so busy with so many things, you have no time to read the word of God, no time to share the word of God. Suppose you say, well, Lord, I just don't have time.

I guarantee he can make time for you friend. He can stretch you out so that the only thing you can do is read the Bible and pray. You see, when you and I have a real passion to proclaim him, one thing we'll never get over is how we were saved and what God did in our life.

And listen, why did he do it? Why did God save you? He saved you because he loves you. Secondly, he saved you, my dear friend, because he wants to live his life in and through you all the days of your life. Now here's a man who probably doesn't have much time, but the way he started out, he's going to make every single minute count from the moment he was saved to the day Jesus Christ calls him. What is it that burned in the heart of the Apostle Paul?

God reached down and saved him, gave him forgiveness of his sins, wrote his name in the Lamb's Book of Life, called him, but most of all that he saved him. And so when you look at the Apostle Paul and you look at what he said, he said, and we proclaim him admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom and that we may present every man mature in the Lord Jesus Christ. So his passion is partly born out of his conversion by him.

Secondly, that passion is strengthened by his convictions about him. That is, very few people understand what the Apostle Paul understood about Christ. Here's a man, when he was saved, the Bible says he went away into Arabia and spent some time there listening to the Lord Jesus Christ, reevaluating his life and thinking about all those Old Testament scriptures that he knew so well and the things that he had learned in the past and looking at all of that now differently from the fact that he'd been converted down the Damascus Road. The Apostle Paul had a passion to proclaim Christ, but it was motivated by his passion also to know him.

And he says in this passage, he says, proclaiming him admonishing every man and teaching every man. The Apostle Paul knew who Jesus Christ was. Listen, he understood him in such a fashion. He was so able to grasp the reality of the crucifixion and what it really meant and the resurrection and its real message and the ascension and the promise and their coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He so absolutely took hold of him. His passion was to share the truth of that to everyone. It is the same Apostle Paul who sits in prisons, who sits in jail houses, not calling for his friends to come and comfort him, but doing what?

With his secretary there saying, take this down. And so what does he do? He writes the book to the Philippians. He writes the epistle of the Colossians. He writes the epistle to the Ephesians. Paul wrote to the Corinthians. Paul writing these letters, what is he doing? When he can't get there, he writes them a letter. Why didn't he stop when he was dying there?

At least they thought he was dying in the city streets of Lister when they stoned him and thought he was dead. Why does the man keep on being beaten? Why does he keep on being thrown in prison? Why does he keep on having the heartaches and the troubles and as he says above all, carrying the burden of the churches? Why doesn't he stop? Why doesn't he just give up? Why doesn't he just retire from the ministry?

I'll tell you why. Something burning on the inside of him would not let him be quiet about Jesus. They could lash him in the back. They could stone him and leave him for dead and the only thing that is just stir him up to do what? To talk about Jesus Christ. And my friends, you come to church week after week and you want more and more knowledge. Listen, if God shut down your knowledge until you did most of what you already knew, I wonder how many of us have learned much of anything else. Listen, the mark of a godly man or woman, the mark of a true saint of God who has a passion for him isn't just going to Bible studies and listening to sermons, it is sharing Christ telling the world that Jesus Christ is their only hope.

It isn't enough for me just to know about him. Suppose the apostle Paul had died with everything he knows in the book of Colossians with him. Suppose he had died of everything he knows in the book of Romans with him. Suppose he had died with everything he knows in the book of Ephesians with him. If he had died with those things in his mind, I'm here to tell you, my friend, you and I would be spiritually poor because in the pages of those few chapters of the Word of God are the deepest, richest of the explanation and insight into the personality of Jesus Christ and his whole personhood and sovereignty as the son of God to be found anywhere.

There is absolutely no equal to those books. Suppose he had died with that. You know what some of you are going to do? You're going to die with your knowledge and experience of Jesus Christ and you're going to take it to the grave because you were too ashamed to tell it. You were too timid to say to someone else, Christ saved me from my sins.

Too timid to say, I was born again with the grace of God when I was 16 years of age. I'm a brand new creation in Christ. Do you want to die with that? Listen, do you want to die with all the truth and the knowledge that you know about Christ?

God forbid it. What would you and I have thought of the Apostle Paul if somehow we could know that he knew all of this but he didn't tell anybody? When I think of how rich and wealthy I am in my heart and my spirit when I ponder and meditate and search and glean and soak everything I can out of his epistles.

Suppose he had died with that. But you've got some folks you live around, people you work around and you talk about everything else but Christ. One of these days you're going to die and you're going to take your knowledge and your experience with you. Friend, leave it with somebody.

Tell it to somebody but don't die with it. Thank you for listening to A Passion to Proclaim Him. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.