Pastor Chris preached a great sermon a couple weeks ago on being a soul winner, sharing Jesus with people. And I have found a lot of us instinctively want to share Jesus with others, but we don't know what to say or how to get the conversation going.
I have found there are two things that you can do that are easy and low key to bring people into that conversation. Number one, we talked about this last week, is this simple prayer or this question. How can I pray for you? A lot of agnostics, atheists, people hostile to Jesus, they will respond positively to that question.
How can I pray for you? It's amazing how many times that opens up wonderful conversations about Jesus. But the second thing you can do is you can share your testimony. If you're a born again believer, you can share your testimony.
That's a very easy, non-threatening way to ease somebody into the conversation. And you say, what is my testimony? Your testimony consists of three things.
Listen to me. Your life before Jesus. What was life like before Jesus? Number two, your encounter with Jesus. And then number three, what has your life been like after that encounter with Jesus?
Your life before Jesus, your encounter with Jesus, and your life after Jesus. There's power in that kind of testimony. And we see an example of that in Mark chapter 2. So turn to Mark 2. We've been going through the Gospel of Mark. Mark chapter 2, verse 13.
And I want us to see the testimony of a man, his life before Jesus, his encounter with Jesus, and then what his life was like after Jesus. And his name was Levi. Mark chapter 2, verse 13. And he, Jesus, went out again by the sea, and all the multitude came to him and he taught them. As he passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, follow me. So he arose and followed him. Now it happened, as he was dining in Levi's house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and his disciples.
For there were many, and they followed him. And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to his disciples, how is it that he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners? And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Now, let's look at this man's life, Levi's life, before Jesus. Let's look at his encounter with Jesus. And then let's see how his life was changed after Jesus. Levi's life before Jesus. Look at verse 14. As he passed by, as Jesus passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax office. Let me just say this. Levi is a bad man.
This is not a good man. The name Levi is a Jewish name, so he's a Jew, but he's also a tax collector. Now, here's how that worked in those days. You understand Israel did not run its own affairs. There was a mega superpower named Rome that actually subjugated Israel. And here's what Rome said. These Gentile Romans came in and said, your country is now our country.
It'd be like China coming to America and saying, we're now taking over America. And they said this, we want money from these people. And we've done a survey.
We've kind of did a census. And out of this little town of Capernaum, we need to get $500,000 in taxes from this town. That's how much that town can give us. And what they did is they hired out locals and said, we want you to collect this money and went to the highest bidder. So evidently, Levi was the highest bidder. Here's what they said. Now watch this. Levi, we expect you to get $500,000 of revenue from Capernaum.
Anything you get on top of that is yours. That's how you're going to make your salary. So here's what this guy would do. He would tax, and these are poor people.
These are not wealthy people. He would tax these people. He would bring in, in a year, $500,000. But he would charge an extra $500,000 on top of that. And that's how he made his living.
Does that make sense? I'm going to get $500,000 from you all. And I'm going to kind of charge you on top of that.
And that's going to be my salary. Well, he's a Jew. What if they don't want to pay the money to the Jew? He says, you see these Roman soldiers right beside me with these swords? You don't pay up. They'll kill you.
It's almost like, imagine having armed IRS agents. Oops. I said too much.
Let's keep going. So that's what's going on here. So this guy is a sellout.
To put it in today's terms, because I like to take concepts like this and kind of put it in terms that we'd understand. During World War II, did you know that there were Jewish Nazi collaborators? Did you know that? These Nazis would come over, take over a country, round up all the Jews, and there would be Jews who would say, if you'll pay us, we will help you Nazis find fellow Jews here, and we'll help you round up our own people, knowing that they're going to go to the gas chamber. What kind of Jew does that? What kind of Jew would say, we're going to round up our own people, and if you pay us enough, Nazis, we'll sell them out to you? That's the kind of person Matthew or Levi was. They say, I don't know if George Soros, they said that his family was part of the whole collaboration.
I don't know if that was true or not, but that was actually a real thing that happened during World War II. Jews selling out other Jews to the Nazis. If that analogy doesn't work for you, basically Levi is a Mafia agent. You know how like in New Jersey, y'all notice nobody here is from Raleigh, everybody's from New York, New Jersey, or Massachusetts, okay? We've got a lot of Italians coming to church. Don't get mad at me. Don't break my kneecaps. I'm not trying to whatever, but like in certain parts of New Jersey at one time, you would have Mafia folks say to their henchmen, we want some protection money from that bakery here in New Jersey.
You tell them to go and pay, pay us this protection money, or we're coming after you. That's the kind of person Levi is. Levi is not a good person. So his life before Jesus Christ, he's basically a Nazi collaborator. He's basically part of the Mafia, which tells me, I'm going to give you something radical right now.
You all remember this? Christianity is not for good people. I heard somebody say one time that the church is the only organization, that the only qualification is that you're not qualified to belong to it. Jesus Christ did not come for quote unquote good people. Christianity is for bad people. It's for people like Levi. It's for Mafia henchmen.
It's for Nazi collaborators. Christianity, Jesus Christ is for messed up people. Jesus himself said right there, he said, I'm the great physician.
It's not the well who need a physician, it's the sick. And see, we have a hard time wrapping our brain around that. In fact, I remember the whole Jeffrey Dahmer thing. Remember that years ago? I think I was in high school when Jeffrey Dahmer, he killed and dismembered and cannibalized 17 men. I remember back in high school we'd tell Jeffrey Dahmer jokes and all this kind of stuff.
And so I remember back in high school, it was a big deal. This man kills, cannibalizes 17 people. He is arrested.
He is sent to prison. And while Jeffrey Dahmer was in prison, a Christian named Kurt Booth wrote to him and began to share Jesus with him. And Jeffrey Dahmer made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. And on May 10th, 1994, Booth talked to his pastor and said, this guy just got saved in prison. Let's go baptize him. And so the pastor and the church mobilized a portable baptistry. They take it to prison and he's baptized. Jeffrey Dahmer later said that he was afraid the pastor would back out and say, you know what, I thought about it.
You're too wicked to be baptized. What do you think about this? One of the most notorious wicked men of our generation gives his life to Jesus Christ. And I was reading the testimony of Jeffrey Dahmer online and I looked at the comments. You know, you can kind of look at a site and then have the comments underneath it. The comments kind of blew me away. Here's one comment.
Hey, we can't simply ask the invisible man in the sky for forgiveness and then everything is okay. Here's another comment. Hey, isn't the usual thing for criminals to get religion in prison? This pastor is just trying to sell the rights for a movie.
When will his merchandise go on sale? Here's another one. Dahmer was eligible for parole eventually with good behavior. He would have said whatever it took to get out of prison, so I highly doubt he's telling the truth. Or here's another one. He's just pretending to have found God because it will get him out of jail faster.
Thankfully, he was beaten to death in prison and we don't have to worry about him anymore. See, here's this idea that there are bad people and there are good people. And good people deserve Jesus and bad people don't deserve Jesus.
Let me tell you something right now. We're all bad people. We're all messed up people. We're all sinners. Some of y'all sitting right there thinking, well, that's good for Levi to get saved.
That's good for Jeffrey Dahmer to get saved. But I'm a pretty good person. Let me respond to you the way Ray Comfort responds to people. I love that.
Ray Comfort says this. Oh, you're a good person? Yeah.
Have you ever taken God's name in vain? Yeah. What did you call that?
Blasphemy. Have you ever lusted a good person? Yeah. You know what Jesus calls that? Adultery.
You ever gotten angry with somebody, just bitter towards somebody? Well, yeah. You know what Jesus calls that? Murder, good person. If you ever lied, well, yeah, we all lie.
Well, good person, we call that a liar. So you've just admitted to me that you're a lying, adulterous, blasphemous murderer and you think you're a good person and you're all right with God? We all need Jesus. We all need Jesus. Levi's life before Jesus, he's a messed up, wicked person. But I want you to do Levi's encounter with Jesus.
Verse 14. Jesus comes by his tax booth and he says to Levi, follow me. So he arose and followed him.
Luke, I like how Luke puts it in Luke 5, 28, same story. So Levi got up, left everything and followed him. I'll tell you something, you get right with Jesus. Jesus comes into your life.
There are going to be some things you have to give up. Levi left everything and followed Jesus. You get right with Jesus, you may have to leave that boyfriend. You may have to leave that girlfriend. You get right with Jesus.
And I'm not trying to be funny, we've had this happen here before. You can't keep stripping down there at the strip club once you get right with Jesus. You're going to have to leave. Well, who's going to provide for me?
Jesus will provide for you. But you're going to have to leave some stuff. And Levi left everything. What did he leave?
Would you listen to me? He left a very lucrative business. He's the richest man around. And when Jesus says, follow me, he didn't say, well, let me wind my affairs down, give me some time, let me tie up some loose knot. He leaves everything and follows Jesus. Would he give up? He may have given up his life.
Have you heard this before? You don't leave the mafia. They say, you don't leave the mafia. Well, he's in the mafia.
You don't just walk away. He could be killed. And yet when Jesus says, follow me, Levi has this encounter with Jesus and he follows Jesus Christ. See, Levi understood what it meant to follow Jesus. There are two titles we like to give to Jesus. Jesus is my Savior.
We like that one. And he's Lord. Those are two titles given to Jesus in the New Testament. Savior means he saves you from hell. Savior means you're a lost, dying sinner. You deserve to be punished. And Jesus Christ takes your punishment at the cross and you give your life to him.
And suddenly your sins are paid for and you will never go to hell again. We love that one. But there's a second title and that's Lord. Do you know what Lord means? It means owner. It's actually a slave term.
Did you know that? It means he is the master and I am his property. Lord means he is in charge. He is in control.
I am not. And you need to listen to me. The emphasis in the New Testament is on the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Jesus is called Lord 747 times in the New Testament. In the book of Acts, Jesus is called Lord 92 times. He's only called Savior twice in the book of Acts. Again, this is the emphasis in the New Testament. Acts 2, 21.
Everyone who calls on the name of the what? Lord shall be saved. Acts 16, 31.
Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. Romans 10, 9 through 10 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him to death, you will be saved. That's the emphasis. See, Matthew couldn't do what some of y'all wanted to do. Matthew couldn't sit there at his tax booth, mumble some silly little prayer, raise his hand. Jesus said, I see that hand.
I see that hand. Yeah, good. Now go on and keep being a tax collector. He couldn't do that. He understood if I'm going to follow Jesus Christ, he will be Lord. I must submit to him.
Are y'all with me on this thing? See, we've lost that in the American church. We don't know what that means. We don't understand the idea of lordship and we don't like the idea of lordship because see, we're Americans. We are democracy. We get to vote on what is right and what is wrong and when you get saved, you are no longer in a democracy.
You are under a dictatorship of the best, most wonderful, most loving king there is, King Jesus. You know, I was, because I'm getting a little older or whatever, darn I think back on life and you know, what are some regrets that you have? I actually don't have a ton of regrets.
I do have one though. When we were first married, I had a 1967 Mustang, beautiful Mustang and we are so poor, man, we didn't have any money and we needed some, I don't know, some furniture and this and that and man, I sold that 1967 Mustang for like $1,500 and basically next to nothing and I'd never sold anything before and it was a weird feeling when the guy came to my house to buy it and there's the title to the car and you got to flip it over and you sign here and he signs here and it's notarized and I'll never forget what it felt like to sign that and give that title to that man and to realize this car that I've had since high school, I used to love to ride around with, it no longer belongs to me. It now belongs to that guy and I can't tell him how fast to drive because it's not my car, it's his car. I can't tell him what kind of gas to put in that car because now it's his car.
Now, let me do a quick timeout here before I get too nostalgic. It was rusted out on the passenger side floorboard, you could literally see the interstate underneath it because it's all rusted out and if you turn right a little too quickly, the hubcap would always kind of go off and go down the road, so whatever, I digress but it was this strange feeling to say, this is no longer mine, I can't tell you how to operate this car, it's now yours and when you get saved, what you're doing is saying, I am now signing over the title deed to my life over to you, Jesus Christ. I don't dictate to you how to run this life, I don't tell you what you will and will not do because it ain't my life anymore, you are now the Lord of this life, I now give it to you. That's the lordship of Jesus Christ and that's the kind of encounter that Levi has with Jesus. See we do this thing of, I don't like this, I'm not trying to be nitpicky but I don't like this term, you need to accept Jesus, accept.
In my mind, that conjures up images of a beggar standing at the door with his hat in hand just hoping you'll accept him. Christianity doesn't mean you accept Jesus, it means you submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ. He is God, he is king, you either submit to him or you don't but the lordship of Jesus Christ says, it's no longer my life, I now sign it over to you, Jesus and Levi understands that.
Again, we got this all wrong in the American church. We think that Jesus is begging you, please just let me come in our life so I can make your life better. We think Jesus exists to help us, he's like Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite, you accept Jesus and all your dreams will come true and he's going to give you everything. Jesus said, that's not what I'm here for, I'm the king of kings and the Lord of lords, you either submit to my leadership or you don't, you don't have to but I'm just telling you, I'm not here to kind of come in and make your dreams come true, you're here to submit to my leadership.
In fact, in Mark, we'll read this a little later on, I think it's Mark chapter 10, there's a young man who oversaw a multi-million dollar startup, okay? He is a tech guru, he lives in RTP, he lives in North, whatever, he's just started this business startup, he's worth millions and he comes to Jesus' church and says, Jesus, I'd like to join your church. Now every pastor in Raleigh, here's what we do in Raleigh, we pastors, we'd say, oh, it's wonderful, come in, here's what our children's ministry has to offer you, hey, I hope you join my church because we have fair trade, organically grown coffee in our coffee shop, it's the best, come, you'll really like our coffee shop. Hey, our worship is culturally relevant, give our church a chance, I really think you'll like our, that's what we pastors would do to this young millionaire, you know what Jesus says? You wanna follow me? Sell everything you have, leave everything and follow me. That's lordship.
We got this thing all messed up, you see. Well, I'm leaving, Chad, and I'm going to another church because I'm not getting my needs met. Since when was Christianity about getting your needs met? This is about serving the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the lordship of Jesus Christ makes everything pretty clear, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who died at the hands of Germans, that wonderful theologian and pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, this is his classic quote on what it means to follow Jesus, he says this, the cross is laid on every Christian, the first Christ suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. Listen to what he says, when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, but it is the same death every time, the death of the old man when Jesus calls. Levi's life before Jesus, he's a messed up man. Levi's encounter with Jesus, he says that man, he's the Messiah, he's Lord, if he tells me to leave everything, I'm going to leave everything.
He has an encounter with Jesus, and look at Levi's life after Jesus, because I want you to understand this, again there's this really weird idea, I've seen it in this church before, won't you listen to me, there's this strange idea, I've had people right out there by the fountain talking about this before. I'll get saved, but there's some things I've got to clean up first. I'll get serious about Jesus, but I've got some issues I have to work through. Listen to me, Jesus catches his fish, then he cleans them. You give your life to Jesus Christ, he'll clean you up. You don't get clean and then come to Jesus, you come to Jesus just as you are. But I'll tell you this, once you've met that Jesus, your life will change. If your life hasn't changed, you haven't met Jesus.
I don't know what your Bible said, but my Bible says, if any man, any woman, any child is in Christ, they are a what? New creation. And you see that in Levi's life. How did Levi change?
Well, here's how he changed. First of all, Levi went from condemnation to grace. Levi carried around the sense of, you think about this, for years when he'd walk by, then hiss at him, throw stuff at him, he'd call him all kinds of names. He was living under condemnation, Levi was. When Levi gets saved, Levi, this man who feels people have condemned me, God has condemned me, I am an outcast of society. When Levi gets saved, he changes his name.
Do you know who he changes his name to? Matthew, which means God has gifted me. God has blessed me. God has been good to me. Romans 8, 1, there is now how much condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus? No condemnation. At that moment, he understood I'm a new person in Jesus.
And all that old stuff, it's passed away. God doesn't hate me. God's good to me.
It changed him so much, he changes his name. I got this from Joseph Prince. Look at this illustration, because as a pastor, I found this to be true. You know, Joseph Prince says, the root of our problem is condemnation. See, some of y'all have anger issues, conflict issues, depression issues, anxiety issues.
And you're trying to focus on the fruit. Let me get rid of this conflict mess, let me get rid of the anxiety, let me get rid of the depression. What I found is when you get to the root of this thing, which is condemnation, all those other things take care of itself. When I realized that there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus, I'm accepted as a child of God, listen to me. A lot of my interpersonal conflicts are dealt with, because I now extend that kind of grace to other people. A lot of times, when I feel condemned, God doesn't love me.
God's disappointed in me. Do you know how it manifests in my life? Anger.
I get angry at other people. Some of y'all who are dealing with anxiety, here's what the Bible says, perfect love casts out how much fear? All fear. When I understand that in Jesus Christ, God looks at me, this is going to blow your mind, when you get saved, God looks at you and he sees the righteousness of Jesus. He doesn't see the affair, he doesn't see the abortion, he doesn't see the drug addiction. When God looks at you as a born again believer, he now sees the very righteousness of Jesus Christ. That's what happens to Levi.
He goes from being a sellout to a man that says, I'm just blessed by God, God has gifted me. Secondly, Levi went from concern for self to concern for others. Once you meet Jesus, once you submit to the Lord to Jesus Christ, it's no longer about you.
You now have a concern for others. I want you to look at verse 15. Now, it happened as he was dining in Levi's house that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and his disciples. Here's what happens, Levi says, I want my reprobate friends to meet the same Jesus that changed my life, so I'm going to do something, I'm going to have a big party and good people are not invited.
I'm going to invite prostitutes, I'm going to invite fellow tax collectors, I'm going to invite the worst of the worst to this party because I want them to meet the same Jesus that has changed my life. When you get saved, it's no longer about you. You want others to come to Jesus. Listen to me, for you to say I have met Jesus and I'm saved and I really don't care about others now, I don't care where they spend eternity, that would be like you have cancer, you're on the verge of death and you find some magic elixir and you take that stuff and you're healed of cancer and then you take that bottle and say to hell with everybody else, I'm healed now.
Once you get saved, you're like I have found the cure for the one thing that will kill me and send me to hell, his name is Jesus. I'm not throwing him away, I want everybody to know about Jesus Christ. That's what happens to Matthew and in fact, I just believe this, I think once you submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ, now listen to me, once you submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ, Lord means he speaks, you jump, he tells you to do it, you do it. You know the very last thing Jesus says to people before he ascends into heaven, the very last thing is to go all over the world and share the good news of the gospel. Right before Jesus ascends, Matthew 28, 19, go into all the world and make disciples. Right before Jesus goes to heaven, Mark 16, 15, go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Luke 24, 47, preach the gospel to all nations. John 20, 21, very last thing Jesus says as he's meeting with his disciples, he says as the father sent me, I'm now sending you.
Well how did the father send him? To seek and save that which is lost. You get saved, you're going to want to do what Jesus tells you to do and Jesus said go and share the gospel. Matthew went from condemnation to grace. Matthew went from a concern for others, a concern to self to a concern for others. And finally, Levi went from saving his life to losing his life. Matthew 16, 25, Jesus said, for whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
And that's what happens to Levi. Now listen to me, this sellout who sold out his own people for money, he gets radically saved. In fact, here's how radically saved he gets. The gospel of Matthew that you have in your Bible is written by this man. Do you know who Matthew wrote his gospel to? He wrote it to Jews. He said, I spent decades ripping off my fellow Jewish people.
Now I want to write a definitive gospel because I want my Jewish people to get saved. And Matthew loved Jesus and loved people so much that tradition tells us he went down to Ethiopia preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. And they said, you stop preaching this Jesus stuff. He wouldn't stop. Stop leading people to Jesus.
He wouldn't stop. And so the day came when they took this man who had been a part of the mafia, who had been a Nazi collaborator, who was now transformed by Jesus Christ, he loved Jesus so much they had him kneel down on a stump and they take a sword and they behead this man. Because when you get saved, you realize it's no longer about you. He who saves his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for the sake of the gospel, he finds it. And this man's testimony changed the world.
In fact, it's interesting. Levi, Matthew, is one of the earliest witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus. And he writes perhaps the earliest account of the resurrection of Jesus. If you go to the end of Matthew and you read about the resurrection of Jesus, this man wrote it. And that account changed the world for the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know, let me just say this. Sometimes people come to our church. Have I told you this recently? We got a lot of atheists and agnostics coming to our church now and they're trying to explore Christianity and can I trust Christianity? Can I tell you one of the reasons you can trust Christianity? Did you know every one of the 12 disciples, except for John, he died in old age, every one of the disciples went to their deaths.
Some of them were tortured horrendously, all saying the same thing. You can torture me. You can kill me.
Do whatever you want. But I know what I saw. That man's alive. See, listen to me. If Jesus, if this whole thing is fake, if he didn't really rise from the dead, then it was the disciples that had to pull off this big hoax. Now people will die, listen to me, people will die for what they believe is the truth, but people will not be tortured and die for a lie. And men like Matthew, who would have had to have been in on it, said, torture me.
Do what you want to do. That man's alive. Y'all know who Chuck Colson is? Chuck Colson was the right hand man, he reminds me a lot of Levi, Matthew. Chuck Colson was the right hand man of Richard Nixon and he said, during the whole Watergate thing, he said 12 of the most powerful men, we all knew what happened with Watergate, we know what's going on, and 12 of the most powerful men in the world with all the technology we had, we could not keep this lie together for 40 days.
And yet we're to expect that a bunch of blue-collared workers have kept this lie going for the last 2,000 years, it doesn't work that way. That Matthew poured his life out for Jesus, and as a result, today, lives are still being changed. A few years ago, Dar and I went to Rome, and when I went to Rome, I think one of those sobering places we went to was the Roman Colosseum, and when I stood there in the Roman Colosseum, verses like verse 14 that we read stuck in my mind, and he said to him, follow me, so he arose and followed him.
Here's why this verse stuck to my mind. As we stood there in the Roman Colosseum, the Roman Colosseum represented the power of the land, it represented the government of the land, it represented the entertainment industry of the land, it's a magnificent building, but there in the Roman Colosseum, there is a simple cross, Darla took a picture of it, and this simple cross stands right there, and underneath it, it says something like this, this cross is raised to the memory of all the Christians who died here at the Colosseum. Men like Matthew, who followed Jesus, and it cost them their lives. Mothers who were arrested along with their Christian children, who were torn to shreds by the beasts there in the Colosseum.
Men who were tortured in front of their families in that Colosseum, why? Because they followed Jesus. Jack, why are you being so morbid today?
I'm not trying to be morbid, but I want you to understand, that may repeat itself here one day. I don't know if you've sensed this before, but this culture is becoming more and more hostile to Jesus. In fact, there was a lady, Anne Rice, and I think she's kind of walked away from Jesus, but a few years ago, she's a famous author, I think she did that book, Interview of the Vampire, when she got, quote unquote, saved, and again, I think she may have fallen away, but there was an interview, why did you become a Christian? She said, well, I was a seeker, I was seeking for truth, and I kept seeing in our society, there's one belief system that keeps getting attacked viciously, and that's Christianity. They don't attack Buddhism like that. They don't attack Marxism like that.
They do attack this truth. Therefore, there must be something to this truth, and I'm telling you, you follow Jesus like Levi did? The day may come, it costs you everything, but you have to then, why follow Jesus? If I'm going to possibly be tortured, if I'm going to be possibly marginalized in this culture, why follow Jesus?
Two reasons. Number one, you get Jesus. Jesus is worth it. Once you meet Jesus, once you walk with Jesus and know Jesus and love Jesus, you're like, man, you're going to have the whole world, I don't care, I just want Jesus. You get Jesus. Second thing you need to understand is one day, we're all going to die.
I told you my spiritual gift is not encouragement, okay? And I only have one hope after I die. His name is Jesus.
This world is going to pass away. You walk with Jesus, the Bible says, but the one who walks with Jesus abides forever. I want you to stand with me right now, and I want you, listen to me, I want you to do a gut check, are you walking with Jesus? Do you know Jesus? Because if you don't know Jesus, I want you to have an encounter with Jesus right now, the way that Matthew had an encounter with him 2,000 years ago.
I want you to bow your head right now. And I want you to zone everybody else out in this place, it's now just you and Jesus. I want you to say this to Jesus, but I want you to have a heart to heart with him.
I want you to mean everything you say. I want you to say to Jesus, Jesus I am a sinner, Jesus I deserve to be punished, but Jesus I believe you died for my sins, you took my punishment, Lord I believe you were buried, say this to him, I believe God raised you from the dead, you're alive right now. This is so important, say to him, I turn away from my sin, and I turn to you, Lord forgive me of all my sins, Jesus come and take control of my life, take me to heaven when I die.
Or you can put it this way, Jesus I signed the title deed of my life over to you right now. Amen, and here's what the Bible says, Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and he that believeth in me will never die. You believe in Jesus, your body may wear out. You may be executed like Matthew, you may be put to death like those Christians in that Colosseum, that body may wear out, but you, the real you, you'll never die. Does that not blow your mind, you'll never die? You will one day stand around the throne of God in heaven, with all these saints of the ages, and you say what will I say, what will I sing around the throne, did you know that revelation already tells you what you'll be singing around the throne, worthy is the lamb, worthy is the lamb, holy, holy are you God almighty, worthy is the lamb. Are y'all ready for that day, man I am. Let's get a little taste of that right now, let's lift up holy hands and worship our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, sing this to him right now.
