There's a fictional story of a conversation between Jesus and Gabriel after Jesus rose from the grave and ascended into heaven. This story says the angel Gabriel approached him and said, Master, you must have suffered terribly for those humans down there. I did, he said.
It was indescribably painful. And, continued Gabriel, does the human race now know all about how much you love them and what you did for them? Oh, no, said Jesus. The human race doesn't know yet. Right now, only a handful of people in the Middle East know.
Gabriel was perplexed. Then what have you done to let everyone know of your love for them? Jesus said, Well, I've asked Peter, James, John, and a few more friends to tell other people about me. And then those who are told in turn will tell other people about me, and my story will be spread to the farthest reaches of the globe. Ultimately, all of mankind will have heard about my life and what I did for them. Gabriel frowned and looked rather skeptical.
He knew well what poor stuff humans are made of. But what if Peter, James, and John grow weary? What if the people who come after them who are told, what if they forget to tell?
What if way down in the 21st century, people just don't tell others about you? Have you made any other kind of contingency plans? Jesus answered, I haven't made any other plans.
I'm counting on them. There is no other plan. 20 centuries later, Jesus still has no other plan. If the world is going to hear about Jesus, it's going to be because you and I who have heard about Jesus and have been changed by Jesus will turn around and tell others about him, and they in turn will tell others.
There is no plan B, church. So now we're at Mark chapter 4. I want you to turn there, Mark chapter 4, and we're going to look at a parable.
And I'll be out in a look. It's a fine parable. It's not my favorite parable of Jesus. And we all like the parable of the Good Samaritan.
We like that one. The parable of the prodigal son, we like that. There are other parables that we seem to latch onto, but this parable is probably the most important parable Jesus taught. It's incredibly important. How do you know this parable is so important?
Three ways. Number one, unlike Matthew and Luke and John, Mark, have you noticed this as you read through Mark? Mark does not have a lot about the teaching ministry of Jesus.
Remember I told you, Mark is the gospel for those of us with ADD. It is an action-packed gospel that goes from incident to incident to incident. There are only, unlike the other gospels, two extended teaching chapters in Mark. Here in Mark chapter 4 and then in chapter 13. And here in Mark 4, this parable of the sower takes up most of that chapter. So Mark only talks about the teachings of Jesus twice. This is one of the two times.
That's how important this is. Secondly, there's 60 different, about 60 different parables in all the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This parable is repeated at length in Matthew, in Mark, and in Luke. All three of those gospels emphasize this one parable out of all the others. And then number three, if you look at Mark chapter 4 verse 13, Jesus said, if you won't get this parable, if you don't understand this parable, you're not going to understand the other parables. Implication, this parable is the one that unlocks other parables. So today this might not be as emotionally tugging at your heartstrings as the parable of the prodigal son. But Jesus said this is an important parable. Why is it so important? Because listen, our central task is to get the message of Jesus out in that world before he comes back.
That's it. Casting out demons is fine. Praying for sick people to get healed is fine.
Fellowshiping, all that's fine. But our primary task is to tell others about Jesus. And Jesus said, if that's your primary task, I want to get, we call it evangelism, I want to give you some very basic core principles on evangelizing.
And so this is Jesus' way of evangelizing. You know, years ago, Billy Graham went to a particular city to hold a crusade. And he was opposed by a pastor in that city that's kind of a liberal. And so the newspaper interviewed this pastor that was opposing Billy Graham and said, why are you opposing Billy Graham? And this liberal pastor said, well, look, we don't want that man in our city. He'll set evangelism back 50 years. When they asked Billy Graham about that statement that you're going to set evangelism back 50 years in that city, he said, I don't want to set evangelism back 50 years.
I want to set it back 2,000 years. I want to go back to the way Jesus told us to do this thing. And so that's what you see here in Mark, chapter 4, Jesus' basic paradigm on how we are to share the gospel. So Mark, chapter 4, verse 1. And again, he began to teach by the sea, and a great multitude was gathered to him so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea. And the whole multitude was on the land facing the sea. Then he taught them many things by parables. And he said to them in his teaching, listen, behold, a sower went out to sow. And it happened as he sowed that some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds of the air came and devoured it. Some fell on stony ground where it did not have much earth, and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up, it was scorched, and because it had no root, it withered away. And some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop.
But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased, and produced some 30-fold, some 60, and some 100-fold. So look, here's... Now, I'm not trying to make you feel guilty because I don't share Jesus. Well, I don't share Jesus. I've never led anybody to Jesus. Let me just give you evangelism 101.
Jesus says your central task is to go into that world and spread the gospel. Jesus says... Let me give you some fundamental principles here. And fundamental principle number one is, look, you're just a sower. Verse three, listen, behold, a sower went out to sow. Not a trendy sower. Not a sower wearing skinny designer jeans with gelled hair and a seminary degree. Not a sower that, you know, knows how to kind of schmooze people and is a good salesman.
He just said a sower. See, in those days, they didn't sow in nice, neat rows like we do today. In that day, you'd have this path around a plot of land and a farmer would just go out. He'd kind of till up all of his land. He'd just take some seed.
He'd just kind of throw it out. He said, that's what you and I are. We're just taking the seed of the gospel and we're just throwing it out.
Verse 14 says that the seed is the word of God, the gospel. So put this together. You and I are simply people who wherever we go, we just throw out the gospel. We just put out the name of Jesus Christ out there.
That's all we do. You are a sower. And, you know, people sometimes say this. I've tried to witness to people. I'm just not good at it. I'm just not a successful sower. I'm not a successful witness. Here's my question to you. Have you ever opened your mouth and in somehow, some way, shared Jesus with somebody?
Yeah. Then you're a successful witness. Successful witness is not necessarily leading somebody to Jesus. If you would just share the name of Jesus and get the gospel out there, that's all you're called to do.
That's it. I have found the best sowers are just normal, ordinary people that aren't glitzy. I've got a friend named Danny. Danny and I will go to the mall. We'll go to Chick-fil-A, get something to eat. Back then when I had Starbucks, he would go to Starbucks. Chick-fil-A, Starbucks, sometimes he'd have to go to the Apple store.
And I'm amazed. Everywhere that guy goes, everywhere, he goes to Chick-fil-A. And I was going to say, he pays. He always makes me pay. I pay. And you know what he does to the cashier?
Here's a track. You know Jesus loves you. And I just assume everybody at Chick-fil-A is saved already because it's a Christian business. But anyway, he shares Jesus at Chick-fil-A. Goes to Starbucks in the coffee. Thank you. Hey, here's a track. I just want you to know Jesus loves you.
Goes to the Apple store. Jesus loves you. Everywhere he goes, he just shares the gospel. Jeff, has he ever led anybody to Jesus when you were there with him? Not when I'm with him, but he's a successful witness because everywhere he goes, he just shares the gospel. Let me give you another example. This is one of my favorite stories from this church. You've heard me share this before.
In the middle of all the COVID craziness, we had a person from Cross Assembly going to Lowe's Hardware. She went wearing her mask. She and her husband didn't have her mask on. You remember that one? That was kind of the virtue signaling. So she's in there and some guy is following her.
And he finally says, man, I'm sorry. I've got to interrupt you here. Why aren't you wearing a mask? COVID's killing people and we're supposed to be wearing masks and you don't seem scared and you're not taking this seriously? She says, no, it's not that I'm not taking this seriously, but I refuse to live in fear because Jesus Christ has changed my life. My days are numbered.
I walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. You know what the guy said? He said, you know what?
I'm with you. And he took his mask off. And then she shared Jesus with him. He and his wife started coming to our church. He gets saved.
I baptized him a little while back and now they're some of our most faithful members. Why? Because in Lowe's department store, somebody used COVID as an entryway to share Jesus with somebody and sow the seed of the gospel. Hey, listen, I am just a seed sower.
There's nothing special about me. On Sunday morning, you all allow me to share the gospel, to sow the seed here and online and on the radio. I'm just a seed sower. Have you ever heard this? I've heard this before.
You know, people said they always do this. Just just just live a good life. OK, you heard this saying before. Preach the gospel constantly.
Use words if necessary. You heard that. OK, next time somebody says that, say this. Preach the gospel constantly if necessary.
Rebuke those who say use words if necessary because you've got to use at some point just living a good life is not enough. You've got to speak and share the gospel. And in fact, I need you all to help me to do this. We'll do a little bit of housekeeping here. I want to start in our resource center.
I've been meaning to do this and I keep forgetting. I want to start selling tracts out there. Chad, I want you to give away tracts because you all take 50 when you only want to give away one. I want to sell them, but I want us to start selling tracts where every week you can go in, buy some tracts, load them up. And during that week, just sow the seed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Hey, when you all give the missions, I mean this.
When you're giving the missions, you are being sowers. You are equipping people to go around the world in the name of Jesus, places you can't go to, and just simply sow the seed. So evangelism 101. If you're going to be a successful evangelist, just open your mouth and share Jesus. I don't care if you never lead anybody to Jesus. If you just share Jesus, you're a successful sower. That's number one. You're a sower.
Number two, you are not responsible for the response. See, the determining factor in this parable as to whether something lives is not the seed. The gospel is the gospel.
That's not the determining factor. The determining factor as to whether life springs up is not the sower. You just sow.
The determining factor is the soil. And if you look at verse 15, the soil represents the heart of the person who's heard the gospel. So the gospel is the gospel. You don't change that. You're just a sower.
Here's the determining factor. What kind of soil, what kind of heart is this gospel falling on? Are you all with me on that? And look, honestly, this passage helped me this past week because if you're only a pastor that understands this, I wrestle with this. When I see people, you're going to think I'm silly. When I see people come forward, get saved, we baptize them. And then they turn their back and start living a reprobate life, I always take it personally. I must not have made the gospel clear enough. I must have made the gospel too easy. I must not be a good... And finally, as I read this, it's not up to me. I mean, we dealt with some of the... Well, I'm back. One of our pastoral care guys said, look, we got a situation.
I said, what? There's a man in our church that is abusing his wife. I'm so glad we have this abuse ministry going on.
He's abusing his wife. And I took it personally. I said, wait a second. That guy got saved. I baptized him last year.
What did I do wrong? That's not me. Now, look. This ministry to abused women, I'm glad the pastoral care department got their ministry because I had a ministry to abused women.
In my mind, mine's not as good. Here's my abused women's ministry. If we find out there's a woman in our church being abused by her husband, a couple of you fellows take him out back and give him a good old-fashioned southern tail whooping. But this ministry is better than my ministry, okay? But you see what I'm saying? I would feel guilty. I must have done something wrong in sharing the gospel. And Jesus says, no.
You're not responsible. You just sow the seed. And he talks about what these soils represent. The first soil, verse 15, Jesus says, and these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown.
When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their heart. What's he talking about? So you have this plot of land that the farmer's just sowing his seed into. And he would actually have a walking path around that plot of land. And you walk that plot long enough, the dirt gets really hard.
It's just packed down. And Jesus said the first heart is like that seed falling on that packed-out soil and birds representing Satan come and take that gospel. And it never has root in a person's heart. I've met people like that. A couple weeks ago, darling, I talked to a man like that. We were just talking to this man. And I said, man, I'd just love to take a second to just share the gospel. He said, I don't want to hear the gospel. I'm not trying to be mean. Don't want to be offensive, Chad.
I love you. I don't want to hear the gospel. I said, you don't want to hear the gospel? You don't want to hear the gospel? He said, no, I don't want to hear the gospel. I said, you don't want to hear about how you are a sinner separated from God and that God sent his son Jesus into this world to die for your sins and pay the price. And if you'll repent of your sins and turn to Jesus, God will forgive you of all your sins and give you eternal life. You don't want to hear about that?
No, I don't want to hear about that. That's the first soil. The second soil, verse 16. These, likewise, are the ones sown on stony ground.
Okay, so there's maybe a little bit of surface dirt, but it's rock underneath. Who, when they hear the word immediately, receive it with gladness and they have no root in themselves and so endure only for a time afterward when tribulation or persecution arises for the world's sake. Immediately, they stumble.
Now look at this. Jesus says they receive the word with gladness. In other words, the gospel is shared, it hits them, and there is an emotional response. And they receive it with gladness or joy.
Listen to me. I have found that joy isn't necessarily the sign that somebody's truly gotten saved. More often than not, there is tears and mourning when they realize what a sinner they are. That seems to be the emotional response. But Jesus here says, no, there's this superficial joy.
They come forward, they say the prayer, they get baptized, but then he says when persecution comes, first time somebody says, you're one of them weird Jesus freaks now? No, no, no, no. I was just, I don't know what I was thinking. You go to that crazy church? No, no, no.
A cousin drugged me. I said this prayer, but I, when there's a little bit of grief, these people say, I don't belong to Jesus. I've seen that here.
I've seen people make a commitment to Jesus, but as soon as it costs them something, they fall away. That's the second seed. Then, or soil.
The third soil is this. Now, these are the ones sown among thorns. They're the ones who hear the word and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things entering in show the word and it becomes unfruitful.
Do you see that? These are the people who get saved, quote unquote, that make a decision, they come forward, they say a prayer, and they get wet in the baptistry, and they're doing all right until suddenly it starts to interfere with their golf game on Sunday. Jesus starts to interfere with their livelihood. Jesus makes them pay the price. There's some cost that has to be counted, and because Jesus is going to interfere with my golf game, my vacation home, Jesus, I've got other priorities. Those other priorities step in, and Jesus says very specifically, a lot of times it's the riches of this world. That's why every time, now in the old days, when a celebrity would get saved, I'd be, praise God.
Now we've got somebody on the platform. Now, when a celebrity gets saved, I say, well, how long is this going to last? Because they get outside about Jesus until it interferes with their Hollywood career. You follow Jesus until suddenly you get unliked or banned from Twitter, and then we start backtracking.
This is an extreme example, but that's about that whole Kardashian family. It's interesting, in an interview in Vogue in 2018, Kim Kardashian spoke about the importance of faith to her family. She said, quote, we don't share it much, but we're really religious, she explained.
We start our day with a group chat with a Bible verse from my mom, and everyone chimes in on the meaning of it. We are very Christian. Mom manager Chris Jenner's Twitter bio describes herself as a lover of Christ. But here's the thing, you can't follow the Lord Jesus Christ and flaunt sex the way you flaunt it. You can't follow Jesus and live the kind of lifestyle. I had somebody the other day say, you know, you're bashing the Kardashians, you know, they're Christians.
Look at you right here. They're not Christians. They don't follow Jesus.
You do understand that, right? If you follow Jesus Christ, there are some things you have to give up, and one of the things you give up is your perversion and your wickedness. It's going to cost you everything, and I've seen too many people say, I'll follow Jesus until it interferes. But then there's the fourth soil. The fourth soil, verse 20, says, but these are the ones sown on good ground. Those who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, some 30 fold, some 60, some 100 fold. That's interesting.
I did some reading this past week. You know, the average crop, the good crop, will yield 7%, okay? 10% yield is unheard of. And then Jesus just blows the roof off. He said, no, but when the gospel is planted on good soil, it's going to be a massive harvest, 60 fold, 30 fold, 60 fold, 100 fold.
That's unheard of. Nobody, that's supernatural harvest. When somebody truly gets saved, when the seed of the gospel sown by an ordinary sower like you and me hits that good soil, there's change. The addiction is broken. Their family changes. Dad goes from being a mean, grumpy, evil man to a man that looks like Jesus and walks like Jesus and loves his family like Jesus. There's a change.
They start too tight. John Wesley said one time, I can tell you in about two seconds if somebody's born again or not. He said, how do you know? He said, let me look at the checkbook. But I'm going to tell you something. Your money follows your priorities. And Jesus is saying, look, when the gospel hits good soil, everything changes.
Are y'all with me on this thing? Everything changes. See, that's what keeps me going as a pastor. To your testimonies. I heard a testimony of a fellow like this. He said, Chad, a couple years ago, I was the meanest, most wicked man. My family didn't like me.
They didn't want to be around me. I got saved, and now God has brought our family back together. I'm a changed man because of that man, Jesus Christ. That's what he's talking about right there.
So let's kind of do a quick recap. The sower, you and me, the seed is the gospel. Let me stop and say this. The seed is not some weird Mike Murdock prosperity preaching. That's, if I turn on one more TV station and hear one more Christian preacher use that to talk about sowing into their ministry so that you'll have an abundance of money, I'm going to lose my mind.
That's not what he's talking about. You're the sower. The seed is the gospel. And the soil is the heart that this falls on. Okay, Chad, how does this apply to me? You're just the sower.
Let me give you an example of just a sower. Young Stephen Grelais lived in Pennsylvania in the 1800s. During his prayer time one morning, he felt the Holy Spirit telling him to go out to the northeast and preach the gospel at a certain very rough, profane logging camp.
Now, here's what he imagined. He said, I'm going to go to the mess hall at this wicked logging camp. I'm going to proclaim the gospel, and hundreds of loggers are going to get saved and come to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he braved the weather.
He crossed cold rivers. He got to the logging camp only to find that the logging camp was empty. There was nobody there.
The workers had moved on to another area to work. He was profoundly disappointed. But still he said, I just know the Lord told me to come here and preach. So he got up in that logging camp with nobody there, stood up in the mess hall, and he preached the gospel to an empty room. Went back home disappointed.
Years later, Gurlay was in London on business, and a man approached him and grabbed his arm. He said, I have found you at last. Years ago I was with a group of lumberjacks. We had left our camp to go to some other areas. We had left an important piece of logging equipment back at the camp.
I was told to go back and get it. I knew the camp would be empty, so I was surprised that when I got there I heard somebody preaching. I peeked through the logs of the mess hall, and I saw you there preaching to an empty room. I came under conviction and gave my life to Jesus Christ. I am saved because of you. Isn't that great? That's a sower saying.
I'm just not responsible for the results. Well, sow the seed. I heard another story. I heard a guy named Kenneth Porter. He's a Christian that lives in Los Angeles. Chad, you're funny. Good one. Christian in Los Angeles.
There's a couple left. And he said, I was walking across the street at a crosswalk in Los Angeles. And there was a policeman there directing traffic. He said, the Lord told me I need to share the gospel with him. He said, so literally as I'm walking across the street, I walk by that preacher and say, man, you need to give your life to Jesus and get saved. He said, the police stopped him.
He was scared at first. The police said, sir, stop. He said, what? The policeman said, how did you know?
He said, how did you know what? How did you know that I was just thinking to myself how can I get to heaven when you walk by and said that? That's the sower sharing the seed of the gospel. Now, don't all thousand of you go by our policeman out here today and I mean, if Jesus tells you to do it, do it. But anyway, that's just sharing the gospel. Now, look, Jesus said, this is very simple. You're the sower. Just sow the seed.
Just share the gospel. Number two, you're not responsible for the results. And then number three, now listen to why I have to say this. He said, now remember this. You are on the winning team. See, after this parable in chapter four, Jesus puts a little addendum to this story of the parable of the sowers and it's not disconnected.
It's connected. Jesus shares with his disciples to say, I know things are going to get tough. I know you're going to get some grief. I know it's not always going to be easy to share the gospel.
But Jesus gives us parables. But keep in mind, in the end, you're on the winning team. Like this. Let's say 45 years ago, you came up to me and said, Chad, I got $20,000, 45 years ago. $20,000 to invest.
And Chad, you're the smartest guy I know. I've got two places where I can invest. Sears, they got this big tower, beautiful tower. Incredible catalog.
They got a long history. I can invest it in Sears or there's this little fledgling startup computer company that's probably not going to make it named Apple. Chad, what should I invest in? Would it help if I told you, well, 45 years from now, Sears will be bankrupt and that Apple will be a $300 billion a year industry. Will that help you make a decision? You can invest in something.
If you know for a fact in 45 years, this will be a billion dollar industry and this industry will be bankrupt. That helps you. And what Jesus is saying to his disciples is the day is going to come when this whole world system of Roman emperors and political powers and wealth, it's going to go bankrupt and my kingdom is going to reign forever. You say, where do you see that? Look here if you would at verse 30. He said, to what shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or what parable shall we picture it? It is like a mustard seed which when sown on the ground is smaller than all the seeds on earth. But when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all herbs and shoots out large branches so that the birds of the air may nest under its shade.
Now, what's he talking about here? This is almost a direct quote and a direct allusion to Ezekiel chapter 17 where Ezekiel 17 is talking about the kingdom of the Messiah and he says this. All the birds of the earth which are the nations of the world will rest under that tree of the Messiah. Jesus is going back to Ezekiel 17 and saying that prophetic picture of my kingdom overtaking the earth and birds, kingdoms nesting in that. Jesus is saying, that's my way of telling you, in the end we win.
Daniel chapter 4, same thing. The nations of the earth are represented as birds and so Jesus is saying, my kingdom one day will never end. He's saying the kingdom of God started out as a tiny seed, a mustard seed of 12 blue collar workers in Palestine and it's been growing over the past 2,000 years. And one day this plant is going to take over the entire earth and the nations will come to it.
That's what he's saying. So we believe in something here called the millennial reign of Jesus. We literally believe that once all this mess is over, Jesus is going to come back to planet earth and reign in Jerusalem for 1,000 years and when those 1,000 years are over, he ushers in eternity and that's all over the Bible. Jesus has returned to the earth from Jerusalem 1,000 years ago. It's talked about in places like Isaiah 2, 2 through 4, Micah 4, 1 through 2, Zechariah 2, 10 through 11. There are 1,845 references in the Old Testament to Christ ruling on planet earth.
That's a lot of references. There are 300 references, 318 references to that in the New Testament. For every one prophecy of Christ's first coming, there are eight of his second coming and his reign here on planet earth. Listen, I think it's allegorical.
You can't do that. The prophecies of the Old Testament about the millennial reign of Jesus, they are too specific to be taken allegorically. He will literally rule here and reign here one day.
Most of what we know about the millennial reign of Jesus comes from places like Isaiah 65. The earth is going to undergo an incredible transformation. In fact, Amos 9, 13 says the person harvesting will overtake the one sowing. In other words, the earth is going to be so fertile, it's going to be incredible.
The person that's planting is going to have plants pop up and bear fruit about time for the guy to come right behind him and harvest it. Earth is going to be totally transformed. Jesus is saying, I know it's going to get tough, but in the end we're winning. This thing called the kingdom is spreading and taking over the planet and we see this even today. Dudley Woodbury, senior professor of Islamic studies at Fuller Theological Seminary recently said, quote, more Muslims have become Christians in the last 35 years than all the previous centuries since the foundation of Islam. You take Islam that started what, in the 700s, 600s AD?
You take all of Islam since then, 600, 700 AD, to now? It doesn't equal what's happened in the last few years as far as Muslims coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus. The Economist magazine talking about the unprecedented growth of Christianity in China. There may be 60 million Chinese who are following the Lord Jesus Christ.
3,000 per day are getting saved in China. By 2030, China may have more Christians than America. God's moving in places like Iran. About 20 years ago, there were 5,000 former Muslims in Iran that had given their life to Jesus.
Now, 29 years later, there are 800,000 to 1 million former Muslims that have given their life to Jesus in Iran. The gospel is spreading. And so what do we do in the midst of all this? Understanding in the end, Jesus wins.
He's the last man standing. Understanding that that seed that was sown 2,000 years ago has been growing the last 2,000 years, and despite all the negativity you're hearing in the news, know the kingdom of God is flourishing. It's growing exponentially. What do you and I do? We just keep sowing the seed of the gospel. 2 Timothy chapter 4 says, You preach that gospel in season and out of season. You notice another way of saying?
All the time. You're either in season or out of season. Deer hunters know there are only two seasons here in North Carolina. Deer season and not deer season. That's it.
Jesus says you proclaim the gospel in season and out of season when it's convenient, when it's not convenient, when you don't get grief and when you get grief. You just keep sowing the seed. One of the most powerful stories I've ever heard about that took place in 1996. In November 1996, the news media covered the story of a hijacked jet with 163 passengers on board and 12 crew members that crashed in the Comoros Islands after it ran out of fuel. The reason this plane crashed after it ran out of fuel is because the hijackers took over that plane and would not let it land. On that flight was a man named Andrew Meekins.
He's a Christian member of a church in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. And according to survivors of the crash, and there were a few survivors of that crash, after the pilot announced that he would be attempting an emergency landing on the ocean. Now imagine this. The pilot just said, we're out of gas.
We're going down. When he got off that intercom, Andrew Meekins stood up on that plane and he shared the gospel with everybody on board and invited people to respond to the gospel. A surviving flight attendant said that 20 people accepted Jesus Christ, including a fellow flight attendant who did not survive the crash.
Now think about that. If I were on that plane and I've been told this is it, what would I do? Assume the crash position and hope for the best? Sit there and pray that I survive? Or would I have the guts to be a seed-sower like that to say this might be the last thing I say, but you all need to get saved? Imagine bringing 20 people into eternity with you before you crash.
That's a seed-sower. And I want this to be so ingrained in us as followers of Jesus Christ that no matter how tough life gets, no matter how challenging life gets, no matter what's thrown at us, we simply keep sowing the seed of the gospel. And I want to do that right now because there are people in this church. You may have made an emotional response to Jesus sometime in the past. You may have walked the aisle and said some silly little prayer, but you've never surrendered your life to the Lord Jesus. The good news of Jesus is this.
Let me give you the bad news first. You and I are sinners. We're in trouble. We have all rebelled against God. Every one of us have sinned and rebelled against God. We deserve hell.
We deserve punishment. But the good news is God didn't all want to spend eternity without you. So 2,000 years ago, He sent His own Son, God in flesh, into this world who never sinned, and yet every wicked thing you have ever done and I've ever done, God placed on Jesus.
And Jesus died on the cross. And when He did that, He went to hell for you. He took your punishment for you. He paid the price for you. He was buried.
Three days later, He came back to life, and He is alive now. And if you'll simply turn from your sins and turn to Jesus and surrender your life to Him, He'll forgive you of everything you've ever done. He will give you eternal life and take you to heaven when you die. And He'll actually come to live inside of you. He'll give you His own spirit.
It doesn't get any better than that. So I want you to stand on me right now. And if you're not born again, if you're listening to me here or online, if you're not sure that you're saved, I want you to bow right now and forget about everybody else in this place. Right now, it's just you and Jesus. And I want you to say this to Jesus, but you've got to mean this with all your heart.
You can't just repeat after me. Say something like this to Jesus. I am a sinner.
I'm a messed up person. I'm a sinner. But Jesus, I believe you died for my sins. I believe you took my punishment at the cross.
I believe you were buried and I believe God raised you from the dead. So this is so important. Say to Him now, Lord, I turn away from all my sin. I repent.
I turn away from that. Jesus, I turn to you. Please forgive me of all my sins.
Please come and take control of my life. And Jesus, please take me to heaven when I die. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Listen, one day we win. One day this gospel takes over the whole world and the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ and He's going to reign forever and ever. And listen, do you know there's already some worship in heaven going on in anticipation of that? Up in heaven it says right now around the throne of Jesus in anticipation of that day when Jesus takes over the world, it says saints are bowing down and worshiping Him.
You know who saints are? Those are your brothers and sisters in Christ who've already died and gone on to be with Jesus. They're worshiping Him. Angels are gathered around that throne worshiping Him. These high level spiritual leaders called elders are in front of Jesus worshiping Him. And the Bible says it's like the prayers of the saints is like incense, this sweet smelling aroma that's covering that whole place. And they're doing that in anticipation of the day when Jesus takes over finally.
Can we join them right now? And as you worship, worship with victory knowing that no matter what following Jesus calls you, in the end it's going to be worth it. Lift up holy hands right now and let's praise the name of Jesus. The saints and angels, they bow before Your throne, You're worthy of it all. For You're worthy, You're worthy of it all.
For from You are all things and to You are all things. You deserve the glory. Oh, You're worthy of it all. You're worthy of it all. For from You are all things and to You are all things.
You deserve the glory. Day and night, night and day, let incense arise. Day and night, night and day, let incense arise.
Day and night, night and day, let incense arise. Day and night, night and day, You're worthy of it all. Oh, You're worthy of it all. For from You are all things and to You are all things.
You deserve the glory. Amen. Say it again. It's a messed up world out there. There's craziness going on and sickness and cham...
I got all that. But just like them babies that we dedicated, you're sitting right there in the hand of God. In fact, Jesus says this.
You are held in the hand of God and the forces of hell itself cannot pull you from the hand of God. He is with you. He's for you. If God could be for you, then who's going to be against you? So I want you to receive this blessing from the Lord as we leave this place today. Raise your hands and receive this old Hebrew blessing from God. ... Church, the Lord bless you.
Lord keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. And the Lord turn His countenance to you and give you shalom. Peace, wholeness, mind, body, soul and spirit in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit we pray. Amen and Amen. God bless you beloved. And sow the seed and change this world.
