Sermon Central
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Go!
Contributed by Johnny Small on Jul 19, 2003 (message contributor)
Summary: Christ commands us to go and witness to others. This isn’t optional. Witnessing and serving is commanded of all of us.
Go!
A couple of weeks ago I preached a sermon about the three most important words in the Bible. These words are “God so Loved”. Because of these three words, all people, of all colors, of all cultures has the hope of eternal life in Heaven with God our Father, if people will except Christ as their Savior and Lord.
16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
(NIV)
God loves the entire world. He sent His Son so that all, not just some, could be saved. He sent His most precious Son to this wicked earth to live a perfect life and to teach the way of salvation. God sent His Son to be beaten and to die on an old rugged cross, so that all people could have the opportunity to be saved. God raised His Son on the third day so that we too could be raised in Christ and have eternal life with Him. God so loved us that He did all of this so that we could live with Him for eternality.
After Christ ascended into Heaven, someone had to continue the work that He started. Christ gave the instruction on how to continue His ministry. He said, “Go!” This is the title of today’s sermon.
19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.""
(NIV)
Jesus told His disciples to “Go!” Jesus told them to go and make more disciples. Those new disciples were to go out and make more new disciples. If we were following Christ’s command to “go and make disciples” you would be seeing a great revival throughout the entire world.
I want you to do a little math this morning. Suppose you go out and reach one person for Jesus. Stick with that person for six months. Help, encourage and strengthen him. At the end of six months there are two of you. If you both do the same for another, at the end of the year there will be four. If this continues, at the end of 18 months there are eight; two years, 16. Do you know how many there will be at the end of 17 years? There would be more than the entire population of the whole world – more than six billion. Stop and think about what one person could do.
It is a frightening thing to go out to a stranger and start telling them about Christ. Why does it have to be a stranger? Most of us will have a co-worker, a neighbor or even a relative that doesn’t know Jesus as their Savior. Have you truly tried to witness to them?
Have you been in a store and a complete stranger started talking to you while waiting in the checkout line? Did you ask them if they knew Jesus as their Savior? We pass up so many opportunities, that God lays in front of us. Why do we do this? Is it that we are embarrassed to speak about Christ in public?
Lets see what Jesus had to say about this.
38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels."
(NIV)
Jesus loves us so much that He was willing to endure both physical and emotional pain for us. He loves us so much that He died on the cross and took our sins upon Himself, so that we could live forever with Him in heaven. Doesn’t Christ deserve our devotion and our lives? Shouldn’t we tell others about what Christ did for them and us? We owe our lives to Christ. We have been bought by the blood of Jesus. We no longer belong to ourselves, but to Him.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
