Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.
January 1979 – made that call -
MAX LUCADO, in one of his books, tells a story that he read about a newlywed couple that had a honeymoon disaster. They arrived at the hotel in the wee hours with high hopes.
They had reserved a large room with romantic amenities. That;s not what they found.
Seems the room was pretty skimpy no view, no flowers, a cramped bathroom, and worst of all, no bed! Just a pull-out sofa with a lumpy mattress.
The next morning the sore-necked groom stormed down to the desk clerk and vented his anger. After he finished, the desk clerk asked, Did you open the door in your room?
He admitted he hadn’t and when he returned to the room, he did. To his shock, there was a large beautiful room with a spectacular view, a king sized bed, and an elaborate rest room.
Why didn’t he try the door? Why didn’t he go down to the desk before going to bed?
I don’t know, but I do know that there are millions today searching for a better life. What they don’t understand is that Jesus is the door to this better life. We’re like that desk clerk. We can point them to it by our prayers, our giving, and even our going January 1979 opened that door
LIGHT BULB: seems simple but actually is very complicated process: transmission towers… substations…dam built holding back water….wires strung.. (UNCLE FESTUS)
Tremendous complexity behind a simple momentary act.(mystery of electricity)
SALVATION seems simple but behind it lays great complexity: mystery of the cross, Incarnation, miracle of the resurrection, Coming of the Holy Spirit, events of life orchestrated under God’s sovereign hand, prayers of believers. Some point a light bulb comes on in us and we see.
Call upon the Name of the Lord: How does this miracle happen? It is more than just words but it is a moment of faith, an act of grace that truly affects a new nature within us.
1) What is involved in bringing people to a place where they cry out to God in a sense of need and desperation and are saved?
Scriptures used as a basis for the churches missionary program.
Go from recognizing God’s sovereign control in chapter 9 to God’s command to go and aggressively and personally participate in the process of people coming to know Him.
6 IMPORTANT ELEMENTS REGARDING SALVATION(complex components)
PEOPLE HAVE TO BELIEVE (14) How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed?
1. Salvation has to come to this end: JESUS. It is to call on HIM, to believe in him.
a. Acts 4:12 There is no other Name under heaven by which we may be saved/Acts 16:30-31 What must I do to be saved? Believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be
b. It is more than just words but to call on Him from a heart of belief. Jn 6:28-29 What must we do(our efforts) so that we may work the works of God? This is the work (singular act)of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.
2. The basis for people believing is for Christians to have an effective witness:
a. Understandable: be ready to make a defense of the hope that lies within you – have your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel. battle terms
Bonhoeffer studied for a year in New York City. He was uniformly disappointed with the preaching he heard there: "One may hear sermons in New York upon almost any subject; one only is never handled, namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ, of the cross, of sin and forgiveness." - "Dietrich Bonhoeffer," Christian History, no. 32.
b. Undisputable - Credible: backed up by your life:
Our words make the gospel understandable but our lives make it believable.
1) Eastwood crusade counseling young man(deal with fear of witnessing) Found me following Sunday Night: standing outside theater witnssing
2) Brother’s #1 reason for not believing is because of what he sees when he turns on so-called Christian TV.
c. Undefeatable - Powerful: A witness bathed in prayer, in combination with the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. Power is conditional and not automatic
d. Undeniable - Aggressive: On the march, don’t have to be cornered to share the truth, Going….reaching…seeking the lost.
‘The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost’
BREAKS DOWN AT ONE POINT
• No Clear Presentation - No Life Witness - No Power behind - No Action
Series of common sense arguments by Paul HOW ……
BELIEVE
PEOPLE NEED TO HEAR: How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard?
One day there was a really kind rich man. This man really loved little kids, so he thought of something he could do for them. One day it hit him. He would build an amusement park. This would be the biggest and best amusement park in the whole world.
There would be rides and games, ice cream and cotton candy, animals, water slides, puppet shows, and everything else little boys and girls would love to do. There would be no grown-ups allowed in this park. It would be just for kids.
You know what the best part of this park would be? Everything would be free. Nobody would ever have to pay anything to get in. Kids could come as often as they wanted, do as much fun stuff as they wanted, and they could stay as long as they wanted.
The man got busy building the park. He hired a group of people to work on the park. They built roller coasters bigger than Superman at Six Flags. They built Ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds. There were bumper cars and pony rides. There was a huge petting zoo, and you didn’t even have to put a quarter in the machine to get food for the animals.
All over the park there were stands for ice cream and candy, cheeseburgers and pizza, cotton candy and soda. There were huge swimming pools and a nice sandy beach.
There were games where you could win huge stuffed bears, but everyone was a winner. There was a theatre for plays and puppet shows. There was even a Big-Top Circus Tent with all kinds of crazy performers.
Well after many years of preparation, the park was finally ready to open.
The day of the Grand Opening came. The man thought, “I sure hope there’s enough room for all the kids to come. I hope we ordered enough French fries to feed them all.”
And finally, the moment came, and he cut the ribbon, and opened the gate for all the waiting children to enter. But there was no one there.
Why, the man wondered wouldn’t anybody show up to his perfect park. He tried to think of some reason. He tried to think if he forgot something. He couldn’t think of any reason why nobody would show up. Does anybody have an idea for me, why nobody would have come?
He forgot the most important thing. He forgot to tell people about his park. He was so busy making the perfect park that he forgot to invite the kids. He should’ve put up big signs on the side of the highway. He should’ve told all of the kids in his neighborhood. He should’ve put a story in the newspaper all about his grand park. But he forgot to tell anybody. Now all of his good deeds, all of his efforts were wasted. He had spent a lot of money and several years of his life to make kids happy, but it was all wasted. Nobody even knew about it. He wasn’t making any kids happy.
Now that story had a really happy beginning, but a really, really sad ending, didn’t it. I told you that story, because it will help you understand something very, very important.
Who ever heard of someone as nice as that man? Who would give that much money to make people happy? I know someone who gave much more than money. And someone who is preparing a place far more grand than any amusement park. And this place is also free.
John 14:1-3, “1 "Don’t be troubled. You trust God, now trust in me. 2 There are many rooms in my Father’s home, and I am going to prepare a place for you. If this were not so, I would tell you plainly. 3 When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.”
1. People have to hear! People won’t be saved unless people care enough to tell them the gospel.
A survey was given to those attending training sessions for the Billy Graham crusade in Detroit. One question asked, "What is your greatest hindrance in witnessing?"
1. 9% said they were too busy to remember to do it.
2. 28% felt the lack of real information to share. None said they didn’t really care.
3. 12% said their own lives were not speaking as they should.
4. 51% whose biggest problem was the fear of how the other person would react!
2. Hear means to hear with understanding. Capture the thought. Not just standing behind home plate with a sign reading JOHN 3:16.
Damascus Road Paul Heard while others thought it thundered?
BELIEVE HEAR
PEOPLE NEED TO SHARE: And how will they hear without a preacher?
1. Not ‘preacher’ (life verse for some: only staff witnesses) as we understand the word but kerusso ‘to announce or proclaim something’
Someone who is willing to be a voice for God. workplace/school/family
Pastoring is like being on the weather channel. When I definitely want to hear the weather I turn there. When dangerous weather occurs the weather bulletins are on multiple channels. It is too important of news to limit to one station.
God didn’t limit the gospel to one station, people should know that if they tune us in by being here each service they will hear it but the most effective outlet is when it should up in the life of ordinary Christians. MARTHA STEWART
2. Am I sharing my faith? Am I being a voice for God.
a. Question is not ‘Are people saved if no one tells them about Jesus but Am I saved if I don’t tell’
What are you selling? Sport’s team, TV Program or Movie(don’t miss, you should have seen), Diet(changed my life) STOMACH JUICE OF A HORNET(Marathon)
You are telling the world about something meaningful to you, what is it? Is it Jesus?
A model from the world of real estate becomes instructive at this point.
A firm in Salem, Oregon, assigns 500 families to each agent. Agents are expected to contact each assigned family once per month for a year. The contact may be personal, a telephone call, or a letter. Research indicates that it takes at least six contacts for people to remember who the agent is and the firm represented.
During this time of "building relationships," agents are encouraged not to go in the house (good psychology, everyone else is trying to get their foot in the door).
Furthermore, they are encouraged not to ask for a listing during this "get acquainted" time. After the initial year of regular contacts, the agent continues to communicate with the assigned families on a scheduled, systematic basis. Research reveals that if this pattern is followed consistently for one-year-and-a-half, the agent will secure 80% of the listings.
3. Under Obligation to share(Romans 1)
Seminary Class visiting teacher: witness as an obligation? Should be love!
Line 15(7) how many have you reached by your love.
BELIEVE HEAR SHARE
PEOPLE NEED TO SEND: (15) And how will they preach unless they are sent?
1. Sharing the gospel demands the involvement of the entire body of Christ. God has given each of at least one of many possible gifts.
Intention is that we work together to accomplish the task of the Great
Commission.
2. Paul said that the harvest was brought in because people were involved in three actions: planting...watering…reaping.
a. May not have the gift of evangelism or teaching or preaching but you have the gift of giving or encouragement. Criticism and hording are not spiritual gifts. All of us can pray(water). Every decision was a process involving many in the body
b. Parents/pastor/Sunday school teacher for years and evangelist reaps the harvest.
We should be excited to be part of so wonderful a process.
When you have good news to tell: want to run to the car to drive over and tell, don’t your feet want to run to the phone to call, don’t they want to run to that person and share with them?
One night very late in the evening when a pastor was called to the hospital. As he was walking down the semi-dark hall, with no people around, a man suddenly ran out of one of the patient rooms. He ran up to the pastor – the pastor never seen him before--and said to him with joy in his face, "She’s going to make it. She’s better. She is going to make it," and then he made his way on down the hail.
The preacher has not seen the man since. He does not know who the man was talking about. Apparently it was someone very near and dear to him, and he had just received good news. He could not wait to share it.
He did not even have to know the person with whom he shared it; it just flowed from him because he had received good news, and good news is to be shared.
Acts 4:20 "For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard."
Leonardo da Vinci had once worked on a great masterpiece for a long period of time.
There was a young student standing next to him as da Vinci worked, and the student watched the master work as the painting had evolved in front of him.
The student was awed by da Vinci’s technique and had been observing him in hopes of picking up some of the master’s skill.
Just before finishing the painting, da Vinci turned to the student and gave him the brush saying “Now, you finish it.”
The student backed away and protested that he wouldn’t dream of touching the Master’s work, but da Vinci said, “Will not what I have done inspire you to do your best?”
APPLY: As you read thru the Bible you sense the work of a Master.
You can see Jesus in every book of Scripture. And you can see the message of Christ’s coming in every stroke of the brush
Throughout the Old Testament you hear that: Someone is coming, Someone is coming!
And in Gospels you can read: That Someone has come… Someone has come!
And in the remainder of the New Testament we hear: Someone has not only come… But that He is coming again!
Throughout the Scriptures you get the impression that God has created this great masterpiece… and then – almost like a still small voice in the back of your mind – you sense that God has (in a manner of speaking) stepped back and handed us the brush.
• Feet are not the bodies most pleasant feature. Usually we cover them. Men have about 3 pairs of shoes and wear one most every day while women cover their feet with 100 pairs.
Romans 10:15 declares "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"
what’s so significant about our feet? It’s not our feet that tells about Jesus… that would be our head and our mouth.
1st I realized that many people talk a good talk… but they don’t walk a good walk.
The message has no power, if the messenger doesn’t walk with Jesus. If a person talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk, we have a special name for them. (hypocrites)
We’ve got to walk the walk for our talk to have any impact.
2ndly, I realized that my feet determine my direction.
I can turn my head to the left or the right and still go straight ahead. The direction of my head doesn’t determine where I’m going. But once my feet are set on a path – that’s where I’m going. My feet determine what direction I’m going in.
Lastly, Feet are personal! I can’t send my feet somewhere that I can’t go myself. I have to go where my feet go.
Notice, God doesn’t say: “How beautiful is the tract that you hand out”.
Or “How beautiful is the door hanger that you leave” .
Or “How beautiful is the e-mail that you forward”.
He says “How beautiful are your feet.” What does that mean?
It means that people are won to Christ because we are willing to be where they are.
Mixed with this good news and the joy of sharing it is again the sad fact of the Jews condition: Hows turn into However
(16) However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our report?’
• Jewish unbelief is not a new problem: Stephen’s final words, ‘You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted and they have slain them which proclaimed before the coming of the Just One’ 7:51f
• Paul quoting first verse of Isaiah 53 which was written 725 years before Jesus was born but beautifully presents the gospel in OT language.
BELIEVE HEAR SHARE SEND
PEOPLE NEED FAITH TO BELIEVE: (17) So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.
1. Faith is essential for salvation:
RON DUNN(illustrate simple faith) Doctor tells us we have a disease we have never heard of, gives us a prescription we cannot read for a medicine we cannot pronounce, we take it to a druggest we do not know who gives us a bottle of liquid that tastes like poison which we drink and then refill it. Question is not that you have faith but what in?
4. Faith is established through Scripture: comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ. Forsaking All I Trust Him Faith is how we grab hold of GRACE
a. Word of God or Word of Christ. Rhema ‘living Word’ as compared to Logos ‘written Word’. More than just quoting Scripture but hearing a message about a living Savior Who is called in John 1 ‘the Word….became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory’
HEARING GOD SPEAKING TO YOU FROM THE WORD
1) World doesn’t mind hearing a word about God but when you speak of Jesus a different reaction occurs.
b. Faith is built into a life by Scripture being invested into a life. Live in a society that is bibilically illiterate. 29 church visitor over 2 years
After defeat of Japan: Soldiers came to Okinawa and discovered a remote hidden village.
30 years earlier a man had traveled thru and spoke to two men about the Lord. He gave them a Bible and left.
No missionaries or outside Christian influence had come. There had been no correspondance or Radio.
They found this village totally different from others which had been filthy with degrading practices. This was sanitary, people in good health, Christian government in operation, church that regularly met, and everyone they found professed a belief in Jesus Christ.
The same two men who had first believed were the one’s who welcomed the soldiers when they came. Sergeant said, ‘If this is what the Word of God does then we have been fighting the world with the wrong weapon.
TWO REASONS WHICH ARE NOT EXCUSES:
1. Maybe they didn’t hear: (18) But I say, surely they have never heard, have they? Indeed they have; ‘Their voice has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world’.
a. Paul quotes Ps 19 which gives two reasons why they Jews had heard:
#1 Creation The heavens are telling of the glory of God which is Paul’s
argument in Rom 1:18f
#2 Word of God: perfect..sure..right..pure..true
b. The world around them and the Word God had given them both proved that they knew enough to be saved.
2. Maybe they didn’t understand: (19) But I say, surely Israel did not know, did they? First Moses says, ‘I will make you jealous by that which is not a nation, by a nation without understanding will I anger you.’ (20) And Isaiah is very bold and says, ‘I was found by those who did not seek Me, I became manifest to those who did not ask for Me’.
a. Their reaction to the Gentiles showed they noticed the gospel. Hated that Gentiles dared to have a relationship with ‘their’ God. Their anger was fueled by the fact that they knew this all had to do with the God of Israel.
b. The response of the Gentiles: Gentile world was being turned upside down all around them because of the gospel. Isaiah had predicted the salvation of the Gentiles.
BELIEVE HEAR SHARE SEND FAITH
PEOPLE MUST MAKE A CHOICE: (21) But as for Israel, ‘All the day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people’.
Scene in Heaven: Angel how many believed today?
God we have 3 Jews this month, but today, only 763,000 Gentiles.
Jews diligently working his way to God while mindnumb gentiles just minding their own business are getting saved. It stressed them out!
1. Paul leaves us with a mental image of God with arms outstretched waiting in vain while people choose to reject His offer of grace.
2. There are no excuses for being lost only disobedience and stubbornness. You know enough to believe.
FAITH IS A GIFT FROM GOD: given to each of us a measure of faith. It is strengthened by God’s Word.
FAITH is not meant to get MAN’S WILL done thru God but
to get GOD’S WILL done thru man
It is like breathing which is also a gift from God but I can choose to smother myself and physically die.
To neglect, ignore, or refuse God’s Word is to spiritually smother out your life and to miss the only truth that could have saved you.
Steve Jobs is a whiz at making computers but there was a time when he needed some help in marketing He was in need of an expert who could help him take his Apple Computers in to the ring against IBM. John Sculley, at age 38, had been Pepsi-Cola’s youngest president. He was the master mind behind the ’Pepsi Generation’ campaign that brought Coke from the number one position for the first time in history.
He wined and dined him and made numerous offers with money he didn’t even have, all to no avail. Sculley was content with his present success. Finally, in desperation, Steve Jobs threw out a question of exasperation, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?" It was that single, piercing question which leveraged the greatest weight in John Sculley’s decision to leave his security at Pepsi and go to Apple for an opportunity to "change the world."
Christians have the "real" opportunity to change the world. Let’s not miss our purpose by remaining content to simply sell "sugared water."
Two strangely connected events that occurred in 1865 greatly impact American lives even today.
1) General William Booth founded the Salvation Army and now millions are fed, clothed and given shelter in the name of Jesus. As Booth proclaims "A heart to God and a hand to man".
2) The other event involved another man named Booth (a distant cousin) his name John Wilkes Booth who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.
One cousin blessed a nation the other cursed it.
The Gospel makes a difference.
