Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / July 20, 2025 | Onward - Liftoff

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July 20, 2025 | Onward - Liftoff · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a space nerd like me, you might have remembered that today is the fifty-sixth anniversary of the first moon landing.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um Go America, right?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: But you might also, uh, even if you aren't familiar with space, you're interested in NASA, all those kinds of things, you probably saw in the news last fall um when there were two astronauts that kind of got marooned on the International Space Station.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh their names were SUNY Williams and Butch Wilmore, and they went up there on a Boeing Starliner spacecraft, and uh their total journey was supposed to be eight to ten days, and ultimately they were on the ISS for nine months because once they got up there, uh just so turned out that their spacecraft uh probably wasn't safe to bring them back home.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so they had to hitch a ride uh for another shuttle that was coming up to the ISS.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And there were a lot of people who were making fun of it.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: It certainly didn't help that Boeing had had sort of a spotty track record, and so they were making, you know, all these jokes about what it was to, you know, go up there and how how hard can it really be.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think people have forgotten that you know getting a rocket up into the air is an unbelievably difficult task.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think uh there are a lot of parallels ultimately uh with our Christian walk.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll be able to explore over this series.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Funny enough, this guy Butch, um man on the right there, he has an amazing faith.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he had a quote during this time, or it might have been right after he made it back safely.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: They did make it back safely, by the way, um, that when he was up on the ISS, he was watching church services from his home church in Texas.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he says to tie in and to worship with my church family was vital.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's part of what makes me go.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Butch is an elder at Providence Baptist Church in Pasadena, Texas.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so he was able to share his faith after coming back.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you might imagine how challenging it is to be sort of stranded up, you know, thousands of miles above the earth's surface, um, floating about 16,000 miles an hour, spinning around the earth.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: But it was his faith that kept him grounded, if you will.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So when thank you.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: So when we're looking at this onward series, really the goal is saying, okay, what does it mean to break down our Christian faith into these parts and really take one step at a time?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because just as it's a lot more complicated than many of us remember or realize to, you know, get a rocket off the ground, there's a lot of challenges to being a Christian in this world.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the goal for each of us is to kind of figure out where we're at and to take just one step forward.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to move onward, right?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to um move closer to the Lord in that relationship?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And as it might be the case, if you feel like you are already at that step where we are discussing, uh, then what does it look like for you to help other people come alongside you in that journey and help them uh take that next step towards Christ?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: So as we go onward in this series, though, um, it's gonna be difficult to do that without simply looking at what it means to get off the launch pad.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Really, that's where we're at this morning.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is what does it mean to get a rocket off the ground?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to get our faith off the ground?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know how many of you are familiar with Elon Musk, and despite what you might think of him personally, his engineering ability, um, and his company SpaceX.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they are on the cutting edge of space travel.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what they call their starship rocket.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's taller than the Statue of Liberty.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to think for a second, imagine, take a guess, fully fueled, how much you think this thing weighs.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Wrong.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's 11 million pounds.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: It is 5,000 metric tons, or it is the weight of 900 adult male elephants, okay?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Which also is not super helpful because we don't know how much an elephant, but it gets it somewhat closer to comprehending.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's an insane amount of weight, 5,000 metric tons.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when you are an engineer, when you are working to get a rocket like this off the ground, you can't just pretend.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: You have to come face to face with the facts.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: They have 11 million pounds they need to get up off the ground.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: That is an engineering challenge that is nearly unrivaled, though they have been able to successfully fly this uh ship a couple times.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: But what does it look like to come face to face with the facts of our Christian life?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, the unimaginable weight that rests upon all of our shoulders because of something that we call sin.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Paul in his letter to the Romans said, For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: He talks about sin as this great weight, this thing that pulls us down, that keeps us grounded, that prevents us from having the kind of relationship with God that we were designed and created to have.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And sin is something that it's what happens when we break the rules that God has created for his world.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: He made the world, he set the rules, and then anytime that we go against his design, we are breaking those rules.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we do it accidentally, and that is still breaking a rule, okay?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: But just like if you didn't see the speed limit sign and yet are going 20 over, you can still get pulled over, right?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Your knowledge of the speed limit doesn't really change things all that much.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of times our sin is active, it is willful, it's a decision to run against the design that God has for our lives and for his world.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when we think about sin, right, it ruins our life, it separates us from God, and ultimately, as God is a righteous judge, it's worthy of punishment.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of those hard truths that we have to kind of wrestle with at some point, is that a good God punishes sin and we're all sinners.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul says here, for all have sinned and fallen short.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: So there's nobody who is able to say that they have not sinned.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's nobody who can say that they are not deserving of this judgment.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: But really, when it comes down to it, we often underestimate the weight of our sin.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just like I would hazard a guess, most of you did not guess 11 million pounds for the weight of a rocket, right?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: We we think of our sin as this thing that, well, it's not good.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something we're supposed to do.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's, yes, it's not, it's, it's, we should try and remove it from our lives.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: But we forget what it means to have this sinful heart just baked into who we are, right?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: It is part of our human nature to run against the will of God.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: It is not something that we can avoid.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, it is an unimaginable weight that we cannot move on our own.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: It would be like telling an astronaut to get to the moon by pushing his rocket there.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: You simply cannot overcome the weight by yourself.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so sin is not just a problem, right?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: But sin is a devastating spiritual death upon our lives.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately it is part of our identity as well.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: There is some of us who want to escape this reality, right?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: We try and pad ourselves and soften the prickly reality of sin upon our life.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we talk about being a good person, right?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: We've helped out our neighbor, we've gone to church, we've uh given some money to a charity, and so, though, yeah, we have some sin, it begins to get offset by other things that we're doing.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: But the Apostle John, he won't let us escape this reality.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: He says, if we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's like there's not a single person who can go before God and claim that they are not guilty as they stand.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so this difficulty, right, of all of for all of us, this spiritual circumstance of rebelling against God and recognizing that there is wrath coming because of it, the situation that in fact pervades the entire world, this is about facing the facts.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: To look aside, to pretend that it's not true, is simply a convenient lie.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: So what is the solution, right?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: What is the way out of this desperate spiritual position?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 6.23 says, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: When I worked at Canicook, this was the verse that we would use for the 10-year-olds to help explain the gospel to them, because it just perfectly summarizes in its own way the simple gospel movement that we have.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: The wages, the thing that we deserve, what we have been working towards with our life is ultimately death.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's the pathway that we're all on.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: When we run against God's will, that is the direction that we have chosen is death.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it is not just a physical death, which comes for all of us, but far more importantly, it's a spiritual death.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: See, every single person has an eternal soul, but the location and the place where that soul will rest for an eternity is determined by our ability to be united with God or separated from God.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And our sin separates us from Him.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: The wages of sin is death.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord, that God has given us this gift, right?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: It is not something we deserve, it is not something we earn, it is not something we can strive for or exchange, you know, with enough tokens, right?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can't purchase it.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: It is a gift of God, born out of his love for humanity and his desire to bring glory to himself, that he, the Father, sends the Son, God Himself takes on human flesh so that we might be saved.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: How does this work, though?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's an important question to ask, because the gospel truth is that we have sinned, we have fallen short, it is an uncrossable chasm that we cannot do by our own effort, and that Jesus is the one who crosses that chasm for us and bridges the gap between us and the Lord, created by our sin.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: But a good question is, how does that happen?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Second Corinthians 5.21 says He made the one, the Father, made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in Jesus we might become the righteousness of God.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: About 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ, God Himself, took on human flesh.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: He actually did live the perfect life that the Father has called all of us to live.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: This doesn't often track in the kinds of things that we remember Jesus saying, but Jesus says, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really high standard, especially when God is the one giving you that charge.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus did live that perfect life.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of the amazing things that you can say about him, of which there are many, is the fact that he did not ultimately deserve judgment and punishment and God's wrath for his sin because he didn't commit any sin.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: He did not rebel against God.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: He is God, but the Son perfectly followed the will of the Father.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus then took on our sin, right?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is the why the phrase to be sin for us is so significant, because it means that a substitute was given.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: You and I, we are destined and we deserve to be punished for our sin.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: This unimaginable weight that uh prevents us from getting off the launch pad, right?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: We can't move it on our own.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, I have a pathway for you to get off the launch pad here, for you to be redeemed and reconciled and forgiven, and it is through my son, the son who did not deserve it, who was a substitute for us, he took the punishment that we deserved.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's important to understand, not just as a matter of principle and faith, but for our own desire to worship God, that he did not change the rules in order to save you and I.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: He did not change the rules so that you could have your sin overcome.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: God kept all the rules in place, one of which being sin must be punished.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was just that instead of you being punished, he did it to his own child.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so, this changes everything.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: It satisfies God's righteous judgment and it completely removes our sin.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: God is satisfied with what has been done.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: His righteous judgment has been carried out.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: It has just been directed onto someone else besides the one who ultimately deserves it, right?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And as he does that, and as we think about this gift of Christ, one of the more amazing things about it, better even still, is that this sacrifice of Jesus, it accomplished for everyone this salvation who trusts in him for all time.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was a once and for all kind of thing, right?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like the Old Testament where there's all these different sacrifices every day and every year.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: But rather it was a once and for all kind of gift, right?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: You open it, you receive it, and then you are saved.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's not a continual jumping through of hoops, even though you are supposed to move by the Spirit into this life that resembles Christ, and you begin to look and act and sound more like your Savior.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: All of those things are part and parcel of the deal.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: But it you are not judged eternally based upon your sin after trusting in Christ.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're wiped clean, you're forgiven, your slate is brand new.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus did a thing that we could never do, and he sacrificed his life out of love for us so that we might have an eternal relationship with him.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you want to go back to the idea of a rocket for a moment, okay?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: We have 11 million pounds that we need to get off the ground.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is like our own personal engine.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: This right here is what is called the Raptor III.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Who doesn't want to name engines?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds pretty cool.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is what is on the bottom of the Starship rocket, okay?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And this rocket, though, to be honest with you, it might not look all like that much.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it is an engineering marvel.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: It is the first full-flow staged engine uh to be operationally flown.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: The Russians had this idea back in the 70s, but all of theirs blew up.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it operates at a higher pressure than any other rocket engine.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: It can be mass-produced, and one engine produces 600,000 pounds of thrust.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's more force than 50 locomotive engines coming out of this one um rocket, right?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And Starship has 33 of them attached to the bottom.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: I need you to think that is impressive, okay?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm about to equate this to Jesus, and so if you don't think that that's big, then I need to come up with a different illustration here.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of weight, that's a lot of force, it's the only thing that can get that gigantic rocket off the ground.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so without Jesus, you know where I'm going, right?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: You can't overcome the weight of your sin either.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can't push your rocket to the moon.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can't be enough of a good person to outweigh all of the sin in your life.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's impossible.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: You shouldn't even consider it because it's a fool's errand.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: You need Jesus to overcome the unimaginable weight of your sin, right?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Heavier than 900 elephants, certainly, so that you might be able to have a life with Christ.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: But critical to this whole process, though, is God has extended this offer, this gift to you, but you have to respond to it.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is not enough to understand intellectually, right?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: To just have your brain get the idea that Jesus died for you, but you have to receive it.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: John 1 says, But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of natural descent, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: So this gift of God comes from the Father, and he delivers it to whom he chooses.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: But will you receive that gift as it's offered to you?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really big, eternity-altering question is have you received by faith the gift of Christ?
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is not enough to understand it in your brain.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: You must know it and believe it in your heart.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: John tells us that we cannot become the children of God through our family tree, in our own power, or by our efforts.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is solely an act of God that we receive by faith.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, importantly, this means three things, right?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, just because you grew up in a Christian home doesn't mean that you are saved by Christ.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can be thankful for growing up in a Christian home.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: I am thankful that I had a parent reading me Bible stories when I was a kid, right?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is part of my foundation.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: But just because I grew up in a Christian home does not mean that I am saved.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Just because you grew up in a home where you went to church as a child or you had a parent that prayed with you at night, or any of those number of things, your parent has a faith.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: It does not get passed down like eye color to the child.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: It must be a personal decision that you make to accept the gospel by faith.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Number two is that we have not done anything to earn this gift or receive it as recognition for our good works.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Salvation is ultimately a gift.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great word to use for it, and one that cannot be paid for with anything we have.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that you possess, nothing that you can do, no work that you can accomplish, that you can trade for salvation.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is an extension of God's love to you.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And third and finally is that faith can't be forced.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's what John 1 is telling us here, right?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: I might wish it could.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds a little weird to say that, but there are definitely some family members that I love dearly, and I don't know if they know Jesus.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: And if I had the power, I would probably force it upon them just because I desire for them to know Christ.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not how it works.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Can't force somebody to believe in Jesus.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody can force you to believe in Christ either.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody can make you make that decision.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: You have to make it for yourself.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: And by the power of the Spirit, that is a conversation between you and God.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to trust in Christ?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: It means to believe in Him, to place your hope in Him, to trust in Him.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: You can say a prayer, but you don't necessarily have to, because there aren't specific words like it's a ritual that you have to describe, but it means comprehending in your head and believing in your heart that you are saved by the blood of Christ, that He was your substitute.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Only you can make that decision.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say you have trusted in Christ by faith, not as a result of works.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: What does that accomplish for you?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there are actually a lot of answers to that question, but a pretty condensed one is in John chapter 5.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, Truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: As you've been hearing me describe the gospel message here, right, you might be picking up on a lot of key words and themes that are used no matter where we're drawing from in the Bible.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And one of those is this idea that we are pulled from death into life.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: From death to life.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: From death to life.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: That is the movement from those who don't know Jesus to those who do know Jesus, right?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: And trust in him by faith as their Savior.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: It is, uh John says here, there are really two big things that are accomplished when we receive that gift.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the first is that we have confidence in our eternal destiny, right?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: What's at stake here in this whole situation is where is your soul and body going to spend the rest of eternity?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Big question to consider, right?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: High stakes involved.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: And there are two realities, right?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Two places where that could happen.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: The first is being in complete fellowship, joyful fellowship with God and other believers.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: For those who've trusted in Christ, they go to heaven and they are reunited with their Creator.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Their lives are fulfilling as they were always intended to be.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's no more pain or suffering.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: All sin is wiped away, and everyone who has passed on before us who has also trusted in Christ is with us there.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is a beautiful place that many of us long to go to, and in fact we should.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: But for those who have rejected Christ, they have a different place that they go.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And in this place it is not joyful, but rather it is comprised of eternal suffering.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it is the righteous judgment upon those who rebel against the king.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Might I add the place that all of us deserve to go if it were not for the death of Christ.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Hell is the destiny for every single person who doesn't accept Jesus as their Savior.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a big decision to make, big stakes.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also important to recognize that the Bible doesn't muddy the waters there.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like this is a bait and switch that at the end you weren't told, you know, or you hadn't been told during your lifetime what the stakes were.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is pretty clear about that.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so John 5 says, anyone who hears my word and believes him has this eternal life.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: But he also says that they will not come under judgment.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Of the many hats that God wears, one of them is that of righteous judge.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about this already.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's part and parcel of the whole, like, sin deserves judgment kind of thing.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: But what we don't often consider is what it will be for every single one of us to go before the throne of God at the end of time and give an accounting for our life.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Another big thing that we should be thinking about is what will that look like.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: But for everybody who has trusted in Christ, they will not receive condemnation for their sins.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that God doesn't know, right, that they have taken place, but the Bible says that you are wiped clean.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uses the image of like freshly fallen snow to describe the purity of those who stand before God and then as a visual irony who are covered in the blood of Christ.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Those who stand before God and are made clean, their record of rebellion is wiped.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so here's the gospel message, right?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: It is sin, it is separation, it is salvation.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: It is that we have run aground and put ourselves into a spiritually broken position that we cannot escape by our own merit.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: God, in his love and for his own glory, sent his son to die on the cross as a substitute for us, so that his wrath would be satisfied and we might be forgiven of our sin.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: And if we accept that gift by faith, right, anyone who trusts in this message will pass from death to life and will not come under judgment on the last day.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: They will reign in heaven forever.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now many of you have made that decision to trust in Christ.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: But there is another step involved here.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the end of it, though sometimes we think it is.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is the gospel message, but who are we to keep this message to ourselves?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's a whole world waiting to hear the truth of eternal life, and yet there are so few people sharing the message.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Paul laments this in Romans 10.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: He says, How then can they call on him they have not believed in?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: And how can they believe without hearing about him?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: And how can they hear without a preacher?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: And how can they preach unless they are sent?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, Well, I've found the loophole, I'm not a preacher.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: In this context, you are.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: In the Greek, he simply means somebody who is a herald of good news, somebody who spreads the word.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: And in that context, all of us are destined to be preachers, commanded to be preachers of the good news.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: So this is not my formal title, if you will, but rather this is the responsibility and opportunity for every single believer to be the person who shares a life-saving message with those around them.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: But there is a difficult relationship here because we don't want to, most of the time, and yet a world is being lost because they have not heard the message.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so, for those of you, and this is true for actually our entire onward series, but there will be those of you who say, Well, I've accomplished that step, if you will.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've made it there, I've trusted in Jesus as my Savior.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, now the challenge begins, right?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: How are you helping other people get off the launch pad?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: How are you walking with others through this step so that they also can overcome that unimaginable weight and begin their life with Christ?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: In our short time that remains, I just want to give you some helpful steps on how you can do that, how you can be the kind of person, right, who lives out the greatest calling upon your life, which is to be one who spreads the word.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: First, and you're gonna think this is too simple, but it is the foundational step.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: You need to know the gospel.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: There are too many Christians who can't articulate the gospel.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel is sin, separation, salvation.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: There are many, many ways that you can take sort of the different parts of that story and form it.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: It can be 30 seconds, it can be 30 minutes, it can be three hours, right?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: As a Christian, you need to know the gospel frontwards and backwards.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you say that you've trusted in Christ for salvation and you cannot articulate the gospel message, you have a problem.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is not like your car where you say, like, my, you know, my engine, it works, I put fuel into it and it takes me down the highway.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know all of it, but you need to know your spiritual engine.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: You need to be able to tell other people how it works because there are important questions coming your way that not only you need to know the answer to, but you really should be able to answer for others as well, right?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: When somebody says, for instance, why does Jesus matter?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: What is sin?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Why are we separated from God?
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean for me now?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Those should be, that should be a place that you feel comfortable walking into, all right?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is why when you become a member of the church or you want to get baptized, we say, tell us your testimony.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Not because we just need to hear a great story, though that's certainly a perk, but because we want to see those who are looking at them and evaluating them.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, does this person understand what it means to be saved by Christ?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Or is their testimony some version of, like, I just love Jesus?
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I love Jesus is fantastic.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't save souls by itself if there's no teeth behind that, right?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of people who say that God is neat, but they don't trust in Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: They don't believe he's the only way for salvation.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: They just think he's one of another option.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: But they say Jesus is fantastic.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel message is not just anything in the Bible.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel message is this truth about why we need to be saved, how we are saved, and what it means for us moving forward.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: It can be very short and it can be long, but it is the foundation of your faith.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And all of the other things that I'm going to talk about are incumbent upon you understanding why you are going to spend eternity in heaven with the Father.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Number two is that you would live the gospel.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we need to let go of the idea that someone will come to faith just by watching us live a moral life, okay?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Drop that.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody might recognize that you're different, that you're ethical, that you make decisions that others in the workplace wouldn't, right?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: That you have a good standard, all that kind of stuff.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: That might even prompt them to ask you why you are different or to admire you in a certain way.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't save anybody's life.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: However, you living out the gospel message to the best of your ability by the power of the Spirit, walking the way that God has called you to walk, that does, however, provide a great backdrop to when you do eventually share the gospel message, it being received well, right?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: We've all had some, we've all encountered somebody, gospel, truth, or no, where they don't uh walk the talk, right?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they tell you to do something, probably we've all had a coach somewhere, and they're telling you to run, and you're like, I don't even think you can run, right?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so when some when you spread the gospel message to somebody, they need to be able to look at your life and they go, well, it's not perfect, nobody is except for Jesus, but like it seems to follow what they're saying.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Grace, truth, love, mercy, you know, this love for what is right and good in this world seems to follow.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: A couple months back, we had a guy come and give us a bid to trim some trees in our front yard.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: And as he got out of the pickup truck, I noticed that he was missing one of his fingers.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: And what I assumed, which turned out being right, was that this guy knew a lot about cutting down trees.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, he had done a lot of cutting down trees.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: One of them went a little haywire, but nevertheless, had a lot of experience.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: That is the kind of person that you want to be when you share the gospel.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: That when other people hear you share that message, they say, you know what?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: I see it being backed up by the way they're living.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: I bet they know what they're talking about.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Number three is that you would apply the gospel.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is when we start getting into more of the nitty-gritty.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because the gospel message is actually not a set-defined combination of words.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's why you can give the gospel message in 30 seconds, or you could even say, Romans 6.23, wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's a gospel message.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: But you can also make it longer than that.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's because it's a kernel of truth that can't be avoided eternally, but yet the way that you approach it can change.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, we see this in the Bible a lot.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like the way the Apostle Paul begins to talk with uh Jews and Gentiles or the Greek-speaking world about the truth of Jesus is completely different because they come from completely different cultural backgrounds, moral expectations, religious knowledge, all that kind of stuff, right?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Even the gospels, you're like, why are there four of them in the Bible?
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: Each one has its own angle in explaining the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the gospel message.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Tim Keller has a book called Center Church, and he describes, he uses the big word of contextualizing the gospel.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: But what he simply means is what is the on-ramp that you are going to use to better relate the gospel message to the hearer, right?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're probably all familiar or might have experienced somebody giving us the classic, like, what if you got hit by a bus tomorrow, right?
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: What would you do then if you went to go and meet your maker?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now that might be compelling for some people.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: The idea of what does it mean to come face to face with your eternal judge is a very captivating idea.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: But perhaps that's not what would trip your trigger or those in your workplace or your family members.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so what Tim Keller does is he goes in, and there are lots of books like this, but he says, Well, let's talk about what are some of these other on-ramps, right?
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, it could be that somebody wants to find a way to avoid sin and death.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe they want to be released from the burdens of guilt and shame.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: They want to avoid the lies of the world and are and love the idea that there is an objective truth out there.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they want to satisfy deep, unfulfilled longings in their heart.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: We might say that they have a God-shaped whole that can be only filled by Him.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's during a time of great need.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: They're at rock bottom and they need something that brings them hope, that there is one who is with them in the midst of all of this trial.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: Or that they have a desire to be loved.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: And nobody has ever loved them the way that the Bible says Christ loves us.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's more than that.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is that you, by the Spirit, must take the step of considering how the gospel message, right, which has clear parts to it, but can have different on-ramps, right, how you might best present that to someone in a way that is captivating for them.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: It takes a little bit of effort to think through this, but there's not a one-size-fits-all gospel for the entire world.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're all individuals, we're all different.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is why it helps to have a genuine relationship, to ask purposeful questions, to speak with those who you know about the gospel.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, is that we would, you know, share the gospel.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: I know this is the hardest part, right?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's the hardest part for me.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you would think this because I do this, right, often, but I have a hard time sharing the gospel with people that I don't know, with my neighbors.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's difficult for me, right?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: I I it's I'm intimidated by it, I worry about rejection.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Those things are only increased when it is somebody that I know, right?
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because we don't want a long-term friendship.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: We feel like to be put into jeopardy by us saying something we've never really had the courage to say before.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: But there are a couple things that I want to share with you briefly that I think can soften the blow just a little bit.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: The first is that you need to remember that you carry a life-saving message.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: Your product is unimpeachable, right?
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: What you are sharing with other people is not some insurance plan, it is not an encyclopedia, it is not a sales tactic that you are.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: You are giving them the opportunity to respond to a life-saving truth.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: You can picture it like throwing a life preserver out of a boat into somebody who's drowning, right?
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: You throw it near them.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: As near as you can, and there's some skill to that, but nevertheless, you throw it so that they can grab it.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: But the second truth is that God is the one who saves, right?
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, it is not on you whether that person latches on to the life preserver.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: It is not on you if they reject it.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: They're not rejecting you, they're rejecting God.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so while there is some skill involved that we should consider for how we present this truth to people, ultimately it is upon them if they reject God's offer of salvation.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so you don't need to worry about it being against you, really, because it's actually not.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: But third and finally, is I think we have forgotten the simple and easy trick of inviting people to church.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of us who have come in out of the cold, have trusted in Christ, and have just kind of like stayed in the warm cabin, right?
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's fun.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's you know edifying to talk about all these things, grow deeper in our relationship with Christ, do really intensive Bible studies, like understand the depths of Scripture to the best of our ability to just go deeper and deeper and deeper into our own personal faith and forget that there's a whole world out there that is shivering in the cold and needs to be saved.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you can't remember the last time that you invited to somebody, that you invited somebody to church, okay?
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: Here's my challenge to you.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: Out in the lobby, we have these cards, okay?
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's this big little sign that you're gonna pass as you come in through the main entrance.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it is just an invitation card.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: It has all the information that you typically can't remember.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: What are our service times?
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: What's our address?
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: What's our phone number?
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: All that stuff, what's our website?
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it is an easy way, it greases the wheels for you to just invite somebody to come to church, right?
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be that in the span of one conversation you move them from death to life, all right?
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: But rather that you can plant a seed, that you can invite somebody to church, that you can have an intentional conversation.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: The difficult thing, though, is that you must do it.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: You must take that step.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: But to make it a bit easier, fifth and finally, a step that I doubt many of us are doing is that we pray for the gospel.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now you don't need to pray for the gospel message, right?
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's God's got that covered.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: We it's locked tight.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you can pray for God to bring people into your life that you can share the gospel with.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: That when you have the opportunity to share the gospel with them, that you would have the courage to do it, right?
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: That the Holy Spirit would give you the words to speak, which by the way is a promise from God.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that he would give you the words to speak so that you can share that truth with them.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: That ahead of time, even now, uh, the person that God might have you meet in two weeks' time, that two weeks beforehand, in the present moment, he is preparing their heart and their mind to receive the truth of the gospel, that it might be fertile ground for that seed to be planted.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's why, as a church, right?
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: We have been praying the last couple weeks for all of these VBS camps that we've been hosting.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: You've got hundreds of kids coming through, hearing the gospel message.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we pray that that gospel would be rooted, and that, or rather, that it would find root, it would find purchase, and that it would be watered and it would begin to grow and bear fruit and all of those things because it is not just about doing the thing, but it is recognizing that it is this movement through God that you have the privilege to be a part of.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: God has given you the amazing opportunity to work with Him in the business of saving souls.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: You get to do that.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty cool, right?
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot cooler than a lot of our other jobs.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as we pray for the gospel, you know, maybe we might ask the question, if we haven't been doing it up to this point, am I nervous about how God might answer that prayer?
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: Am I nervous that he might bring somebody along who doesn't know the gospel and just gives me one of those softball kind of questions and you see it coming from a mile away, and you just go, man, I don't want to miss this.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe you're praying ahead of time that God would prepare you for that moment so that you make contact and you hit it out of the field, right?
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: God gives you the words to speak, and ultimately you are the person that He you, the Father uses to bring the gospel message to somebody else and save their life.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: How cool is that.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: We need to begin to think more about what it means for our Christian life to be about helping others be saved than simply being satisfied that we are saved and just talking more about that.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, as we wrap up here, this first onward message, right?
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: The first point in all of it is understanding the gospel message.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: And there are some of you who probably haven't trusted in Christ before.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can do that today.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: You need to make the decision.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: You need to believe that Jesus died for your sins, that he was a substitute, and that he is your savior.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's more to it than that, right?
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: But that's getting you started.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's about 90% of the way, right?
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to start, get off the launch pad, which is what we're talking about this morning?
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: Trust in Christ.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you've trusted in Christ, what does it mean for you to help other people do that?
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not easy, but you have everything you need by the power of the Spirit to do it.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: He's not asked you to do a task that you can't accomplish, that he won't give you the words to speak, right?
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: Or a message that you can fall back on.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, and this is one of the more difficult things, is if you are struggling to understand or explain to somebody why you might have hope, maybe it's time for you to revisit that conversation with God and think about why you have hope in the first place.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: If there's no part of you that wants to share that truth with others, maybe it is time to revisit that truth yourself and say, God, what does it mean for you to do the thing that I cannot do and for you to save me simply because you love me and you are worthy of glory?
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: So let us go onward from this point because this is just the beginning of getting off the launch brad.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: Will you pray with me?
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you today.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: I thank you for the gospel message.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: Boy, Lord, you didn't hide it from us.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: You have revealed it to us in all of its glory.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: You say it over and over and over again in your word, so many different ways, but it really comes down to the same truth.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're broken, we need a savior, and you are that savior.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: Gives us hope, gives us purpose, gives us, Lord, an opportunity to be a part of your plan in this world.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: What gifts those are.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that you would help us by your spirit to understand the gospel message, to live it out in our life, to apply it to the lives of those around us in a way that is captivating.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, that you would give us the courage to share it, and that you would give us the wisdom to pray for it.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: I pray for all of us that you would place people in our life, in our paths, maybe some people who've been there for a long time that we know we need to share the gospel with.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: And God, that in that moment, when we step out in faith and share that sort of what feels to be almost an awkward truth at times, we would remember that it is an eternity-altering proposition.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you are including us in your divine plan.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: How beautiful that is, Lord, that you use the feet of those you have already saved to carry that message to those who haven't yet trusted in you.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord, for these things, and it's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: Love you.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: See you next week.
• 45:11
  unknown: Bye.