Go

WESTSIDE BAPTIST CHURCH

PASTOR: TERRY VAUGHAN

SERMON TITLE: GO

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John 3:16-18 KJV

TEXT VERSE: Matthew 21:28-31 “But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, son, go work to day in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went.” Isn’t it wonderful to know that when you have true repentance toward God, it’ll change the direction of your life? A lot of people say they’ve turned things over to the Lord and then they want to hang on to the old life. When you have true repentance towards God it will change the direction you’re headed in. “And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They unto him, the first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the Publicans and the Harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.”

This message is short tonight and I’m going to preach to you tonight on “GO”. That’s a small word but it has a whole lot of significance to it. There’s a lot of Christians when you say the word “go”, they stop. This church needs to move on. We need to quit worrying about whose not here, what’s happened in the past; we need to concentrate on what’s happening right now. We need to ask God to unite us in unity of the Holy Spirit and just Go. Go where? We’re going to cover that in a minute. God shows me things that will help our church. That’s why God annoints and ordains Pastors for churches. God uses them to lead the church.

John 3:14 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up.” We need to lift up Jesus tonight in the congregation. We need to lift up Jesus tonight in our family life. We need to lift up Jesus to our co-worker and friends. Paul said I preach Christ and him crucified. We don’t need to sugar coat anything or add to what saith the Lord. We need to lift him up. He said in his word that if he be lifted up he will draw all men unto him.

In Matthew 10:32-33 “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.” I want to encourage us tonight to lift up the name of Jesus Christ. We need to confess to men and women, boys and girls that Jesus Christ is the way. He’s the very hope of eternal life. He’s the very reason for our being. We need to uplift the name of Jesus tonight and we need to do that by going and not stopping and not waiting on someone else. We need to go when the Lord says go.

I’ve got one little strict part I want to say here and then we’ll get over in the other. There’s a lot of churches in the land and in Marietta, Georgia and we love them as long as their following the Lord and their preaching the true word of God. We’ll love those people and we’ll support them. But I want to tell you just because you see a church with a lot of people in it and their shouting and praising, it does not mean that their in the will of God and you’re out of the will of God. You can jump and dance all you want to but if you get close to the Lord and you get that motion to go and you go where he says and you’re out working and laboring for the Lord, being persecuted and sweat coming down your brow....there isn’t going to be a whole lot of time for dancing and praising. When we get home we’re going to do some dancing there. But while we’re here we have to work. I said that about those churches because there’s a whole lot of churches like that but their not in that “GO” mode. I can not emphasize it enough that out in the field is where the lost are. We get our strength here, our wisdom here, our knowledge, our love, our comfort, our mercy, our forgiveness and God gets us prepared and he sends us out in the field. And we have to Go.