INTRO.- ILL.- The minister gave his Sunday morning service, as usual, but this particular Sunday, it was considerably longer than normal. Later, at the door, shaking hands with church members as they left the service, one man said, "Your sermon was simply wonderful - so invigorating and inspiring and refreshing."
The minister of course, broke out in a big smile, only to hear the man add, "Why I felt like a new man when I woke up!"
I really hope that you feel refreshed after listening to my sermons! Well, actually, I hope that you feel more than refreshed. I HOPE THAT YOU FEEL MOVED AND MOTIVATED! I often feel like I am a motivator of sorts. And I do want to motivate you to action for the Lord in living the Christian life!
James 1:22-25 22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.
Be ye doers of the Word and not hearers only! It’s not enough just to hear God’s Word preached! We must take some action based on what we hear. Otherwise, James is saying that going to church listening to sermon and then doing nothing about it is like looking in a mirror. HOW SO?
Well, do you like what you see when you first see yourself in the mirror in the morning? HA! Not likely. I have bags under my eyes and my hair is standing up and all over the place! It may shoot up in one direction or another depending on how I sleep on my pillow. BUT HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ME LOOK THIS WAY? No, and you won’t.
Naturally, I shave and shower asap, spray on some cologne, comb my hair so that I’ll look halfway decent when I go to work and out in the world.
James is saying that if we listen to God’s Word (in a sermon or personal study) and see ourselves for what we really are....perhaps messed up somewhat spiritually, but then if we do nothing about it, never repent or never make any changes in our lives, then we are not pleasing to God because we haven’t done anything positive to change the way we live! So when I preach, my aim is not refreshment as much as it is repentance and renewal!
ILL.- Christmas was finally over and the preacher’s wife dropped into an easy chair saying, "Boy! Am I ever tired." Her husband looked over at her and said, "I had to preach two special services last night, three today, for a total of five sermons. Why are you so tired?"
"Dear," she replied, "I had to listen to all of them."
And I’m sure that’s probably how Elaine truly feels! It’s a good thing I don’t preach more than twice on Sunday. Of course, she might say that I’m preaching all the time anyway: at church, at home, etc. HEY, THAT’S NOT A BAD IDEA! In fact, I think we all need to be preaching Jesus all the time! He’s the best and most important person we could be talking about to others, wouldn’t you say?
Matthew 10:7 “As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’”
Jesus said to His disciples, “As you go, preach!” Good advice for us today. As you go, wherever you go, preach the message of Jesus! As you go to work, preach! As you go to the mall, preach! As you go to Wal-mart shopping, preach! As you go to the bank, preach!
I’m saying that at this time of the year more people are thinking about Christ so we need to capitalize on this and preach about Jesus every chance we get!
Have you ever thought about what would happen if we preached Jesus or talked about Jesus everywhere we went? We would either turn some people on or some people off. And if every Christian did this, just imagine the converts we could make!
Have you talked to anybody lately about Jesus or the Christian life, the Christian faith? If not, why not? NOW’S THE TIME. Don’t wait. Do it now. You might influence someone to become a Christian! And this is why God put us here.
PROP.- In this sermon, let me suggest some ways to preach Jesus.
1- Preach Jesus individually
2- Preach Jesus publicly
3- Preach Jesus impartially
I. PREACH JESUS INDIVIDUALLY
What’s the meaning? Preach Jesus personally, from you to another person. From person to person. One on one. Here’s the story in Acts 8:26-40
Acts 8:34-35 “The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.”
KJV 35Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.
Philip had a captive audience. It was one on one as they were in that chariot together. That’s like the passenger sitting next to you in your car. They are a captive audience. Those kinds of situations are best for witnessing.
ILL.- I remember while living in Iberia, MO, I would fish for bass whenever I could at the Lake of the Ozarks. It was only about 30 miles from Iberia. I was in a local service station one day, visiting with a fishing friend of mine and several other guys were there. We were talking about bass fishing since they fished too.
I told one guy that any time he needed a fishing buddy, to give me a call and I would be glad to go with him since he had a bass boat. Knowing that I was a preacher, he asked, “Would you preach to me?” I said, “No,” but I lied! Not really, but I thought if the opportunity came up I would witness for Jesus. He would have been a captive audience, so why not?
Guess what? He declined my request. He never asked me. He never called me. I guess he figured I would preach to him. However, I did fish a few bass tournaments on the Lake and every guy I was paired with I would talk to him about the Lord when the opportunity presented itself. And I never had one guy get mad at me. In fact, I met a few Christian guys.
Acts 8:36-38 36 As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” 37 Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” The eunuch answered, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” 38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.
And when he preached Jesus to him, he responded in a positive way. He said, “I believe in Jesus. Why can’t I be baptized?” Many people say, “Why do I have to be baptized?” instead of saying, “Why can’t I?”
Baptism is an act of obedience that the Lord asks to do. If we truly believe in Him and want Him as our Savior, why not do as He asks? Baptism is a very simple thing compared to many other things that Jesus asks us to do. And it’s only a one time thing, unlike most things we are to do.
ILL.- Many years ago I heard that many preachers were pushing the idea of “each one, win one.” It’s the idea that each Christian should win just one person to Christ.
Have you ever led someone to Christ, that is, to the point where they wanted to accept Christ, confess their faith and be baptized? Wouldn’t it be amazing if every Christian in this world would do this?
I have read that worldwide the people who claim to be Christians number 2.1 billion and our world population is 6.8 billion. If every Christian won just one person to Christ there would be 4.2 billion Christians in this world! AMAZING!
That would be fantastic and wouldn’t God be pleased?! And just think, there are probably some Christians who would win more than one person to Christ.
But sad to say, that probably won’t happen, because most of us will never win one person to Christ in our entire lifetime. THINK ABOUT IT. And then begin to think about the person or persons whom you could win to Christ and start praying for them. Then look for opportunities to witness to them.
We all need to preach Jesus individually or one on one and as much as possible. Tis the season to do this.
II. PREACH JESUS PUBLICLY
Acts 20:20 You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house. It’s the idea of: Don’t hide the gospel from people. Be out in the open about it. Preach Jesus publicly and in every house.
ILL.- 100 year old Mrs. Doyle at the Craighead Nursing Center said to her son one day, referring to me, “He preaches on the street corner.”
Well, there was a time when preachers did some of that, but not much anymore. It was more acceptable in years gone by. I’m not sure any preacher would get much of hearing today preaching on a street corner. And in some cities in the US, he might even get beat up!
ILL.- Dwight Lyman Moody (February 5, 1837 - December 22, 1899 - 62). He was more commonly known as D. L. Moody and what a preacher he must have been! I don’t know if he did much preaching on street corners in Chicago but he could sure draw a crowd in the later 1800‘s.
His first city-wide crusade in America was in Brooklyn beginning October 31, 1875, at the Clermont Avenue Rink, seating 7,000. Only non-church members could get admission tickets as 12,000 to 20,000 crowds were turned away. Over 2,000 converts resulted.
Next came Philadelphia starting on November 21 with nightly crowds of 12,000. The Philadelphia crusade was held at the unused Pennsylvania freight depot which John Wanamaker had purchased. It was located at Tenth and Market. His ushers were very well trained, capable of seating 1,000 people per minute, and vacating the premises of some 13,000 in 4 minutes if needed. The doors were opened one and a half hours early and in 10 minutes the 12,000 seats were taken. On January 19, 1876 President Grant and some of his cabinet attended. Total attendance was 1,050,000 with 4,000 decisions for Christ.
I would say that was public preaching of Jesus! Even though we might call it organized public preaching. WOW!
Today, if you have a revival meeting in a church you will hardly get a crowd. I hate to say it in some ways, but most of the time you can’t get church members to attend, let alone non-Christians. People just are not interested in the gospel. And they have too many irons in the fire. They are too busy.
I’ve always said and believe it; that we are often too busy for our own spiritual good! True for saints and sinners alike!
ILL.- Preacher Billy Sunday said back in the early 30’s: "Many churches report no new members on confession of faith. Why these meager results with this tremendous expenditure of energy and money? Why are so few people coming into the Kingdom? I will tell you—there is not a definite effort put forth to persuade a definite person to receive a definite Savior at a definite time, and that definite time is now."
If there is no effort put forth to preach Jesus publicly or witness publicly then there will no people coming to Christ and being saved. AND BEING SAVED IS WHAT GOD WANTS PEOPLE TO EXPERIENCE. Tis the season to preach Jesus publicly and from house to house.
III. PREACH JESUS IMPARTIALLY
Romans 1:14-16 14 I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. 15 That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome. 16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.
Don’t be particular about the people you preach to or witness to. Everyone needs to hear the message, both Jew and Gentile alike. It doesn’t make any difference who the person is, all need Jesus.
ILL.- Someone wrote: What’s the state of the states of the union? Let’s see ... New Yorkers mock Southern drawls. Southerners don’t cotton to West Coast hippies, who in turn can’t understand why Midwesterners live so far from the ocean breeze. And Midwesterners? They wonder who could survive New York-the city that never sleeps. Yes, the U.S.A. is one big, happy dysfunctional family.
ILL.- When a visitor to a town in Alabama spotted a dog attacking a boy, he grabbed the animal and throttled it with his bare hands. An impressed reporter saw the incident and told him the next day’s headline would scream "Valiant Local Man Saves Child by Killing Vicious Animal."
"I’m not from this town," said the hero. "Then," the reporter said, "it will say ’Alabama Man Saves Child by Killing Dog.’" "Actually," said the man, "I’m from New Hampshire."
"In that case," the reporter grumbled, "the headline will be ’Yankee Kills Family Pet.’"
While we might not like living in certain parts of the country or like the people who live in other parts of the country, we must realize that people are people and God wants all people to be saved.
ILL.- I remember going to Boston in 1989 to run the Boston marathon. While walking down the street I saw a man beating on a woman. They were yelling at one another and he was hitting her. I don’t know if they were husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend. I thought, “What a bunch of crazy people who live here!”
Also, while walking down the street a lady came up to me asking for money. She almost fell on me and she appeared to be either drunk or high on drugs. I said, “Sorry, I can’t help you.”
But you know, as I look back, I should have helped her. It might not have been the best thing to do, because when you give money to some people they’ll just spend it on drugs or booze. But I should have done something and I should have said something to her about the Lord. I should have witnessed to her with some words and showed her some kindness.
Brothers and sisters, we are not to be racists or respecter of persons, because God is not. God wants all people to be saved, regardless of their race or social level, etc.
ILL.- I remember while preaching in one church a new family started attending. One lady said, “They’re not our class of people.” Meaning she looked down on them. WRONG ATTITUDE. BAD ATTITUDE.
ILL.- Before preacher/author Carl Kectherside passed away he and his wife, Nell, walked the inner city of St. Louis, talking to prostitutes and drug addicts about Jesus.
II Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
Tis the season to preach Christ to all people!
CONCLUSION----------------------
Acts 10:42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead.
He commanded us to preach. We don’t have any choice in this matter. It’s called the Great commission! Go into all the world and make disciples!
2 Timothy 4:2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.
Tis the season to preach Jesus anywhere, everywhere and to all people!
