Second Message - Russ Brasher
Message Description
Russ Brasher continues the Second Message series teaching out of the New Testament books of John and Acts illustrating Peter's courage to share the gospel.
Message Transcript
Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you that we have this time and opportunity to worship you and to participate in raising our voices to you this morning. Lord, you know where each and every single one of us is at as we gather both in-person and online. Lord, for some of the people in this room, there is no place that they would rather be than right here in this moment. Lord, I know that there are folks in this room that the last place that they want to be right now is here in this moment. Lord, I know that there are folks who this is their last chance, they are saying, I'm going to give you, Lord, one more shot this morning.
Lord, I know the weight of all the things that are on our hearts as we walked into the doors, as we sat down in the seats. Lord, I know that conversations were not always easy and fun in the car coming here. And Lord, the decision for some to just come here was hard because we have stuff. There is brokenness in our lives. We are sinful and we are broken, but Lord, would you, in the next few moments together, would you, in a way that only you can begin to meet us exactly where we're at and begin to reveal your heart to our hearts in such a way that we can't help but look to you and know that you love us, and you are desperate to reveal yourself to us. And would you do just that this morning? We ask this in your name, amen.
So, we are in this Second Message series where the idea would be, if you had a chance to sit down across the table from someone and share with them one thing, what would that one thing be? And if you're a Christ-follower, if you've put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, then that one thing should be to the other person the gospel message, that John 3:16, "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." And the hope would be that you have personally responded to the gospel message by putting your faith in Jesus and saying that I want to understand, begin to see, live out, and experience what life with you, Lord, was meant to be, the way that you created and designed me to have it in perfect right relationship with you.
And the other hope of that would be the person listening to you would receive that message and begin to acknowledge that they are broken, sinful, in desperate need of a savior. And they would begin to put their faith and trust in Jesus in a personal way and enter into a relationship with God, the Father. If you've ever had that opportunity, if you ever do have that chance, that's what we all hope would be your first message. But if it allowed it, if you had a chance, once again, to sit down with that person, or if someone had a chance to sit down with you and after proclaiming the gospel, the second message of the series is simply, what would you then tell them? What's the next thing that you would say? What would be your second message?
This morning, I stand here and my second message to all of you would be to go tell others. Go tell others message number one. We see this commanded by Jesus as the gospel of Matthew closes. In Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20, it says this. "Then Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, 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 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age." The gospel of Matthew closes with this command by Jesus to his closest followers, the disciples, and says, now that you have tasted and seen and know and can testify to my love for you, that it is nothing about anything you have done or will do but by what I have done by dying on a cross, by rising from the dead, by spilling my blood, by paying the price of your sin, and now you get to be in right relationship with God and begin to experience all of the joys and the blessings that comes from being in this relationship, by the way, the way you were created and designed. Jesus says, go tell the world.
I'm not even saying, go tell the world. I'm just saying, go tell other people around you. And the beautifulness of the great commission that we see at the end of Matthew, as Jesus says, and surely, wherever you go, whoever you sit down with, no matter how good or bad the cup of coffee is, know that when you go to talk to others about me, I am with you always, everywhere, all the time.
He says, when you go to do this, you're not going to do it on your own merit, on your own strength, by your own understanding, even to the full grasp of it because there are things this side of heaven that we, no matter how great we are at following Jesus, we are never going to have the answers to, or be able to understand until one day we're sitting around a fire with Jesus in heaven and are going, hey, I've got questions. But Jesus says, go tell others.
This morning, we're going to look at a story in the Book of Acts involving one of my favorite characters in the Bible, not named Jesus, Peter. And I want to put some boundaries and some bumpers around this. When you are going to open and read the Book of Acts, please don't look, and focus on Peter. This message is not about Peter. It's not about what Peter did or didn't do, but the message is about who Jesus is, because of what Jesus has already done, and what Jesus does through Peter that we look at the story of Peter.
If you walk away saying, man, I wish I could be more like Peter, you've missed it. Because when Peter looks, even at this own account, I can't help but think that he goes, forget me, you know how good God is. I do this because I am loved first. My hope and prayer are that you would walk away with a deeper understanding of who God is and just how much he loves you. And it's been put on display, the Bible says through the son of God, Jesus in the flesh, God in the flesh.
And so, as we jump into Acts 4, I need to set the scene a little bit for you. In Acts 1, it's recorded that Jesus has one last conversation with his disciples. He says, “Hey, I'm about to take a pretty sweet elevator up to heaven. I'm about to leave you guys, but I promise you something. I promise that once I get there, once I'm in heaven, I'm going to send to you the Holy Spirit, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, is what he said to go baptize in the name of.” The Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity of the Godhead, Father, Son, and Spirit. He says, “I'm going to send the Holy Spirit to all believers, anyone who has put their faith and trust in me.” And that Holy Spirit, he's going to come and he's going to live inside of your heart, and he's going to begin to do things that you didn't think were possible. He's going to begin to reveal to you the mysteries of God.
He's going to begin to cut wires and rewire and connect things. And he's going to begin to make your heartbeat for things that you'd never, it had never beat for before. You're going to begin to start to look at things differently. You're going to begin to see them through the eyes of my father. Your heart is going to begin to beat for and break for things that you didn't know because it's the things that God's heart beats for and breaks for. He's going to begin to empower you and begin to reveal to you and to strengthen you and to give you the courage and the faith and the knowledge to go into the world and begin to tell other people about me. And so, Jesus makes this promise.
In Acts 2, the promise is delivered. The Holy Spirit shows up and the disciples start doing exactly what Jesus said would happen. They began to, with all of a sudden, this new, bold confidence and strength, began to go tell others what they know to be true in their hearts. That Jesus loves them. That God loves them. That it is everything that Jesus has done and nothing that we would do. In fact, they begin to testify that anytime we add ourselves to the table, we make it so much worse.
And then we get to Acts 4. And Peter has been arrested. He is awaiting trial and he's been arrested, because in the name of Jesus, he healed a man and Jesus won't stop going and telling other people about Jesus, about what he knows to be true in his heart. And so, he's been arrested, he's put on trial, and the same authorities, the same folks, a book before this one, is the same type of authorities that arrested Jesus and put Jesus on trial. And this side of heaven did not end well for Jesus. Jesus was crucified, nailed to a cross, died, and was buried. And now Peter finds himself in the same type of situation. And Peter is now being questioned by the authorities about his faith.
If you're in this room and you're a believer and you've ever had a question dropped on you and you didn't know what to say or how to answer, lean into Peter and go, okay, I'm not alone in this, but how does Peter respond? Here's what it says. It says this starting in chapter 4, verse 8. "Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Jesus is “‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone."
And then verse 12, one of my favorites. "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved." It says this, that when they saw the courage of Peter and John, they realized that they were unschooled ordinary men, and they were astonished. Peter, when being questioned about his faith, not by just some person sitting across from the table, but when the authorities, who have the right to take serious action, question him, he does the only thing he knows how to do. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, he begins to share with people the good news of the gospel. Peter goes and tells others message number one. He does so under the power of the Holy Spirit, and he shares simply what he does know, what he is familiar with, and what he believes in his heart to be true.
He shares his personal experience. He shares his eyewitness account. He shares the journey that he's been on for the last three years, walking alongside, getting to know God in the flesh, by hanging out with Jesus every day. He shares what he knows, nothing more, nothing less. He shares Jesus was God. Your sin and my sin forced him to be crucified to a cross. The weight of our sin, Jesus took on that cross and he died. And then three days later, he rose. God rose him from the grave to pay the price of our sin. He is alive. He is well. He was Roman. Just saw and took an elevator up, sent the Holy Spirit, here I am to tell you the good news.
And it says that the people there looked at him, they saw the courage of John and Peter, and they were astonished that these were unschooled ordinary men. But I can't help when I look at Peter, the Peter we see in the Book of Acts if you've spent any time in the gospel messages, if you've spent any time around the church, looking at Peter and hearing stories of Peter before, you can't help but look at Peter and go, wait a minute. The Peter we see in the Book of Acts is not the same Peter we see in the gospels. What has happened? What has changed? How does he go from this Peter who isn't scared and actually is having fun and finding joy, looking authorities in the face, and saying, let me tell you about Jesus, disregarding what may or may come after that? Because you see, in the gospels, we see a different Peter.
I can tell you this, the go and tell is written into the origin of Peter's story. Some of you are sitting in this room and you right now can think of, just like you heard Emily during the announcement, say, hey, my pap pap or my granddaddy, whatever she said, I know Jesus because he invited me to church, and he began to tell me about him. Some of you are in this room because some folks responded to the Holy Spirit at work in their heart and responded to the love of Jesus Christ that they personally began to know and understand and walk with. And they began to bring you in, to begin to share with you, maybe they've sat across the table, had coffee with you, and shared the gospel message.
You see Peter, this is familiar to him because you see, we know in the gospel of John chapter 1, Peter's brother, Andrew, meets Jesus. And the Bible tells us in verses 40 through 42, that the first thing Andrew does, the first thing he can think to do is, Andrew runs and goes and finds his brother, Peter. It says Andrew meets Jesus and the first thing that he thinks to do is to go find Peter. And he says, Peter, we have found the Messiah. We have found Christ. I've got to introduce you to him. Let me take you to him. And the Bible says in verse 42, John 1:42, that he, Andrew, brought Peter to Jesus.
And what we know after that is Peter meets Jesus and he decides to become one of Jesus' closest followers, one of the disciples. And Peter spends the next three years alongside Jesus. Peter has a firsthand eye-witness account of every single miracle that we read. He even gets to participate in some of those miracles. I know a lot of you, based on where you're sitting, you're not really front row people, I get it. But Peter had a front-row seat, not only front row but a backstage pass with a Q&A session after every single message and talk Jesus gave.
And if you look closely at Peter, even though he was right there, shoulder to shoulder, face-to-face with Jesus, Peter was always screwing it up, always. Just when you think Peter, it's finally sinking in, he goes and does something so stupid. Just when you think Peter's finally going to do the right thing, say the right thing, he goes off the wall and totally misses. And you just got to wonder, as a parent, you look at your kids sometimes and it's like, what were you thinking? I still love the heck out of you, but come on, right? Peter, it took three years of walking alongside Jesus, and it still hadn't sunk into his heart just how loved he was by God, the Father.
In John 18, if you know anything about John 18, John 18 is when we start to jump into Jesus heading towards the cross. In John 18, we see that Jesus has been arrested and he's awaiting trial. And John 18 tells us that from a distance, Peter is standing by a fire and he's waiting to see what happens next. This same, Peter who now in Acts 4 is telling the authorities, let me tell you about Jesus. And John 18 is going, sitting by a fire, waiting to see what the authorities are going to do to Jesus. And you know who shows up? Two little girls. And these two little girls go, "Hey, I know you. Hey, you're one of those Jesus guys, right? Aren't you one of his followers? Isn't your name, Peter? My dad says your name's Peter. Are you one of his followers?" And the same Peter who in Acts looks to the authorities right in the face and says, "Let me tell you about Jesus. Heck yeah, I know Jesus. I can't wait to tell you about him."
Peter, in John 18, looks at two little girls and goes, "Wrong dude, not me. Don't know what you're talking about. Your dad's a loser. Told you wrong, lied to you." Right? So, what happens between John 18 and Acts 4? The third guy that comes up, and this was all prophesied by Jesus. Jesus had a conversation a couple of chapters before this, with Peter that says, "Hey, listen, brother, I love you. You think you know me, you think you do a lot of talking, but man, when you about to have to start walking, you're going to fail miserably." Can I get an amen? Because who doesn't, in this room, all the time, say we're going to do something, but then realize that man, we fall short. We didn't do it. We didn't live up to it. Peter says, "I love you, son. But listen, you think that you've got faith in me, you think that you know me, you really think that you are going to lay down your life for me? Two little girls are going to walk up to you and ask you about your faith. And you're going to be like, 'Nope, none.'"
Then the third guy that shows up, the situation switches a little bit, it's not two little girls anymore, but it's a distant relative. We're going to go with a second cousin because it sounds more intimidating. The second cousin of the Roman soldier that moments ago, Peter cut his ear off trying to defend Jesus. But don't worry, Jesus went, and it was healed. But that relative, that second cousin, walks up to the fire and he says, "You're Peter. You're the dude that just cut my cousin's ear off trying to defend this Jesus. Do you know this Jesus guy? You're really going to sit here and defend him?" And the Gospel of Luke tells us that Peter says, "Man, I have no idea what or who you're talking about. Jesus? No, wrong dude. Check the other fire. I think that Peter guy's over there."
So how do we go from John 18 Peter to Acts 4 Peter? How does Peter go from not telling even two little girls about who Jesus is, to speaking to crowds, to authorities, and telling the world who Jesus is? You see what happens if you jump two more chapters into John 21. You see in John 21, which has one of my all-time favorite stories in all of scripture. In John 21, now that we're in that chapter, Jesus had been arrested. He had been found guilty. He was crucified. He died on a cross. He was buried in a tomb. Three days later, he rose from the grave. He's walking around, making people drop their morning coffee going, wait a minute. He was dead a couple of days ago, right? Right? You saw that, right? We were there. Yeah. He's alive.
The price of sin has been paid. Redemption is now available. We have been saved. We have been rescued and Jesus is walking around, and he is saying, now look, Peter, if you've doubted before and I understand doubt, I get and understand questioning, but I am who I say I am. When I told you, Peter, that I am the way, the truth, and the life, I meant it because here I stand conquering death, defeating sin, giving you right free access, opening the door by the grace of God, to the father that I've been telling you about this whole time. There's nothing left to question or doubt, Peter, here I stand. And Peter doesn't have a choice to look at Jesus and go, oh my gosh, I doubted in 18, but here I can't. He's right here. It's all true.
But here's the thing, at that moment, Peter still can't help but fixate, at least in my understanding of this story, that he is still sinful and broken, that a couple of chapters ago, he did the unthinkable, he forsakes God. He denied him. He said that he was this awesome Christian follower, this believer. I'm one of Jesus's 12 closest, but yet in the simplest of moments, he denies Jesus. How many of us are walking around here this morning, walking into this room and we want to believe, we want to try to make it right, but we keep seeing ourselves fumble and stumble and mess it up. And we say what we know to be true, but sometimes it's really hard to live that out. And we want to acknowledge who Jesus is. Or maybe you're in this room and you've been wrestling with Jesus for a while now, but you can't help but look around and see the folks that call themselves Christians, that may be the same folks who are trying to tell you about Jesus, but you see them stumble and fall and screw up and mess up.
Here's reality. You and I, and every one of us, are broken and sinful and we are in desperate need of a savior. And just because you accept Jesus into your heart, it doesn't change that this side of heaven, you are broken, sinful, and in desperate need of a savior. And every day, every moment, we need to remind ourselves that we are not perfect. And Peter has this moment where he puts that to the test. And this story shows you and I just how loved we are by God, that even in our brokenness, even in our sin, even in our failures, even in our shortcomings, we cannot just run back to Jesus. We can, even if we want to, swim back to Jesus.
You see in John chapter 21, it says this, that Peter and some of his disciples or some of his friends, that Jesus' disciples, they're in a boat. And it says that after Jesus was resurrected, this story takes place and they're in a boat and they're fishing, because they don't know what else to do, so they're fishing. And all of a sudden, they realize, hey, this is not going well. We kind of stink at this. They're not catching anything. And all of a sudden, a voice from the shore yells out, "Hey, you're doing it wrong. Don't you know that you don't fish on that side of the boat, you fish on this side of the boat?" So, any fishermen or fisher ladies in this room, just know if you're having a bad day, go to the other side of the boat. It's in the Bible. Come on.
But this voice says, "Hey, you're doing it wrong." And one of the people in the boat besides Peter was John and John goes, wait a minute. I've been in this situation before. This story sounds familiar. I remember Jesus did this a couple of chapters ago in my gospel. "Hey, it's Jesus. It's the Lord on the beach. That's who's yelling to us." And now Peter, and this is why I love Peter and if there's one thing that we can take away from Peter is take away his understanding of Jesus' and God's love. Because even in Peter's brokenness, knowing that the last time he had a chance to show Jesus that he has value, that he can earn his love, he totally blew it. And Peter, when he hears that Jesus is at the beach, does the only thing Peter thinks to do. He jumps out of the boat, fully clothed, leaving his buddies behind, leaving this awesome catch of fish behind, leaving a rational sound way to get from the water to land behind. And he jumps into the water, and he starts swimming to Jesus.
And when Peter's feet hit that beach, if you are anything like me, when we fall, when we stumble, when we sin, when we look in the mirror and we go, I am a broken hot mess. That's where Peter is standing on the beach. And the world is saying, you're a hypocrite. You're a loser. You're a phony. All right, I knew I couldn't trust in Jesus because of people like you, Peter. Peter is carrying the weight of all of that. He's wrestling with, is Jesus' love real or not? Did he really die for my sins? Can I really trust in him? Can I really, can you really, can I really come to him in our messiest of messiest, all of our questions, all of our doubts, all of our mistakes, can we really come to him and experience grace and love and mercy like Jesus has been telling us for the last three years?
And when Peter hits that beach, he sees Jesus. And then he looks to the right and he sees Jesus has prepared a fire. And he sees on that fire that Jesus has started to cook a meal. And when the other disciples get to the shore, Jesus looks at all of them and says one of my favorites in all of scripture, John 21 verse 12. Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast. Come and have breakfast with me in your brokenness, in your sin, with your doubts, with your questions, with your worries, with your baggage, with your pure public denial of me, with your, I want to do the right thing, but I always do the wrong thing attitude, all of that. Come and have breakfast with me. Remember who I am, forget who you are. Focus on me because I", Jesus says, "love you. I love you because of who you are. You are a son and daughter of the King of Kings, of the Lord of Lords. And the whole point that I came was to show you, was to save you, was to remind you of who you are."
"I know that you're broken. Peter, I told you, you were going to deny me. Why do you think that I would forget? But knowing that you were going to deny me", Jesus said, "I still went to the cross and died for you anyways." Because the Bible says, "While we were still sinners, Christ died for you and for me." And Peter sits down and has breakfast with Jesus. It tells us then later in John 21, starting in verse 15, it says when they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" "Yes, Lord", he said. "You know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my lambs." Two more times Jesus asked Peter, "Peter, do you love me?" Two more times, Peter says, "Yes, Lord. I love you."
I can't help but read into those words where Peter's saying, I still have a lot of questions. I know how broken and stupid I am. Lord, I know that tomorrow I'm probably going to fail you, but I can admit, and I know in my heart, Jesus, yes. I love you. And Jesus says to Peter three times. "I know. I know that you love me. I know that you love me. Go tell others. Go tell others, not about you, Peter. Go tell others about me because if you make it about you, well, they're going to look at you and be like, hmm. But if you make it about me and you tell others about me, they're going to be astonished. They're going to be amazed."
And so that is what the difference is between the Peter of John 18 and the Peter of Acts 4, a resurrected Jesus who paid the price of our sins, who rescues and redeems, who sends the Holy Spirit to live in the hearts of those who believe in Jesus. And it's the perfect love of Christ, and it's the power of the Holy Spirit that begins to work in the heart of Peter, begins to transform his life, begins to transform his heart, begins to work from the inside out, begins to make him see life differently and make him see people differently, to be no longer fearful of situations. Because what's the worst thing that could happen to me, because when I look and see what happened to Jesus and what happened to him, it turned out to be for God's glory anyways. So, who am I?
So that's how you get to the Peter of Acts 4. It's why I stand here today, and I say, if Jesus is in your heart, if you've put your faith and trust in him, then go tell others in the name of the love of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, go tell others. And then if we jump back to Acts chapter 4, I left out a part of the verse until now. This is after Peter gave the gospel message to the authorities. It said this in verse 13 when they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled ordinary men, you want to have two words that should be encouraging to you, unschooled and ordinary. Thank God because that means I can be an idiot and extra stupid ordinary, or weird, quirky, or goofy, but I can go and tell people about Jesus.
You don't need to have all the answers. You don't need to have it figured out. You don't need to have a seminary degree. You don't need to memorize a certain number of verses. You don't need to be able to explain anything that we find in the Book of Leviticus. You don't need to be able to connect and spell out certain words. You just go and tell people what's in your heart and what you know to be true. But it says this, "They were astonished and took note that these men had been with Jesus." You can't go tell people what you don't know. You can't take people where you haven't been. You can't lead people to someone that you haven't met for yourself. But what the authorities did when they heard Peter proclaim the gospel is, they could not deny, they were taken back, and they said that these men have spent time with Jesus."
Ultimately, if there's one thing, I would love for all of us to walk away with is, go and spend time with Jesus. Forget, go tell others, go spend time with Jesus. And I'm convinced that if you spend enough time with him, you won't help but be able to see the love. And I don't want your faith to be the faith of your parents, the faith of the church, the faith of the expectation. And it breaks my heart, that if you're basing your faith off of someone else's faith, go spend time with Jesus and make your faith your own. Make it personal. That's what it was designed and created to be, a personal relationship with God, you, and him. They couldn't help but deny that they were with Jesus.
So, what do we do with all of this? Again, I think if you're someone in this room who hasn't taken the time to spend time getting to know Jesus, the best thing I can tell you to do is to spend time with Jesus. Take this week, read the Gospel of John, pursue it, make it personal, make it your own. There's a fellow who, a couple of weeks ago, walked into the church and he ran into one of our pastors and he looked him in the face, and he said, "Hey, how do I know that I'm saved?" Do you know how that pastor responded? He did the only thing he knew to do in his heart, he shared the gospel message with them. And then he said, "Now, I've shared the gospel message with you, but you go home, read the Gospel of John, make it personal. You decide for yourself, is the love of God real, is Jesus someone you could follow? When Jesus asks you the question, so-and-so, do you love me? How will you respond?"
I love that story. Make it your own. Don't let another person's faith be your own. Don't let a person's faith determine how you view faith. And you can't also ignore the fact that you're here this morning, that God might be working on your heart in ways that you're trying to figure out. Lean into that, run towards that. Swim towards that. Jump out of the boat towards that. What's the worst that could happen in this situation, you go, well, not today. Let that be your decision. Perhaps you're in this room or tuning in because someone is trying to tell you about Jesus, and they've bribed and offered whatever it is to get you here this morning. It's because they know a love that they want you to know because it's captivated and changed their heart, changed their life, affected every relationship that they've ever had and ever will have because of this one relationship with God. Lean into that.
The other thing that I would say, for those of you who maybe, you've been walking with the Lord, you've given your life to faith, but the idea of sharing the gospel with someone makes you tremble in fear, or you don't know how to do it, or maybe communication isn't your skillset, or you're not sure what to do or how to create these situations. I understand that. Let me tell you a quick story. When my wife and I, before we were husband and wife, we were thinking about dating or let me rephrase that. I was thinking about dating her. I want to believe that she was ready and willing. That's not true though. So, we met at a party, and we had known each other previously, but we met at this party. And after we hung out for a little bit. I was like, man, I'm kind of digging this girl, but I don't know. There are some things where I'm not sure.
Maybe some of you are in that with Jesus right now. Oh, I'm not sure I want to. But here's the thing, I remember going home. And this was before Facebook was Facebook. It was about Facebook. And there was a picture of her holding a goldfish. And you know what happened? I kept staring at that goldfish. Like, why is she holding that goldfish? Do I really want to date a girl who's holding a goldfish? This goldfish is determining everything I think about my wife at the time. But you know what I had to do, I had to see past my weird goldfish theories, and I had to get to know and date my wife. I had to get to know a person.
Get to know Jesus, get to know Jesus. And when it comes to going and telling others, there's no perfect playbook. You don't have to have all the right words. You don't have to have all the right settings. Sometimes going and telling others means not saying a word. John 13 tells us that a new command I give you, Jesus says, go love each other. As I have loved you, go and love one another, and by doing so, people will know that you are my disciples. Sometimes it's just a fire in your backyard. Sometimes it's just taking someone out for coffee. Sometimes it's just showing up and loving people but praying and waiting for that opportunity to share what you know to be true in your heart about who Jesus is, nothing more, nothing less.
I'm here today because when I was in high school, a college student who loved the Lord sought me out. He wanted to go tell others. And to his sad reality, the Lord led them to me. And right away he didn't start talking about Jesus. You know what he did, he kept his mouth shut, but he became my baseball coach and he loved me and my friends. And we were the worst baseball team in school history. We went 0 and 19 that year, but it was the best year of my life because I had someone in my life who was just loving me for who I am, not my batting average, not our record, not my mistakes. And I was making a ton of them at that time in my life. And you know what, two years went by of him just loving me, knowing that he was available to me, taking me to Burger King, trying to tell me about Jesus. But you know what? I'd be like, not interested. He's like, okay. But praying that one day, my heart would be like, okay, I'm interested. And two years later, it took two years. Two years later, I couldn't stop, I had to pause and respond to the love that I was experiencing.
If you're not sure how to go tell others, go love people and watch God use that. Watch the Holy Spirit come alive in that and create opportunities that you never planned for and give you strength that you didn't think you had and words that you're like, I can't believe I just did what I did, and watch the gospel spread. My second message, go tell others the first message.
Let me pray. Father Lord, thank you. Thank you for this time. Thanks for this place. Thank you for your Son. Thank you for the gospel. Lord, would you give each one of us in this room, the strength to respond to this morning, either towards you or towards you in such a way that the closer we get to you, we can't help but begin, out of an overflow of love, begin to share that with others around us. Those that are closest to us, family members, coworkers, neighbors, spouses, kids, Lord, the list goes on and on. But you just say first and foremost, love me, come to know me, and then you won't be able to stop, but share it with others. Lord, we ask this for this time and in this place. Amen.
