Re-introduction to the Gospel | Pt. 2 | Pastor Chris Searcy

Re-introduction to the Gospel

Two important things we are looking to do:

1. Introduced first timers to the gospel.
   
   That we were dead in our sins. (Not hurting, struggling, failing, but dead) because of the sin of Adam.
   Until God in his mercy made a covenant with Abraham and his dependents, and through Abraham’s lineage came Jesus, God in Human form to reconcile humanity Jew and Gentile to himself.
   
   Ephesians 2:4-5 
   But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.
   
2. Armed believers with a basis for evangelism.
   
   We have a command to evangelize:
   
   The Great Commission
   Matthew 28:16-20
   16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
   
   We must share with unbelievers that they have a dire eternal problem that we answer to.
   
   Romans 6:23
   For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Two potential stumbling blocks

1. We are in the south where everyone thinks they are saved! 
1. Gives a false sense of salvation.
1. Matthew 7:1,5… 1 Judge not, that ye be not judged. 5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
   
2. Our world is seeking to define good independent of God!
1. Culture is trying to change what good is.
1. Thou shall have no other God’s before me…
2. Fornicators shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven…
3. Homosexuals shall not enter the kingdom of heaven…
4. Drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of heaven…

Ten Commandments & 1Corinthians 6:10

Society has completely abandoned the law of god and has re-written it according to its own desires and lusts.

Here’s how they did it:

1. You do that by moving the standard of morality from something central like the Gospel, to the fringes of society. Consequently, accepted good is ever widening to accept whoever is at the fringe of the social norm.

• It started with fornication through the sexual revolution in the 1960’s -1980’s
• Then the gay rights movement beginning in the 1970’s-1990’s
• Then the Trans rights movement 1970’s - present
• Next up: Pedophilia 

• Old Dominion University professor Allyn Walker aiming to destigmatize pedophilia wrote a book called.
  A Long Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity.
  
• A trustee on the board of a UK charity for transgender children resigned:
  
  Dr Jacob Breslow said in part, “Allowing for a form of non-diagnosable minor attraction is exciting, as it potentially creates a sexual or political identity by which activists, scholars and clinicians can begin to better understand Minor Attracted Persons.”
  “This understanding may displace the stigma, fear and abjection that is naturalized as being attached to Minor Attracted Persons and may alter the terms by which non-normative sexualities are known,” he continued. “Furthermore, this paper argues that this distinction is potentially another step towards the complete re-thinking of abnormal sexual desires within the DSM – a step that follows historically and theoretically from the removal of homosexuality.”
  
  Homosexuality no longer a mental disorder in the DSM:
  1987 the American Psychiatric Association revised its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) to entirely remove homosexuality as a disorder.
  
• California Senate bill SB14 sought to make trafficking a child under 17 a serious felony. The average age of children being trafficked is 10.
  
  It failed to pass the public safety committee. Because, none of the six Democrats on the Assembly Public Safety Committee would vote for it.
  
  You can rob a bank with a note, you can commit arson and that is a serious felony but trafficking a child is not.
  
  Only after national backlash were they forced to re-vote and it passed.
  
• At the same time as this push to destigmatize pedophilia there is a movie currently in theaters detailing Tim Ballard’s attempts to rescue trafficked children.
  
  “I wonder how our great institutions responded to it.”
  
• Media is almost unanimously calling it a conspiracy theory

1. Trafficking is more than a $150 billion a year industry 
2. The film was made 5 years ago before the Qanon conspiracy was a public phenomenon.
3. The US which is the highest consuming country for child exploitation material on the planet. 

Here is what their fate is:

Isaiah 5:20, 24-25

20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

24 Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

25 Therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble, and their carcases were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

The plan of the enemy is to pervert the mind so that the way of iniquity seems right to man. 

Yet, despite their best attempts, The gospel is the unchanging standard of truth.

It can not be moved, it will not change, it is constant. 

Revelations 12:11 (Jesus binds the devil and casts him out)

11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

1Corinthians 6:10-12

9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

CONTINUED

The Revelation of Jesus Christ:

This book is the most beautiful book ever written in history because it is the revealing of the most desirable man in the history of heaven and earth.

The darling of Heaven, The Just One, the King of Kings and Lord Of all Lords is being revealed to us in this book. 

For those that belong to him it is a great prophecy, but for those who reject his mercy, and love it is a terrible day. 

THE DAY OF THE LORD

The Day of the Lord refers to the unique events (positive and negative) that will escalate in the final 3 1/2 years before Jesus returns. This biblical theme is mentioned nearly 100 times.

Joel 2:11:

11 For the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; who can endure it?  

Malachi. 4:5:

5 I will send you Elijah...before...the great and dreadful day of the LORD. 

Judgment seat of Christ 

Christ will evaluate each heart and works in accordance with the teaching of scripture.

9 Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. 10For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. 11Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men…(2 Cor. 5:9-11)

New Heaven New Earth

Revelation 21:1-4

1. Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Hope in the Resurrection

2 Corinthians. 5:1

…we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven. 

For those new to the Gospel this is why we pick up our Cross and follow him, because he is worthy. And because he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.