Every Christian’s Job

Listen Online:

Transcript:

This morning we’re going to be in Luke chapter 24. Luke chapter 24. And, excuse me, there’s a whole group of jokes and funny things that I’ve looked at on the internet that are floating around out there that you can find called, you only had one job.

And, you know, it’ll be funny pictures of things where somebody had one job to do and did it spectacularly poorly. And I will sometimes sit there and look at these things on Pinterest as I’m trying to fall asleep and laugh and I’ll wake Charla up. Because I think some of them are so funny.

I was sitting there looking at some of them last night. You only had one job and it shows where somebody put a display of ears of corn at the supermarket and put watermelon on the label. Like you couldn’t figure out what those were supposed to be.

or people are supposed to be painting the stripes along the roads and they’ll be brush piled at the edge of the road or tree branches and they’ll go around it instead of moving them and it’ll say you only had one job. Or you’ll see a picture where somebody has built a park, built a playground and they’ve had the slide coming down and ending at the end of the curb where the kids are going to slide off and go into the street. And it says you only had one job.

And seriously, there may be some of these that are off color, so look for them with caution. But there are some really funny things on there where you look and say, you only had one job to do, and you couldn’t even do that right. And some of the results, as I said, are funny.

Because you see what can happen when somebody has one job to do, and they don’t pay attention to it or don’t do it well. But we also know that there are consequences. There are real consequences, there are dire consequences, when somebody has one job to do and they don’t focus on it or they don’t do it well.

It only takes one soldier to fall asleep on guard duty for the whole platoon to be ambushed and wiped out. It only takes one maintenance worker to be sloppy on his job and a whole 747 full of people crashes into the earth and kills everyone. I mean, when you have one job to do and one thing to focus on, You’ve got to do it and focus on it to the best of your ability.

We as believers have been given one job to do, and that’s what we’re going to talk about this morning. And that job is sharing the gospel. And we don’t always do that one job as often or as well or as intentionally as we’re supposed to do.

I was reading this week a book by Erwin Lutzer. Some of you all may have heard of. Phenomenal Bible teacher on the radio.

He’s the pastor at the Moody Bible Church in Chicago. I was reading one of his books this week and came across this. I’d like to read it to you just for a moment.

He says, Perhaps the church doesn’t suffer for the sins of the world as much as the world suffers for the sins of the church. Because of our cowardly silence in the midst of abortion, pornography, and the erosion of our religious liberties, among other things, and because of our acceptance of compromise within the church, the salt has lost its savor and the light flickers. In our desperation, we look for solutions to stem the tide.

We want to have someone rise up and fight our battles for us. Perhaps the answer we seek is close at hand, but we have been confused regarding our agenda. We have failed to be the church at a time when our nation needs to see the righteous examples of leadership and hope.

We are indeed under God’s judgment as a nation, but perhaps we are unaware of it. The matter is worthy of careful thought. We have neglected the unconverted.

This is the first point he makes and the one I’m going to focus on this morning. We give our lives, we have neglected the unconverted. We give our lives to an evangelical subculture that is known to many only by the caricatures of the media.

For us, the evangelical world is our world for many of us. We have our own Christian radio stations, our own Christian TV channels, our own Christian newspapers, our own Christian stores, our own Christian restaurants sometimes. And the rest of the world knows us only from the caricature, the portrait, the exaggerated portrait that the media portrays.

Unfortunately, he says, the message that means most to us is often lost simply because we have been unwilling to share the gospel backed by a credible lifestyle. If each Christian family actively witnessed and discipled those who come to Christ, and we expect much more from our missionaries, our impact among the unconverted would be phenomenal. Yet we are told that 95% of all Christians have never given a clear witness to an unsaved neighbor. However much we may talk about the power of the gospel, we are apparently afraid to share it.

At the root is our reluctance to believe that the gospel is actually the power of God unto salvation, as Romans 1. 16 says it is. And the point that he’s driving home to us here, and the point that I want to make us aware of this morning, before we go to Luke chapter 24, is to realize that we stand here, and all too often, and I’m guilty of this as well, we stand here and we hide the light of the gospel, the light of the gospel that brings hope, the light of the gospel that brings transformation, the light of the gospel that brings reconciliation to God, we take that light and we hide it under the bushel of our evangelical bubble, We hide it under the bushel of taking care of our homes and families and forget about everybody else as long as we’re doing what we’re supposed to.

We hide it under the bushel of being busy. We hide it under the bushel of substituting political activity for gospel activity. We hide the light of the gospel under all these bushels and wonder why the darkness grows around us and sin flourishes and men run eagerly into the gaping maw of hell.

We wonder why that is. And it’s precisely because we have not done our one job. We have one job to do as believers.

And that’s to spread the gospel and make disciples. Jesus outlined his disciples’ marching orders very clearly. Many of you could probably quote it for me.

We know what the Great Commission says in Matthew 28, 18-20. All power is given unto me in heaven and earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.

Amen. He said that, Jesus said that right before he ascended to heaven. Those were the final words, those were the final marching orders that he gave to the disciples.

And yet, let us not think that that’s just an afterthought that Jesus had at the end of his ministry, at the end of his life, that, oh yeah, by the way, it might be a good idea to send the disciples out to spread the gospel. That wasn’t a plan B. That wasn’t an afterthought.

That wasn’t, oh yeah, one more thing. That’s what he spent his entire ministry training them to do. From the moment that he told Peter and Andrew, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

What does that mean? Going after them with the gospel. Plucking men up out of the briny depths and bringing them into the boat too.

From the moment at the beginning of his ministry when he tells Peter and Andrew, follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men. He was training them. He was preparing them.

He was equipping them. He was teaching them to share the gospel. He was showing them what it meant to preach the righteousness of God and the need for forgiveness.

He sent them out two by two. He sent 12 of them out. Later on, he sent 70 out on these little practice runs as they would go throughout the villages and preach.

He was, everything he did throughout his ministry was preparing them for when he was gone to share the message of hope that comes through his death, burial, and resurrection. That was his whole ministry. And we focus a lot on the healings and the miracles, but all of those things, all of those things were really to demonstrate his power and get people’s attention because his real mission was to seek and to save that which was lost and to prepare those who were left behind to do the one job of sharing the gospel.

So all throughout his ministry, this was the big focus. And if you haven’t turned there with me already, turn with me to Luke chapter 24. We’re going to start looking in verse 46 at one of the many places.

I could have picked any number of places this morning. I went with this one right after his resurrection, or a few days after his resurrection rather, when he’s been visiting with the disciples, been sharing a meal with them near the Sea of Galilee, and he’s talking to them again before they leave, and before they, or I’m sorry, this may have been in Jerusalem. I’ve been doing a lot of writing and a lot of study on the post-resurrection appearances this week, and I may have confused where this took place.

Forgive me for that. But this is after the resurrection, and he spent some time eating and visiting with the disciples, sharing really one of the last few intimate times that they would have of fellowship. And as they’re doing this, he says, by the way, there’s a job I’ve got for you to do.

Now, he’s told them before, and he’ll tell them again. But the way he phrased this one really stuck out to me. He says in verse 45, it says, Then opened he their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures, because he’s been taking them through the law of Moses, he’s been taking them through the prophets and saying, By the way, all of this stuff pointed to me, pointed to Jesus.

And it says in verse 46, And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and the remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. He says in verse 48, And ye are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you.

But tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. So as he’s taken them through the entire Old Testament, and he’s explained that the point of all of it was his coming, that all of it pointed to him. And I’ve told you before, the prophecies point to him.

The promises point to him. The pictures. Now the difference is, Isaiah said, here’s a sign, a virgin will conceive and bear a child.

That’s a prophecy. When God looked at Adam and Eve and the snake in the garden and said, the seed of the woman will crush your head and you’ll bruise his heel. When God told David, I will raise up somebody from your household to sit on your throne forever.

Those are promises. When God told them to go out and make sacrifices and told them to take lambs that were without blemish, and told them to sprinkle the blood, and God told them all these things. Those were pictures.

All of these things were done in preparation for them to receive Jesus Christ when he came. And after they understood that, after they understood how all of the Old Testament had been preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ, he said, now, what needed to happen? Because it was written, the Messiah needed to suffer.

It was God’s plan, it was God’s purpose for the Messiah to suffer on the cross. and for him to rise again the third day. See, they totally missed it.

They and so many of the others in Jerusalem were looking for an earthly king when the Messiah came. They sort of mixed up some of the prophecies that talked about his first coming and his second coming. So they were expecting somebody to come in as a great leader and kick the Romans out.

And they missed all the talk in Isaiah about him suffering. They missed the talk, some of them missed the talk in Micah about his humble birth. They missed all these Old Testament prophecies.

and Peter said, I’m not going to let you be crucified. I’m not going to let this happen to you. David wrote about it in Psalm chapter 22, his suffering.

Isaiah wrote about it in Isaiah 53. He said this was God’s plan all along. This wasn’t, oops, well, Jesus got crucified.

I didn’t see that coming. This was God’s plan all along that the Messiah, when you see that word Christ, it’s not his last name. It means that he’s the Messiah.

It was needed that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his name. So first of all this morning, folks, Jesus gave us a message to share. We want to talk about what this one job is.

Jesus gave us a message to share. And I know that because he gave it to them. And it wasn’t for them only, because they turned around then and spent the rest of their lives testifying, sharing that message, and teaching others to share that message.

Jesus prayed for the ones who would, before his crucifixion, he prayed for those who would share the message. Not only the twelve, but he told the Father, he said, I don’t pray for these only, but I pray also for those who will come after them. I believe that’s John 17.

Jesus prayed for us. Jesus prayed for you, because we share in the same job. He has given us a message to share.

That message is that it was God’s plan for the Messiah to suffer on the cross. That was God’s plan from eternity past. As I’ve said before, God didn’t wake up one morning and say, well, I didn’t expect that to happen. The Bible teaches that Jesus was slain from before the foundation of the world.

That was God’s plan before he ever made us. God created us knowing that we would sin and knowing that we would need a Savior because we couldn’t save ourselves. And God created us knowing that he would have to send his Son to pay for our sins.

It has always been God’s plan that the Messiah would suffer and die on the cross. But it wasn’t God’s plan just to leave the Messiah there. David wrote about it, wrote about the Holy One not suffering corruption and not being left in hell, meaning being left in the earth.

No, it was always God’s plan to raise him up. It was always God’s plan to raise the Messiah from the dead. It was always God’s plan that Jesus would rise again.

Jesus predicted it numerous times. As a matter of fact, the Pharisees, after they’d seen all these miracles and seen all these wondrous things, still doubted that Jesus was who he claimed to be. Still doubted that he was the Son of God.

Still doubted that he was the Messiah. And they came and said, yes, we’d like to see a sign. And Jesus looked at them.

You’ve seen all these signs and you’re still not convinced that God’s at work here. The only sign you’re going to get is the sign of the prophet Jonah. And he goes on to explain what that means.

That just like Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, he would be in the belly of the earth for three days and three nights. He would be in the grave for three days and three nights. And just as Jonah was vomited up on the shore by the whale, so the Son of Man, so the Son of God would come out of the earth at the end of three days and three nights.

He said, that’s the only sign you’re going to get. I think that’s a pretty big sign. I think that’s a pretty convincing sign.

People don’t just come back from the dead. And yet he came back from the dead and they still didn’t believe. Tells me Jesus knew what he was doing.

Because if they’re not going to believe at the resurrection, there was no sign he could give that they were going to accept. So Jesus told them, after three days and three nights in the earth, I will rise again. Jesus told them, tear down the temple and in three days I’ll raise it up again.

Now they got upset. This temple took all these years to build and you think you’re going to raise it up again in three days. He was talking about something even more incredible than that.

They didn’t realize he was talking about his own body. Not this temple, but this temple. Tear it down, I’ll raise it up again in three days.

See, Jesus had been telling them all along, this is the plan. this is the plan and that’s the message that we share today it’s a very simple message and we worry sometimes I can’t share the gospel because I don’t know enough I don’t understand enough I don’t care how long you study there will always be questions that you can’t answer okay I have been a believer for 26 years now way more than half my life and I have studied for a good chunk of that now you know Part of that, I was a child learning Sunday school stories. I haven’t had the luxury of a seminary education, but I have an inquisitive mind and I want to know things.

Charlo is all the time, what are you doing? You playing a game on the computer? No, I’m reading something.

I want to know things. Why don’t you come to bed? Because there are still things I want to know.

I will sit up and read all night because I want to know things. And what I’ve learned over the years is the more I know, the more I realize I don’t know. And the more questions I answer in my mind, the more unanswered questions there are.

I’m telling you this to say that there will always be things you don’t know. There will always be questions you can’t answer. But you don’t have to know everything.

You don’t have to have all the questions answered before you can share the gospel because it’s a very simple message. That Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. That he was buried and he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.

Now that’s a direct quote from 1 Corinthians chapter 15. When Paul is talking to the church at Corinth about what is the gospel, that’s it. That’s it.

Jesus Christ died for our sins. He died to pay for our sins, just like the Bible said he would. And he was buried and he rose again the third day, as the Bible said he would.

Now from there, there’s the corollary, there’s the tangent, if you will. There’s the point that grows off of that, that says now because he’s done that, God offers salvation as a free gift. Well, where did Cain’s wife come from?

That doesn’t matter. That doesn’t have anything to do with the gospel. Well, can God make a rock so heavy he couldn’t?

That has nothing to do with the gospel. The gospel, the message we’ve been given is very simple. And whether it’s being spelled out by Jesus here in the book of Luke, whether it’s being spelled out by Paul in the book of 1 Corinthians, it’s all the same.

Jesus died to pay for our sins. And then he rose again from the dead. And now he offers salvation as a free gift.

It’s a very simple message. The death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But I can’t remember all these points. I can’t remember all this theology.

You don’t have to. It’s a simple story. Jesus died for our sins and rose again.

Jesus died for our sins and rose again. Eight words? Simple.

Now it has a lot of implications. And we can spend the rest of our lives studying and plumbing the depths and the riches of what that means for us. But it starts with something very simple.

Jesus died for our sins and rose again. And because of this, we read on in verse 7 that because he needed to suffer and die and rise from the dead, he says that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations. So because of this, we go and we preach repentance and remission of sins.

That word repentance, I’ve tried to explain before, but in case you weren’t here, let’s talk again about what it means. It does not mean, it does not literally mean turning your back on your sin. We will hear that.

Repent and turn from your sin. Because encapsulated in that is the idea that we’ve got to clean ourselves up to come to faith in Jesus Christ. I’ve got to get my life together when I come to Jesus Christ by faith, or he won’t accept me. Folks, the problem with that is that we cannot clean up our lives enough to be acceptable to God.

That’s what the cross was there for in the first place. Repentance does not mean to stop sinning. Now God will clean you up and God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the sanctifying work that He does, and we’ve talked about sanctification in recent weeks, God will clean you up.

Your sin should decrease. Your want to should change. All of that should happen.

But that’s not what repentance means. Repentance, literally in the Greek, means that you are changing your mind. And that change of mind means that we go from being people who sin and we hate God and we love our sin and we just want to wallow in it and who cares what God says?

Do we hear that message of the gospel? We hear that commandment to repent and we realize that God is right and we are wrong and that it does matter what God says. Repentance doesn’t mean that we go from sinners to saints.

We go to what we turn into wonderful people well behaved. It means we go from sinners who hate God and love our sin to sinners who hate our sin and realize we need to get right with God. He said to preach repentance, that there is a command to repent, that there is a command that your sin is real and it’s wrong and God says it’s going to be judged.

God says there will be consequences. And the world says, who cares what God says? And the repentant heart says, he’s right.

He’s right. And so we preach not only repentance, but the remission of sins. That word remission means forgiveness.

The main place we use that word today is dealing with the disease. The cancer’s in remission. Those are words we look for.

Those are words we hope for. The cancer being in remission means that this death sentence has been removed from us. Same thing with the forgiveness of sins.

That God is willing to look at us because of what Jesus Christ did and remember our sins no more. He will choose not to hold our sins against us because of what Jesus Christ did. So the message that we take to the world is that Jesus died for our sins and rose again, and because of that, we need to take sin seriously and agree with God and accept the forgiveness that God offers.

It’s such a simple message. It’s not always easy to accept because we in our flesh don’t want to repent. We don’t want to admit that God is right and we’re wrong.

We want to justify what we’ve done. It’s not an easy message always to accept, but it’s such a simple message to proclaim. And that’s the message that God has given us.

Jesus gave us a message to share, but he also gave us a mission to fulfill. The mission that we fulfill is to take that message with us and go tell other people. He says that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem, and ye are witnesses of these things.

I want to start with that statement, ye are witnesses. He instructed them, and by extension, us, to go and tell people what we’ve experienced. He’s given us a mission to fulfill.

He says, go and tell other people what you’ve experienced. Go tell what you know. You don’t have to make up these grandiose speeches.

Just go tell people what you know. If I saw a crime committed, and the police asked me, because I’m a witness, the police asked me to tell them about it, They’re not expecting me to give them every detail that they would figure out by forensics. They don’t want me to make up things I didn’t see.

They’re just wanting me to tell them what I saw, what I heard, what I experienced. And folks, if you’ve experienced what Jesus can do for you, if you’ve experienced the forgiveness of sins because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross, because of his death on the cross, and because of his resurrection, if you’ve experienced the forgiveness of sins that God offers, you can tell somebody else what you experienced.

and again that answers the objection well I don’t, there’s so much I don’t know I don’t understand all the theology tell somebody what happened to you if you’ve experienced the forgiveness of sins then you can tell somebody about the forgiveness of sins if you’ve been convinced that the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ are the truth then you can tell somebody what you’re convinced of he says we’re supposed to go and be witness of these things now they were eyewitnesses many of them to the crucifixion if not the moment of the resurrection than at least the reality of the resurrected Christ. And they could go and tell people firsthand, hey, I walked with this guy. I saw him do miracles. I saw him die on that cross.

I saw them take his body down. They buried him. We watched him seal up the tomb.

And then I don’t know, three days later, he was alive again. And he wasn’t just a spirit because he walked with us. He talked with us.

He showed us the wounds. He offered to let us feel him. He ate with us.

He’s alive. I don’t know what to tell you. He’s alive.

And they went out as witnesses to that. Now, we didn’t see that firsthand. But folks, we’ve got excellent eyewitness testimony in front of us.

We’ve got Matthew who wrote down the things that he saw and heard. We’ve got Luke, a doctor, a scientific mind, who wrote down the things that he saw and heard. We have John Mark who wrote down what Peter saw and heard.

And we had John who was there and wrote down what he saw and heard. And I know some people will say, well, that’s just the Bible. I mean, just the Bible.

I don’t care what you think about the Bible. These are eyewitness accounts. And we don’t just throw those away because we don’t like the people who wrote them.

And by ancient standards, we have an incredible wealth of information attesting to the historical, scientific, medical fact of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So even if I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I have enough evidence to convince me that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. As a matter of fact, I have enough evidence that it would take more faith for me to believe that he didn’t. I can be witness to what I know.

And because of what I know, what I’ve experienced, that Jesus Christ was who He said He was, that He rose from the dead, and that He has forgiven my sins and He has changed my heart. And I don’t necessarily look back at who I was before I was saved because I was five. I didn’t have time to get in much trouble.

But I can look at who I was a year ago. I can look at who I was five years ago, ten years ago, twenty years ago, and I can see how God has not only taught me things, but how God has changed my heart, how God has softened my heart, and how far God still has to go in changing me, but I can see the change. I’ve experienced the change that Jesus Christ offers, and I can tell somebody.

So we’re called to be witnesses of the things that we’ve experienced. He said to carry the message to the whole world. He doesn’t say just go where it’s comfortable.

He doesn’t just say stay where you are. He doesn’t say if you feel like it. He says go and take the message to the whole world.

That’s our mission. It doesn’t mean that I personally can go and carry the message to all, what is it now, 8 billion people on the planet? I can’t personally do that.

I can’t personally take the gospel to every person in Seminole. But together, if we were all doing our one job, together we could preach the gospel to every creature. Together we could give every person on this planet the opportunity to hear about Jesus Christ and respond in faith.

Folks, look at this. He also tells them to begin where they are. He says, repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his name among all nations.

He says, beginning at Jerusalem. He says, start where you are. Start where you are.

Don’t wait. Don’t wait until someday in the future when you know more. Friend, don’t wait until someday in the future where you’ve got your life more together, or someday in the future where you feel more spiritual, or someday in the future when all these things line up, someday in the future where God sends you overseas, or I’m going to go on a mission trip.

Start where you are. He told them, start at Jerusalem. Yes, take the gospel to the whole world, but start right where you are.

God has not put you where you are and when you are by accident. Some of y’all read on Facebook where I was talking about a conversation I’d had with Charlie when I was writing some of these lessons on the life of Christ. And she said, wouldn’t you like to have been there to see these things firsthand? And I thought about it for a minute and said no. And I think I surprised her.

No, I’m glad I was not there to see these things firsthand. I think it surprised her. It probably surprises some of you to hear me say that.

But as I’m reading these stories, I’m thinking I think a lot like the Pharisees. And if I had been raised in a traditional Jewish household in first century Israel, instead of a traditional Baptist household in 20th century Oklahoma, there’s a really good chance I would have turned out to be a Pharisee rather than a Christian. And the more I thought about that, I realized God puts us where we are and when we are for a reason.

And God puts us where we are and when we are, I believe, to give us an opportunity to be drawn to Jesus Christ. God knew what it would take to draw me to Jesus Christ, and he put me right where I needed to be. Folks, the people around you, and where you are and when you are, is no accident. I believe God put you right where you are to be a witness to draw people to Jesus Christ. Because he knew what you, he knew how he could use you, and he knew what they needed.

Don’t wait. Don’t wait until you run off to Antioch, or run off to Damascus. Start at Jerusalem.

Start right where you are. Start where you are and when you are. He gave us a mission to fulfill.

And finally this morning, He gave us the means to follow through. Jesus gave us the means to follow through. He says all of this, and then He says, And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you.

But tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high. He says, I’m going to send you the promise of my Father. God had promised them supernatural power as they went and served Him.

God had promised to be with them in power. Now, I believe that means the coming of the Holy Spirit. He says, you’re going to receive the power to go forth and do this mission.

You’re not going to be sent alone. He says, but wait. Wait in Jerusalem.

Some minute ago I told you don’t wait, but now I’m telling you to wait. You don’t have to wait because if you’re a believer, you have the Holy Spirit. They had to wait about 40 or 50 day