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The River ChurchSermons

REACH, GATHER, GROW

Reach in Romans

Justin Dean · Sunday, 7 September 2025 · Romans 3:10-18; 3:23; 6:23; 5:8; 10:9-10; 10:13 · 49:22 · 7,676 words

Romans S20 · 3:10-18; 3:23; 6:23; 5:8; 10:9-10; 10:13 Davison

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The sermon explains the church’s three‑fold mission—reach, gather, and grow—focusing on the call to reach the world with the gospel. Using Acts 1:8 and Romans 1:14‑16, it shows that every believer is obligated to share the good news locally, nationally, and universally. The speaker asks listeners to pick one person they care about and commit to reaching that person through prayer, a lived‑out witness, and a clear explanation of the gospel. He notes that the Holy Spirit provides the power, so all that is needed is willingness to be used.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

gospel 75 restoration 12 mission 17 disciple 19 trip 14 tool 10 share 24 fundamental 8 explain 14 reality 20 reach 17 mess 13

Topics

The Gospel 17 Sin 7 Salvation 7 Prayer 4 Faith 4 Condemnation 3 The Holy Spirit 2 Atonement & Sacrifice 1

Scripture referenced 25

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Acts 1 4:24 Acts 1 4:34 Acts 1 4:37 Acts 1 4:37 Acts 1 4:42 Acts 1:8 5:34 Romans 1 15:19 Romans 1 15:44 Romans 1:14 15:44 Romans 1:16 16:10 Romans 3:10 20:18 Romans 3:10-18 22:10 Romans 3:23 22:10 Romans 3:10-18 22:15 Romans 3:23 22:15 Romans 3:23 23:00 Romans 6 25:53 Romans 6:23 26:25 Romans 5 29:54 Romans 5 29:55 Romans 5 31:58 Romans 10 35:55 Romans 10 36:09 Romans 10:9 36:09 Romans 10:13 41:18

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

So, we are taking a little bit of a sidestep this morning.

I bet you guys were expecting me to say, so, we're back in Romans, and that's partly true.

We're staying in Romans, we're staying in Romans, but one of the things that we do twice

a year is we take some time out of our normal series, and we talk about what the mission

of the church should be.

And so, there are really kind of three things that, when we look at Scripture, we see God's

people are called to do.

And so, we have kind of narrowed that down to, you know, obviously, we had to make it

kind of a catchy slogan, but the idea is reach, gather, grow.

And so, you will look around at our location, and you will see those words around a lot.

Reach, gather, grow.

The idea that we should reach the world according to...

The gospel of Jesus Christ.

That there are lost people in our world who do not know Jesus, and we are called to reach

them with the gospel.

And the second is to gather together as the saints.

Specifically, we are called saints as we have become believers in Christ Jesus, and we are

called to gather together and learn, gather together and celebrate, gather together and

worship, be together as the church.

And the last is to grow in the word.

Grow according to the word of God, that we are not meant to stay stagnant, we are not

meant to plateau, that we should grow as believers, unified together according to the gospel of

And so, these are kind of the tenets when we look and say, hey, what are we supposed

to do as believers?

These are the things.

Reach the world, gather with the saints, and grow in the word.

And so, we take time to go over this twice a year because sometimes it can be easy to

forget that those are the things that we're called to do.

When we talk about the fundamentals, these are kind of it, right?

Whether you grew up an athlete or a musician or whatever it was, you had fundamentals.

And so, if you're a musician, you always started with scales.

If you were an athlete, there was always certain warm-ups that you did.

Certain drills that kind of honed in on the fundamentals.

And so, for us as believers, we have to hone in on those fundamentals.

We have to remind ourselves that this is what we're called to do as believers so that we

don't get distracted by a distracting world.

And so, as we, over the next couple weeks, look at what that means for our lives, we're

going to take a look at how we see those things throughout the book of Romans.

One of the great things about the book of Romans is that it's not just about the

book of Romans is, and I've said it multiple weeks, is it's Paul's very baseline description

to the church at Rome as who they are supposed to be as believers, who they're supposed to

be as believers, and why they are supposed to be that way.

And so, Paul is describing to the believers there, hey, here are the fundamentals of the

And so, guess what?

We see these things throughout his writings.

Reach the world, gather with the saints, and grow in God's word.

And so, we're going to talk a little bit about that this morning, but before we do, let's

pray together if you'd bow your heads with me.

Lord, we thank you.

We thank you just for your word that you have given us to teach us and help us to learn

and understand who we're supposed to be, Lord, that we have this truth, this truth that we

can base our lives on.

Lord, I pray for wisdom and understanding this morning that we would understand what

your word has to say and that we'd have the wisdom to live it out in our lives.

Lord, such a simple prayer, but such a deep need in our lives to understand your word

and the wisdom to live it out in our lives.

Lord, we pray these things in your precious and holy name, Jesus' name.

So, like I said, we're taking a little bit of a sidestep.

So, turn with me to Acts chapter 1 to start off.

You can leave that red tab in Romans.

We're going to be back in Romans this morning.

We'll be back in Romans throughout the course of this series.

But turn with me to Acts chapter 1.

Here in Acts chapter 1, the reason why it's called Acts chapter 1 is because it's called

Acts is because it's the Acts of the Apostles.

And we see in Acts chapter 1, Jesus is getting ready to ascend and he's leaving his disciples

with some very key instructions.

And so he tells them, he says, hey, here's the deal.

The Holy Spirit is coming.

And we talked a lot about the Holy Spirit throughout the last couple weeks.

We talked about the value of its life, or the value of it in our lives.

And so we look here and we see kind of this precursor promise that Jesus gives right before he ascends to the disciples.

He says, hey, get ready. The Holy Spirit is coming.

And here is what I want you to do when you have the Holy Spirit in your lives.

Here is the direction, this is kind of the final direction that he's leaving them with before he gets ready to leave.

And he says this, Acts 1 verse 8 says this,

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

And so here what Jesus leaves them on.

What he's off with is he says, hey, here's the deal.

You're going to receive this immense power from the Holy Spirit in your lives.

And here's what I want you to do with it.

I want you to go and to be my witnesses in Judea, or in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and in all of the world.

It is your job as my disciples to go and make more disciples.

It is your job to go and to make.

Make more disciples.

You are called to witness.

As a disciple, a key describing feature of a disciple is a disciple makes disciples.

Now, I know what you're thinking.

Hey, Justin, are you getting ready to unveil, you know, some big evangelism crusade?

Or are you getting ready to announce, you know, a mission trip where we're going to go to a third world country

and we're going to share the gospel as we go and we do a bunch of things there?

No.

Why?

Why?

Because.

Look at the description that Jesus gives.

They are waiting in Jerusalem.

And he says, the Holy Spirit is getting ready to come upon you, and you will be my witness first in Jerusalem,

next in Judea and Samaria, and finally to the end of the earth.

So what he's saying is, you are called to make disciples.

You are called to share the gospel locally, nationally, and universally.

Jerusalem is the city they are in.

Go and walk out your door and be my witness.

Go down the street and share the gospel.

Go make disciples at your workplace.

Go make disciples at your neighborhood supermarket.

Go locally and share the gospel.

Then go nationally, Judea and Samaria, where the surrounding regions.

And then, universally, hey, I'm going to send some of you to go to different countries and different continents and different places throughout the world to be my witness.

But he starts here locally, Jerusalem.

For us, it's Davison.

There should be a clear focus in our lives to go and share the gospel.

To share the gospel specifically with those around us.

We don't have to go on a mission trip.

We don't have to go on a mission trip.

We don't have to go on a mission trip.

We don't have to go on a mission trip.

We don't have to go on a mission trip.

We don't have to go on a mission trip.

We don't have to go on a mission trip.

We don't have to go on a mission trip.

We don't have to go on a mission trip.

We don't have to go on a mission trip.

We don't have to go on a mission trip.

We don't have to go on a mission trip.

We don't have to go on a mission trip.

then they trust me. That's the reality. They're your friends. If they're willing to give up a

Sunday morning to show up here, guess what? They trust you enough with their time that whatever

you say to them is going to be far more impactful than what I say to them. And so, yes, we're called

to invite them to come to the body of Christ. Yes, we provide tools and resources to you like

Trunk or Treat and the Egg Drop to give you a chance to invite those people and to come and see

the goodness of God's people and to come and hear the gospel. But really, what they are is tools.

They are valuable tools that should lead you to share the gospel. But the problem is

where we look at the disciples and they saw the gospel work itself out, right? They watched Jesus'

death. They experienced his resurrection. They had the tools to share the gospel. Many

disciples today are not equipped with the tools to share the gospel. I want to ask you this

question. Imagine that someone at your school, at your workplace, at the supermarket, wherever,

they came up to you and said, hey, I know you. I've seen you around. And you go to church. I

want to know Jesus. I desperately want to know Jesus. Will you tell me how to know Jesus? Will

you please explain the gospel to me? Will you tell me how to know Jesus? Will you please explain the

gospel. I've heard this word, the gospel. I've heard how it leads to salvation. Will you please

share the gospel with me? I'm dying to know. What would your response be? What would your response

be? Because the reality is, many times people don't know how to respond. You say things like,

Jesus changed my life. I'm sure that's true. That doesn't tell them how they can receive salvation.

Hey, why don't you come to church with me? Once again, very valuable resource. I'm glad you invited

them to church, but why wait that long to explain the gospel? If we talk about the need for the

gospel, and we talk about how crucial the gospel is to our lives, and how deeply Jesus changed our

lives, and how important our church family is, why are we not ready to share the gospel? A lot of

times what we say is, oh, you know what? I'm going to live my life in a way that people can see that

I'm a believer. And we're called to do that to what end? To demonstrate Jesus Christ to them

in order that they may come to salvation in Jesus Christ. Yes, you're called to live your witness

out in your life, but you need to share the gospel alongside of that. Why would God present

gospel opportunities in your life if you don't know how to share the gospel? It's a difficult

question. Why would God present opportunities for you to share the gospel if you don't know how to

share the gospel?

You want to know what it kind of reminds me of? You know, a lot of times we will see on like TV or

basically on like fail highlight reels of like people who they're like celebrities, and they're

going to a baseball game to throw out the first pitch. And they throw the first pitch, and it's

like abysmal, like it like spikes right in front of them, or it's like way off to the left, right?

And I look and I'm like, you knew what you were supposed to do, right? Like you had to throw a

ball to the catcher. All these eyes were going to be on you. Why did you not go and practice how to

throw a ball, right? Like, why did you not go and be like, hey, you know, I'm not a pitcher, but the

best I could do is, you know, like I'll throw like five or ten times to just make sure that I can get

it there or do it, right? Like, and that's where we look and we say, hey, the same is true of our

spiritual lives. We talk all this big talk about how we want people in our world to come to know

Jesus, how we desperately want our family members to come to know Jesus, how we desperately want our

family members to come to know Jesus, how we desperately want our family members to come to know

Jesus, and then we have no idea how to lead them, how to walk them through the gospel. And so when

Paul looks at Romans, he says, that is a defining feature of a disciple. A disciple knows how to

make disciples. A disciple knows the gospel. Why? Because they believe the gospel and they

and because they desperately want to share the gospel with the world around them.

And so, as we walk through Romans, we see these pieces of the gospel creep up.

Why? Because Paul's explaining the gospel.

And Paul really says that this is the chief focus of Romans.

Turn with me to Romans chapter 1.

So, like I said, don't take your finger out of Romans, right?

We'll be back there.

We're going to be walking through Romans for the rest of the morning.

Here, Paul immediately looks and says, hey, this is the call of believers.

And specifically, it is my life.

It is me.

This is me.

Romans chapter 1, look at verse 14.

It says this.

I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.

So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for the salvation to everyone who believes,

to the Jew first and to also the Greek.

And so he looks here and he says, hey, the reality of why I'm writing this to you is because I am obligated to make sure that you know the gospel.

And so.

So I will preach it.

And guess what?

I am not afraid to preach it.

I am not hesitant to preach it.

I'm not scared to preach it.

And he looks and he says, because I am not ashamed of the gospel.

Why?

Because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

He looks and he says, there is a necessity in my life because I have experienced the salvation that the gospel brings.

And I am obligated as a disciple of Christ to preach the gospel.

And so he looks and he says, now watch.

I will explain it to you first.

And then you go and explain it to others.

I will explain.

I'll walk you through the fundamentals of the gospel.

And then guess what?

You begin to walk others through the fundamentals of the gospel.

And so look, we're going to do that this morning.

Because when we look and we say, hey, we believe that we're called to share the gospel.

You may look and say, Justin, amen, I believe that I am called to share the gospel.

Okay, let's talk about how to do that.

And so you may have noticed on your way in, as you sat down, there was a card on your seat or on the seat next to you.

And on it, it says, the Romans road.

And so as we look at the book of Romans, and as Paul specifically says, hey, here's what I'm called to do, to preach the gospel.

Here I'm going to do it.

Not ashamed of it.

This is my mission.

He begins to highlight all these different pieces of the gospel.

And so on here is a way to walk through the gospel with someone.

A super easy way, super simple way for you to look and say, hey, I want to share the gospel with someone.

What are kind of the spark notes?

What are the highlights?

What are the things that I need to make sure that we focus on?

Now, it's important to know, we did not invent the Romans road.

The Romans road, right?

The Romans road has been around for a long, long time.

So much so that I tried to look up, like, who was the first person to coin it?

And, like, Google couldn't even tell me, right?

It was that late in antiquity, right?

This has been a common theme, right?

For believers to utilize the book of Romans to walk people through the truth of the gospel.

And so we're going to walk through it this morning.

And so this card, it could really easily in your mind become something like, hey, I need to get, like, 40 printouts of this.

So I can just give it away or, like, put it on every person's desk in my office before they get there.

That is not the point of this card, okay?

If you give this to someone, that's awesome.

I'm not banning this card from being given out, right?

It's not meant to be secret.

But the reason why we give you this is not so that it can be a track or something that you hand out.

It's for you.

It's so that you have a tool.

So when you're talking to a coworker and they're telling you how hopeless they are

and how in need of a tool, it's for you.

It's for you.

Or you're talking to someone and you're trying to explain the gospel.

You can look and say, I have a resource.

And instead of handing them this, explain this to them.

Because they don't need another thing to read.

There's a million things.

things on Facebook and TikTok and all these different things where they can go and read

stuff, they need you to share your life with them. And so this is there so that you can help

walk them through that and not just say, here's another thing for you to read, okay? So let's walk

through it. Romans 3.10, head there. So you see under this thing we have one, two, three, four,

five. So I have them in my notes a little bit differently. And that's because that's how I

think of them, not because this is wrong. I actually really love the way that this is. But

I am a big question guy, all right? I love to ask questions. I love when people ask me questions.

And you can ask my wife how annoying I am with questions because I'll ask questions like literally

24-7 if I don't understand. And so as we talk about this idea of explaining the gospel, in my

mind, I work through it in the sense of, hey, if I'm someone who has no understanding of church,

no understanding of the Bible, no understanding of this, and you came and said these things to me,

I would have some questions. And I would hope that you would have the answers to the questions,

and that's why we're walking through that. So the first thing is, as we look about at number one,

all have sinned. Or in my notes, I have the universal condemnation of all people, right? I

didn't make it really fancy. The question that I have in my mind is, I'm a believer, I don't know

Jesus, and you come and tell me that I need a Savior. My first question is going to be, why?

You could tell me till you're blue in the face, I need saving, but I don't know what I need saving

from. Why should I care what you have to say when I don't even know that I need saving from anyone?

So the reality is, why do I need a Savior?

If you were here at the beginning of our series, he does a great job of explaining why you need a

Savior, specifically through Romans 3, 10 through 18, and then verse 23. It says this, follow along

with me, Romans chapter 3, verses 10 through 18, and then we'll jump down to verse 23. It says this,

as it is written, no one is righteous, no, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God.

All have turned aside. Together, they have become worthless.

No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive

the venom of asps under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are

swift to shed blood, and their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes. Jump down to verse 23. For all have sinned and fall

short of the glory of God. So the reality is, you are a sinner. You sin. You messed up. You do

evil things. You say hurtful words. You've done hurtful things. You've lied. You could go down

the list, right? You have done things wrong, and because of that, you are evil. As much as you want

to say or think to yourself that you're a good person, the reality is, you are a sinner. You

have on, you have been marked for condemnation. Why? Not because of anything that was anyone else's

fault, but because of your sin. In a kind way, what I say usually is, you stink, right? Like,

that's the reality, is we stink. We mess up, and that's what Paul's saying here, is all have fallen

short of the glory of God. So there's this standard of perfection. No one wants a God

that's not perfect, because it doesn't make any sense. And so we look at God, and we know that

he's perfect, and he holds this perfect standard of holiness, this perfect standard of glory. And

in order for us to be worthy, we have to meet that standard. And we know it's a common saying,

nobody's perfect. We all fall short. We all don't live up. We all are under that uniformed

condemnation. So why do you need a Savior? Because you are a mess. Kindly, you are a mess.

MMS. We need Jesus. And here's an awesome opportunity to

you to explain who you were before Jesus. And I would imagine that a great way to characterize it

would be a wreck, because that's who I was before Jesus, a wreck. Like I said, your testimony is one

of the best, the best things that you can use when you're talking to someone that you know,

that you love. Why? Because you can tell them all these things so they're blue in the face until

they see it in your life. And they know, they see, they see who you are now, they see maybe who you

were if they've known you quite a long time, and they know they can see your need, right? Your need

for a Savior. So the second one, two, the consequences of sin. All right, I said the realities of that

condemnation for humanity, the reality of that condemnation for humanity. Turn to Romans 6.

The question here really is the same. Why am I in need of a Savior? Okay, yes, I understand

that nobody's perfect. I understand, you know, I don't live up to perfection towards God,

but like why does that really impact? Like we're all kind of in that same ship. None of us live up

according to perfection. And so why, still, why is there this need for the Savior? And here Paul lays

out that truth, Romans 6, 23. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life

in Christ Jesus. And so you look and you say, hey, the world tries to offer this hope. The world tries to

peddle off peace and truth and all these different things. But the reality is all of us fall short of

perfection. All of it is cheap knockoffs for God. And the reality is the entire world, all of humanity

is hopeless, both from a physical perspective, a worldly perspective, and a spiritual one as well.

Why? Because the wages of sin is death. Sin,

brings apart death. The very minimum thing that we can earn from our sin is death. Eternal separation

from God, right? We talk about minimum wage. That's the very baseline. That's where you start,

right? Everyone starts here at minimum wage based off the work you do. When we sin, the very minimum

wage we earn is eternal separation from God in hell. You say, wait, what more could there be than

that? Well, consequences on earth. Some of us have lived some of those really harsh consequences for

our sin here on earth. But there's people who you think, oh, they get away with their sin all the

time. Guess what? They're not. Why? Because the reality is you will experience death, physical

separation from God. You will experience an eternity in hell without God. The wages of sin

is death. Everyone physically dies. Why? Because everyone has sinned.

And everyone is condemned to an eternity separated from God. An eternity of death because life is

life with God and death is separation from God. And so we are hopeless. So you look and you say,

why do you need a savior? One, because you're not perfect. Nobody's perfect. And guess what?

That lack of perfection means you are distanced from God because God's holy perfect standard

And we don't meet that. And so the wage is death. And then so we look and we say, all right, let's

look at number three. Christ died for a sin or the restoration of humanity from this condemnation.

So you have this picture. You say, okay, so we're all condemned. Here are the consequences of that

condemnation. So we're all experiencing those things. And then, okay, I don't want that, right?

I don't want to spend an eternity in hell. I don't want to be separated from God. I need,

you know, restoration. So restoration of humanity from that condemnation, Christ dying for us.

So the next question that logically comes is, why is Christ that savior? There's a million other

religions. There's a million other self-help. There's a million other ways towards inner peace

and all these different things. Why is Christ significant? And here's where we see it. Romans

chapter five, turn there.

Romans chapter five, turn there.

when you look at all these multitude of other things, it's all about you or us, right? It's

like, hey, I can reach this. I can learn enough. I can do enough things. I can, you know, climb my

way up the ladder and I can somehow resolve the evil that I've done. And in reality, that sounds

good because we are all about that pull yourself up by your bootstraps thought process, right? That

mentality. Oh, I can fix it. I can be in control and I can do it. But when you work that out to

the nth degree, you realize your life has to be a constant scoreboard, right? Where you have to

say, oh, you know, I messed up here. I messed up and did this one thing. Okay, now I have to do

two good things. And then while I'm doing those two good things, I had a bad thought. Now I got

to go do two more good things, right? And then all of a sudden it's like, I have to do four billion

good things to make up for all the bad things that I've done. It doesn't make sense. There,

many people call him the father of Protestantism because really he kind of started the Reformation,

but his name was Martin Luther. And for a long time, he believed that, right? That he could

earn his way, you know, that he could do enough things to offset the bad things that he did.

And what happened is he spent so much time in confession, so much time in prayer, so much time,

uh, fasting and trying to figure it out. He actually permanently ruined his body. If you

look at the history of him and he looked and he said, there's no way that this could be what God

calls us to. I don't know how I'm ever supposed to reach anyone with the gospel because I'm,

I'm spending so much time just trying to write the wrong things that I've done. And so it's,

it doesn't make sense. And so he went to specifically the book of Romans and to some

other books as well. And he looked at me and he said, I need to understand. And he see things like Romans 5,

8, which are very crucial passages for that. But God shows his love for us in order or in that while

we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And so here we see this description where we say, okay,

why is Christ the savior? Because Christ is the only way that our sin can be absolved.

Every other religion, every other way says you, you, you, you, you. And we look and we say, hey,

what about one and two, all of sin and the consequences of sin? If we're looking at my

track record, basically all I do is mess things up. And so I'm in need of someone to write the

ship. And what Paul says here is you have to realize the only part you play in the gospel is

being a sinner, right? That's what he says. But God shows his love for us, right? That's God

that while we were still sinners, us, Christ died for us. God

is the resolution. God brings the restoration. God steps in and he does these things for us. How?

He sent Christ Jesus. Well, we look and we see that Christ's life is perfect. He never sinned.

He was tempted by the devil and resisted, never sinned. Then guess what? He went to the cross,

experienced physical death, was berated, beaten, spat on, killed, died, a physical death,

descended into hell and raised again, showing that he conquered death, that he was greater than

that punishment, that he had power, that he did not answer to sin and death, but sin and death

answered to him. And so how is Christ the savior? He is the only one that provides restoration

through his death and resurrection, that through his payment, he paid the wage that we earned

he earned it himself. He went to the cross. He died for us. Having never earned that,

he still took it upon himself. And so here is the picture of the gospel. Once again,

highlight your testimony. Here's who I was. I was a mess. I was a wreck. I didn't deserve anything.

God loved me enough, even though I was a wreck, even though I was a mess, even though I didn't

earn it. I couldn't tell you why God loved me enough because he's God. He's better than me.

And he offered me salvation only through Jesus Christ.

I tried it all. I tried self-help groups. I tried, you know, all these different things

in my life. I tried to find inner peace. I went to different places.

the reality is I could not resolve it on my own. Only Christ could provide restoration for me.

And so then we continue on to four, confess and believe. Now the reality is how is this restoration

received? When Jesus died on the cross, was that just mean now everyone can live however they want

and everyone's going to heaven? The reality is we are called to the gospel. God gives us a way

to live differently. And so this is that question of, okay, awesome. I understand that I'm a wreck

and a mess, and I understand what that consequence means in my life, and I understand that Jesus

Christ is the Savior, that he's the only restoration for me. How do I receive that restoration?

How do I receive that restoration? Romans chapter 10. We haven't got there yet, so this is a little

bit of a spoiler. But here Paul describes

simple process. Not easy, a simple process. It says this, Romans 10 starting in verse 9.

Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and you believe in your heart

that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is

justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. And so you may have heard that, you know,

you have to say, you know, the sinner's prayer, like this magical prayer that saves you. And the

reality is the sinner's prayer is a means to bring about this confession. Confess with your mouth that

Jesus Christ is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead. The prayer

itself does not save you, okay? It's important that we recognize that. Now that's not saying

that it's not valuable. It doesn't mean that that's not that moment of salvation for you. I pray the

prayer. I believe that I'm saved according to Jesus Christ. Why? Because when I prayed that, this is

what I believe. This is what I confess. Confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, and believe in

your heart that God has raised him from the dead. And the reason why I say this is simple but not

easy is because there's this really simple formula here, right? Confess with your mouth, believe that

these two things have happened. But the reason why I say this is not easy is because understand what

this means. Confess with your mouth that Jesus

Christ is Lord is not just a saying, oh yeah, he's kind of important, right? Confession that Jesus

Christ is your Lord means he is Lord of your life. We don't really have a really great reference for

that in our day and age because we don't have like feudal lords, or we don't have people that

we like really follow and like control kind of our lives really in depth. Maybe some of you disagree

with that, but the reality is a Lord was someone that you like.

Everything you, they said it, you did it, right? Like they said it, everything in your life was

meant to serve your Lord. And there was no like, oh, I'm just going to like go and do my own thing,

right? That's treason, right? That's not like, everything in our lives looks to follow our Lord.

And so previously the Lord of our lives was us, our flesh, our sinful tendencies. Paul actually

talks about that earlier in Romans. I'm not going to go back.

But he says we worship the creature rather than the creator, which is us. And so now we look and

Paul says, hey, here's the deal. Confess that the creator is Lord. And so when he is Lord,

that's who we serve with our lives. It's a fundamental shift from me focus to Christ

focused. And that can be really difficult because a lot of people, they want sprinkles. They want

Jesus to be the sprinkles on their ice cream. Oh, I have this great thing going for me, how my life,

and there's a couple ups and downs.

And what I want Jesus to do is fill in the potholes of my life, not rip up the roads. And what Paul

says here is it's not just a confess that Jesus is kind of a good teacher, not confess that the

Bible holds some, you know, wisdom and truth. It's saying, Jesus, you are my Lord. I love you

deeply. Change the things about me. Help me to serve you rather than myself,

because you saved me, because you are

worthy, because you are perfection, because you live up to that holiness, because you are God.

And belief that he's raised from the dead is that belief that he fundamentally has saved us,

that he commands the power of life and death, specifically my life and death, because he bore

my sins on the cross, and he overcame my sins, that I have truly been forgiven. And so confess

with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, and believe in your heart that he's risen from the

dead. It's this beautiful picture of how we're called to live. And so the last thing is salvation,

and so the forgiveness and salvation of God. And the question comes, I think, maybe it doesn't

come immediately, but it'll come down the road, is how can I be confident in this salvation? When I

leave this conversation with you, right, you're sharing the gospel with me, when I leave this

conversation with you, how can I know that one,

I'll have to go and ask Jesus to be my Lord every single time I mess up? And then how also do I know

that I don't need like Jesus and another thing, or it's not about works, or it's not about earning

my salvation, or doing these good things that earn it? Jump down to verse 13, it says this,

for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. For everyone who calls on the name

of the Lord will be saved. That's a great promise right there.

One that I would maybe encourage you to highlight. We'll be back to it. But the reality is that

promise should help us to have confidence that our salvation is secure. When we call to God,

we will be saved. We will be saved. That we can be trust in that salvation, that when we turn to him

and we confess and we believe that he will provide us salvation. And so it's a deep trust in the

promise of God. That's where that faith comes in. The faith that we have been saved and that Christ

raised from the dead.

That he is good and Lord of our lives. And so we just walk through this. I would encourage you to

be a little bit more brief than me. But as you have conversations and as you go through your life

and we talk about the value of reaching people to gospel, you have the tools. You now know. And so

I'd encourage you to walk them through. Hey, here's the reality. All of sin, what the consequences of

those sins are. The restoration from that sin is Christ dying for us. That happens through,

or that, that,

restoration is brought about through confession and belief. And it brings about a salvation

and promises that God offers us to save us. That is the gospel. See how I, you know, I just did it

in a couple seconds there. You can have that conversation. Don't be afraid. I'll say, I'll say

this. First time I shared the gospel, it was a mess. It was a mess. Trying to figure it out. I was nervous.

Didn't know what to say or how to be really eloquent and all those different things. And I was really

trying to figure it out. It's okay. One of the things that I think is really important for us to

recognize is it's the Holy Spirit working. And so you don't have to be eloquent. You don't have to

say all the right words perfectly or pronounce them all the same, or you don't have to, it's not based

off of you. What's based off of is the Holy Spirit moving in the life of that person. And we are

simply the means that God is using. And so that should bring about two things. One, a little bit

of a breath of relief. I'm not responsible for saving every person, right? But then another side

of that is a responsibility. God is going to use me as a tool. I want to be honed and ready for the

job. And so my call to you this week, as we talk about the importance of reaching people with God's

word, as we talk about reaching people with the gospel, is to have someone in mind. Not as a

project or not as, you know, like your mission, because that's kind of demeaning. But to look and

say, there is someone in our lives, at least one person, who we deeply care about, who needs Jesus

desperately. Who is that person?

And because of that, to go and to care for them with the gospel.

So I really, I think that's honed down to three specific ways.

One, through prayer.

If we're called to reach people, we have to be praying for people.

So whether that's in your car before work, praying for that co-worker who you know needs Jesus,

or on your way to family reunions, praying for that family member who you know needs Jesus,

or whatever it is, praying for that person on a regular basis.

Because guess what?

It's not you who saves, it's God.

And so prayer, turning to the Lord and saying,

Lord, I deeply care for this person and I want to reach them with the gospel.

So the first thing is prayer.

The second thing is demonstration.

You realize how I talked a lot about your life

and how your life is a great witness to those around you?

If your life looks no different from your co-workers,

no different from your friends,

no different from the people around you,

then you know what?

Want to know what people are going to think?

Why would I follow Christ if you don't look different than me?

And so there should be a,

wait on us as believers to live the gospel with our lives.

One of the reasons why we grow is to show others growth.

We'll talk about that in a couple of weeks.

I don't want to spoil that either.

So there's prayer and demonstration called to demonstrate Christ.

And the last is explanation.

That's what we talked about this morning.

To explain the gospel to people, to be a witness of the gospel.

So who is it that we need to reach?

And to reach them through prayer, demonstration, and explanation.

I want to encourage you.

If we do that together, if we uniformly look and say,

hey, as the body of Christ, we're going to do this.

Church will look different.

Our community will look different.

Our Jerusalem, our Davison, right?

Our local will look radically different.

Why?

Because when Christ steps into people's lives, they look different.

Hopefully we can be a great demonstration of that.

Let's pray together as we close.

Lord, there is nothing more important than the gospel.

Both to lost and to saved.

Lord, because the gospel meant salvation for us

and is the source of truth and encouragement and joy.

It's the reason why we worship.

It's the reason why we grow.

It's the reason why we live the way that we live.

It's because we have been saved according to the goodness of the gospel.

Lord, and as we look at how much the gospel should impact our life

and does impact our life.

Lord, I pray that we would see the deep need of those in our world

who have a life void of the gospel.

Who don't know the gospel.

Who don't know truth.

Who don't understand it.

Who have never had it explained to them.

Lord, I pray that you would give us just this deep motivation to reach people.

Lord, I thank you for this tool specifically that comes from your word

where we can walk them through the truth of the gospel.

Lord, and I pray just for boldness and courage and willingness

to maybe stumble through it the first couple times.

Lord, because you alone are providing salvation.

Lord, and we just trust that.

And we turn to you and we ask that you would show up in mighty ways

as we look.

Lord, to share that gospel with others.

Lord, as we think about those names.

Those names of people who we need to reach.

Who need the gospel.

Lord, I pray that we could just take this time to lay them before you.

Lord, that your Holy Spirit would go before us.

That way it would soften hearts.

That it would help people to have a yearning for the gospel.

That they would be open to hearing the gospel as we share.

As we express our deep love and care for those people.

Lord, we just thank you for your word.

In your precious and holy name.

In Jesus' name.

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