Here in 2 Corinthians 5 verses 14-21, let's begin in verse 14, For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus, that if one died for all, then all died. And he died for all that those who live shall live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again. Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we've known Christ according to the flesh, and now we know him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God who's reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now that we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us, we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. I'm gonna tell you the message this morning. Do you love God? Do you love God? Let's open in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the service this morning. I pray for those who looked up. I pray that they would make a decision even today to trust you as their Savior. And God, maybe for those who are not able to look up or not ready, I pray that you just keep working in their heart as you did in mine. And Lord, I pray that as they go to bed tonight, they would think about it, that they'd wake up tomorrow morning thinking about it, that they just not would be able to get away from the thought of where would they spend eternity. And God, I just pray that you would use this time with all the adult Sunday school hour, Lord, to be a blessing and encouragement to those who are saved. And Lord, I pray that you would do that work that only you can do in our hearts. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. John was told a twin-engine plane would be waiting at the airport. Arriving at the airport, he spotted a plane warming up outside the hangar. He jumped in and said, let's go. The pilot taxied and took off. Once in the air, John told the pilot, can you fly over the valley so I can take pictures of the fire on the hill? The pilot said, well, why? He said, well, I'm a photographer for the evening news, and I need to get some of the shots for the news tonight. The pilot was strangely silent for a moment and then said, so what you're telling me is you're not my flying instructor? And the tagline was, always ask, never assume. And I think the fact that you came to church and that you're staying for Sunday school this morning, the assumption is everyone in this room loves God. And I would say always ask, never assume. And I think there's two things in the text. If you love God like you should, you'll have a passion that leads to Christ's control of your life, verses 14 to 17. And you'll have a passion for the lost, verses 18 to 21. And so, I don't know about you, I hate mall shop. If I go to a mall, it's one store, I just wanna get to one store. And I walk in the mall, I'm looking for the directory, I find the directory, I see a red dot, and what does every red dot say? You are here. I've never argued with that dot. I've never said, that's not where I am. And I would just say this morning, if you came in and say, no, I love God, but God puts a red dot and says, no, actually you are here. Would you be honest enough to say, you know what? That needs some adjustment. Would you say you love God as much as you ever have this morning? And most importantly, as we look at this text, do you love God like you should this morning? And if you do, these two things will be true in your life. Let's look at the first part, a passion leads to Christ's control. Look at verse 14 again. The love of Christ compels us because we judge with us that if one died for all, then all died, and he died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again. Paul never lost the sense of wonder of Christ's love. You remember the story of Paul? He was a persecutor of Christians. On his way to Damascus, he gets saved, and God radically changes his life. Go over to Galatians. You're in Corinthians. Go over to Galatians chapter two, verse 20. Paul writes in Galatians 2 verse 20, I've been crucified with Christ as no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me in the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Go over to Ephesians chapter three. Ephesians chapter three verse 17. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all saints which is the width and length and depth and height. and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. The Bible says as much as you think God loves you, he loves you more. And God says you can't fully comprehend how much God loves you this morning. He says as we come back to our text, to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us. To him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever, amen. Let's go back now to our text. in 2 Corinthians 5. Paul understood that Christ died for all or in the place of all. He says that in verse 21. For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. The substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ is the heart of Christian theology that produced a passionate love for God and Paul as it should in all of us. Do you remember when you got saved? I hope some people got saved this morning or at least hopefully within this week they'll get saved. But do you remember when you got saved? Remember when you first got saved? Remember how excited you were? If you got saved, I pastored a church in Canada, we saw hundreds of people come to Christ, all in their 20s on up. And they got saved and they went home at Thanksgiving and thought their whole family was gonna get saved, right? And they got home and their whole family thought they joined a cult, right? And I had one guy got newly saved, he went home and told his whole family, you're not my family anymore, I have a church family. I'm like, oh no, that's a bad approach, all right, so. But do you remember when you got saved, man? It was exciting. Do you remember when you first came to this church? You came to this church and you went on the parking lot and you got in the car with your spouse and you're like, we found it. Man, this is the church we've been looking for, we finally found it. Did you feel that way when you came this morning? I could tell by the electricity, some of you did. But you know what can happen over time? Oh, it's Sunday again. Oh, we've heard that story. You know what's so fun? At a whole church of first generation Christians, I could preach on David and Goliath and most of the church is like, That's amazing! I even have people call me Sunday afternoon, that is in the Bible, that's amazing! Some of you have heard that story so many times, it doesn't affect you anymore. But I think you'd agree with me that in good marriages, love keeps growing, it gets stronger. And that should be true in good churches, and it should be true in our walk with God, and as you come back to this text, remember, God loves you how much? He loves you this much. Remember as he prayed, we went through this three times? Is there any other way? Paul never got over that. Paul never got over the fact that Christ did what he did for his salvation. And so as we come to our text, the love of Christ compelled him. That word compel is a Greek word that describes pressure that produces an action. That's true of everything that we love this morning. And I just want you to be honest. Are you here? Do you love God the way you love everything else in your life? Because I just say, most people don't. We love other things in our life in a different way than we love God. I grew up on a farm in northern Minnesota. My dad planted an acre garden. That's all he does. He'd plant the garden, and me and my three sisters had to take care of it. I snapped beans for hours as a kid. My dad bought chickens. All he did was buy them when they were little and yellow. That's really nice. When they grow up, they're horrible beasts, all right? And it was my job to take care of the chickens. I cleaned out chicken manure, I got the eggs, we had meat birds. So one thing when I left the farm, I'm never having chickens, I'm never having a garden. And then I married a country girl from Wisconsin. And guess what she comes and tells me early in our marriage? There's only two things I really, really want. I want a garden and I want chickens. In our small town, when we went to church, we locked our car doors in the fall, not because you're worried someone's gonna steal your car, because if you didn't lock your car doors, someone's gonna put a zucchini or tomato in your car. You're like, oh, no, I forgot to lock the door. So as we got married, I had a garden and I had chickens until my son left, and then I got rid of the chickens. But there's only one person on this planet I do that for, and she's sitting right here. The love of my wife compelled me. If you're sitting here this morning and say, I love hunting. I said, really? What gun do you have? I don't have one. Oh, have you ever been hunting? No, I've never been hunting. Do you watch hunting shows? No, I never watch hunting shows. You know what I'm going to tell you? You don't love hunting. You say, man, I love to golf. I go, really? What clubs do you have? I don't have any clubs. You don't have any clubs? Have you ever been golfing? No, I've never been golfing. Do you watch it on TV? No, you don't. Then you know what I'm going to tell you? You don't love golfing. Because if you love to golf, you have clubs, you go golfing. If you love to go shopping, you can't pass certain stores, right? It's just like, you're like a dog on point, it just comes up, right? And if you love shopping, you love Black Friday, right? And you got it down, right? You drop one person off, the rest of you get the stuff, get in line, you can get as many stores as you can hit. If you love your kids and grandkids, you ever have someone say, hey, you want to see a picture of my grandkids? Before you can say no, they have all the pictures out, right? We have two grandchildren, they're up in Canada, and they were born during COVID, and so we couldn't cross the border, it was a big deal, and so they were coming down for Christmas. And they're coming for Christmas, and my wife says, hey Jim, the grandkids are coming, we gotta go get a crib, and a high chair, and toys, and I'm like, why? We didn't have these kids. I mean, we got all that stuff when we had the kids. But we went out and got a crib, and a high chair, and toys for the kids, why? The love of our grandchildren compelled us. If you're a grandparent in the room, you know that was an easy decision, right? Hey, grandkids are coming home. We're gonna get this stuff. Why, the love of Christ compels us. We understand that's true of everything we love. I could just keep going. If you have a favorite sports team. Say, man, I love your sports team. I'm a Minnesota Viking fan, so I have some purple. I did tell you my wife's from Wisconsin though, right? So my favorite jersey is my purple Favre jersey. I love that jersey. Now that I've lost the entire crowd, no one was happier to see Rogers move to New York than me. I was so happy for that. But if you're a Packer fan, you wear a lot of green, and you know the stats, and you know your team, why you think about it all the time. Anything you love, it compels you. It's pressure that produces an action. except when it comes to Christ. And then we come to church and sing, oh, how I love Jesus. But we haven't read our Bibles all week long. The only time we prayed was to eat our food or the Wednesday night prayer meeting. Then don't tell me you love Jesus. Because you don't love him like you should. You didn't think about him as much as you thought about the game today. And I wanna challenge you, when we love God in a different way than we love everything else, something's wrong. And if you're gonna sit and say, and by the way, is God better than the Vikings or the Packers? Yes. Is God better than hunting? Is he better than fishing? Is he better than golfing? Is he better than shopping? Is he better than our grandkids? We would say that here. But is it pressure that produces an action? Because if you really love God, you read your Bible every day this week, because you wanted to. You know, if you skip your devotions, you shouldn't feel guilty, you should feel sad. When I don't get to talk to my wife, I don't feel guilty, I feel sad. I was out on a hunting trip in a place with no cell service, and so there were some times I couldn't talk to her. And if you love God, you want to spend time with Him. But do you know how many Christians, the only time they open their Bible is church service to church service? But when you love God like you love the other things in your life, it's a pressure that produces an action. It compels you, as he writes here. And he also says in verse 15, that I can't live for myself. You know, you should be changing. You should be becoming more and more like Christ and less and less like the world. When you first got saved, picture getting saved right here, and then God says, okay, we're gonna work on your temper. And you're like, oh, it makes me so mad. And after a while, you got your temper down. You're like, man, I haven't lost my temper in a while. And God's like, great, now we're gonna work on kindness. And then you're gonna keep going and keep going until you hit something here and you go, no way, I'm not doing that. You don't stay here. The pages start going backwards. And the sad part I see is a lot of Christians just keep flopping between these pages. The goal is to get to the back page. And I met one guy today who told me, actually, I'm pretty perfect. But I think he was being... In case you don't know, it's John right here in the front row. And John just said everyone knows who it is. But for those of us that are not quite at John's level, but we're striving to be, As God's changing and working in your life, you should be changing. You should be becoming more and more like Christ and less and less like the world. I told you I have three kids, girl, boy, girl. And I tell you, when my girls learn to cook, my wife's a fantastic cook. And I came home and my daughter meets me there, Dad, I made supper tonight. I'm like, oh honey, that's so exciting. And I took that first bite and it did not taste like mom's, you know what I'm talking about? And she's looking right at you like, Dad, what do you think? I did what every good dad does, I lied. Said, honey, that is amazing, that is so good. And you know what you find out? You can't put an ingredient in or leave an ingredient out and it doesn't change the product. And you can't put Christ in your life or leave him out of your life and it not change the product. I wanna promise you, if you would read your Bible every day because you want to, it will change you. If you pray and talk to God, not just to eat your food, but to really talk to God, it will change you. You can't put that in your life or leave it out of your life. You can't skip church or attend church, and it doesn't change you, in a good church. Bad churches, who cares, all right? But if you're in a church that preaches the Bible, a good Bible-preaching church, it will change you. And when you skip church all the time, you're leaving it out, it changes you. And the Bible says if we come back to our text here in 2 Corinthians 5, I can't live for myself any longer, I have to live for him who died for me and rose again. If you go to verse 17, we're a new creation, old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new. If you like to hike, hunt, shop, family, fishing, fill in the blank, it constrains you, it's a pressure that produces an action. Could you imagine if, and I know Pastor Rich doesn't have this time, but if Pastor Rich had the time, I said, Pastor Rich, I'm gonna go on a missions trip for a month. Would you come over and watch my house? And Pastor Rich says, sure, Jim, I'd be happy to do that. So he comes over and I walk him through everything. I said, you know, Pastor Rich, number one, garbage day's Tuesday. Gotta make sure you take out the garbage on Tuesday. He says, Jim, I got that, no problem. I said, you gotta make sure you water the plants. Don't underwater, don't overwater. My wife loves plants. We got a lot of plants in the house. You gotta make sure you take care of them. He says, Jim, no problem, I got that. I said, we got a cat, you gotta make sure you feed and water the cat, and just take care of the cat. He says, no problem, I got that. I said, and then, you know, the basement toilet, sometimes the handle sticks, and if it sticks, it can overflow, and so if you hear the water running, just jiggle the handle, and it'll be fine. He says, Jim, no problem, I got that. And if you knew my wife, she'd have it all typed out for him as well. And so I give him the type directions, and I give it to him, and he says, Jim, have a great time. And could you imagine, I come back at the end of a month, and I walk in the house, and there is a stench from the kitchen. And I walk in, and there is a pile of garbage in the kitchen. I start looking around, and all the plants are dead. I look out back, and there's a little mound with a cross where the cat's been buried. Which, to be honest, isn't that bad. And I go, there's the cat. and I walk in the basement and the carpet squishes, and I go, Pastor Rich, like, what happened? Oh, Jim, Jim, that part about taking out the garbage, I love that part. I read that part every night. That part about watering the plants, I memorized it. I got it word for word, word for, just quiz me, just quiz me. Oh, Jim, that part about feeding and watering the cat, I highlighted and underlined that part. I love that part. But Pastor Rich, the cat is dead. You know what I would think? He's not my friend. Do you know how often we come to church? We read it, we highlight it, we underline it, but we don't do it. And do you know what the God of heaven thinks? You're not my friend. Because the Bible says if you love me, keep my commandments. You know how many people come to church Sunday after Sunday and even walk out and say, good sermon, but nothing changes? You know, I'm just ornery enough when people walk out and say, hey, that's a good sermon, I like to look at them and go, really, what'd you like about it? Humma, humma, humma, humma, humma. And I love it when someone walks out and says with a tear in their eye, God spoke to me today. Hey, great, that's what it was about. How many times do you come Sunday after Sunday after Sunday and nothing's changing? Oh, you highlight it, you underline it, you even memorize it, but you don't do it. Someday we're all gonna stand before God, and I'm preaching to Christians this morning. If you're still not saved, I hope that you think about it. But if you're a Christian, your sins will not be judged. They're under the blood of Christ. Praise God for that. But your works will be judged. And I just preached a message at our college on people who gave a nod to God and those who needed God. There's a big difference. Let me give you the nodders. Lot. Lot gave a nod to God. Samson gave a nod to God. Solomon gave a nod to God. Saul gave a nod to God. You know what that whole list? I'm gonna see all of those people in heaven. I personally wouldn't vote that I'm seeing a lot in heaven if all I have is Genesis, but I get to Peter and he says, that righteous man vexed his righteous soul with the seeing and hearing of the wicked. Does that sound like the culture we all live in? When you're watching so many movies that you can't pay attention on Sunday morning because you stayed up too late, too tired, that's a problem. When you know more about the latest pop star than you do about characters in the Bible, that's a problem. And you can still go to heaven, but you're gonna get wood, hay, and stubble, the Bible says, and there'll be other Christians that get gold, silver, and precious stones. I used to think that the wood, hay, and stubble crowd was small until I started traveling. I pastored the same church up in Canada for 18 years. I went to faith eight and a half years ago, and now I travel to a different church most Sundays. And I'll just tell you, when you see someone who's on fire for God, if we use that term, they stand out. You typically don't walk into a church full of people like that. When you see people who really love God with all their heart, by the way, how are we supposed to love him? All our heart. Would you agree that means he is supposed to be the primary love? I'm gonna love him more than the Packers, more than the Vikings, more than hunting, more than my grandkids, more than anything. But if you listen to the average conversation in the foyer a minute after church gets out, how many are still talking about God? And we all talk about what we love. And the Bible says, as you hear the preaching of God's word, as you're in God's word, if I asked you this morning, I mean, outside of John, he's the one exception in the room, but for the rest of you, what are you working on? I mean, if you'd sit here this morning and say, I'm not perfect, I'm not John, I'm not there, then what are you working on? But you know, the average person is, I don't really know. But would you agree with me that if you're not perfect, we all should be working on something? So what are you working on? And why would you work on it? Because you love God. And I'm still, I tell people, if I know the sermons on being a husband or prayer, I don't need to hear the sermon, I can just go and repent at the front. I've been married 33 years, and I love her more than I've ever loved her, but I still have room to grow. There's still things I can work on to be a better husband. And there's still things I can do to be a better Christian. But you know what? And I don't know those of you that have been married a while, but the longer I've been married, the more I want to. The longer I've been married, the more I want to be. I was an idiot when I first got married. And the longer I've been saved, the more I want to please God. The more I, you know, I've been married long enough now, I can just see a look from her and know that there's something wrong. I completely missed that when we were first married. You ever been out for dinner and your wife says, what did I just say? When I was first married, I guessed. That's a bad plan right there. If she says, what did I just say? We already know something's wrong, right? You know what she's not saying? This is so nice. You are completely in a different planet, but this is so nice to just have your presence at the table. That's such a blessing. What she's saying is, hey, by the way, have you ever done that, reading your Bible or praying? A second after you got done reading your Bible, you don't have a clue what you just read? Do you think God of heaven is going, that was so nice? Do you love him? Always ask, never assume. Do you skip your devotions but daily check ESPN or the stock market or the news? For to be the workers God wants us to be, it must be the love of Christ that compels us. When you stop loving God passionately, something else will take his place, and if time if not corrected, a lack of love for God will become obvious to others and hurt more than just us. We had a church that was very similar to this, growing, we saw lots of people saved, lots of people baptized, and I did an invitation very similar to how I did, and there was an older couple that he grew up in a Christian home, bolted off to the oil patch when he was 18, Married a wife, she became united and begged him to go to church with her, and his mom was a Baptist. He said, no, if I ever go to church, I'm only going to a Baptist church. Well, one day they went to a coffee shop where one of our college and career girls was working. She was serving them coffee, and she invited them to church. And he said, well, what church is it? And she said, well, it's Meadowlands Baptist Church. And his wife said, you promised. And he said, all right, I'll go. They came that Sunday. They sat in the very back row. I preached, I don't remember what the message was, but I would always give an invitation at the end. I said, hey, if you're not sure you're saved, just put your hand up. And up went his hand. I trained our people that if you see, if I ever say I see that hand, they left me alone so that I could go by that person. So I immediately went by that person. I said, hey, I got, in fact, before I said anything, he said, I put my hand up. I said, yeah, I saw that. When would you like to meet? He said, could you come over on Tuesday? I said, sure, I'd love to. So I brought my big Bible and I walked in their home and as we sat down, his wife said, I'm sure glad you came today, he needs this. But I already know this stuff. I'm like, okay. So she sat in a rocker across the living room, I sat down on the couch and I'm going through the plan of salvation and I'm so focused on him that the next time I look up, she's taken the rocker and moved it right in front of me and she goes, I've never heard this either. And they're in their 70s. And when I got done, both of them bowed their head and trusted Christ as their Savior. And the love of Christ compelled him. And he came in and he said, Jim, I've been in the oil patch. I walked away from the Lord. I don't know how much time I have left. I've wasted my life, but I want to give whatever time I have left. And so he made our offering plates. We had a Christian school. He made handrails for our Christian school. He was just doing everything. And he came to my wife's 40th birthday, and I wanted to make her a cedar chest, which I could have never done on my own. Would you help me make this cedar chest? He said, I'd love to. I said, how are we gonna surprise her? He said, no problem, just tell her that we're having marriage trouble. And so I came home, I said, honey, the McMurphys are having marriage trouble. She said, aren't they in their 70s? I said, I know, honey, it's a huge problem. It's gonna take a while. And so I'd sneak over to his house into the guise of marriage counseling, and we planed the boards down. I mean, we did it from scratch. We built this thing, gave it to her on her 40th, confessed that they were actually fine, that he helped me build this. He was as proud of it as I was. I'll never forget the day I got the phone call. He'd had a stroke. My wife said, hey, where are you? I had an early morning meeting. She said, you need to get to the hospital. Ron's had a stroke. I got up to the hospital, and he had a stroke that affected his speech. He could not talk. And he had to go into a nursing home. And if you've been in a lot of nursing homes, there's good ones and bad ones. He was in a bad one. You walk in the door, it has a smell. We had no family up in Canada, so we adopted him as grandparents. And so my wife would visit him twice a week. He loved gardening, she loved gardening, they'd break the tomato plant, and if you know anything about that, you can smell that, and they would just, and he was completely alert, completely with you, but he couldn't talk. And every so often, my wife would say, hey, we're all gonna show up, and we're all gonna sing to Ron, and so this time, she said, hey, we need to all show up, so he grabbed our kids, we all show up, we're walking down, we're in his room, we're singing to him, and we asked our youngest daughter, what would you like to sing? And she said, I wanna sing Jesus Loves Me. Do you remember that song? Jesus loves me, this I know. Well, I started singing that song, and Ron joined us. And he sang every word. And he had never heard that song in adult church. When's the last time he had heard Jesus loves me? When he was a little kid. Remember how that song ends? Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so. He was crying. We were crying. And the love of Christ compelled Ron. And he couldn't say another word. If you come to our Christmas tree, we have his picture as an ornament. And I'll see him in heaven someday. When Ron got saved, he was all in. Do you remember when you used to be like that? Remember when you couldn't wait for Sunday? You have a sign-up list in a church. Who signs up, new Christians or old Christians? New Christians sign up first. And you know what the old Christians are thinking? They'll learn. You know what I used to think? I hope not. Man, we started with a small church and God grew it very similar to what's happening here. And we used to clean the church. My wife and I took a rotation and this older couple came and said, you're done cleaning the church. I thought because we did a bad job. They said, no, we can do that. We'll clean the church. You go after lost people. We used to clean our church. We were so small, we cleaned it once a month. But as our church kept growing, we ended up having to clean it once a week. You know, our people are like, isn't this great? We gotta clean the church every week. That's so exciting. Remember when you used to feel that way? When you're in love, you feel that way, right? I work with college students. No guy, when he's getting ready to get married, goes into the ring shop and says, what's the smallest thing I can get? You know, he says, here's all the money. I want the biggest thing I can get for this amount of money. Boy, that's love. Remember when you came to God and said, God, what can I do? And I love you so much. And after all you've done for me, what can I do? It compels me. I wanna think about you as much as I think about hunting or sports or fill in the blank. I wanna read the Bible every day because I want time with you. It just compels me as we read in our text. Verse 17, old things have passed away. Behold, all things are becoming new. Christ died so that we should no longer live for ourselves. 1 Corinthians 6, 20, you're bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are his. Does the love of Christ compel you? Do you love God this morning as much as you ever have? You know, there's a church in Revelation that lost their first love. They were a good church, they did a lot of good things, but they lost their first love. My mom passed away in an accident years ago. We open up her devotional book, she'd written on the top, worshiper first, worker second. Do you know how many times I've gotten that wrong? When I grew up on a farm, I'm a good worker. When God says no, I need you to be a worshiper. You know what happens when you love? The more I love this woman on the front, the more I want to do for her. The more I love God of heaven, the more I want to do for him. But when you get to the place where you're trying to do the minimum, When all you wanna do for the Lord is show up and sit in church. By the way, there's no rewards for that when you get to heaven. You're not gonna, God's gonna say, well done, thou good and faithful sitter. Man, nobody sat better than you. You were amazing. That's not how that verse goes. God's gonna say, well done, thou good and faithful what? Servant. Do you wanna be one? When you love God like you should, you do. And the Bible says not only if you love God will it compel you, but secondly, you have a passion for Christ's control of your life, but secondly, you have a passion for the lost. Look what he says in verse 19. God was in Christ, reconciled the world to himself, not impugning the trespassers to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now that we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us, we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. How much does God love the lost? He loves them this much, John 3, 16. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. We see such a passion by God for the lost that seems to be lacking in many churches today. Just to be honest, that's why this is so refreshing for me is to see a church that gets it about evangelism. That's refreshing, I hope you never lose that. But new Christians automatically have that. Do you remember the woman at the well in John 4? Jesus says in the beginning of John four, we have to go through Samaria. By the way, in chapter three, he's done miracles. They've seen him turn water into wine. They've seen like, not Benny Hinn style, I mean like the real thing. They have seen real miracles. And they go into town, and the woman is out at the well, and she gets saved, and she goes into town. And if I tell you disciples who've seen miracles go into a town full of lost people and a baby Christian goes into a town full of lost people, which of these two brings the most people to Christ? Well, if you know the Bible, it's the baby Christian, but who should it have been? Should have been the disciples. How did the disciples go in and just come back with bread? I mean, they should have gone in, do you know who's at the well right now? He's here, the Messiah's here, you won't believe it. He just turned water into wine. It's here, the Messiah is here, you gotta come. They just go in and go, could we get two loaves of bread, please? Meanwhile, the woman goes in, what does she say? By the way, if I had time to develop this text, which is almost the other text I preached this morning, The reason Jesus says, who's your husband? Because she says, we know that when Messiah comes, he'll know everything. So Jesus says, who's your husband? And she says, well, I'm not married. And Jesus says, well, that's correct. You've been married five times and the guy you're living with right now is not your husband. And I love what it says in the text. Sir, I perceive you're a prophet. How do you know that? We've never met each other. How do you know that? And you know what she connects? He knows everything. And the person who's gonna know everything is the Messiah. So what does she say when she goes into town? She hasn't walked with, she's had one conversation. All she knows is her testimony. You know what she goes into town? Come see a man that what? Told me all that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? And the Bible says many got saved because of the saying of the woman. Remember when you first got saved and wanted, by the way, we all talk about what we love. If you love the Packers, you talk about it. If you love hunting, you talk about it. If you love golf, you talk, if you get a hole in one in golf, you'll talk about it forever. You shoot a trophy animal, you'll probably hang his head in your house, you'll talk about it forever. You have your grandkids, you love your family, you'll talk about them, you'll talk about them all the time. And then when it comes to Christ, we all act like we're in an elevator. If you don't travel a lot, the unwritten rule in an elevator is don't make eye contact and don't talk. And here we are talking about everything else we love, and yet we say we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and we never talk about him to lost people. I mean, up in Canada, hockey's huge. We have two teams in Alberta, the Edmonton Oilers and the Calgary Flames. I'm an Oilers fan. I have no problem walking in front of a bunch of Flames fans and say, go Oilers. I have no problem coming to Wisconsin and saying, go Vikings, right? I know it's terrible, but when you love your team and you love your thing, you don't care what other people think, right? I talk about my wife all the time. And when that's true of everything except Christ, would you agree something's wrong? Do the people you work with know where you are today? Or do you go to work and try and hide the fact that you're a Christian? You go to the restaurant, do the napkin trick, you know, drop the napkin, dear heavenly Father, thank you for this food, amen, whew! Glad nobody saw that. By the way, have you ever been at a restaurant and saw someone pray? Doesn't that do something to you? Man, just go to work and act like a Christian, you'll stand out. Just go to work and say, man, I love my spouse. That's gonna stand out at work. I remember I worked construction. First day on the job, I was an assistant pastor. They couldn't pay me, so I was working another job. First day on my job, I came for lunch. This is what I did. Lunchtime, which is what I normally do, this is all I did. I did not pray out loud, I just did this. I looked up, and every guy I worked with was staring at me. They did not know that I was an assistant pastor, and they immediately nicknamed me Preach. My name's Jim, they never called me Jim after that, it was Preach. Hey Preach, can you get that? Hey Preach, can you go do that? But over time it became, hey Preach, can I talk to you? And you and I need to have an influence in the workplace. Do you think you live in your neighborhood on purpose? You do know you should be the best neighbor on your block, right? I used to tell our church, the Magnificent Seven, two neighbors on the left, two neighbors on the right, three neighbors across, you should have them all in your home. You should invite them all to church. You have a big Sunday like you just had, I hope you invited them. And we did a Christmas cantata and we did it just for reaching lots of people. I let people join the choir just for the cantata because I wanted them to go to work and say, hey, I'm singing in this cantata, you need to come. It was minus 48 degrees. Minus 40 Celsius and Fahrenheit are the same. Minus 48, that is ridiculously cold. The only place on planet Earth that beat us that night was Siberia by two degrees. Siberia was minus 50, Edmonton, Alberta, minus 48. It was a Saturday night, we did a Saturday night performance, Sunday night performance. I stand here and tell you the only reason I went was because I was the pastor. I was like, who's gonna come? It's minus 48. I walked in, there was a sea of visitors. I walk it up, I'm like, is this your first time here? Yeah, it's my first time here. Why are you here? Oh, man. I know, it's so crazy. But I work with Joe, and I do not wanna see Joe on Monday if I didn't show up to this thing. I told him I'd come. He told me he's singing in this thing. I don't even know what a cantata is. I look up to Sally. Sally, why are you here? Do you know Sue? Yeah, I know Sue. I work with Sue. I don't know why I told her I'd come, and man, minus 48, it's crazy cold. But I did not want to see Sue on Monday if I didn't show up to this thing. I heard that all night long. You know what that told me? Lost people liked our church people. And our church people talked about Christ. If you come to our text, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. When's the last time you witnessed? When's the last time, by the way, everyone in this room can pray for someone to get saved. Who's on your prayer list that you pray every night, I want them to get saved? I think everyone in this room should have that. Who are you building a relationship with? Snow is a big deal in Canada, and you have 24 hours to clear your sidewalk. Every good Canadian knows where the line on the sidewalk is, where their sidewalk ends, and their neighbor's begins. And no good Canadian is gonna shovel a flake of snow that's not theirs. And I told our people, you know what, cross the line. We had a new believer went out and bought a snowblower to do the whole cul-de-sac just every time it snowed so that someday someone would say, why are you doing that? Hey, I'm glad I, I'm a Christian. I'd love to have you come visit our church. We care about you. And you know what? It shouldn't be weird. We naturally talk about what we love. It should be natural to bring God into your conversation. You know what? A lot of lost people aren't weirded out by that. They're not super offended if you just say, man, we got this thing going on at our church. You're men's thing. Hey, come on out and shoot some skeet. I mean, all the event, you should just be inviting your neighbors, your coworkers, you should be saying, hey, why? Because do you want them to go to hell? Can we agree this morning 100% of the people who never hear the gospel will die and go to hell? 100% of the people, would you agree everyone deserves a chance? And do you think maybe God puts you in your neighborhood on purpose? I can tell you so many true stories. I'm excited about what's happening here. But we had a farmer that came new to our church, and we had a track rack, and I don't know if you've seen the bridge track. It's a good gospel track. And he was so new that he didn't know they were free. So he booked an appointment. He came in to see me, and he walked in my office, and he said, Pastor Jim, I just got to come and confess. I stole a track. May your tribe increase. I said, you stole a track? I said, they're free. He said, oh, I didn't know that. But he said, I came here to tell you the story. He said, I've been burdened about my neighbor and he was bailing his hay and his tractor broke down. He came over to me and he said, hey, could you help? Can I just pay you to rent your tractor and just help me? The storm's coming in tonight. I don't want it to get rained on. Can you just help me bail the hay? And this guy said, I thought this is my chance. So I said, absolutely. So he said, I got in my tractor. I came over and said, not only am I going to use, you can use my tractor, I'm going to work with you. And he said, we worked together. We got it all done before the rain came. And we finished and he says, okay, how much do I owe you? And he says, you can't pay me. He says, get out of here. He said, no, you can't pay me. He said, all I want you to do is read this track. And he said, listen, get out of here, I'm your neighbor, I have the money, it's not that I can't, I just, I didn't have time to get my tractor fixed, you've helped me, you've worked with me all day. He said, no, you can't pay me. He said, if you really wanna pay me, I want you to read this track. He says, that's crazy. He says, well, you can't pay me, but you can read this track. And so he said, whatever, and he took the track. Went home, the next week he had to apply for another job, as a lot of farmers do, had to work a second job, got hired, and on his way home was killed in a car accident. And the man sitting across my desk said, all I could think of is, did he read that track? He said, honey, I gotta go over and talk to him. He says, I went over and I knocked on the door, and his wife came to the door. And as soon as she saw me, she started to cry. She said, you just wait a minute right here. And she went back and she came with that bridge track. And she said, do you remember giving this to my husband last week? And he said, yeah. He said he came home that night and we sat down and he said, honey, I can't believe it. You know our neighbor. And he refused to let me pay him. Like I told him I wanted to pay him, he just refused and the only thing he'll let me do is he just wants me to read this tract. And I don't know why this is so important to him, but honey, when we're done with supper tonight, we're gonna read this. And she was like, okay. She said we finished supper and we read through that tract. And she said, we got to the back part where it says, pray this prayer. And she said, we both bowed our heads that night and prayed that prayer. And she said to this man, does that mean he's in heaven? He said, yes, it does. What if he wouldn't have taken that opportunity? Where would that man be today? And I wish that I could stand here and say, I never miss an opportunity, but I'd be lying. But man, when I love the way I should, I wanna be ambassador. I wanna plead with people to come to Christ. When's the last time you cared about lost people like that? Are you just glad you and your family are saved? Is that good enough for you? Or would you say, no, that's not good enough? I want as many people to go to heaven with me as possible. When's the last time you invited someone to church? When's the last time you had someone over to your house? And by the way, you don't have to be weird about it. Be normal. Build a relationship with people. I mean, as you build a relationship with people, as you become their friend, they'll open up. And who are you building a friendship with so that you can share the gospel? I'm terribly allergic to cats. My neighbor, every time they go on vacation, they ask if I'll watch their cat. I do it every time. They still have no idea I'm allergic. But you know what? We've gotten to give them the gospel. They're not saved yet, but they're still our friend. We have two Mormons on the other side of us, and again, they stopped going to church. My wife's built a great friendship with his wife, considers Joan one of her closest friends. Why are we doing that? We want them to get saved. Who are you working on? Who are you praying for every night to come to Christ? The Bible says in verse 20, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf be reconciled to God. For made him and you know sin to be sin for us that we might be on the righteousness of God in him. When you love, you'll talk about what you love. Does God keep coming up in your conversation because you love him so much? You talk about everything else you love, who are you imploring to be reconciled to God? Every Christian in this room, if you're a Christian and you're gonna go to heaven, you should be doing this. We call this the Great Commission. Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Give everyone a chance. But be intentional in trying to bring people to Christ. What if that lady at the coffee shop that day hadn't invited that couple to come to church? She didn't know that he told his wife he'd only go to a Baptist church. And he realized all she did was just say, hey, we have a special Sunday, we'd love to invite you to our church. That's all she did. And God took that and helped the two of them come to Christ. And I could tell you story after story and you could tell your stories. Let me finish with this. The USS Indianapolis had just delivered parts for the nuclear bomb. It was headed to the Philippines. It was torpedoed and sunk on July 30th, 1945. Of the 1,195 crew members, about 300 went down with the ship. The rest went into the water. The Navy learned of the sinking when survivors were spotted four days later by a plane on a routine patrol. Because it was top secret and because of miscommunication, no one noticed that the ship didn't show up. Four days later, a random plane, just randomly flying over, sees men in the water, lands, immediately radios for help. They send planes and ships from everywhere, and they only rescue about 300 men. That means about 600 men perished after they went in the water. Even to this day, it's the largest loss of life in the US Navy in a single incident. As they interviewed the survivors, and they said, what was the worst part of your experience? They said, well, day one was terrible. The shark showed up. It became a shark feeding frenzy. They just dragged men under the water. We can still hear their screams. They said day three was terrible when we ran out of portable drinking water and guys just went crazy and just started swimming off to imaginary islands that didn't exist. And we would yell to them and tell them there's nothing there but they wouldn't listen and they just swam to their death. But they said the absolute worst was day four. Because day four we realized we hadn't heard a plane, we hadn't heard a ship. And we all realized that if the Navy knew we were missing, we should have heard something by now. And they said the absolute worst thought because we knew that if no one was looking for us, we were all going to die. And can I kindly say this morning, the only thing worse than being lost is being lost and no one is out looking for you. Are you glad someone shared the gospel with you? Do you care about the people who are lost? And the only thing worse than being lost is being lost and no one is out looking for you. And I'm in a lot of churches that have all their friends in the church. Their baptismal tank is used as storage equipment. They haven't seen people saved in years. And folks, I'm telling you, there's something wrong with that. Our text is telling you there's something wrong with that. If we really love God, then we must be ambassadors for Christ. As though God were pleading through us, we implore you in Christ be happy, reconcile to God. Who are you intentionally working on to come to Christ? And if it's no one, would you change that today? Would you walk out and say, God put the red dot where I didn't think it was. God showed me I am here. Maybe you're a stay-at-home mom and you say, how can I witness? I think there's people in your neighborhood. You could probably make some baked goods and have your husband deliver it. You could probably walk slowly through the neighborhood on the summer nights. I think if we were intentional, we could find ways to witness or be a witness. And God wants all of us to do something. That's the beauty of the church, by the way, as I close. Not all of you are greeters. Some of you don't wake up to your fourth cup of coffee. You should not be meeting people at the front door, all right? But you can stack chairs. Some of you can mow the grass. I mean, there's a lot of Sundays I went home smelling great, and the people in the nursery got pooped and puked on. And I think God gave them some more rewards. And it's all of us using our gifts and abilities with the goal of, by the way, maybe you came today and said, I'm working on the meal. And when we did a big day like this, we wanted our lost people to stay, and that meant we had to have people in the church that worked in the meal, but they were just as important as all of us working together, using our gifts together, intentionally to see people come to Christ. And I would just ask, what are you doing intentionally to see people come to Christ? Are you, as it says in the text, imploring people on Christ's behalf? The only thing worse than being lost is being lost and no one is out looking for you. Let me close in prayer now, Pastor, come. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this church. I thank you for the great encouragement it's been to me personally. And God, maybe we came to this service thinking we love you, and yet as we were evaluating our life, it's been a while since we've intentionally engaged a lost person. It's been a while since we've tried to build a friendship with someone that wasn't saved. Maybe we're sitting here this morning and you spoke to our hearts about something in our life that we're not working on. We know it's wrong, but we're not working on it. Our love for you is not compelling us to become more and more like you. Maybe we're just being honest this morning to say we love the other loves in our life differently than we love you. We talk about the other loves in our life far more than we talk about you. If we're honest, our love for you and our excitement about you is not what it once was. And God, I pray if you spoke to our hearts, help us to respond.