Jesus' Mission / Our Mission

All right. Well, good morning, folks. We’ll go ahead and start finding those elusive seats that the moment that this meet and greet happens, those things just jump out from under us. We don’t know where we’re at, right? Awesome. Thank you so much. If this is your first time with us or your first time in a little while or you’re coming back, we just want to say good morning. Thank you so much for being here.

No church is perfect, including Sauldam Baptist Church, but man, we serve a really good Savior who is up to some really cool things here, and we’re happy for you to be here. If you are interested in getting to know a little bit more about the church, meeting some of the other staff, or just getting involved in some of our ministries, I really do encourage you to take that tear-off card in the bulletin, fill it out, and then put it in the offering plates in the four corners of the sanctuary. And we would love to reach out to you this week, share some time with you over a cup of coffee or over some fajitas, my personal favorite, and we can make that happen.

So, if you are new with us, what we’re about to do next is going to be a little different for you. We set aside a portion of our Sunday morning service every week just for prayer. We believe that God is the one who moves the world. God is the one that has all authority and all power. So why would we not take our hearts and our requests to Him? So this morning we are going to pray for the Kairos ministry. The Kairos ministry is this really cool thing where folks go into local prisons and share the hope of Jesus and some other life skills, things like that. One of our own members, Mr. Dallas Johnson. Dallas Johnson. I would have remembered that if I’m not talking to everybody at this current moment. He is with one of the prisons right now further down in the Lowcountry with the Kairos ministry.

So what we want to do is to spend a few moments praying for Dallas and the Kairos ministry with all the prisoners, asking that the good news of the gospel would provide freedom even for folks that are behind bars so that no matter what their circumstance is, free or prisoner, they would have the joy of the gospel. So let’s pray for them. Let’s pray for Dallas by name that God would give him the right word to encourage these prisoners with. And I’ll put a bow on it here in a second. Y’all grab a neighbor, just pray by yourself, and we will wrap it all up. Take it away.

Holy Spirit, we’re separated by some miles and some counties, but right now, God, we are interceding on behalf of our brother Dallas and the other brothers and sisters with the Kairos ministry that we may or may not know by name. We’re separated from You by what might feel like millions of miles, but also we know Jesus by based off Your promise where two or three are gathered there, You’ll be also. We’re not separated from You at all. You are in this room with us right now. You are closer than we could ever imagine. God, thank You. God, thank You for sending Your Son to cross the chasm that stood between us and You to pay the debt of sin on our behalf we could never pay, to secure us freedom from the bondage of the darkness and the sin that holds us.

God, thank You for the Kairos ministry. Lord, thank You for the years of faithfulness that Sauldam has had to give money to bless a ministry that we may never see a return on in our doors in this life. God, I fully believe one of the reasons You have kept us and You’ve held us for so long is because we’ve invested funds for the kingdom whether we get to see the benefit of it or not. I pray for Dallas that You give him and the other workers and the volunteers the right words. I pray for the prisoners where they are at. They would be good soil like we studied last week. Hearts that could receive the good news of the gospel and that upon receiving it, they would give it to others. Please, Father, I pray for us right now that we would be good soil, that we would receive Your word, that we would receive the hope that we have in Your Son, Jesus Christ. I pray for Mr.

Eddie, as he’s going to come up here in a few moments, to share your word, that your Holy Spirit would anoint him and be on him to speak powerfully and truthfully for the sake of the gospel. That anything that he would say that’s not true would pass from our minds and our hearts. But everything that he has from you that is true would lodge inside of us and heal us and help us. God, we love you. Thank you so much for loving us. It’s in your great name that we pray. Amen.

Amen. I will go ahead and invite my friend Eddie to come and join us. I will not be preaching this morning, but someone else with the last name Simmons is me and Eddie actually have no blood relationship that I understand. He is a fifth generation.

The blood of Jesus.

That’s right, man. He is a fifth generation Texan.

That’s right, man. I’m gonna—I’ve got a couple of these. If you could save your own amens for the end, that’d be great.

Fifth generation Texan. He graduated from South Eastern Baptist, became an ordained minister of the gospel. He has served in ministry for over 30 years, the first portion of that being pastor here in the states, and then about 2002, 2003, took a short-term trip to Africa and felt the Lord calling he and his family to go and serve there. And while he was gone, as I understand it, Amanda back home saying, “Hey, our home is about to move,” because she was sensing the call of the Lord as well. They started off with the IMB, which meant that our cooperative program giving helped get them overseas. So, Sauldam Baptist, you’re about to hear from one of your very own that you didn’t know you supported.

So they have been serving in Africa, I guess, since ’03. So that will be 21, 22 years now, all with the

Samburu

Samburu people in Kenya. So there we go. My request for y’all this morning is that you would give him the same receptivity and the same joy in receiving the word that you give me every week. If you will put your hands together and welcome Pastor Ed. [Applause]

Amen. Thank you, brother. Just love Jeremy and Becca and so grateful for Sauldam. You’ve welcomed our family, part of our family, in grandkids, kids, grandkids, and we’re just so grateful for that. That just especially when you’re overseas, it does your heart good to know your family’s taken care of. And we’re also excited about Sauldam because we’ve been—we kind of pop in and out. We’re in a transition right now with our ministry. The Samburu church is kind of self-sustaining, and so we’re going to be doing just going back every three or four months, but in the meantime seeing what else God has for us, and we kind of pop in and out. So when you’re here all the time, you know, at the church you’re gathering, maybe you don’t see it as well, but we see it—we see it in a lot more noise, young voices, crying babies. We also see it in the faithfulness of those who’ve been here for decades, just continuing and praying and watching God and welcoming so many new people in, and that’s just a joy for us, and we’re so grateful, and want you to know even in the bush of Kenya we have Starlink, so when we have the opportunity, the timing works out, we choose Sauldam to watch. We love brother Jeremy’s preaching, and we watched a lot of Ephesians and kind of kept up with that. And actually, this message fits in well with last week’s parable and also Ephesians a bit. I got to see brother Carter preach. You did a great job, and that was a great blessing. Al, I hadn’t seen your Sunday yet, but we appreciate you and your leadership and all, and just how God’s used you here and what He’s doing here at Sauldam. So, this also—you feed us out there in the bush. And so, we’re grateful for it. And again, thank you for the love you give us. And, brother, thank you for the trust and opportunity today. In our ministry, I don’t preach. We have a Samburu leader that we sit in the background and kind of help him and mentor him to do the leading, and small group leaders that we mentor and work with. So, this is especially a great opportunity and a dangerous opportunity for an African missionary to come and, Time doesn’t quite mean the same thing in Africa. So, no, I’ll be reasonably careful, but, no promises there. Let me have a word of prayer and then, jump into God’s word. Let’s pray. Yahweh, Father, love you. Thank you for your extravagant love for me, for us, all who are surrendered followers of your son. Thank you there’s even a chance to be connected to you and then to join in your mission that you could use me or any of us is an amazing thing. You could have done it so many other ways. And you’ve cho chosen frail creatures of dust, transformed by your son, empowered by the person of the Holy Spirit to work out your mission here on the earth. May we be about it. Would you teach us today, Lord? It’s it’s your word. Father, would you be at the center of this spiritual conversation? This has to be a spiritual work, Lord. I’m not eloquent enough or smart enough, Lord. It’s but it’s got to be by the power of the spirit. Would you work on hearts, convict, convince, motivate, encourage, save, rescue, whatever you want to do today, Lord, that you do it. Bring healing like you love to do. Repair what is broken like you love to do. Do it now through your word. May your spirit work in all of our hearts in Jesus name. Amen.

Well, if you will look at Luke chapter 19. Luke chapter 19 verse 1-10. We’re going to look at I’m going to read the whole passage, but we’re going to spend most of the time just on one verse. Verse 10. And so, let me read that somewhat familiar to you if you’ve been in church a while. Zacchaeus, I mean, it’s one of those that has a song to it. You know, not every not every Bible story has a song, but Zacchaeus has got a song in there. So, I won’t sing it for you, but so Jesus is coming to Jericho and here is what God’s word says. Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. There was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector and he was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but he was not able because of the crowd since he was a short man. So running ahead, he climbed up in a sycamore to see Jesus since he was about to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down because today it is necessary for me to stay at your house.” So he, Zacchaeus, quickly came down and welcomed Jesus joyfully. All who saw it began to complain. He’s gone to stay with a sinful man. But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, look, I’ll give half of my possessions to the poor, Lord. And if I’ve extorted anything from anyone, I’ll pay back four times as much.” Jesus said, “Today salvation has come to this house.” Jesus told him because he, Zacchaeus, too, is a son of Abraham. In verse 10, for the son of man has come to seek and to save the lost.

Fits in very well with the parables. You know, I Jeremy gave this opportunity and this was where the Lord led me, but it’s kind of really a a part two of the soils parable. This is the the living out of that parable. This is the soil here. We’ve got Zacchaeus and Zacchaeus certainly appears to be good soil. There’s a lot of other soil kind of mixed in here too that you can see this crowd and everybody else. But basically what we’re seeing here is Jesus on mission. This is Jesus’s mission. Now we we like to sing the song and tell the story of Zacchaeus and we all know he’s a short little fella or maybe you’re new to church and you’re just learning about this. Well, read the story. But the the the highlight is Jesus, right? Jesus is the hero. Jesus is what this he uses this opportunity to say this is my mission. I figure if it’s Jesus mission that’s probably a good indicator of what our mission ought to be, right? I mean Jesus came to do a lot of things. Jesus did incredible healings. Jesus was incredibly merciful. Jesus modeled God. It says in one part he exedated God for us. He explained who God is. He demonstrated. If you take God of the Old Testament and all that he did over creation and power, death over over everything that he controlled, everything he demonstrated to people and you look at Jesus in the New Testament and you see all The things that He did, it’s really a mirror of that. He’s just demonstrating that He is God, and He’s giving us His mission so that you and I know what our mission is. People always love to ask preacher, “So what’s the will of God for my life?” There’s a lot of revealed will if you’re reading God’s Word. He didn’t leave it a mystery. And one of His absolute wills is that we be on mission in this way, just like Jesus was seeking to save the lost. It’s pretty simple. You don’t have to have a degree to get there. You don’t have to understand Greek to get there. You don’t have to know anything except the plain Word of God. And you see the demonstration of Jesus. And when you see that, you just say, “I’m following Him. That’s where He’s going. I’m gonna follow that.” It’s pretty simple. You don’t have to think too through it very deeply.

Well, let’s just kind of break this down. Like I said, we’re going to talk about this one verse, and I’m going to get to what the background is. Chapter 18 is a great setup for this passage, but I’m going to leave that for just a moment here. I’m going to break this one verse down into four different parts. And it’s, it’s just beautiful. Well, it just ministers to my heart. He starts out, “For the Son of Man.” For the Son of Man. Well, isn’t that interesting? That “Son of Man” term. You know, if you do much anything in apologetics, which is defending the faith, people always say there’s this, this bad way that people like to argue against Jesus. Say, you know, “Jesus never said He was God.” There’s something called an exact word fallacy. That means yes, it is true. Jesus never said, “I am God.” He never spoke those exact words, but He said it many other ways. “The Father and I are one.” “If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father.” He said, “I am.” Over and over and over again. One of my favorite verses I just read recently as I’m reading through the Bible, Jesus is about to be arrested and all the guards and everybody are there, and they ask Him, “Are you Jesus?” He says, “I am.” They fall down. I don’t think Jesus could have said it vocally loud enough to knock them down. It was the power of the truth. They saw in that instant, He is God. He is the I am. And they fell down. And then it’s like Jesus had to say, “Hey guys, you’re supposed to be here to arrest Me. You know, that’s the prophecy. Get up. Let’s go.”

But people will argue about Jesus say He was God. Well, actually Jesus said, “I’m the Son of Man,” over 80 times in the Gospels. And then Stephen used it one time in the book of Acts. It was his favorite term. It’s true. Jesus didn’t go around going, “I’m God. I’m God. I’m God. I’m God.” But if you were Jewish in that day, especially a Jewish leader, you understood when He said Son of Man, He was saying something different. He was claiming something for Himself. How do we know that? Well, fully God. Daniel chapter 7, verse 13 and 14. If you didn’t get a chance a couple of weekends ago, they had the Sight and Sound Theater did Daniel the production, and they allowed it free on TV, and I was able to watch that, or on, on the computer, was just incredible, and you see Daniel receive this vision of the Son of Man. So this Son of Man phrase, it kind of has two sides to it. One side is it says absolutely Jesus is claiming to be fully God, and those with any religious knowledge, the religious leaders, and even some of the average Jews would have known Daniel chapter 7, verse 13 and 14. He says, “I continued watching in the night visions,” Daniel speaking, “and suddenly one like a Son of Man was coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was escorted before Him, and He, this Son of Man, was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, so that those of every people, nation, and language should serve Him.” Sounds kind of like Revelation there, the book of Revelation. “His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away. And His kingdom is one that will not be destroyed.” Fully God. You say, “Well, maybe is that really tied to Jesus? Can we really put that on Jesus?” Yes. Matthew 26:64, which is kind of the, the, the nail in the cross for Jesus, so to speak. Matthew 26:64, they ask if He’s that Christ, if He’s the Messiah. And Jesus says, “You’ve said it.” Jesus told the high priest. But I tell you in the future that you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. Well, the priest didn’t say, “Yeah, you really can’t claim that for yourself.” Yeah, I really don’t believe that He tore His robe, which was a disgrace for Him to do. It was such an act of religiosity for Him. He couldn’t believe that Jesus had said this. Basically, Jesus said, “I am the one of Daniel. I am the one of Psalm 110. I am God and I am coming with power and glory. I am the chief judge. I am the ruler. I am the Messiah.” No mistake. They said, “Do you need to hear anything else? Crucify Him. Do you need to hear anything else?” The top religious leader of the day in the Jewish people understood Jesus was saying, “I am God.” And they crucified Him for it. There was a whole bunch of other details too. Jealousy, just hatred, hard hearts. These religious leaders, many of them, if not most of them, were probably that path soil, hard, hard. Imagine memorizing the first five books of the Bible and your heart is still hard. These guys should have been at Bethlehem. These guys should have been rejoicing over the birth of Messiah. But their hearts, their soil was hard.

standing that close to God in flesh. And the chief priests couldn’t see it. The Pharisees couldn’t see it that close. They’d heard the miracles. Some of them had seen the miracles. Son of man, this exalted title. I love that. But I like the other half of this. Son of man. And if you looked in Ezekiel, you would see the son of man term used over 90 times. But there it’s not this exalted figure. It really means just kind of average guy. God’s saying to Ezekiel, “Son of man, son of man.” He’s not saying, “Ezekiel, you’re a god.” He’s just saying, He’s just talking to Him in kind of a friendly way. I can’t relate to judge, creator, master of the universe, this exalted Messiah, this all-powerful being, Jesus in that form, but son of man. I can grab a hold a little bit of that because He walked this earth. He felt things I feel. He experienced death and weeping and brokenness just even more closely. He knows what we go through. He saw the brokenness. He felt the brokenness. He felt the pain. I can relate to that because I think I see that relating to me. I love that term son of man. It’s just more familiar, more I can kind of get a hold of that. I’m not going to lose this deity, the full godness of Jesus. I don’t want to lose all that cuz that’s salvation. If He’s just a man, that doesn’t do anything except I got somebody that feels for me. But if somebody who feels for me, has compassion but has no capacity to rescue me, that really isn’t going to help me much. I love that. Fully God, fully man, just amazing.

Well, what did this son of man do? Well, if you just follow that verse again, we’re in verse 10. Just taking that one verse He says has come to seek. There’s that come again, right? Imagine leaving heaven to come to this mess. I mean, there’s a lot of beauty, right? We make this one drive around here and it’s got the trees coming over the road. You know, I’m thinking, ah, they’re going to have to fight everybody in whatever county that is if they ever want to put another lane there because that’s just you’re just covered in that. You just drive through that. It just refreshes you. There’s lots of beauty in the brokenness, but it is broken. And the King of heaven came and He came and walked in this mess and He got dirt and manure and junk on His feet and He got tired and He knew what it was like to just be bone weary tired after serving. He can feel where we are. He came Emmanuel, God with us. But this, see Jesus’ purpose, what did He come for? He came to seek again. He did miracles. He healed people. He raised the dead. He fed thousands and thousands of people. He ministered one-on-one to the leper, sometimes in group to the leper. He touched what He shouldn’t have touched. He did all of these incredible things, but He was coming about seeking something. He was regularly actively moving towards lostness. He went out of His way to find lost people. He didn’t follow the normal paths. His disciples were like, “Wait, wait. We’re going where? We can’t go there. That’s enemy territory. We We can’t go and find that person. We can’t look for that person.” But Jesus was always moving towards lost people. Do we ever move towards lost people? Is our only movement towards here where there’s mostly people who are following Jesus? It’s a great place to be, great place to get charged up, great place to worship together, great place to have fellowship. But most of the world is lost. Most of the world is out there. We have to be moving towards that, but we’re not moving towards lostness.

Now, I’m a missionary, so I have to plug a little bit. We need more missionaries. We could use a million missionaries tomorrow. You say, “That’s just inconceivable. How could we need that many people?” Because three billion people have never heard a single person breathe air across their vocal cords that came out in the form of the name of Jesus. Three billion people have no opportunity no opportunity to hear about it. It’s great. We need more churches. We heard Charleston. You think for us living in Africa and where we live there there’s one church, you know, but out in the bush and God’s using that. We see so many churches as we drive around here. That’s great. More churches here. That’s great. Sauldam grow and multiply and have babies and move all over this area. That’d be great. But 95% of the lost world is over there outside the US. 95%. Maybe God would call you today in a message not about missions, but a mission to surrender to that. Old or young. I’m 62. Going to be 63 soon. Been gloriously married for 43 years. Got five grandbabies that we leave behind most of the time. Why? Because He’s worth it and they’re worth it. And He said to seek the lost wherever He calls you to do it.

Well, let’s look at some of His seeking. The disciples. Jesus went looking for the disciples. Jesus didn’t set up a shop and put up, “Hey, I’m a famous teacher. I’m a rabbi. Come here and come find me.” He went to the sea. He went to the shore. He went to the tax collector’s booth. He went and walked among the people and called people out. He was seeking those followers and the disciples. I think this touches to this story very well. Matthew, He sought Matthew. I love how brother Jeremy last week said, you know, Jesus, if you’re starting a worldwide revolution, this is not the way to do it. These confusing stories sometimes that you got to dig into and why why didn’t you just do some plain speak so we really know what you were saying? Why why did you go here? Why did you go there? Why did you do it that way? It doesn’t seem like you’re trying to start something that’s gonna just just spread and spread and spread. You wouldn’t go to the tax collector. You wouldn’t go to that house. You wouldn’t go to that area of town. He went to Matthew and said, “Follow me.” Then He’s always in trouble for being with who? Tax collectors, sinners, prostitutes. Man, I we Oh Jesus, what are you doing? I mean, what kind of religion is this? What kind of movement is this? Who do you want? These are the these are the real sinners. These are the trash of society. Why do you want them?

We have a pastor in Kenya. His name’s Pastor Francis the Kakari. You wouldn’t have picked him. You wouldn’t have picked him to be your pastor. He was a drunkard. Family starving to death. Worthless as a husband. Just found out recently he was almost stoned to death by the Zumbaru people. He was such a bad guy. The elders were going to stone him. And at the last moment they said, “No, the the law will find out and we’ll get in trouble here. Let’s just, you know, let’s just leave him alone.” Guess where Jesus went? Went to the worthless, castaway, about to be stoned guy named Francis and rescued him. Raised him up to be a pastor of His people. It’s great. Jesus was always in trouble. He eats with this. He’s this. He’s a glutton. Hey, He’s a drunkard. The woman at the well. That just blew the disciples’ minds. You’re going where? We’re going what? You guys go do something else. I’ve got this meeting at the at the well. And he goes to the well and at the wrong time of day in the wrong place with the wrong person with the wrong gender he shows up and he has a marvelous time. He was looking for her he was looking for that brokenness he knew she was broken relationally. He knew she was covered in shame. She he knew she didn’t have a friend that she could speak to that anybody would love her and encourage her. But Jesus went. He was seeking her that day, that time, that moment in her life to rescue her. He was sewing seed. He knew there was some soil that was coming to the well. He was sewing that seed. And somehow he knew that that soil was going to be presented the gospel. And that soil covered in shame with no good relationships around her would surrender. And then she’d go and tell. Don’t you love that? I mean, the moment she gets it, she goes and gives it. I love that. I love that.

And then, oh, Zacchaeus, Jesus was looking. It’s interesting if you look back in chapter 18, some of the setup here is quite remarkable. So, there’s a parable, and in case you do it, I’m not going to go into it too deeply, but it’s a parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Huh? Right before the story of Zacchaeus, huh? What a great setup for that. What happens in that? The Pharisee comes and he just pours out, you know, I’m glad I’m not like that guy. I tithe and I do all the religious things. Oh, God, I know you’re just going to pour out blessing on me. What does a tax collector do? Worthless, full of shame, full of guilt. Nobody want me. God, you sure aren’t even going to look upon me. Oh God, have mercy upon me. Everybody’s looking and going, “Woo! Pharisee!” Man, Jesus is going to pour Himself out on that one, right? What does Jesus say? Who went away satisfied? Who went away with the Spirit of God? Who went away welcomed into the kingdom? The tax collector. Nobody went over there looking for him. Nobody went to encourage him. They were all around this guy just singing his praises. What a setup, right? Gets better. Rich young ruler comes along, huh? What about Zacchaeus? He was rich. He was a chief tax collector. He was loaded with money. He didn’t have any reputation, but he had a lot of money. Probably didn’t have many friends, but he had a lot of money. Isn’t that interesting, though? This rich young ruler. And then Jesus warns, “Well, the rich, it’s difficult for them to get into heaven.” And the disciples say, “Well, how is it possible?” And Jesus says, “With God, it is possible.” Hang on just a minute. Jesus, we’re going to Jericho. Let me give you a real life demonstration here. We’re going to go find us a tax collector, and you’re going to see the power of God in the midst of the impossible work out. Isn’t it amazing? I love that.

So he talks about that and then Jesus gives a prediction of His death and then right before as He’s coming into Jericho a blind man is healed. So he gets this crowd right I don’t know if this the same crowd would later on read with Zacchaeus. I I think it probably is. You kind of look at what kind of soil are they? They seem like good soil man. They praising God. We just saw this blind man healed. What a marvelous thing. We’re going to hang around this Jesus guy, but they were just wanted to kind of hang around Jesus in case maybe another miracle fell off of Him. And one of them got it on top of them. They were curious soil. I don’t know which one of those you you get to. They they they seem to like the miracle. They had some joy with that, but but maybe they were that hard soil. You you were hoping somebody in that crowd, but then their hearts turn, right? They saw the miracle. Maybe they’re following Jesus. And then who comes running? The short guy, Zacchaeus. I got to see. I got to find Jesus. Why would he be looking for Jesus? You think he heard about Matthew? I want to be around. I’ve got this teacher, this miracle worker. And you know what? He’s got some followers. And you know what? One of them is a tax collector. And you know what? He was a rich, wealthy, scrupulous, terrible, evil tax collector like me. Who Would hang around that guy? Who would rescue a tax collector? Maybe that’s what spurred him on. There certainly was the Holy Spirit drawing him. But Zacchaeus, maybe he was just tired of being alone, tired of being covered with shame, tired of the guilt of betraying his people. All the luxuries around him couldn’t satisfy his heart. Something was going on. His soil was ready for the seed, and Jesus was seeking. I love that. I just would love to know. We don’t get any more about Zacchaeus, but I’m thinking, well, did he hear about this other story, this parable? Had he heard a whisper of that? But surely he knew. Tax collectors must have got together, you know, sometime and said, “You hear one of our guys left, gave up everything to follow this Jesus guy.” Can you imagine? Zacchaeus said, “Maybe, maybe he’d take me, maybe rescue me from all of this mess, this brokenness in my life. Maybe when nobody else would give me the time of day, wouldn’t give me a cup of cold water. Baby, this Jesus, he seems to like to rescue prostitutes. And he seems to like to rescue sinners. And he seems to like to rescue tax collectors. He seems to like to rescue the fishermen that most people don’t care about except they got fish on their table. He seems to like to rescue this group of outcasts. Maybe, I don’t know, but it’s just curious there.”

Come to seek and to save. So Jesus came with a purpose to seek, and then he came to save, to rescue. Rescuing, that word means from great peril, especially from God’s judgment of sin and the penalty of eternal death. Rescuing from great peril, especially from God’s judgment of sin and the penalty of eternal death.

We share the gospel a bit differently in Kenya. That probably got you curious. Have you done something to the gospel? Did you change the gospel so that it’d be more acceptable to those people? No. But there’s a part of the gospel we had to learn about. The gospel actually has three parts. In America, we usually give one part. We’re a guilt-innocence culture primarily, but we’re shifting to a shame culture, and a lot of fear entering in.

If you go back to the garden, it won’t tell the whole story, but if you went back to the garden, there’s really three consequences of the rebellion of Adam and Eve, right? They were—wow, can you imagine walking in the garden in the cool of the day with God, talking to God, fellowshipping with God. Sin comes, they rebel, they go against what God had told them, they disobeyed the one rule. And what came? They were naked, unashamed. All of a sudden, they covered themselves. They walked with God in the cool of the day. They talked with Him. There was no fear in the world. No fear between them. No fear of the animals like I got in Kenya. Lions and all that stuff. There was none of that around. All of a sudden, they hear God’s voice and they hide themselves. There had never been guilt, but now they were plagued with this guilt. How do we know? Because guilt started pouring out of them. “Well, not me. It was her.” “Well, not him. It was the snake.” And this guilt started pouring out of them.

So, there’s three aspects that have to be taken care of. In the United States, we primarily talk about guilt to innocence. You know, I was raised—I even feel guilty. You pass the police officer. I’m not even speeding. And I still—what everybody does. Why are you slowing down? You’re not even speeding. That’s how we’ve been moved with laws and rules and regulations. And so we kind of look that way.

Younger people are moving towards shame. They don’t believe things are right and wrong like you and I do, but they don’t want to bring shame to their name, shame to their family, shame to their group. And then fear. Talked to somebody this morning. They’re talking about the COVID thing. We watched as just fear overtook the church.

So there’s guilt to innocence that God gives us. He takes our guilt, moves us to innocence. Look at Ephesians 1:7. “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace.” That minister, especially maybe to the older half of us that ministers, we’ve got this guilt-innocence thing, this rules and all. So God moves us from guilt through the blood of Christ, takes us to innocence. But then There’s this shame part. Shame to honor. Shame’s a little tougher to define. Shame is more to do with our identity. And shame can even come from someone onto us and we didn’t do anything. But if all we ever talk about is the Roman road and Jesus died for your sins and His blood was shed for your sins and covers your trespasses and sins, that’s great and you get forgiven. But you say, “But I still feel something. There’s still something in my identity that is covered and black and broken.” That’s shame. Shame can come from what you did, the way people interact with you because of what you did, or it can come one of the worst ways is somebody dumps it on you. They did something to you that was disgraceful and shameful and harmful and they dumped that on you. And so you say, “Well, I’ve got this freedom. I’ve got this guilt removed. I feel innocent, but I feel there’s something else in my identity. I still want to hide in the shadows.” And nobody tells you Jesus died for your shame, right? He endured the cross despising the shame. Jesus became covered in shame on the cross, most likely naked, if at the very least just a loin cloth. All of that would have been incredibly incredibly shameful. It was shameful to be hung up on a tree. It was horrible what they did to Jesus. They shamed Him again and again. And He did it so that your shame and my shame could be taken care of. And He moves us to a place of honor. Heirs and joint heirs with Christ. You’re adopted into His family. You have all these new relationships. Jesus takes what everybody else looks as shame upon you and He can turn it all around and He honors you. If you got that shame today, dump it on Jesus. Something somebody did to you that causes you to live in shame, don’t live that way anymore. Dump it on Jesus. He can take it. He can take it.

Finally, fear to power and hope. 2 Timothy 1:7, he says, “For God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind or sound judgment.” What do you fear? Death. That’s an easy one. You know what death is? Gain. Now, we don’t live like that. We live like this is gain. And we’re not sure what that really is. Yeah, I’m following Jesus. Yeah, I love Him. Yeah, I’ve heard about heaven. Yeah, heaven’s going to be great. But I’m going to try to make this more heavenly for me while I’m here because I’m really not sure if we’re going to do the harp thing or the cloud thing, to sit around and just sing thing. What’s heaven going to be like? It sounds maybe kind of weird, boring or whatever. So, I’m going to make this as much gain as I can get. And he says, “This is death. That is gain. Heaven is gain. Heaven is glory. Heaven is the goal.” That’s what he says. And he takes that fear and he can wipe it away. Fear of loss, loss of goods, loss of relationship, fear of the future, fear of death. Yeah, I understand. I’ve been around it as a pastor. Death itself can be miserable, painful, but it really for the believer is a heaven. It’s that quick. It’s that quick. Yeah. There’s this leading up to that some kind can be just terrible and finally there’s a [inaudible] and then there’s a heaven right he takes that fear Jesus died to conquer death to conquer the fear to give us hope to renew us and to strengthen us and to change our mind so that we can understand and take in the things of heaven.

Finally the lost. The lost. Jesus, the Son of Man, came to seek and to save that which was lost. What is lostness? It’s a brokenness. It is a state of being ruined so that you cannot fulfill your purpose. I’m afraid even in the church we think lossness for some of us was just I’m a little bent. I’m a little cracked. I’m not like that one. I’m not the murderer. I’m not the abuser. I’m not the this or the that. It’s really like, you know, my lossness was I’m kind of dusty. I just need Jesus to come along and just kind of dust me off, polish me up a little bit, put some some makeup on me, make me look better. That is not what we were like before Christ. You need to see what the Bible says. Because when you know what you were like Before Jesus rescued you, the rescue is so much better. I think sometimes we don’t live in love with Jesus because we don’t really know and really understand or really want to face what we were like before we came to Christ, before He rescued us. So, in my reading through the Bible the last couple of years, I’ve started to mark and I just put “me before Christ.” “Me before Christ.” “Me before Christ.” Put a note and go back and look at those notes. Well, these are just some of the verses. These aren’t all of the verses. I’m not going to read all these verses. I just want to show you the number of them. And I could have put a lot more on there. So, you see, all those verses talk about what you and I were like before Christ. You got to know that it makes salvation much more glorious. It makes Jesus much more wonderful because you see what the rescue was.

Well, now if you would put those words up there, this is what it says you and I were like before Christ: sexually immoral, drunkards. Now, you may not fit everything on the list, but you’re going to fit a bunch of them if you’re honest: greedy, adulterers, immoral, verbally abusive, idolaters, perjurers, ungodly, rebellious, part of the domain of darkness, alienated from God, hostile in our minds, liars, lustful, impure, disobedient, dead in our trespasses and sins, enemies of God, haters of God, at enmity with God, foolish slaves to sin, slaves to Satan. I always think it’s funny. I never give Satan a capital. He never gets an uppercase S. He gets—he’s not worthy. So, he’s just little Satan s all the time. Hating one another. Despicable in many more terms than this.

Before you came to Jesus, maybe you were young and you say, “I didn’t realize all of that.” Maybe you’re older and you said, “I didn’t take time to realize all that. I don’t want to look at that. That’s kind of ugly.” You’re right. It’s amazing that God would want to look at that. It’s amazing that Jesus would die for that. But He did. The depth of sin and the knowledge in our hearts increases the depth of love and appreciation for the Savior.

I have a sister who was saved at four years old. And you know, you as a grandparent, you can play the mind games if you want. You know, they’re really not that bad. Kids, you know, kids aren’t—come on. Four years old, what could she have done? Jealousy, selfishness. She was her own god. I’m not talking about just my sister. I’m talking about every four-year-old who has ever lived. Right? Mom and dad go to hug each other and kiss. Where’s the child? We want their first word to be mama. The first word starts with an m many times, but it’s not mama. It’s mine. They can say [Music] mine. No, mine. And that’s way before four. They need rescue. I know there’s—I understand about the accountability age and all that, but we don’t really know where to nail that down on. So, I can tell you what, my sister at four, she needed rescue as much as somebody at 64.

Now, yes, by God’s grace, she received Him early and she didn’t dip herself all the way into all of the pleasures that sin says that it offers. She didn’t get as dirty and as ugly as many of us did because we waited later in life. Maybe her testimony isn’t as extravagant and as bold as anything. But the blood of Jesus was needed to cover her sin and her shame and her fear as much as anyone who has ever come to Christ. When you see that, the glory of salvation just gets better and better and better.

I love the hope, though, that I didn’t have Him put this verse up there: 1 Corinthians 6:10, after 1 Corinthians 6:9, which is pretty bad. But then He says, “And some of you used to be like this.” In other words, we didn’t all do all this stuff, but we all did a lot of this stuff if we’re really honest. And we all needed rescue because we’re all broken. And we all needed Jesus and His death on the cross to rescue us. And we all had to surrender our lives to Him. But He says, “And some of you used to be like this, but you were washed by the blood of Jesus. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” So He doesn’t leave us there. He offers, “Hey, Zacchaeus, man, you’re broken. Zacchaeus, you have done so many shameful things.” If you look in the Amplified version, you’ve got these people that are talking, this crowd, maybe it’s the crowd that saw the blind man healed, and all of a sudden, what do they say? We thought this Jesus was a really great guy, and now He’s going to be with a sinner. Not just a regular sinner. I mean, this guy’s an expert at sinning. This guy is first class sinful. That kind of tells me what kind of soil they were. Their hearts weren’t very plowed up. They didn’t think they were [inaudible]. Well, this Jesus, can you believe it? We’re all around Him. He could have gone to anybody’s house. Who does He choose? The worst. The worst.

Zacchaeus knew He was there. Zacchaeus felt that shame. Zacchaeus saw the looks. Zacchaeus probably overheard the words in the market. Zacchaeus knew the rejection of his family. And he said, “There’s one coming. Maybe I got to see Him. In fact, I’m going to do something crazy. I’m an old man. I don’t do this in the Jewish culture. I’m going to climb a tree.” I guess he had to gird up his loins and he had to climb up that tree in sandals or he threw his sandals off. I don’t know what happened, but he got up the tree. I have to see Him. I am desperate to see Him. I am broken and I need a healing. I need a rescue. There’s nobody else can help me. My funds can’t help me. My wealth, nothing can help me. But there’s one that I heard. He can help me.

So, what about you as we finish up here? These life points. Biggest one, are you following? I don’t mean Sunday following. I mean you saw that list and you said I’m either there and I haven’t moved to rescue yet or I was there and I’m all in with Jesus. What does it look like? I tell you what, Jesus made it tough. Again, He’s not building this easy empire. You hate mother, you hate father, you hate brother, you hate sister, or you are not My disciple. They say really hate them in comparison. My love for Jesus trumps everything. If you don’t pick up your cross, if you are not willing to die to self for the kingdom, physically die, you cannot be My disciple.

So where are you? Maybe today you’re just in this list still and you say, “Today, that’s me. This is my tree I’m climbing today. I came here today. I’m desperate. I got to have this Jesus. You talked about this Jesus. Can it really be true?” It’s absolutely true. I’m living proof. I needed a rescue. Black sheep of my family. So much trouble for my parents. So much. You never would have picked me out of a lineup to say he’s going to go to Africa and be a missionary. I jokingly say my mom over prayed. She and three or four ladies got together every week during my teenage years. Jesus, could You, would You rescue Eddie? He’s a mess. Guess what He did? He rescued. He rescued.

Are you following today? Not Sunday following. You’re all in with Jesus as best you can. You’re in His Word. You’re digging in. You’re opening your heart to how can I serve? How can I serve mostly out there? How can I serve the lost? Are you following? Are you seeking?

So, we have a good IMB friend, missionary in Indonesia. He’s retired now. Lives in Alabama, expert in reaching Muslims. So he thought, well, I’ve got this expertise. I’m retired now. I got lots of time on my hands. I’m going to ask, are there any churches in this part of Alabama that would love to have training to reach Muslims? Guess how many churches signed up? Zero. Zero. Fear, hatred, bigotry, whether we want to admit it or not.

I’m going to really step on a sore spot here. Immigration. You know, the interesting thing is I think there ought to be controls. That’s all right. There got to be mercy in there. But you know what my problem is? I don’t see a label. I see an ethnicity. And that can, if my heart’s not right, stop me from doing something. But you know what? I don’t know if they’re legal or illegal. I have no idea. I don’t have a way to check their papers, but I can guarantee you most of them are lost. Lost. The government can sort all the other stuff out.

I’m not the sorter of that. I’m supposed to be sewing seed among the law so that they can come to salvation, so that they can be rescued, whether they stay here, whether they’re sent back. Wouldn’t it be great if they get sent back to their country and now they’re a missionary there, and they found Jesus in this land when they were doing something illegal, and they got sent back and they became a missionary there, and family who was just getting some money once a month from them is now getting the gospel? Wouldn’t that be great? Wouldn’t that be great? Who are you seeking? Do you have a name? A cubicle at work, a fellow student somewhere. Could you right now draw up in your mind a face that you are seeking in prayer? May God forgive us if nothing came to our minds. If there’s nobody that is on your heart that needs a rescue, this is an absolute command of the Lord. Matthew 28:19-20 is a command. If we are not doing it, if we are not seeking, we are absolutely violating a direct command that came from Jesus Himself for us to get about doing what Jesus calls us to do, what He gave us an example of doing. And we are walking in rebellion to not do it.

There’s a better way, though. If we’re honest, I don’t like to do things because I’m told, right? I mean, wouldn’t it be great if kids just said, “Hey, garbage needs to go. I got it. Love you, Mom. Love you, Dad. Thank for all you do for me. I’m gonna get—I’ll get the dishes. Mom and Dad, you’ve been so good to me. I mean, all you’ve done for me. I’m going to do that right now.” Not the way it happens. That’s how it ought to happen with Jesus. Jesus, in light of all that You’ve done for me, in light of amazing grace that has been poured out, in light of extravagant love that cost You. If you go back and look in chapter 18 when Jesus talks about His death, He was spit on. If you go to Revelations and you look, He He was slaughtered. The One who was slaughtered. It says it over and over again. Slaughtered. Jesus. That word, if you take it back to the bare bones, means He was butchered, but He was still alive while they were butchering Him. Why? Because of that list, that brokenness, that ruin, that sin, that guilt, that shame, that fear had brought into our lives.

You seek out of a heart of love because you see somebody else that’s where you were before Jesus, and I got to help him in light of what He’s done for me. People say, “Why would you go live in the bush of Africa?” In light of what He’s done for me. If He taps me on the shoulder and says, “Would you go to the ends of the earth?” You say, “Yes, I was a mess and You rescued me. Yes, You were brutalized for me. You were whipped. Your beard was plucked out. You were spat on. You were mocked.” They put this ring of probably acacia thorns that have a little bit of poison on it, and they beat it down on His head, that He had 30 or 40 or 50 three- or four-inch needles stuck in His head. Excruciating pain that you just—when you even remove the crown, the pain is still there from those needles. Brutalized for me. Could you share Jesus with somebody? “I’ll think about it.” How? That’s—that’s all tough to hear. That’s tough for me to say. That’s reality. And until you get a grip on that, you not get a grip—get a grip on the seeking. It—it flows together.

Finally, are you rejoicing—rejoicing in your rescue? Is your rescue still a joy to you? Do you remember? You know, when you come to Christ, you surrender all that you know of yourself at that moment, all your desperation, all your brokenness that you know, you don’t understand everything, to all that you know of Jesus. And you don’t often know a lot, but you keep walking with Jesus and you stay in His Word, you’re going to go, “Oh, yeah, that was me. Oh, yeah. I got to put that on. He—He rescued me from that. Oh, yeah. That was me. That was me.” Are you rejoicing over your salvation that it was really a rescue? Not a dusting, not a remodel, not a fixer-upper, not a rehab. A broken, ruined vessel restored by the death of Christ. That ought to make us rejoice. Where are you today? Going to have a time of invitation. And I’m going to tell you something odd about invitation. It doesn’t have to come this way. It can go that way. Because you know what’s often broken? Relationships, right? That is a pastor’s dream during the Lord’s supper. I’m always thinking, I want it to go that way. So before we take the Lord’s supper, people go, “I’ve offended you. I’m so sorry. I’ve said things behind your back. I I’ve done things to you. I’ I’ve maligned your character. I’m so sorry. Or I lied to you. You asked me something and I I didn’t tell you the truth or this happened or that happened.” It’d go that way. You know, invitation can go that way. People to people, brokenness to brokenness for restoration. It can come this way too.

Maybe today right where you are, you just take a moment of rejoicing. Thank you, Jesus. Maybe today, right where you are, you can come up here. You’ll say, “I’m ready, Jesus. Rescue me. You need help with that? Happy to help with that.” Maybe you’ll say, “You’ve been pulling my heart, Lord. It’s time to surrender. I’m going to surrender today. Whatever that looks like. It doesn’t look You get scared with a, you know, bush missionary. Does it look like that? No. Sometimes it looks like next door. Sometimes it looks like the prison. Sometimes it looks like your schoolmate. Sometimes it looks like the next office over. Surrender. Whatever God calls you to do by the power and person of the Holy Spirit, do it today.

Let’s pray. Yahweh, Father, we love you. There aren’t enough thank you words to thank you for what you’ve done. Lord Jesus, thank you for enduring the cross and the shame, taking our guilt, our punishment, the brutality that we deserved on yourself. And thank you that you’d call out to us, Lord. That you’d call out to us and you’d rescue us, Lord. There’s rescue that needs to be done today at different levels. Some rescue from coldness where salvation just gotten cold, formality, maybe pharisaical rescue, Lord. Maybe rescue from broken relationships right now across the aisle. People need to just cross and rescue relationships. Maybe something else publicly that has happened needs to be dealt with. Be dealt with right now, Lord. By the power and the move of your spirit would you do these things. Thank you for loving us in Jesus name. Amen.