Leaf River Daze— Evangelistic

Good morning everyone…it is so good to see you all here and to be together outside here this morning. Wow what an amazing weekend this has been so far…I mean this market over there, we had a great kids zone right here yesterday…even in the midst of all the sprinkles and whatnot, it was a blast! I am so grateful that we have been able to be a part of this years activities. I’m grateful for Sherry pushing to do an outdoor worship time, and Tara facilitating Greg Peterson from the Peterson Farm Brothers speaking later this afternoon. I mean, it’s a pretty cool time that we have been able to be a part of as a church, and I am super grateful that I get to be a part of this, because to be honest…this was not always my life. My life used to have a VERY different trajectory, but we’ll get to that in a bit…

So, as a church we have been looking at the book of Genesis off and on over the last few years. We’ve been looking at a bunch of frankly, messed up stories. I mean, we have looked at the very fist sin in recorded history. We have Adam who abdicated his role as leader to his wife Eve who led him into eating of the one fruit that God told him not to eat from. That got them kicked out of Paradise. Then you have two of his kids, Cain and Able, and it seems that one of them killed the other…do you guys remember that story? Yeah, Cain killed Able with a rock because he was jealous of the way that God received Able’s sacrifice more than his…Cain was jealous so his response was to kill…That’s not where it stops though because then we have Noah who builds and ark because all of humanity has become so evil that God has decided to destroy everyone except for Noah and his family. Do you know how evil you have to be for God to decide to destroy you. Pretty much this is it (Genesis 6:11-13)

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 6

11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with wickedness. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth was, for every creature had corrupted its way on the earth. 13 Then God said to Noah, “I have decided to put an end to every creature, for the earth is filled with wickedness because of them; therefore I am going to destroy them along with the earth.

Everything and everyone was wicked…so God destroyed it all. Now, there is some controversy about the story of the flood. Was the flood universal or was the flood regional. Let me just put that controversy to rest in your minds. The flood was universal. Do you know how I know that? Scripture tells us that is was…Right there in that passage, God said he was going to destroy the Earth, not the neighborhood. If God only destroyed the neighborhood then his judgement would not be universal, and unfortunately God’s judgement is universal. I say unfortunately only because that means that each and every one of us…you and me deserve God’s judgement don’t we? I mean I know I do…Ill tell you about that in a bit…

Then we continue on in Genesis and we come to the pride of man who decided that they didn’t need God and that they would be able to build a city that was so great that they didn’t need to scatter across the globe the way that God had commanded them to do. Here is what they said. (Genesis 11:4)

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 11

4 And they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Let’s make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered throughout the earth.”

They wanted to make a name for themselves instead of listening to the name of God…they learned nothing from the relatively recent history, within a few hundred years of God destroying everything for mankind doing things for themselves instead of listening to God. Although, you know Im not sure how much we can really talk because frankly I forget why I walked into the kitchen sometimes…ya know…

Anyway, after all of this we move into this guy named Abraham. Really over the last year we discussed Abraham, his son Isaac we talked about earlier this year, and recently we began talking about Isaac’s son Jacob. What has been really interesting in talking about these three generations of men is that not a single one of them were good men. I mean, not a single one was good by any metric.

Let me break it down for you a little bit. You see, God told Abraham that he would protect him…so that’s cool. The moment that things looked a little dicey, Abraham forgot about God’s promise and told everyone that his wife was his sister. That was so they would only take and assault her but not kill him. Seems like a pretty upstanding guy, right? Well, God protected Abraham and his wife while giving plagues to Egypt for taking Sarai, so they gave her back.

Well, Abraham and Lot, thats his nephew, separate because Lot is tired of sharing the good land with Abraham and so Lot goes down to the area around this place called Sodom and Gomorrah. Now Sodom and Gomorrah represent everything about doing things the way of the world and not the way of the Lord. Sodom and Gomorrah is a place all about personal pleasures and not about pleasing the Lord…that’s why Lot and his family enjoyed the area there so much. Well, Abraham found out God was going to destroy the area so he begs that God save his nephew and so God sends down some angels to save them and they have a pretty difficult evening where Lot offers up to the town his daughters for the town to assault, so they will leave these visitors alone…it’s a pretty messed up story.

Fast forward and Isaac, that’s Abrahams son is settling down with his wife Rebecca. God tells him that he will protect him and immediately after that, these men come up and ask him about his wife…Do you know what he does? HE tells these men that his wife is his sister, becuase he is afraid they will kill him and only assault her. Again…a pretty upstanding dude here huh. God protects Rebecca because God is merciful even when guys are boneheads…

Well, Isaac and Rebecca have a couple of boys that cause some fighting. See, Esau is a hunter, and Jacob is more of a homebody. Jacob turns out to be a pretty good shepherd, we’ve seen that recently by God’s grace. However, these guys just fight and deceive each other. Well, actually Jacob deceives and takes advantage of Esau and Esau commits to kill Jacob as soon as Isaac dies of old age.

That’s kind of where we are today as a church for the most part. We have followed a bit further and seen how Jacob has made a family of his own now and how he has been deceived now by Laban his father in law, just as much as he has deceived Esau or anyone else in his life. Genesis has really been an incredible story of deceit and mystery and murder all wrapped up into sexual sin and the pride of man and the judgement of God…and we’re still just in the beginning of the story of Scriptures. It’s incredible. Later we are gonna see how Jacob will have his name changed to Israel and that is where the nation of Israel comes from today…Remember also that part of God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was that he would bless the entire world through this family. So where does this blessing come from? Well…we’re gonna get there in a minute. First I wanna tell you a little more about myself. Some of you have heard alot of this before, or at least parts of it, some of you haven’t…so I figure this is a good time to just fill everyone else in, and remind you in case you forgot.

So I grew up in a pretty good Christian home, I prayed a prayer when I was 5 years old and was baptised on Easter Sunday. Thats the best day to be baptized in case you’re wondering…like that makes me more baptized than you are. I grew up attending the largest Southern Baptist Church in the world in the 80’s and 90’s, and Southern Baptist was the largest denomination in the world at that time. That’s not considering Catholic as that would be considered another religion. So I grew up attending this church and I was a part of these things called Bible Drills when I was in elementary school. Basically this was a competition where you would be given 10 seconds to find a passage. The judge would call out a particular verse and whoever stepped across the line first proving that they did have the right verse would get bonus points. There was also a part of Bible memorization to this where you would have to memorize so many Scriptures and you would have no idea which one would be called, but whatever was called you had to step forward and recite that passage. Think of a spelling bee, but with a timer and a race element to it as well. Well, I was a part of my churches team and I qualified to go to the Texas state championships one year. I don’t remember where they were, or how I did to be honest, but I did bring back a Bible from that event, and if you want to see that Bible some time, it’s in my office on the bookshelf.

When I was in 6th grade the church I attended, called First Baptist Church had a group of protestors that would come out and park across the street and protest the church and try to scream horrible things at the church. They were on public property so there was nothing the church could do about it other than ignore it…Well, I was pretty annoyed about it so I walked across the street in Downtown Dallas and I challanged these protestors and what they were saying. I shared the Gospel with them and debated them on the face of what they were saying. I told them that if they were going to make accusations as they were then they needed to bring proof of what they were accusing. I stepped up in a way that I did not see any of the men of the church stepping up because I was tired of seeing these men and women yell about our church. Now, I shouldn’t have gone over and challanged them, and I probably only did because we had just learned about David and Goliath or something like that…but I stepped up none the less.

I also started going on mission trips down to Mexico where I would go across the border into a town called Matamoros where we would go door to door preaching the Gospel to countless homes and people walking on the street…Of course…those mission trips is also where I got my first real taste of alcohol. Me and a couple of friends bought some small bottles of various alcohols and began drinking and I discovered I enjoyed the taste and effects of that very much. It would be a couple more years before I would start drinking on a regular basis, but I would start drinking on a very regular basis for a few years straight. Those few years were very hard years where I ended up being pretty much a piece of garbage where I engaged in criminal behavior that was all very selfish and self focused, and I don’t even remember much of what happened if Im honest. Here’s what I know though…I sure am glad that I didn’t die in one of the many accidents or assaults that I had where I likely should have died. I had someone remove the lug nuts off the wheels of my truck so that the tire would go flying off while I was driving down the highway…luckily I was a good driver that was able to compensate quickly. I had multiple people shoot at me, and was in plenty of fights where I just didn’t even care what happened to be honest. Here’s the deal…The man that stands in front of you today…is not the same man that lived 25 years ago in Dallas, TX. I’m 100% a different person, and not just because Ive gained almost 100#’s…Im a different person because something changed in me…something happened to me.

You see, in July of 1999 I had an encounter with Jesus sitting on the patio of my parents house. In this encounter I remember as clear as day telling Jesus that I had dug a pretty big pit of my life and there was no way possible for me to get out of the mess I had made of my life. I told him I just needed a hand so I could climb out and get back on my feet…Well, I got more than a hand to lift me up…I’m not sure what happened, but the next thing I know I am out of that pit and I walking around in a brand new life. Not perfect…still had plenty to learn and plenty of areas to mature in, but all brand new. Why is that important? Because without that encounter with Jesus I would have deserved the judgement of God. You see, I repented of my sin in the midst of that encounter with Jesus. I had prayed a prayer when I was a kid…I prayed a prayer and I made my mom and dad really happy to get to baptize me in church, but those were just words…when I was 19 years old I had finally came to the rock bottom of the pit of my own making and deserved nothing but the judgement of God, but instead I was offered the grace and mercy of Jesus.

Here’s how I know there was a change though…you see, there was a change in my desires from before that moment to after that moment. I didn’t know everything yet, and it took me a while to figure out that some things weren’t really beneficial to the Kingdom of God, but my desires changed from what will benefit Billy to what will glorify God. Here’s the deal…from my perspective, I was the worst of sinners. It’s simply by the grace of God that I didn’t get caught for some of the things that I did, or didn’t follow through with things that I was going to do, I would have likely spent real time in prison. Here’s the deal though …When you come to Christ, He forgives your sins and purifies your heart.

Now, remember I told you about how Adam sinned and brought sin into the world. Look at what Paul writes to the Christians in Rome about that event (Romans 5:12)

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 5

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned

What Paul is saying here is that When Adam sinned, he infected all human kind with sin through all time…Now all of us were born into sin. In other words, we are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners. That’s a different perspective because that means I can’t be good enough no matter how hard I try on my own. Look at this passage(Romans 3:23)

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;

We’ve all sinned….there’s no way around it…there is no one that is good alone, not even one person, except for Jesus himself. That’s why his death actually matters. You see, Jesus willingly choose to sacrifice himself for you and I. (Romans 5:8-9)

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 5

8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 How much more then, since we have now been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath.

Do you know why there was a sacrifice? You see…all the way back in Genesis God presented a way to deal with sin. From that very first sin, there was a blood sacrifice. God sacrificed an animal and provided clothes for Adam and Eve. Way back in the Garden, blood was spilt, which is why they had to be removed from the Garden. From then on there was always a blood price for sin. That price was always paid through a spotless lamb, that is until Jesus came and he became the spotless perfect lamb that would be the last and final sacrifice for all. Have you ever asked yourself why there are no more animals sacrifices? It’s because when Jesus died he ended the sacrificial system…there was no more need for sacrifice. You see…Christ died…but Christ did so much more than that! Christ actually rose from the dead which is something he predicted was going to happen, and something that more than 500 people verified in that time period. When the Gospels were written down, the people who witnessed these tings were all still alive and could have refuted the facts if they were not true. Let’s take a look at what the angels said when the ladies showed up at the empty tomb in (Luke 24:6-7)

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 24

He is not here, but he has risen! Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, 7 saying, ‘It is necessary that the Son of Man be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and rise on the third day’?”

Here’s the bottom line…You are a sinner. Jesus died to pay the price for your sin. Jesus rose from the dead to prove he has the power to pay that price for you and everyone else. Now the choice is up to you. Will you repent of your sin, or will you continue to attempt to live life on your own. Countless lives have been changed over and over again. Will you allow God to change you, or are you selfishly going to hang on to your own desires instead?

Listen, Im going to close and invite the band to come up and lead us in a closing song called reckless love. The reason this song is called reckless love is because from our perspective it makes no sense that Jesus would continue to chase after us when we continue to do stupid thing after stupid thing…but Im here today to prove to you Jesus will fight for you and will not give up if you will respond to him. Listen, there’s alot more to my story if anyone wants to learn more about me, then I’d love to get together and chat…just come grab one of my cards and reach out. We also have some Gospel of John’s here that we would love to give you if you don’t have a Bible of your own to get you started in reading for yourself. If you’re here and you’d be interested in hearing more about the forgiveness that is provided through Jesus’ reckless , sacrifice, then please reach out and let’s get some lunch and have a conversation…maybe you’re interested in taking the next step on your faith journey and looking at baptism, or looking at a church to attend regularly…reach out and let’s have some conversations and talk about what that looks like for you to take that…for now, Im gonna lead us in a quick prayer and then the band will lead us in that final song.

Let’s pray (God works in hearts)