Paul
I Adore You (I will sing it with all my heart)
God Great And Glorious You Are (Everything I am I give you)
I Adore You coda
Wonders (Who is like you in the heavens, your wonders stretch across the sky)
The Great I Am (Hallelujah, holy holy, God Almighty, the Great I Am, Who is worthy, none beside Thee)
Forever Reign (My heart will sing no other name Jesus) coda
How Great Thou Art (O Lord my God, when I in awestruck wonder)

Katie
Continuing services at 4pm
Youth group will kick off fall 2014/2015 season on September 12th
Men’s ministry, BBQ at Milewski home Wednesday September 10th
Women’s ministry Tuesday bible studies
Tuesday morning at the Grimes home, every (other) Tuesday night at the Jones home
Still need more people in our All Hands On Deck

Paul
2nd time speaking within a month, that may qualify as a sermon series
If I were to give it a title, it might be Issues That I Am Struggling With
Last week was the persecuted church
This week I was drawn to topic of evangelism
When I picture evangelist, I see a big sweaty guy in a suit, mopping his sweaty brow with a handkerchief, pronouncing God “God-duh”
…
Eu which means good and angelous which means messenger

15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.
Mark 16:15 (ESV)

Romans 10 “how can they hear without being heard?”

14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
Romans 10:14-15 (ESV)

Good news is what the word Gospel really means
Comes from olde English, GodSpell, which comes from the Latin evangelium
And Jesus said, “Be this thing that everybody already knows, but about me”
People love to spread good news (like if you have a malady for a long time)
So why aren’t we running up and down the streets proclaiming the good news about the man who saved my soul
I’ll knock down my neighbor’s door to tell them about an album I love
I cringe a bit when I think about preaching the gospel to other people
We go on mission trips and do all this stuff, but why don’t we spread the good news?
We like sharing good news
You don’t have to make sacrifices to get to God anymore
We’re worried about our friendships, that if I tell them:
1) I have to be like Jesus forevermore
2) They might need discipleship and then our friendship has to get real
…
Please tell me there’s someone out there that has a plan that’s better than me
But Paul, we live in the US, hasn’t everybody already heard it?
I think they’ve heard what they think Christianity is
But have they heard it from someone they trust?
Movie analogy: in this room, there are maybe only 20% of you whom I would trust (recommendation wise) when it comes to spending $13 on a movie
…
Things that get preached that aren’t quite the gospel
1) too good to be true news
Do your own thing, it doesn’t matter, you can thank Him when you get to heaven

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
John 3:16-18 (ESV)

9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Romans 10:9 (ESV)

Have any of you ever been to those swanky Hollywood parties with swag bags?
Stuff We All Get
Nobody puts that bag in your car; you have to go pick it up
Jesus did it for you, but Jesus wants you to come pick up your bag
2) the rules
Where do we get the rules we abide by as Christians? The epistles of Paul
The rules are how you live as a disciple of Jesus
Leading with the rules rather than Jesus himself
It’s like jumping to step 2
Kindness leads to repentance
Tried to come up with a game analogy, kept coming back to Pictionary because I haven’t played games forever
If you start explaining Pictionary by saying “if you lose your friends will abandon you”, no kid is going to want to play that
You have to describe it like “fun game from the 80s, you draw pictures and your friends all think your drawings are awesome”
Don’t lead with the bad news, lead with kindness
…
One of my favorite movies of all time is Forrest Gump
I didn’t realize it was one of my favorites until I noticed that I couldn’t turn it off when it was on TV
Gets on this bus in Greenboro, Alabama
All the redneck kids are like “this seats taken”
But Jenny (who turns out to be the love of his life), says you can sit here
I worry too much about “Do I still have a seat on the bus God?” but I miss the fact that there’s somebody in the aisle looking for a seat
Or sometimes we rush out of the rain and slam the door behind us but we don’t want to open the door again and risk getting rained on again
Don’t worry about how many scalps (converts) you’re taking to heaven with you
In the South we’d have camp meetings every summer where these itinerant preachers would come in and they kept talking about how many people they had saved or how many people they had prayed with
And I would feel like I wasn’t doing enough

3 So he told them this parable: 4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
8 “Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? 9 And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Luke 15:3-10 (ESV)

Put in the effort for that one
We gotta be committed to relationship
Humans don’t want to be targets
Be real friends, they’re not statistics and they’re not goals
If you take that leap, if they trust you and know you
How do I seal the deal?
That cool Holy Spirit thing

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Acts 1:8 (ESV)

I can count on Him to show me the way
God has this great way of injecting Himself into conversations in the weirdest ways
The Holy Spirit wants those people just as badly as you want them, probably more so
The message don’t change, but there’s a way to present it that can only come from you and there’s a person who’s looking for a unique message
I love coming here with you guys on Sunday nights
I’ll be here seeing people raising their hands and worshiping God and I’ll think of a friend of mine who would be freaking out if they were here
When Zacchaeus came to see Jesus, Jesus saw the effort and said “that’s my guy”
Jesus did it on Zacchaeus’ terms
When I think of it, I think of…
Ed. Note: Or that scene from The Lord of the Rings where Gandalf is having tea with Frodo
…
Jesus didn’t change the process of his disciples, he just changed their purpose
My calling and my reason for living is a musician
But my purpose is different
…
Jesus choose fishermen on purpose
Good businessmen
Native tongue was Aramaic, but knew other languages for commerce
Respect for the law and operating within it’s limitations
…
Jesus didn’t ask that much of us…just change the world
Don’t change the way you do things, just your purpose and the way we see people
Are we seeing and moving in that?
When we are led by the Holy Spirit…
Go forth and preach the gospel to the men and women in your life