Bringing People to Jesus | Pastor Justin Cooper

Welcome to From The Pulpit of Gospel Life, the podcast where the truth of God's word comes alive through powerful preaching from Gospel Life Baptist Church in Walker town, North Carolina. Each week we bring you messages straight from the pulpit, filled with encouragement, eviction, and hope to help you grow in your faith, strengthen your walk with Christ and live out the calling God is placed on your life. Whether you're listening at home, on the go, or during your personal quiet time, we pray that every message inspires you, challenges you, and draws you closer to the Lord. Now let's hear today's message from the pulpit of Gospel Life. First chapter of John, verse 35, and something very practical tonight, very basic, but so important. So important to my life and your life and to the life of a church. In fact, if we're not busy about this, then why exist? And so I pray God will use it in the life of all of us, because all of us can be involved in this. The first chapter of John might be one of my favorite Bible chapters now that I've been reading in it. I'm not going to be preaching through it tonight. I'm going to be in a certain part of it, but it's a power-packed chapter all the way through. But I want you to see what the Bible said here in John chapter 1, verse 35. Again, the next day after John stood and two of his disciples, and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saved behold the Lamb of God. By the way, John just preached that same sermon the day before, and now he's preaching it again. You know what that tells me? He never gets old when he lift up Jesus. Just keep preaching Jesus if it weren't yesterday to work today. Verse 37, "And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned and saw them following and said unto them, 'What sea keep?' They said unto him, 'Rabbi,' which is to say being interpreted master, 'Where dwellest thou?' He said to them, 'Come and see.' They came and saw where he dwelt and abode within that day. For it was about the tenth hour, so it's like maybe four o'clock in the afternoon or so. One of the two which heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. Stop. If I were to go around the room tonight and ask you, what do you know about Andrew? We might have just exhausted it. If I were to say exactly, what do you know about Andrew? I think he was Peter's brother, and that's exactly right. That's about all we know. And there's really not a lot about him as you continue to study the Scripture. There are some insights, but not a lot. But the next couple of verses tell us all we need to know about the man. He says he's Simon Peter's brother, but look what it says in verse 41, he first findeth his own brother, Simon, and sayeth unto him, we have found the Messiah, which is being interpreted the Christ. And here is his one statement legacy, and if this is the only thing you could say about an individual, this is enough. And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus be healed him, he said thou art Simon, the Son of Jonah, thou shalt be called Seaface, which is by interpretation a stone. For a little while tonight, I just want to speak to you on this thought of bringing people to Jesus, bringing people to Jesus. How many of you in this room tonight remember the first person you led to Christ? Raise your hand. Wow. Most of you. All right, let me ask you this. And it's not an embarrassment. How many of you have never got to lead someone to Christ yet, but you're going to someday, but how many of not yet? All right, Susan, very good. All right. That's all right. But you're one of these days, you will. I promise you that if you hang around here long enough, I hope you do. But it's the greatest thing in all the world. I got saved when I was 21. I surrendered to preach when I was 22. And I started preaching the Saturday, I surrender on Sunday morning. I started preaching on Sunday night. The first time I preached outside of that church was the next Saturday, and it was in a juvenile detention center down in South Carolina somewhere. I don't know where it is, and I don't even know if the government knows where it is the way they were acting there. But anyway, I was in this juvenile detention center. And I preached there on that Saturday morning, and I gave an invitation and asked the boys how many of them wanted to get saved. And I didn't expect it, but almost the whole room raised their hand. And so that day I didn't get to lead my first soul to Christ. I got to lead my first 18 people to Christ that day in that juvenile detention center. I have never gotten over that, nor forgotten it. It was probably the greatest thrill, almost of my ministry. I mean, it's all been downhill from there. You know what I mean? Just that first time, 18 people getting to lead them to Christ. I think that every person here tonight, if you're sane, if your mind is right, all of you here tonight desire to do something that is noble and notable with your life. A lack of purpose is much more detrimental than a lack of talent. People can live without a lack of talent, but most people would rather die than not have a purpose. And I think that the majority of people, they don't want to just drift through life without making some kind of an impact and some kind of a difference. You think about it. If you can present to people a noble cause, they will push themselves to the limit. They'll sacrifice comfort. They might even shed their blood because there's nothing so romantic to the human mind as being involved in something that is bigger and greater and more notable than you are on your own. Everybody wants to be a part of something that matters. We challenge our children with that. We try to raise them to pursue some noble career. And we make a big deal about those who do it. We make a big deal about those who sacrifice for the benefit of society. There's some sort of an esteem that comes with certain positions. For example, being a policeman, that's noble to me. Being an astronaut, that's out of this world. Being a doctor or being a scientist, there's certain careers that make a bigger impact on life than other careers do. They require more training, they take more time, they have more demand, they carry more weight, they require more skill. And I think if we could choose, and it wasn't so difficult, every one of us would choose to be involved in some sort of thing like that, that we know we'll leave a mark on life long after we're gone. The truth is tonight, not everyone in our church has a job like that. Not all of you have dumb things today that the world would step back and applaud or time magazine would come and write an article about you. You're probably not going to get a bust of bronze somewhere in this world because of what you did today. Some of us just do jobs that nobody even notices. I mean, there are a lot of you here today. All you do is punch a time clock in and then punch a time clock out and that is it. Some of you maybe are waitresses or waiters and all you do is carry food to a table. There might be some of the day. I don't know if you just sit at a desk and you push a pencil for a living. Maybe you turn a wrench and get grease under your fingernails. Maybe you're at a shop or a planter working the graveyard shift and you work hard and thank God you provide for your family, but you're not necessarily involved in a career that they're going to add to some history book someday as making a big impact on society. But I don't want you to be depressed about that. I don't want you to be discouraged about that. You say, well, all I am is a whatever. That might be true. But I want you to hear me tonight. God has provided you and God has provided me with the opportunity to be part of the most noble cause that exists tonight. Tonight we have been enlisted to pour our life into a career that carries a lot of weight and it matters more than time. It matters for all eternity. And here it is. This opportunity is for every assistant pastor. This opportunity is for every decan. This opportunity is for every usher. This opportunity is for everyone in the media room. This opportunity is for every school teacher. This opportunity is for every Sunday school teacher. This opportunity is for every bus worker, every choir member, every nursery worker, every man, woman, boy and girl, all of you, all of us can be a part of something that is bigger and more notable and more noble than any other cause in the world. Bigger than being a policeman, bigger than being an astronaut, bigger than being a scientist. This is a pursuit that all of us can be involved in and ought to be involved in. The janitor might not make a big difference being a janitor, but he can make an eternal difference doing what I'm about to ask you to do. A bus driver might not make a big difference being a bus driver, but a bus driver can make an eternal difference getting involved in what I'm about to invite you to be involved in. A waitress might not make a big mark by being a waitress, but a waitress can make an eternal impact by doing what I want to present to you tonight. Tonight I understand, I don't have the mind of a scientist, I don't have the training to be a doctor, I don't have the credentials to carry a gun and be a policeman, but I have been commissioned, and I have the opportunity to do this one thing that God has called me to do that can make a bigger difference than all of those other things put together. Being present is a noble cause, but there's something bigger than that. Being a parent is a noble cause, but there is something bigger than that. And tonight I want to present you with the greatest cause and the highest calling that any Christian can devote their life to, and you say, what is it? It is simply this bringing people to Jesus. There is nothing better in this world. than God using you to help somebody else get to him. Can you imagine that God would reach down and grab a tool of dust to do His best work with? He will let somebody like me and somebody like you, just an old wretched sinner ought to be in hell, but been saved by grace be a part of His programming plan to go to other sinners and say, "Hey, you can be. " Oh, no, don't get too excited. Don't run around or nothing. And chill out. That's an amazing thing to me that God will let me be involved in bringing people to Jesus. I mean, the very first time I preached 18 people got saved. And it was like a hit of spiritual crackers. I mean, I haven't gone over it yet. I'm still addicted to it. I have given my life, and I want to give my life till I die in helping people get to Jesus. I don't care if it's through song or sermon or soul winning, or program whatever, all that we do around here. Why do we do it? To bring men and women, boys and girls to Jesus. In John chapter one, it's a chapter of introductions. As you begin to read through the chapter, John is just introducing thing after thing to us. He begins the chapter by introducing us to the Word. In the very first verse, in the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. I love how Jesus is described as the Word. And in verse 14, it tells us the Word was made flesh and word among us. You say what is a Word? Words are used for expression, and they're used for explanation. What is Jesus? He is the express image of God. Everything of God that you cannot see, now you can in Jesus. He is God manifest in the flesh. He is that which was invisible, made visible. That which is eternal, come down, robed in humanity so that we can be hold in full of grace and truth. He is the revelation of God, the explanation of God, the expression of God. You see, I wish I could see God. Well, then look to Jesus. He introduces us to the Word. Then he introduces us to the Watchmen. In verse number six, there was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He introduced us to a preacher in that amazing. God has a wild man of voice, crying in the wilderness. The Bible says he's a witness and a man, but he's the voice. He was God's chosen method for preaching that Jesus was on the way that the kingdom was coming. So we find the Word that he introduces us to the Watchmen. Thirdly, he introduces us to the world's sin taker. I like that. Who is that? The Lamb of God was taking the way the sin of the world. Jesus did not just come to say, "Look here, here's God." He came to say, "Look here, here's grace. Here's forgiveness. Here's mercy. I am that sacrificial lamb. I can take away your sin." Aren't you glad for that? So he introduces us to the Word, the Watchmen, the world's sin taker, but lastly, he introduces us to a witness. And I like it. In verse 35 through verse 42, actually in verse 35 to the end of the chapter, it begins a section of the text and it reveals witness after witness. John will witness, Jesus will witness, Andrew will witness, Philip will witness. It just gets the ball rolling that after somebody gets saved and around Jesus, they're going to be a witness. Now it says in verse 35, again the next day after John stood and two of his disciples. There's two men that have been following John the Baptist. Maybe they've been baptized with John's baptism. They've been following John as that New Testament, Old Testament, Gulf Spanner, that almost reincarnation of his alliance. Here he's coming, saying make the past straight. The kingdom is coming. The king is on his way. And they bought into that and they were following John. But they had been there and the Judean hillside by the Jordan river. And they've seen Jesus come by. They heard John say, that's him. Not me, that's him right there. That's the Lamb of God. They saw Jesus going to Jordan. He didn't go half way in. He went sprinkled or splashed, but John took Jesus and baptized him by immersion. And then the Father, Son and Holy Ghost all appeared at one time. And they realized that Jesus was something. And they began to be intrigued by that. Now on this next day, Jesus passes by. When Jesus passes by, I'm glad John wouldn't have self his preacher. Some preachers try to keep a crowd for them. I'm trying to get a crowd for Jesus. Jesus comes passing by. And John said, I told you yesterday I'm going to tell you again today. That's Jesus. That's him. He's the Lamb of God. And the Bible said there's two unnamed disciples in the first verse 37. Unnamed to us that hear John and they see Jesus. Now I wonder how much God they got in that glance. When they watched Jesus pass by, I wonder what they thought. I wonder what they saw in that glimpse at God in human flesh. Jesus knows their heart. And he turns to them and opens this conversation. He asks them in the text, what are you seeking? And they respond by basically saying, we're seeking you. Now these two disciples of John called Jesus rabbi. And they say, where are you staying? They're calling him master. They followed John. But now they're unhitching their faith from John. And they're hooking it up to the Lord. The men ask Jesus where he's staying. And he says this, come and see. And in that moment of response, it changes their life forever. Just that little come and see. There's a day like that in my life and in yours. When the Holy Ghost said to you, come on and see. A preacher preached a soul winner knocked whatever it was. But Jesus spoke to your heart and said, come and see. It's about the 10th hour of the day, getting into the evening. And those men give a testimony and they say we're here to be with you. We want to go wherever you are. Now look at verse number 40. They go and have an evening with Jesus. And after this, one of the two, which heard John speak and followed him, was Andrew Simon Peter's brother. What do you know about Peter? He's Simon Peter's brother. Or what do you know about Andrew? Here's all I know. He's one of the 12 apostles. He's the first one that is called. He's a fisherman. He's from Galilee. His hometown is a town called Bithsaida. He's second fiddle to Simon because every time they talk about him, it's always Simon's brother. That had to get annoying by the way. I don't know if it's true, but history tells us he was crucified on a cross shaped like an X about 70 AD. It seems as though maybe he's not as important as some of the others, but there are about 12 references to him in the New Testament. One thing about Andrew I saw is four times when he's mentioned he is bringing people to the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'll explain that to you here in just a minute. But here is Andrew. Andrew's life has now been changed. He has met the Lord. Jesus did something for him that John had not done. He has now met the master. He's been in his presence. And I would say his mind is filled in racing with a million different things. But the first thing that he decides to do is that he wants to introduce his brother to the man who has just changed his life. One preacher said as soon as a man is found by Christ, he begins to try and find other men for Christ. And that's what I said in verse 41. He first findeth his own brother, Simon. It's emphasis on the act. It is priority and it is preeminent and it is persistent. It tells me he did it right away. He didn't take a 10-step program. He didn't take a discipleship course. He had enough knowledge to know that whatever Jesus did for me, he can probably do it over there. And he just wanted to tell Peter what happened in his life. I like it. He rushes home. He finds his brother. And he said, Peter, I met somebody unlike anybody we've ever met before. I know John can preach. I know John had a mean tailor with him set camel skin suits. But I met somebody unlike any man you've ever met before. And his name is Jesus. And I want you to meet him too. But he didn't just say that and leave it. He goes beyond. And there's a statement given to us that is better than if we had a 5,000 word biography. It tells us more about this man than if they'd written volumes of his life. He says, Peter, there's this Jesus. He'll change your life. But you know what he did? Took him to him. Jesus changed my life, Peter. I tell you, he's spake like never a man spake. He's got to be the one. I know he's the one. I mean, he's done something for me and I'll fill up too. I mean, I'm just telling you, he's making a difference in our life. And Peter, maybe Peter said, Andrew, you're fanatical. Andrew, you're worked out. Andrew, chill. I mean, just Andrew has calmed down for a minute. But you know what, Andrew said, you've got to meet this guy. And the Bible says he brought him to Jesus. Now wait a minute. Listen, Andrew had not been saved but a minute. He'd never been in a Sunday school. He'd never heard how to live the Christian life. All he knew is that something happened in his life when he got around Jesus and he wanted Jesus to do it for somebody else. What is that? That is time reaching out to touch eternity. That is earth impacting heaven. That is now changing forever. Andrew just gets in the habit of bringing people to Jesus. He brought Peter to Jesus. He brought the lad with his loaves to Jesus. He brought the Greeks to Jesus over and over. over again his priority was introducing people to the Lord. That word "brought" means to carry, to convey, to conduct, or to cause. All right, Matthew, come on, help me. Let's see. Belcher, come on, help me. There's no singing parts. You just have to do something else. All right, come on. I know you want to be a musician and things, but you know what, if you're going to be a musician, don't be a sissy one. Be a man. Okay. Anyway, you will. I know you will. All right, no way to man. Here's what it means. Go over there, sit in my chair. All right. I'm going to be Jesus. No, I don't want to do that. That's not good. Punterlay will come be Jesus. All right, good. Your beard reminds me of Jesus. All right, good right here. You've just met Jesus. He's changed your life. Go tell Peter about it. Hurry up. Take him to him, right? Take him to him. Now, wait, see that. Wait. I want to be Peter. Or I'm going to be Andrew. Sit down, Peter or Andrew. Sit right there. All right. Jesus just changed his life. Didn't you? You're so enthusiastic. All right, good. He's changed his life. Hey, you know, that's amazing. Hey, I want you to tell, we've been praying about this. We've been waiting on this. We've been reading about this. We've been hurting about this. I mean, telling me I met the man. I finally met the man in the Messiah. I'm talking about the one from Genesis all the way through Malachi. The one that's been prophesied and preached on and taught about that I've met that man. He has changed my life. He got baptized yesterday and I heard the voice of God say, that's my beloved son. I saw this dove come down. Looks like the Holy God. I mean, I'm one in the world. I met Jesus. Now I want you to meet him too. Maybe Peter said not writing, but he wasn't going to take that for an answer. He said, no, you're coming with me. And he brought him to me. It's almost like this. It's almost like try to hold back a little bit. Try to not come with me. He said, come on. You're coming with me. I mean, he's bringing him. He's getting him to Jesus. He's got to get him. He brought him to Jesus. He wants his life to be changed too. He is conveying him there. He's not saying, hey, listen, come back over here. Come on. He's not saying, he's not saying, I met Jesus. And if you'll just pray for a deeper experience. And if you'll just really be a good boy, maybe you'll meet him someday too. He's not just saying, well, all I'm going to do is go to church and try to live a good life and everything. And I'll quit cussing so much around Peter. He cussed this enough for all of us. And, you know, I just try not to smoke my cigarettes and I'll go to church on Wednesday night. And maybe he'll pick up. No, he didn't do that. He said, well, I know it. I'll do. I'll put a little bracelet on my wrist. I said, WJD, what would Justin do? And I just wear that around. Maybe I'll get a cross tattoo and just flex it in the summer time. You know, and maybe he'll pick up on the fact that Jesus can, no, he didn't do that. He said, I'm going to introduce this man to Jesus. I have got to show him and tell him. And he probably got there and said, this is Jesus. He is the Messiah. He is the one. Here's what he did. He was more than getting him to a location. He was getting him to an understanding. He wasn't taking him to a place. He took him to a person. He's not just getting him to church. He's not just getting him to an event. He is trying to get him to the knowledge that that is the Son of God. It's the first thing that he did, y'all can sit down. Thank you. It's the first thing that he did. Now wait a minute. Andrew could have been a doctor or a lawyer or a policeman, but it wouldn't have made his big a difference as him bringing him one person to Jesus. Peter's worth 10 Andrews, but it took an Andrew to get us a Peter. I mean, how do you for George Washington? How do you for Douglas MacArthur and Albert Einstein and Neil Armstrong? But I think three years for Andrew because he got Peter to Jesus. And if you read your Bible, you can't miss the fact. It's filled with example after example of different things that God uses and all of those things are purpose to get people to Jesus. Now I'm going to preach just a couple of men. God went to great lengths to get Jesus to us. You say what do you mean? He gave us his Son. He gave us the Spirit. He gave us the Scriptures. He gives us a sermon. He gives us the soul winner. He gives us the sanctuary. He gives us people that we can run into the saints of God. And you think about it in John 1. All of this is to get people to Jesus. And you study the gospels all throughout. People are brought to Jesus. They bring blind people to Jesus. They bring broken people to Jesus. They bring lame people to Jesus. They bring lepers to Jesus. They bring deaf people to Jesus. They bring demon possessed to Jesus. They bring poor to Jesus. They bring rich to Jesus. They bring young to Jesus. They bring old to Jesus. They bring the hurting to Jesus. They bring the hopeless to Jesus. They bring the rebellious to Jesus. They bring the religious to Jesus. They bring all stripes to Jesus. They bring all shapes to Jesus. They bring all sizes to Jesus. There are 40 different people in the New Testament that are brought to Jesus. All throughout the gospels, they are brought to Jesus. Matthew 1913. Then they're brought under him little children that he should put his hands on them and pray. Luke 1815. And they brought under him also infants. They would touch them. Mark 23. And they come in him bringing one sick of the palsy, Mark 732. And they bring unto him one that was deaf, Mark 917. And one of them of the answers in Master, I have brought unto thee my son, Mark 521. And when Jesus was passed over about ship on the other side, much people gathered unto him. And it says when he got to the other side, a maniac was there. And they brought him to Jesus, Acts 835. Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. John 1 verse 43 and 45 in our text, the following day, the next day, the next day Jesus gets Philip says, follow me. What's Philip do goes and gets Nathaniel? He said, come to Jesus over and over again. That's what we see in the Bible. We see the invitation to the world. And then you and I commissioned to take the invite to every creature in the world. Thank God for that. To use your faculty tonight. For more involved in any other cause, then getting people to Jesus is spiritual malpractice. If you use your mouth for something more than witnessing, if you use your hands for something more than passing out a gospel track, if you use your feet for more things than walking to tell people about the Lord, then it is spiritual malpractice. Because the reason you and I have been saved and the knowledge of the gospels come into us is to get that out to a lost and a dying world. Amen. God used a well in Samaria to bring a woman to Jesus. And then he used the woman to bring her city to Jesus. God used blindness to bring Bartimaeus to Jesus. And then he used Bartimaeus to bring others to Jesus. God used demons to bring a maniac to Jesus. And then he used a maniac to bring others to Jesus. God used leprosy to bring a leopard to Jesus. And then he used a leopard to testify and bring others to Jesus. God used a bunch of Pharisees to catch a woman's opposing act of adultery to bring that woman to Jesus. And then she got, she got help and they got rebuked. I like that. God used the star to bring wise men to Jesus. God used angels to bring shepherds to Jesus. God used a Bible verse to bring a unit to Jesus. God used a road to bring soul of closest to Jesus. God used an earthquake to bring a tailor to Jesus. God used Calvary to bring a Centurion to Jesus. God used storms. God used donkeys. God used people. God used diseases. God used circumstances. God used Genesis 1, 1 in the beginning. God used revelation. Amen. All of that is there to bring people to Jesus. Just in our text, John was a witness. Jesus was a witness. Andrew was a witness. Philip was a witness. We have a dynamic witness, a divine witness, a dedicated witness, and an determined witness in the first chapter of John. Let me give you six statements. I won't preach them. We're through. It's hot. All right. Number one, if you're going to bring people to Jesus, just topical, just six things. Number one, if you're going to be bringing people to Jesus, I want to challenge it. Read the gospel in the book of Acts all the time. Because if you read that all the time, then you'll see if you're going to be a Christian, then you're going to have to be a soul winner. Meditate on Calvary and remember hell, remember hell, and everyone who dies without Christ goes to hell. Number two, number one, read the gospel in the book of Acts all the time. Number two, pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to be a witness. If you ask to be spirit-filled, if you're spirit-filled, you'll be a soul winner. The power of the Holy Spirit is not for you to speak in some weird language, just for you to be a witness. All right. Number one, read the gospel in the book of Acts all the time. Number two, pray for the power of the Holy Spirit. Number three, get gospel tracks and keep them on you. You know how many times I've ever gone hunting without taking shells? Zero. Thank God. You know how many times I've gone fishing without taking hooks and bait? Zero. You know who's not going to be a good soul winner? Some of you don't have bait on them. A hook, a gospel track. It's easy to keep it on you. We're Baptist. We don't have anything else to put in our wall or purse. Let's put gospel tracks in there, you know. A bunch of poor folk. All right. Read the gospels in the book of Acts. Number three, get gospel tracks and keep them close. Number four, ask God to break your heart for souls. Ask God to break your heart for souls. I remember reading after I started to preach where D. O'Moody prayed that God wouldn't let him go a day without witnessing to somebody. And I got burdened about that and I wanted to ask God to do that for me. And I did. I And I said, "God, I pray you'll not let a day go by. "I don't get to witness to somebody." And I was teaching at a Christian school, that first little bit of our life and things, and I'm never laying in bed, and it hit me like conviction, I didn't witness to anybody today. But I heard a trash can being pulled down the road. It was trash day the next morning. And I got out of bed, went outside, and there was a 20-something-year-old guy starting a landscaping business at the end of the cul-de-sac, and he was dragging his trash can out. And I witnessed him probably about one in the morning, over top of his trash can. And that boy thanked God, he got, they didn't always happen, but he got saved that night, one in the morning. But every day, you listen, it's hard to not get hard toward people. We need to ask God to give us a soul in his heart, to have a burden for souls. Number five, number one, read the gospel, in the book of Acts, every day, if you can, number two, pray for the power of the Holy Spirit, number three, get gospel tracks and keep them close. We have track racks all over the building. All right, number four, ask God for a broken heart for souls. Number five, pray for lost people by name. Pray for lost people by name. He's though, I don't know any of them. We'll then get out and meet some of them. Whenever you go by your groceries, look at the girl or the guy's name tag, and write that down the end. Thank you, somebody. If you read leadership books, I love leadership books. One key aspect of a leader, they live by lists, 'cause lists keep you focused. But what about a prospect list, a prayer list? All right, number six, read the gospel in the book of Acts, number two, pray for the power of the Holy Spirit, number three, get gospel tracks and keep them close. Number four, ask God for a broken heart for souls. Number five, pray for lost people by name, and then let me give you this last one, number six, go where people are, go where people are, go where people are, we all do every single day. If I'm gonna go fishing, I wanna go someplace where I know there's fish to catch. If I'm gonna hunt, I wanna go somewhere where I know there's animals to live, you know? I mean, I wanna make sure that there's something worth going for. Well, why don't you go where they are? Here's what John Rice said. He said, the sea of humanity is full of fish, and they're always biting. Now, I don't know which one, when I go fishing, I don't know which fish I'm gonna catch. I just know there's fishing there I can catch. At sheets, there's people there. At the seafood shack, there's people in there. At the loaves, there's people in there. At the hardware store, at the feed store, right? At your workplace, at the mall, at Walmart, there's people in aliens and all kinds of things in Walmart. Ah, yeah, Democrats aren't good. What I'm saying is, when you're out and about, sometimes if I'm not careful, we'll do this, put our head down and just go like this, where we have our phone out, and we're doing that. But let me challenge you to look up. That's what it look under the fields, and see that they're wide already to harvest. Not everybody can do everything. I've said this to you before, but every safe person can be a soul winner. And we ought to strive to be asked God to help us. Those of you who've won souls to Christ, you know there's no thrill like it, to know that God just used you. But I wonder if it's been a while, and if you'd come to an altar and say, God, break my heart for souls again, open a door for me to be a witness this week. If you've never won a soul, maybe you want to come and ask God to give you an opportunity, maybe just say, God, would you make it? You know, that first one would just give me somebody who's ready, and maybe he will. But everything we do around here, that's why I listen to our invitations are so important. So we don't move around in invitations and distract. That's why we want to be real sensitive about the altar. Everything we're doing is to try to help bring people to Jesus. Be a witness this week, be a light. I'm going to pray, maybe you want to come spend time and pray. Maybe you have a sinner on your heart who's not saved and you want to come pray for them by name tonight, a parent, a friend, a brother, a sister, a coworker, a neighbor. And you'd like to see him saved. And you want God to even use you, would you come pray about that tonight? Lord, I pray that you bless the invitation this evening. Thank you for our church. And Lord, we see people saved every day at this church. So I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I want the choir to keep on singing that same song. I want us to keep soul winning. I want us to keep being a witness. And what I pray is people move into our air, either somebody new homes popping up, people moving in constantly. That it wouldn't take long for somebody from gospel light to get to their doorstep. And God, help us to be busy preaching the gospel. Not just Sunday and Wednesday, but every day of our life, I pray that we be a witness. I pray gospel tracks will be in our car, in our purse, in our pocket. Help us to bring people to Jesus, please. We ask this in your name, amen.