Keys to Thanks - Key 4: Spread Christ - 11/26/23

This is a Liberty Baptist Church sermon podcast. LBC is pastored by Jordan Zeke and exists to reach the lost, disciple the saved, and send the called. For more information on our church, please check out our website at LBCspokane.com. We hope that you are encouraged by today's sermon and that it draws you closer to God. Today, we are finishing up our series on the keys to thanks. We've been talking the past three weeks about three different keys and how they can help us be thankful as well as to remind us to be thankful. We've talked about accepting the gifts, the gifts that Christ and God has given us, the gift of love, of joy, of life, and so to remember to accept those gifts as well as to not worry and to realize that God's in control. God has the ultimate authority. He's the one who controls our lives and so he's the one who knows and he made us and so why would he not take care of us? So we talked about those two keys as well as last week, talking about the key of simply acting thankful, of making sure that we remember that we need to act that way. We need to be thankful because if we're not acting thankful, then we're never going to be thankful. If we don't tell people thank you, then we're not going to be thankful. If we aren't doing these things, then that's going to not be a staple in our lives. But today with the last key, I simply want to talk about spreading Christ. The idea that because of these other three keys that we've talked about, because we can accept the gifts that God has given us, because we know he's in control and we don't have to worry, and because we're able to act thankful, we need to make sure that we are spreading Christ, spreading that thankfulness to others. I want to ask again, who had a good Thanksgiving? Raise your hand if you had a good Thanksgiving. Who if I asked would tell me about their Thanksgiving? Probably about everybody because you're thankful for it, because you have this idea in your mind that, man, this was great, this is a fantastic opportunity for me to be able to tell somebody about what I'm thankful for, to be able to tell somebody. And I hope I know on Thanksgiving every year, we go around as a family and just to say things that we're thankful for, because that's acting thankful, because that's realizing the things that we should be thankful for, but that's sharing it, because we want others to know about it. So then if we take those other first three keys, if we understand that Christ has given us things, if we understand that God's in control, if we understand that we need to act thankful, and we realize that Christ came and died for us, then if we're truly thankful about that, we should be spreading it with others. We should make sure that this isn't, you know, I know Christmas time is coming up. I love, again, children, when they get a present, they're so excited to share with you about the present they got. When I get a present, I'm going to tell you right now, I'm so excited to share the presents I got, because I'm thankful for them, because it's something that I love, something that's near and dear to me. And so if Christ has saved us from our sins, and it's something that is near and dear to our hearts, then we should be spreading it. We should be sharing that with others. We should be truly thankful, and to make sure that we are spreading Christ. So today I want to tackle three different questions, and we're going to look at Matthew 28. That's going to be our main verses, our main verses if you want to turn to that, Matthew 28. And today I just want to tackle three main questions about spreading Christ, and about spreading God's word, because I know hopefully this last week you guys got to spend some time with family, and I know that not everybody's family is saved. There's going to be unbelievers, there's going to be people who need to know Christ, or just coming across somebody on the road. There's going to be people we come across who need to know Christ. And so we're going to read Matthew 28, and then we're going to answer three questions about what it means to spread Christ. So in Matthew 28, 18-20, it says this, "And Jesus came and spake unto them, them being the disciples, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth, go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever, I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you all way, even unto the end of the world, amen." This, if you don't know what it's called, this is called the Great Commission. This is Christ talking to his disciples, commissioning them, giving them the mission to go and spread his word, to spread Christ with others. Now we would say that this was, yes, given to the disciples, but it's something that we should be doing also. It's something that we should, if we are thankful for what Christ has done, should be doing. Because he says there, he says in verse 19, "Go ye therefore into all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever, I have commanded you." Christ has told us, hey, the things I've taught you, the things that I've done for you, the things that you know I've died, I've risen again for your sake, go and share that. Go and tell people about that. So today, I want to tackle three questions in regards to this passage, in regards to what it means to spread Christ. The first question that I want to tackle is simply who. I know this is a question that you might obviously have the answer to, however, there's going to be people who don't know. Who am I sharing Christ with? Who am I trying to reach Christ to? Who am I trying to give that to? Well, the answer is simply everyone. Every single person is who we should be trying to reach with Christ. We should be spreading Christ to everyone. Again, I think of it as a child who just got their Christmas present, doesn't matter if you're a stranger, if you're their best friend, if they're their parents, they're going to tell you about this fantastic toy truck that they got, or this fantastic dollhouse that they got, because it's great. This is the greatest gift I have ever received. And so if we have the greatest gift to ever be received, then we should be sharing it with everyone. We look back again at Matthew 28-19, it says, "Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, the Holy Ghost." Another verse talking about that same thing, it says in Acts 1-8, "But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth." That gives this list of the areas in which they should be sharing Christ, because it kind of starts off small, says your own local community, you need to do this in Jerusalem. And then it goes a little bit bigger, hey, in Judea, hey, in Samaria, and into the uttermost parts of the earth. It's covering every single aspect, and that's the same thing that we need to read it. We need to read it as, hey, go and share Christ in Spokane, go and share Christ in Washington, go and share Christ in the United States, go and share Christ all over the world. That's how it applies to us, is we need to be sharing Christ with every single person we come across, because we don't know if they're saved or not. One of the biggest mistakes that believers make is believing that somebody else is saved. If we go around thinking that every single person we come across, whether that's family, whether that's friends, whether that's complete strangers, if we go around believing that they're all saved, then we're not fulfilling what Christ has called us to do. We aren't going to be sharing Christ the way that we would to an unbeliever, but we need to be sharing Christ with everybody. So, when I ask who do we share it with, we share it with everybody, but I want to talk specifically about the non-believers. Let's talk about the non-believers. Why are we sharing Christ with them? What does it mean to share Christ with them? Well, Matthew 5.16 says, "Let your lights so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven." If we are sharing Christ with the non-believers, they should see our lives are different. They should see that there is something different about us. We talked about this last week about going and doing and acting thankful, and because we're acting thankful, we're letting our light shine. But because our light is shining, it should be lighting up people's world. It should be showing them the love that Christ has given us. It should be showing them the joy that we've been given, the love that we've been given, the new life that we've been given. All of these keys connect because we can go all the way back to the first key of those gifts and understanding, accepting those gifts, but we need to try and share those gifts. We need to share the love that Christ has given us, especially to unbelievers. Because if we are in an argument with an unbeliever and they start trying to say, "Hey, you're doing this. You're acting this way. You're not acting loving. You're not doing this." I mean, society looks at believers because of certain believers, not everybody, but at times they look at us as the most hateful group. And that's not how we should be. And again, I'm not saying everybody's hateful. I know more loving Christians than I do hateful Christians. However, it's the way we go about it. We have to make sure that when we are loving people, we are letting our light shine. We're not just trying to shove things down their throat. We're not just trying to tell them all the things they're doing wrong. We're trying to show them the way to salvation. If we're letting our light shine, then they're seeing the good works that we're doing so that way we can glorify our Father. That's what it says right there. "Let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven." If we come across some believers, they should see that there's something different about us. If we come across some believers, they should think, "Man, I want what he has. I want what she has because I want to be that light." So when we're trying to share the gospel with others, when we're called to go therefore and teach all nations, we're supposed to reach the unbelievers. We're supposed to reach those who don't know Christ, those who need to know the love of Christ, those who need to know the joy, those who need eternal salvation. We need to be reaching the unbelievers. But not only that, when we're talking about everyone, we also need to be reaching the believers. We need to be talking to the believers. That's why we're here today. Because if you're a believer here, then you're not just hearing this and then thinking, "Okay, it's done. I've already, I've already got saved." That's it. No, we're supposed to be encouraging each other. We're supposed to be meeting. Hebrews 10, 23 through 25 says, "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful," that promised, "and let us consider one another and provoke unto love and to good work, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another and so much more as we see the day approaching." These verses are saying, "Because of the things that we've been taught, because of the things that we believe, we should be sharing that with each other." It says right there in verse 24, "And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works." If we are among believers, we shouldn't be, be disputing, we shouldn't be arguing about things. Now there's, there's disagreements, there's, there's different opinions, there's a lot of different things that can go, that can, I mean, we're only human. But we really should be doing is sharing Christ. We should be provoking one another to love and to good works, to doing good things. We're trying to reach unbelievers by sharing those gifts that we've been giving, the love, the joy, the eternal life. But not only that, we should be sharing those exact same gifts with others. We should be sharing the love that we have. We should be sharing the love, the joy, the thankfulness, all of these different things that Christ has given us. But not only that, it says in verse 25, "Not forsaking the assembly of yourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another." That means lifting each other up and so much more as you see the day approaching. We see that the day is approaching, that the end of time is coming near. It's been said for thousands of years that, that, you know, it's end times are near. But say right now, they've never been more near than they are right now because we're clearly more near than they were back then. But the time is always approaching. We don't know when it's going to come. We don't know when the end times are going to come. People might speculate, people might try to say they have the answer. But the Bible says no man knows because it's going to come as a thief in the night. So because of that, we need to be prepared. We need to be sharing love with each other. We need to be exhorting one another, lifting each other up. We need to be communing. We need to have that community. One of my dad's favorite words, if you know it, was "coinonia." That's having that fellowship, having that camaraderie with your fellow family. You know, hopefully again, you got, you were able to enjoy time with your family, able to enjoy time with friends and things like that. But we need to be having that as a church family. Not just with our own families and with, with our friends, which is important. It's very important. The Bible talks about it. But it also says not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. So when we're sharing Christ, when we are spreading Christ, we need to be spreading Christ again to everyone. This is every single person we come across, unbelievers and believers alike. Because we can't just assume that every single person we come across is a believer. That is the biggest mistake we'll ever make. If we aren't sharing Christ with them because, "Oh man, I think that this person's a believer. They act good. They're nice. They're, they're cool. They do all these different things." But then the end of time comes and they weren't a believer. We never shared it with them. They don't get to have eternal life with Christ. They don't get to live with him forever. And so when we spread Christ, we need to spread it with everybody. So who do we spread Christ to? We spread it with everyone. The next question that I want to tackle is how do we spread Christ? How are we spreading this gospel that we know? Well, we spread it through our actions. We're spread through the things that we do, the ways that we act. It said right there in Matthews 5.16, "Let your lights so shine before men that they may see your good works." We need to make sure that our actions are appropriate. That means simply walking in the light. If we're believers, if you are a believer and you are trying to share Christ, how do you do it? You do it by walking in the light. Again, Matthew 5.16, "Let your lights so shine before men that they may see your good works." Only that, but 1 John 5-8 says, "This, then, is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light. And in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and we walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. God is light. If we are saying that we have Christ and we want to have that relationship, we want to have that fellowship, but we're not living it out, then we're really not doing what we're supposed to. We're not living the truth." It keeps going. It says, "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." We have to understand that just because we're trying to spread Christ does not mean we're perfect. Just because we're trying to share the gospel with people does not mean we've got it all figured out, but it simply means that we are trying to be the light in somebody's world. We're trying to be the love that they need. We're trying to be and give them joy that they need. We're trying to give them the eternal life that only can come through Christ. We need to be acting as though we're saved, walking in the light, having that fellowship with God. But not only that, we need to be loving. We need to love them. Matthew 22, 37 through 39 says, "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." This is the first and great commandment. The second is like unto it, "Thou shalt love your neighbor as thyself." We need to love people. Bible says we need to love first and foremost God, but the second thing, we need to love others as ourselves. We need to be sharing love with them. If we talk about who we're sharing it with, we're sharing it with the unbelievers, the believers, but if we're sharing how, that's simply love. That's simply being a loving and a kind person. That means not trying, like I said, to start arguments, to shove things down their throat, to just make your opinion known and to make them know it. It's simply, "Hey, let me talk to you. I want to share this love with you. I want to share the light that I have. I want to share the joy that I have. I want to do that, and we do that through love." We can't do it through hatred. We can't do it through disappointment. We can't do it through all of these different things that are negative. We have to do it through love. But all of that boils down to is, with our actions, how are we acting simply to be like Christ? If we're talking about how we share the gospel, we can do it through being the light by loving them, but ultimately, we need to do it by trying to be more like Christ. First Peter 1.13-16 says, "Wherefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end of grace that it is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lust of your ignorance, but as he which hath called you as holy, so ye be holy in all manner of conversation, because it is written, be ye holy, for I am holy." Now that's a lot of words just simply to say, "Hey, Christ has made us holy if we're saved. He has given us salvation. He's given us that redemption." And so because of that, we should act like it. We should act like Him. We should be like Him. Says, "Be holy for I am holy." If Christ is the one who has the ultimate authority, the ultimate say, the ultimate life, and he was a 100% man with no sin, then we should be acting like Him. That means loving. That means being a servant. That means having joy. That means doing all of these different things, but ultimately for us, it means spreading Christ. So who do we share to? We share to everyone how do we do it? We do it with our actions, but we also do it with our words. With the way that we speak, with the way we're talking to people, we can do it with our actions. We can help people move. We can help give some money. We can do these different things, and that is fantastic stuff. That's what we're called to do. That's loving. But one of the most immediate things for us is just going to be the way we talk to people. The way that we're spreading Christ is important because we have to talk to people correctly. We have to watch what we say. James 3-6-8 says, "And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. So is the tongue among our members, that it defileeth the whole body, and seteth on fire the course of nature, and it is set on fireeth hell, for every kind of beast and of birds and of serpents and of things in the sea is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind. But the tongue can no mantain; it is unruly evil, full of deadly poison." We have to understand that the things that our words say, the things that we do say, they matter. I always think of when you're a child, I don't know if you ever saw this, but you take a toothpaste tube and you pour it all out. That's like our words. That's the things we say. Okay, now try and put it back in. It's impossible. You can sit there, but you're always going to miss some part of it. That's the same thing with our words. We can say things, but if they hurt, all we can say is sorry, but that hurt is still there. That's the same thing with love. If we share love, then that's an overabundance. Then we are doing what we're supposed to. Then we're making it known that, "Hey, I want to love you." Before that, in James, it talks all about the small things like a bridal on a horse or a rudder on a boat and how these small things can affect such a large object. That's the same with our words. If we say something that we truly don't mean, then it can affect the rest of our lives. If we aren't watching what we say, it can defile our entire body. That's what the Bible says. We need to make sure that we're acting right. We're walking in the light. We're being like Christ, but we need to make sure our words are right, that we're watching what we say, and that we are speaking with grace and love. That we need to make sure that the things that we say are loving. They are kind. They aren't something that I need to shove back into that toothpaste tube. They're things that I want to come out of me. Colossians 4, 5 through 6 says, "Walk in wisdom toward them that are without redeeming the time, let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man." The more we talk good to people, the more we show love to people, the more we speak love and grace, the easier it gets. The easier it is to continue to show love to people, to continue to speak love, because just like how one wrong word can totally defile our entire body and our tongues can defile us, they can also lift us up. They can also help us be more like Christ. If we are sharing love, and we are speaking love, and we are speaking grace, and we're speaking joy, then that's going to be continually what comes out of us. Because what comes out of us is truly what's in our heart. And if we're only speaking negative things, then that's only negative stuff in our heart. But if we start putting good, we start putting love, we start putting grace, we start putting all of the fruits and the spirit in there, then that's what's going to come out. So who do we share Christ with? We share it with everybody. How do we share it? We share it with our actions and our words, the things that we do. But then lastly, I just simply want to talk about what are we sharing? What does it mean to share Christ? We already talked about we need to, we know we need to do this with everybody, we need to speak it, we need to act it, but simply what are we talking about? What does it even mean to share Christ? Well, I want to split it up into four simple points, and they go consecutively, so it's four simple ways that you can make sure that people understand Christ. The first way is to understand that we are sinners who deserve death, that when we're talking to people, we need them to understand, hey, we have sin in our lives. Verse 323 says, "For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God." That's not just the person we're talking to. That's not just the unbeliever if we're talking to them, that's not just the believer, that's every single person. We're telling this to everybody because it applies to everybody. We have all sinned, and we all deserve death. That's just simply what the Bible says. However, we also know that Christ was perfect and died and rose again for our sake. That's what the Bible says. It says, hey, you're all sinners, you all deserve death, you all deserve this. However, Romans 5:8 says, "But God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Even though we don't deserve his love, even though we're all sinners and we deserve death, while we were still sinners, Christ came and died for us. That's the important thing, that's probably the most important part for people to understand is, hey, yes, you're a sinner, yes, you mess up, yes, you make mistakes, however, Christ still came and died for you, Christ still came and loves you, but it doesn't stop there. There's still more steps to be done, there's still more choices to make. Simply understanding that we're sinners and knowing that Christ died for us, we need to make sure that we have to accept him to be saved. Again, it's one thing to understand, hey, I'm a sinner, it's another thing to say, hey, yeah, I think Christ did come and die for me, but it's a completely another thing to say, hey, Christ, I've accepted that you've come and died for me, that I can't do this on my own, that it's only through you that I can come to know God. So we need to make sure that we have to accept him to be saved. Romans 10, 9-10 says, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt believe in thine heart, that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved; for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Let me read that again. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt believe in thine heart, that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." It's important for us to, one, remember that we are sinners, that Romans 3-23 says we're all sinners, it's also important for us to realize that even though we're sinners Christ still came and died for us, we have to make sure that we accept that, that it's something that we believe in our hearts, and we have verbally said that we have committed to. "Thou shalt confess with thy mouth and believe in thine heart." But the last thing that we want to tell people is that we're going to live with him forever if you've done those first three. If you've understood that you're a sinner, if you've understood that Christ came and died for you and you have accepted him, then we will live with him forever. Romans 6-23 says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 3-23 and 6-23, they go hand in hand, "For all have sin and fall short of the glory of God." However, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. It's because of Christ that we can live with him forever. So on your handout, I've put four simple things for us to remember. It's number one, we need to tell them about God's love for them. That's what it means. We tell them about God's love. The second thing is tell them about their sin problem, tell them about the solution to their problem, and then tell them about the action that they need to make. That's the important things for us is to make sure that we are walking them through saying, "Hey, you understand you're a sinner. You understand Christ died for you. You understand that you have to accept him, but then once you do, you get to live with him forever." That's super simple. It's a super simple outline of sharing Christ with an unbeliever. Now, how does that look like for believers? Well, we just simply need to live and to not forsake the joining of our bodies. We need to make sure that we are working together for the same purpose. We go back up to Matthew 28, 18 through 20, and it says, "And Jesus spoke unto them, saying, 'All power is given unto me in heaven and the earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.'" That's the same goal that he gave the disciples. It's the same thing that we need to do. We need to make sure that we are spreading Christ. Again, if we are truly thankful for what Christ has done for us, then we want to spread it. We want to share it. We don't want people to not have that love. We don't want people to not have that joy. We don't want people to go to hell because they haven't accepted. We want to make sure that the people that we are talking to know Christ. Who do we spread Christ to? We spread it to everyone. How do we spread it? We spread it with our actions and our words. And then what are we spreading? We're spreading that we're sinners. There's nothing we can do. But Christ still came even though we were sinners and He died for us. If you believe it, then you get to live with Him forever. Just a little recap on these last four keys and how they work together. Simply, that key number one was to accept the gifts, the gifts of love, joy, and life. To make sure that we first and foremost know where we're going to go if we die. That we make sure that we know because Christ died, we have that love. Because we're saved, we have that joy. Because we're saved, we get to live with Him forever. The second thing is to not worry about it. Once we're saved, God's going to take care of us. We can't look at the other things and say, "Man, look at all of this stuff. It's really, it's a lot for me." We need to make sure, "Hey, look at the birds. They don't do anything, but God's taking care of them." Look at the grass. It's momentary, but God's still taking care of it. Make sure that we've accepted the gifts. We're not worrying. We're acting thankful and we're spreading Christ. Those two go hand in hand. If we are acting thankful and we truly are thankful, then we're going to want to spread Christ. This month, we've been tackling just these keys to thanks and making sure that we understand what it means to be thankful. We are making sure that we understand what it means to show thankfulness. Today, I just want to take a moment. If everybody could bow your heads and close your eyes, I just want to take a moment. If there's anybody who hasn't accepted Christ, who doesn't understand the gifts that we've been given, who doesn't understand not worrying because we don't know who's in control, who doesn't understand acting thankful and giving thanks for the one who deserves it. If you have not accepted Christ, look at those four steps. Look at simply understanding, "Hey, I'm a sinner." The Bible says that we've all sinned, but it says that even though we were sinners, Christ still came and died for us. So all we have to do is to accept that love, to accept that gift, to understand that He did that for us. So if we know we're sinners, we understand that Christ died for us, we accept it, and we get to live with Him forever. If there's anybody today who doesn't know Christ, think on that. Think about it. We're going to pray, and then we're going to sing one more song as we close, but I encourage you, think about the things you're thankful for. Think about the ways that you're showing thanks. Think about the ways that we're spreading Christ. Dear Lord, thank you for today and just for this opportunity for us to be here and to be able to understand the thankfulness that we need to have for you, to understand that we need to love you, that we need to share you with everybody, with our actions, with our words, with the ways that we handle things, that we need to help people understand that they're sinners, just like you and I, just like every person here, and to understand that only through you can we have eternal life. We love you, and we thank you, and help us to be able to have a good week, and to be able to recover from Thanksgiving. We love you in Jesus' name, amen.