The Truth in Love

Hi friends, my name is Keith and I’m a born-again christian.   I’m here to share the Gospel message with you because I care about you.  I don’t know you, but we’re neighbors, and Jesus said for me to love my neighbor, so I’m here to do just that.   This Gospel, is bible talk for “good news”.   It’s incredibly important, vital good news; it’s life and death stuff, and I’m not even exaggerating.    The Bible calls this the “the gospel of God”, “the gospel of the kingdom”, “The Gospel of Jesus Christ”, “the everlasting Gospel”, “the word of truth”.  I know many, if not most of you are already familiar with the Gospel message, but if you'd indulge me for just a few minutes, maybe something I say will shed new light on the Gospel.  Or, maybe something I say will encourage you to be more proactive in sharing the Gospel with your neighbors.  Or maybe I'll just be a spectacle to keep you occupied for a while.  In any case, I’m going to tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.   I won't pull any punches.   I’m not going to hold anything back.   I’m going to give you everything I’ve got.   If what I’m about to say sounds harsh; I’m not angry.   If it sounds like I’m angry, I apologize, I am not.   I am trying to project, so I have to lift my voice to be heard.   I’m not here to scold you, brow beat you, berate you or call you names.

Think of me like your alarm clock.   No one really likes their alarm clock, do they? In fact, there might be mornings when you’d like to heave your alarm clock against the wall.   But you don't because you rely on it, you depend on it, you want it to work, and be accurate.   So, I’m not here to abuse you or even be abrasive toward you, because I know that except for God’s direct intervention, every word I say will sound like nothing but blah, blah, blah.   Unless and until God turns on the light you won’t be able see what I’m saying.   Only God Himself can flip on that switch.  1 Corinthians 2:14 says, The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned”.  My prayer is that God would reveal Himself to you; that He would make the truth known to you that you would know the truth and the truth would set you free.

The bible says God demonstrated his love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.   It says, for by grace are you saved, through faith, and that not of your own selves, it’s the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.  So our salvation is a gift from God, you can’t earn it and you can’t deserve it, but you can receive it by faith, and faith itself is a gift from God;  it comes by hearing the Word of God.  So your only responsibility is to listen.   Your only obligation is to listen, humbly.   Because God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.   Matt 11:15 Anyone who has ears to hear should listen.   That said, don't take anything I say at face value, “search the scriptures and see if what I say is true”.

What’s my reason for coming here?   Why would I want to come out here to bring this gospel message to you, when I could be home having a cup of coffee with my wife, which I’d much rather be doing.   So what do I get for coming out here?   To be blunt, nothing.   I don’t see this as any religious activity, or good deed to get brownie points with God.   I simply bring this gospel message to you to be obedient to God’s calling and direction on my life.   This task of preaching the Gospel in the open air is not for every Christian, but for me, not to do it would be disobedience.   I’m not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation, to everyone who believes, so I’m just called to be true to that message.

But what's my motivation for coming out here, what drives me to bring this gospel message to you? Well in a word, it's the ultimate statistic; That statistic that 10 out of 10 people die.   100% of the human race will experience death sometime during their life.   Death is the only sure thing for each and every one of us.    We all have a expiration date.   One person on planet earth dies every couple of seconds.   Someday, one of those seconds is going to have your name on it.   That motivates me to reach out to you, as if God Himself was reaching out to you, through me.

Each and every one of us is in a line.   We’re all in line, headed single file toward the edge of a cliff.   That precipice is called death.   I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being in that line.   I love life.   I have a will to live and I know you do too.   Life is short.  Our days are numbered.   The bible says that life is like a vapor, it appears for a little while and then in vanishes away.   Everything you see around you; everything you own; it's all temporary.   It’s all passing away.   We all will face our own mortality. That should motivate you to listen intently to this Gospel message.

Here’s a weird question; it’s an important one but weird; Why do we die?  Medical science defines death as when your brain stops waving, and your heart stops beating and your lungs stop breathing.  They say we die because of accident, illness, injury, disease, or cellular degeneration due to old age.   But the short answer is, they don’t know.   The Bible gives the answer, it's because of sin.   It says the wages of sin is death.  It says, the soul that sins shall surely die.   Romans 5:12 says, Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all [have] sinned.   We’re all in that same line headed toward our demise.   All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.   NEWS FLASH: I’m no better than any of you; Oh I’m better off than some of you, because I’ve been washed, cleansed, transformed; I’ve been forgiven; I’ve been born again by God’s Spirit, but I’m no better than any of you.

Here's another question: What happens after we die?   Some people believe that when you die, you just cease to exist.  They believe after you die they bury your body in the ground and become worm bait.   They believe it's as if you’re unconscious (if you’ve ever been unconscious).  You just fade to black; you don’t see anything, hear anything, feel anything, or THINK anything.   If it’s true that we cease to exist when we die, then none of this matters; in fact nothing matters, because if you cease to exist after you die then you won’t even know you ever existed.   But that’s not what happens, and you know that’s not what happens, because the bible says God has set eternity in our hearts [Ecc 3:11]   Here’s what happens, the Bible says, when we die we’re absent from the body and present with the Lord.   The Bible says that it is appointed for man once to die, and after that comes the judgement.  The bible says we will be judged by God’s word.   We will be judged by the words in this book, the Bible, and it says God will render to every man according to his deeds.   So, how do your deeds, (your actions) line up with the words in this book?

God gave us the Ten Commandments to show us where we’ve gone wrong.

They’re like a spotlight.   The Ten Commandments highlight our failure to live up to God’s standard.   Let me show you, I’ll ask you a few of the Ten Commandments, and you can see where you stand before God.

The 9th commandment is “You shall not lie”

The 8th commandment is “You shall not steal”

The 3rd commandment is “You shall not use the Lord’s name in vain”

The 7th commandment is “You shall not commit adultery”.

If you’ve admitted to having broken any of those 4 of the Ten Commandments, then you’d be guilty as a lying thief, and a blasphemous adulterer at heart, (and that just 4 of the Ten Commandments, there’s six more where those came from)

Being guilty before a Holy and Righteous, Eternal God deserves an awful and horrible, eternal punishment, and that’s called Hell, and I don’t want that for you and God certainly doesn’t want that for you.

But listen, here’s the Good News; this is what God did for us guilty sinners so that we could avoid the punishment we justly deserve for the the sins we’ve committed.

2016 years ago, God Himself became a man in the person of Jesus Christ.

He was born of a virgin.  [Matthew 1:18, 23]

He lived a perfectly sinless life.  He never even so much as told a lie. [1 Peter 2:22]

But they took Him away on trumped up charges. [Mark 14:56]

And they mocked him, and spit on Him and ripped his back to bloody shreds. [Matthew 26:67]

They ripped out his beard [isaiah 50:6]

They punched him in the face so hard and so many times that he was literally unrecognizable as a man. [Luke 22:64, Isaiah 52:14]

They shoved a crown of thorns down on his head [John 19:2]

They made Jesus carry his own cross to the mount called Calvary, but when he fell because he was so weakened, they compelled a man named Simon from Cyrene to carry it for him. [Matthew 27:32]

They nailed his hands and feet to a wooden, Roman cross, where he bled and died a horrible death.

But you know what, Jesus was in control of this whole process.  Jesus said no man takes my life, I lay it down of my own accord.

But He didn’t die for anything he’d done, He died to take the punishment that you and I deserved, upon Himself.

It’s like this, you and I did the crime and Jesus paid our fine.   All of the justice and judgement and punishment that you and I deserved, fell upon Jesus on the cross.

One of the last things Jesus said when he was on the cross was “it is finished”, in Greek that word is “Tetelestai”, which means paid in full.   The debt that you and I owed to for our sin against God was paid for in Jesus precious, life’s blood.

After He died, they took his body down off the cross and buried him in a tomb, and rolled a huge stone over the entrance to the tomb.

But three days later, Jesus rose from the dead.   He came back to life, He took the same body again, and walked out of that tomb alive, proving that God was satisfied.

I serve a living Savior; Jesus is the risen King.

Now, you can receive forgiveness and eternal life by humbly turning to God for mercy and putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior and King.

You can't save yourself, Jesus said, In Matthew 16:24 “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 16:25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. 16:26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? 16:27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.”

Religion can’t save you, Jesus said in Matthew 7:22 “Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father which is in heaven.  Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 7:23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
7:24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: 7:25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
7:26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: 7:27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.”

It is not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His mercy that he has saved us, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.

Only Jesus can save you, there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Jesus said I am the Way the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except by me.

Whosoever calls on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved.

Repent therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out and times of refreshing would come from the presence of the Lord.

I urge you, flee from the wrath that's to come and take refuge in Jesus Christ.

I warned you. Your blood is on your own head now.

Titus 2:11-14 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

Lamentations 3:22-23  It is because of the Lord's mercy that we’re not consumed, because his compassion never fails.  23 His mercy is new every morning: Great is His faithfulness.

I want to finish up with one last question: Why is it that we Christians (Especially us Christian street preachers) SEEM so bossy, nosey,  even judgey… telling everybody what to do; what to believe; how to live?  First of all, I am not here to tell you how to live your life; I have a hard enough time living my own, but I am here to point you to the One who can give you eternal life, and new life for the here-and-now (abundant life).    I do agree there are some angry, militant, mean people, who in the name of Jesus Christ receive lots of publicity, because they preach some very hateful things.   They make me want to puke.   Then there are some very passionate people, who speak the truth, but with little to no love.   I’m glad that the Gospel message is preached, but sometimes I have to chuckle about the way they preach it.    

So why is it we Christians seem like we’re so intolerant (that’s called xenophobic)? Reason number one, is because Jesus was.   He was absolutely intolerant of sin.   He had compassion on people, but hated their sin.   The second reason is because every true, born-again Christian has God the Holy Spirit residing in our life.  Because of that we’ve been sensitized to sin.     We know that sin is not just harmful to you, it is literally a death sentence for you.   So I'm not here to tell you “just stop sinning”, because even if you could, that wouldn’t take away the sins you’ve already committed.   I want you to come to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior because in Him is life; not only eternal life, but a transformed/changed life where you can have victory over sin. That you might begin to love the things God loves and hate the things that God hates.    But if you die in your sin, you will not only experience death, you’ll experience God’s eternal justice, judgment, punishment in Hell.   That thought horrifies me.   I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, let alone my neighbor; who I care about.   So if we Christians seem nosey, intolerant, bigoted or dogmatic; it’s because we care.  Some may get off track in what they say or how they say it, but for me, I want you to experience forgiveness of sins.   I want you to experience God’s goodness, and be reconciled to God.   I want you to receive mercy, not justice.   I want you to know my King, my Savior, my Friend, Jesus Christ.   The Bible says “mercy triumphs over judgement”.   Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.

Exodus 34:6,7 The Lord, The Lord God, [He is] merciful and gracious, longsuffering [patient], and abundant in goodness and truth,   7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but He will by no means clear the guilty;

2 Corinthians 5:21 For he hath made him [to be] sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Romans 4:25 Jesus was condemned and died on the cross for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

2 Timothy 2:19 Nevertheless God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription, The Lord knows those who are his. And, every one that names the name of Christ must depart from iniquity.

John 11:25 Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”