in chapter 14 verse 15, the apostle Paul says, I will pray with the spirit and I will pray

with understanding.

And he says, I’ll also sing with the spirit and I’ll sing with understanding.

I wonder how many times we sing songs we have no idea what we’re even singing.

We’re just spewing out words that we memorize, we’ve heard them our whole life, we’ve

grown up in the church or maybe ever since we became Christians, we’ve heard these songs

sung and we have no idea what we’re even singing.

About 1868 or 1869 sometime right along that time frame there was a ship coming into the

Cleveland Harbor on Lake Erie Lake Erie the Cleveland Harbor they’ve changed it a little

bit now There’s two lighthouses and they’ve cleaned up a lot of the rocky outcrops But at

that time it was a very dangerous harbor to come into it was a narrow harbor There was

just one lighthouse.

It was rocky and it was a dangerous harbor even in clear weather It was very dangerous in

stormy weather and so there was a ship coming in that night and it was

cloudy and rainy and the waves were pounding them.

had over 200 people on board the ship and they’re coming into the Cleveland Harbor.

Now, you understand that analogy between the lighthouse and Jesus, right?

If you can find shelter, if you can get to Jesus, it’s like a shelter from the storms of

life.

Just like if you can get to that lighthouse, then your ship that’s out here getting

pounded by all these waves and rain and it feels like the world’s closing in on you.

If you can get to that lighthouse, you can find safety.

oh

Here’s the deal I didn’t know.

Besides the lighthouse, apparently there were also lower lights that went out from the

lighthouse.

would go, they would start at the lighthouse and they would go out around each side of the

harbor like that.

And what they would do, just like the song we just sang, they would shine a gleam across

the waves.

So if I’m coming in and I’m a pilot of a ship and I’m coming in and I’m trying to get to

navigate to the safety of that lighthouse, I can watch these gleams.

And if a gleam stops short of where it should, then that means there’s rocks right there

and it’s blocked that gleam.

And so I can use those lower lights

to guide me into the lighthouse.

Well, on this one night, the ship was coming in, over 200 people on board, and the

lighthouse keeper, for some reason, he lit the lighthouse, but he never lit the lower

lights.

And so it’s recorded that the captain of the ship said this to the pilot.

He said, are you sure this is the Cleveland Harbor?

And the pilot said, yes, sir, I’m sure of it.

And the captain said, but where’s the lower lights?

And he said, I don’t know, sir.

And then the captain said, are you sure we can make it?

And the pilot said, we must sir, or we’ll perish.

And just a few moments later they crashed on some rocks and over 200 people died that

night.

Because one person didn’t do his job.

So about two or three years later, 1871, there was an evangelist named D.L.

Moody was traveling around that area and he was doing lectureships or meetings, gospel

meetings, whatever you want to call them.

And he’s going around and he’s teaching and he’s relaying this account of this ship that

had sunk just a few years earlier and over 200 people died because one man didn’t do his

job.

And there was a man in the audience by the name of Philip Bliss.

And Philip Bliss said it hit him like a ton of bricks.

thought, Bliss, he’s talking about you.

You haven’t let your lower light shine.

and he sat down and wrote the words that’s all we’re just saying.

Brightly beams our Father’s mercy from his lighthouse evermore.

Jesus is always going to be where Jesus is supposed to be.

There’s always gonna be safety in Jesus, there’s always gonna be shelter in Jesus, but to

us he gives the keeping of the lights along the shore.

See that’s what Philip Bliss realized.

It’s our responsibility to lead people to Christ.

You know how rare it is that somebody’s just gonna waltz in the door and wanna have a

Bible study and be baptized?

I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but I’m saying it’s not very often.

We’re losing over 18,000 members of the church every year, either to death or to falling

away.

There’s not many that are coming up behind them to replace them.

Over 60 % of the Church of Christ is over the age of 50, and only 13 % is under the age of

30.

We’re a dying church as we currently stand.

We’ve got to turn that around.

It’s our job to guide people to Christ.

The film The Dreams movie with Kevin Costner.

If you build it, they will come.

It works very well for a baseball field and a movie.

It does not work well for the Church of Christ.

You have this great big beautiful building and believe me, this is a beautiful building.

It reminds me a lot of Woodstock, Georgia.

Same pews, podium, very, the layout very, very similar.

It’s a beautiful building.

And you can do, this could be a great tool for evangelism.

Like you can invite people in here and have Bible studies.

You can have meals together.

You can fellowship one.

But this is not the mission.

field of the church.

The mission field is out there.

We’ve got to guide people into Christ.

He goes on in that next verse and he says, the night of sin is settled, loud the angry

billows roar, eager eyes are watching, they’re longing for the lights along the shore.

There is people in this world, there’s people in this town right here around you that are

just waiting for you to ask him for a Bible study.

I can’t tell you, it makes me sick to think of all the people I let walk by me before I

knew how to evangelize.

And my wife and I, we had a guy that we met the other day.

He’s gone through a ministerial class for a big mega church to work in the ministry for a

huge mega church, three, four thousand people in Tulsa.

Great big huge church, I say church in the way the world would, but a great big religious

place we’ll say in Tulsa and this guy he’s going through all the training to be one of the

many, many, ministers.

And we had an opportunity to get in a conversation when we had lunch with him the other

day, he and his wife.

And I just went through and did the introduction questions like Rob taught you when he was

here, did the transition questions, next thing I know

we were in a Bible study.

It was very easy to do.

Used to there’s no way I would have tried that.

But it was very easy to get into a Bible study with him.

We went through lesson one.

At one point he broke down into tears.

He said, I have never seen this before when we’re talking about the authority of Christ.

He said, I’ve never seen this.

He said, they didn’t teach me this when I went through that ministerial training.

We’re going back.

We’re leaving here.

Sunday we got to be in Aberdeen Mississippi right down the road but we’ve got to leave

here and go back to Tulsa because I’ve got to do another study with him lesson two on

Thursday and we’re going to go through and we’re going to talk about the Church of Christ,

the Kingdom of God.

And then as soon as I get back from Mississippi, Kentucky, and North Carolina we’re going

to meet and we’re going to go through lesson three.

It’s very easy to take somebody in a Bible study but that’s our job.

That’s what we’ve been put here to do.

That’s the great commission, go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing

them in the name of the Father,

Son and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I’ve commanded you,

and though I’m with you always, even until the end of the age, that command has been given

to us.

It’s a great commission, Matthew chapter 28 verses 19 and 20.

It’s a divine mandate and we have to do it.

Trim your feeble lamp my brother.

Any of you people with a little bit of gray in your hair ever use an oil lamp you know?

What happens when the wick, if you don’t trim it what happens?

The light dies down right?

But you gotta trim it and if you do it will brighten up.

Younger people just think of a candle.

If the wick got real long if you cut it, it will brighten up.

It will start dimming down when it gets too long.

You know what I love about new converts?

I’ve seen new converts, they’re on fire for God, they come up out of the waters of

baptism, they want to tell everybody they know what just happened to them.

They want to tell everybody about the change in their life and how wonderful everything

is.

And if we do our jobs as seasoned Christians, we’ll put their light out just as fast as we

possibly can.

Well, don’t do that now, that’s going to require work.

Let’s just get down and don’t make any waves, let’s just float through life and be happy

with the status quo.

That’s the reason we’re losing a congregation every three days in the United States.

America.

We need to brighten our light up to match theirs, not dim their light down to match ours.

We need to brighten our lights.

Just trim your feeble lamp, my brother.

Some poor sailor, tempest-toss, trying right now to make the harbor in the darkness may be

lost.

You’re gonna leave this building and spend your week in Collierville, Tennessee and see

thousands of people that are craving Christ.

They don’t know to ask for a Bible study, but if you would go to them, you’ll find out how

easy it is to get them into a Bible study.

They’re wanting it bad.

They want some kind of relief from everything that they’re going through.

From all the…

You know I think about when Jesus wrote to the Church of Smyrna in Revelation chapter 2

and he says, one of the words he says in there, he says, I know your tribulation, right?

Tribulation, that word means compression from an outside force.

And the imagery is that you have somebody laying on a table and they’re stacking weights

on their chest, one and then another and then another and another, and they’re slowly

suffocating.

There was no reason for them to be suffocating in Smyrna at that time other than the fact

that they were Christians.

They would not pledge their loyalty to Rome, to the Roman Empire.

They were Christians and because of that they felt like the world was caving in around

them.

They felt like they couldn’t breathe.

were being suffocated.

by the world.

We have friends and family that are just like that.

They can barely get from day to day.

They feel like the world is collapsing around them.

They’re begging you for a Bible study.

You just got to vocalize it.

You just got to be there and go to them.

The words of that song is probably the most evangelistic song we have in our song books.

I didn’t know that until I learned about it.

When you sing with understanding, you can really grab some meaning out of these songs.

So I want you to look at Matthew chapter 22 with me.

Matthew chapter 22.

I want to talk a little bit about how we, you know, we talk about this model, contacts,

prospects, Bible studies, baptisms, new converts, growing church.

Well, how do we get started in all that?

It’s contacts.

We were just talking about that well ago.

Contacts, the seed sowing is the most important part.

We’ve got to have contacts.

If Walmart does not have customers, there is no Walmart.

If American Airlines does not have passengers, there’s no American Airlines.

If the NFL does not have fans, there’s no NFL.

If we don’t have contacts, we don’t have evangelism.

So look at verse 1 of chapter 22.

And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said, the kingdom of heaven is

like a certain king who arranged a marriage for a son.

And he sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding and they were

not willing to come.

Just by show of hands, if you have ever been invited to a royal wedding, just go on ahead

and raise your hand.

Don’t be shy, just go ahead and raise it.

Ever been invited to a wedding for royalty, some nation around the world?

Can you raise your hand please?

Nobody.

I’ve said it, 50 congregations in the last year, nobody has ever been invited to a royal

wedding.

But I’m gonna promise you something right now folks, I’m making you a promise.

If I ever get invited to a royal wedding, you’ll be some of the first to know about it.

I’m going, I’m.

blasted on Facebook.

I’m gonna have it, I’m gonna tell everybody I know I got invited to a royal wedding.

There’s no way I’m turning down that invitation.

Can you imagine the fanfare and the glory and the expense and everything that would go

into a wedding for the son of a king?

Who would turn that down?

Yet these people turned it down.

They were unwilling to come.

They didn’t want to be any part of this.

So he said he sent out more servants.

Look at verse four.

Again he sent out

Other servants saying, tell those who are invited, see I have prepared my dinner, my oxen

and fattened cattle are killed.

All things are ready, come to the wedding.

But they made light of it and went their own ways.

One to his own farm, another to his business, and the rest seized his servants and treated

him spitefully and killed him.

Now we understand what Jesus is talking about.

This is the lost sheep of the household of Israel, right?

We would have just seen this in Matthew chapter 10, right before this, a few chapters.

This is the easy people.

These are the ones that should have been the most welcoming, the ones that wanted to come,

and they’re rejecting.

They’re saying, no, I’m not gonna come.

They treated the prophets spitefully.

They killed some of the prophets.

Look what was fixing to happen to Jesus shortly after this.

That’s what he’s referencing.

Sometimes I think that we avoid talking to people because it’s just uncomfortable for us

and we’re trying to, you know it’s easy, if somebody came to me and they said, man Keno

I’d sure like to have a Bible study, by the way I’m looking for a new church home, do you

know anywhere I can attend?

Well guess what, I can do a Bible study with that person because that’s in my comfort

zone, they’re already interested in that subject, they’re looking for a place to worship,

it’s very very easy to have a Bible study with someone like that.

But what about somebody that’s at the casino every weekend?

What about somebody that drinks morning till night?

What about my neighbor over here that drinks alcohol?

He’s got beer cans piled from the ground all the way to the top of the fence in his

backyard.

Can I talk to him about Christ?

I should be, but sometimes I’m uncomfortable.

thinking, he’s not a good candidate for the gospel.

He’s a drunk.

There’s no way he would ever want to hear the gospel.

And man, this lady over here, have you ever heard her talk?

You veterans, any of y’all were in the Navy?

Anybody in the Navy?

Okay, good.

she cusses like a sailor.

There’s no way that she would ever want to be a Christian.

She would not be a good candidate for the gospel.

And man, this person back here is in the casino every single evening.

There is no way they would want to be, they would be a good candidate for the gospel.

Just wouldn’t happen.

And what happens is we pick our way out of everybody that we have.

We end up with this bookmark and it’s got no names on it because we figured out a reason

why nobody is a good candidate for the gospel.

And we’ve all done it, me included.

We have all done that.

That’s the reason the church of Christ is dying in

need to be planters, not pickers.

We have been pickers instead of planters.

That’s our number three principle in the school of evangelism.

Let’s plant, don’t pick.

One plants, one waters, and God gives the increase.

It’s not up to us to give the increase.

This right here is what converts souls.

This is what converts souls, not us.

All we’re doing is facilitating the study and giving them some information, planting some

seeds, and then we let God do what God does.

So we have these people that are sent.

Well, who was sent?

Was the preacher sent?

You better believe it.

You’ve got a wonderful preacher here.

Aaron does a fantastic job.

I’ve been fortunate to meet, I don’t know if he would think it’s fortunate, but I’ve been

fortunate to meet both of his brothers, right?

That’s a good family.

That’s a good family of preachers.

They know the Word of God.

They love souls.

They want to share that with people.

But you can’t put evangelism on his back.

you do it, this congregation won’t grow and that’s nothing against him.

Here’s the problem.

It’s not fair and it’s not scriptural.

We cannot put it on the backs of our preachers.

don’t know how many of you men, you don’t have to raise your hand, just how many of you

men have gotten up and preached before?

How long does it take you to put together a lesson?

I can tell you the average is about seven to eight hours is pretty much the average of

what it takes to put together a lesson.

Now do that for Sunday morning Bible class, Sunday morning lesson, uh

evening lesson, a Wednesday evening Bible class.

Don’t forget you got Bible studies going on with people during the week.

yeah, and you’ve got to go visit the sick in the hospital.

You got to go visit the people in nursing homes.

Many preachers are also tent-making preachers, so they’re already working 40 or 50 hours a

week outside the congregation.

You can’t put all of evangelism on them.

It’s not fair.

It’s not scriptural.

They’re going to be a part of it, but they can’t be all of it.

You’ll burn your preacher out, and you do not want to lose your preacher.

I promise you, you can’t find anybody else to come along.

him.

There’s not, brother Kane, how many people are in your class right now?

Twenty.

It’s that way, the numbers are down all over the place.

My brother graduated from Brown Trail a few years ago, he had two in his class.

People are not wanting to go, young men are not wanting to go into that field.

I’ve been in the last year traveling around, I was offered five preaching positions.

I wasn’t even looking for a job.

I was offered five positions because they’re looking so hard.

Congregations would have been two years without a preacher.

Don’t burn your preacher out.

He’ll leave and you’ll be in trouble.

You won’t find another one to replace him.

He’s going to be a big part of evangelism, but you can’t put it all on his back.

What about elders?

Did he send elders?

Who’s the elders in here by show of hands?

Elders?

You don’t have any elders?

Okay.

So did he send elders?

Most congregations that have elders?

I can tell you this, if you want to see a congregation, in Dan Winkler asked me this,

said, Keno, what determines a congregation if they’re successful or not successful in

evangelism?

And we’re talking about congregations that have elders, and I told him, if your elders are

on board and they’re supportive.

One of these days you’ll have elders in here, you’ll train up people that are ready, that

are qualified to become elders.

They need to be supportive of evangelism.

If the people leading, or even if you don’t have elders, if the men that kind of lead

things, the men that kind of see and move things along and get things done, if they’re not

supportive of evangelism, you’re not going to evangelize.

The congregation won’t do it.

Somebody’s got to lead by example.

You’ve got to have a group of men that are out in front of the congregation that are

leading by example.

What about missionaries?

Do send missionaries?

Yeah, said missionary.

You’re fixing to go to Japan.

That’s a wonderful deal.

I go to Jamaica and do some missionary work.

I’ve got a friend right now, Mark Garner, that’s in the Philippines right now.

uh Rick Lawson is with him in the Philippines right now.

They’re doing missionary work.

I got a friend that just got back from Africa.

He went to Tanzania and Uganda.

He’s over there all the time doing great missionary work.

I’ve got a friend that teaches a preaching school in Hyderabad, India.

He does a great job.

It’s a great work that they have over there.

know uh Brother Rush,

more is just coming back from a missionary trip.

I got friends in Costa Rica that are doing missionary trips.

these, God bless India, I’m glad that we’re doing missionary work in India, but what about

Collierville, Tennessee?

The fields are right under harvest right here in Collierville, Tennessee.

Yes, we need missionaries, but if we don’t do something different than what we’re

currently doing in the United States, in 2069, the prediction is that we will have no more

Churches of Christ in the United States of America.

If we continue on the same path, we’re going now.

We’ll be calling India, we’ll be calling Japan and asking for missionaries to come here

and to help us.

That’s not, we can’t do that.

There’s no way I’m standing before Jesus on the day of judgment and answering for why the

Church of Christ died in America on our watch.

I refuse to do it.

And I hope you refuse to do it as well.

We can turn things around, but we just gotta get busy about it.

What about members?

Did he send members?

Brothers and sisters, members are the engine of evangelism.

You do not have evangelism without the members.

Because all of you know people.

that none of the rest of us know.

You have a sphere of influence, you have a circle of friends that Aaron doesn’t know.

You have a circle of friends that are unique to you and your situation.

I had a lady come to me here about a year ago from our congregation.

She said, Keno, why do you only have Bible studies with people you know?

What?

How can I have Bible study with someone I don’t know?

If you want me to have a Bible study with someone you know, then bring their name to me.

Help facilitate that study.

I would love to have a Bible study with anybody at any time, but if I don’t know them, I

can’t have a Bible study with them.

I gotta have some kind of way of coming into contact with them.

Aaron.

Would you be willing to study the Bible with somebody you don’t know if somebody brings

you a name?

You better believe he would.

And probably every one of you men in here would.

And you ladies, many of you would love to have studies with other ladies if the

opportunity arises.

All we need is people to bring contacts.

But here’s the deal, we can’t judge whether or not we think there would be a good

candidate for the gospel.

We’ve got to get that out of our mindset because you don’t know that information.

And I don’t know that information either.

So we just need to write their names down and let this book do what this book does.

Let’s look a little bit further.

to verse 5.

So said they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm and another to his

business, and rest seized his servants, treated him sprightly, and killed him.

Now look right here, verse seven.

But when the king heard about it, he was furious, and he sent out his armies and destroyed

those murders and burned up their cities.

Then he said to his servants, the wedding is ready, but those who were invited are not

worthy.

Therefore, go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.

Now listen, follow along in your Bible.

Make sure what you’re hearing is the truth, right?

So verse 10, so those servants went out into the highways and they gathered together all

the people that were just like them and like-minded and were begging for Bible studies and

a place to worship in the wedding halls filled with gifts.

Is that what you read in there?

No, he said he went out and invited the bad and the good they invited, right?

Well, who’s the, let’s start with the good.

Who’s the good?

The good are the religious folks, right?

You ever shied away from studying with a religious person because you knew they just

weren’t convertible, right?

This person, their grandma plays the piano, their grandpa’s a preacher, their dad’s a

deacon, the mom is a Sunday school teacher, there’s no way their family’s gone there for

80 years, there’s no way that person would ever leave what they’re doing now and come to

worship with us.

And so we just look the other way, we don’t try to talk to them.

Just by a show of hands, how many of you came out of a denomination?

A good many of you.

Everybody that just raised their hands, you’ll be able to back up what I’m fixing to say.

want to know, the rest of you, you want to know something about a denominational person?

Most of them love God just as much as you do.

And most of them want to be in heaven just as much as you do.

The problem is they’ve never been taught the truth.

Paul describes them like this, they have a zeal for God, but it’s not according to

knowledge.

Right, they’re just going off what they’ve always heard from their grandma, their grandpa,

their mom, their dad, their quote unquote pastor, you know, the person that’s standing in

the pulpit that’s telling them this stuff.

And I’ll even go a step further and tell you this, I think a lot of denominational

preachers also

love God and want to be in heaven and they don’t know the truth.

I know that’s a fact because I’ve converted them before and when they see the truth and

they recognize it and they change and they come to Christ.

But they’re just regurgitating what they always heard.

Now I know you have your Joe Lowestien’s and your Kenneth Copeland’s and your people out

there that are false teachers and for fame, for power and money they’re teaching a false

doctrine and leading people astray.

But a lot of your small town preachers in these denominations just absolutely do not know

the truth.

It’s not that they’re resistant to it.

They’ve never been taught how to get in this book and study and learn it.

They’re just going off what they’ve always heard.

Or they have a national board or a state board that sends them a sermon to preach every

week and they just preach it at face value.

They just go with it and they don’t research it.

But if you can get them into a Bible study and they have an honest heart, you’ll convert

them.

I promise you you will.

In fact, I ask people when I sit down with a denominational person, the first thing I ask

them, during the course of this study, if we talk about something and you see it with your

own eyes in the scripture, in its proper context, and it’s different from what you

currently believe, are you willing to change what you believe?

Are you willing to align your thoughts and your beliefs with the scriptures?

If they say yes, game on.

Warm the baptistry up.

We’re fixing to have a baptism.

This book will divide the honest from the dishonest hearts.

And if your God could create this world, you better believe he could convert the heart of

a sinner.

There’s no reason to avoid religious folks.

We have converted far more religious folks than people that had no religion at all.

They’re very easy to convert if you just sit them down and show them the truth.

You let them read the scriptures, you let them see it in its context, and you’ll be

shocked how many of them you’ll convert.

So that’s the good, but what about the bad?

Right?

The morally depraved, the sexually depraved, the wicked, the evil, what about them?

Can you convert them?

Folks, I don’t think there’s too many people that were much more wicked than what Paul was

when he was Saul.

They stood there in Acts chapter 7 and held the coats of the men that stoned Stephen to

death.

Isn’t it interesting the different reactions people have to the gospel?

In Acts chapter 2, they were cut to the heart and they said, how do we fix this?

In Acts chapter 7, they were cut to the heart and they stoned the preacher that delivered

the message.

Paul stood there, Saul stood there and held their coats.

Saul was on way to go seize Christians and bring them back to answer for doing nothing

other than being Christians.

Would throw them in prison, would make their lives miserable.

And yet he became one of the greatest soldiers for the cross we’ve ever seen that we read

about.

He wrote most of the books we read he wrote in the New Testament.

You couldn’t ask for any better.

What about, you know, we’ve all known people throughout history that have been evil,

wicked people.

We’ve atheists.

We’ve known atheists that have set out to prove the Bible wrong and have been

converted and become great Christians.

We know people that were evil, were wicked.

Here’s the deal, it’s kind of like your investments, right?

The past doesn’t define your future.

It doesn’t matter what you came from, it doesn’t matter where you were at, how evil, how

wicked you might have been, that does not have to dictate your future.

It doesn’t matter how rotten your family was when you were growing up, how you were

mistreated, how you were led this way or that way, you have every bit as much ability as

anybody else to come to Christ and to be faithful.

And if you sit down

with people and you can show them the hope and the comfort and the peace that comes

through relationship with Christ.

Most people in this world cannot even comprehend the term peace that surpasses all

understanding.

They can’t even wrap their brains around that because they don’t know how they’ve never

experienced something like that.

All they’ve ever experienced is turmoil and strife and problem after problem after problem

in their life.

But if you can show them that peace and how they can gain it, the spiritual blessings are

where?

In Christ, every spiritual blessing is in Christ, Ephesians 1, 3.

Well, peace is a spiritual blessing.

Hope is a spiritual blessing.

Comfort is a spiritual blessing.

Prayer is a spiritual blessing.

uh Heaven is a huge spiritual blessing.

Salvation is a spiritual blessing.

Redemption is a spiritual blessing.

You don’t get those unless you’re in Christ.

You know, one of the big employers in Tulsa is American Airlines.

Well, if I go over to American Airlines and I go into the Human Resource Department and I

say, hey, could you share with me, tell me all about your benefits that you have here?

we’ve got great benefits, Keno.

We’ve got health insurance, life insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, disability

insurance, pay time off.

We’ve got sick days.

We’ve got vacation days.

We’ve got great retirement.

We match up to 10 % of your 401K.

And then if I said, well, tell you what, I’d like to get in on some of that stuff.

If you could go ahead and sign me up for all

that insurance and all those benefits, I’d be happy to take it.

They’d look at me like I’m crazy.

They’d say, don’t even work for American Airlines.

You’re not a part of us.

You don’t get our benefits.

Well, brothers and sisters, you do not get the blessings of Christ if you’re outside of

Christ.

If we can help people to see that, then we can lead them into Christ, Romans chapter six,

verses three through five, and they too can have a part of those spiritual blessings.

Let’s read down a little bit further.

So look at verse 11, but when the king came in to see the guests, saw there was a man

there who did not have on a wedding garment.

So he said to him, friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment on?

And he was speechless.

Then the king said to the servants, bind him hand and foot and take him away and cast him

in the outer darkness.

There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

What in the world just happened?

The man didn’t have on a wedding garment, so we’re gonna cast him in the outer darkness?

There’s some scriptures that you can read.

One of them that comes to mind is 2 Kings chapter 10 verse 22 where you would see that if

a king was having any kind of an event like this, he would provide them with the clothes

to wear.

So this king, if he’s throwing a wedding feast for his son, then all those guests that are

invited, the king is going to provide them with wedding garments.

They all put the garments on.

The king gave them what they needed, everything they needed to change.

He gave it to them.

But there was one man that refused to change.

He had what the king gave him, what he needed to change, but he refused to change.

Have you ever heard that saying, you can come as you are, but you can’t stay as you are?

You can come to Christ in any state.

It doesn’t matter how rotten your life is, you can come to Christ at any point in your

life.

But you can’t keep doing that same old stuff.

There has to be some changes that take place.

Now, bear in mind, if I’m a new convert, if I come to Christ and I’ve just been baptized

and say I’m an alcoholic,

I’m probably not going to come out of the waters of baptism and never be tempted to have

another drink, right?

There’s going to be a growing process.

They’re going to be getting stronger.

They’re going to be growing in Christ.

Maybe I use bad language.

Every other word is a bad language.

But now I’ve come to Christ.

Well, I may still slip up from time to time and say something wrong.

But there needs to be continual growth and continual change and continual strengthening

and maturing in the Word of God.

We had a lady that we baptized.

She came from the Church of God of Prophecy.

66, 67 years old when we studied with her.

Her dad was a Church of God of Prophecy preacher.

Now he’s passed on, but he was a preacher.

And she said when she was telling me about him when we first met her, she said, yeah, my

dad, he was a preacher at the Church of God of Prophecy.

And he was good.

tell you what, I’ve heard him speak in tongues and I’ve seen him heal people.

I know he was good.

He was a good preacher.

You know what I did?

I practiced principle number one, defer, don’t debate.

I’m not going to lose the Bible study before it even gets started.

I just said, sounds like your dad really loved God.

And we sat down and we went

through a Bible study, went through lesson one, lesson two, lesson three, and she was

baptized into Christ.

Shortly after that in the new convert class we get to talking about miracles and how

miracles don’t exist anymore.

That was a limited time.

We could have a whole lesson over that.

But we cover all that and we get done and she came to me and she said, Keno, I understand

what you’re saying but I’m telling you I have seen my dad heal people and I’ve heard my

dad speak in tongues.

She’s not ready for the meat.

Look, you cannot go to the nursery at a hospital and get a newborn infant and bring them

home and cram a T-bone steak in their mouth.

They’re not ready for it.

They can’t digest it.

milk first.

She was still on the milk.

Peter tells us you start on the milk, then you go to the meat.

I’m not gonna get in a debate with her and her fall away from the church and never come

back over something I said to offend her when she’s not even capable of understanding it.

She needs to grow first.

So she went through the whole growing of Christ.

She went through it again.

She wanted to stay twice through the new convert class.

After the second time, she spent six months in a new convert class.

Then she came out in adult Bible class and one Sunday morning in the lesson,

I was preaching on 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and I was talking about what Paul says, when

that which is perfect has come, then that which is impart will be done away with.

And I went all through and explained all of that.

So when the service is over, I would go stand back here by the back door and that way

could greet everybody as they’re leaving.

And she came up to me and she said, Keno, this is probably seven months after she was

baptized.

She said, Keno, I know what I thought I saw my dad do, but what you just talked about in

there while ago, there’s no way he could have done that.

Paul says there’s no way that doesn’t happen anymore.

Well, what happened during that seven months?

She came in one state, but she grew to another state.

What’s going on here in this parable we’re reading about is he’s talking about people, and

I’ve seen them before, that spent 10, 15, 20 years in a pews, and they have no more

knowledge 20 years later than they had the day they came to Christ.

And they’re constantly just dabbling right on the edge of the world.

I read a deal on Facebook here a few weeks ago, and it was talking about a guy that said

he was interviewing for bus driver.

He’s the superintendent of a school, and he’s interviewing new bus drivers.

And so he had three candidates.

it’s little small school district.

He puts them on a bus, the first one.

They go out on this country road, and they’re coming around in the mountains.

it’s not a real wide road, but over to the edge, there’s a straight-off drop-off.

And he said to this bus driver, said,

uh How close do think you can get to edge of that cliff without falling off?

I can get within two inches of the edge of that.

Boy, I’m a good driver.

I can get right up on the edge of that without falling off.

He takes him back.

gets the next driver.

comes back and he says, you got a bus full of kids.

How close can you get to the edge of that?

The last driver said he can get within two inches.

He said, I can get within an inch.

I’ve got excellent depth perception.

I could be right on the edge of that cliff without going off.

He went back and he got the third bus driver.

And he came back and he told him the same thing.

One guy said two inches.

One guy said an inch.

How close could you get?” he goes, are you crazy?

If I got a bus full of kids, I’m not getting anywhere near the edge of that cliff.

In I’m going to be as far away from that cliff as I can be.

That’s how a lot of people are in the Christianity today.

They’re trying to walk right on the edge of the world without stepping over, but the

problem is when you ride that fence that long, you’re going to step back out into the

world.

Paul tells us over and over to put off that old self.

That old self is dead.

It’s buried.

Get rid of it.

Don’t dig it back up.

You’re a new Christian.

You need to be changed to…

You need to follow what Christ said to do.

There needs to be a renewal of your mind.

There needs to be a renewal of your spirit.

hang right there on the edge.

This guy was unwilling to change.

He wanted to keep on the same garments and it cost him his soul.

Folks, if you spend a lifetime in the church and you never grow in knowledge and you’re

always just teetering right there on the fence and stepping back over in the world, I

don’t think it’s gonna look real well for you on the day of judgment.

I would seriously make some changes in your life.

Look what he says in the next verse, verse number 14.

For few are called and none are chosen.

Right?

It’s not what he said, said many are called, but few are chosen.

Well who’s gonna be chosen, who are the ones, if we’re gonna call many, who are the ones?

How can we identify who’s gonna become a Christian?

We can’t.

We don’t have that ability.

So we got to go to the many.

If you have 50 members you got to go to 500 contacts.

And that 500 contacts will yield you 50 prospects.

And that 50 prospects will yield you about 5 to 6 Bible studies and you’ll baptize 90 to

92 percent of those.

If you want to grow by 10 percent a year you need 10 times the amount of people you have

in this congregation.

need 10 times that amount of contacts.

Where do I get them?

One’s right here.

If everybody wrote down 10 names of people they know that they died tonight they wouldn’t

go

to heaven, there’s your 500 contacts.

But the problem is some husbands and wives are going to share names, kids, they’re not

going have any names, so we’ve to some other ways.

How else can we get those contacts?

There’s a whole number of ways.

On our website we have tons and tons of ways to get contacts.

Maybe you go out to a restaurant.

fact we got a young lady we’re studying with right now we went out to restaurant went to

Buffalo Wild Wings on Wednesday night after Bible study and I had a shirt on said Coetah

Church of Christ and so it was Jamie and I and one of our other men in his 40s and then

the rest the group was all in their 20s right and she’s in her 20s so we sit down there

and she she comes up and introduces herself okay she says you know what her name is now

I’m gonna look her in the eyes and I’m gonna well thank you whatever her name is let’s

just say let’s just say Sally that wasn’t her name but let’s just say Sally if she comes

up says hi I’m Sally and I’m gonna be taking care

of you today, then I’m going to look her in the eyes and say, Hi Sally, I appreciate you

taking care of us today.

What would you guys like to drink?

Oh, we’ll take a couple of Diet Cokes and some waters or whatever everybody wanted.

Then she goes and gets the drinks.

She came back.

Now in this instance, she set the drinks down.

She said, I see you’ve got a church shirt on.

I said, yes ma’am.

And she said, did you just come from a Bible study?

Well, there’s two things I could do.

I could say, yep, we sure did.

And then go right back on and have my conversation.

Or I could do what I did.

I said, yeah, we just came from a Bible study.

I said, do you attend a service anywhere?

Do you worship anywhere?

She said, I normally do on Sundays.

I go with my parents up in Grove, which is northeast Oklahoma I got up there and I go to a

little country church with them.

I said, okay And uh so I said well, do you normally work Wednesday nights and she said no,

don’t this is actually the first Wednesday night I’ve worked in a long time and I said

well tell you what you ought to come down and visit us.

We’re about 15 miles from here We love we got a bunch of uh Young people your age group

you get to know and build some relationships.

We’d love for you to come worship with us She said I’m really wanting to have a Bible

study on Proverbs.

She said I’m just

thought, know, if you could follow Proverbs then you’d probably be alright in this world.

Now Houston preaches for us and I said, Houston, aren’t we fixing to start a Wednesday

evening Bible study on Proverbs?

He said, yeah, in fact, next Wednesday we’re starting a Wednesday evening Bible study on

Proverbs.

I said, you ought to come join us, it’ll be a great study and we can go through the book

of Proverbs.

Right, I’m gonna build a, that’s a contact, you’re waitress is a contact.

Now listen, have a conversation, maybe the conversation goes like this, hey Sally, we’re

gonna have a prayer in a minute before we eat our food.

Is there something we could pray for you about or something?

somebody that you know and give an opportunity to try to pray with them.

I’m just trying to build a relationship with her.

Here’s what I’m going to do.

I’m going to leave a good tip when I leave.

Listen, if you’re not going leave a good tip, do not mention to call your village church

of Christ.

Don’t tell them you’re from here if you’re not going leave a good tip.

But leave a good tip, find out when she works again and come back and ask to sit in her

section, start building a relationship.

It’s a very easy contact to work.

I’ll tell you another easy contact as we’re wrapping up.

Jamie and I were in Grove City, Ohio.

We’d been there all week on American Mission Campaign knocking doors, hot, sweaty, it in

the middle of June.

I didn’t even know it got that hot in Ohio.

And so we’re walking around and so we’re getting toward the end of the week and we had to

leave from there and go to Syracuse, New York.

And so Jamie said, Keno, we’ve got to wash some clothes before we leave.

I called Rob, I said, hey, Friday morning I’m not going to be there, I’ve got to go to the

laundromat.

He said, okay, no problem.

So I draw a prayer off the laundromat.

Now we had knocked on the door of a lady that we invited to the community meal and she

said she didn’t know the Bible.

And so I had a Bible and I was going to take

I dropped Jamie off and I was going to run back over and take this lady a Bible.

It took me maybe 15 to 20 minutes.

I get back to the laundromat.

Jamie has already engaged seven out of ten people in the laundromat.

She’s invited them to the community meal that we were going to have that evening.

She’s already talked to them and started gospel conversations with them.

So I went over and started working with the lady that worked at the laundromat.

And we had several from that laundromat came to the community meal that night and several

of them were in attendance Sunday morning visiting that congregation.

Brothers and sisters, the laundromat is a fantastic

fantastic place to meet contacts.

They’re not leaving without their clothes.

It’s a captive audience.

Take some Tide Pods or some fabric softener and just go in there and start making

contacts.

Maybe you go get your oil changer at Walmart or whatever your little oil change place

might be around here.

Take your Bible with you and just sit down and start reading it.

Or anytime you’re in a public place, if you’re in a waiting room at a doctor’s office,

just start reading your Bible and just kind of glance up every once in while to see if

anybody’s looking at you.

And if they are, just say, hey, do ever get a chance to read your Bible and just start a

gospel conversation with them?

Very

It didn’t have to to be weird, it didn’t have to be awkward.

Just start a natural conversation and just start turning it toward godly things.

We used have a man named Ray Ackerman, he passed away a few years ago.

He just came and started worshiping with us when he was like 90 and he died at 92.

I don’t even know where he came from.

He showed up and started worshiping with us for two years before he passed away.

We would take him to the VA hospital for his doctor’s appointments or maybe take him to

Walmart to get something.

This man, I kid you not, you drop him off the front door and by the time you park and get

inside, he was always in a gospel conversation with somebody.

He was talking to somebody about God every single solitary time.

Those gospel conversations will turn into contacts.

You know, the new movers, I know you guys do a great job with your new movers.

There’s so many ways to get contacts.

They’re on the website.

Your men can go through it.

website access, we’re happy to give it to you.

You can go through and find a plethora of ways to make contacts.

But this is what it all boils down to, folks.

Without them, we’re not gonna be able to evangelize.

Without them, we’re not gonna change any lives in this community.

We have got to make contacts.

We’ve got to quit being pickers and start being planners.

And if you’ll do that, you’ll be shocked at the way this congregation will grow.

half the battle is already won with this congregation.

The fact that you’re super friendly and this is the kind of congregation that people want

to go worship in.

That part’s done.

All you gotta do is make those contacts.

And if you take a whole army of Christians out into this town, you’ll change the culture

of this town.

You’ll change the culture of this congregation.

It’s all about congregational evangelism, folks.

God commanded it.

We’re all gonna be on the hook for it.

We’re all gonna answer to Him for it.

If you are in a position where you haven’t been evangelizing, if you think back

over the last five years, how many people have I helped lead to Christ?

And if that number is zero, or one, or two, we gotta fix that.

And I’m not coming down on you because like I said, you don’t know what you don’t know,

but now we know.

Now we have no excuse.

I saw a deal on Facebook that says it’s easy to understand how somebody can honestly be

mistaken about the Bible, something in the Bible.

But once you learn the truth, you either cease to be mistaken or you cease to be honest.

We know how to evangelize now.

We have the resources, we have the training, we have everything that you need.

No excuses from here moving forward.

If you haven’t been living the way that Christ wants you to live…

If you haven’t been sharing the gospel with people the way that you should be, this

morning is the time to fix it.

And you’ve got a family right here that would love to pray for you for strength and for

comfort to help you get refocused on saving lost souls.

Maybe you’re here this morning and you’re not a child of God.

Maybe this is all sounds foreign to you and you don’t even understand what we’re talking

about.

We want to help you find a relationship with Christ.

I don’t know everybody here.

I don’t know what your background is.

But I do know this, that if you don’t know 100 % that if you died tonight and went to

heaven, we want to visit with you.

If you don’t know for sure 100 % that you would spend eternity with Christ if you died

right now, we want to visit.

We want to have a Bible study.

We don’t want to tell you what this book says.

We want to show you what this book says.

If you’re here this morning and you need to answer the call the Father has given you, or

if you need to, if you need prayers of your brothers and sisters to strengthen you, to

help you get on track and to help you evangelize, don’t let pride stand in your way.

Fix it this morning.

Let’s re-center and let’s get busy working.

One of your, oh Aaron, I guess, will come forward.

If you have a need this morning, please come as we stand and as we sing.