So this morning, I'm actually gonna be teaching on the subject of soul winning. So I tell the sermon soul winning with Stronghold Baptist Church. When it comes to, especially sermons like this, it's gonna be real practical. So I'm going to just kind of go in depth about the expectations when you are participating in soul winning with our church specifically, okay? There's lots that the Bible talks about What we call soul winning is equivalent to just preaching the gospel or evangelizing, leading people to Christ, witnessing, right? These are all terms that people use. We just are commonly using soul winning because the Bible says that he who wins souls is wise. We're trying to win souls to Christ and get people converted in their faith to putting their faith on the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's what we're talking about here. The way that we operate, the way that we do things matters, especially as a church collectively. When it comes to things just even within our church services, you're not going to find all of the details spelled out. in scripture of you have to do this, this, this, this, this. It's not, it's not that specific and detailed, right? But what we do in a church service matters a lot, right? And we want to do things biblically. We want to do things appropriately. So we, what we do when things aren't spelled out, just literally exactly kind of like the tabernacle was spelled out, like exactly how it needed to be dimensions, you know, like all, all of the materials used, all this stuff, like, Like that was really important for God to spell that stuff out, but other things are not spelled out like that. So what we do is we take principles in scripture and then apply them appropriately. So similarly with the gospel, there's a lot of passages about the gospel, what it actually is, and then also our calling to preach the gospel, to go out and tell people about this, right? And we see how Jesus sent out his disciples. We see these activities going on. Excuse me, we have references to people preaching the gospel in scripture, right? So we use all of this Bible to formulate how we ought to do things, at least in a general sense. But then there's also even a more practical sense of kind of fine-tuning how we go about doing this and things that are just learned through experience. by people who have been soul winning for a long time, who preach the gospel, who can see. Obviously, the foundation has to all come from the word of God. But then, as long as you're maintaining that structure and that foundation within the confines of that, there's fine tuning. There's ways, there's things that you can do that are better than other. And you're going to learn this through experience. So I'm going to try to express that stuff. And you can say, am I going to have a chapter and verse on all these things that you talk about today? No. Not, but there's going to be principles behind all of it, and a lot of it's going to be just really practical. But I'm also just setting forth how I want things to go because it's important that we're in unity as a church and that everyone understands what we're doing. And especially, you know, as we continue to grow, we have more people getting involved with this stuff. Everyone has different levels of experience and knowledge and everything else. So I just want to make sure that we're not making mistakes along the way. So it's important to preach sermons like this from time to time. Make sure everyone's on the same page. Make sure we're doing things right and not being negligent, I guess is probably a good way of putting it, in our practices. And this is one of the reasons, too, why I like when we pair up at our soul winning times, for people to be able to pair up with different people and kind of not just always be going with the same person all the time, but be able to go and labor with and work with other people and be able to hear other people give the gospel. And there's always ways we ought to have a mindset where we're ready to learn I still, I mean, for being in the ministry since, you know, from soul winning since like 2006, I'm still always eager to learn. Like there's no way that, and I don't even consider myself to be that great or that excellent of a soul winner, I'm sure. There's people probably in this church that are better than me, but the point is we should be trying to improve all the time. Right, we should always be just looking to What else can I do? How can I say things a little bit different? What could I have done? And always just self-analyzing like, hey, is there a better way? If I say this, if I say this, what's going to help? Because at the end of the day, the goal is we want to see people get saved. So we don't change the scripture, we don't change the plan of salvation. Of course, you can't change that. That is what it is. But how we communicate with people, the things that we do, that we do have control over, and those are things that we could think about. One of the main principles that I want to cover this morning is found in 2 Corinthians 5. And that principle is one that we are ambassadors, ambassadors. Look at verse number 18, the Bible says, and all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation to wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. So here it's referring to the ministry of reconciliation. Reconciling, it means you've got a problem with God because of your sin. We need to be reconciled. That needs to be made right. We need to be back in harmony or union with the Lord. God made us. He loved us. We sinned. We put a big splinter in that relationship between us and God. Because of our sin, we deserve this hell punishment, right? But because Jesus came and made the punishment for us, he paid it for us, he paid it all when he shed his blood, died on the cross, rose again from the dead, paid it eternally for us, okay, now we can be reconciled to God through Christ. Now all of those sins can be washed away. We can be back in perfectly good standing with the Lord because of what Jesus did. Hey, we're reconciled. This is the ministry of reconciliation. The ministry is serving others, telling other people about the good news, about the gospel, about what Jesus did for us, so that they too can have that forgiveness of sins with God and be reconciled unto God, right? And what the Bible is saying here is that he's given that ministry to us. That is our job, and who's us? Believers, the church, right? He's saying this to, it's not just to us like the apostles, this is Apostle Paul writing, he's writing to the church at Corinth and saying us, like he's including himself with all of those people. It's not just a job for a pastor, it's not just a job for an evangelist, it's not just a job for people who hold specific offices, it's for everybody. So, We have to understand this calling is clear in scripture, of course, and I'm already assuming that you know that for the meat of this sermon I'm preaching today. We're kind of operating on that premise, but also is important is understanding that it is a ministry. It's a ministry we're serving, right? And we're gonna get to this a little bit later, but this is gonna impact your attitude and how you talk with people and communicate. Because that also matters a lot. I'll tell you what, the last thing we need is a bunch of arrogant jerks going out and trying to just tell people what the Bible says and just like, well, you don't know, you know, wrong attitude, wrong spirit. Look, we've got a ministry we're going to serve. Okay, and we'll get to that a little bit later. It is a key fundamental principle of reaching people, reaching the lost with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And, you know, that's important to know because when you come to an independent fundamental Baptist church, you're gonna hear a lot of preaching and railing on sin and like, you're gonna hear preaching on just kind of, not mocking, but really putting light on a lot of wickedness and sinfulness and the design, the goal is to keep people from getting involved in that stuff and showing people how bad sin really is, right? So we hear that, it's true. It's stuff that we ought to be trying to clean up in our life. But this setting and these sermons and the things that we learn from scripture, we don't take all of that out to the world to the lost to try to apply that or preach the same way to the lost. There's a difference between how believers are preached to preach the word of God to and how the lost are preached. Because the lost, what they need to know is just the gospel. That's what they need. The rest of it, they could clean up their life as much as they want. And if they're still lost, they're still lost. They're still gonna go to hell when they die, right? So they really need the gospel. That's the most important thing. But the believers, on the other hand, we're already saved. You don't need to just have that all the time, just hear that only and that only. You have to hear other parts of the Bible that are gonna be instrumental for improving your life and living more godly, more righteously. So anyways, let's continue on here in 2 Corinthians chapter five. So we've been, that job, that responsibility has been committed unto us, the word of reconciliation. Then verse 20 says, now then, because of that, right, because we have this job of reconciliation, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. So since Jesus Christ is no longer physically walking around on this earth, because when he was on this earth, he was reconciling people to God. That's part of his ministry. That's what he was doing, right? But he died on the cross. He rose again from the dead. He's in heaven right now. He's no longer doing that same ministry of walking around talking to people. So hey, that's our job. Since he's not here, that's our job. And since in his stead means like in his place, we aren't the ones, we're not the savior, right? Christ is the savior. So we are representing him and saying, well, hey, here's what Christ said. Here's what Christ did. Here's what Christ did for you. We represent Christ to tell people about Christ and about salvation. And this is what our job is to do. So when the Bible says we're ambassadors for Christ, so we need to let that sink in and really consider that principle. and how important that is in how we conduct ourself as an ambassador for Christ. This is what guides a lot of, you could call them rules or methodology in preaching the gospel to people and going out, soul winning, and going out and knocking on doors and talking to people. A lot of that is around this one concept of being an ambassador for Christ. So if we're gonna represent Christ, I mean, and you could take this real broad, right? There's a lot of things that we should be thinking about. Say, hey, if I'm gonna represent Christ, one of the first things that pops in my head is saying, well, if I'm gonna be a representative of Christ, I better not be just living this super wicked, horrible lifestyle that is just completely contradictory to the way the Bible says we ought to be living, right? Because I'm being a really bad representative of someone who believes in Christ. if I'm just full of the worst sins that are in the scripture, that's just super condemned and everything. Obviously, on some level, everyone's a sinner, of course, we all sin and we should be striving to do better, but let's face it, some sins the Bible even calls out as being worse than others. And there's lists of sins. You can look at 1 Corinthians chapter 5. There are sins that would get people to be not even fellowshipping with others in church because of the gravity, the seriousness of the sin, drunkenness, fornication, extortion, idolaters, railing, you know, these things. It's like, hey, that's really bad. Like that's really, really all sin is bad, but like that's really unbecoming of a Christian. You got to have some standards in your life. So if we want to be an effective and a good ambassador for Christ, we need to be looking inwardly to ourselves and say, hey, what can I clean up? What can I do now? That being said, I don't think that there is a you have to reach a certain level before you can even open up your mouth and tell people about Jesus. So don't fall into this trap of going, well, I'm not holy enough to tell people about Christ. No, you always can tell people about Christ, but you'll be more effective the more your life shows that this is a sincere belief, right? We should always be, cause here's the thing, when God sees you trying and God sees you doing still what's good and what's right in preaching the gospel and telling the laws, he'll work more in your life. He'll help you overcome those sins. He'll help you get the things cleaned up. Cause he wants you to be a better ambassador. He wants you to be a better servant. He wants to get you going on the right path. And when he sees you trying and putting forth the effort and showing like, no, this is important. Yeah, I've got problems, but you know what? People still need to hear of this truth. Don't let your problem silence the truth, but let it motivate you to get the sin out of your life so you can just be like, hey, I could just be that much of a better example to people. And I remember, and sin will deuce you. It'll oftentimes make you not wanna speak. And after I got saved and I was living a life that I knew wasn't right according to scripture, I was embarrassed or ashamed to even bring up anything about Jesus. I was saved. I knew it was true. Okay. And unless something was really in my face, you know, like of someone, like I had one instance where a guy was just like looking into Mormonism where I finally was just like, look, man, don't go that way. You're like, that's not true. That's not right. Other than instances like that, though, I wasn't really talking about Jesus or sharing my faith or anything like that because I knew that people would look at me and just be like, you're just a big stinking hypocrite. Everyone knows to some degree what the Bible teaches, right? The Bible's against foreign occasion, it's against drunkenness, it's against a riotous lifestyle. Like that's clear. People who aren't Christians know that the Bible teaches against that stuff. Like that's not some real, it's a real basic thing. So when you're living that way, you're just being like, man, I don't even feel like I could talk to others about this. But what I'm saying is, instead of just not saying anything then, change your life, but still tell people about Jesus. We still gotta do that. That's more important even than your pride or the way that you're gonna look in front of others or being a hypocrite is still telling people the truth. But let's work on being the best ambassador we can be. Now also as an ambassador, that's gonna be reflective not just with our sinfulness and things like that, but how we present ourselves just in general especially preaching the gospel to the lost, right? We're representing Christ. So how is it that we ought to be representing him? Are we going to try to be making people angry with us before we even walk up to their door? Of course not. We want people to listen as much as possible. So this is really important to consider yourself an ambassador. And I really wanted to stress this and make sure it's real clear. A lot of the things that I might bring up, so especially like an outward appearance type of a thing, it shouldn't prevent you from preaching the gospel. So we don't have a rule on exactly how you need to be dressed before you can go out soul winning. We don't have that. And the reason why is because I want people to go, it's more important to go out soul winning, even if you're dressed sloppy, than it is to just not go soul winning at all. But when you consider like, well, hey, I'm representing Jesus here, that ought to just play something in your mind. And look, everyone's gonna have a different standard or where you're gonna put the bar. I'm not saying everyone has to have a, you know, all the men have to have a suit and a tie and all ladies have to have the best outfit that they own, you know, to go out and preach the gospel to people. But it still ought to be a consideration going, well, hey, I'm representing Christ. Maybe I should make sure that I am, you know, presentable, that I'm well-groomed and, you know, all these things that, if you're going out to represent Christ, and those are little things, those are kind of minor details, but people's perception, it matters. How far you get to talk with people, it matters. It really does. And when it comes to dressing, and I brought this, I've brought this point up in the past, It's just experience and human experience. When I go around dressed up really nice, whether that be in a suit or not, but button-up shirt, tie, looking very professional, people treat you like a professional. People don't even know you. I mean, I don't know how many times I've walked into stores and people think that I'm a manager or I work there just because of how I'm dressed. Now, people have a tendency, by and large, to also listen a little bit more, take you seriously when it's shown that you're being serious about what you're doing, right? And hey, of all the things I'm gonna talk about, this is probably one of the smallest, just like, you know, how you look, but it's just something to consider. And it's a point, because there's so many applications you could make when you're just considering, hey, I'm representing Christ, I'm being an ambassador, what are all the little details I could think about to just be a little bit better, to represent him a little bit better? I mean, I can think of even just the way that you carry yourself and present yourself and the conversations you're having with people. We go out in groups and together, the things you're talking about, all of this stuff matters. It should matter. I'm going to kind of back up a little bit because I might have done this a little bit out of order, it's not that critical, but I'm gonna kind of go through how we should be giving the gospel here. Keep that ambassador point in mind. We send people, but starting off with how we even go out, we generally are sent out in pairs. because this is what Jesus did. And you can turn if you want, Luke chapter 10 is one of the places that references this. But in Luke 10, verses one through three, the Bible reads, after these things, the Lord appointed other 70 also. and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whether he himself would come. Therefore, said he unto them, the harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest. Go your ways, behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves. So clearly, as he's sending these people out, two by two into every city where he's going to come, based on the context of it being this great harvest. I would say this is clearly part of their goal is to get a reaping, reaping in people for Christ, to sow the good seed of the word of God so that people could be converted and one to the Lord. So the fact that he's sending them out by twos and partners is something that we practice here as well. Now, does it have to only be two? Is that a hard, fast rule? No, it's not, but it is, I would say the standard of what we're going to do. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it could be one, right? But generally speaking, it's always a good idea and there's a lot of wisdom and at least sending people out in pairs two or three, right? And there's a lot of reasons for this. So if you're new to this, or if you come to our church, or maybe you've gone to other churches and they don't practice it this way, I'm gonna explain a little bit about why we do things the way we do. We send people out in pairs, generally speaking. Obviously kids go out and other things, there's lots of other factors that play into that. But generally speaking, you got adults, we're gonna send people out in pairs. We're gonna send, basically, essentially men with men, women with women. We're trying to do everything appropriately and above board and all that stuff. So we wanna just make sure things are done right and decently. We'll have one person who does the talking, right? We call them the talker, the person who's going to be communicating primarily with the person that we come in contact with. And then the other person is going to be a silent partner. And there is good reason for this, okay? And this should be, again, I'm talking about the vast majority of the time, I'm talking about just normal circumstances. Things can always change with the things I'm giving you, so just keep that in mind. The silent partner is there for many reasons. I'll get into the talker in a minute. The silent partner isn't doing nothing. It is an important job to have somebody there as a silent partner. One of the things a silent partner can be doing is praying for God to open up the understanding of the person that is being presented the gospel to. Their also very important job is to be able to help ward off distractions. There's many situations that could come up that could be a distraction from the person hearing the gospel, right? It can be pets, dogs, animals, whatever, it could be other people, it could be neighbors, it could be people showing up to the house. that want to interject and kind of thwart the efforts that are going on of just trying to show someone. So especially if you got someone who's interested, they want to hear the gospel, you start talking to them, they really genuinely want to know what the Bible says. Hey, that's great. Well, it's kind of messed up when someone else comes along then and tries to like, oh no, hey, you don't want to hear that, you know, and screw up that person from hearing the word of God, right? Like that's not right. So what the silent partner can do is, you know, you see someone approaching or coming up, just go proactively and say, hey, how's it going, right? We're inviting people to church today. You know, and just kind of communicate with them and talk to them just to make sure, hey, at least, you know, obviously one, that person, maybe they could get saved too. We want to try to give them gospel, but also someone's already wanting to hear. Let's make sure that that doesn't get screwed up. So that is important as well. Now, why do we also have someone being silent? One, to be able to even accomplish that goal, it's better if you have one person doing the talking because then if that other person leaves, it's not an impact on that one conversation that two people are having, right? But if that person was a lot more active in like giving a point, then their leaving kind of changes the dynamic of the conversation. Does that make sense? Now, also, One of the reasons why we don't want to have like two people or more talking at the same time to one person is because one, the person might feel a little bit intimidated. You know, when you go and talk to people about the gospel, sometimes they have their preconceived ideas and other beliefs that they might have. You don't want them to feel like they're being ganged up on or whatever, even if that's not your, obviously not your intent, but like it could be perceived, well, hey, it's like two against one here. And it's better to have a one-on-one conversation. But even more importantly, is that the person who is giving the gospel should be thinking about and observing and really paying attention to the person they're talking with and looking to see, you know, kind of gauging them on where they're at, on their beliefs, on any hangups, on any stumbling blocks, so that they can handle that. And oftentimes, especially with an experienced soul winner, you can be, leading people down this logical path, using scripture to do so. And you want to get from point A to point B in a nice straight path and kind of be able to line up all of the scriptures. So what happens oftentimes is it's important for us to demonstrate errors in a person's belief And let me just explain real quickly what I mean by that. So many people will say, I believe salvation is by grace through faith. Virtually all Christian denominations will make that claim and say, yes, that is true. But also, You have people who will say that that's true, but then say, but you have to do X, Y, or Z to be saved other than just that faith, which is a work. But you also have to be baptized. You also have to give up your sins. You also have to do this or do that, whatever these other things are. Well, now you've got an inconsistency because it can't just be by grace through faith if you have to do these other things, right? So oftentimes people don't realize, they don't see that that's a contradiction. Just because they hear a lot of things being taught and they accept it, okay, that sounds good and this sounds good. So we need to try to demonstrate to people that no, that actually is a problem, there's a contradiction there. So in order to do that, oftentimes you need to just sort of say, okay, well, hey, do you see this? Okay, now do you see this? Now do you see this? Do you see how it can't be both, right? And you have multiple maybe places in scripture you wanna show people. So you have this plan in your mind of what you want to do to show people. And then if you have your partner has something else in their mind of what they wanna show that person, it can derail and cause there to be a break in that progression of thought. And then it's harder to get the other person to see what you're trying to show them. So that's another big reason why we have a silent partner and we kind of allow for one person to do all the talking. Now, sometimes it's appropriate for the partner to be able to add something to the conversation. But what we do here is we'll wait until the primary person who's speaking, who's already been decided before you even go up to the door, who's going to be doing the speaking, OK? When they're done, then if you feel like there's still something you'd like to add, that's the opportunity to do it. Because sometimes you feel like, well, maybe they'll understand this example or this illustration that the person wasn't bringing up. Great, that's fine. But wait, allow them to get through everything. Because I know there's some times where I've wanted to say something, and I've just bit my tongue, held off. And then the soul winner still just goes into that later anyway. So it's just like, yeah, there's no reason to interrupt or stop the person giving the gospel to do that. And then if they don't, and that person still isn't getting it, and they're not getting saved or something, then yeah, go ahead and jump in. It makes the most sense to do things orderly and in this fashion. And that's how we do it here. So a lot of these things that I'm teaching is gonna be, these are my expectations for how we go soul winning here as a church at our established soul winning times, led by leaders of this church, right? If you disagree with some of these things, still follow them when you're going out with our church. Okay, now you are free anytime you want to, to go off and talk to people and have conversations and so on and do, you know, like all on your time and do whatever you wanna do. I'm not gonna lord over your life like that, but I'm saying we're gonna do things a certain way here within our church and within the group here that's going out together that I expect to be followed. And it's all for good reason. And look, I don't think any of these things are that crazy anyways. There might be one or two areas where someone might have a disagreement. But none of these should be viewed as like, oh, man, I can't handle, you know, I'm not going now because you've got these crazy rules or something. I hope you don't feel that way. But we'll see. So we send people in pairs. Now, the pairs I mentioned before, we generally do men, women, women. But I also want to just make sure this is clear, too. And there's a good reason for this as well. I'm really happy that we have a lot of young people that get involved with preaching the gospel. I'm super happy about it, I love that. But it's also very important that we have an adult present with people who wanna go soul winning. So young teens that wanna go soul winning, the rule here is gonna be there still needs to be an adult present. And for a couple of reasons. One is because Adults have more experience in the world in how to deal with certain situations that may arise when you're knocking on someone's door. Whereas a younger person could be completely like never would have thought anything like that could even happen, then not know exactly how to handle, not know what to do. And it can turn out kind of bad for the people that are there, especially if there's someone who's manipulative, or whatever, like we want to still protect our children. And yes, we're giving them more freedom, especially as they're growing older and becoming adults and becoming young adults. But that guidance of having an adult present is still something I wanna have there. There was one instance that came up a little while back where I was out sewing and there were activities going on in an apartment that I never would have thought could have even been, I was shocked. but not something I'd want kids to be subjected to just by themselves. And I'm not even going to detail about it, because it's just really weird. It's really bizarre. And after that, I'm just like, yeah, we need to have an adult present. But there's also been times, I know, where, you know, young ladies go together and they might start to feel like, you know, they're talking to a man that's kind of can be speaking real forcefully or whatever and, you know, get them to maybe come into the apartment or whatever, you know, things like that. We want to avoid all that. We want safety. Because there are some weirdos out there, let's face it. We run into people like that. And I want there to be an adult present. So it just makes sense. We ought to have an adult present when people are giving the gospel. And that's not some big impediment for people to go out. You can have two teenagers, whatever, but have an adult there with them. Being respectful. So again, going back to being an ambassador, being respectful towards people. We don't want people looking at us and going like, oh man, what are you doing? And these are all little things, but just keep all this stuff in mind. Little things like cutting through someone's yard. You'll be like, well, what's the big deal? It's just grass or something. Yeah, I know, for you it might not be a big deal, but for that person, maybe it is. And especially when you see the guys that got their yard, I mean, everything is edged and you've got, there's no weeds anywhere. I'm not this way, but people put a lot of pride into their property, into their yard, And it's disrespectful to just go trampling through their stuff or whatever. You kind of walk by one of their windows, and they're hanging out in their house. And it's just like, what is this person doing? You're just getting yourself off on the wrong foot. You get someone angry before they even come to the door, they don't want to talk to you. They're mad at you. So let's pay attention to these little details and not just be kind of oblivious to it all and think, hey, what is it that, how are we going to conduct ourselves where people aren't going to automatically just be mad. Now look, sometimes people are just going to be mad at you anyways. You can't help that, right? Just because you're carrying a Bible in your hand or something, whatever, right? Like if they're going to get mad for that, it is what it is. But when we could not do things that are going to set people off, let's not do them. So if that means, and this is what I do, walking up the sidewalk or walking up the driveway, you go down, back to the street, you come back over, and you go back up every time, with a few exceptions. But generally speaking, that's, you know, It's just the way that we should be doing it. So be respectful. Don't be messing with people's property and touching their stuff. And parents with your kids, keep an eye on your kids. Because kids like to get into all that stuff. I get it. But be paying attention to them, as well, while you're out there doing this stuff. And say, hey, get over here. Don't be messing with people's stuff. Because again, those are things that will cause people to be distracted and to not want to hear what you have to say. Oftentimes, we go out with partners. You talk to them. It's a great opportunity. You just fellowship. You talk. Keep your conversations quiet as you approach the door. No one wants to hear you having this loud conversation outside of their door, like outside of their house. It's just kind of weird. Like, what are you doing? And keep it appropriate. And don't be talking trash about people's, if they have a sign up or yard, you know, like they're decorated for Halloween or whatever, like, don't talk trash about the people you're just about to talk to. That's not right, that's not appropriate. And keep in mind this also, there's so many ring doorbells and all these other types of systems out there that are probably hearing, picking up on everything that you say. So don't be doing and saying things that's going to make you not be a good ambassador for Christ, right? Be on your best behavior. You ought to be anyways. But just keep that in mind, like, hey, if you're going to be talking about things, make sure it's right. Make sure that whatever you're saying can just be broadcast on the news. and then say, well, hey, here's so-and-so from this church that was knocking on doors, and then they put out a video. Think about that. Whatever that could be, make sure you wouldn't be embarrassed by that. Make sense? And then on the flip side, you might not be embarrassed about something, but also just make sure it's not going to be something that's going to turn off the person that you're going to try to give the gospel to. You could be talking about things in the Bible that could be really offensive to people. And there's nothing wrong with that doctrine or what the Bible says about that. Nothing wrong with it at all. But there's no point in getting into the offensive parts of the Bible with people that aren't even saved. Those areas, once they accept Christ and accept the word of God, then they're going to have to deal with, oh, OK, yeah, these are things that are not very you know, not very pleasant to deal with or whatever, but the most important thing is talking to people about the gospel of Christ. Now, let's see. Again, being an ambassador, we have our invitations that we give to people. Sometimes they're not home, we're gonna put it on their door. Little things, little details, right, small things. Put it, try to get it in there in a way, one, that's not gonna fall out very easily. But two, in a way that's going to look still presentable. Don't have it all over the place and just super sloppy and whatever, like you don't care. Get it in there real nice. There's different ways of putting invitations and doors that will help it to stay in there and things like that. Again, be conscious of even the smallest details. I know it's not like the most important thing in the world, but every little thing, we want to make sure we're doing our best. Speak and carry yourself in a manner that pleases Christ. Again, the way that you talk, the things that you say. And remember that the goal of all of this is to win a soul to Christ. And at the very least, to warn them about the consequences of not putting their trust in Christ. But we are delivering the gospel of peace. Before you get all amped up on I'm a soldier and it's a spiritual warfare and all this other stuff. Yeah, there's a spiritual warfare going on. We're battling against the forces of evil. But when we go up to a door, we're not going there to fight evil at that person's door. We're going there to try to bring them the gospel of peace. You know what I'm saying? We're not there for a fight. That's what I'm saying. We're not there to be contentious and to get in arguments. If someone is going to be contentious, then we just leave. And here's why, you say, well, why? I mean, if someone's saying all this stuff that's wrong, because if they don't want to listen, then why argue with them? It's a waste of time. We're out trying to win people to Christ. And there are people out there, there's plenty of people out there that want to hear what the Bible has to say. And they want to be shown, and they'll listen, and they'll allow the word of God to be taught, to be shown to them. So those are the people we're looking for. And anyone who doesn't want to hear it, it's a waste of time. Because they're going to be, their ears are going to be stopped. If they're just coming at you with arguing and stuff, let's not get wrapped up in that stuff. That's not why we go out to do this. We are there to deliver the gospel of peace and keep a humble spirit. Turn, if you will, to 2 Timothy chapter two, because this is another principle that's really important. It goes hand in hand with being an ambassador. 2 Timothy chapter two, we're gonna start reading in verse number 20 of 2 Timothy chapter two. But in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honor and some to dishonor. So, you know, and God has a great house of people who are saved. And let's face it, some people in that house are serving honorably to the Lord. And some people aren't very honorable. Some are dishonoring. Like I was talking about when I was saved and just living a really wicked life, I was dishonoring the word of God. I was dishonoring in the house of God. Was I saved? Of course I was. I was a child of God, but I was not someone who's very honorable to the word of God when I was living that way. So in a house, hey, in a great house, there's gonna have some vessels of gold, silver, some of wooden of earth, and they're gonna say, look, some to honor, some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel and honor sanctified and meet for the master's use and prepared unto every good work. So there's the preparation of saying, hey, I really wanna be used as this great vessel of God to do the work of God. So what am I gonna do? I'm gonna purge out these sins. I'm gonna sanctify myself, holy, you know, kind of live holy so that God can use me. Verse 22 says, flee also youthful lusts, but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes. And the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, So the audience here, it could be talking about saved people who are involved in sin or in a snare of the devil, right? But also very easily could be applied to people who are unsaved. So if people are unsaved, they're blinded by the devil. They're blinded. They don't see the truth. They don't know this. And oftentimes, they do oppose themselves. And God needs to grant them the repentance, the acknowledging of the truth. Like, they need to be able to see the error of their way. So how do we do that? As a servant of the Lord, we're not there to strive and fight. We want to... humbly and gently be able to teach people patiently in meekness instructing them, right? So look, you know, you can have all boldness to preach the truth and to say, and you know what's right and you know what's true, but the way that you present the truth is going to matter. So if you present the truth as someone who's just really arrogant, as a know-it-all, that turns people away. Everyone can see that, even if what you're saying is true, they're not going to really want to talk to you. I wouldn't either. I don't like talking to people who are just these know-it-alls. And look, we run across people like that. We run across people like, oh, well, you know, I've read the Bible. Once. And when I tell you all this stuff about like, hey, now look, is that appealing? Is that someone I really want to talk to? No. But you know what? In love, we go, OK, I'm going to suffer this. Let that person say, I'm not going to get offended by it. And I'm going to meekly try to show them the error of their way. Now, if they're just puffed up, and they don't want to hear it, and no one can tell them anything different, you move on. We're not there to fight. And people like that, it's easy to get in a fight with. It's easy to just going back and forth, and I'm going to put you in your place, and all this other stuff. What's that really profitable for? Now, there is profit in letting people know the truth that like, hey, this belief though, if you hold to this belief, you're gonna end up in hell, right? But even the way you express that truth, it matters. Because you may not be able to reach that person that day, But sometimes the things you say will stick with them, and then maybe later someone else will have an opportunity and they'll actually get it. And what we don't want to do is cause people to just be like, man, I don't want to, I never want to hear this, I don't have nothing to do with this, because of your attitude and response, right? We want to still, you can tell people really bad news that might be offensive, like, hey, if you don't believe this, you know, you're going to go to hell. In a way that's not like, well, you know what? You're just going to hell. You see what I'm saying? And if we're honest with ourselves, you know, oftentimes when that happens, you're allowing yourself to get really emotional and kind of worked up. And that may not be the best way to deal with things. You still tell them the truth. I'm not saying don't tell them the truth at all. Like, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying just don't say it at all, you know, no. But how you go about letting them know. You can be firm. You can be like, hey, this is just what the Bible says. You need to understand this. And maybe you disagree with me, but this is what the scripture says. It is damnable heresy or whatever, if this is what you're believing. But our spirit, our actions, we need to keep in check. We need to be temperate. We need to be able to control ourselves. Because we really do want to see people get saved. And the more humility you can show, the more opportunity that may present in the future for people. So when you can still, I mean, there's people I've talked to and just like, okay, well, I guess today's not the day. They're just not receiving anything I have to say, but you don't have to leave with them being your enemy. We don't want, we're not trying to make enemies. Now, if they're enemies of the gospel, then okay, that is what it is, but we shouldn't be the ones provoking people to be our enemies. In general. As much as lies, then you live peaceably with all men. That's what the Bible teaches. And just like here, it gives us a little bit of wisdom in verse 23. Foolish and unlearned questions, just avoid. So sometimes people ask you foolish questions, stupid questions, right, kind of dumb questions, and oftentimes those questions are just meant to maybe pick fights and stuff, just avoid that stuff. And there's a lot of things that people might try to bring up, and they're unlearned questions, they don't even understand anything. Don't get wrapped up into those things, especially when we're all preaching the gospel, just focus on the gospel. You don't need to focus on all these other things, just try to talk about the gospel. Because the foolish and unlearned questions, they produce strives and fights. And that's not why we're there. Serving the Lord must not strive, but be gentle in all men, apt to teach, and patient. So this is something we need to keep in mind in the spirit of why we go out and preach the gospel. So a few other points, practical points. Dealing with children, and this could be controversial with some people, whatever. There's a way that I like things to be done here in our church, and you may disagree with this, but just please respect how we deal with this. When it comes to children and hearing the gospel, I'm all for kids getting saved. I am. I want kids to get saved. But when you knock on someone's door and a young child answers the door, you ask for their parent That's just appropriate. We ought to be able to treat people the way that you would want to be treated. At the end of the day, you say, yeah, but we have the truth. I know we have the truth. But other people think they have the truth, too. And of course, if it's like a JW or more, they don't. But you still want to treat people the way that you would want to be treated, especially with your little ones, especially with your kids. If one of my younger kids answers the door, which they're already should be instructed not to, I get it, and they are, but sometimes they do it anyways. It happens. I would not want to have someone there trying to get in their ear and tell them all these things. No, I don't want you teaching my child the Bible. I don't know you. So I would expect the same courtesy, you know, what I would expect from other people, that we would do the same thing. Okay. Now, there are circumstances where, you know, because that's someone in their home, in their house. And I would extend that to their front yard or their, you know, like their property, like everything right outside of their house, you just, you know, like their home. Okay. So you, you, OK, you give that level of respect. You ask your parents. Maybe the parents aren't there. And again, some of these things you're going to have to judge, because who knows exactly what the age of these kids. If the child's old enough to have a good understanding, you could maybe ask them things like, hey, would your parents be upset if I were to show you what the Bible says about being saved? Would they allow you to hear this? For me, if they're of the age to even be able to comprehend that, again, not the little kids. Because the little kids probably won't even be able to answer that properly. And because some parents are OK with that. But generally speaking, you've got to use good discretion on these issues. And then if they say, no, OK, well, here, can you give them this? And just let them know we're here. And always let them know that we stopped by. Because you should never be trying to hide anything. Let them know why you're there. You can say, hey, here's a link. There's a video here, whatever. You can show this to your parents and move on. Now, if there's kids that are kind of out, just they're out places, just left wandering, going up and down the street and stuff in public, if the parents are OK with them being that far out in the world, then I view that more of an OK to like, OK, if you're just allowed to be unsupervised out in the world, then it's not as big of a deal to talk to. I wouldn't say that that would be inappropriate to ask them about their salvation. It's just this level of, what do you expect? If I were to send my kid to Kroger or something, I can't expect no one to ever say anything to them. So those are the types of reasonableness that we need to deal with when we're looking at this stuff and talking about how we operate and what we do. Now let's get into just preaching the gospel in general. Don't spend too much time at the beginning trying to pin people down on what they believe. OK, there's a reason why we introduce ourselves and say, hey, I'm from Stronghold Baptist Church. Do you go to church anywhere? What church do you go to? It's always good to know a little bit of background and maybe what they might be thinking about salvation. We also ask people, hey, do you know for sure you're going to heaven when you die, 100% sure you die today, you're going to heaven, whatever, however you say it. If people say, eh, I'm not really sure, don't worry anymore about getting into all the specifics about exactly what they believe. Just say, hey, well, the Bible says we could know for sure. Would you like to hear about that? Because what happens oftentimes is we could get down this path, and then it's hard to even get into the gospel. Conversations kind of get a little wonky when you just really try to pinpoint at the very beginning, like, oh, well, what exactly is it that a person has to do? Look, if they're not sure, That should tell you already that they're not saved. Because salvation inherently is known, is something that you'd know when you're saved. Because you know it's eternal, you know it's forever. So if they give you that answer, just move on with that. And I get it. It's good to be able to point people back, like when you're kind of done showing them the gospel, it'd be like, well, hey, look, you said before this. But now you see how it's different. It's this. So being able to point out the differences is a good thing. But, you know, it doesn't even... They need to have the true change of what they believe. But even if they don't agree to say it's different, if they're confessing everything that's true and that's right, That's not as important as them being able to hear the gospel. And if they call in the name of the Lord, then great. At the end of the day, that's what we're trying to accomplish, is get them to change. Even if they're not willing to express that it's different. Because sometimes people just don't want to feel like they were wrong, but they are agreeing with what the truth is. That doesn't make them unsaved. It doesn't. And I know people probably to this day that still would say that their salvation was from an earlier point that other people would say, or I might say, like, well, I don't think you were saved then, right? Because you didn't really understand it. But they have a moment or a point, like, whatever, right? Does that mean they're not saved now? Of course not. So let's not get too hung up on some of these things, because really, we just want to be able to preach the gospel to people. Invest time. Spend time with people. Don't be real quick. So things like, oh, hey, how you doing? Are you a Christian? Oh, cool. I am too. Well, great. I'm glad you're a Christian. See you later, right? We need to be digging deeper than that. We need to be asking questions because like I've mentioned before, you know, sometimes people will say, oh yeah, salvation's by grace through faith, but then there's something else that contradicts that in their belief system that they don't even realize is a contradiction. So we need to be able to dig in and talk to people. And really when you ask questions and talk to people, you're gonna uncover what's in their heart, the belief that's in their heart. People, especially people that go to church are real good at repeating what they hear. Which is why so many people say they believe salvation is by grace through faith, because they hear it a lot, right? People say that a lot. They know that to be true. They've been taught that to be true. So they'll repeat it, but in their heart, they might not be trusting just in the grace of God, just in salvation by Jesus. They're trusting, yeah, but if I don't live this way, if I don't do this, and if I don't do that, then I'm not gonna make it. Well, yeah, now I see what's in your heart. Your heart is trusting that I have to obey God's law. I have to obey God's commandments to some extent in order to make sure I'm going to heaven. And this is what we want to illustrate to people. This is what you want to be able to uncover and demonstrate and show and say, look, the Bible says that it's not of the law. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Romans 3.28, you can just show them that and be like, see, look, the Bible is very clear saying, look, it's faith and you don't have to have, it's without the deeds of law. There's no law included in our salvation. So you don't always get to that point, though, unless you're able to ask good questions to help uncover. And not just for yourself to understand, but also for the person you're talking to to kind of really be thinking about. Oftentimes, people don't think that deeply on a lot of these subjects until you show up and kind of start having that conversation and engage with them. I mean, there's people who've gone to church their whole life, and nobody's asked them things like this. And it really, you know, people need to be challenged a little bit on what they believe to just even consider it and think like, oh, okay, yeah, I wasn't thinking about that before. But if we're too quick in our conversation to try to steer things just a certain way or whatever or try to get to a conclusion, you're going to miss the heart of the matter, right, where the person's at. So we want to make sure we're investing time. Also, that we're not just preaching at people, right, We're communicating with people. So yes, there are things we want to teach and show, right? But we don't just run down a script and then proclaim people saved. It is talking, it is understanding. If there's no understanding from the person, there's gonna be no salvation. You could rattle off all the verses that you want, but they have to get it, it has to click, it has to be received, it has to be assented to, it has to be, their faith then has to go on that truth, has to go on Jesus Christ, it has to be just placed, okay, I understand it now, and now I am putting my trust in Christ. So it's really, really important that we invest the time, whatever amount of time is necessary for that to happen. Some people understand things easier. Some things don't. Some people might take an hour to really just help them understand. It might take longer. It might not even be accomplished that day. And other people, man, it's just like they pick up on it real quick. Everyone's a little bit different. Everyone's got a different background. Other people have different people who've been in their life, whatever. We don't know all those things. So we want to make sure that we are Spending the time necessary, asking questions, engaging in conversation. And look, if you're newer to this, I get it. Especially if you're nervous, it's hard to really do all of the things that I might even be talking about today. And that's OK. It's OK. You'll continue to improve and to be able to be more comfortable and to be more engaged. The more you learn, the more you grow, the more, you know, just keep at it. Don't, and don't ever be like, well, I'm not as good as this person, so I'm just not going to, you know, I just won't ever say anything. That was my attitude for a while, and it was the wrong attitude. It was the wrong attitude. My heart was in the right place, because I learned soul winning from Pastor Anderson. And he's an awesome soul winner. And when I was learning, I looked at every person that we talked to going like, hey, I want that person to get saved. And he's way better at it than I am, so I'm not going to say anything. But here's the thing. If I just maintained that attitude, well, how effective then am I going to be Then there's more people start coming to church that don't know how to go soul winning. Well, now what do we do? You still only got one soul winner. You still got one person who's willing to talk to people. At the end of the day, it makes no sense. You need to be able to just do and start going. OK, well, yeah, you don't have to be as good as the best person you know to be able to preach the gospel to people. You just preach the gospel to people. And then you'll improve. And God could use you just as much as he could use anyone else. If you're willing to put yourself out there, then let God work through you. And not worry about the person and who's better at doing it. Hey, everyone can grow and gain experience and knowledge and become a little bit better at being able to explain things to people, right? Kind of show things to people. But at the end of the day, let's not forget, it's not the wisdom of man's words that saves people. It is the word of God. While it is important to help people understand and see the truth, the concepts of salvation, it's not super difficult. It's as easy as walking through a door, drinking a glass of water, receiving a gift, you know, all these illustrations that the Bible has for us. It's that simple. So all you got to be able to do is be able to teach people that concept. And use the illustrations is another thing. Now, one of the final points, I know I'm going a little bit over time, is we also then, once you go through the gospel of people and you think that they're agreeing with everything you say, is we will ask people to pray to the Lord and call on the name of the Lord for their salvation. And this comes from Romans chapter 10. And you can turn there if you'd like. And Romans 10 is referring to Eternal life and that salvation it is not talking about physical salvation as other passages may do Romans 10 the whole context is talking about people being saved eternally So don't don't listen to the people who are trying to say. Oh, no. This is Romans 10 is just talking about you know Israel being saved as a nation or something that's not what it's talking about at all and The Apostle Paul in the beginning of Romans 10 is expressing his desire for his physical brethren of Israel to be able to get saved, to be able to get eternal life. He wants them to receive eternal life. He's not so concerned about their physical salvation in this world. Why would he invest so, why would he be so distraught Like, oh man, I just really want my brethren of the children of Israel to not be destroyed physically. Like, that's not what he's about. He's, no, I want them to get saved. And that's why it says about the faith that we preach, verse eight. But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the word of faith, which we preach. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and 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. Now what is that talking about? The heart believing unto righteousness, that's salvation. Like eternal life salvation, not physical salvation. And with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And notice here, it is not drawing a distinction between believing and calling on the name of the Lord. It's all one thing. It's treating it all as one thing. It's not going, well, look, you have this, and then you have that. No, it's all one. It's like one package deal. And sorry, I'm a little passionate about this because this is not some doctrine that had to be taught of man in order to know this. And I know this firsthand because when I got saved, I did not have a soul and I did not have a preacher. I did not have someone there leading me in a prayer to help me pray to God. And that's why you believe this. No, when I got saved, I was all alone in my room, in my bedroom. And when I finally humbled myself and knew I needed to be saved, I'd been seeking, I'd been hearing things, people have been planting seeds in my life as I've been seeking. It finally, at one point, I just said, I need to be saved. And the moment I put my trust in Christ, I called out to the Lord to save me. It just went hand in hand. It's the natural thing to do. when you know you need to be saved to ask God to save you. Just like Jesus said to the woman at the well, hey, if you knew who it was that's saying, giving me drink, you would ask of him and he'd give you the living water. Like if you just, if you, when you know that, you would ask. He didn't say, well, maybe you will. No, you would do it. Of course you would. Of course you would. It just makes sense. This isn't adding to the gospel or anything like that. Don't be deceived by those people who are trying to put this big disseparation on there. Look, this is a big point. Because this is also something that we do here, and we're going to continue to do, is to help people call on the name of the Lord when they've already expressed that they do believe the things that you're showing them out of scripture. And not only is this in scripture, right, in the Bible, It's very helpful, even practically, because I'll tell you what, people may say they agree with things, but when it comes down to praying to the Lord, it can also demonstrate, oh, maybe they didn't really believe. And it could highlight some things. When they're actually going to pray to God, it becomes a different story. And I've had this happen multiple times, where people would, oh, yeah, yeah, OK, yeah. But then it's like, oh, wait. Yeah, I don't think I want to do that. Why not? There's a reason why not. Right? And look, is there maybe a case where someone just is really shy and doesn't want to pray with you? Sure. Sure. I'm sure that could happen. But we're going to follow the model, especially when something is so laid out here. We keep reading in Romans 10. After we stopped in verse 13, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Well, what about people who just say a prayer? Right, because that's always what we're accused of. Well, how then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? It's not just, oh, you just say a prayer and you're saved. No, you have to believe. You have to believe. Because if you're not believing, the prayer is meaningless. The faith has to be there. And how are they even going to call on them in the sense of whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved? If they don't believe, it's just not gonna happen. They won't call on the Lord that way if their faith isn't there. And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? So if you've never heard the gospel, how could you believe the gospel? Makes sense. And how shall they hear without a preacher? without someone to tell them what the gospel is. How are you going to hear about it? And how shall they preach except they be sent? People need to be organizing, sending people out to do this work, to get people to hear, to get people to believe, to get people to call on the name of the Lord. And how shall they preach except they be sent? As it's written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For as I say, Lord, who hath believed Our report, again, obeyed the gospel means believing. Did not obey the gospel, we said, who hath believed our report. So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. This is absolutely talking about eternal life, eternal salvation. And we absolutely, after we get people to see, to understand, after you're sent to preach the word of God and to help people hear the truth, hear the word of God, then they can believe and then they could call on the name of the Lord. And that is what we do here in our soul winning. And that is what I expect to be done and not have people pronouncing people saved before you even, you know, before they even call on the name of the Lord. Last point, well, two points left, and again, real quick now. Training new soul winners needs to be done. Please, if you're going to a time that's scheduled, follow the leader who's set up. I have my own communications with people who are running soul winning times, specific times that are set up. so that I can make sure that things are continued to going the way that they ought to be going out there, follow their guidance when people are getting paired up and all of that. It is the way that we're doing things here. If you're going out with someone who's kind of new and maybe they're a new talker, you want to be able to correct them when they need it, do so humbly in a spirit of meekness, be able to point out areas that need to improve. Don't be afraid of doing that. Be an encouragement to them, right? Help encourage them, hey, you know, you're doing a good job. And then like, you know, I'm glad that you're talking or whatever. Here's something that you could think about. Here's something that might help you, right? And you notice some things, but also don't ever allow for a false gospel to be taught. Don't ever be too afraid to speak up if someone's just saying something, I mean, completely wrong, is teaching a workspace salvation. I don't think it's happened here, but I'm just saying, if that ever does come up, don't feel like, don't be so meek in your own eyes that you're not gonna say something. No, you gotta stop that. When things get that out of hand, you gotta speak up and be like, okay, look. Let me finish this conversation. And still be able to talk to them. You're not going to be angry. Obviously, though, it just means that they might not be saved. So you need to be able to identify that stuff. And then follow up is kind of my last point. And I think it's a really good idea to keep in touch with people, especially if you lead them to Christ, because we want them to be able to come to church and get plugged in and get baptized and grow and everything else. So I encourage people individually to do this, but I would also just add this is don't smother people. Okay, because I know, especially if you're real zealous and you're excited, I'm excited about this church. I love this church. I love all the people in our church. And, you know, oftentimes, especially when people who, you know, you really benefited a lot from church, man, I love this church. You can kind of go a little overboard with people. and just get smothering, right? Like where you're just, you know, you're reaching out to them, too. It's kind of like give people space, right? Reach out to them. Let them know that you care about them, you're thinking about them, whatever. You'd like to see them grow, but still. Back off enough to allow them to not get weirded out that all of a sudden you came to my door and now you're just talking to me every day or something. Give them that opportunity to live their life and care for them, pray for them, but have the right balance. Right? It's just all about having that right balance. So, because it is, it's really easy to be zealous and to want to see people grow and everything else. At the same time, you know, too much can be too much. It would be a little off-putting. Right? So, give people space. Cool. Right? Again, there's no real, I don't really have any specifics on that. It's just kind of, just got to be considering those things and what would be reasonable. So, all right.