I love VBS. I am a church brat. I grew up in church all my life, as they say. I was born on a pew. I'm a little worse than the average church brat going to VBSs and everything all my life. I'm a minister brat. My dad was the youth pastor of the church where I grew up. And so not only was I that little kid at all the VBSs, but I oftentimes got to go to all the youth camps, even as just a little kid. At times I would become like the mascot of the youth group where all the high school boys would carry me around on their shoulders and the high school girls would pinch me on the cheek and tell me how cute I was and have me sit on their lap during the worship service. It was a tough life, Pastor. It was rough, man, I tell you. I love church. I've been around church all my life. I love VBS. I love the youth camps and the ministries. And later I became the director of Super Summer, which is another youth camp and the youth ministry for leadership. And so church life has been a part of my life since I remember. I don't remember a time where I did not believe that Jesus was Lord. It's kind of like asking me, when did you come to know your mom was your mom or your dad was your dad? I've just grown up believing and following the things of the Lord. And many of you may be in that kind of a situation. You've grown up with the things of the church. You've been around it all your life. And when it comes to the gospel and evangelism, I love the testimony about someone getting a track. That's one of the things that sticks with me throughout my journey in church, is all the different ways that I was challenged by the preachers to share my faith. It's so important to share your faith, to talk about Jesus. And I remember how sometimes I'd get very nervous about this, and I would wonder, how in the world am I gonna talk about this, and how do I bring this up? And those kinds of things really made me nervous, because I didn't know how to even talk about my faith. And I remember learning so many different methodologies, using your hand, and there was one time when you had beads that were around your wrist, or a track, a particular track, and different ways, the five steps or the four steps. There was so many different road, the bridge to life. Some of y'all remember that, that track. There was so many different methods that I learned. And I remember someone saying this in one of the sermons, he said, do you know which method is the best one? And you look back and you're kind of thinking, which one of them is the best? The one you're willing to use. Because every one of us has a testimony, every one of us has a voice, every one of us has a story about what Christ did for us. And your testimony is like your fingerprint, it's unique to you. And no one can deny what Christ has done for you. You talk about what Christ has done for you. And all of those different concepts and ideas can sometimes be overwhelming because you begin to wonder, how is it that I talk about Jesus? How do I share the gospel? What if I get something wrong? What if they ask me a question I don't know the answer to? These kinds of things sometimes debilitate us as Christians from talking about our faith. And we don't know how it impacts the world around us and how they see it. In fact, instead of looking at experts in the Christian world and all the different Christian, churchy types of research, I did some research and looked up some research regarding how the unchurched, the people outside of our little echo chamber, our little bubble, how they view us. Because asking ourself, Ultimately what is the most effective way? Oftentimes starts with looking at how the outside lost world views us. What do the unchurched people think about our evangelism efforts? And the number one answer, of course there's a lot of different ways in which they answered this question, but the main theme of the number one response was this, your friendship is more important to me than your faith. Now hear me when I say this, we all know that your faith relationship with God is of paramount importance. But remember, they're not where you are. They don't believe that yet because they don't believe what we do about faith and Christianity and belief in eternity and all those kinds of things. They're not there yet. So what are they thinking when they see us? They're thinking, I care more about how you treat me and our friendship than I do about what you believe, whatever that is. It's another way of saying that old famous saying, they don't care how much you know until they know how much you care, right? It's the same kind of a basic view. We know the knowledge of Christ and the importance of our faith in eternity is absolutely important, but they don't care as much about that as they do about how you treat them and feel about them. Otherwise they see it as almost like a sales pitch. They're just trying to get me a part of their team. They're just trying to get my money, get my time, get my attention. They don't really care about me. And especially this generation, they are being bombarded with people who are trying to get their attention. 24-7 all the time on their apps, on their phones, on the television, everywhere. They're trying to get their attention. Millions upon billions of dollars are spent by advertisers trying to get just 10 seconds of everyone's attention, trying to sell them on something. And many people outside the church just see the church as another salesman. They're just trying to get more money. They're just trying to get my time. They're just trying to get my attention. And the same thing that they would say about a salesman, I care more about my friendship with you than I do what product you're selling. And it's exactly what they think about Christianity. And you have to understand that in order to understand the perspective of those outside of the church walls. If Christianity could be put on Amazon, If you think about this, how many of you look to Amazon and you look at the five star rating to determine, am I going to buy it or not? I don't know about you, but I don't buy anything that didn't have at least like a four and a half or better. Because if it has less than that, usually I'm gonna have to return it, something's gonna go wrong with it, it's not reliable. I want a five star rated item. If Christianity was sold on Amazon based upon the statistics, it would get maybe two stars. Maybe. That's bad news, folks. The world around us doesn't see us in a good light. Why? You can have a lot of different arguments as to that. I'm not gonna get into it, but that's just the reality of it. They don't view Christians very highly. Not even lower than that, evangelism. If Christian evangelism only gets one star on Amazon. They don't like it. They see it as proselyting. You're trying to sell me something. Don't try to tell me what to believe. Even Christians today, high percentage of Christians don't believe it's right to tell others about Jesus. because they see it as proselyting. Keep your faith to yourself. That's personal. Don't talk about it. That's the way this generation thinks. But I got a piece of good news. The name of Jesus, even if it's for the wrong reasons, still is very popular and would have five stars. Now they may not know why they would give Jesus five stars, they may not know who the real Jesus is and what he really taught, but the name of Jesus, for whatever reason, the name of Jesus is still acceptable and very much desirable to be known. And people want to know more about Jesus deep down. That's teaching me something important about evangelism. That means I don't need to be so concerned about winning somebody to a religion or to a church as I need to be winning them to Christ. I need to center everything I do around Jesus. Everything I do needs to be centered around Jesus. It needs to start with Jesus and everything needs to be about Jesus. So who else better to go to than Jesus to give us a lesson on what it means to share him? And we're gonna do that in the passage that you just heard read earlier out of Matthew chapter nine beginning in verse 35. Notice it says that Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. Now stop there and let's look at what we're learning from Jesus right here. Notice he goes where they are. That right there is an important lesson. He doesn't just say, hey, come to where I am. He's willing to go where they are. That's huge, folks. Churches become very comfortable just doing invitational evangelism, which sometimes works, praise the Lord, but it is not the only method of evangelism and it wasn't Jesus's method. Jesus went to where people were, and when he got there, he did two things, and I want you to notice these two things that he did, because they are essential for the church. One, he told them the truth, and two, he met their need. Did you hear that? He preached the truth, and he healed their illness. Churches oftentimes neglect one for the other. Some churches are really great charities, but they're not churches because they go out and they meet the needs, but they never preach the truth. And there are other churches that are looked at as salesmen on the street corner because you know what they're doing? They're preaching truth at people. They're yelling people down with truth, but they're not willing to meet them at their point of need or get to know anything about them. Neither one of those is healthy, in my estimation. And neither one of them modeled Christ. Christ met the people at their point of need. He got to know them. In order to heal their illness, He had to know what their illness was. That means He had to have conversations with these people. He wasn't just standing on a street corner shouting them down for their sicknesses and for their sins. He got to know them. He met them at their point of need. And then he also preached to them the truth because he knew that their sickness was not just physical. It was spiritual. It was deeper than just their physical ailments. So we are to go where they go. and we are to meet them at their point of need so as to proclaim the truth to them. That's the model of Christ for the church. It's what we're called to do. That's how we develop compassion for the lost, is by talking to them, getting to know them and their needs. It's exactly what verse 36 talks about with compassion. It says, but when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted. In other words, they were distressed. When someone's fainting, they're distressed. They can't control themselves. They're losing consciousness. That's exactly what he's saying here. They fainted. They were scattered abroad like sheep with no shepherd. Listen, having a compassionate heart means that we see others the way that Jesus saw them. He saw them as lost, lonely, but still loved. I don't know about you, but that's not the way I always look at lost people. I'm just gonna be confessional here. I want to have the eyes of Jesus, but in my flesh, I don't. I just don't. How many times have you caught yourself watching the news, and it's on all the time, isn't it? And it's always bad news, it seems, and it's always depressing, it seems. How many times have you found yourself watching something on TikTok or the news or whatever social media app you're on, and you see people acting the fool, and it just makes your blood boil. You think, oh my gosh, those liberal, blah, blah, blah, oh my gosh, trying to take away my religious right, trying to take away Jesus out of the schools, trying to do this, that, they don't, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Have you found yourself, you're just temperature rising when you watch the foolishness of people who believe differently than you do? The foolishness of people who would kill an infant in the womb all the way to the last trimester, are you barbaric? Can you, I don't know about you, but it makes me angry, angry, mad, frustrated. And I'm reminded by Jesus, when I get on my knees and I pray, he says, why would it surprise you that lost people act lost? They're sheep without a shepherd. And if not for the grace of God, you would be right there with them doing the absolute same stupid things they're doing. Because it's not about their outward behaviors. It's about the fact that they don't have a relationship with the God of the universe. They're lost. To have compassion for them is so difficult for me. I want to judge them. I want to get angry with them. But the Christ in me, when I look at them through the eyes of Christ, somehow, someway, he gives me compassion for them. That only can come from Jesus, by the way. To get compassion for somebody that inwardly and everything about you wants to hate and wants to despise. And again, I'm not trying to say that you condone the sin. I'm trying to say that you recognize the sin for what it is. It's a symptom to a deeper disease, something that they need healing for. And when you understand it that way and when you see it that way, you begin to see that they need Jesus. And you have the solution for them. You have what they need, but you cannot yell them down. You've got to meet them at their point of need. You've got to be willing to recognize their point of need. You've got to start with a heart of compassion to see them as lost. And that doesn't come naturally. It comes through prayer. intentional prayer and it takes time getting to know someone's story. I know this is a silly illustration but I was raised in the 80s when the first trilogy of Star Wars was becoming famous. I had two older brothers that loved Star Wars and all the figurines and everything was just flooded my house and we would go see the first three Star Wars movies in the theater and it just kind of shaped me as a kid in a lot of ways because I grew up watching this drama unfold on the screen and Darth Vader was such the villain of all villains and he was just an easy villain to hate because I mean he had this black mask on and he would choke people out with his hand and I mean he breathed real evil breath and deep voice and everything. He's just an easy villain to hate, right? And then what happened? Years later, the prequels come out And I learned a story about a little blonde-headed boy named Anakin. And we learn his life and his story about the loss of his dad and his mom later and all the tragedy he went through that developed and sent him over to the dark side, right? And I remember finding myself as I watched those prequels having compassion for, of all people, Darth Vader. And I know that's silly, but think about it. How does compassion develop when you learn the backstory? It's easy to hate Darth Vader when you know him as only Darth Vader, but get to know him as Anakin. And what happens? That guy that cuts you off in traffic with a bumper sticker that says something politically you disagree with? It's easy to hate that guy because he's wearing the mask. He's just an evil villain, right? But he's also Anakin. You don't know what he's been through that day. You don't know. Maybe he's cutting you off because he just found out that he lost his child as a newborn. Unexpectedly and he's not even thinking about you because he's hurting you don't know and instead of laying on the horn Maybe you say God show me compassion for this guy right now Because that's the flesh in me, right That's what walking in the spirit is by the way folks You talk about walking in the spirit. Oh, I'll go to Pentecostal if I walk in the spirit. Walking in the spirit is walking with the awareness that God is at work around you all the time and that he might be working on and with you, with someone else who's hurting. Hurting people hurt people. Do you hear that? Hurting people hurt people. When you're at work and there's a person hurting you, cutting you down, making you angry, annoying you, guess what? They're probably hurting. And I know everything within you wants to scream out anger, get mad, I'm getting vengeance. Ask the Father, the Lord of grace, God give me grace. Help me see the anakin. Help me see the backstory. Help me have compassion. And I promise you folks, you pray for somebody long enough, God will give you compassion for them. It is amazing, it works every time. I've seen this happen time and time again where somebody I am just angry with and I find myself getting more and more angry with and I'll commit to pray for them for a solid week every single day and my heart will just miraculously change for them. Miraculously, it works every time. And I'm challenging you folks, evangelism starts with prayer. It's not a last resort, it's a first response. It's not something you do just in case. No, you have to talk to God about the lost before you talk to the lost about God, because your heart has to start with compassion. It's what we talked about even this morning. You're not motivated out of lull to win people to Christ. You're motivated out of love. You have to be motivated out of love. Otherwise, you're going to turn them into twice the son of hell as they are. just as Jesus condemned the Pharisees for doing. Why? Because they were loyal people. They were doing things because they were told to, versus doing things out of a love and a compassion for who Christ is and what Christ has done for you and your life. It starts with love. And it starts with prayer, as the next verse says. They saith unto the disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest. It all starts with prayer. God send laborers. The world seems overwhelmingly lost. God, give me a passion for being a laborer in your field of harvest and send others to walk alongside me. Starts with prayer. The value of prayer was instilled within me actually very early in my life. My dad told this story. I would travel with my father throughout our life and ministry and things that we did, and so I'd get to hear my dad preach sometimes multiple times, and sometimes I'd hear the same story again and again, but this is one of those stories I actually enjoyed my dad telling, and I would actually request it. I'd say, could you tell the story about Chucky Poole, Dad? I wanna hear that story. And it's a story about a young boy named Chucky who was graduating into the youth ministry. My dad was a youth slash music minister, much like Austin is here, and it was one of my dad's earliest ministries in church time, and it was promotion Sunday. Do y'all have that here, where it's time everybody promote up? Well, in this church, the sixth graders promoted up into the seventh grade into the youth ministry, and that was a big step for the youth. And so this is promotion Sunday, my dad being the youth pastor was, you know, helping this happen. And the youth group was ministry was full and they were having a full Sunday service that day. And all the new sixth, seventh graders were there for the very first time. He was welcoming them. And he decided on promotion Sunday, he was going to introduce this new ministry called a prayer target. And it's just this big bullseye. And you'd sit up on the screen, just this big bullseye like this up at the front of the classroom. And he says, guys, we're going to start a new prayer ministry because we believe that evangelism, sharing Jesus, starts with prayer. So we want to start praying for those who are lost that we know in our community, in our homes, anywhere in our lives. And he says, here's what I want you to do. And he passes out these little map pens, these little round map pens. He says, I want you to write down the initials of someone you know who's lost. Anyone, just one person you know is lost, just write their initials on one side of that little round map pen. And the other side, we want you to write your name. In a little while, we're going to come up and you're going to put that pen on the outer edge, that blue circle on the outer edge so that we can pray for you as you pray for that lost person represented by the initials on the backside of that pen. And then here's what we want you to do. If that person hears the gospel, you're able to share the gospel with them, give them a track, they're able to come to church to hear the gospel, something, they somehow hear the gospel and you know the seed has been planted, they've heard the gospel, we want you to move that little tag into the yellow area so that we can pray specifically for that person, that the seed will grow and that the person will come to faith. And he says, finally, once they come to Jesus, Once they confess their sins and they come to Christ, we want you to take that tag, fill in their name, and put it in the bullseye, and we can celebrate with you what God's done. Just a visual cool way of praying for the lost in their community. And so my dad introduces this to the youth ministry, and then he says to this large crowd of students, he says, would anybody like to share who you're praying for? And little Chucky, that little seventh grader, no, he was nervous. He was sitting right there on the front row with all the other new seventh graders. He was the first one to raise his hand and my dad notices him and says, yeah, yeah, Chucky, stand up and tell us who you're praying for. And he stood up and you could tell he was kind of nervous. And he kind of turns around and he looks and he says, could y'all pray for my dad? My dad's lost. Now my father, Chuck, was there, his name's also Chuck, there was a connection there between him and Chucky. He knew Chucky's name because it was the same as my dad's, who's Chuck Flowers. And so my dad's sitting there and he's kind of putting the two pieces together because he's fairly new to this church at this point. And he's heard some stories along the way as pastors share with each other about different people within the community. And he remembers hearing about little Chucky Poole being a part of the youth ministry and learning his story And hearing that his mom was a faithful Christian who brought the three kids to school, to church, religiously. But Charles, Dr. Charles Poole was the bank owner in town and he was a known atheist in town. And he never darkened the church. In fact, he was one of those annoying atheists that would fight at the city hall to get the nativity scene removed from the public ground, that kind of. And back in those days, especially in a Bible seat town in the Bible Belt, atheists really stood out in that kind of a town. And my dad remembers thinking to himself, oh, I remember that's the oldest son of Dr. Charles Poole. I don't think prayers even helped that man. He is so far gone. He is so far gone. You ever known somebody that's just so far gone, you think to yourself, there's no way that will ever happen. My dad remembers thinking that at that moment. Well, weeks would go on and The youth group continued to go through its normal routines and the things that it goes through. And as is normal for most youth groups, every time they get together, they would ask for prayer requests. And every single time, Chucky Poole was the first to raise his hand, and of course, he wanted to pray for his dad. Matter of fact, it became so expected that my dad would often start prayer time with, besides Chucky's dad, is there anyone else who has a prayer request? Because he just knew every single time Chucky would say, pray for my dad, his salvation. It got annoying to my dad at one point. My dad even says, because he would just always, it just disappointed him. Like, there's just no hope for that man. He's so angry with God. He's so distant with God. And he remembers thinking to himself, this kid will not hush up about his dad. years pass. That little 7th grader was now an 11th grader and it was Sunday night. Not many churches still do Sunday night church like that back then. And it was Youth Choir Night. I don't know if y'all ever do Youth Choir Nights, but that was really popular in this particular town. In fact, oftentimes attendance was higher on youth choir night than even on Sunday mornings, even close to Easter kind of Sundays, because what would happen on youth choir night is all the students would sing and do the specials, everything else. And so all the parents and their family members would come to watch them perform, so to speak, there at the church on Sunday nights. And so this is youth choir night. And so the church was really filling up. And the youth had taken their place in the big youth choir loft, and my dad, being the choir director for the youth, took his place in front of the choir, and it was time to start the service. And so, as a good choir director does, he got their attention and had them all to stand together. And guess what? All of them stood except one, Chucky, 11th grader who knows better. He'd been in the choir for a long time and knew it's time to stand, but he wasn't paying attention to my dad. He was staring. His jaw dropped, face had turned sheep white. And my dad's trying to get his attention. He's thinking, Chucky, it's time to stand up. And Chucky finally kind of comes to as he's kind of halfway standing and he looks over at my dad and he says, my father's here. My dad's standing like this still, and he looks over his shoulder, and sure enough, Dr. Charles Poole, the bank owner in town, the town atheist in a three-piece suit, had slipped in and sat on the very back pew. Now, his wife, with the other kids, they had their normal place. They were in the second row. But Dr. Charles Poole had just slipped in and sat on the back pew, presumably there maybe to support his son, to watch what was happening. And so the service went on. Dad led in the opening service and the songs and the preacher came and he preached and there was music that was sung, much like this morning's service. It was beautiful. And it came time for the invitation. And guess what? The students were leading the song of invitation. So my dad took his place in front of that choir and they began the song Just As I Am, a very well-known song for an invitation, just singing through Just As I Am. And the second verse of Just As I Am, my dad said, my back was through the crowd so I couldn't see what was happening. But he said, I know that Dr. Charles Poole began to walk the aisle. And he says, I know it because I could see it in the eyes of his son as they pulled with tears. And he said, by the time I got to the end of that course and I looked over my shoulder, Dr. Charles Poole and that pastor were kneeling in the middle of the aisle praying to receive Jesus. He said they came to the end of that service and the wife and the other kids had made their way over to be with their born again father. And Chucky was still in the choir loft. And in those days, much like this church used to have, it looks like a privacy rail, right? Right there. And Chucky was sitting about right here. Guys, that privacy rail didn't even slow him down. He hurdles that thing, runs down the middle of that aisle and embraces his dad. You can imagine everybody in that church knew Chucky and his annoying prayers. And they just were weeping with joy. His daddy was saved. That's not even the best part of the story, believe it or not. People lingered for quite some time, as you can imagine, after something like that. hugging and sharing stories and celebrating. But eventually, the parking lot began to empty. And as often the case with the youth slash music minister, you gotta lock up sometimes, and sometimes it's you that has to lock up. And that's what my dad was doing. He was locking up the doors, turning off lights. He made his way over to the youth department where his office was, and he was putting some books in some bags and getting things ready to go, and he heard a noise. And his door was just open enough that he could see down the hallway where there's one security light. And underneath that security light is where they put the prayer target. They'd hung it there so that students would pass by and could see it. And many of the tags had moved over the years. And he saw a figure sitting in front of the tag. And he notices it's Chucky standing there. And Chucky doesn't know anybody's even watching, thinks everybody's gone. My dad's about to step out to announce himself, but something just holds him back, and he just stands there, and he watches as Chucky stands there in front of that target. And he looks up at the target, and he reaches up to that tag now yellowed with age, and he pulls it off, and he holds it for probably a good 30, 60 seconds, just looking at it. And he gets one of the little golf pencils that's provided there for the students, and he writes in his dad's name. And he looks up and he says, God, thank you for saving my dad. He takes the pen, he pushes it in the middle really hard and he goes, yes! And he turns and he walks out, never even knew what he was watching. I remember that story because every time my dad tells it, every time he told it, he weeps like a baby, even worse than I do. And that really impacts a son when you hear your dad weep like that. And he said this, he says, you know, there in that office, he said, I fell on my face, and he said, I wept like a baby. And he said, earlier that day, I'd wept tears like everybody else did when they saw Chucky Poole's dad come down, everything else, you know, you get teary-eyed in joy. He said, but there in the office, he said, I wept bitterly. under conviction. He said, because it took a seventh grade boy to teach me the power of prayer. And that there's no one that God doesn't want, and no one beyond the mercy and the grace of God. There's no one too lost for Jesus, that have gone beyond his grace. And every time I've told this story, almost in every place I've told this story, in every place my dad shared this story, we have people who come up to us and they say, I've got a dad. I've got a brother. I've got a sister. I've got a child who is hardened in their sins and they're running from God. And I don't know what to do but pray. And the answer that I have for you is don't stop praying. Don't stop praying. God may be at work in ways that you don't even know that he's working. Keep praying. And for some of you in this room, I want you to know someone's praying for you. Do you hear me? Some of you haven't given your life to Jesus. And you've got a mom or a dad or a child or a pastor who's praying for you and crying for you. Maybe today's the day of salvation. Maybe you need to take the courage that those two students took and say, I'm gonna get in the water. It's time to change my life. Why are you waiting? Why are you here? Why did God create you? To have a relationship with you. Don't miss out on the best life that you can have, the relationship that you have with Christ. Today is the day of salvation. Don't leave this place until you've given your life to Christ. The Philippian jailer asked the disciples, what must I do to be saved? You know what they said? Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Notice I didn't give you a checklist. Oh, you've got to get this much to the church. You've got to believe all these things. You need to get all that sin out of your life, then you can. No, I didn't say any of that. Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. That's what I'm calling you to today. If you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. We're gonna have a song of invitation. You're gonna stand and we're gonna sing, and as we sing, I'll be here, the pastor will be here, if you'd like to come and pray with one of us, talk to us. Maybe even pray for a lost person that you'd like to pray for at your own seat there, maybe here at the front, wherever God leads you. But I want you to deal with whatever God is calling you to as we go to this time of invitation. And I want you to respond to him the way he calls you to respond. Let's pray together, and then we're gonna sing.