Welcome to my sermon today on Your Readiness Can Make Heaven Crowded. This is part of a series I'm doing right now called Make Heaven Crowded. And with this series, listen, we are hoping, we are praying that this year, listen, will be the greatest year of evangelism in the history of our church. That's right, and listen, I'm gonna do my best to lead us to make that happen, okay? greatest year of evangelism, that more people would go to heaven because of what we're doing here as a church than ever before. And so I'm thankful for this opportunity to talk to you about Make Heaven Crowded. And today we're gonna talk about another thing that you can do to be part of making heaven crowded, and that is, listen, be ready, be prepared. You know, for God to use you you have to be prepared. And so I'm excited about sharing this message with you. But before we do that, I want to talk to you about a question. And I want you to think deep about this question. Here it is. Will this year, 2025, be a year of, just listen, earthly pursuits or a new year of eternal impact? As I'm recording this message, I don't know when you're watching it, but I'm recording this in the new year. And during this time, and I guess it's true all the time, but especially in the new year, I think all of us just kind of pause and say, you know, how am I doing in life? And one of the deepest needs we have is significance. Significance. We all want to know that our life is making a difference. Our life has purpose. And really, this series is helping us to do just that. Now, listen, of course, we have to take care of the things of this earth in the sense that, you know, the things we have to get done to take care of. Obviously, that's true. But also, we need to be focusing on eternity and how our lives can make an eternal impact. And that's really what evangelism is all about. It's realizing that every person matters to God. Every person matters to God. And every time one sinner is saved, listen to this, there is a party, a party in heaven. You know, I love our key verse, and this is our key verse for this series. It's also our key verse for this year, and it's Luke 15, verse 7. And here's what it says, I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance. Now, this verse is part of what we call a parable. And these are stories, earthly stories that Jesus would tell to teach spiritual truths. And here he's talking about the truth of every person matters. And the theme of this parable is one, one. And if you know the parable, he talks about like the one coin, the one lost sheep, et cetera. And here he's talking about one sinner. If one person repents and gets saved, it says there's joy. There's joy in heaven. I mean, every time a person crosses that line of faith and puts their trust in Christ as Lord and Savior, there is a party in heaven. There is joy in heaven. The day I got saved, there was a party in heaven. Hopefully the day you got saved, there was a day you got saved. If not, hey, listen, to be honest with you, this is the perfect sermon. If you're not a Christian, Listen, I'm gonna pull back the curtain today on Christianity, and you're gonna really understand the Christian faith, okay? And I hope that you will cross the line of faith today. If you've already made that decision, that day there was a party in heaven for you. So imagine this, imagine God using you to lead someone to Christ, and causing a party in heaven. Just think about that. God using you to actually lead somebody to Jesus, and you, listen, God used you to make that person, help that, I should say, help that person accept Christ, and there was a party in heaven. Well, let me tell you something. The goal this year is for every one of us to have that experience. That's the goal, that every one of us would do something this year to make heaven crowded. So this series is about two things. Number one, I'm going to challenge you to grow closer to God. This is a series that's helping you to go deep in your life with God, but also prepare you to share your faith with others. I not only want to help you grow deep with God, I want you to help you go wide, wide for God. And so, I'm excited as we talk about this topic of your readiness can make heaven crowded. Now, what we're doing is we're talking about some simple but yet powerful things that we can do to make an eternal impact. And today, the thing we can do is we can be ready. We can get ready. And so today we're gonna look at Acts chapter eight, 26 through 38. So let's talk about how your readiness can make heaven crowded. How can your readiness make heaven crowded? So as we do this, in this series, we've got principles. Every week we're gonna have a different make heaven crowded principle. And today's principle is this, God uses you when you're ready to be used. That's right, God uses you, God uses me when we're ready to be used. In other words, if we want God to use us, we have to be usable. We have to be usable. And if we wanna be used of God to make heaven crowded, guess what? We gotta be ready for that, okay? We have to be prepared for that. And so our key verse today is Acts 8 verse 35. Acts 8, verse 35, and it tells about a guy named Philip, and he's going to be our example today. of being ready, and in Acts 8.35, listen, Philip was given an opportunity, okay? And by the way, every day we all have opportunities from God to be able to share Christ with others. And when that opportunity came to Philip, he was ready because Acts 8.35 says, then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this scripture, preached Jesus to him. He was ready. And when he had the opportunity, he preached Jesus to him. So let's talk about the idea of readiness. So I want to talk today about readiness. I want to talk about physical readiness, spiritual readiness, and intellectual readiness. Three different types of readiness, okay? And then I want to tell you about a special seminar I'm going to be offering to help you go even further, okay? The sermon's gonna be of help to you, but I'm gonna tell you about an opportunity you can have to participate in a seminar that's gonna help you even more, okay? So let's dive in. Number one, okay, for readiness, be where God wants you to be. Be where. Be where God wants you to be. That's physical, physical readiness. Now, as we work our way through this passage, we're going to begin in Acts 8.26, where the Bible says, Now, I want you to notice this. This is desert. This is desert, okay? Now, God spoke to Philip and he gave him direction on where to go, where to go. And you'll notice the statement, this is desert, this is desert. Now, this again is a great example of how God cares about every single individual. Yes, we need to reach the masses. When I was praying over four decades ago about where to go to start a church, God directed and put on my heart to go to a large place. We're here in Northern Virginia. where there's many, many, many thousands of people, okay? And in the whole DMV, literally there's a few million people, okay? And God brought me here as the place, all right? But you know what? God is going to speak to individuals. And in this situation, God actually told Philip to go to the desert, okay, to go out to the desert, not to some metropolitan area, go out to the desert. And what we learn from that is every single person matters to God. Once again, everybody matters to God. Listen, there was this guy out in the desert, that needed to hear about Jesus. And God's gonna use Philip to make that happen. See, your address, I want you to think about this, your address is your assignment. Where God puts you, your address is your assignment, wherever you are in life, okay? Our church is located, Capital Baptist Church is located at 3504 Gallows Road in Annandale, Virginia. This is our address and it's also our assignment. God expects us, wants us to do everything we can to help people in this area to make heaven crowded, okay? Where you live is your address. Where you work is your address. Where you go to the gym, it's your address. Where you shop, it's your address, okay? Wherever you go in your life, okay, it's not by accident, okay? God has put you there. There's a where, and you've got to realize you've got to be physically ready. You've got to know, hey, this is my assignment here, okay? This is where God has put me. And I love the way the Bible puts it in 2 Corinthians 5.20, it says, now then we're ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, listen, be reconciled to God. Let me read that again. Now, you're my ambassadors. That means you're representing me, okay? Our home is heaven, right? Our home is heaven. And the Bible says we're just passing through this world. And along the way, we are representing Christ. We're His ambassadors. We're His representatives wherever we go. So part of your readiness is be where God wants you to be. Just realize, hey, where does God want you? What is God's will for your where? And as you live out that where, that's your assignment. That's where God wants you to do everything you can to make heaven crowded. Not only do we need to have physical readiness, we need to have spiritual readiness, spiritual readiness. Be aware. of who God wants you to invest in. Be aware of who God wants you to invest in. So the bottom line is we're all limited, right? We have limited capacity, right? We can't help everybody, right? But we can all help somebody, okay? Don't get overwhelmed by, well, I can't get to everybody. Well, I understand that, okay? But don't let that stop you from realizing, okay, I have an opportunity here, okay? And God has put me in this situation, and he has these people around me, and these are the people I believe God wants me to invest in. That's called spiritual readiness. So the story goes on in Acts chapter 8, 27 through 30. It says, so he arose and went and behold, listen to this, a man of Ethiopia. Now, I like that a man. This is he got sends him to a desert, not to a big area, not to not to a metropolitan area, to a desert. Why? Because there was a man, a man who needed to hear about Jesus. A man of Ethiopian, a eunuch of great authority under Cadiz, the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship. And listen, he was returning and sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the spirit said to Philip, go near and overtake this chariot. So Philip ran to him." Now, I love this story, okay? Notice some things about this man. Number one, he was a foreigner, okay? He was a foreigner. He was a man of Ethiopia. Number two, he was a leader. He was a person who had great authority. He was an important person. He was in charge of the treasury for Cadence, the queen of the Ethiopians. He was obviously religious because he had participated in this feast that went on in Jerusalem. He went there to worship in Jerusalem. And then he's obviously a wealthy person. And one way we know that is he has a chariot, okay? Not everybody had a chariot, okay? Many people would walk or ride animals or whatever, but this guy's got a chariot, okay? So that says something about his financial status at that time. So just think about it, all right? This guy, he's a foreigner, he's a leader, he's religious, he's wealthy. There's people like this all around us. I mean, honestly, here in Northern Virginia, These same types of people are everywhere, okay? Everywhere. And notice God's spirit spoke to Philip. God said, okay, go near and overtake this jury. God put it on his heart, says, go to this man, go near. And I love this, this might be my favorite part of the story. Philip ran to him. Philip ran to him. He took off and ran to him. Now, as we think about who to invest in, let me just share with you just something to kind of put in your mind, okay? Basically, I want to talk to you about when are people most receptive to God, all right? Studies show us this, okay? When are people most receptive? As you think about who am I going to invest in? Who? Three things here. Number one, when people are under tension. When people are facing stress in their life, okay? And there are so many different types of stress, right? So many different types of things. And obviously we know that right now, there's lots of anxiety, okay? Lots of anxiety in this world. And listen, it's a prime opportunity to share Christ with others. Another time is when people are in transition. When people are going from, you know, they're moving, I mean, that's one of the best opportunities we have as a church to actually reach out to new move-ins, because we're in a very transient area. People changing jobs, people moving from being married to divorced or single to married or, you know, changing jobs or whatever. Just when people are in transition, they're more open to God. And then another time is just simply when people are in trouble. When people are going through hardship in life, people going through difficulty in life, maybe they have some type of health problem or some type of financial problem or just a problem with their child or whatever it might be, they're facing some type of trouble. You see, these are times when we need to put up our so-called spiritual antenna and realize, you know, this is a person I need to focus on here, okay? This is somebody that I perhaps can help in their life, okay? And so the Spirit spoke to Philip and he ran, and that reminds me of 1 Thessalonians 5.19. Listen to what it says. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not quench the spirit. So as you're praying and you're saying, God, who do I invest in? When God speaks to you, listen, don't quench the spirit, okay? And don't be intimidated either, okay? This gentleman could have been very intimidating, okay? The fact that he was a leader and the fact that he was wealthy, but that didn't keep Philip from obeying God. And listen, don't let, Keep you from doing what God has called you to do when it comes to investing in someone for Christ. So how can you be ready? Number one, be where God wants you to be, physical readiness. Number two, be aware of who God wants you to invest in, spiritual readiness. And then number three, be prepared to share my faith at any time. That's intellectual readiness. Be prepared to share my faith at any time. That's intellectual readiness. So what do you need to do mentally, so to speak? What kind of knowledge you need to have to talk to someone about Christ, all right? Let me just give you a little summary of that, okay? Number one, ask questions, ask questions. So the Bible says in Acts chapter 8, 30 through 31, so Philip ran to him. So Philip obeyed the Spirit, he ran to the man, and he was actually reading the prophet Isaiah, all right? So it's important to understand that God's Spirit was working in this man's life, okay? He's actually reading the Bible. He's actually reading the Word of God, and he's reading from Isaiah 53. You know, in the Old Testament, There's lots of what we call messianic prophecies. And these are prophecies in the Old Testament about the coming Messiah, Jesus. And he's actually reading one of those passages, Isaiah 53. And here's what he says. He says, do you understand what you're reading? Listen, one of the best approaches when it comes to helping people is just ask some questions, okay? Just ask questions like, you know, do you ever think about spiritual things? That's one of my favorites, okay? Just because, you know, what do people think about? I mean, there's so many things to think about spiritually. That's a very wide word in our culture, spiritual, okay? It can mean almost anything, okay? But listen, it gets you over in that space, all right? If you died today, are you sure you would go to heaven? That's a good question. If you died today, are you sure you would go to heaven? His question was, do you understand? Do you understand what you're reading? And he said, listen, how can I? Unless someone guides me. Boy, that's a great answer. Everyone needs a guide, right? And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. So how can I, unless someone guides me, we all need a guide. This man needed someone to guide him. People need a guide in their life. Ask questions, ask questions. Colossians 4, 5, and 6 says, walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one." We need to know how to answer each one in the way we talk, right? So, first of all, just ask some questions. Just probe a little bit. Just see where people are. Start with their life, not your agenda, okay? Find out where they're at. Secondly, share scripture and the gospel. Share scripture and the gospel. Acts 8 goes on to say in verses 32 through 35, then the place in the scripture which he read was this. Okay, and again, this is Isaiah chapter 53. The place in the scripture which he read was this. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before its shearers in silence. So he opened not his mouth, okay, this is a prophecy about Jesus, okay, and how Jesus was persecuted and crucified. In his humiliation, Jesus was humble. His justice was taken away. And who will declare his generation? Who will declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth." So that's a prophecy about the Messiah, Jesus, right? So the eunuch answered Philip and said, I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of some other man? And notice verse 35, that's our key verse. Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this scripture, preached Jesus to him. He preached Jesus to him. Listen, he shared scripture, and listen, he shared the gospel. He shared about Jesus, the death, the burial, the resurrection of Christ. The fact that Jesus Christ, you know, came to this earth, lived a perfect life, died for our sin. Okay, our sin, you and me, all of us, was buried on the third day, rose from the grave. And if we'll turn from our sin and put our trust in Christ, we can be saved. Romans 1 16 says, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it's the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. Don't be ashamed of the gospel. Philip was not ashamed of the gospel. He's not ashamed to preach Jesus to him. So how can you be prepared intellectually? Ask questions, share scripture and the gospel. Number three, invite to receive Jesus. Always give people an opportunity to make a decision for Christ. In Acts 8, 36 through 37, it says, now, as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, see, here's water. What hinders me from being baptized? Now, this is so interesting. Somehow, some way. this man knew about, you know, baptism, okay? And he sees this water and he says, you know, I wanna be baptized, right? That's a good thing. We're gonna talk about that in just a minute or two, okay? Baptism is important, all right? But baptism, listen, doesn't save you, okay? And that's why Philip said to him, well, listen, I'll be glad to baptize you, but here's what he says. If you believe with all your heart, you may. The prerequisite to baptism is salvation. And he says, if you believe, if you put your trust in Christ as Savior and Lord, yes, after that, I will baptize you. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I love this. Oh, my goodness. I believe. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. You see, Philip invited this man to receive Jesus. And the truth is, I'd be lying to you if I said every time that's gonna happen, they're gonna receive Christ. That's not true, okay? Sometimes people will not receive Christ. But every time, you need to offer the opportunity. Because the Bible says in Proverbs 27, one, do not boast about tomorrow, For you do not know what a day may bring forth." People, listen, there's no promise of tomorrow. We don't know what the future may hold. And listen, this may be the only opportunity this person ever has to receive Christ. You may be the one and only that ever shares the gospel with them. Just make sure, you know, that you give them that opportunity to make that decision, okay? Just offer that opportunity to them. And then the next thing to do is follow up about baptism and church attendance. Follow up about baptism and church attendance. So once a person accepts Christ, yes, they should be baptized, right? And that's why in Acts 8.38 it says, so he commanded the chariot to stand still, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized them. So if you ever have the privilege to try to, not try, but to lead a person to Christ, You need to, it's called follow-up. You need to make sure you follow up with them. And one thing you ought to talk to them about is, hey, you need to get baptized and explain that baptism is a symbol of our salvation. It doesn't save us, but it's an act of obedience where we publicly profess Christ is my Lord and Savior, okay? And every Christian ought to be baptized, okay? God wants that for every single one of us. But also, they need a good church, okay? I mean, it's not mentioned specifically here in this passage. But the truth is everybody needs to follow the model of Acts 2.41. It says, And that's really the perfect follow-up right there. This is the example of the first church, the church at Jerusalem. And here's how it goes. They received His Word, and the Word was the gospel, okay? If you go back and read that passage, Peter and the apostles preached Jesus. They preached the gospel, and over 3,000 people said yes to Jesus that day. And then after they received that Word, after they were saved, they were baptized, and then it says they were added to them, and the them is the church. They were added to that church. Listen, part of follow-up is helping people get into a good Bible-preaching church, whether that's local, and you can invite them to come to Capitol, or whether they live in another place. And listen, people come to me quite often and say, you know, I got a friend looking for a church here, and I do know literally hundreds of pastors, okay? And I'd be glad to help you help somebody find a good church in another place, because it's so, so important. So, we're talking about preparation. Be where God wants you to be, physical readiness. Be aware of who God wants you to invest in, spiritual readiness. Be prepared to share my faith at any time, and then be willing to attend, listen, the Make Heaven Crowded Seminar. So, here's the deal. Listen, This is a wonderful sermon, okay? Excellent sermon. If you apply what I've said today, it's going to help you a lot to be ready, okay? But I want to do more to help you, okay? So I'm going to be doing a seminar, okay? I'm calling it the Make Heaven Crowded Seminar. And I would like to invite you to attend. It's going to be a two-hour seminar. And Ephesians 4.12 says, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. You know the context of that statement? It's talking about pastors. And part of the job description of a pastor is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. And I want to use this seminar to equip you for the ministry of knowing how to make heaven crowded. I want to help you be ready. I want to help you be prepared. So this seminar is going to help prepare you to know and do God's will pretty much in everyday life. This seminar will help prepare you to know and to do God's will in your everyday life. And here are some of the things you're going to walk away with, okay? If you give me two hours of your time, time is valuable, okay? And I know that my time is valuable. And I'm going to do this multiple times, okay? I'm going to do it on-site and I'm going to do it online, all right? I'm not going to waste my time, and I don't want to waste your time, okay? If you'll give me two hours of your time, you're going to walk away with, number one, a deeper understanding of the theology of salvation. Part of being ready, part of being prepared is really understand the doctrine of salvation, and I'm going to help you with that. Also, a greater awareness of how God desires to use His people, meaning the church, to impact our broken world. I mean, I'm going to give you an understanding of, you know, what is the role of the church? What should our church be trying to do in this broken world? Number three, an urgency to help others come to Christ. I'm going to call you to action. I'm going to say, listen, we have an urgency, we have an opportunity, we need to act on it. Number four, the ability to share your faith without fear. You know, one of the biggest barriers to making heaven crowded is we're afraid to share Jesus. Let's be real, okay? And sometimes I get afraid too. That's called spiritual warfare. The enemy wants to make you afraid so that you'll shut your mouth, okay? I'm gonna talk about how can we overcome that fear. And then practical and proven methods for talking to someone about Jesus that are simple and effective. I'm gonna give you some methodologies, some different ways, you know, same gospel, okay, only one gospel, okay, but different ways, different techniques you can use to share the gospel. And then lastly, an understanding of how God wants to use you to make heaven crowded. Listen, I wanna encourage you to sign up for this, okay? And there's two things you can do. You can go to our website, go to our website, capitolbaptist.org. You'll see it listed as one of the events, and you can see the times, and you can sign up for whichever works best for you. We're gonna have it onsite. and online, okay? So check that out, okay? Obviously, if you're on the online service, you may wanna do the online training, but maybe you're local here and you're just online for whatever reason and you wanna come on site, that's fine too, okay? You'll have that opportunity. Listen, God uses us when we're ready. when we're ready. And if you are going to be used of God to make heaven crowded, you got to be ready. So take what I've said today, apply it to your life. It will help you to be ready to share the Lord Jesus Christ. And then listen, let's get even more ready by attending this important seminar.