It is such a joy and honor for me and my wife to be with you all here. I want to thank the brothers for allowing me to share my heart with you today. I bring you greetings and everyone’s love from the church in Sibiu, Romania. I pray that my message today will encourage you to think deeper about the responsibility and the honor to share the good news to the world.
Let us open our bibles first to Ezechiel 3:16-21.
The Gospel is the mirror of the soul and the reflection of the heart. Through the Gospel every man can see himself as he truly is in the eyes of God. The message of the scriptures has the power to restore the image of God in the fallen man.
We often see how the old, historical buildings are restored. And we see how much time, energy, passion patience and money is necessary to recreate the beautiful image that those buildings once had.
In the same way God uses the Gospel to bring the man damaged by sin to the glory that once had when he was created in the image of the Creator.
Jesus Christ is the only one that can bring the light in the deep darkness and emptiness of someone’s heart. What an amazing work God does when through the Gospel he gives the opportunity to every man to realize how lost and dirty he is.
But for someone to see his spiritual condition God is calling me and you to share with them the Good News. Let us read Romans 10:14-15.
The child of God has to believe in the power of the Gospel to pierce the hearts of people. The Lord God speaks in Jeremiah 23:29 and says:” My word is like a fire and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces.”
Is this the power of God’s word in our hearts? We are called by the Lord to allow that the same power touches other people hearts.
I need to confess to you that I often have the feeling that many Christians today have the attitude of Cain. Do you remember what he answered when God asked him in Genesis 4:9: “where is your brother Abel?” He said: “I don’t know. Am I my brother keeper?”
Several years ago I read a statistic that made my heart sad. The statistic said that over 7000 churches in the world did not gain one soul for Christ for an entire year. I realize that God’s spirit touches in different ways the people hearts. I know that there were always in the church passionate Christians and luke-warm Christians. But it makes me so sad to see that there are so many people in the world today that call themselves Christians and they don’t feel any responsibility for the lost.
The Scripture talks about the joy of the angels in Heaven when a sinner repents and surrender his heart to God. But I can not wonder myself how heaven cryes today seeing the absence of fruit in so many churches.
Dear brothers and sisters to share the good news is a commandment not an option, is a responsibility and not something that we can choose to do or not. The cross was not an option for Christ. It was the plan of the Father that had to be fulfilled.
I also notice how often Christians believe that if they don’t preach from the pulpit then they don’t have the responsibility of preaching Christ. They consider that preaching is the preacher job and not theirs. That is a one big mistake and a huge lie of satan. We read in the book of Acts how every single Christian: young, adult, elderly, man or women taught the Gospel every time they had the chance and to everyone that was interested to listen. Sharing the good news is not only the preacher’s job. It is every Christian job.
The words that we read in Ezechiel 3 are very powerful, profound and with eternal implications for each one of us. I believe that we can all agree that today we are God’s spiritual Israel and we are called to be the watchmen for this world.
A while ago I read in a book a testimony of a Christian while he was in the hospital. One day he was visited by a brother in Christ. This brother spoke to the doctor and the doctor said the surgery went well and he will recover soon. When he entered in the hospital room where the Christian was he saw that even if the news of his health condition were great, he was very sad.
When he asked him what’s wrong he started to cry. He said that last night his room mate passed away. And his heart was heavy because he had the chance to spend 3 days with this man and he never brought up the subject of salvation. He felt guilty for not giving that man the opportunity to hear about Jesus and be saved.
How often is God giving us opportunities to share the gospel with the lost and we leave it for some other time. That time might be the only time when that lost person has the chance to repent. Maybe is a colleague at work or someone we go to school with every day, or maybe is someone in our family that desperately needs to repent. Even if they refused to hear us in the past, are we willing to let go on them so easy?, vs.18
Let us read now Romans 1:14-16. There are two important things that God is revealing to us in this passage. In verse 14 we read that Paul feels obligated to share the Gospel to all men. But in verse 15 we read that he is not preaching Christ just because it is his responsibility but he is also eager to preach the good news. Preaching Christ was both duty and honor for the apostle Paul.
Don’t we fell honored and privileged to be called to serve the Almighty? Who am I to be asked by God to do something for Him. If sharing the gospel is just a responsibility then there is a big void in our hearts.
I lived to see my father suffer and die because of cancer when I was 18 years old. And I’m telling you that I would have done everything to bring him back to good health or at least to give him a moment of comfort. There was nothing that I would have hold back to help him. We spent all of our material resources, time and energy to save his body but we didn’t do even half to try to save his soul. We were so focused of the physical cancer that we forgot about the spiritual cancer that is sin. I started to go to church only a few months before my father got sick. Nobody in my family was a Christian yet but we knew what the bible said about sin. It is something that I will have to live with for my entire life. But I promised God that I won’t do the same mistake again. We all die physical sooner or later, but the soul lives forever in heaven or in hell.
The amazing thing is that we have the treatment for the spiritual cancer and that is the Gospel. We received it for free and we are asked to pass it to others that are sick like we once were. Christ is the only treatment for sin. He is the only way out of hell. And it is up to us to decide what we do with it.
Two months before our wedding I found my mother in law dead in her apartment. It was a terrible hit for my wife and I but we found so much comfort in knowing that she was saved and that she went to a wonderful place of rest.
My wife told me that her mother once said to her that when she is going to die she doesn’t want her to suffer and cry. She needs to rejoice because she will be in a much better place because she obeyed the Gospel that someone preached to her.
I ten years I buried eight members of my family and it was never easy when I had to bury someone that I knew he was not a Christian. I am always asking myself if I could have done more to help them know Jesus.
Verse 16 of Romans 1 speaks about our attitude towards to Gospel. Apostle Paul says that he is not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ because it is the power of God to safe people. There are things in my life that I am ashamed for. Let me give you an example.
I was a popular boy in high school. But as you all know popularity in high school sometime comes by making fun and ridicule others. So after I became a Christian I took advantage of any opportunity to say I’m sorry to all my colleagues that I made fun of during high school.
A couple of years ago me and my wife were invited to one of my high school classmates wedding. I was happy to have the chance to see other classmates after ten years. At one point one of the girls in my class came with her husband and they sited next to us at the table. She was one of my favorite victims during school so I said to myself that I will take advantage of this opportunity and show her how much I changed in the last ten years that we haven’t seen each other.
So the first thing I asked her after I said hello it was: How much time do you have left until you will give birth? When she heard me saying that she made those big eyes that she was doing every time I was making fun of her in high school and then she replied: I am not pregnant I just gain a few pounds lately. You can imagine how embarrassed I felt. I blew the chance to prove her that I changed. She thought I was the same person I has in high school. I made her feel bad again about herself.
I understood then that I never have to ask a women again if she is pregnant. If she tells me that, then we can talk about it, but if she’s not then I have to keep my mouth shut.
I am also ashamed because one year I forgot about my mother’s birthday. I am ashamed when I fail as a husband, as a father as a friend or as a servant of God. There are plenty of things that I feel ashamed for but I tell you with all my heart: I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I share it every time God gives me the opportunity to do so and there is nothing that I find more joy than to talk to people about Jesus.
He saved my life and I am proud to introduce Him as my savior and my best friend to everyone. I am also excited to share with them the book that changed my life.
In high school and also a few years after high school I had two best friends. We did everything together. We were going to school together, we party together, we played soccer together and we even went in Italy to work together. But we had three different destinies. I am here with you enjoying this wonderful time of fellowship. I am blessed with a beautiful and faithful wife. I have a precious daughter, the greatest job in the world and the list goes on.
My two best friends from high school are not that good. One of them died two years ago in a car accident. He got drunk and like we used to do in high school he got into his car and hit a tree while he was driving with 90 miles/hour. He was the only child in the family.
My other friend is in prison here in the USA for fraud. He left back home in Romania a young wife and a two years old daughter that will be in school before he will return to them.
I wasn’t better than they were. But I was blessed to hear the Gospel and be introduced to Jesus and that saved my life and my soul.
My dear brethren we are responsible for those that are lost. And I encourage you today to be the voice of God, the heart of Jesus and the light of the Gospel in this world. We are so needed by those that live in sin. They need to see in us that it is possible to live a holy life in a dark world. I know that people want to see miracles to believe in the Gospel. But maybe you and I will be the only miracles that God will allow them to see to believe. Let us be the miracles of God in the lives of those around us and I can assure you that we will feel proud because we did what we were responsible to do and we will also fell blessed and honored because we were a part of God’s amazing work in this world.