-Transcript-
00:24 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:29 Welcome to the cafe. Pastor Clark Covington here with another edition of KJV Cafe. Hopefully you’re having a wonderful day, a wonderful week.
00:34 Hey, well, maybe you got some coffee or tea there with you. I’ve got a little bit of both on my table because that’s the kind of day we’ve got. Amen.
00:42 So here I am, just happy to be here. Hopefully you are just doing well. We love the Lord here today.
00:49 God has been so good. Thank God so much for how good he’s been. And I thank God for his Word.
00:57 And we’re going to look here today, we’re going to wrap up, this is the fourth part of a four-part series on evangelism in the new year and what Paul told us to do or what he modeled for us.
01:09 He didn’t say do this as much. He said, this is what I did.
01:13 And it was very effective. We’re going to get right to it. And I promise that as you listen to this, you will be blessed, not by anything that I can say or do, but by God’s Word, because it rings true as true today as it ever has.
01:23 1 Corinthians 9:19-23. For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain them more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews.
01:37 To them that are under the law as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law. To them that are without the law as without the law, being not without law to God,
01:46 but under the law to Christ, that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak.
01:53 I made all things to all men that I might by all means save some.And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you. So 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 helps us to understand that Paul was willing to go to any length to help win souls.
02:13 And in previous episodes, we’ve talked about the idea that Paul, even though he was free, you know, he was no longer under the law.
02:23 I’ve heard the Christian called the most free person on earth and I believe it because we have been made right with God. We’ve been reconciled to God.
02:32 We have peace with God through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And Paul’s the one that taught this doctrine to us so well in God’s word, amen. And Paul had learned this doctrine directly at the hands and feet of Jesus Christ himself.
02:45 I believe that Jesus Christ not only saved Paul on the road to Damascus, but that when Paul went to Arabia for three years, it was Jesus himself that was providing this doctrine that was so different than what Paul had grown up in the Sanhedrin learning there in Jerusalem,
03:08 learning about how important the law was and how to be right, you’d have to follow the law. And we understand that no man can live up to the law, that we all fall short. There were all sinners and that the law really was there.
03:19 Not that the law is bad, but that the law was there, as Paul tells us, to help show man’s shortcomings, to help show our lack of righteousness, to help show our need for a Savior.
03:29 And so Paul understands these doctrines. And yet instead of boasting and commanding to be worshipped or commanding to be paid a high sum of money, or even commanding to be respected, you know,
03:47 in a lot of regards, Paul says, look, I’m going to become the Jew to the Jews, the lawless to the lawless, the weak to the weak, so I can by all means save some.
04:00 And he’s doing this that he may partake of that gospel truth with others, that he would win souls and create soul winners, right?
04:11 And that is the fruitful ways of God, you know, being in the church that I spent seven years in, there was many youth preachers in there, young preachers in there.
04:21 And that is the fruit of the ministry. We get saved, like they say, win them, wet them, work them, right? We get saved, we get baptized as a profession, a public profession of our faith, and we get to work, amen, living for the Lord and helping to win souls.
04:38 That’s a fruitful process that God desires us to take part in. And Paul was big on that and was doing that and was saying, look, I’m going to build bridges and I’m not going to be obnoxious. And he gave the example of eating meat that’s offered to idols.
04:53 Paul helped to describe in 1 Corinthians 8 that it’s not illegal, so to speak, as in you’re not under the law and these idols are dumb, they’re not real, so you can eat the meat.
05:06 But if somebody is weak and they don’t think you can eat the meat and you do eat the meat and spiritually that’s going to drive them away or make them not come back to church or whatever it is to be saved, then don’t eat the meat. I’m not going to eat the meat.
05:19 I don’t want to discourage anyone. I don’t want to lose a soul that could be saved over my pride or my ego or people looking at me and saying I’m knowledgeable.
05:29 And so what Paul’s really saying is I’m willing to be a fool for Christ’s sake.
05:35 I’m willing to put others before myself. And as we wrap up this series on the scripture here in the fourth episode that we’re in today, I want you to think about where can you have this servant mentality?
05:47 You know, number one, have that goal and that vision. Make prior is evangelism a priority in your life.
05:54 If it’s not, it should be evangelism should be at the core of what you are doing in the ministry because it is great to do good works.
06:05 It’s great to help in the church house and all these things. But at the end of the day, we really need to have a focus on winning souls.
06:10 And you say, well, brother Clark, I’m, I’m, I’m very shy. Okay. Let’s get some gospel tracks.
06:19 Amen. You know, let’s get some gospel tracks and let’s start handing, handing them out. My wife and I, we love to go out and eat when we can.
06:23 And I know it’s very expensive. We can’t do it all the time. Amen.
06:28 Uh, but when we do go, we bring a gospel tracks. Then there’s one that says, it’s like, thank you for your great service. I left you a tip and you can fill it out.
06:36 And it’s got, it’s got the gospel track. It’s literally meant for that thing. The website we use is moments with the book moments with the book.
06:42 They’re excellent. Um, and it’s, uh, M W T B.org. If you’re looking for a place to get gospel tracks from moments with the book and they still have King James tracks. Also, uh, Billy Lingerfeld, a friend of mine, pastor, uh, there in South Carolina.
07:00 I want to say Clover, South Carolina, somewhere around there. Uh, they have the hope track ministry and they give their tracks out free. And, uh, brother Lingerfeld there.
07:09 Uh, they give out both, uh, Spanish and English versions of hope tracks, different gospel tracks in, in King James, as well as, um, um, little new, I don’t know if they’re new Testament books, but it’d be like little gospel chapters that they print up. It’s amazing. And they print it right there.
07:26 I mean, it’s, it’s actually really awesome to, uh, to see. And so we thank God for, uh, his service. Amen.
07:33 And what they’re doing over there. Uh, and, uh, hope track ministry. And I want to say it’s Bethel Baptist church.
07:41 And I I’m thinking that’s what it is. And yeah, Bethel Baptist church. Uh, I hope that’s what it is with a hope track ministry.
07:52 Wouldn’t want to, uh, lead you the wrong way. But the point that I’m making is evangelism. It doesn’t have to just be, uh, uh, you confronting someone.
08:01 If that is a gift that God didn’t give you, though, that can be used. Uh, I remember being in graduate school and, uh, a individual pretty much confronted myself and two others.
08:14 And, uh, we were calling ourselves Christians and we were living like the world and he pretty much said it’s flat out and I’ll never forget that.
08:21 And that was a very courageous thing he did. And, uh, no, I didn’t change right away, but I believe the Lord did use that, um, uh, you know, in, in, in later years.
08:29 And so whether it’s confrontational soul winning, whether it’s gospel tracks, whether it’s radio ministry, whether it’s simply sharing a testimony online, whatever it may be, what are you going to do here in this year to win souls? Um, another idea is to come along missions, come alongside missionaries.
08:46 We’ve had a missionary family staying in our house on and off for, for three or four months or for, oh yeah, for almost three or four months now, uh, and from the Philippines
08:58 and we look at that as a ministry and we look at caring for them and loving on them and praying with them and bearing their burdens with them and giving when we can and all these things.
09:06 As part of evangelism, because we see what they do. This particular family goes into rural villages and plants a church, builds it up over three or four years and stalls a pastor has a bus ministry when they can goes door to door, uh, has food for the kids.
09:26 These are very poor areas, even has showers for the children, for the families. Cause a lot of them don’t have showers there and does a ton of stuff to help win souls and they preach a gospel message. Amen.
09:36 And I thank God for them and the hearts are soft in these villages. Amen. And, um, pastors are very respected over in the Philippines and so forth.
09:47 And so not that they’re not here, but it’s, it does seem to be fertile ground over there. And so we thank God for what they’re doing. So maybe you’re going to come alongside a mission and you come alongside a mission.
09:56 It’s not just, uh, you know, here’s some money have fun. It’s how can I pray for you? You know, what’s going on? What’s going on with your family? You know, is there any needs in the church beyond prayer,
10:07 beyond, you know, money that I can help with, you know, on and on and on in this globalized world, there’s a whole lot you can do. Uh, and just a final sidebar about that.
10:16 For example, in the Philippines, you can send a box there. There’s a company called Makati or something like that for 70 bucks. You can send a huge box to the Philippines.
10:28 Yes, it goes on a boat, but 70 bucks and it’s huge. I mean, it’s like, it can weigh as much as you want to. Cause they put it on the boat.
10:34 It simply is like this big box that they can give you. I don’t know the dimensions, but it’s very large. Uh, look, I’ve shipped boxes to California, much smaller for more money than that.
10:43 Amen. For 70 bucks, you can load that thing up with clothes and shoes and Bibles and gospel tracks and toys for the kids. And they’ll use all of these things.
10:52 And so there’s so much you can do to help win souls beyond maybe what you’ve thought about doing. And that’s why I’m here is to remind you and to tell you, and that’s why Paul was there writing this.
11:00 And that’s why God’s given us the scripture because Paul had a servant mentality.
11:05 He was thinking about evangelism. You see how deep we got here in just five or 10 minutes, really started looking at all the ways to evangelize. And then we see that Paul was going for his kinfolk.
11:17 He was a Jew. He was made a Jew. He went for those under the law.
11:22 He knew all about this, right? Well, where have you been? Where did you grow up? Where can you put yourself that people might relate to you? Maybe you have a heritage, an ethnic heritage heritage.
11:33 My wife is Laos. She’s Laos Thai, but she’s really identifies mostly as Laos, I guess.
11:37 Um, you know, so that Laos culture is like, we’ve gotten gospel tracks written up in Laos before. We’ve tried to witness, uh, in Laos. So we’ve connected with missionaries in Laos.
11:47 That’s just like, that’s a heritage, right? So what is your heritage? Do you have one? Uh, where did you grow up? Uh, you know, what, where are you living now? Who’s around you?
11:56 Uh, what are you going through? You know, what kind of weakness or afflictions do you have that people could relate to? You know, maybe you’ve had a bout with cancer or with some other very serious illness.
12:06 Maybe there’s others that you, that need your support that you could then witness to. Right.
12:13 How, if you look at the, the way that God has shaped and molded your life in the scope of the gospel and in the idea of what Paul spoke about here,
12:24 you know, you really could think about new and innovative ways to share God’s love for people that God desires to be saved and that he wants you to share. And I’ve really racked my brain on this.
12:33 I’ve thought about, okay, we sell stuff on the internet.
12:38 It’s like, you know, uh, like what can I do to reach people there? Or we refurbish electronics. How do I reach people with that? Or we deal with government offices a lot.
12:43 How do I deal with that? Or freelancers and contracting all and trying to look at the little things that I do in my life, you know, I homeschool the kids, you know, anywhere that I’m,
12:56 that I’m doing something, how can we tie that into evangelism? And then also making sure that we’re relatable.
13:03 That’s what Paul was striking at here. This relatability, the idea of being relatable, what is the opposite of being relatable?
13:10 That’s being obnoxious and puffed up and proud, right? Uh, the idea that we’re not looking to gain anything. The gospel is free.
13:17 We don’t want to gain anything. We just want to gain souls for the harvest. Amen.
13:25 We just want to plant seeds seeds and let the Lord save these souls by, by, by our labor. Amen. We don’t want to gain anything.
13:29 So think of it in that light, you know, being selfless, you know, being selfless, putting others before us in our deeds and our desires, and then taking that full circle and saying, you know what?
13:38 That’s the best way to live. Anyways, that’s the way that’s going to give you true peace and joy. Anyways, Philippians 1:21 for me, for me to live as Christ and to die is gain.
13:47 Amen. So you know what to live is Christ to live is Christ and to live is for Christ and to die, we gain, we gain. Amen.
13:54 What a way to go out serving God. Amen. Let’s make our lives all about serving God.
13:58 Let’s look at strategically how we can share the gospel in this new year, how we can evangelize more effectively, more thoroughly and reach people in these unconventional times in unconventional ways.
14:08 And as we do that, without compromising on doctrine, without compromise, compromising on biblical truth. As we do that, God will bless and give us fruit for our labor.
14:19 And we’ll see that fruit in heaven for an eternity. That’s what Paul wants us to know, I believe. And that’s what we should do.
14:25 And I thank you so much for listening. Tune in next time. Take care.
14:28 God bless. Amen. Thanks for visiting the cafe today.