And here for the next couple of weeks, I want to talk about what we have to do, what we have to do, and what we have to be. If we're really going to be those kind of lights in our world. Some of this is really basic things, but we've got to get this. All of us have to capture it.
And so that's what we're going to talk about the next couple of weeks. So I want to invite you to stand with me and open your Bibles. I want to talk about two or three points tonight. We'll see how much time we get.
And then we'll come back next week and talk about some more. Here's the first, Proverbs chapter 11 verse 30. Now, in the next couple of weeks, we're going to be challenging you to, if you don't have a regular Bible reading program, to sign up Sunday, and on the 12th start reading with us and read through the New Testament with us. And we're going to be doing things, we're going to be sending out, even if you're not reading with us.
I hope all of you will read a chapter of Proverbs every day along with us, even if you have another program going on in your life. And we're going to be sending something out every day talking about that problem, giving you a chance on the Calvary Facebook page to talk about something in that chapter of Proverbs that stood out to you. I hope we get some dialogue and encouragement going that will speak to us throughout that. We want you to bring somebody in the 18th and then we want you to make a commitment.
I want to challenge you to make a commitment and to encourage others to make a commitment to be at church every Sunday from September 18th through the 1st of November. Even if you're out of town, then you go to church someplace. As health allows me, I will go to church every Sunday. I'll go to church every Sunday.
If you need to come here, if you're someplace else, then go someplace else. If you're in Springfield, you need to come here. I want to challenge you to be faithful to church. But listen to what this passage says in Proverbs 11-30.
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life. Let me say that again. The fruit, the outcome, the results of righteous men and women living is a tree of life. Now, it's going to tell us exactly what that tree of life's fruit is in the next part of this verse.
And he who wins souls is wise. When I'm living a righteous life, I'm going to be a tree of life. What is that? That is, souls are going to be touched.
Life's going to be changed. There's going to be a tree of life pouring life into others. Who are you pouring life into tonight? Who's a happier person?
Who's a more peaceful person? Who's a more righteous person? Who's closer to God? Because of the way they see you live, the way you talk to them, the way you reach out to them, the way you pray for them?
Are you being a tree of life? If we're going to shine in the dark world, we've got to be life givers. Amen? I don't want to suck the air out of a room.
I want to breathe life into a room. I don't want to be the guy who brings sadness into the room. I want to be the guy who brings faith into the room. I don't want to be the guy who brings ugliness into the room.
I want to be the guy who brings beauty into the room. Are you with me? So what do you bring into the room? What do you bring into the relationship?
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life bearing life wherever it goes. Is this good? I haven't had you sit down yet. Lord in Jesus' name, let us be trees of life we pray.
Trees of life we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you. You can be seated.
This whole tree of life thing should be natural. It should be natural. I want to challenge you tonight. Think about your family.
Is there angst in your family? Is there conflict in your family? Are there issues in your family? Are you a tree of life going into those circumstances?
Or do you add to the angst? I know people over the years who wanted peace in their family, but the only way they wanted peace in their family is if everybody did exactly what they said. That's not a tree of life. The tree of life is a servant's heart that serves and cares.
Doesn't mean we don't speak the truth, but at the end of the day we serve. And so this tree of life, you say, well every place I work, there are negative people. Well, you know the one common denominator that you just put in there was, every place I work, be the life in the workplace. Be the life in the workplace.
I told this to people over the years many, many times. I hate my job. Then get another job. Well, that's the only one I can find.
Then be life in that job. Make it better for everybody else. It's the best paying job I can get. The only thing I can get right now is nothing else out there that might be a life giver in that job.
Make it better for everybody else there. Well, it's so hard. The boss is me. You can't change me.
You can change who you are there. Be a tree of life there. When you get to that parking lot, it's time to walk in. You sit in that car and say, God, I'm a righteous man.
I'm going to be a tree of life today. And I know I'm walking into a dark place. But I've got your light in me and it's brighter than the darkness. God, help me to be patient.
Help me to be a servant. Help me to be kind. Help me to be merciful. Help me to be an encourager.
Help me to be one who can let meanness and ugliness fall off of me. Help me to be like Jesus who can say, Father, they know not what they do. So forgive them. Help me to be that.
This is called, if we're going to be a people who shine in the darkness, we have to be a tree of life wherever we go. We have to be the people that go into it. Can I just tell you this? I know, I'm talking to the choir.
I know all of you know this. There's nothing new about this. It's more important to be a tree of life than to make sure the waitress knows she blew it. Are you hearing me?
Nurne and I were on a trip a few years ago. This waitress is kind of putting the plates down and she was slow and she didn't get things right. You're getting kind of with all the kids, you're kind of driving in a hurry, you want to get moving and it's not going good. You know, your flesh is just kind of going with it.
She's a get with it. But the Lord just checked me out. I find this, he came over and said to her, I said, how are you doing tonight? I don't know what, the spirit of the Lord was in it.
It wasn't me, the spirit of the Lord was in it. And she just looked at me and said, this one's the worst nights of my life. And she just poured out what was going on in her life, standing there at the table next to us in about 30, 40 seconds, told us to turn while in her home, the brokenness in her life, the things going on in one of her kids' lives. And it wasn't 20 seconds into that.
I knew I wasn't there to have dinner. I was there to be a tree of life. Listen, I wasn't smart enough to know that God convicted. But I want to say, look, B, are you a tree of life where you go?
Even at church, we need to be trees of life encouraging each other, to strengthen each other, speaking in each other's lives. We're in the Bible to say, go around and discourage one another. We're in the Bible to say, go around and complain to each other. We're in the Bible to say, go around and tell everybody how tired and miserable you are.
Maybe go somewhere and say, I'm really having a rough week and you pray for me. That's okay. That's all right. We had one of those weeks this week.
We could go today, we could go tomorrow morning. We took Michael to school. We'd already taken Kayleigh and Lydia to school two weeks before that. Now Michael goes to school.
We had to get back at a certain time so we drove eight hours there, set up his room, the next morning, set up his room and stuff. And drove eight hours back at home about two in the morning. Our air conditioner we discovered was broken. That's not a good thing.
That's not a good thing. You know, so we call somebody, come look at it and you think they're gonna pull their free on in and charge $67 to $80. They're gonna be okay and they walk in and go, that thing's dead. So I'm like, well, I'm gonna call a few other people.
You know, there's no one. I could not find one faith-filled air conditioning guide in all the Springfield. Nobody could resurrect that thing from the dead. They all looked at it.
We gotta bury that thing now and it's dead forever. It is gone into the depths of she all. It is gone forever. So we're still coming with a new baby.
New baby's coming on Friday. So we'll have new air as of Friday. You know, you go through some of those things and it's easy to get wore out. It's easy for the enemy.
But we're supposed to be trees alive. My air conditioner isn't supposed to be my life. The presence of God is supposed to be my life. My wife is emotional.
All three of the kids, the last three of the kids are gone. She has to live with me by herself now. And I'm really upset because she doesn't seem to be too excited about that. I'm excited about just the two of us being together and she's just crying all the time.
So you pray for me. Pray for her. Pray for us. Whatever.
Cause it's a little struggle. It's been a little struggle. It's been a little struggle. And don't tell her I said that because there'll be a bigger struggle if you do.
Questions for you. Are you a tree of life? We want to change our community. You want to change your home.
We want to change our workplace. We've got to be a tree of life. Not a part of the dark. It's not a part of the country.
What am I bringing into the picture here? What am I bringing into the picture? What kind of energy? What kind of life?
What kind of joy am I bringing into the picture? Because see all of us have the power of God within us to bring light into the picture. And if you don't, go sit someplace and pray until you do. Amen?
And if you've been beat up, we can beat up sometimes. I get beat up sometimes. But I go pray until I get victory. This is part of the gentleman knows what I'm going to say now.
I get discouraged sometimes. You'll probably never see it. Not because I fake it because when I get discouraged I know where to go. And I go stay there until I'm not discouraged anymore.
Somebody walks into my office and gives me bad news. And this is the last straw to push me down into the water. I don't go walking around there. I go out to the auditorium.
I walk in there and pray until I feel the grace of God touch me. And God whispers in my ear, I got this. I got this. I know where to go when I get discouraged.
Know where to go when you get discouraged. Go to God. Leon God. See God.
Cry out to God. Pray to God. Stand before God. You'll get encouraged.
This is kind of good tonight, isn't it? I'm going to show one last thing. Why? How many of you want to be wise?
Wise is the man who wins souls. Wise is the man. There's a reward coming for soul winning. There's blessing that comes in soul winning.
One of the greatest things I have experienced in my life is when I see somebody that I've been working on praying for, talking to, and they cross that line of faith. That's like a birth that's just happened because it has a spiritual birth that's happened. And they get it and they walk across that line of faith. Now this whole aspect of being a witness, the enemy wants to make it really hard.
He wants to make us really filled with fear. And I want to tell you, it should just be natural. Now when you begin to be a witness, it doesn't mean that everybody you talk to is going to instantly get saved. We've been talking about the last couple weeks about reaping what we sow.
You've got to sow some before the reaping comes. The reaping comes into season. And this is true in soul winning. You share, you live in front of somebody, and it may be years.
Some of you in this room, before you got saved, there was years of people sowing and watering and doing things in your life before you came to Christ. Is that true? Years. They're sitting there.
They're discouraged. I've been praying for 10 years. They don't know it's going to be your 12. They don't know what it's going to be.
You don't know what it's going to be. Oh, we've got, well, our job isn't to forecast the harvest. Our job is to plant and water for the harvest. And just like in the harvest, when you plant, here's what we have to understand.
This will make it really easier. When we plant the seed, I can't tell you why the seed grows. God says, you don't know why it grows. It grows because I tell it to grow.
You plant that little coronal corn or that tomato plant in the ground. It grows because God says for it to grow. And in the same way when you witness, you plant the seed. You don't know how it's going to grow.
I don't know how it's going to grow. My job is to plant the seed. Sometimes I'm like, God, I've got to really explain this better. And God will just say, no, just tell me I need to give their heart to my son.
God, don't I need to explain why? No, just tell me I need to get their heart right with me. What's the same? Just plant the seed.
Let the Holy Spirit do the rest of it. Sometimes it gives me a bunch of stuff to share with somebody. Sometimes it says, no, just tell them that they're going to stand before God someday. You're going to stand before me someday.
And then the only way they're going to stand there and be right is if they surrender their heart to my son. He's the one that has to do the rest. So here's the deal. Here's what I want to keep encouraging you to do.
Sit down sometime and write down everybody's name that you know. Just sit there and write them all down. For some of us, I'll take five minutes, somebody will make an hour. Write everybody's name down.
And then as you've written everybody's name down that you know you work with them. They're in your family. They live next door to you. You see them at a health club.
You talk to them at the grocery store. Whatever it might be. You go to a meeting with them that you're part of. Write everybody's name down that you know.
Then go right down through that. Listen, everybody that you know, I know they're born again. Just cross them off. Cross them off.
You don't have to worry about them. They're born again. Let's see who's left. Now you got all these names of people.
You don't know if they're born again or not. What would you want them to do if they were born again and you weren't? What did Jesus do when He was in the conference of heaven and saw a world full of people? Who need to be born again?
Okay. Now listen, we get this all worked up and we get all things kind of worked up about what we got. I got to have every scripture just right and I've got to know everything, every argument about everything. I don't know.
No, you don't. You really don't. Said that something all you've got to know is your story. That's all you've got to know.
And all you've got to do, you don't have to go through and say, listen, at the end of this conversation I'm expecting you to get born again. No, you're at the end of this conversation, you know what you're expecting? I'm expecting you to have planted a seed that I'm expecting God to bring a harvest in. That's what I'm expecting.
Sometimes what I discover is other people already have been planting seeds and they're ready to be harvested. Now when you get down they're going. That makes sense. I'm ready.
Other times they just look at you and go, thank you. And you think, oh man, that was a waste of time. No, it wasn't. You planted a seed.
You never lose when you witness. You plant, you water, and occasionally you get a harvest. So you sit them down. It's a simple thing.
I've talked about this a lot of times. What I try to do with somebody is that I'm with them and say, hey, when can we have a chance to talk? I've done this with several guys that I've met at a different place and I'll sit down with them. I'll ask them about their faith background.
I'll sit to them. With me, I'm taking them. They kind of know what's coming. I'm a preacher.
I'm pastor. I'm pastor out of Calvary. Can I tell you what we believe? Someone tell you what we believe.
I wonder if you have any questions you can ask me questions. I had a guy a number of years ago. He lived close to us. I had a body in the church numerous times.
And finally he came to me one day and I invited church. And he looked at me and said, I'm going to ask you to do something. He said, never invite me to church again. I'm never coming.
Never invite me. And I said, well, okay. I'm going to be praying for you if I can ever help you. Months and months went by.
And we had an event at the church and it was a special event event. It was a Christian illusionist. And I'm driving down the street to my home. And this gentleman is out in his front yard and he sees me.
And he waves at me. And I saw him and he said, how are you doing? We started talking. He said, I heard you're having him name the guy.
I think it was Andre Cole if I remember his name. Coming to your church. And I said, yeah. He said, why?
He said, I'm really into that stuff. I am really into it. And I've heard of him. He's good.
Can't believe he's coming to your church. I said, well, he is. He said, can I come? I said, buddy, I'll save you a seat.
He came, sat down in the front row, watched this thing. A couple days later came to me and said, can we go to dinner? We went to dinner. Me and him and his wife and Renee.
We just had a nice time chatting and he told me a little bit about how much he liked the illusionist that we had. And at the end of the, at the end of the guys' program, he showed us, he used an illusion to explain salvation. And it was really crystal clear. Some of you may have been there.
It was just crystal clear illusion. And he said, he said, funny, he says to me, he's like, I got a question. Before we go, we just had that, he said, before we got a question. What that guy was saying is that every person's a center that we're all going to stand before God.
And if we stand before God on our own, we're lost for eternity. And the only way we can be right with God is to accept Jesus in our life. He says, that's what you're saying. He nailed it.
And I said, that's exactly what he was saying. He said, I don't want to talk about it anymore. Literally. So I said to God, I don't want to talk about it anymore.
I just continued praying for him. He never came back around much anymore. I didn't know if that had any impact, didn't have any impact. A while later, he and his wife moved to another state.
And she came back into town one day and she said, I don't know if he'd want me to tell you this. But when we moved down there, he looked at me and he said, can you find a church like Calvory that we can go to? He's been going to church with me every week. God knows what he's doing.
God knows the hurdles that have to get over. And I know what's happening in that man's life. That's the last time I talked to his wife. But I'm just believing that God doesn't miss somebody.
Our job is to plant the seed. Listen, if we're going to be that pulsating light, there's got to be a growing core of people who understand our job. And our job is to go into all the world and make disciples. And you don't have to have a fight to do that of where you take them through all these...
You just have to share your life, your love, serve them, live righteously in front of them, and tell them about Jesus. And then sometimes invite them to church. September 18th, that got invited to people to church. Especially if you know they're hurting over anything, they're broken over anything, bring them that money.
Don't go up to them and say, man, I know you're a mess. You're broken. You are really... Man, we got to talk about you.
Come on to church Sunday. No, just say, man, I love you. We got this guest coming. He's going to be here one time and coming.
And just be with me. I think he'll minister to this. I'd love for you to be my guest. Pastor's really putting pressure on us.
If I don't bring somebody, he's going to be embarrassing. He's going to be standing at the door and I'm going to walk in by myself. He's going to look at me and say, why are you such a failure? Please, don't make me be a failure in front of my pastor.
Come to church with me. Whatever excuse you have. Whatever one you need. What's the Bible say?
Compel them to come in. Amen? My dad used to get up and say this. I'll wrap up with this tonight.
He used to say, listen. I don't care why he's... You can go tell people you've got the best looking pastor in town. You can go tell them you've got the ugly's pastor in town.
I don't care. Just tell them to come check it out. He goes, half of them will come and say, yeah, he's the best looking one. Yeah, he's the ugly's one.
It doesn't matter because what's going to happen is the spirit God's going to touch him. What was he saying? Compel him to come in. Compel him to come in.
If we want to be that life-giving church, we have to be a tree of life wherever we go. What you don't want is you don't want to invite somebody to church and then look at it. You go in. Man, if that's what it is, I don't want any part of it.
If you're a representative of what it is, forget it. You want to be that life-giving person when you invite a church, they say, you got something I don't have. Invite him. Invite him.
Bring him. Share your faith with him. Tell him your story. When I get there and tell him to start, listen, you have questions about that?
For me, it's a very free moment. I've now shared with him faith. It's a free moment. If they have more questions, we can talk about it.
You tell them the questions where they're at and the harvest. You can tell by what they ask. Sometimes it's going, no, no, I really don't. Thank you.
It kind of feels a little cold. What you know is that's a seed just planted in the ground. It hasn't begun to grow yet. You've just planted it.
You go, great man. What if you ever do? If you ever do call me once you know I'm praying for you. Who the cubs play tonight?
And you go on. And you let the Holy Spirit just say, other times they begin to ask questions you know. They're getting close. And sometimes I wonder what I'm looking at you go.
I've heard about this so much. What am I supposed to do? Well, let me tell you, it's real simple. You just got to ask Christ in your life.
Start coming to church with me, start growing in God, get baptized. It all starts at the very simple request. Ask Jesus in your life. You don't have to put on an evangelistic voice.
You don't have to carry a great Bible with you. You don't have to dress in a certain way. You don't have to go out someplace and find some stranger. The most important people we have to witness to are the ones that are in our lives.
The ones that we sit next to every day that we work with that we live next door to. That's the ones that are the most important for us to get to. And so let's be that pulsating light giving people. Amen.
Let's be a tree of life. All right. We're out of time. Let's have a good one.
That's point one. I've got about six more to go. Father, in these weeks I just pray your challenges. Again tonight, lay names on our hearts of people you'd have us to invite on September 18.
Maybe even people you'd have us to invite on the weeks ahead. But specifically, lay names of people on our hearts that we should go and just have to talk with. Just sit down with them and tell them what we believe and how you've changed our life with just with the expectation that we're planning the seed and we're watering the seed. Help us and guide us for your glory.
And these next weeks as we talk about being this light, church of light, people of light, Lord, let us see the things that we need to be doing. I know I'm preaching the choir here tonight. These are people who believe in it. They're people who are dedicated to it.
Now Lord, I pray your blessing and embolden them to do this every day until it's just a natural outflow of who they are. And she's a saying. Amen. God bless you.
Go name of the Lord tonight.