Pastor Cameron: 00:03

Let's, let's have a word of prayer as we invite pastor Gordy up, to, to share the word with us. We're we're blessed to have him, share the word as he did many times from this stage, in a we'll call it a previous life.

Pastor Gordy: 00:23

Previous life. Yes.

Pastor Cameron: 00:24

A previous a previous life. Heavenly father, we thank you for, we thank you for this day. I thank you, lord. Sun is shining after just a little while ago. The sun was black and thundering and lightning and raining.

Pastor Cameron: 00:38

Lord, what a tremendous reminder it is that, even in the seasons of downpour, if we are steadfast and we persevere, lord, seasons change all of the time. Lord, in your goodness and your faithfulness brings us through, scenes seasons of rain so that we might experience seasons of warmth and sunshine. Lord, I pray for pastor Gordy this morning as he brings your word. I pray, lord, that you, would, inspire, lord, that you would bring, conviction, that your, that your word will be preached with faithfulness. And, father, we pray for his strength.

Pastor Cameron: 01:24

In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Pastor Gordy: 01:27

Thank you, brother. Mhmm. Explain the birthday. April 13th 1977, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior. Pastor had no idea of that when he asked me to speak today.

Pastor Gordy: 01:52

So I'm 47. Oliver, how old Oliver left us. How old is Oliver? He's not Let's see what he is. How old are you, Oliver?

Pastor Gordy: 02:03

He's 7. Close enough. 477. For both kids at heart. I have been asked 2 things this morning, one to be brief, the other to take all the time that I wanted.

Pastor Gordy: 02:24

I will fall somewhere in between those two parameters. I guess the message this morning could be entitled, like Paul Harvey, the rest of the story or page 2. How many of you remember Paul Harvey? Yeah. Oh, good.

Pastor Gordy: 02:46

I know you kids don't remember that. And and I have message for 2 different groups of people this morning, and I know that you will fall into one of those. The one group is for those of you who are here this morning and have never said yes to the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Okay? You've heard about God.

Pastor Gordy: 03:14

You've heard about Jesus. You've never you struggled with that. And again, I was 47, or it was 47 years ago when I struggled and made that decision. So you may be here this morning and you've never made that decision. That's good for you to be here.

Pastor Gordy: 03:34

Now, if you're here and you've made that decision, it's good for you to be here today because I've got a message for you. I want you to be able to help those who have never said yes to Jesus Christ. You're probably the same as I am. As you look around our country today, you can see that we've probably lost our first priority. That first priority was to love the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior.

Pastor Gordy: 04:08

You see, that's what our nation was based on. That's what our nation was built on, Christianity. This was a I hope we can still say that it is a Christian nation. There's some question about that, which side we go there, but it was founded. Our nation was founded as a Christian nation.

Pastor Gordy: 04:34

And my question this morning is have we as a people have we as a nation, are we have we as a Christian nation, lost our initial responsibility to love. Do we love as God has called us to love? Scriptures tell us to love the lord your god with all your heart and mind and soul and your neighbor as yourself. We are called to love. We're called to love each other unconditionally.

Pastor Gordy: 05:23

If we are to be called Christians, that means that we'd be like little Christs. When people look at us, they see people who live like Christ, people who talk like Christ, people who walk like Christ, people who act like Christ, and people who love like Christ. See, we need to keep that first thing first, love. The love of Jesus must be the first thing that people see in us. Needs to be the first thing that others think about when they think of us.

Pastor Gordy: 06:09

It must be the it must be our our very DNA. Must be who we are. Must be the one thing that sets us apart from the whole crowd. Not just love. Christ love.

Pastor Gordy: 06:32

Unconditional, sacrificial love. Love with no strings attached. Love that can be seen any place, wherever we are, anytime the day or the night, any good times, in bad times, whether we're at work or play, whether in town or out of town, whether whether we're known or whether we're not known. Whenever it's easy to show his love, and those times when it's not easy to show others his love. If we're to claim the name Christian, then we need to be Christ to others.

Pastor Gordy: 07:35

I know. I just backed up the truck and dumped the whole load on. Didn't I? Well, but isn't it still the truth? If we're gonna have the benefit of knowing Christ, having His salvation, His peace, His promise of eternal life, we must be able to do our part.

Pastor Gordy: 08:04

We must be willing to step up to the plate, take our turn at the bat, be on a winning team Because remember this, we win. We've already won. Christ won the battle for us. See, what I'm talking about this morning is basically Christianity 101. The very basics of Christianity.

Pastor Gordy: 08:54

What is a baby Christian? Person knows just No. Actually a person probably doesn't know much at all about Jesus. Think about what a baby is. We've all had that experience, haven't we?

Pastor Gordy: 09:17

Had that brand new baby, brought that baby home. So what's the first thing we do with that baby? We take it to the refrigerator and say, okay. Here's where you get your food. The frozen stuff's in the top, don't eat that.

Pastor Gordy: 09:33

The stuff in the bottom is good for you. You can eat that. No, we don't do that, do we? But do we do that with a new Christian? Sometimes.

Pastor Gordy: 09:47

They accept Jesus Christ, we buy him a Bible, we hand it to him and you say, Jesus words are in red. You can read Jesus words in red and and everything you need to know is in there. And what do they do? Open it up the beginning of the book where we all start reading. Right?

Pastor Gordy: 10:09

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. Like I said, I don't know how to do it. You understand what I mean? Baby Christians need to be bottle fed. You need to hold the bottle for them.

Pastor Gordy: 10:35

Let them learn how to get the milk out. Baby Christians are the same way. We need to take the scriptures, sit with them, help them understand what that means. How do they get the truth out of that word? Don't start eating in the refrigerator.

Pastor Gordy: 11:00

Eat the stuff that's for you. Get them started in the New Testament. Teach them. Oh gosh. Did Jesus say something about that?

Pastor Gordy: 11:16

Remember his last words to his 12 that he spent 3 years with? He says, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to you. Go make disciples, teaching them. We're supposed to teach. Teach to new folks.

Pastor Gordy: 11:42

Teach them how to obey. Teach them where to read to get the stuff so they know how to obey. Start at the beginning. Start at the basics. For you and I, this is not a spectator event.

Pastor Gordy: 12:05

Never meant to be that way. Jesus made that clear when he left. He said, I've spent my time with you now. You go and take what you know. Did the disciples know everything that there was to know?

Pastor Gordy: 12:22

Absolutely not. Go and tell what you know, Jesus said. Feed the baby what the baby needs to eat. See, Jesus is still our team leader. He will guide us.

Pastor Gordy: 12:49

He will direct us. You can't hear this Cameron. I commend commend this church for putting what putting that in very first place. Teaching. Teaching what Jesus said.

Pastor Gordy: 13:12

Allowing somebody who walks in off well, not really walked in off a street, I knew Cameron before, but having someone take those people who want to learn more on how to help others, giving them a place us a place to take time to share with you how to help others understand what that Bible says. The whole idea when Pastor Cameron and I spoke about, the opportunity he was gonna give us to share with others, Our our first thought was my first thought was catch those people who don't know Jesus Christ and let them receive Christ. And and and that's the way we started our our class, And what we found was that, that wasn't who came to the class. Those who came to the class were the ones who had known Jesus Christ, had made a profession of faith. They wanted to learn more.

Pastor Gordy: 14:36

They wanted to learn. I wanna get some of the basics back that I forgot about. I see heads shaking some of you folks who have been there. And that's what's happened is we've been able to take some very basic material all based on the scriptures. He shared that with a group of people who said, I want to be able to help somebody else in their walk with Jesus Christ.

Pastor Gordy: 15:14

I love Jesus so much I wanna share Him with others. And so these folks have been like sponges. They've took what we have shared with them and just absorbed that into their life and have gone on to where they now can help someone else in their journey of faith and other ministries in the church by the way. See it's it's it's a team event. It's it's not up to pastor Cameron and pastor Luke to do all that needs to be done.

Pastor Gordy: 16:01

There's many of you who are volunteers who helped to make this all work. See, Jesus needs some volunteers to take this written word and help others understand how that applies to their life and and what they can do with that. It's called discipleship. Paul heard the words. As I said, I was 38 when I come to know Christ as my savior.

Pastor Gordy: 16:33

I didn't know the first thing about Christianity. When I learned it, it got into me and I said there's others out there like me who didn't know. We need to tell them and you know what? We do need to tell them. We we can't do it.

Pastor Gordy: 17:01

We need to tell them. Our kids get into Sunday school class and and and there's professions of faith made there. How about those of us that were 38 years old? Had I heard the word? Sure.

Pastor Gordy: 17:20

I must have. I lived in a Christian nation. See, right now, today, there are 8 1000000000 people in the world. Statistics say there are 2,300,000,000 Christians. 8,000,000,000 people, 2,300,000,000 Christians.

Pastor Gordy: 17:59

If that is true, then there's only 1 person or 4 people a piece that we as Christians need to tell about Jesus. Scriptures tell us, the big commission tells us to go. Tell others about Jesus. Doesn't say to tell him everything that there is to know about Jesus. I think that any of us know that, but it does say to take what you know and go and tell.

Pastor Gordy: 18:44

That's our commission. That's what God has called us to do. That's what being a disciple of Jesus Christ really is. Just think about it, you know, the the Jesus' 12 disciples didn't know it all. What did they do?

Pastor Gordy: 19:03

They took what they knew when they went out and impacted the whole world. It started with those 12. Impacted the whole world for Jesus Christ. We just tell what we know. The Bible has all the answers.

Pastor Gordy: 19:26

There's a particular scriptures that I would like to have you look at. Would you would you do this for me? Would you take the Bible? Don't don't please don't take your phone. I know that's easy and you're accustomed to that.

Pastor Gordy: 19:39

That's the new tech world. Would you take the bible that's under your pew and open it up to 1st John. I'll go all the way to the end of the bible. That's the last book in the bible is Revelation. Then it's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John.

Pastor Gordy: 20:04

So Revelation, 3rd John, 2nd John, 1st John. Okay? I assume you got it. First John 5 verse 11, As I write these things to those of you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life. But, then look at the 3rd 13th verse.

Pastor Gordy: 20:55

Read that for me. Verse 13. So that you may know that you have. Chapter 5 verse 11 and 12 says I write, says this is the testimony. God has given us eternal life.

Pastor Gordy: 21:20

This life is in his son. He who has a son has life. He who does not have the son of God does not have life. That's the first part of it. Verse 13 says that I write this so you may know.

Pastor Gordy: 21:36

There's no shadow of a doubt in your mind. See the folks praise God. I I agree with you, George. The folks that we were blessed to have in our classes got that reassurance. It wasn't that they didn't know Jesus.

Pastor Gordy: 21:58

They didn't have the satisfaction of being absolutely perfect. Right, Craig? Yeah. I could have any one of that that group of people stand and and they would give testimony to the fact that they know for sure when they die, they're gonna go to heaven. No doubt in their mind.

Pastor Gordy: 22:27

If you're a Christian here this morning, do you know for sure? Gosh, John, any doubt, do you know for sure that when you die, you'll go to heaven? If you don't know that, you can be reassured this church has made that available. We would invite you to talk to us and we'll get you in that group. Okay.

Pastor Gordy: 23:01

But the key is once you know, once you're assured, then you take that information and you help someone else. We're not we're not supposed to be sponges and just take all that good stuff in and absorb it. We're to be like a sieve to let the good news of Jesus Christ flow through us, out into the lives of others. That's what it means to be a Christian, to be a disciple. See it's it's not rocket science folks.

Pastor Gordy: 23:48

You talk with people every day about those things that are precious to you that are on your heart. See, Jesus has done all the hard work. He died for us. Amen? Amen.

Pastor Gordy: 24:10

Yeah. He died for us. But because he died, we live. See, if if all it was was just receiving Jesus Christ as our lord and savior, as soon as you did that, you could've gone to heaven. Everything was done.

Pastor Gordy: 24:33

You got salvation, but no. Jesus left us here for a reason. Take what we know and tell others. That's what Christianity is about. Telling others what you know.

Pastor Gordy: 24:49

It doesn't come from standing up here on the pulpit and preaching like we're blessed to hear every week here. So do that with your friends, with your family, the ones that are closest to you. Is there anybody that you know that you would love to spend eternity with? Tell them about Jesus. Tell them about your Jesus.

Pastor Gordy: 25:14

Find out for sure that they're gonna go, that they're gonna be there. I I guess I've said everything I I wanna say this morning. Let me close with this. You love Jesus? Then you have his love in you.

Pastor Gordy: 25:49

It's that love that we use when we reach out and help others. We need to love others as he has loved us. We need to take what we don't and share that with others. You wanna learn how to do that? I'd love to have you in our in our group someday.

Pastor Gordy: 26:19

Father God, I wanna thank you this morning for the privilege of sharing about Jesus Christ and his love. The love that transcends everything else in this world today. Satan would love to keep Christians from talking about their Jesus. When we do that, Satan wins. So we ask you, God, this morning, give us the boldness, give us the desire.

Pastor Gordy: 27:00

We have the words, Jesus saves. Use us, oh God, as only you can because in and of ourselves, we can't do anything good. And so only through you and what you've done in our life, that we we have any value to you at all. Ask you, God, to be with everyone this morning. Challenge our hearts.

Pastor Gordy: 27:36

Challenge our minds to follow you closer. Help us Lord to have the desire to share Jesus Christ with those around us. And we'll give you thanks in his precious name.

Pastor Cameron: 28:02

Amen. Okay. Thank you, pastor Gordy, for bringing the word to us this morning. Thank you. I'm gonna read again the scripture that he had us read and ask the holy spirit to press us into our lives this week.

Pastor Cameron: 28:24

From first John chapter 5 verses 11 through 13, this is the testimony. God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his son. He who has the son has life. He who does not have the son does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

Pastor Cameron: 28:55

Go in the confidence this morning of knowing, knowing that if you have the son, if you have Jesus Christ, you have eternal life. It is yours. It is an inheritance that is yours through Jesus. Hanu, you are loved. Go in peace.