• What We Must Show The World
• (Part One)

• INTRODUCTION
• As we have hopefully seen over the past few months, one of the greatest responsibilities we have as disciples of Jesus Christ is teaching the lost.
• It is a command of our Lord and it is a necessity in the process of salvation.
• Though sometimes we may forget the vital need for this, I believe we all understand the importance of our part in the salvation of others.
• But what is often the case, many simply do not know what they need to teach!
• It's not that they don't know what to tell others to do to be saved, it's just that we don't know how much or how little is needed when we teach them.
• Do we need to tell them everything?
• Where do we start?
• What do they need to know?
• What we should remember as we strive to bring others to Christ is that they need to see — and we must show them — a reason to repent, a reason to believe, and a hope they can hold onto.
• We can no longer simply sit down with someone and read selected Bible passages and expect that they will simply cast aside everything they have ever known.
• We've got to show the world that there is a reason to follow after Jesus Christ and His teachings, and we won't do it by telling them "Because God said so," or by scaring them into obedience.
• We've got to show them something that will cause them to want to leave the life they are now living
• — but more than that.
• We've got to show them a worthwhile reason to follow Jesus
• — but even more than that.
• We've got to show them the goal we strive for that will not only replace but surpass all they have ever known.

• So today, let's look at What We Must Show The World.
• Let us consider a few things the world needs to see that they might put away the worldly life and join with us in striving for the heavenly goal.
• Let us look at those things the world must see if we are to convince them to change and then follow after our Lord.
• And when we have done this let us also consider that we must get them to see the reality of eternity.
• These things should motivate the lost to obey, but they should also motivate the believer to continue steadfastly in the faith, remembering from whence we came.
• What We Must Show The World is:

• THEY ARE LOST
• And They Do Not Know It.
• Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”
• D.L. Moody once said, "You can't win a man until you get him lost."
• He's right; most people do not believe they are lost, and until we can get them to see that they are, any appeal to obey that they might be saved will fall on deaf ears.
• We must understand that what we are trying to teach the world, they are, in most cases, lacking a great deal of knowledge in these spiritual matters.
• Our society today knows very little of the Bible, and many of those who are somewhat religious know only what someone else has taught them.
• But for the world, most simply do not understand their own spiritual condition.
• In many surveys over the past twenty years in these United States, when people were asked if they believed in heaven and hell, more people believed in heaven than in hell (90% to 60%), and most of those believed they would go to heaven and not hell (90% to about 2%; the rest weren't sure).
• And when asked in a recent survey, almost half of respondents believe — despite the Bible’s assertion to the contrary — that all people will experience the same outcome after death, no matter what their religious beliefs.
• (The Columbus Dispatch, December 29, 2000.)
• If 9 out of 10 believe they are saved, who are the "few" of whom Jesus spoke in Matthew 7:13, 14?
• Who is right?
• Clearly, the lost do not know they are lost.

• Show Them What Sin Is
• One problem we have in convincing the unbeliever that they need God is that they simply do not know what sin is.
• Nobody uses that word anymore!
• Sin is no longer a sin — it's a weakness or a mistake or even a disease.
• Anything but what it is.
• Adultery is now an "indiscretion,"
• homosexuality is an "alternative lifestyle,"
• and murder is "depriving one of their individual rights."
• Sin is something that is the center of jokes and monologues on the late night TV shows.
• Sin is not a serious matter in the eyes of most of the world.
• The world portrays "sin" as someone enjoying something more than what they should. (Like chocolate.)
• The world pictures sinful activities as fun and exciting and intellectually-superior choices;
• those who participate in these sinful activities are not "narrow-minded" like those who oppose them — they're much more "enlightened" than the rest of us.
• The world would have us believe that the actions that God calls sin are a matter for anyone else but the one who participates.
• The world tells us "Judge not that you be not judged!"
• The world does not know what sin really is.

• Transgression Of God's Will
• 1 John 3:4, “Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.”[NASV]
• Sin is not simply "a mistake" or an "indiscretion" that we can just shrug our shoulders at when it is discovered.
• We have gone against the will of our Creator and committed an act of unrighteousness (literal translation of 1 John 3:4).
• It is one thing to do a wrong against another man, but God!
• We have committed the gravest of transgressions when we have gone against our Creator, for He is the most righteous one, the holiest of the holy, and the supreme being.
• We could not do a greater wrong.

• The Nails That Hung Our Savior
• Our sins are the reason.
• 1 Peter 2:24 “and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed”.
• Jesus came to this earth for the express purpose of saving us from our sins.
• This was done through the death on the cross, but He would have never had to come had we not sinned.
• He didn't die for "someone else's" sins;
• He died for my sins, and that makes it personal.
• He died for your sins, and that too is personal.
• And He died for everyone.
• Everyone that would respond to His invitation, and everyone has been invited to do this.
• If just one person would have sinned, it would have meant that Christ had to die.
• Sin is what put Christ on the cross.
• It's an ugly act that demanded the horrible death of an innocent man to pay its wages.

• Show Them That Sin Separates
• Another misconception the world has about sin is that it is not something so bad that it will get in the middle of their relationship with God.
• They just do not believe that God would ever turn them away because of their sins.
• Some have such a distorted view of God they say such things as "God is too loving to send someone to an eternal punishment in hell."
• God, in the eyes of an uninformed world, will just pat us all on the back and say, "I know you've all made mistakes, heh, heh, but that's okay; we all do. Come on in!"

• God withdrew from His children. [Joshua 7]
• When the Israelites — God's people — had just one amongst them who had transgressed the will of God, he was not with them when they went to conquer the small city of Ai, and would not be with them until they had destroyed the sinner amongst them (v. 12).
• Just one was all it took.

• It was their own sins that separated.
• Isaiah. 59:1, 2 “Behold, the LORD’S hand is not so short that it cannot save; neither is His ear so dull that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that he does not hear.”
• God withdrew from His people and would help them no longer, but why?
• Was it because He was unable to help or unable to hear?
• No! It was their own sins and iniquities that separated between them and God.

• Sin separates.
• God is against those who practice evil
• Most people do not consider themselves as being evil.
• Psalm 34:16 “The face of the LORD is against evildoers, to cut off the memory of them from the earth.”
• God can have no part with sin, wickedness, or evil — however you want to describe it — “because there is no unrighteousness in Him.” (Psalm 92:15)
• 1 John 1:5 “And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.”
• So, no matter how "good" we think we may be, if there is sin in our life, God can have no part with us.
• Paul told the Corinthian brethren that those who practice sin can have no part in the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

• Show Them All — Including They — Have Sinned
• Understanding what sin is and what it does is just part of the equation;
• We must also show the world that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23).
• No man is without sin, so all men have transgressed God's will and are separated from Him.
• In that condition, we must emphasize the urgency in remedying the situation.
• We need to point them to the only way out:
• That is through Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12). “no other name under heaven by which one must be saved”.
• People today are just as lost as they were when Christ walked this earth:
• They are still "like sheep having no shepherd." (Matthew 9:36)

• CONCLUSION (part one)
• Many people live their entire lives without knowing where they are headed.
• We need to point them to the Master Shepherd.
• People are just as much in need of teaching as they were in Christ's time, too.
• The "harvest" is still "plentiful."
• And it is up to us to bring in the sheaves!
• Let us go out and show the world these things.

By Carey Scott from a sermon by Steven Harper

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