All right, well it's great to be here at the Red Hot Preaching Conference, and I really
appreciate Pastor Jimenez having me come out here and just to be here alone.
It took me, what is this, the seventh one, sixth one, seventh, it took me seven years,
but I finally got over my anti-social behavior and made my way over here, so.
I just wanted, you know, just to be out there would have been plenty for me, but it's always
a privilege to get out behind the pulpit here and to preach, especially to preach to a group
of people that come out on a Saturday morning to go out and do really what, you know, we've
been called to do as the church, as the body of Christ, and that's to go and preach the
gospel.
You know, that's really what the church is there for.
You know, the church, obviously, when we're in a great church and the church is flourishing,
we get to take, we get a lot of the benefits that come along with that.
We get the conferences, we get the different activities, but you know, really what we never
should forget, the reason why we're really here is to do what we're going to go out and
do this morning, and that's to go out and reach souls with the gospel of Christ, and
I just want to preach to you briefly this morning about the benefits of structured soul
winning, the benefits of structured soul winning, and if you would, go over to Romans chapter
10, Romans chapter 10.
I'm just going to have three quick brief points this morning on the benefits of structured
soul winning, and I want to start out by just pointing out that, you know, structured soul
winning is the example that we see in scripture.
You know, often we'll run into people or we'll meet people that are very zealous about soul
winning, they want to go soul winning, they have a burden for lost souls, but you know,
they're not plugged into a local church, they're not, you know, going out on a regular basis,
and it's because of the fact that they're not plugged into a local church.
That's exactly why they're not consistent in their soul winning.
You know, the Bible lays out the example of structured soul winning because that's what's
going to make you more consistent as a soul winner.
No matter how much of a burden you might have, you know, you're going to get more done
by being in a local church that's doing soul winning.
If you're there in Romans chapter 10, look at verse 14, very familiar, I'm sure we all
know, it says there, how then shall they call on him whom they have not believed, and how
shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without
a preacher, and verse 15, notice, how shall they preach except they be sent.
So you know, what's implied there is that, you know, those that are going to go out and
preach are those that are going to be sent, meaning there's somebody else out there that's
sending you.
You know, that's exactly what's taking place this morning.
There's a whole staff here that has been busy making maps, looking at the area, studying,
and planning, and deciding where you're going to go, teaming people up, and getting them
out there, and sending us out there to go and preach.
And you know, that's the Bible saying how shall they preach except they be sent.
I mean, sure, we can get fired up, we can hear a sermon, we can even, you know, maybe
organize a rally here and get some listeners over there, and that's great.
I'm all for that.
But really, over the long haul, in the long run, we're going to get more done if we're
plugged into a local church because that's who's actually going to send us.
They're going to send us, you know, even on that Saturday morning when it's been a long
week at work, and we're kind of dragging ourselves in, and you know, even, you know, I'll be
perfectly honest, anybody that is would say that there's probably been times that they've
gone to their soul-winning time and just didn't want to be there.
All the way over there, just saying, I don't know why I'm going, I really don't want to
go, I got all these other things I got to do, but they go because why?
Because there's a structured time, it's scheduled, it's something that they, you know, pre-determine
that they're just going to do no matter what.
No matter how they're feeling that week, they're going to go out there and accomplish this
goal.
It's going to make you consistent.
And, you know, that's what one of the benefits of structured soul-winning is.
You're going to be more likely if you, to go, if it's scheduled.
If you would, go over to Matthew chapter 16, Matthew chapter number 16.
It's going to make you more consistent, that's the first benefit of structured soul-winning.
If it's scheduled, you know, if you have a pre-determined time that you're going to go,
you're going to go no matter, you know, if you have character, you're going to go no
matter how you feel.
You know, it's funny, every time I end up going anyway, I just get over the flesh and
I drag myself out there.
After the first door to him said, what was I thinking?
You know, I just want to go the rest of the afternoon, especially if you get somebody
to say, why the attitude on the way over here?
This is the greatest thing.
You know, Paul, it says he purposed in his spirit that he must go see Rome.
He purposed to return to Macedonia.
These are things that he said, I must go do these things.
That's what we need to do in our own hearts, purpose these things, you know.
Purpose to be there for the church's soul-winning times, the structured soul-winning times.
And I'm sure, you know, there's probably some people, you know, I'm kind of preaching to
the choir this morning.
I get that.
Probably, you know, the vast majority of the people in this room, in fact, who would say
this is my regular soul-winning time?
Raise their hand.
Yeah, quite a few hands, right?
And there's probably a lot of other people that are here from other churches that have
a regular time, but, you know, it wouldn't surprise me at the Red Hot Preaching Conference
if there were people here, you know, this today might kind of be a one-off.
They're like, oh, I'm going to go soul-winning and I might just, you know, I'm not saying
that to put you down, I'm just saying, look, if that's the case, you need to get plugged
into a local church.
Because, you know, today is going to be great, we're going to go out and go soul-winning,
we're going to see souls saved, undoubtedly, and we're fulfilling the Great Commission.
But, you know, that's something you should want for the rest of your life, because that's
how we're going to reach the world with the Gospels, through consistent, structured soul-winning.
So don't let today, you know, be a one-off, be consistent.
You know, people often ask me, you know, about when I moved to Faithful Word and when I moved
to Phoenix and all that, and they'll get around and ask me, why did you move?
You know, of course, obviously, the preaching was great.
There was a lot, you know, some other factors, but I remember very distinctly one of the
things that kind of really motivated me to get out to Faithful Word was the soul-winning
that was going on there.
Because I knew that was something I had to do, and look, I was already in a Baptist church
and we had a form of outreach, but it wasn't, you know, structured door-to-door, you know,
daily, you know, house-to-house, like you see in Scripture, it wasn't that style of
soul-winning.
I said, well, that's the biblical model, that's how things are getting done.
That's ultimately what compelled me to move out there.
You say, what caused you to pack up everything and move thousands of miles and put everything
you own into a Toyota Camry, you know, with your wife who's six months pregnant into a
one-bedroom apartment with no job, you know.
Why would you do that, soul-winning?
And that's the honest truth, I remember sitting on the couch in Michigan thinking, I just
want to go soul-winning.
And I thought, well, you know, I could stay here and I could probably just start doing
it on my own.
But I already knew, you know, human nature, that that wasn't going to last, you know,
it would grow dull over time, I would get discouraged, I really didn't even know how
to do it necessarily, it was something I had to learn.
So that's one of the first benefits of structured soul-winning, it's going to make you consistent.
If you get plugged into a church that has a consistent soul-winning program, a structured
soul-winning program, it's going to make you a consistent and structured soul-winner.
And very briefly, I just want to touch on this, that one of the other benefits of structured
soul-winning is that success is guaranteed.
Success is guaranteed.
And I want to just make this point because, you know, you hear this a lot, you know, when
you talk to people, especially if you're somebody who kind of runs the soul-winning, if you're
somebody who's kind of doing the planning, you know, and this is just kind of human nature,
is that people will kind of start to say things like, well, you know, the soul-winning has
gotten really hard.
What they mean by that is it's less receptive.
And I get that it's kind of harder to go into the receptive, it's harder to stay motivated
to go there, maybe, you know, you get in one of those neighborhoods where people are a
bit more ruder, and things like that, and I get what they mean, but really, you know,
what is the measure of success when it comes to soul-winning?
You know, I dare to say it's not how many souls you get saved.
It's whether or not you go.
That's the measure of success.
Look, if we, and this isn't going to happen, we're going to go out there this morning and
people are going to get saved.
I believe that.
But what if we all came back this afternoon and said, well, nobody got saved.
You know, I would still say, well, it's still a win because there was a whole group of people
here that went, that obeyed the gospel, the command to go out and preach the gospel.
That's what Jesus told us.
He said to go and to preach the gospel to every creature.
And if you don't get anybody saved, you know, well then shame on you.
Is that what he said?
No, he just said, go and preach.
Just go do that.
Look, if you'll just get plugged in and just go, even if it's an unreceptive area that
we would say, oh, that's hard soul-winning, you know, we could still come back with our
head held high because of the fact that we've at least obeyed the command to go, you know,
which is more than you could say for a lot of, you know, Christians out there today.
Now if you would, I don't know where I had you go, but go to Acts chapter five, Acts
chapter five.
My last point on the benefits of structured soul-winning, one, it's going to make you
more consistent if you are participating in structured soul-winning, two, success
is guaranteed.
You know, if you go out there and you're participating in the program, you know, you already have,
you know, accomplished the goal that Jesus has given us, to go out and to go and preach
the gospel.
But the last point I want to make, and this is something that I feel is more and more
important today and is the fact that soul-winning cannot be censored.
You can't censor the soul-winning.
They tried back in Acts, look at verse 25, of course the Jews it says, then one came
and told them, the Jews who had previously bound the apostles, and saying, behold the
men whom we have put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people, then
went certain with the officers and brought them with violence for they feared the people
lest they should have been stoned.
So they're ready to kill these guys for, you know, going out and preaching Christ.
When they had brought them, they sent them before the council and the high priest and
asked them, saying, did we not straightly command you that you should not teach in this
name?
And behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine and intend to bring this man's
blood upon us.
Then of course we all know the answer.
Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than
men.
Look, they're going to try and take a lot of the platforms away from us, aren't they?
They're going to take away the Twitter, they're going to take away YouTube, they're going
to take away, you know, all the social media platforms, but you know what?
There's one platform they're never going to be able to take away from us and it's the
same platform that has gotten to us to where we are today.
It's the platform that the apostles and all the other believers have used down through
the centuries and that platform is the pavement.
Going out there two by two, knocking the doors, looking people in the eye and preaching the
gospel.
They can't take that away.
They can take away all these other social media platforms, they'll never take away door
to door soul winning.
You say, well, what if they make it illegal?
I'll still do it.
Well, what if they throw you in prison?
Well, maybe God will send an angel and he'll kick me in the ribs and tell me to get up
like he did Peter.
He'll smite me and say, get up, we must be going, right, and you know, be out there.
I'll be right back at it.
Well, what if they chase you out of this town?
Well, go to the next one.
Just like they did.
They're never going to be able to stop that.
The pavement is the one platform they can never take away.
It's the tried and true.
If you go over to Luke chapter 12, we'll wrap up there in Luke chapter number 12.
I mean, how can soul winning fail?
How can it not work?
How are they going to take that away from us when Jesus said, I am with you always,
even at the end of the world?
They can't.
They can't take it away.
Look at Luke chapter 14 verse 21.
It says, so the servant came, this is a very famous parable, it said, excuse me, the servant
came and showed his Lord these things.
Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, go out quickly on social media.
Go out there and make sure you're working the algorithm just right.
Go out there and make sure that you use all the proper keywords and you hashtag it just
so and you make the clips to appropriate along and you have a clever title.
That's how we're going to reach the world.
Look, I'm not against any of those things.
I think they're obviously, they're powerful.
There's a reason why they want to take it away from us.
There's a reason why they're taking the preaching off of YouTube and all these other platforms
because the word of God is powerful.
They want to slow it down and we'll keep using it as long as we can.
But look, the tried and true is right here.
He said, go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city and bring hither the poor
and the maimed and the halt and the blind.
We're going to go out and reach people that all these atheists out there with their blogs
and everything else will never reach.
People that will have never heard of our enemies are going to be heard by us.
He goes on and says, and the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou has commanded and
yet there is room.
And the Lord said unto the servant, go into the highways, into the hedges and compel them
to come in that my house may be filled.
They could take away all the social media.
They could take away all these platforms.
They can't take away the streets and lanes.
That's one of the benefits of structured soul winning.
It's not just that it's going to make you more consistent, not that it's guaranteed
success if you go, but the fact that it's something that our enemies will never be able
to, and it's powerful.
Look, social media is not what got us to the dance, folks.
It hasn't been 2,000 years of tweets that got us here.
It's been 2,000 years of people participating in regular structured soul winning down through
the ages that have gotten us where we are.
And that's what's going to keep us here.
And they'll never take that away from us.
They could take Twitter, but they're not going to take two by two.
They could take away Facebook, but they're never going to take away face to face.
They could take away YouTube, but they'll never take away, I was hoping somebody could
have something.
I struggle with that one.
They'll never take away you and the Holy Spirit.
Ultimately, say, what's the sermon about?
It's about the fact that one of the greatest benefits of structured soul winning is that
it's unstoppable.
It's unstoppable.
You can't stop the soul winning as long as God's people don't stop soul winning.
Go ahead and pray.
Dear Lord, again, thank you for the great benefit, the blessing, the privilege that
we have to go out and to preach the gospel to a lost and dying world.
Lord, I pray to ever let us be discouraged, Lord, through the attacks of the enemy, through
all these other avenues, Lord.
We know that we have the greatest avenue, which is the lanes, the highways, and the
streets that you've told us to go out into, and Lord, to compel them to come in, that
your house might be full.
Lord, I pray you'd help us to do that this morning, and Lord, in the weeks, years, and
even decades to come, that we would fulfill this great commission of going out and winning
the lost.
Amen.