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00:01 Good afternoon. It's uh it's a privilege to be here again to be able to speak to you from uh God's word and uh happy
00:09 father's days uh to all fathers. I uh shared in the first service uh a bit
00:14 about my father and um I always say this that I have great privilege in uh um
00:20 through my father that who always loved me and um as I became a believer. It was
00:25 because of my father that it was easy for me to know that God is a loving God
00:32 who always welcomes you even though you have greatly messed up. Um, I've messed
00:38 up many times in my life and um did crazy things but my father always
00:46 welcomed me back with open arms. So when uh I heard about a heavenly father who
00:52 welcomes me back with open arms, it wasn't difficult for me to believe that for the life that my father lived. So to
00:58 all fathers, welcome your sons back greatly and when they mess up uh because you'll be a testimony to the heavenly
01:05 father that we have. Uh but I'm not here today to um speak about Father's Day. So
01:10 if you're thinking what has this to do with with Father's Day, absolutely nothing. Um it has to do with the
01:16 ministry that I've been doing since um you commissioned me uh over a year ago. Um I I left um to do this work with
01:24 Gospel City Network which is a um daughter organization from uh city to
01:30 city uh worldwide specifically city to city Asia Pacific. City Asia Pacific or
01:37 city to city uh founding father is Timothy Keller and it's a church planting organization
01:43 um that um plants churches globally. So um as we are looking at the text today
01:49 in Romans uh 15:14-33 um we'll try to make a case to see the
01:55 work of the gospel and how it needs to affect the cities. So before I do that uh let me start with a word of prayer.
02:05 Heavenly father we thank you for your word. Father we ask that we may now take
02:10 this time to come under your word. Father, we ask that your word would convict our hearts truly, that it will
02:16 transform our minds. It will change our lives. Father, I ask for your grace and for your strength to be able to preach
02:22 your word faithfully and boldly. Um, and Father, we ask that whatever is of you will be remembered in people's hearts
02:29 and minds and whatever is not of you will be forgotten. Father, we ask for your grace. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
02:36 Um this text um we have just had read for us is Paul explaining his work that
02:44 he has been doing that you could read in the book of acts. um he was showing how he uh from Ericum or from Judea to
02:51 Ericum how he was doing the ministry and it's kind of like an apologetic for him to say how the gospel uh is needs to be
02:59 a global gospel and how it needs to have geographic expansion and um it kind of
03:05 shows all the work that he has accomplished in acts um today want to
03:10 look at these uh points that the gospel needs to be preached globally that the
03:16 gospel needs to to be preached locally, that it needs to be preached corporately, and that it needs to be
03:22 preached personally. So, we'll look at these four points. Let's start with the first one. Um, the gospel needs to be
03:30 preached globally. Here in verse 22, u Paul says this, "This is the reason why
03:35 I have so often been hindered from coming to you. But now, since I no
03:40 longer have any room for work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you, I hope to see
03:46 you in passing as I go to Spain and to be helped on my journey there by you
03:52 once I have enjoyed your company for a while to those and for a while. So, what
03:58 he's saying, he is pretty much probably sitting in Turkey in Ephesus. Uh he's
04:03 saying that he wants to go to Rome. Um actually he wants to go to Spain and he
04:09 wants to pop by Rome before that. Um because he has actually already finished
04:14 his ministry from Jerusalem to
04:19 what he's saying here that his plan his mission is a global mission. His heart
04:26 is to see the gospel spread not just in a particular region but in all regions.
04:32 He wants to go he is in Turkey. He's going to pop by Jerusalem and then he's
04:39 going to go to Italy via Spain. His heart is for the people. His heart is
04:46 for all nations. And a bit earlier on in the text, we read this. He says he would
04:51 like to do ministry to those who have never been told of him. We'll see. And to those who have never heard will
04:57 understand. So when he says this, um, he's referring to Isaiah. Actually, he's
05:04 quoting Isaiah in this passage in Isaiah 52. And in Isaiah 52, it's talking about
05:12 the fact that there will be kings who have never heard the message and priests who never heard the message and and that
05:17 he will sprinkle the nations. And what Paul is doing by saying this in applying the Old Testament text to his missionary
05:25 activity, he's saying that and he's showing that Paul was joining the Mio
05:32 day, the mission of God as it's understood in the Old Testament. That this is not a new mission. That this
05:39 mission to reach all nations and all people was a mission of God from the Old
05:45 Testament already. That's why he's quoting this Old Testament passage in Isaiah 52. Isaiah 52 shows how um there
05:53 will be a light for the Gentiles. Gentiles are people who are not Jews. Isaiah 53 will show how that will happen
05:59 through a suffering servant. And Isaiah 54 will talk about how the tens will be extended. So he's making that reference
06:06 here to show you that his gospel is a global gospel and it's a mission to
06:12 reach the ends of the world. Now he had an apostolic calling. So how does it how
06:18 do we fit into this? Well, we are not apostles but we are supposed to continue the work of the apostle by bringing the
06:26 gospel to the end of the earth. The great commission in itself says go therefore and baptize uh and make
06:31 disciples of all of people by baptizing them in the name of the father, son, and the holy spirit and teaching them all
06:37 you have commanded. So it's our call, it's our command to go therefore and spread the gospel to all nations. In
06:45 Revelations, we will read that one day all nations, all tribes, all tongues will be worshiping God. So our call is
06:52 to bring the gospel to the ends of the world and continue Paul's work. So how
07:00 are we doing? 2,000 years of ministry. How are we doing? Um these are
07:06 statistics taken from the Joshua project and uh it says this that we have 7.3 billion individuals
07:13 16,900 peoples. When it says people we're talking about people groups uh people groups are consistent of um uh groups of
07:21 people who have a similar culture, similar ethnic background uh uh um so culture, ethnic background, language
07:27 that make a particular people. So to be able to reach those people they have some a certain culture that comes out of
07:32 that and then that makes one particular peoples. So we have about 16,900
07:38 people's uh people groups in this world uh about 7,000 uh languages 237
07:44 countries out of all these 16,900 peoples we still have 7,000 peoples
07:52 which are unreached. 7,000 groups of people, you know, like Okin, Hakka,
07:58 Iban, Da, Kalabi, you know, different different people groups, right? We have in Malaysia, uh, in Malaysia alone, I
08:04 think we have about 180 people groups, but around the world, we have about 7,000 people groups who are unreached
08:11 about,200 people groups, which has a few believers. um 200 people groups which
08:17 have uh beginning churches, 1,500 uh uh people groups which have formative
08:23 churches where where churches are just beginning to arise. And um 3,800 where they are established
08:30 churches and then of course 3,200 where they are mature churches. Mature
08:36 churches and established churches. If you put them together, that means we have about 7,000 people groups who have
08:42 the ability to go to a place where there is a mature or established church.
08:48 That means you have about 9,000 people groups which don't have that opportunity.
08:54 And some of them the work is beginning and some of them there is absolutely no
08:59 opportunity for them to hear the gospel. So how then can we participate in
09:06 bringing the gospel to the ends of the world? How can we participate in this
09:11 global mission? Well, you don't have to go far. You can stay right here in Koala
09:18 Lumpur because the world is coming to you.
09:23 In this city in Koala Lumpur, we have approximately 2,000 Somali people which
09:30 are 2 1.8% global Christian. When I mean global Christians, it means that all over the world, if you add all the
09:36 Somali together, only 1.8% of them are Christian. In Christian statistics, in
09:42 missionary statistics, when a people group is below 2%, uh, we call them unreached.
09:49 So, if there's less than 2% Christians, we call them unreached. Um, right here in Koala Lumpur, we have about 100,000
09:56 Nepales, 0.9% global Christians.
10:01 people from Myanmar, 0.07 global Christians.
10:08 Bangladeshi, 150,000 of them right here, 0.4%
10:15 global Christians. So when you walk past your security guards, when you eat in
10:20 your restaurants, when you deal with migrant workers, and we have migrant workers out of 15
10:26 nations in the city here, every one out of four people in the
10:32 workforce of Koala Lumpur is a migrant worker. If we take the time to care for them, to
10:40 love on them, and share the gospel with them, we are on global missions. We are continuing the apostolic work
10:47 that Paul has started to bring the gospel to the ends of the world right here in Col. You don't have to go and go
10:53 on a mission trip. You don't have to spend money. No. All you have to do is go downstairs to your guard house
10:59 and share the gospel. We have refugees in Koala Lumpur out of 53 nations about
11:05 150,000. These are just the registered ones. Let's not talk about the unregistered ones. And how about
11:11 international students, campus ministry? Maybe that's a a way to go. We have 160
11:18 nations of people from all around the world. He has international students about 100,000
11:26 of them and many of them right here in Subangja. Now these are people who in their home
11:32 country are considered unreached peoples. We have the opportunity here to
11:37 share love with them to give them the hope that we have with Jesus
11:43 to welcome them into a family. So when they then accept our Lord Jesus Christ,
11:48 they can go back to their home countries and share the good news with them. We can be on global missions because we
11:54 live in a global city because Koala Lumpur and all the other global cities around the world are
12:01 drawing drawing more more people from all over the world. The nations are
12:06 coming to us. But of course, we're not only supposed to share the gospel
12:13 globally. We have to look at what Paul did. uh Paul in his ministry to reach
12:19 the ends of the earth world to have his global mission his global mission mindset what did he do he went from city
12:25 to city establishing local churches uh you see here in the verse 17 in Christ
12:32 Jesus then I have reason to be proud of my work for God for I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ
12:38 has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed by the power of signs and wonders by the
12:44 power of the spirit of God so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to I have fulfilled the ministry of the
12:51 gospel of Christ and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel not where Christ has already been named lest I
12:57 build on someone else foundation. So he's saying here that all the way
13:02 from Jerusalem to he has shared the gospel. Now how did he
13:08 go about it? What what did he do? He went from a particular metropolitan city
13:14 to another particular metropolitan city. Um the reason he went from city to city
13:19 is the reason why the mother organization that I'm working with is called city to city as they're following along with Paul's missionary journeys.
13:27 So these are the cities that he went through. You can see um they are all major capitals. It might seem that Paul
13:34 was an itenerant speaker. If you if you read to the book of Acts, um it may therefore be um give you the impression
13:41 that Paul was almost exclusively an attenerant preacher. But this is not correct particularly in view of the fact
13:47 that in some places he stayed for longer periods about half a year in Corinth, two or three years in Ephesus. So he he
13:54 became a local. He established local churches. He understanded their heart
13:59 problems, their sins, their desires, their joys. He was able to speak the gospel to their contextualized
14:07 situation. Contextualized means that to their context in a way that they are able to understand the gospel.
14:15 He established local churches. The reason that he can say I have finished my work in this area. It did not mean
14:20 that all people in this area are Christians now. It just means that he was able to leave because he has
14:25 established local congregation, local churches to continue doing the work.
14:32 There's undoubtedly a a certain method in his selection of these centers of these cities that he went to. He
14:38 concentrated on district or provincial capitals as you might say um which kind
14:44 of like represented a whole region or who had influence over a whole region.
14:49 for example, Philippi for Macedonia, uh Thessalonica for Aaya and Macedonia,
14:55 Corinth for Aaya, Ephesus for Asia. He he focuses on on these capitals because
15:00 why? Because these metropolitan cities, these global cities at that point of time were the main centers as far as for
15:07 communication, culture, commerce, politics, religions and other things as
15:13 well because he wanted to reach the cities that had influence over the surrounding areas.
15:20 So today we must continue the mission that Paul has started. He was devoted
15:26 and committed to reach cities. We cannot abandon that missional call. If anybody
15:33 would follow a trend in Malaysia, that trend probably started in Koala Lumpur.
15:39 People are moving to cities. Trends are started here. Culture is created in big
15:45 cities. All the villages and the suburbs around the big cities will follow what the big cities do. We need people in the
15:52 big cities to be Christians. We need Christian businessmen. We need Christian artists. We need Christian musicians. We
15:59 need Christian poets. We need Christian authors. We need Christians marketing and branding people. We need people
16:06 everywhere who infect the culture of the city. Everybody comes to the city.
16:11 Anybody who wants to be somebody comes to the city. You will never run out of people in the city. In fact, around the
16:17 world right now, 3 million people move into cities each week.
16:26 That means every 3 weeks we have people creating a new clang valley.
16:36 We have about 427,000 people moving to city every day. We have
16:44 about 17,000 people moving into a city every hour.
16:50 The world is becoming an urban world. And guess what? Even though the Bible started in the garden, our future is an
16:58 urban future. We will be in the new Jerusalem in a city as well. The future
17:04 of the world is an urban future. We need to reach the cities for the gospel. So,
17:11 let's look at our city. What are the statistics of our city? Some of you might have seen the stats
17:16 before. Every single square that you see here, it represents 5,000 people.
17:21 Now, we can't get exact data in Quoalumpuro. It's rather hard to get it. I'm hoping maybe the new government will
17:27 make a new census so we understand exactly how many people are actually living here. But when I say metropolitan
17:32 Koala Lumpuro, we're talking about roughly Raang to Clang to beginning of
17:37 Suriman to Aang. Okay, that's roughly u um Clang Valley that we're talking about. And we have approximately right
17:44 now probably 8.4 million people living here. This is roughly the population
17:49 distribution of according to race and with that race is usually a particular religion um as well that you can expect.
17:57 Um the most important area I want you to look at and uh is the white space on top
18:02 here because that is the Christianity. We are about at best
18:08 and people say I'm very generous 3% evangelical Christian
18:13 at best 3% bibleelving Jesus following disciples.
18:22 Now if you look at here these are the undocumented people. So probably we are
18:28 9 million people because we have a whole lot of undocumented people as well. The blue as you see here are people that
18:35 will move into Koala Lumpur by 2020. By 2020 we will probably be 10 million
18:41 people. So the white area across the blue is the
18:48 people that we have to disciple until 2020. That's about 60,000 people.
18:55 If we fail to do that, Christianity in Kalumpur is going to be on a decline.
19:01 Let me give you the numbers differently. To maintain a 3% Christianity in Kalumpur with about 6 million more urban
19:10 dwellers each year, we the church, the global church, all the churches, all the followers of Jesus, all the disciples of
19:15 Jesus need to nurture and equip 20,000 new believers every year.
19:22 If you fail to do that, Christianity will be going to be on a decline in the city, which means about 400 churches,
19:28 they're going to be planted now, they're going to be 50 people by the end of the year,
19:34 which means more than one church every day. If we fail to plant more than one church
19:41 every day that's going to grow into the size of 50 people, Christianity is going
19:46 to be in a decline in the city that we love. Now people say, "Hey, hey, the existing churches also disciple people."
19:53 Fair enough. Existing churches, take half of them. Okay, we need to plant a church every two days.
19:60 Okay, let's say half of those people are already Christians because they're coming from all over the place. Okay, we need to plant a church every 4 days.
20:07 We still if you fail to plant a church every 4 days, then Christianity is going
20:13 to be on a decline. So what is the work that is required to be done? We need
20:20 rampant evangelism. Everybody needs to share the gospel.
20:27 We need real disciplehips. The great commission is therefore we are supposed to what? Baptize
20:33 people and teach them everything that the Lord has commanded us. We have to work on real disciplehip.
20:40 And we need to have reproducing churches. churches that plant other churches that
20:46 plant other churches that plant other churches. We need reproducing churches. Why? Why
20:52 is church planting so important? Well, if you really want to know, we have a conference on August 20th that talks
20:59 about why church planting. If you want more details, come and contact me or listen to our website.
21:05 Um however um the founding father of uh uh city to city Timothy Keller said this
21:11 the vigorous continual planting of new congregation is the single most crucial
21:16 strategy for number one the numerical growth of the body of Christ in any city based on world statistics the continual
21:24 and it's also the continual corporate renewal and revival of the existing churches in a city now how do new
21:30 churches revive existing churches how does that work. Well, primarily this
21:35 because new churches have the liberty and have the guts very often to
21:41 innovate. You know, as people progress, as as as human flourish, as as as as we develop
21:48 as an urban nation, uh contextualized ministry changes, people's hearts, minds, their problems, their solutions,
21:54 the way we do church changes. The Bible is always constant. We have a textbook. There's always the same truth that we
22:01 follow. But that same truth might look very different in Koala Lumpur than it might look in Jakarta. It would look
22:08 very different planting a church in Sububang than it looks like planting a church in Bangsa. Um different kinds of
22:14 people have different kinds of needs. And as we are looking and planting churches, the new churches, what are
22:20 they doing? They're going to a new area and thinking, how are these people going to hear the gospel? How can we contextualize this ministry for these
22:27 people? and they're going to try new ways, new things. They're going to be innovative because what what can they
22:32 lose? They cannot lose members. They're not afraid of losing members. They're just starting. Whereas existing churches
22:37 are a bit more hesitant to change their ways because when they change their ways, people might dislike. In a Baptist
22:44 church, you might have to vote on it first, right? Which is not a bad thing. I I I think congregationalism is a great
22:49 thing. I'm a I'm a Baptist by heart, right? Uh so I'm saying that that it's
22:55 just difficult for you to try new things because there's a lot of people that you have to please at the same time. So new
23:00 churches have the advantage of trying new things and as they as they do
23:06 something which is terrible and fail well the old churches they don't have to copy that but as they do something which
23:11 is great and brings more people and has a new way of ministry the old churches can copy that what the new churches are
23:17 doing and therefore they have been revitalized and renewed. And that's how new churches revitalize existing
23:25 churches. Nothing else, not crusades, outreach programs, parurch ministries, growing mega churches, congregational
23:32 consulting, nor church renewal processes will have the consistent impact of dynamic extensive church planting. And
23:39 one very good truth is if you are a church of five people meeting every Sunday, you are very hungry to have new
23:46 people in your church. you're more excited and more willing to go out and share the gospel because you
23:52 would like to actually not serve on one Sunday. So the more people you bring to your church, hopefully not Christians, we're
23:58 not asking for replanting. We're asking for new converts as they come to your church. They will burden your work a
24:04 little less and which makes you more excited to go and share um the gospel. So of course we need to plant more
24:11 churches. We need to have a mission for the city. We need to share the gospel
24:17 locally because the local churches will advance the gospel globally eventually.
24:22 And we can't do this alone. We got to do this together. Which brings us to the
24:28 next point that we got to share the gospel corporately.
24:34 When I mean corporately, I don't just mean on a Sunday morning here like we're sharing the gospel right now. um not
24:40 just uh in a in a corporate worship but what I mean by corporately is that by networking together different churches
24:47 working together to be on mission for the city of Koalumpur
24:53 um let's read what Paul writes here in verse 25 at present however I'm going to
24:58 Jerusalem bringing aid to the saints for Macedonia and aair have been pleased to
25:03 make some contributions for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem for they were pleased to do it. And indeed they
25:10 owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have come to share the spiritual blessings, they ought to be of service to them
25:16 immaterial blessings. When therefore I have completed this and have delivered there to them what has been collected, I
25:22 will leave for Spain by way of you. I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessings of
25:28 Christ. He's saying here are two churches in Greece uh the Macedonian church and the Aan church uh who have
25:36 contributions to support the church in Jerusalem. Can you see how how two
25:41 churches are supporting another church which has financial needs? It says there
25:46 because they owe it. Why do they owe it? Because the Jerusalem church is probably mainly a Jewish church and the faith
25:51 kind of started with Jewish people and from their spiritual understanding. They have blessed the Greece churches and
25:58 they have ministered to them uh through spiritual ways and now the churches there who have more finance because the
26:04 gentile churches which were the non-Jewish churches probably had more money at that point of time they will be
26:10 able to bless them back for their ministry. So now you have churches having sending people to teach and other
26:16 people sending money over and you having churches working together to spread the
26:21 gospel. What does it mean? It means this. We can do a lot more collectively.
26:29 We can do so much more collectively. If you just think as a single church, we
26:35 will not be able to reach qual. One church alone cannot reach all peoples.
26:43 Different kinds of churches are needed to reach different kinds of people. Some people like large churches, some people
26:48 like small churches. Some people like churches where there's many small groups. And some people like
26:54 churches where there's heavy teaching. Some people like to raise their hands. And some people like to stand straight.
27:01 Some people like cowboy music. Some people like techno music. The Bible doesn't say anything about what kind of
27:06 music. It says worship the Lord. It says sing with all your heart to war to the Lord.
27:13 That's what it says. It says worship music. It doesn't talk about what type
27:19 of music. But we have different kinds of people with different kind of problems. If it would be me, it'll be hip-hop church, right? Yeah. But um I have yet
27:27 to start one. Maybe one day. Yo. Okay. Um but we need a collection of churches
27:34 that can accomplish together. But let me put it differently. God has called Koala Lumpur to be a gospel forest, a gospel
27:42 jungle. We don't need one big tree.
27:49 We need a forest. We need a forest. We need an ecosystem of different types of
27:54 trees. big trees, small trees, durian trees, papaya trees, um coconut trees,
28:03 um different kinds of shapes, different kinds of colors, different kind of taste, different kind of flavors, but
28:09 they're all trees. They're all people who bearing fruit for the gospel. Let me say it directly. We need different kinds
28:14 of churches. All kinds of churches. We need churches that reach the young, churches that reach the old, churches
28:20 that need reach the rich, churches that reach the poor, churches that reach the Tamil speaking, churches that reach the
28:26 Bahasa speaking, the Chinese speaking, the English teaching, speaking. We need different kinds of churches. And we need to work together on be on mission
28:33 together for the gospel. If one church just longs to be one tree, there will
28:40 never be a forest. Look, I recently had the privilege of
28:46 speaking to a uh church planting uh two women who just planted a church in Mary
28:51 and they said this. We are not called to be keepers of the aquarium. We are called to be fishes of men.
29:02 We're supposed to be the best tree we can be. Now, we have to find out what kind of tree do we want to be or what
29:08 kind of animal should we be? We have squirrels and we have elephants.
29:14 Both serve their purpose. The church where I'm at, squirrel church. FBC
29:19 elephant church. Big, powerful, strong. Once it moves, it's unstoppable. It's great.
29:26 Has a presence. When it walks, it stumps. It can be felt.
29:31 Well, rabbit church small, but it could multiply very fast.
29:38 It's easy to replicate a small church. You can't get a giant building like this all over the city. You can't. But a
29:46 small little office church of 50 people, maybe we can replicate faster,
29:52 different purpose, different strength, different goals,
29:58 same vision. And this is the vision. We want to see churches that flourish among
30:04 every people group, language, and neighborhood. As these churches grow in number and Christlikkeness, we long for
30:11 Metro Qualumpur to look less like Babylon and more like the new Jerusalem.
30:16 The gospel as it spread through different types of churches will affect the city. You can see in
30:23 this text here, they're talking a lot about supporting and and social needs and financial needs. Yes, these are all
30:28 effects of the gospel, but they're not the gospel, but they're results of the gospel. Results of the gospel are great,
30:36 but they're not the gospel. But we need to spread the gospel to have the results of the gospel to have people work
30:41 together corporately because one church can't reach all
30:49 people. Now, who is the church? You are the church.
30:55 It's not the building. It's the people. So as churches connect together, it
31:02 means people connecting together. It means you working together. It means
31:09 that we have to share the gospel personally. We do it corporately by networking
31:16 together. We do it perfectly in ultimate effect.
31:22 Paul said this. I myself am satisfied about you my brothers that you yourselves are full of goodness filled
31:29 with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. So he was happy with the Roman church. Let me just pause there.
31:35 Can we say that about ourselves? Are we full of goodness, filled with all
31:40 knowledge and able to instruct one another. That is the goal, is it not? We we share
31:46 the gospel. We go out, we do disciplehip programs that people are full of goodness that they are filled with the
31:52 fullness of Christ. That they understand the height, the depth, the width, the breadth of Jesus Christ and are filled with the Holy Spirit, filled with the
31:57 goodness of God, filled with the love of God, so that they are of their fullness are able to instruct one another. Are we
32:05 able to instruct one another? What it means by instruct one another? The the language here that Paul used when he says preach the gospel in this text,
32:11 it's it's not like what I'm doing right now, pulpit preaching. It's more like gospelizing.
32:17 Are you able to gospelize? Are you able to share the gospel? Are you able to
32:23 tell people that whatever worries they have, whatever fears they have, whatever heart problems, what suffering they have, that there is good news, that
32:30 there is Jesus, the son of God, who came who died on the cross and absorbed the
32:36 wrath of God and died for their sins. And after three days, he rose again, and he was witnessed by 500 over people.
32:43 And he promises to come back. And if you put your faith in him, then you will have eternal life with
32:49 him. And he promises to wipe away every tear. Are we able to gospelize? Are we
32:55 able to share the gospel with people? Paul, he also says, "But on some points, I've written to you very boldly by way
33:01 of reminder." So he has written very boldly to the Romans who are able to
33:06 kind of instruct one another, who are filled with goodness, and even to them, he has reminded them. What is the reminder? Well, the whole book of
33:12 Romans. So, what did he say in the whole book of Romans? Well, in chapter 1 and two, he says that everybody, everybody's full of
33:19 sin and everybody needs the gospel. Whether you're a Jew or whether you're a Gentile, whether you're somebody who was
33:24 born in a Christian family or somebody who was not born in a Christian family, everybody needs the gospel because
33:31 everybody is damnable. Everybody has sinned against the Godmost
33:36 High. In Romans 3, he says, "No one is righteous, know not one." In Romans 5 comes the good news. Says,
33:43 "And even though we are not righteous, and while we were yet sinners, God demonstrated his love for us that while
33:50 we were sinners, he sent his son to die for us." Does it mean that we can continue sinning? Romans 6. Absolutely
33:59 not. No. Even though grace might abound more. No. No. We are not supposed to sin. In
34:04 fact, we are going to struggle with our sins. It's Romans 7. The sin I want to do, I I I I do. And
34:12 the good things I want I want to do, I don't do. We're going to struggle with him. But we can trust Romans 8. By the
34:18 power of the Holy Spirit, the God who began the good work in it is going to bring it to completion. That he
34:24 who chose us will deliver us into final heaven. That he will give us the power of the spirit to work through the situation
34:31 because he is Romans nine sovereign. And regardless whether you are a Jew or
34:37 a Gentile, a Jew or a non-Jew, Romans 10 or 11,
34:44 he has a plan and he has grafted us in. And therefore, the big therefore,
34:51 therefore, therefore in Romans 12, live your life as a living sacrifice. Because
34:56 of all these reasons, give your life as a living sacrifice. Of course, Romans
35:02 13, under the law. Romans 14, not to judge others
35:08 and not against your own conscience. Don't stumble people, but because of Romans 15, because Christ
35:15 is the example, he gave his life. And therefore, as we are here today, Romans
35:20 15, gospelize. Gospelize.
35:27 We are to share the gospel.
35:33 The question is, why don't we? Maybe because we do not
35:41 know how. Well, there's great news. If you do not know how to share the
35:46 gospel, we have an event with Gospel City Network on the 18th of August. It's called Go
35:54 Deeper. And you can take a picture of the QR code or come ask me later. It's a conference where we're going to share
35:59 and teach how people how to go deeper in conversations and share the gospel with
36:05 one another. How do we do that? Come for the conference.
36:11 But I think skill set is not the only reason.
36:16 So why don't we really why why why is it that we don't share the gospel?
36:22 Why don't we gospelize? Maybe because we don't think it's great news.
36:28 Maybe we don't think it's great news. Maybe we don't think it's good news. Maybe we think we are a-okay and we're not sinners
36:35 and we don't need Jesus. Maybe we don't think it's great news that Jesus God sent his son to die for us.
36:41 Or maybe we just don't have enough compassion. Maybe we're apathetic.
36:49 Maybe we just don't care. Maybe we have no mercy.
36:59 Maybe we don't care that our neighbors, regardless what race, do not know Jesus.
37:06 Maybe we have no mercy, understanding that they will face the wrath of God, and we don't want to show mercy them by
37:11 sharing the gospel with them. Or maybe we have no urgency.
37:17 Maybe we think that somebody will do it sometime.
37:23 Or maybe we're just too comfortable. Maybe it's uncomfortable for us to share
37:30 the gospel. Maybe we are afraid of the persecution that might come by sharing the gospel. Maybe we're afraid of the
37:36 ridicule that will come that people might look at us funny.
37:45 Are we uncomfortable? Are we too comfortable to share the gospel?
37:53 You know Jesus, he had everything. He was in heaven. He had all the riches and
37:59 he emptied himself. He came to this earth and he humbled
38:04 himself. In the scriptures we read that he had no place to lay his head
38:12 and he came and he had compassion. He loved you.
38:17 All of us at one day at one point of time were Gentiles damnable without hope.
38:24 But because Jesus chose and had compassion, he came to this world. He became to an uncomfortable place and he
38:30 was willing to take any kind of persecution. He had mercy on us
38:39 and he came and he died for us. In the book of Hebrews, it says that he
38:46 died outside the gate of the great city of Jerusalem.
38:52 He died outside the great city of Jerusalem that so we may be able to enter
38:59 the greater new Jerusalem.
39:05 See, if we think on the gospel, the gospel itself should unlock our hearts.
39:12 If the gospel doesn't move us, if it doesn't consume us, if it doesn't fill our hearts that the God most high
39:20 so loved us that he sent his son to die for us. If that doesn't move us, doesn't change us, nothing will,
39:26 nothing will. But if it does, if it fills our heart,
39:32 we must go out and we must share the good news with other people.
39:40 Tabiti Anible said it best when he wrote this in one of his sermons. He said,
39:46 "The wrath of God will cost somebody their life.
39:52 It will either cost the unreached peoples their life for eternity or it will cost us Christians our earthly
39:59 lives in missionary service. So here's the question
40:06 that we must consider today. Dare we be so in love with our lives in
40:14 this city in this world at this time that we will stand back? Why 8 million
40:22 people in Koala Lumpur lose their souls and their lives in the world and in the
40:28 city to come. Dare we love our lives that much?
40:38 It was Adrian Rogers who used to say, "The gospel is only good news if it gets
40:44 there in time." The wrath of God upon the world means we
40:52 need to be urgent in getting the gospel there
40:57 in time. We have to go out and share the gospel.
41:05 We have to go out and gospelize. We have to do it personally.
41:13 We have to do it in our workplaces. We don't have to do it from the pulpit.
41:20 We don't have to wait for experts. When you love food, you go and tell your
41:25 buddy there's great food. Who's going to get you to that restaurant? Your buddy or the food connoisseur?
41:33 Your buddy will. You must share the gospel personally.
41:39 We have to do it corporately. We have to do it together as a small group, as a church, as churches working together.
41:46 Because when we do it corporately, we will have a local movement.
41:53 As churches work together, we have a local movement that will affect the global, the globe, the world around us.
42:03 So we must share the gospel. The question is, dare we not to
42:10 dare we stand by and see 8 million people lose their lives forever?
42:18 Dare we? Let us pray.
42:28 Heavenly Father, we come before you and we
42:34 we know we admit that we have fallen short of your glory so many times in our lives. We deserve your wrath. But it is
42:41 because of the great news of Jesus Christ. The gospel of Jesus Christ because you sent your son to die for us
42:48 to absorb the wrath that you have for us and our and the ability for us to put
42:53 our faith in him because somebody shared the gospel with us that we can stand here and that we have hope. Father, we
42:59 thank you for a new government. We thank you for what you're doing in Malaysia. We thank you for what you're doing in Koala Lumpur. But father, we realize one
43:07 thing that it is not politics that will change the city. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ that will change the city.
43:14 Father, we ask that you will raise up men and women that will stand together
43:20 and share the good news, regardless the persecution, regardless the confrontation, regardless the cost,
43:27 regardless of how much they love their lives, that they are willing to live their lives as missionary service, that
43:32 they're willing to live their lives as a living sacrifice. Father, we ask by the power of your Holy Spirit that you move
43:37 in everybody's heart, Father. For we know that you have plans for this city. As we seek the welfare
43:43 for this city, Father, we ask that your gospel will move, that we will see signs
43:49 of unbelievers coming to faith, that we see miracles of change in Qua Lumpur, of
43:55 a growing Christianity. Father, we ask for your help. For without your help, we are useless. But
44:02 if you are for us, who can be against us? I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
