Radical Like Jesus

Sermon Transcript

I love this church. It's full of fanatics. And Winston Churchill wants to find a fanatic as someone who won't change his mind and won't change the subject. And this church is fanatic about Jesus Christ. And let's praise God for a church that believes in the power of the gospel and the preaching of God's word.

We have far too many timid pastors who are preaching week sermons to wimpy congregations, resulting in a feeble impact on a fractured society. What we need is bold pastors preaching strong sermons to brave congregations, resulting in a mighty impact on the mess of society. And that's the heart of brave church. And it is an honor to be able to come here and preach the word to you today. And I just got to say, you guys have my favorite vision statement from any church.

I looked up brave online and I saw this right away. Assembling a spirit filled army to fight for the fulfillment of the great commission in our lifetime. Now that is a vision statement. And I'm coming in because I'm the dare to share guy. I train and equip teenagers and adults all over the world how to share the gospel.

I'm like Liam Neeson in the movie taken. I have a very particular set of skill that I have honed over 33 years of ministry. I will look for you, I will find you and I will gospelize you. That's what we do at dare to share. And so it's an honor to be able to be here and share with you today about what it means to be a radical like Jesus.

Now, notice what, I didn't say radical for Jesus. We don't need any more radicals for Jesus. We need radicals who are just like Jesus. And it was a radical like Jesus that reached my whole family for Christ in north Denver. I was not raised in a typical religious, church going, pew sitting, hymn singing family.

I come from a family filled with bodybuilding to back at you and beer drinking thugs. And that's just the women, sadly. But my three of my uncles were competitive bodybuilders. The fourth one was a bouncer at the toughest bar in Denver. The fifth one was a gold gloves boxer, judo champion, and war hero.

I was not tough. I was like young Sheldon in the hood. And I was terrified of my own family. Matter of fact, the Denver mafia, the Smalldones, had a nickname for my uncles. They called them the crazy brothers.

So when the mafia thinks your family's dysfunctional, that's not good. And that was my family. In and out of jail fights all the time I was a scared, scarred little kid in north Denver. But then one day everything changed. There was a radical like Jesus, who was a hill belly preacher from the deep woods of backwoods of Georgia, whose nickname, for whatever reason, was Yankee.

And on a dare, he reached my toughest uncle, my uncle Jack, with the gospel. We got a picture of my uncle Jack. So you don't think I'm exaggerating? He looks like the Wolverine, in and out of jail his whole life. Once for choking two cops out at the same time who are trying to arrest him on assault charges.

Well, this hillbilly preacher, nicknamed Yankee, was daredevil to go and share the gospel with my uncle Jack. So on a Saturday morning, he knocks on my uncle Jack's door. Uncle Jack comes to the door, no shirt on, tattoos everywhere. Two beer cans, one for drinking beer, one for spit and chew. You didn't want to get those mixed up Uncle Jack talking like this.

What do you want? This hillbilly preacher said, my name's Yankee. I'm here on Adair from Bob Daley to tell you about Jesus. My uncle Jack said, well, I don't know Jesus. I know Bob.

I'll give you five minutes. And in that five minutes, this hillbilly preacher, this radical like Jesus, shared the good news of the gospel of grace with my uncle Jack. And he had never heard the gospel so clearly presented. And at the end he said, does that make sense to my uncle Jack? My uncle Jack said, hell, yeah.

That was the sinner's prayer was hell, yeah. And have you ever been a new believer that doesn't know the rules yet about loving your enemies? Cause Jack started telling everybody about Jesus. And if they didn't take Jesus, he may give them Moses right upside their head. He brought 250 people out to Yankees church in one month.

One month.

And one by one by one, my family members came to Christ because of one radical like Jesus. But there was a few holdouts, and one of the holdouts was my mom. We got a picture of my mom. My mom was the only girl in his family with five bodybuilding, tobacco chewing, beer drinking ducks. She was the only girl, and they were all afraid of her because she used a baseball bat when she fought.

My mom had a rage inside her, and I didn't know why until I was twelve years old. My grandma sat me down. She said, you know why your ma often cries when she looks at you? I go, no. She said, because you were the result of a one night stand.

And when she got pregnant with you, she drove from Denver to Boston to have an illegal abortion.

But she stayed with your uncle Tommy and Aunt Carol, who talked her out of it. She came back and when she would look at you, she would often cry because she felt so much shame. The reason she's so violent to so many others is she feels so much shame. So when I was twelve, I went to Yankees church. This hillbilly preacher, he trained me to share my faith.

First person on my heart was my ma. And I started telling my ma about Jesus. And she used to smoke her cigarette and say, you don't know the things I've done wrong. I knew everything because Grandma told me. I said, it doesn't matter.

Jesus died for all your sins. And three years later, after three years of trying, when I was 15 years old, I was privileged to lead my own Motichrist and disciple her and see her freed from shame. And the fact that this is a church that goes out to abortion clinics and expresses the hope of Christ and the grace of Christ through faith in Christ. To bring hope, brings great joy, to let's give God a hand for being a part of a church that reaches those who are filled with shame.

Radicals like Jesus, that's what we're called to be. There was nobody who's ever been more radical than Jesus. Jesus touched the disease filled skin of the lepers. He spoke into the sin filled soul of the prostitutes. He threw out the greed filled money changers of the temple.

He enraged the religious leaders of his time. He reached the notorious sinners of his day. He spoke up for the outcasts and he stood up for the outclass. He welcomed the little children when nobody else would. And he invited the samaritan woman into God's family when no one else dared.

He dined with the sinners, he drank with the dregs. He talked with the losers. He gave to those who begged. He allowed women into his circle when everyone else was pushing them out, when everyone else was vying for power. He was washing mud encrusted feet when everyone else was maneuvering for more, he was living on less.

When everyone wanted him to be a king, he chose to be a servant. Nobody who's ever lived has been as radical as Jesus. And we are his followers, which means we are called to be radical like Jesus. Some of you may be thinking, wait, wait a minute, preacher, wait a minute, wait a minute, preacher. I'm not Jesus first John two six.

Whoever claims to live in him speaking of Jesus, must live as Jesus did. And you may be thinking, well, how do I do? That, I mean, he was the son of goddesse. Listen to me. Jesus was 100% God and 100% human, yet without sin, fully God, fully human, and fully dependent on the Holy Spirit who dwelled inside of him.

So he lived his life out of dependence on the Holy Spirit as a God man. And that same holy spirit who indwelled Jesus indwells us at the moment of salvation and gives us the power to be radical like Jesus. You know, over the last few years, I've been working on a book called radical like Jesus. And it's a book that's 21 chapters based on 21 challenges, and it's based on 21 insights into the life of Christ from the time he's twelve to the time he sends his disciples out to go and reach the world. But every chapter comes with a challenge, and you do the challenge before you read the next chapter.

Because I think there needs to be a wake up call for churches, especially in the United States, that we're not just called to be hearers of the word. We're called to be doers of the word. Sometimes we talk about executing the text, but we don't execute the mission because we're so busy in meetings. We love our meetings. Let's have a big meeting, everybody.

Let's have a bunch of smaller meetings leading up to the big meeting. Then we'll do the big meeting because we're christians. Then we'll have another meeting to talk about how the big meeting went. So in future meetings, we have better meetings. And there's nothing wrong with meetings, but we have to be on mission.

And I believe that God has called every one of you to be on mission as a radical like Jesus. At your job, in your neighborhood, in your circle of friends, in your family, at your school.

Everyday people who are radicals like Jesus. I think of my buddy, Donnie Coxey. Donnie works at Jack's outdoor gear in Broomfield, and he works in the fishing department. And he is sharing Christ. Almost every time I talk to him on the phone, he's telling me the latest story of somebody.

He shared Christ with coworkers and family and friends and customers, and he doesn't get fired because he's the best salesman they got there. And he does it in an appropriate way, but he is always dropping gospel crumbs. He's a radical like Jesus. I think of a little old lady named Char Leslie who went to be with the Lord eight months ago. I've known her for over 40 years.

I was a roofer when I met her, and I was roofing her house with our roofing crew. She was so filled with the Holy Spirit and hospitality, she made pies and cakes and all sorts of goodies for us at the breaks. And over lunch, she shined with the light of Christ, and we roofed her house very slowly because all her food was delicious.

And I was in her hospice room eight months ago, a few days before she died. And even then, she's ministering to the nurses and sharing the gospel. Char Leslie. A radical like Jesus. But it's not just Donnie, and it's not just shar.

It's you. So how do you do this? How do you become radical like Jesus? I believe Matthew, chapter nine, verses 36 through 38, gives us the keys. Speaking of Jesus, when he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

Then he said to his disciples, the harvest was plentiful, but the workers, a few, asked the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. I believe in this passage we get five insights, five keys, what it means to live radically like Jesus. I'm going to give you the first right now. Number one, you want to live radically like Jesus. You have to see what Jesus saw.

You have to see what jesus saw when he saw the crowds. I counted 59 times in the Gospels, where the Bible says Jesus saw, or he looked in almost every instance. Before Jesus heals or saves or even prays, he sees.

Do you see the lost? How many of in this room wear contacts or glasses? Let me see your hands. My hands are up. I wear contacts.

I remember the first time I tried to put them in. It took 45 minutes per eye. I almost quit. But then once I got him in, I'm like, I'm never going back. Cause now I can see.

We need the contact lenses of Jesus Christ, and we need to see like Jesus saw. I'll never forget, I travel. I'm a traveling evangelist. I travel all around the world, preaching the gospel, training teens and adults how to share the gospel. I was at the airport, Denver international, and I was buying some gum, and I talked to this lady.

I go, how are you doing today? She goes, good. I go, it's pretty busy. She goes, it is? And I go, yeah, I bet you're just busy all day.

Time flies. She goes, it does. And she's kind of looking at me weird. I go, are you okay? She goes, yeah, it's just weird.

I go, what's weird? She goes, I talk to a thousand people a day, and I talk to nobody. But you're actually looking in my eyes, and you're talking to me. Thank you for seeing me. I want to tell you this.

There are people in your world that are not being seen. When you give eye contact, when you smile, when you ask questions, and when you listen, it opens up a portal in their soul. See, like Jesus saw. Secondly, feel what Jesus felt. See what Jesus saw.

Feel what jesus felt when he saw the crowds. He had compassion on them. Now, that word compassion in THe GReek, is a unique greek word. Splagnizomi. I love saying it.

Splagnizomai. That greek word is the most intense feeling of empathy that you can have. It is a pain to your very bowels. So it is literally hurting in YOur guts for someone else.

I remember when I was in India, I was doing a preaching tour. I preached 56 times in 18 days in and around Bangalore, India. And we're. They just after I preached, they put me in a van, and we go to the next place, and we're in a van at a stoplight, and I get a knock on my window, and I look out, nobody's there. I look down.

It's a little girl. Tattered clothes, dirty face, matted hair. And she starts doing this. And I realized she was starving. And in my soul, for the first time, I felt splagnizomide.

And I reached in my pocket with tears coming down my face. I grabbed all the rupees out I had and put them in her outstretched hand. And I remember tears flowing down my face as we drove away. And I saw her in the rear view mirror.

And that's how we must feel every time we see somebody who does not know Christ. If we could see the spiritual poverty in their lives, tears would be flowing down our face.

And so many times it's easy to judge people. You see somebody who's angry and you think to themselves, well, you know, they're just jerks. But oftentimes there's pain behind that. A couple months ago, I was on a flight from Nairobi to Frankfurt and then back to the United States. And we're on this flight, and it's a midnight flight.

And every crying baby in Nairobi must have been on that plane, because they're all crying in unison. It was so. It was so bad. I started laughing. But there was a guy who wasn't laughing four rows up in the window seat, a big guy who sounded like Ivan Drogov from Rocky IV.

A big guy starts yelling at the moms, shut your babies up. Shut all your babies up. Shut them up. We did not get on this flight to hear your babies. Shut up.

And everybody got instantly nervous. The flight attendants started giving more vodka, which did not calm him down. And then I saw him leaning into the girl next to him was about my daughter's age. The girl looked about my daughter's age. African girl whispering something.

And I'm starting to go north Denver a little bit. I'm like, oh, here we go, here we go, here we go. I take off a little fanny pack just in case. Stretch out. But then I pray, lord, fill me with your holy spirit, because it's going to be bad if you don't fill me.

Fill me with your holy spirit. I called a flight attendant over. I said, I want to switch seats with that girl. And he goes, bro, I don't want any problems. I go, I don't either.

I will defuse the situation because the spirit of God is in me. I'm thinking to myself. So he asks the girl, and she gladly switches. And I sit down, and I'm not. It's like a movie from the time I sit down, he starts pushing me.

Ah, you come sit in the seat, huh? You sit in the seat. You take the seat of the girl. He's kind of pushing me, and I'm praying, fill me, fill me, fill me. Meanwhile, my flesh is going hit up.

And I'm like, shut up. Get up. No, no, sh he grabs my dare to share hat, my baseball hat, and he pulls it down. He goes, I like your hat. I took it off.

I go, you like my hat? He goes, yeah, I like your hat. I go, then it is my gift to you, my friend. And he goes, you give me a hat. I go, I give you my hat because you're my friend.

I'm sitting next to you. He goes, you give me a hat. He gives me a hat. More vodka. And so I'm like, oh, here we go, here we go.

And he is pounding a vodka. And I start sharing the gospel with him, and he begins to open up his life and that his wife had left him and his kids were disassociated with him and all the pain in his soul. And it's almost like I could see the tears flowing into that vodka. And I shared Christ with him. He didn't put his faith in Christ, but it was powerful, because in that seat, I felt splagnizomai.

And when we left, he says, I will come to America someday. I will find your house, and I will bring you a gift. I go, no vodka, please. No vodka. But so many people in our world are hurting, and we need to feel splagnizomi in our soul.

We need to see how Jesus saw. We gotta feel what Jesus felt. We got to imagine what Jesus imagined when he saw the crowds. He had compassion on them. Why?

Because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Now, I want you to imagine Jesus imagining the crowd as he looked at the crowd. He imagined them as sheep without a shepherd. And in this culture, when you saw a sheep without a shepherd, you knew those sheep were in trouble because it was just a matter of time before the wild animals got him.

It gave me a flashback to when I was six or seven years old. Once a year, my grandfather, my grandmother, would take me in her ford f 150 yellow truck with a camper shell to the rocky mountains. We'd go to the white river national forest, and we would fish for two weeks. And this is the closest person I've ever had to a father figure. My grandpa.

I didn't like fishing, but I like being with my grandpa. And I'll never forget the day he goes, go get some tackle out of the truck. I'm six or seven trucks about a quarter mile away, and I got to climb up a big hill through the forest. And I'm getting nervous because I'm imagining all the bears and the mountain lions and all the stuff out there. And I am not kidding you.

I crest this hill, and I am eye to eye, face to face, no joking, with a little lost land in the middle of the rocky mountains. And at first I'm shocked, because I think it's an attack land. No, I don't know. You know, at first I'm shocked. Then I realized, this is a lost lamb, and it's going to die if I don't get it back to its shepherd or wherever it belongs.

And I lunged to grab it, and it ran, and I chased it. And I remember running into the forest, thinking to myself, that lamb is dead.

Listen, we are living in a generation of lost lambs that desperately need the hope of Christ, and we need to exercise our imagination for these lambs because they're harassed and helpless. There's two greek words for harassed and helpless. One is scullo. One is ripto. Scullo means lacerated, torn, shredded.

Ripto means pushed to the ground. So when jesus saw the crowd, they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. It's not just that they're just kind of wandering around. He imagined them as being charged upon by wolves and lions and predators that are coming in to kill them and shredding them along the way and knocking them to the ground. When Jesus saw the crowds, he imagined the mess of their lives, the hell they were headed to and the hell they were going through apart from a relationship with them.

And we need to exercise our imaginations more because the students you go to school with, the people you work with, the family you're in, the neighborhood that you're in, you're around people that are harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. They desperately need Christ. And we need to imagine. We must allow the paintbrush of God's word to paint a picture of hell that's so shockingly horrific that it compels us to rescue our friends. We must allow scripture to paint a picture of heaven that's so glorious that we can't wait to get our coworkers there.

We must allow the spirit of God to open our eyes to the people around us who are lost, sheep harassed and helpless, that desperately need the shepherd of their souls. I am so grateful for my youth leader. When I was twelve years old, my youth leader, Tim O. Sanchez, sent me to the Westminster Mall on an imagination exercise. He said, I want you to go to a busy part of the mall.

I want you to sit on a bench, and for 30 minutes, I want you to watch people, and I want you to put an imaginary sign in their forehead that simply reads, bound for hell. And I want you to think about the hell they're headed to. And I want you to imagine the flames of hell, and I want you to imagine the hell they're going through apart from Christ. And I remember doing that for 30 minutes. And after 30 minutes, my shirt was wet and soaked in tears because for the first time I felt that splagnizomi.

For the first time I had that deep compassion in my soul. Listen, I still see the sign today. I see it when I'm walking down my neighborhood and I see my neighbors who don't know Christ. I see it when I'm at the mall. I see it when I'm at the airport.

I see it when I'm driving in traffic. I'm asking you, will you see the sign?

Will you imagine as Jesus imagined? Will you pray like Jesus prayed? You want to be radical like Jesus, you gotta pray like Jesus prayed. Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.

That word ask in the Greek literally is beg.

And I know this is a praying church, but I'm going to ask you to be a begging church.

We beg. What do we need to beg? We need to beg for the lost to be saved.

It's called intercessory prayer. The latin word for intercession comes from two words. I go between. It's a go between. You're standing between someone else and the danger they're facing.

When I was nine years old, north Denver lived about 20th and federal, walking a ten block walk to brown elementary school. Cold October day. Somehow I talked my ma into buying me a leather jacket because I thought that would make me cool. Because at the time there was a sitcom called happy Days where the fonz wore a leather jacket and was cool. The leather jacket did not help me at all with being cool, but it saved my life that day because as I walk into school, I see from across the street two german shepherds coming right at me, their ears back, their teeth bared.

They're going to attack me. I back up against a chain link fence. I lock one hand on one side, one hand on the other. One goes for my arm, one goes for my gut. And they're both trying to rip me and tear me down.

And they're moving their whole bodies. And I knew if they got me to the ground, I'd be dead. So I am screaming. And just when my fingers are about to let loose, I see out of the corner of my eye a little old lady, about 80 years old named Ma Zemer with a baseball bat, shuffling down the sidewalk, cursing like a sailor. And boom, she hits one dog.

And boom, she hits the other dog. She stood between me and those dizzy, snarling dogs, swinging that bat, standing between me and the danger. She was my intercessor. We are called to intercede. We are called to pick up the baseball bat of prayer and fight against Satan by interceding for our lost family and friends and those who don't know Christ.

We beg. We beg for the lost to be saved. And then we beg for the saved to be sent. When Jesus said, ask the Lord of the harvest to send forth workers into his harvest field, that word sent forth in the Greek is Ekbalo. It means to catapult out, to send out, to thrust out.

And I'm going to ask you to pray. Because what I do with dare to share, and what we do with dare to share is we mobilize teenagers as harvest workers to go out to their public schools, to their christian schools, to their homeschool co ops, to share the gospel across the United States and around the world. And on November 9, last November, we did one of these. It's called dare to share life. It's a day of global youth evangelism.

Last year, we had 42 countries, tens of thousands of teens, and these teens were followed out. They went out into their cities, and they shared the gospel. Then they go back to their campuses on Monday morning and share the gospel. And we love it because those who come to Christ, 80% of those that come to Christ, do it by the time they're 18 years of age. And one teenager on fire for Christ who posts a gospel video on TikTok, can reach more than Billy Graham reached in 15 sold out stadium events.

Would you join me in prayer that November 9, God would raise up an army of churches to mobilize teenagers all across their cities with the hope of Jesus Christ. Would you beg with me?

If we want to be radical like Jesus, we must see what Jesus saw, feel what Jesus felt. Imagine like Jesus. Imagine. Pray like Jesus prayed, and finally do what Jesus did. What did he do?

Matthew 935. Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, healing every disease and sickness. Jesus set the pace. We must set the pace. I love it when teenagers share the gospel.

We just. We're wrapping up a major research project. You know what we discovered? The number one influence on whether or not a christian teenager shares the gospel is whether or not they have adults in their lives who are modeling, sharing the gospel. So, moms and dads, are you modeling that for your kids?

Grandparents, are you modeling that for your grandkids? If not, today is the day to start. We need to set the pace for the next generation like Jesus. Set the pace for the disciples. This is for you to be a radical like Jesus.

You're not just a construction worker today. You're choosing to become a radical like Jesus. You're not just an engineer or a teacher or a marketing executive or a business owner or a computer programmer or a full time mom. Today, you're choosing to become a radical like Jesus. Now, how do you do that?

I'm gonna give you a couple action steps. Number one, choose to live a life that's radical like Jesus every day. Choose to live a life that's radical like Jesus every day. When you open the word in the morning and you find something the spirit of God is teaching you, say, God. How would you like me to apply that in my life in a very practical way today?

Cause we're not just hearers of the word. We're doers of the word. We're radicals like Jesus. Jesus said, blessed are you, if you not just hear this, but you do what I tell you. Some of you, you freaked out.

Cause you're like this crazy guy. His veins are popping, he's sweating all over the place, challenging me to become radical like Jesus. That just seems, like, impossible for me. And you'd be right. Let me show you an illustration.

This is a work glove, okay? It's the same kind of work glove I used for eight years as a roofer. Now, here's the problem with the work glove. It's a liar. It's lying because it doesn't work.

I went to Home Depot, it says work gloves. I'm like, yeah, well, work, work glove. Come on, work glove.

False advertising.

The work glove only works when the hand goes in the glove. Now, once the hand goes in the glove, the glove can do anything the hand can do.

You and I, apart from Christ, we could do nothing. But when he fills us with his holy spirit, we can be radicals like Jesus. We can do anything Jesus did, because it's not us, it's him in us and through us, choose to live a life that's radical like Jesus every day. Here's my second practical action point. Get radical like Jesus the book, and put it into practice.

I'm gonna encourage you to get this book. Let me just tell you. Let me tell you this. This book's got 21 challenges. And you take the challenge before you read the next chapter.

And my wife and I are just now wrapping up all the challenges. And my wife is not like me. She's normal.

She's a little bit shy till you get to know her. But we've been doing these challenges, and about a month ago or so, we did the hardest challenge in the book, because some are easy, some are medium, and there's some that are hard. And she told me afterward, every christian needs to do this. This has stretched me, but this is good. So I challenge you.

Do it as a family. Do it as a small group. Just do it yourself. Do it with a group of friends. But read the chapters and put it in to practice.

Take this and put it into practice as a believer and be a doer of the word. Some of you are still saying, well, I don't know. I don't know if I have what it takes. I want to tell you the story of Aisha and my friend Joe. My friend Joe is a kenyan national.

He's been trained in the dare to share materials. He's trained literally hundreds and thousands of students and leaders across Africa how to share the gospel using dare to share material. That's awesome. He went to Zanzibar. Now, Zanzibar, you got to understand, evangelism is illegal in Zanzibar, 98% Muslim.

So he's a little bit nervous going in. He's supposed to find a group of christian teens that are waiting for him. He's lost. So he meets this young muslim girl named Aisha. This teenage girl says, I know the place.

I'll take you there. And so she's very kind, and she grabs him by the hand and takes him to this place. And she's asking about the meeting. And he goes, well, it's for christian teen. She goes, I wanna go.

And he was nervous, but he invited her in. So he motivated everybody to share the gospel. He had em download our life in six words, faith sharing app. So they all downloaded it, including Aisha. And then they role played evangelism conversations using the app.

And the christian girl taking Aisha through at the very end and says, does that make sense? Are you ready to put your faith in Christ? And Aisha said, yes. And the christian girl goes, were you just role playing, or did you really trust in Jesus? She goes, no, I really trusted in Jesus.

I've never understood this message before, that God loves me, I believe in Jesus. She takes him to Joe. Joe rejoices. Everyone rejoices. But now Aisha is on fire.

She can't wait to tell all of her muslim friends, which is dangerous. She tells five of her friends. Three of them indicate faith in Christ. Two of them call her kaphir, which means infidel. They turned her into the muslim authorities.

Aisha, this teenage girl is arrested as a brand new believer. They said, you have 24 hours to recant your faith, otherwise we will kill you. She said, I'm not recanting my faith, but I do request, would you let me write a letter? And these muslim authorities graciously allowed her to write a letter to all of her friends and family and classmates. And in that letter, she explained the gospel as clearly as she knew how.

And that letter circulated. And student after student and parent after parent, family after family, started putting their faith in Jesus Christ, and they could not arrest them all. And a revival broke out in Zanzibar. And 24 hours later, 24 hours later, they marched Aisha to the town square, and they stoned her and they killed her. And she lost her life.

She died for her faith. She died as a brand new believer who was already a radical like Jesus. And I look at the typical Christian in America, and most of us are not willing to not only die for our faith, but even die of embarrassment to risk our social equity for the sake of the gospel. So I'm challenging you in light of the memory of Aisha, who now is in heaven, cheering us on, that you would take that step of faith and you would say, I will, by God's grace, through God's power, choose to be a radical like Jesus. And if you're willing to do that, I want to challenge you to start today.

I really encourage you to pick up the book. They're out in the lobby. We're making those available to you today as our gift. We're just asking that you would prayerfully consider a donation to the ministry of dare to share every dollar, every dime, we'll go to mobilize a generation. I've written 23 books.

I've never taken a penny from any of them. Every dollar, every dime of any donation you choose to make will go to mobilize a generation for the gospel. And if you're watching from Westminster or Colorado Springs online, you can purchase a copy with this QR code. You can just get that online. And if you're already on audible, I'll read it to you myself.

So just listen to it on audible. But I encourage you to not only get the book, but to do it. To put those into practice. And step by step, you'll learn to become a radical like Jesus. But some of you, you can't be a radical like Jesus because you don't yet know him.

Do you know for sure that God is your father? Do you know for sure? All your sins are forgiven? Past, present, future? Do you know for sure you're going to go to heaven when you die?

If you do not, I'm going to tell you how you can know that for sure. And I'm going to use the most radical verse in the Bible that is often quoted and seldom understood. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

I'm going to show you the illustration that Yankee, that hillbilly preacher, showed to my uncle Jack that I showed to my mom.

That really clarifies that message of the gospel. Pretend like this hand is you and me and everyone in the world. Pretend like this hand is God. Pretend like this is our sin now. God created us to be with him.

Genesis one and two is proof of that. Adam and Eve and goddess in perfect harmony in the garden. Everything is good. God loves us, but we sin. Genesis three, we all have sinned.

Fall short of the glory of God. God's perfect, and our sins separate us from God.

When Adam and Eve sinned and Genesis three had changed the course of humanity, we're separated from God and we're condemned to hell forever. And there's nothing we can do about it. Religion says we'll live a good life, go to church, be nice. But our sins, they can't be removed by good deeds. It's like they're super glued to us.

Our good deeds are like putting white frosting on a burnt cake. So we're headed to hell. There's nothing we can do about it. That's the bad news. The good news is God did something about it.

2000 years ago, God sent his son Jesus into the world, and Jesus lived a perfect life we could never live. And Jesus died in our place for our sin. He took all of our sin upon himself. He paid the price, leaving us none to pay. For he rose from the dead, proving he was God.

And now he says this, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. Whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. That word believe is not just mental assent. It means to trust. It is a transfer of trust from your good deeds to Christ alone.

And when you put your faith in Christ and receive that gift of eternal life, coming to him as a sinner, full of that sin, knowing you can't save yourself from your sin, you put your faith in Jesus, you receive that gift of eternal life, and you have a relationship with God that can never be broken by you and will never be broken by him. And that is not a license to sin. It's a reason to go all in to serve Christ because you're grateful for the free gift of eternal life that he's given you through faith.

So today is the day of salvation.

Today is your opportunity, if you've never done this, to receive that free gift through faith in Christ, so can I have everybody bow your heads and close your eyes. No one looking around, heads bowed, eyes closed. I want you to do business with God. This is the reason I have you close your eyes. If you're ready to put your faith in Christ right now, you can say this silent prayer in your heart to God.

Dear God, I know I'm a sinner.

I know I deserve hell.

I know I can't be good enough to be in your presence.

But I believe that Jesus died in my place for all my sins. And I receive that gift of eternal life right now through faith, with heads bowed and eyes closed. If you just put your faith in Jesus. You are saved. You're adopted.

You're born again into the family of God, not because you said a prayer, but because you trusted in Jesus and what he did on the cross 2000 years ago. Because that same Jesus who died rose from the dead. And now he is dwelling in you through his holy spirit. And I want to welcome you to the family of God with heads bowed and eyes closed. If that message made sense for the very first time, can you simply raise up your hand and put it right back down?

If you trusted in Jesus today and received that gift, God bless all of you. God bless all of you.

Anyone else? That message made sense for the first time. I'm trusting in Jesus right now. I receive that gift. God bless you.

Everyone look up just now. I don't know how many, but many were transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear son. They've been adopted into the family of God.

Praise God. There's a party in heaven right now and it's so appropriate that today is baptism day because that decision you just made, you believed in your heart, are justified. There's an opportunity to declare it with your mouth. Jesus is Lord. That's, I believe that's baptism.

When we say publicly, I'm a believer in Christ and I am unashamed of the gospel of Christ. So those of you who put your faith in Christ, don't worry, you're in the family. But take that next step to get baptized. Let somebody on church staff know so you can, everybody can publicly celebrate this internal decision you just made. But this internal decision is not meant to stay in.

It's meant to go out. One more time. Let's give God a hand for bringing these in.

In just a moment, we're going to have those baptisms. For those of you after that, if you'd like to meet me in the floor, I'd love to sign your book again. We're giving those books away, just asking you to consider a donation. But before we move on to the baptisms, I want to pray for you. I'm going to ask that you keep your eyes open as I do, Father.

I pray for brave church.

Make them brave on every level, Lord. Not just to come to church, not just to give, not just to be involved with the church, Lord, make them brave on that level, but make them brave on the level of your son. To be radicals like Jesus, to see how Jesus saw, to feel how Jesus felt, to imagine how Jesus imagined, to pray like Jesus prayed and to do what Jesus did. Unleash this church to spark a revival in Denver. Through the gospel of grace in our lives and through our lives.

Lord, use brave church in a powerful way. And may today's baptism be a symbol of all that you're doing through brave church. In Jesus name we pray and all God's children said, amen. Amen.