Living the Gospel | Jud Wilhite

Wow, what an amazing time of worship, man. That was so awesome, and we want you guys to know, speaking of worship, March 11th, mark your calendars. We have our Night of Worship. We are so excited. This is our invite to you. We wanna give a quick shout out to all of those that are watching online and in prison facilities with our partnership with God Behind Bars and the Pando app. Yes, and now is the perfect time to pull out your Central Church app. Under the experience tab, head to our teaching notes and follow along, and let's welcome up Pastor Judd as he continues, or starts our series, Spread the Word. All right. Welcome, you guys. Great to have you here with us today. I wanna do, as always, a big shout out to our Central family locations, joining us, Central Sunrise Mountain and Summerlin, Kingman, and Aliante. Love you guys. Thank you for being with us this weekend. Well, we all woke up Saturday morning to the heavy news that we are at war with Iran, along with Israel, and I thought it might be appropriate before we kind of dive into the message that I think is gonna bring a lot of encouragement to you to just pause and pray,

and to pray for our country, to pray for our government, our president, our leaders, to pray for our military. Some of you have friends and family members stationed in the Middle East in some of these different areas. To pray for the Iranian people, and a good friend of mine is a pastor, fled from the revolution when he was nine years old to America, and he texted me today, and he said, you know, Judd, a lot of people don't know that in Iran, what's been happening in the underground church over the last five years may be the fastest growing underground church in the entire world. I don't know how you document that, right, when you could be literally killed for switching from Islam to Christianity. So, you know, a lot of persecution, a lot of oppression has gone on there, not only among his own family, but many followers of Jesus, and one of the things that I said, what can we pray for the people? He said, well, one of the things that we could pray is that revival would break out in that country and spread around the world, so. But there's a lot of things going on, and it's all above my pay grade, right?

It's above all of our pay grades. Only God can handle situations like these, and I think it's appropriate if we just humble ourselves and go before him and ask for his guidance and wisdom. So will you pray with me? God, we do come before you, and we humble ourselves, we acknowledge that you are good and true, and righteous. God, we acknowledge we so often fall short, and we so often only see things from one perspective, but God, we know that you see all things, we know you have a plan and a purpose, and we believe you are working that out. And we pray right now for our governmental leaders, we pray for our military leaders, we pray for our president, we pray you give them wisdom and insight that is from you, that's spiritual, that's supernatural. I pray you protect our men and women our men and women serving our country in the armed forces, and you watch over them. I pray for the people of Iran, and pray that you will watch over them. I pray that somehow in all of this, you could bring good out of it, and that you will move powerfully in it. We remember our brothers and sisters who are followers of Jesus in Iran, and we pray that you will watch over them and protect them.

God, we pray that revival will break out in their communities, that more people will come to know Jesus and trust him. And we pray that through all of this, God, you will move and you will work. And so we commit all the aspects of what's happening in the Middle East to you. We pray for your guidance, and we pray for peace in the Middle East. In Christ's name, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Well, I was thinking prepping this message this week that we had this moment right around the turn of the calendar year, where a lot of people started posting on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook, social media, pictures from 10 years ago, from 2016. Some of you remember this moment. It was like, everywhere you looked, people were like, here's a photo of me back in 2016. Here's this thing that happened back in 2016. And I think it was nostalgia that drove some of that. You know, 10 years isn't that far back, but it kind of seems like it was a long time ago, right?

In fact, let's just go back to 2016 here for a quick minute. Stranger things, the first season came out in 2016. This is wild. They just wrapped it up 10 years later. A gallon of milk in 2016 was $3.06 instead of almost $5 like it is today. AirPods first came out in 2016, so of course now there's this whole move to go back to wired earphones. Anyway, I don't understand that. Okay, Pokemon Go. That came out in 2016. You had kids running around parks trying to get different things, and then that's my family in 2016. I kind of look the same, except my son Ethan now towers over me by a solid foot. Ten years ago wasn't that long, right? It wasn't that far back, but it feels like a lot has changed in ten years, doesn't it? COVID happened in those years and all the things that came out of COVID. I mean, doom scrolling wasn't even a thing back then, at least at the level that it is today. America has always been politically divided. One of the most either encouraging or discouraging things you can do is study early American history and realize how ununified we have been since the very beginning. But it certainly feels like, man, right now, I don't know if it's social media, if it's just that much worse, it feels like people are so divided, it's so bitter. There's no crossing over, there's no dialogue, we're here or we're here, and so that division feels enormous. Back in 2016, there were plenty of conspiracy theories, but they weren't all mainstream, at least not at the same time, like it feels like they are today. I mean, back then, your home prices were significantly less, in some cases, 50% less than they are today. A lot has changed.

And I think people posted these pictures and got into this 2016 thing because it was like, it feels like a simpler time, a less divided time, a less chaotic time. Whether it really was or not, I don't know, but we have that sense of nostalgia. We live in a world that's filled with plenty of bad news, but friends, I wanna share with you today what, as a follower of Jesus, we can always carry in our hearts, and that is the good news of Jesus. You don't have to go to the past to have good news. You can have good news today because of what Jesus has done. Listen, the good news is not only that Jesus loves you, can empower you, can forgive you, can give you a purpose. The good news is that God still has a plan. God's still bringing his plan to fulfillment. God's still working his purpose. God is still moving. God is still showing up. God is still being God. And it can give us a tremendous sense of peace in the midst of uncertainty. We as followers of Jesus can be good news in a bad news world. We can be good news in a bad news world, and that's what we're gonna talk about over the next few weeks. I'm just calling this teaching series Spread the Word, and we're looking at the good news of God and the good news of the gospel, and here's what I believe. People are hungry for spiritual meaning in their life. I believe they are hungry for the word of God, even if they don't fully recognize it. I think they are longing for something old and true and something lasting and something that has been around for generations, as opposed to everything that is so fluid and shallow and moving past us so fast. And that is the good news of Jesus. It is available and powerful to change people's lives. Now, the word good news is just the word gospel.

We throw it around. We talk about the gospel or we talk about the gospels, which is a name given to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the four biographies of Jesus, but it just means good news. It's the good news of Jesus. And so let's look at how Paul kind of breaks down the good news of Jesus in Romans chapter 1, beginning in verse 3. This is how he sort of starts off the letter of Romans. Help me out when we get down here to the red words. He says the good news is about his son, God's son. So if you're sitting here today and you're wondering, like, what is the gospel? What is the good news? Paul's going to tell you. The good news is about his son. In his earthly life, he was born into King David's family line, and he was shown to be the son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. He is what? Jesus Christ, our Lord. Paul's like, in case you don't get that, let me just make it super clear, we're talking about Jesus Christ, our Lord. The good news, the gospel, is all about Jesus and what he came to do. Because he rose up, you and I can rise up in him. Because he died for our sins, we can be forgiven and free. Because he reigns at the Father's right hand, he can empower us to walk in faith and walk in love and experience God's goodness and peace in our lives today. And listen, a lot of people, they want to turn to education to solve the world's problems. We want to turn to military solutions to solve the world's problems. problems but let me tell you this the ultimate solution to the world's problems according to the Bible happened when Jesus Christ died on the cross rose again that's the good news of Jesus and it can move and work in our lives today and friends we have an obligation to be good news to people around us can I

encourage you in this season that our primary spiritual obligation isn't to rage bait other people it isn't to insult other people it isn't to tear down other people that our primary obligation as followers of Jesus is to be the good news of Jesus for other people let it spill over out of our lives into their lives let it point to another way filled with goodness and love and kindness let us be honest let us be people of our word let us be people who walk with integrity let us be people who look at with love towards each other and not lust let us be people that treat each other with kindness and honesty and not shadiness and dishonesty let the good news flow out of our lives and let it be a bright light for people in a dark world be good news people in a bad news world and if we're gonna do that I have two simple ideas for you today and the first is this first we have to accept the good news pretty obvious right you have to accept the good news in your own life there's a joke a guy walked in and he said to another guy he said hey I've got good news and I've got bad news which one do you want first and the other guy is like well give me the bad news so he says okay he says the bad news is I've got no good news so the guy's like well all right like then what's the good news he says I've also got no more bad news so anyway there you go how many of you are like that if somebody says give me the good news or give me the bad news how many of you want the bad news first you're like just just give it to me right that's me the research says that's like four out of five of us just like give me the bad news let me deal with it and then you know we'll work it out from there let me know what I'm up against well it's interesting Paul when he writes the letter of Romans he starts with the good news right and then after he shares what the gospel is about Jesus and the good news then he gives them the bad news and he kind of breaks it down but but first Romans chapter 1 verse 16 look at what he says he says for I am NOT ashamed of the good news about Christ some English translations will translate this for I am NOT ashamed of the gospel of Christ same because gospel means good news right I'm not ashamed of this good news about Christ it is the what the power of God at work saving

everyone who believes the Jew first and also the Gentile Gentile just means the non-jewish world and so the power of the gospel is available it's the saving power and Paul says I'm not ashamed of this good news about Christ and he was not ashamed I remember last year we took a group of our church on a spiritual trip called the footsteps of Paul and it was amazing but one of the things that we did is we went inside modern-day Turkey to the ancient ruins of the city of Ephesus and we stood at the ruins of Ephesus which they've excavated enough of it that it's really significant outside of like the Rome and the outside of like the Roman Forum and all of that the Colosseum this is the largest excavation site I've seen I mean it's massive right and you stand there and you look at this ancient row that would have winded down in the city of Ephesus and then I was just overwhelmed with the thought that Paul walks into this city as the first follower of Jesus to walk into the city of Ephesus the guts the courage the stamina to declare Jesus boldly and to see many people come to faith and to see God move through that and he did it again and again and again I mean when Paul says I am NOT ashamed he meant it right and it often cost him in significant ways he says I'm not ashamed of the good news of the gospel now that Greek word translated good news or gospel is eugelion and it literally means like the good news of victory from the battlefield like delivered by a herald and so this is the word that like the early followers of Jesus latched on to to describe what Jesus had done in the world he's saying God's won the victory we get to share in that victory the gospel is the power of God that saves everyone and to understand just how good it is Paul is gonna give us not only the good news then he's gonna give us the bad news right because we need to understand the battle Jesus actually won in some ways it's hard to understand how good the good news is until you get how bad the bad news is Right? And so I'm gonna break it down on a chart here. We're gonna blow through Romans chapter one. I'm gonna throw a lot of scripture at you.

But this is how Paul breaks down the bad news. First of all, the bad news is, for those who do not follow God, he kind of lays this thing down. He says, basically, we reject God. We have a tendency to rebel, to go our own way, to do our own thing. And so in Romans chapter one, verse 21, he says, yes, they knew God, but they wouldn't worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. And as a result, their minds became dark and confused. Right? So we reject God. Then there's another step that happens here. God abandons us. Now I'm just using the language of the text here, Romans 127. So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. Now that word abandoned literally just has the idea of to be handed over. In other words, God handed them over to their own ways. He's like, all right, you wanna do your thing? You wanna do it your way?

You got it all figured out? God bless you. Here we go, third thing. And it leads to dysfunction and disaster. Look at this, Romans 129. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness. Sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. Sounds like the news. So that's the bad news, right? And Paul's saying it's bad, man. Like we reject God, God turns us over to our own simple desires. We end up in dysfunction and disaster. It's a mess. It's bad news. But that makes the good news even better, right? And the good news is this. The good news is that first of all, we can return to God, right? We can return to God. Romans 3, 22, he says, we're made right with God. How? By placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes no matter who we are. Listen, it doesn't matter your background. It doesn't matter your race. It doesn't matter what country you were born in. It doesn't matter what language you speak.

It doesn't matter what your thing is or your addiction was or your rap sheet is. Look, no matter who you are, if you believe and you come to Christ, he's saying we're made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ so we can return to God. This is the good news. And God accepts us. Look at this, Romans 3, 23. For everyone has sinned. We all, everyone, by the way, means everyone. Come on, somebody, I'm just saying. Everyone has sinned. We all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. Jesus died on the cross, and in dying on the cross, he paid the penalty for our sins. The Bible says the wages of sin is death. Jesus died that death on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. And then look at this. Not only can we return to God, God accepts us, but then we experience new life. In fact, Romans chapter six says this. It says, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

By the way, if somebody was to ask me, like, Judd, what is the gospel in one sentence, right? What is the gospel in one sentence? This is what I would point them to right here, this sentence. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. That's the good news of Jesus. That's the good news of God for our lives. And so the bad news is bad. Without Jesus, we're out there, we're lost, we're on our own, we're struggling, we're in the dark. We need God's grace, we need his forgiveness, we need his mercy, but the good news is good. Jesus came to give that to us. How do we receive it? We receive it by faith and trust in him. And it's not only faith and trust in him, because that faith and trust in him then motivates us to eventually change our lives and to begin to walk in ways that are pleasing to him. It starts with faith. Some ways it starts and ends with faith. But once we place that faith and trust in Jesus, it begins to transform our lives. That's what the good news is. You can't fully accept the good news until you fully admit the bad news, right? Bad news is what makes the good news so good. But because of who Jesus is and what Jesus did,

listen, you can be forgiven even though you may have failed, you're invited in even though you may have turned away, you are loved even though you may have hated in your life, you are blessed even though you may have been selfish in your life, you are called even though you may have often refused that calling, you are guided even though you didn't always follow God's guidance. Come on, you're protected. Even though you didn't always listen. accepted, even though you once rejected God and His ways, you're given new life, even though you may have squandered your potential, right? Like, that's the good news. It's good. And I'll just tell you, the bad news is bad, but the good news is better. Next time you're doom-scrolling, I want you to stop and remind yourself, you have good news, right? Next time you feel like the whole world's going somewhere in a handbasket, I want you to stop and remind yourself, you have good news, and that good news is the message of Jesus that can transform our lives as we follow Him in faith. That's the gospel, and we as a church are a church that wants to be committed to the gospel. We don't have a political agenda. We don't have any kind of agenda other than the gospel of Jesus Christ and that gospel going forward and changing people's lives.

That's the hill we stand on, right? That's the hill as a follower of Jesus we die on. It's the gospel of Jesus. And so we want to accept that good news in our lives. We want to accept that good news in our church, and then we want to be that good news in the lives of others. Be good news. I saw this, by the way, I saw this five-star review for the Olive Garden restaurant, which I stopped and read it because the Olive Garden was the first place I took Lori on our very first date. Come on. Every now and then we have to go back. Gotta get like Zupa Toscana and remember again, you know, like, oh yeah. But I saw this review. I thought this was great. This person says, these five stars are for my waitress, Rhonda. I was ugly crying at Olive Garden because I had just lost my job. Rhonda assumed it was because of a man and dropped off an enormous stack of breadsticks and said, sweetheart, men come and go, but these breadsticks are endless. Heh heh heh. Heh heh. She says, it was so funny, I stopped crying immediately. I got back on the job hunt.

Rhonda, you are my guardian angel. Heh heh heh. Heh heh heh. Ah. Well, we may not have breadsticks that are endless to offer people, but we have something even better. We have the good news of Jesus. And so Romans chapter one, beginning of verse 16, Paul says, the good news tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the scriptures say, it is through faith that a righteous person has what? Life. Through faith that a righteous person has life. And so we wanna not only accept the good news in our own lives, be forgiven, be freed, be empowered. We wanna be good news in the lives of other people. And Paul said in the previous verse that the good news of Jesus was the power of God unto salvation. Turn to somebody and just say power. Power. Power, like you have God's power. You know, God's power can show up in a lot of ways. Maybe God's empowered you with like stability in your life and you can be a solid place when others have their lives all shaken up. Or maybe God's empowered you with empathy

so that you can help bear the burdens that others may be carrying. Or maybe God's empowered you with resources or expertise so that you can help others who need material help or practical advice. Maybe God has empowered you with position and influence to open the doors for people who are out of options. Maybe God has empowered you with a story where God met you and delivered you from something similar to what somebody else is going through. You can help them in their darkest time. God's given you power to not only share his good news, but to be his good news in the lives of other people. And so we have a simple strategy for how we wanna be good news in people's lives around here at Central. And I would just call it pray, invest, and invite strategy. First, we pray that God will give us opportunities with our friends and our family who may not believe, who may be far from Him in their lives. We pray that God will open doors and give us opportunities to share our faith, to share the story of what God has done in our lives. Listen, you don't have to have all the answers. You don't have to know your Bible backwards and forwards to share what God has done in your life. Can I tell you some of the most effective people at sharing their faith don't know hardly anything yet. They're new to the faith.

God's just grabbed ahold of their heart and they're willing to share. And they go and just start sharing what God is doing in their life. People can't really argue when you're sharing your story and what God's doing in your life. And God uses that to bring other people to start looking and asking and investigating. And I don't know if you can feel it on the street right now. I don't think it's just me. Everywhere I go, there is a spiritual hunger. People are looking for something solid, real, something they can stand on because it feels like the ground is moving underneath our feet. And so, man, pray that God will give you that opportunity. Invest in a certain friend and maybe just be a good friend to them, no strings attached, be available, help them, pray for them, encourage them. And then if the time presents itself, you could share your faith journey, you could share your story, you could ask them to come along with you to church. I knew a guy years ago, man, he would just go out and meet people and he would say, hey, man, I'll make you a deal. The guy would say, yeah, and he'd say, hey, if you'll come to my casino, I'll go to your casino.

He's like, okay, you know, so he goes, first, we'll go to your casino. So they go to his casino and they had a nice night out, whatever, they did their thing, okay? The next week, he goes, all right, now we're gonna go to my casino and he starts driving up to Central. Saturday night, church. And the guy's like, hey, what are we doing? He said, well, if I went to your casino, you said you'd come with me to my casino. He's like, you're gambling on whatever, but he's like, I'm gambling everything on Jesus Christ and so I'm coming in. They brought the guy, I'm just, I'm just saying God does unconventional things through people that are willing to open their heart and, you know, he can move in ways that we can't underestimate. So pray and invest and invite. In fact, one of my favorite stories is a book by a guy named Terry Muck and he describes this letter that was written by a man who used to have no interest in spiritual matters and he lived next door to a follower of Jesus. And they had this sort of casual relationship, you know, borrow things if they needed to, stuff like that. And then this individual's wife got cancer and died fast within like three months. And this is what he wrote.

He said, I was in total despair and I went through the funeral service and the preparations like I was in a trance. And after the service was over, I went to the path along the river and I walked all night, but I did not walk alone. My neighbor, afraid for me, I guess, stayed with me all night. He did not speak. He didn't even walk beside me. He just followed me. And when the sun came up, he came over to me and he just said, let's go get some breakfast. And this guy writes, I go to church now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, my neighbor's church, because a religion that can produce that kind of caring love my neighbor showed me is something I wanna find out more about. I wanna be like that. I want to love and be loved like that for the rest of my life. Friends, that's what it means to just be good news. Sometimes it's just being present. It's just caring. It's just being available and God can shine brightly through your life. So I wanna do something like super practical with you today.

When you came in, you should have been handed a white card and a pen. I'm gonna ask you to grab that. If you're here today and you have no idea what I'm talking about across our locations, I would encourage you to just raise your hand right now. We've got ushers across our locations. They'll make sure you get just a white card and a pen. And just slip your hand up in the air. Yep, just keep your hands up. We'll have ushers come across our locations and we'll get pens and pieces of paper to you. And as they're doing that, I wanna ask you just to be thinking right now in your own mind for a second. I want you to picture the people in your life. Maybe just kind of close your eyes or bow your head. Just think about the people in your life, your friends, your family, your coworkers, people that you interact with on a normal basis. And I want you to just consider this question like, who would God want me to pray for, to invest in? Maybe even to come along and join me at Easter. Just maybe give it a minute. See if that person doesn't come to your mind. I just kind of encourage you to focus on them. And if you don't have that person in your life, maybe just ask God to bring you into contact with somebody that you can be the good news in their life. And then I want you to just imagine for a moment.

I want you to imagine. Just imagine yourself praying for them. Imagine inviting them to come along with you at Easter. Imagine them sitting in the seat next to you. Imagine them raising their hand and accepting Jesus as their leader and forgiver. And now I wanna ask you, if you can think of the name of that person, I'm gonna ask you to write the first name of that individual on this card. Just write out their first name. We're gonna collect these after our experiences. We're gonna, at each of our locations, put them up in public spaces as a reminder that these are our friends and family that we are praying for collectively as a church and asking God to move and work in their life, asking God to show up in powerful ways. So just go ahead and write their name down on that card. Let's commit these people now to God. Will you just bow and pray with me? God, we thank you for your love for us. We thank you so much for our friends. We thank you for the relationship we have with them, for the friendship we have with them, God. We thank you for what you've done in our lives, the way you've moved and worked. And we know we don't always get to do what we want to do, and we know we don't have all the answers, God, but we pray that you will do in their lives

what you've done in our lives. We pray that you'll give them peace and a sense of purpose and meaning and relationships and community. We pray that you'll fill them with your Holy Spirit. So God, we commit them to you now. If it's your will, if the timing is right, give us the boldness to share our story, to share our faith, to bring them along to Easter, to commit them to you, to ask you to move and work powerfully in their life. And God, we pray they'll come to know you, they'll experience the power of the gospel in their own lives, and they'll be transformed. So we commit them to you now, in Christ's name, amen. Amen. And across our locations, when our service is over, I'm gonna encourage you to take those cards with you, and we'll collect them at the doors, and then in the coming weeks, we'll post them so that we can just be praying for these individuals and lifting them to God, because our mission as a church is to introduce people to Jesus and help them follow him. That's what we're trying to do. That's who we want to be. And you know who the most effective person in the world at introducing their friends to Jesus is? It's you. I could ask for a show of hands, but I've done this a million times,

so I'll just tell you how it'll go. If I ask for a show of hands of how many people came to faith through Billy Graham, or a person like myself, or a pastor or leader, there will be some hands, but if I ask you for a show of hands of how many people came to faith, primarily through the influence of a friend or a family member, almost every hand in the room will go up. You are empowered. Your story matters. And your friends and loved ones are gonna listen to you before they're gonna listen to me or anyone else. So just pray for them and ask God for an opportunity and be open and he can provide it. And who knows, maybe the good news of Jesus can transform their lives just like it's transformed ours. Amen.