St. Matthew’s Evangelical Lutheran Church

Mark 16:15 Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.

Being evangelical means we want to share the Gospel. We want to share the Gospel because the Gospel is good news. I think you’ll agree that good news sounds even better after sad news. Whenever we talk about humans, there is always sad news. As human, we have a gigantic problem. We want to live in heaven. That doesn’t sound like a problem until we realize what God requires to live in heaven.

God requires anyone living in heaven to be perfect. Heaven is perfect and God expects those who live in heaven to be perfect as well. He clearly says, "Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy," (Lev. 19:2). Be holy! Be perfect! "Well," we say, "nobody is perfect." That’s not God’s problem. That is our problem. God doesn’t ask us to want to be perfect or to try to be perfect. He simply says, "Be holy!" That’s it. No excuses!

That takes us to the second part of our problem: what God sees! God demands perfection. He demands holiness. But, when God looks at us he does not see holiness; he sees nothing but sin. He sees people who look at their watches to make sure the sermon isn’t over twenty minutes long, people who get angry when His worship service is one minute past the hour, people who spend hours a week in front of the TV but won’t stay with him in Bible class for one measly hour. He sees you; he sees me. We do not live up to God’s requirements. Rather than holiness all God sees in us is sin. Paul was right when he said, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Rom. 3:23). Sin is our problem.

Of course, we always think that we have the answer to our problems, even the problem of sin. Some of us think, "If I must be perfect, I’ll just have to work harder." We think of our lives as a ladder climbing to heaven. If we would just work hard enough, we could climb to the top. Don’t believe that; it doesn’t work. Every time we sin, we fall back to the bottom of that ladder. Regardless of how hard we try, we will never be perfect.

OK. If we can’t work hard enough to be perfect, maybe we can just try to do more good than evil. We think of our lives as a balance. If we could just do enough good deeds to outweigh the bad ones, we’d be all right, right? Wrong! God says to be perfect, 100%, no bad ones! If we have just one sinful thought in our entire lives, we fail. We will never be perfect.

When all else fails, we try to compare ourselves to others. We think of ourselves as the big stick person looking down on the little stick person. The better we are, the bigger we are, and the more God will want us into His heaven. We keep reminding ourselves how much better we than everyone else. Doesn’t matter. God does not ask us to compare ourselves to others. He commands us to compare ourselves to him. If we want to live in heaven, we must be perfect! Otherwise, we go to hell. We know that we will never be perfect and that we definitely deserve to go to hell. That is terribly sad news.

Then we come to St. Matthew’s EVANGELICAL Lutheran Church and hear that there is good news. At St. Matthew’s EVANGELICAL Lutheran Church we hear about the Gospel. The Gospel tells us that although we cannot solve the problem of sin, God has provided a solution. Jesus Christ is the solution. Jesus did two things for us that helped solve our problem of sin. First, he gave us what we need to get into heaven but don’t have; he gave us holiness. God demands holiness; Jesus was holy in our place. For thirty-three years he lived on this earth in complete obedience. He submitted himself to a sinful government. He humiliated himself to live under the roof of sinful parents. Finally, he became obedient to death, even death on a cross. The evangel or Gospel tells us that we can believe in Jesus’ obedience as our own.

Then, the Gospel tells us that through his death on the cross Jesus did a second thing for us. He took away what we can’t have, sin. On the cross Jesus suffered the punishment for our sin and imperfection. Isaiah said, "The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all," (53:6). That is good news!

The Gospel is good news. Don’t we come to this evangelical church because we want to hear the Gospel again and again? We had a problem, but by means of the cross God solved our problem. God gladly exchanged Jesus’ holiness with our sin. Paul says it best, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness (or perfection) of God," (2 Cor. 5:21). Now when God looks at us, he no longer sees our sin and imperfection; he sees Jesus’ holiness. As a result, he lets us into heaven. That is the Gospel, and the Gospel is good news. We believe the Gospel, so of course we come to a church that shares the Gospel.

Why do we go to St. Matthew’s EVANGELICAL Lutheran Church? Because we also want to share the Gospel. Why do we want to share the Gospel? Because the Gospel is good news and because the Gospel is for all people.

Before we can confidently share the good news of the Gospel with others, we want to remember and believe that the Gospel is for us. First of all, we need the Gospel because the problem of sin is our problem. Let’s never ever forget that we are sinners. We are all like St. Matthew was. We are willing to lie, to steal, and to cheat in order to get what we want. We are even willing to sell out our friends and neighbors if it means getting what’s best for us. Sometimes we all too easily forget or ignore our sins. Every week at the beginning of the service we confess our sins. We say that we are worthy of God’s temporal and eternal punishment; then we complain about the problems sin brings into our lives. Let’s take the time to recognize our sins. Think about what it means to live apart from God for eternity. That’s what we deserve. We deserve to live in hell with worse pain and anguish than our present problems could ever give us.

We want to recognize our sins, then we want to remember the Gospel. While we recognize our sins, we do not need to despair over our sins. We know and believe the Gospel. Every week after we confess our sins, we hear the good news that God forgives our sins because of the sacrifice of his Son. Never ever think that God can’t, won’t and hasn’t already forgiven your sins. The good news of the Gospel is for you.

With that good news firmly planted in our hearts, we can joyfully share the Gospel with those around us. We can start with those closest to us. It’s natural for us to share good news with our family and friends. If we have a new child or grandchild, we immediately call everyone and tell them the good news. If we recover from an injury or have a successful surgery, we want everyone to know. If we find out that God has given us eternal life, we will naturally want to tell them that too.

As natural as it is to share good news with our family and friends, it seems difficult to share the Gospel with them. I understand. We don’t want to start arguments. But we’re afraid of not saying anything. Then we’re afraid that they will never want to hear about the Gospel if we shove it down their throats. It is certainly difficult. However, we can’t hide such good news under a bushel basket either. Remember, the Gospel is GOOD news! One way to share the Gospel with family and friends is simply by telling them about the joy we have from the Gospel! We can do this without pressure on either side. We can tell about the exciting camping trip we had with a group of believers. We can tell about the fun that we had helping out with VBS. We can tell about the neat songs we heard at the talent show. All we can do is watch for the opportunities God will give us to share the Gospel. Then we leave the rest up to him.

In addition to the opportunities we will have to share the Gospel with family and friends, God will also give us opportunities to share the good news of Jesus with our neighbors. The disease of sin has already destroyed countless souls. We have the cure for sin and the chance to tell our neighbors. "Let none hear you idly saying, ‘there is nothing I can do,’ while the souls of men are dying and the Master calls for you," (TLH 496:1). Dying souls live in the house next door to us, across the street and down the road. They live on Colfax, LaVette, and McAlister. Whoever continues to fight against sin with human solutions will die and go to hell. We don’t want anyone to die and go to hell; we want everyone to live. We want to share the Gospel with our neighbors, so that they can live.

Again, this seems like a very difficult task, but it’s not as hard as you think. To begin with we can all share the Gospel by praying. Pray that God would open up the hearts of unbelievers. Pray that God would reveal the joy of the Gospel to your family, friends, and neighbors. One of the easiest ways to share the Gospel is to share it with children. We can support and help out with Sunday School or Vacation Bible School. Many of us can comfortably bake cookies or hand out treats. Kids love anyone who gives them treats. We could simply be there to cheer when the kids sing a song or say a Bible verse.

There is one other way we can share the good news without confrontation. We could hand out a brochure. If you take out the brochure from this morning’s bulletin, you’ll see what I mean. Everything this little brochure says you heard here this morning. It shows us our problem of sin – what God requires and what God sees. It tells us about the different ways that we try to overcome sin ourselves. Then it gives us the good news that God has provided the solution to sin through his son. We can share the Gospel by handing out this brochure. Soon we will have another brochure to invite people to our church.

Why do we come to St. Matthew’s EVANGELICAL Lutheran Church? Because we want to share the Gospel. Sharing the Gospel is the meaning of evangelical. Sharing the Gospel is the mission of our church. Let us always rejoice that we know and believe the good news of forgiveness and salvation. May we always be a church that wants to share that good news with the dying souls of our family, friends and neighbors. Let us fulfill the mission our Savior has given us and our forefathers have proudly put in our name. Let us be evangelical.