Hardcore Christianity - Part 4

That's what happens. People who evangelize, man, they're doing all these other things. And the final fruit of all this is evangelism.

So people who are not evangelizing, man, let's pray. Man, God help me. Because God saved you for a reason.

See, in a sports team, there's bench warmers. But not on God's team. That's right.

And I know about bench warming. I played football. And I played football, let me see.

We played ten games, I think it was. We? Yeah. I played about five minutes.

I went in, when we were winning by like four touchdowns, and it's like a two-minute warning. Go get them, Jose! So, man, I get there, and man, I come home with, I don't even have grass stains on my outfit. So sometimes I'm like, literally, I'm actually falling on my knees, trying to get green on my knees, so I get, yeah, man, I played.

Now, guess what happened? I quit. Why? Because, man, I'm on the bench all the time. It's boring there.

I mean, why should I be on the team? I just, man, all they're using me as a dummy. For practice. What would a slob call it? Man, he was like a train.

Okay, Jose, he's going to come right here to your gap. You better hit him. Hit him? He weighs twice as much as me, and I remember the first time I hit what he hit me.

Man, he probably drug me 15 yards. But I'm still holding on. The end of my career.

Okay, so now you know evangelism. That's what it ends with. That is the sign that you're in, that you're hardcore.

Amen. Because, man, you see so many things guys doing in your life, and you want it for them, them, that one, this one. You want it for everybody.

And, man, if we can just get a little track in somebody's hand, plant a little seed, maybe they'll sit down and read it, and God will touch them, and then they'll come to know Christ, and guess what happens? Then they start doing what you're doing. Because, see, we're all the fruit of Jesus, of his evangelism. See, he witnessed to a couple of fishermen, a tax collector, a physician.

Those guys went out, they started witnessing. They ran into Paul, and he's over there killing them. Then Paul's going to Damascus, and God just jacks him up.

Paul's on the ground, he's blind for a few days, and, yes, Lord, what do you want me to do? So then Paul starts going crazy, hardcore. You know, they stone him to death, half to death. They drag him out of the city, they throw him out, and he goes back in there.

That's hardcore. But you know what? It was because of their obedience to Christ that we are here today. Somebody that Paul witnessed to, or Peter, or John, or one of them, it just keeps going all the way, and somebody that they witnessed to, witnessed to me.

It's like a domino effect. From 2,000 years ago, the dominoes are falling. And so you're the next domino.

Are you going to fall and trip somebody up and keep it going? Or are you going to be that domino that wasn't in line, and it fell short, and missed the other one? So, man, let's get with it. Now, I want to pray for us. Now, Anne, I want you guys to think about what I've said this evening.

It's very important to me. And the lost. And I don't want nobody going to hell.

Somebody loved me. One night, me and my wife were outside of the club, and the owner came out. And he cussed me out.

He said he was going to call the cops. He called the cops. The cops came.

They couldn't do anything to me because I'm on the sidewalk. So then the owner of the club sent his bouncers out. And a big old guy came out.

He said, if you don't... And, man, all of a sudden, this boldness just... I said, dude, if you want to get rid of me... And the guy looked at me and said, man, are you crazy? I said, yes, I am. I don't want you going to hell. So then he went back and told the manager.

The manager came out. So then now... Now they hire somebody to take me out. So the word gets around that some gang members are going to kill me.

So they called a pastor friend of mine and said, hey, they're off to get Jose. So we go out to this club knowing that somebody wants to shoot me. And I'm thinking, man, what if they shoot me from a distance like a deer? That's going through my mind.

But I'm still there. And you know what? My wife's with me. She's five foot two.

And she said, I'll stand in front of you. And she's standing in front of me. I mean, that's hardcore.

Well, then those two hit men, they called me and said, they're on their way to your house. And I told them, I said, we got to leave. They're coming.

And he said, let's pray. So we go to the bedroom and we start praying. They're on their way to our house.

They're going to take me out. And probably her too. And then about 15 minutes later, man, they're banging on the door so hard.

And I'm like, they're here. They're here. So Amy gets up, and she looks through the window, and it's a girl.

And she's got blood running all down her face. Amy opens the door, and the girl just falls down to the floor. Please forgive me.

Please forgive me. I wasn't a part of it. And I'm like, OK, what's going on? And she just had a big cut on the forehead.

She was with the guys that were on the way to kill me. And about a mile from our house, they were involved in a head-on collision. And she got out of the car.

They had guns. And she ran to our house to ask for forgiveness. The other two guys, the shooters, they were taken to the hospital.

Both of them with severe head trauma. And I'm like, man, God saved me. Well, we didn't hear anything about those guys.

But we continued going to that club for the next 28 years. Amen. And the manager got saved.

Wow. That is hard. Amen.

You know, I could share a thousand stories like that. But I know that some people do stuff. You know, that's a very common thing nowadays.

Only God can judge me. And you, you can judge yourself. It's okay if you judge yourself.

And I want you to examine yourself tonight. You want to be hardcore.