Everybody Needs Jesus

Everybody needs Jesus. Not just some people. Everybody.

I remember the last time Pastors Mike and Sherri Morrisey visited Hope when they were on furlough from Thailand. Mike was showing us pictures from the mission field, and came to a photo of he and Sherri standing on the steps of a Buddhist temple with a smiling monk in flowing yellow robes.

Mike sort of hesitated in his narration. You could tell he wasn’t sure about how, what he was about to say would be received by us. What he said was that one of the important ministries of Thailand Methodist Mission was sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with Buddhists. And they did that, he said, because they believed, and he hoped we believed, that everybody needs Jesus.

Everybody needs Jesus because all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Muslims need Jesus. Buddhists need Jesus. Atheists need Jesus. Pagans need Jesus. Agnostics need Jesus. Gay people need Jesus. Straight people need Jesus. Rich people need Jesus. Poor people need Jesus. Hurting people need Jesus. Happy people need Jesus. Christians need Jesus. Everybody needs Jesus.

Everybody needs Jesus because Jesus is the way, the truth and the life; the one way that the Father has provided for sinners to be forgiven and become His beloved daughters and sons. Everybody needs Jesus because unless and until we trust in Him, we remain separated from God by our sin.

The good news is that because God sent Jesus to die for our sins, we and everyone who believes in Him, receives forgiveness of sins…AND also receives the Holy Spirit, who gives us God’s power to live new lives in Christ.

God has done everything for all people everywhere to be saved, because God has put all of our sin—everything that separated us from Himself—on Jesus. Jesus bore our sins (and the just punishment of them) for us, and bore them away from us. “God was in Christ,” Paul writes to the Corinthians, “reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Co. 5:19).

The good news is that everybody needs Jesus, and EVERYBODY CAN ENTER INTO THE REALITY OF THE SALVATION GOD HAS PROVIDED FOR SINNERS THROUGH REPENTANCE AND FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST.

Have you entered into the reality of the salvation God has provided for you? If so, you have nothing to brag about, except the grace of God! God’s grace found you when you were dead in your trespasses and sins and supernaturally brought into existence something that wasn’t in you at first: faith in Christ!

If God’s grace can save sinners like us, He can save people who haven’t yet come to repent and believe the good news, too! And do you know how God is going to do that?

THROUGH YOU AND ME. Through Hope United Methodist Church. Through people who were dead and have been made alive in Christ. Through people who have tasted and seen that the gospel is not just talk, but the power of God to save everyone who believes.

The reason Hope United Methodist Church is on the planet is so that the good news of Jesus Christ can be proclaimed to the lost in the power of the Holy Spirit through us. We exist to proclaim and live out the good news of Jesus Christ so that people who need Jesus and have not yet come to know Him, can meet Him through us.

I believe that Jesus has set before our congregation an open door that no one can shut (Rev. 3:8). I believe Jesus is opening a door of opportunity the likes of which we have never seen before; that He is equipping us to effectively share the gospel in a way that is going to bring people into the Kingdom of God. I don’t know what that door is, but I am confident that I am hearing Jesus encourage us to keep our eyes open and be ready to walk through that door when He shows it to us. Please join me in praying for humble hearts, open eyes and ears, and courage to follow Jesus into the things that He has prepared for us.