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"What am I supposed to think about this as a Christian in the West? Am I supposed to be supporting Israel? Am I supposed to be supporting Palestine? Am I supposed to be supporting Iran? I do not know what to think about the situation.”
We are going to be covering a little bit of all that, but more specifically we are going to discuss how you can really make a difference during this time. Why does God have you alive right now? Why during the time that Iran is shooting 300 plus missiles? And what can you do that’s part of God’s end time plan?
Iran decided that they were going to join in this fight and shoot missiles all over Israel. This is unprecedented. 300-this is the number of missiles fired this morning. Before this, there was also a terrorist attack that happened in Tel Aviv. It is on the coast. There was a terrorist attack where two men went into Tel Aviv and shot people.
Since Iran is now involved, we do not know what is going to happen. We do not know if America is going to send armies over there.
We do not know if other countries are also going to try to get involved in this. Remember that these are not isolated incidents. What we see here is that we have a lot of different connections, several different networks.
You are a Christian in the West or in Europe and you are asking, “What does that mean for me?”
I think when it comes to moments like this-wartime moments-there is going to be chaos in the air. There is going to be-especially from unbelievers and sometimes even believers- a sense of uncertainty.
Nothing good comes from war.
People are going to die. There are going to be food shortages. All types of negative things could happen. There are a lot of instabilities. There are a lot of uncertainties and unbelievers are going to start to feel the weight of that.
You can imagine that believers are scared in moments like this. There is a lot of fear in the air in moments like this.
First, you will have people that come up to you and start mentioning these things throughout your day. A friend at the gym will ask, “Did you see the news? You know, it is World War III. Iran has attacked Israel.”
People are going to be asking you questions as an individual, not even as a believer. Even unbelievers are going to start this conversation.
This is what we do here at GCM. We want to make disciple of Jesus. We want people to experience the love and the peace of God in their lives, wherever they are at in their journey in life.
This is an opportunity for some of you that have been wrestling with how to love the unbelievers in your life. You have so many unbelieving co-workers and friends. There are so many people that you run into in the grocery store, the gym, or your apartment building.
Moments like this, where there is a lot of fear in the air and uncertainties, these individuals are going to start coming to you and bringing this up.
They may say, “Oh my gosh, I’m so anxious-have you seen the news?” Or “I have questions. I do not know what is going on in the Middle East.”
And this is where as believers, we need to make sure that we are educated both on what is going on in the Middle East as well as what is the biblical end time story.
We have clues to that in Revelation. We also have incredible resources. We work with Joel Richardson, who has an entire end times series on YouTube, which you can go ahead and find.
The questions are going to come, which means that opportunities to interact with people and share Jesus with people are going to come.
Just this morning, I had my sibling text me. She was asking if I had seen what was going on in the news. And if they are unbelievers, those are opportunities to respond “Yeah, I know what is going on, but I am good. I have a lot of peace and understanding.”
“Wait, wait, wait a second. What are you talking about? How do you have peace in a moment like this? What do you mean? I am missing something that you have.”
So, this is an entryway into a conversation that can lead to deeper questions.
These are moments where you can start asking those hard-hitting questions that most people do not ask themselves because they are consumed with their life.
As believers, we want to make sure that when people start approaching us with these topics, we are educated. We need to be prepared and willing to talk and have moments with those individuals. We do not know when we are going to have another chance like this.
That is why I named this, “Salvation’s Made Easy During Wartime;” during war times people are coming to you.
These are opportunities that we do not want to waste as believers. When people have a lot of fear, what are they looking for? They are looking for peace. So, they are looking for Jesus.
They are looking for joy. They are looking for certainty. That is what we have as believers. We have certainty in our Lord Jesus Christ.
This means that I have peace. And when I am afraid, I can put my trust in Jesus.
Psalm 56:3 says, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you, Lord.”
Even for us as believers, I know that this is scary. I know that some of you have kids. Some of you have families. Some of you have family members in a different part of the world and are concerned for their safety. But when I am afraid, I can put my trust in the Lord. I can trust that the Lord is going to work all things out for my good. Psalm 56.3 says that.
Isaiah 41:10 “Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous hand.”
You could say, “I have noticed that you have felt a little anxious. What do you usually do when you are anxious?”
Start asking those probing questions, rather than necessarily teaching them anything. Start to gauge where they are in their thoughts about God. Do they have any understanding of the Bible? Do they have any type of relationship with God? If so, how deep is that relationship? Have they ever made any sacrifices for God? You can continue to ask them specific questions.
“Why do you feel like you are afraid? Do you feel like God is protecting you if you believe in Him? Do you feel like God has abandoned humanity?”
Once you have done that, you can gauge if the person understands the Word. Now you know how to move forward.
If this is new for you or you would like to have more training for these types of conversations, we have an incredible disciple-making course at catalyticministries.com. You can enroll in that today, and that is completely free.
This is an entire series of videos that is going to make it quite easy for you in situations like this to be able to walk with someone who does not know anything about God and take them on a journey of how to know Jesus.
The book of Matthew, says, “Go out into all the nations and make disciples.”
I know that that is not popular. That is something that people do not want to hear most of the time. It is tempting to leave the conversation the moment that I mention responsibilities as a Christian. It is easy to convince ourselves, “Oh, I need to do something? I do not want to learn how to make disciples. That is what pastors are for. That is not my job. I do not have any responsibility. I am just here living my best life and whatever blessings the Lord wants to give to me.”
Do not fall into that trap. All of us, if you are a believer in Jesus, we have all been called to make disciples.
Now, what does that mean? A disciple is a student of Jesus’s teachings. So, what you know about Jesus in your life-it is your job to go and to instruct other people about Him. That is what each one of us has been taught to do.
Time is limited. We are getting closer and closer to End Times every single day. This should be exciting for us because we should all be carrying that Maranatha cry in our hearts, which is, “Lord Jesus, come. We want you, Jesus, to come.”
I know that some of us have comfortable lives. Sometimes we do not want Jesus to come because we are comfortable.
But that is our hope. Our hope is in the Lord returning so that He’d be able to bring justice to this world and be King Jesus over the nations. That should be our heart cry.
We see this being played out, and time is being wasted. If you have not learned yet how to be able to successfully make a follower of Jesus or a student of Jesus’ teaching- if you do not know how to do that-it’s time to learn. I want to encourage you to learn; do not wait until tomorrow.
I like to have three simple steps, especially when it comes to people who already understand who God is, and you have gauged that.
We want to make sure in our relationship with God that we are praying to God. That is just communication with Him. So, we take moments of our day where we stop, and we recognize who God is.
We are just saying, “God, I am your creation. I am here, fully submitted to You and to Your ways. I want your kingdom to come. I want Your ways, not my ways.”
Praying is important. Communication to God in the morning and dedicating your day to Him is so beneficial. Something that I like to do at night is to thank Him for that day. I thank Him for my health, or for whatever I went through that day.
It is vital to be in communication constantly with God. That does not mean that you set aside only mornings or nights. It means that you are in conversation with Him all throughout the day.
If there was another missile attack, or a draft coming up-whatever is happening throughout the day, you just take a moment. You say, “God, I trust Your way. I trust Your plan. I am on this earth for You, and I want to do what you want me to do, Lord. I want to be a part of Your story, not my story. Lord, my life is surrendered to You. I am here for whatever You want to do.”
You want to figure out: what does God want you to do? Where is that truth? What does He want from us? Because He has given us instructions.
There used to be a saying back in the day, but the saying was, “The Bible: Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.”
That is something that was taught to us in youth group. The Bible is our instruction from God. It is our window to seeing the characteristics of who God is. It has the testimonies of people who have experienced God firsthand and have the evidence to show it.
If I know who God is, I am going to know what He wants out of my life. When I am praying, I am telling God that I want to be part of His story. I then need to ask, “What is Your story?”
I must discover what is God’s story.
I want to make sure that I am worshiping Him. We want to take moments to simply thank Him and worship Him.
The Bible says, “Come to the gates of the Lord with thanksgiving.”
We often come to God just asking or wanting our way. “God, I need to pay my bills this month.” “God, I’m in a terrible relationship, and I want to get out.” “God, I have an addiction. Help me with my addiction.”
It is just my want, my way, my way, my way.
We want to take a pause on that, and we just want to be able to just worship the Lord. We want to be able to pray prayers such as “I just want to say I am thankful for what You’ve given me, and I just come to You simply thanking you. Thank You for forgiving my sins. Thank You for my health. Thank You for every object of material that I possess. Thank You for my family. Thank You for my community. Thank You for my friends.
Lord, I want to ask You to bless my friends, my community, my finances.
Take moments to just worship Him and adore Him. If you feel any type of lack in your heart-and I am speaking to believers right now; we will translate this to unbelievers-just ask Him to help you.
If you are thinking, “I am not very thankful. I am not in love with him. I do not know how to adore God.”
Just ask Him, “Lord, help me to worship You.” One of the hacks that I really love is when I do not have the words, I go to the Bible.
Did you know that there are over a hundred Psalms where you can just worship? You can worship the Lord, and it is already written for you. So, when you do not know what to say, you can turn to Psalm 8, and you can say, “Oh, how majestic is your name in all the earth, Lord”. If you do not know how to worship, you have a whole manual right here in Psalms. We have all these different verses to pray aloud, to speak aloud to the Lord.
So those are 3 different things that do not require that much understanding or wisdom that you can start to express to those who already understand God, whether unbelievers or lukewarm believers.
You can ask them, “Hey have you been in communication with God? Have you figured out what He wants out of your life? Have you worshipped?”
If the answer to any of those is “no,” then we will know how to respond.
“Let us discover that together. Do you have some time today?” Or “Do you want to go to coffee shop tomorrow?”
Take those opportunities to help them to discover God for themselves. That’s where the disciple-making boot camp comes in. You will understand where to start with them in that discovery process. That usually starts in Genesis.
During this time in the world, you are going to have a lot of opportunities to talk to people about Jesus, and you do not want to waste those moments.
You do not want to waste the time that God has given to each one of us. We do not know when we are going to have another moment like this, when there is going to be a lot of this fear in the air. Do you want to see your friends live in chaos? Do you want to see your friends struggling to wake up because they are anxious?
We have Maranatha cry in our hearts. What does that mean for us? That means that we ready for Jesus to come back because we know that He’s going to make everything right. This is the hope of glory to come.
That is the glory of Jesus. He is going to take this weak sinful body, and He’s going to glorify it. And I will not have to be in labor anymore. I will not have to be in pain. I will not have to be anxious. I will not have to be dealing with all the cares we deal with today.
I am going to be in my glorified body. I am going to be sanctified with the Lord. And we want to be able to share that with unbelievers who have absolutely no idea or understanding when it comes to any of this.
I want to encourage you: Do not waste the moments that God has given to you.
You feel like you cannot make a difference, you think that no one is going to talk to you about what is going on in the world. And if you feel that way, just pray.
Ask the Lord. “Am I supposed to tell other people about you?” And if so, “Lord, would you prepare me for that? Would you prepare my heart for that?”
Many believers today do not want this responsibility. And that’s part of the reason we live in such a crooked and destructive world and why Christianity does not always have the best reputation. In Western cultures, we are so focused on ourselves. It is all about “my understanding” and “my wants” and “my American dream.”
But those things are about to change as we enter a new season of uncertainties for the entire world. We have absolutely no idea what is going to happen, how many countries are going to be involved, whether the U.S. is going to retaliate to what is going on in Iran and Israel. We do not know what is going to happen. It is not the time to be dilly-dallying. It is not the time to watch Netflix. Relaxation is great, but now is the time to get in our Word, to worship God, and to tell people about Jesus.
If you feel that you are not there in your heart yet, be honest with the Lord and ask Him to help you.
You can pray, “Lord, help me to understand that. Why should I be telling people about you, Lord? Why should I be making disciples? Is my life about me? Have I just been consumed by my own wants and desires? Should I be doing more with what You’ve given me”
Philippians 4:6 –7 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present yourselves to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your mind in Christ Jesus.”
Isaiah 41:10“So do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous hand.”
Psalm 27: 1 “The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall, I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid?”
Psalm 46:1 “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”
1 Peter 5:7“Cast all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you.”
With all of this in mind, we must remain in a place of prayer. We have disciple makers in Iran. We have disciple makers in Israel. We have disciple makers all over the globe. We absolutely need to be praying for Jerusalem, for Israel, and for the protection of Jewish people and God’s plan involving them.
We want to make sure that we are praying for Iran too. We believe for those individuals who do not know the Lord yet, who do not have an understanding.
We pray for our disciple makers on the ground. Ask God to protect them, to strengthen them, to give them people of peace that will make connections and open doors with them, so that they will be able to reach as many individuals as possible in those countries.
Pray for those disciple makers in Iran. Pray for the unbelievers in Iran. Pray for the disciple makers in Israel, who right now may be in underground bunkers. Pray that they are protected by God and that their work continues. Pray for financial provision.
Be the Underground Church
