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Summary

In this powerful sermon, Zackary Williams explores the theme of meeting people where they are, emphasizing that God and Jesus exemplify this principle through their actions. He reflects on the martyrdom of 21 men in Libya, the transformative power of faith, and the inclusivity of the gospel. The message calls for Christians to reach out to those in need, regardless of their past, and to recognize that no one is beyond the reach of God’s grace.

Chapters

00:00 The Call to Remember
02:42 Meeting People Where They Are
05:36 God’s Pattern of Reaching Out
10:12 Jesus: The Ultimate Example
17:29 The Cross: Meeting Place of God and Man
20:39 The Gospel’s Reach: No Unsavable People
26:32 Transformation: From Murderer to Mediator

Transcript *This transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.*

Zackary Williams (00:00)
and the Apostle Paul. As we begin, I’d like for you to come up with one word and keep that word to yourself. One word that describes all three of those men, Moses, David, and Paul. And once you’ve come up with your word, here’s the hard part. I need you to remember it for the next 29 minutes.

Don’t forget your word, remember it, lock it in, and let’s get started.

Do you remember this being on the news? Does anybody remember this in 2015? In 2015 the world watched on live television as somewhere on a beach in Libya another chapter was added to Fox’s Book of Martyrs. 21 men, 21 ordinary men, they weren’t preachers, they weren’t missionaries, they were construction workers. And these 21 men were marched in line, forced to kneel on camera and

the direction of their leader, this man right here in the camouflage. One by one these men were beheaded by ISIS. Every single one of them, 21, murdered. And do know why? Because before the white foam on that beach turned red, those men cried out in Arabic the words that you see on the top of that screen.

and translated into English those words are, my Lord Jesus. Now I don’t know the details concerning the particulars of the faith of these men, but I do know this, that at any point in that execution process, they could have denounced their faith in Jesus and converted to Islam and their lives would have been spared. But even when the decapitated bodies of the men in line beside them begin to fall into the sand until the man beside them died, until the knife went to their throat,

All 21 of those men without reserve refused to deny their Lord. Now this scene is horrendous and many sermons could be preached but today it presents a question to us. When we see a world with wicked and violent men such as these

Men who would gladly murder those who religiously stand differently than they do. Men who are convinced that Christians are the enemy and the only good Christian is a dead one. When we see wickedness of this magnitude publicly displayed and when we see the innocent blood on their hands, here’s the questions that’s raised. Do we truly believe that our God can save men like that?

The assignment is meeting people where they are. Because if we don’t believe that God can reach them, then we will never go to them. And that’s the driving point of this sermon. Regardless of what we think about it, God does not recognize unsavable people and neither should we. Now before we go any further with this lesson, let me be very clear on this one thing. Everyone here needs to understand this.

I don’t want to leave any room for misunderstanding the point of this sermon assignment. Meeting people where they are does not mean affirming where they are, nor does it mean condoning being lost. And inviting sinners to come as they are does not mean we want them to stay as they are. Meeting people where they are means entering their world without endorsing their sin.

and caring for their needs without neglecting the truth and walking with them until they walk with Him. And friends, at no point should we ever participate or condone or endorse or allow or tolerate any of the world’s sin. But if we want to pull the world’s souls out from the mire of their sin, then sometimes we have to put down our pride and roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty to do it. What would you think of a doctor that says,

no, I can’t go into a hospital. There’s sick people in there. What would you think of a firefighter who says, no, I can’t go into that building full of people, it’s on fire. What would you think of a police officer who says, I can’t go into that bank, it’s getting robbed. And friends, what you think of those individuals is exactly what God thinks of a Christian who says, no, I can’t take the gospel to those people because they’re too far gone in sin. Do you see how ridiculous that sounds?

Christians, must, we must meet people where they are and here’s why, number one, because our God has always met people where they are.

Right off the bat, we can establish this concept is not some new innovation. This is not some modern evangelistic strategy or some secular church growth method from the denominations. This is the eternal pattern of God from the beginning. God does not wait for sinners to climb up to his level. God goes down to where sinners are and he calls them up or to him. In other words, you can write this down. God starts where man is, but he never ends there.

Let’s look at some examples this morning and each one of these examples makes a point. Number one, God called Adam and he called Adam in hiding. Genesis 3, 9, the Lord God called out to Adam and said, Adam, where art thou? Friends, Adam wasn’t looking for God. Adam was doing the opposite. He was trying to hide from God and God went looking for him. And in this act, from the very beginning, God sets the precedent seeking precedes

saving. That’s the point. Every example here has a point. Seeking precedes saving. We see that with Adam. Number two, think about Abraham. God met Abraham where he was in an idolatrous and pagan nation. From the Ur of the Chaldees, right? Genesis 12 verse 1, now the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country. And Joshua later tells us in Joshua 24 verse 2 that Abraham came from an idolatrous people.

Friends, God did not wait for Abraham to purify his theology. God called him out of idolatry and then God made him the father of the faithful. Here’s the point, God does not call the qualified, he qualifies the called. Here’s number three, Moses in the wilderness. Exodus 3 in verse 2, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. Moses was not in a palace. Moses was not in the pulpit. Moses was no…

Egypt, Moses was in exile, right? Moses is an outlaw. He killed an Egyptian. He messed up. He ran away. He left it all behind. He failed. And now we find him out somewhere on the backside of the desert and he’s tending sheep and he’s hiding from Egypt and that’s exactly where God met Moses. Here’s the point. Our failure with man does not disqualify our future with God. What about Gideon?

Did God meet Gideon where he was? He met Gideon in a wine press, right? Judges 6-12, and the angel of the Lord appeared unto him and said unto him, the Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. Gideon is hiding in fear. Gideon is being a A coward. And God meets him where he is and God says, I’m with thee, thou what? Thou mighty man of valor. Here’s the point for this one. God doesn’t just see where we are.

He sees where we can go. And along those same lines, here’s another one, this would be number five, God met David and he met David in obscurity. Question, who was David before he was king? Nobody. He was a nobody. 1 Samuel 16, 11, he was the youngest of his brothers.

His brothers, they were somebodies, they were great warriors in battle. They thought they would be the next king in line. Who is David? He’s an obscure little shepherd boy somewhere out in field. But God met him where he was. And he turned that little boy shepherd into the mighty king, David of Israel. What’s the point? No person, no person is too obscure or too ordinary to do great things for our God, is he?

You put all of this together and look at all of these Old Testament examples. And what is it we learn about our Almighty God? We see that God met sinners in hiding, idolaters in pagan cities, outlaws in the wilderness, cowards in the shadows, boys out in fields. And He turns those people into the recipient of God’s covenant with mankind, the father of the promised seed, the giver of the law, the greatest King of all Israel, men that would be mentioned in the very first verse of the New Testament. Matthew 1.1 mentions two of them, right? What does it say?

Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. And there is one reason those men became who they did. And it’s because our God has always, always met people where they are and God starts where a man is but he never ends there. God sought Adam. God called Abraham. God met Moses. God approached Gideon. God chose David. God met them where they were.

And from the very beginning, these examples proclaim this truth, but it doesn’t stop there. Because the Old Testament is just a what? It’s a shadow of that which is to come. It’s the pattern. It’s the preview of what’s about to happen. And when we move forward from the Old Testament into the New Testament, something different happens. Because now we read that God is not just sending prophets. God is not just sending angels. God is not just sending messages. In the New Testament, God comes himself.

And in John 1, 14, the Word was made flesh and He dwelt among us. Here’s number two, Jesus has always met people where they were. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, Luke 19, 10. And He did not do so by shouting down instructions from heaven to earth. That’s not how He did it. He became one of them. He lived among them. He moved in with them. In Philippians 2, verse 7, He made Himself of no reputation.

and he took on him the form of a servant and he was made in the likeness of men. Jesus is the ultimate example of meeting people where they are because he stepped down from where? He stepped down from the glory of heaven to come into the filth of this world and once he was here he did not wait for the sinners to come and to find him he went to them and here’s what that looked like.

1 John 4, 7, Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well. Brother Kenyon, I think she needs to get the MVP award. She’s been mentioned every day, hasn’t she? But for good reason, right? He did not meet her in synagogue. He did not meet her in a Bible class. He did not invite her to come and to hear him preach later. No, he met her in the middle of her ordinary day, and despite all of those differences between them, Jesus sat down where she was, and hear this, he started with conversation, and he finished with conversion.

Luke 19, five, Jesus met Zacchaeus up a tree. Zacchaeus was hated, tax collector, traitor, a despised outcast among his peers. And do you remember what Jesus told Zacchaeus? Did he say, Zacchaeus, come and meet me in the synagogue? No. Did he say, Zacchaeus, you come to the temple and then we’ll sit down and talk. Did he say, Zacchaeus, I’m preaching a meeting on the mountain next week, you should be there so we visit. Is that what he said?

No, he said, Zacchaeus, you get out of that tree because I’m going to your house. I’m going to you. And then he who did no sin went into the sinner’s house. Friends, Jesus met people where they were. John 3 verse 2, Jesus met Nicodemus where he was. Now before you fight me on this, I know that John 3, 2 says it was Nicodemus who came to Jesus by night.

And we ask the question, why did come by night? I’ll tell you, because the Holy Spirit has a sense of humor and wanted to give us something to argue about with our silly theories. But don’t miss the point. When we say that Jesus met Nicodemus where he was, we’re not talking about physical location. We’re talking about spiritually. Because Nicodemus was not like the woman at the well, was he?

Nicodemus was not like Zacchaeus was he? Nicodemus had a different problem. Nicodemus was lost in his own religion and Jesus met him where he was intellectually. Teaching us this point that some sinners need grace first. Some sinners need doctrine first. Jesus? He gave both. Matthew 19, Jesus met Matthew. He met Matthew at work.

sitting at the receipt of custom, right? Matthew the tax collector, he was doing his job in the middle of his daily life collecting taxes, a very mundane and ordinary thing and Jesus called him right from where he sat. Don’t you know that Jesus could have waited for what we would call a more opportune time? That’s not how Jesus operates because Jesus meets people where they are and my friend, here is the most beautiful part, all of these examples are not just about them.

Friends, praise be to our God that number three, Jesus, met us where we were. Imagine this with me. I want you to put yourself in the middle of a beautiful and warm bakery. And I want you to really use your senses and I want you to smell that warm, fresh, baked, soft bread.

And I want you to smell that fragrant vanilla from the cakes and the cookies. And I want you to smell the aroma of that hot coffee that you hear dripping into the coffee maker and steaming on the counter. It’s warm and it’s beautiful. And your five senses are just overloaded with all of this comfort and beauty. Then I want you to imagine that you’ve gone there, but then you blink.

and you open your eyes and you are now in the deepest and darkest part of the most horrendous and filthiest neglected nursing home in the United States. And immediately you’re struck with the pungent scent of urine and of old putrid vomit soaked into that carpet.

of the human excrement that constantly lingers in the air and the instantly recognizable horrible smell of decay and death and that’s where you are now and you multiply that juxtaposition between those two places a billion times, a billion times and now you have the faintest, slightest picture of what it was like for Jesus to leave the glory of heaven to come down to this wretched and putrid earth. We cannot begin to comprehend what that was like.

You think about this, if we can be amazed with such awe and wonder at the beautiful things God has made here on this earth, then can you imagine what heaven must be like? How beautiful is this earth that God created? What about the awestruck amazement we have at the sight of a beautiful starry night sky? What about when we gaze in wonder upon majestic and beautiful mountains that God has made here on earth?

What about when we see the sunset and we admire those colors and the beautiful shades of orange and red and blue and all the things that God has made in a sunset? What about when we’re mesmerized in awe as we hear the crashing waves of a beautiful waterfall or when we stand in awe at the raw power of a storm with lightning crashing the skies and energy and thunder blasting with the sounds of 10,000 cannons all at once and we say how beautiful is this earth that God has made?

Friends, if the bottom side of heaven is this beautiful, then can you imagine what the top side must be like? And Jesus left all of that behind for us so that he could meet us right where we were. Psalm 45 calls it the ivory palaces. We sing that hymn sometimes, don’t we?

out of the ivory palaces into the world of woe? What could make Jesus go from there to here? Only His great eternal love made my Savior go. When Thomas finally saw his Savior, do you remember what he cried out? He cried out and said, my Lord and my God.

Isaiah 53,6 tells us that God has laid on him the iniquity of us all. And when I consider the magnitude of what he did that he might come to where I was, I cannot help but fall at his feet and cry out with Thomas, ⁓ my Lord and my God who did that for me. Friends, the ultimate proof of this, the ultimate proof that Jesus meets people where they are is found at the cross.

The cross is the ultimate meeting place. It’s where holy God and sinful man are able to meet. Because at the cross is where God cometh his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The cross is where my Lord took my sin and paid my debt and died my death and saved my life. He did not come down to this wretched and miserable earth to spend his time with the clean and holy. Romans 5, 8 says he died ungodly.

1 Timothy 1 15 says, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Mark 2 17, he did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He came for me. And if Jesus stepped out of heaven’s glory to meet us where we were, and if God sought us when we were hiding in shame, and if Jesus died for us when we were lost in sin, then who do we think we are to stay inside and refuse the very work that Christ himself embraced for us to do? Who are we?

to live in comfort while the world is facing eternal death. Who are we to stay in the pew when Jesus went to the cross and who do we think we are to draw lines between us and them that Jesus took away with his blood? Friends, if Jesus crossed heaven’s distance to come down to us, then we have no excuse not to cross the street to go to them. Number four.

In light of all of these things, brothers and sisters, we must, we must meet others where they are. All too often, we divide people into the categories of us and them. We have us, high and mighty and pure and holy and righteous, and then over there, we have them, low and dirty and sinful. And that kind of us and them thinking plagued the first century Jews, didn’t it?

In the Jewish system, no undesirables were allowed. They were unclean, they were unholy, they were untouched, they were unsaved. They could not approach the temple. The Gentiles were outside of the covenant. Sinners were shunned. No undesirables allowed under the Jewish system. But when Christ comes, everything changes. Because suddenly it goes from no undesirables allowed to now, there are no undesirables.

How? Because we just learned that Christ became the ultimate undesirable for us, Isaiah 53. He was rejected so that the rejected could be accepted. Friends, please know this. If you hear nothing else today, hear this, the gospel does not recognize unsavable people. Do we?

Do you see addicts lost in sin? Do you see prostitutes, fornicators, homosexuals, disgusting transgenders, outcasts? Do you see wicked sinners drowning in the putrid filth of their own sin and depravity and it’s their fault? Or do you see souls that need the blood of Jesus just like us?

Oh, brothers and sisters, meet them where they are and walk with them until they walk with Him. We’re commanded to do this, Matthew 28, 19, go ye therefore and teach all nations, wherever they are spiritually, I assure you, they’re included in all, they?

Mark 16, 15, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Can you find me a man that’s outside of the great commission? If not, then the necessity for us to meet people where they are applies to all lost sinners wherever they are on this planet. And this concept, if you look at Luke 15, this is the driving force of what Jesus is teaching. Luke 15, four, what man of you having a hundred sheep, if he loses one, does not leave the 99 and go out after that which is lost. Did the shepherd wait for the sheep to come to him? No, he went.

He went to the sheep. Luke 15, eight, what about the coin? Either that woman that has 10 pieces of silver, if she loses one, does not light a candle and sweeps the house and seeks until she finds it. Did she wait for the coin to come to her? No, she went to it. What about Luke 15, 20? The son. The lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son. When the prodigal son was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion on him and the father did what? He ran to go meet him.

Father didn’t wait for the son to come all the way back. He ran out and he went to the son. The lost coin, the lost sheep, the lost son, the principles all the same. In every case, we must go to them. Don’t make the mistake the world makes of seeing people carnally and not spiritually. What do we see? We see cars and we see houses and we see clothes and we see careers and we see race and we see ethnicity and we see status. We see the outward.

But God doesn’t look at the outward appearance, God looks at thee. And he looks at the heart. Friends, hear this, eternity will not be sorted out by class and by color and by culture and by status and by wealth. That’s not how eternity is sorted. Eternity is sorted into two groups, saved, lost. And when we stop looking at the carnal things and we start seeing the spiritual things, we find that spiritually speaking,

We are all the same. When I’m at a cemetery I like to read the epitaphs. I like to read the inscriptions on the tombstone. Sometimes it’s from scripture, sometimes it’s poetic, sometimes it’s just a simple rest in peace, sometimes it’s really thoughtful. My all time favorite tombstone inscription was for a man with the last name Pease. And the inscription on his tombstone said, here lies the body of old man Pease.

buried in the ground beneath the trees. But peas ain’t here, just the pod, peas shelled out and went to God.

This body is a shell, isn’t it? And the day is appointed for all of us, Hebrews 9.27, that this shell will be put into the ground and our soul will return back to God who gave it. The peas will leave the pod and go to God. And it’s true for every man on this planet, regardless of where he stands on this earth. Therefore, we do not, we do not have the right to look at someone and say, oh, not them. Because that person has a soul that will live forever somewhere.

And the gospel does not recognize unsavable people. And I can prove it.

terrible men that committed this atrocious crime. Those wicked and awful men, can God really reach people like that? 21 men beheaded by ISIS for professing their faith in Jesus. As we mentioned earlier, they did so under the direction of this man right here. This is their leader. He gave the orders. He led the group to do something terrible. He showed no mercy, no love.

and he killed men who disagreed with his religion. A terrorist. A Christian terrorist.

Do know what that sounds like?

That sounds like Saul of Tarsus doesn’t it? The wicked and horrible Saul of Tarsus who planned and organized and committed violent persecution aimed to intimidate and silence and destroy the New Testament Church of Jesus Christ by murdering all those who disagreed with his religion.

In Acts 7 58 he consented to the stoning of Stephen. Acts 8 3 he launched a campaign of violent raids. Acts 9 1 he says breathing and threatening slaughter against the church. He didn’t care who it was. If they were disciples of Christ he wanted them dead. And in Acts 26 he wrote many of the saints did I shut up in prison and when they were put to death I gave my voice against them. But here’s the point. Saul’s story doesn’t end there does it? He was transformed.

God starts where we are and that same man who once led the attack against Christ would later be beheaded himself and become a man who became a living sacrifice for Christ. In other words friends don’t miss this Paul started here but he ended here.

By God’s grace, concerning his death, do know what he wrote? With his dying words in 2 Timothy 4, 8, he said, I’ve fought a good fight. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness that the Lord will give me, but not to me only, but unto all, all them that love his appearing. God met Saul, the chief of sinners. God met him where he was, and look at who he became.

And don’t you know that when people saw the transformed Paul, they saw the gospel. His life was lived for God. He didn’t just preach it. He didn’t just teach it. He didn’t just pretend it. Saul proved it. And on that fateful day when history tells us that Nero took off his head, Paul completed the most beautiful demonstration of the transforming power of our Almighty God.

Okay, time’s up. Now here’s the test. Do you remember your word? What word did you select in your mind that could describe Moses, David, and Paul? What was your word? Was it the word righteous, faithful, humble, loyal, leader, man of God, wise? What about this word? Murderer. Murderer. Because Moses was a murderer, wasn’t he?

He killed an Egyptian and hid the body. David was a murderer, wasn’t he? He took Uriah’s wife, then he took Uriah’s life. Paul was a murderer, not just a murderer, he was a terrorist. All of those men were murderers, but friends, if God can turn a murderer into a mediator, a killer into a king, and a terrorist into a teacher, if Jesus could save Saul of Tarsus,

then Jesus can save your neighbor, your coworker, your skeptic, your enemy. Jesus can save anybody. Brothers and sisters, it’s time to go. Go where they are to lead them to Him.