Scripture: Luke 10:25-37
Sermon Series: 2026 Purpose – Part 2

Today we want to talk about the 2^nd half of our focus for 2026: Going Deeper & Going Wider. Last Sunday we talked about Going Deeper. Today we want to work through Going Wider. In obedience to the Lord, we want to reach our neighbors, our community and our world with the good news of God’s love and forgiveness.

Though you may have forgotten the exact date, you probably remember what happened on January 12, 2010. Amidst all the other disasters that have been in the news over the last 15 years, at 4:53 PM that day an earthquake registering 7.0 hit Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Some 220,000 people were killed. Another 300,000 were injured and over a million were left homeless.

Almost as soon as the quake ended humanitarian aid poured in from all over the world. Within days rescue teams were in Haiti. Hundreds of Haitians, probably thousands were rescued, including one man who was pulled out of the rubble four weeks after the quake hit. He probably set a record when it comes to length of survival when trapped like that.

Now I want you to try and imagine what it’d be like to be one of those Haitians who was buried alive in piles of rubble. Close your eyes and picture it. So, you’re in your home or at work or the store. The ground starts to shake violently. Walls and ceilings crumble. Before you know it you’re in total darkness—trapped between slabs of concrete. You try to find a way out but quickly realize there isn’t one. There’s nowhere you can go. It’s so dark you can’t even see your hand. You hear others screaming in pain and terror all around you—trapped in their own concrete pockets—many of them bleeding and dying.

The dozens of aftershocks that follow make the concrete around you crack and crumble. You fear that soon you’ll be another fatality crushed by tons of rubble. Eventually the screams around you fade. In the darkness you begin to lose track of time. You have no food or water. What keeps you going? What enables you to hold on? It’s one very important four-letter word: HOPE. As you lay there buried alive in your concrete coffin, the thing that keeps you breathing…the thing that keeps you sane…is your HOPE that eventually someone will come and rescue you.

You hang on to the belief that in the next few minutes or hours you’ll hear digging. Light will shine into your tomb followed by the smiling face of a rescuer. For hundreds of Haitians that’s exactly what happened. Eventually someone came and rescued them.

Isn’t that our message to a lost, dying world? HOPE. Apart from the good news that every single person can be forgiven by God and have new life in Christ, there is no hope. God gives us hope by rescuing us. My mission, your mission is to share His hope with those who haven’t received it!

Are we sharing that hope? Before we dig in let’s take a little quiz. Use your insert to keep your score. They’re all Yes or No questions.

1. I believe that it’s my responsibility to share the gospel, not just preachers or missionaries. 
2. If someone asked me how they could know that they’re going to heaven, I’m confident I could share the gospel with them. 
3. If someone told you they are going to heaven because they’re a good person, or obeyed the Ten Commandments, could you refute that with Scripture? 
4. Do you regularly pray for lost people that you know to come to Christ? 
5. Do you regularly pray for pastors/missionaries on the front line when it comes to sharing the gospel? 
6. During the last month have you talked to someone about their relationship with God? 
7. Do you remember a time when you’ve shared the gospel with someone? 
8. Have you ever led someone to Christ? 
9. Have you invited someone to church in the last six months? 
10. Do you have a lost friend you’re currently seeking to build a gospel bridge with?

How many Yeses did you have? If six or below is failure, it’s a big problem. Most Christians, most churches are failing. Is it any wonder we’re not reaching our world? We’re not going wider, but we could be and should be. God has given every Christ-follower a mission to reach their world. to rescue those around us, that neighbor, friend, co-worker from the rubble of sin. It’s what we’re talking about today. If you’re taking notes…

1. We must understand the mission. 

Paul makes a shocking statement, For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel (1 Corinthians 1:17). The gospel is our message. Sharing it is our mission, nothing else.

Our message is not reformation; it’s transformation.

This is why our focus is not moral. It’s not political. Think about it. Let’s say we shut down every abortion clinic. Gay marriage, transgenderism, and pornography are outlawed. Kids can pray in school. No more illegal drugs, drunkenness, smoking or cussing. Every channel on TV is like the Hallmark Channel. Would we be a “Christian” nation? No! We might be a moral nation. The fact is you can do all those things. You can be a Boy or Girl Scout and still go to Hell. Those who crucified Jesus were very moral.

I remember sharing the gospel with a woman some years ago. She knew she needed Jesus, but told me, “I want to clean up my life first.” You can’t clean up your life. No one can. Wonderfully, a few days later she realized that and repented of her sins, trusting Christ as her personal Savior.

Our message is not church growth; it’s God’s family growth.

We’re not in competition with other Bible believing churches. If a friend is attending a good church, please don’t invite them to ours. Pray for other churches, that God will bless them, that they’ll have a rich harvest of folk coming to Christ. And if you can grow more and be more effective for Jesus in another church, please go there.

Our message is not Empire building; it’s Kingdom building.

We don’t believe our way is the best way. We do believe it’s what God has for us at this point in our church’s history and in this culture. We just want to be Grace Church in Burlington.

Our message is the simple gospel.

The gospel isn’t the ABCs of the Christian faith; it’s the A to Z. It’s not a set of beliefs. It’s a biblical worldview. The gospel is good news about what Jesus has already done.

Here in a short form is our message: Jesus Christ came into the world—fully God-fully man. He perfectly obeyed God’s law and fulfilled God’s will. He died as our substitute, paying the debt for our sins. He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. One day He’ll return to earth to establish His kingdom. In the meantime, we’re to share the gospel with everyone everywhere. Our message is rooted in time and space, the facts of history, the Incarnation, in the truth of what God did when He sent Jesus.

God did this out of love for us. He knew we had no hope unless He took the initiative. Salvation begins with the admission that there’s nothing good in us. Apart from Jesus, we’re all a dumpster fire. Nothing in us can contribute to our salvation. We’re helpless to save ourselves. Salvation must come from outside of us. We must confess that we need the help that only Jesus can give. God offers salvation on one simple condition—a wholehearted faith in Jesus Christ, trusting in Him alone as our Lord and Savior, resting upon His sacrifice on the cross for our salvation, admitting our sinfulness and crying out to Him to save us from our sins.

Those who trust in Christ are saved forever. They’re forgiven of all their sins, born again, made part of God’s forever family and declared righteous. Their sins are placed on Christ and His righteousness is placed on them. They receive a new nature that enables them to live in a new way. They’re given eternal life and promised that they’ll go to heaven when they die. It’s John 3:16 – God so loved the world. Jesus told us to share this news with everyone everywhere (Mark 16:15).

Why do we need this message? Because no one can ever be good enough! No one can do anything to merit heaven! The danger we face is that we’ll pervert the gospel into a “Christ plus” something. Good works, baptism, the mass, the ten commandments, giving, church attendance, the right political party or just being nice won’t get you get you into heaven. Christ plus anything else will condemn you to hell. It’s “only Jesus and Jesus only.” If we teach “some of Christ and some of me,” it’s a lie!

Since the gospel is our only message, we must know the message. It’s simple. It takes little to know by memory the basic plan of salvation with appropriate Scripture references. Having a basic outline of the gospel, along with the Bible verses to support it, helps you be an effective witness. To communicate the gospel clearly, learn some key verses to go with each major point of the gospel. We’re sinners—Romans 3:23: For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Sin has a high price—Romans 6:23a: For the wages of sin is death. God paid the price—Romans 5:8: But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. You can’t do anything to fix it yourself—Ephesians 2:8-9: For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. You must personally accept what God has done—John 3:16: For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

2. Going wide means loving your neighbor. 

Do you remember when Green Bay Packers Running back, Aaron Jones got lots of media attention for helping someone? It’s for something he did off the field. Jones was a good Samaritan. He came off a plane, saw an elderly woman standing there with no one to help her and no way to transport herself to her destination. So, he jumped in, found a wheelchair and took her to her destination. Someone caught it on camera, and it went viral. The media picked up on it and called Jones a “Good Samaritan.”

According to Jesus’ parable in Luke10, a Good Samaritan is kind and known for acts of kindness. A Good Samaritan is first a good neighbor.

We’re not going to take time to work through the bad neighbors. Those in Jesus’ day were blind to what it meant to be a good neighbor. Too often so are we. Though the priest and Levite were very religious, they didn’t have a clue who their neighbor was. If we’re going to reach wide, reach those who don’t know Jesus, we must know what it means to be good neighbor.

Loving your neighbor means moving outside your comfort zones.

You can’t love someone if you don’t know their name or anything about them. At Grace, we’re passionate about our church being a family of neighbors who don’t just talk about loving our neighbors but truly love our neighbors. Being a good neighbor means living out kindness. 

The Jews and Samaritans hated each other. While we know the priest and Levite were Jewish, we don’t know the racial origins of the victim. Jesus’ point is obvious. It doesn’t matter. What mattered is that the Samaritan was willing to take a risk (even of being robbed himself). He moved out of his comfort zone to be a neighbor. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, The question the Good Samaritan asked was not ‘If I stop and help this man, what will happen to me?’ but ‘If I do not stop and help this man, what will happen to him?’

Loving your neighbor isn’t always comfortable. It goes against our tendency to selfishness. The Samaritan has no more reason to stop than the others. He’s probably on his way home, too. He’s busy, tired and wants to see his family. All the excuses the others made, he could have made, but he didn’t. When he saw the man, he had pity on him. It’s a very strong word. It’s the idea of being deeply moved. Someone defined compassionas your hurt in my heart.

Our world values success and accomplishments. The Bible is clear that the Christian life is a calling, not a performance. Jesus left the comfort of heaven to save us. We must leave our comfort zones to love our neighbors.

Read the New Testament. The early church went out into the culture. They didn’t wait for it to come through their doors. We’re called to “go,” not wait. Where is your focus? On your comfort? Your family? My friend, do you realize that God placed you in your neighborhood, that workplace to move you outside of your comfort zone to reach your “neighbors?”

Loving your neighbor requires action. 

There’s a tendency to make things overly complex. The longer an organization is around, the more it adds levels of complexity. Churches can do that too. But our Samaritan friend models simplicity. He didn’t fill out forms or wait for others. No, he stepped in and took action. Being a neighbor that pleases God isn’t complex. It just requires initiative and forward movement.

Loving your neighbor means getting close. 

Unlike the others who crossed to the other side, the Samaritan gets close and personal. You can’t minister from a distance. Obviously, you have to know names. It helps to know their history, dreams and passions. Are you close to your neighbors?

Loving your neighbor means caring. 

This Samaritan cares for the wounds of the man. He takes a risk. The robbers might still be around. Then, he gives up his own transportation to carry the man.

Tim Winton is one of Australia’s most famous authors. He was interviewed by the show Enough Rope with Andrew Denton. The conversation turned to his Christian faith. Andrew Denton said, “I want to talk about your faith. When you were, I think, about five, a stranger came into your family and affected your family quite profoundly. Is that right?” 

Winton then shared how his father, a policeman, had been in a terrible accident in the mid-1960s, knocked off his motorcycle by a drunk driver. After weeks in a coma, he returned home. Winton said he remembers thinking, “He was like an earlier version of my father, a sort of augmented version of my father.  He was sort of recognizable, but not really my dad, you know?  Everything was busted up, and they put him in the chair, and, you know, ‘Here’s your dad.’ And I was horrified.”

Winton’s father was a big guy. His Mom had difficulty bathing him. There was nothing Tim, who was five at the time, could do to help. News of the family’s situation spread in the community. Shortly afterward, his mother had a knock at the door. A stranger stood there. He said, “G’day. My name’s Len. I heard your hubby’s a bit [ill]. Anything I can do?” 

Winton explained that Len was from a nearby church. He’d heard about the family’s difficulties and wanted to help. Winton said, “He just showed up, and he used to carry my dad from bed and put him in the bath, and he used to bathe him—which in the 1960s in [Australia] in the suburbs was not the sort of thing you saw every day.” This act of kindness from this Christian had a powerful effect. “It really touched me in that—watching a grown man bother, for nothing, to show up and wash a sick man—you know, it really affected me.”  This “sacrificial act,” as he described it, was the entry into the Christian faith for the entire Winton family.

Loving your neighbor means sharing. 

Think about the encounters you had last week. Consider the conversations you had with a neighbor, or a stranger. Here’s an important question: When you were interacting with the other person, were your “antennas” up? Were you really listening? Thinking about how you might have an opportunity to show God’s love?

Do we really care? Love others? To love, we must share ourselves.

When it comes to neighboring there are two extremes—Love and Fear. Each has the power to negate the other. 1 John 4:18, Perfect love has the power to cast out fear. The reverse is also true. Fear has the power to cast out love. We can become so afraid of our own needs not being met that we walk by others who have needs telling ourselves, “No—I can’t afford the time—I can’t be their neighbor!” This story teaches us that we’re more likely to reach out to the needy around us if we trust God to take care of us.

Loving your neighbor means building a team. 

The Samaritan must continue his journey, so he enlists an innkeeper. He partners with others. This is vital. The goal is not just to be a good neighbor. We want to create a community of neighbors where talents and resources of Christian brothers and sisters join forces. We want to model it for our children. Who taught you to care for others? It’s not natural. It was modeled for us. 

I’ll tell you how I do it. I network. I have two left hands, but I have lots of Christian friends who can fix anything, so I do referrals. And I continually ask those I meet how I might pray for them. Rarely am I turned down.  

Loving your neighbor means you have to start. 

What did the Good Samaritan do first? He stopped. The others kept walking. It’s better to start small than wait until you have a big plan or move.

Let me suggest a simple step of application. Many of us want to make a difference, yet don’t know where to begin. God has placed in your life people who need help that only you can give. Some need a word of encouragement. You’re the one who can give it. Some are staggering beneath a burden. You can help lift that burden. Some want to quit. You’re the one who can encourage them. Some have been hit with a lot of trials. You’re the one who can help them keep going. And they’re all around you.

Our problem is that we don’t see them, so pray that God will give you a neighbor’s eyes, eyes that see needs of those around you. They’re out there waiting for someone to help. God helped us for a purpose: that we might take what we’ve received and share it with others who need it. How do you change the world? You change it one life at a time. Compassion that isn’t personal isn’t compassion.

Conclusion

How do we do this? How can each of us go wider for the cause of Christ, with the gospel? Let’s close with some basic steps…

Pray. Start here. Write down the names of neighbors, friends and co-workers and begin praying they’ll come to Christ. Prayer moves us to care. I love the promise of Ephesians 3:20: Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. It would blow our minds to see what God would do if we’d just pray. When was the last time you prayed for your neighbors or co-workers? Pray that God would open a door for you speak to them about Christ.

Go. Jesus described His earthly ministry saying, the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). Jesus didn’t wait for people to come to Him—He went to them. If you make cookies, take some to a neighbor. Wave when you see them. Stop and talk to them. Slow down!

I forget names so I write them in my contact list. Last week the person cutting my hair was new. I wrote her name in my contact list to remember it. I learned the previous manager had had an accident. She’d friended me on Facebook, so I sent her a message to let her know I was praying for her.

Look for commonalities. Whatever they love, talk to them about it. Ask questions. Intentionally place yourself in regular contact to create opportunities to get to know them and to hopefully share Jesus.    

Ask for help. In American culture we’d rather cut our arm off than ask for help. We want to look like we’ve got our act together. Asking for help is humbling but it opens doors for the gospel. Read the gospels and note how many times the Lord Jesus asked for help.

Invite. Invite them into your home or out for a meal or for coffee. And if you have kids or grandkids, they’re bridge-builders. Use those open doors.

God gave you that home. Use it to serve Him! One of the best ways you can build trust and relationships with others is by breaking the norm and inviting them into the space that culture says is yours alone.

Share. Be open and look for opportunities to share the gospel. In some cases, an opportunity might present itself in an unrelated conversation. Most of the time we need to build a relationship first before they become open to discussing things of faith. Don’t force it. Yet, when Jesus is a major part of your life, it doesn’t take much to talk about Him.

Let me illustrate that. It probably takes me less than 5 minutes in a conversation for someone to learn that I love Jane and she’s my best friend. It never feels weird to talk about Jane. And I find the same thing is true with Jesus. When you love someone, you want to talk about them.

Invest. Being a faithful witness means choosing to see those around us as image-bearers, not a project. God loves them and so should we. Share yourself. Share your time. Just share and you’ll be amazed at the opportunities that will come up to share Jesus.

What would it look like if everyone in our church really believed that God has empowered us with His Spirit to be witnesses where we live and work? Imagine how God would transform our communities if together we endeavored to make Jesus known among our neighbors, where we shop, where we work, by praying, seeking, inviting, sharing, and investing. As we as the Grace Family commit to Christ’s mission, we must remember that fulfilling the Great Commission often just means walking across the street or across to the next cubicle.

So, are you in? The gospel is the only hope this world has. It’s not optional. We’re commanded by the Lord to be His hope carriers! If we don’t share it, it won’t get shared. Will we do that? Will we join together? Can Jesus count on us to reach our circles with His message of hope?

Jesus came into the world to save sinners like us, like our loved ones and friends! During 2026 let’s go deeper and wider. The Bible says that when someone comes to Christ, heaven has a party. I’d love for our church to be part of a constant heavenly party. It starts with me and you. Let’s go wider.

So, who are you going to start praying for? Would you please note it on your connection card today so we can pray with you for that person?