There's a hot topic going on now among community leaders about the growing prominence of digital billboards along the interstates. Their brightness and clarity may cause drivers to focus more on the billboards than on the highway. So for many leaders the issue has become a matter of safety.

All this talk has prompted me to take a closer look at what is being advertised along the highway—digital and non-digital. Some are plain-Jane and simply advertise the business name and location. Then some get pretty creative like "Sleep late on Sunday.org" or "Eddie's Angels." Maybe there is a possible series of sermons I could do based on the messages of local billboards.

There is one especially that recently caught my eye. Not sure if it's still there. But coming out of downtown Columbia there is a billboard that says, "Express Yourself." The sign advertises a tattoo parlor and communicates the ever-growing popularity of expressing yourself through tattoos.

Nearly ten years ago Madonna came out with a top-of-the-charts hit single called "Express Yourself." The lyrics coach women on how what they need to do to get a man to love them the way they should be loved. A woman must learn to express herself so that her man will be motivated to express himself.

"Express Yourself." That's the title of my message today. No, I'm not promoting tattoos. And, no, the band's not going to come up and sing Madonna's hit song. Instead, we're going to talk about how every believer needs to express his/her faith.

We continue our winter series of messages called "Becoming a Contagious Community." We are in the process of recasting our vision of helping people connect with God and become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. To help us understand what Chapin Baptist is all about, we are using the three E's: encounter, engage, and express. Encounter is all about worship. We believe God wants every member to be faithful in coming to worship each Sunday and to encounter the living Christ each time he comes.

Engage is about small groups. For the last two weeks Pastor Steve talked about the vision of every member engaging in a small group experience. Through small groups we can focus on fellowship (building healthy relationships with one another) and discipleship (going deeper in our spiritual journey and learning to become a self-feeder). Today and next Sunday we're going to talk about express. We're going to focus on how God calls every member to express his faith through ministry and evangelism. Today, we will deal with the "why" question. Why do we need to express our faith? Next week, we will focus on the "how" question. How can we effectively express our faith?

Why do we make such a big deal about breaking through attendance barriers? Why do we keep talking about walking across a room to engage someone in spiritual conversations? Why do I keep pushing for the church to get outside the walls? Why is it so important that we pray for lost people? Why should we build bridges of ministry to the community? Why go to Zimbabwe, Brazil, and Moldova? Why should Chapin Baptist exert so much energy on evangelism, ministry, and missions? Why should you become better at expressing yourself?

Perhaps the best way to answer these questions is to go straight to the Bible and see what God says. There are many different angles I could take to emphasize how we all must do a better job of expressing ourselves. However, the simplest way, I believe, is to teach you several of the most important biblical answers to these questions.

Why should you express your faith to others? First, because God's strategy is to use believers to spread Christianity. This strategy goes all the way back to the time when God called Abraham to uproot his family and to move to a new land that He would show him. God chose him to be the father of a new nation, the nation of Israel. But from the very outset God let it be known that this nation was not to keep the blessings to themselves. No, He called them to reach out to others outside the Israel camp. Listen to God's words to Abraham: "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you" (Genesis 12:1-3).

Israel indeed became a great nation and is to this day. But they did not follow God's strategy of taking the good news to other nations. They kept it to themselves. They became so inwardly focused that eventually they turned away from God and self-destructed. God sent in a pagan nation to destroy Israel. What the nation of Israel refused to accomplish, God has now given the same task to the church of Jesus Christ. The church is the new Israel. We have a mission to accomplish, a mission to take the love of Jesus and share that love with every person in this world.

God's strategy of evangelizing the world is to use people to share the good news of Jesus. He saves people from their sins, sets them free from spiritual bondage, and ushers them out into the world where they are assigned the task of telling others. But just like Israel, in many ways we keep the gospel to ourselves and refuse to take it outside the walls of the church.

For whatever reason, we have failed to see the big picture. God's strategy is to use Christ-followers to reach others for the kingdom. What we don't understand is that God does not have a plan B. I guess He could just snap his finger and save everyone in the world. Or he could have given the task to the preachers and the other ordained leaders of the church. But that's not what He chooses to do. If believers like you and me don't reach others for Christ, guess what? Others won't be reached. Why? Because God didn't develop another plan. He's counting on you. He saved you so that you can be a blessing to others. He saved you so that He could use you as His messenger to express your faith to others.

Why should you express your faith to others? Second, because people are lost and will spend eternity in hell without Jesus. I know that comes across as blunt; but there is no way you can sugarcoat this truth. Jesus stated His mission on earth with this plain truth: "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost" (Luke 19:10). And He states our mission as well: "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you" (John 20:21). Why did the Father send Jesus into this world? To seek and save the lost. So to paraphrase John 20:21—"Just as the Father sent Jesus to seek and save the lost, Jesus is sending us into the world to seek and save the lost."

Did you read the newspaper article this week about the religious preferences of American people? Researcher's put people in categories like Evangelical Christian, Mainline Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, etc. In this study, a new category emerged. In fact, it came in as the fourth largest group. Do you know who they were? It was the religious unaffiliated. Does that not bother you? For those of you who claim that we live in a Christian nation, your hand is stuck in the sand. You're out in la-la land somewhere. The number of lost people in America is ever on the rise. It is estimated that there are about 250 million lost people in the United States and Canada. And the pattern is true for people in Chapin as well.

The world population today stands at 6.7 billion. Only 2.2 billion (or one-third) claim to be Christians. The population increases by 229,000 each day. The number of new converts to Christianity each day is around 79,000. Every day we are losing ground. Every day there are 155,000 more lost people than the day before. Do you know where Christianity is exploding? In China, where 16,500 people become followers of Christ every day.

We read about gosh-awful crimes in the newspaper and wonder how people could stoop so low. We hear about teenage sexual promiscuity in our own community and wonder where people's morals are. We hear of new ways that kids are getting on drug-induced highs and say, "What is this world coming to?" May I remind you of a very important fact? Lost people behave like lost people. Why should anyone be surprised at the filth and absence of morals in our society today? Without Jesus Christ people are lost. And lost people act like pagans. They don't have the living Christ in their souls to keep them out of the garbage dump.

What is beyond me is how well-meaning Christians can come to worship each Sunday and then go live their lives throughout the week without even a passing thought that the person they work with or go to school with or work out with may be lost. We can return to church the following Sunday having never offered a single prayer during the week that a lost friend might come to know Jesus. Why should we express our faith? Because people are lost and will spend a Christless eternity in hell unless someone intervenes to share the love of Christ.

I remind you that lost people matter to God. He doesn't want a single person to die without His Son Jesus. He wants everyone to enter into His eternal family. The Bible says, "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). If lost people matter to God, shouldn't they matter to us also? Jesus looked upon the crowds of people and felt compassion for them. They broke His heart because He saw them as sheep wandering aimlessly with no hope. Do you feel any emotion at all for those who don't know Jesus?

Why should you express your faith to others? Third, because people are hungry for the gospel. Jesus probed His followers, "Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest" (John 4:35).

I know many of you have heard one of the great stories coming out of our recent trip to Zimbabwe. Several thousand people came to watch a soccer match between two schools. (By the way, they walked to get there. And most of the players played barefooted because they own no shoes.) After the two matches (junior high and high school), the several thousand gathered in a tight circle where the Campus Crusade staff presented the teams with cash prizes and brand new soccer and volley balls.

Then Forai, our Crusade host, asked me to bring greetings to the crowd. I did so with an interpreter. When I was done, he told me to go ahead and talk to them about Jesus. I told them about God's love, our sin, and how Jesus died on the cross for them. I explained how each person must decide for himself to let Jesus come into his life. I gave them an opportunity to accept Jesus into their hearts and led them in a sinner's prayer. When I asked them to raise their hands if they just asked Jesus into their lives, I'd say three-fourths of them responded. Only God knows the number. But it must have been three thousand making decisions. That's more than Pentecost. Then God reminded me that Jesus indicated that with faith we would see greater miracles than He Himself performed.

The Zimbabweans are so hungry for the gospel. Their hearts were prepared. It was first-hand evidence that the fields are ripe for harvest. We may not see that kind of response here in the States. But still there is a spiritual hunger. People long for hope. They know there must be more to life than what they are experiencing. And, yes, even in Chapin there is a spiritual hunger. Many hearts are prepared and ready to listen. That's why we must express our faith. People are hungry and they recognize that nothing they have tried has satisfied the spiritual hole in their hearts.

In a survey conducted with new believers, 64 percent said they came to faith as a result of a conversation with a friend. And studies still show over and over that a large percentage of lost people would respond favorably to an invitation to attend church.

Why should you express your faith? Because God's plan to reach the world involves you. Because people are lost and will spend eternity in hell without Jesus. Because people are hungry to hear the gospel. If there is one thing I want you to takeaway from this message, I want you to ask God to burden your heart for lost people. That's it. Make it a daily prayer. Ask him to break your heart for those who have yet to embrace Christ. Because if your heart is burdened, you will be more ready to respond and do something about it.