Be ready to explain why you believe

Be ready to explain why you believe

by | Jul 28, 2025 | Best Sermons

PART TWO OF TWO

By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross

The best sermons are lived, not preached.

Many cowboys have seen memes or posts on social media that make this kind of statement and liked or shared them because it sounds great.

But it’s only half of the equation and it’s important not to miss the other half.

In Matthew 5, Jesus tells us to be a light in the world—that how we live our lives and the good we do will show Jesus to others. That’s very true and essential to our faith. When our saving faith in Jesus is real, we can’t help but want to become less sinful and live out more of what Jesus teaches and commands us to do.

One of his commands is what we call The Great Commission.

Matthew 28:19-20 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

A disciple is a follower of Jesus and in this command, we are all told that we are to go into the world around us and make disciples. That means first telling them about Jesus and then teaching them what we have learned or are learning. It isn’t just for preachers in the pulpit, it’s for rodeo cowboys at the fairground and ranch hands working cattle.

Being a light, doing good things, demonstrating that our life is changed by our saving faith in Jesus will show people our lives are different and being affected by our growing relationship with Christ, but others can’t be saved through our actions alone. We have to actually tell them who Jesus is and that he died on that cross to take the punishment meant for our sins so that through belief, genuine repentance of sin and asking to be forgiven, we can have an eternity in Heaven. The plan for salvation is commonly called The Gospel and we understand The Great Commission to be about sharing The Gospel with others.

Peter explains to us that we have to be ready to explain it to people what we believe.

1 Peter 3:15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

In other verses in this chapter, Peter teaches ways we can demonstrate our faith and that we should demonstrate good, not evil, to others. He also explains that as we live a life different from others, we might even suffer for our faith at the hands of those who reject Christianity as we make different choices than them.

Peter references our hope, which is our understanding that a perfect life waits for us in Heaven so that no matter how hard this life gets or the struggles we face, we have confidence that a better, eternal life is waiting for us. Our hope is in that belief, not in anything the world around us can give or do for us. Whether we face persecution or not, if our life is demonstrating Christ in us, others can see it and ask. He stresses that we have to be prepared to tell others what we believe and why that gives us a different hope than they have.

This is where we can see how both our actions and our words are necessary for others to also come to a saving faith in Jesus.

The best sermon is both lived our and preached, together, so people can see our lives are different through our hope in Jesus but that we can also explain what that saving faith, The Gospel, is, so that they also can have a chance at a perfect eternity in Heaven.

Whoever we keep around us, we need to make sure they know about Jesus

Whoever we keep around us, we need to make sure they know about Jesus

by | Jul 14, 2022 | Behind the Bucking Chutes, The Company You Keep

Part 7 of 7 The Company You Keep

By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross

The cowboy crowd in particular doesn’t seem to be fans of being told what to do.

But one of the reasons we’re asked to be intentional about who we spend time with is because of Jesus’s command we know as The Great Commission.

Matthew 28:19-20“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Being surrounded by like-minded and experienced Christians can help us grow in our faith and can help us stay strong as we interact with the world around us to tell them about Jesus.

It’s one of a handful of very specific commands that Jesus gives along with a command to love others.

One of the most loving things we can do is tell them about Jesus.

As Christians, followers of Christ, we know that our sin separates us from God and that God is going to condemn it. We also know he made a way for all of us to be in His presence and that was through the death of Jesus on the cross. Jesus came to live perfectly among us but most importantly to be sacrificed to take the punishment meant for our sin so we could enter into Heaven and be with God.

God won’t let us in our presence as sinners but through a faith in Jesus, who he was and what he did for us on the cross and by repenting of our sin and asking to be forgiven of it, God will no longer see the sin our lives. Instead, He sees us as perfect.

Anyone who works with bulls, cattle or horses knows how easy it can be to be brought to sin in the form of anger so we rely on what we understand as grace—God’s forgiveness even though we don’t deserve it. We can’t earn it, we can only receive it from Jesus. But knowing we have this forgiveness should compel us to want others to have it too.

This is why as Christians, Jesus commands us to tell others about him but he also commands us to disciple others. As we are discipled, we also should be discipling others—teaching them what we know from Scripture.

We look back to earlier in Mark and see the work of being discipled begin.

Matthew 4:18-20 As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 19 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” 20 At once they left their nets and followed him.

The reason he called them to follow him was so that he could equip them to go out there and lead others to that saving faith in him so that they also could be trained and equipped. The very first disciple was called almost 2,000 years ago. You now being asked to do the same comes because someone shared the gospel and discipled me while somone else had shared the gospel and discipled that person and so on and so on stretching back all the way to that day Jesus called Peter and Andrew to walk away from their boats.

How cool is that?

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