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“For I am with you,” declares Yahweh, “to save you.” – Jeremiah 30:11a

“I am with you.” He told this first to Jacob at Bethel in Genesis 28:15, “Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go. And I will bring you back to this land; for I will not forsake you until I have done what I have promised you.” Here’s the promise made to Jacob, the same one that’s being made to his descendants in exile in Jeremiah.

In Exodus 3:12 at the burning bush God says to Moses (and by the way, we know who spoke from the burning bush, don’t we? It tells us, the Angel of the Lord. This is Jesus, pre-incarnate. Jesus is speaking to Moses, and this is what He says, “Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God at this mountain.”

He reassured Joshua during the conquest of the Promised Land. “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not be in dread or be dismayed, for Yahweh your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9).

He told this to Jeremiah when He called him to preach. “And they will fight against you, but they will not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you,” declares Yahweh (Jeremiah 1:19). There is a whole sermon series right there in that phrase, “I am with you declares Yahweh to save you.” If God is for us, who can be against us? Amen. What can the world do to us? We cower, we’re afraid, we don’t want to witness, we’re shy, we don’t want to cause offense, we don’t want to upset people. Upset them, upset them by loving enough to tell them the truth!

We understand that the gospel is offensive because we are telling people who know God and deny Him and hate Him that He is and that He will hold them to an account. We must understand that the problem in confronting the atheist is not just to prove to him that there is a higher power. It’s to tell him the truth about the God that he hates, that he has personally rejected. That’s the atheist problem. They believe God doesn’t exist and hate His guts because they know they will have to give an account to Him.

So we preach an offensive gospel, a gospel of compassion through tears, with love and hope as we pray for the conversion of the lost. May we not be offensive in our preaching of it, but the gospel is going to offend.

So if you are hesitant in your witness because you’re afraid you’re going to offend people, let me tell you this, if you witness to lost people, and I’ll tell you this too, if you witness to 90% of the people in an evangelical church today, if you tell them the truth of the true gospel, they will be offended. John MacArthur said, “I want to offend people.” Not in his manner, but in the content of what he preaches. Because if they’re not offended, we haven’t given them the gospel.

People are going to be offended. God says, “I’m with you.” This is his commission to us. I want you to go tell everyone in this making disciples preaching everywhere. In the King James, Mark says, “Preach the gospel to every creature.” Preach it. Preach it out on the trails. Preach it to the deer, the goats, the dogs. Preach it. Say, well, why would I just preach into nothing? Here’s why. Because Charles Spurgeon in testing out the acoustics in the new Metropolitan Tabernacle decided he was going to preach the gospel, and he said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved!” And a man working in the rafters heard it, repented, and believed in Christ.

We never know who’s going to hear the word when we preach it. So preach it because the power is not in our preaching. It’s not in our persuasion. It’s in the gospel.

So if it’s offensive, let them be offended. Tell them the truth about who Christ is. Let them know. Why? Because God says as you go, to fulfill this great commission to baptize and make disciples and teach them everything He has commanded us, so that we might learn from Christ, we have this promise while we go, “I am with you.”

Our mission can’t fail. We can preach now and get immediate results, or it could be years. It could be generations. We don’t know. All we know is we’re planting the seed. God will send somebody else to water the seed. It’s God who gives the increase in His time when He’s ready to fulfill His purposes. And while we go and while we preach, “I am with you,” declares Yahweh, “to save.” Our God is a saving God. He is in the business of saving people and those He saves, He keeps to the uttermost.

We won’t fail. We can’t fail. Our mission is to sow the seed to the glory of God.

What we do is what we have been commanded to do. And out of love for Him, obey that command, knowing He is with us as we go. He even told this to the disciples. When He told them to go, make disciples, baptize them, He says, “teaching them to keep all things that I commanded you, and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 20:28).

“I am with you.” This is His promise to us.