How Can I Stand Up For What’s True Without Being A Jerk?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

We have been going through a series called Week Minded. The idea for Week Minded for our series is that it's W-E-E-K, week-minded, and the idea is that we take a mentality that we're talking about on a Sunday morning, or maybe like a mindset that you have that you're here on a Sunday morning, but that we can begin to think about the context that we're in during the week, the conversations we have during the week, the problems, the challenges that we have during the week.

And so today we're gonna be talking about a couple of different things, but I think it's best summed up in a couple of these scenarios. So what do you do when a coworker thinks it's okay to go to you with all of their gossip? Right? They need to know that what they're doing is destructive in many ways. It may feel good for them to do it, but they're losing trust, they're hurting themselves, they're sinning against God, this is not gonna go well. What do you do? What do you do when you have a best friend that acts like it's okay to sleep with their boyfriend or girlfriend? What do you do? They need to know that God created sex for marriage, and what they're doing is harmful, even the statistics bear that out. How do you approach that? What do you do when you have a relative that posts very demeaning things about people online?

Right? They need to know, they need to know that it's harmful, they need to know that the way to make a real difference is loving people that you hate. Jesus showed us this. He showed us how to handle people that we disagree with. But what do you do when somebody's doing that? What do you do whenever a friend thinks that it's okay to live like hell because they were baptized when they were 13? They need to know that baptism is great, it's one step in kind of this ongoing process, but it's not a get out of hell free card.

Baptism signals the beginning of a relationship with the Lord. But how do you approach the friend who is mistaken? Who misunderstands what baptism is? What's your move? How should a Christian bring confrontational truth to a person? Because we've all been there. We've all been there with somebody that we deeply care about. They are mistaken, and they might even be honestly mistaken, but they are deeply mistaken. They're living out of that mistaken understanding.

And it's really up to you to bring truth to that situation. And so today, the question is how do I stand up for truth without being a jerk? We thought that was like the best way to ask this question. How do I stand up for truth without being a jerk? Because that's our fear, right? We are, we want, we know, like we have to stand up for truth, but we also, the way that we stand up for truth also says something about the truth that we're standing for, amen? Right, so it's a tough line to walk. I don't know that we're gonna, you know, you're gonna get like five things, and if you do these five things in sequence, you're totally gonna nail this every time. We're not doing that today, that's not in scripture. However, when we think through this approach, there's kind of two lenses to look at. The first lens, and we're gonna get to these eventually, the first lens on that is confidence,

and the second lens on that is humility. And they're not in sequence, you need both. You need confidence, but you also need humility. You need to know that what you're standing up for is true, and you need to be confident about that, but you also need to be truly humble, not fake humble, not just saying the right things, but actually coming with a heart posture that is humble,

that is kind of for that person. We have to be sure of God at work around us, and we have to be, we have to really see ourselves clearly in order to do this. So today we're gonna be looking at two different conversations, and I wrestled all week. I wrestled for the last two or three weeks, actually. How many conversations should we look at? Should we look at one or two? And I could not decide on either one, so we're gonna be looking at two conversations. I promise this will not be a super long sermon. And by super long, I mean an hour and a half, so we're definitely gonna be under that. It'll be fine. We're gonna be looking at Acts 17, and we're gonna be looking at John three. So Acts 17, and then starting at about verse 22, Acts 17, 22, and following, and then we're gonna be in John three, one through 15. Okay, so Acts 17, and all the scriptures are gonna be up here.

If you aren't trying to bounce back and forth or anything like that, that's fine. We're gonna have all the scriptures that we're looking at up here. Acts 17 is Paul having a conversation with a group of Greek philosophers, okay, in Athens, Greece. And then John three is a conversation between Jesus and a Pharisee named Nicodemus. We're just calling him Nick today because July 4th was yesterday, and I'm tired. Okay, all right, we're gonna begin with Paul and the Greek philosophers. I'm gonna do my best to give you the context that you need, but admittedly, there's just things that we kind of can't get into for time's sake. So Paul is in Greece where these philosophers are. He's in a place called Mars Hill. It's also called the Areopagus, which is another way to say Mars Hill. And he just approaches them, but it's where they are. He kind of goes to where they are.

And we'll pick it up in Acts 17, 23. And this is Paul actually in conversation. So this is Paul speaking, even though there's no kind of quotes there, this is Paul speaking to these Greek philosophers. And he says, I passed along and observed the objects of your worship. I found also an altar with this inscription to the unknown God. What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. So Paul is walking up on these Greek philosophers, and around all these Greek philosophers, there's all these idols, okay? At least 50, maybe hundreds. And they're just around. And just in case they missed an idol, just in case they missed a god to pray to, there's this idol to an unknown God. And Paul, when he rolls up on them, he fixates on that one. And he says, hey, really glad that you have this idol to an unknown God. I know that God. Right, this is Paul's kind of, this is what he do.

He begins the discussion where they are. What he doesn't do, and we're gonna talk about what he doesn't do. This is actually important. What he doesn't do is he doesn't get offended on God's behalf that they call him unknown. Okay, he's not getting offended on God's behalf that idol's not the biggest idol or anything like that. He just kind of meets him where they are. And he kind of understands at this point, they are kind of reaching. They're trying to figure this out. They've got an idol to an unknown God. So they know something. And he's going to capitalize on what they know. Look at verses 24 and 25.

He said, this is the God I'm proclaiming to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. Okay. Now, this is beautiful. He's talking about truth. He's talking about the unknown God. He's introducing them to this. But what I need you to see for the purposes of this discussion is what he does not say. Throughout the entire discussion, Paul does not refer to the Old Testament. He doesn't refer to Moses. He doesn't refer to the law. He doesn't refer to Jesus in the entire conversation. You can read it all the way through. It goes to the mid thirties in the verses.

And he probably comes back around to Jesus maybe in the next conversation or the next. But for the purposes of this conversation, he's not gumming up the works with Moses law. He's not teaching them how to be Jewish before he teaches them how to be Christian. He's just meeting them exactly where they are. He talks about God in terms that they can understand. He's the God who made everything. He's the God who gives people life and breath and everything that they have. And he goes on, this is super interesting, look at verses 27, the end of 27, end of 28.

He says, yet he is actually not far from each one of us for, and he's quoting somebody here, in him we live and move and have our being as even some of your own poets have said, for we are indeed his offspring. Okay. Paul begins to cite their poetry. He's not quoting scripture per se. He is quoting their own poets. This would be like, if you're sharing the gospel with somebody, you're sharing your testimony, this would be like quoting George Strait. Okay, any George Strait fans in the house? Just a few of you. Okay, Kendrick Lamar, like quoting Kendrick Lamar. I'm trying to hit everybody this morning. Quoting John Lennon. Got any John Lennon fans? Okay. Maybe quoting Noah Khan. Got any Noah? Okay, all right, okay.

The reason I'm doing that is because I want you to understand that a contemporary understanding of what Paul is doing is he's quoting musicians here. He's quoting poetry that everybody knows so that they can understand a God that they don't. He's using terms that they understand so that they can understand a God they don't. He's meeting them where they are, not asking them to get all the way into his own subculture. He is going to them. He is loving them where they are.

And I think my question I wanna give you this morning is why? Why is Paul doing that? Why is he handling the gospel this way? Why isn't he tearing into Moses and the law and all of the Messiah, all of these things? Why not launch into his own culture? Why is he doing that? More fundamentally, why is he approaching Greek philosophers in the first place? They're just minding their own business at Mars Hill. They're just doing what they do. But Paul is going to them. Before we answer that question, I wanna look at our second discussion in John 3.

This is Jesus and a Pharisee named Nicodemus. Sometimes we forget the fact that he was a Pharisee. Let's read verses, sorry, John 3, 1 and 2. It says, now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, "'Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, "'for no one can do these signs that you do "'unless God is with him.'"

Jesus has apparently agreed to meet a Pharisee at night alone. Maybe we don't hit this on the first pass, but we should understand meeting a Pharisee, a group of people that want you dead, at night, when there's less protection, alone. Jesus is doing a lot of, he has not had the best interactions with the Pharisees. In fact, in John 2, a chapter four, he flipped tables in the temple, which didn't really go over that well with the Pharisees. And there's other places where they start the conversation just like this, like Matthew 22, 16, is almost the exact same introduction to what they're gonna say. So in verse two, he's saying, "'Rabbi, he's calling him teacher, "'so it's a sign of respect, he's showing him respect. "'Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher, come from God. "'Nobody does the signs that you can do "'unless God is with him.'" And that's the same idea you see in Matthew 22, 16.

And in Matthew 22, 16, they say that and then they ask a question to trap him. Okay, we actually don't know what Nicodemus is meeting Jesus for right here because Jesus turns the conversation immediately from that. Look at the next verse, John 3:3. Jesus answered him, answered the compliment. "'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, "'he cannot see the kingdom of God.'" Okay, I came out of nowhere. Nicodemus wasn't talking about being born. He wasn't talking about the kingdom. He wasn't talking about seeing anything. He was talking about being from God. But Jesus is shifting a compliment into a deep discussion. And maybe you're saying, well, he just wants to control the conversation. Well, fine, fine. But he still steers the conversation in a particular way.

And you have to ask the question, this is Jesus talking to a Pharisee. Why doesn't he just blow him off? Why didn't he just say to the Pharisee, hey, listen, we both know your intentions right here. I'm out. Why don't you run back to your other Jewish rulers and tell them you didn't find anything? He doesn't do that. He actually invites Nicodemus into a discussion.

What he's saying, John 3:3, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God is an invitation into a deeper conversation. Jesus is after Nicodemus, which is wild. Because Nicodemus and all of his friends, everybody, they are not for Jesus, typically. And yet Jesus is pursuing them. Here's what we need to know from these two discussions. And there's a lot there, and I admit, we are not, we're scratching the surface on some of this. But we're looking at it from the perspective of how are they having these conversations? And they are both, Paul and Jesus, they are both in pursuit of these people.

Paul, whenever he is speaking to the Greek philosophers, is speaking to them in a way that is pursuant of them. He is going to them. He is using language they know. He is citing their poets. Jesus here is inviting, through even just the question he's asking, inviting Nicodemus into a conversation that Nicodemus probably wasn't planning on having. Being born again was not on his bingo card. And here he is, having a conversation about being born again. Because Jesus is kind of steering the conversation that way. Both of them are kind of acting on this premise that God is lovingly pursuing people.

And that God, in his character actually, lovingly pursues people. We looked at this two weeks ago, but this is also in the conversation that Paul is having with the Greek philosophers, Acts 17, 26, and 27. As he's explaining the God of the universe, he says, and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. This is describing God as someone who is pursuing people.

That God, in heaven, allotted periods of time, right here, that he allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place. And we talked about this two weeks ago, the Lord has put you in the 21st century. The Lord has put you in Burleson, Texas, or wherever you live. He's put you in the DFW metro area, okay? He's put you there for a reason. He's given you the people that you have as friends for a reason. He has shaped your life in a way that he wants you to capitalize on. He's teaching you something in the middle of that. And part of what he's doing, he's doing that so that people will seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. That God, in his creation, as he's laying out your life, is doing that in pursuit of you. Later in his discussion with Nicodemus, we have the very famous verse, 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. Okay, very well known verse, John 3 16. But this is in the discussion with Nicodemus. He's saying, look, God loves the world this way. That so part, God for God so loved the world, it's not he loved the world so much. It's actually he loved the world in this way, in this manner. God loved the world in this manner. How, what manner was that? Giving himself. Giving his one and only son so that in pursuit of people, so that whoever's gonna believe in him should not perish but have eternal life. Why? Why does God do that? It's because he lovingly pursues people.

God lovingly pursues people. Paul is illustrating this with Greek philosophers. Jesus is illustrating this with Nicodemus. What does that have to do? How does that fit with standing up for what's right without being a jerk? Paul, as believers, involves lovingly pursuing people. I realize that might sound super obvious, but it means that you and I, as disciples of Jesus Christ, care immensely about what other people believe.

We care immensely about what's going on in their lives and we ask questions. We lean into the fact that God is pursuing those people. The people that you walk among, the people that you listen to, the people that you pray for, God is lovingly pursuing those people. And part of that equation means that we care about what other people believe. That if we understand that God, for example, if we understand that God is lovingly pursuing people, that we don't have an option to just say, well, whatever you want, whatever you think, it's fine.

Like it doesn't matter. Like it has no impact on their eternal resting place. Like it has no impact on their lives or how they raise their kids or how they do their job or anything like that. And we do it not to control people. We do it, we pursue them because we are motivated by a deep love, a love that was given to us first. God pursued us. The only reason right now that you're a Christian is not because you're great. I think we know this, but it's worth saying. You and I aren't Christians because we were bound to be or our family heritage determined that we were going to be or anything like that. If you are walking with Christ, it is because God in heaven pursued you. And that means that whenever we're talking about pursuing people, whenever we're talking about being motivated by this deep love that God pursued us and he calls us to pursue others,

that means that we're gonna come to moments whenever we disagree. Look at Acts 17, 30 and 31. This is a moment of disagreement. This is Paul again speaking to the Greek philosophers. It says the times of ignorance got overlooked but now he commands all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. And of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. He's still not naming Jesus, he's talking about Jesus, he's referring to Jesus, but he's not getting gummed up in the law. He's not getting gummed up in all of this stuff. He's telling them though that there will be a time when judgment will happen and God in heaven, this God, this unknown God is commanding repentance. That is disagreement. That is Paul saying something to these Greek philosophers that they may not be excited to hear.

He's challenging these philosophers, even though he's meeting them where they are, even though he's not talking about Moses and the law, et cetera, he is still beginning this discussion. He's including repentance. He is challenging these philosophers. Jesus famously challenged many people, including Nicodemus, John 3, 4. Nicodemus said, how can a man be born when he is old? So Jesus has just told them to be born again. And Nicodemus says, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? So Nicodemus is being super literal right now. And if I were Jesus, I would be annoyed. But Jesus wasn't annoyed, he kinda kept going. John 3, 7 through 9. And Jesus said, do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. And Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be? And I understand that it's difficult to read tone into this, but it's not a leap to imagine that Nicodemus may be frustrated at this moment. Because Jesus is telling him things that don't make sense to him. He's asking questions like, you mean literally be born again? What do you mean?

And this is Jesus' answer in verses three, chapter three, verses 10 through 12. Jesus answered him, are you a teacher of Israel and yet do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. And if I've told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? This is a really interesting comeback from Jesus. Because Jesus isn't like kind of getting down on his knee and go, well, let me really explain it to you. Jesus is actually challenging him right here. He goes, you're a teacher of Israel. You know the law, you know the Old Testament, you know all these things and you aren't getting it. And you want me to explain it more, Nicodemus, but I've already told you about things and you reject those things. You're going to reject or find it difficult to believe

the things that I'm gonna tell you that are heavenly things. Jesus is challenging Nicodemus. I mean, this is what Jesus does whenever there's a Syrophoenician woman who talks about healing her daughter. She says, Jesus healed my daughter. And he says, why am I gonna, like the, how does he say it? He says something like, the children of Israel, they're the ones who are gonna get kind of the first fruit they're gonna get. Why give anything to dogs?

So he calls this Syrophoenician woman a dog in conversation when she's asking him to heal her daughter. Let's just sit with that for a moment. Okay, tough one. A man who knew no sin is challenging a woman who is asking for healing. When there's a man, Jairus, and he's asking Jesus to heal his daughter, Jesus is like, I'm busy. When there's a man who says, Jesus, I need you to heal my son who's possessed by demons and it throws him in the fire. And he's saying, Jesus, I need you to heal my son if you can, he throws in the if you can. And Jesus challenges him on the if you can. Jesus says, if I can, like you think I can't do it? Jesus is unafraid to challenge people, even people that are in a tough spot. He's unafraid to challenge people, even when those people are super self-assured of where they're coming from. What does he tell the rich young ruler? Rich young ruler says, good teacher,

and asks them a question. And Jesus stops it and says, wait, why do you call me good? There's nobody good but God alone. He's challenging that rich young ruler. He goes on to challenge him further. My point is, I list all these things to say, Jesus is unafraid to challenge. We see it in scripture and we experience that ourselves. Jesus is unafraid. God invites us not just to engage that challenge with him, but to engage that challenge with others. He invites us to challenge other people. Not to just challenge them for fun, or to win arguments, or, I'm not talking about Facebook, clickbait right now. I'm not talking about what's like super fun to watch when somebody dunks on the other person, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying that challenge is inevitable because we are pursuing and we care deeply about what people believe. It's inevitable because people inevitably

want to avoid God. Even Christians sometimes don't wanna be called out on what they are doing. That is not aligned with the Lord. I'm sure you know somebody like that. I'm sure you've experienced something like that at some point in your life. Where you were doing something, you know what's wrong and you're kinda saying like, God, you know, if you could overlook this thing. People, even Christians, resist being pursued by God.

When you and I sin, our first inclination is to hide. On that. Or, and or, blame other people. We run from conflict. We are scared to say the wrong thing. Even if we know somebody's doing something wrong, we're scared that we're gonna maybe approach it incorrectly or we're scared that we're gonna say something dumb. Or we're gonna make them feel a certain way. Here's what I wanna encourage you with this morning. I wanna encourage you to walk into these conversations with a humble confidence. We talked about these two lenses already, humility and confidence at the same time. And here's what kind of undergirds that. The foundational truth that we see in Acts 17 and in John 3 is that God orchestrates conversations to mature people. And the verb, the word mature is a verb.

That God orchestrates conversations in order to mature people. This is parenting 101. If you want a parent without using any words, well, you're asking a lot of your kid. You need to be able to communicate and sometimes you need to be able to have a conversation about something difficult. Sometimes you need to challenge what their idea is. You need to challenge maybe something they believe in. And God orchestrates, that doesn't happen just between parents and children. That happens to all of us our entire lives that we have conversations with people, we receive conversations from people and those things, those conversations, depending on what we do with them, have the ability to help us mature. They have the ability to do that. And when you, let me put it a different way. When you can encourage someone with loving truth, when you can pursue them and encourage them

in loving truth, even if you have to wade through some disagreement, even if it takes you a couple of weeks, you have literally done the Lord's work. You have helped someone work through something that they believe. And there is no, look, the things that people tell testimonies about, these grand things like almost died and I saw a light and then I've been living for the Lord ever since. I hit rock bottom and then I realized this is the only way. Most of us don't see the blinding light and most of us don't hit rock bottom. They just, it doesn't happen.

What does happen is you and I have thousands, maybe tens of thousands of conversations in the course of our life and the Lord is calling us through the middle of those. Whether we're on the giving or receiving end, the Lord is calling out to us in the middle of those. And in the middle of those, our ideas will be challenged or we will have to challenge somebody else's ideas or behavior. I want you just right now, I want you to consider a time when you changed your mind. I really want you to think about it. It could been recently, it could be a while back where you learned something new. That process involved you being challenged to consider something else as a viable possibility. Let me tell you one of mine from a long time ago. And my wife is not here to verify it, but as soon as you see her right after, she's in grade school this morning, as soon as you see her right after,

you can ask her about this. This is a particularly painful conversation we had a very long time ago. It was before we had children actually. So really long time ago. I had a friend that, I had a friend that believed that abortion was kind of a necessary evil. Right? That was kind of his opinion. And he was a good friend of mine. And we had been talking about it a lot. And I began to be persuaded in my own kind of heart and mind.

Well, maybe abortion is kind of necessary. Like maybe it is something that needs to happen in particular circumstances, or maybe it's a thing where, even though it's not good, it's going to happen anyway. So we need to make these provisions kind of this way. That was the train of thought that I was going down. Okay. And I hadn't voiced a lot of this to Christie. And as we're in the car going somewhere, it was a long trip. So I had a lot of time to really think about what happened in the middle of this conversation. And she, we're talking about abortion. And I kind of bring it up and just talk about what I'm processing. And I'm a verbal processor. So sometimes that's a really messy kind of experience for all involved. And so I start talking through this thing with Christie. And she stops. And my wife is not, she's an understated woman. So she's not going to try to shout me down

or anything like that. It's great. I mean, that's exactly what I need. But when she says something with a certain degree of emotional force, I tend to listen. Okay. It doesn't happen often. Happens like twice a year. And I'm like, okay, here we are. And she said, very simply, she said in that conversation, she said, Drew, it's still murder. And I was like, okay. She said, are you making provision for murder in other capacities? No. Well, why are you making provision here? I thought, okay. I'm having my mindset adjusted like right this second. I didn't say that in that moment. I wasn't, I didn't concede the argument. I don't think I kept arguing. It was a long time ago. I don't think I kept arguing, but I remember that moment. I remember having my mind changed in that moment. And it wasn't because my wife was so convincing or so persuasive or so anything. She was just declaring truth to me

that I was ignoring quite simply. You have those times in your life. It doesn't matter how old you are. You've had those times in your life whenever you thought something was okay, or you thought something wasn't okay, or you thought something. And somebody else comes to you and they challenge you. So when you have that coworker, when you have that best friend, when you have the people that are living like hell, but I was baptized when I was 13, so everything's fine, you must put your feet into the fact that God is pursuing that person in real time. You must understand and engage the fact that God cares about what they believe. Even if you don't wanna have the fight, even if you're kinda tired of having the discussion,

even if you think, man, I just really wanna keep the peace today, God is pursuing that person. God is pursuing the changing of that person's mind and possibly calling you right in that moment to engage in disagreement. Now, I will say, if I ended the sermon right there, that can be pretty dangerous. You can weaponize that pretty fast. Like any time you disagree with somebody, well, then the Lord's calling me to correct them. Okay, slow down, tiger, okay. There's something to learn through that, okay? Okay, Drew Ivey, it's not, you're not always ready

to pounce on somebody, okay. And this is exactly why we need to remember that God empowers us to communicate with a humble confidence. We need the humble part and we need the confidence part. We need both of those together. Because when you consider that time that you were challenged to think differently about whatever you were thinking about, but if somebody came to you and they did it in a condescending way, they did it in a sarcastic way, they did it in a way that was demeaning to you, are you gonna receive that? No, trust me, you aren't. You aren't, because you're gonna have to see through their sin, you're gonna have to see through their judgment, you're gonna have to see through all that, then see the fact that you're actually wrong about something. It's asking a lot. And so the way that you do it matters just as much as what you're saying, actually. And you need to approach these kinds of conversations

with a humble confidence. This is the example of Jesus, this is the example of Paul following Jesus, and this is the example for us. This is how to have a conversation, even though you disagree. And if you have people in your life, I want you to think about the people that are in your life, the people that the Lord has given you. I use that phrase often, and I think it's helpful. There are people in your life that God has given you. Some of those people are your children, or a spouse, or parents. So some of these people you're related to. Some of these people are Christians. Some of these people are not. Some of these people are people that you're called to. I'm particularly, I feel called to the roasted beanery, just down the street, it's a little coffee shop. I get to know all the baristas there, and it's not because it's a fun game for me to learn people's names and lives.

It's because I feel called to these people, so I'm gonna go and approach them. I'm gonna pursue them. I'm gonna care about what they believe. And because I care so much about what they believe, I'm gonna take a minute, and I'm gonna listen to where they are. I'm gonna think about their context. I'm gonna think about what they understand is right and wrong. I'm going to get from there to the gospel, by any means necessary. And I'm gonna do it in a way that is loving. I'm gonna do it a way that's humble, but I'm also gonna do it in a way that's confident. If you have people that you love in your life, people that are given to you, the only way, not the only way, the only way they're going to grow, this is a true statement, the only way they're going to grow is if people in their lives that they trust approach them in humble confidence. That's it. Aside from blinding lights and hitting rock bottom, okay?

If you're not doing either one of those two things, if you're not planning on your kids becoming destitute and hitting rock bottom and letting that whole thing happen, aside from all that, you need to be able to have conversations with people that are difficult in a way that is humble and confident at the same time, okay? It's not impossible, so here's what I mean. Your humility needs to, both of these, your humility and your confidence need to be derived in fact. They need to be grounded in something that is real, not something that you feel per se, but something that is real. Here's where your humility comes from. Your humility comes from the fact that you are simply the messenger.

This isn't truth that you somehow own. This isn't truth that you somehow perfectly live by. You, you are simply a messenger. And sometimes it helps to understand that that message could easily be given to you also. When I'm preparing a sermon, I want you to know, it's a humbling experience. In fact, I think Jooravi, I think you said that to me the other day. Jooravi is one of our deacons and he was preaching a couple of months ago, a month or so ago, and he just said, man, it's so hard to prepare for a sermon because I have to say this stuff and know that it's real in a personal way. When you bear a message, you feel the weight of it too. If you're telling somebody, hey, listen, whenever people have conversations with you, you tend to be really condescending and sarcastic. If that is the message that you're gonna bring to somebody else, and you also struggle with sounding condescending and being sarcastic,

it's gonna hurt you. It's gonna wound you, and that's good. It should do that. But it's also really helpful to remember, it might not be what you're talking to somebody else about, like maybe, for example, let's say you don't struggle with greed, and you notice a really good friend of yours and they are just kind of living this super greedy life, super selfish life, and you don't struggle with greed. And so when you go to them and you say, listen, a lot of the things in your life that I'm just looking at and I realize you're not asking me this question, but I really feel kind of called to help you kind of see this. A lot of this stuff is pointed at you and not at a lot of other people that need you or that need help. A lot of your life is about you and what's yours. Well, what you don't get to do is say, well, I don't struggle with that, so I can speak authoritatively,

no, no, no, no, no, no, because even though that message isn't coming to you, there's another message that could be coming to you. You aren't perfect, we're all imperfect. When you approach in humility, you understand you are just the messenger. God is the one who is pursuing these people, and so the pressure is off of you. You don't need to change someone, you need to pursue them in love. I was just talking with a relative yesterday, and he had this moment, he actually did hit rock bottom, cousin Bobby, and he was telling me about it. He was telling me about how he hit rock bottom, and he said the thing that helped him a lot, kind of in that moment, was his stepdad said,

hey, I can't change you, but we're gonna be here for you. Are you okay, you doing okay? Pursuing him, checking on him, asking him questions, reviewing kind of events in his life, so that when he did hit rock bottom, he had a place that he could go. His mom and stepdad, he could go to them, because he trusted them, because that was built up. For you, a lot of times, when you see somebody's life kind of going off the rails, it's okay just to ask questions. It's okay to pursue them in a way that's not trying to change them. You can't change them anyway, but you can pursue them in love. You can pray for them. You can let them know that you are there. Be humble. Also, be confident. Here's the thing that we need to ground our confidence in. God's plan is moving forward with or without you.

God's plan is moving forward with or without you. If God is one who is orchestrating all these conversations to move people along, then you can trust his plan. You don't need to get caught up in the perfect time to ask the question or the perfect moment. I mean, how many times have we been called to pursue a person, to ask them a question, to see how they're doing, to say hi to them, whatever, but we kind of short-arm it because, well, I don't know if it's the right time. I feel like I should have somebody over. I feel like I should ask them a call, but I don't know what they'd say. I don't know if it's the right time. I don't know. Listen, rarely, if ever, do you have a moment in your time, in your day, in your life, where you say, you know what, now's the perfect time to do the thing, and then you go do the thing. It's stuff movies are made of, okay? It's not reality.

We can be humble because we are just the messenger, and we can be confident because it's God's plan, not ours. It's His plan, and move forward on that plan. Here's a couple of things I wanna just encourage you with. This is just kind of, you know, just hard application. With our summer series, we're trying to be very tactical, very practical, and so I wanna give you those things. I wanna encourage you.

The biggest barrier to doing anything like this, to living in a way that is humbly, confident, living in a way that pursues people, one of the biggest barriers to that is that we pull back in disagreement. And I do this too, when we perceive that there is going to be a lot of friction on a certain area, we don't engage. We pull back. And what we do is we actually enter into some really bad theology. I know that you don't think about it that way probably, but you enter in some really bad theology when you do that. You say, well, you know, that's true for you, but it's not for me.

Or he can do what he wants, or she can do what she wants, and I'll do what I want, and we'll be fine. Really? Is that what you believe? It amounts to a convenient excuse when you don't want to burst somebody's bubble. And again, I'm not saying let's just go around and burst people's bubbles. That's not the point. The point is that there are times whenever God is calling you to engage in disagreement.

And to do that well is to do the Lord's word. So don't pull back. When someone that you love is hurting themselves, like when it's gotten to that point, sometimes we need to, we feel like we need to wait until it gets that bad to actually intervene, to actually do something of consequence. I would just encourage you, there is a way to approach situations where it's not all the alarm bells going off, it's a few alarm bells going off, and you humbly, but confidently go to that person, you say hey, I see a few red flags here. I hear a few alarms going off. I feel like I at least need to say something to you. This is not judgment, I just care about you. That is no promise that they're gonna be like, thank you so much, like it's not always gonna, it's not always gonna happen.

When a Christian is living in rebellion, and I don't mean, look, I don't mean any little sin. I mean full on, I'm gonna do whatever I want. Bible calls this high handed sin, right? This is open rebellion. This is different than just messing up or being deceived and kind of walking down that for a little bit. This is, I know the truth, I don't care about the truth, and I'm gonna do whatever I want. That's what I mean. When you have a Christian that is living in that kind of rebellion, you are commanded in scripture to warn that person, period.

Why? To make them feel bad? To be condescending? To be judgy? No, because you love that person. And if they're a church member, because we are in covenant with that person. We don't just let people that we're in covenant with walk away and walk off a cliff and just do whatever they want. God has called us to care about people. And sometimes that means you need to say something difficult to them whenever they are doing something harmful to themselves, spiritually or otherwise. Don't pull back in disagreement. In the middle of the screen, don't short arm it. The other thing I would say is the second thing, there's another, there's three total. So number two, receive difficult conversations as God's direction to you. There was a time when I was,

I was thinking about a situation incorrectly. I had a weird perspective on something that was happening to me. It was a situation at work a couple of jobs ago. And I was really spun up. I was really kind of turned wrong. And I had a friend who a coworker and I sat in his office and he just let me gripe. I mean, straight gripe. I'm kind of embarrassed about it. Like if I think about it now, just like it was just very immature of me to be that upset over something that small. And man, I just griped and griped and griped. And this coworker after about 20 minutes, he just said, he asked me, he just asked me like a couple of qualifying questions.

And then he said, man, it sounds like to me that you're trying to have authority where you don't have authority and you're mad about it. Well, I mean, like a hot knife through butter, just stabbed me, just stabbed me. He wasn't trying to be a jerk. He wasn't, he was actually very sweet. But he still said something that was pretty challenging for me. In a soft sentence, he said, you're thinking about this all wrong. You're being selfish. And you should really think about this differently. And he didn't like counsel me. He didn't like pray with me right then. He did nothing. I just walked out of his office kind of stunned, you know? But that was the Lord's work, man. That helped me. That was a blessing to me. I count that as a blessing.

I will tell you, I've told this story before. I think it's really helpful. My sister-in-law had a friend that was running around on her husband. And had not, maybe hadn't full on run around, but had physically left her husband and was beginning to date one of their mutual friends. These are all people that I know too. She began to date one of those friends. And my sister-in-law was just very kind of convicted about what she was doing. And just kind of just, it's so heavy. And every time she thought about it, she goes, man, I feel like I need to say something about it. So she calls her up and she says, hey girl.

And I'm sure it was much more tactful than this, but it was some version of what you're doing is going to hurt you. It's gonna hurt your husband. It's gonna hurt your husband. It's gonna hurt this guy. It's gonna hurt, it's gonna hurt so many, there's gonna be so much collateral damage here. And this is not what the Lord wants for you. It's hard to hear, I'm sure. In fact, they did not speak for like four or five years after that statement.

But then four or five years later, that lady calls my sister-in-law and says, I want you to know that whenever I was doing that, you were the only one of my friends who told me to stop. And I was so glad you did. And so she quit, she quit doing that. She went back with her husband. She never gave the update to my sister-in-law. So my sister-in-law was kind of like, I don't know, I just did the thing that I had to do, right? Look, receiving difficult conversations at God's direction, giving difficult conversations at God's direction, like it is never easy. And sometimes you don't get some fairy tale ending. Sometimes you don't get like the note of like, I'm so glad you, sometimes you take it to the grave wondering if you did the right thing or if you should've or whatever, listen. That is no reason to not do it. In fact, it's a reason to pray a lot before and after doing it.

It's a reason to really key in on what the Lord is calling you to do or not calling you to do. Here's my encouragement. As we close, I'm gonna call Escher and Sarah back up. I just wanna encourage you this way. If you are in the middle of a difficult conversation or a difficult time where somebody that you are pursuing in love is hurting themselves, is hurting other people, is spiritually walking off a cliff, it is not an easy thing. I'm not trying to pretend like it's just some simple three-sentence formula that you follow and then everything will be magically fine. That's not what I'm saying. I am saying though, that the God of the universe is pursuing that person and that if you love them deeply, you are likely part of that solution. I have many people in my life that are not living the best life. They're not living for the Lord. They're not pursuing God. Some of them claim to be Christian, some of them don't.

And sometimes talking with them is difficult. Sometimes they tell me things and I wanna say something back and I shouldn't and I don't, sometimes I do. And it's because I want to share truth with them in a way that's helpful. My encouragement is when you feel that inclination to do that, my encouragement is to pray. Don't just open your mouth, pray first. There might be a time that's later that's gonna be better. It might be the time to do it right then. My encouragement is that you and the people around you would grow in God's grace as we are having tough conversations about truth without being a jerk.