How can I talk about Jesus in a normal way?

Transcript

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

Well, first of all, let me just say Happy Father's Day to you that it applies to. I could say Happy Father's Day to all of you. I'll just leave you with a quote. Most men don't need reminders that they are invincible. Rather, they need reminders that their Heavenly Father sees them. And if you are in Christ, the Heavenly Father sees you in the light of His Son. He is proud of His work in you. He is proud of the work that He is accomplishing in you. Brothers, let us finish the race strong. Happy Father's Day.

We are in the middle of our summer series called Weak-Minded, and I thought it might be appropriate to just kind of get back all the way up and figure out a little bit of where we've been and where we're going. And so we have started with this premise that people grow in the gospel. Right? So how does spiritual growth work? How does it happen to us? Well, it happens through the gospel. So our part, in other words, is in spiritual growth is submitting to the truth of the gospel over and over and over again. And as we do that, the more that happens, the more our lives stabilize on deep, unchangeable truth, and the less our lives center on or are even affected by things like how others feel about you, how much money you make, what you feel like your status is, what grades you're making, how many followers you have on social media.

It doesn't matter as much. Your life doesn't center on those things. As you continue to submit to the truth of the gospel, your life begins to stabilize on things that are sure and what Jesus calls the rock and not on shifting sand, not on things that change. Right? And this is not an overnight thing. Okay? We're spending all summer on it, not an overnight thing, but we can take ground on it. Okay? What we are doing all summer is we're also talking about how this happens kind of in reality. So this is why it's called weak-minded. We believe that people grow in the gospel in a couple of different ways, but here's a list for you. We got community. Okay? They grow in community. They go through obstacles. They grow with grace. They grow with habits. They grow with accountability. This isn't the only ways that people grow in the gospel, but it is five very

common ways that people grow in the gospel. And if you'll notice, if you look at this list, many of these things happen during the week. Okay? We are not facing a lot of obstacles on Sunday morning that we really are during the week. We are able to enter into accountability with other people beyond a Sunday morning. If you're just doing it, if you're trying to do everything on a Sunday morning, Sunday morning kind of gets a bit exhausting. It feels like you're trying to do 50 things at once. What we need to be able to do is to grow in the gospel during the week. That's why we call it weak-minded. During the week, so that we can kind of understand a couple of different ways this happens. On any given Sunday, we might be talking about one, two, three, four of these different avenues, but these are good to remember. Another way that we're going to be

learning the gospel is by memorizing scripture. We have cards available at the Connections Desk, and this week our verse is Colossians 4, 5, and 6. It's also what we're going to be looking at today. So if you want to turn in your rivals to Colossians 4, 5, and 6, that would be helpful. All of our verses are also going to be on the screen, so that's also going to be helpful.

So this week, our verse that we're memorizing is Colossians 4, 5, and 6. We're going to be preaching through it, but it's going to be an answer to the question. We're trying to deal with specific questions, very practical, very tactical questions all summer, and the question is, how can today, how can I help people know Jesus? How can I help people by having a conversation with them about the Lord? How can I do this confidently? How can I do this without feeling like I'm selling Amway? How do I do this in a way that is, I don't feel smarmy. Okay, so to all the used car salesmen out there, I'm sorry. How do I do it without feeling like a used car salesman? Okay, if you do that, God bless you, that's a tough field. Okay, we are going to jump into Colossians 4, 5, and 6. Admittedly, there's not a lot of context around this. I mean, there is, but this is really more of kind of a standalone statement. So what we're

going to do is we're going to look at the words that are being used, and we're going to look at how some other scripture kind of informs these verses. So Colossians 4, 5 says, walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Okay, walk in wisdom toward outsiders. I'm actually going to change that word, although the word actually means those outside. I'm going to change the word to explorers. I'll tell you why. Walk in wisdom toward explorers, making the best use of the time. Outsider, that word today, the way we read it, has a distancing effect. Okay, so when we say somebody's an outsider, that's usually not a compliment. It's usually not a warm thing that we call somebody. With scripture here, really, that distancing effect is not intended. It just means those outside the faith. That's all. But when we talk about an outsider to really lose that distancing effect, I'm going to use the word explorer instead because

a major emphasis in the New Testament is that people who don't know the Lord are searching for the Lord. Let me show you. Acts 17, 26 to 27. This is in the middle of a sermon that Paul is preaching, and he just kind of makes this statement, and it's super great. It says, and he made from one man, this is God, God made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place. Let's stop there. He's saying that God created everybody and allotted time and place for everyone. The Lord put you in the 21st century in America. In Berlison this Sunday morning, the Lord allotted that for you. Okay? All right. Why? Why did he do that? Verse 27, that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. So, yes, people are running from God. That's still true. Yes, Romans 1 is still true. People are

repressing the truth, suppressing the truth. But when the New Testament describes people that don't know the Lord, it includes a lot a disposition toward searching. It's that people are looking for God. They might not be doing a very good job of it. They might not be doing it full-time. They might not be doing it the right way, but they're looking for God. They are exploring. They are trying to figure it out. Also, when the New Testament describes Christians, what it does is it puts us, it includes a role of an ambassador and a priest, both of which are outward facing, and they're helping people who are searching to come find the Lord and worship him. Okay. So, in Colossians 4-5, what you see already here is that we should be intentional with how we relate to explorers. As a follower of Jesus, we need to have explorers in our view. And we're supposed to do that by walking in wisdom toward them, and that's explained really in the

next verse, Colossians 4-6. It says, let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Let's talk about this very quickly. It says, let your speech be gracious. Speech. Okay. The way that Jesus intends for us to walk in wisdom toward explorers, toward people who do not know the Lord, is with talking to them. Okay. I know that's very controversial, but you have to use words whenever you're going to relate to people. Okay. On a more serious note, as a follower of Jesus, you must learn to speak to people. Okay. In our day and age, I don't know if you've ever witnessed this. I'm sure you have. I'm sure you've participated in this. You see a bunch of parents that are waiting for their kids outside of piano lessons, ball game, ballet, whatever. And what are they doing? Are they talking? Are they having some fun discussion with each other? Answer. Yes, no. What are they doing?

No, no, they're not doing that. What are they doing? On the phones, right? Yeah. Come on. Like, we're all on our phones. We're not having these kind of these lazy conversations with people in line or hanging out with people. That's happening less and less and less and less and less. What you will have to understand is that if you are going to interact with people that do not know the Lord, you are going to have to put your phone down. You just will. And sometimes they won't. And that's okay too. But you're going to have to be able to speak to people. And you're going to have to speak to people who are not always going to be super sweet or super nice or very, very cordial. They might definitely make an inappropriate joke. These are people that might diametrically disagree with everything that you hold dear. And they might make fun of you. They might assume the worst of you when you begin to open your mouth. Right? These things

might happen. And these things that we're talking about here, this isn't worst case scenario. This is everyday stuff. And this is what Jesus not only demonstrated himself perfectly, but it's where he aims his life in ministry. What does Jesus do? Do you just hang around with people all the time that completely agree with him? Like, yeah, yeah, go ahead, Jesus. No. In fact, the majority of Jesus' time is spent with people who maybe didn't agree with everything he said. And that's kind of an understatement. He was killed for what he said. He was killed for what he did. Okay.

He is going to be, he's suffering. He's hanging around with people that don't believe like him. And putting that in today's terms, he's hanging out with people that are not on his algorithm. Right? They don't see, they don't see what he's seeing on Facebook. Right? They don't, the same YouTuber's not getting pushed to him is getting pushed to everybody else. You understand what I'm saying? Is that you're going to have to talk with people that either totally hated

who you voted for. Okay. You're going to have to talk with people that raised their kids totally different than you and believe in their heart of hearts that the way that you're raising their kids is detrimental and will hurt them. These are the people that you should talk to. Right? It's not just people that are always going to agree with you. High school teachers, are y'all in the house? High school teachers. Yeah. Yeah. I see you. God bless you. You know exactly what I'm talking about because every time you go into a high school classroom, you know, like chances are you're diametrically opposed to how a lot of those kids are thinking. And that's not to say all the kids are wrong or that you're wrong. It's not what I'm, my point, my point is that sometimes you have professions, sometimes you have people in positions where you are interacting with

people that completely disagree with you. And what I'm saying is that that's not only good for you, that's absolutely necessary for the gospel to go out. Absolutely. The worst thing that we can do, CS Lewis called them Christian ghettos. Right? What do you mean? Christian ghettos, it's a place where there's a bunch of Christians who gather and no lost people are welcome.

It's just a bunch of Christians getting together, being real excited about being Christians, and not really wanting to share that light with anybody. CS Lewis called them Christian ghettos. I forget what book. So Jesus, just to kind of sum up just a little bit, Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit and he commands us toward authentic communication conversations with people that can be very difficult for you to be around. Are you tracking yet? Are we good? Are we here? Okay, it keeps going. There's a little more because we just covered speech. Let's talk about gracious. Let's talk about gracious. To be gracious with your speech is to assume the best. Paul wrote about this in a letter to Timothy. So this is the apostle Paul again. And this is a letter he wrote to Timothy, 2 Timothy 2, 24 and 25, the first part. It says, and the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone

able to teach patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. Okay, so he's saying patiently enduring evil. The basic assumption in the New Testament is that you're going to be having conversations with people that will assume the worst of you. And I know some of you, and I have friends, right? Like I see your Facebook posts. I understand. I have conversations with you. When people assume the worst of you, you take on martyr status pretty fast. Right? And I got to say it's easy to do. Because whenever you're trying to care for somebody, you're trying to do something for somebody, and then they get mad at you like, I'm just, I'm just trying to help you. Like, why are you getting so mad? Why can't you appreciate what I'm doing right now? Why do you have to get an attitude? Why do you have to be so defensive?

We want, we want in the perfect scenario, we want us to be gracious to somebody and for them to go, oh, oh, thank you. Thank you so much, kind sir, for being gracious to me. Look, man, that didn't happen. Not very often. Not in a high school class. It doesn't happen very often because whenever people are dealing spiritually, people are dealing with, typically, look, if somebody's not in a church on a Sunday morning, can I tell you, they are usually, this is burlesque, and we're just talking burlesque at this point, they are usually dealing with some amount of spiritual guilt. Either the guilt stopped them from being a part of a church or they're guilty for not being a part of it. They feel guilty for not being a part of a church. And so whenever you come, whenever you run up on somebody and kind of the first thing out of your mouth is, shoulda, you shoulda done this, you ought to do

this, you would, man, they, listen, they know, they know, and they already feel bad about it. And so whenever you do something sweet and they kind of understand that the Lord is doing this, they're not always gonna be super happy about it. So when it says, correcting opponents with gentleness, patiently enduring evil, he's talking to a guy who's leading people in a church.

Let's look at the second half of 25 into 26, so the next kind of verse and a half. It says, God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth and they may come to their senses and escape from the sneer of the devil after being captured by him to do his will. Okay. He's saying that the main motivator here for you and I, those in the Lord, the main motivator for us to treat people with love and gentleness and patience and to endure evil and to patiently correct people, the main motivator for acting this way is for God in heaven to move in their life. Look what it says. It says, God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth. That's not just the beginning of this next part of the verse. It's the motivator for the, what we just read for the verse and a half before that. It's saying, correct your opponents with gentleness because if you do that,

then explorers might find what they're looking for. If you can treat someone with gentleness and patience in hopes that God can move in their life, then it just could be that the explorer could find what they're looking for in that moment in time. Hallelujah. What a great moment that would be. You know when it's not going to happen? Whenever you're getting overly particular about how they're reacting to whatever you're doing. Whenever you're getting offended that they used the S-word.

Okay? It's not going to wash. You're going to be putting up more barriers to the gospel by being overly particular about how they behave instead of just loving them in their moment. You're still offering, obviously, you're still offering corrections. You're still enduring evil. You're still trying to teach. You're still being kind, not being quarrelsome. All of that takes discipline. All of that is difficult. Okay? This isn't a walk in the park. This is stress on you. The Lord intends for you to take on a particular kind of stress. Can I have an amen for that? Thank you. The Lord's plan for your life is not stress-free living. It's just not it. If all you're doing is escaping stress all day, I would just encourage you, maybe you're picking the wrong kind of stress to have. There is a good gospel stress to have where you are patiently enduring evil. You are listening to people. You are working to not be quarrelsome. You're

working to not take everything personally. So this is how to be gracious to people. You love them. We talk about this value at Chisenhall of loving first. We want to love first. The reason we want to love first is because Jesus loved us first. Because Jesus loved us first. We can love other people first. When you love people first, that is vulnerable. That is risky. That is sticking out your hand for a handshake, and you might not get a hand back. Okay? But it's vulnerable to stick your hand out. It is. But this is the life that we have been called to. This is the discipling life. This is what Colossians 4, 5, and 6, and 2 Timothy 2, and all of these verses that we're going to be bringing up, this is what they all point to, is this kind of life where we're kind of putting it out there, and it might go unrequited. It might be a thing where they turn their nose up. Last part of that last part, knowing how you

ought to answer each person. This is Colossians 4, 6, knowing how you ought to answer each person. So it's kind of going meta. The Bible says that you need to know why you believe what you believe. Let's look at 1 Peter 3, 15, and then I'm going to kind of put a caveat on that. It says, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that is in you yet do this with gentleness and respect. So you kind of see this same flavor happening, right? You need to be ready to receive whatever is going to be thrown at you, and you need to meet that with gentleness, kindness, respect, and you need to meet that with some kind of answer, some kind of thing for a hope. Now, here's my caveat. I don't know if you've ever been down a YouTube rabbit hole. I'm sure some of you have, where you're like 45 minutes passes, and you're like,

I just watched like three videos in a row on the enduring legacy of Mary, Queen of Scots. I don't even know anything about Mary, Queen of Scots, but now I got 45 minutes information, right? Have you ever been there? Have you ever done that? Have you ever just, and you hope it's 45 minutes. Sometimes it's like four hours later and you're like, why do I need to know about the history of Legos? What happened to me? What happened to my day? YouTube rabbit holes can sometimes, especially in this area of having an answer for each person, etc., they can create an unrealistic level of knowledge. They can create this expectation that you have a rebuttal for everybody's thought, that you have a whole decision tree laid out for whatever anybody's going to say. And so you go through the rabbit hole and about 45 minutes in, you start feeling disqualified. You start feeling like, well, I don't know how to answer this, then, you know,

I don't know how to, I don't know, I don't, you know, sorry, I don't know what I had to do all that. You go through this rabbit hole, you have these unrealistic expectations. Let me just, let me just help you. You, you don't need to know everything about what you believe. In fact, that's impossible. You do, you do need to know why you believe it and you need to know what the basics are, what you believe. So you need to know why you believe it. That's your testimony and some of the basics. You need to understand kind of like what the gospel is. This is why our church, one of where we have gospel course, we ask everybody to go through three circles, right? We talk about three circles all the time. The reason that we do that is not because three circles is some magic formula that will save every person who hears it. The reason is because three circles is a succinct way to cover all the bases of a basic gospel presentation. That's it.

If you say, well, Drew, I've got this really, I've got this other really great way to do this gospel presentation and it's awesome. It's like two questions and I don't, I don't care how we do it. Right? Just, I just, let's get the gospel out there. Okay. Let's not quibble over how exactly. But whenever it's talking about knowing, when it talks about being able to give an answer, right? How you ought to answer each person. It's knowing, it's knowing why you believe, what you believe, that's testimony. And then what the basic sum of what you believe. And there's a couple of really great ways to do that. Three circles is one. Roman road is one that goes through scripture and Romans. Another great way to do that is just to memorize scripture. Hey, we've got some verses to memorize right out there on the connections desk. It's immediately out those doors into your left. Whenever you leave, you can grab one. This is why we're doing it.

When you talk about learning though, let me just say one thing about learning, some learning theory this morning. If you say, well, I don't know a whole lot and I need to know a whole lot. Okay. That's fair. Here's an expectation. I think that's going to help you. People learn in waves and through trials. Okay. They learn in waves and they learn through obstacles. In other words, let's just take playing guitar. Okay. All right. When you start playing guitar, you're going to play guitar badly, like so bad. Okay. But then you're going to try again and you're going to play less terribly. Okay. So guitar players, y'all know what I'm talking about or piano or trombone or whatever. When you do it the first time, if you expect to be the world's elite, the first time you touch a guitar, you are in for a shocking revelation. Okay. You are not God's gift to guitar playing. Okay. If you are like every other human on the

planet, unless your name's Mozart, you are going to be bad at it at first. And so it's, in other words, it is iterative. You do it once, you do it poorly, you do it again, you do it less poorly and so on and so on. And so you accumulate comfort. You make fewer mistakes. You gain proficiency. You have increased familiarity with it. Well, how do you do that? Well, you have to do it badly. So people learn in waves, in iterations, and they learn through obstacles, through trials. So you're going to do it badly and somebody's going to hear you and they're going to laugh at you. Okay. Well, you probably won't do it badly again after that. Maybe you're playing in front of people. We're still on guitar here. Maybe you're playing in front of people and you play like the wrong chord. Well, that's going to be an obstacle because you're going to feel dumb. You're going to look dumb. People are going to think you cannot play

that well. And all those things are going to be true and you're going to have to deal with it. It's going to make you better. It's going to make you better, but there's no end around on being bad at guitar if you want to be good at guitar. Okay. You need to learn to answer people by answering them badly. You need to learn how to answer people by answering them badly. You need to learn to talk to people by talking to people poorly, by having a terrible conversation with them. Okay. And I realized like, I'm not, uh, look, I'm not pumping you guys up for this. Okay. This is not a pep rally. This is some real expectations. Okay. When you talk with somebody in the grocery line and you, and you say something like, Hey, how's it going? And you guys are talking a little bit and an opportunity comes for you to share your testimony. You're like, you know, I was praying the other day and they'll stop you. Like they'll put their hand up. I said,

like, I don't want to hear about that. Look, that's going to be awkward. You're going to feel bad. You're going to feel rejected. You're going to feel like a failure. You're going to feel like, well, maybe I could have, there is no escaping that there's no way around that. If I, if I could, we don't have time for me to list out all the ways that I have very poorly begun conversation. We don't have time to list out all the ways that I have completely fumbled the ball on, on sharing the gospel with somebody. And then whenever it's all done and I'm like left with my thoughts, I'm like, ah, did I do that right? And I'm not talking like 20 years ago. I'm talking like three weeks ago. Okay. It's tough. I mean, I don't know if y'all know what I do for a living, but I, I feel like I should be better at this. Okay. I do. I do. I feel like I should be better at it, but here's, here's what I'm always reminded and it never fails.

You got some good times. You got some bad times. You got some duds. You got some gold standards and it's just a mixed bag. And if you're going through this Christian life and if you're saying like, I'm, it's always going to work. All my plans are always going to work. Every time I open my mouth for the Lord, he's going to bless it. It's going to be awesome. Every time. No, it's not. It's going to be hard. And the Lord wants to meet you right in the middle of it being hard. He wants to show you that he's faithful right in the middle of it being difficult. Okay. Oh, this is also why we have home groups. Okay. Just a little shameless plug. We got home group, uh, expo next Sunday. Is that right? Pastor Daniel? Yes. Next Sunday. Okay. Yes. We got home group expo next Sunday. Uh, we, we tell people find your family. Part of the reason that we do that, part of the reason that we have home group expo, part of the reason why we have

home groups is because whenever you are sharing your testimony, whenever you are sharing the gospel, whenever you were talking to people about the Lord and you get rejected and it goes wrong and you don't know what you're doing and you don't even know if you're doing this right. You need a group of people to help absorb that with you. You were never meant to feel dumb on your own. Feel dumb with people. I feel like that's going to be our new home group. Amen. Feel, feel dumb with people. It's going to be, yeah, front of the website. It's our tagline. Chisnall fellowship. Feel dumb with people. Look, it might happen. I'm just, that's, it's not terrible. Uh, it is realistic. I mean, it's funny as that is, it's, it's totally realistic. You know, feeling dumb with people. Um, I've had many times in my own life where I felt pretty dumb and I felt less dumb because I was feeling dumb with people, with people that

love me, with people that cared for me, right? Like I know it's weird to say that it's just a magic salve, but it kind of is. It's kind of a magic salve. Uh, it's also why we have life groups. We tell people to find their identity, find their calling. Uh, in life groups in particular, you're going to be trained on like how to do this. And did you do it well? No, it went poorly. Okay. Let's talk about that. It's a way to kind of work on the skill of it. Okay. This is what life groups are about. So home groups are feeling dumb with people and life groups are kind of finding that identity, find that calling, but building confidence, building confidence in having conversations with people about the Lord. So, uh, let's, let's just look at the verse one more time and let's get super tactical. Okay. Here we go. Colossians four, five, and six, the whole thing all at once. It says, walking wisdom toward outsiders, explorers, making the

best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious seasoned with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. I feel like this should be full of meaning now. Okay. We've packed this thing full. We get it. Okay. Here's a, here's maybe the summary of it that Jesus has a design for your life to intentionally and lovingly disciple people. Jesus has a design for your life, not a opt-in clause, not a only for the spiritually elite, not for missionaries and pastors only, everybody. Jesus has a design for your life in Christ for you to intentionally and lovingly disciple explorers in his name, disciple people, disciple explorers.

And if you just took all those Christian words away, right, maybe you just say it this way that Jesus just, he made you to talk to people. He made you to speak with people. He made you to get to know them, to listen to them, to pray for them, to share your testimony with them, to share the gospel with them. He made you to do this. He made you a social creature. Some of you he made more social than others. That's fine. But he made you a social creature and he made that all to be fueled by the love and grace that you have already received in Christ in abundance. Okay, let's get tactical. First thing, if you're going to do this, you need to ask Jesus for specific explorers and pray for them. Pray for specific explorers. I don't know what your memory system is or what your second brain looks like or anything like that. You get like a to-do list every day. If you're not that organized, fine, I don't care.

Whatever that is, write down one, two, three names of actual people, of people that you know, of people that you interact with on a regular basis. Co-workers, family that lives near town, the family that lives near you, lives in town. People that you see often, write these names down. Okay, stick them in your bathroom mirror, stick them in your odometer in your car, whatever. Don't cover your odometer. You know what I'm saying? Put it where you can see it.

When you pray for specific explorers, it will put you in the perspective of loving them. You can't pray for somebody and not love them. You can't. The more you pray for somebody, the more you're going to love them. And you're also going to become more aware because you are asking the Holy Spirit to make you more aware. You are praying for these specific people. So whenever they're around, you're going to be more likely to put your phone down. You're like, oh, person I've been praying for is within the, you know, my perimeter. I should probably put my phone down. I should probably have a conversation with this person at the very least. Okay. So ask for Jesus, excuse me, ask Jesus for specific explorers and pray for them. Second thing, plan to be in the spaces where explorers are. Okay. Be where explorers are. Plan to be there. And let me tell you, I believe that this is one of the biggest barriers to discipling people. It's strange but

true. This is one of the biggest barriers to discipling people. There's a wonderful set of verses where Paul is clearing some confusions. He's writing this to a church in Corinth. This is 1 Corinthians 5, 9, and 10. I just want to read it and then we'll kind of talk about it. I, Paul, wrote to you, Corinthian church, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. Not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters. Since then, you would need to go out of the world. Okay. Okay. Here's the translation of that. Hey guys, when I said to avoid sexually immoral people and greedy people and swindlers and idolaters, I meant those in the church. I meant the Christians that are acting this way that shouldn't. That's the people that you should avoid. Because if I'm telling you to avoid all the sexually immoral people, the greedy,

swindlers, idolaters, there's nobody left. That's what he's saying. That's what he's saying. There's nobody left. And so he's actually clearing the confusion because whenever he said, hey, avoid sexually immoral people, they're like, okay, we'll avoid sexually immoral people. So if somebody was, anybody was sexually immoral, Christian or not, they would avoid them. And he said, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what I meant. I meant the poser Christians that are acting that way. Don't hang out with them. Avoid them. I meant those pretenders. Avoid them.

In other words, you're supposed to be hanging out with sexually immoral people. You're supposed to be praying for swindlers and idolaters and drunkards and drug users. And you're supposed to be, these are people that you are supposed to be giving your life for. These are people that you should be praying for. These are people that you should have on your radar. So if you're going to be where explorers are, okay, and look, many have used this as an opportunity to excuse sin, you know, because they're, you know, they're going to go into some seedy joint, you know, and they're like, well, I'm just going to go and like minister to people like, no, you're not, man. Like you're doing stupid things and you're covering it. Okay. Don't do that. That's not my encouragement to you at all. So I will give you, I will give you an idea of what I mean. For many of you, that is the workplace immediately. I mean, you don't even need to look

further. There's people in your workplace that do not know the Lord. Maybe it's obvious to you, maybe it's not. Maybe they're religious, maybe they're not, but they don't know the Lord. The Lord has placed you in that workplace to pray for them, intercede for them, get to know them, talk to them, ask them about their life, share your life with them. And for others, you're going to need to carve out a space. So for some of you, for a lot of you, this workplace,

but not for all. And sometimes even at the workplace, you can't have those kinds of conversations because the nature of the work. That's fine. I don't feel like, you know, like you're an oppressed Christian because you can't have a full on spiritual conversation at work. Sometimes the job eliminates that. That's fine. Okay. If you need to be paying attention to the wires that you're putting together so you don't get cooked at 40,000 volts, okay. Just concentrate on the wires. Okay. You know what I'm saying, Sean? You get me? Okay. All right. For others, you're going to need to carve out a space. And so I would like for you to consider the spaces that you already are a lot. Let me give you some candidates for those spaces. I've got them all listed up here. We're talking about the gym you go to. We're talking about a book club you might already be in. We're talking about a rec league. Some of you've been

dying to show off those softball skills. And here's my encouragement. Show off those softball skills for the Lord. Right? Go. Don't look. Chisenshall Fellowship, as long as I'm alive, will not have their own rec team. We won't do it. I will fight on this. I totally will fight on this. I will say you join another team full of people that don't know the Lord. We are not going to have a Christian ghetto for a softball team. We're not doing it. I love explorers. I love them with the... I try to love them with the same love that Jesus loves me with. Right? Like that's how this is supposed to work. But if we're all on the team together, and if we're not really like, all we're doing is like giving high fives to the other team, but we're not really having conversations with them, then what are we doing? Jump in on their team. Talk to them.

This is the nature of what Jesus did whenever he came to earth. He was sent in the middle of all of us. We are sent in the middle of other people's rec league teams. We are sent to be a parent among other parents on the baseball team. We are sent to be a parent among all the other parents on the soccer team. We are sent. Maybe there's a class you can take. Maybe there's a team you can coach. Maybe there's some volunteering that you can do. Maybe you just need to go door to door. Some of y'all love it and are really good at it. Most of you are not. That's okay. You can do what I do. Go to a coffee shop. Plant yourself at the coffee shop three days a week. I get made fun of for how often I'm at the coffee shop. I do. I get made fun of all the time. It's fine. I don't care. And here's why. Here's why I'm at the coffee shop. First of all, it's cheaper for me to be at the coffee shop. I've actually thought

about this a lot. It's cheaper for me to be at the coffee shop because I'm not running an AC, being in a church office here. Okay. So I'm not here. I'm at the coffee shop just down the street. It's called the roasted beanery. I'm there all the time. Also, yeah, so I'm not running heat and air, so it's cheaper and it costs me five bucks a day less. Sometimes they give me coffee for free. Sometimes they do it. Uh, but one every three times they give me coffee for free. It's great. I'm just like, hallelujah. It costs $5 for me to be there. It costs $5. I would suck way more heat and air that costs $5 than to be here. And here's the real, here's kind of the real breaking point for me because here I'm, I'm alone and maybe I need to be alone and concentrate on things. That's fine. I would much rather be in the middle of a bunch of explorers who don't know

the Lord and I'm getting to know them and I'm talking with them, sharing life with them. I'm talking, I went into, I went into the roasted beanery yesterday and three of them asked me how my daughter's wedding was. Great. I know, right? Ethan, I'm telling you, it's, it's a, it's a big deal. They know me well enough to ask those questions. I know them well enough. I'm like, how's it going with the thing that you're dealing with? I'm not, I'm not going to talk about their business, but I ask about their boyfriends, ask about their girlfriends, I ask about it just kind of everything that they're dealing with. And the reason I do that is not because I'm lonely. The reason I do that is because I'm sent there. Where are you sent? Volunteering, coaching, going to class, book club, gym. Look, this is how serious we are about this. At the end of gospel course, and we just had our last one, right? I'm sorry. Yeah, we did. Pastor Daniel

teaches gospel course, a wonderful, wonderful service for our church. It's a four week class that we all have to go through. Some of you just graduated from that. Congratulations. On, on that, what we do, what we give you on the last day, some of you got this today, we give you a sheet. It's two sided sheet on the, on the front side of the sheet. It says, here's some ministry teams. Here's some home groups that you might be interested in. Here's your personality type, right? All of that. On the backside, it says, because this is your personality type, here are four different ideas that might help you find like a space for evangelism. This is a generic list, but we have specific lists curated, researched, based on your personality type, where you could start getting to know people that are explorers. You can start getting to know people that don't know the Lord. And you might say, well, Drew,

I don't know, you know, I'm in the middle of a transition. I, you know, I don't look, first of all, two things. We're all in the middle of transition, every single one of us. I don't know if I'm going to be here forever. You don't know if you're going to be here next week. We're all in transition. We just may not know it. And second of all, the Lord uses all those things to put us in different positions. We got a guy, I won't point him out. We got a guy, but they had to West Point and was, I'm not going to point him out. And West Point is a, that's a, that's a big scary place to go. He's not scared at all. He's fine. But the amount of opportunity to meet people that don't know the Lord is going to be off the charts. And I'm hoping that, that it's both that the Lord gives this guy some, some guy friends that do love the Lord and then some guy friends that are complete party wild animals and, and need, and need the love of

Jesus. I know the mom's looking at me right now and got death stare like, no, he doesn't need to party animals. I know I get it. All I'm saying is in every place where you are, you got people that are, that are colleagues and like, like you're, you're, you're kind of in arms together in the ministry. And then there's people that you are praying for. Right. And, and look, to simply call those people outsiders, I think does them, it does the situation a disservice. They're exploring.

Okay. Third thing. You need to listen and speak in love to people. Listen and speak in love to people. This is the other really big barrier. Whenever you're talking about talking to people about the Lord is they're like, well, what do I say? Right? How do I start? What do I do? Okay. Let me, let me take apart very quickly, very quickly. Let me take apart

an example that is often given. I have heard this example at least 20 times. And it's a logic and the logic is that if you're a Christian, then you have the cure to a deadly disease. Okay. Now that illustration is given for motivation. So if you have the cure for a deadly disease, you should go out there and share the cure. Okay. That's great. And a lot of times it's given kind of in that vein of just like you should hurry up. You should, you know, odds of, okay.

However, you are left with the question of how to administer that cure in an authentic and persuasive way. Biblically, we're told to be authentic and persuasive. And if you're just saying, well, no, you got the cure. Like you could, well, listen, let's actually take that for real. If people had a deadly disease and you had the cure and you had a bunch of hypodermic needles in your pocket and you just go around stabbing people, I don't know if that'd be well received. You might be doing them a favor, but they might not like you ever. And I'm sure maybe one day they'd be happy. I, you know what I'm saying? Like it's, it's a weird trade off is what I'm saying. It's, I understand the point, but I think it lacks subtlety in real life conversation. That's all. The point is persuasion and like let's, or not pay for persuasion, but kind of like, hurry up, let's go, let's do it. Let's do it now. Urgency. But urgency doesn't always

leave room for authenticity and persuasion. Sometimes things are said and done very poorly, actually, because we're just, we just need to get the gospel out. Okay. But how you say things determines how it's received. Jesus spent more time relating than he did shouting. He shouted some, he flipped tables. I've read the Bible. I get it. But he did a lot of time. He spent a lot of time listening. He spent a lot of time caring for, for ills. I want you to think about this. Every person that Jesus heals, do you know that he knew they were going to either get that again or die eventually anyway? Just think about that. Like the next time you're like caring for somebody, you think like they're just going to do this again. Okay. Yeah, they probably are.

That's not really your concern. Right? Help them out. Help them out. Jesus spent more time relating than shouting. Jesus took the time, and I mean the time, to explain and demonstrate the kingdom of God in a first century Jewish context to a degree that most of us would find completely exhausting. But he did it over and over and over again. He's explaining the kingdom of heaven to an illiterate farmer, and he's doing it over and over and over again. He is demonstrating the kingdom of God to illiterate fishermen over and over and over again. He has a tax collector and a zealot on the same team, and he's doing this over and over and over and over again.

Instead of considering it like a cure to a deadly disease, and it is, I'm not trying to just completely dispel that, but I think maybe a better thing to help you prepare for a discussion would be like considering it like money to invest. That in Christ, you have a super full bank account. Right? I don't know if you know this. In Christ, you don't need to suffer from existential dread.

Like, you don't understand, like if you're in Christ, and somebody says, hey, you know, I couldn't sleep last night. I just don't know where I'm gonna go when I die. Like, I don't know what's gonna happen after I die. If you're in Christ, you actually don't need to have that stress at all. That's just made up for you. But it's not made up for them. They're actually feeling that 1000%. They're losing sleep 1000%. They don't know the answer to that question. And the thing that separates them having the answer to that question, truly like in their heart, and then being left in the lures that they're already in, is you taking the time to invest that really full bank account that you have in them. Because you know who listens to you better than anybody else? The Lord Jesus Christ. And you know what the Lord Jesus tells you to do? Listen to people.

You know who teaches you more than anybody else? The Lord Jesus Christ. And you know, he calls you to teach other people about him. You know who gives you wisdom when you need it? The Lord Jesus Christ. You know what he calls you to do? He calls you to give wisdom in a timely manner. In fact, he doubles down. He's just like, I'll help you do it. I'll give you the Holy Spirit. It's going to be amazing. It's not going to be awesome every time. But the idea that you can be there for somebody in a way that they need, there is nothing else like it. You have money to invest. You have a bank account all over what the Lord has given you. So you want to give to others. Just a pro tip. So you want to consider familiar spaces, but you also want to talk about things that matter.

Or maybe I'll say it a different way. Talking about Jesus in a normal way begins with talking about Jesus in a normal way. You're going to do it badly first. Right? But as you begin to understand, and I tell people this all the time, like talk like a Christian because you are. Talk like a Christian. If you're at work and you're saying like, I'm really struggling with something, I'm praying through it. Okay, great. You're praying through it. You're like, well, I don't know if they know. Look, look, you don't need to translate Christianese for everybody. Just be a Christian. Say things. If they have questions, they'll ask. Okay, it's fine. And don't, you know, don't like drop a thousand hints and like hope they ask. Just be a Christian. Just say you're praying about something. Say you're upset about something. Say like church was awesome. When people ask

about your weekend, don't stop at Saturday. Right? Remember that don't stop at Saturday. Tell them how awesome church was or how weird that sermon was. Whatever. Talk about Jesus in a normal way. It begins by talking about Jesus in a normal way. Disciples people is less about the first conversation and more about the 10th. It's less about the first. The first matters. First impressions matter, obviously. But that 10th one, man, I've had some great 10th conversations with people.

You were loving people. You were demonstrating a relationship with Jesus in front of him. And this is exactly how Jesus discipled people. Go back and read the New Testament. How did Jesus disciple people? He hung out with them. He demonstrated the kingdom. He taught. He prayed in front of them. He cried in front of them. He healed in front of them. He, I mean, he did all these things just like in front of the disciples are just there. They're like 17 and they're just chilling watching this 35 year old guy, 33 year old guy, just do things. Some normal, some spectacular, but mostly normal. Jesus wasn't just like this magician, like this bag of tricks happening every five seconds. It was pretty normal. And just to watch me, just watch me do it. I'm just, I'm discipling you. I don't know if you ever told him that. It would be weird if he did, but whatever. He's the Lord. Let him do it. He made room for them in his life,

leading people to faith. Like if you've got somebody in your life and you're like, I'm praying for them. I really want them to become Christian. I just, okay, great. Good. First of all, you don't get to pick, but you're praying for them. That's good. Like the best thing you can do is to love them as a friend. The best thing you can do is to make room in your life for them, to include them. And sometimes, sometimes you're going to have it happen every once in a while. You're just talking with somebody randomly and you get to share your testimony and you get to share the gospel with them. Awesome. If that's the only thing, the only way you ever share the gospel or share your testimony with somebody, I would just invite you, like maybe you've got this really hard line between like what is yours and what is God's. And that line's not there. That's made up. The Lord wants you to include that in your everyday

life. Okay. Last two things very quickly. Okay. Fourth thing, invite people into community with you. I've already kind of said this, but just inviting explorers into your life and letting them see Christian community is huge because a lot of times people have weird ideas about what Christians do when it's just Christians around, like goat sacrifices and stuff. And you laugh. There's some weird ideas out there for sure. Or that like, you know, like we're all worshiping Donald Trump or something. Like I'm, I'm not kidding. I've heard those things actually. Both. I don't know which one's weirder. Both are, are, are, they don't know. They have no idea. They've never been around Christian communities. So they don't understand what you and I take for granted. They're like, oh, that's what is this? Maybe that's inviting them into a home group Bible study. Maybe that's

inviting them to a church service. Maybe that's inviting them for like you and some friends and you all go see a movie and get coffee after whatever. But you've got to be willing to invest and spend that time listening. In fact, a good rule of thumb is that you, you spend so much time to listening. You spend so much time listening to their perspective that you can see their point of view. You spend so much time listening to that you can see their point of view. You can, you can empathize with where they are. Not, not some fake, weird surface level empathy, but you can be a real one, an invested one. Not just imagining how hard it must be for them, but really knowing their story, getting into their history and seeing why they see what they see and how they see it. Also, I would just encourage you, last, consider studying the Bible with somebody. Study the Bible with them. People are very, very open to Bible study, just randomly

and whatever. I would encourage you toward that. Disciples means investing long-term in other people. I'm going to invite the worship team back up. Oftentimes, if you've noticed, I haven't said the word evangelism at all until now. Blew the streak. And it's because sometimes evangelism gets a weird rap. There's all kinds of like just stuff, just baggage that kind of comes with it. What I would say is that, biblically speaking, evangelism is just the first step toward discipling. Right? It's just sharing your faith. It's sharing the gospel, sharing your testimony. It's just sharing. And my encouragement to you is, man, don't, don't get so caught up in, in evangelism and in having to present the things like all at once and find people that are exploring. Pray for them. Let that be your first step. If you already know somebody, begin to pray and ask the Lord, like, what can I say to them? How can I encourage them? How can I

listen to them? How can I share the gospel with them in a way that's unique to them? They might be like, Capred, and already have trouble sharing the gospel period. But here's, look, when you love somebody and you are motivated to share the gospel with them, you'd be surprised the creativity that comes out. Let me pray for us. Lord, we thank you for today. We thank you for the opportunity to read your word, to hear your call on us, to

disciple people. Lord, we pray that you would, that you would just pop faces in our minds right now of people that are in our lives, that are truly searching for something, that you would, you would let us use our time well to lovingly invest, to listen, to ask questions, to hear about their church history or to hear about any experience they have with, with God or anything like that, that you would just, that you would turbo charge those conversations. That you would help us to invest well. And it's your name that we pray. Amen.