Video Transcript: Why You Should Value Others - Dr. Chip Bennett
On a dangerous seacoast, where shipwrecks often occur, there was once a crude little life-saving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought of themselves, went out day and night, tirelessly searching for the lost. Many lives were saved by this wonderful, little station. It became famous.
Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time, money, and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought, new crews trained, and the little life-saving station grew. Some of the members of the life-saving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. So, they replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building.
Now, the life-saving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely because they used it as sort of a club. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on life-saving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do that work. The life-saving motif still prevailed in the club's decoration. There was a liturgical lifeboat in the room where the club initiations were held.
About this time, a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet, and half-drowned people. They were dirty, they were sick, and they had all kinds of different skin colors. The beautiful new club was in chaos. The Property Committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before they came inside.
At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's life-saving activities as being unpleasant
As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old, devolved into a club, and yet another life-saving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that seacoast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown.
I read that as a young student at Lee College. It was a class on pastoral care and counseling. I was not expecting that story at the beginning of this book, but I remember when I read it, I shut the book and I said, "Lord, if I ever pastor a church, I pray that I would never forget this story ever." And so, for the past, I don't know how many years, I've read this at the beginning of the year, whether it's the first or second week, or fifth or sixth week of the year, I've read the story.
I've read this story for a couple of reasons. One, I've read it for myself to remind myself of what we're called to do and what we're called to be. I read it so that you can hear that story, and I think that as time has passed and the years have gone on, I've just become more convinced that that story is true and needs to be read and needs to be understood, that we are called to be a life-saving station. We're called to win the lost. And so many times we get distracted. We want life the way that we want it. We want the issues the way that we want it. We want the world to look the way that we want it. And we forget sometimes that we're called to be a life-saving station.
And I can tell you that the more I see in the world, the more I see the decline in the church, and the more I look at the stats, the more I become convinced that we need to be reminded of what we are. In fact, a book that came out a little while back called "The Great Dechurching" is a book that goes through a lot of data and looks at things and asks questions about why the church is losing numbers. These are the two most highlighted quotes of that book. And you say, "How do you know that?" Well, believe it or not, you can Google that. If you have a Kindle, or any of the things that you download books or whatever, they know when you highlight something, and so they know what parts of the books are being highlighted. You can do a Google search, "What's the most highlighted parts of a book?" and you'll know. These are the two highlighted, most highlighted parts of this book.
"About 15% of American adults living today, around 40 million people, have effectively stopped going to church, and most of this dechurching has happened in the past 25 years. More people have left the church in the last 25 years than all the new people who became Christians from the First Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, and Billy Graham crusades combined." If that's not shocking to you, I would say that you might want to rethink your relationship with God. I don't mean that in a negative way or trying to be snarky, but that's shocking. It's shocking, and it's why every year we come back to the fundamentals, we come back and we do a series about, you know, the type of church that we are, to stay focused on the type of church that we are.
And this one's called, "It's Who We Are," and this is just who we are as a church. And if we don't say who we are, you know, what happens? Other people will. I mean, the bottom line is, if we don't define who we are, someone else is going to do it for us. And so, we start off every year talking about our cultural pillars around here, the things that are the essential parts of Grace Community Church. And it's a good thing because it reminds all of us who go here what we do, but it also reminds people that are new. If they're looking for a church, they can go, "Oh, okay, that's cool," or "It's not cool," because I'm not a guy that wants you, like, eight months in, and then all of a sudden, you know, Toto pulls the curtain back, and you go, "I didn't know y'all did that here." You know, it's not fair. I want you to know.
So, we do this at the beginning of the year for a number of reasons. And so, as we go through different cultural pillars, there's one out of the eight that we always focus on, whether we do the other ones in different orders, or how we do them, but there's one that we focus on, and it's this idea that we "do Jesus" here at Grace. We're not into agendas. We're not into non-salvific theological debates, party politics, or religion.
And last weekend, if you were here, I preached on this, and I told you that what I would do is that I would come back this weekend and I would help you to learn to share your faith. Because it's one thing to talk about sharing our faith. It's one thing to talk about "doing Jesus." It's one thing to talk about being a life-saving station. It's another thing to actually do it.
And so, as I was trying to put this together, and I want you to know something, there's no chapter verses on, like, "Here's the eight things," you know. First, you know, sharing your faith after Ephesians, you know, there's, there's, it's principles, it's things that you've learned, it's things that you glean from scripture. But as I put this together, I'm like, "I can't do this in one week. I can't." So, we're going to do two weeks of this, and I want to say up front that this, this, these next two messages are not going to be anything like I normally do. They're nothing like what I normally do. If you go, "Wow, this is different," it is different. So, just go ahead, and if you start going, "This is different," it is different. But I want you to lean in. I want you to really allow yourself to listen because I feel like I have some things that are life-changing.
And what I want to do this weekend is I want to do what I call "back-end work," where we talk about some of the attitudes and postures and things that we sort of need to think about before we really ever utter a word. And then next weekend, I'm going to help you with some things that you can say or ways that you can sort of work conversations that will help you in sharing your faith. And I can tell you this, there's nothing, as a pastor, I think, other than seeing people get saved,
that I could do that would be more productive than helping you to share your faith. And so, we're going to do that. But before I get started, because I've got just some points that I want to say. I know this. There's no question of mine. Whenever you talk about this, there are people that go, "Oh no, you know who you are." I mean, when Pastor Mike comes out and says, "Slap five, give somebody a fist bump," you're an introvert. You're like, "No, you do that. It's what you do in your head." I know that, and I get that. And when you talk about sharing your faith, people go, "I don't, I don't. I'm no good. I, oh my gosh, fear, anxiety, all of that." I hear that.
So, the first thing I want to take before we even get started, is this: give yourself a break. Just take a deep breath. Give yourself a break, because I want you to hear this: Someone's salvation does not depend on our talent, experience, knowledge, or persuasiveness. We're not the one who saves anybody. God is the one who saves people. Okay? So, I know, I know some of you all will be like, "Oh, I just, you know, I, I just don't have the talent. I just don't have the one." I get it. God doesn't require this. He'll use it. Yes, I hope that we do become more talented, more experienced, more knowledgeable, more persuasive. I hope all these things are true, but you may not find yourself there right now. Just remember, in the Bible, God used a donkey. Like, if he can use a donkey, he can use Chip Bennett, you know I'm talking about. I mean, you think he can use you and me? We sort of, we bind ourselves up and thinking that we got to be all this and all that. It's not true.
Now, we do need to tell people, because Paul says that, "How will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they
So, how do we, how do we go about sharing our faith? Well, I can tell you this right now, to even start sharing our faith, to even think about sharing our faith, we have to value people. And I'm going to tell you something, and it doesn't, it gives me no pleasure in sharing this. It bothers me, but the American church needs a refresher course in valuing people. We need a refresher course because we have a lot of poison tongues for groups of people that we don't like. In fact, what we do is we don't, we don't refer to them as people. We refer to them as groups. There's a title that we give to them, and once we give them that title, we can view them as "an other," and we can speak evil about them because they're no longer human. That what they've done is we've devalued them. And it's sad because I watch Christians, and I'm not here to give you a hard time, but I watch Christians on Facebook and other stuff just trash certain groups of people as if you're doing the Lord's work and applaud people that say all kinds of terrible things about people. And it's like, folks, that's just not right. I'm going to be your pastor, and I'm going to tell you the truth. James says it this way: "You can't bless God with your tongue, that you also curse those that are made in His image with your tongue," you know. And so, we need to, we need to value people.
And you may say, "Well, how do I do that? Because, Chip, I'm sort of in that place where I do do this, whatever." Okay, well, I'm going to tell you how I do this. You may not do it, but I'm going to tell you what you can do. You got to have a devotional life first. I mean, if you don't have any devotional life, if you never spend time with God, if you never talk to God, if you never pray, if you never read your Bible—not here to give you a hard time, hard time. This is not guilt community church. This is Grace Community Church. I'm just saying, if you're not in tune with God in any shape or form, you're probably not going to get the people thing right. I'm just going to tell you that right now. But what I would tell you is, if you really want to start valuing people, especially people that maybe you don't like, is you need to have a devotional life and a prayer list of people who are the people? Well, the people are going to be people that are lost, that you know, and people that you don't like. I mean, I'm going to put somebody's name, yeah, the neighbor that you can't stand. Start praying for them. What will happen is you'll start to change. You'll find yourself seeing them differently. Pray this way. Put them down. I mean, maybe there's an Uncle Joe at the Thanksgiving dinner that you can't stand. Maybe your boss, whatever it is, put them on a list and say, "Lord, help me to see what you see in them." Because what happens is, is you start then to see them as human. They're no longer this, or they're no longer your boss, so they're no longer this group of people. They're human. "Lord, help me to see what you see in them," or maybe this prayer: "Lord, lead me into divine encounter moments with them where I can be your hands and feet." Lord, you start praying that, and what will happen is you'll see your neighbor outside, or a friend outside, or a boss, or somebody, and it'll be a moment where they have a need. And whereas maybe in the past, you'd be like, "Serves them right," maybe, maybe there might be a little Jesus wells up in you where you go, "This is an opportunity where maybe, maybe, maybe I can start to think about serving them rather than correcting them," because we're really not good at seeing things this way. We want to correct everybody. We want to tell everybody how they should live. We want to tell everybody, we want to tell everybody in the church that doesn't agree like we agree. We want to tell you, think about serving them.
This is, this is so true. When we value people, we start to add value to them. They start to, they feel that they're human, that they genuinely sense. And look, if you're trying to do this just to get to a point or just an ulterior motive, so it doesn't work. I'm talking about genuinely valuing people. When you value people, and you pour into people, you add value to them, and then what happens is, is they, they start to want to know more about you. They want to know more about your situation. Which brings me to my third point: is we want to be attractive so people ask questions. Now some of you all are going to go out and say, "Pastor Chip said that we got to put on makeup and look beautiful so people will." That's not what I said. Okay? When I talk about being attractive, I mean having a life that people actually go, "Wow, you're so nice, you're so kind, you tip better than most people. You just, you just something's different about you." Now I'm not trying to be snarky, anybody a hard time, but I'm going to tell you this, some of you all need to go home and stop doing some of the things that you're doing, because it's actually not helping your witness to the Lord.
And what do I mean by that? People are not interested in you telling them how to raise their kids when you can't raise yours. You understand what I'm saying? People, people don't want to hear about how their marriage should work when you all are throwing things at each other out in the driveway. You see what I'm saying? Like, we need to have a life that people would want to see what's different about you and me. We need to be attractional, that there needs to be something different, because evangelism starts before a word is ever uttered. Your family members, your people at work, your neighbors who know that you call yourself a Christian, they're watching you, whether you think they are or not, they're looking to see, does this Jesus thing actually make a difference in your life or not? And if they don't see anything different, they're probably not going to want to have anything to do with it.
And that's why Scripture is very clear. We're not saved by what we do. We're saved by what Jesus has done, but the New Testament epistles that start telling the church, "Don't do that, don't live like that, don't do this." It's all about being a witness in town. And folks, we've got to get this through our head. The highest stakes game in town are people's souls. It's not, it's not what we acquire in this world. I've done a lot of funerals. I did one this last weekend. I've never, ever, ever seen a U-Haul behind the hearse. You can't take it with you. Do you know what you can take with you, though? You can take souls with you to heaven. And that matters, taking souls.
And so, evangelism starts before a word is ever uttered. If we don't exhibit it in some form or fashion, a changed life, that seems to be a trade-up to others, why would they even listen? Now you say, "Well, Chip, I know that God can use, you know, the most broken-down Christian and whatever." It's true, I agree, but that's not the way he would like for it to be. He'd like to see our lives reflecting things that are, that matter, because we're the connecting link between people and Jesus. We're that connecting link. 80 to 85% of the encounters with Jesus in the New Testament are because somebody went to Jesus and asked him to come, or somebody took somebody to Jesus. We're the connecting link. We, we are the ones that are connecting people to Jesus.
This is why Peter says that when these Christians are going through suffering and difficulty and persecution, he says, "You need to live differently. You need to live in a way that people want to know what's going on in you." He says, "So that they would ask for the hope that is in you." Notice here, you're not talking. They're seeing it in you and me, and they're asking for the hope. Jesus says it this way. He says, "Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works." In other words, we should be people that people see as, like, "You have an attractive life. I'd like to know what's different about you. I'd like to know why you are the way that you are." That's why this quote has stood the test of time for hundreds of years: "Wherever you go, preach Christ, and if necessary, use words."
We need to have a life that represents, and this is some of the part is we're bifurcated. We tell everybody how to live, but we don't live it. We tell everybody what they should do, but we don't do it. And that's why people go, "I don't want to go there. You're going to just tell me what to do," but they don't see it. This is why it's so important if we're going to share our faith, if we're going to be there and do this, we really need to take our Christianity seriously.
Fourth, we need to enter into their world. They're not interested in being plucked out of their world into yours. You got to enter into their world. And by the way, Jesus did for us. He entered into our world. He came to us. That's why Paul, he says, "I've made myself a servant to all that I might win more of them." He said, "I want to get to know people. I wonder what's important to them. I want to know why they do what they do." In fact, he says, "I become all things to all people that, by all means, I might save some."
I see these memes on Facebook, you know, where people, you read it all the time, "Well, Jesus didn't hang out with the tax collectors and sinners just to hang out with them. He hung out, he hung out with them to change them." It's like, yeah, of course, he wanted to change them, but he hung out with them because he cared about people. And see, that type of bull in our thinking creates this idea that we don't have to know people because we don't really want to know people. We don't want to know our neighbors, we don't want to get involved in anybody's life. We just want to tell them what to do and walk away. "See, don't do this and you're going to hell," and walk away. "Turn or burn, get right or get left, eat the bread of life or your toast."
No, Barna, which is a great Christian organization. They do, they do data about why things are the way they are in the church, and so on and so forth. They went and met non-Christians that were neighbors to Christians, thousands and thousands all across the United States, and asked this question: "What do you value in a person that you would discuss spiritual matters with?" What would you value? Now for us, if we knew this, we should listen. We should be like, antennas up, antennas up. Because, let me tell you this, 53 to 56% of Americans will never, ever in their lifetime go to church. Do you hear that number? 53 to 56%. Do you know, if you were at Wall Street or if you were at Silicon Valley and you were in a sales meeting where there was a widget that people needed, and 53 to 56% of the people did not have that widget, top salespeople would be like, "This is a gold mine. This is an absolute gold mine that many people don't have this. This is, what an opportunity to sell this." Why are we not going? My goodness, they're never going to come here. We've got to take it to them. But there's 53 to 56% of people out there that will never come to church. What an opportunity, what an opportunity.
Reminds me of the story of the two salespeople that went to an island. They sold shoes. They got on the island. One guy calls, "Come get me. This place is terrible. There's not one person here that is wearing shoes at all. This is the worst place in the world. Come get me." The other guy goes, "Man, send crates of shoes, baby. Ain't nobody here got shoes. I'm going to sell a ton of shoes." Notice the difference in the attitude? Where's our attitude? Why aren't we going, "My goodness, I need to get out there"?
Well, here's what they said. Here's what they were looking for. If they want to talk to somebody about spiritual matters, first of all, they wanted somebody to listen without judgment. Well, we can't do that because all we do is judge everybody. But that's what they want. They want somebody to listen to them without judgment. They just want to be human. In fact, two-thirds of the respondents said they had nobody who would talk to them about spiritual matters without judgment, not one, not one person. We got to listen to understand, not to correct. That's tough. It's tough for us as Christians. It's tough for me. It's tough to not want to go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but because you, because you think you know, and you have the right heart, you're like, you're going in the wrong direction. It's not the right direction." They don't care about that. They don't care about your correction. They care about being listened to.
Secondly, they said, "I talked to somebody. I want to allow, I want them to allow me to draw my own conclusions. I don't want you to tell me what conclusions that you're supposed to do." It's difficult for me. Maybe it's not difficult for you, but it's difficult because you go, "Bam, I know," but this is like, "I mean, come on, come on." No, they don't want that. Listen to me, folks, hear your pastor. Our neighbors, friends, and family are not projects. They are people.
I should have been a lot more clapping, but that's, that's, you know, it is what it is. Y'all want to go watch the NFL anyway. Value the person, not winning an argument. I mean, I look, I'm vulnerable. I'm guilty of these things at times. We, but this is not what people are looking for. They're looking for something. And here's the big one, they're also looking for confidence in our convictions. When they finally decide they want to know what it is that you really think because you valued them, and they come to you and say, "Okay, tell me what you really believe on this," here's what they want. They want to know. They want to see that it's worked for you and me. They don't want to hear, "Well, here's, here's what the Bible says about that." "Well, how is it working for you?" "Well, I don't do it. I'm just telling you what you ought to do." It doesn't work that way. What they want to see is, is that you genuinely are doing something that's working. They want to see that it's a value in your life when they talk to you. So, if we're just trying to throw out ideas and win arguments, that's not what they're looking for. They're looking for something deeper than that.
Fifth, we got to try and reorient ourselves as a server and helper to people, instead of a champion or a converter to ideas. This is huge, because we're really guilty of this. We just feel like as long as we can get somebody to agree with us on this issue, we're good. That's not what God's calling us to. I want to look at it in the book of Acts, chapter two. There's a passage where it's what's going on in the early church in Jerusalem. And when you read the Bible, you have to ask one of the questions, "Is this prescriptive, or is this descriptive?" Because not everything that you read is a prescriptive story for every single person that calls themselves a follower of God. Sometimes it's just a description. It's describing a moment. So, when you're reading the epistles, or you're reading narrative, you have to ask, "Is this prescriptive? Is this for all people at all times, or is this a description of something that was going on in the local church, or something that Paul or somebody had to talk about, dealt with, whatever, he's got to do this work?" This is a descriptive moment in the church. Some people think they would like to make it prescriptive. It's not prescriptive. It's descriptive. But I want you to see a snapshot here of how the early church was working, and how God used it, how they were being servers and helpers to people, not converters to ideas. In fact, they really didn't preach anything here. They just did stuff.
It says that all who believed were together and had all things in common. This is a real kumbaya moment, is what it was. And it says that they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. This is a snapshot of the moment of the early church. They all just got together and just were selling everything that they had. They were getting rid of everything they had, and they were just taking care of people, just loving people, whoever had need, saint or sinner. We're told that day by day, attending the temple together, breaking bread, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor, favor with all the people. Favor, like you talk to most Christians today, and all they want to do is fight. It's just a fight. "We got to fight this. We got to fight that." It's like, he had favor with the people. I mean, we still do to this day. I get calls from people that will say, "So, Brother Bennett, I hear that you all have a thing on Christmas time where they shut down a secular municipality shuts down a street to allow you all to do gospel work. Is that true?" I'm like, "Yeah." "Well, Brother Bennett, I mean, you know, the world today is so terrible, so bad. I don't understand how they would let you do that." I'm like, "Well, it's really simple, really. Like, yeah, we're not weird and we're nice." Like, "Oh, well, I know. But I mean, you know, there's no, there's no." We love on Lakewood Ranch 11 months out of every year. We take care of kids in the kids zone. We do movies at Waterside. We're good to our community. So guess what? We have favor. We have favor.
Like, I don't understand why Christians can't understand this. I mean, I have pastors that legitimately call me, no joke, and they're like, "You, you know, Brother, we know that you're a false prophet." I'm like, "Okay, well, yeah, because, I mean, nobody could really be preaching Jesus and telling people the truth of Scripture, and have so many people coming to their church." Like, like, I want to say things, but I don't. God arrests my tongue. It's not guaranteed a large church. A large church doesn't mean you're doing anything, neither does a small church. You got to be faithful to Scripture, but God can give you favor.
And here's what happens when you get favor with the people. Look at this. "The Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved." That's why we talk about being intentional neighbors here. Talk about serving and doing the right things and just, and just being, you know, not the talk, the doing. People all the time say, "Chip, you got to preach about these issues." Where I get, you know, "Blood's on your hands," you know. And, I mean, I get all this stuff, you know. And it's like, all right. And so, and sometimes I call people, you know, I'm like, "Yeah, I care, man, you go to the church." I mean, I know this is a big deal to you. I care. And, you know, and a lot of times those conversations will go like this, not all the time, but sometimes they go like this, "Okay, I know this is an issue. It's big to you. Think I'm shirking the issue. You think I'm not talking about it enough, so on and so forth. Can I ask you a question? I'm just asking you a question. Can you tell me what you personally are doing as a ministry in this area?" Crickets.
So, what you want to do is you want to tell me what to do, and you're not doing nothing. Yeah, that's not going to be a great conversation, because I'm just not. That's just not going to work for me, because, because what I, because what I say to them is what you ought to do. You got to go. You got to get on the website that particular issue. Yeah, go to the website. Look at what we do, not what I say. Look at what we do. The world doesn't care what we say. They want to see what we do. And we do a lot in this community to help all kinds of issues that you're concerned about, that you don't think I preach about. We do it. I don't talk about it. I do it. And that's far better in this world.
It's why a lot of the people in the community that are not Christian, the community that are not Christians, respect what we do, because we don't tell everybody what to do. We just do it. The last thing is that keep the goal in mind at all times. What's the goal? Well, the goal is eternity. The goal is Jesus. It's not, it's not making this world the world that we wanted. That ain't never going to happen. Scripture says the world is passing away, so it ain't going to happen. Get that out of your head that you're going to redeem Pharaoh in Egypt. That ain't happening. You got to get out of Egypt. You got to get Egypt out of you. You got to be a different community, a different set of rules, the Ten Commandments, follow a different way.
That's the whole story of Egypt. God's got a new people, a new community to show the world how to live. And we got to tell people about Jesus, because can you imagine what it's going to be like that day when we roll in and somebody comes up to you and says, "You don't understand? You were a part of that church, and they did this, and you were out there doing that one day. And I ended up coming to church, and I ended up knowing Jesus. Thank you." You're going to be like, "Whoa, unbelievable." The greatest joy in the world, outside of knowing Jesus, is leading somebody to Jesus. It's the greatest thing in the world.
And so, here's what I did. I call the band every once in a while and say, "Hey, could you do this song?" because it wouldn't fit with what I was speaking on. But I never do this. I called them and said, "Okay, we're doing something different. I need you to sing this song, because I need people to be moved. I want them to be like, 'Whoa.'" And I said, "And I want you to do two songs." And I said, "It can modulate into this. This is what we're going to do."
So, what's going to happen here is we're going to do two songs. Many of you all, after the first song is done, are going to think that is your time to get up and leave. Don't leave. I've been standing back there every service. I do the same speech, and I watch people leave, and I'm looking going, "Did you not hear me? For the love of God, I love you. I'm going to slap you five and everything else, but I'm going to be thinking, did you not, let I just ask you, like for one thing, to just stay because I chose these songs, because what I want you to do is I want you to feel what it would be like to see Jesus and what his name is, and what it means, hoping that maybe one person gets an inner revival, to want to share their faith, to want to really go out there and make a difference for the Lord.
And so, I'm going to ask you, just listen to the songs. The first song is going to be just one person singing a song. You have to stand up, or nothing. Some of you all are going to stand up. Some of you are going to put your hands in the air. It's just going to, it's just going to happen. That song's going to end, and you're going to think, "All right, time to go." No, it's going right into another song. And I want you to have the moment, because what I'm praying for is that the Holy Spirit will descend on this place and will move people in a way that we realize we have the highest stakes game in town. We are a life-saving station. We're not a club. We're there to go out there and help wet, drowned people that are sick and dirty and help them meet Jesus, not a shower on the outside of the place.
Last modified: Monday, February 3, 2025, 2:39 PM