It was about five or six years ago that I was listening to a pastor who was recalling a moment in his life that was about 30 to 35 years before, when he was a youth pastor. He was talking about a time, and I don't know if you remember, some of you remember this, but you know, 40 years ago, 45 years ago, somewhere in that vicinity, 50 years ago, there were no cell phones, there were no iPads. If you wanted to get a hold of somebody, you had to call their house, right? Remember that? And then the Holy Spirit showed up, and it became this, right? The problem is, is that if you didn't, if somebody wasn't home, and you needed to get a hold of somebody, it wasn't easy to get a hold of somebody.

He was telling the story of how, I guess, the mother was out away from the job somewhere in a car, to be at a, wherever she was at. The daughter had been picked up at school by her friends, and nobody could get a hold of the mom or the daughter. What had happened was, is the husband, the father of the wife, and the father of his daughter, he had passed away in an accident at the manufacturing plant that he worked at. They were trying desperately to get in touch with the mom and the daughter, and they called the church because they knew the daughter went to church on Wednesday nights, and said, "Look, we hate to tell you this, but we need the family to know so that they can come and we can talk about this."

And so the youth pastor was called in and said, "Hey, she's going to be at church. You need to be prepared what you're going to say." And so he thought about it. He's like, "Man, it's going to be the most life-changing information for this young lady ever." And so he thought about how he would talk about it. And normally, she showed up early for youth group, and youth group started, and she wasn't there. And so he started thinking to himself, "I guess she's probably, somebody got to them and, you know, were able to tell what had happened." And the song was going on. And he looked up, and here she came in with her friends, and they were laughing and having a great time. And he knew at that moment that she had not heard, and he knew he was going to have to tell her. And so he did. He told the story of how he told her and how that, you know, she took it and just the pain and misery, but also told the story of how she grew up, you know, to become a lady of faith and all of that stuff.

Why do I tell you that story? I tell you that story for two reasons. One, I think all of us can relate at some level. There's some level of empathy that we can relate to, of having to tell that story, of thinking of that young girl and what that was like, and all of that. We can all relate to that. And the second reason I mention it is not to diminish the first one, because I do not want in any way, shape, or form take away from that moment and what was the significance of that to this lady. But I want to say to you that I said that story about life-changing information, because the greatest life-changing information that we can ever tell anybody is about Jesus. It is the most life-changing information that we could ever tell anybody. Does it diminish what was told to that young lady? And I don't want to diminish that or seem insensitive. I just want to say, though there are many things in life where we get information that's life-changing, there's nothing more life-changing, and specifically, potentially life-changing than hearing, than telling somebody about Jesus and how they respond.

And so I want to talk about that this weekend. I told you last weekend we were going to talk about it. I told you we're going to talk about it again this weekend. We're going to get super practical. This message will not be like my normal messages. It just can't be, because you know this to be true, that there's not a book in the 66 books that you know. You flip back here and it's, "Okay, this is the book on how, the 10 steps to share your faith," or whatever. It's not there. We sort of have to go through here and mine this to figure out how to look at that. And so I want to get very practical. I want you to know it's going to be a little different, but I really want you to lean in, because I want to give you some tools for your toolbox. I really believe with all my heart, and I can say this now because I've done this three times, and I've watched thousands of people leave here, and people have said over and over again, "Never been in church my whole life. Nobody ever told me how to share my faith. Nobody ever talked about this. This is great. This is life-changing," and I believe it can be the same for you. So lean in. We'll get there in just a second.

Before we do, I want to remind everybody that we're in a series called "It's Who We Are." And we do this every year. We sort of go back and talk about who we are. It might be called DNA, might be called culture, might be called reset, a number of things that we've called it, but it's still the same type of thing every year, going through some major parts of who we are as a church and making sure that we stay focused. The big idea in this series is, if we don't define who we are, then someone else will do it for us. So that's why we're talking about some of our cultural points around here that make Grace what they are. Doesn't mean every other church in America needs to do it the way that we do it. It's how we do it, and we stay very focused on what's going on.

So let's wade into sharing our faith. Let's get practical. What are some things that we can say? How can we better share our faith? I want to do that. And to do that, I want to get us thinking a little bit. There is one passage in the Bible that is not prescriptive. It doesn't tell us, "This is exactly how we, everybody has to do it at every time and every place." But it is incredibly profound, because it's one of the few passages in Scripture, not verses, but passages where someone really shares their faith to an unbelieving crowd, and it's Paul. He's in Athens. He's at the Areopagus, where they debate and talk about religion and philosophy and everything. And Luke records that conversation.

We're told that Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious." He's looked around, he's assessed the situation, and what he's done is he finds common ground. That's important, like we should, we should glean something from this, that this should get us sort of thinking about sharing our faith and how we may do it and what's important to us. He finds common ground. Not only that, he says, "I passed along and I observed the objects of your worship. I saw all the stuff up here on this rock mountain, the things that you worshiped, and all of this. And I also found an altar with this inscription, 'To the unknown God.'" Guess they had thought, "Well, there's probably more gods than we know of, so we'll have one here for the unknown God, because maybe there's a God that we need to learn about." Paul says, "I saw that inscription, and therefore, you worship what is unknown. I want to tell you about it."

What he does here is beautiful. It's analogous the way he does it. He uses analogy to make, to talk about God. He says, he utilizes the familiar to explain the unfamiliar. He takes something that they know, and then he explains something that they don't know. So he's found common ground when he says, "I perceive that you all are religious." They were thinking, "Of course, we are. Yeah, absolutely." He's not speaking at them. He's not condescendingly speaking down to them. He's found common ground. He's now taking something that they're familiar with. He's going to tell them something that they don't know.

He says, "The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn't live in temples made by men." To them, that would have been an eye-opener, because every god they knew had to have a temple, because gods were needy. They needed to be served. He says, "This God that I would tell you about, you're familiar with God, I'm going to tell you about it when you don't know. He doesn't live in temples made by men. In fact, he's not even served by human hands, as though he needed anything." Like, "Whoa. Who's this God?" "Since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and 

everything." What he does here is he clarifies who God is. He helps them to understand they believe in God. He just helps them to clarify who God really is. And then, in a beautiful way, in such a small, succinct way, listen to what he says here. He says, "The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he's fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he's appointed. And of this, he's given assurance to all by raising him from the dead." He is able to get repentance, judgment, and the resurrection in as few words as he possibly can, very succinct.   

What this means is Paul is intentional. He's thought through what he's going to do. He's not just ad hoc. He's not just riffing in the moment. He's been intentional. And this is what I would say, and I know this to be true, that many of you all say, "You know, I would share my faith, but I've got some fear." Totally hear you. "I've got some anxiety." Totally hear you. "Don't think I know enough." Totally hear you. "Don't have confidence." Totally hear you. But I believe a lot of those symptoms, which are real, and I want to value them, come from the fact that we just simply don't know what to do. What we do is we don't plan to fail. We just fail to plan. We're not intentional in saying, "Hey, this is, this is something I need to do, and so I need to be intentional."

So I want to give you six things that I think anybody who decides to set out to share their faith needs to know. And some of them are going to be Uber, Uber practical, with some questions and answers and all this other stuff that we're going to do. But the first thing you got to know if you're going to share your faith, if you're going to be intentional, if you're going to stay on point is, this is the main thing, is to keep the main thing the main thing. Why do I say that? I say that because we're so easily distracted. "I'm going to go out and share my faith." Now we're talking about UFOs and aliens. "I'm going to go out and share my faith." Whoop. Now I'm in an argument about something, whatever. No, we want to keep the main thing the main thing. And I don't know if many Christians know what the main thing is.

So, so let's, let's talk about this for a second. What, what's the church called to do? What are we called to do? There's three things in the Bible every single one of us is absolutely called to do at all times and all places. Is it to be a pastor? I'm a pastor. I'm a part of the church. The church will have pastors. But is that the call of the church? No. If I were to sit up here and go, "Every one of you all, if you're a Christian, you ought to be a pastor," pastor, you'd go, "Oh, hold on now, hold on. That's, that's your call, and that's what God's called you, but that's always called me to do. I'm a dentist or I'm an attorney or I'm a, I'm a basketball coach or whatever," and we wouldn't tell everybody else that they had to do what you had to do, because what we don't want to do is take things that, that are individual callings and stuff that the church will do through individuals.

What is the church called to do? Because if we don't know what that is, we're not going to keep the main thing the main thing. Biblically, the church is called to win the lost. Every one of us is called to tell people about our faith. Every one of us, every one of us, is called to be equipped and to also help others. In the church, we weep with those who weep. We rejoice with those who rejoice. We're part to be equipped. You can't go, "I'm a Christian, but I don't want to know anything about God." Can't do that. If you're, if you're part of the church, this is part of the church, and the church is also called to take care of those in need. Can't go, "That wasn't my ministry." Jesus says, "Hey, when I come, I'm going to see how well you treated these people and did this stuff," because this is what you're called to do. This is what you're called to do. This is what the church is called to do.

Why is this important that we know this? Because we got to be on guard of elevating a particular ministry calling of an individual within the church to a mandate for the entire church. And this is going on right now, specifically in America, because we're hearing people going, "Well, Esther stood up and she, she did 100%," and maybe you're called to be an Esther, but Esther was different than what the Jewish people were called to do. That was an individual calling. Some of you are called to go out on the front lines and do stuff, and absolutely, but what's the job of the church? It's to win the lost, to equip the saints, and to take care of those in needs.

Why is that important? It's important because I hear many of you all, I think you, I think you, I think you send them in in good faith. I think you mean well when you send it in, but you say to me regularly, and I get it, I hear it all the time. "You know, Chip, it's great that we talk about Jesus, great that we talk about sharing faith, but at some point you got to speak up against these cultural issues that are going on. You got to tell us what's going on." And see what's happening here is, is this, some of you are called to do that. I believe God calls people to be involved in politics. I believe God calls people to run for office. I believe God calls people to be involved in all kinds of parachurch ministries. But that's not the job of the aggregate church.

And let me explain why. Because biblically, the gospel is what has to go to the lost, not arguing over cultural issues, because they don't understand it. I'll show you why in a second. The Bible doctrine, all that stuff, is for the saved. That's why, here at Grace, we teach all of it. There's nothing we don't teach. So you're not going to come here long enough and not know what God has to say about whatever God has to say, because we go through books, we go through passages, we don't hide any of it.

But when we forget that our job to the lost is to share the gospel, is to stay focused on the main thing, we get distracted. And let me tell you why that's important. It's important because this is what Paul says, "The natural person," who's that, that's the person who's unsaved. "The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God." Some of you come to me, "I don't know why my coworker doesn't want to read the Bible with me. I don't know why my coworker doesn't understand this about this issue." That's why. They don't accept it. In fact, it's folly to them. It's folly. They're not able to understand it, because the only way you can understand what God wants for humanity is it has to be spiritually discerned. It has to be spiritually understood, and you can only do that if you have the Holy Spirit within you.

That's why the job of the church will never be to be cultural warriors. The job of the church will be to win the lost, equip the saints, and take care of those in needs, although there will be people, individuals, that are called to do certain things, and God calls them in certain places. The job of the church is to keep the main thing the main thing, because if we don't keep the main thing the main thing, we're going to be trying to speak to people about issues they won't understand at all. That's why we got to get people to Jesus and stay on the main thing. Make sense? Three people. That's fine. Okay. You can disagree with me at your peril. So anyway, just kidding, just kidding. But anyway, that's important.

Second thing, because if we don't keep the main thing the main thing, we're getting distracted. We do it all the time. I see people start talking about their faith, and there they go, squirrel, you know, here we go. So second, our tone and demeanor is of utmost importance. Like, we're not called to speak down at people. We speak with them. Listen tomwhat Peter says. You know, this passage says, "You got to always be prepared to make a defense for anyone who asks the reason for the hope that's in you." Be like, we know that, okay, I'm supposed to be able to tell people about my faith. I get that, everybody, all Christians, whatever. But what we never do is crazy. We don't even like include the last part of the verse ever. I don't know why we don't, but we don't. Here's the last part of the verse: "Yet do it with gentleness and respect." Think about that. Think about the tone that we take with people at work or get frustrated or mad, gentleness and respect.

Paul says this to a young Timothy, "Have nothing to do with foolish and ignorant controversies because they breed quarrels." Oh Lord, that the American church could read this passage. Listen what he says. "The Lord's servant," to all of us, "must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone." You know this to be true. You know this to be true, but I'm getting ready to tell you, you know it to be true. We all know it many times. It's not what we say, it's how we say it. And you know, if you're married, you know that, like you know that. You know you've said things before that they, maybe you said what you said was right, but the way you said it was terrible. So our tone and demeanor matter.

So we're going to be, we're going to be focused. We got to keep the main thing the main thing, got to keep focused on that. We have a real easy time of getting distracted. We got to pay attention to our tone and demeanor, and we got to be intentional, which means, in our toolbox, in our arsenal, we need to have questions that we have rehearsed, that we've thought about when we talk to somebody that will open up, that may open up a conversation. They may not, but they're questions that, if I believe this in my heart, most people don't even think about this. They don't think about, "Oh, I should have some questions." So when I'm talking to somebody, they might lead somewhere. We don't do that. We just sort of get in there and riff and talk and whatever.

And I've got some questions. They may not be your questions. You may come up with better questions, but these are some questions I know work. I've seen them work. I've seen them engage dialogue to where it starts moving it towards where we can talk about Jesus. The first one is a question that a friend of mine, his professor friend, that when I do go to lunch with him, he, every time he does this, every time we sit down to eat, the server comes, girl, boy, whatever it is, man or woman, they come to the table, "Can I get you anything?" He says, "Hey, we're Christians, and we're going to pray for our food here in a minute. Is there anything I can pray for you about?"

It's shocking to me. I'm thinking that they're going to say, "Give me a break." No. They go, "Oh yeah, at home, I got this kid." I'm going, I'm like, "Man, they're like sharing their life at the table." I'm like, "If I would have said that question, they would have spit at me." Like, this is incredible, you know. And I'm not saying that's the question, yes, but I can tell you this, there's a little, a little twist to it. When somebody at your work, your family member, a lost person, says something to you about their life, that's a challenge. This is a great question: "How could I best pray for you about that?" You pray? "Well, yeah, I mean, I'm maybe not the best, but I would, I would pray." "I didn't know you went to church." "Yeah, I do." I'm not telling you you're going to get all the way to sharing your faith, but you've opened up dialogue, and that's what you want to do. You want to open up dialogue. And the way you're going to open up dialogue is not by preaching at them, but by asking questions where they can dialogue with you.

A question like, "Have you ever had your faith tested?" Give you an example. Maybe you're at work, maybe you're in a family meeting and you're talking to somebody, "Man, I tell you what, last week, I went through some stuff." Man, most people are going to go, "Really? What did you go through?" Because most people have some sense of empathy. "Yeah, I was going through some stuff. Man, struggling at home, but, man, I tell you, my faith was tested." "You, you have faith?" "Yeah." "Have you ever had your faith tested?" "No, I'm not a believer." "Really? Okay, I didn't know that." All of a sudden, you've opened up dialogue. I'm not telling you that's the question you need to ask, but it's a question you might ask.

Or, "Do you have any spiritual beliefs?" 80% plus of Americans say they're open to spirituality. They're open to it. So ask them, "You have any spiritual beliefs?" Maybe, maybe they're reading some... I'll tell you this next question. If you're humble, you really love God, you really want to create dialogue, and you're really open to hearing something, this question, here's one of the best questions you can ask any of your unsaved friends: "Are there any areas of my life that you think I need to work on as a Christian?" Listen to them. Listen to what they have to say. You might not like what they have to say, but man, you're bringing them into a dialogue where you might be able to talk about things that are godly.

Or, "What do you think happens after we die?" It's the G. James Kennedy evangelism explosion, Coral Ridge. I mean, millions of people have come to faith. "If you die tonight, do you know where you're going to go?" I'm going to go... I mean, I'm not saying you have to ask these questions, but if you don't have questions in your toolbox that you can ask, you probably won't get to where you want to go. Which brings me to my fourth point is you need to have some answers to questions and/or statements, things that people may say to you, or questions that they ask you that create dialogue. And I'm not talking about the complicated ones. I'm talking about things you hear every single day from people, and we don't think about it. We don't plan for it.

Somebody comes along and says, "How have you been lately?" "Terrible. Back hurts. Country's going to hell in a handbasket." They're probably not going to go, "Really? Why don't you tell me about Jesus?" They're not going to do it at all. So rather, and it's nice that you're being honest, "Terrible," whatever, "bad back," whatever. It's great. But what if you had an answer that you had planned? "Hey, Chip, how you been lately?" "Man, I've been great. I've been having some really good church services that are challenging me." "Oh, really? About what?" And I got this stuff going on at home, man, you know, whatever. "I got some things I'm working on and praying, going to a small group." I'm not telling you that's going to end up with you sharing your faith, but I'm telling you, you're going to be a lot better off if you have things you're thinking about, if you're intentional.

Somebody comes along and says, "Anything exciting in your life?" "No, yeah, not really. In-laws are in town, you know, and family's like fish, it goes bad in three or four days." They're probably not going to go, "Really? Tell me about Jesus." They're not at all. So how about this, rather than "Anything exciting in your life?" "Oh, no, Tara, we want a trip." Great. You tell them, "We want a trip." It's great. It's great that you're sharing that stuff, but that's probably not intentionally going to get you where you want to go. "Anything exciting in life?" How about this? "Yeah, man, I've been really having, I've been really growing in my faith journey." "Really?" "Yeah, man, I'll tell you what, I got this issue I've been dealing with, you know, it in, I've just been really praying, and I've just been growing. Been a real struggle for me, you know, sometimes I just want to fight with God, you know." "Really? Tell me, tell me about that." They may not. They may just say, "I don't want to talk about that." That's fine. 

But you're probably not going to get there if you don't ask questions. Somebody comes along and says, "What do you think about what's going on in our country?" "I'll tell you what's going on in our country. People like you are splitting hell wide open." You know, you're going, you know that ain't going to work. That it's not going to work. You know, "What do you, what do you think about what's going on in our city or world?" "Oh, I'll tell you what. This world is going to just tear, it's terrible." That's not going to work. "Tell you what's going on, people like you are the problem." Going to work?

People ask questions, issues, problems, whatever it may be, what are you going to answer? What about this? "Man, I tell you what, you're right. It is crazy out there, but I tell you what, my faith's really been helping me lately." "How do you get through all the tough times?" All of a sudden, you've created dialogue. Or somebody comes along and makes a statement, "Christians are the problem in this country." "Yeah, you're the problem in this country." Ain't going to work. They're not going to go, "Oh, okay, well, tell me about Jesus." It's not going to happen that way.

What are you going to say? How about this? "Tell you what, Christians are the problem in this country. What specifically about Christians makes you feel that way?" "Well, I can tell you this, this great talk to me. I understand that he was a Christian. Sometimes I feel like I'm that way too, you know, I hear you. Man, sometimes we don't, let's, you know, it's like, tough. It's like, you know, it's like anything else in life. Man, you go to a dentist and they didn't do a good job or something. You think all dentists are, I get it. Man, I totally understand. I wish we, I wish we did better at that." You're creating dialogue.

Somebody comes along and says this person, maybe it's a person they see on TV, a pastor that's well-known, or a friend or a family member or a co-worker, "Girl, or a boss, they're a joke of a Christian." How you can answer that? "Todd, you're the joke." That ain't going to help. They're not going to go, "Oh, really? Thanks for telling me that. Now, tell me about Jesus." Not going to happen. What do you, what do you say to that? Well, how about this? "What do you feel a real Christian should look like?" "Well, you know, I mean, I grew up in church." "I didn't know that about you." "Yeah, I got hurt, but tell me about that now." Now you're, you're creating dialogue.

And I know, I know, I know this is exactly what some of you are thinking. You're going, "Okay, the questions are pretty good. The answers are pretty good, but Chip, they may ask me questions that I don't have answers to, and that's the problem." I'm going to give you the greatest release valve ever. Listen to me. You don't have to be an answer giver. You can be an answer finder. Big difference. Here's the way you respond every single time that you get the question that you don't know, rather than coiling up and thinking that you're terrible. This is what you say: "That is a great question, and I, honestly, I don't know the answer. I'll get back to you on that."

That's it. I just solved all of your problems right there. They'll appreciate it, even if they go, "Well, you should know more." They're not going to really think that deep down inside. They're going to go, "Wow, that was a fresh dose of humility from a Christian not yelling at me and screaming at me. They said they didn't know. You can go find out. Just study. Go ask some people and come to that."

So if you've been into the main thing, the main thing, your tone and demeanor, right? You're asking the questions, you got the, you got the answers you're working in this. At some point, somebody's going to go, "Well, tell me a little bit more." And when they say that, this is the time that our testimony is the most important story that we can tell. This is where you and me talk about how Jesus changed our life. Listen to me. If you don't have a story about how Jesus has changed your life, probably nobody's going to ever listen to you. Jesus is not in the "sometimes, maybe never" business of changing lives. He changes lives. I mean, we're told, "If we're in Christ, we are a new creation."

And I don't know what your testimony is. Maybe it's that you grew up in church and you didn't go out and do a lot of stuff. God's been merciful to you. That's your testimony. It may be that you were an addict and you got saved, and God, I don't know what it is, but this is where you talk about that, and you talk about the experiences that you've had with the Lord, because these are your experiences. This isn't you arguing the Bible with someone. This is you saying, "Hey," and you know what, they may say, "Yeah, I hear that. But man, you know these Christians out there, they're terrible. I hear that. But maybe it's, maybe, you know, it's fake." "I hear that. Maybe it's just all in your mind or whatever else." And your response every single time is, "I totally hear you, and I certainly see and hear your concerns, your frustrations, whatever it may be, but I also know that Jesus has changed my life." That's what I know.

And they may walk away, but they may say, "Tell me more. Tell me more about that." This is where you have to know minimal facts. Scrunch it, scrunch it. This is not the time when they say, "Well, tell me a little bit more." "Alright, turn to the Book of Genesis. Here in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The Earth was without form and void. God saw that. He said, 'Light,' and, you know, and we're going to read all 50 chapters of Genesis here." We're not. We're not. That's not what we scratch.

So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to talk to you as if you've asked me, "Chip, tell me a little bit more about Christianity. What does that mean to you? What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it, what would it look like for people?" "What does it mean to be a Christian?" "Well, first, as Christians, I believe that God loved and created the world. You know, the world's just a bunch of random atoms. I mean, there's really no purpose for anything. But I believe God created, and I believe there's good reason to believe that God created the heavens and the earth. I believe there's good reasons to believe that we're not here by accident. But as a Christian, I believe that God loved the world like He created the world, but He just didn't create the world. He didn't create the world and then go away. He's very involved in the world. And means He created me and He created you, like we have purpose, we have a reason for being here. And we created humanity. Created humanity good, but He created him with the choices of serving God or not serving God. And, you know, humanity, we just wanted to do it our way. And you know that, I mean, goodness gracious, how many times in my life I knew this to be the right way and I chose the wrong way instead, you know? I mean, how many times have we gotten in the car on Friday night and said, 'I am going to sin all weekend, man,' you know, and we did it so well, we moved into Monday and Tuesday, you know? I mean, we all know that, and so we've all done that, and the Bible calls that sin. Maybe you don't like that word. I get it. I understand that. But the best way to look at it is, is that, you know, we've, we've broken a relationship because we chose to do the wrong way. Like, you know, you, you know how it is, and you have relationships with people, and sometimes you do them wrong, and it just severs the relationship. But this is a pretty big severing, because if I were to give you a basketball goal that was like 30 feet high and said, 'Dunk it,' you'd say, 'Well, there's no way anybody could dunk it. 

They'd have to have help. And it's sort of the way it is, like we're so far away because of how holy and just and God is, and because we decided to go our own way. That's why Jesus came. He came to make things right. Came to bridge that gap. And I don't fully understand all of the dynamics of it, because it's sort of, you know, strange for us in the world that we live in, but that's why He died on the cross for our sins. He took my punishment, your punishment that we should have deserved, and he took it on himself so that he could give us forgiveness and righteousness and peace with God. But here's the best part, though. Best part is, is that he resurrected. Like this is the big, this is the game changer, because if he didn't resurrect, none of that other stuff matters. But if he resurrected, who, game over, you know, and I don't know a whole lot, but I can tell you one thing, the little bit of study I've done, and maybe study two with me at some point is, it seems like that for the early Christians to have actually written the New Testament and to have given their lives and martyrdom, the consensus seems to be that they saw a dead man walking, that that would change everything.

Can you imagine if Jesus rose from the dead? Wow, that's like game over. And so we believe that Jesus died for our sins, you and me, and that he rose on the third day to ensure that we could have eternal life, like we would know if he rose up from the dead. That means that maybe we would, we would raise too, right? And our response is either belief or unbelief. Now you may not really read the Bible, totally understand that, but I'm not maybe the best presenter of this at all, but this is sort of the way scripture presents. What I've just said, even better than me, is that God so loved the world. Remember, he created the world. He loved the world. People went astray. He gave His only Son, like Jesus came, to make things right, to die for you and me, that whoever believes in him would not perish, but would have everlasting life. Paul, who's an apostle, who, you know, threw Christians in jail, but had a conversion with Jesus. He said that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you can, you can be saved.

Would you like to know that your sins are forgiven and that you have eternal life? You just presented the gospel. You just told somebody what they need to hear and see. If you don't plan and you're not intentional, you won't get there. Now, so that you know, because I'm doing, some of you going, "God, wait, with a lot of information." Well, we have everything I just said on a sheet of paper for you when you leave. I did this because I love you. I also did this because I love God more than you, and I have to give an account one day, and I don't want to go into heaven and go, "Why didn't you teach people how to share the gospel?" Nope, I got it, check mark.

I hope that helps. I hope that you got something out of that. I have one request of you, just one, one small request. A lot of time and effort went into this. We put this together. This is also on the webpage, top banner to go out an email today. We're going to make sure everybody gets it. If you're online, you can go on the website, sign up. We'll get it, actually top of the websites, click it. You can get there. If you're on the email list, you can get it too. We want to make sure you get everything.

Here's what I'd like for you to do, just one, one favor. I want you to think of one or two people. They need to be local. Doesn't have to be five or six, just one or two, could be one. And I want you to decide, like last week, where we said we were going to pray for people. "God, show me what you see in them and help me to serve." I want you to find one person that you, or two people that you can pray for. You start praying for them. Look for opportunities to serve them. They're out in the yard struggling. That'd be a great time to go over there and help them. Or maybe they're at work going through something, go over and talk to them. And as the opportunities afford themselves, and they will, because if you're praying about them, start creating a dialogue with them. Just start talking to them, having a relationship.

Here's what I want you to do, because you can start now. I want you to do this, because you're going to have some time to do this. And then I want you to invite them to Easter services in April. Got a lot of time to develop some of this and pray for this. Invite them, come and tell you something right now. You invite one of your friends that you put that time and effort into, they come to one of our services here, and they get saved. You don't realize what that's going to do to you. You don't realize how you ain't going to be concerned at all what's going on in the world. You're going to be like, "Where can I go find another one?" Because it's so great. It's awesome, you know. And who knows, you may end up leading somebody to the Lord way before you ever invite them to Easter.

But that's what I'd like for you to do, because I believe that God wants His Church to be people that are passionate about sharing their faith. And I hope that this has helped you somewhat. I hope this will be a benefit to you. We get to get the sheets of paper. We're going to sing a final song about what it means to be saved. And I'm hoping that you listen to that and you think about that, and I'm hoping that God burdens in your heart the need to share the most life-transforming information that we can share to anybody.

Last modified: Monday, February 3, 2025, 2:53 PM