Let's say you came up to me this morning and you said, hey, I was up in Breckenridge yesterday, and then you explained something about what you did in Breckenridge, I guess hiking at this time of year and saw the leaves and different things. And if I were to ask you, how did you get there? There would be different answers that are all equally correct. Like you may say, well, I took I-70. And I could say, well, okay, I-70 is a road. Like, how did you get there? Oh, I got there in my car. Okay, your car is just a thing that sits there. How did you get, oh, I drove. My point is, like, really all of those things are true and are part of the picture. And by saying one of them, you're not lying. If you just said, I drove there, that's true. That's not dishonest, but it's not the full picture. I use that illustration to ask this question. How is a person saved? Or how does a person become a Christian? Now there's, again, not one right answer. Because someone could say, well, you become a Christian by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. And it's like, yay, you understand what the Reformation was about. And that's a true statement. Or someone could say, you become a Christian by repenting of your sins and looking to Christ. as your substitute, as your payment, as your savior. You could say, more of a historic gospel approach is you could say, I was saved by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You could say I was saved by the conviction and the renewal of the Holy Spirit. And so now we're talking Father did this, Son did this, Spirit did this, the gospel, grace, repentance, faith, we got all these things, but the scripture has still yet another answer to that question, how does anyone become a Christian? And part of the answer is by or through the faithful witness of another person. How did you become a Christian? Somebody told me. 2 Corinthians 5, and I'm gonna give you, we're gonna be jumping around a little bit this morning. 2 Corinthians 5, Paul is talking about how it is built into the heart of God to reconcile broken people to himself. And one of the pictures of the gospel is that our sin has alienated us from a perfectly holy God. We've gone our own way. We've all turned aside. And there's now like this gulf or this wall between us and a holy God. And God did not sit back and say, if you can climb over the wall, if you can bridge the chasm and get into my heaven on your terms, great. He didn't do any of that. He said, I will come to you, become one of you in the person of Jesus so that you can be reconciled. You're invited home, forgiven, loved, adopted, redeemed, reconciled. But this is important. In 2 Corinthians 5.21, he says, you are, and he's talking to the church. He was talking to a messed up church, by the way. Read about the church in Corinth. They had a lot of urban problems. And he's writing to this church and he says, you are the ministers of that reconciliation. God is generally not sitting back and just speaking to people in dreams and saying, this is my plan for your life. He's speaking through other people and he's saying, you've got to take this message that God wants you home, forgiven, united, loved. inheriting all that is there for you. God wants that to be true of your life. Now go share that good news. And another phrase he uses, he says, you are ambassadors for Christ. You're the one going and telling people and urging them to come home to the Father. So as we go through this series, this overall 12 weeks of just different pieces of the Christian life, and different pieces of connecting people to God, connecting people to each other, connecting people to culture and the city, so that we're seeking the justice of the city, and we're seeking mercy, and we're doing good for our neighbors, we come this week to the question, how do I share my faith? And I think for some of you, this is gonna be, in this whole series, this is gonna be your biggest struggle. This is gonna be the hardest one for you to do. But right out of the gate, I want to say, I can hardly imagine a more beautiful thing in all the world than leading another person to Christ. I can hardly think of a better thing you could do with your life than to invest the time in bringing someone else to Jesus Christ. And this morning I'm just going to ask three simple questions about sharing our faith. Number one, why don't we? Number two, how can we? Number three, what does this look like? And I'll tell you up front. I'm not gonna talk this morning a whole lot about why you should share your faith, because that's my other hundred messages that I've already preached about sharing your faith, okay? I mean, literally, just go through our sermon audio. There's lots and lots of sermons of like, we should share our faith because God is absolutely worthy of all the glory and fame and honor and praise that every created thing could ever give him for all eternity. He's worthy of that, and we go and we share Christ because we're creating other worshipers of Jesus. I could say, we should do this because we care about lost people. We are not better than lost people. And we love them so much, it is natural and spontaneous to go and say, I have found the greatest news in the world, come with me, let me share with you. And we share, as I just said, we share because people cannot believe unless they've heard. I mean, we all know the verse in Romans, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. The verses that immediately follow that say, but how can anyone call on someone who they haven't heard of? And how will they hear without a preacher? The words just literally to proclaim the good news of. How's anybody going to hear? So really, that's all I'm gonna say about why, because you can hear that message. If you're honestly at the end, like, thanks for all the practical stuff. I just don't see why I should be one that does what you just talked about, then let's have that conversation. But that's not where most of you are. Most of you are like, I think it's a good thing. I think it's an important thing. I think it's a way that we glorify God. I just maybe don't know how to do it. So this may sound more like teaching than preaching. But let's go. And I'll have Richard come up to write one quick exercise for me. So we're going to interact again, just a few minutes. But I want to give you a minute to think about this question before you try to respond. And you can write in your notes. So the very first question is, why don't we? And I'm not assuming that all of you do not share. I know many stories of different ones of you who are like, this is my one. And if you're new, that's the term that our church uses for like that one person that you are most committed to praying for and ministering to who right now is an unbeliever, but they're your one. We've talked many times in our church about the more you do this thing for your one, the more you realize it's actually 8 to 15, which is actually the point of this book. 8 to 15. The world is smaller than you think. One of the books I'll recommend on our website this week. You have a small relational community, usually of eight to 15 non-Christians. These could be family members, friends, coworkers, geographic neighbors, like they live in the houses around you. Some of you are already doing this, but why aren't we doing it, some of us at all, why aren't we doing it more? And so my question is, and I just want you to think in these terms, what do we lack? that if you feel like, if I had this, then I think I would be able to share my faith much more naturally than what I do, or maybe more often than what I do. And again, don't answer yet, just take a minute and maybe write two or three things just in your notes for yourself where you're reflecting, for me, I think I would share more if I didn't lack this. And I don't want to coach you because there are not only different answers, but there are different types of answers. And I want to get like maybe 7 or 8 or 10 up here to look at. So, just take a moment, two or three things. All right. Some of you are starting to look back up at me. So, I don't mean by you sharing this, we're going to look at you and be like, really? I knew you lacked humility. No, we're talking about us, okay? This is an exercise to help us all grow. This is to help me grow. So let's just do it, okay? Let's get some things up here. What do we lack? Confidence. Okay, let me slow down just to the point where he can write. So confidence in God, conviction. Courage. Thank you. You guys have been in this church for a long time. Anybody? This is like a sermon. Anybody else have any C's before we move to people who don't have C's? You have a C? Time. No. Compassion. OK, time, compassion. Zeal. Zeal. Awareness of opportunity. Yeah, awareness of like, that was actually an opportunity right there. Urgency. Yeah, like I think there are both. Like you could say I look. Awareness of opportunities. You got it. And then Connie said confidence in self. Oh, urgency was a. Yeah, just a lack of knowledge. Eternal focus. Are we going slow enough? Not really. Eternal focus. I think we're caught up. I saw a couple other hands, I think, further back. Anybody else? Maybe I got eliminated by what somebody else said. Go ahead. Faithfulness. Faithfulness. Like, I'm not going to, I'm going to mess it up. I want to, if I say something, it's just going to make it worse. I would encourage you to go ahead and think about, again, the top two or three of these things that are personal to you. And let me just take a couple of these things, because I lack some of these things too. I don't have the gift of evangelism as some people have, like literally a spiritual gift from the Holy Spirit that is more instinctive and natural and just kind of flows from them, and that's the way that God works uniquely through them. But let's talk about this question then. How can we share our faith if we lack these things? And maybe this is just obvious because of the kind of church we are, but I think the key is to understand the gospel supplies everything we lack. And I'll just illustrate that a couple different ways. If you have a feeling of superiority over other people, that's very different than having compassion for them. Okay, so superiority sounds like this. I'm right, you're wrong, and I love telling you about it. And that's our culture today. It's like culture in all these different areas, whether it's politics or social issues or emotions or really things that we should be able to sit down and have a rational disagreement over or a dialogue, it's so very often a lack of humility, a feeling of superiority where it's just like, I'm right, you're wrong, and I love talking and hearing myself talk about how foolish you are, how ignorant you are, how wrong you are. And what I want to point out about if we lack sensitivity, if we lack humility, the gospel says to us, you are a sinner saved by grace. What are you proud about? What are you feeling superior to other people about? You were exactly where everyone else on the planet is in their lostness. You were saved by sheer grace. You contributed nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary. So the gospel, if you really believe that, that abrasive, that haughty superiority would dissolve into, I believe I'm a sinner saved by grace. Now I'm gonna go tell other people. I'm gonna lead them to the well that I found. How about lack of confidence in God or in self? And there's some similarities up here. I think when we're like, oh, I'm not eloquent, it's a lack of confidence in my speaking ability. I don't know enough to share is this one here, I lack knowledge. I think very often what we're saying is, I could mess this up. and I would look stupid. Or worse, like in my personal or professional life, I could alienate someone that it's very important for me to keep in my life. Like, I mean, we have spouses here that one of you is a believer and one of you is a non-believer. We have very close friendships that you're a believer and these close, close friends are non-believers and you tiptoe around things and you lack a courage, or some of you it may not be that, like I'll wreck a relationship, but it's just, it's like a completely different kind of conversation than you're accustomed to having, and you just lack a more general boldness or courage to just like, ah, I've never done that before, like, how do you even start that conversation? And the way the gospel resolves all of those is saying, the gospel says, here's good news, your identity is who you are in Christ, period. You don't have to find your identity in being an eloquent or knowledgeable speaker with all the answers. In fact, I think it's actually more winsome sometimes when a friend asks you a question because you got into a conversation and you say these words, I don't know. why don't we try to dig into those answers together? Or I'll go do some research before trying to fake my way through the answer, and I'll come back and let's pick up this conversation again. And that's part, by the way, of, and I don't know what someone meant by this, but patience with God is sometimes like, oh, I didn't get that person saved today. Well, in most instances, you're not going to, and it is hard to be patient with God that we're just sometimes laying another brick, and then another, and then another, and it takes a long time to build, or to use the metaphor in scripture, the seed's been planted, and to come back in water, and to walk away, and it's like day after day after day, it looks like nothing's happening, when in fact, maybe that seed under the surface has started to decompose, so that it can shed that tough husk, so that life can come out of it. I think another one is a lack of hope. I've had different conversations. We didn't get that one up here either, but I've talked to many of you that have stopped sharing your faith with a particular person because you're just like, they're never going to get saved. Oh, you know that for a fact? You know, going downtown, my goodness, it could be everything from the CEO of the company who lives in the brand new high-rise penthouse across the street, and he makes a couple million dollars a year, and he has everything he needs, so you're like, he's not gonna get saved, he's not ever gonna see his need for the gospel, give up, or all the way down to the drug-abusing gangbanger that's always strung out, and you're like, they've tried so many times to get over this addiction, and they're just never going to. And what this presupposes is that there's a certain type of person who becomes a Christian. And the gospel says the opposite. The gospel says there is no type of person who becomes a Christian. Jesus is like, and I'm bringing people from every nation, every tribe, every tongue, every people group. I'm bringing the rich, I'm bringing the poor. I'm bringing the liberal, I'm bringing the conservative. Not his words, but it's in the ethos of what he said for certain. I'm bringing the wise, I'm bringing the foolish, I'm bringing the weak, I'm bringing the strong. He said all of this. If you believe the gospel, embody the gospel, you would still have hope. By the way, if you're like, that person is beyond saving, what you're saying is something was special about you that you were not. Versus like, I was the same as them except the grace of God got a hold of me. One more, the lack of eternal focus, I think this is, Keller calls this a lack of spiritual reality, is we're just going through life and it's like, what do I have to do today? And it's like the American dream, we're living for the same things as everybody else, and we just don't think about eternity a whole lot. We don't think about what is spiritually true a lot. And what does the gospel say to that? that Christianity is not some far-off otherworldly thing, but in fact that far-off otherworldly thing, one, created our physical world and everything in it, and two, came from that far-off otherworldly place, wherever it is, and became one of us. so that we could have real relationship with Him, and in a sense could introduce our friends to Him, because Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, was a real-life, flesh-and-bones human being. And the gospel says that spiritual reality is not this weird, otherworldly thing, this pie-in-the-sky theology. It's gritty, it's real-worldly, Not in a carnal sense, but in a sense of it's for the world that we live in. And one by one, we could begin to go through these things and realize, if I really understood the gospel, it would build a confidence in what God has done, is doing, promises to do. It would build my conviction that this is worth living for. We're all living for a treasure. And when you see friends just throwing their lives away, treasuring things that are worthless, and in the end will be gone, and you're like, I could introduce you to a treasure that's forever, you begin to get a conviction about these things, a compassion, a zeal, all of these things. This is great. Let me come at this from another angle of This is what we lack, and we're talking about how the gospel supplies that, but I want you to look at 1 Peter 3.15 with me, please. 1 Peter, so one of Jesus' best friends after Jesus is resurrected, has gone back to heaven, reigning at the right hand of God. Peter writes this book to these Jews and Gentiles, these churches that are living in dispersion. So it's very important I give you this context because when I read what I'm about to read in a moment, Peter's not saying, okay, for a moment, hey, pastors, or those with the gift of evangelism, or those that podcast Ravi Zacharias regularly, he doesn't say any of those things, he's saying church, all of you, Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor, living in this dispersion of churches, living in the world, First Peter 3.15, he says, but in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect. I think this should be one of our model verses as a church, by the way, because Peter was writing to people who were in a situation very similar to the one that we find ourselves in today. And he's saying here, obviously, you're honoring Christ in your hearts as the Lord, as holy, but you're always ready to give an answer when people come to you and ask you, Why are you so hopeful? By the way, I don't know if you follow what's going on in the news in our country, but there aren't a lot of people anywhere on the political spectrum who have much hope of anything. There's a lot of hopelessness, a lot of despair, a lot of hand-wringing, a lot of oh no, and I think some of that is well-founded, I think some of it's a little silly, but you can't dismiss the reality that that's what people feel. I wanna point out four things from this verse. that you must have if you're going to answer the how can we question. How can we share our faith? How can we share it effectively? Number one, Peter presupposes that you must have regular interaction with unbelievers, right? I mean, it's a presupposition of the verse that he writes, that these people are gonna come to you and they're gonna ask a question because they've seen something in you, which means you're life on life where they've had the opportunity to observe. And I also wanna point out that this is, we read this in our very individualistic Western mindset, right? And it's like, always ready in your hearts to honor the Christ as Lord, and you're always prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the reason of the hope that's in you, and we're like, yeah, I need to do that, and you do. but I'll point out that these words, you, are all plural. So it's actually like, you, church, is what he's saying. You, collectively. Like, people are gonna see something about what the church is doing, so you have to have regular interaction with unbelievers. And I've given you an exercise that I think will be incredibly helpful if you do this, because one of the things we say all the time is, I would love to share my faith more, I just don't have time. which goes back to last week's sermon about Sabbath and rest, because what you're telling us is that you are so busy with things that have no eternal significance whatsoever, you're so busy living the life that all of your unsaved friends are living, you don't have time to live on the mission that Jesus was living on. The gospel answers that. But I want you to just think, too, about this exercise is number six, by the way. So all I'm asking you to do in this exercise, and don't do it now, as exciting as this will be, and you don't have to do it in your gospel community groups, because it'll take some time to do it thoughtfully, but I want you to literally, when I say you need regular interaction with unbelievers, Okay, where am I gonna find the time to do that? So here's the exercise. You write down everything you can think of that's part of your daily, weekly, or monthly routine, no matter how mundane it is. I brush my teeth. Okay, probably not a good moment to bring in the lost, but you eat three meals a day, most of you. Or maybe two, or maybe five, but you eat every day. So you start thinking through three layers. What are some of these things in my daily, weekly, and monthly routine where I can have a community component where I simply invite another believer from my church, or maybe even from another church, because we're all part of a bigger community, but I invite another believer to do this with me. I'm going to lunch anyway. I pick up the phone and say, hey, are you working from home today? And this is usually how I get together with some of you. It's a very spontaneous thing. Hey, I'm going to lunch. Do you want to come? No, I can't today. But how about Thursday? So that's one thing. You're looking for missional components by involving an unbeliever. Again, hey, I'm going to lunch. Would you like to come with me instead of me going off and being very spiritual? Because I don't think lunch at work, if you work kind of out in the workforce, I don't think that's the best time to have your devotions. But if it's the only time you have, that's great. It's fine. I'm not making a rule. Like, that's an opportunity every day where you're eating already, you could be talking to non-believers. And then, a gospel component is when you're literally identifying opportunities to talk about Jesus. So let me just, I'm gonna fly through these. Here's 10 simple things you can do to be missional. These are listed in this book, which I'll recommend to you by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, some of the guys connected with Acts 29, just everyday church, everyday church. Number one, eat with non-Christians. Number two, walk, don't drive. So, you know, some of us actually do this. Like we, it's almost the same length of time to like walk to Stanley from our house. It is to drive all the way around the park and then all the way around the other park and around the greenway and find a parking space and park. go in and a lot of times we just park and you walk by people with dogs and children and the police mounted on horses that you didn't even know that they rode through Stapleton. But when you walk, you see like, oh wow, there's like police on horses in Stapleton and then you stop and talk to them. So walk some places, don't drive. Number three, be a regular. So instead of going to a bunch of different places for your coffee or for lunch, you pick a couple places around town that you frequent over and over again so you build a relationship with that barista or that server or hairdresser Somebody like that, where they're like, okay, oh, you're back, and it's time for, oh yeah, the roots are showing again, or whatever, ladies. And they're like, oh yeah, split ends, I gotta get rid of that. And you pick up your conversation, and you're building a relationship, instead of just a bunch of random things. Number four is hobby with non-Christians. So something I'm trying to work on is, we have a couple neighbors who fly fish, and I, you know, this is actually the best way to do it, by the way. The best way to enter a hobby with non-Christians is that you're not the expert and you're actually telling them, can you teach me? Because there's something about humility that says, I don't know, can you share with me? And then you just instantly promoted them to the place of the expert, even if they're not. But they can teach you, and then you laugh, and you joke, and you go and try your casting, and you get caught in the bushes behind you, and they think that's hilarious. And you're starting to build a relationship through a hobby. It could be out here, like skiing, hiking. I mean, all that mountain stuff that we like to do, just, hey, Unbeliever, friend from work, or my neighbor, do you want to go snowboarding with me? Do you want to go biking with me? Some people from our church are going on this hike, do you want to come? Number five, talk to your co-workers. Sounds really profound, right? I talk to them all the time. No, I mean really talk to them about not work. Number six, volunteer with non-profits. Another thing that got me thinking as we are at this conference is there's a lot of beautiful redemptive things going on in the city that us moving downtown is not like, oh, we're across the street from the rescue mission. Well, I'll bet we can do that ministry better than they can. Well, we can't, and we won't, and we're not gonna try, but we could partner with them in what's already going on. And do you know that a lot of unbelievers serve at the rescue mission in places like that because they believe in the mission of neighbors helping neighbors? And by volunteering alongside, they start to see, oh, Christians care about this world. They care about the brokenness and the pain that I care about. and it leads to conversations. Number seven, participate in city events. This could be cultural events, sporting events, art walks. I mean, the sky's the limit. But instead of sitting at home and just being like, well, I kind of do my own thing. I'm an introvert. Yeah, me too. OK, so let's get over that. And let's go participate in some city events and start talking to other people. Like, what is it about that art that resonates with you or that symphony? We went to a play last week, not because we had really any interest of like, this play is going to be so incredible and it's going to change our lives. But we went to a play, our family went to a play, because everyone's talking about it in high school. So we're like, okay, everybody's talking about this. Maybe we should go. And there were some objectionable elements in it. We didn't agree with everything in it. But at the end, there's a redemptive story that's being told. I'm like, why is this story resonating with so many people? Go to a movie with a friend, a cultural event. Why did... the greatest showmen resonate with a millennial culture. Well, if you listen to what they're saying in the songs, and you listen to the little bit of dialogue, it hits you immediately. Like, I see why this is so popular, because it's appealing to this narrative that our culture tells itself, and it lands on the right side of that, and yet at the end, it kind of is like, but if you lost your family striving for that narrative, then you kind of lost everything, so there's still this traditional pull, and Conversation happens naturally, so participate in city events. Number eight, serve your neighbors. Go a few feet further, shoveling your walkway. This is where Christians miss so many opportunities, is we get irritated at what things our neighbors are doing. Like they're letting their weeds overgrow the thing and we're like, and maybe they're like me and they ruptured something in their back and they can't pull weeds right now. And if you had a conversation, and I don't mean like, hey, can you explain to me why your sidewalk is overgrown with weeds? But I mean, be thoughtful, but there's ways to discover what some needs of your neighbors are. We're doing a couple carpools right now with our kids. Just an easy way to serve neighbors. Like, oh, we found out our kids are going to the same place every day. How about if we drop them off and you pick them up or vice versa? And what are you doing? You're serving. You're creating free time for them. And they're like, hey. And actually, these family came over to dinner at our house right after that for the first time because they're like, we're getting a connection because you're serving our family. Number nine, work in public places. You know, I know many of you are entrepreneurs, you're self-employed, but I think even the opportunity, and if you're like me, it's hard, because I love watching people. I take my laptop places, and I'm like, I'm going to get so much done today, because it's all in Trello right there. I know exactly what I'm going to do. And then I'm like, wow, what an interesting, that is a weird interaction over there, right? What's happening right there, that's really neat to watch. And next thing you know, like two hours have passed. But I do get in a lot of conversations with people working in public. I work on sermons in public on my laptop, and I make the screen bright enough to make awkward conversations for the person sitting at the bar next to me, because they're looking over and they're like, mission, and I see the word Jesus a lot. Are you like some kind of holy roller? Well, kind of. I'm a pastor. work in public places, 10, this is the last one, leave your house some evenings. I know it's easy to just let 6 to midnight or whatever time you go to bed just fly by with television and screen time. And that's funny. You need Sabbath rest and you need all that. So we balance all this. But sometimes when you just get out with your family and go to the little pocket park or walk your dog or just intentionally spend time out of your home instead of in your home, you're allowing the opportunity for a connection that would not happen if you didn't. And that's just ten simple things, okay? So, that's number one. Sorry, we're only at number one, but you must have regular interaction with unbelievers. Number two, and this is already up there, you must live a life of Christian distinctiveness. I mean, you see how that's in the text, 1 Peter 3.15? Because there's a presupposition that they're not only interacting with you, but there's something different about you, particularly about your hope. As bad and frustrated as probably all of you are about politics in our country right now, and how you can't have a conversation, we have an almost unprecedented opportunity in our generation to share hope. Because it's like, yeah, I'm frustrated about that too, but not like you are. I'm not in despair. And you just can start slipping comments in about, here's my hope that's an anchor for my soul in the midst of this. And this is what Jesus said in Matthew 6. The Sermon on the Mount, where he says, you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world, you are a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden. So he's saying, and he actually says, if the salt loses its saltiness, what good is it? If you're like, I'm the salt of the earth because I'm a Christian, I go to church, that doesn't make you salty. That doesn't make you, and what was meant by salt back then was like, you're creating, when you get salt, like you eat something salty and you're like, I'm really thirsty all of a sudden. You're creating a thirst in other people for Christ, for the good news, and you're helping act as a preservative of culture, light, obviously bringing light into the darkness, all this kind of stuff. 2 Corinthians 3, two through three, Paul actually told the church there, He said, you are living letters of Jesus Christ. And in the sense that some people say, you may be the only Bible that anyone ever reads, which, by the way, is a terrible missional philosophy, because Jesus himself said you have to actually verbally share the good news. But if you back up a half step, you may be the only Bible or gospel in the sense that someone initially reads, for sure. So you must live this life of Christian distinctiveness. And by the way, if no one's ever coming up to you saying there's something different about you, like you seem hopeful, you seem joyful, you seem filled with grace instead of kind of like just being part of the problem, consider why that is. If no one's ever asking you about your faith, It may just be number one. It may be that you live with Christian distinctiveness, yes, but you do it behind your closed doors. You're never doing any of the 10 things I just listed for you that practically you could do. Or it could be that you're doing those things, and when people see you, they're like, you're the biggest office gossip I know. I don't see any hope. You complain about everything, honestly. Then you're not gonna get inroads to share your faith. But if you are regularly interacting, number two, living a life of Christian distinctiveness, number three, you must acquire knowledge and wisdom. I mean, some of you said that, like right in here, I lack knowledge. Okay, so acquire some. I'm going to give you resources this week, again on the blog, of some really good resources where if you want to start reading about, like, what is our culture like so I could even connect with them? Or, you know, like I mentioned, Robbie Zacharias' ministry, which is an apologetics ministry, which in 1 Peter 3.15, When it says, always be ready to give an answer, or always be ready to give a defense, it's the word apologia, where we get our word apologetics, which is like unpacking and explaining to people, why do I believe what I believe? The Reason for God by Tim Keller is a great start of just understanding what 10 top objections did non-Christians have about Christianity and the Gospel. It may be good to know why other people are objecting. So, some of you are like, my Bible study is really dry, I don't really know how to pray anymore. Start sharing your faith. Because I guarantee you, if you start sharing your faith, you will be in the Word, and you will be praying like crazy, maybe like you never have before. Because you're like, I don't have the answer to that. And you're like, but I'm going to read. I'm going to study. I'm going to talk to some other people in my church, and I'm going to get answers. And then you start loving the Word of God, not as this sterile document that was done 2,000 years ago, but as this living document, the very words of God speaking to you about, how do I share? Man, I overheard her saying that she objected to Christianity because of this, and I know there's something in there, and you go back to the Word and you're pouring over it to use it on mission in your life, you'll study the Word of God. You'll pray like crazy, okay? Number four, I think one other thing that we can miss. You must be winsome in speaking with unbelievers. And he says, do this. As you're sharing this defense, because that can sound like, rah, right in your face. Boom, gotcha, mic drop. OK, bye. Hope you enjoyed scoring that point, because you're not going to have an opportunity again with that person. That's not how we do apologetics. That's not how we do this defense. You notice he says, yet do it with gentleness and respect, a humility, a reservedness, a respect for that other person. You're made in the image of God. You're a sinner who needs to be saved by grace, just like I'm a sinner who was saved by grace. When you try to share your faith, you don't have to be awesome, because the gospel is awesome. I think sometimes we're so like, I mean, and I'm not picking on you, sometimes we're like, I'm not eloquent enough. And God's like, okay, fine, I'll use a donkey, literally. I think that's a one-time thing, though. That's not a normative pattern for church communication. And he wasn't sharing the gospel, by the way, the donkey did not. But there are many in Scripture who objected that, like, I'm not eloquent. And God's like, I'm God. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's right. And I've said this often, but I think sometimes we're thinking about being interesting rather than being interested. And interested people do what? They ask a lot of questions and they listen. And one of the greatest apologetics for our faith, we think we have to tell everything. One of the greatest apologetics for the compassion of Christ, the hope of Christ, the simultaneous boldness and humility of Christ is just the willingness to ask a lot of questions, and that person's like, wow. And I've shared this before recently, but we've had plenty of people over that over a three-hour dinner conversation, we asked 100 questions that they answered, and they leave, and they don't know anything about us. I literally told this other couple, a newer family that was here recently. They never said, Matt and Marty, we love you. We care about you. You know what they did? They asked really, really thoughtful, like disarmingly thoughtful questions. And they left and were like, I want to become like that in how I ask questions. Because it makes you want to talk about yourself and share, like not just superficial stuff, but kind of share. some under the surface stuff that nobody's ever asked me about before. 2 Corinthians 4, 7 says we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. So we don't have to be spectacular. We don't have to be interesting. We don't have to be eloquent. We don't have to be the power. Because God and the gospel are beautiful. Now, what does this look like? I'm just gonna real quickly walk you through something that's useful for me. And that is to think of sharing your faith as a house or as a relationship with someone, let's call them a new neighbor that moves into the neighborhood. And we all agree it would be weird if you were meeting your neighbor for the first time, you took them in your master bedroom or your bathroom, but you might bring them in your foyer. You might bring them in your kitchen. And I want you to just use this as a metaphor for what some of these steps represent. By the way, at this retreat or conference, Tim Keller said something that I thought was really profound. He said, you know, even a generation or two ago, all you had to do with evangelism is you had to connect the dots for people. They had some basic understanding of grace, salvation, freedom, love, heaven, hell, right, wrong. And he's like, all you have to do is connect the dots. And they're like, oh, OK. And he said, in many urban cultures in America today, there are no dots. So, and this is one of your exercises, too, in your take home. I just said, think of every non, here's how I say it. If we place unbelievers on a scale of one to 10, based on their interest in the gospel, where one is no interest at all, and it may be they're completely opposed to it, and they're obnoxiously opposed to it, and it may just be they're completely apathetic to it, but no interest in the gospel at all, 10 is a decision to follow Christ. I mean, a genuine decision. Where does traditional evangelism assume that people are on that spectrum? Because we're starting at like, I mean very often, I don't mean to blow your discussion tonight, but we're starting very often assuming that they know all this stuff and they just need to be like, oh yeah, I want that more than I want this. But that's not where we're often starting. And so I appreciate what somebody said here that there's a patience with God and a patience with that other person where you've gotta take some time to build a relationship and build trust. So the very first thing, how do we do this? I call it the front porch. This is just, you know your front porch when you're out working, you're sweeping off the sidewalk, you're shoveling snow, that neighbor walks by, there's eye contact, there's a couple words exchanged, probably not mean words, probably not like, hey, do you wanna talk about the Trump thing that happened today? You're just like, hi neighbor, how you doing? And that's where we start with basically everyone. Saying thoughtful things in passing, being kind. It's on the front porch. You ask them, like, hey, how was your weekend? I know you guys were going up to Steamboat to do some skiing, and they're like, oh, it was great. Powder was awesome. Like, how about your weekend? You're like, great. I mean, we did this on Saturday with the kids, and church Sunday morning was really great. And see how it wasn't obnoxious? It wasn't like, and you're a sinner because you don't care about church, do you? You're just like, you're letting them know. You're just putting it in there on the front porch of like, yeah, we were at church, and it was good. Then you, number two, the foyer, OK? So now you've invited the men. And you're beginning to go beyond just superficial to a little bit of their story. And maybe as they share their story, maybe you're sharing a problem in your life that somehow your faith helped you confront that problem in your life. But even in the foyer, you're already beginning to listen, not just for data, for information, but you're beginning to interpret, like, what does this person value? Where does this person find meaning? What does this person need? What are some opportunities that I could have to serve them? That's in the foyer. Number three is the kitchen. I'm glad our culture lives this way now. I mean, very often, many of you have invited us in your home. And the first place we go after the foyer is to the kitchen. And we may even cook a meal together. And I'll say almost universally still, by the way, literally sitting down and eating together or preparing food together, there's something about it that breaks down barriers between liberal and conservative or rich and poor because we're doing this together and there's something about food, okay? So there's nothing spectacular about that point. I'm saying once you get them in and you've begun to break down some of these barriers by listening, asking questions, just literally eat something with them, okay? Number four, dining room. What I mean by dining room is we had a guy that visited church and he was a visiting speaker one time and he did this. He was talking to the woman in the front row. Some of you will remember this. And he did this. And he was like. Ma'am, so your question is this, and how do you feel right now, Patricia? Do you feel, I know how you feel, it's weird. I feel weird too. At the dining room, it's a level playing field around that table to dialogue. You are not taking the position of superiority and you're gonna bring it down the mountain for everyone else. Just ask a ton of questions and listen for understanding. I'm bad at this. I listen for rebuttal, because I did Lincoln-Douglas debate and mock trial. So you get something ingrained in your personality that's really unhelpful, and that's listening for rebuttal, listening for what's wrong and how you're going to correct them. So I'm saying this as I'm learning, listen for understanding. So you're asking a lot of questions like, what do you want and why? And you don't literally come out and say, what do you want? But as they're talking about a situation, and maybe they're just gossiping about something at work, and you let them go for a while, but you're like, what would be the ideal resolution of that in your mind? How would you like to see that fixed? See, what you're doing is taking them into the dining room and you're starting to dialogue on a level playing field, starting to understand them and what makes them tick. And simultaneously, you're sharing parts of your own story, maybe key moments, turning points. You know, I struggle with the same thing. And again, like in a very non... I'm telling you what you must do. And something that helped me, my pastor said, I read this verse this morning. I had an old friend that just reminded me of this. And you start pointing out how the gospels, the answer to the meaning, the value, all that they're seeking. That's the dining room. The office. Office is where work gets done. So my point here is just literally let them see how Christianity works. And this may be that service project together. where you're taking Christianity out of the theoretical to showing them how in practical everyday life, how does Christianity actually work? How does it change things? How does it influence your behavior, your speech? And you're letting them see how grace makes practical differences like on the street level of everyday life. That's the office. And just two more. Number six is the family room. Many of you are at the level of friendship with us where you go straight to the family room. You just plop down on the couch. And that's where family stuff happens. So I say this, if the office is let them see how Christianity works, the family room is let them see how Christian community functions, how Christian family functions. In this category, you could have something like an alpha or starting point group or something similar where you're like, let's explore some of your questions about Christianity together in community. introduce Christian friends to your non-Christian friends and let them do life together. It's like this afternoon at the park, some of you, like we've invited all of you, like invite your non-Christian friends. Like, oh, some of your Christian friends are really competitive at Ultimate Frisbee. They're kind of like me, minus most of the swearing. Hopefully minus all, but you know, some of you are still works in progress. But they see that in the family room, that we're works in progress. And that's part of the reality of where we live. Like, you're not Christians because you arrived and you can perfectly tame your tongue and your temper and this and that. You're Christians because you have experienced the grace of Jesus Christ. That happens in the family room. And then the last thing I call the balcony, and that's like, I mean, some of our guests, actually the guests I was just talking about, about how they asked a lot of good questions. He's like, let me see your office. And he walks into my office on the main floor, right inside the foyer, many of you have been to our house. And he looks at the books and he's like, you don't have very many books. I was like, well, because all my books are up in my wife's office. And he's like, sweet, where's that? Well, it's up on the third floor of our house. And so he just like walks up the stairwell and like starts looking through all my books. Okay, you got him and him and her, her, oh, she's a great writer. And he's like, now I feel like I know you because I just saw like what you've chosen as all your influences in writing. But then he's like, oh, cool, what's this door? Like walks out on the little Juliet balcony. Oh, this is beautiful. And we stand there side by side looking at downtown, looking at the mountains. Oh, there's Pikes Peak. Oh, there's Buckley Air Force Base over there and all that. And what you're doing on the balcony then is, my point is like you're more standing side by side looking at something outside yourselves. Which I think it was C.S. Lewis that said that's kind of how you know when a relationship has kind of arrived. is you're comfortable sitting next to that person and you don't have to be exchanging information with each other all the time. You're okay looking at something outside of yourself and glorifying it and worshiping it. So this is the stage where maybe you just literally say, you've got to come worship with me or see how we do a Bible study or how Christians pray. You're inviting them into things where they're looking outside themselves, okay? So what I literally invite you to do is think of a couple of your key friends, maybe in this 8 to 15 range that this book suggests, and think about where you're at with them. Like maybe, you know, John's in the foyer right now. Debra's in the dining room. I've got one of my friends all the way to the family room. And what you have to have is this friendship and relationship, just like you would have a normal relationship, this building communication, dialogue, listening, asking questions. You don't have to be the expert. You don't have to be the superhero. You don't have to be better than anybody. Serving someone or befriending someone, basically on the condition that they'll become a Christian pretty quickly, that's not love. that actually is going to come across as very manipulative. That's going to come across as you think you are where you need to be and I'm your project. There is no ulterior motive to this pattern of friendship. There's an ultimate purpose. There's an ultimate goal. Of course you want to see people come to faith. But it's not, you know, this person, I give up. I've done this for three months and I got them all the way to the dining room and they will not come in the office with me. Okay, so then pause and pray like crazy. Ask God for wisdom. Maybe talk to some other friends and say like, we're kind of, we are kind of bottled necked at that point. We're not moving past it. What are some things that you've tried? What are some questions you've been able to ask? Yeah, build relationships, be patient, pray like crazy. communicate the gospel in everyday life, and watch God work.