Shifting Culture
Shifting Culture
Ep. 273 Derwin Gray - Lit Up With Love
There's a crisis of good news in our world today. The message of the gospel - the radical, transformative love of God poured out through Jesus Christ - has become muted, obscured by the noise of culture wars and the bitter taste of Christendom's failures. For many, the idea of "evangelism" conjures up images of slick preachers and aggressive door-to-door campaigns, leaving a sour note where there should be a jubilant melody. But my guest today, Derwin Gray, is on a mission to reclaim that melody - to help believers rediscover the joy and power of sharing the good news, not as a chore or a weapon, but as an overflow of the love that has set their own hearts ablaze. As the founding pastor of Transformation Church, Derwin has witnessed firsthand the way a community can be "lit up with love" - a people so captivated by the grace of God that it spills out into every corner of their lives. In our conversation, he unpacks a vision of evangelism that is relational, empathetic, and rooted in the overwhelming reality of God's affection. It's a perspective that has the potential to rekindle our passion for the gospel and reshape how we engage a world that is, in many ways, starving for the good news. So join me as we dive into Derwin's story, and discover how the simple act of receiving God's love can transform us into everyday missionaries, compelled to share the most life-giving news the world has ever known.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray is the co-founding and Lead Pastor of Transformation Church, just outside of Charlotte, NC. He is also the author of several books, including “How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and What the First Century Christians Knew about Racial Reconciliation." You can follow him at @derwinlgray on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as www.derwinlgray.com.
Derwin's Book:
Derwin's Recommendation:
Paul: A Biography
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We know something is wrong. That's why we buy self help books. And the thing is, is God doesn't want to give you self help. God literally wants to give you his life. Jesus gave his life for you, to give his life to you, to live his life through you. And it is all grace. And that's what lights us up, that we are off the performance will? We are off the treadmill. We're off that now, and we live from the done work of Jesus. He's our source of strength.
Joshua Johnson:We Hello and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host. Joshua Johnson, there's a crisis of good news in our world today, the message of the gospel, the radical, transformative love of God poured out through Jesus Christ has become muted, obscured by the noise of culture wars and the bitter taste of christendoms failures. For many, the idea of evangelism conjures up images of slick preachers and aggressive door to door campaigns leaving a sour note where there should be a jubilant melody. But my guest today, Derwin Gray, is on a mission to reclaim that melody, to help believers rediscover the joy and power of sharing the good news, not as a chore or a weapon, but as an overflow of the love that has set their own hearts ablaze. As the founding pastor of transformation church, Derwin has witnessed firsthand the way a community can be lit up with love, a people so captivated by the grace of God that it spills out into every corner of their lives. In our conversation, he unpacks a vision of evangelism that is relational, empathetic and rooted in the overwhelming reality of God's affection. It's a perspective that has the potential to rekindle our passion for the Gospel and reshape how we engage a world that is in many ways starving for good news. So join me as we dive into Derwin story and discover how the simple act of receiving God's love can transform us into everyday missionaries compelled to share the most life giving news the world has ever known. Here's my conversation with Derwin. Gray Derwin, welcome to shifting culture. Excited to have you on. Thanks for joining me. Hey, thanks for having me. Looking forward to it. Yeah, I'm excited to get into figuring out, how do we be good news people in this gospel starved world that we live in, and so that begs the question for me, if you look back on your own life. How was somebody a good news person to you? What did it look like to be on the receiving end of being of good news people? Yeah? Yeah,
Derwin Gray:you know. So I think the first thing is, I think when you use terms like good news, because there's all types of news, right? And so if I could just frame that question is, for the early Christians, the term good news are evangelon, which is gospel was a royal announcement. And so the Roman government, when there was a new emperor, would send out apostles or messengers to the city centers. They would blow a trumpet and say, I have good news that there is a new emperor, a new king. If you bow your knee and confess with your mouth that He is Lord, you will be saved and enjoy eternal prosperity, right? And so the early followers of Jesus, and Jesus himself was like, no, no. The true good news is this, that Jesus of Nazareth is the True Lord of the cosmos, and through His sinless life, his sacrificial atoning death on the cross, His resurrection, humanity can be reconciled and restored and forgiven and have new life. That that is good news. So for me, growing up in San Antonio, Texas, I had never heard the gospel, or at least didn't have ears to hear the gospel. My family was not like a church going family. We didn't really pray to get together. So to me, good news for me was football, because football provided me a way to get an education, to get me approval, to get me purpose, right? So I ended up getting a football scholarship to Brigham Young, played there, met a girl there. We've been married 32 years, became an All American. I got drafted by the Indianapolis Colts in 1993 and I'm like, Okay, here's the good news, and this is my heaven now. My first year in 1993 was rough, didn't didn't like it was a big let down. 1994 was better. 1995 I'm in my bag. I'm playing great. But at the end of that year, though, I said to myself. There's gotta be more. Because even though I had accomplished everything, I thought I was supposed to accomplish, that version of The Good News couldn't help me Forgive my dad, couldn't help me get over trauma, couldn't give me the power to love my wife the way she deserved to be loved. The money didn't fix my family, right? And so I'm like, There's got to be more. And I had this guilt, and I couldn't do nothing that, no matter what I did, it was still there. But in 1993 when I was drafted by the Colts, there was a gauna team. His name was Steve grant, and every day after practice, he would take a shower, dry off, wrap a towel around his waist, get his Bible, and he would say to my teammates, do you know Jesus? And on mine, I'm like, bro, do you know you're half naked? And so I asked the veterans on the team. I'm like, what's up with the half naked black man walking around like, you know Jesus? And they said, don't pay no attention to him. That's the naked preacher. And so one day, I'm sitting in my locker, and I see him coming towards me, and I'm like, Oh no, it taps me on my back, and he says, rookie D Gray, do you know Jesus and I was began a five year conversation, and number one is, I saw him be the good news. By the way he loved his wife and kids, by the way he played the game with integrity, by the way, he gave wisdom to teammates, and by the way he was patient with me, and him sharing the good news with me was not a one time event, it was a multi year conversation. And on August 2, 1997 in a small dorm room at Anderson College in Anderson, Indiana, fifth year in the NFL training camp with the cults. After lunchtime, I walked back to my dorm room, and it was like this Grand Canyon sized chasm in my soul. Got to my dorm room, called my wife, and I said these two things. One, I want to be more committed to you, and two, I want to be committed to Jesus. That's when I was born again. I literally had a physical reaction, like I felt the divine saving love of God, the good news. I felt his love, and I just wept knowing that I was forgiven, and something that as I look back now, it just man, I'm just grateful for God's grace for three nights after practice. So I'm in the NFL, Peyton, these big, strong dudes, and for three nights after practice, before I went went to bed, I would just weep into bed thinking, how can someone like Jesus love someone like me? Now I know all he has is people like me and you to love Romans, five, eight, but while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So the naked preacher, Steve Grant was good news to me, because I saw him demonstrate the gospel, and I saw him come communicate the gospel. And it was, like I said, a multi year conversation. And so, man, I fell in love with Jesus. Played one more year for the Colts, then came to the Carolina Panthers, and I thought, You know what, I'm gonna play four more years and finish with 10 years and I'm done. And no, I got to the Panthers. I got hurt, I got put on injured reserve, and all I could do was read the Bible, and before I knew it, I start sharing the good news with my teammates, and eventually that led my wife and I to retire from the NFL. We started a ministry called one heart at a time, and then in 2010 we planted a church called transformation church
Joshua Johnson:that's beautiful. It's a beautiful story to see God awakening you that you can receive the love of Jesus in your own life, and especially somebody a five year journey. That's a good question. There for us. Why has evangelism become a bad word for us, and why do we have a misunderstanding of what it looks like? What does evangelism look like? Can you redefine it? You you open it up a little bit for us at the very beginning, but, but help us know, what is evangelism for us?
Derwin Gray:Yeah, yeah. You know. You know, that is such a great question. And one of the, one of the reasons why I wrote lit up with love is because I wanted to tear down some barriers that the average Christian has with sharing their faith, or what's quote, unquote evangelism. So most times, evangelism is taught in what's called a confrontational method. What does that mean? It means like, okay, hey guys, on Saturday, we're gonna get up and we're gonna go door to door. I'm telling you right now, if you come to my house on Saturday, I am not opening the door if I see you downtown on a street corner, or if you just bump into me like you're a salesman. And most of the time, that's the way evangelism is. Is taught. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but there's very few people that can do that, and very few people who flourish in that. And so I believe that wholeheartedly we all can be relational evangelists. And what I mean by that is, this is number one I wrote lit up with love so people can see how much Jesus loves us. I think even Christians who've walked with Jesus for a long period of time do not know the deep mystery of what it means to be loved by Him, what the power of God's grace is in him. If I can summarize it in a few words, it's this, the moment we say yes to Jesus. God, the Father loves us and sees us the way he sees Jesus. Everything that's true about Jesus and His humanity is true about us. We don't live affirmation. We live from the father's affirmation, because Jesus lived the life we couldn't live, died the death we should have died, rose again, and through the power of the Holy Spirit lives in us, we're united to him. So so the book is really about a tsunami of God's love washing over us that moves us to understanding, wow, if God loves me this way, how should I begin to see myself and walk with Him? Then that moves us to being on mission with Christ. So it's creation in Christ, spiritual formation in Christ that leads to mission with Christ. And so him, when you're lit up with love, you want to share your faith. And one of the things that I point out is when you pray so prayer, care, share. I can't remember who came up with that. My wife taught it to me, and I know somebody probably taught it to her. But the more I pray for people, Father, bring people my life that need your love, and then I begin to care for them, and then I can share the gospel with them. It's more of a relationship and a dialog. And so evangelism is simply a way of being in life that wherever we find ourselves, one of the terms I use in the book is we are everyday missionaries, and Jesus came to seek and save the lost. And now, because we're his body, he does the seeking of the loss through the found, wherever we find ourselves. And the root of it is this burning passion for people to love Jesus because He first loved now,
Joshua Johnson:one of the things he said in there is that we can now live from the affirmation of God instead of for the affirmation of God. It seems to me that that changes everything. It changes the way that we enter into evangelism, that changes the way that we enter into our lives, and the love that we have actually will then overflow and spill. We can actually love others like we love ourselves, because we're living from the affirmation of God, yeah. What does that look like? Then that just that distinction, yeah, common set of four in our relationships with others in the world. Yeah. You
Derwin Gray:know, so, so first of all, what it does is it turns everything upside down. So I'll use my life as an example. So as a former NFL player, my whole life was based on finding approval from about sixth grade and up. How fast are you? How strong are you? How big are you? How high can you jump? How good are you at football? Your high school coaches evaluate your film. College coaches evaluate your film, and then you get to the pros, and they evaluate your film. If you play good, you get another contract, then they evaluate your film. My whole life was, Are you good enough? My whole life was what you did yesterday. Doesn't matter. Are you good enough today. And here's the problem with that lifestyle, one day, your body's not fast enough. It's not strong enough. Your body breaks down. And what made good news for me so good was this my whole life was Well, maybe if I do better, my dad will come into my life. Maybe if I do better, it'll fix my family. Maybe if I'll do better, and then Jesus comes along and says, I have seen your performance, I've seen your measurements, I've seen your life. And you know what, you're not good enough, but I came to Earth for you because I'm gonna be your good enough. I'm gonna be the measuring stick. You fall short of the glory of God, but I am the glory of God, and still you trust me. You're with me, and that grace blew me away. I'm not into sin management. Respectfully, overwhelmingly, most Christians think that the gospel is sin management. They wake up with, how do I not sin today? How do I not do this today? How do I not do this today? And what I want to say is, listen, instead of spending time on what you're not going to do today, set your eyes on the grace of God. Set your eyes on the mercy of God. Set your eyes on the beauty of God. Set your eyes on the gospel. And what you'll find is you'll naturally begin to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, which is love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control. And that's what it means to become a good news people. And the reality is, is right now, particularly in America, unbelievers are saying, Why should I follow your Jesus if you're mean, why should I follow your Jesus if your life is no different than mine? And I think there is a kernel of truth in that. There's a kernel of truth in that because Jesus says, You will know my disciples because of the way they love one another. And so my passion is to see people lit up with the love of God, that we would burn so brightly that the fire of God's grace would bring people to us to see why we're burning, and we let them know. I want to tell you about the grace of God. It is more mind blowing than you ever thought. Come as you are, but you won't leave the same and
Joshua Johnson:so good. And I think to be lit up with love, it is absolutely key. There are really two things in this world that we operate out of, either fear or love, and everything is derives from from both of those things. So there's a lot of aspects of fear which ends up being anxiety or depression. It ends up being polarization and hate, love can bring about the fruits of the Spirit, right? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self control. And so how do we know what is good news for people when we're talking to them? Sometimes, if I just say, hey, Jesus died for your sins, you get to go to heaven when you die. That doesn't actually touch the fear people are are feeling at that moment. How do we know what is good news for people?
Derwin Gray:Yeah, I would actually recommend that you don't do that. So let me say this really quick, quick, quickly. Here is the goal of salvation is not to get us off of earth and to float around somewhere. The goal of salvation is new creation. It is to bring the kingdom of God to earth as it is in heaven. Jesus rose from the dead, so those who trust Him will have resurrected glorified bodies here on planet Earth, that salvation, resurrection, new creation, happens the moment we say yes to Jesus. And frankly, I think we need to lose the language of believing Jesus, so you don't go to heaven when you die. But the reality is yes, when we die, our spirits go to be with the Lord. That's awesome, but we're going to have resurrected, glorified bodies here on Earth, but was lost in the Garden of Eden, is going to be restored in the new habit, and new Earth will have jobs. It'll be, it'll it'll be epic. So I just want to put that out there, and I think that's a more robust biblical perspective. Now, let's say if I went to the doctor, which is an NFL player, I have seen a lot of doctors, and what if I show up in the doctor's office and all of a sudden the doctor looks at me and starts prescribing medications without hearing any of my symptoms. So when we show up and go, Hey, Jesus, die for your sins, you better believe in him. Are you going to go to hell? But I know you want to go to heaven, so pray this prayer. Well, you didn't even listen to the symptoms. So you if you look at Jesus, if you look at the books or the acts, and if you look at Paul, the gospel is like different aspects of medication you give people as you listen to people, one of the things that I write about is in the book, is my son, Jeremiah. He's 24 he's in law school at Penn, and he is one of the greatest lit up with love everyday missionaries you will ever meet. He's this big, tall, handsome dude, gentle. The Spirit just oozes off of him, and he'll sit down with people, and instead of talking about himself, he'll ask them questions, and as they answer the questions, he begins to methodically just put the gospel in perspective. So one of the chapters that I have and lit up with love is this. This. It's called starved for rest. We live in a culture where everyone is tired, kids are tired, teenagers are tired, young adults are tired, middle aged people are old. We're all tired because we are running and running and running, we don't know where we're going. So one of the things that I do is I show how Psalm 23 about the Lord is our shepherd. I shall not want. He leads us to green pastures and quiet waters, and he renews our soul well. The Good Shepherd is Jesus, John 1010. For enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus comes to give life. And so we need to invite people into rest. There are a lot of people who are trying to outperform their sin. They're trying to outperform the expectations of their parents. They're trying to outperform so many things, and they are exhausted, and we can say this is where working cease. And you can have green pastures of grace. We have a good shepherd. You Can Have Living Waters that will quiet your soul, and he wants to renew your soul, and then he wants to guide you on the path of righteousness, for his name's sake, even though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, his rod and staff will comfort you. We talk about Romans eight, and then we say, in the midst of your enemies, he'll make you a table and your cup will overflow. Surely, goodness and mercy will chase you all the days of your life and dwell in the presence of God. And so you have to listen to people's pain points. One of the ways to say it is felt needs. I'm not a big fan of the felt needs thing, but you got to listen to people's pain point. Jesus is the physician, and a physician listens to where people are hurting and are in need of God's grace. And so what I do, and lit up with love, is I take some common themes that all of us are experiencing so that we can be good listeners, and then apply the saving beauty of Jesus to their situation. Yeah, a couple
Joshua Johnson:things. I love. Psalm 23 in the very beginning, it says that he makes us lie down in green pastures, like he's saying, No, it's time for you to slow down, to rest, to be there. He's making us do this. And then another thing that we we think is good news is especially if you look at any bookstore you go to the Self Help section. It's all about how we can perform, so that we can be happy. Our life can be, you know, straight. But the only thing that we get is we get to receive from God, and that's when transformation happens, is the receiving. So as you freely received the grace of God, you now freely give it right freely. We receive freely. We give. What does it look like for us to have a daily rhythm of receiving from God and giving that away?
Derwin Gray:Yeah, you know, I love that. I love that question, because we forget that we're human beings and we think we're human doings, God's economy of grace does not work like man's economy. Man's economy says, do to get. God's economy of Grace says, done to receive. And what I mean by that, man's economy is what you do determines who you are. God's economy of Grace says what Jesus has done determines who you are, and so the way we receive God's grace is a posture of what's called abiding, the Greek word for abide in John 15 five is the Greek word me No, and me no means to house, to dwell, to remain. Jesus says, I'm the vine. You are the branches. If you abide in Me and I in you, you will produce fruit apart from me, you can do nothing. And so learning to abide in Christ, you know. And there are a few simple rhythms of grace that Christians have done for 2000
Unknown:years, scripture, prayer, fellowship
Derwin Gray:and on mission, right? And your job is your mission field, and so we have to learn this abiding way of being, and abiding means we are perpetually processing the grace of God in our minds, whether, if it's scripture, memory, whatever it may be. And so as we abide in God, as we abide in power of the Holy Spirit, as we abide in Christ, the Holy Spirit will begin to just elicit this fruit through us, and we become other centered people. We begin to look for the hurting. We begin to look for those in need of God's grace. We begin to do what Jesus did. Matthew 1910, and 11, says, Jesus was a friend to sinners. Isn't it interesting that the sinners didn't want to be around the Pharisees, but the sinners wanted to be around Jesus, and Jesus was God, the Son in human flesh, the perfection and beauty of holiness. But the sinners wanted to be around him, not because he didn't call out their sin, but because they saw, I can bring my sin to him, and he can heal me. He can transform me and and that's really what our culture is looking for. Our our culture, like you pointed out, self help books sell like crazy every year, and the reason why is because they're not helping we know, we know something is wrong. That's why we buy self help books. And the thing is, is God doesn't want to give you self help. God literally wants to give you his life. One of the things we say here at transformation church, and one of the things I said and lit up with love, is this, Jesus gave his life for you, to give his life to you, to live his life through you. And it is all grace. And that's what lights us up, that we are off the performance will we are off the treadmill. We're off that now, and we live from the done work of Jesus. He's our source of strength.
Joshua Johnson:That's beautiful. And so then now you use this phrase a few times in this conversation, already, as everyday missionaries. Can you redefine missionary for us so that my wife and I lead a missions organization, so we send missionaries around the world, and this is what we do. But I think a lot of people have a strange definition of what a missionary is, but if it's an everyday missionary, what is a missionary for you? What is an everyday missionary for you? Yeah,
Derwin Gray:yeah. So first of all, I want to say thank you for what you do with your missions organization. We have, we have partnerships with with people all over the globe, because Jesus gave us a command, Go therefore and make disciples of all ethnos. And so there are missionaries that are international. They're everyday missionaries. And I believe that every believer is an everyday missionary. And so there was a there was a there was a time, particularly in America, where missionary meant going across the sea, right? And it still means that, but now the people across the sea have come to America, and America is one of the largest mission fields in the world. And so when I say everyday missionary, it is a person who is abiding in Christ and have a heart to join Christ on his mission to reach people. And so, for example, some of the International missionaries we work with is, they go to a foreign country, they get a job, they build relationships, they share the Gospel, invite people to small groups, invite them to a church, or plant a church. And I said, you know, here in the United States, guess what? You get a job. You pray for people. You love people, you serve people as opportunity opens. You share the gospel with people. You invite them to your small group. You invite them to church. And so trying to give people a missionary mindset, God did not give a person a job just for them to pay bills. He set you there as a missionary, the naked preacher who was drafted by the Indianapolis Colts the year before I got there, knew that being an NFL linebacker was his tent making job, but his purpose was to lead his teammates to Christ. From that team, four of us are in full time vocational ministry, and a bunch of us came to faith because of his mission work. And so that's a that's a that's a that's a term I put in a book every day missionary. It is not to diminish what missionaries do internationally. It is to call up believers, particularly in America, to recognize your job, your school is not just there for you to make money, that's a part of it, but it's for you to be a gospel witness, to bear witness to his grace.
Joshua Johnson:That's good. So then one of the great missionaries that we have is the apostle Paul, as he goes into different cultures, and he leads people to Jesus plans the gospel churches then emerge. Incredible things happen. Transformation of culture happens. So what are some things that we can learn from Paul as we are everyday missionaries? Yeah,
Derwin Gray:wow, gosh. Well, so the first thing we can learn from Paul is. Is to receive the unending grace of God. That man was lit up with love in Philippians, three, seven and eight, I consider all things as lost compared to the passing value of knowing Christ, Jesus, my Lord, that man loved Jesus, and how could he not after him, imprisoning Christians, having Christians killed, and God giving him that much grace. Paul preached grace because he needed grace. Secondly, Paul, in Acts 2024 says, I count my life as nothing compared. He says, I count my life of no value except for to finish the task I've been given to proclaim the grace of God. So there's this lit up with loveness. There's also this understanding of who he is in Christ. And then lastly, going to Mars Hill. So I've actually been in Athens in Mars hills, the atropolis, where the apostle Paul spoke. And it was surreal. And the thing that that Paul did so well, acts 17, verse 16. He said that Athens was a city full of idols, so he hurt for the people lost in darkness. I cannot say this strongly enough, and I write this in in the book, you cannot reach people you don't love. You cannot reach people you don't like. We are people, people. We love people, because God first loved us. So Paul has this passion to see people come to know the Lord, and then he finds common ground, right? So you love, pick people. Secondly, you find common ground and goes, Hey, you guys are very religious. You got all these statues here, even to an unknown god. Hey, I would love to introduce you to him. So there was love, there was common ground, there was proclamation. And lastly, he trusted in the sovereignty of God. No one can make anybody come to faith. That's the Holy Spirit's job. And so the scripture says that after he testified and shared the gospel, it says some laughed at him, some called him a bird seed picker, but then some followed him. Our job is not to sign people up. Our job is to point to the one who can and also, make this simple for people, don't start with your sinners and God hates you. Man, start with God created a good creation. He walked with his people. He He wanted to be with us, but our first parents infected us with this disease that made us alienated from God and from each other. But what does God do? Eventually, he launches this new project through a man named Abraham that he promises to have a global family. But through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the nation of Israel, comes as a sign and symbol, ultimately, for Jesus, the Messiah. God himself is in the adoption business, and Jesus signs the adoption papers and blood. He lived a perfect life because we couldn't. He died our death, putting our sin in his flesh, and on the third day, he rose again to live in us and reconcile us and restores to God in His family called the church, it is a free gift, and God wants you to follow him. And we can say that in a mirrored in a multitude of ways, as we become good listeners, more of what I'm trying to do through lit up with love. And I think I do it is showing people that when you inhale love, you exhale, being an everyday missionaries. And my hope and my prayer is that God would use this little book. It is a little book, and I wanted it small, that God would use this little book to have a big impact. My prayer is that there would be hundreds and 1000s of churches that would grow by 20 to 25% because pastors are little with love preaching the gospel and congregations are little with love being missionaries. So
Joshua Johnson:then what are some of the common barriers that we have for good news to saturate this world? And how does breathing in love and then exhaling out that love being in the everyday missionary help address some of those barriers. Yeah, you
Derwin Gray:know. So, so there are some common barriers that we all have. So, so there are legitimate intellectual barriers. There are people who literally intellectually have barriers. And that's where the term. Um classical apologetics come into mind, where we can walk people through various questions, but ultimately, our faith is reasonable, but it's not rationalistic. Reasons means that there are reasons to believe, good reasons to believe. Rationalism means you can prove it by 100% you can't prove atheism by 100% and I don't think that's the goal. You wouldn't need faith, but God has given good, credible reasons. And one of the stories I share in the book is a gentleman who was an atheist and who didn't want to come to Christ because there was so much evil in the world. And my point to him was, you're right. There's a lot of evil in the world, and it's very sad. But being an atheist doesn't mean that the evil and pain and suffering misses you. It just means you have no explanation for it. And I said every time you say something is evil or unjust, what you're actually invoking is a God of justice. When you say this is wrong, you're asking, well, how can it be made? Right? And that's God. Eventually, that guy comes to faith, and I shared the story in the book. I don't want to give too much away, but he actually came to faith. So there's intellectual barriers. There is emotional barriers. You know, unfortunately, over the last 12 years, there's been, there's, there's been a bunch of church abuse scandals. There have been some bad characters online who say they represent Christ, and there are a lot of people who are emotionally wounded, and so what I often say to people is this, not everybody is like what you read on the internet or what you've seen, but it's important that we own the things that aren't right, that sexual abuse in a church is heinous, pastoral abuse is heinous, greed is heinous. Political idolatry is is heinous. And I agree with you, and Jesus agrees with with with you. And I think a lot of times when people just want to be heard, and proximity breeds intimacy, and it's kind of like the woman at the well, she had all of these excuses, but at the root of it was this hurt, and then Jesus meets her. And then lastly, there's the volitional barrier. And sin is, Listen, if I follow Jesus, that means I gotta stop sleeping with my girlfriend. I mean, there are volitional barriers as well. So what I write about in lit up with love, is see barriers is opportunity for prayer. You don't you don't have to kick down a door. As God moves on people's hearts, they will ask you the questions, and what I try to do in those later chapters is really give people resources and a game plan. But ultimately, it is the power of the Holy Spirit as we pray, that begins to peel back the layers of the hardness on a person's heart. Not how I know, because that's what he did for me. What
Joshua Johnson:does it look like then, in community and in culture? So what does it look like in Charlotte now, as the people of transformation church have been lit up with love and going out as everyday missionaries within Charlotte. How does Charlotte look different before? How is Charlotte now becoming good, a good new city? Yeah,
Derwin Gray:yeah, you know. So by God's grace, we launched February 7, 2010 and we were going to be an intentionally Jesus focused, multi ethnic, gospel centered church. And so it's about 11,000 of us now, plus another 1000 correctional facilities under the sound of of of this message in this church by God's grace, and it reflects heaven on earth. And so out of this area, God has raised up this church that now has national and worldwide influence on how to build ethnically reconciled, gospel centered churches. A few weeks ago, we baptized 209 people on one Sunday at the lake, it was incredible. We have a free grocery store where we feed about 500 people per month. We're helping to plant churches in America and in Europe. I mean, the list goes on and on of the things that we're able to do. And so the world has changed as a result of God's grace over transformation Church and the tip of the spear is this adoration for the God who loved us, and then that moves into we are being transformed by God's grace. The good news has transformed us to now go be mission. Missionaries. We have a congregation full of missionaries. We're getting ready to launch a new campus about 35 minutes away, and so our people are excited about the love of God, and they want to give that love away. And we know we don't have to kick down doors, we don't have to manipulate. We don't have to do gimmicks. We pray, we love, we care, we share, we demonstrate.
Joshua Johnson:So one of the things that good news, I think a lot of people, I think there's so many people here in Kansas City where I am, they have a heart for racial reconciliation, being a multi ethnic church. But one of the things that you just said is that the tip of the sphere is the adoration of of Jesus. First, a lot of times, people put whatever the justice issue is at the tip of the spear, and then hopefully Jesus can help us with that. Why is it important for us to make sure that the adoration of Jesus is at the tip of the sphere, and that those things actually then reflect who he is and his His love and His mercy.
Derwin Gray:Yeah, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give a little strong medicine here, and I think we've built a relationship with the audience now. So the reason why we don't put adoration first of Christ is because we actually don't think the solution to justice and ethnic reconciliation is the gospel. And so therefore we put those things ahead of Christ, because we think, well, he doesn't really have nothing to do with that. And what I've been on a quest for the last 20 years. Is to say, Have you not read the book of Ephesians that verse 14 of chapter two, we have peace in Christ, he broke down the dividing wall. He took the two and made them one right, intrinsic to the gospel is vertical reconciliation with God and horizontal reconciliation with each other. Us having a multi ethnic church is not Derwin Gray's idea. It's God's idea. Genesis, 12. God promises Abraham, this multi ethnic family, Galatians, 316, Jesus is the seed of Abraham to do what to give the father a blood, bought, justified, redeemed, multi ethnic, global family. And so here's the deal. We don't obey the commandment to love each other. That is the problem. We still are very tribal, what if you went to say, Nigeria, you have different tribes, and there's these tribes. Well, in America, we got these tribes too. Well, I'm Maga, I'm Republican, I'm Democrat, I'm black, I'm this, I'm that. No, no. God does not blur our ethnic distinctions. He doesn't erase them. He celebrates them. But they're all in our in christness, and so I have been on a mission for 20 years to tell the people the gospel is a solution. If you place anything ahead of Jesus, it becomes an idol, and it never works. That's why racial reconciliation efforts don't work is because they're using sociology instead of theology. Sociological fixes can't cure a theological problem, and I wrote a whole book, book on it called how to heal our racial divide. It is pure Bible. But what I have found is most people go, no, no, I don't want the theology just show me what to do, and I'm going, No, the theology turns you into someone who actually can do it. That's how Paul could do it. That's how Barnabas could do it. That's how Peter could do it. That's how the early church did it. It was because of the Holy Spirit making them into the people that could truly love each other on these demonic categories. Well,
Joshua Johnson:it seems to me, one of the things that took was a was Holy Spirit encounters. They were God encounters. Peter had this vision of a all the pigs and all this food he wasn't supposed to eat. And God said, Hey, eat. And then he goes to Cornelius, and he says, okay, they're they're actually in as well. They'd be baptized. How what does it look like then for us to encounter the love of God? How do encounters shift and change us so that we can see others differently? Well,
Derwin Gray:an encounter doesn't count unless we obey. And I think there's a lot of people that do not obey. Peter, in Acts 10, has this encounter. God tells him to go to Cornelius, the Italian and in around verse 32 of chapter 10, he goes, Well, it's not even lawful for me to enter a Jews house, but God. Mean a Gentiles house. But now God shows me he's not impartial anyone. Well, Peter, you knew that from the covenant with Abraham bro, you are a Jew, but he has this moment right. But then he goes to Antioch and Paul addresses it in Galatians chapter 211, through 22 it says, and Peter was eating with the Gentiles until the party of James came, and because of criticism, he got up from the table with the Gentiles, and his hypocrisy even made Barnabas and other Jews go astray. Barnabas means son of encouragement. Even the Son of Encouragement began to walk in hypocrisy, and it was Barnabas who brought the Apostle Paul to Antioch, this multi ethnic church. So in verse 14, Paul, this new startup stands up and says, Peter, you are walking out of step with the gospel. And then he goes into this rift on we are justified by the blood of Jesus alone, and then verse 20, in essence, he goes, I can't be a racist anymore, because I'm a gracious I've been crucified with Christ. There's no I who live but Christ, who lives me, though I live in his body, is by faith, and the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So the issue is obedience. The issue is putting to death our ethnic boundary markers that we resurrect all the time. Obedience
Joshua Johnson:is so good, but when you are encountered with the love of God, with love, you can obey. When we train, we talk about obedience to the commands of Jesus, but we also talk that that love and obey are two sides of the same coin. Without love, you can't obey. Without obedience, can't love. It's the same thing in Acts 15 or John 15. I'm sorry, where it says that if you obey my commands, you'll abide in My love. If you abide in My love, you'll obey my commands. Love and obedience is is key. Darwin. I wish I could talk to you for hours. This is fantastic. It's great. There's a few questions here at the end that I'd love to get to one just, what is your hope for your readers of lit up with love? What do you hope would come from this?
Derwin Gray:My hope is that at the end of every chapter, they would say, I had no idea Jesus loved me this much, and then their hearts would be compelled to pray and share the gospel with people who don't know Christ.
Joshua Johnson:Let's do it. That's good. Amen. Jordan, if you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give? Oh
Derwin Gray:man, if I could go back to my 21 year old self, there's different contexts for different forms of advice. What I would tell the 21 year old football player is, don't lose your confidence. Don't let anybody take your joy for the game. I would say, stand up to your family earlier because they're causing difficulties in your marriage. From a spiritual perspective, I would say, one day you're going to meet someone, and he's going to love you like you've never been loved, and he's going to heal places in your heart that you didn't even know was broken. And one day you a compulsive stutterer who scored a six ton 16 on his a CT is going to have a speaking ministry, you can have a doctorate, and you're going to write books, and you're going to be a husband and a father. God's got you His grace is great.
Joshua Johnson:Anything that you've been reading or watching lately you could recommend, Oh, yeah.
Derwin Gray:I mean, anything you can get from NT, right, jump on it. Paul. Paul A biography is great. NT. Wright preached a beautiful sermon here at transformation church on isaiah 41 through 11. It was awesome. So anything by Professor Wright is dope.
Joshua Johnson:Yeah, amazing. He's great. I love N T Wright. He's fantastic. Good recommendation. How can people go out get your book lit up with love? And where else would you like to point people
Derwin Gray:to? Yeah, just to get my book lit up with love, you can get it anywhere books are sold. Get it anywhere books are sold. You can go to Derwin, l, gray.com during L, gray.com and, yeah, but lit up with love is anywhere books are sold. Pick it up. Please get multiple copies. It's a short book. Read it in small groups. And let's, let's have a movement that in our generation, we see hundreds of 1000s, if not millions, of people make professions of faith and follow Jesus amen.
Joshua Johnson:Let's do that. Darwin. Thank you for this conversation, and I just pray for that movement to happen, that we see millions of people come into a loving relationship with Jesus, that they encountered the love they could then breathe out become everyday missionaries, that they could give the love of God to other people in their everyday lives, that they could be good news people and so for. Thank you for showing us the way of what does it look like to receive the love and grace from God, so that every single day, we can be lit up with love, and we could show the world around us that love is actually the answer. Jesus is the creative solution to all of our problems and our difficulties, as we get back and pull back all of the these layers that that love will dispel, the fear that we have with one another, that we could have be reconciled with God and reconciled to each other and the world and so this is fantastic. I loved our conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you.
