SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning, everybody.
SPEAKER_00: I got good both Jeffs this morning for service.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the older Jeff of the two of us, so welcome.
SPEAKER_00: I'm Jeff Pittman, executive pastor here.
SPEAKER_00: If I don't know you, I'd love to catch with you uh later on.
SPEAKER_00: I want to show you a picture of a buddy of mine.
SPEAKER_00: This is um Emerson.
SPEAKER_00: When I first met Emerson, he was much shorter.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like really short in that regard.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, before uh coming to Spring Lake here, uh I was at a pastor in Illinois.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, no offense to anyone here, but I've worked in Illinois for a while there.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and my daughter at that time had a dance class, and it was at the community center in our town, and so she was young enough that you couldn't like leave her there and go do errands, and so you left there, you had to stay in the waiting room.
SPEAKER_00: And so basically, for the whole dance class, it was a bunch of parents and then kids in this waiting room just kind of hanging out.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you guys know me well enough, I have four daughters.
SPEAKER_00: At this point in my life, I had two daughters, and so I was pretty good about playing Barbies, you know, make believe, kitchen, that kind of stuff, really good at that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but Emerson was playing trucks.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so he had his little trucks he brought with him, and he would play all around the waiting room with that, and I love that.
SPEAKER_00: So I got to play trucks with Emerson.
SPEAKER_00: I look forward to every week going to the dance uh waiting room and playing trucks with Emerson.
SPEAKER_00: And over time we got to know his parents because it's kind of weird to play with a random kid on the floor in a waiting room without getting to know their parents.
SPEAKER_00: And so we had to know uh his dad Mike, who is a mechanic, and that's so good.
SPEAKER_00: So good to know mechanics in your life, guys.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a mechanic, thank you for being a mechanic, and thank you for being friends with our people as well.
SPEAKER_00: That's really helpful.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, my my wife and uh Emerson's mom got to know each other really well, became a really deep friendship.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, my daughter in dance class became best friends with Emerson's uh sister as well.
SPEAKER_00: So our families became pretty intertwined during that time, that season of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And we as uh as believers kind of shared our faith as we could, as we kind of demonstrated our faith with the way we lived and how we talked about it.
SPEAKER_00: It was a little easier because I was a pastor, so when we talk about what you do for a living, it's kind of easier to kind of go into that stream as well.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember specifically the season where they started coming to our church, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like you're ready to prepare a message and do your things for being a pastor, and then your friends come into church.
SPEAKER_00: And it's so fun along the way.
SPEAKER_00: And they got integrained ingrained into our church more and more.
SPEAKER_00: And our family had to have a front row seat to see this family that we invested in early on as in this waiting room to be coming to orient their lives, to change their lives to being oriented around Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And they're continuing to grow in their faith.
SPEAKER_00: It was fun to be a part of that.
SPEAKER_00: Well, this guy would have it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, he moved us up here to Green Bay to serve here as a pastor at Spring Lake Church.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then last summer, we got a call from my previous church, and they were doing a camp with their youth group in northern Wisconsin, and they needed a place to have lunch on the way down before they went back down to Chicagoland.
SPEAKER_00: And we offered to be the host of that.
SPEAKER_00: So we are serving lunch to this uh church group coming down, kind of traveling away.
SPEAKER_00: And in the midst of that, in the gym here at Bellevue, I see Emerson, right?
SPEAKER_00: Emerson, who I haven't seen for many years, and so I got to take a picture of him, which is a picture you guys see here as well.
SPEAKER_00: He is doing so well.
SPEAKER_00: He's so ingrained in his youth group.
SPEAKER_00: He has other leaders around him, his parents are following Jesus, and it was so heartwarming for us to see that this family is really so much in thriving in their faith and loving Jesus deeply.
SPEAKER_00: Even so much more that like a couple weeks ago we talked to Emerson's mom, and she's actually leading a big ministry in the church that we were part of before.
SPEAKER_00: That was so much fun.
SPEAKER_00: And the reality is that we and my family got to be part of their journey towards faith, and it all started because I played trucks with a little kid in a waiting room in McKendry, Illinois.
SPEAKER_00: You see, today we're gonna talk about evangelism, and sometimes we think about evangelism being reserved for those like superheroes in their faith.
SPEAKER_00: Those like Delta Force people, those Navy SEALs, those people who have the gifts and the skills that they just kind of do it really, really well.
SPEAKER_00: And that we'll kind of let them do all that.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is that evangelism is for everybody.
SPEAKER_00: Every believer in Jesus Christ is called towards evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: And that's God's plan, that's God's hope, and that's our desire for today.
SPEAKER_00: Now we are in the uncomfortable series, and so sometimes we bring this uncomfortable series, we talk about topics that are kind of hard for us to understand theologically, or they're maybe hard for us, they make up, they make us uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: There's some theatrical truths.
SPEAKER_00: Ryan had one last week to talk about that.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we talk about uncomfortable things that are culturally uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: Like the Bible says this about morality, but the cult around us says this about morality, and it makes us uncomfortable to kind of bridge that gap.
SPEAKER_00: Today we're talking about this in the uncomfortable series because evangelism makes us as believers uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: Now, not everyone, some of you guys here are probably thinking, I love evangelism, but for the majority of us, we're uncomfortable about sharing our faith.
SPEAKER_00: And the stats bear this out.
SPEAKER_00: So about 80 or 90% of Christians are somewhat open to sharing their faith with non-believers.
SPEAKER_00: So that's a majority, that's actually a high majority of people, probably in this room as well, that want to share their faith with non-believers.
SPEAKER_00: But when it comes down to actually sharing their faith with non-believers, it drops down to 30 or 40% of believers.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a self-reported study, so it's probably a little bit escalated as well.
SPEAKER_00: And my hope is that when we leave today, we have a stronger desire to share our faith, but also some steps to share this good news, which is what the gospel means, good news, with people who don't know it yet.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what makes evangelism uncomfortable?
SPEAKER_00: Well, for a lot of us, we just feel unprepared, like we don't know what to do, how to do the mechanics of it all, we just don't feel like we have the skills and the equipping to do that.
SPEAKER_00: For many of us, it risks relational dynamics, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you have unbelieving friends and you start sharing your faith with them, there is a risk that that the relationship will change and will be different, maybe even broken off.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a real risk to that relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us it makes us face our own fears, our own concerns, our own faith.
SPEAKER_00: And when we go down to evangelism and sharing our faith with our people, there's things, there's doubts that we have in our own faith that we kind of have to relive and kind of readdress as well.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are simply scared of non-believers.
SPEAKER_00: Like we want to isolate ourselves from non-believers, so worried about non-believers or the world influencing us that we are reluctant to engage the world with the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us just don't even know what to say, don't even know where to start.
SPEAKER_00: Well, in the face of all these concerns, and these are real, real concerns for all of us, Jesus speaks and commands us all, everyone, towards evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 28, it's a very common uh scripture you've probably heard before.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you, and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this scripture was Jesus talking to his disciples, but by no means is this supposed to stop at the disciples.
SPEAKER_00: This is a scripture and a command that he gives to every believer that's ever has ever lived, including us in this room today.
SPEAKER_00: So we're all called to go and make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And that go is specific.
SPEAKER_00: He's not asking us to stand to sit away and sit down and wait for people to come to us.
SPEAKER_00: He's actually saying, be active.
SPEAKER_00: Go out into the world and make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Now, making disciples means making followers.
SPEAKER_00: Disciples also can be translated as being followers.
SPEAKER_00: So make followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: So we're supposed to go out, all of us are called this, go out into our worlds, and help people come to know and become a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And that can be kind of a daunting task, but this last part here, the last verse he has, is really critical.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I am with you always to the very end of the age.
SPEAKER_00: When we share our faith, we're not doing that alone.
SPEAKER_00: God is with us.
SPEAKER_00: He's along with us along the way.
SPEAKER_00: It's his mission ultimately that we're coming alongside him to share our faith.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's important to evangelize for a few reasons.
SPEAKER_00: One, God tells us to.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus tells us to evangelize, to share our faith with our people, and obedience is really the only reason we need to say yes to that.
SPEAKER_00: God tells us to do it, we're supposed to do that.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what we should be doing as well.
SPEAKER_00: But a second, critically important reason why we should evangelize is people might respond positively to it.
SPEAKER_00: Like people might actually reaccept this invitation of this good news, place their trust in Jesus, and our life will be transformed forever.
SPEAKER_00: That's a great reason to evangelize.
SPEAKER_00: And the third reason I want to point out today is that our faith is strengthened when we share our faith with our people.
SPEAKER_00: We are stronger in our faith.
SPEAKER_00: We grow closer to Jesus as well.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the mission is from the church talk about loving God, maturing in his character, and reaching the world.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we can view that as kind of being in a linear path there.
SPEAKER_00: That we're supposed to love God first, mature in his character, and then reach the world.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to think about it in a linear path there.
SPEAKER_00: It's more of a, they're all that they complement one another, more of a circular path along the way.
SPEAKER_00: See, when we are reaching the world, when we are sharing our faith with our people, we are loving God at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: When we are sharing our faith with people who don't know Jesus, we're also maturing in his character.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the Bible doesn't know a mature Christian who is not also sharing their faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of what we're called to do as believers.
SPEAKER_00: Now, my journey towards faith, uh, it's probably not too unique for many of you guys.
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in Wisconsin, which means that most of us probably grew up in traditional church settings, you know, and so that's that's what my trip, my settings was growing up.
SPEAKER_00: I went to church on a fairly regular basis, but I can tell you that my life wasn't oriented around God.
SPEAKER_00: We kind of went to church because that's what you were supposed to do, and so that's what we did that, but my decisions in life weren't oriented towards that.
SPEAKER_00: Really it was about what I was what I thought was best for myself.
SPEAKER_00: I was the king, I was the leader of my own life.
SPEAKER_00: And I went to college at the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, and at my dorm floor, I had some students there that I ended up having classes with and eating meals with and hanging out with because they were kind of all around as well.
SPEAKER_00: And these students were part of crew.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you know what crew is, crew is a faith organization on many college campuses.
SPEAKER_00: And so these uh friends of mine were strong believers.
SPEAKER_00: And over time I got to know them more and get part of their community as well.
SPEAKER_00: I started becoming and attending crew, and they're the ones that showed me and shared the gospel with me, the good news with me.
SPEAKER_00: And thankfully, my freshman year of college, I gave my life over to Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: My life has been changed ever since.
SPEAKER_00: Now, those students, who I'm eternally grateful for, could have gone to school, could have gone to college, and decided to do their studies, kind of went over a little holy huddle and kind of did their own little ministry thing there, and just graduated and kind of went on with life.
SPEAKER_00: And they didn't do just that.
SPEAKER_00: They decided also to share their faith with a non-believer.
SPEAKER_00: And that person was Jeff Pittman.
SPEAKER_00: I'm changed because people shared their faith with me.
SPEAKER_00: And my guess is that you are too.
SPEAKER_00: Who are the people in your life who've invested in you spiritually to help you get to a point of placing your trust within Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Is it a family member?
SPEAKER_00: Is it a coworker?
SPEAKER_00: Is it a friend?
SPEAKER_00: Is it a neighbor?
SPEAKER_00: I imagine you're probably thinking those people right now.
SPEAKER_00: And you love those people because they gave you the greatest gift they can give anybody else.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Well, how do we share our faith?
SPEAKER_00: Well, what if the majority of the reasons why evangelism makes us uncomfortable were alleviated?
SPEAKER_00: What if there is an accessible way to evangelize that's reachable for all believers?
SPEAKER_00: I believe that there is.
SPEAKER_00: And as we move forward the rest of our time this morning, we're gonna share about a tool about called the Blessed Practices with a Blessed Tool.
SPEAKER_00: This is developed by two pastors in the Chicagoland area called Dave and John Furson.
SPEAKER_00: They actually have a book on it, so if you want to look at the book on Amazon, it's called Blessed, and so you can actually go through that.
SPEAKER_00: And bless is an acronym.
SPEAKER_00: So every letter of Bless, if we're gonna kind of core that, is one step you can take to actually share your faith with people around you.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the first one is B, and we'll go through that.
SPEAKER_00: Begin with prayer.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Jesus was constantly praying, right?
SPEAKER_00: He all constantly went away and prayed.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Jesus in his early ministries was getting people kind of a crowd to surround him and follow him along.
SPEAKER_00: And then he wanted to create this 12, these apostles they want to have a closer relationship with.
SPEAKER_00: Before he called those apostles, he went on a mountainside and he prayed.
SPEAKER_00: He prayed to the Father to help guide him and to give him a sermon for who to call to become his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was consistently praying, and we should also.
SPEAKER_00: What should we be praying about?
SPEAKER_00: Well, first and foremost, we pray for ourselves, specifically that our hearts would align also with God's heart.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a dangerous prayer to pray because God has a deep, deep heart and compassion for people.
SPEAKER_00: You see, when Jesus in his earlier ministries was going around and teaching in different towns and teaching in synagogues, he's kind of teaching all around, traveling, traveling from town to town in this place.
SPEAKER_00: And then when he saw people, when he saw crowds, this is what he said in verse Matthew 9, verse 36.
SPEAKER_00: He said, When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: Then he said to his disciples, The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
SPEAKER_00: Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.
SPEAKER_00: You see, when Jesus saw those crowds of people who were not reconciled back to God, his heart was one of compassion.
SPEAKER_00: He cared about them deeply.
SPEAKER_00: And for us, we should also have a compassionate heart towards people who don't know Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: A heart should long for them, should care about them so much we want them to be reconciled to God.
SPEAKER_00: We're also going to pray for us to have non-believing friends.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to share your faith with people, you need to have, you need to know people who don't know Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're maybe in that category, one of the steps you can take is have some non-believing friends.
SPEAKER_00: You should have people in your life who don't know Jesus, so you in hopes that you can share the gospel with them.
SPEAKER_00: We're also praying for wisdom because navigating relationships is tricky.
SPEAKER_00: There's not a formulatic way of navigating relationships.
SPEAKER_00: They're dynamic, they change.
SPEAKER_00: And so we would pray for wisdom for how to navigate those relationships.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be praying for non-believers that their hearts will be open, their hearts will be soft, and that they have an open posture to receive the good news of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And the reality is the good news here is that the majority of non-believers actually are open for you sharing your faith with them.
SPEAKER_00: 80% of your friends kind of want to hear about your faith journey.
SPEAKER_00: 80% of them.
SPEAKER_00: So often we're fearful of how they're going to respond to us when we share about our faith.
SPEAKER_00: Most of them are positively going to respond.
SPEAKER_00: They want to hear more about your journey, want to hear more about your life and why you love Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We also pray for opportunities.
SPEAKER_00: A friend of mine calls these missional, missionally divine appointments.
SPEAKER_00: So things we want to pray for, can you give me opportunities?
SPEAKER_00: Can you give me spaces, opportunities in my day, my week, where I can share about my faith, where a topic of faith comes up into the conversations?
SPEAKER_00: And that's also another scary prayer to pray, because God will often answer that prayer.
SPEAKER_00: If you ask him and say, give me opportunities to share about you, he'll often bring you opportunity in the next couple days to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, we're praying that people would join in God's mission, join in God's kingdom as well.
SPEAKER_00: What would it look like for you to pray intentionally in preparation for sharing your faith?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the B part of the blessed practices.
SPEAKER_00: The L part of the blessed practices is listen.
SPEAKER_00: This is also something that Jesus constantly did.
SPEAKER_00: He was also asking questions and listening.
SPEAKER_00: There's a story about Jesus coming into the town of Jericho.
SPEAKER_00: And as they're entering into the city gates, there's a blind man whose begging he calls out for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus comes over to the blind man, he knows he probably wants to see, he needs food, he needs uh uh, he needs money, all these different things that he everyone will know that this blind man needs.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus doesn't just fill it, fill that need, he asks him a question.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, What do you want me to do for you?
SPEAKER_00: See, Jesus is constantly asking questions, understand what is how does this person tick, how is that person wired, what is hindering them from faith?
SPEAKER_00: And so we should be doing the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: We should be asking compassionately curious questions.
SPEAKER_00: We want to understand what is hindering them from their faith?
SPEAKER_00: What are the hurdles they have to come into faith in Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: What are they interested in?
SPEAKER_00: What makes them click?
SPEAKER_00: This is really important because we want to answer the questions people have about faith that they have, not answer questions that they don't have.
SPEAKER_00: For my own journey, my time in college there, I had a question about God.
SPEAKER_00: Well, is he good and is he relational?
SPEAKER_00: Is he accessible for a is he personal?
SPEAKER_00: That was my question about God.
SPEAKER_00: It would have been a mistake to start out diving into how sinful I am and needing of a savior.
SPEAKER_00: That theologically is true, but I wasn't I already knew that was sinful.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't need convincing of that piece of it.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I needed to know is God personal?
SPEAKER_00: Does he want to have a personal relationship with me?
SPEAKER_00: And thankfully, those students and Whitewater showed me and demonstrated me that God can be personal, which drew me towards Him.
SPEAKER_00: Many folks believe that they are in right standing with God due to their being in a good being a good person.
SPEAKER_00: They believe in God, but they misunderstand the pathway to him.
SPEAKER_00: Well, in those cases, it'd be a mistake to spend too much time on the existence of God.
SPEAKER_00: They already believe in the existence of God.
SPEAKER_00: You need to spend your time on talking about works, a works-based gospel versus a grace-based gospel, and how we can't earn our way back to God.
SPEAKER_00: That's a better use of our time.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean we don't get to the full gospel at some point at all, but it means we want to start with where their hindrance are, where their hurdles are at.
SPEAKER_00: Some folks are clear about clearly understand their sin to the point that they feel unlovable and too far from God.
SPEAKER_00: There's a pastor we hear this every so often where some people just don't want to come into the church building.
SPEAKER_00: They know the sin in their life, and it runs so deep that they feel like God can never forgive them.
SPEAKER_00: We'll be mistaken that moment to talk about, yeah, you are so sinful.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just bad and we'll double down on that one.
SPEAKER_00: Be a better use of our time to focus on God is so gracious.
SPEAKER_00: And then you are not too far from the redeeming work of God.
SPEAKER_00: So we understand where people are because we listen to them, because we're asking questions of them, and we can address the questions that they need as we follow, as we are joining them in this journey to be reconciled back to God.
SPEAKER_00: So we often pray for opportunities to speak about the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: We should be praying for opportunities to listen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the E part of the blessed acronym is eat.
SPEAKER_00: This is something that everyone does.
SPEAKER_00: So this is something you can actually do.
SPEAKER_00: You're being given permission to go eat.
SPEAKER_00: And most of us love eating as well.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus did this also.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 9, starting in verse 10, it says, While Jesus was having dinner in Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, Why does this why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?
SPEAKER_00: On hearing this, Jesus said, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
SPEAKER_00: But go and learn what this means.
SPEAKER_00: I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: For I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus constantly hung out with non-believers.
SPEAKER_00: And we should too.
SPEAKER_00: You should be hanging out.
SPEAKER_00: You should be on some aspects of your life where you're hanging out with people who don't know Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And the good news is that most of the people you hang out with who are non-believers want to hang out with you as well.
SPEAKER_00: There's a study a few years back that was talked to non-churchgoers.
SPEAKER_00: So they study non-churchgoers, and they ask questions about what's what they are most likely to say yes to if asked by a churchgoer to participate in.
SPEAKER_00: If you ask if a churchgoer asked a non-churchgoer to come to their house for a Bible study, they're pretty likely to say no to that.
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty intimidating, right?
SPEAKER_00: To kind of kind of come to someone's house, sit in a circle, open a Bible they don't really aren't familiar with.
SPEAKER_00: That's hard to jump into that stuff.
SPEAKER_00: So they're more not likely to say yes.
SPEAKER_00: They're a little more likely to come to a weekend service, like coming here for a Sunday morning here or a Saturday night here at Spring Lake.
SPEAKER_00: But they're most often gonna do that because they wanna honor you as a relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe not because they necessarily want to go there, but they want to honor the relationship that you have with you as a friend.
SPEAKER_00: The two one of the two main things they're most likely to say yes to is a service project.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're gonna go help out in a local park, or if you're gonna help out St.
SPEAKER_00: John's around here in Green Bay, they're more likely to say yes and join you in that regard.
SPEAKER_00: But one of the number one things they're gonna say yes to is to come to your house for dinner.
SPEAKER_00: Just to come over, just to hang out with you, have a have a bonfire in the backyard, come over and have a barbecue, come invite them into your world, they're more likely to say yes to that.
SPEAKER_00: A good friend of mine calls this missional hospitality, to be so hospitable that people want to be around you, want to spend time with you, and it often can be over a meal, right?
SPEAKER_00: To eat together.
SPEAKER_00: Something we all do.
SPEAKER_00: They do that, you do that, and you just join, have them join you in eating a meal.
SPEAKER_00: Now, eat works well within the blessed acronym here, but the reality is any type of activity you're doing with other people would also work.
SPEAKER_00: And so, some of you guys who are sports fans, watch.
SPEAKER_00: A game together with someone, it's it's is the same to accomplish the same purpose as well.
SPEAKER_00: Or if you have a hobby, if you have an interest that you like doing, invite non-believers to join you in the midst of that as well, it's really helpful.
SPEAKER_00: Also, if you're a parent and you're taking your kids to the park, a great opportunity to connect with families who are also at the park as well.
SPEAKER_00: So eat is definitely something that everybody can do, but it doesn't have to be restricted just to eating.
SPEAKER_00: It can be really any type of activity or thing you can do with other people as well.
SPEAKER_00: What are the things that you do regularly that you could also involve non-believers in?
SPEAKER_00: Invite them into your world.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the first S, and the blessed acronym here, is to serve.
SPEAKER_00: And it's also something that Jesus constantly did.
SPEAKER_00: In Mark 10, verse 45, it says, For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
SPEAKER_00: The lifeblood of Jesus is to serve, to care for people, ultimately to the point where he can went on a cross to die in our place.
SPEAKER_00: That's his nature, is to serve.
SPEAKER_00: And we also should be people who are looking to serve the communities around us.
SPEAKER_00: Now, at this point, remember, you've prayed for people, you've listened to them, you've ate with them and spent time with them.
SPEAKER_00: And so you know exactly what is the best way that you can serve them.
SPEAKER_00: So we've been up here, my family's been up here for about nine years.
SPEAKER_00: And so we first moved up here, we had a second grader, we had a four-year-old, a three-year-old, and a two-year-old.
SPEAKER_00: So, especially the younger three of them, they're of the age, but they don't want any kind of babysitter who they don't know.
SPEAKER_00: So if they had anyone came over that was a stranger, they would be freaking out about that as well.
SPEAKER_00: So we had some rough times in the beginning here for my wife and I to go have a date night because we didn't have anyone to watch our kids.
SPEAKER_00: Plenty of Sprint Lakers who were willing to do that, but that kids didn't know them, and so it was kind of a freaking moment that time.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember one time being at work, and my wife called and said, Jeff, we're going on a date night tonight.
SPEAKER_00: And I was excited about that because date nights are awesome.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, who's watching the kids?
SPEAKER_00: Well, a neighbor who had kids about the similar similar age got to know us, and their kids got to know their kids got to know our kids, and there was a comfortability with those two families there.
SPEAKER_00: And so they're having fun at that one at that neighbor's house.
SPEAKER_00: The neighbor just said, Hey, they're having a good time here.
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you and Jeff go and have dinner together?
SPEAKER_00: We'll take care of the kids here.
SPEAKER_00: What an absolute blessing it was for my wife and I at that point.
SPEAKER_00: And that neighbor knew that because they had listened to us, they had spent time with us, they knew the best way to serve my family at that moment.
SPEAKER_00: And we want to do the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be so tuned, have relationship with people that we know how we can serve these people in an honoring way, in a way that really blesses them as well.
SPEAKER_00: And we as a church challenge everyone to love their neighbors just a few weeks ago in our Love Our Neighbor challenge we have, if you remember that.
SPEAKER_00: And we actually asked people to write in some examples of how they have loved their neighbors.
SPEAKER_00: Can I share some of those with you?
SPEAKER_00: This isn't exhaustive, but some good ones along the way.
SPEAKER_00: One Spring Laker said, I brought my next door neighbors a panel homemade lasagna.
SPEAKER_00: Her kids had baseball games that evening, so she was appreciative of the dinner the dinner was already made.
SPEAKER_00: What a great example of someone who knows their neighbors well enough that it's hard for them to run around for all the kids' activities that they have, and so this made dinner for a neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: Another spring laker said, I took someone to visit their elderly mother in the nursing home and then treated her to lunch.
SPEAKER_00: What a great example.
SPEAKER_00: This is how it takes some time here, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because they have to take some time to actually travel with someone, go to a to uh um to visit an elderly grandmother, and also to spend time with a meal afterwards.
SPEAKER_00: But it's worth it to invest in people as well.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm glad that they did that as well.
SPEAKER_00: Another spinlaker said, I spent the day helping a co-worker with household and yard chores because she is injured and unable to do them herself.
SPEAKER_00: So another example is a coworker, right?
SPEAKER_00: So the co-worker situation is that they're injured, so they can't do the things around their house.
SPEAKER_00: So the co-worker, who's also a friend in this case, goes and helps them out in the things that they need.
SPEAKER_00: Another Spring Laker said, I made a meal for a couple who lost their elderly mother.
SPEAKER_00: As giving meals to people is a wonderful way, a wonderful way to demonstrate that you're caring for someone and blessing them and serve them also.
SPEAKER_00: This next one's from a middle schooler here at SpringLake.
SPEAKER_00: It says, I babysat my 10-year-old and two-year-old neighbors this week for free.
SPEAKER_00: It was a great experience because I just love getting to help them out.
SPEAKER_00: They were really grateful for my help, and that made it feel all the more cool.
SPEAKER_00: So even if you're a younger person, you can help out, right?
SPEAKER_00: You just find ways to serve people in your neighborhood.
SPEAKER_00: The last one I'll share today is uh a sprint like I said, I met a woman at work, and we started talking about how similar our lives were.
SPEAKER_00: She asked if we could get together and continue talking.
SPEAKER_00: She was excited about a new friendship.
SPEAKER_00: This felt like a God thing.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a God thing.
SPEAKER_00: So I think this case, this is the case, it's just someone just being a friend.
SPEAKER_00: Like someone needs a friend.
SPEAKER_00: In our world, especially in our culture today, we all need more friends.
SPEAKER_00: And so as believers, we can become friends to people who God places in our path.
SPEAKER_00: What if we are known as people who are regularly stepping up to serve our community and we're looking for ways, how can we serve?
SPEAKER_00: How can we serve people in our lives?
SPEAKER_00: How can we serve our communities?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the last S in these best practices is a story.
SPEAKER_00: The reality is the Bible is filled with stories that can help us show the compassion and the love of God.
SPEAKER_00: We need a story about, if you need a story about how God forgives, we have the prodigal son in the midst of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: If you need a story about how close God is, we have countless stories of Jesus walking with the disciples and the people in his day.
SPEAKER_00: It's filled with stories that we should be ready to share as well.
SPEAKER_00: But you don't, you only also can be sharing off stories that are happening in your life as well.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a couple different types of stories that we have.
SPEAKER_00: One is our what we call often called the testimony.
SPEAKER_00: So that's like how you came to faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And you should you should know that story really well.
SPEAKER_00: You should practice that story, you should be ready to give it at any moment, uh, because it's critically important for how your life changed from your before you from where we were before you knew Jesus till after you knew Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not always appropriate for every situation that you come up with.
SPEAKER_00: You always want to be ready to share stories of how God met you in the midst of a need or a crisis or situation in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you're talking to someone and they're having a financial struggle, you can be ready to share, I had a financial struggle, and here's how God met me in the midst of that financial struggle.
SPEAKER_00: When you, if someone has a challenge in a parenting environment or a relationship environment, you can share, here's a story of how God met me when I faced a similar situation as well.
SPEAKER_00: When you went through a crisis, people in this world, everyone will find a crisis.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone will come to a point in our life where the crisis will come.
SPEAKER_00: And so when a non-believing friend has a crisis, you can share a story about how God met you in the midst of that crisis.
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, we went to the point where we share the gospel story, the good news about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That we all are alienated from God, that we are through our sin, that we are destined to have an eternity apart from God.
SPEAKER_00: But that Jesus didn't want that to stay the way.
SPEAKER_00: So he he died on the cross on our behalf, so we can be reconciled back to God and live with him for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: But that involves us giving up a leadership of our life and making Jesus Lord, the leader of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We end up, we want to share the ultimate story, the gospel story with people in hopes that they will respond to that and come into the family of God.
SPEAKER_00: We always want to be ready to share our stories.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you feel uncomfortable about evangelism, my hope is that your concerns and some of your fears were tempered today.
SPEAKER_00: I don't sure we're gonna fix all of that, but hopefully you feel a little more hopeful for what it looks like to share your faith.
SPEAKER_00: You can take comfort knowing that God doesn't ask us to do this alone, that he is actually leading us.
SPEAKER_00: We're actually just partnering with him on this mission to reach more people.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody is capable of evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of God's plan that all of us would go into our communities to share the love of Jesus with people.
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, we have the greatest story in the history of the world to share with others.
SPEAKER_00: My hope is that evangelism moves from something I have to do out of obedience to something I get to do, that I'm eager to do, that I'm looking for opportunities to do, to share this good news with other people.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you're excited for the opportunity and the potential for more people coming into the kingdom of God, and that along the way we would grow closer to Jesus as we share our faith.
SPEAKER_00: So, what is your next step?
SPEAKER_00: What do you need to be doing differently?
SPEAKER_00: If this hasn't been a priority for you in your life, make it one.
SPEAKER_00: Make it a priority, make it part of your spiritual formation to share your faith.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know many non-Christians, make some friends.
SPEAKER_00: Like your job taste, go make some friends.
SPEAKER_00: Go have some make some friends with people who don't know Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't feel adequate or equipped, this blessed tool, this blessed practices are a great way to start.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a bunch of opportunities out there out there, whether digitally or not, or just talk to one of our pastors, we'd love to help equip you along the way to share your faith.
SPEAKER_00: If you lack the interest or you lack the compassion for the lost in our community, my challenge for you is to pray.
SPEAKER_00: That your heart would be aligned to the heart of Jesus and you'd have compassion on the people in this world who don't know Jesus yet.
SPEAKER_00: When we all grow in sharing our faith, we join God's mission to bring light into a dark world, to bring life in the midst of death, to bring hope into the hopeless.
SPEAKER_00: That's a mission that's worthy of our lives, even if it makes us a bit uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I think there's there should have been a better way that you could have thought of to share this story.
SPEAKER_00: But you know best.
SPEAKER_00: And you have your plan is to use us, our bel us believers, to spread this word into this world, to spread your word into this world.
SPEAKER_00: So Father, I pray you'd help us to capture your heart for the lost, that we would look out into our world and we would go into, and we would have compassion upon them, that that would drive us to develop relationships with non-believers.
SPEAKER_00: If we're looking for time to spend time with them, to look for ways to serve them and care for them, and ultimately to share this good news through gospel message with them.
SPEAKER_00: And we pray that they would respond, that more people would enter into your family, would enter into the kingdom of God and spend eternity with you as well.
SPEAKER_00: So, your sons, let me pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.