Evangelism Training Week 3 with Pastor Greg - July 22, 2026

Pastor Greg provides an overview for our Summer Evangelism Training classes, looking to 1 Corinthians 15 and the Book of Romans. The class is designed to help believers share testimonies and spread the Gospel, using the Love Worth Finding / Evangelism Explosion training tool.

Transcript

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So, how's everybody? Y'all good? All right. Let's pray and we'll get started. Lord, thank you for today. Thank you for making it a little cooler than yesterday. Thank you for our time together tonight. I pray for our students over across the way having a great fellowship night, and I pray you'll bind them together and really help them, you know, as they're building relationships, connecting through the summer. I pray, Father, you help us as we uh talk tonight about uh evangelism and being ready to give a defense for the hope that is in us. And I pray, Father, you'll give us the freedom to talk, ask questions, share, and uh, and work through this goal that we have of seeing more people saved and baptized. And so, Father, we just pray for our love lists, we pray for this time. I pray that you'll help stir our hearts, open doors for us to be able to share the good news that Jesus saves. It's in Jesus' name we pray, and everybody said, All right. Uh, a bunch of new people signed up this week online, so that's great. We're excited about that. So hang in, let us help you, let's work through that together. Uh, thank you all for being here. We had a great discussion last week. So I want to do a little bit more of that discussion tonight and really make sure you're answering questions. This is a great opportunity to do that. So let me start off with a scripture. And we uh I'm sorry I'm using my phone. Uh we had the Lord's Supper on Sunday, so the deacons take over my row, so my preaching Bible got moved. It throws me off. Two things throw me off in church. If you don't sit in your normal seat, and if somebody moves my preaching Bible, those two things mess me up, all right? So don't sit in different spots and don't mess with my Bible on the front row. Good? All right, but that's all right. Here's the scripture for tonight. I'll start us off and then I want to ask you some questions and to go into some QA with you. So, 1 Peter chapter 3, if you have your Bible with you, if you want to look at it, 1 Peter chapter 3. Uh and so here we'll start in verse 13 to get a little running start, but we'll focus on verse 15. So he's talking to them, he's been talking about the gospel through the first two chapters and then how the gospel applies in our married life, uh, wives, husbands, and then he's talking about how we behave with each other as the body. And then he comes to this part. He says, Who then will harm you if you are devoted to what is good? And now he's writing to them specifically in the idea that they are living in a culture that is a lost culture. If you read the very entrance, intro section to 1 Peter chapter 3, in chapter 1, he says clearly that he is writing to the Christians who have been dispersed around the world because of the persecution that occurred in Jerusalem and in Israel. So by definition, he's writing to Christians living in a lost culture. So that's really applies to us today. We are living in a lost culture where people need Jesus, right? And so that's what he is. So he says, Who will harm you if you are devoted to what is good? In other words, if you want, if you don't want to be persecuted, if you want to uh have uh make your way in the world where you're respected and all of that, then you do what is right. You be Christian, you do well. Who's gonna harm you if you're making a positive impact on everybody around you? Then he says, even if you should suffer for righteousness, then you are blessed. So if somebody persecutes you because you're a Christian and you're behaving like a Christian, well then God's gonna bless you and honor you for that. He says, Do not fear them or be intimidated. In the world that we live in, even though it's lost, do not fear those around us. Don't be intimidated by a lost world around us, but in your hearts, regard Christ the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do this with gentleness and reverence, keeping a clear conscience, so that when you are accused, those who disparage your good conduct in Christ will be put to shame. In other words, he will ultimately put them to shame for their persecuting us for being Christ-like. So there's a picture there. Now, this this verse 15 is a is a well-known verse, and it's used as one of the ones that are our foundation for us to be engaged in apologetics or being able to defend our faith. It literally says that. Be ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is within you. And that word in the original language is the word that we get, it's the root word that we get apology or apologetics for. We get that word from there. So what he's literally saying is in this culture of lostness, you are to live like Christ. He says, in your hearts, regard Christ the Lord as holy, that what we are doing in serving him is he is to be set apart as the Christ that we worship, and we are to be set apart to him and live in that fashion. And when we live in that fashion, when we're living for good, when we are making a gospel impact on the people around us, people are going to ask, why in the world do you live that way and why do you have hope like that? And we are to be prepared, be ready. That's part of what we'll talk about tonight. At any time, that means you've done prep work ahead of time, so whenever it comes up, you're not winging it, you're ready to roll at a moment's notice. Pastor where I grew up, Dr. Agent Rogers, used to tell us when I became a deacon, he'd tell the deacons all the time. He said, Fellas, here's the deal. It's your job as a deacon. If I point to one of you and hold up my handkerchief and drop it, you need to be ready to preach and be on point two by the time it hits the ground. That's how ready you're supposed to be at a moment's notice. And then he says, be ready, be prepared, and anytime to give a defense, that means we have to understand why we believe what we believe and not only understand it, but be able to speak into it and explain it to the people around us in a way that has an impact and defends what we believe. But it's more than that. You're not just defending a belief system, but listen to how he says this: ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. So there's two aspects to that. Our life should have a sense of hopefulness that is so spiritually profound that we're going to be asked. It is in a lost world, again, remember the context, it should be so different to the people around us that they are compelled to ask us. When they ask us, we don't give them a biblical encyclopedic definition, a reason for the hope that is in you. The reason that we have a hope is Jesus. Right? Not some theological catalog or whatever kind of a deal. This is not an academic exercise. This is a spiritual life where Jesus is sanctified as the Christ in our hearts, and we are living for him in such a way that there is a hope that is recognizable and defines us as different from the world around us, and we are to explain not the theology, but the reason for the hope. And the reason for the hope is Jesus. Now we have to be prepared to answer questions and to deal with those things, but we are always doing that, not in some defending it in a way we're proving everybody wrong or whatever, but we are focused on proving Jesus is the reason for our hope. Does that make sense? That's written in a very technical, very clear way. And so now we're back to the gospel. So when we get in these conversations, our job is to always move them back to the gospel, move them to Jesus as their savior, and they need to make Jesus as their savior because he is the reason that we have hope. In fact, the hope that we have is Jesus Himself. The Bible describes Jesus as the hope of the world. And so that's what we're trying to do. So now let me give you a thought, and I want to get little engagement here. Again, as I've mentioned before, the people who study these patterns of things, George Barn and all these other people, they've always, for generations, have told us the two main excuses that people have for not being more advanced in their sharing of the gospel is number one, they're afraid they're going to mess it up, and number two, they're going to be a they're afraid they're going to get a question that they don't know the answer to. Is that we relate to that? Alright, so tonight we want to do a little work on the be prepared to give a defense. So I want to talk about what are the questions that you're afraid you're going to get that you're not comfortable answering answering, and I want to talk through those with you and help you see we're going to use those to make a beeline to the reason for the hope that is in us. That makes sense? Is that fair? All right. So I'll prime the pump with the first one, and then I want you guys to be asking in this talk about those, okay? So here's the first one that you get. Everybody's terrified of. If your God is so loving, then why is he sending everybody to hell? Or if your God is so loving, why is he letting bad things happen to good people? It's the same kind of type of question. It's attacking the character of who God is. Y'all with me? That's on our list of don't ask me that question, right? All right. I want you to think through two things with me. When somebody asks you that, there's only two reasons why they're asking that. Number one, it is a real question that they have because of some experience in their life that they're going to work through. Or number two, it is deflecting you away from getting them to a gospel presentation. It can only be two things. The majority of the people are not asking that question. The majority of the people are trying to deflect you off of the gospel, in my experience. They're either mad at God for whatever something, and they're just pushing back and they're trying to get you off that deal because they don't want to talk about it, or they just don't want to deal with it, and that's the first thing off the top of their head as a common question that they can deflect you off of the gospel. Y'all with me? Alright. Now remember what the scripture says, be ready to give a defense for the reason for the hope that is in you. Right? Alright, so here's how I would answer that question. We're not going to give them a 30-minute theological Bible lesson because that's not the nature of the conversation. If you have somebody and they want to get into that, there are answers for that, and we can go through all kinds of scriptures in that. But if they're deflecting, which the majority of them will be deflecting you off the gospel presentation, then your job is to deal with that question and bring it back to the reason that there's a hope in us. It's in that vein of if your God is so loving, why is he letting bad things happen to good people or why is he sending people to hell? It's that challenging his character as a loving God. You've started off with something like, for God so loved the world that gave his only son, whosoever believes in him will never perish for every last life. Man, I believe God loves us so much. Jesus stepped out of heaven, took our punishment on the cross, on himself, whatever. And they're going, if your God is so loving, then why does he do this? Make sense? So, how do we answer that question and we understand what's going on there? Most of the time, they're deflecting you away from a gospel presentation, and you don't want to take the bait and go running into some deep theological argument for 45 minutes. Because remember, that's not what we're doing. We are giving a defense, an explanation for the reason why we have hope, and that's Jesus. And so here's what I would do. Listen, God does not create all that stuff. God didn't institute that. God made the Garden of Eden, and He made it fabulous, and He made it for us to live in and enjoy and flourish and all of that. We broke it. We messed it up. Sin. We entered sin into the world, we messed it up, we broke it. The world broke and we broke. And so it's not God's fault these things are happening. It's sin. Sin broke it. And even though God could have judged that sin, and there is judgment for that sin, God immediately stepped into the mess that we broke and began from the first moment providing a means of restoration, of redemption, of forgiveness, and the promise of restoring what we broke. And the arc of history throughout Scripture is God bringing that message of redemption, redeeming people, fixing their lives, bringing the promise of salvation and the promise and hope of heaven. And that's why the Bible says God did in verse 7, 316, 317, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, because the world was condemned already. But that the world through him might be saved. God is the author of life, not death. God is the author of good, not evil. God is the author of forgiveness and redemption. Sin is the cause of those struggles. And so that's why I want to share with you today, in the midst of all this struggle, you don't let those falsehoods go. We learn who God really is and who Jesus is. And you go right back to Jesus, loves them, and that's the work that He's doing is to redeem, to forgive, to restore, and the promise and hope of heaven. That's why that's so important because it's the ultimate message of redemption. That makes sense. Did you see how we're working that? You're not going to get bogged down in all this stuff. Now there's great theological discourse about all that stuff, right? There's books written, whole books written about that. They're not sitting there wanting your encyclopedic knowledge of all these books that you've studied. They need to meet Jesus and understand He's the reason, and we want a quick answer that moves back to the gospel and is rooted in the gospel so that we can point them back to Jesus. Now, process it. Questions? Thoughts? That's exactly right. Yes, sir. Yep. All right. So he says, if you give them that and they come back, though, I'm still wondering why God does that. I think you just God doesn't do that. God didn't create the brokenness. But God rises above the brokenness, he works in the brokenness. That might be where I come back and go, Romans 8, 28. All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose. And so I will say things like this God never wastes circumstances. What Satan means for evil, God turns in his majesty and grace, he turns it for good. And whatever struggle goes on in that, Jesus steps into the middle of it, he walks with us through it, always with a purpose of forgiveness and redemption. And I would just do that. And then if they keep pressing and moving forward, that then you know, okay, I've I've spoken the truth into that, I've given them a scripture, this may not be going anywhere, so you just want to elegantly go, listen, I want to thank you for having this conversation with me. I appreciate you doing this well. It's really good. I'll be glad to talk some more if you'd like to, but I don't want to push you in some direction. I just was sharing you about Jesus, and you know, and you kind of give them an out, and they may engage back in, and so you know you have some more time, or or you may that you may have created an exit that's more elegant for everybody. And that's another thing I would say in that is if it's not gonna go anywhere and you know that they're just shut down, then don't undo the good farming that you've already done. You know, the Bible says that Paul sowed, Apollos watered the seed, and God gave the increase. So if you've sowed some seeds, your job may be to sow seeds, your job may be to water, your job may be to harvest. The Lord of the harvest is in charge of that. So don't undo some good farming, either some sowing and watering that we've done by going too far or pushing it into a thing or whatever. Does that make sense? And so if they keep pressing on that, that might be where you go. And I think a good way to do that is to thank them. They've listened, they've engaged, they've asked a good question. That's a great question. There are more answers to that. I can get you other stuff you read you'd like to. I appreciate you sharing that with me and talk with me. And I'd be glad to talk to you some more. I'd love to do that, but I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, force myself or push you into that. So I'm just I appreciate that and I'm willing. Whatever else you want to talk about. You didn't you didn't fail, you sowed. It's a good farmer. Let's talk about that for a minute. Um, y'all heard what she's talking about? Could you hear enough? Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about that for a minute. Um, what happens in the cold calling thing? And I think it's good for us to do that. I mean, I yeah, that just I don't know you, but I'm gonna, you know, you go to, you know, you start with go to church or whatever it is, you get quick in your diagnostic questions, the two questions, you know. Hey, let me ask you this question. Do you know for sure if you die today, you'd go to heaven? And then you can ask them, well, how do you know that? You know, or however you want to form that second question. Um, I think it's good. So let me talk to you about this because I've felt it. Matt and I talked about it today. This is good. I know that y'all are feeling the tension now, right? If you heard her testimony, already gone to bed, gotten ready, goes out. Oh, I'm gonna, I'm supposed to, the video said I'm supposed to share with somebody. I feel like I am supposed to share. I'm caught in this conflict. I get up and go share. Okay, here's what I'm gonna tell you. That conflict is real. I felt it this week. I had a deal with Matt had told some story about going into Dillard's or whatever, buying something two weeks ago, and I was in Dillard's, and all I could think about was, I'm gonna get in trouble with Matt if I don't share because he already said we had to share. Y'all, y'all, are you feeling that conflict? Okay, I'm gonna tell you that's good. You should feel that conflict. Because we walk through too many days in life where it never dawns on us God put somebody in our path to share Jesus with. That's bad. The conflict is good because we're paying attention and confronted with the primary priority of sharing Jesus. Now that doesn't mean that every one of these scenarios, God put every single person in your path to share with. There is nothing wrong with sharing with every one of them. That's probably better than not ever sharing. But the conflict is good because now you're thinking, am I supposed to do this? Lord, is it did you put this person in my life? How do I get into this conversation? Even if you know you were supposed to or you felt like you should have and you blew it and you didn't, the Holy Spirit is working on you and you're more attuned to sharing than you were before you didn't do that. Does that make sense? So that conflict is really good, and I want us to all embrace that conflict because we spend way too many days not sharing with people we should have than sharing with somebody we weren't supposed to. Does that make sense? And even if you share with somebody you're not supposed to, the power, the gospel is the power of God into salvation we talked about, and they get saved. Well, lo and behold, you were supposed to. Right? You don't have to sort to catch, embrace the conflict. And try to step into as many of them as you can and share because we spend way too many days not ever sharing than we do sharing too much. Does that make sense? Is that helpful? Embrace the conflict and step into one or two of these and give it a shot and break the ice and work through it. You know, does that make sense? So that's a great testimony for several reasons. It's good. Cold calling thing is hard. It's just hard, right? But dive in, have at it. You do it a few times, it's easy. The first time somebody gets saved, you're way into it then. It's not hard anymore. Question. First of all, thank you for having the conversation. Now go ahead. Yeah. No, that's a great conversation. Yeah. That's a great question. Y'all hear most of that. Um so we're having the conversation. Uh she uh he um she basically asking the question, I believe, but I don't know if I believe in that God. And why is that God, why you say he's the God, you know, that kind of a thing. All right, so I think that's a great, I appreciate you sharing that because that's a great exercise to practice through. Um and I think you did fine. Her reaction, you're not responsible for. Now, if you're poking them in the eye and being overly aggressive and ugly to them, that's bad, right? But you weren't doing that. You weren't doing that. So again, here's let me just give you first of all this scripture. Um here's what he says in verse 15 in your hearts, regard Christ the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason of hope that is in you. Yet do this with gentleness and reverence, keeping a clear conscience so that when you are accused, those who disparage your good conduct in Christ will be put to shame. So he tells that with gentleness and reverence. And that's probably what you're doing. When you're doing that gently, when you're doing it in that reverence for the Lord, and my reverence for the Lord is how would Jesus speak to them? That's how I want to do that. And so I think you can't always be responsible for their reaction, but you have to be sensitive to their reaction. Um could do in that conversation when she says, I believe, but I'm not sure what I believe in, or whatever. Just ask another question, get them to talk. Well, what is your definition of God? Who would He be for you? What does that mean for you? And you're asking in an open way, not in a I'm not a lawyer cross-examining them. Because a lot of times they'll think out loud or they'll process it better, or you'll get a better feel for where they are. You know? And uh and then they feel like they're in a conversation, not an argument, because we're listening to what they say. And I'm not saying you were an argument, I'm just saying there's maybe a different route you could use. And so just ask who that is, and then maybe you can share with them what who the Bible says Jesus is. You know, because you're right, he's the one that says, I am the resurrection and life. No one comes to the Father but by me. That's in red letters, okay? You can't really, that's what he said, right? I mean, you're exactly right. Uh so maybe you can use a scripture to explain that, and and that way it's not your, you know, so when you're dealing with somebody that's sensitive like that, you also don't know what may make that sensitive. Like there's some reason, probably somewhere that this whole label thing was a thing. And you bumped into that, and there's no way you would have known that until it surfaced, right? And so if you're taking that approach where you ask them to explain, you give them a scripture verse, and just a basic verse, like don't bury them with you know, some deep Romans theological whatever, but just give them a basic verse, right? Um and I think when you do that, that's good. And then if you if you get that tension, if you feel that that's going on like that, and they kind of, you know, sometimes you can back it down or do what we talked about a minute ago. Thank you for sharing that with me. I appreciate that. I appreciate our conversation and whatever, and you can get out that way. But sometimes they just you hit a nerve and they just which sounds like that may be what happened with her. She just hit this nerve and whatever. So I think you can always come back afterwards and do the same thing we mentioned before. Hey, listen, I want to thank you for talking with me about that. I I enjoyed spiritual things, and you know, our friendship means a lot. I'm s I don't want to offend you. I hope I didn't. I'm just very appreciative that, you know, of our friendship when we have that conversation. And usually something like that will bring that right back into a normal thing, and then give you an opportunity. And sometimes they'll re-engage in the conversation right then, or they'll open a door or make it where you can do that in the future. And so then you look for the next door and walk through that. And you've also learned more in that relationship about how they respond. But I think that would be the one thing I would look at in a situation like that is then tell me, you know, explain help me understand, help me, you know, just ask and be open and listen. Because that's where you learn things about what their questions and thoughts and all that are, is when you're able to listen to them explain it. And as they process something out loud, it tends to open that door and give us a chance to walk into that door better. Am I answering your question? Does that make sense? That's a great thank you for sharing. That's a great question. Those are two really good scenarios that help to walk through. All right, what about you? What questions are you afraid someone's going to ask you that hold you back? Yeah. That's right. And uh, and they'll say, so that's a kind of a scenario like that. If you know, if we knew that Jesus wrote it himself or whatever, I'd listen to it. All right. Let me let me give you kind of a backup through this. All right. That scenario, I'll start with that scenario and work back to this one. That's a great because you hear that. There's a the parable of the rich man and the poor man. Do we know this parable off the top of your head? So the rich man, they both die, the poor man goes to heaven, the rich man goes to hell. He comes back to Peter or whoever, and he says, you know, will you send somebody to talk to my brothers? And it is the direct answer to that part of the question. Jesus says that the parable is, the lesson is they already have scripture. They already have the prophets, they haven't listened to them. Sending someone to heaven to talk to them again, some angel or some other miraculous thing, is not going to help because the Bible is sufficient. The message of the prophets is sufficient. And I think that's an important place to start because what we have to do is believe in our minds that the Bible is sufficient. We do not have to prove the Bible or add to the Bible for it to be powerful. If you remember what we said the first week, we quoted scriptures like faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So when they challenge the word of God, which people do, that's one of those questions, right? We don't need to defend Scripture. It does that on its own. Some basic answers about how we got our Bible are fine, but you don't want to get bogged down in some discourse. That's where we are making a choice of faith that the Bible is enough on its own, and it is living and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword, to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, the bones and the marrow. It is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Again, that's a deflection most of the time, not a real discourse. And so we don't want to get bogged down in that. We want to trust in the power of the Bible that it has on its own already. Right? And so I think now you get to then how do we answer that question? Well, here's what we here's what Scripture says about itself. Don't say this is what we believe about scripture. Lawyers will tell you, for example, when you're making an argument, when you say we believe this or I believe this, you've already lessened the strength of your argument. Because you believe that, but I believe something else. What we have is truth. So what you want to say is, here's what the Bible says about itself. And then if you go to 1 Peter 2, chapter 1, it says, we do not have fables or myths contrived by men, but men wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit and wrote the Word of God. So you say, that's what the Bible says about itself. It's the most historically accurate document in all of history. We know what it says. The question is, do you believe it or not? And do you believe the promise that Jesus was sent to be our Savior and you make a beeline right back to salvation? That's how I would answer that. Now, another version of that, I hear this all the time. How many of y'all have heard this? Well, you don't even know what goes in your Bible. A bunch of guys have got together at the Council of Trent, or they'll come up with some other name they've heard, and they said they rolled dice to decide what was in the Bible or not. Y'all heard that? Okay, that's a lie from the pit of hell. That's ridiculous. That is a that is an urban legend that's been started that's just not even remotely close to factually accurate. So you just tell them, I'm sorry somebody's told you that. That is not historically accurate. I can give you a book to read that will tell you what it really is, and then you just move on. I mean, that's just stupid. It's just stupid. Nobody would believe that. That's as bad as Mormons believe they get married in the temple and make babies for all of eternity and populate their planet or something stupid. That's just ridiculous. So that's how it answered that. Go right back to a scripture like that, or the Bible says about itself, you can quote 2 Timothy 3, 15, 16, all scriptures given by God. And what that word is inspired, that means God breathed, he breathed his own life into it, exactly the same word that he breathed life into Adam. And then it's profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction, and righteousness. Here's one other one other way I may give you. Um Proverbs says this. And this is what I'd say. Listen, this is what the Bible says about itself. God wrote it because he knows the human heart, he knows your heart, he knows my heart, he knows how we function, and it applies in ways that scriptures that other books wouldn't ever. Let me give you an example. The Bible says hope deferred or hope set aside makes the heart sick. But uh a dream or a goal realized is soothing to the soul. So let me ask you a question hope set aside makes the heart sick. Is that what life feels like to you? They can't say no, right? That's just an example of how scripture speaks to our hearts, and then you get right back to and he wrote it to tell us that Jesus understands what the loss of hope is, and he came to bring hope. Yeah, and again, if they want to argue that the Bible's not true, then again, what you want to do, if they've put up that wall and they're not gonna open a door, that's when you know you know that's what the Bible says is true about itself. But I want to thank you for sharing your question with me. Thanks for talking with me. I'd I'd be glad to talk some more if you'd like to, I'd love to, but I don't want to push you into you know a conversation you want to have. So thank you. And so you be gracious and you're like it says, you're reverent and gentle, and you and you may win more opportunities, and especially if somebody you have a relationship with, you get more opportunities to come back in. And you don't undo good farming that you've done. Now, here's the other deal: if you're not getting to Jesus and you're not getting to the hope that was in you, it's not a gospel conversation. Right? You know, people, servers today at lunch, have a blessed day, bless this, bless that. Sometimes that's code for I'm a Christian. Sometimes it's not. Um, and you say something to them, we go to church together, whatever. That wasn't a gospel conversation. It may have been a nice conversation, it may have been a good conversation, you may have encouraged somebody, but that's not sharing the gospel. Does it make sense? So it's important we understand and we are in this tension, grasping it, to try to learn to get to the gospel the reason for the hope that is in us. So we're sharing the gospel with them of Jesus. Is that good? That's a great question. That's how I would do that. Now, if you'll notice, part of what happens is be prepared to give a defense for the hope that is in you. That's only about four verses that I've quoted. So that's not difficult to have a few verses that you use that you have prepared. And they're in the EE training that you're doing, it's giving you good verses. We've given you some verses. You don't have to know all of them, and you don't have to be a theologian to share your faith. But being prepared to give a defense or an apology, an apologetic answer for the reason, the hope that is in you, you need some scripture. And again, our belief is what I said a minute ago, the scripture is enough. It's more than sufficient. The Bible says about itself it is living and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword. It is God breathed and profitable for all those things. Does that make sense? I may have told y'all just an example. There's a myriad of these. Um my uncle that lived in California, my dad's oldest brother was a Gideon. We love Gideons, got a couple Gideons around, it's good. Uh they got they share these letters all the time. These people get saved, and y'all know the little bitty Gideon testaments and that onion-y paper, kind of whatever. So they get a letter in their uh in their meeting, uh they shared in one of their meetings. Some guy says, I don't know if you guys know this or not, but that's great marijuana paper. It smokes great. And he said, Somebody gave me one of your Bibles, and I smoked my way through Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And for some reason, I started reading John. And by the time I got to the middle of John, I'd given my life to Jesus. And I'm a Christian, and he changed my life. Okay, I can't give you a better picture of the power of God's word than that. I was doing a singles retreat one time, and we were going in a kind of a conversation like this back and forth, and we're talking about the power of God's word, and there was this guy standing in the back who clearly was a Middle Eastern descent guy. And so we're doing whatever, and he says, and he said, Can I share? I said, Yeah. And so he shares a testimony with me. He's in the Middle East somewhere, and never heard of Jesus, doesn't know anything about it, got his Bible, started reading in Matthew, and thought this story is fascinating. And by the time he got to John, he had given his life to Christ and never met a Christian before. And then he ended up in America school and got a job, and he's going to this Baptist church and he's engaged and all that. The power of God's word is unbelievable. Had another friend lives in uh uh was in Russia, heavy communist, can't have Bibles, can't whatever, all this kind of a deal. Uh and it was in a it was in a stand part of that that had a Muslim kind of a thing in it as well. So like you couldn't read Bibles and missionary there, uh hiding, you know, kind of surreptitiously doing whatever, and there's like a whole journey before you even open a gospel question or whatever. And this guy's sharing his testimony, and what he did was he would write on a piece of paper, he said that big, fit inside your palm, he would write a question, and then the missionary would write an answer and give a or write a Bible verse and give it back to him. And that was their witnessing exchange. And then he asked the guy for a Bible, and the missionary got on a train and rode 24 hours to get to a country where he could actually buy a Bible, and he smuggled it back in, gave it to this guy, wrote on a piece of paper, read these chapters, and the guy got saved. That's his testimony. Power of God's word. And then he shared this later about our Western culture, how we don't really have enough elevation of scripture. He said he went to uh graduate school in England and he goes into London and there's a bookstore. Now remember, his Bible that he got, a missionary rode on a train 24 hours to get far enough away to buy a Bible, smuggled it back in, and that's the little Bible that he had. He walks in a bookstore in London, and there's a wall of Bibles. And he said, I just began to weep that Bibles and people have access to how I met Jesus. And some lady walks in, and he wasn't telling this to be critical, but she walks in and she's looking at him and she goes, I don't like this color, and I don't like this font, and this is not whatever, and I don't like this, and he's weeping over he's never seen Bibles before, right? And he said, at some point I couldn't help it. I just looked at her and I said, I'm from whatever country, and they're illegal in my country, and this is wonderful. Just buy a Bible. You know, and and he wasn't trying to be ugly, and she wasn't trying to be, but it's just that example of we don't a lot of times have that depth of belief in scripture, and you mean I could tell you story, and any pastor or any missionary could just tell you story after story after story about all these people. Man, they got nothing but the word of God and they get saved. That makes sense. All right, another question you get. Those are great. No, you're doing it right. Remember, gentleness and reverence. We're explaining all that, right? So here's the question if y'all couldn't hear it. Um, when you're witnessing to somebody, some of the hardest people to witness to are people who claim they know Jesus and they know enough to throw a verse at you or something, but they clearly are not living any kind of life that looks like a Christian whatsoever. Yeah, they've made a golden calf out of this image of Jesus that they've created. Dr. Tucker, when I was working at state convention for him, Dr. Sonny Tucker, he used to say this all the time. Uh here in Arkansas, we're dealing so many times with people who are preaching hardened. They've heard Bible messages and they've heard that so often, their heart is hard to it now, and they just don't even hear it or care, or they've made their own thing. And so I think that's right. I think what you do, what I would say in that person with that situation is if you know that, again, go back to that other conversation, then who is Jesus to you? And you make them define it. You ask them to define it, and they'll babble around and they don't really have a good answer. The next thing I would say is that you're trying to get them to the point of the decision point of salvation. It's the same thing when we have people come down the aisle. Matt and I talked about before, um, they come to join the church and he goes, there ever been a point in your life when you're saved, and they go, Yeah, I grew up in church, and I've always known Jesus, loved me, and you know, stuff like that. Then I want to ask you, has there ever been a moment in your life where you've given your life to Jesus Christ and you've surrendered your life to him? So what you may want to do with them is preface that question by, let me show you how, let me share with you how I met Jesus, and you share the two-minute version of your testimony, which includes, This is when I recognized I was a sinner, and how I recognize that, and how I surrendered my life to Jesus, and it's not mine anymore. Would you mind sharing with me that moment in your life where you met Jesus? And one of two things will happen. They have that moment, and then they'll be convicted by the Holy Spirit of how they're living because they've reminded and said out of their mouth, even if they don't use the same words, they had to answer your testimony of you surrendered your life to Jesus, and he will remind them, you surrendered your life to me, and you're not living that way. Or they won't have an answer, and you've brought them to this point where you've better defined the gospel. And if they still get mad back out, you've laid the groundwork and sowed more seeds than before by sharing the gospel, but it's not in a confrontational way, it is in the context of your testimony and sharing your testimony. The two most powerful things you have are the Word of God, when you use a scripture verse. First, and the second thing is the testimony of your changed life. And scripture has all through it validates the testimony of believers. And so that's how I would handle that and work through that with them. It's a great question. Let me give you one more. You heard this. Well, I don't go to church because there's hypocrites there. It's really hard for me at this point when I hear that not to laugh out loud at them because that's such an idiotic comment. Yeah. It is a they go to work, right? It is a that is a deflection. Okay, that's maybe there's a rare person who got hurt at church or some kind of a deal, and they got some deal, and that's a different conversation. Most of the time that's a deflection. Hypocrites of church, whatever. And I would just say, you know, with all due respect, that's not how I view church. And then you just explain, this is what the Bible says church is. All of us are sinners. And you've seen me use this illustration, and I use it on purpose and repeat it on purpose. I had a pulpit committee one time, they uh they said, We need to see more sermons or different sermons from you because you use that example of the cross thing all the time. And I said, Well, if that's a problem for you, then I'm not your pastor. Because I use that on purpose because it's the fundamental explanation of what a Christian is. There hypocrisy is not an issue in the church. This is what happens. All of us, if Jesus is here, all of us, the nature of sin is walking away from Jesus. I'm doing life my own way. When you give your life to Christ, it is a choice of faith that you make where you realize Jesus died on the cross for my sins, and I turn, I repent from that, and I turn to Jesus. But I still am 99% more, look like lost Greg. I'm not immediately changed, but I've begun the process of being changed. And now what happens is I'm love with Jesus because He's forgiven me and He's saved me, and I'm now clean and no forgiveness for the first time in my life, and it draws me even closer to the one that saved me. So I take a step closer to Jesus. I'm still a whole lot closer to a lost person than I was, but now I'm closer to Jesus than I've ever been. Well, something happens. I now see my life in light of the cross in a closer way than I ever have, and I see sins in my life that I didn't know were sins or I didn't care were sins. But Jesus who saved me, I now see this in light of Jesus, and he fixes those things. He convinces them, I've I confess them, he takes them out of my life, he puts something new in, and now I am clean before him, and I have a joy that I've never had before, and it draws me closer to Jesus, and I take a step of faith closer to the cross than I've ever been. But now I see my life in light of the cross in a way I never had before. And now I see new things that are sin and new things that are a problem. And now he steps into my life and he takes those out and he puts some new things in, and now I'm clean again. I've never been this clean before. I'm in love with Jesus, and so now what I do is I take another step of faith closer to Jesus. And now I see myself in light of the cross. That's what the Christian life is, right? Okay, this person right here who's taken two steps to Jesus and they act out and do something weird and cuss somebody and do whatever, they're not a hypocrite. They're in third grade as a Christian. They're just learning. That's not hypocrisy. That's learning. And all of us are somewhere in this journey learning. And none of us are like Jesus completely, and we won't be until we get to heaven. We don't ever graduate to be Jesus-like. The Bible says in 2 Timothy, discipline yourselves toward godliness. The goal is not becoming godly, the goal is becoming more godly than I was yesterday, and next week I'm more godly than I was this week, and next year I'm more godly than I was this year. It's toward godliness. That's what the Bible says. Again, Bible verses, toward godliness. And so what you think as a hypocrite, I see as a person who's in their journey, growing and being transformed, and there's just some area of their life they hadn't gotten to yet. You want to know what mine are? I got several. And like you have immediately eradicated that, and you've brought right back to that's what Jesus does is he saves us and he changes us and he draws them to himself, and we become more clean than we've ever been, and it continues to draw us to the person who's doing that in our life. And that's how you end that hypocritic question. Yes, sir? Okay. It's a great question. And there's a lot of settings for that. There's that kind of setting. The question is, how do you begin these conversations? How to do that when you're in a place where you're not allowed to do that? So it may be in that setting, it may be in a workplace, it may be a public school teacher or coach or somebody that can't. So what you do is be you trust what Scripture says. Be ready to give a defense for the reason of the hope that is in you. And he's in this context talking about being a lost world where he's saying, you, in essence, let your light shine before men, and you act with godliness, and you will stick out to the people around you. You may even be persecuted for it, but there's going to be a difference in your life, which calls us to live a different life. And what happens is that will open doors. It will create relationship deals. When you get out of group, or you get off work, or it's break time, and students come to you, right? I I love teachers that are the ones that everybody wants to hang out in their room and they bring their lunch back to their room and they're off period and stuff like that. Those teachers are great. They come in and ask that, and I even share, right? And so I had lunch, had breakfast with a guy this morning, and he was talking about his wife, who was a teacher and all that. And he, man, he talked about she went and visited her kids in the hospital that were in hospitals and did all that, and they did teaching the way we do church, and that created opportunities for her to share Jesus. And so what you do is you're just in that setting and you're praying and you're looking for your servant-heartedness, your being gracious, your hope that's in your life creates the opportunity for you to have a moment where you can open that door. And I think that's how you do that. You're not going to win anything being disrespectful in a place where you're not supposed to do that, but you have relationships that should create opportunities to move forward. Does that make sense? Let me give you one thought, and then we'll I know we need to kind of wind up here. Uh let me give you one thought. Matt and I talked about today about your love list. Again, the scripture says, for the hope that is in you, right? For the hope that is in you. Uh and so that means two things. Number one, there should be a hope in your life. I mean, this whole sharing begins with, in your hearts, regard Christ the Lord as holy. That's how there's a hope in our lives. We have to live an abundant life in Christ. You got nothing to share if you're not living an abundant life in Christ. That doesn't mean you're perfect, but it means you have Jesus coming out of your life. If Jesus is in our life, Jesus ought to come out. And so we have to have a life that exudes Christ-likeness. And so that means you're not allowed to be a jerk. You're not allowed to lie to people. You're not allowed to criticize stuff all the time. You've got to be servant-hearted. You're supposed to be nice to people. I mean, all these things that we're supposed to do, we're supposed to do that. You're not supposed to cuss at the coffee pot at work and look like somebody and never went to church. Does that make sense? I mean, you got to be different. And you can't underestimate the power of being different, right? I mean, I think y'all know I despise alcohol and drinking alcohol. It's flat out evil. And you can argue with me about Jesus turned water and wine, and you can ignore the historicity of all that stuff. Don't care. It's a sin. Go read Proverbs and read what it says. When did Proverbs get cut out of our Bibles? When it is intoxicating, it says you're not even supposed to look at it. Right? And this is what really offends me. I practice law, okay? Nobody drinks like lawyers drink. Sailors don't drink like lawyers drink because sailors can't afford $400 snifters of brandy. Like nobody drinks like lawyers. I didn't drink. And you know what? You know how many times I got to share my faith? Because I didn't drink. Right? Like I'm glad Gen Zers or whoever argued about being able to drink whatever they're doing, whatever. I don't care. Those people are dying and going to hell, and you are leaving on the table an opportunity to be different and live for Jesus, where people will ask you why you don't do that. And if somebody's offended, you can come apologize to me after church. Now that's really what I think. Right? I mean, we gotta understand that. We got to live a life that is powerful in Jesus. That's gotta happen, right? Okay, second thing. You have to create an intentional conversation where you are describing church in terms of that. If you're praying over your love list to invite somebody to church, you lay the groundwork by positive images and testimony of what church is doing in your life. Right? I mean, we live in a critical world, and people are critical and they criticize their own church and all that. I mean, it happens all the time. People criticizing church and they're criticizing church, and that preacher did this, and this people did that, and some person of church lied about me and did whatever, and we get all this, and we're all that you can't do that. How are you gonna invite anybody to that church? Right? And you've got to create an intentional conversation where the people around you, you are sharing how God is using your church family to impact your life. Now, don't say this. You guys are very gracious sitting through my sermons, okay? I am grateful that you guys are gracious enough to do that. Do not ever tell somebody you love church because your preacher preaches whatever. Don't say that. That's not going to impact them. Don't tell them how good your music is because you love your choir. Most people in church who are lost have never heard of a choir. They don't know what a choir is, they don't know anything about it. What you want to tell them is my kids are flourishing. What's happening in church? Man, I want you to know my kids, man, they are learning to be gracious. My son said thank you to four people the other day, and I couldn't believe that came. I mean, it's awesome. My kids are learning this. My kids have got friends that I never thought we would have. That's what you're trying to tell. A reason for the hope that is in you. What you want to share about church is how it's impacting your life. If God used a sermon, praise the Lord, I ask him to do that. Don't say anything about the sermon. You say, man, I'm so excited about this. I want to share with you what God's been teaching in my life. It's about Jesus, it's not about somebody else. Does that make sense? And you need to intentionally seed your conversations where you're talking about how blessed you are in what's going on at church. Does that make sense? And you then create an opportunity when you now invite somebody to church, you're inviting them to something that you have made wonderful over a period of conversations. And what you make wonderful is the impact, the impact of what's happening. Does that make sense? I want to make sure I explain this right. Questions about that? Y'all with me? We either don't talk about it enough, or we have some, we're friendly with somebody at work, or we drink coffee with in the mornings, or whatever it is, and we just sort of unload whatever. You can't unload about church to people you're trying to invite to church. If you want to argue about church, come to church and argue with us about it. Okay? Out there, you're a witness and you're sharing Jesus, and you are sharing the impact of church in a positive way that creates a hunger in their life for what that is. Does that make sense? We had a when I was practicing law, young couple, we're all having babies. So there was a lady who was a lawyer in the office next to me. We had graduated from law school at the same time, so we were kind of have the same workload, we were at the same level in the firm, you know, that kind of a deal. And so we had just had Grant. So we had Mabrie, who was two, Grant was a baby, and I come back to work. She had just had a baby about the same time that we had Grant. She had like a two or three-year-old, right? And so we come to work and everything's good, and I'm trucking along, and I'm not sleeping just like parents do when you got newborns, all that kind of deal. But I'm happy, things are good, we're trucking along, and she's falling apart. And she finally comes in my office one day and she closes the door and she said, Okay, I gotta know what your secret is. Janet had a baby, same time I did, you got the same number of kids in the house. You we're falling apart. We can't even get dinner made. Like, I I I can't sleep. We're coming apart. And I said, What do you mean, dinner made? Like, how long were your friends bringing you dinner? And she said, What are you talking about? And I said, Well, one way we're not falling apart is because our Sunday school class is wonderful, and they have been bringing us dinner for two weeks. And she's like, I never heard of that. I said, Well, this is what makes church awesome. I said, Let me tell you how good this is. Not only do they bring dinner, but everybody's showing off. So the dinners are awesome because they're bringing their best meals, and they're bringing dinner and dessert and all of this, and so I'm putting on weight because of what we're eating, and they bring so much, I've got no room left in the freezer because we can't even eat it all, and we're gonna be eating for a month. And she's like, I mean, she gets teary-eyed, like she's never heard of this before. And it's like, okay, well, now we're gonna sit down, we're gonna talk about Jesus, we're gonna talk about what it means to be a Christian and be in church, right? I mean, you get opportunities to share what church means in incredibly meaningful ways, and it opens doors, and now you're inviting them to something, not that they think is weird or whatever kind of a thing, but it's this thing you've given this testimony about, and how hard is it? It is not hard at all to tie the body of Christ to Christ, the reason for the hope that is in us. And it keeps you focused on your love list and it creates opportunities for that. Does that make sense? And you guys have a way easier way of doing that. I'm telling you, every time somebody asks me what I do, and I tell them I'm the pastor at First Baptist Church, like it's the ultimate wet blanket, shut the door. You guys don't have that problem. Right? So invite them to church. I mean, we were on a cruise one time, or one of the cruises we've taken, which I hate cruises, by the way. So we were on this cruise, we're eating dinner at this table, and I'm I'm, you know, minister and we're going around. They sit, y'all been this right, sit at this table, and there's like five couples at the table, and everybody's going around and they're telling what they do, and they're all ordering wine, and the Somalier comes and they're going around the thing, and they get back to me, and everybody's going, What do you do? And there's this guy and this business guy and this guy, this guy, whatever, and they're all drinking wine. And Janice looking at me like, Yo case coming to you, big boy. What you gonna do? And they got to me and they say, Well, what do you do? And I say, Well, my name is Greg, and I'm a lawyer. I mean, I'm I'm a wet blanket, right? But that's all right. I keep throwing that wet blanket out there, sharing folks. And so, good? You guys good? The church thing is important, it's a part of the hope that is in us is we're members of the body of Christ and the difference it makes in our lives. And you need to use that to seed your love list, okay? Let's pray. Lord, thank you for today. Great sharing. Thank you for folks sharing their experiences and encouraging each other, and we're all in this same journey, and it's just kind of great because every question somebody asks, everybody nods their head, so we all have these experiences. And I just thank you for our our fellowship here and the time we have and the sharing of this so we can we can prepare ourselves to be ready as your word commands us. I pray as they're doing the things online, as they're going back over our discussions, as they're reading these scriptures, as they're working on their uh testimony and how to share that. Lord, I pray that you'll bless them and meet with them and encourage them and build that hope within them. Let them know how how blessed you are as their Heavenly Father, that you are, as this verse says, sanctifying Christ in our lives as Lord by preparing and being ready and open for you to open these doors. And Father, I pray that you'll help us as we live in the conflict to embrace the conflict, to step out in faith and learn this sharing process. And Father, I pray that you'll open doors for them. We pray for every love list in the room. We pray for opportunities to invite them to church, to share our salvation testimony, to clarify the gospel, and we pray for folks to be saved on our love lists. Father, I pray you'll bless our folks. Thank you for our time together tonight. Thank you for the great, just a great setting and fellowship. And I just thank you for the spirit we have in doing this together. We know that all comes from you and you sharing our love, your love through us. It is in Jesus' name we pray the reason for the hope that's in us. And everybody says, Hey, thank you all. Thank y'all.