SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Lookout weekly podcast.
SPEAKER_00: Church of the Lookout is in Boulder, Colorado, and our vision is Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love.
SPEAKER_00: Visit us online at thelookout.church.
SPEAKER_00: If you have your Bibles, I do want to invite you to open up to Acts chapter 1 today.
SPEAKER_00: That's where we're going to start.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And so this week, we're jumping into a new teaching series that's going to take us over the next several weeks, and we're going to have some different guest speakers in.
SPEAKER_00: And it's called Witness, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And I'll explain that here in a second.
SPEAKER_00: But if you have your Bibles, let's start with Acts chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up.
SPEAKER_00: After he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen, he presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You heard from me, for John baptized you with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.
SPEAKER_00: He said to them, And when he said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks be to God.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jesus, for your word.
SPEAKER_00: And as we come into this place this morning, we just ask that you would illuminate our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And even now, Jesus, we take a moment to pause to become aware of your presence with us.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that we don't get to just talk about you, but we get to live life with you.
SPEAKER_00: And so this morning, I pray for myself, I pray for all of us as we open the scriptures, God, that you would speak to us.
SPEAKER_00: You would make us more like you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So some of you guys know Acts chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: If you've never read the book of Acts, this is the second book written by the apostle Luke.
SPEAKER_00: And he was writing an account, an orderly account of everything Jesus began to do and teach in the gospel of Luke.
SPEAKER_00: And then Acts was everything that Jesus continued to do and teach through the early apostles and the release of the Holy Spirit as the early church was just getting its legs, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so this final moment that he records of Jesus right before he ascends into heaven, Jesus is telling his disciples, listen, I'm about to go.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to wait in Jerusalem, and I want you to wait for the promise of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And when he comes upon you, you are going to become my witnesses in Judea, Samaria, and all the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're not familiar with the geography, that means nothing to you about Judea and Samaria.
SPEAKER_00: That would be like saying, you will be my witnesses in Niwat, in Boulder County, in Colorado, in all of the United States, in the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: It's just kind of a concentric ring of circles.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to start here, but it's not going to stay here.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to And that's why today, 2,000 years later and 6,800 miles away, that's why we're still here talking about it in this room today.
SPEAKER_00: Because they were his witnesses and the message did spread into the entire world.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody say amen.
SPEAKER_00: And so he says, you will be my witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: And this was an important word for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It was a charge.
SPEAKER_00: This word, you will be my witness.
UNKNOWN: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: is an important one because it's not just an identity, it's a mission.
SPEAKER_00: It's an identity over them that they're going to He said, you're gonna have an encounter with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So you are a witness or you've encountered me.
SPEAKER_00: So you're a witness to everything I've done and everything I've said, the life that I live.
SPEAKER_00: But now your mission is to share what you've heard and what you've seen with the world around.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you guys know that word witness.
SPEAKER_00: We have that word in our culture, right?
SPEAKER_00: And it's the same thing in the ancient world, a witness with somebody who had a firsthand experience, right?
SPEAKER_00: And in a legal setting, you weren't even a valid witness until you had seen, heard, or been a part of the event, right?
SPEAKER_00: You couldn't pass along hearsay.
SPEAKER_00: A witness had to bear truth from personal encounter.
SPEAKER_00: So this was the story of the early church.
SPEAKER_00: What happened from here on out as we read through the book of Acts, account after account of men and women as they were faithful to Jesus to bear witness to what they had seen and what they had heard.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes this would actually get them in trouble, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because as they were proclaiming that this Messiah, Jesus, had died and now he's resurrected and this has changed everything.
SPEAKER_00: This was threatening to some of the religious leaders.
SPEAKER_00: He said, hey, how about you keep that quiet?
SPEAKER_00: How about you stop with that resurrection talk?
SPEAKER_00: And here's what Peter says in Acts chapter four, verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: But Peter and John answered them, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you So listen, you say what you need to say, you do what you need to do, but I cannot unsee what Christ has shown me.
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: That's how it works when you even counter Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul had the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't with Jesus originally, but we read the story in Acts how he's on his journey on the way to Damascus.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus encounters him with a bright light.
SPEAKER_00: And from that moment, his identity changed.
SPEAKER_00: He was no longer a murderer of Christians.
SPEAKER_00: He was now an apostle called by God to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: And it changed everything for him.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul, as he would go out, he would show up to sit and he would find any crowd he could find.
SPEAKER_00: He'd go to the temple.
SPEAKER_00: He would go to where the Greeks would meet in the city square, and he would start proclaiming, this is who Jesus is and what he's done.
SPEAKER_00: And he'd get, as you would imagine, some mixed reaction, right?
SPEAKER_00: There's a few people who would respond and said, that sounds like really good news.
SPEAKER_00: Other people said, that sounds like terrible news, and they threw rocks at him, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so it was a mixed bag.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't have a great audience everywhere he goes, but he did find a few everywhere he went.
SPEAKER_00: He would proclaim this is who Jesus is and what he's done, a few would respond and he would gather them.
SPEAKER_00: They would start meeting in homes and start just looking over all the teachings of Jesus and establishing their lives in the scriptures and in the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: And they just ran this play over and over and over in every city, proclaiming the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: And as that proclamation went, how hearts started to open up, started to be drawn to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And then they would start gathering together to be equipped with everything Jesus did and taught.
SPEAKER_00: And so you will be my witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: This is the life that Jesus invited us into, empowered by the Holy Spirit, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so this year, as you know, like I said, we've doubled down on this larger theme of for the sake of others.
SPEAKER_00: We're praying for the one.
SPEAKER_00: We've encouraged you guys to have somebody this year that God has targeted in your life that you're praying for every day because you believe that God wants to do something great in their life.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have your one, find your one and commit to praying for them.
SPEAKER_00: We've been doing so loved, moments of love and action, and we've doubled down on this over the last several weeks because we know that preaching the gospel is not just in theory, but in actual movement, right?
SPEAKER_00: You guys are going to have to talk back to me this morning, all right?
SPEAKER_00: Loving others is not just a good idea.
SPEAKER_00: It's got to get skin to it.
SPEAKER_00: You got to put a touch to it.
SPEAKER_00: Love that can be seen and can be felt.
SPEAKER_00: It's not love until it looks like something, which is very true.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to keep moving on that.
SPEAKER_00: But at some point, we also must be ready to talk about what we have seen and heard.
SPEAKER_00: So acts of kindness in and of themselves can earn a space in someone's life.
SPEAKER_00: They might be a conversation starter, but we also must be ready to speak of what we have encountered in the person of Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_00: And the reality is people don't just hear the gospel by osmosis.
SPEAKER_00: I know that you're awesome, but just because you're in the presence of somebody doesn't necessarily mean that they're hearing that Jesus is proclaimed.
SPEAKER_00: It's like this Babylon Bee article that came out.
SPEAKER_00: Despite Susan saying, let's put this up.
SPEAKER_00: Despite Susan saying, God bless you every time somebody sees us, the co-workers still haven't asked about her faith.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we assume a lot on basic things.
SPEAKER_00: But there comes a time where we have to be prepared to give an answer with our faith.
SPEAKER_00: Now, listen here.
SPEAKER_00: This is where we're going to anchor in for today.
SPEAKER_00: Historically in the church, there is a word for this.
SPEAKER_00: The word is evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say it with me.
SPEAKER_00: Evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: Now say it in a really deep, slow accent.
SPEAKER_00: Evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: Like you really mean it, all right?
SPEAKER_00: Now, when I said that word, when you heard yourself say that word, did your body have a visceral reaction?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Did you feel a lump in the back of your throat or maybe your stomach drop a little bit, a little tingle up your spine?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you had a visceral reaction based on your emotional attachment to the word.
SPEAKER_00: Now, a lot of us do.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that was a good reaction.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we say the word evangelism and there's a gratefulness that wells up in your heart because now you're thinking about the first time somebody cared enough to speak to you about the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But we're living in a time where that word evangelism, let's just, to kind of own this for a couple minutes here.
SPEAKER_00: It's not always the most popular word in our culture, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna walk you through a few things that come to mind, and this may be for some of us.
SPEAKER_00: When we hear the word evangelism, here's a few things that come to mind.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's historical accounts of global colonialist conquest, converting people in the name of Christ, often with violence and the loss of life.
SPEAKER_00: We have to kind of own that in history, right?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe what comes to mind is the street preachers on the boxes, and they have the A-frame signs, and they're saying, repent! The end is near! Save yourself from the fire of hell, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so we hear, we just have the image of somebody yelling at us from a street corner, though that doesn't quite happen as much as it did, you know, used to.
SPEAKER_00: That still is, for some of us, kind of an image that comes up when we talk about evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us, it's the two guys going door to door.
SPEAKER_00: They knock on the door.
SPEAKER_00: And you open it and their opening line is, if you were to die tonight, right?
SPEAKER_00: Which I just want to throw this out there.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the best opening line, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Bring them a plate of cookies instead, all right?
SPEAKER_00: But some of us have that.
SPEAKER_00: As a working memory.
SPEAKER_00: It might bring to mind more of an apologetic approach of debating somebody about biblical accounts, maybe debating an atheist about the truth and validity of biblical accounts.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's your working definition of evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's the memory at the end of a church service when the preacher does the call, and they ask everybody to kind of raise their hand to receive Jesus, and they say, you know, I see that I see that hand, I see that hand, and then you look up, and it's like, dude, there's like one hand in the room, right?
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, what's going on here?
SPEAKER_00: But it's that moment when you invite a friend to church, you have the courage to invite a friend to church, and you're just hoping on that particular day it's not weirder than most days, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you like the weird stuff, just not when your friends show up to church, right?
UNKNOWN: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Or it could be as something as wild as this, another Babylon Bee satirical article.
SPEAKER_00: A man cuts off an atheist so he'll see his Christian bumper stickers.
SPEAKER_00: Are you following Jesus this closely?
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of ways.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of things that come to mind with evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: But that's why even before we talk about being a witness, we need to have a come to Jesus conversation about evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: Are you guys with me?
SPEAKER_00: We're in a unique time.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you know that feeling of when somebody finds out you're a Christian, and you can see it on their face, when everything they've come to believe about Christians on TV or in the news, or maybe it's just headlines about scandals or abuses in leadership, they project all of that back onto you once they find out you're a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had that feeling?
SPEAKER_00: And sadly, there's too many people that are clear about what Christians are against, but they're not entirely clear about what we're for.
SPEAKER_00: And so everything in you, when you get into conversations like that, there's a temptation to want to separate yourselves from other Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that other people have done that, but I am not like that.
SPEAKER_00: And almost from get-go, When Jesus comes up in a conversation, sometimes we feel like we have to defend, we have to set apart, we have to differentiate, and it brings up a whole lot of inner turmoil in our very beings.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not all bad.
SPEAKER_00: Even Jesus had to do this a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus had an interesting relationship with evangelism as well.
SPEAKER_00: This should bring some comfort to you as well, if that's how you've ever felt.
SPEAKER_00: Because he was dealing with some religious leaders who were evangelizing, but they were just turning people into who they were, which were not good people, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And the character of their lives were not representative of God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And so even Jesus had to call this out.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 23, 15, he says this.
SPEAKER_00: Woe to you.
SPEAKER_00: This is strong language.
SPEAKER_00: He says this.
SPEAKER_00: Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites, You travel over land and sea to win a single convert.
SPEAKER_00: There's that word.
SPEAKER_00: And when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you are like, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody talks like that.
SPEAKER_00: Like this is not some kind of disgruntled millennial blogger.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, he says, you're going, you're traveling the land, you're making converts, but you're making them a son of hell.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's who you are.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus even, he bristled at the thought of why would you even, don't even bother, why would you do that if it's not coming from the pure source?
SPEAKER_00: No, Jesus had to call this out because it does have to be called out.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, in all four gospels, all four gospels end with a call to his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.
SPEAKER_00: teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you.
SPEAKER_00: Go preach the gospel to the entire world.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not that Jesus gave up on evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he doubled down on it.
SPEAKER_00: But even Jesus knows how important it is that the words of our life and the words of our mouth match the message of our lives when it comes to what we share about God.
SPEAKER_00: Are you guys with me?
SPEAKER_00: So there's a conflict that we have to address.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes this even comes to you the conflict has to do is, what is our responsibility when it comes to sharing our faith?
SPEAKER_00: Because in a pluralistic society, where everything goes, that's where we're living right now, in a pluralistic society, it feels immoral to preach the gospel when one of the highest cultural values is tolerance.
SPEAKER_00: It actually feels immoral to tell somebody what you believe.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So, According to a 2019 Barna report, catch this, 94% of millennial Christians who are deeply committed to their faith said the best thing that could ever happen to a person is for them to come to know Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: 94%.
SPEAKER_00: The best thing that could ever happen to a person is to come to know Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: However, over half of those same people said it would be morally and ethically wrong to share your personal beliefs with somebody who had different beliefs.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So if somebody has a different belief than yours, the proper, respectful, loving thing to do is to allow them to remain in their belief without question, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So in other words, we believe this is incredibly good news.
SPEAKER_00: We also believe that sharing this good news is bad.
SPEAKER_00: Do you guys feel that?
SPEAKER_00: And do you see how that is incongruent?
SPEAKER_00: So we're living in a time we have to reconcile the culture we live in with the commands of Christ and the call of Jesus to be witnesses of everything he's done, everything he's taught, and the life he's coming to give.
SPEAKER_00: And because of these things, here's what's happened.
SPEAKER_00: Because we don't know how to engage, oftentimes, in the public sphere, we've turned our faith into a privatized personal experience.
SPEAKER_00: So hear me on this.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us, we're totally good showing up on a Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to put my praise hands up.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to shout.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to sing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to sing on the first chorus.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to sing even louder on the second chorus.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to pray.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to listen to the word.
SPEAKER_00: But when I go home, I'm going to simmer down.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do my church thing at church, and the rest of my week is going to be, I'm going to play it pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the mantra of our day is just don't ask, don't tell, you do you, you let them do them, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so the risk for us here is rather than Jesus being the Lord of our life, he's the Lord of our church life.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where a lot of, I think, Christians in the West have come.
SPEAKER_00: We have kind of adopted Christ.
SPEAKER_00: A privatized religion where I'm just going to be quiet, I'm going to live, do my thing, but there is no responsibility for me to be a witness to anything I've experienced in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Never mind the fact that we preach a lot of other gospels.
SPEAKER_00: We have no problem evangelizing.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of other kinds of fundamentalism and evangelism happening in our culture.
SPEAKER_00: There's fundamentalism as it relates to politics.
SPEAKER_00: There's evangelism as it relates to upward mobility and careerism and climate change and materialism and sexuality and even postmodern gender theory.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of evangelism that happens in our culture around a lot of different ideals.
SPEAKER_00: And we're always speaking of things we've seen and heard.
SPEAKER_00: Did you see that Nuggets game?
SPEAKER_00: Did you hear what Trump said?
SPEAKER_00: Did you see the new iPhone?
SPEAKER_00: Did you hear the new Coldplay record?
SPEAKER_00: We're always talking about things we've seen and heard.
SPEAKER_00: We're witnesses to a lot of things.
SPEAKER_00: We have no issue evangelizing about the things that don't ruffle feathers.
SPEAKER_00: But the thing that potentially is the most meaningful thing in our life we don't know how to relate to it anymore.
SPEAKER_00: So over time We traded a fiery, bold public faith of our youth for a silent whisper, if anything at all.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's how author Henry Nouwen says this in his book, Reaching Out, which is a fantastic book.
SPEAKER_00: Here's how he says this.
SPEAKER_00: As a reaction to a very aggressive, manipulative, and often degrading type of evangelism, we sometimes have become hesitant to make our own religious convictions known, thereby losing our sense of witness.
SPEAKER_00: Although at times it seems better to deepen our own commitments than to evangelize others, it belongs to the core of Christian spirituality to reach out to the other with good news.
SPEAKER_00: It's the core of our faith to be recipients of good news and to be bearers of good news in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's why this is so important right now.
SPEAKER_00: If I haven't depressed you enough at this point, here's why this is actually good news for us even today.
SPEAKER_00: Some stats would show that religious affiliation in the West is waning.
SPEAKER_00: And every stat, and that church attendance is going down, all these things.
SPEAKER_00: Yet, All of the new stats are showing that actually people are craving to believe in something.
SPEAKER_00: Now, last Sunday, which was Easter Sunday, I woke up and in my inbox was an article from the New York Times.
SPEAKER_00: And the title of this article was America Wants a God.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the quotes from this article says this, this country seems to be acknowledging the widespread spiritual hunger.
SPEAKER_00: America's secularization is on pause.
SPEAKER_00: People have stopped leaving churches and religion is taking a more prominent role in public life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not kidding you.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I got from the New York Times last week.
SPEAKER_00: And it referenced an article from earlier in the year called One Nation Under God.
SPEAKER_00: And in this article, they talk about there's actually what's happening right now in the nation.
SPEAKER_00: There's a great reversal of a decades-long trend of people leaving the church.
SPEAKER_00: And actually, it's reversing.
SPEAKER_00: People are coming back to church, and there's an increase of what they call spiritual openness.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to show you a few stats of the spiritual openness.
SPEAKER_00: Let's show this next slide.
SPEAKER_00: This is from the New York Times, all right?
SPEAKER_00: This isn't like a fringe, sub-Christian, you know, study.
SPEAKER_00: This is New York Times.
SPEAKER_00: Share of U.S.
SPEAKER_00: adults who believe that either people have a soul Guys, did you guys hear me?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: 92%.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you were to find these people, they're not all attributing that to a specific person.
SPEAKER_00: or a God or Jesus, all right?
SPEAKER_00: Let's just be fair there.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what that's saying.
SPEAKER_00: But what it's saying that in our culture, 92% of people suspect that there is more to this life than what we're experiencing.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a hunger and there's a thirst.
SPEAKER_00: And what we are, what this means is that we are living in the age of spiritual curiosity.
SPEAKER_00: God is stirring up a hunger for him again.
SPEAKER_00: he's stirring up a hunger for himself again.
SPEAKER_00: Now, 20% of US adults are practicing Christians, but this particular stat and other stats that are around the same, say, yeah, 92%.
SPEAKER_00: of adults are either completely certain or somewhat certain.
SPEAKER_00: There is a spiritual dimension to life.
SPEAKER_00: And this explains a lot.
SPEAKER_00: This is why a lot of movies that are happening, especially in a secular age, a lot of movies are supernatural or paranormal, which means people are not freaked out about spiritual things.
SPEAKER_00: People are looking for answers to spiritual things to explain what they are feeling in their experience, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so we're living in a time where there's a growing openness.
SPEAKER_00: College campuses are experiencing revivals and outpourings an escalating degree across our nation.
SPEAKER_00: College campuses are experiencing an escalation of God coming in power.
SPEAKER_00: Gen Z is giving their hearts to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have the same baggage as their parents.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have the same, they're not disenfranchised and disillusioned and deconstructed like their parents.
SPEAKER_00: Like they are responding to the gospel in a way that is so fresh and so new and they don't care who knows and they are ready to tell the world about it.
SPEAKER_00: And this is so important, guys.
SPEAKER_00: This is so important.
SPEAKER_00: We have a paradigm because we're coming from an age where we think that nobody wants to hear.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants to hear what I have to say.
SPEAKER_00: But even Jesus himself said that the harvest is plenty and laborers are few.
SPEAKER_00: So why do we live as if the harvest is few while the laborers are plenty?
SPEAKER_00: The harvest is plenty.
SPEAKER_00: But the question is, do we know in our day and in our time, in our generation, how to move with Jesus to meet the ones he's after.
SPEAKER_00: Paul continued to press into this in Romans chapter 10.
SPEAKER_00: He says this to the Roman church.
SPEAKER_00: He says,"'How then will they call on him"'in whom they have not believed?
SPEAKER_00: "'And how are they to believe in him"'in whom they have never heard?' And how are they to hear without somebody preaching?
SPEAKER_00: And how are they to preach unless they are sent as it is written?
SPEAKER_00: How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.
SPEAKER_00: And later on, he would say, listen, have I shrunk back from preaching the whole counsel of God to you?
SPEAKER_00: He's like, no.
SPEAKER_00: I haven't held anything back from you.
SPEAKER_00: I've given you the whole counsel of God without shrinking back.
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever feel the temptation to shrink back?
SPEAKER_00: I have.
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever feel, come on, be honest.
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel the temptation to shrink back?
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel the temptation to cool it, to chill, to just keep that to yourself?
SPEAKER_00: I think we all do.
SPEAKER_00: But it's important to know that for those of us who have seen and heard the living Christ, if that's true of you, then there's an invitation to talk about what you've seen and what you've heard.
SPEAKER_00: And so even atheists understand this.
SPEAKER_00: There's a somebody that you probably are aware of, kind of like a magician do, Penn and Teller.
SPEAKER_00: Penn Jillette from Penn and Teller, years ago, he recorded a video, and he's a Sanche atheist, at least at the time.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where he's at now.
SPEAKER_00: But he recorded a video about what he thinks about evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: Let's take a look at this video.
SPEAKER_01: And I've always said, you know, that I don't respect people who don't proselytize.
SPEAKER_01: I don't respect that at all.
SPEAKER_01: If you believe that there's a heaven and hell and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life or whatever, and you think that, well, it's not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward.
SPEAKER_01: And atheists who think that people shouldn't proselytize, just leave me alone, keep your religion to yourself.
SPEAKER_01: How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize?
SPEAKER_01: How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if I believed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a truck was coming at you and you didn't believe it, that truck was bearing down on you, there's a certain point where I tackle you.
SPEAKER_01: And this is more important than that.
SPEAKER_01: And I've always thought that, and I've written about that, I've thought of it conceptually.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is good.
SPEAKER_00: This is a good word.
SPEAKER_00: This is a good encouragement, even from somebody who doesn't believe in God.
SPEAKER_00: If we believe that coming to Jesus has power and freedom, then we have to acknowledge the things that war against us, declaring what we've seen and heard.
SPEAKER_00: And let me just ask you that question.
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe that the gospel of Jesus is the power of God?
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe that?
SPEAKER_00: Paul would write in Romans chapter one again, he says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and to the Greek.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm not ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: This is power and freedom.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's so important in this moment that we're living in that we come to a place where we don't just believe that we're That what we're doing here and what we're proclaiming is just one of many but it's the message of Jesus that's good and beautiful and sets people free.
SPEAKER_00: The message of Jesus sets hearts free.
SPEAKER_00: Is anybody with me?
SPEAKER_00: Are you guys believers here today?
SPEAKER_00: The message of Jesus sets us free.
SPEAKER_00: He sets us free.
SPEAKER_00: Some people ask me, do I believe all paths lead to God?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I do.
SPEAKER_00: I believe all paths lead to the judgment seat of God.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 5.
SPEAKER_00: So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.
SPEAKER_00: For we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.
SPEAKER_00: Can you guys feel the gravity of that?
SPEAKER_00: We make it our aim to please him.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a love for God.
SPEAKER_00: Everything I do.
SPEAKER_00: For Paul, it's everything I do.
SPEAKER_00: I just want it to please him.
SPEAKER_00: Because they're all going to appear before him.
SPEAKER_00: All of us.
SPEAKER_00: We don't get to that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't make up the rules here.
SPEAKER_00: We all appear before Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.
SPEAKER_00: So there's something about the love of God combined with the fear of God that leads to a motivation to want to persuade somebody else to know God A love of God and a fear of God that affects us from the core.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, how do I keep this to myself?
SPEAKER_00: And I just have a sense that maybe maybe some of us have lost that.
SPEAKER_00: A love of God and a fear of God that would want, that would propel us to speak of him.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't just about When we call people to Jesus, it's not just about, you know, and away from false gods.
SPEAKER_00: It's not because they're the wrong gods and he's the right God.
SPEAKER_00: It's because all other gods lead to disaster.
SPEAKER_00: Other gods, lesser gods lead to disaster.
SPEAKER_00: There are no other gods that will love you, die for you, and empower you with their presence.
SPEAKER_00: That's not gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: So when we call, this is the best imagination and vision for what we know will lead to freedom.
SPEAKER_00: Now, every generation has to wrestle this down.
SPEAKER_00: Every time period has to wrestle this down.
SPEAKER_00: And we have to continue to ask the question, what does it mean to preach the gospel in 2025?
SPEAKER_00: And I believe, and here's my plea with us today, and as we kind of start this journey together, and you guys kind of feel, it's kind of a little bit of a sobering message, but I believe it's time we renew our relationship with even how we feel today.
SPEAKER_00: about evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: And we gotta just come to grips with how that even affects us and whether we see that as our responsibility or not.
SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
SPEAKER_00: The church of Jesus Christ is always only one generation from going extinct.
SPEAKER_00: We're always only one generation from losing our way.
SPEAKER_00: We're always only one generation from what we've seen and heard being passed to the next generation.
SPEAKER_00: So we can't just assume everything just keeps going.
SPEAKER_00: No, we have to live with the responsibility that in 2025 in Colorado, we get to move with Jesus so that all will see and hear.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter how good our worship or prayer meetings are.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter, you know, what we're doing here as a church.
SPEAKER_00: All of us in this room at some point will age out and die out if we don't take seriously spiritual reproduction, basically passing on the faith to those around us and to the next generation.
SPEAKER_00: So let me just ask you, is there anything, is there anything in your life that has kept you from sharing the good news of Jesus with others?
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is confession time for me because number one, I'm an introvert, okay?
SPEAKER_00: When I get in social settings, I barely even want to tell people my name, all right?
SPEAKER_00: So I force myself to because I'm a pastor, and so I'm like, this is, I guess, what I should be doing.
SPEAKER_00: But I'd rather just do my thing off to the side.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just shooting straight with you, all right?
SPEAKER_00: And my personality, the last thing I want to do is make things weird in a conversation, all right?
SPEAKER_00: It's the last thing I want to do.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to make this awkward.
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, but like in the Bible, when it comes to evangelism, I've always given myself a get out of jail for free card.
SPEAKER_00: And this sounds so bad.
SPEAKER_00: I can't believe I'm confessing this to you.
SPEAKER_00: But like there's this passage in Ephesians 4 that talks about, and in the church, there's apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I got the pastor teacher thing down.
SPEAKER_00: I'll let the evangelist do the evangelist thing.
SPEAKER_00: Those guys are over there.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to sit.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to teach the word of God, but I'm going to do my part.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm going to unhinge from this any responsibility to have to be...
SPEAKER_00: anything else in any other part of my life.
SPEAKER_00: And I just feel like this last year, God has pinpointed me and said, that is not true of you because you are also a witness of what I've seen and what I have done in your life.
SPEAKER_00: You don't just get to talk about it from a public stage.
SPEAKER_00: You get to message that with your entire life.
SPEAKER_00: And so for me, even the thought of doing this series, I was like, that's the last thing I wanna talk about is evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to talk about it.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about something else.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about something like heady and intellectual.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go somewhere else.
SPEAKER_00: And God's like, no, this is the age of the evangelist.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that this is what the Lord wants to speak to us and even greater than us.
SPEAKER_00: This is an age of the evangelist again.
SPEAKER_00: God is raising up evangelists and not just as people, but as a calling for the entire church, the boldness and the fire of life with God to proclaim the good news of God until the darkness flees, until the oppressed are set free, until addicts are set free, until the lonely are set in home, until the shame is gone, until his kingdom is manifest on earth.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't just happen.
SPEAKER_00: It must be proclaimed.
SPEAKER_00: proclaimed in all of the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're willing to hear today, I'm just saying there is an invitation here and you can just kind of make this another.
SPEAKER_00: That was a good message, Pastor Luke.
SPEAKER_00: You can quote that online.
SPEAKER_00: Great message.
SPEAKER_00: Fire, fire, praise hands, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: You can do whatever you want.
SPEAKER_00: You can do that.
SPEAKER_00: But what I'm telling you, there's an invitation from you.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm saying, do not walk away from this.
SPEAKER_00: This is for all of us.
SPEAKER_00: This is so important.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to ask you, is there anything right now?
SPEAKER_00: Let's just close your eyes across the room.
SPEAKER_00: And let me just acknowledge this.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not even a believer in Jesus or this is your first time here and you're like, you want me to go do what?
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, listen, it's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Just, it's okay.
SPEAKER_00: You're fine, all right?
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking to those.
SPEAKER_00: We've been doing this for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: We've been following Jesus and maybe lost the desire to share with others about who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: And that's who I'm talking to right now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just asking this question.
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything that's kept you from sharing the good news of Jesus with others?
SPEAKER_00: Is it fear?
SPEAKER_00: Insecurity?
SPEAKER_00: Rejection?
SPEAKER_00: Embarrassment?
SPEAKER_00: Inadequacy?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you just don't feel smart enough.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't feel good with words.
SPEAKER_00: The good news is a lot of the disciples were not good with words.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't intellectual.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't know everything.
SPEAKER_00: They had just seen a few things.
SPEAKER_00: So I just want, let's give a moment here Let's just give a moment here.
SPEAKER_00: If anything came up for you, you feel like, man, this has been a wall or maybe I've compartmentalized my life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm scared to talk about Jesus because I know what that means.
SPEAKER_00: Just acknowledge that and it's okay.
SPEAKER_00: But let that confession also turn into repentance and say, God, I don't want that to be the case.
SPEAKER_00: That's not who you've called me to be.
SPEAKER_00: You have not given me a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and a sound mind.
SPEAKER_00: He has not given you a faith that you might shrink back.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to give you the confidence and the grace and the power of his spirit So if you need to even say, Jesus, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00: This is the time to do that.
SPEAKER_00: So a witness is an identity and it's a mission.
SPEAKER_00: It's acknowledging I've seen too much to stay silent.
SPEAKER_00: I can't unknow what I've come to know in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Even if I can't explain everything, I know that he has changed me.
SPEAKER_00: It's like the blind man in John 9.
SPEAKER_00: He says, one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.