Sermon Transcript
Well, let’s take our Bibles out, and we’re going to look together again at the book of Acts. And if you’re just joining us today, we have been working our way thematically through the book of Acts, and so we come back to it today. We’re somewhere around chapters 18 and 19. We’ve kind of been weaving our way through some of these, and so we’re going to spend a little time in Acts 18 and 19 today. And I invite you to get there in your Bible, or the message note sheet has some of the passages on it, or whatever might be helpful to you.
I want you to think for a minute about things that you’ve done in your life that somebody talked you into doing, things that people have talked you into doing, okay? It could have been your parents who talked you into doing your homework. I don’t know. It could have been a friend who talked you into eating certain foods, squid or whatever it was. You know, they said it would be good for you.
So I want you to think for just a minute about something that somebody has talked you into doing that had somebody not actually encouraged you to do this or reasoned with you about why you should do this, you would probably not have done that. Okay, why don’t you turn to a person next to you and just tell them one thing that you’ve been talked into doing.
Thanks, man. Good job.
Okay, you got something you shared there. I’m sure there are a variety of things that you could share with others. You’ve— your parents talked you into eating vegetables. You would have never started eating vegetables had your parents not said these would be good for you, so they gave you a reason to eat vegetables. You went on to a car lot, a salesman talked you into buying a car.
And that’s why you have that car that you have right now. You were talked into doing homework in an hour that you didn’t want to, but your parents said if you will do the homework now, then we’ll let you play Xbox later. I have no idea. Somebody talked you into marriage. We won’t ask you to raise your hand on this one or something.
Maybe you compromised some values because you talked— somebody talked you into something. Uh, an education. Somebody talked you into going to a certain college, and that’s why you went to the college you went to. Or maybe, uh, you’re thinking about going to a college and people are trying to talk you into a certain college right now. You know, they’re giving you the pitch.
And so all kinds of things are working out that way. Uh, I don’t know, some of you have probably been at one of those resorts where there was a timeshare presentation. And somebody talked you into actually buying the timeshare? This happened to us. I will admit it.
We went just to enjoy the 3 or 4 days of free lodging at this beautiful resort. You know, they just said all you got to do is just sit through a timeshare presentation and you could say whatever you want to say. And so we tried our best to say no, no, no. And about the, you know, second or third person that came our way, because They’re not going to let you just say no to the first person. They start sending over the, you know, higher authorities until you work your way down.
Well, the bottom line of this is, so we had 2 timeshares in our life. We still have one. Neither of them we wanted, but anyway, I won’t ask you if something like that happened to you anywhere in your life. Yeah, there are things that we’ve done and things that we’re doing right now that probably in some way, somebody kind of nudged us in that direction or talked us into it in some capacity. This actually applies to what we’re talking about this morning.
I want to ask the question, should we be trying to talk people into salvation? Should we be trying to talk people into believing in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior? We love reason, don’t we? Here, especially in Silicon Valley, we like to use reason. We like to persuade people toward a certain viewpoint or whatever it might be.
We don’t want to ignore our minds in Silicon Valley. We want to actually use our minds. And so we have potential conversations with people all around us that want to know logically, does it make sense? They want to reason with it. They want to, you know, think this whole thing through.
So I want to ask the question, what is the place of reason in helping a person come to salvation? Or what is the place of persuasion in helping a person come to salvation? Should we be trying to talk others into becoming followers of Jesus Christ? Now, this has tremendous potential impact on all of us this morning. We all know that if you’re a Christ follower, God wants us to be out there witnessing.
So the question is, do we use reason and persuasion in our witnessing. Acts chapters 18 and 19 actually brings this subject into focus through the Apostle Paul. Doing a couple-part series here on some remarkable people. Last week we talked about the teammates Priscilla and Aquila. Today we want to just look at the Apostle Paul’s life, and it’s fascinating because he becomes known as a persuader, as a persuader.
We know in Acts chapter 19, verse 20 that the word of the Lord was growing mightily, it was prevailing. We can ask the question, why was it growing? Why were people coming to faith in Jesus? Why was there greater and greater respect given to the Word of God? And we can go back to, you know, several chapters here, but I just want to go back to the beginning of Acts 18 and walk you through a few passages, okay?
We’re going to start on Paul’s second missionary journey. Acts chapter 18, verse 4 tells us that he was in Corinth, and it says he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath, and he was trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. So every Sabbath, every Saturday, Paul’s got an open door in the synagogue. He’s walking through the open door and he’s speaking to people who aren’t Christ worshipers, they’re not Christ followers, and he’s trying to use reason and persuasion to help them come to belief. Go on down to verse 19, Acts 18:19.
He’s still on his second missionary journey. Now he’s in another city, the city of Ephesus. So he’s left Corinth He’s now in Ephesus, and it says, 18:19, they came to Ephesus, and he left them there, speaking about Priscilla and Aquila, who we looked at last week. But he himself went into the synagogue, and what? And reasoned with the Jews.
So there it is again. Go on down to the next chapter, to chapter 19, verse 8. This is his 3rd missionary journey now, and it says, he entered the synagogue, and he continued speaking out boldly for 3 months, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. There are 2 kingdoms. There’s the kingdom of darkness.
There’s the kingdom of light. There’s the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God. And he’s trying to help people change their allegiance from the kingdom of Satan or darkness to the kingdom of light. And he uses reason and persuasion to help them see that they need to make this change. So if you ask me, there’s just a couple of examples there.
You’re going to see as you look through the Apostle Paul’s life and his evangelistic witness that reason and persuasion often came up and how he approached people. In fact, so much so that his enemies even talked about it. Go back to chapter 18, verse 12, while Galilea was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him into the court. This man— so here’s their charge against Paul— is persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law. I mean, there’s his enemies saying, this guy’s trying to persuade people towards something that we don’t buy.
If you go down again now to chapter 19, verses 25 and 26, this happens in Ephesus. This first persuasion with Galilea was in Corinth, but you jump to Ephesus. In Ephesus, there was a group of idol makers, okay, the Idol Maker Union. I don’t know what you call them, but it was a group of idol makers that got together to discuss what potentially could happen to their business. And it says in verse 25, men, you know that our prosperity depends upon this business, idol-making.
You see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable number of people, saying that gods made with hands are no gods at all. What are they saying? They’re saying, listen, we’re gonna be out of business pretty soon if this guy, you know, continues to persuade people to his viewpoint. So we gotta do something about that. Our business is going to be obsolete.
I mean, you could think of this a lot of different ways right now. You could see what’s coming down the pipeline. I mean, there was a day where probably typewriter people looked down the pipeline with the computer coming out and they said, This isn’t looking good for us anymore. There probably was a day where the— I don’t know if you use day timers. Anybody in this service know what a day timer is?
It’s actually something that’s made out of paper, and it’s something that people keep their calendar in. Well, some of us, you know, have no idea. You mean you actually write things down on a piece of paper calendar-wise? Are you kidding? Why would I do that?
You remember? So there was a day timer, and then there was the PalmPilot. Oh, I love my PalmPilot. I had that too. I had a PalmPilot, but then came the computer and all the rest of it, right?
And now we do things different. I mean, it’s just like those are obsolete. The point here is, is that these idol makers who are making idols out of wood or metal or whatever it was, they see that if people are turning away from the idols that they worshiped and they start worshiping a God who, you know, isn’t an image, They’re in trouble. Their business is curtains. Why was it happening?
Because Paul used persuasion. Now, what’s the place of persuasion then, or what’s the place of reasoning in our witnessing? I was introduced recently to a book by Greg Koukl, K-O-U-K-L, I think is how you spell his name. But Greg wrote a book called Tactics. And this is an interesting book because what he does is he looks at the place of reason and persuasion in helping people come to salvation in Jesus Christ.
If you’ve never read the book, you ought to consider reading it. I’m reading it right now. I’m really learning actually a lot about areas that I’m very weak in, and so I’m excited about the things that I’m learning from this book, Tactics. But right at the outset of the book, he talks about the importance of reason in our witnessing to others, the importance of persuasion. And he especially focuses on the need to ask questions.
One of the best ways to help people process Christianity or move toward God is just by asking questions. And so, he looks at it through the Columbo approach. Any of you familiar with the Columbo approach? Some of you are sitting here saying, I don’t even know what you’re talking about now for sure, like Daytimer, Columbo, what is all of that? Well, read the book and you’ll at least laugh at a couple places.
Columbo was this detective kind of guy that just asked questions, and through asking questions was able to get to the truth. People all around us right now need reason to begin to move toward a potential conversion to Jesus Christ. For instance, this past week I had 2 of my unchurched or unbelieving friends say to me, you know what, all religions will get you there. You ever heard this one before? All religions will get you there.
They’re all the same. They’re basically the same. And so if you just believe, if you just believe, then you’ll be saved. Well, I had lunch this week with one of my Muslim friends, and we were sitting at a table, and the purpose of the lunch was just to talk about spiritual things. And in this conversation, he mentioned the word righteousness.
He was talking about righteousness and how righteousness is so important to his faith. And so I came back to it and I said, you know, that word you used earlier about righteousness, it’s interesting to think about that with regard to what Jesus taught. And I said, you know what, you mind me showing you something? He said, no, that’s fine. And so I took my napkin, I had a pen there fortunately, and I started writing on the napkin.
And I wrote up at the top of the napkin righteousness, and I put the word— the number 10, because 10 is perfect. We talked about Nadia Comaneci, there’s another name you don’t know, but anyway, so a gymnast, You know, and you can get 10s and gymnastics and all this. So I said, 10 is the perfection, okay? It’s perfect. And down here is 1.
And I drew a line between 10 and 1. And I said, now this is a continuum of perfection, we’ll call it. It’s perfect, lack of perfect down here, righteous, unrighteous down here. And I handed him my pen and I said, tell me, just take the pen and just for the sake of conversation, Put a, you know, a dot or a check or a mark there on the line somewhere where you would say you would be between 1 and 10. I mean, if you’re not 10, where do you think you would be?
So he took it and he drew a line at 7. He told me it was 7, okay? We didn’t have numbers on there. He just— it’s about 7, maybe 6-ish, but more like 7, he said. Now, this is always fascinating.
I don’t know if you’ve ever helped a person think about their life this way, but it’s always fascinating because we’re always pushing ourselves north of 5, not south of 5, okay? We don’t want to think of ourselves as that bad. Are you kidding? That’s like the axe murderer down the street or Charlie or somebody, you know, whoever it is down there. So we’re kind of always up here.
And so I said, all right, let’s say 7. That’s where you are. So you’re— there’s still a gap. There’s still a gap between you and perfection, right? He said, yes.
I said, do you know what you call this gap? He said, yes, it’s sin. I said, that’s right. In fact, earlier in the week I asked another unbelieving friend, I said, do you know what Christianity is all about? Do you know why Jesus came?
And this person said, yes, Jesus came to save us from our sins. Now this person’s not a believer, but the person gets it, right? Jesus came to save us from our sins. He came to take care of the gap between us and God. He came to pay the price for sin.
This sin we could call by another word. We’ll call it a disease. And this disease will kill us. The wages of sin is what? Death, all right?
It’s death. It’s spiritual death. It’s physical death. And here’s, by the way, part of the reasoning that can come into this kind of a conversation. Okay, so we have a disease and ultimately we’re going to die of this disease.
Is there a remedy? Is there a remedy for this disease? It’s interesting that if you bring into a conversation like this Ebola, for instance, what’s the remedy for Ebola? I mean, if you have Ebola, chances are pretty high you’re going to die. In fact, there’s no authorized cure for Ebola, no medicine right now.
There’s some that are in trials, and some of the patients who’ve come back to the United States who’ve— they’ve used these medicines that are in trials have been cured of their disease, of their Ebola. Well, when it comes to this one right here, not just any religion is going to cut it. There’s only one person that can cure us of the disease, and his name is Jesus Christ. Now, when you have a conversation with a person like that, and you bring into a conversation those kinds of thoughts, and you have those kinds of questions, and you have that kind of discussion, what are you doing? You’re reasoning, right?
You’re trying to help them come to understand that just like a disease— hey, take any medicine you want and you’ll get well. No, no, no, no, no. No. And especially maybe with Ebola or whatever it might be, there’s only one that’s going to do it here. There’s only one that’s going to ultimately do it when it comes to us getting past this gap.
Our sin has separated us from God, Isaiah 59:2. I wrote that on the napkin. By the way, the napkin was filled with information. Here’s a warning: if you’re going to use your napkin, be ready to be wiping your face, you know, and stuff like— that’s what I was doing the rest of the time. But anyway, Yeah, help them understand.
That’s what the Apostle Paul did. Look at Acts 19:8. Acts 19:8 again. He entered the synagogue. He continued speaking out boldly for 3 months, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.
I mean, if they would have got it just like that, he wouldn’t have had to spend 3 months there, right? Have you ever had anybody just get it like that? You just tell them the story and they go, thank you. I’ll take it. No, there’s 3 months involved here.
And those 3 months that were involved, Paul did several things. Number one, he went through open doors. Do you see the open door here? Evidently, they extended to him the opportunity to preach in the synagogue, so he took it. And may I just say this?
If there’s an open door in your life right now, if there are people in your life right now that are open to talking about spiritual things, Go through the open door.
Put an appointment on the calendar. Meet on a regular basis. In the case with my Muslim friend, we’ve been getting together infrequently, but nonetheless frequently. We get together when it works out. Last week we were going to try to get together.
He sent me a text message at the last minute, said, I can’t do it. Business is crazy today. We said, okay, hey, maybe next week. So, on Wednesday I texted him again intentionally and said, could we have lunch this week? Will tomorrow work out?
He said, you know, I think it will. I saw him at the club on Thursday morning, checked in with him, and he said, I think it’s going to work out, so let’s go ahead and plan to have lunch together on Thursday. So, just a couple days ago. And then as I came over to him at his business, he turned and looked at me and he said, Dave, didn’t you get my text message? I said, no, I guess I must have missed it.
He said, I just sent it to you about 15 minutes ago. I can’t I can’t go to lunch now. I said, no problem, that’s fine. We’ll try to do it some other time. But then he looked at me and said, you know what?
You’re here. Why don’t we go to lunch? And we spent the next hour and a half talking about spiritual things. Now, I want to say this to you guys, because I’m saying it to myself. These kinds of conversations don’t just happen unless you make time for them.
Paul had to make time every Sabbath, Saturday, to go to the synagogue. He had to walk through that open door every week. We’ve got to do the same thing. If there’s an open door in our life to talk to people about spiritual things, or maybe you’ve got a platform to preach the Word of God somewhere, to reason and persuade people, go through it. He went through open doors.
Secondly, he courageously spoke up. Do you see that there in Acts chapter 19, verse 8? It says he continued speaking out boldly for 3 months. You say, was it always easy for Paul to speak out boldly? And the answer to that question is no.
If you go back to Acts chapter 18, this happened. Verse 9, one night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision, do not be afraid, keep on speaking, do not be silent. Why is that happening? I mean, why was there a vision from God? Because evidently Paul was perhaps moving toward timidity.
Maybe he was thinking, you know, this thing in Corinth, it’s just not working out. I think I’m going to quit. I’m not going to continue to talk about the Lord here. I’m going to move on. Whatever it was that he was thinking at the time.
But the Lord said to him, I am with you. No one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city. And so Paul stayed for a year and a half teaching them the Word of God. What’s all of that? That’s the Lord intervening, saying, no, no, listen, I still got a job for you to do, and don’t you dare give in to timidity.
You continue to be courageous. And the reason why you need to continue to be courageous is, number one, Because I’m with you. Secondly, because I’ve asked you to be my witness. And thirdly, because— and look at this— I have many people in this city. What’s he saying there?
He’s saying there are people in this city that were going to come to salvation. There are people in this city that God was calling to salvation. But they weren’t going to get to salvation without— look at this— without the Apostle Paul’s witness. He wanted to use the Apostle Paul. Here’s this paradox you see in the Scripture, and what’s the paradox?
The paradox is that salvation is something that happens through the calling of God, but also salvation is something that happens through God’s people who share the gospel story. It’s both working together. And so the Lord is saying to the Apostle Paul, don’t you dare, don’t you dare go timid on me. You’ve got to continue to be bold. And one of the reasons perhaps that we’re, you know, perhaps not engaged in reasoning and persuading with people is because we’ve gone timid.
He went through open doors, he courageously spoke up. The third thing he did was he engaged in discussion. We haven’t defined the word reasoning, but the word reasoning actually means dialogue or discussion. It’s the word that we get dialogue or discussion from. So he had faith discussions with people.
We could have faith discussion with people, couldn’t we? Sitting at a table at a restaurant, we can have faith discussions. In fact, if you go to the next verse, we’re in Acts chapter 19, verse 8. Look at the next verse, verse 9: But some of them became obstinate. So these are people that he’s having these faith discussions with.
Some of them became obstinate and they refused to believe. And they publicly maligned the way. You guys are crazy, you know, whatever it was they said. So Paul left them. In other words, he surmised in his heart, you know what?
This isn’t an open door anymore. So he left them. He took the disciples with him and had— here’s the word— discussions. It’s the same word as reasoning. He had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.
He just continued to discuss the gospel, but he discussed the gospel where doors were open. Steve, a couple weeks ago, talked about the Socratic approach. That’s what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about questions and discussions and challenging beliefs and helping people use logic and reasoning. And all of that, Paul used the Socratic method.
There’s a 4th matter here to notice. He urged people to believe by persuading them. He was trying to help them embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ. Everywhere he went, he tried to help people come to the place of belief. So it wasn’t enough that he was just giving information out.
He really wanted them to take the information and then be changed by the information. If you’re a salesperson, you know what this is. He was trying to close the deal. Absolutely. He wasn’t just saying, this is good.
He was saying, you need to take a step toward believing. Now, I had an interesting conversation with somebody about this recently, Tim Riley. Some of you know Tim. Tim’s been here. He’s done a seminar called Compelled.
And I wanted to get his take on this because I see Tim as somebody who has the gift of evangelist, okay? And I distinguish— as I look at the Scriptures, nobody has the gift of evangelism, but we do have the gift of evangelist found in the Scriptures. We are all responsible to do the work of an evangelist. That’s what Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 4 and verse 5. Evidently Timothy didn’t have the gift of evangelist, and evidently he was cowering.
That’s why Paul tells him in Timothy, don’t be timid. You know, don’t live up to your name, or whatever it was. Just, you know, be a person who’s bold in your faith and do the work of an evangelist. Well, all of us want to do that work, that work of an evangelist. We need to do the work of evangelism.
And so for me, I’ve learned to look to people like a Tim Ryan, or Jim Stump, or others like that, because these guys have something to teach us. So I asked Tim some questions about this whole matter of reasoning and persuasion. I wanted to hear what he’d say, and we videotaped it. I wanted him to come and be a part of the service today, but he couldn’t come because of some other commitments. But at least we got a little bit on a video.
So this is what Tim says about this whole matter of reason and persuasion. See if this can be helpful to you. It already has been to me.
Well, hey Tim, it’s great to have you come and talk a little bit about faith. I think it’s something that you absolutely care deeply about. You have a heart for evangelism. And so for us in the series that we were looking at the Apostle Paul, talking about the subject of persuasion and reason and how that all comes together, I couldn’t think of a better person to invite to just share a conversation with us. So thank you for making the time for this.
Thanks for having me. Well, appreciate that. Uh, you know, we’ve started this message today by talking about the whole matter of whether or not you could talk somebody into believing. Yeah. And, uh, the Apostle Paul sure seems to be a person who was bent in that direction because he reasoned with people, he sought to persuade them, and those 2 terms even come together in the text we’ve been looking at today.
Reason and persuasion. Can you make a distinction for us between those 2 terms and how important they are in our sharing of our faith? Yeah, I think reason is the opportunity where you lay out on the table the exact things that you believe and you give reasons for why you believe those things and you allow someone to make a decision based on where they are, their context, things like that. But then when you have persuasion added into it, you’re still laying things out on the table, but you’re also pushing the understanding and the agenda of, hey, you need to know this God that I’m talking about in this specific context, especially when Paul would talk to the Athenians and others. So you’re trying to work from information to some kind of application, we might say, or from the head to the heart, I guess.
Is— yeah. How important is that? I mean, how important has that been in your witnessing? Well, even for myself, I came to the understanding when I was about 20 that rose from the dead, but that didn’t actually hit my heart. And so for a while I was sort of trying to argue with the whole idea of Jesus is Lord, he’s God, but I couldn’t do anything with the resurrection outside of he probably is who he says he is.
And so when I share with people, I try to always get them to the point of, hey, Jesus rose from the dead. That’s why we believe what we believe. We don’t just assume that Jesus is God. We know that if he can rise from the dead, and the Bible said he was going to, that he probably is who he says he is. And so when I share with people, I try to get to the point through reason, through persuasion, of saying, hey, Jesus is God.
You can know him personally. There’s evidence in history that leads you back to that. So if a person said, you know, I don’t buy the Bible, I don’t agree with the Bible, the Bible’s filled with myth and error and all the rest of that, that’s where reason would come into play for you? Absolutely. And generally I don’t start with the Bible.
I start with history and these footprints in history that lead us back to a risen Savior in Christ. But often you can look to the Bible and look at the things that were written, how it wasn’t written like fiction. It was written specifically about kings that were around at those certain times when they were written about. But ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s the fact that Jesus is alive that brings people into salvation with Him. You know, I think in some ways it might be easier for us here in Silicon Valley to use reason as a part of our conversations and to show that You know, there are valid reasons for believing in Christianity.
So we can go down that road, but I almost sense there’s a hesitation to get to persuasion. You know what I mean? Because now we’re really asking the person to act on this reason that we’re conversing about. So how can you help us get to persuasion in a conversation? Well, I would say that in general, kind of the stereotype typical Christianity of the evangelist with the nice suit who wants $69 million for a jet has really turned people into assuming that persuasion is really manipulation.
At the end of the day, Jesus told us to go out and make disciples, to give them the truth, to proclaim the truth, to allow people to know the truth. Ultimately, the Father draws people to himself, but how would he draw anyone if they’ve never heard any truth? And so our job is simply to share that truth, but with the passion and understanding that because your life and because my life have been changed, we testify to that from our own personal experience, and people are generally drawn by that because of our reason and our persuasion. So it’s the work of the Holy Spirit being sensitive to what God is doing in this particular situation. Would you always push persuasion into the conversation?
Well, I mean, I sit down with some people that aren’t always necessarily ready, and they’re kind of waiting for me to ask them if they want to accept Jesus as their personal Savior. And so generally I will often reason with someone and explain the reasons for why I believe what I believe in the hopes that if God is drawing them, generally they start to ask more questions. And that’s when I point them towards the fact that they can actually have a relationship with Jesus. All right. So one of the questions we’ve been asking today is, can you talk a person into salvation or can you talk a person into belief, into faith?
What do you think? I think you can talk someone into belief, but that’s the intellectual acceptance of who Jesus is. Ultimately, again, no one comes to the Father unless the Holy Spirit is active drawing them to himself. And so we can reason and remove different obstacles and theories to why people don’t believe in Jesus, but you don’t really talk someone into the faith as much as you reason with them and persuade them towards Christ, who then draws them to himself. Can you give us just a simple You know, I’m sure that the stories that you could tell regarding people that have come to faith that you’ve had the opportunity to interact with, can you think of one that it— this sort of was very important, the matter of reasoning and the matter of persuasion and helping them come to salvation?
Absolutely. There was a woman whose daughter had just come to Christ, and she had kind of grown up in a more religious background. And she came to me and she said, hey, I’ve seen such a change in my daughter. Thank you so much for all that you’ve done. And I understood what she meant, but I always try to point it back to Jesus.
And I pointed it back to the fact that, you know, Jesus was the one making the big difference in her daughter. And I asked her, because I had known she had kind of grown up in a more religious household, why— if she understood why we did what we did. And she said, kind of. I mean, I see a big difference in my daughter, but would you sit down and share with me exactly why you believe? And I said, absolutely.
And so we started to have a dialogue and discussion. And I asked her what she thought Christianity about. And it was interesting because she thought it was about trying really hard to get God to love you. Again, religious background. And yet as I started to lay out the evidence of who Jesus was, His perfect life, His death on the cross for us, the fact that He rose from the dead 3 days later, He showed Himself to over 500 people, He ascended to Heaven in 1 day, He’s coming back.
As I explained that, but then I started to explain here’s why I believe that because of what happened in history at the time period, how the disciples were changed, the fact that there were so many different things written about Jesus in his own time period, and he seemed to be such a big deal. So if he wasn’t a big deal, why was he so talked about? It felt like just a light bulb went over her head because she had been in essentially the bondage of a religion that said you have to try to do things to get God to love you, when the cross and the empty tomb proved that God loves you perfectly right now in spite of you. And that’s where reason and the persuasion of you can have a relationship with Jesus, if you would submit your will to Him, changed her, and it’s changed her ever since. Wow.
Well, Tim, thanks for taking the time to share a little bit about the importance of these matters in our sharing of our faith. And I hope that we’re going to have more opportunities like that and see what God does in and through our lives and here in this organization. Guys, brilliant. The bottom line of this is use reason and persuasion to help people believe. Think about your life right now.
Think about your witness. Think about what it is God wants us to do. Would you say, you know, coming into this morning, you’ve been using reason and persuasion? I’ve given you some reasons to consider that. Now you’ve got to decide.
You’re going to reason it through, but I hope to persuade you in some way to say, yeah, I want to help people believe. By talking through reasons to believe, by asking them to believe, by inviting them to believe, by working with the work of the Holy Spirit as God’s working in that context. You heard Tim say, I don’t always force it in. I ask questions to find out whether or not they’re ready. So it’s just a matter of taking a step forward even in this area to help people believe by using reason and persuasion.
Now, can I just add something about the manner that we do this? There are 2 verses that I put at the bottom of the message note sheet that talk about the tone of voice, that talk about our preparation for sharing our faith with others. 1 Peter 3:15 says, but in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer. So this is something that even this morning We can learn from what we’ve been talking about this morning.
That could prepare us. Let’s prepare ourselves to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect. And I love those words. So yes, we want to be ready, but we also want to give an answer in an appropriate manner, and the appropriate manner is with gentleness and respect toward this other person. 2 Timothy 2:24-25.
Through 26 adds, and the Lord’s bondservant, or the Lord’s servant, must not quarrel. Instead, he must be kind to everyone. Let me just say something about this quarreling thing. You’re never going to argue somebody into salvation. You know, we don’t do that.
We can’t do that. You may talk to them in such a manner that it might help them come to salvation. That’s a hope and a dream, isn’t it? So give up the quarreling thing. Instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.
Those who oppose him, he must gently instruct in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they, they will come to their senses. The senses gives the idea that thinking’s involved here. They’ll come to their senses and they’ll escape from the trap of the devil who’s taken them captive to do his will. So here are just a few matters that are really helpful. So let’s be prepared.
You know, read Tactics. Read a book like that. Read the book that we suggested a few weeks ago. Read One-on-One, that book that Jim Stump wrote. That could be helpful.
Go through the Tangible Kingdom study with us. We’re using that in our missional communities and have used it in different ways in the church. Find some other resources that would be helpful to you. This year we went through Bible Storyboards. That could be a help to you in your witnessing.
So let’s be prepared. Let’s be kind. Do you see that? Let’s be gentle. Let’s be respectful in these discussions that we have.
You are— listen, you are never persuasive if you’re abrasive. It doesn’t happen. Let’s not be abrasive. Let’s be persuasive in a gentle and kind and loving way. And remain hopeful.
I think that that’s in the text too, right? He’s saying this can happen, so let’s be the kind of people that come into these conversations ready, and let’s pray that God works in such a way that it ultimately brings people to faith in Jesus Christ. One last little verse. Steve actually mentioned it when he did Acts, chapter 17, but let me go back to Acts 17. It says this there— actually, I’m going to read you 4 verses.
They came to Thessalonica. Thessalonica, Paul and others. And there was a synagogue of the Jews, and according to Paul’s custom he went to them and for 3 Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures. Open door, walks in, starts reasoning. And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with a large number of the God-fearing Greeks and a number of the leading women.
That’s the hope. Isn’t it? That reason and persuasion would mean people would be persuaded and they would say, yeah, I want that. I want that. I want what it is that Jesus offers.
Amen? Let’s pray. Lord, thanks for helping us this morning see something that could be immediately applied here in the Silicon Valley as we’re living among people that love to use their minds. Love to think things through. And in some ways, so many around us just can’t see how this could be true.
And so we pray that your work would be evident in their lives, that you would call people to yourself, that you would convert them, that you would change their hearts. And we ask that people would be open to the gospel and you would lead us into open-door conversations You would use reasoning and persuasion in these conversations to be a part of that which draws people to yourself. And we pray that we would be courageous to speak the truth. We would be courageous to talk about you. We would be courageous to invite people to receive you as their Savior and Lord.
Help us even this week walk through open doors. God, I pray you’d open doors for every Christ follower to be used by you. Give us the courage to say that which you would desire. And just before we close this prayer this morning, if you’ve never become a Christ follower, you’ve never received the gift of salvation found in Jesus, and this morning you’re ready, tell God that. Lord, I want this.
I know I’m not capable in myself of saving myself. I have a disease.
I’m sinful. I’m a sinner, as we all are. And I ask, as you’ve saved some, that you would already— you would save me. You would save me from my sins. I want to place my faith in Jesus.
And that’s what it requires. The Bible says to come to believe and place your faith in Jesus. For salvation. And if that’s your desire, tell God that. I want to place my faith in Jesus.
I want to be one of his followers. I ask you to change me, make me into the kind of person you want me to be.
Adopt me into your family, Lord. God hears those prayers.
And if you just in that manner and that in your own words, just ask Jesus to save you from your sins. He has, and now begins a new adventure. Tell one of us before you leave this morning so we can help you get started in this new life in Christ. Thank you, God, for the time we shared together this morning. May it help us as we go out into a world that needs Jesus, for we pray this in his name.
Amen. Well, have our team come back up, and we’re going to just finish the service with another song this morning. Let this just be your sacrifice of praise to him as we prepare ourselves for the week that’s ahead, right? I’m sure there’s going to be some tremendous opportunities in the week ahead. Do you find that, you know, when we spend times like this together on Sundays and you hear something, that usually there’s a point where God says, okay, let’s use that now?
Do you find that? I find that every week, and I hope that that happens for all of us this week.
All right, and let’s thank God for this time that we’ve had
