Not Enough to Tell People About You
Pat Steeves · Tidal Church Moncton · March 26, 2023 · Dear Church, I Like You, But... series
Pat Steeves looks at Jesus' gentle approach to the woman caught in adultery in John 8 and shows that sharing our faith is more about how we live than what we say. He encourages using what's in our hands, sharing our story, and inviting others to church.
More from Pat Steeves · The Dear Church, I Like You, But... series
Topics: Holy Spirit, Mission & Outreach, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:00] Yes, good morning. I don't know who's responsible for praying that there would be no snow this morning, but whoever you are, thank you so much, because the forecast here in Moncton was calling for a lot of snow today. We want to welcome those of you that are watching online today. We're gonna ask you this question: How many of you have ever had, maybe had a friend growing up, or maybe you still do have this friend that you guys have so much fun together? You've made memories, adventures, maybe even gotten into a little bit of trouble, right? But this particular friend was always somebody that you were always kind of nervous to be around in public and associate yourself with.
[0:51] You're always kind of embarrassed to be with them in public. Maybe it was just because of, again, maybe their personality. But again, alone together, you guys had so much fun. Socially, you were just like, "I'm not sure I know that individual," right? This sometimes represents our relationship with church. Doesn't it? Where, let's be honest, some of the teenagers that are here, you are in some of the most fun moments that you will have in your life, some of the most exciting adventures and mission trips that you will go on. But often as Christians, we are kind of hesitant to let people in on our relationship with church.
[1:39] And so I want to introduce today's topic as we continue on, week three of a series that we've called Dear Church, I Like You. But not enough to tell others about you, right? That's kind of the tension sometimes we find ourselves in, this relationship. We find ourselves with church, and I think that there's some good truth to this, because if you've been around church a long time, you've probably been in some uncomfortable or awkward conversations around the topic of evangelism, haven't we, right? When it comes to sharing our faith, we've been given some tips that, I'll be honest with you, I'm not sure if they're always the best. For example, I was at a church and we're so passionate about our faith, and that's where it comes from, right? And so we would take these evangelism classes on how to tell people about Jesus. How many have ever taken that, right? No shame in this. Okay, a few of us. Well, we would do this on Saturday morning.
[2:47] And then we would get the church learning all about how to share our faith, and then we would go out into the community on Saturday morning and knock on doors. Okay, and here's kind of how it went. You would knock on a door, again, did I mention that it was Saturday morning? And you'd knock on a door and someone would be in there, you know, pajamas or bathrobe, and I would be standing there and I would say, "Good morning. Has anyone told you about Jesus?" And their response would be something like, "I have no idea who Jesus is, and you're about to meet Him real quick.
[3:35] If you knock on my door again..." But let's be honest, some of our approaches to evangelism can be awkward, uncomfortable, and maybe not helpful. And so I want to propose that sometimes we need to be able to realize that when it comes to evangelism, it's not as much about what we say as it is about how we live our life. And again, this is something that is a bit of a pain point, because we think that as Christians it's all about sharing your faith. But in reality, I'm wondering if sharing our faith is not more about the way we live our life. How many have ever heard this term, that when it comes to communication, body language represents 80% of communication and 20% of what we say? How many have ever heard that?
[4:36] Right. I wonder, okay, if when it comes to evangelism, if 80% of evangelism is how we live our life and 20% is in what we say. I wonder, and that causes us to put more ownership on ourselves. And I wonder if the reason that we don't evangelize, and I got to be honest, statistics, if you research statistics on Christians in sharing their faith, it's very, very dismal. We're not doing well at this, and I wonder if it's because the life we live doesn't line up with the words that we say.
[5:23] I know that kind of hits home, doesn't it? But I hope that you're here today, and I'm here today, because we have a world to reach and we've got to be honest with where we're at. Can I hear somebody say amen to that? Amen to that. All right, and so let's look into some of the reasons why. But first we need to know our audience. We need to know where we are as a country when it comes to faith. And how many of you were here for Pastor Austin's message last week? So good, knocked it out of the park. Yes, he did. But he used a term, called post-Christian. He used the term post-Christian, and I just want to explain a little bit just what he was referring to when he said post-Christian. That post-Christian doesn't mean you're an atheist or agnostic.
[6:19] As a country, we have moved into the place where Canada has shifted into this post-Christian society where we maybe know about God, we're just not interested, or we know about God and it's like, "I just don't have time. I don't feel like it's important." And to even kind of go a little bit farther into that, we now have part of our society that does not know Jesus. And it's important for us to know where we're moving as a society, as a country, because as Christians, we need to know how to approach people when it's on the topic of sharing our faith. Are you guys with me?
[7:08] So I want us to be able to realize that, you know, when as a parent or raising kids, you learn your approach with kids. How many here, you're either a teenager or you were a teenager at one time? Okay. It's most of us. How many know that the approach that sometimes our parents took with us was not maybe always helpful? And I've heard the term, "Well, I just told them the truth, and they couldn't handle it." Right? Sometimes we think that as Christians we can lean in and lead with the truth, and that makes us right.
[7:59] And I want to tell you this statement that I always remember, Margot Bandy, you and I had this conversation a while back, and it's this statement that I always refer to, that our approach, our approach. Trumps the truth, and what I mean by that is sometimes we think that the truth is what's most important, and that's where we lead. What you're doing is wrong. You're making poor choices. You're going to get yourself into trouble. That's not the way that I did it. And we lead sometimes with the truth when in reality we need to come in and look for the right approach. And I want us to look into Scripture here. Jesus was a master when it came to His approach, and He never led with the truth of what potentially the law stated at that time. And so I want us to look at John 8, verses 1 through 11.
[9:01] John 8:1-11, and I want us to look at how Jesus takes this incredible moment, this situation that He was placed in, and watch how His approach, how He handles this. So we'll pick the story up here in verse 2, and it says this: At dawn He appeared again in the temple courts, this is Jesus, where all the people gathered around Him. And He sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees. Okay, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. Do we know who the teachers of the law were? They were the educated, they were the professionals, they looked the part, everything was in place.
[9:56] The teachers of the law, you guys with me? The Pharisees? Okay. These are the individuals that brought to Jesus, brought in a woman caught in adultery. So the Pharisees bring this woman here. Now, I'm curious to know why they didn't bring the guy too. All the women in the room say Amen. Okay. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus. Now, remember, we're talking about approach. Talk about approach here. So here, if you could imagine in your mind, just go there, set this scene. Jesus is talking in the temple, and the Pharisees bring in this woman that was caught in adultery.
[10:48] Now, you've got to know at that time women and men were not on a level playing field. Adultery for this woman meant that she was going to lose her life. And so they kind of set the stage here, and as we continue to read the story, they made her stand before this group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery. Now here's the law." Okay, the truth. Okay, is the law of Moses commanded us to what? Stone her. Now, what do You say? They were using this question as a trap.
[11:39] Now, can you see the tension in front of all these people, the religious leaders bring this lady up? And they're looking to trap Jesus. I don't know if you've ever been in a situation like this before, but you have to make a decision and there's no right one. Jesus had two decisions right there in that moment. He could either one, side with the Pharisees and the teachers, and that would mean judgment, and that would mean He was responsible for that, for her life. Okay, which was going to be death. That was option one. Okay, not a great one. Option two Okay, option two is He could go against what the Pharisees, against the law.
[12:31] And that would have diminished His influence in the community. And it would have led to Him losing His life. Those aren't two very good options. Are they? Option one and option two. And so I love how this story plays out. They're using this question as a trap in order to have a basis for accusing Jesus, but Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with His finger when they kept on questioning Him. You can see the pressure that would have been there, the tension. Can you guys just see the scene of what's happening? Jesus is trying to figure out, is it her life? Is it my life? Like, what is gonna happen? And He begins to write on the ground. Now, you could study a little bit.
[13:30] Some people say that He wrote different sins that the Pharisees may have had. We don't know exactly what He wrote in the sand that day. Maybe He wrote, you know, liar, murderer. Maybe He wrote all kinds of things. We don't know what He put in the sand. And when they kept up pressing Him, He straightened up and said to them, "Let any one of you who was without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." And what I love about this, we'll go to the next verse, what I love about this is, we're talking about how we approach people.
[14:19] Jesus could have leaned into what was the truth. Listen, you were caught. Like, they got you. Right? But I think that, as Christians, we have so much to learn from this story. We really do. As I mentioned before, we've got to know that we are in a post-Christian country. And we have to be so careful as Christians when it comes to evangelism that we're just not leaning into, here's what the Scripture says. This is wrong. This is, you know, but we lean in with a different approach, and we can see how the story unfolds. As we continue on again, He's stooped down, wrote on the ground. Those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first. Not sure why that, either, the older ones first. I don't know if their legs were tired or what happened there, but the older ones first, until only Jesus was left with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they?
[15:30] Has no one condemned you?" Has no one condemned you? And I just love it when I hear those words, that needs to be the approach that we take when it comes to living our life. We don't condemn, we don't judge, that is not our place as believers. "No, sir," she said. Then He said, "Neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now." and leave your life of sin." Her life was saved, her life from that moment was transformed. She could go on, and she was given a second chance. Somebody say second chance.
[16:15] That's the message of the Gospel that we have. The message of a second chance. We don't condemn you. Go and live your life. And how many know when we experience the freedom of grace and mercy, it causes us to go and live our life out of that second chance, out of that grace, knowing I've been rescued, I've been saved, and it tends to lead to freedom. Can somebody say amen this morning? Amen. Post-Christian society is where we are living. Here's the deal. We often see Jesus in this role, and He modeled it so well for us.
[17:02] And we've got to know that people today are they're really searching for happiness. Are they not? Like, I know we don't necessarily say that, but we are truly just looking to be happy. And so if you were to punch in Google, you know, how to be happy. All right, here's kind of what it would say. It would say go to school. Get a good education. Buy yourself a nice little car. Right, get that sporty little car. Make sure you get that. Then you're gonna fall in love. You guys still with me? All right. Fall in love. Get married, buy that, a nice picture-perfect house, have a couple kids. All right.
[17:55] Then buy the minivan. How many of you guys struggled with buying that minivan part? How many fought against that? Man, I just got to say, that was like a step down in my pride. I was like, I will never drive a minivan, right? But it is, it's good. I got to admit, you know. And then to be happy, you know, we moved through into what we call retirement and live in Florida and golf all day, right? That's what we would consider being happy. And that's what society puts out to us. But if you've lived any time at all, you realize that from the education of the kids, the marriage, all of that stuff, there are some serious bumps in the road.
[18:45] And you can even attain all of what I just said and not be happy. And one day you will wake up, you know, for some of you young people that are here, you're like, nah, man, like, once I get the car, I'm gonna be happy. Once I get the girl, once I get the career, it's gonna be perfect. I'm just gonna tell you, okay, you're gonna hear this replay in your mind someday. You will wake up one day and not be happy with where your life is going. And today we're talking about sharing our faith. And this is why this is so important, because as Christians, as believers, we need to be able to know how to lean into these conversations, and Jesus always pointed people back to God.
[19:41] And that's where, as Christians, we need to be able to always point people to God as well, because people are searching. I want us to look at 2 Corinthians 4 verse 4. If you've ever asked this question, I've always wondered, you know, how do people live without God? How do people get through it? And it's in 2 Corinthians 4:4. It says, "Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe." People are blinded. They're distracted with trying to get this happiness, right, to get the fortune, to get everything that they want, that they're literally blinded. And as Christians, that creates an opportunity for us to be able to share our faith. And here's two things that are important when it comes to sharing our faith.
[20:41] There's two people that play a key role in it, and number one is us. Okay, when it comes to sharing our faith, we got to know this. The scripture, you've heard this before, but "Go ye into all the world, preach the gospel." Okay, we're commanded to share, so we play a role in this. Look at the person beside you and say, he's talking to you. Okay, now secondly, the Holy Spirit plays a massive role when it comes to people finding faith in Jesus. And I want us to look at this scripture verse and the role of the Holy Spirit in John 6:44. It says, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws them."
[21:38] Draws them. This is so important, and I think, again, as believers, as Christians, I think we forget how much the Holy Spirit is at work in the world out there, how much the Holy Spirit is at work in people's lives, speaking to them. This scripture says that He is drawing. Do you know what drawing means? He is pulling, He is constantly pulling people to Him. As believers, when it comes to sharing our faith, we can't forget that God is at work behind the scenes, and we hopefully get to play a small role in that. How many of you here today, you can honestly say, I have felt the Holy Spirit draw me to Him?
[22:33] He's at work drawing people. There's some of you that have just started them back to church. Why? Because there was just something pulling you wherever you went. There was these signs that just, like, kept saying, you know, whether it was conversations, these little things, the Holy Spirit. And I want us to say the Holy Spirit is at work whether we see it or not. There's some of us that are praying for family members, moms and dads, you're praying for your children. I want to encourage you right now. The Holy Spirit is at work drawing them to Him. Do you believe that? You believe that?
[23:21] I want us to just, even just pause for a minute. Maybe you want to just close your eyes. Holy Spirit, we just want to thank You. We want to acknowledge You, that You are at work. And I know that sometimes we get frustrated and we get tired, we don't understand, but Holy Spirit We want to acknowledge the work that You are doing. You might be speaking louder outside the doors of this church. Then we realize Your voice may be more clear out there than it is in here. Holy Spirit, we thank You for drawing people to You in Jesus' name. There's two things that the Holy Spirit uses to draw people to Him. And number one, He uses two things. First, He convicts us of our sin.
[24:14] The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin. But here's another thing that I love about this: the Holy Spirit awakens us to a previously unknown interest in the spiritual things. Suddenly our eyes and our ears become enlightened. You know, how in the Scripture, Corinthians, it talked about how we're blinded. The Holy Spirit has a way of awakening us to the things of God, and it's exciting and it's powerful. Holy Spirit, we thank You for what You are doing. Here's what we got to know though: is that we have a role to play. Those of you who have kids, you would understand that. It's interesting how kids will just allow you to pick up after them or cook for them or do all their laundry. They'll allow you to do that as long as you'll let them.
[25:12] But here's the deal. We got to understand as Christians, we can't just allow the Holy Spirit. He needs us. We have a role to play as Christians, as the body of Christ. We have a role to play in people coming to know Jesus. And so I want to share some of the reasons why we often hesitate when it comes to sharing our faith. Oftentimes, number one is we are scared. We're scared to share our faith. I got to share this story because I always remember it. My mom was just, she was so passionate when it came to this sort of thing and sharing her faith, and I had two older brothers. And I can remember we went to get groceries in our little community and years ago, believe it or not, you would get your groceries, you would pay for them, and then there would be this, like, college student, all right, that had a job after school, and he would carry your groceries out for you. Sometimes he had a little cart and he would load them into your car. Has anybody ever heard of that? I mean, I know you can now Google and get Walmart and they'll do the same thing. All right, so just picture this poor guy. He's just, like, trying to make a few bucks, right, a little bit of minimum wage, and so he's packing the groceries in the car and us boys are just sitting in there chatting it up having a good time, and I can remember my mom looking at him and she says, "Excuse me.
[26:40] Has anyone ever told you about Jesus?" And I can just remember the awkwardness, uncomfortable this of his reply, and he was just like, "Yes, I know Jesus." And us in the car, us boys are just cringing because we didn't know where the conversation was going to go. But the reality is there's some of the reasons why we hesitate in sharing is because we are scared to share our faith, but I hope that we know today that we don't necessarily have to share our faith in that way. It's more of the life that we live. And I'll even say this, that when it comes to, like, things that we're passionate about, like your car, or passionate about food or health or your pets, how many know that it's real easy to talk about those things? Is it not?
[27:32] And I believe that as Christians we can get to the place where we're so passionate about our relationship with God and what He's doing in our life and in our family and our church, that when it comes to sharing our faith, it's just natural. We're just talking about what's going on in our life and people are attracted to that and it allows an opportunity to share our faith in that. I feel like if our conversations of sharing faith are awkward and uncomfortable, we might just be doing it wrong. Number two, reasons why we often hesitate is we don't feel qualified. And you know what? I know what that feels like. Okay, and the reality is that's probably never just gonna go away. You're always going to feel under qualified, like you're not qualified to share your faith, but read the New Testament, you're gonna see all the people who hung out with Jesus. They weren't qualified to do what they did. So don't allow that to be your excuse today. Number three, reasons why we hesitate: it's because we don't want to be pushy. That's like a Canadian thing, isn't it?
[28:39] Right, where we just don't want to be pushy, but here's what we can be: we can be passionate. And people are drawn to passion. You don't have to be pushy. Number three, or number four, sorry, we're too complacent. We're too complacent, and man, again, we have to be able to take ownership that we have a role to play when it comes to people, share it, when it comes to sharing our faith. We can't allow the other church to say, "Oh, they're gonna do it," or, you know, "Kevin Campbell, he's really good at talking to people, we're gonna let him share the faith for our church." No, we need to be able to not be complacent when it comes to sharing our faith. And as we begin to kind of land the plane here today, I want us to just talk about three things, three ways that we can share our faith. Number one is use what's in your hand.
[29:44] Use what's in your hand. And here's one of the biggest things that I use. I don't know if you guys have ever noticed, but people like to talk about their problems. Ever find that? I use that to my advantage when people talk about their problems. I always want to be able to use that to point them in a direction that's going to help them. This is what's in my hand when someone talks to me again just about, man, "I just don't know how to parent my kids. I just don't know what's going on." Do you know, I use those as an opportunity to be like, "Guess what? I just listened to this podcast. That was so helpful for me because you got to know that I struggle when it comes to parenting my kids. I'm in this with you."
[30:34] And I begin to offer them something that's going to help the situation that they're in. And I believe that those people's problems, when they present them to you, are opportunities for you to introduce, not even share them, for faith, share your faith, but just drop seeds, and they come back to you like, "Man, I listened to that podcast and wow, that was so helpful. I didn't realize that parenting started with me." It's like, yeah, we have a lot of work to do on ourselves, and the parenting part gets easier, but and then it creates opportunities where we can point people to other places. So what is in your hand? And I got to just share this real quick story. As many of you may know, we have four kids, amazing kids. I am the fun parent.
[31:27] Okay, and so you guys can Go ahead and use this game, but we invented this game that we get to, I don't know if we call it Manhunt or what it is. But we play this particular game in Walmart or Costco or any large department store, and it's kind of like a game. It's kind of like hide and seek, but there are rules. So those of you who think that I don't have rules, I do have rules. The rules are you can't run. Okay, so it's kind of a hide and seek game, and so we pair kids up into twos, they go hide, and the others of us, we go find them. Okay, they can go hide anywhere. You can kind of move the diapers and get in behind them. But the rule is how you're caught: every group has a cell phone, and so when we get a picture of you, then we text it to you and you're out of the game.
[32:17] Okay, it's the funnest game. Okay, and so we were playing this not too long ago and I was with my daughter and we were in one of the aisles and we were moving some heavy boxes because we were trying to get back in underneath the boxes to hide, and ironically this lady that was shopping there, she thought I worked there. And so she's like, "Sir, can you help me?" And we're, again, we're talking about using what's in your hand. And so I got into a conversation with her and she needed some help with something. And so of course, I'm helping her with that and it led to more of a conversation, and then I, you know, we're talking about, I invited her to church and it's just that my kids just know the routine of how all these conversations lead to.
[33:09] And it's led to this ongoing, you know, text where she's, I've helped her get someone to help her with her taxes, she needed somebody to come and help move a couch, which I wasn't able to, but just a lot of different ways that have kept me connected with this person, and she's going to walk through the doors of this church one day because we would just use what's in our hand. Use what's in your hand today. What is it? Are you a stay-at-home mom that you can help other moms in what you're doing, in your wheelhouse? There are so many things that we have in our hand to help lead people to Jesus. Number two is share your story.
[33:57] When it comes to, when it comes to sharing our faith, we all have a story, don't we? We all have a story and it's important that we remember and that we think about what is that? What was that maybe for you? You're living that story. It's just been a month or two that the Holy Spirit's been drawing you to Him. Maybe for some of you some years have passed by. But I can remember being 19 years old, questioning, "God, are You real?" And that was the moment. That was a season where I was in my heart saying, "God, if You're not going to show up here in a real way, I'm gonna go do all my friends are doing."
[34:49] And I don't have time to tell you the story, but in those moments, God didn't speak to me audibly, but in that search He changed something inside of me that has lasted until now, that has given me an opportunity to be here. But that's part of my story. And you have a real story, that I promise you. Some of the people that you interact with, the coworkers, family members, that story would help them so much as they are searching, trying to find meaning and happiness in their life.
[35:38] Don't underestimate your story. In small groups this week, you're going to get a chance to talk about your story and work on your story. It's so valuable when it comes to sharing our faith. And number three, my favorite, is invite people to church. Is inviting people to church. And you got to know that inviting people to online church is one of the most important ways to invite somebody today because, as we mentioned, as we are a post-Christian society, it's a big step for somebody to walk into the building.
[36:27] Come and take a seat right here. But you inviting them to join online and watch at a time that, whenever is convenient for them, is such an easy and important invite that you have no idea the impact that it might have. Maybe there's a particular message that really resonates with you, or maybe, as I said, somebody presents a problem to you and you're like, "Wait a minute, I remember a message a month ago." And you send them that message online. Inviting people to church is so important for us. Guys, it's our future as we lean into Easter, one of the biggest times of the year to invite people to church.
[37:19] We're in that season, and so before we close, I want to give you an opportunity to invite someone to church, invite someone to Easter, right now. So what we're going to do is we're simply going to put up on the screen a QR code. How many of you guys all have your cell phones with you? Okay, I'm just going to guide you through this if you're not familiar with a QR code. Here's what I would like you to do. Take out your phone, and I want you to hit the camera app. Okay, take the camera app and I want you to hold it right up to that QR code. We've already done the invite for you. It's going to populate a text message for you.
[38:10] The words are already going to be there that you need to invite and what to say to invite a friend, neighbor, coworkers, someone in your contacts. The words are right there. All you need to do is put their name in the text at the top. Right now it'll say "friend." You can leave that there or you can just delete that out. But put someone in there. Who will you invite? Put that in there and hit send, and here's what you're gonna, here's what you're gonna send them. You're gonna send them a pre-populated text message with a link to a video that is just a short little video inviting them to church this Easter. You can send that invite as many times as you like, maybe not to the same person, but to multiple people.
[39:02] And maybe you're here today and your, care, your phone doesn't come equipped with a camera, or perhaps you're not able to get the QR code to work. We have a team that's outside in the atrium following the service. They will help walk you through it. We've got other options that you can text them if you don't have a camera on your phone. But I believe, as a church, we have a responsibility to invite our city to church, don't we? It's not someone else's, it's our responsibility and I believe as we move into the next season of leadership in our church, I believe that we're going to see God do incredible things as we move into being more invitational.
[39:53] So, I believe we're going to be able to change our slogan from today's message to "Dear church, I love you, and I can't stop inviting people to church." If you believe that, would you guys give Jesus a big hand clap and continue inviting your friends, your neighbors, and your coworkers to church as we see God do something amazing in our community.