Latest / Real Life Theology Podcast / Not Ashamed: Share the Gospel With Courage (feat. Dave and Sydney Clayton)

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Not Ashamed: Share the Gospel With Courage (feat. Dave and Sydney Clayton) · Real Life Theology Podcast

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  Welcome back to another episode on the Real Life Theology podcast. This podcast
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  gets to feature some great content on disciple-making and theology. Today's
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  episode features Dave and Sydney Clayton challenging us not to be ashamed of the
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  gospel and to be convicted of people's need for Jesus.
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  Man, great to see you. You know, in the spirit of that video that we just watched, here's our
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  talk. Share the gospel. Don't be scared. Thank you. That's it. I'm so
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  glad you're here. As we get started this morning, can you just help me show just a
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  little bit of love and appreciation to Bobby and Jason and Melissa and the Renew
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  team and Harpeth community. Man, what a gift to have leaders like you in a
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  church like this that cares more about the big kingdom than just your small
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  kingdom. And we know this takes so much effort and work and energy. And man, what
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  a gift to be here together. Open up your Bibles with us to Romans chapter 1,
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  verse 16. This is where we're gonna be all day, so you can just keep your Bibles open to
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  this verse. And we're gonna look at the first part of it together this morning.
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  It says, for I'm not ashamed. Say, I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it's the
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  power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes. First to the Jew
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  and then to the Gentile. For I am not ashamed. You know, our church that we
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  planted 11 years ago is celebrating our birthday this week. And so we've been
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  celebrating our church's 11th birthday, which has been so much fun in the
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  world of church planting. To survive 11 years feels like just a monumental
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  moment. So we've been celebrating all week. And as we've done that,
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  we've kind of reflected back on some of the moments, you know, some of those key
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  moments. And I was reminded recently of this moment about six months before our
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  church started where we were in that phase of trying to build a team, and we
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  were trying to pull people together. And so it felt like every night of the week
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  we'd have people in our home, and Sidney would make a meal, and we would cast
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  vision, and we would ask for money, and we would ask for prayer, and we would ask
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  for money, and we'd ask people to serve, and we'd ask for money. And it was just
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  kind of that season where we were trying to get people together around this
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  mission of reaching the loss that God has called us to. I remember this one
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  night in particular, we had a group of about 10 or 12 adults in our home
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  who had spent the majority of their lives in church in some shape, form, or
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  fashion. And they were excited about this mission that God had given us. And we had
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  two questions that evening that we wanted to wrestle with. And the first one
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  was this. We said, how long have you been a follower of Jesus? Not how long have
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  you been in church. How long have you been a follower of Jesus? And the room
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  just kind of lit up. They went around, and they told stories how they came to
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  faith, and what it looked like to follow Jesus. And then we got to the second
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  question of the night, which was supposed to be kind of that climactic moment
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  where we expected everybody to be filled with inspiration and to charge the hill
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  with this. The second question was, tell us a moment from your journey of faith
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  where you've shared the gospel with somebody that you're not related to, not
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  married to. Tell us a moment when you've shared the gospel, and you've seen it
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  transform somebody from the inside out as they began to follow Jesus. And here's
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  what struck us in that moment. I'm not exactly sure what we expected, but
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  it went in a way that we never anticipated. The joy that was in the room
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  during the first question as they reflected back on their experience in
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  church just evaporated, and it went silent because in that room where more
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  than 500 years of faith were represented, not one person could remember a moment
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  where they shared the gospel with someone they weren't related to and saw
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  someone come to Jesus. And we're like, whoa. And there's this moment where we
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  were reminded of just how easy it is to spend your whole life in church, to
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  really affirm the words of Romans 116 that, man, we're not ashamed because this
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  is the good news, it's the power of God. It's easy to affirm it, but to never
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  experience the reality of Romans 116 for yourself. So this morning, as we begin our
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  time together, we just kind of want to stop and go, why is it that Paul was not
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  ashamed, but so many of us are operating as though we are? And what does it look
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  like to break free of that as we start living out the power of the good news
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  that Jesus has given us? Dave and I kept noticing that there is this pattern, this
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  cycle that kept coming up, that we felt convicted, but then we felt a little bit
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  paralyzed, and it didn't really bring action into that. And we were having a
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  conversation with our friend Dave Wilson, and he's just an incredible evangelist in
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  Nashville, especially in the business sector, and he really gave us a handle. He
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  gave us a vocabulary to name what we were seeing and what we were experiencing. And
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  we really want to give you that handle to give you a common vocabulary. And he
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  called it the evangelism guilt cycle. And for those of you who are type A, anal
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  retentive like me, there's going to be a slide up here for you, so you can copy
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  along. I understand that. So we're going to walk you through this. This first step
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  with the evangelism guilt cycle is that Holy Spirit convicts us, right? He
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  convicts us that we know we should be sharing our faith. So the first step is, I
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  know I should. I know I should be sharing my faith. And that's where you get that
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  revved up, you know, Holy Spirit conviction, and you could charge the hill. Then you
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  go to charge the hill, and you realize, I don't know how to do this. Like, I am
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  actually ignorant on what it looks like to take action in this moment. And that
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  takes you to step two, but I don't know how to share my faith. And so now we're a
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  little bit paralyzed of, okay, but, but, but I don't know how to do it. And then
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  fear starts to creep in. And that's step three, is that I'm fearful to do it. And
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  there's lies of, what if, start coming through our brain. Like, what if I do
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  this and it blows up in my face? What if I do this and it goes wrong, right? And
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  fear becomes something that paralyzes us, and that leads us to step
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  four. So I just won't try. I just won't do it. And that fear drives us to inaction.
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  Isn't that exactly how the enemy works? Fear, right? And after that, you've now
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  had this massive fear, and you don't do anything, then you're reminded of the
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  original conviction. And it throws you back into the cycle, because you're
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  reminded of the original conviction that said, you need to go share your faith, but
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  you didn't do it. So now you feel what? Guilty. You feel guilty about it. And
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  what's funny is we've seen this play out, you know, with the people we're
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  discipling. But this isn't just for people in our church on the back row who
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  aren't doing anything. We're talking about evangelism guilt cycle that we've
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  experienced together in our own family, even in just the past few weeks.
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  You know, Bobby asked us to come. He said, I want you to talk about what it looks
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  like to live a life that's not ashamed. And I'm like, man, but what if we're
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  sometimes still ashamed? And I'm just curious, even if you have the courage in
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  this room, just raise your hand if you've had a moment where you found yourself in
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  this cycle that Sidney just described, where you heard the sermon, you knew you
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  should be talking about it, you were, you didn't know how to do it, you were scared,
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  and so you got caught in this paralysis of fear. And so we had this moment just a
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  few weeks ago, where there was a woman who volunteers in one of our son's
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  schools, and she called us. You know, one of our sons, we're just noticing he has
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  this heart for people that don't yet know Jesus, and we're trying to foster
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  that in him. And so this one day, he was having a conversation with a lady
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  that works in the lunchroom at their school cafeteria, and they started
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  talking about faith. And he said, what God do you worship? Which I
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  thought, man, that's a really good question. I didn't teach him that. It's a
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  great question. What God do you worship? And she said, well, I'm Hindu. I worship
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  many gods. And it broke his heart. He didn't tell us about this. We didn't know
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  any of this was going on. And so he comes home, and true story, he gets his Bible.
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  The next day, brings it to school. That's like extra brownie points for a
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  preacher's kid. Brings his Bible to school without us knowing. And over the
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  course of the next several days, in the lunchroom, he's showing his
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  cafeteria worker the story of Jesus. And he's reading scriptures, and he's
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  showing the Bible. And this volunteer, who's friends with Sidney, calls us, and
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  she says, hey, I've got to tell you what I saw your son doing. He's sharing his faith
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  in the cafeteria. And I'll be honest, in that moment, we had two really dominating
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  feelings. And the first was just unbelievable joy, and pride, and
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  excitement about what God was doing in the heart of our son, and that he's
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  beginning to live out what we've been trying to train him to do. But it was the
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  second feeling that rose up in our spirit that caught us off guard, and
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  reminded us just how much this is still at work in us, even though we're trying
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  to live boldly into the kingdom of God. That second feeling was just this
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  feeling of fear. Like, man, what if the people in our school ostracize
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  our kids? What if they come against our son? What if they look down on him? And
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  guys, I'm embarrassed to even say that, but the reality is, I realize, man,
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  there's still these seeds of shame and fear that are at work in all of us. And
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  the challenge, when it comes to us living boldly with the gospel, very rarely has
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  anything to do with the person out there in the culture that's against you, or
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  very rarely just that person on the back row in your church that's just
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  checking the box. A lot of times it starts with us as leaders, and coming
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  face-to-face with the reality that most of us affirm Romans 116, but we still
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  don't experience what Paul's talking about. Because in a culture that's so
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  much more hostile than ours, he said, I'm not ashamed. He said, I'm not ashamed of
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  the gospel live, because it's the power of God that changes lives. And so for our
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  last couple of minutes, we want to talk about what does it look like to, in the
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  culture that we're in, to break out of this cycle that so many of us get caught
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  in, and to start experiencing the power of what Paul is speaking into. And we
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  think if we want to experience it, there's a few things that we can embrace
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  as leaders. It starts with clarity. It often moves to conviction, and then it
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  lands in the place of community. This first one is clarity, and we really feel
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  like this is the cornerstone. It's the foundation, and if we miss this, we can
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  forget the rest. And clarity, what we want you to be clear on, is the truth
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  that God is good. A lot of us have forgotten that and have not let it
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  settle in our heart, but God is good, and the story of Jesus is good news for all.
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  Amen? Amen, right? That's foundational. And Dave and I were reflecting back on our
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  own lives, and we were reminded of a time when we were ashamed of a good thing, and
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  we started chuckling, because isn't that really the definition of middle school
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  in regards to your parents, right? In middle school, you know, you go from
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  elementary school, mom, dad, you're eating lunch with me, to in middle school, you
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  don't even let them walk within eight feet of you when you walk through the
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  mall, right? It's like, I am embarrassed of you. And I was reminded of this time in
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  eighth grade, you know, every day, three o'clock, the bell rings, and we're
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  dismissed to go outside for pickup in the car rider line. And I will never
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  forget, like, I remember every day we were in that car rider line, and you just saw
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  this little hatchback Volkswagen Rabbit. It was like, burnt sienna color. Do y'all
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  know what I'm talking about? I'm gonna try to flash back to the 70s here. And it was a
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  diesel car, so it was like, and it's like pumping black smoke out, you know, so
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  everybody down, we're just choking. And you just felt so bad for that kiddo, that
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  like, as they're, as the car's slowly pulling up, and they get there, then they
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  call your name. It's like adding insult to injury, right? Oh, they were calling my
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  name. That was my car. And I was like, oh. So you're trying to, like, run before they
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  call your name, and dip into the car, and duck as you drive away. And it would take
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  a couple of years, so after middle school and high school, and I would reflect back,
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  and I go, man, I had good parents. And, you know, what had shifted? Well, my parents
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  hadn't shifted. They were good when I was in elementary school. They were good when
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  I was in middle school. In fact, they were sacrificially good. They were two teachers
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  on teacher salary, and they felt they needed to sacrifice and send my brother and I to
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  this small private school, because it was what was best for our family, and they sacrificed
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  ever knowing a new car in that season, because they were good. What had shifted from elementary
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  to middle school was the culture I was in. It was my peers. It was the culture telling
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  me you should be ashamed of that good thing. Isn't that a mirror of what we find ourselves
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  now in this culture? God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and He is good. Our Heavenly
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  Father is a good Father. He has not shifted. He has not moved. But our culture has shifted.
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  And our culture has told us you should be ashamed. Keep it to yourself. Keep it quiet.
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  But we know better.
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  And so, you know, part of the way that we break this cycle of shame that grips so many
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  of us in the churches is just coming face-to-face with clarity on what is the good news, and
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  why is it good news, and who does it point to. And so it starts in this place of clarity.
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  The second place we find ourselves is in this place of Holy Spirit-filled conviction. Not
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  just about the goodness of the gospel, but about the desperate situation that the people
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  around us find themselves in when they don't know Jesus.
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  And I think one of the challenges of the American church is a lot of our churches are devoid
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  of Holy Spirit conviction when it comes to the eternal reality of the people that are
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  around us.
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  I remember years ago on my first job out of college, one of the guys that I was working
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  for, his elementary school-age son at the time, went missing for five hours. And I don't
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  know if you're a parent, but if you're a parent, you know how terrifying it is to lose your
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  kid for ten minutes in Kroger. He lost his son for five hours. And I remember in that
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  moment we discovered what we always assumed to be true, and that is when a child goes
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  missing, normal people go looking.
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  Everybody stopped everything on their calendar. They shut down the meetings. They didn't go
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  to lunch. They canceled the appointment. Why? Because a kid has gone missing. And I
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  think part of the way we begin to experience the reality of Romans 116 is not just when
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  we have clarity about the goodness of God in our lives, but when we're convicted by
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  the power of the Holy Spirit that without Jesus, people are eternally separated from
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  God.
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  And unless that conviction comes in, we never experience what Paul talks about. It starts
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  with clarity. It goes to conviction, and often it is put together in the context of community.
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  And we're not talking about communities that are just filled with habitual churchgoers
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  or cultural Christians. We're talking about communities that are marked by gospel-loving,
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  Spirit-filled disciples of Jesus. We're talking about communities where evangelism and discipleship
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  are not just taught, they're caught, they're modeled, they're celebrated, they're experienced.
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  I remember when I was in high school, we got a new youth pastor who was passionate about
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  evangelism, and he would reinforce that cycle that Sidney was talking about earlier. Every
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  week he would teach us, but we didn't know how to do it. And it wasn't until a kid in
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  our youth group said, hey, we don't need you to teach us any more sermons. We need you
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  to show us how to do it. We need you to model how to live this way out for the sake of those
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  that are around us.
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  And so the way that we begin, we believe that we begin to experience the good news of the
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  gospel. It happens with clarity, it comes with conviction, and it happens in the context
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  of community.
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  We've noticed that just in our own lives and within our church body, is that the gospel
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  is powerful, and it's transformative. And when we allow that clarity to come in, and
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  that conviction, and in the process of being bold in community and that encouragement,
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  that lives change.
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  In fact, this past year, there was a woman who came into our church because someone was
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  bold enough to invite her and share their faith. And she walks through the doors as
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  a practicing witch, actively practicing witchcraft. And as she comes through the doors, Holy Spirit
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  meets her where she's at. And as she sits there in worship and she begins to worship,
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  she has a true encounter with the living Jesus for the first time in her life. She reaches
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  in her pocket, takes out her witchcraft cards, rips them up, tosses them in the trash, and
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  continues to study with her friend over the next few weeks and is baptized. A life transformed.
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  The gospel isn't just the power of God to change those caught in witchcraft. It's the
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  power of God to change those trapped in cultural Christianity. Think about a young guy in our
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  church that spent his whole life in church, but never met the real Jesus. He showed up
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  at our church because of the girl that he was living with and sleeping with brought
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  him there. And so they showed up, and week after week, he heard the story that he thought
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  he already knew. And guys, I'm just telling you, the cross of Jesus still works. The resurrection
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  of Jesus still works. And just hearing the same old story changed his old broken heart.
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  God gave him a new life, and we've watched him get married and have children and make
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  disciples in amazing ways. It's the power of God to change lives. Or think about all
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  of the other young adults. Think about the young Muslim man that gave his life to Jesus
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  last year because he had a vision of Jesus. And then one of our pastors sat down and told
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  him the story he had never heard. And I go, guys, it's not that complicated. And we're
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  here today not just to affirm what Paul felt about the gospel. We're not just to affirm
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  that he wasn't ashamed. We're here saying, hey, God, would you let that be true of us?
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  The good news about the gospel is that despite the stats and stories, it still works because
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  Jesus is still King. And so whether you need clarity or conviction or community this morning,
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  we're going to just close by praying over you that God would do that in your life. And
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  so let's bow our heads. Let's pray as we enter into the rest of our day.
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  Good Father, we are so thankful that you are consistent and you are good. Would you
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  let that just settle into our hearts? That would be our cornerstone, that we have clarity
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  on that. Would you let Holy Spirit convict our hearts that people are worth that uncomfortable
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  conversation sometimes? God, would you give us good community and help us develop community
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  that encourages us to be bold for your name's sake, Father? We just want to be used by you
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  and not sedentary for you. We want to be on fire for you and not lukewarm. So God, would
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  you use us in the way only you can use us, God? We love you and we praise your name and
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  are thankful for your Son. It's his name we pray. Amen.
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  Thank you guys for listening to this episode on the Real Life Theology Podcast. Please
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  comment, like, subscribe. We would love to hear from you guys. If you want more great
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  content on disciple making, please join us at Renew.org. I'll see you guys on the next
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  episode.