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#80 - Why Are We Afraid to Invite People to Jesus? · Gospel Talks Podcast

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One of the biggest problems we face as believers is engaging somebody and actually asking them a question we would call a question of crisis.
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The first one is, hey, you wanna start a Bible study with me?
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Sounds really simple saying it in the comfort of a podcast studio to you, Jeff, but um that can be just heart rending and fearful and there can be all sorts of emotions that
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accompany a question like that when asking somebody we've not known for incredibly long or they are our friend and we're
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We're scared it's gonna risk the friendship.
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we kind of bring them to this other point of crisis, which is, would you like to put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ and his finished work on the cross?
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These are really scary things.
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How on earth can we help believers, everyday people, manage these kind of moments in their relationship
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Welcome everybody to Gospel Talks podcast where we help Christians all over the world become more effective in relational evangelism and discipleship.
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My name is George Binoka and with me today is my brother and my dear friend, Jeff Musgrave, founder, author of The Exchange, Exchange Bible Study, and all the resources
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that come with The Exchange ministry.
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For all those resources and to look at everything in our store, the arsenal of things we provide for Christians all over the world to be effective when they engage unbelievers, go
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to exchangemessage.org.
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and you can browse all the resources there.
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We're also, we would love to come to your church and train your people.
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That's Jeff and Anna's passion.
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They've done that with over 100 churches and over 10,000 believers that have been trained in exchange seminars.
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And so on the front page of the exchange website, exchangemessage.org, you'll see a button that says discovery call, and you can schedule a call with Jeff and talk about your
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church's need.
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We'd love to help you guys with that.
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Yeah, I actually think that it might help people to know I've never out
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grown that nervousness, fear.
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It's a crisis of faith for me as well.
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And I actually believe that's probably the, the word that I like the best is to help people recognize this is a crisis of faith.
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And and what we have to do is recognize that we have to either trust God and to step forward, or trust ourselves trust our circumstances and chicken out.
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And so that really is the issue.
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Does God want me to do this?
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Has God called me to do this?
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Then His word is trustworthy and I can step out on what He said.
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You know, what is so tough is fear is a very, very, very strong feeling.
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And I will say this, every time that I've ignored my fear and trusted God and asked the question and given the opportunity, I've never been disappointed by Him.
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Even when they said no, because in the end, I know that that just reveals this is where they are for that moment.
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We continue building the friendship.
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But I don't know why.
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There's just this difficulty of getting over that one thing.
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Well, and the opposite of that is true.
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You know, we try really hard to use all positive motivation.
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But I know the times when I have given in to my own fears, and not pursued it and and be plagued with regret and guilt of knowing I I didn't obey the Lord, I didn't take the
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opportunities that he provided for me.
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And so, you know, you're you're saying you've never regretted taking those opportunities even when people reject.
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but I I'm assuming you would say the same thing that I certainly have regretted it many times when I have neglected the call.
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Yeah, and it just makes me wonder, because I've met believers that just have relegated to this passivity.
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Where does that, I mean, I'm just so curious to understand and just hear your thoughts on this.
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Where does that kind of passivity come from?
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Well, I think I think there's just the flesh.
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mean, our flesh doesn't want to do spiritual things.
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mean, it, I don't know if you've ever thought of it.
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This is just a reality.
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When I got saved, my flesh did not get saved.
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It's going to one of these days, I'm going to heaven, and I'll get a new body and a new perfect life.
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But
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Until then, I'm still dealing with a flash and my flesh is constantly pulling me away.
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Jesus said it this way, the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
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And so I think that's that's part of it.
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I also believe that because we know that God calls people the Bible, Jesus, the Bible tells us Jesus said, accept the Father draw, no one can come to the Father.
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And this is an inappropriate
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theological reaction.
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But it is possible sometimes for people to make the logical leap that says, if God is doing it all, then I don't have to do anything.
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And, and I think that that misunderstanding of God's work really does often lend itself to a passivity that says I don't have to do anything because God's doing it all.
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Yes, yeah, and I also believe that by not asking the question, by not making the offer, we are blocking and getting in the way of grace that would otherwise be theirs.
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I love the way you've said this.
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I'm looking at our show notes right now and I'm like, I've never thought of it this way.
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But I mean, it hit me hard when I thought about, there was a couple that I offered them.
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So we started a Bible study in our home, Jeff, because I told you about that itch.
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that I've been getting.
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And so we're meeting every Friday night in our home, then we met another couple that I think would really benefit from this Bible study.
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So I said, hey, come, we're going through these attributes of God and you come to your own conclusions and this and that.
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But I did it in such a passive way of like, hey, you might be really busy and I don't know if you really wanna do this.
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I'm almost talking them out of it.
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Instead of just saying, hey, would you like?
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to know God more, would you like to have these questions answered?
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And I'm a pastor, and I'm a pastor and I had that trepidation.
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And so I'm withholding grace though.
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I love the way you said it.
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God uses these invitations as a means of grace.
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Yeah, in fact, I'll say this phrase just the way it comes out of our notes.
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God uses our invitations as his means of grace for sinners.
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Having said that, let me say that that is that is not original material with me.
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think number one, it's in the Bible.
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But number two, I listened to an hour and a half long presentation by john mccarthur on this very topic.
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And john mccarthur said, you know,
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I am probably the strongest Calvinist most people will ever meet.
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But I believe that God uses human invitation as a means of grace to centers to come to know him.
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And I it really hit me.
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And he was talking about when the first missionary went to India.
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And when William Carey went, there was a great theological battle that the
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it was kind of they call him the father of modern missions.
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And so theologically, they had to wrestle with this.
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So we've been not doing this for a long time.
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But we haven't been doing it because we know God is sovereign and God is and then there had to be this theological battle that took place in which Thomas Fuller, kind of his
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spokesman on the in England.
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ah said, no, this is theologically inaccurate.
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The fact is God has called us, we are His ambassadors, and in fact, we're doing what God called us to do.
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Yep, I really believe that we are called to make these kind of invitations, specifically these kind, one-on-one.
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Also, mean, preaching, what's the point of preaching without an invitation to do something about it?
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think all preachers, whether they realize it or not, when they preach, they're inviting people to do something, and that's...
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people to respond to the truth of the word.
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Exactly, exactly.
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Yeah, well, you know, I quoted John Piper that he's the one who I first heard this phrase that an invitation is a means of grace for sinners.
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But it actually is in the scriptures.
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If I'm going to read from First Corinthians chapter, excuse me, Second Corinthians chapter five, verse 20.
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Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ.
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And then in the ESV, it says it this way.
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God making his appeal through us.
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So I think that's the real issue for us here is that we need to recognize when when God stirs his people to speak to the laws, it's actually God making that appeal.
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He's just making the appeal through us.
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And then later, he says, Therefore, we implore you on behalf of Christ.
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So when we stand and call people to repent,
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Literally what we're doing is we are we are speaking the words of Christ in the spirit of Christ from the motivation of Christ to people it is God's means of grace to them
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And when we choose not to, when we are compelled or convicted by the Holy Spirit to make that appeal on his behalf, at that point we're an unwilling mouthpiece, right?
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I mean, it's like, wow, what a ministry all of us as believers have, laborers in the harvest, to make that appeal on behalf of Christ, and sometimes just because of fear we
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don't.
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yeah.
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And it is because of fear.
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I will just say this.
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It does motivate me to I don't want to disappoint God like that.
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And I think it's important for us to think that way.
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But more importantly, what a blessing that God called humans to be his mouthpiece.
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Literally, I mean, the words are God making his appeal.
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through us.
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What a privilege to be a servant of God like that.
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So to me that that is much more motivation than I'm going to disappoint God is that God called me this is amazing.
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This is a wonderful gift.
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Yes, yeah and and I love that Also the idea of when we're inviting them, you know, we're inviting them to Jesus Christ We're also inviting them to heaven with us.
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This is such a good thing The problem is the world, know, the world makes us feel like our message is a bad thing Of course Satan is gonna make us feel like there are mess.
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He's he's the arbiter of death.
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And so
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He's not gonna, he's gonna make it look like bad news, but what we have is the best news on earth, and we're inviting them to such a good thing, there's no reason we should feel
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bad about it.
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Well, and I do think the world is going to say you are the problem.
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Sit on the shut up.
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And what we have to remind ourselves of is that number one, God called me to do this.
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But number two, I am their only hope, even if they don't want to hear what I have to say, I am their only hope.
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And these are the words that God is calling to the world through us.
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And that is be reconciled to God or literally, this the idea here is
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Come back to God come back and literally God is saying come back to me, please.
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I want you as my own please come back to me.
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And he says that through us.
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Yeah, yeah, I love this reference, Revelation 19, nine.
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I don't know what the, you tell me what the point is you're making by this, but I'll read it for you.
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The angel said to me, write this, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the lamb.
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I'm guessing the point there being, you know, these are the true words of God.
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He's saying that this is an invitation of sorts that's, you know, we're inviting them to this very supper when we are presenting the gospel.
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Yeah.
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I love to think that and God says my job is to go invite people to this wedding feast.
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That's, that's literally what God called me to do.
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And I mean, nobody is going to feel like they're imposing on people.
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When you realize I'm inviting them to the greatest wedding feast ever.
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And it's not only a greatest wedding feast day ever, but we, the collective church, are going to be the bride.
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And we get to spend eternity with our bridegroom, Jesus Christ.
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And what a gift that we give to people.
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So I think it's important for us to remember when we are given an invitation.
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So we're inviting people to study the word of God with us through the Exchange Bible study.
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We're given an invitation to receive Christ at the end.
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of the Bible study.
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God is going to use this as a means of grace for that sinner.
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But what we're actually doing is just inviting them as our friend to be our eternal friend and spend eternity with us in heaven.
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think it's interesting that the angel after he says to john he says write this down.
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Blessed is everyone who's invited to the wedding feast and then he says and he said to me
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these are the true words of the Lord.
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And I don't know if you've heard it or not, but a lot of times in passage or in church, when someone reads the text, they'll end by saying, this is the word of the Lord.
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And they're actually quoting this passage, which the angel is saying about that specific invitation.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's so beautiful when you think about this.
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There's actually a song written, We Wanna See You Over There.
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I don't know if you've ever heard that Christian song.
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It's a great song, you oughta go listen to it.
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But the basic idea is we're doing this because we love you, we wanna see you with us.
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What a shame it would be, like, know, Lazarus and the rich man.
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To have known the good news and then know you're gonna be separated from God and known we could have said something and we could have invited you but never took the risk because we
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were scared what you might think, we were scared of rejection, we were scared of all these different things.
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What's interesting, you would quote Lazarus and a rich man.
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This the passage of Scripture right before that the passage where it talks about Lazarus and a rich man.
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The first part of Luke 16.
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There's this parable of the unjust steward, it's probably one of the most difficult parables in Scripture to me, in terms of trying to help people understand what's being
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taught there.
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But
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Jesus at the end of the parable makes this admonition.
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And he says, and I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it the wealth when the army means in this earth fail, they may receive you
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into the eternal dwellings.
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And so I'm going to just back up and take some of that out of there so that we can see it.
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make for yourselves friends in heaven so that they can receive you into eternal dwellings.
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And God has given us a picture of our life.
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And in the context of that parable, He's literally saying, you just leverage what you have access to in this world.
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So our time, our talents, our treasures, everything we have, God wants us to leverage that.
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so that we can touch other people and here's specifically what we're doing.
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We're inviting them to go to heaven with us.
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We're inviting them to be our eternal friends in heaven.
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This is what the gospel invitation is all about, is inviting people to go to heaven.
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You know, everything in our life is a tool for the Great Commission, right?
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We ought to look at it as having that dual purpose at all times.
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And I remember there's a pastor I sat down with when I was in college.
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was on a team that traveled a little bit and we went to this pastor's church and had this couch and it was just horribly worn out and he was so proud of it.
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I said, why are you so proud of it?
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He said, it reminds me of the couch that I would play on.
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One of my neighbors, were Christian family from the church and
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I was over there all the time and all their furniture was worn out because they always had people over, but they were always discipling the people in their home.
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And he said he had come from a home where the furniture was perfect, but the shame of that was that nobody ever used it.
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And so, you know, everything in our life is a tool for God's gospel, for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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What a shame if we treat what we have, the tools we have, like they're displays in a museum versus...
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weapons in a spiritual fight where we're knocking on the gates of hell trying to reach people with the gospel.
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And that warms my heart and it warms my heart for several reasons.
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But one of the things that really stirs me is that as a young preacher, you heard that and then you went to Kenya and lived that life.
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Literally.
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I, I, for those of you who don't know, George was a missionary in Kenya for several years and I was, had the privilege of visiting him there and
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literally his apartment was an open door, literally an open door, and people coming in and out constantly.
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Because he wanted to impact people for Jesus, people in that apartment building.
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Ask George George, could you start a church here in our apartment building because they just saw the love of Jesus in your life.
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Yeah, yeah, sometimes there would be kids, I'd walk into the apartment from the church and I'd be like, who's this?
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You know, to my wife and she'd be like, I don't know.
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What apartment are they from?
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I don't know.
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She said, they figured out how to get here, they're gonna figure out how to get back, it's gonna be okay.
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But while they're here, they're gonna play with Melee and we're gonna sing Bible songs.
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That's all that stuff.
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I think it's a great, yeah, and I've been blessed to,
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to have been impacted by people like you and that pastor and so many people along the way that have displayed that to me.
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now we're passing on what's been passed to us.
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We've been impacted by people like that.
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So to people listening in the audience, be that person.
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mean, what use is it to the kingdom of Christ to not be that person when you can be?
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And so we ought think of our lives that way.
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Yeah.
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So there's you mentioned two crises of faith when it comes to evangelism.
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The first is just making that initial invitation to, start the Bible, the, the, the gospel.
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And of course we're proposing that people use the exchange Bible study.
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It's a, it's a wonderful tool.
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think just a reminder, it's not just a wonderful tool that makes it easy on me, but it really makes it to where
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people can see it for themselves, understand it, let it sink into their souls over a four week period.
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But one of the things that I love about the exchange Bible studies, it almost removes the second crisis because the the invitation to receive the gospel is written right into the
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Bible study.
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And I think it's interesting, I know you've experienced this sometimes.
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people actually get saved before I get a chance to meet with them because they've read the invitation and recognize their need and have trusted Christ to Savior before I ever got a
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chance to ask them if they do it.
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Yes, yeah, this is why I love the exchange Bible study.
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Okay, it's kind of like, I don't know how to put this.
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It's kind of like a gym membership.
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If I know I need to go work out more and I feel like, you know, if I just tell myself I'm gonna do it at home, I might not do it, but if I have to pay for it, if you're that kind
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of person, if I have to pay for it, I am definitely gonna get my money's worth out of that.
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Then it just forces me.
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Well, I mean, the exchange is not gonna force you like in a way that's,
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you're not gonna like, but it's such a helpful guide because you inevitably are gonna have to ask these questions, because it's part of the Bible study.
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And that's why Jeff and Anna created this tool, right?
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Is to create helpful ways to make you effective as you're going out into the harvest and you're trying to do the gospel work that Jesus Christ called you to do.
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That's the whole reason the ministry exists, to enable you in gospel ministry.
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And so that's why we...
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promo it so much, we're not doing it selfishly, there's not a big huge margin on these books, we're not really making money off of them, we're selling them for cost.
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The cost of the paper is what we sell them for and covering our shipping, that's it.
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And the point of that is this, we wanna see the kingdom go, we wanna knock on the gates of hell, we wanna see this thing happen.
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And so that's why we've made it in so many different languages is because we understand that this is a helpful tool, it accommodates.
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and helps with all the scares and fears that any believer, myself included, struggles with when presenting the Gospel.
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You know, one of the things that I wanted to share about what's in the exchange Bible study at the invitation is the story.
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It's a made up story.
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about a rowboat in, I use the river that flows into Niagara Falls.
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You could, you could use any river that's headed up to a waterfall.
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But you, you're familiar with the story, George.
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uh I'm absent mind, mindedly going down the river in this rowboat.
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I let my boat get too far.
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And so I turn my boat around and I'm rowing away from the waterfall as hard as I possibly can.
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But the water is too strong and I'm still being pulled closer and closer to that waterfall.
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Someone on the shore sees my problem and throws me a rope.
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And now I have a choice to make.
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I can either try to keep rescuing myself and end up dying or I can let go of my paddles.
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and I can grab that rope.
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And then I like to look at my friend and say, you know, what, what would you do if you were in that situation?
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Of course, they always say I'd, I'd grab the rope.
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And that's a picture of where our friend is sitting at the end of the exchange Bible study.
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The water is like their sin.
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The oars are like their good works or their religious activities.
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they're really trying hard.
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I mean, I believe there's a lot of people who are trying hard to make it to heaven.
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But it's not enough.
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And one of the reasons is not enough is because that water the sin is too strong.
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No one has the ability to escape the slavery of sin.
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We're we're all in that slave market together.
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But Jesus is that rope.
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And what Jesus wants every single person doing that Bible study to do is to
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stop what they're trying to do to get themselves to heaven, stop depending on their own good works and their religious activities, and put their trust in Jesus Christ alone.
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And that's what that illustration is for is to help people see, this is where I sit.
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And this is what God's calling me to do.
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Right, yeah, and these are the necessary ingredients for a genuine conversation, right?
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If you're have an effective conversation about the gospel, and we've covered these in a lot of different podcasts, right?
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It's saving faith, what really is faith?
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Go back three episodes, check that out.
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Understanding, have you given them enough information?
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The 150 Bible verses, in my opinion, for an unbeliever are
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a full picture of who God is because the gospel is not just a plan we present, it's a person, right?
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The gospel is relationship and so you're presenting that relationship and what that person is like and so you need all these things, God is holy and God is just, God is loving.
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So maybe Jeff, you wanna expand on why those things are so important to have as ingredients in the conversation and not leave out.
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Well, I think more than anything else, I think that sometimes I don't know, maybe I should say it this way.
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Sometimes I wonder, when we sum up the gospel in, we're all sinners, and there's a consequence for our sin, it's the wages of sin is death, and Jesus died in your place, and
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he wants to give you eternal life.
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Would you trust him now?
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And that's all they know.
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I really genuinely wonder sometimes, have we given them enough information to make a credible decision?
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It's concern to me.
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Right.
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Yep.
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And what's important here is that the scriptures were written to give them the information they need to know Jesus Christ.
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And so we need to be careful that
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that we don't give an underwhelming amount of information or an incomplete amount of information because the gospel is presented altogether in the New Testament and so he
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expects us to present the complete gospel.
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That's why it could take four weeks.
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Now there is a story of a person who came to Christ sitting down, went through all four lessons in one sitting because he just wanted to know.
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I actually just had coffee with him.
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Yeah, you know our friend DJ and Chandler, he led somebody to Christ who wanted to get all, just finish the whole book all in one sitting.
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But I really do believe that there is a purpose for each and every chapter.
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There's a purpose for each and every one of those attributes of God.
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God is holy, God is just, God is loving, God is gracious and merciful.
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And that's.
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George is because the other two elements of saving faith and these again, couple podcasts ago, we talked about this, we have to actually agree with that.
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And you can't expect people to agree with these simple statements.
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You know, we're all sinners, we all deserve punishment.
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But Jesus died for us now trust Jesus.
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We can't expect people to just agree with that because we tell them we have to show them from the word of God.
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And that's what helps them to be able to come to agreement.
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And I think more importantly is they have to get to the place where they recognize, man, I, I, I am in trouble.
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I need that.
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I want that.
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I'm going to depend on that.
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That's, that's the point at which a person is actually beginning to
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stop trusting in themselves and start trusting in Jesus Christ.
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So I think that there's two ingredients that are necessary, or I shouldn't say it that way, these are not necessarily precursors, these are evidences.
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And so these are two ingredients of a genuine conversion.
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Number one, there was this saving faith, there was this recognition of, I understand that, I agree with that, I depend on that.
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The other one is
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genuine repentance.
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And I don't know about you, George, but I am not in any way troubled by saying repentance is completely necessary for salvation.
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Yeah, yeah, I agree 100%.
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There's no, if and or buts about it in the New Testament, I mean, you look at the story of the prodigal son, I mean, it's a story of the gospel, it's also a story of repentance and
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turning around.
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And you do have to decide.
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There's a camp preacher, I can't remember who, but basically has this famous saying of there's only two choices on the shelf, right, God or self.
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And you have to decide, you have to make that choice.
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Because when you enter into a relationship with God, there's a fidelity that is expected in the relationship.
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And we call jealous a love word in the exchange, and it is a love word because he expects loyalty.
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And he loves you with that kind of loyal love.
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That's what the word chesed means.
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And so this is why he requires it of you in return.
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so, gospel without repentance is really cheap.
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Yeah, in fact, Jesus said, except you repent, you will all likewise perish.
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So I mean, really no question.
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It's not a matter of this is my theology.
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It's the matter of this is my Bible.
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This is what the it's what my savior said.
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I, I, I do think that if repentance, just like faith, I mean, we work hard at helping people understand faith.
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If repentance is this important, then we need to understand
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what exactly is it?
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I think everybody would agree that repentance is more than promised reformation.
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I'm gonna do better.
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But sometimes I'm afraid that we explain repentance as if we are asking for a promised reformation.
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mean, I promise to reform.
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And so I
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if it's okay with you, I'd like to just take a moment and talk about what does the Bible talk about when it means or when it talks about repentance.
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The word itself, the Greek word representing the word repent, it means literally to change the mind.
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And I think that it's more than just, you know, I was going to wear green and I just changed my mind and decided to wear brown instead.
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It's
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I like to think of it this way.
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Repentance is a change of heart that results in change of life.
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And so those words are chosen very carefully, because I think it's really important to recognize that the change of life comes as a result of the change of heart, and not the
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other way around.
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uh
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repentance is recognizing and these are Jeff's words, I just wrote them down so I could say them carefully.
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Repentance is recognizing the awfulness and the control of my sin and recognizing my need for a savior, a rescuer, a deliverer.
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So I think it's important for us to recognize sin is the problem.
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And repentance acknowledges my sin.
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is killing me.
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It's literally it's is death and is driving me away from God for eternity.
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My sin is the problem.
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But here is here's the real issue.
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When we get to that point.
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The only solution is Jesus.
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So those two sentences put together help me understand repentance.
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Sin is the problem.
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Jesus is the answer.
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And it the the answer is not so I got to quit sinning.
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And the reason is because I can't quit sinning.
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My sin has enslaved me.
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And even if I make a decision today, I will never sin again.
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I will.
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There's not a single person who has trusted Christ that didn't struggle with sin after they accepted Christ.
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Now our struggle with sin is totally different because now we have a new nature.
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We have a Holy Spirit.
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There's a lot of changes.
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So I'm not just saying
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You know, it takes a long time to figure it out.
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It takes a long time for it to genuinely work out in all the aspects of our life.
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Yes, yeah.
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The biggest change that I believe happens in our lives, and it's happened in both of our lives, is that ultimately what we want is Jesus, even if for a moment we stray, even if
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for a second we stumble, even if for a season we get distracted or we look back, right, like Lot's wife.
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But all that aside, we know at the end of the day that the evidence, the mark of a Christian,
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is that ultimately what he wants is Jesus Christ even when he has sinned.
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He's convicted back, the Holy Spirit leads him back to Jesus Christ.
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That is the work of grace in a believer's life.
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And it all stems from a relationship.
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That's why religion is gonna lead you to a wrong place.
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Because religion is gonna say you need to do something to get out of that.
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And we would say you need to go be close to him.
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Sometimes I hear people use this illustration for repentance and I think I need to clarify just a little bit because it's not always evident.
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Some people will say repentance is like throwing a ball at the wall and when it hits the wall it repents and goes the other direction.
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And if we're talking about the heart, I totally agree.
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It's literally my heart saying, I'm chasing after sin, I'm chasing after myself and my works, and then I'm recognizing, wait a minute, that's not going to save me.
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I need Jesus, and I'm going to turn around.
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Having said that, the life change may take a lifetime.
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That's what progressive sanctification is all about.
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is is watching God change me day after day after day after day, making me more and more and more like him every single
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Yes, yeah.
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And what an incredible thing to be able to share with your neighbor.
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What an incredible thing to even share with believers.
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I think believers need to hear this.
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We've been walking with Christ and are struggling.
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This is gonna be such a helpful episode to you.
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So share it with somebody you know, share it with an unbeliever, share it with a believer.
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We are praying to the Lord of the harvest.
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And this is what we ask you guys who are listeners to do, is to pray with us.
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that he would send forth laborers because we don't have an opportunity problem, we don't have a harvest problem.
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What we have is a shortage of people that are willing to go out and create crisis and ask people and invite them to Jesus Christ.
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And so we love you guys, this is what we're praying that God would do with you and in your life and through you.
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And so if you need anything, if there's anything we can enable you to do as a ministry,
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we are game to do it.
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Email us.
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Email me, forge.exchangemessage.org.
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We're happy to help.
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We love you guys, and we will see you again next week.