Good morning. You be seated.
It's good to be with you all again.
Most of you all know who I am, but if you don't, if you're new, welcome.
We're really glad you're here today.
My name is Jonathan. I am a dear friend of Matthew's.
Actually, Matthew and I went to seminary together.
We were roommates together, so I've known Matthew for a very long time,
and it's a real treat to come and fill his shoes for a couple of weeks
and to examine a really crucial and fun, important topic for us this week.
I currently work as a college pastor.
I work with the denomination that Cheyenne Mountain is a part of.
It's called Reformed University Fellowship, the campus ministry wing.
I work on UCCS mostly, but also on Pikes Peak,
and we've just started on Colorado College as well.
I'll share a lot of stories about that over the next coming weeks.
It's really great to be with you.
I'm married to my wife, Caroline.
She's a really talented artist and a really great mother.
We have two little girls, Phoebe, who's five, and Molly.
She's 19 months almost, and I grew up here in Colorado,
and it's a real treat to be with you today.
So the next four weeks, I will be with you this week and then three weeks after,
and we will be looking at a topic that's really close to my heart
and really close to your session's heart.
We're going to be looking at the topic of evangelism,
which is how do we share our faith?
How do we share our faith?
This is something that Matthew and I have been,
and a couple other pastors in town have been bopping around,
and we've been realizing, like, man, we need to do a better job
of equipping our people, the people in the pews, y'all,
on how to share your faith.
And so that's what we're going to be doing.
This session has graciously invited me to come,
and so my hope over the next few weeks
is to not necessarily give you a theology of evangelism
because everybody knows that they should be doing it,
but a lot of the time we get into it and we think,
now what do I do?
You know, sometimes we'll, you know,
the dog that chases the car catches it and goes,
now what?
Now what do I do with it, right?
And so we'll find ourselves in circumstances
where there's an open door for us to share the faith,
or we don't even know how to start the conversation.
And fortunately, this is something I do a lot on a college campus,
and so I'm going to mostly just share stories of what's worked
and maybe some of what hasn't worked
and how do we share our faith as Christians today.
And so today we'll be looking at what I think is the starting point.
It's a great place for us all to start in this.
And so it comes from 1 Corinthians 15.
1 Corinthians 15 is an amazing chapter.
It's kind of one of the high points of the Bible.
It's talking about the resurrection.
But in it, Paul lays out something that he says,
this is the most important thing that it is to be a Christian.
And so I would argue this is where we start.
And for those of you who are maybe here today
and you're wondering, oh boy, man, what is this is,
what am I doing here?
I don't know if I even trust this,
and now I just get to get proselytized for 30 minutes.
I would challenge you to pay attention to
what does this mean for your life?
And for those of us who are Christians,
hopefully we can apply it to our,
how do we share our faith with others?
And so this is 1 Corinthians 15.
This is Paul speaking, and he says this.
Now I remind, I would remind you, brothers,
of the gospel I preached to you.
Which you received, in which you stand,
and by which you are being saved,
if you hold fast to the word I preached to you,
unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance
what I also received,
that Christ died for our sins
in accordance with the scriptures,
and that he was buried,
and that he was raised on the third day
in accordance with the scriptures,
and that he appeared to Cephas,
and then to the 12.
This is God's word.
Would you pray with me?
Lord in heaven, thanks that we can worship you today.
Thanks that we have a day of rest.
Thanks that we have a day of gathering,
of singing.
Thanks that we have a day where we can hear your word.
And we pray that as we look at it now,
that you would equip us.
That is our big request,
that you would send your spirit
to equip the saints once more
for the work of ministry,
and that you would be glorified in it.
And it's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
So I want to spend a little bit of time,
just before we start,
is to just describe to you,
if we were to zoom out
to the big, you know,
telescopic level of setting the stage
of the realities,
kind of the missionary realities
of the world that we're living in,
in Colorado, in the United States.
And the realities are that organized religion,
you've probably seen this in the news,
organized religion is by and large
on the decline in our world.
This is just demographically,
statistically the fact.
There is a rise of what is being called
by sociologists, the nuns,
N-O-N, nons or nons, nuns.
30% of Americans who would claim
no religious affiliation.
They would just say,
I'm not a religious person.
I don't claim a creed.
I don't behave or act religiously.
I'm just, I'm not a religious person.
And scholars over the next 10 to 15 years
believe that 35 to 40 million millennials,
that's my generation born between 1982 and 1992-ish
or something like that,
will leave the faith.
This is people who have perhaps grown up
in a kind of faith.
And so millions, tens of millions
are going to, on the trajectories,
to be leaving the faith.
And then Generation Z,
which is the generation
that I currently pastor,
this is late teenagers to early to mid-20s,
they, that is going to be
the least Christianized generation
in American history.
It's just, this is what's going to happen.
Compound that with the reality
that Christianity,
as an influence in our society,
has generally lost the cultural questions.
It's generally lost favor, right?
Universities, secular universities,
media, government, schooling,
the Christian answers
are no longer paid attention to,
no longer heeded.
And in fact, in a lot of ways,
they're viewed with suspicion,
they're viewed with antagonism.
The Christian vision for life,
both the individual life
and the questions that we would have
or the answers that we would have
for social life,
how we should live life shared together,
it's no longer considered desirable
and it's no longer considered good.
Christianity is just like,
well, you don't have a good story
of what the human person
or what the human life is about.
And so most of the major questions
that younger generations
and older generations, frankly,
they're built on a,
no longer on a Christian view
of the world, right?
So questions about human purpose,
of what the human body is for,
of what marriage is,
of what babies are for,
they're no longer orbiting within
thinking about how Christians
have historically thought about things, right?
So just less Christians
and more skepticism
about the Christian faith, right?
Next, there's what we could call
a privatization of the Christian life
that by and large,
both Christians
and our non-Christian friends
believe that if Christianity is true,
it's only for your individual
personal happiness.
It's not necessarily something
that you can, should,
might share with other people.
It helps, you know,
I've heard students say like,
Jonathan, I'm glad that Christianity
helps you sleep at night,
it's just not for me.
It's just not for me right now, right?
And that is a piece of
a larger system
of kind of capitalism,
pleasure that's kind of infiltrated
the way that we view things,
that religion is just basically
a calculus of pleasure and pain.
What am I getting out of this?
And we treat all of life this way, right?
We treat the way we order products
off the internet,
we treat relationships,
we treat restaurants this way.
What am I getting out of it?
And when we treat religion
as a consumption,
a product to consume,
and it doesn't meet our expectations,
we just say,
well, I'm just gonna move on with that, right?
Maybe if it's really bad,
I'll leave a bad Google review,
but by and large,
it's just, it's not for me.
And so for most people,
the demands of radical discipleship
and of following Jesus,
they don't meet that pleasure expectation
that as consumers,
we would expect, right?
The next thing that's happening
in our world is we live
in what one philosopher
would call the triumph
of the therapeutic.
The triumph of the therapeutic,
which means this.
It means that I do in my life
what feels good.
I do in my life
what feels good,
what makes me feel
most authentic,
what makes me feel
like the most true version
of myself,
and what that means
is that the things
that are most intrinsic,
inner desires of me,
that's who I am,
and that's how I should live, right?
And the Christian claims
about sin,
about killing parts
of who you are,
about self-denial,
those feel clumsy,
at least,
and even oppressive,
at most,
to who a person is, right?
And lastly,
we live in a world
that assumes,
this could maybe encapsulate
all of it,
it assumes
the doctrine of the day
is that I'm my own person.
I'm my own person.
I get to do
what I want to do.
I have the right
and the power
to create my own values,
my own identity,
my own beliefs,
and anyone
or anything out there,
society,
a person,
a faith,
a God,
anyone out there
who tells me
who I am
or what I should believe
is a power grab.
They're trying
to get power over me.
They're trying
to manipulate me, right?
And so the way
I often think about it
is the world
that we're living in right now,
it's kind of the formation
of like a super hurricane, right?
So a Category 5 hurricane
or an F5 tornado
takes dozens
of different
meteorological events
to form, right?
It doesn't just happen
on its own.
It has to have
the right combination
of air pressure
and water pressure
and air humidity
and the jet stream
has to be just right.
And when all of those pieces
can come together,
you can have
a really big storm,
a really big, big storm.
And the reality is
right now in 2025,
we are in such a storm
with how it feels
to be a Christian.
That's just the way it is.
And we need to face
the reality, right?
All of these different forces,
the rise up of the nones,
the doubt about
the Christian narrative
and answers,
the privatization
of the faith,
consumption of the faith,
view of it as just
what I'm getting out of it.
Triumph of the therapeutic,
I am my own,
has created a super storm
in our world.
And this is the world
that you and I live in
and it's the world
that you and I are called
to share our faith in, right?
This is the world
that Jesus does
that go and make disciples.
This is the world
where we are called
to evangelize.
That's what's happening
on this giant level,
on this 50,000 level of,
and you've felt this.
You have seen this
when you look on your Instagram
or your Facebook
or something like that
or you watch the news
and you'll see things
like the war on Christmas
or you'll see the rise
of different visions
of human sexuality,
the rise of the LGBTQ movement.
You'll see this in politics.
You've all felt this, right?
I'm just trying to describe
what it's like.
Or you felt the fact
that when you talk
with your Christian friends
or non-Christian friends,
there's more of a disconnect.
They just don't understand
what you're saying.
It's harder than it maybe was,
especially for those of you
who have grown up,
who've been here
on God's green earth
a little longer.
It's just different.
It's just different, right?
And on the other level,
just zooming down into life,
you all have friends.
I know you do.
Neighbors, coworkers, family
who you want to be Christians
and you're,
I don't know how to do this.
How do I bring it up
in a way that doesn't make them
angry with me again?
How do I share this thing
that's so dear to me
that I would spend
every Sunday of my life in?
I don't know
how to bring it up anymore.
So what I want to spend
is the next four weeks
on how to do this.
And I don't share
any of this big picture stuff
to scare you.
And I don't do it too,
I mean, it is what it is, right?
But actually,
the good news
is actually better
than the bad news.
We could spend a lot of time
on the good news.
Pieces of the good news
are that the Christian faith
is on the rise
faster than it is
on the decline
in the rest of the world.
Christianity
in the global church
is exploding
in Africa
and South America
and Asia.
it is growing
at exponential rates.
It is exponentially
expanding in Africa.
In fact,
they're beginning
to send missionaries here.
They're beginning
to send missionaries
to us
and they encounter us
and they say,
what are you doing?
You said,
what is this, right?
So the global church
is in a really good place.
Here it's on the decline,
but there's really
good news in that.
Other piece of the good news
is,
and this is one of my favorite
pieces of the good news,
is that the rejection
of the gospel
over the last,
I don't know,
70 years,
it's beginning to bear fruit,
particularly in the lives
of my generation
and younger,
and they're miserable.
They're really miserable,
and I'm going to share
some stories about that.
And we're getting
to tell them,
I mean,
I'll often ask students,
they'll talk to me
about how depressed
or anxious,
and I'll just say,
how's it working out for you
not being a Christian?
It's clearly not working
very well.
You're lonely,
you're isolated,
you hate yourself,
you're anxious.
What if it didn't have
to be that way, right?
So there are levels
of receptivity
that I think are new
and unparalleled.
And so this is an exciting,
I mean, for me,
I don't know,
for me as a pastor
of college students,
I love my job
because I get to share
the gospel three or four
times a week,
and students are interested,
right?
And I would bet
that there's a level
of interest, curiosity,
even in your friends,
right?
So the good news is
that there's a level
of receptivity
even as there's decline.
And then the last news,
and this is the best news,
is that Jesus has proven
himself more and more
over this,
you know,
he's proven himself
very comfortable
in stormy seas.
If our cultural moment
is a F5 tornado
or a category 5 hurricane,
we can go and say
Jesus has been very comfortable
with culturally
and literally stormy seas,
right?
And he has proven
over and over again
that he has
and will save his own,
and he will use us
in that, right?
So we have total confidence
that God will work,
and at the same time,
we must face
the missionary realities
of 2025,
face the realities
of the ways
that we have done evangelism
the last few decades
will probably not work
the ways that we have seen
them work in the past,
and so we need to innovate.
Not the message,
but how we do it.
We need to face
the realities
that door-to-door evangelism
not only doesn't work
but actually turns people away
in the same way
that if somebody
knocks on your door
and says,
would you like to buy this?
We go,
not right now.
That's the feeling
that people feel
when door-to-door evangelism
happens.
It used to work great,
right?
The reality
that handing out tracts
and even handing out Bibles
is not effective anymore.
It only turns people away,
right?
We have to know
that the reality
that people do not bring
in Christian worldview things,
Christian assumptions
like Jesus is God
or God's judgment
like things that we could
50 years ago.
I remember I was talking
with a student last year.
She knows absolutely nothing
about Christianity,
and she said,
hey,
what's this thing
called the Trinity?
I've never heard of it before,
and I just heard of it
last week.
And I was,
here's a girl
who's 20 years old
and has never even heard
of the Trinity,
right?
We cannot just assume
these things anymore
like we could.
We must adapt.
So a few years ago,
I read this really great book
about leadership.
It's a book called
Team of Teams.
It's by General Stanley McChrystal.
And McChrystal was
the general of the U.S.,
of the whole U.S.,
I don't know,
military.
I'm not a soldier.
You guys can ask Andy,
but he was in charge of it.
But he was in general
in charge of defeating
the insurgencies of ISIS
and Al-Qaeda
in the mid-2000s.
And he looked at the structure
of the U.S. military
and said,
hey,
we are built,
the U.S. military
is built right now
to defeat
a large line of tanks
that slammed towards us
in like a Cold War scenario.
And he says,
what we're fighting now
is these cellular,
highly mobile,
highly adaptable
terrorist insurgents
like ISIS.
And we cannot just
slam tanks into them
the way that we used to.
And he says,
if we're going to defeat them,
we must adapt.
We must become
ready to fight the enemy
that we have to fight, right?
And now I hesitate
to use this story
because I don't want
to equate evangelism
with military warfare.
Do not hear me say that.
I do want you to think
about evangelism
as a thing
that must be adapted.
Evangelism is something
that we take
the timeless message
in which we will look at
in just a minute
and apply it
in ways that are relevant
and hearable
to our audience.
We must approach evangelism
with new eyes,
new techniques.
So that's what I'm hoping
to share with you
over the next few weeks.
So my goal
over the next four weeks,
first and foremost,
is to equip you
with words to say
about evangelism,
of you share your faith.
And if you have things
that you're,
questions that you're
thinking about,
come and talk to me.
I'm writing these this week
and over the next few weeks
and I will think about it
and I'll come and speak to them.
So if you hear something today
and you say,
Jonathan, think about this.
I'd love to hear from you
and we can have a dialogue
about it.
We can ask questions together.
I do evangelism
probably three to four times
a week.
I meet with three
or four non-Christian students
and I want to share
what's working.
I don't want to spend time
over the next four weeks
doing a theology
of evangelism.
We're basically trying
to guilt you
and to say,
here's why you need
to share your faith.
If you're a Christian,
you know you're called
to share your faith
and you want to,
but you run into brick walls,
culturally,
even vocabulary,
words to say.
I want to look at
how you share it,
what words you say.
Next week,
we're going to look at
how do you start
a spiritual conversation
because I know
that's ridiculously challenging.
So we'll look at that
next week.
My suspicion is that
you have a nagging guilt
that you should be,
but you don't know
how.
So that's what we're
going to look at.
That's what we're
going to look at,
right?
So let's dig into
what our text says to here.
I want us to see
that this passage
shows us what
and how to prioritize
the most important thing
that is the Christian faith,
which is the person
and the work
of Jesus Christ.
That's what we preach.
That's what we proclaim
is the person
and the work
of Jesus Christ.
And start with this.
What is the Christian faith about?
Well, the Christian faith
is about the wonderful works
of God
to reconcile
all things to himself.
We believe as Christians
that God has done
everything necessary
to fix,
that is reconcile,
our broken world
back to the way
that he created it
and to the way
that we intuitively
know it should work.
So 1 Corinthians 1
says it this way.
He has transferred us.
This is Christ
has transferred us
from the domain
of darkness.
He's delivered us
from the domain
of darkness
and transferred us
into the kingdom
of his beloved Son
in whom we have
redemption
of forgiveness
and sins.
For in him
all the fullness
of God
was pleased to dwell
and through him
to reconcile
to himself
all things,
whether on earth
or in heaven
making peace
by the blood
of his cross.
We believe
in a God,
the only God,
who comes to earth,
becomes God
and man
at the same time,
lives the perfect life,
dies the perfect death
to make the world
the way we hope
it should be,
the way we know
it should be.
It is trust
in the God
who redeems
and reconciles
creation
through the saving work
that is the death
and resurrection
of his Son.
And that's what Paul
says to this church
when he comes to them,
right?
Look what he says
to them.
Verse 3,
I deliver to you
as of first importance
what I also received.
So this is the most
important thing
of first importance,
top priority stuff
right here.
What is it?
That Christ died
for our sins.
That Christ died
for our sins.
Paul here says
that is what
of first importance,
the thing that is
the most crucial
thing that we believe
truth claim
that we have
is that there was
a man named Jesus
who was also God
and he died
for human sins.
And he says
that he received it
from the authoritative
witnesses,
that is the apostles,
the people who saw it
and understood
what it meant
and now he tells them
to us what it is.
It is the simplicity
of the death
and resurrection
of Jesus,
of first importance,
right?
Now the resurrection
in this text,
it tells us
what this is,
it tells us
what it is.
It tells us
it's two things.
It's an event
with meaning.
It's an event
with meaning.
Now some things
can happen in,
let's look at that,
an event with meaning.
It's something
that happened
in human history
and it means something,
right?
So think about this.
We can all have events
that don't really
have a lot of meaning.
Things that happen
in our life
that weren't
particularly meaningful.
I put this jacket
on this morning.
It happened in human
space, time,
and history,
right?
It's an event
or I ate an omelet
for breakfast.
It's an event
but it didn't really
mean a lot,
right?
Something but not a lot.
On the other hand,
we can have
things that are
non-historical
but have a ton
of meaning,
right?
So I'm a huge
Lord of the Rings fan.
You read the Lord
of the Rings
and you can derive
a ton of lessons
and meanings
about life from this,
of the struggle,
of good versus evil,
of loyalty,
of friendship.
But it's not historical.
It didn't actually
happen as much
as I really wish
Lord of the Rings
did.
It didn't.
It didn't happen,
right?
The resurrection,
Paul tells us,
is an event
that means something.
It's like the
Declaration of Independence.
The event
was July 4th
and the meaning
is the start
of the United States
of America.
The event,
Paul says,
is the resurrection.
The God-man
died on a hill
outside of Jerusalem
and then came
back to life.
Our faith starts
with the conviction
that that happened
around 35 AD.
In fact,
we actually,
we assent to that
every time we say
the Apostles' Creed,
right?
We say this.
There's a line
that says,
it says,
he suffered
under Pontius Pilate.
Pontius Pilate,
we know,
is a historical figure.
Everybody acknowledges
that this man,
Pontius Pilate,
really existed,
right?
It's an,
and nobody doubts that.
Nobody doubts
the history of Pontius Pilate.
We say Jesus Christ
suffered under,
it happened,
right?
But second,
it's an event with meaning
and the text tells us this.
It tells us what the meaning is.
It says that Christ died,
there's the event,
for our sins
in accordance with Scriptures.
The Scripture
becomes the interpretive lens.
It becomes the tool
that we use
to interpret the event.
For our sins
in accordance with Scriptures.
And so the Scripture
is this
absolutely
kaleidoscopic
and beautiful meaning
of what the event is.
To save the world
from sin,
to deliver us
out of bondage,
to defeat
dark powers
of Satan
and everything else
around us.
It is the event
of what it means.
And so the Bible
is this interpretation.
It says it twice
in our text.
It says that
he was raised
on the third day.
There's event again
in accordance with Scripture.
There's the meaning.
And it's a whole list
of things
to estone from sin,
to propitiate
the Father's wrath,
to triumph
over demonic forces.
And here's the point.
This is where it starts
to get to evangelism.
If that didn't happen,
then Christianity
is worthless.
If that event
and that meaning
didn't happen,
then our faith
is utterly worthless.
If the resurrection
didn't happen,
then Paul says
it's one of two things.
It's either a giant deception.
Verse 15,
he says,
we are found
to be misrepresenting God.
We are lying
about who God is
if it didn't happen.
Or it's a pitiful delusion.
Verse 19 says
that if the resurrection
didn't happen,
we are of all men
most to be pitied.
So the resurrection,
the event with meaning,
everything in the Christian faith
hinges on that.
it is of first importance.
Perhaps you've heard
of C.S. Lewis'
Lord liar lunatic argument
that he lays out
in mere Christianity.
He says that either
Jesus was a liar,
he thought he was God,
but he,
I'm sorry,
he knew he wasn't God
and he told everybody he was
and so he was just lying,
which makes him
a horrible person.
Or he thought he was God
and he wasn't
and he was just delusional,
so he's an absolute lunatic.
Or Jesus actually is
who he claimed he is,
which is God, right?
But it's the same idea here.
The resurrection
makes Christianity
either the biggest lie
that has ever fooled
the most people
in human history
or the most pitiful delusion
or the best hope
for our lives
and our world.
Those are the stakes.
That's what it is, right?
And if we're wrong on this,
we're either liars
or idiots.
And if we're right on this,
then we offer
the best hope
for our world
and the best hope
for our friends' lives.
That's what it is, right?
Now, how does this
apply to evangelism?
How does this apply
to evangelism?
Well, 1 Corinthians 15
gives us a shortcut
to evangelism.
A shortcut.
Let me try
and explain it to you.
I'm going to try this
with two stories.
So a few months ago,
I met a student on campus
and we'll say her name is Jen
and Jen is a lesbian.
And as you can imagine,
she meets me,
a Christian minister,
and all of a sudden,
all of her defenses go up.
And she's like,
it took me everything I could
to try to get her
to meet with me
and to talk with me.
She's just like,
I don't want to.
And she knows nothing
about Christianity.
She's currently
in a romantic relationship
with another woman.
And she's heard
that Christians
don't like her
because of her sexuality,
because she's a lesbian.
And she's had several Christians
and one pastor
tell her that she needs
to be straight
to follow God.
And she's totally ignorant
of our faith,
but she has at least
a bad taste in her mouth
for Christians.
And frankly,
that describes
a lot of people
in our town.
You probably have friends
in this camp
or friends who experience this.
And she knew
that she was a pastor
and she agreed
to meet with me.
And so I started
asking her questions.
You know,
she's like,
how'd you come to school?
How did you come to,
what are you studying?
Tell me about your girlfriend.
All these things.
So then my wife
and I have her over
for dinner.
And I told her,
I was like,
hey,
you know what?
I personally hold
the historic
and orthodox view
of gender and sexuality,
but I really like
hanging out with you.
And you're always
welcome in my home.
And we don't have to talk
about gender and sexuality
all the time, right?
And so we're just
building our friendship.
And eventually,
she comes to me
and she says,
so Jonathan,
why does Christianity
not like gay people?
Why does Christianity
not like gay people?
And I said,
hey,
I've been waiting
for that question.
I've been waiting
for that question.
I'm really glad
you asked it.
And you deserve
a careful
and thoughtful answer.
And I can give you
a careful
and thoughtful answer.
But can we sideline
that for now
and talk about
what I think
is the most important
thing about the Christian faith?
Can we sideline
that for now?
Because you deserve
to know what I think.
But if we're going
to go there,
can we start
at the beginning?
And we looked
at 1 Corinthians 15.
And I said this,
I said,
Jen,
if I'm wrong
on this,
1 Corinthians 15
of first importance,
then it really
doesn't matter
what you do
with your sexuality.
It really doesn't matter
because if I'm wrong
on this point,
then I'm either lying
to you
or I'm deluded.
But if I'm right
on this,
then we need
to pay attention
and everything else
falls into place.
If the resurrection
did happen,
it means that Jesus
is God,
that he died
and rose again
because he loves you
and he's your Lord.
And you need
to follow him
with all of your life.
And if you're
a non-Christian
here today,
that's the challenge
before you
is to ask,
is it possible
that a man
named Jesus Christ
was also God
and he died
and came back
to life
three days later?
Is it possible?
I think it is.
So I'm in this process
with her.
And here's what's amazing
with Jen
is we got to sidestep
the hot issue.
The thing that she was ready
to blow up at me,
the thing that she was ready
to say,
I'm never talking to you again.
I was like,
hey,
this is such an important
thing to you.
Can we sideline it for now
and talk about this?
And she was like,
yeah.
She's willing to do that.
Second story,
I'm currently teaching
a class at UCCS
in political theology
and there's three women
in this class
who are queer.
And they're fascinated
why a Presbyterian minister
will teach in political theology
and yet here I am.
And eventually,
one of these girls,
she grew up as super Christian
in the charismatic tradition
and has since left the faith.
And she's also,
yeah,
she's a lesbian
and she came to me
after class
and she said,
Jonathan,
what if you're wrong
about Christianity?
Have you ever thought about that?
Have you ever thought
that you're wrong?
And I said,
yeah,
I might be.
I might be,
right?
And if I am,
then again,
Christianity is the biggest lie
in the world
and it's the biggest delusion
that's fooled
all the people in the world.
But I said,
I don't think I am.
Of course,
I don't think I am.
But I think that there is
really persuasive evidence
historically,
theologically,
every kind of evidence
that you can have
to say that
I think this actually happened.
And she looked sideways at me
and she said,
Jonathan,
you're the first person
I've ever met
that said he might,
the first Christian
I've ever met
that said he might be wrong.
I've never heard that before.
And that's the tool
that 1 Corinthians 15 offers you.
It offers you the ability
to sideline the hot topics
and the red flag issues
that your friends
want to bring up.
Politics and faith,
sexuality,
environment,
all the things
that they want to attack you with
and you say,
look,
those are so important issues.
And I frankly can't defend
all of them right now on it.
But I can defend one thing.
And it is the death
and resurrection
of Jesus Christ.
And if that's wrong,
then I'm wrong.
But if I'm right,
then this is the hope
of the world, right?
And it places you
in a place where you can be
humble and confident
at the same time.
Say,
I might be wrong here.
If I am,
you don't have to pay attention to me.
But if I'm not,
this is the hope for the world
and you need to pay attention.
Here's the other blessing
out of this,
particularly for our
younger generation.
The younger generation
has far less hangups
with the possibility
of a bodily resurrection
than older generations did.
Older generations,
our baby boomer friends,
some of our Gen Xs say,
well,
that's physically impossible.
How could that be?
A dead person
coming back to life.
My generation and Gen Z
are much more willing to say,
yeah,
it could happen.
Maybe it happened, right?
They don't get stuck up
on the scientific claim
of it as much
as older generations.
Much more open
to the possibility of it,
right?
So you just say,
let's let it hang
in the air for a minute
and let's talk through it.
And they'll go,
and I've not once
had anybody say no.
They're always,
I've done this hundreds of times,
saying,
sure,
let's talk about it.
And good things
have come from it.
New Christians
have come from it, right?
So what are my tips?
How do we do this?
First and foremost,
like I'm doing with Gen,
you must build trust.
You must build trust
with your friends
who are not Christians yet.
Trust is the most
persuasive tool
that you have.
I've recently started
a small group
with some women
from Colorado College.
Colorado College,
if you know anything about it,
is an incredibly
progressive school.
And it is very,
very non-Christian.
And for all,
for various reasons,
these five women
who are coming
to this small group
in my house
have a very bad taste
in their mouth for religion.
They,
it took everything within us,
my wife and I,
to try and tease them
to come to a pastor's house
and to have a conversation
about spirituality.
And we had to start
at the very beginning
of very simple,
of just saying like,
come to our house
and eat dinner with us.
No agenda,
no talking about anything,
just come eat our food.
And they were willing
to do that, right?
People are weary of,
are wary and weary
of conversion attempts.
They hate them
and they see through it.
And they say,
I don't want to be
a part of that, right?
But they're also
desperately lonely
and they're looking
for meaning in their life.
And so if you can offer friendship
and build trust,
then I have found,
almost without fail,
that they are willing
to begin talking with you, right?
So they will view evangelism
poorly done the way
that we would view
door-to-door sales
or a pyramid scheme.
But they will view trust
and they will view,
honestly, food
with a lot of,
I mean,
they'll pay you back
in dividends, right?
So you,
you know,
how do you build the trust?
The best thing I know
is to eat together, right?
So there's this great book
by Rosaria Butterfield
who was a lesbian professor
at, you know,
in an Ivy League school
and this pastor invites her
over for dinner
for months
and they eat together.
Something,
I always say this,
something magical happens,
something spiritual happens
when you eat together
with people.
It's so much more
than the sum of its parts.
What are the parts
where we're sticking food
into us
to maintain our biological life?
But so much more happens
when you eat together.
You connect
and you laugh
and you share life
and you talk about your day.
So the best thing
you can do
to build trust
is to tell your neighbor,
hey, you know,
we don't really know each other.
You want to come over
for dinner sometime?
Or to tell your coworker,
we talk about water cooler
stuff all the time
but maybe we could,
you want to come over
for a cookout?
That could be great, right?
They'll often do it
because they're lonely.
Then you begin
to ask questions
about their lives
and you probe
for deeper things.
You'll say things like,
you know,
I know you're a lawyer
but tell me what attracted you
to law school.
What is it about law school
that you wanted to do?
And you'll find in there,
we'll talk about this next week,
there's going to be a kernel
of something
that they value deeply
and you can grab onto that.
You can turn it
into some sort of thing
about the gospel.
Come back next week.
You have to sincerely
care about them,
not for the sake
of just getting to evangelism
but because you truly
care about them, right?
They have to know
that I love you.
I'm in your corner.
I don't just want to make
another notch in my belt
of a convert with you.
I want you to be my friend.
I want you to know
that I'm in your corner
in all of life.
Second piece of this
is we can and should be quick
to acknowledge
the failures of Christians
because one of the first things
particularly that younger
generations will do
is they will weaponize
the systemic
and historical failures
of the Christian faith
and they'll say
and most of them
have experienced
something from that, right?
In fact, everyone
who I've ever met
who's gay,
who's LGBT
says I got kicked out
of a church
because of this, right?
So we just need
to acknowledge that
and say, you know,
they'll say I go to a church
and when X happened
I quit going
or a pastor did this to me
or a group of Christians
did this to me
and we need to acknowledge
the reality to them
that Christians can do
really painful things, right?
And so one of the things
that I'll say
when I'm trying to gather
students for RUF
is I'll say,
hey, we want to be
the Christian group
that can acknowledge
the reality
of spiritual abuse
and they go,
what?
Spiritual abuse?
You think that happens?
And I say,
of course it does.
Jesus derides
and criticizes
the Pharisees repeatedly
for being bad shepherds,
for being pastors
who did not care well
for them.
Of course it can happen.
But then I would say,
but if you,
would you hold
that same standard
of rejecting something
because of one bad apple?
Would you reject
the whole thing?
You wouldn't hold
that standard
in any other area
of your life.
If you went to a Thai restaurant
and got sick from it,
you wouldn't say,
well, I guess all Thai food
is bad.
Of course not, right?
We wouldn't hold
that standard
to other areas
of our lives.
And beside that,
the Christian faith
has openly
and often said
that humans are sinners.
That's the point.
I will,
be more than willing
to say that Christians
will do hurtful things,
but I will stand my ground
on a God
who saves all of us.
So acknowledge freely,
yeah, Christians could do
really hurtful things too.
I'm so sorry that happened.
Would you be interested
in maybe looking past that
for a minute,
setting that aside
and looking at a piece
of 1 Corinthians 15 with me?
And they'll say yes.
I haven't had them.
I've literally never had
someone say no to this.
Next, acknowledge the reality
of hot topics,
but don't feel pressured
to spend all your time there,
right?
Man, you nailed it.
You nailed it.
Sexuality is a really hot topic
in our day.
Like the Christian sexual ethic,
it's really, really hard.
And that's the big one,
and we're going to have
to talk about that eventually.
But I think the Christian faith
has a really satisfying answer.
Can we sideline that for now?
Can we just sideline that for now?
And can I look at
1 Corinthians 15 with you?
If I'm wrong on that,
on this,
then I can be wrong on the,
you know,
then we can talk about.
So acknowledge the reality
of like, man, yeah,
church and politics is icky.
It's really icky right now.
And it's not the first thing
that I believe.
The thing of first importance
that I believe
is that Christ died
for our sins
and was raised for our,
and was raised on the third day
in accordance with scriptures.
That's what we do.
Now,
the most important thing
you can do,
and this is a part
of building trust,
the most important goal
when sharing your faith,
especially in the first few moments,
you have seconds to do this,
is to get to the next conversation.
That is all you have to do,
is get to the next conversation.
I met a girl on campus
who,
she introduced,
I met her through tabling
where we set up a table
and she introduced me
to one of her friends
and her friends
had been dreadfully hurt
by the church
and she wanted nothing
to do with,
and so her friend meets me
and says,
hey, this is my pastor
and she looks me up
and says,
I don't expletive mess
with pastors.
And I was like,
okay.
I didn't know what to say.
Like, she just,
she just cursed me out
right then and there
and I said,
okay,
well,
can I buy you a coffee?
Like,
it's just,
you know,
she just,
and then she told me,
I'm a lesbian,
you don't want to hang out with me.
And I said,
no, I do.
I really want to buy you a coffee.
And she stopped
and then she's still trying to,
I met with her earlier this week,
she's still trying to get me
to reject her
and I will not do it.
I will not do it.
And the only thing
I'm trying to do
with this gal right now
is get her to meet with me again.
That's your only goal
is to just get to the next conversation
to build trust
to where you can,
so they trust you
and they know that you're in their corner.
My mentor says that
for a thoroughly secular person
or for somebody
who has a really bad taste in their mouth,
it can take five years
to persuade them of Christianity.
Hundreds of conversations.
This will not happen overnight.
There's no pressure on you
to defend the entire history
of the Christian faith
or to defend the entire doctrine
of the Christian religion.
There's great power in saying,
that's a really good question.
I don't know the answer to it,
but someone else does
and I'll get back to you.
Right?
And then you call your session
or you call Matthew
and you say,
hey, they asked this question.
I didn't know the answer.
And they can find the answer, right?
So if somebody asks you a question,
you say,
oh no,
you know,
is the Christian faith defeated?
No, it's not.
You just don't know the answer right now.
We can figure it out.
You just say,
that's a great question.
Can we meet for coffee again
in a month
and I'll get back to you?
They will say yes.
I've never had them say no.
Right?
The goal is to build trust
to get to the next conversation,
to get to Christ and him crucified.
Do not win the argument,
but lose the person.
Be the person who says,
who they say of you,
man, I've never met a Christian
who was this gentle,
but also this convicted,
who actually cares about my life,
doesn't just want to persuade me
to come to his side.
It's simple as that, honestly.
And it's really fun.
At least I love it.
It's really amazing.
And I think you'll find
that your non-Christian friends,
it's a relief.
They actually enjoy it.
I said this before,
I do this weekly.
And they really enjoy it.
And I'm in the process
with maybe 20 students right now
and a couple of professors
at UCCS of doing this.
And nobody thinks,
I always tell people,
I want to be the campus ministry
that people are glad it's on campus.
And I've had so many people say,
Jonathan, we're glad you're here.
We disagree with you about sexuality,
but we're really glad you're here.
I said, great.
Let's meet again next week.
And they'll do it, right?
And the Lord works in that.
So go to 1 Corinthians 15.
Evangelism's tough.
It always has been tough.
But it's not impossible.
Your call, my call,
is to point others to Jesus.
And despite the storm of culture
and of pain and abuse,
it's to show them the nerve center
of what you believe,
which is Christ and him crucified.
Point them to Jesus,
and your task is done.
And the Holy Spirit will do the rest.
Be the safe person,
the Christian that they probably
have not met before,
who they can meet with
and not be preached at,
but have a conversation with.
And the Lord will work in that.
One of my favorite quotes
comes from G.K. Chesterton.
He says it best.
He says,
Christianity has died
a series of revolutions.
Sorry, Christianity has had
a series of revolutions.
And in each one of them,
Christianity has died.
Christianity has died
many times and risen again,
for it has a God
who knew his way
out of the grave.
It's different times now
sharing our faith
than maybe it ever has been
in human history.
There's no doubt about it.
But this isn't new ground
in a lot of other ways.
Christianity is a faith
who has died,
that has died many times
and risen many times,
for it's a God
who knew his way
out of the grave.
Let me pray for us.
Lord,
first and foremost,
thank you that you are
the God who saves us.
You are the God
who does inject yourself
into our world
of sin and brokenness
to bear the shame
and guilt
on the cross for us
and to save us
from ourselves
and from the world
and the flesh
and the devil
which war against us.
May that truth
be sweet to us
and may it be so sweet
that we can't help
but share it with our friends.
Give us wisdom.
Give us words.
We pray for the person
that each one of us
is thinking through
that if and as we have
this conversation
in the coming weeks
that you would be
working in them
so that they may have
the hope and the peace
and the joy
and the assurance
that you have given to us
and we will give you
the glory.
It's in Jesus' name
that we pray.
Amen.
Let's stand and sing
our final hymn.