All of us have different moments in life where we are in some type of

Situation where we feel

Awkward or just uncomfortable or maybe we get a little bit of anxiety because of something. For me, one of those things happens sometimes when I go to the grocery store. Oftentimes when I leave work on my way home, I will call my wife and say, Hey, do you need me to stop the grocery store and get anything? And she will occasionally send a list. She’ll

Text the list to say, yes, that’d be

Really great. Let me send you a list of the different things that I’ll get.

And so I, I will go to

The grocery store and then I, I pull out my phone. I’m looking at the list and I’m, I’m hunting for all the things, but occasionally I’ll have some item that she puts on there that I

Go to that, that aisle with

The item. And I realized that, well, there’s, there’s more than one option. Like once it was spaghetti sauce. And so I go to the aisle

That has

Spaghetti sauce and there’s, there’s not one style of

Spaghetti sauce. There

Are 300 styles

Of spaghetti sauce.

And so I’m, I’m looking at all the options. And then I, I take my phone, I say, I can’t, I can’t make this decision on my own. I, I need help phone a friend. I call my wife. She doesn’t answer her phone. And that happens to me often. And it is the most uncomfortable, awkward scenario in the world to me. ’cause I’m just standing there with all these options. And the person that has sent me on this quest, my Gandalf, so to speak, I’m calling the Wise Wizard and saying, I, I don’t know what to do in this situation. I can’t make the decision by myself. And they don’t answer the phone. And so I’m just lost. I’m just roaming aimlessly around 300 styles thinking if I choose the wrong one, I ruin dinner for everybody. This is too much pressure for me. Awkward, uncomfortable, anxious. Another thing that that makes me slightly uncomfortable is sometimes you go into a house and you’re not

Sure whether this house is a shoes off

Or shoes on type of a house, because all houses

Are either or.

There’s no in between. Either they

Are a, we expect you to take

Off your shoes the moment that you walk in, or you’re fine to leave your shoes on. But if

You are

A shoes on sort of person that goes into a shoes off

Sort of

House, sometimes it can be uncomfortable. ’cause You’re thinking to yourself, oh, I, I didn’t realize when I was putting on my socks, I did not pay close enough attention whether my socks are clean enough, whether they’ve got a hole in them, I I didn’t realize they would be on display to

The

World around me. Maybe the most important map you will ever see in your entire life is this map right here. And this shows all the countries in the world

That are

Shoes on countries.

Those

Are the red pinkish ones. And then the ones in the world that are shoes

Off

Countries. Now, now we are kind of a melting pot. So I feel

Like we have a lot of both. Like if, if your house is a shoes off sort

Of house, go ahead and just raise your hand. Okay? Those people raising their hands for the rest of

Us, they judge us because

They think our houses

Are

Disgusting. So I just want you to know that.

But, but

We have all these things in life that just make us slightly uncomfortable,

Slightly

Awkward, not really sure

What

To do. And sometimes that happens when we’re at church,

Especially

When we’re at

Church and we talk about the word

Evangelism. Like everything about evangelism tends to, if you, if you’ve been around the church for

Very long, it

Just kind of makes you

Feel

Anxious because you think evangelism and natural, you think of

Awkward conversations.

And maybe you grew up

In a church that had different evangelism

Programs and you’ve had a lot of

Awkward

Conversations. Maybe you’ve done some street evangelism and, and it just kind of makes you uncomfortable. Or maybe you think about this uncomfortable sales

Pitch, like it feels

To you when you’re thinking of evangelism that you’re, you’re

Selling

Some type of a pyramid scheme to somebody and it just, it’s just not your thing. Or maybe when you think about evangelism, you think of a theological

Debate

Like, I’m gonna start talking to this person, and then they’re gonna ask questions that I don’t know the answer to, and then we’re just gonna be arguing with one another, and then we’re not really sure

What to

Do from there. And what we

Look at

In the next few weeks when it comes to evangelism, really those aren’t the things hopefully

That you come away feeling.

You don’t need any more

Spiritual guilt

Or shame. And that’s not the goal. Instead, here’s what

The goal is that, that we’re doing a series called The Red Chair, where we will look at the book of First Peter

For the next four weeks, and we’ll unpack really what

He

Talks about and what he presents to us

As

Evangelism. And the reason that we’re calling it

The red chair is because that chair

Represents that person that isn’t here

Yet.

Because when we think of evangelism as a process

Or a program,

I, I think it, it makes it uncomfortable really quickly. But instead, if we think of evangelism as a person and we think of who is that person in my life that does not know Jesus? Who needs to know

Jesus?

That’s where we need to start from.

So, so I want

You to just think for a second in your life, who are the people that you know that, that aren’t a Christian? Maybe

It’s a coworker that you have.

Maybe it’s a neighbor that

You wave

To and you sort of know each other, but you’ve never really

Had

A meaningful conversation with

Them.

Maybe

It’s your child. Maybe you have a kid that

Grew up in the church,

But they’ve kind of

Wandered away with their faith. Maybe it’s your parent. Maybe you came to faith, but your mom or your dad

Or your brother or your sister, they,

They don’t know Jesus. For most of us there,

There’s a lot of people that, that red chair could

Represent.

When

We look in the book of

One Peter, I,

I think if you want to pick one verse that

I think so

Brilliantly

Captures

What he’s trying to get us to,

To look at,

To feel, to understand. It’s one

Peter chapter

Two, verse nine, when he says that you talking about us as Christians, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you

Out of darkness

Into

His

Marvelous

Light.

Man, I, I

Think that’s just such a powerful phrase that, that

When we think of what it means to be a Christian, that we should live in such a way

That is

Proclaiming the

Excellencies of God, that we were once dark

And away from God, and he’s called us into

His

Marvelous

Light, that it should just be the overflow of who I am. And

That when, when one peter when it

Talks about evangelism, it doesn’t set it up as

A program. Instead it’s framed as an overflow,

The

Excellencies of what God has done for me and in me and through me. And that’s just

Overflowing

Into every

Other area

Of my life. And so when we think about

The red

Chair, when we think about evangelism, when we think

About one Peter,

I don’t want you to think

That the goal is, Hey, go sell

Christianity.

That’s what we

Awkwardly sometimes think evangelism is. And that’s not what one Peter presents it as. Instead,

His

Form of his view

Of

Evangelism is that we

Share with others

What God has done in

Our life. Or I, I love this,

This old famous phrase

That

Talks about evangelism. That evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar

Where

To find bread.

If you’ve got a Bible

Turn with me to first Peter.

First Peter, we’re

Gonna start in chapter one, starting in verse one. Here’s

What it says, Peter,

An apostle

Of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the

Dispersion in Pontius,

Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia,

And Bia, according to the fore knowledge of God

The Father,

And the sanctification of the spirit

For obedience to Jesus Christ

And for this sprinkling with his blood, may grace and peace be

Multiplied to you. He takes two

Words here, and he puts ’em together that,

That words, that that really

Shouldn’t go together. And

It’s the word

Elect and the word

Exile.

Oftentimes in Christian

Circles,

We get really hung up on the word elect and we miss what he’s doing with the word

Exile. That, that he takes two words that, that, that

Don’t seem like they apply and he sticks ’em together

That they weren’t literally exiles, the people

Receiving this letter,

But he’s

Saying that you are being treated.

You, you experienced life

As an exile. Meaning because they

Were Christians, because they loved Jesus, they looked

And acted completely different than the world around them. And as a

Result of that, people started

Treating them differently. That being in exile means that you’re not fully at home, that you’re marginalized, you’re uncomfortable,

You’re

Different, you’re misunderstood. But simultaneously,

He says that they are elect

Exiles. And that word

Elect it, it elicits

This, this feeling,

This truth

Of being chosen and being wanted, being set apart, being loved. And now I think it’s interesting. I think it’s intentional that

The order goes

The way it does. In non opposite. He’s not saying that you’re

Exiled elect,

He’s saying you’re elect understand the way that God views you and therefore the way that you should view yourself as being chosen, beloved set apart by God even though you’re exiled. And so even though you have these struggles, even though you don’t feel fully at home, even though you feel marginalized or misunderstood, understand those feelings come in the context of being beloved, beloved and chosen. That they, that is the identity by which everything else in life should function. Do we really live in a way as Christians that that creates this feeling from our heart that I am elect, I’m chosen, I’m beloved by God. I I think often what happens is that we become adults and the older we get, the more burdens that we start to carry. And everywhere around us, there’s stress and there’s anxiety. You look in the news, there’s stress and there’s anxiety, there’s issues, there’s challenges, there’s hurts.

And so we start to create these burdens that we carry, and those burdens often start to impact how we live. I, I took my, my son, he’s 13, and my, my youngest daughter, she’s seven. We, we went to brunch yesterday and on the way to brunch, we’re driving, it’s, it’s roughly 11 o’clock. And yesterday was about the most beautiful day that you could possibly imagine. I mean, 70 degrees outside in February. I mean, just glorious. And so we rolled down the windows and my, my 7-year-old in the back, she says, can I stick my hand out the window? I said, sure, you can stick your hand out the window. As a matter of fact, you can stick your, your hand out the window, stay buckled, but stick your head out the window. And so she’s kinda doing this and waving. And then, then I, I said, Hey, Evie, have you ever done this before?

Take your hand and go like this out the window. And crazy enough, I don’t think she’d ever done it before, because she, she’s leaning out the window and she’s doing like this with her hand. And all of a sudden she starts to giggle and she starts to laugh. And the whole drive to, to the breakfast brunch place, the whole drive. She is just, just alive with laughter and giggling. And she doesn’t stop her hand the entire time she’s doing this, which of course makes me start doing this. And we’re all, and my son’s doing this, we’re all doing this. We look like crazy people out there on the road. But man, it, it created this joy. And then we, then we get to the place and, and she was kind of disappointed. She was like, oh man, on the way back, can we stick our hand out the window on the way back to I said, yes we can. I mean, who would’ve thought that that’s the cheapest version of Disney World that you could possibly buy? It didn’t cost us anything, but man, she acted like it was amazing. We this is without exaggeration, we go into the brunch place and she says, this is the greatest day ever, <laugh>.

And, and it got me to think, when was the last time that I stuck my hand out the window and did this like as a 42-year-old? Can I just tell you I can’t remember the last time I did this? And why don’t we do that? Be because some of that joy gets lost. We start to grow up, we start to mature. We, we start to carry the burdens of life. And so the the simple joy of doing this out the window gets

Lost on us. But, but what

If, and I think this is the point that Peter is trying to make. What if

We live

With this understanding that we

Are elect, that we are

Chosen, that we are beloved by

God, that, that even if I’ve got exile, even if I’ve got other struggles

That exist in my life, when I see those in the context of my identity being beloved

By God, it

Should change how

I live.

It should bring back some

Joy. The

Other thing that I think that’s interesting to, to see in this introduction paragraph

Is

You see Trinity language.

So

Back in November, we did a sermon series on the Trinity. And, and the trinity is, is not a word that we see in scripture, but

We

See the trinity a term that we use to

Describe who God is. That that we have a

Triune God. And we see that language. We see

That, that

He in the introduction talks about the foreknowledge of the

Father, the

Sanctification of the spirit, and the obedience to Jesus

Christ.

That has nothing to do with the rest of the sermon. But my point is simply pointing out that

Throughout all of scripture, God the Father,

God the Son God, the Holy Spirit

We see that, that

Truth in that reality, let’s keep going down in verse three,

It said, blessed be the

God and Father

Of our Lord Jesus Christ.

According to his great mercy,

He has caused us

To be born again to a living hope. Now, pause for a second because that, that terminology being born again, we, we talk about that a lot. It’s New Testament terminology, but sometimes we just leave

It by

Itself. He’s saying, we are born again to a living hope

Through the

Resurrection of Jesus

Christ,

From the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading kept in heaven for you, who by

God’s power

Are being guarded

Through faith for

His salvation ready to

Be

Revealed in the last time. In this,

You rejoice

Though now for a little while if necessary, you have been grieved

By various trials so that the tested

Genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold,

That peres, though it is tested by fire,

May be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus

Christ. Though

You may be

You, though

You have not seen him, you love him, though you do not now see him, you believe in him. And to rejoice

With joy

That is inexpressible and filled with

Glory,

Obtaining the outcome of your

Faith, the

Salvation of

Your souls, he, he

Starts out in verse three by talking about this living hope

That, that that

Terminology of being born again, that’s when we become the Christian, that we’re born again, we have new life in Jesus,

But that

That new life being born again gives

Us

A living hope. And what does a living hope mean? Well, well, he unpacks it. But a living hope means that we can face

Hardship

Without falling apart. That’s what we see in verse six,

That we’re going to have difficult

Times and difficult seasons and bad things happen to us. And he

Says that if we have

The living hope inside of us, it means that even

Though we go

Through challenging circumstances that we can face them head on, because nothing this world

Will ever throw at us

Is stronger or bigger than the living hope that God

Has

Placed inside of us.

That because of our

Living hope, it means that we can love Jesus without having seen it.

That Peter was a disciple of Jesus, that he saw Jesus,

He spent time with Jesus. He

Saw Jesus

Resurrected from the dead, and he knows that the people he is writing to roughly

60 years,

Excuse me, 30 years later and around the year 60

Ad

He, he knows that this

Group

Of people, they didn’t get to physically

See Jesus, but he says, because of the

Living ho being born again, you don’t need to see him to have this faith and this trust and this living hope in him. And he says that because

Of

This living hope that we demonstrate inexpressible

Joy, that the overflow of the

Living hope inside of a

Should be

This inexpressible

Joy

In our lives.

Or, or

To put it another way, here’s what he’s saying. He’s saying that if

We love Jesus, that we

Can’t keep him to ourselves,

That

If we love him, we can’t

Help. But that inexpressible joy that’s just overflowing

From our life telling other people about him. About a month ago, I had my two oldest and we were skiing, and we, we get up to the top of the mountain, up at the top of the gondola, and we’re, we’re taking a picture of the three of us. We send it back to mom. Mom wasn’t skiing. She doesn’t like skiing as much, but we, we like to send her proof of life. Like, Hey, nobody’s hurt. We’re

Good.

And so we’re sending a picture up at the top of the mountain and about 15 feet away,

There’s this group

Of people and one of the guys drops to a knee. He brings out the ring and he proposes

To

His girlfriend. And she says, yes. ’cause Man, can you imagine how awkward if she says no, like that gondola ride back down would’ve been rough.

So she says, yes. They, they give each other

Hugs. And then the first thing he does is he jumps up and he just

Shouts to the world. She said, yes. And there’s just this joy

That comes with it. Now,

Why? It’s because the overflow of her

Saying yes in that moment, he couldn’t help but just

Express that joy to the world

Around him. Another example would be

Crossfit.

About 10 years ago,

Crossfit was huge, like all the rage.

And, and you would know if you had a friend that did CrossFit, and and there’s one really easy way to know if you had a friend that did CrossFit,

They told you that they did CrossFit

All the time, like just nonstop,

Because people that did CrossFit, they were obsessive about CrossFit. They

Posted social media about

Crossfit. They,

They were evangelists for CrossFit. Like they, they be at breakfast or lunch or dinner, and they’d be like, man, you should really try out CrossFit. And they’re just constantly inviting people into CrossFit. You, you wouldn’t believe my box in the wad today. It was crazy. You really need to come and be a part of it. And why? Because they had experienced something that had changed their life. It had been good for them. And so because they experienced something that was beneficial for them, they wanna share it with their friends, with their family, with all the people around them. And Peter is saying that if Jesus really has changed our life, if he really is the living hope within us, then the overflow, the inexpressible joy of that should be telling other people about Jesus. And then at the end of chapter one, he, he talks about holiness.

He talks about living a life lined up with righteousness. Then flip over to chapter two, starting in verse four. He says, as you come to him talking about Jesus as you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves, like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house to be holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture. Behold, I’m laying in Zion, a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe that stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, they stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do.

Now, now here’s what’s interesting is he, he takes this imagery from the Old Testament, the imagery of the temple, and he’s presenting it in light of Jesus in the New Testament. So in the Old Testament, the temple was the place where God resided that inside the temple you had the Holy of Holies. And the holy of Holies is where the physical manifestation of God, the the presence of God was in the holy of Holies. But normal people couldn’t just walk into the holy of holies, that you had a high priest and then the regular priest. And they were the go-between, between regular people and the presence of God. And so then what Peter’s taking is that imagery. And he’s, he’s applying it to Jesus. And he’s saying, but Jesus is the cornerstone. Now, now, in the Old Testament, the cornerstone was the core stone that the rest of the temple was built on. He’s saying that Jesus is the cornerstone. He’s this living stone in verse four. But then in verse five, he says that we are living stones built into a spiritual house. He’s saying that, that the temple has changed, that now we as believers in Christ Jesus become the temple. That the moment that we become a Christian,

That the Holy

Spirit comes to

Reside

Within us, that Jesus is the cornerstone. That, but

We are

Part of that as

These

Living stones built into

His

Community a

Different way to express would be this, that we as

Christians are to bring the presence of

God to the world.

That we are a new people, a new temple, and a new community. A a new people means we have a new identity.

God, God has said, your old

Identity is gone now. You have this new

Identity. Your beloved, you’re

Chosen,

You’re royal. He

Says that we’re a new temple talking about the presence of God,

That in the Old

Testament, in order to get

To God, you had to go

Through someone else. Now, because

Jesus is our high priest,

That we can boldly

Approach God. We have the

Presence of God within us. And then he talks about a new community. That’s, that’s this new witness

That we as the body of Christ

Are being his

Witnesses to the world

Around us. Let’s keep going in first Peter chapter two, verse nine.

But you are

A chosen race,

A royal

Priesthood, a holy nation, a

People

For his own possession that you may proclaim the

Excellencies

Of him who called you out of darkness and into mar his marvelous

Light. That’s the verse that we started with,

That you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous

Light.

Verse 10, once you were not a people, but now you are

God’s people.

Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved,

I urge you as

Sojourners and exiles to

Exiles,

To abstain from the passions of the flesh,

Which wage

War against your

Soul.

Keep your conduct among the gentiles honorable

So

That when they speak against you as evil doers, they may see your

Good

Deeds and glorify God on the day

Of visitation.

Now, this language he uses at the very

Beginning

Of this section, he calls us

A royal priesthood. We, you’re

Probably familiar with that language, so you just kind of brush past it. But in the first century, someone like they would’ve been shook by that

Language. ’cause The royal priesthood, it was a very specific group of people

From a specific

Tribe that had to go through

Specific things like they were

Elite. They were set apart.

They were seeing this righteous, they were seeing this holy. And now he’s saying to you, if you

Know Jesus,

He’s saying, you

Are the royal

Priesthood. Now we kind of push

Back against that. ’cause

Practically we think,

Well, if I think of the royal priesthood, I think, well, yeah, the pastor, that’s, that’s the royal priesthood or, or I think that the

Elders maybe, or, or maybe

That teacher or that leader or that staff person. But

That’s not what Peter is saying. Peter is saying that if you

Are a Christian, every

Believer in Jesus

Is a royal priesthood. It,

He, he’s saying to put it differently that you are not spiritually

The

Second string. You’re not the beat team of priesthood. You’re not an accident. You’re not just

Barely tolerated

By God. Instead, what is he saying? He’s saying that you

Are chosen, that you are royal, that you are holy. I mean, that’s,

That’s the language that if we

Really apply that to our life, do, do we live that? Do we feel that? Do we truly believe that, that God

Has set me apart

As holy, as royal as his?

And then he goes on to say that

Because of that, that we

Are proclaiming his excellencies,

Which leads to a simple question. What

Are we proclaiming?

Because

Everybody’s proclaiming something.

We’re constantly

Proclaiming something, whether we’re doing it out loud with our words or not. Our

Lifestyle is

Proclaiming something. If you’re a parent in this room,

You

Proclaim your values to your children all the time. There’s an old phrase that

Says, your kids will

Do what you tell them to do until they’re about

12 years old.

Then after that, they

Do what you do.

So I can tell my kid all the time, Hey, I want you to do this and I want you to do this, and I want you to do this. But if I’m not doing those things, eventually they get old enough to figure it out. And they said, well, you’re telling me not to do that.

But but you do that,

You tell me not to use bad

Language. But, but I hear you do

Use bad language. I I’m going to start taking the things that you’re proclaiming with your life, and I’m gonna

See those as values that I should

Apply to my life as well. One of the questions I get asked a lot as a pastor is,

What, what is

It gonna take for me to raise my kid

To be

A godly man or a woman?

But what does that

Pathway look like? And my answer is always simple. If you want your kids to grow

Up to be really

Godly men or women, the best

Way to do that is

To demonstrate that in your own life. And if you want them to fall in love with Jesus, then show them that you love Jesus.

Demonstrate it with your words and with

Your actions with

Who you are.

We’re constantly proclaiming our values, but we’re not doing it with a microphone most of the time. We’re proclaiming our values with our calendar. And

So if

You’re a parent and just being at church today, you are proclaiming a value

To your kids. You’re saying,

This is something that we do as a family because

We value it, but you’re

Also proclaiming a value

With every

Other night of

The week.

And so the

Question is, what are we

Proclaiming? And then if you really wanna

Peel back the layers,

Am I proclaiming the excellencies

Of God? That that

Word excellencies, what? What does Peter mean by excellencies? It means that the virtues, the mighty deeds,

The

Surpassing greatness of who

God is, have I ever

Shared with my kids or the people around me what God has done in my life? I think sometimes we have this idea of, well, I don’t have good enough of a testimony, good enough of a testimony. Even if you

Are, are

Righteous and have never done anything bad and never done anything wrong, scripture

Would teach us that

We were taken from death into life. We were taken from darkness into marvelous

Light. Like that is

A testimony. And I should be proclaiming that to my kids and to the world around me. Look at the things that

God has

Done in my

Life. So if you think

About what does it mean practically to proclaim his excellencies, here’s what it means. It means that we’re proclaiming his mercy.

He

Writes in that verse that

You have

Received his mercy. So I’m proclaiming to the people around me, lemme tell you about the mercies of God

Proclaiming

His deliverance, that he,

He

Brought us out of darkness, but also proclaiming his

Beauty

Into his marvelous

Light.

I think sometimes we

Struggle with what does it look like to proclaim his beauty?

It just means that we live a life in such a way that people take note and say, I, I don’t know what that inexpressible joy

That you have,

But there’s something about your life

That is just beautiful with how you live, with how you treat, treat people with, with

The smile that is on your face. We live in a culture, let’s be honest, that complains a lot about everything all the time. And you probably have some friends that they’re just, everything is the worst and everything is so bad and everything is so anxious and everything is so stressful and everything is entitled, I’m upset because I deserve and I won. And I believe like,

Like what does

It look like? Instead of that which is so prevalent in our culture

To live a life that’s beautiful, that is

Expressing the joy

Jesus. That if you wanna

Look at what evangelism looks like, verses 11 and 12, I I think capture it really well

That, that Peter says that what we should do is we should live a life that is distinct. We should have

Distinct living. That’s the holiness that we should have, that

We don’t look like the

World around us. We don’t just

Do

The same things as everybody else, but instead, we

Live

Different and set apart that we have honorable conduct,

That there is credibility with us,

That someone couldn’t come against us

Because we, we live with such

Righteousness in our life that any false

Accusation would clearly be false because everybody would say, well, yeah, hey,

They definitely didn’t do that. I know them. I see them, I watch them, and that’s not who they are.

We also live with a clear purpose. And when we talk about

Proclamation, I think we, we think of proclamation as getting on top of a box and, and yelling something out. But, but that’s not really what it’s talking about. It saying that proclamation is just the

Overflow

Of my life. Can’t help

But talk about Jesus.

We live in a world that sometimes can be kind of ugly.

If

You have ever been a waiter or

A waitress, they have a really hard job.

Really, any service industry tends to be really hard

Because

Oftentimes the things that, that

People get

Irritated with them on that they had nothing to do with,

It’s like you get irritated because the food tastes bad. Well, your waiter

Waitress had nothing to do with it.

You’re irritated because

Your food’s not coming out fast enough. Well, well, they’re not the one making the food. They’re, they’re not the one bringing it out. They’re just the one bringing it out. And so what what happens oftentimes is, as you’ve probably been at, at dinner or lunch with people like this, that they just get more and more frustrated as the meal goes on. Like the, the waiter waitress forgot their order or they didn’t refill their drink, or the food came out late, or the food was cold, or the food was wrong. And then just get so irritated and so frustrated. And what we often do is people take it out on their way to our waitress. Well, what would it look like if, if the proclamation of the excellencies of God living this beautiful life meant that we treat people, not how we think they deserve to be treated, but instead of we treat people because they’re created in the image of God and therefore they have value.

Like that’s what Jesus teaches. But what would it look like to live that out as a people to, to treat people in such a beautiful way that it causes them to say, man, I don’t know what’s different about you, but I like it. Everybody else has been a jerk to me today. But you, even though I got your order wrong, and even though I spilled your drink, and even though I’ve been terrible, you have been so joy filled. What’s going on in your life? That’s what Peter is talking about. Let’s talk about four simple steps, very practical steps of what it might look like this next month. The first is to write down the name or names of someone in your life who needs Jesus. Know. When you think of the red chair, who is that person in your life that you would say that chair is being saved for this specific person?

I heard Lee Strobel one time talk and he said, if God answered every prayer request you’ve prayed for the last seven days. So everything you’ve, you’ve prayed to God for seven days straight, if he just said every one of those, the answer is yes. He said, how many people would enter into the kingdom of God as a result of your prayers? To put it a different way, how many people in the last seven days of your life, my life, have we been praying for that they might experience Jesus? And for most of us, probably the answer is nobody. And so write down a name or multiple names and then commit right now to say, Hey, I am going to commit to pray for that person. I’m gonna pray for them every single day. I believe wholeheartedly in the power of prayer. And then find ways to proclaim his excellence.

And I’m not saying that you sit down and you say, look, I’m gonna, I’m gonna theologically debate you. I’m gonna hammer you. No, it’s the overflow of your life in natural conversation talking about what God has done for you. Here’s the thing about Christian debate. There are people smarter than me. And so I will sit down with people that I will not know every answer to their question. But here’s what I know that can never debate or take away what God has done in my life. That my story, the truth of what God has done is real and I can share that with the world around me. And then step four is just to offer a next step. Maybe that next step is you don’t know ’em very well, so maybe the next step is I’m gonna invite them over to dinner. I’m gonna invite them to coffee or to lunch.

I’m gonna go try and develop that relationship a little bit. May maybe the next step would be something practical, like offering them an invite to church. We’ve got least trouble coming on Palm Sunday. Lee’s amazing for someone that doesn’t know Jesus. We have Easter, which is a really easy Sunday to invite somebody. The the stats would tell you that the vast majority of people that end up in a church, they don’t end up at that church because we did a really good social media campaign. Although we do those things, not because we did some amazing event. The vast majority of people that end up at church, end up at that church because of a personal invitation. It’s more powerful than anything else our church could ever do. Write down and, and, and don’t just write it down in your head, like literally write it down.

Pull out your phone, go to your notepad and write down the names of people that you’ll say, I’m gonna start praying for ’em. I’m gonna naturally talk to them about what Jesus has done in my life, and then I’m gonna find an opportunity to offer some sort of next step. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father God, as we kick off this series on the red chair, God, I pray that it won’t just feel like a process or a program God, but we in our hearts will break for people, the people in our sphere of influence, the people in our community, the people in our world, the people all around us that do not know you, God, that our hearts would break, and then we would live in such a way that it proclaims who you are, not as a program, not as a process, but simply as an overflow of our love for you. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.