Slide 1
1 Peter 3:13-16
13 Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

Slide 2
We will rarely speak boldly about Christ if we are ruled by the fear of man. (Vs 13-14)

Slide 3
We fear:
· rejection
· awkwardness
· not knowing enough
· being thought strange
· saying it imperfectly
· losing relational capital

Slide 4
Where do we start?

Slide 5
15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy

Slide 6
The first question is not, “Do I know enough to share my faith?”
The first question is, “Is Jesus truly Lord in my heart?

Slide 7
always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect

Slide 8
We should be able to share our hope!

Slide 9
Our hope:
Why is my hope in Jesus?
What has Christ done?
Why does following Jesus change anything?

Slide 10
Am I ready to speak hope with gentleness?

Slide 11
If we’re honest, we think evangelism is for:
· extroverts
· apologists
· unusually bold people
· theologically fast thinkers

Slide 12
Peter does not say:
“Be loud.”
“Be impressive.”
“Be impossible to argue with.”

Slide 13
He says:
Be ready.

Slide 14
90-second Hope Story
1. Before
What was I looking to for identity, security, meaning, peace, control, or worth?
2. Turning point
How did Jesus interrupt me, confront me, expose me, or draw me to Himself?
3. After
What hope do I now have in Jesus?

Slide 15
Our testimony is not mainly about how interesting our past was.
It’s about how sufficient Jesus is now.

Slide 16
Our tone matters: yet do it with gentleness and respect

Slide 17
1 Peter 4:7-11
7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Slide 18
Peter pictures a people marked by:
· prayer
· love
· hospitality
· service
· stewardship
· speaking as those who speak God’s words

I want you to turn the person next to you, give ’em a high five for being here, even though there’s ice and there’s snow, and it’s cold. And it was 75 degrees yesterday, and it’s gonna be 80 degrees this week. But today is a Colorado day, which means in the middle of those things, we have a frozen tundra. And those of you that didn’t come to church and are watching online, we are glad that you are here too. It is a cool story. In 1986, it comes outta Cleveland, Ohio. They decided that they wanted to set a Guinness World record. They decided that they were gonna release more helium balloons than anyone had ever done before. Now, to put it in context, a year before 1985, Disneyland had set the world record. They released a million balloons filled with helium. You gotta remember, this is the eighties.

We don’t do that anymore. It’s bad for the birds, it’s bad for the environment. But in the mid eighties, we just released helium balloons nonstop all the time. Hundredth day of, of school, release some balloons, it’s your birthday release, some balloons, like that’s, that’s just how we rolled in the eighties. And so in 1986, Cleveland, Ohio says, we’re gonna do this as a charitable thing. We’re gonna partner with United Way. And 1.5 million balloons, they release. But things didn’t go exactly as planned. The weather, there was a storm that was coming in, and they realized a storm that was coming in. So they actually released them much earlier than they had originally intended to release them. It’s a pretty amazing picture here. Here’s a picture of them releasing 1.5 million balloons into the air. Pretty crazy. But that storm that they knew was coming in, that they released the balloons early for.

Well, unfortunately, that that storm did some things to the balloons that they did not expect. It brought in cold air and wind and those helium balloons, instead of just going straight up into the sky, most of them started coming back down on people, which a, a helium balloon. I mean, it’s not like it was hurting people, but it did cause a lot of problems in the city. For example, they had to shut down the airport because you had all these balloons coming in, and these pilots were saying, we can’t see anything. What’s flying at us. It caused a number of, of traffic, a accidents all across the city because you’re driving, all of a sudden, you, you, if you’re unaware, there’s just balloons that start dropping outta the sky and, and onto your windshield. They also went into Lake Erie. So Lake Erie fills up with hundreds of thousands of balloons. Here’s a picture of Lake Erie, which is balloons everywhere. The Coast Guard was in the middle of a search and rescue for two missing fishermen. They had to call that off. They said that, that for years later, little pieces of balloon would wash up on the shores of Lake Erie. And it’s one of those interesting stories because the intention was so good. It’s a celebration, it’s a nonprofit. It’s helping people. It’s gonna be a party, really good intention, really bad results. Sometimes you can have

Really, really good intentions behind something, and it doesn’t change. The, the bad results are still bad. I, I think as we’re in a series on evangelism, I think sometimes when we think of evangelism we’ve all seen somebody that did evangelism in a way that that maybe was harmful or bad. And so, so we saw it as well, good intentions, really great idea, a really great heart behind it. But if the execution is done poorly, then then instead of really caring for that person that the red chair represents, what if we’re harming that person? And maybe because you’ve seen that, that’s been the thing that’s given you pause, that instead of leaning forward in evangelism, you’ve kind of taken a step back and said, well, I don’t wanna hurt somebody’s feelings. I’m not really sure what to do, and I don’t wanna cause more harm than good.

And so I’m just not going to do anything at all. Peter, in his letter one Peter, he gives us this framework of what it looks like to do evangelism in a way that’s healthy and beneficial. If you’ve got a Bible, turn with me to one Peter, chapter three, one Peter chapter three. We’re gonna pick up in verse 13. He says this, now, who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good, but even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed, have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts, honor Christ, the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the reason, for the hope that is within you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

It gives us this framework where he says, okay, if we’re going to share our faith in a way that is healthy and beneficial, here’s how we can package it. And so it’s not a process, it’s not a system. It’s just the natural overflow of what it should look like. And he starts with the concept of fear. He said, we should not be afraid to boldly proclaim the gospel. I think the truth is that we will rarely speak boldly about Christ if we are ruled by the fear of man. Now, I know that’s true in my life. I know oftentimes the reason that I don’t share my faith is because I’m worried about the outcome. I’m worried about what’s going to happen. I’m worried about what they’re going to say or how they are going to respond. What what are the things that we fear?

What will we fear? Rejection. Okay, I’m gonna present the gospel. I’m gonna share something with you, and then you’re just gonna reject it outright. Or maybe we just fear the awkwardness, or that they’re gonna ask a question that I don’t know the answer to. And so I don’t know enough. Or maybe I’m worried that they’re gonna think that I’m strange or that I’m, I’m not gonna say it exactly right, or I’m gonna have some bad theology that’s thrown in there. Or, or maybe I’m worried about the long losing the, the, the relational capital, the the long term relationship piece. What, what if something goes wrong? And now a friendship I’ve had for a long time disappears and isn’t there anymore? And so that fear causes us oftentimes should just not do anything. We, we don’t even start, we, we don’t move forward. And so Peter is acknowledging that he’s recognizing that.

And he’s saying, you need to set fear aside. And then, then he gives us some steps. So if you think about evangelism, where do we start? And most of the time what we think that we start with head knowledge. Okay, well, I have to learn enough things and learn the right process, and then I go forward. But that’s not actually where Peter says we should start. Look at what he says is where we should start. He says, but in your hearts, honor Christ, the Lord as holy. So before I can say anything, it has to start internally in my heart that Christ is Lord of my life. So if we wanna do evangelism well in a healthy way, the first question that I have to ask myself is not, do I know enough to share my faith? Instead, the first question is, is Jesus truly the Lord in my heart?

I I can’t share the hope that is within me if I do not have the hope within me to begin with. So I first have to cast aside fear, then I have to make sure that my heart is right where Jesus is the Lord of my heart. And then you take the next step, and he says, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason, for the hope that is within you. And now here’s what’s beautiful about that, is the things that often we’re scared about. Well, I, I’m not gonna know enough. I’m not gonna have the right answers. That’s not what he actually tells us that we have to defend. But he’s not saying we have to defend every question that ever might arise against Christianity or against the cross. Those are wonderful things. That’s called apologetics. Apologetics is a wonderful, beautiful, amazing thing.

But he’s not telling every one of us, we all have to have the answer to every apologetic question. Instead, he says that we need to be prepared to defend the hope that is within me. We should be able to share our hope. That’s what he’s saying. He he’s saying, you, you shouldn’t be prepared to write a dissertation of, of every answer to every question. No, he says, simply, you and I, if we are Christians, we need to be prepared to defend why we have a hope within us. I need to be able to share my testimony, what God has done in my life to the world around me, to, to look at it a different way. If you’re gonna share, describe, okay, well, what is my hope? Our hope is simply the answer to these questions. Why is my hope in Jesus, or, or what has Christ done in my life?

Or why does following Jesus change anything that I should just be able to share those things that God has done in me and through me? And then he adds on this, this side at the end where he talks about gentleness. And, and so he’s saying that I should be able to speak my hope with gentleness. Now, now, understand that it’s not an argument. He’s not saying, you need to be able to share your hope in a way that argues somebody to the cross. I found in my experience that rarely does someone lose an argument and that changes their opinion. Like on almost anything. Have you ever seen a presidential debate? And they’re going back and forth. And at the end, one of ’em was like, you’re right. Like, I, I just have been wrong this whole time. Hey, put her there. I’m changing my policy.

Like that’s not how it works. We don’t lose debates and change our opinions. Peter knows that he, he’s not saying that you’re arguing someone to the cross, that you’re loving someone to the cross. That’s why we’re sharing our hope with gentleness. Now, I think one of the challenges is that if we’re honest, when we think about evangelism, here’s what we think. We think. Well, that is specifically for extroverts. Or, or maybe you think, well, that’s specifically for apologists. People are really good at defending their faith. Or maybe you think, well, that’s just for those unusually bold people that are just loud about everything and opinionated. Or maybe you think, well, well, that’s really just for theologically fast thinkers. People that can just think really quickly go really quick. But, but it’s not me that that’s not my thing. I feel uncomfortable doing that. It, I wanna share with you a story I shared about four years ago.

It’s a story of the first time that I ever shared my faith. And I tell this story because it, it helps us to understand nothing about this story makes me look good. Nothing about the story is like, oh man, Kurt was awesome. Everything about the story is that God is awesome. And yet he somehow used me as a part of the process. I was in fifth grade, first time I ever shared my faith. My older sister, she was in ninth grade and she became a Christian, which kind of boggled my mind ’cause she grew up in the church. And so I just assumed that she already was a Christian. But in ninth grade is when she really understood it for the first time, made a first time profession of faith. And it radically changed who she was. She started sharing her faith all the time.

She started reading her Bible all the time, that everywhere she went that this, this faith was just a part of who she was. She was passionate about it. And so me watching my sister as a fifth grader, it caused me to start reading my Bible. And then it caused me to decide I need to go share my faith with somebody. And so I’ll never forget, I’m in fifth grade, and most of the time during, during school, you don’t really have a great opportunity to share your faith. And so I’m kinda waiting. You’re like, well, if I share my faith in the middle of of math class, I probably get in trouble. So I’m waiting and waiting. And then I’m at recess and at recess I, I decide, okay, this is my moment that I’m gonna go share my faith with somebody. And I’m looking around at recess and I look over at the kids in detention and I said, there’s the people that need Jesus right there, <laugh>.

But but practically speaking, I said, if I go sit down next to one of them, they can’t move for the next 20 minutes. Like they have to listen to whatever I have to say. And so I’ll never forget, I go sit down next to Cody. Cody rode the bus with me every morning. He was my friend. And in my head I’m thinking, okay, well how do I do this? I’d never taken a class. I’d never gone through a program. I sit next to Cody on a brick wall at recess. And, and I remember the conversation verbatim, word for word. Here’s exactly how it went. This is not an exaggeration. I sit down next to him and I say, Hey, Cody, are you a Christian? And he said, no. And I said, would you like to become one? And he said, yes. And I, I kid you not word for word.

That is exactly how that conversation went. And, and now, I mean, in my mind, I’m like, this is easy. I, I, and, and now I’m not sure exactly what to do. So I just word vomit for the next few minutes. I like start to explain the gospel to the best of my ability. I’m like, well, hey, we need Jesus ’cause we’re sinners and he died on the cross for us. And, and then you gotta believe in him and you gotta confess your sin, and you gotta make Jesus your Lord. And so I’m just kind of fumbling through it. And then I say, and, and then you pray. You gotta pray. And I said, Cody, would you like to say a prayer? And he said, yes. And I said, okay, you repeat after me. And then I wasn’t really sure what I was doing. So it was a long prayer and it meandered and it wondered, and I was worried I would get it wrong.

So we did the sinners prayer like five times just back to back to back to back. Like make sure, let’s make sure this thing sticks. And then about the time we finish the prayer, a teacher comes over and says, Hey, you’re not allowed to sit there. He’s in attention. He can’t talk to. And so, so I, I bolt and I remember like even that day thinking to myself, okay, I’ve got a lot of doubt. Like, did that actually do what I thought that it did? And then a few years later, we’re in eighth grade and we’re at a, a church discipleship now. So his family started going to our church and we’re at a discipleship now. And so we’re, we’re sitting with a small group leader, and our small group leader is going around the circle and everybody’s giving their testimony. And it gets to Cody and they say, Cody, when did you become a Christian?

And he points to me, and he says, I was in fifth grade. And Kurt came over at recess and he said, are you a Christian? And I said, no. And he said, would you like to become one? And I said, yes. And, and then this is what he said. He said, I had been wanting to become a Christian for a while, but I didn’t know how. And it was that moment that God presented an opportunity. And now here’s why I share the story, because I think here’s what we tend to think about evangelism. We think that it’s God plus me equals people get saved. And that’s not how the gospel works. I add nothing to the gospel that, that my salvation is faith in Jesus alone. It’s what Jesus did for me on the cross. It’s his redemptive work that he died, he rose from the dead.

It’s nothing that I add to the equation. It is Jesus. And the same is true in evangelism. Evangelism is not my awesomeness, my charisma, my ability to tell stories, my ability to debate, plus the gospel. It is just the gospel. So oftentimes we have this fear of, well, okay, I’m gonna do it wrong and they’re gonna reject me. But, but if someone responds to the gospel, the Holy Spirit gets all the glory. And if someone rejects the gospel, they’re not rejecting me. They are rejecting God. That, that when we are just obedient and willing, that there’s something that God allows us to be a part of the process. But he doesn’t need us in the process whatsoever. So as an encouragement, when we think of evangelism, we don’t have to be amazing because the gospel is already amazing. We just get to share what God has already done, that that’s why Peter does not say that we need to be loud or that we need to be impressive, or that we need to be impossible to argue with.

That’s not what Peter calls us to be. Instead, he’s saying that we need to be ready. That’s what we have to do. We have to be ready to share the hope that is within us. What does that mean? That I need to be able to share my testimony, what God has done in my life. If I were to ask you right now in 90 seconds, could you share your testimony? Could you do it? And, and if not, then here would be my encouragement. Go home today or this week and sit down and try and physically write out your testimony. If someone gave you the opportunity, could you simply in 90 seconds share the hope that is within you? Here’s what a 92nd hope story looks like, that it starts with your before. So what did my life look like before Jesus? What was I looking to for identity and security and meaning and place, control and worth?

So here’s my before that, then here’s the turning point. Here’s the, the moment in my life where Jesus interrupts me. That he confronts me, that he exposes me. He draws me to himself. This is the moment I give my life to Jesus. And now here’s the after. Here’s the hope that I have in my life as a result of what Jesus has done for me. Here’s the hope that I have in him. And I should be able to do that in about 90 seconds. Now, depending upon where the conversation goes, you might share a lot more than that. But we should all as Christians be able to share our hope story in about 90 seconds. Now. Now here’s a warning. Our testimony is not mainly about how interesting our past was. I think that’s what we do sometimes with testimonies. I remember one time I’m being in youth group and they said, if you have a powerful testimony, raise your hand.

And I didn’t raise my hand ’cause they’re like, well, I don’t have a powerful testimony. And then I, I got a little bit older and I realized I, I do have a powerful testimony. I went from death to life. That, that the testimony of someone that went through terrible tragedy and lots of sin and brokenness and then that meets Jesus. That’s a powerful and amazing testimony. We need to share those testimonies. But equally powerful and amazing is the testimony of someone who grew up in the church and was saved from a future that could have led them down a dark, terrible, painful path. But instead they were saved from that because of the gospel. That, that our testimony is not how terrible things were. It’s about how, because of Jesus, my life is sufficient. I have hope because of him. And every single one of us, if you are a Christian, should be able to share the hope that is within you.

It’s interesting when Jesus calls his followers and he’s going around, he’s collecting primarily fishermen. And Jesus says, follow me and I’ll make you fishers of, of men. It’s interesting ’cause he could have said a lot of things. He could have said, follow me and I will make you holier than everybody else. He could have said, follow me and I’ll make you very intelligent because of my teachings. He could have said, follow me and I’ll make you famous. Jesus doesn’t say any of those things. He says, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Which means that if we are followers of Jesus, the fruit in our life should be that we are fishers of men, that we are naturally sharing the hope that is within us to the world around us. But Peter doesn’t stop there. Then at the end of that sentence, he gives us a tone and he wants us to understand that our tone matters.

He says, yet, do it with gentleness and respect. How many times have you seen someone that they’re, they’re trying to argue someone with anger to the gospel and that that’s actually not what Peter calls us to do. Peter says, we need to be ready at any given moment to share the hope that is within us, but do us do it in a way that is with gentleness and with respect. And now flip over a chapter to chapter four. Look in verse seven, what he says. Now, next, this is kind of the end, the conclusion of this, this thought. And he says, the end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers. Now, pause for a moment because there’s something really profound there that, that it’s easy to skip past that He’s saying that, that we are living in in times.

Now, I want you to remember he wrote this 2000 years ago, and, and his point is that we need to live with an urgency. We need to live knowing that Jesus is going to come back. That should change the perspective of how we live. So we should have urgency. But he also tells us that we need to be self-controlled. And so reminded that. So in times, often when people inside the church talk about it, it makes us crazy and it gives anxiety, it gives us really hyped up. Anytime there’s conflict in the Middle East, you hear a lot of people start talking about in times why? Because in the book of the Revelation, it, it mentions a lot of things in the Middle East. And so, so right now there’s conflict in the Middle East and the natural thing sometimes in Christian circles is all of a sudden we get really panicked when we really get upbeat.

But but biblically, what are we supposed to do? We should be calmer, not crazier because of the fact that it’s in times we should be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of our prayers. What does that mean? It means that our prayers are intentional. So right now, in this moment when there’s unrest in the Middle East, how should we as Christians respond? Not with panic, not with anxiety, not by being crazy, but instead with sober minded, self controlled on our knees before God in prayer, that we should pray for conflict in the Middle East. We should pray with mourning and lament for the loss of life. We should pray for mourning and lament for, for our service men and women who, who are sacrificing for the world right now. Like that should be a natural part of the overflow of our heart and our prayer.

We should pray for what’s going on, but it shouldn’t cause us to panic. It shouldn’t cause us to have anxiety. It should cause us to be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of our prayers. Then verse eight, he says, above all, keep loving one another. Earnestly. Since love covers a multitude of sins, he’s telling us that love is central to the message of the gospel. That, that without love, if I just angrily try and convince people of the gospel, it does not work. That love is the foundation that gives me the platform to have the conversation. What caused the early church to explode? It was the love that they demonstrated for the world around them that they loved the least and the loss and the marginalized. And it was a result of that love that gave them a platform to have a conversation with people about the hope that was within them.

Jesus. So love is central. And then he says, verse nine, show hospitality to one another without grumbling isn’t that hard. Like it’s really easy for me to show hospitality while I’m grumbling and complaining about it. Like I am really good at cleaning the dishes when I announce to my children and my wife that I’m cleaning the dishes. I’m really good at cleaning up after my kids when I’m reminding them that I’m picking up their junk. But, but he’s saying that we should show hospitality without grumbling as each has received a gift. Use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace. That the Holy Spirit, if you’re a Christian, gives us spiritual gifts. And we are meant to use those spiritual gifts and powered by the Holy Spirit. For verse 11, whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God, meaning we’re speaking on behalf of God to the world around us, whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies.

So the Holy Spirit gives us spiritual gifts primarily to serve and to speak in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ in order that my life, in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. So here, here’s what Peter does is is he gives us this section where he, he tells us about how we shouldn’t be afraid, that we should make sure that Christ is the Lord of our heart, that we should be ready at any given moment to share the hope that is within us, that we should do it with gentleness. And then to wrap it up, he gives us this picture of what we, people of God should look like. We should be marked by our prayer and our love and our hospitality and our service and our stewardship.

We should be marked by people speaking as those who speak God’s words. It’s interesting, we, we, we had a, a buddy of mine who does demographics. He came out and, and looked in this area at our church demographics about six months ago. And so he looked at Highlands Ranch, he looked at a little bit outside of Highlands Ranch, a little bit outside of that. And so if you would look at, at everyone that’s in about a 15 to 20 minute drive of this place right here it’s roughly half a million people. And one of the questions that they do when they do demographics is they ask people, do you attend church? And there’s four answers to it. The answer could be somewhat agree, wholeheartedly agree, somewhat disagree, wholeheartedly disagree. Now, most of the country, if you ask that question, most of our country will end up on the positive side.

So you ask ’em, do you attend church? And they would say, somewhat agree or wholeheartedly agree e even in places that the church attendance is not very common. So, so the northeast, they would answer that all in the affirmative, even though most of ’em don’t go to church, but they have some type of a cultural connection to church. So they would say, well, hey, I 30 years ago we went to this Methodist church, or 30 years ago, I grew up in this church. And so if, if they see that question, there’s some guilt that they have that’s like, yeah, we’re gonna say that, that we attend church. Somewhat agree or wholeheartedly agree, there’s only three parts of our country that would either the majority answer, somewhat disagree or wholeheartedly disagree. It would be bits and pieces of California parts of the northeast, so Portland, Seattle, and then also Colorado.

And so our demographic, and this is not any other part of Colorado, this is all within about 15, 20 minutes. The the half million people that are close to this campus that the most common answer was wholeheartedly disagree on attend church. And the second most common answer was somewhat disagree, two to one was the ratio of people saying wholeheartedly or somewhat disagree. And so what does that mean? That means that, that in our backyard, all around us are people that do not know Jesus. They’re broken, they’re lost. Now their lostness looks different because on the surface it looks pretty put together, it looks pretty scheduled, it looks pretty happy, it looks pretty polished, and yet they don’t know Jesus. And so does our heart break for the people around us that don’t know Jesus? Are we creating a platform for ourself by loving people well and then having opportunities to share the gospel?

If there’s this tension that exists, I I’ve got some family members that are not Christian. I’ve got some family members that grew up in the same house that I did godly parents that, that brought us to church. And, and then we, we ended up in very different spiritual journeys. And so there’s this challenge that exists of how do I share my faith with a family member that doesn’t know Jesus? Because if I truly believe what I, what I say that I believe it means that I believe that the only way to experience life is through Jesus Christ. That if you don’t have relationship with Jesus, then in eternity you spend that attorney separated away from Jesus, the Bible calls it hell. And so if I believe that that’s a true destination, that then the love and the compassion that I have in my heart, what would say I wanna do something to fix that.

Now, if every time I saw that person, I’m just argue, argue, argue all the time, then at some point that’s gonna get really annoying for them. Like they’re, they’re not. It’s gonna be, okay, great. Here’s the pastor brother, let’s just ignore everything that he has to say. And, and so instead, you’ve gotta be really intentional of how do I intentionally make sure that this is a, a relationship that has a lot of love and a lot of gentleness and a lot of respect, but also not shying away from having eternal conversations and praying every single day that God might do a work. I I think one of the dangers is if we love Jesus, if Jesus really has transformed something in my life, then that should overflow into my conversations naturally. I imagine your best friend, somebody that you spend every single day with. If you hang out with someone every single day and you are best friends, then if something important happens in their life, they share that with you.

So, so they start dating somebody, they’re gonna say, Hey, guess what? I’m dating somebody. I want, I wanna tell you about it. And then if they start thinking about getting engaged, that they’re gonna tell you and they’re gonna ask your opinion and they’re gonna say, well, hey, here’s what I’m thinking. And then if they get engaged and decide to get married, they’re gonna invite you to that celebration. ’cause They’re gonna say, this is a big deal in my life. I want you to participate. I want you to be a part of it. Now, I want you to imagine a best friend that you’ve got and you talk to ’em every day and they come up and say, Hey, guess what? I got married. And you say, say what? You never said that you were dating someone. I didn’t even know that you were engaged.

I’ve never even heard this person’s name. And you got married, what you said. Describe what you’d have lots of questions and probably in the back of your mind you’d think, I doubt this marriage works out. Like if you’ve never shared with me anything, anything about this person and you just all of a sudden get married. I, I, I’ve got lots of questions. Wouldn’t we think that if I love something and it matters to me that I’m going to share about it? But sometimes that’s what we do with Jesus. We’ve got friends or coworkers or neighbors. We talk to ’em a lot. But, but we, we keep our Jesus in a box and we don’t want to share about this piece of who we are. Yesterday in my family, we were up at Breckenridge, we’re skiing and one of the families that we ski with sometimes are the Ians a Rahm is one of the worship leaders up here sometimes.

Nicole is his wife and they’re way better skiers than us. And when I mean better skiers, I I mean their five-year-old Jonah is a better skier than anybody else in my family. And it’s not ’cause we’re terrible, although we’re not great. It’s because he’s unreal. Like they’re amazing skiers. And, and about three weeks ago, Nicole was skiing with their five-year-old Jonah going down moguls. It tells you how good of a five year-old skier he is. And, and her phone popped out and she dropped her phone. So she gets down to the bottom of the run and the five-year-old’s not feeling very well. And so, so she’s looking up at it, but it’s not easy to get there. And so she says, okay, I’m gonna come back later and go find it. And so she, she goes and, and trades off Jonah to Iam and then she goes back and she can’t find it.

So for three weeks in a row, she’s been going back to the same spot over and over and over again, trying to find her, her phone looked for it over a dozen times. Hadn’t found it yesterday. Iam had a buddy bring him a metal detector. And so this is a, a photo of, of me taking the picture of IAM with a metal detector on moguls and Breckenridge. My son is in the background looking for a lost phone. Now, the reason I’m taking the picture is ’cause I think it’s a little bit ridiculous. Like I’m telling aam aam, it’s been three weeks and I know we haven’t had the best snow of, of typical years, but that phone is absolutely covered in, in a foot of snow’s, zero chance that we are gonna find it. So, so we look for, for 15, 20 minutes. I think the whole thing is ridiculous in my mind.

The fact that they’re still looking for a phone three weeks after they lost it. I’m like, guys, you are crazy. Like you are never gonna find this thing. So, so that night, a few hours later AROM takes the metal detector back to their place and Nicole says, I’m gonna go look with the metal detector. So after the slopes are closed she, she puts on skins and she goes up into the moguls and she uses the metal detector and she has a little shovel. And here is the picture of Nicole. And if you look very carefully in her hand is not only a shovel, but also a cell phone. And not only that, when she plugged it in, the cell phone actually works. It’s still is totally fine. She said it was under 15 inches of snow. Now, now here’s what buckles my mind about that.

Most of us would acquit on the phone, like most of us are like, eh, we lost it. I looked, it’s gone for three weeks over a dozen times. She kept going back and going back and searching and searching and searching and, and, and, and here’s here’s the tension. Like what it, what would it look like if we as a church treated the lost people in our community, just like Nicole treated a lost phone? Like I, I would just admit that, that oftentimes we face it more like, like I looked at the lost phone. Like, Hey, just give up. Like you’re not gonna find it. Like we tried, we showed up, we did the little thing with the metal detector. Now it’s time to go on. But, but what if instead, our hearts broke with compassion for the world around us, that we got down on our knees and we prayed for those people that the red chair represents.

That, that we came up with a list of the people in my life that do not know Jesus. And every day I pray for that person. And sometimes I pray for that person. And it takes a few days, and sometimes it takes a few months and sometimes it takes a few mo years. It might even take a few decades. But what if I don’t give up? Why? Because the gospel is worth it. Because Jesus has called me to follow him and follows followers of Jesus, make fishers and men, meaning I’m gonna share the hope that is within me. I went from death to life, so I can’t help but, but overflow into all the world around me, what Jesus has done in my life. What would it look like if we searched out the lost as passionately as Nicole searched for a lost phone? I bet it would make a profound eternal impact in the world around us.

Let’s pray. Heaven, father, God. Lord, as we wrestle through the book of one Peter, there, there are parts of it that are encouraging. There are parts of it that are challenging, but, but all of it, all of it has a backdrop where Peter’s heart breaks for the lost. And he wants us as his followers, as the capital C Church. He, he wants us to live in such a way that we’re not quiet, live in such a way that, that through gentleness and love, our lives are loud. That causes people to say, Hey, what is the hope that you have within you? Tell me about it. God, I pray that we would be a church is passionate about the lost, passionate about reaching people that don’t know you for your good, for your glory, for your kingdom. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.