Key Life Network

Steve Brown: If you’ve never stood before God and been confused, you’re probably worshiping an idol. Let’s talk on Key Life.

Matthew: Key Life is a radio program for struggling believers, sick of funny religion and pious clichés. Our host and teacher is seminary professor Steve Brown. He teaches that radical freedom leads to infectious joy and surprising faithfulness.

Steve Brown: Thank you, Matthew. If you’re just joining us, we’re talking about how to share your faith. One of the things that we’re doing that are kind of prerequisites to discussing evangelism is to look at some of the lies that many of us have believed about witnessing. We really believe that nobody wants to hear. That’s a lie. It’s from the pit of hell and it smells like smoke. And then we don’t witness because we believe the lie that we’re not good enough. Of course you’re not good enough. What do you think your witness is about? Your goodness? No, it’s about the goodness and forgiveness and mercy and grace of Jesus Christ.

Now let me give you a third lie. The third lie believed by a great number of Christians is the lie that one must know enough before talking about Christ. They believe that one must be well trained in theology and the Bible before even attempting to talk about Jesus. Listen, if you wait until you know enough, you’ll never share your faith with anybody. In fact, one of the prerequisites for success in witnessing is an overwhelming sense of inadequacy.

What do you think would have happened if after Jesus gave the Great Commission, Peter raised his hand and said, “Lord, I’m only a fisherman. I haven’t been to rabbinical school. Don’t you think we should establish a seminary or a graduate school or Bible college before we go out making disciples? We just don’t know enough.” If that had happened, if that had been the attitude of any of the disciples, the Christian faith would never have gotten off the ground. If that’s your attitude, you won’t either. And if it’s my attitude, I won’t either.

If a friend comes to you with a request for $5, you don’t have to be an expert in economy or an economist before you can give him the $5. You wouldn’t say, “Look, I’d like to give you the money, but I just don’t understand the international monetary system.” Just as your complete understanding of the monetary system is not the prerequisite for giving money away, your understanding of the Christian faith is not the prerequisite for giving your faith away.

One time Jesus healed a man. It’s in the Gospel of John, the ninth chapter, and you may want to read that story. It is a funny story. Anyway, he healed a man who had been born blind and the authorities couldn’t accept the miracle. They called the blind man to come before them and said, “Give God the praise. We know that this man, Jesus, is a sinner.” And this is his answer. And this is in verse 24 and 25: “Whether he is a sinner, I just don’t know. But one thing I know, I was blind and now I can see.”

You may not understand the hermeneutical principles involved in the interpretation of Scripture. You maybe don’t even know what hermeneutical means. But you can talk about what you know. You can say, “I was empty, now I’m filled. I was afraid and I found some courage. I was lonely and now I have a friend. I wasn’t loved and now I’m loved. I was guilty, now I’ve been forgiven. I was lost, now I’ve been found. I was bound, now I’m free. I was blind, now I can see.” If you have experienced anything in Christ, you can talk about it and you can live it. And that is sharing your faith.

I once had a secretary when I was serving a church in Boston and we had evangelism classes and we trained people on how to share their faith. And I’m going to teach you some of the things that I taught in that class so many years ago. My secretary, before becoming my secretary, became a Christian. And everything changed. I don’t mean little, everything changed in her life. She just glowed with that reality. And a part of the training in that class was to send the students in the class out into the neighborhood to knock on doors and to share their faith.

Now I taught them a few things about how to do that and they understood. And my friend, who was later to become my secretary, knocked on this lady’s door and she came. And she said, “I’m a member of the church just a couple of blocks away and I’d like to talk to you for a minute.” The woman said, “Sure, come on in.” So she came on in and my to-be secretary said to this woman, “Let me tell you some things that I’ve learned.”

And the woman listened and she said, “You know, that’s interesting and I need something like that.” And then she said to my friend, “If you will explain original sin to me, I’ll become a Christian.” My friend said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know what that is. But I’ll ask my pastor and find out. Meanwhile, let me tell you what happened to me.” And the lady became a Christian then. You think about that.

Matthew: Thanks, Steve. All this week we’ve been discussing evangelism, or more accurately, we’ve been exploding some myths that we have bought into about evangelism. Freeing stuff. And tomorrow, we’ll get down to the practical matter of how to actually share the gospel. Don’t miss it. Recently on Steve Brown, etc., we spoke with a screenwriter and author named Chris Easterly about his experience with depression and what he learned from it. It was a frank and refreshing conversation from someone who’s an expert not because they have a degree, but because they have the scars. Take a listen to part of that conversation, then I’ll be back to tell you about a special free offer.

Steve Brown: He went through clinical depression, walked that dark road, and he is so honest about it that it will blow you away. Don’t we, Chris, think that Christians, if you stick them with a pin, they shouldn’t bleed?

Chris Easterly: You put it well. If you stick them they shouldn’t bleed, but we all do bleed, right? One reason I wanted to write the book is because I experienced depression as a Christian and it’s particular to the Christian community or culture. A lot of people say, “You just need to pray harder,” or, “You need to read the Bible more,” or, “You don’t have enough faith.” But before a Christian is anything, they’re a human being and so we do bleed and we’re susceptible to all the sicknesses that everybody else is. And so I wanted to just tell my story.

I didn’t want to write a book that was clinical or prescriptive about, “Here’s exactly what you need to do.” I thought, I’m a storyteller, so I’ll just tell my story and hope that it speaks to people, that they see themselves in my story.

Steve Brown: You know that time when you got in your car and surprised yourself for breaking down and crying and then pulled yourself together and went to work and did what you were supposed to do. At that point, did you say, “This is what a Christian does,” or did you have some hint that maybe I need to do something rather than read the Bible?

Chris Easterly: Early on, I had that kind of common attitude. I was like, “I’m a man. I shouldn’t have to seek help, let alone I’m a Christian man, so I should have strong enough faith. I shouldn’t be suffering this. It should just go away.” But it finally got to the point where it was so bad for me it was hard to function in daily life and so I tried some other methods, which we’ll talk about.

Steve Brown: I resigned from a church after a major period of depression and like you found myself at midnight sitting in my study crying like a baby. I spent a year and I talked to a counselor and I didn’t try any medication. But it’s not generally that you’re not being good enough or that you’ve done something really bad. It’s general physiological, isn’t it?

Chris Easterly: Yeah, that’s a chemical imbalance in your brain. So it doesn’t mean you’re a bad Christian or you’re a bad person. Like anything else, you wouldn’t tell a diabetic not to take insulin or you wouldn’t tell a cancer patient not to try chemotherapy. It’s like sometimes we just get sick and so it doesn’t make us bad, doesn’t disqualify us as humans or Christians.

Steve Brown: Do people who read it—do you find that they’re critical of you or are saying things like you expect some Christians to say, “Why didn’t you try Jesus?”

Chris Easterly: Well, I had that experience when I was going through my depression several years ago, which just made me feel worse because I thought, “Pray harder, have more faith, read the Bible more.” Those are all great things to do and I was doing them, but I wasn’t feeling any better. So that made me feel even worse because they were well-intentioned, like Job’s friends who tried to minister to him when he was suffering, but didn’t make Job feel any better in the moment.

Like I said, talk therapy was helpful, but I was still just sad all the time and I would cry at the drop of a hat and I couldn’t focus at work. Either I couldn’t sleep or I slept too much. I thought, “Okay, there’s something wrong obviously.” Because depression is not just you have a blue mood for a day or two. It’s consistently depressed for two weeks or more and it indicates a serious psychological problem you need to deal with, just like you would any other physical ailment.

Matthew: If you or someone you know has experienced depression, I am confident this episode is going to encourage you. Check out that whole conversation on CD for free by calling us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also email Steve at keylife.org to ask for that CD or to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses. Just ask for the free CD featuring Chris Easterly.

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