Living on the Edge

Dave Drouin: Today on Living on the Edge, Chip welcomes guest pastor John Dickerson.

John Dickerson: You don't have to be preachy to preach the way the Bible intends. It just means you understand the audience, you're being sensitive to the situation, you're asking questions, and then you're providing the answer of the good news. But you are doing it with some boldness, some spiritual confidence and authority.

Dave Drouin: I'm Dave Drouin and this is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Our series Hearts on Fire, how God sparks revival continues today with Chip's friend and guest teacher John Dickerson. Let's be honest. For most of us, the thought of bringing up Jesus at work, at school, or with the neighbors is a little terrifying. So today John asks a simple question. Why does sharing Jesus really matter? His answer begins with a true story about an ordinary person who noticed something other people drove right past and decided not to look away. Grab your Bible and turn to Matthew chapter 28.

Here's John with a message he calls Brokenhearted Boldness.

John Dickerson: We're in week four of our revival series. Today we learn the fourth revival practice and it's what I call brokenhearted boldness or the old school word for it is evangelism. Let's be honest. For most of us, the thought of bringing up Jesus in a conversation at your school or at your place of work or in your neighborhood, it's a little terrifying, isn't it? It's a little like I don't know. That's uncomfortable, right? We don't talk about politics and religion. Isn't that one of the two things we don't talk about? So let's answer this question. Why does sharing Jesus matter?

Why does sharing this good news that even though we're all sinners, God died for us on the cross and the person of Jesus rose from the dead so that our sins could be forgiven and we could have eternal life? Why does it really matter if you have the courage to start sharing that with people in your life? Well, to answer the question, we're going to look at scripture, of course, but I want to start with a true story that kind of illustrates this. I want you to meet Naima Elmore. Naima Elmore is an Amazon delivery driver in Alabama and it was on a Sunday night about 1 year ago in February that she was just starting her delivery route, taking packages to front porches and driveways.

The sun was nearly set there and the Alabama sky was darkening when Elmore noticed smoke rising. And as she turned the corner, she saw orange flames flicking at the twilight sky. A two-story home with white siding was on fire, flames leaping out of the roof. Well, Elmore immediately dialed 911. What she did next would mean life or death for two people she had never even met before. You know, a lot of people might dial 911 and then just think, well, we'll let the firefighters deal with it. Uh Elmore instead drove her Amazon van to that driveway.

She jumps out, leaves the door hanging open, runs up to the front door, starts pounding on the front door of this burning house to get the attention of anyone who's inside. Well, the people inside were asleep and so Elmore keeps pounding. Eventually the homeowner comes to the door bleary-eyed. Elmore learns that there's a second person upstairs, an elderly woman who's the mother of the homeowner. Elmore actually runs up the stairway in the burning house, assists the elderly lady to the front yard and then Elmore and the two residents of the house stand there as they hear fire sirens in the distance and the house erupted into total flames.

True story. Now in this true story, Naima Elmore saved two people's lives. Why? Well, first, her eyes were open. Some people might have driven right by and been so busy on their phone that they didn't even notice the smoke coming from the house. That's a good start. But second, she was willing to inconvenience herself to help someone else. And that's exactly what we're praying God will do in our hearts this week. God, would you give me spiritual eyes to see the people around me who spiritually they're sleeping in a burning house? Whether you consider the burning house of mortality that all of us will die and if they don't know Jesus, they don't have eternal life, or the burning house of our nation depending on how you look at it.

I mean, our nation is dividing and self-destructing in a way that people need hope. They need a higher level hope. So why does sharing Jesus matter? Because people are suffering without hope. And people are dying without eternal life. Church, every man, every woman, every child you see, they're made in the image of God. God loves them, but they're separated from God by sin. And if they don't know Christ and his redemption, they are sleeping in a burning house and it's just a matter of time. Three questions we're going to answer from scripture for you about sharing your faith.

Why should you do it as the first one? Does it really matter? We've started answering that. We'll dig into that a little more. And then second, how can you cultivate this heart of compassion that Jesus has for those who are far from him? And then third, how can you find the courage to be bold and speak up? Well, the first one we've already learned, people are suffering without hope. They're dying without eternal life. Also, sharing Jesus matters because God commands it as the primary job duty of a Christian. It is our purpose on earth. If you've ever wondered, why doesn't God just zap people straight to heaven?

Why don't we get teleported to heaven the moment we believe? If heaven is perfect and there's no suffering, pain, cancer, death, divorce, genocide, racism, all that, why don't we just zap straight there when we believe? The reason is that we've been left here to tell others the good news. Jesus put it this way in what we typically call the Great Commission, Matthew chapter 28. Jesus says, therefore go, I have commanded you. Now if you're a parent and you have kids and you tell them, therefore go empty the trash, I have commanded you, was that a suggestion or was that a command?

This is not the great suggestion. Why is God so bossy? Why is he telling us to do this? Because people are dying without him. They're asleep in burning homes. They're drowning in their sin. And can I just encourage you when you grieve the status of our nation, when something comes along your news feed or a social media influencer or a news person and you just say, wow, this is so broken, this is so evil, no matter which side it comes from, let the Holy Spirit remind you, you've been placed in the middle of this brokenness because you carry the solution.

The Democrats don't have it, the Republicans don't have it. Only Christ has the real solution and we've been left here to tell people the good news. You realize one conversation you have with a person could change their eternity. And God's plan for fixing society is that thousands of us would be having that one conversation and thousands of people get changed. And then they have the conversation and thousands of people get changed. When you have a population whose eyes have been open spiritually, they've been set free from sin and you give me a population where the average person has committed to the Jesus way of life, the kingdom ethic, I'm going to forgive my enemies.

I'm going to love my enemies. I'm going to forgive infinitely. I'm not going to judge. I 'm going to bless those who persecute me. I 'm going to serve others. Give me a population where the average person lives that way and guess what? The problems solve themselves. It's the ultimate solution. And so we've been looking in this revival series at what I call the blessing judgment cycle. I've explained this in past weeks, but the principle is this. After people turn to God, blessing follows. It doesn't mean you win the lottery and that you never get a cold again, but your life will improve when you start to live the Jesus way.

But what happens? You follow Jesus, blessing follows, and then you get comfortable. Comfort leads us to complacency. The American church, if you look at world history, is the wealthiest, most free and prosperous church ever in the history of the world. And so we become very complacent. What follows complacency? We start to worship other things. The 6 o'clock position down there. People now worship money, self, sex. And it 's not that you wake up one day and you say, oh, I'm going to stop worshiping Jesus and start worshiping my sexuality or I'm going to stop worshiping Jesus and I 'm going to start worshiping my kids' sports team or my grandkids.

We don't wake up and say that. We just slowly drift into it, right? We slowly are working toward provision or whatever else or trying to be a good parent or grandparent and we don't even realize that we start to worship these other things instead of God himself. So then God sends us a call to repent. And that 's really what the revival series is. First and foremost, for your own heart, do you know? Have you chosen God? I cast down any other idol, even the idol of my family and myself. I will cast down those idols to love you first.

And when we do that, then we repent and it takes us back up to turning to God. But people, families, and nations can be issued a call to repent and decide instead, nah, that sounds a little uncomfortable. I'm going to keep worshiping the American dream or whatever else it is. And when we do that, we continue on the trajectory toward judgment. Rarely is this God sending down firebolts of judgment. It's usually self-inflicted judgment of, you know, we chose this path and now this path has these consequences. What is my point? My point is that this is true for you, but this is also true for nations that have known God.

Now I'm not saying the United States has ever been perfect. No nation in this world will be, but historically the vast majority of Americans have self-identified as Christians. And in former Great Awakenings, what happened is large chunks of the population returned to God and then society benefited for decades and decades afterwards. We are right now at a fork in the road that I believe the remnant of Christians will either lead those around us to return to God or the nation will continue on its own self-selected path toward judgment.

Dave Drouin: You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and his friend guest teacher John Dickerson. We'll return to today's message in just a moment. But first, life doesn't always let you sit by the radio at the same time every day. That's why there's the Chip Ingram app. Today's program plus video teachings and so much more all in one place whenever and wherever you're ready. Just search for the Chip Ingram app in your app store. Well, now here's John continuing today 's message.

John Dickerson: So God commands us. He says, go into all the world, preach the gospel to all creation. Why? Because he loves people. He doesn't want people suffering. He doesn't want people living in self-inflicted judgment. He doesn't want people to be dying and lost. He He came to reach the lost and then he passed that on to us. Now you might see that verse and you might say, okay, John, it says preach the gospel to all creation. So that's your job. I'm an accountant or I'm a mom or I'm a CEO or something else. Here's the thing.

That word preach is not the way we think of it in American context. It's not a person up here with a Bible. This word preach just means share it with with boldness, proclaim it. And so you can do this when you're seated next to another parent while the kids are warming up for an athletic event and you 're getting to know them and you say, hey, uh we've gotten to know each other a little bit. What are your beliefs spiritually? Tell me a little bit about your religious journey or spiritual journey. And then you just listen.

And if they're open, then you you start to say, well, you know, could I tell you about mine? Oh oh okay, yeah, great. Well, here's what God has done in my life. You're preaching in that moment. You don't have to be preachy to preach the way the Bible intends. It just means you understand the audience, you're being sensitive to the situation, you're asking questions, and then you providing the answer of the good news. But you are doing it with some boldness, some spiritual confidence and authority. The scripture says this in Romans 14. How will the people around you in your life ever call out to God for salvation if they don't believe that Jesus is Lord?

And how could they ever believe Jesus is Lord if they've never heard someone share that? There's millions of Americans today don't know the basic gospel that Jesus is God. He died on the cross for our sins. You can repent and believe, have your sins forgiven, and have eternal life. Millions of Americans don't know that. People in your life don't know that. If they don't know it, how could they ever believe it? And how will they ever know it unless someone tells them? If someone declares it to them. And to do that, you're going to have to open your mouth or type.

You're going to have to communicate in some way. So I want to ask you right now, no matter how intimidating that might sound, just ask God right now. God, would you give me boldness to start asking spiritual questions? I sit next to people at coffee shops or I work out at the gym and someone's nearby and and I I I don't even know their name, let alone am I asking them questions. And what we're asking God this week is God, make me like you were where I'll see people with your compassion and I'll I'll then learn their name and I'll ask them questions about their life.

And as you ask legitimate questions and you show legitimate interest that you care about them, then it's not weird to ask them, hey, so what are your spiritual beliefs? Like, you know, most people love to talk about themselves. And so just just ask them questions, get them talking about themselves, and then just gently turn it that way. Ask God to give you the courage for that. Another easy entry point is ask God for the courage to invite friends, family, people you know to church. That's kind of like the entry level, right? You're not having to open the Bible and explain the gospel yourself.

Now that's like awesome. But entry level just, hey, you want to come to church with me sometime? And it doesn't have to be weird. You can just let them know if it's someone you see and they know you, hey, God's really working in my life. He 's giving me peace and hope, things I can't really even put into words. I'd love that for you. If you're ever interested, I I'd love for you to come and check out Jesus with me. I just want you to visualize this. Let the Holy Spirit give you a vision right now.

What if in the next 12 months you could bring someone to Jesus? Who do you want to know the hope of Jesus? There's no greater joy than connecting a soul, an eternal soul to the source of the universe, the Father in heaven, who is the source of peace and life and hope and joy. In the 1700s revival leader John Wesley said this, give me 100 proclaimers of Jesus who fear nothing but sin and who desire nothing but God. Give me 100 like that and I don't care if they've been to seminary, I don't care if they're a pastor, I don't care if they had theological education.

100 people who only fear sin and only desire God and will boldly share the good news, they alone will shake the gates of hell and will set up the kingdom of heaven on earth. That's the kind of mentality that led to the Great Awakening and it did shape the most free nation in world history, not a perfect nation, but the framers of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence wrote that all people are created equally endowed by their creator with inalienable rights. Why? Because they grew up in the Great Awakening and they grew up going to church.

They weren't perfect, the nation wasn't perfect, but it was a huge step towards setting up the kingdom of heaven on earth. What if it became the norm in our church for every adult to bring at least one person to Jesus every year? That is not a crazy goal. The God who made the universe will empower you toward that. Now you can control that for the thousands of other people in our movement. You can pray for it, but you have full control over yourself. Will you bring someone to Jesus this year? Just get them in the door.

Just get them here and pray that God will do the rest. Let's pray for that as a church. Let's work for that like it all depends on us while we pray for it like it all depends on God. Lord, let every adult and every teenager in our movement invite someone to Jesus. Could you imagine the church would double and then the next year would double again? And pretty soon Central Indiana would be experiencing revival. The third reason why sharing Jesus matters is that it exhibits the heart of God. In other words, it it shows if you're growing spiritually because the goal as a Christian is now as you surrender to Jesus, you become more like Christ.

Christ came to seek and to save the lost. And so part of spiritual maturity is I'm going to deny myself in order to seek and save the lost because that's how Christ lived. Philippians chapter two, Jesus Christ made himself nothing when he left heaven. He took the very nature of a servant. And then being found in human likeness, found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself. According to Philippians two, what did Jesus do to reach us? Did he step up or step down? He stepped down. Did he stay in his comfort zone or did he leave his comfort zone?

He left his comfort zone. A spiritually sleeping Christian knows dozens of people who will never set foot in heaven, but the spiritually sleeping believer does not think of those people's eternal destination. The cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the distractions of the American dream, they preoccupy the sleeping Christian. And so the spiritually sleeping Christian never asks any spiritual questions to these eternal souls around them. They pass them by or even talk to them and interact with them daily, but they never bother to engage them spiritually. The sleeping Christian does not bring the lost souls to Jesus despite years of opportunity after opportunity to do so.

As Christians, we are surrounded by people who will die in their sin, will be eternally separated from God. When we're spiritually asleep, we're vaguely aware of this, but we're in like a sleepwalking stupor and we kind of have this sense of, yeah, I'm supposed to tell people about Jesus, but we lack focus, we lack motivation, and we never bother to tell these people about the offer of eternal life or the hope of Jesus. Aren't you so glad that someone told you about Jesus? Aren't you so glad that someone woke up enough spiritually to invite you to church or to say, hey, there's a way to have your sins forgiven or however they told you about Jesus?

In the 1930s in Ipsilanti, Michigan, there was a guy named Earl Peters who worked on the Ford Motor Company assembly line. Earl Peters was an awake Christian. He'd show up every day for his shift on the assembly line and he saw all the other line workers as eternal souls who needed Jesus. Next to him there on the assembly line was a young man named Mark. And Earl Peters started to share the good news of Jesus with Mark. Mark was very resistant. Not overtime. I mean, they're standing next to each other all day every day stamping parts.

Earl Peters keeps telling Mark about Jesus and the day finally came when this young man named Mark surrendered, prayed to receive Jesus as his savior. Earl Peters got him a Bible, taught him how to pray, and Mark soon really was growing in the Lord, decided to become a pastor. Mark the assembly line worker is my grandpa.

Dave Drouin: That's guest teacher John Dickerson with a message titled Brokenhearted Boldness here on Living on the Edge. If you'd like to learn more about what John just shared, including a small group video study and more, go to the revivalproject.org/livingontheedge. John reminded us that we're surrounded by people who are spiritually asleep in a burning house and that God wants to give us eyes to see them. That kind of compassion grows as we spend time with Jesus day after day. Chip Ingram's Growing Deeper in Christ is a 365-day devotional that helps you do exactly that with daily readings to help you explore who God really is, what it means to follow Jesus from the inside out, and how you can choose each day to be more like Christ.

Right now you'll find special pricing on both the paperback and the new leather-bound edition. So as you begin putting together your Christmas list, think about who could use that kind of encouragement in the year ahead. Get your copies of Growing Deeper in Christ today at livingontheedge.org/offers. Every day this program reaches someone who has never heard the gospel explained clearly. Your gift today helps make sure that moment happens for someone else. Give at livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. You can also send a check to Living on the Edge, PO Box 3007, Suwanee, Georgia 30024. Well, now here's Chip Ingram.

Chip Ingram: Thanks so much, Dave. You know, as I listen to John's message today, it reminded me that we're all pretty good at bluffing, thinking like, oh yeah, yeah, things going pretty well. I've kind of got it together. And what I liked about John's story that he told about the Amazon driver is this driver sees smoking out of the house. Instead of just calling 911 and driving off, she stops her van, pounds on the door, runs inside, pulls people out that she's never met. And I think that picture is a visual of John saying, that's the kind of urgency, that's the kind of boldness.

The fact of the matter, we have all kind of examples and studies of people in major cities watching someone attacked and standing around and watching them being attacked and not lifting a finger. And we would all say, oh, that is so terrible. But here's the question for you, the question for me. Look at your world situation, your relational network, your neighborhood, your community, your church. Like it's easy to have coffee and say, man, things are messed up. John is calling us and far better Jesus is saying, where's the boldness? Where's the person that stops your distractions, gets out of the truck of your life, sees where there's smoke and hurt and pain and says, I'm going to do something about that.

The eyes of the Lord go to and fro throughout the whole earth that he may strongly support those whose hearts are fully his. That's an Old Testament passage and it's a timeless principle. I want you to know, the world is messed up not because God wants it that way and the church is not weak because God wants it that way. God is so willing, but he's looking for an ordinary person just like you and just like me, not with more gifts, not with more smarts, not with even more Bible knowledge, but someone who's willing to say, Lord, when I see a need, I will bring what I have.

Dave Drouin: Next time John Dickerson wraps up Brokenhearted Boldness. And if you've ever thought, I'm just not wired to talk about my faith, he has some very good news for you. Join us right here on Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.