Coming to you from the Morning Star Mission sponsored studio. This is Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
Well, if there's some things that I think universally bother people we can't agree on much. Especially not right now.
No. Certainly not.
You're you're you're dancing around hand grenades, trying to find what you can talk to people about.
Oh, goodness. Yeah. Wow. It's like, okay, what's not gonna make anybody mad? I don't know if there is something.
But you know what is pretty universally hated? Blatant hypocrisy.
Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
People don't like it. You know, I saw a commercial, and it was for a, uh, it was a helpline for people who were struggling with sports betting, online gambling, which has become rampant, apparently a huge problem.
Oh, yeah. Goodness. Yeah.
Ease that. People can bet on games. I don't know a lot about this industry. Yeah, but I know that it's become a real problem.
Well, there's a reason. So we we broadcast out of here in Chicago. There's a reason that Wrigley Field has added a whole addition to the stadium that is specifically for sports betting. I saw that there's, you know, and and it's they're not the only stadium around the country that does this. There's a lot of stadiums that do this. And there's a reason that there's not two sports betting companies. There's about 50 of them that are all really well known and highly used.
And newsflash, gambling destroys people, is addictive. It's addictive. And it becomes very problematic for people. So when I saw this. Yes, for families, for people's finances, there's a lot of secrecy. There's a lot of shame associated with because people just one more and then the just one more ends up being you losing a lot more than you had bargained for. So when I saw this commercial, I was intrigued. Help. For people who have an online or sports betting problem,
here was the problem that I had. Though the company that was putting out this message was an online gambling sports betting company saying if you need help, if gambling has become problematic in your life, call this number. And it was like, hey, that's a great message, but how about you stop offering up on a platter? The thing that's causing people problems. Oh yeah. Does anyone else have a problem with that?
Oh, absolutely. It's, uh, you know, the. So gambling companies are required by law to to have that in there.
They did not know that until this morning.
Yeah. They have to put that in. But it's like, uh, it's like a cigarette, you know, or a vape or whatever that says, you know, this this product contains nicotine, which is an addictive substance. And it's like, hey, I'm selling this to you, and I'm telling you how good it is. But at the end, okay, I gotta tell you.
Help. Quitting smoking.
Yeah.
It's like.
But after you smoke the next pack.
There's a problem. When you see a real disconnect between the message that's being put forth, which may be right and the actions behind it that don't line up. I think people spot hypocrisy from a mile away. This is what a lot of people turns people off to politics. And I'm talking about politics in general. I'm not talking about any party or any person. But people get really tired of hearing somebody say something and then their actions are so far from it.
There's a reason that, uh, the, the two most distrusted things are, I think, Congress and the news and which is crazy. Uh, but and it's not again, they're not talking about one specific party, but they sense hypocrisy. Yes. Across across all boards, all people. Is you say all these things and you don't do them, and that's really hard.
So we've been talking about fasting this week and fasting. There is absolutely a reward attached to it. And it's okay to desire that your father, who sees you in secret, will reward you in secret. But what about when your motives are way off, when you're using fasting or some other spiritual discipline for that matter, to avoid dealing with something else in your life? I'm going to take you to a passage of Scripture in the book of Isaiah coming up hypocrisy. We can spot it from a mile away.
God does not like it either. I'll explain more coming up.
She's a choreographer extraordinaire and everything is Greek to her. Super di is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
So doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. Does it cease to become the right thing? Let's go to Isaiah. Isaiah 58. Now in in my Bible, this one has the heading of true and false fasting. So yeah, there's a there's a true way of fasting and there's a false way of fasting. And Isaiah has given the charge of confronting the people who were fasting in the wrong way. And interestingly enough, they were kind of like, God, don't you see that we're fasting? This is Isaiah 58, starting
with verse three. Why have we fasted and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves and you take no knowledge of it? Just that question is kind of funny. Like, hey, we're fasting. Don't you see that?
You see how humble I be?
See how much we've humbled ourselves.
Jumping up and down. Hey, hey, you see what we're doing over here?
Let me continue reading out of this passage of Scripture, Isaiah 58, picking it up in the second half of verse three. Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight, and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. God's people were trying to use fasting to circumvent obedience to God's Word.
Like I'm not doing what I should be doing, but if I just fast, it'll all be okay.
Don't you see that we're fasting? Meanwhile, they're seeking their own pleasure. Oppressing their. The people. They're workers. They're quarreling, they're fighting. They're acting wickedly. And then they want to know why God doesn't seem to be pleased by their fasting. Yeah. And I find this to be an interesting illustration here because I don't we've talked all week about fasting and how there's rewards that come with fasting. Yeah, which is
absolutely true. We've been looking at Matthew six all week, Matthew 616 through 18, that when we fast not to be seen by others, but by our father who is in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you. So there's a reward that comes with fasting. But like fasting, like anything else, we never want to use with the motive of trying to manipulate God know, or trying to circumvent obedience. God has shown us what to do. And instead of doing what he says to do,
I'm going to fast instead. And you know, and I think and I'm going to be tread very, very carefully here because this is a can of worms that I don't necessarily want to want to open, and especially without Carl here. But I think sometimes religious tradition can encourage you to adopt a posture of sort of giving up something to get something.
Yeah.
And I think we have to be careful that we that we don't miss God's heart in that. Yeah. Does that make sense?
Yeah. Very much. It does. We have to be so careful. I you know, when we go into prayer or fasting. We absolutely want to tell. Thing. Tell God the things that our hearts desire, you know. So if I'm going to pray and I want to pray about this specific thing, maybe I want to pray for someone to be healed. Of course I'm going to let him know. God, I desire for this person to be healed. Would you heal them?
But I also have to come to that prayer humble enough to say, God, if he doesn't heal this person, I still trust him. I'm still okay because me meeting him in prayer aligns my heart with him, not my prayer is going to convince him to do what I want him to do.
Yeah, and just a great question that came in by text message. Um, it says define the wrong reason. Oh good question. Wrong reason for fasting. I'm going to just go point you straight back to the Word of God here, the principle here. They were fasting, wanting to be heard by God while they were rampantly sinning against him. And so the the wrong kind of fasting is the kind of fasting that ignores what God's already told you to do, and tries to use the fast to still get what
you want from God. So what does that look like? In practical terms? I'm not even going to try to define it, because I'm going to let the Holy Spirit work on that one. And I mean, I don't know that this is super common because I think that fasting is still not a discipline that many people adopt. No, but I think that it's it's very easy to adopt a heart posture where we try to do something to get something from God.
Absolutely, absolutely. And and to not get something almost, but to expect it. You know, the people are shouting, saying, God, don't you see us over here? Don't you see all that I'm doing? Why won't you give me what I want? Yeah. You know, and and so there's a sense of going to going to fasting or prayer to see God's hand is good. Going to say, yeah, I'm going to do this so that God gives me what I want. And if he doesn't give me what I want, I'm going to be mad at him.
And I'm going to keep reading this because this is I want you to hear more from the Word of God. And I don't I don't want you to hear my opinions on this. I want you to hear from God. So I'm going to pick it up now in verse six. Isaiah 58 verse six says, is not this the fast that I choose to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and to bring
the homeless poor into your house? When you see the naked, to cover him and not to hide yourself from your own flesh, then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily. Your righteousness shall go before you. The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer. You shall cry, and he will say, here I am. So in this specific instance. He was really confronting their hypocrisy as it as it pertained to them
the oppression of people, the mistreatment of people. He was saying, let's deal with this. The wickedness, the oppression, the way that you're keeping people down, the way that you're overlooking the poor among you. Let's talk about this. And, you know, I think we can all think of a time where we didn't want to talk about the thing we knew God wanted to deal with us on. It was easier to focus on other things. Yes. Like, can we just ignore this over here? And that's not how God works.
And so the right and wrong way of fasting, if you any confusion on that, ask God to search your heart. I mean, that's the Karl quotes this one off and look up the exact passage of. Search me, know me. That's out of Psalm, but I don't know the exact passage, so Jonathan's going to look it up. But I think when we go to the Lord with the posture to ask him to search our motives. We confess, I'm not even sure if my motives are right here, but I'm asking you to help me even with that.
It's Psalm 139, 23, and 24. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me. And lead me in the way everlasting.
Yeah, that's a good prayer to pray in so many instances, and there are definitely times when I have questioned my own motive in something. Yeah, like, God, there's this thing that I, I want to do it, but I'm not sure if my motive is right. So can you search me and help me even discern my own motives? Because we don't even sometimes we think we know ourselves pretty well, but we actually don't.
No, no, no, we do not.
So just a little bit of a hopefully a help for you today. If there's something in your life, there's some area in your life that you've been ignoring truth. Let's deal with that first.
He was sharing the gospel on the radio and then he got saved. Young thunders in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
Where were you when you heard the gospel? Maybe not for the very first time, but for the time that it was pretty significant for you. Were you inside of a church? Many people heard the gospel in church. But today we're looking for your story. If you heard the gospel outside of church, it was shared to you by maybe a friend or a neighbor or a stranger, maybe over the radio. You heard the gospel, but it wasn't in church. Looking for your story. On this Freedom Friday,
we're going to open the phone lines. 800 555 7898. This is your opportunity to share your story. You heard the gospel outside of the walls of a church. (800) 555-7898 now there are some nuances to this because, Jonathan, you heard the gospel from a young age.
Yeah.
Your father was a pastor, so he was in the context of church life. Yeah. But you heard the gospel when it penetrated your heart.
Yes.
Later in life?
Yes.
Not in church.
That's correct. Yeah. I grew up in church, and I lived in church for a long time. But it wasn't until I was in my early 20s that I heard the gospel on the radio here, and it cut me in a way that it hadn't ever before. And I realized that I wasn't saved. I thought I was that whole time kind of leading up to it, but God used that gospel presentation to show me that I wasn't and to get me there.
Yeah. And I'm so curious about this because when we talk about evangelism, evangelism often happens in the context of relationship.
Yeah.
Someone tells you about Jesus, maybe not a formal gospel presentation. Maybe they don't walk you through. What is it? Romans. Romans? That. Maybe it's not that. But you were going through a tough time and someone shared with you their the hope that they have in Christ. So I want to hear from you if you've heard the gospel. But it was
not in church. 805 55 7898 we know that incredible ministry happens inside the church and we are all about the local church, but I think we want to be reminded that each of us, because we have the hope of Christ, because we have the power of the Holy Spirit. Wherever we go, we have opportunities to share Christ with people. And we're going to give you some practical coaching on that coming up in the next half hour. But let's start with this. Your story. 805 55 7898.
A basketball mom who's mastered the dad joke, Ali is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
Sometimes we our outreach efforts become about getting people to church. You know, I love when churches host big events and you can pass out a card and invite a friend to come to church with you. That's awesome. But what if God wants to use you, not your pastor, but you, to share the gospel with someone? Is that an intimidating thought to set up a guest we have coming up in this next half hour? I wanted to hear stories from those of you who heard the gospel, but it
wasn't in church. 800 555 7898 let's go to Roberta calling in this morning from Illinois. Roberta, where did you hear the gospel? It wasn't in church.
No. We had neighbors down the street and a husband and wife. And his mother. She used to teach Bible study. Her name was Dorothy Lord. And I actually have a I'm 84. I have a picture of sitting on the bed when I'm eight years old in 1948, you know, and they didn't take photos that much in those days. Their husband had a camera. And I'm sitting there listening to her read the Bible and that was the first awareness. Although my family would talk about blessings and we'd go
to church sometimes. But this was the first, you know, real inclination of just how Jesus was in my life. And from that day forward, I think I in retrospect, looking back on that, Jesus has been in my life for my whole life. And I think it really started there because I now have that photograph to look at.
Wow. Roberta, thank you so much from Chicago. Cool story. A neighbor's mother in law shared the gospel. Let's go to Kim. First time caller from Illinois. Kim, you heard the gospel, but it wasn't in church.
No, we were pretty much sisters when I was growing up.
So you went to church on Christmas and Easter, right?
Exactly, exactly. And. But after an Easter, there was a Billy Graham. I think it was a pre crusade. I was a young teenager back in the 70s and I remember Nicky Cruz. I don't know if you're familiar with him. He was a former gang member in New York and he helped me see that I was a sinner and that I needed Jesus. And I have been walking with him ever since.
Awesome. Thank you. Kim. First time caller from Illinois. I love this. The question I've asked you this morning, you heard the gospel, but it wasn't in church. Was that your story? 805 55, 7898. Willie from Chicago. Willie, I got to hear it. Tell me.
Yes, I knew about church, and I was kind of like the young man. I heard about church. My grandparents, them. They was always in church. But what happened? Somebody invited me to a prayer meeting or. And I received Receive Christ from beating a drug habit. And I was on the Eisenhower Expressway, and I had to pull over to the side, and I knew that it was something happening to me different then so that I, I saw it, I saw it, and I and I never received that
feeling in the church. I wish I received it on the side of the Eisenhower Expressway.
So you so the Lord revealed himself to you while you were, while you were on the expressway? Is that what you're saying, Willie? The Lord. That's when you really felt like the Lord revealed himself to you.
He revealed himself to me on the Eisenhower Expressway. I had to pull over. I pulled my pickup truck over, and I got the misty eye. I was crying and couldn't control what was taking place. That's how I knew it. That was. It was God.
Wow.
Willie from Chicago. Thank you so much. Haven't heard from Willie in a while. Great to hear your voice. Let's go to John. First time caller from Illinois. You heard the gospel in a on an airplane. Is that right?
That's right. I was traveling on business. A young, young guy at the time, 40 years ago now. And, um, a guy sitting next to me, I saw he was reading his Bible. He turns to me and says, so what are you doing in 100 years? And he and I had a conversation. Um, I got back to my apartment that night, and I could hear the Lord saying to me, do you believe anything you told this guy? Or are you just a hypocrite?
Wow.
And there, alone in my apartment, I gave my life to the Lord.
Wow.
It's. It's been a heck of a ride since then. Lord has just blessed me in so many ways. But I always keep this guy in my heart because he has no idea of the influence that he's had on my life, and of the other lives that he's touched through me.
Wow.
The Lord has touched through me. John, it's it's John.
Let me let me interrupt you just for a second. I want to get some clarification here. So you. So he asked you that question, where do you know where you're going to be in 100 years? What was your what did you answer him?
Well, I saw that he had been reading his Bible, and I was raised as a Roman Catholic, and I actually I unusually, I had read the Bible thoroughly through several times, actually. So I knew how to give him his answers, but I knew he didn't believe them.
Yes. Okay. That was the part. Yeah. Wow. So you got home that night thinking. Do I actually believe what I said I do?
Yeah.
Wow. John. Awesome. First time caller. Thank you so much for sharing that story. Let's go to Cheryl calling in this morning from Illinois. You heard the gospel, but it wasn't in church. Tell me about it.
Yes, I was at a slumber party in sixth grade and a friend shared the gospel with me, and I responded. And then fast forward 40 years. She passed away. Um, in October. November. Sorry. This past November. And I was able to thank you. I was able to talk at her funeral and share the gospel there, so that everyone else could hear the impact she had on my life.
Wow. Cheryl. So 40 years after you still that had that moment had still made an impact in your life. Do you do you believe you you you got saved as a result of of her, her gospel influence?
Definitely, yes. Wow. Yeah. And because it was such a young age when I did that in sixth grade, um, you know, I don't have one of those stories that was this dramatic change in my life. But God has walked with me all of my life and through very difficult circumstances. And I know that, um, you know, that he's been with me and he's allowed me to to share the gospel with people throughout my life.
Yeah. Cheryl, thank you so much for that story. You know, for those of you who came to genuine faith in Christ at an at an early age, don't you think? Don't think for a second. And I know Cheryl would agree with me on this, that your testimony is somehow less important or because it doesn't have maybe some dramatic drugs to Jesus. I mean, any person who turns from death to life, from darkness to light, your testimony is radical.
It's radical. And be so grateful and celebrate and joy and be joyful that that God grabbed you up so early. Yeah, he grabbed you up maybe before some other things could set in.
That is an important testimony. Boy, I love hearing about how you heard the gospel, but it wasn't in church.
You can take him out of Alaska, but you can't take Alaska out of him. Carl is in the crew. It's Karl and crew on Moody Radio.
Sidewalk prophets saved my life. You know, listening to the lyrics to those songs, that song. And I've heard that one quite a few times, but heard it a little bit differently today. That especially that last part. Right now, I need a little hope. I need to know that I'm not alone. I can hear you calling me tonight. Only Jesus, only you can save my life. Maybe you feel that this morning that you need hope. You're short on hope. You need to know that you're not alone.
I got to tell you, the only hope that you're going to find is in Jesus. Full stop. You can go and search for a lot of different things. You can try to find a new job. You can try to find a new partner. You can try to find a new life. But unless you find your life in Christ, that hope, that peace that you've been looking for is
going to continue to be elusive. And I want to tell you that today, because that's the heart of Christ, is that we would, in all of our searching, that we would reach out for him because he's as close as the mention of his name. And so I want you to know that today, the hard truth is that you're a sinner. We're born into sin. We're born with our back to God. We are not born. Even if you were raised in a good Christian family, I was raised in a good Christian family too. That didn't make
me a Christian. I was still a sinner and I needed a Savior. And I spent a lot of years trying to perform and trying to be good enough and trying to have do good things and impress people and live a well ordered life. And you know what it was? It was still empty. And that piece that you're looking for is found in Jesus. So today, if you want to know Jesus. It's. You don't have to be in a church. You don't have to be in the presence
of a pastor. This is a conversation with you and God where you admit that you are a sinner, that you have missed the mark. Full stop. You cannot save yourself. And because of your sin, you deserve death. We all do. But the good news, and it is indeed good news, is that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and he rose from the grave so that we could have new life in him. We're going to be celebrating Easter here in a couple of weeks. Resurrection Sunday. That's what it's
all about. It's a celebration of the life of Christ and the new life that we have because of his death and resurrection. So today, you can put your trust in Jesus as your Savior. You're going to turn and you're going to go a new way. And this is an inward transformation that's happening that I can't fully explain to you, except for that it's the best thing that could ever happen to you, because literally you will go
from death to life, from darkness to light. You will be a new person today when you put your trust in him. So if that's you and you're ready, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, this is making sense to you. And in fact, it's exactly what you needed to hear, even though you didn't know you needed to hear it. I want you to pray and acknowledge, Lord, I am a sinner. I deserve death, but I thank you that you went to the cross for my sin, so that I didn't have to face the wrath of God.
Your death and your resurrection means today I can have peace with God. So today I accept the free gift of salvation, and today I put my faith in you. It's okay if you didn't get all the words right. It's not about the words. It's the posture of your heart that says, Today I'm a follower of Christ. And if that's you, I want you to text the word new to 805, five, five, 7898, 805 five, five 7898. Just text the word new. We want to send you some materials that are just going to encourage you and
give you some next steps. Text new to 805 55 7898 maybe for one person today. And if it was just for you, I promise you this is exactly what God wanted us to pause and do so that you could have a new life in him today. Coming up, as we've been talking about evangelism, I want to give you some practical coaching. You want to share Jesus with people, but sometimes you get stuck and don't know how. Help is on the way. Coming up here on Carl and crew mornings.
Your shot of hope to help you through the day. This is Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
So you want to tell people about Jesus? You want to share the gospel? It's not just a worthy goal. Scripture actually Commands it. And yet so many of us find ourselves sort of stuck with this desire to share our faith, but somewhat hesitant and even fearful to actually take that step. I've got a special guest who's going to give us some good insight today. Andrew Steyer joins us. You ever had a place in your life where you were timid to share the gospel?
Absolutely. All the time.
Give me a little bit about your background. I know you were a pastor's kid, Bible college student, a professional Christian, a little bit.
Yeah. I like to say that I was born and raised in the guts of the church. I'm from North Dakota and so small town churches up there, but really just grew up. And faith was always something that I saw people do professionally pastors, ministers, things like that. And so as I, as I aged, as I grew up, as I met the Lord and went to Bible college,
became a youth pastor, Faster. This was so wrapped up in my identity about like what I do, and the Lord really had to do a lot of work on me for me to realize that my faith is actually like who I am, not just what I do. So when you say professional Christian, that's exactly it. I've had to relearn how to go back to the basics, even after working in churches and ministries over the years.
Andrew Stier with us right now, he's the director of Always Going. Always Going believes evangelism is not an event. It's an overflow. You want to help people with the book, with the website, there is a free course that people can take. You want to help people overcome this sense of duty and obligation that can often drive us. When it comes to evangelism. Why are we often wrong even in how we approach it?
Yeah, I think that a lot of people see this great commission and they go, oh, God told me that I have to go and do this thing. Therefore he will only be proud of me. He will only love me. I will only make him happy if I do that thing. And then because it's scary and because it's difficult and because we are timid, sometimes we don't do that. And it colors our view of how God sees us. It
colors our relationship with God. And so when I talk about evangelism, being an event or an obligation, that's the mindset that I think a lot of people are trapped in. But really, it should be an overflow of our loving relationship with God. He invites us to run with him, and as he advances the gospel and uses us to do that, we get to be a part of that mission instead of it resting solely on our shoulders like our worth was tied up in it.
You know, when we talk about the overflow of something, that means there's something inside that's flowing out. You know, I remember specifically a time in my early 20s where I was honestly pretty far from God, but I still felt a sense of duty or obligation to share about Jesus. And I remember one time telling somebody that I was going to pray for this specific situation, because that's what
I knew to do. I knew to pray as a Christian, and I could feel as the words came out of my mouth that they felt so hollow and so powerless, because what I was saying didn't really match what was actually going on in my heart. So talk more about the overflow. It has to be kind of an inside out approach. We have to start on the inside first.
Yeah, absolutely. I think when a lot of us think of evangelism, we think of the Great Commission, the end of the book of Matthew, but we forget that it was in Matthew chapter four where Jesus called the disciples and said, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. We just think of evangelism as go make disciples, not follow Jesus, and he will make me a fisher of men. The Great Commission was at the end of
their time with him, not at the beginning. And so for a lot of us, as we think about how we are going to begin sharing the gospel, it has a lot more to do with our relationship with God than it does just this cold obedience to go out there and obey, or Jesus great commandment, right? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. It starts by loving him. And that's where we fill, and that's where we go
to abide with him. And that's where we go to to experience all the goodness of God so that it just spills out as we love our neighbor and to make disciples. And that's really how it has to be. Because if I go and try to love my neighbor, and I'm not full of everything that God has for me, if I'm not pursuing him, but I'm still trying to obey him, they're not going to see him. What's going to be pouring out of me and overflowing from me is just me. And nobody wants that. They want Jesus.
Now, I'm curious about a survey you did at a local church in Florida. What did you find when you surveyed this congregation?
I asked the question, how many of you feel confident that you could share the basics of the gospel message? Just just the basics. And these were all professing Christians. Um, 60 plus professing Christians. They were at an eight hour evangelism workshop that they signed up for on a Saturday. And I just asked this question before the workshop just
to float it out there. It was something like 25% of them said that they felt confident they could share the basics of the gospel and like, just let that sink in for a second. 75% of them could not, like they did not have an adequate answer, could not communicate an adequate answer for where they would spend eternity.
And that was shocking to me. And I realized that there are a lot of Christians sitting in church who desperately love the Lord, but the reason they don't participate in his mission is because they don't know how to communicate the things that they believe. They don't know how to take what they believe and put it into words to tell anyone else, and that that'll stop you right quick.
So let's talk about this ministry and the book that you've written, because your your mission is to help kind of close this gap where people who love Jesus can more freely and naturally talk about him. But it's not tips and tricks and methods. So what is it that can help us?
So we actually walk people through eight foundational questions that must be asked in order. We call them the eight elements of an outward focus, faith or a faith that overflows into others. And so when I talk to people about our ministry, they typically think, oh, you're the evangelism guy. And I said, actually, about 80% of what I do has more to do with discipleship and what's going on in my heart and mind than it does actually sharing
the gospel. Because if I believe that evangelism is an overflow, then we need to talk about what's filling us up, like you just said. And so as we help people navigate through this. We ask them to really focus on eight questions.
Go through four of them for us.
Yeah. So the first one is really, really important. That's am I rooted in the gospel? You know, that survey revealed to us that people don't really know how to share the gospel, and we might know tricks. We might know the Romans Road or the Three circles, or, you know, the ABCs or one two threes. But what we teach is that we really need to be rooted in the message, not just know a method, because the gospel is really about taking the message of Scripture and communicating it in
the right way to people. So not everyone's going to respond the same way to the Romans Road. So can we speak the gospel fluently? Can we keep it simple? So am I rooted in the gospel? Is one of them. Another one is does my life reflect what I claim to believe? Basically, am I a good ambassador? Am I convincing or unconvincing ambassador of Christ? And does my lifestyle Style confirm or contradict the gospel message. One of the other questions is am I hesitant to share the gospel?
We talk through seven gospel gaps. I call them the top seven reasons that people don't share their faith, and a biblical a biblical walk through each one of those. Kind of like myth busting them a little bit and showing believers that they don't really have any teeth and can't stop us. And then I'll share one more. The very last question we ask is, am I celebrating every
gospel conversation? The ones where I see the fruit, the ones where someone professes faith in Christ or recommits their life, and the ones where someone spits on me and walks away. Because if I truly believe that God is the one who changes hearts and he measures success by faithful conversations, not immediate conversions, and he's doing things behind the scenes, I just play a role planting, watering, harvesting. I can celebrate every time the gospel comes out of my mouth.
Good stuff. Andrew steer with us right now. Director of Always Going. And we've got a resource that we want to offer to you. This is an overflow evangelism crash course. This takes what, just a couple of days to go through this. Is that right, Andrew?
Yeah. It's five days, five emails that will come to your inbox once a day to take about five minutes to read. And it will give you the basics, the tools that you need to start engaging in overflow evangelism.
We've got it for you. Text overflow to 800 555 7898. Text overflow. Just one word overflow to 800 555 7898. Andrew, appreciate your time this morning. I'm excited about what this is going to do for our listeners.
My favorite part of working in this ministry is just seeing believers set free. Set free from obligations. Set free from burden. Reframing how God wants to use them in his mission, and just watching them step into evangelism with joy, not fear.
Text overflow to 855 five 7898.