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Eight out of ten people that you know
that you hang with
that you connect with,
on your job,
in your community,
in your family,
will say to you,
"yes",
to an invitation to come
to the house of the Lord
if only
you would invite them.
The greatest challenge with that;
we think
that people
don't want Christ.
That's not true;
People
don't want religion.
People want reality, people want changed lives, people want hope, people want healing,
people want answers, and when we can position Christ the way
indeed the scripture positions Him. Then we're not giving people religion, we're giving
people a relationship with Christ. I want you to understand that's what Paul did; Paul
looked for needs, he saw their need for spiritual identity, he saw that they were
researching; and watch how he did it now...
He was respectful,
he was not combative;
you can never speak to people and have a spiritual conversation if it's a
combat.
I'm being aggressive an adversarial; You need to get your life together,
you will need to do this,
you need to do that, and you only come to Christ you'll see!
That combativeness
is not going to work!
Because nobody wants to lose argument.
I've never met anybody
who wants to lose an argument.
And so the moment we form
an argumentative kind of dialogue,
then it has broken down
the value of spiritual conversation.
And if you want to frame it where you are teaching, there the student,
that'll never work either.
Because no one wants to enter into a kind of relationship
where someone sees themselves as the great...
you know, mystic and great master,
teaching me the
the mere peon, about spiritual things.
Even if you are much further along than they are,
don't make it across
the aisles sort-of-speak or across the table; you verses me. Rather,
peer-to-peer.
Let's talk together,
so like Paul says, "He reasoned with them."
Peer to peer.
Reason together.
I've noticed that you guys are very religious,
as am I,
you have a statue that you've even listed and named to an unknown god.
May I talk with you about
how I came to know this unknown god? Peer-to-peer.
You see how it has a different dynamic to it,
verses, this way?
Peer-to-peer.
And so, always strive for that, people respect you that way because you're respecting them.
And so paul was
respectful, he was not combative, and he was non-judgmental.
He didn't say, "You bunch of idol worshipers!"
"You're going to bust hell open!" ...he didn't say that!
He wasn't being judgmental; it's not his job to judge, it's Gods job to judge
in terms of people and label them as such. He didn't, and may I throw out a
another statement that was on earth through the studies of Dr. Tom Rainer in his
book "The Unchurched Next Door," he says
"most of the unchurched say
they would respond positively
if a genuine christian would spend time with them
in a gentle non-judgmental relationship."