Christians can effectively engage non-believers by demonstrating a distinct response to suffering, as outlined in 1 Peter 3:14-17. The sermon explains that patient endurance through hardship, rather than fear or bitterness, can provoke curiosity in those who do not know Christ. When questions arise, believers are called to be prepared to gently and respectfully offer reasons for their hope, backing up their words with godly living. This approach, characterized by creating questions through suffering, answering them with reasoned explanations, and living a life that reflects Christ, ultimately serves to make the gospel compelling to the world.
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I do appreciate being invited to speak. Try not to bang that microphone anymore. I appreciate being... Like I said, I'm going to try not to bang that microphone anymore. But I do appreciate being invited this morning. Boy, did I enjoy that song. It was so good. Thank you for ministering to the Lord and ministering to us. If you're like me, you get caught up in a lovely song like that and fail to really hear the words. But the last stanza is perfect. as a lead in what I want to share this morning. How beautiful the feet that bring the sound of good news and the love of the king. How beautiful the hands that serve the wine and the bread and the sons of the earth.
As you look at this little blue handout here, it's entitled Lost People Matter to the Lord. We'll be looking at the inside on the left side of the page. The sermon is entitled How to Properly Provoke a Pagan. The right side entitled Lessons Learned on a Weekend with Pagans. If you weren't here in Adult Sunday School class, you will never, ever know what was said there and nobody will ever, I'm kidding. If you want to find out from those who were here for Adult Sunday School, the fill in that section is certainly invited too. But I'm going to leap back and forth between the overhead and here, and you see there that on that left side, how to properly provoke a pagan, you've got a handout with some blanks in it.
Do you see that? You didn't get the cheaper version. That's so you get the right thing. I have extra pens. If you need a pen, I need to see a hand. I'm a teacher. That's my problem in life. I stop to pump gas. I want to teach others how to do it properly and use an overhead and show them ten effective ways to pump gas better. Anybody need a pen? I have about three of them. Now, as far as I know, that's not a picture of anybody here. Though it does look a little like an early Bill Anderson, doesn't it? I can say that because Mr. Anderson was one of my teachers in Emmaus Bible College, and I love him dearly, and it irks me that I happen to be committed to an assembly up in North Carolina.
My home chapel in Burlington, North Carolina, on the Sunday he's here. And they say this is not an evil world. Now, I'm looking forward to going up there and being with... many of those folks while he's down here, but maybe I can still make a connection somehow. My wife and I met at Emmaus many, many years ago. My name is Larry Dixon. I teach at Columbia Biblical Seminary, which is part of Columbia International University in Columbia, South Carolina. I've been there for about two years, and I love teaching there. I teach church history and theology and New Testament Greek and underwater basket weaving. No, that one, they haven't let me teach yet, but I get to teach a number of things.
And so I counted a privilege to be with you folks this morning. You can blame Bobby Young for the connection here. So if anything I say in this service gets you upset or otherwise you just want to have a reason to attack Bobby, feel free. You have my blessing. The man needs deep help. I'm kidding. We're good friends. We tease each other all the time as much as we possibly can. If you'll turn in your Bibles, please, to First Peter, Chapter Three, you get to kind of manipulate between your Bible and this little handout. First Peter, Chapter Three, verses fourteen through seventeen is my text this morning, and I've entitled this, How to Properly Provoke a Pagan. Now, by pagan, please don't take that wrong.
I'm talking about somebody that you know, maybe someone you're seeking to develop a relationship with that has not yet trusted Jesus Christ as personal Savior. And as I mentioned in the adult science class this morning, I've been getting to know a number of people in our community that don't know the Lord. If they heard that I referred to them as pagans, would actually take it as a compliment. So I don't mean it as an insult. I'm talking about how to get a non-Christian thinking. That's what this really means. How to properly provoke a pagan. How to get them thinking about eternal matters. Please follow along as I read First Peter chapter three verses But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed.
Do not fear what they fear. Do not be frightened. But in your hearts, set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience. so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. It is better if it is God's will to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. Let's pray together, shall we? Father, thank you for the privilege that you have given us of sharing your word with others.
And you know, Lord, that some of us are more faithful at that at times than at other times. And we pray you might stir us up this morning. Give us a burden to the lost people that we know. Help us, Lord, to so care about those who don't know Jesus Christ that even as we leave the service this morning, that if some who go out to eat that waiter or waitress, that they might see that individual as someone who needs Jesus Christ. The young man or young woman waiting on us at the gas station or taking our money. We might see them as a soul that's going to spend eternity somewhere. That, Lord, each person you bring across our path, we would care desperately about being witnesses for you.
Thank you for the good news of the gospel. That's not because we were smarter or more clever than others or because we were better than others, but by your grace you've reached us. You've saved us and forgiven our sins because of the finished work of Christ. Lord, give us a heart to reach out to those who need to know you. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Now I'm going to work my way right through these verses here, and as a teacher, I'm used to kind of having dialogue. I won't necessarily pursue that this morning in the service, but if there's something I say that kind of stirs something or raises a question, I'll be happy to say for a little while after the service and maybe try to answer or respond to it.
But as I look at First Peter chapter three, it really seems to me that Peter is driving home the need to be ready to make the non-Christians that we know interested, curious about the Christian faith. And it seems to me that he lays out three rather simple steps in doing that. And you may want to fill in your outline the first point at this juncture. And it is simply this. We are to create questions by suffering questions. patiently. We are to create questions by suffering patiently, suffering patiently. Notice verse fourteen. But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed.
Now the context is Peter's talking about Christians who are going to suffer in life. We're all going to suffer in life. And he says it's better to suffer for doing what's right than doing what's wrong. You may have the experience like me occasionally of driving on the highway and in your rear view mirror, you see these flashing lights. They say, oh no, was I speeding? And as you start to ease over to the side of the highway, you're thinking, oh Lord, please let this policeman show mercy and grace. And if I was speeding, not give me a ticket. And you're really repentant. It's amazing how flashing lights can make you repentant. And as you pull over the side of the road, he zips past you going after somebody else and you say, get in copper.
You ever notice that kind of paradox in our lives? You see, we want mercy for ourselves, but judgment for everybody else. By God's grace, we've received his mercy. If we know Jesus Christ is our personal Savior, then indeed we can share that mercy, that grace with other people. Peter is making the point back in verse thirteen that if you suffer for what's doing for doing wrong you deserve to get a ticket right if you were speeding or I was speeding we deserve to get a ticket but what if you get a ticket when you didn't do anything he's kind of talking about that at verse fourteen even if you should suffer for what is right you are blessed I think the problem with many of us as Christians is we think once we trusted Jesus Christ as Savior Life ought to be a kind of bed of roses.
That is that we should go through life with relatively few problems. We've gotten saved. Now we ought to live a fairly comfortable life. The Bible doesn't teach that. Somebody said that's like thinking that because you've become a vegetarian, a bull will not try to attack you. No, it doesn't work that way. Life can be dangerous. Things will happen to the children of God. And at times we will suffer for doing what's right. will suffer for doing what's right. Now how should we suffer? Verse fourteen. Even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. Don't fear what they fear. Don't be frightened. You see, he's saying all of us in life are going to suffer.
And those of us who know Jesus Christ should suffer in such a way that we give credit to God for the strength and the power and the grace that He bestows upon us. You see, the world needs to see a very clear distinction between those who know Christ and those who don't. I have a preacher friend who puts it this way. He says he believes that for every non-Christian who gets cancer, God lets a Christian get cancer so that the world can see the difference. Think about it for a moment. For every non-Christian who gets cancer, God lets a Christian get cancer so that the world can see the difference.
There are some preachers these days who will say that if you know Jesus Christ, you need never get cancer. In fact, if you've got cancer, all you need to do is claim your healing. It's a teaching called healing in the atonement, and they'll say he not only died for your sins on the cross, he died for your sicknesses, and all you need to do is have faith. The Bible doesn't teach that. I've recently been studying Second Corinthians twelve, where Paul talks about his thorn in the flesh. Fascinating passage. What does Paul say about what I understand to have been a physical condition, maybe a vision problem? He says, I asked God to take it away three times and each time said, no, my grace is sufficient for you.
My strength is made complete, perfect in your weakness. As one preacher put it, sometimes we can honor God better with our wounds than with our wellness. None of us would choose to go wounded through life. We would prefer to be healthy and wealthy and wise, and yet God allows his own children at times to be broken and wounded and hurt by life. The world needs to see a difference as they see us suffering. I read a while back about a man by the name of Major Summerford. in nineteen eighteen he was a member of the canadian army and he was working in brussels and this poor guy summerford was struck by lightning after that he was and he survived after that he was required to muster out of the army and return to canada six years later he had pretty much recuperated from that lightning strike and he was fishing in vancouver and received a second bolt of lightning it partially paralyzed him took him two years to recover and at the end of those two years he was walking the park You're ahead of me, aren't you?
He was struck a third time by lightning that paralyzed him and then he got to the end of his life and he passed away. The story doesn't end. In nineteen thirty-six there was a thunderstorm over a major cemetery in Vancouver and a lightning bolt hit a tombstone and split it in half. It was the tombstone of major Somerset. I don't know about you. I don't expect to go through life getting struck by lightning three times while I'm alive and once when I'm dead. But suffering happens. Things come into the Christian's life that are difficult things. The world needs to see us respond differently. Instead of murmuring and complaining and becoming bitter, falling into depression, the world needs to see a strength that we have that goes way beyond anything we could muster up on our own.
One person put it this way, it's worth jotting down. He said, anything which gives you the feeling of immunity from tragedy is a liability. Get rid of it. Say it again. Anything which gives you the feeling of immunity from tragedy is a liability. Get rid of it. And yet somehow we Christians think that we shouldn't suffer. that somehow God should spare us from all the difficult issues in life. That's not the case. Not the case. So how does that apply to verse fourteen? When you suffer for what is right, verse fourteen says, you are blessed.
You say, how could we be blessed by suffering? Answer, it's an avenue to create questions in the minds of non-Christians. J.B. Phillips. In his little book called God, our contemporary puts it this way, listen, he says, frankly, I do not know who started the idea that if men serve God and live their lives to please him, then he will protect them by special intervention from pain, suffering, misfortune, and the persecution of evil men. We need look no further than the recorded life of Jesus Christ himself to see that even the most perfect human life does not secure such divine protection.
It seems to me that a great deal of misunderstanding and mental suffering could be avoided if this erroneous idea were exposed and abandoned. What idea? The idea that if a man pleases God, then God will especially shield him. belongs to the dim twilight of religion and not to Christianity at all. Let me ask you this morning, if you're in this thing called Christianity, if you trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, what got you in? Did somebody say to you, trust Jesus and all your problems will be solved? Did somebody say to you, become a Christian, become a follower of Christ, and life will be easy? If they did, friends, they lied to you.
I have a number of students in seminary that I teach, and if you were to sit a few of them down and ask them their life story, some of them would say that becoming a Christian has brought more problems into their lives, not less. I can think of a couple who come from Jewish families, and by trusting Jesus Christ as their Messiah, their families have gone through a formal funeral sermon and buried their children. That is, in their mind, their child is dead. and they will not talk to their child anymore. If they go home for a holiday or some kind of weekend and particularly the fathers are known to do this, the father will act like the son or daughter is not even in the room.
People say to you, becoming a Christian means that all your problems will be solved. Friend, that's not the truth. What it means is we have the Lord with us in the midst of our struggles and that makes all the difference. Does becoming a Christian solve a lot of problems? Absolutely. Boy, am I glad that I know where I'm going when I die, aren't you? You're out there, right? Okay, hallelujah. I'm glad I know where I'm going to heaven when I die. Not because I'm better than others, but because of the grace of God. I mean, it's great to have that problem solved. There are many, many other problems that I think becoming a Christian solves, or at least begins to solve. but to think that we'll have no problems, no struggles, no suffering is not taught in the Word of God.
I like the statement by one writer who says, ask hard questions, never coast on assumptions. Ask hard questions, never coast on assumptions. You'll notice in verse fourteen that if we suffer patiently, we will cause the non-Christians around us to become curious, about the Christian faith. You all know the statement that curiosity killed the cat. May I suggest a counterpart for Christians, and that is a lack of curiosity on the part of non-Christians, is killing the church. Do you know what I mean? We are not properly provoking non-Christians to come up to us and to say, how can you suffer so patiently?
How could you respond to our boss with such kind words when you know he was wrong, when you know she was misunderstanding you? How can you do that? Wouldn't it be a lot easier to witness to people if they asked you about your faith? Wouldn't that be easier? When I was first saved, I became a believer when I was a teenager growing up in North Carolina. When I was first saved, I read a little pamphlet. that if you have this pamphlet, would you give it to me so that I can burn it? A little pamphlet called Soul Winning Made Easy. Now, if that changed your life and made you a godly Christian, fine, keep it. Don't give it to me. You give it to me, I will burn it up.
I will serve a day in jail for burning up your personal. Don't give it to me, okay? What I hated about this pamphlet is it had pictures about how to manipulate somebody into Christian faith. You with me? It showed you how to sit next to someone, how to lead in prayer in such a way that they were forced to pray with you. No, witnessing as a Christian is not manipulation. It's not like having a vacuum cleaner salesman come to your home and when they leave, you've purchased a thousand dollar vacuum cleaner. You did not want. What do you want to do to that person? You want to do something harmful to them, don't you? Because they persuaded you to make a decision you did not want to make. So when he made easy, no, it's not easy.
It's difficult, but it involves responding to life's difficulties in a way that causes non-Christians to ask good questions. You become interested and curious about the Christian faith. We create questions by suffering patients. I'm not suggesting, I'm not suggesting that we have no right to defend ourselves. I'm not suggesting that we should walk around with a sign on our back saying, kick me, please. I'm a follower of Jesus. I'm not making that point at all. I'm saying life will inevitably bring certain circumstances of suffering and difficulty and brokenness.
And the way we respond to this will mean the difference between people saying, there's something about you I'd like to know, or people saying, I thought you were Christian. I guess there really isn't the difference. We provoke the pagans around us by creating questions and create those questions by suffering patience. Secondly, may I suggest in verse fifteen that we are to respond to those questions by giving reasons for your faith. Are you filling in your nice neat outline? You respond to those questions by giving reasons for your faith. Notice there in verse fifteen.
We are to tell people why we believe in Jesus Christ. Verse fifteen, but in your heart set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience. When we suffer patiently and cause non-Christians to become curious, and they begin to ask us questions, we should respond with reasons for our faith. Notice in verse fifteen, we are to always be prepared to give an answer. When I was a young person growing up in North Carolina, I was a boy scout for a number of years.
Then as I got older, I became a girl scout. But that's a different story. I was a boy scout for a number of years. And you may know that the motto for the boy scout is do a good deed, one good deed, every day. What's the typical good deed of the Boy Scout? You're thinking, helping the little old lady across the street, right? That's like stereotypical good deed for the Boy Scout. I remember one day standing in our small town of Burlington, and there was an elderly lady standing on the street corner, and I walked up and took her arm very gently, helped her across the street safely to the other side. She looked at me, and she said, I didn't want to cross the street.
So I took her on very gently, turned around, helped her back to where she took care of two days of good deeds with that one out. Verse fifteen says, we are to be prepared. That's the Boy Scout motto. Be prepared. We are to be ready when people ask us about our faith. You may have heard about the man who was asked by a pollster, sir, what do you believe? He said, I believe what my church believes. well sir what does your church believe and the man said well my church believes what I believe the interviewer is a little perplexed and he said well sir what do you and your church believe and the man responded we believe the same thing dummy you see giving a response a personal response to what you believe is very important not just blaming on another church or blaming on somebody else what is it you believe and why do you believe I believe Peter is saying here, look, when you live in such a way that non-Christians become curious about your faith and they ask you, be ready, be prepared to tell them why you're a follower of Jesus Christ and
not a follower of someone else. Why Christianity? Why that way of looking at life? There was a newspaper that carried a column a number of years ago. It was called The Answer Man. column. And in that column, on one occasion there was this question. The question was very simple. How does an elevator work? And the answer given by the answer man was this. An elevator is essentially a small room dangling over a very deep shaft held up by thin cables that are maintained by building employees who have tremendous trouble just keeping all the toilets working.
You ever thought about that? You think about that next time you step into an elevator, right? Is that an act of faith? Is it stepping into an elevator? Absolutely. You know that even the non-Christian lives by faith? I think every person lives by faith in some sense. And you might say this to your non-Christian friend. Next time they go into McDonald's or Burger King, do you know the person who made that hamburger? How about the person that brought you your drink? How do you know they're not trying to poison you? You say you're sounding paranoid. No, we have to live by faith. Every day we make thousands of decisions where we're trusting other people. When people come to you as a Christian and they ask you, why do you live the way you do?
Give them reasons. Give them reasons from Scripture as to why you have put your faith in Jesus Christ. As a teacher, I'm forced to read a lot of books. They make me. I have to stay ahead of the students. I wasn't always a reader. In fact, I got through high school without reading very much at all. As much as I loved my parents, they indulged me and let me watch a lot of television. That was back in the sixties where television was fairly new. In fact, I can remember when our TV was a black and white TV. That is, the picture was black and white, not the cabinet. And I remember watching a fair amount of television instead of doing a lot of homework. So I got through high school, but I didn't really get through in flying colors.
Went on to college. went to Emmaus Bible College my first year had a blast just goofed off my whole first year I feel guilty about that now wasted my whole had some courses under Bill Anderson that many of you know just messed up then the second year this young lady from New Jersey comes to Emmaus the year after me I fell in love and all the fun was over at that point the reason the fun was over is she knew my potential And she looked at my life and she says, Larry, you could be making far better grades than you're making in class. You goof off too. She loved me enough to be honest with me. She said, you goof off too much. And not only that, but she said this.
This was the real coup de grace. She said, you're not studying hard enough for that theology exam for Friday. I said, oh, yes, I am. She says, no, you're not. She says, you're far more capable. You're capable of making a far better grade than a B minus, like on your last test. Don't you hate it? How people who love you want to make you better all the time? It's like a, you know, it's like a do it yourself or them do it yourself kind of project. So she says to me, she says, if you do not make an A on the exam on Friday, I will not date you on Saturday. Talk about blackmail. It worked. It worked. I got my act together, began studying really hard. I got on the Dean's List specimen. Discovered the harder that I worked, the more I was beginning to enjoy reading.
There are so many books available to help the Christian defend his faith, give a reason for the faith, for the hope that is within you. When Peter says, respond to those questions by giving reasons for your faith, my friend, all you need to do is walk into a Christian bookstore and you will find a world of books that will help you. Let's say your difficulty, the area you feel most weak about is on the issue of evolution. How do I as a Christian give good responses to that very thorny issue? Well, have you been in a Christian bookstore recently? There are some fine works by Philip Johnson and others on the issue of Christians' response to evolution.
What's my point? I'm not sure yet. But I think my point is we can educate ourselves. We can get more and more prepared for those questions that come so that the answers that we give will be answers that are persuasive. that help people find the truth in Christ. When I first got saved, I got real confused about my job as a Christian and the Holy Spirit's job. Maybe some of you have gone through the same confusion. I have an older brother who is still unsaved, as far as I can tell. I got saved at age fourteen and he was sixteen. And after I had responded to the gospel, kneeling on my knees beside my bed on a Friday night, The next morning Saturday, I knew that I was saved.
I knew that because I believed the gospel the night before, that my sins were forgiven. So that entire Saturday morning pancake breakfast with my brother was an indoctrination into all that I knew about the Bible and the gospel and salvation. I gave him everything. Everything I knew. I don't think it took more than fifteen minutes. I gave him everything that I knew. I just pulled out all the... you know it took me fifteen years it was fifteen years later before i could talk to my brother about spiritual things again anybody with me gave him too much gave him way too much he wasn't asking questions i hadn't provoked any questions in his life if i had to go back and live that experience and you know what i what i wish i would do i wish i would have had a nice breakfast with my brother and not said very much at all and then allowed my fourteen year old teenage life to just kind to Jesus.
I called my older brother, started asking me some questions about the Christian faith and then give some answers. It took me fifteen years before we could talk about spiritual things again. Fifteen years after that, and my brother and I were visiting my parents at home, and my brother turned to me and he said, do you remember that conversation we had at breakfast? Twelve, fifteen years ago? Oh, do I remember it. I have prayed about that. I said, yes. He says, what was all that about anyway? And I said to my brother, I said, you know, I said, I had accepted Jesus the night before, and I just actually dumped on you. I am so sorry. Would you forgive me? Have you ever thought about apologizing to a non-Christian?
Some of you right now are saying, where did they get this guy? Where did they get this? I think there are times to apologize to a non-Christian. When we have just run rush out over their feelings, we haven't waited for any questions, we have basically given them a sermon. I apologize to him. I said, I said a lot more than I needed to say. I said, I'm really sorry. We've talked a little bit since then about spiritual things, and I'm pretty well convinced, at least for some of us, that if God is ever going to save our siblings, he's probably not going to do it through us. You know what I mean? It's real difficult for a younger brother to lead his older brother to a saving knowledge of Christ, regardless of the dumb mistakes that the former makes with respect to the latter.
I think there's some family dynamics that fit into that, but I still pray for him, and I pray that God will bring other non-Christians into his life. There have been occasions where he's asked questions or he's made statements that because I have grown in my learning and I've become... familiarized with a lot of different good books. I could fire titles at him, but I don't. I don't. Because I don't think he really wants to hear the answers. But you know what? It's good to have those titles ready. It's good to be able to say to somebody who doubts whether the Gospels are reliable history. You ever read John Wark, Montgomery's little book, History and Christianity?
It's about forty pages long. It makes a great case for the historical reliability of the four Gospels. Or somebody might say, you know, I really don't believe that miracles can happen. Well, my friend, there's a great book by C.S. Lewis called Mere Christianity. There's even another one called Miracles by Lewis. You ever thought about reading that? Another person might say, you know, I could never believe in Jesus. He never had, he didn't have a sense of humor. He was not a man fun to be around. I would say, have you ever heard about the book by Phil Viancy called Jesus I Never Knew? Excellent book. in dealing with the person of Jesus, showing that he was not only a man of sorrows, he was also a man of laughter, savior of the world, and so on.
We need to know our resources in giving reasons for our faith. How do you properly provoke a pagan? You create questions by suffering patiently. You respond to those questions by giving reasons for your faith. Thirdly, and finally, as you can already see, you back up your answers by godly living. You back up your answers by godly living. Look at verses sixteen and seventeen. Keeping a clear conscience so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. It is better if it is God's will to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.
Friends, Christianity is not simply verbal. It is how we live. It is not simply our words. It is our works. We get that messed up. We're very clear on the issue that we don't become Christians by our own works, but we often stop there. We quote Ephesians two, eight, nine, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. And we forget verse ten. For we are God's workmanship created unto good works. or words to that effect. I didn't quote it precisely. But you know what I'm saying here.
We're not saved by our works, but we're saved unto works. That is, once we're saved, we have every reason in the world to do things that honor God, not to save us, but to demonstrate that we have been saved. The way we live, the way we conduct ourselves is important. We're to back up our answers by godly living. G.K. Chesterton was, I think, a fine writer, wrote a book called Orthodoxy as well as some other books. Chesterton says, he said, the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.
You ever thought about your Christian life that way? That because God, if you trusted Jesus Christ, God has forgiven your sins And now he gives you liberty for good things to run wild. Isn't that an interesting perspective in the Christian life? Some of you are uncomfortable with the words run wild. But run wild within the biblical parameters, within the biblical guidelines. We so often think that Christianity, if we're genuine Christians, we'll walk around looking like we've been baptized in lemon juice. No, that's not being a real Christian's life. We should demonstrate a joy and excitement of that abundant life that Christ has given. When my family and I were, we lived in Canada for nine years, lived in Manitoba, Canada, boy does it get cold there.
I mean, forty below. That's below zero. That's cold. Aren't you glad? You don't have to live in a place like this. Amen. Hallelujah. It was a tough place to live. And that was about six, seven months of the year. I mean, it would snow in October. We'd walk around singing, I'm dreaming of a white Halloween. It would snow blizzards in October. And we could have the worst blizzards in March. The snow would not melt until April. What do you have left? Just a couple of months left. It got cold. When we knew we were moving there, and I was going to teach in a Bible college, and our children were eight and ten, our son being ten years old, We asked the question, what do ten-year-old boys do in Manitoba, Canada?
And the answer, of course, is they get cold, yes. But the second answer is they play a lot of hockey. That's where you skate on frozen water called ice, right? Play a lot. So we got our son some hockey lessons and some skating lessons. We were living in New Jersey at the time, and he got pretty good at age ten, learning how to skate, how to play hockey. Somebody has defined hockey in following ways. Hockey, a form of disorderly conduct in which the score is kept. A form of disorderly conduct in which the score is kept. You get my point?
If we as Christians give great answers to the questions that thinking non-Christians ask, but our conduct is disorderly, I guarantee you they are keeping they're keeping school and their response is your answers sound real good but your life's not backing up what you're saying by the way the good news is the bad news is none of our lives will perfectly perfectly back up what we say that's the bad news the good news is we're not trying to point them to perfected people like us because we're not we're trying to point them to a perfect savior with whom they will find no fault.
That's not to say, though, that we shouldn't seek to back up our words by godly living. Let me close by sharing this little illustration that's on the back of your handout. It's the second one here, and I invite you to look at it. A man by the name of Sylvester Madison says, when I was twelve, my best friend and I broke a window playing baseball. We looked around to see if anyone had seen us. No one was in sight except my younger brother. We went over and offered him a piece of candy, not to tell. He refused it. I'll give you my baseball, I said. No. Then what about my baseball and my new glove, my friend added. No. Well, what do you want?
I want to tell. Do you? Do you want to tell other people about Jesus? Then let me suggest it involves a life of developing relationships with those who need Christ. It involves suffering patiently to the things that life sends our way and thereby creating questions in the minds of non-Christians. It means that we will be excited when they ask us questions and will be wise when we give answers. We will not sermonize. We will try to answer questions as best we can.
Where we don't know answers, we'll say, I don't know the answer to that. That's a great question. Would you give me a week to do some homework and then can we get back together? It will involve saying to them, look, there's an excellent book on this issue that I have read, read books before you learn them out, that I have read that will help you on this particular subject. It means not only giving answers in the form of words, it means living a life in a sense as an answer. by the godly conduct that Jesus Christ can develop in our lives. Above all, I know for me, it means that I need to have a heart that wants to tell. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your love to us today.
Thank you for Jesus Christ. Thank you for the great news that we have in the gospel. Thank you for who he is and for the fact that he's worth talking about. But Father, give us wisdom. Oh, give us wisdom. For some of us, Father, we're maybe talking too much about you and we're driving people away. We'd like to think that we are being persecuted because the cross is offensive when in reality, Lord, sometimes it's simply that we're offensive. Give us wisdom when to speak and when not to. For others of us, Lord, we tremble just to think about talking about our faith.
Help us, Lord, to live out our faith be ready from when those questions come and by your grace and by the power of your Holy Spirit to back off the answers that we give with conduct that honors you and demonstrates to a watching world that you have made an enormous difference in our lives. Lord, bless this group of your people in this new week. Help each and every one of them and me as well. Help us to live for your glory and help us to want to tell. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.