Answering Our Culture #1: Be Prepared Series

Answering Our Culture

#1 – Be Prepared

2 Timothy 4:1-4

July 21, 2002

Introduction

God has been reminding me of something lately.

When God called me here, it was with the idea that God wanted to help this church become a tool that God could use to bring many people to Christ. And I have shared that vision with you a number of times.

It has not dimmed; rather, it is getting stronger all the time. And I’m convinced that God wants to equip this congregation to begin having a hand in bringing the gospel to our area.

And so we talked last week about being in the world and not of it.

I mentioned that we needed to engage our culture, remembering that Jesus sent us into the world, and that the world would not always appreciate us or our message.

I said we needed to be set apart to God and His service, and also to say no the sinful activities of your friends, but yes to the people.

I thought maybe God was done, but He has not let me go to another topic. I feel God still wants us to address just how to engage our culture so we can introduce them to Christ.

What can we do to actually get out there and introduce people to Jesus?

It’s one thing to talk about it, another to agree that it needs to be done, but another thing entirely to go out and do it.

So I prayed about it, and I think that at this point, God wants me to discuss how to handle questions and criticisms people have about Christianity.

I was at the Red Rooster on Friday, reading a great book called, True for You, but Not for Me, by Paul Copan. By the way, if you are looking for a resource on talking with your non-Christian friends, this is one of the absolute best I have every seen. You can get it from Anchors of Faith. Get it – its great.

Anyway, I was at the Red Rooster, hoping that I would get the chance to visit with someone about Jesus. I didn’t get to do that, but I did get to watch some people, and it came to me that I needed to be able to address the questions that some of these people would have.

And as I reflected more, I got to thinking that most people won’t have questions as much as they would have objections.

What is it that keeps people from giving their lives to Christ? And I started writing down some of the objections I have run into over the years, and was able to think of about 20 in about 10 minutes.

Well, what do I do with this? I felt God telling me that He wanted me to answer these objections from the pulpit, to give you another tool in your interactions with people.

So I am looking to condense these to about 10, so we can have a series along the lines of “Top 10 Reasons to Not Be a Christian.”

My intention is to not only give you a reasoned response to each of these objections that you can adapt and use, but also to give you something tangible that you can give to somebody who is willing to listen.

At this point, I plan on giving these messages in a format that will make it easy for you to give a copy of the tape to someone who has the objection being addressed that day.

In other words, the message will be aimed and delivered in such a way that it addresses the person with the objection, not you in the congregation.

And by the way, these next 10 weeks or so will be great times to be inviting your non-Christian friends. I promise you won’t be embarrassed by the messages, and neither will they.

I am investigating ways to get these messages in audio format on our website, and to get them onto other sites as well, Lord willing.

We might consider getting these messages into some form of package that would be easy to hand out. We’ll worry about that as the time comes.

Today, I want to start off with the basis for this series, that fact that people will decide that Christianity is not true, and that it doesn’t really matter what you believe.

We won’t discuss specific objections to becoming a Christian today, but just the underlying reasons for non-belief.

The passage that will serve as our text for today is 2 Timothy 4:1-4, and I would ask that you turn with me there now. If you are using the Bibles in the seats, you can find our passage on page 843.

Please follow along as I read: