Of First Importance

Good morning. You be seated.

It's good to be with you all again.

Most of you all know who I am, but if you don't, if you're new, welcome.

We're really glad you're here today.

My name is Jonathan. I am a dear friend of Matthew's.

Actually, Matthew and I went to seminary together.

We were roommates together, so I've known Matthew for a very long time,

and it's a real treat to come and fill his shoes for a couple of weeks

and to examine a really crucial and fun, important topic for us this week.

I currently work as a college pastor.

I work with the denomination that Cheyenne Mountain is a part of.

It's called Reformed University Fellowship, the campus ministry wing.

I work on UCCS mostly, but also on Pikes Peak,

and we've just started on Colorado College as well.

I'll share a lot of stories about that over the next coming weeks.

It's really great to be with you.

I'm married to my wife, Caroline.

She's a really talented artist and a really great mother.

We have two little girls, Phoebe, who's five, and Molly.

She's 19 months almost, and I grew up here in Colorado,

and it's a real treat to be with you today.

So the next four weeks, I will be with you this week and then three weeks after,

and we will be looking at a topic that's really close to my heart

and really close to your session's heart.

We're going to be looking at the topic of evangelism,

which is how do we share our faith?

How do we share our faith?

This is something that Matthew and I have been,

and a couple other pastors in town have been bopping around,

and we've been realizing, like, man, we need to do a better job

of equipping our people, the people in the pews, y'all,

on how to share your faith.

And so that's what we're going to be doing.

This session has graciously invited me to come,

and so my hope over the next few weeks

is to not necessarily give you a theology of evangelism

because everybody knows that they should be doing it,

but a lot of the time we get into it and we think,

now what do I do?

You know, sometimes we'll, you know,

the dog that chases the car catches it and goes,

now what?

Now what do I do with it, right?

And so we'll find ourselves in circumstances

where there's an open door for us to share the faith,

or we don't even know how to start the conversation.

And fortunately, this is something I do a lot on a college campus,

and so I'm going to mostly just share stories of what's worked

and maybe some of what hasn't worked

and how do we share our faith as Christians today.

And so today we'll be looking at what I think is the starting point.

It's a great place for us all to start in this.

And so it comes from 1 Corinthians 15.

1 Corinthians 15 is an amazing chapter.

It's kind of one of the high points of the Bible.

It's talking about the resurrection.

But in it, Paul lays out something that he says,

this is the most important thing that it is to be a Christian.

And so I would argue this is where we start.

And for those of you who are maybe here today

and you're wondering, oh boy, man, what is this is,

what am I doing here?

I don't know if I even trust this,

and now I just get to get proselytized for 30 minutes.

I would challenge you to pay attention to

what does this mean for your life?

And for those of us who are Christians,

hopefully we can apply it to our,

how do we share our faith with others?

And so this is 1 Corinthians 15.

This is Paul speaking, and he says this.

Now I remind, I would remind you, brothers,

of the gospel I preached to you.

Which you received, in which you stand,

and by which you are being saved,

if you hold fast to the word I preached to you,

unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance

what I also received,

that Christ died for our sins

in accordance with the scriptures,

and that he was buried,

and that he was raised on the third day

in accordance with the scriptures,

and that he appeared to Cephas,

and then to the 12.

This is God's word.

Would you pray with me?

Lord in heaven, thanks that we can worship you today.

Thanks that we have a day of rest.

Thanks that we have a day of gathering,

of singing.

Thanks that we have a day where we can hear your word.

And we pray that as we look at it now,

that you would equip us.

That is our big request,

that you would send your spirit

to equip the saints once more

for the work of ministry,

and that you would be glorified in it.

And it's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

So I want to spend a little bit of time,

just before we start,

is to just describe to you,

if we were to zoom out

to the big, you know,

telescopic level of setting the stage

of the realities,

kind of the missionary realities

of the world that we're living in,

in Colorado, in the United States.

And the realities are that organized religion,

you've probably seen this in the news,

organized religion is by and large

on the decline in our world.

This is just demographically,

statistically the fact.

There is a rise of what is being called

by sociologists, the nuns,

N-O-N, nons or nons, nuns.

30% of Americans who would claim

no religious affiliation.

They would just say,

I'm not a religious person.

I don't claim a creed.

I don't behave or act religiously.

I'm just, I'm not a religious person.

And scholars over the next 10 to 15 years

believe that 35 to 40 million millennials,

that's my generation born between 1982 and 1992-ish

or something like that,

will leave the faith.

This is people who have perhaps grown up

in a kind of faith.

And so millions, tens of millions

are going to, on the trajectories,

to be leaving the faith.

And then Generation Z,

which is the generation

that I currently pastor,

this is late teenagers to early to mid-20s,

they, that is going to be

the least Christianized generation

in American history.

It's just, this is what's going to happen.

Compound that with the reality

that Christianity,

as an influence in our society,

has generally lost the cultural questions.

It's generally lost favor, right?

Universities, secular universities,

media, government, schooling,

the Christian answers

are no longer paid attention to,

no longer heeded.

And in fact, in a lot of ways,

they're viewed with suspicion,

they're viewed with antagonism.

The Christian vision for life,

both the individual life

and the questions that we would have

or the answers that we would have

for social life,

how we should live life shared together,

it's no longer considered desirable

and it's no longer considered good.

Christianity is just like,

well, you don't have a good story

of what the human person

or what the human life is about.

And so most of the major questions

that younger generations

and older generations, frankly,

they're built on a,

no longer on a Christian view

of the world, right?

So questions about human purpose,

of what the human body is for,

of what marriage is,

of what babies are for,

they're no longer orbiting within

thinking about how Christians

have historically thought about things, right?

So just less Christians

and more skepticism

about the Christian faith, right?

Next, there's what we could call

a privatization of the Christian life

that by and large,

both Christians

and our non-Christian friends

believe that if Christianity is true,

it's only for your individual

personal happiness.

It's not necessarily something

that you can, should,

might share with other people.

It helps, you know,

I've heard students say like,

Jonathan, I'm glad that Christianity

helps you sleep at night,

it's just not for me.

It's just not for me right now, right?

And that is a piece of

a larger system

of kind of capitalism,

pleasure that's kind of infiltrated

the way that we view things,

that religion is just basically

a calculus of pleasure and pain.

What am I getting out of this?

And we treat all of life this way, right?

We treat the way we order products

off the internet,

we treat relationships,

we treat restaurants this way.

What am I getting out of it?

And when we treat religion

as a consumption,

a product to consume,

and it doesn't meet our expectations,

we just say,

well, I'm just gonna move on with that, right?

Maybe if it's really bad,

I'll leave a bad Google review,

but by and large,

it's just, it's not for me.

And so for most people,

the demands of radical discipleship

and of following Jesus,

they don't meet that pleasure expectation

that as consumers,

we would expect, right?

The next thing that's happening

in our world is we live

in what one philosopher

would call the triumph

of the therapeutic.

The triumph of the therapeutic,

which means this.

It means that I do in my life

what feels good.

I do in my life

what feels good,

what makes me feel

most authentic,

what makes me feel

like the most true version

of myself,

and what that means

is that the things

that are most intrinsic,

inner desires of me,

that's who I am,

and that's how I should live, right?

And the Christian claims

about sin,

about killing parts

of who you are,

about self-denial,

those feel clumsy,

at least,

and even oppressive,

at most,

to who a person is, right?

And lastly,

we live in a world

that assumes,

this could maybe encapsulate

all of it,

it assumes

the doctrine of the day

is that I'm my own person.

I'm my own person.

I get to do

what I want to do.

I have the right

and the power

to create my own values,

my own identity,

my own beliefs,

and anyone

or anything out there,

society,

a person,

a faith,

a God,

anyone out there

who tells me

who I am

or what I should believe

is a power grab.

They're trying

to get power over me.

They're trying

to manipulate me, right?

And so the way

I often think about it

is the world

that we're living in right now,

it's kind of the formation

of like a super hurricane, right?

So a Category 5 hurricane

or an F5 tornado

takes dozens

of different

meteorological events

to form, right?

It doesn't just happen

on its own.

It has to have

the right combination

of air pressure

and water pressure

and air humidity

and the jet stream

has to be just right.

And when all of those pieces

can come together,

you can have

a really big storm,

a really big, big storm.

And the reality is

right now in 2025,

we are in such a storm

with how it feels

to be a Christian.

That's just the way it is.

And we need to face

the reality, right?

All of these different forces,

the rise up of the nones,

the doubt about

the Christian narrative

and answers,

the privatization

of the faith,

consumption of the faith,

view of it as just

what I'm getting out of it.

Triumph of the therapeutic,

I am my own,

has created a super storm

in our world.

And this is the world

that you and I live in

and it's the world

that you and I are called

to share our faith in, right?

This is the world

that Jesus does

that go and make disciples.

This is the world

where we are called

to evangelize.

That's what's happening

on this giant level,

on this 50,000 level of,

and you've felt this.

You have seen this

when you look on your Instagram

or your Facebook

or something like that

or you watch the news

and you'll see things

like the war on Christmas

or you'll see the rise

of different visions

of human sexuality,

the rise of the LGBTQ movement.

You'll see this in politics.

You've all felt this, right?

I'm just trying to describe

what it's like.

Or you felt the fact

that when you talk

with your Christian friends

or non-Christian friends,

there's more of a disconnect.

They just don't understand

what you're saying.

It's harder than it maybe was,

especially for those of you

who have grown up,

who've been here

on God's green earth

a little longer.

It's just different.

It's just different, right?

And on the other level,

just zooming down into life,

you all have friends.

I know you do.

Neighbors, coworkers, family

who you want to be Christians

and you're,

I don't know how to do this.

How do I bring it up

in a way that doesn't make them

angry with me again?

How do I share this thing

that's so dear to me

that I would spend

every Sunday of my life in?

I don't know

how to bring it up anymore.

So what I want to spend

is the next four weeks

on how to do this.

And I don't share

any of this big picture stuff

to scare you.

And I don't do it too,

I mean, it is what it is, right?

But actually,

the good news

is actually better

than the bad news.

We could spend a lot of time

on the good news.

Pieces of the good news

are that the Christian faith

is on the rise

faster than it is

on the decline

in the rest of the world.

Christianity

in the global church

is exploding

in Africa

and South America

and Asia.

it is growing

at exponential rates.

It is exponentially

expanding in Africa.

In fact,

they're beginning

to send missionaries here.

They're beginning

to send missionaries

to us

and they encounter us

and they say,

what are you doing?

You said,

what is this, right?

So the global church

is in a really good place.

Here it's on the decline,

but there's really

good news in that.

Other piece of the good news

is,

and this is one of my favorite

pieces of the good news,

is that the rejection

of the gospel

over the last,

I don't know,

70 years,

it's beginning to bear fruit,

particularly in the lives

of my generation

and younger,

and they're miserable.

They're really miserable,

and I'm going to share

some stories about that.

And we're getting

to tell them,

I mean,

I'll often ask students,

they'll talk to me

about how depressed

or anxious,

and I'll just say,

how's it working out for you

not being a Christian?

It's clearly not working

very well.

You're lonely,

you're isolated,

you hate yourself,

you're anxious.

What if it didn't have

to be that way, right?

So there are levels

of receptivity

that I think are new

and unparalleled.

And so this is an exciting,

I mean, for me,

I don't know,

for me as a pastor

of college students,

I love my job

because I get to share

the gospel three or four

times a week,

and students are interested,

right?

And I would bet

that there's a level

of interest, curiosity,

even in your friends,

right?

So the good news is

that there's a level

of receptivity

even as there's decline.

And then the last news,

and this is the best news,

is that Jesus has proven

himself more and more

over this,

you know,

he's proven himself

very comfortable

in stormy seas.

If our cultural moment

is a F5 tornado

or a category 5 hurricane,

we can go and say

Jesus has been very comfortable

with culturally

and literally stormy seas,

right?

And he has proven

over and over again

that he has

and will save his own,

and he will use us

in that, right?

So we have total confidence

that God will work,

and at the same time,

we must face

the missionary realities

of 2025,

face the realities

of the ways

that we have done evangelism

the last few decades

will probably not work

the ways that we have seen

them work in the past,

and so we need to innovate.

Not the message,

but how we do it.

We need to face

the realities

that door-to-door evangelism

not only doesn't work

but actually turns people away

in the same way

that if somebody

knocks on your door

and says,

would you like to buy this?

We go,

not right now.

That's the feeling

that people feel

when door-to-door evangelism

happens.

It used to work great,

right?

The reality

that handing out tracts

and even handing out Bibles

is not effective anymore.

It only turns people away,

right?

We have to know

that the reality

that people do not bring

in Christian worldview things,

Christian assumptions

like Jesus is God

or God's judgment

like things that we could

50 years ago.

I remember I was talking

with a student last year.

She knows absolutely nothing

about Christianity,

and she said,

hey,

what's this thing

called the Trinity?

I've never heard of it before,

and I just heard of it

last week.

And I was,

here's a girl

who's 20 years old

and has never even heard

of the Trinity,

right?

We cannot just assume

these things anymore

like we could.

We must adapt.

So a few years ago,

I read this really great book

about leadership.

It's a book called

Team of Teams.

It's by General Stanley McChrystal.

And McChrystal was

the general of the U.S.,

of the whole U.S.,

I don't know,

military.

I'm not a soldier.

You guys can ask Andy,

but he was in charge of it.

But he was in general

in charge of defeating

the insurgencies of ISIS

and Al-Qaeda

in the mid-2000s.

And he looked at the structure

of the U.S. military

and said,

hey,

we are built,

the U.S. military

is built right now

to defeat

a large line of tanks

that slammed towards us

in like a Cold War scenario.

And he says,

what we're fighting now

is these cellular,

highly mobile,

highly adaptable

terrorist insurgents

like ISIS.

And we cannot just

slam tanks into them

the way that we used to.

And he says,

if we're going to defeat them,

we must adapt.

We must become

ready to fight the enemy

that we have to fight, right?

And now I hesitate

to use this story

because I don't want

to equate evangelism

with military warfare.

Do not hear me say that.

I do want you to think

about evangelism

as a thing

that must be adapted.

Evangelism is something

that we take

the timeless message

in which we will look at

in just a minute

and apply it

in ways that are relevant

and hearable

to our audience.

We must approach evangelism

with new eyes,

new techniques.

So that's what I'm hoping

to share with you

over the next few weeks.

So my goal

over the next four weeks,

first and foremost,

is to equip you

with words to say

about evangelism,

of you share your faith.

And if you have things

that you're,

questions that you're

thinking about,

come and talk to me.

I'm writing these this week

and over the next few weeks

and I will think about it

and I'll come and speak to them.

So if you hear something today

and you say,

Jonathan, think about this.

I'd love to hear from you

and we can have a dialogue

about it.

We can ask questions together.

I do evangelism

probably three to four times

a week.

I meet with three

or four non-Christian students

and I want to share

what's working.

I don't want to spend time

over the next four weeks

doing a theology

of evangelism.

We're basically trying

to guilt you

and to say,

here's why you need

to share your faith.

If you're a Christian,

you know you're called

to share your faith

and you want to,

but you run into brick walls,

culturally,

even vocabulary,

words to say.

I want to look at

how you share it,

what words you say.

Next week,

we're going to look at

how do you start

a spiritual conversation

because I know

that's ridiculously challenging.

So we'll look at that

next week.

My suspicion is that

you have a nagging guilt

that you should be,

but you don't know

how.

So that's what we're

going to look at.

That's what we're

going to look at,

right?

So let's dig into

what our text says to here.

I want us to see

that this passage

shows us what

and how to prioritize

the most important thing

that is the Christian faith,

which is the person

and the work

of Jesus Christ.

That's what we preach.

That's what we proclaim

is the person

and the work

of Jesus Christ.

And start with this.

What is the Christian faith about?

What is the Christian faith about?

Well, the Christian faith

is about the wonderful works

of God

to reconcile

all things to himself.

We believe as Christians

that God has done

everything necessary

to fix,

that is reconcile,

our broken world

back to the way

that he created it

and to the way

that we intuitively

know it should work.

So 1 Corinthians 1

says it this way.

He has transferred us.

This is Christ

has transferred us

from the domain

of darkness.

He's delivered us

from the domain

of darkness

and transferred us

into the kingdom

of his beloved Son

in whom we have

redemption

of forgiveness

and sins.

For in him

all the fullness

of God

was pleased to dwell

and through him

to reconcile

to himself

all things,

whether on earth

or in heaven

making peace

by the blood

of his cross.

We believe

in a God,

the only God,

who comes to earth,

becomes God

and man

at the same time,

lives the perfect life,

dies the perfect death

to make the world

the way we hope

it should be,

the way we know

it should be.

It is trust

in the God

who redeems

and reconciles

creation

through the saving work

that is the death

and resurrection

of his Son.

And that's what Paul

says to this church

when he comes to them,

right?

Look what he says

to them.

Verse 3,

I deliver to you

as of first importance

what I also received.

So this is the most

important thing

of first importance,

top priority stuff

right here.

What is it?

That Christ died

for our sins.

That Christ died

for our sins.

Paul here says

that is what

of first importance,

the thing that is

the most crucial

thing that we believe

truth claim

that we have

is that there was

a man named Jesus

who was also God

and he died

for human sins.

And he says

that he received it

from the authoritative

witnesses,

that is the apostles,

the people who saw it

and understood

what it meant

and now he tells them

to us what it is.

It is the simplicity

of the death

and resurrection

of Jesus,

of first importance,

right?

Now the resurrection

in this text,

it tells us

what this is,

it tells us

what it is.

It tells us

it's two things.

It's an event

with meaning.

It's an event

with meaning.

Now some things

can happen in,

let's look at that,

an event with meaning.

It's something

that happened

in human history

and it means something,

right?

So think about this.

We can all have events

that don't really

have a lot of meaning.

Things that happen

in our life

that weren't

particularly meaningful.

I put this jacket

on this morning.

It happened in human

space, time,

and history,

right?

It's an event

or I ate an omelet

for breakfast.

It's an event

but it didn't really

mean a lot,

right?

Something but not a lot.

On the other hand,

we can have

things that are

non-historical

but have a ton

of meaning,

right?

So I'm a huge

Lord of the Rings fan.

You read the Lord

of the Rings

and you can derive

a ton of lessons

and meanings

about life from this,

of the struggle,

of good versus evil,

of loyalty,

of friendship.

But it's not historical.

It didn't actually

happen as much

as I really wish

Lord of the Rings

did.

It didn't.

It didn't happen,

right?

The resurrection,

Paul tells us,

is an event

that means something.

It's like the

Declaration of Independence.

The event

was July 4th

and the meaning

is the start

of the United States

of America.

The event,

Paul says,

is the resurrection.

The God-man

died on a hill

outside of Jerusalem

and then came

back to life.

Our faith starts

with the conviction

that that happened

around 35 AD.

In fact,

we actually,

we assent to that

every time we say

the Apostles' Creed,

right?

We say this.

There's a line

that says,

it says,

he suffered

under Pontius Pilate.

Pontius Pilate,

we know,

is a historical figure.

Everybody acknowledges

that this man,

Pontius Pilate,

really existed,

right?

It's an,

and nobody doubts that.

Nobody doubts

the history of Pontius Pilate.

We say Jesus Christ

suffered under,

it happened,

right?

But second,

it's an event with meaning

and the text tells us this.

It tells us what the meaning is.

It says that Christ died,

there's the event,

for our sins

in accordance with Scriptures.

The Scripture

becomes the interpretive lens.

It becomes the tool

that we use

to interpret the event.

For our sins

in accordance with Scriptures.

And so the Scripture

is this

absolutely

kaleidoscopic

and beautiful meaning

of what the event is.

To save the world

from sin,

to deliver us

out of bondage,

to defeat

dark powers

of Satan

and everything else

around us.

It is the event

of what it means.

And so the Bible

is this interpretation.

It says it twice

in our text.

It says that

he was raised

on the third day.

There's event again

in accordance with Scripture.

There's the meaning.

And it's a whole list

of things

to estone from sin,

to propitiate

the Father's wrath,

to triumph

over demonic forces.

And here's the point.

This is where it starts

to get to evangelism.

If that didn't happen,

then Christianity

is worthless.

If that event

and that meaning

didn't happen,

then our faith

is utterly worthless.

If the resurrection

didn't happen,

then Paul says

it's one of two things.

It's either a giant deception.

Verse 15,

he says,

we are found

to be misrepresenting God.

We are lying

about who God is

if it didn't happen.

Or it's a pitiful delusion.

Verse 19 says

that if the resurrection

didn't happen,

we are of all men

most to be pitied.

So the resurrection,

the event with meaning,

everything in the Christian faith

hinges on that.

it is of first importance.

Perhaps you've heard

of C.S. Lewis'

Lord liar lunatic argument

that he lays out

in mere Christianity.

He says that either

Jesus was a liar,

he thought he was God,

but he,

I'm sorry,

he knew he wasn't God

and he told everybody he was

and so he was just lying,

which makes him

a horrible person.

Or he thought he was God

and he wasn't

and he was just delusional,

so he's an absolute lunatic.

Or Jesus actually is

who he claimed he is,

which is God, right?

But it's the same idea here.

The resurrection

makes Christianity

either the biggest lie

that has ever fooled

the most people

in human history

or the most pitiful delusion

or the best hope

for our lives

and our world.

Those are the stakes.

That's what it is, right?

And if we're wrong on this,

we're either liars

or idiots.

And if we're right on this,

then we offer

the best hope

for our world

and the best hope

for our friends' lives.

That's what it is, right?

Now, how does this

apply to evangelism?

How does this apply

to evangelism?

Well, 1 Corinthians 15

gives us a shortcut

to evangelism.

A shortcut.

Let me try

and explain it to you.

I'm going to try this

with two stories.

So a few months ago,

I met a student on campus

and we'll say her name is Jen

and Jen is a lesbian.

And as you can imagine,

she meets me,

a Christian minister,

and all of a sudden,

all of her defenses go up.

And she's like,

it took me everything I could

to try to get her

to meet with me

and to talk with me.

She's just like,

I don't want to.

And she knows nothing

about Christianity.

She's currently

in a romantic relationship

with another woman.

And she's heard

that Christians

don't like her

because of her sexuality,

because she's a lesbian.

And she's had several Christians

and one pastor

tell her that she needs

to be straight

to follow God.

And she's totally ignorant

of our faith,

but she has at least

a bad taste in her mouth

for Christians.

And frankly,

that describes

a lot of people

in our town.

You probably have friends

in this camp

or friends who experience this.

And she knew

that she was a pastor

and she agreed

to meet with me.

And so I started

asking her questions.

You know,

she's like,

how'd you come to school?

How did you come to,

what are you studying?

Tell me about your girlfriend.

All these things.

So then my wife

and I have her over

for dinner.

And I told her,

I was like,

hey,

you know what?

I personally hold

the historic

and orthodox view

of gender and sexuality,

but I really like

hanging out with you.

And you're always

welcome in my home.

And we don't have to talk

about gender and sexuality

all the time, right?

And so we're just

building our friendship.

And eventually,

she comes to me

and she says,

so Jonathan,

why does Christianity

not like gay people?

Why does Christianity

not like gay people?

And I said,

hey,

I've been waiting

for that question.

I've been waiting

for that question.

I'm really glad

you asked it.

And you deserve

a careful

and thoughtful answer.

And I can give you

a careful

and thoughtful answer.

But can we sideline

that for now

and talk about

what I think

is the most important

thing about the Christian faith?

Can we sideline

that for now?

Because you deserve

to know what I think.

But if we're going

to go there,

can we start

at the beginning?

And we looked

at 1 Corinthians 15.

And I said this,

I said,

Jen,

if I'm wrong

on this,

1 Corinthians 15

of first importance,

then it really

doesn't matter

what you do

with your sexuality.

It really doesn't matter

because if I'm wrong

on this point,

then I'm either lying

to you

or I'm deluded.

But if I'm right

on this,

then we need

to pay attention

and everything else

falls into place.

If the resurrection

did happen,

it means that Jesus

is God,

that he died

and rose again

because he loves you

and he's your Lord.

And you need

to follow him

with all of your life.

And if you're

a non-Christian

here today,

that's the challenge

before you

is to ask,

is it possible

that a man

named Jesus Christ

was also God

and he died

and came back

to life

three days later?

Is it possible?

I think it is.

I think it is.

So I'm in this process

with her.

And here's what's amazing

with Jen

is we got to sidestep

the hot issue.

The thing that she was ready

to blow up at me,

the thing that she was ready

to say,

I'm never talking to you again.

I was like,

hey,

this is such an important

thing to you.

Can we sideline it for now

and talk about this?

And she was like,

yeah.

She's willing to do that.

Second story,

I'm currently teaching

a class at UCCS

in political theology

and there's three women

in this class

who are queer.

And they're fascinated

why a Presbyterian minister

will teach in political theology

and yet here I am.

And eventually,

one of these girls,

she grew up as super Christian

in the charismatic tradition

and has since left the faith.

And she's also,

yeah,

she's a lesbian

and she came to me

after class

and she said,

Jonathan,

what if you're wrong

about Christianity?

Have you ever thought about that?

Have you ever thought

that you're wrong?

And I said,

yeah,

I might be.

I might be,

right?

And if I am,

then again,

Christianity is the biggest lie

in the world

and it's the biggest delusion

that's fooled

all the people in the world.

But I said,

I don't think I am.

Of course,

I don't think I am.

But I think that there is

really persuasive evidence

historically,

theologically,

every kind of evidence

that you can have

to say that

I think this actually happened.

And she looked sideways at me

and she said,

Jonathan,

you're the first person

I've ever met

that said he might,

the first Christian

I've ever met

that said he might be wrong.

I've never heard that before.

And that's the tool

that 1 Corinthians 15 offers you.

It offers you the ability

to sideline the hot topics

and the red flag issues

that your friends

want to bring up.

Politics and faith,

sexuality,

environment,

all the things

that they want to attack you with

and you say,

look,

those are so important issues.

And I frankly can't defend

all of them right now on it.

But I can defend one thing.

And it is the death

and resurrection

of Jesus Christ.

And if that's wrong,

then I'm wrong.

But if I'm right,

then this is the hope

of the world, right?

And it places you

in a place where you can be

humble and confident

at the same time.

Say,

I might be wrong here.

If I am,

you don't have to pay attention to me.

But if I'm not,

this is the hope for the world

and you need to pay attention.

Here's the other blessing

out of this,

particularly for our

younger generation.

The younger generation

has far less hangups

with the possibility

of a bodily resurrection

than older generations did.

Older generations,

our baby boomer friends,

some of our Gen Xs say,

well,

that's physically impossible.

How could that be?

A dead person

coming back to life.

My generation and Gen Z

are much more willing to say,

yeah,

it could happen.

Maybe it happened, right?

They don't get stuck up

on the scientific claim

of it as much

as older generations.

Much more open

to the possibility of it,

right?

So you just say,

let's let it hang

in the air for a minute

and let's talk through it.

And they'll go,

and I've not once

had anybody say no.

They're always,

I've done this hundreds of times,

saying,

sure,

let's talk about it.

And good things

have come from it.

New Christians

have come from it, right?

So what are my tips?

How do we do this?

First and foremost,

like I'm doing with Gen,

you must build trust.

You must build trust

with your friends

who are not Christians yet.

Trust is the most

persuasive tool

that you have.

I've recently started

a small group

with some women

from Colorado College.

Colorado College,

if you know anything about it,

is an incredibly

progressive school.

And it is very,

very non-Christian.

And for all,

for various reasons,

these five women

who are coming

to this small group

in my house

have a very bad taste

in their mouth for religion.

They,

it took everything within us,

my wife and I,

to try and tease them

to come to a pastor's house

and to have a conversation

about spirituality.

And we had to start

at the very beginning

of very simple,

of just saying like,

come to our house

and eat dinner with us.

No agenda,

no talking about anything,

just come eat our food.

And they were willing

to do that, right?

People are weary of,

are wary and weary

of conversion attempts.

They hate them

and they see through it.

And they say,

I don't want to be

a part of that, right?

But they're also

desperately lonely

and they're looking

for meaning in their life.

And so if you can offer friendship

and build trust,

then I have found,

almost without fail,

that they are willing

to begin talking with you, right?

So they will view evangelism

poorly done the way

that we would view

door-to-door sales

or a pyramid scheme.

But they will view trust

and they will view,

honestly, food

with a lot of,

I mean,

they'll pay you back

in dividends, right?

So you,

you know,

how do you build the trust?

The best thing I know

is to eat together, right?

So there's this great book

by Rosaria Butterfield

who was a lesbian professor

at, you know,

in an Ivy League school

and this pastor invites her

over for dinner

for months

and they eat together.

Something,

I always say this,

something magical happens,

something spiritual happens

when you eat together

with people.

It's so much more

than the sum of its parts.

What are the parts

where we're sticking food

into us

to maintain our biological life?

But so much more happens

when you eat together.

You connect

and you laugh

and you share life

and you talk about your day.

So the best thing

you can do

to build trust

is to tell your neighbor,

hey, you know,

we don't really know each other.

You want to come over

for dinner sometime?

Or to tell your coworker,

we talk about water cooler

stuff all the time

but maybe we could,

you want to come over

for a cookout?

That could be great, right?

They'll often do it

because they're lonely.

Then you begin

to ask questions

about their lives

and you probe

for deeper things.

You'll say things like,

you know,

I know you're a lawyer

but tell me what attracted you

to law school.

What is it about law school

that you wanted to do?

And you'll find in there,

we'll talk about this next week,

there's going to be a kernel

of something

that they value deeply

and you can grab onto that.

You can turn it

into some sort of thing

about the gospel.

Come back next week.

You have to sincerely

care about them,

not for the sake

of just getting to evangelism

but because you truly

care about them, right?

They have to know

that I love you.

I'm in your corner.

I don't just want to make

another notch in my belt

of a convert with you.

I want you to be my friend.

I want you to know

that I'm in your corner

in all of life.

Second piece of this

is we can and should be quick

to acknowledge

the failures of Christians

because one of the first things

particularly that younger

generations will do

is they will weaponize

the systemic

and historical failures

of the Christian faith

and they'll say

and most of them

have experienced

something from that, right?

In fact, everyone

who I've ever met

who's gay,

who's LGBT

says I got kicked out

of a church

because of this, right?

So we just need

to acknowledge that

and say, you know,

they'll say I go to a church

and when X happened

I quit going

or a pastor did this to me

or a group of Christians

did this to me

and we need to acknowledge

the reality to them

that Christians can do

really painful things, right?

And so one of the things

that I'll say

when I'm trying to gather

students for RUF

is I'll say,

hey, we want to be

the Christian group

that can acknowledge

the reality

of spiritual abuse

and they go,

what?

Spiritual abuse?

You think that happens?

And I say,

of course it does.

Jesus derides

and criticizes

the Pharisees repeatedly

for being bad shepherds,

for being pastors

who did not care well

for them.

Of course it can happen.

But then I would say,

but if you,

would you hold

that same standard

of rejecting something

because of one bad apple?

Would you reject

the whole thing?

You wouldn't hold

that standard

in any other area

of your life.

If you went to a Thai restaurant

and got sick from it,

you wouldn't say,

well, I guess all Thai food

is bad.

Of course not, right?

We wouldn't hold

that standard

to other areas

of our lives.

And beside that,

the Christian faith

has openly

and often said

that humans are sinners.

That's the point.

I will,

be more than willing

to say that Christians

will do hurtful things,

but I will stand my ground

on a God

who saves all of us.

So acknowledge freely,

yeah, Christians could do

really hurtful things too.

I'm so sorry that happened.

I'm so sorry that happened.

Would you be interested

in maybe looking past that

for a minute,

setting that aside

and looking at a piece

of 1 Corinthians 15 with me?

And they'll say yes.

I haven't had them.

I've literally never had

someone say no to this.

Next, acknowledge the reality

of hot topics,

but don't feel pressured

to spend all your time there,

right?

Man, you nailed it.

You nailed it.

Sexuality is a really hot topic

in our day.

Like the Christian sexual ethic,

it's really, really hard.

And that's the big one,

and we're going to have

to talk about that eventually.

But I think the Christian faith

has a really satisfying answer.

Can we sideline that for now?

Can we just sideline that for now?

And can I look at

1 Corinthians 15 with you?

If I'm wrong on that,

on this,

then I can be wrong on the,

you know,

then we can talk about.

So acknowledge the reality

of like, man, yeah,

church and politics is icky.

It's really icky right now.

And it's not the first thing

that I believe.

The thing of first importance

that I believe

is that Christ died

for our sins

and was raised for our,

and was raised on the third day

in accordance with scriptures.

That's what we do.

Now,

the most important thing

you can do,

and this is a part

of building trust,

the most important goal

when sharing your faith,

especially in the first few moments,

you have seconds to do this,

is to get to the next conversation.

That is all you have to do,

is get to the next conversation.

I met a girl on campus

who,

she introduced,

I met her through tabling

where we set up a table

and she introduced me

to one of her friends

and her friends

had been dreadfully hurt

by the church

and she wanted nothing

to do with,

and so her friend meets me

and says,

hey, this is my pastor

and she looks me up

and says,

I don't expletive mess

with pastors.

And I was like,

okay.

I didn't know what to say.

Like, she just,

she just cursed me out

right then and there

and I said,

okay,

well,

can I buy you a coffee?

Like,

it's just,

you know,

she just,

and then she told me,

I'm a lesbian,

you don't want to hang out with me.

And I said,

no, I do.

I really want to buy you a coffee.

And she stopped

and then she's still trying to,

I met with her earlier this week,

she's still trying to get me

to reject her

and I will not do it.

I will not do it.

And the only thing

I'm trying to do

with this gal right now

is get her to meet with me again.

That's your only goal

is to just get to the next conversation

to build trust

to where you can,

so they trust you

and they know that you're in their corner.

My mentor says that

for a thoroughly secular person

or for somebody

who has a really bad taste in their mouth,

it can take five years

to persuade them of Christianity.

Hundreds of conversations.

This will not happen overnight.

There's no pressure on you

to defend the entire history

of the Christian faith

or to defend the entire doctrine

of the Christian religion.

There's great power in saying,

that's a really good question.

I don't know the answer to it,

but someone else does

and I'll get back to you.

Right?

And then you call your session

or you call Matthew

and you say,

hey, they asked this question.

I didn't know the answer.

And they can find the answer, right?

So if somebody asks you a question,

you say,

oh no,

you know,

is the Christian faith defeated?

No, it's not.

You just don't know the answer right now.

We can figure it out.

You just say,

that's a great question.

Can we meet for coffee again

in a month

and I'll get back to you?

They will say yes.

I've never had them say no.

Right?

The goal is to build trust

to get to the next conversation,

to get to Christ and him crucified.

Do not win the argument,

but lose the person.

Be the person who says,

who they say of you,

man, I've never met a Christian

who was this gentle,

but also this convicted,

who actually cares about my life,

doesn't just want to persuade me

to come to his side.

It's simple as that, honestly.

And it's really fun.

At least I love it.

It's really amazing.

And I think you'll find

that your non-Christian friends,

it's a relief.

They actually enjoy it.

I said this before,

I do this weekly.

And they really enjoy it.

And I'm in the process

with maybe 20 students right now

and a couple of professors

at UCCS of doing this.

And nobody thinks,

I always tell people,

I want to be the campus ministry

that people are glad it's on campus.

And I've had so many people say,

Jonathan, we're glad you're here.

We disagree with you about sexuality,

but we're really glad you're here.

I said, great.

Let's meet again next week.

And they'll do it, right?

And the Lord works in that.

So go to 1 Corinthians 15.

Evangelism's tough.

It always has been tough.

But it's not impossible.

Your call, my call,

is to point others to Jesus.

And despite the storm of culture

and of pain and abuse,

it's to show them the nerve center

of what you believe,

which is Christ and him crucified.

Point them to Jesus,

and your task is done.

And the Holy Spirit will do the rest.

Be the safe person,

the Christian that they probably

have not met before,

who they can meet with

and not be preached at,

but have a conversation with.

And the Lord will work in that.

One of my favorite quotes

comes from G.K. Chesterton.

He says it best.

He says,

Christianity has died

a series of revolutions.

Sorry, Christianity has had

a series of revolutions.

And in each one of them,

Christianity has died.

Christianity has died

many times and risen again,

for it has a God

who knew his way

out of the grave.

It's different times now

sharing our faith

than maybe it ever has been

in human history.

There's no doubt about it.

But this isn't new ground

in a lot of other ways.

Christianity is a faith

who has died,

that has died many times

and risen many times,

for it's a God

who knew his way

out of the grave.

Let me pray for us.

Lord,

first and foremost,

thank you that you are

the God who saves us.

You are the God

who does inject yourself

into our world

of sin and brokenness

to bear the shame