Be a Witness

Welcome to Gateway Churches Podcast.

Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

Hi.

It's high heels, so you gotta take your time.

You know, make a good entrance.

But looking at all of you today just really uh lets me know that God can really do anything with your life if you're willing to be a vessel for him.

And given my upbringing, I can tell you it's really unlikely uh that I would end up here in front of you today.

I didn't grow up in church.

I grew up in a house where people, you know, my my parents never went to church.

We didn't talk about God.

And uh my only real memories of church growing up are the few, like the handful of times I went to church with my grandmother.

Now she lived out of state, so whenever we would visit her, I would go.

And so I can remember being a little girl sometimes in church with her, and I can remember my white patent leather shoes and my white lacy gloves, and I remember sitting next to her, and occasionally she would reach into her dress behind her very oversized brooch and pull out her handkerchief and unwrap a dollar to give me to put in the offering, and perhaps a candy that was still warm from having been in the comfort of her bosom.

And so that's really, you know, in terms of church, that's really all I, you know, remember and really all I had.

By the time I was 17, I hadn't even heard the gospel.

And so I went on this college tour, my junior year of high school, and it was with the Salvation Army.

And I didn't even know the Salvation Army was a church, obviously, because I didn't go to church.

And on that tour, I was saved.

I accepted the Lord on that tour.

And so I can remember after that uh being in my college dorm room, and I can remember trying to figure out what does it really even mean to be saved?

And I had this King James version of the Bible that I was trying to read, which might as well have been in Arab, you know, Hebrew, because I couldn't read it.

I had no idea what it was even saying.

And I can remember this day very clearly leaving my college dorm room and walking on campus, and I was so frustrated.

Um, and I was thinking, what does this even mean?

And I didn't know really any Christians either.

And I walk past the table, and this guy says, Hi, how are you?

And I, you know, turn and he hands me a new international version of the Bible.

It was Campus Crusade for Christ.

And that's how I got the first Bible that I was able to read and really get immersed in.

And I still have that Bible, like there's no back cover anymore, and it's like all tattered and worn and um highlighted, and there's sticky notes sticking out of it now.

And as I would learn to read that Bible, I really became fascinated with the Apostle Paul, and mostly because of his upbringing and um his background.

And I remember I would read his story and I would think, how is it that this guy who's like a Christian serial killer can like still be used by God?

And I would think that because it because of me, because of my background, I thought there was a limit to what God could do with my life.

That because I didn't grow up in church, there would only be certain things I can do, and I couldn't really go that far.

But reading the story of the Apostle Paul was so inspiring for me because I knew that if God could use Paul, that he could use me too.

And so a story that really sticks out for me is in Acts 26, and it's when Paul's on the road to Damascus, and God first, the Lord first appears to Paul and calls him.

And Jesus says to Paul, I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me.

And that was sort of such an inspiring part of the story for me.

Because regardless of what Paul had been doing, God had a plan for him, and Jesus wanted him still and appointed him as a witness.

And so for me, reading these stories, I thought, wow, what does God want me to do?

You know, what what is his purpose for my life?

And so I told God, you can do whatever you want with my life.

Now let me warn you before you go telling God that, because I can assure you that he means it.

You know, he takes it very, very seriously when you tell him that.

And so, much to my chagrin, I told him that, and then he immediately led me to go and teach little kids.

And at the time, that is not what I wanted to do.

I had my own ideas of what I wanted to do with my life, and teaching little kids was not one of those things.

Nonetheless, that's what God had called me to do, and so I ended up teaching elementary school and Atlanta public schools, and not only just elementary school, but special education.

And not just special education, but students with emotional behavioral disorders, and students that had been kicked out of the general education classroom, they could no longer be part of the general education classroom because of their behavior, because they had been violent in the classroom.

And so I taught a self-contained class of fourth and fifth graders, and I taught them all subjects to both grades.

This is the first year, my first assignment as a teacher.

I told you, read that fine print when you sign up for this Christianity thing, because I'm telling you, God means it.

But what I thought was going to be a really traumatic experience actually ended up being incredibly transformational for me because I watched God change those students through me.

The whole entire year, I only wrote one disciplinary referral the whole year when the average in our school was between 10 and 15.

My students ended up having the highest reading growth of any student or any class in the entire school, and that includes all the general education class classes.

God really changed them, and I watched him use me to do it.

And once God uses you like that, you are addicted to it.

I had a friend who um she used to go to Afghanistan and teach English, but really teach the gospel.

Really, really intimidating work.

And she told me once, she said, Keisha, once you're used for by God, you are ruined for the ordinary.

You will never do anything else.

And she was right.

And so just when I sort of got the hang of this teaching thing, and I was nominated for an excellence and education award, and I thought, okay, yeah, I I can do this thing.

And then God asks me to do something else, to move again.

And so, right around my third year of teaching, I felt really called to go to law school.

Now, I did not want to go to school by then.

I mean, I had already I had a bachelor's, I had a master's of arts in teaching, and the last thing I wanted to do was go back to school.

And so I, you know, kind of ran from that calling for a while and told uh Satan to get behind me because I was like, I'm not going back to school.

I'm not, that's definitely not God.

It definitely was though.

So I tested the word by applying to law school.

And I said, well, if God really wants this, he'll get me in.

And so, like a year later, I'm sitting in a classroom at Emory University School of Law, wondering how I got here.

And while I was at Emory, I became really immersed in what's called the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, which is really a rare center for a law school.

I think there's only a few in the country that have a center like that.

And a rabbi by the name of Dr.

Mark Goldfetter started to mentor me in religious liberty litigation.

Now, when I went to law school, I had no idea that what I do now even existed.

I had no idea there was anything such as a religious liberty lawyer.

I didn't know that you could represent pastors and churches and synagogues and rabbis and religious organizations and people of faith all over the country.

I didn't I didn't know that that was even a practice of law.

And most people still don't know it exists because it's just not talked about and it's really rare.

There's very few lawyers in the country that do it.

So he trained me and eventually, towards the end of law school, I was uh called by a law firm in Texas called First Liberty Institute, and they claimed that I applied, but I'm gonna tell you, I don't remember applying to this place.

Like, still, I really don't remember applying, and so I'm trying to figure out how that happened because they called and they said, Oh, we got your application, and I'm like, Who's this?

I didn't apply to who is this?

They said, Yeah, we'd love for you to come and intern for us.

Now, by this time I'm about to graduate, so I'm looking for a job, like a real lawyer job, you know, and they're offering me an internship with very little pay, I might say.

Okay.

And I'm getting all these job offers, you know, to at you know, some nice law firms, and they're offering me these really huge salaries and everything.

And, you know, when they call to offer me only an internship, and they told me, we are not gonna hire you because we don't hire new lawyers.

You have to have three to five years of experience.

So they're really, I mean, these people are only offering me uh a low-paid internship for the summer, not even like a road job.

And God says, take that.

I was like, Are you crazy?

Why would I take that?

So I took it.

Because that's what you do.

You know, you made that promise in the beginning, and now you have to keep it.

And so I worked for them for the summer, and I studied for the bar exam as well.

So I worked full-time and studied for the bar exam, which I don't recommend.

Um, I was have like 12-hour days.

And at the end of that internship, I ended up passing the bar exam, and then they hired me.

And so that is how I ended up being a lawyer at First Liberty Institute.

And I've been there for five years now, and it's been an incredible ride.

So, more specifically, First Liberty Institute is really a religious liberty law firm that represents all religions.

Okay, we're a group of Christians that represent all religions.

A lot of people ask us, well, why do you do that?

Well, because whatever religion the government can persecute, if they can persecute any other religion, they can persecute Christianity too, right?

And so religious liberty really should belong to all people, which is why we represent everyone.

One of the first cases that I took when I started working at First Liberty, I represented a young girl by the name of Hannah.

Hannah was a 14-year-old eighth grader.

And Hannah called us because she and a couple of her friends were praying in the cafeteria.

It's when you're allowed to walk around and talk to your friends and everything.

And so her and a small group of her friends found out a friend had been in a car accident and they wanted to pray for them.

So they went in the corner and they prayed, and the principal came over to them after they were done and said, Y'all don't do that again.

And after inquiring from this principal, why not?

Like, why can't we pray?

He basically told them that it was because he didn't want them praying out in the open and he didn't want anyone to see them doing this.

And so if they wanted to pray, they needed to go in hiding, like up on the stage behind the curtain or outside on the playground or something, as if they had the plague or whatever.

And she called us, her and her mom said, We think this is not right.

And how many of you guys know God doesn't waste anything?

And when I was thinking, well, what does teaching have to do with being a lawyer?

It was that case that showed me how God was going to use my background.

And she was the first student I represented.

So we wrote a letter and were able to sort of get the school to back down about this.

And one would think that would be the end of the story, but it wasn't.

So Hannah ended up telling her story publicly, you know, in the media, through a couple of articles, and someone got a hold of Hannah's story, someone by the name of President Donald Trump, and asked her to come to the White House and tell her story on national TV.

And so by this time she was a freshman, 15 years old, and she tells her story, and that would be a really great thing if that didn't really, really make the superintendent of her school district very angry.

And so he decided to make an example out of Hannah.

And so he wrote a nasty letter and made sure that the teachers passed it out in the classroom at the same time while she's sitting in class.

And so while she's sitting in class, everybody in her school and in her school district is reading a letter about her, about how she's a liar and about how no one should believe her.

Obviously, we weren't going to let him get away with that.

But really, the point of this part of the story is to tell you that Hannah accepted all the persecution that came with her being a witness for God.

And even after we fixed the legal side of it, the social persecution still continued because what that superintendent was doing was making sure that no one else would step outside of the boundaries again.

And even when her mom offered her the opportunity to move schools, she said, No, I don't want to change schools because I want every time they see me walking down the hallway, I want them to know that they did this to me.

And I want them to remember that I stood up for truth because I know that that's what's happen, that's what happened.

So some of you are asking.

Now, Hannah's situation is just a reminder that God can use you no matter how old you are and where you are.

But sometimes the question is, how do I know when the government has gone too far?

How do I know when I should stand up?

How do I know when it's time to say no?

Well, I'm so glad you asked.

I'm gonna explain to you how you know.

So that what you just heard on the screen, the Declaration of Independence, right?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.

The foundation of our government really respects a very core Christian principle.

And that principle is that you are created in the image of God, and because of that, there are certain things that you were allowed to do and be and say, and no one is allowed to infringe upon that, not even the government, because you are God's child.

And our Constitution recognizes that principle.

And so, this idea that you should be allowed to choose a God for yourself or the government shouldn't be able to imprison you without due process, that's an understanding that you belong to God, and because you belong to God, you should be treated a certain way.

And so you know that the government is going too far when they begin to usurp God's authority in your life.

When they interrupt your ability to be a witness for him.

And so there's tons of biblical examples of this.

I mean, it's all over the Bible, right?

Paul had many run-ins with the government, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo, Daniel, Peter, the whole book of Acts is really a conflict between these new Christians and the government.

And all of these old Christians endured crucifixion and beating and flogging, which is unpleasant, right?

I'm glad that flogging is no longer a modern-day form of persecution, because I don't know if I would have signed on the Christian dotted line if that was a possibility.

But let me give you a more or a less terrifying and less traumatic example of how you know when to draw that line.

So during COVID, there was a lot of fights between the government and the church, right?

About whether they can meet, when they can meet, how they can meet.

And First Liberty is watching this kind of unfold, and we're wondering when are we going to get involved in this?

So we're waiting for the government to cross the line.

And they cross it plenty of times.

And finally, the first case we took was for a church by the name of On Fire Christian Church.

Now, On Fire Christian Church wanted to meet for Easter Sunday, 2020.

But they wanted to do it by driving, church service.

So you would drive up, and the pastor they would put up a podium and he would preach through an AM transmitter, and you could sit in your car and listen to it.

And so you can see everybody, you know, everybody in their car.

And so that was the way they wanted to gather.

And the mayor of Louisville, Kentucky said, no, you can't do that.

Now, I'm not a scientist or a doctor, but I don't believe COVID passes from car to car.

And so that is too far.

That's how you know it's too far.

They're going further than they need to in order to protect you.

And so we sued the daylights out of them the week before Easter.

And we were able to win an injunction, and so that church was able to have their drive-in-church service on Easter Sunday, 2020.

But what Unfire Christian Church did was really powerful for a lot of reasons.

And it's because what they did was a witness, a powerful testimony, a public declaration of their love for God and their love for their congregation and their love for people.

And your calling to be a witness for God is really that.

Can't be a witness of your silence, you can't be a witness if nobody knows you're a Christian.

Can't be a witness if you're not willing to stand up for God.

Coach Joseph Kennedy was a high school football coach in Bremerton, Washington State.

And a lot of you guys know Coach Kennedy's story, and it's really an incredible one.

So Coach Kennedy had this really troubled upbringing.

He grew up in a lot of foster homes and he got in a lot of trouble.

And he went into the military and God really got a hold of his life.

So he ended up coaching high school football and was really inspired by that movie Facing the Giants.

And so he decided that after every game, he would go out to the football field and take a brief, take a knee and say a prayer, and thank God for changing his life and for the ability to coach these football players.

Now this went on for some time, and eventually the school district decided that they didn't want Coach Kennedy praying anymore.

And ultimately, when we became his lawyers and we're talking to the school district about it, we find out that it's because they don't want the students seeing Coach Kennedy praying.

Now, because my expertise is in education, a lot of people send me like these really crazy curriculums and um sex education programs.

I can tell you that right now we are advocating for our kids to see some pretty explicit things.

And at the same time, we're also saying that they shouldn't be watching an adult pray.

I don't know how we got here, but it is a problem.

So we fought Coach Kennedy's case for seven years.

It took seven years for us to get justice for Coach Kennedy just for the right for him to pray privately.

So that victory came down this past Monday, and the U.S.

Supreme Court said Coach Kennedy has the right to pray.

Now, Coach Kennedy's story is really amazing because had the school district just let this be, this would not have been really a big deal.

But now, thanks to the school district, millions of people know what Coach Kennedy did, which is actually really funny to me.

That is because of their stubborn hearts, now so many people know this man's story and will be touched by it and will be inspired by it.

So thank God for the school district's stubborn heart, right?

But even more so, thank God.

Thank God for Coach Kennedy's willingness to endure.

Thank God that he wasn't willing to step away, to give up, and to compromise.

And to really be a successful witness, you really have to be willing to endure, to go the distance.

Coach Kennedy's that seven years was not easy for him.

Hannah Allen being 15 years old as a freshman walking around in a high school while people are talking about her and whispering about her.

That's not easy.

On-fire Christian church being talked about in the media and people saying that they don't care about their congregation.

It's not easy.

So there's nothing about this persecution thing that's easy.

But we really have to have the strength of mind to know that what we're doing is the right thing.

That God has called us for something.

Because I can tell you that the world will try to change your mind.

And they will do anything to change your mind in order to interrupt your ability to speak truth for God.

One of the scariest cases that I have ever worked is I represented a girl who I'll call Lena.

And she was a pastor's daughter in this doctoral program.

She's really early 20s, like 23 years old or something.

And her and a group of students, her and a group of her friends, really, like four or five friends, were talking about marriage and sexuality and biblical perspectives on those issues.

And everyone who had that who was in that conversation said it was really a benign conversation.

There was no conflict in it or anything like that.

Someone who heard about the conversation went to the university and convinced them to investigate these girls for sexual harassment under federal law for having a conversation that this student wasn't even present for.

And the university opened the investigation and like tormented these girls for months and months and months and threatened to take away their education, to expel them, to destroy their lives.

Because they had a conversation.

And so I got involved.

And of course, helped and got her and her friends out of the situation.

But when I think about that, I think about what would have happened if no one was there to defend her.

But she had the strength of mind to continue walking across campus for months and months as people were talking about her and saying these things about her that weren't true, her and her friends.

And that's what it really takes because the world will try to coerce you to change your mind and threaten you to change your mind, intimidate you to change your mind, and if I can't get you to change your mind, it will scare you into silence so you never speak your mind.

And so even if you're not in the place where you have been convinced to change your opinion about something, if you are silent because you are afraid, you are just as ineffective for the gospel.

Because a witness has a testimony, a witness has something to say.

I've appointed you as a servant just to tell what you have seen and heard, right?

You can't do that if you're you never open your mouth.

And so this public declaration is part of it.

Now, keeping in mind, of course, that the people that I'm on we are on the other side of litigation with, they're not the enemy, and we know that.

We know that this is a spiritual battle.

So it's not about them, right?

It's not, this isn't about the left or the right or MAGA or the Democrats or the president or corporations.

The enemy is the kingdom of darkness.

That's it.

And the people are just being used as a mechanism to interrupt the expansion of God's kingdom.

And so we always have to keep in mind that we're dealing with a spiritual battle.

We wrestle not against flesh and blood.

And so always keep in mind that even though these people are mean to Hannah, you know, the superintendent, he's, you know, it's being used to destroy the gospel.

First Liberty's purpose is really to pave the way for the expansion of God's kingdom.

We're there to make sure that the gospel is not interrupted, to make sure that the government can't stop ministry, to make sure that you are not bankrupt in litigation because you are fighting for your ability to run a homeless ministry.

True story.

Or pray at work.

Or pray in the cafeteria.

Or post something on Facebook.

We're there to protect you.

Now I have a lot of people that I work with that were in the military, and they're always calling us warriors and you know, saying that we're in a battle, you know.

Which we are, but you know, one of them has a sword on his wall.

You know, it's I'm like, I don't know if we need the sword, but I understand where you're going.

But they really talk all the time about how we have to be united and we have to not be afraid.

And and that's really my witness to you today is to let you know that First Liberty is here to protect you.

Whenever you get in trouble for being a witness.

And let me tell you that if you're a really good witness, you are going to get in trouble.

That's just what it is.

And so, what's really interesting about First Liberty, I told you, First Liberty is a really tiny, relatively small organization.

I mean, probably have 65 employees or something.

And they for the work that we do, that's really small.

You know, it's not very big.

Now, the Supreme Court takes about 1% of the cases that are presented to it.

And for some reason, this year, the Supreme Court took two of our cases, and not only did they take two of our cases, but we won both of them.

Our fearless leader, you know, Kelly Schalkeford has been doing this a really long time, and this is the first time this has happened to him.

I didn't want to mention that, you know, the Supreme Court victory started the year I became a lawyer there, but you know, I it's neither here nor there, really.

I'll tell you that it was really, really life-changing.

It was amazing to see the leaders of my law firm celebrating after all the hard work.

Coach Kennedy, that case started before I even got there.

And so we had one victory on Wednesday, and last Monday we had the Coach Kennedy victory, right?

And then sandwiched in between those two victories was a very unexpected situation.

So, right here, God severed the head of a Goliath that made an industry off of killing babies.

I know I know you want to praise them over.

Now, being a witness for God means that you're always gonna be in conflict with the culture, no matter what.

No matter what.

It's always gonna happen.

People are always gonna be upset, okay?

If you're doing your job, right?

But you're not alone.

We're here.

Gateway is here, and so I want to tell you that First Liberty wants and needs your support.

So we represent all our clients for free, and so we rely on the donations of really amazing donors.

And so I'm gonna put on the screen a QR code and a text code that you can click on with your phone, and you can use that to connect with First Liberty.

Okay, and you can find out about all of our cases, you can pray for our clients who some of them are in some pretty threatening and grueling situations.

They need your prayers, they need your support, and we're gonna keep you up to date about everything that's going on in the country related to religious freedom.

And so I want to make sure that you do that.

If you're at the South Lake campus, there is a table outside with one of my colleagues, his name is Don, and he can give you some resources and things like that and show you how to get involved.

And also for me, if you want to keep in touch with what I'm doing, which is continuing to inform and inspire the gospel and people to preach the gospel and to further the gospel and inspire Christians to make sure they are influential in our culture.

You can follow me and you can find me on social media.

I'm also writing a book with Harvest House, and that will be out in about a year or so, a little over a year.

And I will keep you up to date on where you can get that.

And so I encourage you to go out and be bold, be courageous, be unstoppable, have the strength of mind to continue, regardless of the persecution, regardless of the opposition, regardless of who you may angry.

I understand we must have be compassionate in our truth.

But sometimes the kindest thing you can do for someone is hurt their feelings.

Because true compassion is truthful.

All right, let's pray.

Lord, thank you for this opportunity to be a witness for you, God.

We ask that you would lead our footsteps, Father.

We ask that you would give us boldness and courage, Father.

That you would light our path.

Father, we thank you for the victories that you have given us.

We ask that you would protect our countries.

We pray for our leaders, you pray for our president, we pray for Congress, pray for our state leaders, God.

And we ask that you would put your hands on them, God.

We ask that you would influence them, God.

We ask that you would give us individually a word from you to tell us what you want us to do in the days, weeks, months, and years to come.

We offer ourselves to you, Father, completely.

And we love you, Lord.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you'd like to connect with us, text Connect to 71010 or visit gatewaypeople.com.

We hope you have a great week.