Wise Witness in Post-Christian Culture

Guest preacher Reid Monaghan preaches from Colossians 4:2-6. Reid Monaghan is the founder and President of The Gospel Underground. He has over 25 years of ministry experience working with university students and athletes as well as a dozen years in pastoral ministry, church planting and entrepreneurial leadership. Discussion points: Wisdom is living all of life in light of who God is and who we are in him, being gentle and respectful to those outside the faith means we see the image of God in other people, we should be prepared to answer anyone who asks us about our hope in the gospel.

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  Scripture reader: [Colossians 4:2-6] Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with Thanksgiving at the same time, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

  This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

  Preacher: Well, Fletcher, thanks for such a kind introduction. It has been a couple of years, I guess since we've been dialing in and then many, many years since that time in New Jersey. we were actually closer to New York City. We don't claim Philadelphia. We don't like the Eagles, sorry if you do. Yeah, come on, I gotta start trouble, right? And so we were, we were, I, this is a picture of my family. my wife grew up on a farm in North Carolina, moved her to New Jersey, we moved to New Jersey on purpose lived there almost a decade. And she's like, I'm still recovering from that. I love Jersey though, man. So, if there's any Jersey people here represent, don't be ashamed of your state. We just have bad pr, right. It's a great place. You should go maybe on a vacation, you know, may, maybe I'm stretching it a little bit. Uh, there so.

  Well, I'm glad to be in New England. I've been coming to New England in the winter for a, a long time. Almost 20 years. I have a friend who's in campus ministry at Brown University and I've been speaking at Brown for many, many years, but this year they, he, he and Fletcher and everybody decided to overload me. I've been here since February 1st. I think I've spoken seven times, led three Bible studies and like four consulting meetings and I'm with you all, all day today and I need the Lord's energy. Right. But, hey, here's what's weird. I, my expectations for New England have been let down this year. The reason why is that? I don't, I, I don't get cold ever. And so I like New England because it challenges me a little bit. It's like, maybe it'll be 10 degrees and I'll be a little cold. I have to be tough about it. No, I'm walking around with no, no jacket. It's nice. Right. It's like 50 degrees. What is going on here? I'm sure we could have a political fight about that. Why it's warm because as folks are apt to do.

  My background in ministry, I, I came to faith in Jesus as a 20 year old college wrestler at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I was studying physics at the time and I was not looking for God. But by God's grace, there was someone on the campus that was sharing good news with people like me. And when I was 20 years old, my life turned radically. My atheist dad was very upset, but I didn't care because God had saved me, rescued me and my wife. And I spent about eight years of our lives.

  After we graduated, graduated, got married. we spent eight years in direct campus ministry, a world that I'm still very connected to today. And I had this idea that like para church groups were kind of like, hey, we're like the Marines, we take the beach. The church is just kind of like the, I don't know what they're doing over there, you know, throwing grass to sheep. I mean, they're not doing much. I could not have been more wrong because God's people as the local church and communities have this wonderful, wonderful reality. There's a devoted life of worship together as God's people.

  But at the same time, there's a bold witness in the world. And today we have the privilege of looking at a passage of scripture that has both of these, this devotion to God and then being his sent people in the world in our reading from Colossians. This is actually at the end of that little book in The New Testament. And so it's, it's wild how Colossians develops to the ideas we're going to look at today. This was a new church community being established in an ancient city and, and they were in a world of the Roman Empire where there was a common phrase that Caesar was lord, that they were to bow down almost in a godlike way to an emperor. And with all these things and powers that be flying around. They in the book of Colossians said, no, Christ is Lord their ideologies flying around them at the day, many religions but yet walking by faith in Christ in a life characterized by love, transformed people, transformed whole household and communities in the book of Colossians is about that.

  And then we arrive to this question in chapter four, how should God's people relate to the world around them outside of the church? This is an important question. I mean, you might be here today and somebody's invited you 477 times and you finally came today and we're literally talking about how we should relate to people like you or people like I was, I remember being a young guy, never been to church. I mean, I didn't know what this like this this freaked me out. I went to a church. I had these, I mean, what are these, like? Right. If you're not a church person, like these little things are like, what is it? How do I deal with that? And I remember wondering as a young man, how would the church engage with me? You know, I didn't, I didn't know the books of the Bible. I actually went to a Bible study with some college athletes at UN C where I said, you know what's the Book of Job about? And they, then they had jokes, right? They had jokes like, I don't know job that says job to me. I don't know what you're talking about. Joe, you're putting the E on me and ain't there, right? Well, the Bible cares a lot about people inside the church and outside the church with love and compassion.

  So the question is, how do we walk in wisdom in relationship to others? Now, wisdom is one of those big words, very important words in scripture, very important to our lives. And there's some very important questions, especially if you're young, right? You need to ask what wisdom is, what is wisdom and then how do we get some of it? So I'm gonna do a little precursor to our text with this little mini message on wisdom because we don't know what we're talking about. We're talking about wisdom. We won't know how to have it in relationship to others.

  And so wisdom, John Calvin said this. He said our wisdom in so far as it's deemed true and solid wisdom consists almost entirely in two parts, the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves. Now, I think that gets to some very important aspects of wisdom. I had an old Testament professor who defined wisdom this way, living all of life in light of who God is living all of life in light of who God is now. I've made a baby out of these two. Calvin and my professor. So I said this, here's a definition. Wisdom is living all of life in light of who God is and who we are in him.

  And to become wise requires a lot from human beings, right? Because we all know there are some fools out there and you might look in the mirror and see one sometimes because there's a fool in here. Wisdom requires something it requires us to consider and contemplate life. It, it, it, it requires us to examine our own lives to actually look in that proverbial mirror. It requires us to change when we're being foolish and wisdom grows with experience. I've told my kids this for years. Some of this work I still do is with young people. I'm the chaplain for Virginia Tech wrestling teams. I work with 18 to 23 year old knuckleheads and, and I tell them all the time. Wisdom is a paradox for young people. It's because it's what you need the most and you don't have and to get it, you have to live.

  There's two ways to gain wisdom. The, the one that I call, the easy, easy way you can listen and heed the words of the wise young people don't always like doing that. But this is Proverbs 12 through seven to know wisdom and instruction to understand words of insight, to receive instruction and wise, dealings and righteousness and justice and equity to give prudence to the simple knowledge and discretion to the youth. So you can listen and accumulate wisdom by heeding the words of the wise. The second way you can gain wisdom is what you can learn. Somebody messing up. Yeah, you can learn the hard way. Both ways are valid. I tell my kids that, but you can learn the hard way. It's ok. We all make our mistakes. Sometimes you don't want to smack your head into the wall 100 times to learn a lesson. Maybe you could listen for once. I don't know, but maybe not.

  This is Proverbs 3, 11 and 12. My son do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of correction for the Lord repr the one he loves as a father, the son in whom he delights today. We're going to look at this wise witness towards those who are outside the church. How do we grow in this thing? Called wisdom with experience, engaging with others.

  Father, open your word to us now, thank you. Let us see what you want us to see in this small bit from the book of Colossians. Just pray you would encourage us, motivate us, convict us. Give us hope and move us into love and service towards others and sharing good news with others because we don't know father, how you're going to work in the lives of people. You've put us in. Lord. I know I'm forever grateful for a man who took the time to talk to me when I wasn't looking for you. I wasn't, I wasn't a religious guy, but you had a purpose and plan to save me. And so father give us wisdom as we work our jobs and engage in recreational activities and serve our cities that you might use us wherever we might be found and sent in Jesus name. Amen.

  Three words that will outline our text today are devoted, clear and wise, devoted, clear and wise. Look with me at Colossians chapter four, verse two. Colossians is in the New Testament. Second part of the Bible, right after the book of Philippians be devoted, continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. This word steadfast man. I like it. It means solid, strong, committed, devoted to something. The word of God here calls us to be devoted to prayer with that we don't tap out in prayer, prayer is hard for us as human beings. Prayer can be discouraging if we're desiring ABC and we're getting 123 in life. But prayer is our connection, a spiritual communion with God that we need to be steadfast in, in this verse says, being in watchful in it, being watchful with Thanksgiving.

  These are two wonderful wor words, watchfulness means kind of to be alert about one's surroundings, right? That, that God puts Christian communities right in places all over planet earth, in those contexts matter to what's going on in our mission. There should be an alertness to the block we live on and the places we hang out so that we might be aware to what God is doing. New Testament scholar Richard Melick, I put a quote for you on the screen says this, the colossians were to pray with mental alertness. Presumably this meant that they were to know the circumstances of life, particularly those with affected the spread of the gospel.

  Informed prayer is likely to be more purposeful, personal and powerful. They were to be watchful as they prayed and they should pray with thanksgiving gratitude. I spoke with some college athletes last week about gratitude and its power in our lives. Gratitude is one of the more transformative things for human experience. In fact, neuroscientists have noticed that the merely act of being thankful, the mental attitude of gratitude rewires the brain changes our physiology and changes everything about life. Of course, when I, when I see facts like that, I asked, well, why is that, why would gratitude be so important for human beings unless we were made for thankfulness? And that just implies that we're not in a inert universe of space time energy that's flying nowhere to nothing but a personal universe because gratitude is given to someone's not merely things.

  The Bible says, rejoice, always pray without ceasing in everything. Give thanks. This is a practice we've done as a family since my kids could understand language is like, look, I know giving thanks in all circumstances is easy for you. It's, it's not easy for me. I'm I'm good at giving thanks for the good stuff of life, God gives me a blessing like, oh thank God, right. God allows difficulty. It's a little harder to thank God. But as we pray, watch what we're to pray with Thanksgiving, Philippians 413, the patron verse of scoring touchdowns. You might, you might see this tonight in the stands or on I black in a Super Bowl. You might, I've learned the secret of being content in any and every circumstance I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. This is much more than just, hey, success. If I pray this, I can do all things, I can fly score touchdowns. No, it means that we can be content whether we have little or a lot, whether we have blessing or difficulty, we can do all things through Him. We trust Jesus is what it means to be steadfast and prayer watchful in it with Thanksgiving.

  Now, verse three, we, we're to be clear, not only do are we to be aware of our surrounding circumstances? The mission of the gospel community should, should have prayers that are specific. Verse three says this at the same time, pray also for us that God may open up to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison, that I might make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. So, the Apostle Paul here is in jail because for the defense and confirmation and proclamation of the gospel, that's why he was in jail and he's in jail, praying for praying for open doors for the message that, that he might declare it in a certain way. The mystery of the gospel, the beautiful mystery of the gospel that God is bringing people from all the peoples of the world together as a new people, his church. And that, that he should proclaim this mystery that through the good news of Jesus' death, burial and resurrection and new people is being formed. He, he's in jail, he's prayed for open doors, not just so he can run out of prison, but he might declare the good news of Jesus clearly to others. He says he ought to speak clearly.

  The opposite of clarity is obscurity, confusing the issue. And there are many ways about the good news of Jesus that we can be unclear. I'll give you four ways to be unclear. We cannot know the gospel. So he said, hey, what do you believe? I bla bla bla bla bla something, right? We're not prepared to give an answer for our hope, the foundation of our hope because we need to learn the good news. We might need to become a Christian ourselves. Secondly, we can be unclear by being ashamed of the gospel. Be afraid or troubled by others. We can be dominated by the opinions of people such that we stay silent when there's an opportunity to share good news. The Bible says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel is the power of God for salvation to all who believe I was not voted the one the most likely to be a preacher in my graduating class from high school. Not not at all, but God in his purposes had someone who was not ashamed of the good news and chose to share it with me.

  We can be unclear by neglecting the gospel man, man. People, people love to talk about everything man and we're the, we're the followers of Jesus, right? And then we should be open to share about what we love man. We'll share about how much I love chicken wings with people. But like we're afraid to share the God who saves us. We don't need neglect talking about him, but there's skill and wisdom in learning how to do that well. And then for a way that we can be unclear in our speaking is by changing the gospel or adding to it, making it something that it is not in order to either make it more palatable to people of our age or something more to our own liking. This is second Corinthians four says, therefore, we have this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. We have renounced, disgraceful and underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or tamper with the word of God. But by the open statement of the truth, we commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God were to be devoted in our prayer. We want to be clear about the gospel with others.

  And then finally, we get to our phrase, walk in wisdom, verse five, walk in wisdom towards outsiders making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Th this to me is exciting and mind blowing that the God who created space and time and all that is created the DNA that encodes all of life. The God who made everything chooses to use you and me right here right now in our city to have other people come to know Him. That's, that's incredible. What, what a what a privilege we have to walk with God in this way. He says, walk in wisdom towards outsiders.

  Now, I wanna say something about the in and out language of religion because we're not saying here that like that these kind of people are in, these kind of people are out based on weird sets of rules that created by human beings. That's not what we're saying. Outsider here means outside of currently outside of the promises of God, outside of covenant with God, someone's not yet a follower of Jesus. That's what he's talking about here. He says, when we're walking with people outside of the faith, we need to make the best use of the time. And here you, here, you gotta say this means to snatch up the time and use it well, right? It means when there's an opportunity you take it now, I'm old and there's this old store called Kmart. Anybody familiar with Kmart? When I was a kid, they literally had these things called blue light specials. You guys familiar with this, they literally have a blue light in the store and they would all of a sudden it would light up and then everybody was supposed to run and get this cheap deal of something. You did not come to the store to buy. You did not, you probably don't need but you had to take that opportunity, right? Snatch it up.

  It's like the algorithm on Instagram, putting these opportunities before me all the time. And my wife's like, why did you buy that? Oh, you know Instagram knows me and the opportunity was there, right? This is the idea to seize these opportunities. It's before us. You may be with a coworker at lunch or you were talking to someone at your kid's soccer match and there's an opportunity and he says to take it, make the best use of the time.

  Now there's a passage that I love in First Peter, it says, but if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed, have no fear of them nor be troubled. But in your own hearts honor Christ. The Lord as holy. Always be prepared to make a defense for anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience. So that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may put, be put to shame.

  There's a strange phenomenon in the world that sometimes Christians don't act gentle and respectful to those outside the faith. I've been going and speaking at Brown University for, as I mentioned for almost 20 years. And I remember years ago, a student at Brown said this, it's frustrating on this campus because the gospel gets cloaked and obscured by people's perceptions of Christianity or their perceptions of Christians being arrogant, power hungry or self interested. Now, look some of that some of that is deserved. Some of that's undeserved, right? Some of that's earned by the jerkiness of Christians. Some of it's just maybe somebody mapping that on them for their own purposes because they want to slander Christianity. But there is a bit of a negative feeling at times right towards Christianity.

  So as we interact with the world around us, we want to be gentle and respectful. What does that mean? Weak does it mean cowardly? It means we see the image of God and people and we're called to love, love God and love our neighbors and love our enemies. In fact, I found the evangelistic environment with my non-christian friends is better when I'm not arguing with them about everything. But God, there's this gracious way to wisely respectfully overlap our lives with those outside of the faith, with our friends, our neighbors and coworkers and we can intentionally do this. But as we do stuff, we get counsel here on being wise in the way we speak to others.

  The verse continues always be gracious. This is welcoming speech, graciousness speech that live in a state of grace that you've been forgiven, that you act forgiving like to other people. There were kind and compassion because God has shown us compassion. Our speech should be gracious, seasoned with salt. Now, there's all kind of discussion about salt in the ancient world because it had a preserving aspect that they would use to preserve food, anti antiseptic aspect. Right. Also gives flavor. Right. That's good. Just needs a little salt, right? Our speech should have this effect on others. Hey, that's, that's something I want to hear.

  Now, there is the case where people don't like us just because of who we worship. I've seen that over and over again in my people won't like what I stand for because they don't like God. My father's that way. right? He he thinks he's God. And so because I'm a worshiper of Jesus, he just, he despises it. I can't control that, but I can control how I speak with him. And then finally, our speech would be grace's season assault so that we know how to answer each person. Did you guys realize that human beings are not all the same? We, we love, this is our culture. We wanna lump large groups of people together in big buckets based on what they look like based on their history, based on their, on their, on their gender. We do, we do this all the time. These people are this like this. These people are like that.

  The Bible sees us as made in the image of God. Unique. Now, there's commonalities, right? Between us, there's a universality to being human that we share with every human being. There are cultural narratives that we've lived. Each person has a unique story, a unique soul before God. Unique set of questions that they might have about faith in him, be wise. So we know how to answer each person.

  I've seen this in the last several years in 2020 when the pandemic hit, I had like 10 speaking engagements all over the country that were wiped off the board and we're all sitting in our houses and I'm like, wow, what am gonna do God with my life? Do I, like, become a youtuber? And my, my kids all vetoed becoming a youtuber. Uh, no, dad don't do all embarrassed. I was like, I embarrass myself. We do have a podcast that was dope. It's 2017. And I, I remember doing a pod, a podcast series on things. I felt like need to reemerge in our society. And one of them was resiliency and mental toughness. And so I was thinking, who could I interview about resiliency and mental toughness? And so I invited on a division one wrestling coach, right? Like, come over, he, he, he got was, he's not a Christian. And I was just asking like, how do you develop mental toughness and resiliency and not just crumble when life hits us. It was a great conversation. But after the conversation, he's like, hey, I, I, I'm looking for a guy to work with our team. Maybe you can help me because I know you're connected in the religious stuff and everything. I, I need like a chap. I think it's called a chaplain. And then he goes Hey, f maybe you want to do it. I'm like, maybe, and I prayed about it and I was like, yeah, why not? That was my background. You know.

  So now I'm in my fourth season as the chaplain for the Virgin Tech wrestling team. And this is a community of people that are very weird. Like today I was in the bathroom. I was like, wow, it's really hot in here. I bet I could cut weight good in this, in this room. I went off £5. This is the room I find in this building. It's weird. Um, but even in a world that has this kind of commonality of a dedicated a most of these guys have been wrestling since they were a five year old. They're all very different. And I remember one of our assistant coaches who's actually just got hired this year at Brown for which is God's Providence. But man named Ty Walls. I spent five hours with he and his wife on Thursday night. And when I met Ty, he's like, hey, man, I'm an agnostic. I don't believe any of this stuff. I'm probably gonna come to the coach's Bible study because we're all coming. I probably gonna, you know, I won't make fun of things. I won't ask you questions that make you feel bad in Bible study. And I'm like, oh, bri, bri, bring it right. Bring it. And, long story short, Ty had a lot of intellectual questions and we met for breakfast for six months and Ty gave his life to Jesus Christ. Yeah. Yeah.

  And, and we had other people on the team that were like, hey, I just need to quit smoking weed. Can God help me quit smoking weed? So much different, right? Your friends are all different. Listen. Well to other, we'll talk about this, this afternoon in our seminar of how we listening is such a great, great aspect of sharing the gospel with others. In summary, be devoted, be clear, be wise, Doctor Bill Bright who founded one of the longest running largest campus ministries in the world once said this, we first talked to God about others and then we're ready to talk to others about God, the devoted life and relationship with God with Christ as Lord can lead to wise engagement, answering each person in our lives.

  I'm gonna close with a short story about another friend named John Jenkins. Now I made a promise to John, which he mocked that. I was gonna share his story for the rest of my life. And he's like, why? Who cares about my boring pathetic life? OK. I'm gonna show you a picture of John. If you got that slide for me guys, this is my friend John Jenkins. John and I met in a philosophy class. I was applied computer science and physics as an undergrad and you know, mass science mainly. And then so I got very philosophically interested. So years ago when I was in campus, I went back to undergraduate history classes in philosophy. So I took the philosophy series like philosophy, medieval, early modern, modern philosophy.

  And I met this guy named John. We were both a little older in the class and this was in 2001 when I met him. And so quite literally, we like endured our professor talking about 911. Our professor was an atheist and he was not friendly to any kind of belief in God. John was there on a G I Bill. He's in his mid twenties, he was an atheist objectivist, meaning he believed in objective right and wrong in truth and he could define it with you. So, but he was an atheist. He was into ayn rand and stuff like that. So me might have read some of that too. And our professor was just this relativistic atheist guy. And we, and so John and I would argue with the professor trying to shut the professor down and then we would like war each other both on the public email with the old thing called a Lister. And he would have to the professors like, hey boys calm down, you know, because we would go, we go at it hard and every day after class, I'd usually spend an hour arguing with John him telling me I'm stupid for believing in the spaghetti Monster Sky Fairy and all this kind of stuff. Right.

  And, and I would tell him, ok, and then I, you know, became friends, you know, he was into M MA, I kind of like M MA because I was a wrestler. He was into like liquid cooled and gaming computers, which I wasn't into, but I like technology. So I go look at his liquid cool, you know, gaming computer and you geek out about it. And John and I left kind of bitterly like, yeah, whatever John, you know, you're, you're just kind of a jerk and you're always gonna be a jerk until you change. And he was like, yeah, I know but I like it. And so he went off the law, he literally, he went off to law school and John when I and I would continue our dialogues on Facebook, you know, the beautiful Facebook dialogues that you can have with others and, and, and John would sometimes confess with me. Yeah, I'm really lonely. I'm really sad and nobody's ever gonna love me because I'm a jerk. I'm like, yeah, I told you that, you know, you kind of a jerk and you know that his face is like, yeah, I'm smarter than you and I'm a jerk.

  And John John in law school, I said, hey, you know what? It's not true that no one loves you because God loves you. Jesus loves you, man. And, and then he was like, shut up with that stuff and then I lost complete contact with him. He like unfriended me on Facebook at this point in time. Fast forward, probably about 10 years John. Hey, I, I'd like to connect again. Can, can you can you refried me off? Can we be friends on Facebook? And so II I was wanting to punk John back. So I said, oh, I, well, you unfriended me. I I thought, you know, he goes, oh I know I did you, you know, can you refried me back? I was like, ok, so John and I became friends on Facebook and he's like, how are you doing? I heard you up in New Jersey playing the church. I've been following your stuff online or whatever. And I was like, yeah, we're doing ok. And I was like, how are you? He goes, I'm not doing so well. I'm sick and I said, hey man, I'll be praying for you and John wrote back. Ok? I I'm gonna be praying for you too.

  Now. I thought John was messing with me. This is what he would do. He would mess with me. So I he's trying to get me and then I showed it to my wife who has the gift, spiritual gift of discernment. She goes, no, no, no. I think he's trying to tell you something. I, I think John's become a Christian and I was like my dad and John Jenkins were the two most unlikely people to become Christians in my whole mind, right? Like, no, he I'm gonna say, oh John, are you interested in spiritual things? And he's like, no, you don't, he's gonna just destroy me. That's what we're gonna do. So I just wrote back at the council with my wife. Hey, John, did you become a Christian? And he wrote back, he said yes.

  And so I was like, wow, this is why I was like, what happened? He said, well, I got cancer and then I had to get surgery for my cancer and I'm I've now got a wound in between his front bottom and back bottom that won't heal just open. He's, I'm doing oxygen chambers. I think it just won't heal. And I was like, and that and you became a Christian. He goes, no, I I'm in contract law right now. I'm very good at my my job and I have these, he called them these weird Christians at my work who came over to my house. They built me a stand up desk next to my couch where I can work and do my contract law. They got me a little mini fridge and filled it with Dr peppers. Me and John both love Dr peppers and I was like, yes John. And then he said, yeah. And then I remembered every conversation we ever had and I knew it was intellectually respectable to be a follower of Jesus and I gave my life to Christ. Now I asked John, did you go to their church? He goes, no, they go to this place called Lifechurch dot TV. It's really weird. I can't do it. They, I don't think anyone thinks that this church, I, I can't do it. And he became a Presbyterian. Right.

  And he got hyper into reading like RC Sproul books and I'm like, calm down, John don't become Mr Reform guy. And John bought me a laptop because he thought he asked me the specs of my laptop at the time, I was in New Jersey as a pastor and he thought it was deficient to run like bible software that I was running. And so he bought me a brand new laptop and his shipped it to me, man. This is crazy. And he was my brother in Christ and we, we had all these theological discussions and friendship. And then in 2014, I, I flew on a plane to where he was in Oklahoma City practicing law and I preached at his funeral.

  Now before he died, I told John, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna share your story for the rest of my life. I was like, why I was like, that's because it's beautiful and, and John, he would write this stuff and I was like, hey, you need to write something before you die. He's like, no, who wants to hear my stupid ideas? Nobody, I'm I'm a jerk. I'm like, ok, John, you're a sanctified jerk now. But so I'm gonna close just with this short thing that John wrote to me on Facebook messenger that I captured and said it's very dear to me. I'll share with you.

  He said, occasionally people ask me how I'm able to endure my illness and treatment or remark on how well they think I'm handling it all the flip it response which I sometimes give when I'm in a joking mood is that I really don't have any other choice while that is notionally true. If someone were to generally ask how I am handling the response would go something like this. This man had been a Christian maybe two years. If one accepts that God is sovereign, then one must accept by both. What we do and what we endure are superintended by His will accordingly. The challenges one endures are ordained by him and affects one's own sanctification. Life change and for His glory, we are promised that God is working through our sanctification and are given to understand that the process will not always necessarily be pleasant. We must take his promise seriously and trust that in his wisdom, he has ordained works only to our ultimate good as a result.

  While my illness is quite physically debilitating and mentally draining, I am confident that I will be a better man for it. And that confidence is what helps me through the rough patches I have such wonderful friends now who love me so much that they say that they know I'm at peace with my condition, but they would really rather I stick around a while. The short response I have for that, the longer may be found somewhere else on my timeline. He wrote this long dissertation thing is that when I think that my name was called before the foundation of the world, the only available response to my life is awe that he who called me has ordained a plan in which my role is obedience to and working through in the acceptance of his will. Such sovereign power admits of no other options, of course. And this is John: Accordingly, I am behaving in the only rational way under these circumstances. Let's pray. Father can't wait to hang out with in the king of heaven.

  Lord, there are such people all around us. We never know John could have remained hardened to you for the rest of his life. But you saw fit to engage him with mini fridge, dr peppers, the love of Christians, intellectual banter and arguments, friendship, and ultimately the power of Christ, the risen Christ, grasping hold of his soul and father wood. It is a privilege to be used of you in these ways. And I just pray that whatever the gifts you've given us, we'd use them to serve others. Whether it's showing kindness or cooking food or answering deep questions or sharing good news directly. Lord, your church has been placed here for this purpose to love and serve others in this world as you use us to seek and to save that, which is lost. Lord, what a what an honor make us available heart, mind and time that we might speak clearly graciously and answer each person and ultimately lift Jesus high. We pray in his name. Amen.