Road Trip Part Two: Seven ways to share your faith without ticking people off. By Remy Diederich Cedarbrook Church

Road Trip Part Two: Seven ways to share your faith without ticking people off. By Remy Diederich Cedarbrook Church 7.17.16 Text: Acts 14:1-8 Outline: 1. When expectations aren t met, people get mad, fearful and sad. 2. When you share your faith with friends and family: Be honest about your faith. Listen to their concerns. Don t argue. Don t feel like you need to have all the answers. Live your faith. Lose the clichés, jargon, and spiritual innuendos. Don t judge them or tell them what they should do. Keep the peace, but don t compromise your faith. Message Last week Pastor Sten launched our new series: Road Trip. We are taking a look at a road trip found in the Bible. But before I get to that: How many of you have already taken a road trip this summer? I ve seen a lot of pictures of road trips on Facebook. Lisa and I were on a road trip recently. My sister and brother-in-law joined us in Menomonie and we headed to northern Michigan last week to visit our 92-year aunt (see map). We had a great time hanging out. (pictures) But of course, every road trip has its drawbacks. On the way home we stayed at a bed and breakfast that decorated with I kid you not- a Christmas and Halloween theme. When we got there, they were playing Christmas music at the front door. That was a bit odd. I rang the doorbell. It took a long time for the owner to answer. When I stepped into the house, this is what greeted us (a life sized death angel). As she welcomed us into the living room, we found a fully lit Christmas tree with this friendly guy (a ghoulish full size mannequin) whose eyes moved back and forth. And then, outside of our bedroom was this witch. She was wired with a motion sensor so when you came near she started chanting an 1

incantation from a book. I m not making this stuff up! Needless to say, we won t be going back there any time soon. My point is: road trips can be a mixture of good and bad and that s what we are going to see today. Last week Sten started tracking one of the greatest, most life-changing road trips of all time. The Apostle Paul left Jerusalem to tell the world about Jesus. Here s a map of his travels. Now, what was so radical about this trip was that he told non-jews about Jesus. We often forget that the early church was made up of entirely Jewish people. No one thought of including non-jews until Jesus told Paul, in a vision, to do it. (Peter had a similar call to reach Gentiles). There s a book in the Bible, called The Acts of the Apostles, that records Paul s journey. We re going to pick up the story in chapter 14: At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed. Acts 14:1 Now, this is what everyone wants to happen when they share their faith, right? You share your faith with someone and they believe it too. I ve seen that happen here, where one person comes to faith and then tells a friend, who tells another friend, who tells another friend. They all found faith as a result of telling their story. But that doesn t always happen, does it. Let s keep reading here: But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the other Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the believers. So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders. Acts 14:2,3 God helped make their case by doing miracles through them. Probably healing people. There are a couple of words here that are interesting. First, refused. Some of the Jews refused to believe. It implies that they had the evidence they needed to believe, but some of them chose not to believe. They just didn t want to. It didn t matter that God was working miracles to help them believe. And then there s the word poisoned. It wasn t good enough for them to refuse the message for themselves, they wanted to make sure no one else believed either. Especially the Gentiles. The word poisoned sounds like they lied about Paul to make him look bad. Now, why would they do that? You know, sometimes you can be so invested in what you believe that you can t accept new information. It s like, I don t care if it s true or not. I m not changing what I believe. You see, if we accept new information it could change everything, and a lot of us don t like change. Especially when it comes to religion. 2

I mean, religion gets woven into our fabric of life. It gets woven into family traditions. It s used to justify our personal preferences and even our politics. It can shape our entire identity. So most people aren t quick to change their religion. If the Jews believed Paul, it would upset everything they knew about God. They had used the Bible for centuries to exclude and condemn Gentiles. This new information would force them to re-think and re-work their entire theology. And so they were willing to resort to murder to suppress this message: The people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. There was a plot afoot among both Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone them. But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country, where they continued to preach the gospel. Acts 14:4-7 What could cause such a violent reaction? Why would they hate Paul so much that they d want to kill him? Let me show you with a graphic that I often use to explain anger. When you have an expectation that s not met, that s a loss. In response to loss we experience three primary emotions. The first one is anger. We are upset that our expectation wasn t met. We also experience fear when we realize that things could get worse. And finally we end up sad. We grieve over what we lost. This is what happened when Paul preached to the Jews about Jesus. Their expectation was that God was just for Jews. They liked it that way. But Paul introduced new information. God loved everyone, both Jew and Gentile. That was a huge loss to the Jews. They enjoyed being God s chosen people. They couldn t imagine those sinful Gentiles being included into God s family. And so they reacted violently out of their anger, fear, and sadness. Now, let s apply this to our situation. For some of us, something similar can happen when we tell our family about our faith. Hopefully it won t be so extreme. They expect us to be like them to believe what they believe. When you come home with a new faith or a new church, they may not like it. In their mind, it s a loss. They liked the old you. So they push back on your faith. And before you know it, you are arguing about God, of all things. Surprisingly, our faith can cause a lot of tension and division within families. I ve heard about it from some people here. That s so sad to me. I don t think it has to be that way. So I want to turn our attention away from Paul s story and talk about how we might share our faith in a way that isn t so divisive. I ve outlined seven ways to share your faith without ticking people off. First, be honest about your faith. It can be nerve-wracking to tell your family about your faith. They might make fun of you, or they might get mad at you. But don t keep it a secret. It s your story. You ve got a right to believe what you believe. 3

You don t want to overwhelm them. Don t tell them more than they want to hear. Look for cues to see if they are listening and interested. Like, if their eyes are rolled up in their head, you have probably said too much! So don t preach at them. But don t hide your faith either. Second, if they are upset by your faith, listen to their concerns. Don t argue with them. If they don t like your new faith or your new church, your natural tendency will to be insulted and get defensive. That s understandable, but don t go there. That s why I explained about loss and anger. Appreciate the loss they are experiencing. Just listen to their concerns and reassure them that you are okay. Let them know you aren t in a cult and you won t be drinking any kool-aid. Don t feel like you need to have all the answers. Part of people s anger toward Christians is that they have a very narrow view of what it means to be a Christian. The media has helped shape that stereotype. What you see on the nightly news is just a thin slice of the entire Christian community. It s easy for your friends and family to jump to the conclusion that you ve signed on with a close-minded, science-denying, homophobic, Tea Party radical group of people. They think you ve been converted to a political agenda. That makes them mad and they fear it will only get worse. But that s not your story and you need to help people see that. Your story is simply that you were lost and now you are found. You ve come to know God in a personal way. If they challenge you with all kinds of questions, it s okay to say you don t know. I wish I would have known that when I came to faith in college. I felt like I had to have all the answers to any question someone might ask me. I studied and developed sound-bite responses to every objection I could think of, just like a sales person preparing for his first day on the job. But as I look back on that time, I think it was needless effort on my part. No one expects you to have all the answers. I mean, if you buy a car, no one expects you to answer every question about that car. You just know enough to buy it. In fact, if you have a slick answer for every objection, it makes you sound insincere, like a salesman. It s more genuine to simply say, Good question. I haven t thought about that before. I ll have to do that. Next, live your faith. I think there should be a law that you can t talk about your faith until you practice your faith at least 50% of the time. The world would be a much better place. What makes a lot of people mad at Christians is that they talk about their faith but don t live it. Worse yet, they use it as an excuse to justify their behavior. They ll say something like, Well, I know I shouldn t do this, but God will forgive me, hee hee. People observe that and think, So this is all their new faith is good for: justifying their behavior. I thought so. Personally, I want to lay down a track record of good behavior so when I m asked about my faith, I can speak with some credibility. The world doesn t need another person talking about Jesus. But we could use a few more people living like Jesus. People are much more 4

likely to listen to what you have to say about God if they can see that God has made a difference in your life. Too often the most vocal Christians are the ones that seem to have the most trouble living out their faith. I don t know why that is. I m sure we all know someone who is vocal about their faith but is stinking it up. I just want to grab those people and say, Stop it! You are making every believer look bad. You are making the church look bad. You are making Jesus look bad! Don t be that person. Your family is watching you to see if you deliver on your faith. Your behavior will tell them a lot more about God than your words. If you want to share your faith, work on living it first. Next, lose the clichés, jargon and spiritual innuendos. Let me explain each one. Clichés are when you over simplify complex matters with a pat answer. Rather than offering a thoughtful response, you quote a Bible verse, or you say something like, You just gotta let go and let God. Clichés are often true. That s not the problem. The problem with clichés is that they trivialize what s important by making it sound like once you know God you don t have to think any more. You just have to pull out your list of Top 20 Christian clichés to answer any hard question that comes your way. In reality, Christians should be the best thinkers and not abdicate our thinking to a cliché. Jargon is the words or terminology that are unique to a subculture. A subculture is any smaller group of people, like medical workers, or athletes, or motorcycle riders, etc. You have medical jargon, and sports jargon. You ve got biker jargon. Every hobby has its unique jargon. But jargon only makes sense to people in that subculture. For example, if a doctor uses medical jargon on me, I m clueless. It s not helpful. And it s the same when you use Christian jargon with your friends and family. People don t know what you are talking about. Church people say things like: I feel led to do this. I feel a check in my spirit. We need to bathe this in prayer. Those are works of the flesh. You need to be born again. The blood of Jesus covers that. 5

If you ve been in the church a long time, you probably know what these mean. But if you aren t a church person these phrases just sound silly, if not scary. Plus it s just rude to talk in code around people that don t know the code. As pastors, we are careful not to use jargon on Sunday. It s tempting because it s like shorthand for people in the know. But we understand that many people come here on Sunday who didn t grow up in church. Using jargon is confusing at best and offensive at worst. And then there s spiritual innuendo. You probably know what sexual innuendo is. That s when no matter what you say someone reads something sexual into it. They always find a sexual connotation. They think it s funny. They think they are clever. Personally, I find it insulting to reduce everything to sex. I don t mean it s morally insulting (although that is true as well). I think it s intellectually insulting. God gave us a creative brain to talk about interesting things, yet some people want to use that brain to talk about sex and they assume I want to do the same. That s insulting to me. Well, some people do that with faith. They turn everything into an opportunity to work God into the conversation. You might say, Man, I love these French fries. And then I say, That s interesting you should say that because I was just thinking about how much God loves us. And you are thinking, Really, that s where you want to take this conversation? I can t even mention French fries without you bringing God into the conversation? It s not clever. It s awkward. And it s just as intellectually insulting as sexual innuendo. So if you want people to treat you seriously and not get mad at you, lose the clichés, the jargon, and the innuendos. Next, don t judge your family or tell them how to live their life. No one likes being judged. No one likes being told what to do. Make it clear that your beliefs are your beliefs and not your agenda for them. In other words, your new faith is your personal decision for yourself. Don t imply that your new belief should become their new belief (unless they are interested). If people feel like you are trying to pressure them it will just make them mad. Again, we try to practice this on Sunday. We see it as our job to tell a good story. We want to explain God s word to you as best we can, but then we leave it up to God to show you if it s true or not and let you decide if you want to follow our teaching. We aren t interested in putting pressure on you or guilting you into doing something you don t want to do. Finally, do your best to keep the peace, but don t compromise your faith. I m surprised how many people choose to give up on their faith, or at least their church experience, just because their family gives them some push back. I ve seen that happen here. I ve seen people come to Cedarbrook and love it. They are so thankful to have found a church that makes sense to them. But then suddenly they stop coming. I ll bump into them in town and say, I haven t seen you at Cedarbrook. Did you find a different church? And they ll say, No. But I told my parents about Cedarbrook and they were mad that I m not going to their church. Then I ll say, Oh, okay. So you are going to their church? That s good too. But they ll say, No, I m not going anywhere. I don t like their church. And then I m thinking, 6

So, what you re telling me is that not going to church is better than attending Cedarbrook? How does that make any sense? Are you really going to let your parents tell you what to do? You can respectfully agree to disagree with your parents without giving up on your faith. If your family insists on picking fights with you, then you need to decide how you are going to handle it. Jesus warned us that deciding to follow him could bring rejection: Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. Matthew 10:37-39 Jesus is telling us here that sometimes it s not possible to keep the peace. In some cases your family may reject you for your faith, no matter what. But my hope is that by being thoughtful and careful with your words, you can reduce the tension that so often develops in families where someone comes to faith. Paul experienced a lot of anger and division over his message. That can happen, but let s do our best to minimize that kind of reaction. Going Deeper: use the following questions for personal reflections and/or to discuss with family, friends and small group. 1. What has been your experience in discussing your faith with family and friends? A. Never discuss faith. B. Easily talk about faith. C. Argue about faith. D. Other? 2. Have you seen other people who have been at odds with friends and/or family over their faith? Describe. 3. Read Acts 1:1-9. Elie Wiesel said that people who hear a witness become a witness as well. Do you consider yourself a witness of Jesus story? Why or why not? 4. What is the hardest part about sharing your faith with others? 5. Read Acts 14:1-6. Why do you think some Jews refused to believe? In other words, what did they have to lose by believing that Jesus was the messiah? Do you know people who refuse to believe? 6. It also says that they poisoned the minds of others. It wasn t enough to not believe. They had to keep others from believing as well. Why do you think that was? Do you know people who do this? 7. Remy gave seven ways to approach sharing your faith with friends and family. What are they? Which ideas stood out to you as potentially helpful? 8. If you ve offended someone in the way you ve shared your faith, ask God how you might repair the damage done. 7