February 15, 2025 • 48 mins
What is the answer to the division in our country? It’s a great question and you’ll hear answers on this Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. Former President of Moody Bible Institute and Cornerstone University, Dr. Joe Stowell urges Christians to pivot from battling for an earthly kingdom to embracing a heavenly one. Don’t miss a hope-filled conversation on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman.
Featured resource: THIS LIGHT OF MINE: LIVING LIKE JESUS IN A NON-JESUS WORLD
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S1 (00:01):
Are you concerned about the direction of American culture? Are
you angry about some of the battles we face in
today's society? Does it feel like the bad guys have
won and the good guys are losing?
S2 (00:12):
How can you become credible with the gospel in the
face of all this opposition? Well, just try a few
good works to your neighbor, to somebody you work with,
your church, to the area that you live in, and
you just might see the light of Jesus Christ shining brightly.
S1 (00:30):
Welcome to building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman, author of
the New York Times best seller The Five Love Languages. Today,
former president of Moody Bible Institute and author Joe Stoll
will talk about how to live fully in an age
of anger and vitriol.
S3 (00:46):
Our featured resource is the book This Light of Mind
Living Like Jesus in a non Jesus World. You can
find out more at our website. Building relationships. And Gary,
I know you have seen this phenomenon. As you travel
around the country, there's a lot of anger, a lot
of frustration with the ways that the culture is moving
(01:07):
away from biblical morality. And we have to ask ourselves
some really hard questions, don't we?
S4 (01:13):
Well, I think we do. Chris, you know, I've sometimes
said it's like a civil war. We're having verbally, you know,
shooting each other down if we disagree with each other
and that sort of thing. So Doctor Joe Stoll has
written this book on the whole topic, and so I'm
excited about it. And I hope our listeners will stay
tuned because this is going to be helpful to them.
S3 (01:31):
I think so too. And if you have somebody in
your family that you disagreed with back in the during
the holidays about the political thing, listen to what Doctor
Joe Stoll says. He has a distinguished career in higher
education and church leadership, served as president of Moody Bible
Institute and then Cornerstone University, as well as pastoring several
churches in the Midwest. He's written several books, including strength
(01:55):
for the Journey and Simply Jesus. He and his wife
Marty have three children, ten grandchildren. And our featured resource
is that new book, This Light of Mine Living Like
Jesus in a Non Jesus World. Find out more at
Building Relationships.
S4 (02:12):
Well, Doctor Stoll, I've known you for a long while
and really, really glad to have you with us today
on building relationships.
S2 (02:18):
Yeah. Thank you Gary. So good to hear your voice.
You know, I just I treasure the memories of our
work together at Moody. And I certainly value the, you know,
just the great impact your writing has had on the
body of Christ. And my message is to. Because I
use your love languages as some illustrations in my messages.
(02:39):
So thanks for how you've been used to the Lord.
Delighted to be on this program with you, my friend.
S4 (02:45):
Well thank you. So tell us more about the why
of this book. I mean, this must have been something
really troubling. And you were disturbed about and wanted to
get a get a message out here. So tell us
what motivated you.
S2 (02:58):
Yeah, well, actually troubled, I was troubled, and I am.
I'm troubled about the gospel and our ability to do
the gospel in such a hostile culture. Uh, the psalmist,
Gary asks a real interesting question in Psalm 11 three.
He says, if the foundations be destroyed, what can the
righteous do? So what can we do? Because the foundations
(03:22):
of biblical morality have been obviously destroyed. Like, for instance,
what if you live next door to a neighbor who
has signs all over his yard pushing progressive agendas that
you know are anti-biblical? How do you build a gospel
bridge to somebody like that when he sees you as
(03:43):
a conservative Christian? How how do we do this? Or,
you know, if your fellow coworkers in the office know
your views on abortion and human sexuality Duality and think
that you're somehow related to Attila the Hun. How do
you build a bridge to the gospel, to people like that?
And so the real issue is, how can the gospel
(04:05):
through us be credible in a world gone wrong? That's
the probing question. My heart. I do like First Chronicles 1232, Gary,
where it says the men of Iskar, that was one
of the tribes of Israel, understood their times and knew
what to do. And thankfully, Jesus tells us what to do.
(04:26):
So it's not like we're left without a plan. But
my fear is that in not knowing what to do,
we have actually hindered the gospel. Gary, do you remember
when your kids were real little and you were doing
a project and they just wanted to help, and they
ended up getting in the way and making a bigger problem?
You know, why is it that when they're 18, they're
not willing to help? I don't fully understand that, but
(04:50):
my fear is that not knowing what to do. We've
been like little kids and that we've kind of messed
up the project and actually hindered the gospel. But like
I said, thankfully Jesus answers the question of Psalm 11
three and has given us a way to establish the
gospel credibility in our world, a world that really doesn't
(05:13):
want to hear what we have to say.
S4 (05:15):
Well, I'm guessing that every Christian who's listening to us
today is ready to hear because they're struggling also with this,
and they're observing themselves and others. Now, you state in
your book that evangelicals have hindered the spread of the
gospel by wrong attitudes and wrong actions. So what are
(05:36):
the attitudes and actions that concern you most?
S2 (05:39):
I think the attitudes that concern me most is how
we relate to and how we respond to the fact
that we've lost our culture to a paganism that has
trashed all of the values that we hold dear. I mean,
just make the list, right? A nation that has legalized
same sex marriage. Think of the power of the LGBTQ movement.
(06:00):
Think of gender issues. Think of pronoun issues. Think of
bathroom issues. Think of a nation where 70% of our
fellow Americans believe that abortion is a good thing. Some
of them all the way up to the unborn at
nine months. And think of the basic marginalization of those
(06:21):
of us who hold biblical values. So how have we
responded to that? Well, my observation in the last couple
of decades is we basically responded with a sense of despair.
I remember I was speaking to a relatively small group
of people, and actually, when I preach, people usually fall asleep.
And this occasion, there was a guy sitting on the
(06:43):
front row, and I had the boldness to make the statement,
I don't think we're going to get America back and
his body language just moved up. He almost stood up
out of his chair and he shouted out, oh no!
What will we do? And the despair in his voice
was just palatable. I think that, uh, a lot of
us are angry about this stuff. And in a real
(07:05):
fighting mood, a lot of us are hopeless. And basically,
the feeling that we're the losers, actually. When actually, if
you've read the last chapter, we're the winners, right? And
should be the last ones to express a sense of
despair and anger and hopelessness. And interestingly enough, this kind
of response, um, goes out to a lost world. And
(07:28):
guess what? There's a lot of anger in the lost world.
Lost people are in despair today. Lost people feel hopeless
about so many of the things in our culture. So
if we're like them, why would they want to have
what we have? If it's. It's just the same thing. Yeah.
(07:48):
This really came home to me, uh, when I retired
from my day job. I didn't retire from the kingdom,
but Marty and I go, what are we going to do?
And we decided, hey, let's go camping and let's go
out to the let's go out to the national parks
out west. And, Gary, we'd never camped a day in
our lives. I mean, this was like a high risk adventure.
(08:11):
But anyway, so we got a camper, and we've loved camping.
And most people who camp know that in campgrounds, they
have shower places where you can go and wash the
wilderness off. And I remember one morning walking down toward
the shower place where the showers were, and there was
a guy in front of me with a towel and oh, no,
he's going to beat me to the shower. And we
(08:32):
both walked in and he stopped to shave. In my advantage.
I went around to him back to where the showers were,
and there were two shower stalls, and there was another
man getting ready to get into his shower stall, Aristotle
and I greeted him, and then he just launched. He said,
do you know what I used to bring my little
girl in here for a shower? I'd never do that. Today,
(08:52):
in the day of trans and all this trans stuff.
And then we both kind of stepped into our showers,
and the wall between us went up about seven feet.
So it was open above. And I could hear him
and he just kept going. Just that same sex marriage problems.
How come the LGBTQ movement has so much power? We
never get a month. How come they never get a month?
Talked about the pronouns. And then he dragged a couple
(09:15):
of his politicians in and he couldn't stand. And it
was like, oh my goodness, I mean. And then he
said this. He said, I go to a great church.
He said, and my pastor's all over this kind of stuff.
He has zero tolerance for this. And I thought, hey,
he's a brother. And I'm going to kind of lighten
up the atmosphere here. And I said, hey, yeah, but
(09:37):
I've read the last chapter, I know who wins. And
he said, yeah, so do I, but we got to
fight about this stuff. And I thought, and, you know, actually,
I'm concerned about the same things. So are you. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
But it was his tone. It was his. But then
here's what happened. I stepped out of my shower, and
(09:58):
this guy who had beat me to the shower room,
who shaved, had walked down. He has his towel folded
over his arm, waiting to get in, in queue. He
heard the rant. Mhm. And Gary I was ashamed for
the gospel. Mhm. You know I could what would I
have said to this guy like hey you want to
(10:18):
be a Christian. You could be just like us you know.
You know that was going to be the big nonstarter right.
And so it's these attitudes of how we've responded, I
think have damaged the credibility of the gospel in our world.
And the actions, as you said, what about the attitudes
and actions? Is that we've politicized our faith by marrying
(10:40):
Jesus into the political systems of our day. So we
as evangelicals basically are not seen as a movement for
the kingdom of Christ, but as an opposing political force. Yeah.
And if we are the political enemy of all the
progressives and by the way, I think Jesus wants progressives
to be saved right to God. The gospel needs to
(11:02):
go to them, too, you know. But, you know, if
we're seen as this opposing political force, as the enemy,
nobody on the other side will want what we have.
Since we're the enemy. And so Jesus wants us to
put the welcome mat out of the gospel for everyone.
Even progressives. And I think we've done a lot of
damage there. So those in my mind are the attitudes
(11:25):
and the actions that have hindered the gospel in our day.
S4 (11:30):
You know, Joe, I was reflecting back on my own
life as you were talking as to where we are today.
And I remember when I was in high school, The
Bible was taught in my school. Old Testament survey. New
Testament survey. In in the public school. And every morning
(11:50):
the principal prayed over the P.A. system. And I was thinking.
S2 (11:57):
Wow.
S4 (11:57):
We have come a long ways.
S2 (12:00):
Yeah, we really have come a long way.
S4 (12:02):
Well, and I think what you were talking about earlier
is so true that that many non-Christians now simply view
Christians as a political force, you know, rather than and
don't even associate us with, with the gospel. It's just
those are those people that are, you know, against this
and this and this. So this is an important topic.
I'm really glad that you wrote this book. So, Joe,
(12:23):
we were discussing the whole issue of, you know, the
population today seeing Christians as just a political force. Can
you give us some examples of that?
S2 (12:33):
Yeah, right. Well, when our national evangelical leaders endorse candidates.
When we open political rallies with the prayer by a
local pastor who prays for the success of a candidate
and the defeat of the other candidate. When we platform
preferred political candidates at our major national gatherings, when we
sing worship songs, at political rallies, when we wear T-shirts
(12:58):
and caps that combined Jesus with our political preference, then
they get the impression, you know that Jesus is a
part of this thing. I remember Marty and I were
driving down the road, the country road in Louisiana. We
drove by this beautiful ranch, and it had this big
white fence out in front and over the driveway was
this banner, Jesus, our only Hope. That was so good.
(13:22):
But down the rest of the fence were flags touting
their preferred candidate. And I thought the average driver driving
here thinks that. Jesus. And that goes together. And I
also thought, Gary, What a powerful thing it would have
been if it was just the banner over the driveway.
Not married to the rest of the political stuff. There
(13:43):
have been so powerful. January 6th. I thought you we
all saw signs of people, you know, running against the
Capitol building with crosses and having Jesus on their sweatshirts,
and I was so burdened by that. So it's no wonder,
by the way, a recent survey says that evangelicals are
now seen by American adults through a political lens. And
(14:06):
here's the bad news. We have branded Jesus with a
political identity.
S4 (14:12):
Hmm.
S2 (14:13):
That's the really bad news. And he doesn't carry anybody
else's brand. You know, he is never Jesus. Plus, and
I've often wondered if when witnessing to someone, they might say, well,
but do I have to become a right wing patriot
to close the deal? So I think there's a lot
of evidence to the fact that the gospel has been
(14:35):
hindered by our political infusion. Of Christ and politics.
S4 (14:41):
Now, I think some of our listeners may well be
asking when they hear you. Say that. But aren't we
supposed to be an influence, you know, and seek to
influence the morality of our culture?
S2 (14:53):
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks. Thank you for saying that. But we
need to do it in the name of Jesus, not
in the name of a political candidate.
S4 (15:01):
Hmm.
S2 (15:01):
But we need to do it in the name of
the kingdom of Christ. You know, we are here bringing
morality to you in the name of Jesus. And not
in a political party, but of the kingdom of Christ. So,
you know, it's all a matter of, uh, keeping Jesus
central focused and not compromised, really, with all the political
(15:23):
systems of our day.
S4 (15:25):
Yeah, well, let's talk about the whole political world. You know,
what are some legitimate ways for evangelicals to influence our
culture through the political scene?
S2 (15:35):
No. Yeah. A great question, Gary, because, you know, interestingly enough,
the early church thrived. They flourished in a very hostile culture,
far more hostile than ours. And the gospel went forth
with strength. And in my book, I do a lot
of contrast to what was their secret. How did they
do this? But one thing they didn't have, they couldn't
(15:57):
vote the emperor out. I mean, they had zero political clout.
So we do have some advantages that I think are
very legitimate. And as good citizens, you know, we should
be responsible for that. Obviously, one is we can vote, right?
And we can cast our vote for candidates who support
our values and who advance morality in our world. If
(16:19):
there are any there running for that, we can volunteer.
We can run for school boards. We can run for
political office. I have a friend who got so fed
up with all this stuff that he ran for Congress
and he won. He is now in his fifth term
in the US House, making a great difference for Christ
in that not just politically, but spiritually as well. We
(16:43):
can support candidates. We can pray for revival. We can
support candidates financially. These are all legitimate privileges of living
as a good citizen. Uh, but the difference is, is
that in the macro sense, we are not making a
state for evangelicalism. It's a personal, private thing. And I
think these are the kind of things that Christians ought
(17:05):
to get involved with.
S4 (17:07):
Yeah, I'm encouraged when I see that happening. You know,
in our in our local scene here where I live,
you know, to see people running for the school board
and that sort of thing, because, you know, we bring
our values just like the non-Christian brings their values to
a political setting. We bring our values to a political setting. So,
you know, we have a voice.
S2 (17:25):
But the voice can't be shrill. Yeah, I think that's important.
I think the voice has to be full of grace,
strength and courage. But at the same time, first, and
we may want to talk about this a little later.
And it can't be a voice that goes against the people.
It's got to go against the policies, right? Because people
(17:46):
are precious to Christ.
S4 (17:48):
Yes, absolutely. Now, in your book, you contrast the difference
between two kingdoms, our earthly kingdom and the kingdom of Christ.
Why is this important?
S2 (18:00):
Well, it's so important. When Christ came, he came into
a political environment where the Jews and the Jewish leaders
thought that when the Messiah arrives, he's going to arise
as a political conqueror, overthrow the oppressive regime of Rome,
and sit on the throne of David. In other words,
to actually Gary restore Israel to its former glory. That
(18:24):
was their hope. And Jesus came and he claimed to
be their man, but he was a surprise. You know,
it's interesting, um, after his baptism and temptation in the
wilderness and to kick off his ministry, he didn't run
up to Jerusalem and get connected with all the political
powers of Judaism to plot the overthrow of Rome. He
(18:47):
headed down country, and he recruited 12 commoners to go
with him into the lives of people. And if you
read Matthew and you read Luke so many times, this
is the commentary. And he healed the sick and proclaimed
the kingdom of God. He healed the sick and proclaimed
the kingdom of God. Now all of a sudden, we
(19:09):
have introduced a whole new kingdom, not the earthly kingdom,
not the overthrow of Rome, but the Kingdom of God.
And it's clear that he came not to overthrow an
earthly kingdom, but to launch a new kingdom, the Kingdom
of Christ. And the And the masses loved it. I mean,
they followed him and and he told parables about his kingdom,
(19:29):
and he recruited people to follow him into the kingdom.
He told us how to live in his kingdom in
the sermon on the Mount. And he was all about
launching a new kingdom. And he called his disciples to
help him advance the kingdom. And he calls us to
live to advance his kingdom as well. And I think
(19:51):
part of the thing that concerns me is that I
think a lot of us well intended, for sure. I
want to be gentle here. We just didn't know what
to do. Well intended. Have more passion to overthrow an
earthly kingdom and to restore its glory than we do
advance to advance the kingdom of Christ. And I think
(20:13):
we need to be called to his kingdom. I love it,
and in Colossians it says that God has transplanted us
out of the domain of darkness. I love that phrase
domain of darkness. It's kind of like Tolkien, isn't it?
The domain of darkness. That's the earthly kingdom transfer into
the kingdom of his dear sons. We are citizens of
(20:34):
a different kingdom. We are called to advance his kingdom.
And that kingdom, the advance of that kingdom is the
gospel of His Son. To liberate lost souls and welcome
their weary hearts to Jesus Christ. And so I think
once we understand there's two kingdoms going on here, we
have to prioritize his kingdom and not do anything to
(20:55):
damage people's welcome into the kingdom of Christ.
S4 (21:00):
Mhm. And we are not the ones who are going
to establish his kingdom on earth, right? That's his prerogative. When?
S2 (21:08):
Yeah.
S4 (21:09):
When he does that.
S2 (21:11):
Yeah. And I think exactly. That's such a really good point,
because the day will come when he will establish finally
his kingdom. You know, we're a part of that kingdom now,
and the culture of the kingdom is how we live
and welcome others to the culture of that kingdom. But
just read it. You too, love revelation 21. You know
(21:33):
when the day is coming, when he will conquer, finally
put sin and Satan away forever and welcome us into
his kingdom. And he will be our God, and we
will be our people, and we will wipe away every.
He will wipe away every tear, and there will be
no more death and no more dying, and all things
will be made new. Then we will know the fullness
(21:55):
of his kingdom. But right now we're kind of in
the entry stage of his kingdom. And like I said,
we're called to advance that and to do nothing to
damage the potential of the kingdom of Christ going into
people's hearts.
S4 (22:10):
Yeah. You know, one of the things I hear you
saying is that we're here to invite people into his kingdom.
Now this is far more important. Opening the door for
them to come into his kingdom than it is whatever
happens politically in our country or any country. We're there
(22:31):
to help people come into his kingdom, right?
S2 (22:34):
Amen. Exactly. And we should avoid anything that damages that potential.
S1 (22:43):
You're listening to the Building Relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman podcast.
If you go to Building Relationships, you'll find our featured
resource by our guest, Doctor Joe Stoll. His book is
titled This Light of Mine Living Like Jesus in a
non Jesus World. Find that in more ways to strengthen
your relationships there at building relationships.
S4 (23:07):
So Joe, you state that as Christians, we need to
stand with confidence and courage for biblical morality in areas
such as human sexuality and the sanctity of life. But
you go on to say that it must be coupled
with compassion. What does that look like?
S2 (23:25):
Mhm. And this I think this is one of the
tougher assignments Gary, because we need to be courageous in
standing for biblical truth and biblical morality. And we need
to have confidence that we're standing on the right side
and not be intimidated. But I think the problem is
that we're not compassionate. Compassion reaches out to the needs
(23:48):
of people. Right. So I think it's easy to appropriately
oppose policies that contradict our values, and at the same time,
see the people who are propagating the policies through a
negative lens like these are evil people. They need to
be shunned. They need to be defeated. And by the way,
I think parenthetically, I think we need to understand something.
(24:10):
No progressive who's advancing the Paganistic agenda today. Gary wakes
up in the morning and says, I need to do
something really evil today.
S4 (24:21):
Hmm.
S2 (24:22):
They think this is progress. They think they're a part
of a whole new world order. And all of these
things make life better. You know, there's no moral restrictions.
They they're excited about the future of the world, globally speaking.
With the emergence of this, this is their agenda. So
they're not intentionally evil. What they're doing is propagating evil agendas,
(24:47):
but they're not intentionally evil. But we tend to think
that they are, and we tend to think that they
should be shunned and they should be divided. We start
taking it personally to see them as the enemy. Now,
here's if we're going to live like Jesus in a
non Jesus world. As my book cover says, we need
to know that Jesus never saw people as the enemy.
(25:09):
None of them. Actually, the only harsh words he had
to say where the hypocrisy of the religious leaders and
the chief priests who had compromised themselves politically with Rome.
I mean, that was his most harsh language. He never
saw people as the enemy. In fact, it's interesting. And
this was a shock to the average good quote unquote,
(25:32):
Jewish mind when they asked him, who is my neighbor? Right.
Remember that? Yes. And Jesus tells the story of to
prove who is the neighbor. Guess who he chooses as
the hero of the story. A Samaritan. Mhm. The enemy
of the people. And we don't, you know, we probably
don't know about the geopolitics of Israel and Samaria in
(25:53):
that day. But the Samaritans were the hated evil people.
They were seen as the enemy of the temple, the
enemy of Israel. And Jesus chooses an enemy to be
the hero. The woman at the well. He risks his
whole reputation in Jerusalem to stick around and talk to
a woman. No rabbi would have ever done that. And
(26:13):
she was a Samaritan. And he stays in the city
and leads a revival in that enemy city. The centurion,
the Roman centurion, who by faith asks for healing. And
he says, you have more faith than anyone I know
in Israel. So Jesus never saw people as the enemy?
S4 (26:33):
Yeah.
S2 (26:34):
And he surprised the religious leaders of his day by
hanging out with sinners. I love Luke 15. This is
one of my most favorite stories. He's hanging out with
tax collectors and sinners. And Gary, you and I know
that they were low guys on the totem pole of morality, right?
They were the worst kind of people. Jews knew tax
(26:55):
collectors and sinners. And the Pharisees, it says, are watching
this and they're murmuring with each other. Ah, this man
hangs out with tax collectors and sinners and even eats
with them, Because it was anathema that he would and
I when Jesus. I wonder if when Jesus overheard them
(27:15):
grumbling like that, he said, oh, oh my. I don't
know what I was doing. I'm so sorry. I'm out
of here, you know? He stayed and he actually said,
you know why I stay with people like this? And
he tells the story of a lost sheep, a lost coin,
and a lost son. A lamb to a farmer was
(27:36):
a thing of value. The coin to this woman was
of value. The son of value to his father. That
the lost have value to God. And because he has
suffered a significant loss when Adam fell in the garden,
and the whole Metanarrative Scripture is the redemptive power of
Christ to bring the lost back to himself. And Jesus
(27:59):
is hanging out with the wrong kind of people on purpose,
because he came to seek and save that which was lost.
So we have to be very careful. We need to
be against the policies, but not the people. But we
need to be like Jesus to these people, praying for them,
seeking ways. And by the way, Jesus, this whole basic
plan for reaching the lost in this world shows a
(28:23):
way to get that done, actually. But so important. Marty
and I have a friend, a lady who had a ministry.
Get this to strippers. All right. In the nightclubs, in
the strip joints. So, you know what's a nice girl
like you doing in a place like this? You know,
and I'm sure a lot of people are. Well, why
are you doing it? But she would go into the clubs,
(28:46):
meet these girls, take them cookies, get acquainted, take them
away on weekends, take them on a retreat. She had
several of those girls to the Lord who were liberated
from the pimps that had them in bondage, who now
have life in Jesus Christ, have a real job and
a good life. You know, and I'm saying thank God
(29:08):
for her. You know, she's like Jesus, she's hanging out
with the wrong kind of people. Yeah, because she came
to seek and save that which was. That's just one example.
But I think that, uh, we need to take a
stand on issues of morality, but we have to keep
it in the policy world and love people in a
way that will offer to bring even. Maybe I have
(29:31):
time for just one more. I told you about my
friend who ran for Congress, and he. He works in
a bipartisan prayer group. And every once in a while,
one of the most liberal progressive Congress ladies comes that
she's a headliner for her progressive agenda. They ask her
what her needs are, they pray for her, and she says,
(29:55):
you know, when she leaves, she always stops me with
the tear in her eyes and says, thank you so
much for praying for me. Yeah, my guess is she's
a lot closer to Christ today than if all she
had was the. The vindictiveness she hears on the floor
of the House of Representatives. Because somebody cares about her.
S4 (30:16):
Yeah. Powerful. Powerful. You discussed earlier a bit of this,
but that the early church living under the oppression of
Rome were a was a hopeful church, that the early
Christians had a real sense of hope. How do you
define biblical hope? And how can we hold on to
(30:37):
that that hope.
S2 (30:39):
Mhm. Mhm. Well hope is a kingdom value. So if
we're going to be kingdom people we have to be
hopeful people. Sadly a recent survey of Americans revealed that.
Get a load of this. Only 10% of Americans see
evangelicals as hopeful.
S4 (30:55):
Hmm.
S2 (30:56):
Now how can we possibly have credibility and and be
attractive to a world when they see us like this.
I get the fact that hope is hard. I mean,
we've got a lot of reasons for losing hope on
a regular basis. When our candidates lose an election, when
the Supreme Court issues a decision that violates our values,
we lose hope. When we feel marginalized, we lose hope.
(31:19):
When we read headlines about the advance of progressive agenda,
we lose hope. But early Christians, in spite of the
hostility of their culture, they were seen as hopeful people.
You know why? Because their hope was not in earthside things.
Their hope was in Christ, was in the Lord, and
his promise that he would never leave them or forsake them.
(31:41):
His promise that he was coming again. His promise that
the best is yet to come. These were people of
the of the long view, and it gave them hope
in the midst of a hostile world. Talking to a
lady the other day, and she was so happy about
the November election, and she said, now we can hope again.
(32:02):
And I get exactly what she was saying. I get
what she was saying, Gary. But the point is, she's
got her hope in the wrong place.
S4 (32:11):
Yeah.
S2 (32:11):
You know, if if our hope is in politicians and
political gain or whatever, what happens four years from now
when we lose it now and we're hopeless again, right?
Like we're yo yo. Hope people hope today. Don't hope
tomorrow hope. But as the psalmist says, we do not
put our hope in chariots and horses, but we put
(32:32):
our hope in the Lord our God. Yeah. And those
early Christians had unwavering hope in the Lord their God,
because there were people of the long view and they
believed that God was faithful. He would keep his promise
and that biblical hope is not like our normal hope.
We say, boy, I hope it doesn't rain on vacation.
I hope the Cubs win another game nowadays. I hope
(32:56):
you know those are the maybes. But Hebrews 11 one says,
our hope is in a certainty of the faithfulness of
God to keep his promises to us, that he will
never leave us or forsake us, that he will be
with us. He will come again, and he will take
us home to heaven. And that makes us hopeful people.
And in a hopeless world that could be attractive to somebody.
(33:18):
I mean, it just might have the opportunity to share
the gospel. Why? How are you so hopeful? I thought
you'd never ask.
S4 (33:24):
Yeah. Powerful introduction. You know them asking us? Absolutely.
S2 (33:31):
Yeah. Right.
S4 (33:33):
Joe, take us back to the person of Christ. I mean,
you talked about this earlier. What was the plan of
Jesus in advancing his kingdom in a hostile environment? And
how does that plan transform our attitudes and our actions?
S2 (33:46):
Yeah. Well, thank you for asking that, because we have
now come to the moment where we can show the
plan of Jesus. And my book is all about unveiling
this wonderful plan in Matthew chapter five. He says, blessed
are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. Blessed are
you when others revile you and persecute you and utter
(34:08):
all kinds of evil. So he is speaking this plan
into a hostile environment, right? We live in a hostile environment.
And then he says, and here's the plan. You are
the light of the world. A city set on a
hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp
and put it under a basket. In the same way,
let your light shine before others so that they may see.
(34:30):
Now that's really not here. Your message, but see something
about you. See your good works and glorify your father
who is in heaven. And that word good. There is
the Greek word for not like I behave as a Christian.
I mean, that's going nowhere with the gospel. You can
say to somebody, hey, you could be a Christian. You
want to tithe like I do. That's not do you
(34:52):
want to go to church on Sunday like I do?
You want to want to stop sleeping around? You know,
like that's going nowhere, right? So this is not like
behaving yourself good. It's like doing good works that care
about people, works that meet the needs of people. In
my book we show this was the power of the
early church. We don't have time to talk about it now,
but this is the power of our lives that people
(35:16):
see something different in our lives. And interestingly enough, Peter
picks it up first Peter two and he says, keep
your lives honorable. Have good attitudes. When they call you evildoers,
let them see your good works and glorify your father
who is in heaven. So this is the plan. It's
something about our lives that is living for the blessing
(35:38):
of others, for the care of others, for the love
of others. Which then leads me to the chapter I
wrote on What's Love Got to Do with it. And
love is the central theme. It's interesting, Jesus said, that
we had to love in four ways. We had to
love God. We had to love our neighbor. We had
to love our enemy, and we had to love one another.
(36:01):
And as we lived the love of God out toward
other people in these four arenas, it gives us power.
Of course, loving God is obeying him. John chapter 13.
You'll be glad to know this Gary Chapman God has
a love language.
S4 (36:18):
That's right.
S2 (36:19):
He does. And it's our obedience when we surrender and
live according to his ways. So that's what it means
to love God. Loving our neighbor is the second arena
where we have power. You know, the the word neighbor
in Scripture is not the guy who lives well. It
includes the guy that lives next door, but it's anybody
(36:41):
who crosses your path. And Jesus talks us. How can
you reach out to how can you love them? I
think one fun story that I always remember was I
was out for my for my morning run and Marty said, hey,
bring a couple Starbucks lattes back because the end of
my run, there's a little Starbucks place, and it was
6 a.m. and I was the second guy in, and
(37:02):
the first guy is all over the barista, this young
kid trying to open up the store. He had a
New York Times in one hand, a $50 bill in
the other hand. He said, what do you mean you
don't have change? What kind of a place do you operating?
I want my news. I don't know. So I finally
stepped in and said, hey, I'll buy his newspaper for him.
And the guy looks at me like, really? I said, yeah, yeah.
(37:24):
And he takes the newspaper and starts. He said, all
I have is yours. Didn't include the $50 bill. But anyway.
So then he just kept going. And this is what
the barista said to me. He said, Mister, that was
a really nice thing you did. This world would be
a better place if there were more people like you.
And then I thought, I need to say something about
(37:45):
Jesus right now. And I couldn't think of what to say.
And have you ever had that had that moment? Like so?
I walked out with my lattes and got halfway down
the block. Oh, I should have said this. Well, actually,
the world wouldn't be a better place if a lot
of people were like me, but it'd be a better
place if a lot of people were like Jesus because
he taught me how to do this. I said, I'm
(38:06):
going to go back and say that to the kid.
I'm going to go back. So I walked and there
was already a line, and I didn't think butting in
the line make a religious speech was going to be
all that good. So, oh, I blew my opportunity. But
I remembered then I had my old beat up moody
Bible Institute hat, and I thought to myself, could it
be that he saw my head and he saw that
(38:27):
Bible people do these kinds of things. It was small.
I bought the guy a newspaper and it caught the
kid's attention, you know, and it's those small things that
we do to love our neighbor, and who knows what
the end result will be, or even like if you
want to go to the third arena, the loving of
our enemy or Christ makes that very clear that we
(38:48):
are to love our enemies. By the way, Gary, are
you really thankful that God loves his enemies? Yes.
S4 (38:57):
Or we wouldn't be. We wouldn't be in the family.
S2 (39:00):
No, we wouldn't be in the family. You know, and
he loved his enemies. And he asks us to love
our enemies. And this is a hard one because we
don't always know how to do that. But let's say
you had a really nasty neighbor who was always just nasty,
and then his wife comes down with serious cancer and
you're taking meals over. Maybe that's when you you show
(39:23):
the love of Christ to your enemy. And another really
favorite story is about Dan Cathy, who is CEO of
chick fil A. You know, the world loves chick fil A, right? Yeah. And, uh,
several years ago, he made a statement that he didn't
agree with same sex marriage. Well, that fired up the
whole gay system, and they they started picketing all the
(39:43):
chick fil A's. So now what's Cathy going to do?
Paula's lawyer called the police. You got to get these
pickets out of here. They're ruining my business. No, he
told all of his stores. Take them chicken sandwiches so
they hear. They go out to these picketers, are getting
free chicken sandwiches. And then he called the head activist
(40:05):
of this group, and he said, could I come by
and meet you? And I think the guy thought he
was going to get what for. And maybe Patsy's going
to say, call my lawyer. And but Cathy walked in
and sat down and said, you know, I just like
to get to know you. Tell me your story. Let
me tell you my story. And they became friends. In fact,
(40:25):
sometimes this guy sitting next to Cathy at the chick
fil A Bowl up in the skybox. So I have
to ask you this question. Is this gay activist closer
to knowing? I don't know, closer to knowing Jesus today
because Dan loved his enemy than he would have been
if Dan had sued him for ruining his business. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
(40:47):
And if you don't like the story, if it makes
you just remember Jesus with the worst people in his world.
You know, remember Luke chapter 15. And then the fourth
way that we influence our world is loving one another. Church,
I want to say this real slow. Church should be
a safe place where all are loved and accepted. Where
(41:08):
we park our preferences and prejudices at the door and
look for someone else that we can bless regardless and
walk in knowing Jesus is the center of all that
we do. There aren't many safe places for people today.
And I'm afraid that they think that churches are in
a real safe place. We drag our prejudices in our
(41:30):
preferences in. I'll tell you, it was an embarrassment during
Covid when Christians and churches and pastors fought vaxxers against
non vaxxers and attached spiritual meanings to whether you get
a vaccination or you don't, or whether you close the
church or whether you don't. It was such an embarrassment
to the gospel.
S4 (41:50):
Mhm.
S2 (41:51):
We're to love one another. You don't have to like
each other. I don't think Jesus likes everything about me,
but he loves me and he cares about me. And
so that's the power of love in influencing our culture
and keeping the gospel alive. And so I think right
at the core of the kingdom is this wonderful concept
(42:13):
of love in all four arenas.
S4 (42:15):
I've often said it's the most important word in the
English language. Love?
S2 (42:21):
Yeah. No doubt. Amen. Amen.
S4 (42:25):
Well, Joe, you've shared some examples of this, but give
us other examples of the kinds of actions that you're
talking about.
S2 (42:32):
Remember the little chorus, this little light of mine. I'm
going to let it shine. You know we can't think
like a Sunday school chorus, right? It is the core
of the power of the gospel, is for us to
let our light shine, and it melts the resistance of
the culture and at times even, is good enough to
(42:53):
draw someone into the kingdom. And so in my book,
I thankfully have given several illustrations of how this has
happened and sometimes very dramatic ways. But, you know, maybe
lighting up your. Your neighborhood, your town with good works
means a lot. I have a friend who pastors a
(43:13):
church in Vermont. All right. So he got stuck way
up in nowhere. It is right in the shadow of
Dartmouth University, Ivy League school. So obviously, it's progressive world
on steroids. And the whole Dartmouth, for the most part.
Community probably wouldn't care a bit about this church, you know,
(43:36):
and probably thinks this church is, You know, some medieval
myth that they worship over there, or maybe even hostile
toward the church for what we stand. But my buddy
Chris Gepner, who pastors the church, said, you know what?
We're going to bless our community. We're going to do
our good works. We're going to reach out into our
community and bless our community with the love of Christ
(44:00):
right there in the shadow of Dartmouth University. In spite
of all the cultural opposition, his church is booming and
seeing many come to Christ. So he's won the hearts
for Jesus by expressing the love of Jesus through good works.
They feed public school teachers lunch.
S4 (44:18):
Hmm.
S2 (44:19):
They've paid off hundreds of school lunch debts of impoverished
children who can't afford to pay for their lunches. They
operate and staff a soup kitchen for the hungry. Their
care ministry has paid the heating bills of many who,
in brutal Vermont winters, could not afford to afford to
pay their bills. You can count on it, Gary. People
(44:40):
who live in the shadow of Dartmouth's progressive power would
tell you that their world is a better place because
of the love of Christ they have received from Chris's church.
S4 (44:50):
Hmm.
S2 (44:51):
And I can't help but think of how different it
would have been if, like that pastor of the shower
guy that we talked about at the beginning of the program,
had positioned his church as an anti-progressive church and fired
off at the progressives in the Dartmouth community how dim
his light would have been, how unattractive the gospel would
(45:14):
have been. But his church is booming because of their
little light that they let shine in their community by
their good works that brought glory to their father in heaven.
And I think it's just one example of of what
can be done with people who follow the Jesus plan.
Remember we said at the very beginning, how can you
(45:37):
become credible with the gospel and in the face of
all this opposition? Well, just try a few good works
to your neighbor, to somebody you work with, your church,
to the area that you live in, and you just
might see the light of Jesus Christ shining brightly.
S4 (45:53):
What would happen if every Christian church in the country
had that attitude and that vision?
S2 (46:00):
Amen.
S4 (46:02):
Uh, if you had one other thing to say to
our listeners about living like Jesus in a non Jesus world,
which is, you know, what part of the title of
your book, uh, what would you say to them as
we leave today?
S2 (46:16):
I would just say, remember whose kingdom you belong to.
Remember the joy and privilege of advancing his kingdom over
and above your earthly kingdom. And remember how good the
gospel is to set people free. And what a treasure
that we that we carry the gospel, and to keep
it totally unhindered and to keep Jesus unbranded by anything
(46:40):
else except the power of his love. And to, you know,
every we're just commoners. We don't. We're not church pastors.
It's fine. Every day pray, Lord, how can I be
a blessing? How can I do a good work? How
can I reach out and let Jesus, uh, fulfill that prayer?
I think we ought to do one good work a
(47:01):
day just to stay in the habit. You know, that's
what I'm going to do. I'm going to let my
light shine somewhere today just to stay in shape.
S4 (47:11):
Anyone can do that with the help of God.
S2 (47:14):
Amen.
S4 (47:15):
Well, Joe, thanks again for being with us today. And
thanks for the time you invested in this book. I
think it's going to have a tremendous impact upon Christians.
S2 (47:23):
I pray it will.
S4 (47:25):
I hope our listeners will get a copy and also
share it with their friends. Mm.
S3 (47:29):
Well, what a challenging Conversation with Doctor Stolte today. If
you want to find out more about our featured resource,
go to Building Relationships. We have the book link right there.
It's titled This Light of Mine Living Like Jesus in
a non Jesus World. Again, go to Building Relationships.
S4 (47:48):
And next week we take your questions and comments from
our listener line.
S1 (47:52):
Here, our February edition of Dear Gary next week. And
if you'd like to ask a question, call one 860
642 for Gary and leave your message today. 186642 for Gary.
Our thanks to our production team Steve Wick and Janice.
Backing building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman is a production
(48:13):
of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry
of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.
Are you concerned about the direction of American culture? Are
you angry about some of the battles we face in
today's society? Does it feel like the bad guys have
won and the good guys are losing?
S2 (00:12):
How can you become credible with the gospel in the
face of all this opposition? Well, just try a few
good works to your neighbor, to somebody you work with,
your church, to the area that you live in, and
you just might see the light of Jesus Christ shining brightly.
S1 (00:30):
Welcome to building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman, author of
the New York Times best seller The Five Love Languages. Today,
former president of Moody Bible Institute and author Joe Stoll
will talk about how to live fully in an age
of anger and vitriol.
S3 (00:46):
Our featured resource is the book This Light of Mind
Living Like Jesus in a non Jesus World. You can
find out more at our website. Building relationships. And Gary,
I know you have seen this phenomenon. As you travel
around the country, there's a lot of anger, a lot
of frustration with the ways that the culture is moving
(01:07):
away from biblical morality. And we have to ask ourselves
some really hard questions, don't we?
S4 (01:13):
Well, I think we do. Chris, you know, I've sometimes
said it's like a civil war. We're having verbally, you know,
shooting each other down if we disagree with each other
and that sort of thing. So Doctor Joe Stoll has
written this book on the whole topic, and so I'm
excited about it. And I hope our listeners will stay
tuned because this is going to be helpful to them.
S3 (01:31):
I think so too. And if you have somebody in
your family that you disagreed with back in the during
the holidays about the political thing, listen to what Doctor
Joe Stoll says. He has a distinguished career in higher
education and church leadership, served as president of Moody Bible
Institute and then Cornerstone University, as well as pastoring several
churches in the Midwest. He's written several books, including strength
(01:55):
for the Journey and Simply Jesus. He and his wife
Marty have three children, ten grandchildren. And our featured resource
is that new book, This Light of Mine Living Like
Jesus in a Non Jesus World. Find out more at
Building Relationships.
S4 (02:12):
Well, Doctor Stoll, I've known you for a long while
and really, really glad to have you with us today
on building relationships.
S2 (02:18):
Yeah. Thank you Gary. So good to hear your voice.
You know, I just I treasure the memories of our
work together at Moody. And I certainly value the, you know,
just the great impact your writing has had on the
body of Christ. And my message is to. Because I
use your love languages as some illustrations in my messages.
(02:39):
So thanks for how you've been used to the Lord.
Delighted to be on this program with you, my friend.
S4 (02:45):
Well thank you. So tell us more about the why
of this book. I mean, this must have been something
really troubling. And you were disturbed about and wanted to
get a get a message out here. So tell us
what motivated you.
S2 (02:58):
Yeah, well, actually troubled, I was troubled, and I am.
I'm troubled about the gospel and our ability to do
the gospel in such a hostile culture. Uh, the psalmist,
Gary asks a real interesting question in Psalm 11 three.
He says, if the foundations be destroyed, what can the
righteous do? So what can we do? Because the foundations
(03:22):
of biblical morality have been obviously destroyed. Like, for instance,
what if you live next door to a neighbor who
has signs all over his yard pushing progressive agendas that
you know are anti-biblical? How do you build a gospel
bridge to somebody like that when he sees you as
(03:43):
a conservative Christian? How how do we do this? Or,
you know, if your fellow coworkers in the office know
your views on abortion and human sexuality Duality and think
that you're somehow related to Attila the Hun. How do
you build a bridge to the gospel, to people like that?
And so the real issue is, how can the gospel
(04:05):
through us be credible in a world gone wrong? That's
the probing question. My heart. I do like First Chronicles 1232, Gary,
where it says the men of Iskar, that was one
of the tribes of Israel, understood their times and knew
what to do. And thankfully, Jesus tells us what to do.
(04:26):
So it's not like we're left without a plan. But
my fear is that in not knowing what to do,
we have actually hindered the gospel. Gary, do you remember
when your kids were real little and you were doing
a project and they just wanted to help, and they
ended up getting in the way and making a bigger problem?
You know, why is it that when they're 18, they're
not willing to help? I don't fully understand that, but
(04:50):
my fear is that not knowing what to do. We've
been like little kids and that we've kind of messed
up the project and actually hindered the gospel. But like
I said, thankfully Jesus answers the question of Psalm 11
three and has given us a way to establish the
gospel credibility in our world, a world that really doesn't
(05:13):
want to hear what we have to say.
S4 (05:15):
Well, I'm guessing that every Christian who's listening to us
today is ready to hear because they're struggling also with this,
and they're observing themselves and others. Now, you state in
your book that evangelicals have hindered the spread of the
gospel by wrong attitudes and wrong actions. So what are
(05:36):
the attitudes and actions that concern you most?
S2 (05:39):
I think the attitudes that concern me most is how
we relate to and how we respond to the fact
that we've lost our culture to a paganism that has
trashed all of the values that we hold dear. I mean,
just make the list, right? A nation that has legalized
same sex marriage. Think of the power of the LGBTQ movement.
(06:00):
Think of gender issues. Think of pronoun issues. Think of
bathroom issues. Think of a nation where 70% of our
fellow Americans believe that abortion is a good thing. Some
of them all the way up to the unborn at
nine months. And think of the basic marginalization of those
(06:21):
of us who hold biblical values. So how have we
responded to that? Well, my observation in the last couple
of decades is we basically responded with a sense of despair.
I remember I was speaking to a relatively small group
of people, and actually, when I preach, people usually fall asleep.
And this occasion, there was a guy sitting on the
(06:43):
front row, and I had the boldness to make the statement,
I don't think we're going to get America back and
his body language just moved up. He almost stood up
out of his chair and he shouted out, oh no!
What will we do? And the despair in his voice
was just palatable. I think that, uh, a lot of
us are angry about this stuff. And in a real
(07:05):
fighting mood, a lot of us are hopeless. And basically,
the feeling that we're the losers, actually. When actually, if
you've read the last chapter, we're the winners, right? And
should be the last ones to express a sense of
despair and anger and hopelessness. And interestingly enough, this kind
of response, um, goes out to a lost world. And
(07:28):
guess what? There's a lot of anger in the lost world.
Lost people are in despair today. Lost people feel hopeless
about so many of the things in our culture. So
if we're like them, why would they want to have
what we have? If it's. It's just the same thing. Yeah.
(07:48):
This really came home to me, uh, when I retired
from my day job. I didn't retire from the kingdom,
but Marty and I go, what are we going to do?
And we decided, hey, let's go camping and let's go
out to the let's go out to the national parks
out west. And, Gary, we'd never camped a day in
our lives. I mean, this was like a high risk adventure.
(08:11):
But anyway, so we got a camper, and we've loved camping.
And most people who camp know that in campgrounds, they
have shower places where you can go and wash the
wilderness off. And I remember one morning walking down toward
the shower place where the showers were, and there was
a guy in front of me with a towel and oh, no,
he's going to beat me to the shower. And we
(08:32):
both walked in and he stopped to shave. In my advantage.
I went around to him back to where the showers were,
and there were two shower stalls, and there was another
man getting ready to get into his shower stall, Aristotle
and I greeted him, and then he just launched. He said,
do you know what I used to bring my little
girl in here for a shower? I'd never do that. Today,
(08:52):
in the day of trans and all this trans stuff.
And then we both kind of stepped into our showers,
and the wall between us went up about seven feet.
So it was open above. And I could hear him
and he just kept going. Just that same sex marriage problems.
How come the LGBTQ movement has so much power? We
never get a month. How come they never get a month?
Talked about the pronouns. And then he dragged a couple
(09:15):
of his politicians in and he couldn't stand. And it
was like, oh my goodness, I mean. And then he
said this. He said, I go to a great church.
He said, and my pastor's all over this kind of stuff.
He has zero tolerance for this. And I thought, hey,
he's a brother. And I'm going to kind of lighten
up the atmosphere here. And I said, hey, yeah, but
(09:37):
I've read the last chapter, I know who wins. And
he said, yeah, so do I, but we got to
fight about this stuff. And I thought, and, you know, actually,
I'm concerned about the same things. So are you. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
But it was his tone. It was his. But then
here's what happened. I stepped out of my shower, and
(09:58):
this guy who had beat me to the shower room,
who shaved, had walked down. He has his towel folded
over his arm, waiting to get in, in queue. He
heard the rant. Mhm. And Gary I was ashamed for
the gospel. Mhm. You know I could what would I
have said to this guy like hey you want to
(10:18):
be a Christian. You could be just like us you know.
You know that was going to be the big nonstarter right.
And so it's these attitudes of how we've responded, I
think have damaged the credibility of the gospel in our world.
And the actions, as you said, what about the attitudes
and actions? Is that we've politicized our faith by marrying
(10:40):
Jesus into the political systems of our day. So we
as evangelicals basically are not seen as a movement for
the kingdom of Christ, but as an opposing political force. Yeah.
And if we are the political enemy of all the
progressives and by the way, I think Jesus wants progressives
to be saved right to God. The gospel needs to
(11:02):
go to them, too, you know. But, you know, if
we're seen as this opposing political force, as the enemy,
nobody on the other side will want what we have.
Since we're the enemy. And so Jesus wants us to
put the welcome mat out of the gospel for everyone.
Even progressives. And I think we've done a lot of
damage there. So those in my mind are the attitudes
(11:25):
and the actions that have hindered the gospel in our day.
S4 (11:30):
You know, Joe, I was reflecting back on my own
life as you were talking as to where we are today.
And I remember when I was in high school, The
Bible was taught in my school. Old Testament survey. New
Testament survey. In in the public school. And every morning
(11:50):
the principal prayed over the P.A. system. And I was thinking.
S2 (11:57):
Wow.
S4 (11:57):
We have come a long ways.
S2 (12:00):
Yeah, we really have come a long way.
S4 (12:02):
Well, and I think what you were talking about earlier
is so true that that many non-Christians now simply view
Christians as a political force, you know, rather than and
don't even associate us with, with the gospel. It's just
those are those people that are, you know, against this
and this and this. So this is an important topic.
I'm really glad that you wrote this book. So, Joe,
(12:23):
we were discussing the whole issue of, you know, the
population today seeing Christians as just a political force. Can
you give us some examples of that?
S2 (12:33):
Yeah, right. Well, when our national evangelical leaders endorse candidates.
When we open political rallies with the prayer by a
local pastor who prays for the success of a candidate
and the defeat of the other candidate. When we platform
preferred political candidates at our major national gatherings, when we
sing worship songs, at political rallies, when we wear T-shirts
(12:58):
and caps that combined Jesus with our political preference, then
they get the impression, you know that Jesus is a
part of this thing. I remember Marty and I were
driving down the road, the country road in Louisiana. We
drove by this beautiful ranch, and it had this big
white fence out in front and over the driveway was
this banner, Jesus, our only Hope. That was so good.
(13:22):
But down the rest of the fence were flags touting
their preferred candidate. And I thought the average driver driving
here thinks that. Jesus. And that goes together. And I
also thought, Gary, What a powerful thing it would have
been if it was just the banner over the driveway.
Not married to the rest of the political stuff. There
(13:43):
have been so powerful. January 6th. I thought you we
all saw signs of people, you know, running against the
Capitol building with crosses and having Jesus on their sweatshirts,
and I was so burdened by that. So it's no wonder,
by the way, a recent survey says that evangelicals are
now seen by American adults through a political lens. And
(14:06):
here's the bad news. We have branded Jesus with a
political identity.
S4 (14:12):
Hmm.
S2 (14:13):
That's the really bad news. And he doesn't carry anybody
else's brand. You know, he is never Jesus. Plus, and
I've often wondered if when witnessing to someone, they might say, well,
but do I have to become a right wing patriot
to close the deal? So I think there's a lot
of evidence to the fact that the gospel has been
(14:35):
hindered by our political infusion. Of Christ and politics.
S4 (14:41):
Now, I think some of our listeners may well be
asking when they hear you. Say that. But aren't we
supposed to be an influence, you know, and seek to
influence the morality of our culture?
S2 (14:53):
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks. Thank you for saying that. But we
need to do it in the name of Jesus, not
in the name of a political candidate.
S4 (15:01):
Hmm.
S2 (15:01):
But we need to do it in the name of
the kingdom of Christ. You know, we are here bringing
morality to you in the name of Jesus. And not
in a political party, but of the kingdom of Christ. So,
you know, it's all a matter of, uh, keeping Jesus
central focused and not compromised, really, with all the political
(15:23):
systems of our day.
S4 (15:25):
Yeah, well, let's talk about the whole political world. You know,
what are some legitimate ways for evangelicals to influence our
culture through the political scene?
S2 (15:35):
No. Yeah. A great question, Gary, because, you know, interestingly enough,
the early church thrived. They flourished in a very hostile culture,
far more hostile than ours. And the gospel went forth
with strength. And in my book, I do a lot
of contrast to what was their secret. How did they
do this? But one thing they didn't have, they couldn't
(15:57):
vote the emperor out. I mean, they had zero political clout.
So we do have some advantages that I think are
very legitimate. And as good citizens, you know, we should
be responsible for that. Obviously, one is we can vote, right?
And we can cast our vote for candidates who support
our values and who advance morality in our world. If
(16:19):
there are any there running for that, we can volunteer.
We can run for school boards. We can run for
political office. I have a friend who got so fed
up with all this stuff that he ran for Congress
and he won. He is now in his fifth term
in the US House, making a great difference for Christ
in that not just politically, but spiritually as well. We
(16:43):
can support candidates. We can pray for revival. We can
support candidates financially. These are all legitimate privileges of living
as a good citizen. Uh, but the difference is, is
that in the macro sense, we are not making a
state for evangelicalism. It's a personal, private thing. And I
think these are the kind of things that Christians ought
(17:05):
to get involved with.
S4 (17:07):
Yeah, I'm encouraged when I see that happening. You know,
in our in our local scene here where I live,
you know, to see people running for the school board
and that sort of thing, because, you know, we bring
our values just like the non-Christian brings their values to
a political setting. We bring our values to a political setting. So,
you know, we have a voice.
S2 (17:25):
But the voice can't be shrill. Yeah, I think that's important.
I think the voice has to be full of grace,
strength and courage. But at the same time, first, and
we may want to talk about this a little later.
And it can't be a voice that goes against the people.
It's got to go against the policies, right? Because people
(17:46):
are precious to Christ.
S4 (17:48):
Yes, absolutely. Now, in your book, you contrast the difference
between two kingdoms, our earthly kingdom and the kingdom of Christ.
Why is this important?
S2 (18:00):
Well, it's so important. When Christ came, he came into
a political environment where the Jews and the Jewish leaders
thought that when the Messiah arrives, he's going to arise
as a political conqueror, overthrow the oppressive regime of Rome,
and sit on the throne of David. In other words,
to actually Gary restore Israel to its former glory. That
(18:24):
was their hope. And Jesus came and he claimed to
be their man, but he was a surprise. You know,
it's interesting, um, after his baptism and temptation in the
wilderness and to kick off his ministry, he didn't run
up to Jerusalem and get connected with all the political
powers of Judaism to plot the overthrow of Rome. He
(18:47):
headed down country, and he recruited 12 commoners to go
with him into the lives of people. And if you
read Matthew and you read Luke so many times, this
is the commentary. And he healed the sick and proclaimed
the kingdom of God. He healed the sick and proclaimed
the kingdom of God. Now all of a sudden, we
(19:09):
have introduced a whole new kingdom, not the earthly kingdom,
not the overthrow of Rome, but the Kingdom of God.
And it's clear that he came not to overthrow an
earthly kingdom, but to launch a new kingdom, the Kingdom
of Christ. And the And the masses loved it. I mean,
they followed him and and he told parables about his kingdom,
(19:29):
and he recruited people to follow him into the kingdom.
He told us how to live in his kingdom in
the sermon on the Mount. And he was all about
launching a new kingdom. And he called his disciples to
help him advance the kingdom. And he calls us to
live to advance his kingdom as well. And I think
(19:51):
part of the thing that concerns me is that I
think a lot of us well intended, for sure. I
want to be gentle here. We just didn't know what
to do. Well intended. Have more passion to overthrow an
earthly kingdom and to restore its glory than we do
advance to advance the kingdom of Christ. And I think
(20:13):
we need to be called to his kingdom. I love it,
and in Colossians it says that God has transplanted us
out of the domain of darkness. I love that phrase
domain of darkness. It's kind of like Tolkien, isn't it?
The domain of darkness. That's the earthly kingdom transfer into
the kingdom of his dear sons. We are citizens of
(20:34):
a different kingdom. We are called to advance his kingdom.
And that kingdom, the advance of that kingdom is the
gospel of His Son. To liberate lost souls and welcome
their weary hearts to Jesus Christ. And so I think
once we understand there's two kingdoms going on here, we
have to prioritize his kingdom and not do anything to
(20:55):
damage people's welcome into the kingdom of Christ.
S4 (21:00):
Mhm. And we are not the ones who are going
to establish his kingdom on earth, right? That's his prerogative. When?
S2 (21:08):
Yeah.
S4 (21:09):
When he does that.
S2 (21:11):
Yeah. And I think exactly. That's such a really good point,
because the day will come when he will establish finally
his kingdom. You know, we're a part of that kingdom now,
and the culture of the kingdom is how we live
and welcome others to the culture of that kingdom. But
just read it. You too, love revelation 21. You know
(21:33):
when the day is coming, when he will conquer, finally
put sin and Satan away forever and welcome us into
his kingdom. And he will be our God, and we
will be our people, and we will wipe away every.
He will wipe away every tear, and there will be
no more death and no more dying, and all things
will be made new. Then we will know the fullness
(21:55):
of his kingdom. But right now we're kind of in
the entry stage of his kingdom. And like I said,
we're called to advance that and to do nothing to
damage the potential of the kingdom of Christ going into
people's hearts.
S4 (22:10):
Yeah. You know, one of the things I hear you
saying is that we're here to invite people into his kingdom.
Now this is far more important. Opening the door for
them to come into his kingdom than it is whatever
happens politically in our country or any country. We're there
(22:31):
to help people come into his kingdom, right?
S2 (22:34):
Amen. Exactly. And we should avoid anything that damages that potential.
S1 (22:43):
You're listening to the Building Relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman podcast.
If you go to Building Relationships, you'll find our featured
resource by our guest, Doctor Joe Stoll. His book is
titled This Light of Mine Living Like Jesus in a
non Jesus World. Find that in more ways to strengthen
your relationships there at building relationships.
S4 (23:07):
So Joe, you state that as Christians, we need to
stand with confidence and courage for biblical morality in areas
such as human sexuality and the sanctity of life. But
you go on to say that it must be coupled
with compassion. What does that look like?
S2 (23:25):
Mhm. And this I think this is one of the
tougher assignments Gary, because we need to be courageous in
standing for biblical truth and biblical morality. And we need
to have confidence that we're standing on the right side
and not be intimidated. But I think the problem is
that we're not compassionate. Compassion reaches out to the needs
(23:48):
of people. Right. So I think it's easy to appropriately
oppose policies that contradict our values, and at the same time,
see the people who are propagating the policies through a
negative lens like these are evil people. They need to
be shunned. They need to be defeated. And by the way,
I think parenthetically, I think we need to understand something.
(24:10):
No progressive who's advancing the Paganistic agenda today. Gary wakes
up in the morning and says, I need to do
something really evil today.
S4 (24:21):
Hmm.
S2 (24:22):
They think this is progress. They think they're a part
of a whole new world order. And all of these
things make life better. You know, there's no moral restrictions.
They they're excited about the future of the world, globally speaking.
With the emergence of this, this is their agenda. So
they're not intentionally evil. What they're doing is propagating evil agendas,
(24:47):
but they're not intentionally evil. But we tend to think
that they are, and we tend to think that they
should be shunned and they should be divided. We start
taking it personally to see them as the enemy. Now,
here's if we're going to live like Jesus in a
non Jesus world. As my book cover says, we need
to know that Jesus never saw people as the enemy.
(25:09):
None of them. Actually, the only harsh words he had
to say where the hypocrisy of the religious leaders and
the chief priests who had compromised themselves politically with Rome.
I mean, that was his most harsh language. He never
saw people as the enemy. In fact, it's interesting. And
this was a shock to the average good quote unquote,
(25:32):
Jewish mind when they asked him, who is my neighbor? Right.
Remember that? Yes. And Jesus tells the story of to
prove who is the neighbor. Guess who he chooses as
the hero of the story. A Samaritan. Mhm. The enemy
of the people. And we don't, you know, we probably
don't know about the geopolitics of Israel and Samaria in
(25:53):
that day. But the Samaritans were the hated evil people.
They were seen as the enemy of the temple, the
enemy of Israel. And Jesus chooses an enemy to be
the hero. The woman at the well. He risks his
whole reputation in Jerusalem to stick around and talk to
a woman. No rabbi would have ever done that. And
(26:13):
she was a Samaritan. And he stays in the city
and leads a revival in that enemy city. The centurion,
the Roman centurion, who by faith asks for healing. And
he says, you have more faith than anyone I know
in Israel. So Jesus never saw people as the enemy?
S4 (26:33):
Yeah.
S2 (26:34):
And he surprised the religious leaders of his day by
hanging out with sinners. I love Luke 15. This is
one of my most favorite stories. He's hanging out with
tax collectors and sinners. And Gary, you and I know
that they were low guys on the totem pole of morality, right?
They were the worst kind of people. Jews knew tax
(26:55):
collectors and sinners. And the Pharisees, it says, are watching
this and they're murmuring with each other. Ah, this man
hangs out with tax collectors and sinners and even eats
with them, Because it was anathema that he would and
I when Jesus. I wonder if when Jesus overheard them
(27:15):
grumbling like that, he said, oh, oh my. I don't
know what I was doing. I'm so sorry. I'm out
of here, you know? He stayed and he actually said,
you know why I stay with people like this? And
he tells the story of a lost sheep, a lost coin,
and a lost son. A lamb to a farmer was
(27:36):
a thing of value. The coin to this woman was
of value. The son of value to his father. That
the lost have value to God. And because he has
suffered a significant loss when Adam fell in the garden,
and the whole Metanarrative Scripture is the redemptive power of
Christ to bring the lost back to himself. And Jesus
(27:59):
is hanging out with the wrong kind of people on purpose,
because he came to seek and save that which was lost.
So we have to be very careful. We need to
be against the policies, but not the people. But we
need to be like Jesus to these people, praying for them,
seeking ways. And by the way, Jesus, this whole basic
plan for reaching the lost in this world shows a
(28:23):
way to get that done, actually. But so important. Marty
and I have a friend, a lady who had a ministry.
Get this to strippers. All right. In the nightclubs, in
the strip joints. So, you know what's a nice girl
like you doing in a place like this? You know,
and I'm sure a lot of people are. Well, why
are you doing it? But she would go into the clubs,
(28:46):
meet these girls, take them cookies, get acquainted, take them
away on weekends, take them on a retreat. She had
several of those girls to the Lord who were liberated
from the pimps that had them in bondage, who now
have life in Jesus Christ, have a real job and
a good life. You know, and I'm saying thank God
(29:08):
for her. You know, she's like Jesus, she's hanging out
with the wrong kind of people. Yeah, because she came
to seek and save that which was. That's just one example.
But I think that, uh, we need to take a
stand on issues of morality, but we have to keep
it in the policy world and love people in a
way that will offer to bring even. Maybe I have
(29:31):
time for just one more. I told you about my
friend who ran for Congress, and he. He works in
a bipartisan prayer group. And every once in a while,
one of the most liberal progressive Congress ladies comes that
she's a headliner for her progressive agenda. They ask her
what her needs are, they pray for her, and she says,
(29:55):
you know, when she leaves, she always stops me with
the tear in her eyes and says, thank you so
much for praying for me. Yeah, my guess is she's
a lot closer to Christ today than if all she
had was the. The vindictiveness she hears on the floor
of the House of Representatives. Because somebody cares about her.
S4 (30:16):
Yeah. Powerful. Powerful. You discussed earlier a bit of this,
but that the early church living under the oppression of
Rome were a was a hopeful church, that the early
Christians had a real sense of hope. How do you
define biblical hope? And how can we hold on to
(30:37):
that that hope.
S2 (30:39):
Mhm. Mhm. Well hope is a kingdom value. So if
we're going to be kingdom people we have to be
hopeful people. Sadly a recent survey of Americans revealed that.
Get a load of this. Only 10% of Americans see
evangelicals as hopeful.
S4 (30:55):
Hmm.
S2 (30:56):
Now how can we possibly have credibility and and be
attractive to a world when they see us like this.
I get the fact that hope is hard. I mean,
we've got a lot of reasons for losing hope on
a regular basis. When our candidates lose an election, when
the Supreme Court issues a decision that violates our values,
we lose hope. When we feel marginalized, we lose hope.
(31:19):
When we read headlines about the advance of progressive agenda,
we lose hope. But early Christians, in spite of the
hostility of their culture, they were seen as hopeful people.
You know why? Because their hope was not in earthside things.
Their hope was in Christ, was in the Lord, and
his promise that he would never leave them or forsake them.
(31:41):
His promise that he was coming again. His promise that
the best is yet to come. These were people of
the of the long view, and it gave them hope
in the midst of a hostile world. Talking to a
lady the other day, and she was so happy about
the November election, and she said, now we can hope again.
(32:02):
And I get exactly what she was saying. I get
what she was saying, Gary. But the point is, she's
got her hope in the wrong place.
S4 (32:11):
Yeah.
S2 (32:11):
You know, if if our hope is in politicians and
political gain or whatever, what happens four years from now
when we lose it now and we're hopeless again, right?
Like we're yo yo. Hope people hope today. Don't hope
tomorrow hope. But as the psalmist says, we do not
put our hope in chariots and horses, but we put
(32:32):
our hope in the Lord our God. Yeah. And those
early Christians had unwavering hope in the Lord their God,
because there were people of the long view and they
believed that God was faithful. He would keep his promise
and that biblical hope is not like our normal hope.
We say, boy, I hope it doesn't rain on vacation.
I hope the Cubs win another game nowadays. I hope
(32:56):
you know those are the maybes. But Hebrews 11 one says,
our hope is in a certainty of the faithfulness of
God to keep his promises to us, that he will
never leave us or forsake us, that he will be
with us. He will come again, and he will take
us home to heaven. And that makes us hopeful people.
And in a hopeless world that could be attractive to somebody.
(33:18):
I mean, it just might have the opportunity to share
the gospel. Why? How are you so hopeful? I thought
you'd never ask.
S4 (33:24):
Yeah. Powerful introduction. You know them asking us? Absolutely.
S2 (33:31):
Yeah. Right.
S4 (33:33):
Joe, take us back to the person of Christ. I mean,
you talked about this earlier. What was the plan of
Jesus in advancing his kingdom in a hostile environment? And
how does that plan transform our attitudes and our actions?
S2 (33:46):
Yeah. Well, thank you for asking that, because we have
now come to the moment where we can show the
plan of Jesus. And my book is all about unveiling
this wonderful plan in Matthew chapter five. He says, blessed
are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. Blessed are
you when others revile you and persecute you and utter
(34:08):
all kinds of evil. So he is speaking this plan
into a hostile environment, right? We live in a hostile environment.
And then he says, and here's the plan. You are
the light of the world. A city set on a
hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp
and put it under a basket. In the same way,
let your light shine before others so that they may see.
(34:30):
Now that's really not here. Your message, but see something
about you. See your good works and glorify your father
who is in heaven. And that word good. There is
the Greek word for not like I behave as a Christian.
I mean, that's going nowhere with the gospel. You can
say to somebody, hey, you could be a Christian. You
want to tithe like I do. That's not do you
(34:52):
want to go to church on Sunday like I do?
You want to want to stop sleeping around? You know,
like that's going nowhere, right? So this is not like
behaving yourself good. It's like doing good works that care
about people, works that meet the needs of people. In
my book we show this was the power of the
early church. We don't have time to talk about it now,
but this is the power of our lives that people
(35:16):
see something different in our lives. And interestingly enough, Peter
picks it up first Peter two and he says, keep
your lives honorable. Have good attitudes. When they call you evildoers,
let them see your good works and glorify your father
who is in heaven. So this is the plan. It's
something about our lives that is living for the blessing
(35:38):
of others, for the care of others, for the love
of others. Which then leads me to the chapter I
wrote on What's Love Got to Do with it. And
love is the central theme. It's interesting, Jesus said, that
we had to love in four ways. We had to
love God. We had to love our neighbor. We had
to love our enemy, and we had to love one another.
(36:01):
And as we lived the love of God out toward
other people in these four arenas, it gives us power.
Of course, loving God is obeying him. John chapter 13.
You'll be glad to know this Gary Chapman God has
a love language.
S4 (36:18):
That's right.
S2 (36:19):
He does. And it's our obedience when we surrender and
live according to his ways. So that's what it means
to love God. Loving our neighbor is the second arena
where we have power. You know, the the word neighbor
in Scripture is not the guy who lives well. It
includes the guy that lives next door, but it's anybody
(36:41):
who crosses your path. And Jesus talks us. How can
you reach out to how can you love them? I
think one fun story that I always remember was I
was out for my for my morning run and Marty said, hey,
bring a couple Starbucks lattes back because the end of
my run, there's a little Starbucks place, and it was
6 a.m. and I was the second guy in, and
(37:02):
the first guy is all over the barista, this young
kid trying to open up the store. He had a
New York Times in one hand, a $50 bill in
the other hand. He said, what do you mean you
don't have change? What kind of a place do you operating?
I want my news. I don't know. So I finally
stepped in and said, hey, I'll buy his newspaper for him.
And the guy looks at me like, really? I said, yeah, yeah.
(37:24):
And he takes the newspaper and starts. He said, all
I have is yours. Didn't include the $50 bill. But anyway.
So then he just kept going. And this is what
the barista said to me. He said, Mister, that was
a really nice thing you did. This world would be
a better place if there were more people like you.
And then I thought, I need to say something about
(37:45):
Jesus right now. And I couldn't think of what to say.
And have you ever had that had that moment? Like so?
I walked out with my lattes and got halfway down
the block. Oh, I should have said this. Well, actually,
the world wouldn't be a better place if a lot
of people were like me, but it'd be a better
place if a lot of people were like Jesus because
he taught me how to do this. I said, I'm
(38:06):
going to go back and say that to the kid.
I'm going to go back. So I walked and there
was already a line, and I didn't think butting in
the line make a religious speech was going to be
all that good. So, oh, I blew my opportunity. But
I remembered then I had my old beat up moody
Bible Institute hat, and I thought to myself, could it
be that he saw my head and he saw that
(38:27):
Bible people do these kinds of things. It was small.
I bought the guy a newspaper and it caught the
kid's attention, you know, and it's those small things that
we do to love our neighbor, and who knows what
the end result will be, or even like if you
want to go to the third arena, the loving of
our enemy or Christ makes that very clear that we
(38:48):
are to love our enemies. By the way, Gary, are
you really thankful that God loves his enemies? Yes.
S4 (38:57):
Or we wouldn't be. We wouldn't be in the family.
S2 (39:00):
No, we wouldn't be in the family. You know, and
he loved his enemies. And he asks us to love
our enemies. And this is a hard one because we
don't always know how to do that. But let's say
you had a really nasty neighbor who was always just nasty,
and then his wife comes down with serious cancer and
you're taking meals over. Maybe that's when you you show
(39:23):
the love of Christ to your enemy. And another really
favorite story is about Dan Cathy, who is CEO of
chick fil A. You know, the world loves chick fil A, right? Yeah. And, uh,
several years ago, he made a statement that he didn't
agree with same sex marriage. Well, that fired up the
whole gay system, and they they started picketing all the
(39:43):
chick fil A's. So now what's Cathy going to do?
Paula's lawyer called the police. You got to get these
pickets out of here. They're ruining my business. No, he
told all of his stores. Take them chicken sandwiches so
they hear. They go out to these picketers, are getting
free chicken sandwiches. And then he called the head activist
(40:05):
of this group, and he said, could I come by
and meet you? And I think the guy thought he
was going to get what for. And maybe Patsy's going
to say, call my lawyer. And but Cathy walked in
and sat down and said, you know, I just like
to get to know you. Tell me your story. Let
me tell you my story. And they became friends. In fact,
(40:25):
sometimes this guy sitting next to Cathy at the chick
fil A Bowl up in the skybox. So I have
to ask you this question. Is this gay activist closer
to knowing? I don't know, closer to knowing Jesus today
because Dan loved his enemy than he would have been
if Dan had sued him for ruining his business. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
(40:47):
And if you don't like the story, if it makes
you just remember Jesus with the worst people in his world.
You know, remember Luke chapter 15. And then the fourth
way that we influence our world is loving one another. Church,
I want to say this real slow. Church should be
a safe place where all are loved and accepted. Where
(41:08):
we park our preferences and prejudices at the door and
look for someone else that we can bless regardless and
walk in knowing Jesus is the center of all that
we do. There aren't many safe places for people today.
And I'm afraid that they think that churches are in
a real safe place. We drag our prejudices in our
(41:30):
preferences in. I'll tell you, it was an embarrassment during
Covid when Christians and churches and pastors fought vaxxers against
non vaxxers and attached spiritual meanings to whether you get
a vaccination or you don't, or whether you close the
church or whether you don't. It was such an embarrassment
to the gospel.
S4 (41:50):
Mhm.
S2 (41:51):
We're to love one another. You don't have to like
each other. I don't think Jesus likes everything about me,
but he loves me and he cares about me. And
so that's the power of love in influencing our culture
and keeping the gospel alive. And so I think right
at the core of the kingdom is this wonderful concept
(42:13):
of love in all four arenas.
S4 (42:15):
I've often said it's the most important word in the
English language. Love?
S2 (42:21):
Yeah. No doubt. Amen. Amen.
S4 (42:25):
Well, Joe, you've shared some examples of this, but give
us other examples of the kinds of actions that you're
talking about.
S2 (42:32):
Remember the little chorus, this little light of mine. I'm
going to let it shine. You know we can't think
like a Sunday school chorus, right? It is the core
of the power of the gospel, is for us to
let our light shine, and it melts the resistance of
the culture and at times even, is good enough to
(42:53):
draw someone into the kingdom. And so in my book,
I thankfully have given several illustrations of how this has
happened and sometimes very dramatic ways. But, you know, maybe
lighting up your. Your neighborhood, your town with good works
means a lot. I have a friend who pastors a
(43:13):
church in Vermont. All right. So he got stuck way
up in nowhere. It is right in the shadow of
Dartmouth University, Ivy League school. So obviously, it's progressive world
on steroids. And the whole Dartmouth, for the most part.
Community probably wouldn't care a bit about this church, you know,
(43:36):
and probably thinks this church is, You know, some medieval
myth that they worship over there, or maybe even hostile
toward the church for what we stand. But my buddy
Chris Gepner, who pastors the church, said, you know what?
We're going to bless our community. We're going to do
our good works. We're going to reach out into our
community and bless our community with the love of Christ
(44:00):
right there in the shadow of Dartmouth University. In spite
of all the cultural opposition, his church is booming and
seeing many come to Christ. So he's won the hearts
for Jesus by expressing the love of Jesus through good works.
They feed public school teachers lunch.
S4 (44:18):
Hmm.
S2 (44:19):
They've paid off hundreds of school lunch debts of impoverished
children who can't afford to pay for their lunches. They
operate and staff a soup kitchen for the hungry. Their
care ministry has paid the heating bills of many who,
in brutal Vermont winters, could not afford to afford to
pay their bills. You can count on it, Gary. People
(44:40):
who live in the shadow of Dartmouth's progressive power would
tell you that their world is a better place because
of the love of Christ they have received from Chris's church.
S4 (44:50):
Hmm.
S2 (44:51):
And I can't help but think of how different it
would have been if, like that pastor of the shower
guy that we talked about at the beginning of the program,
had positioned his church as an anti-progressive church and fired
off at the progressives in the Dartmouth community how dim
his light would have been, how unattractive the gospel would
(45:14):
have been. But his church is booming because of their
little light that they let shine in their community by
their good works that brought glory to their father in heaven.
And I think it's just one example of of what
can be done with people who follow the Jesus plan.
Remember we said at the very beginning, how can you
(45:37):
become credible with the gospel and in the face of
all this opposition? Well, just try a few good works
to your neighbor, to somebody you work with, your church,
to the area that you live in, and you just
might see the light of Jesus Christ shining brightly.
S4 (45:53):
What would happen if every Christian church in the country
had that attitude and that vision?
S2 (46:00):
Amen.
S4 (46:02):
Uh, if you had one other thing to say to
our listeners about living like Jesus in a non Jesus world,
which is, you know, what part of the title of
your book, uh, what would you say to them as
we leave today?
S2 (46:16):
I would just say, remember whose kingdom you belong to.
Remember the joy and privilege of advancing his kingdom over
and above your earthly kingdom. And remember how good the
gospel is to set people free. And what a treasure
that we that we carry the gospel, and to keep
it totally unhindered and to keep Jesus unbranded by anything
(46:40):
else except the power of his love. And to, you know,
every we're just commoners. We don't. We're not church pastors.
It's fine. Every day pray, Lord, how can I be
a blessing? How can I do a good work? How
can I reach out and let Jesus, uh, fulfill that prayer?
I think we ought to do one good work a
(47:01):
day just to stay in the habit. You know, that's
what I'm going to do. I'm going to let my
light shine somewhere today just to stay in shape.
S4 (47:11):
Anyone can do that with the help of God.
S2 (47:14):
Amen.
S4 (47:15):
Well, Joe, thanks again for being with us today. And
thanks for the time you invested in this book. I
think it's going to have a tremendous impact upon Christians.
S2 (47:23):
I pray it will.
S4 (47:25):
I hope our listeners will get a copy and also
share it with their friends. Mm.
S3 (47:29):
Well, what a challenging Conversation with Doctor Stolte today. If
you want to find out more about our featured resource,
go to Building Relationships. We have the book link right there.
It's titled This Light of Mine Living Like Jesus in
a non Jesus World. Again, go to Building Relationships.
S4 (47:48):
And next week we take your questions and comments from
our listener line.
S1 (47:52):
Here, our February edition of Dear Gary next week. And
if you'd like to ask a question, call one 860
642 for Gary and leave your message today. 186642 for Gary.
Our thanks to our production team Steve Wick and Janice.
Backing building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman is a production
(48:13):
of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry
of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.
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