Live Free with Josh Howerton - How I Met Christ • Pastor Derwin Gray | Ep. 205 | Friday November 17, 2023

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

Tune in as Pastor Derwin Gray shares his personal testimony and faith journey. Thanks to a persistent and faithful man who shared his faith over and over, the Gospel transformed Pastor Derwin’s perspective of Christianity from moral improvement to seeking a personal relationship with God. You won’t want to miss this episode! For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.compturch slash daily drive. In this week's episodes, we will be hearing from our special guest, Pastor Derwin Gray. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Lake Point Church Friends, what's happening?

This is Pastor Derwin, co-founder and lead pastor of Transformation Church. Welcome to the Daily Drive Lake Point Church podcast. It has been awesome hanging out with you guys. And I pray and hope that just a fraction of what I've said has created a spark in your heart to love Jesus more, to know how much your love. loved by him to send you into the world to love hurting people. Speaking of that, I want to tell you how I met Christ. So I didn't grow up in church.

My faith, my religion was basically football. Football was my God. And it served me well until I got to the NFL. And I recognized that the NFL stands for not for long. But in the midst of this journey, I had a teammate. His name was Steve Grant. His nickname was The Naked Pre-Macon. his nickname was the naked preacher.

The reason why his nickname was the naked preacher is because every day after practice, he would take a shower, dry off, get a towel, wrap it around his waist, get his Bible, and he would begin to share Jesus with my teammates. Me not being interested in spiritual things thought it was somewhat weird that there was a naked preacher. And in my mind, I'm going, naked preacher, do you realize you're half naked in an NFL locker room preaching about Jesus? So I asked some of the veterans on the team, what's up with the half naked black man walking around talking about, do you know Jesus?

Well, they said, don't pay no attention to him because that's the naked preacher. Well, one day I'm sitting in my locker, and I see the naked preacher coming towards me. I turned my back to let him know I'm not interested. He taps me on the back and he says, rookie de Grey, do you know Jesus? And I began to explain to him how I was a good person and all this stuff. And he stopped and he said, well, good, cool. compared to who, because the standard of goodness is God. And I said, I'm in trouble. He goes, yeah, we are in trouble, but let me tell you what Jesus did to get you out of trouble.

And so over a five-year process, he shared the gospel with me that Christianity is not really about bad people becoming good. It's about dead people becoming spiritual life and becoming conform to the image of Christ. And so in my life, I had the naked preacher, I had a football career where I was experiencing injuries, and I recognized I couldn't love my wife because I didn't love myself. And it all came into place. On August 2nd, 1997, I'm in a small dorm room, and I call my wife on the phone and I say, sweetheart, I want to be more committed to you and I want to be committed to Jesus. at that moment, I knew I was loved, I knew I was forgiven, and somehow, some way, I knew that I was new. Listen, I'm not asking you to be a naked preacher, but God has given you the healing balm

for the world, and it's the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It is a good news. This is what I want you to do. I want you to pray for God to bring people into your life that don't know his son Jesus so you can share the good news with them in relationship and inviting them to Lake Point Church to hear the gospel. There's a hurting world in need of a loving Savior and you and I have been given the ministry of sharing that message. This is Pastor Derwin Gray. Marinate on the that. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure

to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out? For more information about all digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint.compt.com.com.com slash daily drive. live.