Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1009 | Willie Robertson on Sharing the Gospel | Guest: Willie Robertson

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

Today, we sit down with Willie Robertson of "Duck Dynasty" about his new book "Gospeler: Turning Darkness into Light One Conversation at a Time." What does "Gospeler" mean and what is its historical basis? How should Christians share the gospel? How can Christians overcome bumps in their faith and doubts about sharing the truth? And what should Christians do to prepare to evangelize through conversations? Willie also shares his testimony and the story of how one conversation changed the entire Robertson family. You can get Willie's book here: https://a.co/d/6pwOws4 Get your tickets for Share the Arrows: https://www.sharethearrows.com/ --- Timecodes: (00:58) What is a "Gospeler," and story behind Willie's book (09:00) Willie's dad's testimony  (18:01) Willie's struggles with faith & sharing the Gospel (26:50) Dealing with temptation (30:40) Knowing Jesus through the Bible (38:01) Importance of preparedness and practice (48:31) Obedience vs. Results  (50:30) How Willie shares the gospel --- Today's Sponsors: Good Ranchers — Change the way you buy meat today at GoodRanchers.com with code ALLIE to claim your free applewood smoked bacon for LIFE, get 100% American meat delivered, and get the perfect gift for dad this Father's Day. Jase Medical — get up to a year’s worth of many of your prescription medications delivered in advance. Go to JaseMedical.com today and use promo code “ALLIE". We Heart Nutrition — nourish your body with research-backed ingredients in your vitamins at WeHeartNutrition.com and use promo code ALLIE for 20% off. Pre-Born — will you help rescue babies' lives? Donate by calling #250 & say keyword 'BABY' or go to Preborn.com/ALLIE. --- Relevant Episodes: BONUS: God's Love vs. Worldy Love With Allie & Phil Roberston https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000555299869 Ep 95 | Phil Robertson https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000434215642 Ep 592 | Sharing the Gospel with Trump | Guests: Phil & Albert Robertson https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000555866907 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

You know the name Willie Robertson from Duck Dynasty, but he is also a New York Times bestselling author. He is an evangelist, and he just wrote a new book called Gospeller about sharing the gospel with the people that we interact with every day. It's a very powerful book. He has such an encouraging message for us today. I learned a lot about what God's Word says about how we can share truth with the people in our lives. You are going to love this. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use Code Alley at checkout.

That's good ranchers.com code Alley. Willie, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. I really appreciate you being here. It's great to be here. Yeah. Okay, so you wrote this new book, which I'm so excited about Gospeler. And, you know, I've been a Christian for a long time, and I've never heard this down before.

Can you tell me what Gospelor means? Well, I've been a Christian. I'm assuming longer than you, and I'd never heard of it either. So I was writing the book about sharing your faith. I didn't have a title. I had a title that I thought I was going to use. And then my wife came in and she said, hey, she was studying the title I had and was looking at other words. And she found the word.

And she said, I found this word. I think it's gospel. I'm no linguist, but like when I pressed the button on the computer and that's how the lady pronounced it. Okay. And but I think it's either way. And yeah, it just means somebody who shares the gospel. And so it's an old word, obviously a couple of hundred years old, that it used to be very common. And so people were, they were called known gospelers and not necessarily pastoral, more like not people who work for a church.

It was like people who just always shared. And it kind of went away and became a dinosaur, which I thought was interesting because I felt like, oh, this is kind of like, I think even people that share their faith, it's kind of seems like that's gone away in some ways as well. well. And so, yeah, I thought it was the perfect word. And I'd never heard it either. And, but if you'd look through literature and you see, even, uh, one of my friends found a law that said, you know, no, no one can stop a priest or known gospel or from sharing their faith on the street corner. So yeah, it was like, it was common. Okay. See, I thought that you just made this word up yourself. I did. I did not. I thought it was a you creation. So this is something that's been around for a long time. You're resurrecting it. You're giving, uh, further significant and meaning to

it by talking about what it means to be a gospeler. So why did you write this book about sharing the gospel? Well, I felt like there was a lot of genesis from me actually writing it, but one was just I felt like I've talked to a lot of people who just really don't know how to, they want to share the gospel. They just don't know really how to do that. And so this was kind of a COVID creation. And the book, I mean, all the things had, it was my whole life of, I've been doing this. But during COVID, something interesting happened. One, I had spoken at an event and I had heard Lee Strobel. And I didn't know who Lee Strobel was, believe or not.

And he was talking about specific ministries in churches that for sharing the gospel. And he said, you know, churches have a lot of ministries and, you know, we have youth and college and all this. And he said, but very rarely does a church actually have a ministry that teaches people how to share the gospel, which, and he was like, so when you go back to your church, I ask them, who's in charge of that ministry? And he said, I bet here's what's going to happen. They're going to say, I guess the pastor. And so I went home to the church I was at. And I asked, and they were like, well, nobody really. So about a month later, I get a call from the pastors.

And they said, hey, do you want to start that ministry? And COVID had happened. So I wasn't traveling. I wasn't speaking at all. And I said, yeah, and so I started writing curriculum of how to teach. And so it was from doing that that I was able to kind of gather all this data from people who were saying, well, I don't, you know, it's not my gift. And I don't know the Bible well enough.

And so I started hearing a lot of excuses where people basically excuse themselves from actually doing it. Right. One of the main things was I don't know where to start. Like, I don't know how to start this. And so I was writing all this stuff down. And I had a friend who I was at then I was at another conference. Prince, I what's you up to?

And I told him, and I showed him how I do it. And he goes, I've never quite seen it like that. And he said, you should put that in a book. And that's where the idea of the book came. And I said, maybe I should write this all down in the book. And the first chapter I start with Mom and Dad's story, which we made the movie about last year called The Blind. And it just, when I thought about, like, what if that hadn't happened?

Like, what if Phil had not changed his life? Their marriage was over. my whole life would be completely different, even speaking to you now. It's almost like every day is like something is more fruit coming from that conversion. And I just thought about that, and I thought. So I was appreciative looking back in the past, but also thought, looking to the future, who could I talk to that could literally change their life, change their marriage, change their children's lives, their grandchildren?

Because that certainly happened with us. I mean, if that doesn't happen, there's no Duck Commander. there's no Duck Dynasty, there's no TV show. I probably don't meet Corey because I met her at a church camp, which was part of this new thing we were doing, which was church and church camps. And so that's where I met her. And so everything would have been different.

And so I just thought, wow, you know, I called the gospel genealogy, you know, just thinking about how you go back and how I could trace that back to really mom and dad. And also mom coming to the Lord and then forgiving dad and seeing the, you know, that and that. So that's kind of where it all, you know, kind of came from and where that kind of started and putting it down on paper.

And it's really simple. It's, you know, my approach is I have seven passages that I generally go over with people. And so I think people pick up a Bible and they're like, how do you ever, you know. It's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. And it's so intimidating. And so then I kind of break it down. I'm like, well, could you learn maybe seven kind of ideas?

And so, and I really focus in on that. especially that transitionary period in the New Testament, you know, you have the four gospels, which is Jesus, but it's a little different because the gospel hadn't fully happened because Jesus hadn't died and he hadn't come back from the dead. So I was really interested in once Jesus left. Like, what did they say to people? How did they start those conversations? Some we can get from Jesus, obviously. But I really studied those. And so those are the ones. I pretty much go through, especially Acts probably one through nine. I go through those because that's when the church was starting.

And they're in the same boat that we are today. 2,000 years later, we're still Jesus left. He's been resurrected. And so how do you talk to people and how do those conversations start? And so I share a lot of those stories as well with people that I've talked to. Some have worked. Some don't. Or we say don't.

Who knows? You're planting a seed and you don't know whether. Sometimes this conversation happens in 20 minutes. sometimes it's two hours, sometimes it's 20 years. You've been talking to people for 20 years about this. And they haven't believed in Jesus, but I'm still there and I'm still coming at them and ask them questions. You alluded to your dad's testimony and a lot of people like you said, know it. They've heard it.

They saw the movie or they're going to read it in this book because you talk about this preacher who just preached the simple truth to your dad. And that kind of served as part of the inspiration for you. you as you've thought about, okay, the importance, the significance, the compound effect of sharing the gospel with someone, how that can have this ripple effect on their lives, generations to come. What was that simple gospel that was shared with your dad way back when? Yeah, the story was so remarkable. Obviously, we were able to build a movie kind of around that. You know, I mean, that wasn't the whole movie, obviously, but just the way that it happened.

And I knew this guy for the rest of my, or the rest of his life, I guess, because we ended up at the church that he was at. But he was kind of a fiery guy and he was in West Monroe. Dad and mom were living in Junction City. Well, I guess technically Dad had kicked us out of the house. And the only person that was really pulling for dad was his sister, Jan. My aunt Jan who's passed away as well. And Jan was so fiery. And she would go up there and pass out brawifle tracks.

You know, and the Phil's bar that he was running, and Phil couldn't stand any of it. And she begs this guy, like, will you please go up there? And she said, my aunt said, if you convert Phil Robertson, he'll convert a thousand. And to this day, I just, I don't know how she saw that because this guy was so bad, you know, my father. It was such a bad guy, like how she could see that and had the vision, which was true, which was way more than a thousand that he was able to do that to. And but I thought about this guy walking into a bar and I kind of write, I put that in the book because this is where I kind of thought about how did this conversation go? And what was he thinking? You know, like, because I'm sure if you like, I guess I'm thinking about pastors today is like,

if I went to a pastor's like, hey, will you talk to this guy? And it's like, yeah, tell him to come my church and, you know, I'll meet him after. No, he's not going to come to church, you know. Okay, well, where could we meet? Well, he's at a bar, you know. Yeah. And even if you get to that point, it's like, I can. imagine a preacher today even busting in a bar to go, you know, and like which one in town? It's like, it's not even in our town. It's not even in the state. Like you had to drive across state lines. And this guy did it. So it wasn't that he was trying to recruit Phil for his money. I mean, they had no money. They had obviously no fame, no anything. It was just purely to share with

another person because someone else had asked his sister. And so he goes in there. And then, and I was ever to talk to the preacher later. And he said, I walked in. He said, your dad's sitting there in his bar with a giant budwiser in front of him he's got a pistol in his belt and he looks up at him and says uh what you're selling preacher and dad's this big hairy you know scary kind of guy and uh the guy sits down and he just simply shares with him the death of burial and the resurrection of jesus christ and goes through uh the gospel and the responses to it which is exactly the same uh the message stays the same you know the methods can be different you know, that guy went to a bar.

It can be all kind of things, ways that you can do it. And this is not the only way. It's, but it may spark someone to go, ah, you know, there's a way I can do it. You know, there's a way I can do it online. There's a way I can do it, you know. And it's not always just stranger stuff. Like, you know, I think some people are thinking like, oh, now I have to go talk to have some awkward conversation with someone on the, you know, on the airplane or something.

It can be. But it can start at home, you know, I think some of the people we look over, some of the people that are closest to it. us, you know, that we just assume, well, I guess our kids will figure it out because they go to church, you know, whatever, but that's not always the case, you know. I've shared this with people as simple as it is, and I've had, you know, I've baptized a guy, I think he was 94. And one time, and he was like, I've never heard that. And these are people who've been to church. Yeah, and they're just, you know. You think everyone in America at least has heard it. No, because you don't, you know,

you can sit through, I've sat through a lot of church services and, well, you know, I actually hear the gospel. Yeah, you hear good things, but you don't necessarily hear, you know, the gospel and what that is. And so, yeah, it's true. I remember I had a friend in college who had never, and she was raised going to church. She had never heard John 316. Had never heard John 316. And we think, well, everyone at least has heard John 316. And she didn't know that there was a possibility to have a relationship with Christ. It was just kind of this abstract thing, as long as you don't do really bad things and really hurt people, then it's fine. And a lot of people in America, probably in close proximity to us, have that idea about Christianity, about God. As long as I don't mess up too bad,

then everything is fine. They don't even know what it means to be redeemed and to be free from your sin. And that's really good news. So what happens is that becomes people's mission, something like that. So the mission, what I find is people will live by this mission. Try to go to church as much as I can, try to be a good person, you know, and that's their mission. But if you read the New Testament, that's not the mission. That was never even, that was not said. So when Jesus left, I make a big deal about this, because when Jesus comes back, I'm really interested when he comes back from the dead. What does he say? What does he tell people to do? And so there we found the great commission at the end of Matthew 28. And think about commission, that's where this mission is going to come from. And Jesus said, go, make disciples, of all nations, baptized people, and teach people. So those are three specific things, making disciples, baptizing people, and teaching people. A lot of people that are Christians that I know, they're nowhere near those three things in their life. They're not making disciples. They're not baptizing people. And they're not teaching people. And so they're maybe trying to go to church.

And so you're living on the wrong mission. So it doesn't surprise me when things get hard or life takes these turns and then it's like, ah, then they feel lost. And they're like, ah, because they've been on the wrong mission. They haven't even been on the right mission. So, and a lot of people that even come to faith, I felt like people will say, well, nobody ever told me that was part of the deal. And I kind of make the argument, what if it's the whole deal? The whole deal is, it's not just for you to get it. That's great. But it's then for you to share this with someone else. I think Jesus gave us that clue when, when he went to Zechias's house. And remember, he just go. And, you just go. And, to his house and we don't know exactly what they talked about, but Zekees just starts saying,

I'm changing everything. Now we're seeing some repentance, right? And so it's not just conversations, it's conversations that are actually looking for change. We're looking for change if it needs to happen. And then Jesus says, this is why I came to seek and save what was lost. That's why he said he came to earth was to seek and save what was lost. And so I feel like sometimes as Christians, we get really inward. We get everything's pointing towards us and we want to hear stuff like make my life better help me to make myself better i need to have my time my study time my and these aren't bad things but man jesus was not about himself or being inward it's it's outward you're supposed to go out and care about other people you know you talk about in the book

bumps in your faith even after you became a christian through the success of duck dynasty um the book says that you allowed your priorities to shift and faith and family were no longer at the You know, some people have this idea, especially those outside of Christianity, that Christians think they're perfect or they have to act like they're perfect or self-righteous or whatever. But the fact of the matter is is that sanctification is not this straight line from A to B. It's sometimes backtracking. It's sometimes being wrong and realizing that you need to repent. And so talk about this era of kind of struggling and wrestling with your faith. Yeah.

that chapter is called Broke Propeller. It's all my titles rhyme with the gospeler. Yes. Yes, they do. I love that. That was Swamp Dweller. That was Phil. Yeah, so this is huge.

That's one of the reasons that a lot of people will disqualify themselves from telling anyone else about their faith is because they feel like I haven't figured it out either. I'm the last person to be telling someone about anything about positivity because look at myself. And so I start out there with, I always go to the New Testament. I always just go to the word and what does it say. One of the main people there is Peter. And Peter played such a crucial role.

In fact, all the way to where when I said Jesus came back, he gave them the Great Commission. Peter was obviously part of that. But also we found this part where Jesus goes back to the sea of galley and he finds Peter there and others. And actually has a talk with him and says, look, you know, Now, Peter is the one who initially, when Jesus sees him, he calls him. In fact, the only thing he told him when he called him was said, come follow me. I'll make you fishers of people.

And so it had to be vitally important because it's the only thing he said to Peter. And Peter said, yeah, and Peter drops everything he does. And so I feel like it, I feel like that a lot where I'm like, hey, man, I'm all in, you know. And then we get to this part where Jesus is going to die. Jesus says you're going to even deny even knowing who I am, which seemed so absurd. Peter obviously says, no, I'd never do that. And what happens, he does that. And I think Peter had went back to fishing because I think he was done.

I think he thought, I blew it, you know. I mean, here I was. I had, you know, I've been following this guy for three years all in. I'd seen all the things. And I think he had, he was just going to go back and probably tell a sad story about, I was there, you know, I was one of the ones. Jesus specifically goes back to him and says, hey, I have a job for you. you, I need you to do something and carry for my sheep, feed my sheep. And so, and then we find in

the book of Acts, which is right after the Gospels, Acts chapter one, who's standing up, trying to figure out who's going to replace Judas? Peter. Acts chapter two, who's the first person get up and preach the gospel message to this big group of people? Peter. And so he didn't waller around. And I think a lot of us will just disqualify ourselves and spend tons of our life just on the sidelines going, I'm out. You know, I can't. I mean, Peter, what an inspiration for us to get up and get back going. And I felt that in my life as well. I felt that many times in my life.

And part of the responses to the gospel, like when I go through the responses, how do people respond? I think sometimes we think like, because Peter actually there in Acts 2 in 38, where he says, repent. Okay. And we think that's a one-time thing. It's not a one-time thing. It's like we do need to change. Obviously repentance is huge. John the Baptist, his whole ministry was on repentance.

just to get ready for Jesus. But repentance is a constant thing. In fact, you don't really see repentance until you see someone's changed their life, you know. You can say it, you know, but it's really when you start seeing change in your life. And that happens over and over and all throughout our lives, you know, that we have to do that. And I'll talk about that where I, you know, where you don't wake up and kind of my point was I didn't wake up going, you know what, I'm sick of this, you know, I think I won't be like the world. And it doesn't happen like that. At least it didn't for me. It was more just this slow, gradual thing. And I'm, you know, you just kind of veer off this path and you look around and you're like, what am I doing? You know, where have I ended up? What have

gotten pulled to and the pressures and, you know, for me, you know, the fame and the pressure of all the stuff. There's no playbook for that. There's no, it's not like I call a buddy going, hey, what do you do? And, you know, I mean, most people that live up and down my road, you know, have never experienced anything like that. And so sin is still sin. And it's, it's the same for everybody and mine was certainly no different. But I thought it was true. It was what I was doing was when I'm telling you my story and my struggles, when I'm talking to someone else about their life, that's usually where I'm going to start with them. Tell me your story. And so what's your story? And so I'm going to gather that story.

Jesus did that in John chapter 4, like a master class of gathering story with the woman at the well. And I think if we're thinking like, how do we start? these conversations. Well, Jesus started that one by saying, can I get a drink of water? That's how it started. And it ended up with the whole village coming to know Jesus. And she was the one. And he gets into her story. And he even presses father. Remember, he says, go get your husband. I'll tell you all about it. I don't have a husband. Which was not completely, it wasn't a lie. It just wasn't the whole story. It was part of the story. But how many of us tell you part of the story? I ain't going to tell you the whole story. Which makes sense. She just met the guy. I mean, it's not like, but why did Jesus keep going? No, no, no, we're going to have to deal with the story because he knew she was going to have to deal with her story. I'm going to have to deal with my story.

Everybody's going to have to deal with their story. That's the beauty of Christianity is he can fix all these messes, just like Kay and Phil, whose marriage was obliterated and his life was a mess. And there was redemption. There was something it can change. And that's why I love Christianity. And even when you fall down and you get back up like Peter did, when you blow it, seemingly like that's it. You blew it. There's no way. No, you can still, you know. So Peter is not

known by what he did wrong. Peter is known about what he did right, you know, and all the things that he did. And I think that can be our story as well. But I did want to share that because I was like, don't be thinking I'm perfect. But it caused me to think, am I the one to write this book? You know, maybe some pastor can write, you know, I'm not. I've screwed up to and I've got, But no, that's not, you know, if we're all like that, then we'll all sit on the sidelines. We'll never share the gospel. And the evil one will just go good. I've got all you guys where I need y'all thinking that you're not redeem, save, change.

And he is the accuser. I mean, that's what the Bible calls him. He's an accuser. He's a liar. And he has, since the garden, used a bit of truth to tell you a lie. Did God really say? And in the case of, you know, shame inhibiting you from sharing the gospel, he uses the truth that you are a sinner. that you have made bad mistakes.

Right. And but then he introduces the lie within that truth to say, because you have sinned, because you have made those bad mistakes, you are disqualified from sharing the gospel. Right. And I think that we have to do what Jesus did when he was tempted by Satan. He used, Satan used a bit of truth from God's word to tempt Jesus. And Jesus responds with Scripture, with the truth. And I'm remembering the Scripture that you read.

reference to earlier, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Okay, so that means that the creator of the heavens in the earth who knew every single bad thing I would ever do, he right there in Matthew 28 gave me both the right and the responsibility to go make disciples. He didn't say if you become perfect, if you never sin, if you qualify yourself and earn your way to this position of being a disciple maker, it's his authority and his perfection and his righteousness that gives us the ability to do that, not our own perfection. So it's not, that's a great point. It's not, because I think when people think, well, I can't do this, well, you have something living in you that sure can. Exactly. Like,

when you have the Holy Spirit in you, now you may not have the Holy Spirit, so that could be a problem. And I've run into people. And that's, that's, and I may suggest that. I may think, well, maybe you don't have the Holy Spirit. Maybe that's why you've never been able to figure this out because you don't even have the Holy Spirit. You're trying to do it on your own accord, but you don't actually have that spirit that's guiding you. That's such a fascinating story when Jesus was tempted. One, we have to know the Word because Satan knew the Word. Jesus obviously knew the Word, and you hear that from them where they know the Word. Now, I found that when I was teaching my class, a lot of people didn't want to really know the Word. They didn't care to read it. I had one guy to tell

he said, I don't have the gift of reading scripture. I said, that's not a gift. But that's where he was trying to use the language, like, oh, that's not my gift of, because he didn't want to read the word. And so my whole approach is like, when you read the book, it's not my opinion on it. I'm just connecting you to the word. I'm just showing people. Here it is.

I'm not judging. I don't, a lot of people I talk to it, I don't even know it. I don't know you. And so I'm not judging. What are you saying? I'm not going to have it. I have no idea. if I knew that, I'd probably be doing something completely different if I knew who I was going.

And so I'm just connecting to the word because if I never talked to you again, at least I've connected you to the word. You can read it for yourself and you can make your own decisions. But what I find is a lot of people rarely ever read the Bible. They don't really know it. They may sit in a church and they'll listen to somebody else's opinion, but they don't read it for themselves and dig in there. And I think that's where it starts is loving the word, reading, and then connecting people there. Also, Jesus, when he, there was something interesting about that too, is that he, when he was tempted by Satan, and I always looked at the wrong way, like I was thinking he was so weak because he had been fasting. And I was like, man, he's going in there limping, right?

Like, he should, that's how much he knew he had to prepare in dealing with evil, how much he had to rely on God. So always thought the fasting. I had never thought it was kind of a mistake. Yeah. I taught a lesson on this one time. And I thought, it was more of. of the spirit and more of gearing up. And I feel like probably when I wrote my chapter, my broke propeller,

I should have prepared more. Like, Jesus prepared. Yeah. I'm going in against this. And I think we don't prepare that much. We're like, oh, I got this. And you walk in and just fall flat on your face. Yeah.

I mean, Jesus went in there. I was thinking he was weakened, but actually he was strengthened. Right. Well, it's like that passage that God's power is perfected in our weakness. And I've never thought of that. the story of Jesus being led into the wilderness to be tempted as that, as Jesus purposely fasting to prepare himself to face that temptation. To rely on God, right? To rely on the spirit, to rely on, you know, basically get everything

going, what is most important? What is, you know, and so without all the distractions that he had. And so, yeah. That's a good lesson for us. If Jesus was preparing in that way, I mean, the God, the creator of the universe, gives us an example that we prepare throughout our lives for those same kinds of opportunities and temptations. And like you said, it's really not about us. It's about the spirit inside of us. And that takes a lot of pressure off when I realize it's not really about me, my strength, what I bring to the table, how eloquent I am. It's really just God's word working through me. And I can trust that His word doesn't return void.

and that frees me of a lot of pressure. With some preparation. Yeah. You know, because I do think we're like, oh, I got the Holy Spirit in me. So I can, I don't have to do. I don't have to study. I don't have to, you know, prepare and do all this. I mean, and that's where I'd be like, well, that wouldn't be the best way to do this.

Yeah. And so I want to read like, because one of my favorite stories is Philip in the Ethiopian where the Spirit leads Philip to go talk to this Ethiopian and who's who had just been in Jerusalem. He had been worshiping. now he's on his way back home and he's reading the book of Isaiah and I would have missed that like completely like I don't know that I would have even said anything to him so in modern day this is a dude who just went to church and now he's at the stoplight reading his Bible I'm going what's up brother yeah I'm just assuming he's doing it all right yeah Philip asked him a great

question which was do you understand what you're reading and he says no how can I unless someone explains it. So we have a guy who just went to worship God reading the Bible and still doesn't understand Jesus. And I think there's probably a lot of people that sit in churches who they don't really know Jesus. They're there and they may even read the Bible. So he starts with that very passage of Isaiah and all it says is he tells him the good news of Jesus. So it was interesting, what if Philip didn't know the book of Isaiah? What if he's like, oh, shucks. What does it say there, you know. And I feel like sometimes we're in there where like we may, we may be cautious about starting a conversation because we don't really know exactly. It's so true. We don't know what to say.

We're like, I don't know what that says. And so you may look a little foolish whenever somebody starts, you know, bombing questions that you're like, I have no idea. And so that should push me to know the word better and to give better answers, you know, and stuff that I'm really into and enjoy, man, I read up on those, you know. Right. Like if you were talking about the outdoors with me or you're talking about some sort of hunting or I like to cook and so I can sit there and cook, I could cook a whole meal right now and still have this conversation with you.

I've done it with people. Yeah. Because I've done it so much. I know. You don't have to actively think about it. Now my wife, when she's trying it, impossible. You can't have a conversation with it when she's cooking. She's reading a box.

Smoke's pouring up. She's fighting this fire. She doesn't do it enough to nuts. You know, so she can't have this. There's no way she could have a conversation. So when you know something and when you know it really well, think about like a quarterback, like a first time quarterback, he's trying to look at the place.

He's trying to, you know, it's all so fast. And then you get a guy that's like a veteran, he walks out and he's going, he knows the plays. Yeah. He's done this so many times. Now he's just looking for, uh, I see one little weakness here. So in the conversations that you have with people, that's how good you can get.

Yeah. with you have the Holy Spirit. You have, you have God's spirit living in you now. How much more could I add to that with like, how many more stories? How many, yeah.

Yeah. And then the experience will help you. And so like with cooking, like I'm cooking something. I'm going, oh, yeah, I've had this happen.

Yeah. Sometimes this does this and oh, shoot, I don't have this one ingredient, but I can, you can use this and you can make up. And that's the way when I'm talking to people in their stories, man,

I've heard so much. You start becoming different aspects, I feel like, of Jesus, like Jesus as a counselor, Jesus as the great physician. Yeah. Because sometimes it feels like that, like a diagnosis according to what the story is. You know, I've had a guy come in and just say, I just got a DWI. I got thrown in jail for the night.

My wife kicked me out of the house. Can you help me? Yeah. So that guy's probably going to be open to repentance and changing some things about his life. And then, and boom, we can give him a deal, which at the end of the day, it's like it is like a doctor to where you're going. You know, like a doctor knows all this knowledge, like words that are this long.

He knows all this. But at the end of the day, someone comes in, there's a diagnosis. And he's sitting there across from Billy and goes, Billy, it's bad. We're going to try this. Do you want to sign up or not? Do you want to try it or not? I ain't going to give you the technical terms. I'm just going to say, that's as simple as it goes.

And Billy and his wife say, let's go. And so boom. And they try to fix that. Now, one year later, Billy would know more about whatever that diagnosis. He will be very versed in what it is. He's probably going to go online and find out more about it. He's going to talk to other people who have had that. He's going to read their stories.

And to me, that's like Christianity. It's like initially you get in and then you've got your whole life to figure out what exactly, all the nuances of the scripture and the Old Testament, the New Testament, how it all comes together. That's why I try to keep it really simple at the beginning because I don't want to give to it. It's too much. you know, is there a problem? If there is, here's the gospel.

Here's some responses to it. I want them to know what they mean, like terms like baptism and repentance and confessing Jesus' name, confessing sins to one another. I think we assume everybody knows this if you're religious, they don't. Like, we have our own language that people have no idea what you're talking about. They're like, what are you talking about? And it's intimidating and they're like, I don't really know. And it's scary to them.

they see people raising their hands and closing their eyes and singing and it's getting me awkward, you know? Yeah. And for a lot of people, so it's like the question, do we ask the right questions? So we may ask people, hey, do you go to church? And it's not the worst question in the world, but I always, one, it doesn't make sense because you don't go to a church. We are the church, so you don't go somewhere.

And if I go somewhere, I feel like now I'm leaving. So maybe there I'm one way and home, I'm a different way, and that can be problematic. But if they say yes, we go, oh, great. And we usually just, it stops there. Yeah. If they say no, then we invite them to ours. And we're like, sit here and maybe you'll get this. But I don't know that they do.

Like, I don't know that, you know, if I sell insurance and I'm like, you should come to our insurance convention. It's unbelievable. And then I go with you and they're talking about rates and all this. I'm going, I don't get it. Yeah. Like, I understand what insurance is. But I don't understand. Like, you're really excited, but this is your business.

and so I feel like sometimes people may be like that when they sit with us. So what I'm looking for is the conversations that can happen. Probably not at a church because that's probably the worst place to have a conversation because normally we just sit there and listen. Yeah. We show up, we sit there, we listen, we leave. So it's probably not the best conversation. So, man, when this starts happening on Tuesdays and Friday nights and conversations with

your friends at work, you know, these are the conversations that I'm trying to help people to be able to have in a better way to point them to Jesus. not the churches are wrong. It's just it may not be the best place to convert you. I love what you said about the importance of preparedness and practice. And yes, we have the Spirit of God living in us. But as you gave that example, and as we see in the example of Jesus, relying on the Word of God. Of course, in Ephesion 6, we read about the full armor of God and its command to put on the full armor of God, the shoes of readiness, the belt of truth, the sword of the spirit, all of that.

And so that is a part of gearing up for this. And practice also gives us a lot of confidence in sharing the gospel. As you said, the more you do it and the more you learn how to navigate the different nuances of the conversation, it's like people ask me, I had our third baby nine months ago. And people ask me, okay, what's the transition like from two to three? Obviously, it's more difficult in some ways. But I also say I'm so much more confident as a mom because I've done it before. And I see the bumps and I don't freak out every time they get sick. I know they're going to be okay.

My husband and I have gained a lot of confidence as parents that makes it easier this time. And the same is true as you said for so many things. Even the things that you can't foresee when you come up to them, you have all of the experience and the knowledge in your belt to be able to face it. in a way that is effective and makes sense. And so I think people can be encouraged by that, that it's going to get easier in a lot of ways. You're going to get better. You don't have to be the perfect evangelist

to start evangelizing. Right. Did you know when you had your first child? Did you know everything you needed to know? Yeah. No. Of course not. Of course not.

You know what I'm saying? It didn't stop you from, you know, it was going to happen. And then it happened. Now you know so much more. And so now you can talk to other people. You'll be talking to your children at some point about, you know, which I've gotten to see that happen in my own life.

And so, and then you can even, you know, like for us, we throw, like we've had your same experience. We've had experience adopting children, which is a completely different deal, adopting someone else's babies, even older kids. And so, yeah, you just, you can get more like that. Paul was also, so tell me this, why was Paul praying? He said, pray for me that the mystery of the gospel can come out of my mouth more clearly. Yeah. Paul knew the gospel better than anyone, but he's still asking for people to pray for him that the mystery of the gospel can come out. And so just think about that. I just think about that. Why was he asking for that? Because this is not science. It's more like an art. It's more like an art of sharing your faith. So I could tell you one thing. I could tell this person the same thing. You may fall to your knees and say, I'm in. That person says, no way I'm out. Also, different stories hit different people in different ways. Like for one person, I may say, man, you could be part of a church or a community of believers. And somebody can say, that's exactly what I've been looking for.

I need that. Another person can say, never, because I was hurt by a group of believers. And so the idea of a church is negative, not positive. So you're like, ah, you know, and so these are the conversations. They're all different. You know, they're just different. They're different with people according to what their background is, according to what their damage is, according to, you know, what sin has done to them or other people or, God forbid, what Christians

have done to them or said to them, you know. And so these are all according to what culture you're in, you know, that's why I'm so, you know, I think in America we're like, man, if you do this, your life's going to be a little bit better. You're going to, you know, he's going to help you with all these things. Well, that, that doesn't work in Somalia. Right. That doesn't work in North Korea. Right. You know, like you couldn't even say that to people. And so, or China, you know, it'd be a, it's just, you got to watch what you tell people. And again, back to the word. I just pretty much tell them what it says.

And this is what it says. This is how it applies your life. This is what it's done in my life. You can't argue with that. This is what it did from my parents and changed their entire life. You can't argue with that. And, and yeah, and I think the more, if you, if you're someone who is ready to share your faith, here's the other things that can help you.

Like you were talking about being prepared with the armor of God. It helps you to study the word because you want to be, you want to have, you know, know what to tell people. So it helps me to do that. It helps me not to be inward. It helps me not just to think about myself, my own problems, which could be the biggest problem we all have. It's just we just get so consumed with ourselves that we can't think about other people. Last thing I need to do is think about you and your problems because I got a whole slew of myself. And then we look at people where it's like, oh, God, you know, these people have screwed their life up.

And now, you know, I've done everything right. Now we're kind of, we sound like kind of the prodigal son, right? It was like the brother who's like, now I've got to mess with your stuff, you know. And so, and then we remember, now that's why we do that because that's why Jesus came. Jesus didn't have to come and do any of this. Yeah. But these are some of the aspects that they can help you, you know, helps you be hospitable. Because you're looking for, you're asking for people, helps you to be kind, hopefully to people and not be rude to people.

because if I'm rude to someone, they're probably never going to listen to anything I have to say. You know, like I've seen people in my class and then I would see them in, you know, at the airport. And they would be so ugly to people. And I'd be like, well, good luck, share the gospel with that person. Right, right. Because they're going to be like, oh, I can't stand this person. And so, man, you know, if you're the person who's so ugly to people at the restaurant and everything else, nobody's going to listen to what you guys say.

Just like the woman at the well. When Jesus talked to her, I think he preached her a sermon before he even started open his mouth because he was so, he was talking to this woman who he probably shouldn't have been talking to. They weren't from the same regions. But he cared about it. He showed that he cared about her. And I think it starts with that.

We have to care about people. Yeah. Because in this country, I mean, how many stories, how many videos we got to see of like somebody dying on a street corner and like people just stepping over them and with their, you know, earbuds on walking at work and like, we just don't care. We're like, I don't care if you live or die. Yeah. It's like with the internet, it's like we, the more we know about people, the more we know we don't care about them.

We're like, I can't stand these people. Yeah. It's like, and man, that's what, that's what Jesus does to us. Hopefully, if you follow him, is it changes your thinking where you're like, I have to care about those people too, you know. Right. Because in many ways, I was the same way, you know, in his eyes to, you know, so we have to care. We have to keep getting the message out. I think the book coming out now, you know,

with this so much chaos is like man we need to have some answers for people because we don't know where we're you know yeah stuff is so dark you know and there's there's evangelism going on for sure from the dark side you know right and here's the deal they're converting your kids and yeah they're making disciples oh they're going to suck them into they're making their own disciples i got it someone sent me a half the other day that said raising disciples which i absolutely love but i started thinking i was like well everyone is making disciples everyone is making disciples everyone making disciples. It's the disciples of whom. And that is the, that's the distinction. Everybody's proselytizing trying to make people. Right. Right. Oh, you see the, you know, the world has

done this long play things like decade. You know, we're going to start here and we're going to, I mean, they'll, they'll bring people to change thinking and change minds and change hearts. And why is it that, why is it that Christians are, you know, that most people that are converted are converted by someone who has just come to faith themselves, like with, in the first year. Most people that come to the Lord are told by someone who just came to the Lord. Why is it that the longer we're in this, the less likely we are to tell others about it. Isn't that weird?

Isn't that such a strange? Yeah. Right. But we all kind of get in our little buildings, our little clubs, you know, we're like, okay, you know, and then we just try, we just kind of set up the, you know, the wagons and we just try to protect. And we're just trying to keep the world. Let's just keep the world out.

But Jesus didn't say, Jesus, like, I probably would have said, look, guys. they just killed me. I came back from the dead. Y'all need to go hide out. Like, when this thing calm down. You know, what do we tell people when they leave?

Be safe. Be careful. Yeah. Jesus said, go, go into the world. And they went in and almost, I mean,

all these people died. You know, they lost their life for sharing their faith. Right. Which, when you think about us today, it's like,

I'm not quite comfortable sharing that. It's awkward. Because we kind of believe in that lie, like, I thought we were just supposed to keep that to ourselves. Well, that's a great plan if I'm the evil one going, how about let's make it like this?

You just keep your little personal thing to yourself. It's like the parable of the talents. Well, I just buried it because I was too afraid. That's it. You mentioned the early church. Sharing the gospel to the point of death, it's important for us to remember that it's not always going to yield the results that we want immediately. If you think about Stephen, full of grace and truth, full of grace and power,

I mean, he preached to the gospel, and then he was stoned. And so we can't measure the effectiveness of our message or our obedience by how people react to us. Of course, their response is important. But first and foremost, we're obeying God. And that's our priority, even if the world rejects us. You're either going to live for the world or you're going to live for what's beyond. That's really the, that's what it basically comes down to. However, I will say this, when you're apart, when you can see life change and when you see people's stories like,

Like, you imagine that preacher and even my aunt who were so influential in changing my mom and dad's life, what that grew into. Because they saw most of this, you know, where the family stayed together. We all got married. We had these kids. Like, my kids are like, Sadie speaks all over the world. Like, I mean, it had to be, there's a joy there that you're like, wow, I remember. And so I've had that with people as well where I've literally witnessed their whole life change. Yeah. And it was so dark and so like, you know, like so off the path. And now I see this complete life change. And it can be addicting because you're like, oh, this is so awesome. And if the only thing hold me back is me just starting a conversation, then I'm going to get in those conversations. And I may get rejected and I may get made fun of or whatever that is. But man, if that gospel goes through and you see that whole life change and the whole, you know, picture of where they're going and change their whole.

whole attitude in life. That's awesome. That can be so inspiring to people to see that, witness that. And heaven's going to be amazing to be able to see the full picture of the constellation of everyone's testimonies and how all of these mundane moments that we thought were useless actually turned into something. Okay, really quick, because I got to let you go. Can you share the gospel with us in 30 seconds? Well, that would be kind of impossible. Yeah. I mean, what I'd probably do is just ask about your story.

Hey, where are you at? How do you feel about this? Do you have some sort of relationship with Jesus or where are we at on that? Then I'll listen to that. Generally, where I go, I start in Galatians chapter 5, the acts of sinful nature versus the fruit of the spirit. It's a very clear line there. And I'll go there.

Then I'll go to what the gospel is, 1st, Corinthians, 5th. From there, we'll go to the first time it was laid out like that, which was Acts chapter 2. And then I'll walk you through, once I share with the gospel from 1st Corinthians 15, that's where he just says Jesus died and was buried and was raised. And then we'll go through some of the responses. And so what that means to actually respond. What would that look like? And so, yeah, and I just take people down that path.

And if they need to know more, if any more time, we'll keep talking and we'll keep going through it. But that's kind of where I start and where I go. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Everyone go out and get Gospeller. Amazing. It's already out, right? It's out.

So everyone can go get it. Awesome. Thank you so much, Willie. Awesome. All right, guys, thanks so much for listening tomorrow. We will be back covering current events. We haven't had a good monologue episode in a while talking about all the craziness that's going on. Just a couple reminders.

If you love this podcast, if it's met anything to you, if you could leave us a five-star review on Apple podcast, that means so much. Also a reminder about the share of the arrows event. That is September 28th. This is a women's event. Rosaria Butterfield, Elisa Childers, Abby Halberstadt, Francesca Badistelli. They are all going to be there speaking. Francesca, of course, will be singing. It's going to be such an incredible edifying event for Christian women as we come together

and we look at the chaos and the craziness of this world, especially in the election year. It's time for us to come together and to remind each other of what is good. and right and true to fellowship with like-minded, believing women. It's going to be an amazing event. It's in Dallas, Texas. Go to share the arrows.com. Share the arrows.com. Come on by yourself, bring friends, bring family. It's going to be amazing. And I hope to see you there. All right, that's all we got time for today. See you guys back here tomorrow.