Speaker: 00:00:00

Welcome everybody to Gospel Talks podcast where we help Christians all over the world

become more effective in relational evangelism and discipleship.

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My name is George Benoka and with me today is none other than Jeff Musgrave, the founder,

author of the Exchange Bible Study.

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And we're very excited to be with you in this series where we're talking about Charlie

Kirk and reviewing his life from our perspective, from an evangelistic perspective, a

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discipleship perspective, a biblical perspective.

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And we're excited to get into part three.

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Before we do that, we've got some really exciting news for you guys.

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We're attempting something new at the exchange that we haven't tried before and we're very

excited about it.

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um And it seems like our community is very excited about it.

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And so we're hosting a webinar for the very first time on how to build authentic

relationships with unbelievers.

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if you go to exchangemessage.org,

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And look there on the home page if you go to Eventbrite and look that event up how to uh

build authentic relationships with unbelievers you can find it there as well and Check

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your email because we've been emailing our list of contacts go on social media You can

find posts there about it and here on the podcast and so it's ten bucks So for the price

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of a pizza, you could come to this to our webinar at which the end of

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Jeff is going to be fielding questions with Q &A.

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And we're very excited.

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Jeff, you want to tell us a little bit about the content of this webinar and why people

should attend?

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we're going to talk about what relational evangelism is, how to connect with people in a

relational way so that we can get to the gospel in their lives.

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But it's going to be talking about how God is the one who's actually looking for people

and finding them.

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Our job is just to be working with him.

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So we talking about what I love to call divine appointments, and the fact that

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God is setting those divine appointments.

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We just have to keep our eyes open for them.

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We'll be talking about how to have compelling conversations with people, how to connect

with them relationally, and then how to take conversations deeper so that we're into those

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soul conversations that allow us to talk to people about their soul needs.

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You guys are not gonna wanna sit around and kind of wait to decide whether you're coming

on November 11th.

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It's a Tuesday.

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We're gonna be doing it uh late afternoon and mountain standard time.

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And so if you're on the East Coast, it's gonna happen a little after dinner.

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If you're on the West Coast, it's gonna happen a little uh right before dinner.

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And we're really excited about it.

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Only a hundred slots and a lot of people have already signed up.

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So slots are running out, seats are running out.

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We even have an entire uh small group.

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there's a church that said our entire small group is going to attend this thing.

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And so we're very, very excited about that, excited about everything that the Lord is

doing.

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um And so that is Tuesday, November 11th, and you could sign up, look for your emails, go

on social media, go to our website, wherever you go.

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We've got something pointing you to this event.

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So.

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I understand it that you're actually throwing in three digital books for that $10 price.

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Is that correct?

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That's right, you're gonna get free, $30 worth of free e-books, um exchange materials.

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And so you're gonna get a bundle of books um and uh at no cost to you.

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We're gonna give you instructions on how to access all that.

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And the idea there is that, um you know, we wanna arm you guys to the teeth for what we

think is happening in America right now and around the world.

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I think people are just more open.

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to gospel conversation and people are in more need of relationship, authentic

relationship, and God is working.

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I saw stats on a news show, it blew me away, how much in 20 years, Bible sales are up,

Christian music is being listened to, and um just church attendance.

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We're talking about, it's like in the last 20 years, Bible sales have

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doubled.

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And in the last 20 years, Christian music being listened to has like quadrupled.

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And so um it's really incredible to see what God is doing all around us.

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And so this is the time to get some training.

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This is the time to get good at conversations.

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Charlie was a master of conversation.

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We talked about that in the last episode on Gospel Talks podcast.

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And so in this uh episode, we're going to talk a little bit more about his legacy.

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But hey, I mean, there's

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You don't want to waste this life.

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You want to make it count for something.

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And the only way to do that is to impact eternity by sharing Jesus Christ with people.

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And so we're excited to bring this webinar to you and get access to it from anywhere in

the country.

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without uh further ado,

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when you look at the life of Charlie Kirk and you look at his legacy, mean, what do you

believe he left behind?

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think one of the words that really hits me is the word impact.

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It is just almost unthinkable.

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I went back and looked at the list of the speakers at his memorial service, and um just

recognizing not, not just the important people, but the vast amount of people.

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And so I guess part of my favorite uh testimonies of

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the memorial service were the people I didn't know before.

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It was the people that had worked with Charlie on a daily basis, had met him on a campus,

and then eventually started working with him and recognizing this was real life impact

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that Charlie was having.

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I think that Charlie purposely networked with people.

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uh He asked for introductions to people that he didn't know, and he was constantly

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looking for ways to expand his impact because number one, he genuinely believed in what he

was doing.

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And number two, I really do believe that Charlie believed he was bringing Jesus into

people's lives.

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and to me, this is not about self exaltation.

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This is about exalting the kingdom of Jesus Christ, helping people to recognize who he is

introducing people to him.

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That's really what I want to be thinking in terms of when I think of impact.

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And I think it's really important for us to recognize that we are influencing people.

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We're either doing it good influence or negative or neutral.

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And I think that most of us are walking through life wasting opportunities to impact.

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And man, you did not see Charlie wasting opportunities to impact.

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I would agree.

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I I can't believe for a second that a guy like Charlie had the platform he did without

having a why that was much bigger than him.

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He had a purpose that was huge in his eyes.

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I mean, he believed that what he was doing was not only impacting the country, but

impacting people in their faith and their worldview.

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all sorts of things.

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And you saw this, you saw light bulbs.

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If you ever go and watch those reels where Charlie's interacting on university campuses,

you saw light bulbs click like, oh, okay, I didn't realize that that argument was based on

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that, based on that, based on that.

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I could see how that's a problem.

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And that's a really big, big deal, I think, in terms of when we're working with people,

that's when we're impacting eternity.

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That's when we have the opportunity to impact eternity.

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And don't you think Charlie saw himself as part of something much bigger than Charlie?

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I think that's really key in that he was impacting people not because he wanted Charlie's

name out there, but because this life that was essential to people

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that was bigger than him.

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That's what he was a part of and he wanted them to be a part of that too.

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Right, right.

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And he built a movement of people.

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He built a company around that mission and brought all these young people in with him and

said, this is why we have to do this.

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This is why this is so important.

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And so Charlie had connected the dots between his worldview and where his country was

going.

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And they say that uh politics is downstream from culture.

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What's culture downstream from?

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Culture is downstream from the church.

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And so it's like, if anybody's to blame ultimately for the way the politics are in the

country, it's the fact that our churches are derelict in their mission.

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um so Charlie had connected all that and said, all right, let's do something about it.

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And so you could argue whether he was doing something about it from a cultural standpoint

or a political standpoint, probably more the arenas he was operating in.

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But um the church, I think, needs to take notes and say, we need to make sure we're doing

our job,

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Yeah, well, one of the things I love about Charlie's political impact is that he

recognized that it stemmed out of grew out of a relationship with God.

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And so he didn't take that as secondary, he he kind of took that as primary.

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And the politics flowed out of it.

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All morality is a reflection of God's character.

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And so when he's arguing for morality, he's he's actually arguing for

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both the existence of God and the impact of God on the world around us.

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Yeah, I would agree.

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uh the issues that he was tackling uh primarily were issues of that had a moral aspect to

them.

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And so uh we don't have to feel like we can't talk about those because I mean, those are

abortions, not primarily a political issue.

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It's a primarily a moral issue.

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The LGBTQ agenda is not primarily a political issue.

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It's a moral issue.

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And so, mean, Charlie was tackling those heads on.

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And hey, I mean, to all the guys that say

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Well, you know, he was more politics and he was confused Christianity with politics.

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I don't see a lot of other guys standing up taking the courage, you know, who have the

courage to stand up and say, let's tackle this head on.

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Let's do something about it.

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I mean, I get kind of irritated with guys who, you know, complain that Charlie wasn't

perfect, but at the same time it's like, um but he was doing something.

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So.

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I think that in the last 20, maybe even 50 years, there's been this pushback against

heroes.

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And I don't know that I totally understand that, but it's almost like we have to humanize

every single one of our human or heroes.

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And I understand that to some extent because we don't want to bring Charlie into the deity

status.

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He was a human and he did make errors.

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Right.

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the impact of his life was his error.

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The impact of his life was the amazing things that he did.

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So let me just ask this question to the person who says, yeah, but Charlie was mostly

about politics.

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What do you want people to say about you at your funeral?

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And when I when I listened to that memorial service, I began to realize know the impact

that Charlie had on each one of those people that talk.

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was their relationship with Jesus Christ.

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And that's the thing that I think really sticks out to me.

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He definitely talked about even morality and politics, but deeper than that was a personal

relationship with not just God, but Jesus Christ and him crucified and risen and coming

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again.

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mean, those are the testimonies you hear about Charlie.

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Right, and what Charlie was doing as a citizen uh was very biblical in terms of the

stewardship of citizenship that the Bible commands us to have um and to be good citizens.

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There is no indication that Charlie necessarily brought all that into his church on Sunday

uh where he attended.

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um It's not that he's making one political and the other, you know, it's not that he's,

you know, mixing things that shouldn't be mixed.

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There should be a separation of church and state, right?

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But um on the other hand, it's like he left this incredible legacy because he was willing

to go out and confront these issues with truth.

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um And he wouldn't mince his words and he wouldn't cut corners on being totally biblical.

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when he was confronting something and man, huge kudos to that.

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It's easier said than done.

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Well, it's interesting to me that the pushback of separation of church and state seems to

be coming from our, our Christian brothers these days more than from the left.

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And um I just think to myself, as I watch the Christian statement of, of our history, I

mean, 250 years of national history coming up soon.

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And will you just recognize

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they were constantly talking about God and constantly bringing God in.

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And this was not about trying to build a nation that uh ruled from a Christian

perspective.

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This was about letting Christianity flow into our lives.

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I was just reading First Timothy where he's telling us to be praying for those in

government.

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And then he says, so that we can live a peaceable life so that the main thing Jesus is

about, which is he's the only mediator between God and man, so that we might be able to

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talk about that.

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I mean, if you go back and look at the passage in first Timothy that talks about uh

praying for our elected leaders, it's all about world missions.

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so I mean, from a Christian perspective,

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Politics is about world mission because everything we do is about world mission.

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Mm-hmm.

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Well and the people on the other side that are influencing politics and government that

are involved in politics government their worldviews aren't neutral either Everybody's got

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everybody brings a worldview into what they're doing Everybody is doing what they're doing

for a reason bigger than just that thing and so they are driven by a worldview they're

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driven by a cause they're driven by a belief a truth and and so if if we

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as Christians decide not to be influential in our society anymore, who are we leaving the

influence to?

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Now, there are different ways to be influential.

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I think we're gonna talk about that.

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I mean, Jesus was very outspoken.

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His life was very, you know, at times could be very confrontational with the politicians

of his day who were, happened to be Pharisees, happened to be people of faith, you know.

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Yeah, well, and I think it was interesting as you see Peter having that, excuse me, Jesus

having that private conversation with pilot at his,

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trial in which he was eventually crucified.

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Pilate four times found him innocent.

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I mean, Pilate was very impacted by the person of Jesus Christ.

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I think that if you recognize impact, Jesus certainly had stronger impact than you and I

could ever imagine.

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Well, this is what's incredible to me.

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Pilate saw the innocence of Jesus.

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The centurion said after he had died, he was truly the son of God.

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One of the thieves on the cross put his faith in Jesus Christ before he passed.

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But the Pharisees, the Pharisees, I think were the only ones, the Pharisees in the crowd

were the only ones that could chant, crucify him all the way through.

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And then at the end, when the resurrection is being evidenced, we're the ones who said,

let's pay these guys to shut up about this.

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I mean, the insiders.

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that that George is is lifting up politics above the reality of truth.

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And and so we're not going to ever do that.

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We're involved in politics because we believe truth and the source of truth is Jesus and

the Word of God.

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And that the truth is what we're living about.

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ah Clearly, those are men who are living about falsehood and lifting

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plus their view of politics above any kind of truth.

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So I back back to Charlie, I when I think of his impact, I think of it the impact to

encourage to inspire, to enable, uh to motivate, to bring freedom and peace into

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individual lives.

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uh That's the kind of impact I want to have on people's lives.

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I'm afraid that

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um If we get too intellectual in our view of um how should we discourse with the lost on

college campuses and politics and all that, our impact can begin to discourage, can begin

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to stifle, maybe even bore people.

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It can begin to hinder the work of God.

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It can bring restraint and even tension in people's lives.

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That's not the impact I want to have.

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I want to have the impact that encourages and motivates and empowers and brings freedom

and peace into people's lives.

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Well, and that impact doesn't grow overnight, right?

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mean, Charlie for 11 years, 12 years had been going at this very steadily.

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There's a quote, and I might get it wrong, but a guy once said, the best time to plant a

tree is 20 years ago.

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The second best time is today.

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And so it's like, you know what?

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If you haven't been doing this, if you haven't been engaging people in their worldview, if

you haven't been presenting Christ, if you haven't been speaking publicly with people

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about the truth of the gospel, um if you haven't been building that impact, that momentum,

start today.

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Start right now.

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It's not too late.

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It's never too late to do the right thing.

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You you get, use that uh thought process that Charlie built this influence over 11 years

of public ministry.

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Let's take that into uh a private individual life.

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Cause that I think that's what gospel talks is about.

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We're talking to individuals who are trying to build their impact on their sphere of

influence.

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um Anna and I have a friend who uh just this last week was able to invite her

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hairdresser to do the Bible study with her.

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And the by the hairdresser who is Buddhist said, Yes, I'll do that.

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That that's seven years of relationship.

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That's seven years of impact.

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And you know that, that desire to impact started long, long time ago.

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In fact, my my friend was really frustrated.

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But

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because she wanted to be able to do more and just was never getting anywhere.

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But through the years just faithfully having influence, faithfully having impact.

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uh This friend began to talk about a concern and a fear in her life about the need of a

child, an adult child in her life.

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And my friend was able to say, you know, I have a four lesson Bible study that I think

could really help you with these fears.

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And

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uh All of that started seven years ago and through that gradual impact and it just speaks

to what you just said.

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Yeah, and and you know people like Anna people like the person you're talking about they

have to take this step of faith and they have to take you know and create an opportunity

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or offer something in risk of relationship and and Become somebody who says hey either

you're gonna turn this way.

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You're gonna turn this way You're gonna say yes or no to this to this thing I'm offering

but I'm willing to to risk a no I'm willing to risk rejection

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for you to have the opportunity to hear truth.

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And sometimes I think to myself, even me, me, George, what am I scared about that I

hesitate to put myself in those situations?

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I mean, what do we really have to lose besides people?

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You know, I mean, we could lose, we could lose the opportunity for souls to be in heaven

with us.

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That's what we could lose.

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Besides that, what do we really have to lose by saying, you know, man, actually, Jesus

said something.

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different about that.

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I'd love to show you in a Bible study how you could have peace about this issue.

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I'm betting there's people in your cul-de-sac.

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I'm betting there's people on your street that need to hear that, that want to hear that.

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Just wish sometimes, I wonder if unbelievers on the other side, sometimes wish that we as

Christians would have the courage to actually say something.

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I wonder if they're looking at us like, how come he doesn't say anything?

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I know he's a Christian.

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He knows that I know he's a Christian.

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Why doesn't he say anything?

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Yeah, yeah.

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Well, and and that brings me to the thought process.

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So we're not ever going to have a life like Charlie, but we can have a life like my wife's

friend.

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And I just feel like, okay, how do we go about do that?

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And and I have three ideas.

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Number one, we need to begin right now to network with our existing sphere of influence.

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You were talking about this neighbor that wonders if he's ever going to talk to me about

Jesus.

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And we've got to start being intentional.

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We've got to start connecting with people.

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And I do think that one of the problems that most of us have is that we are struggling

with, okay, I know I should talk to my neighbor about Jesus, but how am I ever going to

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get there?

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And I feel like if we could have a strategy that says rather than looking for a Jesus

moment,

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let's just start being a friendly neighbor and having compelling conversations with that

neighbor, so that the neighbor enjoys it and wants to talk to me.

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I've often thought, if you're going to have a conversation about Jesus, probably not going

to happen in the front yard.

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We've got to find conducive settings to have better conversations with our neighbors.

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So these are the strategies that I think of in intentionally taking conversations to the

gospel.

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If I take a conversation, number one, make it enjoyable.

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Number two, have a conducive setting so that they're better conversations.

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But then number three, on purpose, take conversations deeply, deeper, wear my Christianity

comfortably on my shirt sleeve and ask God for open doors and then purposely walk through

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those open doors when they come.

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Yes, 100 percent.

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uh And when you look at the gospels, you look at how Jesus and his disciples related to

the community.

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This is exactly how they did it.

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uh And so, yeah, I think that's that's incredible.

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I'm dying to hear.

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Yeah, go ahead.

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uh this uh conversation talking about the webcast and I think, or the webinar, I think

it's really, really important for people to know the exchanges about tools and training.

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mean, those are the things we believe that people have the ability.

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We just want to equip you.

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We just want to give you the tools and uh training.

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I just really believe one of the greatest tools a person can use is exchange Bible study.

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If you want to have impact on your friends, get close enough to them to where they're

talking about soul needs and offer a Bible study.

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When my oh our NNI our friend asked her friend, Would you do a Bible study with me?

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She said, I don't even know what a Bible study is.

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She's she's from a Buddhist background.

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And Brenda said, Well, I have this Bible study.

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just four lessons.

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It just introduced you to

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what the Bible says about who God is, how to have relationship with him.

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And that that woman said, Yeah, that sounds good.

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That's what I need.

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It was that simple.

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hmm It's amazing when God has prepared somebody that all it took was us having a small

short conversation That was the only thing standing in the way of the start of something

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incredible

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Yeah, well, I do think that those seven years of building connections is kind of set that

up.

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And so, you know, both is important, but eventually we got to take that step of faith and,

and invite people to meet Jesus.

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And I think the exchange Bible study is a good tool for that.

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The second concept, not just networking with the people we already know, but on purpose,

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expanding our own existing sphere of influence.

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I feel like if I have met learned anything from Charlie, it is that he purposely was

constantly expanding his uh network expanding his sphere of influence.

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And I want to learn from that I want to learn to be intentional in uh meeting people in on

purpose slowing down and having conversations with the people I meet.

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looking for ways to connect with the people that I've enjoyed in conversations with.

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mean, these are intentional ways of expanding that sphere of influence that I really want

to do.

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There's a something I heard.

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I can't remember where I heard it.

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But if you want to go fast, go alone.

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If you want to go far, go together.

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And there's no doubt in my mind that Charlie was an incredible networker.

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And not only that, he was an incredible builder of lifelong friendships because he took

people with him.

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Just the same way Jesus took people with him.

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He took disciples with him.

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He took the 70, the 120.

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Charlie took people with him.

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There's no way he could accomplish what he accomplished by himself.

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He had multiplied himself.

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in terms of leadership and capability and voice and things like that.

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And now there's a bunch of people, there's thousands and thousands of young people that,

you know, they might not have been the big torch that Charlie was, he was such a unique

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person, but all those candles together, all those matches together, you know, might equal

something really, really big, I think it will.

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But um I think having that bringing people with you mentality of discipleship, building

friendships, being a sticky person.

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somebody that's kind of hard to get away from.

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That's the community aspect of the New Testament.

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That's the fellowship.

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That's what that's about.

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Yeah.

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And I think that as we begin to get close to the people around us and begin to slow down,

meet them, spend time with them, then we're going to be able to not only connect with them

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and impact them, but they have a sphere of influence.

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And I, one of the things that I've also decided is I want to start asking for

introductions to people I don't know.

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I'm purposely looking to expand

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that sphere of influence.

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So uh going slow, meeting people, forming close sticky as as George would say, uh

relationships with them, and then utilize their contacts and ask them, help, help me meet

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that person that you've been talking about, I'd love to be able to impact them.

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And just recognize our impact is not for ourselves.

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We read this morning,

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Don't try to glorify yourself that we're not trying to glorify ourselves.

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We're trying to impact people for the kingdom of heaven

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Yeah, that's absolutely right.

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And it's not about us.

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It's not about us at all.

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And that's going to help you become a better conversationalist is if you capitalize what

you said right there, Jeff, is if you go into a conversation thinking, this is about me,

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and people are going to sense that I do my best to make it, you know, take interest in

them, I think is what you've said in the past is, hey, tell me more about yourself.

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man, how does that work?

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what do you do for a living?

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man, so how'd you get into that?

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You know, um people love that.

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because they know that means you love them, that you've taken an interest.

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and begin to ask questions back, we're going to take them deeper and show them the reality

of Christ in our lives.

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That's I mean, it will happen.

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I mean, that's just the way relationships go.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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100%.

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So, um talking about conversations, I think this is a concept that struck me this week.

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was teaching through John chapter 12 with my small group.

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you know, Lazarus was sitting at the dinner table having been resurrected.

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What would it have been like to sit at the dinner table with a resurrected person?

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um You know, we're resurrected.

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you know, not physically, but spiritually, we're resurrected.

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The Bible says we were dead in our trespasses and sins, and He has brought us to life.

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And so sometimes I think what we need to do is just be resurrected, display what Jesus

Christ has done in us, be ourselves, be Christians, live out your faith right in front of

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people, publicly.

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I think that's what Charlie did.

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For me, that was the most amazing, is that he had the courage to be really public about

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everything that Jesus Christ is and unashamed about none of it and apologetic about none

of it.

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I really believe that was the reason he had impact is that's really controversial.

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That worldview is really controversial.

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It's hated.

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It's resisted in our society.

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And then he just said, yeah, but it's my faith.

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It's my Jesus.

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And I'm going to live for him out in public every day.

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And um that's incredible.

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And I think that the thing that is incredible about what you just said is that that didn't

stop when Charlie died.

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Um, if, if, if anything that, that took a major leap forward, uh, you know, Hebrews

chapter 11, the great chapter of faith talks about Abel who was the first martyr and, it

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said about him,

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through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.

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And I, I just think that we need to recognize that this impact that we have for eternal

things, for the kingdom of heaven, that that's, that doesn't end when our life ends.

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It goes on and on and on forever.

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It is worth living for.

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It is, it is the only thing worth living for.

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John chapter 12, Jesus says, sometimes a grain has to die, fall into the ground before a

harvest can come.

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And so I really believe uh we're enjoying right now an opportunity in the lives of

especially the young demographic in America, inquisitiveness about why what happened to

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Charlie Kirk happened.

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And the reason we're enjoying that is because the head of grain died.

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and fell into the ground and now there's opportunity for hardness.

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Yeah.

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You know, you were talking about Lazarus while ago and his, um, people wanting to ask him

questions, you know, what was it like to be dead?

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And what was it like to be resurrected?

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And, I guarantee you Lazarus was not talking about the grave.

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He was talking about the person who gave him life.

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And, um, you know, when people start asking us questions about our life, um, about, about

Charlie's life, about why, um,

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What we really want to get to is the source of life.

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mean, the reason that Charlie was so vivacious, the reason he was so powerful, the reason

he's so impacting is because he had the source of life, which was Jesus himself.

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Yeah, and it just goes to show you everybody's armed with their salvation story.

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Everybody's armed with the story of their savior and how he came into their life and

changed things.

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And just go use that.

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I mean, it's a simple thing to tell your story.

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It's probably one of the most authentic things you can do.

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It's just say, you know, once they get to the point where they're interested in you, hey,

this is my story.

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This is what God did in my life.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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Well, I have just really been impacted by the life and now death of Charlie and I, I don't

want it to go by without impacting and changing me.

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Yeah, yeah.

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No, I think it was very good that we took this time um to think about it and to talk

through it.

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um And so to you guys in the community, laborers in the harvest, um go out, live your

faith publicly as Jeff would say, wear it comfortably on your sleeve that you are a child

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of Jesus Christ, that you live for him, that you believe in his death, burial and

resurrection, and that it is the only way to eternal life.

402

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And that's the only way for us to escape our insignificance and impact eternity.

403

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And so we're gonna be praying for you guys on the harvest.

404

00:34:15,235 --> 00:34:18,117

Don't forget, sign up for the webinar.

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00:34:18,118 --> 00:34:20,720

I'll put a link in the podcast description below.

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00:34:20,720 --> 00:34:25,904

So if you're looking for a link on how to sign up, I'll put it in the description below

and you guys can sign up.

407

00:34:25,904 --> 00:34:30,558

It's for the price of a pizza, a bad pizza at that one.

408

00:34:30,558 --> 00:34:31,759

I mean, a cheap pizza.

409

00:34:31,759 --> 00:34:32,720

You're talking Domino's.

410

00:34:32,720 --> 00:34:35,792

We're not talking like Italian gourmet pizza, okay?

411

00:34:35,854 --> 00:34:48,523

30 minutes at the end of that two hours, and November 11th, Tuesday, don't forget to sign

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00:34:48,523 --> 00:34:48,833

up.

413

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And we love you guys, we're praying for you.

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Pray with us as we pray to the Lord of the Harvest that he would send forth laborers.

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Love you guys, we'll see you next