This Light of Mine | Dr. Joe Stowell

Are you concerned about the direction of American culture? Are you angry about some of the battles we face in today's society?

Does it feel like the bad guys have won and the good guys are losing? How can you become credible with the gospel in the face of all this opposition? Well, just try a few good works to your neighbor, to somebody to work with, your church, to the area that you live in, and you just might see the light of Jesus Christ shining brightly. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Today, former president of Moody Bible Institute and author Joe Stoll will talk about how to live fully in an age of anger and vitriol. Our featured resource is the book, This Light of Mine, Living Like Jesus in a Non-Jesus World.

You can find out more at our website, buildingrelationships.us. Gary, I know you have seen this phenomenon as you travel around the country. There's a lot of anger, a lot of frustration with the ways that the culture is moving away from biblical morality, and we have to ask ourselves some really hard questions, don't we? Well, I think we do, Chris.

You know, I've sometimes said it's like a civil war we're having, verbally, you know, shooting each other down if we disagree with each other and that sort of thing. So Dr. Joe Stoll has written this book on the whole topic, and so I'm excited about it. I hope our listeners will stay tuned because this is going to be helpful to them.

I think so too, and if you have somebody in your family that you disagreed with back during the holidays about the political thing, listen to what Dr. Joe Stoll says. He has a distinguished career in higher education and church leadership, served as president of Moody Bible Institute, and then Cornerstone University, as well as pastoring several churches in Midwest. He's written several books, including Strength for the Journey and Simply Jesus. He and his wife, Marty, have three children, ten grandchildren, and our featured resource is that new book, This Light of Mine, Living Like Jesus in a Non-Jesus World.

Find out more at buildingrelationships.us. Well, Dr. Stoll, I've known you for a long while and really, really glad to have you with us today on Building Relationships. Thank you, Gary. It's so good to hear your voice. I treasure the memories of our work together at Moody, and I certainly value the great impact your writing has had on the body of Christ and on my messages too, because I use your love languages as some illustrations in my messages. Thanks for how you've been used to the Lord. Delighted to be on this program with you, my friend.

Well, thank you. So tell us more about the why of this book. I mean, there must have been something really troubling, and you were disturbed about it and wanted to get a message out here, so tell us what motivated you. Yeah, well, actually troubled.

I was troubled, and I am. I'm troubled about the gospel and our ability to do the gospel in such a hostile culture. The psalmist, Gary, asks a really interesting question in Psalm 11 3. It says, if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

So what can we do? Because the foundations of biblical morality have been obviously destroyed. Like, for instance, if you live next door to a neighbor who has signs all over his yard pushing progressive agendas that you know are anti-biblical, how do you build a gospel bridge to somebody like that when he sees you as a conservative Christian?

How do we do this? Or, you know, if your fellow co-workers in the office know your views on abortion and human sexuality and think that you're somehow related to Attila the Hun, how do you build a bridge of the gospel to people like that? And so the real issue is, how can the gospel through us be credible in a world gone wrong?

That's the probing question in my heart. I do like 1 Chronicles 12 32, Gary, where it says, the men of Iskar, that was one of the tribes of Israel, understood their times and knew what to do. And thankfully, Jesus tells us what to do, so it's not like we're left without a plan. But my fear is that in not knowing what to do, we've actually hindered the gospel. Gary, do you remember when your kids were real little and you were doing a project and they just wanted to help and they ended up getting in the way and making a bigger problem?

You know, why is it that when they're 18 they're not willing to help? I don't fully understand that, but my fear is that not knowing what to do, we've been like little kids and that we've kind of messed up the project and actually hindered the gospel. But like I said, thankfully, Jesus answers the question of Psalm 11 3 and has given us a way to establish the gospel credibility in our world, a world that really doesn't want to hear what we have to say. Well, I'm guessing that every Christian who's listening to us today is ready to hear, because they're struggling also with this and they're observing themselves and others.

Now, you state in your book that evangelicals have hindered the spread of the gospel by wrong attitudes and wrong actions. So what are the attitudes and actions that concern you most? I think the attitudes that concern me most is how we relate to and how we respond to the fact that we've lost our culture to a paganism that's trashed all of the values that we hold dear.

I mean, just make the list, right? A nation that has legalized same-sex marriage, think of the power of the LGBTQ movement, think of gender issues, think of pronoun issues, think of bathroom issues, think of a nation where 70% of our fellow Americans believe that abortion is a good thing, some of them all the way up to the unborn at nine months, and think of the basic marginalization of those of us who hold biblical values. So how have we responded to that? Well, my observation in the last couple decades is we basically responded with a sense of despair. I remember I was speaking to a relatively small group of people, and actually when I preach people usually fall asleep. On this occasion there was a guy sitting on the front row and I had the boldness to make the statement, I don't think we're going to get America back.

And his body language just moved up, he almost stood up out of his chair and he shouted out, oh no, oh we do. And the despair in his voice was just palatable. I think that a lot of us are angry about this stuff and in a real fighting mood, a lot of us are hopeless. And basically the feeling that we're the losers, when actually if you've read the last chapter we're the winners, right? And should be the last ones to express a sense of despair and anger and hopelessness. And interestingly enough, this kind of response goes out to a lost world.

And guess what? There's a lot of anger in the lost world. Lost people are in despair today. Lost people feel hopeless about so many of the things in our culture.

So if we're like them, why would they want to have what we have if it's just the same thing? This really came home to me when I retired from my day job. I didn't retire from the kingdom, but Marty and I go, what are we going to do? And we decided, hey let's go camping and let's go out to the cave, let's go out to the national parks out west. And Gary, we'd never camped a day in our lives.

I mean this was like a high-risk adventure. But anyway, so we got a camper and we've loved camping. And most people who camp know that in campgrounds we have shower places where you can go and wash the wilderness off. And I remember one morning walking down toward the shower place where the showers were, and there was a guy in front of me with a towel. Oh no, he's gonna beat me to the shower. And we both walked in and he stopped to shave at my advantage. I went around him back to where the showers were. And there were two shower stalls. And there was another man getting ready to get into his shower stall. And I greeted him. And then he just launched. He said, you know what, I used to bring my little girl in here for a shower. I'd never do that today in the day of trans and all this trans stuff. And then we both kind of stepped into our showers. And the wall between us went up about seven feet, so it was open above and I could hear him. And he just kept going. Just reason that same-sex marriage problems. How come the LGBTQ movement has so much power? We never get a month.

How come they never get a month? Talked about the proton. And then he dragged a couple of his politicians in that he couldn't stand. And it was like, oh my goodness. And then he said this. He said, I go to a great church. He said, and my pastor's all over this kind of stuff.

He has zero tolerance for this. And I thought, hey, he's a brother and I'm going to kind of lighten up the atmosphere here. And I said, hey, yeah, but I've read the last chapter. I know who wins. And he said, yeah, so do I, but we got to fight about this stuff. And I thought, and you know, actually I'm concerned about the same thing.

So are you, right? But it was his tone. It was his, but then here's what happened. I stepped out of my shower and this guy who had beat me to the shower room, who shaved, had walked down.

He has his towel folded over in his arm, waiting to get in, in queue. He heard the rant. And Gary, I was ashamed for the gospel. You know, I said to this guy, like, hey, you want to be a Christian?

You could be just like us. You know, that was going to be the big nonstarter, right? And so it's the attitudes of how we've responded, I think have damaged the credibility of the gospel in our world. And the actions, you said, what about the attitudes and actions, is that we've politicized our faith by marrying Jesus into the political systems of our day. So we as evangelicals basically are not seen as a movement for the Kingdom of Christ, but as an opposing political force. And if we are the political enemy of all the progressives, and by the way, I think Jesus wants progressives to be saved, right? The gospel needs to go to them too.

You know, but, you know, if we're seen as this opposing political force, as the enemy, nobody on the other side will want what we have, since we're the enemy. And so Jesus wants us to put the welcome mat out of the gospel for everyone, even progressives, and I think we've done a lot of damage there. So those in my mind are the attitudes and the actions that have hindered the gospel in our day. You know, Joe, I was reflecting back on my own life as you were talking as to where we are today. And I remember when I was in high school, the Bible was taught in my school, Old Testament survey, New Testament survey, in the public school.

And every morning, the principal prayed over the PA system. And I was thinking, wow, we have come a long ways. Yeah, we really have come a long way. Well, and I think what you were talking about earlier is so true that many non-Christians now simply view Christians as a political force, you know, rather than, and don't even associate us with the gospel. It's just those are those people that are, you know, against this and this and this. So this is an important topic.

I'm really glad that you wrote this book. So Joe, we were discussing the whole issue of the population today, seeing Christians as just a political force. Can you give us some examples of that? Yeah, right. Well, when our national evangelical leaders endorse candidates, when we open political rallies with the prayer by a local pastor who prays for the success of the candidate and the defeat of the other candidate, when we platform preferred political candidates at our major national gatherings, when we sing worship songs at political rallies, when we wear t-shirts and caps that combine Jesus with our political preference, then they get the impression, you know, that Jesus is a part of this thing. I remember Marty and I were driving down the road, the country road in Louisiana. We drove by this beautiful ranch, and it had this big white fence out in front, and over the driveway was this banner, Jesus, our only hope.

Good. But down the rest of the fence were flags touting their preferred candidate. And I thought the average driver driving here thinks that Jesus and that goes together. And I also thought, Gary, what a powerful thing it would have been if it was just the banner over the driveway, not married to the rest of the political stuff.

That would have been so powerful. January 6th, I think we all saw signs of people, you know, running against the Capitol building with crosses and having Jesus on their sweatshirts, and I was so burdened by that. So it's no wonder. By the way, a recent Barna survey says that evangelicals are now seen by American adults through a political lens. And here's the bad news. We have branded Jesus with a political identity.

That's the really bad news. He doesn't carry anybody else's brand, you know. He is never Jesus plus. And I've often wondered if when witnessing to someone they might say, well, but do I have to become a right-wing patriot to close the deal? So I think there's a lot of evidence to the fact that the gospel has been hindered by our political infusion of Christ and politics. I think some of our listeners may well be asking when they hear you say that, but aren't we supposed to be an influence, you know, and seek to influence the morality of our culture? Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you for saying that. But we need to do it in the name of Jesus, not in the name of a political candidate. But we need to do it in the name of the Kingdom of Christ, you know. We are here bringing morality to you in the name of Jesus, and not in a political party, but of the Kingdom of Christ. So, you know, it's all a matter of keeping Jesus central, focused, and not compromised, really, with all the political systems of our day.

Yeah. Well, let's talk about the whole political world. You know, what are some legitimate ways for evangelicals to influence our culture through the political scene? No, yeah, great question, Gary, because, you know, interestingly enough, the early church thrived. They flourished in a very hostile culture, far more hostile than ours. And the gospel went forth with strength. And in my book, I do a lot of contrast of what was their secret, how did they do this. But one thing they didn't have, they couldn't vote the Emperor out.

I mean, they had zero political clout. So we do have some advantages that I think are very legitimate, and as good citizens, you know, we should be responsible for that. Obviously, one is we can vote right, and we can cast our vote for candidates who support our values, and who advance morality in our world, if there are any that are running for that. We can volunteer. We can run for school boards. We can run for political office. I have a friend who got so fed up with all this stuff that he ran for Congress, and he won. He is now in his fifth term in the U.S. House, making a great difference for Christ in that, not just politically, but spiritually as well. We can support candidates.

We can pray for revival. We can support candidates financially. These are all legitimate privileges of living as a good citizen. But the difference is, is that in the macro sense, we are not making a state for evangelicalism. It's a personal private thing, and I think these are the kind of things that Christians ought to get involved with. Yeah, I'm encouraged when I see that happening, you know, in our local scene here where I live, you know, to see people running for the school board and that sort of thing.

Because, you know, we bring our values, just like the non-Christian brings their values to a political setting, we bring our values to a political setting. So, you know, we have a voice. But the voice can't be shrill. Yeah. I think that's important. I think the voice has to be full of grace, strength, and courage, but at the same time, first, and we may want to talk about this a little later, and it can't be a voice that goes against the people.

It's got to go against the policies, right? Because people are precious to Christ. Yes, absolutely. Now, in your book, you contrast the difference between two kingdoms, our earthly kingdom and the kingdom of Christ. Why is this important?

That's so important. When Christ came, he came into a political environment where the Jews and the Jewish leaders thought that when the Messiah arrives, he's going to arise as a political conqueror, overthrow the oppressive regime of Rome, and sit on the throne of David. In other words, to actually, Gary, restore Israel to its former glory.

That was their hope. And Jesus came, and he claimed to be their man. But he was a surprise. You know, it's interesting, after his baptism and temptation in the wilderness, and to kick off his ministry, he didn't run up to Jerusalem and get connected with all the political powers of Judaism to plot the overthrow of Rome. He had a down country, and he recruited twelve commoners to go with him into the lives of people. And if you read Matthew and you read Luke so many times, this is the commentary. And he healed the sick and proclaimed the kingdom of God. He healed the sick and proclaimed the kingdom of God. Now, all of a sudden, we have introduced a whole new kingdom, not the earthly kingdom, not the overthrow of Rome, but the kingdom of God. And it's clear that he came not to overthrow an earthly kingdom, but to launch a new kingdom, the kingdom of Christ.

And the masses loved it. I mean, they followed him. And he told parables about his kingdom, and he recruited people to follow him into the kingdom. He told us how to live in his kingdom in a Sermon on the Mount. And he was all about launching a new kingdom. And he called his disciples to help him advance the kingdom, and he calls us to live to advance his kingdom as well. And I think part of the thing that concerns me is that I think a lot of us, well intended for sure—I want to be gentle here, we just didn't know what to do— well intended, have more passion to overthrow an earthly kingdom and to restore its glory than we do to advance the kingdom of Christ. And I think we need to be called to his kingdom.

I love it. And in Colossians, it says that God has transplanted us out of the domain of darkness. I love that phrase, domain of darkness.

It's kind of like Tolkien, isn't it? The domain of darkness. That's the earthly kingdom. Transfer into the kingdom of his dear sons. We are citizens of a different kingdom. We are called to advance his kingdom. And that kingdom, the advance of that kingdom, is the gospel of his son to liberate lost souls and welcome their weary hearts to Jesus Christ. And so I think once we understand there's two kingdoms going on here, we have to prioritize his kingdom and not do anything to damage people's welcome mat into the kingdom of Christ. And we are not the ones who are going to establish his kingdom on earth, right? That's his prerogative. When?

When he does that. Yeah, and I think, exactly. That's such a really good point because the day will come when he will establish finally his kingdom. You know, we're part of that kingdom now and the culture of the kingdom is how we live and welcome others to the culture of that kingdom.

But just read, can't you love Revelation 21? You know, when the day is coming, when he will conquer, finally put sin and Satan away forever and welcome us into his kingdom and he will be our God and we will be our people and we will wipe away every, he will wipe away every tear and there will be no more death and no more dying and all things will be made new. Then we will know the fullness of his kingdom. But right now we're kind of in the entry stage of his kingdom and like I said, we're called to advance that and to do nothing to damage the potential of the kingdom of Christ going into people's hearts.

Yeah. You know, one of the things I hear you saying is that we're here to invite people into his kingdom now. This is far more important, opening the door for them to come into his kingdom than it is whatever happens politically in our country or any country. We're there to help people come into his kingdom, right? Amen.

Exactly. And we should avoid anything that damages that potential. You're listening to The Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman podcast. If you go to buildingrelationships.us, you'll find our featured resource by our guest Dr. Joe Stoll.

His book is titled This Light of Mind, Living Like Jesus in a Non-Jesus World. Find that and more ways to strengthen your relationships there at buildingrelationships.us. So Joe, you state that as Christians we need to stand with confidence and courage for biblical morality in areas such as human sexuality and the sanctity of life. But you go on to say that it must be coupled with compassion.

What does that look like? Hmm. And I think this is one of the tougher assignments, Gary, because we need to be courageous in standing for biblical truth and biblical morality. And we need to have confidence that we're standing on the right side and not be intimidated. But I think the problem is that we're not compassionate.

Compassion reaches out to the needs of people, right? So I think it's easy to appropriately oppose policies that contradict our values and at the same time see the people who are propagating the policies through a negative lens. Like these are evil people. They need to be shunned. They need to be defeated.

And by the way, I think parenthetically I think we need to understand something. No progressive who's advancing the paganistic agenda today, Gary, wakes up in the morning and says I need to do something really evil today. They think this is progress. They think they're a part of a whole new world order.

And all of these things make life better, you know. There's no moral restrictions. They're excited about the future of the world, globally speaking, with the emergence of this. This is their agenda. So they're not intentionally evil.

What they're doing is propagating evil agendas, but they're not intentionally evil. But we tend to think that they are. And we tend to think that they should be shunned and they should be divided. We start taking it personally to see them as the enemy. Now here's, if we're gonna live like Jesus in a non-Jesus world, as my book cover says, we need to know that Jesus never saw people as the enemy.

None of them. Actually the only harsh words he had to say were the hypocrisy with the religious leaders and the chief priest who had compromised themselves politically with Rome. I mean that was his most harsh language. He never saw people as the enemy. In fact, it's interesting, and this was a shock to the average good quote-unquote Jewish mind when they asked him who is my neighbor, right?

Remember that? And Jesus tells the story to prove who is the neighbor. Guess who he chooses as the hero is the story. A Samaritan, the enemy of the people. And we don't, you know, we probably don't know about the geopolitics of Israel and Samaria in that day, but the Samaritans were the hated evil people. They were seen as the enemy of the temple, the enemy of Israel, and Jesus chooses an enemy to be the hero, the woman at the well. He risked his whole reputation in Jerusalem to stick around and talk to a woman.

No rabbi would have ever done that, and she was a Samaritan. And he stays in the city and leads a revival in that enemy city. The centurion, the Roman centurion, who by faith asks for healing, and he says, you have more faith than anyone I know in Israel. So Jesus never saw people as the enemy. And he surprised the religious leaders of his day by hanging out with sinners. I love Luke 15.

This is one of my most favorite stories. He's hanging out with tax collectors and sinners. And Gary, you and I know that they were low guys on the totem pole of morality, right? They were the worst kind of people Jews knew, tax collectors and sinners. And the Pharisees, it says, are watching this and they're murdering with each other. Ah, this man hangs out with tax collectors and sinners and even eats with them because it was anathema. And I wonder if when Jesus overheard them grumbling like that, he said, oh, I don't know what I was doing.

I'm so sorry, I'm out of here. He stayed. And he actually said, you know why I stay with people like this. And he told the story of a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. A lamb to a farmer was a thing of value.

The coin to this woman was of value. The son of value to his father. That the lost have value to God.

And because he has suffered a significant loss when Adam fell in the garden, and the whole metanarrative scripture is the redemptive power of Christ to bring the lost back to himself. And Jesus is hanging out with the wrong kind of people on purpose because he came to seek and save that which was lost. So we have to be very careful.

We need to be against the policies, but not the people. We need to be like Jesus to these people, praying for them, seeking ways. And by the way, Jesus' whole basic plan for reaching the lost in this world shows a way to get that done, actually.

But it's so important. Marty and I have a friend, a lady who had a ministry get this to strippers, all right, in the nightclubs, in strip joints. So you know, what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?

You know, and I'm sure a lot of people, ah, well why are you doing it? But she would go into the clubs, meet these girls, take them cookies, get acquainted, take them away on weekends, take them on a retreat. She led several of those girls to the Lord who were liberated from the pimps that had them in bondage, who now have life in Jesus Christ, have a real job and a good life, you know. And I'm saying thank God for her. You know, she's like Jesus. She's hanging out with the wrong kind of people because she came to seek and save that which was, that's just one example. But I think that we need to take a stand on issues of morality, but we have to keep it in the policy world and love people in a way that will offer to bring even.

Maybe I have time for just one more. I told you about my friend who ran for Congress, and he, he works in a bipartisan prayer group. And every once in a while, one of the most liberal progressive Congress ladies comes. She's a headliner for her progressive agenda. They ask her what her needs are. They pray for her. And she says, you know, when she leaves, she always stops me with the tear in her eyes and says, thank you so much for praying for me. My guess is she's a lot closer to Christ today than if all she had was the vindictiveness she hears on the floor of the House of Representatives because somebody cares about her.

Yeah, powerful, powerful. You discussed earlier a bit of this, but that the early church living under the oppression of Rome was a hopeful church. That the early Christians had a real sense of hope. How do you define biblical hope, and how can we hold on to that hope? Well, hope is a kingdom of value. So if we're going to be kingdom people, we have to be hopeful people. Sadly, a recent survey of Americans revealed that, get a load of this, only 10% of Americans see evangelicals as hopeful.

Now how can we possibly have credibility and be attractive to a world when they see us like this? I get the fact that hope is hard. I mean, we've got a lot of reasons for losing hope on a regular basis. When our candidates lose an election, when the Supreme Court issues a decision that violates our values, we lose hope. When we feel marginalized, we lose hope. When we read headlines about the advance of progressive agenda, we lose hope. But early Christians, in spite of the hostility of their culture, they were seen as hopeful people.

Do you know why? Because their hope was not in earth-side things. Their hope was that Christ was in the Lord, and His promise that He would never leave them or forsake them, His promise that He was coming again, His promise that the best is yet to come.

These were people of the long view, and it gave them hope in the midst of a hostile world. Talking to a lady the other day, and she was so happy about the November election, and she said, now we can hope again. And I get exactly what she was saying.

I get what she was saying, Gary. But the point is, she's got her hope in the wrong place. You know, if our hope is in politicians and political gain or whatever, what happens four years from now when we lose it? We're hopeless again, right? Like we're yo-yo hope people. Hope today, don't hope tomorrow. But as the psalmist says, we do not put our hope in chariots and horses, but we put our hope in the Lord our God. And those early Christians had unwavering hope in the Lord their God, because they were people of the long view, and they believed that God was faithful.

He would keep His promise. And a biblical hope is not like our normal hope. We say, boy, I hope it doesn't rain on vacation. I hope the Cubs win another game nowadays. I hope, you know, those are the maybes. But Hebrews 11 one says, our hope is in a certainty of the faithfulness of God to keep His promises to us, that He will never leave us or forsake us, that He will be with us. He will come again, and He will take us home to heaven. And that makes us hopeful people. And in a hopeless world, that could be attractive to somebody. We just might have the opportunity to share the gospel.

Why, how are you so hopeful? I thought you'd never ask. Yeah, powerful introduction. You know, a film asking us, absolutely. Yeah, right. Joe, take us back to the person of Christ.

I mean, you talked about this earlier. What was the plan of Jesus in advancing His kingdom in a hostile environment? And how does that plan transform our attitudes and our actions? Yeah, well, thank you for asking that, because we have now come to the moment where we can show the plan of Jesus. And my book is all about unveiling this wonderful plan. In Matthew chapter 5, it says, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute and utter all kinds of evil gifts. So He is speaking this plan into a hostile environment, right? We live in a hostile environment. And then He says, and here's the plan, you are the light of the world.

A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see. Now, that's really key.

Not hear your message, but see something about you. See your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. And that word good there is the Greek word for not like, I behave as a Christian. I mean, that's going nowhere with the gospel. You could say to somebody, hey, you could be a Christian. You want to tithe like I do? You want to go to church on Sunday like I do?

You want to stop sleeping around? You know, like, that's going nowhere, right? So this is not like behaving yourself good. It's like doing good works that care about people, works that meet the needs of people. In my book, we show this was the power of the early church.

We don't have time to talk about it now, but this is the power of our lives, that people see something different in our lives. And interestingly enough, Peter picks it up, 1 Peter 2, and he says, keep your lives honorable. Have good attitudes.

When they call you evildoers, let them see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. So this is the plan. It's something about our lives that is living for the blessing of others, for the care of others, for the love of others, which then leads me to the chapter I wrote on what's love got to do with it. And love is the central theme.

It's interesting. Jesus said that we had to love in four ways. We had to love God, we had to love our neighbor, we had to love our enemy, and we had to love one another. And as we live the love of God out toward other people in these four arenas, it gives us power. Of course, loving God is obeying him. John chapter 13. You'll be glad to know this, Gary Chapman, God has the love language. That's right.

He does. And it's our obedience when we surrender and live according to his ways. So that's what it means to love God. Loving our neighbor is the second arena where we have power. You know, the word neighbor in Scripture is not the guy that he lives—well, it includes the guy that lives next door, but it's anybody who crosses your path.

And Jesus talks us, how can you reach out to—how can you love them? I think one fun story that I always remember was I was out for my morning run, and Marty said, hey, bring a couple Starbucks lattes back, because the end of my run there's a little Starbucks place, and it was 6 a.m., and I was the second guy in. And the first guy is all over the barista, this young kid trying to open up the store. He had a New York Times in one hand, a $50 bill in the other hand. He said, what do you mean you don't have change? What kind of a place are you operating? I want my newspaper.

I don't know. So I finally stepped in. I said, hey, I'll buy his newspaper for him. And the guy looks at me like, really?

I said, yeah, yeah. And he takes the newspaper, starts. He said, all I have is yours.

Didn't include the $50 bill, but anyway, so then he just kept going. And this is what the barista said to me. He said, mister, that was a really nice thing you did. This world would be a better place if there were more people like you. And then I thought, I need to say something about Jesus right now, and I couldn't think of what to say. Have you ever had that moment? So I walked out with my lattes, I got halfway down the block, oh, I should have said this. Well, actually, the world wouldn't be a lot better place if a lot of people were like me, but it'd be a better place if a lot of people were like Jesus, because he taught me how to do this. I said, I'm gonna go back and say that to the kid.

I'm gonna go back. So I walked, and there was already a line, and I didn't think butting in the line, make a religious speech was going to be all that good. So I blew my opportunity, but I remembered then I had my old beat-up Moody Bible Institute hat, and I thought to myself, could it be that he saw my hat, and he saw that Bible people do these kinds of things?

It was small. I bought the guy a newspaper, and it caught the kid's attention, you know, and it's those small things that we do to love our neighbor, and who knows what the end result will be, or even like if you want to go to the third arena, the loving of our enemy, where Christ makes that very clear that we are to love our enemies. By the way, Gary, are you really thankful that God loves his enemies? Yes, or we wouldn't be in the family.

No, we wouldn't be in the family, you know, and he loved his enemies, and he asks us to love our enemies, and this is a hard one because we don't always know how to do that, but let's say you had a really nasty neighbor who was always just nasty, and then his wife comes down with serious cancer, and you're taking meals over. Maybe that's when you show the love of Christ to your enemy, and another really favorite story is about Dan Cathey, who is CEO of Chick-fil-A. You know, the world loves Chick-fil-A, right, and several years ago, he made a statement that he didn't agree with same-sex marriage. Well, that fired up the whole gay system, and they started picketing all the Chick-fil-A's.

So now what's Cathey gonna do? Call his lawyer? Call the police? You got to get these pickets out of here?

They're ruining my business? No, he told all of his stores, take them chicken sandwiches. So here they go, these picketers are getting free chicken sandwiches, and then he called the head activist of this group, and he said, could I come by and meet you? And I think the guy thought he's going to get, what, four, and maybe Cathey's going to say, call my lawyer, but Cathey walked in and sat down and said, you know, I'd just like to get to know you. Tell me your story. Let me tell you my story. And they became friends.

In fact, sometimes this guy's sitting next to Cathey at this Chick-fil-A bowl up in the skybox. So I have to ask you this question, is this gay activist closer to knowing, I don't know, closer to knowing Jesus today because Dan loved his enemy than he would have been if Dan had sued him for ruining his business? Absolutely. Yeah.

Absolutely. And if you don't like this story, if it makes you, just remember Jesus with the worst people in his world, you know. Remember Luke chapter 15. And then the fourth way that we influence our world is loving one another. Church, I want to say this real slow, church should be a safe place where all are loved and accepted, where we park our preferences and prejudices at the door and look for someone else that we can bless regardless and walk in knowing Jesus is the center of all that we do. There aren't many safe places for people today and I'm afraid that they think that churches aren't a real safe place. We drag our prejudices and our preferences in. I'll tell you, it was an embarrassment during COVID when Christians and churches and pastors fought vaxxers against non-vaxxers and attached spiritual meanings to whether you get a vaccination or you don't or whether you close the church or whether you don't.

That was such an embarrassment to the gospel. We're to love one another. You don't have to like each other. I don't think Jesus likes everything about me, but he loves me and he cares about me. And so that's the power of love in influencing our culture and keeping the gospel alive. And so I think right at the core of the kingdom is this wonderful concept of love in all four arenas.

I've often said it's the most important word in the English language, love. Yeah, no doubt. Amen. Amen.

Well, Joe, you've shared some examples of this, but give us other examples of the kinds of actions that you're talking about. Remember the little chorus, this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shimmer. We can't think like this Sunday school chorus, right? It is the core of the power of the gospel is for us to let our light shine. And it melts the resistance of the culture and at times even is good enough to draw someone into the kingdom.

And so in my book, I thankfully have given several illustrations of how this has happened in sometimes very dramatic ways. But you know, maybe lighting up your neighborhood, your town with good works means a lot. I have a friend who's pastors a church in Vermont, all right?

So he got stuck way up in nowhere. It is right in the shadow of Dartmouth University Ivy League school. So obviously, it's progressive world on steroids. And the whole Dartmouth, for the most part, community probably wouldn't care a bit about this church, you know, and probably thinks this church is, you know, some medieval myth that they worship over there, or maybe even hostile toward the church for what we stand. But my buddy Chris Gepner, who pastors the church, said, you know what? We're gonna bless our community. We're gonna do our good works. We're gonna reach out into our community and bless our community with the love of Christ. Right there in the shadow of Dartmouth University, in spite of all the cultural opposition, his church is booming and seeing many come to Christ.

So he's won the hearts for Jesus by expressing the love of Jesus through good works. They feed public schoolteachers lunch. They've paid off hundreds of school lunch debts of impoverished children who can't afford to pay for their lunches. They operate and staff a soup kitchen for the hungry. Their care ministry has paid the heating bills of many when brutal Vermont winters could not afford to pay their bills.

You can count on it, Gary. People who live in the shadow of Dartmouth's progressive power would tell you that their world is a better place because of the love of Christ they have received from Chris's church. And I can't help but think of how different it would have been if, like that pastor of the shower guy that we talked about at the beginning of the program, had positioned his church as an anti-progressive church and fired off at the progressives in the Dartmouth community.

How dim his light would have been. How unattractive the gospel would have been. But his church is booming because of their little light that they let shine in their community by their good works that brought glory to their Father in heaven.

And I think it's just one example of what can be done with people who follow the Jesus plan. Remember we said at the very beginning, how can you become credible with the gospel in the face of all this opposition? Well, just try a few good works to your neighbor, to somebody you work with, your church, to the area that you live in, and you just might see the light of Jesus Christ shining brightly. Well, what happened if every Christian church in the country had that attitude and that vision?

Amen. If you had one other thing to say to our listeners about living like Jesus in a non-Jesus world, which is, you know, part of the title of your book, what would you say to them as we leave today? I would just say, remember whose kingdom you belong to. Remember the joy and privilege of advancing his kingdom over and above your earthly kingdom. And remember how good the gospel is to set people free. And what a treasure that we carry the gospel, and to keep it totally unhindered, and to keep Jesus unbranded by anything else except the power of his love. And to, you know, we're just commoners. We're not church pastors.

It's fine. Every day, pray, Lord, how can I be a blessing? How can I do a good work?

How can I reach out and let Jesus fulfill that prayer? I think we ought to do one good work a day just to stay in the habit. You know, that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna let my light shine somewhere today just to stay in shape.

Anyone can do that with the help of God. Amen. Well, Joe, thanks again for being with us today, and thanks for the time you invested in this book. I think it's going to have a tremendous impact upon Christians. Yeah, I pray it will. I hope our listeners will get a copy and also share it with their friends.

Well, what a challenging conversation with Dr. Stoll today. If you want to find out more about our featured resource, go to buildingrelationships.us. We have the book link right there.

It's titled, This Light of Mine, Living Like Jesus in a Non-Jesus World. Again, go to buildingrelationships.us. And next week, we take your questions and comments from our listener line. Hear our February edition of Dear Gary next week. And if you'd like to ask a question, call 1-866-424-GARY and leave your message today. 1-866-424-GARY. Our thanks to our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Bakking. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.