Share the Love - Discovering Your Spiritual Love Language, Part 2

Most Christians I know struggle with sharing their faith. Often it's because they think there's only one way to do it. Well, today I'm going to tell you there is a right way for you.

Because God has made you uniquely. He actually wants you to share your faith in a way that is according to your design. And instead of guilt and ought and shoulds and all the things you need to know, I'm going to share with you about how sharing your faith looks just for you.

You don't want to miss it. Visit livingontheedge.org. Now he's picking up where he left off with technique number three for sharing your Gospel story, the testimonial approach. What I want to do is I want to give you six snapshots so you can begin to think, you know what, maybe that's not my love language spiritually but God has this infinite love and he wants to share it with these people and he's going to use me to build a bridge. I'm going to be a conduit so I want to discover the way that he's made me to do it.

The third love language is the blind man's testimonial approach. This is an approach that is natural for people who like to share how God has changed their life. It's just down to earth, honestly telling someone, this is what God did in me. This is how my life is currently changing. Here's some of the honest struggles.

You're willing to be vulnerable. This is what Teresa did last week in her message. She just shared her testimony.

She just shared, this is where I've been. This is how God gave me strength. This is how God sustained me.

This is how he changed my life. It's just sharing what you've seen, what you've heard and what you've experienced. I get this from John 9. The story is about Jesus and the disciples and they're walking along and as they're walking along there's a man who's been blind from birth and the disciples with their presuppositions and faulty theology say, Jesus could you tell us is this man blind because of his sin or the sin of his parents? Presuming that anytime something bad happens to someone it must be because of their sin and Jesus goes, wrong presupposition.

Neither. God actually has a plan for this man for his glory. And you can read the story.

It's one I don't hardly want to, it's like a great movie. I don't want to spoil it for you but he takes mud and puts it on his eyes and tells him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. And this man, imagine when he was a little boy he's blind and he becomes a beggar. He can't get a job and now he's been at the same corner forever and ever and ever and everyone's seen him in the whole town and now he can see. And people, I mean he can see, could this be the same guy? And then the Pharisees, the religious leaders learn about it and they go, wait a second, are you the same guy?

Yes I am. And so they don't believe him so they ask his parents and his parents are so afraid they're going to get kicked out of the synagogue. They say, well you know what, he's of age, ask him. And they say, well we know this Jesus is a sinner and how can you say, this guy, this is great. Non-educated beggar speaking to the intellects of his day. All I know sirs is I was blind but now I see. Whether he's a sinner or not I don't know.

It just would seem to me that no one could give eyes and seeing to the blind unless God was with him. You know what, your testimony is irrefutable. No one can tell you you have not had the experiences that you've had. And just to say to people, you know, you don't have to have all the apologetics, you don't have to be able to articulate everything. But in a short conversation, in a medium conversation, you can just share, this is my story. I got a lady who sent me an email this week, it was so encouraging, she sent it to Teresa and myself. She said, I have good friendships but I've honestly never really taken the step to communicate Christ's love. And so she decided, I prayed after last week's message, I'm really going to do this and so one of the people that she knew, she decided they were having dinner. And so at dinner she just asked a number of very specific questions and heard this lady's story.

She goes, I heard things, I just had no idea about her life. And guess what the lady did? She turned and said, well what's your story? She said, I found myself telling her about my life and what Christ had done and who Jesus is. You know, I could read between the lines in the email that maybe this lady kind of had a new age view of Jesus somewhere, somehow. And as this lady in our church just shared her story, the lady said, I've never heard anything like this in my life. How many people in your relational network that you pass by or you work with or you see as you take a walk with the dog or you know when you're sitting there while the kids are playing baseball or soccer or you know you're on the elliptical or something at the gym and you've kind of built a relationship.

How many of them have never ever heard of the Jesus who you know who saved you and loved you and forgiven you and maybe the testimonial approach is how you could share it. One, I could never imagine myself telling anyone my story. Ten, you know there's a lot of things I can't do but I could probably do this one. You got it?

Write down a number. The fourth spiritual love language is Matthew's interpersonal approach. Approach is very similar to the testimonial approach but it's those who naturally build longer term relationships with people. This is people that tend to be networkers in the business world. There tend to be people that have the gift of hospitality or like to have people over, like to gather in groups and talk, you know, do barbecues and hang out with people and hey, why don't we all go out to dinner together, those kind of people. It's just interpersonal. It's people that build relationships and you want to go deeper.

You like to get to know people at a deeper level. And here, Matthew is a tax collector. And in Luke chapter 5 beginning of verse 29, what we find is he obviously had heard some messages and God had been working his heart and life and one day, Jesus walks by and now he's despised. See, he's a Jew and he's working for the Roman government and they were ripping people off.

In fact, one of the evidences is how we know Matthew legitimately came to Christ. He paid back people that he'd been ripping off for years. And so Matthew is thinking, you know, how could I love the people? I mean, I felt shame, I felt rejection, I felt the guilt of what I've done to all these people.

And now I have peace and I've got purpose and Jesus is the Messiah. So what's he do? He invites a bunch of his buddies over to dinner. He just invites them all over to dinner, a bunch of tax collectors and sinners. In fact, so many that the Pharisees are all hacked off. How can Jesus eat with those people? And you remember that line where Jesus says, I didn't come, right? I didn't come to heal the healthy. You know, it's the sick that need a physician. And he just gathered the people and gathering them together, people that would never probably go out anywhere to hear Jesus preach on a hill.

They would never go to any religious institution. But I mean, everyone's up for a good meal. Everyone's up for hanging around. It's just sort of an interpersonal approach. Years ago, I lived in a neighborhood with a fellow named Dave who someone, if you say his name and you say, well, do you know him?

And the answer, this was last week, someone said to me, who doesn't? I mean, he's Mr. Network, Network, Network. He's just a relational animal. And he lives on a cul-de-sac where about eight or ten guys would mountain bike every Saturday morning. So he would get out and mountain bike over the mountains. And then he just had this sort of, this front yard was always open and hey, we're having a barbecue. He was a barbecue-aholic. I mean, this guy, I think, is just, he was always having a barbecue. And so I was his neighbor and he wanted to reach people for Christ and he was not the confrontational guy. He was not necessarily, he could gather people together but he wasn't an apologist and he didn't have any big intellectual answers.

You know what he was good at? Getting people together. And so he'd say, hey, I got a bunch of people from the neighborhood over. Would you mind just dropping by and just having a glass of tea, a cup of coffee, whatever? And I said, well, Dave, I've got, Chip, it's 30 minutes. I mean, whatever, come on, you know, you're seven doors down or, you know. And so I would go and in backyard he'd have like maybe two or three tables and all of his neighbors, oh, bring in the kids.

It didn't matter. He's just like food and so he would pull out a chair and say, hey, I just want you to know, yeah, Chip's my friend. In fact, he's my pastor. I go to church where he goes and this is so and so from somethingtronics, here's so and so from othertronics, here's from other other othertronics, you know. And it was his world. He goes, you know what, if you've ever had questions about God or Christianity, he'd love to talk to you. He'd sit me down and go, I'll see you later.

And he'd leave. And all of a sudden, in a safe environment, these people were asking me all this stuff. And it was like 20 or 25, 30 minutes, you know, I'm thinking I'm actually really enjoying it, right? Because I like to do that. And so I'm thinking, well, the time, and David come by, excuse me, guys, you know, you guys can talk to him a little bit later, excuse me, can you come over to this other table?

And he, excuse me, there's a chair right over there. He'd get like a, hey, this, and he'd do the same thing. Could that be you? Could that be you?

Maybe on a smaller scale. Could you build interpersonal relationships? Could you invite some people over? Could you have some hamburgers on the grill and just open up and love people and find out what's going on in their life? Ask them about their story?

Maybe, a lot of these go together. Maybe you do that and they, you end up sharing your testimony. Or maybe they start asking really, really hard questions and you go, oh no, what do I do now? You say, you know something, here's my answer to all the hard questions. That is a really good question. I mean, you are, I mean that, whoa, that's a deep one. Can I get back with you on that?

I don't know the answer to that. Most of everything I've ever learned, despite all the schooling I had to go to, came from questions I didn't know how to answer, and then going and doing some research and saying, Lord, I'm not going to throw my brains in the trash. I know you have an answer, but will you show me? What grew out of that for me was a series called Why I Believe, and it's like my sort of, my journey in apologetics, why I believe in the Bible. Can you really believe it's true? Why I believe in Jesus? Why I believe in life after death?

Why I believe in the God of the Bible versus other gods? And this became, believe it or not, the number one selling CD and now DVD of anything we've ever done at Living on the Edge. It's not on marriage, it's not on parenting, it's not on loneliness. There is a thirst. I actually have a friend who's a physical therapist who just keeps stacks of these and he does the, you know, all the Diamondbacks and the Giants and the Cardinals there in Phoenix. And then as he talks and rehabs, over and over he said, you know, have you ever considered, well, I don't know, what about this, what about that?

He says, here, just listen to this. It's like a kind of takeout. And it's amazing the number of pro players have come to Christ. People are open.

Remember last week? People are open. God has reasonable answers. You don't have to have it all together, but you know what? You invite them over, you build relationships, you share your story. You know, you give them somebody else's book or a CD there and you just love them. This is about sharing the love. What would happen?

I mean, what would happen if just walking out these doors this day, every one of us said, my top one or two is this and I'm going to act on it this week. And we just start sharing the love. We know they're open. We know God loves them. We know the Spirit will draw them. See, what God is looking for is the bridge to get built and that's us. We are his ambassadors. But we got to get off of how we think and what we think we can't do and get our hearts concerned about what God really is concerned about.

The next is the number five love language. It's dorkus service approach. This is Acts chapter 9. These are people that express their faith and love for people by meeting needs. They don't want any credit.

They don't like the limelight. This is an approach where often people are doing things like, very tangible things like feeding the poor, getting clean drinking water around the world, finding desperate needs. This is the lady that's going through a divorce and this is the person that says, let me take care of your kids while you're doing that right now. This is someone that has a daughter or son that gets in an auto wreck and they're the first one that delivers food. They just love. They just see needs and they serve.

You know what? They're not real verbal and they're not the people that are going to be super outspoken but they just love and care and love and care and meet needs to the point where people ask, so why are you doing this? Sometimes this occurs because out of our hurts and needs, God loves us and we realize we want to pass it on. See, here's what I can tell you is there's just, there's different love languages for some of us that feel like honestly standing up and talking to a group of people or debating them if you will in a loving manner is I could never do that. Those same people that have those verbal skills, I will guarantee you most of them and I'll start with me could never do what they're doing.

I can't imagine the patience and the love and the sacrifice to help all those special needs people giving up a week of vacation. Do you get it? I'm starting to see God's made you. He's made you different but there's a love language but there's got to be something in here that you care and there's got to be a partaking of His love in you so that you say I've got to pass it. I've got to be a bridge. The strength of that is that power. There's such power when people see love. The weakness of the danger is that we just think serving is enough.

There's never an either or. It's not what we do and it's not just what we say. It's what we do and what we say together authenticating the message and living it out. Some of us will be more into the what we say. Others will be better in what we do but as a team together and individually we grow so we clearly articulate and love people. The ones you put in your path. The sixth spiritual love language is the Samaritan woman's invitational approach.

This may be the easiest and the one for all of us to start with. This lady does this when she's a Christian after only a few minutes. It's John chapter 4. The scene is that Jesus is tired and He stops by a well and so He's resting as the disciples went to grab some lunch and they're going to bring it back. It's the time of the day. It's the heat of the day and everyone is down.

No one goes out of the town. The women of the village have already gotten their water and this woman comes out later because she's a socially alienated person with deep shame and rejection. She's living with a man.

She's had five marriages. Who knows whose fault it was, what she's been through but she's ostracized. She's unlovable. She has a moral checkered past and so she's out here by herself at the only time where she won't experience the pain of that rejection and here's a man speaking to a woman. Culturally unacceptable.

It's worse. It's a Jew speaking to a Samaritan. Culturally unacceptable and what he tells this woman is that there is grace available.

There's living water. There's a God that loves you and He doesn't look at your past and He's made provision for you and He reveals that He's the hope of the world and He's the Messiah and she's honest about her hurts and she accepts His forgiveness. And so she goes back to the town where everyone rejects her and she says, hey everybody, I've got to tell you, a man I just met, a prophet, a messiah, he told me everything about my life and you've got to come listen to him. And all she does is invite him and the whole town comes out and the whole town comes out and they say, you know, we initially believed and came because of your testimony but now after two days, we now understand He is the Savior of the world. It's the invitational approach. Can you say to yourself, I could do that.

Now for you outgoing people, it would be like, oh, this is a no brainer for some of us that are less outgoing that you can say, well, this would be, but everybody comes and responds to anything based on relationship, not personality. Right? Hey, you ought to go to this restaurant. What? You ought to come check this out.

You ought to go watch this movie. It's based on your relationship. So really the reason we don't is often our fear of rejection. But there's people that respect what you think, they respect how you live and they're waiting for an invitation. The strength here is that everyone can do it. The weaknesses is we want to make sure that we don't develop a culture where we always got to bring someone somewhere. And not keep learning and growing so that when they turn to you and say, you know what this Jesus that you talk about so much.

Would you explain to me how I could have a relationship with him? My dream is that every one of us over time would get where we could say, you know something, it's really pretty simple and you can clearly explain how to have eternal life to another person. The final one is what I call the creative arts approach. This concept is cultivating your ability in music or art or drama or dance or sports or photography or business. But it's something where you can connect to the culture as a means to express and communicate the gospel in a culturally relevant manner. This sort of takes 1 Corinthians 10 31 very literally which says, whatever you do, that's pretty broad right, whatever you do, do it for the glory of God. This is where Handel found himself locked in a room and people were fearful of what was happening inside this room where for days, day and night he wrote Handel's Messiah.

This is where Rembrandt, if you've ever been there, had the privilege of being in Russia at the Hermitage and walking right up to this huge portrait of the prodigal. And he uses his artistic ability and the picture in the father's eyes and the sun and that message of Luke 15. This is Tebow going down on one knee or this is a friend of mine that he said, you know what, I'm not artistic, I don't use photography, I'm just good in business. I know how it works and I've made a lot of money, I like to give a lot of money away but I mentor young guys and I pull people together and I want to share and I tell them these are the biblical principles that make business run. Here's how you manage people well. My business belongs to God. And it's so counterintuitive and then they look at, well, man, it's working for him.

And he gives God the credit. What is it that you do, that you're gifted at, that it's a hobby that you love that could be a bridge? Sports or photography or art or dance. And you say, I want to do this for the glory of God.

I'm going to build relationships with people and mentor them on computer or help students learn. And you say, are you beginning to see there's many, many ways, love languages. Maybe there's one or two, they work together. So where do we go from here? Where do you have the highest numbers?

I know some of you have just been making mental numbers so it's hard. That's alright. But you know what, the goal is not, if we leave here and you say, you know what, I think the testimonial approach, the invitation approach, that's me. Oh, good.

No, no, no, that's not good. It's not good unless you say, okay, now, this week, who could I share my story with? Before Chip comes back with his application, just a quick reminder that this message, Discovering Your Spiritual Love Language, is from his series, Share the Love, How to Talk to Anyone About God.

For lots of reasons, we can be hesitant to talk about our faith. That's why Chip taught this four-part series, to boost your confidence and help you have spontaneous conversations about your relationship with Jesus. Now, if you'd like to hear this message again, the Chip Ingram app is perfect for free access or one-tap sharing of these powerful messages. If you prefer CDs, take advantage of our on-air discounts.

And remember, the MP3s are always free. Just visit us online at LivingOnTheEdge.org or give us a call at 888-333-6003. Chip, before you come back, I know at Living on the Edge, we're unapologetic about what the Bible teaches on all topics, whether they're controversial or not, because we understand that God is a good God and that He's got the best in mind for everyone. But we realize some of these things are tough, so I know you got an email recently that was really encouraging along these lines. I sure did, Dave. A lady writes that she and her family studied culture shock, and she was really inspired by the chapter there on What Do You Say to a Gay Friend. She said she decided that she would always avoid that topic, but then said that after reading that chapter, she made a commitment that she was going to set up a meeting with an LGBT colleague. And she writes that, If not for this Bible study and reading the book, I would have never entered into that conversation. I've now encouraged other Christian friends to share our love with people that are different than we are. By sharing my love with him, God opened a door. Thank you, Living on the Edge, for giving us the tools to do the things that are so hard to do on our own. And what I would just want to say is that I live in a part of the country where there's a very significant homosexual population, and we as believers need to love and build bridges, and a lot of people don't know how to do that.

You know, we all have struggles, whether they be heterosexual temptations or homosexual temptations or other issues. God is a good God that longs to bring about wholeness and healing, and so we're going to tackle these difficult issues. When you pray for Living on the Edge, and when you support Living on the Edge, you're being a part of rescuing a generation of people that are being told lies that are putting them into bondage. Here's my request. Pray about how you could partner with us that we could rescue the next generation.

Well, thanks for sharing that email, Chip. Really powerful. Well, it isn't always easy, but standing on the Word of God is a commitment we'll never waver on. If that's important to you, and you'd like to help us continue to provide solid biblical teaching, well, now's a great time to join the team. With over a million listeners each week and a footprint on every continent, your gifts have significant impact. During the month of December, whatever we receive is doubled thanks to a small group of ministry partners. To send a gift and partner with us, just go to LivingOnTheEdge.org, tap donate on the app, or give us a call at 888-333-6003.

That's 888-333-6003. Well, Chip, shifting gears here, you gave us some great ideas about how to share our faith in the teaching. But now, how do we figure out which approach will actually get us out there talking with people? As I was talking, I'm going to guess that a lot of people immediately thought, you know, real quickly, I'm not that, you know, or I'm not that. Like for me, believe me, I'm not Dorcas. You know, I can't make anything. Creative arts, I'm not that. You know, that was a really quick one. But I think the first thing is to say, which one of these are you thinking to yourself?

No brainer. That's not me. Then I think the second thing to do is say, which maybe two do I align with the most? And am I someone who tells stories a lot and, you know, engages in interaction? And, you know, maybe the blind man, the testimony is the one for me. And so you might think, you know, yeah, you know, I could share my story or I could serve. Wow, you mean, you know, I could say, hey, could I change the oil in your car?

You know, I see your single mom, you got a couple of young guys that are teenagers and, you know, I'm going to take my son to the ballgame. Would you mind if your sons come along or, you know, you meet someone and you realize they're really struggling with something and they, you know, want answers to big questions. And you think to yourself, you know, I don't know why, but just since I've been a Christian, I've been studying apologetics. And so I think getting it down to one or two where you begin to identify, I think this is mine. Now the second thing is, is this is what happens with us Christians, is we say, oh good, now I know what mine is.

Can I tell you nothing happened? Okay. I mean, oh, mine is this approach. If you don't use your approach, nothing happens. And so we kind of go back to that, do you really care? Busyness is the enemy of the gospel.

Busyness and being overwhelmed with all your time and energy with other Christians keeps you from lost people. So identify your style, number one. And then number two, mix it up and say, I'm going to use my style in some way this week.

I mean, I'm going to step out and use it in some way this week. Well, just before we close, I want to thank each of you who's making this program possible through your generous giving. One hundred percent of your gifts are going directly to the ministry to help Christians really live like Christians. Now if you found CHIP's teaching helpful, but you're not yet on the team, would you consider doing that today? There's never been a better time because thanks to a small group of ministry partners, every gift we receive between now and December 31st will be doubled dollar for dollar. Now to donate, just go to livingontheedge.org, tap donate on the app, or give us a call at 888-333-6003. And let me thank you in advance for doing whatever the Lord leads you to do. Well, until next time, for everyone here, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.