HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. —Lee Strobel discussed “The Unexpected Adventure” during one of several pre-assembly workshops held one day prior to the opening of the 33rd General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Strobel pre-recorded his message and appeared via video.
He read from Matthew 5:13-16:
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. 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, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
Then he asked those attending the workshop: “What did Jesus mean by that? I think He sends us to shine light into dark areas of despair.”
If three things are true of a person, Strobel said, if “you are motivated, available and prepared, then you just never know that your next conversation may change someone’s eternal destiny.”
He told the story of how he and friend stopped at a Cracker Barrel and saw two young people sitting in the rocking chairs on the front porch of the restaurant. He heard the young women ask “What’s a deist?”
“Can you believe it? I just wrote a book on that,” he told the workshop attendees. “A deist is someone who believes that God is a like a clockmaker who just wound it up and then walked away … But the evidence doesn’t say that,” he told the young lady. “It was an unexpected adventure,” he said.
“You are going to set the high-water mark of evangelism for your church,” he said. “So, how do we do this in the 21st century?
Storbel said that John Stott , an Anglican cleric and a noted as a leader of the worldwide Evangelical movement, “reminds us that Jesus prayed in the imperfect tense – even from the cross, Jesus prayed consistently and fervently and specifically for lost people.”
James, the brother of Jesus, is right when he says that “the prayers of righteous people make a difference.”
Strobel quoted Mother Theresa, who said, “When I pray ‘coincidences’ happen, when I don’t, they don’t.”
Strobel told of an encounter he had with a woman following a baptismal service. She told him” that man you just baptized was my brother and I’ve been praying for him for nine years.”
“There’s a woman who was glad she didn’t stop praying in year eight,” he said. Then he asked, “Who have you stopped praying for? Pray that God would create the opportunity for you to get into a spiritual discussion with that individual.”
He asked another pointed question, “If Jesus were to physically appear in your bedroom and agreed to answer every prayer you prayed last week, would there be even one more specific person in the Kingdom of Christ?”
Strobel asked the audience to participate in an experiment. Starting about 10 weeks before Easter and/or Christmas, “when you know that folks are stirring spiritually, let’s all agree to pray for one spiritually lost person at 1 o’clock for one minute — that God would provide the opportunity for you to engage them in a spiritual conversation and invite them to church.”
Open for questions
Jesus, said Strobel, “would assure His neighbors that His door is always open for their questions. Jesus would be open to discussing the objections and doubts of sincere people.”
Think about John the Baptist. “If anyone should have known who Jesus was, it was John the Baptist,” he said. “but what happens when tough times come? Sitting in prison, John doubts. His disciples then go and ask Jesus for assurance. How does Jesus react? Anger? No. Jesus gave them words of assurance consistent with the messianic prophecies — evidence confirming Jesus’ identity. Does the questioning disqualify John in Jesus’ eyes? No. It is after this that Jesus says there is no one greater in the kingdom of heaven than John.”
Strobel told the audience to pursue answers, “because questions held in can erode our faith. There are answers and we are called to convey those answers to the spiritually curious.” I Peter 3:15 reads, “but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.”
“We need to help people get answers to the gnawing questions. We have good evidence because we have access to the One who is the truth,” he said.
Strobel discussed an Atheism vs. Christianity debate between William Lane Craig and Frank Zindler that he moderated years ago. There was lots of publicity for the debate: The Chicago Tribune published four advance articles and 117 radio stations ran the debate live. “Some sent commentators like it was a prize fight. The night of the debate came and people ran down the aisles to get a seat,” he said, adding that 7,787 people saw it live and many more heard it coast to coast.
Craig presented the case for Christianity, and Zindler the case for atheism. “We didn’t tell [Zindler] that under the platform was a room where people were praying that the case for Christ would go forth and the case for atheism would fall flat.”
Strobel said that more than 82 percent of the atheists, agnostics and non-believers who watched the debate communicated that they thought the case for Christ won that night, and that “47 confirmed atheists walked out as followers of Jesus Christ. Not one person became an atheist.”
“We have an unfair advantage because we have truth on our side,” he said. “The vast majority of us are not debaters but we are all called to be dialoguers … Relational apologetics respects the other individual and our people need to be equipped through this.”
Show your faith
Strobel also believes that “Jesus wouldn’t just share His faith, He would show His faith. Talk is cheap. Jesus became a servant … even unto death. When we serve other people humbly and selflessly its impactful.”
Strobel used his own testimony to illustrate this belief.
“When I was an atheist reporter for The Chicago Tribune I would have never listened to you talk about Jesus. But I was assigned a 30-part series on the poor in Chicago. Over time I saw that there were these people who were helping the poor in Chicago. I saw selfless service to people who no one else wanted to talk about,” he said.
A female Salvation Army agent at that facility asked Strobel one day. “Lee, what do you think about Jesus?”
“She had earned the right to ask that question and she became an integral link in the long chain of Christians that God used to bring me to Christ,” he said.
In another illustration, Strobel said that in 2011 “Saddleback church had more people come to faith through their food pantry than through their Easter service. It softens people’s hearts when they see the love of God in action … Are you scanning your neighborhood for opportunities to demonstrate the love of God in Christ for others? … Is your compassion radar on?”
Be authentic
Jesus would also be authentic, he said. “There would be consistency between character and creed; between belief and behavior … Your neighbors have a radar too – the hypocrisy radar! They are looking for phony smiley face when everyone knows that everything is not alright.”
Christians are to be salt, but “not like salt in a wound,” said Strobel, and they should be light, but not “the kind with people whose bright lights are on coming at you on the highway trying to blind you and drive you off the road.”
He then read a letter from Maggie: “When I came to my small group … I needed gentleness. I needed to be able to ask any question and taken seriously … respected … validated. I just needed to meet some people whose actions match what they say. I’m not looking for perfect but I am looking for real,” the letter began.
“Do you know, do you understand that you represent Jesus to me? Do you know, do you understand that when you treat me with gentleness, it raises the question in my mind that maybe He is gentle too,” wrote Maggie. “If you care then maybe I think He cares and there’s a flame of hope that burns inside me and I’m afraid to breathe because it might go out. Do you know, do you understand that your words are His words and your face is His face to me? Please don’t let this be a trick. Do you understand that you represent Jesus to me?”
Strobel said that he wept when he read Maggie’s letter and then he called her to ask if he could read it to the church. She told him that she had given her life to Christ the Tuesday night before. He asked her what facts had brought her across the line of faith and she answered, “It wasn’t like that for me. Lee, I just met a whole bunch of people at church who were like Jesus to me.”
“What a lesson for someone like me,” he said. “She heard the evidence for Christianity put to the test. She went to the debate, but ultimately it was an introverted quiet Christian couple who loved her into the kingdom of God.”
The good news about that is that we can do this, said Strobel. “We can pray for people. We can love people. We can serve people. We can put the love of Christ into action. We can be authentic. We don’t have to be smarter than we really are. We don’t have to be more spiritual than we really are. We can just be ourselves and through us God will reach the lost.”