Question Week 5

How do we respond to being stereotyped by non-believers? / How do you share the Gospel with someone who has a hatred for Christians due to their past bad experiences with the church?

As Christians we are going to be stereotyped by what people think Christians should act. They think that Christians go throughout their lives acting as if they are better than others. They think Christians are holy than them. They think Christians are perfect and do no wrong.

Why would a non-believer have that stereotype of a Christian? Maybe because that is the way Christians have acted around them…

And maybe Christians are not acting like Christ in that manner at all! When looking at the way non-believers responded to Jesus should drastically change the way we deal with unbelievers.

Whenever we have looked at Jesus we have always seen unbelievers flock to him. Those who are lost and sinners and unbelievers those are the ones who are loving Jesus because Jesus treated them differently than the “Christians” or religious people of that time.

Luke 15:1–7 NLT

1 Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. 2 This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them! 3 So Jesus told them this story: 4 “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. 6 When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

Jesus took the time out of his days to minister to non believers.

If anyone was to be stereotyped as being too good for other it should be Jesus. He was the literal Son of God who lived a perfect life.

The people who stereotyped Jesus were the ones who were supposed to be religious. The religious gurus are the ones who hated Jesus. The religious gurus are the ones who ultimately killed Jesus. Talk about a bad stereotype that is associated with religion.

But in reality that stereotype started because the Pharisees were outwardly perfect because they kept the law to a T and knew scripture like nobody’s business.

The way that he responded to others that were “BAD” people he would minister through loving and care for them.

Nobody in the world cares what you have to say about Christ until you show them that you care for them. The world is not going to respond to a canned gospel presentation because the world hates fake. Today’s culture can also spot a fake really quickly. So if you come across as a person who has it all figured out and perfect they are going to figure it out really quickly.

The best way to deal with being stereotyped by non-believers is by not living up to that stereotype.

We are sinners who are not perfect but we serve and worship and have a perfect holy God that dwells in us through the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 1:26–31 NLT

26 Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. 27 Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. 28 God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. 29 As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God. 30 God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin. 31 Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord.”

We did nothing at all to earn the salvation so how can we boast in something that we recieved as a gift. We can only boast in Christ who gave it to us.

We need to love people and treat non-believers as a person who needs what we have. We need to care for people rather than preaching at them. We show that we care for them regardless of how they treat us.

We need to act differently than the religious Pharisees and act more like Jesus.

2. How do you know you are with the person God wants you to be with?

This is a difficult question to answer. This is subjective in a sense because none of us know who God has for us… Does God use people in our lives for a season to grow us and guide us? I would say so.

There are a number of people in my life that came and went for a season and God used them to shape and mold me to who I am today.

The other side of the question is do you only have one person in your entire life to have a relationship with? This is also a difficult question as well. Do I completely agree that Breanna is meant to be my wife absolutely! Do I love Breanna? Absolutely!

Did I know my Senior Year of High School that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Breanna? Also I was pretty positive at that moment and even more positive my Senior year of College when I proposed to her.

If something happened to me should Breanna find another person or am I the only person for Breanna?

I think if I was to die then Breanna should find someone else to have companionship and be happy.

Marriage is a commitment between two people and God until death occurs for one of the people.

2 Corinthians 6:14 NLT

14 Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness?

Do you and your SO have mutual interest, goals?

Are you like minded in things? Such as are you called and driven to do Missions in a foreign country as a career but your SO is not?

Then there may be a disconnect between the two of you...

Are both of you growing in Christ individually? Are both of you guiding and growing each other in Christ together?

When determining if it is God’s will for you to be dating someone, you first have to be completely dependent on God and not the other person for your Joy. If you are dating this person just so you are not alone and you are putting an

Ephesians 5:22–33 NLT

22 For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. 24 As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. 25 For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her 26 to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. 27 He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 28 In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. 29 No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. 30 And we are members of his body. 31 As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” 32 This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. 33 So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

This is a practical way to see if the person you are with is a person that God wants you to be with. The final test is that you have a peace about it through prayer.