Fight Right

to today's, to this week's show for the Striving for Eternity Academy Summer School.

And if you've seen on Facebook, we're going to be discussing the topic of how we can disagree with one another in love.

This is really kind of a precursor to the School of Systematic Theology because whenever you talk theology, you're bound to get into some disagreements.

And we're going to look into some of those things that people disagree with often and how can we properly, how can we as Christians disagree and still be

Christian -like? Yeah, I don't know if you think about that. And why do we bring this up?

One of the things, I want to give you some of the experiences that we had from being at the

Olympics Outreach in London, that's in the UK. And one of the things that really struck me was the very first night we were there over dinner.

We were sitting over dinner and about six of us, we had, some of us had not really gotten to know each other at all.

We've maybe been at similar events, but never really talking. And so what ended up happening was that we sat over dinner discussing some different different theologies that we had differences on.

Now if you've ever been in that situation where you get together with people you maybe not know all that well, and you start discussing theology, and boy can it get heated quick.

And you see people get defensive and get argumentative and really just sometimes the hair on their back of their neck is up and they're ready for a fight.

And so the thing that we end up having is that we get into those things often, especially as we start studying theology.

And what happened when we were over in the UK was there's six of us at dinner.

Some of us never met each other. Some of us had known just kind of casually one another.

And we got together, had dinner, had some discussion. And one of the brothers,

Justin Edwards, who I hope to be able to have on a future show, was just, he said something that just really struck me as we were walking back to the hostel.

He said, you know, it's amazing to see Christian brothers able to disagree with charity.

And that's a thing that sometimes we forget. The fruit of the Spirit is love.

And yet we will often maybe speak the truth and we forget the in love part.

And what we want to do tonight is talk about how we can disagree with one another, feel very strongly about our points of view, but do it in love.

Do it in a gracious way. And that's something that we as Christians need to do.

It was very interesting because the contrast between that night and then the following morning meeting up with,

I think it was the following morning or morning after that, meeting up with some other brothers who were not part of our team.

And we were discussing some theological issues. And the contrast was so clear.

And what ended up happening was very quickly we realized the conversation was not going to go well because one individual had to be proven right.

And because of that, he wasn't going to let an issue end until we either said we were wrong or agreed with him.

And it was an interesting dialogue. But I'm sure that you've been in a case like that.

I'm sure that you've been in the case where you're speaking to someone. I asked this in the chat room.

If you're not in the chat room, you could jump into the chat room. It's usually quite chatty in the chat room.

And they usually are making fun of, as right now, my beard and the gray.

This gray has been here for 10 years. The rest of it stays black.

I'm not getting just for men. And Sai wants to tell me in a loving way to shave it.

Sai, my wife wants it gone. It will be gone shortly. But I'm going to hold out as long as I can.

But in the chat room, we were discussing different things that people have gotten into disagreements with people.

And the reality is that we have times, we have some theological things as we study theology that we still feel very strongly about.

And we can defend it. But when we do that, the defense of our arguments, are we keeping in the back of our mind that we are representing

Christ as we do that? Let me tell you one surefire way to never represent

Christ well in a disagreement that you have with another brother or sister. And that is to act out of pride.

To argue for your point of view, not listen to the other person, but argue so that the person is in a debate and they feel that you just want to win the debate.

You don't care about their view. You don't care about what they say. You just care about winning the debate.

Do that and I guarantee you will basically be in an argument and you'll be in a situation where if the other person is the same way, it can get very heated.

But we need to be able to remember that we are

Christians, that we are saved by the grace of God, and that we need to have charity or love with one another.

One of the things that was interesting about the dialogue that we had Friday night when we got to the

UK, was one of the things that one of the guys pointed out was since I was in a discussion with another brother, we had a disagreement on a passage of Scripture.

And if you've been through our school of biblical harmoneutics, then you would understand where I would go with this.

But what I asked him was in the areas that we disagreed, I wanted him to explain his harmoneutic.

In other words, he has a conclusion to Scripture and I wanted to understand how he got to that conclusion.

Now what I was doing in that was asking questions. I'm asking those questions to gain an understanding.

In the end, I came to a different conclusion. So I disagreed with my brother.

I don't think he's not saved because he disagrees with me. But I come to a different interpretation of the different texts of Scripture that we are dealing with.

However, understanding his theological position, I could understand how he came to his conclusion.

And understanding his harmoneutic helped me understand how he came to the conclusion that he had.

Not saying I agree with it, but saying that I understand his position.

Now when we do that, what are we doing? It's not that we're feeling that we're being threatened.

I'm not threatened because someone disagrees with me. I'm going to bring up one of the topics that we discussed, a whole lot of topics.

But one of the topics that we discussed, being that we had some Presbyterians there, some

Baptists like myself, we discussed things of baptism.

I think we even had an Anglican with us. And so one of the topics was baptism.

Do you baptize infants? Do you baptize only believers? Does baptism save?

All kinds of things like that. The interesting thing is when you go through the issue of baptism, if you understand the way

Presbyterians will understand baptism. And I know that Si is in the chat room and he'll pipe up if I say anything that as a good

Presbyterian he disagrees with. But we would understand that baptism is not something that saves an individual, but something that is a covenant sign for a child coming into a covenant family.

Now if that's your understanding of baptism, because you prefer or you interpret the

Scriptures through the covenants and a covenant theology, you would see possibly the replacement of circumcision with baptism as a sign of the covenant.

Now if you're going to come to that, you're at least being consistent with your harmoneutic.

And though I may have a different view of different texts of Scripture that brings us to that, we end up in a case where we at least want to make sure we're being consistent with the way we interpret.

Yes, I can see the comments in the chat room for the person that just asked, and that'd be a good point for me to say if you have any question tonight,

I'm in my office here so that I would be able to react to questions that we get.

So when we take an issue, I happen to believe in what would be called a believer's baptism.

In other words, that an individual after salvation professes their

Christianity outwardly by professing what happened inwardly through the act of baptism.

I don't believe it adds any additional grace, there's no merit, it's just an outward sign.

Now, in discussing something like that, there are some people who will get into areas where they will start to get very animated.

They will start to get into arguing their point of view and only their point of view.

Maybe they'll call us names like dunkers. But seriously though, the reality what we have is we have people who will sometimes get prideful and defensive.

We want to be careful. If we're going to want to make sure that we are conducting ourselves in truth and in love, we need to make sure we're not responding out of pride.

This is a very good technique that we should not be using. Not so much a technique, it's really just a fruit of the

Spirit, but it's something we should really be doing with unbelievers when we share the gospel with them. How many people want to hear the gospel from some guy that's just hammering them, and they just want to prove they're right?

Have you seen that guy on the street? I'm sure it's none of you. But they're out there and they just want to argue for their position.

They want to prove to you that they know the gospel and you don't.

You know, there's people who will condemn other people.

You have a TV in your home. You can't be saved. You might think that's an extreme case, but I actually had someone walk in my house many, many years ago, about 20 years ago, saw a small

TV in my living room and was questioning my salvation. All right, let's hope that we don't have people like that often in our lives.

But pride is something that will be so divisive and it will offset us, and we must, must, must be aware of our own pride and look to make sure that in the way we talk to one another, even the language we choose, that we're careful.

You know, I was talking with Brother Justin Edwards about this issue and he brought up a good point.

He said, you know, even when we disagree with each other in a public area or there's others who are watching, we have to be careful because others are watching.

And that's something that we often may not be aware of. We can have people who, for example, as I mentioned, because he's in the chat room side,

Tim Brudenkait and I, who, he being a Presbyterian, would call me a dunker.

That's okay because I'd call him a sprinkler or something.

But we could do that in a joking way because we know each other well. And because of that, if there's other people there who don't know us, because of our joking around, knowing we respect one another and love one another, others may think we don't because we could get into a discussion and, you know, jokingly throw things out there.

So we've got to be careful. We might mean things in a joking way to with one another or one another understanding.

But others are watching, especially on the streets. And so the thing we can end up having is we could end up talking on the streets with people on theological things or in a case where others are listening in.

And because we feel strongly about it, even though we know the other person and love them and don't mean it, we're just getting heated, others may think it's an argument where we're not acting

Christian. It was very interesting because one of the Muslims in London brought that up, not between our group, but there were some other

Christians that were out there that they observed. And when I was talking to one guy, he was bringing that up, this argument he witnessed between two

Christians. And it's something that he observed.

And because of that, he thinks that this shows that we don't have truth because these two people were not acting loving.

Now, I don't know who the two people were. So the reality is I can't address that.

I don't know if they're true Christians. I mean, anyone can say they're a Christian. And some people have a very broad sense of what

Christians are. But when you and I or you and another brother and sister in Christ speak to one another, one of the questions

I want to encourage you to ask yourself is, what is the goal?

Why are you doing it? Why are you bringing up whatever issue it is that you're bringing up?

Are you looking to win a debate or are you looking to educate?

Because there's a very big difference between those two. If somebody approaches you and you get into a discussion, for example, on my way out to California or actually on my way back from California a couple weeks ago, about three weeks ago,

I got into a conversation which could be touchy with an unbeliever, though she professed to be a

Christian. We got into a discussion of abortion.

Now, she believed that abortion was killing a child.

That was her language. So when I discussed it with her, I discussed it as killing a child, not abortion.

Once she identified it as that, I could drop that. And I'm not being unloving in that way.

I'm not being judgmental in that way, because this is the language that she chose to use.

However, what I did was I asked her questions about why she comes to the conclusion she comes to.

She very quickly went from, well, this is something that every woman should have a right to choose.

Going through that and asking questions, she quickly went from there to, well, maybe it's right only in the case of extreme health and rape or incest.

We then continued asking questions until she said, well, maybe just rape and incest.

She finally got it down to just rape. And her argument was, well, you know, if someone rapes us, rapes a woman, and they have this child, they forever have to look at this child and have the memory of that incident.

And I had asked her if adoption was an option. And she said, well, yes.

And she realized that that wouldn't be that reminder. So she quickly had to still try to excuse why rape was still okay.

And what ended up happening was that I explained in talking to her, because she said the emotional trauma of living through things.

And I asked her, we had shared some of her background. I said, let me ask you a question. Her stepbrothers and sisters had a mother who was very abusive.

I said, in the case where your stepbrother and sister had lived for many years in an abusive situation where the mother wasn't able to deal with things because of the children, did she have the right to kill the children?

I mean, as teenagers, as five -year -olds, as infants. And the woman said,

I know where you're going with this. I see where you're going. But I think there's a difference when it's in the womb and out of the womb.

And I shared with her, it just happened. Nothing just happens.

It's called God's providence. But there was a woman who just mentioned the situation in the chat room just now, that I was praying for her because if she will give permission for me to share the full story,

I will. But I was praying for her in a situation with her son.

And she, at the time that I was out at this conference in California, she was meeting for the very first time her adult son that she had put up for adoption.

And she was excited and nervous, understandably, about that. And I got to share that story with this woman.

And when we talked about adoption and saying how here's an adult son who's looking forward to meeting his mother, an adult mother who is looking forward to meeting her son.

And there's other stories like that. I encourage you to watch October Baby, even though I haven't seen it, but I've heard about it.

We're still waiting for it to come out on DVD. But notice in that conversation, which could be very heated, it's a very controversial topic.

You're stuck next to me on a plane for four hours, and I'm interweaving with her the gospel and abortion.

That could be kind of controversial. Why did, at the end of the conversation, she thank me?

Why'd she enjoy it, even though we had some very strong, differing opinions? One thing that I had done, if you notice through that story, and what happened out in London, was

I asked questions. I gathered information. I looked to understand how the individual comes to the conclusion that they come to.

So the first step that I'm trying to do is to understand. One of the things that we have is a lot of people just talk over each other.

I remember in my seminary days, I was taking a class on dispensationalism.

Big word that if you don't know what it means, it's okay. But one of the things that I was reading is,

I'm reading a book on dispensationalism. It's a way of interpreting the Bible, and here's what it said. They're very interesting, and I want you to pick up this lesson, because this is going to show you a very important lesson on how to disagree.

In love, all right? And how not to as well. This dispensationalist argued this.

He said, we dispensationalists, or sorry, he said that dispensationalism believes that there's differences between covenant theology and dispensational theology.

And the point that this author made was that covenant theology believes in two different ways of salvation.

Works in the Old Testament, grace in the New. But we dispensationalists have believed ever since the fall, it has always been by grace.

And I said, well, okay, I agree with the dispensational position that it's always been by grace.

But me being a student who was encouraged in seminary to always make sure I read both sides of an issue, and make sure

I can articulate both sides of the issue, I grabbed a bunch of covenant theologians books.

And so I grabbed their books, and I start reading. And I start trying to read to understand.

Irony, one of the covenant theologians makes a point.

Here's how it went. Dispensationalists believe in two ways of salvation.

Works in the Old Testament, and they quoted quotes from the Schofield Reference Bible, the original notes, where it does indicate works saved in the

Old Testament, which were later edited out because they were wrong in later editions.

But that was their proof text. And they say, but we covenant theologians, and then dispensationalists believe grace in the

New Testament. And then they said, we covenant theologians believe that ever since the fall, it has been by grace alone.

Do you notice something there? I sat there, and I went and grabbed the other book off the shelf, and I looked at them back and forth.

These guys were not talking to each other. They were talking about each other.

In other words, they didn't take the time to listen to what one another is saying, and what they're believing to understand how they come to the conclusions they come to.

They were looking to argue a point. And so they didn't mind building a straw man argument.

A straw man argument is when you define someone else's point of view, different from the way they define it, so that it's easy to knock down.

Very easy to do. And so people do that because they don't want to actually engage with the actual argument.

A question came up with talking about dispensationalism and covenant theology.

Someone asked about New Covenant theology. I'll recommend you can go to our website, strivingforattorney .org,

under the written articles, biblical studies. There is an overview of New Covenant theology that I have up there.

So if you want to learn more about that, you're welcome to read that. And so what we end up seeing though is that what we first step that we must do when we want, when we're in a disagreement where we are with a brother or sister, and we want to show love, the first thing that we're going to have to do is understand their point of view, their interpretation of the scriptures, and how they come to that.

Do not assume that you know someone's position. In preparing for the

Jersey Fire, I did a message on sinless perfectionism, and reached out to one of the guys who is a big proponent of it, and I emailed him, a guy

I never met. I've seen some of his videos, and I contacted him and said,

Hey, would you be willing to discuss with me your view on sinless perfectionism, and that you believe that there is no original sin, so that I can properly understand your position?

The response I got back from this guy was, You are a heretic. Now first he said that I wouldn't accept him as a brother in Christ, and I think he's a heretic, so why would he talk to me?

And I said, When did I ever say that you're a heretic, or that I wouldn't accept you as a brother in Christ?

I've never met you, never talked to you, don't know your testimony. I first need to understand what you believe to know whether your beliefs are wrong.

And then he responded, Well, I'm a heretic because I'm a Calvinist. And I said,

Well, where did I ever say I'm a Calvinist? What indication do you have that I'm a

Calvinist? And so he comes back and says, Your doctrinal statement.

I said, Where in my doctrinal statement do I say I'm a Calvinist? And he gives me a quote from my doctrinal statement, which was,

Before the foundation of time God elected, and that's all he quoted. I had to laugh because some of you may recognize that is a direct quote out of the book of Ephesians.

In other words, my response was, Dude, if this quotation alone makes me a

Calvinist, then I am a Calvinist, just like Paul and God, who wrote that verse.

Do you see what he's doing is he's assuming what I mean by that.

Now, I may mean what he thinks I mean, won't disagree, could mean that. But the reality of it is when he's assuming what

I mean, and not listening to what I mean, there can't really be a proper dialogue. And in the end, that's what happened.

He refused to talk to me. It was kind of interesting because he refused to talk to me at all on the phone, because he said that I wouldn't accept him as a brother in Christ while the whole time he's calling me a heretic, which would mean he doesn't think

I'm a brother in Christ. Little irony. Do you notice what's at work there? His pride.

Notice how the pride works. He's not looking to understand my position. He's looking to tell me my position.

And once you have a person that tells you what your position is, and tells you what you believe, the conversation is kind of over.

Because you know that they're reacting out of pride. I had that when

I was over in the UK where someone was telling me what I believe. When I told him that I didn't believe that, he called me a liar.

Wait a minute. Which one of us should better know what I believe? I think I know better what

I believe than you who never even spoke to me before. And it was interesting because what

I was doing was asking him what he believed. And so, and I was wrong, that wasn't in the

UK. That was actually in New York City with the training we did in New York. And it was really interesting because what happened was is that we sat down for about 45 minutes and I was asking him question after question about what he believed.

It's from a Muslim background, but he really believed more in the New Age. Really strange stuff. And he kept talking about his inner human.

And his inner human told him that I was wrong about what

I said I believe. So he could call me a liar. I basically responded by, well, my inner human tells me you're wrong about what

I believe. And he said, no, you're not using your inner human. You're using your biblical worldview.

And I was like, well, I disagree because I think we're both using a biblical worldview.

You're reasoning because God gave you that ability to reason. It's not an inner human thing.

It's a God thing. But it was kind of interesting because he got so upset, which was very interesting because he was saying that I must believe what he believes.

And in that, when I first walked up to him and gave him the gospel tract, his argument was he didn't want to talk to me because he doesn't like divisive judgmentalism.

I pointed out to him when he's telling me I must agree with his inner human, he's being divisive.

He's saying that I have to agree only with him. When he's calling me a liar about what

I believe, he's being pretty judgmental. He got real, real upset and eventually got up and walked away.

I then got up and started doing some open air preaching. Actually, we first had four guys that never had open air preached before.

They broke the sound barrier. They had read some scripture before I got up and explained the passage of scripture that they were reading.

Now, mind you, four men got up on my little preaching stool.

You can see a picture of it on our Facebook. This stool had, just the day before, held some pretty big guys.

Okay, one pretty big guy. And then four men were kind of thinner guys.

All right, I'll grant them that. But I got up to open air preach. I wish that we had a video camera running.

It would have been hysterical because in the middle of dealing with my heckler, all of a sudden

I heard this rumbling. I felt a little rumbling. And well, that stool disintegrated.

I mean, it just shattered into so many pieces. You know, it was just, it just broke into, it wasn't something that could be repaired.

Quickly, I turned to the crowd who typically would laugh at the open air preacher at this point. And I turned to the crowd and said, boy, somebody needs to lose some weight.

Which is kind of true. And then I turned back to the preaching of the gospel.

Why do I share that? Well, just because that's kind of funny. But at the end of that open air preaching, I had dealt with three different hecklers.

And almost had, for the first time, a fight break out in front of my preaching. Had this guy,

Wayne, who was a Buddhist, who got very upset when I said there's two religions in the world, the religion of works and the religion of grace.

And he tried arguing Buddhism was not a religion of works. But then I kind of asked him what karma was.

And he said it was works. So I said it is a religion of works. Then he said, no, no, no, it isn't. I asked him what reincarnation is.

Do you reincarnate and get into a better life based on your works? And he said, yes. I said, that's religion of works.

He got upset and kind of did a hand gesture to curse out our God. And he walked off.

And I explained that he was doing what most people do, not defending what they believe, just making statements and running away.

He walks back in the crowd. And a guy we only know is cowboy dude, cut in front of me. Cowboy dude claimed to be a believer in God.

But he cut right in front of me, Wayne, and told Wayne to get lost. And Wayne said,

I have no problem with you. And kind of pushed cowboy dude on the shoulder. Now, cowboy dude was a big dude.

Cowboy dude said, touch me again and you will have a problem with me. And cowboy dude kind of just pushed Wayne right out of the crowd.

I did not know what to do. Just went back to preaching before a fight broke out. But it was very interesting because in that whole discussion that we had of open air preaching with the large crowd that we had there, we got done and who shows up but our inner human dude.

The Odd was his name. Something similar to that. And he comes up and apologizes for his behavior toward me.

That may not seem that significant. But here's a guy that responded out of pride.

And then watched me interact with three different hecklers. And the crowd was very upset with these hecklers.

Where a guy was ready to get into a fist fight with one of them. Because of the way they were responding to me.

And the way I was responding to them. I did talk to cowboy dude afterwards very briefly. And he said he was very upset with the way this guy

Wayne was speaking and treating me. And how I was being respectful to him.

Do you notice with that? How should we respond? Even if the other person is responding out of pride.

Doesn't give us a justification to respond in kind. We still need to respond in a respectful loving way.

Not watering down the truth. But being respectful and loving.

And so what we end up with when we have that.

Is we are first. Okay, want to ask questions to gain information.

To understand their position. To understand what they believe. Second, we want to properly understand what they mean.

Ask the questions and recite what you say they believe. Okay, second we want to use our tone of voice.

Our manner of speech. Everything about us with love and respect.

Did you ever think that person could be right and could teach you something? If you think that they can't.

Well, then you're not being teachable. And you're the one with a pride problem.

We could learn things even from a guy like Sai. Once in a while. I mean a broken crock is right twice a day.

So you never know. But what you have is a case where we must conduct ourselves.

By not looking to win a debate, win an argument. But to show love. To be respectful.

Why? Because we are ambassadors of Jesus Christ. And we represent him.

And according to Matthew, we are going to be judged for every idle word that we speak.

So we need to be careful. Also because James says if you put yourself up in a position as a teacher.

You are going to be held to a higher account. And so we have to be accountable.

To the words and the manner in which we use those words. If you look in Philippians chapter 1.

It says that we have to conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel.

So we need to make sure whether we're with a brother or sister in Christ. Or an unbeliever.

Who may be a future brother or sister in Christ. Or not.

Either way we still represent Christ. And need to conduct ourselves in a way that represents him well.

Now does that mean I should walk softly on the truth? Did Christ?

I mean Christ goes to the Jewish leaders. And now notice these are the Jewish leaders.

Those who are to be teaching. Those who are supposed to be educating and instructing the people.

And he would call them all kinds of names. Hypocrites. Whitewashed tombs that they're look nice on the outside.

But they're dead man's bones on the inside. I mean he didn't hold back. Among those who knew the truth and rejected it.

Who clearly understood the truth and rejected it. He didn't go up to those people who were the prostitutes and the tax collectors.

And bash them. Notice the difference in how he had the strong words.

And who he had the strong words to. And who he had a soft spirit with. We have to keep in mind that when we speak to people.

We're doing it as an ambassador of Jesus Christ. All right. So when we're going to sit and we're going to have disagreements with people.

We need to make sure we understand their position. And do everything that we're doing in a loving manner.

Not just our words but the tone of voice and the way we speak. Okay. We can be passionate.

There's nothing wrong with being passionate. I'm a passionate person. Sometimes maybe too passionate.

And sometimes people can think the passion is coming on too strong.

So we've got to be careful with that. Okay. But at the same time we don't walk away from the truth.

There's times we need to be stern with people. And that could be the most loving thing that we could do.

Sometimes people don't receive that. That may be. Okay.

But we need to make sure that the manner in which we're doing it is in a manner of speaking the truth in love.

All right. And so that's one of the things that will be very, very essential as we start in September the

School of Systematic Theology. Because some of you are going to get a hold of theology. And you're like, oh yeah this is great.

And you're going to dig in and you're not going to listen to people. Because you want to prove that you have the right thing.

There's a lot of people that do that. I once was asked to do a debate on television with an atheist. He had a

TV program. And I told him I would do the debate under two conditions. One, I wanted him to argue

Christianity. And I would argue atheism. And two, he had to bring 10 people whose lives were radically changed for the better.

Because of atheism. And I'd bring a hundred whose lives were changed by Christianity.

Not that they were changed because they have a better life now. But because their perspective on eternity was different.

And that made them able to see the temporal things in a different light. But here was the thing.

He wouldn't do it. Why? I knew he wouldn't. He wasn't going to argue Christianity. I said I know.

Because my premise was that I wanted him to argue Christianity to show how little he understood of what he's attacking.

And the whole argument I made that would be the debate was to show that I know his position. And he doesn't know mine.

And that's why I know that his position is wrong because I understand it. He doesn't know that my position is wrong because he doesn't have the foggiest idea of what

I believe. That's something we have to be able to do. Can you understand someone else's position so well that you can articulate a position you do not agree with?

And the person who accepts that position says you're right. When we wrote the World Religions book, that was one of the things that I set out to do.

I met with imams, rabbis, cardinals, and gave them the articles that we had written from their views and said is this what your belief is?

And they said yes. Well then I feel I did my job. When I teach Christians this is what Islam teaches or Mohammedanism teaches, then

I can say this is what several imams have told me you believe. So with that being said, we want to encourage you not to avoid argument.

We all, many of us, don't like confrontations. Don't avoid the confrontation just because you're uncomfortable with it.

But do it in a manner where you and the other person can enjoy the conversation and it's a loving thing.

All right, so we want to bring up a person that does this well.

Someone who I respect greatly and he's going to be our Seabro for this week. The Seabro, if you're not familiar, is the

Striving for Eternity Academy's Brother of Encouragement. Seab Sis is a

Sister of Encouragement. Something that was dubbed by one of our students. And what we have in this case is someone who is needing,

I think, our encouragement this week. All right, someone who is probably not watching.

At least he's not in the chat room. But someone who, when I talk about someone who can disagree in love and disagree with such charity,

I know, Si, I'm seeing the chat comments. There's no way we're talking about you.

What's with the blush, blush, blush? Dude, come on. Every time

I talk to you, you hammer me. No, all right. That's a joke for those watching. Si knows it.

All right, but who is this person? Who's this person I want you to encourage this week? Well, it would be

Tony Miano. And I have his website there. tmiano .com You can also go to his blog, which is crossencounters .us.

crossencounters .us And why would I want you to do that?

Well, as many of you may know, due to economic times, there's no hard feelings as far as I know.

I've heard it from both Tony and others. Tony was asked,

I guess, to step down or was let go from Living Waters. He was hired to do the academies, and they weren't doing the academies anymore because of time and because of money.

And so the way they were looking to pay him, they didn't have those funds. And so because of that, they could not continue to pay him, basically.

And he is now in a new stage of life. And he's having to make decisions of how he will provide for his family.

And if you go to his website there, tmiano .com, you can donate. You can ask him to speak.

If you're friends with him on Facebook, you can go there and encourage him this week.

It would mean a lot to him. He's just come back from two weeks at the Olympics with some brothers, where he's really been able to be an encouragement to many.

Not just the 12 of us who are out there at the Olympic outreach every day, but also to many that we met out there,

Christians that he was an encouragement to. And if you know him, he is an encouraging brother.

He is willing to spend time with people and get to know them. And I love

Tony. Let me explain one of the reasons I love him. I want to give a story so that you know why

I say this brother is such a brother of one, like I'm saying, of someone who can disagree and love.

When I first went to the academy, the first time to the

Ambassador's Academy, I was at that point pastoring a church and debating having to quit my church.

Very difficult decision. I had actually tried to resign at that point twice, once already, and was now going to resign my second time.

I actually resigned three times. It was the third time that they finally accepted it. But I was struggling with whether to resign or not.

The deacons really didn't want me to. And I was debating it and debating it. And Tony did a message on don't quit.

And he was talking about evangelism and getting excited. Don't quit evangelism. And also don't quit your church.

Go back to your church and don't quit your church if they're not completely on board with your views of evangelism.

And he was saying don't quit, don't quit. I was getting convicted because what was I thinking? I'm ready to quit.

Not evangelism, but the church as the pastor. We had a dinner break, which was about two hours.

And running a conference like that, when you have 55 people there, there's a lot to do, a lot of work has to get done.

I know I organize conferences. And I walked up to Tony afterwards with kind of tears welling up because it really was a struggle.

And I just asked him, Tony, what do you do if you're the pastor of the church and you want to quit? Within about 10 minutes,

Tony said, come with me. Let me take care of something. He was on the phone. He quickly made some phone calls, talked to a couple people so that everyone would take care of the responsibilities.

He grabbed me, grabbed another brother who used to be a pastor and said, let's go to dinner. He left the 55 people to take care and minister to one.

It told me something about that man's heart. He is a shepherd. He is one who cares.

He is one who lovingly looks out for God's children.

He is a great, great encouragement to me. And it would mean a whole lot to me and to many others if every one of us would go out and encourage

Tony Miano this week. Now we do this. Why do we do the brother of encouragement, sister of encouragement?

We do this because, quite frankly, many of you have been in the same situation as I have. You've been to funerals where people say all these encouraging words basically after someone's dead.

You know what, Christian? It's time for us to encourage one another while we're all still alive.

Don't just encourage Tony Miano, though I want us all to make a special effort to encourage

Tony this week. But I do want us to get in the habit of seeking to encourage one another on a daily basis.

I mean, Si can encourage me even if he doesn't like my beard, even if he thinks it does have too much gray. I wouldn't mind.

It could be an encouragement. But we need to encourage one another as ambassadors for Jesus Christ.

So I want to encourage you to go out and encourage Tony Miano this week.

Get to know him if you don't. And let him know, if you do know him, let him know how much you love him, respect him, and the things he's, the way he's had an impact in your life.

All right, and we will continue with summer school next week. And we will, as a programming note, take, we'll be in summer session next week.

The week after, we will take a week off. I will be on a much needed vacation with my family.

And it will be a non -working vacation. I'm taking a limited number of gospel tracks.

And just to hand out to whoever I may happen to, but I will be seeking to spend a lot of time alone with my family, doing some activities with them.

And so because of that, we will not have a show in two weeks. So I hope this week was helpful to you.

I hope that you just remember when we get into disagreements, try to understand someone else's position.

And articulate your position in a loving, respectful manner.

It will go a long way to helping each one of us be a good representative of Jesus Christ. Because I got news for you.

If you're dealing with a fellow brother or sister in Christ, we are going to be dealing with one another for a long, long time.

Eternity is a very long time. So go ahead and try to be an encouragement to one another this week.

But go out and strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.