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Summary

Key questions addressed in this Ask FGBC episode include:

• How can I approach loved ones who reject the gospel without straining relationships?
• What role do prayer and scripture play in encouraging faith in others?

The hosts explore how to engage with family and friends who resist accepting the gospel. They address a listener’s question on balancing the desire to share faith while maintaining relationships, especially when loved ones seem indifferent. Pastor Jim highlights the value of consistent prayer and gentle encouragement over persistent confrontation, suggesting shared scripture reading as a way to introduce the gospel without pressuring others. The episode also delves into diverse conversion experiences, recognizing that people may come to faith in Christ through various paths.

Got a question on Christianity, Gospel, Scripture, Theology? Submit your own questions here.

Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

family members, gospel explanation, divine experience, grief handling, faith prayer, scripture reading, theological differences, new heart, sin misery, God’s sovereignty, man’s responsibility, crisis conversion, Pilgrim’s Progress, different experiences, love of Jesus

SPEAKERS

Pastor Jim Butler, Wim Kerkhoff

Wim Kerkhoff  00:07

So this question, it’s a longer one, but provide some context. It shows the heart of the person. So tyul, how do I handle family members, friends, etc, who are not believing. I’ve explained the gospel to them, but they don’t care, and they refuse to believe. They are waiting for a divine experience where hell is open to them and where they have a deep sense of their sin and misery. They think they have to pray for a new heart, use the means, wait and maybe one day God will convert them. They say they are dead and can’t believe but they also don’t care that they are headed to hell. It has caused me a lot of grief, and I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t want to strain relationships, but I also deeply care about their souls. I know God is in control, and he does what he sees fit. Ultimately, I need to trust as if God can save me for as if God can save me, nothing is impossible. Is there anything I could say to them? How do I deal with the grief of seeing them reject the Savior?

Pastor Jim Butler  01:03

It’s a great question, and certainly, I think, one that you know, pretty much every Christian can enter into. I mean, the theological background might be a bit different, but yeah, I you know, keep faithfully praying for those people as you have opportunity share the truth with them, because I do agree. I think Peter’s admonition to wives that are with unbelieving husbands, it’s through their conduct they may be one. It’s not through your constant badgering of them being a harpy wife, doesn’t you know, put men into the kingdom of heaven. Now, having said that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, so at some point, getting the gospel into a person’s ears is absolutely crucial. If it’s the kind of a scenario where that’s happened several times before, there’s theological differences involved in terms of the freeness of the gospel, in terms of, you know, the deadness of the sinner and all those things. You know, another idea might be to read Scripture together. You know, let’s just read the Gospel of John together. You know, faith does come by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So where people may be a bit standoffish for me to pop out the confession, well, in chapter so and so, paragraph eight, it says this, you can’t do that with the Bible. You can’t scoff at the Word of God. So, whatever your theological background is, if you’re in the realm of Christianity, there has to be a respect for scripture. So perhaps a person who’s turned their ears, you know, deaf ear to your testimony, your citing gospel truth, your good presentation of gospel truth. They might be open to reading scripture. And, you know, I would say, pick a very, you know, powerful chapter or section. You know, I think of John. We’re going through it obviously on Sunday mornings. But you know the John 6 and the will of Jesus, or the purpose of Jesus to do the will of the Father who sent him. What is that will? To save those who believe on him! So, you know, there’s certain texts that I think are calculated to, hopefully, you know, impact sinners. So, keep being faithful in prayer, you know, avoid the tendency, maybe it’s my tendency, avoid the temptation to get upset, irritated, and just attack their theology. I think that’s, you know, but I don’t think it’s an attack on a theology to just show where it isn’t biblical. You know, some of those conclusions are not from Scripture. And try to highlight, if I’m thinking about the backdrop to that question, the various conversions of persons in the New Testament. You didn’t have periods of sin and misery when you were Matthew, you had Jesus say, come follow me. And what did he do? He came and followed him so he didn’t, you know, well, I gotta, you know, go check in for bit and see if my misery cycle is bad enough or whatever it was, an immediacy. You know, when Paul and Barnabas, or was it Silas, in Acts 16, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved! You know, those are clear passages that I think do devastate some of that imbalanced theology where it’s looked at, you know, suspiciously, if we tell sinners to believe and repent. That’s what God is doing through the apostles in the book of Acts, telling sinners to believe and repent, then we should go, thou and do likewise.

Pastor Mike Kirkpatrick  04:47

I got nothing to add to that.

Wim Kerkhoff

There’s nothing in the Bible around praying for a new heart. That’s God gives new hearts. Ezekiel 36 talks about getting a new spirit, the heart of flesh. But earlier in Ezekiel it says, Get a new heart. He says to dead sinners that come to life, there’s God’s perspective for God’s side of it equation, and there’s our side.

Pastor Jim Butler  05:08

Yeah, I’ve always thought that was a curious way to sort of present the gospel. Pray to the Lord for a new heart. You do not see that in the book of Acts, it’s Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s repent. Let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. It’s not, you know, there would be perfect opportunity with that Philippian jailer, you know, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Well, pray the Lord, for a new heart. That’s not the emphasis there. The emphasis is, look ye unto Jesus and you will be saved. So some of it is a theology of confusion that’s basically been imposed upon Scripture. God is absolutely sovereign. Man is responsible, and we need to teach both things. So, yeah, just try to get them in the Scripture. Let’s just read. We can read without comment. We’ll just read. John 6, a good endeavor.

Wim Kerkhoff  06:11

Yeah, Scripture. And then some of their own church fathers, they follow Brakel, he talks about some people do have a crisis, a very experiential misery, conversion. Other ones are really very boring. They don’t even know what day or month or year it was, but they know they are in Christ. They are believing.

Pastor Jim Butler  06:26

They some have just been won over by hearing about the love of Jesus. Yeah, that shouldn’t be suspicious. There’s different ways that we see in scripture of various sinners coming to saving faith.

Wim Kerkhoff  06:42

Then other one is a Pilgrim’s Progress. Obviously, Christian had the big burden on his back, but nobody else in the book did. And then many characters in there, and they all had different experiences, as well as in the second part, when his wife comes to faith, very different. So it’s been encouraging to me.

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