Defending The Faith w/Preston Perry | Pastor Nelson Bowen

pastor B. Come on, come on! Anyone excited to be in the house of God this morning? Come on, let's welcome our guest, Mr. Preston Perry in the building. Man, it's going to just be absolutely incredible, man. Y'all can be... Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Let's see. Turn it back on. What happens if he sits on this side? What's the devil? Y'all can be seated, man. I am excited. I know it's gonna come together. Has church been great this morning? Man, it's been absolutely incredible. Come on, let's make some noise for God Behind Bars, man. Let them know that we are loving them and hanging out with them. While they get that together, just a couple of quick announcements. Is that okay? Then we'll start. All my men, where the men at? So awesome. I'm wanting to meet with all of you all in person at 730 on April 23rd. I think that's Thursday. April 23rd, all the men, please come in person so we can just have a conversation and hang out. Is that okay? I said, is that okay? All right. And then lastly, here's what I'm really excited about. Say, this Tuesday, I'm starting what's called the Midday Reset, which means that you can come in here Tuesday at noon if you want, and I'm gonna start doing Bible studies every Tuesday at noon so you can come in here and you can hear the Word or you can watch on YouTube because sometimes you just got to have your, you know, you got to be at work and just turn the Word on in your office. And sometimes, like, when they acting real crazy, like, just turn it up a little louder so they can hear about Jesus, why they making some of these dumb decisions, I mean, some of these decisions that they're making. But nonetheless, man, one more time, let's give it up for Mr. Preston Perry, man. Thank y'all. We're trying to set you up like your podcast, man. I know, man, I feel at home. Can y'all hear me? Okay, cool. Yeah, they can hear you. This couch is comfortable. I'm glad we just bought it. Just for you. If you didn't like it, it was gonna go back. But I'm excited. So we're in week three. Some of you guys may know if it's your first time here, man, welcome. But we're in week three of our sermon series called The Case for Christ. And what we've been doing is making sure that the people who maybe are on the fence, like maybe you're just skeptic about Christianity, you have skepticism about the Word, the Bible, all of that, what we asked them to do was just

come for four weeks, don't make any decisions, but let us just put some information in front of you and then see what will happen there. But if you are a believer, how do we arm you so that you can adequately defend the gospel? Kind of where I'm at is as I've been pastoring, God has just taken me on a journey by myself that has been, man, it's been a journey for sure because maybe about two, three years ago, two and a half years ago, I felt the Holy Spirit give me one of the most convicting words on a plane. He said, if you're not careful, son, engage is getting ready to become a TED talk in a concert. And it arrested my attention. And that began this process and this journey of, man, if we aren't taking Sundays to truly preach Jesus, then what are we doing? And one of the things that I began to find, I'm going to pull this scripture up in First Peter real quick and we're going to have some good conversation. But look at First Peter for me, please. Let's pull that up. First Peter, it says, but in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy. That's the one thing. But then watch this, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. I've found that as believers, many of us cannot live this verse out. Where if someone was to ask you, why do you believe what you believe? That if it's not experience related, meaning like, well, because of just the way he came through for me. And we're living in a time the challenge experience because you lack information and you lack revelation and you lack knowledge. And so, man, what I wanted to do today was, number one, thank you for your gift and the way that you have really done a phenomenal job at making, I think, apologetics, which we'll talk about, and then just the understanding of Jesus, so acceptable to many, that I wanted to equip our church, one of two people, one who are like, yo, I know what I believe, but I can't tell you why I believe it. Can anyone be honest and say, I really can't tell you, I know I believe Jesus, but I can't really,

I couldn't make a defense if someone asked me, well, why do you really believe that? Can anyone say that, just being honest? Okay, a couple of us, great, and everyone else is lying, but it's okay. But also, if you're skeptic, just have a good conversation. So Preston, thank you so much, man, for being with us. It means the world. Thanks for having me, man. One, I just wanna say, before we get started with the questions, I hear echo, y'all hear echo? Maybe a little bit, right? Man, I just wanna say, I got a great deal of respect for you. If I'm being completely honest, when I first started to engage in apologetic work and evangelism and YouTube and stuff happened, if I'm being quite frank, most of my invites were white evangelical churches, conferences of people just really engaging their communities. And I'm like, as an African-American man, I was frustrated for years. And one of the things that I prayed is that God would raise up, not just raise up, but connect me with young black gifted thought leaders like yourself who have a heart for engaging their community, but also equipping their community with truth.

And so just grateful to be with you. I'm excited, man. I love arguing with you. And last night we debated LeBron and Steph like three hours. It was fun, you know? So man, honor to be here, brother. Absolutely. What is apologetics and why is it vital to the church? It's very, very good question. So apologetics essentially derives from the Greek word apologia, which means to make a defense. And so when you just read 1 Peter 3.15, where it says, honor Christ, the Lord is holy, always being prepared to make a defense for anyone who asks you for the reason, for the hope that is in you. It goes on to say, but yet do it with gentleness and respect. Absolutely. Right? And so that's what apologetics is. It's essentially a defense of religious doctrine. Yeah. So, and I think a lot of times when people hear the word defense, they think about versus. It's like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but it really means just to be prepared

to answer the questions that the world will have for you, you know? And when Peter wrote that, he wrote it to the persecuted church. Yeah. Who experienced a lot of hardships, who experienced a lot of persecution on their faith. And he was saying, man, because of this, y'all gotta be prepared to equip yourself with knowledge, wisdom. So when you go out into the world, you have an answer of why you believe the Jesus that you believe in. A hundred percent. And I love what you said, because people will have questions. Absolutely. And I think a lot of times where we struggle is we can't answer the questions they're asking. And so when they ask a question like, well, how is Jesus God? Like, how's he? Like, I understand, okay, you've got Jesus, but God, how are they the same? And a lot of times what I find is that as believers, we fumble through that. Yeah. Or we struggle through some of, I think what are very practical questions, especially if you're a unbeliever.

And then instead what it becomes is contentions. And then sometimes we can lose people because we find ourselves arguing them, not defending the gospel. That's good. And there's a huge difference in that. So let's speak to it, yeah. Yeah, it is definitely a huge, because I think a lot of times if we're just honest, knowledge puffs up. And so we can find ourselves trying to win an argument, but not trying to win a heart. Ooh. And I think a lot of times we get caught up in these apologetic and these debates, and it really becomes a pride show, like a pride show. And it stops being about the actual person. And so I think it takes real humility, but also a discipline to say, it is not about winning the argument, but about winning the heart. Because a lot of times when people attack the church or attack religious doctrine, that's just really surface level stuff. What they're really saying is I hate the church because the way the pastor treated me when I was seven. Wow. I hate the church because, you know, they treated my mom this way and they excommunicated, you know, and so a lot of times,

we're on these surface. level conversations, but before we get there, we need to kind of dig a little bit. And so that's what I've learned in evangelism. It's like, no, why are you really mad? Why are you really mad? So yeah, yeah. So then what do you say to people who, and I touched it briefly last week, and I told them that we will probably spend some time on it this week. When people say, yo, that's the white man's religion, or they gave us that in slavery, or like, what do you say to that? Yeah, yeah, it's one of the weakest arguments. That was pretty quick. It really is, it really is. It's such a weak and such an uneducated attack of the gospel, because if we do just a little research, because a lot of people say that, because when we look at the everyday seminary in America, we quote people like John Calvin, we quote people like Charles Spurgeon, and these are all white theologians, right? And so a lot of times people look at the history of Christianity and think it dates back to the 1700s. But if you study a lot of their work, they actually are quoting North African church fathers. And so when the church was established,

you know, thousands of years before the 1800s, or whatever, something happened called the Council of Nicaea. It happened in 325 AD. Please look it up. Say it again so they can get it. The Council of Nicaea, it happened in 325 AD. And what these church fathers did, where they came and they argued religious doctrine against people who believed contrary to the gospel. And so you have men like Augusta, you have men like Tertullian, who were all North African men, who basically redefined and established what the church believed at this time. And so when you read these white men in seminary, they're quoting Africans, you know? And so Ethiopia was actually one of the first Christian nations. Absolutely. The oldest Christian book that we have is the Ethiopian Bible. Wow. Right? And so to say that Christianity is the white man's religion is just fundamentally and just historically off. But I do think there's something practical that we can see. And I think to be fair,

when we look at the Hebrew Israelites, when we look at the nation of Islam, there is a truth that America has whitewashed Christianity. If we gloss over that, we will never be able to reach people who have been hurt by this fact. Absolutely. And so, you know, so we have to acknowledge that Christianity, it is a problem that all of our pictures of Jesus look like Brad Pitt with like long hair. That's a problem. That's a problem, right? 100%, 100%. Right, because he is a Middle Eastern Jew who chose to show up in this world as a Middle Eastern Jew, not a white man. And so he did not look like Brad Pitt, but I tell the Hebrew Israelites, he didn't look like Samuel L. Jackson either. Absolutely. Right, he was a Middle Eastern Jew, right? But then, so that's one thing. I think we need to acknowledge that. And the last thing that I'll say is I do think that the church should stop complaining about people who say that Christianity is the white man religion if we don't know how to engage culture like the nation of Islam and the Hebrew Israelites do.

Woo, okay, because some people might not even know what that means. So dive into that a little bit. If they don't know how to engage. It's the reason why all of the rappers and the Breakfast Club embrace the Minister Farrakhan and don't embrace the everyday black teacher. Yeah. Because he knows, like his, theologically, the Minister Farrakhan is off. Like he believes in a false gospel. He believes in a God that cannot save him. Yeah. But he's not afraid to engage culture. Yeah. I think in the church, I think this is my critique for the church that I'm a part of, especially in the African-American context. I think we do a good job of teaching people how to call a spade a spade from the pulpit, but we don't teach them how to play cards for real. Meaning, God, don't. Go like this, go like this, go like this, go like this. Meaning we teach ideologies and we teach principles from the pulpit and you see a whole bunch of Christians with a lot of zeal, with a lot of boldness, especially on social media, you know, like what I mean by teaching them how to play cards for real really haven't teach them how to engage with culture.

100%. And so we call things demonic and say, you shouldn't go over there, that's the world. And it's like, no, what do you think that God has sent you out to? Absolutely. He sent you out into the world. Absolutely. Not to be of the world, but to impact the world. Absolutely. And so I think a lot of times in the church, we wanna sit back in church and we wanna call things off limits and this is the world, so everything is God's, the devil just perverted what God has given us. Okay, okay. We gotta go back in the world and redeem what God has given us. We gotta sit there a little bit. Everything is God's. The devil just perverted it. I think it's interesting because we're talking about engaging culture and we have people who can't even engage their work...what do they call? The workplace or the people you work with, your co-workers. Yeah, I don't know if...yeah. But they, like, you don't even pray out loud at lunch. We're having the same conversations. Like, I think what...and I would love Preston, like, we got to go in on this. Because here's what I'm trying to create here at our church.

It's like on Sunday, we know you're an engager. But on Tuesday, in your workspace, do we know you're an engager? Like, do we...because if I look at the conversations, if I look at the ideologies, if I look at what you repost, if I look at what you engage with, and I think sometimes we can even destroy our witness. It's not...it's like we destroyed it before we even tried to defend it. You know what I'm trying to say? And so how then do we...because I think sometimes it could also be like, well, I don't know what to say or I don't know how to engage. So if you could give us, like, just a brief synopsis of, man, here's one way to begin engaging Christ in your own sphere. What would that look like? Man, that's good. You know, I think what you were essentially talking about is how do we be bold in the world. And I have a motto, I put this in my book, and I always say it, like, a lot. Boldness is not doing what men are afraid to do, but boldness is doing what God calls you to do. Boldness is more... Boldness is not doing what you are afraid to do. Boldness is doing what you are called to do. Yeah, yeah. That's great. Because I think real Christ-like boldness, it's more about being obedient to God than it is fearless before men. And I think what we have to understand is if God gets our yes, the world will experience our boldness. And what I've learned is, you know, being bold is not... I'm the type of person that I will walk up to a Jehovah's Witness and talk to them. Yeah.

And if a Jehovah's Witness is knocking on my door, my wife will be looking at me like... I got time today. I got time today. But you know what? My wife is not like that. My wife, she speaks all over the world, but she is not introverted. And so, she'll get in the car and we'll, like, we get in the Uber, we're out of town, and I see that my Uber driver is a Muslim, I'm going to engage the conversation, and my wife is going to be quiet. She's not going to say nothing. Yeah. But I tell this story all the time. One time, we was leaving Virginia, me and my wife, and we had, like, 40 minutes before our flight took off, and two Jehovah's Witnesses was parked, was camped in the airport. And so, I'm like, I'm going to go talk to them. You know? And my wife was like, okay, I'm about to go get us something to eat. My wife did that one time. We was on a cruise. Yeah. And first day on the cruise, right? And I sit down, I got my little spot, and when I go on my sabbatical in July, I'm not nobody's pastor, I'm not nobody's nothing. So, we sit down, and Arshele said, like, she got this conversation, we were another couple, right? I said, she about to pray. I said, she about to pray for them. I legit, I got up because I ain't heard her say, baby, come over here. And I left about an hour and 15 minutes.

I came back, she's still praying for the girl. I'm looking around the corner like, is the coast clear? Yeah, like, I'm not doing it. But what's crazy is about that story is I went over there and talked to the Jehovah's Witnesses, and I talked to them about 30 minutes, like 10 minutes before my flight left. And I go to the restaurant where my wife was at, and she has her head bowed, praying with the waitress. Wow. And so, I'm like, well, how did my wife, how did my introverted wife get into this, you know, situation? And she told me that, you know, the lady said, who you ordering food for? She was like, I'm ordering food for my husband. She's like, where's your husband? He's like, my husband is over there talking to some Jehovah's Witnesses. And she was like, I used to be a Jehovah's Witness, and they excommunicated me. And I've been done with religion ever since. And my wife was like, I felt uncomfortable, but at that moment, I felt like the Lord was like, you have to give the gospel to her. And I use that story to say this, is that God is going to use you how he has uniquely made you. I think a lot of times, we try to figure out how to be an evangelist in the way we see other people be evangelists. So good. But I think God knows how he has created you. And I think that if you are a disciple of Jesus Christ, he might not necessarily be telling you to go out and pursue conversation. conversations, but the question is, would you deny a conversation once he laid one on your lap? Would you deny a conversation? That's really good.

And so I think essentially what I'm trying to say is I think being on mission for God is more about just being ready than it is about, you know, because I think a lot of times, you know, God is going to prepare people. I'm the type of person, I'm going to go out there and fish. You know, I'm going to go out there and catch the fish. But I do a really bad job of preparing the fish. You know what I'm saying? Which means I don't, I have an evangelism gift, but I don't have a hospitality gift. I just don't. I don't think about giving people towels when they come out. And so my wife can minister to the, my wife can minister the gospel in a way that I just can't when people come to us. Like when people actually come to us, I don't know how to do that. Yeah. I know how to, I know how to draw them in. I don't know what they do when they come. You know what I'm saying? And so like God is just going to use you how he is. It's so good. No, that's so good. Because, and I hope y'all got it. You don't have to be somebody else. Be who God has called you to be. The biggest thing I took away from that was it's not about even going and trying to create a conversation. It's would you deny a conversation. So good. Okay, let's switch it just a little bit. If God is good, why does he allow bad? Man. Man, that's such a loaded question. You know, my years of evangelism, I probably received that question so much, you know. I think the first thing that I can say, which this is what a lot of people hate.

Because it doesn't necessarily give them the answer, and I'll say more. But God's ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts, right. One time I was in this place called Little Five Points in Atlanta. And I was talking to this, she was an atheist, she was agnostic. Okay. And the difference between agnosticism is they don't believe, it's not they don't believe in God. They believe there's no proof if there's a God for sure. Absolutely. So that's what agnosticism is. And she just couldn't fathom that God was good because he allowed kids to get killed. He allows wars to happen and all of the things. And so I started talking to her about the sovereignty of the Lord. And she admitted that Jesus existed. And I had asked her a question, I was like, do you believe that Jesus existed? She said, yeah. I said, do you believe that he was a good man? She said, yeah. I said, okay, if you existed 2,000 years ago and you saw Jesus beatedly mocked, beat, spit on, and crucified, would you have the temptation to believe that God isn't a good God? You see the most perfect person that has ever walked the face of the earth. And she said, I probably would. And I said, that's because you didn't see 2,000 years later. You didn't see so many people believing in Jesus because of this one act. That's crazy. That's so good. When I say God's ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts, that's what I mean. I think we have to understand that we serve a God who is outside of time, space, and matter. We serve a God that knows all things into eternity past. And so the fact that so when we look at scriptures that all things will work together for the good of those who love him according to his purpose, we have to understand that it also includes evil.

And so one thing that I. Hold on, time out, time out. No, because it's like drinking out of a fire hydrant right now. If we believe that all things work together, we also have to understand that that includes evil. Yes. And what I mean by that is that if God is sovereign, he is sovereign over all things. And I think it's hard for us in our finite minds to grasp the fact that he is sovereign over all things. But he is sovereign over all things. I want to read a scripture real quick. Yeah, let's read a scripture. Let's see how fast they can get it. Which one? Man, I think it's. You don't know the address, you just know how to get there. I think it's Acts 4, the end of Acts 4. Acts 4. That's what I say when I don't know the verse. I know how to get to Target, but I don't know the address. It's Acts 4. It's definitely Acts 4. Okay, and starting at the, I'm going to read this real quick. This is when Peter and John was arrested for preaching the gospel. Acts 4 starting at the 21st verse. Okay, Acts 4, 21. So the 21st verse, not Peter, but John. No, I'm sorry, Peter, he writes. He say, Who through the mouth of our father David, your servants said to him, Holy Spirit, why did the Gentiles rage? And the peoples plod in vain, and the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were to gather together against the Lord and against his anointed. Right? what Peter is doing, he's quoting a scripture from David

like probably nine, 800 years prior to this. Because David raised the question, but back in Psalms, he did not answer this question. This was just a simple question, and David did that a lot. He asked the Lord, like, Lord, why you allowed him to do it? And the Lord didn't answer, because he knew he was gonna answer, you know, hundreds of years later. And then this is, then Peter answers the question that David posed, you know, years ago. He says, for truly in this city they were gathered together against your holy servant whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Gentiles and the people of Israel to do whatever your hand and your plan predestined to take place. Wow. Right? Wow. And so we see here that God, he is sovereign even over Pontius Pilate. So good. And the people of Israel. So explain to them, because I'm with you, explain who Pontius Pilate is. So Pontius Pilate was the man who was essentially, Jesus was delivered over him, because, so the Jews did not have legal right to kill anybody. Absolutely. Right? And so what they had to do is, if they was, somebody was accused of blasphemy or something like that, they had to bring them to the Roman government and the Roman government had to basically, you know,

say, okay, you guys can crucify them. Absolutely. And so Pontius Pilate was the one who kind of gave them the go-ahead. Here it's saying, no, God, you anointed Pontius Pilate. You anointed Pontius Pilate. The reason why I'm bringing this up. And predestined Pontius Pilate. Because he's, Pontius Pilate has to be anointed in order for Jesus to be crucified. Yes. If Pontius Pilate, who is evil, is not in place, then Jesus, who is good. Are you not hearing what I'm saying? Does not get the crucifixion. Yes. Okay. Can I help you out? Yes. The current president. He's going this way, not this way. Because if he will anoint Pontius Pilate, because he's sovereign. Because so many of us like, I don't see why he would do and da, da, da. It's because it's without. You helping me out? Listen, so I think what I'm essentially trying to say is, I think we as Christians, we have to help people understand that they're actually asking the wrong question.

Yes. The question should never be, why does God allow evil? And the question should be, is God sovereign over all evil? Because if God is not sovereign over all evil, we have no hope. We have no hope. Right? And so, that's a scary, scary reality if we serve a God who's not sovereign over all evil. But because he's sovereign over all evil, we actually can believe the scripture that all things work together for the good of those who love God and who are called according to his purpose. And so, I don't care that I see evil in the world. I put my hope in that, no, God is sovereign over all things. Over the evil. God, though. Is that good? That's so good. Well, one of the things that I see happening, are y'all enjoying this? This is some good Sunday conversation. Sometimes Sunday should just be a conversation just like this, learn something, get equipped. But, I wanna address, Lady B's actually brought this up a couple of times, that we're seeing some of the, like who we would have considered pioneers of our faith, or like these gospel staples,

now talking a different language. Like, we grew up singing their songs, and now as they get older, we're kinda like, do they still believe? So you got like, we could talk about like the Nick Cannon, and the Erica Campbell, where there was pretty much this, almost like Nick was saying, that the gospel, that the Bible is really just like allegory. It's just a bunch of stories that are meant to be symbolisms, and you're starting to see people, I think, get wishy-washy. Or you might even have, y'all might even know people who would say, man, Jericho didn't really happen, that's just a fable, that's just a story that they said, that's not something that actually occurred. How do we begin to address some of those things? When people question the Bible, and the validity of the scriptures? Well, one, I think, I think when you look at people like Nick Cannon, no shade to Nick Cannon. Anytime you start off with no shade. Shade. I think it's easier to attack God's bride when you just hate God. Wow.

And I think a lot of these people just hate the Lord, and they don't wanna submit to the Lord, and so it's just easier to attack his bride. Yeah, you know, but when people try to question the validity of the scriptures, it's just, man, I saw that conversation and I saw the conversation that D1 had with that one dude, and I wish I was there. I just...it'd be irking me to the point I'd be turning off these interviews because, one, there's nothing parallel to the Christian faith, you know? The Bible says that faith is the substance of things hoped for, but it goes on to say, but the evidence of things not seen. And I think a lot of times when we think about faith, we think that faith is blind and faith is not blind. At all. Because if faith was blind, the word evidence wouldn't be there. The truth is God has given us a lot of evidence. I think Christians just don't know where to find the evidence. And so, one, you know, when it comes to the Christian faith, if you can compare the Christian faith to the Mormon faith or the Jehovah's Witness faith or the Muslim faith, one, they all have leaders who are so-called prophets who heard from God when no one else was around. No, I'm so serious. That's great. Listen, listen, listen, follow me. So, they mean Joseph Smith of the Mormon faith, he claims that an angel named Moroni led him to some gold tablets. He found those gold tablets in the ground. That angel named Moroni allowed him to transcript these ancient texts into English, and that's how we got the Book of Mormon. The Mohammed, he claims that he traveled from Israel to Africa to the moon on one night on a donkey.

That's what the Quran says. I'm not even making it up. No one was around to witness it. Charles Tate Russell, the man who started the Jehovah's Witness faith, he believed that an angel...and all was visited by angels. But the scripture says that even if an angel comes to you preaching a different gospel, let him be a curse. And so, the truth is they weren't angels, they were demons that was visiting y'all. But the point that I'm making is when they were visited by angels, there were no eyewitnesses around, right? Absolutely. And so, one, so when you look at the Christian faith, the Christian faith, Jesus rose from the grave and there were over 500 people who saw him after the resurrection. A hundred percent. Not only that, you have eyewitnesses, you know what I'm saying, that experienced the resurrection. The gospel is eyewitness accounts that coexist and don't contradict the book of Psalms. Which is crazy. Do you know how hard it is for the book of Isaiah to not contradict the book of John if the Bible isn't true? And I've also said... Like it's unparalleled, like Christian faith is unparalleled with the evidence. I've also said that four of us can be in the same room and tell a completely different story. And we were all in the same room and yet you get four people, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Peter, because Mark actually wrote them from Peter's perspective.

But either way, you get four disciples who tell the same story. Yeah. Yeah, and what's crazy is the number one argument is I can't believe in the Bible because it was written by men. Well, every piece of literature we have was written by men. It's like you don't believe that Rome doesn't exist. You don't try to disprove Caesar or nobody. It's like, you know, like the truth is if the scriptures was not written by men, can we truly trust it? Can we truly trust it? Can we truly test it? It's no way to test the Book of Mormon because all we have is a man who said he was visited by an angel. There's no way to test the Book of Mormon. But God actually gave us the scriptures who was written by man so that it can be tested. Not only that, we have over 3,000 scrolls that was found over different time periods and none of them contradict one another. They found the Book of Isaiah in a jar in the early 1100s and it didn't contradict the Book of Isaiah. The only thing that was different was a couple of does and ands. And so, there has never been one manuscript found around the world that has contradicted another manuscript. If that's not evidence, I don't know what is. Come on, man. So, what should be the role of the church and then why should we convince people that they need the church in Christ? Oh, man. The role of the church is so, so important. I don't know if you guys saw, this Christian rapper, he was on a podcast

with a really influential dude in Atlanta who does podcasts. And he was basically saying that, I don't need church to, you know, to be a Christian. I don't need a church to know God. And that's actually true. Like, we don't need a church to be introduced to the Lord Jesus Christ, but we need... do need the church to know how to serve Him properly and to love Him. So good. Right? When God created Adam and Eve, I think it really starts at the beginning, the beginning of creation, when He created Adam and Eve and He took Eve from Adam's side, the first time He said something wasn't good in scriptures is when He said, it is not good for man to be alone. And so what He was essentially saying was, He's not saying that it's not good for man to be alone because a man need a boo or a wife. Man need a boo. What He's essentially saying is, it's not good for man not to have a community. God giving Adam, Eve to Adam was the beginning of community, which means it is impossible for us to fulfill the will of God and the purpose for our life if we are not connected with other people. Okay, Preston, I'm getting ready.

I'm getting ready. I'm gonna do a sidebar and I know I'm looking at this time, but I'm gonna do a sidebar because I think this is so important. One of the things that I see happening in the church period is somehow believers mature themselves into believing that I don't need the church anymore because I know how to study at home. I know how to get the word. I know how to do these things. And I'm finding this epidemic of people who are like, I'm so mature. And then they start maturing and then they get irritated by immaturity. And so they start isolating themselves or trying to, like, can you please speak to that? Because I'm seeing it in this, the capital C church at large, where people are just like believers backing up from the church and then just doing stuff at home. I wanna say this, and this is probably gonna be a bold statement for some. You cannot have a relationship with God if you deny the church. You cannot. In the same way, you cannot have a relationship with me if you don't rock with Jackie. If you don't rock with my wife, you automatically deny me.

Absolutely. And so we have to understand that the church is God's bride and it's the community that he orchestrated to make himself known throughout the world. So good. And so the scriptures even say that the only way the world would know us is by the love that we have for one another. He is not talking about necessarily our love for the church. He's saying the church love for one another. And so it is great power in the ecclesia. That means the church body, not the building, but the people. The people. The people of God. When the people of God are united, it shows off God in a way that nothing really else can. I love it. And so I don't think that we can properly have a relationship with God if we deny his church. And I don't think that we can have a great witness out in the world if we're not a part of a church body to help us grow, to help us mature, to help us, to stretch us. And also, this is another thing, to fail us. A lot of people- Okay, yeah, go there, go there, go there. A lot of people talk about church hurt, one, and church hurt is a real thing,

but we have to understand that your immaturity, your pride hurt the church probably 10 times for the church hurt you once. And so- Oh, say that again. No, say that again. Your immaturity and your pride- Your immaturity, your pride- Hurt the church. Your gossip, your lack of faith probably hurt the church 10 times before you hurt the church once. And so when you start talking about the church hurt, I think that we need to be real men and women of God and say, man, how many times I've hurt the church? You know? And so, one, we have to understand that we are a part of the body that we're complaining about. So good. To deny the church is also to deny yourself in a lot of ways. Yeah. And to also to reject all the ways God took us back when we was tripping. Come on. You know? And so that's one thing. But the truth is, I tell people this all the time, my young dudes, when I disciple them in their marriage, I say, if God gave you a spouse that met you

with every condition, you would never learn how to love unconditionally. Right? Ah. Y'all felt that? Or was that just me? And the same thing with the church. How are you going to love the church if God don't put you around people to stretch you? To challenge you. How are you going to learn to love the church? To fail you. You know? Like, I think the truth is, God has called us to do life and community with other broken human beings. To show us ourselves and to show us Him. And I think that if we embrace that, we're going to be rejecting the church all our lives. We have to embrace. our brokenness and accept other people's brokenness as well. Hey, that's great. All right, last question, I'm going to get us out of here. For the everyday believer, let's just give, like, two to three practical things they can do now to be able to present the gospel with confidence. Yeah, I would say don't try to major over minors and don't try to become a jack of all trades and not a master of none. Like, learn the foundational essentials of the gospel.

So the three things that I always teach people in my workshops is learn who is the person of Christ. And so if somebody say, if Jesus is God, can you show me how Jesus is God using scripture? That's going to be the number one thing people attack. You got to understand that people, like, at the core of our faith, it's not just an ideology, but it's a person. And his name is Jesus. If Jesus' life is untrue, everything falls to the ground. But if it is true, people got some answers. People got to answer some serious questions. So study who is Jesus, the personhood of Jesus. Study John 1. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. Through him, all things were made. And without him, nothing was made. I will come back, and I will, like, walk over that scripture with y'all if y'all want me to. I love talking about it. It's called Christology, studying the person of Jesus. I think the second thing is one of the main things that you will get hit with is every religion in the world has found something to work for to please God. Christianity is the only religion that says the God who finished the work found me. So understanding that we're saved by grace

through faith in Jesus. So how are we saved? After you study who is the person of Christ, study how we're saved. We're saved by grace through faith. What does that mean, right? Read Romans, study Romans, talk to your leaders about what does it mean that we're saved by grace. What I've learned, given the gospel to the outside world, is that that's the most freeing theology that I can ever give a Hebrew Israelite, or a Jehovah's Witness, or a Mormon, who's working to be saved. You know why? Because they're tired. They're doing something that they can never accomplish on the side of heaven. And so to explain to them, no, you actually have a God in heaven that finished the work for you. And if you place your faith in him, you are forgiven. Right? And then I would just say, be faithful. Be faithful to what God has given you. You don't have to learn presuppositional apologetics right away. You don't have to learn systematic theology. You don't even necessarily have to go to seminary. I think that you have to be ready. The last thing that I'll say is,

I want to say, it was probably like 17, 18 years ago, my pastor in Chicago, he started this international conference called the Legacy Conference. And I mean, all the speakers from around the country, from John Piper, to John McArthur, to Arda Zerdia, to Lecrae, to Beth Moore, all these people came to this conference to speak. And at the end of this three-day discipleship-making conference, we would go to one of the worst hoods in Chicago, and we would give the gospels to the people outside. And my pastor had this bright, bright idea to put me over the evangelism team. And I was terrified. And I said, I said, it's people here who got seminary degrees. And I'm just this little hood baby from the South side of Chicago. Why are you putting me in front of this? And he said, he said, you have the Holy Spirit. He said, you love God. And he said, you love people. And you know what my pastor did? He did not put people on my team to teach me. There were seminary graduates. He took, he put this old church mother who dropped out of high school in the 10th grade. And this woman was the best evangelist in our community. Wow.

Filled with seminary grads, because she would walk up to a gang member and say, why are you hurting? Well, what's wrong, baby? And I asked her, I said, how are you such a great evangelist? And she said, it is not my information, but it's my intimacy, right? Acts says that Jesus is not looking for people that would display to the world that we have found a whole bunch of information about him. But he's looking for a people who would display to the world that we have been with him. And if you spend intimate time with Jesus, and if you submit what you have learned to Jesus, in his sovereignty, he will use you greatly out in the world. It is not about what you know, it's about who you know. So be faithful with what you know, and just trust the Lord and watch him use you. Come on, man. Come on, one more time. Let's give it up for Preston Perry. You can be seated, I just want to pray for one more group of people, if no one looking all eyes closed and heads bowed, I want to take a moment to pray maybe someone watching online or there's people even here in this room where you say, you know what, I just want to give my life to Jesus. Or maybe you once had that relationship but you just kind of drifted, you just went in a totally different direction and maybe you heard something today the spirit of God was just witnessing to you and you say okay, you know what, I think I'm

ready to do this, I want to give Jesus a shot. The reality is this, God loves you man, He's not just mad at you at all, He's mad about you. You keep Him up at night, He has every single hair in your head numbered and He wants to give you a future and a hope and a love that you could never even imagine. And maybe as I'm talking now your heart's racing and you're like what is this, it's simply Jesus knocking on the door of your heart. Here's the question He's asking, would you allow me to come in? See the reality is this, is that He doesn't, He's a perfect gentleman so He doesn't come by intrusion or invasion, He only comes by an invitation, that invitation is simply this, Jesus I need you in my life and God says that when He does that, that you'll have eternal life with Him. As a pastor I only have one job, one assignment and that's to make sure that when you take your last breath and one day you will, that you spend eternity in heaven. And so I wanted to give you that moment now, I'm not going to ask you to do anything spooky or scary, I'm not going to ask you to come to the front or to even stand up, I'm just going to ask you to raise your hand on the count of three and say hey pastor that's me, I want to give my life to Jesus. And then after that we're going to say a faith confession. Because Scripture says this, when you give your life, when you confess Him before men, that God will confess you before the Father. And so I want to give you that opportunity now, just like yo that's me, I'm ready to do this, don't make this about anyone else. Between me and you, hey Jesus I'm giving you my life on the count of three, would you just be bold enough to raise your hand and say that's me pastor. One, God loves you. Two, your life will never be the same. Three, if that's you would you raise your hand. So awesome, awesome, awesome. We got one over there, come on. Come on let's begin to celebrate. Come on let's say this together, say God today I give you my life, I believe in my heart and confess with my mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord. Come on let's celebrate. So awesome, hey I love you guys so much, thank you for coming. Remember we got Oasis this Friday, our night of worship. I look forward to seeing you guys, love you.