Let It Fly: Sharing the Love of Jesus Without Fear

Josh Stephens: First off, we have some guests here that we want to recognize. If you're here with
chap Day, could you stand up so in the dark we could stare at you and say welcome to LCU.
We are really, really glad you're here and we hope you enjoy today. I'm going to take
you kind of on a little blast from the past, but I have to put this disclaimer out because
I'm going to reference a story. I've got a daughter that's a freshman here who has specifically
instructed me. If I ever embarrass her, she's going to share. She's taken photos of me over
the years that she will share with anyone who has their Bluetooth on. I'm not going to say
anything embarrassing, Allie, and no one really needs to see that Speedo photo ever. But the other
day I was talking to her, and the parents in the auditorium are going to understand me. You're
Because when you're a young parent, you watch things that you would not normally watch, okay?
Sometimes it's to make your kids stop crying.
Sometimes it's you just need a little break.
And the other day, I was in the kitchen, and Allie was in there, and I started singing this theme song.
I don't know why it was in my head, but it was in my head.
And I was like, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do.
And she's just looking at me.
And I was like, really?
No.
Like, I suffered through hours of this.
And I was like, you don't remember?
We're the doodlebops.
We're the doodlebops.
We're the doodlebops.
Oh, yeah.
Do y'all remember that?
Y'all remember the doodlebops?
Anybody?
No.
Your parents stink.
You know that?
If I had to suffer through that, all parents should have to suffer through that.
But she just looked at me like, no, dad, that was not me.
And granted, this came out like circa 2005.
So my son Taylor, I was on FaceTime with him.
He's an idiot and chose to go to a different school.
And I said, Taylor, do you remember this song?
He's like, oh, yeah.
Yeah, Dad, I remember that.
I was like, well, your sister doesn't.
So I failed.
And then I thought, well, what about, I didn't do this with Allie because I was shameful.
But I thought about, like, what about this?
Five, four, three, two, one.
We're going on a trip in our favorite rocket ship.
Zooming through the skies.
Okay, your parents did not fail there.
I'm a little bit, I feel good about that as I spit, sorry.
And so I started thinking about like songs that I,
what's like the earliest song I can remember
from when I was a kid?
And it's a church song.
And you know it and I know it.
Jesus loves me, this I know.
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him belong.
They are weak, but he is strong.
Really good.
Y'all did great.
You listened.
As you can tell by my voice, I was not in Best Friends.
When I was in college, we had a group called Rest Friends.
They said you can glorify God by resting your voice.
So that's what I did.
But this song resonated with me.
And I'll be honest, I remembered this song last week.
Last week we had one of your own, a student, Sylvester Dixon, get up on stage and talk about what it means to be a person who shares Jesus.
And like he and his family, they're active in like real street ministry, holding up signs.
If you have any questions about Jesus, come talk to me.
Like engaging in relationship, walking up to people to say, like just ask questions about Jesus.
no stones, no judgment, just love and a genuine desire to point to Christ.
And so let's give a shout out to Sylvester real quick. He did an awesome job.
If you're not following LCUEDU on Instagram, feel free to go there and we've got a plug for that.
But I started thinking about what does it mean to share the love of Jesus and how do we do it?
And Sylvester said something. He said, you know what? It's like having the greatest secret
known to man and not sharing it. And some of us, this idea of the gospel, this idea of sharing
that Jesus loves us, some of us, we get that message and we just go, you know what? That's
great. And I love it, but I'm going to tuck it right here. I'm going to fold it nicely.
And I'm going to put it near and dear to my heart. Like I'm going to keep it,
My heart's not down here, but we're going to do that.
I'm going to keep that with me.
And others of us, we take that message and we're like, oh, Jesus loves me.
That's important.
But I'm going to share that with those in closest proximity to me, those that are in my circle.
It's still me sharing Jesus, but it's with those right here.
So I'm going to do that.
And then there's another group of people.
And I was reminded of that other group of people while watching maybe the greatest sitcom in TV history, The Office.
I know, some of you are like, hold on, The Office and Jesus?
I know, I'm going to have to account for that on Judgment Day.
But in this episode, they're having a paper airplane contest.
And whoever can throw the paper airplane the furthest gets $2,000.
And if you remember at first, they just think that like, they don't know there's a monetary
prize for it.
Then they find out and we go through and Dwight and Angela are the final two.
Angela really wants the prize because she's desperately poor in this episode.
But Dwight's girlfriend comes up and says, we have pity on you.
And Angela throws the contest.
And I thought, man, if that's kind of the energy we had about sharing Jesus, it's not
about what we keep to ourselves.
It's not about just those in proximity, but it's we're going to let this go as far as we can.
Like, what if we did that to evangelize?
Ben, can you turn the lights on real quick?
Like, what if we were active in, like, making sure that the message of Jesus went as far as it could?
So some of you are sitting in a seat that has a blue sticker underneath it.
If you have a blue sticker under your seat, I need you to just come on up here.
I don't remember how many.
Yeah, don't get up and leave.
That would be genius.
We're not scanning for credits yet.
Kent, there's a blue sticker right behind you.
So, Dr. G, you can come on up here.
Handful of people, if you'll make your way.
It's weird.
Only people on this side are coming forward.
But I know I put stickers over here.
If I can get, um, Stacy, you're retiring. Come on up. Uh, Stacy's been here since
the Lord walked on the earth. So, uh, ladies basketball back there. Oh yeah, there we go.
Thank you. Okay. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to see now this is important.
so I need your attention. I'm only going to give this group one minute to make the best paper
airplane you can make. And then we're going to see whose goes the furthest, okay? Way to go,
Reagan. Okay, so don't start yet. We need everybody to start at the same time.
You've got some encouragement from a small group of people over there on the south side of the
auditorium. There we go. I hope you do this better than you hit a golf ball. Those of you that saw,
you bet you wish you didn't. Okay. Here we go. Hey, Val. Okay. So they're going to fold this up.
I'm going to give you a minute to fold. And then at the same time, we're going to, you know what,
we're going to do it one at a time. Forget that. We want to shame those that fail. So,
All right, here we go.
One minute.
Start folding your paper airplane right now.
Go.
So, is anyone, are y'all nervous for the people up here?
Hey, some people, that's how they evangelize.
They're like, you know, I'm just going to, we don't know what Dr. G is going to do.
Guys, this guy has a doctorate.
He has a terminal degree.
Maybe he's giving these common folks people, like, them time.
He knows what he wants to do.
Others don't. That's okay. Some are really focused. Some only have, all of them only have 30 seconds
left. And then we're going to see which paper airplane flies. Now there's some of you in there
that are like, listen, paper airplanes were my jam when I was a kid. Listen, some people have
lonely childhoods. I get it. All right. There's no shame in that game. All right. But you missed
your calling today. Okay. We've got 12 seconds left and then we're going to start here with
Reagan, and we're going to throw and see how far these paper airplanes go. And I don't know if I'm
excited or nervous, but probably a little bit of both. All right. That was one minute and one
second. Everyone up. Reagan, we're going to start with you. Well, we're going to find out. Come up.
You're going to have the chance to stand right up here, and we're going to see how far you can
throw it. Yeah, that is not going far. Go for it. It's okay. I believe in you. Yeah. Okay.
That's okay. Yay. Let's give her a round of applause. We're making progress.
We're going to leave it where it stands. No, that's even better.
That's even better. I bet Dr. G's goes further. So there we go. Okay. Okay. Brent.
You know what? Hey, you're not in last place anymore. Okay. Hey. Okay. Nice. Here we go.
That's okay. Good job. Good job. Got four more. Okay. Hey,
we're not going to shame. We're going to love and build up. This looks good.
looks can be deceiving that was good that was good all right two more val here we go oh hey
nice way to go val
okay let's give it up for everybody especially val our winner well done
i owe you a starbucks okay so i will help val's addiction to caffeine by her starbucks list okay
Everybody, you can exit the stage.
Thank you very much.
Were y'all nervous about that?
I was a little bit, okay?
I've got some more later if you want to like small flex and come up here and see if you can do it.
But it's interesting because as we do this exercise, do you think they meant for this to happen?
No.
Like we don't build paper airplanes for them to go backwards, okay?
We want them to go, and the hope is that they'll go far and far and far.
And as I thought about what does it mean, if we treat evangelism, if we treat sharing the word with Jesus,
sharing the word about Jesus with others, with the same desire to like, I want to reach.
And listen, this isn't a plug to go do mission work somewhere else, even though I think, listen, if you want to do that,
we have an awesome team.
Go check out the Mission Link folks in the CDC.
Sean and Milo would love to talk to you about that.
That's a great thing.
We can do mission work here in Lubbock, and we can do it within the states.
But this desire to share, this desire to dream big, and like, I want people to see Jesus,
not just by the way I throw out a paper airplane, not just because I hold the sign that says
Jesus loves you, but I want people to see Jesus by the way I live, the way I love, the
way I honor people.
And it made me think of this commission.
Then Jesus said to them, this is in Matthew chapter 28, the very end of the book of Matthew.
Matthew records this.
Then Jesus said to them and said, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.
Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you.
And surely I am with you to the very end of the age.
So Jesus' last words in the Gospel of Matthew is exactly what Sylvester told us.
You have this.
It's the most important thing known to man, that Jesus loves you.
Jesus loves his creation.
And you can keep it to yourself.
You can share it with a small group.
You can try to share, and you can fail.
Guess what?
We don't have to stay in that failure.
Or you can dream big and you can do whatever and trust that God will use that to spread the message of Christ throughout the world.
And so I thought, you know what, there's three things that I think we really need to do or think about when we talk about sharing Jesus.
One is to have that desire.
Do you have a friend, have you ever had that friend like you're like, man, I can't wait to see this friend just so I can like be with them and talk to them and spend time with them?
Do we have that desire to share the message of Christ with those in our circles, with our families, with those outside of our circles?
You guys know just like I do.
I got this morning, these Shat Day participants, Brett and I led a kahoot game.
And one of the questions is, you must be a Christian to attend Lubbock Christian University.
That is false.
You don't have to be a Christian to attend LCU.
But LCU embraces the sea of Lubbock Christian University.
we embrace the opportunity to walk with our students
and to say, this is who Jesus is.
And so we do things like chapel,
and we do things like Bible classes,
and we have devotionals, and we have service projects,
and we have Friday small groups,
and we do all these things
because sharing Jesus is an important part of who we are.
So if we're gonna share Jesus,
do we have the desire to share Jesus with everyone?
Are we intentional?
Who stood right here and didn't even fold their airplane?
Dr. G.
He's the provost.
He's the smart of smart, okay?
Because he was like, you know what?
I could do that, but I don't know how far it's going to go.
But if I crumple this up, I bet it goes farther.
Are we intentional about the way we share Jesus?
Because some of us have grown up in groups that seek to tear down people in the name of Jesus.
but when I go to his word and I see the way that Jesus interacted with those those especially
those that were lost I see love I see compassion and I see intentionality if I don't have
relationship with you it's hard for me to point you the right way but if I have relationship if
I think about my words and I choose them wisely if I point to Christ by the way that I live in
that I love, I'm being intentional. And then just like with this paper airplane, when we let it go,
guess what? We're trusting God. Every one of these people up here that threw something
wanted it to go far. Some did and some didn't. It's the same way with sharing Jesus. It's not
necessarily our job to finish that out, to see it through. God will use us to plant a seed.
God will use you to plant a seed.
Trust that he is going to tend that.
He is going to water it.
He's going to put other people in those individuals' lives
so that they have relationship with Jesus.
I'm excited that today is Shep Day.
Here in a second, we're going to dismiss this group.
They're going to go out first
because we have this tradition of Coke and candy on Shep Days,
and they're going to hang out there.
Guess what?
Also, one of our own is going to be baptized.
here in a few minutes out there.
Okay?
Sharing Jesus does not stop because chapel ends.
Sharing Jesus does not stop because Coke and candy is done,
because we witness someone surrendering to Christ
through the act of baptism.
Sharing Jesus is something that we get to do
every moment of every day.
Just like the employees at LCU and we get to walk with you,
Those of you who have surrendered to Christ, you get to share Jesus by the way you love and the way you live.
Let's live in a way that points to Christ.
I'm going to pray, and then our Shat Day folks are going to exit, and then everyone else can exit and scan to get a credit.
God, we love you, and we want to point to you in all that we do.
And Father, I'm grateful that the oldest song I can remember has to do with your love for me.
That Jesus loves me so much.
That that was shared by my parents, by my grandparents, by those very people who wanted to evangelize.
They showed me the love of Christ.
I pray that we do that day in and day out with the way we interact with our classmates,
the way we act in our classrooms, in the residence halls, on the intramural teams.
But God, just the way that we live, may we live in a way that points to you.
Because your story is the greatest story ever told.
May we be intentional about sharing that throughout today and the rest of this week.
We love you.
Thank you for loving us.
In Jesus' name, amen.
All right, Shep Day folks, if y'all exit, we're glad you're here.
Once we clear out all our Shep Day folks, we will then open up the rest of chapel for
everyone.