This past Sunday we finished up a six week series called “A Reason for Hope”. The series came from a study of this verse, 1 Peter 3:15, it says:

^“15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”

This teaching series was meant to help equip you to explain and experience God.

We spent some time looking at the importance of 3 points:

REVIEW:

1. As Followers of Christ we must, in our hearts, set apart Christ as Lord- Christianity is meant to be a religion of our hearts. When we place Jesus on the throne of our hearts and allowing him to lead us in every area of our lives he begins to write a story through our lives.

2. We also tried to answer 3 big, common questions that people have about faith and God. We wanted to answer these questions so you can give a reason for the hope that you have in Christ.

• “Isn’t the bible an outdated and unreliable text full of mostly fables, legend and opinion?”
• How can God be all powerful and all loving and allow for evil, pain and suffering to exist in the world?
• “Doesn’t geology and the fossil record disprove the biblical account of creation and prove Darwin’s theory of Evolution?”

3. In order to help people find and know God we must learn how to answer questions about our reason for hope.

• We are to share our  reason for Hope through relationships
• We are to share our  reason for Hope with Gentleness
• We are to share our  reason for Hope with Respect

Here is a video we watched to explain the importance of not just SHOWING people a life of faith but also SHARING our faith with words.

APPLICATION:

My hope is that you could identify yourself in one of these three groups described below and find a way to take steps in moving into Group #3.

• Group #1- You are a Christian with nearly all non-Christian friends. But you never talk about your faith and relationship with God, in fact you might even try to hide the fact that you go to church and/or believe in Jesus Christ.
• Group #2- You are a Christian that identifies themselves publically as a Christian but you don’t have any non-Christian friends. If you where to make a list of the people you are relationally engaged with they would all be Christians.
• Group #3- You are a Christian that identifies themselves as a Christian and you have many non-Christian friends. You have managed to gain peoples trust while still holding a public profession of faith.

 How to move from Group #1 to Group #3- Group 1 can move to Group 3 very quickly all it takes is courage motivated from love. Group 2 moving into group 3 can take a lot of time because it will require a focused time of relationship building with non-Christians. My hope is that those of you in Group #1 can jump into Group #3 especially if you have been discipled at some point in your life.

How to move from Group #1-Group #2- If you are in Group 1 and have never been through some form of discipleship in Christian Community. Make sure to do that! Get involved in a Community Group, get connected and begin to grow so that you have something meaningful to offer to the people that God has placed in your life. Here are some opportunities for you to do just that www.societychurch.com/groups

How to move from Group #2 to Group #3- For those in Group #2, I want you to make a list of some people that are not Christians that you want to form some intentional relationships with. Brainstorm some ideas for how you might be able to do build some relational bridges with non-Christians. Break out of your Christian bubble, your holy huddle, don’t be counted in the number of the frozen chosen but get out there and live out your faith with loving intentionality and see what God does!