Dr. Hugh Ross ~ Treasures in Broken Clay Jars

[Music] [Music] it's the dr hugh ross conference weekend at grace church dr hugh ross is a world-class astrophysicist and christian apologist here to talk to us about how the universe points directly to god and how you and i can use science to share jesus and our circle of influence each service this weekend has a unique topic followed by a time for q a you've got a question for dr ross you can text your questions to 314-325-9328 you're in for an incredible weekend that's gonna build your faith here we go [Music] [Music] so [Music] good morning grace church so awesome to see you guys here yeah let's just stand together as we start off worshiping [Music] [Music] and through every battle through every heartbreak through every circumstance i believe that you are my fortress when you are my portion you are my hiding place oh i believe you are the way [Music] i believe you are [Music] through i believe you are believe you [Music] are [Music] it's a new horizon and i'm set on you and you meet me here today with mercies that are new all my they can fears come to you because they can't stay long when i'm here with you it's a new horizon and i'll set on you [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] because they can't stay long when i believe you are the way [Music] the truth is [Music] are it's a new horizon with mercies oh [Music] oh you are here [Music] you are you're working in this place i worship you i worship you [Music] you are here and i worship you i worship you you are here [Music] way maker miracle worker promised my god make miracle work promise keep light in the darkness my god that is you're touching every heart [Applause] [Music] you are here [Music] [Applause] [Music] every heart [Music] oh my god that is [Music] is [Music] who is [Music] [Music] who are are [Applause] [Music] you never stop you never stop [Music] you never stop you never [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] you never stop you never stop [Music] is [Music] that is who you are [Music] [Music] oh father we bless you god we thank you for your presence lord we thank you for this morning for being able to gather together to praise your name lord we love you in jesus name amen hey before you have a seat if you will turn around and say hi to somebody find a stranger say hi to them welcome them to you online glad that you're here viewing this morning it's always good to see you if you will just uh grab your your bulletin that you got this morning and has a space for notes on one side and various announcements and ministries happening first off just want to welcome any new guests that may be visiting with us for the first time or maybe you're viewing online for the first time a couple ways to interact with us or to help us to serve you and to come alongside you in prayer there's a connect card right here in front of you in the seats or up in the pews in the in the balcony and then online you can text the word connect and it's an easy way to do the same thing and it's just an opportunity for us to know that you are here and to interact with you if you have any questions or you're going through something hard in life right now and you need prayer our team is looking over this every week responding calling praying let us pray with you so if you'd like to you can fill that out and then on your way out you can drop it into the offering boxes at any of the exits which is where we give our tithes and our offerings as well and other ways to do that you can see there on the screen and again if you text the word connect it'll it'll prompt the same thing an ability for us to get your information to interact with you and to pray with you uh if you could just take this out i got a couple of announcements last weekend louis cataldo came he his message was his reluctant journey into the political world from pastor to missions into the political journey it was incredible and you know no that's good let's give him a hand for that again it was such a timely weekend for us but i want you to see this we've actually we're creating a new department out of that weekend you can see it here called civic engagement last sunday we had a kind of an impromptu you know spontaneous afternoon meeting you know over 200 of you came out and we were for three hours in the atrium chapel figuring out what can we do as a church what is the action plan how can we get engaged in the in the public arena and have impact all over the st louis region and we we really need to get those that are interested those that came to that meeting or you were like golly gee i wanted to be there but i couldn't make it this is an opportunity for us to know who you are and to begin to help mobilize us into an action plan all it's going to do is give us our information and give you some information as we develop this action plan to engage in the civic arena so you can see a number to text there or if you have your phone all you have to do is pull out your camera and just put it right over that qr code there it'll a link will pop up you hit it and you fill that out and it gives us the opportunity to engage with you and to get us mobilized one other announcement right there next to that is prayer tuesdays and thursdays right now is our days that we're meeting together tuesday mornings afternoon thursday afternoons and we can't emphasize the importance of this it is critical that in this hour we are a people that are praying for our families our children our businesses praying for america praying for our church i want to encourage you to look continue to look at those tuesdays and thursdays how often can you shift things around to come and join us as we worship and we pray very intentionally during those hours let's pray father we thank you in jesus name god we thank you for this weekend and the the special guest that we have in hugh ross and lord we pray that you would bless us today and god we just take this moment too and we acknowledge your faithfulness in providing for our needs because when we come with our tithes and offerings god it's with it's with gratitude it's with gratefulness that we remember your commitment to us so therefore we give of our time our energy our tithes our offerings lord we give with grateful hearts asking that the name of jesus would increase in fame here in the saint louis region and it's in his name we pray [Music] amen [Music] all right grace church let's give hugh ross a big round of applause come on little bit this guy has been such a blessing he has encouraged the church around the world i've been here many many times been locked up for the last year or so in this pandemic this is actually your first trip out to the whole first trip out of any of the rtb staff right here grace church st louis that's right we are so honored for that we have had a different message last night hugh will be doing a different message today at the nine here at this service and then a different one at the 11. and when we have hugh come in because he just has so many different angles and subjects that he could hit we engage with him in q a so during his message this morning you'll see a number that's up on the screen or you can see it online as well and you can text in your questions because we're going to hugh's going to teach for a little bit and then actually his wife and i kathy's with him on this trip she's going to come out and we're going to engage in a time of dialogue but also answering your questions we'll have a a couple of q a question mics down here on the floor you can ask in person or you can ask by texting it in and then we'll have time to do that towards the end also just on your way out this morning his team is out by the bookstore the whole corner tons of resources you don't want to miss out on it his resources are here to inspire and equip the body of christ and it's been incredible let's pray father we thank you for you we thank you for cathy and reasons to believe and all of the staff we ask you this morning that you would bless this teaching bless this gathering inspire us equip us in jesus name amen well thank you and i come this morning with a different message and uh you know my story is i was born raised and educated in canada and uh i became a christian through my studies in astronomy and physics which led me to pick up the gideon bible and after a year and a half of studying the bible i gave my life to jesus christ but it took me another eight years to meet a christian christians are hard to find in canada but when i came to the united states to do post-doctoral research at caltech there were christians everywhere and that's while i was cal tech that an astronomer there who was a christian encouraged me to begin sharing my faith with non-scientists and i began to do that and then shortly thereafter the church that i was attending between cal tech and the jet propulsion laboratory brought me on their pastoral staff i'm still on the pastoral staff of that church for 10 years i served as a minister of evangelism and i'm going to share this morning from that experience and by the way that church also helped me out launch reasons to believe and reasons to believe is an organization where we want to equip you to effectively share your faith to bring other people into a relationship with jesus christ we have a 24 7 youtube channel you can subscribe to that for free and we do answer questions on our facebook and twitter pages there's one for the ministry but each one of our scholars has their own facebook and twitter pages where you're welcome to ask questions i get about 20 questions a day on my social media and uh at our book table for the first time we're actually giving away one of our books you can get the book always be ready just by going to our book table and if you're one of those shy people who doesn't like going to a book table you can get this qro qr code and you'll get a free chapter of the book but if you want the whole book in print form go out to the table and they'll be happy to give you that and if you want to dive deeper into the content of what we offered reasons to believe you can go to reasons.org brace church we prepared a special microsite just for the people here at grace church and if you use the code grace 2021 you'll get a 30 discount on all of our resources books dvds audio everything and that will be good for the next three weeks but i think it's good until the end of august so six weeks all right what i'm going to speak about today is a theme you see in second corinthians 4 where paul says all of us who are followers of jesus christ are treasures and clay jars and the reference to clay jars clay jars are easily broken clay jars are temporal and we need to appreciate that god has other options for spreading the gospel he's got hundreds of millions of angels they're not sinners they know god and so if god wanted it done in a perfect way he could have sent the angels but he told the angels i want you to sit down i want to use these treasures and clay jars to spread the gospel message and yes god is going to bring people to faith in christ through our testimony but as we do that he is an opportunity to transform our character into the image of christ i mean we're all called to follow christ and step by step develop the character of christ but what paul and peter explain is the most efficient way to do that is through sharing your faith so that's kind of the theme this morning and when i first began my role as the minister of evangelism at the church where i presently serve at that time about 20 percent of americans who attended church once a week uh were sharing their faith with at least one non-christian adult in the past year and uh you know 10 years ago that percentage had dropped to 10 percent barna has just done a survey the percentage today is only five percent only five percent of christians who attend church on a weekly basis have shared their faith with a non-christian over the past year now as one who has a passion for evangelism the two excuses i hear for why 95 percent of christians who regularly attend church don't do this here's the first one they say well i don't have the gift of evangelism they say hugh you've got the gift but i don't have the gift this is not for me and the second excuse is i am not prepared i don't have the preparation to do this which is why i waited 30 years before i brought out the book always be ready the book we're giving away to you is basically a book about how to develop a lifestyle of sharing your faith but i waited 30 years because i realized one reason why people don't do this they're not property equipped so for a 30-year period we brought out over 20 books basically designed to help people develop the good reasons that they need and then what about the evangelism part well over the years i've taught several seminars on spiritual gifts and as i share about these spiritual gifts one place you can go is first peter 4 and verses 10 11 and peter says they're teaching gifts and they're serving gifts and if you go to romans 3 12 it actually breaks it down it says there's three teaching gifts and there's four serving gifts teaching gifts prophesying teaching exhorting the serving gifts organizing giving serving and showing mercy you go to first corinthians 12 and it talks about the supernatural assist to the ministry and you have these nine gifts there what i want you to notice in first peter four romans 12 and first corinthians 12 the gift of evangelism doesn't show up it's not in any of these lists the only place you see it is in ephesians 4. but here is talking about how god gifts each church with individuals that are designed to equip the rest of the people in the church so yes there's the evangelist but this isn't a gift where he or she does all the work of evangelism this is an individual that god raises up to train and equip people to do the evangelism there is no gift of evangelism there is no gift of hospitality why because god calls every christian to be an evangelist and every christian to show hospitality if you read first peter 3 15 always be prepared peter says this to every christian 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 respect and a clear conscience so here peter is telling us we need to develop good reasons for the hope that we have and then be prepared when god gives you the opportunity but my experience in my four decades of evangelism ministry is if you will prepare good reasons for the hope you have in jesus christ you will see the holy spirit working supernaturally to bring people to you that god in advance has prepared to hear and respond to those good reasons if you want to see some examples read the book of acts you know where we have this gentile where god gives them a vision it says you need to make contact with this man gives peter a vision he brings the two of them together and they have a whole family coming to faith in christ now peter actually gives two whole chapters on sharing your faith all of chapter three and all of chapter four in first peter and if you read this in context always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have it comes with two caveats there are two conditions and they're stated here in the first peter 4 8-9 we need to love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins and offer hospitality to one another without grumbling i mean he could have sent the angels they don't have sin but what this text is saying is god can cover over them sins the problems in your life if you demonstrate love love each other deeply and then show hospitality to one another now being hospitable doesn't necessarily mean you're feeding them or giving them drink is being prepared to listen to show that you care and willing to serve so however you need to serve yes they might need food but it could be something completely different and for most people at least here in america they're looking for someone who's prepared to listen compassionately that is hospitality and when we are hospitable then we can be more effective in sharing our faith well back to the clay jar the treasure is the holy spirit and as it says in feast first corinthians 4 our human temptation is to try to patch up that clay jar but when we do that the light of the holy spirit cannot shine the holy spirit's inside the jar and god wants that holy spirit light to shine out of that jar and if we work too hard covering over our weaknesses our failures our sin then the holy spirit is not able to shine through the point in first corinthians 4 is yes god's going to use your personal strengths to help you share your faith but he's actually going to use your weaknesses your deficiencies in handicaps in more remarkable ways that's why it doesn't send the angels they don't have these handicaps we do and god wants to show his glory through those handicaps but it's important we also recognize our strengths how many have you ever taken a strengthsfinders test we do that for all of our employees it reasons to believe and you basically go through these 50 strengths and you kind of pick your top five we actually have our employees post their top five strengths on their office door which means when you walk into the office door you know who you're going to encounter well i'll share with you my top five my top five are uh ideation learner achiever focus responsibility if you're not familiar with that term ideation that's someone who likes to make new discoveries to invent things that's my number one strength as you look at these five you can say well hugh i can understand how this really equips you to do science research and to write science research papers but it's also important we understand what our bottom strength is and uh my bottom strength is what's called woo that's a phrase for winning others over and you say hugh that's not going to really help you win friends and influence people this is going to be a huge evangelism handicap maybe better just stick with your research just stick with your writing and submit to these peer-reviewed journals but you know you better stay away from engaging people matter of fact when i first entered the university of british columbia it was an institution that every year failed 50 and so they insisted we all be examined by a psychologist and the psychologist went over all my test scores and says hugh you'll be a success at anything you want to pursue on one condition it must not involve other human beings and so when he discovered i was going to go into astronomy he says that's fine you'll do okay with the stars and galaxies just avoid human beings you'll do great and at that time they didn't have a term for what today we call the autism spectrum disorder but i'm on that autism spectrum disorder you may not know it but when i was growing up it took me seven years before i spoke more than three words i wasn't that i couldn't speak it's just that every time i did speak i got myself into trouble so i kind of constrained my vocabulary to yes no and cookie and you can get pretty far in life of those three words when you're growing up so i'm on the autism spectrum and by the way we call it a spectrum because everybody on this spectrum is different from everybody else we're not all the same but some of the things we share in common we can't read emotions so if you're expressing emotions to me don't expect me to pick it up i can't read body language it's not that i don't have emotions a lot of people think i don't have any emotions at all it's just that they're delayed and by the way that helps me when i debate really hostile people because it takes me three hours to figure out i've been insulted so and it's a good thing i'm married because i'm unaware of personal experience you know my wife is going to come out and help answer questions but i remember when i first met her she said where did you get those clothes and i said well i bought them at the supermarket i mean you can get a pair of shoes and 50 cents you get a shirt for a dollar fifty why waste any money and uh one reason why i wasn't speaking until i was seven years of age is i don't know how to filter my words or my speech and so i remember getting into trouble when i was young when i said to my parents mom look at that really fat lady and they said you can't say that you can't say that so uh and you know we're oblivious to what's most important for people and developing relationships but we're not stuck we can progress i know many of you here may have children who are on the autism spectrum disorder and you might be anxious it's important that you show confidence in your children they can succeed in social development it took me six decades it does take time and you do have to have the support of what i call neurotypical people now i was highly motivated to communicate my expertise in astrophysics and i actually began giving lectures at the university when i was 16 years of age however when i gave my lecture i would just simply stare at the floor for the entire two hours and uh when i first met my wife she said you know you might actually have a greater success in your speaking if you actually look at people and i said oh what a novel idea and then she said hugh were you aware that for two and a half hours you only looked at one person and how uncomfortable you made that person you need to look at several people i said oh what a novel idea and so then she said hey do you realize that for two hours your eyes were darting all over the audience and that made people uncomfortable so you need to actually look at one person at a time for a few seconds then shift your eyes so i did that and i totally lost my place in my lecture now people always ask me hugh why do you have so many visuals in your talk is to prevent me from losing my place if i'm making eye contact with people in the audience i'm going to lose my place but look at my video oh that's where i am and then i can keep going and incidentally that's happening to me right now without these visuals be in a heap of trouble okay we all need help from other people and this is not just true for those of us who are on the spectrum that's true for every human being as it says in hebrews 10 let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds let us not give up meeting together and it's because all of us have different strengths all of us have different weaknesses and we need to help one another i can depend on your strengths you can depend on mine i can help you with your weaknesses you can help me with my weaknesses this is why we have this command do not forsake the fellowshipping of yourselves of one another and in particular do not forsake ministering with one another jesus sent them out in twos and threes and we need to minister together we need to help one another now back to these uh problems you would think if anyone should avoid evangelism it would be somebody who's on the spectrum can't read motions can't read body language emotional responses delay we should be the ones who should be forbidden by people in the church from sharing their faith but again i want to emphasize peter first peter 3 15 is an exhortation to every single human being regardless if you've got adhd if you're dyslexic it doesn't matter we're all called to share our faith and god's gonna bless people through our strengths and our weaknesses now there's certain advantages to not filtering words i can't hide anything i've tried lying to people they know right away when i'm lying and so because of my handicap i've just figured out you know i better just be straight with people and because i'm really straight with people if that because it's so difficult for me to lie or to hide people can read my emotional state but i can't read theirs what's interesting is people always say to me hugh you're guileless and therefore people are willing to trust me and simply because i can't really succeed at being deceptive and i'll tell you where this gives me an opportunity to share my faith i mean i fly around the country a lot i can't tell you how many hours i spend waiting in an airport for a delayed flight i think a few of you have had that experience seems like more and more that is happening and these places are crowded you know people get into an airport and it's like hey i need to use the restroom or you get something to eat i'll tell you what happens to me all the time strangers will come up to me and say well you look after my luggage they drop their luggage they go off and do their thing they come back but now they feel beholden to me and that opens up a conversation and i've had many opportunities to share my faith just through looking after people's probably bags the most interesting experience i had this woman came up to me with four young children said would you please look after my bags i said sure and my four children so she dropped her four children off with me and uh i said listen i figured how am i gonna entertain these four little kids well i got up my computer and basically showed them some photos i'd taken of wildlife in some parts of canada that got them really entertained it took 30 minutes for her to come back and i was beginning to worry gee maybe i've just adopted four children and uh you know what am i going to do with these i mean but she did come back and she was so beholden that it led to an incredible conversation or children were listening a crowd gathered around us remarkably opportunity to share my faith and uh airplanes you know probably this is where i've had the opportunity to share my faith and lead people to christ i remember i was on this one airplane it was a small airplane was just two seats on either side of the aisle and there was this geophysicist who started a conversation with me and uh the stewardess came by i think you're supposed to call him a flight attendant now came by and she said this is really interesting she got everybody to quiet down and literally people gathered around i wound up giving a lecture on the airplane throughout the whole flight they're all looking at my visuals on my slide and i'll be telling a story in my next talk at 11 o'clock uh about what happened to in the airplane but here's what's interesting half of the people i get to engage when i'm flying on aircraft either have a doctoral degree in science or a doctoral degree in theology okay we all know that doesn't make up half of the flying public but god knows who i am he knows who they are and makes sure we sit together and also make certain that we're able to develop a conversation says always be ready and you say how do you get conversation started i ask people questions one things i've noticed about human beings they like to talk about themselves ask questions and it's important too that you understand what kind of non-christian you're engaging you can't treat everybody the same so i always equip people you need to have a variety of tools because you never know who you're going to meet but i shared earlier that you know god is in the business of making sure you meet the right people at the right time and by the way i have a friend who came under the mormon faith he says hugh when i fly on airplanes i wind up sitting next to a mormon or an ex-mormon god knows who you are he knows who they are one of my dramatic experiences is when i was in the hospital i was getting surgery i was in the hospital for four days and they put me in a ward so i had a guy beside me he was doing quite a bit worse than i was i was able to talk he could barely listen to what was going on and uh over the course of those four days i had five chaplains visit me and i later learned nobody gets more than one chaplain visit somehow things got messed up i got five chaplains visiting me the first four chaplains that came to visit me i i started asking them questions i asked them if they were a follower of jesus christ and said well not really and you know do you believe that the bible is the inspired inerrant word of god no no way why not science disproves that the bible is error-free i said well have you ever met a scientist who actually thought that the bible was error-free i said we don't think such an individual exists i said well i happen to know one so a conversation got started um and in each case i was able to share each conversation went on for an hour i was able to share with those chaplains how the science actually demonstrates it's our strongest evidence that the bible's the inspired inherent word of god and i was actually able to share stuff my wife had brought some of my books with me so i was able to give him a book signed the book for them and then chaplain five came by and when chaplain fire came by i said oh i recognized him he was at a a weekend conference i did for chaplains up in the portland area and so i knew who he was and i told him my story and he says hugh nobody gets five chaplains and uh but he says tell me who these four are he says i know every one of them and he's gonna say i'm gonna follow up each one of them take them up to lunch and ask them questions about the book that you gave them now my whole point is this is not an accident this is the holy spirit work i believe the holy spirit wants every one of you to have a book of acts experience you know there are many people who think all those miracles ended with chapter 28 of the book of acts but i challenge you read the book of acts notice how it ends there's no conclusion it just stops dead stream and when you don't see a conclusion that means the story continues it continues to this day if you don't believe me just put it to the test develop good reasons begin to share your faith and watch the holy spirit at work the first three or four times it happens you think it's just a coincidence but when it happens over a hundred times you realize this is the holy spirit at work and my experience as a pastor too is that it takes seeing the holy spirit performing personal miracles through your life to really encourage you to walk the christian life to develop the christian character that god wants each of us to do in preparation for a transition to the new creation so my goal is that this would be a church where it's not five percent or it's not ten percent it's not twenty percent a hundred percent of you would have the joy of seeing on a regular basis god performing miracles through you as you share your faith yes we are clay jars we are damaged clay jars let us all let god's holy spirit shine through her cracks to bring others to faith in jesus christ so what i want to leave you with is as you examine your life what are your unique strengths what strengths has god given you that he's not given to other human beings you know as i engage people on the spectrum i want to find out what their special strength is and how their strength is different from my strength but i believe that applies to every human being you say how do you discover that special strength again fellowship with one another as you get close to people they're going to be able to expose to you this unique gift you know how i find my special gift is i thought everybody was just like me wow when you're at caltech you're around a whole lot of people almost all of them are on the spectrum you begin to think that's normative but it was engaging people who were not at that ilk that helped me find the special strength i had and also help me find my special handicaps and weaknesses and then ask yourself the question how has god used your strengths to bless other people and bring unbelievers to faith in christ but more importantly how has god used your weaknesses and handicaps to bless others and bring unbelievers to faith in christ i can tell you how frequently i've brought more people to faith in christ through the weaknesses in my life than through the strengths that i have always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reasons for the hope that you have but do this with gentleness respect and a clear conscience people need to see that you have that uh gentleness and respect and clear conscience people will more listen more carefully to your demeanor than they will your words and people ask me well how do you develop this gentleness and respect i can tell you i was not gentle and respectful when i was a bachelor in my 20s at the university of toronto i did a lot of things that turned people off you develop that gentleness and respect through sharing your faith as i continue to share my faith in fact what i would do is just ask people that i knew i had turned off as i shared my faith can you please tell me where i was obnoxious in the way that i shared my faith with you and i discovered they were quite eager to tell me where i was obnoxious and that helped me so don't it's not just your fellow believers it's the unbelievers you share your faith with that are going to help you develop that gentleness and respect and be patient with yourself it takes time it doesn't happen overnight that we develop the character of christ it takes literally years and decades so be a little bit patient with yourself be patient with one another but this is a team effort we're to work together to always be prepared and you might say hey i don't have good reasons well someone else might they might be able to help you and share and take someone with you be prepared to give answers and incidentally i have a longer message on this but i cut it down because i want to bring my wife out and bring wes out and i'm going to allow you to ask her questions because she was the one that basically equipped me to be able to speak to people who are not scientists you know when i would address scientific audience they didn't care if i stared at the floor all they wanted was the content they didn't care about my personality but it's my wife that really helped prepare me for the ministry i have today and she's been preparing other scientists too you know we joke that i kind of run the scientific team and she runs a team that helps our scientists to engage ordinary people we are weird but thanks to my wife we have someone to help okay hey can we welcome kathy to the stage with you thank you hugh and and kathy as we jump right in just before we get to any questions i want to just hear we were back there and giggling and laughing and engaged and i'm sure you have so much more perspective than we have i mean just from this specific message and your relationship with hugh just share with us even a little bit of your perspective or however you would respond well first i want to say that one of those experiences hugh talks about where you know god has orchestrated the meeting between you and another individual that's the night that you and i met it was one of those it was a turning point in my life now mind you i had no no idea of a relationship with you he came into the bible study i was part of and we all kind of giggled when he walked through the door because we immediately knew he was from caltech i don't need to tell you any more but here's what's so amazing and this is why it was a turning point in my life god knew that the biggest barrier for me in sharing my faith was a personal experience with someone very very very close to me my old my older brother who had always we had thought he was going to be a pastor he was going to be a youth pastor he was the leader of our youth group at church where i grew up and he was he had a great personality he was funny he was anyway we all just thought he was going to be a pastor but when i was about midway through college and and i went to a secular university where my faith was being challenged by different professors and all kinds of situations i was in my brother who had actually spent some time part-time in a seminary he came to me and put his hand on my shoulder and he said kathy i finally figured out really you know i know you believe what we were raised to believe but i hate to tell you the bible well it's a wonderful book i'm not telling you don't pay attention to the bible but you've always thought you know it was true cover to cover and i'm telling you it's not and i can i can tell you that it was it's scientifically nonsense so take the good parts and and leave the rest but when it comes to the creation story forget it you know i was i was devastated i was flabbergasted and i and i didn't have a defense i mean i had a defense i told him you're wrong i know you're wrong i know jesus he's a person he goes kathy have you ever heard of psychological conditioning and i'm like yeah i've heard of that i've taken a psych course he said well i think that's what you're dealing with i think you're conditioned to believe and i said well you know all i could say is i don't think so but in my soul i was crushed i was just crushed and and at that point i thought how can i share my faith if if what if he's right i mean i don't think he's right but i had no answers so god knew that in my heart of hearts i was kind of crippled in sharing my faith until i knew because i thought what if what if some non-christian tells me the same thing and i just tell them no you just gotta believe that's not gonna go well you know and so i needed answers so into the bible study came this caltech guy and immediately when we started going into this study i knew he believes the bible is true it was clear like he said no deception it was like we opened the book we were studying i think we were in ephesians and he took it so seriously not flippantly very seriously and i gotta talk to this guy i have to find out you know he's a scientist what what what can he help can he help me with this so yeah at that night he shared with me that genesis 1 was actually part of his story of coming to faith in christ and i'm like what how is that possible and he explained it to me and just in a few minutes he showed me some things that i had never noticed and i remember racing out of that bible study jumping in my car and driving to my parents house and going mom dad i met this weird guy but he he told me he told me how science and and genesis actually fit together and they said that's that's interesting that's great um we don't think your brother is willing to listen anymore but you know because see once you give up on the faith your life takes a really radical turn anyway for me it was a turning point and after that i felt so free and easy about sharing my faith with people because i was kind of like go ahead challenge me you know inside i didn't do that externally but i mean it was like i was ready for them to challenge me about science and about genesis and it was a turning point that's all i can say wow no that is incredibly relatable to so many of us i i have to ask how did the journey with your brother meeting hugh you all getting in a relationship can you can you share a little bit more with that well pray for my brother he's still he's he's gone down this path of thinking that he has higher truth that it's okay for us to believe in christ and all but there's secret knowledge and he's he's got he's gotten involved in a lot of occult type things but but god is also working on him changing him drawing him toward us he's always liked you in fact here's a funny thing so my brother didn't want anything to do with christians and you and i were friends we were not dating but it was his it was my birthday my parents were out of town so my brother and his wife invited me over to their place for my birthday dinner and i had my little i was looking after my little sister while they were away and uh my brother said hey why don't you bring a friend with you i'm like really bring a friend okay yeah i think i can think of somebody oh oh my this is my chance anyway so i i invited hugh and i of course made it he was clear this was not me asking him out on a date he knew that i was bringing him for evangelism purposes right so because he's real good at reading emotions and body language and all of that definitely had to explain all that so so it was really interesting um my brother would not talk about science with hugh he he just wasn't ready to talk about anything that pertained to belief at that time but here's the weird thing my brother had never commented on anyone that i dated i always kind of hoped he would help me filter and screen people i was dating but he never made a comment never got involved so after that evening where we spent together but didn't really get anywhere spiritually in conversation my brother called me the next day and he said so what's your relationship with that guy i said well he's my friend you know i go to we go to church together and that's all i said yeah he said well i think you should think about dating him i'm like god are you speaking that was weird and he hadn't even given an inkling that he wanted to date me that i was aware of because remember when you're on the spectrum you have no clue how to let somebody know that you're interested in them so i had no clue that he was actually getting interested in me so i was really you know pushing down any references to dating or anything so that took a miracle we're all leaning in right now like wondering how that miracle transpired that could be a whole other book you got to give us just a few more minutes on how how it happened you're reading him and you all engaging in a more significant relationship so we were friends and uh i so all i can say is he he didn't know how to speak to me or call me on the phone so he wrote me a letter and in the letter basically he said you know i work six days a week he was doing both caltech and the church ministry at that time he said i work six days a week but i have one day off and i would like to spend time with you on that day i think i read the letter and i think he's asking me out so i thought well if he's only comfortable com communicating in in writing i guess i better write him a note back so i did and i included my phone number so that was the beginning well part of the story too is that uh you know i was on a temporary visa this was during the vietnam post-vietnam era canadian scholars were not at all welcomed in the u.s and so i waited until my visa situation was such because i figured there's no way i'm gonna have a relationship if i'm gonna be leaving the country so uh i timed that letter when i realized okay i now have an opportunity uh to get an h1 visa so wow you know one of the things that i'm thinking of just in in light of even some things kathy was saying about her brother it seems that many of us know just really smart people and sometimes that intelligence gets in the way hugh i mean in all of your experiences or kathy i mean what have what have you seen i mean of course you we see that it happened with you it was your intelligence that actually led you to the lord but what are some other stories or ways of us to engage in conversation just help us with that because we can all relate to that with family members or friends you know whatever comes to mind well a thing i've observed with intelligent and highly educated people they use the smoke screen of intellectual objections so they'll pepper me with you know well how do you explain uh you know the evolution of life or how do you explain uh the universe what about the multiverse so come up with all these different avenues but what i find is if you take their intellectual objections seriously give reasonable answers there reaches a point where they're willing to trust you with the real reasons why they're not willing to give their life to christ and so there comes a point when i say you seem to be angry towards christians did something happen early in your life that generated that and then sometimes tears will begin to flow down i've seen scientists who i've never seen cry before but they'll cry in front of me when i ask that question but you have to time that question carefully if you ask it too soon they get upset and angry and walk away there has to be that trust relationship established first and hey if you don't know the answers that the questions are asking saying you know i don't have a good answer to your question but will you give me time to come up with an answer for you and i found that educated people really respect that saying wow you're willing to do research on my behalf and often they'll go ahead and do their own research and you come back and meet with them and you have the same answer and so it's a good way to get them going as well so uh you know i teach a class for skeptics every week and often i get some atheists uh coming up with a challenge and i say that's a really good challenge i wonder how many other people here are prepared to answer the question and get them engaging or i'll often say to the atheists you know that's such a good question that rudy deserves research would you be willing to study that between now and next week and come back with your insights and what often happens is they find stuff they had no idea existed in the literature they say wow i had no idea and it actually opens them up to become a christian and by the way it's a real thrill when people see people come to christ right there in the audience i remember doing a major debate at a college and uh the chairman of the biology department was there to oppose me and fazal rana but when it got to be his turn to speak he said you know in preparation for this debate i read one of hughes books and i read one of fuzz's books and i got to tell all of you you all know that i'm an atheist i preach atheism in my classes but having read these two books i'm now 60 persuaded that they're right and i'm wrong so you can imagine the impact that had on the audience i have a different story but i don't know how much time we have so i don't want to take too much time um for for a couple of years i taught english at a community college i'm an english major and so i ended up having an opportunity to teach at a college my smartest student that i ever had in my class was very intimidating to me because she was really bright and she had she was much better read than i she had been reading books she had a house full of books in red and red and red so she was better prepared in literature and she was hostile i'd never had such a hostile student she just looked like she was angry all the time and she some i i used to share him i was in a public school but i thought well at least i can announce that i view life from a christian worldview perspective and that kind of gives my students a tip where i'm coming from uh i let them know if they ever wanted to talk to me about that i have private office hours so that would be fine so she came to my private office hours and threw some things down on the desk and she goes how do you deal with this i'm like uh let me let me see so i look and she had copied out some pages from mark twain and she knew you know obviously a lib major i must know about what mark twain had written and of course mark twain wrote some scathing things about the god of the old testament that he was a genocidal monster and you know look at these passages where he says kill all these people kill the you know just it was those are some pretty tough parts i see there are parts of the old testament that are definitely r-rated maybe x-rated and she had picked those from what mark twain had said and i said well let me take a look at these and we can talk about this at our you know after next class so i took those things and i prayed about them and asked god how would you like me to respond so she came back and i said how how would you feel if someone cut you with the knife and she said well that would be you know is that evil and she goes yeah that's evil i said what if the guy with the knife is a surgeon who's saving your life well that's that's different and i said think about these passages i said is god being a monster or is he being a surgeon who's removing malignancy to save humanity well that's an interesting perspective and so she's like but but god wouldn't do that and i go oh and then she told me she was an atheist and i said well tell me tell me about this god that you rejected and so she described what she thought god was like and i said wow it's a good thing you're an atheist she's like what do you mean man that's not a god i would ever believe in but my god is very very different he's the opposite of everything you just described and he is my life he is my soul and you need to know him and she she kind of backed out of my office and didn't come back for a while so anyway but eventually that she was thinking about it and she came back for more i was so praying for her during that time she came back and wanted to talk some more and but the funny thing is i asked her you know what's why are you here at the college what are you aiming for now mind you this is before we were married she said i'd like to be an astronomer or an astrophysicist and go to caltech [Applause] i said oh you know what you won't believe this but i know one of those he's like what you know and i said and guess what he believes like i believe she's like you can't mean it you're not telling me the truth and i said you want to meet him so i thought i knew that he would say yes to my bringing someone over you know whatever so i called you and i go is it okay if i bring this student over to your place to talk she doesn't believe that there's a caltech astrophysicist who's a christian he's like bring her on over bring her on over so i drove her over and she was smoking like a chimney all the way shoot and i never let people smoke in my car but there we were she was just so nervous yeah shaking and then she looked at me and she said we stopped at a stop sign she goes i hope you don't think you're going to convert me and i said oh no sharon i don't convert anybody but god does so look out anyway so anyway it was fun she met you she asked him her questions we walked out of there and she was very quiet on the way back to campus where i dropped her off at her car and i it didn't take a whole lot longer but you know he told you he was the minister of evangelism and missions at our church well guess who got to do all the baptisms he did and guess who he got to baptize sharon that was a long time ago but we are still in contact with sharon to this day i see her every day on my facebook and twitter pages she follows us very carefully yeah that is incredible okay kathy so this is a question for you with you know an english background literature background and now you're married to a husband with such a scientific background and the bookstore out there is filled with all these resources which you are very involved with by the way and she oversees making sure they're all getting an audible version and i'm sure more but from your you know your approach and just the way god has built you what are one or two of the resources that have equipped and helped and challenged you the most as far as hughes writings well hugh has the humility and this is one of the things that probably led me to marry him he has the humility to let me edit his material so it's not too many husbands and wives that can survive a editor writer relationship but god works it out anyway so um i get to edit his books and that means i get to help him i i get to represent you okay now i'm not insulting any scientists out there because you probably would understand his stuff if i didn't touch it but i'm like you i'm not an astrophysicist i'm not a phd scientist but i love learning so he shows me what he's writing and i kind of help i say ah i don't understand this make it clearer and so we go through this process when we write of you know he has to i tell him he has to make me understand it so that other people can understand it so that's what we work on of course after i edit it he always cleans up the science that i messed up but anyway the book that there are two books that hugh has written that personally impacted me the most the first one was the book beyond the cosmos i don't know if it's with us today it might be at the table it might not be but it's definitely available in our web store that book describes how god can be transcendent out there but also as close as my own breath all at the same time because god is not confined to the dimensions of this universe and his imminence and his transcendence go together and suddenly the reality of god's nearness to me became so tangible i remember stopping i stopped editing and i said you i have to go for a walk and i just had to go for this long walk and just just experience the presence of god in a whole new way just became so real and then uh the other book that i really really loved was why the universe is the way it is and i think isn't that the one you're speaking on tonight um yeah tomorrow the the next service that's service that's the word oh not tonight later today in a few minutes when i quit talking um so yeah that book was so helpful because it explained so many key questions that were thrown at me but i love the book mostly because it makes a very clear presentation of the gospel but in terms that are a little different from ordinary terms it's kind of a fresh approach to describing exactly what god has done for us and what it means for each of us um for for now and for eternity so those are a couple of my favorites that was incredible thank you i want to make sure on your way in you should have uh received a few of these little cards from reasons to believe and if you will just simply fill uh this one out you can see it on here and take it to the bookstore afterwards there's actually a free book that you'll receive for handing this in you don't want to miss that and i want to we're going to come to a close here i apologize because this was excellent we had lots of questions coming in thank you guys so much we have um a special meeting that hugh is doing hugh i think half the questions from last night and even today have been on ufos and aliens tomorrow night at seven o'clock in the atrium we uh we're doing a special service hugh can you share just a little bit about what to expect tomorrow night at seven o'clock in our atrium chapel well the reason we're getting so many questions now is our u.s government and other governments around the world are releasing their classified documents on ufos and it's causing a lot of questions i can tell you having looked at previous documents what's being released is kind of more of the same we wrote a book on ufos and extraterrestrials and whites in the sky and little green men it's out there at the table and uh people ask me why are you gonna have to revise that book and says yeah we are we got much stronger evidence for the conclusions we drew in that book but we're not changing uh the conclusions wow and i'm also going to share tomorrow about some of the new research on why it's now conclusive that we're not going to be able to send the equipment of human beings across interstellar space we might be able to send a bacterium but nothing bigger than a bacterium in fact we now know we can't even send a machine that's bigger than 10 centimeters across interstellar space so i'll be sharing uh by the way there is a project to do exactly that but they're going to send a thousand spaceships that are 10 centimeters across to the nearest star realizing that at least half of them will be totally destroyed and the other half will be damaged but they might be able to function save the good stuff for tomorrow okay all right thank you seven o'clock it's an open meeting it's gonna be out in our atrium chapel at seven tomorrow uh we're not gonna be able to live stream it but we are gonna record it but if you can go it's an open meeting you want to be there and join that hey stand with me if you will this morning but no i didn't get to all your questions however on the rtb facebook page hugh is always on there engaging people with questions and answers guys thank you so much kathy it was incredible having you up here this was just a kiss from the lord for us we've done this with you so many times but your perspective was really really helpful thank you let's just pray father we thank you god for this morning and lord we pray that we would be equipped to engage people where they are with conversations and that we would be more aware of the the positioning that you're putting us in that we would be a witness that we would be an ear that listens and and ask questions to engage people in a very respectful and honorable honorable way god we want to be better at that and we ask you to help us lord we thank you for hugh and kathy and their family and ministry god bless us today as we go we love you in jesus name amen amen god bless you grace church again on your way out you want to make sure that you get resources take that card out there to the bookstore we'll be here at 11 o'clock for an entirely new uh teaching from you such thought-provoking ideas and information absolutely incredible dr ross what did you think leave a comment below or write in to us also feel free to re-watch and share this message on facebook youtube or even our website gracestl.org have an awesome week [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

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Published: Sun Jul 18 2021