How to Spread the Gospel with Jeff Cavins - Damascus Speaker Series

[Applause] hello there [Applause] welcome wow it's great to be here i've been looking forward to this actually for a long time and the minute i heard about damascus i started getting interested in damascus and uh i said to my wife i'm gonna go there sometime i just think they're doing something very cool and i want to be a part of it so and they also have the name adventure in theirs and i reminded them today i got the great adventure okay i just want to make make that very clear no it's been it's going to be really really good i just got off of a three-day retreat father mike schmitz and i did a three-day retreat online if you don't know who father mike is um you're probably dead but but uh father mike and i've been friends for uh going on nearly 20 years now believe it or not and we just did a bible in a year retreat online and he was amazing it just was so much fun and so right before i left there in duluth he says where are you going what are you gonna do and i said i'm going to damascus beyond damascus and uh and he said oh yeah they're really cool oh yeah i mean i had to slow him down into speech you know and um and he said he said tell him hi so hi am so blessed you know i'm going to pray in a moment but i'm so blessed because i get to work with so many interesting people you know over the years father mike and i have been working together uh i've had the privilege of working with others out there and starting november 8th which is by the way my birthday write it down and on november 8th i started a new daily podcast on hello and it's with jonathan roomie who plays jesus in the chosen so every day jesus reads the gospel jesus reads the gospel and then i give a devotion every single morning and they wanted me to remind you of that in a few this is my commercial if you want to have that for three months free you register and do a forward slash jeff cavins one word and you get three months there i did it so but it's a real privilege to be able to speak every morning with jesus and to give his interpretation of his words so that's great let's pray together we've got a great night tonight i really believe that tonight god has you here for a reason i really believe it and i'm just going to give this message to you with all of my heart i believe in it with all of my heart and what i'm going to share with you tonight i believe is the is what makes the difference between being an american catholic and being a disciple of jesus and there's a difference you know there's a lot of people yep i'm catholic but then there's a difference between that and actually following him day in and day out and doing the work of a disciple so let's pray in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit amen jesus we love you and we thank you today for giving us life we thank you lord for choosing us and inviting us on your amazing mission we thank you for empowering us with the holy spirit so that we can be authentic courageous witnesses with no fear and we thank you lord that you will never leave us nor forsake us and that ultimately our goal is to be with you in heaven face to face forever and ever and ever and oh god we live for that we make decisions for that and we we guide our entire schedule in our families and relationships for that that one day we would hear from you well done good and faithful servant oh jesus that is our prayer in your name we pray amen name of the father son and the holy spirit amen well i'm going to share with you this evening uh i'm going to share with you a little bit about sharing christ with other people i gave my life to the lord when i was 18 years old so that's been that's been 10 years now i have no idea why you're laughing but i have i have been doing this walking with the lord since i was 18. and at 18 years of age i met i met a young lady at college and i was going up in my local church chanhassen minnesota same my parents live on the same street that that prince lived at in chanhassen minnesota so there's nothing just nothing different to see him around town it's a little village outside of the twin cities and uh and i i ended up meeting a girl in college she's not my wife and as i met her she had this personal relationship with the lord and she was on fire for the lord and that really caught my attention and it was just a short time after that that this catholic boy who i looked different than i do today i did i had i had jeans that were bell bottoms they were cut out on the sides they flared psychedelic material at a yellow silk shirt i had hair down to here with a leather bandana you can only imagine basically i'll just sum it up with this i was cool okay i was very very cool and uh i don't know if anyone else felt that way but i sure did and i ended up meeting this this young lady and i took her on a date and that very first night that i took her out her mother which i didn't know was a bible teacher in the twin cities and she looked at me and i thought i would impress her so i was a journalist at the college so i took out these pictures of a concert that i just recently did and it was pictures of me with kiss with blood all over and just you know and i thought that would impress her mother so i handed that to her and she said you you know to herself this guy's not going out with my daughter so she started upstairs to tell emily you can't go out with this guy and she said the lord stopped her on the steps and said let him go he's going to proclaim the gospel yeah and so uh i'm not i'm not advocating uh even evangelization evangelizing dating or something like that but but anyway i i ended up really giving my life to the lord in a very powerful way and even at 18 years of age i knew in my heart i knew in my heart that god had called me to teach scripture at 18. i i knew that in my heart i was going in a different direction i had some scholarships in college and i did i did of all things i did stand up comedy and you're laughing [Music] i did stand up comedy and i ended up going pretty far with that in competition and as a result i got some scholarships and i was going to go to california and i decided to stay one more year in the twin cities and that's when that's when i met emily and everything everything changed and so for the last number of years now i have been walking with the lord and uh trying to serve the lord and i want to share with you some things that really make a difference and bring you from simply believing to being a disciple i know that it's very uh tempting for people to really get into the faith and they really they really love the things of the faith you know their bible and the rosary and scapular and metals and holy water and you know i mean these things are very very very incarnational and people love this and then they you know you love going to a concert or hear a speaker or you know that type of thing but there is a difference between being a consumer of catholicism or it's your hobby i love this stuff i've got all 734 of scott hans books you know i love this i i love reading about it i got all the cds i i watch ewtn i listen to catholic radio you know st gabriel and uh wow i even have a fish on my bumper sticker you know but if you if you have all of that that's really wonderful but here's the deal is that i don't have a personal relationship with theology i got a personal relationship with a person and that's the lord jesus christ and he has called you to do more than just simply study him you know or he's called you to more than a small group he's called you to more than listening to good music all those things are great and they're needed and they're beneficial but he's called you to himself to do something in your life so that you can do something for him in getting the word out there to broken people in our world today and i'll tell you the last two years there's broken people there's crushed people there are people who are before before covet were not on antidepressants there are people that didn't struggle with anxiety three years ago there are people that had a had a husband three years ago they had children who weren't sneaking alcohol three years ago but life has changed for so many people and god has sent you and me into the world to proclaim the good news to them which i'm going to teach you tonight how to do that and i believe that all of you have not only the responsibility but you have the gift of the holy spirit and you can share christ with anybody any day anywhere and i know that with all of my heart so i'll give you a few stories on that but before we get to the sharing of the gospel i want to just cover one thing and that is the role of a disciple in the world today and what is a disciple if you ask people what's a disciple you're going to get a lot of different answers you know are you a disciple you go oh yeah i go to church i didn't ask you where you parked your car okay i uh are you a disciple uh yeah i mean uh i i i man the beer tent at the fall festival right are you a disciple right and a lot of people don't know how to answer that what is a disciple and they'll say well i'm i'm catholic i'm catholic that still doesn't mean anything to the world it doesn't mean anything in terms of mission are you a disciple i want to show you how you became a disciple 2000 years ago real quickly 2 000 years ago and i had the blessing of being able to study this in jerusalem and some of the great scholars over there and in the united states where you look we're looking at not just what jesus taught but how jesus taught and jesus was a rabbi and he had disciples and a rabbi ravi in hebrew ravi means my great one my teacher and it was something between jesus and his disciples there was something there that transformed the world it transformed the whole world and so what was it between them that would equip these guys to go out and lay their lives down and to win the whole world the known world at that time without one single iphone no ipads certainly no google phones i'm an iphone guy no macbook pros or anything like that no zoom and they went out and they they changed the world but have you ever wondered how did you become a disciple how did they become a disciple did they just walk up to jesus and say hey i'm your disciple you know or walk around town in nazareth and say yeah i'm a disciple of jesus i've got i've got all his tapes you know i've got uh right here this is my by the way this is my bible case my bible case is actually a fishing lure box this is the bait [Music] i hook them every day i got a hook i beg humans i say to jesus i got all 73 of your books right how do you be how did you become how did you become a disciple i'll let me share with you how it happened typically from the age of from the age of 7 to 10 years old the children start their education 2 000 years ago and they learn the torah the first five books of moses and they memorize great amounts of it this is what jesus did this is what paul did and peter did all of them did it it's just the norm and so from 7 to 10 they're really learning a lot about the torah and then from 10 to 14 they start learning about the rest of the bible and they start learning about the the oral tradition of the jews of that time so that's from 7 to 10 and also from 7 to 10 they are spend time with their parents and the young men spend a lot of time with their fathers because they're going to most likely grow up and be what their father was if their father was a fisherman they're going to be a fisherman father makes sandals in hebrew that's naot if your father made sandals then you'd probably make sandals if your father was a builder a carpenter you're going to be a builder or carpenter so you learn from your father and you also go through a period during 10 to 14 years old of learning from your local teachers and the great rabbis start going through towns they're itinerant you've got tremendous leaders and rabbis and respected in the community and jesus was a rabbi but the difference between jesus and all the rest of the rabbis was it's a detail he was god all right this rabbi was god and and the goal of the rabbis was to bring these men around themselves and to impart their life to these young men and to teach these young men today we know that anybody can be a disciple of jesus it's men and women obviously and you know what the you know what the average number of disciples was in jesus day the average number of disciples that a rabbi had in jesus day was 5. that was the average number jesus had how many 12 and the great hillel had 70 disciples so once you're done between 12 7 but once you're done between 10 and and like 13 10 to 14 years of age in that second phase that's when you consider sort of an adult and you go to work or something else happens in your life the great rabbis come around from village to village and they interview these young men because there's a chance that one of these young men may be invited to become their disciple so the rabbi comes around and he might meet with the young men in nazareth and he says hey fellas you know i've i've seen you all you're growing up and i know you're doing well and some of you are going to be fishermen very soon and some are going to be carpenters and some of you are going to make clothing and agriculture and all that but i want to ask a few of you a question matthew stand up matthew stands up yes rabbi matthew what does your father do my father is a carpenter rabbi is he now is he a good carpenter he's the best he's good did he teach you how to do everything he did rabbi he's very good fantastic fantastic you're going to be a good carpenter too now what did i just tell him i told him he's going to be a good carpenter but i didn't invite him to be my disciple say simon stand up simon what does your father do my father's a fisherman excellent he prepared you well i imagine i think i know your dad yeah he did you're going to be a good fisherman too yeah peter stand up peter what's your name what's your last name their last name was bar something bar means the father you know the son of i'm peter barjon said what does your dad do oh my dad's a fisherman too really now the rabbi would most likely say go go ply your father's trade but the rabbi may say peter come follow me that is a formulaic statement where a rabbi invites the people to come and to formally become their student the tall need and when somebody was invited to become a student of a great rabbi trust me the whole family celebrated it's like whoa our son was asked to be a student a talmid of this great rabbi wow we're going to have a party this is amazing right absolutely amazing so when a rabbi says come follow me it means that now you're going to give up everything and you're going to go and you're going to follow the rabbi and you're going to learn as much as you can from the rabbi about life right now here's what's interesting is that there was only one criteria that was used to determine who the rabbi would ask and that that one criteria was do say i'm the rabbi here today because i the speaker be whoever i want okay i'm the rabbi and i i'm looking at you and i'm i'm determining something do i think that you have what it takes to become like me that's it you can be the fastest kid in the class your parents are on the bank in town you do very very well and have a lot of property and everything else i don't care all i want to know is can you become like me because i'm not going to have you run around with me for the next five years when i don't think you can be like me and so if i think you can become like me i'm going to say come follow me you with me so far so that's the that's what that's what makes the the decision for a rabbi do i think that you can become like me now here's what's interesting is that jesus was a rabbi and what did he say he said something very important he said you didn't choose me what did he say after that i chose you in the first century those words mean you are chosen you are chosen and you are chosen by the greatest rabbi in the history of the world because he is the second person of the trinity he knows more about you than ten thousand dr phils he does he knows everything bad about you everything good about you every thought you've ever had your downfalls the things you're ashamed of and you hide from he knows all of it and yet he looks at you and says come follow me discipleship is about being chosen young women are here today maybe you are used to not being chosen maybe you didn't get that date in high school maybe you didn't go to call the college you wanted to go to maybe you didn't make the team that you were trying out for maybe you always felt like you were the one that was not chosen we've got a whole lot of people in our country today who live as i'm not chosen i'm not special and i was telling the wonderful team here at lunch today you know just aaron and and dan and brad and just just a wonderful team that we have a whole generation of people out there right now who are who are called they're they're they're made for love they're made for love and they're settling for likes and jesus comes on the scene and says i love you and i choose you you young women jesus says you're beautiful you are desirable you are amazing you are created as a beautiful creature of god so amazing and he wants you and he wants you to come with him and to live with him and the goal is that you would become like him but here's the deal you can't become like him if you're not with him and so going to church once a week doesn't fill the bill of what it means to be a disciple a disciple wakes up in the morning and from the morning to all the way to the evening when they go to bed they are conscious of the fact that i have said yes to this the greatest rabbi in the history of the world and i'm going to become like him and i'm going to know his voice i'm going to experience his power i'm going to know his word the second thing guys the same thing we've got guys here maybe you didn't make varsity maybe you didn't get that date for the homecoming or the college maybe when they divide it up into teams like me maybe you weren't picked you know a lot of guys know that they all get together to play wiffle ball or something you know in the summer and for me back when i was a kid we had like 25 guys in our neighborhood and we'd get together and say let's play uh let's play baseball or let's play this so then we'd figure out well who are the captains well we knew who they were they were the zimmerman brothers because if they're not they'll beat us up you know all right dave jerry you guys are the captains what'll it be i'll take brian i got i got uh luke i got uh don i got jim i'll take mark i've got uh uh peter over there i got susan uh diane janice and mary and there i am [Music] and then one of the teams says well come on over here cavins we know what it's like to not be chosen don't we we know what it's like but get this what were the disciples doing when jesus chose him fisherman right what were they doing they were doing what their father taught them to do which tells me something they were bypassed they were not chosen by the great rabbis of the time my friend i want you to know something you're here at damascus get this deep in your heart god chooses the unchosen to change the world that's what he does that's what saints are the unchosen they change the world because they're chosen by jesus the second thing that a rabbi would say then we'll move into how to witness but the second thing that a rabbi would say the first is come follow me formulaic statement all rabbi said it the second one was this and you can find it in matthew chapter 11 and verses 28 and 29 jesus said come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and i will give you rest and then verse 29 is what all the rabbis said when they invited someone to become their their their their student they said they said take my yoke upon you and learn from me for i am gentle and humble of heart now what does it mean when a rabbi 2 000 years ago said take my yoke well i can tell you one thing it didn't have anything to do with eggs okay what did it mean when a rabbi said take my yoke upon you i'll tell you exactly what it meant take my world view take on my worldview see the world the way i see the world see marriage the way i see marriage see children the way i see children the orphan the widow the way i see them social justice the purity of your body sexuality see it all through my eyes right that's what it means to take the yoke of jesus take the yoke of jesus now i gotta tell you something and you guys know this probably more than i do right now when you walk outside those doors and you leave the damascus property and you go into columbus and the rest of the country you're going to meet people and many of them in the church who don't carry this worldview in fact they have taken the yoke of other people some pop four mater on tv someone on youtube oprah you know more about her book club than jesus book club right a lot of people are like that and so when you go out there with the yoke of jesus the world view of jesus you got to be prepared in some cases to not be popular and that there's going to be resistance this is evangelization this is the gospel this is where the power of the holy spirit comes in there was a saying in the first century in a document called pirkei avot the sayings of the fathers and that saying was like this find a rabbi and follow the rabbi and at the end of the day you will be covered in the dust of the rabbi and the idea is that you follow throughout the day the rabbi and you you sit down and listen to him he's teaching you take care of his needs he has you teaching some things and at the end of the day you look at your sandals and you're like i am covered in dust but it's the dust of jesus and so i would ask you today what where did the dust come from on your shoes who are you following jesus is calling every one of you to an adventure a tremendous adventure that goes beyond just studying and goes beyond small groups and so forth and even beyond the mass as we're sent out he is going to send you out into the world to do what to carry on his mission and he last thing he said was go into all the world and preach the gospel and lo and behold i'll be with you i'll never forsake you i will be with you until the end of the age and so jesus sent the holy spirit sends us out into the world now equipped with the gospel to go and proclaim the gospel to the lost now what i want to do is i want to share with you what that gospel is this evening and how we go about sharing jesus with other people and i'll interlace it with a few stories uh that might give you some kind of idea of how this is actually done now i'm going to go through what the gospel is did you know that a recent study showed that when catholics were asked what is the gospel an extremely high percentage did not know isn't that weird not weird it's like going to an auto mechanic and saying identify the steering wheel and he says it's somewhere you have no idea where the steering wheel it's on the card that's good enough you know they don't know the gospel the basic message that we are sent out with now i understand that because we have an awful lot of not teaching people you know the truth what the gospel is but here's what i'm going to do i'm going to share the gospel with you i'm going to go through the major points of the gospel and then i'm going to i'm going to i'm going to predict something here as i share this with you i'm going to predict what you're going to think and one of the things you're going to think as i start to tell you what the basic gospel is that we have to share with the world your family your neighbor people at work acquaintances at starbucks everywhere i witness to everybody i witness everywhere i go flights everywhere if i get a chance i enter into conversations with people and you're going to be thinking as i go through these seven points that are in the book of acts eight times it's in the book of acts the the good news has a shape to it it's called the kerygma i'll get to that word a minute because you're gonna you'll never forget it i have a way for you to never forget that kerygma it's the kerygma it's the proclamation of the gospel here's what you're going to be thinking as i give it out you're going to be thinking at certain points when i give it out you're going to think to yourself there is no way in purgatory that i am doing that there's no way that's coming out of my mouth not to my neighbor not today that's what you're going to be thinking i'm i'm just predicting right now that you're going to be excited now as i start and the excitement level is going to go i don't think so no that's what it's that's what's going to happen i'm just telling you i know you right but then i'm going to tell you why that's not true and i'm going to give you the common excuses that people give as to why they can't tell people the gospel and then we're going to absolutely obliterate those okay and so you're going to walk out of here tonight with absolutely no excuse in fact the damascus staff has big bags by the door you're going to leave all of your excuses in the bag as you leave that's what's going to happen okay we're going to bring them out to a fire and burn them afterwards so here's the gospel this is what the church was given to proclaim this is what men and women died for this is what changed continents okay number one god loves you and has an amazing plan for your life it's number one that's pretty good god loves you and has an amazing plan for your life number one number two sin has totally wrecked this plan now i know i mentioned sin some of you said oh that was the one right there look i'm not saying to my sister the word sin sin has obliterated this plan that's the truth sin now you know what's interesting is that when i mention sin to someone i don't have to explain it they know very well what i'm talking about they do and they can even identify them they trust me number one god loves you and has an amazing plan for your life number two sin has disrupted this plan number three jesus christ loves you and he paid the price for your sin and he died for you that's part of the gospel that's number three number four and this is the one that people say okay that's where i'm off the wagon here i'm not gonna do that one number four is repentance and i agree i don't just go up to people at starbucks and say you know oh god excuse me god loves you and has an amazing bland plan for you but you really screwed it up your sin is screwed it up but jesus loves you and now you need to re repent not gonna happen you know and if you do that you know what that's called weirdo that's a weirdo spiritual weirdo so so i love what the catechism says the catechism says that repentance is and you're going to like this a radical reorientation of your life to god i like that and i think young people like it a radical reorientation of your life to god that's number four number five is to be baptized and receive the holy spirit that is to be baptized to have sin forgiven joined with the church made new rising from the dead with jesus and received the holy spirit confirmation empowering you to live this life now this amazing story that we're in that i call the great adventure and number six join his amazing family the church the home of sacraments and healing and fellowship and yes we do have some weirdos don't we you ever seen a weirdo in a catholic church i did and sometimes i think people think i'm the weirdo so that's okay so those are the first six and the seventh one was full circle you go out and make disciples now now in most cases when i talk to people about the lord i only get as far as maybe one two three of these points in a conversation with people right so let's go over it one more time and uh just don't jump off of this don't listen to the excuse okay that is number one god loves you now now imagine a broken person out there addicted to drugs their marriage is going to split up they've got two kids that are in rehab okay you guys thinking of losing his job his sister struggles with depression and the medication's not working when we talk to these people the good news that we have we think is corny we think oh man i am not going to jeff we're living in the 20s right and that's what that's one of the excuses that we'll that we'll talk about here that's one of them but the message that we have is good news all right i'm going to tell you why this is so successful in just a moment number one god loves you and has an amazing plan for your life number two sin has screwed this plan up number three jesus has died for you he loves you so much number four he wants you to radically reorient your life to him number five he wants you to be baptized become new receive the holy spirit to live this new life and welcome to the church okay that's the good news that is called the kerygma and it has been there from the beginning it's in the catechism protestants have it catholics have it even though it's not protestant or catholic it is the good news it isn't any denomination it is the gospel the good news of jesus christ that's it now here's the reason that it works when i talk to people and what i'm encouraging you to do today is do what not just remember those seven points and then rigidly say them to someone but to know the seven points to know the gospel and to be able to share them in your way with them but to be lovingly frank about it i'll tell you what i have tremendous success in this area not because of me but because of the gospel and a sincere presentation of the gospel to broken people that my fear is they're not going to like me they're going to think i'm weird they're gonna say man you are backward or get out of my face we have such a fear of people when we have this good news and it's good news to the broken people but here's why it works got to get this three times in the new testament it says that the holy spirit confirmed the message one of the fears that we have is what i can't change their life i can't change their heart it's way above my pay scale and it is i can't change anybody's heart i'm not that good i'm just not i'm just just a guy that loves god but get this the holy spirit can change their heart and what does the holy spirit do when i talk to someone and i say you know what i got to tell you i got to tell you i know you're hurting i know this has really hit you hard when your husband left can i just share something with you i want you to know that god loves you right now today and he's got a plan for your life i have seen people fall apart just saying that because why it's not about it's not about apologetics it's not about theology it's about relationship a guy who loves jesus telling you about jesus in such a sincere way to a broken person who right now is looking for an answer jesus loves you so much but you know what it's in your life it's in my life i can tell you all about it sin really really wrecks this plan that god has for us we find ourselves broken we find ourselves needy and so forth and then people inside are going spades yeah yeah what's the holy spirit doing that's the holy spirit and the person is doing what feeling convicted it's like yes i know this is the truth i know it's the truth but listen my friend jesus paid the price for your sin he died for you he died for you he died for this situation that you're in right now you know what he's asking you to do he's asking you to radically reorient your life to him give your life to him i'll pray with you and you can pray and i encourage you to you know to go into you're going to be a part of the of the church rcia to be baptized and receive the holy spirit the holy spirit confirms the message i'm telling you the holy spirit is really good at this i wrote a review on it online on amazon holy spirit five stars fantastic work you know i highly recommend him in the holy spirit works with us this is what jesus was talking about jesus did not have in mind when he ascended to heaven that we would spend the rest of our life studying about him he had in mind that we would come to know him study with the idea that we're going to go forth and we're going to proclaim the gospel to the world let me tell you a story a couple years ago i was in philadelphia and i was staying at a hotel because ascension press had this yearly conference i'm from out of town so we all stay the outer town or stay at the at the hotel i can remember what they call those things what are those things with a lot of rooms and numbers a hotel and so at the end of the day we're sitting on the on the patio in the back and and they're sitting around having cigars smoking their pipes and having some wine just talking you know and everything and i'm a disciple and so everywhere i go my eyes are open my ears are listening i'm always looking for an opening especially when i'm standing in line waiting lady in front of me she's on her way to the hospital her husband had a heart attack last night i'll have to pray for her sometime that's what we think right don't even say it we just think it i'll pray for her but the disciple takes notice of these things and takes action she's there for a reason you heard it for a reason is there anybody else around here that's going to do anything about it right i'm the disciple so i'm sitting on the patio there and i i looked over like this and there's two women about two couches down listening to us i didn't have to go all i had to do in the course of talking to people is like that and i'm aware put that in my back pocket they're they're over there listening we continued talking it got time for us to kind of wrap it up and i looked over and by the time we wrapped it up they were sitting at the end of my couch so balls in my court so what did i do i i i engaged them now i'm not going to recommend that you do this because i am kind of at the expert level of this i went to steubenville for this all right [Applause] i'm not going to be responsible for you your your crazy evangelization ideas all right that's between you and god and the police all right and now the government so what i did is i did this i did this i'm going to do it once in real time and then i'm going to do it in slow-mo i looked over and i said so what are you ladies doing in philadelphia okay i'll do that again [Music] now you got to watch it's in the moves it's the expression what are you ladies dude in philadelphia okay and if you get this tape or the you know the recording of it just play it over and over until you get it all right practice in front of the mirror a few times so i said what are your ladies doing in philadelphia you know what they said oh um like i wasn't going to engage in discussion oh oh yeah well we're here on a melaleuca conference and i didn't know what melaleuca was i thought it was a cult you know and i said melaleuca what's melaleuca and they said well it's this creamy stuff you drink it you put on your body it makes you better it's healthy for you from a plant melaleuca plant and i said oh that's interesting and they said what do you do and i said well we're catholics we're a catholic publishing company i'm a bible teacher and uh and i teach scripture what she said this is exactly what she said she moved close she said you know what her face got really angry she said you know what you're catholic i said yes she said i got a problem with you guys i will first of all what's your name you know i'm jeff i got a problem with you guys and i said you do huh well what's the problem and she said this is exactly what she said i got a problem first of all you couldn't get me in a catholic church with a priest scandal you couldn't even get me in a catholic church i don't know how you can become catholic i don't know how you can do that second of all you got all this art in rome you it's just sitting in rome you can sell it you can feed the world three times over and and number three papacy stuff the pope give me a break you guys made that up to control people in the middle ages and i thought now where do i begin which one should i take first and i didn't take any of them you know why because that's not the problem and i can sit there for an hour and talk about the priest scandal and say okay now are you ready to accept the lord and come into the catholic church no we still have the art in rome you know and if it's not that it's something else so i i you know what i do i'm not ignoring her but i'm not going to address this right now but i will acknowledge it and i said yeah wow you know you bring up some points and certainly the members of the church are not all perfect and i know that and i'll call her linda tonight okay and i said you know your name linda linda can i just ask you can i ask you a couple of questions and uh she said sure and i said uh you know i said do you have a relationship with with god and she's like you know i'm kind of my own way you know and i said to her i just want to share with you really what we're about and that is that god loves us i said linda god loves you he really does what's the holy spirit doing god loves you he really does he loves you and linda and her friend he has a plan for your life and so it is a wonderful plan but you know what man you nailed it you nailed it sin sin really really screws up our life and uh you're right in that and we need the lord in our in our life and he actually died for our sins and we believed that he died because he loves us so much her expression went from like this to suddenly and so i went on you know and i said you're exactly right but here's the deal a lot of people know that but they haven't they haven't reoriented their life to god in a radical way and given their life to the lord and that's the key to really making us like him that's the goal i looked over there completely sweet and soft face and i said to her can i i want to ask you a question linda tonight if you could ask god for anything anything what would you ask him for her face totally changed i said you can ask him for anything ask the lord for anything what would it be linda and she looked at me and she went and she looked up and her bottom lip started quivering just quivering and her eyes were filling with tears and she looked down and she looked at me and she said i just want to be happy and i said me too me too and i know that's true with you the answer is in jesus christ who loves you and we had a marvelous discussion and then the next day i was down in the foyer she comes down with a melaleuca guy and and she said here's what she said she goes that's the guy that told me about jesus that's what she sounds like a bible story doesn't it yes that's me page 1042 that's me right there so she said that's the guy that told me about jesus and then she said to me are you guys going to be out there again tonight and i didn't know if we were or not so i said yes and she said can i join you i said absolutely so that night she came down and i started talking to her and then i said tell me where do you where do you live now i'm from minnesota i said where do you live and she said why i come from minnesota [Music] where where in minnesota do are you oh she goes i'm in a suburb bloomington i grew up in bloomington believe it or not i grew up in bloomington where what street i'm just so curious what street she told me this street i said i'm one block over that's where i grew up she goes oh this is crazy and i said linda let me ask you a question when we go back if i call you would you like to go to mass with my wife and myself she said i'd be happy to less than 24 hours and all i shared with her was the entire gospel of john in hebrew blew her away you know no what did i do i didn't share any verses no paragraphs i just told her the truth i told her the truth that's it thank you that's my brother i told her the truth and here's what we look for i had two guys up in up in ontario one time and i was talking about evangelization and the kerygma and i gave a talk about the kerygma and afterwards these two beautiful guys come up about 21 years old and they came up to me and they said oh mr cavins yo high five bump knuckle boom boom you know whatever that meant but and they said we really liked that was really amazing really like that but we just um we have a question for you i said sure go ahead and they looked around like it was like it was a secret thing you know the kind of yeah we um really liked it and everything but just wondering is i'm not sure that the people today are gonna you know receive that is there another way to put it what they said and it hit me when they said that i thought i'm going to play with their brain so i said huh i went into acting mode i said hmm another way to put it i said look just let me think about it for a second i walked over here [Music] and they're just standing there looking at me i'm a disciple no and they were like oh no i said guys let's do this okay let's do this let's just break it down i'm gonna go through every part i'm gonna give you five minutes to come up with something better okay number one god loves you god has an amazing plan for your life you got five minutes and playing with her brain by walking away and i walked back over and they looked at me and they said i don't have anything i said i know. i know and you know why because it's the truth it's the truth and the truth will set you free you're either afraid of the truth or you embrace the truth and it sets you free let's do the second one sin has royally screwed our lives up improve on that this one was less time came back have nothing okay let's do this one see if this one this one you might be able to come up with something great jesus loves you so much he died for you go ahead improve on that you know they're like and then finally they're like you look okay i don't think we can improve on i said bingo which is catholic yeah i said yes you know that's right that's right you you can't improve on this and you know why guys i said you know why it's the truth it's the truth that sets people free you either embrace it or you're afraid of it get over yourself you've got the truth you've got the truth now find a loving gentle way to share this with broken people i said the reason that it works is the holy spirit is confirming it and they go also their eyes open up they go you mean the power is actually in that message your ability to perceive the obvious would amaze the most casual of observer right yes that's it that is it you see the lord wants us to know his voice and he wants us to know when it comes to giving this word out now let me tell you this we're going to do this a little bit quicker i'm going to give you the main excuses as to why people can't do this and you can check them off if that's you number one number one i love this one well jeff i mean i get that and everything that's really great and that's uh i can see you doing that because you get up there and talk and everything but um [Music] medic medic here's the here's the excuse it's really good everything but here it is see if you've ever heard this one before that's not my gift you ever heard it not my gift and then they quote the quote from from saint francis which was not his quote well jeff you know um saint francis said preach the gospel and if necessary use words so let's do this i say that i say this to those people that use that quote okay so for the next month let's take note of everyone who's watching us and then at the end of the month let's see how many get on their knees and repent [Music] no one seems to be watching you know i've been doing the same thing for 40 years and no one's ever come up to me and said i want to give my life to god it's you know there's a word for that for that kind of using quotes that are not quotes there's a word for it in hebrew ba lo ni the word now you know hebrew you know hebrew you know you say it's not my gift it's not my gift now i like that excuse at certain times i like the excuse and i like it on sunday morning when they take the offering and the basket comes down my aisle and i'll typically you know the basket comes to me and then i'll take it and i'll say to the people around me i got to be honest with you people this is this ain't my gift does anybody have this gift around me this is not my gift well it's for everybody isn't it it's for everybody everybody gives listen everything that god calls us to is above our gift we have giftings that's to be sure but everything he asks us to do is above that we're called to live a new life a new life if you were doing fine the way you were he didn't have to come right so it's not my gift here's another well let me tell you this this one's kind of funny it's not my gift i have a brother-in-law who loves the beatles two years ago three years ago paul mccartney came to target field in twin cities they announced it and the tickets were going on sale at ticketmaster at 10 a.m i told my wife i'm gonna get tickets for that she goes jeff everybody's gonna get tickets you're not gonna get in it's gonna be crazy i said no i'm good at this i'm gonna get in so i got all set up ten o'clock bam congratulations you got tickets you want best seats or you want to choose best five tickets i got paul mccarty tickets thank you and i and we ended up we ended up going i taught my sisters and stuff and my brother-in-law's nuts about the beatles nuts about him now what do you think you'd say the next day if i call them up and i say mark yeah jeff it was unreal what was unreal mccartney last night he was unreal i mean it was the best concert i've ever seen in my life and he says mccartney was in the twin cities why didn't you tell me well mark come on you know me i mean i i've got a gift for buying tickets but i don't have a gift for telling people about i mean you know me i mean i'm only so talented he would have gone over and killed me it's not my gift here's the other one i don't know enough i don't know enough yet to really share my faith was there anything that i shared in there that really took a lot the gospel was always proclaimed on the heels of a miracle monsignor pope great writer on the internet he said he said does that mean that today there has to be a miracle before you proclaim and he said yeah your life you're changed you're the miracle you are the miracle and so from your life now you can launch into god loved me god loves you right and so a lot of people think well i don't have a degree in hebrew i don't know the bible well enough i haven't gone through the great adventure i just don't feel like i really know enough and they're going to ask questions about all kinds of things and i'm going to look like a fool i'd rather just not engage in this after all it's not my gift sharing the love that you have for jesus this not is not dependent on how much you know at all you can share the lord with people no matter what because you're sharing your relationship with them and the holy spirit is confirming it i've got a plan that i've been working on on how to double your parish attendance in five years i've got a plan that i've been developing i'm going to share with you in just a moment because it's an amazing plan it's not that hard but i guarantee you your church will grow double in five years if you do what i'm going to recommend okay that's coming up in just in just a minute oh i'll tell you now if you want your church to double in the next five years and here's what we're going to do i'm going to give every single one of you i'm going to give every single one of you five years to bring one person to the lord one five years how many months is that it's a lot of months how many 60 i'm going to give you 60 months i'm going to give you five years to bring one person to your church the rca program and at the end of five years your church will double when i tell the people they're like oh it's a new program you got cds with that or is that video in a workbook and no all you got to do is bring one person to church everybody in your church brings one person and they go ah i thought it was like a program you know because we're all about new programs we've been going through everything you have i appreciate that but you do far more to bring someone to jesus and that's what we're called to do right that's what we're called to do now we're looking at the airport up ahead we're getting ready to land this plane tonight and so i want to encourage you this evening to be sensitive to the lord we are always giving away right we're always giving away jesus in fact have you gone to the mall and you go by that i hate the perfume counter at the mall and you go by some of them what's that what are some of these places called my daughters go there alta or you walk in there most men walk in there and they they need medical assistance very quickly it's like oh my god what just hit me you know and ladies walk in they go do you have your checkbook it's my daughters when you go through them what do they do they got these little pieces of paper and would you like to try that sure whatever i can't believe you put that on yourself and well well here give me the okay so i do i meet my wife and i said man you smell good really you like that what is that do you have some well i'm just trying something new you know and she says well i'm going to go up to that store i'll meet you in 20 minutes okay i have things to do and i go back yeah i'll buy that one i'll buy that one right there what are they doing they're handing away free samples and the free samples are the hopes that you're going to come back i say as christians we go out every day and hand out free samples all day long we love people we're kind we're generous leave them with samples of jesus sometimes you don't even have to say anything one time i was going to rochester minnesota for a checkup at mayo clinic it's just a local clinic in the states there and i was going to go there and i'm driving it down in its winter time and it's sleeting and slippery and snowing and i'm driving time to you know it's trying to be careful and all of a sudden i looked up to the head to the right and there is a woman on the side of the road and she is looking over her engine as the hood is up and i thought oh boy this is dangerous out here and uh you know and i've always told my my wife i said you know if you ever get into a situation like that i hope some nice guy stops and helps you so i just kept going no i i said you know what this is an opportunity i pulled over and it's leading out and cold i got the jacket and i'm walking to her like this she's over there and i'm walking like this and i and i said hi hi and she goes hi and i said what what's the problem and i know nothing about cars nothing i put gas in the glove compartment once it's just i know nothing so i said what seems to be the problem she goes i don't know it just stopped and it i can't it won't do anything do you know anything i go huh i really don't but then the verse came to my mind with the the apostles the blind man silver and the layman silver and gold i do not have but what i do have i give to you in the name of jesus stand up and walk so that's what came to mind so i looked at him and i said listen um i don't know anything about the cards or something but i'm a christian a disciple of jesus and she said oh okay and i said how about this i'll pray for your car and see if the lord might start this for you and she said are you serious and i said hey i said yeah yeah it's all i got for you that's all i got so she's a all right so she gets in the car and i'm standing before the hood and i go oh boy lord i really put you on the spot here [Music] oh jesus i said jesus show her that you love her just show her that you love her lord and i said all right she turns that key room started right up i'm like wow [Applause] [Music] there's a whole new ministry now you know and she came out of the car going thank you thank you i said seriously not me i said thank jesus jesus loves you and has an amazing plan for your life but your crummy car got in the way okay no but it's just natural ways that we can that we can share the lord with people and the lord is constantly calling us he's calling us and calling us to himself in a beautiful beautiful way now can i share one more story one more or do you want to go let me share one more story it's about hearing the voice of god in your life hearing have you ever wondered if god was speaking to you as a disciple anybody three of you might i suggest you be born again okay so we all want to hear the voice of god right we would like that's the most precious thing that you can have is to know the voice of the lord and sometimes people make hearing the voice of the lord far too difficult and we put ourselves in a situation we read the bible in a way that we could never do it ever you know never could we do what we see in the bible i mean when god spoke to them in the bible it was boom and those you know the earth shook in the sky and the gods spoken unto so-and-so and uh for me i'm just from minnesota and how does the lord speak to me sometimes we even think that the if it's the lord speaking to me it will be with a british accent yay i say unto you my son you know oh that's god right there okay but god doesn't speak to me in a british accent it's just a sweet sweet voice one night i was watching television with my wife five minutes to 10 getting ready to watch the evening news and i had a thought all i had was a thought that i should go up into adoration and pray that was the thought go up to adoration and pray so i thought i should probably do that one of these days i did i thought maybe this week i'll find some time and i'll i'll go do that and you know meet up with the lord and so i'm going through the channels and i hear this thought again just a thought not a it was no british accent just a thought and i thought go up to the church and pray and spend some time with the lord and then and then a third time it happened and my wife looked at me and she goes you look like you're thinking about something and i said well i just keep thinking maybe the lord wants me to go up to the church and pray she said well why don't you and i said why don't you what would jesus say right [Music] and i said all right i'm ready okay i'll go i'll go and so i got in the car i'll be back and i got in the car i drove up about seven minutes to the church there's two cars in the parking lot i opened the door and the second i opened the door there was a deacon speaking to a young man by the name of paul 30 years old and right as i stepped in the deacon looked and said well that's jeff right now what happened was a young man came off the street depressed dejected he hurt life falling apart former catholic actually you know what there is no such thing as a former catholic there's unfaithful catholics there is catholics who went off in a different direction all kinds of things but not former he's but he he was in the soviet union before that and he's not practicing his faith anymore he comes into the church looking for a pamphlet or someone to talk to a priest or someone he meets the deacon the deacon says in the course of the conversation you remind me of a guy in our church who left the church and god got a hold of him and brought him back and he wrote a book called my life on the rock and uh well that's him right there that's how it happened and i went up to him and i said introduce myself and he said you're not going to believe this we were just talking about you and i said oh and you can said would you want to talk to him and i said well i came up here to pray i said what's your name paul paul would you want to pray with me a little bit took him into the adoration chapel and prayed and afterwards i sat in the parking lot i gave him my book fifty percent off and i get i gave him my book i gave him my book and i began discipling him within three years he went through rcia he went through the catechetical institute at the seminar he went to israel with me went to turkey and greece with me and is now teaching catechetics in his church in the rcia program and it all happens with what just a thought you got to get out of the boat you want to be on the adventure or the great adventure you got to get out of the boat you cannot keep going in your life thinking maybe god is maybe he's not listen you are men and women on a mission there's nothing accidental about this at all now i just told you how i did that now let me tell you how i did that as if you're reading the bible i'm going to do it in a way that you could never do that because how many of you would agree you could do what i did right anybody okay well here's how you here's how you would hear it you know sometimes you can never do it okay you ready the man of god was sitting on the couch in the evening hours when suddenly the lord spoke unto him my servant go up to my house and pray the man of god said no i shall not again the lord spoken to the man and the man said no i tell you i shall not and the third time the lord spoke unto him and said go up to my house and worship me the man of god said later and at the suggestion of his bride to go up to the house of god he got into his chariot and he went up to the house and he found a man dead in his trespasses and sins and he gave the gospel to him he repented on his knees he prayed with him before the lord of lords and he went on and had a fruitful life see jesus i see god speaks with the english accent how many of you can do the second one well don't read it like that then you know you can do it god god has it in there all right so i want to just re bring this all together by encouraging you tonight that if you are looking for that next place in your life leveling up you looking for a a whole new level of your walk with god if you continue the way you are right now you will probably get the results that you have now for the rest of your life but if you want to walk in the supernatural in the great adventure and to walk as a disciple chosen to do this you're gonna have to have some guts you're gonna have to have some courage you're gonna have to have some love and you're gonna have to get out of the boat and take some chances that's what it means to be a disciple to be vulnerable i'm okay with being vulnerable there's a difference between that right transparency and vulnerability and i'm going to remain vulnerable and i want to walk with you lord i want to do the things you do have i made a fool of myself at times probably but i love walking with him and so i'm giving you encouragement now i've got a book back there called the activated disciple that has a lot of this in there it's called the activated disciple but i want to share one other thing with you that a disciple can use i just want to share it with you it's up to you whether you want it or not i just don't want to go back on the airplane with it father mike schmitz and i in bible in a year we wanted to develop something for disciples and so this last year we put our heads together we're both journalers i like journaling how many journalers do we have okay we want to put something together that would help people to keep track of what god is showing them i gave one of these to a woman 25 years old two weeks ago who's in prison today she'll be in there for a month and i gave her one of these it's called an insight journal that we put together a lot of people write down the things that the lord shows them and then they don't know where they put it or they think i'll never forget that that great thing the lord showed me in lectio divino or the scripture or something father said or someone from a teacher at damascus i'll never forget that was so good and then what do we do we forget it and we need a place to write down not everything not shopping lists and what we're going to do next month and goals or whatever we need a place where we can write down the gold the insights that really make a difference in our life so we came up with this insight journal and the insight journal is like a moleskin with a little folder in the back to put pictures or tickets or things like that and the majority of this insight journal are insights and it has a long index of all of the insights that you have in your life that maybe someday after a well-worn journal your grandchildren might find one day the grandma this was her life this was her wisdom and it has the date topic source and page number in the journal but as catholics were more than just insights i encourage disciples to pick up a number of other saints and make them part of your squad posse i've got five i walk with saint augustine i walk with john paul ii i walk with mother teresa i walk with saint joseph and saint francis they're in my squad and every day i walk with them i ask them pray for me i'm not alone in this i'm not alone in this and so there's a whole area on page 228 for the quotes and the insights from my favorite saints then there's a whole place for praise and thanksgiving things that you are very thankful for and then the will of god things that pertain to your state of life right now the will of god and then favorite life verses i've got several favorite life verses there's a couple pages there where you can write down your favorite life verses and then finally prayer intentions at the end so you've got one place to write down the gold the insights that made the difference in your life and you can go over them as a foundation in your life and i'll tell you what else i'm doing with it i have three others of these one for each of my grandchildren dominic frankie and fiona 11 7-3 and i love them so much and my heart is to want to share the gospel with them i know that there's going to be a day when i'm gone right and so what i'm doing now is i have an insight journal for each one of them and as i hear things and see things i go to it to fiona's journal and write down today this happened and i learned this and this bible verse came up and i thought of you and i'm praying there's the date and so forth there it is and i'm filling up an insight journal for each of my grandchildren and i'm giving them the wisdom that i'm learning there's a wisdom wisdom concerning money dominic there's wisdom concerning relationships frankie your mouth is important don't lie here's what happens fiona and i can you imagine at 18 years of age what i'm going to do is i'm going to they don't know i'm doing this but at 18 i'm gonna hand it to him and i'm going to say dominic i love you so much you've been on my heart all these years and i have written down all kinds of things that i want you to know this is the best of me and i'm giving it to you and in the back you'll find the tickets to the twins game we went to in that picture that we took that night remember that funny night yeah i remember that grandpa that's in there too there it is so what father mike and i both concluded was if you don't have a place to write down the things that are truly the treasures in your life you will not see them but if you have somewhere to write them you will see them everywhere because you know you have a place to do to write that so there are a bunch of them out there the gray and the burgundy it's up to you but let me conclude the whole thing here today okay and uh oh by the way my wife always tells me if you want to go to israel with us or you want to do something else with us go to my website because we've got pilgrimages so who is the american who has won more souls than anybody else who billy graham yeah that's a good one right billy graham yeah but he's not catholic okay no billy graham billy graham billy graham is the one man in america who has won more to the lord at least that that's what it appears to be some would say fulton sheen and others but most people would say billy graham i think in the public but billy graham never veered from the message that we've learned tonight he never has he'd stand up in a stadium of 65 000 people a rather lanky guy i suppose at his high school maybe he wasn't the most popular guy i don't know not chosen and he stands up in front of 65 000 people and when he's done with them 11 000 of them come forward crying to give their lives to god and all he does is make comments about the world we're living in and so forth and then he gets to his message and his message is loud it is odd for our age but the holy spirit works at the same time on the heart have you ever wondered what a catholic billy graham would sound like billy graham stood up there and what did he say all he said was the kerygma god loves you and god has a plan for your life but i'm here to tell you that sin has broken families destroyed marriages and caused so many people to be broken but the good news the good news is that jesus has died for you and you and you and you and tonight is the hour of decision i'm gonna ask you to repent i'm gonna ask you to repent of your sins and i'm gonna ask you to come down here tonight and i'm going to pray for you you know who you are your life is a mess and god is calling you right now and after you give your life to god i'm going to ask you to be baptized and receive the holy spirit after that my wife she has a rosary and some holy water and a scapula for you he didn't say that he didn't actually say that one okay but after he's done what happens thousands come forward doctors engineers teachers unemployed everybody crying why it was the holy spirit all he did was tell the truth and the holy spirit said that's it that's it now i'm not expecting you all to go out and imitate billy graham at starbucks okay but i say that just to illustrate it's the gospel it's the truth and it works let's not look for anything else let's just ask for the courage to present in a loving way the good news let's pray name of the father son of the holy spirit lord jesus i thank you tonight for all my friends who have come lord i have given them what i thought you wanted and that is a real charge to go out into the world and proclaim the good news and to take responsibility as disciples to walk in your footsteps to be covered by your dust to pick up your work and do it lord deliver us from fear deliver us lord from cowardice and give us a courageous heart that is obedient to you leave the results to you but walk in love and compassion and truth and gentleness help us o lord i pray in your name amen name of the father and the son and the holy spirit amen thank you so much

Channel: Damascus

Views: 21,727

Keywords: catholic, christian, cysc, Damascus, damascus catholic mission campus, summer camp, camp, religion, jesus, christ, adventure, summer, god, faith, YouTube, shorts, subscribe, trending, viral, epic, must watch, instavideo, TikTok, youtubeviews, video, new video, share, love, youth, Ohio

Id: Qlt7TjHhRLg

Length: 84min 53sec (5093 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 23 2022