Saturate Youth Conference: Caleb Longabaugh

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Go and make disciples. Baptize them. Teach them to obey. Go and make disciples. Baptize them, teach them to obey. This great commission is saying that every believer is called to be involved in those activities. So going and making disciples, that means you are taking the gospel. You are taking the gospel that Christ is given to you. And you are going to the non believers that you know in your life. You are going to your friends, your family, your co workers, your teammates, the people you know, even people that you don't know that you're seeing on the streets. You are bringing the gospel and presenting it to them. [00:00:44] Speaker B: Welcome back to the well, an Elam Fellowship leadership podcast. And we have a treat for you today. As part of our Saturate Youth conference, we had many great teachers and keynotes from which we want to share with you throughout the year. Today we are going to listen to one of the breakouts on evangelism given by Caleb Longabaugh, the director of Basic. You guys are going to enjoy this. So let's join Caleb as he teaches our teens how to be a witness for Christ. [00:01:08] Speaker A: What up, guys? Can I make an agreement with you guys before we start? So I want to be an encouragement to you guys, but I also am going to ask you guys to do a couple things that might feel a little bit like a stretch for you today. And so you guys are all men and women of God that have been called to do hard things and take risks for his glory. Amen. Amen. So do I have your agreement that we are actually going to do this together? That we're going to be willing to be a little bit stretched, a little bit provoked today? Is that okay? Yeah. Okay, Sweet. When you're in the moment sharing the gospel, evangelizing to someone, maybe God tells you in the moment, go share to this cashier in Wegmans. Or he tells you, hey, go share to this friend on your sports team. It's gonna sometimes be a little sloppy. And when I share the gospel myself, sometimes it's a little sloppy. But we have someone who's actually assisting us and working through us in the process. And his name is the Holy Spirit. And so I want to encourage you guys, even if you guys don't feel like I have the words or I don't have the charisma, or I don't have the theological knowledge, the Holy Spirit can still work through you to evangelize and share the glory of God with someone who desperately needs it. So, amen. All right, show of hands. Who here has shared the gospel with someone Before. Okay, who. Who has led someone to Christ before? Okay. Wow, that's awesome. Who feels confident going up to a stranger, asking for their name and sharing the gospel with them? Okay. Way less hands. Oh, my gosh, that's terrifying. Who would feel comfortable going up to a friend who you know is not a believer and just starting a conversation about Jesus? Okay, this is good. This is really helpful for me. So you guys are actually a lot further along than I was the first time that I was sharing the gospel. I grew up as a pastor's kid, and believe it or not, it was 22 years. I'm 24 now. It was 22 years before I shared the gospel with someone for the first time. I had heard all the sermons about how incredible, how glorious Jesus was. I had been prayed over. People had told me it was important to do this. But when I imagined myself getting in front of a stranger or in front of my friend and risking being judged or offended them by sharing my faith, I just wilted, and I never did it. And I literally went to a ministry school two years ago, and I felt the Lord speaking and saying, caleb, you've walked with me for 22 years, but you have been afraid to be associated with me. And so I was in that ministry school to learn how to be a worship leader. But I ended up feeling like what God actually wanted for me is me to begin to see, step out in boldness, and actually make the first disciple of my life to begin to actually share the gospel. And so we had evangelism nights where we would go out onto a local college campus and just walk up to someone that we never met before and say, hey, what's your name? Ian. Nice to meet you. Hey. We're just walking around talking about Jesus. Has anyone ever shared the gospel with you before? Okay. And then we would just enter into conversations just like that. Terrifying for me. And one day, we caught this guy coming between classes. He was a man in his mid-30s, and he was actually a professor at this school. So we caught him, and we basically talked to him just like that. And he was actually so interested and so engaged, we asked him, like, do you have any background in faith? Have you ever met Jesus before? And he said, no, but I have so many questions for you. And we just began to talk. I know you guys were just in a Q and A a few minutes ago. It was like that. He was just asking questions. I was doing my best to answer. I was asking him questions. He was answering. We had an incredible time talking about faith and literally we talked for three hours until the university lights came on. It was like 7 or 8pm and so the conversation's winding down. And I'm feeling, man, like, this guy is so engaged. He wants to know so much about Jesus. So I think I'm gonna pop that question. And so I asked him right before we left, do you give your life to Jesus? And he said, no. He said, no, I'm not ready for that. I'm not interested in that. And so I was deflated. And I laid my hands on him and prayed for him. And I got his number and we texted a couple times. But I never really heard back from him ever again. Until about 10 months later, I get a text from this man, Ben. He says this. He says, caleb, you might not remember me, but you shared the gospel with me on K College about 10 months ago. And I'm reaching out because I wanted to share something with you. Ever since that moment, I felt this new desire to learn about Jesus for the first time. And so I went home after that conversation, and I went on Amazon and I ordered a Bible, and it came in two weeks later. And I opened it up and I started in Genesis, and it was a little boring. But then I got to the Gospels and I started reading about Jesus, like, really learning about who he is for the first time. And as I'm reading about him, I'm starting to fall in love with Christ for the first time. And I started to realize that as a professor and as a young man, all the things I had been living my life for were garbage compared to the life that Christ himself wanted me to live. And I'm texting you because two months ago, I gave my life to Jesus. And I'm reaching out because this Sunday I'm getting baptized. I wanted to know if you would be there to represent me on the most beautiful day of my life. Yeah. Amen. And I just knew in that moment, 22 years, terrified of sharing my faith because I thought that evangelizing was going to cost me that. I thought it was embarrassing. I thought it was a burden. I thought it was for people who were gifted in ways that I wasn't. But in that moment when he shared that with me, I realized that sharing the gospel is an honor. It's not a burden. To be part of somebody else's testimony is one of the deepest honors you could possibly have in this life. I know this age group, I know we're starting to think about boyfriends and girlfriends, some of us who are even older. We're starting to Think about marriage and oh my gosh, maybe that's going to be the prize of my life and a relationship and is good. But your relationship will not be in heaven, but the people you lead to. Jesus will. You will have an eternal inheritance in the people that you lead to Christ. And so it is an honor and not a burden. Jesus said, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded. And I will be with you even until the end of the age. This is called the Great Commission. It's the last thing, you can see it in your Bibles. It's the last thing written in the book of Matthew because this is the last thing that Jesus is leaving us with before he goes to heaven. And so he disappears in a cloud of smoke or whatever and goes to heaven. And we're just sitting here with this assignment in our hands and he's saying go, go. There's actually three different commands that are actually contained in this passage. Three different things that the Lord is asking us to do. And so actually can someone give me, give me one of the commands. What are the three commands? Read this real quick. What are the three commands that are given in this passage of scripture? Go ahead. What's one? First one. So starting in starting I included some verses I didn't mean to include. Starting here. First sentence, what's make disciples? What's the second one? So that's, I'm going to count that as part of Go and make disciples. What's the second one? Baptize them. What's the final one? Teach them. Okay, those are the three things right there. I can't write left handed, so I'm not going to do that. Go and make disciples. Baptize them. Teach them to obey. Go and make disciples. Baptize them, Teach them to obey. This great commission is saying that every believer is called to be involved in those activities. So going and making disciples, that means you are taking the gospel. You are taking the gospel that Christ is giving it given to you. And you are going to the non believers that you know in your life. You are going to your friends, your family, your co workers, your teammates, the people you know, even people that you don't know that you're seeing on the streets. You are bringing the gospel and presenting it to them. Second command is to baptize them. We're not just called just to share the gospel. We're not just called to make people who Raise their hands and say, I want to give my life to Jesus. We're called to make people who make a public and lasting declaration of faith and then enter the church. I've seen lots of youth movements where people are actually really, really excited about the idea of evangelism. And they'll go out into the streets and they'll preach the gospel and they'll lay hands on people, and they'll see miracles happen. They'll see people raise their hands and give their life to Jesus in the middle of the street, and then they leave. They never hear from them ever again. We are called to make disciples who have been baptized and have entered the church. That's the second part of that command. And the final command is that, yes, you, no matter where you are, yes, you are called to teach people how to follow Jesus. You are called to do that whether you've been following him for literally one week or your entire life. If you know one thing about following Jesus that someone else doesn't, you can teach them. I know the offense that actually rises up in us when I say that. Because we say, caleb, I don't have the theological knowledge to teach people about Christ. I'm not charismatic. I don't know how to influence people. I don't know how to communicate well. I'm not an attractive person. People don't care what I have to say. There's no way that I could actually be a teacher of Jesus and of the gospel. If you know one thing about Jesus that someone else doesn't, you can teach them. If all you know about Jesus is man. I had this encounter with him where I surrendered everything. And then I felt freedom and I was forgiven of my sin. That's all I know. I haven't read the whole Bible. I've only read one of the gospels. I don't have any verses in this thing memorized. I'm not mature. I don't have insight or depth. That's all I know. If that's the one thing you know, you are still called to share that and to teach people about that. There is never an excuse to opt out of the Great Commission. It is an assignment that's not just for your pastor. It's not just for me. It is for you right now. And so we're actually going to talk about the very first command, because very first command to go and make disciples. This is evangelism. It's not the baptism. It's not the teaching. It is the initial going and declaring and sharing of the faith. And so I actually Want to give us some equipping? I'm going to give you guys a couple pieces of equipment that I think will help you in that sharing of the gospel. Someone, even before this session, came up to me and asked, hey, how can I actually begin to witness and share my faith with the non believers around me? And so we're actually going to start with something simple. How many of you guys have ever heard of a 15 second testimony before? Okay. Usually when we're in like a small group and we do testimony night, we go around the group in a circle and we share about how the Lord has affected our lives. And usually that is the longest small group you will ever be a part of because people will share for like 15, 16 minutes. But we're actually going to do 15 second testimonies. We are actually going to summarize our entire story of what Christ has done in our lives in 15 seconds that we could present to a stranger or someone that we're talking to on the street. Why would we want to make it 15 seconds? Why so short attention span? I walk up to a stranger, I'm like, hey, what's up man? He doesn't have time for me to give my 10 minute full testimony. This dude's going to get freaked out, he's going to get weirded out, he's going to say, who is this person talking to me? What is he going on about? And so when we are going and we're evangelizing to people on the street, we actually just want to have a very short, concise way that we can share our testimony. And so a 10 second testimony is this 15 second. Thank you. 10 second testimony is this 15 second, 7 second. I keep losing time. We're running out of time. Before I met Jesus, blank. And then after I met Jesus, blank. And in those blanks you're filling in, what was one thing before I met Jesus that was bad with one word? What is one thing I struggled with before I met Jesus? And then after I met Jesus? How did he change that? How did he make it better? So for example, before I met Jesus, I might say for myself, man, before I met Jesus, I was struggling with loneliness. But after I met Jesus, I felt like I had a friend at all times. That wasn't even 15 seconds, that was seven seconds. That sums up what was something good that the Lord did, what was something hard I was struggling with and something that the Lord brought out of that was something good that he did after I met him. This is your 15 second testimony. And so do you Guys all have like journals on you, something to write with for the most part. Okay. If you don't, you're gonna have to memorize this. But I actually want you guys to all take like one minute, one and a half minutes and write out your 15 second testimony. Before I met Jesus, what was something that was hard and bad? After I met Jesus, what was something that he did that was good? This is gonna get real chaotic. I want you to go find someone in this room that you have never met before. So you're gonna have to leave your row. And I want you to do what we just did. Go and share your 15 second testimony. Ask them, do they have a story like that? And then share it back. Ready? Three, two, one, go. We're gonna pretend that you're not a Christian for a second. Is that okay? Okay, so I'm going to ask you, has anyone ever shared a really simple version of the Gospel with you before? Would you mind if I did that real quick? Okay, let me write something out for you. So essentially, what we believe as Christians is that there are two ways of living your life. These are two ways of living your life. And there are actually two kingdoms. One is called the kingdom of darkness, and the other is called the kingdom of God. And these kingdoms are completely divided. You are either in one kingdom or you're in the other. And so the ruler of this kingdom is actually Satan, and the ruler of this kingdom is Jesus. And what Satan says is that in his kingdom, here you are, you can actually be the leader of your own life. But in that kingdom, there is actually deep brokenness and something's wrong. We're living as with ourselves as the leader of our life, but we feel that brokenness, something is off. And so there's all these different things that we use to try to fill that broken. Sometimes people, you know, use achievement, like I used a lot of achievement in my life to fill that sense of brokenness. But the problem with this kingdom is we use all these things to fill the brokenness, but nothing works. And so we end up just feeling broken and alone and apart from God. But there's another kingdom. This is called the Kingdom of God. And the ruler of that kingdom is Jesus. And there's actually wholeness and there is peace and there is joy and there is belonging in that kingdom. And that kingdom is a perfect kingdom. Are you perfect? No, I'm not perfect either. So only perfect people can enter that kingdom. So what Jesus did is he made a way for us to go from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God. And he said, if we are willing to lay down our lives and make him the leader, we can actually enter the kingdom of God. And so I have one question for you. Which kingdom are you in right now? There are a million different ways to share the gospel. There are a million ways to share the simple truths of the gospel. This little sticker is really simple because it gives a visualization for it. But also the question that we ask at the very end, what is the question that we finished with? No, no. Which kingdom are you in? I'm telling you guys, people never think about that question until you actually make them think about that question. And there have been literally dozens of times where I've shared this with people and they've thought, and they're like, man, I think I'm in the kingdom of darkness where Satan is the leader. I think I'm far from God. And then you ask them, well, do you want to be in that kingdom or do you want to be in the kingdom of God? And they're like, obviously, I want to be in the kingdom of God. And you ask them, well, what's stopping you? They share all sorts of things. Church, hurt, doubt, disappointment, fear, sin. All sorts of things come up. But it's an important gospel sharing tool because it gets people to understand their relationship to Jesus, whether they are with him or whether they are apart from him. And so this is going to be challenging because I know you guys have never done this before before. And so please, there is no expectation of perfection here. The one thing I want you to absolutely do is to ask the question at the end. What kingdom are you in right now? All right, guys, sweet. So thank you for upholding your side of the bargain. Willing to be stretched, willing to be bold. My assignment for you is now go do it. You practiced it. You have a tool. You have the calling. Think of the non believers that you have in your life and begin to think like a strategist. How can I begin to introduce conversations about Christ into their lives? So, yeah, guys, give it up. Caleb, one more time. [00:21:17] Speaker B: Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of season two of the. Well, we hope that you enjoyed the message that was shared and we, we would love it if you would take a minute to like and subscribe. See you next week.