00:07:07
Whatever we adore, whatever captures our affections, we want others to be captured. Steve, the naked preacher, beheld Christ, and he wanted Christ to hold others. So what did he do? He took the Gospel. He understood that he was an everyday missionary in his locker room.
00:07:23
And so, people that we shepherd, people that we lead even in our own lives, we want to recognize that as everyday missionaries, wherever we are, we want to be centered on Christ. This type of passion only comes from being with Jesus, only comes from marinating in His Grace, soaking in His loving kindness, and relying on the Holy Spirit’s power. First Corinthians 2 says this. Paul the apostle says, “To know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
00:07:59
So pastors and ministry leaders, as we equip and shape congregations to grow into the world. We want them shaped by the Gospel of King Jesus. We want them to be centered upon Christ.
A Message From Our Sponsors
The Transforming the Church podcast is a part of the Church Leaders Podcast Network, which is dedicated to resourcing church leaders in order to help them face the complexities of ministry. Church Leaders Podcast Network supports pastors and ministry leaders by challenging assumptions, providing insights, and offering practical steps that will help church leaders navigate a variety of cultures and contexts. Learn more at churchleaders.com/podcastnetwork
00:08:44
Number two, the naked preacher was consistent. Man, he showed up every single day as the same person. He was not an emotional roller coaster. I now know that he was walking by the Holy Spirit’s power, that he had peace and he had joy, and he also had self-control. Now let me pause here. This is in an NFL locker room where you have a cast of characters from all over the country, from all over backgrounds and various traumas and all types of craziness.
00:09:17
And he was utterly consistent. And that was one of the things that attracted me to him. And this Gospel he was preaching is how consistent he was and even the way he played the game, he was consistent. He was not the greatest athlete, not the biggest, not the fastest, but, man, he paid attention to details. He worked hard, he played really hard.
00:09:38
One of the most awesome things I ever seen him do. We’re playing the Buffalo Bills. Back then, the Buffalo Bills run was called a k gun offense. It was no huddle. It was fast, and you would get tired.
00:09:50
His job on defense was to call the plays. Well. One time he was so tired, he lifted up his face mask, vomited on the field, put his face mask down, called the defense, and then made the tackle. As an unbeliever, I’m like, if that’s what it means to follow Jesus, I’m interested because typically that’s when a person shuts down. So his ability was not that great.
00:10:15
There was something else fueling him, and I know that something else is Jesus. Also, there was this one time where the defensive backs, which, that’s the position that I played, and defensive backs, we’re loud, we’re extroverts. We like to have fun. We like to joke. One time the defensive backs were messing around and somebody threw some tape at another guy.
00:10:41
He ducked and it hit the naked preacher in the eye. And the naked preacher went up to the guy who hit him and said, if I didn’t love Jesus, I would hurt you. He was consistent. I’m like, wait a second. This man is really serious about Christ.
00:10:58
So those lit up with love become the Gospel, living a life of consistency, humility, and forgiveness. So the naked preacher taught us one, Christ centeredness. Number two, consistency. And all of this is through the Holy Spirit’s power. Number three, the naked preacher was clear in his presentation of the Gospel.
00:11:24
He was very clear in what his life was like before Christ, what his life was like, how he met Christ, and what’s happening in his life now. He shared how Jesus lived a sinless life that human beings could not live. That’s God’s active obedience. The obedience of Jesus is given to people who follow Him. His death on the cross, literally, substitution, like Jesus substitutes Himself.
00:11:51
This is mind blowing. Think about this. The One who is guiltless substitutes Himself for the guilty. The One who is sinless substitutes Himself for the sinful. The One who is holy substitutes Himself for the unholy.
00:12:03
The One who is righteous substitutes Himself for the unrighteous. It just makes no sense. That’s why it’s called grace. But then He rises from the dead on the third day to forgive us, to restore us, to reconcile us back to God. And then the Holy Spirit lives in us to make us a part of His family, not just so that we go to heaven when we die, but to be people that bring heaven to earth now.
00:12:26
That the blood of Christ is not only going to restore people, but even all of creation. One of the things the naked preacher would say is, you become a new creation in Christ with a new purpose. What a lot of people don’t know about the naked preacher is he grew up in Miami, Florida. He was a part of gangs growing up, and so he knew what it meant to come to Christ. And so he was very, very clear.
00:12:51
When we’re equipping people, when we’re preaching, when we’re teaching, we want to clearly communicate the Good News. I’m going to do just a mini sermon here. Right here. Listen, if you want to get good advice, you can go to a TED talk. There’s a lot of things that you can learn, but there’s only one message that makes a person new, that raises them from the dead, that heals the wounds, that binds the brokenhearted, and that’s the message of King Jesus, His life, His death, His resurrection, and the sending of the Holy Spirit.
00:13:29
So we want to have people that are clear. In a world with so much chaos, we want to be clear. In a world that’s so much noise, we want to be clear. Fourth, the naked preacher was also a cross cultural man. The naked preacher, he was an African American man, but he shared the Gospel with everybody on the team. White people, black people. We had an Asian guy on the team named Eugene Chung.
00:13:54
He shared the Gospel with him as well. It didn’t matter. He was an equal opportunity Gospel sharer. He reminded me of the Jewish men in Acts 11:20. And the scripture says this:
00:14:09
“Men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who came to Antioch, began speaking to Greeks, also proclaiming the good news about the Lord Jesus.” Those lit up with love cross ethnic boundaries and class boundaries to proclaim the reconciling love of King Jesus. Let’s pause here. This is so important. In the early church, as the Gospel was leaving Jerusalem and going to the outermost parts of the Greco Roman world, there were Jewish followers of Jesus who were only sharing the Gospel with other Jewish people. But then these men from Cyprus and Cyrene began to share with Greeks also.
00:14:54
What’s the big deal? And the big deal in the first century, Jewish people and Gentiles, that meant everybody else. had a enmity. There was a barrier. Racism and prejudice is not a new sin. It’s been around for thousands of years, and Jesus wants to take a bulldozer of grace and knock those walls down.
00:15:18
And the naked preacher did that. And so we want to make sure that as we’re sharing the Gospel, it’s not just with people who think like us, look like us, vote like us. We want to share the Gospel with people made in the image of God. And that is everybody from every single background. And here’s the good news.
00:15:39
The good news is this. My words and your words don’t change anybody. It’s the power of the Holy Spirit. This is what I do know. The more that I personally and the more that our church shares the Gospel and prays that people hear the Gospel, the more people come to faith.
00:16:00
I want to encourage you to light your people up with the love of Christ. Cross-culturally, when Jesus died, His red blood was to cover all of our colors. Those lit up with love, cross ethnic boundaries, and class boundaries to proclaim this good news. Fifth, the naked preacher was compassionate, too. Like, this dude was six-two, 245 pounds.
00:16:28
And this brother was compassionate. Compassion means to suffer with. Whenever one of my teammates had a problem, they were at the naked preacher’s locker receiving counsel. He was compassionate. He was patient to the worst of sinners like me.
00:16:46
Listen, I was not always Pastor Derwin. I was not always the man that I am now. He knew me before I knew Christ. And that brother was so patient with me. Today, I call on the name of Jesus because he would patiently walk with me.
00:17:05
He would patiently talk to me. He would patiently help me work through things of being a young husband, learning how to be an NFL player. Nothing in life was off limits to how he applied the Gospel. And that’s what we want to be able to equip our people with, as well. As everyday missionaries, the Gospel applies to everything.
00:17:28
So I was actually baptized on an away game. It was the Colts versus theRraiders. I was baptized in Oakland, California, at a hotel swimming pool. I was talking to the naked preacher. I had prayed to receive Christ, and he was like, let’s go get baptized. And so the naked preacher who helped me understand not only who Christ was, but five things about evangelism that can make evangelism great again.
00:17:58
He baptized me. My teammate Eugene Daniels was there. Eugene was trying to sing some old southern hymns. It was awesome. Guests at the hotel were looking at these big, muscular dudes be baptized.
00:18:10
And I just remember the next day playing against the Raiders. I had just had so much peace. Some of the Raider guys were cussing me out, and I was like praying for them. I’m like, man, something definitely happened to me because you were cussing me out. I was about to cuss you back, but God gave me a new heart, man.
00:18:29
Listen. May we be lit up with love so others can receive the light and be rescued from the darkness. These are five lessons from the naked preacher about evangelism. I want you to marinate on that. When the church is transformed, the world will be transformed.
QUOTES
“The naked preacher taught me about evangelism. He was Christ-centered, consistent, clear in his presentation of the Gospel, cross-cultural, and compassionate. When the church is transformed, the world will be transformed.” -Dr. Derwin L. Gray
“The more that I, personally, and that our church shares the Gospel and prays that people hear the Gospel, the more people come to faith. I want to encourage you to light your people up with the love of Christ.” -Dr. Derwin L. Gray
“May we be lit up with love so others can receive the light and be rescued from the darkness.” -Dr. Derwin L. Gray
PODCAST RESOURCES
• More from Derwin: www.derwinlgray.com and www.transformationchurch.tc/podcast
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
• Subscribe on Spotify
• Subscribe on YouTube
• Subscribe on Amazon Music
• The ChurchLeaders Podcast Network
CONNECT WITH DERWIN
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/derwinlgray
• Instagram: @derwinlgray
RATE, LEAVE A REVIEW, & SHARE
If you’ve been impacted by this podcast, please leave a rating and a review, and share with someone in your life.
