p>Matthew 28
18 – Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
19 – Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 – and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
2 Timothy 1
7 – For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline.
8a – So, do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord…
9 -Who has saved us and called us to a holy life-not because of anything we have done but because of His own purpose and grace.
This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,
10 – but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, Who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
Acts 18
9 – One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent.
10a – For I am with you.”
This week I came across the following somewhat humorous re-telling of the story of Noah:
And the Lord said unto Noah: “Where is the ark which I commanded thee to build?” And Noah said unto the Lord: “Verily, I have had three carpenters off ill, Lord. Plus…the gopherwood supplier hath let me down-yea, even though the gopherwood hath been on order for nigh upon twelve months. What can I do, O Lord?” And the Lord said unto Noah: “I want that ark finished even afer seven days and seven nights.” And Noah said: “It will be so.”
But it was not so. And the Lord said unto Noah: “What seemeth to be the trouble this time?” And Noah said unto the Lord: “Mine subcontractor hath gone bankrupt. And-the pitch which Thou commandest me to put on the outside and on the inside of the ark hath not arrived. To maketh matters worst, the plumber hath gone on strike. This is not to mention the fact that Shem, my son who helpeth me on the ark side of the business, hath left to form a hip hop group with his brothers Ham and Japheth. Lord, I am undone.” And the Lord grew very angry and said: “What about the animals, the male and female of every sort that I ordered to come unto thee to keep their seed alive upon the face of the earth?” And Noah said: “They have been delivered unto the wrong address but should arrive on Friday.”
And the Lord said: “What about the unicorns, and the fowls of the air by sevens?” And Noah wrung his hands and wept, saying, “Lord, unicorns are a discontinued line; thou canst not get them for love nor money. And fowls of the air are sold only in half-dozens. Lord Thou knowest how it is.” And the Lord in His wisdom said: “Noah, my son, I do knowest. Why else dost thou think I am causing a flood to descend upon the earth?”
Now-might I venture to sayest that thy grins comest so readily because this story hit-eth home?
Sure it does-I mean, just like the Noah in this story, we human beings have been making excuses for ignoring or even disobeying God’s loving laws from the very beginning when Adam and Eve excused the first sin by blaming each other. And unfortunately, this is especially true when it comes to The Great Commission. I mean, we acknowledge this God-given charge. We even agree that it should be fulfilled. But the vast majority of us don’t do anything to HELP fulfill it-and we rationalize our inaction with a wide variety of excuses. Well, this morning I’d like to change this by confronting some of the excuses that we give when it comes to not doing our part to win this world for Jesus. I think if we can understand why these excuses are invalid-it will help us to get further down the road here at Redland when it comes to becoming contagious Christians.
One of the most common excuses given by Christians when it comes to their lack of personal evangelistic fervor is this:
1. “I don’t KNOW any lost people.”
And the sad truth is, most of us DON’T. We don’t have a single non-Christian friend because we tend to “hang” almost exclusively with other believers. In fact, statistics show that within 2 years of their becoming Christians the vast majority of believers have no significant relationships with lost people. They get so involved in the church that they center nearly every free moment of their lives around it and this leaves no time to continue relationships with friends who don’t know Jesus-much less cultivate new friendships with lost people. With this mentality, our “salt” in essence stays in the “shaker.” It’s almost as if the moment we become believers, we join a sort of “Christian club” because from then on we spend all our time with other “club members.” We withdraw from the world. Well, this must be changed, because in order for us to be effective evangelists we have to be IN the world. We have to intentionally get to know lost people. We have to leave our “Christian clubs” and go out there, making authentic friendships, through which we can share the thing that is most important to us-our relationship with Jesus Christ. Relational evangelism is effective because it allows the person we are witnessing to see that we really do care about them. Remember the old saying, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care?” This is true-true friendships help lost people see that we truly care about them. Plus our friendship gives them an opportunity to examine the was we live our lives and see that Christianity really does work. Then they begin to wonder what God could do in their own lives.
The fact is, nowhere in the Bible are we told that the lost are going to come in here to us. But repeatedly we are told that we must be willing to go to them. Remember? This was Jesus’ method. He was a “friend of sinners” Who went to lost people and spent time with them. For example, when the tax collector, Zacchaeus called out to Him, Jesus invited Himself over for a meal (Luke 19:1-9). That day in Samaria while the disciples went into town to get food, Jesus lingered at Jacob’s Well to get to know a woman who was leading an immoral life (John 4).
I believe Jesus set this example to help us see the fact that it takes relationships bring people into a saving relationship with Jesus. People bring people to the Lord. Think about it-where do you go when you have a problem? Who do you turn to when you need help or advice on some issue of great importance in your life? Or, for that matter, who do you talk to when you want an opinion on which kind of new car to purchase or which plumber to hire? Would you go to a perfect stranger in any of these situations? No-of course not! We would go to people we have a relationship with-people we trust. That’s what FRIENDS are for!
And-think about it from the other perspective-how do you feel when a stranger tries to talk to you about personal matters? How to you feel about interacting with people you don’t know when it comes to the below-the-surface issues in life? Do you enjoy it when complete strangers knock on your door and want to talk about religion? No-we don’t! Well, lost people feel the same way! They TURN AWAY FROM strangers but they TURN TO genuine friends.
In his book Hybels refers to this principle when he writes, “As people in our culture have gotten further and further from their Christian roots and heritage, they’ve gotten less and less comfortable talking to anyone-especially people they don’t know-about matters of faith.”
So to be a contagious Christian we need to make friends with lost people. You know, I’ve heard Hybels speak several times and he frequently refers to his love of sailing-especially racing. He enjoys entering his boat in these races and for a long time he chose only Christians-members of his church-to be his crew. There’s that “Christian club mentality” I was talking about. Well, one day he realized that hiring non-believers would provide him a great opportunity to share his faith and since then that is exactly what he has done. His sail boat is always staffed with non-believers-but through the relationships he builds with them, most of those sailors don’t stay that way. At the conference in Richmond this spring we met one of his converted crew members and it was so moving to hear him share his testimony. This guy said when he found out that the captain of their boat was a Christian pastor he was depressed, thinking the fun meter of the race would go from 10 to negative 1…but over the months he got to know Hybels and they became friends. They developed a deep trust in each other as they trimmed all those sails and weighed all those anchors-and through that friendship Hybels led him to the Lord.
Now, I don’t think many of you own a sailing boat, but THAT’S NO EXCUSE because you do have other opportunities to build relationships with the lost-even in our fast-paced county. You could pick a car pool that you know is made up on non-Christians. You could join a garden club or a craft circle or a bowling team or a children’s play group or whatever. But look for opportunities to go out there and introduce yourself to people who need to be introduced to Jesus Christ. Learn a new hobby to give you a chance to meet lost people. Follow Paul’s example and, “…become all things to all men so that by all possible means you might save some.” (1 Corinthians 9:22) If we are to complete our God-given mission we must do this. We must go to where the people are and build relationships with them.
Okay-a second excuse that many non-contagious Christians give is this:
2. “Evangelism is not my spiritual GIFT.”
Now-it IS true that God has chosen and specially-gifted some people to be evangelists. Ephesians 4:11 says,”It was Christ Who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, SOME TO BE EVANGELISTS and some to be pastors and teachers…” But, as I told you last week, there are also tons of Scripture references that command ALL Christians-not just those who are specially gifted-all Christians-to help fulfill the Great Commission. So, I believe when the Bible talks about evangelism as a gift-it is a gift that is to be used not only to lead mass crusades like Billy Graham but also to challenge the rest of us to witness-perhaps even to train us to do so.
I mean, the Bible talks about some Christians having the spiritual gift of giving-but we don’t expect them to do all the giving do we!? It also talks about some having the spiritual gift of service but that doesn’t mean the rest of us are off the hook when we see someone who is hungry or in need. Well in the same is true when it comes to evangelism. Each of us has a responsibility to share our faith. Each of us must always be ready to give an account for the hope that is in us.
Today in SS we will learn that each of us in fact have a unique witnessing style that fits us. In fact, you will take a test (or took) to help you discover which style is your own. Each of these styles is found exemplified in the life of a Christian in the New Testament.
A. For example, there is the CONFRONTATIONAL style of the Apostle Peter.
You should remember from our study of Acts that this big fisherman demonstrated this particular witnessing technique in his sermon on the first Pentecost Sunday. Listen to the following excerpt from his sermon and see if it doesn’t seem confrontational to you:
“Jesus of Nazareth…was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge and with the help of wicked men, you put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross. But God raised Him from the dead, freeing Him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him. God has made this Jesus, Whom you crucified Lord and Christ.”
Is that confrontational or what! Well, God used Peter’s unique “in your face” approach. Pierced to the heart, the crowd asked Peter, “What shall we do?” And Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized. Save yourselves from this corrupt nation.” Thanks to Peter’s frontal assault three thousand people trusted Christ that day. And even today some people will be reached only when they are confronted courageously and straightforwardly with their sin and their need to repent.
These people will only come to Christ if they are knocked over the head with the truth by someone like Peter and fortunately God has equipped certain believers even today here at RBC with the combination of personality, gifts, and desires that make it natural for them to confront others.
B. A second mode of witnessing is the INTELLECTUAL style of the Apostle Paul.
In our study a couple weeks ago we read about how Paul reasoned with the Jews and God-fearing Greeks in the synagogue in Athens, “explaining and proving” Christ’s resurrection. (Acts 17:3). He also debated with the philosophers of this Grecian city. And remember-in his famous sermon on Mars Hill-he ingeniously used the Athenians’s altar to an unknown god as an introduction to his presentation of the one, true God.
Now…Peter’s style would never work in Athens because instead of reasoning with the people he would have said something like, “What’s wrong with you people? Tear down that altar to an unknown god you heathen sinners! Repent and worship the true God, right now!” An approach like this would have failed miserably with the intellectuals of Athens because they needed a more persuasive, academic approach-like Paul’s. Many of you are gifted in this way.
C. And then in John 9 we read of a new believer who practiced the TESTIMONIAL style of witnessing.
I am referring to the man born blind who was healed by Jesus. You may remember that the religious leaders were very upset that our Lord had done this on the Sabbath. In their investigation of Jesus’ “crime” these religious hard heads finally cornered the healed blind man and asked him what he thought of his Healer. His answer was pure and simple, “One thing I know. I was blind and now I see.” When this simple testimony to the power of Jesus led to more questions he said, “Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, He could do nothing. Draw your own conclusions. I’ve drawn mine!”
Note that the testimonial style neither confronts nor intellectualizes. It simply tells the story of what Jesus has done in a person’s life. The basic message is: Jesus changed my life. He can change yours too. A personal testimony like this has incredible power!
D. A fourth witnessing technique is called the INTERPERSONAL style and it was used by the Apostle Matthew.
When he became a Christian he came up with the idea of throwing a party strategically designed to get his unsaved tax collector friends to rub shoulders with Jesus and the disciples. And there are some people, like Matthew, who are just gifted at building relationships with people in this way. This “party with a purpose” is the philosophy behind events like church picnics and our annual Super Bowl outreach party, or Bill Wehunt frying his turkeys, in that it gives evangelists like Matthew a chance to build relationships with the lost.
E. A fifth style of witnessing is referred to as the INVITATIONAL style.
And when I think of this one I remember that Samaritan woman at the well-because when she realized that Jesus was the Christ, the long-awaited Messiah she excitedly left her water pots at the well and ran into the city begging people to come and hear Jesus for themselves. They did and John’s gospel tells us that many of the Samaritans believed and became Jesus’ followers. This Samaritan woman was an invitational evangelist. She knew she wasn’t prepared to articulate the message in a powerful way, so she invited her friends to come and hear Someone Who could explain it more effectively.
F. And then, the final mode of witnessing is called the SERVANT style.
…and it was practiced by one of the most endearing people in Scripture, a woman named Dorcas.
Acts 9 records that she tremendously impacted her city with her deeds of kindness, making garments for the poor and forgotten and distributing them in the name of Christ. Now, Dorcas may have never knocked on a door; it’s unlikely she ever preached a sermon. Yet through her acts of service she pointed the people of Joppa to the God Who could transform human hearts and fill them with His love. Dorcas was what is known as a “service evangelist.” She used her unique serving gifts as tangible expressions of the Gospel message.
Maybe you feel drawn to it as well because you have a tender spirit and a helpful heart. And if you do, then learn to use this witnessing technique because there are many unbelievers out there who are open to becoming Christians but the one thing they lack is someone like you to soften their hearts through your acts of selfless service.
So, the fact is no one can excuse their lack of evangelistic fervor by saying I don’t have the spiritual gift of evangelism-because all of us have the responsibility to share our faith and all of us do have a unique God-given style that He expects us to use.
A third excuse used by non-contagious Christians is this:
3. “No one will LISTEN.”
Now, next week we’ll study how to get people to listen-how to win the right to be heard-but the fact is even if you are serious about being a contagious Christian-even if you hone your witnessing skills to a fine edge, there are those who will not be open to hearing what you have to say. In life you and I will meet people who will be cold to our witness-others who will even make fun of our faith-but I want you to understand-THIS DOESN’T GET US OFF THE HOOK.
First, we never know who might be listening as we share our faith with someone.
This weekend Strobel told us of a time he was witnessing with someone who just was not receptive. He felt bad about this cold shoulder treatment and wondered why God had put him in that embarrassing situation. Well, years later a man came up to Strobel and thanked him for leading him to the Lord. Strobel didn’t recognize the man so he asked for an explanation and the man said he had been in the room the day he had shared his faith with the unreceptive man. But he had been on his hands and knees out of sight laying tile. He had listened to Strobel share the gospel. He thought about it for several days before inviting Jesus into his heart and life. He also shared what he heard with his entire family and they too decided to become Christians. Strobel refers to this as “ricochet evangelism.”
So witness because you never know who’s listening. But there is another reason we aren’t off the hook when people are not receptive to our witness. You see, even if they don’t listen we can still pray for them and there are lots of ways to do this. One example of this was part of the old Survival Kit for New Christians study that came out 20 years ago. One of it’s chapters dealt with the “5 by 5 Principle of Witnessing” and basically it had you list five people you knew would be open to hearing the gospel. You made a commitment to talk to them-much like the people we cited (will cite) on an impact list in the first session of our study of Hybels’ book. But in our Survival Kit study we also had to list five other people we knew would NOT be open to our witness-and we committed to pray for each of them daily. This is the same thing Paul encouraged Timothy to do in 1 Timothy 2 where he said,”I urge then, first of all that requests prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone…this is good and pleases God our Savior, Who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:1, 3-4)
We see Jesus doing this-praying for those who had rejected His message-right up until His crucifixion. John Stott has pointed out, “Jesus seems to have prayed for His tormenters actually while the iron spikes were being driven through His hands and feet; indeed, the imperfect tense of the original Greek suggests that He keep praying, kept repeating His entreaty, ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.'”
So if they won’t listen-then pray for them. Pray that God will do something in their life to help them see how much they need to know Jesus. Pray that God will give you opportunities to bring up spiritual issues and the wisdom and the words that these people need to hear. Pray that He would open their eyes to the emptiness of life without Him. Pray that God would help them see their need for forgiveness. Pray that He would remove the confusion they have about Him and the life He offers. But-PRAY!
Lee Strobel told us of a time he was about to baptize a woman in front of a large crowd at church. He says, “I turned to her husband, who was standing with her and said, ‘Have you given your life to Jesus?’ This tough construction worker stunned me when he burst out crying, ‘No, but I want to right now.’ So I prayed with him to receive Christ as his Forgiver and Leader…and then I baptized the two of them together. As the service ended, a woman ran up to me, threw her arms around me, and kept saying through her tears, ‘NINE YEARS! NINE YEARS! NINE YEARS!’ She was the man’s sister. She and her sister-in-law had been praying for this man for nine long years, seeing no glimmer of spiritual interest on his part.
But they persevered and kept praying. ‘AND LOOK WHAT GOD DID TODAY!’ she exclaimed.
I’m sure these women would say, “When they won’t listen-don’t quit-PRAY!” I imagine our own Martha Davis would say the same thing because she prayed for the salvation of her daughter-in-law for five years until finally, on her death bed she received Christ. Well, think of it-who have you given up on? Who have you written off? Remember, nothing is impossible with God and He wants that person to come to Him even more than you do. So, when they won’t listen-PRAY!
In fact today I’d like to use something we learned this weekend and challenge you all to join in praying for one lost person for one minute at 1PM every day between now and Christmas. We’ll have cards printed up this week for you to use as reminders in this 1-1-1 emphasis and I hope you’ll all participate. Let’s each pray that this one person we know is not open to our verbal witness will become open and will come to the Christmas Cantata. And one final excuse many non-infectious believers give is this:
4. “I hate to admit it but I’m just plain AFRAID to witness.”
They’re afraid of failure-afraid of rejection-afraid of saying the wrong thing-and you know, none of these fears are well founded. For example, Jesus was rejected-not everyone responded to His message favorably. And another thing-you can never say the wrong thing, if like that blind man in John 9, you just tell people what Jesus means to you. Each of you who walk with Jesus have a powerful testimony to share. But most important-we need to realize that as we read in our texts this morning, in every witnessing encounter the Lord is with us. I mean, we are never on our own in any evangelistic conversation. God is with us and He will help us know what to say and when to say it.
In fact-the Bible teaches that God has always gone before us. He’s been at work in the heart of the person we are witnessing to long before we got there. Remember? In John 6:44 Jesus said, “No one comes to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draws him.”
We experienced a powerful example of this in Mexico this summer. One day we left Oriental and drove to the nearby community of Carmen to do street evangelism-something that doesn’t seem to work here in America, but is very powerful indeed in Mexico. We divided into teams of 3 or 4 and made sure each team had a translator and then we went door to door asking people if they were Christians. If they said, “no” then we asked if they’d like to become one. We also took Gospel tracts in Spanish with us to distribute. Well, I was in a team with Ann Michael and Pepe Rojos, our main translator and guide for the week. While we were at one house Pepe was speaking with a woman and between my prayers for Pepe and the woman, I saw another woman pass by and I handed her a Spanish tract. She graciously accepted it and continued on her way. About 30 minutes later as we were walking down another street, she came and found us and asked about the tract. She introduced herself as Irene. She told us that she had read the tract-and had come looking for us because she wanted to ask us a question, namely why we used the name “Jehovah” in the tract. You see, she had been taught it was a sin to do so-that no one should utter God’s name. In the conversation that followed I learned she had been a catholic but had left the church…and become involved with some Jehovah’s witnesses who had told her that it was unlawful to utter or even write God’s name, Jehovah. With Pepe’s help we had a very interesting discussion in which I discovered she did not have a real Bible-just the Jehovah’s Witnesses version, which they have changed to support their false teaching. Well, after being directed to her house, we promised to come back the next day and give her a Bible. That’s what we did. The next day after VBS we came back-and when we arrived we found Irene and four other women talking in front of her house. We gave her the Bible and then for the next 90 minutes we shared the gospel with Irene AND all of her friends. Each of them decided to become Christians and prayed to receive Christ. As part of this conversation one of the women told us that 2 years ago she had cancer. She was given chemo treatments and had been very sick. She said that after the last treatment, she had a vision in which God told her that a day would come when He would use her to evangelize her community. She had put off becoming a Christian since this vision, thinking she had to clean up her life first and make herself somehow worthy of God’s love.
We helped her to see the fallacy of this way of thinking-and as I said, she became a Christian by responding to the unmerited grace of God.
But I want you to note that her pre-conversion testimony showed that God had indeed gone before us. In that vision, knowing that Ann, Pepe and I would meet her in front of Irene’s house in the summer of 2004…God had told her He would use her to evangelize the community of Carmen! So Jesus was with us-AND had gone before us-even in a remote part of Mexico! Well, the same is true in each evangelistic encounter. Whenever we witness we are literally joining almighty God in His work-so there IS nothing to fear!
But, then again, there IS something to fear when it comes to personal evangelism. I say this because, I think we should be afraid if we DON’T witness. I mean, I know I would be afraid of the shame I would surely feel at the end of my life…to face my Savior Who shed His precious blood for the sin of all people….Jesus-Who loves everyone so much that He would literally rather die than be without them-Jesus-Who has commissioned me to share this wonderful news with everyone. I would be ashamed indeed to stand before Him and have to explain why I hid my faith under a bushel, like that foolish steward who buried the talent that had been entrusted to him. Any excuse I would make-would only compound my shame-and I don’t want to feel shame on that day. No-I want to stand before Jesus and hear Him say, “Well, done thou good and faithful servant! I’m proud of the way you shared the Gospel!”
Let us pray.