p>Matthew 28:18-20
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.”
Acts 1:8b -“…you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Luke 19:10 -“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”
As the following stories show, the right kind of motivation can be a very powerful thing.
STORY #1 – A reporter from Newsweek magazine once asked Bob Kuechenber, formerly of the Miami Dolphins, what motivated him to go to college. Kuechenber replied,
“Well, my father and uncle were human cannonballs in carnivals. When I was about to graduate from High School, my dad said I could do two things with my life: ‘Go to college OR be a cannonball.’ Not too long after that my uncle was performing at a circus. When he was fired out of the cannon, he missed the net and hit the ferris wheel. I decided to go to college.”
STORY #2 – A loaded mini-van pulled into a campground. The instant the van came to a stop at their assigned camp site, four young boys hopped out and in great haste began unloading all the gear and hurriedly setting up the tent. When they finished, the boys each rushed off to find firewood, while their sisters and their mother quickly unpacked their food and cooking utensils and then set up the camp stove. A nearby camper who had watched all this feverish activity walked over and commented to the children’s father: “That, sir, is some display of family teamwork! How do you motivate them to work like that?” The father replied, “It’s easy. You see, I have a system. No one goes to the bathroom until the camp is set up.”
STORY #3 – A man received a “SECOND NOTICE” from the IRS stating that his tax payment was overdue, and unless it was immediately forthcoming, the IRS would be forced to take legal action. The very next day, the man appeared at the IRS office the moment it opened with the overdue payment in hand. As he handed it to the clerk he said, “I would have paid sooner but I never received your ‘FIRST NOTICE.'” The clerk replied, “Well, the truth is, we ran out of the ‘FIRST NOTICE’ forms. Besides we discovered that the ‘SECOND NOTICES’ are much more effective.”
As I said, these stores show that the right kind of motivation can indeed be a very effective thing! Now, as you should know, today we are beginning our second annual fall discipleship campaign-and this year it will be centered around one topic: PERSONAL EVANGELISM. For the next six weeks or so we will be using Sunday morning and evening time slots to study, Bill Hybels’ best-selling book, Becoming A Contagious Christian. Our Ladies Bible Study ministry will be offering the same study on Tuesday mornings and evenings. On Wednesday nights we’ll take the hour after prayer meeting to learn how to deal with the objections or questions that inevitably surface when we share our faith with others. And, my sermons beginning today and running up until Thanksgiving will also focus on this issue. So, just like last year, for the next 40 days our entire church will be on the same sheet of music because we’ll all be learning everything we can about the same thing: sharing our faith-or as Hybels puts it, how we can become “CONTAGIOUS CHRISTIANS.”
And-I decided to share these three motivational stories because the purpose of my sermon this morning is to MOTIVATE you to be a part of this campaign. It is my prayer that what I say over the next half-hour will make you feel compelled to join us in this study-a study that I firmly believe is VERY important for the future of this church. And you know, the fact is many of us may NEED motivating. I say this because I’ve heard gentle rumblings that indicate that many of us may have doubts about this campaign. Some have asked, “Why do this? Why spend so much time learning to share our faith? And if that describes how you feel-if you have been less than excited about these next 40 days, then listen-because I have four answers to that question-answers that I think are very motivating!
So-WHY BECOME A CONTAGIOUS CHRISTIAN?
1. First, because witnessing-becoming a Contagious Christian-is GOOD for us.
In fact sharing our faith with others benefits believers like you and me in several ways.
A. For one, it helps us to GROW spiritually.
You see, when we keep our faith to ourselves-when we refuse to share our witness-well, our spiritual growth often comes to a grinding halt. This is because without a commitment to personal evangelism things like going to church, reading the Bible, and praying-well, we tend to look at all these spiritual disciplines as something we “just do.” Referring to non-contagious believers who suffer from this form of spiritual malaise, Hybels writes,
“Mechanically and half-heartedly, these people trudge along through the drudgery of quarantined Christianity.”
But, when we “break quarantine”-when we make a commitment to tell others about Jesus all this changes. For example, when we take witnessing seriously we tend to study the Bible with new energy, since we know that we need to sharpen our ability to communicate its message. We pray in specific name-address-phone-number terms for the people we are witnessing to and then with great anticipation, we watch how God answers those prayers. Plus, our desire to worship God grows because people who take personal evangelism seriously just naturally want to praise God for His great grace-for Who He is and what He does. Becoming a contagious Christian also motivates us to strive to live lives of personal purity. You see, personal evangelists realize that their lives are often their first opportunity to witness-and they know that their sin could give a lost person an excuse to say no to Jesus. This MOTIVATES them to live and work in such a way that their, “…light shines before men” and others see their good works “…and praise our Heavenly Father.”
B. And then a second personal benefit of witnessing is that it gives our lives a new sense of PURPOSE.
In his book, Hybels tells of a friend who was having a muffler put on his car. And, of course, we all know that sitting in the customer waiting room was hardly the highlight of his week. Most of us would look at this as wasted time. But this guy decided to make most of the time by looking over the notes he’d taken in his workbook in their church’s evangelism seminar-a seminar that is similar to the one we are starting today. As he was flipping through its pages, a stranger who was also having his car repaired suddenly asked, “What’s that you’re reading?” And just that fast, this guy’s visit to Midas was transformed from a nuisance to a golden opportunity. He shared the gospel with this guy and what would have been a purposeless morning turned into moments he used to literally make an eternal difference in someone else’s life.
C. And this leads to a third benefit. You see, witnessing is also incredibly FULFILLING.
In fact, nothing is as meaningful as being used by God to communicate His love and truth to people He cared enough to die for. Nothing is more satisfying than helping lead someone to put their faith in Jesus. In John 4 Jesus referred to this principle after His evangelistic conversation with a Samaritan woman-a conversation we’ll study later in this campaign. Do you remember that conversation by the well? It led to her confessing her faith in Jesus as the Messiah. Shortly after the woman left to tell her neighbors about her decision Jesus’ disciples came back and offered Him some food He said, “My food is to do the will of Him Who sent Me and finish His work…” Jesus was referring to His talk with this lost woman and in essence He was saying, “I just played a part in fulfilling God’s primary purpose of reaching this messed up world-and I EAT….THAT….UP!!!”
Well, this same deep satisfaction and fulfilment awaits all contagious believers. There is nothing as exciting and meaningful as leading wayward people to faith in Jesus. Nothing. Back in my years of youth ministry-we would often take teens on week-long trips like to camps like Centrifuge. I’m sure Steve and his volunteers know that those trips are physically grueling. The food is mediocre to poor. The schedule is non-stop. I remember having to get up at 6:30AM and-even though lights were supposedly out at 11:00PM, enforcing this usually kept me up until at least 1:00AM. I remember on those trips I was often frustrated with kids who ignored the guidelines of the week. It’s not fun having to appear to be the bad guy. Plus I was separated from Sue and the kids and sometimes all this would make me wonder why God had called me to that particular line of work.
But then, a couple days in, the week would begin to come together and the teens would begin to really get into their daily Bible study and nightly worship…and during the invitation time, our teens would begin to respond. Many of them would decide to become Christians at Centrifuge.
Now, we always served as decision counselors for our own kids so when they came forward I’d take them outside and sit down to talk and they’d say something like, “Mark, this week has helped me see that I need to become a Christian. Would you tell me how?” And as I began to tell them-my fatigue and frustration and home-sickness would quickly be forgotten because, NOTHING feels as good as answering that question. Nothing is as satisfying as watching someone you’re counseling pray and then literally experience the NEW BIRTH-NOTHING.
I know what Jesus meant because I too eat that up! It’s better than food! In fact, I think if all Christians could just “taste” this experience, they’d never stop sharing their faith. They’d become “addicts!”
Well, one motivation for learning to become a Contagious Christian is this fact that it is good for us in so many ways…but here’s another motivational answer to our question and here it is.
2. We must become contagious Christians…because lost people NEED to hear the Gospel.
You see, lost people face an approaching death without hope. As Paul says in Ephesians 2, they are “dead in their trespasses and sins…” We need to remember this and realize that if we don’t do something, they will die without Jesus, and spend eternity separated from God so they desperately need what we have! And, they don’t just need what we have to help them deal with death-they need to hear the good news of the Gospel to help them deal with LIFE! I mean, without Jesus they are lonely-empty. And, the sad truth is, we Christians tend to forget this fact-especially if we put our faith in Jesus as children-or if several years have passed since our conversion.
I remember our OB telling Sue that women forget the pain of labor. They forget how much it hurts to have a baby-and then he said that was a good thing because if women didn’t forget, the human race would be extinct! Well, I don’t know if women really forget that pain or not but I do believe that as time goes by we forget the pain we experienced before we met our Savior. We forget how bad it feels to go through life without Jesus. We forget the lonely emptiness-we forget the fear of death-we forget what it’s like to FEEL truly lost in life. So, I think we need to ask God to remind us-because surely that memory would motivate us to be like Paul-and share our faith “by all possible means so that some might be saved.”
Tony Campolo tells how he used to take his students from Eastern College, where he teaches, to Haiti for a week to staff a feeding program the college sponsors there. At the time they had only been able to raise enough money to feed 500 people at each meal-when there were thousands and thousands who were hungry. He said that during that week of ministry he always made sure each of his students had a turn at the toughest job-the most difficult job at the feeding station. The job I’m referring to wasn’t cooking or cleaning all the pots and pans. No, the toughest job was to stand at the door of the feeding center and after 500 came in, tell the rest there was no food. The person who had this job had to tell hungry child #501 and #502 and #503 and #765 and #893 and so on, “I’m sorry-there’s no more food. You’ll have to leave. Come back tomorrow and try again.” Campolo made sure each of his students had to do this job at least once because he felt it was important for his students to see hunger up close-he wanted these coeds to FEEL the pain of people who don’t have enough to eat because he knew it would motivate them to give more so that more could be fed.
Well, I wish there was a similar job we could do-something that would remind each of us that there are millions of people right here in affluent Montgomery County-who are HUNGRY-HUNGRY for the truth of the gospel. They try to fill the emptiness in their lives with material possessions or prestige or power but nothing satisfies because what they hunger for is personal a relationship with God. As I told you last week, we all are hard-wired to need Jesus. St. Augustine put it this way,”Thou hast made us for Thyself, O God, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee.” God constructed us to be dependent on our Creator for completion and fulfillment.
Do you remember the words to that old song Steve Green made popular:
“Every day they pass me by. I can see it in their eye;
empty people filled with care, headed who knows where.
On they go through private pain, living fear to fear.
Laughter hides the silent cries, only Jesus hears.
Sing the chorus with me!
PEOPLE NEED THE LORD. PEOPLE NEED THE LORD
At the end of broken dreams, He’s the open door.
PEOPLE NEED THE LORD. PEOPLE NEED THE LORD
When will we realize we need to give our lives…’cause people need the Lord…
…People need the Lord.”
Tomorrow when you go to work or to Costco…or when you sit in traffic…look at people…and realize their greatest need is for someone to introduce them to Jesus.
So we should learn to become contagious Christians because it benefits us-and because lost people need Jesus-but I think the most powerful motivation for all this should be the fact that…
3. …Jesus has COMMANDED it!
When our Lord said, “Go ye therefore and make disciples…” When He said, “You WILL be My witnesses…” – there was no “Please” involved. This was and still is His command-and you know, that should settle the issue! You see, if we truly acknowledge Jesus as Lord then we will obey His command, no “ifs, ands, or buts about it.” We will do all we can to develop a faith that is contagious. We’ll do all we can to share our faith such that more and more people decide to give their lives to Jesus. So, actually this message could have had only one point-because the fact that Jesus commanded that we become “contagious Christians” should be all the motivation we require. Jesus is our superior. He has issued this order. That does it. We should all realize that, as Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 9:16, “Sharing the Gospel with others is MY DUTY.” (NCV)
Now, some people say-“Yes-that was Jesus’ command-but it was issued to the apostles, so witnessing is just for church leaders or specially-gifted Christians and that leaves me out.” Billy Beacheam refers to this way of thinking when he says that many Christians believe soul-winning is reserved for “a select, saintly society of super soul-winners.” But this is a huge misinterpretation of Scripture because over and over in God’s Word we find admonitions directed to ALL believers-not just disciples or pastors or missionaries-Scriptural commands instructing all Christians to share their faith. For example 1 Peter 3:15 says,”In your hearts, set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to every who asks you to give the reason for the hope that is in you.” In 1 Corinthians 5:18ff Paul writes,”All this is from God, Who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us [ALL] the ministry of reconciliation: He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through [each of] us. And then, in 1 Thessalonians 1:8 Paul spoke of how the message of the Gospel had spread because of the Thessalonian church. You may remember – last week I told you that Paul intentionally by-passed at least two towns so he could start a church in the capital city of Thessalonika reasoning that the Christian faith would spread outward from there. Well it did! In fact, in this verse Paul commended all the members of this church-not just the leaders-not just the pastors-all the members of that church for their faithful witness. He writes:
“The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia-your faith in God has become known everywhere.”
So, why become a contagious Christian? Because our Lord has commanded it. Jesus has said so and that should be enough! I mean, it’s the same sort of answer parents give their kids when they ask why they have to clean their room or do their homework or whatever. They ask, “Why do I have to do this?” And we say what? “BECAUSE I SAID SO! I’m your parent-I’m your superior-that’s all you need to know.” But there is one other reason we should become “contagious Christians.” We should do so…
4. …because of our LOVE for God.
You see if you love someone, you care about the things they care about. And for some reason, the thing that God cares about most in this universe is people-sinful human beings like you and me. Do you remember what John 3:16 says about the motivation behind God sending His only Son into the world? Why did God send Jesus to die in our place? Because, He “…SO LOVED the world!”
Last week I told you one way we can know about God is by looking at His creation. And, as Hybels points out in his book, we see this aspect of His nature-we can literally see His compassion, His great love for all people-programmed into creation itself. I say this because scientists have discovered a principle of design built in the universe that they refer to as the Anthropic Principle. And basically it says that when we look at the world around us, it would SEEM that the universe was somehow designed to support and nourish human life. For example:
< Raise or lower the universe's rate of expansion by even one part in a million, and it would have ruled out the possibility of life.
< If the average distance between stars were any greater, planets like earth would not have been formed; any smaller, the planetary orbits necessary for life would not have occurred.
< If the ration of carbon to oxygen had been slightly different than it is, none of us would be here to breathe the air.
< Change the tilt of the earth's axis slightly in one direction, and we would freeze. Change it the other direction and we'd burn up.
< Suppose the earth had been a bit closer or further from the sun, or just a little larger or smaller or if it rotated at a speed of any different from the one we're spinning at right now. Given any of these changes, the resulting temperature variations would be completely fatal.
The lesson we can draw from this Anthropic Principle is this: Someone must have gone to a lot of effort to make things just right so that people like you and me could be here to enjoy life. In short, modern science points to the fact that people matter to our Creator.
And, as I said, if we love God-we will obey this command-we’ll do everything we can to become contagious Christians-because if you love someone, you care about the things they care about and the thing that God cares MOST about is people.
You know, the only time Jesus told three parables in a row was when He told of the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the lost son. And-our Lord shared this medley of stories to illustrate this fact that lost people have infinite value to our Heavenly Father. He cares about all humanity. He stands with His arms open inviting all people into relationship with Him. So, this means when we don’t obey this command-when we turn our backs on people around us who obviously need to hear the Gospel we in essence are turning our back on God Who loves all people so much that He sent His only Son to Earth to do what? “…to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Lee Strobel tells the true story of a woman who had an affair with an American soldier during the Korean war-an affair that left her pregnant. Shortly afterwards, the GI went back to the United States and she never saw him again. She gave birth to a little girl, but this little girl of course looked different than the other Korean children. For example: she had light-colored, curly hair. Well, in that culture, children of mixed race were ostracized by the community. In fact, many women would kill their children because they didn’t want them to face such rejection. But this woman didn’t do that. She tried to raise her little girl as best she could. For seven years she tried – until the rejection was too much. Then she did what nobody in this room could imagine ever doing. She abandoned her little girl to the streets where this little child was ruthlessly taunted by people. In fact, they called her the ugliest word in the Korean language, “tooki,” which means, “alien devil.” And it didn’t take long for this little girl to draw conclusions about herself based on the way people treated her. For two years she lived on the streets, until finally she made her way to an orphanage. One day, not long after she arrived word came that a couple from America was going to come adopt a little boy. All the children in the orphanage got excited because at least one child was going to have hope. One little boy was going to actually have a family. Well, this little girl spent the day cleaning up all the little boys-giving them baths and combing their hair-and dressing them in the best clothes she could find-all the time wondering which one would be chosen-which one would be adopted by the American couple. The next day finally dawned and the couple came and this is what the little girl recalled:
“The father so big-he was like Goliath come back to life. I saw his huge hands lift up each and every baby. I knew he loved everyone of them as if they were his own because I saw tears running down his face, and I knew if they could, he and his wife would have taken the whole lot of them home with them. Then he saw me out of the corner of his eye.”
Now listen to her description of herself.
“I was nine years old, but I didn’t even weigh 30 pounds. I was a scrawny thing. I had worms in my body. I had lice in my hair. I had boils all over. I was full of scars. I was not a pretty sight. But the man came over to me, and he began rattling away something in English, and I looked up at him. Then he took his huge hand and laid it on my face and then he said, ‘I want THIS CHILD. This is the child for me.'”
As the man reached out to her she said later, “The hand on my face felt so good and inside I said, ‘Oh keep that up. Don’t let your hand go.’ But nobody had ever shown that kind of affection to me before. I didn’t know how to respond. So, I yanked his hand off my face, and I looked up at him and spit on him. Then I turned around and ran away.”
Well, the couple returned the next day. They understood the suffering this little girl had gone through, the trauma she had experienced. In spite of her initial rejection of them, they went back to the little girl with lice in her hair and worms in her body and boils all over her skin. They said, “We’ve got to have this child. This is the one we want to adopt.” And they did. They named her Stephanie and they got her the medical attention she needed. They loved her just like she was her own biological child. She grew up and became a follower of Jesus Christ. She got married and has her own children now and lives here in the U.S.
I share this story because the actions of this couple are a reflection of God’s attitude and actions toward each of us. Our Heavenly Father looks at all people-and in spite of the fact that they are scarred by the ugliness of sin-in spite of the fact that they reject His love He says, “I’ve got to have that child!” And God feels this way about ALL people! Because of His great, GRACE-FILLED love more than anything He wants to adopt them as His sons and daughters. He has given us the task of communicating this wonderful truth to the people around us who are not Christians-and, if we truly love God, that’s exactly what we will do.
Well, now do you see WHY it is so important that we develop a faith that is truly CONTAGIOUS? Do you see why personal evangelism is so very important? Surely we all see that this would be a study that ALL of us would want to be a part of-I mean, there is so much to MOTIVATE us to learn all we can about how to share our faith! In a moment we’re going to sing a song-and I pray that each of us would mean the words, as we sing, “Take my life…” and use it God-use it to tell others of your love. I would encourage all of us to close our eyes and say,
“God, forgive me for those times I failed to witness-those opportunities in which you provided me a chance to share the gospel and I walked away. Teach me to do better. Help me to learn all I can from these 40 days. Then give me other opportunities. Take my life and use it to lead others to You.”
If you’re a Christian and you don’t have a church home perhaps God is leading you to join this one-to work with us in telling others about Jesus. We’d love to have you in this church family!
Or…maybe you are here and are not a Christian…and if that describes your situation in life, I hope you realize how precious you are to God and that you will decide to give your life to Jesus. In invite you to come forward now as we stand and share any decision you have made with me. Won’t you come as God leads?