Sermon Date: January 28, 2007
Sermon Text: Rom 10:14-15 (NASB)
14 How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? 15 How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, "how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!" Romans 10:14-15 (NASB)
INTRODUCTION:
I am sure that all believers sitting in this room today have heard either me or another pastor share from the pulpit that it is YOUR duty to share your faith with the people God places in your path! WELL TODAY, YOU ARE GONNA HEAR IT AGAIN!
Today I want us to look at another aspect of being obedient in our walk with Christ… I want us to look at obedience in our witness of Christ to the world around us…
There are believers who have a deep desire to grow closer to Christ, but they cannot because they are unwilling and unyielding in their spirit to the call of Christ to share their faith with others.
Jesus told His disciples, and ultimately every person who professes Him to be Lord of their life that if they loved Him they would keep His commandments!
If we say we love God, if we profess love for Christ our Savior, the only way that love is reflected in thru our obedience to the commandments of Christ! If we are willfully disobedient as a matter of a lifestyle… then God’s word says that the Truth is NOT in us…
In Matt 28:18-20 we read what Jesus said right before He ascended into Heaven…
18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always , even to the end of the age." Matt 28:18-20 (NASB)
Here we find Jesus commissioned all of his followers to go therefore preaching and teaching and making disciples… that is that all believers are called to go forth into the world sharing our faith and what God’s Word says… We are called by God to do this so that people will accept Christ as Lord and Savior and would become His disciples as well.
And that is what our passage this morning is addressing… it addresses the need for people to share their faith.
How can they call on Jesus until they have heard of Him? How can they hear about Jesus unless someone goes and tells them… God is pleased with those who share His love with others by sharing their faith with others.
However, I want you to notice something quite peculiar about this commandment that Christ gave… Jesus told them WHAT they were to do… and Jesus told them WHERE they were to go, but Jesus never told them HOW they were to do it…
This was because Jesus knew human nature and the fact that different people react to different methods and interaction…
So what we need to know as believers today is that it is NOT the method we use to share Christ that is important, but simply THAT we share Christ! Methods and programs are useless if we do not share the Savior!
I believe that we would all agree that there are MANY methods of sharing our faith, and any of these methods will work if faithfully executed by a believer.
I want us to understand that even though there are MANY methods to sharing Christ, there are some foundational elements to our witness that are NOT open to negotiation… they simply must be there for our witness to be fruitful!
This morning the title of my sermon is Obedience in our witness and this morning I want to share with you 4 progressive building blocks to a faithful and fruit-filled life of sharing your faith!
The first building block to sharing our faith is that we know Christ as Savior ourselves. Without this essential building block our witness is false and not of God! So first and foremost to be obedient in our witness we have to be saved… we have to be ‘in Christ’… we have to accept Christ as Savior and Lord of our lives!
First I don’t believe people without Jesus CAN share Christ, but if they did try… it would be like a 1st year college student who wants to be a doctor giving medical advice! They may know the words, but they don’t know the truth!
Only a soul that has surrendered and submitted in obedience to Christ can share the Good News of the Gospel of Christ Jesus… and the salvation and joy that it brings! So the 1st step to sharing your faith is that you must have faith… you must place your faith and trust in Christ as Savior and Lord of your life…
But after we have been saved, we are commissioned by Christ to share our faith with others and the next building block in this process is that we…
1. LIVE OBEDIENT IN OUR WITNESS:
The 1st step to sharing our faith and being obedient to God is that we live a life that is worthy of the witness of Christ in our lives! Peter tells us in 1 Pet 2…
11 Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. 12 KEEP YOUR BEHAVIOR EXCELLENT among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God 1 Peter 2:11-12 (NASB)
Joe Aldrich said in his book, Lifestyle Evangelism, that “Christians are to BE good news before they SHARE the good news”
As believers, before we can begin to share our faith we have to be living out our faith in front of the world around us.
One would not expect a new born baby to be able to explain the details of his birth. Not at all, but we would nurture that baby to grow and eventually when they were mature enough we would begin to teach them how to communicate with others…
When a person comes to Christ, so many times we throw them to the wolves and tell them to go out immediately and share their faith… and there are those who are capable of doing that… but for the most part before we begin to share our faith we need to grown in Christ a bit and live out our faith in front of the world!
Now I want you to understand that I do know that God can work ALL things out for good, but to send a new born Christian to share his or her faith without pairing them with a mature believer is a recipe for disaster… for both parties!
Don’t misunderstand me, I am NOT saying that new-born believers are excused from sharing their faith, what I am saying is that when they do share their faith early in their Christian life they need a mature believer to be there and guide them.
The most important thing a new born believer can first do in the kingdom is to begin to live the life that Christ has called then to live. That is because living a life for Christ broadcasts to the world around you that something is different in your life and that something is Jesus!
Living for Christ openly and unashamedly opens doors for us to share our faith when people see us and the change that has taken place in our lives.
• We must learn to publicly live out our belief…
• We must learn to publicly live out our salvation…
• We must learn to publicly live out our faith in Christ…
St Francis of Assisi once said “Always preach the Gospel, and when necessary, use words.” What he meant was that we should live our lives in such a way that people will see Jesus in our hearts and lives even without us actually having to speak with them about Jesus.
You never know who is watching you, you never know who is paying attention to what you do and what you say and how you act in life. We are an example of Jesus Christ for someone in this world… what kind of example are you?
How important is it that we live out our faith in the world? George Barna recently conducted a survey that shared that ½ of all believers make the attempt to share their faith with the lost around them… and a very large portion of that number are indirect sharing such as lifestyle evangelism…
Now we do not have much information on how many people come to Christ as a direct result of lifestyle evangelism… but I can guarantee you that there are many who turn away when our lives don’t match our witness or our talk!
Barna shares with us that 100’s of thousands of Americans embrace Jesus Christ as their savior for the first time in any given year.
But only 7% of those who accept Christ are likely to do so in direct response to the outreach efforts of a pastor or preacher, whether it be through preaching, teaching, or a more personal form of interaction. (Barna Online 12/21/04)
So when a person comes to church and gives his or her life to Christ, we can really rest assured that it was not just the service they were in, but that God had been working on them for a long time and our lifestyle evangelism was key in them deciding that there was something to this Christianity thing…
The first step to evangelism and sharing our faith with those around us is in living out our faith in this world around us! When people see how real Jesus is to you, that is when He becomes real to them!
But we cannot stop at the 1st step, we must move forward, we must never stagnate in our walk with Christ, first we must live obedient in our witness, but then we must begin to…
2. ACT OBEDIENT IN OUR WITNESS:
The author of the book The God Chasers, Tommy Tenney says…
“The gospel of Jesus Christ is a practical gospel that is as concerned with doing something as it is with being something.”
”Good works won’t get you into heaven, but once you receive new life from Jesus, he expects you to do what he did for the rest of your life. It comes with the territory. Godly people do godly things or they aren’t godly.”
If we are going to live out our witness we must act as believers are called to act… We must be of the same attitude as Christ Jesus in Phil 2:6-8
“...although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped , 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient…” Phil 2:6-8 (NASB)
Christ came to this world to live as an example and we are called to follow His actions…
In Matt 5:16, Jesus tells you that you must, “…16 "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Matt 5:16 (NASB)
Peter also said in 1 Peter…
21 For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 1 Peter 2:21 (NASB)
Here we can see that Christ is calling us to BE the example for the world around us… to show the world what has changed in our hearts by DOING something to show them!
I want to ask you a very difficult question this morning… when is the last time you ‘acted out’ for God? When is the last time you KNEW God wanted you to do something and but for whatever reason… you did NOT do what God told you to do?
So often it is NOT a matter of knowing what God wants of us, but it is a matter of our selfish and prideful nature that does NOT want to do what God has called us to do…
AS BELIEVERS, we have to learn to set ourselves aside and become the willing servants that Jesus Himself became here on this earth… we have to learn to live as Paul revealed in his letter to the Galatian church…
20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. Gal 2:20 (NASB)
When we, as believers, can live our lives as Paul did… crucified in Christ… it is then and only then when we are being obedient in our witness AND ACTING as we should in Christ!
And when believers are willing to live like that it is a sure sign of a healthy body…a healthy fellowship in Christ!
I recently read about a man who has an illustration that helps us to see a clear picture of a healthy and healing church!
This man reminds us that the Bible says we as the Body of Christ and we should be acting a certain way!
• Believers are devoted to one another and give preference to one another as found in Rom 12:10.
• Believers love one another, Rom 13:8.
• Believers refrain from judging one another Rom 14:13.
• Believers edify one another Rom 15:14.
• Believers serve one another Gal 5:13.
• Believers don’t hurt one another Gal 5:15.
• Believers don’t provoke one another through conceit Gal 5:26.
• Believers help carry one another’s burdens Gal 6:2.
• Believers are patient with one another Eph 4:2
• Believers are kind and forgiving toward one another Eph 4:32
• Believers submit to one another Eph 5:21.
• Believers esteem one another Phil 2:3.
• Believers stimulate one another to do good works Heb 10:24.
• Believers don’t slander one another James 4:11.
• Believers don’t complain against one another James 5:9.
• Believers confess their sins to one another and pray for one another Jam 5:16.
• Believers extend hospitality to one another 1 Peter 4:9.
THIS IS WHAT A CHURCH THAT HEALS LOOKS LIKE AND ACTS LIKE.
But we can also find in God’s Word what is NOT the sort of actions that God desires from His children. In Jude 7 we can see…
“…just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. Jude 1:7 (NASB)
As believers, we must understand that when we receive the salvation of Christ in our hears, our earthly desires and fleshly desires cannot rule our hearts, but have to be put to death so that we can serve God!
For the world to see and know that you’re a follower of Christ… they must see you living what you say, but they also must see you DOING what you say as well. James shares that faith on the part of a believer without the matching actions… is a dead and useless faith!
People may SEE us as a changed person just from being around us and listening to what we say, but they are gonna KNOW beyond a shadow of doubt that something is different when we begin to reach out to them and meet needs and share Christ through Christian love!
To be obedient in our witness of Christ we first need to be obedient in the living of our faith, then we must move forward to being obedient in the acting out and actions of our faith in Christ…
But finally this morning I want us to understand that we are also called to be obedient by speaking, telling or sharing our faith with those God places in our path!
3. SPEAK OBEDIENT IN OUR WITNESS:
As Paul instructs us in our passage this morning in Rom 10:14-15 where he writes:
14 How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? 15 How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, "how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!" Romans 10:14-15 (NASB)
We are called to put feet to the Gospel and to allow God to lead us to put words to change God has made in our life!
What we need to understand is that when we share our faith it is NOT about how many people accept Christ… although that is our goal in sharing Christ, but the focus here is on obedience to the command and commission of Christ for all believers!
We must live out our faith and we must DO the things God desires us to do in this life to reveal our faith, but we MUST be able to put words to our faith as well…
JOHN MAKES THIS CLEAR IN 1 JOHN 1:1-3:
1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life—
2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen AND TESTIFY AND PROCLAIM TO YOU the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—
3 what we have seen and heard WE PROCLAIM TO YOU also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
1 John 1:1-3 (NASB)
The early church understood the importance of verbally sharing their eye witness accounts of Christ to the world around them… and likewise we too must be excited and faithful in sharing our witness of Christ to the world around us!
But FAR TOO often we think the timing has to be just perfect or that we must be in some super spiritual mood or situation for a witness encounter to happen.
But if the truth be known a witnessing encounter can happen at anytime and when it does we must be ready for it, like this story I once heard about a missionary mom wanted her children to know the importance of sharing their faith with lost people.
One day, ten-year old Ryan was driving imaginary race cars with his friends. Several minutes later he came bounding into the house and yelled, "Mom, you’ve got to come quick. Billy wants to accept Jesus into his heart."
Skeptical of the child’s sudden interest in spiritual things, Susie asked, "Ryan, I thought you were playing race cars?"
He said, "We were, Mom, but our cars wrecked. The accident was real bad so I asked Isabelle if she would go to heaven if she died. She said she didn’t know. I told him how he could know and now he wants to ask Jesus into his heart."
It is as simple as that, we must keep that child-like faith that God gifted us with to bring us to salvation… a child-like faith enables us to take any situation and use it for God’s purposes and glory!
But when we DO share our faith, not everybody is going to appreciate it or respond positively to it! I can remember after I moved to Seminary I was concerned for my dad and his salvation, so I wrote him a long letter expressing my faith and my concern and my love for him…
His response was surprising! He totally rejected my letter and was terribly offended that I would even bring up the subject of salvation… how dare I!
Now I can share with you now that letter from him shook me up and for almost 2 years I avoided even speaking to him about anything much less Jesus Christ!
But I want to share with you that I eventually got back to him and shared with him again, he rejected it again and it was almost 5 more years before he came to know Christ as Savior.
We need to understand that when we share our faith, we cannot get discouraged when others do not accept Christ, because there are those in this world that will NEVER accept Christ…
I recently read an account of a young Christian in the military who tells about sharing his faith with another serviceman!
He said… Our witnessing hour had concluded and I was passing through the rec room, on my way back to my barracks, and then I noticed him. It wasn’t hard to take notice, for his beer smeared cloth’s permeated the room.
As I was about to pass him by, the Holy Spirit gave me a nudge--stop and speak to him. I did. I introduced myself and asked him if he had heard about the Good news of Jesus Christ, and would he mind talking for a few minutes about spiritual things?
He said, yes HE HAD HEARD ABOUT JESUS, but could care less about what I had to say and that he was not interested in religion and told me to get lost.
I asked if he minded me sharing how Jesus had changed my life, and he said ok, so I shared my testimony and I again encouraged him to believe in Jesus. His reply surprised me… He said, “I could care less about your Jesus, get lost and don’t come back!”
The next day, I heard that base authorities found an Airman dead, sitting in a chair with a beer in his hand. When God says share your faith, do it. The Bible instructs us that we are NOT to wait because "behold, now is the day of Salvation" II Cor 6:2b
We are called to put feet to the Gospel and share Christ in words with those in our path. When we do this we are living in obedience to God.
All will NOT accept our testimony and many will reject it! But that does NOT excuse us from the commandment of Christ that we are to share our faith with others!
CONCLUSION:
For those of you who may be sitting there this morning thinking, pastor, what you say is good and all, but sharing my faith is NOT my gift… I live my faith, but I simply cannot speak my faith.
For all of you out there this morning, I want you to leave you with this story…
Peggy DesNoyers is psychiatric home-health nurse and her job has brought her in touch with many people who were hurting or angry and searching for answers to problems in their lives.
Peggy knew that Jesus was the answer, but she just couldn’t bring herself to speak about her faith to them and share Christ in words. She was the master of excuses, until one particular patient changed her life…
This patient’s name was Wanda. She was a 56-year-old widow in chronic depression. All of Wanda’s family had died, some of them in a very tragic manor, all within a span of a few years.
All the loss and grief overwhelmed her until life itself became a burden too much for her to bear. One day Wanda quit her job, went home, pulled the curtains, and refused to leave her house. She stopped eating, and even the smallest of tasks became too difficult for her to do. She was eventually admitted to the hospital… to the psychiatric ward!
After a short time in the hospital Wanda was allowed to go home, and Peggy was assigned to be her home-health nurse. Peggy would visit Wanda every week to make sure she was taking her medication, eating well and taking care of herself.
Over the course of 6 months Wanda seemed to be on the road to recovery as Peggy built a relationship with her...
Now Peggy knew and understood that Wanda did not know Jesus and that she needed Jesus as her Savior, but Peggy convinced herself that Wanda would soon be well enough to go to church and she would then hear about Jesus there.
But one day when Peggy arrived at Wanda’s house for her regular visit, she was surprised to find the door to the house wide open.
Peggy knocked and when there was no response, she pushed the door open and stepped inside. The living room was empty, so she went back to Wanda’s bedroom and found her on the bed. She had NO pulse and her body had already grown cold...Wanda was dead from an overdose of prescription drugs!
Right there beside Wanda’s body was a note addressed to Peggy that read: "Dear Peggy, I’m so sorry. I tried it your way, but I got tired. Please forgive me. I just couldn’t do it."
Peggy fell to her knees and cried her heart out to God: "Lord Jesus, she did try it my way. I gave her the best that I had. But it was my way. I didn’t tell her about you. I didn’t tell her about your way."
And right there on her knees beside [Wanda’s] lifeless body she made a vow to God that she would never allow another opportunity to tell someone about Christ pass her by…
[Regret for Not Witnessing, Citation: Peggy DesNoyers, "Silent No More," Decision (July/August 2000), p. 36]
Today I want to ask you, “Where are you in your obedience in sharing your faith today?”
So many believers are NOT obedient in their witness for Christ because they fail to verbalize their faith when God provides the opportunity for them to do so...
These believers simply believe that if they live a LIFE that reflects Christ and if we do the things Christians are expected to do… that is going to be enough and they are going to come to Jesus!
But, I am here to share with you this morning that living the life and doing things for Christ is an incomplete picture of who Jesus is! That is because Jesus also VERBALIZED the will of the Father… He came and preached… He shared God’s desire through WORDS!
Living the Christian life and doing Christian things DO NOT excuse us from sharing the Christian message with our mouth! We are called and commissioned by Christ to carry His Gospel of salvation to a lost and dying world! Where are you today?
It is my prayer this morning that your heart would be convicted beyond you ability to bear it…
• I pray that the burden for the lost overwhelms you to the point of despair…
• I pray that you are so convicted by the Holy Spirit about sharing your faith that you can turn nowhere but to Christ!
I pray for all the believers of this fellowship that they NOT ever have to experience what Peggy DesNoyers had to experience before they wake up and see that sharing our faith in words is important… and necessary!
This morning you have heard about 3 major pieces to sharing our faith… after we are saved…
We must 1st live as Christ has called us to live.
2nd we must do the things believers need to do to grow closer to Him… and finally
3rd we MUST be obedient in sharing our faith by using our own testimony… telling others what Christ has done for us!
Tonight at 5:00 I am beginning a share your faith class during our discipleship training hour. I encourage those who struggle in sharing your faith to be there and we will begin to look at some of the things that hinder us!
Then we will begin to try to overcome these things and we will begin to learn HOW to share Christ in a simple yet clearly effective way to those who are lost!
But this morning I want you to make things right with God and set your heart in the right direction. As Bro Jerry comes to lead us in our hymn of invitation I pray that you would come to this altar and give yourself BACK to God and surrender your will to Him!
Surrender to His call on your life! Surrender to His sovereignty and authority! Surrender to His commands! Surrender your will and submit to His!
For those here this morning who do not know Christ as Savior, this is a time for you as well. As these others are coming to the front this is a wonderful time for you to come forward and surrender your life to Christ for the first time!
The Holy Spirit is drawing you, and you can feel it deep within your heart, I pray that you do NOT resist Him but surrender to Him and allow Him to lead you to confessing your sin, and proclaiming Jesus as Lord and Savior!
Jesus has promised salvation to all who confess their sin, turn away from their wicked lives and acknowledge Him as Savior and Lord of their lives…are your ready to be delivered from the wrath to come… are your ready to be delivered from an eternity in Hell?
Are you ready to be part of the family of God and have an eternal resting place in heaven? Come this morning and confess your sin and Jesus will save your soul…
