I know that most of you are Christians. But what I do not know is how many of you are effective Christians. How many of you can use your faith in an effective way?
I know that most, though not all, of you are professed believers. You have publicly acknowledged Christ as Lord; you have followed His command to be baptized; you have found your way into His church. Most of you are Christians. But how many of you are effective Christians? How many of you make a difference in this world, how many of you make a difference for someone else?
I am not asking, "Are you saved?" I am asking, "Are you effective?”
I am not asking, "Are you active in the church?" I am asking, "Are you effective?" “Do you make a difference?"
I am certainly not asking, "Are you happy?" or "Are you getting what you want out of your church?" or "Are you enjoying yourself?" I am not asking any of the self-indulgent questions by which religion is so often judged. I am asking one and only one question: "Are you effective?" can you make an impact? Does it matter to anybody that you are a Christian? Can you tell someone the Christian story so that they can receive the good news too? Are you effective?
To the disciples of Jesus, the drama of the last week of His life must have seemed like a walking dream. They were in it, they were experiencing it, but it must have seemed unreal. It must have been incomprehensible: too much to take in, too much to deal with. First the days of tramping toward Jerusalem, following a Jesus who seemed to know exactly what he was doing and where he was going, but who kept the secret closely.
And then the triumphal entry, the cries of Hosanna, the confrontations at the Temple and in the streets, the midnight arrest and the mockery of a trial. How in the name of common sense had it come to this, to a cross on the slopes of a place called Golgotha? How had it come to this, to an execution alongside common thieves? How had it all happened? Their minds must have been reeling with the fast pace of incomprehensible events.
To top it all off, by the time we get to the portion of Luke’s Gospel I’ve read today, they have also encountered the risen Lord, something for which nothing in all their experience had prepared them. And so it’s easy to imagine the disciples confused, emotionally distraught, upset, self-absorbed; it’s easy to imagine them trying to deal with their own feelings and trying to sort out their own reactions. In short, it’s easy to imagine them being pretty ineffective at this point in their journeys.
These disciples had seen things they believed to be unfair and horribly disappointing on Friday. Then on Sunday they saw something they would never have believed possible; these folks were in shock! These folks were in turmoil! And these men and women had to have been ineffective. They were too confused and wrapped up in themselves to be able to get out and make a difference with anybody else. There was too much going on in their own lives for them to be effective with anyone else’s life.
But their encounter with the crucified and risen Lord was designed to change that. The cross and its meaning was about to confront them and turn them around and make them effective.
The question is not, "Are you saved?" or "Are you a Christian?" or "Are you happy with church?" The question is, "Are you effective?" "Can you tell the good news to someone else?"
This morning I want you to learn that encountering the cross of Christ can make you effective. I want you to see that when you face the crucified Christ, and when you take hold of what He has done for you in the cross, you can become effective. In fact, I would argue that you will never be effective until the cross works its way into the fabric of your life. Let me suggest three things about this; let me suggest that when you acknowledge the cross, experience the cross, and examine the cross, then you will become fully effective. Acknowledge, experience, and examine the cross.
I
First, you and I will have to acknowledge the cross. We will have to grapple with the fact that the suffering and pain of Christ on that cross is real, and that in that suffering Christ is identifying with the harsh realities of human life.
We will begin to be effective as Christians only as we acknowledge that the cross deals with real human need. We will become effective as we are willing to tell others that we know the dirty little secret about all of human life; the dirty little secret is that all of us are sinners, all of us are in trouble, all of us are in need –and that the cross has dealt with that.
Luke tells us that as the disciples were standing around talking among themselves, Jesus, crucified and risen, stood among them and spoke. And Luke says they were startled and terrified; in other words, they were ineffective. Now notice what the risen Lord says to them:
"Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see." And he showed them his hands and feet.
You see, to become effective, you begin by coming to grips with the harsh, flesh-and-blood reality of the cross. Jesus Christ has suffered, Jesus Christ has bled, Jesus Christ has died for the sins of humanity. And in some sense it doesn’t matter whether you like it or dislike it, believe or disbelieve it, face it or ignore it; it’s there. It happened. And as Jesus then comes to his disciples, who are filled with fear and with doubt, who are ineffective because they are all wrapped up in their own needs, he begins the march toward effectiveness by making them face the central fact of all human history: that Christ has died for human sin. It happened.
So the first step toward being effective is telling what you know about the need of humanity and about God’s provision for it. Don’t worry if you cannot explain it; don’t trouble yourself if you don’t understand it thoroughly. Just face and tell the awesome and awful reality: that Christ died. Tell that to somebody. You will be on the way to becoming effective.
You see, I find that some of us want to sugarcoat our witness. We want to tell people what they want to hear instead of what they must hear. And we are ineffective when we do that. We want to make our faith palatable, so we market it with all the surface things. "Come to my church, you will enjoy the fellowship. You will like the atmosphere." "Come to my church, we serve good meals and have entertaining services." Worst of all, "Come to my church, the preacher will not offend you. " We will tell them anything and everything except the one thing most important, the one thing we do know, that they need a savior, that they are in trouble, and that they need to face reality.
You do know that, and you can tell what you know. As the old spiritual puts it, "You may not preach like Peter, and you may not pray like Paul, but you can tell the love of Jesus and say He died for all."
You will begin to be effective if you will tell them what you know, that the cross of Christ is real; that his hands were pierced and his feet scarred for the terrible reality of human sin; and that this is the central fact of human history. Acknowledge the cross and tell them what you know.
II
That will get you started on being effective. But the next step beyond acknowledging the cross is to experience the cross, and tell them about that. If you are to be effective and if you are to get past your feelings of inadequacy and of incompetence, you will have to experience the cross for yourself, and then tell them what you know about that.
You see, some of us learned about witnessing as all this propositional stuff. Some of us think we are supposed to go around pushing theological propositions down other people’s throats. We have little booklets of spiritual laws or we carry little tracts with diagrams or we walk them through certain scripture verses, but it’s all propositions. It’s all abstract ideas. And all the while the real issue about effectiveness is whether the ideas are your ideas, whether you know and you own personally the experience of the cross.
These disciples who had this visit from Jesus were still not fully brought on board when he showed them his hands and his feet. They had to acknowledge the reality of his cross, they did acknowledge the reality of his presence, but that wasn’t quite enough. The Scripture says, "In their joy they were still disbelieving and wondering". Isn’t that interesting? In their joy they were still disbelieving and wondering. A mixture of feelings.
And then the crucified and risen Jesus does an interesting thing. While the disciples still stand around with their mouths hanging open and with their minds all abuzz, Jesus says to them, "Fellows, have you anything to eat?" And he sits down and eats a piece of fish.
What’s going on? I believe that Jesus, sitting down to eat a piece of fish, is trying to move them to the next step by helping them experience his presence. He has chosen to sit down and eat with them. He has chosen to let them see just how real he is and how alive he is. He is sitting down with them, he is identifying with them, he is living life along with them, doing ordinary things like eating along with them, and that helps them to experience him.
Christians become effective when they not only acknowledge that the cross is a necessary reality. They become more effective when they experience the presence of the Christ of the cross. That’s something personal they can tell about. That’s a different level of reality.
I’m really interested in this phrase that tells us the disciples had a mixture of joy and of disbelief. I suspect that describes a whole lot of us. We are a mixture of joy and of disbelief. We have moments when we think we understand, and then there are times when we know we don’t. We have occasions when the whole wonderful reality of the Christian experience is right there, and we can just about get it all together, and then there are times when it seems as though nothing makes any sense. But you do have something that cannot be taken away. You do have something nobody can argue with. And that is your own personal experience with Christ and with the cross. Tell that and you will be effective. Tell your story. Tell your history. And it is amazing how effective you can become.
When I am trying to share the gospel with someone, I find that after about five minutes of scripture study and of prepositional stuff, their eyes glaze over. It’s not coming through. It’s not making sense. But if I stop and say, "Listen, let me just tell you about me. Let me just tell you some of the things that have happened in my life" – if I do that, they will listen, they will ask questions, and they will learn. If you have experienced the cross, and if you have experienced its forgiveness, just tell that story, and you will be on the way to becoming effective.
It is said that the great Swiss theologian Karl Barth, who wrote volume after volume of powerful theology, was once asked what was the greatest truth contained in all his writings. And Barth, learned, prodigious, a complex man, is supposed to have answered, “Jesus loves me, this I know.” If you know that Jesus loves you, if you have experienced the cross, you have something to tell. Tell what you know and you’ll be effective.
III
Finally, however, if you truly want to become an effective Christian, you will need to examine the cross. You will need to think through the meaning of the cross. If you want to be able to reach all segments of humanity, if you want to make a total impact for Christ, you will need not only to acknowledge the cross and its necessity; you will need not only to experience the cross and tell others what Christ has done for you. You will also need to make it complete by examining the cross. You will want to learn to think spiritually.
The issue of effectiveness for many Christians is determined by their laziness. By their laziness. If you are not willing to think; if you are unwilling to study; if you will not exercise your God-given brain to think through, openly and honestly, your Christian faith, then you will curtail your effectiveness. You will narrow the span of people to whom you can address yourself. You will be less effective if you take a passive, lazy approach to discipleship.
In Luke’s Gospel, when these disciples have recovered, more or less, from the appearance of Jesus among them; when they have stood around and watched him devour that fish, and they’ve finally gotten comfortable with what has happened, then Jesus makes the experience complete. He equips them. He empowers them with knowledge.
He says, "’These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And he said, ’You are witnesses of these things.’"
Jesus opened the scriptures and studied with them. He taught them. He interpreted to them the things they were seeing and feeling. And then, he said, now you have a context in which to understand what is happening to you. Now you have a framework to understand it all. "You are witnesses of these things." You can tell what you know. You can be effective.
The issue is deliberate ignorance. The issue is willful laziness. You will curtail and compromise your effectiveness if you are not doing systematic, careful study. You will narrow the span of people you might be able to reach if you just refuse to grow. I wonder why it is, despite every effort we have made to establish new classes and to do enlisting, we still have only maybe half as many in Sunday School as we have in worship. I wonder why it is, despite every attempt made to keep it stimulating and relevant, that Wednesday nights we could almost meet in a phone booth. You and I live in a city which values competence; we live in a world which values knowledge. And so if we choose not to learn and not to grow, we cut our effectiveness way, way back.
Years ago when I was campus minister at the University of Kentucky, we conceived of an idea for small group ministry. We called these small groups of six to eight students Yokefellowships. Paul calls Timothy his dear yokefellow, joined with him in a team. The idea was that in these Yokefellowships we would have students doing Bible study, prayer, and a lot of personal sharing. That’s all. That was to be the whole scope. Just pray and share and study, nothing more.
But after about a month of these groups some of the group leaders came to me. One said, "My group want to start a ministry in the dorm." Another said, "My group wants to raise money for missions." Still another, "This group wants to work with the children at the Baptist Center." And I said, "No, no, that’s not what these groups are for. These groups are for prayer and sharing and for study. These groups are for you. They are not supposed to be action groups. They are not supposed to be mission groups. These are study groups."
Another couple of weeks went by, and the same thing happened. Student leaders said, "But they still want to witness in the dorm. They still want to raise money. They still want to work with troubled kids." This time there was even one group that wanted to start a witness in a fraternity house. You would have to know the old South, party-school reputation of the University of Kentucky to appreciate how radical a suggestion that was. Basketball, booze, broads, but not Bibles!
And again, program pusher that I was, I started to say, "No, no, that’s not what these are all about." But all of a sudden it hit me. These students were only doing what comes naturally when you train yourself. These students were only following through on the natural results when you study and think and grow. They were ready to do something. They were ready to witness. They were becoming effective. They were ready, now, to tell what they knew. They had examined the cross, examined the meaning of their experience.
Oh, I tell you, examine the cross, study the significance of your faith, and there is not a person in this room who could not become an effective, productive, witnessing Christian. Telling what you know.
Are you an effective Christian? You can be. Not one person here this morning has to remain ineffective. It just means that you have to work at becoming effective.
Tell them that the cross is real, that Christ is real, that human need and human sin are real. If this is all you know, tell them what you know, at the most basic level. You can begin to be effective with that.
But then tell them too how the cross has impacted you. Tell them how you have experienced the crucified and risen Christ. Tell them what you know best, your own story, and you will be more effective.
Then go on and think; go on and examine. Go on into the Scriptures and into the height and length and breadth and depth of the faith. Go on and grow intellectually and spiritually. And tell them as much as you can, and you will be more effective still.
But above all, tell them. Just tell them something. Tell them a savior died. Tell them a savior died for you. Tell them a savior died for them. Redeeming love shall be your theme, and shall be till you die.
"E’er since by faith I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be ‘till I die."
