One of the abilities we have been given is the ability to express ourselves in a variety of ways. And usually we have learned to express our feelings consistent with what we are trying to say.
For example, when we are excited about something, we usually express it as follows: (express it enthusiastically) "Guess what! I have great news!" However, what if we said it this way, (in a flat monotone voice) "Guess what. I have good news." We would think something is wrong, right? We would sound like Eyore!
There are a lot of things that get us excite - sports, a date, an accomplishment, but does our Christian faith get us excited? Does it make us shout for joy? Does it make us want to share it with others? Does it make people want to ask us what the joy and hope in our lives is all about?
As we continue our series, Bible Jeopardy, this morning we are going to briefly focus on a much talked about aspect of the Christian life and way. What it is? Let’s find out.
For some people it is the hardest thing to do regarding the Christian faith.
What is witnessing/evangelism/sharing your faith?
In I Peter 3:15 we are asked to give a reason for the hope that you have.
What is witnessing/evangelism/sharing your faith?
It produces more guilt and frustration in a Christian than just about anything else.
What is witnessing/evangelism/sharing your faith?
What is witnessing? What is sharing your faith?
David Durey provides us with what I believe to be an outstanding definition of witnessing. (Overhead)
"It is sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God."
Notice that it involves sharing. And it involves sharing the gospel, the good news of Jesus. Not the good news about the church; or a program; or a preacher. It is sharing the good news of the Jesus Christ.
And what is that good news? It is that we can be forgiven; that we can stop looking over our shoulder and wondering if our past will ever catch up with us; that God wants to help us live in the way we were meant to live. That’s the good news we share.
But how do we share? That is where our text comes in. In verse 16 gives us some hints. We do so in a gentle and respectful way with a clear conscience.
I don’t know about you but I resent a hard sale. I resent someone pushing me to make a decision before I am ready.
But that has been the mode of evangelism for many, many years. Now it may work is some cases, but not in the majority. It turns people off and that is contrary to what Peter says in this passage to believers in other places.
How did you come to faith? May be your back was against the wall. But not because the person who God was using at that moment in your life put you there it was because the Holy Spirit put you there. His conviction is much more powerful that our conviction.
I did not come to faith in Christ under a high-pressure sales tactic. I came to Christ, when all at once, the Holy Spirit made it clear what I needed to do and I did it in response to the gentle but clear working of the Holy Spirit. Which brings us back to the definition of witnessing that we are working with.
Witnessing turns into a sales pitch when we leave the Holy Spirit out of it. Yes, it is God who works through His spirit to make clear the condition of our hearts to each one of us. But, when we start to do the work of the Holy Spirit, we get in trouble.
I remember going to a church that I had contacted for a part-time ministry position during my seminary student days. It was a large church and when we got there Susan and I began to feel uncomfortable. In fact, at the end of the sermon the pastor starting walking up and down the aisle and getting right in people’s faces and putting them on the spot.
Well, I introduced myself, very anxiously I would add, after the service and we were invited over to the fellowship hall and chatted with the pastor for a while. After he left the table, Susan and I looked at one another and said, “Is the coast clear? It was and we belted right out of that building and headed straight for the car!” We never looked back and they never called back!
I believe the Holy Spirit respects us. Yes, He moves in us to do the work of God and we know when He does, don’t we?
We struggle. We sweat. We get antsy. We get miserable. I will never forget the night of a service when I was a 9th grader that I was resisting the Holy Spirit. I was miserable. I knew that I had to make some changes and I did not want to. I knew that the language I was beginning to us was wrong. I knew the group that I was hanging out with was starting to pull me in the wrong direction. And no one was standing over me and shouting, "come on sinner! Get up there!"
Finally, I could not stand it anymore. I knew that I needed to let God back into my life. I got up; the prayer time at the altar had already started, and went over to one of men in the church who was praying in the pew and practically dragged him down the center aisle of the church and said, "Pray for me!" And a major turning point in my life took place that night. One that I believed kept me from going down a path that would have been a dead-end.
Now, fast forward with me about 28 years. I am on the phone with one of my High School classmates. He is a pastor in Ohio. We have reconnected for the first time since high school.
He said something to me that stopped me cold. It was something like, "I knew that you would be a minister. It does not surprise me. You were a person of great faith back then and it was very evident."
I was speechless. It shook me up. All that I "saw" was bumbling adolescent boy who was trying to figure out what I was all about. But, Dave saw something in me that pointed him to God. He too, struggled with following God at that period in his life.
The lesson I took from that conversation is that "talking the talk" is one thing "walking the walk" is something else. St Francis of Assisi once said, "Go preach the gospel. Use words if necessary."
There is a place and time for talking about what Christ has done for us. Peter makes that clear in our passage. But, are we living it in such a manner that people are seeing a difference in our lives and it makes people want to us ask what that is?
Which leads us to verse 15 of our text. "And if you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it."
What gets us out of bed ready for another day? Survival, duty, fear? Or is there a joy, a hope, and excitement that motivates to say, "Good morning God and thank you for this day and this life?"
What get us up on this day ready to come here to worship, seek, and hear a good word from the other side? Duty? Routine? Or a joy, an expectation, a hope that says, "Thank you God for your life in mine!"
In a few moments, we are going to remember the basis for the hope that is within us, as we take communion together. And as I think about the events of that night, when Jesus was betrayed and given a death sentence, I think of Peter -bumbling, stumbling Peter.
Peter was brash and arrogant one minute and back pedaling and running away the next. Jesus did not leave Peter alone with the after effects of his betrayal. No, he reached out to him and asked, "How much do you really love me Peter? Then take care of the flock. Take care of the church, take care of the people that is coming to me.”
Pentecost Sunday came and the Holy Spirit possessed Peter and Peter spoke boldly and with confidence about the One who came to forgive and make us right with God so that we could live right with God and others. Peter confidently, in and through the power of the Holy Spirit shared of the hope that was in him. A hope overshadowed his life.
And it is this Peter who wrote many years later, "And if you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it." Can you explain your Christian hope? Can we, as this expression of the people of God, explain our corporate Christian hope? Can people see it in us? Can we see it in one another?
It is God’s will that not only we as individuals be ready to share of the hope that is within us, but also as this particular people of God as we gather together on Sundays and Wednesday and wherever else we do so.
Finally as we share of this hope that is within us, this gospel of Christ, this good news of Jesus, in and through the power of the Holy Spirit, we leave the results to God. Our role is to "show and tell." We sow the seed in word and deed but God does the rest and each of us sows differently. But we sow the same seed - the good news.
I conclude with three questions today. The first one is this, "If you were to make one change in your life that really made people notice God at work in your life to the point they because to ask you about God, what would that change be?"
Number two, "If we were to make one change in our congregational life that really made people notice God at work here to the point they starting coming and seeking God, what change would that be?"
Question number three, “Are we ready and willing to make that change with God’s help?” . . . . Amen.
