“Jesus Spoke God’s Truth in Everyday Language”
TEXT: Various Texts
Sunday, March 17, 2002
We have been doing a series on “What Makes Jesus So Attractive.” So far, we’ve learned how to know God through putting our faith in Jesus Christ. We’ve learned how to grow in that faith by being connected to him through faith, through prayer, through scripture study and through worship. We’ve learned how to show different aspects of that faith by opening ourselves up to all people, seeing people differently, treating them with kindness and serving with humility.
Today we’re going to learn how to talk about our faith. I know this is a very uncomfortable issue because we don’t want to be like a pushy salesman. We get this image in our minds of talking to people about God, and it’s usually very negative. We usually find reasons or rationalizations for not sharing our faith. We say that we would rather show our faith rather than tell people about it.
We hear that it’s easy to talk the talk, but it’s hard to walk the walk. Well, I challenge that. How many of you have walked the walk perfectly this past week? Is it easy to walk the walk? No. Is it easy to talk the talk? No. Both are hard. Yet, it is our calling and God’s desire for us. We need to both walk and talk. All walk with no talk? People wouldn’t know why we believe the way we do and why we live the way we do. All talk and no walk? Then we are hypocritical and lose credibility. We need both.
We see this with Jesus. What would have happened if Jesus had been silent? If he came down and never said a word? Would we have understood anything? What if there was never a missionary to the United States, no one to ever tell others about what Jesus did for us? Would we be sitting here today? No, we would not.
We need to talk about our faith. It is vital to people’s salvation and ours. Instead of having all these negative images of sharing our faith, we need to exchange them for some new positive images. Instead of using old methods which we find pushy and confrontational, all we need to do is find different methods which are not pushy and not confrontational. I find in scripture three vignettes from the life of Jesus and his disciples that give us possible, plausible, noncon-frontational, doable ways of sharing our faith. We are going to look through a series of passages that show each of those.
The first method for sharing our faith is in Matthew 7:24-28:
TEXT
I don’t want to talk about the actual story, but I want to talk about what it says. This style of writing is a parable or an illustration. It is an object lesson–a snippet of real life pulled out in order to launch a spiritual discussion. It is powerful, and the people are amazed. Why are the parables of Jesus so powerful? One reason is because they are short and easy to remember. They are easy to visualize. It is contemporary because people knew back then what would happen if you built a house on sand or a rock. It is thoughtful because it makes you use your imagination and apply it to your life and spiritual life. It is simple and people can understand it. People who are outside the Christian faith need to keep it simple and Jesus knew that about his audience. He needed to keep it simple because they had no spiritual understanding.
Billy Graham talked about simplicity. In 1955 he went to preach at Cambridge University in England which is a seat of intellectual learning. Here’s what he discovered:
“For three nights I tried to make my preaching academic and enlightened, but with no effect. Finally, I realized that presenting the intellectual side of faith was not my gift. I began to preach the simple gospel and the results were astonishing. Hundreds of sophisticated students responded to the clear proclamation of the gospel. It was a lesson in simplicity and clarity that I never forgot.”
What is more simple than a story or an illustration from real life? In our day of exploding information, people yearn for a story. Storytelling has become a popular activity for people. Where can we find stories in our day to use to discuss or illustrate the Christian faith? You can find sources in newspapers, books, novels, television shows, everyday experiences, theater or arts. You can use the internet. You know all those thousands of forwarded messages to you that contain wonderful stories? We can also use movies. I think there is no more powerful form of communication today than movies.
Everyone in Hollywood knows that movies are powerful. In an interview with Bill Moyers, George Lucas, who produced Star Wars, was asked, “How do you explain the power of film to move us? Lucas replied, “Film takes all the aspects of other art forms–painting, music, literature, theater–and puts them into one art form. It is a combination of all these, and it works with all the senses. For that reason, it is a very alluring kind of dream-like experience. You sit in a dark room and have this other world come at you in a very realistic way.”
To illustrate for you just how powerful movies are, I’d like to show you two short clips of movies and then tell you the effect they had on our society.
Clip from Bambi
Did you know that before Bambi was shown, hunting was a $5.7 billion industry. The winter after the release of this movie, hunting went from $5.7 billion to $1billion. Why? Because many wives said, “You’re not going to go and shoot Bambi are you?” Since then, the industry has never recovered.
There’s another clip I want to show you that had a dramatic effect upon history and on your life.
Clip from Shirley Temple
As a result of the Shirley Temple series, the Boomer generation was born. Why? Because millions of parents said, “I want one of those little girls.” And they started having babies by the bunches. You are here because of Shirley Temple movies.
There are other movies which are powerful tools for communicating the Christian faith. Star Wars is one of the greatest because it’s all about the theme of the fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker. It is a struggle between good and evil. The Titanic is a great movie for discussing spiritual things. Simply ask the question, “If you knew you had only 2-3 hours to live, what would you do?” “Who in the movie is you? Are you the people clinging to the priest? Are you the nobleman on the deck? Or are you the person who has lost faith and hope and takes your own life? Are you the person who is doing anything it takes to live? Who are you in the film?”
It’s A Wonderful Life is a great film about the struggles of contemporary life and stress and momentary hopelessness which asks the question, “Where is God in all this?” Shadowlands is a great movie dealing with suffering and prayer. Amistad or Mississippi Burning portray the evils of racism. Forrest Gump is a powerful movie about the effect of simple faith upon the human life.
In my own life, I used movies mainly for converting my sister-in-law and talking about the Christian faith. One time she called about a plane crash and she was disturbed. She asked me how God could let this happen. My explanation involved using the movie Titanic. Did God want the Titanic to sink? No, he did not. Why did it sink? Because people did some very stupid things. Could people still have been saved? Yes, there were 22 boats that could have been used to rescue the vast majority of 1,500 passengers. The tragedy of the Titanic was not the sinking of the boat–it was the fact that only one out of 22 boats returned to save people.
Who is God like? God is like the captain of that one boat who has come to rescue anyone and everyone from losing their eternal life. We are like the other 21 boats that didn’t go back. That’s the difference.
There’s another way of communicating the Christian faith which we find in Luke 8: 38-40:
TEXT
One thing I love about this story is that it illustrates that God has a passion for those who have lost touch with reality. God loves Andrea Yates and desires to redeem her life. I tend to be pro capital punishment but if there is any argument against the death penalty, it’s this: That God desires to redeem even those who are the most evil and who have lost touch with reality. We see this in the story of the demoniac.
Think of the blind man. The Pharisees wanted to get into a big theological discussion about who Jesus was and did he have authority. The blind man says, “I don’t know about these things. All I know is that I was blind, and now I see.” That’s the simplicity of just telling our story. A good way of doing that is to say to people, “Here’s what my life was like before Christ. Here’s what led to my decision. And here’s what my life has been like since I have come to Christ.” This is a neat way of sharing your faith with others. People will not ask you deep theological questions if you try to tell them about your faith. All they want is to cut through the garbage to get to what works, and you can tell them what works in your life and they won’t challenge it. They are simply looking for answers, and who is a better answerer than Jesus Christ.
You may say, “I don’t have a story. I’ve been in the church all my life. I’ve known Jesus all my life.” That is still a tremendous testimony. Just tell someone that God has been sufficient through your entire life. The way of capturing the difference that Christ has made is simply to look at your family or friends who have not followed Christ and note the difference between your life and theirs, and then share that with others. Sometimes it is helpful if you write things down. I’d be glad to read your story and give you some pointers about how to make it more effective.
A great place to start sharing your faith is in a small group in your own church. This is family, and you don’t have to worry about being criticized. The more you tell people about what Christ has done for you, the easier it becomes and the more you can conceptualize it.
The third method for sharing your faith we see in Acts 2. This is the harder one and is for those who are more mature in their faith. Yet, I can’t leave it out because historically this is the primary way the church has grown–through the simple sharing of the gospel message.
TEXT
The gospel is powerful. Inherent in this simple message is the power of God that convicts people’s hearts and minds. It is the primary way that I came to faith–the hearing of this simple message. God said that his word is living and active. It discloses the secrets of the heart and will not return void. This is something you can’t be pushy about.
There are four or five very easy ways of sharing the simple gospel. One is to take John 3:16 word by word or phrase by phrase and talk about the meaning of each phrase. Another way is called the Roman Road in which you take Romans 3:23, 6:23, and 10:13 and read each one and explain it. You can also take a good booklet called “The Four Spiritual Laws” and simply have the person read it with you. It explains the whole message. You’ve seen the bridge analogy. God made us, sin separated us, and the wages of sin is death, no matter how good we are we can never bridge the gap, and that God has provided a bridge to the cross through Jesus. Through the cross he has forgiven our sins and given us access to God. The simplest one is Do vs. Done. Religion is all about doing. Everyone thinks we can get to heaven by doing things, by being good. The problem is how good is good? How do you ever know if you are good enough. Personal works won’t do it. Christianity is all about believing and accepting Jesus’ work on the cross for our salvation.
All of these ways of accepting the Christian faith are downstairs in a booklet. If you want to use any of these ways, I invite you to take a booklet and use it. Again, be very gentle with people about sharing your faith. Nothing is more powerful than simply sharing your faith and then allowing the listener to decide for himself.
We talked about how to share our faith. I’d like to share with you this simple gospel message:
Clip from Saving Private Ryan
If you were Private Ryan, how would you feel? For you are, we are all Private Ryan. God sent Jesus to give his life for us, to substitute his life for ours so that we can live a new life and an eternal life. If you haven’t put your faith in this Jesus, I invite you to do that now. Simply come and kneel at the cross, accept the gift of a life given for you. It was freely given. Follow after him and live the rest of your life worthy of that sacrifice.
Let’s pray.
