S.h.a.r.e.

I hope you enjoyed our journey through 1st John over the last several weeks, as we examined the Genuine Christian, I know that I did. However, since we finished the book last week, I guess it was a good time to finish the series.

This morning our text will be a very familiar piece of scripture for most of us here this morning. But why it may be familiar, I would make the argument that most of us would be quilty of not putting it into practice.

And this piece of scripture is actually found 5 times in the New Testament. It is found in Matthew 28:16-20, Mark 16:14–18, Luke 24:44–49, John 20:19-23, and Acts 1:4–8.

With that said if you have brought your Bible with you please open it to the book of Matthew 28:19, and once you have found that stick your finger there and flip over to Acts 1:8. So once again we will look at Matthew 28:19 and Acts 1:8. We will first read Acts 1:8 then we will flip back to Matthew 28:19. Once you have found them as you are able would you please stand for the reading of God’s Holy Word.

(slide 2) Here is what we read in Acts 1:8: But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. And in Matthew 28:19 it says: Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Now I hoped you noticed that these were red letter words, which we know come straight from the mouth of Jesus. Which also means they are not up for debate, they are a commandment from our Lord and Savior, and therefore we have no choice but to hear and obey them.

So, what is this command? Simply put we are to share the gospel. We are to let people know the good news that Jesus saves, He is the ultimate lifeguard.

And if you will think back to about 14 months ago, on Sunday evenings we talked about this and we talked about the power of your testimony. Your testimony is yours and no one else, now people may choose to discount it, but that does not make it any less real.

(Slide 3) So, if this commandment is all about sharing the gospel, let’s take a look at how we can do that with an acronym. And it’s pretty easy to remember, it’s S.H.A.R.E.

The S stand for show. Now what do I mean by that? Before we can ever share the Gospel, we must first show people that we genuinely love them, and we love them just like they are. That means the LGBTQ plus group, the poor, the rich, the person with a different skin color, the Muslim, the non-Christian, the fact of the matter is this we must love them first. There is an old saying and I am quite sure that you have heard it, it goes like this, people don’t care how much you know, till they know how much you care.

How many of you recall the woman that the Pharisees brought to Jesus who had been caught in the act of committing adultery. Why every single one of them was willing to stone her to death, I mean they even already had the rocks in their hands.

But when Jesus reminded them of their own sins, they all left. And when it was just Jesus and the women, did He not show compassion on her? There can be no doubt that she knew that Jesus loved her. And it is the same for us, if we are going to share the gospel it must be done out of love, the same way that Jesus loves us.

(slide 4) The H is for help.

I actually thought of several other H words we could have used. Words like, hallow, it means to honor as holy or sacred, showing reverence and respect for something or someone. Handfeed, that means to feed someone or something by hand, showing care and attention, you know sometimes we have to handfeed new believers, don’t we? I also thought about hasten and came close to using it. Listen to its meaning, to move or act quickly, often with a sense of urgency, in order to accomplish a task or reach a destination. Boy that’s a good one, we should be sharing with a sense of urgency, and what is the destination, why heaven of course.

But again, I settled on the word help. It goes so well with what we looked at a moment ago, that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And when you are helping someone with a trying time they are going through, or a physical task, the fact that you stopped to help them speaks volumes. In Luke 8 when Jesus helped the woman with the bleeding disorder, do you not think that had a profound impact on her? If we are to share the Gospel, we must be willing to help people.