The Foundation Of Following Jesus, Part 4 - Sharing God's Word Series

The Foundation of Following Jesus

Part 4 – Sharing God’s Word

Colossians 3:16

January 30, 2011

NOTE: THE ME/WE/GOD/YOU/WE FORMAT IS FROM ANDY STANLEY'S BOOK, "COMMUNICATING FOR A CHANGE."

Audio of this message can be heard at www.aberdeenwesleyan.org.

Me: I just got done with a three-volume series of books on the Civil War by Shelby Foote. Each volume in the series was over 1000 pages long, and I had each volume for 6-8 weeks.

It was very detailed, and written in a narrative style like a novel that made it easy to read and enjoyable.

If you’re interested in learning about the Civil War, then this is the series to get.

I’ve read probably thousands of books in my time, but these three are some of my favorite.

We: Have any of you read something, saw something, heard something that you couldn’t wait to talk to your work buddies about the next day?

You’re like, “Wow – did you see what happened on ‘Oprah’ yesterday? I couldn’t believe it!”

Or, “Man – did you see the new ‘True Grit’ movie? I thought Jeff Bridges was AWESOME!”

Or (and I hope this doesn’t happen with anyone here), “Did you hear about so and so? I hear they’re getting divorced because he was cheating on her.”

You get the idea, right?

We all like to share about stuff we enjoy or that impacted us.

God: Well, hopefully we’d be willing to do that with what we gain from our intake, study, and application of God’s Word.

Not necessarily that you’d gather in the lunch room to share what you got out of your latest quiet time, but rather in situations where you can hand off to somebody something that God has shown or taught you that might have some benefit for that person you’re sharing it with.

Because one of the things we’re supposed to do with God’s Word is to pass it on to others so we can build them up in the faith.

Colossians 3:16 (NLT) –

Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.

Quickly:

When I say “teach,” it’s not just in a formal teaching setting like a classroom or church service.

I’ll show you some ways we can teach and share in ways that don’t give the idea that we need to be someone who lectures to a group of people like a teacher or professor.

So relax and know that anyone can do the stuff I’m talking about today, and my hope is that you’ll want to do it.

I want us to look at some lessons we can learn about how to share or teach God’s Word.

And today I’m focusing on sharing with and teaching people who are in positions where they are wanting to learn more about Jesus and the Scriptures.

Settings like Sunday School, church, Wednesday nights, personal relationships between believers and followers of Jesus and the like, and teaching situations involving our family.

Next week we’re going to look at how to share God’s Word with people who don’t love or care for Jesus, and are maybe even antagonistic toward Jesus.

I think that people in the church need to learn how to interact and share God’s Word better with people who are not yet followers of Jesus.

Because any Christian can rant and scream – and do – to the detriment of the Word of God and the reputation of Jesus and His Church.

It’s a whole ‘nother thing for Christians to be able to communicate clearly and reasonably in a way that helps that person see where we’re coming from, even if they don’t agree.

So that’s next week.

Today I want us to look at some things that can help us share God’s Word in the context of situations and relationships where the people are open to the Scriptures.

Lesson #1: Effective sharing starts with our own relationship with Jesus.

We can only share what we have.

Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives.

NIV says – Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly…

It’s the message of what? Jesus.

It’s not the message of the end times, the message about memorizing the books of the Bible, the message about how to dress properly for church, the message about whether you should watch the Super Bowl instead of going to men’s group next week, or anything like that.

It’s the message about Christ. And the message about Jesus is what – the Word of God.

This is where we get the true and accurate information about Jesus that changes our lives and equips us to share that life-changing message with others.