What Is Witnessing?

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.”