Preached · July 2, 2017
As we enter into the full swing of the summer season here in Okoboji, many of us get ready for vacations, summer camps, mission trips, and weekend getaways. We make that last-minute shopping trip to gather up supplies, and then usually sit down the night before and make that list to make sure we don't forget anything important before we leave. Then, of course, afterwards we post all the pictures on Facebook to share with everyone else all the fun they missed out on.
Well, the good news is, we felt it was important to share a list with you as well—a list that includes some of the important things we need to know, because the greatest mission that God has given us is to go and make disciples. And while every one of the things we're going to talk about today could be a sermon in and of itself, we felt it was important to do this rapid-fire, to hit them all in one week, so that you don't miss out on any of the six things you should know when it comes to sharing your faith. So let's get right into it.
Tell Your Story
The first thing we want to talk about when it comes to sharing your faith is that sharing your faith means learning to tell your story. Sharing your story isn't something that is dependent upon how much Scripture you have memorized or how many times you've read your way through the Bible. In fact, your story might not be some tremendous tale of how you've overcome difficult odds or had a big turnaround in your life. But there are a couple of things that every story has in common. Your story is about how your beliefs shape your life. Your story includes how you personally came to a relationship with Jesus Christ, and why you hold to that.
When I think about the early leaders in the church sharing their gospel message for the very first time after Jesus had left them, I think about a person like Peter, who stood up on the day of Pentecost and gave his first sermon. But really it was a story about everything he had experienced while he spent time with Jesus. Those were his experiences—not relating them to something he had read or something he had seen, but the things that were a part of his life. And he shared those with the people who were gathered there that day.
When I think about a person like Paul—Paul not only shared his story, but even while he was mentoring a young man named Timothy, he not only shared what he had learned, but he even admitted the weaknesses that he had in his life. He talked about the things that most of us would never want to share. When he wrote a letter to Timothy, as a matter of fact, in the very first chapter of 1 Timothy, we find these words from Paul:
Here's a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy, so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.
Sharing your story is about sharing the real you. It's about being authentic, being genuine, admitting that you don't have everything together—and that's okay, because God shows up in those moments of weakness. It's when we can acknowledge that we don't have it together that God's light shines through us.
In the Context of Relationships
The second thing to know about sharing your faith is that it's best in the context of relationships. When I think about the best evangelist ever, I think about Jesus, of course. But I know sometimes I can be a little wrong-headed when I picture how Jesus did evangelism. Sometimes I picture this man going from town to town, walking up to strangers, walking up to people we didn't know, and being like, "Hey, did you know I'm going to die for your sins?" Or, "Hey, if you died tonight, do you know where you would go when you died? And, by the way, what's your name again?" Of course, that's not really the way Jesus did things. Jesus did things in the context of relationships.
The way we know this is if we look at the book of John, the first couple of chapters. We're introduced to Jesus' cousin, a guy named John. And John is really, really liking this idea of throwing people into the Jordan River in the name of God. So John gets this nickname—John the Dunker, John the Splasher, John the Baptist. And John has some friends who are following him around, kind of learning what John is doing. Jesus comes along one day, and John says to his friends, "Hey, this is Jesus. He's my cousin. You should get to know him." And so two of John's friends—one of them named Andrew—go to Jesus and start following him around. Well, Andrew is really impressed by Jesus. So Andrew has a brother nearby named Peter, and Andrew goes to his brother and says, "Peter, you should meet this Jesus guy I was just introduced to. He's great." So Andrew grabs Peter, and they start following Jesus and spend the night with him, just to learn some things from him. Well, Andrew and Peter have a next-door neighbor, and this guy's name is Philip. So Andrew and his brother Peter go to their neighbor Philip and say, "Philip, we're following this guy named Jesus. He's a great guy. You should come get to know him." So now it's Andrew, and Peter, and Philip—and Philip is now following Jesus. Well, Philip has a buddy, and his name is Nathaniel. Nathaniel's sitting under a tree, basically just wasting time. So Philip goes to Nathaniel and says, "Nathaniel, me and my next-door neighbors, Andrew and Peter, we're following this guy named Jesus. He's great. You should come get to know him." So Philip introduces his friend Nathaniel to Jesus.
So we see there's this kind of domino effect: Jesus' cousin John makes one introduction, which makes another introduction, which makes another introduction. And all these people who hang out with Jesus have the same reaction: "He's so great, I need to tell somebody about him." When we consider sharing our faith—telling people why we follow Jesus and why they should be following Jesus—sometimes it can be intimidating, because we get the wrong idea in our head: this idea of door-to-door evangelism, this idea of just walking up to strangers off the street, putting on a sandwich board, grabbing a bullhorn, and shouting at anybody we can, "Hey, follow Jesus!" But that's not the way Jesus did it. It's not the way Jesus' disciples did it. They did it in the context of relationships. Brothers were telling brothers. Friends were telling friends. Neighbors were telling neighbors. So when we think about sharing our faith, I think we're better off when we think about it in the same way. When we think about the people we interact with: how can they know Jesus? Why should they know Jesus? And that means that if we aren't hanging out with people who don't know Jesus yet, maybe that means we should be changing who we're hanging out with, so that we have the opportunity to say, "I'm following this Jesus person, and I think you should too. Let me tell you why."
What You Do Matters
What you do matters. I've often heard the quote from Teddy Roosevelt that says, "People don't care what you know until they know that you care." And caring shows up through your actions. When I look at the early church, when the crowds gathered, they didn't gather simply to hear a gospel message. Instead, the crowds grew because they saw things happening that they couldn't explain in an ordinary way. On the day of Pentecost, when Peter gave that message, they didn't come just to hear his message; they came because they saw the evidence of the Holy Spirit being poured out, and people were speaking in all kinds of languages. The church grew then, and it continued to grow, because as miracles were performed and a lame man was healed at the gate called Beautiful, crowds gathered to see what had happened. The crowds continued to grow when healings took place at Solomon's Colonnade, and they were drawn by what was happening. And because they were drawn to the actions that were taking place, at that moment the disciples had the opportunity to share the word. But it's the actions that drew people in. That same kind of growth continued even as Philip took the gospel message into a new land. Crowds gathered around him because of the miracles that were performed, because of people who were healed and those who were served. And because of those actions, the number of people who followed him throughout Samaria continued to grow.
Too often we think that if we can just get our friends to a place like this—a place where a large crowd gathers and someone else can deliver the message—then maybe, maybe at that moment, my friend will be led to Christ. But for the vast majority of people, that's not the way the story goes. Instead, people are drawn to something because they see purpose. They see that purpose because of the actions of others—actions that are maybe out of the ordinary. A simple act of kindness. A scheduled time to serve, to go be a part of something bigger than themselves. And when they see that, they want to be a part of it. They want to know why you would do something like that. Why would you go out of your way and take time from your day and give it to someone else—maybe even someone you don't know that well? What's the purpose behind that? And when someone wants to know the purpose behind the actions you take in your life, that's the invitation to share the words. Sometimes we get these things out of order, and we want to start sharing the words before we've had the opportunity to even explain what this means and why it changes my life and how it could change theirs. But the actions give us the opportunity to share the words.
It's Not Up to Us
I had this dear friend—we grew up going to church together. We were baptized together. He and I were in the youth group worship band. We did Bible studies together. And then his senior year of high school, he walked away from it all. He walked away from God—and I mean the whole nine yards. He lived the kind of life that you and I might fantasize about if we knew for sure there was no hell to punish us at the end. He made the Hangover movies look like a quiet day at the monastery. And so, like the good Christian I am, I stayed friends with him, and I would question him about his actions, and I would point out what the Bible had to say about what he was doing. But there's this hard thing: when somebody's living a life in rebellion to God, they really don't care a whole lot about what the Bible has to say about anything.
And so that brings up this question: what's the point of it all? What's the point of evangelism? What's the point of trying to tell somebody about your faith, trying to share your story, trying to tell someone about Jesus, when it may not work at all, or they may just walk away? But those kinds of questions, honestly, make the wrong kinds of assumptions. Those kinds of questions assume that someone else's faith, someone else's belief, someone else's accepting of Jesus has to do with me—that it has to do with how well I've memorized my Bible, or how well I can defend the resurrection or miracles or the parting of the Red Sea. But thankfully, that's not how salvation works. It's not up to us. As Steve said earlier, it's about sharing our story, and we have a responsibility to do that. But people's response doesn't fall to us.
In 1 Thessalonians it says, "When you heard the word of God from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe." In other words, when we speak God's word, when we speak the gospel, when we tell our story—it's not just our story, not just our words; it's God's word. 1 Corinthians says that only the Holy Spirit can empower and enable someone to say, "Jesus Christ is Lord." And this is a huge load off my mind, knowing that it's not up to me to make somebody say that—that that's God's power at work within them. So I do have a responsibility to share my story, to tell people about why I follow Jesus, but then to recognize and let go of that sense of control that I might have, to know that it's up to God to bring people to full salvation, to bring people and empower them to say that Jesus Christ is Lord.
And so, for my dear friend, all that was left to do was to pray for him. All that was left to do was to bring it to God and pray that he would come back. And when my friend hit rock bottom, he found Jesus there. And Jesus led him back, offered his nail-scarred hands to my friend, and said, "This is the way home."
Don't Be Afraid of the No's
I remember the summer after my freshman year of college, I worked as a door-to-door salesman in Nacogdoches, Texas. And as we were going through part of the training for that sales approach, I remember the instructor saying one thing that really stuck with me. He said, "Don't be afraid of the no's. On average, you need to know that it's going to take 10 no's for every one yes that you get. So when you get a no, don't think of it as bad. Think of it as just knocking down one of the 10 no's you have to get before you get that yes." And that really changed the perspective of how you viewed no's. They weren't negative; they were just one step closer to where you wanted to be.
Many of us aren't held back because of someone else keeping us from accomplishing what we want to do. Instead, we're held back because we stop ourselves. It's our fear of failure, our fear of rejection, that keeps us from even venturing out and attempting things that really are goals we have. Maybe it's what holds you back from starting a business or seeking a promotion. Maybe when you were younger, it was the thing that kept you from trying out for sports, or from asking out the homecoming queen. It was the fear of rejection, the fear of failure.
When Paul was writing to Timothy and encouraging him as a young leader within the church, he continually wrote to stand firm, to be bold, to be courageous. When he wrote to him in Philippians chapter 1, verses 27 and 28, he wrote, "I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel, without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you." And in 1 Corinthians 16:13, he wrote, "Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong." In 2 Timothy 1:7, he writes, "For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline. So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord." Do not let the fear of rejection keep you from accomplishing what God has called you to do. When it comes to sharing your faith, be bold, be courageous.
Connect Your Story with God's Story
Astronomers and astrophysicists estimate that our earth will be no more in about 7 billion years—billion with a B—when our sun explodes, supernovas, massively expands, and swallows up all the planets in its path: Mercury, Venus, and us on earth. Talk about your global warming. Now, if humans manage to get off the planet sometime between now and then, then we'll be okay for a while—but only for a while. In about 10 to the 100th power years—that's 10 with 100 zeros after it—the universe will suffer what's called the ultimate fate of the universe. There are lots of guesses about what this is, but one of the most popular is that all heat will dissipate, all heat will equally spread itself across the universe, and so all the stars will go out; there will be no more light, no more heat. It's called the heat death of the universe. So that's fun.
As Steve said in the beginning, sharing your faith is about sharing your story—sharing about you, about why you follow Jesus in the first place, why you started to follow him, and why you keep following Jesus. Who would you be if you didn't follow Jesus? But each of our stories, our single individual stories, are part of a larger, magnificent, significant story: the story of God. The story of a God—this infinite, eternal, omnipresent, omniscient, all-knowing, all-powerful God—who creates a universe, who creates a world, who creates a planet, who creates you and me. And this God invites us into his story, calls us up into his magnificent presence. This God takes on flesh and dies for us and offers us, gives us, eternal life and eternal significance, and the ability to be eternally present with the divine. This God offers us healing and reconciliation and restoration—and not just for us, but for the entirety of creation, the whole world, the whole cosmos, the whole universe. And so we know, through God, that this universe will not fall into disrepair, will not fall into ultimate chaos. This is the God who holds chaos back, who defeats chaos, by whom all things consist and all things hold together. And so we can look forward to the future, knowing that God will keep doing that.
So as you're sharing your faith, share your story. Talk about Jesus, talk about your relationship with Jesus, about why he is so important to you, about why you have made him the most important and significant relationship in your life. But then connect your story with God's story. Connect the story of your salvation with the story that God is weaving with the world, with the universe. Tell the story of a God who came down to have a talk when humanity messed up for the first time. Tell the story of a God who parts seas and ends famines, who heals the blind and the lame and the sick and makes the dead come back to life. Tell the story of a God who holds the world together and calls us all into relationship with him. Yes, tell your story—but tell the story of who God is, and invite people into that story. This is a God worth following. This is a God worth imitating. This is a God worth giving our lives to. And this is a God—Father, Son, and Spirit—worth telling everyone about.
