The Witnessing Life

Let’s talk about lostness. Lostness means that people are lost without Jesus. Paul said “There is just one name on heaven and on earth by which we must be saved—Christ Jesus.” Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” If we believe that these verses, then we must also believe there is something wrong with this world. It’s spinning out of control. It’s like a flock without a shepherd, But we don’t see it because in our hearts we just don’t see the world as lost. John Eldridge writes in his book Desire, “Something awful has happened, something terrible. Something worse, even than the fall of Man. For in that greatest of all tragedies, we merely lost Paradise—and with it, everything that made life worth living. What has happened since is unthinkable. We’ve gotten used to it. We’re broken in to the idea that this is just the way things are. The people who walk in great darkness have adjusted their eyes. The only thing worse than the fall of Man is the failure of man to see that he has fallen. We have entered a dangerous realm—the realm of the uncaring, and of despair. When people are in peril, others rise to be heroes. In the recent crash of a jet in the New York harbor, the Staten Island ferries headed for the downed plane. Ordinary passengers hauled up those stranded in the water. They literally took the shirts off their backs to cover the soaked survivors. They understood the lostness of those passengers. Without help, those people would be dead. But every day, we go to the store, sit in theaters next to people who are under the threat of eternal lostness, and we do nothing. True, death is not written on their faces. But underneath their lives are broken, their hopes are broken, and their hearts are broken. We see the evidence of that in divorce rates, in the drug trade and the flesh trade and all that is going on around us. It is in the greed of corporations and the violence of street crime. The world is lost, and we do nothing. Christians have a curious relationship to the world. We know it is temporary. We know that not to concern ourselves with worldly things. Even so we have to live in this world. So we compromise. We give space to our fears of losing prestige. We snuggle up to the world’s temptations losing ourselves along the way. Paul writes in Romans 10:1-4 Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. Paul said this not of the Greco-Roman world, but the world of his Jewish heritage. He could have compared his God-fearing relatives to the pagans, and missed their lostness. After all, they were so much better! Just because they didn’t know Jesus didn’t make them bad people. But Paul saw through their religiosity and realized that these people knew nothing. Paul’s Jewish friends were sincere, but that didn’t matter. Sincerity only counts if you are sincerely right. Nowhere but religion would anyone dare to suggest sincerity was enough. If a jury convicts and innocent man, does sincerity count? If a doctor amputates the wrong leg, does sincerity count? So why should sincerity count when it comes to souls? The Jewish misunderstanding of God was hurting people and sending them to hell. Sincerity made no difference. Can we be content to see the world go to hell, and do nothing? Can we take a “live and let live” attitude, and let the rest of the world perish? Magician Penn Jillett --no friend of Christians—had an interesting reaction when a Christian offered him a Bible. He took it. Later he said, “How much do you have to hate somebody not to proselytize? How much do you have to hate someone to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them?” For once, he was right. When we do not tell others, we are not being polite. We do not care whether they go to hell. How much do we have to hate a person to do that? Many wonder how a God of love could ever make such a place as hell. Honestly, I don’t know. It’s not my job to understand God’s mysteries. Our question needs to be how we can claim to love others, and not care if they know Jesus? Leave it to God to determine their ultimate fate--just love them enough to tell them about Jesus. So here’s our challenge for the week--“Make sharing our faith a natural and normal part of our lives.” When we talk about witnessing, most Christians get weak in the knees. It’s frightening to us! But what does Paul say? (vs14) How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” Sharing our faith is scary. But whenever we are afraid to do something there is only one cure—do it! If we’re afraid of sharing, then do it daily. Plan it in your schedule. “Pick up groceries. Wash the dog. Spend time with the neighbor.” My challenge to you is to do just that. And I will tell you how. First, pray for our neighbors. Put your neighbors specifically on your prayer list. I believe that God will honor your prayers. Even if you don’t get a chance to share, someone else will, if we pray for them repeatedly. Second, meet our neighbors. Many Christians are allergic to nonbelievers. We’re afraid they embarrass us. Of course they will! But if they were members of our own family, I’m sure we would find a way to overlook their rude behavior, for he sake of love. Sometimes we have to overlook minor faults to achieve major results. Third, reach for our neighbors. Look for ways to show our neighbors that we care. It is important to earn the respect others before we share with them. That is people must first welcome the messenger before we can receive the message. Finally, share with our neighbors. Build a bridge to their souls. Then we can authentically offer what Jesus means to us. Let them know what Jesus can do for them. Bishop Stephen Neill is famous for defining witnessing as “one beggar telling another beggar where to get bread.” If you have eaten the bread of life, then don’t keep it to yourselves. Share it. Ask God for opportunities to share with others. Or not, if you choose. But if you choose the latter--ask yourself Paul’s question “How can they hear without a preacher?”

Community

The Psalms of Degrees were written over a period of time, and in different circumstances. Nevertheless, when they are put together, they tell the story of journey.

Psalm 120 The journey begins in the "Land of the Liars." It describes the believer as being in a hostile, alien territory. He is surrounded by people who want war, but all he wants is peace.

Psalm 121 begins with those famous words "I will lift up my eyes to the hills. From whence does my help come? My help comes from the Lord." The psalmist comes to realize that there is only one way out of the mess he is in. He must reach out to God, and find him. He begins his journey to the faraway hill of Jerusalem.

It is a difficult, lonely journey. But he is helped along the way by his unshakable faith in God.

He does not go long, however, before he realizes his problem. He is traveling alone. Even if you are the most cautious and assured traveler, things can happen to you when you travel alone.

Fortunately for our pilgrim, he soon meets up with company—in Psalm 122.

I rejoiced with those who said to me,

"Let us go to the house of the LORD."

2 Our feet are standing

in your gates, O Jerusalem.

This psalm is often used as an opening to a worship service. People take it as something to be sung when they arrive at the house of worship. But that is not what he says. He does not say. "I was glad when I got to church." But "I was glad when they said let's go to church." The thing that makes him glad is not going to church, but running into people who think the way he does, who are going to the same destination he is going. Being with them makes him feel as if we were already in Jerusalem.

It's a good thing, too. A lot of us do not always go to church with smiles on our faces. There is no lonelier place to be sometimes than in the house of the Lord. People show up, wearing their holy masks, and you feel as if you are the only one who has any problems. They all hide it so easily, while you struggle to hold things together.

What the pilgrim encounters is what we call community—not fellowship, but community. Fellowship is such an overused word in church, that it is hard to understand its true meaning. But community is a synonym which better conveys the actual meaning.

We don't need superficial fellowship. If all we do is come to church to listen to a sermon or to hear good music, we would be better off downloading podcasts from Rick Warrens, or Doug Keller's churches. If it weren't for our need for mutual encouragement, it would make no difference if you got your church from the TV, internet, radio, or in person. There are a lot of better choirs to listen to, and a lot better preachers.

Community is important, but not passive community. Along with a personal relationship with God, we need a personal relationship with other Christians. By entering into Christian community, we are experiencing the greatest blessing of heaven before we get there. It makes the road to heaven much easier, and much more enjoyable.

There are many places in the Bible which describe the elements of Christian fellowship. None of them, I believe, do it more eloquently than this psalm. There are five elements of Christian fellowship here.

1. Christian community is centered on relationship with Christ. Listen to 3-4

Jerusalem is built like a city that is closely compacted together.

That is where the tribes go up,the tribes of the LORD,

to praise the name of the LORD according to the statute given to Israel.

What makes Christian community special? Christ. Without the Lord, our fellowship is not special at all. There must be a shared presence of Christ with others.

By this standard, most of what goes on in church does not qualify for Christian fellowship. In our churches, we have two different modes—worship and fellowship. In worship mode, we do not talk to each other. In fellowship mode, we are usually eating. We talk and have fun, but God doesn't enter the picture. Oh, we might have a devotion, or prayer at the beginning of meals, but that's where the God talk ends. Heaven forbid someone ask you at the next fellowship dinner, "How's your prayer life doing?" or "What's the Lord been saying to you?"

Real community is worshiping together. Paul says it best in Ephesians 5: :17-20

Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Do you hear what Paul is describing? This is not a spectator service. This is a service where the presence of God is shared, as well as the Word of God. This kind of community cannot be maintained in a worship service alone, but grows out of a relationship developed in prayerful intimacy with others.

2. Christian Community is accountable to the Word of God.. V 5

There the thrones for judgment stand, the thrones of the house of David.

Another characteristic that is necessary for Christian accountability. Accountability is a shared submission to the Word of God. When people come together around the Word of God, there is a common set of beliefs and values. We come together because we have a yearning for righteousness. So together, we wrestle with obedience to God's word.

The greatest lie Satan ever introduced into the Christian community is the notion that religion is a private matter. Religion is not now, nor has it ever been a private matter. Religion was private to Eve, that's why she bit the forbidden fruit. Religion was private to Judas—he was alone when he denied the Lord. The truth is, without a willingness to be righteous together, to keep each other straight, we all could wind up like Eve or even Judas. The more private our religion remains, the less power it has to transform our lives.

Proverbs 27: 17 says "As iron sharpens iron, so does one man sharpen another." We come together with a serious purpose, and with the will to hold one another accountable, and watch the sparks fly! But in the end, we come up sharper than we ever were before.

If religion is private, how do we sharpen our faith?.

3. Christian community is built on grace. Vs 6-7

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: "May those who love you be secure.

May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels."

Grace is a willingness to generously accept other people, no matter who they are or what they have done. Grace is based on the grace God gave us in Jesus. Roman 5:8 says. "God commended His love to us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." God's grace was not based on approval of our actions, nor is it based on us liking each other. Christ died for us, when there was nothing likeable about us. His grace transformed us; it did not wait for us to be transformed.

Our grace should be the same. It is a willingness to let go of slights, hold on through conflict, and to work for mutual peace.

Grace is not blind. Just because we let of slights does not mean we don't notice them. Of course we do! But our disagreements do not stop us from extending grace. Neither can a person sin his way out of the grace of God, or the love of the church. We know the sin. We correct the sin, but we offer God's grace nonetheless.

4. Christian Community is built on love as well. 8-9

\ For the sake of my brothers and friends,

I will say, "Peace be within you."

For the sake of the house of the LORD our God,

I will seek your prosperity.

When we join the church, there is a vow we take, that we will support the church with our time, talent and offerings. We can't join the church without taking that pledge. Nothing in that pledge, however says why we should support it. What makes a person want to be part of a Christian community?

In the last two verses of this psalm there are really two different answers.

The first answer is that when we build up God's house, we are really blessing those we love. We want to have a church our children and grandchildren can go to. Family is important, and going to church is something we do for our family. So for the sake or our brothers and friends, we try to maintain the peace of community.

Again, we Americans are so individualistic. The question we most often ask when deciding whether or not to participate in a small group is "What's in it or me?" We reason that if we have nothing to learn from the people in the group, or if they are not similar in age and interest to us, then there is no reason for going. We fail to realize, however, that God does not call us to community to be blessed, but to bless. How can we love our brothers and sisters, if the first question we ask is if they can benefit us?

The last verse turns this around. "For the sake of the House of the Lord, I will seek your prosperity." Who is "your'? It could refer to Jerusalem (or the church) as it does in verse 2, but not necessarily. Often, psalmists would change tenses in the middle of a psalm. "Your" could just as easily refer to our brothers and sisters, as to Jerusalem. The psalmist could be saying that ther reason he seeks the prosperity of others is so that the house of the Lord can be honored. In other words, our commitment to God and His prosperity calls us to be devoted to the prosperity of others. We seek the prosperity of the church, because we love each other. We seek the prosperity of each other, because we love the church. Our prosperity, and the prosperity of God's house are intertwined.

In true Christian community, the peace and prosperity of the church and the peace and prosperity of the members of the church cannot be separated. We cannot love the church without loving our brothers and sisters. We cannot love our brothers and sisters and not love the church.

Which brings us to the challenge for this week.

To get into a small group community where true Christian community an be experienced. That community should have the following characteristics.It should be

Focused on Christ, as the only leader.

Free to share our faults and feelings.

Comfortable in each other to pray together.

Open enough to hold each other accountable.

We love and support each other, not because of similarities, but in spite of differences. As a result, we grow together in love and devotion to God and to each other.

Leaning heavenward

Let me begin with two observations. The first comes from the Shorter Catechism. Q. What is the chief end of man? A. To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. For hundreds of years we’ve been learning that question. Yet how many of us can say that our chief end is to glorify and enjoy God? Are we even planning how we will better glorify and enjoy God this year? Recently, I heard a song which had this line “I was made to praise Him.” Some people see praising God as one step on the way to being what we want to be—something that “good people” ought to do. Other people praise God out of genuine gratitude, but do not look at is as a life’s work—a “tip of the hat” to God. Still others praise God as means of getting Him on their side—a kind of magical thinking that says if we flatter God, he will give us what we ask. But few of us can genuinely and sincerely say that praising God is our chief end. It is an activity, but it is not a calling. There is a huge difference between getting God on our side and living for Him. In the latter case, we live only to serve Him. In the former, we look to God to serve us. What we typically there are two things we want from God: 1. To leave us alone most of the time. Our life is planned out ahead of time. It would be inconvenient for God to interfere in our lives by calling us to the mission field, or convicting us that what we have been doing is wrong, so that we would have to change. 2. To be there when we need Him. At the same time, we willingly and enthusiastically call upon God in times of trouble. The minute things do not go our way, we want Him there. The Catechism inconveniently says my chief end is to glorify God. This is the reason for existence. We were made to praise Him, which takes a commitment that is intellectual, volitional, and emotional. Out of our love for Him, we serve Him. The second observation is from my own experience. People who were saved as adults seem to have a significant advantage in this over those who grew up Christian. On the whole, they are more committed to the faith and more joyful in it. It should not be that way. Christian children should have the advantage. After all, they should know more scripture, give more readily, and have greater faith, because they have known their faith forever. They have had the Christian life modeled before them. But this is not the case. Adult converts are more zealous than childhood converts. The reason (I believe) has to do with the first question of the Catechism. For the lifelong Christian, there is often confusion about our personal chief end. Our parents taught us to worship and obey God. At first, our worship was a duty we owed our parents. Our parents taught us Christian values, reinforced by Sunday school and (in some cases) by our schools. For a child growing up Christian, there is little perceived difference between commitment to parents and community and commitment to Christ. This would be all right if the Catechism taught us that the chief end of man was to glorify our parents and community, and to enjoy them forever, but it does not. It tells us that we should rest in God, and in God alone. He is our chief end. Christian culture is better than the rest, but only slightly. We are only slightly closer to God’s perfection than the worst sinner on earth. From a human perspective, the distance seems much greater. But a truly Christian life is not judged by comparison with others, but by the Son of God. God’s holiness is our standard, not peer review. Adult have already undergone many changes of heart. They know they have not arrived, so they seek to draw closer to Him. They are still on the road to perfection. For the lifelong Christian, Christianity equals the status quo. We defend our way of way of life as if it were Christ’s way of life. We grow up thinking our way and Christ’s way are the same thing. A history professor once told me a story that had been passed down in his family. After the Civil War, people came South as missionaries to “convert” Southerners to Christianity. They assumed any country which defended slavery could not be Christian. This was curious since many of the Southerners did not understand how Yankees could be Christian. One well-meaning woman came to South Carolina. A family invited her to Sunday dinner. The family served pie before the meal, which was a custom in that area. The woman was horrified, and told them so. She lectured them that the only “Christian” way to eat pie was after the meal. Needless to say, she won few converts. This story illustrates my point. The reason a Christian culture like the South could tolerate slavery was the same reason this woman condemned eating pie. We mix up with our cultural customs with God’s word so we often cannot tell much difference. Christ is not our chief end. Preserving our way of life is our chief end. The novel A River Runs Through it is about a Presbyterian minister his two sons. The narrator begins by saying that in his household, there was little difference between the Presbyterian church and fly fishing. His family pursued them both with equal vigor. Paul did not live within the unspoken limits of cultural Christianity. Glorifying God really was his chief end. Praise and obedience was his ongoing quest. Listen to what he says in Philippians 3:12-14. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. We are called heavenward. We are always seeking a greater perfection, a greater obedience, and a greater love for Christ. To get where we are going, we must forget the past and lean forward. We must be dissatisfied with where we are going. Do we leaning towards the past—the world of our birth and childhood—or towards heaven? Is His glory before or behind us? I believe we should lean towards heaven as Paul did. If we seek to make glorifying God our chief end, then we will forget the past and lean towards the future. This year, I want to put a series of challenges before us. I want to challenge us all (myself included) to glorify God and enjoy Him more than we did last year. This is of course impossible if you are satisfied with your life. But if you yearn for a deeper and more fully realized faith, if you want Christ to be your chief end, then take these challenges from the Scriptures to start us on your way. The Challenges There are three levels of challenges. The first is vision. It is the purpose to which we sacrifice everything. The second are our values. These are qualities we pursue in order to fulfill our vision. In the next few weeks, I challenge us to seven values that will help us glorify God and enjoy Him. In summary, these values are: 1. Worship that is vital, original, and exciting. 2. Learning the Bible with comprehension. 3. Forming small group for mutual sharing. 4. Making sharing our faith a natural and normal part of our lives 5. Putting God first by spiritually-guided stewardship. 6. Demonstrating our concern for others by reaching out to real needs. 7. Making an impact through home and foreign missions. The third level are our goals. Week after week, I am going to lay out specific goals to meet those values. These will be specific, measurable results that will manifest each of these values. This is the reason I am doing this. As a church, we have become complacent. For years, we have been acting as if we have already arrived at perfection. God says we have not. If the apostle Paul could struggle with his need to grow in Christ, how much should we? We are nowhere near as godly as him, yet, he knew he had so much farther to go. I challenge you to join me in seeking the high calling of God. Let’s not rest this year. Instead, let’s grow in our appreciation of God’s grace, and seek as our chief end “to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”