January 19, 2003
A sermon by Rev. Dr. John K. Luoma
Do you remember Christ’s final words to his disciples in the book of Acts? He says, “You shall be my witnesses.” (1:8) That is our purpose as followers of Jesus. We are to be his witnesses. That’s why we’ve strung a banner across the doorway that leads out of the church. Do you notice it as you go out? It says, “Share the good news of Jesus.”
Are we doing that? Sure we are! In last month’s newsletter we published the results of the U.S. Congregational Survey for our congregation. I hope you took the time to read it or will read it. One of the questions that leaped out at me was, “Would you be prepared to invite to a worship service here any of your friends or relatives who do not have a congregation?” 47% of our members responded, “Yes, and I did so in the last twelve months.”
That’s wonderful! We are doing exactly as our Lord said. Of course, we need to grow, we need to get better. Our goal isn’t 47%, our goal is 100%. And the Gospel we read today tells us how to witness and why we need to witness.
How do we do it? Well, how did you come to faith in Christ? How did you become a member of the church? You came to faith in Christ because someone loved you enough to lead you to him. There are a lot of ways we can talk about witness, but the most important thing we can say is that witness is relational.
So, in chapter one of John how does witness take place? Verse 40 tells us that Andrew went to his brother, Simon, and brought him to Jesus. And in verse 45 it says that Phillip went to his friend, Nathanael, and brought him to Jesus. In other words, they shared Jesus with people with whom they had developed some credibility, people who were friends and family.
One of the things I find intriguing in this story is that the people who are doing the inviting are just ordinary people. They didn’t make any great mark in the historical record, and they are among the most obscure of the disciples. The Gospels say little about Phillip and next to nothing about Andrew.
Pastor David Daubert, an assistant to the bishop in Nebraska, tells a story about a pastor he knows. Pastor Johnson was new at St. John’s, a congregation in a rural town. It had a gas station, a grocery store, a high school and a couple of congregations. That was about it. In his first year he visited in the homes of the people in his congregation learning their stories. He often asked, “How did you become a member of St. John’s?” Many times he heard the same answer, “Martha down at the grocery store invited me.” It seemed that as people would buy their groceries, Martha would interact with them as they went through the check out line. After she developed a relationship with them, she would say something about the importance of the church or Jesus to her and she would extend an invitation to worship or some church activity. It was an amazingly effective process. Pastor Johnson was intrigued enough about what he heard about Martha that he directly asked each member in the congregation how they had become members. Sixty three people in that congregation were active members because of Martha! Through this simple process of taking an interest in people and developing a relationship, sharing something about the importance of Jesus or the church to her, and extending an invitation, Martha was responsible for bringing in nearly half the active members of that congregation.
That’s a pretty simple process isn’t it? It is something we can all do. We develop a relationship with others or we use the relationship we have with others as a witness opportunity. Family relationships are often the easiest, especially our relationship with our children. It is the easiest because we have a God-given authority there. Have we used that authority? Or have we listened to the chorus of the world that says, “Don’t impose your faith on your children. Let them find their own way.” If you believe that, I encourage you to open up your eyes and look around. There are all kinds of forces in the world that are waiting and ready to lead them down paths that will bring their destruction. Life can be so difficult even for those who are grounded with family and with the Lord. It shouldn’t surprise us what happens to people who have no grounding in family and no relationship with Jesus Christ.
And how are we doing with our friends? Are we reaching out and inviting them? In his book, Habits of Highly Effective Churches, George Barna says that one of the reasons we think witness is so hard is that we have this idea that we have got to argue people into the kingdom of God. That is not what witness is about. Witness is an act of love. We cannot argue anyone into the kingdom of God. All we can do is share why Jesus and the church are important to us and then invite the other person to “come and see” as Phillip did. It is the Holy Spirit who converts people.
And sharing the good news about Jesus isn’t really all that hard when it comes down to it. It is simply sharing why I am a follower of Jesus and why I am part of the church. It is stating how Christ and the church have changed your life. Try that some time as a spiritual exercise. Just write down how it is that Christ and the church have changed your life. It is that story or at least part of that story that you want to share. And I know that there is much to share. In a survey recently conducted in the Roman Catholic Church it was found that the majority of those interviewed reported that they had had a life altering experience of God. The majority of them also said that they had never told anyone about it. When asked to explain why, they said, “Because people would say that I’m crazy.” The truth is just the opposite. People are thirsting for a genuine experience of God, and we can be God’s vehicle in bringing them into a relationship where they can experience that.
That’s pretty much the how of witness. It is developing my relationship with others. It is sharing why Jesus and his church are important to me. It is inviting them to “come and see.” But why do we do this? We see the answer in what happened to Nathanael. When Nathanael received Jesus, he got into touch with someone who thoroughly understood him and knew everything about him. Jesus says of him, “Here is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” And Nathanael immediately gets into contact with the wonder and the power of Jesus when Jesus says that he saw and knew Nathanael even before he was brought to him. And then Jesus says to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” What does that mean? It means that Jesus is the contact point between heaven and earth, between God and humanity. To come into contact with Jesus is to come into contact with the power of God.
What a wonderful gift we have to give. It is a life-altering gift. It is a privilege to give it, and we need to grow in our giving of it. Do you remember the Mercedes Benz commercial of a few years ago? It shows a Mercedes vehicle being test crashed into a wall. An engineer in a white jacket then assesses the damage, which is minimal. A reporter then asks about Mercedes energy absorbing body. The engineer talks about the unique design that makes the vehicle so safe. The reporter then asks why Mercedes doesn’t enforce their patent on the design and allows others to copy it. The engineer replies, “Because some things in life are too important not to share.” Jesus falls into that category. He is too important not to share. Thanks so much to those of you who are sharing and inviting. May God move in our church so that all of us can grow in our ability to witness.
copyright 2001 by Rev. Dr. John K. Luoma