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What do we witness for Christ?
Ezekiel 3:16-19, Acts 4: 11-12, Matthew 10:16-19
The Rev. Kong Namkung
September 19, 2004

Last week God spoke to us about witnessing Jesus to others.  In last weeks message, Jesus had passion for reaching out to people with compassion.  So, our passion for Christ is valid with compassion.  Our passion for Christ Jesus is ratified by Jesus’ compassion.  When Jesus saw the man, who did not have ability to walk by himself and was carried by four men on a bed, his eyes were full of tears (Mark 2).  When Jesus stood before the tomb of Lazarus, who was one of Jesus’ friends and had been dead for four days, in a cold cave, Jesus’ heart was broken.  When Jesus heard the plea of the widow, who lost her only son, Jesus cried with her with compassion.  The same Jesus today, even when you do not live the way that you ought to, shows his compassion to us.  Jesus is full of compassion and his heart is occupied by compassion.  Do you have compassion for others, especially for the unsaved?    If so, how do you express Jesus’ compassion?

Your compassion can be expressed by letting those on the way to destruction know they can escape.  When you see one of your family members or your friends standing on the edge of the cliff of spiritual destruction, if you do not tell them about the way to escape from the destruction, then you are not a compassionate person.  But when you tell them the only escape is through Jesus Christ, you have a true heart of compassion.  With the true heart of compassion what would you like to tell?  98% of Christians do not share Jesus Christ with others.  Why do Christians fail to share Jesus Christ with others?  28% out of 98% do feel that they have a lack of information. 

Dr. Ellin Greene, of the University of Chicago, has said, "We get so quickly sidetracked from the simple story nature of our faith. We begin to think that theology saves us, that truth is somehow embodied in our theology of the Atonement, or our mastery of eschatological charts. But when Jesus wanted to communicate the truth of God’s kingdom, he left out the polysyllables and told a story about a woman who lost a coin or a man who dug for treasure. The kingdom of heaven is like this, he said. Dare we ask for more scholarly explanation from the Son of God?"  We do not need to know the complicated theology in order to share Jesus Christ with others.  You do not need to be equipped like pastors.

There are more than 30,000 people who have religious professions in this country.  I respect Billy Graham most.  So I want to share with you the effective way of sharing Christ with others.  It is called “Steps to Peace with God.”   There are four R’s in the “Steps to Peace with God,” – Recognize, Realize, Respond, and Receive. I want you to take good notes so that you may share it with the unsaved. 

Step 1 - RECOGNIZE God’s Plan for Your Life

God has a purpose for all human beings, and that is that you have peace and life. "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." --John 10:10 (NIV).  Because God loves you He sent His son to give us everlasting life. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." --John 3:16 (NIV)

God, who loves us, wants you to experience peace and life -- abundant and eternal.  The Bible says, "We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." --Romans 5:1 (NIV) Only those who have made the decision to accept Christ’s substitutionary payment for the forgiveness our own sins can experience Christ’s justification. The question is why don’t most people have this peace and abundant life that God planned for us to have?

Step 2 - REALIZE our problem

The Problem is our Separation from God. God created us in His own image to have an abundant life. God did not make us as robots to automatically love and obey God. God gave us a will and a freedom of choice. We chose to disobey God and go our own willful way. We still make this choice today. This results in separation from God. The Bible says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” --Romans 3:23 (NIV)
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." --Romans 6:23 (NIV)

Human beings attempted to Reach God.  People have tried in many ways to bridge this gap between themselves and God.  The Bible says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” --Proverbs 14:12 (NIV) "But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear." --Isaiah 59:2 (NIV)

But No bridge reaches God ... except one.  Today’s New Testament lesson tells us Jesus is the only way to have salvation. “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

Step 3 RESPOND to God’s remedy found in the cross of Christ

God’s Bridge is the Cross. Jesus Christ died on the Cross and rose from the grave. He paid the penalty for our sin and bridged the gap between God and people. The Bible says, "For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ." --1 Timothy 2:5 (NIV)  "For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God." --1 Peter 3:18 (NIV)  "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." --Romans 5:8 (NIV)
God has provided the only way. Each person must make a choice.

Step 4 - RECEIVE God’s Son as our personal Savior and Lord

Our Response is to receive Christ.  We must trust Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and receive Him by personal invitation. The Bible says, "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." --Revelation 3:20 (NIV)
"Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." --John 1:12 (NIV)  "That if you confess with your mouth, ’Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." --Romans 10:9 (NIV)

Where are you?  Will you receive Jesus Christ right now?

Here is how you can receive Christ:

1. Admit your need (I am a sinner).

2. Be willing to turn from your sins (repent).

3. Believe that Jesus Christ died for you on the Cross and rose from the grave.

4. Through prayer, invite Jesus Christ to come in and control your life through the Holy Spirit. (Receive Him as Lord and Savior.)

Step 5 - Pray to Personally receive Christ as your Savior and Lord.

How to Pray: Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner and need Your forgiveness. I believe that You died for my sins. I want to turn from my sins. I now invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as Lord and Savior. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

God’s Assurance: His Word

If you prayed this prayer, The Bible says, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." --Romans 10:13 (NIV)
Did you sincerely ask Jesus Christ to come into your life? Where is He right now? What has He given you?  "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast." --Ephesians 2:8,9 (NIV)

Receiving Christ, we are born into God’s family through the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit who indwells every believer. This is called regeneration, or the "new birth."

This is just the beginning of a wonderful new life in Christ. To deepen this relationship you should:

1. Read your Bible everyday to know Christ better.

2. Talk to God in prayer every day.

3. Tell others about Christ.

4. Worship, fellowship, and serve with other Christians in a church where Christ is preached.

5. As Christ’s representative in a needy world, demonstrate your new life by your love and concern for others.

Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962), the world-famous violinist, earned a fortune with his concerts and compositions, but he generously gave most of it away. So, when he discovered an exquisite violin on one of his trips, he wasn't able to buy it. Later, having raised enough money to meet the asking price, he returned to the seller, hoping to purchase that beautiful instrument. But to his great dismay it had been sold to a collector. Kreisler made his way to the new owner's home and offered to buy the violin. The collector said it had become his prized possession and he would not sell it. Keenly disappointed, Kreisler was about to leave when he had an idea. "Could I play the instrument once more before it is consigned to silence?" he asked. Permission was granted, and the great virtuoso filled the room with such heart-moving music that the collector's emotions were deeply stirred. "I have no right to keep that to myself," he exclaimed. "It's yours, Mr. Kreisler. Take it into the world, and let people hear it."  Our Daily Bread, February 4, 1994.

I believe that God has given us a very “precious violin.”  Do we want to keep it as an antique?  Or do we want to play it so that other people may hear the beautiful melody of Jesus Christ?  My beloved, brothers and sisters, let us share this precious person in our heart to the unsaved.  Let us be the instruments to play the violin of Jesus Christ.  Are you ready?  

We need to tell people they are in trouble with God and that God alone has provided a way to escape.  But how do we witness to them? Do we all have to share the same way? No, because the unbelieving world is made up of a variety of people: young and mature, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, people live in urban and rural, with different race, different personalities, different values, politics, and religious backgrounds. It is going to take more than one style of evangelism to reach such a diverse population! So what is your style?

1. Confrontational? (Acts 2) Repent and be baptized, save yourselves from this corrupt generation.

2. Intellectual? (Acts 17) Paul debated with the philosophers on Mars Hill to convince them.

3. Testimonial? (John 9) One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!

4. Relational? (Mark 5) Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you.

5. Invitational? (John 4) The Samaritan woman at the well begged the people of the city to come and hear Jesus for themselves.

6. Serving? (Acts 9) Dorcas impacted her city by doing deeds of kindness.

Don't ever think you're a second class Christian because you don't proclaim Christ like Peter or Paul. Discover your own method.  God has given us all different gifts and talents.  We cannot be the same as one another and the unsaved cannot be the same either.  Find your method.  Then get out of your chair and use it, for the Glory of God. Live by faith, not fear!!!   J.K. Johnston, Why Christians Sin, Discovery House, 1992, p. 142.

If you do not share Jesus Christ, your passion for Christ and your compassion for reaching out to people will be extinguished.  Elton Trueblood, the Quaker scholar, once compared evangelism to fire. Evangelism occurs, he said, when Christians are so ignited by their contact with Christ that they in turn set other fires. It is easy to determine when something is aflame. It ignites other material. Any fire that does not spread will eventually go out. A church without evangelism is a contradiction in terms, just as fire that does not burn is a contradiction.

In our gospel lesson as Jesus sends out his disciples into the world, Jesus says, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.  Therefore be as shrewd (wise) as snakes and as innocent as doves.”  (Matthew 10:16)  So when we share Jesus with others, we have to be wise.  Be wise like serpents. When you share Jesus Christ with others, you have to have the following ingredients for effective witnessing.

1) Care: show concern for the person, and concern for your life before him.  Rick Warren in his book, The purpose Driven Church, says, “People do not care how much we know until they know how much we care.” (p. 40)

2) Dare: it takes courage to witness--courage if the person is a stranger to you, and even more if the person is a close friend or relative.  A fellow in Alaska has been throwing the Word of God into the ocean for a third of a century.  Missionary Everett Bachelder has tossed more than 1,000 mayonnaise jars and ketchup bottle into the Bering Sea.  He has crammed them with Scripture message written in 100 language.  Wind and waves have carried the story of God’s love to the far corners of the earth.  He has received responses from as far as 10,000 miles away.  Kids from the various area churches help him fold the messages and put them in the jars and bottles.

A man in Singapore, distraught over a romance gone sour, was about to commit suicide by jumping into the waters from a cliff.  Bur he saw a bottle wash up against the rocks below.  Deciding to leap when the bottle broke, he watched it hit the rocks again and again without breaking. Curious, he climbed down the cliff, saw the messages, opened the bottle, discovered it related to the word of God, sought out a missionary in Singapore and got saved.

3) Share: If you want to make a lasting impression, share yourself with the person. Evangelism is not what we tell people, unless what we tell is totally consistent with who we are. It is who we are that is going to make the difference. If we do not truly enjoy our faith, nobody is going to catch the fire of enjoyment from us. If our lives are not totally centered on Christ, we will not be Christ-bearers for others, no matter how pious our words. [Show and Tell, Citation: Madeleine L’Engle, quoted in Christian Reader (May/June 1998, p. 50)]  Get involved in his interests, get your shoulder under his burden, be genuinely glad when he has a success. 

4) Prayer: Don't discount the effectiveness of prayer in the preparation of people's hearts for the Good News.  

Where are we going from here?  Many years ago some men were panning for gold in Montana, and one of them found an unusual stone. Breaking it open, he was excited to see that it contained gold. Working eagerly, the men soon discovered an abundance of the precious metal. Happily, they began shouting with delight, "We've found it! We've found gold! We're rich!" They had to interrupt their celebrating, though, to go into a nearby town and stock up on supplies. Before they left camp, the men agreed not to tell a soul about their find. Indeed, no one breathed a word about it to anyone while they were in town. Much to their dismay, however, when they were about to return, hundreds of men were prepared to follow them. When they asked the crowd to tell who "squealed," the reply came, "No one had to. Your faces showed it!

Let our faces and lives show it!

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Ezekiel 3:16-19

16 At the end of seven days the word of the LORD came to me: 17 "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. 18 When I say to a wicked man, 'You will surely die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. 19 But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways, he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself.
NIV

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Acts 4:11-12

11 He is

"'the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the capstone.'

12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
NIV

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Matthew 10:16-19

16 I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

17 "Be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues. 18 On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. 19 But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say,
NIV

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