The Challenge

 

*This is a devotional that I shared at a music festival some years back. It's a great reminder to me personally and one you may be encouraged and challenged by as well.

I want to start today by reading a passage and then telling a brief story. In Matthew 28:18-20 we find a passage commonly described as the great commission. Jesus is speaking to His disciples when it says, “and Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Amen.”

George Sweeting, a former president of Moody Bible Institute, tells of a man by the name of John Currier who in 1949 was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Later he was transferred and paroled to work on a farm near Nashville, Tennessee. In 1968, Currier's sentence was terminated, and a letter bearing the good news was sent to him. But John never saw the letter, nor was he told anything about it. Life on that farm was hard and without promise for the future. Yet John kept doing what he was told even after the farmer for whom he worked had died. Ten years went by. Then a state parole officer learned about Currier's plight, found him, and told him that his sentence had been terminated. He was a free man. Sweeting concluded that story by asking, "Would it matter to you if someone sent you an important message -- the most important in your life -- and year after year the urgent message was never delivered?" We who have heard the good news and experienced freedom through Christ are responsible to proclaim it to others still enslaved by sin. Are we doing all we can to make sure that people get the message?

Today my challenge and encouragement to you is to be spreading the gospel wherever you are. In the next few moments I hope to break down the problem with the evangelism in the church today, what we can learn from these verses in Matthew, and then what our goals can be going forward.

The saddest thing to me today is that missions or evangelism was the heart beat of every early church member but now seems to be an afterthought in much of the church. The late Howard Hendricks, a long-time professor at Dallas Theological Seminary once put it this way, “in the midst of a generation screaming for answers, Christians are stuttering.” The statistics unfortunately back this up. According to a 2017 survey conducted by the American Culture and Faith Institute, only 1 in 4 Christians believe it’s their responsibility to share their faith and other recent surveys have that number even lower. Furthermore, even with a statistic as drastic as that, a survey performed by the Barna Group shows that despite 1 in 4 Christians believing it is their responsibility to share only 2 out every 100 actually do it. These numbers are truly frightening and alarming especially since in 1993 the Barna Group partnered with the Lutheran Hour Ministries to do a survey and found the 89% of Christians viewed evangelism as responsibility of each and every Christian. That is an enormous drop. Now the thought we may have is that the younger generation, my age of people, may be the problem. However, that is not the case. In fact, the likelihood of a young person sharing the gospel nowadays is 9% more likely than ii was for someone in my age group back as little as eight years ago. Nowadays as compared to 2010 also reveals that people older than 65 are only 1% more likely to share their faith and people in between the ages of 25-65 are as much as 12% less likely to witness.

Getting back now to the passage from Matthew that I read at the beginning, its important to point out that Jesus doesn’t just suggest it, He commands it. I think it’s very interesting that Jesus states “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and earth” before He gives the command. We should especially take note of what comes after a statement like this. The words that Jesus says next are three practical commands we are called to follow. We are to make disciples, baptize them, and them teach them. In the verse 20, Jesus then gives us all the help we will need to accomplish this tack that he has set before all Christians. It says right at the end of the chapter 28 “and lo, I am with you, even to the ends of the earth.” This is our hope. He alone is all we need to combat the fear, distractions, or whatever may be hindering us. The depth of our faith and trust will certainly be evident in our response to the hard things Jesus calls us to.

This brings me to another question that we must ask ourselves. Do we really believe what we say we believe is really real? I mean if we truly think we have the answers to any and every problem we have in life, shouldn’t we be sharing and telling every person we encounter?

At one point in his career, the distinguished lawyer Samuel Hoar (1778-1856) was representing a defendant. When it was time to present his case, he told the jurors that the facts favoring his client were so evident that he would not insult their intelligence by arguing them. The jury retired to deliberate and returned in a few minutes with a verdict of guilty. Samuel Hoar was astonished!

"How," he asked, "could you have reached such a verdict?" 

The foreman replied, "We all agreed that if anything could be said for a case, you would say it. But since you didn't present any evidence, we decided to rule against you." Silence had lost the case.

How often the opportunity to speak a word of testimony for Christ is lost because we remain silent. Those who need to hear the gospel may conclude that salvation is not important enough to talk about. We need to really examine ourselves and ask these critical questions. I am certainly not singling anyone out as I am right at the top of the list of people who need to work on this. The truth is though, this should be our heart cry. This should be our life. Everyone we meet should see that we are different and have true hope and truth.

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!"

I think the point here could go without saying but I’ll say it any way. The lives we live should show and give the gospel. This is something we should have energy and excitement about. It’s truly comes down to sharing the life-giving hope we have received as an act of gratitude toward the One who gave all.

So now we have gotten the big picture but what are some practical steps we can have going forward.

The first thing we can do is reach out to those closest to us. Our families. Maybe you just have never shared with them. Take the opportunity before it’s too late. Maybe they have walked away from the truth. Let your life be the sermon to them. You could be the person who has faulted another and your witness is damaged. In humility apologize for the wrongs you have committed, make restitution, and then live to show them the power of a life changed by Jesus Christ. Beyond our family we can share with our neighbors. A recent statistic that I saw showed that 72% of Americans don’t know their neighbors. This is really unbelievable. If you are someone who doesn’t know those who live around you take that step to reach out. We don’t have to try and convert everyone. Just being a genuine person who loves others and cares about their destiny is all were called to do. I heard a story once that I think captures this whole concept.

A young salesman was disappointed about losing a big sale, and as he talked with his sales manager he lamented, "I guess it just proves you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." The manager replied, "Son, take my advice: your job is not to make him drink. Your job is to make him thirsty."

This is also the way it is with evangelism. Our lives should be so filled with Christ that they create a thirst for the Gospel. We have the truth. It’s our job to live it.

As we wrap things up let kind of recap where we’ve been. First of all, we discussed the sad statistics in evangelism currently in the church. We then looked through Matthew 28:18-20 and dealt with some important questions we need to ask ourselves. Finally, we looked at two practical steps. First, reaching out to those closest to us, our family and neighbors and then second, living out the gospel to everyone we come in contact with. We are here at an event that is going to be a lot of fun, we’ll be encouraged, and most importantly we’re going to praise our Savior. But may the messages we hear in song this weekend be the inspiration and motivation we have going forward to reach the world around us.

Thank you so much for allowing me to share what has been on my heart lately. I hope this has been both a challenge and an encouragement to you this afternoon.