This is part 4 of a 4
part series based on a question which was asked dealing with my blog on “When
Did We Start Confusing Community Service With Evangelism?”
2nd Peter 1:10-11
President and Founder, Be Devoted Ministries
2nd Peter 1:10-11
10Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent
to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice
these things, you will never stumble; 11 for in this way the
entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be
abundantly supplied to you.”
Reason 4-They don’t
share their faith because they have not really believed
I have always said if you are a Christian and you share
Jesus with someone, when that person comes to Christ you will never be the same
again. I not only believe that
statement, but I stand by it because I have lead people to Christ.
Several years ago in 1982, right before I graduated high
school, I attended Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. One particular Sunday morning God got a hold
of this small congregation and lit a fire within His people. It was a move of God that I had never
experienced before, and to this day have not seen anything like it. Suddenly people were inviting folks to church
and were going out and witnessing on the streets. That night I was scheduled to preach since
the pastor was home sick. I invited a
friend to come with me who I knew was lost.
My friend was a year younger than I was and got along with me very
well. After preaching I gave a public
invitation where people were allowed to come to the front of the auditorium and
state their need for Jesus as Savior.
Many people came forward to accept Christ including my friend. My friend graduated in 1983 and became an EMT
(Emergency Medical Technician). He was
buried in February, 2012 after dying from bone cancer. You never know what may happen to someone
later in life.
Christians cannot get around the idea that we are witnesses
of light to a lost world in darkness.
Our Christianity invades our every perspective in every area. When I came to Christ I went from being
pro-abortion to being pro-life. I went
from saying let everyone live like they want, to everyone should be living for
Jesus.
I believe there are two major indicators that can help
people know whether they are Christians or not.
They are the most basic of indicators.
One is church attendance. I plan
on dealing with the link between church attendance and salvation in a later
blog. The second is the willingness to
share the faith. When you come to Christ
your life still has moments and places of self-absorptions. God
has to constantly work on those areas, but over all you have a different
prospective on life and a deeper concern for the eternal dilemma others are
in. You care about the eternal destiny
of those you know and don’t know. There
should be an increased desire to reach people with the gospel.
There are two ways in which people will decide to reach the
lost; missions and witnessing. Mary and
I choose to support missions work because they can reach people groups that we
could never reach. Witnessing is the act
of sharing our faith in what we say, how we treat others, what we do, and the
willingness to point out when people are wrong while discussing the good news
of Jesus Christ with them.
My concern rides that if people are allowing the world to
dictate to them if they should be a witness; if their fears dominate their love
for the lost; and they show consistent signs of laziness on their part, there
is a very real possibility that they are lost.
In other words they do not know the Savior. I cannot share with you what I do not
have. If you need ten dollars but I do
not have it, I cannot give it to you.
The same is true of faith. If you
have no faith, you can’t share it. If
you don’t know Jesus as Savior, you cannot introduce Him to someone else.
There is a story which is told about W.A. Criswell the late
pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas.
The way the story was conveyed to me is there was a gentleman who got
into a heated debate with Dr. Criswell.
In the midst of this fiery exchange the gentleman told Dr. Criswell that
he is narrow-minded because he believed that only Baptist was going to
Heaven. In term Dr. Criswell quipped
back and told him that he was more narrow-minded than that; he (Dr. Criswell)
believed that only half of them were going.
The idea that the story conveys is that not everyone in a
church pew or on a church membership role is a Christian. They may be a Christian by name but not by
ownership. Another thought is that they
make a profession but don’t have the possession.
Jesus in Matthew 7:21-23 warns, “Not everyone who says to
Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of
My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 Many will say to Me
on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name
cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 And
then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who
practice lawlessness.’”
The key is that many people will do things that are
spectacular, fun, and impressive. They
will speak eloquently and discuss things that seem to make sense to the
hearer. They may even be the cream of
the crop; the best of the best; the very people we look up too. They may be the
most impressive preacher(s) we have ever heard.
But they won’t be believers. They will have made a great show, however
they will be people of “lawlessness.”
They will have broken the two hinge commandments. Love God with every bit of their being[1] and love
their neighbor as themselves.[2] How is this “lawlessness” reflected? They did not love God enough to repent of
their own sin and turn to Jesus Christ as Savior by believing on Him alone. And they did not love their neighbor enough
to tell the good news of what happened to them.
They did not do the will of the Father.
What is the will of the Father?
For us to confess our sinfulness to Him, turn from our own ways; turn to
Jesus Christ believing He is the only way to eternal salvation as a result of
what He did on the cross and the fact that He is bodily rose from the
dead. Then we are to share this with
everyone we come into contact with. This
is one of the reasons for John MacArthur writing his book The Gospel According To Jesus.
“In Matthew 7, the Lord gives us a glimpse of the coming judgment and
the tragedy of those who will stand before the throne with high expectations
but only a verbal profession or mere intellectual knowledge.”[3] While I may not totally agree with everything
he states or the way he states it the point of the book has to be taken. Just because people say they are believers
doesn’t mean they are.
Out of all four thoughts on this subject this is easily the
most dangerous one. Not only is the
eternity of those who are outside the church walls threatened, but those within
the walls are as well. I cannot emphasis
enough that the reason so many people show so little concern for the eternity
of others, is because they do not have eternal life. It is eternal life that only comes from Jesus
Christ and needs to be seen as well as heard by the rest of the world.
I will end with a final thought next week called, “What do
we do now?”
His Servant Together With You,
Steven SwaimPresident and Founder, Be Devoted Ministries
(All Bible quotations are from the NASB)
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