GENTLE PERSUASION, PART 2: CULTIVATION

GENTLE PERSUASION, PART 2: CULTIVATION Matthew 5:13-16 July 15,  2001 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introductory Let me begin by asking how many of you followed through on your commitment from last Sunday to daily pray your "RWA" (Ready, Willing and Available prayers? How did it go? Did you recognize the Lord's answers and were you faithful to share Christ with the individuals He sent you? I must admit I had a lousy morning one day and did not pray the RWA prayer. And on two of the other six days I was able to recognize the person whom God wanted me to witness to. One of them I really blew. The other one, by God's grace, I think went OK. But I count the entire week a great success and am looking forward to the adventure of this next week. I trust that you are, too. If you need a word of encouragement to obey the commitment you made last Sunday, here it is: "When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. It is better not to vow than to vow and not fulfill it." (Ecclesiastes 5:4-5) To those who need a word of rebuke, consider yourself rebuked for not doing as you promised the Lord. But all of us should be quick to pray RWA prayers on a daily basis, and prepare ourselves to recognize those whom God leads to us who need the Lord. Today we look at part 2 of our three-part series on Christian Witness. Last week's teaching was on Incarnation; this week's is on Cultivation. (Next week we'll consider Explanation.) Included in God's plan for us as His ambassadors to lost people is that we "cultivate" our relationship with the unbelievers He gives us. That is, how do we continually lead and influence them for the sake of the gospel? Let's search our text for four clues. Matthew 5:13-16 - "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." 1.    Be Salty The enemy of good witness is the "dissonance" created when our actions do not match our words. Consider all the celebrities who in the past ten years have "come to Christ" and consider the dissonance created when after they give their testimony in glowing terms they play racy and unbecoming characters in their movies, splash their naked bodies in centerfolds and waste themselves with drug and alcohol abuse. Great testimony, huh? A mother helped her 5 year old daughter learn the song "This little light of mine-I'm gonna' let it shine!" and, using a lighted candle, taught her what it means to shine for Jesus. The next Sunday this mother was called out of worship to children's church where her daughter had gotten herself in trouble for fighting. "Laura, don't you remember what you learned about shining?" "Mom, I have blowed myself out!" Years ago the chaplain of the Red Sox noticed one of the younger players was always quoting scripture to the other players. He pulled him aside and said, "Son, don't quote scripture 'til you hit home runs!" What we share with unsaved associates through our lips needs to be backed up by our lives-lives of service, love and compassion. It must appear very odd to non-Christian people when we profess to be in relationship with God through Christ, but the whole things doesn't seem to have made any difference in our behavior, our language or our character. I am not suggesting we need to be perfectly flawless and never make a mistake if we want to be a witness for Christ. But I would posit that if our lives are not being noticeably changed for the better, we present an odd picture to the world we are trying to win. Sam Shoemaker told of a near-sighted professor who was an expert in entomology (the study of insects). His office walls were covered with pinned and framed insects. One day his students decided to play a practical joke. They took the body of one bug, the legs of another, and the head of yet another and glued them all together. They brought the specimen to the professor for identification. "What kind of bug is this?" they asked. The wise professor eyed the bug closely and finally replied, "Why, gentlemen, this is a HUMBUG!" If your heart has been devoted to King Jesus and your head, mouth and hands are run by the devil, there's something wrong! You're a HUMBUG Christian! Jesus said "You are the salt of the earth" and by that He meant we Christians are to "season" the world around us with the changed character Christ gives us. How salty are you? In his book, Led By the Carpenter, D. James Kennedy told the story of a man who walked in to a little mom & pop grocery and asked, "Do you sell salt?" "Ha!" said Pop the proprietor. "Do we sell salt?! Just look!" And he showed him an entire wall of shelves stocked with salt-Morton salt, kosher salt, rock salt, garlic salt, Epsom salts-every kind of salt imaginable. "Wow!" said the customer. "You think that's something?" Pop waved his hand. "That's nothing! Com,e in here and have a look." Pop led him to a back room filled with shelves and bins and cartons and barrels of and boxes of salt. "Do we sell salt?!" The customer shook his head, "Unbelievable!" "That's nothing-come down here." He led him to the basement where the man saw a huge room, filled wall to wall and floor to ceiling, with every imaginable form and size and shape of salt-even big 10-lb. salt licks for the pasture. "That's incredible!" said the customer, "You really do sell salt!" "No!" said Pop, "That's just the problem! We never sell salt! But that salt salesman from the wholesale warehouse-Hoo-boy! Now, he sells salt!" The beauty of Christian witnessing is we really don't need to be good "salesmen"-We just love and serve the Lord, He changes us and puts us in charge of publicity. So draw near to Jesus and pass the salt! 2.    Watch Your Language One way in which Christians often hamstring their witness to unbelievers is in the way they talk. When we talk to people who don't know a Bible from a church pew, we should be careful how we talk. Really, now, what would it mean to a pagan who'd never been to church if you asked him, "Are you saved?" What? "You know, are you redeemed, justified by Christ's substitutionary atonement? Come again? "Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb, delivered from the law of sin and death, have you been called out of darkness and into His marvelous light?" I'm sorry, pal, but I have no idea what you're talking about! David McCullough, in his book, Mornings on Horseback, tells the story about young Teddy Roosevelt. Mittie (his mother) had found he was so afraid of the Madison Square Church that he refused to set foot inside if alone. He was terrified, she discovered, of something called the "zeal." It was crouched in the dark corners of the church ready to jump out at him and eat him, he said. When she asked what a "zeal" might be, he said he was not sure, but thought it was probably a large animal like an alligator or a dragon. He explained that he had heard the minister read about it from the Bible. So, using a concordance, she read him those passages containing the word "Zeal" until suddenly, very excited, he told her to stop. The line she had read was from the Book of John, (John 2:17): "And his disciples remembered that it was written, "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." A friend of mine, Mike Reime, used to always say, people aren't afraid of Christians-but they're scared to death of "born again Christians." We have to prayerfully rely on the Holy Spirit to give us language that people can understand as we try to "translate" our Bible to them. We know what it means to evangelize those around us, and what it is to preach the gospel, but in our mission statement, which is out there for anyone to read, we have chosen "user-friendly" language. In our Mission Statement, we are to "saturate the St. Louis metro-east area with the GOOD NEWS, that anyone who wants to can experience FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD, SPIRITUAL AND EMOTIONAL WHOLENESS, and LIFE-GIVING PURPOSE. Quite simply, the very best language we can speak to the unbelievers with whom we come into contact is the universal language of love. As we care for people and demonstrate the compassion of Christ we are talking their lingo. By this will all men know that you are my disciples… A room service waiter at a Marriott hotel learned that the sister of a guest had just died. "Charles" bought a sympathy card, had all the staff at the hotel sign it, and brought it to the distraught guest with a piece of hot apple pie. Later this same guest wrote a letter: "Mr. Marriott, I'll never meet you and I don't need to meet you. Because I met Charles, and I know what you stand for." He went on to explain how he was served, and then wrote, "I want to assure you that as long as I live, I will stay at your hotels, and I will tell my friends to stay at your hotels." 3.    Pray for Them According to the Bible, people who don't have a personal relationship with Christ are BLIND and DECEIVED. The scripture says that the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (2 Corinthians 4:4) Later, in chapter ten of that book, Paul wrote about arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:5) In that same passage the apostle makes it clear that we will not destroy such strongholds with arguing and debating, cajoling and pleading. No, these strong demonic mindsets are destroyed only with spiritual weapons. Our primary spiritual weapon is prayer. This is why we regularly practice "prayer-walking" in neighborhoods we want to target for evangelism. The real spiritual battle takes place, then, long before the actual verbal sharing of the good news. It is through prayer that people's hearts are "readied" for the gospel. Pray for your neighbors, friends, co-workers and family members who don't know Jesus. They are blind, and they need miraculous healing from the Lord. Their minds are mired down in the slough of theological confusion and an utter inability to appreciate spiritual truths-UNTIL you pray. I can recall trying to share the gospel with a man I had known for several years. He was an intellectual and had eruditely deflected my attempts at evangelism, even my personal witness. I tried everything-we talked politics, finance, family, everything. I even read a book he was excited about, looking for a "hook" for the gospel. Nothing. Then one day I stumbled onto these passages and decided I would ask a few good friends to agree with me in prayer for this man. I was going to have a meeting with him in a couple days, so I just asked about a half-dozen intercessors to lift him up. In fact, I specifically asked for prayer that he would let me talk to him about Jesus. We prayed, and when we met that week, not five minutes into our conversation, I started to bring up the subject of faith, and my friend cut me off, and said this: "Rich, tell you what. Why don't we get together each Tuesday for the next few weeks for lunch and discussion, and you tell me all I need to know about Jesus!" That is exactly what he said. We did keep those dates and thus far he has not obeyed Christ, but I had the distinct impression that suddenly what I was sharing was getting through. Prayer works! 4.    Be Opportunistic I really want to cover this point next week in Part 3 on "Explanation," but let me introduce the idea now. When you pray RWA prayers, you are not only asking God to bring others who need Christ your way, and asking Him to make it plain to you that He has in fact arranged the meeting, but you are also pledging to step out in conversational courage and bring the discussion around to Jesus and your personal witness. This is really what most of us need - courage, like the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz - C-ourage! Plan now, while you pray for opportunities, to courageously step into a posture of witness to those He brings you. Pray for courage. Pray for creativity, the right words to say that will meet needs and open their minds. Expressions that will create trust and prophetically cut into their hearts. You know faith is like a rubber band-it is absolutely useless unless it is being stretched. Now, step back for a moment and look at the scenario. You've prayed for God to bring someone your way today who needs Christ-someone whom you may influence for Christ.You asked God to make it abundantly clear to you that the person you run into was brought to you by His divine leading. It happens-someone walks up to you out of the clear blue and says something off-the-wall, like "do I know you?" or "I noticed something about you, and it really intrigued me" or even "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?" Somehow the Holy Spirit has assured you that yes, this is His doing, this little chance meeting. What are you going to do-make small talk? Beat around the bush? Years ago, Mr. Hilton, founder of the great Hilton Hotel chain, was invited to be one of the people to speak over the air in the first coast to coast radio broadcast. Several dignitaries were on hand, and when it came time for Hilton to come to the microphone, he said, "Many of you fine people have stayed at our hotels. I would like to ask you, when you stay with us, please place the curtain inside the tub when you take a shower." Isn't that ridiculous?! An opportunity of a lifetime, an historic moment which would never be repeated-and he talked about shower curtains! Maybe there is only one example of a more ridiculous waste of an opportunity-when the Lord of the universe has clearly interfered in two ordinary lives to bring them together in a divine appointment, so that the Christian would share his faith with the non-Christian, and the Christian fritters away the opportunity blathering on about the weather or the Cardinals, and never gets to the intended issue! All the time, all over the world, God is setting up divine appointments allowing Christians to meet up with unbelievers. And as the angels watch, two important questions fill their minds: will the Christian recognize the opportunity? And Will the Christian take advantage of the opportunity by courageously stepping into God-talk with the other person? What if thousands of believers all over the St. Louis area began to get serious about these opportunities and started to win others to faith in Christ!? How quickly would God move to arrange other appointments for these faithful witnesses, AND for the new believers? On the wall in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago there used to hang a large checkerboard. It had the usual 64 squares. In the lower left square, a single grain of wheat was mounted in the square. Below the giant checkerboard there was a question posed: "If you doubled the amount of wheat as you moved from square to square, how much wheat would you have when you reached the 64th square? A carload? A trainload? YOU WOULD HAVE ENOUGH WHEAT TO COVER THE COUNTRY OF INDIA SIX FEET DEEP! Using the same mathematics, if you (alone) reached one person for Christ, sticking with that person for six months, and then both you and the new disciple repeated the same process with two the next six months, and the pattern continued for eight years, ONE BILLION people could be reached for Christ. And that's starting with just you! The intent of God is to use you and me in His great scheme of reaching men and women for Christ. He has instituted no other plan. He is relying solely on the obedience of His people to reach others who are not yet His people. He is willing to lead and empower us in this task, if we'll let him. Are you being salty? Are you letting your light shine? One of my favorite little stories is the one about Oliver Cromwell, the first commoner to rule England (early 17th century). During his reign, the government was running low on silver for coinage. He dispatched his leaders on a mission to find silver-anywhere they could in England. They came back with this report: "The only silver we can find is in the statues of the saints standing in the corners of the cathedrals." "Good," said Cromwell, "we'll melt down the saints and put them into circulation!"     [Back to Top]