GENTLE PERSUASION: INCARNATION

GENTLE PERSUASION: INCARNATION John 1:14 et al July 8,  2001 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introductory Charles Schwab, the great leader and president of Bethlehem Steel Corporation once turned to a consultant named Ivy Lee for advice. He told him he wanted "one great suggestion" that would help make his company and his people successful. He said to Mr. Lee, "If your suggestion works, I will give you "anything, within reason." Later, Ivy Lee handed Mr. Schwab a sheet of paper with the plan: "Write down the most important tasks you have to do tomorrow. Number them in order of importance. When you arrive in the morning, begin at once on Number 1 and stay on it until it is completed. Recheck your priorities, then begin with Number 2, then Number 3. Make this a habit every working day. Pass it on to those under you. Try it as long as you like, then send me your check for whatever you think it is worth." That one idea revolutionized Bethlehem Steel Corporation, which went on in the next five years to become the world's largest steel producer. How much did Schwab send his consultant? Several weeks after he got the note, Schwab sent Lee a check for $25,000, admitting it was the most profitable lesson he had ever learned. This morning, and for the next two weeks, I want to lead us in the important exercise of identifying our number one priority as a church. While we are at it we will review some strategies that will help each and all of us become a success in accomplishing priority #1. OUR MISSION: To saturate the St. Louis metro-east area with God's Good News that anyone can experience: Friendship with God, Spiritual and Emotional Wholeness in Him and Life-giving Purpose in His Kingdom. OUR VISION (strategy): To establish 1,000 cell groups in the St. Louis metro-east area which will be dedicated to the ministry of: Drawing people to salvation in Jesus Christ, Developing Believers to Maturity in Jesus Christ, and Deploying Mature Disciples into Ministry for Jesus Christ. BOTTOM LINE - We exist to present the good news about Jesus, in as compelling a way as we can to people all around us with a view to their receiving Christ and the promises of God. Who converts people? The Holy Spirit! Conversion is not our job! Our job is to present the gospel in as clear and compelling a way as we can in the power of the Holy Spirit, and leave the converting to God. I want to be very clear as we begin this series on how we reach others for Christ that "talking them into a decision" is not what we are about. And, unless you have the unmistakable gift of evangelist, you are not to act as a peddler for God. You are a witness and an ambassador for God with a message for people, but you are not a sales rep with a quota to meet. Today, specifically, I want to focus on the first of three keys to effective evangelism. And that is the art of "incarnation." We have looked at the incarnation of Christ during the communion time by considering the simple message of John 3:16, that God loved His lost world so much that He GAVE and SENT His Son. John 1:14 says, "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." Jesus "enfleshed" himself, becoming like us. He did this to perfectly identify with us AND to perfectly represent the Father to us. He identified with us. Hebrews 2:14 - "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy [the devil]…" And Hebrews 4:14-15 teaches that this Jesus who has gone through the heavens on our behalf has become our high priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. He is our high priest "who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-yet without sin." His other purpose for the incarnation was to represent the Father to us. Jesus once said to His disciples during His earthly ministry, "He who has seen me has seen the Father." Colossians 1:15 says Jesus is the physical "image of the invisible God." And I remind you of Hebrews 1:3 which teaches that "The Son is the radiance of God's glory, and the exact representation of his being,…" Jesus was "God's perfect Man" and "Man's perfect God". Now, in John 20:21, Jesus said, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." The Lord is sending us to lost people that we might bring them this message of hope and salvation. And if He is sending us as He was sent, then that means He is asking us to "incarnate" ourselves into other people's lives. That is, we are called to identify with people's hurts and problems and questions and doubt. We are to get close enough to them that they trust us and our message. When you want to truly influence someone there is no substitute for establishing a good relationship. So, if we want to genuinely reach someone on behalf of the Lord Jesus, we must be willing to "incarnate" into their lives, get to know them, invest ourselves in their lives. I'm not suggesting that we all need to go out and find someone and glob onto them and say, "I want to be your friend." What we can rely on are our natural lines of relationship-friendships and relationships that we already have.. I will add that if you've been a Christian for any length of time, you may find yourself in the awkward position of what I call Christian Quarantine. That is, all of your friends are Christians! Either you've influenced them to come to Christ, or all your old unsaved friends have drifted away and you've made all new friends-and they're all believers! There is nothing wrong with this tendency in and of itself. It is perfectly natural that we tend to want to spend our time with others of like faith-after all, we have so much more in common. However, we must honestly ask ourselves the question, How can I meaningfully influence other people who are not yet saved if I don't have any relationships with any of them? I think it is right for us "quarantined Christians" to stay in touch with non-Christian people so that we can influence them for Christ. This is what incarnation is all about. What are you suggesting, Rich? That I go out and hunt up some unbeliever that I can witness to? In a word, yes. But, let's not look at it so much as a "search and convert" mission as a real sensitivity to God's leading. You know, there are dozens of "not-yet-Christians" each of us contacts every day. Do you think it is reasonable to assume that the sovereign God has a hand in those contacts? I do, too. Among our encounters each day with unsaved people I suggest there are two kinds of encounters - CASUAL encounters and CAUSED encounters. . We are, of course, witnesses for Christ to all the casual encounters, aren't we? If your co-workers, neighbors, classmates don't already know you are a Christian, they probably will soon. Either you'll have the God-given opportunity to share your witness or someone else will tell them, "You know, he's a Christian!" It is then that the person will begin to scrutinize your behavior, watch how you treat them and others and remember the things you've said to them and HOW you've spoken them. They'll be looking to match up your behavior with your belief system. In this way you are a witness to them. One of the most powerful books I've ever read is one by Sheldon VanAuken - a gold medallion award winner entitled, A Sever Mercy. In that book VanAuken says this: The best argument for Christianity is Christians; their joy, their certainty, Their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians-when they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths. Sociologists tell us that even the most introverted individual will influence ten thousand other people during his or her lifetime! Jesus used the imagery of salt and light to describe how we influence others. Much of this influence is passive and happens in these "casual" encounters. Ever had someone come up to you at a restaurant and say, "I was truly blessed to see you stop and pray before your meal"? Someone said, "So live your life that if anyone should ever accuse you of doing something terribly wrong no one would believe them." But I want to talk about CAUSED encounters. These are those contacts we have with people that, if we are spiritually alert, we can tell are no accidents. My purpose here is to raise awareness by reminding you that God is very active in your day. At least sometimes, if not all the time, He puts specific people in your path for specific reasons. Of course, the argument can be made that God controls everything and that every little thing in our lives is under His direct care. But I'm talking about those seemingly chance encounters with individuals that, if we study them carefully, we would see they were a divine appointment arranged by God-a CAUSED encounter. These probably are happening all the time and we miss most of them because we are not staying spiritually sharp by walking in the Spirit at all times, losing momentary fellowship with God, being distracted too much by the worldly things happening around us. But I would provoke us to more awareness about the possibilities. Just yesterday I blew it. I had locked my keys in my car and called a service to come and help me. Two young ladies arrived-one was a new-on-the-job technician and the other was a friend of hers who was actually the dispatcher who rode along on this particular mission, but knew nothing about getting car doors unlocked without keys. Well, it turns out the "technician" didn't know enough either. With only a couple weeks' experience she couldn't get my door open. They called on their cell phone to get their boss. He had trouble finding the hospital-parking garage where we were, and it ended up taking him about a half-hour to arrive. It was frustrating to the new girl that she couldn't get the door open and it was a little frustrating to me to have to wait so long in the heat for help. The boss finally arrived and in a few seconds had the car open. As I drove away later I was struck with what a golden opportunity I had to share a word of witness with these two young ladies. Their language and demeanor indicated they were probably not Christians. I looked back with regret that I had basically "wasted" the better part of an hour talking about door locks, cell phones and the summer heat when I could have, should have, used the opportunity that was given to me to share Christ with these persons I now recognize were a CAUSED ENCOUNTER. It was not long after that reflection of regret that I was sitting down to put the finishing touches on this message, and I resolved last night to be more alert to the encounters God arranged for me, and to be more faithful to talk about eternal things with those He allows me to meet. Some of these CAUSED encounters are subtle and others are not so subtle. You remember the deacon in the early church named Philip. He was hanging out one day when the Holy Spirit spoke clearly to him to go south of town to a certain road. He obeyed, all the while I'm sure wondering what this was all about. The story appears in Acts 8. While Phil is on his way to this intersection he notices a chariot parked alongside the road with an Ethiopian man sitting in it and reading out loud from the book of Isaiah about the prophecies of Christ's suffering and death. Now, as spiritually dull as I sometimes am, I'd like to think that I would have been able to put two and two together and know that this guy was the reason I had been led to this place. Philip apparently didn't, because the Holy Spirit had to give him further directions, "Go to that chariot and stay near it." Philip no doubt thought to himself "Oh, duh!" and obediently went over. As if to give even further confirmation that God was in this, the Eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about?" And the scripture says Philip began at that passage and told him the good news about Jesus and the man was saved and went on to take the gospel to a new continent. Philip was given an opportunity to INCARNATE the gospel into the Ethiopian's life, even though only briefly. Tell me, whom do you suppose God has arranged to drive through your life right now? Don't think for a minute that He has forgotten to lead someone to you. He is very interested in sending people your way in whose lives you can incarnate the good news. Let me close with two exhortations. One has to do with the CASUAL ENCOUNTERS and the other with CAUSED ENCOUNTERS Exhortation #1 - Trust that God is sovereign in your circumstances. God calls you to shine like light and influence like salt, and He will give you places to shine and people to influence. Couple of observations: 1. You do not live in Hong Kong. Therefore, you are not responsible to be a witness to anyone in that city (unless God should call you there). But you DO live in the St. Louis metro-east. Guess where God has sovereignly allowed you to be salt and light for Him? 2. You do not live where you live by accident. "Oh, pastor, you don't understand, God didn't send me here-I got orders from the Air Force." "No, this wasn't a divine arrangement, I came here for a better job and a better income-that's not very holy!" "Oh, I was just born here!" Listen, whatever you think got you here, God let it happen, and He could have prevented it from happening or could have moved you again-BUT HE DIDN'T. Bottom line - you do not live where you live, nor have the social contacts you have by accident.. Unless you are stubbornly resisting the Holy spirit's leading to live and work somewhere else, you are right smack in the middle of where God wants you to be! (ILUS - Lexington) 3. 2 Corinthians 2:14-15 teaches that believers are the "aroma" of Christ wherever they go as witnesses for Him. You are the fragrance of God HERE and NOW in this place and time and in the lives of those people you are permitted to contact. Question: Do you smell good? Exhortation #2 - Make it a habit to pray RWA prayers. RWA stands for Ready, Willing and Available. Here's what I am challenging you to do. For the next week, remember each morning to pray something like this: Lord, I want to be ready today for whatever ministry opportunity You want to send my way. Help me by Your Spirit to be alert, to hear and respond. I am willing to be used by you to influence  other persons to come to faith in Christ. So I am asking You to  sovereignly lead me to at least one person today who needs to hear the good news. Make it clear to me when they arrive in my life, so I won't have to question whether or not it is Your leading. And finally, I need to admit to you that I do not feel confident to be Your witness this person, so I ask you for the power and wisdom of Your Holy Spirit to give me what to say. Amen. Remain alert through the day, then, to who it is that God sends your way. Share your experiences with another brother or sister I Christ. Be ready to share those experiences in your cell group meeting this week. Than make RWA Prayers a life habit.     [Back to Top]