Untitled Sermon (87)

INTRO: [VIDEO—Invite Somebody]

Today we are wrapping up the, I LOVE MY CHURCH series! We have been talking about how Jesus gave the command to His disciples (& that includes us) that we are to love one another. Let’s read it again.

ESV

John 13:34–35 ESV

34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

In this series we have looked at different ways that we can show love for one another as a church. We have talked about loving our church by connecting (fellowship), by giving (meeting the needs of others), & by serving (using our gifts). Today we are going to look at how we can show our love by sharing Jesus with those that are a part of our church family and our community.

TITLE & PRAYER (Loving by Sharing)

[ILLUS: Richard Hornbuckle was driving 2 friends across the Sunshine Skyway which spans Tampa Bay. It was 7:38 am on May 9th, 1980. It had started to rain and visibility was almost zero. What Mr. Hornbuckle did not know was that moments before he reached the bridge a freighter named SUMMIT VENTURE had slammed into the #2 South pier knocking out a large section of the bridge. Several cars had already gone over the edge when Mr. Hornbuckle, seeing what had happened, hit his brakes stopping just 14 inches from the edge. A loaded greyhound bus was not as fortunate. It didn't see the signal to stop and went over the edge killing everyone on board.]

Millions in this world are heading for a terrible fate. It is our job to try to tell them before it is too late.

2 Kings 7:3–8 ESV

3 Now there were four men who were lepers at the entrance to the gate. And they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die? 4 If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare our lives we shall live, and if they kill us we shall but die.” 5 So they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians. But when they came to the edge of the camp of the Syrians, behold, there was no one there. 6 For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians hear the sound of chariots and of horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, “Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us.” 7 So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, leaving the camp as it was, and fled for their lives. 8 And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them. Then they came back and entered another tent and carried off things from it and went and hid them.

Today we are concluding our series I love My Church. We have looked through this series at ways in which we can demonstrate love for one another through connecting, serving, and giving. And one more way to demonstrate love is through sharing our faith with others who do not yet know Christ.

There are three important reasons we should show our love for our church by sharing our faith. Let’s look at each of them.

The first reason we should be sharing of faith with others is because … I) WE ARE CONDEMNED BY OUR SIN

The context of this story is important. The nation of Syria had sent a huge army against the nation of Israel. The army had laid siege to the city of Samaria.

2 Kings 6:24–29 ESV

24 Afterward Ben-hadad king of Syria mustered his entire army and went up and besieged Samaria. 25 And there was a great famine in Samaria, as they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver. 26 Now as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!” 27 And he said, “If the Lord will not help you, how shall I help you? From the threshing floor, or from the winepress?” 28 And the king asked her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ 29 So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.”

Because of the siege, there was no food in the city. The people were starving. Things had gotten so bad that the people were resorting to cannibalism. We see in this story that two woman had killed and eaten one of their children. When was the last time you thought to yourself, “I think I’ll cook one of my children from dinner tonight.” Things have to be very bad to resort to something like that.

If things were that bad within the city, just imagine how bad the situation was for the 4 lepers that were outside the city gate.

Lepers were outcasts. They begged for food and lived off the generosity of others. If the healthy people within the city walls were starving to death, just imagine how bad it was for these 4 men.

Without Christ in our lives, we are in bad shape. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death, but do we truly believe that? Do we truly believe that without Christ we would be heading for hell? Part of sharing our faith is to first understand the need. We have to be convinced that without Christ we are eternally lost.

In order to help a person find their way, we have to first convince them that they are lost. There is an old saying that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Our job as believers is not to make people drink, it is to make them thirsty. It is to help them understand their need.

Sometimes we don’t understand the danger.

[ILLUS: Back in 1980 during the time of the Iranian Hostage Crisis, Greg Livingstone was asked to give a "missions minute" at a large church on the East Coast. Since he had only one minute to speak, he decided to ask them only two questions. The first one was, "How many of you are praying for the 52 Americans hostages being held in Iran?" 4000 hands went straight up and he said, "Praise the Lord! Now, put your hands down and let me ask you another question … How many of you are praying for the 42 million Iranians being held hostage by Islam?" This rebuke to the church by Livingstone served as a wake-up call for that church and helped launch a prayer ministry for Muslims which helped birth a prayer movement during the 1990s. As a result, more Muslims are coming to Christ now in Iran than ever before.]

The second reason we should be sharing of faith with others is because … II) WE ARE COMPELLED BY OUR SALVATION

These 4 lepers were faced an impossible situation. They said to each other “Why stay here until we die? If we say, 'We'll go into the city'--the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let's go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die." Their only hope was in the unknown.

What they did not know was that God has caused the enemy to flee. The enemy had run away and left all their supplies behind. When the lepers reached the edge of the camp they entered a tents and found food, silver, gold and clothes. Then they went into another tent and then another. Only then did it dawn on them what was happening.

2 Kings 7:9–10 ESV

9 Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come; let us go and tell the king’s household.” 10 So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, “We came to the camp of the Syrians, and behold, there was no one to be seen or heard there, nothing but the horses tied and the donkeys tied and the tents as they were.”

To have kept all that food for themselves and not told the city would have been terrible. If you had the cure for cancer and you did not share it, you would be a monster. To let people die and not help when you are able to do so is terrible.

2 Corinthians 5:14 ESV

14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died;

Christ’s love compels us. I am not ashamed of the Gospel because I understand that it is the power of life over death. It rescues people. This is why I am also not ashamed to share my faith with others.

DT Niles once said, “evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.”

We give because we have first received. Sharing our faith is not trying to push our own beliefs on others. It is not about tolerance or having a lack of respect for others. We share our faith because we know that without Christ we are lost and to NOT share our faith would be unloving.

[ILLUS: A pastor was talking to the children about sheep. He said that sheep weren’t very clever and needed lots of guidance and that a shepherd’s job was to stay close to the sheep, protect them from wild animals and keep them from wandering off and doing foolish things that would get them hurt or killed. He pointed to the children in the room and said that they were the sheep and needed lots of guidance. Then the minister put a hand on his heart and said to the children, "If you are the sheep then who is the shepherd?" He was pretty obviously indicating himself. A silence of a few seconds followed. Then a young visitor said, "Jesus, Jesus is the shepherd." The young minister, obviously caught by surprise, said to the boy, "Well, then, who am I?" The little boy frowned thoughtfully and then said with a shrug "I guess you must be a sheep dog."]

The third reason we should be sharing of faith with others is because … III) WE ARE COMMISSIONED BY OUR SAVIOR

When the lepers went and told the gatekeepers of the city what they had seen, the city officials at first did not believe what they were told. It was only after they had gone and investigated the situation for themselves that they were satisfied that the enemy was gone.

2 Kings 7:14–16a ESV

14 So they took two horsemen, and the king sent them after the army of the Syrians, saying, “Go and see.” 15 So they went after them as far as the Jordan, and behold, all the way was littered with garments and equipment that the Syrians had thrown away in their haste. And the messengers returned and told the king. 16 Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord.

Imagine these 4 lepers standing there. They knew the tremendous needs within the city. The also knew that the enemy had been defeated and that the food was there for the taking. How did they feel while the messengers went all the way down to the Jordan and back again? How does it feel to see people who are hurting and know that you have the answer but they refuse to accept it?

Likewise, there are many people today that have to see before they will believe. Words are often not enough. You can share the truth with people but what is most important is that they have an encounter with the living God. We need to be faithful to share the truth in love but then allow the Holy Spirit to do the work. God has commissioned us to go and sow.

2 Corinthians 5:18–20 ESV

18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

CONCL: We are called to go and sow. God’s job is to make it grow. We need to be careful in how we present the truth. It is important that the messengers do not get in the way of the message.

[ILLUS: A young man who drank a quart of soy sauce went into a coma and nearly died from an excess of salt in his body, according to a recent case report. The nineteen-year-old who drank the soy sauce after being dared by friends is the first person known to have deliberately overdosed on such a high amount of salt and survived with no lasting neurological problems.]

Likewise, we are called to bring salt and light to our world so that they can experience the kingdom, not so that they can be blinded by the sun or OD on sodium. So the question we have to answer is: are we seasoning and shining, or are we blinding and gagging?

[ILLUS: The story is told of a missionary to China who was in language school. The very first day of class the teacher entered the room and, without saying a word, walked down every row of students. Finally, still without saying a word, she walked around the room again. Then she came back and addressed the class. “Did you notice anything special about me?” she asked. Nobody could think of anything in particular. One student finally raised her hand. “I noticed that you had on a very lovely perfume,” she said. The class chuckled. But the teacher said, “That was exactly my point.”

You see, it will be a long time before any of you will be able to speak Chinese well enough to share the gospel with anyone in China. But even before you are able to do that, you can minister the sweet fragrance of Christ to these people by the quality of your lives. It is your lifestyle, lived out among the Chinese people, that will minister Christ to them long before you are able to say one word to them about personal faith in Jesus.” It is like that with us as well. Though we may not be eloquent speakers, unbelievers we encounter will be ministered to by the Christ-likeness of our daily lives, if indeed we are Christ-like.]

As a church our focus needs to be on the lost. That is our purpose. That is our mission. It must remain our primary focus. The third part of our vision statement is to SHARE CHRIST!

[ILLUS: A leading church consultant conducted a survey. He surveyed members of nearly a thousand churches asking the question, “Why does the church exit?” The results? Of the church members surveyed, 89 percent said, “The church’s purpose is to take care of my family’s and my needs.” For many, the role of the pastor is simply to keep the sheep who are already in the pen happy and not lose too many of them. Only 11 percent said, “The purpose of the church is to win the world for Jesus Christ.”]

How tragic!

Just reach out to people in need. When is the last time we simply invited someone to church. One of the greatest ways to show our love for our church is to invite someone who doesn’t come here to a service or event. If we love our church, that shouldn’t be a hard thing to do. If we love God, sharing His love with the lost shouldn’t be a hard thing to do.

[ILLUS: Maybe you’ve seen the famous sculpture "The Thinker." The statue was originally created in 1880 as part of Auguste Rodin’s larger work 'The Gates of Hell', an ornamental door for a proposed Palace of Decorative Arts. What is the thinker thinking about? According to the artist "the Thinker" is sitting in mute amazement as he contemplates lost people in hell.]

Do we think about those who are on their way to hell? They are all around us. And just as the lepers shared the spoils of victory with the city of Samaria, so too we need to share the spoils of our victory with the lost of our city. And by sharing we will show our love for our God and our church!