We might summarize God’s plan for witnessing in four words: Pray, Presence, Power, Proclaim. God’s plan is that we are to pray, look for God’s presence, depend on God’s power, and proclaim God’s gospel. Today, we want to focus on the 4th and final step, Proclaim God’s Story, because there is no witness without words!
In the gospel according to John, Jesus revealed himself as the Messiah to a Samaritan woman drawing water at Jacob’s well outside the city of Sychar. After her encounter with Jesus, she immediately went back to her hometown to proclaim the story to everyone. We can proclaim the story of how we met Jesus.
Many of us go through life not experiencing spiritual power. In Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, he reminded them how he had depended on God’s power to share the gospel with them, so they were enabled to respond by faith in Jesus. We can depend on God’s power to as we share the gospel, so that people are enabled to believe in Jesus.
Have you been frustrated or afraid to share your faith in Christ? Perhaps you view it as a burden or a duty that you really don’t want to carry. But when we begin to pray for God to prepare the heart of our “one,” He not only hears our prayers for them, He begins to do a work in us too. We begin to feel God’s heart for the “one” to whom He has called us. Then, when we begin to look for God’s presence already at work in this “one’s” life, we begin to feel the adventure of being on mission with God. Witnessing becomes life’s greatest adventure!
In Dr. Luke’s record of the early church called the Acts of the Apostles, he recorded how the apostle Paul and his missionary team continually followed after God’s presence so they might join the Father where He was already at work. As a result, the Lord called them to carry the gospel to Macedonia where the Lord had prepared the heart of a woman named Lydia to hear the gospel and so become the first European to believe.
Prayer is not a footnote to evangelism. It is the priority! It is the plow that prepares the soil of the heart to receive the seed of God’s Word and the heart of the sower to plant it there. When we pray we are changed first, then the recipient of our prayers are prepared to hear and believe the gospel.
In the apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus, he prayed that they would remember the power of God that prepared them to hear and believe the gospel. We can pray that God would powerfully prepare the “one” which He has called us to reach with the gospel.
Surely we, both as individuals and as a church, must take Christ’s commission to take the Good News to the nations seriously, and we do. But sometimes focusing on the many can cause us to overlook the importance of going after the one! Yet, God never overlooks the one.
Luke the physician wrote Acts as a historical record of the early church. This first century church was marked by God’s presence and power in such a vital way that they literally turned the world upside down for Christ. What was their secret? They followed God’s plan. In Luke’s book of Acts, he recorded how the early church followed God’s plan to be His witnesses.
What do you believe? Is Jesus the only way to God or not? How do we answer this question? Perhaps the best way is to look at what Jesus claims for Himself. What does Jesus say? In the gospel of John, Jesus told his disciples that they could only be made right with God by placing their trust in Him. We can understand why we can only be made right with God by placing our trust in Jesus.
For most who pose the question of why God allows suffering, it is neither a philosophical, nor a theological one. For most, it is a personal question. What’s your story today? How are you dealing with the problem of suffering and evil in our world?
God inspired the apostle Paul to consider the problem of suffering and to write to encourage the believers in Rome. He revealed that there’s definitely more to the story! In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he explained why there is suffering in God’s creation, encouraging them to compare it against the weight of God’s glory that awaits those who believe. We can understand why there is suffering in God’s creation, knowing that a greater glory awaits those of us who believe.
Paul knew that faith and knowledge are not mutually exclusive, but indeed, they are mutually beneficial. An examined faith, where doubts are addressed and facts considered, is better than a faith that is held blindly. Paul’s purpose for writing the new believers in the city of Colossae was to help them add a growing knowledge of Christ to the faith they had already expressed by trusting in Him.
He wrote to encourage them to grow in their knowledge of Christ as the supreme explanation for all things, so that their faith in Him might also increase. We can grow in our knowledge of Christ as the supreme explanation for all things, so that our faith is increased.
How can we tell what’s true? What’s real? Should we just deny our doubts and take a blind leap of faith?
In the gospel according to Luke, he wrote an orderly account of Jesus’ resurrection, so that his readers might be certain of the truth that He is the Messiah, the Son of God. We can be certain that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.
When Jesus visited Jerusalem on that day, it was the first day of Passover Week. Great numbers of Jews had traveled from all over the Roman Empire to celebrate this annual Jewish festival. A great crowd greeted Jesus as he entered Jerusalem responding to him with chanting, throwing their cloaks on the ground before him and waving of palm branches. They greeted him in a manner befitting a king, but before the week was out, the crowd would curse him as a criminal.
Jesus called his visit to Jerusalem that day a “visitation.” In the Greek, it has the sense of a formal visit or inspection by a dignitary. In English, the word “visitation” has the same meaning. On Palm Sunday we remember the visitation of the Son of God to Jerusalem.
In the gospel according to Luke, Jesus expressed His desire that the people of Jerusalem would have recognized His visitation to them as the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God. We can recognize Christ’s visitation to us.