What Have You Seen?

Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson

You are like most Christians.  Before I came to Minnesota I was a fan of Garrison Keillor and I still am.  He used to talk about the shy Minnesotans and I have found that that is a little bit true.  I used to talk about shy Presbyterians.  I think all Christians are shy especially in our culture today it is so hard to share our faith.  We are little bit brainwashed like that really is a thing we ought to do.  It is so hard for us to just open our mouth and share what is in our hearts.  Let’s start at the beginning and see what the Lord says about all this.  The first thing you need to realize is that you are a witness whether you open your mouth or not.  You’re a witness just being who you are, where you live, what you look like.  We are witnesses.  This dawned on me in a very powerful way on that trip to Uganda that I have told you about a couple of times, about twenty years ago.  We got there a couple of years after Idia Amin had left. Idia Amin had chased off almost everyone that wasn’t Uganda.  The Asians had left, the Europeans left, there were no Americans there was one lonely outpost of an American embassy, and it was kind of nice to see truthfully when I was there.  As we got there, there were eight of us, eight seminarians we walked down the streets of Kampala.  Everybody knew who we were.  We were the only white people in the whole town it seems.  We had this witness of saying, “you’re at least European,” but then we opened our mouths and it was pretty clear we were Americans.  I don’t know if they knew anything about southern accents but they could have told where I came from as well. 

I found that out again just a few years ago when my church in Kingwood took a trip to Peru and did a mission trip.  As we went to Peru they had closed off one of the huge boulevards there.  We went on a Saturday and as far as the eye could see, block after block, there were people on this boulevard.  In peru most people are Indian with a little mixture of Spanish and they are kind of short.  I could literally look over everybody’s head for blocks.  I stood out, I witnessed by who I was.  We do that.  We do that as Christians.  Dave and Judy talked about that a little bit.  It was hard to witness out loud in Jordan but people began to know who they were because they did talk but also they began to see they were Christians, it’s because of Jesus.  We do that as well.  So we are witnesses whether we like it or not.  The command is to go and witness and talk as well as just be. 

That is the second thing I want you to hear.  Being a witness is not an option.  It is interesting that the very last words that Jesus talks about are going out and being a witness.  He says at the end of Matthew, “Go therefore and make disciples baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”  And here in Acts he is about to ascend into heaven and he says, “You will be my witnesses.  He doesn’t say “might be my witnesses.”  He doesn’t say, “You can be my witnesses if you want to.”  He says, “You will.”  We have all heard the Ten Commandments how they are not the “Ten Suggestions.”  The Great Commission is not the “Great Suggestion.”  It is the Great Commission, the great commandment. It’s on par with any other commandment that God gives us.  We are witnesses, it’s not an option.  We are to go. We are to go and witness for Christ.  Jesus commanded us to do that.  Why did he do that?  For one reason, that’s what Christians do.  It is what Christians do. 

One of the things I brought here last year was the Living Last Supper which is kind of a pageant with using DaVinci’s picture and everyone dresses up as one of the apostles and we all say things.  We do it on Maundy Thursday.  For many years I was Andrew.  Andrew’s interesting, he’s not like Peter, boisterous and all that, he’s rather quiet.  But every time we are meeting Andrew he is bringing somebody to Christ.  He’s always bringing somebody to Christ.  I like Andrew.  It is what Christians do.  It is also because there is no such thing as second generation Christians.  No one is born a Christian.  One has to be born again.  All of us are here today because someone witnessed to us and brought us to Christ.  All of us stand on the shoulders of previous generations in many ways but particularly there.  Someone brought us there.  We have to witness even to our own children at least but we have to witness.  It is part of what it means to be a Christian, it is to witness.  I want to say to you that yes we are witnesses but we must not think that we are by ourselves.  Jesus says, “I’m going to give you the Holy Spirit.”  Now you remember the Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity, it’s God himself.  One of the things we have to realize is that the heart of God, as Judy said it, is a passion for people.  A passion for the laws and God, through the Holy Spirit, gives us that passion and the ability to speak even haltingly, because it is God that does it.  You know that you and I cannot bring people to Christ in and of ourselves its God job.  Our job is to be a witness and we need to remember what a witness is.  A witness is a person who simply says what you’ve seen and what you’ve heard. 

I want to be honest with you for a minute.  How many of you really sometimes think that preaching is really worthwhile? This is not a trick question.  I am perfectly aware that you don’t remember the sermon I preached one year ago or maybe even last week.  Its okay, it really is okay.  I think what you remember a lot of times are illustrations and things and that’s why I tell a lot of them so you can hang things on, the stories.  I am perfectly aware that as a preacher that it is God that takes the times when you pour yourself out and you say things and it is God that does the work.  My job is simply to witness to you, to speak to you.  It is God’s job.  I find that very freeing.  I am not responsible for your response, its God’s job. It’s amazing to me how a hundred people in a room, a hundred people can get different things out of a talk. But that is God working on you. 

It’s the same with your friends, you are just to be a witness and God uses what you do.  You’re not responsible for how they respond.  God is the one that makes things grow when the seeds are sown.  I find that it’s God’s power not ours in witnessing.  We tend to get wrapped around axle because we think that it is just up to us.  But it’s not up to us, it’s up to God.  The nature of God is one who loves the lost and He will bring to himself who He wants to bring and He will do it.  We are all here because of that.  We need to remember these things. We need to remember what a witness is.  We need to remember that we are to witness. 

It is really no different than telling somebody you won the lottery.  What if you won the lottery last night what would you be doing right now?  Probably wouldn’t be here.  Maybe you would be going “Alleluia!”  But you know what? You have won the lottery and I mean that in the very broadest analogy.  The difference is of course is that the kingdom of God and Jesus is free.  The wages of sin are death says the Bible but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.  We have received a gift deferred if you will that is much better than any lottery.  Don’t you want to tell somebody about that?  The most important thing in your life and yet if you are like me you clam up.  It is easy to clam up, it is hard sometimes, but what we are telling people is the best thing.  Again, we are not forcing anyone.  I hear that all the time, “we shouldn’t force anyone to believe.”  There are Christians that use coercive methods but they really haven’t read the rules.  Peter says, “always be prepared but do so with gentleness and respect.”  It’s not up to us, it’s up to God.  Sometimes we need to close the deal yes, we need to say, “Do you want to accept?”  But it’s not up to us to force anyone, we’re just witnesses. 

So what do we do and how do we do it?  I want to pause and say that I really am proud of you as a church.  We budget about sixty thousand dollars in our budget for missions we’re trying to raise that.  But if we counted it all up and what everybody does it’s over a hundred and twenty thousand that we gave last year in missions.  That is just wonderful. I’m proud of you for that. I’d like to do more.  It is wonderful.  We need to be outward focused.  God blesses missions.  That’s partly evangelism. We also need to go the other side as well and be willing to share personally.  You run into people all the time I will never see that you can help because of your relationship with Jesus Christ.  Sometimes you just need to say, “What about that?”  You should always be prepared.  That is one of the reasons I love Alpha.  Alpha is a good way to become prepared.  The Gospel is not that hard.  I heard an illustration of someone trying to share it with their child.  It went something like this, “You know we’ve been bad, and we are sinners in other words.  God is mad.  He doesn’t like sin.  He punishes sin.  So we are sad.  And the world is a sad place.  But now we are glad because of Jesus.”  How easy that is.  Because of the life and the sacrifice and the resurrection of Jesus we have joy.  Its like what Susan was saying, “irritatingly joyful.”  We can be that way, its okay because of what Christ has done.  Or if you are more of the accountant type we owe a debt to God that we can not pay ourselves, its compound interest every day about a hundred percent.  So if you know how to do math it becomes real big real fast.  But Jesus pays that debt for us.  I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie Narnia yet but encourage you to cause it is really good.  In that movie the story is one of the children aligns himself with the witch and because he eats of her food he believes in her. He belongs to her.  Asland has to ransom Edmond back by dying. He substitutes himself, it’s the Christian story.  Pays the debt for Edmond and he has for us as well.  If you want to know more about how to share the story come to Narnia, or invite a friend and come with them.  If all you can say is just, “I’d like to invite you.”  Start there. 

Last not but not least I just want to encourage you to be willing to be used., to be willing to be used.  It is a responsibility to be a Christian. Story I heard about a young boy named Benji.  He was four years old and his mom wanted to share the Gospel with him.  She told him the story about the bad and the mad and the sad and the glad.  Finally she asked him, “Don’t you want to ask Jesus inot your heart?”  He sat there and thought a minute and rolled his eyes and said, “No I don’t, I don’t want the responsibility.”  It is a responsibility. Another story about a theologian, the teacher named Will Willimon he teaches at Duke University in seminary there.  He is well known, lots of books, teaches all over the place.  Pastors like to read his books.  He was telling a group of pastors one time how in all his years at Duke, not one parent ever called him and said, “Help, my child’s doing drugs, do something.” Or “Help, my child’s gone off the deep end, do something.”  But not a year went by that at least one parent did not call him, “Help, my child has become a religious fanatic.  She wants to go off and be a missionary somewhere.  We always had it in mind for her to be a lawyer.  She never learned that stuff at our church.”  What did they learn?  What did they learn here?  You are a missionary wherever you are.  You don’t have to go to the Middle East.  You are the presence of Christ in people’s lives.  You really are.  And all your imperfections and warts, we all have them.  You are a missionary.  Learn, be prepared but be ready, be available.  Ask God to show you how you can be ready.  If you need to come to Alpha, that’s what its here for.  You’re witnesses tell what you’ve seen.  Tell what you’ve heard.  You belong to the Lord. 

Would you pray with me?

Father, thank you that you have chosen us, imperfect as we are, to be your witnesses in this world.  We pray Lord that you would bless us and give us a passion for those around us.  To tell them the wonderful gift that is Jesus Christ.  Just to share, this is what he has done for me.  Give us that passion Lord.  Give us the courage.  We pray in Jesus name, amen.