Video Transcript: Counting On You

Well, we've been covering some beautiful material, and it's so important as we talk about being a vocal witness. We started out seeing how ordinary, everyday people just couldn't keep it inside, because they had been with Jesus and how God provides for them, how Jesus said, "I will take care of you and help you to do that." And we saw that there has to be a vocal testimony of Jesus or who can believe if they haven't heard of him. And the lack there is of it that, for various reasons - fear and lack of urgency. And then, the joy of being able to be a vocal witness for Jesus. The last time, we spent a lot of time on the Holy Spirit. 

That was just wonderful. When we talk about the Holy Spirit, he warms our hearts. We know that. And now, as we go on, I want to do just a summary or a review of where we've been. You've heard us talking in all of this, especially in that verse from Acts 1:8, "And you shall be my witness." And that's why we've come up with a term for this whole teaching on being a vocal witness, of calling it Evangeliving. Because we often speak of evangelism. And in "ism" is a theory or a doctrine. And by this time in our lives and in the history of the church, there are enough theories about being vocal witnesses. There are enough doctrines about it. Enough books have been written. Enough conferences have been held. And yet, here we are. How many people - less than 10% - ever go out to be a vocal witness for Jesus and bring people across the line to him. 

So, we're not going to talk about evangelism any more. We're going to talk about evangeliving. And you know why that is. Because Jesus said, "And you shall be my witness." Evangelism is doing a witness. Evangeliving is being a witness. And that's what we have to keep in mind as we proceed from now on. You are a witness. You might be a helpful one. You might be distracting from the church and from Jesus, but you are a witness. Let's pray and then, move on.

Lord Jesus, you were so alive, a real human being touching lives, being involved in life. And sometimes, we take the truths you give to us and put them on the shelf as some kind of teaching or some kind of doctrine. We forget that you call us to life, that you have promised life, that you said you are life. And then, you said to us we are living witnesses for you. You said we are to be your witness. We want to do that and to be that for you. Glory to your name. We love you. Amen.

Well, we're all set, aren't we? Do we need anything else? We, ourselves, have become Christians. We have seen Jesus. We have learned from him. We have been commissioned by him. And then, he says to us, being a witness of him is something we are, not something we do. Because of that, because it's everywhere in our life, not just a separate activity, not something we do Thursday nights or Saturday mornings, but every single bit of our life, every square inch, we are living as a witness for Jesus Christ. Because of that, because it involves where you work, where you go to school, it involves your family, when you're home with the family, when you're away from the family, when you're on a trip, when you're talking with strangers, when you're talking with enemies, when you're talking with friends, with lovers, with children, always we are witnesses for Jesus. And because of that, he says, "I will equip you." 

He said to the disciples before he left to go to Heaven on his Victory Parade, he said, "Don't do anything." Because he knew their hearts, and he knows our hearts. "Don't try anything on your own until I give you my Holy Spirit." And when his Holy Spirit came on them, it changed them. And we saw all the promises that he made about his Holy Spirit being with us, being in us, standing by our side, and teaching us all truth. And that we have the Holy Spirit. The evidence is in our lives. We believe Jesus is Lord. We believe God is our Father. We bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And we are filled with the Spirit because the Spirit is a person just like God the Father and God the Son. 

And now, we're turning a corner. We're getting closer. If you haven't yet, we're very close, aren't we? Okay. And the question is why are we doing this? Why are we spending all this time? Why don't people just go out and do it? Because of various reasons. Let me ask you a question. There's a log in the river, and 10 frogs are sitting on that log. Five of them decide to jump. How many are left? It's not rocket science. I know you're thinking, "Five." But do you know what? Ten. Because to decide to jump is not the same as jumping. And to decide to be a vocal witness is not the same as being a vocal witness. And we've got to keep that in mind.

So, I want to ask you a question right now. How did you become a Christian? How did you become a Christian? I ask you that for this reason. All the statistics I've read for the last 30 years say that the way people come to Jesus or the way people actually come to a church service where they receive Jesus is because someone personally brought them: a husband or a wife, a father or a child, a relative, a friend. 90% come because someone personally was involved with them. I did that same survey in our church. Month after month as we received new members, the last question I would ask was, "How did you hear about our church? What brought you here?"

Over 90%, the same thing. "My mother brought me here." "My girlfriend brought me here." "A fellow at work said he wanted me to come." 

"How did you become a Christian?"

The same way. "Someone testified to me." I'll tell you, a long time ago, like maybe 40 years - very clear in my mind - I went into a mall with the little booklet on how to become a Christian. I sat next to a man sitting at a fountain there in the shopping mall, sitting by himself and I said, "Would it be okay if I talk with you a little bit?"

He said, "Go ahead."

So I showed him the way to become a Christian and the way to be forgiven. And at the end of that little booklet, there are two circles. You can either point to Christ in your heart or Christ not in your heart. And when I got there, I said, "Which picture is true of you?" 

And he put his hand over my hand. He began to cry. He said, "I'm 42 years old. I accepted Jesus when I was 28. And in 14 years, no one ever asked me if I was a Christian." He said, "What if in that 14 years I had died. I would have gone to hell. I would have been lost forever." And he said, "I'm so thankful I'm a Christian. But no one has ever asked me in 14 years."

There are people all around you. No one has ever asked them. And if they die without hearing the name of Jesus and trusting in him, they'll be separated from Jesus forever. 

How did you become a Christian? Over 90% of the people I ask that question, they were reared as a Christian. A friend at school talked to them. Very few become Christians in terms of total number at crusades or at meetings. It's all on the personal level. That's why. 

That story I told before, it's just a little story. But when Jesus ascended, went back to Heaven, the angels said, "Who's going to do your work on earth?"

And Jesus said, "My followers, my disciples, and the ones they train." 

And the angels said, "But what if they don't do it?"

And Jesus said, "I have no other plan."

That's just a story. But there's a big truth involved, isn't there? And that is this. God works through people. God worked through Moses, through Joshua, through David, through the disciples, through Mary. And he works through you and me. And that's how people come to believe in him.

And that's why we're talking about the as-you-go way of being a vocal witness. Remember, we looked at Matthew 28, where Jesus said, "Go. Make disciples." And we said, "make disciples" is the action word. "Go" is attached to it. As you go. 

And so, I want to read a Scripture with you now. There's so much in it. Maybe we're too familiar with it. We don't see any more what Jesus wanted us to see there. But this is early on in Jesus' life. Mark 1:14-18. "Now, after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel.' Passing along the Sea of Galilee, Jesus saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, 'Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.' And immediately, they left their nets and followed him." 

Have you spent much time reading this? We hear certain songs and we hardly hear them anymore because we've heard them so often. And we read certain things and don't even remember later that we read them. Or sometimes, do you ever find you got to the store or you got to your office and you never knew what street you took? You just did it automatically. That's possible with a passage like this as well. 

Has it become too familiar? Well, I asked you the question in the first place. How did you become a Christian? And we saw that was through personal contact. I want to ask you another question. Based on what Jesus says here, are you supposed to go out to fish for people? 

And you say, "Of course. We're supposed to go out and fish for people."

Look at what it says, "I will make you fishers of men." Do you know what I want to answer? No. You are not to go out to fish for people. And here's why. In that passage that we studied, we saw there that it says, "I will make you to become fishers of men." And then, there's a comma. And do you know why? Because just after that, he says this, "I will you to become fishers of men," because they were fishermen. I'm not a fisherman. It doesn't appeal to me to become a fisher of men. I've only gone fishing twice. I never caught anything. 

One of the times, they took me out in a boat at 5:00 in the morning. It's cold and the boat's bouncing around. And we're sitting there and we're eating some cold sandwiches, and I'm thinking, "What am I doing out here?" We were out there for six hours. I never caught anything. The only time I think about fish is when I have a fish sandwich at a fast-food place. 

So, Jesus says, "Ren, I've got good news for you. You're going to become a fisher of men." 

I say, "No. Big deal." My enthusiasm goes down. What about you? Maybe you're not a fisherman. Maybe you're a homemaker. Maybe you're an art teacher. Maybe you're an attorney. Maybe you're whoever it might be. And Jesus comes and says, "I have good news for you." He talked to them because they were fishermen. Of course, it's as-you-go vocal witness. It's not jumping out of your skin. It's not becoming someone else. So, we hear that all the time. We've got to be fishers of men. And it removes it from my daily life. It doesn't relate anymore, because I'm not a fisherman. 

But I'm a pastor. And Jesus says to me, "I will make you to pastor souls into salvation." Oh, yeah. I get that. 

I'm a father. Jesus says, "I will make you to parent souls into salvation." Oh! I'm for that.

I'm a friend. Jesus says, "I will make you to befriend people into salvation." 

I say, "I'm right there, Jesus."

Jesus says to you, "You're working in the factory at the bench. I will make you to become a factory for bringing souls to me." 

"You're a builder. You will build souls to me."

"You're an attorney. You will win souls as cases to me."

"You're a nurse. You will nurse people to me."

"You're a doctor. You will heal people to me."

He comes to every area of our life. "You're a ballplayer. You will win souls for me."

Every single thing that we can think of as a way that we spend our time and as our life. "You are retired. Oh! You have all that time. You are going to win people for me in your retirement. You're going to retire souls to me." 

Do you hear what he's saying? We brush over it in a hurry, because we're familiar with it. He says, "I will make you fishers of men," and we lose interest - comma, "because they were fishermen." 

"I will make you a winner of men, because you are an employment agency." Every area of our life, he speaks to it. As you go. That's why we talked at the beginning about evangeliving. There is not one area where you go where you will not meet people who need Jesus. In fact, I summarize everybody in the world into two groups. One, the people who know Jesus and number two, the people who want to know Jesus. 

Do you know why? Because we're created in God's image. We just didn't happen. And the people who know Jesus know the Father who created them. But God's stamp is in the heart of every person. And the people who aren't Christians want to know him and want to know the Father. And so, everywhere we go, we're meeting either one or the other. The man in the mall, he was a Christian. I met him there. I've talked to others and they're not Christians, and they come to meet Jesus there at the mall and restaurants. So, we say God is counting on you as you.

Do you dare believe that? Are you willing to believe that? If he had wanted you to be someone else, he would have made you that way. But he ordered your life and allowed you to order your life in such a way that where you are now is where he wants you to be. And what we have to do is go out with the sower and the reaper mentality. 

So often, I talk to Christians who are really eager to have other people become Christians. And they'll talk to someone at work or someone in their neighborhood, and they'll say, "I told them about Jesus." 

And someone else will say, "Well, you sowed the seed. That's all we can do." No. We have to develop the reaper mentality that you as you, no matter where you are, as you go, not only to look to tell people but to bring people home. Evangeliving. Every place you go, everything you do is to bring people to Jesus. 

Do you see it? Are you ready to accept it? One more thing there that I just will close with. Jesus said, "Follow me, and I will make you to become winners of lost people." Are you following him?