Video Transcript: Ready to be a Vocal Witness

So the last time we were together, we talked about being prepared, getting ready ahead of time. And today, we're talking about being ready. Ready to be that vocal witness for Jesus? Are you ready? Be honest about it. Just think about this. How many people have died in the last seven weeks that we've been studying this material? Maybe somebody close to you, maybe a relative. As we are getting ready, you can see how serious this is. If we had known this seven weeks ago, we could have been out there.

I talked to a man at the fitness center some time ago. And I said to him, I got to meet him because I was making friends with him intentionally. And we're standing at the mirror together, combing our hair, and I said, So Bob, how you doing? He said, Fine. It was snowing outside. I said to him, how do you like the weather and he said to USE his language. He said, I'm so damn sick of this weather. Well, that gave me an idea where he might be spiritually and I thought I'm gonna have to do some talking with Bob. That was on Tuesday. On that Friday, he died of a heart attack. How many times has that happened to us? And how many times does it have to happen until we do what Jesus wants us to do and be a witness for Him? 

Let's pray about it, and then move on. Oh, Jesus, you want the whole world to be saved. There's no question about that. And you have left your followers behind, so that we can do your work with you by the power of your Holy Spirit. As we move along in this material and today when we talk about being ready. Help us to open our hearts to it and to be convicted by the power of your Holy Spirit to be a witness for you. We love you. Amen. 

So there's a verse that we want to start with when we talk about ready to be a vocal witness. Look what Peter says, we looked at the verse last time as well. Always, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who ask you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect. Why do we have to even ask if we are ready? Scripture expects that a follower of Jesus will be ready at all times to be a vocal witness for Him. And so then we have to ask ourselves why aren't I? Why aren’t you? It's been there for 2000 years. We know this. Are you ready? Have you been doing it? God bless you. You're ready to teach others? God bless you. But we have to ask ourselves, what about that 90%. Maybe we're among that percent 90% who have never brought someone to life in Jesus Christ. 

You know, I heard the statistics just two weeks ago at a meeting that there are 1000s and 1000s. We're not talking one or two. We're talking many numbers of 1000s of churches in America that never once reported, someone being saved last year, someone being brought in through evangelism. Why? Why is that? What about your church? And so we tried to give some reasons. You know, it's a, some kind of fear a lot of it's always let's admit that we have the fear. It's a lack of urgency. We get tied up with other things. And sometimes it's just playing disobedience. We come with excuses. We say well, you know, I was going to do it, but then this happened or I was going to do that. But then I got busy, or that person moved away or whatever it might have been. And what we're trying to do now is reverse that. Maybe not right away in the 90% or in my life and in yours, to get rid of the excuses, to reverse the reasons and just go out there and be a vocal witness for Jesus leading people across the line to full life in him. You ready for that? How do you picture yourself? 

Jesus said in his day, that we're surrounded by people who want to know Him and love Him, and they don't know how and by people who hate him, and by the power of his Spirit will come to love him. You know what happens? We content ourselves with being sowers of the seed. It's a good thing to sow the seed of Jesus. But we content ourselves with that, you know, we're talking we say, well, there's this this guy at work or this student I know, the man next door. And the way he or she lives is just not right. So I said to him, you know, you're not to live that way. And somebody else will say to me, you don't that's all you can do is sow the seed. It's not all we can do. We are called by Jesus Himself, to be a reaper to bring them in. We, you and I as followers of Jesus to bring them in individually. You and I, we are called to be reapers. That has to be on mindset that when we get up in the morning, we go out there. Now, as we go out there with that concept and that mindset that we are a reaper, we have to take a cautious approach. 

Look what it says in the verse. Do it with gentleness. What does it mean to be gentle? Well, there's some good examples in the Bible about that. One is in second Samuel chapter 18, verse five, when Absalom has rebelled against his father, King David. David’s son Absalom rebelled against him and took the throne. And there was going to be a battle. David was worried for his son; he loved his son. And he said to his general before the battle, he said, Be gentle with my son. Be gentle with my son. And isn't that a picture of all of us who are parents, that you want to be gentle? 

Another place we read about it is in Proverbs 15 verse one, it says, A gentle answer turns away wrath. Haven’t you found that someone just shouting out you're angry about something? And just a gentle answer. You say, Well, let me explain. Or I can see why you're angry. Or maybe even, I'm sorry for what I said. And that person comes right now. That's gentle. 

There's another in First Thessalonians chapter two, verse seven, where Paul talks to the people he said, You know, I really have to be firm with you. I had to teach you show you what the gospel expects of you. And yet he said, I was with you. I was with you like a nursing mother with her little baby. That's gentle, isn't it? And you know, gentle is listed as one of the fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, and gentleness. So it's expected of us. 

Here's another part of gentle in Matthew 11, verse 28, Jesus calls himself gentle. And I mentioned that for this reason. Sometimes being gentle is soft. Sometimes we think gentle, wrote, went through our head hanging down, that it scared of people. Jesus wasn't. He was pretty firm. He could speak the truth. He was a man's man. And yet he could be gentle and you know why we have to be gentle with people. Because the truth is, the truth hurts. And when we talk the truth to people, we're going deep into their lives. And we have to be gentle because sometimes we can be impatient. We want them to move along. We want them to see what we see and know what we know. We have to be gentle because sometimes we can be forgetful of who we are, of the journey we've been on, that we needed to be forgiven, that Jesus has to be gentle and patient with us. 

And the most important part, we have to remember who they are. That's why we have to be gentle. Remember, we studied about that, number one, the reason they don't love Jesus is because they can't love Jesus. The reason they don't obey His Word is because they can't obey His Word, we studied that. And the second reason we have to be gentle, because they're dying, they're perishing. And if we don't reach them with a loving gentle heart, we turn them off in some way. We're going to lose them. 

It also says here we have to do it with respect. The word respect re means again, spec means to see like spectacles. So we have to take a second look at the people. First thing, we take a second look and remember that they're made in God's image. They are persons, they matter. They deserve as we say, our respect. The second is that they're going to spend eternity somewhere. And we have to respect them as persons who will live forever, either with Jesus or apart from him. But we have to treat them as if they really matter. The third is that their way of life makes sense to them. That's why they live in that way. We can't go out there and think, Well, they're just living that way. It doesn't matter. No, they have chosen that way of living because it makes sense to them. And we have to respect them for what they believe not necessarily respecting what they believe, but respecting that they're living out what they believe. And fourth, we have to come with respect. Because remember, we studied it's the work of the Holy Spirit, who convicts them of sin, who convinces them of sin. We don't do that. We be the vocal witness. We bring the truth to them. And that's why we say we have to take a cautious approach. 

And there's another verse that I want to look at with you that helps us to think ready to think I'm ready to be that vocal witness. Paul says in first Corinthians nine verse 22. To the weak I became weak that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people that by all means I might save some. Here's what was going on there. Paul came to the city of Corinth, the city of Corinth is on a little spit of land between the northern part of Greece and the southern part. And it was way about 2000 feet above the sea. Because of that it was a natural place to be an important city. Natural for the military, it became a seaport so all sorts of people came there, became wealthy, became a center of arts and also became the center of pagan false religion. The things that were done there in the name of their religion we wouldn't want to talk about in this course. And here comes Paul, the Jew, the one who followed the One God not a false God, the one who tried to obey that God and not just live the way you please and the church starts there. And now that's the background that in that place that is very religious person and the person who became a Christian comes to that center of false religion where they lived. So immorally, so unconcerned about God, that's where they met. And he says, To the weak, I became weak, he said, I became all things. 

First, he says, Here, I became all things to all people. I’ll explain what that means. He was a very strict religious person. He comes there. How can you say that? He says to them in verses just before this, okay? You have to go look them up First Corinthians 9:22. But look before this, and he says there are people who've never heard of God's law. So I live that way with him. He doesn't mean that he ever sinned. He says that there is enough that I would ever sin that he said there are some things that matter to followers of Jesus that don't matter to others. We have to be willing to let that go. Say a certain type of worship service or worship on a certain day of the week or eating or drinking certain things. He said, We can let that go. Is he being two face? No, he's saying that in Jesus Christ, all things have become clean, not sin. He says that but he says what I eat when I drink, the way I dress I can do that so that I fit in with other people. I hope you don't think that sounds two face because he makes that point. I will not sin. He says there are a lot of things that a follower of Jesus can give up. 

Another thing he says all things to all people. Think about going into a shop. Why are there so many different kinds of breakfast food? Why there's so many different selections of bread? Why so many different types of meat. Think about clothes, the different kinds of clothes that people wear, why is that? All the products, different colors, different machines, different cars, whatever it might be, different fishing rods because people are so different. And they're different in other ways as well. Some of them are far away from the Lord. Some are very close. Some have terrible addictions. Some have habits that they're ashamed to talk about. Some are living very nice lives, but for various reasons. In this verse, Paul says, I relate. I become all things to all kinds of people. These were pagans, I was a follower but I relate to them. They live this way. I live that way, but I relate to them. And he says, by all possible means, isn't interesting, all, all, all, he says.

Think of the history in the Bible of God’s seeking people. Look who he all used. At  the time of Moses he had Moses put a snake up on the pole. And that was a picture of Jesus, I think might see it. He had a prophet by name of Jeremiah, you get a brand new belt and bury in the dirt for three years and dig it up. And when he dug it up, it was all moldy and all ruined. And he said, You know what, this is the way our sins are in God's people. He had another prophet. He said, I want you to take some human dung and mix it in your bread, and then eat it, to show how dirty sin is in my presence. And the prophet said, Oh, Lord, I can't do that. Well, he said, then dry it and cook your bread and butter and then eat. 

All sorts of things throughout the Old Testament and in the book of Hebrews it begins by saying God tried everything to get our attention. And finally, he sent his son. God was seeking opportunities to relate. Then get through he became all things to all people. Finally he said, I will send my son and Jesus came and related in a way that people can understand it. Now, can you become all, can you become all to the other people? Are you willing to let go a lot of things that are precious to you. We're not talking about sin. But we're talking about giving up a lifestyle that isn't necessarily Christian or not. In this book Paul writes and calls them and listen to this brothers. It's only a couple of months since they became Christians. There's a lot of gung going on in their lives. If you read the two letters that Paul wrote to them he has to talk to them a lot. And yet he calls them brothers. 

So we're talking here about a confident presentation. God wants him say you want them say they want and we have to make the contact points. And that's where we use illustrations. I'll just run through a couple now and the next time we meet I'm going to show you how to use one. At your contact point you can talk about being born again use that presentation that Jesus gave you were born once you have to be born again. There's the Roman road. We can talk about, about the bridge about crossing the line about the whole loaf about the parking ticket. I'll explain those to you. But always in these I want you to remember one thing. If you have time only to present one truth, show them how to cross over from death to life. If it's a brief conversation, if it's a longer one, always let people know how to cross over from death to life through Jesus Christ. We're going to work on this in our next presentation. Thank you