As we live and grow older it is common and normal to
think about death and dying. Some folks don’t ever want to think about such
things but I think we should think about it. I believe it’s healthy to
contemplate how we should die as well as how we should live and the impact our
lives have on others as we do both.
There was an elderly man at home, upstairs, dying in bed.
He smelled the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookies baking. He wanted
one last cookie before he died. He stumbled down the stairs and crawled into
the kitchen where his wife was busy baking cookies. With his last remaining
strength he crawled to the table and was just barely able to lift his withered
arm to the cookie sheet. As he grasped a warm, moist chocolate chip cookie, his
favorite kind, his wife suddenly whacked his hand with a spatula.
“Stop that! Those are for the funeral."
“Stop that! Those are for the funeral."
Leaving this world may not be a particularly nice thought
for you. But if you had a choice, how would you want to leave this world? You
would probably want your family with you, to love you, and comfort you as best
they could. It sure would be nice to leave with a chocolate chip cookie on your
breath if you ask me. I don’t want to go with broccoli being the last thing I
ate, know what I mean?
Most people, though, try to save all of their lives just
so they can enjoy their retirement and not have to worry about how and where
they are going to spend their last years. There are some beautiful retirement
apartments in downtown Ft. Worth where, if you will just give them a million
dollars, they will do everything for you. You never have to worry about mowing
the grass or cleaning house or even cooking. It’s all included in that one easy
payment of a million bucks.
The questions are how do you want to live and how do you
want to die? Can you imagine the manager of those apartments approaching the
apostle Paul with that opportunity? Paul listens to the guy’s spiel and cocks
his head to one side and says, “You mean to tell me that all I will be
responsible for is getting myself dressed and figuring out what TV show to
watch? What kind of life is that and what kind of death is that?”
See, Paul knew that there was more to this life than
being comfortable. He knew that with great responsibility comes great reward.
He knew that from whom much was given, much was required. He knew that how you
die is a reflection of how you lived and he devoted himself to living and dying
as much like Jesus as possible.
Too often I find myself inadvertently thinking of Paul as
a superman. When you think of all that he went through and yet all that he did,
it’s hard to believe that he was human just like us. But Paul had sin, fears,
doubts and defeats just like we do and maybe more. Yet he made the decision to
live out God’s purpose for his life in spite of those things. I have heard that
the definition of courage is being scared but saddling up anyway.
I want us to look at a time when Paul was courageous in a
beautiful passage in the New Testament book of Acts. Acts is just after the
Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and just before Romans. If you use the
Bible in the back of the pew in front of you it is probably on page 788. Acts
20:22-24. The setting for this is later in Paul’s life after he had been a
missionary for a long time and had started lots of churches all over Europe,
Asia and the Middle East. You might think he would be planning for retirement
or at least slowing down and figuring out how he would spend his last years as
comfortable as possible.
But instead he calls a bunch of his friends together and
gives them a goodbye speech. These are people from the church he started in
Ephesus; people that loved him and didn’t want to see him go; people that
gladly would have given him a place to stay and a salary to live out his life
with them there. But Paul knew that wasn’t God’s will or His purpose for Paul’s
life. So, let’s read what Paul tells them in Acts 20:22-24.
“And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to
Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. 23 I only know
that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are
facing me. 24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my
only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given
me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.”
Brian Amerman, do you trust me? Can you conceive of a
scenario in which I would knowingly hurt you or do anything negative to you or
do anything that was not in your best interest? (I sure hope he says no.) Hold
out your hands. (Tie his hands with wire ties and lead him to the front.)
When Paul says in verse 22 that he is “compelled
by the Spirit”, the word “compelled” actually means to be bound
either physically or legally or some other way. It has the idea of being bound
in marriage or bound by contract or even chains. Some of you identify with the
marriage and chains thought more than others. J What Paul was saying is that he
really had no choice.
Oh, he had a choice but if he wanted to fulfill his
purpose in life and continue to have that abundant life that Jesus had
promised; and if he wanted to continue to have the joy and peace that comes
from having a close relationship with God through His Son Jesus, then he had no
choice but to go to Jerusalem. He was compelled to go like a bride is compelled
to go with her husband.
Paul is being compelled to go to Jerusalem to do
basically 2 things and those 2 things are also what we are compelled to do as
well. He was compelled to go and he was compelled to bring.
Jesus said in John 15:16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and
appointed you so that you might GO and bear fruit—fruit that will last.”
If we are going to live a full and abundant life; if we are going to have
peace and joy; if we are going to have a relationship with Jesus; and if we are
going to live a purpose driven life then we too will go.
And of course right now you are all thinking that I am
talking about going on a mission trip…and you wouldn’t be wrong. In fact, I am
talking about going on a mission trip; maybe even a trip to India in early 2016
or a trip to Nicaragua in 2015 or a trip to Haiti. A closer option would be
Michigan next year or to some of the prisons with the biker church or even to
the county jail in Decatur.
That kind of thinking is all through the New Testament.
The Great Commission in Matthew 28 says go and make disciples of all
nations. Acts 1:8 says, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in
all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Mark 16:15 says,
“He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all
creation.” Leaving your country, state or city was a common command for
followers of Jesus 2000 years ago and it hasn’t changed.
But there is also the command to go to our neighbors. In Matthew
10:7 Jesus sends the disciples out to the local towns and villages and even
the houses around them and tells them, “As you go, proclaim
this message.” We will get to “What message?” here in a minute but
the first thing you have to do is go. And the good thing about this is that you
are already going. You are!
Where are you going? You are going to work, to school, to
the grocery store, library, car wash, wherever. The secret is to go
intentionally. I’m not saying that you otherwise go on accident. I’m saying
that wherever you go, go with the intention of sharing Jesus with the people
you have contact with. John the Baptist, Jesus, the disciples, Paul and so many
others went about their daily lives not living to work or living to play but
living as if everyone they met needed to hear the life-changing story of God’s
grace…because they did need to hear it.
D.L. Moody! If we all knew the life story of the old
evangelist D.L. Moody who lived in the 1800’s we would probably all rush out of
here right now to go witness to somebody just at the mention of his name. Moody
made it a practice to talk to at least one person every day about Jesus. He was
going to witness to some lost person every day of his life. He saw a man on the
street one time, stopped to talk to him and said, “Excuse me sir, do you
mind if I ask if you are a Christian?” The man said, “That’s none of
your business!” Moody said, “I’m sorry to offend you but it actually is
my business.” To that the other man replied, “Oh, you must be D.L.
Moody!”
I love that story! Moody was just going, just doing what
he was supposed to be doing and minding his own business but his real
business…was fulfilling his purpose for his life. His real business, and ours,
is intentionally going about our business telling others…what? What was it that
Moody was telling them? It was the same thing that Paul was telling them and it
leads to the other aspect of evangelism. We are called to go but we are
also called to bring.
Look back at our passage in Acts 20. Paul says he
is compelled by the Spirit to go and then the last phrase tells us
something very important. He says he is going to complete the task of testifying
to God’s grace. Notice that the task is not to bring people to church. He
is not bringing judgment. He is not bringing doctrine or some deep theology. He
is bringing the people his own testimony of God’s grace.
Now there are several different styles of witnessing or
evangelism. They can all work. It really just depends on what you are most
comfortable with. There is the confrontational style like John the
Baptist, Peter or Steven. “Repent and be baptized!” Short and
not-so-sweet.
There is the intellectual style like Paul could do
and did in Acts 17where he debated the philosophers. You really have to
know your stuff to do that.
You could be relationalabout it. In Mark 5
Jesus told the demon-possessed man He had just healed to go home and tell his
family what had happened. That style is great but just make sure you don’t JUST
live it out. At some point you have to speak it.
Invitational? (John 4) The Samaritan woman
at the well begged the people of the city to come and hear Jesus for
themselves.
Serving? (Acts 9) Dorcas impacted her city
by doing deeds of kindness which we saw last week is actually part of our
purpose as people and as a church.
But my favorite way of evangelizing is testimonial.
In John 9 Jesus heals a blind man and the Pharisees grill him about who
healed him. He said he didn’t know anything about Jesus except this one thing. “I
was blind but now I see.” And that is what Paul is encouraging us to do
with his words in Acts 20. We may not be able to quote a lot of
scripture or explain predestination or know what all of the symbolic sevens in
Revelation stand for but we can tell about God’s grace in our lives. And nobody
can dispute that.
What that means in my life is that I accepted Jesus into
my life to be my Lord and Savior when I was seven years old. I didn’t
understand everything about it and still don’t. I lived serving the Lord that
way for a long time but, as some do, I drifted away in my late teens. While I
was away from the Lord I suffered the consequences of disobedience and lost my
joy and my peace. But as 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he
is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all
unrighteousness.” And while my life today is far from perfect (I mean I
still have to put up with Trey on Sunday nights!) God has blessed me so
generously to be here doing what He has called me to do that it makes me want
to tell everybody about God’s grace.
And when I give that testimony to people they can’t argue
about that. What are they going to say, “You don’t have joy and peace”?
No because that is my testimony. They don’t have to know my church history or
my family history. In fact, those are really just distractions. The only time
Paul ever mentions his history is to say that he considered all that to be
rubbish compared to knowing Jesus.
Let me give you some practical advice on how to bring
this up in conversation. I would love to say I thought of this but, once again,
Paul said it in 1 Corinthians 9: “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to
win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I
myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To
those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not
free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having
the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have
become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save
some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel that I may share
in its blessings.”
In other words, Paul found something in common with
everybody. He found some commonality that would bring him closer to the other
person which would allow for him to tell that person of what God had done in
his life. If you try I know you can find something in common with almost
everybody you come in contact with. And all it takes is one little thing.
Oh, you like chocolate? I love chocolate too. God is so
good to allow us little things like chocolate to brighten our day and show us
He loves us. Aren’t the changing colors of fall beautiful? Oh, yes, isn’t God
creative the way He made the world with so many colors? See. It doesn’t have to
be a big thing.
And maybe the other person just changes the subject but
it just might allow for you to talk more about God’s grace and then into your
testimony and then to how Romans says we are all sinners and that the wages of
sin is death but John 3:16 says that God loves everybody and gave His own Son
so we could live forever with Him. Boom. Gospel. You are a raging evangelist.
You’re living out your purpose as a follower of Jesus.
Evangelism is just going and bringing. Go…to the grocery
store or work or the Bridgeport football game or Nicaragua. Bring…the good
news of God’s grace! You can do that. Oh, sure, people are going to reject
you and make fun of you and ignore you. But that’s God’s thing to work on with
them. You just do what you are supposed to do and you will have joy and peace
in this life plus the rewards in Heaven reserved for those who live out their
purpose.
But you can’t live out your purpose; you can’t have
lasting peace; you can’t have eternal life in Heaven with Jesus when you die if
you don’t accept Him to be Lord and Savior while you live. You have no
testimony to share with others and you will never be content or live that full
and abundant life Jesus promises without doing that. And I would love to tell
you more about what that means right now if you would just come ask.
You don’t have to be good enough. You don’t have to clean
up your life before you do. Again, that’s God’s thing to work on with you. You
don’t even have to understand everything. I sure didn’t. Just understand that
you are a sinner in need of forgiveness. Jesus came and died on the cross to
pay the price for that sin so you could be forgiven. All you have to do is
accept it. Accept the free gift of God’s amazing grace.
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