As we wrap up this series, I want to talk about how we can prepare ourselves to more effectively “Share God”, and about how important it is to SHARE God.
When you think about the themes of the previous 5 weeks, they all pointed to our final topic of SHARING GOD.
We started with Jesus’ spending His Last Supper with His disciples on the night before His crucifixion.
During conversations that night, Jesus took the time to teach His disciples how important it was to really KNOW GOD…
He said…
“Now this is eternal life, that they KNOW YOU, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” John 17:3
The “they” of course is you … a believer in Jesus as your Lord and Savior. We know that the whole purpose of Jesus’ coming into our world, the whole purpose of His death on the cross and the resurrection, is so you may HAVE eternal life.
Life is what it is. Eternal life, on the other hand, is all about knowing God. What this means is that eternal life is not just about a destination like heaven, but a relationship with God in the HERE and NOW from KNOWING God.
3 little boys were in the back yard playing. Pretty soon they got into this old thing of my dad is GREATER than your dad.
One little boy says, “My dad knows the Mayor”.
The second little boy said, “That’s nothing! My daddy knows the governor.”
Finally, the third little boy paused for a moment, then he said with total confidence, “Your dad may know the Mayor, and your dad may know the Governor, but my dad KNOWS GOD.”
The more we all KNOW God, the more confidently and effectively we can SHARE Him. It is human nature to want to share things we are more familiar and comfortable with.
After we get to know more and more about God, we WILL Share Him more and more.
In week 2 of this series we heard about the important need to HEAR GOD.
We learned that you and I have an enemy in Satan, the father if lies, and he wants to destroy us … separate us from God.
Here we have Satan speaking in lies, and God speaking the truth. But the key is … how do we discern those different voices? How can we HEAR the truth?
To start, here is what Jesus teaches us about HEARING the truth…
”My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish…” John 10:27
If we want to HEAR the voice of God, we must understand who Jesus is and listen to Him. We must KNOW His voice and FOLLOW Him.
Of course, we know Jesus from the Bible and from the witness of other Christians around us. Plus, we intentionally do godly things to help us really UNDERSTAND who Jesus is, so we can better HEAR what He has got to say to us.
He speaks to us through His Word, in answered prayer, through godly friends and family. Are we listening?
It goes without saying that the clearer and more effectively we HEAR God, the more inclined we are to SHARE the truth of His live-saving message.
In a relationship with God, hearing is vitally important, but equally important is TALKING with GOD.
When the Bible talks about prayer, our means of conversing and talking with God, it is not at all about being religious or feeling it is a REQUIREMENT to pray.
The Bible says prayer is about being INVOLVED in a loving relationship with God the Father. In fact, Jesus, the son of a Jewish carpenter, who gained prominence as a rabbi during His ministry, very publicly called God … “Father” on numerous occasions.
More than that, He says, “If you believe in me and trust in me, you TOO can become a child of God, and you TOO can call the Almighty God … Father.”
Paul says in 1 Thessalonians Chapter 5…
”Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 1 Thessalonians Chapter 5:16-18
Paul is just teaching us to pray all day as you go on your way. Be in constant conversation with God. Now there are moments in your life, of course, where you need to GET alone and focus in fervent prayer.
But the idea here is that we should be praying all the time. When we pray without ceasing and give thanks in all circumstances, we know this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.
And we feel assured that that is what will help us MORE than anything to SHARE our love of GOD with those around us.
In week 4, we took some time to look at SERVING GOD.
In the 24 hours before Jesus’ crucifixion. Jesus was betrayed by one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, beaten, and crucified. And the thing is … Jesus knew each step before it happened . He knew his time had come.
But Jesus knew something else REALLY IMPORTANT as well, Jesus knew that the Father had put…
“…ALL THINGS under his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God.” John 13:3
Jesus clearly understands He IS ABOVE all things in this world. Yet, He used that power to serve His disciples in a very special way … He washed their filthy feet.
ALL OF them … including the betrayer Judas, the denier Peter, and the doubter Thomas. Jesus SERVED all those who did not deserve it as a model for us today as well.
We DO NOT just serve people because they deserve it. We serve people because that is what God asks us to do.
Jesus also taught us an important lesson through an interchange with Peter, when Jesus said, “Unless I wash you, Peter, unless I do this thing for you, you have NO PART with me.”
Jesus was teaching Peter and us today that this is where the Christian life BEGINS. Any person who has ever walked this planet, here is where it ALL begins … ALLOWING Jesus to SERVE us.
I have always been dismayed by church shoppers. I suspect that behavior is caused by a consumer mentality. I am not getting what I WANT, so I better keep looking.
But the thing is, the church is unique. Church should not be about serving US, it should be about SERVING OTHERS.
We should be more focused on reaching the…
non-attender than the attender …
the seeker than the already-founder …
the newcomer rather than the insider …
the desperately lost rather than the comfortably saved.
The church should always be about SERVING GOD through serving others. That is the model of church.
Finally, we arrived at the topic of how to more effectively WALK with GOD.
It seems natural to me that the more we learn to walk with God, the more we will have a tendency to pray, open the Bible, attend Bible Classes, or be motivated to serve others.
And all of that happens in our lives when we learn to walk with God “clothed in humility”. Now, some people think that humility is all about being timid or shy, and not thinking much of oneself.
But that is not at all the biblical definition of humility. Humility and timidity ARE NOT the same thing. You can be very courageous and humble at the same time. Humility is choosing to trust God and to trust others with the real you.
Humility is a choice … a choice that allows God’s love to work in our lives and keep us from being separated from God by Satan.
Walking with God often REQUIRES PATIENCE.
A man was WALKING through a supermarket with a screaming baby in a shopping cart.
A woman nearby noticed that time and again the man would calmly say: “Keep calm, Albert. Keep calm, Albert.”
Finally, in admiration for the man’s patience as the child continued to wail, the woman walked up to him and said: “Sir, I must commend you for your patience with baby Albert.”
To which the man replied, “My name is Albert!”
Often, we must exercise patience when we are walking with God. There is a song we sing in Worship titled “In His Time”. One of the lines expressed is the truth that “He makes all things beautiful in His time.”
So, in our Gospel today, we find Jesus standing on a mountain with some disciples, getting ready to depart earth, when He says…
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore GO and MAKE disciples of all nations…” Matthew 28:19
Jesus uses two action verbs to give us this command “…GO and MAKE disciples of all nations…”
People … this is not a SUGGESTION. Just like the 10 Commandments are not meant to be the 10 suggestions.
You would think that at this BIG moment in history, the culmination of his time on the earth, God would give some final words of encouragement or comfort or say something personal or intimate to His disciples.
He could literally say anything, but what he CHOSE to say as He closed His earthly ministry … was this final command to GO and MAKE disciples of ALL nations.
In other words, Jesus is commanding us to SHARE GOD.
By sharing God, Jesus is not asking you to go door-to-door to sell God. Nowhere in the Bible does it say You and I are called to be SALESMEN.
Instead, Jesus is asking each of you to be a WITNESS, to merely LIVE your life like you really love God more than anything.
That is an extremely effective way to SHARE GOD, because it is the AUTHENTIC you, it is WHO you really are.
Know, Hear, Talk, Serve, Walk, Share
So, I said all of that to say this … when we know God, hear God, when we talk things over with God, serve God and others, walk humbly with our God, the result is we SHARE God. Amen