AP

The Hardest Thing for Christians to Do

With my lips I have declared all the judgments of Your mouth (Psalm 119.13).

(Please read Psalm 119.9-16.)

WHAT’S the hardest thing for Christians to do? To tidy up and do things around the church? To ‘bring a plate’ for after-church fellowship? To tithe? (two or three other tithers + you = no more financial problems for your church!) To believe that Christ is coming again? To have assurance of salvation? To live in personal relationship with Christ?

            No. Christians can do all these things fairly easily.

            The hardest thing for Christians to do is to give a testimony! To tell others what Jesus means to you; what He has done for you; how He has helped you; what He has promised you. Yes, we need to speak up for Jesus. It’s difficult to start with, but as time goes by it becomes easier and easier.

            I’m not saying this to be critical. All these things have their place and are helpful in living for Jesus. Even little things like making a meal for new neighbours, or inviting new neighbours over to your place, or taking flowers to someone who’s sick – in these and many other ways we can show our love and concern for people when they’re sad or sick or lonely. It’s always good to help people in some practical way to show our love for them. And in its way each one is a valuable witness. But there’s something special about sharing our faith verbally (with our lips) with someone else.

The Importance of Witnessing for Christ to Others

When you find something you like or something that helps you in some way or other, you want to tell others about it, don’t you?

            Business people know the importance of ‘word-of-mouth’ advertising. My son has an earth-moving and excavating business, and he doesn’t need to spend money advertising it because his customers tell other people about him and suggest that they contact him when they want some particular job done.

            The most wonderful thing in the world is the Gospel, of God redeeming us from sin and death, and setting us on the Way of Eternal Life, so don’t we want to tell others about that?‘With my lips I have declared all the judgments of Your mouth,’ wrote the Psalmist.

            Truly, to find Christ is to have found the pearl of greatest price, so if we have found in Him the One who gives us ‘the peace of God which passes all understanding’ we surely want others to know that peace too.

            After all, we hear and know the Gospel today because others have shared it with us, and in the Bible we see others sharing their faith: David the Psalmist shared it widely (Psalm 119.13); Andrew shared it with his brother Peter (John 1.40-42); Philip shared it with the man from Ethiopia (Acts 8.30b,32,34,35); Paul shared it on a grand scale (1 Corinthians 9.16). Billy Graham shared it with millions of people all around the world, including me.

            My pastor, like your pastor, shares his faith with us each Lord’s Day and on Wednesday my pastor stands outside the main train station here in Melbourne to share the Gospel with people there.

The Means of Sharing the Gospel:

The Spoken Witness

‘With my lips I have declared all the judgments of Your mouth,’ wrote the Psalmist. You can clear up a lot of misunderstandings when you stop and talk with people, you can help people to overcome their objections and you can develop face-to-face relationships which can turn into friendships with people, and eventually lead them to the Lord.

The Personal, Individual, ‘One on One’ Witness

As a pastor, I can preach to a lot of people all at once, but it might not be as effective as speaking to people one-to-one, so I hope that the Lord’s work becomes more effective by the Lord’s people sharing their faith as one person to another.

            If you have a personal experience of Christ, if there is a text or a hymn that means a lot to you, if some time you were down and the Lord lifted you up, or you were sad and the Lord cheered you on your way, or if you were ready to give up and the Lord renewed your strength, or you were disappointed because a door slammed shut in your face and the Lord opened another one; or you were burdened by your sin, but all of your burdens went rolling away when you repented down at the Saviour’s cross – you can speak into these and other situations confronting others, help them and bring them forward on the journey of faith.

The Manner of Sharing the Gospel: With Definite, Confident Witness

‘With my lips I have declared all the judgments of Your mouth,’ wrote the Psalmist. In some churches as well as from the world itself, people cast doubt on the truth of the Bible, and this eats away at people’s faith. This has been going on for a long time – ever since the day when Satan slithered down the tree in the form of a snake and asked Eve, ‘Did God really say …?’

            Our Lord Jesus didn’t cave in to Satan when he tempted Him. Jesus fully trusted the Word of God by answering Satan’s misuse of Scripture and putting it right – time and time and time again. He was so confident of the truth of God’s Word that He could teach with authority. We who believe that what the Bible says is what God says, can speak it with confidence. We don’t have to say ‘if’ or ‘but’ or ‘perhaps’ or ‘maybe’; we can say ‘Thus says the Lord’.

            The Bible tells us what it’s all about in John 3.16: ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever (isn’t that a lovely word?), whosoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life’.

            There are some people who need to have their faith rebuilt, some people who need to have their faith deepened, and some people who don’t have faith at all, so in sharing our faith we must be confident of its truth ourselves if we want others to have confidence in it too.

            It’s our duty to let people know that there REALLY is a God, He is the sovereign Lord of Creation, Providence and Redemption, He has redeemed us to Himself not with silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ in whom He has given us abundant, eternal life, that He has spoken absolute truth to us in His Word. As I’ve moved around and shared these things I could almost hear people breathing a sigh of relief because they’ve been reassured of these things.

The Message We Share

We should aim to give a complete witness just as in a court of law, witnesses must swear that they will ‘tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth’. How much more should that be the aim of the people of God?

            Paul said to the elders of the church in Ephesus: ‘I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God’ and I’m sure that would be true wherever he went and to whoever he spoke or wrote.

            What does this tell us about the content of the message we share?

            It tells us that our witness should be about GOD And what He has done. The psalmist said: ‘All the judgments of Your mouth’ – which was his way of saying what Paul called ‘the whole counsel of God’. So, our emphasis is to be on God, not ourselves; on Christ, not the church; on the Word of God and not the foolish so-called ‘wisdom’ of the world.

The Divine Enabling to Witness

Our Lord Jesus, the Divine Teacher, was the greatest teacher who ever lived, and if we read the Gospels carefully we can see how He taught, as well as what He taught. He modelled what He taught. He taught simply but profoundly. He taught for a purpose – that people would follow Him who was ‘the Way, the Truth and the Life’.

Conclusion

This section of Psalm 119 gives us ‘The Means, The Manner, The Message, The Method of sharing our faith in testimony to what God has done. While some Christians stand in a pulpit, some Christians do works of mercy, some Christians are involved in everyday work; all Christians can share their faith with their family, their friends, their workmates, their schoolmates.

            And as a result, God will draw all of His people to Himself, ‘a great multitude which no man can number’, who will rejoice in Glory that God used someone like you or me to declare with our lips all the judgments of His mouth, for ‘How shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher, be it someone in a pulpit or someone who befriends them along the way and points them to Christ? (see Rom.10:14-17)

Speak just a word for Jesus, tell how He died for you;

Often repeat the story, wonderful, glad, and true!

Speak just a word for Jesus, tell how He helps you live;

Tell of the strength and comfort that He will freely give!

Speak just a word for Jesus, do not for others wait;

Gladly proclaim the message, soon it will be too late!

Let Us Pray:

O Lord our gracious God, how we thank You that You have chosen us, called us and named us in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. How we thank You that You have given us Your very great and precious promises, so that through them we may participate in Your divine nature. How we thank You for those who shared the Gospel with us, who opened Your Word to us, who stood by us as we grew in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus. And we pray that You would use us to draw others to repent of their sin and receive mercy in Christ and Him crucified.

Bless Your Word to us O Lord. Be with our pastors, elders, deacons and all Your faithful people, and bind us all together in Your love as we strive together for the sake of the Gospel, the salvation of souls and the glory of Your Name, for we ask it in the Name of our loving Saviour and Lord, Jesus Christ.

AMEN.

– Bob Thomas