Dear First Pres,
This last week I preached on the way the first church was called to be a witnessing community for Christ. The passage was Acts 1:1-11 in which Jesus says, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” This was their primary calling as a community; it was the way they were to offer their lives up to the Lord as living sacrifices of praise. And, it turns out, it is also our primary calling at First Presbyterian Church, Fresno – as it is for every Christian community. To do that effectively, we need to make sure that we are also a worshipping community. It’s our worship that keeps us grounded in the truth of the Gospel, namely that God has come to us in Christ for the redemption of all the effects of sin and brokenness. When we stay grounded in the good news of Christ’s redemption we are changed and compelled to be witnesses of that good news to others. Yet, our tendency is often to lean so much into being a worshipping community that we stop short of living that primary call as a witnessing community.
The question I didn’t much address in Sunday’s sermon is this: how do we act as a witnessing community? How does it look? Pastor Timothy Keller put together a great study – one that everyone in the church should go through at some point – called Gospel in Life: Grace Changes Everything. In Session 5 he talks about this call to be a witnessing community. I’m borrowing these next three points from that session.
First, we act as a witnessing community by speaking about the Gospel. In other words, we witness by talking to others about Jesus and the good news of his work in life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Every one of us who has surrendered our lives to Jesus took those first steps of faith because someone told us about Jesus. We are called to continue to talk about Jesus to others. You don’t have to have all the answers. Witnesses are those who talk about what they have seen, heard, and experienced. What have you seen, heard, and experienced with Jesus that you could share with others?
Second, we act as a witnessing community by loving our neighbors. It was such a privilege to join the Meadors family a few weeks ago to serve their neighbors. It gave me the opportunity to see the way that the Meadors have loved their neighbors so well. I was inspired. The work that we came to help Floyd and Molly do around their house was one of many acts of God’s loving kindness that they have experienced through the Meadors. One of the ways we act as witnesses of the Gospel is to embrace our neighbors with God’s love.
Third, we act as a witnessing community by living out the transformation of the Gospel in our own lives. Tim Keller says, “There is a credibility that comes if you are consistent in your behavior; there is a credibility that comes if people see the gospel transforming you.” How is it that Christ is changing you? Do others experience that?
But here’s the bottom line about each of these three ways we act as witnesses of the Gospel: they are most effective in community. In fact, they are dependent on community. Sometimes, I think, we frame Christian community in a perspective that it exists primarily for the building up of Christians. Of course, it does exist to build Christians up in their faith. But let us not forget that its primary call is to be a witness to the world of God’s incredible redemption through Christ.
God has given you the Holy Spirit to empower you to be His witnesses. I pray that these three descriptions of how it happens will help you live into that empowerment today.
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