Gospel

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Part One - -

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Colossians 3:16-17

Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31

The question comes to mind ... "Do we REALLY do whatsoever we do in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ ...; do we really DO ALL to the glory of God?"

When considering this we must do so in light of how JESUS defines glorifying God - - "herein is My Father glorified that ye bear much fruit!" John 15:8

So now we can "rephrase" the question to be a more effective examination of ourselves: "Am I doing all that I do in order to bear much fruit?"

When we go shopping ... do we take into consideration that God expects us to do so with the priority of bearing fruit?

When we dine out ... do we take into consideration that God expects us to do so with the priority of bearing fruit?

When we go to our jobs ... do we go to work in order to fulfill the objective of bearing much fruit - - or do we even consider this a priority or make it an objective at all?

Jesus declares ... "Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest." John 4:35

In other words, opportunities are all around us, we must SEE those opportunities that already exist ... and then make it our priority to glorify God - bear much fruit!

Yes - - BUT HOW? Although Jesus has clearly stated that we are all His witnesses (Acts 1), He DID NOT anoint nor ordain ALL of us to be Evangelists (soul winners)! If we were ALL Evangelists, then there would be no Pastors or other types of ministers!

But we all are to be witnesses, or to define it another way, we all are to be SEED SOWERS!

MORE TO COME - NEXT WEEK

Part Two …

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Colossians 3:16-17
Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31

Jesus did not appoint or ordain ALL of us to be Evangelists or Apostles, but He did appoint and ordain each of us to be His WITNESSES!

Let’s think about this for a moment … what is a witness? Well, the witness is not the Judge, he only answers to the Judge about what evidence he (or she) presents, that it is the truth – not exaggerated or diminished in any way. The Judge – God – will one day pronounce judgment to condemnation or to liberty.

Do we mistakenly come across as the Judge? Do we err and assume the role of judging others or do we pronounce condemnation, or even salvation, incorrectly? After all, we are not to pronounce such judgments, that is the Lord’s role! We are just to present evidence regarding Jesus!

The witness is not the defendant and the witness is not the one on trial, although his/her testimony is examined by all concerned! The witness is the necessary element of the trial for the community to arrive at the correct determination about the defendant … to arrive at the truth about the person being tried.

The witness certainly is not the prosecutor, although witnesses may be used by either the prosecutor or the defendant to sway the community about the one on trial. In this case, the prosecutor is the devil who is trying with all his might to convince the jury – the world of lost souls – that Jesus is not worthy to be their Lord and that His claims to being Savior are irrelevant!

Jesus declared that we who are His followers, we who are born again will be witnesses unto HIM! So the decision we must make is not whether we will be His witnesses, but how effective of a witness will we be? Will the prosecutor be able to trip us up and nullify our testimony?

Do we try to be “silent” witnesses? There is no such thing! Can you imagine being called to the witness stand, and one attorney or the other asks you a question and you just sit there? Then finally the judge asks you and you still don’t answer, until the judge calls you to account for your silence asking you why you are not saying anything … and you answer: “Well, I just figured that they would know by my actions what my testimony is! I am a good person, and do good things, and anyone who knows me knows that about me, and so they should know that Jesus is the reason!”

How absurd! How many people do good things every day and are no more followers of Christ than the man on the moon! Did you ever notice what Scripture says … “Be ready to GIVE AN ANSWER to every one that asks you of the reason of the hope that is within you”?

Your conduct may cause people to ask but probably not. Your SPEECH causes people to ask because YOUR SPEECH declares the hope you have! People only know you have hope if you TALK ABOUT IT! People only know you have faith if you are vocal about it! People only know that you are a child of God in Christ Jesus if you declare it!

People will never know of your faith in God by Jesus from being good alone! Nor will they ever know of your faith in Christ by telling or showing them how good you are! They will only know of your faith if you declare it and if your conduct matches your words, then they will have reason to ask you of the hope that is within you!

Now then, we may be faithful to be vocal witnesses to those closest to us … but didn’t Jesus say that we are witnesses into ALL the world? Yes He did! So now we must deal with the question: Are we being faithful everywhere we go? I mean after all, are we supposed to just blurt out that we love Jesus to every person we interact with during the week?

Well, yes! But only in an effective manner and this is what many of us have difficulty with! Many of us are simply not bold enough to initiate a conversation from a cold start with, say, the waitress in the restaurant.

But what if you had help?

NEXT WEEK … The final installment: How to Plant Evidence!


Part Three - -

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Colossians 3:16-17
Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31

Jesus did not appoint or ordain ALL of us to be Evangelists or Apostles, but He did appoint and ordain each of us to be His WITNESSES!
But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Acts 1:8

We have discussed what a witness is and what a witness is not so we should understand by now that a witness simply delivers evidence! The question we must now deal with is this ... How can we effectively deliver evidence to the "jury"?
First we must understand that in this case, the "jury" is the world of lost souls around us.

Second we must understand that the "jury" does not need to be unanimous in its decision about Christ, in fact, each "juror" decides for himself if Jesus is TRUE or false and the awaiting judgment is not upon Christ (for He has already paid what was required of Him!) but what awaits is that each juror will be facing an execution of judgment based on his/her decision about Christ!
What each "juror" needs is evidence with which they may make an intelligent, informed decision! They need evidence!

How can we, each one of us, present evidence to these souls in a manner that may - either immediately or eventually - cause him or her to ask for more information?

Jesus gave us an example of just how to do this, to fulfill our responsibility to be a witness, yet without any false sense of responsibility that is truly not upon us!

In Luke 8:5-15 Jesus gave the parable of the Sower.
Reading this we find that the Sower's responsibility is ONLY to sow the Seed! Notice that as the Sower went along his way, he scattered seed EVERYWHERE!

Although some seed fell on bad ground, some were scattered for what turned out to be "bird food", some fell to absolutely no effect, we need to notice and understand that IT IS NOT THE SOWER'S RESPONSIBILITY to determine which ground is good ground and which ground is not good ground! WOW!

Notice, again, that the Sower simply scattered Seed as he went, everywhere he went, and that was all he is responsible to do! He is not the Harvester! He is not the Grower! He is simply the Planter!

Now let's apply this to us! I have heard so many excuses about why a person does not "witness" to others ... "I don't have opportunity

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