Living Questionable Lives Colossians 4:2-6 June 28, 2015 Pastor Samuel Weems I m going to describe three different people based off of real people I know and you tell me which ones are Christians and which ones are not. We ll start with the easy one. The first guy works for FedEx and he drives a truck around our community delivering packages. This guy is crazy about Jesus. He is always looking for an opportunity to tell people about his faith. He s the kind of person that turns every conversation into a gospel presentation. He says things like here s this important FedEx message, and speaking of messages, you know God has an important message for you also. When he s at a restaurant with you and your nonbelieving friends and he hears a plate crash he says You know our lives are a lot like that broken plate, but Jesus can put it back together. Then he pulls out a video on his phone about how broken plates demonstrate the gospel. That s the first guy. What do you think; if you ran into this guy would you think he was a Christian? Yeah sure, of course he is, he s always talking about Jesus. How many of you would describe yourselves as living your life similarly to the fed-ex guy, as a wide-eyed evangelist who is constantly telling people about Jesus? Most of us do not fall into this category, not everyone is called to be a gifted evangelist. Ephesians 4:11-12 gives us some of the different gifts given to the body of Christ: It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers so that the body of Christ may be built up Some of us are specifically called to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be pastors, some to be teachers, and some of us are specifically called to be God gifted evangelists. Some churches expect every one of us to be the wild eyed evangelist, to memorize gospel presentations, to knock on people s doors, and to share the gospel with intelligence and creativity with everyone we meet. One of the greatest comforts in Ephesians 4 is that we are not called as individuals to be all of these things at once but each of us are but a part of the body of Christ, some of us being called as gifted evangelists who have clarity, conviction, and courage in communicating the gospel and are looking for opportunities to make bold proclamations, but that s not the majority of us. Whew, right? You might not necessarily be called to be an evangelist and you don t have to feel guilty anymore about not waylaying your neighbor. Slow down, this is a sermon you can t get out of here that easily. While there are specific people gifted and called to be evangelists as their primary calling, all of us are called to be evangelistic believers. 1 Peter 3:15 says, not to specifically gifted evangelists, but to all of us as believers: 638 S. Patrick Dr. Satellite Beach, FL 32937 p: (321) 777-2047 f: (321) 777-2077 T R I N I T Y W E L L S P R I N G S. C O M
But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect The primary way in which gifted evangelists share the gospel is through bold proclamation. The primary way in which the rest of us are evangelistic is when people ask us we are to give gracious answers for the hope that we have. Now that said you can be completely prepared and never have anyone ask you anything about your faith. That s why we are called to live questionable lives, living our lives in ways that demand a gospel explanation, living our lives in ways that naturally invite questions from others as to why we live the way we do giving us the opportunities to give gracious answers about our faith and the One who saves us. Our primary passage for today is Colossians 4:2-6 which teaches that there is this two-fold ministry of evangelism that has gifted evangelists on one hand and evangelistic believers on the other. I encourage you to grab one of the bibles and open it up. In this passage there are the ones writing who are the few gifted evangelists and there are those receiving the letter who are the majority evangelistic believers. Colossians 4:2-6: Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. [Evangelistic Believers] And pray for us, too, [Gifted Evangelists] that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. So there are the gifted evangelists, Paul and his companions. He asks the Church to pray for him that doors would be open for their bold proclamation and that when they proclaim the gospel they would do it with clarity. That with our FedEx folks, we pray for them and we equip them to go and to boldly proclaim the gospel. Then there are the rest of us, evangelistic believers. They are also to pray for themselves, to be watchful and to be wise in the way they interact and socialize with those who are not believers, who are outsiders. They are to be intentional so that they can make the most of every opportunity, living the kind of questionable lives that evoke curiosity about the Christian message so that they can in conversations of grace, that taste yummy, seasoned with salt (mmm good conversation) give gracious answers about their faith. A key phrase for the majority of us here who are called to be evangelistic believers is verse 5: Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. We must be intentional in the way we live our lives and the habits we cultivate or we will have zero opportunities because no one will see our lives as being questionable, 2
as something that merits asking why we live the way we do. And it has to be deeper than just being a good neighbor or a nice person. Let me tell you about two other people based on real people I know and you tell you me which one is the Christian. The first used to live in my neighborhood. We have kids around the same age and so we ve run into each other on the playground and at the neighborhood pool. He seems like a caring parent, he keeps his lawn well-manicured, he always says hello and how are you when we see each other. He doesn t leave his trash cans out on the street for an extra day or let his palm trees die in the front yard like I do. And even though I continually avoid his invitations to go running long distance he still is very friendly and asks again from time to time if I d like to go for a run. The other person is a special needs teacher at Sea Park Elementary. She is the most amazing teacher I ve ever known. She spends all day every day with a group of kids with all sorts of issues they are working through. Some of them can t talk, some of them scream all day, some of them are violent and I don t how many assistant teachers she s gone through but she continues every year to teach this class. I don t know how she does it without prescription drugs. She is one of the most sacrificial, caring and compassionate person I ve ever known. So which one is the Christian? It s difficult to tell isn t it? To be honest you could probably pick either one, but it just so happens that the neighbor is Christian and the school teacher is not. When we simply live our lives as nice neighbors or employees it s difficult to discern what is so different about being a Christ follower. If this whole thing comes down to who can be the nicest neighbor, I don t know that we have this one in the bag. Some of us grew up in churches that expect too much, that we should all be wild eyed extraverted gifted evangelists. Others of us have been raised in churches that expect too little. Some have said all we have to do is be nice people and every once and awhile slip an invite to others to a church campus. That is a lie. The truth is that you are the body of Christ, a holy people called and empowered by God and that calling is to be so much more than mere church marketers whose primary role is to advertise the benefit of coming to a church campus once or twice a week. We are so much more. The bible paints a story of ordinary people being sent out to announce and demonstrate the reign of God through Christ without expecting us to be something we re not or something less than we should be. We are something we re not when we are trying to act like a gifted evangelist and that s not our calling. And we are something less than we should be when we are not living questionable lives, lives that evoke questions from others about who we are, what we believe and why we live the way we do. Our challenge is to find what questionable lives look like in the 21 st century, what kind of life will demonstrate the values of the kingdom of God and what kind of intriguing lifestyle will evoke questions to which we can be prepared with gracious answers. Those of us who are not gifted evangelists need to foster 3
habits in our lives that draw us out into the lives of unbelievers and invite the kinds of questions that lead to evangelistic sharing. If your only habits are going to church and attending meetings, it s not going to connect us with unbelievers nor invite their curiosity about our faith. If we are trying to live questionable lives then cutting the lawn, saying hi to the neighbors, washing our car, walking the dog and driving to the office every day is hardly an intriguing lifestyle. We need habits that will unite us together as believers while also propelling us into lives of others, that don t just deplete our energy and burn us out as one more thing to do, but which re-energize us, replenishing our reserves and connect us more deeply to Jesus. The book on which this sermon is based is listed at the bottom and it is a simple online book that has become a part of an international movement of believers who have recognized that our culture has changed and is changing and we need habits like these 5 habits listed in the bulletin to live questionable lives. If we are going to be missional Christ followers, if we are going to be a part of a missional movement as our vision statement says on the back of your bulletin then we must adopt habits like these if we re not already doing them, to live questionable lives. The first habit is to bless others. Make the commitment that each week you will bless three people and by bless I simply mean anything that relieves their burden in life. Anything that helps them breathe more easily. Anything that lifts their spirit or alleviates their distress. It can be a small thing or large. On the Bells Challenge form, which we ll get to, there are three categories to help you think about ways to bless others. One is through words of affirmation. Send someone a note, write them an email, text them. Give them some encouragement. I recently found a word of affirmation when it fell out of my bible as I was flipping through it. Another way to bless others would be through an act of kindness; cutting someone s lawn, babysitting an exhausted couple s kids, helping a neighbor move. And the last way is through gifts, and not birthday or Christmas gifts, but totally random gift giving. If we would just practice this one habit together we would unleash a culture of blessing. It would have the effect of strengthening [our own community] while at the same time launching us more deeply into the lives of outsiders. Don t miss that, the commitment to being generous and to this habit is to bless 3 people a week, at least one of whom is not a member of our church. Bless one person who is a part of our faith community, one person who is not, and the third can be from either category. This simple act of blessing three people weekly can have huge evangelistic impact. There was a research study done of two teams of short term missionaries that visited Thailand with two different strategies. One team, the blessers, went with the intention of simply blessing people. The other team, the converters went with the sole intention of converting and evangelizing everyone they 4
encountered. Dave Ferguson in his book Discover Your Mission Now! Summarized the findings: First of all, they discovered that that the blessers had a greater social impact than the converters. This proved that the blessers intention of blessing the people and the community around them resulted in tremendous amounts of social betterment and social good. Secondly, and here is what was so surprising, they discovered that the blessers also had almost 50 times as many conversions than the converters! The blessers were 50 times more successful at helping people find their way back to God! It s usually not through confrontation, argumentative Facebook posts, or memorized presentations that people find their way back to God. When we live unexpected lives (which clearly includes the blessing of strangers), we find ourselves being questioned by others. Then we have the best opportunity for sharing the hope of Christ within us. The next habit is my favorite. It is to Eat. Again the goal is to eat with one person from our faith community, one who is not and the third from either one. Eating is a fundamental expression of fellowship and hospitality. We could spend an entire sermon going through all the places in the bible people eat with one another and how important it is. One of the core sacraments of our faith is the Lord s Supper after all! Eating has been a central Christian practice since the beginning of our movement. Most of you already eat three times a day, some of us four or five. That s at least 21 meals a week. I m simply asking that you bring another person to your table for three of those. Or if you want to cut corners, you could bring three people to your table for one of them. The meal can be an elaborate dinner party, or it could be breakfast or just coffee and a donut. Just sit across a table from three people this week, and talk. As Alan Hirsch and Lance Ford say in their book, Right Here Right Now: Sharing meals together on a regular basis is one of the most sacred practices we can engage in as believers. Missional hospitality is a tremendous opportunity to extend the Kingdom of God. We can literally eat our way into the kingdom of God! If every Christian household regularly invited a stranger or a poor person into their home for a meal once a week, we would literally change the world by eating! The third habit is to Listen by spending at least one period of the week listening for the Spirit s voice. How are we to negotiate our way through the world, eating with and blessing unbelievers without the Spirit s voice to guide us? Set aside a designated time each week, eliminate distractions, and start your time not by asking or telling the Holy Spirit what you want, start by simply enjoying God s presence and listening. The Spirit might bring to your mind the name or the face of a person you are to bless or eat with. The Spirit might convict you of sin, or 5
encourage you in your faithfulness. The Spirit might prompt you to re-engage with someone you blessed last week, or He might bring to mind something you ought to have said to someone but didn t. You will sense His presence in your heart, and that presence will add strength, power, and encouragement to your walk. The fourth habit is to Learn by spending at least one period of the week learning Christ. You ve heard the phrase What would Jesus do? If we re being sent into the world to live questionable lives, to arouse curiosity, to answer people s enquiries about the hope we have within, we need more than ever to know what Jesus would do or say in any circumstance. And we can t know that without a deep and ongoing study of the biographies of Jesus written by those who knew Him best the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. All of scripture is godbreathed and useful, but if we want to learn Jesus and to follow Him more closely it only makes sense to spend one chunk of time a week in learning Christ. Read, reread and reread again the four Gospels in the bible. I know you think you ve done that before, but I m asking you to develop a habit of really marinating your mind and your soul in the four Gospels. Maybe read an entire gospel in one sitting, maybe read them in sections, maybe read them alone and then with a commentary or a daily devotional material. All I m asking is that we develop a habit of constantly reconnecting with Jesus and the words of Scripture. Secondarily there are many scholarly and popular books written about Jesus as well as TV miniseries and movies. Spend at least one period of time a week learning Christ, marinating our minds and souls in the story of Jesus. The last habit is Sent and what I mean by that is to begin identifying ourselves as missionaries, as sent ones, by journaling the ways we are alerting other to the reign and kingdom of God. You can make daily journal entries or set aside some time at the end of each week to look back over the last seven days to recall how you ve either announced or demonstrated God s universal reign, even if it s in the smallest of ways. Each of these habits is designed to release a certain value. When we bless others we express God s kingdom value of generosity. When we eat with others we are practicing hospitality. When we listen for God s Spirit we are practicing being spirit-led. When we set aside time to learn Christ we become more Christ-like and when we journal and reflect on the ways in which we are alerting others to God s kingdom we are acting as missionaries. The acronym together spells BELLS. A bell alone sounds nice, but as we each begin to live out habits like these and shape the rhythms of our lives into BELLS, together we create sweet sounds with questionable lives as we Bless, Eat, Listen, Learn and are Sent. We create a movement of evangelistic believers that transforms our culture and actually provides more opportunities for our gifted evangelists to boldy proclaim the gospel. Are you ready to change the world? Are you ready to be wise and to make 6
the most out of every opportunity? Are you ready to live questionable lives? What are we waiting for? Let us pray As I mentioned in the sermon, in your bulletin there is an insert called the *BELLS challenge. You can do this alone but as with any habit you seek to cultivate this almost certainly works better when we are held accountable. So take the challenge to Bless, Eat, Listen, Learn and be sent and do it maybe with your family, maybe with your accountability group, maybe your life group, or maybe get one or two friends to join you in it. Try it for a few weeks and each week fill out this form to guide your discussion. If you need more of these forms or have questions just let me know, my email is at the bottom of your notes page. If today, right now, you are in need of prayer or want to talk to someone about this sermon or anything at all please come forward at the end of service and someone from our faith community will be here to pray with you. Let s rise and sing our final song together. *Available online: http://trinitywellsprings.com/sermons/bells/ 7