Bucket List: Share Your Faith
 

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

This morning, I will introduce you to Teddy. Ted here belongs to my youngest daughter, Mackenzie. Now although Mac has a whole room full of teddy bears and an ever increasing number of something called Webkinz, Teddy here stands head and shoulders above all the rest. Ted was given to her when she was just a baby and I really can’t remember a night that she has gone to sleep without Ted tucked underneath her right arm. So you can imagine right now, even though I negotiated with her last night, the guilt I’m feeling that I snuck into her room this morning and I snatched Ted from underneath her arm to bring to church. But I did that because I’m guessing many of you can relate to Ted here. Either your own children or your grandchildren or maybe a niece or a nephew or a younger sibling, they have some special object. Maybe it’s a teddy bear, maybe it’s a rabbit, maybe it’s some other stuffed animal, maybe it’s a blanket, maybe it’s an action figure but kids tend to get really attached to just one object. And I don’t know about you but in my household, if Ted here goes missing, we will turn the house upside down looking for Ted. In fact, it has been known for certain members of the household to travel across town to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house to retrieve said bear so Mac could have it. You do that because you realize how important that bear or blanket or whatever it is that your son or daughter have such an attachment, they have such a passion for it, that you’ll do just about anything to reunite them with it.

Take that same passion, that same commitment, multiple it 100 fold and you’ll start to get an inkling of how important you are to our Father in heaven. Take the same passion, the same commitment, multiple it 100 fold and you start to get the idea about how important all people, all of His creation are to our Father in heaven. You start to realize the passion, the commitment He has that all people, if they’re separated from Him, that they would be reunited with Him. God says He is not willing to have even just one of them remain lost.

So this weekend, as we finish up our series of what we want to be on our Bucket List and sort of evaluate what would God like to see on our list of things to accomplish before we leave this world and join Him in eternity in heaven, we add the final item: sharing our faith. Sharing our faith with another human being. If you recall when we started this series, the number one thing on Jesus’ list, what He wanted to accomplish more than anything else was the redemption of all mankind. He was willing to lay down His life so all mankind could be reunited with His Father in heaven, the lost could found, none would remain lost.

So this morning, I suggest since Jesus has accomplished His list, we add on our list sharing our faith. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be on my deathbed or, worse yet, standing next to the deathbed of a friend of mine realizing I never shared the gospel of Jesus with them. I don’t want to be standing there wondering whether they have faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I don’t want to be standing there wondering whether they’re going to be with me in heaven. I want to know for sure that at least they’ve had an opportunity to know of God’s love.

But that responsibility then lies with me and it relies with you. We’re the search and rescue team that God has commissioned and He does ask us to share our faith. Now I’m guessing right now you have all kinds of things dancing around in your head. “What does it mean to share your faith?” You probably have visions of you canvassing your neighborhood and knocking on doors and checking on a pre-canned speech that you need to say to each and every person so you can share your faith with them, you can witness to them but that’s really not what we’re going to talk about this morning.

You see, if we’re going to share our faith, it goes much deeper than that. The fact of the matter is before we can share our faith, there are several things we have to have in common with our Father in heaven. There are several things we need to share with Him before we ever even think about sharing our faith. The first one is this: We have to share God’s concern. God has a great concern for all people everywhere and God has a special concern for those who are outside of His grace, those who have not had an opportunity to come to faith in His Son Jesus. He has a burning concern for them. If you and I are not concerned about people, if we’re not concerned about people that don’t have a relationship with Jesus, well, then, the fact of the matter is we’ll never share our faith.

Think about God’s concern for people. Consider how Jesus illustrated it. Jesus illustrated it with a shepherd and sheep. A shepherd leaves 99 sheep behind to go find 1. This is not a smart economic act. He’s going to leave 99 behind so he can go off and find the 1 that wandered off aimlessly. Now why would a shepherd do that? Why would he leave the majority of the flock behind and go after just one that wandered off? Because he knows the one that wandered off, if he doesn’t go and find that sheep, the sheep is going to die. It’s a simple fact. It will wander off aimlessly, blissfully, just going from field to field not even realizing the danger that it’s in, not realizing that predators at that very moment were probably circling around the sheep and if the shepherd doesn’t go and find the sheep, the sheep dies. And that’s unacceptable to God. God simply cannot let that happen. And we’re not talking about sheep anymore. We’re talking about people.

If left on our own, we wander off aimlessly, we go through life, don’t even realize half the time that we’re in trouble but the fact of the matter is if we don’t have a relationship with Jesus as our Savior, we die. We die. It’s unacceptable to God that anyone should have to go through this life without Him by their side. It’s unacceptable to God that we should have to go through the lows and the highs of life without Him guiding and directing. It’s unacceptable to God that we should face eternity without Him because if we face eternity without Him, we face an eternity separated from Him. Scripture is very clear on this. There is no other name under heaven which is given to men by which they can be saved and that name is Jesus. Jesus Himself said, “Unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus said, “If you believe and are baptized, then you shall be saved. But he who doesn’t believe, already stands condemned.” Those who are wandering off without Jesus in their life will die. And that’s unacceptable to God.

And it should be unacceptable to us. You see, God is clear about this. Jesus said this, “And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes shall be saved.” Or again, Jesus says, “I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents, one person comes to faith and they throw a party in heaven. There is rejoicing in heaven.” Or when Jesus says, “For the Son of man came to seek and to save what was lost.” This is why Jesus entered into our world so none would be lost, so all of mankind could be reunited with their Father in heaven, to spend an eternity with God in heaven and God has a burning concern for all people, that everyone would be found.

My friends, if we’re going to share our faith, we have to share that concern. We have to be just as concerned as God is for those who are facing life without Him. If it’s important to God, it should be important to us. I’ll go back to Ted here. When Ted goes missing, our whole house is upset. Every member of the family is searching to find Ted. Now is that because I’m going to curl up with Ted that night? No. It’s because all I need to do is walk past Mac’s room and see her sitting on the side of her bed with her lower lip quivering, asking, “We have to find Ted. We have to find Ted.” And because I love her and because it’s so important to her, finding Ted becomes important to me.

If it’s so important to God, shouldn’t it be that important to us? Consider the fact that all of us at one point were lost. Maybe you don’t think of it that way but each and every one of us at some point in time was lost. We were separated from God and God had to seek us out and God had to find us and He used individuals in our lives to form that search and rescue team to come and to find us and reunite us with Him. Maybe you don’t remember it because you were an infant and what He used was your mom and dad and so your parents brought you into baptism and, as you were baptized in the name of the Triune God, then He entered into your heart and He created faith. And then they raised you in a Christian home so you can’t even remember a time when God wasn’t a part of your life but there was a time.

Maybe it was later in your life. Maybe it was a friend or a spouse that shared with you a love of God but, at some point, you were lost but God used someone else to find you so you know what God’s love is all about. You don’t have to face life alone. When life throws you a curve, you have something inside of you, you have something to fall back on. When you start thinking about eternity, you’re not really concerned about that because you know you’re going to spend an eternity in heaven. You’ve experienced God’s love and if you’ve experienced His love, it means you love God in return. And if you love God and you see how concerned He is, if it’s important to Him, it’s important to us.

Well it’s not enough just to share God’s concern. We also have to share God’s commitment. You can’t just be concerned about everything that’s happening. You also have to do something about it and that means you have to share God’s commitment and God’s commitment to all people. Consider God’s commitment. We’ll go back to Jesus’ story of the shepherd and the sheep that wandered off. Consider the commitment of the shepherd. First of all, he leaves 99 behind just so he can find the 1. That’s dramatic enough. But consider this. The shepherd heads off after the sheep before the sheep even knows it’s in trouble. The sheep just kind of wandered off. Saw some green grass over there and started walking down the path, didn’t even realize that it had been separated from the flock. Didn’t realize that it was being surrounded by predators, had no idea that it was in trouble. Before the sheep even knew it was in trouble, the shepherd is searching for the sheep and he will not stop until he finds the sheep.

But we’re not talking about sheep anymore. Scripture says, “While we were still yet sinners, Christ Jesus died for us.” While we were still lost in our sin, while we didn’t even know the trouble we were in, Christ Jesus died for us. Before any of us were born, Christ Jesus had already made the payment for our sins. That’s the commitment God has for you. God’s commitment is so deep that our Father in heaven was willing to ask His one and only Son to come and be a part of His creation. God’s commitment was so great that Jesus was willing to live among us. You want to know about God’s commitment, think about what we’re going to celebrate in a little over a week, Good Friday. Now isn’t that a strange name? I think it is a strange name. Good Friday. The only way I can reconcile that in my head is that it’s good for us and bad for Jesus. It’s good for us because it’s on that day that Jesus allowed mankind to nail Him to a cross. It’s good for us because all of my sin, all of my misdeeds, all of my mistakes, they were placed on Jesus. And the punishment for those misdeeds that I deserve, Jesus bears that on the cross. Good for us. Bad for Jesus. Because He takes on the weight of all of our sins.

Consider this, though. Jesus not only paid for your sins and mine. He not only paid for the sins of believers throughout time. He paid for the sins of all mankind, those who would believe in Him and those who don’t. He’s already made the payment for every human being’s sin. That’s how committed God is to us. If we’re going to share our faith, we have to share that same kind of commitment. Maybe the best way to approach it is to ask ourselves, “If God was willing to sacrifice His very life for us, what are we willing to sacrifice?” And really when you think about it, what is it that God is asking us to really sacrifice here in sharing our faith with another individual? Feeling a little bit uncomfortable talking about our faith? Oh, that’s terrible. Being embarrassed because they don’t accept our invitation? Oh, how awful. Being inconvenienced picking someone up and bringing them to church or picking up their children and bringing them to Faith Alive or to Grace Place? When you consider what God has done for us and how committed He is to us, is it really a sacrifice?

My friends, you and I are Plan A for sharing the gospel and there’s no Plan B. Jesus says that we are to go and make disciples of all nations. Jesus says that we are His witnesses first at home, then abroad. That’s Plan A. There is no Plan B. We carry the responsibility, we carry the privilege of sharing the gospel with the world and we need to be every bit as committed to that as God is committed to us. Because if we share that commitment and if we share God’s concern, we will share our faith. We won’t be able to stop ourselves. And we’ll share our faith in a variety of ways.

First and foremost, we’ll simply share our faith by our lives, by who we are. Consider the fact that Jesus talked about the love of God just as much with His actions as He did with His words. He spoke volumes of God’s love for people and never opened up His mouth. When He fed tens of thousands of people, when He healed the lame and they could walk and the deaf could hear and the blind could see or when He stops by a widow who’s lost her only son and He says, “You come back to life because your mother needs you,” He didn’t start out with a short sermonette. He didn’t give a quick witness to them. He simply acted in love and demonstrated God’s love and He spoke volumes.

You and I speak volumes. People know you’re Christians. Your neighbors are going to get up in probably another 20 minutes and they’re going to realize you’re gone. They’ll say, “Wow. They went to church at 6:30 in the morning.” They know the fact that don’t bother them on Sunday evening or Friday night because that’s when their small group from church meets. Or don’t bother calling them on a Wednesday morning because they know they’re in bible study. They know you’re a Christian and you speak volumes just by how you live. When they see you just as a regular person, that you have ups and downs in your life, you’re not walking around thumping a bible, you’re not walking around like this looking pious. You look just like everybody else but when tragedy hits your life, somehow you have an inner strength. When something devastating happens, somehow you find comfort and a way to make it through and they see that in you and they want that for themselves. When you’ve demonstrated integrity and honesty and love and care, you become a representative of what it is to be a Christian. You speak volumes without opening your mouth.

But sooner or later, you need to say something. If you truly have a concern and a commitment, then you start looking for those opportunities, you start looking for God opening up the doors when you can share with another individual what your faith relationship means to you. I’m not talking something rehearsed, not something memorized. I’m talking about speaking from the heart. “This is what my faith means to me.” People respect that. It means looking for opportunities to issue an invitation. Maybe your small group is starting a new bible class that you really think they would benefit from, that they’d be interested in so you invite them. Maybe something’s happening at church and you think that would be a good opportunity that they could join you. Frankly, right now, we’re two weeks away from the biggest opportunity all year long. It’s called Easter Sunday. More people will come to church on Easter than any other day of the year. We as Americans believe that’s what we’re supposed to do even if we don’t understand it. That’s part of our culture, that you should be in church on Easter Sunday. But if they don’t have a church home, they won’t go. It’s an opportunity. It’s a door that God is opening up right now. Can you think of someone? A neighbor, a friend, maybe even a family member that you can say, “Hey, it’s Easter. Why don’t you join me? Why don’t you come?” So they can hear of the resurrection, they can hear of God’s commitment and God’s love.

Because it’s the will of the Father that no one should be lost. And, my friends, you and I are the search and rescue team.

In my house, when Ted here goes missing, usually it’s the rest of the family who’s feverishly looking for him. Mackenzie’s just too upset. She just sits there anxiously waiting to hear the news that someone has found Ted. My friends, our Father in heaven is anxiously waiting as His family of believers feverishly search because it’s His will that not one should be lost. Amen.

Copyright 2008 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church