Witness: Care & Share
(1 Thessalonians 2:1-8)
10:30 am, Sunday, Aug 4, 2013 Windsor UBC, J G White
One Sunday on their way home from church, a little girl turned to her mother and said, "Mommy, the preacher’s sermon this morning confused me."
The mother said, "Oh? Why is that?"
The little girl replied, "Well, he said that God is bigger than we are. Is that true?" The mother replied, "Yes, that’s true honey."
"And he also said that God lives in us? Is that true, Mommy?" Again the mother replied, "Yes."
"Well," said the little girl, "if God is bigger than us and He lives in us, wouldn’t He show through?"
A week called Tidal Impact is a week for getting on board with God showing through! Part of all our ministries this week is witness. Our lives, our actions, our personalities, point to the God who saves us.
“Witness” is sometimes a legal term. In court a witness tells what he or she knows, saw, understands about what really happened. So in our faith. We share what we know. We give and live because of what we know, not because of what we hope for.
Dallas Willard’s last book is “Knowing Christ Today”, and he points out, at length, that we gain real knowledge about God and from God. We do not bear witness about a Jesus we don’t know for sure. Elton Trueblood said, “Faith, as the plain man knows, is not belief without proof, but trust without reservations.”
So may we who are in this special mission tour stay close to our Lord, and speak and do things because of what we know of God. We can’t be a witness of something we have not seen for ourselves. And may all who are living your ordinary lives this August week, do the same. It is about spending the week with our Lord, and with the people near us.
Our Covenant says “we will seek to live so close to Him that we will be available to Him in the many natural opportunities for witness that He provides.”
What about also being devoted to the people around us? How about saying this too: “we will seek to live so close to others that we will be available to them in the many natural opportunities for witness that Jesus provides.”
This is the completion of our witness and mission. As Paul, Sylvanus and Timothy said in their letter to Christians long ago, “So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.”
You who are here from Shelburne County are only here for one week - you will not see the results of your mission, though you may see hints. Some of us here in Hants County will see what God does, in the long run. We can have confidence in the purpose the Lord has for the people He calls us to love this week. May God give us love for those to whom we witness.
The story is told of a missionary in Africa who gave a Bible to one of the African men. When it was given to him, the man hugged it close & expressed great appreciation for the precious gift of God’s Word that the missionary had given him.
But when the missionary saw him a few days later he noticed, much to his dismay, that the Bible looked like it was already falling apart, & that many of its pages were missing. The missionary asked him, "What happened? What did you do to your Bible? When I gave it to you I thought you considered it to be a treasured possession."
The man replied. "Indeed, it is a very precious possession. It is the finest gift I have ever received. It is so precious that when I returned to my village I very carefully chose a page & tore it out & gave it to my mother. Then I tore out another page & gave it to my father. And I tore out another page & gave it to my wife. Finally, I gave a page of God’s Word to everybody who lives in my village."
The precious Gospel is for others. May this week be a page from your life, to give with love.
