Our Rule of Life - Witness Pt1

Beautiful.

Well, we're gonna continue our series, uh, Our Rule of Life.

Who's enjoyed it so far?

I've enjoyed it.

I've been challenged, and I'm... hopefully you've been challenged and,

uh, and prompted to, uh, sort of dive into the joyful gifts and graces that

God has given us through some of these practices that we're talking about.

Our rule of life is a shared commitment to order our lives around being with

Jesus so that over time we become like Jesus, living in the reality

of God's kingdom here and now.

It's exciting to think that we can taste that now.

It's not just something that we, uh, need to wait for, but

we can experience in part today.

Our rule of life involves many different practices and disciplines that God

is welcoming us into by the power of the Holy Spirit, which is what we're

in the midst of going through, and today's, uh, practice is witness.

That's what I'm gonna speak on this afternoon, witness.

As a church, we have three values, uh, and you've probably heard us talk about this.

It's reliant, real, and relational.

I should've got you guys to shout them out to me, test you.

And we've, uh, divided up these spiritual practices underneath

our values just to help us create something that's a bit more tangible.

And alongside hospitality, which we started with in this series,

is also witness, and they fall under our value of relational.

We are a relational people.

I've titled my message tonight that you are the salt and the light of the world.

And I'm taking this straight from Jesus's mouth in that Sermon on the

Mount, or what is also called the Beatitudes, and we're just gonna read

that now, Jesus's words to his disciples.

And he says this in Matthew 5:13-16.

Matthew 5:13–16

He says, "You are the salt of the earth.

But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?

It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

You are the light of the world.

A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.

Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl." Instead, they

put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house.

In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good

deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

When we come to this practice of witness, what are we speaking about?

What are we, what are we trying to grapple and understand?

Well, simply put, I think witness can be reduced to the sharing of the good news

of Jesus in not just what we say, but in also what we do, how we live our lives.

Our posture in following this practice, in witnessing unto the world, I think we

need to start in humility, knowing that it must be by the power and the love of

s- of the Spirit of God that we would see anyone won to Christ in this world.

There's a helpful way to think about the humility that we are welcomed into

in this practice of witness, and I just want, I wanna use this example

to help us understand that humility.

One of, one of my children, um, when they had started school, a couple of

years into school, became apparent to us as the parents and also to teachers

that this child was really struggling with letter recognition and therefore

reading and writing, and they were a couple of years behind their cohort,

and that was a s- real struggle.

A real struggle.

Now, try and think about being that person in this world, like

right now, like the age that you're at, the life that you inhabit.

Imagine not being able to read and write.

Imagine that.

Wow.

To my child, or if I said to you in that circumstance, "Just, just hurry up, and

just start, just start reading, and once you get going, it, it's gonna get easier.

You'll, you'll be right.

You'll get the hang of it," would that help you?

No.

It wouldn't help you.

You see, the goal of reading and writing for someone who can't and really

struggles with it, crossing that threshold to being able to seems impossible.

It's insurmountable, the reality of going, "One day, I will

be able to read and write."

And I felt that as a parent for my child, with the anxiety and the crying

and just the hopelessness that they felt as they struggled through that.

And I want to use that feeling, I want to use that analogy of being so far from

something to bring us into a humility of realizing that there in our friends, our

neighbors, even those family members, this is what it is like spiritually

to cross the threshold to Christ.

It seems impossible for many people, insurmountable.

I cannot imagine moving that direction in my life.

No matter how obvious or easy it appears to you as a follower of Christ.

So the first bit of advice or wisdom I want to give us is that we need to guard

our hearts from pride and arrogance, thinking about the world without Christ.

So I want us to sit with humble, meek hearts, loving hearts as

we think about this practice.

So in this passage of Scripture, what does it reveal about this practice of witness?

So in Matthew 5, which is taken from that Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is using an

imagery of darkness to describe the world.

Captures, in my mind, the thoughts of poor souls walking around

unable to see where they're going.

Those who are of the world are blind to the truth.

They simply are not aware that they do not see.

In fact, they believe they can see.

But, according to Christ, they can't.

So we as Christians witnessing involves us being like that lamp to help them to see.

As light, we actively join in with God, pushing back the darkness and ushering in

the goodness of His love and His truth.

Secondly, Jesus refers to the work of witnessing as being agents like salt.

Witnessing reveals that the world is tasteless and has fallen victim to

the work of death being decay, like unsalted meat going bad and rotting.

Sin and death are doing this in the world around us.

So we, as His disciples, are actively invited to participate in

arresting or slowing down the work of decay in the world by being salt.

Bringing the vibrancy of kingdom flavor back to the world and preserving the

good things that have been stolen by evil powers, by the darkness.

Notice in this passage that Jesus doesn't say to his disciples, "Hey, can you guys

just act like light and salt? Can you just pretend to be light and salt?" No,

no, no, these are symbols of identities.

They speak of markers of the one who follows Christ.

This is who you are.

You are salt.

You here, right here in, in this building, you are the salt.

You are the light of the world.

You're it.

To lose our saltiness or to hide our light is to deny who we follow.

German theologian and, and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer says this: "Flight into the

invisible is a denial of the call. A community of Jesus was seek... which seeks

to hide itself has ceased to follow him."

Witnessing, therefore, is a practice to live open and visible lives

as followers, as disciples of Jesus to the world in everything

that we do, in everything we do.

Witnessing is a daily living of being found truly as you

really are in Christ Jesus.

Just who you are in Christ, that's the call.

A denying of living in hatred and lies, of suppressing your loyalty to Christ,

no, it's living a life in love and the warmth of his truth, which is what?

It is light.

The warmth of his truth is light.

It reveals.

It brings revelation.

However, I just, and I mentioned this this morning, let's just be really careful.

Let's not get too excited.

Let's not get too excited about our mission here without having some

humility as we engage the world.

We need to make sure not to confuse witness with complaint about the

world or grandstanding over the world.

When we see darkness prevailing and darkness falling upon our

societies in different practices, we ought not to sit and watch,

blaming the world for the blunder.

Theologian John Stott argued that Christians should not merely complain

about- The derit, uh, the, um, the, the, the darkness of society, sorry.

But rather ask why the church is not acting as light to

permeate and change the darkness.

And he says this about our very passage in Matthew five, and I encourage you

that if you ever wanna read a really, really good commentary on the Sermon

on the Mount, read John Stott's.

It's great.

I did, and it's awesome.

John Stott says this: "If the house is dark when nightfall comes, there's

no sense in blaming the house.

That's what happens when the sun goes down.

The question to a- to ask is, 'Where is the light?' Similarly, if the

meat goes bad and becomes inedible, there is no sense blaming the meat.

The question to ask is, 'Where is the salt?'"

S- see, witnessing to a world in darkness is about service.

Our response shouldn't be complaint about the world, about the foolishness that

they live in because they cannot see.

They are lost people.

They're in darkness according to Jesus.

Our joyful response should be in where are we not being the light for the world?

Where are we not being that preservative of the good things in society?

It's a act of servant-hearted love.

That's what witness is.

So why does this matter, this vision of witness that I'm trying to paint here?

Well, the first point that I'd put about the reason why it matters is

that witness is, it's formational, not just to those that we serve,

but to us as followers of Christ.

It changes us.

It, it does something to us.

Why?

Because to faithfully participate in this practice of pushing back the darkness with

the light of Christ, we've got to start in this ministry where Christ starts.

Where does Christ start?

Well, he starts with a broken heart for the lost, a weeping

heart for the marginalized.

This is never an obligation for Jesus Christ, but a joyful

service of loving this lost world.

You see, the seeking of a broken heart will require an experience, a

revelation of God's long-suffering,

forever patient, faithful love of his creation.

When we taste and see it, it transforms us to join in with this

joyful ministry that God has in, has announced in His Son, Jesus Christ.

Witness matters because it forms you into the image of Jesus.

Not just the person that you're witnessing to, but you.

Remember, being with Jesus changes us.

That's what we've agreed in regards to the, the foundation of this series.

Just like reading your Bible changes you, or fasting or praying.

I wanna put it to you that witnessing, living a life of witnessing the gospel

of Jesus Christ, not just by what you say, but what you do, changes us.

We're with Jesus as we practice this.

It forms us.

And just a side note, we cannot reduce witness to just personal evangelism.

We've gotta put it in context of this grander picture that we see

in scripture of what God is doing.

Remember that we're witnessing.

Yes, we wi- we, we, we witness horizontally.

Yes, but we requi- also deca- declare and witness the vertical reality of Jesus

coming to Earth, and we also witness to the cosmic unity that is going to happen

in Christ Jesus of Heaven coming to Earth.

Yeah?

So evangelism or witnessing is declaring all of that.

That's a, that's a big picture, isn't it?

I find that incredibly exciting because it allows us to have imagination.

It allows us to, oh, to see that the, the landscape in which we are called to as

Christ followers, wow, it is a massive landscape that we get to minister in.

Calling all of creation back to Christ in not just what we

say, but also in how we live.

Amen.

I'm excited by that.

But the mission has to always be grounded in the person of Jesus.

Therefore, as I mentioned before, this has to be servant-hearted love.

We don't go around bullying or convincing the mission of God

forward, but we are the people.

This is, this is what we get to do.

If you remember something, remember this: You and I get to walk

around this Earth preparing the way of the presence of Christ Ha!

As ministers, as, as the priesthood of all believers, we get to, we

get to be involved in a priestly duty of preparing for the presence

of Christ for our neighbors, for our friends, for our communities.

We get to usher in the presence of God.

That's our, that's our role, is to invite Christ here, for the presence

of Christ to do the convincing.

Lastly, this practice matters because it gives us the opportunity to feel

the pain, the loss, the tragedy of sin and death, to witness the aching

and the groaning, to join in with the aching of groaning of all creation, and

therefore being attentive to the cries.

Witness is a practice that demands more listening than speaking,

because there is no greater witness of love than our

hospitable, listening presence.

That's where you build trust and deep care.

The church, not just our church, the church in the West, for too

long has done too much talking.

And then we've wondered, "Well, why?

Why have we lost trust with the culture that we live in?" I would argue that

if we start listening more and start showing the compassion and love of

Christ in what we hear, we will start to build trust with the world around us.

So how do we, how do we practice th-this, this witnessing in our cultural moment?

This is where I wanna hone down a little bit more tonight with you.

I just wanna be honest.

Witnessing and evangelism, these aren't my primary giftings.

I str-- I, you know, I'm not, this is not my bent, right?

And but about two years ago, I, I confessed that to a whole heap of

people, and I started to put myself around, intentionally, people who are

evangelists, who have a heart to witness.

And, and I said, "I need to learn from you." And, and I can tell you right

now, my heart's completely changed.

Like, I am, I'm so eager to see people come into the knowledge of who Jesus is.

Now I wanna partner, I wanna encourage.

I'll never be the greatest evangelist, I know that Um, but what I am is I

want to be the greatest champion of evangelism, um, because I just, I just

see that it is a heartbeat of God.

He's longing to see lost people.

He's longing to see the lost creation brought back to himself.

And so I want to encourage you that if you're like me and you go, Luke,

I'm not, I'm not an evangelist, I'll just tap out of this practice.

I'll, you know, check my social media tonight.

As, as I said to myself, don't, don't check out.

Like this is a part of the ministry of all of us.

We all get to inhabit this in this ministry of Jesus.

Okay.

So I've got some helpful stuff, um, to share with you that I think

welcomes everyone into the possibility of actually practicing this, no

matter where you are in regards to your personality styles or whatever.

Even the most cranky of you can, can practice this.

I know that's good news, right?

And I speak as also a cranky person at times.

All right.

So what I want to highlight first is let's read the room together.

What are the cultural norms and belief that we live in?

Let's understand what society do we live in?

I think that's really important about how we respond in ministry.

Firstly, Jesus, uh, sorry, Jesus, Australia as a nation is a very

post-Christian nation or country.

The, the Christian moral framework isn't acknowledged anymore in the public square.

In fact, most of the time it's despised.

The Christian worldview is probably more articulated as a problem than

something that can be a part of the solution to our problems as a nation.

The, see the witness of the '50s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s just does not work now.

That is the witness of, you know, your big crusades.

So think like Billy Graham.

Now, Billy Graham had the advantage that he was witnessing to a society

that still held some level of respect for a Christian ethic.

We don't live in that society anymore.

There is no respect.

Currently in our secular nation, the greatest sin that you and I can

commit is not valuing or endorsing others' personal truths or lifestyles,

and we've got to be aware of that.

We are in the waters of a society that views the church's

decline as a positive thing.

Like we as a country are becoming more enlightened with, you know, people not

believing in this Christian stuff anymore.

Hence the church, we actually need to change the way that

we serve the community.

Simply adjusting to the cultural moment, I would argue, is

an act of service and love.

And as I said this morning, I've been connecting with pastors, I've

even spoken to some pastors from around the world who are ministering

in far more secular societies than even us in Perth, Western Australia.

And they're met with these same issues, if not more, and they are

seeing the move of God happen in their places in which they inhabit.

They're seeing people come to Christ because they are seeing this and

going, "How can we serve through it?" Not complain about it, but what

opportunities does this give us to be the hands and feet of Jesus to our world?

So I wanna encourage you that this does not stop us from seeing

God move in our nation at all.

So what are the challenges?

What are the res-resistances as we witness to our friends, neighbors, and family?

Well, I've got five.

I read a book, and I've taken it, I've stolen it from this book,

and it's called I Once Was Lost.

And it was authored by two friends, um, in ministry, and they wanted to

work out, right, how do we, how do we show the light and life of Christ

in a post-modern Christian culture?

And these two men interviewed a heap of people that were new

co-converts to Christianity.

So these guys were finding people who had no Christian background, no church

background, no religious background, have come to Christ, and they've

basically sat them down and gone, "What were the hardest things to jump off?

What were the hurdles to get you to the place of accepting and receiving Jesus

and following him?" And they call them the thresholds, the thresholds of jumping over

these thresholds, and they identified five common thresholds that kept coming up in

their interviewing of all these people.

And they tested it not over months, they tested it over a ten-year

period before writing their book.

And this is, these are the thresholds that we've got.

So the, the thresholds are called the five thresholds on the path towards faith.

So the first threshold that we need to understand that's there is that

most non-Christians, most people who are unchurched, don't have any

sort of experience with the church.

Most of them do not have, in our society, have a relationship with a

Christian where they trust that Christian

So most people in our society that don't attend church don't have a neighbor, a

friend who is a Christian who they trust.

Most people in Australia don't trust Christians.

Isn't that good news?

But what an amazing opportunity.

What an amazing opportunity to come serve these people.

Like to actually, to actually acknowledge, oh, my neighbor.

That's right, my neighbor's actually really not trusting of

anyone speaking about faith because there's, they must be hurt there.

How can I serve them?

How can I build a relationship with them where they begin to actually go,

"Hang on a minute, you're, you're the first Christian that I can trust with my

experiences, with my pain, with the things that I'm wrestling with." What a joyful...

I just, I love these five steps because it welcomes us in to where they're at.

The second thing that they noticed from all the people that they interviewed was

there was this complacency into curiosity threshold that people needed to jump over.

There is, there is a deep sense of complaints, complaints,

complacency in our world.

You can, you can build a relationship with someone where they get to a place where

they go, "Oh, I trust you as a Christian.

I trust you." But it doesn't mean that they'll be curious about Jesus.

They might go, "Uh, that's cool.

Great.

I love, I love that for you." I've got so many people that have said that to me.

"I love that for you." It's like, "Great.

Awesome.

Thank you."

You, do you wanna know how you help someone cross over into a

place of curiosity about Jesus?

Is you, you minister to them by being curious towards them.

That's how you break that, that wall down.

People love being heard.

People love having someone be hospitable in their presence of listening.

That is the best gift.

And so what we want to do, and what we want to acknowledge, is that as we're

going into this desire of witnessing to people, if it's something that you wanna

start or it's something that you have done and you found it hard or whatever, is

that we first gotta build a relationship of trust, and then we've got to build

this relationship where we show this individual that I am so curious about you.

Like, I wanna know, I wanna know it all.

I'm so interested in who you are

Because the, the beauty, the beautiful thing is when someone shows interest

in you, it gets reciprocated.

They begin to, you begin to go, "Oh, I'm, I'm now interested in this person that's

so interested in me." I mean, that's how dating, dating happens, isn't it?

By the way, that's a great way, single people.

It's a nice little tool.

The third threshold is being closed-minded.

So this is this, this feeling of going, "I don't really wanna change

anything in my life. Like, I just wanna keep my life the way it is."

Getting to a place where I'm actually, I'm, I'm, I'm now open to change.

Like, change doesn't seem as big and scary as what I thought it was.

And, and that, the chance of seeing someone being open to change is

really reliant on those first two, of building deep trust with someone,

being curious of them, inviting them into curiosity about your faith.

Like, having that relationship where you go, "There's no questions.

There's no comments that are gonna offend me." I love that.

I love, loved Alpha.

I loved Alpha where, you know, I had someone go, "This might offend

you." I'm like, "No, it won't.

It'll be great.

Share it." Um, and just being able to build that trust with them.

Um, that, that, that, that's the foundation of seeing someone going from

being closed to change to open to change.

And, and all of this, notice I, I've, I haven't encouraged anyone

to say too much to someone.

Like, it's all about being hospitable and welcoming them in, right?

I haven't, I haven't gone, "Let's tell them the gospel," you know?

"Let's, let's, you know, let's hit them with the gospel straight up,

you know, and then build trust."

No, no, no.

Let's build trust and then s- continue to walk towards this life of change.

And the reason why someone will be open to change is because

they'll begin to see that you're living what you're testifying to.

Like, this Jesus that l- literally changed the world in this radical,

upside-down sort of kingdom that he brings for his Father glory, Father's

glory about loving the marginalized.

You know, blessed are the poor.

You know, you think about the Beatitudes and the, the culture of

the kingdom in the Beatitudes, like how we're meant to be inhabiting that.

That if someone starts to see that in you, that will testify to them far

more than you saying anything to them.

Meandering.

I love meandering.

Yeah, we should start- Sarah, do you reckon we could, we could

start a small group meandering?

What do you reckon?

Do you wanna join it?

We could just me-meander everywhere.

Meandering.

It's like, it's just sort of like wandering around with no direction.

Meandering to seeking.

So you can have, you can have a, a trust-built relationship, you can

have a, a, a relationship around curiosity, you can even have a place

where someone could be open to change.

But meandering speaks of the apathy of the spirit of the age that we live in.

Like, there is a deep apathy that we live in.

To encourage someone to ask,

to seek, to knock on the door means that they're gonna have to

get up and care about something.

And so seeking is a threshold that we must understand that people hit.

And then our last one is outside the kingdom to into the kingdom, repenting

and turning, that last step which can only be a work of the Spirit.

Amen?

These thresholds, I believe, grant us a more prophetic imagination, asking the

question, "Lord, where on the path is this person with you at this moment?"

Like, can I, can I just, can I just say something?

I f- I feel like this is obvious, but maybe it's not.

There is, there's common grace that God has given all creation.

So our lost friends, our dear ones, those... or that neighbor or whoever, they

are experiencing the grace of God already.

The fact that they're breathing, the fact that they're experiencing life is a grace.

Like, that's a grace.

Which then means that God is actively working in their lives.

They may not see it, they may not agre- recognizing it, recognize it,

but we as Christians can actually go into their lives with the imagination

that Christ is already there.

I just wanna encourage you to have that vision, that Christ is already there,

and to have the humility and go, "Christ, what are you doing at this moment for this

person, and how can I partner with you?

How can I serve them in helping them move forward to that next threshold?"

I think it also helps us to pray more pointed, targeted prayers when we're

witnessing. For example, "Lord, my neighbor has a lot of hurt, mistrust

towards Christians and the church.

How can I love them and build trust with them?"

So remember the story at the start of my child struggling with reading and writing?

It seems almost impossible for our lost dear ones to move forward.

And I want us to have that same grace towards them.

It seems almost impossible to move from where they stand.

And each of these thresholds, let's have the acknowledgement that they may

speak of pain and hurt and even trauma.

And the reality is that the church over the last few decades

in society has had a lot of hurt revealed, which is a good thing.

And there's a lot of people in our society that have been victims of that hurt.

That's one thing, but life just happens for people.

Things suck at times.

People die.

People get diagnoses.

Marriages end.

Like sometimes those things are also manifesting through these thresholds.

I want us to show the love and curiosity of people that if pains

arise in our conversation, if trauma is revealed, this is where we can be

the salt and light of Jesus Christ.

To preserve that, the holiness of someone revealing something

to us that is deep for them.

To bring the light of Jesus Christ through our compassion, our empathy, our kindness,

our love in response to their sharing.

So wherever a person is on this path, respond in deep compassion and curiosity.

Now, if you aren't that typical evangelist, then this

has been great news for you.

I'm selling it, aren't I?

I think it's great.

Because the reality is, if we just reduce it to its minimal sort of

information that we can glean from it, is that all of us can show

generosity in listening to someone.

All of us can show interest in another.

Asking questions that show a deep care for another person.

The practice of witness doesn't require a theological degree.

What it requires is love.

Church, Jesus is asking this of you.

Be who You are salt and light pushing back the darkness, reclaiming what

is being lost to decay, trusting in the power of the Spirit.

This is not just a call to faithfulness unto Jesus, though it is, but it

is a call for you to be who you are authentically in Jesus Christ.

Now, I wanna end with this last fifteen minutes to give you a time of reflection.

And, uh,

are you okay to... Oh, you're awesome.

Thanks, Nige.

I think we need to collect for physio for you, Nige, for your fingers.

Do you reckon later?

Get some OT.

Oh, there you go.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

That was so good.

That was very quick.

Physio in the house.

So just in this time of reflection, guys, um, we've got

the two communion stations here.

Um, they're available for you, and they're available if, if you desire the life

of Christ, you know, His body and His blood to come and re-energize you in this

participation of witnessing to the world.

Um, or maybe you just feel like there needs to be a place of repenting,

um, then come and be renewed, be received once again, uh, with Christ.

But if that's something that's, that, that you're all good, then

I just want you to, to reflect on these couple of questions, and I want

you to actually think of someone.

As I said to you there, Christ is already active.

He's... You see the temple, the, the, the curtain on the temple was

torn, and Christ has declared that in and through His church, man, the

Spirit of God's gonna go everywhere.

And, and as I say to people, like when I think about that, the, the

curtain being torn, it's like, oh, Aslan's out, and he's a wild beast.

He's a wild beast.

He's on the move.

He's on the move to reclaim all things.

And so ask that question with that person in mind, Christ, what

are you doing in their lives?

How can I humbly come and serve with you?

Yeah?

Where are they on that five thresholds?

Is it, is it trusting?

Is it curiosity?

Is it openness?

Is it seeking?

Or are they just in that final step of crossing over into the Kingdom of God?

How might you serve them right where they are?

What are some practical ways?

What are, maybe it's what are the prayers that you need to be praying?

Maybe you've been praying the prayers that aren't for the season.

But to pray in unison with the Spirit, to go, okay, right, this is where they're at.

How can I pray with you?

How can I intercede for this person in my life?

All right, I'm going to leave you there.

And so if you want to come grab communion, do that.

If you want to sit and pray and reflect on that and write some stuff down, do that.

And we'll be back in about 10 minutes.