THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR"Our Calling"
Rev. Carl Haak(e-mail: Rev. Carl Haak) |
Dear
radio friends,
Every member of the church has
both the privilege and the calling to be a witness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are to do this by the very example of our
lives, first of all, or, what the Bible calls, our conversation. The word “conversation” in the Bible
reflects the truth that our life says something.
It says something about God.
We read in
I Peter 2:12,
“Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles:
that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works,
which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.” The world beholds the life of those who testify
and confess the gospel. Our life must be a
clear and shining witness of that gospel.
Our witness is not only our
lifestyle, but also our words. We are to
speak and to leave behind us a witness, in our words, of the truth of God and of His Son,
Jesus Christ. Every member of the church,
both old and young, not just the minister and elders, but all the members are called of
God to be personal witnesses of the truth of the gospel.
We read, for example, in
Isaiah 43:12,
“ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God.” Again, in
Acts 1:8
these
words of the ascending Christ: “and ye
shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto
the uttermost part of the earth.” It is,
therefore, the privilege and the duty of every believer to be a witness of the gospel.
Both of the passages in
Isaiah 43
and
Acts 1
that I have just quoted to you bring out the honor and the grace of God in
making us His witnesses — witnesses of the gospel of His Son. They also bring out the calling or duty that all
of us have as members of the church. The
Scriptures teach us that the church on earth has the duty and the privilege from the
ascended Lord Jesus Christ to preach the gospel. For
this, Christ has given to the church the special office of the minister of the Word, or preacher and pastor, as we read in
Ephesians 4:11
and 12, that He has given to the church
pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints. Again, we read in
I Corinthians 1:21
that “it pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe.” The
idea there is not that the content of the preaching is foolishness. It is the truth of God. But many men would say, “What a foolish way
of spreading forth the truth of the gospel — through preaching!” Yet, we know from the Scriptures that God has
called the church to preach the gospel. This
is the chief and primary way whereby God builds up His church. So the apostle Paul continues in
I Corinthians 9:17
to say that “a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me,” that is,
God had appointed the means through which He will accomplish His saving purposes, and that
means is the preaching of the gospel committed to the church.
But it is also true, and it is
not in opposition to what I have just said, that Christ has also sent each member of the
church to be a witness, a faithful witness, of the gospel, of all the things that we have seen and heard, as we read in
Acts 4:20.
As
we have heard the living Word of God preached to us, so also that Word, living now in our
heart, is to be our witness before the world.
Our witness, then, is broad and
all embracing. We are to witness not to some
but to all whom God places before us — rich and poor, neighbor and stranger, those
who are not Christians and perhaps even those who are Christians but need still to be
shown the more complete way of salvation.
Our witness must be faithful. It must be according to the truth of God’s
Word. But we must also be faithful witnesses. We must use the opportunities that God has given
to us, as members of His church, to witness of the gospel.
For Christ has given to each member of the church also an office — the office
of all believers (of prophet, priest, and king). And
it is in this capacity of believers that we have the commission to witness. When Christ instructed the church to go and to
make disciples of all nations, He gave that great commission to the entire church, so that
every member must face this calling as a solemn duty before God. Pastors and missionaries must make disciples by
preaching and by baptism. And members of the
church are also involved in making disciples by their witnessing. This is a privilege and a calling that is held
before us in the Scriptures.
Do you hold it before your eyes? Do you seek to be a faithful witness? Is this something that you grow in? Do you find a desire worked in you more and more that you be like the apostles, who in
Acts 4:20
(when they were commanded that they may
not speak in the name of Jesus) responded: “We
cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard”? As the hope of eternal life is within each child
of God, so also that hope more and more must shine out of us in this world of darkness.
To be a faithful witness of the
gospel, then, is an important aspect of our Christian calling and life. We certainly have many things to do from our Lord. We must grow in grace personally. We must work diligently in our occupations. We must raise our family and bring up our children
in the fear of the Lord. We must seek the
things of the church and of Jesus Christ. And
we are to be witnesses — not in addition to all of those things that I mentioned
— but our lives must be lived in such a way that they are constantly giving a
testimony before the world, before our children, before the church, of the Lord who has
loved and saved us. And we must use the
opportunities that God gives to us to speak of Him who is our God and our Savior.
It is very crucial, as we
consider our calling to be witnesses, that we do so under the authority of God’s
Word. For the subject of evangelism and
witnessing can, perhaps, raise certain red flags due to false ideas and methods so
abundant today concerning evangelism and witnessing.
Much of witnessing and evangelism today, throughout the church world, is tied to
the false doctrines of Arminianism, that is, of “freewillism,” the false and
unbiblical idea that it is the sinner who makes his decision for Christ and that Christ
cannot save a sinner without the sinner first exercising his free will. There are also unbiblical methods employed today
in what is being called the “user-friendly” church. And there is the idea that the church must conform
itself to the world in order to attract the world into the church, thereby ignoring the
majesty and glory of God and the reverence which is His due. There are emotion-based decisions. There is witnessing which proceeds from the idea
that people must be pressed for a decision, that each Christian then becomes something
like a salesman, to see if he can make a sale for Jesus Christ.
There is abundant error. But error must not make us shy away from that
which is right. Error must not rob us of the
truth. We must not react to error by
beginning to look at our personal call to witness with suspicion. Biblical principles must be brought to bear on
our hearts. And out of those principles must
come a heartfelt, warm, and faithful witness of the truth of our God.
Each one of us is called to be a
witness. “Ye,” said Isaiah in
chapter 43, “are my witnesses.” And, again, our Lord and Savior in
Acts 1:8,
“And ye shall be witnesses unto me.”
The word “witness” in
the Scripture has a legal connotation. A
witness is one who, first of all, has seen something and knows something. Secondly, a witness is one who has been called
upon to testify of what he has seen and known.
The word is familiar to us in
the court of law. The defense or prosecution
will bring forth witnesses, that is, people who have firsthand knowledge, who have seen or
heard. Now, placed upon the stand, they are
given the legal obligation, the responsibility to speak and to say what they have seen. Failure to do so is punishable by the law.
So also are we witnesses of
Christ. That implies, first of all, that you
and I, as Christians, as members of the church, have been given to see and know the things
of the Spirit of God, the things of Christ.
I Corinthians 2:12
makes this plain. “Now
we,” we read, “have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which
is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.” A faithful witness of Jesus Christ is therefore
one, and can only be one, who has received the grace of God unto salvation. That comes out very powerfully in the passage in
Isaiah 43.
In the opening verses of that
beautiful chapter, God speaks of His eternal, His sovereign, His powerful love toward the
elect. He says to them, “Since thou wast
precious in my sight, ... I have loved thee.” And
the passage goes on to speak of the fact that God, irresistibly, calls these unto Himself
and gathers them from the east and the west and says to the earth, Give up and bring My
saints, My precious ones to Me. Then God says
in verse 10, By grace, you are the ones whom I have chosen.
And I have chosen you that ye might know and believe Me and understand that I am
God. Before Me there was no God formed,
neither shall there be after Me. I am the
Lord and beside Me there is no savior. And
because all of this, ye are My witnesses, that I am God.
God is speaking here of the most
basic, the most majestic, the most awesome of all truths.
He is the living God. He is our
God. And we know that because He has revealed
Himself to us out of His love and grace. Now,
because you have been given to know the truth that God is God, you are My witnesses, saith
the Lord. You see, it is not something that,
perhaps, you might or might not want to do. It
is a calling. You are the witnesses of God.
But more. A witness is not only one who has been made a
witness by grace, but also one who has been empowered to speak by Christ. That is very comforting. Let us understand that. That is also brought out in
Acts 1:8
where Jesus
is speaking as the ascended Lord and the One who promises to His disciples the Holy
Spirit. Previously, throughout His ministry
as well, the Lord had spoken of the fact that His disciples would be placed before the
unbelieving world to leave a testimony for His sake.
He said to them that at that time He would give to them a mouth and wisdom that all
of their adversaries would not be able to gainsay or resist.
Then, at the ascension, He says,
“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 Judea, and in Samaria.” The
teaching of the Scriptures here is simply this: Christ
has promised to give to each believer the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit empowers us, that is, gives to us understanding of the Holy
Scriptures and convicts us of those Holy Scriptures, and therefore qualifies us to be the
witnesses of Jesus Christ.
The coming of the Holy Spirit
upon the church does not refer to some unique blessing for a special few of the church in
some baptism of the Holy Spirit so that now members of the church can speak in tongues. That is not the truth. But the truth is, the coming of the Holy Spirit is
the Spirit of Christ granted to the heart of each and every believer to convict him of the
truth, to give him to believe the truth of the Holy Bible, to give him to know the Lord
Jesus and His sovereign and eternal love, and then to empower him to speak of that love of
Jesus Christ.
The idea of the Holy Spirit
today is that His blessings are something that you conjure up by some kind of emotional
swaying together in a circle and then you get some type of special illumination of the
Spirit. No, that is not the biblical
teaching. The biblical teaching is that the
gift of the Holy Spirit comes upon the heart of the believer by grace and illumines, makes
known, the Scriptures to his heart so that now he is empowered to be a witness of God. God has given to us to know the things of His
kingdom. He has convicted us of those things
through the Holy Scriptures. He has given us
to know that He is God, that Christ is His eternal Son now in the flesh, and that He is
the only truth and salvation. We have
received, then, the anointing of the Holy Spirit so that each believer is a prophet in
Jesus Christ. Thus, we have a spiritual duty,
a calling, which God works in our hearts: we
are to speak of the things that we have seen and heard.
Christ is the true and the
faithful witness of God. Christ is the
prophet sent of God to declare the truth of God. But
we share, as members of the church, as true Christians, in the anointing of Jesus Christ. And we are made prophets so that we may witness
and speak of Him. That is our calling.
God, by His grace, has made each
believer to be a witness both in his conduct (the way he lives) and in his words, to his
neighbors and to his associates, of the truth of God and of His Son Jesus Christ.
Ye are My witnesses. Ye shall be witnesses unto Me.
The question is not, then, am I
a witness, should I witness of my faith? That
is not the question. You are a
witness. And, by God’s grace, you are
saved in order that you might be a witness. The
question is this: Am I a faithful
witness, not only faithful in the content of my witness, but faithful also in the use of
the opportunities given to me to witness? Am
I faithful to my calling?
God has given to His church the
call to preach the Word, through the preaching of the gospel by one who is sent by the
church, a pastor. That is primary in
God’s saving purposes. And all of our
witnessing, as we are going to see in future messages, must also direct those to whom we
witness to the church. For the preaching of
the gospel is the primary means of God in the sanctifying of God’s people.
But God has also sent forth
every believer and member of the church to be a witness, to speak of the truth of the
gospel. Throughout all of our life, in our
conduct and in our words, God has said, “This people have I formed for myself. They shall show forth my praise.”
If you ask me, “Exactly,
then, how do we perform this calling?” (in the coming weeks we are going to look at
that more carefully), let me say at least a few things today.
There are three things that we
should hold before us. First of all, there is
the need that we have to reach out to our neighbors and to our associates. Now a careful distinction must always be held
before us. The Bible makes very plain that we
are not to have friendships with the world, which would deny our witness or corrupt our
souls. That is, we must not join with an
unbelieving neighbor in their activities. But
our avoidance of such ungodly friendships must not take away from us our calling that, as
we have opportunity, we are to witness to them. And
any effective witness to our lost neighbor necessitates contact with him, which can be
interpreted as genuine concern for his spiritual well-being and for him. It takes much effort to build bridges with such a
neighbor and to bring the truth of God’s Word to him.
Secondly, when such contact has
now been established, we must know how to speak of the gospel and share our faith. That means that we must daily be studying the
Scriptures ourselves and daily seeking to understand that glorious faith. Involved is membership in the church. And not just any church, but in that biblical,
that Reformed church, that church that proclaims without shame the majesty and the glory
of God in all things.
Then, as we live in the Word and
know the truth, we are to seek to explain that truth to the person with whom we have made
contact. No one can take your place. That is your call at that time. You may want, as you continue to witness and to
speak to them of the truth, to invite them to the church.
You should begin, perhaps, by inviting them to a Bible-study in the church or,
perhaps, to offer to study the Bible with them personally. Bring
them to a Bible-study of the church, if they are willing to come, for sometimes, for one
who has never been to church at all, to come to church is a most daunting thing.
Then, as you seek more and more
to establish that tie and to speak to your neighbor of the truth of the gospel, you do
invite them to come with you to the church. That
is our goal — to get that person interested in coming to the church to hear the
preaching of the gospel and to worship the living God.
Then, as that person comes with
you, you must show genuine interest in him. Sit
next to him. Help him find the Bible text (he
might not know the books of the Bible). Sit
next to him and help him. Find the songs in
the Psalter for him. And, afterwards, after
the sermon, be willing to sit down with him to discuss with him what he has heard and
explain it to him. And, under the blessing of
God, as this person becomes interested in the truth, then you want to take him with you,
perhaps, to a membership class in the church for formal training in the Word.
Ye are My witnesses, saith God. Ye shall be witnesses of Me, says the Lord Jesus
Christ.
May God give us enthusiasm and
may God give us a heart to be faithful to this calling.
Father in heaven, we do thank
Thee today for Thy Word. And we ask for its
blessing upon our hearts. Thou hast opened
the truth of the Scriptures by grace to us. Thou
hast revealed to us the things of the Spirit of Christ.
We pray now that as those things are known to us personally, we might respond with
the apostles, “We cannot but speak of the things that we have seen and heard.” Bless, then, each one of us in our calling as
members of the church to be witnesses of the truth. Amen.