THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR"Our Calling”Rev. Carl Haak
February 3, 2008; No. 3396(Printed copies in a four-message booklet
can be sent monthly without charge. Request from: Reformed Witness
Hour, |
prca.org
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 witness, first of all, by the very
example of our lives, or by 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
Both of the passages that I have just quoted to you in
Isaiah 43
and
Acts 1
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
called 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 only 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 more completely the 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 every child of God, so also must that hope more and more shine
out of them 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 we must
live our lives 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 Armini-anism, 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 that is His
due. There are emotion-based
decisions. There is witnessing that
proceeds from the idea that people must be pressed for a decision, that each
Christian must become something of 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 Scriptures 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 and the 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
The coming of the
Holy Spirit upon the church does not refer to some unique blessing for a
special few in 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 so common 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 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 his life, in his conduct and in his
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.