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Day 4 – Witness To Others (John 15:8-9, 16, 26-27)
8 By this
My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. As
the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love…
16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and
appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should
remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. …
26 “But
when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of
truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. 27 And
you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.
One way or another, we will be witnesses
for Christ. We will either be good witnesses or bad witnesses. In week 4, we learned
to be a witness by our personal testimony of how we were saved. In
week 5, we learned how to be a witness through the A, B, C Plan of Salvation. Today we will learn how to be a fruitful
witness, sometimes called “Lifestyle Evangelism”. A fruitful, lifestyle
witness will eventually lead to a verbal testimony of how to be saved, but
before we talk the talk, we need to make sure we are walking the walk.
A fruitful witness begins with us bearing
the fruit of the Spirit, with love being the first and foremost fruit
(Galatians 5:22-23). The purpose of fruit is to reproduce; that is, to bear
forth more Christians. Just as grape vines bear the fruit of grapes, Christians
abiding in the vine should bear the fruit of other Christians.
As our senses are five portals to the
physical world, our senses should show us in a spiritual sense how we can be a
fruitful witness that leads to the fruit of new believers.
Verse 7. Resound the Sound. Hearing the word of
God cleanses us (v. 3), gives us life, and prompts us to pray. To have a fruitful
witness, we must hear and speak God’s word. Just as love is a fruit of God’s
Spirit, a verbal witness is a
fruit of God’s word. The word of God produces faith (“faith comes by hearing
and hearing by the word of God,” Romans 10:17; “Did you receive the
Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard?”
Galatians 3:2, 5). Hearing the word of God produces fruit
(Mark 4:20 says, “like seed sown on good soil, those who hear and accept the
word will produce a crop”). Hearing the word of God produces a witness (Acts
4:20, says, “we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”).
And as we see in today’s passage of John 15:7, hearing the word of God produces
answers to prayer.
Verse 8. Savor the Flavor. Pruning brings more fruit (v. 2); abidance brings much fruit. Matthew 5:13 says we are the
salt of the earth, enhancing the flavor of the world around us. If you want to
bear much fruit, abide in Christ’s love and “by this my Father is glorified”.
Salt enhances flavor, preserves, and delays spoilage. In the spiritual sense, a
fruitful witness will enhance the
godly savor in the world, preserve
that which is good, and prevent souls from perishing (John
3:15-16).
Verse 9. Stay in Touch. As God loved Christ, so Christ
loved us. Abiding in His love will lead us to touch others. Jesus physically touched
the outcast (Matthew 8:3), the sick (Matthew 8:15), the blind (Matthew 9:29,
20:34), the fearful (Matthew 17:7), the afflicted (Mark 3:10), the deaf and
dumb (Mark 7:33), the infants and children (Luke 18:15). He touched the dead
(Luke 7:14) and was available to be touched by the unclean and the broken (Luke
7:39, 8:34). As fruitful witnesses, we are His hands to meet the tangible needs
of people.
Verse 16. Diffuse the fragrance. Professional wine
connoisseurs inhale the aroma of the wine before tasting it. Sensing the
fragrance of the wine beforehand gives a richer body to the taste. God’s Spirit
precedes our fruitful witness. He chooses us (John 15:16, 19), calls us (Ephesians
4:1), and draws us (“No one can come to
Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him,” John 6:44). 2 Corinthians
2:14-16 says we are fragrant to the saved, but foul to the lost. Like an aroma
before the taste, Christ is at work around us. We should look for divine
appointments He has chosen.
Verses 26-27. Give light to their sight. The Helper, the Holy Spirit, will give
insight to your witness and receptivity to the message. Both Christ and Christians
are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14-16, John 8:12, 9:5). We reflect His
light, and a fruitful witness looks for ways to enlighten others to God. Like a
torch to a darkened corner, our works shine to glorify God.
A fruitful witness comes from being filled
with the Spirit. We must seek to be filled by a good vertical relationship
with God. A glass cannot be filled when it is not held vertically correct under
a faucet. A glass cannot be filled at all when it is upside down, even if it is
under the full force of the faucet. We too can be under the faucet of God’s
Spirit, and not be “filled” with the Spirit. We have all of the Holy Spirit
that we will ever have, but if we are not in a spiritual sense vertically
aligned under God’s direction in our obedience and in our faith, then the Holy
Spirit does not have “all of us”.
The natural “fruition” of a fruit-bearing lifestyle
with all of our spiritual senses (hearing, tasting, touching, smelling and
seeing) will result in our being filled with the Spirit. We will bring glory to
the Father and prove ourselves to be His disciples (John 15:8). Fruitful
witnessing means we must be fruit-bearers who are filled with the Spirit which
will lead us to become fruit-harvesters.
To illustrate a fruit-harvester, let me
change the analogy from fruit to fish. Jesus said we must be fishers of men. Once, my sons and I were on a canoe trip and a
fish simply jumped up through the air, hit my youngest son in the face and
landed, flipping and flopping in the bottom of the canoe. We cooked it and ate
it and it was the easiest time of fishing we ever had. While that is a true
story, it is not the best strategy for fishing.
Fisherman go to the water, equipped and
prepared for fishing. In Matthew 4:19, Jesus called four fishermen, Peter,
Andrew, James, and John, specifically out from the lake to fish for people. “Follow
Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
There are two things in life that are
inevitable: death and taxes. While we cannot help people and their taxes, we
can give a lifeline for rescuing unbelievers from the trap of death. Every
person you meet has a terminal illness due to sin and our fallen nature, and
you have the cure. Determine first to fish for souls.
When we develop our spiritual senses to bear
fruit, and are filled with the Spirit, and are ready to fish for
souls of people, we will be fruitful
witnesses for Christ.
Remember, you cannot save anybody! But you
can be a spirit-filled witness that God uses by your faithful service. Someone
described witnessing as the following:
I am
just a Nobody, trying to tell Everybody
about
Somebody who can save Anybody.
We are going through the different ways to
grow in our faith, by having God at the center, providing the hub of our power
through the spokes of the wheel to develop obedience in our lives. Yesterday,
we saw that we receive that power for obedience in reading the Word
Today, we saw that we are to be witnesses
of the good news, the gospel. Do not be ashamed of the gospel but be prepared
to share it. Romans 1:16 says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for
it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew
first and also for the Greek.” Witnessing gives us power to obey.I tell you the following story, knowing that it is going to push us over our normal two-page reading. You are just going to have to deal with! But don’t miss this story. In 2014, I went into the hospital with diverticulosis. While I was there, I tried to share a witness of Christ to everyone I met. This is one of the stories I posted on my social media about Bettye with an “e”.
She
hobbled into the hospital room, and even though she was supposed to be cleaning
the room, and I was the patient in the hospital bed recovering, I wanted to get
up and finish her job. She seemed so feeble. She was probably younger than the
six decades she looked: ebony skinned, weathered, jet black hair, and skinny as
a rail. She was missing her front tooth but to be honest that made her smile
all the more endearing. And she smiled a lot.
“What's
your name?” I asked.
“Bettye
with an ‘e’at the end,” she said proudly, even though she undoubtedly had said
the same thing all of her life.
“In my
work,” I said, “I visit with a lot of people in the hospital. I always try to
pray for everyone who works in hospitals, from housekeeping to the doctors, and
all persons in between. You are all instruments used for God’s healing. Can I
pray for you?”
Bettye
with an “e” collapsed almost immediately on the chair opposite of my bed, and I
quickly thought she just might stay there a little longer than she ought to.
But I really didn’t mind. I mean, I was in the hospital and what else is there for
me to do?
“She
shared her prayer requests, saying she had fallen while getting gas last
Saturday. She told me her life story and with such sincere simplicity I wished
it wouldn’t be rude to pick up my phone and start to record our conversation. I
listened, easily reflecting her smile with my own.
After a
bit, we prayed.
She told
me of an ex-son-in-law who ridiculed her for her faith. He had a doctorate
degree but he wasn’t happy, he was not a good husband to her daughter, nor a
good father to her grandchildren. And sadly, years later, she heard he took his
own life.
“I’d tell
him, ‘I know there is a God.’ I’d tell him, “I feel Him in my heart and in my
life. But he didn’t listen.” She smiled with her gap-toothed smile. She didn’t
need theology or apologetics and probably didn’t want either one anyway. She
knew God personally.
I smiled
at Melissa when she left, thinking, “I wished more people were like Bettye with
an ‘e’.”
Later,
she came back, smiling, of course, and if it had been at all possible, she was
smiling with a bigger smile than she had had before.
“I wants
to thank you for praying for me. Lawd, I’ve had the best day today! Even my ‘fake’
boss was nice to me. I have two bosses. One’s my real boss and the other is my
fake boss but he thinks he’s my real boss. I don't listen to him though ’cause
he’s never nice to me. But I saw him coming and would you believe it, he was
nice to me. I knows you prayed for me today.”
(I'm
trying to recreate her cadence and the conversation as best I can. Like I said,
I wished I could have recorded her.)
I tell
you this story, not to say anything about me or my prayers but to encourage you
to look for ways to witness to others in everything. My friends, Craig and
Rhonda Smith, ask their waiters if they have anything to pray for them about. They
learned it from their parents, I’m sure.
Yes, I’ve
had a few bad experience from people who say they don’t want me to pray for
them. No, it’s not pleasant. Yes, it’s a little awkward. A lot awkward. But
when you get to see the stories of people like Bettye, it’s worth the risk.
I share this story, not to say “Yay! Tim!”
I share as an example to encourage you to witness with your testimony. Witness
with the Plan of Salvation. But witness by bearing fruit of the Spirit. Witness
by being ready to be a fisher of people. Witness by being filled with the
Spirit and focus on the heavenly vertical and not on the earthly horizontal. I
didn't make Bettye have a good day, God did.
God didn’t tell us to go make converts. He
said go make disciples. He didn’t say be “Be fruit-inspectors”; He said “Be
fruit-bearers.”
And remember, you cannot save anybody!
Witness
with your testimony.
Witness
with the Plan of Salvation.
Witness by bearing fruit of the Spirit.
Witness by being filled with the Spirit
Witness by being ready to be
a fisher of people.
Tomorrow, we will see the third spoke:
Talking with God in Prayer.
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