Share Jesus
SUMMARY
In this sermon, Karl Ihfe challenges Broadway Church to reimagine what it means to share Jesus — not as a high-pressure sales pitch or a rehearsed argument, but as a natural overflow of a Spirit-attentive, love-filled life. Drawing from John 20, where the risen Jesus commissions his frightened disciples with peace and the Holy Spirit before sending them out, Karl reminds the congregation that ordinary, imperfect believers are still being sent today. He calls the church to pray and pay attention, know and tell the gospel, share stories of God's transforming work, and make the gospel visible in their everyday lives.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Well, as I begin, I want to catch us up a little bit. Some of you who are new to Broadway, this may not seem like much. You may be wondering how we got local mission Sunday. For those who have been at Broadway for a while, we know this is new for you. And so I wanted to explain a little bit about how we got here.
Kind of remind us of what we've been talking about this last year. About two years ago almost. It's hard to believe it's been that long. The elders commissioned a group of our members to say, help us understand our giving habits, we. Our trends, how we're giving and what that looks like.
Along with that, our missions committee came along, and we had some transitioning, some partnerships we'd had for years where we're retiring and kind of moving off the mission field. And so we're exploring different opportunities of ways to engage in our global missions. And they asked you. They gave a survey and said, tell us where things are going well, where you'd like us to go next, the kinds of things you want us to be involved in. And those two things kind of came together to help open our eyes to a couple of opportunities.
The first one was, number one, we were asking for money almost every other Sunday. Besides our regular giving, we had some specific mission Sundays set up throughout the year that would happen quarterly or so. But then we found just the nature of life and things happening in the world around us and natural disasters and all kinds of things that we ended up. We were kind of coming about every other week on average, to ask for more money. And the elders said, we gotta stop.
We can't do that. We're struggling to prepare folks to give, to be generous, to give them time to plan and think and pray and get ready. And so they said, help us come up with a new plan that would better. That would better meet the needs of our families and the opportunities that we want to have to give. Now, the second piece that came along was that survey came back and overwhelmingly the church.
You said, we want to be involved more in our city, more in our community, in our neighborhoods, with our friends, with the ministries happening in and around downtown. And so as we were kind of thinking and dreaming together, that's kind of where we said, well, what if we did a mission Sunday in the spring that was centered around our global missions? And so the first Sunday in March, we get to do that and explore all that God's doing in the world to get to hear from our mission partners about ways that the kingdom is growing all over the planet. And then in the fall, in the first Sunday of October, we do a local missions Sunday where we get to hear in the month before that from our mission partners about the things that are going on and the opportunities to happen there, but would also give us a chance to go beyond just giving money, but to get involved actively with our local mission partners. And so we are excited to get to do that this morning.
As I said before, right after church, you'll have a chance to interact with a lot of our mission partners who are here today. Some of them, like Christine Habitat, may have to jet to get back to the blitzbuild, but they'll be around for a couple of minutes afterwards. We have all of representatives from most all of our ministries here would love for you to go and visit with them, to talk with them. Some of us got to gather out in those classrooms, out outside the church office and hear from them, but many of us did not. And so this may be a chance for you to kind of catch up and hear and learn together.
But what's amazing is this opportunity that's come to us today to really partner in a visible, tangible way with amazing things happening in our community and taking our next step. What we want to do is think together too, about how we all share in this same mission of sharing Jesus. If you've been with us the last couple of weeks, we've been walking through our core values here as a church. Pursue God, build community, unleash compassion. You heard that last week from Jeremy.
And then today, sharing Jesus. I want us to take just a couple of minutes to remind us of how these local mission partners are actually helping us do that in some really powerful and incredible ways. The work that they're doing in our city, some of it is pretty unique. But what we've learned in these relationships is we're not competitors, we're actually partners. We get to do things together.
And so I think that's really at the heart of this value of sharing Jesus. In fact, I know when you hear that word, share Jesus, evangelism, that's kind of a churchy word. It starts to make people a little nervous when a preacher starts talking about evangelism. You know, you may have a picture that comes to your mind of what that looks like. Maybe it was a door knocking campaign or somebody.
Like I remember in college, there were street preachers on the corner down there in Austin, Texas, yelling about all the sinners going to UT and you better get saved or you're going to hell. You know, maybe there's a picture in your mind of a conversation where you felt like the weight of the world was on you. You better have all the answers, and it better be the right answers. And you better tell them at the right time and at the right place. Because if not, you know, you felt like for some reason, eternity was hanging in the balance of your ability to think of a question or think of a response.
Well, that's not really what we're talking about. In fact, if that was the definition of evangelism, I would think most of us would say, not interested. I'll let somebody else take care of that. But I'm wondering if maybe we've made it a little more complicated than Jesus intended. In fact, I'd like for us to have a new perspective of what it means to share Jesus with someone.
That sharing Jesus isn't a sales pitch like you're selling a vacuum cleaner. That sharing Jesus is more complicated, or rather is not shoehorning Jesus into a conversation, whether he fits there naturally or not. It's not having all the answers to all the questions that could ever possibly be thought of. Rather, here's what I hope our new definition will be. Sharing Jesus is living with such attentiveness to the Spirit and such love for people and such confidence in the gospel that we're ready to show and tell what Jesus has done.
Living so attentive to the Spirit and loving God's people and loving the gospel that we can't help but show and tell it. And maybe there's not a better picture of this to get us started than that picture that Christie and Oakley read for us just a moment ago in John, chapter 20, Jesus has been crucified and the women have found. Early on in chapter 20, they. They go to the tomb and discover it's empty. And they tell the other disciples, and they're all wondering what's happening.
And so then John tells us. On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together with doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them. And he said, peace be with you. Now you notice the context that John gives to us. The doors are locked and the disciples are terrified.
These aren't courageous evangelists getting ready to go out and preach the word of God to their city. They're frightened men and women, and they're hiding back behind a locked door until Jesus shows up. And when he shows up, he shows them his hands and his side. And then he says again to them, peace be with you, as the Father has sent Me, so I am sending you. And then John gives us this curious little detail.
It says, and with that he breathed on them.
And he said, receive the Holy Spirit. I love that order that we see here from Jesus. Before he gives them a mission, he gives them his peace. Peace be with you. In fact, twice he says, peace be with you.
As the Father sent me, I'm about to send you. But before you go, Receive the spirit. Before Jesus sends them out and expects them to fulfill a mission, he gives them his spirit, his energy, his power. He doesn't say, hey guys, what are we doing here? What's going on with the locked door?
You thought that was going to keep me out? What's all the fear about? Didn't you hear the women this morning? He doesn't chastise them or get onto them. He says, peace, my peace be with you.
My spirit is with you. I am sending you. And in 2000 years later, he's still sending us out into the world. Ordinary, everyday, imperfect disciples to be a part of his kingdom, bearing witness to what they've seen, what they've experienced, and how Jesus has changed their lives. And so as we think together about how we're trying to live out this value in our lives, I'm so thankful.
With our vision team again, they came up with four really clear practices that we're going to try to embody this next year. Then we invite you to join with us. And the first one is this, to pray and pay attention. We want to be people who pray and pay attention. We want to pray for those who are far from God.
We want to respond to spirit led opportunities to share our hope. You see, sharing Jesus begins long before we ever open our mouths and utter a sentence to anyone. It actually starts when we open our hearts and our minds prayer. And we encourage you to be specific in your prayers. You know, before COVID a number of years ago, we did a series around here called who's your one?
And the heart of that series was getting us to think about who is that person that God's put into your life that doesn't know God yet, but who needs to know God? Maybe it was a friend or a co worker, it was a classmate at school, maybe it's a neighbor just across the street or somebody that you keep running into. Who is it that God's brought you into your life to be thinking about and wondering, to develop a friendship with? Not a project, not somebody we're trying to fix, but instead somebody who God has been loving their entire lives, whether they know it or not. They've been loving him way longer than you or I ever have.
In fact, loved them so much that they were willing, he was willing to send his only son that they might be reconciled, restored in relationship, back together. So who is that person in your life that has a story, right? And they have hopes and fears, they have dreams, they have opportunities and challenges, obstacles who are trying to make it in this world? We want to begin asking God, who do I need to learn to see with your eyes? Who is it around me that you've introduced a relationship with that maybe when an opportunity would come that I might have a chance to share about you?
Now, see, here's the thing. The Holy Spirit has been at work way before we get involved in the process. The Holy Spirit has already been at work before a conversation ever occurs. And so it's not our job to manufacture a spiritual moment, to make sure it happens, but rather to pay attention, to just listen, to be curious. Maybe that's why Peter would write to the church that he was ministering to in Asia Minor.
He wrote these words. He said, always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to, to give reason for the hope that you have. See, Peter assumes that your life, our life, my life, our life together is going to create questions. When people see it, when they engage with us, when they spend time with us, when they have a conversation with us, when they have a conflict with us, that something is going to be different in that interaction, so much so that they're going to ask. And so when they do, Peter says, be ready, not pushy.
It's not your job to force a conversation to go somewhere where it's not ready to go. Be ready, but also be gracious. Be gracious, not combative. We're not trying to win an argument. We're trying not trying to convince someone that they're wrong.
When, Whenever we're wrong. How much do we like to be convinced we're wrong? And nobody wants to be on the low end of that conversation. So Paul says, or rather Peter says, be ready and be gracious. You know, sometimes sharing Jesus begins with something as simple as just noticing an open door.
And perhaps the Holy Spirit's whispering to us, would you get curious this week with people you maybe wonder what's going on, Ask a question instead of making an assumption, which it seems really simple, but it's often not very easy, is it, in our world? There's not a lot happening in our world that creates opportunities for community to be built. We have to live differently to be curious when something's happening, going on around us. We don't force open doors. Instead, we want to be people who pray and who pay attention.
Not only that, the second thing we want to do is we want to know the Gospel. We want to know what it is and then how to talk about it, how to share it. So the way our vision team kind of encapsulated it. I love this definition. They said, we want to equip every generation to know the gospel deeply and explain it graciously so that we're prepared for a lifetime of witness.
Because we all know there's a difference between knowing about Christianity, knowing the gospel. I mean, if someone were to ask you, what exactly is the gospel, what is it that you believe? What is it that Christians believe? How would you answer that? Have you ever been asked that question before?
Right. Not a. You don't get 30 minutes to use all the churchy phrases and language, the justification and salvation, but everyday, ordinary conversation. How would you explain it? Could you tell somebody, what's the good news?
What even is that? I mean, we want our church to be able to say yes, if Peter is right, that he wants us to always be prepared. Because if we're living in a particular way, our lives matter, and the way that we treat one another at work or at school or in the house or in our neighborhood or at church, it matters that people see us unleashing compassion with our ministry partners. It matters when people see us living lives of integrity, that it matters. Peter, if he's right, he says, somebody's going to ask you a question at some point.
Are you prepared? We want everyone at Broadway to say, yes. Yes. I know why I have hope. I know why I try to forgive even when it's hard.
I know why I give up time every week to serve alongside our ministry partners, because the work they do really matters. God has called us to be kingdom agents, to help the kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Why do we serve? Why do we believe that restoration really is possible, that reconciliation can happen? Why do we believe it?
Because of Jesus, don't we? We believe it because through his life and his death and his resurrection, sin and death don't have the final word anymore, that we're not reduced to our lowest form of interaction. But actually, grace is possible. Jesus is making all things new. And no one, not one person, is beyond the reach of his grace.
That forgiveness, it's real. It's possible that broken things can be fixed. In fact, we see in the life of Jesus himself, that dead things can come back to life again, that resurrection is possible. And not only that, Jesus has invited us to get to be a part of it. Jesus says, I want to send you as my hands and my feet in the world.
I want to send you to be a light and a witness in your school or your neighborhood or your workplace or your home. I want you to shine my light so brightly that others would stop and say, why? What I don't understand? Help me understand.
Because knowing how to talk about Jesus isn't an AP challenge course for just the spiritually mature. It should be an everyday opportunity for us. I think that's why Peter adds that important caveat when he says, always be ready. Always be ready, Church. Always be ready.
Be prepared to give an answer, but do so with gentleness, respect. That sounds a lot like Jesus. Where he was known for being truthful but not arrogant. Where Jesus was known for having conviction, incredible conviction, but he wasn't hostile. Where Jesus was incredibly confident in his Father and in that kingdom coming, making a difference, but he wasn't coercing people into it.
Gentleness and respect. He says, we don't have to win arguments, we don't have to pressure, we don't have to have every answer. He says, be gentle, be respectful. We simply need to know the good news enough to say, let me tell you what Jesus has done for me. In fact, that leads to the third thing we're trying to do.
Pray and pay attention. We want to be ready to know the gospel and share it, but we also want to tell stories. We want to share stories of God's transforming work to strengthen our faith and to spark curiosity in others. Jesus would remind us that never underestimate the power of a good story. And Jesus loved to tell stories.
Stories about life change and opportunities to be different. Now, people may argue with their theology and they may argue with a particular belief, and they may have lots of questions that you can't answer. But one thing, it's really hard to argue with a good story. It's hard to argue with, let me tell you about what God has done in my life. That's one of the most natural ways that we talk about Jesus is telling our story.
And so we want to get better at doing that. Stories of prayers that have been answered. Stories of reconciliation and restoration that have occurred in our own lives. Stories of forgiveness, kindness, of love and service. Stories of discovering grace when we are at a moment and we thought, it's not possible.
It's just not. You know, those stories don't have to be dramatic either. As a kid who grew up in church, I thought one of the challenges I would have in being in ministry was I didn't have a far off prodigal son story. I didn't drive off the edge of a cliff, relationally or emotionally. I didn't do all these, what am I going to have?
What's anybody going to care about? The truth is, no, no, no, that's actually not what impacts people. It's authenticity. It's being able to honestly share how God has made a difference in your life. I was listening this morning on the Way to church, one of my favorite songs that speaks about this.
The opening words are, Everything's changed. It's getting harder to recognize the person I was before I encountered Christ. I don't walk like I used to. I don't talk like I used to. I've been washed from the inside out.
Never underestimate the power of a good story. You know, sometimes I used to think, well, God used to be disappointed in me. And I'm slowly learning. God can work. Even an old washed up preacher like me, what can he do for you?
If God could work in my life, he could work in yours. See, when we tell stories of God's faithfulness and the ways that he's been at work in our lives, something amazing happens. Number one, it strengthens our faith, but it also strengthens the church's faith to hear those stories and to be reminded how God has already been at work. If you haven't had a chance, I invite you go talk with any one of our mission partners. Just pick one and just ask them about one way they've seen God at work in the world.
And I promise you, you're going to be inspired. It's going to be amazing. That's why we got to be people who tell stories. Because sometimes somebody listening may think, well, if that's true for them, maybe it could be true for me. Which leads to the last thing we're trying to work on here.
We want to make the gospel visible. We want to live and speak in such a way that the gospel so visibly in our daily life so that others encounter the transforming work of Jesus in us. We want to live in such a way, how we speak, how we act, that when people encounter us, they encounter the life changing work of God. And that brings us back to our vision statement that we started with four weeks ago. We want to be a church that makes God's love visible.
Restoring love is reconciling love visible in our community. In our city and in our world. And so this morning with our local mission Sunday, we get a front row seat at 10 different ministry partners that are connected here at Broadway, some right out of our building and others connected here in our city, where we get to learn about how they're making God's restoring love visible. In fact, today we get to have an opportunity to give some money financially, to partner financially with them. But not only that, to even go beyond that.
What you're doing this morning when you give to Broadway is you're not giving to Broadway, you're giving through Broadway. As you heard on the announcement, every dollar that's given, we're going to be passing right back out into the ministries that are at work in the world. Because that's what you said. I want to see more of our money going at work in our community. We said, you got it.
Let's do it. Let's strengthen our partnerships and let's build some new ones as well. And so we invite you. Would you join us in partnering with these ministries who are meeting real needs in our community? They're walking alongside people who are facing all kinds of challenges and they're caring for families and they're restoring dignity to people.
They're creating a chance for new life to occur, for resurrection to happen, and they're offering hope. They're making God's love visible in our community. I think that's worth celebrating. But here's the thing. As we finish, that's all well and good, and we want to ask you to be really generous this morning.
We're trusting, we're praying, and we're believing that God will make up and exponentially build up our offering. But there's one piece that we can't outsource, and that's our mission. We can't outsource being sent to our mission partners. We can't outsource them. To go live your life, to go sleep in your bed, to go be friends at your workplace or your school situation.
They can't live in your neighborhood. They can't do the work that God has called you to do, that God has called me to do, that he has called us to do. Nobody else can be sent in those places. But when Jesus told his disciples in John 20, as the Father sent me, so I am sending you. He's still sending us.
He's still sending us out into our homes and our neighborhoods, our schools and our offices, our friendships, into the places where we eat and shop and exercise and play. And the beautiful thing about it is we don't have to add evangelism to an already crowded life, he says. Would you just look around? Would you take notice? Would you pray and pay attention to what's happening around you?
Would you spend time together with other believers and rehearse in your mind, oh yeah, what is that gospel story? And then would you share those stories that it might encourage one another, be the kind of people that when they experience and encounter life with you, they encounter the living and loving God? Pray together Father, we're getting ready to take up a collection and offering have a chance to give financially what we're hoping and believing and trusting that we can live out and live into together. We're so thankful for each one of our ministry and mission partners here in Lubbock. We're thankful for the work that you are doing in and through them.
We're thankful for your life in the midst of their life. God, we recognize that everything we have, it comes from you and everything we are is because of you and your grace. Thank you for loving us so much that you would send your son into the world to come near to us, to enter our brokenness, to live among us and to give himself for us, showing us what your restoring love looks like. And thank you Jesus, for sending us as the Father sent you. Thank you for giving us your peace and thank you for giving us your spirit.
And so God, would you send us? Would you open our eyes to the people around us? Would you give us names to pray for and hearts that are ready to listen? Would you help us to know the gospel, the good news so deep and give us courage to tell the story of what you've done so that our lives might make your gospel visible again? God, we give you thanks for our mission partners, for the men and women who faithfully serve our city, our neighbors.
Would you bless them and strengthen them? Would you encourage them and God, would you provide for them? Would you use the gifts that we're about to give to bring healing and hope and restoration and God, your good news throughout our community? But God don't allow us to simply give and believe our part is finished. Would you take our resources, our time, our gifts, our homes, our workplaces, our classrooms, our neighborhoods?
God, would you take us and send us into this city as people through whom others can see and experience your restoring love? So God, may we pursue you, may we build your community, may we unleash your compassion and may we share Jesus with one another until your restoring love is visible here in Lubbock, in our city, in our community, in the world around us. We ask all this in Jesus name, Amen.