Monday, March 14, 2011

Testimony and Preaching

To what extent should we rely on personal testimony in witnessing? It is an important tool that we use to bring people to the gospel, but we need to be aware that it is not the gospel itself.

Reading in John chapter 4 this morning, the Lord drew my attention to something that I had never noticed before. In the account of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus prophetically tells her of her adultery. Recognizing that he is a prophet, she returns to her village and proceeds to share testimony of her encounter with Jesus:

“Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?’ They came out of the town and made their way toward him.” Vv. 28-30

“Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I ever did.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.” Vv. 39-41

So were the villagers convinced by her testimony, or did the testimony simply lead them to Christ and the gospel? Verse 42 is telling:

“They said to the woman, ‘We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.’”

So though they believed in the power of the Messiah based on the woman’s testimony, it was the words of Christ that led them to know the he was ‘the Savior of the World’.

We must not confuse personal testimony and the preaching of the gospel. Personal testimony may convince someone of God’s power, but “faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.”(Romans 10:17) I do not want someone to believe on Christ because of what he has done in my life, but because of who he is – the Savior of the World. I can use my personal testimony to draw them to the gospel, but only through the gospel will they believe on him.

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Believing in Vain

During the three years of Jesus’ earthly ministry, he was surrounded by his followers. While there can be no doubt that these people believed that Jesus was the Messiah, they evidently did not yet believe in him. They believed in a concept of who Messiah should be, and they had faith in that concept, not the man Jesus.

They anticipated a conquering savior that would lead Israel to independence and prominence, not the suffering servant that had come to redeem mankind from sin. They missed the greater purpose of God because they had fixed their eyes and hearts on the temporary and not the eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18). Even after his crucifixion and resurrection, they exhibited their ignorant of his true purpose when they asked, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”(Acts 1:6) With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that despite all that they had witnessed they were still confident that he would fulfill their earthbound expectations of the Messiah.

They viewed him through the filter of their desires and expectations, creating for themselves a kind personal Jesus that had no basis in eternal reality. Cheap grace, undervalued grace, a grace that is not rooted in the power and truth of God, can lead people into this same kind of personal expectation and eventual disappointment.

Paul makes it clear that people can receive grace in vain. One of the principal reasons that Paul preached the gospel so carefully was to avoid leading his hearers to vain belief.

By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:2)
As God’s co-workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. (2 Corinthians 6:1)
When we preach a message that undervalues grace, we can cause people to trust in a cheap grace with a cheap faith in a cheap savior. Hear me - I am not saying the Jesus is cheap – I am saying that when we fail to preach the extravagant richness of God’s righteousness and freedom through Jesus Christ, people will miss it and suffer for it. In a state of ‘almost grace’, many will unconsciously turn once again to the works of the law for justification, laboring for years to please a demanding and disappointing Jesus of their own making. As Martin Luther said “God is incomprehensible and invisible, therefore what may be seen and comprehended, that is not God.”

If anyone thinks he can fully comprehend the god he has placed his faith in, he would do well to make sure that he believes in God of the bible.