A Reason for Sharing the Jesus Film

May 9, 1999, from May 11, 1996

1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-22

One of the most significant, and by all accounts, the most effective project for sharing the Good News of salvation, at least in recent years, is the simple showing of a motion picture, The Jesus Film. I don't know exactly how it got started, but I do know that Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ asked our denomination if we would team up with him in distributing the Gospel of Luke, the words and story of Jesus. As you may have heard Ned Yankovich say last Sunday, more people have seen this movie than any other moving picture on the face of the earth.

World-wide, nearly half of the people who see this film have made some profession of faith in Jesus. Literally millions have been introduced to Jesus by this film.

SO- what does that have to do with us here in good old Massachusetts, in the beautiful little city of Quincy? Well, the Jesus Film has reached even to us! We can have a part in this sharing of the Good News. And I could not imagine a more gentle, neighborly, way of getting the Good News out to our community.

(Recall last week's text, 1 Peter 2:9. "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, God's own people— that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.) Today's text picks up on last week's concept of proclamation: Peter says "Be always ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you."

We will use a tool: handing people a free video. But WHY we do it is just as important as HOW we do it; the SPIRIT of what we do is always more important than the actual words: the things we do for God always ought to come from the heart. That is true, even if it is as simple a thing as handing people a free video and a package of microwave popcorn. Why should we participate in The Jesus Film?

I. TELLING PEOPLE GOD IS GOOD

There is no question that God's people are supposed to tell the world that God is good. The code-word in the church is "witnessing." All my life I've been told I need to "witness." And usually I feel vaguely guilty about it because I know I don't do it very well. Right here I want to tell you I am not going to put guilt on you if you are not high pressuring people about spiritual things. But how do we tell others that God is good? Peter gives some clear directives for telling people about our hope. He says:

Illustration: Verne Ward, missionary to Papua New Guinea, who was here with his wife Natalie a few years ago for "Say Yes!" worked for several years in some of the most primitive culture on earth. Every bush, rock, tree has "spirits" and the people were rules by what we would call "witch doctors."

One day Verne saw a witch doctor talking with one of his Christian people and it made him angry. He came up and "shooed" the man away in no uncertain tones. He was protecting his little flock.

But then as he walked away along the trail it seemed that God spoke to him about the way he had spoken to the witch doctor. Verne made his way back along the trail until he located the man. According to the custom of that culture, which Verne had learned, Verne sat down on the ground silently and waited for the man to recognize his presence. When finally the man spoke, Verne asked him, asked the witch doctor to forgive him for being rude. He made it clear that the God he served was not unkind, and that he loves everyone. Then he went on his way.

The story of that witch doctor's conversion is too long to tell here. God spoke clearly to him, almost like he did to Saul of Tarsus on the Road to Damascus. But it began with simple gentleness and courtesy, and the humanness of an American missionary who was big enough to apologize, and to ask a New Guinea Witch doctor for pardon.

Our spirit must be in harmony with the words we speak. We cannot tell people about a God who loves them when we don't love them. We can't simply throw money at the world's problems. We can't simply buy the latest games and clothes for our children, and leave them for the television to educate and call that giving a reason for the hope that lies in us.

We cannot really LOVE by 'remote control.' We say our love with words— and that is important But we really say our love with our spirit— with our time and with our presence.

Illustration: There is an old country tear-jerker ballad called Roses for Mama that tells the story of a going into the florist to order flowers sent to his mother for Mother's Day— he is going elsewhere. A little boy comes in with just a little money to buy for his mother. I think the first man helps the little boy buy a few more flowers, but anyway the next verse takes our flower order-er past the cemetery where he see the boy laying flowers on his mother's grave— Whereupon he turns around and goes back to the florist— asks if the flowers have been delivered yet— and then delivers them himself.

Our spirits must say the same things that our words say. We may not even be able to say the absolutely correct thing— but if we care, and if we are there— God will help us get the word of HOPE where it belongs.

Peter's word is not the final one on this matter. Jesus himself says, "If you love me you will love each other, as I have commanded you." He tells us that if we will love him and love each other we will never be alone.

II. TELLING PEOPLE GOD IS GOOD ACTUALLY BRINGS GOD NEAR

It may have been my fault, the way I heard it. But I thought that witnessing was trying to persuade hostile people to become something they didn't really want to become. All Jesus asks us to do is to love Him, and love people, and then let them know we care and God cares. This is saying, "GOD IS GOOD!"

Illustration: The Russian Count Leo Tolstoy wrote a short story called "Where Love Is, There is God," that actually is a beautiful picture of what Jesus was telling us when he said "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." It told of a humble cobbler, a shoemaker, named Martin Avdeich, a widower who worked in a basement shop that had but one window at street level. From that lowly position Martin could only see the boots of people passing by in the street outside his shop. After the loss of his wife and the tragic death of his only son, he became despondent and hopeless. He wished to die.

"How shall we live for God?" he asked a visiting countryman who had just returned from a eight years of pilgrimage. The old holy man reminded him "Christ has shown us how to live for God. Do you know how to read? If so, buy yourself a Gospel and read it, and you will learn from it how to live for God. It tells all about it."

So after the man departed, Martin did what he had been instructed to do: he began to study scripture. His heart was lifted. His life began to change. He was happy simply in the seeking. But one night as he was reading late into the night he put his head down on the table and not knowing if he was asleep or awake he heard a voice which he believed to be that of Christ: "Tomorrow I will come to the street!" And so, expecting a miraculous appearance, he began the next day to look for a visit from Jesus.

As he waited, expecting a knock at his door, he attended to the needs of those passing by his window an old man who had come to shovel the snow from his sidewalk whom he invited in for hot tea; a poor woman with her infant child, whom he fed and offered his cloak; and, finally, a young boy caught in the act of theft, whom he spared from a beating reconciled with his intended victim.

Finally, the cobbler realized that the day had drawn to a close, and he searched his mind to interpret the voice he had heard and make sense of the absence of his promised visitor. In the growing darkness, he heard a voice calling to him: "Martin, oh Martin, have you not recognized me?" One by one, those whom he had helped during the day appeared to him in a dream. After the last of them departed, he opened his Bible and his eyes fell upon the text from Matthew twenty five: "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of these, the least of mine, my brothers, you have done it done it unto me."

Tolstoy concludes: "And Martin Avdeich understood that his dream come true, that the Savior had really come to him on that day, and that he had received Him."

We think "To know Christ is to love Him." We think "If Jesus makes himself known to me then I will surely give him all my love." But the fact is we will see Jesus when we love Him; we will come to know Christ when we learn to serve one another in love. To love him is to know him.

III. TELLING PEOPLE 'GOD IS GOOD' IS REDEMPTIVE

(Finally) When we incarnate love to others— when we express to them the fact that God cares and we do, too— we may do more than save a soul— we may redeem a life. Every one of us has had a teacher or a Sunday School teacher or a camp counselor along the way that has made a lasting impression on us. Sometimes that impression may be negative. Sometimes that word of hope goes far beyond what that person dreams of.

Illustration: Bertha Munro prayed for me. (Hector Hawkins was mean to me!)

Charlie and Gladys Caldwell sponsored junior high kids years and years ago. Many of them are old enough to have their own kids in junior high now and more. But they still remember the love they got at church from their junior high sponsors!

R. C. Sproul is one of the leading evangelical Presbyterian theologian-writers. I have heard him tell in person about what it was that first gave him courage to become a scholar. A second grade teacher pinned one of his papers on the bulletin board at school and said, "R. C, you can write!"

Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts— and then gently, and with great respect— this week be ready to tell people that God is good. If we get ready to tell them, we'll certainly have a chance to say it: "GOD IS GOOD!" And if we have a chance, and if we tell them— who knows !!!

Prayer

Hymn - (Prayer Chorus, actually) Open Our Eyes #459