BUILDING BRIDGES, NOT FENCES
EVANGELISM SUNDAY
DR. JIM DIXON
SEPTEMBER 12, 1999
LUKE 10:25-37
In October and November of 1988, Barbara and I took a missions trip to China, along with Jean and Lorna Kissinger and some others who have a love for missions. We arrived in Beijing, China, about seven months before the Tiananmen Square incident, and we flew from Beijing to Xian China. And there in Xian, we saw the burial chamber of Qin Shi Huangdi, and it was Shi Huangdi who was the first emperor of China. He united China. He founded the Qin Dynasty from which China takes its name. He died 210 years before Christ. And it was only a few decades ago that archeologists unearthed his burial chamber. When they unearthed his burial chamber, they were amazed to find that he had created a subterranean world for himself to spend eternity in, complete with lakes and rivers and sky.
They were also amazed to find that he had taken with him an army into the grave. He had created terracotta clay replicas of each individual member of his imperial army. And he believed that that army would protect him through the eternal ages. Qin Shi Huangdi was extremely concerned with protection—not only in the life to come, but he was concerned with protection on this earth. And that is why Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi designed and built the Great Wall of China—a wall that ultimately would cover almost 4,000 miles a wall winding over mountaintops and deserts. He built that wall to protect himself on this earth. Qin Shi Huangdi had no desire to know his neighbors. In fact, historians tell us that Shi Huangdi viewed all of his neighbors as enemies. So he built that wall to keep his neighbors out.
Now, I’m certain that none of you hate your neighbors. You do not view your neighbors as enemies. And yet, perhaps some of you do not really desire to get to know your neighbors. Very few of you have built walls around your property. Very few of you have built walls around your house, but perhaps you’ve placed a fence or two. I know when Barb and I first came to Colorado, we purchased a house out in Aurora, a Wood Brothers home in a region called Meadowood. It was a small house—750 square feet—with an unfinished basement, but it had a large sandy yard growing weeds. And we came to understand as soon as we bought the house that we were expected to put a fence around our property, what was called a privacy fence. Every person who moved in was expected to go in with their neighbor 50-50 on paying for this wooden fence. And so with your neighbor on every side, you were to split the cost of this. Then you and your neighbor would get together and you’d build this fence.
It wasn’t like this fence that’s right up here, because it was a solid fence you couldn’t see through, and it was six feet high and you worked with your neighbor on building this fence. And the strange thing was, as soon as you built it, you were done with your neighbor. You couldn’t even see your neighbor anymore. This was particularly true in the backyard, where you really were completely shut off from all of those neighbors.
Now, the Bible tells us that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus told us that this was the second most important commandment, the first being to love the Lord our God with all of our whole heart, soul, strength and mind. He said, “The second commandment is like unto it, that we love our neighbor as ourself.” And this morning, on this evangelism Sunday, I’d like us to focus on what it means to love our neighbor.
I’d like us to focus on how we can get over the fence that separates us—perhaps from those who live around us—how we can build bridges, not fences. I want us to focus on two bridges this morning. And the first bridge is a bridge called communication. We need to build a bridge of communication with our neighbors.
Now, in 1903, the Wright brothers made their maiden flight, which launched the whole world of aviation. 1969, the Apollo moon landing took place. And these were two extremely significant events in aviation history, between 1903 and 1969. Most aviation historians believe the most significant event took place on October 14th, 1947. It was on October 14th, 1947, Chuck Yeager for the ninth time entered his Bell X-1 rocket airplane, and he was airlifted by a B29 to a great height. And then he was dropped.
In his X-1, he just experienced a free fall for about 500 feet. And then he fired his rockets, and he took that X-1 to a height of 42,000 feet. And then he accelerated to a speed of 700 miles per hour. He sustained that speed for 20 seconds, breaking the sound barrier. Most people thought that you really couldn’t break the sound barrier. You couldn’t attain Mach speed without destroying your aircraft. They thought this because when airplanes tried to approach Mach speed, they began to vibrate violently. But Chuck Yeager found that day, October 14th, 1947, that when he flew at Mach speed, it was smooth as glass.
There’s a sense in which God wants each of us as Christians, those who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, to do what Chuck Yeager did. He wants us to break the sound barrier with our neighbors. He wants us to speak to them, wants us to understand that it’s not going to be as hard as perhaps you think.
He wants us to invite the neighbors over for coffee, wants us to invite the neighbors over for dinner, wants us to invite the neighbors to go out to dinner with us, or, or perhaps go to a ball game. He wants us to break the sound bearer. He wants us to build a bridge of conversation with our neighbors. He wants us to get to know them. And as we get to know them, we might discover that they’re Christians and we’ve gained some brothers and sisters in Christ. We might discover as we get to know them that they’re not Christians. We might discover that they’ve been wounded by a church or by a pastor. We might discover that they have some questions about Christianity, about the teachings of the Bible, about the claims of Christ.
Perhaps you don’t feel qualified to answer those questions, but you see, we’re prepared to help you. And that’s why Gene mentioned this sheet that’s in your grace notes. We have classes that are available to you to equip you to be able to share your faith and to be able to share your faith in Jesus Christ with a neighbor, to help you be better prepared to answer some of those questions that your neighbor might have.
You know, General Motors, IBM, m and AT&T each spend more money educating, training, their employees than the seven Ivy League schools combined spin on their educational budgets. That’s incredible. But at AT&T and IBM and General Motors, they deem it worthwhile to train their people, to educate them that they might be able to do their jobs with excellence. We don’t have the money of AT&T or IBM or General Motors or Harvard or Princeton or Yale or the Ivy League schools, but we are committed to training you.
We are committed to educating you, that you might be the people Christ wants you to be on this earth—that you might know how to share your faith, and you might be able to reach out effectively to your neighbors. And so we offer these classes to you, but you must take advantage of them. And you must make the commitment to attend them, that you might prepare yourself.
We want you to understand that the greatest form of building that bridge of communication that you can ever have with regard to your neighbor is simply the communication of your testimony as you get to know your neighbor. As you get to know your neighbor, the greatest apologetic that you could offer, the greatest defense of the gospel of Jesus Christ, is simply your personal testimony of how you came to know Christ, how you came to commit your life to Christ, how you came to be a Christian, what you believe Christ has done for you, and how for Christ has changed your life.
That’s powerful. We want to help you learn how to share your story and learn how to share your testimony. You know in the first half of this 20th century, one of the greatest preachers, evangelists, and apologists in the Christian world was a man named Harry Ironside. Dr. Harry Ironside was speaking one day at the Salvation Army in San Francisco and he was sharing his testimony and he was talking to the people about faith in Jesus Christ. When Dr. Ironside was done, a note was brought up to the platform where he was. And in the note there was a challenge written by a well-known atheist. And this note said that he would challenge Dr. Ironside to a public debate regarding the claims of Christianity, and he would do it at any place and at any time.
Dr. Ironside immediately went back up to the platform and he read the note, and he publicly accepted this challenge from this well-known atheist. He said, however, that he would accept the challenge only on one condition, and that was that the atheist would bring to the debate one man and one woman whose lives had been transformed through their newfound belief in atheism—one man and one woman who had been able to overcome some vice in their life that caused them personal pain or social rejection; some sin; some vice in their life that they were able to overcome and find new acceptance with their family and their community through their newfound embracing of their new newfound faith in atheism.
He said he would come with a hundred such people whose lives had been transformed by the power of Jesus Christ. And isn’t that true? It’s Christ that transforms lives, and the power of a testimony of a transformed life is impossible to measure. So we want to encourage you to, as you get to know your neighbors, learn to share your testimony, your story, with them.
Most of you have at some point in your life eaten Jell-O. Jell-O in 1997 celebrated its 100th anniversary. Jell-O is 102 years old. It was in the year 1897 that a man named Pearl Waite invented Jell-O, combining fruit flavoring with granulated gelatin. His wife named that mixture Jell-O in 1897, 100 years ago. Pearl Waite decided to sell the rights to this product called Jell-O to his next door neighbor, a man named Orator Woodward.
Orator Woodward bought the rights to this product called Jell-O for $450, and he parlayed it into a multimillion dollar business. Orator Woodward always said that he had been greatly blessed by his next door neighbor. I’m sure most of you would like to bless your next door neighbor, and you can bless your next door neighbor with a treasure called the gospel. Jesus said it’s like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. And in his joy, went and sold all that he had and bought that field. The gospel of the kingdom of heaven is worth everything we have, and it’s our responsibility as believers in Christ to share that gospel with the nations, beginning with those who live right next door to us. So, he wants us to build bridges of communication with those who live next to us.
And then secondly, finally, he wants us to build bridges of compassion. In fact, if we don’t build bridges of compassion, it’s not likely that we’ll ever build bridges of communication with our neighbors. They’re going to care about what you say when they understand that you care about them.
In June 14th of this year, 1999, an unidentified man got on the New York City subway train, sat in his seat, and died there. The amazing thing is it was during rush hour, and people came onto that subway train and just crowded all about him. They sat right next to him, got up, and left. Nobody ever noticed that he was dying, and nobody ever noticed that he was dead. The train went five hours before his body was discovered traveling from the southern tip of Manhattan Island to the Bronx and back, and then the same route again and back.
During all this time, the man just sat there dead in his chair. The authorities said there were no sign of foul play. He just died of natural causes. But the train was so crowded and people were in such a hurry that they just didn’t notice. How crazy. I mean, that’s absolutely crazy. And yet, we live in a world like that. We live in a world that seems crowded. We live in a world that’s in a huge hurry. People don’t take time to notice the needs of people.
In our passage of scripture for today, we’re told of a lawyer who stood up one day to put Christ to the test. And he said, rabbi, teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said, what’s written in the law? How do you read? The lawyer said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said, “You’ve answered well.”
And the lawyer, seeking to justify himself, posed a question. He said, who is my neighbor? And it was then that Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. The man who was traveling on the Jerusalem Jericho Road fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and then left him half dead by the side of the road. It was Jesus who told the story of the priest, who walked right on by this wounded man and gave him no help, no assistance. It was Jesus who told the story of the Levite who did the same. And it was Jesus who told the story of the good Samaritan, who journeying down that road, saw the wounded man, and was moved with compassion and went to him and bandaged him and put healing ointment on him and then carried him to an inn where he took care of him.
And you know, that’s the kind of compassion Christ expects his people to manifest. At the conclusion of that story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus said to the lawyer, “Which man proved to be a neighbor?” The lawyer said, “The one who had compassion.” And there are people who are wounded all around us, some of them in our own neighborhoods. And they feel like people just don’t care. But if there’s a Christian in the neighborhood, there’s someone who should care, someone who should reach out in compassion. So look for opportunities. And Christ would say to us each this morning, look for opportunities where you can show compassion for those who are around you. And yes, in your neighborhood, how many times have you seen people in your neighborhood who were working on a project that you could help with, or doing something around the yard that you could be of some help?
How many times have you gone to your neighbor and said, “Hey, you know if you need any help, if you’re going on vacation, want somebody to get the mail or get the newspapers, we’d be happy to help.” Just some gesture of care. It’s hard to imagine the power of compassion and how Christ can use an act of compassion to build a bridge of communication to your neighbor.
Many of you have heard of Mark Hansen. Mark Hansen is one of the co-authors of those well-known series of books called Chicken Soup for the Soul. Mark Hansen tells the story of how when he was in junior high school he was walking home from school one day and he saw a boy walking ahead of him who stumbled and fell, and his backpack just spread all over the ground.
And Mark was amazed to see that this boy had so much stuff in his backpack. I mean, there was a baseball glove, a baseball, and a baseball bat that was extending out of his backpack. It had rolled onto the ground and onto the sidewalk. There were tape recorders and there were books ( all kinds of books) everything scattered. Mark went up to this junior high fellow student, and said, “Can I help you with this stuff?” And he got down and began to help this guy, and the guy introduced himself and said his name was Bill. They began to talk, and they got everything back into the backpack. And Bill and Mark began to walk together as they went home from school that day. And they struck up a conversation and Bill explained to Mark that it had been a hard day because he wasn’t doing well in school and his girlfriend just broke up with him (his junior high school girlfriend). Mark and Bill walked all the way to Bill’s house together. And then Bill said, “Why don’t you come to my house and have a Coke?” And they went in. They just spent the afternoon watching a little TV and talking and laughing, and they became friends and they were friends through the rest of junior high and then through high school.
At the end of their high school experience, Bill said to Mark, “Mark, remember when we were in junior high school and I first met you? Remember when I spilled my backpack? I stumbled and my backpack scattered everything all over the street?” Mark said, “Yeah.” Bill said, “Did you ever wonder why I had so many things in my backpack?” Mark said, “Well, yeah, the thought did occur to me.” Bill said, “Well, you know, I had so many things in my backpack because I cleaned out my locker. I wasn’t going back to school. In fact, I wasn’t going anywhere. I was going to go home and take my life. I’d saved some sleeping pills and I had enough to commit suicide. I was going to do that. But when you showed me that kindness and when you became my friend, you saved my life.”
That’s an amazing story.. Yet it’s not hard to believe, not hard to understand, because we all know the incredible power that an act of compassion can have. And if nothing else, this morning, as you leave this place, I trust and pray that Christ has said to you, “You need to look for chances and opportunities to show compassion to people around you, and you need to do it in such a way that ultimately you’ll have a chance to share with them the greatest gift of all, the gift of Christ.” This is the Great Commission that’s been given to us, that we would be His witnesses beginning in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the earth—beginning at home.
That’s what Jesus tells us, that we would be His witnesses. And this is the Great Commission—that He has been given all power in heaven and on earth, and He has sent us forth to make disciples of all peoples.
A guy named Lance Foster was a student at the University of Kansas. And one day in March of 1988, Lance Foster could not possibly have known it was going to be his last day in this world. He went out of his dorm room at KU to get a coke from a vending machine. He put his money in the machine and the machine didn’t deliver the soda pop. He was kind of angry. He began to shake the machine violently, and somehow the machine toppled over on top of him. And Lance Foster died of internal injuries.
Ali Afgar Ahan never dreamed that he would be killed by a gun shooting snake. But that’s what happened to him in 1989 when he came upon a snake in Iran and he decided to capture the snake. He put the butt of his rifle behind the snake’s head, and the snake coiled and his tail somehow came up and pulled the trigger on the rifle. And Ali died of a single shot to the head. Incredible.
In 1990, William Curry thought his life was just beginning when he won the lottery, $3.6 million. He was only 37 years old. But just two weeks later, he died of a heart attack. And of course, life is filled with stories like that. I mean, life is just filled with stories like that because life has lots of unexpected turns, some of which can lead to death.
There’s not a single person in this worship center this morning who knows when he or she’s going to die. None of you know when you’re going to die and you do not know how you’re going to die. And I would submit to you this morning that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter when you die. It doesn’t even matter how you die. What matters is how you live. What matters is how you live in whatever time is given to you in this world. What matters is how you live. And if you’re a Christian, if you’ve given your life to Christ and you’ve received Him as Lord and Savior, you are called to live for Him. And you are to take this call seriously. And you have been entrusted with the gospel, and you have been charged to take that gospel to this world, beginning with your own neighborhood. And so this morning, Christ is challenging you to do the work of an evangelist. And if you feel ill-equipped, we’re ready to equip you.
As we close, there are a lot of stories told about Vince Lombardi. He was of course the coach of the Green Bay Packers and one of the winningest coaches in history. And he’s oftentimes misquoted on the subject of winning. One of the most famous misquotes with regard to Vince Lombardi is his alleged statement, “Winning is not everything. Winning is the only thing.” I’m sure you’ve all heard that misquote. And of course, that’s the problem. It is a misquote. Vince Lombardi never said it, nor did he believe it. He did not believe that winning was the only thing. And the truth is that what Vince Lombardi said was not quite so unique and perhaps not quite so nifty. He simply said, “Winning isn’t everything, but making the effort is. Winning isn’t everything, but making the effort is.” What Vince Lombardi wanted was for people to make an effort, to make an effort regardless of the outcome.
I submit to you this morning that that’s what Christ wants with regard to your Christian life and mine. It’s not how many people we lead to Christ. We don’t have any control over that. That’s in the hands of the Holy Spirit. It’s only the Holy Spirit who can lead a soul to faith. But He wants to see us making every effort to do the work of an evangelist. Let’s close with a word of prayer