DEVELOPING A CONTAGIOUS FAITH
SHARING OUR FAITH
DR. JIM DIXON
MARCH 6, 2011
ACTS 1:8, MATTHEW 28:18-20
Some of you may have heard of Mary Mallon. Mary Mallon died in 1938, and the strange thing about her was she spent the last 20 years of her life in a hospital. And yet, she was not sick. From 1918 to 1938, those 20 years, Mary Mallon was in a hospital and she wasn’t even sick, but she was in the hospital because she made people sick. She made people sick, and she was what is was called a carrier. She was a contagion. She caused typhoid epidemics from London to New York. Seven epidemics broke out, it was said, because of Mary Mallon, and she’s known to history as Typhoid Mary.
Now, throughout history and today there are many contagions in the world. Some of these are biological contagions, some are viral contagions. There are contagions that attack the body. There are other contagions that address the mind—the world of ideas—and the heart and the soul. There are all types of contagions. And of course, some contagions are beneficial in their effect, and some contagions are damaging in their effect. One of the most beneficial (in fact, the most beneficial contagion on the earth) is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, because it offers eternal life. It offers forgiveness of sin. It offers a purpose in living. It offers heaven itself. This gospel is meant to be contagious, and you are meant to be carriers. Each and every one of you are meant to be carriers of the gospel.
It is the will of God that the gospel be contagious on the earth. And of course, if you are a Christian, then there was some point at which you came to the cross and you accepted the work of Christ on the cross. You asked Jesus to forgive you of your sin. You accepted that by His shed blood you have been given substitutionary atonement, and you put your trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior. You also, if you’re a Christian, took Jesus Christ as Lord, recognizing the fact that death could not hold Him and He rose from the dead in power and glory and has ascended into heaven. He is Lord of Lords and will come again. So if you’re a Christian, you have received Christ as Savior and Lord and you are seeking to live out your days in His service. And He has commanded us to take His message to all peoples in all nations. This is His commandment. This is the Great Commission, and this is the charge that’s upon us.
Now, why should you do this? Why should you be faithful to the great commission? Why should you share the gospel and the love and the message of Christ with people at work? Why should you share this with people in your neighborhood? Why is this call upon us and why should we do this? Well, I’d like to take a look at four reasons why. And these should be easy to remember. They’re very simple.
Each of these reasons will be summarized in one word, and the first word is life. The reason we need to share the gospel is because it gives life. Jesus said, “I’ve come that you might have life and that you might have it abundantly.” So He offers abundant life to a dying world. The Bible says, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life. “Zoe” means life—eternal life, everlasting life. This is the promise of God in the gospel.
So we take the gospel. We must do this because it offers life. Now, there’s a passage in the Bible in 2 Kings chapter six and seven. It actually begins in 2 Kings chapter six verse 24, then it goes through chapter seven, verse 20. This is a story I’ve never really heard anybody preach on, although I know Bill Hybels has. In this story we have the king of Syria, Ben-Hadad, who brings his armies to attack the king of Israel, Jehoram. The king of Israel is at what was then Israel’s capital, the fortress city of Samaria, built by Omri the Great. So the armies of Syria come south to attack Israel. It’s a time of famine, we’re told in 2 Kings six and seven, and people are starving. And with the siege and with the armies of Syria, the famine becomes worse. food supplies are cut off, so people are literally starving. We’re told in 2 Kings six and seven that people are so desperate that they would buy a donkey’s head as food. A donkey’s head was 80 shekels of silver. Understand that donkeys were contrary to the Levitical dietary code and a violation of Jewish law. You could not eat that meat. It was considered unclean. But they were so desperate they would eat a donkey—not only a donkey, but a donkey’s head, which is not edible—for 80 shekels of silver.
But even worse, we’re told in 2 Kings six and seven, people were so desperate that they would pay five shekels of silver for a quarter of a pint of dove dung. That’s what people were eating. They were so desperate they were eating bird poop. I was reading yesterday, doing a little further research on this, and I found that throughout history around the world in times of famine it was not uncommon for people in their desperation to actually eat bird droppings. What an incredible reality. So here’s the desperation of the children of Israel in the city of Samaria. The armies of Syria have come south, and they are mighty. Elisha and the faithful are crying out to God for salvation, “Deliver us, deliver us!”
Now at the gates of the city of Samaria are four lepers. There may have been more lepers, but these four, perhaps, were in a leper enclosure. Sometimes buildings were kept at the gateway for lepers, separated from healthy humanity. This was certainly true in Jerusalem. At the Zion gate, there was a building there set aside for lepers. This may have been true in Samaria, but these four lepers thought to themselves, we’re desperate and we’re dying. We’re desperate, we’re starving, and we’re very sick. Let’s do this. We’re so desperate. Let’s flee the city and go out to the armies of Syria and ask for mercy. Maybe they will kill us. Hopefully death will be swift and we’ll be released from our suffering, but maybe the armies of Syria will have mercy on us and give us food. And so these four set forth to turn themselves over to the armies of Syria.
Now, because Elisha and the faithful have been crying out, God has heard. So we’re told in 2 Kings six and seven that God brought a delusion upon the armies of Syria. God brought the sound of approaching armies. There were no approaching armies, but God brought the sound of approaching armies to the Syrian army. So the Syrians heard an army coming from the north. They heard an army coming from the South. They heard the sound of chariots. They heard the sound of war horses, the pounding them hoofs. In fact, literally, in the text, they thought the armies of Egypt were coming upon them, and they fled. They fled because of this illusion. They fled and they just vacated. So when these four lepers arrived at the Syrian camp, nobody was there. When the four lepers arrived in the Syrian camp, everybody was gone. As they looked around, they were stunned. There was gold and silver. They left so quickly that they left their precious belongings. They fled for their life. So there was gold and silver, and these four lepers began to accumulate it and hide it.
Then they went into one of the tents and they found an abundance of food and clothing. And they went into another tent and found more food and more clothing. They began to hide it and to stockpile it for themselves. But then eventually they were convicted and they said to themselves, “This is good news. This good news is too good to be silenced.” They were convicted about their silence. “This good news is too good to be silent. We must go tell the royal family. We must tell the people.” So they go back and they offer life to a dying people in the midst of famine.
I hope you understand that, in a sense, the story’s analogous to the situation of the earth and people, at the level of their soul, are literally starving and dying and the gospel is life. If you have found that gospel, if you’ve accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you can’t just hoard that. You can’t just stockpile that. You can’t just hide it away for yourself. This news is too good. It’s too good for you to be silent. You’ve got to take it to the people. So this is the call of God that is upon us, because Jesus has come that we might have life and that we might have it abundantly. “For God so loved the world that He gave His Son.” So we go with the message and we offer life. This is why you must do this. This is why these next seven weeks are absolutely critical in your life and mine and in the life of the church. We must be equipped to take the message of Jesus.
Secondly, there is the word power. As you share your faith, as you tell people about Christ, God wants you to know he’ll supply the power. It’s not your power. It’s not my power. He’ll supply the power. So we have the Great Commission: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.” You shall receive power, the power of the Holy Spirit of. In Matthew 28 when Jesus gives the Great Commission, the word is “exousia,” which means power or authority. In the Acts passage the word is “dunamis,” which means raw, physical power. So Jesus says in Matthew 28, “All power in heaven and on earth have been given to Me. Therefore, go into all the world and make disciples of all nations.” This is His power. It accompanies the gospel, and it’s with us as we tell people about Jesus. He wants you to know this. He wants you to trust this. He wants you to have confidence in this. So we go forth as His ambassadors on the earth, ambassadors of the kingdom of heaven. That’s a privilege. But we go in His power.
God wants you to always remember the harvest is His. The harvest is His. So you see the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter three, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God brought the increase. He who plants is nothing. He who waters is nothing, but only God who brings the increase.” And then Paul goes on to say that he who plants and he who waters are equal and they’ll have their reward. But it’s God who is Lord of the harvest.
I had the privilege of ministering and serving out at faith Presbyterian Church in Aurora, Colorado, for eight and a half years before we planted this church. By the grace of God, 29 years ago I served out in Aurora for eight and a half years and I served as Christian education director and I worked with the youth program. I worked with the Sunday School Ministry and also adult education. I loved my eight and a half years there. I was privileged to serve there. The senior pastor at Faith Presbyterian Church then was Dean Wolfe, and he was my boss. My friend Dean is 86 years old now and lives outside of San Diego and we still stay in touch. But Dean always said to me, “Jim, the harvest is the Lord’s. Remember, the harvest is the Lord’s. We plant, we water, but the harvest is the Lord’s.” And he had seen that in his life in powerful ways. Dean began his ministry at Silver Lake Presbyterian Church in Southern California, and he was called as senior pastor there to a church of 500 people. And he was so excited at his first chance to be senior pastor. He had memorized much of the Bible. He had developed a style of ministry and a philosophy of ministry that he felt Christ had given him. He had a great love of Christ and great love of people. He began to serve that church, Silver Lake Presbyterian Church, and everything went wrong. People began to leave. And after a few years, the church shrunk from 500 to 250 and the elder board fired him. That’s what happens to senior pastors when churches shrink in half. He felt like such a failure. He felt like he had watered, he felt like he had planted, and he felt like he had done it faithfully, but there was no harvest.
A few years later, he was up in Evergreen, Colorado preaching at a Presbyterian church there. And a group from Faith Presbyterian Church in Aurora were visiting. They heard him preach and they liked him. Ultimately that led to Faith Presbyterian Church hiring Dean to be their new senior pastor. And their church was how large? 500. So Dean shows up at Faith Presbyterian Church in Aurora, which was exactly the same size that Silver Lake was—500 people. He thought, oh no, I’m going to cut this deal in half.
So he starts out just serving Christ, and he plants and he waters. And guess what? Incredible things happen. Faith Presbyterian Church in Aurora grows to 4,300 members and an average Sunday attendance and worship of 2,500. And Dean always said to me, Jim, the harvest is the Lord’s. You don’t take credit when people come to Christ and you don’t take blame when they don’t. You don’t take credit. You don’t take blame. You just plant. It’s all about faithfulness. When you stand before Christ, it’s going to all be about faithfulness. The harvest is the Lord’s. So remember that. It’s His power. In a sense, you’re off the hook, but you must plant and you must water.
Now, I’ll tell you a story. Some of you have heard this because I’ve told it before because it’s one of the most amazing things that ever happened to me. Now, I’ve shared the gospel in a variety of contexts, and I’ve preached the gospel from this pulpit. I’ve taught the gospel in classrooms. I’ve shared the gospel in counseling situations in my office. I’ve shared the gospel over breakfast with someone or over lunch with someone. I’ve seen people come to Christ in a variety of settings, but never ever experienced anything like this. Years ago, I was at the DMV, the Department of Motor Vehicles, and I was in a very bad mood. Whenever I’m at the DMV, I’m in a very bad mood. I was in a particularly bad mood that day because I’d let my license expire and I’d waited so long I had to take the written test again. So I had to go and do the whole test again.
So I’m there and they tell me I need to wait, but they had these folding chairs set up, and they were like 20 rows of folding chairs, and the first two rows were full of people waiting. I don’t want to talk to anybody, so I look for the furthest place from people. So I go to the back row. There’s nobody within 18 rows. I go to the end of the row and I just sit down there by myself, minding my own business. A guy comes in, and he’s waiting to. I see him looking around for a place to sit. He has all these people in the first two couple of rows, and I think he’s surely going to sit there. And then he just starts looking around and he kind of focuses on me. He doesn’t know me, I don’t know him, but he’s a friendly guy, and he decides to just come to my row. He walks down the row and sit down right next to me.
I mean, there were all these empty seats and he just sits down right next to me. He’s a space invader. He just invades my space. He starts talking to me and I’m just in a bad mood, so I really don’t have anything to say. He starts asking me questions, and I just give short, clipped answers. I don’t want to talk. And finally, I hear him say to me, well, what do you do? And so I say, well, I’m a minister. I’m a pastor of a church. And he says, what kind of church? And I said, well, I’m a Christian. I’m a Christian pastor at a Presbyterian church.
He said, this is absolutely amazing. Just this morning I was thinking, oh, I’d kind of like to examine what it means to become a Christian. I think maybe I’d like to be a Christian, but I don’t know how and I don’t really understand. Could you tell me, and could you help me? So I begin to tell him about Christ and the cross and the gospel. And right there at the DMV, he accepts Jesus as his Lord and Savior.
And I ask you this, who did that? God did that. It wasn’t me. It was God. I want you to understand the power of God. It’s awesome. There’s no reason why in the next seven weeks we can’t do this together. We can do this because God’s power attends the gospel and is with us. He has the power to touch people’s hearts and souls. I hope you believe that.
Now, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t prepare ourselves. Some of you need to come out this Saturday, because this Saturday we have the Case for Christianity sponsored by the Institute at Cherry Hills Community Church right here. It’s Saturday from 8:30 to 2:30. You’re thinking, well, that’s a lot of time. I believe it would be the best Saturday of your life, or close to it. I don’t know what you would love to do on a Saturday. Maybe you love to go up and go skiing. Maybe in the summertime you like to go fishing or hiking. Maybe in the fall you love going to a football game up at Boulder or down at the Air Force Academy. I don’t know what’s a great Saturday for you. Maybe you’d like to just sit around and read a book. But I don’t think in your lifetime you can have a better Saturday than this. Lee Strobel and Mark Mittleberg will be taking us through the case for Christianity. If you don’t feel confident that you could answer people’s questions or know what to say, what a Saturday this is going to be. It’s all part of the deal. So, it’s His power that promises to anoint this stuff and to bring impact to the lives of many.
The third word I want you to remember is hell. I mean, it’s about life in a dying world and it’s about His power. He’s the Lord of the harvest, but it’s also about heaven and hell. So I want you to remember this word too: hell. If you really believe that there are two eternal destinies, if you really believe in the reality of hell, that some people are eternally separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might, how can you not go out there and tell people? How can you not witness? How can you not share? Do you really believe that there are two different destinies awaiting mankind? Don’t you want to go with the gospel?
Some of you have heard of Penn and Teller. You’ve heard of Penn Gillette, and he’s a big guy who kind of pulls his hair back into a ponytail. Penn and Teller are comedians, and they’re very clever and kind of brilliant. And they’re atheists, and they attack Christianity with some passion and even some venom. Yet recently there’s this video clip of Penn Gillette sharing an encounter where a young man gives him a bible. And Penn Gillette, though an atheist, describes how he felt about someone sharing Christ with him. Here’s what he said:
“He was really kind and nice and sane and looked me in the eyes and talked to me and then gave me this Bible. And I’ve always said that I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there’s a heaven in hell and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life or whatever, and you think that it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward… and atheists who think that people shouldn’t proselytize… “just leave me alone, keep your religion to yourself”… how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that? I mean, if I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that a truck was coming at you and you didn’t believe it, that truck was bearing down on you, there’s a certain point where I tackle you, and this is more important than that. I’ve always thought that, and I’ve written about that and I’ve thought of it conceptually. But this guy was a really good guy. He was polite and honest and sane, and he cared enough about me to proselytize and give me a bible which had written in a little note to me—not very personal, but just, you know, like to show he cares. And then like five phone numbers for him and an email address if I wanted to get in touch.”
Did you notice those words? If you really believe in eternal life, if you really believe in the reality of hell, how much would you have to hate me not to talk to me? How much would you have to hate me not to tell me? And I think that’s a really good question.
How many of you have heard of Virginia Dare? Some of you may have heard of Virginia Dare. She was the first English person born in America. Virginia Dare born 1587 in the second English colony on Roanoke Island. She was the daughter of Ananias Dare. And John White, who was the head of that colony, was her grandfather. John White returned to England to get supplies. No one knows what happened to Virginia Dare, because she disappeared along with the rest of the colony, known today to historians as The Lost Colony. So when John White returned to Roanoke Island, there was nobody there. All 117 people were just gone, and the word “Croatoan” was carved into a tree. And the mystery and the debate continues to this day. What happened to the lost colony? Nobody knows.
But I can tell you this: in the sight of God, the human race is a lost colony. This grand experiment is a lost colony. Jesus said that’s why He came into the world, to seek and save the lost. The whole earth is a lost colony. He came to earth to seek and save the lost. If you believe that, you have to go with His message. You have to go with the gospel. So why do this? Life. Life in the dying world. Power. It’s His power. He’s the Lord of the harvest. And eternal destiny, heaven in hell.
Then finally, we have the word joy. That’s why we need to do this: joy. Now, Bible says in Luke’s Gospel, the 15th chapter and in the 10th verse, that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents. There’s just joy amongst the angels of God around the throne of God. Luke 15:10 is a celestial celebration. When somebody accepts Jesus Christ there’s joy.
I had a picture I was wanting to put up on the screen this morning. I brought the picture to the tech people a little bit too late and we couldn’t get it done. But it was a picture of me shaking hands with Billy Graham. It’s kind of a great moment in my life. We were at Black Mountain Camp in North Carolina, and I’ve always respected Billy Graham and kind of held him in awe and veneration. I was on the national board for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Billy’s daughter, Annie, was also on the board, along with her husband Danny Lotz. They’re wonderful people. And Billy just came to spend the weekend with us. This great man of God…. I don’t know how many of you have ever been to a Billy Graham Crusade or how many of you have watched a Billy Graham Crusade on television. I know that I’ve been to a number of them, and I’ve served as a counselor at a Billy Graham Crusade, and I’ve noticed amazing power that’s in those stadiums and arenas at a Billy Graham Crusade. It’s the power of God. It’s an amazing power that just comes upon the stadium. And when Billy Graham gives that invitation, then the power of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, just fills the stadium. You see people getting out of their seats and walking down onto the fields to accept Christ. It’s the power of God, the Lord of the harvest.
But I want to tell you something else. There’s amazing joy. The one thing you just can’t help but notice is amazing joy. It just fills the stadium. It fills the arena. The people coming forward to accept Christ are just filled with joy. All of those who are working behind the scenes and all of those who have prayed are filled with joy, the Billy Graham team—all of the counselors—are filled with joy. There’s joy in heaven. The angels are celebrating around the throne of God. It’s joy.
Don’t you want some of that? Don’t you want to have some of that that joy? Why do we do this? I mean, why are we going through this training? Why are we preparing ourselves to tell others about Jesus? We do it because of life. This is abundant life. You can’t hoard it or stockpile it; you have to share it. It’s a dying world. We do it because of power—not our power, but confidence in His power because He’s Lord of the harvest and He sent us forth and He’s with us. And we do it because we believe in eternal life, in heaven and in the reality of hell. So much is at stake. The world is lost. And we do it because of joy. We do it for joy—joy in heaven, joy on earth, joy for those who are part of the harvest, and joy for the planter and the waterer.
So this is the call that’s upon us. I hope you’re excited about these next seven weeks and what God is going to do in our midst and for our church. I hope that you’ll want to come not just on Sunday mornings, but on Wednesday nights. I hope that you’re going to want to be part of the small group experience and our special curriculum that’ll be there, and also that some of you would be willing to lead some of those small groups. This is a time in the life of our church that’s very special. It’s going to change the future. And this is, I promise you, the will of God. Before we come to the table, let’s have a word of prayer.