"Ours is not to question why!"

Have you ever heard that? It is absolute nonsense! That phrase is a cliché planted by Satan to get us accustomed to following blindly a path that leads to destruction. It is as un-Biblical and dangerous as the concept of ‘blind faith’. Jesus has called us to faith, but never to blind faith. In fact, He has gone out of His way to give us every reason in the world to trust him. Let’s look at a few examples.

By the time the nation of Israel had been in captivity in Egypt for four hundred years, they had forgotten almost completely about the God of their forefathers. They had most certainly lost sight of His character. Now God knew that He would deliver Israel out of , and He could have done so in a single blaze of glory simply by speaking a word. But He didn’t do that. Instead, He picked a Pharaoh that He knew would be a real hard head, and had Moses request release from him. God knew that Pharaoh would deny the request over and over again. Every time Pharaoh resisted, God had a chance to perform another miracle. By the time Israel found themselves free of their Egyptian , they had personally witnessed the awesome power of God in over a dozen spectacular displays. By the time they had reached the Promised Land, they had seen literally hundreds of signs of God’s willingness and ability to care for their every need. God chose this particular plan so that the Israelites would have evidence to base their faith on. He chose to demonstrate His love for them in a dramatic way so that they would not have to have blind faith.

And yet they grumbled and complained and doubted God. We look back at them, through the clarifying lenses of history, and criticize them for their shortsightedness. But are we any different? How often do we doubt God, after all He has done for us? If we would spend more time in praise to God for the specific things He has done in our lives, the sinews of our faith would become as cords of steel. We could press forward through each new challenge with the absolute certainty that God’s Will will prevail.

Listen to what these New Testament writers thought of blind faith.

After enumerating the great Old Testament men and women of faith in Chapter 11, the writer of Hebrews continues on:

Likewise after describing the journey of Israel through the wilderness, Paul proclaims,

Peter says of their experience on the mount of transfiguration,

Jesus followers had two primary sources of assurance available to them. The first was the Scriptures, which recorded over 4000 years of God’s interaction with mankind. The second was the signs, miracles, and prophetic fulfillment that surrounded Jesus Himself.

"Ours is to question why!"

This may possibly be the most important question of all. As I said before, if your Why is strong enough, the How will come. So let’s ask that question about witnessing. Why should we witness? Why? The answer may just change your life.

The Simple Solution

There is a very basic answer to this question that may satisfy a great number of Christians. We witness simply because Jesus asked us to.

That is a very good reason. Indeed, how much better would our lives be if we simply followed all that Jesus asked us to do?

Take A step Back

For those of us who accept the reason given above, it may be useful to take a step back – to look at the big picture – and to ask an even bigger question. Why did Jesus ask us to be His witnesses?

NOT!

At this point, I feel that it is critical to identify a common answer to this question that is absolutely incorrect. Many people believe that Jesus laid the responsibility on our shoulders to lead the people of the world to salvation. I have heard it proclaimed from many pulpits that you cannot get to heaven alone – that you must take someone along with you. The clear implication was that unless you had personally led someone to Christ, you were not worthy of salvation. "How many souls have you led to Christ? Are you responsible for the salvation of even one soul?" The intention is to coax people out of the role of a listless spectator and into an active Christian experience. Although this intention is a good one, the message is all wrong. Witnessing does not make us worthy of salvation. You do not have to witness in order to get into heaven.

Whose job is it to convert souls?

Absolutely right! It is the Holy Spirit’s job to convert souls. God is not asking us to do His work for Him. The responsibility for the salvation of the world does not rest upon our shoulders as Christians. Jesus tells us, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself." John 12:32 (NAS). Jesus was indeed lifted up on a cross to die, and He does indeed draw all people to Himself. Unfortunately, not all people will accept His invitation or yield to the pleading of His Spirit. But the important thing to see here is that Jesus bears upon His own shoulders the responsibility for the salvation of the world. Yet He clearly invites us to work alongside Him in this great plan of salvation.

Our job is to lift him up in our lives. Our job is to introduce Jesus to our friends. Our job is to tell our story of how He has impacted our lives. Jesus did not take the burden of the world’s salvation on His own shoulders simply to dump that burden on the shoulders of His followers. The Holy Spirit pleads with people to come to Jesus. He strives with the spirits of the unconverted long before we ever encounter them and He stays with them long after we have given up.

XXXOOO was a missionary to the momubu tribe in the Irian Gyra, Papua New Guinea. The story of how he was able to bring the Gospel message to these people is told in his book entitled The Peace Child . After spending months learning the language of these people, XXXOOO began to tell them the story of Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross of Calvary. Yet these people were so savage that they honored deceit above all things. After hearing the story, they all praised Judas as the hero because he had performed the greatest deception of all by betraying Jesus with a kiss. XXXOOO wondered how he would ever be able to get these people to understand the message of God’s love. He prayed fervently to God, and one day his prayer was answered. The momubu people held to very rigid customs. They had been at war with a neighboring tribe, and many lives were being lost. This is where the miracle fit in. Custom dictated that the war between the two tribes could end only if the king of one tribe would give up his son to the other tribe as a peace offering. Instantly XXXOOO recognized this as the way to reach these people with the Gospel message. The comparison he drew between the tribal king’s act of sacrifice and God’s sacrifice of His only Son was powerful to these people. The custom was so strong and meaningful to them, that it opened their hearts to the full weight of the Gospel message. Virtually the whole tribe was converted, and their lives quickly produced fruits in keeping with their repentance. The point here is that the Holy Spirit had paved the way for the Gospel message for decades or even centuries before XXXOOO ever appeared on the scene. The Holy Spirit prepared these people to receive the love of Christ, XXXOOO merely made the introduction.

Do not be deceived. The Holy Spirit will spread the Gospel message with or without our help.

The Holy Spirit pleads with all people through their consciences. He attempts to write the laws of God upon the hearts of people, if they will but let Him. We are to work along side the Holy Spirit, by telling others of how the love of Jesus has changed our lives. But, the work of conversion is not our burden. I simply pray that our love will not wax so cold that God must call the stones to cry out the Gospel of Jesus because our own voices have been mute too long.

Our Privilege, NOT Our Burden

Okay, so why did Jesus ask us to be His witnesses?

When I was growing up as a child, we often had company over to dinner. To prepare for these events, each of us would help to get the house clean and in order for our guests. My mother prepared the food in the kitchen. One of the kids usually vacuumed. One dusted. Another put away any clutter. I usually cleaned the bathroom. We all did our own part to help out. But I noticed once, when all the kids were gone for the day and couldn’t help out, that Mom was able to do all of the chores by herself. In fact, the house was much cleaner than when she had the ‘help’ of her four children. I am willing to bet that she even got it done faster without us as well.

Did something similar ever happen to you as you were growing up? Have you ever asked your children to do something that you could have done better yourself? Why did you ask them to? Why did my mother always ask us to do chores that she could do better and faster by herself? Because she wanted to teach us something. She had us help out for our own good. She wanted us to learn a sense of responsibility. She wanted us to learn to work together as a family. She wanted us to learn something about selflessness - about working with and for others.

This is also why Jesus has asked us to be His witnesses. He wants us to learn from the experience. He is giving us the incredible privilege of participating with Him in the great plan of salvation. He asks us to witness for our own good. He wants the experience to be a blessing to us. One bible commentator put it this way. "And he who seeks to give light to others, will himself be blessed. ‘There shall be showers of blessing.’ ‘He that watereth shall be watered also himself.’ Prov. 11:25. God could have reached His object in saving sinners without our aid; but in order for us to develop a character like Christ’s, we must share in His work. In order for us to enter into His joy – the joy of seeing souls redeemed by His sacrifice – we must participate in His labors for their redemption." (E.G. White, The Desire of Ages)

Justification is the process by which Jesus takes away the guilt of our past sins by covering them with his blood. Justification occurs on a grand scale when we first come to Christ and accept Him as our savior and He grants us forgiveness for our whole life of sin. But justification happens afresh each day as we stumble in sin and lay this new guilt at the foot of the cross. Sanctification is the process by which the power of Jesus’ life, through the agency of the Holy Spirit, transforms us into new creatures. Sanctification is a growth process that takes a lifetime. Each trial of faith in our lives causes us to trust more and more in our Savior. With each step of faith we become more and more like Christ. As we yield ourselves more and more to His Spirit, the fruits of the Spirit are born more abundantly in our lives.

Witnessing is an essential part of the sanctification process. Jesus asks us to participate in spreading the Gospel message to promote our own spiritual growth. As we turn our attention away from ourselves and toward helping others, we become less self centered and more Christ like. There are three ways that we can spend time with Jesus and enrich our relationship with Him - Bible Study, Prayer, and Acts of Christian Service. If your Christian experience ends with the first two, then you will get to a point where your Christian growth will stop. Learn a lesson from nature. A plant is either growing or dying. A tomato is either getting ripe or it is rotting. If your Christian experience consists only of taking in through Bible Study and Prayer, then your Christian growth will eventually stop and will begin to wither and die. Jesus knew this, so He asked us to turn our attentions outward and share what we have received with others. As we do, we continue to grow. As we learn to give, we will continue to receive. As we share our faith with others, we become painfully aware of our own inadequacies, and are driven to our knees, asking for Jesus = strength to support us. As such, witnessing is an absolutely vital part of our Christian growth.

In a recent Bible study class that I was in, we discovered together that Bible study, prayer, and Christian witnessing are like the three legs of a stool. Any one alone, without the other two, fails to stand. Bible study alone yields only cold formalism, like the kind that the Pharisees of Jesus’ day practiced. A prayer filled relationship with Jesus, taken by itself, can lead to an ill defined spiritualistic euphoria that is as easily influenced by the spirit of Satan as by the Spirit of God. Likewise, you really cannot bear witness about a God you have not known. The primary ways that we come to know about God are by spending time with Him in Bible study and prayer. Prayer is the substance of the relationship. Bible study provides the framework. It is the truth on which the relationship is founded. Witnessing is where the rubber meets the road. It is the practical application of your faith. Prayer and Bible study are an outgrowth of your love for God. Witnessing is how your love for God is translated into love for your neighbor.

The Real Lesson

The real lesson that Jesus wants to teach us is love. That is the foundational lesson of the entire Bible. The Bible records the 4000 year love relationship of God for the people He created, who turned their backs on Him. The apostle John tells us that "God is love" 1 John 4:8. The Jewish people referred to the Old Testament Scriptures as ‘the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms’. Jesus told these Jews that the two concepts of love to God and love to our fellow man are the basis of the entire Old Testament.

Not only are these two ideas the basis of the Scriptures, they are a summary of the Ten Commandment Law. The first four commandments deal with our love to God. The last six deal with love for our fellow man. The foundational teaching of the Bible is love – love to God and love to our fellow man. This love is further defined in the Ten Commandments, and is portrayed through the history of God’s interactions with man. Jesus death on the cross is the ultimate expression of God’s love for us. "For God so loved the world , that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16 (NAS). Jesus wants to teach us about love because love is the answer to the sin problem. Love is the antithesis of sin. Sin is selfishness. Love is selflessness.

Witnessing is the expression of our love to God and to others. We demonstrate our love for God as we tell others the story of what Jesus means to us. Think of what you did when you first fell in love with your spouse. Didn’t you want to tell all of your friends about the incredibly wonderful person you had found? What do new parents do when they have a child? They pass pictures of their newfound love to everyone they know.

We demonstrate our love for others as we tell them of Jesus’ love for them. Plain and simply, Jesus is the only way to eternal life. "He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life." I Jn 5:12 (NAS). Would you stand bye and allow someone you love to drive over a cliff and die if you could warn them of the danger? Never! If we truly love our neighbors, can we allow them die without sharing the Bread of Life with them?

But more than just demonstrating our love, witnessing teaches about love. It is very easy to love someone from a distance. Think of marriage. What did you think that marriage would be like? Did it turn out like you expected? But would you trade that relationship for anything else in the world? We all enter into marriage believing that it will be eternal bliss. What do we discover when we finally tie the knot? We suddenly discover that the world no longer revolves around me, but around us. We discover that we have to share. We have to share our time. We have to share our money. We have to adjust our priorities. We discover that it is easy to love someone when you don’t have to live with them. But now consider the blessings that grow out of marriage. There is a closeness that you never knew before. There is security in knowing that you belong to someone else. There is a depth to the relationship that you cannot adequately describe. Through the closeness of marriage is born the true love of trust and commitment. These are things that you could only vaguely sense when you were dating, but that came fully alive as you began to really share your life with another person. Only through this closeness, can you begin to really discover the agape love that God has for us.

Witnessing brings us into a similar closeness with people. It is easy to say we love our fellow man when we don’t actually have to interact with them. But it is only as we come into their lives, as we learn about their troubles, as we share their struggles and hopes and dreams that we can truly learn what love is all about. Witnessing brings us out of the realm of superficial love and into a love of commitment, trust, sharing, and understanding. Sometimes that is why it is difficult for us to witness. Witnessing by definition is extremely personal. You are talking about trust; and to trust, you become vulnerable. You are talking about the very essence of what makes up a person. You are talking about their spiritual life. You are talking about what they are or are not willing to let go of in order to receive eternal life. You are talking about dying to self. And that is what real love is all about. Clint Black has a hit single out that describes love very well. Love is not something we are in or somewhere that we fall; love is something that we do.

A Midlife Crisis (Mischelle is not allowed to read this section.)

Take a moment to join me in a midlife crisis. Have been there before? Are you in one right now? Or are you young and bulletproof? Let me tell you a little about my experience, and see if you can relate to this.

Now, I have always believed that I would be prosperous. I believed that I would own a house, drive a decent car, be able to take exciting vacations to exotic parts of the world, and to have all the little amenities that make life enjoyable. I have also believed that I would be an important person and do very important things in my job - things that would have a lasting impact on the world around me. I grew up believing that these things were not only possible, but that they were a part of my destiny. I believed that prosperity and greatness were available to anyone who had vision and was willing to work hard. Perhaps I got these beliefs from the thousands of hours I spent in front of the television. Wealth, prosperity, and greatness are certainly the things that Hollywood espouses as the things to be desired and achieved. All through my life I knew that I would someday set the world on fire.

Well, I am nearing my prime now. I am just about the same age that Jesus was when He changed the world forever with His sacrifice on the cross. And every month I am vividly confronted with my dreams of prosperity and greatness - when I sit down to balance my checkbook. Now, I am not poverty stricken. I am what you would call middle class. Incidentally, the middle class does indeed follow the bell curve in this country. Roughly ninety percent of the people fit into this category. Five percent are what we would call rich, and roughly five percent live in poverty. Chances are that you are part of this great middle class as well.

Anyway, let me tell you about this experience that I have with my checkbook each month. It is an experience that we call living paycheck to paycheck. My wife and I rent the townhouse that we live in. It is not the dream house that either of us imagined for ourselves. Most significant among the traits it lacks as a dream house is the fact that we share a least one wall with the family next door. We do own another townhouse in Frederick Maryland that we rent out. Well, we and Bancboston Mortgage Copmany own it. Actually, I guess that Bancboston Mortgage Company owns about ninety-five percent of it and we own the rest. It is funny really. Our tenants pay us some money each month to live in our house. We take that money each month and add about a third more to it and give it to Bankboston so that our tenants can live in our house. And sometime in about twenty-five more years, we will have the privilege of calling that humble little abode ours - after we have paid three times its original price to the bank. I wonder how much it will actually be worth in another quarter of a century. I look around at the other houses of similar quality that are nearing that age and shudder at the thought. Even worse than that, I look at our finances and realize that if things keep going the way they are right now, that will be the only house that we will ever own.

And what about cars? Well, I drive a car that I’m sure is the envy of everyone in town – a 1993 Ford Escort hatchback. Actually, when we were overseas, we saw an infomercial on the Armed Forces television station telling how to avoid being a victim of terrorism when traveling in foreign countries. The commercial recommended that you always use a nondescript rental car. In the background, you see a couple getting into MY car. I really mean it. It was exactly like my car. Same make. Same model. Same style. Even the same color. I truly have a car to admire. Well…at least it gets good gas mileage. But, as you can probably guess, my wife drives our really nice car. It is certainly the envy of everyone in town. For my wife we own a 1995 T-Bird. Sounds flashy, doesn’t it. Not exactly. You see, we bought it used, because we couldn’t afford a new one. And we don’t really own it. Actually, my parents own our car, and we are paying them back for it. As for the future, we are simply hoping that the two cars we have will last long enough for us to pay them off before we have to buy new ones.

But it is okay that we don’t have all the things that we have wished for materially, because I find my job so fulfilling – right? Will the things I do with my time at work really change the world? I don’t think that anything has made me more aware of my absolute insignificance in this world of ours than moving to Washington, D.C. When I became a part of the very heart of the most powerful nation on the face of the earth, I became starkly aware that the machine is so massive and has so much momentum, that it is virtually impervious to the influences of individual people. The bureaucracy is so monumental and so refined that you suddenly realize that you don’t really count. If I disappeared from the face of the earth tomorrow, the system wouldn’t skip a beat. Someone else would fall right in to take my place. If I were to stand in defiance of the system, it would simply chew me up, spit me out, and continue on with a better conformist sitting in my seat.

Now let’s put this all in perspective. I get up at 5:00 AM each morning to get ready for work. I spend two hours a day commuting back and forth to my job in my high class automobile. I spend eight to ten to twelve hours a day pouring effort, energy and frustration into a job that is so small and insignificant in the great scheme of things that I wouldn’t even be missed if I died tomorrow. I do this all so that I can earn just enough money to put food on the table and pay rent on a house that I have no time to do anything but sleep in. And this routine goes on and on, day after day, with no hope of anything better in sight. Think about it. Is your life really much different than this? If there is no more meaning in life than this, then it is no wonder that so many commit suicide.

Now I know that circumstances are relative. To the poor beggar living in a shanty in a dump outside Juarez, Mexico, I am living the life of a king. In the eyes of Bill Gates, I am as bad off as that beggar. But let me tell you, this world is fickle. I don’t care how great you are or how much wealth you amass, when you die you will fade from the memory of this world like tears in the rain. How many are remembered a year after their death? After ten years? Or a hundred? Or a thousand? Sam Walton was the wealthiest man in the country at one time. Of his hundreds of billions of dollars, how much did he take with him to the grave? What good did it do him there? There is a popular bumper sticker that says, "He who dies with the most toys wins", and another that says, "He who dies with the most toys is still dead." The wealthiest and wisest man who ever lived looked back over his many years and came to this conclusion:

What is the point of all of this? There is very little that even a great person, in just the right circumstances, with all the wealth and all the influence, can do to have more than simply a fleeting impact on this world. And yet in the simple act of sharing Jesus with a friend, you can have an impact on a life that will last for all eternity. What good is Sam Walton’s money to him now? But, what is the value of one soul saved forever? Our ability to be of any significance to this world at all is bound up completely in our relationship with Christ. If your self-image is tied to the things of this world, how fragile will that be? But if you surrender yourself to serve Christ, you can be called a son or daughter of God.

I remember the most powerful scene in the movie, Schindler’s List . Schindler had begun to save Jews from the Nazis simply to benefit himself by using them as cheap labor in his factories. Over the course of time God changed his heart and he developed a genuine love for these people. Eventually, he sacrificed the great wealth he had acquired in order to save as many Jews as he could. Finally, in this most powerful scene, Schindler is overcome with grief because of the many he was unable to save. In tears, he shakes his fists at himself and exclaimed, "Why did I hold on to so much? Why did I keep even this car? How many lives could this car have bought?"

How many lives could we have purchased for all eternity with the time and resources we have dedicated to the pursuit of the things of this world.

WHY?

Why then do we bear witness of Christ? We witness because it is a vital part of our Christian growth. We witness because it is part of the process of sanctification. We witness because it draws us closer to Jesus. We witness because it is, perhaps, the only meaningful contribution we can make to this world. But most of all we witness because Jesus has changed our hearts. We witness because we love Jesus and we long to do His will. We witness because our love for Jesus blossoms into love for each other, and we cannot bear to lose the ones we love.