Sent To Tell the Story

Every Christian is called to bear witness to who Jesus is and what he has accomplished by his death, burial, and resurrection from the dead for those who believe in Him and confess him. 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, Romans 10:4-13. We are to witness to him by using his Word recorded in the promise in the Law, the prophets, and the psalms, and how Jesus fulfilled them as the Messiah as recorded in the New Testament. Examples are given in Acts 5, 7, and 8 of Peter, Stephen and Philip doing as Christ commanded in Luke 24:44-49.

Bible Insights with  Wayne Conrad
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Psalms 119:105 Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

Transcript

Sent to Tell the Story

Podcast by Wayne Conrad

Welcome to Bible Insights with Wayne Conrad. God's word is a lamp to our feet and a light on our path. Today's topic, we are sent by God to tell the story. Sent by God. God is ascending God. Before Christ ever came, he sent the prophets to testify that one who is promised in the covenant would come to bring about the salvation of his people.

And in the course of time, the Son, who is the Word made flesh, came. In turn, the Son, the Messiah, in his work here on earth, gathered around him eyewitnesses to his life, to his deeds as a Messiah. They saw his actions that were the fulfillment of the scriptures of old, and they constitute the eyewitnesses to Christ, and especially to his death, burial, and his resurrection.

For he appeared to them over a 40-day period after his resurrection from the dead, in which he gave them specific commandments to bear witness to him. Listen to what he said. This is on the evening of the day he was raised from the dead, when he gathered with 11, I think it was only 10 of them at that time, together, and then the others who had seen him on the road to Emmaus also joined them. But in Luke 24, we read the following words, beginning at verse 44. Jesus appears to them and then he says, this is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms. Then he opened their minds so that they could understand the scriptures. He told them, this is what is written.

The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, to all people groups, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I'm going to send you what my father has promised, but stay in the city until you've been clothed with power from on high. So what What's going to be sent to them was the Holy Spirit, who would give them the power to bear witness to Jesus as the Christ. That is our Lord's commission. He gave this commission to his disciples on the very day he was raised from the dead. They bore faithful witness to Christ. and they did exactly what he told them to do. That is, they took the scriptures of old and they showed how Jesus was the promised Messiah. I want to demonstrate that to you by looking in the book of Acts.

And I want to give you briefly some examples of bearing witness to Jesus Christ. Because you see, all Christians, all believers, are commanded and commissioned by the Lord Jesus himself to bear witness to him. We're all called to be witnesses. Well, to what do we witness? Sometimes people think that this means that we share our testimony. Well, your testimony can be a way in which you say, this is how the gospel has affected me. But the sharing of our own testimony does not necessarily constitute the sharing of the gospel.

Because the gospel is about Jesus himself. It's about the person of Jesus. Who is he? He's the promised one of God. But what does that mean? It means that he's the word made flesh. It means that he who was the eternal son became one born of Mary. He took to himself humanity and added his humanity to deity. This one man, the Lord Jesus Christ then, bore in his own body our sins on the cross. And he paid the debt of those sins. He overcame Satan and all that is evil against us. He himself is the gospel.

And so to bear witness to the gospel, we must bear witness to him, to who he is, and to what he did through his death, his burial, and his resurrection. Let me demonstrate that to you from the book of Acts. Turn with me to Acts chapter five, if you want. But in Acts chapter five, the apostles, after They have been healing many in the name of the Lord Jesus. And many have come to hear the message of Christ and been saved.

The apostles were arrested by the Sanhedrin, that is the leadership, the council of the leading Jews in the city. This was their judicial court. They were arrested and the high priest and his associates convened the Sanhedrin and had Peter and Paul brought before them. And they had spent the night in jail, but now they appear before them the next day. And at this point, the captain brings in the apostles and they brought them in and made them stand before the Sanhedrin where the high priest interrogated them. And here's what he said.

We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name. Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us responsible for this man's blood." Peter and the other apostles replied, We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him to his right hand as Prince and Savior in order to grant repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.

Now, when the council members heard this, they were enraged, and they resolved to put the apostles to death. But there was a Pharisee among them named Gamaliel who urged them to be cautious because if it was not true, then he would die out on his own. But if it was true, then they would not be able to stop him. At any rate, what they did was that they let him go.

But notice what Peter and the other apostles did. Though they are being interrogated by the enemies, they use that opportunity to at least succinctly bear witness to Christ. to tell them they had to obey Him, they had to obey God, and that Jesus was the one who was raised up by God. He's the one promised by God, though they had killed Him by hanging Him on a tree, but God showed that He was the Messiah by raising Him from the dead, and that through belief in His name, forgiveness of sins could be experienced. bearing witness, even when you're hauled before the enemies of the cross." Now, they weren't able to pull out a Bible and go through certain verses trying to trace the Roman road, which is okay if we can use that. But what I'm saying is they zeroed in on the main message. Who is Jesus? And what did he accomplish by his death and his resurrection from the dead?

Well, the next example given to us in the book of Acts is that of Stephen. Now, Stephen was one of the seven that had been chosen by the congregation of the assembly to assist the apostles in the distribution of the daily food. We later called these deacons, then they were called the seven. But Stephen didn't just wait on tables. Stephen was one who bore effective witness to Jesus Christ. And he is again, hauled before the authorities. The high priest then asked Stephen, I'm reading from Acts chapter seven, are these charges true? Because you see, when Stephen was bearing witness to Christ, there was a group who were against him, and they stirred up the people, and so now Stephen is brought before the Sanhedrin.

And Stephen then takes his opportunity to actually give them an entire teaching of what we would call biblical theology. He traces Christ beginning way at the time when God appeared to Abraham. He says, the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia. And then he lays out before them God's progressive revelation in the covenant he established with Abraham. in the covenant that he established with Moses after he used Moses to bring out the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery. to what God does later with the testimony of the tabernacle that was built under David. In other words, what Stephen did is he uses the principal men that God has raised up as prophets and with whom he had had covenantal dealings and set before them the proof that Jesus is the Christ from the scriptures of old.

Then he comes down to the end of his sermon and he begins to apply the teaching of the prophets to the Sanhedrin and others that are there because they do not heed the message that the prophets gave. and that bear testimony to Jesus Christ. He begins to teach them that God does not simply dwell in a house that's constructed in his name. Though God had chosen to do that, that is not his permanent dwelling. And he gives testimony beginning at Acts chapter seven in verse 47.

It was Solomon who built the house for him. However, the most high does not dwell in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or where will my place of repose be? Has not my hand made all these things?

But then what often gets you into difficulty as a preacher or as a witness to Christ is that he applies the word of God to their unbelief. He says to them, you stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit just as your fathers did. Which of the prophets did your fathers fail to persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the righteous one. And now you are his betrayers and murderers, You received the law ordained by angels, yet you have not kept it. Under this conviction, they hearing it became enraged. They gnashed their teeth at him and drug him out away from the people. And he began to still testify of Christ until the stones snuffed out his life.

That's Stephen. He bears a eloquent testimony, opening up the scriptures from the Old Testament, what we call biblical theology, to prove that Jesus is the Christ. He's doing exactly what Jesus said to show how he was in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms, and that they all testified that the Messiah would suffer rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations. Well, the next example is that of Siloam. And we have Philip's testimony given in Acts chapter eight. Philip went away into the city of Samaria after persecution arose against the church following the death of Stephen. And there he demonstrated that Jesus was the Christ by not only preaching the message, but by the signs that God gave that accompanied the word. the possession of unclean spirits that were cast out of people, and many that were paralyzed and lame were healed.

There was great joy in that city, and people began to believe in the name of Christ. It says in Acts 8, 12, when they believed Philip as he preached the gospel of the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Now that's what happened, you see. When you believe the message about Jesus Christ, then what you do is that you're baptized in his name. And then God, he promises to forgive you of your sins because Christ has done all that's necessary for him to be the justifier of you because he bore your sins in his own body on the tree.

Well, Philip left the area of Samaria after Peter and John had come down to establish these believers more in the gospel and to bestow upon them the gift of the Holy Spirit, again testifying that the Gentiles are here, the half-Jews, to be brought into the kingdom just as the Jews.

And God directs Philip to go on a desert road, the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. And as he starts out on the way, on the way he meets an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official in charge of the entire treasury of Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians. He had gone to Jerusalem to worship.

And on his return, he was sitting in his chariot reading Isaiah the prophet. So obviously with money, he was able to purchase a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. And as Philip hears this man reading from the prophet, Philip runs up to him because the spirit prompts him and he goes over to that chariot and stays by it and with opportunity presents itself. He asked the man reading the Isaiah of the prophet, do you understand what you're reading? Philip said. And how can I, the Ethiopian eunuch said, unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. So the eunuch was reading from this passage of Scripture. It's found in Isaiah, chapter 53. He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as the lamb before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation, he was deprived of justice. Who can recount his descendants? For his life was removed from the earth. Tell me, said the eunuch, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?

And then Philip began with this very scripture that he was reading, told him the good news about Jesus Christ. Now, that's quite a conversation. I wish I'd been able to hear it. And it lasted quite a while because he told him the whole story. And as they travel along the road, they come to some water that is a body of water. And the eunuch says, look, here's water.

What is there to prevent me from being baptized, from being immersed? Because, you see, he had heard from Philip that those who believed in the Christ were immersed in his name. And so he gave orders to the chariot to stop. Then both he and Philip Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. And so he became a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he takes the gospel to Ethiopia.

Now, we could go on with other examples, but I think this is enough to show you from the first sections of Acts how the apostles understood Jesus' words and how they moved to obey them. So what does this say to us? As believers, I need to bear witness to Christ. I need to evangelize. That is, I need to tell others about Jesus. Well, what is the message that I must bring to them? I must take the Word of God given in what we call the Old Testament, and I have to show how it talks about the Christ who is to come, and from the New Testament, I show them how Christ fulfilled all of these things.

And therefore, his death, his burial, his resurrection from the dead is not simply a story about events that happened to him, but these are the deeds by which he saves his people. And that those who put their faith in him will receive the forgiveness of their sins and justification before God. They will be accepted of God because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ that is imputed or credited to them. Bearing witness to Jesus Christ is an important responsibility of Christians.

We need to prepare ourselves in order to do that effectively and in accordance with the word of God. Study to make yourself not only a student of the word who can teach others, but study God's word in order to be an effective witness to Christ so that you can take God's word, a promise, and show how Jesus in his earthly life fulfilled all that was responsible, all that's laid out that he would do, and urge men and women then to put their faith in Christ.

We cannot save anyone. We can't be pressing people to say a prayer after us. We can present them the message, we can urge them to believe, and certainly we can pray for them. And we can ask God to open their understanding and to open their hearts by giving them the new birth so that they will confess Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior. 

This has been Wayne Conrad with Bible Insights.