Share the Faith, Live the Faith

While the official beginning of fall is still a few weeks away, when the Great Grange Fair is over and tailgating begins at Beaver Stadium, we know that summer is over and fall is ready to begin. This change of season brings new opportunities for us and it gives us the chance to make a new beginning of our faith. Maybe one of the most important verses in the Bible that can teach us how to get the most out of our faith comes from the little know book in the New Testament called Philemon. The book is actually a letter written by the apostle Paul to a friend named Philemon and while the bulk of the letter is Paul asking his friend to welcome back a runaway slave who has since become a Christian, there is a verse here that tells us what we need to do to get the most out our of our faith. Since Philemon is really only one chapter the verse we want to consider is Philemon 6 - I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.


What Paul is saying is that if we want to get the most out of our faith, if we want to have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ and if we want to know all that Jesus means for our lives, our families and the world around us, then we need to be active in sharing our faith. Now before you tune me out because door to door evangelism, street preaching or proselytizing your friends and coworkers is not your thing, let me be clear that this kind of faith sharing is NOT what Paul is talking about. There are some people who are gifted in engaging others in spiritual conversations and they can go out and talk about Jesus to total strangers in authentic, powerful and life changing ways and if you are one of those people, God bless you! Seriously, God bless you because it is a gift to be able to be used by God in those kinds of situations, but most of us aren’t put together that way.


When I was in college I attended a leadership retreat on evangelism. It was a weekend retreat held in Ann Arbor MI, home of the University of Michigan and it was a home football weekend. On Saturday afternoon during the game we went out into the streets of Ann Arbor in pairs to talk to people about Jesus. For me it was one of the most uncomfortable afternoons I have ever spent. The conversations seemed forced and awkward and most people were skeptical and uninterested in talking to total strangers about their spiritual life. The only significant conversations we had were with people who were already Christian and wanted to know more about what we were doing – and why. All in all, it was not a productive afternoon and one of the things I learned that weekend is that this kind of faith sharing was not for me, so what was for me? What was it going to mean for me to be active in sharing my faith? What does it mean for us to be active in sharing our faith? You see, it’s important for us to be able to answer this question because as Paul says it is in sharing our faith that we begin to understand all that we have in Christ Jesus.

It’s only in sharing our faith that we get the most out of our faith, so what does it mean for us to actively share our faith? Very simply, I think sharing our faith means we intentionally live out our faith in every aspect of our lives. It means we live out our faith at work, at home, at football games, at school, in the stores, in our cars and in every relationship and conversation we have with others because as we live out our faith, people will see Jesus in us and when they see Jesus in us, when they hear Jesus in our words and experience his love in our actions, we are sharing our faith. In a recent article on the faith of teenagers it said that congregations that are able to cultivate a vital faith in teens are congregations where adults (that would be parents, pastors, teachers and mentors) engage in conversations, prayer, Bible reading, and service that nurture faith and life. In other words, when we engage in our own faith, when we are living out our faith in real and consistent ways, we are sharing faith with our children. When our children, friends, neighbors or coworkers see us read the Bible, pray, engage in small group discussions on our faith and serve in and through the church, when they see us live out our faith, they learn something about Jesus. So we become the most active in sharing our faith when we are simply living out our faith.


Think about how you have become a Christian and how you have grown in your own faith. Most of us are not here today because someone knocked on our door and told us about Jesus. Most of us are not here because a stranger came up to us and asked if were saved or if we wanted to know Jesus; we are here because we saw our parents or grandparents or perhaps a friend following Jesus and so we decided to join them. Even if we didn’t grow up in the church or in a Christian home, we are probably a follower of Jesus because we saw someone that we knew and loved and trusted living out their faith in such a way that we become interested and then at some point decided to give it a try ourselves. So again, maybe the best way to share our faith is to simply live it out intentionally and passionately and allow people to see and hear Jesus in what we say and do.


I think Paul makes this point clear in his letter to Philemon. Again the bulk of his letter is addressing the situation of forgiveness and acceptance. Paul has asked his friend to welcome back Onesimus who was once a slave owned by Philemon but who at some point had run away. Onesimus then became a Christian and somehow became a friend and even a partner in ministry with Paul, but Paul sends Onesimus back home hoping that Philemon will forgive him and welcome him not as a slave but as a brother in Christ. Paul is giving Philemon the opportunity to actively share his faith not be preaching or teaching, but by being willing to love and forgive. What we see here is that perhaps the most powerful statement we can make about sharing our faith has little to do with preaching and everything to do with living.


So we share our faith most powerfully when we simply follow Jesus and do what Jesus calls us to do and love the way Jesus calls us to love – but living out our faith this way does more than just give a witness to others, it helps us understand everything we have in Christ Jesus. I know this will sound simple, but we get the most out of our faith when we intentionally and faithfully follow Jesus. We will learn more about Jesus when we attend Sunday School and join small groups where together we can talk to one another about God. And if you really want to learn about Jesus and experience the full power of God then don’t just attend Sunday School, be willing to try leading a class or a Bible Study because I guarantee you that the people who learn the most in any kind of small group class are the leaders! We experience more of our faith when we are willing to get more involved in living out our faith. We will experience more of God in worship when we get involved in worship by singing in the choir or helping serve in some way. We will learn more abut the power of God when we get involved in the mission or ministry of Christ in the world around us. We will experience more of the joy there is in the church when we get involved in the life of the church and share our faith and our life’s journey with one another. We can’t get the most out of our faith if unless we are willing to put something into our faith.


This same principles works in just about every area of life. We get more out of relationships when we are willing to put more into them. We get more out of a sport the more we know about it and sometimes the real passion for a sport doesn’t come until we get involved and play it. We don’t know the real joy of cooking by reading a cookbook – we have stand in a kitchen and smell the food, try a recipe and then enjoy the meal. There was a movie out a number of years ago called Good Will Hunting and in that movie Robin Williams played a counselor who meets with a troubled young man who is very smart, but not very wise, he has lots of head knowledge but he has been afraid to really get involved in any lasting relationship. There is a wonderful line from that movie where Robin Williams says to this young man, If I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him, his life's work, political aspirations, his connection to the pope, the whole work, right? But I bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling.


To get the most out of anything we have to be willing to invest ourselves in real ways. To appreciate art we have to see it not just read about it. To appreciate Big Ten Football you have to go to Beaver Stadium and hear the roar of the crowd and experience the thunderous cheer of We Are – Penn State. And if we want to really grab hold of all that God has for us in a relationship with Jesus, if we want to experience the full measure of God’s grace and love and power then we have to get involved. We will never know all that God has given us in Christ until we are walking with Jesus everyday, and while we need to learn about God, it’s more important for us to put ourselves in places where we can love God and experience God’s love for us.


As a new year begins in the life of the church we have a great opportunity to get up off the sidelines and get into the game. Next week during Sunday School we going to have a rally, an open house really, where you can talk to people who lead Sunday School classes, small groups and a variety of ministries in the life of Faith Church. Sunday School and small group leaders will be there to share what their groups are learning and they can help guide and direct you to the right place for you to learn. There will be leaders from different ministries in the church to share how you get involved in anything from the choir to the UMW to children and youth ministry. They will be there to help show us how we can get involved in sharing our faith so that we can get the most out of our faith.


Today is a new day, it’s the beginning of a new season so let’s make the most of our faith and get involved so that we can come to a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ Jesus our Lord.