What can we learn from Katrina?

Who would have thought we would ever hear this phrase spoken on a radio news
report in America: “Today, about 25,000 refugees were moved from the Superdome in New Orleans
to the Astrodome in Houston.”

For days and days, we’ve watched the tragedy
continue to unfold in Mississippi and Louisiana and, if you are like me, you’ve wrestled with feelings
of shock and disbelief...feelings that, over the last five years, have become all too familiar.

We were barely into the new millennium when we saw towers falling in New York
City and planes crashing into the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania farmland.
Followed by the Anthrax scare and sniper shootings.

We saw bombs over Baghdad and witnessed the ancient land of Abraham become a
war zone for his ancestors. You’d think we had seen enough, but then came the tsunami--a roaring wave that sucked life and innocence out to sea.

And now the results of Katrina. A city sitting in twenty feet of water. Citizens hacking
their way onto roofs and helicopters hovering over neighborhoods. Optimistic rescuers,
opportunistic looters, grateful people, resentful people—we have seen it all.

And many have seen it up close. Katrina came to Houston in the form of 50,000+
evacuees. Some of you are meeting them, feeding them, writing checks, and manning
shifts. And you, as much as any, have reason to wonder...What is going on here? 9/11,
Iraq, tsunami, Katrina. And I didn’t mention nor intend to minimize Hurricanes Dennis and Ivan
and Emily.
Jesus criticized the leaders of his day for
focusing on the weather and ignoring the
signals: “You find it easy enough to forecast the weather—
why can't you read the signs of
the times?” Matthew 16:2-3 (MSG).

What are we to learn from all of this?
I think we’d be wise to pay attention. There are some spiritual lessons that I think God
would want us to learn through this tragedy.
The first lesson we see is...

I. The Nature of Possessions: Temporary

As you’ve listened to evacuees and survivors, have you noticed their words? No one
laments a lost plasma television or submerged SUV. No one runs through the streets yelling,
“My cordless drill is missing” or “My golf clubs have washed away.” If they mourn, it is for people lost.
If they rejoice, it is for people found.

Could Jesus be reminding us that people matter more than possessions? In a land
where we have more malls than high schools, more debt than credit, more clothes to wear than we can wear,
could Christ be saying:
"Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist
in the abundance of his possessions"
(Luke 12:15)?

We see an entire riverboat casino washed up three blocks and placed on top of a
house in a neighborhood. You see demolished $60,000 cars that will never be driven again, hidden in debris. And in the background of our minds we hear the quiet echoes of Jesus saying, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).

Raging hurricanes and broken levees have a way of prying our fingers off the stuff
we love. What was once most precious now means little; what we once ignored is now of
eternal significance.

Those that survived a horrendous scare of losing their precious life find that riches do not come in possessions -
they come in those that we love.

They were rich. Are you that rich?

If you lost everyhting - your job, career, home, friends around the corner - would you be that rich?

If not, you are holding things too tightly:

“Tell those rich in this world's wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so
obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow. Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage—to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they'll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life”
(1 Timothy 6:17-19 MSG).
Through Katrina, Christ tells us: stuff doesn’t matter; people do. Understand the
nature of possessions. Be equally clear on:

II. The Nature of People: Heros and Haters

We see the most incredible servants and stories of selflessness and sacrifice. We see people of the projects rescuing their neighbors, we see civil servants risking their lives for people they’ve never seen.

One six-year-old girl told about the helicopter man who plucked her off a third story porch and lifted her to safety.

That child will never know who that man is. He’ll never seek any applause. He saved her life... all in a day’s work. We saw humanity at its best.

And we saw humanity at its worst.

Looting. Fighting. We heard stories of rapes and robberies. Someone said, “The heavens declare the glory of God but the streets declare the sinfulness of man.” The video footage in New Orleans has confirmed the truthful-ness of that quote. Can you imagine not being able to sleep in the Superdome for fear of your saftey.

We are people of both dignity and depravity. The hurricane blew back more than roofs; it blew the mask off the nature of mankind. The main problem in the world is not Mother Nature, but human nature. Strip away the police barricades, blow down the fences, and the real self is revealed. We are barbaric to the core.

“The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time” Genesis 6:5

We were born with a me-first mentality. You don’t have to teach your kids to argue.
They don’t have to be trained to demand their way. You don’t have to show them how to stomp their feet and pout, it is their nature... indeed it is all of our nature to do so.

“All of us have strayed like sheep. We have left God’s paths to follow our own” (Isaiah 53:6).

God’s chosen word for our fallen condition has three letters- s-I-n. Sin celebrates
the letter in the middle. “I”. Left to our own devices, we lead a godless, out of control life
of “...doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it” (Ephesians 2:3 MSG).

You don’t have to go to New Orleans to see the chaos. Because of sin, the husband ignores his wife, grown men
seduce the young. The young proposition the old. When you do what you want and I do what I want, humanity and
civility implodes.

And when the Katrinas of life blown in, our true nature is revealed and our deepest
need is unveiled: a need deeper than food, more permanent than firm levees. We need,
not a new system, but a new nature. We need to be changed from the inside out.
Which takes us to the third message of Katrina:

III. The Nature of God’s Grace: Inside Out

Much discussion revolves around the future of New Orleans. Will the city be restored? Repaired?
How long will it take? Who will pay for it? One thing is for certain: someone has to clean her up.

No one is suggesting otherwise. Everyone knows, someone has to go in a clean up the mess.

That is what God offers to do with us.
He comes into sin-flooded lives and washes
away the old. Paul reflected on his conversion and he wrote: “He gave us a good bath, and we came out of it new people, washed inside and out by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). Our sins stand no chance against the fire hoses of God’s grace.

But he does more than cleanse us; he rebuilds us. In the form of his Holy Spirit, God moves in and starts a complete renovation project.

“God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your
wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.” (Ephesians 3:20 MSG).

And what we can only dream of doing with New Orleans, God has done with soul after soul, and he will do so with you,
if you let him. The most disturbing stories from the last week are of those who refused to be rescued. Those who spent their final hours trapped in attics and rooms regretting the choice they’d made. They could have been saved. They could have gotten out... but they chose to stay.

Many paid a permanent price.
We don’t have to pay that price. What rescuers did for people on the Gulf Coast, God will do for you. He has entered your world. He has dropped a rope into your sin-swamped life. He will rescue, you simply need to do what that little girl did, let him lift you out.

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord...” (Gen. 6:8).

Think of all the things Noah could not find because of the flood.
He could not find his neighborhood. He could not find his house.
He could not find the comforts of home or the people down the street--there was much he could not find.

But what he could find made all the difference.
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
Noah found grace in the eyes of God.
If you have everything and no grace,
you have nothing.
If you have nothing but grace, you have everything.

Have you found grace? If not, I urge you to do what that little girl told us she did.
When the rescuer appeared on her porch, she grabbed him, pulled him close, and held on.
That’s all you need to do. And if you never have, and would like to, I urge you to reach for
the hand of your rescuer, Jesus Christ.
Your Redeemer lives, too. This hurricane can teach us to trust in Him.
When all seems lost He is our refuge, our strength, our salvation.

If you have already connected to God through Jesus Christ you may want to look at these lessons
from Katrina to evaluate your journey with Christ. You may want to talk to Him about the rebuilding
and renovation that still needs to take place in your life.
As we grow closer and closer to Christ each and everyday.

The table - part 3 "Take of the Bread"

Have you ever been at a BBQ and the burgers look like nasty little hockey pucks, and you say, “What is it?”
When Cathleen and I first got married, she began to cook and I asked that question many times, “What is that?”
If you have kids and you serve them any type of food, they say, “What is it? What is it?”
We were at a big salad bar and some things were not labeled there, and as we were in this buffet line, this woman in front of me said, “What is it?” What is it? That’s a good question. What is it? What is it?

The children of Israel were in Egyptian slavery; they were in Egyptian bondage. And Moses delivered them single-handedly, by the power of God, from Egyptian slavery. You might remember that God told Moses a death angel was going to pass over every household and strike dead the first born male child. He told Moses to tell his people to take an unblemished lamb, to sacrifice the lamb, and to apply the blood on the top of the door post. God said, “Moses, if my people do that, the death angel will pass over their homes sparing them.” And when the night came, the death angel did his deal. And Pharaoh let God’s people go.
So God’s people cruised around in the wilderness for a while. God performed miracle after miracle-parted the Red Sea, had this GPS system going on, guided them at night with fire in the sky, during the daytime with the cloud. God’s people, though, began to enter the moan zone. They began to grumble and murmur and whine. You know how to do that. I know how to do that. “We’re hungry. We wish we could eat the food back in Egypt, back in slavery.”

God did something that night. God rained bread out of heaven and it fell during the darkness. When the children of Israel got up, when they walked out of their tents, here’s what happened. Exodus 16:15,
“When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, ‘What is it?’ For they did not know what it was.”

Do you know what it was? Manna. You know what manna means in Hebrew? “What is it?”
A bread-like substance that God dropped out of heaven. And then God told them this. God said, “Collect enough manna for the day.” God said, “Don’t even think about collecting manna for two, three, four days.” Some people just disregarded God and collected a bunch of manna. And the manna rotted. There was a stench about it; maggots got up all in it. Yuck! That’s bad stuff. God gave them just enough manna for the day. Manna was kind of like a sweet bread. And they would take it and make these tortilla-like things and eat it. God fed his people for 40 years, every day, with manna.
How many single women do we have here in the house? You’re a single woman? You might be saying, “You know what God…drop a manna from heaven in my life! I would like that!” Ha, ha! “And I hope he has a lot of money too!” Ha, ha!
That’s a crazy story isn’t it? I’ve also wondered why is that in the Bible? I mean, the details about that stuff. Maggots and all that? That’s very interesting.

Jump over to the New Testament with me. Jesus was on a roll. He’d just done the Hebrew happy meal miracle when he fed the 5,000. Remember that? He took all this bread and fish and multiplied it. People were full and they’d eaten so much food at this fish fry, and there were 12 baskets left over. The people were talking, “Hey, man, lets make Jesus king. He’s the man. Let’s elevate him where he needs to be.” And Jesus heard this vibe. He felt it and he ran away. He went across the sea to a place called Capernaum.
The crowd who’d eaten their fill the night before got up in the morning and they couldn’t find Jesus. They wanted another Hebrew happy meal miracle. So they chartered a bunch of boats and they cruised over to Capernaum, found this little synagogue, a little church, and who do you think was teaching in the church? Jesus. The place was jammed. I can just see the disciples on the front row, can’t you? “Yeah, preach it. Amen!” Jesus launches into this talk. Most important part of a talk, I think, is the introduction.

Well, Jesus does a strange introduction here. Do you know what he says to the people? “Hey, I know why you’re here. You’re stomachs are growling. You want another Hebrew happy meal. You want me to fill your stomachs again. That is why.” Can’t you imagine what the disciples were doing when Christ launched into this? They were probably going, “Jesus, this is not working. Let’s talk about something else. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall inherit the earth.’ And let’s talk about love and grace. This is not working well, Jesus.”
Jesus was reading the crowd’s email. He knew they were all into hunger, physical hunger. Yet, Jesus turned the tide. You could feel his tenor as he talks about soulish hunger, spiritual hunger, a deeper hunger.
Well, let’s pick up this talk, this message that Christ was doing here in John 6:27. Here’s what Jesus said,
“Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”

There’s a lot in that verse. The #1 title Christ gives himself was the Son of Man. He said, “I am the Son of Man.” Christ said that because he became man. The Bible says [John 1:14], “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”

We don’t serve a sequestered savior. We serve someone who has been there. When the listeners heard Christ make this statement, they got all wigged out on this word “work.” “Work. Work. Oh, work. What kind of work? Work. I’ve got to work for it. Work. Work. W-O-R-K! Work!” Well, what Jesus said now, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures through eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” They missed the essence of it. It’s not work; it’s give.
Look at Verse 28, “Then they asked him, ‘What must we do to do the works God requires?’” What were they thinking about? They weren’t thinking about spiritual food here. They were thinking about their wants, their desires. They were saying, “Jesus, feed me, feed me, feed me.” And their stomachs would have expanded; their thighs would have gotten bigger. They were diet-driven people.
I’ve been in a series called “The Table.” We’ve been saying around here that the church is a table where people come to get fed. I’ve said that the pastor, the leader, the communicator is the dude with the food. The ultimate food deserves the ultimate presentation. We have two themes we think about every time we have church. We want to do what? We want to build believers and we want to serve seekers. We want to build believers and serve seekers. The ultimate food is what?
The bread of life.
[pick up piece of bread.] This is a multi-grain bread-$2.79
Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. I am the cosmic carbohydrate.” He just slammed the Atkins diet right there, didn’t he? Well, these people were thinking about physical food and Christ is talking about spiritual food. They were thinking about their needs, their wants. But Christ got deeper. He again, read their email. He knew what the score really was.

Look at John 6:29, “Jesus answered, ‘The work of God is this: (“Here’s the work of God,” Christ says) to believe in the one he has sent.’” “Believe in the one…” Jesus is talking about God. [The people were like] “God sent you? Believe? That’s believe? There’s nothing I can do? You mean, I can’t work my way in? I can’t get baptized enough or I can’t give enough money or I can’t do enough good works? You mean it’s not something I do? It’s not something I work for?”
The Bible says we’re not saved by works. What would life be like if you were saved by works? We’d go around boasting, “Oh, man, you know, I’m the man because I did this or that. Yeah!” Heaven would be a place like, “See my trophies over there? Yeah, that’s why I’m here man! Oh, woo.” But it’s just not that way. It’s about grace. It’s about grace. And here’s where a lot of people get tripped up.

Let me talk, for example, those who are investigating Christianity, those who are seeking. You might be saying, “Well, you know, I believe in the bread. Jesus said, ‘I am the bread of life.’ I believe in the bread.” Yeah, you intellectually agree. “Whoa, there’s bread.” You might smell the bread. You might kind of taste it. Is that enough? Is that what the word “believe” means? Nope.
You believe me? Belief in Biblical times was a monster word. Belief in this context meant total assimilation. It means to do with Jesus what we do with bread. What do we do with bread? Is bread any good if we say, “Oh, I believe its bread. Smells like bread. Kind of looks like bread.” This bread doesn’t do jack unless I do what? Unless I eat the bread! Christ is saying that, like bread and like digestion, we take it and it becomes a part of us. We must do that with him, the bread of life.
In the book of John, Chapter 6, and throughout John, Jesus makes a bunch of “I am” statements. He said, “I am the light of the world.” Why did he say that? Light in the Bible represents truth. Jesus is truth. And light illuminates a path, a plan, a purpose for all of us.
Jesus said, “I am the gate.” He didn’t say, “I am just a….” He said, “I am the gate.” We get to God through Christ. He is the way. He is the gate. He wasn’t saying, “I am literally a gate and here’s the door knob.” No, no. He said I am the gate.
He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” That means he’s the meaning and the message that we all need.
He said, “I am the vine.” Well, branches can’t be branches unless they’re connected to a vine. Life is not really worth living unless we’re connected to Christ.
Jesus said, “I am the bread. I’m the source. I will satisfy, not physical hunger, but true soulish hunger forever and ever and ever.” Well, what happened? This audience, they were saying, “Okay. Hmm. You’re saying you’re Jesus; you’re saying you’re the Messiah.”
These people were pretty smart. [They knew the Midrash.] The Midrash was a Jewish commentary. And the Midrash said that Moses performed a miracle back when the children of Israel were free from Egyptian bondage. The Midrash says that Moses was the one that caused manna to drop from the heavens. And it also said that the Messiah would duplicate the miracles that Moses had done in his life. Now the Bible doesn’t say that, but the Midrash did.
So these Jews are going, “Okay, well, that’s pretty cool. I’ve been a part of the Hebrew happy meal miracle. And I guess now I’m just waiting for manna. This is going to drop from the sky. Jesus, show me some manna. Show me some sign. You’re saying, believe. Okay, I’ll believe. Show me. Show me the money! Show me the bread, I’m hungry. My stomach is growling. I’d like a bagel with some cream cheese, please.”

These people didn’t get it. Have you every talked to someone who’s been in a situation where you said to yourself, “I don’t understand. I don’t understand. I don’t get it.” These people didn’t get it. The cosmic carbohydrate was right there. The bread of life was right there. They just did not get it.
John Chapter 6:32-35, He says, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven…”
Whoa! Now to us, that’s no big deal. “Oh, okay.” But back in Biblical times? Man, you didn’t mess around with the Big Mo! With Moses? No, no, no, no. You don’t mess with him. Jesus said [paraphrased], “It’s not Moses.” “It is my father”-see, Christ is pointing everybody the right way-“who gives you the true bread (hint, hint) from heaven.”

Verse 33-34, “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘from now on give us this bread.’” They go back to their growling stomachs. I mean, I like to eat, but come on, man! Verse 35,
“Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.’”
Here’s the word “believes” again. We yield our desires, our plans, our strength, our everything to Christ. That’s how we take the bread of life.

Now go back with me again in the Old Testament. Don’t forget Big Mo. Don’t forget God raining manna down from heaven. Don’t forget the foreshadowing of the lamb and the blood, because Jesus is the fulfillment of all of that. We’re in spiritual bondage. Jesus is our deliverer. If we feed on the bread of life, we can be set free from this stranglehold of sin. Jesus is the Lamb of God. He shed his blood on the cross for your sins and mine-something that’s totally outside of us. He gave his body as a living sacrifice so we could be free.

Manna came down from heaven in darkness. Jesus entered this world that was darkened by sin. He entered this world as a light, as a gate, as the way, the truth, and the life-as the source. That manna only temporarily satisfied. “Oh, okay, yummmm. Got some manna. I’m good for 24 hours.” Jesus said, “No, no, no, I’m talking forever, dude. Forever.”

But if you are a seeker, if you’re investigating Christianity, you’re here because of the aroma. It has led you here. It has drawn you here. Don’t just smell it. Don’t just say, “Oh, yeah, okay. Here’s some bread. That’s cool man. Nice bread.” No, no. Eat the bread of life. Eat the bread of life. That’s what you’re looking for.
See, a lot of you have that manna mentality. “Uh, man, if I make this amount of money, that’ll do it.” Well, you know, right now the maggots are already in that stuff. “Well, if I can hang out with this person, marry this person and….” You know that’s not going to do it. “Well, if I get this job and I can drive this or fly there….” Ugh!
Come on, man! It’s not going to work. You know it’s not working. Who are you trying to kid? It’s the bread of life. It’s the bread. You’re looking for the bread, and you don’t even know it. You’re like these people back in Christ’s day. They didn’t know what they were looking for. But that aroma drew them in.

In John 6:51, Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.” We are what we eat. Is that right? That’s true physically and also spiritually. [The verse continues] “This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
I’ll say it again. We receive him within, just like we receive food and drink. Because Jesus goes on and says this, he goes, “This bread is my flesh. And this wine, okay, is my blood. So go ahead and eat my flesh and drink my blood.” He was talking figuratively. He was talking in symbolism. When Jesus said, “I am the gate,” again, he’s not talking about a literal gate. This was a foreshadowing of his death, burial, and resurrection.

So we are what we eat? Have you eaten the bread of life? John 6:58, “This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.”
Maybe you’re a believer. Do you have that manna mentality? Or are you just kind of saying, “Feed me, feed me, feed, feed me?” It’s great to be fed. We’ve got to be fed. But we’ve got to be diet and exercise people! Because if we’re just diet people, our life will have a stench about us. We’ll be covered with maggots. We’ll never do what God wants us to do with the energy and the calories that these carbs give us. To serve, to reach out to the lost!

Maybe you’re a seeker. Maybe you’re investigating the claims of Christ. You need, today, just to tell God what he already knows-that you are sinner and in need of a savior, that you want to take the bread of life, that you realize there’s a gnawing, low-grade awareness that there’s a hunger down deep that’s never been satisfied.

You thought the first, you know, thousand or hundred thousand dollars would do it. You thought having sex with that person would do it. You thought doing that drug would do it. You thought living in that house would do it. But it’s not there. You need the bread. You need the bread. Jesus is not going to take the bread and force it down your throat. I can’t do that either. You’ve got to do it yourself. It’s your prerogative; it’s your call.
(video: www.visualrealityonline.com - vol. 8, "A Matter of Seconds")

The Table - part 2

Review:

Challenge of the church – The church is a table where people come to be fed
The Ultimate Food demands the ultimate presentation
Invest & Invite
talk to the chairs – mature believer, baby believer, and spiritual seeker
beautiful process
we hand out samples of the bread of life everyday
We must push away from the table and serve.
That's the call to the church – ultimate food, ultimate presentation

A LOST WORLD
Researchers indicate as many as 200 million men, women, and children are among the lost. To make it more real to us, as many as
7 out of 10 of the people we know are living outside, away from God.

“God is patient, because he wants everyone to turn from sin and no one to be lost.” 2 Peter 3:9

Let's look over history's big picture and we see this theme of God's proactive intervention to rescue the lost. Whenever the people He created wandered deeper into the darkness, He didn't wait for them to come to their senses and return. He sent people out to bring His children back.
We see this reflected in Abraham when he rescued his nephew Lot from Sodom and Gomarrah. - in Moses when he returned to Egypt to bring the people of Israel out from bondage. We see it in the book of Judges as God sent rescuers again and again to deliver His people from the consequences of their sin and disobedience. We see it in David, and Daniel, and Nehemiah, and on and on...

Jesus is the ultimate illustration of God's redemptive love in action.
God sent His Son, as a human, knowing He would have to die, to reach out to the sin-darkened world. He determined this sacrifice was the price to pay for bringing us home to the Father. And none of us had to clean up our act 1st or attain some righteous standards.

Just believe.

The parables Jesus told in Luke 15 reinforce this theme of active, redemptive love. The woman sweeping her whole house and searching everywhere until she finds her 1 lost coin – which represents God's search for us – So does the shepherd, willing to leave the warm, safe fold with the 99 sheep in order to search the cold, dark, dangerous wilderness for one lost lamb.

God said, “He wants everyone to turn from sin and no one to be lost.”
But this theme of God's proactive intervention to rescue the lost doesn't end with Christ – it continues... it continues through all of us.

Committed Christ-followers are the primary instruments God uses to find lost people in our world. The local church, the people of God, are His 1st and foremost rescue squad. Now these that are lost aren't going to be found if we, the church, stay in some sort of holy huddle and hope they're found .
We must GO where they are and find them.

Look at what Luke 10 says,
“After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out..." Luke 10:1-3

We have, I have and you have been appointed by Christ to GO out
and find them – to invest and invite.

WE ARE GOD'S RESCUE SQUAD
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8

1st let's clarify something that confuses many believers. God doesn't call all believers to be evangelists. Evangelism is a spiritual gift. There's a pretty big difference between the spiritual gift of evangelism and simply sharing your faith.
Billy Graham has the spiritual gift of evangelism. He has been so effective with so many people b/c it's the Holy Spirit at work through his spiritual gift.

While most of us are not called to a gifted ministry of evangelism, all believers are called to be witnesses for Christ.
The role of every Christ-follower is to learn how to live it out.
Scripture is clear, look at 1 Peter 3:15,
“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”
We are to be a Voice of Hope

We are all called to be witnesses for Jesus. Witnessing is the method God uses to reach people in an everyday way. HOW?
Through those who we have some relational contact with. Those we work with, socialize with, hang out with, that we are related to, that we recently met.
We are all called to be witnesses, to share our story.

It's the call on each of our lives

How do we live out that call:

1st skill – nurture and develop your own relationship w/ God
If we aren't growing spiritually ourselves, we probably don't have anything worth sharing, nothing of eternal value w/ our spiritual seeking friends or family.
If we aren't spiritually healthy ourselves, we probably won't share – b/c we may even be embarrassed at how little positive influence Jesus is having in our own lives.
How do we nurture and develop our own relationship w/ God?
Pray, read, meditate, worship, fast, submit, serve...

2nd skill – get a grasp of culture
Communicating & living in a highly secular culture raises all kinds of boundaries between believers and non-believers. If we were sending you overseas to another culture as a missionary, you might get 2 yrs.
of language and culture training before you began ministry. Our situation here is no different. We must know what is going on around us to effectively communicate to lost people.

3rd skill – Build effective relationships
This is absolutely crucial. We must be able to spend time with and develop a trusting friendship with those that do not know Christ personally. HOW?
Hang out, be real, be transparent, have fun, care about, encourage, learn from, be selfless... (past messages, 'Live Beyond Myself' series; 'The Jedi Council' Star Wars series; book: 'Be A People Person' by John Maxwell)

4th skill – Share your faith
In developing friendships w/ seekers opportunities will arise to share your faith, your belief in God. We need to be able to do that. There will also come times when you 1st meet an individual, maybe at someone's b-day party, a work or school function, and in just a few moments of meeting them an opportunity may arise for you to share about the love of Christ. 1 Peter 3:15
Here's an EZ format to remember:

Share your story
- life before Christ
- how you came to know Christ
- life after Christ

Share God's story
- life w/out Christ
- life in Christ

5th skill – Nurture new believers
Just as a new parent has to learn how to care for and nurture their own child, we as believers need to learn how to nurture the spiritual growth and development of new followers of Christ.
This takes time, it takes patience, it takes a willingness to place that other persons needs above our own.
Hang out, talk about what God is doing in their lives, let them share, you listen, give help if needed, encourage...

This is the call each of us has – we are called to be witnesses – to share our faith, to share the love of Christ, to be a voice of hope.