Hi Friends,
This Sunday, we saw Jesus instructing His disciples about how they should bear witness to what they had experienced in Him. Bearing witness is not about being skillful but being truthful and telling what you know. Since, as Christians, we have all experienced Jesus, we are all then called by Jesus to bear witness to others about the truth concerning HIm. One of the ways we saw Jesus teach about how to bear witness is through using Scripture. God’s word is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Heb 4:12 ESV) God’s word can do things far beyond what our words ever could. The best way to be a witness is not to talk about Christian concepts but to get people into direct contact with the living, active, piercing word of God.
One of the most readily available ways to do this is to take people through what is known as the Romans Road. The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to the church in Rome to teach them about the Gospel of Jesus and the implications for how the Gospel should affect our lives. Romans is different from other letters in the NT. Most of the other letters were written to correct specific situations (like Galatians, or 1 Corinthian) or address particular circumstances (like Philemon or 1 John). However, Paul wrote Romans to give a general overview of the Gospel to the church in Rome. So the letter of Romans is a great letter to use when witnessing about the Gospel.
Romans 1:20-21
20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
There is a Creator who can be seen and known through His creation. Yet, everyone rejects the truth about him to justify living in unrighteous ways.
Rom 3:23
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
To sin means to “miss the mark.” It was a measurement used in archery to show how far off someone was from hitting the bullseye. We were created to live for God. TO glorify him by showing that He is our supreme treasure and delight. But we allow so many other things to be first in our lives, giving them a place that only God deserves. This is sin, and we all do it.
Romans 6:23
The wages of sin is death
Sin is not without consequences. If we seek to find our lives outside of God, then we will only experience death. God is life, and there is no true spiritual vitality apart from Him. So what sin pays out is death, eternal separation from God.
Rom 5:8
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God loves us so much that He does not want to leave us in our sins. Jesus came, fully God and fully man, so that as a man he could take on the sins that humans commit and that as God, He could endure the eternal punishment that we deserve. The wage of sin that should be paid to us, Jesus took for us on the cross.
Rom 10:9-10 ESV
if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
If we put our trust in Jesus, then the death He died on the cross gets applied against our debt of death, and we are saved from getting what our life of sin deserves. Salvation does not come through trying to be a good person but through trusting in the good news of Jesus.
This is just one example of how to use Scripture. Depending on who someone is, the questions they have, the life experiences they have gone through, you might want to use different Scriptures for witnessing. But the main point is that we want to let God’s word speak for itself. So as you continue to grow in your walk with the Lord and understanding of His word, don’t just have yourself in mind. Instead, think about how you can use what you are learning to bear witness about the God that you love.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Jeff