R221 When You Witness

Welcome to The Encouraging Word, featuring the Bible-based preaching of Dr. Don Wilton. Let's open God's Word together to John chapter 1. In just a moment, it's John chapter 1 verse 19 for Dr. Don Wilton to share the message, When You Witness. And while we're studying, remember we're available online as well at www.tewonline.org.

Now, Dr. Don Wilton. Turn with me in your Bibles this morning to John's Gospel in chapter 1. We began our study in the Gospel of John and we looked at what is commonly known as the prologue, the beginning, the introduction to this incredible Gospel. We discovered some marvelous truths about the Lord Jesus Christ. We discovered in those first 18 verses that Jesus Christ is God, contrary to public opinion. We also discovered that Jesus Christ is the creator of everything in this universe. We also discovered that Jesus Christ is the one who has been rejected by many, many people.

But He is also the one that we discovered has been accepted by many. And the Bible tells us that as many as came to Him, as many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become the sons of God, even to those that believe on His name. And then we discovered that this same Jesus became flesh and He dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and full of truth.

And you will recall that John in his introduction was laying the groundwork for that which was to follow. Well, beginning in verse 19, we have the great announcement that takes place, the arrival of the Lord Jesus Christ among men. And I've entitled our message this morning, When You Witness.

When You Witness. Let's read a few verses beginning at verse 19. Now this was John's testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask Him who He was.

Just by the way, I want you to notice who these people were. Now I also want you to notice that in verse 19, that word to ask is not just simply a friendly inquiry into His well-being. That word there carries with it a direct connotation in a law court. It means to cross-examine. These people came to John and they began to interrogate Him. And any time you find that word interrogation, it means, my friends, that they are actually, they're angry about something.

That there is a hidden agenda behind the question which is being asked. Verse 20, John did not fail to confess, but he confessed freely, I am not the Christ. They asked Him then, Who are you? Are you Elijah? And He said, I am not. Are you the prophet? He answered, No. Finally they said, Who are you then? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us.

What do you say about yourself? John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, I am the voice of one calling in the desert. Make straight the way of the Lord. Now some Pharisees who had been sent questioned Him. Why then do you baptize if you are not Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?

Listen to what He says. I baptize with water, John replied, but among you stands someone you do not know. Isn't that incredible? Isn't it incredible to think that these were clergymen coming to question John about whether or not he was the Christ and John's reply amongst many other things is a stinging indictment of their own lostness. John turns around and says, even if he was here, you wouldn't know who he is because despite your clerical gob and despite your seminary training and despite your theological understanding, you've never met the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then he goes on and he says in verse 27, He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. Now this all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan where John was baptizing. The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and he said, Look, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

This is the one I meant when I said, A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me. Remember the first verse, look back at John chapter 1 and verse 1, In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God and the Word was God with God in the beginning. Look what he says in verse 31, in verse 30, A man who comes after me who has surpassed me because he was before me. Then in verse 31, I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel. Then John gave this testimony, I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain upon him. I would not have known him except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain as he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. And here it is, I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.

May the Lord write His Word upon our hearts this morning. When you witness, there are many things that I have witnessed, many things that you have witnessed. I witnessed something rather incredible to say the least. I took my little girl, Shelly, to one of these places where you get hamburgers and they have a place where children can play, you know.

They have little plastic balls and nets and they have tunnels going up this way and down that way and things you can drop out of and parachute from. I mean just all kinds of stuff and I bought myself a few french fries and went and sat outside and my daughter climbed through the tunnel and got in these balls and the next minute there were a number of children playing in there. They were having the time of their lives.

I mean this was the ultimate experience as far as they were concerned. A little while later, one of the mothers finally stood up and she said in the sweetest motherly voice I have ever heard, she said, honey, it's time to go. And I want to tell you something, Sweetie Pie obviously didn't hear her. And Sweetie Pie just, she didn't turn her head, she just ignored it. Well, about three seconds later, Mommy looked over again and said, Sweetie Pie, I think it's time to go now.

And poofykins did not so much as bat an eyelid. I mean she didn't say boo bah or kiss my foot, I mean nothing. She just ignored Mom, I mean it was a total shutout. I thought, uh oh, here we go.

If I could have a video now I'd win $10,000 on America's Funniest Home Videos. I knew what was coming, at least I thought I did. The next minute Mom took a few steps up toward the net because there were people all over, you see, and she walked up and she said, I say, Sweetie Pie, it is time to go. The little girl kind of looked up and said, I'm playing, Mommy.

She said, well, it's time to go now. And little one dived back into the balls again, disappeared. So Mommy went right up to the net and she said, Sweetie Pie, come here. And I could see her face changing, folks, from a one of pleasant disposition to one of definite hookworm treatment. I mean there was a marked look of disdainfulness upon her face and she crept up and she looked straight at her daughter and she said, you will come here right now. And the little girl got up and walked up to the net and put her hands in the net and she must have been tremendous.

She's going to make a great ballplayer because she's got anticipation. Mom came from about here to give her a smack through the net to tell her it was time to go. The little girl anticipated it and fell back into these balls and disappeared again and the mother kind of looked around and she said, I've had enough, I could just see it. She started to take her shoes off.

Boys, taking this shoe off and this shoe off, she had both shoes off. You know what she was going to do, don't you? Man, she went to that little tunnel, she walked around there, she began to get through the hole, she got through into that tunnel and she got stuck. Being the pastor of a great church, I wasn't about to go and give her a push in you know where.

I'd be a man of integrity all the way. If she gets stuck, that's her problem. Well, finally she managed to pop herself out. I mean, she was pulling like this and she kind of went out the hole like that. She went flying out the one end, head first into the balls and disappeared. I mean, she was underneath those balls. I mean, she came up looking like this and her daughter wasn't there. But I knew where she was. She went out that tunnel, over the top, down the other side, out and now she was standing outside the net. And she said, Mommy, don't you think it's time to go now?

I won't tell you what happened to her when she finally got out there, because mother now had to try and get back out of this thing, despite the sign that said children under three only. You see, I stood there and I watched this and I experienced it. Here in John chapter 1 and verse 19, we begin the dynamic of the experience of knowing who the Lamb of God is. What we're going to find repeatedly throughout God's Word is that when you and I become impacted by the gospel of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to God's Word, it is impossible to witness firsthand the dramatic account of knowing that you know, that you know that you know that your sins are forgiven, that you're born again, that you're washed and redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, and yet to go on as if nothing had ever happened. That's what it means when you witness. I believe that what is happening here is that the criterion is set, the foundation is laid, the dynamics are placed in place, the prerogative is set, the mandate is given, the commission is ordered that you and I stand and that we proclaim to the world, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. But I believe that the more we begin to study this passage, the more we begin to understand the biblical dynamic of what happens when we do witness. There are five reminders that I believe the apostle would make here in these particular verses. Number one, when we do witness, always remember that opposition can come from the most unlikely sources.

Let me run that by again. If we really understand verse 19 and then verse 22 and then consistently throughout the New Testament, we must remember, always remember, my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, that when we do witness, that opposition can and most likely will come from the most unlikely sources. Here it came from clergymen.

Can you believe that? That's what the Bible says in verse 19. Now this was John's testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to come and interrogate him concerning his witness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Friends, when I began to read this, it really began to strike home in my own heart as pastor of a great church. It really began to speak to me as a former professor of preaching and evangelism in a seminary. It really began to drive home the point to me in my personal and public ministry as I began to examine my heart and say to myself, is there anything in my life that would hinder and obstruct and become opposition to the witness of the cross of Christ Jesus? You'd say to me today, Dr. Wilton, what does that mean? It means, my friends, that as a witness, always remember that there are going to be people who are not going to like it one bit that you have come into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and many times those people are people that you would least expect it from.

That's right. I went to go and speak to a man, not a member of this church. Someone asked me to go and visit with him and as I spoke to him just for a brief moment, he began to tell me, he said to me, Preacher, I am a Christian. I don't go to church very often. I find it so difficult because my home environment is a total contradiction to everything that God is. This man almost with tears in his eyes said to me, Pastor, the greatest opposition I have to my witness comes from my own wife that I love with all my heart. I have heard wives say that the greatest opposition to the gospel comes from my own husband, comes from my son, it comes from my daughter, it comes from my friend, it comes from my denomination, it comes from my church, it comes from my community. I want to say to you, friends, that if John reminds us of anything, that we are not God.

We must always remember in the second place that we are not God. Look with me at verse 20. It's remarkable here that these people came to interrogate John.

Here we have this incredible announcement. Look back at verse 15. Look at me, just look at verse 15. John testifies concerning him. He cries out saying, This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me has surpassed me from, because he was before me, from the fullness of his grace. Just think about what happens when we accept this Jesus. The Lamb of God, the fullness of his grace, we have all received one blessing after another, for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through the Lord Jesus Christ.

These people didn't like us one bit. And so they began to go to him and question him and interrogate him. In fact, if you go on to verse 22, the Bible says, finally they said, Who are you? Give us, we demand, that is an imperative, give us, we demand an explanation from you to take back to these who have sent us. Isn't it amazing that sometimes in the antagonism of the non-Christian world, people begin to blame everybody else when the water hits the wheel?

Please tell us because we want to go back to those who sent us. What is it that you say about yourself? And then in verse 20, he did not fail to confess. The Bible teaches us, my friends, that John did not stop telling people about Jesus, but he did something that was very important.

He never forgot that he was not Jesus Christ. Please forgive the interruption. Dr. Dunn will be right back with the conclusion of today's message when you witness in just a moment. But Dr. Dunn wants me to remind you, there are giants in the lands. And when we know the story of the giants that David kind of had to go face to face, there may be some situations that you and I face right now that are allowing us to discover the David in us so that we can conquer those giants together in the power of God. Again, the series is called Walking with God's Giants.

It's available on our website right now at tewonline.org. We'll give you some more information in a minute. But know that in addition to that, one of the joys of our ministry is to pray with you against those giants.

Let's see those giants fall here as we launch 2021 together. Feel free to call us anytime at 866-899-WORD. That is 866-899-9673. Now back to today's message with Dr. Don Wilton. You see, friends, there is a point beyond which none of us can go.

Man has a limited capacity in that he can only look upon the outward appearance, but God looks upon the heart. Here it is. Here it is. I can do a lot of things for you this morning. I can tell you that you must be born again. I can tell you, my friend, that I want you to know that what Jesus Christ has done for me, He'll do exactly the same for you upstairs and downstairs by way of television. Here in our choir, God will do something for you that nobody else can do.

I can invite you to get up publicly and give your life to Christ. I can lead you right up to the water, but I cannot make you drink. The Bible says that all people who are outside of Jesus Christ are depicted as being desperately thirsty. Jesus said, whoever comes and drinks of me will take a drink of the living water, and as a result will never thirst again.

Why? Because Jesus Christ is the fountain of life. In John chapter 1 and the verse 19 verses, what is He? He is the light of the world, and He comes into darkness, and the darkness comprehends Him not, but to as many as did receive Him.

To them gave He the power, the right to become the sons of God, even to those that believe on His name. You say to me today, pastor, what is witnessing? Witnessing is sharing Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results up to God, because salvation is the sovereign work of the sovereign God. There is nothing that I can do for your salvation.

I can only tell you how to be saved. And so what must we remember when we witness? We must remember that opposition sometimes will come from the most unlikely sources, but we must also remember that we are not God, but in the third place we must remember who we are representing. When we witness, we must remember in the third place who we are representing. I want you to look at me, verses 29 through 34. I'm not going to read them all again, but it's apparently obvious and abundantly clear that when we witness, we are representing two different people.

Did you know that? When you witness, when you take a stand for Jesus Christ, you and I are representing two people. Number one, we are representing one another. We're representing fellow believers.

I have spoken about billboards here before. Let me tell you, friend, there is a sense in which every born-again believer is a billboard for every other born-again believer. The tragedies of the 80s with the fall of some of the men of God in the 80s was not just a personal tragedy for them and for their families, it was a personal tragedy for all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'll ask you something, who watched you this week? Who watched you?

What did people see? You see, what John is saying here, my friend, is that when we witness, we must always remember the people we are representing. We not only represent one another, but we represent in the second place the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul put it like this in 2 Corinthians, chapter 6 and verse 1. He said, we are His ambassadors. That's right, we stand there in the place of God for God. We are representing Him. We speak with His authority. We speak with His dignity.

We carry His availability. We speak with His accuracy. We are representatives of who God is. Friends, when we go about the business of witnessing, we must not only forget, we must never forget that opposition will come from the most unlikely sources. We must always remember that we are not God. We must always remember who we are representing, but in the fourth place, we must always remember when we witness where we came from.

We must always remember where we came from. In verse 23, John says, I am the voice of one calling in the desert, make straight the way of the Lord. You see, friends, the Bible teaches us that the only difference between the best of us in here and the worst of them out there is the grace of God.

That's the only difference. And I want to say to you that the mandate in John's Gospel is that when we witness, we must never forget where we came from. We must never forget that the Bible teaches that in Adam all die. All of us are born in a wilderness experience. All of us are the voice of one crying in the heat, in the dust, dying of thirst.

Why? Because the Bible says that we are born dead in our trespasses and in our sins. We are indeed the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord. When we witness, never forget where we came from. But I want you to notice in the fifth place, when we witness, always remember to focus everything on the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 29, we read, The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Verse 34, look at it with me. I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God. When we do witness, my friends, let's always focus our attention on Jesus Christ.

You see, sometimes we beat around the bush so much, we forget what bush we're beating around, don't we? Sometimes we can get involved in talking about the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees. We can talk about everything under the noonday sun, accepting the Lord Jesus Christ. We can talk about Jonah. We can talk about Genesis. We can talk about the books of the Bible. We can talk about tithing and stewardship. We can talk about church membership. We can talk about baptism, my friend, but we've got to focus on Jesus Christ.

Indeed, that is the focus. Our teaching time is gone with Dr. Wilton. Oh, what a powerful week of teaching it's been. If you missed some of today's message or others throughout the week, you can find all the ways to listen and watch on our website at tewonline.org.

That's tewonline.org. But as we wrap up this series of five messages together, wrap up this week of teaching, I pray that you and I would not allow ourselves to come out of any teaching of God's word and be content to stay the same. Is there something that you need to do, a course correction, an adjustment that you need to make? If so, I pray that you would open your heart to letting the Lord speak to you about what that is. And for some, it's the first step to a brand new life. Before we close, here are closing thoughts from our pastor and chief encourager, Dr. Don Wilton. God has spoken to you, hasn't He? And you're ready to give your heart to Jesus.

I'd love to help you right now. Would you pray this prayer with me and accept Jesus into your heart and life? Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner.

I know that Jesus loves me and died for me on the cross. Right now, I repent of my sin and I confess my sin to the Lord Jesus Christ. Come into my heart and save me today and forgive me for my sin. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. If you've prayed that prayer, we'd love to get alongside of you and celebrate with you and send you some literature and help you as you begin to grow.

And I want you to know that I love you very, very much. If you just gave your life to Jesus Christ, welcome to the family of God. Maybe you rededicated your life. Welcome back. You need to let somebody know, and why not let us know?

Let us rejoice and put some resources in your hands that will help you grow. The phone number is 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673. And Dr. Don has resources specifically for you, free for you that have given your life to Christ. 866-899-9673. And if you have more questions, want to have more interaction, you can do it on our website as well at www.tewonline.org.

That's www.tewonline.org, where you'll discover great resources like this. God's intended purpose for us never changed. We are not defeated. We are overcomers through Jesus Christ. The Word of God is alive and is relevant to all times in which we live. There are countless testimonies of people who walked with God in the Bible. They are our cloud of witnesses to encourage us on the Christian journey.

Learn from them. You can walk with God's giants. With your gift of $20 or more in support of the encouraging Word, you will receive the first of Dr. Wilton's new dynamic two-part series, Walking with God's Giants. Series 1, Walking with God's Giants, is available on CD or DVD and includes four messages on the lives of Abraham, Moses, Samuel, and Hannah. Call us today at 866-899-WORD to request Series 1, Walking with God's Giants. Thank you for your continued partnership to help us share the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world. Our time's gone for today, but we're connecting online at www.tewonline.org. Spend some time worshiping the Lord with us this weekend. That's online at www.tewonline.org.