Daily Meditations from John N. N. Ng'ang'a: week of 27th sept-3rd oct 2010..... Witnessing Must be Strategic
Day 1
Col 1:26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints.NIV
As we saw last week one of the weakness of the church of Jesus Christ is the fact many of us who are serving the church have just been commissioned by the bishop, or have been commissioned by a church not by Christ.. Primarily, God who cannot lie, God who cannot forget you is the one who has commissioned you, if so there will be a lot of difference with one appointed by untrustworthy men. We also saw we need to give the whole message to the whole world which means that you don’t try to get people to be kind of camouflage Christians.
That is what we are calling the wealth health gospel…… Making it look like if you come to Christ nothing will ever go wrong. That’s totally untrue. Tell them the whole gospel. The truth of the gospel. And when you give the whole gospel, the whole Word, preach it fully, when people come to Christ, they will not be coming and then feeling disappointed because they commit themselves to the truth of the gospel.
Christ is not commissioning us to give half gospels. It is to actually give the whole gospel.
Then verse twenty six says this gospel is the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations but is now disclosed to the saints.
The gospel is no longer for a few but for the whole world. It is disclosed to all people.. It was kept hidden among the Jews. That’s why it is called a mystery…. A hidden truth. A mystery is a hidden truth. Now it is no longer a hidden truth. Now it is meant for the Rendilles, it is meant for the Gabbra, it is meant for the Kikuyus, it is meant for everybody in the whole world.
So remember you are being commissioned to a gospel that has no limits.. There is nobody you pick out and say, that one is not the type to get saved. This gospel is a hidden truth that has to be declared to everyone. Paul said that he regarded himself especially called to make the truth to all mankind, not to some people.
Day 2
Col 1:27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. NIV
This means that to which ever unreached people group… God has chosen to make Himself known. In other words it is God who has chosen to make it known to everyone. He is the one who has chosen the Rendilles. Who are you to refuse the Rendilles to know the Lord yet He is the one who has selected them? He has made the choice. It has pleased him to make it known.
He is saying the gospel is the glorious riches of the mystery….. the rich glory of this great long concealed truth. It is Something which is valuable. Something that abounds. In other words the gospel is bigger than any riches. It is better than gold, it is better than silver. The meaning here is, that the truth that gospel was to be preached to all mankind is a truth that is abounding in glory.
Do you really count yourself privileged? In other words I may not have money in the bank but to be born again is such a rich inheritance I should feel privileged.. There is nothing bigger than knowing Christ. You know I keep telling my children, if there is something I would really pray for them ,it is that they may know God. Do you know there is nothing, you can become a professional, you can become rich, but when you don’t know Christ, joy never comes your way. True joy has nothing to do with where you are in the social ladder. True joy is the knowledge… that God is in control.
That’s why he is calling it riches which is Christ in you the hope of glory. In other words the truth of the gospel gives hope. Why it is being called rich is that the gospel actually summarizes Christ as revealed among you as the source of the hope of glory in the better world to come… in other words when you know Christ you have hope.
Day 3
Col 1:28 We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.NIV
Hope is a great truth that animated the heart of Paul to realize that when you know Christ you actually have hope. Is that what you regard your Christianity that knowing Christ gives you hope even in the most hopeless situation. That’s why we are saying that this message that you are being commissioned to give is Christ in you becoming the hope of glory.
That without Christ you become despondent and hopeless. With Christ, there is no despondency, there is no hopelessness. That’s what he is saying you are being commissioned to do... give hope.
Verse twenty eight says, we proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone that wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.
the first word is we proclaim him. Then afterward he says, and we teach everyone. And that’s what you need to understand that if you truly want to understand the commissioning, the commissioning is not just proclamation. The commissioning is that you both proclaim ,and witness and teach. What is to proclaim? To proclaim is to just declare. But you know to teach means to go below the level of declaration.
many of us in our witnessing, we regard evangelism as just proclaiming. But I think God is saying you need to go to a lower level and get somebody to understand. You know many of us say, ooh people have rejected Christ. But you know sometimes you are really saying the wrong thing. They haven’t rejected Christ. In their village, all the people that were born again were old women with long dresses that were sweeping the streets. So, now you meet a girl in town and you tell her get saved, what’s in her mind? That you are telling her to wear a dress that sweeps the streets. Is that in the Bible? No. but that’s her understanding.
So when you would proclaim the gospel without teaching, you will feel like they are rejecting. But they are not rejecting Christ, they are rejecting long dress. when I was a small boy before I got saved, we used to part hair, but in the tukutendereza movement, to part hair, you know to draw a line across your hair…as a teenage boy was regarded as sin. of course now it is no longer an issue but in the sixties, seventies, it was a big thing in my village. When you are a young man, you want girls to notice you, you draw a line across your head suing your the hair. I don’t know why we did it as Africans but that’s what we did. And the Christian people said, no, that’s a sin. Hiyo shetani, shetani.
So it meant that when I got saved, I now could not do the thing. So you tell the other boys to get saved they say, haiya me, and then I cannot have lori? We used to call it lori, but I don’t know why it was called lori. if you really are commissioned by Christ , you are not commissioned to confuse people, you must tell them the true gospel because in a lot of times what people are refusing is not the Christ of the Bible. They are refusing another Christ that is in the Christian culture.
Day 4
28 We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.NIV
I believe that one of the biggest impediments to Christianity is Christianity itself or the church and the kind of things they have actually put in, that are not required by the Bible but the church itself.. And Paul himself is saying, we proclaim him, we mention Christ the hope of glory, admonishing but also teaching everyone with all wisdom. In other words if you truly want people to get saved then you must use wisdom. The meaning of this is that he and his fellow labourers endeavoured to manifest true wisdom in the method in which they instructed others.
It is important that you clearly strategize how to reach somebody for Christ. Use wisdom. That’s what Paul is saying. I have been commissioned to declare the gospel yes, but also to admonish and teach using wisdom. Is that what the church is doing today? Are we using wisdom? Do we speak in a way that they can understand?
The other day I was surprised when a girl from our village, said that what she remembers is when I was in high school and she was a small girl, during holidays I would go and teach Sunday School. I can’t remember doing it but this lady, now with children that have left university. But she says that I talked about the blood of Jesus and said that if the children came to the Lord, they would be washed with the blood of Jesus. She was in shock.She went home and told her mother, that man who came told us that we are going to be washed with the blood of Jesus. Mama I will not go to Sunday School again. Or mama would you allow me to be washed with the blood? I will never go to Sunday School again. According to the lady… the mother was a very wise lady. She says, ‘is that what they said….. they are going to wash you with blood. My daughter, now I give you advice, don’t fail to go to Sunday School but always sit at the back, when they start washing people with blood, they will start with the front then you will run away.’
Now, can you imagine, for a child who is about in standard two, it didn’t make any meaning. That’s what Paul is saying, we teach with wisdom. So that what we are being commissioned is not to just payuka and say words. You must think clearly how to communicate. And you don’t communicate using your language. If the Rendilles don’t know English, don’t go preach in English. Preach in Rendille. It is you to learn the language of the Rendilles. If in Sunday school learn the language of the children.
Day 5
28 We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.NIV
Does speaking the language of the target group sound difficult?
That sounds like a difficult thing. It is for me as a person in my late fifties to actually learn the language of teenagers called sheng. Isn’t it? If I want to witness to them, I must learn their language. And the same with you neighbour. Don’t go to your neighbor and say, eeh have you been washed with the blood of Jesus? She might throw you out before you know it.
It is important to understand, what language does she speak? Then you speak on the basis of his language. That’s what commission means. we are talking about what you have been commissioned to do. Paul is saying he has been commissioned to proclaim, to admonish and to teach with all wisdom. So that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. In other words your aim is not to fill up the church hall everywhere with people that have converted. You know a lot of people who have converted don’t know what they have converted to. He is saying they need to presented as mature, everyone perfect in Christ. Your aim is to give to Jesus Christ mature disciples.
That’s why in Matthew 28 we are told, go and preach the gospel. Those who believe we are told to teach. Isn’t it? And that’s one of the things that is lacking in the church where you have to find a way when people come to Christ they are babies. Paul calls them babies. It is the work of the church to help them to mature. To teach them and so that they can grow.
Day 6
Col 1:28-29 To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me. NIV
In other words, that’s what I have been commissioned to achieve . But because I have been commissioned, I don’t take it lightly, I labour. To this end I labour. In other words I am very clear what God has called me to do. And I am committed to laboring. My ministry has an objective. It is not just being active. I am very clear.
I always ask, why am I doing what am doing ? I undertake any thing to meet my objective. You know a lot of activities the church undertakes you have to ask yourself, how does it help the mission given by Jesus to his church if this is his church?
Just go through the church calendars and many, many of the activities you cannot find them in the gospel, what they are doing is not helping the gospel. the Bible is saying you have no marks for doing just any question , you have marks for only doing those things that meet the objective the examiners questions..
So Paul is saying, for this end ….he objective I have just been discussing, I labour. Elsewhere he says, I don’t box like somebody beating the wind, I target my boxing so that I may knock the devil out. In other words you must have a systematic way of dealing with the witnessing and with the gospel message. I must have an objective.
Another time, may be fifteen, twenty years ago, a neighbor died. And then I went to the house. Everybody was totally quiet. And in the quietness, you know, death becomes even more death when nobody is talking. And I didn’t know the relatives but I knew the late man. As we were seated there, I said, is it possible we sing. It is like they were waiting for somebody to sing. Then after I led some singing, the widow, the wife of the man who had died called me and says, is it possible you can take the series of the meetings from now onwards. I already got a very busy diary. I realized, what have I got myself into? I said, what about your church? They said they went to church and they were asked,’ let’s check the register’. They checked the register and, they don’t seem to have been tithing So the church said, ‘sorry, we have nothing to do with your man. He is not in our register.’ So there she was totally lost what to do.
In the village they knew the pastor because of their father would be okay. But here, what is happening. Can you imagine a pastor who tells a non-Christian that they will not evangelize his neighbours and his relatives because he has not paid money? Doesn’t it tell you that pastor has no idea what he was called to? Because if you are called to evangelize , do you know we even pay money to the newspapers to advertise crusades? Isn’t it? Do you know a funeral is a crusade with an advert in a newspaper? Because when you read an advert announcing death, they will say the prayers will be in the house of so and so. So when you go the whole place is full, your work is to preach. The church never paid the money for advert, it is free advertising. But many, many churches tell you clearly, we don’t get involved in funerals of people who are not born again.
Day 7
Col 1:28-29 To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me. NIV
If you had two funerals, one of person born again, the other one not born again, you would forget the one born again. Isn’t it? The saved relatives can even preach to themselves. If you are invited by people who don’t even attend church, isn’t that where everybody should go? Isn’t it? But you can see clearly a lot of the things the church does clearly tells you they don’t have an end to their activities in mind. They just do activities. But Paul is saying. No, I am not like that. I have an objective and I follow that objective. So I struggle with all my energy.
In other words we should not be just struggling but struggling with an objective. It is within my mission. He checks out the things he is doing. With all his energy which so powerfully works in me. His energy, by the way he doesn’t talk about my energy. It is his energy. In other words the activities you are undertaking is not your human energy, it is God’s energy. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.
What we are learning is, what we have been commissioned to do is not something you do lightly, if it is God who has sent you to do it, then you must do with all your energy.
So do you see yourself as in God’s business in whatever undertaking you are currently involved in? if so do you give all your effort into it? Do you seek his energy in doing it?