The Lord Worked With Them

Before Jesus returned to His Father, He commissioned His disciples to go out to the entire world and to preach the good news of salvation through faith in Him.  As soon as He gave them this commission, Christ was taken up into Heaven and seated at the right hand of God.   His disciples, however, lost no time in fulfilling their commission.   As soon as they had been filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, which would come to them not many days later, they immediately went out and preached everywhere.

The Bible says that when they did this, “the Lord worked with them.”    Notice what the Bible does not say; it does not say that the Lord worked for them, but with them.  

If we want to take part in Christ’s commission to His Church, we have to give the Lord something to work with.  We can’t just expect Jesus to do it all as far as evangelizing and making disciples are concerned.

When the Lord’s disciples received the gift of the Holy Spirit in the upper room, what did they do?   Did they remain behind locked doors where they could simply pray the Gospel into men’s hearts or pray men into God’s Kingdom?    Of course not.   They immediately went out and preached to the crowds.   As a result, 3,000 came to faith in Christ that day.  As the days went by, and the Lord’s disciples continued to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, more and more people came to faith in Him.    In fact, the Bible says that “the Lord added to their number daily.”

If you take a look at the way the Church evangelized in her early years, and compare it with the way many are attempting to reach people for Christ today, you will see a vast difference.  Most people in today’s church want Jesus to do the reaching out to their children, their co-workers, their neighbors, or their friends.    While they busy themselves with prayer meetings, Bible studies, church potlucks, and Sunday morning church attendance, they pray that Jesus will move upon the hearts of their loved ones and “save them.”

If we want our children to serve the Lord, what are we giving God to work with in their lives so that they might come to know Him?   Do we teach them the Word of God?    Do we sit down with them and teach them the Catechism?     Do we take them to Mass?     If we want God to “work with us,” just as He worked with His disciples, what are we giving Him to work with?   While prayer is one of the most valuable things that we can do for others, we must understand that the Lord is calling His people to do more than just pray.    If Christ’s first disciples had simply decided to pray the people into the church, the Gospel never would have spread.     If they had just remained behind church doors and prayed, “Oh, Lord, send the sinners in!” I doubt the Gospel would have spread all over the world as it has today.

A lot of us are intimidated when it comes to sharing our faith in Jesus.   Some are intimidated because they think that they have to be theologians in order to speak to others about Jesus.   Others are intimidated because there is a huge element of Christians out there today who are very offensive and aggressive in the way that they share the Gospel, and they don’t want to be taken for one of them.

When I was living in New Jersey, I used to take the bus into Philadelphia each morning in order to commute to work.   One morning, the bus stopped at a street corner in Center City in order to let a man off.  The man had his brief case in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other hand.   He was ready to start the day.   As soon as he stepped off of the bus, a man carrying a huge sign that said JOHN 3:16 stepped out from behind a tree and screamed at him at the top of his lungs:    “You are on your way to Hell, sinner!   Repent!   Repent, heathen, for the Lord is calling!”

I can assure you that that individual made absolutely no positive impact for Christ and His Kingdom that morning.   This is not the way in which Christ and His apostles shared the Gospel, and it is not the way that we should share it as well.

One of the first ways in which we are called to share Christ with others is to simply live the Christian life before them.   This method of “preaching” goes a lot farther than words, and it is why Saint Francis often said, “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary, use words.”     In the Book of Titus, Christians are instructed to live in a right way before God “so that in every way we will make the teaching about Christ our Savior attractive.”  .    Elsewhere, Peter instructed the church as follows:  “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong [because you want to be a Christian], they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us.” .    A few sentences down in his same letter, Peter instructed wives as follows:  “Wives… if any of your husbands do not believe the Word, let them be won over without words by your behavior.  Let them see the purity and reverence of your lives.”.

I believe that the number-one reason why the church in the West is making very little impact for Christ and His Kingdom is because of the way in which many who profess to be in Christ are living.   Their lives are not making the teaching of Christ attractive; if anything, their lives are bringing great reproach to the name of the Lord.   Bookstores are filled with Christian books.   Music stores are filled with gospel music.  Churches today have become departmentalized and offer a plethora of programs to their communities.  Not only this, but modern technology has made it possible to do so much for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And yet, the churches today are not making any real impact in spite of all these things.   This is because many are not living as true disciples of Christ have been called to live.  Their love for the world has not been crucified, and for the most part, neither has their flesh.   When people look at them, they don’t see any difference between them and the rest of the world, and this is the hard truth.  We are to be the aroma of Christ to the world, but many still reek of the world and the flesh, and it is an offensive stench that has turned off many to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Christians get offended when statements like this are made because they don’t want to take responsibility for the harm that their lives are doing for Christ and His cause.   It’s a lot easier to blame others than it is to point at ourselves, isn’t it?  It’s a lot easier to drive around with our “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven” bumper stickers, isn’t it?   The unbelieving world sees right through those bumper stickers, brothers and sisters, and it’s high time we wake up to this truth and stop trying to hide our unholy living behind them.

We need to take a good, hard look at the lives that we are living before others to see if we are truly the reflection of Christ in this world to others.   When people look at you, they should see Jesus, not a church-goer.   Whether we want to accept this truth or not, there is a big difference between the two.