This article is based on Pastor Adrian Rogers' message, Making Jesus Known.
There is no answer to the problems of this world apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. That is not just rhetoric; that is absolute truth.
If we want to do something new, we need to study something old. We need to go back to the very fundamentals. How did the Early Church share the Gospel and make Jesus known?
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. (Matthew 28:19-20).
Jesus did not say, “Make decisions.” He said to make disciples.
People talk about great revival crusades and say, “We had a thousand decisions.” But how many disciples did you get?
A disciple is a learner, a follower—somebody who has a new master.
Baptism is part of the Great Commission to the Church. A lot of evangelism programs do not emphasize baptism, and that is wrong.
If you are a believer and you have not been baptized, you are living in sheer disobedience to our Lord. This is not incidental. Jesus began His public ministry by being baptized Himself, and He concluded it by commanding baptism.
When you get baptized, you are saying, “I am identifying myself with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I am not ashamed of Jesus.”
We are to make disciples, mark disciples, and then mature them—“teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20a). We bring people to Jesus. We baptize them. Then we move those believers in Jesus toward maturity and ministry.
Say to yourself, “This message is for me. God wants me to share the Gospel.” Here are three things to do.
The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God (Acts 1:1-3).
“…of all that Jesus began both to do and teach…” That is, Jesus had not finished. Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke to tell of what Jesus did. The emphasis in the Book of Acts is what Jesus is continuing to do.
The Church is the body of Jesus on this Earth. Do not let that go over your head. He lives in us, and if we do not understand that we will be superficial. God wants us to be supernatural.
Christians are not just nice people; we are a new creation in Christ. Jesus does not want us to do anything for Him. He wants to do something through us. “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Recognize God’s presence in you.
And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people (Acts 5:12a).
Say to Him, “Lord God, use me.”
And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me…” (Acts 1:4).
The promise of the Father was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God upon the Church on the Day of Pentecost, fifty days after the resurrection of Christ.
Christ told His followers they were to be witnesses. To whom was He speaking? The disciples were a motley crowd. Tax collectors, fishermen, and ordinary people. Unlettered. No finances. No colleges and seminaries or political clout. Yet they were given a mission to share the good news of God’s love to the uttermost parts of the world.
But Jesus said, “Do not go out until you are endued with power from on high.” (See Luke 24:49.)
The followers of Jesus went out against the imperial strength of Rome, against sophisticated intellectualism, and against the stiff-necked bigotry of the Jews. The apostles turned that world upside down. How? They had power from on high.
Today, we do not have to wait to be filled with the Spirit. Pentecost has come. What we need to do is surrender ourselves to that power and say, “Lord, I am ready, willing, and able, through Your Holy Spirit, to do what You want me to do.”
When we look at what our Lord has commanded us to do, we are totally inadequate—but for the promise of the Holy Spirit.
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8).
We do not have to wonder what Christ wants us to do. If you are saved, you are a Christian witness. “Wait a minute—I don’t know how to witness for Jesus.” Train yourself! Jesus did not say, “You shall be my lawyer.” What is the difference between a witness and a lawyer? A lawyer argues a case. A witness tells what he has seen and heard.
Some people do not witness because they have not seen or heard anything. But if you know Jesus, you cannot help but be a witness. People will ask you questions that you cannot answer. A witness does not have to know the answer to everything. All they want to know in a courtroom is, what have you seen and heard? Just the facts, ma’am.
There was a man born blind. Jesus opened his eyes. The enemies of Christ began to interrogate this man, asking, “Who healed you? By what authority did he heal you?” (Read John 9:1-12.)
This man had never even known of Jesus before he opened his eyes. “He answered and said, ‘Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see’” (John 9:25).
Here is a good answer that you can always use. It will take a lot of pressure off you. If somebody asks a question you do not understand, you say: “I don’t know.”
They will begin to believe you when you tell them what you do know.
How are we going to make Jesus known to this world? We say, “We’re going to go all over the world!” But we are to make Him known also in our own home counties. If you are not a witness here, 2000 miles of ocean will not make you a witness. Age is no barrier. Education is no barrier. Social status is no barrier. God can use you!
Acts 1:1-8, 5:12; Matthew 28:19-20; Galatians 2:20; Luke 24:49; John 9:1-12,25
Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:46-48).
If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son. He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son (1 John 5:9-10).
