THE KEY TO EFFECTIVENESS: IDENTITY By Ken Carter Acts 11:19-26
Introduction The church is facing tough times. Until now it has stayed in and near the Jerusalem area. The church members have been instructed in the teachings of Jesus and supported by a fellowship that is expecting the immediate return of the Lord. Now they have been driven out of their comfort zone by persecution. They have gone to cities where they are not particularly welcome. But, in spite of the hostile environment, they are not defeated or discouraged. They boldly and victoriously share Christ in a very effective way.
This was the experience of the early church. What was the key to the church’s members’ effectiveness in sharing Christ? Some of the things we have, they didn’t have. We have community acceptance, beautiful buildings, a finished Bible, a wonderful collection of music, and an organization for resourcing churches that is second to none. We have in common with them the Great Commission, the Holy Spirit, a personal testimony, and the responsibility to share the gospel with every person. With a desire to be as effective as the early Christians were, we should look at the cause of their effectiveness.
The key to their effectiveness seems to be summed up in Acts
11:26 (KJV): “The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” The word Christians is found only three times in the New Testament. First, it is found in this text, then in Acts 26:28, and then in 1 Peter 4:16. In each case, it is the pagan world using the word Christian to identify the believer in Christ.
This meant that the pagan world saw Christ reflected in the lives of the believers. They saw His love, character, purpose, purity, and lifestyle in the believers.
If the pagan world today can see us in the same way, then they will listen to what we say about Christ. If we do not reflect that image, then we must not expect them to listen. The key to our effectiveness is our identity.
Everyone has an identity. Identity is what others think when they see you or hear your name spoken. When I was in grade school, there was a boy who wanted to be a leader. When he was around, we gave him our undivided attention. He may have thought he was popular, but we knew him to be the school bully.
Some identities are nice, but meaningless. When I was a young pastor, I went to a barbershop to get my hair cut. When I would walk in, one of the barbers would see me and say in a loud voice, “Hello, preacher.” I knew that I was being identified. He was really saying, “In case you don’t know it, the preacher just walked in. Don’t do or say anything that might embarrass you.” If all the world knew that I pastored a church and that was all, that alone would not identify me enough with Christ to make my witness effective. There must be a reflection of Christ in my likeness or no one will listen to what I have to say.
What caused these early Christians to have such a powerful reflection of Christ and therefore such an effective witness?
I. Early believers were identified as Christians because of their conversion. Christ had dramatically changed their lives, and they reflected that change in every situation. They did what Jesus would have done in a tough time—they shared the good news.
One of the tragedies of today is that some people want to trust Jesus without their lives being changed. The Bible teaches that old things are passed away and all things are made new when we come to Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). It also teaches that when we trust Jesus, we become new creatures in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 5:17). One must turn loose of the old life through repentance and in faith through the power of the Holy Spirit put on a new life that is totally different.
Every day we live, we must ask ourselves, “How has my new life in Christ made me different from those who do not claim to know Christ?” Jesus asked the disciples what they did more than others. He was talking about love. How do you love? Do you love only those who love you? Do others have to act a certain way, believe a certain way, dress a certain way, or respond a certain way before you can love them? If so, then you are more like the world than you are like Jesus, who never let anything limit His love. While we were still sinners, even before we could be lovable, He loved us enough that He died for us.
The early believers acted like Christ and were identified as Christians. Therefore, their witness had power and was effective.
II. Early believers were identified as Christians because of their commitment. Commitment to God is not measured by what you do for God,
but by what you allow God Himself (who abides in you because of conversion) to do through you.
This is why Paul said that Christ in you is the hope of glory. Paul said that he lived, yet it was not he who lived, but Christ who lived in him. Paul worked, yet it was not he who worked, but Christ who worked through him. He even declared that for him to live was Christ. He was so united with Christ that Christ simply worked in everything Paul did. Christ continued His work of redemption through Paul’s life. This same thing was happening in the lives of these early believers in Antioch.
We have accepted some very subtle substitutions for real commitment, which have hindered the work of Christ from being done in our lives and have kept us from being as effective as we could have been with our witness.
1. We have substituted community righteousness for God’s righteousness. We have convinced ourselves that if we can be accepted by the community as good people, we will have an effective witness. So we work hard at being good neighbors, good friends, good citizens, or good parents until we are recognized as being good. Then we wonder why no one responds to our testimony and witness of Jesus. The reason is that we do not need God’s power in our lives to be good by human standards. To display God’s righteousness, we must have the power and presence of God clearly at work in our lives. This is why Jesus told His disciples that their righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees and the Sadducees or they would never enter the kingdom of God. These two groups were the most respected men of their day in the communities where they lived. There must be something in our lives that reveals the nature of Jesus and cannot be accomplished by human effort if we are to have an effective witness.
2. We have substituted church work for the work of the church. We have allowed ourselves to believe that a commitment to the activities of the church is equal to a commitment to Christ. We should not look for excuses not to assemble ourselves together (a sign of a deep spiritual problem); neither should we think church activities alone are fulfilling Christ’s purpose for our lives. We almost measure the level of a Christian’s growth by his or her loyalty to church activities.
The work of the church is to share the gospel with the lost world. What we do when we assemble equips us to do the work of the church. We serve Christ in our workday world, or we do not serve Him at all.
These early Christians were sharing Christ as persecution drove them into all the world.
3. Finally, we substitute not being bad for being good. My wife and I have three children. When our daughter was 12 and the boys were 9 and 10, we decided that we could leave them at home for about an hour. When we would leave, my wife would say, “You kids be good.” When we returned, if they had not broken anything or turned the house upside down, she would say, “You kids have really been good.” They had not done anything good, they just hadn’t been bad.
Many church members are like that. They think that if they are doing nothing bad, they must be good. They are just doing nothing. You cannot be good by just not being bad. To be good, you must be involved actively in the positive goodness of God, which is always redemptive.
III. How does this work out in our daily lives? No matter what circumstances we find ourselves in, we must make a daily commitment to let Christ’s identity reflect through us. We must say, “Lord, today, create an opportunity, make me aware of it. I am ready (no matter what the cost) to let the world see the difference Jesus Christ has made in my life.”
Perhaps Stephen made that decision and the Lord answered, “Thank you, Stephen, I needed a volunteer today to show a person named Saul how a Christian can die with love and forgiveness.” No one ever died more like Jesus than Stephen did. And Saul, who watched Stephen die and gave approval to his death, was later saved (see Acts 7:54—8:1).
Will you make that kind of decision? Will you say, “Lord, create an opportunity, make me aware of it, and I am ready at any cost to let the world see how You live in my life”? When you can make that kind of decision, you are in the position that the lost world will see you as a Christian, and your witness will be effective.
