WITNESS TO OTHERS NOT JUST EACH OTHER.

Many years ago, during my unsaved youth, I attended a party at which large quantities of alcohol were being served. I, like everybody else, imbibed liberally and, like everybody else, suffered the consequences. Some, however, suffered more severe consequences than others.

One such victim was a young friend who was rendered unconscious by the liquor. In a gesture of valiant compassion I and another friend, hoisted this young woman to her feet, threw an arm around each shoulder and started up the driveway with the intention of escorting her to the comparative safety of the roadside where we could hail her a cab. However, on reaching the summit, my friend and I discovered that our arms were around each other and we had left our unconscious friend lying prostrate at the bottom of the driveway. In our alcoholic haze it felt like we were helping our fallen comrade, but in reality we were embracing each other.

Sometimes we Christians can be a bit like that. We kid ourselves that we're helping the world, when, in reality, we're just focused on each other and leaving the unsaved behind, face down in the dirt.

Don't get me wrong, it's very important for us to be there for each other. Witnessing Christians get hammered and need the support of like-minded people. Jesus commands us to do this: John 15:12-14:
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.

But then he follows it up with this in John 15:26-16:1;
When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. All this I have told you so that you will not go astray.

"We also must testify”. As committed, practicing Christians we have to be so careful that we don't fall into the trap of just focusing our care and attention on the easy targets : each other. Christ commands us to testify about him. To each other? Certainly. To encourage each other. To remind each other that Christ is there working for us, even when it doesn't feel like it. But also to witness to others: Mark 16: 15-16: He said to them,
"Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned."

That's pretty clear isn't it: "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation". The apostle Paul elaborates on this in 2 Corinthians 5:18- 20;
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.

You are not an ambassador if you are representing Australia to Australians or Christianity to Christians. You have to represent your kind to a different kind. Christ to the unsaved.

Father, we thank you for this ministry of reconciliation that you have bequeathed to all of us. We ask you, Lord, to strengthen our resolve in bringing the gospel to the unsaved in our community, in reconciling the world back to you. Amen.