Faithful Witness: Sharing the Gospel Through Suffering

It's often in the most difficult of situations where you get the opportunity to show your faith and to share your faith with other people. When you are suffering as a believer, people are watching you. People are listening to what comes out of your mouth. They're watching, they're listening because they want to know if you're going to be able to handle it. [00:22:12]

And not only that, He's going to use that suffering to help other people if you allow Him to do it. Not one ounce of suffering is wasted in God's economy. Let's look at Acts chapter 16 and let's back up to verse 22 so we can see why they're in prison or what happened that led them to go to prison. [00:22:42]

But at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's chains were loosed. [00:23:07]

I pray they'll praise you when things are hard so that their friends and their family and their neighbors might see how good you are. Lord, I thank you that you changed that man's life through Jesus that day, and not just his life, but his whole family. And I know you can do the same today. [00:24:41]

In the middle of a prison cell, they're singing out to God. They're praising God. And we all know that it's easy to praise God when things are the way they're supposed to be, but it's a lot more difficult when things are not going the way they're supposed to be. And it's different when it comes from a prison cell. [00:25:43]

The presence of tears does not mean the lack of faith. I know there are people in our church right now going through some really difficult times. I had somebody in my office a week ago facing something really, really hard, and their faith in God wasn't wavering. Their belief in God's goodness wasn't wavering, but they were still crying in my office because what they were going through was rough. [00:26:52]

Paul and Silas are suffering and praising God in the midst of it and because of that, they gained an audience. What does verse 25 say? And the prisoners were listening to them. Here's your principle. People are listening and they're watching you when you suffer. When you suffer, you've gained a hearing to be able to share the gospel with somebody. [00:28:09]

If your joy is rooted in your circumstances, then your joy is going to be all over the place. When life is good, God is good. When life is bad, God is bad. If your joy is rooted in your salvation, then nothing will be able to take that away, and you can praise him in prison. [00:30:28]

Their circumstances did not keep them from praising God because their joy was not rooted in their circumstances. And even you, Christians, so many of us, our joy is rooted in what happens to us, and it needs to be deeper than that so it will never be taken away. [00:30:42]

The Japanese have an art form called kintsugi, and it's literally translated golden joinery, and it's the art of repairing broken pottery with a lacquer that's dusted in gold or silver or platinum. And so when a vessel breaks, they repair it with this pretty dust. So the idea is not to hide the flaws, but to make them a focal point. [00:33:33]

We are full of cracks and flaws, but that's how God's grace works itself in. His grace fills the cracks and the world sees him in our weaknesses, his grace in our flaws and mistakes. The fact that we are clay pots makes his grace stand out that much more. God shines through where our wounds have been the deepest and where our mistakes have been the biggest. [00:34:05]

Doing the unexpected good thing often earns you a listen. You gain a hearing when you are kind or when you are good. Doing the right thing, doing the good thing, will get people to listen to you. Let me say this, your example does not increase the credibility of the message. The message is credible with or without you. But your example increases the credibility of your witness. [00:39:07]