AMEN Australia 2019 Conference: Witnesses Unto Me

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network Australia

Edwin Nebblett

Witnesses Unto Me: In the Community

Father in heaven, we just want to thank you for the opportunity to share how we can witness effectively for you, and I pray that your spirit will attend us as we now share together in Jesus' name.

Well, the conclusion of the presentation is being a witness in the community and in the workplace.

And of course, we are following on the same progression with Acts chapter 1, with this being an ensemarian unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Our purpose as Christians is to seek and to save the lost.

I had the privilege several weeks ago of speaking with the organizer of a program that originated at Weimar College, the brainchild of pastor Don McIntosh, called Total Campus Involvement.

I will share more about what they are doing in a little bit, but the young man who was the director of the program summarized what they do with a slogan.

We are called upon to seek and save the lost.

The goal is not to turn them into some kind of a denominational mindset.

But we want them to turn to scripture and to adopt that mindset.

Jesus is the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

He is the light of the world and he bids us to come unto him and learn of him.

He could have made disclosures on sciences that would have placed the discoveries of the greatest men in the background.

But this was not his mission, this was not his work.

He had come to seek and to save that which was lost.

And he could not permit himself to be turned from this 1 object.

Several years ago I read a story in the Sabbath school lesson, you may or may not recall this, an urban neighborhood that had flourished in the 1950s and the early 1960s had become like a war zone in the late 1960s and into the early 70s.

The majority of the families in that community had moved away, leaving a trail of abandoned houses and burned out tenements.

Businesses moved out and drugs and crime moved in to fill the void, making that neighborhood very undesirable to live.

So in 1986, a Christian family left their comfortable home in the suburbs and they moved into this depressed urban setting.

They rebuilt 2 of the burnt out buildings and they made it their homes.

They spent time in the streets, meeting with community groups, mingling with those who remained in the area.

These 2 families were the catalyst that God used to build a church that brought healing and transformation to this dead community.

Their work and impact continues even today, having made a big difference in the lives of those who live there.

We are called upon to be a witness to the world.

Ye are the light of the world, a city that is set upon a hill cannot be hid.

He wants us to Let our light so shine before men that they may see the good works, our good works, and glorify our Father which is in heaven.

The greatest, highest work that we are called upon to do is the presentation of this message.

It is the greatest work that is to be carried on in the world at this time.

There are many ways opened whereby we can be a light to the world.

The work of every follower of Jesus Christ is to seek and save those who are lost.

God will give his Holy Spirit to all who manifest their love for the truth in these works.

And he supplies to all providential opportunities and facilities to make them co-laborers with him.

So the question that is before us is simple.

God supplies and helps us as we cooperate with him to seek and save the lost.

It is for me to cooperate with him to accomplish what he is asking me to do.

So what we need is the right spirit and power.

God will pour upon us the spirit of true labor.

We need power from God, and we need to work with a determined effort.

In the recovery of lost perishing souls, it is not man that affects the work of saving souls, It is God who labors with them.

Again, there is no 1 way to reach others.

I just want to emphasize that We cannot and should not do this alone.

And the Holy Spirit will lead us and guide us in the way that we need to go.

And God will give us wisdom to work intelligently.

This is what the servant says, we must work in different ways and devise different methods and let God work in us to the revealing of truth in himself as the sin-pardoning savior.

May God give us wisdom to work intelligently.

I became more sensitive to this when I was speaking to a family that was working amongst Native Americans in a community a couple of hours away from us.

The terminology, this terminology, guilt, innocence, honor, shame, fear, power, was popularized by an American anthropologist by the name of Ruth Benedict back in 1946 when she, under the invitation of the US Office of War, in order to understand and predict the behavior of the Japanese in World War II.

She studied this and produced a book called the Chrysanthemum and the Sword, Patterns of Japanese culture, where she described, for the first time, the American culture as a guilt culture and the Japanese culture as a shame culture.

In cultural anthropology, just briefly, I just want to let you know that the distinction between a guilt society or a guilt culture or a shame society, also known as a shame culture or a honor shame culture, and a fear culture has been used to characterize different cultures.

The differences can apply on how behavior is governed with respect to government laws, business rules, or social etiquette.

This classification has been applied especially to societies sorting out how their emotions are used to control individuals, especially children by the way, and maintain social order.

Now the reason why this is important is that as you understand the culture that you are seeking to reach, you begin to understand that my mindset, my mindset is more of a western mindset built upon guilt and innocence, is not the same as the mindset in Africa or the mindset in Asia or if you're going to go to Micronesia, not the same mindset.

The significance of this is that you and I need to understand that particularly in a guilt innocence world, their mindset focuses on law and punishment.

A person in this kind of a culture may ask, is my behavior fair or unfair?

This type of culture emphasizes individual conscience.

In a shame culture, the means of control is the inculcation of shame and the complementary threat of ostracism if you don't behave.

So I come in and I introduce this mindset called Christianity and the result that they're gonna have to live with is ostracism.

The shame-honor worldview seeks an honor balance, and it seeks to revenge dynamics.

A person in this kind of culture may ask, shall I look ashamed if I do X or Y?

Or how will people look at me if I become a Y?

Shame cultures are typically based on the concepts of pride and honor, and appearances are what count.

In a fair society, control is kept by a fear of retribution.

Fair and power worldview focuses on physical dominance.

A person in this kind of a culture will say, will someone hurt me if I do such and such?

God has to give us wisdom to work intelligently.

We have to understand who we're working with, who we live with, who we interact with in order to seek to save the lost for the kingdom of heaven.

What I found very interesting at this comment, I had not read this comment before, the method the Lord has marked out to us our way of working.

As a people, we are not to imitate and fall in with the Salvation Army methods.

This is not the work that the Lord has given us to do.

Neither is it our work to condemn them and speak harsh words against them.

As I was speaking with those who are involved in the TCI program, the total campus involvement, they pointed out that the Salvation Army does a great work, a great work, but they are not about seeking and saving the lost.

Witnesses Unto Me: In the Community

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