Faithfulness to the Great Commission (Urbana 84)
by Cliffe KnechtleLive. Live in such a way that when you stand before Jesus Christ you will hear from his lips, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.'
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Growing up at home was pure joy. Every night my mother and father put each
one of their, six children to bed with a Bible story, a memory verse, a prayer
and a verse of the hymn "Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus." My parents disciplined
us. I'll never forget my father saying, "Cliffe, if you don't learn to
obey me, you will never learn to obey your Father in heaven." And at an
early age each one of us put our faith in Jesus Christ.
Mom and Dad taught us the principles found in Luke 16:10. Jesus says, "He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much" (RSV). Our society says power, pleasure, money and me. God says love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Live a life of faithful obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no way that I will ever be able to adequately thank God for what he taught me through my mother and father.
"I'm Free! I'm Free!"
When I was in junior high, God began to grow in me a hatred for sin and a love for people who are hurting. I saw sin tear apart human lives. I experienced the pain of sin in my own life. My pride, my self-centeredness, my lust, my greed, separated me from God and from others. And I hated it. I began to see that if you shut Christ out of your life, you ultimately will be an empty person.
My friends in prep school had everything they wanted in life. The guys I played basketball, soccer and tennis with had any girlfriend they wanted, and sexually they did anything they wanted to do. Most of them drove new cars and had swimming pools in their back yards.
But one of my buddies jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco screaming, "I'm free! I'm free!" My friend is not free. My friend is dead. He was the son of an executive vice president of an insurance corporation in Manhattan. I had another high-school buddy who ended it all on a drug high, an overdose. He was the son of an executive vice president of a bank in New York City. They both had it all materially and sexually. But they made the cataclysmic mistake of refusing to fill that God-shaped vacuum at the center of their lives with Christ's love. They ended up empty.
I graduated from high school and went to Davidson College. My goal in college was to play basketball. And I played at Davidson College - in every practice. For every game, I had a good seat-front row. I was the worst player on the team. And as the worst player on the team, I had to communicate Christ to my teammates. And I began to question, "Hey, God! If I was an all-southern-conference basketball player, if I was a starter, if I was a little bit better at this game, these guys would listen to me a lot better, wouldn't they?" And God began to teach me that in my weakness his power would be made perfect. No, God has not called me to be a superstar. No, God has not called me to be famous. Yes, God has called me to be a faithful ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ. The question is, am I going to say yes, or am I going to say no? God has been faithful in slowly giving me the courage to say yes.
The Making of an Evangelist
From my classmates at Davidson I learned that evangelists were usually ego-tripping, money-snatching individuals. But God in his faithfulness brought into my life Leighton and Jean Ford. Leighton Ford is an evangelist who is more concerned about individuals than about his reputation. He is a faithful husband. Jean is a faithful wife. And they are faithful parents. They raised three children to know, love and obey the Lord Jesus Christ.
Three years ago their eldest son, Sandy, died on the operating table during open-heart surgery. I'll never forget the funeral, because afterward Leighton took me into a room and said, "Cliffe, I feel like walking out into the woods, lying down and dying." But he went out and he preached. He stood before people and he said, "God loves you, and he's proven it by sending his Son Jesus Christ to bleed and die on a cross for you." And all the time he was saying that, he had this deep hole in his heart over the loss of his own flesh and blood. But you see, Leighton and Jean Ford have not based their lives on their feelings. Rather, they have based their lives on Christ's promises, on their commitment to Christ as Lord. God in his faithfulness has sustained Leighton and Jean through that horrible crisis. God has used them as an example to me of faithfulness, of courage, of commitment.
After graduating from Davidson, I attended Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary outside Boston. I prayed every night, "God, open the doors for me to preach the gospel." No invitations came. I prayed harder. And one night when I was praying, the Holy Spirit convicted me. "Cliffe, if your desire is to stand in front of a group of people, wag your tongue, have them slap you on the back and-say 'Son, that was a great talk; you have a bright future ahead of you,' you have major motivational problems. Your desire had better be to reach people for Christ."
Convicted of my mixed-up motivation, I began to go into inner-city Boston. I became convinced that the best way to reach some of the men in blue-collar bars was to go in and preach. I picked out my bar. I was walking toward the bar and with each step I got more and more intimidated. By the time I reached the door, I was so scared that I walked right past the door. I walked around the block for two hours trying to gather up the courage to go in and preach. Finally I said, Cliffe, blow it off. You've lost.
I went back to my car. As I was opening the car door, the Holy Spirit stopped me dead in my tracks and said, "Cliffe, why? Why don't you want to go in there and preach to those men about Christ? There are two reasons. First, you are afraid of what people are going to think of you. You're afraid they're going to call you a religious fanatic, a square. But Cliffe, whose image are you living to polish in life? You'd better not be living to polish your own. You've committed your life to Christ. That means that you're committed to polishing his image, not yours. And second, you're afraid that someone's going to take a shot at you and hit you. But your life is in the hands of the living God, and he has promised never to fail you, never to forsake you."
Convicted of my lack of faith, I turned around, walked into the bar, stood up and said, "Excuse me, gentlemen. The apostle John writes in 1 John 4:10, 'This is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.' " I then began to talk with the guys about God's love. The bartender came careening down the bar cursing his head off at me. I said, "Excuse me, sir, all I want to do with these men is talk with them about what means most in life-knowing God as a friend." He said, "Buddy, you want to know what God is? God is a cash register. And all I care about these men is the money they have in their pockets." I couldn't believe he said it so bluntly.
Every weekend I would bring seminary friends down with me to the bars. They would go in first, and I would follow ten minutes later. After preaching, I would either get kicked out or walk out on my own steam. Then they would turn to people there and say, "Hey, what do you think about what he had to say?" And they'd engage people in conversation.
I'll never forget driving home one night after preaching in a bar. Suddenly
I had to twist my steering wheel to miss hitting a man who was lying half on
the sidewalk and half in the street. A hundred feet past that man, I became
convicted by the Holy Spirit that I was the hypocrite in Jesus' parable of the
good Samaritan. Yes, I could talk about Jesus and preach in those bars, but
when it came to rearranging my schedule and helping a man who was literally
lying in the gutter, I was too busy.
I put my car in reverse, went back, picked him up out of the gutter and brought
him to a place to stay for the night. God had knocked me out of my apathy, out
of my lack of love and compassion. God is faithful. He'll stay on my case and
on your case until you and I are doing his work.
God's Faithfulness
I graduated from Gordon-Conwell and came on staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship to do evangelism in the Boston area. God showed me his faithfulness by surrounding me with a group of committed Christians on InterVarsity's staff. InterVarsity staff and students have helped to knock off some of my rough edges, and I've got plenty of them. They have helped me get better answers to difficult intellectual questions, and they have followed up on people who come to the open-air meetings. It is a privilege to do evangelism with people who are committed to Jesus as Lord and to the Bible as the Word of God and to teaching people to live holy lives.
Two and a half years ago God gave me a tremendous gift - my wife Sharon. She travels with me. Every week we move into a new place and she turns it into our home. She has sacrificed a lot of her dreams in order to be with me. She reaches out to people in the crowd, and God has honored her faithfulness with several conversions. After a day of being shouted at, mocked and threatened, I find her love brings me joy and peace. God in his faithfulness has allowed me to work with my best friend in a very close way.
God has been faithful to me in helping me answer difficult questions. Some people who do not know me well think that I'm an intellectual. That is totally false. I graduated from Davidson College with a 2.9 grade point average. When I told my preaching professor at seminary that I was going to do evangelism with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, he laughed in my face. When I told a former InterVarsity staff worker who was at Gordon-Conwell that I was going on staff with InterVarsity to do evangelism, he put his face in his hands and said, "InterVarsity is reaching new depths of incompetence." I am not an intellectual. I am a plodder. But you see, the answer that I have to answer every morning is not "Cliffe, are you an intellectual?" Rather, the question is, "Cliffe, are you going to use the resources that God has given you to build the kingdom of Christ?"
I have a friend here tonight who will never be an intellectual, but she has committed her life to Christ. One night as I was preparing a talk for an Ivy League school, she came into the room. She pointed to an evangelistic booklet on the table and said, "Cliffe, do you see this little pamphlet? You know what I do with this? I take it down the halls of my school, and I go to my teacher and I say, 'I can't read this. Could you please read it to me?' " And then it hit me. God doesn't need me to be a famous basketball player, though he has called me to try hard athletically. God doesn't need me to be a brilliant intellectual, though I am to study hard. But he has called me to use all of the resources he has given me to build the kingdom of Christ. That's what he has called me to do. And God has been faithful in giving me answers to the questions of cynics out in the open air.
Being Faithful
At Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, a brilliant pre-med student said, "Cliffe, I'm taking all the books out of the library on comparative religion. I'm studying. I'm going to know God." I looked at him and said, "Friend, there's no way that you'll ever intellectually work your way to God. For you see, God is not elitist. Jesus said, 'I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like a little child, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven.' God loves you the way you are. He loves me the way I am, and he is calling you and me to humble ourselves before him, to turn to him for forgiveness, to put our faith in him and to commit our lives to him." At the end of the week that brilliant Brown pre-med student made his own decision of the will to trust in Christ.
On another occasion a young man from San Diego State University came up and said, "Cliffe, I'm tired of living a meaningless life. I'm tired of blowing in the wind. I need to put my faith in Christ. But I'm scared. I'm scared of the changes that Christ is going to bring about in my life."
And I had to say to him, "You're right. Christ is going to change your life. But he's not calling you to a clean-up-your-life campaign. Rather, he is calling you to open up your life, to allow him to live in you, and he will work to change you from within." That young man bowed and received Christ that night. The last night I was there he brought his girlfriend up to me and said; "Cliffe, would you please explain to my girlfriend why I can no longer live with her?" And I began to explain to her what this young man's commitment to Christ meant sexually. She broke down, ran out of the room, and he ran out into the night after her. He was struggling with his commitment to Christ. He was counting the cost, but tonight that young man is allowing Christ to change him from the inside out.
And that is what Christ calls us to do. At State University of New York at
Stoney Brook, Long Island, the Holy Spirit had drawn a large crowd. Suddenly
a 6' 4" man stepped out of the crowd. He walked up to me, and with his
face one foot from mine, he screamed, "I'm a Jew! Are you telling me I'm
going to hell?"
Someone in the crowd said, "Hit him!"
I took one step back. (Body language is very important at such moments.) I said, "Excuse me, sir. You and I are not Jew or Gentile. We're not black or white. We're not rich or poor, educated or illiterate. You and I are human beings. And as human beings you and I have told God to shove off, and we've gone our own way. The penalty for that rebellion is death and hell. But the good news is that God loves you and me so much that instead of disposing us to the trash heap of humanity, he sent Christ to bleed and die on a cross to offer us forgiveness and life eternal. And the question is, how have you responded to God's offer of forgiveness? How have you responded to Christ's love? The only reason I'm standing out here preaching is because I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that one day Jesus Christ is going to return in power and great glory. And I know that all of us who have put our faith in him will meet him in the air. But there's one fear that I have: that I might turn over my shoulder, look you in the face and have you say to me, 'Hey, man, you knew all this was going to happen, and you didn't have the guts to tell me.' And to think that I might have to respond, 'Well, my man, I was too busy climbing the corporate ladder; I was too busy manicuring the lawn in front of my house in the suburbs with wall-to-wall carpet, a color TV, a two-car garage and 2.2 children; I didn't want to be linked in with those religious fanatics.' No, that would be hypocrisy. The love and truth of Christ motivate me to challenge you to think deeply about how you're going to respond to Jesus Christ."
He looked me in the face and said, "I've never heard that before. It makes some sense." He walked away and had an hour-long conversation with a committed Christian.
If you're here tonight and you don't know the God who has been so faithful to me, then I plead with you: ask Christ to forgive you. Put your faith in him and commit your life to him. For those of us who do know God, the question is simple: Will we be faithful or unfaithful? Will we be committed or will we compromise? Will we work hard to build the kingdom of Christ or will we be trapped in mediocrity?
D. L. Moody, the great evangelist, once said, "This world has not yet seen what God can do through a person completely dedicated to him." Be that person. There is coming a day of judgment when every single one of us will stand before the Lord Jesus Christ. And some of us will hear from his lips, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Live. Live in such a way that when you stand before Jesus Christ you will hear from his lips, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. Well done, Ann. Well done, John. Well done, Mary. Well done, Peter. Well done, Sandy. Well done, my good and faithful servant."
[In 1984] Cliffe Knechtle [was] a graduate of Davidson College and Cordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Since 1979 he has served on the staff of Inter-Varsity
Christian Fellowship as an evangelist. An ordained Southern Baptist minister, he and his wife, Sharon, travel throughout the U.S seeking to win students to Jesus Christ.
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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