Sermon Recap: Formation Focus: Witness (Week 3)
What does it mean to live inside the gospel story—not just to believe it, but to embody it?
This week marked the third teaching in our Formation Focus on the Discipleship Practice of Witness. In week one, we reframed evangelism away from pressure, performance, and persuasion and back toward identity. To follow Jesus is, by definition, to be a witness. We are not spiritual salespeople trying to close a deal; we are apprentices of Jesus whose lives and words point beyond themselves. Then last week, we explored how the gospel is not merely a statement to affirm, but a story to inhabit. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus does not offer a formula for salvation—He walks the disciples through the Scriptures and shows them how their confusion, disappointment, and hope all fit within God’s redemptive narrative. The gospel is a story we live in, not just something we recite.
So the natural question follows:
What does it look like to live inside that story?
The New Testament assumes something striking—that when people encounter the way of Jesus, they encounter a way of life that feels different. Not strange for the sake of being strange. Not withdrawn or morally superior. But beautifully and compellingly different. Jesus Himself said, “You are the light of the world… Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:14, 16). Witness, then, is embodied. The gospel story is meant to be demonstrated.
As theologian Stanley Hauerwas famously put it,
“The church does not have a social ethic; the church is a social ethic.”
In other words, the church isn’t just a community that talks about the Kingdom of God—we are meant to be a preview of it. A living answer to the question, What would life look like if Jesus were truly King? The gospel is not only a story that needs to be told; it needs to be lived.
Peter gives us a powerful vision for this kind of life in 1 Peter 2. He grounds holy living in what he calls a “Living Hope”—a gospel so astonishing that even angels long to catch a glimpse of it. This Living Hope does not only redeem our future; it transforms our present. It produces formation. Peter urges believers to desire the word “like newborn infants.” This is not a casual suggestion, but an image full of urgency and intensity. Just as a hungry baby cries out for nourishment, we are to hunger for the fullness of the gospel in Jesus so that we might “grow up into our salvation.” Growth here is not about earning God’s love, but about becoming who we were always meant to be.
Peter describes disciples as “living stones” being built into a spiritual house, with Jesus as both the cornerstone and the master builder. This house has a purpose: we are a chosen people, called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light, so that we may proclaim His praise. That proclamation happens not only through words, but through lives shaped by the light.
Peter names believers as “strangers and exiles”—citizens of another kingdom living faithfully in the midst of this one. That calling requires a both/and holiness: abstaining from sinful desires and conducting ourselves honorably among others.
Holiness involves both prohibition and exhibition.
There is a necessary “no” to sin, because sin wages war against our souls. But holiness is not merely avoidance. When reduced to rule-keeping, it shrinks the gospel into fear-based moral management.
Instead, holiness is about what we reveal. It is visible goodness—generosity, reconciliation, faithfulness, hospitality, peace. This is how the gospel becomes believable. Not by hiding from the world, but by living so differently within it that people are drawn to the light.
Living the story is not accidental. It happens when ordinary people, in ordinary places, intentionally practice the way of Jesus together. Over the coming weeks, we are leaning into simple but counter-cultural practices—radical hospitality, Sabbath keeping, intentional generosity, and peacemaking. Practices that quietly provoke holy curiosity. Practices that invite the world to ask, Why do these people live this way?
That is what it means to live the story. To join in on the practices, visit FellowshipWest.org/Witness
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