Spending an hour with Sam and Sadie was a privilege that few people get to enjoy. To be in the presence of a relative stranger who stepped up and spoke up for Jesus to a late loved one is most likely not a common experience. At the end of my visit I got a photograph taken. As I crouched on the floor in front of Sam’s chair he laid his hand on my shoulder. Afterwards, reflecting with no small amount of emotion on the meeting, I realised that his hand has been there right throughout my life. The moment that he reached out with Jesus to my Dad his impact and importance to my own story was sealed. 

Leading another person to faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour is one of the greatest privileges that a Christian can enjoy. More often than not this kind of moment represents the maturing of many hours of prayer, of consistent witness and unconditional friendship, of feelings of inadequacy and fear in bearing testimony. To be present or instrumental in such a step of faith being taken leaves an indelible mark on both parties involved.
Seeing the long term impact of such a step, however, is often obscured from our view. Friends move from our city or our circle, the current of life carries us downstream from one another and, while we rejoice in the moment of salvation, we seldom see the momentum that such faith in Jesus brings to families and communities.
My father came to faith in a classroom in Newtownards Technical College in the late 1950s. As a 17 year old he had enjoyed little gospel privilege in his background, and had never before heard a clear explanation of what becoming a Christian meant. His geography and economics teacher, Sam Doherty, had established a Scripture Union in the college and on one fateful afternoon, standing beside one of the desks, he led my Dad to Jesus. Apart from on one occasion that I know of, my Dad never spent any time with Sam once he finished college.
That was approximately twenty years before my birth, but my Dad’s story resonated through my childhood, as did the almost legendary name of Sam Doherty. At the age of 62 my Dad died after a brief battle with cancer. I was 26 years old. At my Dad’s funeral service Sam Doherty’s name was mentioned with gratitude for his clear and courageous witness, the name of a relative stranger making it in to a brief eulogy.
For me, that was it. The only times I heard Sam Doherty’s name in the intervening years was with reference to his significant ministry with CEF – such mentions always tugging a little on my heart at how he had been used by God in my Dad’s story.
Then, in November of last year, I got to spend an hour with Sam and his wife Sadie in their home. The emotional and spiritual impact of that meeting with two people in their 90s is hard to sufficiently quantify, but there are three abiding impressions which could be useful for me and for others as we think about sharing our faith.
Immediate Faithfulness and Ultimate Usefulness go Hand in Hand
Sam Doherty came to faith from a background of resolute commitment to an evolutionary explanation for the universe. Hot on the heels of his own conversion he was advised by the man who led him to Jesus that he now had a job to do for Jesus. Sam taught in Newtownards Technical College, cycling in from his home 7 miles away, and then cycling a further 8 miles to Comber one day per week. In his own words, the teaching came second to his witness for the Lord.
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Though we are justified by God and are continually being sanctified, we remain sinners who transgress his law each and every day. We continue to feel the shame and guilt of our many sins. The Lord’s Day offers us the opportunity to confess these sins and to be assured of God’s kind and complete forgiveness. Though no man has the right or responsibility to forgive sins, it is the joy of the pastor to lead the church in confessing sins and in assuring those who have repented that they are forgiven.

The longer I live—the longer I live out this life as a Christian—the more I see my desperate need of the Lord’s Day. Though it once seemed like the kind of day I could take or leave, I’ve since come to rely on it and to see God’s goodness in giving it. It’s a day we ignore at our peril. As I stood to worship on Sunday, I found myself considering just some of what the Lord’s Day is…
The Lord’s Day is water for the parched runner. This life is a race, and one that leaves us weary and dry as we constantly “lay aside every weight” and “run with endurance” the long race set before us (Hebrews 12:1). Like the stations along the marathon route provide water that will hydrate the body until the next interval, the Lord’s Day offers us spiritual refreshment to keep us going not for the whole race, but at least for the next week.
It is a meal for the hungry pilgrim. As Christians we are pilgrims, people moving purposefully through this life toward the heavenly city that awaits us. Like a kind citizen may provide a meal to the needy pilgrim, the Lord’s Day is God’s kind provision for our spiritual sustenance. It provides what we need and what we cannot generate from within ourselves.
It is a rest for the weary worker. God created us to work upon this earth. But as sin entered the world, so did weariness and frustration, for “the creation was subjected to futility” (Romans 8:20). The Lord’s Day provides a period of rest from our day-to-day labors in which we trust that just as God in Christ has provided for our every spiritual need, he will also provide for our every physical need.
It is a celebration to the sorrowful. Life in a world like this is attended with many sorrows.
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In the incarnation, the Son of God took on flesh to dwell among man, die for us, be raised for us, and will come again for us one day. In all these things, He is glorious, and as we love Him, we will one day see His incarnate glory forevermore!2

John 1:14 captures the incarnation of the Son of God and the glory thereof in these memorable words: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
The Incarnation of the Word
By this point in John 1:14, John has already identified the Word. Summarizing John 1:1–9, the Word was in the beginning with God, created all things, has life in Himself, and is the light of the world. The Word is clearly the eternal Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
By calling Jesus the Word, John repurposed a philosophical term from his day and, more importantly, pointed to Jesus as the One who personifies the acts of God in the Old Testament. Consider these passages: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made”; (Ps 33:6); “Now the word of the Lord came to me” (Jer 1:4); “He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction” (Ps 107:20). As the Word, Jesus is Creator, Revealer, and Deliverer. He created all things, reveals the truth of God, and delivers man from sin and its punishment.
“And the Word became flesh”—the Son of God became human. He was “born of woman” (Gal 4:4), “being born in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:7).
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