Last week, I spent a little bit of time talking about one of the important reasons we are here: to do evangelism. I talked about how evangelism was telling the good news. I talked about how oftentimes we try to kick the can of responsibility even though every Christian is called to share the good news. And finally, I spoke about how we can overcome fear by seeing evangelism as a community process instead of thinking that it is all up to us as individuals. But even after doing all of that, I didn’t even scratch the surface of evangelism. There is so much more that needs to be expressed, and one of the things that we really need to talk about is: what is the good news? What is the news that we are called to tell.
You see, we no longer live in a society where Christian values and the Christian story is explicitly told by the culture at large. I remember when I was a child. Every year at all the major holidays, television told the Christian story. At Easter, it wasn’t only the Ten Commandments that appeared during Holy Week. Anyone else remember the week-long mini-series “Jesus of Nazareth?” Anyone remember how they told the story of Jesus from his birth to his death and resurrection during the week? Do the major networks carry that anymore? No. The sit-coms that used to grace our television sets used to also carry implicit Christian values. Most no longer do. The culture was full of Christian references and Christian ideals. In a very real way, culture used to do our evangelism for us. But that is no longer the case. Our culture is at best indifferent and at worst hostile to the Christian faith.
As a result, fewer and fewer folks actually speak the language of faith. Fewer and fewer folks have any true knowledge of what the Christian faith is about. I’ll give you one perhaps very surprising example. This past week at church camp, I sat in with our boys at Bible study. These were our 10 year olds. We were asked to finish the Bible study by saying the Lord’s prayer. There was one youth there who didn’t know what we were even talking about. Think about that for a moment. A youth, who was at least 10 years old, at church camp, didn’t know the Lord’s Prayer. Can you imagine what he thought when he heard the words: grace, Holy Communion, forgiveness of our trespasses, or even hallowed? Can you imagine how strange these words must have seemed to him? Somehow, we must be able to communicate our message in a world that no longer shares our particular way of looking at it. We must connect with others who are not in our group, and help them see how Christianity offers answers to life’s most meaningful and difficult questions–and how those answers are truly good news.
Today, I’d like to work through how we might share the good news of Christianity in a manner that addresses evangelism in this day and age. We must be able to have some sort of common-ground starting point. And I think that just about everyone can agree that this world isn’t quite right. I think that just about everyone can agree that there are some major problems in the world. There is war. There is poverty. There is murder. There is theft. There are people who hurt other people intentionally. There is hunger. People are constantly striving for power and position. Most folks, when they look at the world, see such things, and agree that they need to be fixed.
But, in order to fix a problem, you first need to find out what is causing it. We’ve got to ask the question of why the world is the way it is. Why do all of these things happen? What is the cause of the hunger, war, poverty, theft, murder, etc.? Why do people do bad things to other people? For the time being, I am going to set aside the question of why there are natural disasters and other forms of evil outside of humanity. That’s another layer of questioning that we can come back to in just a little bit. For now, we are going to concentrate on us as human beings because that is where we’ve focused a lot of time and energy over the centuries. We have tried very hard to diagnose why all of these things happen. And the answers have generally fallen into two categories. First, there is the thought that humankind is basically evil and that we must curtail that evil. We especially need to remove as many evil elements from society that we can in order to have a prosperous way of life as free from evil as possible. There are a few problems with this approach. First, if you get labeled evil, you are out of luck. You are branded. You carry a stigma–one that will never go away. There is no possibility of reform or rehabilitation. Just ask anyone who has been convicted of a felony what life is like amongst societies or people who believe this. Their lives are miserable. Not only this, but in such a society, you are constantly looking over your shoulder wondering who might be coming to get you next. Who will rob me? Who will try to kill me? Who will try and take advantage of me? This is no way to live. Furthermore, how do you account for the good things that people do? How do you count for the seemingly selfless acts of kindness and goodness that we see people commit on a regular basis? If people are basically evil, why is there also so much good?
This has led others to the conclusion that people are basically good, but it is societal structures and cultures that warp them and cause them to become evil. So, if someone commits a criminal act, one needs to dig into that person’s family situation; their educational background; their cultural involvement–somewhere along in the process something went haywire that caused this person to do what they did. If that something were corrected, then that person would not have done what he or she did. Such folks oftentimes believe that if we could just produce the right type of society; if we could just pass the right type of laws; if we could just put in place the right educational system; then we could eradicate: poverty, murder, hatred, injustice, and the like. The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t account for the selfish behavior that is found in infants. It doesn’t account for people who seem to have grown up in “perfect” situations whose families loved them and provided for them–yet, they have committed horrible acts of violence and hatred. It also doesn’t account for the fact that we human beings have been trying very hard for thousands of years to construct cultures and systems of government to rid ourselves of violence, hatred, poverty, and the like: and guess what? They’ve all failed to get rid of all these things.
Christianity does not offer an either/or answer to this question about human nature. And Christianity says that both of these two scenarios do not dig near deeply enough in addressing the problem. For on the one hand, Christianity says that humankind was created good. We were created whole. When God made the world, He looked at it and said that it was good. That includes us, by the way. But then something happened. A terrible tragedy befell us. Even though we were created good, we decided that we were better off trying to make the world work ourselves. We thought we could have a knowledge of good and evil without reference to God. We wanted this knowledge on our own so that we did not have to depend on God, and we turned inward on ourselves. In so doing, the Bible tells us that a power was unleashed in the world. It is a power that corrupts everything that it touches. It is a power that turns us away from what is good for all and focuses us on what is good for us. The Bible calls this power: the power of sin. It is a power that touches every part of creation. God did not intend for the oceans to rise and flood the coasts. The power of sin working in the world causes that. God did not intend mountains to erupt and kill. The power of sin caused that. God did not intend illness to strike and kill. The power of sin causes that. God did not intend for us to harm one another and cause poverty and hatred and division. The power of sin causes all of this. We still have that remnant of good that was in us from creation–that’s why we can do some very good things; however the power of sin has led us to all sorts of selfish behavior and evil as well. There is no either/or according to Christianity. There is both/and.
So, how do we lessen the evil? How do we lessen poverty and hatred and violence? Let’s think about how we are often challenged to overcome our selfish behavior. First off, we oftentimes appeal to goodness. We say, “Isn’t it in your best interest to be good? Isn’t it in your best interest to live in a society where everyone isn’t killing everyone else?” At first glance, most of us would say, “Well, sure. A society were everyone is living in peace and harmony is indeed a very good thing. A society where everyone shares resources is a very good thing. We should all do this.” So, here’s the question: who gets to decide what it means to live in harmony? Who gets to decide who has enough and who doesn’t? Who gets to decide what is in everyone’s best interest? The government? People? Those in power with control? Those with nothing? Everyone? The majority? If you read history, you will note that none of these answers are satisfactory. And it still leaves one important question: is this really an appeal to goodness, or is it an appeal to self-interest? And if it is an appeal to self-interest, are we appealing to selfishness? And if we appeal to selfishness and I am left with a choice: oh, I’m hungry and want to enjoy a Whataburger, but I see that another person is hungry over there. I know that I only have enough to satisfy my hunger, so is it really in my self interest to be good and share? After all, neither one of us will then be satisfied, we’ll both just be less hungry. Why should I give then, if it just lessens the problem but doesn’t solve it? At least, I will be full. If you appeal to a person’s self-interest, self-interest will indeed rule.
The second way we can deal with such things is to deal with them through fear. This is why we have a legal system. This is why we have police and other public servants. We try to keep people from doing wrong by imposing penalties for breaking laws. I’ve used this example numerous times because it’s so true and most of us have experienced it. You are driving down the highway, and all of a sudden, you see traffic starting to back up. You look ahead and you see that there is a patrol car driving down the freeway. The speed limit is 75. The cruiser is driving 70. Traffic is backing up. Why?
Everyone is afraid to pass. Everyone is afraid to drive by the officer fearful that he or she will pull them over. Then, the officer exits the freeway and is gone. What does everyone suddenly do? 90. They do 90. Once the threat of fear is gone, folks no longer fear the consequences and head right back to their desired behavior. My son is in children’s church right now, so I’m going to tell this one on him. While we were at camp this week, we were sitting down to dinner. We were talking with some folks from another church and what not. In the midst of our conversation we talked about doing things we shouldn’t do. I told my boy that he’d gotten whoopins for being out of line before. And he smarted off, “Only for the things you know about!” Ah, how true. How true. When the threat of punishment is gone, it’s open season. In this case laws only work if justice is swift and uncompromising. I think that we know from history that such justice rarely happens.
So, if appealing to the self-interest of goodness is limited and appealing to fear is limited, what works? What actually breaks us out of self-interest and into another frame of reference? The answer to that is quite easy. It’s love. I mean, when you love someone, there is almost nothing you wouldn’t do for them. If you deeply love your wife and she asks you to wash the dishes every night, what do you do? If you deeply love your husband and he asks you to wash his clothes, what do you do? If you deeply love your children, will you not go out of your way and sacrifice your own well being for them? Of course you will. Love breaks us out of our own self-interest and desire and makes us look outward towards another–towards a greater good. I mean, we all know this. All of us to some extent really believe this. But here is the problem. Can you tell someone: love that person over there!? Can you legislate love? Can you make someone love someone else?
No. Absolutely not. “You cain’t make a heart love somebody,” once sang the king of country: George Strait. “You can lead a heart to love, but you can’t make it fall.” Love is the cure for sin. Love is the cure for the brokenness of the world. But you cannot force love. You cannot write a law to love. So how can you bring people to love one another? How can you inspire others to love–not just on an individual level, but on a world-changing level?
I remember when I was about 12 years old. My grandfather was very sick. He would eventually need a kidney transplant. At the time, he was on dialysis. Now, my grandfather was a stubborn old coot. There were times when I would really get mad at him. He missed several of my birthday parties and other family events because we had invited several people who were allergic to cigarette smoke. We asked grandpa not to smoke, and he replied, “If such and such is more important than me, then I won’t come.” The first time grandpa said this, his tractor broke down and no one was around to help him. I thought to myself, “Serves him right.” Grandpa never said that he loved me or anything of the sort. He kind of seemed like a grumpy old man.
One day, grandpa called my folks over to his house. He took me aside and said, “I have something for you.” We walked out to one of his sheds, and we went inside. There sat a self-propelled lawn mower. Grandpa knew that my dad made me mow the lawn with a simple push mower, and he decided that I needed something that wouldn’t make me work so hard. So, he bought me this brand new mower. Now, it might not sound like much to you, but I thought that I had hit the jackpot. Grandpa put his arm around me, and we walked back to the house together. I was actually supporting him and holding him up at the time because he was getting weaker from his kidneys failing. I told him over and over how thankful I was, and then he told me he loved me. At that moment, I would have charged the fires of hell with a bucket of water for that old man.
Maybe you know that feeling. Maybe you know what it is like to be given something unexpectedly, undeservedly. Maybe you know what it is like to have someone who has not exactly been in your good graces turn around and do something for you that melts your heart. Maybe you know what it is like to suddenly go from being apathetic or angry to full and overflowing with love all because someone did something for you in such a manner.
If you understand that, then you understand in a small measure what God has done in Jesus Christ because in Him God has acted to win our hearts and fill us with a tremendous love for him. You see, if we can all agree that sin is a power in this world, and if we can all agree that everyone is influenced by that sin; and if we can agree that none of us fully measure up to living the way that we should, then we can all agree that we have fallen short–not only in the standards of this world, but also in the standards of God’s law. We have not been the people God created us to be. If charges were brought against us for not living as we should, we would all be found guilty. We would all deserve punishment.
But instead of being punished ourselves, Jesus took the punishment for us. Some folks might object. They might say that this is an absurd thing to do, but as a parent, I can assure you that we oftentimes pay for our children’s indiscretions. When they break things around the house, we replace it. When they cause injury outside the home, we pay for it. We do it out of love for our children, and Jesus does something similar for us only on a cosmic scale. Because it is our eternal soul that hangs in the balance. Deserving of punishment and being found guilty, we would be cast away from God, but He does not want this to happen. He does not want us to be cast away from him; yet the debt must be paid. So, Jesus pays it. Jesus dies for us. Jesus gives himself for us undeservedly. We call this sheer grace.
And when we trust in Jesus’ action, our hearts change. Our hearts are melted as we see the love He has for us poured out for us at the cross. No longer do we think of ourselves. We no longer seek our best interest. Instead, we concentrate on the one who loved us. Instead, we think of Jesus. Instead, we reflect upon his great act of love and mercy. We long to know Him more deeply. We long to follow his commands. We long to lift him up to the rest of the world because we know he didn’t just die for us–he died for the world.
When our hearts turn toward Jesus, the power of sin loses its control over us. The power of sin becomes diminished–no, it doesn’t fully go away. It still tries to capture us an ensnare us in its grasp, but it cannot defeat Jesus. Jesus has defeated sin, and Jesus will work in us and through us to bring about God’s will for the world. Jesus will continue to bless us and clothe us with his righteousness and glory. He will never forsake us and will give us the power of the Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us into that which is good.
And when the Gospel is shared–when the good news is proclaimed, more and more hearts change. More and more hearts are freed from the power of sin. More and more hearts turn to Jesus and begin following His commands. More and more begin loving God with all their hearts, souls, minds, and strengths. More and more people truly begin to love their neighbors as they love themselves. Through Jesus, the world changes. Through Jesus, the hungry are fed, the thirsty given drink, the naked clothed, the sick healed, the imprisoned reformed and freed. Through Jesus, wars cease, enemies become brothers and sisters, and new life begins. This is the good news. This is what we are commissioned to tell. It is through Jesus that the power of sin is defeated, hearts are changed, and so is the world. God has called us to share this story so that His kingdom spreads into this world and that all may come to know His love. To truly fix what is wrong with this world, the Gospel must be shared, and this is one of the reasons the church is here; to share the good news; to do evangelism. Amen.
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