George's Journey: June 2010

Motivations in Evangelism (2)

What is the message we proclaim? Evangelism is revealed by God to be literally proclaiming good news. It is spreading a special message, which is, in summarized form, known simply as good news (gospel). But what is that message?

My journey in the kingdom of Christ has revealed to me that a lot of Christians (including myself at one time) do not really understand what the good news is. To some the good news is “the church” and they preach “it” strongly. To others it is “moralism”. To others it is “spirituality”. To others it is “prosperity”. To be honest, it is quite disturbing how long this list gets.

Disturbing, because our central task is to proclaim the good news and yet so many don’t understand what that good news is. Disturbing because God went to a lot of trouble to spell out exactly what the message is. You don’t need “special knowledge” or an epiphany to find out what it is.

The bottom line is that there is only one source for an absolute answer to the question of what the good news is. It is not church councils, favourite preachers, historical traditions (whether written or verbal) or any other human source. The source of the good news is God and it is God who tells us what the good news is.

At this point you may be thinking, “Yeah, yeah, I know all this. Let’s move on.” Please let me warn you to go slowly through this analysis of what the good news is. What God will reveal will change your view of yourself, your church and your world. It is pivotal to all those aspects of your life.

One of the clearest statements in scripture, God’s very word itself, is found in a letter Paul wrote to a church to REMIND them of what the good news was. Written almost 2000 years ago it still shocks us at its simplicity and disturbs us because we have often changed it in our enthusiasm for God.

1 Corinthians 15:1-4 “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. 3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,”

It appears that it was not just our brothers and sisters at Corinth who need reminding of what the good news was. See Galatians 1:6-9, 2 Timothy 4:2-3, 2 Peter 2:1-3.

God says that the good news is a story. It is the story of Jesus the Christ; His death for our sins, His burial and resurrection on the third day. Our message is the death of Jesus and his bodily resurrection. This story changes everything. This good news is not an equation. It is a story, a story of love, sacrificial divine love. It is a story because God says it is, not because I like stories or it is the communication flavour of the month. When God chose to reveal what the gospel was He revealed it as a story, the story of Jesus.

Of all the godly kingdom things God could have mentioned in reminding us of what he good news is, He only mentions three things. The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. This is our message.

It is the message on the lips of the apostolic proclaimers of the first century. See Mark 1:1, Acts 2:22-24; 3:13-15; 4:2, 10, 33; 5:20-32, 42; 8:35, 10:36; 11:20 etc. etc.

How did I ever get this wrong? Why did I proclaim baptism and hardly mention Jesus? How did I get to the point where the church was the central point to my preaching and Jesus hardly got a mention? When did my “gospel” message get to be a negative message of condemnation of all who disagree with me? I really don’t know, but that is what happened. But God didn’t write me off. He kept reminding me of what the good news is and eventually my proud heart broke and I started to see the startlingly obvious. Jesus is our good news and He is our message.

That Jesus’ death and resurrection is the good news is vital to us accurately proclaiming the gospel. However, in this series we are looking at motivations in evangelism. I believe that realizing that we as Christians are called to proclaim Jesus is a powerful motivation for evangelism. Why? Here are a couple of reasons.

Because Jesus is the perfect message. When I preach the church, not matter how idealistically, the church itself discredits the message with its bad behaviour, politics etc. When I preach moralism, my own moral shortcomings (sin) shout louder than my calls to righteousness. However, when I preach Jesus, His life and teachings back up that proclamation perfectly.

Because Jesus is God telling each person that He loves them. Above all else God loves those He has created. He longs for them and He delights in them. They just don’t know it and that’s where we have the great job of informing them of God’s love for each person on this lonely planet.

What do you think? Check out the Facebook page related to this. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=128564923839522

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Motivations for Evangelism (1)

A friend commented to me in response to the original paper I wrote on evangelism that all the evangelism methods in the world are practically useless unless we are motivated to proclaim the good news of Jesus. I am paraphrasing him. He is right. A correct understanding of methodology matters little if you and I aren’t motivated to use such methodology.

He also went into detail as to why he doesn’t do much evangelizing. More on that in another post, but it did make me think that we really do need to talk about the motivation God’s wants us to have in evangelism. What should move us to share the good news of Jesus?

As with previous questions I am looking for biblical answers to this question.

Christ’s Love for us compels us to share that love with others

2 Corinthians 5:14-21 “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.

When we learned that God has always loved us and that Jesus died FOR us we were awe struck and overwhelmed and we loved it.

We then became convinced (by the message of Jesus) that Jesus died for everyone.

This has far reaching implications in how we regard people and how we should treat them.

Let the scripture speak

2 Corinthians 5:15 “And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”

Through Jesus death we have been brought to life. See also Romans 6:1-18.

This spiritual resurrection has resulted in a new life with a new dynamic that precludes living for ourselves. No longer are we to motivated by selfishness. I love the way the Holy Spirit, through Paul’s mouth, puts it in Philippians 2:3-5 “3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:”

The scripture wants to speak some more.

2 Corinthians 5:16 “So from now on we regard no-one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:

We now look at people differently. They are no longer just objects for our amusement or gratification. They are no longer a means to OUR ends. They are no longer just a mass of beings. They are children of God who have strayed from the family and God desperately wants them back.

As a result we have been given a ministry, a task of service, a work to do. We have received the ministry of reconciliation.

Isn’t this just amazing? God does the miraculous, sacrificial and all-powerful thing of providing for the reconciliation of all humans and then what does He do? He turns it over to you and me. Really?

The scripture still is speaking.

19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”.

What is this ministry of reconciliation? Another item in the church budget? Another programme for the church calendar? No. It is much more than that. It is also a ministry that is given to individual Christians, not a mass of them. More on that later.

God has committed to us the task of spreading the message of reconciliation, the good news of Jesus :19.

He has enlisted us as ambassadors who speak for him. And what do we speak? He has given us the message. We can’t mess with it. It is simpy, “Be reconciled to God”!

It all started in a moment of confrontation between you and love and God. The loved of God prevailed in that conflict and your motivation started to change at that very minute and has resulted in a compulsion deep within your soul to share this message of liberation.

Been A While

It has been a while since I have updated the old blog. Been working a lot with the church and with the fruit company. Slowly getting used to having two jobs and having family so close by. Don't get me wrong. I am loving it.

It is definitely new to me. Having a secular job part time is a great thing. Sure, it takes me away from the church work that I love but it does open my eyes up to the world as it is lived by non preachers. Preachers really need to expose themselves to that regularly. It is so easy to start to look at life through the eyes of one who can study the Bible, pray, minister etc. full time. Most of the members of our churches work 30, 40, 50 hour weeks and we need to be sensitive to their situation.

Both times in my life I have had to work in secular jobs at the same time as working with the church the Lord has guided me to computer jobs. First in Toowoomba with Hunts Computers and the Windows environment in the 80s. Second, now with Apple and the OS X environment. I am so blessed that the secular work I do is something that I am passionate about.

Meeting lots of new people. Lots of young people. I am the old guy at work, though no one treats me like the old guy. Learning lots of new skills and having my mind and heart stretched.

Looking forward to seeing what God has planned for me each day.