“Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” Colossians 4:5f
“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” John 3:17
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Galatians 5:22-23a
“By their fruit you will recognize them.” Matthew 7:16a
When I was younger, I wasn’t shy about telling people when my birthday came around. When I became engaged, I wanted my friends and acquaintances to know about it. When I graduated from seminary, I sent out announcements to others. When Kim and I found out we were going to be parents for the first time (and the second and the third), we were quick to let others know.
Big events in life, happy moments in life, are meant to be shared. We share the good news with those we love and know, and we are also more than happy to share that news with others around us as well.
The funny thing about good news is that we always emphasis the good part about it, not the downside or the dark side. “Yeah, I graduated, but now I have to go out and get a job and start making a living. Shucks.” “We’re expecting our first child, which means the life we’ve developed as a couple is now all upset and all plans are put on hold until the child grows up and moves out. And even then, there’s no guarantee life will ever get back to normal.” There just seems to be something inherently wrong with good news on a downer.
I believe the same is true with the sharing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When we share the gospel with the world around us, we should be emphasizing that salvation is a gift from God that enables us to become His children in a very real and personal way, a new relationship with the God of the universe that opens new doors and new ways of living and seeing things. The Gospel is the opportunity to fulfill life in its fullest, and that should be the stress of our message.
- We need to remember Who’s we are.
The Bible tells us, “Yet to all who receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right [power and authority] to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God” (John 1:12f). This declaration lets us know that God creates His new relationship with us by His will, and that the new relationship is that of child to parent. And not just any parent. Our Father is the Creator, the Sustainer, the Provider. He is love, He is grace, He is holy and just. We enter into His world by His working and His desire. He welcomes us into His family.
We need to remember that the Gospel is God’s way of bringing us back into a right relationship with Him. The relationship was broken by our choosing to sin, but the restoration was and is by God’s design and purpose. Paul reminds us that God “. . . reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us a ministry of reconciliation, that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them” (2 Corinthians 18-19a).
The Gospel begins with the words of John 3:16, emphasizing the love of God for all humanity and the actions of God to demonstrate that love. As God’s children, our words and actions should also reflect that love, a love that is an attitude, a way of viewing the world, not an emotion. We need to have the same compassion Jesus had when He saw the multitudes (cf. Matthew 9:36; 14:14). Jesus looked at the people, a people torn by sin and strife, a people vaguely aware of their needs, but blind and ignorant of where to go and how to find relief. He could have looked at them with disdain, but He instead showed compassion and ministered, offering them what they needed.
In proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ, we should be heralds of glad tiding and good news, that Jesus saves and that salvation ushers in a new relationship with God through God’s grace and mercy.
- We need to reflect His love and attitude.
As stated above, knowing Who’s we are and what we are is vital to our understanding of our message. But we also need to reflect the character of Christ. His compassion, His love, His patience, His peace.
When I was in 7th grade, a classmate once made the joke, “I used to be conceited, but now I’m perfect.” I always liked that line. Jesus said the same thing, though, in a different way, and it wasn’t funny; it’s true. “I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29). His humility is genuine, and it must be reflected in the lives we live.
Jesus was not afraid to “mix it up” in the marketplace of ideas. I don’t think He went looking for trouble, but neither did He run from it. He was sure of what He spoke, certain of what He believed, at peace with what He had to say. He was able to see through the subterfuge and facades of those who disagreed with Him, but He maintained His place and His confidence because He knew Who’s He was and Who He is.
Jesus’ ministry and message consisted of the simple reality that God was demonstrating His love for the world through the intercession of His Son, living among us and showing us the way to the Father. He did not allow Himself to become entangled in the insignificant disputes of the day (such as taxes to Caesar or not, who would we be married to whom after resurrection). Jesus was not afraid to point out sin—look at His interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery—but His emphasis was to save the world, not to condemn it.
- We need to be consistent with the fruit of the Spirit that indwells us.
Bringing the Gospel into our world and our day, we still take our direction from Christ. Jesus reminded us as He concluded the Sermon on the Mount that we are to be wary of false prophets. He told us we could tell the genuine from the false by the fruit born. While fruitfulness includes a willingness to bring others into the fold through the sharing of the Gospel, I believe the more compelling mark of fruitfulness is the bearing of the fruit of the Spirit. Paul makes his most extensive list of this fruit in Galatians 5:22f with some additional attributes in Ephesians 5:8. It only takes a quick glance at the list to realize that our fruitfulness is demonstrated in the way we relate to our world. As we allow the Holy Spirit that indwells us to bear His fruit within us, we cannot but help to demonstrate God’s love, joy, peace and the other attributes of the fruit. It seems to me that the logical extension of this truth is that our Gospel message must also reflect these same fruit.
But isn’t the confrontation of sin one of the key elements of the Gospel? Are we not to point out the sins of the world in order to show the need for repentance and salvation? Are we not obligated to focus on sin in order to demonstrate grace’s fullest edification?
Yes, there is a need to point out sin in our world, but I disagree that this is the central truth of the Gospel. Since the Gospel is God’s good news of salvation through Christ our message should be focused primarily on how God brings us into relationship with Him through His Son. The message should be on what God does for us through His intervention.
In other words, I do not believe God needs angry prophets in His world to denounce the sins and impending doom of the unrepentant. While it has its place, Jesus demonstrates to us instead the confrontation of sin is to be a gentle rebuke, a firm rebuke, a loving rebuke. Perhaps the closest we can see to Jesus denouncing sin is found in Matthew 23 when He pronounces the seven woes upon the religious leaders of the day. There is no doubt in this passage of Scripture that Jesus is very clearly calling out the super religious to confront their hypocrisy and sin in the words He uses.
If I have a complaint about the Bible, though, it is that we only have it in written form. Since we are only able to read Jesus’ words in Matthew 23, each of us has to put our own inflection and tone of voice into the reading. Was Jesus looking about Himself with eyes flashing and harsh tones? Was He speaking as one with deep regret, a sorrow from the depths of His soul, regretting the lost cause of the blind who will not see, of the deaf who will not hear? I consider the entirety of the Gospels and the consistency of Jesus in dealing with the masses of His time and place and conclude that Jesus’ tone of voice was one of sorrow and regret. Even when He was clearing the Temple the Bible refuses to say that Jesus was angry; it seems unlikely that He would then use anger and damnation in His tone of voice in Matthew 23.
CONCLUSION
There is and will always be a need for the strong sharing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a world entangled in the dangers of sin. There must always be a willingness for God’s people to share His truth with a lost and dying world. The way we should share this truth is with wisdom, with opportunity, filled with grace and truth, seasoned with salt (Colossians 4:5f). After all, we are sharing good news. Shouldn’t it demonstrate that joy, that peace, that goodness, in the tone and the words we use?
© 2017 Glynn Beaty