Not Just Good but Glorious

I want to thank those of you who responded to Steve’s email. (By the way, don’t miss Pete’s comment under “White Out.”) You all shared some very good thoughts. Steve, I’d like to respond to what I sense are three key issues in your email.

First, who should be talking about Jesus, and is it still important?

I’m reminded of something the apostle Peter wrote: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (II Peter 3:9). That tells me God would want us to bring a sense of urgency to our task if even only one person didn’t know him. Of course, the reality is much different, even in our own country. Only about a third of the world claims to be Christian, at least in name. Many of these are what I would call “underevangelized” in the same way that there are people who are “underemployed.” I sense that for some people, being a Christian means being affiliated with the Christian religion and trying to live a good life. That’s why I often use the term “follower of Jesus” or “disciple” instead of Christian.  I sense that a lot of work has yet to be done on both fronts: bringing people who don’t know Jesus into a living faith in Christ, as well as helping nominal Christians commit to becoming fully devoted followers of Christ. I don’t mean to label people. And maybe what I’m describing is a continuum instead of clearly defined catagories. But I think sharing and talking about the gospel needs to happen with a broad spectrum of people, believers as well as non-believers.

Who should do the talking? Leaders and non-leaders, experts and non-experts, people who have the gift of evangelism and those that don’t, mature Christians and new Christians — anyone who has a story to tell. It’s often the newest, most immature followers of Jesus who are the most contagious Christians and the most effective at sharing their faith. The key isn’t our technique or communication skills or how many Bible verses we have memorized. The key player in all this is the Holy Spirit. The early Christian movement grew mainly by word-of-mouth. The apostles just got the ball rolling.

An aspect of evangelism that isn’t emphasized enough is its communal nature. I don’t think it’s supposed to be that I preach a sermon on talking about Jesus and now you’re supposed to figure out on your own how to do it. I think we need to be talking with each other more about how to do it so that we can learn from each other. There are also activities (like Alpha) that we can do together. I’d like us to talk about Jesus with each other more, and also talk about how to talk about Jesus more. Like I said in my post, I may be a leader, but there are aspects of this that I’m not very good at. I wonder what would happen, though, if we tried making learning how to talk about Jesus one of our top priorities. That has to begin with me, I know. I just want to put all this on the table so that we begin to think about it.

Steve, the second issue I hear you raising is whether there is a different bar or standard for followers than for leaders. I’ll turn that question over to Jesus: “Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said, ‘If any want to follow me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it’ (Mark 8:34,35). However we understand the practical implications of Jesus’ words, I think everyone would agree that he sets the bar pretty high. Notice that the demand or warning he gives is for followers and not just leaders. He speaks the same words to the crowd that he speaks to his disciples. That’s because a disciple, by definition, is someone who is committed to becoming like his or her teacher. And because our Teacher is Jesus, the standard is high, many would say impossibly high.

What Jesus is describing is not the level of our perfection but the level of our commitment. And it’s not just commitment to him, it’s also commitment to ourselves. The goal for becoming a disciple (i.e. a 24/7 student) in any religion or spiritual movement is to become fully alive. Do we share Jesus’ commitment to help us become fully alive? Do we trust him enough to obey and cooperate with him?

In his letter to the Romans Paul writes: “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). I used to focus on the “sinned” part of this verse and neglect the “fallen” part. What is it we’ve fallen from? Glory. We were made to be glorious. Jesus doesn’t just intend for us to be good Christians, he’s out to remake us into glorious sons and daughters of God.

We also know from the New Testament that disciples and even apostles screw up. We get distracted. We are deceived. We inadvertently revert to old selfish ways of thinking and behaving. Even when we try really, really hard to get it right, we get it wrong. That’s all part of being a disciple or student. At the same time, disciples expect and want a complete make-over, and are willing to do what it takes and have it take as long as it takes. And all of this is dependent on God’s grace, whether we get it right or fall on our face. Fortunately, Jesus’ love and forgiveness are always there to pick us up, brush us off and set us on our way again.

So, yes, the bar is set high not just for leaders but for followers. I like what author Philip Yancey says about Jesus’ teachings: they communicate both radical obedience and radical grace.

The third issue you raise, Steve, is how to talk about the particulars of this radical life  without discouraging people. I don’t have an easy answer to that, and I don’t claim to do this very well. I’m reminded over and over again how dependent I am on the Holy Spirit for both what comes out of my mouth and how people hear it. One thing I try to do is address the core issues of the Christian walk from a lot of different angles. So you might hear one angle one Sunday or in one post, and then hear me address the same issue from a different angle on another occasion. Sometimes it may even sound like I’m contradicting myself.  I hope so. I believe that the profoundest truths are almost always paradoxical. I’m not one to homogenize the gospel. Jesus clearly meant his words to have an edge, one that would goad us out of our lethargy and cut like a razor through our superficiality.  Again, I have to look to the Holy Spirit to “awaken” all of us to the glory of this Life. Without this basic “vision” and “desire,” Jesus’ words and my words will be heard as law or as an impossible burden.

Part of the problem is how we tend to use language in our culture. I preached a sermon on this in my first church. It was based on an article by a former missionary named Al Krass. Al pointed out that the English language tends to focus on boundaries, while other languages and cultures zero in on the essence of something, or what makes that object or person distinctive. For example, we use the word “snow” to describe a variety of different forms of crystalized water that falls from the sky or covers the ground. Eskimos, on the other hand don’t have an equivalent for “snow” in their vocabulary. They have something like 60 different words for aquatic substances in various frozen states that we call “snow.” While we might say, “Have an apple,” an Eskimo would say, “Have a Red Delicious” or “Could I buy a MacIntosh?” Al argues that our western preoccupation with boundaries and commonalities, with the resulting focus on minimum standards and requirements, has created a spiritual environment where people try to determine the least they have to do to still be considered a Christian, rather than having a vision for who they can become in Christ.

Jesus didn’t describe the border of the kingdom, he described the center. He didn’t covey the minimum a person had to do to call themselves a Christian; he pointed to the luminous jewel or treasure at the heart of the kingdom. He was more interested in luring people than pushing them. He had absolutely no interest in dragging or guilting anyone into the kingdom. In his day, the Pharisees were the ones creating boundaries. Instead, Jesus used hyperbole and story so that people couldn’t turn his teachings into boundaries or rules. He wanted people to jump into the ocean of this life, even if they didn’t know how to swim. It was okay with him that they would invariably flail and flounder. What he couldn’t tolerate was the idea of people floating on the surface without drinking the living water itself.

He knew that the only way to get the full benefit of the kingdom was to dive in without a life jacket. He knew that most of us won’t drink until we drown.

I don’t know if any of this is helpful, Steve. Let me end with a set of twin parables that Jesus once told.

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

Let’s keep talking.