In times when Christians feel under pressure, one of the first things to fall off our agenda is evangelism.
We quickly retreat from the active proclamation of the Lordship of Jesus and the salvation he brings to the more passive notion of witness. Not that there is anything wrong with witness, far from it. Nor is it quite fair to describe witness as passive. Genuine Christian witness is both deliberate and active and it does involve talking about Jesus when the opportunity arises. After all, the New Testament idea of witness overlaps significantly with that of martyr! But in our own context witnessing by my life and choices can be a safe place to retreat from a more proactive commitment to creating opportunities to speak of Jesus as Saviour and Lord and calling on people to repent and believe.
I know the pressure to make that move in my own life. What’s more I can very easily find ways to justify it. The need of the moment, I can tell myself, is cultural engagement, a conversation rather than an invitation, looking for what I can affirm in the world rather than challenging the world with something radically opposed to its agenda, building bridges not burning them or even necessarily crossing them just yet. Once again there is nothing wrong with conversation or affirming genuine good in the world or building bridges, but I know these things can be my rationalisations for not seeking every opportunity to present Jesus and to press home the claim he makes on every human life.
So what do I need to remember if I am to take the plunge and keep doing the work of an evangelist (2 Tim 4:5) even in an environment where Christian faith is very far from the flavour of the month? Let me suggest three things.
1. I need to remember just how good the gospel message is. Of course I know that, but I need to keep being reminded. The message we have to take to the world really is good news. The genuine brokenness that is undeniable in the world around us and in our own lives is not the final word. Pain and suffering are not the final words. Neither are oppression, manipulation, exploitation or abuse.
Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. He came into the world to overturn death and bring new life. He came into the world, not for his own sake, but for ours: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him might not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). The things that hurt us most deeply and shadow us all our lives — weakness, sickness, death, the betrayal of broken relationships, the loss of those we love — none of these are unknown to him. He charted a course through all of them and offers peace and freedom from guilt and life to the full and hope for the future to all who come to him.
Time and again in the New Testament we are reminded of the scale of the blessing that is ours in Christ. What God has done for us in Christ is astonishingly good news. At the very heart of it is God’s provision for the forgiveness of sins. He has dealt with, not only my personal sense of guilt and shame, but also the objective reality of my guilt before him. In a world where God is committed to justice and equity far more than we have ever been, in fact, this commitment is inseparable from who he is as God, sin must be answered with judgment. So it is a most amazing cause of rejoicing that There is therefore, now, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1).
We have a message to share with our neighbours that is genuinely good. It is, in fact, the best thing they could ever hear. We don t have to be embarrassed about that message or feel that somehow it needs dressing up or modifying to make it attractive or relevant. I need to remember just how good the gospel message is, just how wonderful a thing it is to be saved by Jesus Christ.
2. I need to remember how lost men and women are without Christ. This is, of course, one of the reasons that makes the gospel of Christ crucified and risen such good news. The gospel is the answer to a desperate need, indeed the only answer to that desperate need. Of course it is not always obvious that our neighbours are in desperate need. They might seem very comfortable and life might appear to be going very smoothly for them — after all the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Or their need might be obvious, just not the sort of need the gospel addresses directly. Our friends, and we ourselves, might be facing financial need or medical need. Some need physical security in the face of war or terrorism or oppressive and often corrupt political systems. Yet the need that is most pressing, even when it is not recognised or felt, is the need to deal with impending wrath of God. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ , Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 5:10. The writer to the Hebrews makes clear it is appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment (Heb 9:27). A little later he writes It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb 10:31).
From the moment of the Fall in the Garden of Eden, sin has corrupted and distorted every aspect of human life. Right down to the level of our DNA, our thinking, our will, our emotions, our personalities, our words and our actions — every facet of who we are is touched by the decision to be our own arbiters of right and wrong without reference to God. So it is hardly any surprise that this most basic need is not recognised or is suppressed by so many. It is hardly any surprise that in the wake of a determination to keep to the trajectory we have set for ourselves, the gospel does not appear at first as good news. The call to come to Christ carries with it a warning for those who will not come. God has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed (Acts 17:31).
Long ago now a simple truth about the Christian life was put to me which helped to put so much else in perspective: if Christian living is all about being conformed to the image of Christ, growing like Jesus, that must mean growing in our concern for those who are lost. After all he came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). So alongside remembering how really, really good the gospel message is, I need to remember how lost my neighbours, friends and family are if they remain outside of Christ.
3. I need to remember the time is short. This is something that cuts across the grain of our experience. It is now almost two thousand years since Jesus public ministry, his death and resurrection, and his ascension into heaven. Two thousand years does not seem like a short time to us and what’s more everything really does seem to be continuing as it has from the beginning of creation (2 Pet 3:4). The earth continues to revolve around the sun, we are born, grow old and die, nations and empires rise and fall, one new idea succeeds another. Yet God describes our time as the last days (e.g. Acts 2:17; 2 Tim 3:1; Heb 1:2). We are called on to be alert and ready because the return of Jesus, which brings all things to their conclusion, will come unexpectedly, amidst the normal rhythms of everyday life (Matt. 24:38 -39). The time to respond to Jesus is not unlimited. The day has been fixed. The judge has been determined. As a friend of ours says, Your perspective is different when it is one-all and you re in the last minute of extra time.
Just at the moment many of us feel under pressure. A perfect storm of religious terrorism, institutional failure in protecting the vulnerable from predators, pseudo-intellectual attack from the new atheists, and a successful and carefully orchestrated campaign to change the moral compass of society, has made any attempt to speak of God and faith open to ridicule and worse. In such an environment it is very tempting to avoid anything that might be misread as confrontational. Let’s try to recover our respectability and the right to speak.
So I need to get up each morning and remind myself that it is still true that Jesus died for the sins of the world. It is still true that Jesus rose from the dead to give new life to all who will come to him. It is still true that he sits enthroned at the right hand of God the Father in heaven. It is still true that he will come to judge the living and the dead. His call to come to him, to repent and believe, is still as relevant and vital as it ever was. I have the best message in the world to share and my friends so desperately need to hear it. I need to remember the words of Jesus this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come (Matt 24:14).
