Practice Makes Possible

Proclaim!  Share the Good News

(by Cindy Caldwell)

When it comes to evangelism, we’ve had our share of bad examples.  The “E-word” often conjures up images of crazy people on street corners, or pests knocking at our door.  I remember back in high school when the “Forever Family” cult was pulling kids away from their families, preaching hellfire and brimstone and pushing the slogan, “Get Smart—Get Saved!”   Let’s face it:  we’ve all been accosted by bad evangelists.  And if we haven’t they are in our imaginations, scaring people away from the church, and scaring the church away from its most important work of proclaiming good news to the world. 

But there must be good evangelists too.  After all, someone shared the gospel with you, and you are here today, sharing your faith in a small group, seeking to grow in discipleship.  Proclamation is how we got here.  Somebody helped us get here, to this faith community.  Proclamation is not just a Christian activity.   It’s who we are.  Proclamation is something that God has spoken into our very being.   We are, at our very core, God-breathed proclaimers of the gospel. 

You may have heard this phrase before.  It’s a Latin expression.

Missio Dei The best way to translate this is "sending of God."  It’s one of those “golden threads” that runs all through the bible and it tells us that God is a sending God.  God is known to us through Christ as a community of being in Trinity.  “One God”, revealed in three persons,  “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”   Trinity tells us that God is, in God’s very essence, relational.  God desires to be known.  Though God is one, God was never alone or unknown, but always known in the mystery of “Trinity”—a community of perfect, creative, self-giving love.  Here is another foreign word for your vocabulary list, this one is Greek:

Perichoresis.  This is a word that describes the relationship within the Trinity as a community of three persons, distinct from each other but united in this eternal dance of life.   We are created in the image of God, created FOR GOD, so we too are relational beings, and we too are drawn into that dance of life.

The story of our redemption is the Father sending the Son for our salvation.  The Father and the Son send the Spirit to create the Church.  And we too are sent by this Triune God to be part of God’s mission in the world.  What is that mission?  To redeem the world for his glory, and to bring every person back from sin into this dance of life.  So in the Trinity we see the “sending” nature of God.  Jesus says to his disciples: 

“as the Father sent me, so I am sending you.”  (John 20:21)

  Missio Dei means that God has a mission in the world, and God engages His people in that mission.  Let’s look at some of the scriptures that show us this characteristic and this mission of God. 

God on a mission

The Lord had said to Abram, “leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land that I will show you.  I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you;  I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.”  (Genesis 12:1)

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”  (Luke 19:10)

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

                        (Luke 4:18-19)

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;  I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  (John 10:5)

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

                                                (Acts 1:8)            

**What are some of the characteristics of God’s mission in the world?

**And the question for us is, “how can we join God in that work?”

One thing we need to do is renew our ideas of what it means to be the church.

(the church’s identity crisis.)

The Image of the Church  (organization, building, people, rules, etc.)

Mission has often been seen as an activity on the church’s agenda.  But mission is not an activity of the church—it is an attribute of God that God expressed in creating the church.  The church doesn’t have a mission, the church is God’s mission.   And every disciple is, by his or her new nature, a proclaimer of the gospel.  We are God’s good news to the world.  I hope today we will at least begin to rediscover our calling as a “sent” people.  I hope we’ll begin to discover who God is calling us to be, and how we will live that out in a way that proclaims God’s good news to the world.

The church is a sent community, and it’s also a sending community.  It is created for the purpose of gathering, building up, equipping, and sending PROCLAIMERS.

Let me ask you—when you think about your church—do you think of it more as a retreat center, or an adventure outpost?  Is your faith an escape from the world where you can be with just Christians, or is it an adventure, in which you are outfitted by the church to do exciting, sometimes dangerous things?  If it’s an escape, then when the church challenges you to share your faith, it is pushing you against your will. 

But what if it’s an adventure outpost, where we are equipped with the good news, and sent out to discover what God is up, and be a part of it?  What if we’re being invited into that perichoresis, that dance of life, and we’re being wallflowers.  And if we’re missing out by not sharing our faith, imagine what the world misses when most of the church is on perpetual retreat.   We’re going to look at a number of different commissions from Jesus.  Heres the first one:

In Acts 1:8, Jesus made this promise:

Acts 1:8  ⁸ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

Witness:  is not proselytizing, but showing the world a different way to live.  Jesus talks about his followers as members of a contrast community, a people who demonstrate an alternative way of being in the world. 

“Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”  (Matthew 11:28-30)

“You have heard that it was said . . .”   But I say to you, it is this way.  By living his way, we are witnessing to his power and authority in the world.  

Let’s look at an important passage in Matthew 28:18-22.  It’s what we refer to as the Great Commission.  These are the instructions that Jesus gave to his disciples before he ascended to the Father. 

He said:

Matthew 28:18 - 22   ¹⁸ "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."¹ 

How do you read this—is it a command, or a promise?

Where are the commands?

What are the promises?

Let’s take it apart.  Often we sweep through this passage and get just one thing out of it—that we’re supposed to share our faith.  But there are some important instructions and promises in here that we often miss, and we’re going to go through them now.

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  What is Jesus saying about himself?  (He is in authority.  His kingdom is established.  It is here in the world.)  Go therefore . . .  (This is both a command and a promise.  Jesus is not saying “obey me because I’m in authority”.  He is saying “I am entrusting you with my authority to go as my representative in the world.” 

In the Methodist church we have a very long process of preparing ministers to become ordained.  Last year I participated in a 3-day examination to determine whether the bishop will give me authority to be a full time pastor in a church.  Without that authority, we can’t do it.  But I passed the examination, so I was given a certain level of authority to teach and serve and lead a church, I was given that authority by the bishop.  But Christ has already given authority to everyone here who is his disciple.  He is ready to trust you to represent him in the world, and he is willing to give himself to you for that purpose.  He wants you to be confident in his presence, and in the authority that he has entrusted to you.

Go Therefore . . . under Christ’s authority, in the name of the Triune God, we can, and we will, join in God’s mission in the world.

And make disciples . . . (Making disciples is very different from converting people.  We need to understand the difference.  Jesus is calling us to get involved in his saving work in the world by making disciples.  And we’re so worried about how we’re going to make converts that we totally miss the command.  To make disciples.  How long does it take to learn how to be a disciple of Jesus?  (all your life!) 

Disciple-making is a relational activity.  We have to invite people on a journey, and stay with them!  When Jesus called his 12 disciples, he didn’t convert them, he invited them on a mission.  “Follow me, and I will teach you how to fish for people.”  Jesus is not calling us to make converts.  Only God can convert someone.  Jesus is calling us to engage in relationships where we invite people on God’s mission. 

Of all nations . . .  And you are to do this among all the peoples of the earth, wherever you find yourself, and wherever you are sent.   God’s mission encompasses all nations of the earth.  It is a cross cultural expedition.

He goes on to say

Baptizing them  . . .  in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Baptism is initiation into the faith community.  In baptism God claims us as His children and we receive new life.  We’re brought into God’s family and given the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus wants us to bring people into God’s household because we need each other for the life-long journey of discipleship.  We need the sacraments.  We need the teaching and the accountability and the worship and the serving that shapes our lives and makes us more like Jesus.  When someone is ready to take that step on their journey, we need to be ready to bring them to baptism and full inclusion in the church.

And teaching them . . .

Jesus says, teach them.  Jesus wants us to be teachers.  To teach all that we know about the bible and faith.  Not everyone is a classroom teacher.  We don’t all have to get up and stand in front of a classroom and teach the bible.   But every learner is a natural teacher.  What you learn becomes a part of you.  God’s word takes up residence in your everyday life, and the best way to hang onto that is to pass it on to someone else.  Every true learner is a teacher. 

And here’s the promise:

Jesus says, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  From now until the day he returns and the church is no more, Jesus promises us his presence.  The reason we are able to witnesses, is because Christ is with us.  Christ is in us.  Our lives reflect his life.  Jesus promises—“you will be my witnesses.”  He promises,  “I will be with you.”  He promises, “you can make disciples under my authority.  We are called and fully equipped to be proclaimers of the gospel.

The problem with making converts

I’m going to tell you what I think gets in the way of that.  If we’re trying to make converts, then we’re trying to do what only God can do.  There’s a lot of nonsense around conversion.  People answering altar calls, and then never showing up in church again.  There’s a lot of pressure in some Christian circles to make converts.  And that’s where you get the image of the guy with a bullhorn and a sandwich board on the street corner.  That’s how you get people like the Sanders knocking on your door.  And that’s why we have the real problem:  that when we hear the word “evangelism” and it makes us want to hide, and we feel guilty because there are people out there who are lost, and we’re not saving them.

Let me ask you:  can I save myself from my sin?  (no)  Then, if there is nothing that I can do to save myself from my sin, what makes me think I can save someone else?

John 6:44   ⁴⁴ "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him,

And yet God uses our faith, and our lives, to draw people to Himself.  Here’s what Paul wrote:

2 Corinthians 2:14  ¹⁴ But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him.

The “fragrance” that attracts people to Christ comes from knowing and following Jesus.  Do you know him?  Do you want to know him more and more?  Is grace at work in your life? 

Is grace at work in the life of your neighbor who doesn’t know Christ?  (Yes!)

This is all about grace.  Grace comes from God, and it comes to us all our lives long.  We are witnesses of that grace, and we understand grace in three different ways.

1. Prevenient grace tells us that God is at work in everyone’s life, already, before we show up.  God’s on a mission and your unbelieving next door neighbor Fred is part of that mission, whether he knows it or not.  God is acting in Fred’s life through prevenient grace, and Fred has wondered about God.  He has questions about God, even if he doesn’t want to ask them out loud.  You are God’s witness.  You are the one who can listen to Fred and hold his story sacred because you know the name of this God who is in it.  You are the witness, because this is the very same God who works in your life, and you can talk about that without judging Fred. 

If you trust in God’s prevenient grace, then you can respect how non-Christians experience God.  Every person has a sacred story.  When Paul was in the city of Athens and he was walking among the statues of pagan gods, he found a monument that was inscribed, “to an unknown god.”  He didn’t chastise them for their beliefs, he affirmed their experience of God.  But he also witnessed to them, telling them about Christ.    Prevenient grace always goes ahead of you, and you are its witness.

1. Justifying grace.  We know that it is justifying grace that saves us from sin, and that happens when we accept Christ as our savior and lord.  At the same time, God also applies . . .

3. Sanctifying grace. And this transforms us throughout our lives and makes us more like Christ.  These two graces happen inside a person, where we can’t see.  And guess what--We don’t need to know whether someone has crossed the line from unsaved to saved.  We can’t judge someone’s soul.  What we can do is to help someone take steps of faith by making available to them the means of grace:  Inviting them to church, helping them learn the scriptures, connecting them with a small group, exploring questions of faith.  Bringing them to special events where they will encounter other people of faith. Building relationships.  Our salvation isn’t contained in a moment’s time when we say a special prayer.  It’s a life-journey that we take with other people. 

I like what Paul says to the believers in Philippians”

Philippians 2:12-13  continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,  ¹³ for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

We need to provide the environment for spiritual growth, where people can work out their salvation in cooperation with God’s work in them.

God has given you a specific place to live and to work.  You travel in certain circles and you shop in certain stores, you have relatives, recreation and hobbies, you connect with people in the places you go.  Those places are your mission field.  Right there with the people you know best.  And when you have the opportunity to go out further, to another culture, and proclaim the gospel, GO—because Jesus has given you the authority, and you already are a witness with Christ in you.

Being a proclaimer is about believing that the same grace that saves you is already at work in the life of every person you encounter—and you are witness to that reality.  Being a proclaimer means that you are created in the image of a thoroughly relational, completely loving God who desires to be known, and who invites you on his mission in the world, grants you authority to proclaim, and promises to be with you.  Therefore, go.

Here are just a couple more things I want to highlight about God’s saving work and our call to be proclaimers. 

People need the full gospel.  Too often we’re in the habit of reducing it into something we can control, and we sell it way short.  So here are some things to remember as proclaimers:

1. The Gospel is proclaimed in word and in deed.  We witness through our words and through actions that demonstrate God’s love. 
2. Proclamation is not about “getting people saved”—but about  transformed lives.  Remember how Jesus described it—not as an altar call but as captives set free, sight for the blind, release for the oppressed, the favor of God.  Isn’t that a change?
3. Salvation is not just an “after-life”—it’s a new life now.  So the question is not—“if you died tonight do you know where you would go?”  the question is “how can I help this person encounter Christ today?”  Salvation is both now and forever.
4. Salvation is not just personal—it’s also corporate.  We can speak of a Savior who wants to make all things new.  Salvation is a heart brought home to God, and it’s initiation into a restored community.
5. The gospel is not just spiritual—it’s also social. It creates holiness in each of us, and it also brings forth a just community that reflects the kingdom of heaven that Jesus proclaimed. 

The Gospel is incarnational.  It wears skin and bones and goes everywhere.  Christ who came from heaven to be “one of us” calls us to cross boundaries to engage people in all cultures and invite them on the mission of God.  That means:

• Sharing Christ with people who are different
• Serving people who are not deserving
• Engaging with the non-Christian culture to bring wholeness to a broken world.

Paul was a missionary to the Gentiles so he spent most of his missionary career with people very different from himself and that’s why we have the gospel today.  Listen to his words in 1 Corinthians:

“Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jew I became like a Jew, to win the Jews.  . . . I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.  I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”  (1 Corinthians 9:19-20, 23.)

Our call to be proclaimers is also a call to what we call the ‘”priesthood of all believers”.  Jesus is called our “high priest” because he offered the ultimate sacrifice for our salvation.  He interceded on our behalf to reconcile us to God.  He offered himself.  The scriptures call us to follow Jesus by standing in the gap for others, to help them encounter Christ.  The priesthood of believers means that

-Not just clergy but all believers are drawn into the mission of God.

-We are commissioned and empowered to to into the world.

-The priesthood includes:

Intercession –we pray for the salvation of others.

Sacrifice—we leave where we are comfortable and do the difficult thing for the sake of others.

Pointing others to God

Helping people grow in faith.

1 Peter 2:9-10, 12:

You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 

. . . Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”

                                                (1 Peter 2: 9-10, 12)

We live out this priesthood through what John Wesley called “Holiness of Heart and Life.”  That means,

We live out personal holiness together.

We invite people into the community of faith.

Because we are God’s good news to the world.