We live in a world that is skeptical of the church and Christians. The opportunities to go and speak the Gospel to someone who is a complete stranger may not be completely gone, but they are rare. We are getting closer to one of the two “big” holidays in church life. Easter is a little over a month away from now. I have been blessed to be a pastor for nearly eight years and I have to be honest. It use to be that the church knew there would be three big attendance days, Christmas, Easter, and Mother’s Day. We use to live in a society that is was not only acceptable, but in many respects it was expected that your family would be in church on Christmas and Easter, and if you mom went to church, you went with her on Mother’s Day. However, that simply isn’t the case. To be honest, I have seen that Christmas and Easter while still larger attendance days than most, they are becoming closer to normal attendance days. Now it would be very easy, and in fact many times we as Christians do, to blame the world for getting so godless. But my question to all of us is this, have we earned the right to share the Gospel with people? I know that sounds odd, but hopefully it will make sense shortly. I attended a conference last week in which Dr. Alvin Reid, director of evangelism for Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, preached and he made a profound statement. Dr. Reid said, “if the 1950’s ever come back, many of our churches will be ready.” I sat there and thought to myself “ouch!” What I believe he was getting at was not the style of our worship, our buildings, our dress code, etc. Rather, what I believe he was getting at was our method of “doing” church. Another pastor recently said that many churches today operate under the “old covenant system” found in the Old Testament. If you wanted to hear from God, if you wanted to see God move or do miraculous things, go to the Temple (the church of that day). It was a “come and see” mentality. However, Jesus said in the New Testament that the new covenant was in His blood, and that we were to “Go and tell” (Mt. 28). If we are honest, both of these men were right about most churches. We develop programs, we come up with big events, and we advertise “come to our church.” The problem is, as we have already stated is, people are naturally skeptical of the church. With so many televangelists out there saying “send me your money and God will bless you,” people don’t naturally know the difference between true Christianity and false teachings that abound. How can we change that?
The apostle Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 2:7-8, “But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children: So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.” I would like to point out a few things that may grant us the privilege of sharing the Gospel with the lost, skeptics of our world. First, Paul says we were gentle among you.” The Greek word indicates that they were kind and meek. Notice the illustration Paul uses in verse 7, “even as a nurse cherisheth her children.” The picture is that we are to be as kind as a mother is towards her children. That same love a mother has for her children, is to be the love we must demonstrate to the lost world. This had to be hard, because Paul was constantly the subject of hatred and persecution. Not the “I don’t like that, don’t say that” persecution like we see in America, but rather he endured beatings, imprisonments, and attempts to kill him persecution. Paul lived out Jesus’ teaching on not repaying evil for evil, but rather return good for evil. Our country is becoming more hostile toward Christianity for certain, but we must respond in love if we want them to hear our message. Secondly, for Paul and for us it must be about “sharing the Gospel.” Paul was not interested in getting into vain, pointless arguments as so many Christians want to do today. He wanted to make sure that he kept the Gospel his focus, because that was the only hope the people of his day, and the people of our day had. But notice it wasn’t just a come in share the Gospel and leave operation. They were “among you.” Today we call it friendship or relational evangelism. Simply put, Paul and the others lived around and were intentional about seeking out lost people. For many reasons that I will not discuss at this point, the day of door-to-door evangelism while not dead, has severely declined. Please hear me on this, it can and still does work, we have used it here at Westlake. But if we are going to reach a skeptical world, we are going to have to invest ourselves in them. We are going to have to be intentional about developing relationships with people who don’t know Jesus. We don’t approve or condone what they do anymore than we are to approve or condone the sin in our lives, but we are not to avoid them either. One of the greatest tragedies of the modern church is that we have a tendency to want to get into our “holy huddle” called church and compete to see whose light can shine the brightest among the other lights.” All the while, the darkness is spreading and people are dying and realizing that hell is a literal place. We must be intentional about building relationships for the sole purpose of sharing the Gospel. Finally, notice the motivation of Paul in verse 8, “because ye were dear unto us.” Why were Paul and his companions so successful in their evangelistic efforts? They were men of prayer, the relied on the power of God, and as we see in this verse, they genuinely cared about the people they were trying to reach. Paul would say in 1 Corinthians 13 that he could be the smartest and the best, but if he didn’t have love as his motivating factor, he was nothing. Warning, this question hurts! Could it be that the world is so skeptical of the church and Christians, because they see right through us? We profess to love them, but what they see if judgment and condemnation. Many churches use the mantra “we are a come just as you are church” when talking about how friendly and accepting we are and how you can dress. We say that, but could it be that the world hears that but then sees us say, “come just as you are, and we will change you to make you like us?” Ok, that one stung a little more didn’t it? We don’t need new programs to reach the lost, we need to be men and women of prayer, who depend on the power of God, and not only say that we love people, but genuinely show it. That is how we can earn the privilege of speaking the Gospel to someone.
By His grace and through His strength may we live for Him