Saturday 13 June 2009

14 JUNE 2009. EVERY MEMBER INVOLVED IN EVANGELISM – 1. 2 Corinthians 5: 10 – 21, Mark 4: 26 – 34, Robert

This is the first of two sermons on the theme: “Every Member involved in Evangelism”. This title is not to suggest that every Christian is an ‘evangelist’ – that is a particular ministry which requires particular gifts of the Holy Spirit. But it does most definitely mean that we are not spectators on the sidelines who have no part to play except watch and perhaps pray. We do most certainly have an active role to play in every aspect of the Church’s mission under Christ to the world He came to save. And as this Gospel will wither and die if it is not passed on so that the Church grows, evangelism is a vital part of the ministry in which we are all involved. Jesus’ parables in our Gospel today speak of the Kingdom of God growing from a tiny seed until it reaches it final fulfilment. We are privileged to be an important part of that wonderful growth.

The word I have chosen to identify our part in evangelism is Ambassador. Paul writes in our Epistle this morning from 2 Corinthians 5: 20 “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though Christ were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.”

It’s quite a precise word that Paul chooses, and it had very much the same meaning in the 1st century Roman world as it does today – a senior person who represents one country or state in its dealings with another. Paul is saying that we may not all be front-line evangelists to the secular world, but we are all called to be ambassadors.

What does an ambassador do? I have chosen three words beginning with ‘P’ to help us clarify our task. They are Presence, Promotion and Protection – slightly contrived perhaps, but I hope you will find it helpful and challenging.

1. Presence. An ambassador will be no good if he or she sits at home in his own country. The whole point is that he lives in the country to which he has been appointed.

Now we need to clarify an important point before we can carry on with this illustration. Paul’s use of this word implies that there are two worlds – or spheres of existence – and that the Christian is an ambassador who belongs in one of those worlds, but who is temporarily resident in the other. Many Christians are not really conscious of the fact that we live in two worlds and so the two mostly merge into one. The Christian world and the secular world overlap to such an extent that the majority of the differences more or less disappear.

But contrast Paul in this passage. He talks about two ‘creations’ – an old one which is passing away, and a new ‘creation’ which came into being with the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. And when we become Christians, we pass from the citizenship of the old order and become citizens of the new.

If you are not familiar with this central plank of the Christian faith, it may sound somewhat strange. But it is central to this passage. Paul has been through an enormously difficult series of experiences which cause him to write in chapter 1 verse 8 that “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed in our hearts we felt the sentence of death.” And he is writing here to many Christians who are also going through enormously difficult times. Today we might think of Christians in many parts of the Muslim world undergoing arbitrary persecution and murder; in the Middle East; or simply those in countries like Zimbabwe who live in fear of famine, sickness, despair and death.

And what keeps him going is the knowledge that this material world is no longer his true and permanent home. In chapter 4 verse 18 of this letter he writes: “We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” And he goes on in the first part of chapter 5 to write about our eternal home in heaven for which (he says) we groan with anticipation, and we have already been sealed with the promise of that home by the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And the gift of the Holy Spirit means that this heavenly home is not just some distant prospect, but by faith in Christ, we have already crossed over into this new world and become citizens of the new age. “Therefore” – he writes here in verse 17, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

In John 17, where Jesus prays for his disciples, and, by extension, for us, he prays that we may be ‘in the world’ but not ‘of the world’ – worldly. To use the old phrase, just because we now belong to a new created order, we are not to be ‘so heavenly minded that we’re no earthly use!’ We are to represent the values, spiritual and material, of the new world in our earthly life in the old one. It is still God’s wonderful creation, and we are to be good stewards of it, although it is only our temporary home.

I have spent a little while on this because it is the background to this word ‘ambassador’. We are to be ambassadors of the Kingdom of God while living temporarily in the earthly, secular world.

Hence this word ‘presence’. The ambassador lives in a country which is not his real home. But unless he lives in it, he can’t be of any use.

There have been times when Christians have been solemnly warned not to go anywhere near anything that might smack of worldliness or temptation. But that is not the model Jesus gives us. One of the great criticisms levelled against him by the Jewish religious leaders was that he was constantly mixing with people they regarded as beyond the pale. But his answer was always that these were the people who needed his message. Unless a doctor mixes with people who are sick, he can’t heal anybody. The important thing is that he keeps his own health and integrity so that they become healthy, and not that he becomes sick.

Sometimes our social lives are so bound up with our Church that we hardly really know anyone outside the Church. Then, when it comes to ‘Back to Church Sunday’ or the next ‘Alpha Course’, we can’t think of anyone to invite. We must be involved in this world and identified as Christians – wearing, so to speak, our ambassadorial credentials – in our home and family, place of work, recreation and every aspect of life. But we must, as ambassadors, be people who maintain the values and identity of our home country, and not become simply chameleons.

2. PROMOTION. The ambassador is there to promote the interests of his own country. We are out there in the secular world, therefore, partly as role-models and partly to commend the Christian faith to those we encounter.

In its most basic form, this will usually be quite local. Maybe you’ve just read a book which commends the Christian faith and which you can recommend and, indeed, lend. That’s involvement in evangelism, isn’t it? Or perhaps there’s a special Christian meeting to which you can invite someone – think of the Alpha Course, for example. Or perhaps you have a story to share of how God has helped you in some particular experience. Sharing a personal story always evokes interest and questions. Or, hopefully, you can say to people that you belong to St Michael’s which is a welcoming, loving, worshipping Christian family in which you really feel at home, and that you would love to bring them along one day. You will be able to think of many other simple and imaginative ways in which you can share what is (I hope) your enthusiasm for our wonderful Christian faith. And if you find talking about these things difficult, we have an excellent course called ‘Lost for Words’ starting on Wednesday – see leaflet.

3.PROTECTION. Sadly too often we hear the Christian faith or (more commonly) the Christian Church criticised. The ambassador is there to defend, explain and sometimes to apologise. Sometimes the Christian faith is travestied or caricatured, and Jesus himself held up as a figure of ridicule. The ambassador is at least there to register a protest. We know very well how the representatives of other religions do not hesitate for a moment to register their objection when they think their religion is being brought into disrepute, and yet we have a rather British attitude of pretending not to see, and maintaining the stiff upper lip. But we live in an age when no-one will take us seriously unless we are prepared to stand up for what we believe, and give some reason and defence for the faith we hold so dearly.

This is not an easy task. Sometimes what the Church does or says is frankly indefensible. Sometimes it is hard to draw the line between what is humorous or fair game, and what merits a profound protest. We need thought, we need wisdom, we need prayer. There are many very difficult ethical issues up for debate now, in which the Christian viewpoint needs to be clearly represented. Often we need actual knowledge of what is going on, and equally knowledge of our own faith, which many of us find just too much trouble. But we live in an age when the Christian Church will be marginalized and trivialised unless we are prepared to be seen and heard and counted. The buck stops with the ambassador.

Presence. Promotion. Protection. Paul writes: “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us (and that’s a big responsibility). And our involvement in evangelism is to take very seriously and prayerfully Paul’s next sentence which is that we must “implore those we encounter day by day on Christ’s behalf – one way or another - that they be reconciled to God”.

DISCUSSION
1. Discuss personal examples of where you have been able to promote the Christian faith at home, work or in your social life. Thinking about it afterwards, what did you not say that you might have said? Or said that would have been better unsaid?
2. Discuss some of the ways in which the Christian viewpoint is ignored or contradicted in secular society. How might we best register our point of view, or protest?
3. What does it mean in practice to travel through life with our eyes fixed – not on what is seen – but what is unseen? (See 2 Corinthians 4: 16 – 18)

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