I was reading a good little book called “Our Guilty Silence: The Church, The Gospel, The World” by John Stott. It is not a big book. In fact, it is quite short. It is however packed with some good insight and punch concerning the Church’s job of evangelism.
It’s Common Sense
One of the things that Stott goes into great detail about is that in order to share the gospel with people we have to rub shoulders with people who do not know Jesus. He states it in plain terms here,
“If it be granted that evangelism is the responsibility of the whole Church and every member of it [He has spent a good amount of time proving this to be the case], the first essential is contact-close personal contact. The yeast cannot do its leavening work unless it is inserted in the dough. The salt cannot stop decay until it is rubbed into the meat. No lamp gives light to the house if it is hidden away under the bed.” – John Stott, Our Guilty Silence, 1967, the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican, Communion p. 61
This is commons sense. Is it not? In order for us to share the good news of what Jesus has done we need to know and talk with people who need to know the good news of what Jesus has done. We have to have contact with people who need Jesus if we are going to share the message of what Jesus has done with people.
I Don’t Wanna Play With Other People
The problem that many local churches face today is that their people have no desire to rub elbows with lost people in a way that will enable them to share Jesus with them. This is partially due to the lack of connection that we have with one another as a society. We really don’t go out of our way to talk with people anymore.
Here is the issue though. We, as individuals, have been commissioned for the task of taking this message to the world. Even though your church may do things to reach lost people, you and I have a personal responsibility to that task also. So, we have to go and play with others.
This is not as difficult as many people make it seem. We meet lost people as our children make new friends at school or local sports leagues. We meet lost people at work. We meet people who need Jesus, but we don’t take the time to do stuff like invite them to our home for dinner. We don’t take the time to have meaningful conversations with them.
In essence, I am just saying that you take your normal life and add some depth of relationships to it. This is completely doable for most people.
Jesus: Our Example
The perfect example of rubbing shoulders with lost people is Jesus. Stott says it wonderfully in his book,
“What Jesus taught by metaphors He put beyond possibility of misunderstanding by making His own mission the prototype of ours: ‘As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them in to the world’. ‘As the Father has sent me, even so I send you’. This ‘as-so’ does more than state a fact; it supplies a pattern. ‘Mission’ involves the Church, the gospel, and the world. Yet it is not the Church declaiming the gospel from the house-tops to a distant, deaf and heedless world; it is the Church going out into the world with the gospel, infiltrating the world, identifying itself with the world, in order to share the gospel with the world.
Of the Son’s ‘identification’ with the world into which He was sent, there can be no shadow of doubt. He did not remain in Heaven; He came into the world. The word was not spoken from the sky; ‘The Word was made flesh’. And He ‘dwelt among us’. He did not come on a fleeting visit and hurry back home again. He stayed in the world into which He came. He gave men a chance to behold His glory. Nor did He only let them gaze from a distance. He scandalized the church leaders of His day by mixing with the riff-raff they avoided. ‘Friend of publicans and sinners’, they dubbed Him. To them it was a term of opprobrium; to us it is a title of honour. He touched the untouchable lepers. he did not recoil from the touch of a prostitute. And then He, who at His birth had been ‘made flesh’, was in His death ‘made sin’ and ‘made a curse’. He had assumed our nature; He now assumed our transgressions, our doom, our death. His self-identification with man was utter and complete.” – John Stott, Our Guilty Silence, 1967, the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican, Communion pp. 61-62
Jesus is our example in this missionary journey. Like Him we must set aside some of our comfort and rub shoulders with lost people. Then and only then will we be able to tell people the great and glorious news concerning their salvation accomplished through the finished work of Christ.
Concluding Thoughts
We have a great and glorious message to deliver. Even though we have sinned and earned God’s wrath He made a way for us to be made right with Him. His Son came to Earth and died. He paid the full punishment for our sins. Jesus then rose from the grave three days later. He rose from the dead, conquering the power of sin and death and showed that God the Father was pleased with the work offered by His Son.
It just makes sense that we need to rub shoulders with a few lost people so that they can hear the message.
R. Dwain Minor
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