In my mind, because of church experience and the way it is done, I think of the Gospel as a presentation of truth, the truth about Jesus and what He did. I’m sure that’s what it is.
But maybe the Gospel is first and foremost really a presentation of Joy. Maybe we got it wrong side forwards.
When Paul describes what the witness of a church should look like, he says, “Romans 15:5 May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
So here are the elements:
In harmony with one another…one mind, the unity of the faith…
In accord with Christ….His mission and commission…until we all attain to…the knowledge of the son of God, mature manhood, the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, abiding in Christ.
Now comes the witness…together with one voice glorifying the God and Father.
I think everyone can glorify God for what He has done in Christ. To “glorify” simply means to shine light on something, like pointing to a sign or a mountain. A couple of verses later it says that Christ came so that the Gentiles might glorify God because of His mercy. If God were a cool video we could say, “Hey, take a look at this,” and show it. If God were a grandchild, we could whip a photo out of our wallets and say, “Hey, look at my grandkid.” If God was God we could just…..but we’re not really too proud of Him. And worse, we’re not really too happy about what He did for us or in us. Or are we?
Do we need a class on how to glorify God, how to express our thanks, or show our gratefulness in front of others? If we do need a class, we are to be pitied. What have we become? How did we limit all of this to musical hour on Sunday? “Therefore do not be ashamed of testifying to our Lord…” Just say how happy you are? If you won a million dollars you would be happy and tell people. Spiritually and really, you did better than that. If you met Tom Cruise or Oprah or the Queen, you’d let people know. Well? And if you had been miraculously set free from a terrorists' fort where you were about to be killed and a black ops team did an amazing A-Team type extraction, you’d let people know. Well?
Paul says in Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” I sense that this is a leaky kind of hope that people would see, and they’d come up to you and say, “Hey I don’t know if you know this, but you’re covered with hope and sort of leaving a trail.”
The more I think of how natural our witness is to be, the more I realize that it has to be the natural result of Joy, not apologetics. Our confession is in worship…at His feel in grateful submission and thanks and then serving Him on our feet in doing love and acts of Spirit-inspired kindness to our neighbor for Christ as the Holy Spirit shows us. And we live in joy and hope and express as much.
Joy and glorifying God for His mercy seems to me to be the natural, built-in witness to Christ that each person and the church as a group, is meant to unleash. We make it hard on ourselves and neglect our calling by making our joy private and small. His love is public and generous and leaky and it left a trail…of blood.
No comments:
Post a Comment