Sharing God’s Saving Love

Romans 10:14-15

Introduction

If I asked you to at some point today approach a random stranger and share with them the gospel, how would you react? You might respond by saying that you are shy and don’t talk to strangers. Fine, go and share the gospel with a close friend or family member that you are comfortable talking with.  Does that make it any easier? What would be your number one hesitation? I brainstormed this and came up with some potential concerns. You may be unsure what the gospel is. You know it has something to do with Jesus, but what exactly. You may fear the person would react negatively. But why? Perhaps they have had bad experiences with other religious people. Their anger from their previous encounter might be carried over to you. Perhaps they know the message but are not convinced that it is the truth. There could be other concerns as well.

Paul, in his letter to the Romans is convinced of the importance of sharing the Good News. This is not because he is a church leader and the job of a church leader is to grow the church as a sign of success. He is convinced that having a relationship with Jesus is essential. Having experienced Jesus on the Road to Damascus, Paul understands how important it is for others to know this same Jesus. For Paul it is not a religious duty, it is an act of love.

In describing how this takes place, he quotes from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. How beautiful are the feet of the one who brings good news. When it’s described that way, it does not sound like such a chore. The image is that of people not being offended by the message but actually welcoming it. Does this tell us something about how we have been doing evangelism?

What is the Good News?

The first thing we need to consider is about the content of the gospel. It still surprises me that Christians don’t often agree as to the nature of the gospel. What is the gospel? I want you to imagine going up to a person and saying something like: “God’s current intention for you is that when you die, you will be eternally and consciously tormented in a fiery hell. However, if you pray this prayer to Jesus, you can escape your fate.” What kind of emotional response would they have? Would they interpret this as good news? This has been a common means of evangelism. I have been the recipient of scare tactics in my youth as people tried to get me to convert. You might think, that might be unattractive from a human perspective, but if its the truth, it’s the truth. The problem with that is that is never the way the gospel is shared in the Bible. Paul talks a lot about the gospel but never does he mention hell. For Paul, people should accept the gospel because it is true not because they are afraid.

The word gospel literally means good news. So we should assume that there is something good about it. The word Paul uses and Isaiah before him had very specific meaning. The idea is of two warring cities, each waiting eagerly to find out which side won in battle. The victorious army would return to their city with the good news that they had been victorious. When people saw that messenger running toward their city, they were excited and they welcomed that good news.

But what is the Good News in a Christian sense? It might surprise you that Jesus himself preached the gospel. The gospel he preached was not “Believe in me or go to hell.” The message was clear, the kingdom of God has come. How did it come? Through Jesus. In many ways, the arrival of Jesus was an invasion by heaven into earth. This was Good News even if the powers of evil were still active. As a student of the second World War, think of the reactions of occupied France at the D-Day landings or the people of Holland when the Canadians began the liberation.

The Good News is Jesus. It is about God made flesh. It is about light out of darkness. It is about victory over sin and death. The Good News is that through Jesus, the righteousness of God will overcome all evil. This is really Good News.

Sharing the Good News

So if the Good News is so good, what aren’t all the churches full? Do we just need to work harder to get the word out? One of the ideas has been that people just lack the proper knowledge. If we just tell people that Jesus died for them, then they will respond appropriately. It is true that some people have heard the simple message that Jesus died for them and have become devout Christians as a result. But most often, it gets both parties frustrated. The Christian gets frustrated that the other does not believe and the other gets frustrated that the Christian won’t stop talking. I fully agree that the message must go out but rarely is that enough.

For many people, it is not a question of whether Christianity is true, it is whether Christianity is good. We live in a time when the general public is extremely aware of how fallible the church is. One of the most popular podcasts in recent months was one put out by Christianity Today called the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. It was about a mega church based out of Seattle Washington and its controversial pastor. I won’t go into details other than to say it was an unhealthy place led by an unhealthy pastor and it was a place where spiritual abuse thrived. I bring this up to say that we have a moved from a time when the church would coverup all of our mistakes, no matter the cost, to a time that not only do non-Christians recognize our faults, we are actively revealing, rightfully so, where we have fallen short.

You might say that the problem there is that there is a difference between the church and Jesus and only Jesus matters for the gospel. While technically correct, reality is much messier. People legitimately expect that if Jesus is real, that should have some influence on his followers. That is a fair expectation. Paul talks of the church as the earthly Body of Christ. 

So part of sharing the gospel is not just passing on the correct information but witnessing through our actions that the gospel is both true and good. The role of sharing God’s saving love for this church is not about how many conversions or baptisms we personally see. It is about whether we are daily witnesses of the Kingdom of God at work in our lives and ministries. When people come here do they know what we believe by what we say or how we live? Hopefully, it is both.

Conclusion

Part of the mission statement for Queen Street Baptist Church is “Sharing God’s saving love.” If Paul had encountered this mission statement, he would have given a hearty “Amen!” It is good to share because it is not the bad news, it is the good news. And yet too often we treat evangelism like a doctor giving a terminal diagnosis to a patient. Paul, along with the prophet Isaiah centuries before him, thought the Good News was so good that even the feet of the messengers were beautiful. The Good News is not that we can narrowly escape torment. The Good News is that heaven has invaded earth in Jesus Christ and because of that, victory is assured. 

Yes, we need to pass on that message and we need to talk about the cross and the empty tomb. But we also need to live out the Kingdom of God. We need to love one another. We need to help those need. We need to stand up for the marginalized. We need to live lives shaped by love. Let’s show the world that the gospel is both true and good.