Under Orders from the King

We were buying a house—a brand new house. It was about to be built just up the hill from the model home. Tina’s (my wife) mom came to visit; of course, we took her to see the lot and the model home. We were young; in fact, I was young enough to think that we would do a quick walk through of the model and then go to lunch. Can you tell I had not been married very long? Somehow Tina produced a tape measurer and she and her mother began measuring all the windows and sliding glass doors so they could get started picking out, and/or making curtains, drapes, etc. They were talking about colors and accents, and all the stuff I didn’t care about. So I sat down on one of the couches in the living room and watched the other people who came in to look the model over.

As I sat there enjoying the couch and listening to my stomach begin to growl for lunch, a man, probably old enough to be my father, sat heavily in the easy chair next to me. He was a talkative guy. At times I have been accused of enjoying the sound of my voice too, so we got into a conversation. Apparently, his daughter was looking for a house. I excitedly told him we had already bought one and it would soon be under construction. When we exhausted that line of conversation and our women-folk hadn’t reappeared, he asked me what I did for a living. I was in my very first lead, actually solo, pastoral assignment, so I excitedly told him that I was the pastor of Church of the Foothills, gave him directions, and invited him to join us any Sunday morning for worship.

He asked me what kind of church it was. I told him what I always say when people ask me that:  “We are a non-denominational church affiliated with the Church of God of Anderson, Indiana. It’s sort of a non-denominational denomination.” He said, “Just so long as it’s not one of the those evangelical churches.” I asked him what church he belonged to. He said, “I’m Jewish.” So I asked him what was wrong with “evangelical” churches, and told him that our church could be considered evangelical. He went into a rant for several minutes about how his daughter had been going to an evangelical church and they wanted her to become a Christian, and why couldn’t we just let people be what they were born to be. At the end of his monologue, he was pretty red in the face and he asked me if I tried to get people to become Christians. I told him I did, and he asked why I thought I should try to get people to believe as I do. After a minute or two he again stopped talking and I told him that the last thing Jesus did on this earth was tell His followers to go into all the world and make disciples. I told the man, we have to try to persuade people to join us. We believe God’s Son ordered us to do so. He huffed a time or two and then got up to go find his family. Tina and her mom came back and said they were ready to go about then and we left. I never saw that man again, but that conversation has stayed with me.

We are under orders to bring the world to Jesus. Doing the Great Commission is not something we can do when we get around to it. It is what the Lord calls all of us to do. Some people will laugh at you. Some will get angry. Some will avoid you. But some will believe. Praise God, some will believe! The proper way to share the Good News about Jesus is by building relationships with people who don’t know Him and sharing our lives with them. It is more than can be done in a few minutes on a doorstep … or in a model home. It’s about loving folks who need the Good News and earning the right to be heard. I didn’t have the opportunity to do that with the man on the couch that day, but I think someone was building that kind of relationship with his daughter. I hope at some time someone came into that man’s life and got to share with him on a deeper level than I had the opportunity to do. He was very resistant to me and, I think, to anyone at that time, but maybe later someone got the opportunity to help him know our Savior.

It’s a big job that Jesus gave us. If we do it right it changes lives, cultures, and history. It has done so in the past, and it can again. In recent months several things have happened that demonstrate that the influence of Judeo-Christian values has lessened on our society. That needs to change, but it won’t be changed by winning elections and passing legislation. If the change comes, it will be because hearts have turned to God. That only happens as we build relationships with neighbors, colleagues, teammates, whoever we do life with who don’t know Christ. It only happens when we risk being ostracized and even hated. It will only happen when people see Christ’s love in us. Remember, we are under orders. Jesus did His part on the cross. The Holy Spirit will help us. We must do our assignment.

Salt or Sand?

Jesus told the disciples, “You are the salt of the earth.” This was an amazing declaration of His faith in His followers to make a difference in the world by making a difference in the lives of individuals that we meet. When preacher-types like me talk about this verse we remind folks what salt does: it adds flavor, it keeps foods from spoiling, and it melts ice. All are great metaphors for what Christ followers are to be in the world.

One of these metaphors has become more meaningful for me recently. I have spent most of the last two winters in the Chicago, Illinois area. Wow, do those folks know how to have a winter! Snow lands on the ground around Thanksgiving and may finally be gone by Easter, providing Easter does not come too early on the calendar. It gets cold and stays cold. And yet people live and function through it all. They get to work, to the store, usually to church, and always to the sporting events even as the snow piles high and temperatures drop.

I grew up in Wichita, Kansas. It’s not exactly one of the great vacation spots in the winter either, but there are respites between terrible cold spells and any snow they get tends to melt in just a few days. It only seems longer. When it snows in Wichita, it’s a big deal. They know it will come, but they seem to deny it, at least on the roads.

In Northern Illinois they put salt and other similar chemicals on the roads as soon as snow threatens. Ice usually melts on the road as soon as it forms. The roads usually remain passible. I was reminded when I was in Kansas early last winter how different things are out there when it snows. Instead of using salt to melt the snow and ice on the roads, the Wichitans put down sand. I guess their philosophy is that the sand will give vehicles traction on the ice. While the road department in Northern Illinois believes it’s better to just get the snow and ice to melt and go away, in Wichita, after a big snowstorm people slip and slide for several days, and hope the snow melts on its own.

The point of all this is actually a question I want to ask:  Are you being sand or salt to the world? Is your life—your actions and attitudes—melting the icy cold of sin in your community, in your family, at work, or even at church? Or, are you contributing to the grit? Do your actions and attitudes act like an abrasive to people who are already troubled by their sins?

You can be salt by coating all you do with Christ’s love, especially when you confront sin. Remember when the woman was caught in adultery (John 8)? He didn’t accept her sin, but neither did He rebuke her as a person. Instead He gave her hope by telling her to go and sin no more. He showed her that he believed she could do better. He melted her heart and dissolved the sin.

In this same story the Pharisees were sand. They caught her in the act. They had her dead to rights, and they wanted her dead. They did nothing to melt the sin in her life, nothing to redeem her. They were only abrasive grit. While Jesus offered her hope, they offered her only condemnation.

So again:  Are you salt? Or are you sand? Are you a change agent of hope, or are you an agent of condemnation?

Let Your Light Shine – How should Christians confront the world?

The other day at Wal-Mart I couldn‘t help overhearing this conversation:

First lady: “We have always home schooled, but she will be starting 6^th grade, so we are looking into a Christian school.  There is no way I am sending her to Woodstock Middle School.  I don’t want her in that place.”

Friend: “Really, I would think there would be a lot of opportunities there.”

First lady: “I just don’t want her around that influence.”

Just then, on the other side of me (where the mothers probably couldn’t hear the girls) I heard the friend’s daughter, “You aren’t going to be at Woodstock?”

First lady’s daughter replied in a tween girl’s haughty manner, “Of course, I don’t want to turn out bad like you.” (There was no smile or giggle.)

This conversation bothered me for several reasons. First of all, I hope that the daughters were friends and that the one girl was kidding, and the other one took it as that. (However, nothing in either of their expressions or body language demonstrated it.) That was disturbing, but I have been around middle school kids enough to know that such insulting talk is not an unusual thing to hear in that circle. 

What truly disturbed me that afternoon was the attitude of the “Christian” mother. She embodied v to me why the world is going to hell and the church is so ineffective in its efforts to change that. Now, I don’t know this particular lady, but the conversation I overheard reminded me of many people I have known in the past. At one time in my life, I might have been tempted to agree with her.  I might even have thought she was wise, but as I have grown older, I have come to a different understanding. 

Though churches are growing larger, the world gets no better and could be said to be getting worse.  Things that shocked my parents’ generation, and even some things that were shocking my “everything is all right as long as no one gets hurt” baby boom generation, are now considered normal parts of life. 

There is a strong temptation for Christians to seal ourselves, and our families, into a fortress where we are not confronted by the lost world.  That would be nice and I believe if we remain true we will be rewarded with the privilege of spending eternity in a place like that.  It is called heaven!  In the meantime, we have an assignment. It entails making disciples of all kinds of people--people of a different socio-economic stratum, opposing political views, and even those with lifestyles that run counter to our beliefs. Instead of meeting those folks on their turf and demonstrating the redeeming love of Jesus by the way we speak, live, and love, we do our best to separate ourselves from the very people God has assigned us to reach. Jesus’ teaching is that we are to be in the world, but not of it.  We must dare to be different in the world. It is not God’s plan for us to become a novel colony within the broader world, but to become salt and light to that world - salt that melts cold hard hearts and light that does a lot more than show them their error.  We are to be the light that leads them to the Savior.

Although I know that as I get older, I am considered more and more eccentric, I didn’t think I was old enough, or quite eccentric enough to get away with confronting that lady.  What I wish I had done is to start humming the old chorus, “This Little Light of Mine, I’m Gonna Let it Shine” as I stood there.  This lady was not being light. She didn’t care about being light. She just wanted to be safe and comfortable. That desire to be safe and comfortable is thwarting the influence of the church and killing many congregations. Now, my problem is not with Christian schools or home schooling.  My problem is with the mind-set that limits the influence of Christians because the world makes us uncomfortable.  Now if the secular school they were discussing was literally physically dangerous, I would encourage her to seek a safer environment for her daughter, but I am pretty sure this particular school is not like that. Her daughter, and their family could have been the salt and light someone needed.  On second thought, given the daughter’s snotty statement to the other girl, it might be better for the Kingdom to keep her with Christians and away from sinners. I’ve changed my mind. Mom at Wal-mart, please don’t send your child to the public school. With the attitude you and she exhibit you would give Christians a bad name.

God bless you as you find ways to be salt and light in your corner of the world!