They Will Know You
Joshua LeBorious
The Mission of Edgewater • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 15 viewsWe are reminded that God graciously was glorified for us, loving us as a servant. We are encouraged to love our neighbor through service and outreach.
Notes
Transcript
How do we proclaim the Gospel?
How do we proclaim the Gospel?
These past couple weeks we’ve been diving into our new mission statement at Edgewater, the statement that describes and summarizes who we are and why we do what we do. We started two weeks ago talking about how we are deeply rooted in faith. We talked about how crucial that foundation is for our lives, how we actively go about enriching our faith, and how that faith shapes the rest of our lives. Then, last week, we talked about the next part of the mission statement, that we proclaim the love and forgiveness won by Christ’s death and resurrection. We really focused in on the incredible, mind bending extent of that love and forgiveness. We wrestled with the idea that Christ gives us salvation through absolutely no merit, no worthiness on our part.
But I neglected one aspect of that part of the mission statement, that troublesome word in the beginning of the sentence, “proclaim.” And it’s troublesome because it’s a verb, it pushes us toward actually doing something, demands action from us. And the logical question that follows from a call to action is, how, how do we proclaim the love and forgiveness won by Christ’s death and resurrection? How do we proclaim the Gospel? And that’s what we’re going to wrestle with today, that’s the question that we’re going to consider.
We could “love” people.
We could “love” people.
So how do we proclaim the Gospel? Well, here in John, in verse 35 Jesus says “by this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” So that seems like a good place to start in proclaiming the Gospel, in proclaiming our relationship with Jesus, to love one another.
But there’s a danger here. And that is this, love is tragically misunderstood all over the place today. And I don’t think that the worst examples of it are the ones that we might typically point to. I don’t think the worst example is that people don’t understand the proper love between a husband and wife, between a man and a woman is. I don’t think the worst example is that people only understand love as sex. I think it’s something more fundamental than that.
And to illustrate that I want to tell you about two friends. These two guys are great friends. They’re always watching sports together and sharing meals and hanging out. The spend a bunch of time together. When one of the two guys lost his job, the other stepped in and said “go ahead and crash on my couch, stay at my place until you get back on your feet.” When one of their girlfriends broke up with him, the other guy dropped everything to be there so that the loneliness didn’t overwhelm him. When one of these guys lost his parent, his friend was there at the funeral and every step along the way. They always built each other up, they were always kind and nice and polite to each other. It’s fair to say that they were a great example of love between two friends.
One day they were out hiking on the Skyline trail. And one of the two turned and started walking backwards. The other friend was laughing and being nice and building his friend up, saying “that’s hilarious man, what a guy.” But the guy didn’t stop walking backwards and his friend didn’t stop him, just kept building him up. And the guy walked backwards right off the edge of the cliff that his friend didn’t warn him was coming.
And you might say, “that’s ridiculous.” But I think we have this misunderstanding that showing love to one another doesn’t include telling people about Christ. But really loving someone includes telling them “hey, you shouldn’t play Jameis Winston in fantasy football this week” or “hey, you’re about to walk off a cliff” or “hey you need to know about Jesus so you don’t go to hell.” So when we talk about “how do we proclaim the Gospel” we can start with having love for one another, but that can be prone to misunderstanding.
Preach the Gospel and, if necessary, use words.
Preach the Gospel and, if necessary, use words.
Another way that people sometimes answer the question “how do we proclaim the Gospel” is saying “preach the Gospel and, if necessary, use words.” I gotta be honest, that’s ridiculous. It is so easy to misinterpret actions, so easy to misunderstand motives, and even easier not to think about it.
I mean, have you ever played charades? Raise your hand if you’ve ever had the displeasure of playing charades (I think it’s a super awkward party game). Okay, so you are trying to communicate this fairly simple concept - never more than a few words - very intentionally, with people specifically trying to guess what you’re communicating. And you want to see what happens?
*Tries to act out “The Big Bang Theory”
Alright, that’s enough of that. You want to know what it was? “The Big Bang Theory.” We can’t guess something as simple as that from actions, how can we possibly think that with our actions we’re going to be able to communicate something as complex and profound as the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
We can get people to understand what we want them to even when we do use words. Take my messages for example. I spend a fair amount of time each week thinking about what your initial reaction to the text will be, what’s on your minds coming into the service, and how that’s going to influence how you understand my words. I do my best to choose them carefully so that the ideas and messages I convey up here are understood a certain way.
And I’ll still walk back there after the service and someone will say “I’m really glad you talked about this today Josh, thanks!” And I’m standing there thinking, “I didn’t say a word about that, how on earth did you get that message out of what I said today?”
Even with words, people read between the lines and interpret things in all sorts of different ways. So again, how can we possibly think that with our actions we’re going to be able to communicate something as complex and profound as the Gospel of Jesus Christ? As we talk about “how do we proclaim the Gospel,” we do so with our actions but we cannot leave it there.
With outreach and service.
With outreach and service.
Which brings us back around to our mission statement. Deeply rooted in faith, Edgewater proclaims the love and forgiveness won by Christ’s death and resurrection through outreach and service. So we do have love for one another, we do love our neighbor as Christ loved us. And we have a reminder of that again in our text for today where Jesus says “now the Son of Man is glorified.” He’s pointing to the cross, He’s pointing to the place where His love will lead Him to the die for us, to descend into hell for us, to rise again for us. So as we serve our neighbor, it is with that example of sacrificial love in mind. We help our neighbor, even when it inconveniences us. Even if it means we sacrifice our free night to help someone move furniture at their house, even if it means we sacrifice our money so the church can do ministry, even if it means we give up our time to support a local nonprofit.
But none of that service proclaims the Gospel unless someone opens their mouth at some point and talks about Jesus. Someone has to say, point blank, that Jesus Christ died and rose for you and through His sacrifice we are loved and forgiven by God. How do we proclaim the Gospel? We speak the truth of Jesus to a lost world, a message other people don’t know, a clear message of actions and words. And that’s why both outreach and service are in the mission statement - because together that’s how we proclaim the love and forgiveness won by Christ’s death and resurrection, through outreach and service. Amen.