Clergy/Leaders' Mail-list No. 2-006 (Expository Sermon)

THE CHURCH: AN EVANGELISING COMMUNITY (Mt 5:13-16; Lk 5:27-32)

by Rod Benson

Media reports [May 1998] generally suggest that our world is getting darker and less hospitable every day. Take a look at last week's news: 52 armed robberies per year at Rockdale, and several stabbings in Sydney during the week, to the impending political crisis and mob violence in Indonesia, and India's resumption of nuclear tests on Monday.

When I say our world is growing darker I am not talking about the 'greenhouse effect' or increasing industrial pollution blocking out the sun's rays. I am talking about the global moral climate, and the sense of valueless freefall that our culture is experiencing as we approach the dawn of a new millennium.

In The Beautiful and the Damned, two of Scott Fitzgerald's characters discuss whether life has any meaning. One of them says, "I don't care about truth. I want some happiness." This is symptomatic of the world we live in today.

But meaning in life comes through the apprehension and application of truth, not through a feeling of happiness.

HOPE IN PLACE OF FEAR

Most of us are not characterised by joy but by fear. The more we hear, the more we fear, and the more we retreat into isolation and denial.

"Fear, particularly fear of personal attack, has become an inevitable and permanent feature of our quality of life in the 1990s," says John Pratt from New Zealand's Institute of Criminology, writing in last month's Australian Quarterly. "Indeed, during this decade, it is perhaps fear that controls us rather than us controlling fear."

You might be forgiven for giving up and resigning yourself to fate - if it wasn't for the fact that there is hope for our world! There is a solution to the spiritual and psychological and social dilemmas of the human condition confronting us.

In a world where Marxism is dead and capitalism is foundering, where we seem tossed between the nihilistic amorality of secular humanism and the crushing moral vision of fundamentalist Islam, Christianity provides a better way forward.

Because of Jesus Christ, and his teachings and achievements, we can regain moral certitude, and security, and hope for our lives. God has strategically placed the church in a position to offer those blessings to lost people who are trying to find their way home in the darkness. There are two ways in which Christians can provide a positive influence for others: by their presence, and by their proclamation.

HELPING PEOPLE THROUGH PRESENCE

First, in Matthew 5:13-16, Jesus is teaching a crowd, and uses salt and light as a metaphor for people of biblical faith. Salt and light bring pleasure and utility to our lives, they are universally available, and their usefulness is not in storage but in application.

Salt is used as a preservative to halt the process of decay (that's why meat and fish are sometimes salted); and it's used to enhance the taste of food.

You know what it's like to have a lovely, mouth-watering meal placed in front of you, and to take a few bites and discover there's no salt in it! You reach for the salt-shaker! Christians are meant to be like that: they oppose corruption and decay in the world around them, penetrating and influencing the society for good, and acting like a moral antiseptic to curb evil and frustrate the work of the enemy. And they add flavour to the lives of those around them.

Sodium chloride can't lose its inherent saltiness, but first century AD salt was often mixed with impurities, and the salt could be leached out. Such 'salt' then was "no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men" (verse 13b). The usefulness of salt lies in its saltiness.

You and I, as members of the church of Jesus Christ, are salt in the world. Let's make sure we know our purpose and bring a positive influence, and positive change, to our community.

Jesus also said we are the light of the world. Later he said the same about himself (John 8:12, 9:5). As the people of God, we reflect the pure and powerful light of Jesus, and share it with those around us.

It's okay to be different from our friends and family who have not yet found God, but we have no mandate to be characterised as weird eccentrics, or to do and say things that bring discredit to the name of Jesus.

No 'holier-than-thou' attitude ever resulted in someone coming to Christ, but it's kept millions in the dark. And we must remember that we have borrowed light - it's the light that should shine, not our ego or reputation. Our actions are meant to bring glory to God (verse 16).

Both salt and light are plentiful and useful, and their presence or absence are immediately noticed. Taste a meal that has no salt, or enter a room that has no light, and you immediately notice it. Our absence and our inactivity in the world are also noticed.

HELPING PEOPLE THROUGH PROCLAMATION

The second way in which we can provide a positive influence in our world is through proclamation. Jesus not only sought to transform people and society through his presence; he had a radical and challenging message to proclaim. In fact, an essential part of his mission in the world was to proclaim the arrival of the kingdom of God, and call the people to repentance and salvation.

In the Gospels, large crowds followed Jesus almost everywhere he went. How did he attract them, and keep them long enough to get his message across?

He did three things: he loved ordinary people unconditionally; he met their various needs - spiritual, physical, social and psychological; and he taught in a practical, interesting way, relating God's truth to everyday life.

Churches do not gain quality or lasting growth through gimmicks, or watering down the message, or having the latest ecclesiastical architecture or furniture. Churches experiencing sustained numerical growth today are generally those with what I regard as conservative evangelical beliefs while demonstrating unconditional love to "outsiders."

Long before I get up to preach, new visitors have already decided whether they will come back next week, and (as the saying goes) you don't get a second chance to make a first impression.

CREATIVE EVANGELISM

In Luke 5 we have an account of Levi's (or Matthew's) conversion to Christ, and his creative response to the imperative of evangelism. Jesus called him to discipleship, and he followed, and did something remarkable.

Matthew held a party at his house, and invited a large crowd of his fellow tax-collectors (and others), and invited Jesus as the guest of honour! Just like Cafe, Church here at Blakehurst, except that everyone sat on the floor!

In doing so he killed two birds with one stone (as you might expect a good tax agent to do): he expressed his appreciation to Jesus for what he had done for him, and he introduced his friends to Jesus. How many of your friends and colleagues could benefit from creative evangelism like that?

A man once fell into a dark, dirty, slimy pit, and couldn't climb out. Confucius came along, saw the man in the pit, and said, "Poor fellow. If only he had listened to me, he would never have fallen in." And he kept walking.

Buddha came along next, noticed the man, and said, "Poor fellow, if only he'd come up here, I'd help him." And he went on too.

Then Jesus walked up, saw the man, and said, "Poor fellow!" and jumped into the pit and lifted him out.

That is what Jesus did for us on a grand scale in coming to this world to save us. And it's what he did on a smaller scale when he attended that party at Matthew's house. But there were some who disapproved of his novel methods, and they complained to his disciples.

The complaint got back to Jesus, and he replied with these words: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Luke 5:31-32).

THINK BEFORE YOU ACT

Matthew did not go off to evangelise the temple priests, or the wealthy Galilean landowners, or the remote hill tribes of Turkey. He began in his own house, with his friends and workmates.

Jesus followed a strategy as he proclaimed the Good News. He knew the guests at Matthew's party were more receptive and more responsive to his message than were the Pharisees and teachers of the law.

He knew his presence at that party would not compromise his message and mission. It would do the opposite: it would give those who admitted they were "sick" and "sinners" to receive his healing and salvation.

Jesus calls us into an evangelising community: salt and light in a corrupt and dark world, sharing his message of life with those around us in creative ways.

Although many churches today understand the basic thrust of the Good News, and recognise the need to evangelise the lost people in their community, their evangelistic strategy and target groups are not well thought out.

There is a Peanuts cartoon in which Charlie Brown is practicing archery in his back yard, and, instead of aiming at a target, he would shoot an arrow at the fence, and then walk over and draw a target around the impact point.

When Lucy walked up and asked him why he was doing this, Charlie answered without embarrassment, "This way I never miss!"

We often shoot evangelistic arrows into our community, and if they happen to hit anyone we say, "There's our target!" I believe that evangelism is too important a task for us to have such a casual and unplanned attitude toward it.

We cannot reach the entire world; we cannot even hope to reach all the various social, economic and ethnic groups in the St George region. But we are called to be an evangelising community, sharing the Good News and promoting a Christian lifestyle and Christian values in the place where God has put us.

Jesus came to call sinners to repentance. The amazing thing is that he asks you and me to help him in the great task.

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E066 Copyright (c) 2002 Rod Benson. Reproduction in any form is permitted with full copyright notice intact. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: New International Version (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1980).

You can contact Rev Rod Benson by e-mail at <> To subscribe direct to his weekly sermons, e-mail him with "subscribe" in the subject.