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Changing the world — 3

Ezekiel 3: 16 – 21

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 23 Oct, 2005

THERE ARE three clear directives for Christians when we think about changing the world. We have talked about being a community of love and about working for justice. Here’s the third one.

We are also called to change the world one person by one person. We are not just about how we live in this world, nor are we just about how we lovingly touch the world we live in, we are also about preparing people to live in the new world we are helping to create.

I often talk about the Azusa Street Revival in Chicago. It shows how God’s Kingdom plans work out in practice.

I am no blind romantic. I know that they had problems. But their hearts were right.

They believed that the gospel unites people. They formed a church where black and white, Anglo and Immigrant, all had a place.

They believed in justice, and sought justice for the poor and dispossessed among them.

And they believed in evangelism, so they preached the gospel wherever they could to whomever would listen.

Their pastor loved it all, because he said it was a glimpse of what heaven will be like.

Isn’t that what I have been talking about? Haven’t I kept saying that the world needs to see a glimse of heaven when it sees us?

In our passage, we saw one reason why we should be evangelists.

I. TYPES OF EVANGELISM

I am using this term carefully. I don’t expect you to be Billy Graham. I’m certainly not Billy Graham or Billy Sunday or Dwight L Moody.

I just want us all to be Christ–bearers to a needy world. Some of us will talk about Jesus. Some will write about him. Some will care in such a way that people will see Jesus in us. Each has different ways of bringing Jesus to the world.

CLIFF EDGE EVANGELISM

This first passage is about “Cliff edge” evangelism.

The great English evangelist, George Whitefield, once preached about a man walking on a narrow cliff–edge path in the dark. He thinks he knows the path, but part of it has crumbled away. He is walking in the darkness towards his doom. Whitefield was so dramatic, and the picture he painted was so realistic that a nobleman leaped to his feet, shouting, “Watch out man! There’s danger ahead!”

That nobleman did exactly what any responsible person would do. He did the work of an evangelist. He warned of danger ahead.

¹⁸ When I say to a wicked man, `You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. ¹⁹ But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways, he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself.

We have a duty to those who rebel against God, a duty to warn. But the choice is always theirs, whether to respond or not.

DUSTY ROAD EVANGELISM

The second form of evangelism I want to mention is “Dusty Road” evangelism.

Not everyone is rushing headlong into danger on a clifftop. In life we meet many people who live very ordinary lives, and are mostly unaware of the dangers they face. It’s like walking down a long, dusty road. There will be risks. There will be places where the road is washed away by a flash flood, or where it narrows and you could easily be struck down by a passing vehicle.

But there will be other places where hunger or thirst might overtake you, and you could expire, or there are times when the struggle seems too much and you might be tempted to sit under a tree and wait for death.

On such roads we all need companionship.

Paul wrote:

2 COR 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. ⁵ For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. ⁶ If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. ⁷ And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

Travellers along the road who share each other’s lives support and comfort each other. If you walk with someone else, bringing Christ with you as you go, there will be times when you come to crossroads. At those times of decision, your friend will choose to continue walking with you, and to continue discovering Christ in all the pathways of life. That is evangelism, too.

AT HEEL EVANGELISM

The third form I want to look at today is "At Heel" evangelism.

I know that the Bautistas have a small fluffy dog named Killer, and we have Alexthedog. I don’t know if there are too many other dogs scattered among us. But I imagine that many of us have owned dogs in the past.

You know what it is like to take a dog for a walk. They are supposed to walk tidily and carefully one step behind your left foot. Not that many do. Alex runs in circles around you unil your legs are tangled in leash. Old Max — if anyone was silly enough to hold his leash — used to just tow you to wherever he wanted to go.

I had a friend who was thinking about pastors, and he said, “That word means, ‘shepherd’ — but pastors are really more like our Australian sheep dogs.”

We are all called to walk at heel behind Jesus, the Great Shepherd of the sheep. And it was he who said,

MATT 28:19 “As you go, make disciples of all groups of people, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Often we do evangelism because it was what Jesus commanded. We may not all be gifted in evangelism,bu we can all, in one way or another, do the work of an evangelist.

II. RESULTS OF EVANGELISM

SPIRITUAL LIBERATION

Paul writes,

ROM 8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, ² because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death

If you really know you are no longer at enmity with God, if you are fully assured that you are free from the law of sin and death, then you will discover an enormous sense of liberty.

As a young Christian, I had an overly–sensitive conscience. I judged myself too harshly, and could not accept my failings. It has been enormously easing for me to realise that God accepts me for Jesus’ sake. I am not perfect, and I don’t have to be.

The more we know that God loves us and that the same Jesus who died for us lives to be with us forever, the more we can face risks and move forward. It's like Homer Simpson said the other night, life is about taking stupid risks. We are “fools for Christ”; our job is to risk our own sense of security to make sure that the world is changed and the gospel gets out.

So our task is to bring people into that liberty so that they discover the strength and courage to act in love and justice.

The story of Christianity is full of stories of people who came to Christ, who found themselves accepted by God and who found in that experience the power to change their world.

ECONOMIC IMPROVEMENT

They say that the Quakers went to America to do good, but, instead, they did well.

The spread of the gospel often has a beneficial effect on those it comes to.

This story is based on real events. Maria was converted. Her relationship with Pablo, whom she lived with, changed, and he was soon converted as well. Pablo and Maria were whiskey traders in a village along the Amazon River. Their conversion had an immediate impact. They decided to get married. Maria felt more secure and more cared for, she drank less, she was less aggressive and more loving.

Now Pablo saw how much better life was for them both. He drank less, too — and now they both wanted to share their new lifestyle with their friends and neighbours.

They also had more disposable income.

They saw many of their friends and neighbours were trapped in alcoholism, so they shifted their business focus to other profitable and responsible concerns.

The little riverside community began to change, too. People saw that the gospel had a positive impact on the couple’s life, so quite a sizeable proportion of the local people also became Christians, while others rejected Christ, but began changing their lifestyle so it was more like what the Christians were doing.

The village became richer. People saw themselves as God’s children, as people of worth. “Why do rich people have roads and toilets and schools and health clinics, and we don’t?” they asked. They wrote to the Government and visited their local politicians and asked for what town people had.

So there was an upward pressure from beneath on the wealthy and powerful. Some resisted, some joined the new movement, some followed the movement without joining it. All this came about without any activism. It was just an outgrowth of changed lives.

As the Psalmist says,

PS 37:25 I was young and now I am old,

yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken

or their children begging bread.

PS 37:26 They are always generous and lend freely;

their children will be blessed.

And those whose lives had changed consistently found that their financial and economic situation was on the rise.

NEW SENSE OF PURPOSE

A woman writing in The Sydney Morning Herald a couple of weeks ago remarked that Christians should unfold their praying hands and get off their bottoms and start working for change in the world.

Quite a few readers pointed out that many of the benefits our society enjoys would not exist except that Christians started them, and Christians maintain them.

Chris and I were talking about churches in our society. Here are some of the facts:

The main provider of housing for the aged and infirm is the churches. There are a few provided by Masons or by private businesses, but the churches provide the bulk.

Much of the welfare services around Australia — including employment services — are run by churches or by Christian mission organisations.

About 40% of schoolchildren in NSW are in Church–run schools.

Many organisations from school tuckshops upwards depend on volunteers — and Christians are highly represented among volunteers,

Modern hospitals and schools were developed from Christian models. Hospitals and residential facilities for people with mental illnesses were developed from ideas first put into practice by Christians.

Prison reform, train timetables, separation of Church and State, anti–slavery, the abolition of sati in India — where widows were burnt alive on their husband’s funeral pyre — were all Christian innovations.

If you took Christianity out of society it would probably collapse.

The reason Christianity has had such a permeation throughout our society is that believers look for ways to put their belief into practice. Being a Christian gives you a sense of purpose.

Jesus said,

MT 25:31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. ³² All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

^25:34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, `Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

To be a Christian is to be a servant. People who hear and respond to the gospel will understand that they are saved to serve. A Christian who does not make some effort to serve his or her world should question his or her salvation.

III. LOCAL APPLICATION

People will only respond when they hear.

RO 10:14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? ¹⁵ And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

There is no point in having an agenda to change the world if we don’t make a difference to the people in it. It is our calling to bring the world to a knowledge of Christ.

Over the past three weeks, we have seen what it takes to be a world–changing church. We have seen that we need to be a loving community. We have seen that we need to have a passion for justice in our world. And today we have seen that we need to have that evangelistic focus. If we don’t have that, the other two lead nowhere.

This morning we are before God. Is God challenging us all today to commit ourselves to his service in building community, in pursuing justice and in proclaiming the gospel?

Let us sit quietly and hear the voice of the Lord Jesus, telling us,

As you go, make disciples...

And let’s do as he says.

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2005. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)