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CREDIBLE
WITNESS
My text is a very familiar one. Too
familiar because we miss its depth. "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; it is the power of God
which provides salvation to everyone who believes". (Romans 1; 16) In these threatening and uncertain days, these words of Martin Luther
King have particular relevance. "More than ever, I am convinced of the reality of a personal God.
In the midst of outer dangers, I have felt an inner calm.
When the chains of fear have all but stymied my efforts, I have felt the
power of God transform the fatigue of despair into the buoyancy of hope.
I am convinced that the universe is under the control of a loving
purpose, and that in the struggle for justice, man has cosmic companionship.
I am not discouraged about the future.
Granted, the easy optimism of yesterday is impossible.
Granted, we face a world crisis. But
every crisis has both its dangers and opportunities.
It can spell either salvation or doom.
But in a dark and confused world, the Kingdom of God may yet reign in the
hearts of men and women". "I live with the conviction that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Some still find the cross a stumbling block, others consider it
foolishness. But I am more than
ever convinced that the gospel of Christ is the power of God unto social and
individual salvation. So, like the
apostle Paul, I can now humbly, yet proudly say, 'I bear in my body the marks of
the Lord Jesus". What does "Salvation" mean?
That we need to be saved. We
need to be saved. The world
needs to be saved. Surely in
today's world, nobody seriously doubts that.
King and every true prophet of God affirm that God's salvation isn't, and
can never be, purely an individual matter.
It embraces the whole world. God
so loved the world. And he still
does. God's salvation radically
addresses the whole person, body, mind and spirit, and the whole context of the
person. God's salvation also
addresses the whole world and the whole of life.
Salvation is a broad term. It
means forgiveness and education, the promise of heaven and peace on earth,
spiritual fervour and cries for human justice, praying and raising living
standards, feeding the soul and feeding starving kids.
It's about a home in heaven and homes for the homeless on the streets of
Canberra. It embraces everybody -
every suffering and oppressed human being created in God's image.
Said King, "I am convinced that the good news of Christ is the power
of God unto social and individual salvation".
We need to be convinced of it. And
the church needs to be convinced of it! We are
called to communicate the gospel to the WORLD. It's hard to imagine what a little company of followers of Jesus like us
can do when the world seems to be falling down around us.
The events of September the eleventh have plunged the world into the
greatest turmoil in over 50 years. The
waves of that cataclysm are still surging, washing up all kinds of issues and
consequences. Every person on earth
is affected and the world can never be the same again.
Where is the gospel in all this? What
the world DOESN'T need is more religion! It doesn't need to be preached at. The answer to doctrinaire Islamic fundamentalism isn't
doctrinaire Christian fundamentalism. The
world is sick of the destructive power of bad religion from whatever source it
comes. The world needs to be saved.
It needs to be healed. It
needs to be reconciled. It needs to
be loved. So what does it really
mean to 'go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature?' There are two things in particular I want to say this
morning. The first is
that inherent in the gospel is a value system for which we were made and by
which we were meant to live. That
value system is clearly spelt out by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.
It is about being humble in spirit; willing to share the suffering of
others - to mourn with those who mourn; to be meek, (which doesn't mean 'weak'
but rather having great moral strength, focused and under control); to have an
unquenchable passion for justice (that's what 'righteousness' is); being
compassionate and merciful; pure in heart, single-minded for truth, with
unselfish motives; makers of peace and agents of reconciliation.
This is tough and challenging stuff!
Jesus said, "You are always hearing people say, 'Love your neighbour
and hate your enemy'. But I say,
'Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you'.
Then you will be children of your father".
Because that is what God is like, and what God does. The Gospel of
Jesus comprises these and other values. They
are part of what it means to 'preach the gospel to the world'.
Would anyone seriously want to argue that the world would not be saved if
we lived by those values? In
applying these values to every part of life lies the world's only hope of
salvation. The world
doesn't live by these values. The
world's values are diametrically opposed to them.
The world is driven by the pursuit of power, status, wealth, materialism
and exploitation. And the church
isn't now, and has never been, able to fully resist being squeezed into the same
mould. But Jesus literally staked
his life on the values of the kingdom. More
than that, he was what he taught. Jesus
is the personification of that entire value system. And he was hung on a cross because of it. But the
gospel is more than a value system. It
is a power. Jesus Christ is the example but he is also the power of God to
enable us to live them out like he did. The
Gospel of Christ alone is the power of God unto the salvation of the world.
I know of no other way. But before we
can effectively preach to the world, we must preach that same Gospel to the
church. The Catholic theologian
Hans Kung, said, ("On
Being a Christian", pp 503‑504.) The church is
not the kingdom of God, but it is the voice and witness of the kingdom of God.
Any church is identical with the Church of Jesus Christ only to the
extent that it keeps faith with Jesus, his values and his cause.
The church in the world is a microcosm of the kingdom of God. You may remember several months ago, on the ABC Compass programme, Tim
Costello, National Baptist President, was interviewed by Geraldine Doogue.
Geraldine asked him about his relationship with his brother, Peter, the
Treasurer. Many of their views on
politics and social issues are poles apart.
Tim admitted this, but said, "Peter and I are good friends.
If, as a Christian leader, I can't demonstrate love and tolerance within
my own family and church, then what 1 say to the world about understanding and
reconciliation will be hypocrisy". Love,
justice, forgiveness, reconciliation and peace are at the heart of the Christian
message . But the world doesn't see
them. It mostly sees
self-righteousness, hypocrisy, and legalism.
Much of the history of the church is the story of power, politics,
bigotry, greed, division and oppression. Yet
Jesus gave us one, and only one, standard by which the church is to be measured.
He said, "By this, and this alone, the world will know that you are
my disciples. By the love you have
for one another". Unless the church as a whole can demonstrate within its own
community the values of the gospel, then it has nothing to say to a broken,
violent and unbelieving world. "The
church is a credible spokesman and witness only if it tells Jesus' message first
of all, not to others, but to itself. And,
at the same time, does not merely preach but also fulfils Jesus'
requirements". I don't mean that the church can ever be perfect, but it must
continually measure its life and actions against Jesus of Nazareth. Brian Haymes,
Barrie Hibbert's successor as minister of Bloomsbury Baptist Church, London,
tells this story - "The
composer, lgor Stravinsky, once wrote a new piece that contained a difficult
violin passage. After several weeks
of rehearsal, the solo violinist came to Stravinsky and said that he couldn't
play it. He'd given it his best
effort, had practised and practised, but found the passage too difficult.
As far as he was concerned it was unplayable, simply beyond him.
Stravinsky replied, I understand that.
What I am after is the sound of someone trying to play it". It is the
particular calling of the church to try to express that kingdom of life and
love. We find it demanding, beyond
our powers, yet we are captivated and long to see God's will done on earth as in
heaven. So we pray, and live, 'your
Kingdom come!"' The church
must preach the gospel to itself. But there's a
third and most important target of the Gospel. As individual Christians, we need to
preach the gospel to ourselves. Here, I'm not
being critical, or trying to lay on you another burden of duty.
On the contrary, I am reminding you and myself that the gospel is a
gospel of grace, forgiveness, fulness of life, power, freedom and love.
But we have mostly buried it under legalism, conformity, the tyranny of
others' expectations, an exaggerated sense of duty, of guilt, and a host of
other things. Many in our generation were brought up
under a strict legal and moral code. Our
consciences were conditioned to do lots of things, and NOT to do lots of things,
which in fact, have nothing whatever to do with the gospel.
Many Christians still carry enormous burdens of guilt and regret.
Some Christians can't shrug off the image of the fearsome God they were
taught about in infancy and childhood. They're
afraid to commit themselves to Jesus as he really is.
Their heads may accept it, but they are programmed so that they can't
bring themselves to throw off the shackles.
Some Christians are emotional cripples because of the distortions of many
expressions of Christianity. So the
'destructive power of bad religion' is personal as well as universal. Eugene Owens,
minister of the Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, tells
the story of a prominent evangelist and church growth expert, a man who had
preached the gospel, written books and lectured the length and breadth of the
country selling a programme guaranteed to revitalise the church.
He had just addressed a large promotional meeting for ministers and
church leaders. Later that evening,
he knocked on Eugene's door and asked to speak to him.
He poured out his personal needs. He
was a broken man, inwardly drained, his marriage was on the rocks and he was at
the end of his tether. He couldn't
relate his personal life to the things he was advocating, and the image people
had of him and he was trapped. Eugene
began by saying, "Your gospel of salvation isn't even saving you!" Leonard Griffith who succeeded Leslie Weatherhead at the City Temple,
London, was visiting a respected and admired older minister who early in his
ministry, had committed a breach of trust.
The man was now in his seventies and had carried this load of guilt
throughout his entire ministry. He
couldn't forgive himself, and the older he became the heavier became his load of
guilt. Leonard said to him,
"It's time you listened to your own preaching". If we're
going to be credible witnesses, it's time we listened to our own preaching!
Jesus said, "If the son of God sets you free, you will be truly
free. I have come so that you might
have life and have it to the full!" At the heart
of the gospel is the grace of God. God's
unqualified love and acceptance. Grace
means that 'there is nothing I can do to make God love me any more than he
already does'. And conversely,
'there's nothing I can do to make God love me any less than he already does'.
Nothing! "The church is
a credible preacher and witness only when it tells Jesus' message not only to
others, but first of all to itself". Lloyd
Ogilvy said, "Nothing can happen through us that does not happen to
us". Paul was very
much aware of the very thing we're talking about this morning.
He wrote, "I run the race of faith with determination for fear that,
after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified". (1
Corinthians 9:27). That, in being a
channel of the gospel to others, we should fail to appropriate its blessings for
ourselves. The heart has the complex and heavy task of moving blood all around the
human body for 24 hours a day for an entire lifetime.
In 70 years, it will have pumped about 240 million litres of blood -
enough to fill 13 super tankers. It
can do this only because it has its own internal circulatory system.
Some of the blood it circulates through the body, is channelled into its
own blood vessels to keep itself healthy and able to perform its enormous task.
Without this nourishment it would die. One of Charles Wesley's communion hymns has these words addressed to the
Holy Spirit, "True
Recorder of his passion, It has never
been truer that the gospel of Christ is the power of God offering salvation to
every one who believes. So the
gospel in its fullness, with all its implications and values, must be proclaimed
and implemented. Jesus commanded us
to preach the gospel to the world and implement it. But it must also be preached and believed in the church.
And as individual Christians, we need urgently to listen to it again for
ourselves. "The
church is a credible spokesman and witness only if it tells Jesus' message first
of all, not only to others, but to itself." NEIL ADCOCK
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| Last updated: 22 February 2000 |