Salt and Light
13"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. 14"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
Matthew 5.
Just over a week ago I attended a beach party with a lot of other Christians. At the end of the day and on speaking to someone who had just arrived we were discussing how they found us. They said they had heard at the top of the hill about a group of Christians at the bottom and knew it must be us. Like always I am never sure how serious people are but I started having thoughts. If the gentlemen was correct then how on earth did they know we were christians. I did not hear much 'God talk' and thought we had done nothing to stand out from the crowd. The subject of evangelism has not been far from my mind ever since and the question that I want to ask is a simple one. How do people know we are Christians?
Well how do they? Is it because we tell them we are? Well that is very dangerous because we are often very poor Christians. Lets face it when we are in the world isn't it easier to fit in? We tell the dirty jokes and swear and basically become no different to anyone else. Basically no one can actually tell the difference between us and everyone else.
Is it because of how we live? Are we different, truly different, from our work colleagues and our non Christian friends. Is there no coarse joking? Do we not gossip or slander others? Do we love them in a way that is different from everyone else? Are we their for them with our time and our money and our love? If this is true then do they know why it is that we are different? Have we told them or are they just supposed to guess?
The truth that I am coming to is this :
Just talking about my Christianity is an utterly pointless exercise if I live like it does not matter. If I do not live it then why should they believe a thing I say about it? If the change in me is not manifest, if I do not stand out then truly I am wasting my time and it is highly unlikely that God can use me to evangelise my friends.
But on the other hand living my Christianity out in my life will not convert anyone if they do not realise who needs to have credit for the reason that I am different from the crowd. If I think that just living it out is enough then I am wrong.
The answer of course to the question how do I evangelise my friends is of course both.
I need to stand up for my faith and tell them what I believe but its important too that my actions match my words. If they can hear from me of God's love and then see me living it out in a real practical way then the Holy Spirit can use that for true evangelism. But unless I am doing both then nothing is likely to come of my attempts at evangelism.
14"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
2 comments:
Good post Stuart!
Just one extra thought. The fact is that we all mess up at one time or another, but that doesn't mean that we then stop evangelising. In fact, I think that those times are when we can most effectively explain the gospel. Why's that? Most people either think Christians are hypocrites or else they think that Christianity is about good works. It's when we mess up that we can tell people that we're sorry we've messed up, but we don't preach a message that we have to be perfect, rather we preach a message of a gracious God who forgives us and loves us even though we aren't perfect!
You're absolutely right - we should strive to live a life that reflects the fact that we've been changed. And we should want to speak up about our faith. But often our evangelism is most compelling when we reveal that we too are sinful, but the difference is that we've got a way of dealing with it, and we're being slowly transformed!
I agree with Scott! :-) I think showing people a realness in the faith is important. That we are not perfect and that we don't claim to be is a massive witness I think. Its like with the kids, when we make a mistake or do something wrong we say sorry or explain to them that we were wrong and we shouldn't have done it. We teach them forgiveness by showing them the need for forgiveness. I'm waffling! I'll shut up now
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