[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube[1], June 2021]
As Christians do we only offer hope for when we die, or can we offer hope, help and healing in the here and now?
On Sunday I was talking about the need for us as a church to be relevant, to speak into the needs of our community in the language that they understand but I left that question: “How relevant are we particularly when it comes to sharing the gospel the good news of Jesus Christ?”
I don’t know how you would define the gospel – the good news – and I guess for many of us we would say that it’s the fact that when we die we will have eternal life, we’ll go to heaven. I suppose that’s technically true, but there is so much more to the good news of Jesus than just that. If we just focus on that, if we just focus on evangelism and outreach which says to people, “when you die you can be in heaven”, that’s not particularly relevant to people unless they’re on death’s door themselves. It’s a bit like trying to get someone to sign up for a care home when they’re in their 20s – it just seems too far off, it seems irrelevant, it’s not a need that’s particularly in my life at the moment.
I’ve seen a real rise in outreach which really gets people to ‘sign on the dotted line’, to say you know “become a Christian and have hope for the future hope for when you die”. It becomes almost a contract between a person and God, a golden ticket that gets them into heaven. But when I read the Bible, particularly when I read of how God dealt with his chosen nation Israel, God didn’t sign a contract. He didn’t make a contract with Israel; he made a covenant.
Possibly the closest thing that we have to a covenant these days is marriage. It’s about relationship, it’s about journeying together, it’s about us being blessed by one another. In terms of God, it’s having the creator of the universe in our corner, on our side. Time and time again what the New Testament – the whole Bible – points out as being the driving force behind God and all he does for humanity is love. He loves us, so much so he sent Jesus to die for us. That is not a contract, that is a relationship.
So does our evangelism, does our outreach, does our definition of the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ demonstrate that? See Jesus, when he was at the beginning of his ministry (it’s found in Luke chapter four), he sits down in a synagogue, he reads from a scroll from Isaiah and he tells those listening the good news. For Jesus the good news was freedom for the prisoners, it was a recovery of sight for the blind and it was release for the oppressed. So this wasn’t some hope that was planned in the future, this wasn’t saying “oh, it’s okay. Don’t worry about the mess now and it’ll be all right when you die”.
That’s not relevant, for most people it’s pretty irrelevant. Jesus is saying “No, I can bring hope and release and restoration and freedom in the here and now”. That is truly good news and that is truly relevant to people’s lives today. So when we preach the good news at Horley Baptist Church, when we demonstrate the good news to others, are we doing it in a relevant way? Are we truly bringing hope into situations now? Are we bringing healing, are we bringing peace, are we bringing restoration? That is the good news of Jesus Christ. Are we bringing the reality of a relationship with creator God to people or are we just offering them a contract where, if they sign on the dotted line, then they’re in? That is not what being a follower of Jesus Christ is about.
Do not fall into the trap of just trying and get people to read the sinner’s prayer in order to become a Christian. That is not Christianity, that is not being a follower of Jesus Christ and that is not real hope and restoration. So if we want to be truly relevant then we need to offer something that people need, and what people desperately need is Jesus – not when they die but here now in their lives to meet their deepest needs.
[1] YouTube link: How relevant is the gospel?
Bible references: Luke ch 4 v18-19
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Contributed by Martin Shorey; © the Author
