So if God saved us to transform us, by his Spirit, to become like Jesus, what difference does that make? Don’t we still need to do evangelism and do benevolence?
Well, no. Not exactly. You see, Jesus never “did” evangelism. He never “did” benevolence.
Our tendency is to see such Christian activities as “programs” or “ministries.” To someone in a Church of Christ, these can be seen as necessary marks of the church or as elements of a properly organized church. That is, to us, sometimes the important thing is that we have a benevolence program — so that we have a right and proper church — which is entirely the wrong motivation.
And, sometimes, we do our evangelism or benevolence as a means of church marketing. (We are so capitalistic!) We send some nice volunteers off to the local soup kitchen with T-shirts bearing the name of our congregation — all quite plainly to market our church as a church that cares so much for the poor that we volunteer at the soup kitchen. To recruit members. With T-shirts.
A common complaint by non-Christians regarding evangelistic Christians is that “friendship” evangelism is really false-friendship evangelism. We only pretend to be friends to get someone to come to church. When they say “no,” we drop them as friends and pursue another prospect, another “pre-Christian.”
You see, sometimes we love the lost only as pre-Christians, that is, as potential converts. We don’t love them for who they really are — and it shows. If they decide not to convert, we decide to no longer love them. Which means we never loved them. Which means we aren’t very much like Jesus.
If we get past all the awful marketing, church-growth garbage, and just try to become like Jesus, then we’ll be evangelistic and benevolent well enough — but we’ll do it truthfully and honestly. Lying to save a soul is still lying. Hypocrisy in the name of feeding the poor is still hypocrisy.
Love cannot be feigned. Love cannot pretend. And love does not do math on how many hours I’ve invested in a person before that person finally converts to Jesus and get a notch in my spiritual sword.
Here’s a story that makes the point —
(Luk 17:12-19 ESV) 12 And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance 13 and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” 14 When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”
Jesus knew that nine of the ten would be ingrates. He knew. He was Jesus! And he healed them all.
And this is exactly where we so misperceive the character of Jesus. We Americans, being cultural capitalists, see the world in terms of cost/benefit ratios, return on investment, and maximizing profit. And we sometimes are so craven that we actually define our relationships with each other in such terms. And so we assume that God and Jesus are like us.
But they’re not. It’s not that capitalism is evil. I’m a proud capitalist. But I try very hard not to see people as capital. They are not “assets.” They are not “investments.” They are people, each of infinite worth (much easier to write than to do, of course).
God, creator of the universe, therefore causes it to rain on both the just and the unjust. We should do the same. Our reward is in heaven, not on earth, and therefore we aren’t looking at efficiency and returns. We should, rather, think in terms of relationships and, most especially, love.
Hence, we tell our friends about Jesus because we love our friends. And because they’re our beloved friends, they’ll still be our friends if they say no to Jesus — and we won’t ever give up on their souls because, well, we love them.
We feed the hungry because we love them, not as proof of our goodness, but because they desperately need someone to love them. We love them even if they spit on us, even if they hate Jesus. After all, the only cure for hatred is love.
This will, of course, change everything about us, if we’ll let it. No longer are we permitted to hate. Christians are often encouraged to hate, you know. Hatred can be very, very effective politics. But hatred is always anti-Christ.
If your favorite radio personality and TV news show tells you to hate illegal immigrants, or the other political party, or politicians who disagree with you, well, why would you listen to them over Jesus?
(Mat 5:21-22 ESV) 21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”
Go check out your Facebook page. How many Christians have posted articles — leftwing and rightwing — that spew anger, insults, and charges of “You fool!” And just when did Jesus make an exception for political speech?
One of the serious blunders of the modern American church has been the blending of rightwing politics with evangelical Christianity. We actually have “Bible” classes in which we study the Second Amendment — which, I’m pretty sure, is not found in the Bible.
And so, I guess the point is simple enough. Doing the right things from the wrong motivations is sin. We are not honoring God’s will for us unless we allow our hearts to be transformed to become like the heart of Jesus — and that means we’ll not “do evangelism” or “do benevolence.” Rather, we’ll be evangelistic and we’ll be benevolent. And when someone disagrees with our politics, well, we’ll love them for all they’re worth. And should we feel inclined to talk politics, we’ll smile and not be angry — and we’ll make the other person feel so loved and accepted that politics will become a uniter and not a barrier, even though we disagree.
Indeed, imagine the power of such a testimony! Imagine that we could learn to disagree and yet respect the views of the other person so much that they fall in love with Jesus through us — right through the disagreement.
It can actually happen. You just have to fall out of love with yourself and your opinions and fall in love with Jesus.
We cannot love and care genuinely as Jesus did until we see how much he loves us first. As the scripture says, ” We love because he first loved us.” When the persistent message is doctrinal purity, rather than a loving walk with God, we won’t have either. It breaks Gods heart as we run around debating various tangential issues when we are missing the greatest love of all.
More obey God out of fear than out of love.
Skip’s point is well-taken. We do not really see the love of God when we perceive the gospel as a mere contract between God and ourselves. When the good news we know is “if I do this for God, God will do that for me”, our capacity to love others will be limited. This is especially true for those of us who were raised in church and were not saved out of a life of degradation. We sometimes see eternal life as part obedience and part birthright, rather than a gift for which we are entirely undeserving. He who has been forgiven little (even in his own perception) loves little.