GIVE THEM GOOD NEWS ...
Sermon
FAITH IS FOR SHARING
It'll totally disarm them!
I have always been fascinated by radio preachers: Some are profoundly helpful and extremely gifted in the art of communication. Others are delightfully entertaining. But there are others that I fear do more harm than good. Such was the case when I tuned in a certain radio preacher while driving through the mountains of Western North Carolina. He had obviously been bombarding the air waves with his "hell-fire and damnation" preaching when his broadcasting time ran out. His time was almost up when he said, "And finally brethren, I'd like to say that we're all going to hell ..." Just then there was a blurp as the announcer cut him off and commented, "This message of hope and encouragement has been brought to you by ..." I don't really think the preacher intended for his sermon to end on such a dismal note, but that's the trouble with messages that are twenty-five minute "guilt-builders" with a five minute "problem-solver" tacked on at the end. I couldn't help asking myself as this broadcast ended, wherein was the hope and encouragement that the announcer had spoken of? Indeed, what ever happened to the Good News?
Last spring, I asked the children in my confirmation class to raise their hands if they had heard their parents talking about all the bad news that you find in the newspapers and what a horrible mess this old world is in. Every one of them raised their hands.
A man entered a restaurant and the waitress walked up to take his order. "What'lI it be?" she asked. "I'll have a hard boiled egg and a kind word," he replied. A few minutes later she returned with the egg and placed it on his table. As she started to walk away the man cried, "Wait a minute, what about the kind word?" She looked around to see if anyone was listening, then leaned over and whispered in his ear, "Don't eat the egg!" The point that I am trying to make is that people are hungry for a kind word - just to know that someone cares.
One summer while I was working as a counselor at a junior high church camp, there was a boy in my group who could only be described as a holy terror. He was every counselor's nightmare, always getting into trouble, always shooting off his mouth. All week long I spent most of my time and energy telling him to be quiet, go to sleep, not to do this and not to do that. The week was almost over when in our cabin sharing-time one night I had to call him down as usual, because he was interrupting the other boys. "Carl ..." I began. "Yes," he broke in, "I already know what you're going to say." And I believe the Lord filled me with insight at this point because I didn't use the usual "get quiet or else" approach. Instead, I said, "No, Carl, you don't know what I'm about to say. I'd just like to tell you that there's not a person in this cabin who doesn't love you. Each and every one of us is going to have an opportunity to share what's on his heart when it's our turn and the others will listen. We'll listen to you when it's your turn. But right now I'd like for you to listen to the rest of us while we share." Carl hung his head and tears came in his eyes as he responded, "That's not what I expected you to say!" And for the rest of the week he was a changed person, simply because someone had cared enough to really listen to him and to communicate loving concern for him. I haven't seen him since that week, but I firmly believe that this experience made a difference in his life. I know that I shall never forget it because it taught me a great lesson: we can give people their sins and shortcomings; we can make them worse. But whenever we begin to give them Christ and the Good News of what they can become in relation to him, then that will make a difference in their lives. John Wesley recorded in his journals numerous speaking engagements and visits in people's homes. Often he concluded such entries with this comment, "I offered them Christ." This is the task of evangelism: to offer people Christ. In a thousand different ways to make Christ such a vivid reality to others that they will have to say either "Yes" or "No" to him.
Sometimes those of us who are a part of the church offer the world only sin and guilt and judgment and condemnation. Our message is all bad news. We neglect the good news about God's love and power to forgive. We fail to lift up for others the hope of a New Way of Life in Christ. I remember a lady from my youth who was a brilliant witness for Christ. But her marriage simply did not work out and she was forced to get a divorce. The leaders of her church responded to her tragedy by telling her that although she would be permitted to remain in the church's membership, she would no longer be allowed to teach her youth class in Sunday school, she could no longer serve as president of the women's missionary group, and she would not be allowed to sing in the choir. At a time when she desperately needed her church's sympathetic support they let her down, because all they could see was her sin. They were unable to look below the surface and see what she could become in Christ. We have pointed the finger of judgment at others for so long that the very most much of the secular world expects from the church is bad news.
As a clergyman, I have often had the experience of walking up to a group of people telling jokes and have them suddenly change the conversation. I was visiting in a home one day when a teenage girl tried unsuccessfully to hide the cigarette, that she had been smoking, behind her back. What is there about my presence that promotes such hypocrisy? Perhaps they are just trying to avoid anticipated condemnation. And why not? That's largely what the church in general and the clergy in particular have offered the world for a long time. We have told people that smoking and drinking and cursing and gambling are sinful. We have made them feel guilty over their material wealth. And we have called them immoral for permitting the war in Viet Nam. We have allowed the church to fall prey to the temptation of being the guardian of public morals, and the result has been the condemnation of the sinner as well as the sin. Our judgments may have been sound, but they have not inspired people to turn from their evil ways.
As a seminary student I served a small rural congregation in Eastern North Carolina. At one point I became frustrated by their apathy and launched a series of "hell-fire" type sermons. I really blistered their ears! I told them that they were all sinners bound for hell, and they all agreed with me. But, guess what? They didn't change - and I couldn't understand why. Something was wrong with my approach. It didn't get any results. Why? Because I was offering those people their sins instead of the Savior. I was condemning them to hell instead of calling them to become saints bound for heaven.
Someone once asked that beloved missionary, E. Stanley Jones, why in all his many books he had never written anything about demon possession and exorcism. Brother Jones is reported to have said that if you talk about the Devil too much, he'll get you. Doesn't it make far better sense to talk about the Lord?
Jesus suited his method of communication to the needs of his listeners. He gave the outright sinners the good news that God loved them, He shared with them hope and renewed self-respect. To the woman caught in the act of adultery he said, "Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more." The religious leaders wanted to condemn her to death for her sin. But Jesus looked beyond her sin and gave her hope for a new life, as a woman who could indeed "go and sin no more." He called the Scribes and Pharisees a "bunch of snakes," but at least he didn't allow them to wallow in their hypocrisy. To a Pharisee named Nicodemus he said, "You must be born again - become a Child of God by the power of His Spirit at work in your life." He often fed the hungry, healed the sick, and befriended the friendless before he told them about, God's love. Sometimes he spoke in parables, drawing eternal truths from everyday experiences with which they were familiar. Jesus tailored his method of communicating the gospel to the needs of his listeners, but he never failed to lead them to the door of the Kingdom and hid them enter in.
Many people are very much aware of their sin, but they are frustrated at the point of knowing what to do about it. Sometimes they try to justify themselves by calling attention to the sins and shortcomings of others. At other times they take on a "holier than thou" appearance and try to make themselves and others think that they are better, wiser, stronger, and more perfect than they really are. And then sometimes they play the role of the "poor miserable sinner" who tries so hard but never seems to make it. By condemning themselves they hope to avoid condemnation from God and others.
We have wonderfully good news to share. It's good news about a good God who loves us so very much that he gave his only Son in order to lead us back to him. It's almost too good to believe! In fact, many people refuse to hear it. A friend of mine was once conducting a series of evangelistic services in a neighboring church when he received a phone call one night from one of the members advising him that they didn't want to hear all of that stuff about the love of God. What they wanted was hell-fire and damnation preaching. We resist the Good News because it is hard to believe that God could love us just the way we are. Everyone else seems to demand change from us, and yet all God asks of us is to accept the offer of his Love. It's too good to be true. But Bishop Earl Hunt, Jr. once said, "Some things are too good not to be true!" And so it is with God's love.
The Apostle Paul once wrote, "Christ died for us while we were yet sinners, and that is God's own proof of his love towards us." (Romans 5:8 NEB) Whenever we begin to accept that, then the determined love of God will break our rebellious hearts. Several years ago I was attending a workshop on evangelism in which Charles Whittle shared with us what he called "The Jesus Prayer" -
Lord Jesus Christ
Son of God
Have mercy upon me
A sinner.
We were asked to repeat the prayer to ourselves and as I repeated it, the words "me, a sinner" stuck in my throat. "Wait a minute, Lord," I thought, "I'm on your side, remember?" But then the Lord called to mind several recent sins and he seemed to say to me, "Bob, in this life you never outgrow your need for a Savior." At this point the words of a familiar hymn were brought to mind, and since then chills run up and down my spine every time I hear them sung:
O Love divine, what has thou done!
The incarnate God hath died for me!
The Father's co-eternal Son
Bore all my sins upon the tree!
The Son of God for me hath died:
My Lord, my Love is crucified.1
As long as sin continues to be an influential force in this world each and every one of us will continue to need the Savior and his love that will not let us go.
One of my favorite contemporary Christian writers is Emerson S. Colaw, pastor of Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. A few months ago it was my great pleasure to hear him address a gathering of clergy in High Point, North Carolina. Following his first evening address we were invited to attend a reception and meet him personally. I went to the reception and did get to meet him and express admiration for his work. During the course of our conversation Emerson asked if he could ride back downtown with me. Needless to say, I was both surprised and delighted. But then a high conference official came up and told him that they had made other arrangements for his travel. And Dr. Colaw replied, "No thanks! I believe I'll just ride back to the motel with Mr. Dodd." "But the other man will be expecting you," came the reply. "Well, I appreciate the offer, but I'm riding with my friend Bob," Dr. Colaw said, ending the discussion. I was dumbfounded. Here I was a "nobody" and he was treating me like a "somebody" - giving my prior claim on his company a high degree of importance. I think I know now how Zacchaeus must have felt when Jesus told him to climb down out of that sycamore tree and said, "Today, I'm going to have dinner with you." "But Lord," his disciples must have protested, "we have already made arrangements for you to eat with us at the downtown Jericho Hilton." "I'm sorry to disappoint you, fellas," he must have replied, "but today I'm going to be Zacchaeus' house guest." "But Lord," they could have countered, "this man is a sinner of bad reputation." "Never mind about that," Jesus could have continued, "I'm going to eat with my friend Zacchaeus." And what a difference such unmerited love made in the life of Zacchaeus. In the presence of Jesus he became a changed man.
Everyone wants to be loved and accepted as a person of worth. Everyone longs for a kind word or a ray of hope to light up their personal darkness. But most of what we hear today is bad news: political scandal, social decadence, economic disaster. Today's secular spirit has taken away man's fear of hell and judgment. But many people live out their daily lives in their own private hells. Modern man may no longer believe in sin, but he is certainly bothered by it. We can waste a lot of time trying to make non-Christians act like Christians. We can waste a lot of energy trying to discredit scientific and technological achievements and put the fear of hell back into people's hearts. Or, we can give them the Good News of Christ.
We've had enough of this talk about what a sick and sinful world we live in, I realize that all is not right in this world. But this is the world for which Christ died! It is the world that the Psalmist talked about when he wrote, "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it."2
I once heard a backwoods preacher say that if he wanted to take a particular bone away from a mean dog, he'd first offer it a bone with some meat on it. Then it would give up it's old dry bone in order to get the new one. He went on to say that Jesus is like that bone with the meat on it, worth giving up your old bone in order to have. Do you get the message? Instead of condemning the world and everything and everyone in it, offer people the Resurrection Hope. Give people Christ and a vision of what they can become in Christ. Make his far more excellent way of life so real and so exciting, such good news, that they will gladly give up their old way of life in order to pursue it. Don't give them the bad news, but the good. Don't tell them about their sins; tell them about the Savior. Give them Good News: It'll totally disarm them! They won't be expecting it and it'll knock them off their feet. But far more important, it'll enable Christ to make a difference in their lives. As Bishop Kenneth Goodson recently said, "if we are going to sing the Lord's song in a strange land, then let us sing reveille and not taps." So offer Christ and the Good News of his Kingdom to others. What this old world needs isn't more hell-fire and damnation preaching. We need more heaven's glory and salvation preaching. We need to do everything we can to share the Good News with others.
FOOTNOTES
1 "O Love Divine, What Hast Thou Done!", No. 420 in The Methodist Hymnal, The Methodist Publishing house, 1966.
2 Psalms 24:1
I have always been fascinated by radio preachers: Some are profoundly helpful and extremely gifted in the art of communication. Others are delightfully entertaining. But there are others that I fear do more harm than good. Such was the case when I tuned in a certain radio preacher while driving through the mountains of Western North Carolina. He had obviously been bombarding the air waves with his "hell-fire and damnation" preaching when his broadcasting time ran out. His time was almost up when he said, "And finally brethren, I'd like to say that we're all going to hell ..." Just then there was a blurp as the announcer cut him off and commented, "This message of hope and encouragement has been brought to you by ..." I don't really think the preacher intended for his sermon to end on such a dismal note, but that's the trouble with messages that are twenty-five minute "guilt-builders" with a five minute "problem-solver" tacked on at the end. I couldn't help asking myself as this broadcast ended, wherein was the hope and encouragement that the announcer had spoken of? Indeed, what ever happened to the Good News?
Last spring, I asked the children in my confirmation class to raise their hands if they had heard their parents talking about all the bad news that you find in the newspapers and what a horrible mess this old world is in. Every one of them raised their hands.
A man entered a restaurant and the waitress walked up to take his order. "What'lI it be?" she asked. "I'll have a hard boiled egg and a kind word," he replied. A few minutes later she returned with the egg and placed it on his table. As she started to walk away the man cried, "Wait a minute, what about the kind word?" She looked around to see if anyone was listening, then leaned over and whispered in his ear, "Don't eat the egg!" The point that I am trying to make is that people are hungry for a kind word - just to know that someone cares.
One summer while I was working as a counselor at a junior high church camp, there was a boy in my group who could only be described as a holy terror. He was every counselor's nightmare, always getting into trouble, always shooting off his mouth. All week long I spent most of my time and energy telling him to be quiet, go to sleep, not to do this and not to do that. The week was almost over when in our cabin sharing-time one night I had to call him down as usual, because he was interrupting the other boys. "Carl ..." I began. "Yes," he broke in, "I already know what you're going to say." And I believe the Lord filled me with insight at this point because I didn't use the usual "get quiet or else" approach. Instead, I said, "No, Carl, you don't know what I'm about to say. I'd just like to tell you that there's not a person in this cabin who doesn't love you. Each and every one of us is going to have an opportunity to share what's on his heart when it's our turn and the others will listen. We'll listen to you when it's your turn. But right now I'd like for you to listen to the rest of us while we share." Carl hung his head and tears came in his eyes as he responded, "That's not what I expected you to say!" And for the rest of the week he was a changed person, simply because someone had cared enough to really listen to him and to communicate loving concern for him. I haven't seen him since that week, but I firmly believe that this experience made a difference in his life. I know that I shall never forget it because it taught me a great lesson: we can give people their sins and shortcomings; we can make them worse. But whenever we begin to give them Christ and the Good News of what they can become in relation to him, then that will make a difference in their lives. John Wesley recorded in his journals numerous speaking engagements and visits in people's homes. Often he concluded such entries with this comment, "I offered them Christ." This is the task of evangelism: to offer people Christ. In a thousand different ways to make Christ such a vivid reality to others that they will have to say either "Yes" or "No" to him.
Sometimes those of us who are a part of the church offer the world only sin and guilt and judgment and condemnation. Our message is all bad news. We neglect the good news about God's love and power to forgive. We fail to lift up for others the hope of a New Way of Life in Christ. I remember a lady from my youth who was a brilliant witness for Christ. But her marriage simply did not work out and she was forced to get a divorce. The leaders of her church responded to her tragedy by telling her that although she would be permitted to remain in the church's membership, she would no longer be allowed to teach her youth class in Sunday school, she could no longer serve as president of the women's missionary group, and she would not be allowed to sing in the choir. At a time when she desperately needed her church's sympathetic support they let her down, because all they could see was her sin. They were unable to look below the surface and see what she could become in Christ. We have pointed the finger of judgment at others for so long that the very most much of the secular world expects from the church is bad news.
As a clergyman, I have often had the experience of walking up to a group of people telling jokes and have them suddenly change the conversation. I was visiting in a home one day when a teenage girl tried unsuccessfully to hide the cigarette, that she had been smoking, behind her back. What is there about my presence that promotes such hypocrisy? Perhaps they are just trying to avoid anticipated condemnation. And why not? That's largely what the church in general and the clergy in particular have offered the world for a long time. We have told people that smoking and drinking and cursing and gambling are sinful. We have made them feel guilty over their material wealth. And we have called them immoral for permitting the war in Viet Nam. We have allowed the church to fall prey to the temptation of being the guardian of public morals, and the result has been the condemnation of the sinner as well as the sin. Our judgments may have been sound, but they have not inspired people to turn from their evil ways.
As a seminary student I served a small rural congregation in Eastern North Carolina. At one point I became frustrated by their apathy and launched a series of "hell-fire" type sermons. I really blistered their ears! I told them that they were all sinners bound for hell, and they all agreed with me. But, guess what? They didn't change - and I couldn't understand why. Something was wrong with my approach. It didn't get any results. Why? Because I was offering those people their sins instead of the Savior. I was condemning them to hell instead of calling them to become saints bound for heaven.
Someone once asked that beloved missionary, E. Stanley Jones, why in all his many books he had never written anything about demon possession and exorcism. Brother Jones is reported to have said that if you talk about the Devil too much, he'll get you. Doesn't it make far better sense to talk about the Lord?
Jesus suited his method of communication to the needs of his listeners. He gave the outright sinners the good news that God loved them, He shared with them hope and renewed self-respect. To the woman caught in the act of adultery he said, "Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more." The religious leaders wanted to condemn her to death for her sin. But Jesus looked beyond her sin and gave her hope for a new life, as a woman who could indeed "go and sin no more." He called the Scribes and Pharisees a "bunch of snakes," but at least he didn't allow them to wallow in their hypocrisy. To a Pharisee named Nicodemus he said, "You must be born again - become a Child of God by the power of His Spirit at work in your life." He often fed the hungry, healed the sick, and befriended the friendless before he told them about, God's love. Sometimes he spoke in parables, drawing eternal truths from everyday experiences with which they were familiar. Jesus tailored his method of communicating the gospel to the needs of his listeners, but he never failed to lead them to the door of the Kingdom and hid them enter in.
Many people are very much aware of their sin, but they are frustrated at the point of knowing what to do about it. Sometimes they try to justify themselves by calling attention to the sins and shortcomings of others. At other times they take on a "holier than thou" appearance and try to make themselves and others think that they are better, wiser, stronger, and more perfect than they really are. And then sometimes they play the role of the "poor miserable sinner" who tries so hard but never seems to make it. By condemning themselves they hope to avoid condemnation from God and others.
We have wonderfully good news to share. It's good news about a good God who loves us so very much that he gave his only Son in order to lead us back to him. It's almost too good to believe! In fact, many people refuse to hear it. A friend of mine was once conducting a series of evangelistic services in a neighboring church when he received a phone call one night from one of the members advising him that they didn't want to hear all of that stuff about the love of God. What they wanted was hell-fire and damnation preaching. We resist the Good News because it is hard to believe that God could love us just the way we are. Everyone else seems to demand change from us, and yet all God asks of us is to accept the offer of his Love. It's too good to be true. But Bishop Earl Hunt, Jr. once said, "Some things are too good not to be true!" And so it is with God's love.
The Apostle Paul once wrote, "Christ died for us while we were yet sinners, and that is God's own proof of his love towards us." (Romans 5:8 NEB) Whenever we begin to accept that, then the determined love of God will break our rebellious hearts. Several years ago I was attending a workshop on evangelism in which Charles Whittle shared with us what he called "The Jesus Prayer" -
Lord Jesus Christ
Son of God
Have mercy upon me
A sinner.
We were asked to repeat the prayer to ourselves and as I repeated it, the words "me, a sinner" stuck in my throat. "Wait a minute, Lord," I thought, "I'm on your side, remember?" But then the Lord called to mind several recent sins and he seemed to say to me, "Bob, in this life you never outgrow your need for a Savior." At this point the words of a familiar hymn were brought to mind, and since then chills run up and down my spine every time I hear them sung:
O Love divine, what has thou done!
The incarnate God hath died for me!
The Father's co-eternal Son
Bore all my sins upon the tree!
The Son of God for me hath died:
My Lord, my Love is crucified.1
As long as sin continues to be an influential force in this world each and every one of us will continue to need the Savior and his love that will not let us go.
One of my favorite contemporary Christian writers is Emerson S. Colaw, pastor of Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. A few months ago it was my great pleasure to hear him address a gathering of clergy in High Point, North Carolina. Following his first evening address we were invited to attend a reception and meet him personally. I went to the reception and did get to meet him and express admiration for his work. During the course of our conversation Emerson asked if he could ride back downtown with me. Needless to say, I was both surprised and delighted. But then a high conference official came up and told him that they had made other arrangements for his travel. And Dr. Colaw replied, "No thanks! I believe I'll just ride back to the motel with Mr. Dodd." "But the other man will be expecting you," came the reply. "Well, I appreciate the offer, but I'm riding with my friend Bob," Dr. Colaw said, ending the discussion. I was dumbfounded. Here I was a "nobody" and he was treating me like a "somebody" - giving my prior claim on his company a high degree of importance. I think I know now how Zacchaeus must have felt when Jesus told him to climb down out of that sycamore tree and said, "Today, I'm going to have dinner with you." "But Lord," his disciples must have protested, "we have already made arrangements for you to eat with us at the downtown Jericho Hilton." "I'm sorry to disappoint you, fellas," he must have replied, "but today I'm going to be Zacchaeus' house guest." "But Lord," they could have countered, "this man is a sinner of bad reputation." "Never mind about that," Jesus could have continued, "I'm going to eat with my friend Zacchaeus." And what a difference such unmerited love made in the life of Zacchaeus. In the presence of Jesus he became a changed man.
Everyone wants to be loved and accepted as a person of worth. Everyone longs for a kind word or a ray of hope to light up their personal darkness. But most of what we hear today is bad news: political scandal, social decadence, economic disaster. Today's secular spirit has taken away man's fear of hell and judgment. But many people live out their daily lives in their own private hells. Modern man may no longer believe in sin, but he is certainly bothered by it. We can waste a lot of time trying to make non-Christians act like Christians. We can waste a lot of energy trying to discredit scientific and technological achievements and put the fear of hell back into people's hearts. Or, we can give them the Good News of Christ.
We've had enough of this talk about what a sick and sinful world we live in, I realize that all is not right in this world. But this is the world for which Christ died! It is the world that the Psalmist talked about when he wrote, "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it."2
I once heard a backwoods preacher say that if he wanted to take a particular bone away from a mean dog, he'd first offer it a bone with some meat on it. Then it would give up it's old dry bone in order to get the new one. He went on to say that Jesus is like that bone with the meat on it, worth giving up your old bone in order to have. Do you get the message? Instead of condemning the world and everything and everyone in it, offer people the Resurrection Hope. Give people Christ and a vision of what they can become in Christ. Make his far more excellent way of life so real and so exciting, such good news, that they will gladly give up their old way of life in order to pursue it. Don't give them the bad news, but the good. Don't tell them about their sins; tell them about the Savior. Give them Good News: It'll totally disarm them! They won't be expecting it and it'll knock them off their feet. But far more important, it'll enable Christ to make a difference in their lives. As Bishop Kenneth Goodson recently said, "if we are going to sing the Lord's song in a strange land, then let us sing reveille and not taps." So offer Christ and the Good News of his Kingdom to others. What this old world needs isn't more hell-fire and damnation preaching. We need more heaven's glory and salvation preaching. We need to do everything we can to share the Good News with others.
FOOTNOTES
1 "O Love Divine, What Hast Thou Done!", No. 420 in The Methodist Hymnal, The Methodist Publishing house, 1966.
2 Psalms 24:1
