Christ Church

Friendship Evangelism

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Introduction:
For various reasons, evangelism is a difficult subject for many Reformed Christians. Some die-hard Calvinists may have glanced at the title of this message—friendship evangelism—and asked, “What’s evangelism?” Or, if they are really die-hard Calvinists, perhaps they asked, “What’s friendship?” But this attitude is not what the Bible teaches, not what the tradition of the Reformed faith teaches, and it is not what we have sought to practice in this congregation.

The Text:
“No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light. The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light. And as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat” (Luke 11:33-37).

Overview:
Jesus teaches us that when we turn on the lights, we do not do this in order to hide it away (v. 33). You don’t keep a light bulb burning in a back room of the basement—not on purpose anyway. Now Jesus says that we do this so that “they which come in may see the light” (v. 33). Now there are many places in Scripture where a “shining of the light” refers to what we call contact evangelism, but this is not one of them. When someone stands up in the town square and preaches the gospel, he is shining the light, but by a different means than is in view here. Jesus moves from a mention of lighting a candle to the cryptic statement that “the light of the body is the eye” (v. 34). If your eye is single, your whole body is full of light. If your eye is evil, your whole body is full of darkness. This business about the eye was a Jewish idiom, referring to generosity and stinginess respectively. But be careful—there are people in darkness who think they are in light (v. 35). They think they are hanging from the ceiling when they are in fact under a bushel. All of these are connected—eye, body, room. Jesus then was invited to share a meal with a Pharisee, and He did so (v. 37).

Clearing Some Debris:
Contact evangelism is the equivalent of an evangelistic cold call. If a person is gifted and called to this, it is wonderful. Friendship evangelism is far more organic and does not depend in any way on anything like calling, ordination, or giftedness—Jesus is presupposing here that this experience will be shared by all His faithful followers. It is commonly called friendship evangelism, but we could call it light of the eye evangelism.

But not all that calls itself friendship evangelism is. Friendship evangelism is something other than friendly evangelism. Scripture say to let your love be without hypocrisy. You don’t want to invite a nonbeliever over because you have a product line you’d like to show him. Under such circumstances, the nonbeliever would right feel abused. This is not friendship evangelism, but rather pretence evangelism. Friendly marketing evangelism is not friendship evangelism.

At the same time, be aware that true friendship with nonbelievers will always hit a sticking point. If you had the best relationship in the world with your mother, how could you be complete friends with someone who despised her? But the impediment needs to be that problem, and not your personal grievance that he is not letting you “complete a sale.”

Also remember a few common pitfalls — take heed to your own walk with God. First, evangelism is a two-way street, and sometimes the world recruits people from the Church better than we recruit people from the world. So you want to be an evangelist to the rich, evangelist to the bar crowd, evangelist to attractive, single women on campus? You can only export what you have, and if your spiritual life is a mess, then that is what you will take on the road. Second, evangelism is not what many assume. Many Christians really don’t want to be struggling spiritually, and they view evangelism as a means of grace. They feel like “real Christians” if they are sharing their faith. But sharing your faith is not an assigned means for propping up your faith. And last, evangelism is not so that you can become an ecclesiastical Billy the Kid, just another gunslinger with notches on your Bible.

A Woven Life:
Our postmodern world wants you to think of everything as a collage, with everything arranged by juxtaposition only. The juxtaposition does get an “effect”—you have your church people, biology class people, work people, and so on. Your life and your worldview is a pastiche, a hodge-podge, and not a Charles Hodge-Podge either. Owen Barfield said that what C.S. Lewis thought about everything was implicit in what he said about anything. The biblical worldview is woven. An integrated Christian life should be woven together in who you are. This means that when talking with anybody about anything, you will find yourself talking about Christ—and you will get to Christ without changing the subject.

What do I mean by juxtaposition? “What’s your major? Who do you think is going to take the Super Bowl?” And then you grab the spiritual discussion by the ears and haul it in. “Aaa! Too soon, too soon!” There is an old blues song—“never make your move too soon.” Don’t lug it in unless it is part of who you are. If everything is connected, soon is fine. If everything is disconnected, two years of friendship won’t make it any easier. If we really understand the Godness of God in everything, we can’t answer five honest questions in a row without it all coming down to Christ naturally.

Now for the Surprise:
What is the common theme that ties everything together? What is the integrative tie? It is your relationship to your material possessions, to your money. “And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations” (Luke 16:9). Use ungodly mammon to make friends for yourselves, friends who will then receive you in heaven.

We see the same thing in our text. Jesus said that if your eye is light (if you are generous), your whole body will be full of light. He then said if your whole body is full of light, then it will be the candle that should give light to the room. And the well-lit room is the one where people can see well enough to ask questions. The room is lit so that those who come in might see it.

Now everything rides on this. Friendship evangelism rests upon generosity, sacrifice, kindness, openness, hospitality, goodness, and open-handedness. That is to be the texture of your life, and non-believers are welcome to come along with you. In short, is your evangelism giving or taking? Are you a benefactor or a salesman?

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The Forgotten Duty

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Introduction: 
Forgiveness of sin is forgiveness of sin, not redefinition of sin (Rom. 13:8-10). “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven” contains a glorious truth. But, misapplied as it frequently is, it also represents a travesty of biblical living.

The Text:
“And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the Lord, and lie unto his neighbour in that which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbour; or have found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, and sweareth falsely; in any of all these that a man doeth, sinning therein: Then it shall be, because he hat sinned, and is guilt, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found, or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering. And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord, a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest: And the priest shall make an atonement for him before the Lord: and it shall be forgiven him for any thing of all that he hath done in trespassing therein (Lev. 6:1-7).

Overview:
God is the only ultimate owner of anything. The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof (Ps. 24:1; 1 Cor. 10:26). This is why property sins and crimes are sins against the Lord (v. 2). This is what God Himself says (v. 1). Property sins of various kinds can be perpetrated by means of deceit or by violence (v. 2). They can also occur through a windfall, with lying as a follow-up (v. 3). All the kinds of things that men do are covered here (v. 3). The thief must restore what is not his (v. 4). Whatever means he used to filch it, he must return it, along with an additional 20% (v. 5). He is to bring a trespass offering to the Lord (v. 6), and the Lord will forgive him for this kind of sin (v. 7).

Basics of Restitution:
In the Old Testament, restitution was accompanied by the guilt offering. In the New Testament, the fact that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross fulfills the guilt offering does not mean that it fulfills the restitution.

Second, when God prohibited adultery in the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20: 14), this presupposed that He had established and defined the institution of marriage. When He says not to steal, this means that He has established and defined the idea of private property (Ex. 20:15). We reject the Enlightenment idea that property rights are somehow held autonomously—whether by individuals or the state. We “own” only what God has given us stewardship over—but if God has granted that stewardship then it cannot be abrogated by man. Attempts to do so are called stealing.

Third, men are stewards not just of “stuff” but are also stewards of time, and the fruitfulness that time makes possible. There is no such thing as static wealth. So when a thief restores the property, he must also restore the time it was gone. This, presumably, is why the twenty percent is not a constant. Sometimes the thief had to pay double (Ex. 22:4,7).

Yeah, but…
We can certainly come up with all kinds of reasons why restitution is not practical for us. For example, we might say that restitution would make the future inconvenient for me. To which the answer should be so? If a thief cannot pay the amount back, the Scriptures allow for slavery (Ex. 22:3). We might say that we did not mean to harm our neighbor’s goods. But the Bible requires restitution for culpable negligence (Ex. 22:5-6), not just for deliberate theft. We have scriptural contingencies that distinguish between borrowed and rented (Ex. 22:14). We might say that we can’t make restitution because it is simply impossible to do so. If so, then the money goes to the Lord (Num. 5:5-8). We don’t get to keep it. We might say that the coming of Jesus has wiped the slate clean. And so it has, making restitution a joy (Luke 19:10).

Time does not make that twenty dollars yours. The blood of Christ does not make that twenty dollars yours. Forgetfulness does not make that twenty dollars yours. A deficient view of the Old Testament does not make that twenty dollars yours. The fact that you swiped it from your mom does not make it yours. The fact that the person you took it from never missed it does not make it yours. “Fools mock at making amends for sin, but good will is found among the upright” (Prov. 14:9, NIV).

Property Rights Are Human Rights:
When economic libertarians try to ground property rights in the autonomous individual, without any reference to Christ, they are making an idol out of property. Whatever good things they might say about economics do not keep this from being an idol, and behaving as idols always do. And one of the things that idols always do is destroy that which is idolized. Those who worship sex destroy it. Those who worship wine destroy it. Those who worship mammon destroy our ability to enjoy it as a very fine fellow creature (1 Tim. 6: 17). We refuse to worship property, and this is why stewardship-property can be secure. With autonomous property as the rope, atomistic libertarians will always lose their tug of war with the state. When we compare the secularist (economic) libertarians with the secularist statists, we are looking at the difference between a competent businessman who loves money and an incompetent businessman who loves money. We have no reason to cheer for one over the other.
Christians are to see property as an incarnational and God-given way to love other people (Rom. 13: 8). And this leads to our last point, the most important one, really.

One More Thing:
“Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth” (Eph. 4:28). Hard-line theonomists can pound the text—“take the money back, you antinomian!”—and miss the point of the law, which is love. What is the greatest commandment? That you love God. What is the second? That you love your neighbor. When the thief repents, he is to get a job— but not so that he can become a fat cat. He is to labor with his hands . . . why? So that he might give.
Whenever anyone puts property ahead of people, he is assaulting the reason God gave property to us in the first place. But when others foolishly react to this error, putting people ahead of property, they have abandoned the only material God gave us for loving others. One of the best ways to recover this understanding is to recover wisdom about restitution.

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Dealing with Sexual Guilt

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Introduction:
The gospel changes lives. Not only does it do this, but it has this impact on every aspect of our lives, which includes our sexual identity, our sexual lives. This fixes a number of problems, but if we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit it also creates some new problems, some new temptations.

The Text:
“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11).

Overview:
The unrighteous—continuing unrepentant—will not inherit the kingdom of God. This is basic; Paul addresses it in the form of a question. Don’t you know this? It was a good question to raise at Corinth, which was renowned in the ancient world for its immorality, and in the ancient world that was no small achievement. But the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom (v. 9). The entire first half of the illustrative list that he works through consisted of sexual sin in various forms. First was fornication, which was a broad term covering all kinds of sexual uncleanness. Second was idolatry, which was closely identified with sexual sin. Third was adultery. Fourth was passive homosexuality, the sin of being a catamite. Fifth was sodomy (v. 10). The second half of the list branches out— thieves, covetous men, drunks, revilers and extortioners will not inherit the kingdom either (v. 11). Don’t think that sin is only sexual sin. And then comes the word of hope. “And such were some of you” (v. 11). What made the difference? You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Holy Spirit.

So here’s the problem:
In the first century, sexual purity (in the Christian sense, with the biblical definitions) was virtually unknown. As a lifestyle, to the average pagan it was beyond comprehension. This meant that the new Corinthian believer, who had been baptized and had joined this new fledgling movement, did not need to be embarrassed about his past. If anything, in terms of peer pressure, he was going to be embarrassed about his future sexual purity, not his past immorality. Our situation is quite different—even with the deterioration of standards since the sexual revolution of the sixties, the unbelieving world still has an active memory of how things used to be. You don’t shake off a millennium or more of Christian civilization in a couple of decades. And within the evangelical subculture, sexual standards are still clearly taught and generally understood (with the problem compounded by biblical standards gone to seed).
Of course, we are not faulting Scripture for doing this, but this does create a new problem for us. Whenever standards of any kind come to a fallen race, it creates the problem of hypocrisy and/or hidden guilt. The more serious the standards are (Heb. 13:4), the greater the temptation. Overt hypocrisy is a problem to address another time. For now, let’s consider the problem of hidden guilt for two kinds of people. The first is the person converted to Christ, or put right with Christ, later in life. But she comes to this point with a good deal of sexual baggage, and whenever she comes to church, all she can see are squeaky clean people who would chase her out of the church “if they only knew.” The second kind of person is the person who grew up in the church, with sturdy sexual standards extending in every direction and disappearing over the horizon. But knowing the standard and having the resources to fight temptation are two very different things, and the appearances make it look like no one else you know is struggling with this temptation—whatever it is.

Forgiveness is complete:
In our text, the apostle Paul says of the Corinthians (a pretty raggedy bunch) that “such were some of you.” That past tense was made possible by God’s washing, God’s sanctifying, and God’s justification. This cleansing and the judicial imputation of Christ’s righteousness means that a whore can become a virgin, the pervert can be enabled to stand upright. As far as God is concerned, all your sexual sins are washed away. Nothing is out of His reach. Christ’s blood does not falter before certain sins.

Consequences and accountability:
There are two other relevant issues. The first is that complete forgiveness (which really is complete) does not necessarily erase all consequences. A woman can receive total forgiveness for her fornication, and after she has received that forgiveness, still be pregnant. A teacher of small children who is caught with a stash of child porn should be fired, but that does not mean that he is beyond forgiveness. Of course not. And a man can divorce an unfaithful wife without displaying an unforgiving spirit. These are consequences. Forgiveness means liberation from certain consequences, not from every possible consequence.
Accountability is a little different. Our practice of sexual behavior is and ought to be private, but the reality of our sexual expression is not to be private. We are connected to others. Fathers are responsible for the sexual purity of their daughters (Deut. 22:13-21). Husbands and wives have authority over one another’s bodies (1 Cor. 7: 4). So real accountability is found in the God-given places, and not in a “small accountability group” of drowning swimmers, all clutching each other going down. At the same time, remember what we have emphasized before—no human authority is absolute. For example, if a father has been guilty of sexual abuse, it doesn’t make any sense to demand that his daughter have to confess anything to him.
Another example of necessary confession is when a couple get to the “tipping point” in a courtship. Simply apply the Golden Rule, but don’t kid yourself.

Why we need to be reminded:
There is no sin that a human being can commit that Christ cannot forgive, and forgive readily. That is why He came to die. But we struggle with this kind of sin more than with other sins. Why? Part of it is the set of cultural expectations we have developed, and which we should have developed (Heb. 13:4). But the second reason is that sexual sin is like getting pine pitch on your hands (1 Cor. 6:18-19). Just like other dirt, it can be washed off, but you have to know how to do it.

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