The Messenger
Tom Shrader concludes an eleven-week series on God's plan for growing in His grace by focusing on the role of the Christian as a messenger of reconciliation. Drawing from 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 and examples from Paul's missionary methods in Acts 17, he outlines what it means to speak the truth boldly: understanding your audience, adapting your communication style without compromising the message, and being willing to pay a personal cost. He closes with a challenge for believers to pursue Christ with the same passion that a successful entrepreneur pursues his business, arguing that a church full of such zeal could transform its city and the world.
“If we make the invisible God visible but we fail to speak the truth boldly, we're a coward. If we speak the truth boldly but we fail to make the invisible God visible, we're a hypocrite. So we want both of those present in our life.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Tools for Finishing Strong
Recorded: 2007 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 54 min
Themes: evangelism, reconciliation, sharing your faith, boldness, gospel message, reaching others, spiritual growth, mission, feeling called to evangelize, new believer, struggling to share faith, young adult, spiritually complacent, layperson in ministry, seeking purpose, wanting to make a difference
Scripture: Matthew 5:16, Galatians 5:22, 1 Corinthians 13, 1 Corinthians 15:1-5, 2 Corinthians 5:17-21, Luke 10:17, 1 Thessalonians 1:3, Colossians 4:5, Ephesians 5, Acts 17:2, Acts 17:16, Acts 17:18, Acts 17:22, Acts 17:28, Acts 14:19, 2 Corinthians 11:24, 2 Corinthians 4:7-9, 2 Corinthians 4:16, Philippians 3:20, 2 Timothy 4:6, 2 Thessalonians 3:13, Galatians 6:9, Matthew 1:22, Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 27:35, Psalm 22:18
Theological Themes: missiology, ambassador of christ, reconciliation, soteriology, sanctification, great commission, contextual evangelism, new creation
Full Transcript
Opening Prayer and Announcements
God, we pray as we look at Your word this morning that You would remind us that You have left us on this earth for a reason, that You have given us the privilege to take that gospel message to the world around us. We pray that You would use us and we would be willing to be used. We pray that of You in Christ's name, amen.
Good morning. Great to see you this morning. If you are a visitor, we would love to begin to communicate with you, but you hold the key to that. We cannot begin to contact you until you get a hold of us, so we ask you to complete that registration card and drop it in one of the boxes as you leave. There should be someone by the door with a little packet of information, and if you ask them, they will put that in your hands as well. A trip to the website, evbc.org, and you are going to know everything there is to know about East Valley Bible Church. Every month we have a Connect One class, and if you watch the bulletin, we will get that information in there so you can join us.
Spring break is this week and next, so you will see it has an impact here on campus. Student ministries has no small groups this week, no 7-10 this week, and women's ministry is on spring break as well. There are dates in the bulletin for summer camp — junior high and high school students can begin registration shortly. Those are new dates appearing for the first time, so watch for those.
Max McClain and his troop will be here performing the Screwtape Letters — C.S. Lewis's incredible classic work — here in the chapel on the 23rd and 24th of March. The Friday evening services are sold out, but the Saturday performance at 3 o'clock still has a couple hundred tickets available. If you are interested in C.S. Lewis, this would be a great introduction to him. You ought to at least go online and do a little search for Screwtape to refresh your memory or familiarize yourself with what it is about. We bought a couple hundred copies of the book and they are on campus, being sold to you at our price so you can read ahead of time.
You also have an insert in your bulletin talking about Easter and Good Friday. On one side is the Good Friday information, on the other side is the Easter information, and you will see perforations so you can break it into four reminders. The idea is to carry these with you, and as you are talking to friends, neighbors, co-workers, and people God brings into your life about Good Friday or Easter, you can simply hand them one. We will have extras available around campus, so feel free to grab them. On Easter morning, the 8:15, 9:30, and 10:45 services will be held in both the chapel and the conference center. We would try to guide you toward the conference center on those days to make sure we have as much space as possible available, especially for visitors.
Series Review: God's Plan for Growing in His Grace
Why don't you open your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17, and I will be there in a moment. Today is the last day of what has turned out to be an eleven-week series titled *God's Plan for Growing in His Grace*. It was birthed out of time I spent last summer in Matthew 5:16: "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven."
We took that verse and broke it into two parts. The first call is to make the invisible God visible. The second call is to speak the truth boldly. When Jesus says let your good works shine, our instinctive response is to think about actions — Bible study, prayer, fasting, solitude, meditation, journaling, giving, serving. All of those things we might describe as good works, and they are. But we took a different approach.
We said that when Jesus tells us to let our good works shine before men, He is speaking more about motivation than about the actions themselves — about the fruit of the Spirit rather than the deeds themselves. Jesus warns us that when we give, we should not give as the hypocrites do. When we fast, we should not fast as the hypocrites fast. When we pray, we should not pray as the hypocrites pray. So we could be doing all of those things with entirely the wrong motive.
What we wanted to do was a self-assessment to see whether the fruit of the Spirit is in fact being manifested in us. Galatians 5:22 lists that fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Do we see those things in our lives? We spent three or four weeks on what is really the centerpiece of all of that, which is love.
The Message Reviewed
If we were to define love in its very simplest form, Paul does so in 1 Corinthians 13. He uses thirteen descriptions of love, and the centerpiece of that is: love does not seek its own. So the opposite of love is not hate — the opposite of love is pride. We said that is the heart of the messenger. That is how we begin to make the invisible God visible.
But that is only half of it. The second half is to speak the truth boldly. These two things are inseparable. If we make the invisible God visible but fail to speak the truth boldly, we are a coward. If we speak the truth boldly but fail to make the invisible God visible, we are a hypocrite. We want both of those present in our lives.
The Ministry of Reconciliation
Last week we introduced the topic of speaking the truth boldly and broke it into two sections: the message and the messenger. As we look at 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17, Paul has written this: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things have passed away, behold, new things have come." Now all these things are from God — the fact that we are a new creature, all of it is from God — "who reconciles us to Himself through Christ and then gave us a ministry of reconciliation."
Paul says God has reconciled us to Himself. God initiates it. God completes it. He did it through Christ, bringing us into right relationship with Him. And now Paul says: go and take that ministry of reconciliation to the whole world.
Verse 19 continues: "Namely, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them. And He has committed to us the word of reconciliation." Therefore, because God has reconciled us to Himself through Christ and has given us both the ministry and the word of reconciliation, you and I are ambassadors for Christ. "As though God were making an appeal through us, we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." And then as a summary of all of this, verse 21: "He," that is God, "made Him," Jesus, "who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."
The Core of the Message
We looked at the message itself last week. It is a straightforward message. As 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 1 through 5 states, Christ died for our sin according to the Scripture, that He was buried, that He rose again on the third day, and that He then appeared physically and bodily to as many as five hundred people — many of whom were still alive when Paul wrote this. If anyone had wanted to refute what Paul had written, they clearly could not. That is the core of the Christian message.
Our Christian faith rests on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead, we have no reason to exist. If that ossuary they found were really Jesus' bones — which it is not — but if it were, we could simply close up and go home, because our faith would be useless. That is the message. Our problem is sin and the solution is Christ. What we need is a Savior, and the Savior is not education, not economics, not patriotism — all those things have their place, but our Savior is Christ and Christ alone. The last, best, and only hope for the earth is Christ.
Introducing the Messenger
Now here is the messenger. There are several things — five, six, seven points — that are important to have in your heart and mind as you begin this ministry of reconciliation. God left you here for a reason, and that reason is this ministry: to glorify Him, to make Him known, to enjoy Him, and to proclaim to the world that you have been reconciled to God through Christ, and that they can be too, through repentance and faith.
The First Mark of the Messenger: Correct Motivation
The first thing is to understand a correct motivation. In spreading this gospel — evangelizing, witnessing, sharing the truth — we are not trying to win God's favor. We are not trying to gain entrance into heaven or into His kingdom. We are already there. It is because we have been saved that we now have a desire and a passion to evangelize, to transform the world around us through this message. What I wrote is this: we find our joy in who we are, not in what we have done. We do not take pride in our accomplishments. Our joy and our peace are found in Christ, in the fact that He has declared us to be in right relationship with Him — reconciled and a new creature.
In Luke chapter 10, Jesus sends out seventy disciples, and verse 17 tells us: "The seventy returned with joy saying, 'Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.'" And His response is this: "Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven." Our motivation mirrors Jesus' own motivation. He did not come to be served, but to serve. When Jesus was being chastised by the Pharisees for the time He spent with tax collectors and sinners, He said, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but to call sinners." Our motivation is to take this gospel truth to the world with a right heart — because we have been saved, not to earn God's pleasure.
Because of that, we ought to be loving people regardless — even if we never get to the gospel. If what you are doing is loving someone only so you can share the gospel, your motivation has already gone wrong. We are called to be the people God has made us to be, and loving others is simply who we are.
The Motive Behind the Message
All of a sudden, people become the motive. You are loving them because God loves people. In the course of relationship, our prayer is that God opens doors so you can share this truth. That is our motive.
The Way You Live Matters
The second thing is this: the way you live, your lifestyle, really matters. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, Paul is writing an introduction — a pretty simple introduction. It is a cool chapter to study. In verse 3 he says, "we constantly bear in mind your work of faith, your labor of love, and your steadfastness of hope." He then defines those in the chapters that follow, and you can link them together and just let God open up that chapter to you.
He is writing to this church and telling them how he prays for them always. He said, "knowing brethren, beloved by God, His choice of you for our gospel." Now he is not saying it is the gospel He created. He is saying it is the gospel that saved us and the gospel that saved you — the gospel that sinners must believe in order to be reconciled to God. "Our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit, full of convictions, just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake."
Here is what he is saying: we made the invisible God visible. Our integrity, our lifestyle, the kind of people we are, the way we lived — and we can expand that into our own context: the way we conduct our families, the type of employer or employee or neighbor we are — all of that brings validity to the message. It does not make the message true, but it makes the invisible God visible. When you speak the truth, the life and the message come right together.
In Colossians 4:5, Paul writes, "conduct yourself with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to respond to each person." In Ephesians chapter 5, Paul says, "therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil." He uses the word "walk" there not as a primitive mode of transportation — one foot in front of the other — but to express the idea of lifestyle, the way we live. Some translations render it "redeeming the time."
So not only do we understand that how we live makes a difference, we also understand there is an urgency to it. He uses the word "time" to speak of a lifetime. He is saying you do not have forever. In the year 1900, the average life expectancy in this country was 50 years. Now it is about 80. And the wonderful thing we are starting to see — and I use the word epidemic, I am not sure if that is entirely fair — is an epidemic portion of men, 45 to 55, who are saying, "I have been doing this a long time. I do not aspire to retire the way the previous generation did. They assumed they would run out of gas at 65, but I do not think I am going to run out of gas until 75 or 80 — so what am I going to do with my life?" That is exactly what Paul is saying. Redeem the time. Though the time may statistically be getting longer, it is still finite. You do not have forever. Live that way.
So Paul is saying that as you begin this ministry of reconciliation, you need to understand that the way you live makes a difference. It matters where you live. It matters what you drive. It matters what you wear. It matters what you do with your money. It matters what movies you go to or do not go to. People are watching. This is not meant to put you in bondage, but simply to help you understand the responsibility — that the life of the messenger must come alongside and validate the message. It does not make the message true, but it makes it ring true.
I have a whole group of people who say to me, "I have Christians in my life and they are no better off than I am. Their marriage does not work. Their kids are out of control. They are living for money. Why would I want that? I do not see any difference. I am actually better off, because at least I can drink and have an affair or two and have some fun." Is that not a tragic statement? They look at Christians and say no. Paul is saying our life must validate the message.
The Burden to Communicate
Here is the third thing. The burden to communicate this ministry of reconciliation is on you. It is not on the listener to hear — it is on you to communicate. That means a couple of things. First, you had better understand who you are speaking to. Second, you adapt to their culture, not their culture to yours. And third — and we do not always like this word — you need to be relevant.
Paul's Example in Acts 17
Turn with me to Acts chapter 17, and we will see Paul demonstrate both of these principles. You can find the same pattern in Peter's messages as well, but Acts chapter 17 gives us a clear illustration of both. Paul understands who he is speaking to. In one case in this chapter he is speaking to the Jews, and in another he is speaking to the Greeks. He customizes the method and manner of communication — not the message, he does not compromise the message — according to the listener.
In chapter 17, verse 2: "Paul, according to his custom, went there for three Sabbaths reasoning with men in the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that Christ had suffered and risen again from the dead, and saying, 'Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.'" So he is talking to the Jews.
Communicating to Your Audience
In other places, we see the message begin differently when Paul is talking to the Jews. He says, "Men of Israel," and then he starts talking about the Old Testament. He says, all of that part you know really well, and all of that part points to Christ. As we see in verse 3, "this Jesus that I'm proclaiming to you" — He is the Christ, He is the Messiah, He is the Deliverer. He has come and He has fulfilled all those prophecies. So Paul understands who he is speaking to, and he builds on the context they already have as he begins to relate to them.
Look at verse 16. Now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens — waiting for Timothy and Silas — his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing a city full of idols. He was reasoning in the synagogues with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the marketplace every day with those who were present. Two different groups: the Jews and the God-fearers, and the Gentiles. And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him.
Some were saying, "What would this idle babbler wish to say?" Others were saying, "He seems to be proclaiming strange deities." Why did they think it was strange deities? Because he was preaching Jesus — His life, His death, and His resurrection. That is the message: Christ died for our sin and rose from the dead. So they take him down to the center, to the area where all the erudite men are gathered together.
They are Greeks. Paul stood in the midst of them in verse 22, and he doesn't say "Men of Israel," does he? He says, "Men of Athens." You have to understand who you are talking to and what their background is.
Knowing Your Audience
At East Valley Bible Church, we get a lot of men and women who come from a Catholic background. When I am talking to somebody from a Catholic background, I speak in a whole different way than I do with somebody who has never been around church. Susan had never been in church her whole life, other than her sister's wedding. So I am not going to talk to her about virgin births and trinities and all of that — she has no grid for any of it.
When I, as a Catholic, heard about the virgin birth and it was put in the context of Scripture in a way that made sense, all of a sudden — the term I use — I became a completed Catholic. All those things that had made no sense to me before, things people just said to believe without explanation, suddenly began to make sense. So you are going to communicate in the way that fits the person in front of you. Paul does exactly this in the same chapter.
The Question of Relevance
When Paul is with the Jews, he says, "Men of Israel, look at this — here is what Isaiah said, here is what Jesus did, and here is how it all comes together." But then look at what he does with the Greeks, and this is our third point within this subset: the ability to communicate is yours. This brings up the topic of relevance, and that is a word that can be a scary one.
In churches like ours, we are frequently afraid of this idea of being relevant. But something really meaningful is happening in the body of Christ. A man came in the other day and said he wanted me to see a DVD. It was a DVD of a pastor speaking in what we would call a seeker-sensitive church — a church that is very, very concerned about reaching those who would come through the doors who are not yet Christians. These churches often adopt so many things to that end that their message can get lost.
I watched this DVD thinking it was pretty good — better than I expected, in fact. And then the pastor said, "Let me tell you what we are all about." He had a flip chart, and he flipped it over, and it said two words: substitutionary atonement. I thought, this is really good.
Here is what I believe is happening in the body of Christ. Those well-motivated seeker-sensitive churches are beginning to recognize the hollowness of what has developed, seeing that it is not producing truth and fruit. And all of a sudden, the gospel is really starting to be preached in those places boldly. At the same time, there are Orthodox churches that have had their doctrine right all along, but they have only been preaching to each other. They are realizing that it does you no good to have all your doctrine solid if you are speaking a language nobody understands.
And now you are seeing a movement — primarily among younger men in younger churches — who are taking this wonderful doctrine and saying, "We are going to have the best of both worlds. We are going to communicate this truth in a relevant way." The world changes. Language changes.
Language Changes With the Culture
We will see in a moment that Paul was stoned. Now that word carries a different meaning today. If I go over to Mesquite and say, "I want to talk to you about Paul — he is a pretty cool apostle — and he was stoned," the reaction is going to be very different. Words change their meaning. Things shift over time.
Susan and I were watching television the other night and I flipped on a Billy Graham crusade from 1976. Evie was singing, and it was wonderful — she was great. It inspired me, and I found myself wondering what had ever happened to her. So I went and Googled Evie to find out — which sounds a little questionable when you say it out loud, but it really just means I looked her up on the internet. I found out she is 52, and I watched the rest of that Billy Graham crusade and said to Susan, "You would not do hardly any of that anymore."
The Message in Context
You wouldn't dress that way, you wouldn't talk that way, but you would surely proclaim the message. You don't want to be tinkering with the message itself.
I watched a two-hour Lawrence Welk special last night. Speaking of relevance, Lawrence Welk was an incredible man — when he left to go touring and start a band, he did not even speak English. What was really cool was that they were going behind the scenes. The trumpet player, Johnny Zell, came up in conversation, and Ava Barber was saying that Johnny Zell was a bit wild when he first joined the band, but Tom Netherton shared Christ with him, he believed that message, and it changed his life. It just dropped right in the middle of the Lawrence Welk band. Tom Netherton was living this thing out, another man saw it, and when he said it was Christ, it all came together — and it happened within that culture.
It happens most often in relationship. Some form of community — whether neighborhood or workplace, sometimes random — but most often in the context of relationship. And there is a relevance that takes place there.
Paul in Athens
Look at how Paul takes this message. Look at what he says in Acts chapter 17, verse 22: "Men of Athens, I observed that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with an inscription to an unknown God."
Here is what is happening. Paul is working through Athens, seeing that the people are very religious and worshipping all these gods. One commentator noted there were as many as 35,000 gods worshipped there. He is saying, you are a religious people. If you want to see relevance, if you want to see context, if you want to see how to bring it all together — this is it. "Men of Athens, I observed that you are religious in all aspects. While I was passing through your city, I saw objects of worship. I found an altar to the unknown God. Therefore, what you worshipped in ignorance, I proclaim to you."
He did not just come rolling into town and say, "Let me talk to you about Scripture." He said, "I understand you a little. I have spent some time with you." In fact, in verse 28 he is quoting their own poets. There is relationship. There is a connection. He is not just diving in with doctrine.
I find so many men who have their doctrine right who are deeply frustrated that people are not engaging the way they expect. Jonathan Edwards died 300 years ago. Nobody writes like that anymore, and you need a dictionary to read him. If you are frustrated because people will not pick it up and read it, they are not going to start there. They will get there, just like you got there. But you are not going to connect to the world around you that way.
Your job, your responsibility, your privilege, is to be a minister of reconciliation — an ambassador. Paul looked around the city at all those gods and said, here is one you did not know, and that is the One I want to talk to you about. That is what connects the message and brings it all together.
Hearing What People Are Really Asking
People all around you are saying, "Tell me about Jesus" — they just do not use those words. They will say things like, "I don't get it. How come your life is working and mine is not?" Hear those words and decipher them: that is "Tell me about Jesus." Then respond accordingly.
You do not come back and lead with a chapter and verse reference. You say, "What do you mean it's not working? What does that mean?" And then you say, "Let me tell you — I was there once. I discovered my problem wasn't that I wasn't a good husband. My problem was that I wasn't in right relationship with God, so I didn't know how to live anything. I didn't know how to be a good worker. I didn't know how to be a good citizen. But Christ changed my life, and He will change yours too. Come to Him in repentance and faith."
Your problem is not economic. It is not that you are in the wrong job, or that you do not have enough education, or that you are of any particular background or class. Your problem is that you are not right with God. And when you get right with God, all of a sudden these other things begin to come together. But you have to be able to communicate that in a way people can receive.
Different Methods for Different Audiences
Here is the fourth point: different methods are different — and that is by design. Why do we have four Gospels? Because you have the same story told from four different viewpoints to four different audiences.
Matthew is communicating to the Jew. Mark is communicating primarily to the Roman. Luke is communicating to a broader Gentile or Greek audience. John comes in to complement and supplement all of those Gospels. You will find similarities across all four — the ministry of John the Baptist, the feeding of the five thousand, the baptism of Jesus, Peter's denial, the arrest of Christ, the trial, the crucifixion, the resurrection — those appear in all of them. But then you find uniqueness, because they are writing to different audiences and expressing themselves in different ways.
Matthew is a Jew. As one author puts it, the Gospel of Matthew is written by a Jew, about a Jew, to a Jew.
The Four Gospels and Their Four Audiences
There are 40 Old Testament passages referenced in Matthew's gospel. He begins with a genealogy that starts with Abraham, which makes total sense to the Jewish reader. Dozens of times throughout his writing, Matthew anchors the story of Jesus to the Hebrew Scriptures. For example, when he speaks of the virgin birth, he writes in Matthew 1:22 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, and he quotes from Isaiah 7:14. When he talks about Jesus being crucified and the soldiers casting lots, he writes, "The soldiers divided His garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets: 'They divided My garments among them, for My clothes they cast lots,'" quoting Psalm 22:18 in Matthew 27:35.
Mark has none of that. To illustrate the difference, consider how each gospel writer handles the Pharisees' practice of handwashing. Matthew says simply that they did not wash their hands when they ate bread — that is all he wrote. Mark, on the other hand, explains it fully: "For the Pharisees and all the Jews did not eat unless they washed their hands in a special way, holding the traditions of the elders. When they came from the marketplace they did not eat unless they washed, and there were many other things which they received and hold, like the washing of cups and pitchers and copper vessels and couches."
Matthew doesn't get into any of that because he is writing to the Jew — they understood it already. Mark is writing to Romans, who would have seen unwashed hands as simply a sanitary problem. So Mark takes the time to explain the whole tradition. The same event, the same truth, communicated differently for a different audience.
Luke comes along and writes to a broader Gentile audience. He is, by the way, the only Gentile author to have a book remain in Scripture. William Barclay writes of Luke: "Here is a man who is writing with care and who will be as accurate as possible, as precise as he can." That precision shows up in details like this — where Mark mentions a man with a withered hand, Luke specifies it was his right hand, filling in those gaps.
John writes to the whole world. So when John begins his account, he does not start with Abraham. He writes, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." He goes all the way back to the beginning. John is also the only gospel writer who tells us explicitly why he is writing: "Truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples which are not written in this book, but these were written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in His name."
So Matthew presents Jesus as King, writing to the Jew. Mark presents Jesus as the obedient servant — the One who came to serve, not to be served — writing to the Roman. Luke presents Christ as the perfect man. John presents Him as the Son of God. It is the same story, one God, one Christ, one death, one resurrection, presented four different ways because there are four different audiences.
The Lost Art of Listening
As you carry out this ministry of reconciliation, you have to spend some time listening to the people around you. One of the great arts — and it is largely lost — is the ability to listen, to ask questions and truly hear the answers. Why do you feel that way? Why do you think that? Where did you get that? Why do you believe that?
I have found that after a period of time, I will ask a question like, "Where do you go to church?" If someone says they do not really go to church, that tells me one thing. If they name a particular type of church, that gives me a sense of their background. But the point is to listen. You do not need to come in and immediately start with all the answers — it simply is not helpful, and it does not work.
I spent a decade doing exactly that — arguing and arguing and arguing, always right, never wrong, but never with any fruit from the argument. I am not saying to take the truth and throw it away. I am saying to bathe the truth with a little bit of love and a lot of grace, and a lot of patience. Rather than trying to change someone's entire mind in one conversation, understand that relationship is the context where most of that change will happen.
The Price of the Ministry
Here is the next point: you need to be ready to pay a price for all of this. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 11, where Paul gives a summary of what his life has been like as a preacher. We could work our way through the book of Acts to get there, but there is not time for that. In verse 24 he writes: "Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned." That stoning is an unbelievable story — they took him out to the edge of town, stoned him, left him, and thought he was dead.
Paul continues: "Three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been in frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, in dangers from robbers, in dangers from my countrymen, in dangers from the Gentiles, in dangers in the city, in dangers in the wilderness, in dangers on the sea, in dangers among false brethren. I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure."
As you begin to live and share this truth, I want you to understand the weight of what that calling involves.
The Cost of Following Christ
As you begin to do this, not everybody is going to be excited about your message. Not everyone is waiting to hear this truth. Jesus says, "Which of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?" He says this in the context of calling us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. He says it in the harshest of language: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father, mother, wife, children, brother and sister, in fact even his own life, he does not and cannot be my disciple."
What is He saying here? He is saying that if you are truly a follower of His, your world gets turned right side up. Your priorities begin to change. Those things that you say you love are all submitted to your love and passion and desire for Him. Everything is submitted to that, and there is a cost.
It is unlikely that you will spend time in dangers from rivers and dangers from robbers and dangers from your countrymen. It is unlikely that you will be beaten with rods or stoned. But you will pay a price — minor, by the way, compared to that. You need to understand the cost in order to be willing to pay it.
Paul's Secret to Endurance
How can you possibly endure all of that? When I look at what Paul goes through, and what many others go through, I say this is extraordinary. How did they do it? Paul gave you the answer in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 16: "We don't lose heart, though the outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day for momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison because we don't look at the things that are seen. We look at the things that are unseen because the things that are seen are temporal and the things that are unseen are eternal."
Paul says it this way in Philippians 3:20: "Our citizenship is in heaven." And in 2 Timothy chapter 4, verse 6: "I'm already being poured out as a drink offering. The time for my departure has come. I fought the good fight. I finished the race. I kept the faith and in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge will award me on that day and not only to me but also to all who have loved His appearance." That is how he does it.
A Resolute Determination
There is a resolute determination in Paul's life. Consider Acts 14:19: "But the Jews from Antioch and Iconium, having won over the crowd, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. But while the disciples stood around him, he got up, entered the city, and the next day he went away with Barnabas to Derbe. And after they had preached the gospel to that city and had many disciples, they returned to Lystra, to Iconium, and to Antioch." There is a determination in his life. Is that determination in your life?
I remember the first time I read these words in 2 Thessalonians 3:13: "But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good." Paul says it a little differently in Galatians 6:9: "Let us not lose heart in doing good." The reason this exhortation is necessary is that the Christian life is not immune from difficulty and hardship.
Treasure in Earthen Vessels
Consider 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 7 through 9: "We have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God, not of ourselves. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed."
Eugene Peterson paraphrases those three verses this way: "If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious message" — he is talking about the gospel — "around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary life. That's to prevent anyone from confusing God's incomparable power with us. As it is, there's not much chance of that. You know for yourself that we're not much to look at. We've been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we are not demoralized. We're not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do. We've been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn't left our side. We've been thrown down, but we haven't been broken."
A Word About the Smith Family
Jerry Smith sent me an email last week. Jerry's son Sean lives in California and was in a traffic accident. Jerry and Joey are there with him, and I have talked with Jerry a couple of times. Sean is in intensive care. He has had a couple of surgeries, and there are some injuries, some of which may be significant, though that is really all they know at this point. I have learned over the years to ask Jerry what he wants me to say, and that is what he wants you to know. Probably by midweek they will know a little bit more. I am heading over there tomorrow for an unrelated reason, but this will allow me to stop and see Jerry and Joey, and we are looking forward to that.
Jerry wants you to know he will be praying — praying for Sean, praying for the doctors, and for all that needs to take place in terms of healing and recovery. They have said recovery time will likely be six to twelve weeks, so that is an extended period ahead for the family.
Jerry also sent me this quote from Kurt Vonnegut: "There's a reason we recognize Hamlet as a masterpiece. It's that Shakespeare told us the truth, and people so rarely tell the truth. The truth is we know so little about life. We don't really know what the good news is and what the bad news is. And if I die — God forbid, by the way He will — if I die, I would like to go to heaven to ask somebody in charge up there, 'Hey, what's the good news and what's the bad news?'" At that point, of course, it is too late to clarify the answer to that question.
The Message We've Been Given
The world is asking huge questions. They say it in different ways, but they all sense that there is a problem. What is the good news? What is the bad news? The bad news is we are separated from God. The good news is God has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and He has given us the ministry of reconciliation.
Kurt Vonnegut and all those people he represents do not need to wait until they die or get to heaven to talk to the person in charge and find out the good news or the bad news. That is your job. That is my job, and we need to do it and to live a life with zeal.
A Coffee Evangelist
I was reading a book last week by a Christian author, and he talks about how corporate America is starting to hijack Christian lines and Christian terms. Corporate America now talks about mission statements, servant leadership, and no fear. In this book, he quotes Howard Schultz. Howard Schultz is one of the best-known CEOs in the whole world. If you do not know him, you certainly know his product — he is the CEO of Starbucks, and Schultz has identified himself, and I quote, as "a coffee evangelist."
I want to read to you from Schultz's book. It is a wonderful book called *Pour Your Heart Into It* — his story of how he built Starbucks. I read it years ago, and I remember this quote so well I even recalled it was on page 36. Schultz is talking about going to Seattle and seeing Starbucks for the first time — nothing like it is now — and then he is on the plane flying back.
He writes: "On the five-hour plane back to New York the next day, I couldn't stop thinking about Starbucks. It was like a shining jewel. I took one sip of watery airline coffee and pushed it away. Reaching into my briefcase, I pulled out a bag of Sumatra beans, opened it, sniffed, leaned back, and my mind started wandering. I believe in destiny, and at that moment, flying 35,000 feet above the earth, I could feel the tug of Starbucks. There was something magic about it, a passion, an authenticity I had never experienced in business. Maybe, just maybe, I could be part of that magic. The opportunities seemed as wide open as the land I was flying over. By the time I landed at Kennedy Airport, I knew in my heart that this was it. I jumped into a taxi and went home to Sherry. That's the way I met Starbucks, and neither of us have been the same since."
Do You Love Jesus as Much as He Loves Coffee?
Here is my question: do you love Jesus as much as Schultz loves coffee? There is far more evidence that he has passion for coffee than many of us have passion for Jesus. That is sad. I read that passage and I am moved by the passion — but he is talking about coffee. I am asking myself the same question I am asking you: am I as passionate about Jesus as Schultz is about coffee?
Look at what his passion produced. We do not even say "I'll meet you for coffee" anymore — we say "I'll meet you at Starbucks." That passion drove that. Imagine if not one or two people, but an entire church, was as passionate about Jesus as Schultz is about coffee. What would that church mean to a city, to a state, to a country, to the world? It is a huge deal. He is talking about coffee — he loves it, he is passionate about it, and it has transformed his life.
How about Jesus? Jesus has brought you into right relationship with the Creator God of the universe, and He says to you: now you take that passion to your world, and perhaps to the world as He begins to work in your life.
Why He Saved You
So if tomorrow you are at Starbucks having a cup of coffee and somebody says, "I didn't get to church — what did Tom say?" here is what Tom said: God has given us a message. He has redeemed His people. He changed our destination to heaven and our designation to saint, and He says to you and me, be as passionate about Jesus as Schultz is about coffee.
That means you begin to live it. You make the invisible God visible. You speak the truth boldly. And Gilbert, and Mesa, and Queen Creek, and Chandler, and Tempe will never be the same. Your workplace will never be the same. The city will never be the same. This church will never be the same.
That is why He saved you. Why did God save me? That is why He saved you, right there. Why did He put you here? So you could be a minister of reconciliation right where He has placed you. He may be calling you to someplace else — some other city, some other town, some other place around the world — but for now He has you right here. And He says: not a coffee evangelist, but you are an evangelist for the Lord Jesus Christ to the world where He has placed you.
No Higher Calling
There is no higher calling in the world. There is nothing more significant you could be doing with your whole life than this. My sense is that Schultz is more excited about coffee than many of us are about Jesus, and it shows. The good news is that can change.
I want you to join with us. East Valley Bible Church is at a really significant moment right now. Many things are being formulated and thought through, and this is one of them. He has left us here for a reason — not just to have a great church service, not just to have good teaching or good child care or a great student ministry, but He has left you here to infect this world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is why you are here, and that is what East Valley Bible Church is all about.
A Greater Passion
Lord, give us a love and a passion and a desire for Jesus greater than Howard Schultz's passion for coffee. Here is how we will know that happens, God: You will begin to change this world through us. We present You our life, and we ask You to do whatever You want with it. We pray to You in Christ's name. Amen.