CONFESSING MY SINS

Too often we in the Christian church tend to think of evangelism as communicating to the “lost” that they are sinners who need to repent and turn to Jesus.

But, if we want to talk about sinfulness I really think we have to be willing to start with our own.

Like, what if the way we did evangelism was to go out together, in groups of two or three, and find a stranger and pull them aside and say, “Hey, I just wanted you to know that I am a sinner and I really need Jesus in my daily life. Would you pray for me?”

Just imagine if we started the conversation by freely admitting our own need for Jesus like that. Wouldn’t that change the entire conversation? Wouldn’t that fulfill Jesus’s admonition to first deal with the beam in our own eyes before we attempt to remove the speck in someone else’s eye?

Today I was reminded once more that I am a sinner and that I need Jesus more than anyone else I know.

My failure was profound, and shameful, and it hurt some of the people I care most about in the whole world.

On one hand, I can see how God can take this failure and make something good out of it. 

If nothing else it shines a much-needed light into a dark place in my heart that still needs to be touched by Him and be transformed by His irresistible love. 

So, that is a good thing [the exposure of our sin, not the sin itself of course].

See, our sin flourishes in the darkness. When it comes into the light it dies. So, as painful as it is to look at it, our ugly sinful nature starts to die the moment we put it on display and call it by name.

Still, the shock of seeing our sin in the daylight isn’t comfortable. It’s painful and it’s wrapped tightly in a shroud of disappointment and heartache and failure. 

These emotions can easily overwhelm us if we do not quickly turn to Jesus and receive His forgiveness and experience the restoration that comes only from Him.

I've said it before: our walk with Jesus is a process. Thankfully we don’t fall down the entire journey, but on those [hopefully] rare occasions that we do, He is quick to turn our failures into opportunities to grow, and somehow to work it all into our ongoing transformation into people who look and act and love like Him.

It’s not about getting it perfectly right. It’s not about never stumbling or falling on our face. It's about humility. It’s about admitting we need His help and giving each other Grace to keep going. 

So, if we really want to speak the Truth in love, then our message to others can't be, "You're a filthy sinner and you need Jesus". Instead it should really be, "Hey, I'm a filthy sinner and I need Jesus. Please pray for me.”

Our invitation to others should be to ask them to join us as we follow Jesus daily and seek His face and partake of His mercy and grace.

If we did this, it would not only place the emphasis where Jesus put it - on following Him daily and surrendering our will to His – it would also force every single one of us to admit our need for Jesus, regardless of how long we’ve been a Christian or much we’ve studied the scriptures.

Our calling, ultimately, is to love people, and that can only be done in relationship. This relationship will best reflect Christ if it is marked by a heaping helping of love and forgiveness for one another. 

God will convict people of their sins just fine without us - because that's what He said He would do.

Plus, He specifically told us that it is not our place to convict people of their sins. 

His new command to us was simply this: “Love others as I have loved you.”

That seems like more than enough of a challenge to me, don't you agree?

Because, if we love people we make room for the grace of God to touch their hearts. 

If we judge people, our condemnation becomes a barrier and a veil that makes it very hard for them to see the love of Jesus in us. And if they can’t see the love of Jesus in us, please tell me where they supposed to see it?

“Hello. My name is Keith. I am a sinner and I really need Jesus in my life. Please pray for me.”

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How Do We Make Disciples? 5 Stages Every Christian Should Follow

A friend asked me earlier this week:

"How do we fulfill the Great Commission if we don't teach, instruct and persuade? What about Galatians when Paul told us to rebuke (he said more than rebuke) any who bring a different Gospel? Are we in danger of allowing the Gospel to be subverted if we are soft? I'm asking sincerely, without judgement because I struggle with this issue."

Here's my response: We can't make a disciple until that person is asking to follow Jesus. We don't force people to agree with us and call that disciple-making.

Stage 1: We demonstrate the love of Christ to people and model His character.

Stage 2: We answer them when this behavior begs the question: "What is the reason for the hope [and love] that you have within?"

Stage 3: We slowly introduce them to Jesus and pray for the Holy Spirit to make Himself [and Christ] known to those who are exhibiting hunger for the Bread of Life.

Stage 4: We collaborate with the Holy Spirit in the work that He - and only He - is doing in their hearts, minds and lives.

Stage 5: We teach those people to follow Jesus in their everyday life so that they can start to practice Stage 1 [see above].

If our emphasis is on informing people of another faith - or no faith at all - how "wrong" they are and how "right" we are, we are not obeying Jesus' commands to "go into all the world and preach the Good News of the Kingdom, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded...".

Because the Gospel is not about mere "information", it's about "transformation" and if we are not first transformed by the Gospel into people who love and live differently than those around us, then we'll never convince anyone that this Gospel has the power to transform them either.

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5 MINUTE VIDEO: Is Hell Essential For Evangelism? [Part 3]

Why do some Christians argue so passionately for an eternal suffering view? Is fear of Hell really the best motivator for evangelism?

Take 5 minutes and listen as Keith explores these questions and more.

EPISODE 5: Dan Notti and Keith Giles: "Jesus, Ekklesia and Evangelism"

NOTE: THIS IS AN "AUDIO ONLY" RECORDING.

Prompted by a question from a listener, Dan and Keith share practical ideas about how Organic, Simple and House Churches can effectively start and grow thriving ministries outside their meetings without programmatic or artificial structure.

[Subversive Radio] EVANGELISM AND DISCIPLESHIP

Discover Religion Internet Radio with Subversive Radio on BlogTalkRadio

[SUBVERSIVE RADIO PODCAST] - What Is Salvation In The Kingdom Of God?

If the Gospel is not about praying a prayer so you can go to heaven when you die, but instead about a daily reality of life in the Kingdom of God, then how do we share the Gospel?

Listen as Keith answers a listener's question about how to communicate the Gospel of the Kingdom to children or to anyone who wants to know how to become a follower of Christ.

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RE:FOCUS

There’s almost nothing worse than being in a movie theater where the projectionist isn’t paying attention and you have to scream, “Focus! Focus!” to get them to adjust the picture.

That’s how I feel when I listen to most Christians talk these days. They’re technically correct, but focused on the wrong ideas.

For example, earlier this week I received a message from someone who wanted to know my opinion about gay marriage. Beyond the “right or wrong” aspect of her question was a deeper reality. Her friend had walked away from church over feelings of rejection from her Christian leaders.

Can we identify the behaviors that are categorized as “sinful” accurately? Most certainly. In fact, we’re very, very good at that in the Body of Christ. We can go to verses like 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and read:

“Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men, nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

The scriptures are pretty clear about who does, and who doesn’t, make it into the Kingdom. But what do we do with that information? Do we go to our co-worker who isn’t a believer and place our hand on their shoulder and inform them that they are a sinner and that because they get drunk on the weekends that they will not be accepted by God? Or do we go to our neighbors and knock on their door and say, “Hello, I just wanted you to know that since you’ve been married more than once, you are an adulterer and God won’t allow you to enter His Kingdom.” Hopefully not.

But when our first thought about homosexuals is to proclaim that they are sinners and to inform them that this disqualifies them from entering God’s presence, that’s exactly what we’re doing. It’s sort of a reverse evangelism. We wouldn’t go out into the world and start separating all non-believers into various categories of sin in order to condemn them, would we?

Not only is this wrong-headed, it’s actually non-biblical. By that I mean, we do not ever see the Apostles or the early Christians going out to identify all the sinners around them. They did not say, “Hey you greedy drunkards, you’re not welcome in the Kingdom of God.” Instead, what we see time and again is the proclamation that the Kingdom of God is available, and wide open to people just like those "sinners".

 

When Paul stood before the Athenians he did not condemn them as evil sinners because of their idolatry (something he specifically identifies in 1 Cor. 6 as sinful). Instead, Paul takes the time to commend them for their religious zeal! He then tells them how wonderful God is, and how they can get to know Jesus who has risen from the dead. No mention of condemnation for their sins, just an appeal to their desire to know the truth about God and an opportunity to meet Jesus personally.

Most of us, I believe, wouldn’t dream of saying to an unbelieving co-worker or friend, “Hey, you’re a sinner and that means you can’t enter God’s Kingdom.” But when we walk around proclaiming that homosexuality is a sin and that those who practice this are going to hell, that’s exactly what we’re doing. Are we factually correct? Yes. Are we right? No. Because Paul’s statements in 1 Corinthians 6 were made to Christians, not to unbelievers. And notice how he finishes that statement about who will not enter the Kingdom of God:

“And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (v.11)

See? The people he was writing to were formerly sinners themselves. He is reminding them of how far they have come. Why? So that they will not be tempted to look down on “those sinners” over there, because all of them were once in the same condition.

Our posture towards those outside the Kingdom of God should be to love them, to befriend them, to have them over to dinner, to bless them in the name of Jesus. Whether they are drunkards, or adulterers, or liars, or greedy, or homosexuals, or whatever, we should take the time to get to know them, and to love them, and to wait for the opportunity to share the love of Jesus with them so that they can see that God loves them and that His Kingdom is wide open to them whenever they are ready to follow Him.

Isn’t that what Jesus did for us when we were sinners? Didn’t he welcome us? Didn’t he love us? Didn’t he overlook our sins in order to show us what life with him could be like if we would simply take his hand and follow him?

It’s the kindness of God that leads to repentance. Our role is to love people into the Kingdom. If we go out proclaiming that everyone else is a sinner and that the pathway to Jesus is closed to them, what’s the point? Instead, let’s go out proclaiming the goodness and mercy of God towards everyone, admitting that we are sinners too. Let’s invite people to know Jesus personally so that He can transform them into His image as they learn to trust Him daily.

There’s nothing worse than being unable to see the big picture because we’re distracted by the wrong things.

Focus! Focus!

-kg

 

 

PART 2: WHY ARE (SOME) CHRISTIANS SO MEAN?

Reason #2 – Christians in America don’t know what makes you a Christian

I think the second reason that some Christians are so mean – or act nothing like Jesus – is because we evangelize people the wrong way. By that I mean that we tell people that they are “Christians” if they have prayed the “Sinner’s Prayer” regardless of how they are living their lives right now.

This “Sinner’s Prayer” appears nowhere in the Bible, by the way. It’s just something we made up to make it easier to evangelize. This focus on ease of conversion is part of what’s wrong with the Church today. Rather than to invite people to follow Jesus (become Disciples) and obey Him in their actual lives, we urge them to repeat after us: “Jesus I believe that you died on the cross for my sins and that you rose from the dead and that you are coming back to take me to live with you in Heaven one day. Thank you Jesus for your gift of eternal life which I receive today. Amen.”

Once we get people to repeat this prayer (or something like it) we tell them that they are now “Christians”. Of course, getting them to pray that prayer isn’t so difficult if you start off by asking them something like, “Do you know that if you died tonight you would be in Heaven tomorrow?” or maybe even “With every head bowed and every eye closed, please just quickly raise your hand if you don’t want to burn in hell forever. I see that hand, thank you.” And then we ask them to repeat that magic prayer and – voila - they will go to heaven when they die.

Of course, Jesus had a slightly different method. First of all he called for people to follow Him. Not too complicated. Might actually fit that on a bumper sticker. But then He added that if anyone wanted to follow Him (become a disciple) they would have to give up just one thing – He called it “everything.”

“Those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.” (Luke 14:33)

And

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)

This is pretty different, I’ll admit. Notice that Jesus doesn’t ask anyone about a preference for burning forever or not. Notice that He doesn’t ask them to repeat any magic prayers. Later on, just before He left His Kingdom in the hands of those same disciples He added this part:

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

So, Jesus expected us to make more followers (disciples) and then to “teach them to obey everything (He) commanded.”

Obedience is part of the package, according to Jesus. If you’re going to call yourself a “follower of Jesus” you might just have to, you know, follow Him and stuff.

This sort of theology allows people to think that just because they repeated a prayer when they were nine years old, they can go ahead and live any way they want – even become a Satanist or a Hindu, or whatever – and still go to heaven when they die. But that’s not what Jesus says. He says that only those who “remain in (Him)” have life and those who do not remain in Him do not have life. In fact, those who do not remain in Christ are the ones who will be “like a branch that is cast out..and thrown into the fire and burned” (John 15:6)

Trust me, if you prayed a prayer a few years ago but today you are far away from Christ and you are not remaining in fellowship and relationship with Jesus, you will not end up where you wanted to be. Or, as Paul says in Collosians 3:3-4:

“For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

The problem is that we’ve turned salvation into a “thing”. We’ve overstressed the fact that salvation is a “gift” and then carried that metaphor out to an illogical (and heretical) conclusion.

Yes, salvation is a gift from God, in the sense that it is free and you don’t deserve it. But it’s not a gift in the sense that you can take it (like a pair of socks) and wear it apart from the one who gave it to you. That’s not how salvation works. Apart from Christ there is no life. Those who are in Christ have life, those who do not have Christ do not have life. Therefore, we need to remain in Christ and as long as we cling to Jesus we have that life.

Or, as the Apostle John states it:

“And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (1 John 5:11-12)

If you prayed a prayer just so that you could go to Heaven when you die, you might not be a Christian.

 

I urge you to take a moment and pray a different sort of prayer. Something that takes into account that you are alive today and that you want your life to be lived in Christ right now. This prayer should be about surrendering your will and your attitudes to Christ Jesus, and dying to yourself so that Jesus’ life can fill you on the inside and spill out to those on the outside.

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

See? Isn’t that better? Now, the deal is you will need to do this again tomorrow. All of us need to daily take up our cross and die (over and over again) so that Christ can live in us.

If we do that, we might just avoid being mean to others and at the very least we will be doing our best to obey Jesus in our actual lives. That means loving others, forgiving those who offend us, and serving the people He puts in our path.

Try it! It’s pretty amazing.

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[END PART TWO]

THE GOSPEL FOR HERE OR TO GO? (Part 3 of 6)

By Keith Giles

BELIEVE, BELONG, BECOME
Someone once told me that every single human being has a desire to believe something, to become something and to belong to something. As we enter into relationship with others we need to listen for the clues to where people are at in this process.

Ask people questions about what they believe, find out what they are searching to belong to, help them to come to grips with what they want to become.

In some cases, the answers to these questions will be very practical. Some people want to become a nurse, or a mechanic. Others want to become significant or necessary. A few people we talk to will reveal that they want to belong to a family, or a discussion group, or that they are already identified with people who share their viewpoint. Until we engage people in real, honest relationship we’ll never discover the answers to these questions, and we cannot help others find their own answers to these questions.

If nothing else, start your conversation with the person in front of you by saying, “You know, I was reading the other day about how everyone wants to believe, belong and become something. What do you think about that?” Let the Holy Spirit guide things from there and see where things go.

GARDNER VS WARRIOR MODES OF EVANGELISM
Another useful concept for me lately has been the understanding that there are two different styles of evangelism we can employ. As described in Spencer Burke’s book, “Making Sense of Church”, the two styles are “Warrior” and “Gardener”.

The “Warrior” model is the predominant method that I have been trained in over the course of my Christian life. This model uses ideas like closing the deal, winning the lost, and targeting sinners, as if they were deer on the other end of our hunting rifle. Our mindset, in this model, is squarely centered on results, and often we expect the result to come sooner rather than later. If we take a shot and miss, we simply move on to the next target and take a shot at another one.

Granted, this sort of evangelism style has been largely successful in bringing hundreds of thousands of people into faith in Christ over the years. Perhaps, again, our focus has been so centered on conversion that many have fallen through the cracks, but over the decades of the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies especially, this “Bag’em and Tag’em” mode of evangelism netted scores of new converts.

I think in today’s culture this warrior form of evangelism is a dead-end. If anything, it does more damage to the Gospel than good, in my opinion. The reason why is that, honestly, we’ve gotten so good at blasting out the message that “Jesus Loves You” and “Jesus Died For Your Sins” that the world is tired of hearing it. What they want now is to see.

They want to see, with their eyes, if what we say is true, and they are looking at the lives of those who identify themselves as followers of Jesus to find the evidence.

The “Gardener” model of evangelism takes a much different approach. Like a farmer or a gardener plants, waters and protects the growing things in their care, they recognize that making the plant produce fruit is not their job. They recognize that they are simply cooperating with the natural process of growth inherent in the creation.

This does not mean that the gardener does nothing. Far from it. As anyone who has tended a garden knows, success depends on daily attention and care, but the bloom and the fruit will come in due time. These things cannot be forced or coerced. They must be allowed to occur in an organic and natural way.

To apply this to evangelism, it means trusting that God loves people more than we do. It means daily placing our attention on the lives and spiritual development of those whom we are in contact with. Our goal is to cooperate with the Holy Spirit as He urges us to love people into the Kingdom of God. This means we’ll be invested in the lives of people for the long haul. We’re not loving them because we want to push them into our way of thinking, we are loving them simply because God loves them and we are committed to love them in tangible ways to express the love of God to them every single day.

END OF PART 3
*From the book, "The Gospel: For Here Or To Go?", available as a free, downloadable PDF at www.KeithGiles.com

The Gospel: For Here Or To Go? (2 of 6)

THE GOSPEL: FOR HERE OR TO GO? (Part 2 of 6)
By Keith Giles

In the closing words of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus leaves us with what has become known as “The Great Commission”. In it, Jesus charges his disciples with a set of tasks until he returns. Here’s what Jesus commands us to do:
1) Go out into the world and make disciples.
2) Baptize these disciples in the name of the Trinity.
3) Teach them to obey everything Jesus commanded us.

If we take a moment to evaluate how we, the Church, have done in accomplishing these tasks, I think we’ll see where we’ve missed the mark, and hopefully where we need to get back on track.

First, we’re called to go. It seems simple enough, but what frustrates me is how often I see us in the Church twisting this into a more comfortable format. For the most part, the organized Church has built a model of evangelism and discipleship that says, “Come to us”. We build large buildings, we buy plasma television screens to announce our upcoming events, we host large-scale musicals and plays to dramatize the Gospel, and we instruct our members to invite their friends to Church so that the professional clergy can do the evangelizing.

I’m not trying to say that these methods are wrong or evil, but just that we’ve taken a very simple and clear command to “Go” and made it into a call for the lost to “Come to us”. This isn’t what Jesus commanded us to do. Jesus very easily could have commanded us to create inviting environments where the lost feel welcome. He could have commanded us to make space for unbelievers to show up and meet us on our terms, but he didn’t. He commanded us that we should go out and, in the course of our everyday, regular life, communicate and live out the message of the Gospel among those we encounter everyday.

Secondly, Jesus commands us to make disciples. A disciple is someone who is daily, intentionally following Jesus with their whole life. A disciple is not a convert. If you take a look at how our local churches practice evangelism you’ll probably see a lot emphasis placed on winning people to Christ, getting them to come forward in the meeting to make a public profession of faith, and not as much emphasis on taking them from this first step into all the other steps that follow.

As one example, I recently came across a very helpful tool called “The Engel’s Scale” which charts the slow progression by degrees of those who are far from God and how they slowly come to faith in Christ over time and with the assistance of loving friends and the Holy Spirit.

What I found troubling about the scale was that it stopped at conversion. As if, after the conversion experience, we no longer had any need to chart their ongoing development and discipleship to Jesus.

Again, the entire emphasis was on conversion, not on discipleship.

I understand that there are exceptions to this in the Body of Christ, and for that I am very grateful. I’m simply pointing out that, at least as far as I have seen, most modern American Churches seem to focus entirely too much on conversion and not enough on discipleship, which is expressly what Jesus commanded us to focus on.

Thirdly, Jesus commands us in the Great Commission to “teach them to obey everything I have commanded”. I find this part the most painful to explore. Simply put, I have never once encountered a church or a ministry where the main goal was to emphasize the commands of Jesus or to communicate a strong expectation of obedience for those who would call themselves disciples of Jesus.

If you want to know whether or not the Church has been obedient in the third section of The Great Commission, just ask yourself if you can name all of the commands of Jesus. If you don’t know what all of these commands are, you not only cannot teach others to obey them, you yourself cannot obey them.

Jesus had an expectation that those who would follow him would…well…follow him. Obedience to Jesus was not an optional activity for disciples. Over and over again Jesus spoke about how those who love him obey his commands. His unwavering invitation was for disciples who would take his words seriously and put them into practice.

For the Gospel to become a living reality to those around us, it must become a living reality to those of us who have decided to make Jesus our Lord and Savior.

When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus responded by saying, “The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind...and the second is like the first; you should love your neighbor as yourself”. (Matt 22:37-39)

Without embracing the Great Commandment, we can never hope to accomplish the Great Commission. This is why Paul the Apostle tells us that, without love, all that we strive to do for the Kingdom is meaningless and empty. (1 Cor 13)

We have to love people because they are people that Jesus loves. We have to learn to love people unconditionally. To love others as He loved us. Until we get really, really good at this, all our efforts to evangelize and to make disciples will appear hollow and empty.

END PART 2

*Excerpted from the book "The Gospel:For Here Or To Go?", available as a free, PDF download at www.KeithGiles.com

**

THE GOSPEL: For Here Or To Go? (1 of 6)

THE GOSPEL: FOR HERE OR TO GO? (Part 1 of 6)
By Keith Giles

There’s a great scene at the end of the film, “The Big Kahuna” where Danny DeVito’s character counsels a young co-worker about his overt mode of evangelism.

He says, “It doesn't matter whether you're selling Jesus or Buddha or civil rights or 'How to Make Money in Real Estate With No Money Down.' That doesn't make you a human being; it makes you a marketing rep. If you want to talk to somebody honestly, as a human being, ask him about his kids. Find out what his dreams are - just to find out, for no other reason. Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it's not a conversation anymore; it's a pitch. And you're not a human being; you're a marketing rep.”

That scene sums up, for me, how the world sees the insincerity in our attempts to sell our faith the way a door-to-door salesman sells magazine subscriptions.

As a young college student, I was very passionate about Christian Apologetics. I read book after book dealing with how to “give to every man an answer, a reason for the hope that lies within” using science, history, archaeology, and logic to convince the skeptic and the unbeliever that Jesus really was the answer.

After several years of learning, and even teaching others, about the basics of the Christian Faith, I came to the realization that I had never once argued anyone into trusting Jesus. I had some great theological and mentally stimulating discussions with people, but the fact was that my apologetics had not won a single person to Christ.

That’s when I realized that the only Apologetic that really matters is the Apologetic of your life. No one can argue with your actual, personal experience with God. I realized that my life needed to reflect the transformational power of Jesus, or else my logic and wisdom and answers were useless.

Granted, I’m much wiser and more secure in the grounding of my faith now that I’ve spent so much time studying and discussing the issues with people. But what is best for others is that I begin to actually live out the Gospel in my daily life and share openly about my own struggles, failures, experiences and insights as I personally follow Jesus every day of my life.

When Peter exhorts the early disciples of Jesus to “..always be ready to give an answer, a reason for the hope that lies within..” it was written with the underlying assumption that the people he was writing to were living radically transformational lives within the culture they were part of. We know this because of what we see in the book of Acts and by looking at the first three hundred years of Church History. The early followers of Jesus were living lives that were extremely different from those of the pagan world around them. Because of this, Peter is encouraging these disciples to be ready to explain why they cared for lepers, and fed pagan widows, and shared personal belongings with anyone in need whenever unbelievers asked them the reason why.

These days I fear we in the Church have largely lost this sense of living a different sort of life from those around us. Instead, we’re quick to offer answers to questions that no one is asking us.

(end part one)
**
EXCERPTED FROM THE BOOK, "The Gospel: For Here or To Go?" available as a free, downloadable PDF at www.KeithGiles.com