You’ve Got to Tell Someone!

Living in this broken world, we Christians have been given an honorable opportunity. This privilege is telling people we know and love about Jesus. Telling them. That means actually using words.

It’s more than just showing kindness to people, which, of course, we must do. But many show kindness without sharing Jesus. It takes more than just being kind.

It’s more than hospitality. Though God’s Word commands us to “show hospitality” (Hebrews 13:2), it takes more than hospitality for our neighbors to receive Jesus.

It’s more than caring for the poor, visiting the sick, and feeding the hungry. Mind you, it’s not less than those ministries. We must do those things, because Jesus commanded them (see Matthew 25). But it’s more than that.

Kindness, hospitality, caring, visiting, and feeding are vital tasks that we Christians simply must do, in the name of Jesus.

Yet, in all of that, if we don’t actually tell people about Jesus, we fail them at the very core of their need. The wounded people who populate this world have a vast array of needs: they need soup, they need soap, and they need solace. But more than anything else, they need a Savior!

In God’s Word, there is a fascinating story of four lepers in ancient Jerusalem (see 2 Kings 7). Israel was at war, and Jerusalem was under siege. Food was scarce, and the lepers’ prospects for survival were grim. They decided their best option was to surrender to the enemy and beg for mercy, concluding that nothing worse would happen than a quick execution, which was better than the slow death by starvation that awaited them in the surrounded city.

As they approached the enemy camp, they found that the besieging army had suddenly fled in the night, leaving behind huge stores of food and supplies! The famished men began to gorge themselves, rejoicing in their good fortune.

Suddenly, one of them remembered their starving brothers and sisters in the city. He said, "What we're doing is not right. This is a day of good news, and we're not telling anyone about it” (2 Kings 7:9).

We who know Jesus as Lord and Savior are just like those four. We too were once needy lepers, spiritually speaking: unclean in our sin, and hopelessly starved within. We too, by no merit of our own, have found the miraculous provision of our need: a Savior to forgive our sin and restore our life.

And, if we are keeping it ourselves, we too are not doing right in this day of good news.

If God has given you new life, it’s sin to stay quiet about it.

If you have been blessed with joy and hope from the Lord, you must not keep it to yourself.

If you have been born again by trusting Jesus, you’ve got to share it.

Of course, you’ve got to be kind. But that’s not enough.

You’ve got to tell someone.

A PAIR OF SIMPLE QUESTIONS

There is a new kind of entrepreneur in America today, and those who are good at their trade are making an amazing amount of money. They call themselves “consultants.”

In the simplest terms, consultants go from corporation to corporation, helping generate ideas about how to operate more efficiently, and market products more effectively. Fees for famous consultants may run to 6 or 7 figures!

A meeting between a company’s CEO and an expert consultant usually begins with some version of these two simple questions.

Question #1 is “What’s your business?” This one requires an answer of ten words or less.

Question #2 is “How’s business?” The answer should be three words or less.

Until those two simple questions are answered satisfactorily, nothing else is considered. That’s because if the CEO can’t state his company’s purpose clearly and concisely, then the company’s employees probably can’t either. And if an enterprise doesn’t know why it exists, it will eventually become ineffective, and probably sooner than later.

The same principle applies to the church.

Several decades ago, Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple said, “The church is the only society that exists for the benefit of its non-members.” How’s that sound to you? Unfortunately, it’s more than ten words.

We Christians need to be asking each other the consultants’ question about our Churches. Every church board meeting and business meeting should include a reconsideration of these questions: “What’s our church’s business?” “How’s business?”

Think for a moment about your church. How would you answer these questions?

“What’s our church’s business?”

“How’s business?”

How do you think your pastor would answer these questions?

“What’s our church’s business?”

“How’s business?”

Most important of all, how would Jesus answer those two questions? He’s the one Who founded the church, so He ought to have a big say in why the church exists, shouldn’t He?

If you have a hard time imagining what Jesus would say in answer to those questions, pick up your Bible and read the Gospels again. You’ll find that Jesus was very clear about what He expects the church to do. Very clear. Amazingly clear. In fact, clear enough to state in ten words or less.

By contrast, I’ve got books on my shelf that take hundreds of pages just to tell you what the church is, let alone describe its reason to exist. These tomes may be comprehensive, but they’re sometimes not very helpful. Jesus knew the value of simple, clear communication. Here are a few samples, each comprising ten words or less.

“I have come to seek and save the lost.”

“If you love each other, it proves you’re My followers.”

“My Father is glorified when you bear much fruit.”

“Go into the world and make disciples.”

In light of what Jesus said, try to answer those two simple questions.

What’s your church’s business?

How’s business?

Why Does the Church Exist on Earth?

“When I go in that church and see all the hypocrites in there, it just makes my blood boil.”

“Why should I go to church and sit there with those sinners?”

“I’ll never go to that church, knowing what that woman did to my mother 30 years ago.”

It’s a common sentiment, isn’t it? I hear it almost weekly when I talk with folks about coming to worship: too many hypocrites in the church.

Behind that attitude lies a twofold misunderstanding of the church: what its membership standards are, and who it exists for.

Some people think church is something you belong to if you measure up to a set of standards. There are social standards: having enough money, wearing the right clothes, or living in the right neighborhood. Others think of behavioral standards: if you don’t smoke, drink, swear, gamble, or carouse, you can be a member.

By contrast, Jesus said that to be in His church, the only standard that counts is spiritual – you must be born again. In other words, you must trust Jesus for your salvation, and demonstrate that you trust Him by inviting Him to live inside of you.

Trust Jesus. Only Jesus. Not the way you dress, or the neighborhood you live in, or the things you do or don’t do.

Of course, once you trust Jesus, He will start to change your behaviors. But that comes after, not before.

Which leads us to the second question: for whom does the church exist on earth?

The church exists, in great measure, for sinners. It’s a clinic of sorts, to which sick and hurting people may come for healing and therapy; not because they’ve conquered all their problems, but because they can’t, not by themselves.

The church is a sinner hospital, not a saint museum!

In fact, it’s the hypocrites that the church is there for. That’s right: the church exists for hypocrites!

The word “hypocrite,” in its original language, literally means “someone under judgment;” and people under judgment are precisely the people for whom Jesus died. People like you and me, who sometimes sin so habitually that we feel like we can’t help ourselves. And because we can’t help ourselves out of our sin, we need a Savior. That’s why He came, as the Apostle Paul wrote, “the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15).

Indeed, the church exists because, as God’s word says in Romans 3:23, “all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory;” and because we all need equal access to the one and only Savior. It has nothing to do with how good you are, where you live, how you dress, or whether you’ve overcome some bad habits.

So, when people say that the church is full of hypocrites, they’re right. And it’s a good thing, too. In fact, I can’t think of a better place for hypocrites to be, because without Jesus and His Church, all of us hypocrites would be going to hell.

This Sunday, I’ll be in church, along with a bunch of other hypocrites who’ve realized how much we need each other and our Savior. How about you?