Sharing God's Love

Pop quiz. Question one. You are sitting at home one Sunday afternoon watching the game. It was a long week and now, for the first time you are enjoying some much deserved rest. Everything is calm, nearly perfect. Your eyes become heavy with sleep and you just start to doze off when the door bell rings. You aren’t expecting any guests and so you look out the peep hole and see two young men standing there with pamphlets. What do you do?

Question two. You are walking down a busy city street. You are in a hurry to meet some friends for lunch. Out of the corner of your eye you see a man sitting on the sidewalk. His clothes are dirty and worn. His hair is matted and hasn’t been washed in a long time. He sees you coming and stands up and starts walking over to you. What do you do?

Question three. You are coming out of yet another awesome and wonderful worship service and another member of the congregation approaches you and asks if you would be able to help. They are trying to put together a team of people who will go around to the neighbors of congregation and invite them to come to worship. What do you do?

Now, you don’t really have to answer these questions. But what kinds of thoughts and reactions did you have in thinking about these situations? Where you excited? Yeah, sign me up. Where you anxious or nervous? I would really rather not find myself in those kinds of situations. Where you kind of so-so? Oh. When did he start the sermon?

My hunch is that for most people these kinds of situations are ones of great anxiety and nervousness. These are the kinds of things that we think about when we think about evangelism. And for most people evangelism is not something that gets them real pumped up.

Why? We certainly don’t have an issue telling people when there is good news in our lives. Remember the first time you found out you were going to have a baby? Or the first time that you were going to become a grandparent? Or when you found out that you got into that school or got that job or promotion?

When there is good news, well, it is hard to keep it quite. We want to stand on the rooftops and shout it out. So why is it, that when we are talking about the best news in the world do we get nervous, anxious, our palms sweat, and our blood pressure goes up?

I think it is because we have convinced ourselves that evangelism or sharing our faith is like making a sales call. That means there is a lot of pressure involved. If we are going to get people to buy into our product we have to have lots of information and a sales pitch. We have to be able to anticipate every possible response and have a well thought out perfect response. And if we don’t, well, then we have to live with the guilt of not having done a good job and what may be a result of that.

It makes us uncomfortable. And it makes the people we are talking to uncomfortable too. They don’t want to have the conversations any more than we want to have it. And yet, because it is human nature to share good news, when there is good news to share, we also know that we are supposed to share our faith with others. So we end up with a lot of pressure and guilt and very little true motivation and that is why things like this video are funny.

Instead, of this, I think we need to think in terms of sharing God’s love with others. That is much more exciting than having to make a sales call and being prepared to have all the answers. Besides, it is the Holy Spirit that gives the gift of faith. Our job is to simply be faithful in bearing witness to that. Part of being faithful is also being genuine. We don’t have to pretend to be something we are not. We don’t have to act like we have all the answers and like we know everything if that is not really the case. We simply have to show people love. Sometimes it will be in doing something nice for them. Sometimes it will be in listening to them. Sometimes it will be telling them about who Jesus is and what he has done for you. Sometimes it will be standing with them, even when everyone else has given up. Whatever it is it is genuine, natural, makes sense and is something to get excited about.

Jesus tells a parable about a farmer who goes out into his field and sows some seed. He takes handful after handful and just scatters the seed without any thought of where it lands. His sowing of the seed is quite generous. Now, I do not know much about farming. If I were ever in a situation where I had to grow my own food, I would not survive. However, I do know that if you sow seed you don’t go around and throw it wherever.

No, you take the time to make sure that the seed has the best nutrients and soil depth and environment that you can provide for it. This helps to ensure that it will grow. After all seeds are not cheap and to throw them around into places where it won’t grow, is like throwing your money away.

But God is generous. He is not stingy. So the image that he gives us for sharing his love with others is not stingy either. All we have to do is share. All we have to do is throw the seed. All we have to do is show people love, and God will take care of the rest. He is the one who will make it grow. Because this God is the one who is so generous and gracious. He loves us with a generous and amazing love. He gives us life and forgiveness in Jesus. He allows us the privilege of sharing this good news with others also.

We see him in action in the story from the fourth chapter of John’s gospel. Here is Jesus. He is sitting down at a well and resting. Now he is in a Samaritan town. And as you may know, Samaritans and Jews do not get along very well. They don’t like each other and so they don’t talk to one another.

Jesus is at this well and a woman comes by to draw some water. Now, from a cultural perspective we know that she does not fit in Jesus’ culture, because she is a Samaritan. And for some reason, she does not fit into her own culture as well, because if she did, well she would probably be drawing water from the well when everyone else did it, and not waiting until there was no one at the well.

But Jesus does something amazing. He sees her. He acknowledges her and he does this by doing something that all of us are able to do. Talking. He doesn’t jump in with a sales pitch. He doesn’t say, “Have you accepted me as your personal Lord and Savior?” He asks for a drink. Now she is taken aback by this. But in something as simple as seeing her and talking with her she discovers who Jesus is and the gift that he gives. He gives living water that forms a spring. This water wells up in us and then flows out of us into the lives of others.

Or if you want to think of it in another way; God pours out his love, grace and mercy into our lives and fills us up so much that we are overflowing with them. We then go out into our world and those things flow through us into the lives of others.

You may not have all the answers for people’s questions. But you can love them. You can listen. You can even invite them to come with you and talk with people who would know the answer. As a congregation we are in this together. We bear witness to God together. Each one has a different job and different responsibility and different gifts. But all are used to build up the body of Christ. All are used to share his love and to make that love known.

God is the source. He fills us and cares for us. So that we can then care for others. We can care for the other people that God has placed into our lives, here in this congregation, in our homes, schools, places of work, neighborhoods, gas stations, restaurants. And sharing real, genuine good news, without any pressure, well that’s a lot of fun, and has a way of making life real exciting.

Remember the quiz? The first question was about the people knocking on your door. What if you took the pressure off yourself and decided to simply show them that not all Christians are mean people? You could say, “I am not feeling much like talking about religion at the moment, but I would be happy to offer you a glass of water and get to know you better.” See what happens.

The second question was about the man on the street. What if you invited him to join you and your friends for lunch? It could just be the most exciting lunch of your life.

The third question was about going door to door. What if you went, not to try to sell the church to the neighbors, but simply to be a good neighbor and to say, “Hi. You matter. You are important. Have a great day.”

These are simple things that we can easily do. It is being nice, respectful and showing people love. We saw Jesus set the example with the Samaritan woman at the well. We get to do it too. This is why we will take time, in a season like Lent, to empty ourselves so that God can fill us up and we can share that love and grace and mercy and forgiveness that comes because of and for the sake of Jesus.

And may this be a great joy and blessing to you, now and always. Amen.