There are a lot of ways for the world to determine if Jesus is God. There is far too much proof that he walked this earth, so most people can’t deny Jesus existed as a person. But there is far more skepticism that Jesus is who HE said he is: the Son of God, come to save the world.
But to convince people of Jesus as that Savior, you need much more evidence than just proving that he rose again. What is needed is people recognizing humanity needs a Savior in the first place.
There are many people who determine their status before God by their character, based on what they do or don’t do. “I’m not as bad as that guy, so I’m probably going to heaven,”
This is why it’s more important for us to understand and teach that Christianity is not just a system of moral ethics, but to see Christianity as a transforming belief in the Son of God.
In other words, Christianity is not about what we do. It’s about who Jesus is.
And that changes everything.
To go even further back to help people understand the invitation we have for them, we also have that pesky “human depravity” thing to work with. Depravity is the belief that we are born in sin. There are many verses confirming this truth. One example is Romans 3:10-11, “No one is righteous — not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God.” (NLT)
This is where Christianity gets offensive to people. No one likes being labeled a sinner. They don’t want their imperfection to define them. But it’s also pretty hard to read the comment section on any area of social media and not see that we have lost much of our humanity. It’s easy to point to the world and say, “Look how sinful it is!” But it’s harder for non-believers to look at themselves and say, “Look what a sinner I am!”
So we can start with that – the sinfulness of the world, then work our way up to helping people see they need a Savior, and then introduce Jesus to them as the one that fits the bill. But this also isn’t a “step-by-step” process. All these things work simultaneously, in tandem, in order to be an effective witness for Christ. This, truly, is what it means to be “living evidence.”
1 John 4:12-16 walks us through what testifying to the world looks like:
No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
Our mission as a church is to go and be living evidence of God’s love by his transforming power and grace. We live out the evidence of Jesus because Jesus is in us. It has to start there. His love is made complete in us when we love others.
Some questions for us to ponder:
• How am I different this year than I was last year? 5 years ago, 10 years ago? What transformation do I see taking place in me?
What evidence do I see that Jesus is living in me? What evidence might others see that he is? (Think beyond good works here – this isn’t just about being a nice person. Lots of non-believers are nice.)
The invitation we have for people is not in what we want from them, but in what we want FOR them. And what we want FOR them is what we all should already have inside of us: Jesus Christ and his love for all.
In Christ, Pastor Stephanie
