According to Jesus the greatest commandments are to “love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength,” and to “love your neighbor as yourself.” When Jesus referred to neighbor he wasn’t just speaking of the person who lived next door, but to every person, whether they are like us or different, whether they are friend or foe, essentially Jesus was referring to all people. The funny thing is just about everyone in the world agrees to the second of these commandments, they just word it a little differently, “treat others as you would want to be treated.” In fact, I was at Northern Michigan Hospital this past week and noticed their mission statement is “to provide healthcare as we expect for our own family.” Sounds familiar doesn’t it. Yet ironically as commonly as “love your neighbor as yourself” principle is accepted it is practiced so infrequently.
While people understand the principle, they do not practice it. Why? Because we are by nature self-centered, and it is our self-centeredness which gets us into trouble because we think primary about ourselves, getting things my way whether they are good for us or not. There are times when we become unselfish such as in major tragedies like 9/11 or hurricane Katrina when people feel the need to help others, but more often than not people think primarily about #1, me. It takes a work of God to transform our hearts away from ourselves and onto God and others. In fact, that is one of the reasons Jesus came, to identify with us, and die for us so that our old self-centered sinful nature could be carved away and by the power of God’s Spirit, help us love God and others. For Christians to love God and neighbor isn’t just a commandment we must follow it is a way of life. It’s who we are in Christ.
If we as Christians are characterized by our love for others, and yet how often do we go out of our way to help others get to know the life changing presence of God through Jesus Christ? If we as Christians truly love our neighbors as God loves them, shouldn’t we desire that they experience the love of God in Jesus Christ? Because in my opinion, the most loving thing we can do for those who don’t know Jesus, and whose lifestyles are far from honoring God, is to help connect them to God. And yet I’ll be the first to admit this is rarely a priority in my life. I think I love my neighbor as myself, and yet when I am honest with myself I realize I have made very little intentional effort to reach the lost, hurting people around me who don’t have a living relationship with Jesus Christ. Sure we may be good at loving each other, those in the community of faith, which is a good thing, but how good are we at demonstrating our love to those outside the walls of the church. We have a word for this, we call it evangelism, but I don’t like the E-word and I am not going to use it today because it carries too much negative baggage.
When I used to think of evangelism, I remember being in college and seeing this scary looking guy standing up on a podium in the center of campus, spouting off hellfire and brimstone to the curious students as they went by. He made sure we understood God’s judgment for our sin unless we turned to God. What kind of a response do you think he received? Later, I thought evangelism was going door to door like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, or handing out gospel tracts (the little pieces of paper which explained the four spiritual laws), or getting people to a Billy Graham crusade. Don’t get me wrong I think God has used these methods to bring many people Christ. While these methods are direct, they do not necessary communicate the love of God. Nor are they natural for most people. I know God wants to take us out of our comfort zone but for someone who is shy like me I don’t like high pressure sales tactics. What if we could share Christ with our community in a way that is Biblical, natural, and loving? Evangelism for ordinary people.
The Case for Kindness
Recently I have been reading a book called Conspiracy of Kindness by a church planter in Cincinnati, Ohio. When he became a Christian he was taught how to use high pressure tactics like the ones I just mentioned (he calls them shark tactics) to get people to faith in Christ. After planting a few churches this way he came to Cincinnati to plant another new church, and so he began with the traditional methods of evangelism, and it wasn’t long before he realized they didn’t work. He found people were more turned off to Jesus by his behavior than turned toward him. He finally asked himself, "would Jesus operate in this way?" Jesus shared the truth with unbelievers, but he always did it in a loving grace filled manner. People were drawn to Jesus because he taught the truth, and because of his love he was a blessing to those around him. He healed, he cast out demons.
Jesus demonstrated his love in real, practical ways. Jesus went out of his way to show his love, and give attention to those who were far from God. He ate with tax collectors and sinners, he touched and healed a man born blind, he even helped the Samaritans and Gentiles, people whom Jews would not typically associate with. By doing this, people were open the truth he taught because they knew he really cared about them.
Then Jesus demonstrated to his disciples what love was really all about. On the night when Jesus ate the last supper with his disciples it says in John’s gospel chapter 13, “now he showed them the full extent of his love.” And Jesus took off his robe and wrapped a towel around himself and began to wash all of his disciples feet (including the traitor Judas). When he was done he said to them, “14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” Jesus was trying to teach his disciples that in order to show love, whether it is among fellow Christians or the unlovable, those far from God (remember Jesus washed Judas’ feet), we must be willing to serve others.
Jesus set the model for real evangelism. Real evangelism begins with love, and expresses itself in service or ministry to others. He came from the glory of heaven to earth as a servant in human flesh, he served while he taught, and as a servant he died for all humanity (Phil 2:6-11). In other words he got messy and involved in our lives, being a servant so that he could get us out of the mess of sin and selfishness we are in.
The Apostle Paul reminds us to follow Jesus’ model, “Don’t think only about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and what they are doing (NLT Philippians 2:4).”
Or as our memory verse this morning reminds us:
1 Cor. 9:19b "I have become a servant of everyone so that I can bring them to Christ."
We need to be willing to get messy, demonstrating love through intentional acts of service and kindness to others and getting involved in their lives because God loves them, and so do we. I like to call this random acts of kindness.
People hear a lot of God-talk in our nation, but see very little God-action. People need to experience God’s love in tangible ways before they will respond. We need to be the Good News before we can speak the Good News.
In order to reach an unbelieving community words alone aren’t going to make it very far, what they need to see is acts of love with people who are truly interested in them. The adage is true, ‘people don’t care what you know until they know how much you care.’ We need to establish trust and respect before we can share anything spiritual with them.
Typically Christians and the church have been more focused on what the community can give us, then on what we can do for them. Come to our fund raiser and spend your money. And we wonder why people don’t show up on Sunday morning.
Servant Evangelism or Random Acts of Kindness
This is evangelism for the ordinary person, or perhaps we might call it pre-evangelism which. We are tilling the ground so the seeds of God’s Word can take root and grow. It is something any one of us can do. Any one of us can do an unexpected random act of kindness for our neighbor. Who here cannot do a good deed for a someone who doesn’t attend church?
Examples of past efforts: Some of you have already been involved in acts of kindness through our church. We have had benefit meals for people in the community who are not attached to our church. Many of you have made or handed out the prayer shawls for those going through difficult times. Some of you have gone to the Lord’s kitchen in Cheboygan to serve food, again an act of kindness.
Recently I ran into Barb at the CROP Walk and she asked me if the Epsilon church was still cutting wood and giving it away to single mothers. I had to admit we no longer had such ministry. Many years ago she was a young single mother with several children and she couldn’t afford getting wood for her stove, and the Epsilon church supplied at least some of her wood for her for heating in the winter. She still remember this act of loving kindnes, and is very active in the church today as a result.
Other examples: mow or rake the neighbors lawn, clean their doggie do-do (really showing God’s love), give away some vegetables from your garden, make a meal for a neighbor who has just gotten out of the hospital. The possibilities are unlimited.
As a church I thought we could give away coffee at the homecoming game this fall, Amy thought perhaps give away 9 volt batteries for smoke detectors.
There are two things to consider before doing our random acts of kindness
1. Acts of Kindness must be truly free acts of grace with no strings attached
It must be free. Absolutely refuse to accept money or anything in return. This blows people away, because in our world there is no free lunch. Yet God’s grace and love are free, and our expression of love must be exactly that, free. If you expect people to pay you back, or do you a favor in the future than you’ve missed the point.
We also can’t do random acts of kindness with the expectation that the person we are serving will start going to church or become a believer. If we come in with that expectation than we are doing it to manipulate our neighbor rather than demonstrate unconditional love. Anybody ever heard of Hare Krishnas? They became popular for handing out flowers in airports and other places. I can’t speak for every person, but many of them were handing out the flowers so that you would become interested in their religion. It was a form of manipulation then, not a true act of love. We must be careful our acts of service do not come with strings attached, otherwise it is not a representation of God’s free gift of grace for us. Instead the message we send to unchurched people is, we will love you and care for you if you become one of us.
2. Acts of Kindness must connect with God
It is important to connect the act of kindness with God. When someone asks us, why are you doing this? We should connect it with God and say something like, “I’m doing this as a service project to demonstrate God’s love,” or “because it is what Jesus would do.” Otherwise if we just shrug our shoulders, or give a vague response, our act of service just becomes a kind neighborly act, and they never connect what you are doing with God’s work. I remember one time doing a random act of kindness. I was getting flowers for Amy when I felt like I should give the checkout clerk one of the flowers as an act of kindness. While it might have made her feel good that day, I didn’t connect it with God’s love. I didn’t give it to her and say, God loves you.
If you do something maybe you have a little card that says God loves you on it.
Conclusion
I have two challenges for you this week. My first challenge to you is this. In the next two weeks, do at least one random act of kindness for someone who does not attend a church. Be creative, there are as many ways to serve as there are people to serve. Find some way to serve your neighbor or coworker and refuse to accept anything in return. Connect it to God. See if God surprises you.
My second challenge is to invite an unchurched person to our service in two weeks, on September 10th (our first day of Sunday school for the kids) for our “bring a friend Sunday.” It can be the person you have served, or someone else. The sermon for that day will be “Get Connected.” I will encourage all of us on that day to get connected to God, and to God’s family, the church. I encourage you to begin praying for at least one unchurched person(s) to invite on that day, whether it is a neighbor, a coworker, or a family member.
