Law, Grace and God's Goodness

How do we share our faith effectively? Someone might answer that question by saying, "That isn't our job. We just give them the Word and the Holy Spirit does the rest." Okay, I agree, but how do we go about effectively giving them the Word?

When my wife and I were in Honolulu, Hawaii, we were walking along Kalakaua Avenue, which is the main road through Waikiki. It's a very commercial area, and we were window shopping, as we had spent most of our money getting there. (laughing here) Several different times, we would walk past different guys who were reading from the Bible amid all of the other tourists and the folks who live and work there. These guys were loud. If they wanted to be heard above the din, they had to be. Was that an effective way to share the Gospel? I don't know, but at least Christ was preached. It seemed as if most of the crowd and passersby were either leery of them, bemused by them, or tended to treat them with disdain. Lots of folks seemed to ignore them altogether. All I know is that I ended up thinking that at least they were doing something in what seemed to be a place where God was not otherwise exalted. I think of those guys now like little Jonahs who had been whale-blasted onto shore and who were shouting, "This is the gospel of Christ! You need to accept it or you will perish!"

Who will know until heaven, how effective those guys were. Did they make people think about the Gospel? What did they think about it? How did the Holy Spirit use it in their lives? Was it a first step in a process that led to salvation? We will only know later. I know it is the goodness of God that leads people to repentance, and repentance is what people need to do, so that they can be saved. If it were not, John the Baptist wouldn't have told people so. If it were not, Jesus would not have told people so. If it were not, the Apostles would not have told people so.

Not everybody likes to be told to repent. People often didn't like hearing that they needed to repent, even when the only perfect person who has ever lived was telling them to. Why is that? It's because the idea that we need to repent brings people face to face with the fact that they have sin, that they are sinners. Sinners often don't like being told that they're sinners by other sinners. By the way, sinners-----that would be you, me and everyone else on the planet.

What we need to do is show people that they have need of a Savior, and the reason that they need to repent is that He will only save them if they do repent. Okay, big question. How do we do that? Some people seem to be indifferent, some seem to be honest in acknowledging that their life is without the God they know exists, and some seem to be genuinely seeking Him, but they all need to repent of their sins and place their trust in Him.

People have different temperaments, that's for sure. Are there rules of thumb for dealing with those different temperaments? I like this one, "Demonstrate God's Law to the proud, and His grace to the humble." I like it, but it isn't a guarantee by any means that we are going to bear fruit in the encounter. Either way though, the goodness of God comes into the equation. The Law shows both types of persons that God is better than they are, that He is the only one who matches up to His own perfect standard.

"Wherefore the law was like a schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." Galatians 3:24

In either case, whether we are dealing with the humble minded person or the proud person, we need to be showing them that God is a loving and just God, and that because He is just, the penalty for sin must be paid. That's where the Law comes in. The Ten Commandments are a test of people's goodness. My pastor has always used the Commandments to illustrate the state of man's heart. One of the things I've heard him say many times, sharing some of his own witnessing experiences, is asking folks if they believe they are a good person and having them answer, "Well, I've never murdered anybody." God's standard is a little higher than that.

Guiding people to see that they, like us, have fallen short of "being a good person" is something that requires a little sensitivity. You don't just walk up to someone and say, "Your heart is desperately wicked. You're going to go to hell." On the other hand, I probably wouldn't walk up to somebody and tell them that, "God has a wonderful plan for your life." They might already think that God's "wonderful plan" is in effect. Sinners are often having a great time enjoying their sin. I would want to look for the opportunity to have real communication with a person. That may take time. It wouldn't be a good thing to rush a situation. That makes people think that we really don't care very much, and that doesn't reflect well on the One we serve. Sometimes too, it takes time to develop the trust between you and the person you wish to talk to, maybe even years, if they aren't willing.

In any event, we of course need to be truthful, but always respectful. After all, we are no better than the person we are trying to reach for God. It would be nice if we were, but we aren't. We have simply been shown the same grace of God that we are trying to help them toward. I'm looking forward to my next opportunity.