Today on the Evangelists Podcast we're talking about God and mission.
SPEAKER_01The Evangelists Podcast. Encouragement to speak life to a needy world. With Glenn Scrivener and Andy Brinkley.
SPEAKER_02Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. This is uh the podcast where we discuss all things to do with evangelism and tease out uh different issues regarding sharing good news of Jesus. Uh last time, Glenn, we spoke about uh starting conversations with strangers about Jesus and just going onto the street and you talked about uh Jeffrey Hilda. Yeah. Um and we thought this time we'd we'd sort of look a little bit about uh the things we need to get right before we think about evangelising.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So last last week's was kind of get out there and go for goodness sakes kind of thing. And I guess what we want to do here for a three-part series is um before you go, make sure you're going with these kind of foundations. And I think, you know, I think both are appropriate at different points. At points, it's very appropriate just to say to people, for goodness sakes, you know what to do. Off you go, run along. Uh it's perfectly appropriate to do that. Uh at other times it's perfectly appropriate to say, hang on a minute. Let's just clarify what we're hearing. Let's just wheel it back a little bit. I mean, I I I was uh a street evangelist too, somebody did that to me about fifteen years ago. I was doing some street evangelism, and he says sort of said, uh hang on, Glenn, why don't you just come along to this uh theological course that I'm running and uh and think a little bit more deeply about the gospel. And I remember saying to him, I already know the gospel. I know the gospel, it's the other people, they don't know the gospel, that's why I need to tell them. And he um he persuaded me that I didn't know the gospel quite as I thought I did. And certainly at that moment it was very important for me before I went to go back to basics, think about who is God, what is the world, what is salvation really? Um and and that's what we're gonna think about in this series before you go.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Is vitally important, I suppose, from the point of view that when you ask someone who is God, yeah, you know, there's so many different concepts there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And so it's so common in evangelism for God to be the one thing that we assume in the conversation. So we all know who God is, God's the big guy, up there in the sky, you know, the big head teacher, high on power, low on personality. We all know who God is, he's and and then we just sort of jump straight to, you know, you don't spend very much time with God, do you? Or or you have rebelled against God, haven't you? Or things things like that, and yet the question of which God are we talking about is never really addressed. And and yet you just can't imagine an Old Testament prophet thinking like that. An old testament prophet's not you know, Elijah's not gonna go to the prophets of Baal and say, Yeah, yeah, Yahweh, he's very like Baal, very like Baal, just you know, slightly less green, uh, his horns aren't quite so big, and he's nicer overall, but he's basically Baal, and you know, no Old Testament prophet is gonna say, You believe in God, I believe in God. Fantastic. Their question is always which God? And you come into the New Testament and you've got the Apostle Paul. I think Paul in the Areopagus in Athens in in Acts chapter 17, he's not kind of being like this very refined philosopher. He's just dismissing debunking all their philosophy. And he's basically channeling the spirit of Elijah and basically saying, You guys are superstitious, you don't know gods. Let me describe to you a God you've never even encountered before. He babbles on about Jesus and they think he's talking about this foreign god. Well, in a sense he is, because he's talking about the living gods that Jesus reveals, and they've they've got no idea about the living God. And so our assumption that as we go out into the world and have God conversations, our assumption that people know who God is, is just shooting ourselves in the foot massively. But more than that, our assumption that we know who God is i it that also might be presumptuous, actually. And I I think in both Old Testament and New Testament, it's the people of God who are constantly getting God wrong as well. In the Old Testament, the the big problem that people are having all the time is this sin of idolatry. And it's very it's very interesting when we think about idolatry, um I think there's been some really helpful moves made in the last ten, fifteen years about thinking about idolatry and and uh this massive paradigm for thinking about my own sin and pastoral care is that I overinvest in things and I make them gods in my life, and I take the good things of this world and I make them into God things. And that is kind of a a form of idolatry, and and I think that can be a really helpful thing, but I think if we think that that purely is what's going on when the Bible describes idolatry, I I I think we we're missing something massive there. You know, in the Old Testament, their problem with idolatry, you don't just translate that into modern times and say, ah yes, while the Israelites struggled with which God to worship, I struggle with spending too much time on Facebook. And that's my idolatry. And I I just don't think that's true. I think the Old Testament, when it wants to talk about overinvestment in the things of this world and overinvestment in the flesh, it has a whole vocabulary for talking about that stuff. And it talks about idolatry. Because idolatry is not just, you know, I I I love my car and I spend all my time with my car, and so it's my idol. When the when the Bible is talking about idolatry, it's not just talking about that, it's talking about literally you've got a problem with recasting God in your own image. The people of God have a problem with instead of worshiping the living God, starting to worship other things. And you come through into the New Testament and and again, God shows up. And what do we do? We nail into a piece of wood and say, That's not what that's not my God. I don't want that. Right? Do we have do do the people of God have a problem with idolatry? Do the people of God have a problem with who is God? Yeah, we really do. You come into one John and uh and and John you know writes this whole letter about Jesus. Actually, he is the word of the Father, come in the flesh, and correctly identifying Jesus is is so vital. And the letter finishes with, My children, keep yourself from idols. And again, so often we read that and we think, keep yourselves from idols. Ah, yes, he's telling me not to overinvest myself in my career, because that could become an idol to me. No, no, he's he's saying Jesus is the revelation of God, and you are misconstruing who God is, you're getting God wrong. Even the people of God are getting God wrong. So, you know, this whole question of who is God, it's vital because non-Christians don't know who God is, and it's vital because Christians don't know who God is, and we need to get that straight.
SPEAKER_02So we need to get it right. Yeah. So that's kind of why we're why we're doing it now. How would you sort of communicate that with someone on the street, for example? How would you clarify that that who God is?
SPEAKER_00I I guess just bringing it back to Jesus the whole time. And that what is what is evangelism? I mean, essentially evangelism is just a whole bunch of questions get asked of you, and you say, Hmm, I don't know, but let me tell you about Jesus. Essentially that's kind of what it is. Because the answer to what all those questions is, you know, let's get back to the true and living God, and the true and living God is revealed in Jesus. Jesus is the word of God, the image of God, the exact representation of God, the Son of God. A chip off the old block, he's He's everything that God is, Jesus is Lord. And so in in conversation, I just I guess just bringing it always back to whatever picture of God somebody has, just saying, hmm. But how then does Jesus fit with that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because when he came he hugged lepers. Because when he came, he spent time with prostitutes and he's been and and when he came he dies with his arms outstretched to the world. That's an interesting God, don't you think? Yeah. That's the God I believe in. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02My my father, um when he first came to his pastorate, there was an elderly lady there. And he was a bit uncomfortable about you know where she stood, and so he said, Tell me how I I can become a Christian.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And uh she said, Oh well says, Well, if you're good enough, God will accept you. And so he said, Well, why did Jesus come to die then? Wow. And she said, You know what? She said, All my Christian life, I've never really understood that. Yeah. And uh he led her to the Lord, and that was kind of in the first few times of being at the pastorate, but uh yeah, knowing God as the Trinity makes a big difference.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02To evangelism.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So I mean what this is your dad doing. Yeah, yeah. So I mean what what he was doing was just getting it back to Jesus and and and essentially the Trinity is is just a a way of getting it back to Jesus and just saying, okay, my image of God, my picture of God is Jesus. Who's he? He's the Son of the Father, he's full of the Spirit. That's who he is. And you just you can't understand who Jesus is. All the gospels just keep keep calling him the Christ, anointed with the Spirit, the Son of God, Son of the Father. That's just who he is. He's introduced at the baptism. The Father belts out, You're my son who I love, with you I'm well pleased, the Holy Spirit comes and fills him. That's who Jesus is. And so if that's who Jesus is, then God is essentially a father loving his son in the joy of the Holy Spirit. Um and what's brilliant about that for evangelism is it means God Himself is the great evangelist. And I'll I'll tell you why. Because if Jesus reveals a father, then the father has always been giving life to his son. That's what it means for a father to be father. You c you can be a lot of things, but if you don't have a kid, you can't be a parent. And God can be a lot of things, he can make the world and do all sorts of things, but if he doesn't have a son, he can't be a father. And according to the Bible, God has always been a father because he's always had a son. He's always, therefore, been life-giving. So because the son has always been the son, the father has always been a life giver. Or put it in other terms, because the son has always been the word of God, God has always been a speaker. Because the Son is the the radiance of God's glory, God has always been a shiner. Yeah, just think about that for a second. Like before there was a universe, God was life giver, shiner, speaker, communicator, lover, life giver, father. That's that's all of of of what that means. And there's a there's a missiologist uh called uh David Bosch, and um missiologist is someone who studies the doctrine of mission and and why we reach out with the gospel. And uh and he said the foundation of mission is that our God is a fountain of sending love. That's who God is. A fountain of sending love. So when we begin with Jesus, we see that he is the eternal son. And he introduces us to the eternal father, and because he is eternally father, he is eternally a life giver, eternally a fountain of sending love. Now go and evangelize. Because now you go swept along in this fountain of sending love. Now you go realizing that you're not the great evangelist. Um He is. God is, and in Christ now, the Father is sending you in Christ with the very Spirit that He sent Jesus with out into that same world. And it's not as though God is up there in heaven saying, run along and do a lot of evangelism for me, I'll be up in heaven just folding my arms. You know, what does Jesus say when he says, Go into all nations and baptize them? What does he say? How does he finish that? Surely I'm with you to the very ends of the earth. So because of who God is, God is a missionary God, and therefore we go with him.
SPEAKER_02What happens when we get God wrong? Not when you know the people we're speaking to get God wrong, but when we get wrong.
SPEAKER_00When we get God wrong, we have you seen Anchorman?
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_00You haven't seen okay, Ron Burgundy. It's it's a Will Farrell movie, so it's very silly. And um uh he plays this really narcissistic newsreader called Ron Burgundy. And Ron Burgundy is on like early 1980s or late 1970s. News uh channel, he's a he's a he's a newsreader for the 6 o'clock news. And the very first line in the movie is this incredibly narcissistic man looking in the mirror, absorbed with himself. And the very first line is, I look good. I mean really good. And then he yells out to the newsroom, he says, Hey everyone, come see how good I look! And that I think is a brilliant picture of some people's god. Some people have a god who's just adoring himself. There's just one person, one lonely individual, and he likes the way he looks. Um The God of the Greek philosophers was exactly like this. The the Greeks said that God cannot love anything apart from himself, because God's the best, right? And if God's the best, he's got the best taste, right? So if he's got the best taste, he can't love something that is not the best. So if he's the best and he's got the best taste, who can he love? There's only one person he can love, himself. And he might be sort of interested in you only to the degree that you help him love himself, right? So maybe you can help him hold up the mirror a little bit closer or shine the light onto his beauty a little bit more, maybe. But he doesn't love you for you, he loves you for him, because he's just self-centered. And like if if we think God is like that, and sometimes the the God of Greek philosophy really does come a come across into the church, we think of God as basically interested in himself, and then what is mission? Then mission is hey everyone, come see how good I look.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00Then mission is going out into the world and trying to get everyone else to take part. To join the club. To join his big ego trip. Is that what mission is? And and at that stage a lot of people go, I'm not sure I like that God, I'm not sure I like that mission. And it looks and it looks then like we are the busy ones in mission, and he is the sedentary one. The truth couldn't be further from that. Actually, the father has always gone out from himself, always loved that which is not himself. If he's always shining, then what he's doing is he's wanting to spread his goodness to the darkness, and to transform the darkness into light. If he is always life giving, then he is wanting to give life to things, to raise things from the dead. You know, if he is always this fountain of sending love, then you know, he is he is loving the unlovely, that they might lovely be. You know, that that old hymn of the cross. Um he is he is always going out from himself in order to enlighten the dark places and to give life to the dead places. And that's the foundation for for mission. Not the selfish God who just wants us to to to love him the way he loves him, but he loves a world that is even in rebellion against him. And he 2 Corinthians chapter 5, he reconciles us to himself and then gives to us his ministry of reconciliation to the world. So that now we, as Christ's ambassadors, we say to the world, be reconciled to God. So that's that's the the difference that it makes. We go in this fountain of sending love and we s we're swept along with him out into the world. It makes all the difference.
SPEAKER_02What are the implications for churches that we think sort of about outreach?
SPEAKER_00I think church sometimes people get hold of this truth and they they say, Ah, God is the great missionary. So he's just getting on with mission out in the world, and church just gets in the way. Sometimes people sort of get hold of this truth that God is a fountain of sending love, and they think, Well, church, you know. And so sometimes, you know, people talk about ah w you know, God is up to something in the world, and the church needs to figure out what God is up to and get involved. I don't think it's like that. I th I think according to 2 Corinthians 5, where he reconciles us as the church to himself and then gives us his ministry of reconciliation, he equips the church to go as the body of Christ into this world. And church is what God is doing in this world. Church is God's mission strategy for the world. If that's the case, church being God's mission strategy for the world, it does mean that everything in church life is missional. Everything is kind of oriented according to reaching out. It really is. Um and that doesn't mean, ah, we need to strip everything back in church and like forget about choir practice and forget about like everything that's like superfluous and and just run evangelistic services on a Sunday. It doesn't mean that. What it does mean is all of what we do is ultimately oriented towards this goal of outreach. And it's not as though mission is one of the things that we do. As though, you know, we hold we hold this meeting and we got this group and we spend money on that thing. Oh, and we do some mission and we do this thing and that thing. It's it's not as though mission is one thing among others that we do. It is the very life of uh all all of our life together is a life on mission. And so it it has it it ought to give us a higher view for church. Not that church is um superfluous to God's activity in the world. The church is right at the heart of God's activity in the world. And therefore, let's think through all of what we do and and think about how you know, as we love one another, didn't Jesus say by this all people will know that you're my disciples if you love one another as we proclaim the gospel on a Sunday. All that we do all that we do has this kind of missional flavor to it. Um and that's all true because it all begins with God, the sending God.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And that has implications for us personally, too, that you know Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We're part of the Lord's body, whereas arms and legs and so we take our place within the body of Christ, and and we've got a particular role in that. And that that that doesn't always mean that I've been equipped as a mouth in the body of Christ. You know, maybe I'm not a very good you know, mouth in the body of Christ. That's okay. You can be hands and feet too, and an ear. And an ear, yeah. That's and a smell. A nose. A sm a nose. You can be a smell.
SPEAKER_02Well, it talks about the fragrance of Christ. That's true, though.
SPEAKER_00Which is a good fragrance. Yeah. Well, to some, that's true. To some very good fragrance, and to some to others not so much. But um so we've got a part to play in the body of Christ. And just personally, as we go out into the world, just thinking things like, you know, the Lord really does want my brother to be saved more than I do. That's important to know. Uh it's important to know that as I mention the name of Christ, just mention that I'm a Christian, as as I kind of declare myself to be a Christian in places that are difficult, and um Jesus really is with me because I I am participating in his outgoing mission. So maybe the verse to finish on is is uh Hebrews thirteen, verse twelve and thirteen. The writer says, Um, Christ was sacrificed outside the city gate. So he was he was outside the camp in the dark place, in the unsafe place, in the unclean place, in the place where God is not known. He was sacrificed outside the city gate the city gate. Which, I mean, there is the demonstration of God the sending God, isn't it? God the outgoing God, he goes into the dark place to transform it into light. So he dies outside the city gates to cleanse his people by his blood. And then Hebrews thirteen verse thirteen says, Therefore let us go to him outside the city gate, bearing the reproach that he bore. So what I'm saying is, you know, where is Jesus? As as we go into the unclean place, the unsafe place, the dark place, the place where God is not known, as we go there, do we go alone? Do we go because we are the great pioneers of mission and we're so strong and we're great evangelists? No, he's already there. We go to join him, and as we step out in mission, we're not stepping out by ourselves. We're going in his slipstream. Uh and we are joining him in his outgoing mission. That should give us great motivation and great comfort as we reach out.
SPEAKER_02Okay, good. Well we leave it there, and we're gonna go on next time to uh what is the world. What is the world? What a strange question to ask, and yet yeah, I think Big Rock in the Universe.
SPEAKER_00Yes, we're not gonna say that. No. No, we're not gonna say that. Spoiler alert, it's just a big rock in the universe. Hurtling through space at a dizzying rate. Uh no, but isn't that interesting? That's what we think about when we think about the world. Um There's all sorts of all sorts of ways that we can think about the world and the nations and therefore the evangelistic task out into the world. Um and many of those ways can be helpful for mission, and many of those ways can be very unhelpful. We're gonna think about how we get that question right, and that will shape our evangelism a lot healthier. A lot more healthily. Is that the I don't know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, that's it. A lot healthier. Okay, well, if you want to go to the uh web address for this episode of the Evangelist Podcast, you just need to go to speaklife.org.uk slash TEP104. And you'll be able to subscribe from there if you've not subscribed already. You can leave us a rating and review on iTunes. Um we'd be very grateful if you could do that. And you can also sign up for some tracts uh if you go to tenofthose.com and search for 321. Um, there are some tracks there that uh Glenn has produced for your own evangelism. That's it. Yeah. And also some links to some old episodes where we we touch on uh the question of who is God similar discussions. Okay, I think that's it for now. See you next time.
SPEAKER_00Good job, everybody. Well played, bye bye.