Posted By: Tim Mannin
This summer our church has been learning from the book of John. We’ve been jumping around the gospel account to gain greater perspective about our lives and what it means to Live the Gospel. This statement of living the gospel is a wonderful thought, but a difficult reality. It is even somewhat of a difficult concept to grasp. What does it mean to live the gospel?
In order to understand this, we must first identify our relationship with the gospel. As believers we relate to gospel everyday. The gospel is a story, an event, and a lifestyle. The story is God’s story of redemption in this world. The event is the life and sacrifice of Jesus that we read about in scripture. The lifestyle is how you and I adopt the teachings of Jesus and God’s story as a way of life.
So what is our relationship to the Gospel as believers?
My belief is that we shrink the gospel – the story, the event, and the lifestyle. Essentially, we make Jesus and the gospel smaller. Making Jesus smaller in our life is more common than we’d ever like to admit. We shrink Him and his significance around every corner…maybe not on purpose or with ill motives. Typically it is things like fear, shame, uncertainty, or a feeling of inadequacy that cause us to shrink Jesus. We don’t necessarily mean to shrink him…but we do.
In John 18 we read about Peter, one of Jesus’ closest disciples, and his moment of making Jesus smaller. On the night Jesus was arrested, Peter was asked three times if he was one of the disciples of Jesus to which he adamantly answered, “I AM NOT!” (Read John 13:36-38, 18:15-27).
Peter’s “I Am Not” moment is a sad reality…it’s a statement many of us have felt…and done.
• I am not sure I can do this…
• I am not willing to do that...
• I am not going to take the risk…
• I am not willing to be judged…
• I am not going to sacrifice that….
• I am not sure I can trust God with this…
• I am not going to bring my personal faith into a professional environment…
• I am not going to change...
• I am not going say anything…
I imagine if Peter had been brought in by the Sanhedrin and was put on trial he would have boldly proclaimed that he was a disciple – he wouldn’t have denied Him. But in this moment…this denial seemed small…it was no big deal. This moment is a reminder that life is not always on the big stage…it’s easier to try and be perfect when everyone is watching. Living the Gospel happens in the small moments of everyday life…when most people aren’t watching…maybe it’s just one moment or one person. Living the Gospel is about the moments when not everything is on the line. Peter’s first denial was to a slave girl – maybe he thought…it’s just a slave girl and this won’t matter.
Making the gospel smaller plays out in everyday by the choices we make.
HAVE YOU MADE JESUS SMALLER IN AREAS OF YOUR LIFE?
In your workplace…
In your coming and going…
Jesus can’t live on a shelf, in your backpack, or in your purse…you don’t carry him around and then pull him out at the right times. Jesus shouldn’t be a rare sighting in your public life.
Now I’m not saying you should run out on the streets with a bullhorn or wear goofy Christian T-Shirts everyday in order to prove our faith. We don’t need any more – “Jesus is my Homeboy” shirts out there—please, no more “Reece’s” shirts that say Jesus instead of Reece’s. We have to be wise. We have to be courageous. We have to learn to courageously share Jesus and proclaim Him in ways that are natural, attractive, and frequent.
Too many of us claim that we are waiting for the “right moment.” At the same time, too many of us don’t create the moment…we hope it will fall in our lap someday…but what if it doesn’t? What if the moment is never easy…will we proclaim him by the way we live and by the words we say?
The gospel should not be a quiet matter in your life.
Living the Gospel is a hope for all of us.
To be the church we ought to be.
To be the person we ought to be.
To live the gospel in such as way that we diminish the Peter-like, “I AM NOT” moments of making Jesus smaller in our life to the world around us. The gospel must become bigger!
What is your relationship to the gospel? How big…or how small is it to the world around you?
Click Here to listen to our messages from the teaching series "Living the Gospel"