“but in your hearts
honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone
who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with
gentleness and respect,” 1 Peter 3:15
There are a couple of book of the Bible that are more
plainly focused on being the people of God and setting out for us the vision of
Jesus for what that looks like. Ephesians is one; 1 Peter is the other. Peter
commends us to live lives that are worthy of questions from outsiders. His idea
of evangelism and apologetics is a response to the questions that come about
the hope that lies within you. How many of us are so full of hope that our
neighbors are confounded? How many of us live lives that are radically reformed
by the hope that we have in Jesus? What if our lives were worthy of questions
from those wondering what would make us live like we do? There are several
areas of our lives that Peter points out that if addressed would render our
lives worthy of questions.
Courageous Authenticity
I am just going to dive into the most provocative first.
Christians struggle with authenticity. Everyone struggles with authenticity,
but Christians seem to be the poster child. Our world of social media and
YouTube stardom have us living in a culture where we give in to the temptation
to put our best face forward at all times. A simple survey of Facebook will
show that Christians (and the church) are some of the worst offenders. We are
always “blessed” and “giving it to God” and making “unspoken” prayer requests. The
world around us is stepping out into a #metoo movement because they crave
authenticity and are tired of hiding. We stand in the grace of a loving God.
The grace of Jesus empowers us to be more real than anyone about our sinfulness
and failures. In fact, Jesus paints the most beautiful pictures of his grace on
the canvas of our brokenness.
Community of Servants
Jesus came to serve and not to be served. However, it seems
that more and more we loath being last. We never say this, of course, because
that would not be cool. But, we use even our “service” as a way of
self-promotion. A community that is committed to serving the people around them
raises questions. What family do you ever visit that races to be the one to
clean the dishes? Where do you ever go where the people show up early to look
for ways to help (not just ask)? Jesus commissioned a people that served each
other before anything else. It was what he said would tip off the fact that we
were his people.
United in Mission
Sometimes I think that if you had ten people in a room, you
would find ten different agendas. Most of the agendas are pointed to our own
personal gain and satisfaction. We do this often, I think, with the way we
gather for church services. We hire the best preacher, desire the best music,
demand the perfect temperature. But it could look different if a group of
people were gathered and focused on ways that we could love and serve other
people. Even in missional communities it is uncommon to see people sharing the
work. If the only thing that unites us is where we gather for an hour a week
then we are not living the same mission as Jesus. He calls us out of our
gatherings as a gathered people to scatter them in order to display to the
onlooking world his grace and redemption of all things (and all kinds of
people… wink, wink) and then gather them together.
Welcoming and Generous
People don’t like to share. Days like “giving Tuesday” and
“Amazon Smile” exist because people hate to share their space and their stuff.
I will break you off five bucks but don’t touch my lunch, invade my space, or ask
me for my time. This is a part of the culture we live in. Our society created a
church that asks for “10%” as a means to keep up the salaries and buildings for
our gatherings and we conclude that this is church. This is not. The vision of
Jesus for the people of God is to practice hospitality by opening our space to
others and welcoming them in. He desires that we share our stuff (all of it)
with others as they have need or that being in the same space with them might
require. Let’s admit it, people that hold their space and their stuff loosely
are weird. Jesus calls us to be weird. He asks us to bring the better wine. He
asks us to host the parties, too.
Live Our Calling Everyday
What is your calling? Do you know? Do you think that only
those that pursue full-time ministry or are at the church “every time the doors
open” have a calling? If you are a follower of Jesus then he has placed his
Spirit in you (don’t ask me where) and one of the results is that you possess
the spiritual DNA to reproduce the entire church. In you. That is true. No
person has more Jesus than anyone else. This means that your everyday life has
as much potential for kingdom impact as any pastor or preacher. In this day and
age, your life has more potential because you are around people that are
looking for grace, they are longing for hope, they are desperate for redemption
and they are not going to the church building to find it. They just don’t know
that what they are looking for is Jesus. Your home, your neighborhood, and your
city in the everyday patterns and rhythms of your life can display the movement
and intentions of Jesus.
Express Heartfelt Praise to Jesus
That brings us to our next point. You don’t have anything.
Nothing. It is not yours. What you do claim as possession, you don’t deserve.
You did not earn it. You have been lied to. Now, the truth. Everything you have
and all that you are is from Jesus. He desires for you to be cared for and
loved. He gives you relationships and provisions. His grace gives you courage
and boldness. He commands leaders, presidents (even the ones that are “not
yours”), and kings. They all serve his purposes. Because this is true, we live
every day in praise of him. How weird would it be to pray, not just before a
meal, but during it? Praising Jesus for making steak taste so good and
inspiring the person that invented macaroni and cheese. If we honestly believed
these things then we would never run out of praise and we would not need to
wait for the worship band to start playing to express it. We would already be
doing all the stuff they sing about.
Display Justice, Peace, and Hope
When is the last time that you heard someone ask, “Why are
you Christians so peaceful?” or “How do you Christians always show such hope
for this world?” Yeah, I have never heard that either. In fact, I think that
the reputation for the people of Jesus is quite the opposite. We are seen as
angry at the way the world has become. We do not see any other way to fix than
to have “our way, our president, and our laws.” We demand and require a
“Christian nation” in order to live our “Christian lives.” We stand against
“immigration” as if we are not aliens in this world. We want walls to keep out
the outsiders even though Jesus says that we are strangers. We place our
comforts before our compassion. We will not suffer in order to share. Because
we don’t have much hope for this world. But Jesus does. He desires a people of
peace. That will walk among our enemies, as we love them, as they harm us. He
desires that we have eyes that can see the injustice in our world (including in
our church buildings) and do something about it. He wants a people that are not
afraid of any neighborhood. He fills us with his grace and presence so that we
will be full of hope, his hope, so we can be a loving presence in this place
and for these people.
What if our neighbors thought we were weird? “But even
though weird, there is something different about them.” I wonder what our lives
would be like if evangelism required just answering all of their questions,
“Oh, the reason I am like that is because of Jesus.”
Then invite them to be weird.
But not in a weird way.
Oh, you get it.
