Josh Benner

Tag: Chrisitan living

  • The hardest commandment: love your neighbor

    The hardest commandment: love your neighbor

    Throughout the Bible, there are lots of commands to love people. Why? 

    Obviously because it’s important. But it’s also interesting that the command keeps coming up. 

    The fact that it has to be told to us over and over again points to the fact that it’s actually hard for us to do. The Bible doesn’t call us to do things are super simple and which come naturally to us. 

    There’s no command to love chocolate in the Bible. 

    Loving people is hard. And part of why it’s hard is because we don’t think it’s hard. 

    It goes back to how we use the language of the things we love. If we will throw around the word “love” for things we don’t actually even love, then we believe in an idea of love that’s pretty easy. 

    The Greek language actually had four words for four different types of love. I’m not going to get into all of those this morning, but even to know that fact is interesting. That there are different ideas of love, different types of love. 

    And we probably all understand that but we only have one word for love. We don’t think it’s hard to love people because we think love is easy. 

    Real love is hard. 

    Sometimes when we say “love,” what we really mean is tolerance. Let and let live is not love. That’s easy. Anyone can do that. 

    We do love our families. That’s usually pretty easy, at least for most of them. They’re our family. But we’re called to love everyone. 

    Now, that’s easy to do in that aggregate. It’s easy to love humanity as a human race and want what’s best for it. And that’s fine. But that’s also pretty easy because that’s so big and broad that we can also still get away without having that really needing to impact how we live. 

    But what about loving the people who are hard to love. 

    Jesus and love

    We see that from Jesus throughout his ministry. 

    We see him associating with those his society most despised. We see him visit lepers, people who were viewed as inherently unclean and who were outcasts in their society. We see him show grace to a woman who was a prostitute. 

    One of his disciples was a tax collector. Tax collectors were hated in their society. For the Jewish people, they were looked at as being traitors to their people. Taking money from Israelites to give to Rome. We see Jesus show grace to those who hated him, personally. Pharisees who plotted against him, guards who beat him, officials who crucified him. 

    Jesus loved the groups who were hard to love. 

    Every society has its groups it looks down upon. We see how Jesus showed love. Who are the groups with whom our society struggles? 

    Criminals. People who struggle with addiction. 

    People who have hurt us. And that can be hard. There’s incredible damage people can inflict. Forgiveness can be hard. Let alone saying that we love that person. 

    People who have different political views than us. The division right now in this country is incredible. Some of us can really struggle with not being judgemental on those who have some different political views. 

    You still have to love them. 

    How do we love people? It begins not with the people, but with the God we serve. Loving others is, and especially loving those who are hard to love is a reflection of our love for God. 

    We are to love others because we have a savior who loves us when we were unlovable. 

    Knowing the love God has for us. Knowing the need others have for grace and the gospel. Knowing that every person we meet is created in the image of God and is worthy of value and dignity. 

    How do we love people? 

    By praying for a person, by sharing the good news of Jesus with someone, by showing kindness to someone, by serving someone. By stepping into a person’s life. 

    Jesus stepped into our world to show love for our world. 

    Jesus went out and found the people who were hard to love. We actually can have pretty good control of our surroundings to avoid people we don’t want to be around. And I’m not saying that we all need to make a checklist of every difficult group. But let me ask you this: when is the last time you’ve had to regularly interact with someone who challenged you? When was the last time you’ve been around someone where you’ve had to turn to God and ask you for strength to love that person? 

    For some of us, maybe it’s been recent. 

    And I’m not even saying that you need to go out today and go out of your way to find the most difficult person you possibly can. But I think we do need to have some humility that love is actually hard. The love that God calls us to is hard. But Jesus didn’t shy away from us, he didn’t walk away from our world, he entered into it. He loved us when we were unlovable. 

    We can’t do it perfectly. But we have a savior who loves us perfectly. 

    And the more we understand God’s grace, and the more we grow in our love for God, the more that is meant to impact our love for those around us. 

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  • Evangelism as a way of life

    Evangelism as a way of life

    Jesus calls all of his followers to make disciples, to follow the Great Commission, to share the good news of the gospel. To those with whom we share the gospel, there will be some who will want nothing to do with it but there will also be those who are drawn to the message.

    We can’t assume that people know the gospel. And that’s always been true. There has always been the need for personal evangelism. 

    But our society used to have more of a church culture where it was easier to assume that a person was at least familiar with the gospel. That there was some common ground. That people were churched. 

    The struggle of evangelism

    I think that’s at least part of the reason why personal evangelism has become such a struggle. Because for a long time, people didn’t think it was necessary. It’s not that churches would overtly say that evangelism was unnecessary. 

    But when one perceives the society as largely already being Christian, then the need for personal evangelism seems less pressing. 

    Sure, it might be needed in other countries where they don’t have the gospel. Missions were important. But did we truly look at our own household, our own workplace, our own community as our own mission field?

    Undoubtedly, some did. I’m not saying no one shared the gospel. But what I’m saying is that America had become so saturated in Christendom that we lost a culture of evangelization. Perhaps we never had it. 

    Our society is becoming less religious. And Bible believing churches are now dealing with the fallout of a society where evangelism was not emphasized in the past and where evangelism skills were not taught. 

    Again, I’m speaking in broad generalities. It’s not like no one has practiced evangelism. And some churches did a better job than others with outreach. But overall, evangelistic efforts lagged. 

    The industry of evangelical Christianity

    Over the last 30 years as we’ve seen declines in the church in America, we were also seeing a greater industry of Christianity. 

    Entire TV networks dedicated to televangelists, an explosion in book publishing, popular Christian music, Christian movies, Christian conference, Chrisitan celebrities. There was a rising megachurch movement.

    The emphasis with these things was often in being “practical.” Tips on raising good kids, tips on dating and finding a good spouse, tips on marriage and having a good marriage, tips on finances. 

    Many churches became a place to hear a self-help message rather than the message of Jesus who calls his followers to die to self.

    Again, it’s not that all churches became this way but those churches became the popular churches and it influenced other churches. 

    Sermons that lost their theological weight. Music that was emotive, self-centered and shallow. Youth groups that were more concerned with entertaining kids than teaching them about Jesus. 

    In the Bible, Jesus calls us to count the cost before following him. Jesus also tells us to take up our cross and follow him, but this was replaced by a prosperity Jesus who asked little of us. 

    It took more of an inward focus rather than living in the world as a disciple and a herald of the gospel message. 

    The practical Christianity industry did not necessarily focus on preaching the gospel, let alone sharing it with others. 

    And so we have a command of Jesus and many well-meaning Christians aren’t equipped and don’t know how to follow it. 

    Why do people share the gospel? 

    Motivations to evangelize

    Two reasons comes to mind. And they’re not mutually exclusive. One is a sense of obligation. That’s a fine reason to share the gospel. It is, after all, a command of Christ. 

    But there’s a second reason that’s also important and that is because you have such a love for God and a knowledge of the grace of Christ and see such beauty in the gospel of his grace that you want to share that with others. 

    Obligation, you can force yourself to do. And that can work. I have no doubt many people have been led to Jesus by those who were faithful to share the message but who, in that moment, didn’t really want to. And we should praise the Lord for those who are faithful. 

    You can force yourself to do something from obligation. 

    You cannot force yourself to have a genuine love for the gospel and a passion for making Jesus known. That can only come as the result of a love for Jesus and a life that is centered around Jesus. 

    Walking with Jesus

    Towards the end of the Book of Galatians, Paul will talk of walking in step with the Spirit so that we will not gratify the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). 

    Paul talks about the fruit that the Holy Spirit produces. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. 

    We don’t create that ourselves. It is a supernatural work of the Spirit. 

    In 2 Corinthians 3:18, Paul talks about the transformative effect of looking to God. 

    we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. 

    Looking to God, knowing the truth of God, serving God, praying to God, having a constant God-centered mind is transformational. 

    In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks of the person who is blessed by living as kingdom people in the world. I won’t read them all but among them, Jesus says; 

    6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. 

    7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. 

    8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 

    And on and on. The Psalmist says taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8). 

    As Christians, we need to live a life where you can be the kind of people who love Jesus so much that you want to share him with others. 

    If you look at evangelism as merely an obligation, then maybe you’ll talk to people about Jesus sometimes. But to evangelize out of love must come from living for Jesus as a way of life. 

    Is your faith something that you just sort of attach onto your life and ultimately doing what you want to do? Or is it what drives you? 

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