Courage to Love a Stranger
By Jordan Scott, Resonate Missoula
We follow an excellent, omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving, completely perfect God. His desire for the world and its people is perfect justice, perfect peace, perfect safety, and perfect love between himself and all people. He will be the King of that world and the Father to its people. And the best part - his desire is unstoppable. It will come to fruition. God inaugurated his perfect world order by paying the just penalty for evil: death.
Evil ruled the human heart and condition without hope of alleviation, separating men from God, until, on a Roman cross 2000 years ago, the morally perfect human incarnation of God, Jesus Christ, died sacrificially to quelch the wrath of God against human evil. Three days later, Jesus resurrected from the grave, initiating a new, more powerful law than that of sin and death. Jesus' resurrection initiated the reign of the law of the Spirit of life (Rom 8:2). Those who repent and believe in Christ's atoning work are released from the law of sin, saved from God's just wrath, filled by the Spirit of life, and adopted as children of the one true God and King of the world.
We live now with the flavor of heaven saturating our hearts and minds. God, whose presence is the fullness of pleasure (Psalms 16:11), dwells in us and walks among us. We, God's Children, live in a transitionary period. The rightful King is on the throne, but the world at large is still unaware of his benevolent rule. Evil clouds the minds and hearts of men and cultures. God’s tasked us as sheep among wolves to sojourn the earth proclaiming the good news of his coming kingdom. We are his ambassadors petitioning the world to know God and join his kingdom.
Through suffering, God moved lovingly to save us wayward people from condemnation. As ambassadors, are we willing to lovingly risk our lives for wayward friends or strangers to know the truth? For fear's grip, I think we (including myself) often cower away from our life as heavenly ambassadors. We live apathetic lives as if a great King and his kingdom are not coming. We share the gospel sparsely, and neglect neighbors and strangers regularly. We fear rejection (emotional death), we fear loss of status and relationship, we fear offending someone, we fear heartbreak, and we fear our own inadequacy. Our fear is valid too. We’ve experienced the pain of the actualization of these fears and want to avoid it’s sting again. But God commanded us to confess him before men. In light of our fears, how do we courageously, obediently share the gospel with strangers? We fear God, understand the cost, face our fears by faith in the promises of God, and let that faith take action.
Fear God.
God is terribly fearsome and powerful. The prophet Nahum proclaims:
“The mountains quake before him and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence, the world and all who live in it. Who can withstand his indignation? Who can endure his fierce anger? His wrath is poured out like fire; the rocks are shattered before him.” (Nahum 1:5-6)
John Bunyan wrote that God is “the true and living God, maker of the worlds, and upholder of all things by the word of his power: that incomprehensible majesty, in comparison of whom all nations are less than the drop of a bucket. This is he that fills heaven and earth, and is everywhere present with the children of men, beholding the evil and the good; for he hath set his eyes upon all their ways.” Live unafraid of men who can only kill the body. Save fear for the God “who can destroy the soul and the body in hell” (Matt 10:28). God is to be feared above any man, and his commands followed - including proclaiming him before men.
Reckon the cost of sharing the gospel.
Jesus’s three year ministry was composed of all kinds of rejection. When Jesus proclaims the coming kingdom to his hometown Nazareth, the people not only ridicule him, but they attempt to murder him (the first of many attempts on his life). When Jesus taught the multitudes, several of his followers abandoned him. As he explained the good news to the religiously educated, they accused him of evil. Jesus tells his disciples both then and now that we should expect the same treatment. In Matthew 10, Jesus explains the cost of sharing the gospel. He says:
A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul [that is, the devil], how much more will they malign those of his household.” (Matthew 10:24-25)
Jesus teaches rejection and suffering for the gospel are inevitable for his followers. He himself, our teacher and master, was rejected and murdered. We are of his household and will experience the same treatment. Death is not a major threat we face at our western universities; however, rejection and abandonment loom largely. The prominent ideologies of the western world and the Bible (as well as spiritual forces) clash, leaving human debris. People develop deep antagonisms toward Christianity. Some are hurt, some are tired, and others are completely uninformed of the coming kingdom. As ambassadors, we risk our safety by stepping into the unknown battle of another. Count on being marred, embarrassed, and shamed. Prepare yourself to share in Jesus' sufferings. “But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:13).
Jesus will ultimately prove true. When we are rejected for sharing the gospel, which Jesus promises, we may rest in the knowledge that he will vindicate us at the end of days, and we shall share in the joy of his glory. So take heart. Embrace rejection as part of the path after Jesus. It's the only way forward.
By faith, fight cowardice.
With rejection promised, we must face our fear by taking courage in faith. I recently listened to a renowned therapist/psychologist explain treatment methods for fear-based mental disorders. The process is to identify the fear, break it into bite-sized chunks, help the client discover a transcendent reason to face their fear, and challenge them to move against the object of fear one chunk at a time. The goal is not to eliminate fear but to invite the client to overcome fear through courageous, worthwhile suffering. In many ways, in life and sharing the gospel, Jesus invites us to do the same. He asks us to identify our fear. He says to know him and his promises as true, good, and worthy of suffering. Then, by faith, he calls us to cast off any fear or sin that so easily hinders and entangles (Mark 4:40, Heb 12:1).
Sharing the gospel at times will be painful, providing plenty of reason to fear. Is our belief in God's promises and goodness weighty enough to transcend our fear? God promised that in our sufferings as ambassadors, we share the joy of his glory. In our perseverance, we will experience the love of God through hope (Romans 5:3-5). His will and ways will be accomplished (Isaiah 55:10-11). He will always be with us (Matthew 28:20). His desire is for all to be saved (1 Tim 2:4). And his perfect kingdom will rule and reign over the whole earth (Isaiah 66:22-24). Do we believe it?
Art Katz in his book on the Spirit of truth writes:
“The cowardly and the unbelieving are spoken of in one breath because at the heart of cowardice is a refusal to believe and trust God… God never hides the fact that he is at times painful to experience… but... he gives us every reason to love and trust himself.”
The heart of cowardice grows from disbelief. The heart of courage is born from a deep trust and belief in God. Without belief, without trust in God, we have no foundation for courageous gospel proclamation. Only by reckoning God as good, his word as true, and his purposes as glorious will we grasp the courage to gospel share.
Go share the gospel.
Faith (the repercussion of belief) in God’s ultimate goodness then becomes our means of courage. David Mathis writes,
“Courage is not an autonomous, self-generated virtue. Courage is always produced by faith, whether our faith is in God or something else. Courage is a derivative virtue.”
Faith in God leads to courage and faith in action proves God as worthy of our courage. “Faith is the substantiating of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen” (Hebrews 11:1). Faith substantiates, and true faith leads to action (James 2:26) - faith-based action. This means sharing the gospel, proving the object of our faith as true. Go share the gospel by faith in our completely trustworthy God. Clinging to faith, God’s promises will be substantiated to you.
You are a child of the one true God, brought into the fold of his grace by his own sacrifice for you. You are an ambassador of his perfect kingdom that is here now, but not yet fully realized. You are created and designed to partner with God in ushering in the glory of his kingdom. Therefore take heart, by faith, be of courage. Go. Share the gospel with a stranger. “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news” (Romans 10:15)!
