Forgiven Forget

I don't think that's too different with adults. Yes, they're much more polite. They'll even cover their mouths when they yawn. But look at peoples eyes as a long sermon drags on, and you'll see that glazed look which says they're a million miles away. They're just like kids - they've got more pressing things to think about.

How do you tell people about Jesus, when they don't want to hear? Let's get practical here - I know it's the Holy Spirit who opens people's eyes, and gives them a thirst for God, but how do we use the gifts he's given us to communicate better?

The same I think applies to adults as to kids:

• Use words they understand - I've got to work on cutting out Christian jargon big time. I've started using a simpler translation of the Bible (like the CEV or the Message) as part of preparation - the vocabulary used (there's an unnecessarily complicated word right there!) is much easier to understand.


• Use visual aids - Pointing out the splinter in someone else's eye when you've actually got an actual plank in your own eye is far more powerful than just reading out the words.


• Get into the story - act it out if it's a parable, or narrative. People still have imaginations, so get them to use them!


• Keep it interactive - quite why we don't have more actual interactive questions in sermons, rather than just rhetorical ones is beyond me. Perhaps it because many congregations are just too big? It keeps people awake, and encourages them to engage.


• Use good humour - a funny example which illustrates something is much more memorable than a plain example. That's another one to work on...
  

The good news of Jesus is too good to go unheard simply because we're lame at getting it across. The word of God is living and active and sharp - let's not suffocate it or blunt it.

Jesus is wonderful, he's amazing. He's my rescuer, he's my saviour, he's taken a whopping great sledgehammer and shattered the chains of sin that tied me down. I can't think of a better place that explains how utterly and fully Jesus has brought me from a hollow existence of death to a glorious full new life than Romans.

I came across similar talks by Terry Virgo today on Grace, and would massively recommend them. They're only 15 minutes or so each, but it's brilliant stuff because it's so focused on Jesus. Listen here.

Make no mistake - Jesus hates sin. He talks about Hell more than anyone else in the Bible, using disturbing and graphic language, of burning bodies, and insides being eaten out by worms. Truly horrifying.

And from Jesus' teaching there's no doubt that perversions of God's good design for sex, like lust, pornography, lapdancing and prostitution will land people in Hell.

Yet when he was on earth, Jesus was notorious for hanging out with those kinds of people - prostitutes, crooks, cheats. He went to their houses for dinner. He talked with them, ate meals with them. The religious people of the day were disgusted with him, the man who hung out with 'sinners'.

Why did Jesus even go near these people?

It was because he loved them. He saw their need to be rescued from their slavery, their addictions, their obsession with sin. They were guilty as Hell, and they deserved complete punishment for their sins, yet Jesus went in amongst them to offer them forgiveness and life, in and through himself.

It's easy to distance myself from such obviously wrong, distasteful and sinful lives. But without Jesus, that would be ME, no doubt. By nature I've got a lust for sin, a craving for anything that displeases God yet promises cheap pleasure. But Jesus saved me, and tells me to fight that sinful nature, for the sake of greater joy in relationship with him.

Jesus came to save me, and Jesus came to save lapdancers.

How are we at St. Ebbe's going to reach the people of the Thirst Lodge?

I need to repent of that attitude of partial unbelief, of stagnancy, and laziness. Because God has spoken to me - his words are right there in the Bible, and I can be just as certain it's what he wants from me as if he'd bellowed down instructions from the sky.

I should already be taking God at his word, rather than allowing a seed of doubt to call the shots. What a dumb situation! God's given his clear words, to be treasured, chewed over, and lived by - they have to become more the foundation on which I build each day of my life, rather than just a slightly dusty book I pull down from the shelf to flick through every so often.

I need to be as willing to obey his written words as I would any words he spoke out loud to me, and I need to respond with the same urgency too.

How do I change?

Let God take me through his Word - be more prayerful as I read and study it.

Take the Word with me - learn it, recite it, turn it over in my mind.

Let the Word truly be my anchor and my guide - it's only in the light of God's revealed truth that I see what reality is, that I see how gross and wrong sin is, and how wonderful, and beautiful and blessed living with Jesus at the centre of my life is.

Stop talking about it and do it - enough said!