Making News in Heaven

These past weeks we have been reimagining what evangelism could be like in our lives. We have talked about how being a “witness” is simply “recommending Jesus to our friends.” We have talked about the importance of friend to friend invitation. We have noted that Jesus is our contemporary and so he speaks to us in the lives we are now living through the Holy Spirit. We have also looked at how telling our story of faith is perhaps the most effective and usual way God speaks through us.

Today I want to start by thinking about our local community and what Hicks Church is doing here. Duncansville has many fine small businesses – Best Way Pizza is a place that some of us frequent. I don’t know if it’s the best way but it’s a good way. I go to Fine Cut to get my haircut. Duncansville Pharmacy provides prescription and over the counter medications for our community. Donnelly’s Antiques provides statues and other old stuff. D.P. Oppel New York Life provides life insurance and financial services.

What does Hicks Church offer to our community? What do we offer that these other establishments don’t? We offer eternal life through Jesus Christ the Lord. He is the one mediator between God and humankind. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the only name under heaven by which we can be saved.

“For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but will have eternal life.” John 3.16

My question is for us today is do we believe this? Do we believe that Jesus Christ is the unique way of salvation for all peoples, regardless of race, nationality, or religion? I don’t know, to be honest, how Jesus saves people that have grown up in a Muslim country not knowing anything else. I don’t know how God-fearing Jews will finally be converted. I don’t know how Jesus will reach, in his words, “other sheep not of this fold.” But I do know he is the Cosmic Christ given for the whole world and not just for a privileged few.

Today many people subscribe to the view that all religions are equal/ all religions are the same. Well, no person who takes their religion seriously believes that. We know that to be false. G.K. Chesterton once wondered if the man who was being boiled in a pot over a fire by cannibals because of their religious beliefs thought that all religions are equal. It puts it in another light doesn’t it? It seems to me that we are wrestling more with feelings than true knowledge and the feeling we have is, “What right do I have to tell others that Jesus is the truth for them?”

The first disciples of Jesus doubted too, even after the resurrection.

“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.” Matt. 28.16-17

What, exactly, at this point did they doubt? That he was standing before them, alive and well, that he did rise from the dead as he said he would? No, they couldn’t doubt that. Their doubts were of a more general and vague variety- what now? What does this mean? Where do we go from here? Jesus sensed their doubt and his immediate answer was:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Matt. 28.18-20

Jesus is saying, look, the Father has put me in charge. There is no other authority to appease or to consult. I’m it. Go, therefore, and be my witnesses. I have the authority, and now I am giving you authority to speak on my behalf.

The other truth we need to embrace is that there is not only such a thing as eternal life with God, but also eternal life apart from God. There is such a thing as separation from God forever – we call it Hell. And, beyond my understanding or yours, there will be some (Lord, may it be few) but some who choose that reality. Nonetheless, we are to do everything we can to call all to salvation through Jesus Christ. We are called to rescue the perishing, save the dying, and call the lost home again.

Lost people matter to God and so they matter to us. In his book Direct Hit Paul Borden writes that, “Perhaps the greatest sin of denominations and most congregations is the lack of urgency to bring the good news to lost individuals.” He goes on to say of his work as a church consultant, “as we work with dying congregations, we often tell the people that their congregation is not merely dying but also disobedient.”

If we truly believe that unbelieving people are in real danger of spending eternity apart from God then we will have a passion to reach the unchurched and unbelieving with the Good News of Jesus Christ!

God so loved the world. He is not wanting any to perish (2 Peter 3.9) He is the God of all who cares for all. “He did not sit in splendid isolation demanding that all worship and obey him. He reaches out and calls them to himself.”

“The eyes of the Lord range throughout the entire earth, to strengthen those whose heart is true to him.” 2 Chronicles 16.9

God is working overtime to see that all can know Him and be known by Him.

“He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay according to our iniquities. . .As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion on those fear him. For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust.” Psalm 103.10-14

These verses in Chronicles and the Psalms speak to the primacy and sufficiency of the right heart. We must return to the religion of the heart. And I’m not talking about feeling, or good intentions, or wishing. I mean the heart, the center of the will, that is given in complete surrender to God by the grace of Jesus Christ.

If your heart is right before God, God will find you.

This is the plan of salvation, that we who have been found by God will in turn be his witnesses to the whole world, starting in our backyards. The early church was a nobody church. They weren’t smart or rich or powerful. But they were witnesses. And by God they witnessed to amazing results by their way of working, speaking, and being.

We can have similar effect today – why wouldn’t God want to do this and more for lost people of today whom he loves? And we his church, we are his witnesses today. We’re it.

“We speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen.” John 3.11

We recommend Jesus. That is what we do as responsible believers. That’s what any responsible person does when they know something to be true. It’s your duty to share your knowledge with others.

“If you know the house is on fire, you must share your knowledge with others. If you know where the bargains are, you tell your friends. If you know how to stop global warming or cure cancer, you have a duty to share that knowledge.” Dallas Willard

Is the Good News of eternal life through Jesus Christ of less value than these?

There is a scene in the film, The Apostle, in which a holiness preacher is driving down the highway, his mother in tow, and they come upon a bad wreck. The police are already there. There is wreckage and emergency personnel everywhere. This preacher pulls over, grabs his Bible, and begins searching for the victims of the accident. He finds a car in the field beside the road. He leans into that car and finds a young man and a young girl badly hurt, barely conscious, still trapped in the vehicle. The preacher begins to pray. And he begins to talk to the young man and tells him that God loves him. The preacher asks him if the Lord takes him now will he be ready. And then the preacher invites to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and the young man says yes and thanks the preacher. A state trooper comes up and tells the preacher he has to leave but the preacher finishes what he has to say to the young man. The preacher finally walks back to his vehicle and tells his mother, “Mama, we made news in heaven this morning. We made news in heaven. . .”

I don’t know many Christians who have the salt to do that. But we are called to be salt and light. Maybe it’s time the church is turned upside down and shaken. Maybe some salt will pour out. It’s time we made news in heaven again.