Over these weeks taking us to Pentecost, as I’m reading the Acts of the Apostles, I’m considering Thom Rainer’s insights regarding a noticeable decline in evangelism.  Acts is like our blueprint for evangelism.  Luke tells us many were coming to belief; he also shares many instances of rejection.  Our evangelism does not always lead to their salvation.  That’s not the point.  We engage in evangelism, this is just part of our discipleship, because Christ wants it to be.  I hope all of us are for evangelism, even if, personally, you’re sure evangelism isn’t for you.  Not that you’re against it.

For people outside the church, even inside, sometimes, what Christians are against—or at least what pastor is against—can seem much clearer than what we are for.  Such perceived “against-ism” can drive people to another church or out of the church entirely.  We want our lives to be for something—freedom, fun, fulfillment.  Rainer contends this image problem dampens evangelistic efforts—those Christians are anti-everything!  No fun.  No freedom.  You can’t say things or do stuff.  Christianity is like, well, like chains: really heavy, really hard chains.  Take the chains off; then maybe they’ll consider it.

What are PC(USA) Presbyterians against?  Republicans?  Conservatives?  Traditional, historic faith?  Twenty years ago, when I understood that God was calling me to rededicate myself to Him and get involved in a church, I researched denominations, to find out where and with whom I wanted to worship.  At that time, the official PC(USA) position was that Jesus Christ was the only way to salvation.  I fear that, today, such exclusivist religious claims would be in ill odor in Louisville.  The PC(USA) is assuredly not exclusivist.  What does Louisville say we are against?  Exclusion!  Inclusive.  That’s the watchword, now: radical welcome, hospitality.  Of course we want to include; God wants more people included.  Whom He includes He also changes.  There’s the sticking point, the stumbling block.  We’re all included, and we’re all being changed, purified.  God loves us just as we are and loves us too much to let us stay that way.  God will have all of us let go of some dearly cherished notions along the way.  That’s hard, though.  We are deeply, deeply invested in our cherished notions, our heart’s desires.  I know I am!

Sometimes we don’t really know what we are against, or for, until we discover who is against us.  But who could be against us?  We’re nice!  When we find out who is against us, we begin to get a clearer idea of what they, at least, believe we are for, whether we are or not—it’s an image problem, you see.  When we find out who is for us, that also can tell us what they think we are for.

What are we against?  I’d like to think that here we are against what Jesus directs us to be against: sin.  What is sin?  Bad things we do?  Hurtful things we say?  Those are expressions of sin.  Sin itself is something deeper, more radical: any and all deviation from God’s will as spelled out for us in God’s Word.  Sin doesn’t begin with hurtful acts and words.  Sin begins by promoting self-deception.  Sin promotes lies that repackage sin to be attractive, lies that present self-deception as a mark of virtue, courage, superior intelligence, superior compassion.

Our evangelism hits the roadblock of our being known out in the secularizing world more for what Christians like us are opposed to than for what we are in favor of.  Restriction, rather than freedom.  The church has been wrestling with this problem for a long time.  Paul had to contend with it throughout his evangelistic ministry.  There were certain people, maybe even of good faith, or at least they meant well, who were teaching as the kingdom way what was, in fact, no way to salvation at all.  It’s possible, beloved, to teach the words and deeds of Jesus yet not teach the way of Christ.  I like to think of Paul expending his copious, blessed energy proclaiming the Good News, doing evangelism.  As I read Acts and his letters, though, I’m left with the impression that much more of his energy than he wanted to use was expended correcting the bad teaching that kept insinuating itself into the church, popping up like weeds in the garden.  Ugh!  Where did all the weeds come from?

Luke writes how Paul and Barnabas go to Jerusalem to reach some understanding with the apostles there about freedom in Christ.  Making stops among the faithful along the way, Paul and Barnabas share the news of how the Gentiles were coming to faith, which “made all the believers very glad” (15:3).  By the grace of God and only by God’s grace, Paul and Barnabas were witnessing evangelistic success: God was at work!  That is exciting news.  We long for such news.  It’s not that Paul or Barnabas were amazingly effective evangelists—it’s the Spirit, beloved!  I’m hearing that such success is happening in Iran, of all places.  I almost wish I could visit Iran, to witness the Spirit bringing the lost into the church, to celebrate with them, and be heartened and strengthened by their testimony.  You see, evangelism works in both directions: the lost come to salvation and the saints—we’uns—are encouraged and strengthened.

Brothers and sisters, it takes a long time for the Spirit to weed out these gardens—I know!  There was a group among the faithful there in Jerusalem who insisted that Gentile converts “must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses” (15:5).  The theological system!  The law established some firm boundaries: for and against.  You and I know that Paul, Pharisee of Pharisees, was adamantly, vociferously against these requirements.  That tells us what he was against.  To be for Christ is to be against righteousness that comes by the keeping of the law, for no righteousness ever came by keeping the law.  Who here by their deeds has merited God’s favor?  Who here by the sum of his or her good works has earned God’s reward?  Righteousness is imputed to us, attributed to us—a gift—not something that comes from us or by us.  Righteousness is and always has been God’s gift to those who have faith, and faith is the gift of God.  I am not a righteous man.  I am a saved sinner, being renewed by the Spirit.  Believe me, the progress is slow, but the Spirit is steady, praise God!

Well, there in Jerusalem, they all discuss, debate, pray, and seek the will of God.  Peter again makes it plain where he stands: “God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted [the Gentiles] by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us.  He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith [. . . .] We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are” (15:8-11).  Faith purifies.  Grace saves.  Spirit, faith, grace, Jesus—not the yoke of the Law, rules and requirements which don’t even have the ability to regulate our behavior, let alone our hearts.  Yet there is a yoke, beloved: the yoke of Christ; life under the direction of the Word of God.  Yes and no; this, not that.  Spirit, purification, faith, grace—Christ: not what we are for but whom we are for.  And who is for us.

If people out there, and even some within the church, are convinced that we are against freedom and for restriction, repression, against fun and for gloominess, Peter might just be providing some warm sunlight, here.  God accepts.  God gives.  We know God accepts because God gives.  He gives the Holy Spirit.  We know He gives the Holy Spirit because we have faith in Jesus Christ.  We didn’t choose or cause faith.  It is God’s gift of grace to those whom He accepts.  If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you know God has accepted you!  We aren’t the only ones.  There are many more out there whom we haven’t even met yet, but God may just be guiding us to them, and them to us.  God is always providing opportunities to speak for Christ, to share Jesus.  Too often, we frozen chosen don’t lay hold of these opportunities.  We allow them to pass by, maybe feel a little badly about it, though not very, and go about our business.  But what is our business as Christians if not to live in such a way as to make Christ more visible to the world, or at least not less visible?  We are for demonstrating Christ and against obscuring him.

There at the council in Jerusalem, one of the key events in the history of the Church, the apostles affirm that the message is about freedom: grace—that transforms; faith—that purifies.  In the letter they send back with Paul and Barnabas, the Jerusalem apostles name four things believers would do well to avoid: “You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality” (15:29).  In his letters, Paul has much to say about the problem of food sacrificed to idols.  That seems to have zero bearing on us, but the deeper, and ongoing relevance has to do with the terms on which believers participate in the larger society: shall we emphasize accommodation, making ourselves acceptable to our larger society, or shall we instead emphasize living into our distinctiveness in Christ?  For and against.  Blood isn’t a big part of our diet, thank God, but I’m afraid there’s plenty of it, still, in our culture and around the world—a lot of blood being spilled!  War, murder, abortions, shootings, stabbings, beatings—I like to believe that people of goodwill everywhere are opposed to that.

The matter of sexual immorality—Christians are to avoid sexual immorality.  What did the apostles mean?  Does it matter?  Maybe all that matters is what we mean now, but what do we mean?  Christians don’t seem to know; nobody seems to know anymore.  More than we like to admit, in trying to identify sexual immorality, we 21^st-century American Christians seem to want to know first what the secular humanist power all around us wants us to mean and not mean, so that we can accommodate that power and not drive away those under its sway.  Christ gave us a message, complete, adequate, and powerful, and the church has spent the last two thousand years trying to water it down and make it palatable and acceptable to everyone so that no one would walk away.  Because it’s sad when someone walks away, and we don’t want that to happen.  In those three years, how many turned and walked away from Jesus, beloved!  Did he want that to happen?

So, Jesus knew he had to change his approach, change his expectations.  He wasn’t going to be intrusive, acting like he could tell people how to live their private lives.  He wasn’t going to be exclusive, expecting people to believe there was only one way to God.  He was not about to let himself be perceived by intelligent, successful people as someone who was anti this and anti that: anti-freedom, anti-woman, anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-compassion.  Jesus knew he was going to have to change, keep up with the times, evolve.  He didn’t want to be part of the problem, didn’t want to be on the wrong side of history.

It’s been a long time since I saw The Last Temptation of Christ.  As I recall, the big flap involved a scene between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, but that wasn’t the most impressive scene for me.  The scene I still recall is when a golden cherub-looking child comes to Jesus on the cross, tells him the cross isn’t really necessary, then proceeds to pull out the nails so that Jesus can come down.  The sacrifice wasn’t necessary, the self-denial, the pain, the . . . inconvenience of it all.  That little golden messenger was assuring Jesus that he could live for God by living for himself: to live his fully human desires was to live his fully divine truth, you see.

In the film, as it turns out, the temptation was just that: Jesus was experiencing a sort of extended dream or hallucination of what his life could have been, what life lived according to human values might have been like.  The draw is always there, that fallen way.  Here, however, today, Christ beckons to you to join him in his way.  We are for him.  Taste and see, and live.

To the God of all grace, who calls you to share God’s eternal glory in union with Christ, be the power forever!