This week I am preparing to preach on evangelism, and there has been a thought that has been rattling around in my mind that doesn’t quite fit into the sermon… so I need to put it somewhere. A Mid-Week Update sounds about perfect!
Here is the question: when Christians are making decisions about how they go about their day to day lives, are their any decisions that have absolutely zero significance for the sake of the Kingdom of God and the gospel? Said differently, is anything gospel neutral?
When you decide to buy a house, or stay in your apartment complex, by making this decision you are choosing the people with whom you will rub shoulders most often as you come and as you go… these are the folks with whom you will most often have the opportunity to have conversation about the Almighty God we know who loves us!
When you decide to pursue a career as a stay at home dad or a chemical engineer at Medtronic, this will effect the people with whom you rub shoulders and the amount of time you will have to encourage people to know and follow Christ.
When I decide what I am going to eat for breakfast, I am altering the way that my body works and how effective I will be at being able to concentrate on loving others instead of taking care of myself.
When ANBC decided to fix their A/C this week, it changed some folks ability to concentrate on God (some for the better… I do like the cold… some for the worse… sorry to those who like it hot…).
If a couple decides to try to have biological kids, to adopt, to stop trying, to send those kids to public school, to home school, to private school, to sign up the kids for a sport or a play that takes up all of the family’s time… all of these choices have an implication for how the Gospel is played out in real time!
Dogs? Cats? Fish? T-Shirt/Suit? If and what to watch on the screen? What to do on Wednesday night? How clean is your house going to be? How to cut your hair? All of these have implications about how much time your will have to love a certain group of people for the sake of more and more people hearing about God’s love that was expressed through Christ death on a cross.
Sometimes choices are made for you, (because that is how the cookie crumbles) but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do everything in your power to live your life as if it were a sacrifice to God.
Paul says in his letter to the church in Rome:
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Romans 12:1
What choices are you making today, are you planning on making tomorrow, did you make yesterday that are easy to see the gospel implications of?
Can you think of any that don’t have any implication for the sake of God’s Kingdom?