“Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” –1 John 4:4

“The world is what I share with others.” –Martin Heidegger

Fear.  It’s the number one reason followers or Christ give for their reluctance to talk to others about Jesus.  It’s not so much that we fear that people will reject Christ; we’re mostly just scared stiff that they’ll pigeonhole us.    We’re not stupid; we’ve seen those who are vocal about their Christianity ridiculed behind their backs.  And we know being branded as a “fundamentalist” or a “Jesus freak” means being looked down upon.  “No thanks!” we say, “That’s not for me!”

If it’s how you feel, we can’t blame you.  The way a lot of people attempt to “share their faith” is rude, condescending, and socially insensitive.  Even as fellow follower of Christ, we can’t stand being around folks who hammer others with unsolicited religious monologues.  We love them and know they mean well, but the heavy-handed evangelistic methods some people employ make it harder for the rest of us to share the love of Jesus.

Larry, a business owner with a strong personal faith in Jesus, had a religiously obnoxious employee named Stan.  Though other employees shunned and mocked him, Stan was very proud of the fact that he could make a four-point gospel presentation to a full elevator in the time it took for the doors to close on one floor and open on the next.

Larry had to call Stan into his office to talk to Stan about the angry complaints he was getting from nearly everyone else in the company.  Exasperated, Larry tried to reason with him saying.

“You aren’t converting anybody, Stan.  You’re turning them against Jesus.”

In a disturbingly vindictive tone, Stan explained, “I’m proclaiming the truth so that when Judgment Day comes, they won’t have any excuse…and every one of them is going to be cast headfirst into the lake of fire!”

Yikes!  Considering how many ugly things like this that have been spoken in the name of Christianity, is it any wonder so many have negative perceptions of those who “share their faith” openly?  It’s easy to understand why people reacted negatively to Stan’s message of wrath and judgment, but how can you help them get beyond the negativity to embrace the generous Jesus you’re coming to know?

Stop Fearing the Culture

An essential first step is to overcome your fear of the culture.  In the past couple of decades many popular preachers and prominent religious organizations have spent millions fanning the flames of this fear.  Among other things, they cautioned Christians to beware of the hidden subliminal messages in modern music and movies; they explained how exposure to secular humanism and the homosexual agenda subtly erodes traditional moral values; they warned that watching The Simpsons on TV or reading the Harry Potter books could turn innocent kids into delinquents or even Satanists.  They told us to be afraid.  Be very afraid—nearly everything in the culture around you is a life-threatening menace to your Christian faith!

The basic message that comes across is that you should be scared to death of everyone and everything that doesn’t pass the most stringent moral and spiritual tests.  Again we say “Yuck!’  Embracing this separatist subculture of perpetual anxiety not only shrinks your soul, it severely limits your circle of friends.  Worst of all, it leads to a defensive isolation that’s the polar opposite of the overflowing generosity of Jesus.

Our natural response to fear is either fight or flight.  People who fear the culture usually adopt one of these two responses: They either try to attack it or run away from it.  The “attackers” have been some of the prime movers of what in the late 1980s and early 1990s became known as the “culture wars.”  They drew political battle lines around hot-button issues such as abortion, pornography, and homosexuality, and then began waging heated legislative and public relations wars.

And it is important to stand up for what we believe is right, but political passions can all too easily eclipse the love of Jesus until we become guilty of hating the very people Jesus died for.  We’re reminded of what Jesus taught in Matthew 7:1-5. Since we’re sinners ourselves, attacking sin in someone else’s life is very tricky business:

“Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.  For you will be treated as you treat others.  The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.

“And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?  How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye?  Hypocrite!  First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.”

To have any chance of sharing the generous love of Jesus, we’ve got to remove the “log” of self-righteousness from our own lives and stop attaching our own conditions to God’s free gift of love.  Remember what Romans 5:8 teaches: There is nothing superior about you—or any follower of Christ, for that matter—compared to the “worst” sinner you can think of.  “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (NIV).  If we’re to imitate our Lord, we too must accept folks actively involved in sinful actions and lifestyles precisely as he accepts us—unconditionally.

We’re not called to judge the people of the world.  We’re called to love them.

We’ve talked about this before, but one reason so many Christians have a hard time with this teaching is that they confuse acceptance with approval.  When Jesus died for our sins he wasn’t endorsing them, he was offering himself as the one and only cure for their soul-killing effects.  If Jesus can do this for us, can’t we accept our fellow sinners without having to endorse the bad things they do?  We don’t know about you, but there are very few people—even the ones we love the most—whose every action we can approve of without reservation.  We’ll say it again: Acceptance is not approval!

Some members of evangelical churches in California have decided to boldly put this principle into action by reaching out in love to participants in the annual Gas/Lesbian Pride Festival held in their city.  Given the in-your-face activism of many of the marchers, usually if churches respond at all it’s to protest the parade.  But this group decided to focus on God’s love for the participants instead.  They gave away “God Loves You” stickers along with several hundred multicolored lilies.  They also painted faces, decorated the arms of marchers, took free pictures, and had all kinds of wonderful conversations with the attendees.  On a table with a small sign on it, they placed free Bibles and God’s Promises for Your Every Need booklets—every one of which was taken by a marcher.  John, one of the leaders of this audacious outreach, explains what happened:

Our booth was opposite the main stage and strategically placed between the Los Angeles Police Department recruiting booth (containing officers in full gear and a squad car) and the gay and lesbian anti-violence booth.  With hundreds of flowers and balloons decorating our booth we stood out visually from the very start.

God gave us lots of wonderful appointments with people.  Face painting, handing out flowers, and taking Polaroid pictures out in front of our booth provided great openings for longer connections with people.  Our team was thrilled and blessed by the interactions.

Gays and lesbians are often turned off by the “hate the sin, love the sinner” slogan Christians use on them.  They hear “hate the sin,” loud and clear, but they hardly ever witness the love part lived out in practical ways.  As a result, when we say, “But we love you,” after denouncing their sin, they interpret us to mean: “We love you as long as you stay out of our city and as far from us as possible…so we won’t have to deal with you.”

In contrast, the sticker we gave away said, “God Loves You.”  Period.  We stuck with that theme, pointing every lost person we met to the Good Shepherd—and relying on Jesus to take care of the rest.  A number of the people that we talked with asked, “Can anyone come to your church?”

The answer, of course, was “yes,” (some almost cried when they heard this) and we gladly gave them our address.

If this story makes you uncomfortable, that’s probably a good thing.  It directly confronts us with how we treat folks many would rather avoid.  This avoidance is the second natural response to fear of the culture—it’s the flight tendency.  Simply put, it’s very tempting to avoid those we don’t know how to deal with.  Of course, once again, that’s not what Jesus taught.  In Matthew 25:35-40 he said that when we feed the hungry, or welcome strangers and outcasts into our homes, or clothe the naked, or look after the sick, or visit forgotten prisoners, it is exactly as if we doing it for him.  The people Jesus is talking about are the ones members of polite society usually prefer to avoid—those who live at the margins of our culture both economically and morally.  While some are ostracized for their lifestyle choices, others are addicts and even criminals.  And many of them aren’t necessarily who your mother might consider nice, virtuous people.

Still, Jesus says when we show compassion to these outsiders, we’re actually showing love for him.  Maybe we should get rid of those bracelets that say “WWJD” (What Would Jesus Do?) and replace them with new ones that say “HATJ” (How Am I Treating Jesus?).  Are we walking by on the other side of the road—doing everything we can to avoid the hurting people around us—or are we stopping, kneeling down, and doing what we can to love and serve them?

Steve’s wife, Janie, pushed what many people might see as the limits of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 25 when she decided to reach out to an infamous pornographer who had opened up an “adult” superstore in Cincinnati.  Hustler magazine publisher, Larry Flint and his brother Jimmy, had unflinchingly watched protestors intimidate their store’s clients by taking customers’ photos or writing down their license plate numbers—but what Janie did shocked them in a much more intriguing way.  Janie walked up to Jimmy Flint in the downtown Hustler store and asked if he would let her and her outreach team clean the store’s restrooms for free.

“Why would you want to do that?” Jimmy asked.

As usual Janie said, “It’s just our way of saying God loves you.”

Jimmy scratched his head in confusion and remarked, “I thought all you people hated us.”

Janie smiled and said, “No, we don’t hate you at all…we really love you and we really want to clean your toilets.”

Totally disarmed and more than slightly amused, Jimmy showed the teams to the restrooms and watched them go to work.  He was so impressed he commented on their thoroughness, and asked the group several questions about their church.  When they were done, he enthusiastically thanked them saying, “I like you guys.  You’re welcome here any time!”

Weeks later, Steve encountered Jimmy sitting in a seat near him on an airplane.  Steve picked up the conversation where Janie and her team had left it.  Jimmy was full of questions about the kind of people who put loving and serving ahead of attacking and condemning.  Jimmy felt accepted, and even though Steve and Janie have never approved or endorsed the business he was in, they became friends.

Years later, when Steve nearly died from a freak medical accident, the first person to call and check on his condition was Jimmy Flint.

Little acts of kindness and acceptance had made a lasting impression on Jimmy and made him want to respond in kind.

Loving is far better than fighting or fleeing because loving the people as “Jesus in disguise” will transform both you and them.  And doing so will allow your sharing to become more love-based and less fear-based.  So when you speak up about God’s love, people will see your love for them and not your fear of them.  Allowing God’s love for people to overwhelm your fear of them is the true secret of sharing.  The Message version of 1 John 4:18 says, “There is no room in love for fear.  Well-formed love banishes fear.  Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.”  The key, though, to all of this is to remember the fountain: God is your source of water.  The reason many churches and religious leaders fear culture is because many—even “good” Christians—have succumbed to it…some even during their efforts to reach people in the world.  In order to overflow to the world—in order to live in the world, but not be of the world—you have to be filled up with God’s love.  It is a dangerous world out there—one where the Thief is very present—so you need to be filled up with God’s love and strength as you endeavor to share his love with everyone.

Our last reading is about a life that’s fully formed in love—one that creates and transmits a legacy of love that will bear fruit long after you’ve left this planet.

Getting Your Feet Wet

Think of a place that you can go where it’s likely that you’ll come into contact with people who have different values and beliefs than you do.  It might be a concert, a community event, a coffee shop, or a nightclub.  Before you go, pray that God would fill you with his strength and love as you engage with people.  Once there, look around you and imagine the face of Jesus superimposed over the faces of the people you see.

If opportunity arises, strike up a conversation with one of the people there and listen carefully and non-judgmentally to find out what’s on that person’s mind.  If the person asks what’s on your mind, share what you’re honestly thinking.  Let God direct the conversation and watch what happens.

The Reflection Pool

• When you think of evangelism, or sharing God’s love with others, what frightens you?  How might loving people help you overcome that fear?
• Do you fight, flee, or express love to the culture—or a mix of all three?  Why?
• What’s a practical way you can personally show God’s love to someone whose lifestyle you don’t agree with?