God is such a masterful teacher. I love watching him weave together messages from completely different people in my life to form exactly the lesson I need to hear. Today was such a day.
Message number one came at church, in the main service. My pastor preached a great sermon about how we should live in such a way that unbelievers will look at our lives and say “I may not interested in what person believes, but if I were, I would want to be like him.” The idea is that as the Holy Spirit works in their hearts, we need to be a living example of what He is pointing them towards. Pastor Mike pounded this home, citing Scripture after Scripture.
Looking at my own life, I had to admit that I don’t feel as if I live this way. I can’t imagine unbelievers at work (which is where most of my dealings with unbelievers happen) desiring to live the way they see me live. Ouch. Time for me to eat humble pie. What pastor Mike didn’t deal very much with, though, was how to go about changing this.
Enter message two.
Message two came courtesy of my Sunday School class, less than an hour later. God decided not to leave me hanging, I guess. In Sunday school, we’ve been studying our way through James. In particular, we are currently in James 1, talking about how to “receive with meekness the engrafted word” (vs. 21), and, in turn, to be “doers of the word, and not hearers only” (vs. 22).
It occurred to me during the discussion that this is the perfect completion of the first lesson. That is, there are actually (at least) two ways to live before unbelievers in a way that will make them take notice, and, ultimately, glorify God (Matthew 5:16) . The first way is ideal, and it’s what Pastor Mike talked about: simply live rightly before them. As Matthew 5 says, do good works. But the second way is, when Scripture reveals that you have not lived rightly before them, to be humble and diligent enough to change it. This is also powerful way to impact unbelievers, because it shows that you are not simply following a religion, but following a Person, who is alive and active in this world and can change their lives too.
So, in summary: if we live rightly, we succeed in demonstrating God’s character to unbelievers. And if when we don’t, it’s still an opportunity to demonstrate God’s ability to change lives. Sounds like a win-win situation to me! We already have the victory!
God, may you be glorified in the good works that I do, for they are only done by your power anyway. And grant me the humility and the diligence to grow in my likeness of You, so that I may glorify you in that as well.
December 17, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Good post Andrew.
I particularly enjoyed the comment in Sunday School class that you touched on here; when we do mess up in the sight of unbelievers, it is a great opportunity for them to witness our attitude in light of mistakes. If we try to hide our sins or if we try and pass them off as being “not so bad” we are rightly given the dreaded title hypocrite. But if we apologize for them and learn from them and show humility we are given no title because this is simply doing what we have been commanded to do (Luke 17:7-10).
Thanks bro!