Proclamation (Resolutions)
resolutions: proclamation
Jason Procopio
Most of you know me at least a little; you know I’m a naturally timid person. I always have been. That’s why I got into the professions I’ve had. I was an English teacher for almost ten years, and it’s the perfect job for a shy person to have, because you’re speaking about a subject you know well, in which you are competent and confident (qualities most timid people feel they lack), and there aren’t a lot of unknown variables, because it’s not a conversation. It’s a discourse: you get up front, and talk about something you know. It’s a way for a shy person to feel gregarious, at least for a while.
Preaching is similar. This isn’t really a conversation we’re having. I’m up here, and I’ve prepared what I’m going to say, and there aren’t a lot of ways I can be surprised. (It can happen, but it’s rare.) Pastoring is different—that is an aspect of my job that forces me to work on my social anxiety, and that’s a good thing.
People with social anxiety, like me, tend to be afraid of the unknowns: of the things other people might bring to the table that we’re not expecting. A question we don’t know how to answer; or an observation we don’t know how to follow up on; or what if they start talking about a subject we know nothing about, and we just stand there, nodding our heads like idiots and racking our brains for something to say?
It’s often hard to communicate to outgoing people what it feels like to be shy; but for Christians, almost all of us know what it’s like, no matter what our personality is. Because the kind of social anxiety people like me feel on a regular basis, nearly all of us feel when it comes time to share the gospel with someone.
One of the scariest things a Christian can do is to share the gospel with someone who doesn’t believe. We’re afraid that they’ll think we’re fools, that they’ll reject us or make fun of us, or…we don’t even know what. We’re afraid of the unknowns.
And so because we’re afraid, most of us don’t do it. We just don’t say anything. Or when we do—if we find ourselves cornered, and someone who knows we’re Christians comes out and asks us a question about our faith—we answer timidly, almost like we’re apologizing. “I know it sounds crazy, but…”
Part of the reason we feel this way is that we don’t really understand what’s going on when we share the gospel. I grew up hearing that the reason we need to share the gospel is because if we don’t, then the people to whom we’re speaking might die without Christ. In a sense, this is true. The apostle Paul says in Romans 10.14:
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
Someone needs to preach the gospel for us to be saved by the gospel. The stakes are very high.
At the same time, we know that God is sovereign over those whom he saves. I met Christ, in part, through the witness of a friend of mine named Jeremy, who shared the gospel with me. But it was God, not Jeremy, and not even me, who decided that I would be saved; if Jeremy hadn’t been there, I am convinced God would have sent someone else. Everyone whom God decides to save, he saves.
Jesus said in John 6.37:
All that the Father gives me will come to me...
EVERYONE. No one will be left behind. None of God’s children will miss that call. God doesn’t need us to save his children. If we’re not there to share the gospel with them, God will send someone else. And if he feels like he needs to, then God himself will do it. He’s done it before.
So if that’s the case, and God doesn’t need us to save his people, then why do we do it? Why the urgency to share the gospel?
It’s a difficult question to answer, but we find the answer—at least the best answer, I think—at the very beginning of the first letter of John.
Why the Apostles Shared the Gospel (1 John 1.1-4)
John wrote his letter to Christians in Asia Minor, probably to encourage them as they saw people leaving the church. At the beginning of the letter (which we’re going to read), he gives his “credentials,” so to speak. He reminds his readers that he, along with the other apostles, were witnesses to the ministry of Christ, and that they have received the mission of proclaiming Christ’s gospel to the world.
And in his introduction, we find out why he does it.
Let’s read: we’ll take it little by little. 1 John 1.1:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—
So this is John’s experience with the gospel. He was a disciple of Jesus Christ (who is God, from the beginning). He and the other apostles heard Jesus speak. They saw him work. They touched him, like anyone who has spent a lot of time with a close friend. So they know that they’re not imagining these things. It wasn’t just one crazy experience that happened to them, but that they might have hallucinated. They spent three years with Jesus. They’re not making this up.
It’s easy for us to be jealous of their experience, isn’t it? We would love to be able to follow Jesus—the human man, Jesus—around for three years. We would love to know what he looks like, what his voice sounds like, what it feels like to shake his hand, or have him give us a slap on the back. We would love to see him heal someone, or walk on water. We read the stories in the gospels and we think, How GREAT would it be to see that!
So it’s easy for us to forget that we’ve experienced Christ too.
Our experience is different than John’s—it isn’t physical, but spiritual. Paul describes this experience in several different ways. In Ephesians 1.18 he says that “the eyes of our hearts were enlightened.” Something happened in us, to give us eyes to see things we didn’t see before, to see the gospel as the truth rather than a fairy tale. He talks about “hearing with faith” in Galatians 3.2, and says that “faith comes from hearing” in Romans 10.17. We heard the gospel, and through that proclamation of the gospel, the Holy Spirit gave us faith; and now, every time we hear the gospel, we hear it through that filter—we hear it with faith.
This work of the Holy Spirit in us produces a real and true conviction that these things are true. Just because our experience isn’t physical doesn’t make it less miraculous or less real.
So we have to understand that even if our experience has been different from John’s experience, our witness of Christ is no less valid. He is talking about what he has seen and heard; and so are we.
V. 2 (John makes a kind of parenthesis of what he said before):
2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—
So this is really simple: what the apostles have seen, they now proclaim. They saw the message of the gospel—the message of eternal life which has been revealed through Christ—acted out before their eyes in the ministry of Christ.
And now, they’re talking about it.
Why? Well, partly because Jesus told them to. At the end of Matthew’s gospel, we see Jesus tell them to go and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28.19-20). They’re talking about it because he sent them out to do so.
But that is not the only reason. (And that is what we often forget.)
John actually gives two more reasons why he and the other apostles spend their lives proclaiming the gospel. We see the first one in v. 3.
3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
Okay, so that’s reason 1: the apostles proclaimed the gospel that their hearers and readers might enter into fellowship with them, and into fellowship with God himself.
We’ve got to see that their mission is not purely utilitarian. They aren’t just trying to accomplish a goal. There is love at work here: they wanted those who heard them speak to be in the family.
And if we remember John’s gospel, we know that the love we see motivating the apostles here, we saw it in Jesus himself. Remember John 17? Jesus is praying with his disciples before his arrest, and he says (John 17.24):
Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
I want those whom you have given me to be with me, to see my glory, because my glory will make them complete.
He’s talking about fellowship, just as John is talking about fellowship in his letter.
The word “fellowship” can be difficult to wrap our brains around, even if we’ve grown up in church. It’s actually not that complicated—we’ve over-spiritualized the concept in the past—and it helps to know that the Greek word for “fellowship”, when it was used by unbelievers, outside of the New Testament, was most frequently used to describe the relationship between a husband and his wife. It’s talking about the sharing of our lives, intimate participation in one another’s life—sharing our goals, our struggles, our joys, our sorrows, even our destinies, with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
We’ll come back to this in a couple weeks when we talk about community, but we have to see now that John proclaims the gospel because he wants to enjoy that intimate, familial relationship with those who are listening to him. And he wants them to enjoy that same relationship with God.
He is sharing the gospel because he loves the people who are listening, and wants them to enjoy God, and God’s people.
That’s reason 1.
Here’s reason 2, which I think is the fundamental reason, the reason behind the one we just saw—v. 4:
4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
You could not ask for a simpler or a more convincing reason than this: the apostles proclaimed the gospel because they wanted to be happy. (Note that he doesn’t say that he and the apostles are writing these things so that your joy may be complete; they’re doing it, he says, so that our joy may be complete.)
This can be sobering for someone who finds sharing the gospel more a chore than a gift. We find ourselves not sharing the gospel because we want to stay happy—we don’t want to be scared, we don’t want to be embarrassed or humiliates—when in fact sharing the gospel will actually complete our joy, according to John.
So we have one main idea for today, which we see here and which we’ll come back to after the break. It’s very simple. Our joy in God fuels evangelism, and evangelism feeds our joy in God.
The Virtuous Cycle of Evangelism
John says that he and the apostles share the gospel so that THEIR joy—not the joy of those listening, but the apostles’ joy—might be complete.
Our joy in God fuels evangelism, and evangelism feeds our joy in God.
The question is, why?
Well the Bible isn’t shy about it: already, the consistent result of believing in the gospel is joy. Remember how Peter described it in 1 Peter 1.8-9?
Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Or the way Jesus described it in Matthew 13.44:
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
When we hear the gospel and believe in the gospel, we receive a treasure. We receive the greatest gift and the greatest news in the history of existence. Joy is the only appropriate response to believing the gospel and receiving the gospel.
We can rest assured that John and the apostles knew this joy well. We see it in them in the beginning of the book of Acts (Acts 2.46-47):
And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Their joy was infectious. It drew people to them, like moths to a flame.
But, John says, their joy—the joy of their salvation—wasn’t complete on its own. It needed something else to complete it. To be complete, the reason for their joy needed to be shared.
4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
It may sound strange to us, but we understand what he’s saying if we put it in a different context. Say, a couple tries for ten years to have a baby, and finally, after all this waiting, they receive the news that a baby is on the way, and it’s healthy and everything looks great. What is the first thing they want to do? They want to tell the people they love. Why? Because they’re happy, and talking about what makes them happy increases their happiness.
Or say you were diagnosed with cancer, and you’ve gone through treatment, and much earlier than expected, the doctor comes in and says the latest scans are completely clear. Not a single spot detected. Miraculous remission. What do you want to do? You want to call everyone you love, right away, to tell them your cancer is gone. Why? Because you’re happy, and talking about what makes you happy increases your happiness.
This is what John says, and this is what we see consistently in people who share the gospel with other people. If they share the gospel because they’re happy in the gospel, then talking about the gospel that makes them happy increases their happiness.
Find a person who shares the gospel a lot, and you’ll likely find a happy person. Let me just give you an example (I didn’t tell her I was going to do this, and I don’t want to embarrass her, but it’s just too good an example to pass up). Anyone who knows Mariya knows that she is almost always happy. Like, to the point where it’s almost annoying, because that’s what we all want, and we all want to know how she does it. I noticed something about Mariya pretty quickly—nearly every conversation I have with her, when I ask her what she did this week (or even this morning), almost every time, her answer starts like this: “You know, I have a neighbor who’s not a believer, and this morning I was talking to them about Jesus...” “I have a friend who’s not a believer, and this morning I was talking to them about Jesus...” “I met a guy on the bus, he’s not a believer, and we started talking about Jesus...”
Funny, isn’t it? One of the happiest people I know is also constantly telling other people about Jesus.
The gospel should make us happy, brothers and sisters, and our happiness in the gospel should make us want to talk about the gospel, and talking about the gospel that makes us happy increases our happiness. Especially if you finally see someone respond. I think that’s what John is getting at when he says that he is writing these things that his joy, and the apostles’ joy, may be complete. He knows that if he shares the gospel, the Holy Spirit will use the gospel to bring people to faith.
And there is no greater joy on this earth than seeing that. It is the culmination of everything that gives us lasting joy. Not only do we have the good news of the life, death and resurrection of Christ, who took our place so that we might be saved… Not only do we get to talk about this good news, that makes us so happy, with others… To see them experience that same joy along with us, to look at someone who was once an acquaintance and be able to call them brother or sister… There is no greater joy than that, because that joy will last for eternity.
Joy in God fuels evangelism, and evangelism feeds our joy in God. This is why we talk about the proclamation of the gospel as a spiritual discipline. Few things feed our love for Christ more than telling others why we love him.
Application
Now here is where a lot of us go wrong. If we have been saved by the gospel, then it’s likely that everything we’ve just seen, we know already, at least in theory. If we haven’t ever heard it explicitly said, then we know it instinctively, because one day we met Christ too. We heard the good news of what Christ did for us; we realized the state we were in, and the sin that had separated us from God, and the grace of God to send his Son to live our life and die our death, so that we might be reconciled to him. We know the joy we felt when we received this good news, and put our faith in Christ, and repented of our sins, and realized that those sins were gone, crucified on the cross with Christ two thousand years ago.
So it’s not hard for most of us to believe that being allowed to participate in someone else’s salvation would bring us joy too.
But still, it doesn’t seem to be quite enough for a lot of us.
It’s often hard for us to remember the joy we once knew, and to want to feel it again. It was a long time ago, and things have happened since then; life has gotten hard. We vaguely remember the joy we felt when we first met Christ, but not quite enough to really believe it’s worth the trouble of sharing the gospel in order to see that joy grow.
So if we’re going to actually do what God calls us to do and speak without shame about the best news, so that our joy may be complete, we’ve got work to do.
That’s where we’ll end today: just three quick points of application. If we want our joy to be complete, we need to feed that joy.
The first way we do that is simple (so simple we almost forget it): be obedient to your Master. Nothing will rob you of your joy more quickly than sin. There’s a reason why, in David’s prayer of confession in Psalm 51 (perhaps the most famous confession in the Bible), David prays, Restore to me the joy of my salvation. His joy was robbed when he sinned against God. Nothing blinds us to the good news more quickly than forgetting we have received it, and acting like we don’t belong to God. Nothing desensitizes us to the joy of our salvation more quickly than not living out that salvation in practice. So if there are areas of sin in your life, confess that sin to God and to someone else, and work to put it to death. Living in obedience won’t solve all our problems, but that’s where we start.
Secondly, dig deep in the spiritual disciplines, to remember who God is, and what he has done. Read the Bible, and do it regularly—pray in response to what you read there—worship God when you’re alone and when you’re together. Spend time with your heavenly Father, and let him encourage you. If you never spend any time with your family, it’s likely there won’t be a lot of joy when you go home. If you never spend time with your heavenly Father, is it really surprising that you don’t feel the joy of your relationship with him? Don’t give up if you lack joy; dig deeper. The solution is right in front of you, in the Word of God you’re holding, and in the family you’re surrounded with. Read, pray, worship—spend good time with your loving Father.
And lastly, share the gospel in fellowship with others. The best way to believe that sharing the gospel brings us joy is to…share the gospel, and see that it brings us joy. It can be intimidating, to be sure…so thankfully we’re not alone. Spend time with your brothers and sisters in Christ, and share the gospel along with them.
We have an evangelism team here at Connexion, and we hesitated to call it that because we didn’t want anyone to think that since the evangelism team is sharing the gospel with others, we don’t have to. We didn’t want anyone to say, “Cool, they’ve got that covered.” That’s not what they’re there for.
The evangelism team exists so that no one has to share the gospel alone. If you don’t know how to do it, that’s okay—watch them, and listen to them, and learn from them. See that it’s not nearly as frightening or as difficult as you’re making it out to be. God doesn’t call the evangelism team to make disciples; he calls all of us to make disciples. And it starts here.
We have received such good news, and a great joy that comes with this good news. But our joy will not be complete until we share it with others. If that was true for John and the apostles, it is certainly true for us.
