Love in Action is Evangelism

Revelation 21: 1-6
John 13: 31-35

How important is it to love each other? In the Gospel of John it is one of Jesus’ last commandments to his disciples. We are his disciples; therefore it is Jesus’ command to us. We have been exploring this theme quite a bit in the last couple weeks and last week I mentioned that how we show love is through our actions. Today we will talk about how love in action spreads the Gospel message without us even trying to convert people. How we spread the Gospel and share Jesus Christ is through loving the unlovable. We remind people that every single person is important to God no matter if we like them or not. Our actions are so very important.

It is said that 80% of what we say to people is conveyed through our body language. Our words are only 20% of what we tell people about ourselves and how we feel about them. You can tell someone you like them, but if you never go near them then it tells that person you don’t like them, and that is what they remember. When we pray for people, it is not just enough to mention praying, the image of a bowed head is a powerful one; holding their hands and saying the person’s name during your prayer lets them know that they are important to you and to God.

In the UCC daily devotions I have emailed to me, one of the writers told a story of standing in line with a man and while waiting, they began to talk to each other. She said she was surprised at how personal they got and by the end of the conversation she felt really close to a total stranger because of what they had shared. In the midst of that intimate moment, she impulsively told the man, “I’ll pray for you” and watched as he recoiled. He quickly tried to recover, but she could tell he had been dismayed by her words.

As she walked out of the store, she wondered if she should not have said that to him, considering from the turban on his head, and his reaction to her words she presumed he was not Christian. Her intention had been a good one; she wanted the man to know she wouldn’t forget him or what they had shared unexpectedly in the store that day. However, Christians have received a bad rap in some cultures and other religions. When we say things like, “I’ll pray for you” they think we are saying that so they will be converted from their religion to ours. We forget that every person is created by God, that every person deserves prayer not because they are or are not Christians, but because every person needs to be blessed by the Holy Spirit.

As this woman was wondering these things, all of a sudden the man came up to her, grabbed her hands and said, “Thank you for praying for me.” His first reaction had been horror because he thought she was trying to convert him, but her actions in the line told him she was not that way, and on second thought, he decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. That is a powerful testament about how we act tells a person more about our Christian ways than what we say.

Jesus wants us to love people because everyone deserves respect, but the way we treat others is also a way to show them Jesus Christ. Jesus is the one that does the converting to Christianity. We don’t need to do anything but truly care about others. When people know you care, they are more willing to listen to you and your views. Through love we are able to break down the barriers such as stereotypes and misinformation about different cultures and different people.

I have a friend who whenever we are in the city, she refuses to play her country music loudly when going by a black neighborhood. She thinks it will offend all the black people because everyone knows that black people only listen to hip hop and gospel music. Except that is not true at all. My family thinks that living in the city means there are crimes happening on every street and the chance of getting shot is pretty good because everyone is a criminal there. It’s not true. I have friends from the city that think anyone who drives a truck, wears plaid, and is from the country is a stupid hillbilly. It’s not true. Some of the smartest people I’ve ever known didn’t graduate high school.

Our uneducated ideas about people are the biggest stumbling block in learning to love them. It is the biggest challenge we face in helping to spread Christianity to our neighbors and those who have not heard of Jesus Christ. Our inability to accept we may be wrong about our misconceptions prevents us from creating a safe place to talk about what we believe and why we believe it.

There was a young boy from Kitau who went to work for a nice Christian lady. After three months, he asked her for a letter of recommendation to go work for a Muslim man. The woman wanted the boy to stay and so she offered him more money, but he said that was not the reason he was leaving. He had spent three months with her learning how a Christian lives and now he wanted to spend three months seeing how a Muslim lives. Depending on what he saw, was how he was going to decide whether to be a Christian or a Muslim. The woman wrote later, “I can remember thinking I wish he had told me that had been his purpose from the beginning.”

Why do you think she thought that? With someone basing their religious choice on how she behaved, all of a sudden, it made her have regrets about how she had spent those three months. I think if we are all honest, we would have thought the same thing because the truth is that we do not often live like we are Christians. We do not always act with kindness; we do not always have patience and humility. We do not always show compassion and empathy for one another.

However, every person you meet looks to you to show them what it means to be a Christian. What are you telling them without even being aware of it? Take a moment to think about some of the things you said and did this week. If that young boy had been in your home – would he have become a Christian or would he have become a Muslim?

It’s something to think about that may help us to be more aware of how much our actions affect other people. What are you witnessing to when you say you are a Christian? Are your actions like Christ or are they far from the love Jesus showed the world?

As I was thinking about all of this, the song “Who are you when I’m not looking” by Blake Shelton came on. It made me think about how even when there is no one looking, we should still be Christ like. We tell children that if they find a bag of money with no name on it they should still turn it into the police. Just because no one would know that they stole the money, doesn’t mean they should do it. Just because we think no one is looking, just because no one else can hear our thoughts, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be kind and compassionate even in what we think about others.

When we begin to do things like this, even turning our thoughts into kind ones instead of mean thoughts about others, we begin to truly live a Christian life. Loving each other becomes easier when we make it a natural habit to respect one another. That is what Jesus wants from us. Respect and love one another in all we say, all we do, and all we think - for the Lord has loved and forgiven you, and he calls you to do the same. When we do that, we will convert people to Christianity because we will be showing them who Jesus is in the most powerful of ways – through our own transformed lives.

Amen.