There was a young man attending our Sunday night Sr High gatherings last spring who I can’t seem to shake from my mind. He began coming as a sort of favor to his mother who had recently begun attending worship on Sunday mornings with our congregation. After speaking with the mother over the phone and over the course of a few Sundays, I had formed an inkling of what to expect from him the first time that I met the boy. I’m sure we all know what happens when we form expectations of people. It often hinders us from seeing through our expectations to the person who Jesus sees. I don’t know about you, but I’m guilty!When I first met him, I really wasn’t too surprised. He was a high school freshman, small and thin in stature, much like my self. He wore all black, was very quiet, and I had prior knowledge that he was not a believer in Christ. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to notice that this kid was new, different from most of our kids, and quite uncomfortable. Over the course of the evening, he slowly opened up more and seemed to enjoy the time hanging out with the group. At the end of the evening, my wife and I volunteered to give him a ride home as his mother was working that evening. During the car ride home, he told my wife and I about his broken family and how he was an “atheist”, and was apologetic to us both as if he were going to offend us or say something to us that we’d never heard before. When we finally arrived at the front door of his mother’s house, he offered his hand in thanks to both of us as we said our goodbyes. My wife and I spent the long ride home praying for the boy and his family. For about four consecutive months, he continued to show up on Sunday nights until last summer when his “agreement” with his mom supposedly ended.
The thing that single-handedly both blew my mind and frustrated me about him that night and over the course of the next four months was how sincere and bold he was in his conviction that there was no God. He was only a freshman in high school and was more bold in his denial of God than most of us are in living out the amazing, life-changing revelation of the God who loves us the filthy, wretched and unlovable! So why did this young man stop coming to our youth gatherings after four months? Wasn’t he hearing about this God who loves? Wasn’t he hearing the too-incredible-for-words news of this Jesus Christ who saves? Absolutely! So, what happened?
I believe that where we often fail as the church is not in presenting the life-saving gospel of Jesus Christ, but in “being” the life-saving, embracing good news of the God who became flesh and was broken for our sake. I believe that after Sunday night, outside the confines of the “church grounds”, this young man was never visited, phoned, or invited by anyone claiming to know this very same Jesus. You see, we’re too busy, too comfortable, and too self-righteous to reach out and in to a dying world and touch those who, like ourselves, need to feel Jesus Christ. If we are compelled by Christ’s love, should we not make it our mission to spend time with those regarded as scum? Should we not go out of our way to touch those deemed filthy? Should this not be the purpose of our existence? If we are it’s a sin, then friends I’m the chief! All praise to our Father that we’re free from sin’s bondage and free in the life of Christ! But it’s critical that we ask ourselves these questions? How many of us have a neighbor, a co-worker, a friend, a teacher, a doctor, a parent, or a child who doesn’t know that God loves them? Brothers and sisters, if we are to be friends; if we are to be disciples of Jesus; and if we are to be world-changers, then we must be compelled by Christ’s love as the church to be in the broken, hurting lives of others, living out the hope, grace, and love of the God who saves.
“If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, and therefore all died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again." -2 Corinthians 5:13-15 (NIV)
