Word-less Evangelism

John 1:43-46

“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael’s skeptic remark was not a compliment. The question was rhetorical, anticipating a response in the negative. Scholars are not really certain about why Nathaniel spouted such a derogatory remark. Some say it was because of territorial rivalry. OR, it can be that in the history of Israel, nothing significant has ever happened there, or no one significant has ever come from Nazareth. It was a secluded town anyway, miles away from Jerusalem, the center of business, religion, and politics. There was pretty much a very low expectation from people who were born and grew in the town. Like Nathaniel, we are all vulnerable to stereotyping, so perhaps Jesus was just a victim of stereotype.

Considering the story from John, it is quite ironic that our founders have chosen to name the denomination they founded in 1895 as the “Church of the Nazarene.” They could have called themselves “The Awesome Church,” or “The Church of the Awesome Lord,” or whatever fancy creative name they could invent. Instead, they wanted to be identified with Nazareth, a small, politically and intellectually insignificant town. So why did our founders want to identify themselves with this lowly description?

The Gospel writers were quite unashamed in calling Jesus “the Nazarene” or “from Nazareth” (Mark 16:6; 14:67; Matt 2:23; Acts 24:5). When our founders called themselves the Church of the Nazarene, it was because they had in mind “the Church that follows or belongs to Jesus.” There is an issue of belongingness or of identity. We want to be identified with Jesus Christ. Also, on the morning of the church’s official organization (October 20, 1895), co-founder Dr. J. P. Widney preached from Matthew 4:19 on Jesus’ call to Peter and Andrew to “follow me.” Interestingly, the same admonition to follow Jesus is found in our story in John (1:43). The reason this is significant is because this admonition, Widney argued, summarized the mission of the Church of the Nazarene. If our identity is to be in Christ the Nazarene, our mission is to live life with Jesus and to live it like Jesus.[1] Our identity and mission are tied with Jesus.[2]

Because of time constraint, we will be looking at only one particular aspect of our identity in Christ, i.e. in Christ the Jew.

The Gospel of Matthew charts the ancestral lineage of Jesus (1:1-17). Although he is born in the lowly town of Nazareth, he actually comes from the lineage of Abraham. Matthew makes this very clear, and this is very important, because God’s calling to Abraham forms the foundation for the entire existence and mission of the Hebrew nation. In short, the calling of Abraham, and therefore the calling of the entire Jewish nation, is also the calling of Jesus Christ. The mission of Jesus Christ is tied to his identity as a Jew. It is true that as Lord, he acted with absolute freedom in questioning the existing religious leaders, but ultimately, he confesses that he has come to fulfill the law and its expectations and not to abolish them (Matt 5:17).

So what was the calling of the Jews, given to Abraham? We are all familiar with the famous passage:

“I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing.
³ I will bless those who bless you,
    and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
    will be blessed through you” (Gen 12:2-3)

God’s promise was to bless Abraham and his descendants who will become a nation. But the blessing is extremely overwhelming that he and his descendants cannot contain the blessing among themselves alone. The Lord envisioned that Abraham and the Jews will be so blessed that the blessings will overflow so that “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (12:3). Indeed, the Israelites are going to be a blessing (12:2).

What is fascinating about the passage is the absence of conditions and commands. God did not say

I will make you into a great nation, if you do this,

and I will bless you but you must do this;

I will make your name great so you must do this,

and you will be a blessing if you do this.

I will bless those who bless you, so you must bless others,

and whoever curses you I will curse, so you must not curse others.

If you do this, all peoples on earth will be blessed through you

and because I have said this, you must do this.

There were no conditions and commands, but we only read utterances of wonderful promises. So the looming question is: how can Abraham and his descendants be a blessing to the nations if they were asked to do nothing? Does this mean that just by existing one can become a blessing?

We often forget that the primary Actor in the drama of salvation is not us, but it is God himself. We often think of being a blessing as something that we do, or that our active contribution makes the greatest impact in God’s saving work in the world. How ignorant and arrogant are we sometimes when we think like this, and how wrong we are! Here, in the story of the Israelites, we see that it is not about what we do, but what God does in us, and by what God does in us, people around us know the greatness of the Lord. This principle resounds throughout the whole Old Testament. First, God has acted to redeem Israel out of Egypt not only for the sake of the Israelites, but also so that nations of the world will know the name of YHWH.

“But this is why I have let you live: to show you my power, and to make my name resound through all the earth (Exo 9:16)

 “Yet he saved them for his name’s sake, so that he might make known his mighty power” (Ps 106:8)

“Who is like your people, like Israel? Is there another nation on earth whose God went to redeem it as a people, and to make a name for himself, doing great and awesome things for them, by driving out before his people nations and their gods?” (2 Sam 7:23)

This means that your life as a redeemed person is a testimony of God’s saving work, and glorifies God’s name. Paul says in Romans 11:11-24 that we who are in Christ have been engrafted into the Jewish tree. Now we too are children of Abraham (cf John 8:31-58). Like the Israelites, God has worked and is working in us so that we might be a blessing. The fact that God is working in us and transforming us is already a witness, a proclamation, a kerygma. We, therefore, must never be ashamed of our identity (Rom 1:16) as sons and daughters of God (John 1:12; Rom 8:16; 2 Cor 6:18; Gal 3:26; 1 John 3:1), as people who are cleansed, transformed, and saved (1 Cor 6:11). If people learn and know that we are a new creation (2 Cor 5:7), people will know the Lord. This is witness; this is evangelism. Let it be known, therefore, that we are born now born of Spirit and water (John 3:5-7). Let us declare that we are Nazarenes, and that we are a transformed people, a people who “have been crucified with Christ and therefore we no longer live, but Christ lives in us” (Gal 2:20).

Like the Israelites, we must ask God to work in us continually so that all the nations will know God. Like Hezekiah who prayed for deliverance from the Assyrian army “so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, LORD, are God alone” (2 Kings 19:19; Isa 37:20); like Ezekiel who prophesied God’s restoration of Israel after exile, not for Israel’s sake, but for the sake of God’s name, so that “the nations may know that he is the LORD” (Ezek 36:22-23; cf. 36:38; 38:23; 39:7); and like Solomon who asked God to answer the foreigner’s prayer “so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel” (1 Kings 8:41-43; 2 Chro 6:32-33), let us desire that God works in our personal lives and in the lives of our churches so that God’s name is made known in the world. In the words of the Psalmist:

“May God be gracious to us and bless us
   and make his face to shine upon us,
that your way may be known upon earth,
   your saving power among all nations.
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
   let all the peoples praise you” (Ps 67:1-3)

Like Genesis 12:2-3, Psalm 67:1-3 does not spell out any condition and command. But during the exilic and post-exilic era, the tone of the prophets about being blessed and being a blessing has somewhat changed. Notice, for instance, the conditional language in Jeremiah 4:1-2:

“If you return, O Israel,” says the Lord,
   “if you return to me,
if you remove your abominations from my presence,
   and do not waver,
and if you swear, ‘As the Lord lives!’
   in truth, in justice, and in uprightness,
then nations shall be blessed by him,
   and by him they shall boast”

There is a relationship between our being transformed, living our transformed lives, and being a testimony to God’s name. This is not rocket science or even a difficult logic to understand. Quite simply, if “we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works” (Eph 2:10), and yet we live our lives not in accordance to our transformed being, then we do not become good testimonies about ourselves and about the God who transforms us. If this happens, we profane God’s name (Exo 20:7; Lev 18:21; 19:12; 20:1-5; 22:32; Prov 30:9; Isa 52:5-6; Jer 34:16; Ezek 13:19; 20:9, 14, 22, 27, 39; 22:16; 29:14; 36:20; Amos 2:7; Mal 1:12). The relationship between God’s holy name and mission is clear in Ezekiel 39:7: “I will make known my holy name among my people Israel. I will no longer let my holy name be profaned, and the nations will know that I the Lord am the Holy One in Israel.” It is either we profane God’s name through our actions and cause people to ridicule our God, or we live our lives as transformed men and women, and thus make the nations know God’s holy and saving name. The world’s spotlight is focused on us, watching our lives, scrutinizing our intentions, and looking for signs of inconsistensies. Whether we like it or now, we live in a cynical world where people delight in talking about the evils of others. And is it not that Christianity has dimmed its light and made its salt bland by the broadcasted sins committed by Christians, particular religious leaders? It is when our testimony is damaged that the Name of our Holy God is tainted.

The first petition of the prayer Jesus taught his disciple reveals something important to us. Jesus asked us to pray “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” (Matt 6:9). In more contemporary language, it means “sanctify your name” or “make your name holy.” What does it mean for the name of YHWH to be sanctified or made holy? He is not unholy that he needs to experience sanctification. He is already holy; He cannot be holier. In the first place, it can mean: “may God continue to be known or reveal himself as the Holy God!” It is God who sanctifies his own name:[3] “But the Lord Almighty will be exalted by his justice, and the holy God will be proved holy by his righteous acts” (Isa 5:16; John 12:28). Secondly, it can mean: “may the world recognize the holiness of God.” This seems to be what Isaiah 29:23 is talking about:

“When they see among them their children,
    the work of my hands,
they will keep my name holy;
    they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob,
    and will stand in awe of the God of Israel”

This means that by God’s own work, people will know him: “And so I will show my greatness and my holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord” (Ezek 38:23). Thirdly, it can mean: “may we sanctify your name.” This makes strong sense in Jewish mentality, because hallowing God’s name is “the most characteristic feature of Jewish ethics.”[4] In fact, one of the unspoken rules of Jewish life is that one must never profane the Lord’s name before Gentiles. The responsibility falls on us. The early fathers Cyprian and Chrysostom made this important point.[5] By our lives, our dealing with others, our decision-making, our actions, our words, our dispositions, our lifestyles, and everything that we do, may we sanctify the name of our Lord. The prayer, thus, is “May we live our lives blamelessly so that your name is sanctified, glorified, and made known to all.” This is the essence of the command of Jesus in Matthew 5:16: “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” By being who we are as sanctified believers, we also sanctify the Lord’s name and witness to his holiness. It is by hallowing God’s name that God’s “kingdom [will] come on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10).

CONCLUSIONS

The prophet Isaiah paints a wonderful picture that we must all aspire.

“Arise, shine, for your light has come,
    and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
² See, darkness covers the earth
    and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the Lord rises upon you
    and his glory appears over you.
³ Nations will come to your light,
    and kings to the brightness of your dawn” (Isa 60:1-3; cf 2 Cor 3:18)

“Thick darkness is over the people,” says Isaiah, but we must not worry. Instead, we must “arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you… The Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you.” Because of this, “nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” We are the light of the word, Jesus said (Matt 5:14), and if we allow our light to shine, peoples and nations will know God.

If we go back to the story in John 1:43-46, Nathanael asked the question, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Philip did not respond to the question in a philosophical or intellectual manner. He did not even try to convince his friend with an argument. Instead, he simply said “Come and see!” He invited Nathanael to see for himself, to experience for himself why Philip is so convinced that he has found the one spoken of by the prophets.[6] “Come and see” – this is great a summary of how being and evangelism are one. It is not “come and listen” or “come and have fun” or “come and be free from your ignorance.” Rather, it is witness by being who we are, so that people will know the Lord who saves. The Gospel is as simple as this.


This sermon was preached at the Church of the Nazarene NMI and NYI Convention for the General Assembly 2013, Asia-Pacific site, on 19 June.
 

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[1] Floyd T. Cunningham, et. al., Our Watchword and Song (Kansas City: Beacon Hill, 2009), 101.

[2] This evidences a threefold self-identification: (1) a relational self-identification, (2) a contingent self-identification, and (3) a specific and purposive identification.

[3] Frederick Dale Bruner, Matthew—A Commentary, vol. 1, The Christbook: Matthew 1-12 (rev. ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 297-299.

[4] Craig S. Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 219.

[5] Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Matthew 1-13 (ed. Manlio Simonetti; Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 2001), 132-133.

[6] Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John (rev. ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 145.