Blaise Pascal proposed a three-fold strategy for Christians to use when testifying of the reality of God and the truth of the scriptures. He wrote that when we speak to unbelievers remind yourself that, “Men despise religion. They hate it and are also afraid of it. They are mostly afraid of the fact that it might be true. The cure for this is to show [1] Christianity is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect and is actually good for you. [2] Present the truth of Jesus and his teachings the way he did. [3] Present it as the truth and the way to life lived to the fullest.”. Pascal went on to write, “The truth of God is such that it will never be recognized apart from love, inwardness, and longing.”
So, what would happen if before we spoke of the transcendent truths of God’s word, we actually took the time to point them to the goodness of God? In Exodus 34:6, as Moses is making his way down, yet again, from Mt. Sinai, with the commandments of truth under his arm, notice the words of God as he descends in the cloud. The scriptures state that the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth.” Notice before God laid down His commandments upon the people, He first wanted them to know of His goodness. This pattern should be the very one we use in our witnessing to lost people. Before we show them the truths of the scriptures, show them and model for them the goodness of God.
Gavin Ortlund in his book Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn’t states, “Whatever else you conclude about the Christian story, I hope you will at least feel something of its wonder and enchantment.” I love it when I get to preach on Sunday mornings to those in our Homeless and Outreach Service. I love it when folks who have nothing or extraordinarily little realize the goodness of God and desire to see the love of God’s people being poured out on them each and every week. I want them to “Taste and see for themselves that the Lord is good.” Psalm 34:8 To see how barren and empty life is without a saving relationship with the Savior of the world.
Jesus did such a great job of getting folks to a place where they desired to follow him. In Luke 19 Jesus is preaching and teaching and heads down the Jericho road and meets up with a chief tax-collector named Zacchaeus. These guys were hated by their fellow Jews for collaborating with the dreaded Romans by collecting taxes from fellow Jews and even taking a little off the top for themselves. Verse 3 tells us he “desired” or sought out to see Jesus. I think the transforming moment in this embezzler’s life took place when Jesus said to him in verse 5. “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” Before Jesus spoke truth into him, he first showed him goodness and created an appetite for him to desire change. I wonder how many Christians in their effort to live out their faith and promote biblical truth, have really turned hundreds of people away from the church simply because their actions and attitude are so toxic no one would sit and listen to the plan of salvation because God’s love and goodness were never effectively modeled. Paul and Silas had an avenue with the Philippian jailor in Acts 16 because of what happened in verse 25. While they were in stocks they sang and prayed to God. It was their actions in the jail cell that prompted the Philippian jailor to inquire and desire salvation in verses 30-33. Paul and Silas sung of the goodness of God, which created a desire within the jailors heart to ask the question, “Sirs what must I do to be saved?” Imagine for a moment Paul and Silas screaming obscenities throughout the night. Do you think for a moment the jailors heart would have been remotely challenged to follow Jesus?
So, we start with the goodness of God which creates in the prospect a desire to follow Jesus which leads to questions revolving around the truth claims of Christ. At some point we must get folks to the point they are asking how to get the truths of scriptures in my life. In John 18:37 Jesus makes it noticeably clear to Governor Pilate that he came to establish TRUTH!! If we fail to get people enquiring about biblical truths we have failed them. To only promote the goodness of God and ignore the transcendent truths of the scriptures is to promote nothing short of “Hallmark Theology,” a faith similar to what you would find in a card store. In John 14:6 Jesus gets very exclusive, especially in a pluralistic world we live in today, He said, “I am the way the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father but by me.”
In both the case of the Philippian jailor and Zacchaeus the tax collector, the goodness and kindness of God led to a quest for truth and moral clarity in their lives. David Bentley Hart shares these thoughts, “The Christian gospel addresses the world making its appeal first to the eye and heart as the only way it may ‘command’ assent, the church cannot separate truth from rhetoric, or from beauty.”
We are still a people driven by the teachings of Christ. We know that the ideals and narrative coming from this broken world is as Paul states, “hollow and deceptive.” Colossians. 2:8 That being said, my job as an ambassador of Christ is to point people first the goodness of God and then to His powerful, lifechanging truth. Then and only then will mankind be set free!!
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