Page 3 of 3The secular guy, on the other hand, sits there and thinks, That is about the most stupid and discriminatory thing I have ever heard. Why should I refuse to marry someone I love simply because her religion is a little different? So one Sunday morning, I started by saying, "I'm going to read to you the most disliked sentence in all of Scripture for single people who are anxious to get married." Then I read.
"This is that awful verse," I said, "in which, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul cuts down the field from hundreds of thousands of marriageable candidates to only a handful. And almost every single person I know, upon first hearing it, hates that verse. What I want to do is spend the next thirty minutes telling you why I think God would write such an outrageous prescription."
During the rest of that message, I tried to show, using logic and their experience, that this command makes terrific sense. We were in a construction program at the time, so I used this illustration: "What if I went out to the construction site, and I found one contractor, with his fifteen workers, busily constructing our building from one set of plans, and then I went to the other side of the building, and here's another contractor building his part of the building from a totally different set of blueprints? There'd be total chaos.
"Friends," I continued, "what happens in a marriage when you've got a husband who says, 'I'm going to build this marriage on this blueprint,' and a wife who says, 'I'm going to build it on this blueprint'? They collide, and usually the strongest person wins—for a time. But then there's destruction.
"God wants his children to build solid, permanent relationships, and he knows it's going to take a single set of plans. In order to build a solid building or a sound marriage, you need one set of blueprints."
Over time, I try to increase gradually their respect for Scripture, so that someday they won't have to ask all the why questions but will be able to say to themselves, Because it's in the Book, that's why.
Freeing Responses
When people walk into church, often they're thinking they'll get the party line again: Pray more, love more, serve more, give more. They just want something more out of me, they think. I wonder what it'll be today that I'm not doing enough of.
It's easy for us pastors to unintentionally foster that understanding. One pastor asked me for help with his preaching, and we talked about what responses he wanted. I suggested, "List the messages you've preached in the last year, and write either pray more, love more, serve more or give more next to any message where that was the main thrust of the sermon."
He came back and said, "Bill, one of those was the thrust of every single sermon last year." He recognized the implications. If every time my son comes into the living room, I say, "Do this more; do that more," pretty soon he won't want to come in the living room. But if he comes in knowing there is going to be some warmth, acceptance, a little humor, and encouragement, then on the occasions I need to say, "We've got to straighten out something here," he can receive that.
Trying to reach non-Christians isn't easy, and it's not getting easier. But what keeps me preaching are the times when after many months, I do get through.
Once a man said to me, "I came to your church, and nobody knew what really was going on in my life because I had 'em all fooled. But I knew, and when you started saying that in spite of all my sin I still mattered to God, something clicked in me. I committed myself to Christ, and I tell you, I'm different. My son and I haven't been getting along at all, but I decided to take two weeks off and take him to a baseball camp out west. He started opening up to me while we were out there. Thanks, Bill, for telling me about Jesus."
For a preacher, such a joy far surpasses the ongoing challenge.
From the book Growing Your Church Through Evangelism and Outreach.
Copyright © 1996 by Christianity Today/Leadership.
