Discovering the Evangelical Tradition and the Word-Centered Life

We are this summer looking at six streams of Christian spirituality that have renewed the church at different times and places and that can come together to enrich our lives in significant ways. Look at the list on page 11 of your bulletin. Most of us are inclined to two or three of the streams, and are perhaps a bit afraid of the other streams, and the variety in stream preference in this congregation is significant, but in this series of worship themes, we are encouraging each member of our church to consider what they might gain from the other streams. Today we are:

Discovering the Evangelical Tradition and the Word-Centered Life

John 3:1-8

3:1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

When I say the word evangelical, negative stereotypes may come to mind: angry, judgmental, right-wing, manipulative, insensitive, shallow, and ignorant. I ask you to lay aside those stereotypes. They are distortions, bad apples, not what the evangelical tradition essentially is. I have in mind a giant evangelical tent covering a great many people. Under this tent, I see Jesus and all the New Testament apostles, many early church fathers and mothers, many saints of the Roman Catholic Church (such as St. Patrick and St. Francis, who were both fiery evangelists), many founders of denominations, nondenominational movements, revivals, missionary endeavors, and Christian charitable institutions, not to mention millions of faithful people who remain unknown to historians.

There are six basic convictions that define the evangelical tradition:

Evangelical Conviction Number 1: God is personal and relational. By personal, I do not mean human. Rather, I mean that God has personality, character, emotion, reason, and will, and that God expresses these qualities in relationship.

What is the alternative to seeing God as personal? It is seeing God as something like an impersonal force, an abstract principle, or a mythic way of speaking of the shaping of history. The most enduring split in American religious life is between those who believe in the personal God of the Bible and those who believe in the impersonal God of the Enlightenment philosophers. The tension between these two views was present in the forging years of our national identity before our American Revolution, and the tension lives on today. Evangelicals need not deny the valid discoveries of Enlightenment science, but they consistently hold that God is personal and relational.

Even within the Triune God, there is relationship among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that relationship is extended to his human children. God’s intention from the beginning was to dwell in close relationship to us, but our sin got in the way of that perfect plan; nevertheless, because of the saving work of Jesus Christ, and the renewing work of the Holy Spirit, in the coming new heaven and new earth, that is exactly what the faithful will do, live closely to God forever. Indeed, it is what we can begin to do now! The purpose of our lives is fulfilled in a close relationship with the Creator and Sovereign of the Universe. If you believe that God is personal and relational, you just might be an evangelical.

Evangelical Conviction Number 2: The Bible, although written by human beings, is inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that its words, when properly understood, convey precisely what God wants us to know about his character, purposes, and promises, and about our divine calling as God’s children. We all know that it is easy to misinterpret the Bible, and that many people do so, but this does not take away from the inspiration and authority of the Bible. It just means that we need to rightly handle the word of truth.

Rightly understanding the Bible means standing under its authority and letting it reveal the nature and purposes of God. Standing under the Bible will help us to see the dominant threads that run through the Bible about the holiness and steadfast love of God, about human sin and redemption, about right and wrong, about wisdom and folly, about faith and unbelief, about the mission and gifting of the people of God, about the role of the church, about creation and new creation, and, most of all, about the work of Jesus, the Anointed One, Son of God, Lord and Savior of the universe. If you treat the Bible as divinely inspired and authoritative, you just might be an evangelical.

Evangelical Conviction Number 3: Jesus Christ is absolutely central to our redemption as children of God, to the quality of our present lives, and to our eternal destiny. He is our only Savior and our only Judge. He is the Master of our daily living. He is the head of his church. Evangelicals look to his pre-existence and incarnation, his life and ministry, his teaching and preaching, his death and resurrection, his ascension and exaltation, his final coming to inaugurate the perfect and eternal new heaven and new earth.

If we understood and accepted what was intended to happen in our profession of faith and baptism, then we have died to self and sin and have come alive to the ruling of Jesus Christ in, through, and over our lives. As Paul tells us in Romans, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

In our baptism, we placed ourselves in the same position as the Apostle Paul when he described the results of his own entry into Christian life in Galatians: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” This dying to self is not just for apostles, but for all of us. In coming to Christ, we die to our personal preferences, and come alive to his mission.

The centrality of Christ, and of our life in Christ, receiving his saving work on our behalf, and living under his rule, is key to the evangelical tradition. If your life is centered in Christ, if his mission rules over even your personal preferences, you just might be an evangelical.

Evangelical Conviction Number 4: Evangelicals believe that salvation is by grace, through faith, for good works. Saying that salvation is by grace means that it begins with God’s free choice to save us, a salvation that we do not deserve, a salvation that is sheer, free gift. We cannot earn it, cannot buy it, cannot manipulate our way into it. The all-time favorite evangelical hymn which we will sing today puts it this way, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me; I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.” Salvation is first and foremost the work of God, but it must be received through our faith, which is itself a precious and gracious gift from God, a working of God’s Spirit in our hearts and minds. Although our faith is the gracious work of God, our free choice must be involved. We must say, “Yes,” to the gift. We must receive and unwrap the present in order to enjoy its benefits. “‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.”

The grace comes to us through the self-giving love of God in Jesus Christ, and we receive it by believing it. The saving grace has a purpose that not all evangelicals sufficiently notice. From some evangelical messages, you would think that the purpose of God’s gracious saving of us is simply that we might escape hell and enter heaven. To be sure, that is the by-product of salvation, but salvation’s purpose is that we might become children and servants of God, doing good works and living for the praise of God’s glory...NOW as well as eternally. We do not earn our salvation through good works, but we show that we have been touched by grace when we live graciously and generously. If we know that we have been saved by grace, through faith, for good works, we just might be evangelicals.

Evangelical Conviction Number 5: We must be born anew from the Holy Spirit. When we first sinned, we distorted the image of God within us; we wrecked our ability to represent the nature and purposes of God. When we profess faith and are baptized, if we understand what we are doing, we are dying to self and sin and coming alive to God, and we are put in touch with the Power of renewal, the One who can give us new hearts and minds, being gradually transformed into the likeness of our Creator. New birth begins by degrees to keep the picture of God in our lives consistent and clear. That is what it means to be born anew of the Spirit of God. This is not a mere option in the Christian life, Jesus said, “You must be born anew; you must be born of the Spirit.” If you believe that we must be born anew from above and gradually renewed in the likeness of God, then you just might be an evangelical.

Evangelical Conviction Number 6: Evangelicals are known for their dedication to fulfilling the Great Commission that Jesus gave to his disciples to go into all the world, making more disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all that he had commanded them. Let’s be honest: some evangelicals have done this very badly, doing it in the enthusiasm of their fleshly pride, rather than under the leading and direction of the Holy Spirit. If some of us hold back from being evangelicals, it is most likely because we do not want to be associated with the sledge hammer sensitivity of some visible evangelicals. But the fact that some have done it badly in no way removes the Great Commission. It just calls us to be wiser. Some of us try to get off the hook by saying that we are sharing the gospel with deeds rather than with words. The deeds are great and essential, but, under the leading of the Spirit, the deeds need to be explained in words. If you will covenant with me that we will seek better and better ways under the guidance of Scripture and the leading and empowering of the Holy Spirit, to share the message of God’s saving love in Jesus Christ, then you just might be an evangelical.

In summary, evangelicals believe:

1. That God is personal and relational,

2. That the Bible is divinely inspired and authoritative,

3. That Jesus Christ is central to our redemption as children of God,

4. That salvation is by grace, through faith, for good works,

5. That we must be born anew of the Spirit of God, being renewed in the image of God, and

6. That we have been commissioned by Christ to share his message of salvation in deeds and words.

If those six convictions fit within your picture of Christian life, then it is not that you just might be, but I dare to say that you ARE an evangelical. Without the evangelical stream of living water, the church would have died long ago. Forgive me if what I say next sounds offensive to you—I don’t think it will, just please forgive me if it does--but I trust that it will help you remember the point: Christianity without the evangelical stream (at its best) is like marriage without sex: unproductive.