Social Service and the Cross of Christ

I almost titled this post “When Doing Good is Not Good Enough”, but I didn’t for several reasons. So, I’ll leave the current title in place. Here is what is on my mind:

I spent some time on the phone with my good friend Tom, who lives in Houston, the other day. He mentioned that he was reading a short book on prayer by Oswald Chambers called “If Ye Shall Ask”. Some years ago I bought a volume containing the complete works of Oswald Chambers, and so after the phone call I looked up his work on prayer. On my way to finding the page I wanted I came across some notes I made in the margin of one of Chamber’s lectures titled “Redemption: The Christian’s Greatest Trust”. In this lecture I found the following paragraph that I want to share with you. I think it speaks a great truth to all of us who want to do ‘good’ in the world today.

“Our salvation is one of unspeakable freedom for heart and mind and body, but do we sufficiently brood on what it cost God to make it ours? At certain stages of Christian experience a saint has no courtesy towards God, no sense of gratitude: he is thankful for being delivered from sin, but the thought of living for Jesus, of being recklessly abandoned to Him, has not begun to dawn on him yet. When we come to the Cross we do not go through it and out the other side; we abide in the life to which the Cross is the gateway, and the characteristic of the life is that of deep profound sacrifice to God. Social service that is not based on the Cross of Christ is the cultured blasphemy of civilised life against God, because it denies that God has done anything, and puts human effort as the only way whereby the world will be redeemed“.

To me, the words “we abide in the life to which the Cross is the gateway” describes life in the Kingdom of God. We have the right and privilege to live in the Kingdom in intimate relationship with the Triune God only because of the work of Christ on the Cross. Jesus on His Cross is the door into the Kingdom. And we do not ‘pass through’ the Kingdom — we make it our home and live there for eternity — the life of ‘salvation’.

We enter the Kingdom, as I have written many times before, not just based on “Jesus loves me, this I know”. Entrance is also rooted in solemn, and maybe even painful repentance, which is itself a gift, but in which I have a part to play. One of the consequences of repentance is the transformed heart — no longer a heart focused inward on me, but a heart focused outward on Christ, a heart willing to sacrifice for the sake of the Kingdom, and be the servant of all. Kingdom life is the life of a whole new creation, a whole new creature. It is life of sacrifice, even death for some, but a life of joy, peace, power, freedom, and hope. It is a life of healing and wholeness.

‘Social service’ is the work of the Church that feeds and houses people, trains them to find jobs and places them in the work place, counsels them to be free from addictions, provides health clinics, helps the prisoner reenter society, and many other good things that Jesus commanded us to do. We are in a war for the souls of men and the Creation. There are always casualties in war — we, the Church, are called to care for these casualties — not just in our power, but in the power of Christ. And some of the wounded are the walking wounded among us. But social service that never intentionally and explicitly points to Jesus, never calls people to a life of sacrifice, repentance, or the denial of self; never speaks of surrender and submission, and never talks of the Cross or the cost of Kingdom life is what Chambers is referring to. And too much, but no means all, of what the Church does today falls into this category. When the Church does social work that is indistinguishable from the work of secular NGOs, Foundations, Governments, the United Nations, Doctors without Borders, etc. then the Church is providing the type of social services that Chambers criticized. It is not Kingdom work because the Kingdom of God is not just good works; it is the rule and reign of Christ to defeat the supernatural power of evil. This is the war that God and His Church are fighting, and this war requires the supernatural power of the Cross.

The Church does  many things in the world today, but among these things it must first and foremost do what only the Church can do — release the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world through the power and presence of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. It is only in the Kingdom of God that men and woman will find true salvation — the type of healing and wholeness that doesn’t just heal the symptoms, but goes deep into the heart to bring to life a new person who is strong, free, victorious, and saved.

Why do we often leave the message of Jesus, the Cross, and His Kingdom out of our social service? Many reasons I guess: we are not allowed to talk about Jesus in schools or in programs funded by government, at least directly; it it not culturally or socially acceptable, we are too timid, we don’t know what message to share, we don’t believe the message of the Cross and repentance ourselves. I don’t know — maybe one or more of these reasons, maybe others. But the bottom line is that we have been given the words of life. It is possible that unless those whom we serve hear the words spoken from you or me, they might never hear them at all.

Paul describes the work of the Church in 2 Corinthians 5: 17-20:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us” (NIV).

Any work a church does, whether inside or outside the walls of that church, that does not have as its primary agenda, however that agenda is pursued, the “message of reconciliation” as “though God were making His appeal through us” is anti-Cross, anti-Pentecost, and ultimately anti-Jesus and His plan of restoration. It is the church at Ephesus described by John in Revelation: “Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, for else I will come and remove your lampstand from its place — unless you repent” (Revelation 2: 4, 5 NKJV). In other words, a congregation may continue to exist without being a light in the darkness.

Life in the Kingdom of God is not just for today, it is for eternity — and eternity is a long time. This is the reason Christ died on the Cross. Only the Church can carry that message to the world, because no one else is ‘authorized’ by God to spread that word. Christians are called to have an eternal perspective. Not only is our life not our own — it belongs to Jesus; but this world is not all there is, by a long shot. We believe that life goes on when we ‘die’. Call it eternal life, heaven, the New Heaven and New Earth, whatever. This life today is the prelude to eternal life. And how we live now does have an impact on how we will live for eternity. At least this is what the Church has believed for 1000s of years, it is what the Bible tells us, and it is what I believe also (for what that is worth). Is it good enough for a man to be healed from HIV-Aids, cancer, or malaria by a ‘Christian’, church-supported medical program that fails to mention Jesus, the Kingdom of God, and repentance, only to die 10 or 20 years later, or less, and spend the rest of eternity in hell? Stupid question — of course it is not ‘good enough’. The Church should heal in the Power of God or with medicine or both, but only the Church can speak the message of the Kingdom of God and salvation and open the door for that physical or emotional healing to be deeper — to be permanent, to be forever. Hallelujah!

As Oswald says, if ‘ministry’ leaves out the message of the Cross it is “the cultured blasphemy of civilised life against God” because it sends another message — “we can fix this world without Jesus”. Of course, we can’t fix this world without Jesus because the problems are not ultimately material, they are spiritual.

Strong words. Now I need to pray for God to give me the grace and boldness to live according to these words! For most of us, it begins with small steps. And each one of these steps should be bathed in prayer and humility.

Grace and peace, from one ‘becoming’ radical Christian to another,

John

PS. I sang a song in our worship service today whose words fit with this post. I believe Paul and Oswald would agree: “All life comes down to just one thing and that is to know you Jesus and to make you known”. Two things, really. But to know Jesus intimately, to know His love, His Cross, and His friendship — what can be more important than that for a Christian? And then to make this Jesus known to the world. That is what Paul is talking about — that is what it means to be His ambassador, carrying and sharing His message of Loyal Love to a dying, broken, and bleeding world. In the truest sense, ‘radical Christian’ is redundant. If we live as the Christians Jesus, Paul, and the Early Church prayed we would be (I believe they prayed for us) culture will call us crazy, out-of-our minds, dangerous, offensive, foolish, unsophisticated, impractical (which is an argument I can believe Christians would make), and definitely not socially acceptable. In a word, radical. That is, until culture wakes up and realizes that we are motivated by one thing — love. Love for Jesus and love for the world around us, in the power of God. Let us show the world this transcendent and immanent love by carrying and speaking the message of salvation to all whom we serve, to all whom we encounter; to the entire world, no matter what anyone else thinks.  For Christ’s Sake!