Dr. Paul Metzger, in his blog “Blessed are the merciful, not just those who look out for #1,” reflects on the amazing forgiveness and mercy of God by saying:
If this is how God treats us—and we are all responsible in one way or another for Jesus’ suffering and death, how can we not extend his mercy to those around us, especially those who appear to be in greatest need?
Of course, this claim that humankind is responsible for the death of God’s only Son, and that the sin of humanity necessitated a
perfect atoning sacrifice, is too much for many raised in a culture that elevates the individual to accept. In a setting where the individual is exalted, and individual responsibility a focus more so than collective responsibility, there is an aversion to accept culpability in the sins of a system, society, or race. This idealized individualism presents a problem for many issues that have a societal cause or when root issues suggest a systematic approach is needed rather than just personal repentance. I would suggest that this is why issues of systemic racism, gender inequality, and other societal issues have such a hard time getting any attention within the evangelical church in America.
But, I digress…
Where do we start with the individual who does not accept their culpability beyond personal sin and character failings, minimizes their need for mercy, and is quick to cast blame on larger issues to others?
I think we have to start with the gospel and the ability of the Holy Spirit to convict the hearts of men and women to the truth. If sin is the cause of the condition we are in that requires mercy, and the root of all our self-centeredness that fuels the desire to “look out for #1,” then some explanation of how God has addressed the sin problem needs to lead our conversations.
Here’s how I tend to explain the biblical narrative to those who are the most skeptical:
“You asked me what I believe. Thank you for giving me a chance to explain my convictions to you. After I share, I’d be honored if you share with me what your beliefs are or what you think about my explanation of what it means to follow Jesus.
As a Christian, I look to the Bible for guidance in explaining what life is about and what is important. As I see it, the Bible explains human experience in roughly four chapters: how things got started, what happens when we choose something other than God’s direction for our lives, how God loves us so much he sent Jesus, and where following Jesus can lead us as individuals and as a society.
First, I believe God intended for us to truly enjoy the created world. He set things up so mankind, men and women, would love each other and love God. Part of that enjoyment was to allow us to have free will. God knows what we know instinctively, that a relationship that is coerced is no relationship at all! So, God risked everything in his perfect created world by allow human beings to choose whether to follow him or not.
Second, as you might expect, humans decided not to follow God’s direction. This is what the Bible refers to as sin… simply doing things our own way, with our own guidance and wisdom, and ignoring what God has to say. This created a break in the relationship between God and human beings. All this takes place in the first few chapters of the Bible, believe it or not!
Next, the greatest chunk of the Bible… thousands and thousands of words… is dedicated to showing all the ways that God tried to get our attention as human beings to point us back to himself. We get snapshots of human history, words from people who spoke on God’s behalf, and even songs and prayers written to and about God and our longing for returning to what we had lost when we decided we knew better than God and tried to run the universe on our own. I would guess, if you and I were honest with one another, we have our own stories about how in our selfishness and stubbornness we have made a mess of our lives and our relationships. When we do things without God’s help, we can’t help but mess things up!
Thirdly, the Bible has a natural break between this section about our effort to reach out to God and repair the break in relationship ourselves and what God did as the ultimate answer to healing that break. It starts with the four stories Christians call ‘gospels’ because that word means ‘good news.’ And, I assure you that after millennia of trying to fix what we had broken at the start of creation, it is really good news that God stepped in and fixed things for us. These gospels tell about the amazing birth, life, death, and return from death of God’s only child, Jesus.
There’s a lot I could say about Jesus, but if you are really interested in who Jesus is, I’d encourage you to read for yourself those four gospel stories. There is a lot of nonsense out there about who Jesus was and what he was about—even if he was really God’s son or not—and rather than get into that right now, I think I’d encourage you to read and study for yourself, just like I’d point you to other sacred books if you wanted to learn about the traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. That makes sense, doesn’t it?
Finally, the Bible concludes with some beautiful pictures of what the world could be like and what the church—the collection of Jesus’ followers—might look like if we looked to God again as a human race and shaped our lives together by his guidance. And, if in reading some of these parts of the Bible you aren’t thinking, ‘Wow. If the world ran this way, we’d be a lot better off,” I’d be a little surprised!
It’s a huge story—a love story that wraps up the whole of human history! It’s really quite amazing, and way more than you could wrap your heart and mind around in a thousand lifetimes. But for all its complex beauty, it’s really very simple and profound. God loves you. God loves US. And, God desperately wants us to realize that we can love and respect and honor one another, too.”
From there… who knows where the conversation might go? But, I would guess that we’d get into the need for mercy and the hope that we have only because we—collectively as a human race—don’t get what we deserve in the punishment for our sins, but more often than not we are blessed repeatedly with opportunities to make a difference in our world.
I prefer this approach to presenting the gospel much more than what I was presented with—a personalized gospel that focused on my individual salvation.
Blessed are the merciful… not just those looking out for #1… for they can truly appreciate the love and mercy of God for us all, not just for themselves.
