Give Me One Good Reason to Be A Christian
EVANGELISM ARTICLE | Joshua Welch | Columbus, Ohio
Door-knocking can introduce you to a wide variety of characters. There are the kindly, elderly ladies who gingerly walk to the door, slowly crack it open, patiently listen and then say, “Thank you for stopping by, honey, but I’ve been going to my church for years and don’t plan on changing.”
Then, there’s the young 20-something’s who are agitated they had to get up from their video games and open the door quickly and say, “I’m not interested. Don’t come back.” As you begin to open your mouth to respond the door is swinging closed in your face.
Then, there is the baby boomer I met one day after he had just gotten home from work who said, “I’ve worked hard and paid for all of my kids’ colleges, been married to the same women my whole life, never been arrested and try to be a good neighbor, so you give me one good reason why I need to be a Christian!”
To be transparent, the question really stumped and startled me when he first asked. After all, this guy gave the impression he just had it all together without needing Jesus at all. For a quick moment, he made me doubt why I was there as well. But, after thinking about it, there was a great answer to his question. A simple answer.
You see, he was viewing Jesus as just an earthly self-help tool. And, truth be told, that can be the impression the church leaves with people when our only focus is on self-help sermons and how to live “Your Best Life Now.” When people view Jesus solely as a person who can help you get our life together and the church as just His mechanism for doing so, they may be tempted to think like this guy. They are tempted to think, “I’ve already got my life together. So, why do I need Jesus?”
Now, don’t get me wrong. The church is a place where we can help rehabilitate lives, help marriages, conquer addictions, provide family counseling, and offer a deeper level of joy and fulfillment in this life. But, if that is all Jesus is to us, then we may be tempted to think like our baby boomer door-knocking prospect in Exhibit C above. We may be tempted to think, once we have it all together, we do not need Jesus anymore. We can de-commit ourselves from the church. We may begin to think we would be better off on our own or working through some other resources offering self-help (and there are many other self-help resources). But, the one good reason you need Jesus is far greater than any earthly quick fix.
C.S. Lewis once said, “Our Lord is like the dentist. If you give Him an inch, He will take them all. Dozens of people go to Him to be cured of some one particular sin which they are ashamed of … or which is obviously spoiling daily life (like bad temper or drunkenness). Well, He will cure it all right: but He will not stop there. That may be all you asked; but if once you call Him in, He will give you the full treatment” (Mere Christianity, Book IV). C.S. Lewis was right on one account. Some people only see Jesus and the church as a resource to fix some immediate problem in their lives. Those who do not think they have problems will often think they do not need Jesus. When we begin to reason like this, it exposes our short-sightedness and our lack of understanding of why Jesus truly came to this earth!
So, let’s answer the question. What is the best reason you need Jesus? If you were to say, “give me one good reason why I need the Lord,” what would be the top reason? Here it is…
YOU ARE GOING TO DIE!
Pretty simple, right? But, scary too. You are going to die and seeing the fact of death all around us should be sufficient enough to caution us of its impending reality. Of course, God’s Word does provide such admonitions. Hebrews 9:27 says, “…it is appointed for men to die once…” The verse does not stop there. It states, “…but after this the judgment…” (NKJV).
So, who do you know who can change your eternity and impact the decision Christ will make when you “appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:10)? Your life insurance agent can give your family coverage on earth after you die, but they will not help you face eternity once the soul has departed from the body (James 2:26). No other founder of any world religion has proven they can help you once your life is over. Jesus is the one person who has died and lived and had witnesses to tell us all about it! In every New Testament sermon, the resurrection is the centerpiece argument in the apostles’ preaching.
Unfortunately, many do not like to think much about death. Their focus is on the here and now. Like those “in the days of Noah,” they are too busy “eating, and drinking and giving in marriage” to think about any judgment to come (Matthew 24:37-38). The world is in denial about death’s reality. Read the following verses in Genesis 5, and you will find a common phrase among the descendants of Adam: “and he died” (5:5, 8, 14, 17, 20, 27, 31). Go back into the family tree of any family in this world, and you will find the same commonality – our ancestors have died too. We can deny reality all we want, but death will still one day come knocking on our door (Job 30:23; Psalm 89:48; Ecclesiastes 8:8). We cannot avoid it.
Thankfully, Jesus allows us to change how we might view death. Without Jesus, we may regard death as a loss. Some joke and say, “Today was a good day. I didn’t read my name in the obituaries.” Some morbidly fear death to the point they want to avoid funerals, and even the very thought of our loved ones dying.
Conversely, Paul could write, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). John could write, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on” (Revelation 14:13). They seem to have such a strange attitude towards death in contrast to most in the world!
So, why is it these men could consider death a “gain” and look at it not with fear but with joy? This question is the primary reason the death, burial and, resurrection of Jesus is called the “gospel.” First Corinthians 15:1-4 says, “Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you … that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen…” The word “gospel” means “good news.” Why is the death and resurrection of Jesus “good news”? Quite simply, it takes death out of the loss column and places it in the win column.
Jesus, by His death, burial, and resurrection, proved a human could overcome the grave. His resurrection from the dead is the very basis for our hope. It is the reason why Paul could reflect upon the resurrection of Jesus and mockingly laugh at death and write, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? …thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:54-57). It is this resurrection hope Peter is referring to in 1 Peter 3:15 when he writes, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear” (cp. 1 Peter 1:3).
So, when challenged, “give me one good reason why I need to be a Christian” go ahead and tell it straight: you are going to die. It is part of the curse placed upon mankind since the fall of Adam. So, you need to turn to the risen Jesus Who could rightfully say, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live” (John 11:25).
How do you turn to Jesus? You need to “obey the gospel” (1 Peter 4:17). Notice what that involves according to Romans 6:3-6, “…do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, we also should walk in newness life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.” The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is not just good news for Jesus. It is good news for all those who will bury the “old man” of sin in the waters of baptism and be “raised to walk in newness of life” with Him.
So, yes, it is true. You are going to die. But, because of Jesus, you can also live and the new life He offers to all doomed sinners is the “one good reason” you need to be a Christian. So, will you?
19.10.01 | GROW magazine
