Social Justice and the Gospel

Last Sunday we looked at what the role of the Christian was in light of the social needs of the time. What does it mean to be a follower of Christ? What is the role of the believer in social justice?

Spectrum

Let me just save us a lot of time and say that we looked at two extremes in the beginning - the inward salvation only Christian, and the social gospel Christian. Neither of which are right.

The inward salvation only Christian desires only for the spiritual needs of someone to be met. They do not consider physical needs worth caring for since we are all in fallen flesh, and seek to only spread the good news of Jesus. While there is truth in that model, it goes against the teaching of Scripture to see someone in need and do nothing about their physical need, while at the same time trying to give them the gospel (see James).

The social gospel Christian seeks to let the world know they are loved by serving them, and in all of our hearts this person is far more endeared. It is easier to love this martyr of human cause, who has given up so much to serve in such need, because it is so admirable. However, the social gospel begins to exist when only someone's physical need is met, and no teaching of their sin and need for a Savior is discussed. At heart, someone like this wants people to love them, not God.

Scripture

We see that the truth of Scripture is that Jesus spent his entire ministry doing two things more than anything else: meeting physical needs, and meeting spiritual needs. He healed the sick, but He had no delusion that their only great need was physical healing. He also shared the gospel, but He didn't do that coldly to the masses without touching the lepers and giving sight to the blind.

We have to be honest with ourselves in that mankind's greatest need is the gospel. It isn't to bring them into social peace with all cultures, it isn't to end disease, it isn't to bring about equality. Those are all temporal things this side of eternity. BUT, we do those things because we love mankind, and we want their circumstances to be raised so that when their physical hunger has died away, their spiritual hunger can now be dealt with.

We see this in the story of the Prodigal Son. This does not end with the son being given some bread and a clean room to sleep in, after he was longing over the pig slop, though that is how many today would want to fulfill his need. His greatest need was to be reconciled to His Father, which we have to see as people's greatest need.

Jesus talked again and again about meeting physical needs - The story of the Good Samaritan, the Parable of the King (where we see "whatever you have done for the least of these..."), the feeding of the 4,000 and 5,000. We see lepers, blind, deaf, lame, dumb, mute, demon possessed, self righteous, poor, rich, etc, etc. get their needs met by Jesus in the midst of the gospel message.

So then...

How does this apply? Some of you are at certain ends of this, others at the opposite side. Let's list some things to avoid:

Social Justice as a sexy issue to slam the church:
This is growing incredibly popular. The reason that there are _____________ is because the church is having potluck dinners instead of ________________ . Be careful with this. In every church you can find things that happen that don't seem vital to the kingdom, but in the end are part of community time together, and serve a legitimate purpose (we see the book of Acts mentioning meals and just relaxed time together). I bet you relax at some point too. Be careful about trying to place blame on someone other than yourself. If God has given you a burden, move patiently through the means of a spiritual community, and find ways to serve there. But just because you are passionate about this one area this week doesn't make everyone apostate for not being on your wavelength.

Being arrogant about the church's role:
Believe it or not, the church wasn't put in place to solve the problems of the world. Christ is going to return to solve the problems of the world. So let's not place ourselves on the throne of all powerful in the world, that is God's role. That being said, it is the role of the church to labor tirelessly to meet physical and spiritual needs in its members and in the community, country, and world.

At Winter Conference, while being asked about the Haiti earthquake, one of the panelists said that the church in America should accept blame for the buildings in Haiti not being what they should be. It reminded me of what Josephus, an early Jewish historian, wrote about the Tower of Babel in Genesis. That men were so wicked they wanted to build a tower high enough to survive a flood as if to trump God's ability to get them. I am not saying that it was God's role to get Haiti in the least, but I am saying it is foolish for the church to be so arrogant as to think that in all the nations of the world we are going to take care of all things so that nothing bad can happen to anyone. That is the arrogance and guilt game, not love.

Let's Not Reduce this to politics:
Okay, let's not confuse these issues for being liberal or conservative. It is neither one of those, it is either loving and Christ following, or self seeking and idolatrous. Those of you who are liberal/moderate reading this will have to struggle with feeling like the conservatives are heartless because of some presupposition that they are money-guzzling, self-righteous racists based on the fringes of your party portraying them that way. Those of you who are conservative reading this will have to struggle with feeling like the liberal believers are freeloading, baby-killing, socialists based on the fringes of your party portraying them that way.

Believers, not political parties, need to unite around the truth of Scripture on this issue, nothing else. There is much that could be said here, but I will stop here.

Not wanting to share the gospel, just wanting to "love" people.
That's not love. We need to hear that. I am constantly praying that God will again and again scream that into my heart. We long to go through life making people think good about who we are, and maybe even have them think nice things about God, but as Paul says "how will they call on Him whom they have not believed? How are they to believe in Him they have not heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching to (telling) them?" (Romans 10).

Conclusion:
That being said. I love how passionate many of you are about what God has placed in your heart. Use that to glorify Him, bring the church along patiently to assist you in that work, and humbly seek to grow in the knowledge of God in righteousness. Don't use these grand ideas and huge tasks to replace your need to grow in love of Christ, and as a student of His word.

People need their needs met: physical and spiritual. We need to use what God has given us to make sure we are laboring to do what we can in both of these areas.