A Small Step

One of the things that tends to happen when you write sermons is that you preach to yourself as much as you do to anyone else.  That’s been the case recently for me.  I’ve been talking a lot about how, as Christians, we need to be more open about our faith.  We need to talk about it with people.  We need to not act like we’re ashamed of our faith or trying to hide it, but are proud of our faith and want to share it with everyone.

I think all that’s true, but I don’t think I’ve probably done a very good job of living it out in my own life.  Most people in town know I’m a pastor, so they probably assume that I have Christian faith.  But I don’t talk about it a whole lot.  I do in church, of course, and in church meetings.  But at other times?  Not so much.  That’s why I say I’m preaching to myself.  It’s a message I need to hear, and to put into practice, at least as much as anyone else.

But I have taken one small step toward being more open about my faith.  It’s not a huge step.  I clearly need to do more.  I certainly don’t mean this to sound like I’m patting myself on the back for doing it.  But if you’re a friend of mine on facebook, you may have noticed that I’m posting a lot more stuff about Christianity and about Christian faith.  Some of it is Bible quotes, some of it is statements from great Christian leaders, some of it is inspirational.  But I’m doing more of that sort of thing than I used to.

So what do I hope to accomplish by this?  Do I think posting this stuff is going to bring large numbers of people to Christ?  Well, no, not really.  I mean, it’d be wonderful if it did.  God can do anything, of course, and if God chose to bring people to Christ in this way that’d be awesome.  But that’s not really why I’m doing this.

The main reason I’m doing this, really, is as a means of planting the flag, so to speak.  It’s a way of saying “Here I stand.”  It’s a way of leaving no doubt to anyone who sees it about what I believe.

I think it’s important that Christians do that.  Society tries very hard to make us keep our Christian faith to ourselves.  It used to be that the two things you weren’t supposed to talk about were politics and religion, but it seems like everyone’s talking about politics these days.  So that just leaves religion, especially Christianity.  We’re told, in a lot of different ways, that we should keep all that Jesus stuff to ourselves.

But that’s wrong.  It’s a way of trying to marginalize Christians.  If we don’t talk about our faith, we cannot bring others to it.  And then, we start doubting it ourselves.  We wonder if we’re the only ones who feel like we do.  After all, we don’t see anyone else talking about it.  Maybe nobody else believes it.  Maybe we’re the only ones.

So, if I post Christian stuff, maybe it’ll strengthen the faith of others.  Maybe it’ll help people realize they’re not the only ones who feel the way they do.  And maybe they’ll start posting some stuff, too.  And maybe other people’s faith will be strengthened.  And if enough of us do it, maybe there will be some people brought to Christ after all.

Maybe not, too.  That’s up to God.  But I know Jesus did not say, “Keep your faith in me to yourself.”  Jesus said, “Go and make disciples of all nations.”  We cannot do that by keeping our faith quiet.  We need to be open about it if we’re going to spread it to others.

Again, what I’ve done so far is just a small step.  I need to do more.  But it is a step, and the old saying is that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.  So what’s a step you can take?  What you can you do to be more open about your Christian faith?  It doesn’t have to be a huge step.  It can be a small step.  But it does need to be a step.

Think about what step you can take.  Then, ask God to help you take it.