In his book, What is Happening to Religion in Australia? Understanding the Trends, social researcher Philip Hughes observes a fundamental change in Australian values in the past century. He charts a shift from duty to family life to personal fulfilment.
Perhaps the most notable example of this is changing attitude towards same sex marriage, with two-thirds of all Australians voting in a 2016 plebiscite to support the enactment of federal same sex marriage law. No longer is there an overwhelming sense of moral duty to tradition and the status quo; no longer a strong sense of what is required to support and encourage the so-called traditional “family unit.”
We have witnessed, on this and a range of other issues, a profound shift to embrace individual lifestyle choices and personal fulfilment, whatever that may look like. This could be dismissed as selfishness, but it could also be seen as a preference for care and respect. We also see this shift in changing attitudes to parenting, paid employment, and church attendance.[1]
And yet, every generation experiences social change, and every generation faces new challenges. For the church, the one thing that does not change is the imperative of participation in the mission of God. The one thing that does not change is the urgent need to tell others about Jesus and the life that Jesus offers.
The one thing that does not change is our need for what scholars call conversion, what the apostles described as “repentance and faith” or “transformation,” what Jesus described as “the new birth.” It’s hard to imagine improving on the missional strategy of Jesus and the early church.
The last words Jesus spoke to his apprentices was to grant them freedom to use his all-encompassing power and authority to make new apprentices, to baptise them into the Threefold Name of the Trinity, and to teach them to obey “everything I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20a). And he gave them this promise: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (v. 20b).
This was also the first goal of the early church. As Dallas Willard says in his challenging book, The Great Omission, “The Christian church of the first centuries resulted from following this plan for church growth – a result hard to improve upon.”[2]
If there is one thing the global church needs today, it is a renewed commitment to mission. Yes, worship is vital. Yes, membership, maturity and ministry are essential components of a healthy church. But without mission the church will falter and fail within a generation. And mission is fruitless without a commitment to conversion, a commitment to evangelism, a commitment to the hard work of making disciples. As Rick Warren observes,
The church exists to communicate God’s Word. We are ambassadors for Christ, and our mission is to evangelise the world. The word go in the Great Commission is a present participle in the Greek text. It should read, “as you are going.” It is every Christian’s responsibility to share the Good News wherever we go. We ought to tell the whole world of Christ’s coming, his death on the cross, his resurrection, and his promise to return. Someday each of us will give an account to God regarding how seriously we took this responsibility …
As long as there is one person in the world who does not know Christ, the church has a mandate to keep growing. Growth is not optional; it is commanded by Jesus.[3]
Those who heard the Good News in the first century of the church’s existence were filled with joy at their new knowledge and experience of life in Christ.
Perhaps no one was more grateful to be the recipient of divine love and grace than Saul, who famously encountered the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus, an event that transformed his own life and then turned the world upside-down.
We know him as St Paul, or the Apostle Paul. Later, he wrote at least four letters to the young church at Corinth, of which we have two in our New Testament. Paul knew the Good News. He was shaped by it, and he never tired of sharing it with anyone who would listen. Every day, he lived the mission of God. Every day, he passed on the story of the life, death, resurrection and ascension of his Master Jesus, and expounded the significance of those great Gospel events.
In 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5, probably recalling his own pre-conversion worldview, Paul points out the paradox that “the word of the cross,” what seems like foolish talk to many, is actually “the power of God to those who are being saved” (1:18).
He even admits that his conviction and passion were no match for his lack of ability as a public speaker and his unwillingness to use rhetorical skills to persuade people to follow Jesus (2:1-4). Instead, he simply relied on the power of God’s Holy Spirit at work through him, so that their “faith might not be based on human wisdom but on God’s power” (2:5).
There are lessons for all of us here.
In this text, and elsewhere in the New Testament, those who shared the good news about Jesus applied three basic principles to deliver a desired outcome – a process expressed in the equation:
HP + CP + CC = MI
First, they lived radical lives of high potency: they were authentic, honest, earnest, compassionate (e.g., 1:20; 2:1, 3). They proved by their daily lives that they were trustworthy, reliable people.
Second, they lived in close proximity to those whom they wanted to reach (e.g., 2:1; cf Ac 18:1-4). They knew the people with whom they shared the Jesus-story, and had many life experiences in common.
Third, they engaged in clear communication (e.g., 1:18, 22f, 2:4). They knew what they believed, and why they believed it. They shared their own personal stories of conversion and transformation. They explained the reason for the joy and hope they possessed.
And when followers of Jesus live lives of high potency, in close proximity to friends who don’t yet follow Jesus, and share the good news of Jesus with clear communication, in word and deed, the result is maximum impact.[4]
HP + CP + CC = MI
Generation after generation, Christians have followed those three simple steps in obedience to their Master Jesus, in obedience to the Great Commission (Mt 28:19-20), a reliable strategy for reaching lost people, living in a way that maximises spiritual influence.
Christians have followed these steps in a multitude of ways, employing culture and the arts, technology and learning, but above all by living ordinary yet exemplary lives that commend the gospel before they even say a word.
The first Christians were faithful in this. Millions more through history have been similarly faithful to the mission of God. Those who first introduced you to Jesus and the way of Jesus did just that: They lived lives of high potency, in close proximity to friends who did not follow Jesus. They shared the good news of Jesus with clear communication, in word and deed, resulting in maximum impact.
God’s word does not return to him void. God wants everyone to be transformed, made whole, experience the new birth. God blesses every gospel seed sown in a life, in a community. God will give us the courage and the opportunity if we ask him. Each of us has what it takes to share the good news of Jesus with others.
In her poem, “When I say I am a Christian,” Carol Wimmer suggests that Christian identity is not about superiority but grace and transformation, the testimony of her life commending a message of honesty, humility and hope to a sceptical culture.
When I say, ‘I am a Christian,’
I’m not shouting ‘I’ve been saved’ —
I’m whispering, ‘I get lost sometimes,
That’s why I chose this way.’[5]
We are all lost. We are all broken. We are all less than we want to be. We fail ourselves, and others. We can’t fix everything on our own.
This is why we need to pause, and hear the gentle voice of Jesus, and feel his grace flowing into our lives, and see him point the way forward, and know that he will walk beside us, and break every barrier down, and carry us when he needs to, and give us everything we need for the journey home.
And when you do some small thing to help someone else begin the journey of faith, and nudge them toward home, you express what it means to be “salt” and “light” in the world. You engage with the evangelism equation HP + CP + CC = MI. You announce the good news of Jesus to this generation. You participate in nothing less than the mission of God.
Sermon 836 copyright © 2025 Rod Benson. Preached at North Rocks Community Church, Sydney, Australia, on Sunday 23 November 2025. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Christian Standard Bible (Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020).
References
[1] Philip Hughes, What is Happening to Religion in Australia? Understanding the Trends (Bayswater, Vic.: Coventry Press, 2025), 38, 50ff.
[2] Dallas Willard, The Great Omission (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), 4-8).
[3] Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 104f.
[4] The equation was popularised in Mark Mittelberg & Bill Hybels, Becoming a Contagious Christian: Communicating Your Faith in a Style That Fits You (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996).
[5] Carol Wimmer, “When I say I am a Christian,” 1988.
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