Gospel Sharing

I am a huge NBA fan. As annoyingly political as it gets, I love the basketball side of it. In this age and season of Black Lives Matter and all of these justice driven slogans and movements, we seem to push the story of Love behind our chairs for our own ‘benefit’. Spoiler alert - it doesn’t benefit us. The NBA season officially started up again yesterday, and I’m so excited about it. The first few games of the season, all of the players, coaches, and staff members kneeled during the National Anthem and wore “Black Lives Matter” t-shirts. Personally, I tried to ignore this political side of the league and focus on the basketball side of it. That is until Orlando Magic forward Jonathan Isaac stood during the national anthem, not wearing a BLM t-shirt. In his postgame conference he was asked about it, and to summarize what he said, it went something like, “I do support black lives. I just feel like wearing a shirt that says so and kneeling doesn’t do anything. I believe that black lives matter, however I think that the bigger issue for me and why I chose not to support it was because of my background, and the role the gospel has played. You see, we have all sinned and done things wrong, and point fingers at others and maybe the sins of some are seen more than the sins of others, but we are all sinners and Jesus gave His Son for us.” That was a big time rephrase of what Isaac actually said, but that’s kind of the gist of what he was getting at. When I saw this quotation from him, I right away gained so much respect. My goal of this blog is not to get political. It’s hard not to with how the world is around us today, but I’m trying my best to keep the gospel as the focus. What I love about what Jonathan Isaac stood for and how he answered to the hate and the questioning, is that he right away connected racial injustice to the gospel. Ever since the passing of George Floyd, I’ve been trying to remind myself and those around me that our world does not have a racial problem, it has a gospel problem. I don’t think that the problem is the education of the youth, white privilege, or anything else we’ve been pointing fingers at during these past few months, I think that the bigger problem is that the gospel hasn’t been spread enough and/or in the right way. Our story is a story of love. If we aren’t sharing it in that way then we aren’t sharing it. We’re arguing it. We aren’t told to argue our truth, but to share it in love. I know that maybe we have more problems than just a gospel problem, but I think if we can eliminate the issue of the stagnation of the gospel, most of the other issues won’t be issues. I think that this problem goes much farther than racial injustice. This problem applies to everything we do. Before my missions trip, sharing the gospel was something I was scared of doing. I even would pray and ask that God would give me opportunities to share the gospel, but I never seemed to ever get them. On my trip, our leader told us that one of the lies we tell ourselves prior to talking to strangers is “oh they’re busy, they don’t want to talk” when in reality, most people are very willing to talk, and sometimes more than willing. I tried to remind myself this on my trip, and I ended up getting multiple opportunities to pray over someone and share the story of Jesus and His love with them. It’s something that I now seek out everyday. Ever since my first few times sharing the gospel, I’ve noticed how many times I get EACH DAY. So maybe it’s not that God didn’t give me the opportunities beforehand, but rather that I wasn’t searching them out and pursuing those conversations like I should have been. There’s not much of a better feeling than getting to tell someone about a guy that’s changed and transformed your life by giving up His. I’m hoping that after reading this, you’ll feel more bold about telling others about your amazing Saviour who saved your soul from death, your eyes from tears, and your feet from stumbling. Oh, and that maybe if a political conversation gets brought up, that you’d tie it to the gospel. The gospel should be tied to everything you talk about :)

-Jack Hilsher

Romans 5:8 (ESV)

“but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”