A Relational way to share the Good News
WITNESSING: How God Transforms our Relationships
This approach for sharing the good news of Jesus highlights our most significant relationships. It uses a very simple diagram which can be drawn on a piece of paper, a napkin, etc. It uses basic biblical ideas. The distinctive: it highlights the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
DIAGRAM ONE: CHOICE
Instructions for drawing diagram (top left of page):
Draw a stick man/woman.
Draw four short lines: up, down, to the right and left of the stick man
Write “God” above the man (or a triangle for the Trinity)
Write “self” (or “ego”) below the man
Write “people” (or draw a stick man/woman couple) to the left of the man.
Write “stuff” the right of the man (to describe the world around us)
Optional: Write “CHOICE “ for this diagram (the first of four).
Concepts to communicate:
- our life consists in relationships. We have four basic relationships: to God, to self, to others and to stuff.
- The first humans had these relationships in perfect balance ideal circumstances:
- related to God in friendship and companionship, openness, dialogue, cooperation in their work
- related to each other with openness, companionship, openness, delight: “they were naked and unashamed...” – total transparency with each other
- related to self with confidence and self-acceptance – they had it “together”, without being egotistical
- related to stuff with harmony, in charge of and in sync with the ecology around them – companions with the animals, in an ideal garden setting
Words to describe this existence: harmony, balance, openness, responsive. It was an idealic, love-filled environment.
- But Love is a choice: we are the only part of creation that is unfinished. God created us to relate to Him, each other, self, and the world: but each relationship is open-ended, unfinished – we develop it by choices
- So God gave us a choice (draw a simple tree) – all the choices in the world were available except one: don’t eat that tree’s fruit
- Optional: Let’s say there were 100,000 trees in that garden. What if God had said only to eat from one of them, and leave all the rest alone? What kind of test would that be? (let them answer: a tough one, perhaps even an unfair one). But God made the test as minimal as possible. But it was still a test: will we let God be God and obey Him? Or will we seek to be God and disobey Him?
- The first humans chose to disobey, to be their own “gods”. What an intoxicating possibility, to make our own world, set our own rules and have the universe revolve around us. We all have been affected by this first choice, and made similar choices, for we all have a bent towards self-centredness. (A good def’n of sin: seeking to find meaning in life while marginalizing God; becoming little gods ourselves, trying to make life work and design our own little universe, while ignoring the real God’s design for life”. All of us are involved in this restless search for meaning without God)
DIAGRAM TWO: CHAOS
Instructions for drawing diagram (bottom left of page):
Draw the same stick man and the four relationships, as in Diagram One.
Each relationship gets damaged in this diagram. You can represent it by a wiggly line, or by putting “/ /” across each line.
Optional: Write CHAOS by this diagram.
Diagram Two is great for dialogue. Ask your friend how they see each of these four relationships being damaged in our society.. Perhaps you can illustrate from your own life - they may even do the same. Draw a diagonal through line as I you talk about the relationship, to show how it has been distorted.
Concepts to communicate:
- The relationship with God is damaged (twisted – “turned” is a favorite term in Jeremiah, warped, ruined, etc). We no longer are companions nor open to Him. Instead we relate to Him in fear, lying, avoidance, resentment, resistance, etc. We have lost the clarity of who God is, we can’t hear him communicating to us, we run away from His presence. We make god-images to replace Him. (This is a good place to give a personal testimony of your pre-Christian view of God, esp. if it was distorted...). We compete with God, ignore Him, hope He’ll go away, disobey Him, etc. The extreme: we would do away with God and be the undisputed god in the universe.
- The relationship with each other is also twisted, skewed, ruined. We now use and abuse each other. We lie, blame, misunderstand, hate... Power trips are common. All the unhealthy human relationships pertain: marital conflict, sexual abuse, parent/child divisions, neglect, wars, ethnic conflict... We become obsessed with or segregated from others. The transparency towards people, and cooperation is gone and the balance is no longer there. The extreme: we would murder another person.
- The relationship to self is damaged. We develop neuroses, phobias,. We live in guilt, narcissism, self-disgust and self-abuse. Or we become egocentric. The extreme: we would take our own life.
- The relationship to stuff is distorted. Now we use and abuse it, polluting our living space (“fouling our nest”). We become obsessed with nature, or bodies, or with possessing stuff. The extreme: we would destroy our world.
· This is the world we live in, full of tension, misunderstanding and distortion. We know no other. The extreme distortions happen (eg: suicide, murder), but we don’t need to experience the extreme in order to be unbalanced and damaged. We are each twisted and warped in our own way. (“Each of us has turned to his own way...” Isaiah 53. 6). And we are at odds with the only real God. There is room for only one God in this universe, and it’s not me. So what happens some day when I meet the real God? He will throw me out of His universe. That faces everyone of us.
DIAGRAM THREE: CROSS
Instructions for drawing diagram (top right of page):
Draw the diagram again, with the four relationships shown, but leave the centre empty, with no stick man. You will write the word “Jesus” in the middle as you talk through this diagram.
There are two parts to Diagram Three:
· Part One: Jesus’ life was the model of how to live (use a straight line to each relationship)
· Part Two: Jesus’ death was the experience of Hell on our behalf (break each line with diagonals)
Optional: Write CROSS beside this diagram
Concepts to communicate:
First Part of Diagram 3:
- Our view of God and life is distorted and all our relationships are unbalanced – by our choices. God could have (should have) written us off and trashed us (we will use this word “trashed” again). But God loves us, loves His whole creation. He chose instead to send his only Son, Jesus. (Write “Jesus” in the centre). Jesus came down to our level so we could see what life really should be like and what God is like, too. He lived the balanced life of relationships none of us have lived.
- His relationship to His Father God was totally open. He prayed like He breathed (contrast that with our prayers, which are infrequent and often crisis-oriented). His delight was to respond to God’s direction. He was instantly, completely obedient. He had unbroken communication with God and total intimacy with him. This relationship was the passion and focus of his life (unlike us...).
- Jesus was totally balanced in relation to persons around Him. He gave Himself to people, but wasn’t dependent on them. He was deeply compassionate, to the poor, the hungry, the sick, the prostitutes, the down/up-and-outers..., the lepers (AIDS victims of his day...). He was without prejudice. He loved both sexes equally and in healthy ways. He formed deep, lasting friendships, marked by integrity and affection. He defined LOVE for others by his actions.
- Jesus was totally balanced in his relationship to self. He didn’t know guilt nor fear. He could sleep on a boat in a storm. He never had to say, “I’m sorry”, nor wish he could do/say something again and get it right. He was neither egotistical nor lacking in esteem. He was totally at peace with self. He had it together.
- Jesus was rightly related to stuff and the world around Him. He had a deep appreciation for nature (“consider the lilies of the field... the birds of the air”). He could ride an unbroken donkey, could command a school of fish, could still a storm. But He didn’t live for or accumulate stuff. He “loved people and used things”, not vice versa. He was in total harmony with the universe.
So Jesus is what a normal human should be. Am I like that? No. I may be better than the wino or the pervert or loser or... But I’m not like Jesus – not close. A sinner is one who is not like Jesus. That’s me, that’s all of us.
Second Part of Diagram Three:
Jesus showed us what we should have been, had we not been damaged by sin (searching for meaning without God). But we needed more, so His love gave it. He voluntarily chose to experience the consequence of our twistedness. His death on a cross does this. Now go through each relationship again, showing how they are all “trashed” for Jesus. Deal with His relationship to God last.
- His relationship to others collapsed. His friends abandoned him – one made money from his arrest. Another friend cursed and swore, rejecting any identification with Him. He was exposed to the worst of “man’s inhumanity to man” Highlight the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. No one helped Him. Most mocked and ridiculed Him. The crowd had a picnic while watching Him die. Others ran a lottery for his goods. He was all alone, experiencing the extreme: murder. We had the Model Person in our hands, and couldn’t stand it, so we killed Him.
- His relationship to self collapsed. He no longer was in control, but was deteriorating, dying, his agony intensifying, watching life blood drip from his wrists, heaving for one more breath. His inner life was in turmoil, for he is identifying with the worst of sin. He experienced the extreme: self-extinction.
- His relationship to the world around Him was ruined too. The cross, part of His creation, now tortured Him. The physical world was the source of His agony. The universe convulsed in darkness and earthquake, as though nature was vomiting out the evil Jesus is experiencing and absorbing. He experienced the extreme: the world is collapsing around Him
- But worst of all, His relationship to God was affected. He cried, “My God, My God, why have you abandoned Me?”, for God turned His face away from the sin-bearer, Jesus. And Jesus, who is God Himself, dies, the extreme destruction of this relationship. (We had the real God in our hands, to do with as we wished. We chose to get rid of Him).
- So Jesus allows Himself to be “trashed” in our place.
This is what HELL is: the trash heap of eternity. (Jesus’ most frequent term for Hell was the
That’s what Jesus experienced for us while on the cross. And he died in the darkness.
But... He didn’t stay dead! And Hell is not as extensive as His love for us. He rose from the dead!
DIAGRAM FOUR: CHOICE
Instructions for drawing (bottom right of page):
Write “me” and “you” (or your name and your friend’s name) in the place where the stick man should be.
Rebuild the relationships one by one. Start with “God”, then “Self”, then “People” then “Stuff”
Optional: write CHOICE for this diagram
Concepts to communicate:
Jesus offers us, as a gift, a fresh start on our relationships. We have a choice, to accept his offer of love, or to reject it. He values us so highly that He will respect our choice, even if it means we refuse His love. If we accept Jesus’ love:
- He begins by reconciling us to God. He forgives our sin, adopts us into God’s family, gives us an audience with Himself and begins a friendship that will only grow in intimacy. His care for us is permanent. I can never again say that God doesn’t love me, since the cross. This relationship will become our defining one.
- He then begins to rebuild our relationship to ourself. He shows how valuable we are, because He died for us (“who loved me and gave Himself for me...” Gal 2.20). He promises to renew me, so that I have my personality and His character. This is a lifelong process.
- He also renews our relationship to others. He gives us the ability to love, even when love is not reciprocated, for we begin to respond like He does. So we begin to live for others, lose our prejudice, defuse our hatred and bitterness, even love our enemies. This too takes a lifetime.
- And He will renew our relationship with the world around us. His future promise to us is a new universe, where there is only good, and no evil, with no sickness, no death, no pain, no sorrow. And right now, He will teach us to relate to this world as He, to use it and appreciate it, but not be determined by it (“...I have learned to be content, whatever circumstances I am in...” Phil. 4.11)
- His ultimate goal: that we be restored to wholeness and balance and total “togetherness”, with God, with self, with others and with our world... forever.
now we must make a choice, before we die, before Jesus returns.
- Do we continue our hell-bent determination to find meaning without God, and be the god of our own made-up universe?
- Or do we yield to His control, let Him be God, and respond to His love?
Here’s how we make the right choice:
A – Accept that I’m a sinner in need of Jesus’ rescue
B – Believe He’s done all to restore me to right relation with God, self, others and the world
C – Commit my life to Him, acknowledging my sin, asking His forgiveness, being willing to repent (turn from sin and turn to Him)
D – Do it! Right now!...
Or: the foundation I need for real life
B – Believe that Jesus died for me, to forgive my sins.
A – Accept his offer of a new life, because of his resurrection.
S – Switch ownership of life from myself to God
E – Express with words my decision to turn to God and follow Jesus