On not doing nothing

A friend of mine is visiting nursing homes and telling the gospel. It made me think of the variety of ways people tell God's good news to humanity: Scripture in schools, English classes at churches, and visiting nursing homes!

God loves variety - he didn't just create one type of flower, but thousands; not one type of bird, but thousands! Each of us is different because God loves variety, and each of us will tell God's news to different people.

When we came back from Kenya two years ago for the last time, my first sermon was on Matthew 25:14-30, about a master entrusting his money with servants to invest it on his behalf.

Two servants took risks and made some more for their master. The other did nothing.

Its point is that the only wrong thing you can do with the gospel is nothing.

Not telling the gospel shows you don't trust it; you don't trust Jesus or the one who sent him.

It shows your heart. God cannot be fooled, even if we fool ourselves.

The other two servants in the story had differing results, but they were both commended. But the one without faith, who didn't love his master, though a servant, was of no use to his master. His master might as well have kept his money himself. That servant was not worth keeping.

But how can you not tell such good news? How can it not burst out of you? It is the greatest thing going, by far! In it we not only avoid our deserved (terrible) fate, but we become recipients of so much more. Everything else we do, however good, pales in comparison.

In Korogocho I would teach that by trusting Jesus, by taking God at his word, we are saved...

• from God's fury,


• for God’s love,


• as God's child.

We are no longer merely created items, but are now children of the Creator (1 John 3:1-2).

…with an inheritance! I would tell people in Korogocho slum that as Christians they were the richest people in the world. Their Father made everything, so owns everything, and they are inheriting from him!

…forever! It won't fade or end.

And the bit they liked best was that they were never alone; not at the final judgment, but not now either. Never again on their own in this rocky life.

How can you love people with temporary loves like medical care, justice, improved lifestyle etc., and not love them with the most loving thing in our arsenal?

Not including gospel proclamation in everything we do is not loving enough for those of us who know the best. How can we keep it to ourselves? How unloving would that be, whatever else we do?

We need to keep reminding ourselves, again and again, of how good God's good news is.

Author: Joe Radkovic is a husband, father of three and medical doctor. He spent a decade setting up a maternity clinic for slum-dwellers in Nairobi, Kenya, where clients could also hear the gospel. He trained slum pastors in biblical theology on the side. He now attends a small church plant in Coniston, Wollongong, and volunteers with the AFES ministry at the University of Wollongong.