The Gospel Online

The Gospel Online

by Ben Horrex

I have read a few books that to be honest utterly condemn the reader for using social media of any kind so it is refreshing to find a book that looks at the scriptural basis for using social media. Yes I know social media is a modern invention and there is real harm online at times but in this book, The Gospel Online by Ben Horex we are instructed how to use social media for gospel means.

Ben looks at 5 ways we can use to implement effective means on social media - identity, name, word, body and community.

Who are you when you use social media? Is your real persona being portrayed or is it all a false perception? How does my faith interact with my online world? Just because the bible, a 2000 year old book doesn't talk about social media doesn't mean that God is silent on the topic. We need to see the opportunities for evangelism and discipleship online, both sharing our faith and encouraging other Christians in their walk with Jesus.

The bible may not obviously give a perspective on social media on first reading. And yet God's word is living and active showing us principles to live by that will transform our earthly lives. We would be foolish to think that new inventions such as social media aren't included in that transformation.

This little book, only 124 pages in length, traces 5 significant themes through the bible to show us what it looks like to be a Christian online, living for God's glory and resting in our knowledge that Jesus has saved us - not because of what we do, but because of how gracious God is.

The following is an exact transcript of the first way to implement effective means on social media - Identity.

Identity - Being authentic

Have you ever assumed what someone is like based on what you've heard about them, only to meet them and find out that they're completely different? What we share online about ourselves and what we are like can sometimes be really different. Social media can exaggerate the difference, giving us a bit of extra distance between who we are in reality and how we want to be seen. We can share what we want, comment what we want and edit anything that doesn't make us look quite right.

It's important to first think about how we see ourselves. The bible tells us how to know who we are and live differently, trusting in that new God-given identity.

Adam and Eve began to separate who they were and how they wanted to be seen. They made the decision to turn away from God. They decided that it wasn't enough to be loved by God because they also wanted the power to know what is good and what is evil. They therefore ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge, ignoring God's warning. As Adam and Eve are the representatives of all humans, their disobedience plunged humanity into a new normal of rebellion against God. Having done what they shouldn't, they suddenly saw what they're truly like: naked and vulnerable. They could be seen for who they really were. Genesis 3 verse 7 says "Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realised that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves." When they saw that they were exposed, that they were visible to each other and God, they felt the need to cover themselves. They hid themselves from each other and from God. Adam and Eve hadn't been created with the shame and brokenness that we have now. They were created perfectly, without fault. After God had finished each part of his creation, the bible tells us clearly, "God saw that it was good" (Genesis 1 verse 10, 12, 18, 21 and 25) Humanity was part of the goodness of creation. Initially, they felt no shame being naked and vulnerable around each other and God (Genesis 2 verse 25). And yet as soon as sin came into the world, Adam and Eve felt the need for clothes to hide something of themselves from each other and their Creator, rather than being vulnerable and revealing themselves (Genesis 3 verse 7). 

If we realise that even those first humans tried to show themselves in a better light and hide something of who they were, it's no surprise that we feel the need to hide something of who we are.

We have a natural instinct to want to hide our bad things and display our good aspects, splitting the person that people see from the person that we truly are. While it's fine to have some privacy and not to want everyone in the world to see every bit of our lives, we tend to try and polish up our identity to make ourselves look a bit better. And if we are not careful, our identity becomes more connected to the persona we've constructed, the polished version of ourselves, than the honest assessment and knowledge of who we are to God.

The bible is very clear that while we might manage to hide from others, there's no way to hide from God. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve couldn't hide their sin from him.

Paul, one of the most famous Christians in history became a believer soon after Jesus' death and resurrection, going on to set up many churches. Many of his letters to those congregations are in the bible, showing us what it looks like to live as Christians. He said in 1 Corinthians 4 verses 3 to 5 "I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God." There's no hiding from God because he sees all. He brings light to the darkness, exposing everything that we are, both the good and bad. Every time you've cringed and wished someone couldn't see what you've done and couldn't know what runs through your mind, God sees and knows. His is the opinion that matters because he is the one who knows us completely, who can "expose the motives of the heart", seeing not just what we've done but why we've done it.

God looks into our hearts and sees how broken we are. Nothing is hidden from his sight. He sees that we continually want to be selfish, to make life easier for ourselves at the expense of others, to take more than we deserve, to bend the truth to make ourselves look good. He sees you, not the polished up persona you hide behind.

If someone could see that level of depth - every thought you had, every action you took - and knew why you did those things, what would their reaction be? If someone knew me, my thought and my actions - without my persona showing off only my good qualities - they would definitely see me very differently. And yet, God reacts in a way that we might not expect. While we might feel shame, God is a relational God who reaches out to us.

God sees who you are, every bit of you, and still loves you. He loves you so much that he sent his Son Jesus to the cross to rescue you. He didn't do that because of the persona you present or the good works you manage. He saved you for the person you are - someone who is broken and sinful, but seeking a Saviour and looking for hope in him.

In another of his letters to churches, Paul wrote this "... for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." (Romans 3 verses 23 and 24)

None of us is good enough to come before our amazing, perfect, all-powerful God as we are. We fall short, we make mistakes, we fail. And yet, Jesus went to the cross to redeem us, to pay for everything bad we've ever done or said or thought. Every bit of that broken person that you want to hide away from others is redeemed, fixed, perfected by God because of the great sacrifice Jesus made.

Later in the same letter Paul reiterates, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5 verse 8)

God doesn't love you because you've fixed your image and made yourself look perfect to the world. God doesn't only love the facade you put up for others to see. God doesn't love your perfect church personality on a Sunday more than your everyday reality at school or work.

God showed that he loved us, his broken and sinful people, when Jesus went to the cross for us. Jesus died not because of the good things that we've done but so that we might experience the goodness of God's love.

Therefore we have no reason to put up a facade for God, even if it feels like we should sometimes. He knows you inside out and loves you because, if you trust in Jesus and ask God for forgiveness of all you've done wrong, you've been washed clean and made perfect. While all Christians will still mess up sometimes, there's something very different about us. As followers of Jesus, our identity has changed.

Think about how you introduce yourself to someone new. Often, after giving your name, you might tell them how old you are, where you live or grew up, what you do for a job or which school you go to. They're the sort of things that we find helpful to understand who a person is and how we can relate to them.

While the bible doesn't tell us to avoid these being part of who we are, they aren't the core of our identity. Further on in Paul's letter he explains "For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.' The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children." (Romans 8 verses 14 to 16)

Our core identity, the thing that we build everything else upon, is that we're God's children. That's our new identity when we trust in Jesus. So, we don't need to be fearful of how people will see us. Nor do we need to stay enslaved by the idea that we must always do more and be better.

If we have asked for forgiveness from God and committed ourselves to him, we have God's Spirit living in us who helps us to live with that changed identity. He encourages us to call out to God as Father when we're in trouble because we are his children.

No longer will we need to show off and try to polish up our appearance. It doesn't matter whether you've been born into a rich or poor family, whether you've gone to church since you were a baby or whether you've only recently heard about Jesus. It doesn't even matter how many followers you have to show to virtually!

We're children of God because of what Jesus has done, giving us forgiveness by his grace. That's the foundation that everything else must be based upon.

That doesn't mean that everything else in your life needs to be thrown out. 

However, it does mean that you need to see every bit of your identity as secondary compared to your identity as a child of God. No matter how important other aspects of your life feel, they must be seen through the lens of your identity in Christ.

Being a child of God doesn't mean that there can't be other aspects to your identity, but it does mean that you need to look at those things in a different light. The place you were born, the friends you have or the type of person you see yourself as now needs to be seen through the lens of being a child of God. The identity that we've been given by God - the knowledge that we're loved by him, created by him, saved by him - must be the only thing that shapes the core of our identity. Nothing else can ever come above that identity. Anything else we construct and add needs to be secondary to the identity we receive from God.

That identity is completely secure and will never be broken, though you may change other parts of your identity. If you accept God as your King and Saviour, you will never lose your identity as God's child in all your life. You will forever be one who is forgiven by the Creator of this world, loved because of what Jesus did for you and destined to be with him in heaven for eternity. That's an identity worth clinging to.

The Danger
Forgetting your identity

How you see yourself is fundamental, but here are 2 main dangers in the area of identity; forgetting your primary identity or letting your secondary identities become primary.

Firstly, can you remember a time when your faith, while valuable, didn't seem as important as it should? A time when you had quite a low view of your faith? For those who've grown up in the church, there's a time when you have to decide: Do I trust in Jesus? Is this real? Am I willing to live differently? Am I willing to show that I'm a Christian online?

Without asking those questions, we can fall into a pattern of generally calling ourselves a "Christian" without thinking it's that important. It can be nice to sometimes go to church on a Sunday, but family and friends can seem more important than Jesus. Prayer is a nice concept and might help us to talk through our problems but just getting on with doing something seems a better use of time than voicing it to God. 

The problem here is that this isn't just a case of a Christian struggling a little or not being confident to talk about God online. This is a case of forgetting who they are.
If Jesus is God, the one who created the world and the one who went to the cross to die for you, being a follower of him is what defines who you are! His love, his grace, his sacrifice is something that can't be ignored.

That's why we want to prioritise being at church, reading the bible, spending time in prayer with God and getting to know other Christians. Not because those things make us better Christians and help us to earn God's love, but because those things continually bring us back to the truth: we're God's children and that matters more than anything else.

So when you spend time online, be on the lookout for things that drag your identity away from knowing you are a child of God. Be on the lookout for when your online presence is missing any reference to God, when your Instagram profile could be the profile of anyone, regardless of their trust in Jesus. If no one would have a clue that you're a Christian unless they asked you directly or caught you walking out of the church door; maybe change is needed!

Secondly, while someone might have a really high view of their relationship with God, a common danger is that they have an even higher view of one of their secondary identities.

While we might love being a great sibling, striving to be a good friend, growing as a football player or dreaming of being a nurse in the future, those identities should never be more important than your God-given identity as his child. Our relationship with him shapes everything we do. That's the most fundamental thing about us.

The danger is that sometimes our friends can look at us online and it's much clearer that we're passionate about our hobbies, sports teams and relationships than our identity as a Christian. The videos, pictures and comments we share about God can be much less frequent than how much we share about our holidays, our rugby team's latest win or the meal we had last night.

It's definitely not a bad thing to love the sport that you're good at, to get excited about the sequel to our favourite programme or to love spending lot of time with your family. The problem is when you love those things so much that they define who you are more than your relationship with God. When your time with God is less important than your time with your teammates. When you're willing to compromise what you believe God tells you in the bible because it doesn't sit well with what your friends think. How many of your interactions online would change if you no longer believed in Jesus?

God created lots of good things and he wants us to enjoy them and to love them. But when we start to love the things God has created more than the Creator himself, we've made a big mistake. If you get a present from someone who is really important to you, it would be a bit odd if you loved the present more than you love the person!

Don't let a secondary identity become your primary identity. God's love is transformative and nothing else can match it. Being good at golf is nothing like being a follower of the Creator of the universe. Being one of 3 siblings isn't as important as being a child of God.

These good gifts aren't better than the identity God has given you of being in relationship with him. So make sure that your online connections and communities never become the most important part of your life.

The Goal
A new primary identity

We've established that the most important part of our identity is that we're God's children; nothing else comes close to that. That means that while secondary things aren't unimportant, we need to make that primary identity much more important.
Most of all, it means prioritising time where we can foster our new identity. If we're God's children we can spend time talking with him in prayer, prioritise time listening to him in his word (the bible) and make the most of the time worshipping alongside others who are saved by Jesus too. The Holy Spirit, who has lived in us ever since we trusted in God to save us, energises us to live like this.

Truly seeing ourselves primarily as children of God will be really difficult if the time we give to God is, at best, minimal. Put aside the first 10 minutes in the morning that you would normally spend scrolling through social media and use them to open the bible and hear from God. Download a good prayer app or bible reading plan. Foster your God given identity and you'll find yourself seeing much more clearly how the other parts of your identity can work with and not against your faith. Your online presence can then begin to more authentically reflect who you are.

Your primary identity will give you life and free you up to do more, rather than restricting you to things you don't enjoy. It might sound obvious, but God doesn't make your life worse; he makes it much better! He wants to make your online world even better, with a rock-solid foundation built upon his love for you.

It's almost like God's given you a script to show you the best way to live as this new person - as his child. Being loved by God and having the security of being his child is like being giving the starring role in the best production, with a part like no other. He shows us in the bible what it looks like to have him as Father, to live for him, to speak for him. That script doesn't control us; it frees us from forever looking for our identity and desperately searching for meaning.

Alongside fostering that identity, make sure that your identity isn't hidden from those around you. When you introduce yourself, what do you first tell people? For many, saying that you're a Christian is quite a big step and feels almost embarrassing. But if you truly believe that Jesus is your Saviour who has saved you from death and given you a life worth living, surely living authentically means living out your God-given identity?

Don't just tell people about Jesus because "you should" but because it's who you are. If you're God's child and experience his amazing love for you, expect that to flow out of you to those around you, changing what you say and do.

The reality is that most people won't think you're that odd for talking about Jesus. A post about church on your profile won't end the world! Most conversations I have about my faith are brief and uneventful, and I don't expect that every person I talk to about Jesus will want to immediately read the bible with me! But that doesn't mean that those conversations aren't really valuable. They show who I am and what I think is important, making belief in God more relatable and opening the door for further questions.

Why not do your best to show that your primary identity is as a child of God? That this is clearly more important than the work you do, the place you live or the hobbies you enjoy?

In fact, showing your primary identity of faith in Jesus online could actually be easier than speaking to someone in person. There are opportunities for posting a bible verse that really struck you in the sermon at church, posting a picture of the game you played at the church youth club or celebrating when one of your friends gets baptised. All of these are small steps towards being more open about your faith.

Look at the bio you have on Instagram or whichever site you use most. Does it talk about who you are? Does God get a mention?

The goal isn't to force the gospel down the throat of everyone you meet, but to live as a child of God and make sure that identity is visible to others. First and foremost, you've defined by our relationship with God and his love for you, and we want to make that clear to others.

If someone looked at you and saw that there's something different about you, wouldn't it be brilliant if they knew why?