One of the great tasks of being a Christian is to go into the world an proclaim the excellencies of the one who called us. I do think we so often get taken up with the idea of evangelism as presenting a basic message about what Jesus did on the cross to the detriment of seeing it as a more fulsome task of proclaiming the excellencies of him who called us, in which the cross is not the whole story but a **ahem** crucial aspect. We are not called to just tell people the basic message of how they can get right with God, but to proclaim his excellence to them. A key part of what makes Jesus so excellent is the cross – we are missing something absolutely vital if we don’t mention it – but to proclaim his excellence suggests doing something more than imparting basic facts.

That is what I think often goes missing. It’s not particular key facts about mankind, the problem of sin and the particular solution in Christ. It’s more that we can convey all those things factually and yet do very little to proclaim Christ’s excellence. Not only is there much more to the excellence of Jesus than just what he did on the cross that we often don’t mention – though I can’t stress enough, what he did on the cross is a pretty major bit of excellence in its own right – but there is perhaps a tone and feel to what we say that may or may not convey excellence too. There is a difference between simply saying things Jesus has done that are good and so enthusing about Jesus that he is seen to be excellent. And proclaiming his excellencies suggests we find him so excellent that it just spills out of us. We are not merely into the imparting of basic facts about Jesus, but overflowing with the greatness of him that our evident love for him is seen, felt and heard.

The usual example we might give is the way people talk about whatever they are excited about. When somebody is excited about something – a holiday, a wedding, their hobby, whatever – it just spills out of them. They don’t necessarily rabbit on about it endlessly, they might have a bit more sense that not everyone is quite as excited as they are about it, but it definitely comes out. You will hear about it at least a bit and there is a palpable sense when they are speaking that this is not just some information they are imparting neutrally, facts to be heard and weighed, but a thing they are desperately excited about. Even if you’re not into yourself and don’t get the appeal, you can tell they just love it.

If that is what we are to be like when it comes to Jesus, the inevitable question is why are we often not like that? The seemingly obvious answer seems to be that we have something of an affection problem. If we really loved Jesus as much as we did our football team, or penchant for antique rugs, or obsessive music interest or whatever it is we are happy to cack on about even to the deeply uninterested, what’s stopping us doing the same about Jesus? It just seems we might not love him as much or we don’t think he’s quite as excellent. If we are those sorts of people who do drone on and on about our interests, or who do enthuse about these others things, I don’t think this is an unfair inference.

But we have to be a bit careful because some of us aren’t the kind of people who prate about our interests. Some of us aren’t effuse like that. Some of us might genuinely think Jesus is so much more excellent than all our interests, but we’re just not the kind of character or personality that goes on and on about those other things either. It’s not necessarily an affection problem so much as a personality trait.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that we shouldn’t speak about the excellencies of him who called us. Personality test scores aren’t a get-out-of-obeying-Jesus-free card. But it does mean a tendency not to over-enthuse about anything in particular, or not to want to bore people with our special interests, might mean we are less the kind of people who will go on and on about Jesus in that way. It’s not an affection problem or a sign that we don’t love Jesus enough necessarily, just that we’re not that sort of person. But I do think there will be things we do talk about, and ways that we do talk about what we love more generally, and our speaking about Jesus ought to at least mirror how we would enthuse about anything else.

But perhaps the other way to think about this proclaiming of his excellencies is to take a whole of life view of it. If we are with people and sharing our lives with them, we will have all manner of opportunities to speak about Jesus in different ways and at different times emphasising different things about his greatness. Our speaking about the greatness of Jesus doesn’t all have to be at once and doesn’t have to be everything great about him. But little by little, whether it is simply telling others how helpful prayer is in the midst of life’s difficulties knowing that God is listening because of Jesus, or how comforting it is to know Jesus is in control, or how the gospel helps us filter various pressures of modern life, or whatever it is, these things might just be throwaway sentences. They may just be the natural comments of somebody who is genuinely in a living relationship with Jesus, just as one might mention the support of a spouse with whom one is in genuine relationship too. It may not be big or flashy, it may not even feel always like proclaiming excellence, so much as simply saying here is something good about knowing Jesus that is relevant.

But the point is that not having his excellence spill out of us in the form of verbiage may not be a sign that we have an affection problem. It may just be evidence of a particular personality. It may be evidence of other perfectly innocent and ordinary things too. We shouldn’t be too quick to assume a lack of affection for Jesus. But I think it is fair to say, if we find that we never have anything to say, might it be because we don’t actually have a living relationship with him and we simply don’t recognise his excellency? It is fine not to enthuse in the way more effuse people might, but if we have nothing to say at all, it might be because we don’t see the excellencies because, perhaps, he hasn’t as yet called us.