How to Share Your Faith Using Gwen Stefani's The Sweet Escape
The Sweet Escape has bubbled and bounced it way up to number 2 on the music charts. Gwen Stefani's airy, infectious song dreams of a world where it's easy to escape when you need to-and what's not to love about that? Sounds sweet!
But digging deeper, The Sweet Escape is actually about a relationship mess, apologizing, placing blame and dreaming that it could all be better. Ever find yourself in a place like that?
Whether it's friends, parents, sibs, or whatever, when relationships get messed up with hurtful words, backstabbing, competition, or power plays, escaping the hurt and re-creating a world where everything is smooth and sweet again has a huge appeal. Most of us long for second chances and easy escapes from our mess ups. The song's lyrics repeatedly capture that longing:
If I could escape
And re-create a place in my own world
And I could be your favorite girl
Forever, perfectly together
Tell me boy, now wouldn't that be sweet?
While all of us have experienced relational troubles on a human level, there's another relationship dimension that's even more important than friends or family-and that's our relationship with God. What about second chances and easy escapes on the spiritual level?
Amazingly, God stands ready to offer us total forgiveness for our mess ups, if we turn to Him and accept his offer of grace and salvation through Jesus. He has made a 'sweet escape' from the prison of sin and death available to all who turn to Him and believe. And that gift of grace is available to everyone, no matter how badly we've messed up. The Bible puts it this way:
"...anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We're Christ's representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them. We're speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he's already a friend with you." (2 Corinthians 5:17-20, The Message)
So the next time you're listening to The Sweet Escape with your unreached friends, use it to talk about Jesus and His offer of a new beginning that really is a 'sweet escape' for all eternity! Here are some conversation starters you can use.
- Do you believe in a spiritual dimension to life? What do you think God's like? Do you think we can have a personal relationship with Him? Listen to what your friends believe, and then ask if you can share what you believe about God. Share how Jesus has impacted your life.
- Has anyone ever explained to you what the Bible says about God's offer of forgiveness and salvation through Jesus?
- Did you know that God offers to forgive all our sins-even the really bad ones? For help explaining this, check out the Soul Fuel article The Unforgiven.
God offers second chances and new beginnings that go way beyond anything human relationships have to offer. And there's nothing sweeter!
