Occasionally, I get a hankering for the down-to-earth happy sound of gospel bluegrass music. I love a half-hour dose of bouncing banjos, fidgeting fiddles, guitar, mandolin, and a lonesome voice squawking out hopeful choruses about salvation.

The other day, I happened to have a bluegrass gospel album in my car when I was giving a Turkish friend a ride. “What’s this?” he asked, looking at the CD cover. I blushed as he pressed play, a bit embarrassed of the hillbilly sound, not knowing how he would handle it.

“This is very happy music!” he said, as he looked at the album song titles. “Is this religious music?”

Reading a song titled Oh, When He Touched Me, he said, “I think the He must be Allah. ‘Allah touched me,’ right?” he asked. Another was Lord, Lead Me to Higher Ground. He said, “The Lord here must refer to the prophet Jesus. Jesus was a very important prophet.”

I agreed. “Yes, He is the only prophet born without a father and by a virgin.” He nodded in agreement—Muslims believe this, too.

He continued down the song list. “All Aboard the Gospel Train.” Then he paused. “What does the word gospel mean?”

“Gospel means Iyi Habar [good news],” I said. “When the melekler [angels] came down from jennet [heaven] at the birth of Peygamber Isa [prophet Jesus], they announced to the whole world, “Jesus is iyi habar for the whole dunya [earth]. A kurtarije [savior] is born, the Mesih [Messiah].”

Since that incident, I have thought again and again about how, among all world religions, happy songs are unique to Christ’s followers. To the people who don’t know Jesus’ salvation, what a mystery the happy sounds of Christian singing must be! (Muslims have no singing or music in their worship.) Songs full of hope, anticipation, power, and joy stream from glad hearts around the globe! “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy dwelling places of the Most High” (Ps. 46:4). That gospel stream makes the recipients of grace so glad that happy songs bubble up and out—a phenomenon common to believers spanning all cultures with no explanation other than their minds have seen glory. As the song says, “When by His grace I shall look on His face, that will be glory, yes glory for me.”

It is surely a mystery to the unhopeful. Why the happiness? Were the angels singing at Jesus’ birth paid performers? No! Songs welled up inside them, and the celebration broke through the veil of the unseen. Like Paul and Silas singing in prison, and like the man healed in the name of Jesus of Nazareth in Acts 3:8, we go “walking and leaping and praising God.” The good news is the source of our happiness. When fully and personally perceived, this gospel is unstoppable in its power to transform hearts and inspire praise.

I believe this factor of joy in Jesus Christ is itself a defender of earnest local evangelism and fearless foreign mission. Let me explain.
Recently, the pastor of a large church in the States looked up at me with a wry smile. “Do you really think those Muslim people are lost?” He was implying that God’s grace and compassion would take care of the multitudes of unreached peoples without our annoying them or troubling ourselves.
Wanting to understand the pastor’s intent, I returned the question to him: “What do you think?”

He said, “Well, Romans 2:14 and 15 really seem to say that God will make a way for them, regardless of their hearing the gospel.” In other words, people whose hearts are won by the Spirit’s whisper need not know specifically that it was Jesus who worked out their salvation. They will find that out at the judgment and express their gratitude in eternity.

I agree with the pastor about Romans 2. As Adventists, we are unique in holding this graceful view of the future for many tender hearts among the billions who never hear the good news in full. However, the pastor and those who think like him are missing one critical part of the kingdom equation; namely, the joy factor.

The great commission is in a large part given for this double joy—the joy of knowing the good news and the joy of telling the good news. Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.” Pervasive joy is part of the kingdom plan. Joy now for everybody is a delight to God and a conquest over sin and evil.

If the good news were just “nice news,” then I would agree that missions could wait and evangelism could be shelved for other church programs. But the reality is that the good news is transforming people’s lives. Really, when do human lives need to be transformed? In eternity where everything is perfect or now when people are afraid, worried, and stressed? They need the song now!

The gospel putting songs on people lips is this: through heritage and personal choice, we would be destined for personal extinction with Satan and his angels. However, God in His love has masterfully executed an amazing plan of intervention. While we were still sinners, by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God has made a way for us to live together with Him forever in positions of honor in a delectable and playful paradise of wonders!

The lyricist truthfully writes, “I sing because I’m happy. I sing because I’m free.” And another says, “Now I’m singing as the days go by, Jesus took my burdens all away.” He really does take our burdens and give us peace within. Happiness is to know the Savior. I can’t deprive someone else of that joy! I want to sing so the world can hear, “He’s alive, and my sins are forgiven. Heaven’s gates are open wide. He’s alive!” This joy becomes the catapult for all mission.

Folk singer and composer Don Francisco describes in song the story of the synagogue ruler, Jairus, imploring Jesus to heal his deathly ill daughter. Before Jesus can arrive at his house, the news comes: “Your daughter has died.” But Jesus raises the girl from the dead and then instructs Jairus, “Tell no one what has happened” (Luke 8:56). The song perfectly captures the dilemma this creates for Jairus, caught between the thrill of a miracle and the command of the miracle maker. The song ends with him repeating over and over with wild passion, “I have got to tell somebody. I have got to tell somebody what Jesus has done for me. I have got to tell somebody!”

Is your gratitude for the miracle Jesus has done in you and for you propelling you to song? Let the Spirit win you over.

Today, I stopped in to say hello to Gulme, a goldsmith friend of mine. About a month ago, he told me, “I will pray five times a day until I die because I don’t want any problems on the judgment day.” Today, when I stopped by, I found him and Akrem, another friend, kneeling behind the jewelry counter feasting on a watermelon. Immediately, they invited me to join them in the sweet, cool delight. As I sat with them on the floor finishing the last piece of watermelon, one of them made a little speech with tender gestures. “Barnabas, you are our brother. Allah wants us to all live as brothers. We love Allah, and we want you to know we love you.”

I was deeply moved. What more could I ask? With love for Allah and love for their neighbors, do these Muslim men really need a missionary? Surely, by the standard of Romans 2, they will be counted in the kingdom. What more could I ask for?

Well, what more could Jesus have wanted of Nicodemus, or why did Jesus meddle in Pharisee Saul’s earnest life? I want for my friends, Gulme and Akrem, what Jesus wants—for them to sing! I want these men who live in quiet fear of the judgment to have unshackled joy. No, I don’t care if they ever like bluegrass music, but I want the good news of Jesus’ ransom to be so real to them that they will be filled with happiness and leap in the streets wild-eyed with wonder at the miracle Jesus has done in them and sing, “I’ve got to tell somebody, I’ve got to tell somebody what Jesus has done for me!”

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