Oh Christian, in what do you put your hope? Is your salvation secure in your attendance record at church? What about the good deeds you do going the extra mile for those in need? What about your excellent and upstanding reputation as a faithful and loving man of God? Is it your baptism, your deep understanding of complex systematic theology, or your ability to teach lessons on the Bible well?
I have bad news for you. None of those things can save you. If your hope for salvation is in any of these things, you have completely missed the point of the cross. For 1500 years God gave Israel the law and they failed to live by it in nearly every generation. It could not save them. If you want proof of this, read Exodus as the Israelites are fleeing Egypt and see how they responded to God's miraculous work bringing them out of slavery. Or read in Genesis as God continues to reveal himself and bless the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) and the drama the came from their sins. This same pattern continues throughout the entire Old Testament as God works towards the cross through human history. What is it about the presence of God's mercy and grace in the lives of sinful people that makes them want to go on sinning? This is what I want to get at today: if the most righteous examples in the Old Testament, some who had seen God and his great miracles would not be saved by their actions despite living under the law, why do we who are living under the covenant of grace try to place our salvation in something other than the free mercy and righteousness earned by Christ on the cross? There is no salvation apart from justification by faith alone. Paul writes in Romans that Abraham was justified by his faith because he believed in God so much that he was willing to act on that belief. Many like to point to James chapter 2 that says faith without works is dead in order to say that we are justified by our works. Consider the context of this passage compared to Romans 4. Paul and James are writing in two different contexts to two different audiences. This is not to say some are justified in their works and others are not, but to say their purpose in writing is very different! Paul was writing to a church split over the issue of works between Jews and Gentiles, a church divided over what was necessary to be saved. It was important that the Jewish believers understand that salvation is by faith alone and not by works of the law. James is writing to a Gentile audience that had become lazy in their faith, sitting back and ignoring all of the commandments God has given to his church.Their lack of works was evidence of no faith at all! Paul is talking about justification before God, James is talking about evidence of our Justification before men. To boil this down and risk being too general, we can understand this by knowing that true belief creates true actions. If we really believe something, we will act upon it. If you believe the world as we know it will fall into a zombie apocalypse tomorrow then you will gather up supplies and weapons and find safe shelter. If you don't really believe a zombie apocalypse is coming, then you will go on living normally. If you really believe that you are a bad person, guilty of sin and breaking God's righteous law, then you will believe that Jesus is your only hope for salvation. There is no amount of good deeds you can perform to make right your wrongs. If you really believe that Jesus makes you spiritually alive by the holy spirit (as his word teaches us) then you will begin to live a life according to his will. Faith saves, and work is the fruit of that salvation. Don't put the cart before the horse and make a wreck of your soul. Salvation is by the work of the cross. "The grounds of your justification are the perfect works of Jesus Christ. We’re saved by works, but they’re not our own.” -R.C. Sproul What if every Christian in the world began sharing the Gospel once a week? This is one of my favorite hypothetical questions, because it isn't hypothetical at all. In our small church in a small town we talk about church growth a lot. Strategies, where we went wrong in the past, how we can grow moving forward, playing the blame game and numerous other rationalizations. All of these, while they help us understand the situation, fail to really answer the problem we have.
As those who are in Christ, our great commission from Jesus himself is to go, making disciples. Are we fulfilling this one command? This past Sunday my sermon from Amos 2 left us with a challenge, to share the Gospel once this week. Of the 44 in attendance, I would suspect that all but handful are truly born-again believers. Which means about 40 people profess Christ as their savior and are qualified to evangelize Gallia County. Jesus taught us that sometimes the seeds of the Gospel will fall on deaf ears and hard hearts (Matthew 13), and yet some of it will fall on hungry hearts and desperate minds, eager for salvation and satisfaction that comes only from the cross. What if 60 people all shared the Gospel once this week? Even if it is a numbers game, would five of those people accept the Gospel? What if even one of those five becomes a faithful member at Good News? All of a sudden, God has added another faithful laborer to our community! And now we have 61 that share the Gospel each week. What if, of those 61 Gospel conversations, just one is converted? Before you know it, a year of faithfulness has doubled our number! People ask me how I am going to grow Good News Baptist Church. I just smile and say "I'm not, but God is." God did not call pastors to be the sole evangelist in his churches, he has called all of us that are in Christ to be disciples making more disciples! We all have the holy spirit that leads us in this. What if... we were all faithful in this? Will God not honor that faithfulness by changing hearts? If we continue to plant seeds and water them, will God not give the growth? If that's the case, let us be faithful in sharing the Gospel! |
Pastor MorganMorgan has been writing since middle school and worked for a year writing professionally as a news journalist for the Daily Tribune in Gallipolis. This blog is a chance for him to express his love for the Lord and all church related things through writing. Archives
December 2019
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