“Therefore go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20a).
When the people of Israel told Samuel they wanted a king to rule over them, God told Samuel what to do and who to anoint. When Saul became Israel’s first king, God provided Samuel to be the priest/prophet to Saul. Samuel’s duty was to speak God’s truth to Samuel. Samuel’s duty was not to tell Saul how to govern, but it was to tell Saul what God expected of him and of the nation.
When God established the Church, He gave the Church the responsibility to speak God’s truth to a lost and dying world. To a world that thought they didn’t need God, it was the Church who shared the Good News of Jesus Christ, and God blessed the message, spreading the Gospel across the Roman Empire and to the far reaches of the world.
First and foremost, the Church’s duty is to speak God’s truth to the world. In a free, secular society such as the United States, the role of the Church is critical as the moral compass for our nation. The Constitution provides the legal basis for our nation of law, and the Church has no business in the governing of our nation. But the Church does have a moral duty to speak out on the issues of the day and of matters of God’s will for society. Rather than relying on a legislative agenda, the Church must rely on the power of God and His message.
The Church speaks to our nation in many ways. We speak through the pulpits of our many churches and we speak through the various Christian colleges and universities across our nation. It is in the pulpits where the Word of God is to be proclaimed with power and with conviction. It is in the universities that the Christian doctrine and principles are taught to the students as they prepare to make their mark on society.
The most powerful voice of the Church, however, comes not from the pulpits or the universities, but from the men and women who make the membership of the many churches across our nation. As God’s people respond to His calling and direction, so our nation is influenced and transformed.
Sadly, I believe our nation is in need of a great revival, a renewal of our faith and commitment to Christ as individuals and as a Church. In our present world, too many of those who attend our churches and profess to be Christians seem unaware of what it means to live for Christ, or unwilling to do so. Far too often, the world is confronted by Christians who only differentiate themselves from the non-Christian by church attendance. If the only difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is that the Christian spends one or two hours at church on Sunday morning, where is the incentive to convert? Where is the attraction of Christ to the world if the only thing Christianity seems to offer is morning worship?
It is time for our churches to realize that we must do a better job of teaching and training our members if we hope to have a great revival in our land. Our nation needs it, and our churches need it. In order for this revival to take place, it is imperative that the people who make up our churches heed the commands of Christ and submit ourselves to His Lordship.
The Church has an important role to play in this revival. If we are to bring about a renewal of our faith in this nation, we must begin with the church members. Before we can speak God’s truth to the world around us, we must first make sure we are right with Him. “Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plan in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’ when all the time there’s a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-5).
In Acts 2:42-47, the early Church in Jerusalem is described in this way: a) devotion to the apostles’ teachings; b) fellowship; c) prayer; d) a sense of awe; e) unity in purpose; f) willingness to share; and, g) praise to God. I understand this to mean that the Church must be built on solid Biblical understanding, a powerful sense of God actively working in and through the church, individually and corporately and a genuine community of faith. These things are intermingled. A church that focuses on God’s Word, willing to be shaped by the working of the Holy Spirit through the lives of the church and its members, will have a strong sense of fellowship and of awe. When we are actively seeking God in prayer and Bible study, through corporate worship, we are preparing ourselves to see His majesty and power has He works through us. “Call to Me, and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3). “’For I know the things I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon Me and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 29:11-14a).
Revival is ours for the asking, but we must seek Him with all our heart. If the Church is going to bring revival to its people, then the Church needs to stress the following truths to our members:
- The Power of Grace
At the very core of the Gospel is the reality of grace. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23-34).
God’s grace is demonstrated through the sending of His Son (cf. John 3:16). Grace is seen in the fact that Christ “. . . died for the ungodly. But God demonstrates His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6b, 8).
Grace enables us to come to God with an open heart and a freedom from sin—“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16; cf. Hebrews 10:19-23).
When we fully embrace God’s grace, we are made keenly aware of how powerful is His love for us and that we have no right to judge or condemn others who have not yet experienced that grace. We understand that grace is not a rubber stamp, a get out of jail card, to indulge in our sins. Rather, we come to an awareness that grace frees us from sin, frees us to serve and worship and follow the Lord Jesus Christ with a glad and grateful heart. We were sinners, we were dead in Christ, we were His enemies, and Christ still died for us. God Himself saves us through Christ Jesus, making us His children (cf. John 1:12-13), and nothing we can do or say can compel Him to do so. We come to God on His terms, and He saves us by His grace and His mercy.
That grace calls us to a ministry of reconciliation and compassion. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come. All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:17-19).
Without an understanding of how grace transforms us, we cannot begin to truly share that grace with a world in desperate need of fellowship with God. We cannot become ambassadors of reconciliation.
- Love Is Not a Feeling, but a Way of Living, a Way of Acting
“Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and truth” (1 John 3:18).
When we hear the word “love,” we often think of warm feelings, puppies, rainbows, starry eyes and all sorts of other fuzzy feelings. While we all want to fall in love and (more importantly) have someone fall in love with us, the love described throughout the New Testament is not tied into this, but is a way of living, a way of acting, a way of being.
In previous blogs, I’ve written about love being the very essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and I’ve mentioned more than once that our love for God is demonstrated in the way we treat other people. While I believe the most significant passage on loving God and others is found in 1 John 4, there is another passage that defines love—1 Corinthians 13. If the Church is going to be truly successful in a pluralistic society, then the Church needs to stress the significance of love and how it shapes our world view.
“Love is patient; love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a).
Looking at the list of virtues that goes into the making of love (here a translation of the Greek word agape, meaning an unconditional kind of love), it is easy to be struck by the high standards that are set and that are expected of the people of God. Each of these virtues is expressed in the way we relate to the world around us and the people in it. A wise pastor I knew once told me that people are no good, hence the need for patience and kindness. Love wants what is best for those around us; thus the lack of envy, boasting, haughtiness, anger and grudges. Rather than promoting evil, love stresses the truth that is found in Christ. The eternal aspects of love is protection, trust, hope and perseverance. Because all these things are placed within us through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we know the validity of these traits, and we know why they will never fail.
The phrase, “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in truth,” reminds me of the adage, “Hate the sin; love the sinner.” Ask anyone in a church setting if this is the way it should be, and the answer will be almost unanimously in the affirmative. However, taking this into the practical realm, too often we emphasize the sin over the sinner. There are too many sins the church members are unwilling to overlook in pursuit of loving the sinner, and the result is that God’s message of love and reconciliation is drowned out by our revulsion to a particular sin. I’ll speak more to this matter in a later part of the role of the Church in a free society, but for now our churches should be addressing to our members the practical ways we can show kindness, patience and the other aspects of what it is to love as defined in this passage and throughout the Bible.
- God’s Word is Very Real, Very Near and Very Vital to Our Faith
“But the righteousness that is by faith says, ‘Do not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?” (that is, to bring Christ down) or, “Who will descend into the deep? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart” (Romans 10:6-8a).
I believe God speaks to us in many ways, through many means, even today. There are those who will say that God’s speaking to people ended with the final period placed in Revelation, but I disagree. I believe God is still willing to do what He has done in the past, but we are too caught up in being enlightened people to try not to ascribe to God what He is doing.
Even though God speaks to us in many ways, the most accurate and the most direct way God speaks is in the pages of the Bible. The writer of Hebrews tells us, “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrew 4:12).
Jesus reminded the disciples that last night in the upper room, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:26).
John’s first reference to Jesus in his gospel account was as the Word, the Word that was with God and that was God. He tells us later in that first chapter that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (cf. John 1:114). Since Jesus is the living Word, and since the Holy Spirit reminds us of His words, then the Bible is God’s word to us in a very real and present form.
The Church needs to teach our members that the best way we are to find answers, to find instruction, to find an accurate presentation of Jesus and His expectations of us is to become people deeply committed to the Bible. We don’t look at the Bible as a sacred item worthy of worship, but as our primary source of learning and guidance.
As Christians, we are confronted with life’s challenges on a daily basis, and these challenges raise up many questions. It is imperative that members of the body of Christ, His Church, know where to go and how to discern His will. The Bible is readily available to each church member, and it only takes a few moments to teach the membership how to study the Bible, why to study the Bible. We need to learn how to meditate on the Word, how to memorize the Word so that it can truly go with us in our hearts and in our minds. We also need to be taught that the Holy Spirit, the author of the Bible, is with us, illuminating the Word for us (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16; John 13:16). As we battle Satan and his minions, we need to not only be armed with the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17), but we need to know how to use it (2 Timothy 2:15).
If we fail to stress the importance of being in the Word on a daily basis, then we send the soldiers out with empty scabbards. We don’t need church history or inspirational quotes and messages; we need the Word of God. We need the Bible. And we need it always.