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The church practices and supports the work of evangelism to reconcile people to God through Jesus. In the past several decades growth movements have done much to focus the church on evangelism. Many churches have restructured their weekly services to focus on those that have not accepted Christ. Many organizations have also put effort into reviewing language, presentations and their image to find ways to avoid placing stumbling blocks in front of those that haven’t accepted Christ. It is a good idea to identify what might constitute a stumbling block and remove them (1 Cor 14:16) because the Church is not to be of the World but it is still in the world and is called to communicate to those in the World. This scope has been extended by many to include looking for ways to build bridges to various groups. Many times these methods attempt to identify doctrines and understandings of the bible that may be thought of as non-essential and that are objectionable to the world and then either down play, repackage, obscure, or list as one of several alternatives interpretations. All this to hopefully bring the world to the realization that “God gave us salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ”. But, what does it mean “God gave us salvation through his Son”. I believe this entails a submission or yielding to Christ as Lord not just an acceptance of Him as savior.
Romans 10:9-10
9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
Keeping this in mind; as we attempt to build bridges how do we decide what is essential and what isn’t? This goes beyond the question of what we present as being essential but within the church itself what we believe and teach as truth. Scripture tells us to make our calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10) but how sure are we if we keep questioning what scripture says or keep saying its unclear? This is why I feel the church has to take a stronger stance on biblical creationism along with other issues and not back down for fear that it might turn some people off. If the creation story were merely a story of beginnings and men’s rejection of God occurred later then it wouldn’t be of such concern. But the fall which is pivotal to the need for the Cross takes place in the story of creation. Coming to unbelievers while we have the fall of man now placed on the shaky uncertain ground of the allegorical leaves us with a calling which becomes shaky. If faith is our certainty but we say we are uncertain about how it all began and yes God has a story but we think God’s version of the beginning might be inaccurate then what else in scripture is inaccurate? Are we yielded to Christ if we keep looking for ways to deal with what we find objectionable in scripture?
The other aspect of accepting Christ as Lord and making our election sure is that we shouldn’t just assume that a confession of faith means a person is saved. The growth movements focuses on getting people in and believes that once we get their signature, their buy in we don’t have much to worry about, if they are in they are in, once saved always saved. But what is interesting is that Matthew 7 it says “Enter through the narrow gate; for the way is wide that leads to destruction..” Many assume that Jesus is talking to the world but in the context v21 it says “Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord Lord” will enter the kingdom..” So this passages is talking to the church. Of those who accept Christ and are part of the Church few of those will enter the kingdom. Our evangelism and methods in the church of just getting people in is too small and eventually may leave many out because we didn’t want to ruffle feathers by standing upon the Word and having faith inexorably in the Word and what the Word says and holding those in the church to believing the Word. The church should consider this as it structures itself or it will risk too much.
Glory to be Revealed 