23 Jan 2024
We noted in the previous sharing the importance of not only getting the teachings and features of the Gospel right but also we need to ensure that the critical implications and applications of the Gospel should not be missed and neglected in our daily living individually and as a church and community.
Also, we brought out the danger of substituting the implications and applications of the Gospel for the Gospel itself.
The Gospel should be the ‘measurement’ or ‘plumb line’ for all our thinking, speaking, teaching, and living. Paul commanded Timothy to watch both his life and his doctrine, and to persevere in doing so. Thus would Timothy save both himself and his hearers (1 Tim. 4:16). Paul writes to Timothy further of “the sound doctrine that conforms to the glorious Gospel” (1Tim. 1:10).
When the church teaches doctrines or permits patterns of living that are out of line with references to the Gospel, much damage occurs. We grieve the Holy Spirit and will sow the seeds of heresy or at the very least lead to distortions of the truth. And an unholy lifestyle, rather than making the “teaching about God and Saviour attractive,” can have the opposite effect. By substandard ungodly living we may drive a wedge between unbelievers and the church’s teaching, making it more difficult for them to hear, believe, and receive the message of the Gospel.
By focusing so much unhealthily on ‘grace’ to the point that we ignore the outworking, and applications of the gospel in the lives of believers in the church that are characterised by substandard ungodly living, we may think that we are practicing love, understanding and a non-judgmental spirit, when in fact we are causing God’s name to be blasphemed by the unbelieving world – we need instead to even rebuke those who walk unworthily of the calling they have received (Eph. 4:1).
It is easy for us to look away from Him who was crucified for our sins and raised for our justification. We want a God we can use: someone who will make all of our dreams come true, here and now, and make His kingdom visible in power and glory in our world. It is easy to take our eyes off Jesus Christ in heaven, at the Father’s right hand, interceding for us and dispensing His gifts. It is easier to focus on what we are doing to make His absence in the flesh less obvious.
Christ’s bodily absence in the time between his two advents is neither unproductive nor indefinite. He is right now doing something in heaven that is more important than anything that the church could conceive or do by its own clever methodology or machinations. And He has sent His Spirit to communicate the riches of His reign to a world in bondage to sin and death. It is that same Spirit who engenders within us the longing cry for Christ’s return.
Christ is Lord of all. With His triumphant resurrection, Jesus has been given the name that is above every name in heaven and on earth. Even now, His kingdom is present, advancing amid the rubble of this passing age. Nevertheless, He is presently reigning in grace, not yet in glory. His kingdom is visible now in ways that the world does not recognise: in the proclamation of the gospel, which the world considers foolish, in baptising, teaching, administering Communion, prayer, the spiritual and physical care of elders and deacons, and the fellowship of the saints. Through this ministry, a tiny seed is growing into a tree whose branches spread around the earth.
Much of what God is doing in His people and in His church is “hidden’ – it is only seen by those who see with the eyes of faith. We must not ‘lose heart’ because we do not see clearly the seed growing into a tree.
There is a war going on right now and it is the biggest one we have ever had. It is not fought with guns, or even with marketing campaigns and political power plays. It is fought with loving, patient, well-informed, and well-argued testimony to Jesus Christ. The gospel is not a comfort to the heart if it cannot be embraced by the mind. The gospel is counterintuitive to our moral reasoning as sinners, not to reason itself. The greatest threat to Christianity is never vigorous intellectual criticism but a creeping senility that transforms truths into feelings, public claims into private experiences, and facts into mere values. Christianity is either true or false, but it is not irrational.
Take away theology and you take away any reason to bother with God. Religious dogma is in fact noting but a statement of doctrines concerning the nature of life and the universe. The church must not run away from theology (study of God) and theology is not just a game for liberal theologians. We must understand wholesomely what we believe, why we believe, and how we live following from what and why we believe.