Pastor's Corner

I am often asked what is the primary function of the Church of Jesus Christ. These five words sum it up best: proclaiming and defending the Gospel. It is what I call the Main Thing. Indeed there are many things the church is to be doing, such as loving our neighbor, showing acts of kindness, compassion and grace to all, being model citizens, living lives that are above reproach, etc., etc.

While these things are Biblical and indeed noble, they are not the Main Thing. They are things that God may use to reflect His glory and give His people a greater effectiveness in doing the main thing, but they are not the MAIN THING.

The following Scriptures are taken from the various accounts of what Jesus told His disciples to do after His departure. We know them as the Great Commission passages. Some have mistakenly supposed that these are contradictory to one another. On the contrary, they are complementary. That is, they are merely different parts of all that Jesus said to them on the occasion of His departure. Each writer recorded a different part of what Jesus said, depending on the theme that each writer was led by the Holy Spirit to emphasize (see II Pet. 1:20, 21). Read carefully the words of our Lord-

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt.

28:19, 20).

“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).

“Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission (forgiveness) of sins should be preached in His name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

And you are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:46-48).

“Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21).

“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Notice several things about Jesus’ words. First, He emphasized the aspect of “Making disciples”. A disciple is a “follower” and a “learner” of someone. Jesus wanted his disciples to make more disciples after His departure.

How were they to go about that? By “preaching the gospel” to people. That word “preach” simply means “to proclaim”. Please note that they were to proclaim something in particular, the gospel.

Gospel simply means “good news”. And the Bible says that the glory of the good news comes through the dark clouds of bad news. That is, though we are all sinners and doomed to an eternity of separation from God in hell (bad news), God provided a way of escape through the Person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for our sins and rose bodily from the dead (good news)! See Romans 6:23.

If a person will, by God’s enabling grace, believe on Christ, they will, at that very moment, become a child of God and have the forgiveness of all their sins. And this is indeed the Main Thing!

Many years ago I heard of a non-Christian counselor who said that the number one problem that people say they are plagued with when they come to see him is guilt over past wrongs they have done such as: promiscuity/infidelity, a failed marriage, cheating on taxes or in their business, a sense of failure as a parent, failure in how they treated their parents-etc., etc. That same non-Christian counselor offered R.C. Sproul (a modern theologian) $100,000 a year to work in his clinic because he knew that R.C.’s “religion” helped people deal with guilt.

R.C. didn’t take the job with his busy schedule. But what this counselor didn’t realize is that if all R.C. had to offer was “religion,” guilt couldn’t be dealt with, not in the least. What R.C. proclaims is not religion. He proclaims a relationship with the living God, a relationship that comes only through His Son, Jesus Christ (John 14:6; Acts 4:12). That relationship is possible because sin has been dealt with by Christ on the cross, where He was judged in the place of all who believe on Him. He bore all of our sin, guilt and shame on that cross and then, three days later, was raised bodily from the dead for our justification. See Isaiah 53:4-6; Romans 4:25; II Cor. 5:21.

How can I be sure that Christ’s finished work on the cross is applied to me and my sins be forgiven? The Bible uses one word to describe how it happens, faith. That’s it. It isn’t faith plus works or faith plus religious activity. All that is needed to have Christ’s work of redemption applied to your sinful account is faith. If it’s centered in Christ, it’s enough. The Bible speaks of works that we do, but those works are not the root of our salvation but they are the fruit of our salvation.

D.L. Moody used to say, “We Christians don’t work to the cross - to get saved - we work from the cross - because we are saved!” See Ephesians 2:8-10.

Salvation is all of God.

He is the One who transforms us and makes us a new creation (II Cor.

5:17).

It is sinful human pride that likes to think that we have a role to play in salvation.

The apostle Paul wrote, “For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God” (Rom.

4:2).

He might have had something to boast about before men-but not before God! Abraham knew that his works were not what saved him.

The Bible says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness” (Gen.

15:6; Rom.

4:3).

God applied the righteousness of Christ to Abraham’s sinful account because he was looking ahead to the work of Christ (since Abraham lived in this world before Christ became flesh).

Do you know Christ? Are you sure that His work of redemption has been applied to you so that you are covered with His righteousness? You must decide today.

When you face God, would you rather present Him with your feeble “righteous acts”, or be clothed in the righteousness of Christ? Trust Christ today as your Lord and Savior, and He will not only transform you-but will save you for eternity. That is the main thing!

Dean Ellis

Pastor of Evangelism

First Baptist Church, Colfax