The new teaching that had come into the Colossian church was causing some of the Colossian Christians to stray away from the gospel. And so, right from the start of his letter Paul takes time to remind the Colossians about the gospel message they've received and in which they've believed.
This gospel message is essentially "the grace of God in truth" (Colossians 1:6). It is the good news of how God in his grace commits himself to sinful human beings by sending Jesus Christ to die on the cross for their sins. When the gospel is heard and understood, it produces a community full of faith, hope and love (Colossians 1:4-5). In fact, wherever the gospel is truly planted, it will naturally produce growth (Colossians 1:5-6). Thus, it is vitally crucial for Christians today to rightly and fully teach the gospel to others so that they might rightly hear and fully understand the gospel, which will result in these people now going out and teaching the gospel to still more people!
I think many people today really don't believe in the gospel. Many have very wrong ideas about what the gospel actually is. Others have a very superficial understanding of the gospel (in contrast to the Colossian Christians, who we are told "understood" the gospel, which means that they became thoroughly competent in it). Others don't think the gospel is quite enough to change lives and so they look to other sources or engage in other initiatives to do "ministry", with the proclamation of the gospel message being an optional add-on.
What do you think are the major obstacles to people really hearing and understanding the gospel? What are you doing to promote the true planting and authentic transformational growth of the gospel within our community?
4 comments:
In the modern day evangelical culture one of the biggest obstacles for people understanding the gospel is the altar call / raising of a hand / signing a card / saying a sincere prayer / squeezing a hand / etc. These methods are giving multitudes false assurance. People are trusting in the method rather than in Christ Himself. When these professing Christians are asked if they are a follower of Christ, they respond with affirmation by stating that they prayed the sinner’s prayer sincerely. This is no different then trusting in baptism or your good works for the basis of your salvation. My wife was a product of this evangelical culture and subsequently was a lost religious unbeliever for many years until she encountered the true and pure gospel of Jesus Christ.
It is biblical to call upon people to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus (Mark 1:15, Acts 2:38). It is biblical to even plead with people (Luke 14:23) using tears (Psalm 126:5) and urgency (Luke 12: 19-20). What is unbiblical is going one step further and giving somebody the assurance that they are saved. Scripture gives us guidance in counseling people concerning the reality of their salvation, but in the end only God gives us the full assurance by the Spirit through His Word (Romans 8:16, Ephesians 1:13-14). Yes you need to call upon the name of the Lord to be saved (Isaiah 55:6) and all who call upon the Lord will be saved (Acts 2:21). This obviously involves prayer to God as a sinner who realizes the necessity and sufficiency of Christ’s cleansing blood (Luke 18:13-14, 1 John 1:9). However, you never find an altar call or a sinner’s prayer in the Bible.
If you want to give someone biblical assurance point him or her to 1 John and ultimately to Christ. John gives us 20 tests that evaluate whether we have passed from darkness to light. John wrote this letter so that our joy may be complete (1 John 1:4) and that we may know that we have eternal life (1 John 5:13). Among these 20 tests, you don’t find saying a sincere prayer or signing and dating a card. Remember that there will be many on the Day of Judgment who will have a sincere heart, “Lord, Lord”, and Christ says to them “I never knew you” (Matthew 7: 21-23).
Do we ever fail some of these tests as a true believer in Christ Jesus? Yes. Just look at the life of David (2 Samuel 11). David committed adultery and murder as a true believer. Moreover, it wasn’t until Nathan came to David that he actually confessed his sin (2 Samuel 12). Thus, the question is if there is some degree of reality in our lives concerning these 20 tests. The question is not if we fall, but what happens after we fall. Do we eventually have that broken and contrite heart that David had in Psalm 51? Do we not continue in sin (1 John 3:9, Romans 6)? Do we keep His commandments (1 John 2:3, John 14:15)? Are His commandments not burdensome (1 John 5:3)? Do we love the brethren (1 John 3:14)? Do we fellowship with a local church (1 John 2:19)? Do we hate the world (1 John 2:15)? Can we overcome the world (1 John 5:4)? Do we confess Christ (1 John 4:15)? These are the biblical tests that lead to biblical assurance.
We all must examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5), but ultimately our assurance comes from what Christ did on the cross. For every look we give to ourselves, we need to give 10 looks to the cross since He is the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). If you keep saying no to Satan and yes to God you will without doubt eventually see the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus manifested in your own heart as a new creation.
A gentleman once asked Charles Spurgeon why he scheduled his counseling sessions on Thursday mornings and not on Monday mornings right after the Sunday service. The gentleman told Mr. Spurgeon that he thought it was best to strike while the iron was hot. To this remark, Spurgeon replied, “If God heats the iron, then it will stay hot."
So personally, I promote the true Gospel of Jesus Christ by preaching the good news and leaving the rest with God. We are His privileged ambassadors and He is the Savior. We all want to be the one that “seals the deal” and see someone saved after we present them the gospel. This does happen, but God rarely grants this experience to His children. It usually takes many steps before someone reaches the point in time when they accept Christ. Often it is hard to even pinpoint when someone was saved because it was a gradual and subtle process like we see with Lydia (Acts 16: 11-15) as opposed sudden and overt process we find with Saul (Acts 9:1-19). We usually are one of many instruments God uses to share His truth to an unbelieving world. We need to have faith that His Word will not go out void (Isaiah 55:11). Christ said we are more blessed because we believe without seeing (John 20:29). We walk by faith and not sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). I will be the first to admit that I have been guilty of this perversion personally in the past. Let us not be the believer who’s work is burned up on Judgment Day because we had a man-centered ministry rather then a Christ-centered ministry (1 Corinthians 3:12-15). One day in eternity we will find out how God used us to impact others for His glory!
I agree with Paul, for the most part. I also think there is a danger in the hand raising, card signing, etc. process. However, I think it can be an effective tool if used properly.
The way it would be used properly is to have someone meet with each person who "filled out the card" and offer personal discipleship to them. That way the initial response becomes an opportunity to present the entire Gospel message and to see true growth.
So, the whole purpose for having someone indicate their "decision" is to create a full Gospel presenting opportunity. That is entirely different than what is often the motivation for this, which is to give the preacher an ego stroke.
I agree that much of the modern day Christian culture leans towards setting the bar very low when it comes to calling people to faith in Christ. This tends to mean diluting or avoiding the hard aspects of the gospel (i.e. repentance from sin) and an overemphasis on the benefits that come as a result of gospel (i.e. you get to go to heaven!) When the gospel is presented in this way, why wouldn't you believe in it? If all you have to essentially do is say, "I like Jesus. I believe in him," then if you have even a little bit of intelligence you'll do it. It's a good insurance policy! But if the gospel involves a recognition of the fact that you are alienated from God, worthy of his wrath because of your sins against him, well now people are going to stop short a bit, as they should do! If the gospel means turning away from your sin and turning completely towards God by putting your total trust in Jesus, then people are really are going to think twice about it, again as they should do.
This is why I also am not a big fan of "the altar call." I wouldn't say that God has not used this effectively to draw many to himself in the past. But it is striking the difference between communities during the First Great Awakening, where revival happened through the clear consistent preaching of the gospel in the regular ministry of the church, and communities during the Second Great Awakening, where revival happened through methods like the altar call and the "anxious bench" (people came forward and sat on a bench up front until they were ready to believe in Jesus). Ian Murray's book "Revival and Revivalism" makes the convincing point through historical evidence that in the First Great Awakening communities were clearly changed. There was less sexual immorality, less drunkenness, more compassion for others. In the Second Great Awakening however, the historical evidence has shown that in the ensuing years communities basically remained the same and in some cases even got worse! So, for example, in some communities where most people had supposedly become Christians through a big tent revival campaign built on altar calls, rates of premarital sex and children born out of wedlock actually went up.
So we do well to make sure that we are not "saving" people because we have very good methods. If we do this, really we could save anybody. Just read a good book on effective advertising! Instead, my hope is to simply and clearly give people the gospel, over and over and over again. Yes, we should give it with tears and passionate reasoning and even pleading (just see all the different ways Paul gives the gospel to people in Acts), but in the end our desire is to see the Spirit work on people's hearts, not us work on people's hearts.
However, in saying this, I do believe it's important to press upon people their responsibility to "make a decision." In other words, everybody has to answer Jesus' question, "Who do you say I am?" To simply ignore the question is a decision in and of itself. I don't think you're saying this Paul, but sometimes I do think people who hold the position you are putting forward can go to a hypercalvinist extreme where all they are doing is simply telling people, "You are sinners. The only way to be saved is if God saves you through Jesus," and then they walk away! I believe God sovereignly uses us to do much more than that. We should explain to people their need to repent and believe in Jesus, and it's not wrong to explain exactly what those terms mean and how someone might begin to do that (by the power of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God of course)! This might mean telling them how it happened in your life for example or how it happened in the lives of others, like the Ethiopian eunuch or the Jews in Acts 2.
V;
I fully agree with what you said. My only point about having some type of indication of a decision is that it is not always done with a wrong intension. There are some who have used it to match up people with a qualified believer who can spend time with them.
At this point at RCC anyone who has questions and/or wants to pursue what it means to be a follower of Christ, can come talk to you up front after service. That is great, but there may be a time when there are too many and it may be a good option to give people a chance to fill out a card or something for follow up.
Having people come forward formally is kind of a Charasmatic tradition. In some of the churches I have participated, this has been used very effectively. In others, where it was more of an emotional appeal and there was no follow up, I think it was wrong.
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