Mathew 28:19 – 20
Luke 10:3
Have you ever felt like you’re not getting much out of church anymore? The sermons appear to retell the same story week in and week out. Out only real goal is to invite others to hear the Gospel and be saved. The problem is each week the pastor is preaching a message of “milk” (1 Corinthains 3:2) to reach the unsaved and the mature Christians are not growing.
The pastor has a great job before them, they have to preach to a large range of people. It’s like a math teacher whose audience is first through eight graders. If they were to teach to the 8th graders they would lose the first through seventh. Conversely if they taught to the first graders, although the information would not go over the head of the second through eight graders, they would never learn math.
Mathew 28:19-20 is clear about what we need to do when approaching this world:
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
This is very clear; it does not say teach the clergy to preset the Gospel each Sunday so we can “invite” others to be saved. This tense is very active an all-inclusive statement. We are missing the mark when we are not training disciples in church today. We have become lazy and are now just relying on the church to do the evangelizing and not the body of Christ. We assume our role as the “body” is to invite at best or just “shine our light” hoping others will notice.
We all need to be prepared to present the Gospel of Christ in any situation, not just at church when we have “backup” to cover our errors. The Gospel is simple, Satan has made it complex. We just need to GO and cover our actions in prayer. The church’s job is to make sure we are ready because like Luke says in verse 10:3 we have a difficult task before us:
Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.
Again we are told to “GO” and act, not invite and sit. The church’s task is to make sure we are ready for the wolves. This does not mean target practice at the range and concealed carry permits, but rather knowing how to defend oneself verbally against challenges Satan will throw our way. Sure you are going to reach some that will argue to the end and will rock your foundation of faith. But that is where the church is failing today, since most are building a foundation of milk and not solid food.
Russia and China are great contrasts in the church. In Russian when communism took over and destroyed the leadership and infrastructure of the traditional church, it died. The people had no idea what to do and the faith died. When this happened in China the people just moved underground and the body of Christ grew. What was the difference? The Russian church was teaching with milk where the Chinese church was teaching disciples who could “GO”! Unfortunately most churches are not going to change this model any time soon, it’s a false idea of marketing where they need a watered down message to appeal to the broadest base and hope the “small groups” will grow the church. It’s our job to grow small groups and study on our own to be equipped to bring salvation to the world and not try to bring the world to salvation.
I’d like to thank the FuelProject for most of this inspriration from their Restless Church series on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0f6_epwixV5qlZLKLx5SxZw4Roxosyb4