The Message the Church Projects

[William Lang]

 

There is a church that I pass by which like many churches has a message board sitting out on the road. This is by no means extraordinary. In the time that I have resided in the area there has been three pastors at the church. What I find somewhat disturbing is the short messages that are posted there. Some are nice. Some are questionable. Some are funny. Some are sad.

While the sign boards’ messages are often witty, they obscure the message of the Gospel. Jesus died for our sins. He became the perfect man while also being the perfect God. He wept, cried, laughed and loved even up the hill to Calvary. His message to his followers was to take up the cross and follow him through the trials and tribulations of life as well as the joys of knowing that we are doing the Master’s will.

 

Contrary to many beliefs the message of the church is not one of political position whether it be liberal or conservative. It is not a message of wealth or prosperity because one believes in Christ. Nor is it a message of acceptance of behaviors contrary to Scripture under the guise of a faulty definition of the word love. Nor is it the results of a faulty construct by non-Christian philosophies.

 

You see we generally want to be liked and fit into the world we live in. So as a church we decide to separate our faith from our day to day existence. To do this we excuse ourselves and often refuse to speak the message of the Gospel or even to hide faith in the closet of a church building.

 

Consider the third world nations where persecution is the norm as Christians are ostracized, tortured, imprisoned and martyred because they have taken the title of Christian and the life which sets them apart. Can the same be said in our western culture? It is so easy and even acceptable to claim a faith and then live as we wish.

 

The message that is the peculiar property of the Church is found in The Word “who was with God and who was God”. This word became flesh and lived among us not as an emanation or manifestation of God but as God becoming human in every way except for the absence of sin within. The appellation “Second Adam” is most appropriate. For as Adam as the primogenitor of the human race was created in the image of God, the image that was lost when he sinned, so Jesus came to be the primogenitor of a holy people in whom the image of was restored. “In him was life and the light was the light of men.

 

This is the message that is meant to be shouted from the mountaintops. Jesus Christ is the very word of God made flesh to bring about the salvation of God’s Creation by establishing His Kingdom of which one becomes a member when the Living Christ is allowed into their hearts through faith and repentance. The promise is a new life in which the hope of glory, Christ, is within us by the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.

 

Our message should be for all that are laboring in this life to find the rest that Jesus gives. Let the lives of the believers be the message we give to the world.

[Christ In Touch Foundation]

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