Forging
the future
To
burn white hot and be molded by the Spirit of God we need to ensure that we are
indeed people of the book. If we are to forge the future as preachers and as
churches we need to look to the past, both in terms of faithfulness and at
failure. The history of the church is littered with faithful churches who
preached for generations only to be replaced by less faithful churches that
died out very quickly. If we are to forge the future it must be on the anvil of
Biblical faithfulness married to a contextual relevance. John Stott in his very
useful book The Contemporary Christian suggests that there are two errors we
need to avoid. The first one is where a local church consider themselves to be
faithful because they are faithful to the scriptures but don't engage the
modern world so they are unfaithful. The second one is seeking to be relevant
but they don't open the Scriptures so are irrelevant. To convey truth to our
generation and leave a legacy for the one to follow we need to be people of the
book, soaked in scripture aware of the Word's life changing power and to speak
it with authority. Yet we need to do this winsomely and with wisdom, the word
if relevant for every generation yet we might not be. Stott points out elsewhere that to be faithful
preachers we need to cross the bridge from the world of the Bible to the
contemporary world. If we do the first probably we will be well on our way to
the second. The orthodoxy of tomorrow is the same as the orthodoxy of the past
and will be the orthodoxy of the future. Its why when we begin a journey we
need to keep hold of old maps, even in an electronic format for there are
people who have been on the same journey from whom we can learn. Yet we need to
make sure we are speaking our orthodoxy in a way that our hearers hear the
authentic word of God through the scriptures in a way that they can understand.
Our
Generation needs to leave a legacy of faithfulness so that in the next
generation the Works of God will be commended to them.
Our
faithfulness must also be to the Gospel, it has been said that we lose the
gospel once we start to assume the gospel. As evangelical believers we need to
make sure that when we talk about the gospel we are faithful to what is
revealed in Scripture. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, to
unpack that in our generation and throughout our live times is to forge the
future for white hot worshippers who will one day gather around the throne of
God, with white hot worshippers from every tribe and tongue.
The
mission of God will not fail, the mission of denominations and churches will
only be a success if we are engaged in His mission to go into all the world and
preach the gospel, teaching them everything that He has commanded.
God
Bless
Stephen
Barton
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