I believe the church today is in a crisis of epic proportions.
Now, not many of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ would disagree with me, but they may be surprised to know what I think the real nature of the crisis is.
It is true that there is no lack of conflict that could create crisis for the modern church; whether it be the increasingly humanistic worldview of the present-day culture, religious persecution, or the threat of government overreach, I do not think they are the origin of our current crisis situation.
In my opinion, the most pressing and dire crisis of the church today is its ignorance of the gospel. Yes, you heard me right. The biggest obstacle keeping the church from fulfilling it’s greatest and most foundational commission – is ignorance of the gospel.
And this is how I think we got here.
In the early 2000’s, somebody decided we needed to make churches “seeker friendly”. There was the idea that if we made church feel more like the world, it would attract more people who were considering Christianity as a viable choice in the smorgasbord of world religions to choose from. As recruitment methods, we threw out the etiquette of dressing in our Sunday finest, hipped up the music and provided donuts and coffee to go along with their watered down, non-offensive, “Jesus loves you” messages. Now, nearly twenty years later, we have a whole generation of people who call themselves Christians but really do not have a clear, hard and deliverable handle on the true gospel message.
Oh, they think they do. Only it does not line up entirely with the gospel found in the Word of God.
Now, there are plenty of resources out there, if you care to search them out, that will lay out for you the ills and contaminations of the counterfeit gospels. And I applaud them. Such as these would include the social gospel, the prosperity gospel, and the green gospel, not to mention the versions of the gospel that would attempt to blend thoughts and practices that have their source in the occult. Trust me when I tell you that they are out there. And if you are not rooted deeply in the Word of God, it would be easy to buy into some of them. They SOUND good. They have a warm, fuzzy feel to them. They are inclusive. They appeal to human plight and woes.
But they are poisonous. And they are benign. Powerless and ineffective to offer any authentic hope.
I am not going to here address all the counterfeits. What I am going to do, however, is to attempt to show you the True Gospel presented to us in the bible, and to prove to you how necessary it is for the church to have a good, strong purchase on it. Without that, we will not be competent nor compelling to accomplish our mandate to preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations.
Without a clear, commanding grasp on the gospel, we will be afraid to share our faith, fearful that we are not able to refute arguments and disputes that go against what we believe. Without a good understanding of the gospel, Christians will not even see the need to share their faith. They will not have the confidence to say “Jesus is the only way” if they do not understand WHY He is! They will have no defense when the world calls them bigoted and judgmental as they take a stand against the tides of lawlessness invading our culture or stand for biblical principles in their lives.
How many people reject a gospel they have never heard? They have never heard it because the Christian community at large does not have the confidence to share a core belief concept that even they do not understand.
And how many people are lost and dying in this world because of the ignorance and apathy of a church whose sole commission was to proclaim its only remedy and hope? The world goes along its merry way down the wide path to destruction blind to it’s NEED for a different way. In fact, the church, for the most part, is skipping along the down same path!
Guys, we have got to shake out of this apathetic slumber we are in and start being concerned for our neighbor.
We must fulfill the greatest commandment of the Law;
“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart,
And with all your soul,
And with all your mind.
This is the great and foremost commandment.
The second is like it,
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 22:36-40
Do you LOVE the enough to share the gospel with them?
To love your neighbor is to be concerned with his eternal life.
To love your neighbor is to recognize that the guy you passed at Walmart is your neighbor. The waitress that served you your breakfast is your neighbor. The mailman is your neighbor. Your NEIGHBOR is your neighbor!
Let’s dive into the word of God and discover the true gospel message. Let’s work to educate and equip ourselves to reach a blind and decaying world with the only HOPE it has in Jesus Christ! The time to act is right now. Time is running out. No crisis the world faces today is greater than the crisis of ignorance of the Gospel!