And if they do not believe...

The invitation to God’s grace and forgiveness are transforming experiences. Not every person has the same sequence of subsequent maturity and practice of faith, but all who receive Christ are renewed in the power of the Holy Spirit for the work of ministry and the glory of God. We are called to faith and mission. We are called to hope and service. We are called to take up the cross and follow Christ and in doing so to be invited to take up the towel and the basin. We are called to set aside our prejudices and to recognize in every life the presence of one for whom Christ died, and rose again. We preach Christ…we teach all the things he taught…we take this good news to every nation. It is work yet to be fulfilled, but with God, nothing is impossible.

The strange circumstance for the contemporary church lies in its departure from classic New Testament Christianity in terms of disciplemaking, ministry, education, and evangelization of the nations. Far too many elements of false teaching and the instruction of men (as opposed to the instruction of God) have been given the priority in many settings. Values are derived from the lowest common denominators of cultural mores, not the morality of the Sermon on the Mount. Crowds are drawn to “prosperity” messengers that make their measures of success the same as those espoused by the pagan culture icons. Financial wealth, mansions, extravagant lifestyles of luxury all point to the failure of looking past self-satisfaction and self-indulgence as motivators.

All the while, our religious climate becomes less and less instructive or influential as salt and light to our generation. The primacy of political power makes appeals to the “religious culturalists” not on matters of biblical ethics or justice, but on the basis of religiously promoted powerbrokering that highlights prejudice, divisiveness, and often twisting appeals for single issue viewpoints to create rhetorical theatre and emotional hostility. Conflict creates interest in the effort to promote a high promise, high vote getting outcome without any general intention to follow through on promoting those views after elections. Using religion as a pawn of politics has only left those in the political arena with dirtied hands and those in the religious community temporarily flattered by the public attention.

Many of those who serve in the midst of congregations today find their labors intensified by the almost constant lack of consistency in general patterns of participation and the erratic and often limited responses that give evidence of individuals following Jesus. Entire communities of faith can be ensnared and undermined in their efforts to communicate the gospel by the clearly dysfunctional efforts of a few. John the Baptist apparently felt the same way about some of the scribes and Pharisees who he not so kindly referred to as vipers…suggesting their danger to the spiritual health of the community then being called to repentance and preparation for the Kingdom of God.

Clearing straight paths must again be the key to renewal in the life of the community of faith. The entanglements and crookedness of spirit and character must be relegated to the dust and the purifying fire of the Holy Spirit must be allowed to burn away the impurities of heart and mind and soul that would prevent the church from being the holy body of Christ.

The list of challenges to the integrity of the church’s mission and message are many. The rise of secular agendas; the treatment of ministers as employees to be hired and fired like football coaches; the people pleasing consumerists packaging of churches and their ministries in efforts to gather a crowd only to create a marketing frenzy to replicate the latest fad or fashion; the failure of excellence and the detraction from divine calling in the suggestion that “what everyone wants by consensus of local cultural behavior” is the way to go, versus the instruction of scripture and the desire to glorify God. The abandonment of our first love…Jesus Christ is the greatest and most glaring missing factor in our church practices and community identity. And that begs the old question of …if they don’t act saved, and they don’t talk like they are saved, and they don’t love like they are saved, and they don’t believe like they are saved, are they?
And that could be the problem most haunting the churches of our time…at least those physical structures called the church. Those places are infected or infested with Christians in name, but not in spirit or truth. True worshippers Jesus said would be so in both spirit and truth.

So what if they do not believe?

Can we expect individuals within the church who do not love God to really be able to love their neighbor or themselves?

It is no wonder they cannot…




So what if they do not believe?

Can we expect them to act on the basis of acknowledging God as the giver of every gift and the creator of everything? If they do not know Him, if they do not worship Him, if they do not acknowledge Him as Lord, why should we expect them to act in trust toward God? We can’t.

So what if they do not believe?

Can we think they consider it important to guide their children, their grandchildren, and the generation of those that follow them to an understanding of faith…if they have no such faith. Of course not.

So what if they do not believe?

Do we assume that by their presence in our midst and their attachments to the world, that they have the heart and mind and spirit of those who love the Lord their God and would desire to lay their lives before Him in obedience and in a willful desire to follow the Christ who laid down his life for them. Of course we cannot.

So what if they do not believe?

They are still blinded by sin. They are still ensnared and enslaved by it. They are still separated from the light of Christ in their hearts…they are still without the indwelling Spirit of God… it is no wonder they are hostile to the mission of the church. It is no wonder that they abandon the worship of God. It is no wonder they do not have ears to hear. It is no question they they do not understand the power of God at work in the world.

So what if they do not believe?

It is no surprise when they are caught in the pursuit of this world’s successes in the way that this world sees as important and that they are personally unfulfilled and unsatisfied and unattached to the work of ministry that God has called to the church to perform…feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick, visiting the imprisoned, welcoming the stranger, ministering to the widows and orphaned, teaching and proclaiming the gospel to every nation…such agendas do not have their attention because they are not believing.

So what if they do not believe? Then they need Christ.

So what if they do not believe? Then they need the compassion and the mercy and the grace and the forgiveness of God.

So what if they do not believe? They need the good news that Christ has come with that gift of life in Him…and they are called by God to repent of their sins and to yield their hearts and lives to God. You who do not believe… Lay your burden down….hear the good news…receive forgiveness and new life through faith and trust in Jesus…

And if they believe…they will take up the mission of love…they will receive what God alone gives…and they will no longer be faithless, but believing.

John the Baptist said that Jesus would baptize us with the Holy Spirit and with fire. One without the other apparently isn’t sufficient. It takes losing what needs to be let go of in order to fully receive the presence of God. The community called the CHURCH, capital C, the WHOLE UNIVERSAL GATHERED COMMUNITY OF GOD’S GATHERED FAMILY OF BELIEVERS to be sorted out clearly enough by Jesus himself.

I hope you already know Him. I hope you believe in Him. I hope you love Him. I hope you serve Him. I hope you will hear his voice and follow Him. For those who do….there will be life, even it means coming through the fire. And for those who don’t believe, even for those who assume the name, but refuse to claim Him as their Lord and receive Him…who refuse to believe in Him and His word to us all; for them there is only the fire.

The truth is…if all you have your trust in is what you can get your hands on…you will lose everything. But if you will let go of yourself and give yourself to God, he will provide you everything you will ever truly need. That is His promise…

For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Believe in Jesus… be born from above…be alive and blessed forever in His love.
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus name.. ON Christ the solid rock I stand…all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand.