We need today to be reminded that the Kingdom of God does
not consist of rituals, works or any outward observances of any
kind or manner. The Kingdom of God consists of righteousness,
peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. This kingdom, moreover, is a
gift of God, not a human accomplishment. Its foundation is the
vicarious atonement of Jesus Christ on Calvary. It was carried
forward by the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
The disciples before Pentecost were only disciples. They
tried to follow Jesus and His teachings as best they could, but
they did not know true faith. It was only at Pentecost that they
were truly made Apostles. At that time, each of them experienced
the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. At that time,
each of them was emboldened by the Holy Spirit to bear witness of
Christ in public. Whereas previously they were disciples of the
One whom they saw as the Messiah of Israel, now they were
ambassadors and heralds of the risen Christ. Instead of seeking
faith that is a dead work of the law, they now had the faith that
empowers and redeems. Previously they had the faith of servants,
now they had the faith of sons of the Living God. Previously
they were plagued by timidity and fearfulness, now they were
ready to die for the sake of their Master and Savior.
Faith includes intellectual assent, but its essence is a
personal relationship with the Living Savior, Jesus Christ. It
consists, basically, in a living union with Jesus through the
Holy Spirit. True faith means being before doing - being in the
favor of God before doing the will of God. It means being
grasped by the Spirit of God. It is an opening of our inward
eyes to the reality of God's incomparable love poured out for
sinners in the sacrificial life and death of Jesus Christ.
Yet, faith is not an almighty action of the Holy Spirit on
the soul, it is also in our action in the power of the Spirit as
we are sent forth into the world as witnesses and ambassadors of
Christ. Faith entails both radical passivity and radical
activity. Luther once observed: "Faith ... is a living, busy,
active, mighty thing ... so it is impossible for it not to do
good works incessantly."
The deficiency found in many churches today is an empty
formalism or barren biblicism, either of which degenerates into
an oppressive legalism. Other churches that seem more vital are
plagued by perfectionistic enthusiasm or frenetic activism that
borders on humanism. What is needed is a recovery - a revival -
of the depth and breadth of Apostolic faith.
A revival must start in the heart of one individual - me.
Each believer, with God, can work the miracle of revival -
'Breaking up the fallow ground' only in their own heart and life
- then God can use that person to spread His revival to the
world!
It is imperative that we bear in mind that Jesus Christ is
not just a moral ideal or prophetic genius - He is a LIVING
SAVIOR. He is not simply the human representative of God, but
God Himself in human flesh. It is not enough to know the
historical facts about the life of Christ, how He lived and died,
each person must know that Jesus died for them personally!
True faith does not consist of imposing our views on others,
but in sharing the light given to us. In our evangelistic task
we must not approach others with any pretension to greater virtue
or intellectual acumen. Instead, we present ourselves as fellow
sinners whose eyes have been opened both to the gravity of the
human predicament and to the reality of God's unconditional grace
and love. The word that we proclaim stands in judgement over our
lives as well as the lives of our hearers. We are beggars
telling others where they can get food. As "fishers of men" we
are instrumental in advancing the Kingdom of God, but it is not
through our cleverness that people are won to Jesus Christ; our
task is simply to let down the net of the Gospel. As the vehicle
of the Spirit, the Gospel itself brings in souls for the kingdom.
(Luke 5:2-10)
This is not to imply that Christians should never use
apologetic arguments in defense of the faith, but our purpose in
doing so is not to induce a decision of faith. (Only the Spirit
does that through the preaching of the Word.) Rather, our aim is
to intensify the hunger for faith in the human soul and to help
those who already believe to better understand their own faith.
We can show the intellectual relevance of our faith by
argumentation, but faith's concrete relevance to the human
condition can be grasped only by those whose minds have been
touched by the illumination of the Holy Spirit.
Our witness is not to some "zapping" peak experiences of the
sacred, but to the incursion of the sacred into the secular which
we see in Jesus Christ.
Our appeal is not to external evidences for the faith but to
evidences that faith itself provides:
o The empty tomb.
o The transformed lives of the disciples.
o The interior witness of the Holy Spirit.
In carrying out the evangelistic mandate, we must bear in
mind that Holy Scripture is its own best interpreter, that is to
say, Scripture illumined by the Spirit of God, its author. Holy
Scripture in the hands of Spirit directed believers is sufficient
to "demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up
against the knowledge of God." (2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV)
We should never confuse religion with techniques for
cultivating spirituality or programs of church growth. It is God
who gives the increase, though it is up to us to plant the seed.
(1 Corinthians 3:6-7) Our responsibility is to hear the Word and
then share the Good News. We can serve the Kingdom of God, but
we cannot build it. The kingdom is a gift from God that can only
be received with thanksgiving and gratefulness.
There is a difference between believing that Christ is the
Savior of humankind in general and coming to know Him as one's
own Savior. Faith, understood as an interior awakening to the
glory and meaning of the cross, is a gift of God. It is a work
of the Holy Spirit within us. If we do not have this kind of
faith, let us seek it. Let us pray for it as the Apostles did.
(Luke 17:5) The key to discipleship is given by our Lord:
"Ask, and it will be given you, seek and you will find,
knock and it will be opened to you." (Mathew 7:7)
True faith is inseparable from the experience of divine
holiness and divine love. Sometimes that experience will take
dramatic form, such as when the apostle Paul was lifted up into
the 'third heaven.' (2 Corinthians 12:2) Yet those who have such
experiences do not dwell on them. People of faith are not
spiritual exhibitionists, but heralds and ambassadors of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Living on a 'religious high' is not serving the
glory of God and advancing his kingdom. John the Baptist
furnished the model of true spirituality and faith when he
declared: "He must increase, but I must decrease." (John 3:30)
Humility such as this is an indispensable mark of authentic
piety. No one can be confronted by the Holy God without having a
poignant sense of one's own creatureliness and sinfulness.
(Isaiah 6:1-5) What shows us the depth of our sin and the
magnitude of God's grace is not just an awareness of God as the
Holy One, (which all people have to some degree) but the
knowledge of the Holy Love of God reflected in the life and death
of Jesus Christ. Humility is the key to the love of other human
beings for God and for one another. Proud people cannot love,
because love means to be emptied of self and dedicated to the
glory of God and the welfare of his creatures.
The cardinal evidence of true faith is works of self-giving
love which are visible to the world as shown in Mathew 7:20, John
13:35 and other scriptures. Such works, however, are not visible
to those who do them, for the focus of the faithful doer is never
on their deeds (to which they are more likely oblivious) but on
Christ and His great, completed work of Atonement.
The essence of true religion, the righteousness of faith, is
known only to God. True faith will be manifested in fruits, but
before we can bear fruit we must be rooted in Christ, engrafted
into Him. We must be born again from above by the Holy Spirit.
(John 1:12-13, 3:5-8, 1 Peter 1:3)
Frank Kafka once wrote: "The fathers of the Church were not
afraid to go out into the desert because they had a richness in
their hearts. But we, with richness all around us, are afraid
because the desert is in our hearts."
Let each and every one of us, today, make the commitment to
be His servant and to seek the knowledge of His Grace and Mercy.
Let us become the vessels of His workings in this world. Let us
have the richness in our hearts. Let us have FAITH that will set
us apart from the world and that will make the world want to know
more about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen
