A person who keeps their faith private may live their life in quiet submission to the Lord in doing His good works. They give glory to God while not boasting, seeking or directing attention to themselves yet the results observed in their lives would be “fruitful” in the sense of how Christ described the works in a genuine believer’s life – doing many things as a result to being obedient to God’s will and influenced by God’s spirit.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,23 gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. – Galatians 5:22-23
4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit from itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. – John 15:4-6.
In this John passage is reemphasized a critical truth, all blessings including skills and abilities come from God. It’s easy to remember one thing, we were spiritually dead in our sins and not capable unless God made us capable. Therefore, we cannot boast in our good works like many a king gone astray who was then humbled to the reality that nothing occurs outside the sovereign will of Almighty God.
Jesus came to save sinners. The Apostle Paul wrote: It is a trustworthy saying and deserving full acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost. 1 Timothy 1:15
Now, we are taking another tack in this article because some of us need a good swift kick in pants.
This post is not going to be about the servants of God. I’m going to expound upon the people who think that being a Christian is none of anyone’s business.
Don’t cover a lamp stand.
32 “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven.33 But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven. – Matthew 10:32-33
If you are a genuine holder of the Good News, a receiver of the grace of God that leads to everlasting life and rescued from an eternity in hell suffering from the wrath of God, you just might find it natural to share that reality, to let that light shine.
Basically, you won the spiritual jackpot, the heavenly lottery! God chose you when you were helpless to do anything for yourself. And, as much as you are special in God’s eyes because His Son died on the cross for you, we, as the Church, all fit into this inglorious category of being wretched sinners. The hymn Amazing Grace, it resonates because it is true!
27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28 and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish—ever; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. 29 ]My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. – John 10:27-29.
Do these words straight from our Lord and Savior equivocate in anyway? God cannot lie, Jesus cannot lie. Once you are saved by God, it is done. These truths are not limited to this passage.
Many people who are church attendees need to ask this question if they believe they are followers of Christ, “What are we ashamed or embarrassed about?”
14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; 15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. – Matthew 5:14-16
This may be the one of the most prolific evidences of how the church misunderstands the relationship of Jesus Christ to everyone who claims themselves to be a Christian. They believe that their “faith” in Christ is something that is expected to be a personal and private matter.
Many have it all wrong about the value of our faith. Before Christ called us to be believers, we were dead in our sins and transgressions. If you don’t get this basic truth, you are still lost. In other words, we are not capable of saving ourselves, nor generating the “faith” that saves. That’s what it means to be debtors, like a huge loan that we could NEVER pay off. Because of these truths, we give all glory (credit) to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We trust in the only One who can pay off our debt.
You have to break your self of any preconception that you are capable to achieving anything that leads to salvation whatsoever, because without God’s redeeming Grace, your “works” leads to the wrath and fury of God and eternal damnation. It’s a harsh thing to say, but someone has to covey what the Lord taught and warned about. Simply stated, in the popularization of the liberalism of the churches, there is a gross lack of real humility when it comes to the understanding of our relationship to Holy and Righteous God.
Maybe fire and brimstone isn’t the best way to convey the message, but the truths about repentance and sin in the Bible are not delivered by churches because fear or what people would think. We don’t know how sinful sin is and we do not know how holy God is without the Bible.
It’s the faith of Jesus Christ that saves us, we need to believe and trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
In large part, there is a deemphasizing to Jesus last command and that is to spread the gospel throughout the world.
16 But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated.17 And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to keep all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” – Matthew 28:16-20
The race still rages on.
It’s easy to disregard the teachings of Jesus and the magnitude of what he says when the Bible is not held up as an authority and inerrant in the consistency of the message that spans itself throughout 1600 years of God’s inspired human authorship found in Scripture.
The Bible in its entirety must be held up to the best we can understand truth because it is the inspired Word of God, and the highlight of its truth are the powerful words spoken by Jesus as recorded by his disciples and those who were eyewitnesses and/or close to the eyewitnesses of Jesus, close enough to reliably record the many teachings and stories about Emmanuel.
Jesus’s teachings are stunning, powerful and resonate with unique and divine truth, consistent with the Godly character found throughout the Bible. The prophecies of Jesus’ life and ministry are foretold by amazingly accurate prophecy. The Bible is a book like no other in the history of humankind, we as Christians need to look with overwhelming desire to be obedient to the instructions of Jesus, the instructions the disciples-turned-apostles who took the great pains to document these teachings for future generations of believers.
What was truth then is truth now. The significance of God’s truth is it is eternal, immutable, and absolute. It is not going to be rendered insignificant by the so called enlightenment of man nor the highest attainment of human wisdom, which has repeatedly proved to be foolishness before God throughout history and into the future.
Lip Service and Pampering in the church
It is incredibly dishonoring, and parents know it best, to simply offer lip service as a child in honoring their parents. If a child says they honor and love their parents and then refuse and ignore their most important commands, you would say that that child is disobedient, spoiled, perhaps downright evil.
The Book of Proverbs has a lot to say about a child who dishonors his parents and, candidly, it is often the parent’s fault because parents are imperfect, but can also be misguided.
For instance He who pampers his slave from childhood will in the end find him to be arrogant. – Proverbs 29:21. You can see the two way street. However, though parents are imperfect, God is perfect. Whereas parents can be misguided, God is not misguided in any way. This pampering can affect a church congregation also.
The church must empower the family, or parents and more specifically, father, to treat the Bible as authority and God as the head of each person in the family. Without this order and empowerment give to the family, temptation will be easily succumbed to, respect difficult to establish, wisdom impossible to gather, acceptance of the truth unconscionable, and a resistance created to sincere humility. Moreover, the outward relationship to others is confounded.
Similiarly, the pastor, teaching the Bible faithfully and authoritatively, is expected to point the way to Christ and not to himself so that fathers (or members at large) do the same, and mothers emphasize the model by supporting the father’s efforts of pointing each person to a direct relationship with Christ and not to rely on, for salvation, the complexities of an organization or non-gospel world view.
We are not intended to make our relationship to Christ something to hide. Faith in God is not intended to be so personal that you never share it with anyone or hide yourself as a hermit might determine. As a Christian, you are not your own master which is not possible for a depraved soul, dead in sins.
As a Christian, you are a servant to your Lord Jesus Christ, through love and response to grace to actively share the love and truth of Christ to others. You enjoy a personal and direct relationship. That’s part of what it means to be surrendered to God. Everything you have and achieved is by the blessing and glory of God. It’s the light that will shine.
For a one minute explanation of the Gospel from the late Pastor John MacArthur, watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCP9UcC7BzE
For a review of the Ten Commandments: https://www.challenyee.com/the-ten-commandments/
All quoted excerpts have footnotes removed, usually from Legacy Standard Bible (LSB), sometimes from New International Version (NIV), on rare occasion the Amplified Bible (AMP).
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