One of the greatest things about being a relatively new church plant is that you get to set the direction you want to go and get to determine what you want to be about as a church. In the weeks and months leading up to the launching of Harvest Spring Lake, the staff and the leaders spent countless hours in discussion, prayer, and deliberation concerning what we believed our community needed to hear, what we wanted to communicate, and how that would manifest itself on a weekly basis
The result of this being that we are committed to continually proclaim and teach that the Gospel declares that we are saved not by our works, or by what we have done, or by how we dress, or who we vote for, or what movies we watch, ect. but we are saved by God's great love for us manifested most perfectly in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God's own Son, who took our sin on himself and paid the penalty we could never pay! We are committed to proclaiming this good news in everything we do and fighting a real mentality where people place their faith in themselves rather than the work of Christ!
Here is where the light bulb moment comes in.... I was reading a few different blogs this morning and came across this quote by John Warwick Montgomery (awesome name!)
"To the question, 'When were you saved?' we can answer with a hearty “2000 years ago, on a hill outside of Jerusalem”
After reading this I came to the conclusion that "no wonder people struggle with works based salvation when the language we use about our own conversion credits ourselves!"
Here's what I mean... How many times have you heard someone begin their testimony with "I gave my life to Christ when... or "I was saved at this conference when I raised my hand or walked down the isle"
We tend to try and view our salvation story as if we were stranded at sea, being tossed by the waves, thrown around around by the currents, struggling to keep our head above water. Hopeless and facing certain death at the last moment Christ comes in with the life raft which we are able to swim to and grab hold on leading to our salvation.
This would be a cool picture of salvation, except for the fact that it's wrong...
The truth is passages like Ephesians 2:5 make it exceedingly clear that before God intervened we were already dead. We did not grab a raft, we did not swim over to safety, we were dead! (Just to clarify, dead people cant really do anything) God gave us life without any action, effort, or movement on our part.
You may be thinking right now "But I did pray the prayer, raise my hand, or walk down the isle" and that is awesome! Praise God! But that was not what saved you, that was a response to the saving faith God had already given you through grace. See the difference? Could you have prayed the prayer or walked the isle if God hadn't already miraculously worked in your heart, made you aware of your need for a savior and given a previously dead soul life? No Way!
I know the argument is technical, but it is really important! Our "conversion moment" is not what saved us, we were called before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4), saved through the work of Christ on the cross, and given life through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives (Jn 6:63-65) All because of the unbelievable grace and love shown to us by God Himself!
So what does this mean?
1. When we understand this, it is impossible to not grow in our love for God and in our joy over what God has done for us. The more we understand that we had NOTHING to do with our salvation and that DESPITE of our guilt, sin, and shame God would still love us and give us Jesus leads us to continually love him more deeply
2. We can show more grace and patience to others! Often times the frustration we feel towards unbelievers in our lives is driven from the mentality "why don't they get it?" We believe that they are in the open sea and just choosing not to grab the life-raft Jesus is offering. And while I believe that we are all responsible for our sin and that it is the sin of the unbeliever that ultimately condemns them, we have to understand that without God moving and giving life unbelievers will remain dead in their sin.
Let me make this clear one more time: YOU DID NOT GRAB A LIFE RAFT, YOU WERE RAISED FROM THE DEAD! And I hope you see the inherent pride in the statement "why don't you get it" as if you were saved because you got it.
Instead we are free to be patient, show grace, and pray more fervently that God would work in a miraculous way in the lives of the people who don't know Him because when all is said and done...it's all about Jesus and what he did...not us!
-Cal
