Pressure reveals character,
we all learn sooner or later. And opposition reveals what we really believe.
Do we believe in the Gospel of Jesus
Christ enough to lose friends, social status, a scholarship or a job over it?
Do we believe it enough to suffer for it? These are questions followers of
Christ in many places have to answer on a daily basis. In America, the land of
the free, not so much. We still enjoy the religious liberty embedded in the
founding ideals of our nation.
But the rise of militant secularism —
and increasing efforts to make the practice of biblical faith socially and
legally unacceptable — are slowly raising the cost of discipleship in the
United States. That’s probably one of the factors behind the decline of
“cultural Christianity” devoid of real commitment.
Maybe that’s a good thing, observes new
IMB President David Platt.
“In one sense, I’m thankful for the
trends in our culture, and even in the church, that are causing us to ask, ‘OK,
do we really believe the Bible?’” said Platt, who discussed a range of
missions-related issues during an interview following his Aug. 27 election to
lead Southern Baptists’ global mission enterprise.
“Do we really believe this Gospel that
we claim to believe?” Platt asked. “Because more and more, cultural
Christianity is just kind of fading to the background. People are realizing if
you actually believe in the Gospel then that’s not as accepted as it once was.
It’s actually looked down upon as narrow-minded, arrogant, bigoted and
offensive. Obviously, we want to be humble in our embracing of the Gospel, but
it’s becoming more costly in our culture in a way that’s good — in the sense
that this better prepares us [for] what we’re going to be a part of around the
world.”
Paying a higher cost to live and declare
the Gospel here, in other words, will make us better and more effective
servants among the nations — where the cost may be far greater. The reward will
be greater still.
“We’re not going to shrink back in light
of the resistance that’s there,” Platt said. “We’re going to step up, rise up
and say we want to see His glory proclaimed no matter what it costs us, because
we believe He is our reward.” American Christians have enjoyed the blessings of religious liberty and freedom of expression for a long time. Perhaps those freedoms, coupled with the material prosperity of the richest economy in human history, have lulled us into expecting things will always be as they have been. That is a naïve complacency that flies in the face not only of history but the Bible itself.
“We need to realize the clear New
Testament teaching that it is costly to follow Christ, that the more your life
is identified with Christ, the harder it will get for you in this world,” said
Platt. “We need our eyes opened to that reality. I think we’ve been almost
seduced by the spirit of cultural Christianity that says, ‘Oh, come to Christ
and you can keep your life as you know it.’ No, you come to Christ, and you
lose your life as you know it. The more you’re active in sharing the
Gospel, the more unpopular you’ll be in many ways, the more resistance you’ll
face. …
“[But] it helps you realize this is what
our brothers and sisters around the world are facing in different places. If
we’re going to join with them in spreading the Gospel, then we need to be ready
to embrace that ‘everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will
be persecuted,’” he added, quoting the Apostle Paul’s words in 1 Timothy
3:12.
During months of praying about leading
IMB, Platt said God had instilled in him a “deeper, narrowing, Romans 15 kind
of ambition, where [the Apostle] Paul said, ‘I want to see Christ preached
where He has not been named.’” The whole concept of unreached peoples, “of
nearly 2 billion people who have never heard the Gospel, is just totally
intolerable.”
The reality, however, is that most
unreached people live in places where religions, cultures, governments and
extremists oppose — sometimes violently — the transmission of the Gospel and
the making of disciples. Western missionaries and churches, accustomed to
relative freedom, continue to struggle with that fact and all that it entails.
But there’s nothing new about it if you read church history. What’s more, God
continues to use what the world intends for evil for His good purposes. Just as
it did in the Book of Acts, persecution today tends to strengthen, unify and
embolden believers, even as it multiplies churches.
“Making disciples of all nations will
not be easy, and the more we give ourselves to reaching unreached peoples with
the Gospel, the harder it will get for us,” Platt said. “But the beauty is the
more we identify with Christ [in America], the more we’ll be ready to identify
with the sufferings of Christ [overseas] as we go. And we’ll realize, whether
here or there, the more we give ourselves to this mission, [the more we’ll]
believe in the depth of our heart that He is our reward and that the reward of
seeing people come to Christ is worth it. This is just basic theology of
suffering in mission. How has God chosen to show His love most clearly to the
world? Through the suffering of His Son, a suffering Savior.
“So how is God going to show His love
most to the world today? Through suffering saints, through brothers and sisters
who identify with the suffering Savior.”(Watch related video clip: Opposition clarifies mission task)
No comments:
Post a Comment