Urgency

The other day I read an article that was posted to a Facebook group I belong to. The article, by a Christian author, had to do with grace, but the picture of grace that I drew from the article seemed very secular. Being kind and considerate to others. Being willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. These aren’t bad things at all. In my opinion they just fall short of what grace, as given from God to sinners, is.

God's grace isn't God giving me the benefit of the doubt over my sins against him, saying something like, "That's okay, just try harder next time." God's grace is God, looking at me, dead in my sin, and saying something like, "You can't save yourself, no matter how hard you try. My gift to you is the forgiveness of your sin, all of it, through the death of my son, Jesus. It is only through his death that you can have life."

When I read that article and thought about it a little bit the next thing that came to my mind was a quote I have taped to the pulpit of our church. That’s a picture of it in the upper right corner.

Richard Baxter was an English preacher in the 17th century, which was not an easy time to stand in a pulpit and proclaim God's truth. Baxter understood matters of  eternal life and death were at stake every time he entered the pulpit.  He preached as someone who understood that the need for salvation in Christ applied to his own life as well as the lives of those in the pews. He knew that the future, in an earthly sense, was uncertain, and so the time to hear and respond to the Good News in Jesus as now.

I put that quote on the pulpit to remind me of the urgency of preaching the Good News each time I stand there to read, explain and apply God's word. The things that seem like grace in a secular sense are fine, and I can encourage people to grow in them. But first, and foremost, I need to use God's word to show them their desperate state before God, and the grace offered through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dead in sin and with no hope of any kind, save that found in Jesus. May all who have been rescued by him have a sense of urgency as we point others to that same, and only, source of  true and everlasting life. Amen.