February Newsletter

Hey people of God:

I’ve had a recurring theme come into my path recently and I would like to share it with you. One thing I have learned is to make careful note of any patterns or repetitions that I see in the world around me (I don’t believe in fate or coincidence) as God may be trying to teach me something. This is one of those things.

It started at the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission. Vanguard has the privilege of leading the chapel service from 7:30-8:30 every Wednesday night there and we take turns presenting a short meditation to the men and women living there. We have had dozens of different presenters of all ages and races but I started to see a pattern that I began meditating on. If the presenter for the evening was over the age of sixty and had been serving God for many years their message was always the same: Come to Jesus. Please don’t get me wrong, the other presenters have all been wonderful, ministering on everything from life in the Spirit to freedom from oppression to the healing power in the blood of Jesus. But as the months progressed I began to note that when it came time for an older saint to present the Word, I could count on it being a message of salvation. And this got me to thinking.

Two years ago I went to the Willow Creek Leadership Conference. The speakers were wonderful preaching on things like “Putting Your Family First” and “Fruitful Church Life.” But the most powerful message of the conference was the last one done by Bill Hybels, lead pastor of Willow Creek. He very carefully, very passionately, presented the gospel message of salvation through Christ.

Three years ago I was with my grandfather and he was asking me if I had ever considered searching for my biological parents. I told him that I rarely, if ever, thought about it which didn’t surprise him, but I remember his response: “But if they don’t know about Jesus it would be worth any amount of search.”

Last week in my Systematic Theology Class (a fancy way of saying, “thinking about what we believe”) we got into a discussion on if Jesus could or should be preached from every scripture, whether preaching from the New Testament or Old Testament. Some students thought that this was reaching too far and some thought every message should be about Jesus. Each argument had valid points but the professor finally pointed out that the early church fathers, including first and second century believers, all believed that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Old Testament and couldn’t see preaching any message that didn’t include Jesus since the entire book was about Him anyways. And that got me to thinking.

Is it possible that we’ve grown too familiar with the gospel? Have we grown so wise that we have forgotten that Christ is all and is in all? Have our doctrines outgrown the centrality of the message that without Jesus the entire world is going to hell? What I think the Lord has been trying to show me is that when a saint becomes truly grown up, they realize that the only message that really matters is, “Do you know that Jesus died for you?” I know that we get excited about teaching on the Melchezidek priesthood, or the Tabernacle of David and apostolic church building, but in the end if there is someone in the hearing who doesn’t know Jesus you’ll just have succeeded in producing a really educated future resident of hell. And this does have me thinking.

I love you guys

N8