Gospel Implications

Yesterday I enjoyed being at Worship Central, but I was particularly encouraged to hear Mike Pilavachi talk about the full implications of the Gospel. He be-littled the classic evangelical sermon calling people to accept Jesus for their personal salvation, and went on to explain that to respond to Jesus means for sure salvation but also calls us to the hard work of mission.

This is the first time I can recall hearing a 'big platform speaker' highlight the shortcomings of our typical preaching. It has been bugging me for a while now that we have been selling short in this way. Indeed I must confess also to be guilty of this myself - something I have been recently trying to correct.

Peter's well known call in Acts 2 for the crowd to 'repent and be baptised' was for them to 'save themselves from this corrupt generation', a generation that should have been at the centre of God's mission purposes. By repenting and getting back on track, they would experience salvation for themselves, but also become once again a mission people for God.

In our UK culture of today, which knows nothing of God's mission purposes and wants individualistic blessing parceled out in nice neat packaging, we would do well to give appropriate time in our message to spelling out the bigger picture.