Subscribe to Every Post:Throughout the OT God communicated to his people that they should repent and have faith in him: “For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!”(Eze 18:32)
John the Baptist enters the scene and he has one main message as he prepares people for the Messiah: “And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (Mark 1:4)
Jesus comes on the scene and guess what his message is: “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15)
Jesus’ apostles and disciples took the mantle and followed Jesus’ example: “They went out and preached that people should repent.” (Mark 6:12)
The early church then relayed this same message: “First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles also, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds.” (Acts 26:20)
The message of repentance, which is to turn from sin and turn to God in some area of life or in all of life, is the dominant message God gives to humanity all throughout human history. It is the consistent message throughout Old and New Testament.
As the church today, we are called to love people, serve people, be a blessing to people, live out Christ-like character, and with humility call people to repentance of their sin and turn to a loving and forgiving God.
This past summer I asked our church gathering how many people have communicated the message of repentance for the forgiveness sins to an unbeliever in the last 12 months. About 10% acknowledged they had. This means that 90% of the church is not regularly engaged in communicating the very message Jesus commissioned his church to give (the dominant message in all of Scripture).
If this is true, and if this is true generally speaking in the contemporary church today, does this mean something is broken in the church today? If 90% are not involved in communicating the mission, the very reason Jesus has left us on the earth (to live out and speak the message), has the church departed from the mission?
Being a witness, in the Acts 1:8 kind of way, means we communicate Jesus to the world both by how we live and what we communicate as the message. Are we losing the message? Have we lost the boldness that John the Baptist had (that cost his life), that Jesus had (that cost his life), or the early church had (that cost many of their lives)?
Maybe it is simply sharing our faith story with someone and applying it to them at the end, or asking them to do a Bible study on the gospel, or simply looking for windows of opportunities in our conversations with others. Encouraging people to repent and believe in Jesus can happen in all kinds of ways.
What price are we willing to pay to be bold in calling people (with gentleness and humility) to repentance for forgiveness? Apparently, 90% of us aren’t willing to pay any price at all. We are not even engaging people with the message.
Is something wrong or am I missing something?