Geoffrey R. Kirkland
Christ Fellowship Bible Church, St Louis, MO
Many people who once went to church, or who grew up in church, now find themselves disenchanted with church and put off by local assemblies for many various reasons. But perhaps one reason that often comes out is this: “Christians are just hypocrites, so I just don’t want anything to do with ‘organized church.’” I have heard statements like this many times from people who say: “I’ve been there and tried that, but it didn’t work for me.” What can you say?
We must affirm a few fundamental realities: Christians are sinners. Christians are forgiven. Christians are striving to follow Christ. Christians are repenters. Christians need the corporate worship of the saints. No Christian claims to be perfect but still strives to follow our Head, the Lord Jesus Christ.
In responding to this common claim, a few statements are necessary.
- A Christian is a sinner. — Christians are not perfect people. Christians are forgiven and transformed and in process of changing, but none have reached a state of sinlessness. None.
- A Christian is aware of His desperate condition and his sin nature. — The more a Christian matures and grows, the more he sees the deep depravity and dark crevices of sin still remaining in his life. He hates his sins that he sees: his pride and selfishness and their fruits.
- A Christian is thankful for and humbled by grace. — Far from being perfect or claiming to have “arrived,” a true believer glories in God’s undeserved favor lavished upon Him. He praises God for his mercy showered upon Him undeservedly and wondrously. He is humbled by God’s work of salvation knowing that he does not deserve it. Yet he thanks God for grace!
- A Christian has no hope apart from Christ. — The simple profession that comes from a believer’s lips is that our hope and our righteousness is only found in Jesus Christ. Apart from Him, we have no hope but we are lost, doomed and headed for judgment. Christ rescues us!
- A Christian glories in the substitutionary and propitiatory work of Jesus Christ. — The very heart and soul of the gospel message is that Jesus, God incarnate, came to earth and died as the passover Lamb, the substitute, on the cross in the place of His people. On the cross, God cursed Him and justly punished Him for the sins of His people. So God is just in punishing sin and He is justifier in reckoning the perfect righteousness of Christ to those who trust in Him.
- A Christian repented and is still repenting. — A person must repent to be saved. But repentance continues throughout the entirety of one’s life. When we sin, we repent repeatedly.
- A Christian believed and is still believing. — As with repentance, so it is also with faith. We believed on Christ for salvation and we still trust Him daily as we walk and grow with Him.
- A Christian hates his sin and strives to mortify it. — When true Christians stumble into sin, far from ignoring it, believers hate it, seek to kill it, extract it, & replace it with godly habits.
- A Christian perseveres with Christ and clings to Scripture. — Those who have hearts transformed by Christ demonstrate true faith by clinging to Christ and persevering in grace.
- A Christian hungers for the fellowship with God’s people. — Jesus saves His people to love Him, to walk with Him & to grow in grace with His people. True saints love Christ’s church.
