“For the Son of Man came to seek and to
save the lost." (Luke 19:10 NIV)
In God's
benevolent economy, the church… provides a place of solace, a hotbed of godly
values, a stage for spirited worship, an organism of relationships, and all the
bountiful benefits Christians enjoy. But the church isn't the church so that we
Christians can experience those perks. The church is the church so that other
people can meet Jesus Christ and be captured by the Spirit and be incorporated
into the Kingdom for eternity. A church exists, like Jesus, "to seek and
to save the lost." The church is not in the business of coddling the cozy
but rather of finding the fallen, and will inconvenience itself in order to
reach out. The church exists to do what Jesus valued -- and did, Himself.
-- James D.
Berkley in a sermon at First Presbyterian Church in Bellevue, Washington
#4614
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