On The Gospel
by
Brian Sharpe
New Years always
brings about great time for reflection. Stan preached on a passage
last Sunday where we could reflect on the message that Paul brought
to the Corinthians. This message was described as a message “of
first importance.” Paul brought the people of Corinth back to the
Gospel, helping them remember the message of the Gospel. What I
would ask you to do is for you to reflect on who brought the Gospel
to you. We can read biographies or autobiographies of great
missionaries like Hudson Taylor or Jim Elliot, but what we fail to
remember is that we had missionaries bringing Jesus to us.
Missionaries are people who are sent with a message to share. God
has made us all missionaries. We need to be on mission sharing the
message we were given. This message may have been brought to by
your parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles. It may have been
friends or a pastor. It doesn’t matter who it was, it just matters
that the message of the Gospel was brought to you. It was given as a
gift from God to you. Is the message that was brought by Paul to
Corinth...the message that was brought to you by the missionary who
taught it to you as important to you as it should be? Is it a
message that you live by and share or just a message that has helped
and changed you? It is important to recognize that God built his
church by word of mouth. He did not build it through large
programs. He built it by his people loving him so much that all
they could do is share him with everyone they knew. This is what we
want to be about at Elim. We want to be a body that is so in love
with Jesus that all we can do is by word and deed share Jesus with
everyone in our sphere of influence. This leads me to a couple
closing questions:
1. Who
shared Jesus with you and what would your life look like if they had
kept their mouth shut?
2. How did they share Jesus with you?
3. When was the last time you shared the gospel with someone
with your words?
4. Who is in your sphere of influence that you can share Jesus
with?
5. What is stopping you?
Answer these questions and share your answers
with someone. Elim is here to help people Know God, Grow together
in Christ and Go and Serve South Hill and beyond. Join us on this
Gospel journey and share Jesus with everyone you know.
