If, as we say, the “Gospel of Jesus Christ” is heaven’s Good News, and if this good news is the answer to mankind’s deepest, biggest, worst problems, and if it’s free and eternal and for everyone, one would think people would be crashing through the church doors to get in on it.
So why aren’t they?
Not only are they not breaking down our doors to partake of God’s free offer in Christ, most of our neighbors act as if the church is completely irrelevant to anything that concerns them. And, when we do try to enlighten them on Christ’s wonderful blessings of grace, some laugh in our faces or even scoff and dismiss us as nuts.
What’s going on here? Why are people not clamoring to get in on this wonderful thing God has made available for all mankind in Jesus Christ?
Here are some possible answers…
1. Many do not know.
A pastor friend introduced me to a young man named Bill. “Bill was baptized last Sunday night.” When I expressed appreciation, Bill said, “I had a real hunger in my heart.”
What happened is that Bill, a carpenter, mentioned to some of his co-workers about his inward spiritual hunger. One of the men, a believer, invited him to church. He was not prepared for Bill’s response.
“How do I do that?”
The friend said, “How do you go to church? Simple—you get in your car and drive down there, you park, and you walk inside.”
Bill said, “You mean just anyone can walk inside a church?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Anyone.”
The next Sunday Bill heard the Gospel of Christ and responded by going forward during the invitation time and giving his hungry heart to the Lord who alone could fill it.
I said to my friend, “We make such assumptions. We just assume that everyone knows they would be welcome in our church. We assume they know when we meet and what goes on, and so we never tell them.”
He said to me, “You know my story, don’t you?” I didn’t.
When Mike was dating Terri, who would become his wife, he attended her Methodist church on Easter Sunday and for the first time in his life, heard the story of the resurrection. That week he called his dad, a lifelong Baptist.
“Did you know about the resurrection, Dad?” “Oh sure, son,” he said. “Everybody knows that story.”