Titus
1:1-4 (NIV)
1 Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the
faith of God's elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness-- 2
a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who
does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,
3 and at his appointed season he brought his word to light through
the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior, 4 To
Titus, my true son in our common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and
Christ Jesus our Savior.
Over the
past several weeks I have been taking two days a week to be on campus sharing
Christ with students at SIU. I have had several students work with me during
these days in engaging college students with the gospel. We have had many very
good conversations with students. In our conversations we found students who
were brought to an awareness of their danger in the approaching judgment to come.
Most recognized that they were headed for judgment, but at the same time, they
were unmoved by such knowledge, they simply had too may other things to concern
themselves with for the moment.
I have
found myself asking the question more and more as the semester progresses,
"What do we need to do in order to bring them to repentance?" I have
read up on more evangelistic methods and programs that might help move them
towards repentance but have been concerned that this would only produce a repentance
founded on some human instrument instead of God's work.
This
morning as I was reading in Titus the answer was right in front of me. It came
in this manner, "at his appointed season he brought his word to light . .
." True repentance comes only through the work of the Holy Spirit in God's
time, not ours.
But then I
had another question, "If this is true, then what must be our ministry
posture until God grants repentance?" The answer came immediately in the
rest of the text. "He brought his word to light through the preaching
entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior."
So what is
to be our posture and ministry method during the times when we do not see any
repentance or move toward God in our culture? Precisely this, we are to keep
preaching the Word of God no matter what, whether we see conversions or not,
because as we preach the Word we are laying the ground work for God to move
when he decides to bring awakening to our nation again. It is through the Word
of God that God brings light to all men about their spiritual need for Christ.
So for the time being we will preach the Word, even though it is out of season
and we see little true conversions. We do not do this in a state of
hopelessness, on the contrary, we do this in the state of utter confidence that
as the Word of God is preached and as people are brought into the direct
proximity of God's truth we are laying the ground work for real conversions
when God deems it best to bring them alive.
If we say
to ourselves that we are not having any real success in preaching and stop,
then we will short circuit the work of God when he desires to send awakening
because the culture will not have the Word of God sown into their culture and
they will lack the power of the Gospel that will bring them to repentance. Let
us not be weary in sowing the seed of God's Word for this is the means by which
men and women are made alive in God's appointed time. In due time we will reap
if we faint not.
Preaching
the Word, setting the stage for God's appointed season,
Pastor Phil