Ephesians

The Lord’s Witnesses

The Lord Himself told us about our calling as members of His church. Just before He ascended, He told His disciples, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). There is the calling of the church: we are to be witnesses of Christ.

This calling is always addressed to the individual Christian. Therefore the responsibility to fulfill this calling of the church belongs to every true Christian: We are all called—individually. We are all indwelt by the Holy Spirit—individually. We are all expected to fulfill our calling in the world—individually. The expression of the church’s witness may sometimes be corporate, but the responsibility to do so is always individual.

In Scripture, the only message that the church has for the world is the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is not to say that the church has nothing to say about politics or social justice or civil rights or abortion or any other issue on the earthly scene. Christians are called to demonstrate compassion, and the Christian who can shrug off his fellow human being and say, “I’m indifferent to the needs of others,” is not truly Christian—he is horribly sub-Christian.

But we must recognize that the gospel is not a social agenda. It is a transcendent message of new life, eternal life. This is what men, women, and children need to hear. In the letter to the Ephesians, Paul calls us back to those great purposes of God for which the church was established. The church was not placed in the world with a mandate to correct the evils of society, but to declare and demonstrate the power of God in Jesus Christ. The great and beautiful paradox of the church is that the more it focuses on its true spiritual mandate, the more effective it is in correcting the ills and evils of society. But the more preoccupied the church becomes with a social agenda, the less effect it has in the world.

So we must focus on our message—the simple story of what Jesus Christ has done in our own lives. Ask any Christian what is the greatest event in his or her life, and invariably, without hesitation, that Christian will reply, “The moment I came to know Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.” So if you then ask that person what is the greatest message he or she can give to others, that Christian will naturally reply, “The good news of how to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior!”

Christians are not to witness in arrogance and rudeness, not in holier-than-thou smugness, not in sanctimonious presumption, but in a spirit of Christ-like meekness. And Christians cannot bear witness to the peace, love, and forgiveness of God while living out the warring, factionalism, and grudge-bearing of ugly church fights.

Our calling, our purpose, our reason for existing as the church of Jesus Christ is to live out the character of Christ in our personal and corporate lives, and to tell forth the good news of Jesus Christ everywhere we go.