Part 4 - The Application of Faith

The Sharing of the Light with the World

Love to the Lost

The fruit of abiding in Christ is love. This love has four avenues of expression: to the lost, to God, to fellow members in the body of Christ, and to Jesus Christ as Redeemer and Mediator between God and mankind. Christ's sanctifying work is modeled in the creation account, which typifies both the setting apart of the believer from sin and death and the consecration of the believer to the purposes of God. See Part 2, The Sanctifying Work of Christ, for details on the four ways in which Christ has set apart the believer and the corresponding four ways in which the believer is consecrated to God's purposes. The first aspect of separation is separation from darkness into the light of Christ. The corresponding consecration is the consecration of the believer to share that light with those in darkness (see Part 2, Consecrated to Sharing the Light). Sharing the light of the knowledge of God is the expression of love to the lost.

Identification and compassion

The basis for Christian witness, where the truth of the gospel is shared with the lost, is the believer's own deliverance through that truth. In the light of Christ, the believer finds peace with God, hope of eternal life, the forgiveness of sins, deliverance from the power of sin, and the joy and comfort of God's presence. It is the testimony of one's personal salvation through the light of Christ that is the witness.

Compassion for the lost comes when the believer identifies with the plight of the lost. Except for God's grace and intervention in the believer's life, the believer has no more ability to deliver himself from the destructiveness of sin than those apart from Christ. There is a process of brokenness that God works into the lives of all believers. This process causes the believer to realize his own desperate need for God, the same need that all of mankind has. The result is an identification with and a compassion for those who are apart from Christ.

Brokenness

Jesus likened Himself to the chief cornerstone of a building. To this He added, "And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder" (Matt. 21:44). In the end, those opposed to Christ will be completely crushed. Mankind's rebellion against God will eventually be fully dealt with. Interestingly, however, those who come to Christ will also be broken. This is the breaking of man's independence from God where he would depend upon his own works, wisdom, and life. Man would seek to establish his standing before God through his own works; God's way is that man would be established before Him based on God's work, thus necessitating rest in the work of Jesus Christ. Man would depend upon his own wisdom and understanding; God's way is that man would depend upon God's infinite wisdom and understanding, thus necessitating faith in God on the part of man. Man would seek to live life based on his own resources; God's way is that man would find God to be his resource, thus necessitating life in the Holy Spirit through Christ. Those who come to Christ will be broken in these areas so that God will become all in all.

It is in brokenness that the sweet fragrance of God's presence comes forth, bringing victory over sin and producing the fruit of love. Sin began when mankind stopped cleaving to God and tried to rely on himself. Mankind became self-centered, and sin is simply a manifestation of this self-centeredness. The brokenness that God is working out in His people is the breaking of self-centeredness so that God-centeredness will be produced, and more specifically, Christ-centeredness. Brokenness comes when the believer finds that he cannot earn his standing before God based on his own works. It comes when the believer finds himself in situations that are totally out of his control and understanding. Brokenness comes when the believer finds he cannot live life based on his own resources. When he gives up depending upon himself and declares failure is when God is ready to come in and take over. The believer learns to rely entirely upon God, and in this God gets the glory. This is the working of the cross upon a believer's life at which point he can say, "For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2:19-20).

The believer is able to serve God when he sees himself not as being able to do anything but rather as being an earthen vessel through which God can work and accomplish His purposes. Love is produced through the Spirit as the believer seeks not his own glory in accomplishments but the glory of God, who loved mankind first and has worked out redemption and restoration for fallen man. In brokenness, under the lordship of Jesus Christ, the believer learns to rest in the accomplishments of Christ, believe in Christ, and abide in the life of Christ through the Holy Spirit. This removes the self-centeredness that inhibits love and fruitfulness.

What God has done for the believer, so too, He desires to do for all others who sit in darkness, sin, and spiritual death. The believer who has received light and hope in Christ is called to be a vessel through which God's love can go out to the lost. The book of Romans states, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6:23). A striving to earn God's approval and acceptance produces strife between people, for pride creates a desire to stand higher than others. This produces contempt or envy toward others. The light of the gospel, however, shows that the only thing that is earned is death, "for the wages of sin is death." The gospel shows that all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. All are at the same level of being in desperate need of God's mercy and grace. Eternal life comes only in and through Christ and is a gift, unearned and undeserved. This is the light that all believers receive and, as they believe and abide in it, the truth of it sets them free. This truth removes strife and produces love and compassion.

Preaching the good news

Romans states, "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: 'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!' ... So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. 10:14, 15, 17). Here is God's method through which faith in Him is realized: The gospel of peace is preached; the word of God is spread through the preaching; the lost hear the word; faith in the word is exercised by those who hear and receive.

Jesus taught the principle, "Freely you have received, freely give" (Matt. 10:8). The truth of the gospel is a transforming light. God's people have freely received it and are called to freely share it with compassion and love. The love that is the fruit of abiding in Christ is partly manifested in love for those apart from Christ who dwell in darkness. The truth that comes from abiding in the light of Christ is that which is freely received and is to be freely given. The consecration of all believers to this purpose of God is part of the sanctifying work of Christ and is part of the plan of God that was formulated before the foundation of the world.

The Bible states that "the just shall live by faith," and "without faith it is impossible to please God." The book of Hebrews states, "For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest" (Heb. 4:2-3). Rest in Jesus Christ and His finished work through faith is the foundation for service to God and the fulfillment of His purposes. When one places faith in Christ and by faith abides in the place of separation in Christ, the way is opened for service to God in and through the Holy Spirit. Service to God is not self-effort and work. It is not something done to bring glory to oneself. Serving God is actually yielding oneself as an instrument through which God the Holy Spirit works. The work is God's, and God gets the glory for it. "Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them ... in proportion to our faith" (Rom. 12:6).

A work of the Spirit

Serving the purpose of God by sharing the light of the gospel with the lost is a calling to be done in love and through the Spirit. Thus Jesus told His disciples, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Jesus told His disciples to "tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high." They were to tarry until Jesus ascended to the Father in Heaven and the Holy Spirit was sent to indwell the church. This would be the beginning point of the church, at which time the sanctifying work of Christ would be complete. This complete work entails not just the consecration of the believer to share the gospel message but the provision to carry it out.

The work of evangelism is a work of the Holy Spirit to be done in Jesus Christ and under His lordship. Christ is the head and directs His body, the church. Paul writes, "For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another" (Rom. 12:4-5). The witness of the church to the lost is a corporate work. All members do not have the same function, so each believer is to seek God's will and yield to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

In creation, God filled the seas with life. Genesis records, "Then God said, 'Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures ...' So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind" (Gen. 1:20-21). In like manner, God has placed His people throughout the world, mixed in with the lost, to be a witness. Each believer's place is different, unlike any other, and each one is consecrated to life in the Spirit, where the ministry of the Spirit is to reach out to the lost in manifold ways. Jesus says to His people, representatives of His light, "You are the light of the world ... Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matt. 5:14, 16).