This Is How We Blew It

This is How We Blew It

Texts: Luke 18:8; 2nd Cor. 13:5; James 2:14-26 (and others)

By: Kenny McKinley

(Read Texts and open with prayer and thanksgiving)

As I was praying and considering what to preach here today, I considered the fact that I was going to be in a church where I didn’t know any of the congregants, and so initially I thought, “Well maybe I’ll preach an evangelistic sermon.” But then I thought, well I’m not some great, well known evangelist, so most if not everyone who is here today is probably a regular church goer, most if not all of you are probably members of this church and so I continued to pray and think about what I should preach. And then I thought, “What does the church in America, as a whole need?” because after all; the whole, is simply made up of its parts, and this church is definitely one of the parts.

And so the title of my sermon this morning is, “This is how we blew it.” I have a lot of Christian friends; conservative Christian friends, who are wringing their hands about the upcoming election. I get the AFA online newsletter as well as mailings from Coral Ridge Ministries, the Eagle Forum, and others, and they are all upset with the three leading candidates that are running for our nation’s highest office. Because all three of the leading candidates, whether republican or democrat, all three of them have track records of being either for, or not against abortion and same sex marriage. Then you look at the other things that are going on in our world, and in our nation, and all of these things are a cause of concern for Christians. And so what I see Christians doing is mobilizing, sending money to this organization, or that organization, so that the Christian agenda can fight against the secularist agenda in the courtrooms and in the halls of government. And I’m here to tell you this morning… this is how we blew it.

No where in the Bible does it say that Christians are to change the culture through legislation. You don’t change a culture through politics and the court system.

And I’ve heard countless pastors, evangelists, and teachers stand behind pulpits, before congregations, and crowds, and classrooms and they say something like, “It all began in 1963 when Madalyn Murray O’Hair had prayer banned in public schools. Then it got worse in 1973 when Roe V. Wade legalized abortion, and now something like 50 million babies have been aborted. And now congress is discussing whether or not to legalize same sex marriage.” And they say, “The ACLU, liberal judges, homosexual activists, and atheists are destroying our nation from within, and so we have to rise up against them and fight them in the courts and elect politicians who are Christians, and stop this godless agenda from progressing any further.” I’ve heard Christian leaders say these sorts of things over and over, you probably have as well. Heck, I’ve even said them myself. And this is how we blew it. Because for the past 45 years we’ve had Christian leaders saying these things and advocating these things, but where does the Bible teach these things?

There is no doubt that our nation is spiritually and morally bankrupt. But it’s not the ACLU’s fault, its not the liberal judges fault, its not the homosexuals fault, it’s not the atheists fault. It’s OUR fault. I’ll say it again… IT’S OUR FAULT!

God’s method of changing a culture is the gospel. The apostle Paul said, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it (IT meaning the gospel) is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe.” When a person who is not a Christian acts, and behaves, and lives in a certain way, they are simply living in accordance to their nature. They have not been born again, they do not have a new nature, and so they are going to practice sin, they are going to sin and be hostile towards Christianity, and do what they can to attack it. It’s their nature to do so. And we seem to have failed to understand that the way to counter these attacks is not through the court system, its not through politics, it’s through the preaching of the gospel. And before Jesus left this earth He gave us a command to go into all the world and preach that gospel. My family and I recently moved to where we live now, and we were visiting nearby churches in order to find a new church home. One Sunday we went to a particular church and it just so happened that they were having an evangelist/juggler at this church. It was very entertaining and he had a very good message, but one of the congregants of that church asked us if we were attending on that Sunday because of the juggler. My wife and I looked at each other and then at the nice lady that asked us the question and we told her that we didn’t even know that the juggler was going to be there. Now I want you to understand that this particular church is only a few miles from where we live, yet we never saw any advertisement, we never saw any posters, no one from that church had come out and invited us to come, there was nothing. I don’t know how a church expects to reach its community using those methods. We have been commanded to GO into the world, not sit back and hope they decide to come to church. Now part of the reason that Christians don’t go is because of fear of persecution, part of the reason that they don’t is because the pastor has not properly equipped them to do so… Yes, Ephesians chapter four tells us that one of the pastors’ jobs is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, and some pastors have failed to do that. And that is how we pastors have blown it. But there is another reason people in churches don’t go into all the world and preach the gospel, and that’s because there are some people in the churches who are not Christians at all; which brings me back to my texts I just read awhile ago. “When the Son of Man returns will He really find faith?” “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.” “But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?”