Throughout Western history, Christianity has endured seasons when our faith should have been forever defeated, if not obliterated. The Church of Jesus Christ should have had a funeral with the fall of the Roman Empire, the spread of Islamic armies, the Enlightenment, political upheaval in Europe, or the philosophical attacks led by Marx, Darwin, Hume, Nietzsche, and Freud.
But God brings dead things to life, and at the heart of our faith is belief in resurrection. In each instance when Christianity seemed to be dying, it was renewed in strength, leaning on Jesus’ promise that almost sounds like a battle cry: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Eventually, the world as we know it, including the United States of America, will fade away. But the church will endure until Jesus comes to take his bride home.
The truth is, the world we live in today is a lot like the first-century context in which Christianity flourished. The Romans worshiped their nation and political leader; Pontius Pilate asked, “What is truth?”; Paul encountered an “unknown god”; the Greeks were openly pro-gay; the Ephesians were converted from witchcraft and demonic spirituality; and the Corinthian Christians needed to stop their cross-dressing and cancel their memberships at the pagan temples. But the gospel– the same gospel that’s alive and well today– transformed lives and spread despite all the conflict.
We have been chosen by God to live at this time and in this culture with all its faults and flaws, as part of the Church of Jesus Christ with all her faults and flaws, as people with our own faults and flaws. Today we have an unprecedented opportunity for mission. Christiandom may have died, but in that death there is a real opportunity for a resurgence of biblically faithful, personally humble, evangelistically fruitful, missional Christianity.
It will be costly for us to stop making a dent and start making a difference. But if we do, we will have some amazing stories to tell our grandkids.
You didn’t think you were just here to kill time listening to Christian music until Jesus returned or you died, did you?
Get to work.
This is an excerpt from A Call To Resurgence by Mark Driscoll. Copyright 2013 by On Mission, LLC, and Mark Driscoll. Published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Used by permission. Watch Mark Driscoll on LIFE Today this Monday and Tuesday.
