Grace Church exists to glorify our Heavenly Father by
 continually making more disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

PASTOR'S PENS 2007

Grace Church of Burlington September 30, 200 “The glory of God, and, as our only means to glorifying Him, the salvation of human souls, is the real business of life.”  C. S. Lewis                                                 You’ll recall from American History that Calvin Coolidge was vice president of the United States between 1921-1923, under President Warren Harding. Coolidge was not a very active vice president but he took great pleasure in presiding over the Senate. One day, as he was presiding, one senator angrily told another to go “straight to hell.” The offended Senator openly complained to Coolidge as the presiding officer. Coolidge was leafing through the book of rules as he made his complaint. He looked up from the book and replied: “I’ve looked through the rule book. You don’t have to go.”             While Coolidge was making a joke, it’s no joke that that is the good news which you and I have the privilege of sharing with a lost world. Study the Bible for yourself, no one has to go to hell, Scripture clearly says that God “wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim.  2:4). The heart of God beats in love for every human being and longs for them to be with Him in heaven for all eternity. Every single human being bears the stamp of God, every single person is made in the image of God. He created them and sent His only Son, Jesus, into this world to redeem them.             To live apart from Christ and not experience His forgiveness, to not experience His love and acceptance, to not experience the presence of His Spirit in your life, is the greatest tragedy of human existence. You can have everything this world has to give but if you do not have Jesus Christ you have nothing. You may have more than enough money, great looks, a great education, a great family, but if you do not know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, your life has no purpose. Jesus warned, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36).             Increasingly, there’s a tendency to believe that all good people, whether or not they consider Jesus Christ to be their Savior, will live in heaven after they die. In 1992, 40% of people surveyed agreed with this notion. In 1994, the percentage had grown to 46%. By 1999, 53% of the people surveyed said they believed that all good people would go to heaven, regardless of their religion or relationship to Jesus Christ. But the Bible clearly says, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved”(Acts 4:12). In spite of what many people believe, there is a final judgment coming and it’s critical that we’re ready to face God at the judgment. This is our motivation for bringing people to Christ. Because the Bible teaches it, we believe in a literal hell. We want to do everything then that we can to prevent people from going there. We do not want our loved ones, friends or anyone else to be eternally separated from God. What good will it do if someone is successful and happy here if they spend an eternity in hell? As Paul said, “It’s no light thing to know that we’ll all one day stand in that place of Judgment. That’s why we work urgently with everyone we meet to get them ready to face God” (2 Cor. 5:10-11, The Message).             After the first tower of the World Trade Center was hit, people started streaming out of the buildings. But some people died in groups, because others around them convinced them they should stay put. Some of the security people on the bottom floor even told people fleeing the building that the fire department had everything under control and that they were to return to their offices. Many of them did and tragically, many of them died. The real heroes were those who understood the danger and went into the building to rescue the people who were in peril.             People without Christ are eternally lost. Lost people matter to God and lost people must matter to us. Most of us don’t need more information, instead we need to be convinced of the importance of the task. Eternal souls are at stake.                To share the Gospel you don’t have to be a theologian or a biblical scholar, all you have to be able to do is to tell your story. You may not be able to quote all the right Scriptures, but you can tell people how your life has changed and what God has done for you. Just by doing that you can make an eternal difference is someone’s life.             It’s a privilege today to have George and Debbie Collins from GAP Ministries with us today. May their sharing today cause each of us to have a greater passion for world missions and to pray more faithfully for our missionaries. And may it also reignite in our hearts that what they are doing on the foreign field, we must be doing here. We have the same Great Commission for our mission field to reach the lost around us!