If you are not a believer or are currently not involved in a local church, you probably read the previous section and shouted, “Amen! This is why I want nothing to do with the church!” I want to, for a moment, consider the Gospel of Christ with you. The Gospel of Christ claims that people are entirely sinful and entirely insufficient. As people we are unable to sanctify ourselves and unable bring ourselves into salvation. Drawn out to its conclusion, this means that to judge a church based on any how-to or how-to-not is to be guilty of the same sin that much of the organizational church is guilty of.
There is a very important idea for us to realize. If Christ is the only one who can bring about salvation and sanctification, then it is only Christ who can bring about sanctification in any church body. To claim that we have given up on the local church for any reason is to buy into the false gospel of the serpent and completely reject the Gospel of Christ; for the work of sanctification, either in an individual or in a local church, is not the work of the church, but the work of Christ. To forsake the local church, then, is to fail to have faith in Christ. To have faith in Christ is to understand that all people are sinful, that all churches are full of sinful people, and that it is Christ who is in the process of sanctifying every church body. This is a message for my own generation. We are so quick to point out insufficiencies and use those insufficiencies as an excuse not to be involved. This is the type of action that the serpent’s gospel calls us to. We must turn away from this false gospel, and begin trusting in Christ.
For the unbeliever, I might simply make this statement. Please do not make a judgment call about God by observing the sinful people whom He has chosen to save. God is perfect and we are not. My desire is not for you to follow any person or just become part of a church. My desire is for you to submit to the lordship of a perfect God. If the false gospel of the serpent is ever communicated to you by anyone who refers to him or herself as a ‘christian,’ please politely ignore it and know that the work of both salvation and sanctification is the work of Christ. Only faith in Christ can save and sanctify the person, not faith in the works of the person or the church.
If you feel God drawing you to Himself, my advice is this. Open up the word that He has given. See how He has revealed Himself. See that in spite of any human imperfection, God still has grace and still actually chooses to save people to Himself. You don’t have to be perfect. You can never prepare yourself for salvation or for participation in a local church. It is the work of Christ. The only requirement is that we respond to His invitation to come and believe Him. He does the work of salvation and He draws us closer to Himself.