2022-10-02 – The Visible Church – Pastor Chuck

We need clear prophetic voices that Strengthen, Encourage and Challenge us, the Church. (1 Peter 4:7-11).

“YOU are the light of the world.” (Matthew 5:14-16)   “LOVE is a magnet for the Gospel”

Last week Keith Green: YOU put this love in my heart.
This week: Francis Schaeffer:   (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBI5lPYNdzs)
Francis Schaeffer | A Christian Manifesto | Coral Ridge 1982..

The 21st-century church WILL BE unrecognizable.

The World is unrecognizable…  It is the world YOU and I have been born into.

ABOVE ALL love each other deeply. More literally, before all things, having intense love towards one another.

John (The Apostle of Love) said: “Little children, love one another.”

“By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another” (John 13:34-35).

THE FINAL APOLOGETIC

“In John 13 the point was that, if an individual Christian does not show love toward other true Christians, the world has a right to judge that he is not a Christian. Here Jesus is stating something else which is much more cutting, much more profound: We cannot expect the world to believe that the Father sent the Son, that Jesus’ claims are true, and that Christianity is true, unless the world sees some reality of the oneness of true Christians.”
― Francis A. Schaeffer, The Mark of the Christian

“EXCEL still more” (1 Thessalonians 4:10)

The early disciples’ courage was observable!
When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13)