One of the most life-shaping weekends of my life was a conference I attended in 1976 as a speaker and singer in South India. My main host was a pastor who had made a commitment to shepherd a church among the poor. He told me that over 80% of his people did not have enough food to eat. And, he added, no family in his church had been shielded from losing a child prematurely in recent years. I preached at his church on the Sunday morning I was there. I cannot remember what I expected when I visited his church family. However, I know that I did not expect what I experienced. The service at his simple church facility was filled with joy and praise. The lunch we had afterwards was joy and hope filled. The people were unbelievably hospitable to me. I felt at home."
When I went back to the pastor's home after the fellowship time, I asked him if he could help me understand his people's joy in the midst of all the suffering. He said, "If my people believed that this world is all there is, they would be filled with despair. But, they follow Jesus. They are comforted with his promise that he will come again and make all things new. They live now in the light of what they believe about the future. The only way to make sense out of the kind of world they live in is to believe that there is life beyond this life. And they have learned to trust that the one in control of that future is the God who loves them. What people believe about the future shapes how they live in the present."
I think this pastor and his church had grasped and applied the Bible's teaching about the future better than anyone I had ever met. May our lives also be shaped by what we believe about the future. In Article 9 of our proposed Statement of Faith, we put it this way:
Proposed Statement of Faith Article 9
We believe in the glorious and personal return of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will come in power and great glory to gather his people, raise the dead, judge the nations, and bring his kingdom to fulfillment. The coming of Christ, at a time known only to God, demands constant expectancy and motivates the believer to godly living, growing faith, sacrificial service, and energetic mission.
God will bring his gospel to fulfillment at the end of the age.
To His glory,
Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor