September 2022

Dear Cobham Park Church Family,
Many stop by my church study to chat, get advice, pray, or talk about a problem. But judging from the number of peppermints I go through, I think the candy bowl on my desk must be the biggest draw of all! On most Tuesday mornings, I find this bowl nearly empty. As I was refilling it this week, I noticed an empty wrapper mixed in. At first I thought someone had grabbed a peppermint and then rudely discarded its wrapper back into the bowl. On closer examination, however, I noticed that the wrapper was still perfectly sealed, so I blame quality control at the candy factory.
Churches don’t usually have a reputation for excellent quality control. There are empty wrappers among us. I’m talking about people who proudly bear the name “Christian” and display certain outward signs of faith. Yet perfectly sealed under that wrapper, their souls are empty. Christ doesn’t live there. The Bible and the world agree on a name for such people: “hypocrites.”
How can our church family improve its quality control? To begin with, we must think differently about what it means to be saved. Most churches define God’s salvation as believing certain things, following certain rules, praying a certain prayer, walking down the aisle, being baptized, or being confirmed. This would be good if they didn’t stop there. As it is, many seem to think that once salvation is attained, it can be tucked away like a “get-out-of-hell-free card” until it’s needed at death. Apart from that, real-life changes aren’t essential—they’re extra credit. You’ve heard me call this “fire insurance faith,” and it is a distortion of the gospel. It’s all about going to heaven when you die without following Jesus as you live! Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a German pastor who was persecuted and killed by the Nazis) called this “cheap grace,” where salvation costs nothing and therefore means nothing to us. Many so-called Christians believe in Jesus’ cross, but then refuse to take it up and follow Him daily (Luke 9:23; 14:27). Such “empty wrapper faith” is therefore irrelevant to daily life, and it leads to emptiness, apathy, and hypocrisy. Dallas Willard once described this as “nondiscipleship Christianity,” for it makes us forget that Jesus commands us to make disciples—not to merely save souls (Matthew 28:19-20).
I’m not advocating salvation by works, but rather works by salvation (James 2:17-18). I’m challenging Cobham Park Baptist Church to stand apart from what usually passes for Christianity in this nation. We need to be more than saved; we need to be disciples! This means sharing in the life of Jesus now — learning to think like Him, believe like Him, and behave like Him. This leaves no appropriate place for hand-wringing, fear-mongering, or hate-politicking over our godless culture. We must not fight fire with fire. Instead of “us versus them,” we must be “us for Him!” After all, if our lives are not full of Christ, who else is going to change the world?
In His Love,
Pastor Keith