VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Ben Kreps:
Hey everyone, and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our Executive Director. Mark, we're ending the year currently recording this just a few days before New Year's Day. Shout out to everyone that watches the podcast, reads the podcast. Happy New Year's to you. But as we come to the end of the year, Mark, you wanted to talk about something that you exhorted us to consider at your State of the Union address at the Pastors Conference. And that is the need for us to pursue holiness in our churches. This is on your mind and heart as you're thinking about entering the new year. Talk to us about that.
Mark Prater:
It is. And just to echo Ben, Happy New Year to you. As I think about Sovereign Grace in the future, and in this next year, 2023, there are a number of things that I carry on my heart that I've been lifting up to the Lord in prayer. And one of those is how we will walk the Christian walk in 2023 as a family of churches. And I think about our future. There's a poem that Robert Frost wrote. It's one of his best known poems called The Road Not Taken. And the very last line in that poem says, "two roads diverged in a wood. And I, I took the one less traveled by, and that made all the difference". And taking the right path does make all the difference. And we see that throughout scripture.
The wisdom literature in particular, and in the book of Proverbs, the word path, or its plural form paths, is used 23 different times. And it's always used to contrast two different ways to go two different paths. There's a wrong path, and there is a right path that's marked by holiness and righteousness. And that's what I see before us in Sovereign Grace. And I pray that we will go down the righteous path, the one that is marked by a number of things, one of those being just holiness. As I think about our future, I, I want us to continue to build by the grace of God and cultivate holiness in our churches, meaning Christ-like character, so that we will more distinctly contrast the culture that we are living in. A culture that everybody knows is filled with a lot of angst, that feels more polarized, and that we feel as Christians moving more quickly away from the word of God.
So if we would, by the grace of God, be intentional to pursue holy living, in obedience to God's word, I think our our churches are gonna continue to contrast the culture, and that's gonna be attractive to those that Christ is drawing to himself because he's gonna find a group of people that are committed to God's word, that are happy, joyful people that love one another, that despite their disagreements, exist in unity together. And that's just gonna be a haven for many people from the culture that feels so much different; for them to be drawn too. Because I think it's the corporate witness of the church that Christ is gonna use in many cases to draw people to himself. And as I shared at our Council of Elders meeting, this is not a new phenomenon.
This is a historic one. There's a book that Alan Kreider has written called The Patient Ferment of the Early Church, and it's the study of the Early New Testament church. And he begins the book by saying that scholars have debated for years how this marginal, small, Eastern Mediterranean religion grew despite being discriminated against and despised; how it grew so quickly that by the fifth century, it was the predominant religion in the Roman Empire. And his introduction summarizes a number of scholars in their thoughts. But Kreider gives four reasons why the early church grew. And the first two that he mentions, the first one, is patience. That that Christians were patient. He says this, Christians believe that God is patient, and that Jesus embodied patience, and they concluded that they trusting in God should be patient, not controlling events, not anxious or in a hurry, and never using force to achieve their end.
So they were patient people because they trusted in God. Then the second one that he mentions is this word he uses called habitus, which means habitual Christ-like behavior in the way he's using it. This is what he says. The sources rarely indicate that the early Christians grew in number because they won arguments. That's an important thing in our observation, in our culture today, where everybody's arguing with one another, right? He says the sources rarely indicate that the early Christians grew in number because they won arguments. Instead, they grew because they're habitual behavior rooted in patience, was distinctive and intriguing. Their behavior said what they believed, it was an enactment of their message. And the sources indicate that it was their habitus, their Christ-like behavior more than their ideas that appealed to the majority of non-Christians who came to join them. And so I think that's still still true today, that our pursuit as a family of churches individually and collectively together, individually as Christians, individual churches, and collectively as a family of churches, our pursuit by the grace of God to grow in Christlikeness this year, it will have an impact, an influence and effect in the various nations that our churches exist in. And so that's my prayer that we would grow in holiness in the coming year.
Ben Kreps:
Excellent. And a much needed word, not only in our day, but in every day. The good news is that the zealous pursuit of holiness, pursuit of godliness is not relegated to pastors or spiritual dynamos or charismatic personalities. This is within reach of every Christian, every man, woman, and child that has been redeemed by the blood of the lamb.
Mark Prater:
Yes. Amen. And that's so true, and we need that ongoing grace of God to grow in holiness. But the point you're making is very, very important because Alan Kreider ends his book by saying that the key to the growth of the Christian Church, the early New Testament church was actually ordinary Christians. He says this, God used not influential or powerful people, but ordinary Christians to achieve a huge end. The churches grew in many places, taking varied forms. They proliferated because the faith that ordinary Christians embodied was attractive to people who were dissatisfied and encountered Christians who embodied a new manner of life that pulled them toward what the Christians called rebirth into a new life. And so, I think that observation historically is still true today, that God primarily uses ordinary Christians like you and me, Ben, ordinary Christians for a huge end, which is the advancement of the gospel and the building of his church. So that more who are dissatisfied around us would come to Christ and know him as Lord and Savior.
Ben Kreps:
Yeah, that's excellent. We are all ordinary Christians, but all of us having the same extraordinary grace to empower what you're describing here and encouraging us toward a couple of resources. In case guys aren't aware, the recent Sovereign Grace Journal has our Seven Shaping Virtues. One of them is godliness. And so there's an article in there with practical application also. I've been listening this morning to the Ordinary Pastor Podcast, a very fine podcast. Jon Payne, Jared Meller are doing good work on that. And there is an episode of that podcast, a discussion about godliness and the pursuit of godliness and what you're describing. So, check that out if you haven't already. Once again, Happy New Year. Apparently the holiday we're celebrating today is wear a gray sweatshirt to the podcast day.
Mark Prater:
<laugh>. Yes. Yes. It's,
Ben Kreps:
Thank you all for watching or reading. We'll see you here next week, Lord willing. Bye for now.