A Missionary's Plea: Don't Play the Church Game

There are many people going to church,

but many people not going to heaven.

They have enough religion

to play the game.

Keith Green: If people can't
tell that you're changed,

you're not.

If people can't see that
you're born again,

you're probably not.

If your mother doesn't know

that Jesus lives inside of you,

she's probably knows better than anybody.

Trevor: There's a clean way to hell

and there's a dirty way to hell.

But it's the same destination.

And there is a religious way to hell.

There is a form of godliness,
but lacks the power.

And the American church
is infected with it.

My name is Trevor Johnson.

The Lord has called me.

He has saved me.

And I serve a remote
tribal group in Indonesia.

And I want to tell you,
the Lord has saved me,

and He has saved me for service.

And if the Lord has saved you,

He has saved you for service as well.

Christianity is not an add-on

to your normal course of life.

It is something that changes

the entire course of your life.

There is no other Christianity

besides a radical Christianity.

The purpose of this
testimony is to show you

that me as a missionary,

I am not some second-tier Christian

that is abnormal for the Christian life.

I am very ordinary,

but we worship a God
that is extraordinary.

We worship a God that
delights to use weak vessels,

and so I'm going to give
you my personal testimony

and I want you to look at your own life

and to see if you're
playing the religious game

or if you're grabbing
onto the logic of faith;

the logic of faith that says

that we are to be propulsive,

if we receive the grace of God,

we will want to give it out.

If you don't love other
people for the Gospel,

the love of Christ does not abide in you.

And so I want to give you
my personal testimony -

how I was saved

and what salvation means.

I was indoctrinated with naturalism

in the public school.

We were taught that we
were products of evolution.

We were taught that all things

were just the products of natural causes;

that I am just atoms,

that atoms in the void are
the only things in existence.

But why is it that I love?

Why is it that I believe
in immaterial things

such as honor, such as love?

Those things are non-material,

and yet I know that those things exist.

The worldview that we're being taught

has no answers.

It gives us no hope.

It takes us to despair.

It makes Nazi Germany not evil,

just inconvenient to a certain segment

of the population.

But I saw, I knew

that there was real evil in the world.

And seeing the real evil in the world,

there had to be a perfect,

good reference point,

so that I knew what evil was.

I knew that there was evil.
I knew that there was good.

My conscience spoke to me.

I knew that there was a God,

but I did not know where to turn.

I turned to the American churches,

and I was sorely betrayed.

I sought the truth of Christ

in the American churches,

and I was sorely disappointed.

I heard about the wealth
and prosperity gospel,

I heard about the seven
vials and seven trumpets,

the sensational "left my mind" theology,

but I did not hear about
the Gospel of Christ.

I was searching for the truth,

but I was sorely disappointed.

Many of the pastors I went to
did not know the truth.

And I want to beg you

that if you are seeking the truth,

don't be content to stay in a sick church.

Don't be content to stay in a church

that is not preaching the Gospel -

that mankind is totally lost,

that we are saved totally by grace,

that the Lord Jesus Christ is Lord of all.

Don't be content to stay in a place;

don't be content for
a form of religiosity

that lacks any power.

Don't be content to be caught up

in all the trappings of religion,

but miss Christ.

I had a preacher tell me

it's as simple as choosing:

do you want to go to heaven
or do you want to go to hell?

What idiot wouldn't choose heaven?

But the choice is not heaven or hell,

the choice is the beauty
of Christ or your sin.

And I would pray like
Saint Augustine would,

"Lord, make me pure, but not yet."

"Lord, make me chaste, but not yet."

So the choice is not just a simple choice

between heaven or hell,

it's, do you see Christ as lovely?

Do you see Christ as all glorious?

Do you see the beauty of the Gospel

and the beauty of Christ?

Do you see your own unworthiness?

It's not a choice between heaven or hell.

It's a choice between Jesus Christ

and everything else that competes.

Jesus Christ and your sin.

Jesus Christ and all other
competing interests.

We must live for Christ.

We must die for Christ.

And everything in our life

is to glorify Christ

because He has died for us.

He has given Himself for us.

And we can't even give Him more than

an hour or two on a Sunday morning

for His service.

And even then, we think

that we have merited ourselves before God

because of that.

We think that by our performance

we have attained to some standard

of acceptability before God.

But even our righteousness is filthy rags.

There's enough sin in our prayers

to condemn us to hell.

And yet, God is pleased to hear
me because I'm His child.

He has given me the new birth.

God is pleased to hear me
because He is my Father

and He's accepted me for Christ's sake.

And God has been pleased
to put me into service.

And it's a joy that I'd
be able to follow Him,

that I'd be able to serve Him,

that I'd be able to suffer for Him.

And I want to see others

be adopted into the family of God as well.

And I worship a God that delights to save.

He delighted to save me.

And He will delight to save some

from every tongue, tribe, and nation.

There is nobody too bad for God.

There is nobody too unworthy to be saved.

There is nobody that has blown it.

While there is still time,
there is still hope.

While there is still life,

there is hope of salvation.

And if the Lord Jesus
Christ has saved you,

He has saved you to become a blessing.

He has blessed you to be a blessing.

He has saved you for service.

And if He can use someone such as me;

if He can use someone

that stumbles so very often,

a very average person,

He can use you in His service as well.

He can use you to glorify His mercy.

He can use you

as a vessel of mercy.

And my hope is that when
people see my life,

my hope is that when people see me,

they see that God has
abundantly poured out

His grace upon me.

That it is not due to
anything within myself,

but only to the grace of God.

And I am a walking example

of the mercy of God.

A light in this lost and fallen world.

And my desire is to minister that light,

is to show that light to others.

And I praise God that He
has been able to do that,

even despite my weakness.

Come share in these joys with me.

Come share in the joy of service.

If I fail in everything else
in this testimony,

the two key points I
want to tell you is this:

that I am not second-tier Christian.

I am very imperfect in many ways.

I trust that the Lord will perfect me

once I die,

and I will go to that place

where the spirits of just
men are made perfect.

But I abide here below

as a very weak creature,

but the Lord is pleased to use me anyway.

And one thing I want to tell you

is the Lord is pleased to use weak vessels

because there are no other kind.

The Lord is pleased to pour out

the gold of His grace

through vessels of clay.

And I have seen the Lord work.

And I rejoice that He can even use me,

and He delights to use me.

And the other thing I want
to make crystal clear

is that religion does
not equate to salvation.

I want to make sure you know that.

Don't play the church game.

Don't be content to do religious rites,

to do religious activities.

Get saved.

Believe the Gospel.

Trust in Christ.

You have nothing to merit you before God.

You are totally unworthy,

even your repentance and faith

can be turned into a
works-based salvation;

trying to measure some sort

of level of acceptability

for your works towards God.

There is nothing that you can do

to merit yourself before Christ.

Trust in the grace of Christ.

Don't trust in your religious
rites or activities.

It's not so much religion that saves,

it's the relationship with Jesus Christ.

We are adopted into the family of God.

I am made right because of my relationship

with Jesus Christ.

It's not some set of
doctrines that I believe in.

It is a relationship.

I am a son of God.

God is my Father. I have been adopted.

My identity is a child of God.

God has birthed me. God will keep me.

God will never disown me.

And God will bring me to maturity.

And I desire to walk

in the footsteps of my Father.

I desire to honor my Father by service,

not so that I can be
inducted into His family,

but because I am

and because I want to live

in the manner that my
Father has taught me.

So if you are a child of God,

rest in that identity.

Don't get caught up in
works-based religious rites,

in activities, in the circle of busyness

that so often happens,

that so often becomes a substitute

for the Gospel in our churches.

But rest in Christ

and in all of your life,

seek to glorify Him.

If you're just a member of a church

and you think that that
commends you to God,

allow me to shake you up.

Allow me to make you uncomfortable.

Forgive me if I sound negative.

But don't let your works
substitute for the Gospel.

I've seen it happen in churches.

These churches inoculated
me against the Gospel.

These churches were an
immunization against Christ.

And I had enough church
to ease my conscience.

I was desensitized to the Gospel.

I began to think that because I wasn't

as bad as somebody else,

I wasn't bad before God.

But this is not a comparison.

God's bar is perfect.

And we all fall short.

I love Christ and I want to see my Jesus

proclaimed into every
nation of the world.

Because He has been good to me.

Keith Green: Sure, there's people

that go to the ends of the
earth that aren't Christian.

Like the Mormon church

sends their young people

for two years out of their lives

to the mission field.

Every single Mormon youngster

goes for two years to the mission field.

How come we can't even match that?

How come we can't send our young people

for six months?

How comes it's a special breed?

But you're going, "Keith, what about

the lost in America?"

What about the lost in America?

Hey, don't worry.

If God makes it clear to you to go,

which I think He already has

to many of you this weekend,

there'll always be enough people

who won't obey the call to stay around

and witness here.

Don't worry.

You're going, "But Keith,

I need to keep my secular job

and keep sending my $50 a month

to World Vision.

If I don't, who will?"

Don't worry.

There'll always be enough people around

that won't obey the call

that will send a check
rather than their bodies

as living sacrifices.

There will always be enough people.

I'm not saying everybody
who doesn't go is disobedient.

I'm just saying about 99.99% are.

That's what I believe.

I've seen the world, folks.

And I've seen that it's lost

and there's billions of people out there

that don't know God.

Now either it's His fault or ours.

Trevor: If God is calling you,

God will nurture godly desires,

so I say be ambitious for the Lord.

I say set spiritual goals.

Set spiritual ambitions

and pray, be bold in what you want to do

for the Lord.

Don't be timid.

Be bold. Be aggressive

in what you want to
achieve by God's grace.

Don't let the devil
steal away your boldness.

Be bold.

The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence

and the violent take it by force.

Just don't give a 50%.

Go all out for the Gospel.

Go all out for the Lord.

Be radical in your commitment.

When Hernando Cortez,

he came to the New World,

he burned all of the ships behind him

before he marched forward.

Christians ought to burn

all their ships behind them.

There should be nothing left behind.

We should not flee Sodom and look back.

Once we put our hands to the plow,

we go forward.

We are ready to die
in the line of service.

I fear failure more than
I fear sickness or death.

Average people who serve
an extraordinary God,

the Lord can bless their labor.

Not because of us, but
because of the grace of God.

Please pray for Trevor and his family

as they press on for Christ overseas.

There is much sickness

and always many unexpected trials.