WASHINGTON (ABP) — God's covenant with Christians “places the responsibility for being the presence of Christ squarely on our shoulders,” Emmanuel McCall told participants at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship general assembly June 28.
God is a covenant-keeping God, insisted McCall, the Fellowship's moderator and pastor of The Fellowship Baptist Group in suburban Atlanta. He cited several covenants recorded in the Old Testament but stressed God sealed the “new covenant,” God's most precious pact, with the life and atoning death of Jesus.
Since the nature of covenants calls for mutual accountability as well as mutual rewards and benefits, God's new covenant places demands upon Christians, McCall added.
“Our part in the covenant is our repentance for our sins and a commitment to follow Jesus' way of living,” he explained. “A changed, new way of living is called for on our part. On God's part, it is the covenant of life beyond life for all eternity.”
That's why this covenant places high demands upon those who accept it, he said.
“God's new covenant has no room for excuses, no room for blaming others, no harboring resentments for past mistakes or failures,” he declared. “Unlike the covenant of old, it is not etched in stone. … It was placed in fluid, living vessels, in the hearts and minds of transformed people.
“Transformed people are God's work through his Holy Spirit. We are transformed, not for the sake of transformation, but to be the very presence of Christ in this world.”
The Fellowship is familiar with covenants, McCall observed. He cited covenants with affiliated seminaries, institutions, and state and regional organizations, as well as Christian Churches Together, a coalition of 36 Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical, Protestant and Pentecostal denominations. In addition, the Fellowship is one of the principle organizations involved in the New Baptist Covenant, which is pulling together numerous Baptist organizations representing about 20 million Christians.
But keeping the most significant covenant — God's new covenant — means the Fellowship will be “the presence of Christ in this world,” he repeated, echoing the general assembly's theme, “Free to be the Presence of Christ.”
“Because we are his presence, people will come to know the Lord,” McCall maintained. “Not by gimmicks. Not by rules and regulations. Not by manipulations. Not by schemes and crafty advertisements. Not by sleight of hand or trickery of spirit. But they shall come to know the Lord. … No human sociological boundary will separate us from the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The Fellowship fulfills its covenant with God in three key areas, he said:
— “We are evangelizing by loving people into a relationship with God,” he said. “We are evangelizing by dealing with the needs people have, which if not addressed, will obscure our message.”
These needs include “challenging unjust situations — the disparities and inequities of life,” he explained.
Acknowledging some people dismiss that task by claiming it's “just social action,” McCall begged to differ. “It is far more than that,” he stressed, pointing to the Gospels.
Challenging injustice and inequity is “just what Jesus did,” he said. “Can we dare do less?”
— “We are … loving the unloveable, those who have been marred by life,” he reported. “There are people marred by addictions of all kinds,” he insisted, citing not only alcohol and chemicals, but ego, arrogance, loneliness and “spiritual snobbery” as sources of addiction.
The Fellowship's task is to “find people out of covenant with God,” whose bodies or souls are disfigured by their sin, and to bring them back into covenant with God, he said.
— “We are fulfilling God's covenant when we reach out to teach, to nurture, to develop, train or to support those who are involved in these ministries,” McCall added.
“Covenant people take seriously the Great Commission of our Lord. We are not only to preach and proclaim, but to help in spiritual formation, to aid in the development of the mind, spirit, heart or however you prefer to refer to the inner being.
“People are not just souls to become the objects of evangelists' head-counting. Every person is a person made in God's image and likeness. We must ourselves strive to be the presence of Christ and to help others also become like Christ.”
Although keeping the covenant is not easy, the Fellowship doesn't have to advance under its own strength, McCall reminded.
“Christ-bearing is a daunting task,” he said. But “we have not been called to a Royal Caribbean cruise into eternity. No, despite the prosperity garbage, Jesus calls us to take up a cross and to follow him.
“Even though we take up a cross, he does not leave us to bear it alone. He promises his presence. … We can trust him to see us through, even the most difficult crises of life and the challenges of servanthood.”
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