The Reformed Life

Every Monday my associate pastor and myself go out in the city to pray and share the gospel. This morning we brought with us two Christian brothers (Richard & Josh) to come with us as we went through the city to evangelize. Before leaving, we gathered together in our offices to pray and discuss our plan. What follows is a brief description of our morning.

We decided that we would split into teams of two. Richard and I went down into the heart of downtown Worcester by the commons while Tim and Josh (college student) went down Pleasant Street. The first man that Richard and I met was sitting on the side of the street and we stopped to talk with him. I told him that I was a pastor up the street and asked about his faith. He said that when he passes away that he hopes to enter heaven.

I asked him how he believed he would receive eternal life and not judgement. He said that he would receive eternal life through his good works and obedience. I then proceeded to share with him what the bible says about salvation and that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. I told him that salvation is a gift given to us. He interrupted me and began to speak about sin. He believed that humanity is not sinful by birth and that we can choose whether to sin or not. I then asked him his views of original sin and its affect on humanity. I pointed to Ephesians 2 where Paul says that we are by nature children of wrath. He denied that and said that humanity is neutral in regard to sin.

As I was addressing his objections, he quickly interjected and began questioning the assurance of salvation. He pointed to Hebrews 6 and said that Christians can lose their salvation. As I was speaking to his objections and discussing the doctrine of apostasy, I pointed to 1 John 2:19, which says, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.”

As we were dealing with that issue, he then asked why Christians continue to sin and how it doesn’t seem possible for Christians to continue to sin after they have been redeemed. We tried discussing the reality of the flesh and Spirit and how they are at war within our souls. It was becoming difficult to address all of the objections that he had, as he wasn’t allowing us to answer before throwing out another objection. I learned a valuable lesson through this conversation and that was that I didn’t need to follow every tangent that someone threw out. It’s okay to simply tell the person that we would address those issues in a moment, after we had time to discuss the issue at hand. After, we gave him Greg Gilbert’s “What is the Gospel” tract and asked if we could pray for him before he had to leave. He agreed and we gave him more information to read and our church information. I’m praying that he would attend a service and that the Lord would use that time as a means of drawing him to Himself.

The next individual that we were able to speak with said that his family were involved in the Mormon church. He said that he believed in Jesus. I asked him what specifically he believed about Jesus and this man began to answer, but was giving a distorted view of Christ. As I began to engage with who Christ is, another individual arrived and interrupted our conversation. We were unable to continue with our conversation as there arose a great deal of distraction from that man’s appearing. I’ll be praying that the truth we were able to share would take root in his heart and he would come to know Christ as his Lord and Savior.

Richard and I then began to prayer walk around the city and were trying to talk to others in the commons. We were met with a lot of rejection and everyone responded that they were “all set” and didn’t have any need for prayer or Jesus. They weren’t interested in engaging in spiritual conversations. After many failed attempts, we decided to pray one last time for the city of Worcester before heading back to the church offices.

Please continue to pray for the city of Worcester. Please pray that this city will see a great revival and that the people will come to know Christ as their Lord and Savior. Please pray for our gospel work here in the city and throughout New England. Please pray that the Lord would be gracious to us and open the hearts of the people to be receptive to the gospel message. Lord willing, we will be out again next week sharing the gospel in the city of Worcester.

Soli Deo Gloria,

Josh Chambers

If you would like to stay updated on new content, please click the “follow” button at the bottom of the page. Thanks for reading!