Page 10 - newhallfirstpresbyterian100years

Christ you can neuer be the same again. Whether you want your
future or not, He draws you forward to it. You haue a future soys
John, and it is good.

Because this is true of us as indiuiduol Christians it follows thot it hos
not yet been disclosed what the Church will be, for the Church is
nothing more than belieuers in community. This Church is here os o
witness to the kingdom of God. The Church is not the kingdom of God
ond is olwoys in trouble when it assumes thot it is. We ore, os it
were, o pre-sampling of what the reign of God will look like when it
comes. Many times we ore a misleading sampling - which is why we
pray our prayers of confession.

Someday the Church will be phased out. It will work itself out of
o job. In the uision of the new Jerusalem, the city of God come down
from oboue, we ore told by John "there will be no temple there." (Reu.
21 :21) But prior to that, the Church hos o great future. Poul, who
knew os well os any one, how petty and mean and frustrating the
Church could be, declares that it is God's intention "to present the
Church to Himself all glorious, with no stain or wrinkle or anything or
the sort, but holy and without blemish. (Eph. 5:27)

I don't know how the Church will get there from where it is
todoy, but that is God's business, not mine. Jesus not only goue
Himself for the Church, He giues Himself to the Church, so thot
increasingly the Church in its corporate life might resemble His will
ond reflect His desires.

There is no assurance here that the Church os we know it, its
orgonizotion forms, its worship patterns, its programs, will be
conserued. But we know that the Church's future is insured, ond thot
some day it will appear in the eye of all to flawlessly conform to the
will of the One who loues it and goue Himself for it.

It also follows thot because the Church hos o future the world
hos o future too. The only reason why the Church is here is for the
world. The eHistence of the Church presumes the eHistence of the
world and the continuity of history. The Church is not on end in itself.
It is solely, only, eHclusiuely here for the sake of the world that "God
so loued." Poul tells us in the eighth chapter of Romans thot "The

4