The Heart of Hebrews (ePub)

Making the presence of God known in the world goes to the very heart of the church's purpose. Yet it is a formidable challenge. How can the church make the presence and glory of God a reality in a world that both denies God and hates the church? By the church bearing the image of Jesus Christ in the world through word and deed for, as the unknown author of Hebrews declares, Jesus is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being (Hebrews 1:3).
It is not the primary purpose of the church to specialize in economic, social, or political issues but rather to proclaim the good news of what God has accomplished in and through Jesus Christ. When the church quits proclaiming Christ, to proclaim a message of love, acceptance, tolerance, and affirmation, then it ceases to effectively fulfill its purpose and loses its relevancy. Christ came into the world to proclaim the Gospel in the marketplace, and He did so while never surrendering His identity or sacrificing His purpose for the sake of relevancy. He expects his church in every age to do likewise.
The greatest need in the church today is exactly what the early church needed in the first century. In a church that is infected with a spiritual apathy, has forsaken her first love, has compromised truth, and is lukewarm, a new vision of the risen and glorified Christ dwelling in her midst is needed.
The only method God designed to lead the church to recover the awareness of Christ's presence is prayer and preaching that focuses on Jesus Christ. Thus, "if the church is to flourish again, there is no greater need than a recovery of faithful, powerful, biblical preaching" whose subject is Christ and the new birth.