The following exhortation was given at Christ Church Downtown. 

Here at Christ Church, many of us hold to an eschatological position called ‘postmillennialism.’  Postmillennialism, put simply, is the optimistic belief that the gospel will be victorious in history, and that the nations of the earth will be largely won to Christ prior to His return in the end.

This is not a new doctrine in Church history. From Athanasius to Calvin, many have found this truth in their study of the Scriptures. And as an evangelical church in the Reformed tradition, we too share this vision. While you may only hear a sermon specifically on this topic from time to time, this confident attitude and expectation permeates how we worship, how we raise our children, how we work, and how we generally live in our community.

But sometimes, even though this conviction undergirds much of our activity, we can forget this great hope and expectation in the busyness of our daily lives as husbands, wives, parents, children, students, and employees. It is one thing to intellectually agree that by God’s grace, the world will be won, someday, down the line, and in a future that you can barely imagine. It is another thing to live, and work, and fellowship, and study, and evangelize, praying and expecting to see this happen in front of your own eyes.

If you visit the ‘Our Mission’ section on our website you’ll read that Christ Church, “under the grace of God, desires to make Moscow a Christian town.” This bold desire will not come to fruition with passivity. It will not happen without focused effort. It will take work. It will involve discomfort. It will be met with momentary failures and occasional disappointments. But if we truly are inheritors of this biblical confidence, we ought to count the cost, find Christ worth it all, and be audacious and intentional in our outreach to our neighbors, our co-workers, and to the thousands of students that flood into Moscow every Fall.

Jesus has purchased the nations of the earth with His blood, and He is worthy of them all.  We know that as the waters cover the sea, the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will one day fill the earth (Hab. 2:14). It is to that end, for the glory of God and the joy all people, that we must labor in faith.