Fight the Good Fight of Faith, English Edition

 • Fight the Good Fight of Faith: Playing Your Part in God’s Unfolding Drama

would come (Israel). And, in the fullness of time, the Father sent the Son, Jesus, to reveal his glory, redeem his people, and rescue his creation. Jesus displayed the Kingdom’s wisdom in his teaching and power through his miracles. In voluntarily giving his life by dying on a cross, he paid the penalty for our sin* and destroyed the devil’s works. God raised Jesus from the dead, and forty days later he ascended to heaven* as victorious Lord. On the fiftieth day after his resurrection, he then sent the Holy Spirit to empower the growing company of Jesus’ disciples* , the Church* . As the family of the Father, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Spirit, the Church is appointed to invite people everywhere to join in this Epic Story. When our good fight of faith is finished, Jesus will return to establish God’s Kingdom throughout the entire universe, where sorrow, disease, and death will end and he will reign forever with his people. Glory to his name! Especially ought those questions to burn when we turn to the biblical story, in which the ingredient of reversal is doubled and tripled. To turn a page in that book of stories and Story which is the Bible is to confront reversal again and again. As one of us has written elsewhere, “At the crucial moments when God displayed his mighty acts in history to reveal his nature and will, God also intervened to liberate the poor and oppressed.” The moments of intervention are also moments of reversal, moments when what one might expect is not what one gets, when those the world deems insignificant prove to be precisely the ones the Creator of the world deems important. ~ Ronald J. Sider and Michael A. King. Preaching About Life in a Threatening World . Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1987, pp. 56-57. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *sin – Sin is failure to do what God desires, by what we say, what we do, or what we think. *ascended to heaven – Jesus physically left the earth and went into the sky as his followers looked on. After his death and resurrection, his ascension was a triumphant expression of leaving this earth to sit on his throne in heaven as victorious king. It also set in motion the coming of the Holy Spirit, who would empower Christians everywhere, all over the world. *disciples – A disciple is a student or follower of Jesus. Every Christian is a disciple. Sometimes the term “disciple” is used in a specific way to refer to the twelve men that Jesus chose to join in his earthly ministry. *Church – The Church is the community of God’s people who acknowledge Jesus as Lord, who carry out his purposes on earth, comprised of everyone past, present and future, from every place on the earth and throughout history.