As Christians, we are to live life in such a way that we bring glory to our Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16). As we follow the teachings of Jesus we can earn the respect and the right to share the Gospel with others; some will become Christians and bring glory to our Father in heaven. The last words of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel are, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20). We might know this passage as The Great Commission. In short, we need to live right AND we need to do everything we can to get the message of Jesus to others. We are the remnant – we are the only ones who can present Jesus to the world. And that includes, by the way, supporting great mission works like the one in Cambodia where the Good News of Jesus is spreading like wildfire.
Consider the article below entitled “Remnant” by Frederick Beuchner. –
THROUGHOUT ALL THESE centuries there were always the prophets thundering out at king and people to remember their ancient mission to be the kingdom of priests that God had called them to be, but each time the prophetic cry went largely unheeded, and each time Israel went down to another defeat with only a remnant of the pious left to be, as Isaiah put it, a green branch growing out of a hewn stump. Remnant led to remnant until finally, in terms of New Testament faith, the remnant became just Jesus and his twelve disciples. When the last of the disciples abandoned him, the remnant became just Jesus himself.
The kingdom of priests was reduced at last to this One, who was both priest and sacrifice, and so it is Israel itself that hangs there on the cross, the suffering one who was “bruised for our iniquities and upon whom was the chastisement that made us whole.” Jesus is all Jews and in a sense also the only Jew as he hovers there in the purple sky. It is out of his passion that the Church will be born as the new Israel, a kingdom of priests at last. It is through his intercession that at the end of history the holy city, New Jerusalem, will come down out of heaven like a bride adorned for her husband.