Basic Christian Beliefs: The Church

I am continuing this series of sermons on Basic Christian Beliefs. Another fundamental belief has to do with the importance of the Church. From the very beginning, the church has been an integral part of Christianity. There is an idea that is very prevalent in American society that one can be a good Christian without being involved in a church. I have heard many people say something like this: “I have my beliefs. I can be just as good a Christian as people who go to church”. I hope we realize that this is a cultural idea, not Biblical teaching!

God created the Church! It is no accident that the church exists! When Peter made his great confession of Christ at Caesarea Philippi, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”, Jesus responded: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it” Matthew 16:18. The church did not suddenly just sprout up, then God said, “Oops, what happened!” Jesus intended to create the church! He said the gates of Hades (hell) will not prevail against it. The church will be here until the end of time. It’s not going to die!

It is important to remember that the church is not a building! Christians in the early years had no church buildings. They met in homes. Church buildings only came later. I believe one of the greatest sins of Christians is to be locked into thinking that the church is a building. We can make an idol of a building. How often congregations have failed to make the changes necessary to reach people for Jesus or do effective ministry because we love buildings more than we love Jesus or the gospel! The church is not a building.

The Church is people! I pastored a church that had a fire several years after I left. A good bit of the church was gutted by the blaze. The next morning in the newspaper the Lay Leader of the church was quoted as saying: “The building is destroyed, but the church is still here.” He understood that the church is not a building! I read reports of Christians in countries where Christianity is forbidden and church buildings have been torn down. Believers meet secretly, wherever they are able. There are no church buildings, but the church is there, because the Church is people!

The word in the New Testament used for “church” is the Greek word ekklesia. It means an assembly of people “called out”, called together for a specific purpose. The church is not a group of people who decide to get together because they are congenial and have some common interests (sort of like a club). The church is people who have sensed the call of God in their life, the call to follow Jesus and be part of His mission and purposes in the world. Have you sensed this call of God in your life?

In the Bible there are a number of images used to describe the church. These images give us clues as to what the church should be and what the church should be doing.

One of the most prominent images of the church is that it is the Body of Christ. Look at what is written in Ephesians 1:22-23: “And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” Believers are the body of Christ and Christ is the Head.

This image of the church as Christ’s body suggests that the church is like a body with many parts, all connected to each other.

1 Corinthians 12:12-13 says, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body - Jews or Greeks, slaves or free- and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” All believers, regardless of denomination or church label, are part of the Body of Christ.

Every believer needs the rest of the body. In verses 20-21 of 1 Corinthians 12 it says, “As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you’”. This Scripture negates the prevalent idea that we can be good Christians without needing the church.

Imagine an isolated head, floating in space, without the rest of the body, or a foot detached from the rest of the body, flopping along on a sidewalk.

In the Bible, there is no such thing as having a relationship to God without being part of a faith community. The writers of Scripture could not conceive of one living in isolation from other people of faith. In this community of faith we are to care for each other and hold each other responsible. “God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior members, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it” 1 Corinthians 12:24b-26.

To say the church is the Body of Christ also means that believers are an extension of Christ in the world. We are Christ’s body in the world! Our mission to the world is to continue what Jesus did. Isn’t that awesome! We should do what Jesus did when He was on earth. The things that mattered to Jesus should matter to us. We shouldn’t be wasting time doing things Jesus didn’t do.

In the Old Testament, God chose Israel for a special mission: to reveal God to the rest of the world. So often, Israel forgot their light-bearing mission and focused on how God had chosen them and loved them.

In the New Testament it says the church is the new Israel. We become God’s people through faith in Christ, and we too have a light-bearing mission: to share the message of Jesus with the world. The church is the Body of Christ in the world. What a great image of who are, and what we are meant to be!

What I have said so far is a quick summary of how the Bible describes the church. We are living in a time when the church as an institution is declining, at least in western culture (places like Europe and the United States). For instance, mainline Protestant denominations have experienced a steady decline in membership and attendance for 40 years. Many people today simply view the church as irrelevant to life. Think of the television programs you watch and the films you see. How many characters are portrayed as involved in a church in a meaningful way? If someone on TV or the movies is a church participant or religious, that person is usually depicted as weird, emotionally unstable, or holier-than-thou.

I believe one of the main reasons so many churches are in decline is because they have gotten locked into forms and traditions that are no longer meaningful to an increasing number of people. However, it is encouraging to see that when churches are willing to change the way they do church and the way they communicate the gospel to our generation, God is breathing new life into His church! It is also good to note that while the church in western cultures has been in decline, churches in some Third World countries are exploding with growth and vitality!

I believe when the church is what God designed the church to be that it is very relevant to life and a dynamic force in the world!

The church is a dynamic force when it is a place where people can connect with God. What other organization or entity has as its prime objective to bring people into the presence of God? Sometimes we in the church forget what business we’re in. What is it that the church can offer that people can’t get elsewhere? A way to connect with God!

That’s why worship and how we do worship is so important. Is our worship the kind that addresses the real issues of life, that speaks in the language and thought forms of the people we want to reach? Is it worship that brings people into the presence of the living God?

The church is a powerful force when it is a place of acceptance and healing, a place where people can find forgiveness, and a place where we can grow and change. So many people today are feeling alone, broken…and in need of connecting with others on a meaningful level. The proliferation of Internet chat rooms and Internet connections is a prime example of this deep human need and longing.

One of the distressing things about many congregations is that we form our little groups in the church and aren’t very welcoming to outsiders. Gordon Cosby, founder and pastor of the Church of our Savior in Washington, D.C., tells of preaching at a Lenten mid-week evening service somewhere in New England. The worship was especially dull and uninspiring. Nobody sang the hymns, no one smiled. The only thing that moved, he said, were the offering plates! As he and his wife left the service they felt depressed.

This church had reserved a room for them in a roadside inn, above a tavern. Cosby said he could not help comparing the sounds of laughter, music and camaraderie beneath them with the lifelessness they had experienced earlier in the worship service. He says, “I realized that there was more warmth and fellowship in that tavern than there was in the church. If Jesus of Nazareth had his choice he would probably have come to the tavern rather than to the church we visited.”

We need a place where we are accepted as we are, where we feel we belong and we matter! We’re wounded people, and need a safe place where we can find healing and hope. The world needs places where people can come together, and have the barriers that separate them come down. God created the Church to meet those basic human needs!

I want this church to be a church where we break out of our little tight-knit friendship circles and actively welcome guests and strangers. I want this church to be a place where sick and broken people find God and His healing. I want this church to be a church where everybody is welcome, no matter whom they are or what they’ve done.

I recently read a book called Love, Acceptance & Forgiveness. The book was written 20 years ago, but it could have been written last night, it is so up to date in how it describes what we are now learning about how to do church more effectively. The author of the book is Jerry Cook, the pastor of a large and rapidly growing congregation. He describes how his congregation is willing to accept all kinds of people, and how God is changing many of them. Jerry tells of getting a phone call from a pastor nearby. This pastor, who was upset because some of his parishioners were attending Jerry’s church, said “You know what you are out there? You’re nothing but a bunch of garbage collectors.”

Jerry says this pastor was right, but asks: What were we before Jesus found us? Jesus finds us and then recycles us and makes us into something beautiful! Accepting all kinds of people, he said, doesn’t mean we approve of their behavior. Rather, we invite them to come to God so God can begin to change them.

I want this church to be a place where all kinds of people are accepted and welcomed – a church where we all can find forgiveness and healing, and grow into the kind of person the Lord wants us to be.

The church is relevant and a dynamic force when it is that group of people who reach out to the world with God’s message. Remember, Israel’s downfall was that she forgot her light-bearing mission to the world. That is often the downfall of the church too. It is so easy for congregations to become ingrown and self-centered, doing things that satisfy our own interests and needs, instead of doing the things that will reach people who don’t know Jesus.

Jesus said His people, the church, are to be the light of world and the salt of the earth!

Sometimes I get the impression that we spend so much time in church and get so comfortable with one another that it’s like a bunch of salt crystals getting together for salt parties, or our shining Jesus’ light into each others’ faces and feeling so good! Salt needs to be spread in the world and the light is meant to shine in the world with those who don’t yet know the Lord! The church was created to reach out beyond itself.

An article in the Los Angeles Times tells of something called “ManChurch”. It’s an all male worship service held once a month on Saturday mornings in a country and western bar in San Dimas, Calif. It draws as many as 170 men – doctors, lawyers, laborers, bikers.

First, the men watch sports bloopers. Then a rock band of longhaired as well as clean-cut musicians cuts loose with praise music, including Christian rewrites of classic rock tunes. A pastor leads the men in discussion of topics such as battling lust and pornography – things they can’t talk about in front of women. This is followed by prayer, with the men able to open up in this non-threatening atmosphere. The goal is to learn how to be better husbands and father.

Why meet in a nightclub? John Doss, a 46 year old carpenter, says: “There’s a whole lot of people down on church and Christianity but they’re really not down on Jesus. A guy might be willing to go to a bar for an hour and a half – you can’t drag him to church for anything.” Wives say they support the services.

This is but one example to show that the mission of the church is to reach out to people with good news – good news of hope and new life when we meet Jesus. One of greatest things the church offers to us is the privilege of joining in the work of God in the world. When we do that, our lives can have significance.

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