Way back in the Middle Ages, a monk
wrote: The church is something like
Noah’s ark; if it weren’t for the storm outside, you couldn’t stand the smell
inside. Dead things DO
smell! And dead churches are no
exception.
In the 1960’s Robert Adolfs wrote The Grave of God. In that work he made the observation that the
reason for the God is Dead movement
is that …men looked at a dead church and though its owner was dead.
A dead church is a contradiction in terms. If a group of people, meeting at a particular
building can be described as a dead church, then it is only
an institution, not a church. Jesus said
that the church was a living group.
What causes a living church to become a dead
institution? Simply put – it is when
original sin is re-enacted. When our
pride and preferences become more precious than Jesus, the Holy Spirit of God
will not participate…AND THE BODY WITHOUT A SPIRIT IS DEAD!
The church at Corinth had that kind of problem. There were at least four groups that divided
that fellowship, and threatened it with extinction:
There were
some who admired and followed Paul. These folks
liked the way Paul talked about liberty, and not following the rules of
Judaism. Today the Paul group are those
who say: I really don’t need to go to
church. I can worship anywhere; don’t
tell me what to do.
There were
those who revered and followed Apollos in his intellectual teaching. They loved to find the great obscurities
and dwell on them. For instance, some
believed that since Abraham[2]
circumcised 318 men, and the Greek number 18 was roughly equivalent to the
first two letters of Jesus’ name, and that the Greek number 300 was the same as
the symbol for the cross, that Abraham’s act of circumcising 318 stood for the
cross of Christ!
Today this group still lives. In the name of deeper-life-in-Jesus
they study the Bible and never get around to living it! They are so heavenly-minded they’re no
earthly good.
Add to these those
who followed Peter, the Jewish sect, who said we must keep the law. These turned from grace towards
works. We have many groups today who
like to make sure others keep the rules.
It gives them no greater pleasure than to point out someone else’s
breach of their little litany of written do’s and don’ts, that they
spend all their time criticizing, virtually losing any sense of being a
credible witness for Christ; instead they have a cesspool kind of sourness.
Above all the others are the Jesus followers. This small,
but rigid sect were the self-proclaimed only true Christians at
Corinth. These may have been the same
ones who abused the gifts at this famous church.
The late, great and scholarly Casey Stengel,[3]
manager of the NY Yankees, and later the NY Mets, once said about baseball
teams:
It’s easy
to get good players.
Gettin’
‘em to play together, that’s the hard part
Can you imagine attempting to get the Corinthian
groups to act like a team? As the man
said, you can’t get there from here!
Paul goes on to teach us some of the characteristics
of a Christian church:
The
Church is a Fellowship of Unity
Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in Christ. I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger. And you still aren’t ready, for you are still controlled by your sinful nature. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature? Aren’t you living like people of the world? When one of you says, “I am a follower of Paul,” and another says, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you acting just like people of the world? 1 Corinthians 3:1-4(NLT)
Factiousness is necessary in a democratic government;
it is death to a church! Jealousy isn’t
from God either. Paul states the problem
as a lack of unity the body of Christ should have.
The problem with many churches is what the church at
Corinth had – a lack of love for each other.
We speak not of the Sunday smile kind of love,
but the unselfish love that makes relationships worthwhile. A little girl in Sunday School was asked
where Adam and Eve lived. She said,
“Moscow”. The teacher asked, “Why
Moscow”? “Well, they lived in a place
where they couldn’t leave, they were naked, and had only one apple to eat, and
were told it was Paradise. Sounds like
Moscow to me.” Now, the real problem is
that Eden stopped being Paradise when Adam and Eve broke relationship (unity)
with God. And THAT’S a problem
for any church.
The church is to be different than a broken
world. A small girl wandered away from
her home in Canada in 1990. When the
family realized she was missing they called for the townspeople to search. Each went his own way looking for the girl. Soon it was dark, and it started
snowing. Late that night someone
suggested that the searchers join hands and cover the fields. It was too late. They found the child curled-up, frozen in the
cold. One of the searchers lamented: If only we’d joined hands sooner. What could the church accomplish if
we really joined hands and worked together to reach our community for Christ?
The
Church is a Field of Industry
After all, who is Apollos? Who is Paul? We are only God’s servants through whom you believed the Good News. Each of us did the work the Lord gave us. I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow. The one who plants and the one who waters work together with the same purpose. And both will be rewarded for their own hard work. For we are both God’s workers. And you are God’s field. You are God’s building. 1 Corinthians 3:5-9(NLT)
The apostle describes us as servants, which is
the word we translate deacon. A servant that doesn’t serve is useless. Our business is to serve this world by
telling the story. Steve Brown is a
Presbyterian brother who states it well:
The business of the church is to have a party, and then to take that
party into the world…and so, we’re party animals. Of course, the party to which he refers is
the joyous celebration we have in worship, because of Jesus.
The pictures we see in this passage are of planting
and watering. We are the fellow-workers
of Jesus. The job is (as George MacLeod
put it) to take the cross out of the cathedral and back into the
marketplace. Jesus was, after all, not
crucified between two candles in a Cathedral…He was nailed to a rough-hewn
crossbeam, stretched-out between two thieves on the town garbage dump. He was murdered where men cuss and gamble for
dead men’s clothes. That’s where He
died; that’s where we need to take Him; that’s where He is needed!
In Africa an elderly blind man was seen by a
missionary doctor. The doctor operated
and the native man was given back his sight.
After recuperating the man returned to his village. But, within a few days he returned to the
clinic with ten other old blind men.
Whatever your job in the church house, your job in the kingdom of God is
to bring others who are as blind as once you were.
The
Church is a Foundation of Victory
Because of God’s grace to me, I have laid the foundation like an expert builder. Now others are building on it. But whoever is building on this foundation must be very careful. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have—Jesus Christ. Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials—gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value. If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames. 1 Corinthians 3:10-15(NLT)
The only real victory the church can experience is to
elevate Jesus. The Psalm writer (118:22)
called the Messiah a rejected stone that became
the capstone. Paul echoed this, saying that Jesus is the
foundation. What is a church without
Jesus, high and lifted-up? It is a dead
institution, an organization without organism.
A church without Jesus as our victory is an electric outlet that isn’t
connected to the power source. Martin
Luther wrote the hymn we sing; The Church’s One Foundation is Jesus
Christ Her Lord.
There IS no other foundation for the church.
A person may say that our particular local church body
doesn’t fit their style of worship, and go elsewhere. But no matter where you go to worship it
ought to be a place where the Carpenter from Nazareth is lifted up as the Son of
God, co-equal with the Father and Spirit.
The Bible declares He is Lord of all.
Everything we do ought to lift-up the name of
Jesus. After all, it was not faith that
died for us. It was not miracles that
died for us. It was not the pastor, or a
bishop, or worldwide organizations that died for us. Jesus is Lord, because He died our death, and
won victory over the grave! There is no
victory in anything this local church body does, unless you can point to the
lifting up of Jesus. Budgets, buildings,
and programs are just numbers, walls and words for year-end reports, unless
they point people to Jesus. Christ
defines the church. If we are not Jesus
people, we are not a church!
What is it like for a church to do all we do and not
lead people to Jesus? We are like the
young man who was mentally-challenged, and the town council wanted to help him
with his dignity in earning a living.
So, they gave him the job of polishing the cannon on the town
square. Each day the young man tediously
polished that cannon for eight hours.
About three years went by and the young man came to the town manager and
told him: I quit. The manager, knowing the young man’s
limitations wanted to know how he was going to support himself. Easy; I’ve worked hard these past three
years, and I’ve saved my money. This
morning I bought my own cannon; I’m going into business for myself.
Resolved
Jesus is either a capstone to a magnificent church, or
He is the headstone that marks where the dead church left off serving Him and
began serving self. Peter, the great
Apostle and leader of the early church said you can either celebrate or
stumble, depending on what you do with Jesus.
And, “He is the stone that makes people stumble, the rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they do not obey God’s word, and so they meet the fate that was planned for them. But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Peter 2:8-9(NLT)
In this church we are working on being a
church of unity IN Christ, working FOR Christ, built on the
foundation OF Christ.
I served a church in Jacksonville, Florida
for several years. In that river city
there are bridges everywhere. Most of
the bridges are steel and concrete, huge edifices towering over the landscape.
Each rivet holding a bridge together is
like a member of Jesus’ church in fellowship with all the others. Each rivet bears its share of the load, doing
the job. And like those rivets, secured
in their places, there is one breathtaking view when you are in your place,
doing your job, connected to the strong foundation.
And, for those who see us from afar,
whether we are a very large church body, or a small membership body, our bridge
over the troubled waters of these days is a magnificent structure that offers:
·
sanctuary to the weary and troubled
·
salvation to the sinner
·
a place of service for expressing love to God
·
a family to support in times of need, sorrow, or healing
That’s what a Christian church looks like.
Are you a rivet or a passenger just
crossing over the bridge? Can you point
to a time when you were fastened to the Lord and His church?
Do you want to give your life and love to
Jesus? Come to the only true bridge to the Father in Heaven.
[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com
[2] Genesis 14-18
[3] Casey
Stengel image, via Wikimedia
Commons, unknown author
[4] Image of
bridge via Pixabay.com
No comments:
Post a Comment