The Church - a presentation

The Church on Prezi

The Church - part 2

In my previous post I looked at how many churches today have watered down the Gospel and the truth of the Bible in order to make the word of God more palatable to people. We discussed how these churches were presenting an inauthentic view of Christ and Christianity and that as a result, many were leaving the church.

This new vision for the church, one described as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, has based its success on numbers and popularity rather than on ensuring that the the Gospel is truthfully and faithfully preached. It has produced a group of “believers” who see the church as a place to have their needs met and to help ensure their individual happiness. In the end the church is seen as just another addition to the life of the believer and just as interchangeable as another piece.

We have labeled this view of the church as “churchianity” so that we might contrast it with the truth and reality of Christianity.

Pastor Erwin McManus has said of the Church: The Church does not exist for us. We are the Church and we exist for the world.

The Church is God’s chosen vehicle to meet - through other people - the true needs of people; including ourselves.

We read previously the two great commandments of Christ found in Matthew 22:37-40. We saw that we demonstrate our love for God by obeying Him (1 John 2:4-6, John 14:3) and that we lover our neighbors by serving them (John 13:34-35, Matthew 20:28, Mark 9:35). It is the Church that provides us with the means to fulfill these two commands.

Our featured verse for the class was Ephesians 2:10 - He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing. - The Message

We can recognize the fact that we have been created and saved to serve God through His Church (Romans 7:4, Galatians 6:10), but we often offer up reasons or excuses as to why we can’t serve Him now. What we need to take to heart is that God is not waiting for some time in the future when you are more spiritual or good enough or more worthy to take part in His work here on earth. He has saved you now so that you can serve Him now. It is through serving God that we will find our true purpose, true meaning and true significance.

People, when evangelizing, talk of humans having a “God shaped hole in their heart” and that it can only be truly filled by God. That trying to fill that hole in ourselves with anything else just leads to discontent and futility. Well there is a “you shaped hole” in the church and it can only be filled by you. If you aren’t serving God, then something God wants done is being ignored.

The Apostle Paul uses the human body to describe how the Church is organized and should function. You and every member of the church is a unique part of the body of believers that constitute the Church. Just as parts of the body have a specific function without which the body suffers, so to with us and Christ’s Church. We have been specifically crafted by God to serve a particular role, to meet a need within His Church (1 Corinthians 12:12-27, Romans 12:4-8). If we aren’t functioning in the Church then the Church is missing something and it isn’t functioning properly.

Remember that all service, seen or unseen, if done for God is valuable and valued.

Churchianity would tell us that the purpose of life is to have our needs met but Christ never went around seeking out people to serve Him; to see how they could meet His needs. Rather He searched out people so that He could serve them and meet the needs of others.

The question that churchianity asks is “who will meet my needs?” The question that Christianity asks is “whose needs can I meet?”

Everyone gives their lives to something. For some its money, for others its their family, for some its their job and for still others its being famous or popular. We however, the members of Christ’s Church, have been called to give our lives to God.

Our question for today is: what is holding me back from accepting God’s call to serve him?

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Many of us find it hard to say YES to God. We offer up excuses as to why we can’t say YES now. Some of us will read the Bible and think that we can’t serve God because we aren’t like the people we read about in the Bible. We say to ourselves, I’m not Paul, I’m not David, I’m not Elijah, I’m not Peter or John or Moses or Noah or … What we forget is that we are the creation of God. We are loved by God and that He can and will use us today if we say YES.

We aren’t the only ones with reasons to not serve:

“Abraham was old, Jacob was insecure, Leah was unattractive, Joseph was abused, Moses stuttered, Gideon was poor, Samson was codependent, Rahab was immoral, David had an affair and all kinds of family problems, Elijah was suicidal, Jeremiah was depressed, Jonah was reluctant, Naomi was a widow, John the Baptist was eccentric to say the least, Peter was impulsive and hot tempered, Martha worried a lot, the Samaritan woman had several failed marriages. Zacchaeus was unpopular, Thomas had doubts, Paul had poor health, and Timothy was timid. That is quite a variety of misfits, but God used each of them in His service. He will use you, too, if you stop making excuses.”

(Rick Warren - The Purpose Driven Life - p233)

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“If you don’t feel like you’re good enough, then you’re exactly who [God] is looking for. His only qualification is that you’re willing to serve, like the man who answered yes:

After giving his sermon, a pastor was greeting church members in the lobby. One young man walked up to him, shook his hand, and said simply, “The answer is yes. Now what’s the question?”

The pastor was visibly confused. Again the main said, “Pastor, my answer is yes. Now what’s the question?”

The pastor smiled awkwardly and asked the man to explain. The man’s eyes moistened, and his voice began to tremble. “Pastor, about six months ago, I was in an adulterous relationship. My life was spiraling dangerously out of control. I was at risk of losing my marriage and my family - even my job. In the middle of my storm, a mess I had made myself, you preached a message about Christ’s power to change a life. It seemed like every word you preached was for me. That evening I agreed to go to a small group with my wife. I was terrified everyone would see right through me. But I was shocked when they embraced me. They invited me to meet that same Jesus you described. That night, I invited Christ to change my life - and boy, did he ever! Today my marriage and family are better than they’ve ever been before. God used our church to change my life.”

He took a deep breath, regained his composure, and continued, “So Pastor, that’s why I want you to know, my answer to you is yes. Whatever you need - anywhere, anytime - my answer is yes. Now what’s the question?”

When it comes to the church, what has your answer been? Has it been no? Has it been “well, maybe if I have time”? Or has it been and unconditional yes? Imagine how your life might change if you were willing to say to your church and to God, “My answer is yes. Anything. Anywhere. Anytime. Use me as your church and for your glory.””

(Craig Groeschel - The Christian atheist - pp 231-232)

The Church - part 1

Over the years the view of the Church has changed. At first it was an underground movement that suffered persecution. Later it became a power unto its own in Western Europe. Then it became fraught with schism and division. It has been reformed and then in many ways cast aside, yet still it survives.

Over the past couple of decades the Church (in the West in particular) has undergone some interesting changes. Its worked hard to go mainstream in an effort to win people over but today we see young people who have grown up in the Church are leaving at a record pace (5 - 6 times the historic rate) in their early twenties.

In the West many churches see themselves as competitors in the market place and as such they try to market themselves to people in such a way as to ensure that they get a lot of people into their buildings.

The message that has developed in the West (and in some respects in Asia as well) is that rather than focuse on the truth of Christ and the word of God churches have presenting a message that has been described as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.

Moralistic - focuses on being a good person; a nice person

Therapeutic - the focus of life is being happy and the church is there to make that possible

Deism - presents God as distant and uninvolved unless you have a problem and then one should look to Him

We can see the differences in the message of many modern churches and the actions and words of Christ and His appostles.

Some have to come to referring to this version of the church's message as Churchianity rather than Christianity.

Those who recognize this difference are able to understand how the church's message does not match up with Christ's message. The end result is they see the church and by extension as being inauthentic (not real) and so when confronted by conflicting views (new atheist authors amongst others) they can't find real answers to their questions, are usually met with derision from members of the church for doubting and so leave.

We talked about how, as Christians, we ARE the Church and so its not a place you go or something that is in our lives for an hour or two a week, but rather it is the reality of our lives 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Matthew 22 says:

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

We understand that God love us (Romans 5:8, John 3:16) but how do we love God?

1 John 2 tells us:

5 But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.

This leads to a question and our second commandment. How do we live like Jesus? How do we love our neighbors as ourselves?

Matthew 20 says:

28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Also Mark 9:

35 Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

We are called to love God (obey Him) and to love our neighbors (serve them). As members of the Church to live an authentic (real) Christian life we are called to live a life of service to the Church.

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Links:

The Church as a commodity

The Leavers

Marriage

Picture in your mind's eye a wedding. There is the gentle murmur of anticipation from those gathered together to witness the momentous event. The men are dressed in suits with colourful ties. The women are wearing dresses of many beautiful colours. From above they are reminiscent of a painting by Kandinsky. At the front, raised above those gathered, is a Minister in robes of white. Several men stand off to one side dressed in stylish black tuxedos. The one on the left, if you look closely enough, is strangely solitary from all of those around him. His eyes gleam with anticipation for the moment to come.

A hush falls over those assembles as the organ bursts into melodic life announcing the entrance of a woman in white. All eyes gaze upon this woman as she makes her way slowly towards the front. The solitary man smiles a smile of pure joy. It is reflected in the face of the woman in white.

The crowd's gaze collectively follows the woman as she makes her way to the front. Their emotions are a dazzling mixture of joy, envy, love, happiness, pride and anticipation. They anticipate the moment, just as the man and woman do, when two become one. When marriage vows are proclaimed and a husband and wife are united in matrimony.

The wedding is a singular vision of unadulterated love and joy. It is seen in the way the couple holds hands as the Minister speaks his solemn words. It is seen in the eyes of those watching. It is seen in the tears that well up in the eyes of those present. It is seen in the kiss that seals the marriage bond. It is seen in the rapturous applause that greets their union.

Yet the wedding is but one instant in time. It is but a mere fraction of our lives. It is both end and beginning. The end of courtship and the beginning of marriage. It signals to the world the intention of two people to live a life as husband and wife; to live a life as one from that day forth, till death seperates them.

Now picture in your mind's eye, if you can, a marriage. The wedding day is an iconic image that is easily called forth. For some the image of marriage might be a bit tougher. Marriage calls forth a number of things. A husband and wife caressing one another, a home, children laughing, the passage of time. We picture a successful marriage where the two grow old together. A marriage filled with love and laughter. A marriage whose image at the end is reflected in its beginning; a couple in love holding hands.

Weddings are hard. There is so much to plan for, so much to take into consideration for the big event. Marriages are harder. It is not one day, but a lifetime. Planning a successful wedding takes time and effort. Planning a successful marriage takes so much more. To understand what a successful marriage looks like we have to start at the beginning.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. He then brought forth man and saw that His creation was good. He saw however, that it was not perfect because man needed a partner and so woman was created. It was decreed that a man would leave his mother and father and a man and a woman would become one flesh. We are told that they stood naked before one another and felt no shame. This was what God intended. A man and a woman to come together, to form a unified bond with one another where there were no longer two but one. There was no distinction between them. Then came the fall.

When Adam and Eve ate of the tree of life and brought sin into the world of man, God cursed His creation. He told Eve that her desire would be for her husband and her husband would rule over her. This decree that a woman submit to her husband is reiterated throughout the Bible. We see it reinforced in Ephesians 5, 1 Corinthians 7, Colossians 3, and 1 Peter 3. With the fall the headship of man was introduced into the marriage relationship and with it a great responsibility was given to both the wife and the husband.

The vision that we are given for how the marriage relationship works, how the wife is to submit and the husband to rule, is that of the relationship of Christ and His Church. The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 5 that wives are to submit to their husbands as the Church submits to Christ. He further writes that husbands are to love their wives as Christ loves the Church.

This image of the Church's submission does not evoke an image of subjugation or slavery. It is not negative. The Church willfully submits to Christ in humility understanding that they are not submitting to a despot nor a dictator. They are submitting to a ruler that loves them. Christ's love of the Church is self-sacrificial. The supreme act of Christ is His death on the cross; an act of selfless love for His bride. This is an enduring relationship of the Church lovingly working to fulfill the desires of Christ, whose desire is the sanctification and salvation of his Church. As one serves they are served. As Christ says, He "did not come to be served, but to serve." Accordingly as a wife submits to her husband in love and humility she will work with her husband to achieve his aim of loving and serving his wife. The two have become one just as God desired in the Garden of Eden.

The key to God's plan for marriage is love. We are told in Colossians 3 that "love is the perfect bond of unity." We are taught that "love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." We are taught that of all things, the greatest is love and that without love we have nothing.

Love as God loves is perfect. We are called to perfection but are not perfect. We therefore cannot love perfectly either. Because of this, because we cannot love perfectly we are told to clothe ourselves "with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."

Love is an attitude not simply a feeling. We are called to be forgiving, to be gentle, to be compassionate, to be humble, to be patient. We must be diligent in putting away pride, selfishness, and anger. We must work at not being impatient, unkind and hardhearted. We are in fact called to love our partner as ourselves. For if we love our partner we love ourselves.

Love is also action. Sex can be considered a tough subject to tackle, but the Apostle Paul tells us that when we marry, when we become one flesh, our bodies are no longer our own. He says that the wife's body is her husband's and that the husband's body is his wife's. He says that husband and wife are not to deny the other their body except through mutual consent and then only for a time. In unity Adam and Eve stood naked in the Garden and felt no shame, so too should a husband and wife be united, in love.

We are called to love our partners emotionally, spiritually and physically.

From this we can see that the union of man and woman was God's creation. God calls those that are married to a self sacrificing love that seeks to serve the other and in doing so both are served. God has called husbands to a role of Christ-like leadership and the wife to a role of Church like humility. God calls husbands and wives to love their partners in mind, body and soul through which true unity is achieved.

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Passages referenced:

Genesis 2:18-25

¹⁸ The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."

¹⁹ Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam^a]"> no suitable helper was found. ²¹ So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. ²² Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib^c]"> he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

²³ The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman,
for she was taken out of man."

²⁴ For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

²⁵ The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Genesis 3:16

¹⁶ To the woman he said,
"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you."

Ephesians 5:22-33

Wives and Husbands

²²Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. ²³For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. ²⁴Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁸In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— ³⁰for we are members of his body. ³¹"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."^b]"> ³²This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. ³³However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

1 Corinthians 7:1-9

Marriage

¹Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry.^a]"> ²But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. ³The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. ⁴The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. ⁵Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. ⁶I say this as a concession, not as a command. ⁷I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.

⁸Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. ⁹But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

Colossians 3:12-19

¹²Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

¹⁵Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. ¹⁶Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. ¹⁷And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Rules for Christian Households

¹⁸Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

¹⁹Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

1 Corinthians 13:1-8

Love

¹If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.