When I was a kid I went to church. Going to church meant a lot of things. It meant getting up earlier than I wanted to on Sunday mornings. Almost always reluctantly.
It meant wearing itchy sweaters and dress shoes that gave me blisters on my heels. Sitting on a hard wooden chair called a pew. Singing songs that were barely comprehensible and listening to sermons that were even less comprehensible.
It was a place where I began hearing stories that enraptured my young imagination – stories that still hold me spellbound. It’s where I first heard about Jesus. Going to church meant a lot of things.
It was the place where I fell in love. It was the place where my heart was broken for the first time.
You may have had negative experiences with the church. I have too. I have wounds that go deep.
But while the church had done a lot to hurt me, it is also the place where I encountered God – in that – my life has forever been changed.
Tonight, I want to talk about the true nature of the church. I want to talk about stuff that, in all those years of going to church, nobody really taught me.
You see, what I was taught was this: I was given all the steps I needed to become a Christian, and then – after taking these steps – I was taught that good Christians go to church. “Now that you are a Christian, dress up and go to church!”
However, after doing this for a while, I soon discovered that I was quite happy on my own. Everybody has their reasons.
I began to see the church as something political – full of hypocritical, legalistic, power hungry people. I couldn’t reconcile how good people would stay connected with such a flawed institution.
And I felt justified in thinking,
“If my relationship with God is going great, what does it matter if I go to church or not?”
Many of you have walked in here tonight with a similar story.
You look around at the church and you see crap. You look around and – like I did – you see a people that are laughably irrelevant and hopelessly out of touch, and you say – as I did…
“If my relationship with God is going great, what does it matter if I go to church or not?”
What I want to tell you tonight is that the Christ of Scriptures has called you into something so much more than what you may think. More than you can imagine. When you say “yes” to Christ – in that instant – you enter into a community.
And that is what the church really is. It isn’t an authoritarian institution with structure and hierarchy. It isn’t a building. It isn’t made of cement, two by fours and asbestos … the church is made of flesh and blood.
Last month, when I first spoke to you, I painted this scene on a Palestinian countryside. Jesus is talking to his friends and he asks,
“Who do people say I am?”
They explain to him that there is a lot of confusion. And then he says,
“But what about you, who do you say I am?”
MT 16:16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Jesus responds by saying, “You are right Peter, and on this confession I will build my church (not his philosophy…but his community) and the gates of hell will not overcome it.”
You see, Jesus never wrote a book. He never founded a school or a mediation center. He formed a community. And it was based on the foundation that he was the Son of God.
2000 YEARS later, the church is that community. And when you say “yes” to Jesus, you become part of this amazing story.
And it doesn’t begin with Jesus in Palestine 2000 years ago. Again, we need to step back and see the big picture from the beginning.
When we go back to creation…God calls everything into being. And he calls everything into relationship. With himself, with creation, with one another. And – even though things go drastically wrong, we’ve talked about that – he is endlessly pursuing relationship and community.
He begins with Abraham and his family…
“You are going to be my representatives.”
And it grows from family to tribe, tribe to nation, nation to kingdom…finally – at the appointed time – Jesus comes and says
“This Kingdom is going global. It won’t be defined by an ethnic group. It won’t be confined by geography. These are earthy definitions. It will be defined by God rule in people’s lives. In fact, it isn’t just going global, it’s going cosmic, I’m bringing all things together, and you are the ambassadors of this message.”
Insignificant people?…No heroes…
Abraham liar…Moses reluctant/speech inpaired …David murderer and a womanizer…
Peter is a buffoon…Randy…what is Randy?
But we are representatives of this message. By what we say, how we live.
We don’t go to church. We are the church. Membership is not an option. If you say “yes” to this mystery, you are part of this universal body known as the church.
You have an invisible link with people through history. You have an invisible link with people all over the world tonight. In this body there is ethnic diversity. There is cultural diversity.
People may look and worship differently than you. They may be Baptist, United, Catholic, Anglican, but together we make up this universal community.
We don’t go to church. We are the church.
To be perfectly honest, I don’t want to “go to” church anymore. I’m tired of this mentality. If church was just something to “go to”, then I would stop going.
If all church is, is an hour and a half on a Sunday morning I would encourage you to stop going. All it is – really – is second rate entertainment, and there are better ways to entertain yourself on a Sunday morning.
As you see, there is so much more…
I want to spend the rest of tonight focusing on the local church. We are part of this universal thing but we are also called into a local community. I want to talk about what that looks like day in and day out.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 12 the great Christian leader Paul describes the church as a physical body.
1CO 12:12 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
1CO 12:14 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15 If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
1CO 12:21 The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable…25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
1CO 12:27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
There’s a lot here…what we are to find in the local community is unity and diversity. We are one body. Paul says we are to be united with Christ …to be like minded … being one in spirit and purpose.
But there is also diversity. We are all equal but different.
God doesn’t want us to be clones. In fact, I think this is a real problem in the church. We often feel pressure to conform.
God loves diversity. He loves the fact that we are different. In fact, He created us different.
I have my own story which is different than yours. I have my own battles which are different than yours. I have my own unique quirks that – hopefully – are different than yours.
I bring something to this community. So can you. The glue of community isn’t that we are all the same. Look around you…even in the past 2 months we’ve found diversity…
We live in a world that loves to divide and fragment things…
I’ve found economics a dividing factor.
We can become generational snobs.
These tensions work against unity in the church.
But the biggest assault on unity has always been more personal than these things. When we get close enough, we begin to see one another for who we really are.***
And here is a challenge for you. Paul in a different letter to a different church writes this…
PHP 2:1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
When Christ is at the center of the church, then the church is the center of healthy relationships. Masks of hypocrisy come off, conversations deepen, and lives are shared.
A lot of people think the church is a place where we dress up and put on our best behavior. They think it is not a place where you can be open or vulnerable. “If they really knew me, would they accept me?”
Truth is, most of us have never felt fully safe anywhere. At home, at work, at school, with the church … most of us have felt only partially safe. So we hide. And we remain alone. We remain alone in our pain, in our weakness and our sin.
As we’ve learned – hopefully – Jesus will meet us in that place. To all of us Jesus offers forgiveness and freedom. The unfortunate thing is, at times, that church hasn’t been a place where that freedom is offered.
We have been a community of rules and judgement instead of love and grace. When people tell me the church is full of hypocrites,
I tell them they are right. And I am the chief of hypocrites. But where else is a hypocrite supposed to go?
The church is there for hypocrites.
For junkies and for those who have never inhaled. For adulterers and for the virgins. For evolutionists and creationists. All of us…
And if it has been your experience: that the church has been a place of judgement and condemnation, as a leader of the church and on behalf of the church I want to ask for your forgiveness.
Because, biblically, there is nothing more detestable than a self-righteous group of people.
When you are free to discard your defenses, masks, disguises, only then are you free to become who God made you to be.
Now, understand, he also calls us into accountability. On this journey, we are called – not to judge one another – but certainly to keep one another on the path. To encourage, but also – at times – to challenge and even confront one another. This is how we grow.
Now, you are not going to find all of this in an hour and a half on a Wednesday night or a Sunday morning. Don’t even try. It can’t all happen here. That’s why DON is here…
So this is the challenge to us tonight. Brian McLaren has a great chapter on the church. He makes several suggestions on “Getting the Most out of Church”. In fact he gives a list…
(1) Keep your expectations low
(2) Keep your sense of humor
(3) Expect to see weirdos
(4) Expect to see hypocrites
(5) Don’t expect to like everything
(6) Listen to the words
(7) Meet some people
(8) Ask them direct questions
(9) Observe their relationships
(10)Get involved
(11)As you are able, participate in worship and prayer
Questions…
(1) What has been your experience with the church so far?
(a) Share your story or feeling…
(b) Everybody else comment on your story.
(2) What do you think of the church as a community as opposed to a building and/or institution?
(3) Do you think this vision of the church is something you can trust?
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