What do you think of the church? There are those on
the outside of the church who don’t think much of the church. They see
the church as outdated, filled with people who do nothing but pray and ask
for money, “A total waste of time.” They think.
What do you think of the church? There are those on
the inside of the church who don’t think much of the church. They have
found the church to be frustrating and difficult.
Indeed it can be – I know I’ve worked in the church
for almost 20 years now and before that, I was part of the church since
before I could walk. There is much about the church that is frustrating,
worrisome and irritating.
Is that your view of the church? Some of you feel a
little like that pastor’s son who was arguing with two other boys. They
were having the classic, “My dad owns more than your dad” argument.
The first boy said, “My dad owns a condo in
Florida.” The second by said, “Well my dad owns a condo in Florida and a
yacht in Toronto and a chalet at Whistler.” Then they turned to the
third boy, the pastor’s son and asked, him, ‘What does your dad own?”
The boy thought for a moment and said, “My dad owns
hell, I think.” “Your dad owns hell, what do you mean?”
“Well,” said the boy, “I’m not sure, but last night
my dad was at a deacons meeting and when he got home I over heard him say
to mom that the board gave it to him.”
Maybe you’ve seen the downside of the church.
But I pray that you won’t give up on the church. I
pray that you won’t give up on the church for one simple reason – Jesus
our Lord doesn’t give up on His church.
It is a great truth that the church belongs to Jesus
Christ. He established the church – and in Ephesians 5:25 we read, “Christ
loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing
her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to
himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other
blemish, but holy and blameless.”
Notice the wording there – Christ’s loved the church,
and then gave Himself up for her to make her holy. He didn’t wait for the
church to become holy and radiant and then love the church. No, He loved
the church with all its blemishes, with its stink of death – He loved the
church and made us alive radiant, without stain or wrinkle or any other
blemish.
Isn’t that wonderful? To see the wonder of it you
have to realize that you and all who profess Jesus Christ to be Saviour
and Lord are the church. The church is not a building – that awful phrase
– “I’m going to church” makes the church sound like a place. It’s not a
place – it’s not a building – it’s a people, and so when you think of the
church you need in your mind’s eye to be thinking of faces, not of
buildings.
So to experience the wonder of that text in Ephesians
5 “Christ loved the church” the wonder of it is that “He loved us,
while we were still dead in sin, He loved us and gave Himself up
for us to make us holy, cleansing us by the washing with
water through the Word, and to present us to Himself as a radiant
people, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and
blameless.”
Isn’t that wonderful? That’s how precious you are to
Him. That’s how much you mean to Him. That’s why you the church are of
immense worth and value. Christ gave Himself up for you! The eternal
second person of the Godhead – the King of kings and Lord of lords –
answerable to no one – in need of nothing – served by angels and cherubim
– worshipped and adored in the halls of heaven, the King of Judah, to Him
belongs all power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory
and praise, gave Himself up for you and for me. For the church. That’s
how much He loves the church.
And we see this isn’t just a passing phase like a
teenage crush with Jesus. This is a settled attitude. Here He is in John
17 having just shared the Lord’s supper with His disciples, Jesus prays.
The prayer begins at verse 1 of chapter 17 and the
focus of His prayer moves from His disciples through to verse 19, to verse
20 where the focus of our Lord’s prayer shifts to you and to me.
He says at verse 20, “My prayer is not for them alone,” meaning
His disciples.
“I pray also for those who will believe in me
through their message.” I find that encouraging. Do you know you
were on the mind and heart of our Lord long before you even thought of
Him? He was praying for you – He was praying for us as a people long
before we ever turned to Him in repentance and faith.
The Church is precious to Jesus our Lord. And we ask
why is the church precious to Jesus our Lord. How can the church be
special to Him? And as we read through this text we discover that the
church is precious to our Lord because it is a reflection of who God is.
You know in Genesis 1:27 we are told that when God
created men and women He created them in His own image. That means that
we are created in God’s moral image. It means that God created human
beings so that they would be reflection of His moral character.
So imagine yourself as being present in the garden of
Eden. There you are, the proverbial fly on the wall, watching Adam and
Eve, and as you watch them what do you discover? As you watch Adam relate
to Eve and talk with her and walk with her what would you discover? You
would discover what God is like. He would be gentle and loving and kind
because God is gentle and loving and kind. And as you watch the way Eve
treats Adam what would you see? You would have seen what God is like. If
we saw the way they went about their work, the way they milked the cow,
and fed the animals and patted the dog and stroked the cat, and cleaned up
after the pig we would have seen what God was like. Because to be in His
image means to reflect God’s moral character.
But something went wrong. We need only look around at
the decay and corruption of the world, we need only look at our own lives
and discover that something went wrong. G.K. Chesterton once said, “What
ever else is true of man, it is certainly true that man is not what he was
meant to be.”
And it’s true, we know that Adam decided that he did
not want to follow God and did not want to depend on God any longer. He
disobeyed God, knowing the consequences he ate of the fruit and sinned.
The image became marred, smeared, distorted and death
entered in.
Humanity continues to have the capacity to reflect
God’s image, but we lost the ability. And as a result every human being
from Adam on has been born with a defect, we no longer clearly reflect who
God is, but reflect another father, who is Adam. So we have Romans 3:23
that reads, “All of sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
That word glory I believe means the image of God. So that sentence
means that we have all sinned and fallen short of demonstrating the image
of God in our lives.
And the good news of the Gospel is that Jesus came to
restore that image in you and in me. By washing us of our sin and taking
up residence in us – so we have that great word in John 1:12 “to all
who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to
become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of
human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”
To all who received Him and believed in His name that
image is restored in you and me – the people who make up the church.
That’s why our Lord loves the church – because when He looks at the church
He sees His reflection.
So Jesus says in our text in verse 22, “I have
given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.”
Now there’s a lot of debate about what that word glory means in
that case, but I believe it is consistent with the way we have interpreted
glory earlier – it speaks of the image of God. Jesus is saying, I have
placed your image in them – how has He done that? Verse 23 – “I in
them” – and He’ll say it again in verse 26 – “I have made you
known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love
you have for me may be in them, and that I myself may be in them.”
The glory that Jesus Christ has given us is the
restored image of God through His indwelling. So when God looks at you,
when He looks at His church He sees His own reflection.
That is absolutely mind blowing! But this is the
good news of the gospel and makes the church so special – Christ actually
lives in us. We are His hands, we are His feet, we are His ears. If He
wants to hug people He will do it through us. If He wants to feed people
He will do through us. If He wants to cloth the naked He will do it
through us. We are His body – the church is a reflection of God – that’s
why our Lord loves the church.
That’s a heavenly reality – we need to make an
earthly reality. So when people look at the church they should see what
God is like. In the way we act, in the way we relate to one another, in
the way we handle problems. In the way we rejoice, in the way we help and
serve, and give, and speak – they should say, that’s what God is like.
And it is for this that Jesus prays. Look what He
asks for us. Verse 21 - “I pray also for those who will believe in me
through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you
are in me and I am in you.”
Here is the heart of our Lord. He prays that His
church would be one – JUST AS I am one.
He’s praying, “let these children of mine truly be
image bearers of the holy God who is one.”
Now the relationship between God the Father and God
the Son is a great mystery, but it is also a great truth that we worship a
God who has expressed Himself to us as God the Father, God the Son and God
the Holy Spirit.
Three expressions of one God. And just as our God is
one, so the church who reflects the image of God is to be one. Think of
how God the Father and God the Son are one. They are one in purpose.
Jesus says in John 5:38, “I have come down from heaven not to do my
will but to do the will of him who sent me.”
The church as it reflects the image of God is to be
one in its purpose. A divided church makes God
out to be a liar.
That’s why we are working
so hard to bring everyone up to speed on this new strategy – to be a
multigenerational church that reaches to a new generation. We believe
that we are called as a church to reflect the image of God in our purpose.
So that means that the church doesn’t have one board over here saying that
we are going in this direction. There isn’t another board over here saying
we are going in this direction. No, no, that’s not what God is like. God
is one. It is as the church works together in unity – that’s why we need
to be constantly checking in with one another, to see if we are on the
same page. That’s why we have a vision statement so that we can all see
that our future is clearly marked out. It is as we are united in our
purpose that we display the reality of God. For God is one.
I don’t know why some
people believe that in the church everyone should just do their own thing
– why do we have to have the same purpose? They wouldn’t think that way in
business, or in sports. We don’t think that way in any other sphere of
life, but when it comes to the church it doesn’t seem to matter if we are
united in our purpose.
My friends God calls us to be one in our purpose –
because God is one. And God the Father and God the Son are one in their
testimony. John 14:24 - “He who does not love me will not obey my
teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father
who sent me.”
And so we as a body need to be one in our testimony.
When we think of other churches and our unity as a great body of
Christians I think we should overlook differences in doctrine regarding
forms of baptism, communion and church structure. But when it comes to
our testimony of Jesus Christ, there needs to be unity, common ground. In
the ancient church it was called the “rule of faith”:
-
God the Creator exists in three person,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
-
Born of the virgin, He suffered, died rose
again, and was exalted at the right hand of the Father from whence He
will come again.
-
The Holy Spirit brings the benefits of
Christ’s saving work to people who believe in Him.
-
Christians are expected to unite with the
local church, submit to the authority of [church leadership], live a
holy life conducive to the spread of the gospel.
-
God will judge the world and receive His
own at the end of history.
One commentator would add that because of the assault
of modernism in this century we might add what the first century church
took for granted: “belief in the authority of God’s inerrant Word.”1
Unity in our testimony matters.
Of course the Roman Catholic church would charge us
all of being guilty of the sin of division because we are Protestants, but
to leave a church which has abandoned the truth of the living word is not
a sin. That is a Christian’s duty.
The sin of division that we need to avoid is the
division that occurs in the true visible church over matters which are not
really important (the classic colour of the carpet, the layout of the
bulletin, who gets a key and who doesn’t. Do we sit or do we stand?)
One of the gravest sins of the church of the 20th
century is the sin of division. Unity matters – because we are to be a
reflection of our God who is one.
We Baptists have forgotten that we have taken the
whole idea of soul liberty – which means that no one can dictate to us
what to believe or how to believe - and we’ve made that ideal higher than
the need for unity in the body of Christ. And we say that we can do what
ever we want – we can believe whatever we want. So a
quick look at church history will show you that unity is not a Baptist
hallmarks. And Baptist history? Talk to other Christians about Baptists
and what are we famous for? Eating and dividing. I am always asked, when
first introduced to another Christian, “What kind of Baptist are you?” A
Presbyterian is never asked that, an Anglican is never asked that
question. A Baptist is always asked that question, because we are famous
for division.
Speaking at a Baptist
assembly, a church historian said, “Many of you trace your history back to
the sixteenth century. Some of you trace your beginnings to the day of
Pentecost, others to John the Baptist. You’re all wrong, said the
historian, the origin of the Baptist goes back to the book of Genesis
where Abraham said to Lot, ‘you go your way and I’ll go mine.’ ”
It is a sad blemish on our
history for which we need take responsibility for and repent. And
change.
But you say, what about diversity in the greater body
of Christ? Why do we have Anglicans and Presbyterians and Pentecostals? I
think, in many ways it’s a good thing. Diversity serves as a corrective.
The fact is we can learn from one another. We need to learn from the
Pentecostal movement or the charismatic movement as it is sometimes called
for it reawakened within a dead church the need for the living Spirit of
God.
We need to hear the call of those who preach the
social gospel for it beckons us to pay attention to the poor, the
homeless, the needy, the prisoner, the disenfranchised. We need to listen
to our brothers in the liturgical traditions and hear how seriously they
are about the ordinance of communion and we are made to realize that
perhaps we trivialize them in a way that cheapens Christ’s sacrifice.
Diversity also makes the gospel accessible to all.
We need to have diversity in the non-essentials of the faith so that we
can have a broad appeal to people on the outside of the faith.
There are some who feel uncomfortable when they
attend our church because of our style of worship. That’s fine. They
love the Lord no less, because they choose a more formal style of
worship. Some individuals are drawn to liturgical services, others to
those which emphasize teaching, still others to music. Pluralism about
the forms of worship – but never about who we worship – is healthy
and allows Christ’s body to reach a great number of tastes and folks. Our
Lord prays that we would be one as He and the Father are one – in purpose
and in testimony.
And look at the result of this unity. “May they
also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
Jesus says it again in the last part of verse 23 – “May they be brought
to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me.”
Our unity is a great means of evangelism. We look at
all sorts of programs to win people to Christ. We try this and that, when
our Lord has given us a great tool to win people to Christ – it’s called
unity. The world is looking at how we behave, how we treat one another
and is always amazed when Christians can come together from different
economic backgrounds, different cultures, everything different yet worship
together, serve together, work together for the Kingdom. The world is
amazed at that, and when they see it happen, they ask – How is that
possible? How can you have so much in common with people who are so
different and we point a steady finger at our Lord - our commonality in
Christ. And they say, He must be real for you to be so united.
This is what Jesus thinks of the church – the church
– you and me – and all who profess Him as Saviour and Lord are precious to
Him. He died for us. He lives in us and when He looks at us He sees His
reflection.
And doesn’t that make you want to be the church?
When I think of how Christ loved the church – it makes me want to be the
church. It makes me want to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond
of peace. It makes me want to commit to the church, - it makes me careful
how I treat the church! But it makes me want to commit to the church –
so that together we can be a true reflection of our Lord.
Do we see that unity is important – not
so much that we can get work done – but because it demonstrates the
reality of God in our midst? Are we making every effort to keep the unity
of the Spirit through the bond of peace?
