The Church is unbelievably valuable to God. It is full of the
power of God. It is poised to make an unbelievable difference in this world
for God. Yet, it is often misunderstood and ineffectual.
Helmut Theilicke, the great German theologian and pastor imprisoned
by Hitler, once said: “The Church cannot permit its authority to be defined
by people who have no idea of its mission!” Whenever we allow the Church
to become sidetracked from our essential mission, we end up missing what Christ
Jesus has called us to: to change the world!
In his article, “Next Church,” Atlantic Monthly
writer, Charles Trueheart, writes: “American Churches are bleeding.
We have more pew than [people], more history than future. Of our nation’s
400,000 Churches, more than 50% have fewer than 75 people; and we are closing
them down at the rate of fifty per week!”
Ever wonder why? It’s because Church work is tough work!
But remember, “God never gives leaders easy tasks to do . . . if it were
easy, anyone could do it!” Church work is always a difficult task. It
is hard work to turn a world upside down; hard work to go against the grain
of culture and humanity; hard work to live life God’s way and be involved
in what He is doing on planet earth.
We sometimes hear people say that religion is a private matter.
However, that concept runs counter to everything about the mission and mandate
of Christianity. By definition, Christianity is a community experience. It
always has been and always will be. Jesus is building a community, an ekklesia,
an assembly. “I will build my Church and the gates of Hades will not
overcome it.”
The “it” that will not be overcome, or overpowered
by the Gates of Hades, is the Church! The assembly of the people of Jesus
includes both the local body of believers and the worldwide Church of Jesus.
We are collectively the “called out ones.”
The word “church” is derived from the Greek word kyriakos which
means “the Lord’s house.” But Jesus never said that He was
building a house for God as in a place or location. In fact, the word never
occurs anywhere in the New Testament in that context. Jesus said that He was
building an ekklesia, a community of people called out from the masses to
continue what He started. And when the Church is functioning as it was intended,
there’s nothing like it in all the world. Because the Church is not of
this world; it’s called out of this world! And because of that, the Church
is the hope of the world.
From the beginning the Church was to be God’s force in
the world to reach the lost, to bind up their wounds, to encourage them through
the Scriptures, to release them to do the work of the ministry . . . Jesus’
work in the world. It was always to be a faith and fellowship community of
men and women who were centered on Jesus.
Former Chaplain of the U.S. Senate, Richard Halverson writes:
“By the time the Church reached Greece it became a philosophy.
By the time it made it to Rome it became an institution. When it moved to
Europe it became a culture. And by the time this faith and fellowship community
reached the shores of the United States of America it had been turned into
an enterprise.”
But Jesus continues to intend for the Church to be a faith and
fellowship community. Whenever we gather together we are to strengthen and
build up one another. When we go out we are to reach the lost, inviting them
into the Church. It’s what we do: we help in the work of building God’s
Church.
(For the full manuscript of this sermon go to www.preachersmagazine.org
and click on “Sermons”)
Jesus said that when we joined Him in building His Church “the
gates of Hades would not overcome it.” That has become an intriguing
phrase for me over the years. I did a little research on gated communities.
I never realized how much animosity there is toward gated communities. One
article, Fortress America, reports that the whole idea of “community”
is in decline in the United States. In 1998 there were 8.5 million of us living
in three million residences, inside some 20,000 gated communities, complete
with 24-hour guards and private security patrols. Though 8.5 million is only
3 percent of the total population, we can still see that a trend is occurring.
One 1990 Real Estate report revealed that 54% of home buyers,
in a Southern California study, desired to purchase only in private, gated
communities. And since these articles were published gated community living
has increased dramatically!
What does a gated community provide? Why has it become something that so many
of us desire? Simple: It provides homogeneity of living. It “keeps out”
those with whom you do not wish to associate. It gives a sense of security.
But, as Peter Calthorpe, a designer, writes, “Socially the ‘house
fortress’ represents a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more isolated people
become and the less they share with others unlike themselves, the more they
do have to fear.” It creates an “us against them” situation.
It’s not just the rich who want to isolate themselves off
in gated community living, either. It’s our main societal breech . .
. isolation from those not like us. Ghettos, at least in this country, were
developed around those who spoke a common language and shared a common lifestyle
upon immigration. Boston flourished with Irish immigrants; New York City,
with immigrants from all over the world, left us with Harlem, Spanish Harlem,
Queens, and other areas which were originally ethnically homogeneous. It’s
why every major city has a Chinatown, a Little Italy, and the like. People
cluster in safe homogeneous groups. But Jesus is building a community of people
from every race, every class; a people called out from every religion of humanity.
Colossians 3:11 tells us: “Here there is no Greek or Jew,
circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ
is all, and is in all.”
Jesus is not building a gated community . . . quite the contrary . . . He’s
breaking down the gates! He’s building a Kingdom against which no gate
is strong enough to keep anyone out!
