What is the ideal Church?

Ideal Church

What does the ideal church look like?

Now, you might stop me there and remind me that actually, the ideal church doesn’t exist. (I don’t know if you’ve heard the old adage - if you find the perfect church, leave, because it’ll cease being perfect).

But let’s just leave that aside and try to imagine what that ideal church might look like, even if only in theory.

We could consider the worship music… in the ideal church, you’d imagine the worship would be inspirational and uplifting. After each service you would have felt an intimate connection through the music.

And then there’s the preaching… in the ideal church, every message would draw you closer to God.

We could think about the people… everyone would get along with one another. They’d all look out for each other, and whenever there was a need, people would be quick to lend a hand.

For those who put rosters together, perhaps we could add that in the ideal church, there would be lots of people volunteering for all of the different roles.

In the ideal church, there would be ample resources so that the people in the building can be safe and comfortable, and yes, that includes air conditioning. After all, when we’re praising God, we don’t want to be distracted by the stifling heat.

So how did I go? Does that sound like the ideal church?

It sounds like a pretty good church to me.

Now there is nothing wrong with anything I just said. Much of it is actually worthy things to strive towards.

But there is a big problem with it all. It is all very inward focused.

I mean, having inspiring worship music is great, but sometimes I think we’re actually more worried about feeding our own enjoyment rather than praising God.

The search for good preaching can suffer a similar fate. Good preaching is something that I think should be in an ideal church, but if the focus is on making yourself feel better, we can start to miss the point.

You see, essentially the subconscious question we naturally work through when we think about a specific church is: what am I going to get out of this church?

What if we shifted that question. What if the question we actually worked through for any church was: to what extent do they reflect the kingdom of God?

So what may that look like?

Well, perhaps they might still have great music and preaching, but it will be music and preaching that draws people closer to the kingdom.

But here’s the thing… whether a church reflects the kingdom or God or not, will have very little to do with the programs and aesthetics of the place - it will rather have a lot more to do with character and attitudes of those in the church.

You would hope that those character and attitudes will flow into whatever programs they run, and into their music ministries and into the sermons that come from their pulpits.

You might remember when King David was first annointed to be king, but he wasn’t even invited because he was considered insignificant - well, God said at that time - “People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart”.

You see, it is not just the clever graphics a church produces - a church that reflects the kingdom of God will be about what is at the heart of that church.

Well, that’s what I’m going to attempt to do today. Rather than paint a picture of some amazing programs that we could run as a church, I want to get to the heart of how we should be thinking.

Because I believe that if we can get this right, the programs and ministries of the church will naturally flow.

Romans

Well, this morning, to help in us thinking about this, I’m going to use Paul’s letter to the church in Rome.

Now, this letter in many ways is quite different to his others. You see, with most of the letters we have of Paul, they are written to churches or people that he is very familiar with, usually because in the case of the churches, he actually was the one that started the church.

But when Paul wrote Romans, he had actually never visited the church. His heard a bit about what’s going on there, but the letter is far more general in nature.

The letter rather becomes a general encouragement for them to understand the gospel and to live it out in their lives.

It’s actually one of the best descriptions of the workings of the gospel that you will ever read.

So let me give you a quick summary - because understanding this is actually what will help us get our heart in the right place.

It starts with sin. In fact, it starts with an acknowledgement that absolutely everyone sins because it is part of our nature. You see, whether its a its a complete rejection of all of God’s way, or the more subtle veneer of trying to look like you’re in line with God, but actually you find you have this natural tendency to use this religiosity to further yourself. Everyone sins. Everyone has turned their back on God. And consequently no one is deserving of God because they have rejected him.

Except for the most extraordinary thing. While we were still in the state of doing things our own way… of dishonouring God with our anti-God ways, God reached out. He sent his son into the world. Not to punish us, but to redeem us.

By taking the punishment that we deserved… by perfectly fulfilling all of the requirements to make us right before God, Christ hung on the cross. He died, that we might have new life.

And in doing so, he only requires one thing of us. Not good works. Not a whole lot of penance. But just to have faith. To acknowledge before God, that we need help, and in faith, allow him to take control of our lives again.

Paul’s letter to the Roman church explores this beautifully, and it essentially climaxes in chapter 8. A chapter which starts with the words: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”.

And it ends with the amazing description of how we can never be separated from the love of Christ. The love of Christ is so vast… so strong… so secure, that once through faith you have entered it, you will always be held by that love.

Now, all of this is not mere theory. All of this has deep significance for how we live our lives.

And its the practical outworking of it, that we get to when we get to chapter 12.

Now you might have noticed that I said that Paul’s description of this good news story actually came to a conclusion in chapter 8. In case you’re wondering, chapters 9 to 11 gives consideration for where the Jewish people fit into all of this - a fascinating topic, but a topic for another day.

A Gospel centred life

Now, I’m going to argue that it is as we come to chapter 12, we start to see the character traits and attitudes that would be at the heart of our picture of an ideal church.

Because, if the church has come into existence through Jesus Christ, then it needs to reflect the gospel that he has given us, and Romans 12 describes for us how to live as a result.

The chapter starts with some words which on initial reading are actually sound just weird.

Romans 12:1 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”

It’s this phrase “living sacrifice”, that I could expect would raise a few eyebrows.

Remember, at this time, animal sacrifices were still being made. The very concept of a sacrifice was about putting something to death.

So a living sacrifice can sound like a contradiction in terms. But before we try to reduce it to just a metaphor, we need to recognise that for Jesus, he literally was a living sacrifice, in the very true sense that he was put to death as a sacrifice, but is now alive and active.

And even for us, we might not have had a literal physical death, however, we have put our old self to death. We sacrifice out own selfish desires for the sake of God’s kingdom.

This is actually why we need the first 8 chapters of this book before we can really understand what is going on in this chapter.

It is in this idea of being a living sacrifice that we are going to find true and proper worship.

We have a tendency in churches, that the moment we say the word worship, we immediately think about song choices and the quality of the music. Those things are worth thinking about, but even if somehow you could get the best sound quality possible, and you put a lot of time into song choices, it’s could still be possible that you’re missing the point when it comes to worship.

Verse 2 goes on to say that we shift from a worldly way of thinking, and instead become transformed by the renewing of our minds.

Well, it would be worth our while going verse by verse through this entire chapter… there is so much in this for us to think about. Instead, I want to just pick out three ideas from this chapter, and just think what it might look like for us.

Unity

The first idea I want to explore is the idea of unity.

Paul gives us the image of a body. Look at Romans 12:5 “so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”

This is not always easy. It’s not easy, because lets face it, some people in the body can be tricky to get along with. They’re different. They have issues. Maybe we can have a bit of sympathy for them, but let’s do everything we can to keep our distance from them.

But in light of the gospel, we really need to challenge this view. We don’t necessarily have to be best friends with everyone. Some people you will enjoy hanging out with more than others, but there does need to be an attitude where we see the value of everyone in the church. We need to be able to work and serve alongside each other.

We need to recognise, that that person that keeps on getting on your nerves, they have actually been given gifts which they want to use for the kingdom, just the same as you.

Now, I know this is difficult. In fact, I pretty sure even Paul knew it was difficult which is why he prefaced his comments about working as a united body with the idea that we need to have humility and think of ourselves with sober judgement.

How often does the break down in unity actually start with - they’re doing it all wrong. You might even have some really sound reasoning for why the way you do things is objectively better.

Now it might be that there is truth to what you’re saying. It’s also possible, however, that your own pride has blinded you to see what God is actually doing.

Now, I’m all for being effective and efficient in the way we do things. But in my experience, when we focus on working together, rather than trying to maximise efficiency, we actually see more than the task at hand being realised - we start to see a glimpse of the kingdom of God.

In the Kingdom of God, we see lives being restored. We see chaos brought into order. We see the vulnerable being made to feel secure. The voiceless get a voice.

When our single focus is efficiency and results, a particular job might get done well, but relationships are left in tatters.

Hospitality

Okay, so the first part in the picture I want to paint, we have a unified vision of working together.

The second part of the picture involves hospitality.

Romans 12:13 NIV 2011

Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practise hospitality.

Now, let me just get something out of the way first.

We often talk about spiritual gifts, and hospitality is one of those gifts. It’s easy to think - well, I don’t have the gift of hospitality, so therefore I don’t have to practice this one.

Can I suggest this is not a good way to think about it.

There are some people who have a gift of hospitality. You’ll know if this is you because you won’t even have to think about it. You’ll have this natural instinct to see the needs of people, and then to just make them feel welcome, making them feel valued and comfortable. If that comes naturally to you - that’s fantastic. Nature that gift and keep it going.

But for those of you where it doesn’t come naturally… I actually want to suggest it is something we should all be working towards.

You see, at the heart of this is a love for other people. In a community that represents the kingdom of God, this should be be a big part of what we do.

Now we need to remember, hospitality is more than just the food. Having the best food and the best coffee at morning tea does not necessarily mean you are good at hospitality.

In some ways, this idea of hospitality is an extension to the idea of keeping the unity, only it moves beyond just those already in our community of believers, and that we keep the same love going for all around us.

When anyone walks through these doors, we should all have a responsibility to make sure they feel welcome and looked after.

Forgiveness and mercy

They final part to this picture of an ideal church that I want to add, is the idea of forgiveness and mercy.

Now, in some ways, this is going to be what is needed, particularly as we live at unity with one another.

Inevitably, when we live in community, someone is going to do something that will hurt you in some way or other. It might be unintentional, or it might be entirely intentional.

Their action, whether due to carelessness or with malicious intent, strikes at the heart of the community.

The person at the receiving end has a choice. They can teach the other a lesson… give them a taste of their own medicine. Or, they can show mercy. They can turn the other cheek. We can forgive.

Now we know what the bible has to say about forgiveness (or at least we should). But we will often reason, but it doesn’t apply here. What’s needed is what we like to term tough love. Now, there is actually a time when we need to let people sit with the consequences of their poor choices. Unfortunately, our natural tendency is to go further than that. Our tendency is to repay evil with evil.

There’s something that happens when we do this - things escalate pretty quickly.

The original offender will consider the repayment far worse, and now they feel they have to repay you again.

But actually, it’s not just that we don’t want things to escalate out of control quickly. There is actually a more fundamental reason - a reason that applies to every believer.

You should forgive and show mercy, because that is how God has treated you.

I want to suggest that forgiveness and mercy should be at the heart of any church that has understood the gospel.

And it is beautiful when it is there. There is a freedom to be found. Rather than always feeling like you’re walking on eggs shells, never sure whether you’re about to be outed or not, in a community characterised by forgiveness, you can know that even if there are still consequences for your actions, you are always going to be loved and accepted.

Conclusion

What does an ideal church look like?

Well, I’m sure there is far more we could add, but an ideal church will care about unity, will practice hospitality and will be committed to forgiveness.

No church is going to do this perfectly. Unity is always being tested. Hospitality shifts to a focus on just a few. And practicing forgiveness is always hard.

But even though we might not do it perfectly, we actually can strive towards this ideal picture. Not because we can do it in our own strength, but because of Christ who gives us the strength.

Later on this morning, we’re going to have a chance to discuss where things are at with our church.

We’ll have opportunities to think about the future and how we can live out our mission.

And while I hope we can get creative and think a little outside the square, may no opportunity distract us from the heart of what we’re doing.

We need to keep at the centre, this desire to be a church that wholeheartedly loves, humbly shares, and passionately serves others.

Let me pray...