I Love My Church

I Love My Church | A Vision Sermon

[INTRODUCTION]

Go with me, if you will, to the year 2054.

Imagine yourself traveling through the great city of Los Angeles. What do you see? What kind of vehicle are you in? Do we finally have flying cars? Is your flying taxi driven by a life-like robot or a genetically-enhanced human?

What sort of city infrastructure do you see below? What’s the food and water situation like? Do you see the beautiful Southern California sunshine or a densely polluted grey sky? Is the future one of blissful balance or disorderly chaos? Or has California fallen into the ocean altogether?  

In 1982, 37 years ago now, director Ridley Scott portrayed his own imagination of what the Los Angeles of the future would look like in the year 2019, in his all-time Sci-fi classic Blade Runner. He and other science fiction visionaries of the time clearly imagined the future as a sort of functional dystopia. Harrison Ford’s character is a contract killer hired to track down bioengineered beings and kill them under the auspices of the survival of the planet.

But Blade Runner got it wrong. The year 2019 is here. Los Angeles and the Western world as we know them are certainly no dystopia. We live in a veritable utopia. Certainly there are problems, but we live as though we have an unlimited supply of resources—an abundance the world has never known. Fresh fruit, vegetables, and groceries of any kind are a short drive or click away. 

Infinity is in our pockets. In the 90s we had this thing called “boredom.” Some of you remember those days. Today we don’t have to wait for anything. Instant gratification and mindless distraction are always on tap. We’ve lost wonder and stopped wondering. Siri, Alexa, and Google are here to answer our every whim. We can hardly remember a time when all of knowledge was not literally within our grasp.

Pew Research Center says as many as one-third of millennials are walking away from the Church. Yet they’re not walking away. They’re hailing an Uber to an exquisite brunch. The biggest threat to Church in the Western world is not dystopia. It’s utopia. It’s Fortnite and Instagram. It’s craft beer and grass-fed beef burgers. It’s quick-and-easy everywhere and enjoyment on demand. Yet, these are cheap substitutes for authentic connection and  moving mirages of satisfaction.

And this is exactly why I love my church.

Let me give you three reasons I think the local church offers an unparalleled resource of real hope to our hopelessly distracted modern world.

[Point 1]

Reason #1 - The Church is a people.

The first reason I love my church is the Church is a people.

To show you what I mean, we’ll need to leave the future and travel back to the distant past. Let’s look at the original church and see if we can learn anything from this ancient gathering of radical misfits in the book of Acts.

The resurrected Jesus was said to have been seen by hundreds of eyewitnesses. His disciples got to encounter Him up close—walking with Him, talking with Him, and sharing meals with Him. One disciple even got to touch the place of His wounds. For 40 days Jesus appeared to His disciples and showed them how the promises of God throughout Hebrew Scripture were fulfilled in Him.

One day a certain disciple asked Jesus if He was ready to start the political revolution they had all been anxiously waiting for. In Acts chapter one, verses seven through nine, Jesus answers,

“It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (NIV)

Did you catch that? Jesus often answers the questions people ask with the answers to the questions they would have asked if they knew what He knew. If the disciples knew God’s transcendently wonderful plans for the local church, they would have asked Him unending questions about that and forgotten their small ideas of revolt against Rome.

They asked Jesus about politics. He talked to them about being a people. He said, “You will receive power, you will become witnesses . . .” And then He did something rather peculiar. Acts 1:9 says,

“After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes,

and a cloud hid him from their sight.” (NIV)

So they tucked their tails, waddled back to Jerusalem, prayed, and waited for the odd kind of power Jesus promised. And then it happened.

On the day of Pentecost they received the power of the Holy Spirit and immediately things changed. These formerly timid, scattered disciples united under the name of the resurrected, ascended Jesus and they became a people—witnesses of the resurrection. Acts chapter 2 says thousands were joined to their number that day. And right there on the spot, the Church was formed.

What is the Church? The Church is a people. Look at how Luke, the author of the book of Acts, describes their gathering in chapter 2 verse 42:

“And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine

and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.”

(NKJV)

This was the reversal of the famous Tower of Babel from Genesis. This was the coming together of an ethnically, culturally, and economically diverse group of men and women in Jerusalem who had very little in common. What bound them together? What made them become “a people”? In a word, Jesus. Their Messiah had come. The resurrected Son of God had dramatically changed the trajectory of their lives.

Two thousand years later, this characteristic of the Church has remained the same. We all come from any number of family backgrounds and personal backstories. Yet here we are today, united under the name of Jesus. Our Messiah has come. What binds us together is Jesus.

In a world of hyper-individualism and the endless pursuit of authentic self-expression, people are searching for the affirmation and love that only authentic, meaningful community can offer them. Our modern digital world and our ever-changing culture offer fleeting solutions to eternal problems. I love my church because my church offers authentic community. We are far from perfect, but the Church is a people.  

Reason #2 - The Church is passionate.

But what kind of people are we? Certainly there are other movements that unite around an idea. What makes us unique? In a word, passion. The second reason I love my church is that the Church is passionate. What do I mean by passionate? Well, let’s look first at what I don’t mean.

Over the last five to ten years, an interesting phenomenon has begun to appear. Blogs, social media accounts, political candidates, small businesses, individual products, corporations, and entire nations have participated in something called virtue signalling. Are you familiar with this term? Here’s how the Oxford Dictionary defines it:

virtue signalling

The action or practice of publicly expressing opinions

or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or

the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue.

We often see this innocently play out in social media in the term “thoughts and prayers.” A major tragedy happens or a natural disaster hits and our social media newsfeeds are flooded with well wishes and seemly passionate expressions of empathy. It makes most people feel good to use their social media platforms as a symbol of social justice or compassion. But is compassion without action truly passion?

So what do I mean when I say that the Church is passionate? I mean that true compassion for the poor, the desperate, and the marginalized is not something the Church thinks about and raises awareness for. It’s something the Church is truly passionate about. Since the very first church we have been on the front lines of sacrificial love and generosity. It’s a subject we know about first hand.

Let’s look back at Luke’s description of what passion looked like in that first church. Acts 2:44-45 says,

“Now all who believed were together, and had all things

 in common, and sold their possessions and goods,

and divided them among all, as anyone had need.”

(NKJV)

This was not a political statement for the world to see. It was a theological statement. The God of the universe “so loved the world that He gave . . .” This was true passion. The church at Jerusalem had been so moved by the unfathomable grace of God toward them that they could not help but pass it on. It’s as if they centered their daily lives on the question, “What does love require of me?” and got to work doing whatever it took.

History shows that this radical generosity did not stop with the first church. Christians seemed to be normal, but they were a peculiar people who showed remarkable faithfulness in marriage, honor for parents, love for their neighbors, and extraordinary kindness to strangers.

When the city of Antioch saw 41 major natural disasters over the course of a 600-year period, the church at Antioch put their compassion to work and became family to the displaced refugees, orphans, homeless persons, and widows who flocked to the city for help.

The church at Rome suffered two cataclysmic plagues within a 100-year period. Historians estimate that up to 25 percent of the population died during each plague. As hundreds of thousands of people left Rome during the plagues, the Christians didn’t just send “thoughts and prayers,” they moved in and faced the plagues with unbelievable courage. They nursed the sick, they buried the dead, and they cared for the families—hopeless families left in the wake of unthinkable grief. By AD 250, the church in Rome alone had 1500 widows and distressed people in their care. Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, wrote of their unparalleled passion:

“[The Church] showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departing this life serenely happy.”  

This is exactly what Jesus prayed for in John 17:26, “that the love with which You loved Me may be in them” (NKJV). In a world of virtue signalling and cries for social justice, the Church of Jesus offers a community of true passion.

I love my church because the Church is passionate to come to the rescue of those who are hurting!

Reason #3 - The Church is powerful.

I love my church because the Church is a people.

I love my church because the Church is passionate.

And finally, I love my church because the Church is powerful.

Acts 2:46-47 says,

“So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread

from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart,

praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.”

(NKJV)

Jesus talked a lot about power. His promise to the disciples was that power would come with the gift of the Holy Spirit. Yet when the Holy Spirit came a new political party was not formed to overthrow Rome. The Church was formed and it turned the world upside down. The power Jesus gave them was subversive and radically ordinary. It was the power to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and the power to love their neighbors as themselves.

In stark contrast to the cultural and political structures of their day, the early church seemed to welcome everyone equally, regardless of their ethnicity, age, gender, or economic class. Not only did they welcome people into their community, they showed incomparable hospitality to outsiders. Athenian philosopher Aristides wrote about the attributes of the early church that were indicative of this power.

“If anyone comes into want while [the church members] themselves

have nothing to spare, they fast for two or three days for him.

In this way they can supply any poor man with the food he needs.”

Talk about powerful! This ordinary hospitality and deference to others was the way of Jesus. Who would not be attracted to such a peculiar, passionate kind of people? And the Church did indeed attract new people.

From 120 people who received the power of the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room, the power of love broke down millennia-old barriers. Three thousand people were added on the day of Pentecost. By the end of the book of Acts, some 5000 people were part of a local church. By AD 100, it is estimated that there were 25,000 followers of Jesus. And by AD 310, when Constantine made Christianity the official religion of Rome, the global Church had grown to more than 20 million people.

And here we are today, a local church, united by faith in Jesus and love for one another. We were once outsiders and Jesus welcomed us in. We were once lost and He rescued us. We were once alone and He adopted us into His family.

Whether the future of the Western world is utopia or dystopia, the future of the Church is secure. During His earthly ministry, Jesus took His young disciples to the cultural hub of pleasure and distraction—a place called Caesarea Philippi. The best of instant gratification was within their reach and Jesus made a simple promise:

“I will build my church, and the gates of

Hades will not overcome it.” 

(Matthew 16:18, NIV)

The local church is a people.

The local church is passionate.

And the local church is powerful,

because we belong to Jesus.

Let’s pray.