What Does It Mean to Be God's Church?

I had a wonderful time at the pastors conference this past week. The general secretary of the ABC spoke with us, and a wonderful speaker, Dr. Jolene Erlacher ​​talked about the Church.

Prior to Lent and Easter we have been looking through acts at How God Grows a Church. I switching this up just a bit this week, to ask how God is currently growing the Church.

“Every few hundred years in Western history there occurs a sharp transformation…society rearranges itself…its worldview; its basic values; its social and political structure; its arts; its key institutions…we are currently living through just such a transformation…” —Peter Drucker, author and management consultant

We are in a period of transition, which honestly takes place about every 500 years, well the reformation which we have been living in, took place 500 years ago. There is a lot of fear centered around the next five hundred years because we don’t know what it holds, and it means change.

How many here like change?

Yet change is inevitable.

You have all gone through change.

Several years ago my family went strawberry picking. We bent over, lifted up these leaves to find the smallest strawberries I have ever seen in my life. Small little things. Then we sampled the merchandise, WOW, those were good strawberries. Something about fresh organic food…but the biggest change - they used this old Johny popper to pull the group out there.

How many farmers upgraded their trackers from those old, simply Johny poppers?

What changes are there?

Larger/More powerful

GPS

enclosed with A/C

How about cars: How many are still riding on a horse and buggy besides our Amish brothers and sisters?

Cars too have A/C, satellite radio, can not only park themselves but now drive themselves too!

How many take their clothing down to the river to wash them?

Cook over a campfire every day?

Change isn’t a bad thing…yet

The problem with all of this is how many of us like change? Not many! We can agree that somethings are good while others are necessary.

That diaper festering on that newborn, that is a necessity to change.

The car oil...

Son’s socks...

diet at times when our health isn’t good...

Jesus loves us to much to remain the same. This is part of what it means to be God’s Church, we change more into what God is calling us to be.

This is where we have to ask, how is the health of the Church, God’s people.

What changes are we seeing in the Church?

Church is no longer the accepted norm.

Released in 2015, a new landmark study conducted by the Pew Research Center of 35,000 American adults shows the Christian percentage of the population dropping precipitously, to 70.6%. In 2007, the last time Pew conducted a similar survey, 78.4% of American adults called themselves Christian.

Latest statistics say that of those who attend on Sunday morning, we are looking at maybe 20% of Americans. The current generation, Gen Z, Born 1995 to 2012 (Brooklyn was born in 2011), 4% attend church.

Not only does that say something about that generation, but about their parents.

And further it says we have a new and changing mission field.

2. The church use to be the place to go on Sunday’s, now what things might people go to on Sundays?

3. What else has changed?

Think about your life in Christ - if you are following Jesus there have been many changes in your life, amen?

Jesus loves us to much to remain the same. This is part of what it means to be God’s Church, we change more into what God is calling us to be and to be more like Jesus. Amen?

Let me tell you about change.

Imagine a world where everyone you know acknowledges God. It is just a given that you will worship God every week, that you with tithe at least 10% of your income, you will even travel to see places of religious importance.

This is just the cultural norm. You can even point to places that are holy and no one would dare question you if you were devote. If it were the Sabbath and you said you were not participating in sports, or shopping, or anything that went against what the Sabbath stood for, no one would question you but rather praise you for being so devote.

But then one day a foreign country, that does not believe in God or our religious practices, called in a debt our country owed.

By the way, is there a country like that could call in a debt that we own, and does not believe in God? China?

Well in my story, this country not only calls in this debt, they come in and destroy our house of worship, along with any others they find. They kill off family members, destroy out towns leaving them inhabitable, and drag the survivors off to their country, leaving behind only the poorest of the poor and those who cannot do anything for themselves, the lame.

Now those who survived are being indoctrinated into the new culture, forced to leave behind their religious identity, and fall in line with the new way of doing things.

Talk about change!

Would God every do that to us?

Had God ever done this?

How many have heard of story of Belteshazzar? That of course is his Babylonian name, his Jewish name is Daniel.

Here is the remarkable thing about Daniel, that story is about the Jewish people but what Daniel did was two fold-

He said that God is in control, and has clearly allowed this to happen. Since God is in control I am going to allow God to work through me even in the midst of this change.

Daniel 1:2 NIV

And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the articles from the temple of God. These he carried off to the temple of his god in Babylonia and put in the treasure house of his god.

What faith, to allow God to use him and work through him even after such a horrible life changing even took place.

Daniel’s God, and our God, is one that works on a bigger scale than we do, amen? What might seem like the end of the world and changing everything, might be part of God’s plan to overhaul an entire religious system.

It is not fun seeing our world change so dramatically. It was thought that America was a Christian nation, now it’s in question, and certainly within a few decades in not less we will not longer be considered a Christian nation. What we see building in the media is a hostility towards Christian symbols, and that will eventually lead to persecution.

It is taking our high schoolers guts to admit they are Christian, and if they do they are going to loose friends instantly. It’s easy for us to say they are not committed, but if put in their shoes it’s easier to understand maybe what they are going through.

So what does it take to minister to people we may never see in our Church? It’s the second thing that Daniel had going for him -

2. Even being in a foreign country, Daniel does not compromise his religious principles.

Daniel 1:8 NIV

But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way.

He knew the main things it was to follow God and was not going to compromise on those things, no matter what was happening around him.

How does that happen? It comes from sold people in his life passing this on to him before these defining moments in his life.

It comes from people mentoring him.

It people like you investing in others lives, even if they don’t come to this church. It means we pass the seed of faith onto them so when their day of trail comes they will be ready to stand firm.

The biggest change in the church is that there is a weeding out process happening right now.

The largest challenge for pastors twenty and even ten years ago was to see who were the authentic Christians that needed to be nurtured the most, as opposed to the ones who simply came because it was the cultural norm. Now we don’t have that issue. Those of you here are here because you have a love for God.

This might look like the death of the church, but it isn’t. It is God’s church, and if history teaches us anything God grows the church when everyone else sees doom.

As any farmer can attest to, the fall and winter does bring death, but this death allows for the ground to be ready to grow that seed in the spring.

What is the seed we are passing on to the Daniels?

The biggest thing I got out of this conference is this:

The traditional way of passing our faith on with new people finding their way to the church is not going to happen. The new way is through mentoring them even if they don’t come to the church! And it takes longer, months and years of investing in people.

It’s not going to happen if only the pastor is doing it!

This is what it means to Be God’s Church, it means going out, finding young people, finding middle aged people, finding older people and investing in them.

Not to pat myself on the back too much, but the very thing I have been preaching for the past year is exactly what they told us at this conference.

We, God’s Church, must be passing the seeds of faith onto the next generation, and that generation might not come into the church, so the church had better go out to them.

What I heard at that conference is what it means to be God’s church, it means we do not wait for peop

But we don’t have a God of fear and lack of power, we have a God that will empower us every step of the way! Amen?

We don’t have a God that sits on the side line, we have one who gets into the trenches with us, Amen?

We don’t have a God of despair, we have one who looks death square in the face and through it gives hope to the entire world, Amen?

And this God is going to take this changing world and bring glory to Himself!

Let me tell you one more story about a man who saw changes but was not afraid to let God use him through those changes:

This is the story about Stephen.

-Picked to help distribute food…in other words the pastors were going to keep on preaching and teaching, and he would be a deacon to pass out food.

who is going to go under fire in a world were Christians were hated, the preachers, or the one distributing food?

Stephen was full of God’s grace and power, and performed great wonders and signs among the people. So this man got into trouble with the people saying what was alright in their culture, verse what wasn’t, they tried arguing with him, but check out this verse,

Acts 6:10 NIV

But they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke.

So they played politics, told lies, and got Stephen arrested.

They told lies about him and claimed that he went against the religion of the land.

Stephen knew that he could either say exactly what they wanted to hear, or he could tell the Truth, capital T!

This is the truth of Jesus Christ.

He starts off with a great history lesson, talks about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (Israel) and Joseph, he talks about Mose and leaving Egypt. He talked about the wilderness and God being present at Mount Sinai, he talked about the temple and what it really meant to be a Jew. But he spoke the truth about their people how they were a stiff-neck people, they weren’t turn toward God even though all of that.

And then he spoke the Truth, as hard as it was,

Acts 7:51 NIV

“You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!

The thing with Stephen was before he was an Israelite, he was a Christian. Before he looked at his Jewishness, he said I am a Christian and will proclaim Christ no matter what the cost.

Stephen was stoned, meaning they picked up rocks and he boldly confessed Christ while dying for his faith, and he was not afraid to serve His God.

This is what it means to be God’s church. This is what it means to pass the seeds of faith onto the next generation, it is getting out and proclaiming to the people who Jesus is no matter how much it takes, even if it takes our whole life! And the Spirit is going to be with us every step of the way!

Are we American Christians? Or are we first and foremost Christian Americans? There will be a day when like Stephen we will have lay down our rights because we have already died to ourselves, and pick up our cross to follow Jesus. Will we have already passed the seeds on to those who need them?

It does take courage to let God change things, both in American, and in our own Church. But the church isn’t a building, or worship set, or core doctrines, It is God’s people. The change is how we evangelize, how we act as the Church, what we expect form people.

-passing the faith on, just like it was passed on to Daniel, and that seed of Daniel passed it on to others...

But, we don’t worship a God of fear, we worship a God of Hope, one that uses these changes to bring Glory to Himself!

-Christian americans...

Take Steven for instance...

We need to be willing to live into the Hope God gives even when it seems like everything is dying, for as any farmer will tell you through death, through fall and winter, comes the opportunity for new growth.

You are the remnant - the seeds of faith you have must be passed on, this is what our purpose is at FBC, to present the Gospel to all people, guiding them to follow Jesus Christ.

Does it ever say only if they show up on Sunday morning?

No.

Here is my challenge for you - Ask God for someone you can pass the seeds of faith onto.

Then don’t stop until you have been meeting with that person for several months. Don’t stop until you can have them come worship with you, which guess, some will never come to worship. You will be the only Scripture they ever read!

34 members

11 visitors

15 children

12 attenders

and 1 preeminently home bound

That is a total of 73 people.

My challenge for you is to get that doubled! That means everyone of you, from the children to the oldest person here, invest in someone new and continue to do so until they agree to worship here with you. I would love to see this church grow, yes, but the real thing that would show me is that God is working on their hearts to the point that they would be willing to darken a church with their presents.

Daniel was only able to stand firm on his faith because someone invested in him.

Stephen was only able to stand firm on his faith because someone invested in him.

This is the change in the church, we are going to have to start investing in people to share the seeds of faith.

Who are you going to invest in?

It will be easy to say nice sermon pastor and leave it at that.

As you shake my hand in a minute, I want to hear just one name, that person you will be pursing to pass the seeds of faith onto.

I will say ; amen. Because what you are telling me is your prayer is for God to use you in that persons, amen?