Church?' Don't even waste your time [Identity Crisis series-pt.1]

“Church? Don’t even waste your time.”

We’ve been spending the last couple of weeks talking about our responsibilities and commitments as the church of God, and while we are mostly motivated by the word of God all by itself, we cannot ignore some of the difficulties and setbacks we face as humans beings trying to love Jesus correctly.

This skin. This sin. This battle within…We start out today with the one of the more common responses to the notion of trying christianity, and that is... “Church?, Don’t even waste your time.”

Without a doubt, any devote christian would certainly take issue with getting this response from someone that they genuinely wanted to win to Christ. Whether getting this reply to an invite to church, small group or service, it can be rather disheartening to the believer that is simply trying to expose people to the Good News. There are, however, some statements and accusations that we as the church receive that are more of an encouraging double entendre than the intended slight. Case in point being, the “church?, don’t even waste your time” statement is a prime example of one response that should light a fire under the stagnated minister whoever he or she is.

Obviously, the individual rejecting the offer is likely communicating that either they don’t see the necessity of it or they feel that it doesn’t have any significant value to them. In some cases maybe even both. Whatever the case may be, the believer on the receiving end, and most definitely all of us, should be able to grasp how much of a spirit-filled reminder that statement actually is.

We are mostly familiar with the concern expressed by the Hebrew writer regarding the importance of togetherness in church fellowship and how we should not be neglecting it. He even points out the fact that he is well aware of some professing believers which in fact do neglect it quoted as saying “do not forsake the assembling of yourselves, which is the manner of some” in chapter 10 verse 25.

All things considered, really, why should you waste your time and be at or in a church?

To be fair, as the global body of Christ we can get complacent, we do tend to desire the dog and pony show with services in an exchange for sound teaching, and occasionally mis-handle some that come through the doors seeking. However, there is great value in the dual meaning of that pushback, which should instead work as a reminder of “time” and how the church, in fact, should not be wasting it!

Turn in your bibles to 1 Corinthians 1:10,11

The New King James Version Chapter 1

Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. 11 For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you

Stay right there in chapter 1 as we read Paul go on to say in verse 18...

The New King James Version Chapter 1

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

and now let’s go a few portions further down in chapter 3 verse 9 where he says...

The New King James Version Chapter 3

For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building. 10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it

The purpose for jumping around the text is that I wanted to start off from the places where we can highlight the apostle stressing points regarding the state of the church and ministry duties. When we first started reading in chapter one we read “Now I plead with you brethren” where he is addressing church contentions and the importance of unity. This is, of course, is something that we still struggle with many years and miles away from Corinth. The relevance of this to our message today lies in the sense of urgency Paul expresses which is key to effectively ministering.

The question staring at us now is, do I rush to be the church as much as I rush to get to church? Woe is me too, no movement. I mean seriously, do we not find a great deal of irony in how passionate we can be about getting people to come to a place in which we are actually supposed to be an extension of? That isn’t to imply that people can use us for a substitute to corporate worship, but the message of the Gospel should in fact be that close to them. Paul’s pleading should in fact be a globally shared passion for nursing the body to good health. When someone pleads, he or she is going a step further than merely asking or making a recommendation. To plead means that there is a credible warning and/or concern attached to that emphatic imploring. In the greek the word for plead is ‘beseech’. The question now is, are we limiting the apostle’s plea to merely address what that church went through? or are we too reckoning with that divine wisdom?

In verse 18 of chapter 1 we see it stated “..those who are perishing..”, referring to what the cross of Christ means to the believer and unbeliever. That one word, “perishing” sends an undeniable beacon to the heart of ministry as yet another reminder that by spending too much time basking in our knowledge of victory, we often neglect those falling at the hand of the enemy. How long shall we harbor the handy work of the Lord and not share the battle plan so desperately needed by the lost? God doesn’t just want us to win family, He indeed wills for all to get the same. Just because God will allow people to go to hell it doesn’t that He finds delight in their decision.

How easy is it to forget that the ones we often allow ourselves to despise or shame still have an available open offer from our God?

Maybe this is a reason that it seems like a waste of time? Maybe this is the reason that we are wasting time? I mean, are we ignorant of what we should be doing? Has the safety of the cross blocked our view of those also needing the blood?

In 1 Corinthians 4:5 the author says “So don’t judge anything prematurely, before the Lord comes, who will both bring to light what is hidden in darkness and reveal the intentions of the hearts. And then praise will come to each one from God” [CSB]

This is far more challenging then we make it out to be saints. Undoubtedly, there is enough conviction to go around when we consider the charge laid before us regarding the intents of the heart. The secret sins, how we really feel and so forth immediately come to mind, but what about the other things? What about the questions that go deeper like, why do you really want your family members, friends, or strangers to be saved and in church? Is it a form of pride? That is to say, “Lord, behold my spirit-filled handiwork, they came to see you!” Essentially saying that they are only in the fold because of your light? or do you sincerely rejoice in the saving of a lost soul, family, stranger, and even enemy? As far as family goes, contrary to popular belief, blood in fact is not thicker than water…at least not the living type. The blood in your body is no different than sand in an hourglass. So I still ask, are we in fact wasting peoples time?

“So don’t judge anything pre-maturely” Judgement and patience! Too much of one thing and not enough of the other, that is the usual disposition of us well-meaning believers, am I right? The effectiveness we have as ministers remains contingent on exactly how much effort we put into using these two things according to God’s way of doing it. When it comes to wasting time it is usually due to us expediting the judgement part of our calling but being rather hesitant with the exercising of the patience piece. Don’t be mistaken we are expected to make calls of righteous judgement in this life, just not from ‘His’ seat… we just have an awful bad habit of messing with our Father’s things.

My, my, look at the time...

What does it take to develop a healthy life ministry?

One of the reasons that I chose to title this series “Identity Crisis” is that many of our failures in forward movement are directly connected to us only knowing who’s we are, and not who we are for Him. This is one of the reasons we get stuck and stagnated in ministry. We have absolutely no problem telling the world that we belong to Jesus, where our help comes from, and who we serve. But then what? That’s all proclaimation and identification, it doesn’t push the Kingdom forward, or lead people to God. Don’t get me wrong we should, in fact, communicate those things without hesitation but the confusion to the onlooker many times is the way in which we utilize our time. The seeker, or even new believer, has been triggered to respond to this gospel, the importance, and the sense of urgency but why does the progress always seem to stop at 2pm on Sunday? Why does it take certain songs to prompt your empathy for the pain that hurts so many on a daily basis? Why are we so fascinated by other people being on fire for God that study the same book that we do? Are we possibly practicing a vicarious form of faith? Is that their experience with God and the Gospel? or is it really my reality?

Let’s get back to the scriptures...

1 Cor. 5:9-13

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 5

I wrote to you in a letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. 10 I did not mean the immoral people of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters; otherwise you would have to leave the world. 11 But actually, I wrote you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister and is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or verbally abusive, a drunkard or a swindler. Do not even eat with such a person. 12 For what business is it of mine to judge outsiders? Don’t you judge those who are inside? 13 God judges outsiders. Remove the evil person from among you.

Paul was quite clear here in his chastisement of the Corinthian church and their internal church dealings. For as helpful as this is with every point made, there is just as much equivocal value in the hands-on approach which was routinely taken by God’s minister. This takes me right back to the point we made earlier about being the church, and not just ‘doing church’. The apostle wasn’t writing these letter in an attempt to critique any religious practices, he was literally concerned about the health of the body of Christ. If you don’t believe me, reads his letters to the various churches in the Bible. Seek to understand the passion of a man that took ownership of the vehicles used to pass on the message of the cross. We cannot effectively do what we are called to do until we understand that church, being us, is in everything that we do. We must die to the part of our lives that allow us to compartmentalize the gospel.

A few seconds ago we mentioned judgement and patience which is also covered here in verse 12. The author says “For what business is it of mine to judge outsiders? Don’t you judge those who are inside? 13 God judges outsiders”

This makes magnificent sense! We have just identified another form of waste, and that is judging the world. When will we come to terms with the fact that God’s wrath is already prepared to deal with the sin you are so concerned about. Additionally, it was also dealt with on the cross…full coverage! There’s a two-fold blessing right there! The wrath and the blood! Christians, we have movement to make, why are we spinning our wheels waiting on an unction or a feeling to take the offer of reconciliation to the streets?

Our crisis of identity is most definitely being addressed in the 13 letters written by Paul, and of course its found in the balance of the Old and New Testament’s. For instance, you can search the phrase “my people” in the Bible and come up with over 500 occurences! Granted, only the majority of that number is God actually referring to ‘His’ people but even if you cut that number in half it still highlights the importance of identity.

So just to review, we started off today by accepting a challenge to the church that was birthed out of a rejection to come worship and fellowship. “Church?, don’t even waste your time”. We still have more to deal with if we in fact plan to rise to this challenge. I find that we will be able to do so by further discussing and understanding about what the church actually is.

By definition, “Church” is a Group of persons professing trust in Jesus Christ, meeting together to worship Him, and seeking to enlist others to become His followers; English translation of Greek ekklesia, “called out,” commonly used to indicate an assembly of citizens of a Greek city. The early Christians perceived themselves as called out by God in Jesus Christ for a special purpose with a privileged status in Jesus Christ.

This definition spells it out quite well and straight forward but there are a couple of reminders embedded in it. The first, is ‘professing trust’ in Jesus Christ. I like that it doesn’t just say “belief”, which indeed matters, but trusting someone or something indicates there is willingness to be vulnerable to, or reliant on. This makes a person do, or even not do, things with someone other than themselves in mind. That my friends, is just the beginning of understanding who we are and how we should handle things. I’m saved, sanctified, and full of the spirit, but what do I do with that new reality? Exactly why did God need to leave a comforter if the blood of Jesus is enough to keep us until Heaven? Are we asking ourselves these type of questions?

Full disclosure, since coming to faith in the Lord, I ask myself more times than I would like to admit the very question posed by the ones rejecting the offer. It was never about a lack of teaching or preaching the word. It had nothing to do with the music or atmosphere. To be honest, even though there is obvious hypocrisy and so forth in the global church, it wasn’t those things either. My desire to walk away rises from the acceptance of what appears to be defeat. Enter sports analogy number 5,031 here. You can pull up video footage of any sports teams pre-game ritual and find dancing, trash-talking, smiles, and optimism. There is no surprise that the first two things are quite hard to find when things aren’t going according to plan. That’s totally understandable and perfectly human. However, what you should be able to locate is evidence of the third thing mentioned. The refusal to discard it, and the ability to maintain it remain the active ingredients that are so vital in cooking up a turn around and a comeback. God has shown the utmost optimism, in all of His power and glory He loved us enough to turn our lives around, yet it is up to us to do the same for us, His church. God didn’t provide salvation to us because He believed in our ability, He did it because He knows if you believe that you will in fact win.

To add a little more to the sports analogy, the common comeback chant is something like “just keep believing” and “we can do this! This is indeed part of it, but that belief is followed by applying believing action. “This ministry” that we spoke about last week must exercise believing actions if we stand any shot at real victory, not just pre-game dancing and hand gestures on Sunday’s…All teams do this, but not all teams get the ‘W’ either.

The identity crisis we have causes us to waste time in many ways so really, why should we waste others time?

A detriment of the “church experience”.

Saints, we seem to have painted ourselves into a corner in our effort to fill up the pews. I am referring to the unhealthy tendencies we have to use showmanship over relatability. This also goes right back to us needing to truly know, and act, as though we are the literal church and not be defined by the activities that we perform.

So all throughout First Corinthians Paul goes on to address sexual immorality, self-care, food, marital issues, christian liberty and so forth. Another tool for ministry here is the delineation it gives to the differences of behaviour and conduct. I am sure that many of us use these words interchangeably, and thats fine, but there is something even more valuable spoken to our identity issue in the differentiating the two.

The first is behaviour. We have a great time as brothers and sisters joking about how easily and often we behave, or can behave, un-christlike. Although this makes for some good laughs we must be careful to not condone or promote each other settling for a lifestyle of carnality, because thats certainly no laughing matter. Side note, holding each other to the standard that we agreed upon is not the same as judging someone. Please don’t let the sensitivities of the agenda’s in the world trick you into thinking other wise. The church is structured to be self-governing not a group of loose idealist lacking accountability.

Now conduct on the other hand, by definition, is actually the manner in which a person behaves, especially on a particular occasion or in a particular context. So is this the issue? Do we behave in a certain way? On a particular occasion? And even in a particular context?

The apostle says it much better than me in Eph.4:20-24 “But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”

Behavior, for the most part, is usually nothing more than a momentary expression of emotions. While none of us are above missing the mark behaviorally, it should not be fruit of our usual conduct or the manner in which we do things.

“Put on the new man” What a blessing it is to have the ability to not be relegated to the former ways we once were controlled by! To quote another powerful portion of the passage, ‘put on’ indicates that there is a requirement to be met in order for it to operate correctly. Our inability to exercise this stems from another component of the identity crisis issue. Who am I in the body? What is my role? If we don’t know who we are in light of kingdom responsibility then it is extremely difficult to do things that are will-based. Yet again, have stumbled upon something that becomes a hinderance to ministry movement, and that is having clarity on “will power”. For staters, being a strong-willed person that loves Jesus in no way automatically translates into actions that are inside of, or in accordance to, the will of God.

Let’s define the will of God a bit more...

God’s plan and purpose for His creation and for each individual. God does whatever he pleases and desires that all people do His will. Only people fully mature in Christ are able to do God’s will consistently.

As I was reading this definition, I couldn’t help but wonder if we are simply understanding this wrong. If we are thinking that God’s will is the same thing as the will humans leave when we pass then that’s problematic. God isn’t leaving us anything, and He most certainly will never die. Insert praise right there! The plan and purpose for His creation is all about salvation.

The psalmist says it best in Psalm 143:10 “Teach me to do Your will, For You are my God;Your Spirit is good.Lead me in the land of uprightness.”

An additional passage concerning God’s will is found in Eph. 5:17 “So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”

As we close...