Cultivating Healthy Chruches

Introduction

It is an honour and a priviledge to share the word of God with you for this conference.

My task today, is to preach about the church - about what a church is, and about how we can cultivate healthy churches. Now, this is surely a subject that deserves a far greater treatment than 45 minutes would allow.

Yet, that is the least of our concerns.

For represented here, in this very conference I’m sure, are people that have a diverse array of opinions about the Christian church. I’m aware that this can be a very touchy subject for some of you. So, let me begin by explaining why we’re doing this session, and what you are to expect from this sermon.

There is an incremental progression to the way the sessions have been planned for this conference. You see, one cannot talk about a Christian family, without first understanding what it means to be a Christian individual. In much the same way, we cannot really talk about the Christian church without first understanding the nature of the Christian individual and the family. And the final session on Christian missions has no purpose being there without first having addressed the biblical identity of the Christian, his family, and his church.

So, here’s what I want to do. I want to take you through 5 foundational tenets (or beliefs) of the biblical church, and in doing so, I want to contrast that over and against the popular cultural notions of what a church is. I want to do this in order to show you how confused Christianity today has become on this subject, and what we are supposed to do if we’re ever going to arrive at the truth of what the church is.

The Problem

Let me begin with one of the biggest obstacles we face when we talk about this subject - everybody has an opinion about the church, even the disenchanted college kid who’s never been part of a church long enough to know the difference between the pew and the pulpit. Everybody has an opinion about what the church is, or at least about what the church is not. If I had a penny for every time someone told me that no church is perfect. 90 percent of the time that I hear this statement, it is used by someone trying to defend the kinds of things that are happening in their church. A good and reasonable thought or wisdom, misused so often to justify sin.

And so, we here in this meeting represent a lot of those opinions, and the only question that you have to ask yourself for the next 45 minutes or so, is what does God have to say about the church. The only concern you need to have, is to determine for yourself, if this weak man before your eyes is speaking the truth. And if he is, if I am, then the Spirit of God is calling you to conform your lives to that truth.

There is only one place that we can go to, if we want to know what God has to say - to His Book. Ladies and gentleman, God wrote a Book!

Tenet 1 - The Church is the bride of Christ

And in that book, we read this in Revelation 19:6

Revelation 19:6–9 ESV

6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. 7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; 8 it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. 9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

This is the first tenet I wish to address - the church is the bride of Christ.

When the Bible uses the symbolism of marriage to show the commitment and union that Jesus has with the Church, several things become abundantly clear.

The Church is already chosen, and is the Bride

I want you to step back for a moment and think about that. Think about approaching God and saying, “God, I don’t think I fit in in the church. In fact, church is so overrated, and old-school. People need to be more tolerant and adaptable to the times we live in. Church is just not my cup of tea. What do you think Lord?”

“She is my bride.”

“But church doesn’t really work. It’s full of imperfections and trouble and rules”

“She is my bride.”

Beloved, who amongst us would dare to ridicule a stong man’s bride? Yet, what do we do with the bride of Christ? I find men and women, young and old, all the time, who believe the church is not the way to go. So, they go on and start small-groups, and join para-church organisations because they believe that’s where the real work happens.

[Example - Anti-church fellowship]

The Sovereign God of the universe has determined the bride of the Lamb

The Church is Jesus’ bride, not yours

The most sensitive part of any man, is his bride. You can cheat a man, and he may pardon you. You may steal from him, mock him, tease him, get into a fist fight with him, and run a truck over him, and he may still pardon you. But if you play around with his bride, what can possibly contain his wrath?

Then, allow me tell you, the other side of the story where people are dechurching themselves. The story where outdated churches are modernised.

When you take the bride of Christ, and adorn her with the jewels of the culture, and dress her up in order to make her attractive to the carnal eyes of men, you are turning the bride of Christ into a prostitute of this culture.

Can you imagine the sin? Tell me brothers and sister, if you’d like to meet with this Bridegroom when he returns for his bride. There is a reason the final judgment is called the Great White Throne Judgment.

We are not required to adorn the church with what we determine to be beautiful, we are to adorn the church with what pleases the Bridegroom. We have gotten so accustomed to behaving, and working in the church as though she belongs to us.

This Bride will be married to her Bridegroom

The gates of hell will not prevail against the church (Matthew 16:18).

v8 it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

Even the righteous deeds of the saints, which here is described as the fine linen, bright and pure, is not the meer work of man, or of his wisdom. For as God reveals in his Book, it was granted her. God Almighty, has determined to cloth the bride of Christ with the righteous deeds of the saints.

If you believe, that by denouncing the institution of the church, you can serve the cause of God, you have another thing coming. The immutable disposition of the entire New Testament has been about planting, nurturing and building up of the church. They preached the Gospel, and God added to their numbers, and they planted churches wherever they went.

Now, there may be some of you who’d want to point out that the picture here in Revelation, and in many other places, is not about this local church or that, but about the universal church. People who dechurch like to say that they are working to build the universal church, and not any particular local church. And my response to you, “Surely, you know better than Jesus and His apostles, those who penned down the New Testament. 2000 years later, you’ve unlocked the secret.”

Beloved, God wrote a Book. The least we can do is read it.

Tenet 2 - The Church is the body of Christ

That brings me now to the second tenet.

1 Corinthians 12:12–14 ESV

12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. 14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many.

The church is the body of Christ. Here we have another metaphor that’s commonly used in the NT to descirbe the church.

The chruch is not about one member, but many. And God’s Holy Spirit baptizes us (from every nation, tribe and tongue - as diverse as we can be) into one body.

This picture or metaphor that Paul uses here is so helpful. And it too clarifies serveral things regarding the church.

Christians are meant to be members of the church

No matter how many differet ways you look at that, the most natural and normative realisation of us being members of Christ’s body, is for us to function as members of a local church.

You were called by Jesus to be a member of His body. Look at this description. “Lord, I don’t believe in the concept of the church anymore”.

“You mean, my body?”

God, in His book, has made it abundantly clear that His intention for the church is both personal and intimate to Him. She is His bride, and His body. The solution to so many broken churches and church methodologies is not to be dechurched, but to be churched right. We are not called to reinvent the wheel, but to make sure those wheels match the biblical qualifications. Otherwise, it would be like us looking at a car with square wheels, complaining that wheels don’t work. And the solution is not to get rid of the wheels and abandon the car.

The Church is united, yet diverse

Diversity can cause certain obvious problems and we see that here in 1 Corinthians 12. Either you have members feeling inadequate about themselves when they see other members, or they feel that some of the other members are inconsequential.

1 Corinthians 12:15–16 ESV

15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.

We are not called by God to conform to the likeness of one another, but of Christ. God meant for us to look different, yet united by Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:21 ESV

21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”

Unity in such diversity is not automatic. We must work toward it. The church is not meant to have one kind of true believers. We honour one another, and uphold one another, 1 Corinthians 12:25-26

1 Corinthians 12:25–26 ESV

25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

The Church is built up when members work together

This body of Christ functions well when all its members work together.

Tenet 3 - The Church is the fellowship/community of the saints

Now, we’re narrowing down to specific definitions, and the third tenet gives us a workable definition of the church.

1 Peter 5:1–5 ESV

1 So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: 2 shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; 3 not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. 5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

The word church comes from the greek word ‘Ekklesia’ - which means the called-out ones. It was when the chief messenger of the king would come to the town square and shout ‘Hear ye, hear ye’, and people would come out of their homes to listen to the word proclaimed. This is the picture of the church, where the saints (those who are called out of this world) gather together to hear the word of God and to worship Him.

The church is the fellowship/community of the saints.

The church is not a fellowship of unbelievers

A compromise on this regard has detrimental effects to the health of a local church. From Matthew 18, and many other places in God’s book, we know that the church is meant to exercise spiritual discipline amongst its members. To sustain and include unbelievers as members in the congregation of saints is to against the very meaning of what a church is.

If I may, this is one the reasons why reforming many of the churches in our land is a chaotic mission, because you’ll have to revoke half the membership.

Listen to me, brothers and sisters, will we take the word of God seriously and start getting our act together on the doctrine of the church.

The church is imperfect

We know that, for we who comprise the church are all imperfect. I like to say that there are no good and bad churches, only healthy and unhealthy churches, for if a church is truly bad, then it is not a church.

The community of blood bought saints, purchased by the redemptive work of the Lamb of God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, unto the glory of the Heavenly Father, can never be bad.

And if you are part of a bad church, you need to repent and eject.

Now, I know I’m not qualifying a lot of what I’m saying, but what I’m saying is that if we take a good hard look at what the Bible clearly states about the doctrine of the church, we will be better equipped in discerning our circumstances.

In any society, cultural stereotypes dominate unhealthy churches. Whether it be the seeker-sensitive kind, or the seeker-insensitive kind, when a church forgoes the reasonable meaning of what it means to be a biblical church, she gets sick. We often see how some churches try to fit in culturally by bringing more of the world’s culture into the church, while on the other hand, we know those hardcore fundamentalist churches that want to keep everybody living in the 1500’s. Both, are lousy motivations, whether you’re trying to fit into the current culture, or the culture from a hundred years ago. The church was never meant to be culturally conformed, she is the bride of Christ. She’s meant to be biblically conformed, and the Bible is the same 500 years ago, and now, and will be the same 500 years from now. Jesus has an expectation of his bride, and we are to conform to that expectation.

The local church is the actualisation of the universal church

More than half of what we’ve already discussed can’t actually be done unless you’re part of the local church.

Hebrews 10:25 ESV

25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Tenet 4 - The Church is the Great Commission

Matthew 28:18–20 ESV

18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The church is the great commission, it is the means and the ends to the great commission.

The main verb in the great commission is not to ‘go’, but to ‘make disciples’. And making disciples and teaching them to ‘observe’ all that Jesus commanded is the work of the local church.

Are you being discipled by the local church?

Hebrews 10:24 ESV

24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,

Proverbs 27:17 ESV

17 Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.

Tenet 5 - The Church is ransomed by the blood of Christ

So, we went from the marriage of the Lamb, with the church, His bride, to seeing the church as Jesus’ body, to realising the church as the gathering of saints, and how that gather fulfils the Great Commission.

But how did the Church come to be? How did this Lamb find His bride? He found her in the streets, all broken and despised. The all beautiful Lamb chose an ugly and broken people, and He clothed them with His righteousness, and carried their sins away.

Hear now the implore of the apostles,

2 Corinthians 5:20–21 ESV

20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

God wrote a book, and in it He reveals the nature and the purpose of the Christian Church. Let us read it, and be glad.