The Kind of Church God Wants

21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. 22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. 24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. 25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. 28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. 29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: 30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. 31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

Six times the Apostle Paul makes a direct reference to the “church,” in these twelve verses. Another four times Paul refers to the church using the personal pronoun, “it.”

One thing is clear from the new testament: The church of the Lord Jesus Christ occupies a dominant place in the lives of Christians!

I believe in the absolute, essential, indispensable, role of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ still today. Let me settle one issue early. “You don’t have to go to church to become a Christian. But a Christian will want to go to church.”

Why would any truly, born-again believer not want to be a part of the house of God? The Psalmist said,

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. 2 My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? 4 When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday. 5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.

(Psalm 42:1-5)

ILLUSTRATION: A preacher was once approached by a group of unbelieving men and asked, “Preacher, you don’t really believe a person has to go to church in order to go to heaven do you?” The preacher thought a moment and then responded by saying, “Let me ask you a question. ‘Why would you want to go to heaven to spend an eternity with those you work so very hard to avoid here on earth? Why go to heaven where you will spend an eternity worshipping and praising One whom you never worshipped or praise here on earth?’”

Having said all that, let me ask you a question today that serves as title of my message today. First Baptist Icard, what kind of church are we? What kind of church do we have here at First Baptist Icard? Are we a New Testament, bible-believing, gospel-preaching church?

You helped answer that question one year ago this month when we adopted our church’s long range plans. This is what we said about ourselves then. First Baptist Church Icard is a fellowship of caring Christians, forgiven by the grace of God, united under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Serving Him, through the leadership and power of the Holy Spirit, we seek to: (and then we stated what we believe the five major purposes of the church is)

1. Evangelize

2. Disciple

3. Minister

4. Fellowship

5. Worship

A better question might be “what kind of a church does God want us to be?”

As your pastor I have been praying about the kind of church God wants us to be. Let me give you four characteristics or qualities I pray we will become.

I. A SOUL-WINNING CHURCH

Our first purpose within our mission statement has to do with evangelism. We understand evangelism to be a priority of a New Testament church. Our purpose statement says we are to “witness to our community and the world around us of Christ’s love and His saving grace which leads to eternal life.”

Evangelism has certainly received its share of emphasis here in our church. I have preached it as the “main thing” of the church. I have said the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing and the main thing is evangelism. What have we done?

Since I came as your pastor in 1990 we have seen close to 5000 members out in the streets, the highways and the hedges in Icard, Connelly Springs, Hildebran and Hickory witnessing and inviting people to church. Those people have made over 13,500 contacts for the Lord. We have shared Christ with the lost 440 times. And praise God, we have seen some 173 persons say yes to Jesus on Monday nights!

In eight revival campaigns we have witnessed an incredible number of decisions for Christ. A conservative estimate would be in the neighborhood of 350 salvations, 200 decisions of renewal or rededication, and many other significant decisions.

Add to this decisions we see for Christ from Sunday to Sunday just as Sheila Taylor trusted Christ just two Sundays ago.

As a result of our evangelist effort our church has consistently ranked among the highest in the state for baptisms year after year. Over the decade of the nineties we have witnessed some 540 people profess their faith in Christ through believer’s baptism right here in this baptistery.

A large number of our members have been trained in effective methods of sharing their faith, everything from the Roman Road, to One Day Soul-winning training, to CWT to People Sharing Jesus. Right now nine new members are active in learning to share the gospel through Continuous Witness Training.

But are we the kind of Soul-winning church that God wants us to be? No, not yet.

Acts 2:47 says that the Lord added daily to the church those who were being saved. You say, “Pastor surely you don’t expect us to win a soul to Christ everyday do you?”

If we’re to become a soul-winning church then our model is the New Testament church which witnessed daily conversions. When we begin winning, baptizing and adding 365 new members per year, then we are a New Testament Soul-winning church!

II. A DISCIPLEMAKING CHURCH

Another major purpose of our church is to disciple every member. Our mission statement says it this way, “equip our fellow Christians for spiritual growth in their personal lives and train them for God’s work.”

Let me say to you with a broken heart that it has taken me nearly fifteen years of pastoral ministry to come to grips with the critical issue of disciplemaking. Although I have always understood the biblical mandate to “make disciples” and have often experienced the same frustration as many of you when many, (usually about one-half of all new believers) quickly fall away from the church, I am just know coming to understand the strategy needed to truly make disciples.

I cannot share with you glowing statistics about the number of members we have seen experience spiritual maturity and discipleship, (and that is an indictment in and of itself), I can share with you our newfound commitment to develop a proven disciplemaking process. A process that is well underway.

We will not turn our church into a disciplemaking church overnight. Like so many other churches, we have not done it so long, that it will take time to do it right. There are many things about disciplemaking that we do not know, but one thing we know is that it takes time to make disciples.

If it took our Lord Jesus three years to make just 12 disciples, then understand it make take us even longer to make disciples. But we will.

III. A PRAYING CHURCH

Another area or quality that must be developed in our church is prayer. Strangely enough, our mission statement and long range planning has little to say about our prayer ministry or our need to improve in this area. It’s difficult to track of the number of people actually praying. Usually those who consistently participate in prayer within the church are those whose lives show the greatest consistency in their Christian walk.

Our church believes in prayer and practices prayer. Recently we examined the ministries that focus on prayer. We were surprised to learn the large number of groups, classes, organizations and members who are involved in prayer.

The downside of this kind of praying within the church is that much of our praying is simply token praying. We too often take prayer too lightly. When we close our eyes and bow our heads we should open our minds and lift our hearts to the very throne room of God Almighty.

Thank God for a small band of faithful members who have met for years in an upper room for prayer every Sunday morning. Thank God for members who come to the church to pray or kneel at their prayer closets to lift this church to God everyday. Thank God for the members who still recognize Wednesday nights as the hour of power with God through prayer.

Thank God also for our recent focus on prayer through Celebrate Jesus 2000. Hundreds of our members have committed themselves to praying for our community, for the lost to be saved, for revival through the year 2000. This kind of praying alone can revolutionize our church and community.

Finally let me add that God has placed upon my heart the burden to reorganize and focus on the prayer ministry of this church early this year. With God’s help I hope to bring before you soon a new prayer strategy I believe we desperately need if we are to be the kind of church God wants.

Last of all,

IV. A GIVING CHURCH

I know some of you just let out a little sigh. You’re thinking, “uh oh, here we go again.” I understand that. I thought several times about deleting this part of the message. But let me ask you, “Is it possible to delete the issue or characteristic of giving from the kind of church God would want us to be?”

According to 2 Corinthians 9:7-8 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work: (KJV)

God wants FBI to become a giving church. If He didn’t, I’d quit talking about it. But if I am to be a true man of God called to preach the Word of God, I must preach the things God places on my heart. If you don’t like that you’ve got two choices. One you can find you another church. There are plenty of churches that will never challenge you to give, because they are not interested in growing or attempting anything great for God. The other choice is for you to wait for me to leave and hope the church will call some mealy-mouthed preacher without a backbone who’ll ask how high every time you say “jump.”

Let’s look at the facts. The fact is that we will never be the church God wants us to be until the members of this church understand their responsibility to be a supporting part of our present ministry as well as our glorious future.

Conclusion:

In praying about the kind of church we are and the kind of church we are becoming, I listed our qualities in the order of personal preference. That is, I focused first on the areas where my heart lies most. First, evangelism, a soul-winning church; second, discipleship, a disciplemaking church; then prayer, and a praying church and finally, stewardship, and a giving church.

But what I hear God saying is that He has different order. His priority begins with prayer. We must first become a praying church before any of our other ambitions as a church can ever be achieved. Until we get on our knees, we’ll never get on our feet.

When we learn to bombard the throne room of heaven then God says we will see souls born into the kingdom. When we get on our knees, then we’ll learn how to turn baby believers into determined disciples. When we get on our knees, then and only then will we see the giving patterns of this church’s membership rise to stay above the level that’s needed to carry out every ministry this church could ever hope to accomplish.

Therefore the kind of church God wants FBI to become follows this pattern:

A PRAYING CHURCH - A church down on her knees.

A SOUL-WINNING CHURCH - A church out on the streets.

A DISCIPLE-MAKING CHURCH - A church caring for one another.

A GIVING CHURCH - A church sharing with others.

That’s the kind of church God wants us to be. The last question is, “What kind of church do you want us to be?”

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