How A Church Works

What does a Bible based Church look like?

Last week we talked about what a church is and what happens at the core of a biblical church. I told you that this week we would look at how that plays out and what it looks like, and that’s exactly what we are going to do. If being a christian is about having a relationship with God through Jesus Christ and being a church is about having a relationship with other Christians what does that look like on a day to day basis?

There are a lot of passages in Scripture about how we should relate to one another, love one another, build one another up, carry one another’s burdens and so on. We should do all of those things and more, but how exactly do you go about doing those things? What day to day tasks or activities do you perform to make those things happen? Jesus told us that all of the law and the prophets could be summed up in two commandments, the second of which was to love your neighbor as yourself, we know that this is true but how do we do it? After all if we can’t love our neighbor in church what chance do we have of getting it done on the street or in the world?

I want to look at this today by looking at a passage that is often used by modern Christians but it is used out of context. I am not sure that the example doe not apply the way it is used and I think that the parable works and is biblically sound the way we often use it but it is just not the particular situation that the bible was talking about when the passage is introduced to us.

1 Corinthians 3:4–9 (NASB95)

For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not mere men?

What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.

So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.

Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

When this passage is introduced it comes from the first letter to the Corinthian church and it is written to them because Paul has heard that the church is starting to come apart. There are factions in the church who are dividing up under different men and different ideas so that the church is not longer one body working for a common purpose but several different groups all trying to get control. Paul is of course opposed to this and he reminds the church that we are all servants under Jesus not under different factions or different men.

Knowing what we know about the church it is easy to see that divisions in the church body are dangerous and destructive to the very essence of what a church is. If a church is a group of people who have agreed to come to gether for the common purpose of pursuing the will of God raising up the name and purposes of God above everything else what happens when something is dividing that group and replacing that purpose with the desire to be in control and see your particular side come out on top. If you have to divide your time and efforts between following God and following your particular group doesn’t the purpose of God lose at least some of the time and effort that should be devoted to it?

If a church is a group of people who are growing in a relationship with God and something is happening among the group that is taking their focus off of God and putting it on men and on the struggle for control what happens to the relationship with God, does it not suffer? What happens when more and more time and effort is required to make sure your side wins or your group comes out on top, is not less and less time and effort available to make sure that God’s side wins and God’s side comes out on top?

Division attacks the very core of a church, it attacks the very core of what it means to be a growing Christian. Even if you are on the “right” side, even if you are trying to keep it together and do the right thing the more time and effort you have to spend on fighting against division and building up the relationships that it is tearing down the less time you have to build new relationships and to strengthen the ones you already have.

It works as if we were building houses, structures that would shelter ourselves and others from the storms of life, structures that would provide shelter when it rains and warmth when it is cold and care for the needs of ourselves and our family and we wanted to build those structures for everyone we could we wanted to help as many as possible because we knew that there are those out there without heat and without shelter but we had a problem. Some wanted single family houses and some wanted apartment building and some wanted duplexes. The ones who wanted apartments obstructed the building of the duplexes because they disagreed with how they were built and the ones wanting duplexes tore down the single family homes because they said it was not practical and the ones who wanted single family homes were blocking the funding of the apartment buildings because they didn’t like apartment living. So in the end no one gets anything done and everyone is left out in the cold.

That sounds silly doesn’t it? But don’t we sometimes do that with Christianity? We all agree that there are lost souls who need to know God and we all agree that there are young Christians who need to be discipled, we all agree that there is ministry that needs to be done but we spend so much time and effort trying to get it done our way and making sure that the other factions don’t get it done their way that a lot less ever gets done, as a matter of fact the enemy would love for us to spend so much time and effort working against each other that we have no time or resources left to work for God.

We must constantly guard ourselves so that we never become so concerned with winning that the never actually get in the game. We can’t let ourselves become so afraid of not doing it exactly right that we do nothing at all. Now that doesn’t mean that we give up trying to do it right or that we accept whatever comes along, we strive to be biblical in all that we do, starting with ourselves and the gifts that God has given us. Then if I use my gifts the way God has called and gifted me and you use your gifts the way God has called and gifted you then we all win and more importantly God wins.

Let me show you what I am talking about. Doug Head has agreed to assist me as a volunteer. Now when I asked him to do this he agreed that he would but he did complain a little that Pastor Doug used to make him the bad guy in his examples a lot so I thought I would Make Doug the good guy this time. I know that this is going to be a stretch for some of you but I want you to use your imagination, some of you may even have to close your eyes for this one but I want you to picture Doug here in the role of Jesus Christ.

Doug I want you to stand here in front of the cross and hold out your arms like Jesus welcoming a sinner home and I will go way over to the edge of the platform where we often picture a sinner starting out, as far from Jesus as he could possibly be. We use this verse to say that we planted a seed and that someone else waters it and that it may take several encounters for someone to go from where they are to a place where they can accept Jesus. Now all of these facts are correct but they create an assumption in some peoples minds that just ain’t so.

It is like we are saying that a person has to get so close to Jesus before his arms can reach them, like there is some kind of line of progression that you have to start down and when you have gone far enough, when you have progressed to a certain point in the line then you are ready to be saved. It just ain’t so. As you can see Doug’s arms can only reach so far, and if this was really Doug’s job the sinner would have to get pretty close before Doug could reach him. But it’s not Doug’s job, it’s the job of Jesus and his arms can reach all the way around the world. Jesus can reach the foulest sinner right where he is without him making one bit of progress down some imaginary line of getting your life right.

As a matter of fact if a sinner were to make it down this line all the way to where he was toe to toe with Doug, where he was as far as it is humanly possible to work your way toward Jesus it would not be enough. There would still be a gap there that only Jesus could cross. There is no amount of self improvement or getting your life right that will save you it is a finished work of Jesus Christ that you have to accept. it is up to you whether you accept it today right where you are or if you struggle and strain for years before you give in, no matter how far you progress down this imaginary line you are no close and no farther from Jesus, He can reach you wherever you are.

Thanks Doug you did great.

Now this line does exist in the bible but it is on the other side of the cross. Once you are saved you have spiritual gifts and talents that you don’t know how to use yet and may not even know what they are, you have a new status as a child of God but you don’t really know what that means or how it affects your life, you are part of a family of believes but may have no idea what to do next. Even if you have been saved for years and years you still have needs and areas that you can grow in and ways that you can become more Christlike. That is where the church comes in.

Part of the biblical definition of perfection is to be complete, lacking nothing. The bible says that we are to be perfect even as our Father in Heaven is perfect, now if you are not yet perfect then you are not complete, you lack something. God is in the business of making human beings perfect, that is His goal for us, for us to be perfect even as Jesus was perfect and God promises us that He is going to do it. If we submit to Him then He will make us perfect one day. Between now and then He does not intend for us to just sit around and wait, we are to be making progress toward that goal, but how.

Suppose we draw a line between the Cross and the perfection of God. Once we are saved we are to be working our way down that line to get as close to God as we can. If we take me as an example God has gifted me with the gift of teacher/preacher but I have some areas where I need work. God has given me a wife whose primary gift is hospitality. When we are in a church one of my wife’s first tasks is to learn the birthdays and anniversaries of everyone and make sure on one is left out, as for myself I forget my own birthday and anniversary so I need to be reminded.

God designs marriages that way where we compliment each other. He also designs churches that way. Maybe there is someone in the church who has been gifted with great faith and they believe that God is going to do a great work in this church, they just don’t know what, someone else may have been gifted with administration and they would love to get behind a great work of God and make sure everything went the way it should, that everyone has what they need to get the job done at the time that they need it. Someone else has been given the gift of giving, they have significant resources and they would love to give those for some worthy cause of God. Another person has the gift of serving and they can’t wait to get involved and get their hands dirty doing ministry. Somewhere there is the gift of leadership, someone who hears God and sees the world around them and can apply that information into the way we should go. Another has the gift of exhortation and they can bring excitement and commitment to the people. All of these and a limitless supply of other gifts and applications for those gifts are given by God to His church, each one we use and apply takes us further down the path of spiritual maturity as a church and as an individual Christian.

A functioning church is a group who are all trying to make their way closer to God and who come together to help each other along the way and to get help from each other wherever they can so that everyone moves closer and closer to God and to the plan God has for His church. That’s how we make it work, that’s what it looks like. A group of people brought together by God using the gifts of God and the power of God to accomplish God’s purposes, not the least of which is the growing maturity and perfection of His people.