THE NEED FOR A SPIRITUAL CHURCH

INTRODUCTION

-With everything that is going on in the world, the world needs a church that is strong and courageous and lives out its purpose giving a strong message of truth and hope.

~The world needs a church that will face the culture and say THUS SAITH THE LORD

~The world also needs a church that will tell it of hope and love and peace in Jesus Christ

~The world needs a church that ministers and lives in the Spirit and not in the flesh

-For decades the church has tried to program its way toward success (which was usually defined as big buildings and filled pews—not by spiritual growth or Christian maturity). But those programs and pews will no longer help the church be a beacon of light in a world growing darker. That time is now passed. Fads done in the flesh have never done the church any favors.

-This reminds me of a conversation I had with a pastor friend who told me that he looked at his father-in-law’s library and saw rows upon rows of “church growth” books that spanned 3 or 4 decades----meaning “church experts” for 40+ yrs have been trying to come up with latest and greatest ways to grow churches, which obviously don’t work if the next year you’ve got to come up with the next latest and greatest thing the following year

-they don’t work and will never work because they are done in the flesh and not the spirit. And the world needs churches to be living and ministering in the spirit.

-What I mean when I say something is done in the flesh, it is done by human ingenuity, using ways and wisdom of world, where the focus is on us instead of God—we can be doing all sorts good things (helping people and doing all sorts of Christian/churchy stuff) and it is done in flesh (power of world and humanity) and not acceptable to God—we are told in Romans 8:8 that the flesh cannot please God, and we’re told in Galatians 3:3 you can never be made perfect through the flesh

-yet, here we are, trying to solve the worlds ills through the flesh

-God desires a spiritual church lead by Him and His means and His methods—how do we get there?----in Eph. Paul tells the church he bowed his knee in prayer that they would be spiritual church. What I hope we get from this is an overwhelming desire to be spiritual and not fleshly, so that we can be the church that the world needs right now

Ephesians 3:14–19 ESV

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

-Paul prays for 4 particular aspects of becoming a spiritual people leading to spiritual church, the things the world needs to see in us:

I) Our Strength in the Holy Spirit

-v. 16----Paul prays that people of that church would be fortified, braced, reinforced in their inner lives by God’s HOLY SPIRIT----that means that the strength we need to deal/cope with life doesn’t come from self, but by faith, a reliance on HOLY SPIRIT

-in the flesh, we think we find strength by pulling ourselves up by boot straps…trying to gain self-discipline… figuring that when going gets tough the tough get going…delving into power of positive thinking…turning over new leaf…or by getting a grip on ourselves

-and you know what happens when do all that—we fall flat on our face—why? because we are weak, needy human beings

-And the world needs to see a people who tackle the world’s issues not through emotion or by compromising with the world, but facing the issues in God’s way by God’s Word through God’s power by God’s Spirit

~If we don’t tackle our own issues by the Holy Spirit, how will we tackle the world’s issues by the Holy Spirit

~If we try to deal with our own stress or temptations by the flesh, why would the world think we have answers to the world’s ills that can do any better than what they’re doing since they do it in the flesh too?

~Church, we have to be different!

-But in our do-it-yourself culture, we are programmed to rely on self----If you don’t think it’s that bad in Christianity, go to a Christian book website and look at all the supposedly Christian self-help books

-And the church does the same with all the church growth books and gurus. We rely on marketing and try and pull people in by all manner of fleshly things to grow the church (reliance on style instead of substance, coming up with all manner of sports and entertainment to “draw a crowd”)—then when we have an unconverted congregation we wonder what happened----think about it, 1st century church grew and they didn’t even have latest and greatest gizmos, and yet grew. Why? Because they were living and ministering in the Spirit.

-Marketing in itself is not wrong, but if that is where we think our strength lies, we’re in trouble----we want a spiritual church filled with spiritual people who gain their strength from the Holy Spirit

II) Our Surrender to a Reigning Savior

-v. 17a----may seem like funny prayer, because we start saying: when I was saved didn’t Jesus come and dwell in my heart----yes, but we might say that Paul is speaking of degrees of dwelling

-Key in word “dwell”=permanently take up residence, a continual indwelling--where Jesus is not just some sort of guest in our lives, but is given the keys and given ownership of the whole thing

-and so by him praying that Christ dwells in us by faith, Paul is saying that in everything that constitutes our life as individuals, and our ministry as a church, we willingly allow Jesus to have ownership----Jesus isn’t just some guest passing thru, but now holds the title deed to our life and church, and by faith we completely surrender every inch of ourselves to Him

-Imagine if you are having house built, and it gets finished, and you’re given the keys to the house; so you go into the house, and as you’re moving in you find a room with the door closed and locked; you try to unlock it, but key doesn’t work; later find a closet, same thing…; after finding a 3rd door locked that won’t open you call the contractor and ask them what’s up, can’t get into all rooms of your house; and the contractor answers back and says, “Oh, those are my special rooms and you can’t have access to them.” You’re like, “What are you talking about, this is my house??!!!”----He says, “It don’t matter, I built the house and I took the liberty of keeping parts of it to myself that you cannot dwell in”

-You say that’s silly—yet here we are, we say we’ve asked Jesus into our hearts and church and all that, yet there are parts of our lives and ministries that we haven’t opened up for Him to dwell in them—once you surrender that area of your life to Him, then He will come in and dwell there and empower you and live thru yOu in that area—but if you keep that door closed, He will not dwell within you richly

-This was well illustrated in short booklet by Robert Munger called My Heart, Christ’s Home …In it he pictures the Christian life as a house, through which Jesus goes from room to room. In the library, which is the mind, Jesus finds trash and all sorts of worthless things, which he proceeds to throw out and replace with His Word. In the dining room of appetite, he finds many sinful desires listed on a worldly menu. In the place of such things as pride, materialism, and lust, he puts humility, meekness, and righteousness for which believers are to hunger and thirst. He goes through the living room of fellowship, where he finds many worldly companions and activities that need to be tossed aside, through the house into the closet, where hidden sins are kept, and so on through the entire house. It’s a painful process, but finally the title is transferred to Jesus’ name. Jesus is no longer the guest in the heart but settles in as the Master. As the booklet ends, Robert says, “He took my life that day and I can give you my word, there is no better way to live the Christian life. He knows how to keep it in shape and deep peace settles down on the soul. May Christ settle down and be at home in your heart as Lord of all”

-where is it in your life or ministry that Jesus doesn’t have free reign? In the flesh we say, “Jesus there are areas in my life You just can’t touch! Don’t go there Jesus!” Then we wonder why Jesus seems so distant and we are so powerless----Let’s let Jesus dwell in our lives and church richly through faith so that we can make an impact on a world in such need…

III) Our Stability in a Supernatural Love

-v. 17b-19a----Paul uses interesting mix of metaphors: 1 from plants, another from buildings, but Paul prays that the life of the church is firmly fixed in the love of Christ—as the roots keep a plant stabilized in the soil, or the foundation of a building keeps a building from toppling over, so too it is the love of Christ that stabilizes our lives and church

-But to have its effect, Paul says we must comprehend and know the love of Christ; and further says this love surpasses understanding—so how can you know something that is beyond knowledge------what Paul is getting at is that the love that Christ has for His church may not be completely understandable intellectually in all its facets, but it is something that can be experienced

-A spiritual person doesn’t just know in their head that Jesus loves them, but allowing the HOLY SPIRIT to work in them they are able to experience all the dimensions Christ’s love has for us----we might not grasp it with the mind but we can truly experience it

-We can experience the height, depth, width and length (which is the total sum of the greatness) of Christ’s love in our lives this very day, and allow it to stabilize our lives

-Are you experiencing it now? If you’re in Christ, it’s yours—it’s not based on circumstances, but on the promises He gives in His Word, because He demonstrated that love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us

-If you’re not in Christ, you trust in Him today and it is yours—As one author said:

The love of Christ is broad enough to encompass all mankind, long enough to last for eternity, deep enough to reach the most degraded sinner, and high enough to exalt him to heaven.

-There is a story about Napoleon’s armies finding and opening a prison used during the Spanish Inquisition. In it they found the remains of a prisoner who had been incarcerated because of his faith in Jesus Christ. The dungeon was underground, the body had long decayed with only a chain fastened around the anklebone. But this prisoner, even though long being dead, left a witness. On the wall this faithful Christian scratched on the wall a rough cross with four words surrounding it. Above the cross was the word height. Below the cross was the word depth. To the left was the word width; and to the right the word length. Clearly this prisoner wanted to testify that he had experienced the surpassing greatness of the love of Christ. Even in suffering and death, he was rooted and grounded in the love of Christ.

-Beyond our circumstances, when we are in the Spirit, we may experience the love of Christ that surpasses mere human head knowledge, and a hurting world needs to see a people who live in light of that love and share that love with others.

IV) Our Satisfaction in a Mighty God

-v. 19b----we could say this is the culmination—the HOLY SPIRIT gives us power, Jesus is given free reign, we’re grounded in love, and we come to a place where we want nothing else in our lives than the fullness of God, where we will not be satisfied until every inch of us is filled with Him

-and that’s God’s desire, He wants to give us Himself through Jesus, because Paul tells us that in Jesus dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily----We come to place where we finally realize that our old life and this old world has nothing to offer us, and all we want is Jesus—we want Jesus to just fill us with presence and strength and love, and won’t settle for less

-But if we allow the world or self to take up space in our heart, we can’t expect to have the fullness of God

-I can take a bottle fill it half-way with sand and then fill it to the top with water; the bottle is full, but it is not full of water; sure it has water, but it doesn’t have the fullness of water; only when there is no sand in the bottle and it is pure water from top to bottom can we say that it has the fullness of water

-I cannot be filled with self and have fullness of God—I cannot be filled with the world and have the fullness of God—only when I am emptied of self and the world can I have God’s fullness within me—as 1 author wrote:

It is not to have much of God and little of self or the world, but all of God and none of self and the world

- J. Wilbur Chapman used to tell the story of a gentleman who had grown up in a wealthy family but had become estranged, something like the prodigal son. Destitute and broken in spirit, the man had taken to a life of begging. He explained:

I got off at the Pennsylvania depot as a tramp, and for a year I begged on the streets for a living. One day I touched a man on the shoulder and said, “Hey, mister, can you give me a dime?” As soon as I saw his face, I was shocked to see that it was my own father. I said, “Father, Father, do you know me?” Throwing his arms around me and with tears in his eyes, he said, “Oh, my son, at last I’ve found you! I’ve found you! You want a dime? Everything I have is yours.

Think of it. I was a tramp. I stood begging my own father for 10 cents, when for 18 years, he had been looking for me to give me all that he had.

What an interesting story, and how illustrative of our lives as human beings. We go around tapping the world on the shoulder, asking for a dime, when our Heavenly Father is seeking us out to give us everything. We are far too easily pleased. We are content to scrounge around for crumbs, when an invitation for a banquet is laid at our feet. We are consumed with the frustrations of the world, when the fullness of God is ours.

-The world needs a people and a church that finds its fullness in God—not flesh, not world, not self, not entertainment, not anything except the fullness of God. Why, church, would we settle for anything less?

CONCLUSION

-The church constantly running in the flesh will run out of energy and die eventually:

One New Year’s Day, in the Tournament of Roses parade, a beautiful float suddenly sputtered and quit. It was out of gas. The whole parade was held up until someone could get a can of gas. The amusing thing was this float represented the Standard Oil Company. With all its vast oil resources, its truck was out of gas.

-Our life in the flesh is like running on empty, but living in the spirit God is able to empower us when the Holy Spirit is our strength, our life is surrendered to Christ, we are stabilized by His love and fully satisfied in Him

-Christian, are you in the flesh or the spirit-----but some may be unbelievers: in the flesh, we think can get to heaven on our own terms—but without faith and repentance there is no way to please God…