How to change the church
"Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit" (Ephesians 2:19-22 NIV).
I would like to begin this morning by asking two questions.
What would this church be like if every member of it were like Jesus Christ?
My second question is What would this church be like if every member were just like me?!!!
You can almost feel the shock waves at the very thought.
If we ask ourselves the question – if every member of this church was just like me would the Kingdom purposes of the church in this area be advanced or would they be reduced?
Well we might all get different answers and we might be surprised to get god’s answer.
We might find that God is far more positive about your contribution than you are yourself.
But whatever the answer is we can be sure of one thing.
Each one of us has room for improvement.
We can raise our game.
There used to be an old joke.
How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb.
The answer one but it has to want to change!!!!
What would we need to change in order to be more fruit bearing for the body of Christ?
Have you ever seen the super nanny program on television.
In super Nanny a child expert comes in and makes a few subtle changes for a parent and the chaos that was the home is beautifully gone and peace is restored.
This morning I would like to explore the concept of what it means to be a member of the body of Christ.
My first comment is that we have no where else to go:-
"Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household –
The context for the Christian is the Body of Christ,.
I heard recently of a Christian who returned from the East and decided that the church in the West was lethargic and lacking in vigour.
So he didn’t join it.
That is crazy!!!
The proper context for the Christian is the church and change starts with the individual.
When I grew up my family in Winton were a little different in some ways.
But you can not divorce your family – You can leave them but you still have the same DNA – you can do what Michael Jackson did and have massive plastic surgery – but he still is Michael Jackson.
So it is with the body of Christ. 1CO 12:21 The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don’t need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don’t need you!" 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
This is the situation for the church – Sure we should encourage and lift each other up but one thing we can not do is divorce the church.
Our question is not – How can we find a better Church?
Our real question is how can we make the church better?
There is a cartoon of a man cutting a limb off a tree – the only problem is he is on the piece that is being cut off and that is the situation for the person who is a Christian without a church.
So my first point is we have nowhere else to go.
Once Jesus was with his disciples –
"Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit" (Ephesians 2:19-22 NIV).
And he is the head of the body, the church;
he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead,
so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,
and through him to reconcile to himself all things,
whether things on earth or things in heaven,
by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
(Colossians 1:18-20 NIV)
My second point is that we are most effective and fruitful when we are "in christ" In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.
It is possible to be in a church but to personally to be outside of Christ and His purposes.
Juam Carlos Ortiz tells of how he wenmt to a church in Buenos Aires it had 184 members.
He said he put all the practises that he had learnt on evangelism into practise and soon built the church up to 600 peole
He said that the denomination that he was working in was so impressed that he was invited to be the main speaker at two different conventions.
Yet under neath it all says Ortiz I sensed that something wasn’t right.
Things seemed to stay high so long as I worked 16 hours per day.
But when I relaxed, everything came down, that disturbed me.
Finally he decided to stop and he went away to pray for two weeks and gave himself to meditation and prayer.
The Lord told him two things.
One he was using commercial methods to grow his church
And
Two The church was not growing.
He felt god say
“All you have is more people of the same quality as before. No one is maturing; the level remains the same. Before you had 200 spiritual babies now you have 600 spiritual babies.
“As a result,” the Lord went on, “What you have is an orphanage instead of a church. You’re keeping the lights on and the bottles filled with milk, but neither you nor anyone else is parenting these babies.”
Ortiz says “When I got home, I began to notice many evidences of permanent childhood – not only in my own congregation but throughout the body of Christ.”
Ortiz identifies three thingas in our lives that can evidence the fact that we have failed to mature:
The first is that our prayers never change – we do not talk to God any different than we did at first.
He points out how as a husband his conversation with his wife has matured and deepened as their marriage has grown over the years.
Secondly he pointed to division in the church and thirdly is that baby Christians are more interested in getting rather than giving.
He says – Isn’t it interesting how Christians are always more interested than the gifts of the Spirit than the fruit of the Spirit?
If someone with a gift of prophecy or healing come along then the church is never so packed.
But only the mature are interested in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.
If you offer a small child a hundred dollar bill of an ice cream the child will chose the candy bar every time.
We are the same we ask God for material things and health but don’t seek the more valuable things.
Ortz said all of this changed in his congregation when he stopped saying “Lord Bless what I have planned’ and started saying “Lord what do you want me to do?”
One of the things god showed him was that they were – like a baby – to move on from Milk to solid food.
Ortiz points out that what the bible calls milk many Christians today consider solid food.
A believer came to Ortiz and told him this.
“Oh pastor Ortiz, I’m really getting into deep water now. I’m into a new dimension of the gospel I never knew was possible.”
“What happened brother,” I asked
“Brother I’m speaking in tongues now!” he said.
I said, “That’s nothing. In the primitive church they spoke in tongues the first day they were saved. You think you’ve hit the climax of your life. You’re still on the first principles – like most of the rest of us.”
Maturity comes when we not only abide in Christ but when our lives are directed by our relationship with Christ.
Good Christian teaching will aid that!!!
My second point is that we are most effective and fruitful when we are in Christ
My third Point is all about what we do – I have already alluded to it here.
In fact I imagine I have aluded to it up to twenty times as a sermon point this year.
The reason for that is not only is it a sign of maturity it is an agent of maturity.
For years, as a young Christian I went and heard many great Christian teachers – many of these teachers still turn up in books I read as modern audiences are told of these great people of years ago.
People like the late David Watson from England – and Derek Prince and others.
But no matter how much of the teaching these men had to offer – it mattered little even if it was memorized word for word unless the following thing was put into place.
It isd of course Christian Action.
You can not regard yourself a follower of Jesus Christ unless you are doing the work that god sent you to do.
Mother Tereasa says:-
It is a privilege four us to serve the poor, because in serving them we are really serving Christ himself who said, “I was hungry, I was naked, I was homeless, I was sick………you did it to me.”
Friends when we begin really practising the ministry of Jesus we begin to mature into being like Jesus – Until we do we remain brazen worldly and unbroken.
In the old days perfume was sealed in a sealed vase it was only as the vase was broken that the perfume was poured forth.
Another story from Mother tereasa
Once a man came to our house and told me
“There is a family with about eight children who have not eaten for a long time.”
So, I quickly took out some rice for that evening and went to their family and I could see real hunger on the small faces of these children. Yer the mother had the courage to divide the rice into two portions and she went out.
When she came back, I asked her, “What did you do?” And she said, “they are hungry also.”
“Who were they? A family nest door with as many children. She knew they were hungry. What struck me most was that she knew, and because she knew she gave until it hurt,
This is something so beautiful! This is living love!
She gave until it hurt!
Jesus was the most mature person who lived on the planet earth.
People accept Jesus as Lord and saviour because he died for their sins on a blood stained cross and defeated death on their behalf.
That is milk understanding the salvation of Jesus and accepting him as our saviour and Lord.
Jesus gave until it hurt.
And we accept what he gave – That is important Christianity in it’s rawest infancy and may you never drigft far from the blood stained cross of Jesus Christ.
But the signs that you are maturing in Jesus will always be in the fact that you are prepared to give to Jesyus to go without some vice or luxury because you love him.
To spend time with him in prayer yes – but also in risky loving action.
Your Christianity becomes real when you give until it hurts.
When you pause in the midst of a hectic day beside some powerless
Infant in Jesus and love them with unreasonable love.
Annd when you do you will find seeping into the marrow of your Christian bones Christian maturity and understanding that gerows you up
Lifts you up
And propels you forward in the Christian life.
Do you know what David’s greates sin was.
No it was not necessarily the adultery he committed with Bathsheba
Nor was it the subterfuge he practised after that adultery.
I believe that perhaps it was the fact tat he reclined in luxury back in his palace while his troops were in battle.
Never give up doing good friends
Because that and that more than anything else is what will mature you and will grow the body of Christ in this district.
