“Restore: Church, Get Right!”
August 19, 2001
Introduction
In his book “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership”, John Maxwell tells the story of one of the most incredible restorations in American business history. It happened at the Chrysler Corporation in the early 1980’s. Chrysler was in a mess, despite a long history of success. At one point in Chrysler’s history they had captured an incredible 25% of the entire domestic automobile market. By the time the 1970’s rolled around, the Chrysler Corporation was in a steady decline. By 1978 they only had 11% of the market. Things looked bleak. The company was headed toward bankruptcy. In November 1978, Chrysler brought a new leader to take over the company. His name was Lee Iacocca. Iacocca had just left Ford in 1978 after serving as their president. When he left Ford, the company, under his leadership, was earning record profits of 1.8 billion in each of the last two years. The task of turning around Chrysler proved to be enormous. Iacocca described the company as having been run like a small grocery store, despite its size. There were no viable financial systems or controls in place, production and supply methods were a mess, products were built poorly, and nearly all of the divisions were run by turf-minded vice presidents who refused to work as a team. Morale was very low throughout the company, customer loyalty was low, and the company continued to lose money. Iacocca did everything he knew how to turn things around. He replaced 33 of the 35 vice presidents. He brought in the best leaders he could find. He reduced as many expensed as he could. He grudgingly and humbly went before Congress for loan guarantees so that Chrysler would not go bankrupt. Finally, he reduced his own salary to $1.00 a year. Iacocca brought about a total restoration to the Chrysler Corporation. By 1983, Chrysler was able to pay back its loans. Before he retired, Chrysler had gained 16% of the market, double what it was in the first years he took over. The company has fought its way back and been restored to a growing, profitable industry.
Today, I’m the third leg in our 4 R’s sermon series, “Restore: Church, Get Right!”. This sermon has been a difficult one for me to put together. I don’t want to preach a doom and gloom sermon on the state and future of the Church. I believe very strongly in the Church. I love the Church deeply. I’ve committed my life to Christ’s Church. That being said, when I take an honest look at the Church, especially the Church in America, I’m troubled. We don’t look like, act like, or function like the Church I read about in my Bible. One of my favorite passages in Bible is in Acts 2:42-47 describing the early Church right after Jesus’ ascension into heaven and the Day of Pentecost. These verses describe the Church as being devoted to the teaching of God’s Word, to each other, and to prayer. It describes the great love that the Church had for one another and for those who weren’t Christians. It describes how they met everyday, joyfully and genuinely pouring out their hearts to God in praise and enjoying being with each other. And the Lord blessed them.
I want you to listen to the words of George Barna in his book, “The Second Coming of the Church”. Barna writes, “Despite the activity emanating from thousands of congregations, the Church in America is losing influence and adherents faster than any other major institution in the nation.” Barna continues, “At the risk of sounding like an alarmist, I believe that the Church in America has no more than five years – perhaps even less- to turn itself around and begin to affect the culture, rather than be affected by it.”
Those are strong words. Those are words that we need to take seriously. If we believe what Barna has written, then it’s obvious that the Church is in need of restoring. The Church needs to get right. The Church must be restored to its original condition in order to be effective and relevant to our world today. This isn’t an impossible task. The Church can be restored. The alarm has been sounded. It’s time to get to work. We turn to the book of James to gain insight on how this Church restoration project can be accomplished. If it is true that the Church needs restoring and the Church needs to get right, then James is the perfect place for us to come to. The subtitle of James should be “Church, Get Right!” James pulls no punches here. He is very straightforward and honest. He is speaking to Christians and telling them that they need to straighten out. If you’re looking for somebody to pat you on the back and be gentle with you, don’t read James. That’s not what you’re going to get from him. We look to James today for the actions necessary to restore the Church and we come to James 4:7-10, “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”
Within these verses, James gives us four practical, actions that each of us can take to restore the Church to its original condition. We must have:
I. A RENEWED SUBMISSION TO GOD
James says it pretty plainly in verse 7, “Submit yourselves, then, to God.” Let’s understand that we are never, despite what we think or say or do, in charge or in control. God is in charge and God is in control of all things. We must submit to Him. This is not something that should be an arm twister for you.
During my freshman year of college, almost every night about 10 to 15 guys would come together in the dorm room right next to mine. Since we were at bible college, I wish I could tell you that we came together for a bible study or prayer or something real spiritual like that. What took place, however, was Wrestlemania. It was a free-for-all, in good nature and fun of course. The guys would start wrestling and the only way to be eliminated was to say the word, “matee”. To say the word “matee” meant that you submitted, you surrendered, you gave up. It was a forced submission.
God does not want to force us to love Him or to submit to Him. That’s something that we have to decide to do on our own. It’s time that we renewed our submission to God in a couple of different areas:
1. A Renewed Submission to God’s Will for the Church
I believe that the Bible makes very clear what God’s will is for the Church. What is it that God wants from His Church? Matthew 22:37-39, “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ You’ve probably heard me say this before, but I feel it needs repeating. We are to simply love God and love people. That’s what God wants from us, His Church. God’s will is not some mysterious thing that if we’re lucky we’ll figure it out in our lifetimes. God’s will is that we love Him with our whole being and that we love other people just as much as we love ourselves and I would say even further than that, to love other people the way that God has loved us.
In a recent Reader’s Digest, there is the story of Carolyn Kitchens. Carolyn is a waitress at Kelley’s Bar and Grill in Clovis, New Mexico. In January of 1998, her home was destroyed by a fire and Carolyn lost everything. A group of 11 men, who were regular patrons at Kelley’s Bar and Grill heard about the fire and decided to help Carolyn. They told Carolyn that if she used the insurance money to buy the supplies that they would build her a new house. Among these volunteers, were an electrician, a roofer, a plumber, a carpenter and a concrete man. Working the weekends for 14 months, these men built Carolyn a brand new 1800 square foot house. When asked about what they had done, the men said that “It’s just friends helping friends.” This story is a great example of what it means to love people.
2. A Renewed Submission to God’s Purpose for the Church
God has a very specific purpose His Church. We call it the Great Commission. Matthew 28:18-20, “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” We are to make disciples for Christ. I like the way that one author put it, “The business of the Church is life transformation.” We are to transform the ungodly into godly; turn the wicked into righteous and make a sinner into a saint. All the while remembering that God has called His Church to be a light to the world (Matthew 5:14) and to serve as Christ’s ambassador to all the nations (2 Cor. 5:20).
The first step in restoring the Church is to have a renewed submission to God- to His will and purpose for the Church. Our next step in this restoration project is to have:
II. A RESISTANCE OF THE DEVIL
James makes it clear cut that we need to resist the devil. The Church is the arch enemy of Satan. He wants to bring the Church down more than anything because he truly understands the power of the Church and what God wants to accomplish through the Church. Peter gives a chilling description of Satan and how he works in I Peter 5:8-9, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith…”
The latest statistics clearly show that Christians in America are not doing a good job of resisting the devil. In fact, it appears that we are embracing the devil, or discounting that the devil even exists. The truly sad fact as we will see is that Christians in America think and behave no differently from anyone else. Here are some examples taken from a 1997 OmniPoll survey:
Donated any money to a non-profit organization in the past month:
47% Christians 48% Non-Christians
Have been divorced:
27% Christians 23% Non-Christians
Volunteered time to help at a non-profit organization in past week:
29% Christians 27% Non-Christians
Bought a lottery ticket in the past week:
23% Christians 27% Non-Christians
Gave money to a homeless person or poor person in the past year:
24% Christians 34% Non-Christians
The way that the Church in America lives, thinks and behaves is not very different than anybody else in America. In some cases, non-Christians are doing a better job at loving people than Christians are. Now more than ever, the Church must resist the devil and act like the Church. The word Christian carries with it the meaning of being “little Christs”. We are to show others Christ by our lifestyle. A resistance of the devil and his schemes are vital if we are to truly imitate Christ with our lives.
I read a story about a man that was hunting turkeys in upstate New York. He was wearing camouflage and giving off his best turkey calls. He was apparently too good at imitating a turkey- so good, in fact, that he fooled two coyotes! A state wildlife expert figured that they were foraging for food for their pups and moved in for the kill on a man doing his best to sound like a turkey. They must have mistaken him for the real thing. So they did what comes naturally to coyotes. Not to add any insult to this man’s injuries, which could have been fatal, but this story is reminiscent of situations of people who claim to live one way and act another; who say they are Christian but their actions don’t hold up; who say they resist the devil but by their actions are embracing him. The girl that stands strongly for saving sex for marriage but continually wears the most provocative clothing and is appalled when a guy approaches her. The man whose mouth is filled with really foul language, who continually blows his top in an explicative laced tirade. Someone laughed at him when he mentioned the Sunday School class he teaches. The point is that your actions will clearly show if you are resistant of the devil or if you are embracing him. Your actions clearly speak louder than your claims about yourself. To get back to the story of the turkey hunter; the moral of the story is that if you’re acting like a turkey, don’t be surprised by the responses you get.
As Christians, we are called to be different. We are called to a higher standard, a standard set by Christ. We are to resist the devil. We have a promise in James 4:7 that if we resist the devil that he will flee from us. The power is in our hands, not the devil’s. If the Church is to be restored, we must resist the devil.
III. A RE-ESTABLISHED CLOSENESS TO GOD
James tells us in verse 8 to come near to God. For all the ways that we have access to God through His Word, prayer, worship, etc. we are at times very disconnected to God. We’ve lost a closeness with God. The irony in all of this is that God sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins so that we could be close to Him again. So we can an intimate relationship with Him. God doesn’t just want an acquaintance type relationship with us, He wants an intimate relationship with us. He has done His part to re-establish that relationship, now it’s our turn to do our part to re-establish a close, intimate relationship with God.
After the divorce of my parents, my dad and I had a pretty strained relationship. Granted, he was the one that was the cause of that strain. Nevertheless, it took at least a year before we started to develop the closeness in our relationship we once had. I didn’t want to talk to my dad. I didn’t want to give up my weekends to go stay at his house. I went at one point probably six months without seeing my dad and probably only talked to him twice during that time period. One weekend when my brother and I stayed the weekend with my dad, he sat me down and had a talk with me. He wanted to talk to me about the divorce, about our relationship, and he sincerely tried to make amends for what had happened. He didn’t want there to be a strain on our relationship. The ball was now in my court as to whether I could get over my hard feelings and re-establish my relationship with my dad. I was and my dad and I have a good relationship today. He has a good relationship with my brother. He has a good relationship with Holly and is a good grandpa to Hope.
It’s time for the Church to re-establish a closeness to God. The practical steps each of us can take is to be reading God’s Word on a daily basis, to be in prayer, to have fellowship with other believers, to serve others, to tell the gospel to others. It all starts with a desire. We must have a strong desire to be close to God or it won’t happen. God and our relationship with Him has to be the top priority of our lives. He has to be number one. Being close to God, knowing and loving Him should bring us joy and should refresh us.
The chorus to a worship song called “Knowing You” really says what I’m trying to get across about being close to God, having Him as our top priority, and the refreshment that brings to our life. The lyrics go like this:
“Knowing you
Is the sweet breath of sunlight
Into my heart and soul
Loving you
May it consume my lifetime
Until you call me home.”
It is my sincerest hope that we as the Church can echo the sentiments of the psalmist in Psalm 73:28, “But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.”
James again gives us a promise that if we come near to God that He will come near to us. If the Church is to get right, to be restored we must have a renewed submission to God, a resistance of the devil and a re-established closeness with God.
IV. A REPENTANT HEART AND SPIRIT
James closes out the end of verse 8 through verse 10 with some very pointed words about the need for repentance and the need to humble ourselves before the Lord. James is absolutely correct in verse 8 when he calls us sinners. We are sinners and we continue to sin. We’ve basically addressed three of the deadliest sins of the Church this morning in lack of submission to God, lack of resistance to the devil and a lack of closeness with God in which we are trying to do everything on our own power.
James says to “wash your hands”. This is a reference to the Old Testament in which the priests had to wash their hands as a symbol of spiritual cleansing before approaching God at the tabernacle. We need to “wash our hands” so to speak on a daily basis as we ask God for forgiveness. Isaiah 1:16, “wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong…”
The problem with the audience that James is addressing here in chapter 4 is that they oblivious to their condition. They believe that they are doing fine, they have much laughter and joy, when in fact they are not all right. James tells them to grieve, mourn and wail over their condition and to humble themselves before God.
If the Church is to get right and be restored, then we must honestly look at ourselves and realize that we are not doing fine. God and His will, His plans, His mission, His commands are not being completely obeyed. We must take ourselves from the position of pride and thinking we have all of the answers to a position of humility before God knowing that He is the one with all the answers, all the power, and all the control. We are God’s servants and we must humbly serve God. Each of us must commit ourselves to having a repentant heart and spirit.
Conclusion
As I said at the beginning of this sermon, I love the Church. The reason that I love the Church is because the Church is God’s people. It’s not a structure, not a building, it’s people. The Church is family. The Church is what God has decided to use to bring people to Him. That’s a high calling. That’s a high responsibility. I want to be faithful to the task that God has given me a part of His Church. One day Christ will return and I want to be able to know with all my heart that we as the Church did our very best to serve God. Because of Christ’s imminent return, the Church must continually operate under a sense of urgency. We do not have an unlimited amount of time to complete the task God has given us. We need to work as hard as we can to serve God and bring people to Him everyday like that day will be the day Christ returns.
In order to be effective and relevant to our world the Church must be restored. It must get right. It’s a big restoration project, but its definitely possible. It’s possible if we have a renewed submission, a resistance of the devil, a re-established closeness with God, and a repentant heart and spirit.
Probably the biggest restoration project that ever took place happened a little over 2,000 years ago when Jesus died on the Cross. Jesus’ death on the cross enabled us to be forgiven of our sins, to start life fresh and most importantly to come into a relationship with God once more. A relationship that was lost due to sin. The restoration of the Church starts with the restoration of each one of us. Some here may need to take the opportunity this morning to rededicate their lives to Christ. Maybe you haven’t done a good job of resisting the devil and want to re-establish that closeness with God. Today is the day to do it. There are some here today that need to begin the restoring of their lives by taking Christ as their Savior today, confessing Him as Lord and being baptized. Today is the day to do it.
