WHAT THE CHURCH SHOULD BE
INTRO.- ILL.- The sermon was longer than usual on this particular Sunday morning. Little Johnny was getting more restless by the minute. Finally, in what was supposed to be a whisper, Johnny blurted out, "IF WE GIVE HIM THE MONEY NOW WILL HE LET US LEAVE!"
ILL.- That’s like the church service where the preacher had delivered a long, dry sermon. The preacher announced that he wanted to meet with the board after the service. The first man to show up was not a board member. The preacher said, "I’m sorry, but you must have misunderstood. This is a meeting of the board."
"I know," said the man, "but if there is anyone here more bored than I am, I’d like to meet him."
ILL.- In a door-to-door survey conducted by Willow Creek Community Church of South Barrington, IL (which is probably the largest church in the U.S.), the question was asked:
"If you don’t go to church, why?" The five biggest reasons:
1- Boring
2- Irrelevant
3- Asking for money all the time
4- I’m too busy already
5- I feel awkward at church.
BORING. The sad truth is many churches or church services are boring. I don’t like boring. But I don’t think we are boring here at Mattoon Christian.
I don’t think the church should be some kind of carnival show, but I don’t think it should be boring either. I like to preach "home run" sermons, but I don’t always do that. I always try to make my sermon as interesting and exciting as possible. This is why I use a lot of humor. People can relate to humor.
I want to do my part to make our services exciting or at least, less boring! We all must do what we can to make our services exciting, interesting and applicable!
The Willow Creek Community Church also discovered that people thought most church services were irrelevant, meaning, the services didn’t relate to people in their every day lives.
The Bible is not just a book of facts to be taught! It’s a book about how to live! About how to get the most out of life! And I intend to always preach and teach Scriptures in a way that will help and bless people!
In my younger days as a preacher I used to think in terms of "laying it on the people." Some of that may be ok, but not all the time. I now preach to help people! I don’t want to beat people. I want to bless people.
Life is rough and tough. It’s not easy even when it’s easy. People need help. They need to be built up, not beat down! I want to be on the "construction" crew, not the "destruction" crew! What about you?
The Willow Creek church also discovered that most people thought that churches were always asking for money. NOT MATTOON CHRISTIAN CHURCH! We don’t ask unless there is real or genuine need! And I personally will not hound people to give. I don’t want to be pushed and prodded and I won’t do it to others.
Willow Creek church also discovered that many people said the reason they didn’t go to church was because they didn’t have time. All I can say is: some day they won’t have time to die, but they will die!
The only way to prepare for death is to believe in Christ, follow Christ, give your life to Christ and get in the church!
Brothers and sisters, we need to boost the church in the eyes of the world and our community! We have an image, just like every human being has an image. But what is our image? Is it a good image? Is it kind and loving? It is outgoing and selfless? Or is it inward and selfish? Do we exist to live for others? Or for ourselves?
PROP.- From the book of I Thessalonians let’s consider what the church should be with the idea of reaching more people for Christ.
1- A center of gospel testimony (1:8)
2- A nursery for spiritual babes (2:7-8)
3- A family circle with love prevailing (3:12)
4- A school for spiritual development (4:9-10, 13)
I. A CENTER OF GOSPEL TESTIMONY
I Thess. 1:8 "The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia - your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it."
The Lord’s message rang out from the church in Thessalonica!
ILL.- A certain preacher never prepared his sermon during the week, and on Sunday morning he’d sit on the platform while the church was singing the hymns desperately praying, "Lord, give me your message, Lord give me your message." One Sunday, while desperately praying for God’s message, he heard the Lord say, "Ralph, here’s my message. You’re lazy!"
Brothers and sisters, I should never be lazy when it comes to preparing a sermon. And we should never be lazy when it comes to ringing out the Lord’s message!
Matt. 28:18-19 Jesus said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of al nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."
ILL.- Harold St. John said, "The chief business of every Christian in the world today is to evangelize. No consideration of age or sex, poverty or rank, allows you to escape. The one controlling thing that lies before you is that your business in the world is to preach the gospel to every creature, if you bear the name of Christian at all...."
Evangelizing, witnessing, testifying, or ringing out the Lord’s message should be the primary function of the church! It should be the major work and goal of the church!
Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God! He is the Savior of the world. He is the only Savior of the world! His death on the cross does save us from our sins and from the penalty of sin. And the world needs to hear about it. The world needs to hear about Him!
ILL.- There is a black, 89 year-old Pentecostal preacher who resides at the National Healthcare nursing home in Joplin, MO, where my mother resided. His name is Henry Grayson. After eating his breakfast one day while I was there visiting, Henry started to take off in his wheelchair. I said to him, "Henry, where are you going?" He said, "I’m going to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ!" And he does preach it in that nursing home. You don’t dare get him wound up because it’s hard to stop him.
The truth is: we all need to get wound up when it comes to ringing out the Lord’s message of salvation!
ILL.- Preacher P. H. Welshimer said a long time ago, "If we want them coming down the aisle, we must go down the street. They will not seek. They must be sought."
Luke 19:10 Jesus said of himself, "For the Son of man came to seek and to save what was lost."
Jesus was a "seeker" of the lost. He found the woman at the well as recorded in John 4. She was not the kind of person that most people would have been interested in. She’d had five husbands and was at that time living with a man who was not her husband. Jesus sought her and talked to her in order to bring salvation to her life.
Many people will never come to know Christ as their Savior unless we go to them with the message! There are seekers in this world, but there are few seekers who will come into our church services. What does this mean? It simply means that we have to go to them! We have to find them! We have to witness to them! We have to speak to them about Christ!
I Pet. 3:15 "In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect."
Not everyone is going to ask you about your church or your faith or what you believe in, but you need to be ready and willing to witness for Christ at any given moment.
ILL.- Several weeks ago we heard on the national news about the atheist Michael Newdow of Sacremento, CA, who filed suit against the Elk Grove Unified School District because his second-grade daughter was required to say the Pledge of Allegiance using the words "one nation under God."
I don’t know what is going to happen but I doubt seriously it will go very far in his favor. There are just far too many people who believe strongly that we are "one nation under God."
But what is that old saying? "The wheel that squeaks the loudest gets the grease." There is a certain amount of truth to that statement. And I’m saying that we Christian people should be "squeaking" and speaking out for Christ, but obviously, in a nice and loving way!
The church should be a center of gospel testimony. We should be ringing out the message of Christ every chance we get.
II. A NURSERY FOR SPIRITUAL BABES
I Thess. 2:7-8 "As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us."
ILL.- The baby cried without stopping during the first fifteen minutes of the preacher’s sermon. Finally, the mother got up and started to take her baby out of the church service. The minister said, "There’s no need for you to leave. Your precious baby isn’t disturbing me." "Well," she said, "he’s crying because you’re disturbing him."
ILL.- I heard it said years ago that a preacher’s job was to: "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." Or perhaps it was to: "Shake the people in, shake them up, and shake them out."
I’m not sure I believe either of those statements. I believe we all should be in the business of caring for people, regardless of the state of their spiritual maturity or spiritual immaturity.
Paul said, "We were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children." Mothers are great when it comes to caring for their little children. They demonstrate a lot of love, patience and understanding and we should do the same in the church.
I Cor. 3:1 Paul said to the Corinthian Christians, "I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly - mere infants in Christ."
I Cor. 3:3 "You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly?"
There will be always be some spiritual babies in the church who are not what they should be and will need some special care and handling. Some of these babies will make you sad and some will make you mad.
ILL.- Ray Gipson is a friend of mine who used to preach at the Park Plaza Christian Church in Joplin, MO, about 35 years ago. Ray told me that one time before a church board meeting he set up tables and chairs for the meeting. He also placed name cards at different places around the table for each board member. When the board members came in one of them got mad because he didn’t get to sit where he wanted. HE BLEW A GASKET AND WALKED OUT. That board member should not have been a board member. He was a spiritual baby.
ILL.- I know of a preacher who was the president of the local ministerial alliance in his town. The alliance had a special function and each preacher invited his church to attend. It turned out that no one from his church came to that function. Consequently, the next Sunday the preacher was mad about it.
I was told that during the Sunday School hour he locked himself in his office and wouldn’t come out.
When it was time for church he chewed on his members for not attending that ministerial alliance function and wouldn’t partake of communion with his church. THAT MINISTER WAS A SPIRITUAL BABY.
I don’t know what happened to him. I don’t know if they burped him or beat him! But I seriously doubt that they petted and pampered him!
I Thess. 5:14 "And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone."
Everyone in the church needs to be dealt with in a patient manner. Patience pays off. Impatience impedes spiritual progress in people.
ILL.- Many years ago I baptized a young man who was going through divorce. I had spent much time talking to him about the Lord and how the Lord could make his life better in every way. He seemed excited about his decision and was faithful in coming to church at first. I think he somehow got the idea that his wife would not divorce him or would come back to him if he decided for Christ. That didn’t happen. His wife did divorce him.
After a period of time he dropped out of church and started doing whatever he wanted. At that time, he was involved with tractor and truck pulling. He started attending those functions on Sundays instead of coming to church.
He was a spiritual baby who needed lots of patience and special love.
There will always be spiritual babies and the church should exhibit patience, kindness and love toward them in order to help them to grow in the faith. IF WE DON’T EXHIBIT LOVE AND PATIENCE, HOW CAN WE HELP ANYBODY?
III. A FAMILY CIRCLE WITH LOVE PREVAILING
I Thess. 3:12 "May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you."
Eph. 3:14-15 "For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name...."
The Lord’s church should be a family. The Lord’s church is a family and the spirit of a loving family should prevail!
ILL.- An exhaustive study shows that no woman has ever shot her husband while he was doing the dishes.
ILL.- A man named Robert Orben said, "Who can ever forget Winston Churchill’s immortal words: ‘We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills’? It sounds exactly like our family vacation."
Brothers and sisters, we all know there are times when husbands and wives don’t get along well. There are times when whole families don’t get along well. They fight and feud. They fume and fester.
I personally believe the main reason we don’t get along well at times is simply because we are selfish people. We want things our way and when it doesn’t happen, we get mad. But it doesn’t have to be this way!
The family should be a family with love prevailing! But it won’t happen without work! LOVE IS A MATTER OF WORK! We have to work at loving people. We practice loving people. We do things that demonstrate love and keep on doing them and before we realize it, we find ourselves loving even more!
Eph. 5:1-2 "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love."
I Pet. 4:8 "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins."
ILL.- A woman seeking counsel from Dr. George W. Crane, the psychologist, confided that she hated her husband, and intended to divorce him. "I want to hurt him all I can," she declared firmly.
"Well, in that case," said Dr. Crane, "I advise you to start showering him with compliments. When you have become indispensable to him, when he thinks you love him devotedly, then start the divorce action. That is the way to hurt him." Some months later the wife returned to report that all was going well. She had followed the suggested course. "Good," said Dr. Crane. "Now’s the time to file for divorce." "Divorce!" the woman said indignantly. "Never. I love my husband dearly!"
Brothers and sisters, when we begin to practice love, it not only changes the person to whom it is directed, it also changes the person who demonstrates it. The more we demonstrate love, go out of our way to show love, the more we will love others.
This holds true for a marriage, for a family, and for a church.
ILL.- I heard about a lady who married into a family that showed little or no affection. There were no hugs, no words of "I love you." Her new father-in-law was not affectionate, but she was bound and determined to change that in him. What did she do? She began hugging him every time they met. In the past, there were no forms of affection at all. But she persevered. She continued to give him hugs and now I understand that he expects to be hugged every time they meet!
Hugs beget hugs. "I love you’s" beget "I love you’s." Love begets love. And the church should always be a family circle with lots of hugs and lots of love.
IV. A SCHOOL FOR SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
I Thess. 4:9-10 "Now about brotherly love we do not need to write you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all the brothers through Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more."
ILL.- A young boy once approached his father and asked him, "Dad, why does the wind blow?", to which the father responded, "I don’t know, son." "Dad, where do the clouds come from?" "I’m not sure, son." "Dad, what makes a rainbow?" "No idea, son." "Dad, do you mind me asking you all these questions?" "Not at all, son. How else are you going to learn?"
Brothers and sisters, we must admit (or we should admit) that we don’t have the answers to all of life’s questions. I wish we did. I wish I did, but I don’t.
However, life is a learning process, is it not? We begin to learn from the day of our birth. And hopefully, we never stop learning good things.
ILL.- Many of you met my daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter, baby Hope several Sundays ago. Hope will be two years old on July 30th. I last saw her in February and I was somewhat shocked at the difference from then to now. She had begun to not only talk, but to talk in sentences. "We go in ban (van)." "I drive car." "Papa is my friend." "Silly papa," etc.
Life is a learning process. I am proud of the way Hope’s parents have taught her, but there will come a time when they will not have an answer for everything. This is where the church comes in. And this is where God’s Word comes in.
We humans are somewhat limited in our knowledge, but God is not limited. The church should be a school for spiritual development.
I Thess. 4:9-10 "Now about brotherly love we do not need to write you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other...."
You have been taught by God. We all need to be taught by God about love and about everything in life. God has all the answers to life’s questions, etc.
II Tim. 3:16-17 "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." And we might add, so that all Christians can be thoroughly equipped for all of life.
ILL.- A lady said, "My doctor had recommended surgery and referred me to a specialist. Arriving early for my appointment, I found the door unlocked and the young surgeon, deeply engrossed in reading, behind the receptionist’s desk. When he didn’t hear me come in, I cleared my throat. Startled, he closed the book, which I recognized as a Bible.
"’Does reading the Bible help you before or after an operation?’ I asked. My fears were dispelled by his soft, one-word answer: ‘During.’"
Brothers and sisters, the reading of God’s Word can help us during life’s operations. During life’s ups and downs. During life’s difficulties and during life’s good times.
The Bible is the Word of God. And this is why the church should be a school for spiritual development. I want to do my best in preaching in order to help you, bless you and educate you. But Bible study classes are a must! You will definitely get things from a Bible study group, Sunday School class, etc. that you will not get from my sermons.
You will get the opinions and ideas of your Christian brothers and sisters. This is vitally important. You will also hear their stories about their struggles and successes in life. And we need to hear these from one another. WE LEARN FROM ONE ANOTHER. The church should always be a learning place. A place for spiritual growth and development.
CONCLUSION--------------------------------------
Someone well said: What power the church would be...
If all the sleeping folk would wake up.
If all the lukewarm folk would fire up.
If all the dishonest folk would confess up.
If all the disgruntled folk would sweeten up.
If all the discouraged folk would cheer up.
If all the estranged folk would make up.
If all the gossipers would shut up.
If all the true soldiers would stand up.
If all the church members would pray up.
And if all that are in debt would pay up!
All of us need to do something to make the Lord’s church what she should be. We need to do everything we can to make the church be:
1- a center of gospel testimony
2- a nursery for spiritual babies
3- a family circle with love prevailing
4- a school for spiritual development
What do you need to do to make the church what the Lord wants?
