God’s Glorious Church
Are We Still Relevant?
Matthew 6:10
Woodlawn Baptist Church
February 13, 2005
Introduction
Do you remember the story of Humpty Dumpty and how it goes?
Humpty dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty dumpty had a great fall
All the King’s horses
And all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again
Poor Humpty had a problem didn’t he? His world was shattered after he had a great fall. He called on the best his world had to offer to address his problem – “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men.” We might say today that Humpty had the White House, the Congress, the military, and any other human power or authority you can think of coming to his aid in his brokenness.
But what did he find? Not a one of these human powers could put Humpty Dumpty’s life back together again. You see, what Mr. Dumpty was lacking was a biblically functioning church that was available to help him, because if he had he would not have had to call on the king in the first place.
Now you know as well as I do that it’s one thing when a nursery rhyme character can’t find the help he needs to repair his shattered world, even when his problem is being attended by the highest authorities the culture has to offer. But it’s another thing altogether when real people in the real world that we live in discover that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men – human institutions of power and influence – can’t fix society’s deepest problems and address people’s deepest needs.(1)
This is where the church comes in; because the reality is that the church is the most important institution on earth. The church, and only the church, has been commissioned by the God of heaven to be His representative agency in our age. The church has been given sole authority to unlock the treasures of the spiritual realm, the kingdom of heaven, so that they can be brought to bear on the realities of earth.
In Matthew 6:10, as Jesus was teaching His disciples how to pray, He said,
“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”
Did you ever think much about what Jesus was really teaching them? It wasn’t about reciting a simple little prayer or about sounding poetic when we speak to God, and when He prayed and taught the disciples to pray that God’s kingdom would come, He wasn’t just referring to the millennial kingdom which is coming at the end of this age. At the end of this age, at the end of the Great Tribulation, Christ is going to return to earth and establish His kingdom in righteousness and peace when we will rule and reign with Him for 1,000 years. But listen, as great a time as that’s going to be, as wonderful as His righteousness and His peace and His holiness and His justice is going to be, He was trying to get us to realize that the kingdom of God isn’t just about some time in the future. The kingdom of heaven isn’t just some futuristic, dreamy place that we should wish our lives away for. Jesus was praying and teaching us to pray that God’s kingdom be a present reality in our world today.
“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven,” today! Not tomorrow, not a thousand years from now, not at the end of the tribulation, but today! Now! Now how is that going to happen? When Jesus came on the scene on the banks of the Jordan River, John the Baptist announced,
“Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
In other words, the kingdom of heaven had drawn near – it was here, at hand, and Christ was the sole authority to conduct kingdom business, but in time He handed that authority over to another. Last week we read in Matthew 16:13-19,
“When Jesus came into the coasts of Ceasarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Jesus said in verse 19 that He was handing the keys of the kingdom of heaven over to His church, and while there may be a lot that we don’t understand about what that might mean, there is no doubt about the fact that it is the responsibility of the Lord’s churches to see that the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven be made a present day reality in the lives of those we touch.
If there is to be righteousness and holiness and peace and unity and wholeness and love for God and love for one another and all that in the millennial kingdom, then there is to be righteousness and holiness and peace and unity and wholeness here on earth today. “Thy will be done, in earth, as it is in heaven.” If you want to boil it right down to the bare essentials, the kingdom of God is the reign of Jesus Christ as the Lord and King of our lives. It is His Holy Spirit working in us, through us, and around us in such a way that we actually live and do the will of God. It’s about living the lives God created us to live. The kingdom of God is about living a life worth finding, a life worth living, a life of genuine joy and excitement and happiness. Life in the kingdom of heaven is not a sheltered, careful life without risk, failure, achievement, or excitement, but a life that is on the edge, lived by faith, with eyes on God, running at full throttle, wide open, going straight ahead to an indescribable life – that’s the kingdom of God – and God never intended it to be something that’s going to happen one day out there in the future, but something that His churches make a reality every moment of every day through the life transformation that comes only in Jesus Christ.(2)
Now, admittedly we are facing some serious problems.
We are living in a time of great chaos
We are facing problems today in our society and world that are literally tearing us apart. People are in turmoil, families are in turmoil, our churches and government are in turmoil. Marriages are falling apart, children are falling by the way-side, violence is up, crime is up, social unrest is up, and it seems that every standard of morality that is so clearly set forth in the Scriptures is being or has been challenged on every front.
Remember last year the news story about the man in Europe who was a cannibal? He ran an ad on the internet looking for someone who would let him eat them? He had over 400 responses! One guy signed up, let this man hang him up, dismember part of his body so he could watch the man eat him, then the cannibal killed him, dressed him out like a common animal and put him in the freezer!
Just last week I saw on the news where prostitution has been legalized in Germany. Now that doesn’t seem so abnormal until you see where it led over there. Since it is legal, it is now recognized as a viable source of work and income. A young woman who was on unemployment was sent by the employment agency to a local brothel for work. When the woman refused, her unemployment benefits were cut off because she was turning down good work. The agency has said that prostitution is no longer seen as immoral or wrong. And to think that Americans have been long talking about legalizing it here in our country!
I’m telling you that we’re living in a time of chaos, and it’s not going to get better – it’s going to get worse! We’ve not even begun to imagine how bad it can get, and just when you think it couldn’t get any worse – it will! God is slowly but surely turning our country over to its reprobate minds. There’s chaos in the world because Satan and his demons thrive on it, but listen, it’s not a Republican / Democrat problem. It’s not a terrorist problem. It’s not an economical problem – it’s a spiritual problem that only the churches of the Lord Jesus Christ can adequately face.
Not only are we living in a time of chaos…
We are living in a time where there is a lack of true knowledge
Solomon said that true knowledge begins with the Lord.
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
There’s no lack of religion. There’s no lack of spirituality; but there is a lack of true knowledge. When it comes to knowledge, we’ve got it covered. Walk into any bookstore and the shelves are lined with knowledge – but it’s the kind of knowledge that Humpty Dumpty turned to – it’s the kind that when you fall and your life is broken and your world is shattered, there’s nothing there that really helps. The world is filled with knowledge, but not the kind of knowledge that only a genuine, growing relationship with God through Jesus Christ can bring, and I want to tell you that every day people that you know and that I know are turning to every source they can find, and all we do is stand on the sidelines and watch them run.
We are suffering from a lack of biblical teaching
We’ve got more Bibles today and more preachers today and more teachers and study helps available today than ever before in the history of God’s Word, but never before has there been such a famine of true biblical teaching. Some say that people don’t want to hear it. Some say that people won’t stand for it, but I beg to differ.
Our world is starving to death for the truths of God’s Word, but when they come to the table and their stomachs are growling and their bodies are deprived of the nutrients they need for survival, too often what they are being served up is junk food: cakes and candies and all sorts of sweets; not somewhere out there, but in here. Listen teachers, every student you’ve got has the same 168 hours every week to be shaped by a multitude of influences, and you get them one hour out of those 168. There’s no time for play! There’s no time for messing around. There’s no time for foolishness! Our kids are suffering from a lack of biblical teaching – they can quote you line after line from Walt Disney, but can’t memorize a verse of Scripture. They can sing every song on the pop chart, but can’t remember where their books of the Bible are. They know how to work cell phones and computers, but can’t tell you the most basic things about God’s wonderful word, and God’s going to hold you accountable for that!
In a world where people are starving for the truths of God’s Word the churches of the Lord Jesus Christ ought to shine forth like bright beacons in the night: leading the way and warning of life’s dangers. If you want to serve up junk food, do it on your time. But when anyone comes into this place, this church to feast on the Word of God, you give them something they can chew on that’s going to help them grow in a dynamic relationship with Jesus Christ.
We are seeing a lack of correct application
If we are seeing chaos and lack of true knowledge “out there,” then we are seeing a lack of biblical teaching and a lack of correct application “in here.” What do I mean by a lack of correct application? I mean that if you are a child of God, then now only should you be growing in the Word of God, you ought also be living by the Word of God.
Conclusion
Now, nothing I’ve said today is new: not to you or to God. When Jesus instituted that first church, His culture: the culture of the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes and the priests and the Romans was a culture in chaos. They too were a people who lacked true knowledge. They had a form of religion, but it was dead and powerless. The apostle Paul went to Athens and witnessed with his own eyes altars built to every god known to man. There were altars to Zeus, Baal, Dianna, Ra, and on an on it could go. Every god imaginable had an altar built in its honor, and Paul even found one that read like this, “To the unknown god.” In other words, just in case we’ve forgotten one, here’s another one. That’s the culture we live in today – it’s the culture of the ages – lost in sin, blinded by the god of this world, and doomed for a devil’s hell. It’s the world of Humpty Dumpty, because if you’ll take the time to honestly look around you, there are people everywhere who have fallen, they are bruised and battered by life’s battles, hurt and brokenhearted over their circumstances, and what they really want to know is how to make it all better.
Jesus prayed that His kingdom, that God’s will would be known on earth today – and when you consider all the problems people face today, when you consider just how bad off our world is (not how bad it has become, but how bad it is – it has always been bad), when you consider all of that, it is little wonder that God would deem us as necessary and relevant. This church is God’s one and only solution to the problems our world is facing, and while it continues to grow worse, as the Humpty Dumptys of this life fall, I wonder, how long will we sit idly by letting them continue where they are.
We are God’s kingdom community in a broken world. This is the place believers gather in the middle of real life. We are to be a community of Christians in a community of sinful people. We are to exist in the dirt and filth of broken lives and lustful people, built in the face of opposition to bear the gospel to those who need the Lord but do not want Him.
We are supposed to be the intersection of the kingdom of God and our city. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ is to be the place where God is worshipped and the lost are reached. It is here that God, through you and me invades life on earth. The church is to be the place where Christ comes to invade the arrogance of affluence and the cries of poverty. It is where He sets the captives free and looses people from the struggles of sin and failure. It is here where He meets us at our points of need and comforts us at the point of fear.(3)
Our job is to move people from their lostness into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ in and through the ministries of a local church. We can sit back idly and smugly and wonder why more don’t follow Christ, but while we do it only gets worse. We can’t waste time or worry with those who want to play games with God. There are hurting people everyday who want what we have. We are God’s solution for a sin sick world – and it is up to us to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth today so that the lives we touch become the lives God uses. It is up to us whether we want to be a part of God’s redemptive work in our world for Christ.
The kingdom of God is about Jesus Christ being the master and ruler of your life, but perhaps today you have never allowed Him that place in your life. He will not force Himself upon you – it is an invitation to be restored to the heavenly Father through His Son Jesus Christ. One day about 2,000 years ago, Jesus entered into this world, and He brought the kingdom with Him. In Christ there is healing. In Christ there is hope. In Christ there is rightness, but I don’t want to mislead you into thinking that a relationship with Christ is something it’s not. If you accept Christ as your Savior, the problems are still there. The obstacles and difficulties of life are still present, because you see, even though something wonderfully dramatic can take place in your heart, your circumstances may never change.
As a church body, we will never be more relevant to our community and even to our own members than we have the desire to be. We have everything they want and need; now it is up to us to determine whether we want to be the kind of church that will share what we have with those who need it most. If we have been irrelevant as a church body, it is really because of one of two things: either we see the needs of the people knowing we can meet them, but don’t, or we don’t see them and aren’t trying to see them. When church becomes more about me and meeting my needs than it is about bringing people into God’s kingdom and bringing God’s kingdom to this earth, I have need of repentance. Perhaps today you do too. Will you make that move? Will you strive every day to be the kind of church member God wants you to be? Will you labor with us to make this church what God wants it to be?
Is Woodlawn Baptist Church a place people can come to and find to be relevant? Are we meeting the needs of those who are searching? Are we moving people from a state of lostness, into saving faith, into church membership, and beyond that into active involvement in ministry? Would you say that your needs are being met? Can you look beyond yourself and say that the needs of others are being met? Can we look even beyond that and say with all honesty that we are doing everything in our power to make the kingdom of God an earthly reality right here and now?
Today I am asking you to beg God to give you a renewed sense of the importance of His churches. What we’re doing has more than passing importance: this is the most important institution on the face of the earth, and what we are and become has everything to do with how well we understand how fundamentally important we are to seeing God’s kingdom become a reality in the lives of those we touch.
Works Cited
1. Adapted from Tony Evan’s book God’s Glorious Church (Moody Publishers: Chicago, IL 2003)
2. Adapted from Gene Mim’s discussion of the kingdom in his book The Kingdom Focused Church (Broadman & Holman Press: Nashville, TN 2003)
3. ibid.
