Month: May 2021

30
May
2021

Needing the Church

I mentioned in the previous blog that the church is necessary to your spiritual life. When I talk like that, I occasionally get pushback from people who feel they can walk with Christ apart from His body. 

Here are some reasons people give for separating from the body of Christ.

The church is dysfunctional.

Of course it is.  And so are you.  Some churches are more dysfunctional than others, and some churches you should get out of, but let’s not throw away the church with the dysfunction.  Trying to follow God all by yourself is dysfunctional.  If you, thus, abandon the church because it is dysfunctional, all you are doing is trading one form of dysfunction for another.

We live in a fallen world.  Dysfunction is everywhere, and dysfunctional people in the church give you the opportunity to learn patience, to show grace, to practice hospitality and forgiveness, and to help you see how you look to God.

The church has hurt me

I’m sure it has.  I do not question the pain.  If I could offer an apology on behalf of the church that hurt you, I would gladly do so, but I am aware that an apology coming from me isn’t the same.  I want you to know simply that I sympathize.  I, too, have been hurt by the church.

Likely the pain you feel has come from the dysfunction we just discussed.  I do not question the dysfunction. 

But the church is your family, and families are full of dysfunction, and often they hurt us, but they are still family.  What I want to ask you to do is to look beyond the details of your pain and to Christ.  You should then see that the specifics of your case were not likely a result of people following Christ. 

So follow Christ.  But understand that if you do follow Him, He will point you back to His church.  He always does. It is His Bride.

If the specifics are such that you cannot return to the same church, then find a different one.  But find one that honors Christ and Scripture. 

I don’t need the church in order to worship.

That’s a deceptive sentence.  It’s like saying “I don’t need a family in order to live.”  It is technically correct on one level but completely off base for life. 

You see, technically, I have had worship experiences by myself, and technically God can show special grace to an Iranian Christian imprisoned for his faith.  In neither case, however, is the person choosing to separate from God’s people.  Why then, would someone choose to separate from God’s people and use this reason for doing so?

The fact of the matter is that in normal life you do need the church in order to worship, for corporate worship is commanded.  God desires not just individual praise but corporate praise, and you cannot do that by yourself. 

In addition, this objection assumes that the only purpose of the church is to help you worship.  But the church helps your spiritual life in so many other ways as well.  It helps you know God’s Word, it helps you pray, it provides a need for you, it shows you how to give, it helps you walk with integrity, and more. 

Now you could say that all of these are part of worship, and I will not quarrel with you, but I would say that if they are, then you need the church in order to worship. 

I don’t need the church to walk with God

That is like one of your hands saying, “I don’t need the eyes.”  Or a foot saying, “I don’t need the ears.” 

Do you really think that by yourself you can provide all the wisdom, faith, generosity, teaching, evangelism, leadership, service, and compassion that you need? 

The notion that Christians can intentionally neglect meeting together fits America quite well, but it does not fit the Bible at all. 

Posted by mdemchsak, 0 comments
20
May
2021

The Church Command

As iron sharpens iron, so does one man sharpen another (Pr 27:17)

Lord, I praise you for your people.  I thank you for surrounding me with them.  

If you want to be good at something, it helps to see others who are good at it.  Doctors do residencies so they can follow other doctors.  They don’t learn medicine all by themselves.  Instead, good doctors build good doctors.  The Christian life is like this.

A basic principle of the Christian life is that it requires a church.  You cannot live the Christian life all by yourself.  You grow in Christ as you interact with a body of Christians.  Christians need each other as soldiers need each other, as teammates need each other, as family members need each other. 

Other Christians will pray for you, teach you, encourage you, rejoice with you, challenge you when you sin, and help you walk through a difficult problem.  Other Christians understand the difficulties of living the Christian life.  They know how hard it is to stand for Jesus in the midst of your culture.  They can sympathize with your struggles.  They’ve been there.  Other Christians can talk with you on a deep level about the most important thing in your life – Christ.  Non-Christians cannot do this.  They don’t understand.  You need Christians.  You need a church.

Many people, however, talk about being spiritual without the church.  In the West today, such talk is rampant.  People want to follow God their own way.  They live as if Christianity is merely a preference.  You like roses, I like tulips.  You like BMWs, I like Toyotas.  You like yoga, I like Jesus.  They live as if they get to decide what the Christian life is.  They become the arbiter of how to follow God, as if God had nothing to say about the matter. 

But God does have something to say about the matter, and one of the things He said was that His people should not forsake meeting together.  God built the church with the blood of His Son.  He loves the church.  It is the bride of Christ, and the Christian who lives the Christian life loves the church and is committed to her.

The church is necessary for spiritual growth.  One function of God’s people is to build each other up in the faith.  Christians who put themselves in healthy churches become part of a community that will help them walk in Christ.  Anyone who wants to follow Jesus needs a church.  It is one of the tools God uses to sharpen our lives.  You cannot follow Jesus by yourself.

And you can be by yourself in different ways.  Some people are by themselves because they never attend a church.  Others are by themselves in the midst of a church.  They attend weekly, but they don’t know the people.  They are part of the crowd on a Sunday morning, but they are not part of the life of the church.  They listen to a sermon and go home, but they don’t know anyone.  To belong to a church requires relationship and not just shoes in the room.  When people lack relationship with the body of Christ, they fall away.  Their walk with God grows weak, insipid.  They become more like their culture and less like Christ.  But they think they are spiritually fine because, after all, they are attending a church.

Being part of a church flows out of a desire for Christ.  The people with the greatest desire for Christ are in a church . . . by choice.  They surround themselves with the body of Christ . . . by choice.  Because they have great passion for Jesus, they have great passion for the church.  The two passions go together; in fact, you might say that the desire for a church is a visible expression of the desire for Christ.  The church is the body of Christ.  If you want Jesus, you want to be around those who have Him.  This is rather basic. 

God designed His people to be together.  In heaven all His people will be together in unison.  Church on earth prepares us for that day.  Would you forsake God’s people in heaven?  Then why would you do it on earth?  The attempt to have Christian spirituality without Christian community is absurd. 

Now I suppose I need to say a word about what a church is.  This will be brief.  If you want more, go here, here, and here.  A church is not necessarily an official organization with a Christian name that meets in a building.  You can attend many such meetings and not be with God’s people. 

A church is a community of Jesus followers who fit the following criteria:  they believe Scripture to be the Word of God and, consequently, adhere to the gospel of Christ; they meet regularly to worship Jesus, proclaim the Scriptures, and build one another up in the faith; they partake of communion and practice baptism of new believers; they share their faith, they desire to live a holy life and care for those who need help; they have elder leadership.  These are broad parameters, and in the real world a church can look as different as a megachurch of 10,000 or a house church of four.

Whatever it looks like, this community is necessary for your spiritual growth.  Life in Christ involves life in the church.  When you intentionally put yourself outside the church, you harm your soul. 

And many people today do just that. They harm their souls but have no idea the harm they cause. Let’s just get this straight. The church is not merely a nice addition. It is necessary for life — spiritual life.

Posted by mdemchsak, 0 comments