What Goes on in a Local Church
Tom Shrader concludes the Christianity 101 series by examining the church as God's plan for believers after salvation. Using 2 Corinthians 5, he explains that as new creatures in Christ who have been given the ministry of reconciliation, Christians need to be actively involved in a local church where they can exercise their spiritual gifts and stimulate one another to love and good deeds.
“God has a plan to proclaim His gospel to the world and it's through you and me, and the expression of that is the local church.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Christianity 101 (2014)
Recorded: May 15, 2014
Duration: 37 min
Themes: church, fellowship, community, gifts, ministry, reconciliation, salvation, service, new believer, church member, seeking fellowship, discovering gifts, young adult, looking for community, new to church, pastor
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:17-21, 1 Corinthians 12:12-14, Hebrews 10:23-25, Ephesians 1:1, Acts 2:42-47
Theological Themes: ecclesiology, church membership, spiritual gifts, new creation, reconciliation, ministry of reconciliation, local church, body of christ
Full Transcript
This is week 8, the last week in a series titled Christianity 101. If you have your Bibles, open them to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5. Let me remind you—and this might be painful since we've been through this seven times now—but let's make sure you see the sequence here and the importance of it.
We started week 1 and said doctrine's important, using Webster's definition of doctrine, which simply said belief or dogma, some system that's associated with a religion. Then we said, well where do we get this dogma? That comes from the Bible. If the Bible says it, that settles it. Then we looked at two big issues: God and man.
We spent three weeks on God—Father, Son, Holy Spirit—and said these are three distinct persons, not personalities. They're three distinct persons. They model for us cooperation and submission and love. We see that perfectly in creation, modeled in the Trinity.
Man's Condition and God's Solution
Then we took the lens and turned it in week 6 to man. Here's what we discovered: man, all men, are not as bad as they can be, but are as bad off as they can possibly be. That natural man is alienated from God, separated from God because of our sin, and there's nothing we can do to fix it, and there's no exception to that.
Then last week we talked about salvation, reconciliation, rescue, being saved. So the passage before you, 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, let's start in verse 17. He said, "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature and all things passed away, behold new things have come."
If any person is—and the operative phrase there—in Christ. It's one of Paul's favorite phrases, and I'm sure I'll mess this up, but I think it's a phrase he uses something like about 70 times in his writing. It means to believe that Jesus is who He said He was. "God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him." When I believe in Him, I'm in Christ, in union with Christ.
What the passage tells me is if I'm in union with Christ, I'm a new creature. That can be deceptive, because same old earth suit, but I'm new. I have a new heart.
God's Work of Reconciliation
Now, all these things are from God. God is the one who's done all these things. He's the one who's loved us. Back to 2nd Corinthians 5:14, it's the love of Christ that controls us. It's His love for us. "This is love, not that we love God, but that He loves us." It's that love that manifests itself in mercy and grace. It's that that controls us, or compels us, drives us.
All these things are from God. If you circle or mark in your Bible, here's the word to look for: reconciled or reconciliation, some form of that. Who reconciled us to Himself, through Christ. So God and sin are reconciled. The fundamental problem is I'm separated from God because of my sin. The reconciliation there is from God. He initiates it, He continues it. He reconciles us to Himself, through Christ.
Now, He gives us a ministry of reconciliation. Namely, that God was in Christ—here's the word again—reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them. He's committed to us the word of reconciliation. So verse 18, we have the ministry or the service of reconciliation that's accomplished through the word of reconciliation.
Our Role as Ambassadors
Because we have that ministry, because we have that word, because God is actively proclaiming truth to the world, verse 20 says, "Therefore, because all that's true, we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God were entreating through us."
Then verse 21, what made all this possible? He, that's God the Father, made Him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, in Christ.
So there's the seven weeks. There's the summary of it. Well, the question comes, now what? He's told us, you're an ambassador, how does this play itself out? What is God's plan for us?
The Church as God's Vehicle
March 6, 1980, I moved from sinner to saint. My destination changed from hell to heaven, but that was 1980, so we've got whatever it is—34 years—working at this. What do I do until either He comes or I die? Well, the vehicle that Jesus heads, that He's left behind, is called the church.
When we talk about church, we talk about two components here. The universal church, that's what Paul tells us. In 1 Corinthians chapter 12, Paul's talking about gifts, but you get the sense here. He says in 1 Corinthians 12:12, "Even as the body is one, there are many members, but all the members of the body, though there are many, are one body. So also is Christ."
"For we are," verse 13 now, "by one Spirit, we're all baptized into one body, whether Jew or Greek, whether slave or free, we are all made to drink of one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many."
The Baptism of the Holy Spirit
He's saying all of us are baptized, identified with, received the gift of the Holy Spirit. You will have a group of people who you will see, they tend to be the people that seem to be able to afford television, who will say that there is this baptism of the Holy Spirit that's subsequent to belief.
I'll be out, and maybe somebody will call and say, "Listen, we've heard about you, we'd like you to come and speak to us, have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit?" My answer to that will be, "Yes, I'm a Christian, that's what it means to be a Christian." There isn't this subsequent experience that a few have had, the super-elite have had.
So we're baptized into the universal body of Christ. But the manifestation of that now is in the local church. I don't know, my assumption is that many of you are involved in a local church, and if not, I'm going to plead real strongly today that you should be.
So-and-so? And I said, yes, I do. I said, oh, they love you. I said, well, that's a short line over here to the right, so that's a good one. Oh, they love you, they love your church, they go to your church.
Well, I know these people. They're there maybe once a month, their name's not on the refrigerator. By that I mean, if we put up the bulletin, we don't see their name anywhere. I don't know if they give, because I don't check that. I have no idea, whether it's Priority Living, church, anything I'm involved in, I have no idea who gives. And the only way I might know is if they give me an envelope or something, and even then I don't know what's in it. And that's my own protection. I'm afraid I'd be incredibly sympathetic to those of you who did, and hostile to those of you who didn't. So I honestly, I'm totally uninvolved in that. Just so you know, within Christian circles, there's a big debate about this. But you need to be in a local church.
Understanding Church Preferences vs. Biblical Requirements
Now, let me tell you a couple things about church. One you probably just intuitively know, that most of what happens in a church, that you seem to like or dislike, is really preferential. So we did this in a staff meeting, probably 15 years ago. We got a whiteboard, we said, let's list the things that we do, and we started listing things. We had maybe 50 things. And then I got a red marker, I said, I want to put a check by the things that are mandatorily non-negotiable prescriptions from Scripture. And there weren't that many. So most of what I hear about a church that I like or dislike are not flowing from scripture.
Easy ingress, egress. Plenty of parking. Good music. Clean building. A culture I like. I'm not minimizing those. I'm just saying those all come into play. I don't know how much money we spend every year to get people in and out of church, just to have, you know, we used to have local police and now we have the sheriff's department. It's a little bit less expensive. But they stop traffic. We get people out and it's a safety issue. It's all sorts of issues. And some people who sat in line, literally, for 15 minutes to get in or out are happier. I got it. I am too. I go there now. So I'm not minimizing that.
As you think about church, I want you to understand, most of the things you like or don't like are preferential issues. And you need to be honest about those. And I don't think you should feel bad about it.
The Knuckle-Cracking Marriage Lesson
Susan and I had been married about three weeks and we're at a red light and I cracked my knuckles. And she said, oh, don't do that. Don't do that. And I'm going, wait a minute. You're telling me in all the time we dated, I know I cracked my knuckles. Why didn't you say something? I don't know. But it really bothers me. And I said, well, you made a bad decision, pal, because I got some bodily functions I'm going to spring on you in the next couple of weeks. You're going to wish I was cracking my knuckles here.
And I was mad. I said, this isn't fair to me. What are you doing? Why would you overlook that? So I say that in church. We used to do a class called, I don't know, getting to know you or something. And people would come in and we'd get about a room like this and I'd go around the room, identify yourself. And you didn't prompt them. They would say, oh, the minute I came in here, I loved it. I felt right at home. Or I really like it. Have you thought about changing your music? And they said, here's the deal. You're joining us. We aren't joining you. And I don't mean that to be disrespectful. I'm just saying, we've got a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, and thought in this.
But I would tell them, I'd always tell them the knuckle story. And I would tell them, I would say, listen, if it drives you nuts, at that point, remember my hair was down in the middle of my back. And I said, if my hair drives you nuts, it's going to drive you nuts every Sunday. And right now, we're still in the dating process. So you're willing to overlook it until you get me. And then you're going to complain about it. So now's the time to leave. Leave before you sink roots.
The Problems with Church Shopping
So if you're in this, this is totally practical, I think. If you're in that church hopping, church shopping mode, let me warn you of two problems. Number one, you're going to have too much consumerism. Because it's what about me, what about me, what about me? Number two, you're going to be hypercritical. Why don't they paint that wall?
I was in church Sunday. I was in church Sunday, and somebody had used a two wheel, I don't know what you call them, where you stack stuff up cart. And it was sitting to the right of the platform, back in the hallway. And I was in there for the entire service, and that cart was driving me crazy. The minute that service was over, I went and got that cart, and hid it back in the storeroom. Not proud of it, but if you're in there, and you're church hopping, all of a sudden, you're hypercritical.
Changing Your Perspective on Church
Let me change your thinking on church a little bit. Rather than ask what you can get out of it, or how they'll meet your needs, look at church as a place for you to meet other people's needs. So for a long time, at SBC, the motto was, come, grow, and go. And I love these models. And it was real clear, what the owners were saying, is we want you to come. When you're here, we want you to grow. And by that, we don't mean fat. We mean, we want you to grow in relationship with the Lord, but it's not a self-contained thing, it's not for us. It's for you to go to your world.
At East Valley, for a long time, our motto was, come, learn, and serve. And so, come was the idea, we welcome everybody, learn, that's why we're here. We're helping one another learn God's truths. It's not just the guy in the front, but it's us teaching each other as we live life, and the idea is serve, and that's simply, find out what God's doing somewhere, and plug into it. So when we talk about the church, and the prescription for the church, or the admonition
The Church as God's Gathering Place
To be involved in the church, let's turn to the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, verse 23. The author of Hebrews writes this: "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering." Why do we not waver? "For He who promised is faithful."
We can stop right there. It's not the main point, but that's what hangs us together—the promises of God, the sovereignty of God, the faithfulness of God. We find God's promises, we know He's sovereign, nothing can usurp that, and He's faithful. So He says, "If I'll never leave you or forsake you," then we understand that's His promise, we can hold fast in that because it's true. So we have our confession of hope. What's our hope? Well, it's Jesus—Christ in me, the hope of glory.
Verse 24 continues: "Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembly together, as some have done, but encouraging one another." He said, "I need to be in an environment where I'm stimulating you and me to love one another, to care for one another, to encourage one another toward action."
Again, I use the old East Valley motto: to help one another learn God's truths and live biblically changed lives. It's not that I want to see actions change—I'm not into behavior modification. That will come when my heart's changed, when all of a sudden I learn what God has to say.
The Message Translation's Perspective
Let me read you those three verses from The Message from Eugene Peterson. He writes this: "Let's keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps His word. Let's see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do, but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big day approaching."
So here's what the Bible says: you need to be in church.
Priority Living Is Not Church
Now, I want to be really clear here: Priority Living is not a church. Over the 23 years we've been doing it, I've heard all the time, "Boy, I love Priority Living. Priority Living is my church." Well, it's not a church.
"I get more out of Priority Living than I do my church." I always say the same two things. One, thank you. Two, what? Find a new church—you're in a crummy church.
"Well, you want to come and see it?" I don't need to see it. I see the product of it standing right in front of me, and apparently you're not getting much out of it nor putting much into it.
Learning from Media Professionals
We had been at this about two or three years. In the early days, our downtown study had a huge crowd—probably half the people in there were from local media: Channel 3, a lot of Channel 3, a lot of Channel 12, a lot of KFYI. I don't know if it was that or the call letters then, but a lot of media. And so they're marketing people, so they want to meet.
I walk into a room. There's probably a dozen of them, and they said, "Listen, we love this." At the time—you have to rewind, we're talking about 1993 or '94—I mean, it was the only thing going. They said, "We think we can make this better."
I said, "Really, how?" So they started to suggest that we establish small groups, that maybe not every week, but most weeks, we'd start with a song or two, that we might even take a collection.
So I said, "There's already organizations like that around." "They're called what?" "Church. We're not a church."
The Five Iron Analogy
I was in Colorado a couple weeks ago, and they were saying, "What's Priority Living?" I said, "It's like a five iron. It's pretty utilitarian. You can use it from the fairway. It's got just enough loft that if you're in the rough, you can kind of sweep it out of there. But you can also cup it, turn it down, and knock it out from under a tree, around the green, and kind of set it forward, put your weight on your left side, use a putting stroke, and just use it as a chipper. It's really a utilitarian thing."
So we have people who come to Priority Living: some from very good churches who want even more insight in maybe a little different way; a lot of people from maybe little or no church background, or a church that's become—as some have—three points on a poem on a Sunday and not much going on, and shoeboxes at Christmas, and all the stuff that goes with it. I'm not putting those down. I'm saying it's become very active, but no reason doctrinally why. And then people that just would never go to church, but kind of go, "I'm curious about it."
Well, I'm flattered that you're here, but this isn't church.
God's Gifts in the Body of Christ
God's given you a gift. That's what we saw. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 12. God's given you a gift, and God wants you to exercise that gift in the body of Christ, meaning in the local church.
1 Corinthians 12, verse 1: He said, "I don't want you to be unaware," talking about gifts. You're all given a gift. Verse 7: "But each is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good."
You come along, and like a body, some people are elbows, and some's a wrist, and some are fingers, some's an eye. We might tend to think one's more important than the other. We might say the eye's more important than the elbow, but if all of us were eyes, we'd see real well, but we wouldn't get along or around very well. We're a body.
The stimulating one another, and loving one another, and encouraging one another—the answer to how that's done is the church.
What We Should See in the Church
In the church, we should see two things happening. We should see gathered together believers.
Phoenix Seminary used to do a class—and they may still do it—on church leadership. Every year—now that I think about it, they haven't invited me in in two years, so that's not a good thing—every year, they have in maybe a dozen guys or gals to talk about church leadership. I'm in there one year, and I'm waiting, and the person before me was a lady from our staff, and she'd been talking about serving. And they said, "I don't understand why you don't—"
have a problem staffing, serving. She said, and this sounds really arrogant, she didn't mean it this way, she said, "At our church, we have something you don't see in every church everywhere, we have a lot of Christians." She said, "No, I'm not trying to be a smart aleck, I'm just saying, we have people there who are Christians, and you understand that come learn and serve is part of it."
So the church is made up of men and women, students, boys and girls, who know Christ as their Lord and Savior. Now that doesn't describe every church around, ours included. We know there are people in it who aren't Christians.
I spoke at a Campus Crusade event for the Jesus film, and I was sitting next to a guy from Africa. He was lamenting the state of the church in America. For whatever reason, I find myself not particularly receptive to somebody from outside the country telling me how screwed up I am, but he was telling me that.
A Story of Persecution
I said, "Well, tell me about your church." He said, "I'll give you an example. A few years ago, in our village, we got a new chief. The chief came to us, and he did not like the church or Christians. He said, 'I'm going to have to kill all of you.'"
He said, "'When do you meet?' And they said, 'Well, on Sunday, we get together at eight and pray, but everybody's there at ten.' And he said, 'We're going to come Sunday and kill you.' And I said, 'All right, we'll be there Sunday at ten.'"
I presume he didn't make this up. But eight, no chief. Ten, no chief. Noon, no chief. So they said, "What happened to the chief?" The night before, at midnight, he died.
There's a new chief, and a couple weeks later, he comes in. He's one of the other chief's right-hand guys. He said, "Listen, we're going to have to kill you guys. What would work here?" They said, "Well, ten o'clock on Sunday is our meeting time. It'll be the easiest. We're all together." He said, "Fine." So they'd pray at eight and meet at ten.
Eight comes, no chief. Ten comes, no chief. Noon comes, no chief. So they go and look, and the night before at midnight, the chief died. Two weeks later, they got a new chief, and he said, "I've been rethinking this kill you at noon thing."
I don't know if that's true or not. He told the story like it was true. I pushed and questioned, and I couldn't tell. But it made me wonder. If they came to us at our church and said, "We need to kill you all, what time do you meet?" "Well, we meet at eight, and then at ten, we'll be there." But I feel a cold coming on. I don't know, but I'll be there.
The Nature of the Church
It means followers of Christ in a place. There seems to be all this hubbub about Christians being persecuted in the culture. That's what you should expect. Jesus said, "They hated Me, they'll hate you."
So the church should be believers gathered together. There'll be unbelievers there. Believers gathered together to live in a way that is purposeful, missional. Here's the phrase: people whose hearts are transformed, and minds are informed, and they're living a radical life. That's what Paul tells us in the book of Ephesians, that the church exists to equip and encourage the saints.
All kinds of churches. As I was online looking, I found this: how do you know you're in a redneck church? I thought this was good. The pastor said, "I'd like to ask Bubba to take up the offering," and then five guys and two women stand up. This was supposed to be funny. In the congregation of 500 members, there are only seven last names. Reading and returning lost sheep isn't a parable.
What Should We See in the Church?
We're not looking for a redneck church, but what should we see in the people in the church? Let me give you six things. Three internal, three external.
Number one is joy. I get away at least once a year and teach in a conference outside this setting for a week. It's an extended period of time. Every time, without exception, people must feel some sense of anonymity, and they want to talk about their church.
Without exception, every time I'm gone in a conference, in a Christian conference, they'll complain about their church. Oftentimes like this: "I want to talk about my church. Do you mind?" I'll say, "No. I tend to agree with your pastor. He's your authority figure. You've submitted to him. If you don't like him, leave." "Well, I don't understand our church. I don't understand why we don't grow." I'll say, "Well, is everybody as enthusiastic as you are at the place?" Everybody says, "No, I'm probably a little more enthusiastic than most."
You walk into a church. There's my dad, who went to Catholic mass every day. For him to come to the church that I was pastoring, that was a tough deal for him. It was a hard deal. I think he felt in some way that I had rejected him, and it was a hard deal. Somebody going in, "I want to come." He used to come here all the time when he was in town. Many of you have had the chance of meeting him and talking with him.
After about the third time in church, I said to him, "What do you think of this?" He had two things. The first one I totally understand. He said, "I can't believe these people give this much money to this." I said, "Well, I can't either. What else?" He said, "Everybody seems so happy. Everybody's smiling. There's something that's compelling about that."
We're in the middle of a body where babies are dying, and people have cancer, people are losing businesses. We've got all sorts of hardship, but in the middle of that, there's a joy.
Holiness in the Body
Here's the second thing. There's a holiness in the body. As Paul writes to the church at Ephesus, he said, "Paul, an apostle by the will of God to the saints who were at Ephesus." That word saint means set apart.
ago we went through the canonization of John Paul the second and John the 23rd. Well the Bible doesn't teach that a saint is somebody who's done this extraordinary thing and has miracles performed in there. That's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible says that anyone who believes in Christ is a saint. That means not conformed to this world. That means that we're in this world and that's how God decided to do it, but we're in a constant battle. We act differently. We think differently.
The idea of holy is the idea of other than. It's hard to get your arms around it because it's other than. So there's joy and holiness and the third thing is there's a love for the truth. That we understand that if the Bible says it, that settles it. There are all sorts of things that we see in our life maybe that we would want to debate and the world would have a view on and we want to push back, but that mindset comes from God's Word. So internally I should see that.
Living on Mission
Externally here's what I should see. I should see a group of people living on mission. Meaning I want to affect the world around me. The night before He died Jesus prayed, "Father just as you sent me into the world I send them into the world." That we understand that every contact we have is an opportunity to affect the world around us.
So the boys are playing Little League one's coach pitch, one's first-time kid pitch and this is an opportunity. There's a game tomorrow night. It's an opportunity for the coaches. So Bill's son Brian, my son-in-law Tyler. We've got two teams this year because there were so many parents who wanted their kids to play for these guys.
They're great coaches, not in the X&Os, bend over, that. They do that really well but in terms of putting the game in perspective and life in perspective and it's a magnificent opportunity for Brian and Tyler to evangelize the world of Little League. To make the invisible God visible and then to speak the truth boldly.
Joe Aldridge who was the president of Multnomah College of the Bible used to take a 101 philosophy course at the local community college every year. Not to be disruptive but to go to that class and to be able to participate in the discussion and introduce a new way of seeing things to that community college.
Unity and Love in the Church
There's mission, there's unity, there's to be a oneness, not organizationally. You're not going to wipe out the church letterheads that you see. Ballot View's not going away, SBC's not going away, CCV's not going away. The unity is in the non-negotiables. There's a unity over the Word of God, the deity of Christ, the virgin birth.
And then there should be love. I should see an external expression of that love, not just a feeling but a self-sacrifice. I can't believe I wrote this so I assume I got it somewhere but I don't know where but it's really good. Love is a safeguard. Love keeps joy from becoming hedonism. Love keeps holiness from becoming legalism. Love keeps truth from becoming rigid dogma. Love keeps mission from becoming success. Love keeps unity from becoming irreducible minimums.
The Gospel Foundation
Bottom line is this, there is a body of belief that we have, this dogma that we get from the Scripture. That we find out God and sinner are separated by our sin and Christ's death on the cross is the atonement. The atonement, and let's make sure we get this, to the Father.
I'm saved by, I'm going to give you three things here. I'm saved by God, one. Three, I'm saved for God. So we kind of get that. Been around long enough. I'm saved by God, I'm saved for God. Number two doesn't always compute till we think it through. I'm saved by God, from God. That's the wrath that we have. God's wrath against us.
Theological term is propitiation. It means to satisfy the wrath of God. That God's wrath is due us, that He must punish our sin, but Christ died in our place.
The Early Church Example
Let me close with this, it's Acts 2:42, whenever you talk about church you'll hear this, that these three thousand had been saved and they were continually devoting themselves to four things. The Apostles teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayer. There was a sense of awe that began selling possessions and property and sharing them with one another.
Acts 2:46, "and day by day, continually, with one mind in the temple, breaking bread from house to house, and they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God, having favor with all the people." The people saw this and said, there's something extraordinary here.
Listen to the result, Acts 2:47, "and the Lord was adding to their numbers, day by day, those who were being saved." God has a plan to proclaim His gospel to the world and it's through you and me, and the expression of that is the local church.
Choosing a Church
Doesn't mean you're not involved in Priority Living or Young Life or Campus Crusade, but I understand those are not local churches. You need to be in a local church. What should I look for? Well, start with, do they teach the Word of God? Get the doctrinal statement and see what they believe.
Don't start with, do they meet my needs? If you want that, join the Elks. Go to the Elks, go to Nordstrom's, they'll give you a personal shopper. If it's about meeting your needs, then I wouldn't start there. You have needs, legitimate needs, and the church will meet them as they teach the Word of God. You fellowship together, you pray, take communion.
Next week, I think we have six, I'm not sure, but I think it's six weeks before break, so we'll start a new series next week. Father, help us learn these truths.