Message: The Healthy Church
John D. Landis-UMC of Swartz Creek
Scripture: Ephesians 4:11-16
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Most of us have numerous appointments each year where we have our health checked out. We go to the eye doctor, the skin doctor, the dentist, and the family doctor. We want to get a check-up and see if we are healthy. Just as we check on the health of our bodies, we also need to take inventory on the health of the body of Christ the church. In the series I am doing on the church the first part was in discovering who we are as God’s people in ministry, secondly how we function in mission, and today I am looking at how we work together as a healthy body.
When you think of a healthy body you think of each part doing what it should, with a sense of wellness throughout the body. It is tough for the body to be healthy if the stomach is always churning. It is difficult if you have a back problem. It affects walking, sitting and doing simple tasks. The body of Christ must also have every member doing what they are called to with basic good health. Each member must be healthy in the way they operate. Those who lead children must have a healthy understanding of how to care for them. Those who minister to families must be sensitive to the unique struggles that they face in today’s world. And those who care for persons that are ill must have some awareness.
Perhaps the first and foremost important attribute for health in the body of Christ is unity. Paul said in Philippians 2:2, make my joy complete by being of one mind. Think about how your body works together as a unit. When the body is working properly all the signals are coming from the brain and all parts are in sync. Sometimes trauma occurs to the body and signals go haywire. An example of this is when a person has a stroke. When the blood clot hits the brain all of a sudden things stop working properly. One leg tries to walk and the other limps. One hand seeks to reach out and the other is frozen. The brain tries to say things that the mouth will not speak. It may be so bad that the body may not even be able to get up.
This is what happens in the Church when we are not all getting our signals from the central nervous system or head. Who is our head in the church? It is Jesus Christ. What keeps us from getting the right direction from Him? We may not be in the Word, we may not be praying enough. We may be allowing our hearts to become proud or selfish. We may simply refuse to submit our will to something God wants us to do. We show favoritism and build factions. The church is dis-unified, and like a stroke victim it cannot function in a healthy manner. It can get so bad in the church or body of Christ that the church becomes dysfunctional. It can even die. So the first step in the healthy Church is to be…
I. United in Purpose
On the night in which Jesus was betrayed He said, Father I pray that they may be one as we are one. He understood how important it was for the church to have the same unity of purpose that He and the Father had. There is nothing wrong with Christians having different sorts of ministries and special focuses, but when the body is so divided that people think we are an entirely different religion things have to change. I think when Christ looks upon the earth that He must be disappointed. There is tremendous division in His around the world. In North America alone there are 1,000 denominations. I think that He must weep.
As believers, to keep unity we must learn to discern what the essential doctrines are of our faith, those you must believe to be called Christian and then those beliefs that sincere Christians have differed on since 40 AD. One of the reasons the church locally and nationally is so divided is that we do not know the many things we are united in, and we do not realize there is some grace to agree to disagree. On the day that we had our Christmas concert for the food bank Father Steve and I joined hands as we said the Lords prayer. Some people said they had never seen that. But we can have unity. To help you discern and have a reference for your spiritual life let me give you this list of things we should have in common.
I have touched on some of these things over the years, but today I want to give you a more complete list.
I hope that you can use this in your faith, in your discussions with others, and in building unity. I believe God would have us move beyond our differences to unite his church with love in our hearts. John Wesley said it well, in essentials we need unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity. If you study the bible, and if you look at what the church has believed for centuries in the great Creeds, The Apostles, the Nicene, The Westminster Confession, The Church of England’s 39 Articles, and our Own Doctrine you will find great unity on essentials.
Essentials of the Faith
I. A Belief in the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Matt. 3:13-17
II. A Belief in Jesus Christ, God’s Son who was Human and Divine. Phil. 2:5-8
III. A Belief That Jesus Truly Died, Was Buried, Rose, and Will Return Again. I Corinthians 15:3,4, I Thess. 4:13-16
IV. A Belief That Jesus Christ is the only one who can Atone for our sins, and give us the gift of Eternal Life. Romans 3:23,25, 6:23
V. That Scripture is God breathed, preserved and our authority for Knowing God and Knowing how to live. I Timothy 3:16, 17, Isa. 40:7
VI. That Each person must receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, thereby allowing the Holy Spirit to enter their lives. I John 4:13,14;5:12
VII. That God calls us to live a life of obedience, and faith according to Scripture. II Timothy 3:14-17
VIII. That God calls all of us to mission and ministry making disciples of all people. Matthew 28:18-20
IX. That submitting your life to the Teaching of the Word, Order and Sacraments in the Church is essential. Acts 2
X. That There is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun. Luke 10:20, Matthew 10:28
Essential Doctrine, that we can agree to disagree on.
I. The Time, and Form of Baptism.
II. Understanding When and How Christ Will Return.
III. The Way That a Church Governs Itself.
IV. The Use of the Gifts of the Spirit.
V. The Understanding of God’s Sovereignty and The Free Will of Human Beings.
VI. How Communion is Administered and what the Elements Mean.
VII. The View of War and Responsibility to Government.
VIII. The Style and Form of Worship
IX. How We Are Resurrected
X. What Will Happen In Eternity
Unfortunately presently and throughout history Christians have not practiced charitable unity on these doctrines. Christians have even killed other Christians for not believing what they thought on baptism. My ancestor Hans Landis was put to death for his view on war, on communion, and baptism. Both the Protestant and Catholic Church were intolerant on those things. Whole denominations have been started over stressing non-essential doctrine.
Churches have said you cannot take communion if you are not a member, you cannot join unless you take a certain view on tongues, or on the end times. Christ’s body is divided. Do you really think Jesus is going to keep anyone out of heaven because they do not believe in the proper moment he will return. My goodness Jesus did not know Himself. He said that only the Father knew. We think we know more than Jesus.
Now I thank God for the unity in this church. I see you working with other denominations such as the Catholic Church in the food bank. I see harmony within this body on respecting what others believe. Let us be a light to the world. I have found that if you emphasize the things we have in common that we can minister effectively. If you are with Baptists, don’t try to force them to be an infant Baptist. If you are with Charismatic folks don’t put down their conviction on miracles. If you are with Presbyterians don’t down-grade their view of God’s sovereignty. And if you are with Methodists, don’t tell them they can believe just any old thing.
If President Clinton and President Bush can have unity over caring for Haiti, then we should have unity in our mission. Listen to the Words of Paul… make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit by the bond of peace Ephesians 4:3 Secondly, to be a healthy church, we must…
II. Build One Another Up
Let’s think of the body again. What builds it up?
Maybe we should start with what runs it down. If you don’t get rest the body wears out. If you only ate nacho chips and drank pop all week long, you would not have the nutrition you need and it would tear your body down. Proper nutrition and proper exercise are critical. The nutrition is feeding on the Word of God and sharing about it. The exercise is doing the things we are called to do.
In my new years sermon I talked about committing to exercise and I want you to know that I have walked or jogged just about every day since then. I noticed that my knees felt stronger, that I had more energy and strength. Paul says that if the body properly exercises each part that it builds itself up. Did you know that the use of muscles around the joints actually strengthens the ligaments and builds up bone mass. Ephesians 4:16 says this very thing. The whole body is joined and held together by every supporting ligament and causes it to grow and build itself up in love as each part does its work.
We see in Scripture that every part of the body needs to be working. We know that some of the best exercise is when we use every part of the body. We need to get the blood pumping, the lungs breathing, the heart moving and as many muscles working as possible. That is what you will do in therapy after surgery. That is what builds up.
So in the church of Jesus Christ we need every person to do their work. If someone has a gift they need to use it. If someone has a talent that does not seem to fit in with what we have then we need to develop new things. The healthy church is always starting new ministries. We ought always to be discovering the gifts in more and more people. We ought always to help people get training to develop those gifts, so that everyone in the body might have their needs met. We need to be in prayer asking God what it is that His body needs.
For the last few months I have been feeling that we need to work on strengthening our marriages. We do a lot of things in groups that focus on our personal relationship with God, and our fellowship with others in the church, but sometimes churches ignore marriages. One man said to me years ago that he said didn’t feel the church ever gave tools to help build his marriage up, to help him understand communication. As I looked back on the history of that church I knew he was right. I don’t want that to be the case here.
We are going to start some groups in a few weeks to help focus on building up our marriages. We are going to use the material from Love Dare and the movie Fireproof. It is really powerful. It has helped thousands of people around the country, and some right in this congregation. Some of you might feel, well my marriage is ok, but it can still improve. Others today might feel I am so far on the edge I cannot wait another few weeks. But we are going to start with the idea of two groups in mind, more if needed. We also hope to have 5-7 groups studying love in all relationships.
Now as we build one another up, the bible says we must have a servant attitude. This attitude is one which thinks I am doing this to bless others.
If people let me down I am going to keep on giving because it is not about people pleasing me, and doing it my way but it is about helping others to have their needs met and to grow in Christ. When you get involved in a ministry or activity if you have a servant attitude, you will be able to accept disappointment, failure and in some cases rudeness. If you do not have a servant attitude, as soon as someone disagrees with you, challenges you, or fails you your thoughts will be… I am outta there.
Think about Jesus. If he would have given up every time someone criticized him, disappointed him, or was rude, he would not have gotten past day one. Jesus whole life was characterized by enduring countless thousands of misunderstandings and failures. But He hung in there. He had a greater vision. Listen to what Paul said, Let this attitude be in you which was in Christ Jesus who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing taking the very nature of a servant…and he humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Phil. 2:5-8
Folks we have to learn to die to our pride, our self-centeredness, and the desire to always be appreciated. We have to do some things because Jesus told us too. How many acts of love does a mother perform for her child, without the child truly appreciating it? I heard a man say the other day…I did not really appreciate who my father was as a man until I went to college.
A servant has one goal, and that is to please the master. Now I know that we all need affirmation, support and appreciation, and that must be there in a healthy church, but we also need to grab a hold of this servant attitude. We are not going to be able to serve, care, and be healthy without it. Because of our own fallen nature, it cannot happen by ourselves but only through the Holy Spirit. But when we let the Holy Spirit take over you know a funny thing happens, not as much stuff bothers you. So you are happier. So don’t worry be happy…be a servant.
Now it is not always easy, but it will give true fulfillment.
So let us be united, let us build one another up, and let us do ministry as servants. Amen.
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