CRCF-7-12-09
What Does America Need from the Church?
Introduction– Tony Campolo was invited to speak in Honolulu one time and had trouble adjusting to the five-hour time change from Philadelphia. “He wound up wide awake at three o’clock in the morning drinking coffee in an all-night diner. Presently the door opened, and in came about eight women laughing and talking loudly. Campolo soon deduced that they were street walkers finished with their evening’s work and relaxing before going home to sleep. One, named Agnes, mentioned to her friend that the next day would be her thirty-ninth birthday. After the group left, Campolo got a bright idea. He said to the gruff proprietor behind the counter, ‘Did you hear that one woman say tomorrow was her birthday? Whaddya say we throw her a party? I’ll come back tomorrow night with some decorations, and let’s surprise her with a cake and everything! The man’s wife came out of the kitchen. Both of them said, ‘That is a wonderful idea. Let’s do it.’ Twenty-four hours later the little diner was decorated with streamers and balloons. A festive sign was taped to the mirror. The couple had put the word out on the street, and a large assortment of night people were gathered. When the prostitutes came in for their usual coffee, the shout went up: ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AGNES!’ The woman stood speechless as the singing began. Tears started to roll down her cheeks. Nobody had showed her genuine kindness in years. The owner brought out a birthday cake with candles. Agnes was in such shock that she had to be reminded to blow them out. She paused again. ‘Well, cut the cake, Agnes!’ the proprietor said. She finally found words. In a whisper she said, ‘Please . . . I just . . . I just want to keep the cake. I’ll take it to my apartment down the street . . . just for a couple of days. Please let me keep the cake.’ No one knew how to respond, but no one could think of a reason to refuse her request. So out the door she fled, holding the cake as if it were the Holy Grail. An awkward silence filled the room. Campolo finally broke in with a bold suggestion: ‘I have another idea-why don’t we pray?’ Without hesitation he began to voice a prayer for Agnes, that God would bless her on her birthday, that God would bring peace into her life and save her from all that troubled her . . . . At the amen, the diner owner said, ‘Hey-you didn’t tell me you were a preacher. What kind of a church do you preach at?’ Campolo thought a moment, cocked his head sideways, and then answered with a grin, ‘I preach at the kind of church that throws birthday parties for whores at three-thirty in the morning!’
What happened next was the most poignant moment of all. The man squinted at Campolo and announced: ‘No . . . no, you don’t. There is no church like that. I would join a church like that.’
“All across our world, millions of troubled people are trying to find a way to get through another night, another birthday, another season of life-and assuming the church of Jesus Christ could care less. They think we’re mad at them. They think we despise them. They think we think they’re no good, and we have a big black Book to prove it. What they don’t know is that the Book actually says, “Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near” (Phil. 4:5). (Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Church, 73-75).
What Does America Need from the Church?
I suppose that the answers to that question could be as many as the number of church people you wanted to ask.
Without question, beyond any debate-our nation is in crisis in a variety of ways today. Perhaps the first thing to come to even OUR minds here this morning-America is in an economic crisis, which is hitting home for many of us right now. Truly, the economic crisis is the only new crisis we face today. After all, we’ve been in a governmental crisis for, I believe, decades-with corrupt politics having devoured all parties, so that no matter who controlled the White House and Congress, we’ve not truly been able to tell much difference on the streets, nor have we been able to claim that our party (whichever one it is) is completely upstanding and effective. I believe, based on reading unbiased history that even since the founding of the nation, with the rare exceptions of times of national revival, we’ve been in a moral crisis.
So, what does America need from the Church?
Many churchgoers would say quickly and boldly that America needs the Church to be its moral compass-we need to stand up and speak out and take our nation back to God, to be politically engaged and work for legislative reform that results in Biblical standards becoming law and the 10 Commandments being displayed in our courthouses, to be working to “take back our schools for God and get prayer back in schools”.
I disagree. You say, “What?!!! Why, you’re a preacher-how can you disagree with that?” You know, it really doesn’t matter what any of us thinks, because the Church, the Body of Christ belongs to Jesus Himself. And what America needs from the Church is ultimately up to HIM! And I believe that God has clearly told us in His Word what our world needs from us (whether it’s America or Guatemala or North Korea). Over the next couple of weeks, we’re going to look at 3 things that the Bible says America needs from the Church.
America needs for every local church to know . . .
Our IDENTITY (Part 1)
From God’s perspective, who are we, His church, to be?
We are to be humble servants to our world, showing them Jesus’ love.
John 13:1-17
1 Before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his Father. He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end. 2 It was time for supper, and the devil had already prompted Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. 4 So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, 5 and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him. 6 When Jesus came to Simon Peter, Peter said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
7 Jesus replied, “You don’t understand now what I am doing, but someday you will.”
8 “No,” Peter protested, “you will never ever wash my feet!”
Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me.”
9 Simon Peter exclaimed, “Then wash my hands and head as well, Lord, not just my feet!”
10 Jesus replied, “A person who has bathed all over does not need to wash, except for the feet, to be entirely clean. And you disciples are clean, but not all of you.” 11 For Jesus knew who would betray him. That is what he meant when he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
12 After washing their feet, he put on his robe again and sat down and asked, “Do you understand what I was doing? 13 You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you are right, because that’s what I am. 14 And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. 15 I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you. 16 I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master. Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message. 17 Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them. (NLT)
1. Jesus showed us that God’s love serves others. (1)
Ronnie McBrayer: “Nowhere else in all of ancient literature is there any example of a social or religious superior stooping to wash his follower’s feet. Nowhere else does a rabbi, teacher, guru, or holy man degrade himself like this . . . Here, on the last night of his life, Jesus gives his immediate disciples, and the church that followed, the supreme example of how to function in the world, of who we should be: We are slaves. We are servants. We are foot-washers. We don’t seize what is ours; we don’t cry about what belongs to us and what is yours, we don’t pine for the highest seat of honor at the world’s banquet table. Rather, we take up the towel and the basin to humbly wash dirty feet and serve others. If we are unwillingly to do this, then the church abandons its uniqueness and its identity in this world, and does nothing less than betray Christ himself.”
When we love someone with God’s love, we serve them.
As God explains to Mack in the book, The Shack: “Relationships are never about power, and one way to avoid the will to power is to choose to limit oneself-to serve.” (The Shack, 106-107)
Galatians 5:13-14
“For you, dear friends, have been called to live in freedom-not freedom to satisfy your sinful nature, but freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’.”
Ronnie McBrayer: “We have got to get a handle on who we are as a people, and the inverse is true, who we are not, to move forward into whatever is next. This may seem obvious, but it is not: The very existence of the church is its most effective witness.
As such, the church must model and become the kind of unique and alternative society that loves its enemies, forgives relentlessly, walks the second mile joyfully, embraces the outcast, preaches deliverance to the captives, welcomes home the prodigal, refuses revenge, declines the world’s riches and power, and otherwise seeks to follow and imitate Christ, not just know about Him or act in ways disconnected from Him. This is our identity – who we are.
Church is not something we attend. It’s not something we go to. It’s not something we join or give to or support with our time and talents. Church is something we become. It is a way of life that takes us into the world to love and serve others . . . Humility and the refusal of power, is nothing less than faithfulness to Christ and the basic means by which the church articulates the Gospel. The servant church is the only church that actually exists.”
Jesus showed us that God’s love serves others!
2. Jesus showed us that God’s authority frees us to be servants to our world, not demand, or expect, anything from it. (3-5)
Ronnie McBrayer: “Jesus explained clearly that the authority of a disciple is a paradox. All forms of coercion, status, respectability, and jockeying for power are rejected for service, vulnerability, liability, and submission to others.”
God’s kingdom is not of this world-and it doesn’t operate by the world’s rules or definitions.
Again from The Shack: “When you chose independence over relationship, you became a danger to each other. Others became objects to be manipulated or managed for your own happiness. Authority, as you usually think of it, is merely the excuse the strong use to make others conform to what they want.” (ibid., 123)
In God’s kingdom, authority doesn’t mean power and position to be enjoyed. It means power to serve others like Jesus served us!
Mark 10:43-45
“Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be the slave of all. For even I, the Son of Man, came here not to be served but to serve others, and to give My life as a ransom for many.” (NLT)
In this nation that has had a strong Christian influence in the past, the church in America lives with a sense of entitlement that is just flat wrong and reflects the reality that we are misled as to what our identity is as the people of God, the church, in America. Here’s a great example:
The following was in the newspaper in Calhoun, GA the last week of May of this year and references a church in Rome:
“Church Needs Your Help. This is the story of a small church with a big heart that dared to dream…Our small church was located on Highway 411 across from the new Wal-Mart. The congregation seeing all the new progress in the area thought this might be the right time to sell our property and move into a larger facility…We were contacted by an out of town company that builds shopping centers…The price was set and everything was moving forward. It was time to start looking for our new church home. We found the property we wanted to purchase. It had all the room needed for the church to grow…We put up the old church property as collateral till the sale closed, signed the deal, and moved in. Then it happened. The bottom fell out of the economy…The company that was to buy the old church property backed out of the sale! [But] we needed the money from the sale of the old church to pay off the note on the new church. Needless to say, we are between a rock and a hard place…We have until July 5, 2009 to raise the money to pay off the note on the new property ($700,000) or we lose everything. If you watch TV or read the newspapers, the Christian community is under attack from all sides. If you are a Christian you know what I’m saying. We have to stand up for what we believe in if we want to protect the Christian way of life. If you believe in God and believe our church is worth saving, we need your help! If 35,000 people make a tax-deductible donation of $20, we can raise the $700,000 we need to pay off the bank note. Please make your tax-deductible donation to…” (And the information is provided).
Ronnie McBrayer: “This is exactly the thing that is and must die; the attitude that the world around us owes us something just because we are “church;” the attitude that just because the majority of our forbearers were Christian, we should get favored nation status.”
Being part of God’s kingdom gives us authority to serve our world, to wash it’s feet, like Jesus did-NOT to expect the world to serve us, or to demand our rights from a world/nation/government that doesn’t know Jesus Christ personally.
3. Jesus showed us that God’s love especially enables us to serve our enemies. (10-11)
Jesus washed the feet of Judas, who would later betray him!
Ronnie McBrayer: “If there is not the danger – even the expectation – that we will be taken advantage of, that we will be marginalized, even nailed to a cross, then we have not yet humbled ourselves. Christians don’t run the world – and that’s a good thing. Because we don’t belong at the banquet table; our place is in the servant quarters washing feet, for that is where we find Jesus. And that is the only place we find credibility in this world that no longer cares what we have to say. We cannot make anyone listen to what we have to say – that is a privilege that must now be earned, even if it means crucifixion, for certainly that’s what it cost Jesus.”
Proverbs 25:21-22 (NLT)
“If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat. If they are thirsty, give them water to drink. You will heap burning coals on their head, and the Lord will reward you for it.”
Joseph Tson (a Romanian pastor persecuted during the Communist era) tells the story of an awful Monday afternoon, “when in the midst of being interrogated by two officers, ‘a general came into the room. He signaled with his hand for them to leave. He began to curse me and hit me, slapping my face and hitting my head with his fist, finally knocking my head against the wall. I screamed-intentionally. I shouted so the other detainees in nearby rooms would hear me. What the general was doing was clearly illegal . . . On Thursday afternoon, the general returned. Again he motioned with his hand for the two to leave, I braced myself for a second round of beating. But the man sat down behind the desk and said, ‘Don’t worry. This time I am calm. I have come to talk to you.’ Now the Lord has promised that when his people are questioned, the Holy Spirit within them will do the talking. I can testify to this truth. I myself was surprised as I said, ‘Mr. General, because you came to talk to me, I want first of all to apologize for what happened Monday.’ He was very surprised. ‘Let me explain what I mean,’ I said. ‘On Tuesday . . . I had plenty of time to think. All of the sudden, it dawned on me that this is Holy Week. Well, sir, for a Christian, nothing is more beautiful than to suffer during the time his Saviour and Lord suffered. When you beat me, you did me a great honor. I am sorry for shouting at you. I should have thanked you for the most beautiful gift you could ever have given me. Since Tuesday I have been praying for you and your family.’ I saw the man choking. He tried hard to swallow. Then, somehow, he said, ‘Well, I shouldn’t have done it. I am sorry-let’s talk.’ We talked many days after that. Eventually he said, ‘Would you put on paper all you have said to me? I want the presidency of the country to read it.’ From this I learned that no one-not even a Communist-is beyond the reach of Calvary love. These are savable people, redeemable people like anyone else. They desperately needed to see Christ in me” (ibid., 103-105).
Conclusion–
Philippians 2:5-8
“Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death-and the worst kind of death at that-a crucifixion.”
(The Message)
Ronnie McBrayer: “Taking a truly compassionate approach, where we see people as people – living, breathing, laughing, crying, fallen but priceless creations in the image of God – and not as statistics or votes or sales or dollars in the coffers or names on the roll or notches in our gun or people who will agree or oppose us – this will infuse the church with credibility and integrity so needed in the world today . . . Humility and the refusal of power, is nothing less than faithfulness to Christ and the basic means by which the church articulates the Gospel.”
I close with this personal story from this past week. I received a call from Marty Youngblood from the Georgia Baptist Convention two weeks ago. He was calling to check on Robin’s health. We chatted a good while about Robin, our family and our church. He told me he wanted to come up and take us to lunch. So, this past Friday he did. Marty came with one intention-loving and serving me and Robin. And by the time he left to drive back to Buford, he’d done just that. (Marty also sought to serve our waitress by asking how he could pray for her when we thanked God for our food). By his listening and sharing, by his prayers for us, Marty Youngblood showed me the same servant-love that Jesus did.
What can I do practically to serve someone I know? What can YOU do to make them feel like you’ve bathed them in grace and, spiritually-speaking, washed their feet?