The Upside Down Church Lenten Sermon Series: Being the Church God Wants Us to Be James 2:1-4, 8-9 I am a servant. I am obedient. I will put others first. I will do whatever it takes to seek the best for others and our church. Rev. Michael D. Halley March 4, 2018 Suffolk Christian Church Suffolk, Virginia Third Sunday in Lent Holy Communion ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lent 1, it seems to me, is a good time to look at ourselves and ask the question, How can we be the church that God wants us to be? After all, Lent is the season in which we look inside ourselves and examine our relationship with God. It is a time of confession of sin(s) and renewal of our service to God. A great time to ask this question! Notice something about this question. I am sure you noticed it already. This question does not say anything about the church I want it to be, does it? The question addresses the kind of church God wants. I think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night he was arrested. What did he pray? Not my will, but yours be done (Luke 22:42 NIV). So, it s not my will but God s will for our church. That s where our pledge comes in. I will remind you that nobody is required to say these words or even subscribe to them. This pledge is totally voluntary, but seems to me to be a good summary of what is required of the people of God who are seeking to be the church God wants them to be. Here is the pledge: I am a servant. I am obedient. 1
Page -2- I will put others first. I will do whatever it takes to seek the best for others and our church. 2 I know this is hard. I know I have encouraged you to think outside the comfortable box that we live in every day. But every Olympic medalist will tell us the same thing: Victory and success does not come without effort, pain, and a little discomfort. We re in this together! We all want the same thing. Let s hang in there! So, first, we considered the multitudes who pass by our church on a daily basis. We wondered who they are, what they are thinking, and if they even think about us as they pass our building. I even suggested that they are the fields white unto harvest that Jesus spoke about (John 4:35). Last Sunday we took it a step further and began to think about what might happen if and when those who pass by come through our doors. We asked, What will they find? How will they be received? Will they feel welcome? Will they want to come back? Will they feel the love of God within these walls? Today I want to tell you about the upside down church 3. Earlier we heard God s Word from the pen of James. He gave us a hypothetical situation. A man comes into our church gathering wearing a gold ring and fine clothes. About the same time, another man comes in. This other man is poor and he is wearing filthy old clothes. Who gets the attention? Who gets a prime seat? James says don t discriminate, doesn t he? But wait! Is this good planning? Think about it. This rich man, if we were able to get him to join our church, could help the spread of the Gospel in a tremendous way. Wouldn t his coming here be a strong witness that Christianity isn t for losers? That even well-educated wealthy people follow
Page -3- Christ? And, what if this rich man learned to tithe 4 -- to give 10% of his income to the church? Wow. Think of all the missionaries we could send to places around the world who have not been reached by the Gospel. Think of how many lives could be saved, in the name of Christ, through world-wide water purification projects and finding food for the starving masses. Wow, again! I can just hear us singing it, Jesus loves me, this I know, This rich man can help us grow. Many lives can come to Christ, With very little sacrifice... But the Bible tells me no. James was right. Both men who came into the church that day deserve equal treatment and a warm welcome. James reminds us, Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? (James 2:5) There is no inherent spirituality in being poor, and there is no inherent spirituality in being rich. Faith is the key in both instances. How s that for an upside down church? A church which treats everyone as equals. The rich and the poor sit down together. The poor man may teach the Sunday School class. The rich man may operate the small elevator in the lower foyer. Upside down, isn t it? Here s another upside down story 5. Greg Laurie is pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California 6. Over fifteen thousand attend this church every week and three to four thousand people confess their faith in Christ every year as a result of the ministry of this church. In his book, The Upside Down Church 7, Pastor Laurie tells that it all
Page -4- began with a small Bible study of 30 converted hippies. Now they are a thriving church fellowship of over fifteen thousand. It is a shocking story, not because Pastor Laurie started from such humble circumstances. What is shocking about this story is that the church exploded in growth and continues to grow without applying any of the church growth principles that so many church experts teach today. Listen to this: Harvest Fellowship has never advertised in any way. Harvest Fellowship has never done community surveys. They have never sent flyers out to the homes around their church. And, they have never even placed an advertisement in the local newspaper. And yet, 15,000 souls gather there each week. So how did they grow? That s what is so upside down about this story. They simply lived their lives as the Bible taught them to live. They believed it is their mission to seek out souls. They personally invited their friends. They lived godly and upright lives. Their growth has come entirely from the people within the church living out the Great Commission. I want to close with a story which comes from Guideposts 8 magazine. It is a story of a couple who lived out our Lord s Great Commission. David Stoecker is a recovering addict who now works with a state drug recovery agency in Missouri. He is now, as he says, a hope dealer rather than a dope dealer. David s childhood memories of church consisted of hearing his parents shout and curse at each other in the car on the way to church and then smiling and acting all holy when they got there. He describes himself at that time in saying, I trusted no one and
Page -5- assumed the world -- especially churches -- was full of judgmental hypocrites. In his mid-thirties, trying to straighten out his drug and alcohol addicted life, he met a man named Nate at the restaurant where he worked. Nate kept talking with David and was interested in getting to know him. David says at that time he drank himself into a stupor each night and cursed a blue streak and let Nate, a Christian, know that he thought Christians were full of it. None of this fazed Nate. He continued to be a friend to David and one evening he and his wife Becca invited David to their church for a barbeque dinner. That got David s attention, because he loved good barbeque. So, David told them he wasn t going to buy into any of that theology stuff at their church and Becca told him that was all right, all he had to do was eat the barbeque. To David s amazement, everyone at the church was as nice as Nate and Becca. There was no judgement. There was no hard sell. There was just good conversation and good barbeque. For the first time in my life, David says, I felt like someone liked me just for me. That was the beginning of his total recovery from alcohol and drugs and coming to know Jesus Christ as Saviour and Friend. This is the upside down way of witnessing to our faith. Think about it. Pray about it. Can we be this kind of upside down church? I think we can. The Saviour is waiting to enter your heart... why don t you let Him come in?
Page -6- Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ 9, the holy Supper which we are about to celebrate is a feast of remembrance, of communion, and of hope. We come in remembrance that our Lord Jesus Christ was sent of the Father into the world to assume our flesh and blood and to fulfill for us all obedience to the divine law, even to his bitter and shameful death on the cross. By his death, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus established a new and eternal covenant of grace and reconciliation that we might be accepted of God and never be forsaken by him. We come to have communion with this same Christ who has promised to be with us always, even to the end of the world. In the breaking of the bread he makes himself known to us as the true heavenly Bread that strengthens us into life eternal. In the cup of blessing he comes to us as the Vine in whom we must abide if we are to bear fruit. We come in hope, believing that this bread and this cup are a pledge and foretaste of the feast of love of which we shall partake when his kingdom has fully come, when with unveiled face we shall behold him, made like him in his glory. Let us pray: Holy Father, we humbly come before You today to receive these elements of the Lord s Supper. May the strength we receive from You this day enable us to go forth to serve our world as a channel of Your blessings. In gathering here, let us be mindful of all Your children everywhere, that they, too, may fully participate in Your love. We pray this under the guidance of Your Holy Spirit, who teaches us the things of Christ our Saviour, in whose name we pray. Amen. The Lord Jesus, the same night he was betrayed, took bread; and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you: do this in remembrance of me.
After the same manner also, he took the cup when they had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. Page -7- Holy God, we thank you that Jesus came to earth to live among us and to show us the way to your own heart. In gratitude we partake of this bread, the body of Christ, given for us. Amen. Almighty Father, you told us that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin (Hebrews 9:22). Thank you for this cup as we partake, the blood of Christ, shed for us. Amen Thank You, our Father, for inviting us to commune at Your table. May we go forth, mindful of our mission to be Your light and Your love in our world. We pray this in the name of Jesus, Saviour and Lord. Amen. +==+==+==+==+==+==+ All Scripture references are from New International Version, NIV, copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc., unless otherwise indicated. +==+==+==+==+==+==+ Sunday Sermons from Suffolk Christian Church are intended for the private devotional use of members and friends of the church. Please do not print or publish. Thank you. Suggestions for sermon topics are always welcome!
Page -8-1. The Lenten season is a time when many Christians observe a period of fasting, repentance, moderation, self-denial and spiritual discipline. The purpose is to set aside time for reflection on Jesus Christ -- his suffering and his sacrifice, his life, death, burial and resurrection. 2. This pledge was adapted from a paragraph in Thom S. Rainer s book, Autopsy of a Deceased Church: 12 Ways to Keep Yours Alive (B & H Publishing Group, 2014), p. 50. 3. I got this phrase from an article I found, The Upside-Down Church: Witnessing to a Strange Gospel, by Russell Moore, www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/discipleship/upside-down-church. Then I discovered the book by the same title, cited below. 4. A tithe is literally a tenth part, i.e., 10%. See Tithe, Holman Bible Dictionary, edited by Trent C. Butler, www.studylight.org/dictionaries/hbd/t/tithe.html, 1991. 5. I am indebted to Tim Challies, who wrote an excellent and insightful review of The Upside Down Church, at https://www.challies.com/book-reviews/book-review-the-upside-down-church/, July 5, 2003. Tim is a blogger, author, and book reviewer. 6. See http://www.harvest.org/church/about.html 7. The Upside Down Church, by Greg Laurie, with David Kopp, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1999. 8. Hope Dealer, by David Stoecker, Guideposts magazine, March, 2018, p. 40ff, 9. This communion liturgy is adapted from that of the Reformed Church in America (RCA), https://www.reformedworship.org/article/march-2009/communion-service-spirit-taize