Can Our Kind of Church Change Our Kind of World?

Text: Revelation 3:14-22
January 23, 2005, Dave Philips

 

 

Can our kind of church change our kind of world?

Good question to consider on our church’s super-Sunday when we’re thinking about where we’ve been in the past year and where we may be going in the next years and months.

So what do you think? Can our kind of church change our kind of world? Here’s where God’s word gets very personal. Here’s where the preacher stops preaching and starts meddling. Authentic preaching always meddles, doesn’t it? The prophets were meddlers. Jesus was a meddler. The message of the Bible, by its very nature, meddles with our lives.

So here comes that meddlesome question, that troublesome question: can our kind of church change our kind of world? If First Presbyterian Church of Grants, NM, were the only church in the world, could we change the world?

Absolutely! As we’ve noted in recent weeks, Jesus started with a church smaller than ours and turned the world upside down. But there’s something all churches need to be aware of: the Laodicean tendency. The Revelation to John was given near the end of the first century. The initial excitement about the gospel had waned. The rapid growth the church was experiencing in the early years had tailed off. The Laodicean church was on a plateau.

We can speculate that most of the members of the Laodicean Church were second generation Christians. Their parents had taught them the gospel. Likely they had grown up in Christian homes -- they had not been converted from paganism to Christianity. They had lived life long in a Christian environment. They had prospered. They had a good life. They felt they had no pressing needs.

They were, in many ways, what most churches aspire to be: comfortable, prosperous, with influential members, with a peaceful life, with few cares, with no enormous mortgage.

But they were also dying. They didn’t know it, but they were dying. The call of Christ to them was a wake up call. The city of Laodicea was known for its wealth, its beautiful woolen industry, and its medical establishment. One of the medical claims to fame of Laodicea was a particular eye salve that was made there.

The Laodicean Church fit its secular surroundings very well. It was wealthy: it had plenty of money. It was well clothed: everyone in the church could afford those beautiful Laodicean woolens. The Laodicean Church was well educated in the Christian gospel. They felt they knew the score. They felt they could see clearly.

Christ saw things differently. He said they were blind. They didn’t need that famous Laodicean eye salve. They needed the salve Jesus would give them to cure their blindness. Christ said they were naked. Those gorgeous Laodicean woolens wouldn’t cover their nakedness. They needed the clothes of Christ. Christ said they were wretched and poor. They didn’t need the wealth of Laodicea but Christ’s wealth.

Every church has Laodicean tendencies. I have never encountered a church that did not have them. Some churches have a galloping case of the Laodicean disease. Peter Wagner says that a congregation infected with this Laodicean disease is likely to be terminally ill.¹ The question, then, becomes how to prevent our Laodicean tendencies from turning into the full blown disease that will kill the church.

I knew a Laodicean church first hand several years ago in Pittsburgh. I knew personally the pastor who had been called to try to turn the congregation around. The church was wealthy. It had a beautiful building all paid for. It had a distinguished history. Its members were leaders in the community.

But at a certain point in their congregational history they stopped doing ministry themselves and began to pay others to do it. They couldn’t find Sunday school teachers among their members, so they hired some. These professional teachers were fantastic educators. They could do things that ordinary lay people couldn’t do. In fact, you might say they were the best Sunday school teachers in the city of Pittsburgh in terms of their qualifications.

The church couldn’t find people among their members to sing in their choir, so they hired a quartet. It was magnificent! The musicians were wonderful. You could say they had the best music of any church in Pittsburgh.

They couldn’t find members of their congregation to reach out to the unchurched in their neighborhood, so they asked their pastor to do that. He did a great job. But when the people he called on came to the church and saw their paid choir and their paid Sunday school teachers and their empty sanctuary, they said, "Thanks, but we think we’d rather go where there’s more life." And so the pastor’s evangelism benefitted other congregations.

That congregation no longer exists today. In my lifetime I witnessed the death of this congregation with its terminal case of the Laodicean disease.

Every church lives in a series of concentric circles.² The widest circle is the community. We live in a Laodicean culture and we are surrounded by Laodicean values. The secular community surrounding us is Laodicean with Laodicean goals. That community aspires to the same things that the Laodicean church had attained: wealth, influence, comfort, freedom from care.

The next circle surrounding the church is the crowd. The crowd comes to church with varying degrees of frequency. Here among the crowd is where we meet the CEO’s who boast, "I’m very regular in my church attendance. I never miss Christmas or Easter." But let me tell you something: I never scold the CEO’s who show up for Christmas and Easter only. I may kid them a bit, but I sense a wistfulness among many of them. And I’ve known people who have left that CEO crowd and joined the central core.

Some of the crowd comes more often than at Christmas and Easter. You hang out at church. You may or may not sign the friendship book when it goes past. But for whatever reason, you’re not ready to be anything more than the crowd just now. You’re content to come to church, hang out at the church, get to know a few people, maybe, but for right now, that’s where it ends.

Then there’s the congregation. There are always two parts to any congregation. There are the consumers and the committed. Some of you are consumers but not really involved in the mission of the congregation. You attend, you may even give generously, but there are certain things you won’t do: you won’t join a Bible study. You won’t join a ministry group. You won’t sing in the choir. You won’t even be an usher.

There are various reasons for this, some of them good. Perhaps you’re not yet a believer. No problem: we’ll give you time. Or, perhaps you’re ill, or too weak physically to do anything more than come to church. God bless you, we’re delighted to have you be consumers under such circumstances. Consumers is what you should be!

But there are some not-so-good reasons we use to rationalize our non-involvement in a local congregation. One of them is: we’ve been there, we’ve done that. One of the saddest men I ever met was a man who was once on the cover of Presbyterian Life as layman of the year. When I met him, I asked him what Christian ministry he was involved in at that time. He said he wasn’t involved in the Church any more. I was dumfounded. I blurted out, "Why not?" He said he had done his thing, and now it was the turn of other Christians to take his place. This man was in good health, he was in his early fifties, there was no reason I could see for him not to be involved in Christian ministry. But he had been there and done that, and he felt he had done enough.

But within the congregation is the next circle: the committed. These are the people who are committed to maturing in Christ. They go to Bible studies and classes hoping to learn more about Christ and to grow into maturity in Christ. They may also be involved in the ministries of the congregation. They are learning the teachings of Jesus and his apostles. They are becoming equipped for ministry.

And, finally, the circle at the center is the core of lay ministers. These are people who know Christ, who live lives directed by the Spirit of Christ, and who minister in Christ’s name. The officers of the church, the elders and deacons, should all be in this core group. The people who lead the Bible studies and teach the classes should all be in this core group.

The core group, centered around our Leader, Jesus Christ, is the driving power of any congregation. The larger the core, the stronger the congregation. The way to avoid the Laodicean disease is to have an extremely strong and growing ministry core at the center of the church.

How do you get from the community to the core? Two ways, both related to Jesus’ words in Revelation 3:20: "Listen!" says Jesus. "I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me."

Every human being is a complex of doors. There’s the outside door. Christ stands and knocks at that outside door and asks to come in. If you’re part of the community or the crowd and have never opened the door to Christ, then your first step toward getting to the core is to open that outside door and let Christ in.

If you’ve never done that, and you don’t know what’s involved, I would love to talk to you. Give me a call some time this week, and let’s get together.

But there are doors on the inside, too. Once Christ comes into a life, he starts to knock on those doors as well. He wants access to the family room, the study, the workshop, and he even wants access to those closets we have tightly locked, the ones we’ve never shown anyone before.

Notice, these words of Christ in Revelation 3:20 are addressed mainly to church members. Jesus knocks on the closed doors of churches and says, "Let me in. I am the Lord of the Church, and I want access to every part of your church’s life and ministry." He also knocks on those doors inside the Christian’s life, saying, "I want more than your presence on Sunday morning. I want more than your financial pledge to the church. I want your mind: open your mind and let me teach you. I want your heart: open your heart and let me love you and love through you. I want your energy: give me your energy and let me work through you."

Every time we open one of those doors inside our lives, we become more fulfilled as Christians. Every time we open one of those inside doors, we come closer to the ministry core at the center of Christ’s church.

I believe Christ is standing and knocking at the doors of the hearts of everyone here this morning, myself included. The words of our scripture indicate that when Christ knocks it’s no gentle tapping that he does. He’s hammering at those doors! He’s calling us to be the kind of Christians who can change our church to be the kind of church that can change our kind of world.

His call is to the church, but the call is relentlessly individual. We can’t hide from that call in the crowd. Occasionally, someone will come to me after church and say, "You could have been preaching that sermon to me alone." Believe me, I never target individuals! I tried it once a long time ago, and it didn’t work. When you feel that the sermon has your name on it, that’s not my words you’re hearing, it’s the word of Christ.

So, where does this word hit you personally? If you were the only person in church this morning, and Jesus were giving the sermon, what do you think his word to you would be? "Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking," says Jesus. "If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me." If you’ve never trusted Christ, then he’s knocking at that big outer door that gives access to your inner life. You’ve opened that door to a lot of other influences without hesitation. But Jesus wants you to open that door to him.

Or, if you’ve already trusted Christ and become a Christian, Jesus is knocking on those inner doors. And I don’t think there’s a person here this morning who could say, "I’ve opened every door in my life to Jesus. There are no more doors to open." In that case, Christ wants greater access to your life.

Jesus Christ is knocking on a door in the life of everyone here this morning, and he wants you to answer. I’m going to hand out a response sheet for you to use as Christ leads you. I’d like everyone here this morning to do something with this response sheet. Please don’t do nothing with it! Maybe you’re not even familiar enough with the Christian gospel to make an intelligent decision about what to do. In that case, will you take this response sheet home and think about it? Will you pray about it? And then will you call me and talk to me about it?

You may be moved to make a first commitment of your life to Christ this morning. In that case, write your name and your phone number on the response sheet, indicate you’re making a first time commitment, fold it, and pass it in with the offering. I’m the only one who will see these response sheets. And I will personally follow up with every person who makes a first time commitment.

Or, maybe you need to recommit your life to Christ. I need to recommit my life to Christ rather frequently. I did so early this morning, in fact, as I was getting ready to preach. All Christians need to do this from time to time. Your Christian life may be kind of dull these days, and you may be realizing that the problem is not with Jesus Christ, it’s with you. That may be what Christ is leading you to do.

Or, finally, you may be led to get out of the crowd and the consumer part of the congregation and be part of the committed congregation, or even the ministry core. God bless you if that’s your guidance. I believe it will be a miracle beyond expectation if five people decide to leave the crowd or the consumer congregation and join the committed congregation or the ministry core.

The Laodicean church died. A Laodicean church can never change the world. But the promise of Christ is that those who open their lives to him and follow him will feast with him in the Kingdom of God. That company of committed Christians can and does change the world. My prayer for you all is that you will be part of that company.

 

 

Response Sheet

"Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me." Revelation 3:20.

Name___________________________________ Phone __________________

I believe I hear the voice of Christ calling me to:

_____ Commit my life to him for the first time.

_____ Rededicate my life to him.

_____ Leave the crowd and join the core congregation.

_____ Be part of a fellowship group.

_____ Be part of a Bible study group.

_____ Be part of a ministry group within the congregation.

_____ Be part of a mission group within the immediate community.

_____ Be part of a mission group supporting Christian work beyond the community.

_____ I would like to talk to a pastor.

_____ I need help with _________________________

_____ I sense God is calling me to start a new ministry for the church, and I would like to invite others to share in it. This new ministry will be: _______________________.

_____ Other _______________________________________ (use the other side for additional comments)