Word of Salvation – Vol.52 No.12 – March 2007

 

This Body’s Got Spirit!

A Sermon by Rev Sjirk Bajema on Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 21

Scripture Readings: Acts 1:12-26

 

Church of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The verses we read in Acts 1:12-26 tell us about a time in-between. The believers are waiting. Though small in number, they know that soon the Lord’s promise would mean a huge blessing. At this point in time they stand between Christ’s ascension and His pouring out His Spirit. All that our Lord Jesus Himself is will come upon His Body – the Church.

The Church is being prepared to receive this. The Spirit hadn’t brought Christ’s full empowering yet; still it is the Spirit who’s guiding them to be ready. Everything must be exactly as the Father planned it.

The apostles need to appoint another apostle, and they choose Matthias. Although we don’t hear anything about Matthias later on, his appointment was a necessary part, in God’s perfect plan, of the beginnings of the church of which we Christians are now a part.

Lord’s Day 21 is actually all about your own special part in the Church; this Church which was so uniquely organised way back in Acts 1. But the Church is a whole lot of people in a huge bunch – I’m just one member of the biggest crowd ever! Just a tiny cog in that big machine. Do I really have a part to play? Perhaps I am like Matthias: mentioned, but seemingly not important.

Boys and girls, have you ever taken a machine apart? Perhaps it was an old watch or toy. Maybe you went as far as my brother who took Dad’s motor scooter to pieces. Well, you have to understand, he wanted to see what was inside it, to see how it worked. Perhaps, like my brother, you couldn’t put all the pieces back in their place. My brother even showed me a few small pieces that didn’t fit back. He asked me, “It shouldn’t matter, should it? Aren’t they just a few pieces – and small ones, too!”

But I’ve never seen Dad as angry as he was when he found out! Of course every part was important! Even the smallest bit has to be exactly in its place. In fact, they should always have been left inside that scooter in the first place. Especially in the body frame of a Vespa! That motor scooter didn’t work. Actually, it never worked again. And my brother was uniquely reminded that day of his own part in our family!

Believer, this Scripture and this Lord’s Day is about you! You – the individual. The theme here is that the Church together is a redeemed community – chosen and enabled to serve her Saviour and Lord. All the different members are needed to make up the spiritual Body of Christ.

We will see that in three parts today. Three parts that take the form of three questions. And our first question asks, “Why is there this community?”

The answer to this we will find in Answer 56. We start with the last part of Lord’s Day 21 so that we begin with you – the individual. And moving on from the question as to why there is this community, we’ll ask, secondly, “Who is in this community?” Then, thirdly, there’s the question, “What makes up this community?”

WHY?… WHO?… WHAT?…

Firstly, then, the question… WHY IS THERE THIS COMMUNITY?

Ask the man in the street why there are churches, and he’ll probably give you a puzzled look. Perhaps he will say that he’s always wondered about that, considering that Christians don’t exactly live up to all they say. He may even call the church a bunch of hypocrites. And hypocrites are those who say something but then do virtually the opposite to what they say. When I hear the church called hypocritical, I’m tempted to get very upset. Who are they to speak that way about us? I begin to think about how hypocritical they are.

What I should realise, however, is that there’s truth in what they’re saying. We can be a bunch of hypocrites. And we might be tempted to wonder: If Christians are hypocritical, and don’t live the way they should, how come there’s a church at all in 2006? Why wasn’t it destroyed by our sinfulness already in the 2nd and 3rd centuries?

Congregation, there is only one thing that has kept the Church as Christ’s Body over all these years. Can you guess what it is? Answer 56 gives us the answer. After we have professed, “I believe that God because of Christ’s atonement, will never hold against me any of my sins nor my sinful nature which I need to struggle against all my life,” we also declare, “rather, in his grace, God grants me the righteousness of Christ to free me forever from judgment.”

God, in His grace! Grace – undeserved favour. Love without thought of return. That’s what keeps us. That’s what keeps the Church! It’s not because the members of the church are any good – it’s because the Lord of the Church is all good! He’s perfectly good!

So when someone says to me, “The Church is full of hypocrites,” I answer, “Yes, you’re right! That’s why we’re in church. Because we know how bad we really are, and we know how much we need to go to meet the One who can change us around!” The Lord is the One who has made hypocrites into a special people – a holy nation! It’s nothing we’ve done – it’s only through the Son! It’s all of grace!

That’s amazing! We go to church to praise Him because of who He is, and for what he has done and is doing. And certainly not to show what we can do.

If we want to really appreciate a particular painting we don’t stare for hours at a poor copy. We go and see the original. And that’s what we need to tell those unbelievers. Let them go and see themselves in the mirror of God’s Word. If they honestly do that, and by doing that they’re convicted by the Holy Spirit, they will see their hypocrisy. They will then be flat on their faces before the Lord, begging His forgiveness. That’s also where we should be!

That’s why we are starting today with Question and Answer 56. For to be cleared of our sin is crucial before we can enter into a living relationship with the all-holy God. And once Christ’s blood has washed away those sins we are joined to Him, through His Spirit. We become part of His Body.

WHY IS THERE THIS COMMUNITY? Why? Because God in His grace makes the believer perfect in His sight. Regardless of whatever wrong you have done, or will do, you are and you will be forgiven. The apostle John, in his first letter, pictures well the contrast between the believer and the unbeliever. In verse 8 of chapter 1 he says, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”

And isn’t this exactly what shows up in an unbeliever? Aren’t Kiwis/Aussies all too quickly ready to say, “I’ve led a good life. I’ve never harmed anyone – well, never robbed a bank and certainly not ever killed anyone! When I die I’ll be right! Saint Peter will let me through those pearly gates!” Here’s the claim to be without sin. Here’s the deceit that shows a person’s eternal destination!

In contrast to this, the verse that follows in 1 John Chapter 1 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” How completely different! These are redeemed people! A community saved by the blood of the Lamb! He’s the One we depend on. We turn to Him – despite ourselves!

In this first question we have focussed on the individual. We’ve done this because even though each of us come to salvation in different ways and through different circumstances through the forgiveness of our sins, yet once we’re saved, we are in Christ. And so we turn to our second question, which asks, WHO IS IN THIS COMMUNITY?

Here we come to Answer 54. There we confess, “I believe that the Son of God, through His Spirit and Word, out of the entire human race, from the beginning of the world to its end, gathers, protects, and preserves for himself a community chosen for eternal life and united in true faith.”

The believer is joined to Christ’s Body! You are part of the greatest movement this world has ever known and will ever know! The community which is far beyond this local community and which reaches into the whole history of man, and way beyond! This is the community we are a part of through true faith. This is the Body we call the invisible church. And it’s called “invisible” because only God knows for sure who belongs to her.

Our local churches are called visible churches. People can see who is in them. But only God knows those who are truly His. Visible churches are never perfect. In fact, some who call themselves churches have completely thrown away the Gospel!

The point to be concerned about is this: We must be members of Christ by faith in Him, and so confess that we belong to His Name. We believe and we give evidence of this belief by what we do. We are changed people, and so we live changed lives. We belong to God; we belong to the Church, the Body of Christ. As the apostle Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9, “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

Members of the Church may fall into sin. But if they depend upon God’s grace and turn to Him for their guidance, they will more and more follow in the footsteps of their perfect Master.

We can see this with the many races that are being given God’s Word in their own language. We see both God’s control and man’s responsibility. And we need to live up to that responsibility. The sin that there is in us is working against our church. It goes against our communion together. That sin tries to make us hateful, or bitter, or jealous, or proud, or independent, or selfish towards others. But the Holy Spirit, through God’s Word, tells us, “Seek to bring peace and keep up love between the people of God, overlooking their faults, caring for their needs. Our happiness on this earth depends on our entering into true communion with the saints of God.”

Notice that in the last part of Answer 54 we confess, “And of this communion I am and always will be a living member.” A living member! Yes, a part that depends on other parts! As we read in 1 Corinthians 12:27, “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”

In this way we come to our third question. Because… WHAT MAKES UP THIS COMMUNITY?

Now, if we break down that word ‘community’ we have ‘communion.’ This is togetherness. But only the saints have it! And who are the ‘saints’? The word ‘saint’ means “holy one.” They are those who can stand before God. Hey – that’s us! We are those forgiven our sins in Christ. All believers stand right with God Himself – they’re holy in His sight. The Bible says that all Christians are saints. Not like the Roman Catholics who say certain famous people in their church are saints, because only they have been good enough. All believers are holy.

Our question, “WHAT MAKES UP THIS COMMUNITY?” brings forward two things.

In the first place there is the fact that all believers share in the treasures and gifts of Christ. These are the spiritual abilities with which to serve Christ. As Answer 55 puts it, “believers one and all, as members of this community share in Christ and in all his treasures and gifts.”

The biblical picture is of a body, which is the Church, connected with its head, who is Christ, her Saviour and Lord. The body can never become the head, yet as it allows itself to be moved by the head, it becomes more and more like the head. This is what Jesus meant in John 15:5-6, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

Bearing true spiritual fruit only comes as a result of being properly connected to the true vine. So the salvation, the justification, the sanctification, and the glorification that belongs to us, are a sharing in Christ and all His treasures and gifts.

And we know we have these things. We are right with God, we do become more like Jesus, and we know that soon we will be perfect in Him. Christ’s Spirit has assured us of all this. In the words of 1 John 4:11, “We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.”

Knowing this tremendous position we have, we are able to understand the second part of Answer 55. We know what it is to confess that “each member should consider it his duty to use his gifts readily and cheerfully for the service and enrichment of the other members.”

This is where Philippians 2:4-8, is so relevant. For Paul writes there, “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of 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, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!”

There’s no such person as a Christian who can worship on his own, who doesn’t need to go to church. That’s a spiritual impossibility, just as much as it is physically impossible to be born and survive on your own. We are each different parts that only work together.

We can be reminded here of a story from a past century. It comes from Scotland. A minister caught up with an erring member who had not attended the worship services for some time. He came upon that man on a cold winter’s night. There he sat with him by the open fire, the coals burning warmly. No words were exchanged. They simply sat there staring at those flames. After a while that minister picked up the fire prong, the one with the little hook on its end. And with that hook he dragged out one of those coals away from the fire. Naturally, that ember soon died. Without the heat of the fire it could not burn on. On its own it could not go on.

That man got the message. The next Lord’s Day he was with the Lord’s people, where he had to be. That was the Body he was a part of. But that man isn’t like us, is he? After all, we are here, listening attentively to God’s Word, worshipping with His people. The Spirit’s fire is warming our hearts! Isn’t He? Or could it be we are here out of habit? Perhaps you were forced to come! The true believer loves to be here! This is his family. This is the tremendous opportunity to meet with the God with whom you live in such a close and intimate way!

Indeed, it’s the greatest privilege meeting together in this special fellowship with the Body of Christ. You wouldn’t miss it for the world. And how much you feel for the many who can’t have it, and yet yearn for it so much! And the Body of Christ doesn’t stop once you walk out of the door after this service. It works continually through the week. There are the fellowship groups you are encouraged to join. There’s the Clubs, the Study days, and so on. And there are the times we visit one another.

There are those jobs that we have – to use our talents to God’s glory. Our students can show their future ability by doing their best. There are the sick and elderly who would love that visit, and perhaps a little help around the yard.

All these things, and more, involve using our gifts and talents to serve Christ and our fellows saints. And we can and we will do it! Not because of our own strength, or any good that we think we have. No, it’s all through Christ’s Spirit that His Body is built up to reflect more and more her Head – the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

This is where the apostle Paul focussed those Corinthians Christians, who were so divided. In amongst chapters 12 and 14, where he told them how much they needed each other, there is that great 13th chapter on love. And in the final and comprehensive words of 1 Corinthians 13:13, he says it all. As we read there, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Amen.

PRAYER:

Let’s pray…

O God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

do move in our hearts and enliven a deepening appreciation of who your Son is, and what he’s still doing for us right now. Make us thankful. You have been eternally good for us. And we do want to love and serve you alone.

In your precious name, we pray.

Amen.