Word of Salvation – Vol. 46 No.28 – July 2001
The Church of Jesus Christ
Sermon by Rev MP Geluk
on Lord’s Day 21A (Q&A 54 Heid Cat)
Scripture Readings:
John 10:1-16; 1 Corinthians 1:1-3
Beloved in the Lord.
The Bible refers several times to the church of Jesus Christ as a building. And to many the Christian church has fallen into a state of disrepair. It struggles to survive. In many places the church experiences a declining membership. Internal divisions often trouble her. Sometimes she has a bad reputation because of un-Christian behaviour within her. It is difficult to attract new members who stay.
Many non-Christians in society regard the church irrelevant and to attend services a total waste of time. She has gone through times of persecution. Communism has tried to eradicate the church. In our present time it’s the turn of some fundamental Islamic nations to try and destroy her. We often hear of Christians elsewhere being killed for their faith.
And yet Christ Himself said, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it” (Mat.16:18). In these uncertain times for the church, those words of our Lord Jesus are a great comfort to all who belong to the church. If even Satan cannot destroy the church, then earthly forces will not be able to either.
Question and Answer 54 of Lord’s Day 21 speak of Christ gathering, protecting and preserving His church. We want to think about that in this sermon. We want to proclaim Scripture’s teaching about this ongoing process of the church. The church is not something fixed, it’s not a relic from history, but it has movement and activity. The church is alive. It has a past. We can speak about the history of the church. But it exists in the present and it has a glorious future. Let’s try and capture this on-going process of Christ’s church and…
– firstly look at its Builder;
– secondly, at the tools with which the Lord builds His church; and
– thirdly, the believers who belong to it.
1. The Builder of the Church is Christ
Church members are often associated with church buildings where they regularly worship, or with their minister. We might say, my church is situated on Mills Road, in Gosnells, or I belong to the church where Mr (whatever his name) is the minister.
But Christians do not really belong to church buildings or to ministers. You belong to Christ. You are His flock, His following, and not the minister’s. For it is to Christ that believers look for their salvation. It is He who has shed His blood for you on the cross. Christ’s Spirit makes us holy and sealed us for the day of full redemption. And together with all Christians from all over the world, we belong to the one, holy, catholic church.
The word ‘catholic’ does not mean Roman Catholic, for that is a denomination. ‘Catholic’ by itself simply means the Christian church of all times and places. Similar words are universal or worldwide.
With so many denominations around, Reformed, Presbyterian, Baptist, Uniting, Anglican, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, Eastern Orthodox, etc, things can be confusing to those not familiar with the church. So we have to explain that these different denominations have come about because of historical developments in the church and doctrinal divisions.
Yet however zealous we may be about our own denomination, Christians must continue to remind each other that Christ is the Builder of the Christian church that exists wherever there are Christian believers. One is a member of Christ’s church, not because one is Reformed, Presbyterian, Baptist, Anglican, or whatever, but when you know and believe Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour in the way the Bible speaks of Him. When you do not believe Christ in that way, then you are not a Christian, even though you may be a member of a denomination.
With that simple but basic definition of who Christ is and what a Christian is, one can also say then that salvation is only found in the church that Christ is building. If you believe that Christ has saved you from sin and death, then you are a member of Christ’s church. Which then means that Christ has also gathered you, and is protecting you, and will preserve you in the future.
But how can you know that? How can you tell if you, and others, belong to the one, holy, catholic church? It is all very well to say that you are a Christian, but are you really? Well, the apostle John wrote a whole letter explaining that. He said, “This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are. Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; neither is anyone who does not love his brother” (1Jn.3:10).
According to this statement anyone who does not do what is right or does not love his brother, is not of God. Now if that was the only definition in the Bible of a Christian, then there would not be many around. Thankfully, God also got John to say this: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (1Jn.5:1). There are, of course, many more descriptions in the Bible of what a Christian is, but let’s just stick with these two statements for now.
On the one hand you are a Christian, and therefore belong to Christ’s church, when you believe that Jesus is the Christ. But on the other hand, when your faith is the true Christian faith, then you will also do what is right and you will love your neighbour. These are the two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other. It’s possible for you to do many things that are right and show love to the neighbour, and yet you may not believe everything what the Bible says about Jesus. In that case you are a very nice person, but not a Christian. And neither are you a Christian if you have a faith that merely says, “yes, I believe Jesus is the Christ”, but it does not clearly show in your life that Jesus is your Lord by you not doing what He says.
But even that needs a further comment. Someone may doubt if you are a Christian because they have seen you doing wrong things in your life. You may even doubt that you are a Christian because you know that there are shortcomings in the way you love your neighbour. But there is more to being Christian than by just looking at you from the outside. One must also look at what Christ is doing in you.
You see, when, by the grace of God, you and I became Christians, which was when God gave us a new heart, and we began believing that Jesus Christ is our Saviour and became sorry for our sins, not wanting to go on doing them, then our behaviour as Christians did not become perfect. That’s not to excuse the wrong we still do. But with most of us, learning to do what is right by God, by loving Him and obeying His commands, and loving our neighbour and seeking the well-being of others, takes a lifetime to get it right. And even then we still fall short of God’s requirements. Much of the New Testament, in fact, is helping Christians to become what they are in Christ.
God says to all believers: “you are my children in Christ, and now I’ll help you to live as children of Christ.” So whilst we must never go soft on sin, we can be a bit more gracious with fellow Christians when they fail in their Christian walk with God. God is never soft on sin. He hates anything that is not holy far more than we do. But He is also very gracious in that He still loves His children who fail. He goes on to seek their well-being. The way God is to us is also how we must be to each other.
Now I mentioned all that so that we can see there is good reason for saying that we believe in the one, holy catholic church. The existence of the Christian church is an article of faith. We have to believe in the church as much as we believe in Christ.
When we see the shortcomings of fellow Christians, and more importantly, when we are made to see our own shortcomings, then it is a plain fact that Christ is building His church with poor quality material. If we are honest about our shortcomings then we would despair about the future of the church. But Christ builds His church with this poor quality material – us – and being the Master Builder that He is, He, over a period of time, transforms us into good quality stuff.
Isn’t this how we find the church in the New Testament? In some letters the Christians get a bit of a roasting. They are ticked off for being immature and doing things they shouldn’t be doing. But then elsewhere in the New Testament letters to the churches you also read about the many wonderful, good things that Christians are doing. They continue in the teachings of the apostles, they persevere in the faith, they show love to others, they pray and give, and they are a delight to be with. It really explains that Christ is building His church and we must go on believing it.
Furthermore, we also learn from the New Testament that the church Christ is building is made up of all kinds of people. Rich and poor, slave and free, Jew and Gentile. Among those Christ called not many were the brightest and the best by human standards; not many were influential; not many were from high-society families. Christ seemed to have deliberately called those whom culture and society didn’t think much of.
Christ brought the weak and the lowly into the church, those abused and exploited, the ‘nobodies’ (1Cor.1:26ff). Yet, among those who came to faith was also a proconsul, Sergius Paulus, who was known as a man of intelligence (Acts 13:7); a business woman by the name of Lydia (16:14); a man in charge of a prison, the Philippian jailer (16:34) quite a few prominent women from Thessalonica (17:4), and a philosopher called Dionysius, who was a member of the Areopagus (17:34).’
To her shame the church has sometimes forgotten how Christ builds His church, like in the days of slavery when blacks were not allowed to worship together with whites because white Christians regarded blacks as inferior. It was thought that they did not have a soul. And the ‘down and outs’ were allowed in the soup kitchens but frowned upon when they sat next to the ‘decent folk’ in the church because the people off the street were a bit smelly and their clothes were mere rags.
But Christ keeps on building His church from all kinds of people and He is doing it throughout time. From the beginning of the world right to the very end. And frequently we Christians have to be reminded that it is not our church but Christ’s church, and that it is not up to us to determine the conditions for membership but it’s up to Christ.
But notwithstanding its many shortcomings, the Christian church has outlived all other institutions – empires, political systems, and ideologies. From the beginning of time right up to the end of time, Christ, the Master Builder, keeps on gathering, protecting and preserving the church. When we read in the Bible that God, through Christ, predestined some to be saved, and then calls them, justifies them and glorifies them (Rom.8:30), then you are reading about the gathering, protecting and preserving of the Christian church.
2. The Tools with which the Lord Builds His Church
How does Christ call sinners? Through the church proclaiming the good news of salvation. Through the preaching and teaching of God’s Word. But as sinners hear the Word, who then convicts them of sin? Who opens their heart to respond to Christ’s call? Who is able to change that teenager’s heart after the parents have tried everything? Who can break that rebel’s attitude? Who can bend the will? Who can give understanding?
Who is able to do all that and more? Yes, to get the sinner to say, “Lord, have mercy on me, I am a sinner.” To bring about the new birth, the spiritual birth, and conversion? Who is able to do that? It is the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit!
The Word of God and the Holy Spirit – they are the divine tools which Christ uses in the building of the Christian church. The gathering, protecting and preserving of Christ’s church is all done by His Word and Spirit. Now that being the way Christ does it, it had better also be the way we do it. The church’s tools in having sinners become members of Christ’s church, then ministering to them, looking after them now and in the future, are the preaching and teaching of the Word, and relying on the Holy Spirit.
The apostles in the New Testament said the church should regularly come together for worship, and when it did the Word was proclaimed to the people. The apostles also went to people’s homes and explained the Word still further. It must still be our way, too. Let’s not turn the church into a business and set unrealistic goals, of aiming to have so many new converts by the year such and such, and using methods that come more from the world of marketing than from the New Testament.
The church is not there to entertain you, it’s not there to major in music, it’s not there to relieve you of your boredom and it’s not there to tickle your fancies. It’s not a forum for politics, for social issues, for economic strategies, or for foreign policy. It’s there for Christ to gather sinners, to protect and i them, through His Word and Spirit. And such sinners when changed into Christ’s likeness, they are to bring God’s standards of justice and righteousness to all areas of life, to politics, society, the economy and whatever else goes on day by day in a nation.
But all time the Christian church is to concern herself with spiritual realities. She is a community of people whom God has chosen for eternal life and who are united in true faith. The church’s aim is to have all people praise and glorify God in all of life. She is not a club, nor an association, where the reason for existence is one single issue like football or the collecting of stamps. The church is concerned with Christ’s work of changing sinners into His likeness; with looking at every issue of life in the light of His Word.
When Christ began His ministry, then He taught people to be less taken in by themselves and more by the things of God’s kingdom; to be ready to lose what is dear to you here on earth in order to gain the riches of heaven; to not think of yourself as being more important than you are but to be quite content with the place and position God gives you; to hunger and thirst after the right things that God wants to see among people; to be merciful and caring to others; to be pure in heart and mind; to strive for peace; to not get anxious and upset when others insult you, or worse, persecute you, because you are doing the right things by God. The Christian church is to be concerned with all of that.
3. The Believers Who Belong to Christ’s Church
When you belong to Christ, then you belong to His church. But where is Christ’s church? Where do you find it? What’s her address? Is it here? Or is it the Baptist church around the corner? Perhaps the Presbyterian Church in town? Or the Uniting church, the Pentecostal or Anglican, or Roman Catholic? Could it be the Jehovah Witnesses?
When the Catechism was written, there was also a lot of division in the church. But the authors of the Catechism did not say here in Answer 54, where they were speaking about the Christian church, that theirs was the true church. They preferred instead to speak about the true faith. That true faith they set out to describe in the Catechism. And the church, they said, is made up of those people who share that faith. That’s the church community, and every true child of God is and always will be a living member of this community.
A faith is either true or false depending on how it confesses Christ. If Christ is known and believed in accordance with the Scriptures, then it is a true faith. The difficulty is, of course, that practically all the denominations and sects will say that their confession of Christ is based on the Bible. Whether that is so depends on how their beliefs and practices match up with the plain teaching of Scripture. Many debates and books have been devoted to that.
Can we also say that what we believe is the true faith? Our faith is clearly defined in our confessional statements and anyone is free to test them and see if they are based on Scripture. So far they have stood the test of time. We may humbly say, therefore, that we, by the grace of God, are part of Christ’s church. We must not say that we are the only church. That’s just plain arrogance because Christians having a true faith are found all over the world and may belong to different denominations.
And, of course, no church can ever claim to be the perfect church because the perfect church is only found in heaven. Here on earth the church will always be imperfect. And whether or not this church, or any other church, is a true church depends on whether the Word of God is faithfully preached, on whether or not the sacraments are administered scripturally, and on whether or not scriptural discipline is maintained. In short, a true church will do things according to the Word of God and not according to the whims of man.
What has all that to do with you and me? Well, if we belong to Christ, which we do when our faith is the true faith, then we also belong to Christ’s church. Through His Spirit, Christ has given us a living faith. This faith is not a mere intellectual acknowledgment. No, living members of Christ are deeply interested in Christ building His church. We believe He is always building His church. We believe He is gathering, protecting and preserving His church. We know that Christ does this through His Word and Spirit but that He also involves us. We are His church. We are the material He works with.
When the Lord called us and we began to have faith, then we were of poor quality. But the Lord started to work with us and He is still doing so and we must not resist that. We must build the church as though Christ is building through us. He guides us in the things we do for the church. It must be in keeping with His teachings. When it is, then He blesses our work. We pray for that blessing. We pray for guidance and wisdom. We pray for love to God and for love to each other. We pray that we may have unity in the faith. We pray that all in the church and many outside the church may come to know Christ as their personal Saviour and Lord.
And as we pray all that, then we don’t sit back and let Christ do it all. No, our prayers are only prayers of faith when we work towards the answer to our prayer. When we pray, “Lord, make your church loving,” then we must try to love. When we pray, “Lord, make your church pure,” then we must try to be pure. When we pray, “Lord, make your church obedient,” then we must be obedient.
The opposite of a living member is a member who doesn’t really care about the church. They may have plenty of criticism but are careful not to get too involved. Or they are indifferent to whatever the church does, as long as it does not make too many demands on them. But the living members pray for their conversion and work towards that by encouraging these non-living members to live not for themselves but for Christ.
In this sermon, then, we have looked at the church of Jesus Christ. We saw that Christ is its Builder, and that the tools with which He builds are His Word and Spirit, and that the believers who belong to it are those who have a true faith and practise their faith.
Amen.