The Church 2

“Praise the name of the Lord;

praise him, you servants of the Lord,

you who minister in the house of the Lord,

in the courts of the house of our God.

Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good,

sing praise to his name, for that is pleasant.

For the Lord has chosen Jacob to be his own,

Israel to be his treasured possession.”

Psalm 135:1-4.

In my first post on the church, I started by reminding us that since the very beginning the church has had its share of problems.  I know -- it wasn’t a very inspiring place to start.  But, I do think it was an important place to start.  

As you might recall, part of the inspiration for this series of blogs on the church was the number of people who had in recent months expressed to me a concern with “organized religion.”  And, frankly, those conversations got me wondering how it is that we can, on a fairly consistent basis, mess up church.  

I mean, when I read the Bible it is obvious to me that church is supposed to be a simple, elegant and beautiful thing.  We are supposed to come together to worship God and to love one another.  How hard can that be?

And so, I decided to undertake an in-depth study to determine what exactly it is that causes churches to go off track.  This study consisted of a meticulous review of the entire New Testament, focusing particularly on the epistles that were written to instruct the struggling early churches.

During this review, it became abundantly clear to me that there was, indeed, a common denominator in the failures of each of the early churches.  And, I am convinced that this same factor is the cause of virtually all of the problems in churches to this day.  And, that common denominator is this -- PEOPLE.

You see, people have a way of messing up beautiful things.  In the worst cases, our sin nature can get the best of us.  We can succumb to feelings, emotions and desires that bring great harm to the church.  We have all seen it many times, haven’t we?  How many times in the history of the church have Godly men crashed and burned after giving in to their fleshly desires for lust, wealth or power?    

And, in the best cases we see imperfect men from time to time just making bad decisions.  Sometimes, even when we have the best intentions, the best of motivations, things can get off track.  

So, you may ask, why should anyone want to attend an imperfect church?  You may even be wondering whether at this point I too am disillusioned by “organized religion.”

Well, the answer to that question is an emphatic “no.”  For reasons we will get into later, I believe whole-heartedly in the local church and its mission.    

The primary problem I see with church is not so much the imperfections of men in a general sense, but our failure at times to stay focused on the main thing.  I think that church most often fails when we forget our "first love" -- when we forget that the primary purpose of church is to glorify God.  

Church begins to get off track when it becomes about us instead of Him.  And, I am not just talking about what happens when church becomes about us in some selfish sense.  I am not just talking about those situations when we come to church primarily to benefit ourselves -- to see what God can do for us.  I am also talking about church becoming about “us” when we think in terms of what we can do for the church or what we can do for the community.  

Don’t get me wrong, doing good works for the church and for the community is great -- but it has to be for the right reason -- there has to be the right motivation behind the doing.  At the end of the day, the true success of a church starts with a heart thing and with an attitude.  And that is this -- everything we do must be primarily for the purpose of glorifying God.

If you read through The Book of Revelation, you will see an interesting thing written to the church in Ephesus.  The church was doing great things.  They were doing good deeds, working hard and persevering.  They had driven out false teachers, endured hardships and had not grown weary.  But in the midst of all the good, indeed despite all of the good, they were criticized for abandoning their first love -- Jesus.

You see, a church can accomplish great things.  But none of that will mean a thing at the end of the day if the church is not first and foremost all about glorifying God.  Can you imagine what Sundays would be like if every single person who walked into the sanctuary had that attitude?  If the only thought in their mind was to glorify God?  What would that look like to you?

2 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:

These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands: 2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 

Revelation 3:2-4.