When we hear the word “church” – well, so often we load it with a whole lot of baggage – our ideas, perceptions, experiences. “Church” – it’s almost become a four–letter word. But my hunch is – it wasn’t meant to be so. 

Church – A Four Letter Word

I’ve often thought – if I were a marketing consultant, and I won a tender to run a marketing campaign to give the term “church” a positive position in the contemporary mindset – the secular psyche if I can use those words – I wonder whether I would actually want the job.

I mean – this word “church” has almost become a four letter word in society today. Scandal after scandal. So many people see large parts of the church as being anachronistic – outdated, irrelevant. The vestiges of old style religion appear to be alive and well.

For me – the greatest indictment of church in my living memory has been the whole issue of child sexual abuse. It seems to spread across so many of the denominations – and so I just don’t want to single any of them out. Only it’s not so much an issue – but a string, countless thousands of cases of the most appalling abuse of position and trust that is imaginable.

People who claim to be God’s emissaries sexually abusing children – and not just children, but adults too. And then, if that isn’t terrible enough – the cover–ups by major denominations.

I was reading a government report into this issue in one major denomination, in one particular country and the report concluded that the senior levels of this church denomination had – and I quote – “obsessively and systematically covered up” the widespread sexual abuse of children by its clergy for decades.

And this has happened over and over and over again. You Google church sexual abuse on the Internet, and aside from the fact that you get over 4 million hits – 4 million – you discover church essays, positions, enquiries, policy papers, white papers on this whole subject.

Now – you may well ask – why is it that Berni’s rabbiting on about this? Why’s he being so critical about this? Well, simply to demonstrate why the “church” has an image problem. The easiest thing in the world is for those of us who live inside this thing called “church” to completely lose sight of how people on the outside, see and think about this thing we call … church.

Has the whole church gone bad? Of course not. But there’s enough mud flying around for it to stick. And then – there are so many other issues. The church seems to be anti–so many things. Anti–abortion. Anti–homosexual. Anti this and anti that. And please right now I’m not making any comment or judgement about the validity of those positions one way or the other. As it turns out I have very strong views on some of these issues. But it’s not the views and the beliefs that I’m talking about right now. It’s the perceptions of society as a whole, that this thing called the “church” can hold itself out to proclaim judgements on such issues when – I mean, look at the whole issue of child abuse. Is it any wonder that people look at the church and think – what a bunch of hypocrites. Then there’s the church not far from me – the denomination – that lost $160 million on some bad stock market investments recently. And the other small local church sitting on well over $20 million worth of real estate, with less than a dozen members showing up every Sunday morning.

These days there are so many Bible believing Christians having been burnt by this thing called church, that they’re leaving it in droves whilst still hanging on to their faith in Jesus – that the academics are writing text books about this group.

Perhaps some of that is treading on some sensitive even painful ground for someone listening today. And the last thing that I’m about is dragging down the church. But if you belong to God’s church – whatever denomination, whatever shape of form that takes – do you see the image problem that the Church has?

Church – these days – is very definitely a four letter word out there in contemporary society! Hmm. The sad thing is that so many good things are happening amongst this group of people we call “church” around the world as well. It’s not all bad – far from it – but we live in a world today – where people both inside and outside the church are struggling so deeply with what church means, what it is, what it’s supposed to be, what it achieves – so many people are struggling so deeply and in many cases painfully with this issues – that I believe we have to talk about it on the program. So that’s what we’re going to be doing over the next couple of weeks.

And as you may have noticed – I’m not going to pussy–foot around. Let’s call a spade a spade, let’s see things for what they are – and there’s a good reason for that.

Because like it or not, whatever you think of this thing called “church” it is part of God’s plan and it is something that lies at the core of God’s plan for this world – for humanity. Have a listen to what Jesus said to Peter the Apostle:

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)

Jesus said He would build his church and make her strong. God also refers to the church as His bride:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:25–27)

And His body:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:12)

And as individualistic as we’ve become in contemporary society here in the 21^st century after the time when Jesus walked this earth – as much as we’re focussed on ourselves, God’s plan, God’s plan is for His children to be a family.

It’s a powerful plan. And it’s a good plan. To be sure – sometimes being a church hurts. Sometimes it disappoints. Sometimes it falls such a long way short of what we expect these people of God to be and how we expect them to love us – but it is God’s plan nevertheless.

Saw a sign outside a local church recently that said “Don’t let Christians put you off Jesus”. As bad a piece of marketing as I think that is – leading with the chin like that – this sign somewhat clumsily and insensitively puts its finger on the problem we’ve been talking about today. That “church” is a four letter word. So the thing we’re going to look at today and over these coming weeks is this – despite so much doom and gloom and obvious failures of this thing called “church” – how do we make sense of God’s plan? How do you and I – if we hunger after God – grow and thrive in the body of Christ – the church – despite all the things in this world that scream at us that we should run a mile? How?

People are a Pain

You know the biggest problem I find with Churches? The one that is absolutely, without any shadow of doubt number 1 on my list of problems with church – is other people.

As sure as God made little green apples, you get a bunch of people together, and some of them are going to be a pain. They’re going to rub us up the wrong way. They’re going to disappoint us, hurt us.

You and I – as Mary Poppins would say – may well be practically perfect in every way. It’s all those other people – they’re the ones who are pains. If it weren’t for them – church would be a fantastic place to be. But they’re the ones that ruin it. They’re the ones who rob it of what God meant it to be. To tell you the truth – I’m just not prepared to put up with them anymore. That’s it. I’ve had enough. I’m taking my bat and ball and going home.

And that my friend – that is exactly the attitude that so many people have towards church in this consumer oriented world.

My expectation of church used to be that it would be something like a zoo. You know when you go to the zoo, you go to the different animal enclosures and you see a series of perfect, well fed, well looked after specimens.

The lion enclosure – prefect specimens. The elephant enclosure. More perfect specimens. The giraffe enclosure – yet more prefect specimens. You see, you experience what you’re expecting – what you paid your money for. Perfect specimens. That’s what we go to the zoo for – to see what we expect to see.

And that’s how I first approached this thing called church. I expected to see and meet a whole bunch of perfect specimens. People who would give me what I came for. The perfect preacher. The perfect pastor. The perfect community. The perfect worship service. The perfect … well, everything really.

Boy was I disappointed. n And as time when by, here’s what I discovered. Church isn’t so much like a zoo full of perfect specimens, it’s more like … like a rehabilitation ward full of broken people, being restored back to health. Now some of them are pretty healthy to be sure, some of them are getting much closer to being perfect specimens than others, but pretty much each person in that church is going to be a broken person – somewhere along that journey of rehabilitation.

Can I be really honest with you – I’ve met some really, really bad people in churches. That shocked me. Of course, I’ve met some utterly fantastic people too. And no matter what churches I’ve visited, or been associated with or been a part of – it’s always the same – it’s invariably a mixed bag.

And this reality doesn’t fit with our expectation – deep down, we expect them all to be perfect – and so our natural reaction is to think – boy, something seriously wrong in this place. But is there? Interesting that Jesus’ disciples had a similar perception of these people who turn out to be a pain.

So Jesus told them a parable – to explain what was going on. And just as it explained the reality way back then – it still explains so graphically and perfectly the reality today. So – have a listen to what He said to them … and what He’s saying to us, 2,000 years on:

He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. 

And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ 

He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

So, here Jesus is dealing with this idea that we have that a church should be perfect and if it ain’t perfect then it’s not the church for me. What’s Jesus saying – quite simply this – that in God’s Kingdom – and remember, the tangible reality of that Kingdom on this earth is God’s Church – in God’s Church – there is always going to be a mixed bag. God plants good seed in His church He calls good people into His family. But the enemy comes along and plants some weeds too. Remember amongst the 12 disciples whom Jesus chose, the enemy the devil got a hold of one of those – Judas Iscariot – with devastating effect.

The enemy’s going to get hold of some people’s hearts right in the midst of the body of Christ – and instead of delivering a good harvest they’re only going to produce more weeds. Jesus is saying “that’s normal”. And when the servants say to the master – so – do you want us to go do some weeding – He says, no, no, leave them. I’ll get to them at harvest time.

The sovereign choice of God is to leave the weeds in place – did you pick that? He chooses not to make His kingdom a zoo – full of perfect specimens, but a mixed bag. That’s the reality. That’s His choice. And my hunch is that He puts those people there – not so that we can be victims, but so that we can learn to love and to overcome and to suffer and to give and to serve – even our enemies. Even those who play politics and those who are selfish or nasty or painful – or however they rub us the wrong way. My friend – church is never going to be perfect. There are always going to be some weeds scattered through the crop – but what Jesus is saying is this – leave them to me. I’ll deal with them in due course. I’ll sort the weeds from the wheat on that day of harvest, the day of judgement.

Meantime, get on with it. Let the good wheat grow and yield its grain. As I said – thoroughly realistic. And when we take this parable of Jesus’ into our hearts – it puts those difficult people in church – well, it shines a whole new light on things. All of a sudden, the Lord is giving us a license – just to get on with it. 

Programs, Programs, Programs

For almost two decades of my life, I worked as a consultant in the information technology industry. I worked around the world and so I’ve been into hundreds of different organisations – private sector, public sector – in many different places and cultures. And over the years, I’ve seen how systems and key performance indicators and the drive towards more and more profits impact people’s lives.

What I saw all too often were workers lined up in small cubicles, driving to targets, to increase company profits. Nothing wrong with companies making profits of course. There’s nothing wrong with them having performance targets and incentive schemes and all of that.

But after years and years and years of seeing this – I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s a line somewhere that companies and organisations can step over. There’s a tipping point – to use that familiar term – where the systems and the performance indicators and the profit motive take people from being free range to battery – does that make sense?

Some workplaces I’ve walked into , the people have been working incredibly hard – and yet they’re energised and happy and there’s some laughter in the place. But mostly that hasn’t been the case. Insurance companies, banks, call centres – so many of these places, when all that drives management is the profit motive – then ultimately that line is crossed and the people become like battery hens.

We weren’t made principally to be cogs in a production machine. You and I – we’re unique and creative and we love encouragement and we love being part of something we believe in and that we value and when we’re valued. But systems, cubicles, targets – they can squeeze the life out of us. Sometimes when I travel into the city on the bus or the train – something I used to do a lot of in my consulting days – I look at the faces of the people – and you don’t see much joy, or sense of anticipation. There’s a greyness, a lifelessness that happens when beautiful, amazing, creative, emotional, intelligent, funny, wonderful people are squeezed into a production mould.

It’s the issue of balance that’s missing. That’s the conclusion I’ve come to. And here’s the thing – this is something that I’ve seen in churches too.

Over the course of this week and the next few weeks on the program – we’re taking a really frank look at this thing we call “church”. And one of the things that appears to have emerged in the contemporary church is the program. What do I mean by that – well, we grow and so we organise ourselves and our activities and the members of the church. And the way we organise things is that we institute programs.

We have the weekly home group program. The lady’s meeting on Wednesday morning. The young mother’s meeting. We implement a number of evangelism programs. We set budgets, we look at outcomes we assess the return on the investment. We run events – the Easter event, Carols by Candlelight at Christmas. We have food appeals, we go door knocking around the neighbourhood.

Now – let me say something at this point – there is nothing intrinsically wrong or bad or sinful about any of these things. They’re all good in and of themselves. OK – so I’m not knocking any of them per se. But just as in everything else – there’s a line we can cross over – the line where we turn church into purely an accumulation of events, activities, meetings, committees and programs. That point – and I’ve been to churches where I’ve seen this happen – where the only way that you can be a part of the church – is to participate in the programs.

I’ve heard this come from the pulpit – if you want to develop friendships and relationships – you have to sign up to join a homegroup. Now – program–driven may have worked at some place and at some time – but remember so many of the people who come to our churches – are these same people who spend their lives working as virtual battery hens.

And if there’s one thing – just one thing – that so many people are looking for in a faith community – it’s just that – a genuine sense of community. And community – community isn’t an accumulation of programs and events – it’s not a by–product so much of signing up for this program or that. Because we can have as many programs as we like at church – and have zero community. Community is a mindset. It’s a heart attitude. I’ve been to a church where it took them 9 months – 9 months – to invite us to anything – and then, it was a programmatic “new comer’s luncheon.” That’s not community. Community is when you walk in and someone greats you and smiles and shares and gets to know you and has you over for coffee or lunch and is there for you.

Jesus didn’t say – that by this people know will know that you are my disciples if you have effective church programs. He said – by this people will know that you are my disciples if you have love one for another. There’s something organic and spontaneous about that sort of love. The two words used for Church in the NT are ecclesia and koinonia. The first means – a meeting, that’s what churches do as they meet once a week. And the second – koinonia – means a fellowship, a joining together. It’s a relational word. It’s the word of organic love and organic community.

And that – that is the one thing more than any other – that disconnected people, people who work as battery hens by day, are looking for. Welcome. Fellowship. Spontaneity. A sharing of lives. The Apostle Paul put it this way when he was talking about each one of us being part of the body of Christ – 

If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (1 Corinthians 12:26)

If there’s one thing people are hungering for more than anything else – it’s this genuine experience of Christ’s love through community.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to poke fun at this thing we call church. To reject it as being irrelevant, outdated. So many people though – so many people, the same people who reject church – are looking for something, hungering for something, aching for … something. Hmm.

The Book and Its Cover

My favourite definition of marketing is this – that it’s the ultimate triumph of style over substance. Not sure where I first heard that – but it’s stuck with me for a good many years now. Marketing – the ultimate triumph of style over substance.

And you see it all the time – big impersonal banks, where the customer is just a number and our needs and problems have to fit into their systems and products, and where increasingly the only way that we can interact with them is through disempowered and sometimes poorly trained, anonymous operators, jammed into their cubicles like battery hens in some call centre – those same banks will run adds on TV with families and happy smiling faces and friendly bank managers.

There’s a complete discontinuity between the substance of who they are and what they provide and the style that they hold out in their advertising and marketing campaigns. But that doesn’t stop them – because after all, marketing is the ultimate triumph of style over substance.

Well – perhaps that’s a little cynical, but you know what I mean. Spin doctors and advertising agencies are paid trillions of dollars each year to put a friendly face on unfriendly corporations, and to put a positive spin on the most awful of realities. And they do such a great job of it that Mr or Mrs Consumer out here in consumer–land – well we struggle to know the difference anymore between style and substance. The two have blurred – reality is a combination not only of the service provided, but of how we feel about the provider – and that latter bit was shaped by the marketing. What’s the truth, what’s reality? Who cares. Many of us have in fact, given up caring. It’s all too hard.

And so – we kind of tacitly, implicitly accept the blurring of style and substance we don’t think about it too much anymore and so we carry this blurred reality into our experience of church. Now – there are so many different forms of church. From the small group that will be meeting in my family room and backyard this coming Sunday, through to a big, traditional cathedral with a prayer–book liturgy and hymns sung to organ music, through to the contemporary mega church down the road with seven services of 5000 people each packed into every Sunday, to the community church of 80 or so people in our local suburb … and anything and everything in between.

Some seem good at developing contemporary packaging and branding and signage and websites. Others seem stuck in a time–warp. Some seem to have dynamic preachers up front – talking about things that appear relevant. Others have these men droning out a sermon that goes on interminably and doesn’t appear to have anything to say for my life and yours in the coming week.

Some churches appear to be steeped in the tradition of religion – men in gowns and set prayers and specific terminology like sanctification and propitiation. Others talk in plain language and you’d be flat out recognising the full time minister because that person looks just like all the other people.

Do you see what I’m saying? There are so many different styles of church. Some follow almost a rock concert approach or style for their weekly meetings or services, others use a liturgy that was developed in the 1600’s. The array of approaches and styles – the packaging if you like – is so incredibly diverse. Some churches are huge – some are tiny. An incredible array.

One of the questions people often ask me when they first give their lives over to Jesus – when they accept him as the one who saves them from their sin and when they accept Him as the Lord of their lives – they ask me which church should I go to?

And in one sense, that’s a bit like asking me which shirt should I buy? Which pair of shoes should I buy? Should I live in a house or an apartment? The answer is – I don’t know – because churches come in all different shapes and sizes. Different styles.

And the church that represents a good fit with who I am and where I’m at, may be entirely different to the one that’s a good fit with you, given who you are and where you’re at.

For instance – being a baby boomer, the whole idea of denominationalism doesn’t fit well with me. Nothing wrong with having denominations per se – in fact there can be some very good things that come along with that. It’s just not me. I’m concerned more with who we are as a church in the suburb where we live, and how we can be the hands and the feet and the heart and the voice of Jesus in the context of our local community.

You may have an entirely different viewpoint – and that’s just fine and dandy. So the first thing – the first thing to recognise is that books can have a similar message, even though they have quite different covers and even if the authors have different styles and different ways of telling the story. And rather than dismissing that reality – I think it’s something we should deal with – directly and openly because it’s a reality. There are quite a number of styles of church that I don’t plug into easily. The sooner I accept that reality, the sooner I’m going to discover the place that God means me to be.

But as important as it is to recognise the differences and to figure out where we’re a good fit and where we aren’t there’s something more important than the style – and that’s the substance.

I’ve seen plenty of churches that have a great contemporary style that I think I can plug into – in fact, I went to one for a while. But after a few months, I realised that there was something significant lacking there when it came to substance. The first was this:

I realised I could give up taking my Bible with me to church each Sunday – because I was never called to open it. And secondly, I realised – and this is what we were chatting about yesterday on the program – that the only way to become part of the church was to participate in programs – community was program driven, it wasn’t genuine and organic and heart felt. Now in a few weeks time, we’re going to be chatting about things to look for in a church. And we’ll be going into this in a whole lot more detail.

But I think the substance of a church – what lies at the heart of the church – is really important. And the three things that I look for when it comes to this whole thing about substance are these:

(1) First – I want to see that this is a bunch of people who are passionate about Jesus – whose trust is in Him, whose lives are bowed down to Him – and whose love flows out of them. That’s the first thing. The Apostle Paul talked about this sort of substance versus style. He said to the church in Corinth

When I came to you – I didn’t come with a bunch of fancy words and great ideas. I came imperfectly, I came to tell you about Jesus – I wanted you to know His wisdom and His power. That’s what I’m looking for first and foremost – people passionate about Jesus, people who believe that Jesus can and is and will make a real difference in their lives (1 Corinthians 2:1–5)

(2) That they actually open their Bibles. That when they gather together, not only do they worship God with their lips, but they want to hear what God has to say to them today. Gods Word is alive and active and sharper than any two edged sword. I’m looking for a bunch of people who are serious about learning from God and changing and growing to be more like Him.

(3) Finally – I’m looking for a genuine community. People who love others with the love of Christ – not just with words and with platitudes, but with their genuine actions. By inviting others to a meal, by being there when others need them.

That’s the sort of church I want to be part of. I don’t expect them to be perfect at it. But that’s the substance that I’m looking for. Style’s great. It has its place. But it’s the substance – the heartbeat of the church that really matters. And what I believe we should all hear in our churches – if we’re prepared to stop, be still and listen – I believe that what we should hear is the heartbeat of God.

And if that’s missing – the church is dead and we’re only hanging round a graveyard – however alluring the style might be.

The Church, Authority and Me

So many things have changed over the last 50 years. I mean – half a century ago, the church played a key role in society here in Australia where I live. A huge role. And whilst in some countries it still does – that’s not the case here.

In fact, you go back a few centuries, and they were holding inquisitions and executing people in some places. Interesting how the position and the role and the influence of this thing we call church has waxed and waned over the last couple of thousand years.

And not all of it, historically, has been good or positive. The crusades, the inquisitions – the trial and conviction of eminent scientists like Galileo and Copernicus for holding heretical views like the earth isn’t the centre of the universe and the earth isn’t flat – no not all of it’s been good.

That’s why I’m such a great fan of the separation of church and state – seems to me as I look back in history, whenever the church became too involved in the running of countries, it’s rarely been a happy outcome.

And so it’s easy – very easy – to become very suspicious and edgy and concerned about manipulation and control, when you hear someone talk about church … and authority in the one sentence.

But we can’t talk about church – without talking about this notion of authority – what it means to us, here and now.

I remember when I first gave my life to Jesus – I was very suspicious of churches. There are some pretty whacky cults out there and the last thing that I wanted to do was to end up in one of those.

And the thing about cults is that invariably they have leaders who abuse their power – leaders who insist on so many strange things being done in the name of loyalty and submission to authority.

Perhaps like me you’re old enough to remember the Jones Town massacre in South America back in 1978 –when James Jones, the leader of the People’s Temple cult convinced 909 of his followers to commit suicide by taking cyanide.

Now – that’s extreme – but it shows the sort of disastrous consequences that can happen when there’s blind allegiance to religious leaders. That’s one extreme.

And so because many of us hold deep suspicions about the authority of so–called religious leaders – the pendulum in many countries – including my own – has swung in completely the opposite direction.

These days, churches are filled with people who believe in Jesus, but who don’t accept the authority of the leaders in their church. They see themselves as members, consumers of church, people who attend to receive advice perhaps – but not as people under any kind of authority or accountability in this place called “church”.

Two extremes. Both – in my view – disastrous. The one that leads to legalism and at its worst cults. The other which means that instead of being the Body of Christ – people who work together to bring the love of Christ into a lost and hurting world, we’re just a bunch of semi–interested, variably committed volunteers who help when it suits us.

So – it’s a really, really interesting question, this whole question of authority in the church and it’s one of the things that many a person – both people who believe in Jesus and those who don’t – have against the church.

What’s the answer? Where’s the middle ground? Well – there are a couple of really interesting passages we’re going to take a look at today. Here’s the first one – it’s Jesus talking:

“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 

If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 18:15–18)

Now the church is the Body of Christ – it belongs to Jesus and what Jesus is talking about here – is authority and accountability. It begins with mutual accountability – church members are accountable to one another for their behaviour – that’s why if someone does something wrong against you, Jesus says the first thing to do is take them aside and deal with it. Don’t sweep it under the carpet – deal with the issue.

Chances are – that this should resolve the issue. But if it doesn’t it’s time to take this matter of accountability a bit wider. Get a few other people – witnesses – involved. And then if that doesn’t work – take it to the church.

And if the leaders try to deal with it but the person who did wrong in the first place still won’t listen – then … , let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. – In other words – boot them out. Why? Because Jesus has given the church the authority to do that.

Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Delegated authority. Straight from Jesus to the leaders of His church. Most of us have never seen that happen – and it would be an extreme step to take. I was in a church once where a couple were removed because they continued to sleep together before they were married. It was done in love, but with a clear understanding that this is what Jesus told us to do. And without going into the details, this act of authority and accountability by the leadership had a really positive outcome.

The second passage I’d like to look at is the sort of leadership and authority church leaders are called to exercise. Peter the Apostle – Have a listen:

Now as an elder myself and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as one who shares in the glory to be revealed, I exhort the elders among you to tend the flock of God that is in your charge, exercising the oversight, not under compulsion but willingly, as God would have you do it—not for sordid gain but eagerly. 

Do not lord it over those in your charge, but be examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will win the crown of glory that never fades away. In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders. And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. (1 Peter 5:1–6)

I love that – leaders are called to lead well – by example, as shepherds guiding the flock, rather than lording it over them. And the rest of us – we’re called to humble ourselves under this good leadership – because God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

So what I discover is that when it comes to leadership, authority and accountability in the Church – God isn’t interested in either of the extremes. He doesn’t want harsh, cult–like leadership any more than he wants us to imagine that church is a free–for–all where anarchy prevails and we each do as we like. That kind of volunteer mentality.

The heart of God is to see godly leadership on the one hand, and a humility amongst each of us on the other where we’re prepared to submit to godly authority. You look at it God’s way – and it sits well doesn’t it? We know it’s right. The truth, the truth inevitably rests well in our hearts – because that’s where it belongs.

What Are You Looking For?

So – next week on the program we’re going to start having a good look at what it means to actually flourish in the house of the Lord. To grow, to develop, to mature.

But before we can do that – we have to ask ourselves a question – and answer it honestly. Answer it with brutal honesty. And that question is this:

What are we looking for in a church? Come on – what are you looking for? What am I looking for?

Are we looking for the perfect church? Now – most people would say “No – there’s no such thing as a perfect church”. But deep down – let me ask again what are we looking for – are we looking for the perfect church? You know – one of the things I’ve noticed these days, is that the wealthier a country becomes, the more it strives for perfection. The perfect cup of coffee in the perfect café. The perfect child with the perfect education. We think that money somehow can buy perfection.

But it can’t. I enjoy going out for coffee with my wife Jacqui – and there are several good cafés within easy walking and driving distance from my place. But the one that has the best food, is crowded and noisy. There’s another café where the tables are more spaced out – and the coffee’s great, but the food and the service leave something to be desired.

And then there’s another one where the people are really friendly, but it’s small and poky and the coffee’s not that great. There’s always something, isn’t there? Something to complain about. Something that offends this idea that we have that if we’re going out for a coffee, the whole experience should be perfect – and by that we mean it should perfectly fit my needs and my wants and my desires.

To be honest – I wonder sometimes whether without even realising it – I wonder if that isn’t the way we approach this thing we call church. Hmm? I was struck by this deep truth in a rather old–fashioned, quaint little poem that I stumbled across recently. Why don’t you have a listen with me:

I think that I shall never see, a church that’s all it’s meant to be
A Church whose members never stray beyond the straight and narrow way
A church that has no empty pews, whose pastor never has the blues
A church whose elders always speak, and none is proud and all are meek
Such perfect churches there may be, but none of them are known to me
But still we’ll work and pray and plan, to maker our church the best we can.

Have you ever stumbled across the absolutely perfect family, or the perfect café, or the perfect bank, or the perfect … no. Because each of those social units are made up of imperfect people like you and me.

So – seems to me – we can kid ourselves by poking fun at church – seeing its faults and problems, using those as excuses for pulling back.

Or – we can accept the reality – that we’re never going to stumble across the perfect church. Not in this life. But in that church – there’s someone who needs me, what I have to offer. And in that church – there’s someone who needs you – what you have to offer.

A word of encouragement, a friendship, a cup of coffee, a smile, a strong shoulder to lean on, some wisdom hard–learnt – whatever it is that God’s endowed us with – there’s someone in that church who needs what He’s given us.

Some people go to church as consumers, as spectators – almost as though they’re attending a concert. But I’m not sure that that’s what Jesus had in mind, when He said:

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:12–13)

My friend – let me ask you again – what are you looking for in church?

Church has its ups and downs. Sure it does. Anybody who’s ever been part of a church will know that. And so many people are just hanging in there. At best. But would it surprise you to know that God’s plan for your life – is for you to flourish in the house of the Lord? 

Community and Commitment

Have you noticed the more money people earn, the more choices we have – the more choices we have, the busier we are at work and with kids, and we get tired? And so these days, getting a sense of community going is really hard. There are lots of lonely people around the country and around the world and yet God has this plan for His family. God has a plan that His family should get together and be a family and that plan is called ‘church.’ Now, for a lot of people, church is a four–letter word. A lot of people are browned off with church. They’ve tried it, they’ve had enough. People are starting to write textbooks about this huge number of Bible believing Christians, who have decided they are not doing ‘church’ anymore. And for someone who hasn’t come to faith in Jesus Christ yet, the whole notion of church is old fashioned, out of date, and irrelevant. So church gets a lot of bad press. Yet God writes, Himself, in Psalm 68, verse 6, it says that, “God sets the lonely in families.” So God has a plan for His children, for His people to be a part of a family and that family, by and large, is called ‘church.’

Now our society is struggling with having a sense of community. Just out there every day in life, lots of people are struggling to connect with one another and a lot of people never do, a lot of people feel very lonely. And to tell you the truth, in a lot of quarters, the church is struggling as well, to create a sense of community. So often churches come up with programs, you know, they have this program for the youth and they do all these programs. It’s almost like you are going to McChurch, you know, it’s – two all–beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun – approach to Church, where you’re kind of ground through the mill.

Community is about relationships. Community is about, well, it’s organic, isn’t it? It’s naturally people getting on with one another, living with one another as a family, helping one another, compensating for one another. I was reading something that a man by the name of Malcolm Langford wrote. He’s a lawyer and a musician. He wrote this,

“I have a dream of a Christian community that when I entered, you were excited to see me. When I revealed my wounds, you held me close. When I lost my job, you paid my rent. When I needed a home, you became my family. When I followed billboards, you led me to the cross. When I ran after mini–loves, you opened my eyes to ‘The’ Lover. When I was self–absorbed, you taught me to love the broken. When I hurt others, you showed me the struggle for justice. When I destroyed everything, you helped me to create beauty. When I let you see my true self, you celebrated my journey and when one day heaven’s glories opened to call me home, I was torn.”

That’s a beautiful verse isn’t it? It’s a beautiful picture of what Christian community should look like.

But sadly a lot don’t. Sadly a lot of people who attend churches, with the right intention – the intention of worshipping God, the intention of hearing His Word proclaimed, the intention of being part of a family. Where they love and are loved, where they support and are supported, where they’re cared for and they care. People go to church with that intention, yet so many churches struggle in this area of community. After all, if a church isn’t a family, if a church doesn’t provide community, well, we might as well all just stay home and listen to sermons on the radio or CD. That’s great but it doesn’t help us to be a part of a family. I would strongly encourage you, if you are struggling with church; you hang in with us, this week on the program, because I believe that God wants us to flourish in the House of the Lord.”

Churches can do programs, they can do ministry activities, we can do that till we’re blue in the face and yet not build relationships and not have a sense of community. Community is the Holy Spirit stirring our hearts and moving our hands, you and me. And today in this message that I’ve called, “Flourishing in the House of the Lord,” the first in a four part series, we are going to look at three key impediments to that sense of community. We are going to name them, identify them and I pray, help remove them.

The first of those is the impediment of ‘commitment.’ When you think of a relationship, as a relationship between two people matures, it moves from being casual to ultimately becoming a relationship of commitment. Marriage is like that, boy meets girl, they are attracted to one another, they might date, they might stop dating, they might date again and progressively they go through a process of commitment, of becoming engaged, spending some time in engagement and then becoming married and the whole ‘marriage’ thing is supposed to be a life long commitment to one another. And as that commitment begins with marriage, so the relationship deepens and matures, that’s Gods plan. I know it doesn’t always work out that way. I know half of all marriages, almost, end in divorce, but that’s God’s plan of a mature relationship between a man and a woman, husband and wife.

In the New Testament, the word ‘church‘, well, there are two words for it. One is the Greek word “Ecclesia” Now, I don’t normally talk about Greek words, but this is important. One is the Greek word “Ecclesia”. It literally means – an assembly. I guess that’s what we do Sunday mornings or Sunday evenings, when the Church meets together. It’s the word that we get, “Ecclesiastical” from. The other word is “Koinonia”, it means – a fellowship, it comes from a group of words that have a root meaning of – to share something in common. You can do ‘ecclesia‘, you can meet together on Sunday morning as an assembly and have zero commitment, but you can’t do ‘koinonia’ church that is ‘fellowship ’church, without commitment being a foundation of the relationship. You might say, “Well, I’m committed to church, I think.”

Let’s have a read of what God says in Psalm 92, verses 12 to 14. If you’ve got a Bible, grab it and open it up. This is a great passage. He says this,

“The righteous flourish like a palm tree and a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the House of the Lord and they flourish in the courts of our God. In old age they still produce fruit, they are always green and full of sap, showing that the Lord is upright, He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” (Psalm 92: 12–14)

The plan for us is that we should be trees like the cedars of Lebanon and like palm trees, planted in the House of the Lord. The problem is that these days we want to be ‘pot plant’ Christians. We don’t want to put our roots down in the House of the Lord. We don’t want to be part of the fellowship. We want to say, “Well, I’m a Christian and I don’t need those other Christians. They’re a pain in the neck sometimes, so what I’ll be is, I will be a pot plant Christian. In my pot I’ll be protected, I won’t be hurt, I won’t be disillusioned.” Maybe you have been through that, in the past, in a church and you’ve had enough. The hurt has never gone and so you’ve put yourself in a pot instead of a forest. You put yourself in a pot instead of the House of the Lord, where we’re intended to flourish. You put a pot in the wind and it dries out, it blows over. Ultimately you put a pot out there in the weather and the chances are the tree will die. To flourish means to grow well, to thrive, to luxuriate, to be at a time of the highest productivity, and excellence or influence.

And my hunch is it’s not up to us to transplant ourselves from one church to another. You’ve probably heard of that term – going church shopping! Isaiah Chapter 61, verse 3, says that “we are trees of righteousness, the plantings of the Lord.” Where we are planted is God’s choice! 

Am I planted in the right place? Well, there are two answers to that question. What does God want and what do our feelings tell us, and frankly, sometimes they are different. Are we prepared to put the calling of the Holy Spirit above our feelings and say, “Lord, am I planted in the right place, have you got me in the right place?” If the answer is “Yes”, from God, then it’s time to get committed, but if the answer is “No”, we’d better find out where God wants to plant us and go there and be committed.

Pot–Bound Christians

We’re taking a look today at what it means to flourish in the House of the Lord. Flourish is such a wonderful word. Such an abundant word. And that’s God’s Word for what He wants for you and me – in His family, this thing we call “church”.

Now sometimes people who call themselves Christians, well, they’ve had enough of the “church” thing. Lots have, lots have left and yet still believe in Jesus Christ. Instead of being planted in the House of the Lord, they become pot plant Christians and when we’re pot bound (have you seen a tree or a plant that’s potbound?) You pull it out of its pot and its roots are all gnarled, sometimes you can’t even get it out of its pot. De–potting can be painful, sometimes you have to break the pot or prune the root–ball, but it’s necessary for the health of the tree.

Psalm 92 and in v 13 it says this,

“When they are planted in the House of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God.”

Have you ever been in an office building and seen some pot plants, and they are individual pot plants, but they are put in a container and they kind of put bark or stones over the top? And there’s this illusion that they are all in the one pot, but the reality is they’re still, (under the stones or gravel or the bark), they’re still in pots, separated from one another.

Let’s not kid ourselves! Am I pot bound, are you pot bound? Are we attending a church or being a part of a Christian fellowship and yet, still not putting our roots down, still not truly being a part of God’s plan? What’s my pot, what’s your pot? Is it maybe a past hurt, is it maybe a cultural thing, you don’t feel that you fit in with the other people? Have we become cynical, are we afraid of being hurt? I don’t feel like this or that, I feel out of place. There are so many reasons for being pot bound. But an amazing thing happens – when you take a plant out of a pot, maybe the plant is small and stunted, and you put it in the ground and you let its roots go down – deep into the ground, like an attitude of heart that we need to have, a deep attitude of heart – it gets strength, it grows. It does things it could never have done in the pot, it bears fruit. Now you might say to me, “But, Berni, I have been to a church or I go to a church – I just feel dead. In this so called fellowship, I feel like there are no connections, there’s no relationship.”

Have you ever seen a deciduous tree during winter? It looks dead, it just looks like a bunch of sticks that have died and yet in the season of winter, in that time of trial, cold, windy, blowing, that tree is storing up sap and getting ready to blossom in the spring. So often God calls people to a fellowship, calls them to a place and they transplant themselves before they bear fruit. In Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 13 and verse 6, flip there if you have a Bible. This is a parable, a story. Jesus told it. He said,

“A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard – that was an odd thing to do – and he came looking for fruit on it, and found none, so he said to the gardener, “See here, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree and I still haven’t found any, cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil”, and the gardener replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good but if not, you can cut it down.”

What the heck was a fig tree doing in a vineyard? The answer is, the owner planted it there!

Sometimes we feel a bit like a fig tree in a vineyard. Sometimes we look at the vines and they look at us – they’re growing grapes and we are growing figs and we think, “I don’t belong here.” Yet in this parable, it was clearly the owner’s choice where to plant the fig tree. And in God’s family, I believe that it is God’s choice where to plant the fig tree, you and me. “Oh, I feel this, I feel that! It’s hard!” The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. I don’t believe it is up to us to get up and go. Are we operating in the flesh or in the spirit? Are we following our feelings or following God? If the owner came looking for you where He planted you, would He find you? And would He find you bearing fruit, because a mature tree should be producing fruit.

It’s not a tree inspection. The owner doesn’t come and look at the bark, and the texture and the shape and the colour and the leaves. The owner was looking for fruit. God is the owner. God’s not interested in looks or feelings, God is interested in fruit and in the church, God wants it to be full of established trees, producing fruit. Flourishing in the courts of our God. Flourishing in the House of the Lord. Something is wrong if there’s no fruit. Maybe if you go to God and you pray about it, maybe God will tell you, “I think you are in the wrong Church, I’d like you over here, or over there.” Now, my hunch is that’s in the minority, vastly in the minority, because there is no perfect church. But if you feel that God is saying to you, “I’ve got somewhere else for you to go, there’s a new fellowship, a new thing that I’m doing, get up and go.” But if God comes back to you when you pray about this and says, “No, you’re in the right place!” Well, maybe it’s time to say, ’Well, God, if I’m in the right place, if this is were you want me to be planted, even though I’m a fig tree and they’re all grape vines, I’m going break that pot. I’m going to get committed; I’m going to put my roots down in the House of the Lord. That’s the first major impediment, is a lack of commitment.

The second one is being judgmental. Flip in your Bible again to Matthew, Chapter 7, verses 1 to 5. You may have heard me speak about these verses before in a different context. Here Jesus says,

“Do not judge so that you may not be judged, for with the judgment that you make, you will be judged and the measure that you give, you’ll be measured. Why do you see the speck in your neighbours eye, but you don’t notice the log in your own? Or how can you say to your neighbour, “Come here, let me take the speck out of your eye,” while a log is in your own eye? You hypocrite! First, take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye.”

We love to judge other people, especially if we are a fig tree and they are grapevines. We love to condemn and backstab and gossip – people do. “I can’t believe what Mary did the other day. I don’t mean to gossip, but! I would never have done it that way.” How often do you sit down with people who say, “I am a Christ follower,” and hear them use language like that about other people? That is judgmental. Jesus said, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.”

I used to be in bondage to this. I used to have a saying before I came to Christ. ‘It’s so hard to soar like an eagle, when you are surrounded by turkeys.’ I was critical, I used to get so frustrated and it was ruining my life. I remember my wife, when we were first married, when she washed her hands, she would never wipe the sink down, and it used to drive me nuts, because I grew up in a house where we learned to wipe the sink down. Does that make me better than her? Absolutely not, she just doesn’t wipe the sink down when she has washed her hands, and it was ruining our relationship. It’s the little foxes that spoil the vine, and the same is true inside a church.

Let’s get a revelation here. I have enough of my own sins that God is working through with me, without being in bondage to your sins. Let me tell you, you have enough of your own without being in bondage to my sins or the sins of the people in your church and we get in bondage to other people’s sins when we judge them, because it drives us nuts. Because we focus on the things they are doing wrong, and when we become judgmental, it tears the family apart, just like it does brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. There’s no perfect church. If there was and I went to it, it wouldn’t be perfect any more. There are no perfect people. It is an absolute given, that if we say, “ Hang on a minute, God has called me to this church, He has called me to this place, I’m going to break the pot, I’m going to go… “ If we put our roots down we will experience, first hand, the sins of others. That’s the nature of the beast. We need to stop fighting that – come on! We have strengths and weaknesses, and the next person in the church has strengths and weaknesses, and if I am going to be a godly Christian, Spirit–filled , committed brother in the body of Christ, will I accept the responsibility of saying to my brothers and my sisters, “I’ll love you even when you fail me.” How about it, will we?

It’s Not that Hard Really

Today we are looking at the fact that so often, we come to the church with a lack of commitment. We come to God’s family with a lack of commitment and a sense of judgment and we wonder why this whole ‘church’ thing doesn’t feel like a community. Isn’t it easy to go to a family, to a church and expect to be served rather than to be one of the servants? I’ve heard that term “church shopping’ so many times. It‘s not about being a consumer. It’s not about saying, “What’s the best for me?” For me, the only reason that I should be a part of this church, rather than that church, is that God has called me to be in this church. Well, it’s all well and good, to talk about trees and roots and pots and figs and grapes, but exactly how do we do this?

Romans Chapter 12, verse 2 says this.

Be not conformed to the ways of this world.

Can I take ’world’ out and stick ’church’ in for a minute? “Be not conformed to the ways of this church.” Sometimes in our churches, sometimes in our families, we’re dysfunctional. The grapevines are screaming at the fig trees, “Be a grape vine!” The fig trees are screaming at the grapevines, “Be a fig tree!” Yet God’s Word teaches us we are all different, and complimentary. Me, I’m not someone for having lots of people around all the time; I prefer to be on my own a little bit more. I’ve had some dysfunction in my family. I’ve been through divorce. I’ve spent some time thinking about that and my motivation is to proclaim God’s Word to you, just as I am right now. So I bring gifts and weaknesses to the table, that you don’t, and you, you bring gifts and weaknesses to the table, that I could never bring. If we can only be who we are and open ourselves to the Holy Spirit, to work out His love in us, what a wonderful place church would be.

Yes, grow, yes, become mature, yes, become holy, but don’t try to bear grapes if you are a fig tree. Be big, sweet, succulent, juicy figs, whatever the grapevines happen to think about – spiritualise this stuff sometimes, but there are so many little things that you and I can do to exercise our giftings, in our church. To put our roots down, to share the goodness of God in our lives, with other people. I remember when I first went to church, there was a man called Peter, and he looked like a big sea captain, with a grey beard, you know, just like straight out of central casting, and if Peter hadn’t come and shaken my hand, you know, I was scared going to a church. It wasn’t what I wanted to do. If he hadn’t come and shaken my hand and done that little thing and served me, I don’t know if I would have gone back the next Sunday. I don’t know if I would be here with you now.

Or sometimes we see someone when we go there on Sunday morning, and think, “I don’t know, maybe they just need someone to lean on. Maybe I should invite them out for a cup of coffee during the week.” Maybe during the week you think about someone, maybe you could pick up the phone and call them. Can I suggest that it should be a priority for each one of us, to build at least one or two close friendships in the family of God? It’s the little things, the phone calls, the words of encouragement, the prayers. If you believe that God has planted you in this family, will you also believe that He will lead you to people for whom He has custom made your fruit? People who need to eat figs just like the ones you produce.

We need to be committed in order to flourish. We need to have the courage to stop judging. Set ourselves free from the weaknesses of other people, and we need to have practical acts of love going. It won’t always be convenient. The flesh won’t always like it and probably we’ll get hurt along the way, but will you be a part of this community for Christ’s sake? Will you go to the House of the Lord and flourish where God has planted you? “The righteous flourish like a palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon, they are planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God.”

Despite what some people think, church is NOT a spectator sport. If you belong to a church, you’re meant to be one of the players. And what I’ve observed over the years, is that there are too many – way too many people – who just want to sit on the sidelines, and pick faults with the players.

Eternal Results

Today on the program we’re continuing in our series called, “The problem with church is …” As God calls us into His family, as we become one of His children, what we discover is, we have brothers and sisters in Christ, people who are our family, our brothers and sisters. Now being part of a family can be difficult. Being part of a family can, frankly, be a pain in the neck, some days, but it’s part of God’s plan. Part of God’s plan is that we should be together as His family. That plan we call ‘church’. For some people, that sends a shiver down their spine. But it is a part of God’s plan, and if it is God’s plan, then I truly believe that we are meant to flourish when we are planted in the House of the Lord.

One of the reasons that we don’t flourish sometimes, is that we get tied up in ‘doing’ a whole bunch of things that never actually impact people. I’m a great fan of the British comedy series – I don’t know if you have ever watched it – called, “Yes Minister” and ”Yes Prime Minister”. One of the funniest series that has ever been on television since television was invented, and a senior public servant, by the name of Sir Humphrey Appleby, says to a junior public servant, called Bernard, he says, “Remember, Bernard, politicians love activity, it’s their substitute for achievement.” That’s a fantastic line, isn’t it? 

Activity is their substitute for achievement – can I maybe twist that line around a little bit and say, “Remember, Bernard, Christians love activity, it’s their substitute for achievement.” 

What can happen in God’s family, in God’s church, is that we all race around doing different things, and being busy, and being involved in this and that and the other, and we think, “wow, we’ve done a good job”. But the only real measure, the only true measure of the effectiveness of a church is eternal results.

Have you ever been on a sporting team that always loses? I have! When I was in the Army, a Cadet in the Royal Military College, Duntroon, our Officer Training Academy, I was a part of the bottom rung of football, and we didn‘t win one game the whole season. It’s cold, it’s wet, it’s sleeting, it hurts, to be tackled, it’s muddy, it’s dirty, you don’t win a single game. Let me tell you, it is not a lot of fun being part of a losing team. Yet a lot of Christians are exactly that in their churches.

Are we actually involved in the business of winning, maturing and discipling souls for Jesus Christ? Are the nets of our church straining under the weight of the catch, or are we just a dysfunctional family, going nowhere? Has activity become our substitute for achievement? Has activity become my substitute for achievement? Because Jesus said to His disciples, “I am going to make you fishers of men.” If you’ve got a Bible, grab it, open it up at John, Chapter 21. The other place we’re going today is Luke Chapter 4 and 5 but we’re going to begin in John, Chapter 21. The picture here is, Jesus has been crucified, He has risen again. This is the third time that Jesus appears to His disciples. They are out fishing. They have gone from Jerusalem, about 120 kilometres north, back to Galilee, they are on the Sea of Tiberius, and they’re out fishing. They have been out fishing all night, and no catch, and a man calls out from the shore and says, ”Throw out the nets on the other side,” and all of a sudden, they recognise that. They recognise that because it reminds them of something. Let’s have a quick read of this passage in John Chapter 21:1–8. 

After these things, Jesus showed Himself again to the disciples on the Sea of Tiberius, and He showed Himself in this way. Gathered together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathaniel of Canaan in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee and two others of His disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I’m going fishing,” they said, “Well, we’ll come with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught absolutely nothing. Just after day break, Jesus stood on the beach but the disciples didn’t know it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Guys, why haven’t you got any fish? And they answered Him, “We didn’t catch any.” and He said to them,” Listen cast the net on the other side of the boat and you will find some.” So they did, and now they weren’t able to haul it in because there were so many fish. The disciple whom Jesus loved, said to Peter, “That’s the Lord,” and when Simon Peter heard that, he put on some clothes, because he was naked, and he jumped into the sea but the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net, full of fish, because they were not far from the land, only about one hundred yards. (John 21:1–8) 

So the crucifixion which was a horrible time, Jesus has risen again, He appears to His disciples, who have fled out of Jerusalem, north back to Galilee. They are out doing, what? They are doing what they always did before they met Jesus, they were fishermen. They have gone back to work, the party is over, Jesus was crucified. People were after them because they were following Jesus. That’s it, they are fishing and all of a sudden Jesus comes and they recognise Him because they’ve had this experience once before. Flick back to Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 5:1–10

Once while Jesus was standing beside the Lake of Gennesaret and the crowd was pressing in on Him to hear the Word of God. He saw two boats there at the shore of the Lake and the fishermen had gone out in them and they were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon.

So this is three and a half years before the instance in John Chapter 21, we talked about. This is the first time Simon Peter meets Jesus.

So they go out in Simon Peter’s boat, and Jesus sits down in the boat and from the water, teaches the crowds and when that’s done, He says to Simon, “Listen, let’s push out into the deep water and let down the nets,” and Simon answers, “Master, we’ve worked all night long but we haven’t caught a thing, well, if you say so, I’ll let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were about to break, so they signalled to their partners in the other boats to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw this, he fell down at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me Lord, because I am a sinful man.” For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid, from now on you’ll be catching people.” When they’d brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed Jesus.”

I love this story because it begins with Jesus having to go out in the boat, there was so many people, He can’t talk to them on the land. He goes out on the boat and it says, the crowd was pressing in on Him to hear the Word of God. Let me ask you, in your family, in your church, where you go, is the crowd pressing the doors down to hear the Word of God? Tell, you what, there are a lot of churches where that’s not happening. There are a lot of churches where people are walking in with bored faces, they’re singing songs with bored faces and they are walking out of there with bored faces. I love this, the crowds had seen the wonderful things Jesus had done, and they were pressing in on Him to hear the Word of God, because He talked with authority, He healed people, His reputation had spread, He had rock–star status. Wow, what if people came to our churches and were healed like that? What if people came to our fellowship and wanted to hear more? What if they were astounded? What if they said, “WOW, this stuff really rings true? Powerful authoritative proclamation of the truth, healing and deliverance. That’s the stuff that makes God’s love real in people’s lives; it’s the stuff that makes people hungry for God’s Word. Is it happening in your fellowship? Are you flourishing in the House of the Lord? Or is this some kind of boring thing that happens and you go every Sunday, you don’t know exactly why you do, but you do out of habit?

Simon Peter and the team had been fishing all night, they came back, they were tired, they were unhappy, they were labouring, it’s hard work. There was no machinery, they might have had some ropes and pullies, but that’s about it. They worked all night and they caught nothing. Tired, unhappy, then a carpenter comes along! A carpenter, not a fisherman, a carpenter, and says, “Let’s push out, let’s take our nets out.” Now these nets aren’t like the nets that you and I might understand, they’re more like thick cheesecloth. They were for night fishing, they weren’t for day fishing. Now if you or I had been like Simon Peter, tired, exhausted, dejected, would we have pushed out? I think when this carpenter gets on our boat, there are three possibilities. Three reactions we can have. The first one is, “You stupid carpenter, what do you know, you’re not a fisherman, and we say, “No we’re not going out, we’re just going to go out again tomorrow night the way we always do and catch fish.” The second response would be so dejected, to say, “No, look, I’m tired, I’m giving up, I’m not doing this anymore. Every night we go out there, we don’t catch any fish. I’m sick of fishing; I’m going to hire someone else to do this.” The third option is to do exactly what Jesus asks.

Saying Yes to Jesus

If you’ve spent any time listening to these programs over the years, you’ll know that I believe in calling a spade a spade, when it comes to some of the failings of the wider church in society today. But here’s the thing – we can examine it. we can criticise it, we can genuinely try to come up with a better approach, or to address some of the endemic weaknesses. 

But at some point – at some point – are we going to do something about it? Are we going to sit on the sideline and criticise it, or are we going to get into the game, and become part of the solution to the problems we see? It’s one thing to be honest and direct about problems in our churches. That’s good. That’s healthy. But it’s another thing entirely to spend a lifetime whinging and complaining about this thing called church as though it’s our role somehow to be judge, jury and executioner when it comes to the church.

Jesus said “I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it”. It’s His idea – and I for one, don’t think it’s such a good idea to rail against His plan and His idea and His purposes – do you? As we saw before the break, there are so many well–meaning people in the boat, trying to catch fish, labouring hard, toiling until they’re exhausted, but for all intents and purposes having no real impact in the lives of people.

That’s the problem with many a church. Truly! Well, we are on the boat, and it seems to me that we have three options when this Carpenter from Nazareth comes and says, “Throw your nets in on the other side.” 

We can call him a crazy carpenter – what would He know, He’s a carpenter, not a fisherman, we know how to do church here in our suburb or town! That’s the first option.

Or – we can give up in despair and hire experts to do the work for us. After all, this is hard work this being a fisher of men. No, let’s hire a pastor and an associate pastor – and pay them. It’s their job, not ours!

And then – then there’s the third option. The third option is the one I’d like to look at now. These disciples, if we flick back to John Chapter 21, had been to hell and back. They had seen Jesus crucified, they had seen Him die. They had lost all their hopes, their dreams, their own lives were threatened, they fled back up here to Galilee. They went back to work as fishermen, they’re on the boat, they didn’t catch any fish last night. Talk about a bunch of losers! These people were condemned, they were failures. They kind of knew that Jesus was resurrected, He was alive again but they still weren’t sure. They still didn’t get it and Jesus comes along and gives them a catch and they recognise Him. They race back to shore. What happens next?

Have a look in John, Chapter 21 verse 9.

“When they came back to shore, they saw a charcoal fire there with fish on it and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you’ve caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish. A hundred and fifty–three of them and although there were so many the net wasn’t torn, and Jesus said to them, “come and have breakfast.” Now, none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you,” because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time Jesus had appeared to His disciples.”

They are tired, they are hungry, they’re dejected and there’s nothing like getting off the boat and sitting down having a barbecue with Jesus, and letting Jesus feed you. Imagine how that felt for them. Imagine the sense of wonder and awe, and joy, at sitting down on the beach, eating with Jesus. Let’s be candid and honest here. The nets of many churches simply are not bursting with the catch. Some of the things we’ve talked about here may apply to you, they may apply to your church and probably some of us are feeling kind of condemned and hopeless. We know we should be catching fish, we know we should be making real differences in peoples lives but I’m not flourishing, we are not flourishing, something is wrong. I feel so condemned and Jesus comes along and you are feeling condemned and says, “Hang on a minute, have a rest, come and have breakfast. Let Me feed you. Have some fish, have some bread. Sit down with Me and have a yarn.”

There is NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Just when you are feeling down, just when you are feeling condemned, Jesus helps you. Jesus invites you to a barbecue. Jesus feeds you, then He picks the least faithful one, Peter, who denied Him three times, who said. “I don’t know Jesus,” when Jesus needed him the most, and three times He now asks Peter to do something. When they’d finish breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” and Simon Peter said, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you,” and Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” Second time He said to him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me,” and Simon said, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you,” and Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” and Peter felt so hurt, because He said for the third time, “Do you love me?” and Simon Peter said, “Of course you know, you know everything, you know that I love you,” and Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.”

Three times Peter denied Jesus, three times Jesus gave him an opportunity, an act of friendship. He said, “Go and feed my sheep.” I don’t know about you – but what I hear Jesus saying to me right now through this story, is this” “Church, do you love me? Feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep, do my work. Not the works of your hand, not the programs that you’ve got planned, not the things that you think. Do my work, follow me, flourish with me, be prepared to lay down every last little bit and do it my way.” How will you react when the carpenter gets in the boat with you? Stupid carpenter, give up completely, hire experts, or is your heart saying, “Yes”, is there a spark of love and friendship in your heart that says, “Lord I will lay aside all that I hold sacred at your feet. I’ll do it your way, so that your catch will be huge.” God has a plan. God’s plan is that you and I will flourish in the House of the Lord. He never promises it would be perfect. Or that it would be easy. Just that it would work.

Which Church is for Me?

One of the biggest questions for any Christian to answer for themselves is – which church should I belong to? These days there are so many choices. And on the surface, some appear incredibly contemporary and attractive. But choosing a church is more than evaluating the options and picking the best one. There’s something else …

The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God. (Psalm 92:12–13)

Beautiful Psalm is Psalm 92. Worth reading. But those two verses in particular really touch me. They speak of God taking His people – the righteous – and seeing them flourish. Flourish is a word of abundance, isn’t it? You don’t see a plant only just flourishing. A plant that’s only just hanging in there isn’t one that’s said to be flourishing. No – it’s the strong, healthy, green, growing plant – the one that’s thriving, the one that’s being all that it can be, bearing stunning, rich fruit in season – that’s the one that’s said to be flourishing.

And that’s the picture that God’s giving us of what He wants for us when we’re planted in His house. The House of the Lord. The thing we these days call … church. And whilst I think that all of the things we’ve talked about these past few weeks – things that we should be looking for in a church – whilst all of those are incredibly important … the danger is that if we focus on just those things … the danger is that we approach church like a bunch of consumers.

All that matters is what’s in it for me. What can I get out of this church, as compared to that one? Do you understand what I’m saying? You and I – we can’t approach God’s community with a selfish, what’s in it for me attitude alone, because if we do, we’ll never be satisfied.

This church here is a bit dead. There isn’t much of a sense of community. There aren’t many loving relationships. Man – that guy who gets up and preaches each Sunday – he just bores your socks off. Can’t possibly flourish in this place. But – what if God wants to bring you into that church or me into that church, because He’s up to something new. What if He wants to bring us into that church to be part of the solution to the problems that He sees going on in that place?

What if God has a plan in that place that no man or no woman yet knows about, to do a new work, to reach some different people, to heal some hurts, to confront some evil, to do whatever it is that He plans to do there … and He’s calling us to walk into that battle with Him and for Him? Then what?

Just after I became a Christian, I became part of a wonderful little church and I joined a home fellowship group. Now this group of people were studying the book of Hosea at the time I joined them – one of the minor Prophets in the Old Testament. And here’s the thing about Hosea. God calls him to marry a prostitute who has children by other men. And then, when she’s unfaithful to him, God calls him to take her back.

I can’t imagine the pain that God’s call placed into Hosea’s life. Can’t begin to imagine. And you know something, I have to wonder … what was God thinking? I’m sure that went through Hosea’s mind on more than one occasion. But this relationship, this marriage, was a symbol of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God, and God used it in the Prophet’s life to help him to speak with conviction to Israel about their unfaithfulness to God.

God had a plan and a purpose for His glory and for His people that went way beyond Hosea’s comfort and needs. He called this man Hosea to suffer real and terrible pain, the excruciating pain of an unfaithful wife – for God’s glory.

In other words – it’s not always about you and me. It’s not always about our comfort and our needs being met. Sometimes God will call us into a place that just doesn’t make sense.

Now – I’ve persevered in churches – some where perhaps I should have left earlier. There was one church that I was part of where attitudes towards sexual immorality amongst the church leadership were wrong. There were people in key ministry positions who were living with members of the opposite sex without being married.

You might call me old fashioned. But that’s one of the things – one of the very few things actually – that God says – don’t do! And you know something, whilst that was going on in the ministry team, whilst that was being tolerated by the leadership – there’s no way that God is going to bless that church. There’s no way that it’s going to honour and glorify God and go forward in a powerful way.

Eventually – even though my heart was to stay in that church and make a difference, I left. And there have been times in my life where I’ve been in church wilderness, not knowing precisely where God wants me.

I truly believe that God does want our needs met. That’s one part of flourishing in the house of the Lord. But the flip side of that coin, the side that’s about taking up our cross and following Jesus – that involves sacrifice. And the one thing I’ve discovered in my Christian walk is that in order for me to flourish, I need pruning. We can’t flourish without sacrifice either. So – whilst all those things we’ve talked about are incredibly important in evaluating what’s going on in a church, the number one reason for me to belong to one particular church rather than all the others I have to choose from, is this:

I want to be where God wants me to be, no matter what the cost. The tree doesn’t plant itself, it is planted. And the one who plants is God. And if He plants you over in that corner of His house and me over in another corner – let that be His sovereign choice, that we honour, because we love Him.

It won’t always make sense. It may never make sense. But once He tells us where – once we know deep in our hearts where He wants us, you know something? That’s where we belong!