Harbor Church - Mid City

Spiritually Healthy Lives—Church Col. 3: 8-17 Mid-City Jan. 31 2010

We’re in a series looking at the ingredients that make up a spiritually healthy life. This week we’re going to talk about the importance of a local church. We’re in CA and I hear this all the time—church for me is in nature. That is where I experience God. I am with you in this regard. I love nature and I experience God so profoundly in nature, but nature isn’t church. And without a church, your spiritual health, according to Jesus, is in serious jeopardy.

81% of Americans disagree with Jesus on this. They think that you can have a flourishing spiritual relationship with God and not be connected at all with a church. See the vast majority of Americans believe that the church is irrelevant for them spiritually. In fact, many that I talk to here in San Diego see the church as not only irrelevant, but harmful for any number of reasons. Here are some of the reasons that people check out from church--it institutionalizes something beautiful and I like an organic spirituality. The church oppresses women. The church is homophobic. I could go on and on b/c I hear these criticisms all the time. I don’t even won’t to refute any of these claims b/c you could find a church today where one of the criticisms you mentioned is alive and well. I concede.

But I believe in the church, and I am willing to give my life for her. In fact, St. Augustine put it well for me. Well, at least he is reputed to have said thi. He said, “The church is a whore, but she is my mother.” Yes, lots and lots of horrible things have been done and will be done by the church. Why? B/c the church is a whore. I said this recently when I said that all of us are prostitutes. We give ourselves to other gods and result isn’t good. But the good news is that Jesus has a great love for whores and prostitutes and he is committed to bringing together a group of whores and prostitutes into something he calls the church. And he said this—listen well—I will use a church filled with whores and prostitues to shatter the gates of hell. (Mt. 16:18 if you don’t believe me). So, this morning, despite my acute awareness of all the problems in the church, I am going to share with you this morning why the church is absolutely essential for your spiritual health. We’re not going to finish this—part 2 of why you need a local church for spiritual health is coming next week. I get a little fiery when I start talking about the church, can’t get it all in in one week.

1. You need the church to avoid the isms

What are the isms. Racism, Classism, Sectarianism.. I could go on—those are just the ists that Paul mentions. He mentions them in v11, but before we get to v11 let me back up. We have gone through this text frontwards in week 1, backwards in week 2, and this week we’ll go sideways. No, but we’re going to look at the guts of the text which we haven’t talked much about.

V10 he describes the collective new self, which is the new self collectively. He is talking about the church. And in v11 he says In the church, there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”

The church is what keeps you from being an ist. First ism—in the church, there should be no racism. Greeks and Jews was the primary racial barrier of Paul’s day. They didn’t eat together, socialize together, worship together. Intermarriage was forbidden. And yet Paul says not so in the church. In the city, race is all and is in all you do; in the church, Christ is all and is in all you do.

But let’s be honest--the church has done a really poor job of working this out. You heard me quote from a recent CNN article that less than 5% of American churches are racially integrated and half of those are becoming segregated. So huge numbers of people have just given up on the church—so hypocritical, so judgmental, looks so little like what it should look like.

If anyone should have, Marting Luther King should have given up on the church. He was fighting the Jew/Greek problem of v11, only the racial distinction was black white. Think about how bad things were in the church when he wrote Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Here you have an African-American preacher who is standing up for the rights of the oppressed through nonviolent civil disobedience and he receives a letter from 8 white pastors in the Birmingham area. Not only was the segregated white church in Birmingham not coming to his aid, but they were calling King to repent. But, unlike most skeptics today, King didn’t ditch the church. Listen to what he said in Letters from a Birmingham Jail, “I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions.

“"I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church…Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated."

See MLK didn’t abandon the local church. He was a pastor, rooted and grounded in the local church. His solution wasn’t too give up on the church. No, he called the church to really be the church, where Christ is all, and is in all. He called the church to be a thermostat that adjusts the racial climate, not a thermometer that simply measures it. Oh, that we at Harbor Mid-City would become so Jesus-intoxicated that we would be a colony of heaven here on earth, a church where Christ is all, and is in all.

2nd ism in v11: sectarianism. V11 “There is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised.” Circumcision was the primary religious or sectarian distinction of the day. See there were debates about whether Jewish followers of Jesus had to be circumcised or not because in the Old Testament this is how the people of God identified themselves—much as we think of baptism in our day. In the New Testament, they are living between the shift between the Old Covenant and New Covenant where circumcision was being replaced by baptism. So, understandably, lots of Jews who were following Jesus were confused, and many started to segregate based on circumcision. Paul says, “No you don’t—in the church, Christ is all, and is in all.”

See the same thing popped up in the Galatian church and Paul cut it off. Pardon the pun there. Listen to Gal. 5:6: For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Or in case they missed it he says it again in Gal. 6:15, “ Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation.”

Unfortunately, as time has progressed, we continued the circumcision debate to all sorts of other areas. Consubstantiation vs. trans-substantiation; Calvinism vs Arminianism; egalitarian vs complementarian; pre/post/a millennialist, paedobaptist vs credobaptist. and we could go on and on because the Protestant Church will divide over whether we should all wear suits to church or not.

Now some of you are probably thinking—Stephen it sounds like you are arguing against the local church. That we get in these local churches and we get so caught up in petty doctrinal distinctive that we end up hating the Baptists or Methodists or whoever rather than loving them. No. That is precisely not what I am saying. Here is why you need the local church from a theological perspective. If you don’t have a local church, you are in danger of becoming theologically arrogant—an ism.

Why? B/c you never have to submit to anyone else. Eph. 5:21 says, 21Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” If you don’t have a local church, you are a denomination of one and you submit to no one. It is literally “Just Jesus and You.” You are the sole arbiter of truth. And Jesus never supports a “Just Jesus and Me approach.” He is always and forever bringing you into “His body.” I Cor. 12, Eph. 5. Think about all the Biblical metaphors—a body with many parts, a family, a flock, a community, a church. And if it isn’t “Just Jesus & You,” then you have to learn to be civic and gracious to people who have radically different theological convictions than you because they are in your church. They aren’t just over there.

Look at the flow of the text. v12-14 says, “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other. Forgive whatever grievances (whatever grievance—even if they are a amillenialist)you may have against one another and v14 and over all these virtues, put on love, which binds them together in perfect unity.” See a local church gives you the great gift of learning to love people who are theologically different b/c Paul assumes that they will be in your midst and you will have to bear with each other.

I see this happening at Harbor Mid-City and I smile. This is the most theologically diverse church I have ever stepped foot in and I absolutely love it that way. From our inception, we have had skeptics, agnostics, and the lot woven into the fabric of who we are. And we’re all better for it. Moreover, among those of you who are followers of Jesus, we have just about every denomination you could imagine represented. There is even a huge theological diversity on our staff. In fact, one day Brewster was joking with me and said, “You realize that you might just be the only Presbyterian in our church.” And I smiled and just knew that Jesus was at work bringing the kingdom and not a sect. So, you need a local church to keep from becoming an arrogant sectarianist. But let me add another one.

3rd and Final ism: classism. V11 “Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, Barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all.” Greeks viewed all those who didn’t speak Greek as uncivilized barbarians and would call them such. Scythians were the cavemen of barbarians —the lowest of the low and they were a part of the slave class. So here you have a socioeconomic barrier that was dividing the city. You had illiterate barbarians and Scythians who were slaves and grunted like cavemen and you had free Jews and free Greeks, both of whom had nothing to do with the barbarians or Scythians. And Paul says—uh, uh, not in the church. In the church, you’ll bridge cultures. Out there you let class divide you, but not in the church—here Christ is all.

Yet far too often the church mirrors the city. A friend of mine is skeptical about church, though he hasn’t spent much time there, especially post-college. He said, “I have been a few times in my life. When I did, we ended up at this really rich church. Everyone in the church seemed intent on showing off their wardrobes. It was like a fashion contest. And they were all just praising Jesus that he had blessed them with a red BMW.”

Not knowing or wanting to know what church he went to, I said, “What you went to probably felt more like a religious country club, didn’t it.” He nodded. See country clubs are formed along socioeconomic lines—churches are not. In the church, Christ is all, and Christ is in all. See my skeptical friend needed to see a church being the church. He didn’t know much, but he knew enough to know something was amiss.

But it isn’t just that skeptics need to see the church being the church where Christ is all (not socioeconomic status), but everyone of you who are followers of Jesus need a local church like where Christ is all (not class). Why? James 2:5, “Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?” The poor have a gift to offer the rich—they are rich in faith. And if the rich are not in relationship with the poor, then they are robbing themselves of this gift. So many of us miss this gift b/c we aren’t in a church with the poor.

For instance, in Luke 16 Jesus tells the story of Lazarus (the poor beggar) right outside the rich man’s house. The rich man walled himself off from the poor. He lived in an affluent world and only stepped over the poor on his way to work outside his gates. Each day he missed the gift of interacting with Lazarus who had a living and active faith b/c he wasn’t in relationship with him. See they needed to be in church together—they needed to be family members.

Let me tell you another similar story. In 1971, a film was made by two Londoners. They began to film street people. The film captured the daily rituals of the homeless—their trials and joys. Some were drunk, others mentally disturbed. Some were articulate and others unintelligible. One of England's leading composers, Gavin Bryars, agreed to help with the audio aspects of the film. Bryars learned that one particular beggar did not drink or socialize with others. The old man was alone, filthy, homeless, but he also had a sunny demeanor. What During his work, he became aware of a constant undercurrent of sound that appeared whenever this one certain homeless man was filmed. At first, the sound seemed like muttered gibberish. But after removing the background noise, Bryars discovered the old man was singing.

He would for hours sing the same thing over and over. The man's weak voice was untrained, but it never wavered from pitch. He repeated the simple phrases of the song over and over. Bryars, who wasn’t a follower of Jesus, was moved and produced a musical accompaniment to the song:

Here is what he sang:

Jesus' blood never failed me yet
Never failed me yet
Jesus' blood never failed me yet
There's one thing I know
For he loves me so.

Interestingly enough, the band Jars of Clay heard this song. Listen to what they wrote, “We originally heard this song on a Gavin Bryars recording. It was a 72 minute loop of a homeless man singing this simple chorus over and over. The power of Gavin's recording is a testimony to one of this world's most profound and sacredmysteries... though they suffer... they have joy.

See Bryars needed this homeless man who was rich in faith. But in reality he needed more than to just make a film about him. What he needed was to be in the same church together, doing life. See that is Christ’s intent—where neither Barbarian, Scythian, slave or free are separated—but where Christ is all and is in all.

We all need a local church like this—may we make Harbor Mid-City so by making Christ all and in all that we do.

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