I spoke in chapel two weeks ago. Here’s what I said….
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Let me tell you a story.
Once upon a time in a faraway land called Israel, some Crusaders built a church and called it St. Anne’s. The building they built was beautiful and perfectly symmetrical. They failed, however, to pay close attention to the details of the building. The columns on one side of the building had different capitals than the columns on the opposite side, and the designs on the windows didn’t match the windows next to them. In short, it was an imperfect building. But the shape of the building makes some of the most beautiful acoustics known to man; it has a way of multiplying the singers’ voices so it sounds like the angels have joined in the praise.
Hebrews 12 says when we come to church we are coming to a joyful assembly that includes the angels in Heaven. It really doesn’t seem that way. Last time I was at church, I didn’t hear any angels.
I spent quite some time being angry at God for the problems in my church. One night, after venting to one of my friends about my anger and bitterness, he told me to read psalm 73. The psalmist in psalm 73 pours out his complaint against the prosperousness of the wicked. The turning point for him is when he enters the sanctuary of the Lord and ponders the true destiny of both the wicked and the righteous. The psalmist realized that the treasure of the temple was not its gold, but the presence of God himself. But when I enter the sanctuary of the Lord, I don’t see God. I see his people.
Have you ever been angry when you go to church? Have you cried because of how your church has hurt you? Have you been suffering and let down by a church that hardly knows your name? When you go to church, do you see the people and miss the treasure?
Me too. If you grew up in a 100% perfect church, turn to the person next to you and ask them to check your pulse. You’re in Heaven…or just really oblivious, and need to get to know your church better!
Believe it or not, you are a part of two churches. There is the church in your community that you attend—church with a little “c”—and the Church universal, Christ’s body—Church with a big “C”. I think I find it really easy to love the “big C” Church, but really struggle to love my “little c” church. There are many times that I have deeply commiserated with Jeremiah and Isaiah and their call to love a people who would not love them in return, and to speak to people who would not always listen. Does it sometimes feel like you give and give to your church without receiving anything in return?
I’ve wrestled with this a lot since I left home. How do I find my part in the “big C” church by serving my “little c” church? How do I love broken people who are so difficult to love? Why doesn’t anyone notice my needs or validate my calling? Why do churches fight, and wound, and split?
I haven’t found an answer to every question, but I do know this: we are engaged in a battle. I don’t know if you all are aware, but Covenant College is training you to fight a war. And this war may be fought in Africa or in the White House, but it is most commonly fought every Sunday morning at 10:00 when you go to church. Satan attacks relationships. He attacks them any way he can. He wants you to be hurt by your church. He loves to cause division. He wants you to curl inward and serve yourselves. And he’s getting somewhere—the Church is struggling. Only a hundred years ago The Netherlands, now one of the most pagan nations, was home to Abraham Kuyper. The light of the church is flickering in the US. Someone finally has to stand and fight, to say, “NOT HERE. Not on my watch.”
I’m super-pragmatic, and I hate it when speakers give a lot of directives without any practical way of following them. So what does it mean to stand watch, to guard your church from the Devil?
- Be faithful. You can’t love people you hardly know. You will make no impact unless you are faithful. Dig beneath the surface and really seek to be involved in the lives of those you are loving. Show up to one church regularly—this also models submitting to the accountability of the church.
- Be quiet. You do not need to judge. I was complaining to my friend Nate one time about how people in the church judge each other on superficial things. Nate gently asked me, “what can you do to change that?” I was surprised at his question, but it made me realize: “I need to stop judging, or else I’m just judging the people who are judging.” Don’t judge. Accept that people are broken and that God is at different stages of working in them.
- Speak truth. Although you don’t want to judge, the truth is so powerful. Don’t be afraid to speak the truth when God is calling you to do so. Follow God’s leading wholeheartedly and without fear.
- REPENT. And I say it again, REPENT. Nothing hinders the growth and ministry of the church like sin festering in the congregation. Your sin affects the big c and little c church. Cleanse your heart. Submit to accountability and radically fight sin.
- PRAY. Isaiah 62 says Because I love Zion, because my heart yearns for Jerusalem, I cannot remain silent. I will not stop praying for her until her righteousness shines like the dawn, and her salvation blazes like a burning torch. O Jerusalem, I have posted watchmen on your walls; they will pray to the LORD day and night for the fulfillment of his promises. Take no rest, all you who pray. Give the LORD no rest until he makes Jerusalem the object of praise throughout the earth. We need to be this faithful in pounding our fists against the door of Heaven and demanding that God keep his promises.
Finally, there is something about the church that transcends the people gathered every Sunday. We hold the light, but we are not the light. Because the Church is not about the people, we can be hurt and there can be division and the church can struggle, but it will not fail. The focus of the church is not itself or the community or anything but Christ. Cling to Christ.
We’re in a war. Things are not always going to be comfortable. But TAKE HEART. In Hosea 11, where God bemoans the faithlessness of his people, he still says, “someday the people will follow the LORD. I will roar like a lion, and my people will return trembling from the west.” God is doing the work of calling his people, and he is working amongst his church. As the hymn says, sometimes the darkness seems to hide him, but it is only hiding him. He is still there.
Maybe the Church is supposed to be messy and dirty and full of struggles; full of pain and sin and forgiveness, full of hurt and humiliation and brokenness; because the Church, rather than being something elevated and pure, is a fluid, moving organism that grows and struggles day to day. If the church is doing its job it will be full of sinners. It won’t be perfect. It hurts sometimes. But it is Christ’s.
Let me read you a story. [This is from Tales of the Restoration, by David and Karen Mains. The setting is a allegorical city which is ruled by the King, but is still struggling to understand what that means.]
At Play Plaza No. 9, the same angry scene greeted them. People shouting. Signs bobbing. Mud flying. Whap! Two opposing camps lined opposite sides of a street. Again, globs of mud hit the taxi windows.
The people shouted back and forth: “No, we’re the King’s people!” Whap! Whap!
To his amazement, Little Child saw another streetcleaner in the middle of the street. Like the first, he was pushing his broom, shoveling up tossed clumps of dirt, scooping it all into a bin in his cart and not saying a word. Wait, thought Little Child. Was this another streetcleaner, or was it the same man? It certainly looked like him. Same dungarees. Same flannel shirt. Same hardhat and boots. Could it be? How had he moved his cart through the streets to this place of conflict and arrived before the taxi?
Little Child watched the streetcleaner. He never shouted, he never threw back the clods of mud that hit him. A big man with an angry scowl stepped off the curb and shook his fist in the streetcleaner’s face. The streetcleaner said nothing, but looked long and silently at the giant of a man. Suddenly the accuser thrust his threatening fist into his pocket, backed off, turned, and ran out of the mob.
Who was this? Little Child wondered again. And as the crowd swirled around the taxi, he opened the door to get a better look. First he stood on the fender, rocking up and down, then he boosted himself higher onto the trunk.
A clod hit him in the back, but he scarcely noticed. From this height, he could clearly see the streetcleaner standing absolutely still. Mut hit the man’s cheek. At the impact his hardhat tubled to the street, and the man wiped blood from his eyes. Little Child gasped–they were putting stones in the mud! And then, then he could see the man’s hair, the gold glinting in the brown. Despite the turmoil of the people, the boy caught a full glimpse of the streetcleaner’s face.
At that, Little Child clambered from the taxi and pressed through the mob. “Make way. Make way.” He had to get closer. Without pausing to think, he stepped into the street beside the streetcleaner. He did know this man. Little Child fell at the man’s feet, tears blinding his eyes.
The streetcleaner stopped sweeping, rested his broom against the cart, and drew the boy to full stature. He looked quietly at Little Child, and his eyes were filled with the greatest sadness that Little Child had ever seen. “Ah, lad,” said the man. “And are you the only one standing by me to help clean up all this mudslinging?”
Little Child gulped and shook his head yes. He grabbed a pushbroom and began to sweep beside the streetcleaner. At first the crowd jeered and aimed mud at the dustbin. Then, when niether the man nor the boy replied in kind, mudslingers on both sides of the street threw mud at them.
As he had in Plaza No. 5, the streetcleaner guided a lost, frightened child to its parent. And after one long look and no words, the father lifted his child out of the dreadful melee and turned toward home. The shouts and the screams began to lessen. In silence the streetcleaner held out his hand, and a few people gave him their accusing placards, which he junked in the dustbin.
Little Child worked beside the streetcleaner, and the man paused a moment to brush the mud from the boy’s shoulders. In return, Little Child did the same for him. Seeing this, several people in the crowd, as though coming to their senses, turned to one another and brushed away the clods of dirt. Only a few were still shouting. Then, as though thinking the same thought at the same time, from both sides of the street several people walked to the bin and ditched their placards. Some took brooms and shovels from the cart and began to clear away the dirt.
A growing silence, a silence as still as the streetcleaner’s own, descended upon the crowd. Had they really been throwing mud at one another? How in Bright City had this begun? And why had it gone on so long? How had the anger become so hot and pitched?
Little Child looked again into the eyes of the man. Yes, the boy had seen him before. He had seen him as the most beautiful of men, had heard his voice commanding the winds and the thunder. Little Child had seen the lights in his eyes and known his laughter, the laughter that made every heart feel at peace.
It was the King, the King who had endured Burning Place to lift the dark enchantment which had held the city in the Enchanter’s power. Little Child had never seen him as now, in disguise like a common streetsweeper, his hands calloused from hard work, his face filthy from thrown dirt, pain shadowing his eyes. It was the King now cleaning up the mud the people of his kingdom had been slinging at one another. It was the King, suffering silently the blows of dirt that fell on him. It was the King with a wound on his cheek.
By now, the taxi vanguard had again encircled the crowd. But this time there was no honking of horns. A quiet, heavy and raw, had already fallen. Standing in the middle of the street, surrounded by people who had just been slinging mud at one another and shouting hateful words, Little Child could stay silent no longer. Truth, the words of truth came pushing urgently out of his heart. “People of the city! The King! Your King! This man is the King!”
At that, the people looked at the man, and with their anger finally vented, they saw him and knew him and realized what they had done. And Little Child, unable to bear the shame he felt as witness to their deeds, rushed into the streetcleaner’s arms and sobbed, his nose made muddy by his tears rubbing against the dirt still on the man’s dungaree bib and flannel shirt. The streetcleaner embraced him and patted his back, and whispered softly so that onl the boy could hear, “Hush now. Hush. hush. You have cleaned the streets with me. Good job, my boy. Good job.”
Friends, don’t be someone who throws mud, but sweeps it. Bring restoration and healing. Love people who are so hard to love. Repent and pray and cling to Christ.
Rev 1:12-20
When I turned to see who was speaking to me, I saw seven gold lampstands. And standing in the middle of the lampstands was the Son of Man. He was wearing a long robe with a gold sash across his chest. His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow. And his eyes were bright like flames of fire. His feet were as bright as bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice thundered like mighty ocean waves. He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp two-edged sword came from his mouth. And his face was as bright as the sun in all its brilliance.
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last. I am the living one who died. Look, I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave. Write down what you have seen — both the things that are now happening and the things that will happen later. This is the meaning of the seven stars you saw in my right hand and the seven gold lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
So in this passage, where is Jesus? Where is Jesus right now!?
Friends, in this battle for your church, you are not alone. Christ is with you, and in you, loving these people even more than you do. It is his church—big and little C. And he is a God of power.
Do you see the treasure? Do you hear the angels?
