The Anatomy of the Church: The Skeleton
Selected Scriptures
I don't know how true it is, but someone said to me this week, "People think of you as a preaching machine, and may not really know what's in your heart, because you're very seldom disconnected from a text." And I said, "Well, this Sunday will help then, because I am just gonna share my heart."
We, in our series in Matthew, would normally be beginning chapter 21, which begins the last week of our Lord's life; but before we get into that great, glorious climax of the Book of Matthew for which we all have waited about five years, including myself, I just have some things in my heart to share with you.
When I go away and minister in other places, preach in other places, talk to other folks, spend time in prayer in the Word and reading some books and things, I usually am able to back away from the pressure and think clearly. When I'm here, it's difficult to have the time to do that; and as a result of that, the Lord seems to impress upon my heart certain things that are needful for me to understand, for me to emphasize in my own heart and life and...and for me to share with you; and I...I'm concerned about our church. I...I want you to know that this church is my life. It is the very heart and soul of my life. I don't feel the ministry has plateaued here. I don't feel that we've done it - now we're just gonna try to hang onto it. I feel we've only just begun and that whatever energy I gave in the last 15 years is only preliminary to the energy that I wanna give in the next to the Lord jury 15 years or whatever.
I believer that the future is yet before us. It is exciting, filled with joy and anticipation, and...and tremendous potential of possibility; but I also think we are at a point in our church life where we're at a very, very crisis interval; and there can be a great future for us or there cannot, depending on what we do with the moment of opportunity which we have in our hands right now.
I was playing golf for the first time in my summer the other day, and I had waited a long time to get the time to do that, even while I'm vacationing. I usually find some places to preach while I'm on vacation, so it takes some of the time; but I...I was playing golf with a pastor, and he wanted to know about building a church and had it in his heart to build a church and really was hungry to build a church. Been to our shepherd's conference; and in fact been here twice; and I had preached in his church back east; and...and he said, "Boy, I just...I wanna see God do that. I wanna see a church built," and so forth. And so he was asking me about the ministry; and then he said, "You know, a church like yours, how is it...how is it a church that's as large as yours and with so many things happening, so many ministries, and so forth. Is it difficult?"
Or is it a...is it the implication of his questioning was, "Now that it's there, do you sort of rest?" And I said, "Lemme tell you something." I said, "Being a part of the building of a church is easy. I mean that's like being in a sailboat. Somebody else is blowing it along. You're just sitting in it; and I...I can honestly tell you that the...the growth of Grace Church, the great years of...of tremendous growth when we started out with four or five hundred people and just took off and grew and grew and grew; and all these wonderful things were happening. That was easy."
I mean I didn't know what was going on, to be honest with ya. I came here every Sunday just to see what was happening...In fact, it was so much God's doing. It was so thrilling and so exciting. Sure, there were principles which we applied out of the Word of God, and there were emphases, and there was a drive for excellence and so forth, but...but those were euphoria times. I mean those were just ecstatic times. I...I like to call those the years of discovery. I came here. I didn't know much of anything; and so every week I'd study; and we'd learn together; and then I'd tell 'em what the Bible said; and everybody'd say, "Wow, so that's what the Bible means there. So that's what it's saying to us." And we'd get excited about that, and we'd take another big step in terms of our spiritual growth and understanding, and the Lord would add to the church, and it just kept going like that.
And, really, it was like some kind of a...of a prolonged honeymoon. There was energy everywhere. There was excitement and enthusiasm, and...and everybody was thrilled, and we weren't even doing in those years the things we're doing now, but...but no one ever expected anything. And so everything that came was just marvelous.
My goal, honestly, when I came here, was to keep the people that were already here from leaving. That was my basic goal. If I can just go there, and they won't leave, that'll be a moral victory. I never envisioned this. That's why I've said that the verse in the Bible that has come most true and most to my understanding in the years of ministry here is Ephesians 3:20, "Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all you could ask or think." I've seen God do that.
But in those early years, we were all excited. There was a tremendous ecstasy. There was a tremendous sacrifice. Everybody was a part of the building and the growing together. One of the staff fellows said to me a couple weeks ago, he said, "If you look at history in...in just about every area of church life and the life of God's people, it's kinda followed a very interesting pattern. The first generation fights to discover and establish the truth"; and that's what we did. I mean that first flow of years was discovery and laying down the truth and tremendous excitement. And then he said, "The second generation fights to maintain the truth and proclaim the truth." And we've seen that where we put it down in books and on tapes, and we've...we've started sending out men to preach it somewhere else, and drawing people here and teaching them, sending them, and...and working with pastors, and we've started to wanna maintain the truth and...and proclaim the truth.
And then he said, "The third generation could care less. Since they weren't a part of the fight on either front, they really don't have anything at stake. They tend to take it for granted." Boy, that scares me. That really scares me..."The toughest thing," I said to this pastor, "the toughest thing to deal with in the ministry is indifference or apathy, complacency." You can't deal with it. There's no way to deal with it, except to just go at it as best you can in preaching and...and so forth. That is difficult.
Somebody comes to me and, you know, we have problems just like any church would have. In fact, we have more of them, of course, because we have more folks. Didn't have any people, wouldn't have any problems...You understand...But when somebody comes to me and says, "Oh, John, we've got a real problem. We have got a real problem." Now, I've come back. I've been gone and come back several times this summer. Every time I come back, somebody says to me, "We gotta problem. We gotta real problem. Do you know what happened? So and so and so and so having so." And my response to that is, "Terrific, boy, that is exciting. We've got a problem, and we know what it is, and we can solve it with the truth of the Word of God. Terrific."
I mean that's the fun of the ministry. Who would...who could stand a church with no problems? I mean if you find a church, I'll tell young pastors all the time, if you find a church with no problems, don't go there. You'll wreck it...I mean what a great thing to have problems, because problems can be solved with the application of divine truth. So I get excited about that.
But complacency, indifference, or apathy, that's heartbreaking; and to think that we could produce a generation of people who weren't ever a part of the struggle, and who just take it all for granted, just walk in and pile up and...and sort of sit on the outside perimeter and say, "Well, it's all here, folks, we just take it for granted. It'll always be here," and since they didn't know what the price was, they can't even taste the sweet taste of victory. They don't even know what it is to have gone through the whole battle. I mean you only have one shot at life, and I look at it as if God has given me the greatest, most wonderful, thrilling, possible use of the one shot I've got. He's put me right here, and I don't think it's over yet.
But the thing that I fear is that folks who weren't a part of the process of building and the process of fighting and discovering and laying it all down and getting it all moving are gonna come here and not be able to appreciate what it is...that God has done.
And I'm reminded of a passage, and I'd like you to open your Bible to Deuteronomy chapter 6, and I think there is a good illustration, a passage written for our example...of this same kind of thing. God, of course, in His wonderful grace, chose His people Israel...mercifully brought them out of bondage, put them in the Promised Land...literally inundated them with profuse divine grace and blessing...and He says in verse 3 of Deuteronomy 6, "Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it, that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers has promised thee, in the land that flows with milk and honey."
He says, "You better keep the commandments. You better be true to the faith. Hear, O Israel...verse 4...The Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might." First thing He says is, "Look, if you're gonna hold true to the faith, you gotta love God with all your heart, soul...all your might." Love God. Love God. Love God more than you love the world. Love God more than you love your new car, your house, your job, your money, your wardrobe, anybody, anything, anyplace.
I've been reading this last week a classic on loving God by Bernard of Clairvaux. Very convicting. Very convicting. He says, "I have three great desires in my soul: to remember God, to contemplate God, to love God." It's a far cry from some of us. If we were asked to list the three great desires of our soul, I wonder if that's what they'd be: to remember God in all things, to contemplate God at all times, to love God."...And so he says, "It starts on the inside. I put you in a land with milk and honey. I put you in the best place of blessing, and you're gonna have to get it in the inside, a commitment to love God."
And then it moves to the outside in verse 6