Symptoms

Let's turn our bibles to 1 Corinthians and find with me chapter 12. Chapter 12 is the chapter right before the love chapters. And I think it’s interesting, because we’re gonna see how Paul remains us that we are together, the body of Christ. And now, as we gather as the body, Paul would go on in chapter 13 to reminds the body, that our atmosphere, our internal organs, our breathe and soul of this body, that we call the church is love.

Christ who is the head, the center of the church calls us to love God and love one another. And so in chapter 12, we find the scriptures on being together, as the body. Let’s read. Chapter 12, and find with me verses 27-28. 27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 28 And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues.

Today marks the conclusion of our series called, I, Will. We learned how our attitude determines our direction. We also learned, “That we were not just created to worship, but we were also created for community.” Our final topic of our series is this… Churchanity…“I will, avoid Churchanity” What is churchanity? Churchanity can be defined like this. (Any practices of Christianity that place a larger emphasis on the habits of church life or the institutional traditions of the church than on theological and spiritual teachings of Jesus; it’s the quality of being too church-focused and not really Jesus focused) So, you’re probably wondering what does that mean?

I’ve heard of christianity, but never this word churchanity. It can have multiple meanings, but the overall principle of churchanity is this… People become consumed with how they do church rather than being Christ as the church together. So very reality we can say, they focus more on what they do rather than being Christ. Thom Rainer defines Churchianity like this, he says, “Churchianity is practicing our church and religious beliefs according to human standards rather than biblical guidelines.” And what he talks about in his book, is that membership within the church has moved from meaningful discipleship and being sacrificial and functional Christians, seeking Jesus Christ and serving others, to becoming more where church members are comfortable with the traditions, while discipleship has moved from practical moments, to just learning without putting what you’ve learned into practice.

And so IN essence, churchanity is where the church has become consumers of the product of Christianity without producing a life of holiness. Which simply means to be conformed into the likeness of Jesus. And our goal as Christians should be, every day to not only pursue Christ, but to be conformed into his likeness in every aspect of our lives. And I truly believe this… we do this together. I need you just as much as you need me, so that, we can be the body together, who pursues Christ together and in turn become more christlike together.

So Churchanity… There are five major symptoms of churchanity but for today, I want to focus on two of them… Number 1, the first symptom is this: “Church is a spectator sport.” When Alicia and I moved here we went to our first season of Montousvulle football and we sat in one of the worst places to sit… 50 yard line, looking at the press box, the very top row on the right.

It was the worst place because there was a group of men that every home game would gather in that spot not to sit and enjoy the game, but to stand against the top rail, and spectate and complain about the football game. And I mean they were brutal. They would scream out what the team should or shouldn’t do, or what the coach should or shouldn’t do. On top of that, they would talk about how they would have done it this or that way.

Or, If that was me out there, I would have ran that ball for a touch down. Hey so and so.. remember back in 1978 when that person threw me the ball and I ran for a 95 yard touchdown to win the game? And I got to admit, I can get that way too. I sit at Chloes games sometimes and I get a little competitive and loud. But many times we don’t remember that we’re watching as a spectator.

Our imaginations takes over and we put ourselves in that moment… and we forget that we haven’t done anything to be a a part of the work of what the team does to prepare for the game… think about it. We don’t participate in the grueling practices. We don’t have the knowledge and experience of the coaches. We don’t experience the pressure of the fans pouring their own hard earned money into the seat they paid for and demanding a win.

Or caring for the administration, and recruiting and having a winning season? Many times we don’t have any of those things but yet, we still give our two cents while watching others. And so what we see is that Churchanity becomes a spectator sport. Where Members attend, but they don’t actively participate in the ministry of the church. They expect others to do the ministry for them. And in Thom Rainers book, he said, the only time those who practice churchanity get excited within the church is when they can express their anger or displeasure about something or what someone else is doing.

Paul tells us. “When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation,” (1 Corinthians 14:26, NIV). What we learn is this.. speculations leads our faith into being a presentation, but participation leads us into meaningful transformation. No one in the stands is transformed when they spectate. So, the act of participation goes beyond mere attendance; it involves genuine involvement and investment in the spiritual growth of both oneself and the community.

Which leads us into the second symptom… The second symptom is this: Church is about me. Biblical church life is about serving, about sacrificing, about giving, and about putting others before our own desires and needs. Churchianity is about being served, receiving, getting your way, and insisting on your needs and wants before others. Can I ask.. How self centered are you? And let me add something to that… How would you know if your self centered?

I’m not sure we ourselves really realize how self centered we are. Just like sin, we never knew how sinful we was and how lost we were till we were face to face with the living gospel. The gospel was preached and we realized we have sinned against God. I’m not sure if we truly ever realize in its fullness how selfish we are…I believe that’s why God makes such an emphasis on being a loving, and grace giving, body of believers.

Because I need grace. I hope im not the only one here this morning that needs grace. I’m not convinced that we notice our self centerness at all times, but I do believe this… I believe God gives us three experiences that can pull us out of being self centered in our life. The first one is this… it’s love. When we begin to love someone, the act of love pulls us out of yourself and you start to care for another in way beyond our imagination.

I like to imagine my wife. I love Alicia. But I’m selfish at times, and my wife is most times less selfish than I am. And I said this before, I never knew how selfish I was, till I was married. Because when I began to truly love my wife outside of just mere dating stuff… I looked for ways to put her first. And its the same with our kids…

I’ve sacrificed my time, and my body, for them. They don’t know what it was like to swing 12 pound hammers in the brutal sun, with only 2 hours of sleep on a 20 hour work day. My kids don’t know what it’s like to blow out your knee leaving you 25% disabled for the rest of your life, or to gouge your hand and the pain of cuts and scrapes and injuries, just to make sure they had food and shelter.

My family doesn’t know what its like to spend a full day with them, just to sleep for three hours and then head to work without eating for 15 hours rigging down a frac site in the rain. Just to come home to no dinner, and go to bed hungry because you only have three hours to sleep before you go at it again. And to do all of this without someone saying to you…

I’m thankful for what you do and sacrifice for our family. Loving my family above most daily comforts got me through all those things, but that doesn’t means I’m still not self centered. Jeuss said, Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. And then he goes and lays down himself on the cross as a sacrifice so that we can be loved.

And I think about that sometimes and I wonder. When has been moments that I haven’t been thankful for the love of God given to me in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross? How many times have I been selfish? When we intentionally and actively love others, we are pulling ourselves away from our centerness and focusing more on Chrsit’s love. And when we love like Christ, we naturally will love others.

The second experience that pulls us away from ourselves is faith. Faith alone means we believe in a higher power. If you believe in God, that by definition means you believe that there is a higher power than you. A creator of all. God the Father, the son and the Holy Spirit. When we focus on faith, we focus on God’s plan and His will. Jesus said, For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.

In the garden, he goes, Not my will but yours be done. Faith is more than just believing… Faith calls for trust and a belief that His will is greater than our own. I watched a video the other day that talked about Pauls thorn in his side… and he said this… he goes… Paul at some point realizes that the thorn wasn’t there deter him, but Paul realized that no matter what happened to him in the flesh, in some way God would allow that to happen because he could get the most glory from Pauls thorn than Paul not having a thorn.

What if what we go through, which strengthens our faith and character and endurance was in our life to bring more glory to God? I can’t remember if shared this or not.. but last week as I finished writing the sermon, I walked across the parking lot and just stopped dead in my tracks… I was praying as I was walking across the parking lot and chewing on some specific prayers asking, Lord, when are you going to grow the church?

Not my will but yours, but I’ve suffered for three years. When will the dawn come? And as I walked across the lot these words came to my heart… I (Jesus) will get more glory out of the brokenness of where you are than of the stubbornness of where you were. So, my response was to stop in the driveway, write down what he had laid on my heart… and respons, Lord, whatever thorn you put into my side, may it bring you more glory than if it wasn’t there.

And May you remove it if it’s your will. Which takes me to the third experience that pulls us away from ourselves: which is suffering. Love, with and Suffering pulls us away from our self centers because, In our suffering we can finally develop an empathy for others. Suffering helps us experience hardships with others. Think about this. Jesus constantly put his disciples where they had to be in ground zero of what he was doing when he was healing others in their suffering.

He would send them out, and when they returned they would give a report. Jesus was teaching the 12, you can’t heal the sick and bring the gospel to people by not being with them, and understanding their needs. This past Friday, Alicia and I took 400 popsicles to the school. And my heart was broken for those kids. We went room by room, and those kids had no AC. We walked into rooms with kids having their hair drenched in sweat.

And my heart broke, but guess what. Because of your generosity, and others, we were able to go to where those little ones were suffering, and bring them a sweet and frozen treat. We would not of known of their need for a cool treat if it wasn’t for us seeing thier suffering first hand. And we got to be Christ to them because we met their needs. Remember when Jesus did that?

He got out of the boat in Mark chapter 6 and was surrounded by all the people needing healing. Jesus sees them as sheep without a shepherds and he loves on them… Then what happens, the disciples was like, Jesus send them away so they can go get food for themselves.. and then Jesus goes… you feed them. And they go… with what!!!!! And Jesus tells them to go and see how much they have.

And all they had was enough for a Hebrew lunchable. And Jesus prays, and multiply the loaves and fishes. In our suffering, Jesus puts us in moments where our self centeredness would say, tell them to go and find food, but the Christ centered life would be, lets share the food we have, and feed them together. That’s the three experience that pull us out of self centeredness. I’m going to stop there because I believe this is a great moment for us to think on these things in our life that we might be prone to be self centered.

We’re talking about churchanity and although if you want to know the other three symptoms, I’ll just say this.. they all come down to one thing… self centerness. And that wasn’t Jesus. Pastor David Platt once said, “We are molding Jesus into our image. He's beginning to look a lot like us because, after all, that is who we are most comfortable with. The danger now is when we gather in our church buildings to sing, and lift up our hands in worship, we may not actually be worshiping the Jesus of the Bible.

Instead, we may be worshiping ourselves.” And so, in this moment of intimacy, and communion. I want us to pause… I want us to pause for a moment to surrender and let me read some Scripture to you… Now, as they were eating, Jesus took bread and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, ‘Take, eat. This is my body.’ And he took a cup.

And when he’d given thanks, he gave it to them saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many, for the forgiveness of sins.” – Matthew 26:26–28 I always get overwhelmed when I think of Jesus sitting around a table with his disciples, jsut like we are right now. It’s one of the most sacred and intimate things we can do, and share with one another.

And in this intimate moment, Jesus reminds us to do and remember. To Reflect on our need for his grace, his provision of grace, in his body and his blood, his body given for us. His blood shed for us, the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. For the forgiveness of sins to every week, remind ourselves that his blood covers over our sins. And I dont know what’s in your life that you need forgives from.

For me, Its probably all the times I’ve been self centered in my life. And So, I want to pray, Jesus. I remember the body broken for me, and the blood poured out for me… to be less self centered. I want more of you and less of me. I want my life to be marked by you in me, and not by the standards we place on what a church should do and look like.

And so, I will pray the prayer you’ve taught us… Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.

Amen. The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, broken for you, preserve you blameless, unto everlasting life. Eat this in remembrance that Christ died for you, and be thankful. The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, shed for you, preserve you blameless unto everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance that Christ died for you, and be thankful.*

Sin and Grace

Since the Christmas season is almost here. I was thinking this week, on a weird family tradition we do as a family. Every year on Christmas Eve we hide this small fake green pickle somewhere on the Christmas tree. And the first kid to find the pickle, either got a little extra gift or the bragging rights that they found the pickle. I’m not sure where this tradition came from. It was something that Alicia brought into our marriage and now we do it every year during Christmas.

I did a little research on this tradition and it comes to find out, that, hiding the pickle was a tradition from Germany. So, I am assuming this tradition was passed down from her grandparents to her parents and then it became a tradition to our family through my wife. And the story of this tradition is really interesting because no one knows where the tradition originated. There’s a lot of stories from Santa But the truth is, it’s good to have traditions.

Tradition are good because they can contribute a sense of comfort and belonging. But traditions are also good because many times it tells a story. Think about this… many times what we don’t realize is that choices of our previous family members have determined many details of our lives, even before we’ve begun deciding anything. We think we are the masters of our own lives, but in reality we have been shaped and molded by other peoples choices.

And what’s true of our physical family is also true of our spiritual family. I’m not sure where and when this tradition of hiding the pickle began in Alicia’s family. And it’s kind of fun to talk about. But there is one tradition that we do not like to talk about. And it is a tradition that we all have a part of our life. And it’s the tradition of sin.

Sin isn’t a fun topic because that means there is a need to reveal what doesn’t want to be revealed. Unlike the pickle where there is joy, and excitement and unity, and possibilities and perhaps, even a great prize at the end of the search. Sin is the opposite. It brings anxiety, and Sadness, and no purpose and the great prize at the end of sin is death. Paul reminds us: “For the wages of sin is death…” Romans 6:23 Sin does not want to be revealed, and the only way to really uproot sin, or to find it and for it to be revealed is by having a deep relational love in Christ.

It’s kind of like the relationship we have with our spouses. If I do something wrong against my marriage. Because I love Alicia, and I have this deep relationship with her, I want to tell her the truth and be honest with her because I can not bear knowing that I am hiding secretes from her. I deeply love her… Did you know true intimate and deep Love hides nothing from others.

Did you know that one attribute of love is honesty? Paul tells the corinthians, “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” 1 Corinthians 13:6 When our love for Christ outweighs our desire to sin and to keep hold of sin and even hide sin, then and only then is the issue of sin brought to light and eradicated from our hearts. That’s a part of sanctification. Sanctification is the truth that sin can be eradicated from the heart and we can be relatively perfected to be who God desires for us to be.

And that’s to love him with our whole being, and to love others the same. But when we foster and cater to and hid sin in our lives. We totally miss the mark on loving God. So let’s ask the question then… what is sin? To begin to answer that question, we need to begin with one truth. And it’s a hard one to swallow. Every person here and listening online is a sinner.

Paul is very clear on this in Romans chapter 1-3. In Romans 3:9 Paul writes:, “All people are under the power of sin.” And then shortly after that verse we find in verse 23: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Now, that’s everyone. You, me, the person sitting next to you. Yes, they have sinned. You’re a sinner, sitting next to a sinner, listening to a sinner preaching on sin in a room full of sinners.

Let that brain buster settle in your mind. What we realize in Scripture, is that all people sin, and we all fall short of the glory of God, that immediately should remind us of this…. Sin is a great equalizer. If there was one thing we all have in common is that we all have sin in our lives. That puts every person on the same level. We all have it!

No matter how rich, how poor, how spiritual, how nice you dress! Or even how good you think you are. We all have sin in our lives. Now how can we define it then if we all have it. Well, let’s begin to peel apart the onion of sin to get to the root of it. To begin to find out how we can define sin and find the root of sin.

Let’s read romans 1:18: 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. So the first layer is this: the unrighteousness of man will suppress truth. Sin repels the light of truth and runs to the darkness of falsehood. I posted on Facebook earlier this week. Darkness can not reveal darkness. You can’t do dark things and expect God’s light to shine into it.

Think of what Jesus tells us in John “Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light.” John 3:19 So, Remember, we are defining the relationship. “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with (What)… the truth.” 1 Corinthians 13:6 Jesus said that we are guilty sinners not because we are victims of the darkness but because we are lovers of the darkness. Not lovers of truth.

Not lovers of Him. We don’t delight in him. If we loved Him, we would be honest with him. But by our sinful nature, we cover up truth. What kind of truth does sin try to cover up? Well, look with me at verse 19 in Romans 1 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. We cover up the knowledge of GOd.

People suppress the truth because Knowledge of God is repulsive to sin. Sin tried to cover up the knowledge of GOd. What Paul is saying is that God has revealed truth to the world. But sin is disgusted with that truth. The world is a lover of darkness. Do you ever think this is why so may people associate with being a Christian but they do not read their bibles? A study showed that in 2021 only 11% of people read their bibles.

The highest number on that chart was 29% who claim to be christian doesn’t read it at all. Listen, no one can love the Lord and not love the word. So, Sin suppress the truth, and it repels the knowledge of God. But there is a third onion peel to sin’s core. Look with me in Romans 1 verse 23. “…and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” Now, let me put this verse in some context.

Romans 1:23 talks about “exchanging the glory of God” for idols. Listen to what Paul writes in Romans 1:21 with some pastor Matthew’s commentary They knew God, but they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile, (Futile means they were fruitless in their thinking, they were ineffectual), Right? They were suppressing the truth and repelling God’s knowledge, we just learned that. They knew about God, but they didn’t love Him.

They came to church, but they weren’t engaged in worship, they read the Bible every now and then, but they never read it for relationship. And since there was no real relationship, they became futile, foolish in hearts, and their hearts were darkened and eventually, their hearts become hardened to grace. And then Paul says, God gave them over to their desires. But the main text I am focusing on is this one…The Bible tells us that people around the early church, they would exchange the glory of God for idols.

Now let me ask this important question… what do you, as a modern day christian think is your most treasured idol? Let me help you if you’re wondering.. Let’s define Idol, “Anything in the world that successfully competes with our love for God is an idol.” So what is your idol. Is it your Work? Is it the money you have or want to have? Is it more Recreational time? Is it, you’re Family?

Your wife or husband or kids. Now watch this.. because this is going to be a mind blowing moment for us… If you were to bring together all the idols that you can think of in your life and place them into this great big melting pot, and you stirred the pot, and stirred them together, and then leaned over to see what was in this pot… what we would find is the most purist idol of all, ……

it’s ourselves. We prefer created glory over of God’s glory. And a lot of times this is what many people do with faith. They come to the altar, they give GOd some idols that are holding them back, but they never give God the greatest idol and that’s themselves. We prefer the creation over God, and let’s be honest.. what is the pinnacle of God’s creation… it’s us, it’s humanity. Nothing else in this world has the image of God, but us.

Nothing else in this world has the breath of life, but us. We have been created, bone and marrow, soul and Spirit and given life with a purpose to worship and adore God. With our whole hearts… but sin doesn’t allow that. Sin hates the truth of God, suppresses it, and exchanges it for what sin loves and worships most. Sin loves to worship and serve the creature not the Creator.

That’s the root of sinning. It’s to self glorify and sin rejects God’s truth and is repulsive to the knowledge of God. And the hard truth is the fact that we are naturally born to love ourselves and our sin. That’s what we call original sin. Original sin is the tendency to sin and it is innate in all human beings. Meaning we’re born in Sin inherited from Adam and is the consequence of the fall.

Remember Adam and Eve in the Garden? What happened? They chose themselves over God and put a crack in creation. And in this crack poured death. Remember Romans 6 earlier… the wages of sin is death. So, Sin doesn’t want to be revealed and when left unchecked and uncovered, it leads to spiritual eternal death. One part of ministry that I do not like. I hate it and wish it wasn’t true…

but one aspect of ministry that I mourn over is the fact that I have a front row seat as a pastor, to watch people love their sin and think they are walking with God. Every person in this room inherited death because of sin. It permeates throughout all of creation. Original sin is the sin inherited from the fall of mankind with Adam. The second is Personal sin. Personal sin is the intentional violation of a known law of God.

So what is a known law? Well let’s just look at the first one… you shall not have no other gods but me. Where do we put our affection and attention and adoration when we are in sin? We put those attributes on ourselves. We want to be self glorified. We glory the creation more than the creator. You might be thinking… well pastor. I’m not that bad of a person.

I tithe to the church. I help others. I’m modest and kind and good. Have you ever drove down the road and saw a panhandler and then all of a sudden, an urge popped into your heart that you should help that person. What did you do? Did you talk yourself out of it? Awe man… what. I feel like I should buy them some food but they need to get a job.

Or, man, if I give them my last $20 they’re just going to go buy drugs or beer with it. And Im against those things… so I am better off not giving them anything so I can make sure they stay clean. How did you know that, that prompting wasn’t the Holy Spirit asking you to be Jesus at that crossroads of previenent grace to them? That’s a known sin. You can be modest, and kind and a good model citizen of the world, and still reject say no to the Holy Spirit in your life.

God always speaks to our heart.. the problem we have is that many times our minds will talk our hearts out of anything because it doesn’t make sense to us. And think of this… Does it ever amaze you that God speaks to the heart? He speaks to the heart, the seat of our affection. He speaks directly to the king of our hearts… And he gives truth and light…. what do we do most times?…

we analyze it and talk ourselves out of it , we reject the truth, and reject the knowledge of God because we lack faith.. We lack faith because we lack real authentic trusting relationship with the creator of all things. Sin is a battle of the mind, at war with our heart, and played out through our flesh. Played out through our relating to anything or anyone else. It’s played out through our desire to be above all creation and even above God himself.

And guess what… we all have it… Sin is the great equalizer. But do you know what the greater equalizer than sin is???…. it’s God’s grace. I promise I’m almost done, but if we all have sin, we need a way to get rid of it. Let’s go back into another Scripture found in Romans chapter 3… and read a little more starting back in verse 23. . 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (We are equal in our sin) but how does grace make things better?

Look in verse 24. 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. Grace is given as a gift because of the shedding of the blood of Christ and it’s to be received by faith. Church, listen… to have a right relationship with God, one that does not reject truth, one that does not suppress the truth, and one that does not exchange the glory of God,…….

It begins at the cross. It’s at the cross where we find grace. When we come to the altar we come as equals. Equal sinners, but equal in receiving grace. We all can receive grace today, if only you don’t reject the truth for what it stands for. Paul writes tot he Ephesians, “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered” Jesus’s gift was presented at the cross.

His gift was the blood that covers all sins, original and personal sin. His gift to us is His redeeming grace, but his blood is to be received by faith. *