Back To The Future

 

_{Photo by timJ on Unsplash}

1 Peter 3:18-19 (NKJV) ¹⁸ For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, ¹⁹ by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison,

Ephesians 4:8-10 (NKJV) ⁸ Therefore He says: “When He ascended on high,

He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men.” ⁹ (Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? ¹⁰ He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)

Luke 19:10 (NKJV) ¹⁰ for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Matthew 25:35-36 (NKJV) ³⁵ for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; ³⁶ I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’

The covid-19 crisis has changed the world as we know it in many ways.  It is not only medical crisis, it has affected every aspect of our lives, and not just regionally, but through out the world.  As I write this, it would seem that we are probably somewhere in the middle of the worldwide spread of the virus, but only beginning to see the implications of what the world will look like after the initial threats are over.  We WILL get through this.  The question is how will we as believers, and how will the church of Christ respond in the long term?

I read an interesting article about how McDonald’s looked at the many challenges they knew they would face when this virus first hit the USA and how they responded.  The church also needs to also be considering how we will look and function after the virus has subsided.  The salvation of souls depend upon our response.

You will not doubt be hearing a lot of ‘prophetic’ utterances about what God is saying during this time of crisis.   Some will be accurate.  Some will not, (a nice way of saying it).  I can tell you this though without hesitation:

This is an opportunity for the church to return to it’s original message about Jesus Christ, saving souls, and to the original mission, that is ministering to the needs of people (whether they are church members or not).  This is what they did in the beginning, and this is what we will need to do in the future.

When Jesus got up from the grave on that Resurrection Morning, He showed all of us that we can, (we must), triumph over every obstacle in this life, including death, so that the Kingdom of God can be manifested.

Because of the worldwide spread of covid-19, we have been placed in the tomb of quarantine, cut off from each other, and left for dead.  But like Jesus we can look forward to a time of emergence where we will rise again.

The question I present to you today is this.  What will we actually do when we can finally begin to emerge back into the world?  Will we have learned anything?  We will try to get back to ‘business as usual’ like the rest of the world seems so eager to do?  Or will we see this as a season of change, returning to preach Jesus Christ crucified and experience a great revival?  My prayer is that it will be the latter and that we would have gone from and emergency to emergence like Jesus did on that glorious day of resurrection.

Because of mandated travel restrictions we cannot meet together as we did just weeks ago, (not lawfully anyway).

Some pastors are using this as a time to excercise their 1st Amendment rights to have religious gatherings in spite of the law.  In my opinion this is reckless behavior health wise, and bad optics for the church at large.  (There are other ways to assemble ourselves together without the risk of passing illness to our congregants).  But let me go further with this line of reasoning.  The question is are we actually fulfilling the mission of Christ in our services, and are we converting sinners like they did in the book of Acts?

Don’t Get We Wrong.

I love our worship services, and I think that they have value.  But I have been preaching for a long time now that the church is far more than we do behind the walls of the church building.  Not being able to ‘go to church’ gives us an opportunity to reflect on what worship, and ministry really is to us, and what it should mean in the future.

In my humble opinion there is a time to break the law for the sake of the kingdom, (See Acts 5:29), but gathering large groups in a church setting while the virus is still spreading is being reckless for all the wrong reasons.  This makes the church look bad to a lot of people, and we really should care about how we look if we are going to save souls in the future.

What is the ‘church’?

Matthew 16:18-19 (KJV) ¹⁸ And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. ¹⁹ And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

The Greek word ekklēsía translated ‘church’ here means a people called out from the world and to God for His purpose.  It means an assembly of people, but not necessarily a people who assemble in a building.  It has more to do with being ambassadors for the kingdom of God in the world.  It is clear that the Lord wants to build a people not a building.

In Acts Chapter 3, that we find one of the first miracles of the ‘church’, (the people, namely Peter, James, and John), at a public place the Jewish Temple.  This is a perfect example of the kingdom of God at hand.  The disciples mirrored their Master Jesus Christ by helping a man who was lame.  That miracle caused many people to turn to Christ, and this is what I believe should be happening today.

On this Resurrection Sunday we need to go back to the basics of the message of Christianity.  Jesus Christ the Son of God came to save us from sin and all of the affects of our sinful nature.  His shed blood is the price He paid for our redemption.  He got up from the grave having victory over death and the grave.  Jesus is the answer.  That is the message!

Meeting the Needs of People.

In Acts 6 we see what I believe was the two-fold mission of the church. The church was called out to minister to the needs of people.  People have spiritual needs, and physical needs.  Because the church was growing at such a rapid rate, (people were being convicted and converted everyday), the needs of the people were not lost on the Apostles.

Let’s start with the spiritual needs.

People need to be saved.  Let me be more specific here.  Their SOULS need salvation. Jesus made the case that a man’s soul is more valuable than the value of the whole world.  So the heart of the message of Christ has never been about how long, or how well we live on Earth.  In fact ,many of the early Christians held on to their faith knowing that it might get them killed.

Salvation is only possible through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, and it’s application to our lives by faith.  People need to hear this message.  The message is spread by preaching, evangelizing, and through mission work.

The church was great at this at first.  They preached Jesus Christ crucified in every sermon.   The Lord would move by His Spirit when the Word was preached.  Miracles happened, and people believed, by the thousands.

Now some heard the message and did not believe, and this of course still happens today.  A non-believing person or even a nation should prompt us to change our message.  We should never cater to people in order to get them in the church. (See  Rom. 3: 3-4).  We need only to preach Jesus saves and let God do the rest.

Once people were saved in the beginning of the church, they then needed teaching on how to become disciples, or servants and students of Jesus Christ.  They needed words of encouragement because many of them were being persecuted for their beliefs.  They needed prayer, for sickness, trouble, and protection.  The church was good at all of this at first, but still their numbers brought new problems that they didn’t have before.

Since they were now believers in Christ, many of them were shunned by their families, friends, and the temples and synagogues.  Some them lost their jobs as a result of their new-found faith.  Babies were born, and people died like before, but now they had lost their support system because of turning to Christ.  All of this was new.  But thankfully the Apostles were real leaders.  They recognized that the people also had physical needs that would also need to be met.

Physical Needs

For example, this new assembly of Christians needed to look out for it’s widows, and those who were ill.  There was another problem that needed to be addressed.  Some of the widows who were being missed when it came to support felt that it is because of their ethnicity.  (This was not the case, but people think differently when they are in crisis mode). This may have seemed like a little problem in the grand scheme of things, but it could have interrupted the move of God in the young church.

It’s difficult to hear and receive the message of Christ’s love, when you are hungry and feel left out of the economy because of your race, gender, or culture.  This is still true today.  So, the Apostles came up with a plan to make sure that everyone’s physical needs were also being met.  The people choose men to meet those physical needs, allowing the Apostles to focus on Prayer, and the Word. (See Acts 6: 2-4).

I believe that the message of Christ is being left behind in so many of our churches today.  We seem to preach what people want to hear instead of the gospel of the Kingdom of God.  Many of us have also forgotten that the physical needs of people should are also our responsibility.  It’s difficult to hear about and care about someone else’s ‘prosperity’ when those around me are suffering like many are today.

The good news is that covid-19 has caused us to stop and re-think what is important now, and will be important in the future.  I present to you that it is the real gospel of Christ that is what people need to hear.  The church may not be able to give the world the antidote, or stop the spread of the virus.  At this point we cannot even have funeral services for those who we have lost.  But the message that Jesus saves from sin is still the answer.

We Will Re-EMERGE!

When we are finally able to assemble again in buildings, we need to make sure that we are being effective.  Some churches may not survive the lack of people not attending, or financial strain caused be lack of offerings.  Some people may decide that they would rather stay at home permanently.  What do we do then?

So back to the article about McDonalds.  They looked at what they were doing and thought about what needed to change in order for them to survive and thrive in this new environment created by the corona virus.  Here is the summary of what the writer said that McDonalds did, and what I believe the church, and all of us individually need to do as we EMERGE from this tomb:

Seven Steps To Emergence

1. Simplify – The message – The mission – The purpose
2. Streamline – Offer fewer choices, Require fewer decisions
3. Maximize Margins – Everything will cost money/resources. What produces the most fruit?
4. Reinforce Customer Habits – This too shall pass. What then? Forward thinking
5. Get Ahead of the new landscape – Many churches/businesses may not survive. How can we position ourselves to remain relevant and serve?
6. Adjust things that are not working – Nuff said.
7. Control the narrative and the optics – When to re-open? When to announce any changes? What will this look like to those we are trying to reach?

While we are on hiatus we need to repent, ask God for forgiveness, and emerge with a singular focus on preaching Jesus, and ministering to the needs of people.  This emergency should teach us that there are large segments of people who have always needed more help. For them things just got infinitely worse due to this virus.

Simply put we need to return to the stated mission of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Luke 19:10 (NKJV) ¹⁰ for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Matthew 25:35-36 (NKJV) ³⁵ for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; ³⁶ I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’

The early church in the book of Acts saved thousands of people and they never promised them anything.  They preached Jesus.  Of course they helped them with their physical needs, but they never advertised that being saved would give you a happy life.  They never started a message by telling people that they would rich, or that their lives would be better.

We need to go back to the past in order to see the future of the church when this crisis is over.  Jesus is the answer.  He has ALWAYS been the answer.  On this Resurrection Sunday we owe it to Him to fulfill His purpose in the earth.

When Jesus was arrested and tried, I’m sure it looked as if it was over to those who were following Him.  They crucified Him, he gave up the ghost, and died.  At this point I am certain that many felt that it was over.  They took his body and laid it in a grave.  Three days went by, and with each day I’m sure it looked as if it was over.  It wasn’t until the word began to circulate that He had risen that many people began to believe again.

Even while Jesus’ body lay in a cold grave, His Spirit was alive and preparing for the moment that He would rise again victoriously.

1 Peter 3:18-19 (NKJV) ¹⁸ For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, ¹⁹ by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison,

Ephesians 4:8-10 (NKJV) ⁸ Therefore He says: “When He ascended on high,

He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men.” ⁹ (Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? ¹⁰ He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)

It is clear from these and other scriptures that Jesus Christ was not idle while his body lay in the tomb. He did at the very least two things. 1) He comforted the departed saints and brought them to their eternal home (heaven or paradise). 2) He proclaimed His victory over the fallen angels who are kept in prison.

My main point is this.  Even Jesus had to go to the grave.  He had His

‘emergency’, but even while He was going through, He was ever mindful that Resurrection Day was coming, and preparing for that day.  This is what we should all be doing while we are shut in.  This is what the church should be doing.  We should be going from emergency to emergence preparing for a great revival and move of the Holy Ghost.  Preparing to save souls, and minister to the real needs of people everywhere.  I want to make it clear that I am not just talking about churches once again filled with people.  I am speaking of a revival in the hearts of men and women that spills over into their daily lives.

It may look bad right now, and in fact it is bad.  But it is not over.  When we celebrate the resurrection of Christ we should be reminded that suffering is part of the journey to victory.  We will emerge from this just as Jesus emerged from the grave on that morning.  The question is what will we have learned?  How will we have changed? What new thing are we now willing to do for that cause of Jesus Christ?

I pray that the church of Christ at large would use this time to re-focus, and to re-kindle the passion that Jesus had when He rose from the grave, and the church had when it began.  I pray that all of us will emerge from this emergency stronger in the faith, and ready to do a new thing.