Williard on Church

"We must flatly say that one of the greatest contemporary barriers to meaningful spiritual formation in Christlikeness is the overconfidence in the spiritual efficacy of 'regular church services,' of whatever kind they may be. Though they are vital, they are not enough. It is that simple." ~Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart

Visual Aesthetics in Worship

"But we must listen carefully to this generation and reread Scripture in the light of their dreams and fears. Then perhaps we will present the gospel and plan our worship in ways that respond to their quest and reintegrate words and image. It is possible that we might actually win the battle of words but lose the battle of images. And losing that battle could well cost us this generation." ~William Dyrness in Visual Faith

Entertainment or Worship?

"Oh brother or sister, God calls us to worship, but in many instances we are in entertainment, just running a poor second to theaters." ~A.W. Tozer

Program or Worship?

"Most Christians are too busy to worship, and many church services are so filled with man-made promotion that God is almost forgotten. People go to church to be spectators at a religious program, not participants in spiritual worship." ~Warren W. Wiersbe

"A People of Mission"

Isaiah 42:5-7 Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: 6 I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, 7 to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.

Matthew 28:18-20 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

  

Sermon: I chose two scriptures for this morning because I want to talk about a consistent theme we find in the scriptures. Both of the scriptures we just heard have it. They both call a particular people to do something. In the passage from Isaiah, we hear a reference to a very consistent theme in the Old Testament. The Jewish people were called to be righteous for a purpose. Collectively, in their righteousness or unrighteousness, represented God’s covenant with the rest of humanity. They were called to be righteous precisely because that act would serve as a “light to the nations.” That means that the law and God’s covenant with the Jewish people had been meant for universal purposes all along. God had wanted his people to bear witness of his love to the world even in those days.

Abraham’s descendants were called to, “to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” The imagery is strong. It reminds me of the story we find in Plato where prisoners are born into darkness – a place where they can only see shadows – until one gets free and eventually makes his way out of the cave and into the light where he sees truth for the first time. And then, what does he do? He goes back into the cave to try and tell the other prisoners.

So it is with the passage from Matthew as well. It’s often referred to as the Great Commission. It’s called this because it’s the last great command that Jesus gives us. It’s the moment before he ascends into heaven and so he tells us what we must do – they’re powerful last words. So when Jesus tells us to go and make disciples of all nations, he’s repeating a theme we can find in the Old Testament – that the Good News of God’s faithfulness to us needs to be shared. That we are called to obedience and faithfulness because our actions are a testimony to our witness. Our actions are a testimony of the faith we claim to profess.

Illustration: So now we’re going to play a bit of a game. I’m sure many of you remember the game Pictionary. We’re going to play a little bit of that this morning!

• Draw – Discipleship
• Draw – Evangelism
• Draw – A Christian
• Draw – A Church Talk about those illustrations…

Sermon Continued: Here’s the thing. I don’t think we, or I, or American Christianity in general have done a really great job at following Jesus’ last command to us. I think we’ve made some omissions from the Great Commission. I think that many churches in our context have assumed a “let them come to us” mentality. We assume that people are already Christian, or that they were raised Christian, and that they’re all going to have some sort of interest in church after they wear out the indulgent temptations of youth. But maybe we were wrong about this all along. Maybe the rates of church attendance have been declining over the years because we’ve failed to do church right all along.

  

Church isn’t about a building where people inevitably find themselves, although that might occasionally be the case, it’s about a people who are called into discipleship. And people who are called into discipleship inevitably do mission. We are all missionaries! We’re missionaries wherever we go. The only question is what we’re testifying to when we go about our lives. So let me ask you, when your friends, relatives, and neighbors think about you what do they think? What do they see? What would they say you prioritize most in your life? What gods might they say you worship?

In a really wonderful book, the late Dallas Willard wrote that Western Christianity, particularly in its American context, has made two great omissions from the Great Commission.

Two Omissions from the Great Commission:[1]

1. Making disciples

2. Taking either converts or baby Christians through training that will bring them ever-increasingly to do what Jesus directed.

His claim is that we’ve become so wrapped up in a cultural conception of Christianity that we’ve forfeited the very things that animate our faith. Instead of proclaiming the Good News to the people in our lives, we’ve settled for isolation. We’ve settled for a state where we put up a sign that implicitly says, “Come hang out with people just like you.” We don’t say that directly of course. But our Christian subculture seems to really enjoy its isolation. When we hear someone challenge the authority of scripture, we get defensive because we don’t think they’ve been respectful enough of something they don’t hold in the same esteem as us. Large segments of the Church – as it exists in the United States – retreats when confronted with the challenge of mission. We’ve grown accustomed to hiding in buildings with people just like ourselves.

  

But this isn’t what Jesus called us to do. This isn’t what Jesus’ life illustrated. He didn’t spend all of his time in the Temple or synagogues. Jesus spent his time with tax-collectors, hookers, homeless people, fishermen, political revolutionaries, the sick, and the dying. In other words, Jesus went where the people were. He didn’t hide among the holy men or scribes. He lived with people who were incredibly flawed; and in that action gave the world hope. Discipleship seems like a big word, but all it really means is that we follow Jesus. But it’s also helpful to think about what non-discipleship means.

Non-discipleship costs:

• abiding peace
• a life penetrated throughout by love
• faith that sees everything in the light of God’s overriding governance for good
• hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances
• power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil

In short, it costs you the abundance that Jesus came to bring you.

So when I read about studies like the National Survey on Youth and Religion I’m a bit horrified. For a couple of generations now the church in the United States has been raising religious people whose faith sociologists refer to as “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” A title that’s usually defined as follows:

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism – “religion helps you feel good and do good, but God pretty much stays out of the way. Now, you can call on God if you need God to solve a problem, but God's track record on solving problems is pretty bad. So the primary God-images that the kids had were either as the "cosmic therapist" or the "divine butler." The therapist serves as the one who helps you feel good about yourself; the guidance counselor image comes to mind here when working with teenagers. The divine butler is somebody who comes when called upon but otherwise stays away.” [2]

The problem with this worldview is that it’s too self-serving. If we settle for a faith that just tells people to be nice to each other, we’re cutting ourselves short. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism falls short of the high ideals Jesus lays out for discipleship; and, for the Church. Theologically, the church is supposed to exist for the world. We don't exist to perpetuate ourselves or to make ourselves happy. It's nice if that can happen, but that's not the purpose. If anything, that might be a fringe benefit. The Gospel story that animates the church is about self-giving love and dying in order to live.

Missiologists, people who study missions and evangelism, often talk about a tension between irrelevance and syncretism. When Christians don’t adapt to the culture and incarnate the Gospel in ways that are relevant to the people – they’re irrelevant. When Christians adapt to the culture too much and become indistinct from it, they’re syncretized with it and lost the unique value that they could have offered. This is what Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is. It’s a faith that is too compromised, too enculturated, to be properly considered Christian.

  

Yes, we want our kinds to be good people – to not kill people – and we want them to be happy, but we don’t need Christianity for that! God isn’t our cosmic therapist and He’s not out divine butler. Christianity really boils down to discipleship. “Do you want to follow Jesus?” Do you want to answer his call to discipleship – to follows his instructions and spreading the Good News of that path? The story of Jesus is the story of resurrection amidst death. It’s the story of empowerment. It’s the path where all those hollow feelings of meaninglessness and isolation can be healed. It’s a life-long walk that breathes life into the world. That’s our task. We are a chosen priesthood empowered to go and make disciples, to go and breathe hope and meaning into a world that doesn’t have it.

And so it is that we can see ourselves and the Great Commission in the following passage from the book of Ezekiel Chapter 37:

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4 Then he said to me,

Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.

7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God:

Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.

10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. 11 Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”

May the Lord bless our reflection upon His Word this morning. Amen.

[1] Dallas Willard, The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship (San Francisco, CA: Harper Collins, 2006).

[2] Kenda Creasy Dean, “Almost Christian: An Interview with Kenda Creasy Dean” on Pathos (June 22, 2010): http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Ad...