The Church: God's Instrument of Grace

Here's today's sermon. Be sure to see the post underneath this one.

Misguided Understandings About the Church

Today we’re going to talk about the church. The church and its purpose are often misunderstood by both outsiders and church members. Some of us find ourselves faithfully attending the same church yet forgetting why we’re there. We even serve in any way needed with good hearts and great intentions. We tithe our ten percent, sing, pray, and respect the pastor when he’s preaching, whether a good sermon or not. We don’t complain and are genuinely happy to be among our Christian friends on Sunday. And yet, we tend to forget why we do all those things.

Then there are those who know why we exist, but don’t know how to accomplish God’s purpose. They will try anything and everything to make church “appealing” to guests, but in the process forget what those guests truly need. They’ll do anything to get new people walking through the door, whether it’s great preaching, modern worship, dramas, kid’s ministry, or plasma screen TVs. And these people get so caught up in the newest craze that they forget God’s plans.

If you’ve read the gospels, you no doubt know how they portray the disciples to be a little slow. They don’t tend to understand Jesus’ parables or his mission. They don’t believe him and they bicker about being the best. I have a story about these guys (which, believe it or not, isn’t in the Bible). Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s accurate. Listen as we see how easy it is to forget what following Jesus is all about.

Pete: This meeting has been called at the request of Matt, John, Tom, and Little Jim. Bart, will you please open with prayer?
Bart: Almighty God, we ask Your blessing on all we do and say and earnestly pray that You will see our side as Your side. Amen.
Pete: Jesus, we have been following you around for some time, and we are getting concerned about the attendance figures. Tom, how many were on the hill yesterday?
Tom: Thirty-seven.
Pete: It’s getting to be ridiculous. You’re going to have to pep things up. We expect things to happen.
John: I’d like to suggest you pull off more miracles. That walking on water bit was the most exciting thing I have ever seen, but only a few of us saw it. If a thousand or so had a chance to witness it, we would have more than we could handle on the hill.
Little Jim: I agree. The healing miracles are terrific, but only a limited number really get to see what happened. Let’s have some more water to wine, more fish and chips (it never hurts to fill their stomachs), still more storms, give more signs. This is what the people need.
Pete: Right. And another thing, publicity is essential, and you tell half the people you cure to keep it quiet. Let the word get around.
Matt: I’m for miracles, but I want to hear a few stories I can understand. This “those who have ears to hear, let them hear” business just clouds the issue. You have to make it clear or most of us aren’t going to be able to take anything home.
John: I’d like to offer an order of service. First a story, then a big miracle followed by an offering, then maybe a saying or something, followed by a small miracle to bring them back next time. Oh yes, and a prayer if you’d like.
Tom: We have to do something.
Little Jim: That’s for sure. Attendance has been awful.
Judas: I’d like to say if we are going to continue meeting in this upper room, we ought to do something about the carpet…

So you see how easy it is to forget our purpose. I’ve been reading a book called Falling in Love With the Church by Larry McKain. In the book, he explains that we must know what the church is before we can even think about growing. I would think that most of us here would like to see Parkway grow. Maybe you don’t want to be as big as Walnut Hill, but you would like to see more here than those present today. Right?

So would I. But first you and I have to know what the church is. Open your Bibles to Acts 2:42, a famous passage describing the early church. This passage speaks about what was happening in the earliest days of Christianity, and that gives us somewhat of a picture of what the church is.

Our Actions Must Stem From Grace

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

You hear all that was happening—the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, communion, service, prayer—and it’s easy to miss why they were doing that. We must look behind all the goings-on to see what the church is. The Church is God’s primary instrument used to distribute His free grace to a dying world. You and I are a part of that dying world while at the same time a part of the Church. Though we’ve received God’s grace and are saved, it doesn’t mean we quit receiving His grace. Without the grace of God each moment of life, we would cease to exist.

Babette’s Feast

And this grace is like a story told by Philip Yancey in his book, What’s So Amazing About Grace. As the story goes, there is a sect of Christians in Germany committed to renouncing all worldly pleasures. They all dress in black, and eat boiled cod and gruel, tolerating life on earth until God takes them home. Their leader has two daughters: Martine and Philippa. They were both beautiful and attracted the attention of many men. But they rejected their suitors in order to take care of their aging father. Fifteen years passed and their father died. They tried to carry on his mission and lead the parishioners but with little success. One man held a grudge against another, rumors spread about an affair involving two of them, and two women hadn’t spoken to each other for a decade. But they kept on.

One night the two sisters heard a knock on the door. It was a ragged woman who handed them a note. It was signed by one of the men who had courted Philippa years ago. The note explained that her name was Babette, she had lost her family in the French civil war, had sought shelter by fleeing to Germany. And, she could cook. So they took her in, and in exchange for chores she was given room and board.

For the next 12 years Babette worked for the sisters. One day she received a letter from France. To her surprise, a friend had renewed her lottery number in the French lottery…she had won ten thousand francs! (which is like $30,000 today). The sisters were all but happy because they knew Babette would leave. Coincidentally, the letter came at the same time the sisters were planning a celebration of the hundredth anniversary of their father’s birth. Babette came to them with a request. “In twelve years I have asked nothing of you. But now I would like to prepare the meal for the anniversary…a real French meal.” The sisters weren’t so sure, but agreed to it.

Babette ordered all the food she would need to make the dinner: small birds, fresh vegetables, pheasants, ham, cow, huge tortoises, and other strange sea creatures. Everyone in the village was amazed and somewhat alarmed at the sight. It snowed the day of the dinner. Babette had scrounged enough china and had decorated the room with candles. The guests all ate without much talk, most of them somewhat disgusted at the taste of foreign food. But gradually the meal grew on them. They began to reminisce about the good old days when their leader was still alive. And finally they all left, leaving Babette in a mess of a kitchen filled with dirty dishes.

The two sisters approached Babette. “It was quite a nice dinner. We will all remember this evening when you’ve gone back to Paris.” Babette tells them she will not be going back. All her friends and relatives had been killed, and it would be too expensive to return. “But what about the ten thousand francs?” Then Babette tells them she spent every last franc on the feast they just ate.

And this is grace: it costs the giver everything, and the one who receives, nothing. Grace cost God His Son, and it cost us nothing. Now we as the church are called to give grace to those who haven’t received it yet. And it must cost us everything: our time, our energy, our Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, our money, our talents, everything. We must give everything we have in order to bestow grace on the world. Whether it’s saying hello to a neighbor or listening to a hurting friend, we must give grace. And, as a church, we must center all of our activities on this. Whether it’s fellowship together at Muriel’s for game night or singing praise to God on Sunday, we must distribute grace.

The Apostles’ Teaching

So now we must reevaluate what we’re doing. In the early church, the first thing it says they did was to devote themselves to the apostles’ teaching. The word “devoted” has a sense of “giving one’s attention to” and “being faithful in.” So the earliest believers…those who were converted from the speech Peter gave on the day of Pentecost, now give their full attention to the apostles’ teaching. And the apostles’ have a simple message. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures… (vv. 3-4).” The earliest Christians devoted themselves to this message. They lived and breathed Christ crucified. For it is in His death and resurrection that grace is made available to us. Without that, we would be condemned sinners deserving death. But Christ died, giving His all, while we receive the free gift of grace. And so, we must ask ourselves: Are we living as if we’ve been given grace? Are we thinking about, dreaming about, speaking about Christ crucified and risen? Or do we look at the cross behind me as if it were just decoration?

Fellowship

Acts tells us that the first Christians then devoted themselves to the fellowship. In other places in the Bible, fellowship is described as sharing or participating in something with others. It’s being known because of who you hang out with. Some of you have been going to this church for so long that it will be impossible to hear “Parkway Wesleyan” without thinking of you. And, you’ll notice that in verse 46 it says they met together every day. They loved each other so much, and knew the importance of gathering in Jesus name. God’s grace was displayed in their interaction, the way they loved each other and gave when one person had need. It’s no wonder verse 46 also says they ate together with glad and sincere hearts. They genuinely enjoyed being together. For us at Parkway, the way we interact can be full of grace or lacking grace. People who visit our church will be able to tell a lot about us by the way we act. Even in the way we joke with one another, the grace of Christ can shine through or be masked.

It reminds me of the story of three pastors going out to eat. Each of them ordered a bowl of soup and a salad. And just after the soup arrived, three flies came and landed, one in each bowl. So one pastor spooned the fly into his napkin, folded it up as discreetly as possible. The second pastor picked the fly out, put it on his finger and flicked it off. And the third pastor grabbed his fly by the wings, held it up to his face and screamed, “Spit it out! All of it! Spit it out!”

Now which one of these pastors, if observed by a non-Christian, would NOT look like a Christian? That’s right. And so our fellowship should reflect God’s grace.

Breaking of Bread

The third thing the early church devoted themselves to was breaking of bread, or the Lord’s Supper. They knew that it was more than remembering Jesus until He returned again. The Lord’s Supper signifies the death of our Lord and the forgiveness we receive in it. You cannot separate forgiveness from grace. Every time we take communion, Christ is there, imparting His grace to us. Without His grace, we would feel awful. To be reminded that Jesus had to die because of the sin’s I’ve committed is a horrible feeling, and if that’s all communion is about, then it makes no sense to eat it. But it’s not. Communion is all about grace, which Christ gives to us. You have to remember, some of these early Christians in Acts are probably some of the same people who yelled, “Crucify Him!” How do you think they felt the first time they ate the Lord’s Supper? They felt like they deserved death too, and would have always felt that way but for the grace of God.

Prayer

So they devoted themselves to breaking of bread, and then to prayer. In Acts, prayer always precedes a great work of God. The disciples were together praying and God sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Cornelius prays, and God sends Peter as a messenger to the Gentiles. The church prays for Peter while he is in prison, and God sends an angel to release Him. The early church understood that God moved when they prayed. God moved on their behalf and on behalf of those who didn’t know Him, so that they may know His grace in their lives.

Larry McKain also tells a story in his book about his grandfather, who was a farmer. His grandfather was not a Christian. He used Sundays to plow his fields and work around the farm. The pastor of the country church would ask him to come every now and then, and his response was always “no.” But that little church began praying for him by name. And one Sunday, for no apparent reason except God’s Spirit working on his heart, Larry’s grandfather ran inside his house, grabbed his wife and daughter, and took them to church. That Sunday their whole family got saved. And that little country church was where Larry’s mom raised him. He met his wife there. All because the church prayed for his grandfather.

Conclusion: God’s Instrument of Grace

So the early church was devoted to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. The early church was devoted to being God’s instrument of grace. Like Babette and like Jesus, they gave everything they had. Is this how Parkway looks? Take a few moments and compare our church with the picture we have of grace. Then think to yourself, am I God’s instrument of grace? If not, how can I be?

Here are four practical ways to be God’s instrument of grace. If you listened well, you know them already.

Commit yourself to preaching Christ crucified. I know you’re not a preacher, but commit to it in your everyday interaction with people. Tell them about your Savior who died for you and them.

When we’re together, encourage one another. Tell someone how much you appreciate them.

When you take communion, know that you are forgiven. Your sins do not condemn you any longer.

Take time to pray for a non-Christian by name. Pray each day for them.