Ecclesiology

Center Church

/ Dennis Griffith / 7 Comments

I picked up Tim Keller‘s newest book, Center Church.  It hit the bookstore shelves this morning.  I have as yet read only a few chapters. But as expected it is an excellent expression of holistic gospel-centered ministry.  In short it is a book about forming a Theological Vision for ministry, and living out that vision faithfully in whatever context one may live and serve in such a way as to be fruitful.

In particular I appreciate how from the outset Keller explains the difference and navigates between the two common ministry measuring sticks, success & faithfulness.  It seems to me that too many act as if we should assume these are mutually exclusive  – as if either is a sufficient goal or gauge.  Keller instead prefers fruitfulness, seeing both benefits and limitations of success and faithfulness as the simple objectives.  Fruitfulness is the end result of the complex web of faithfulness, competence, and the work of God’s Spirit. Success, whatever that really is, is not eschewed, but seen in light of the components of fruitfulness within a particular social context.

Now while I have not read the entire book, I did have one criticism from the outset.  While the book is less than 400 pages, and the chapters are easily readable (in other words, one need not be a theological scholar to follow along), the size of the book has the odd dimensions of a textbook.  This will look strange among most of the other books on my shelf.  But, I guess, if that remains my chief gripe, there is not much to complain about.

Screwtape Meets the “Me Church” Generation

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

Among C.S. Lewis‘ masterful works is the Screwtape Letters.  For those unfamiliar with this book, Screwtape is a fictional senior devil mentoring his nephew, Wormwood, a junior devil, in undermining his “patients” new found spiritual journey.  When reading Screwtape Letters it is important to remind yourself that everything is presented from a backward perspective – from a perspective a devil might have.  In these letters God is the “Enemy”.

Here is what Screwtape says about Churchgoing:

Surely you know that if a man can’t be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighborhood looking for the church that “suits” him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches. The reasons are obvious. In the first place the parochial organization [neighborhood church] should always be attacked, because, being a unity of place and not of likings, it brings people of different classes and psychology together in the kind of unity the Enemy desires. The congregational principle, on the other hand, makes each church into a kind of club, and finally, if all goes well, into a coterie or faction. In the second place, the search for a “suitable” church makes the man a critic where the Enemy wants him to be a pupil.”

I suspect Screwtape would be very pleased with the whole “Me Church” culture – both those individuals who embrace it and the churches that promote it.

If you are curious about the Screwtape Letters, they are available online:

Mistaken Identity

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

Like many churches throughout the land, our church is entering into a season of officer nominations. As a presbyterian congregation, specifically, we are inviting the members of our congregation to submit the names of fellow church members who they believe fit the Biblical requirements, found in Titus & 1 Timothy 3, for the offices of Elder and Deacon. 

Also, like many in other congregations, some of the members of our church are not quite sure what exactly these offices mean, nor what those who serve them are responsible to do. 

In a post on Coram Deo, Bob Thune offers a brief but helpful explanation, dispelling one of the more common misconceptions about Elders…

Click: Elder vs. Board Member

Love: The Sixth Mark of the Church

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

heart-3.jpgby James M. Boice

What is the greatest mark of the Church? I do not mean by this: What is the first mark of the Church, or even, What is the mark that we perhaps most lack? I mean: What is the greatest mark, the one that holds the others together? What is the one that gives meaning to the others, the one without which the Church cannot at all be what God means it to be? There is only one answer. The greatest mark of the Church is love. 

The Lord Jesus Christ, having spoken of joy, holiness, truth, mission and unity as essential marks of the Church in his high priestly prayer of John 17, concludes by an emphasis upon love. It is the new commandment of John 13:34,35 once again – “that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” 

We see the preeminence of love quite readily, if we look at it in reference to the other marks of the Church. What happens when you take love away from them? Suppose you take joy and subtract love from it? What do you have? You have hedonism. You have an exuberance in life and its pleasures, but without the sanctifying joy found in relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Subtract love from holiness. What do you find then? You find self-righteousness, the kind of virtue that characterized the Pharisees of  Christ’s day. By the standards of the day the Phariseeslived very holy lives, but they did not love others and thus were quite ready to kill Christ when he challenged their standards, and actually did kill him. They were hypocrites. 

Take love from truth, and you have a bitter orthodoxy, the kind of teaching which is right but which does not win anybody. Take love from mission, and you have imperialism. It iscolonialism in ecclesiastical garb. We have seen much of that in recent history. 

Take love from unity, and you soon have tyranny. This develops in a hierarchical church where there is no compassion for people nor a desire to involve them in the decision-making process. 

That is one side of it. On the other hand, express love in relation to God and man and what do you find? You find all the other marks of the church following. What does love for God the Father lead to? Joy! Because we rejoice in God and in what he has so overwhelmingly done for us. What does love for the Lord Jesus Christ lead to? Holiness! Because we know that we will see him one day and will be like him; therefore “every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:3). What does love for the Word of God lead to? Truth! Because if we love the Word, we will study it and therefore inevitably grow into a fuller appreciation and realization of God’s truth. What does love for the world lead to? Mission! We have a message to take to the world. Again, where does love for our Christian brothers and sisters lead us? To unity! Because by love we discern that we are bound together in that bundle of life which God himself has created within the Christian community. 

What can we say about love on the basis of these verses? First of all, we can say that it has its source in God. This is the kind of love we are talking about. We are not talking about the kind of love the ‘world invents, aspires to or imagines, but rather the love of God which is revealed in Jesus Christ and which we come to know as we come to know God. It is obvious that Jesus has precisely this thought in mind, because verse 25, the prelude to verse 26, talks about knowledge. In it Jesus says, “O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee; but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.” It is after this that Jesus goes on to say, “And I have declared unto them thy name [that is, I have made you known in your essential nature], and will declare it, [in order] that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”What Jesus is saying is that, if we know God, we will know God’s nature as being characterized by love and that, if we do not know love, we do not know God. It is the same point that John later makes clear in his first epistle (1 John 4:7, 8). 

When Jesus says that the world has not known God, this means, in addition to everything else, that the world does not know God as a God of love. This was demonstrated true in Christ’s day. No Greek, no Roman, no Egyptian, no Babylonian in Christ’s day, or in any of the centuries before, had ever thought of God’s nature as being essentially characterized by love. It is just not there. Read all the ancient documents, and you simply do not find this element. At best, God was thought to be impartial. Or, if one chose to think optimistically, God could sometimes be said to love those who love him; meaning that he might be favorable to them for their service. But this is a tit-for-tat arrangement (you serve me, and I will take care of you), not the benevolent, unmerited love of God disclosed in the Bible. It simply does not exist in antiquity, except in apreparatory form within the pages of the Old Testament. 

With the Lord Jesus Christ an entirely new idea entered history. For he taught, not only that God is loving, but also that he loves with an extraordinary love, entirely beyond all human imaginations. That love had sent Christ to die. Moreover, on that basis it would now draw a host of redeemed men and women into an extraordinary family relationship with God. 

This leads to a second point, the revelation itself. We ask: Where does the revelation of God’s love occur? Again, it is a somewhat complicated answer. Certainly God had revealed himself to be a God of love in the pages of the Old Testament. God indicated there that he had set his love upon Israel even though there was nothing in the people to merit it. Again, God is revealed to be a God of love in Christ’s teaching. He called him Father, indicating that his was a father’s love. All that is true. Yet the best truth is that God is declared to be a God of love by the cross of Jesus Christ. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).  

This is what Jesus is looking forward to in the words that close his prayer, for he says, “I will declare it,” meaning the name of God. What is he thinking of here? We could understand the phrase if it Ihad occurred in the past tense, for it would then clearly refer to the previous teaching in the Gospel. But why the future tense? What is Jesus thinking about? It must be the Cross itself. For it is as though Jesus is saying, “That which I have been speaking of in years past I am now going to demonstrate in a dramatic and tangible way through my crucifixion.” 

There has never been – there never will be – a greater demonstration of the love of God. So if you will not have the Cross, if you will not see God speaking in love in Jesus Christ, you will never find a loving God anywhere. The God of the Bible is going to be a silent God for you. The universe is going to be an empty universe. History is going to be meaningless. It is only at the Cross that you will ever find God in his true nature and learn that these other things have meaning. 

There is something else in this text. For Jesus does not merely show where we can find love. He also shows where we can demonstrate love, for he goes on to pray that “the love with whichthou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.” Love is to be shown in us personally. 

Why is Jesus concerned about this? I am sure he is concerned about this simply because it is only in his followers that anyone in this age, or any other age save his own, can see this great love. Jesus was aware that he was about to die. Following his death, there would be a resurrection and an ascension into heaven. Therefore, this one who was himself the perfect manifestation of love, the only one in whom this world had ever seen what true love really is – this one would be gone. He would not be here for men and women to contemplate. So he says as he closes his prayer that this love is now to be in us, even as he is in us, and that the world is to see it there. It must be love in action. 

But how do we do it? That is the real question. How do we love one another? How do we put this great love of God into practice? Let me share a few very practical ways. 

First, we need to love one another by listening to one another. We live in an age in which people do not listen to one another. Oh, we talk to one another, and others are constantly talking to us. But it is a hard world in which no one really listens. So one of the things we need to do, if we are truly characterized by the love of God at this point, is to listen. God listens to us.  

Second, we should share. That is, we should let others share, and we should share ourselves. We are not professional counselors, trained to do nothing but listen and never interject ourselves. Weare brothers and sisters in the Lord. We have a family relationship. So we do not sit like computers, analyzing what we are told and then coming back with answers carefully based upon social science surveys. We come back as people who are on the same level as the ones to whom we are talking, and we say, “Yes, I’ve gone through that. God has done this and this for me.” 

Our problem is that we do not like to share ourselves. And the reason we do not like to share ourselves is, if we put it quite frankly, that we are ashamed of ourselves because we are sinners and are afraid that if we really did tell what is down inside, the other person would turn away and be disgusted. We would lose the relationship. So how do we get to the point of being able really to share? There is only one way, and that is to know deep in our hearts that before God we are fully known as we are, with all our blemishes, sins and shames, and that, nevertheless, Jesus Christ has loved us, died for us and that we are now fully accepted in the beloved. If you can know that, that you are known and yet loved, then you can share your true self and love others. 

Third, we must serve. The thirteenth chapter of John begins with a reference to service as the outworking of Christ’s love: “Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end” (13:1). It continues with a demonstration of what this love means in the washing of the disciples’ feet. Jesus concluded, “If I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one I another’s feet” (13:14). Later Jesus goes on to teach what this love means, what the Holy Spirit will do in enabling us to love and then, finally, in his prayer, what are the special marks that should characterize the Church in this and every age: joy, holiness, truth,unity, mission and love. The last of these involves service. 

And quite rightly! For the Christian Church is not in the world to be served. She is in the world to serve. 

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This is the sixth in a series of six posts by Dr James M. Boice concerning the characteristics of a healthy church.

Unity: The Fifth Mark of the Church

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

by James M. Boice

The divisions that exist today are too obvious to need comment. They lie both on the surface and within. Battles rage. Even highly praised church mergers not only fail to heal these divisions but also usually lead to further breakups involving those who do not like the new union. So far as Christ’s reasons for praying for unity go, it is simply that he foresaw these differences and so asked for that great unity which should exist among his own in spite of them. 

All the marks of the church concern the Christian’s relationship to some thing or some person. Unity is to be the mark of the church in the relationships which exist between its members. Joy is the mark of the Christian in relationship to himself. Holiness is the mark in relationship to God. Truth is the mark in his relationship to the Bible. Mission is the mark in his relationship to the world. In this mark, unity, and the last, love, which in some sense summarizes them all, we deal with the Christian’s relationship to all who are likewise God’s children. 

What kind of unity is this to be?

One thing the church is not to be is a great organizational unity. Whatever advantages or disadvantages may be involved in massive organizational unity, this in itself obviously does not produce the results Christ prayed for, nor does it solve the church’s other great problems. Moreover, it has been tried and found wanting. In the early days of the church there was much vitality and growth but little organizational unity. Later, as the church came to favor under Constantine and his successors, the church increasingly centralized until during the Middle Ages there was literally one united ecclesiastical body covering all Europe. Wherever one went – whether north, east, south or west – there was one united, interlacing church with the Pope at its head. But was this a great age? Was there a deep unity of faith? Was the church strong? Was its morality high? Did men and women find themselves increasingly drawn to this faith and come to confess Jesus Christ to be their Savior and Lord (for that is what Christpromised, namely, that if the church were one, men and women would believe on him)? Not at all! On the contrary, the world believed the very opposite. 

Another type of unity that we do not need is conformity, that is, an approach to the church which would make everyone alike. Here we probably come closest to the error of the evangelical church. For if the liberal church for the most part strives for an organizational unity – the evangelical church for its part seems to strive for an identical pattern of looks and behavior among its members. This is not what Jesus is looking for in this prayer. On the contrary, there should be the greatest diversity among Christians, diversity of personality, interests, life style and even methods of Christian work and evangelism. This should make the church interesting, not dull. Uniformity is dull, like row upon row of cereal boxes. Variety is exciting! It is the variety of nature and of the character and actions of our God. 

But if the unity for which Jesus prayed is not an organizational unity or a unity achieved by conformity, what kind of unity is it? The answer is that it is a unity parallel to the unity that exists within the Godhead; for Jesus speaks of it in these terms – “That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they may also be one in us… I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one” (John 17:21, 23). This means that the church is to have a spiritual unity involving the basic orientation, desires and will of those participating. Paul points to this true unity in writing to the Corinthians, saying, “Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God who worketh all in all (1 Corinthians 12:4-6). 

The various images used of the church throughout the New Testament help us understand the nature of this unity. For instance, Christians belong to the family of God, and therefore they are rightly brothers and sisters of one another. We begin with this image because these terms, brothers and sisters, are the most common terms used by Christians of one another in the New Testament. 

The unique characteristic of this image – that of the family, or of brothers and sisters – is that it speaks of relationships and therefore of the commitments that the individuals must have to one another. The relationships are based upon what God has done. Salvation is described as God begetting spiritual children, who are therefore made members of his spiritual family through his choice and not through their own. 

This fact has two important consequences. 

First, if the family to which we belong has been established by God, then we have no choice as to who will be in it or whether or not we will be his or her sister or brother. On the contrary, the relationship simply exists, and we must be brotherly to the other Christian, whether we want to be or not. 

The second consequence is simply that we must be committed to each other in tangible ways. We must be committed to helping each other, for example. For we all need help at times, and this is one clear way in which the special bond among believers can be shown to the watching world. 

The second important image used to portray the unity of the church of Christ is a fellowship, which the New Testament normally indicates by the Greek word koinonia. The word at its base has to do with sharing something or having something in common. In spiritual terms koinonia, or fellowship, is had by those who share a common Christian experience of the gospel. In this respect the New Testament speaks often of our fellowship with the Father (1 John 1 :3), with the Son (1 Corinthians 1:9), which is sometimes described as a fellowship in the blood and body of Christ (1 Corinthians 10: 16), and with the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 13:14). 

But fellowship is not only defined in terms of what we share in together. It also involves what we share out together. And this means that it must involve a community in which Christians actually share their thoughts and lives with one another. 

How is this to be done practically? It will probably be done in different ways in different congregations depending upon local situations and needs. Some churches are small and therefore will have an easier time establishing times of sharing. Here church suppers, work projects and other such efforts will help. Larger churches will have to break their numbers down into smaller groups in various ways. 

The third important image used to stress the unity of the church is the body. Clearly, this image has many important connotations. It speaks of the nature of the Christian union – one part of the body simply cannot survive if it is separated from the whole. It speaks of interdependence. It even suggests a kind of subordination involving a diversity of function; for the hand is not the foot, nor the foot the eye, and over all is the head which is Christ. 

However, the one function of the body which is unique to this image is service. For just as the family emphasizes relationships, and fellowship emphasizes sharing, so does the body emphasize work. The body exists to do something and, since we are talking about unity, we must stress that it exists to enable us to do this work together. 

What is to be your part in this area? What will you do? Obviously you cannot change the whole church, but, first, you can become aware of that great family, fellowship and body to which you already belong, and you can thank God for it. Second, you can join a small group, where the reality of Christian unity is most readily seen and experienced. Third, you can work with that group to show forth Christian love and give service. If you are willing to do that, you will find God to be with you, and you will be overwhelmed at the power with which he works both in you and in others whom he will be drawing to faith. 

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This is the fifth in a series of six posts by Dr James M. Boice concerning the characteristics of a healthy church.

Mission: The Fourth Mark of the Church

/ Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

A number of years ago, when the well-known conference speaker Ralph L. Keiper was preaching at a missions conference in Deerfield Street, New Jersey, he told about a little girl who had come to see him early in his ministry. She was about eight years old.  She had been to the church’s daily vacation Bible school. And when she came into his study she asked, “Mr. Keiper, is it all right if I commit suicide?” 

 The young pastor was startled. But he had learned never to give a quick Yes or No answer to a child’s question without first discovering why the child is asking the question. So he countered,“Mary, why would you ever want to commit suicide?” 

 “Well,” Mary said, “it’s because of what I learned in Bible school this morning.” 

 Keiper wondered to himself, “What was this child told?” 

She said, “We were taught that heaven is a wonderful place – no fear, no crying, no fighting, just to be with the Lord. Won’t that be wonderful! We were taught that when we die we will be with Jesus. Did I hear it right, Mr. Keiper?” 

“Yes, you did, Mary. But why would you want to commit suicide?” 

“Well,” she said, “you have been in my home. You know my mother and daddy. They don’t know Jesus. Many times they are drunk. So we have to get ourselves up in the morning, get our own breakfast and go to school with dirty clothes. The children make fun of us, and when we come home again we hear fighting and things that make us afraid. Why couldn’t I commit suicide?” 

It is clear that Mary did not believe in theoretical theology; she believed in practical theology, and she was facing a very practical problem. What she was really asking is why are we in this world anyway. If this world is such a sin-cursed place and heaven is such a blessed place, why do we have to stay here? Why does God not take us to heaven immediately upon our conversion? Or, failing that, why do we not all take our own life and so speed up what is an inevitable ending anyway?

Keiper answered by saying, “Mary, there is only one reason in God’s world why we are here. And that is that through our testimony, by life and by word, we might have the privilege of bringing people to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus.” He then indicated that, as Mary did this, it might be in the Lord’s providence that her parents would come to know the Lord as their Savior. Later, her mother did. 

Keiper’s story is important in light of the fourth mark of the church.

Up to this point we have been talking about those things which concern the church itself or which concern individual Christians personally. We have looked at joy, holiness and truth. But while these are important and undoubtedly attainable to a large degree in this life, nevertheless it does not take much thinking to figure out that all three of them would be more quickly attained if we could only be transported to heaven. Here we have joy; that is true. But what is this joy compared to the joy we will have when we see the source of our joy face to face? The Bible acknowledges this when it speaks of the blessedness of the redeemed saints, from whose eyes all tears shall be wiped away (Rev. 7:17; 21:4). Again, in this world we undoubtedly know a degree of sanctification. But what of that day when we shall be completely like him (1 John 3:2)? Or again, here we are able to assimilate some aspects of God’s truth and know truly. But in the day of our final redemption we shall know fully. “Now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then, face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). If this is true, why should we not go to heaven immediately? 

The answer is in the mark of the church to which we come now. For the church is not only to look inward and find joy, to look Christ-ward and find sanctification, to look to the Scriptures and find truth. The church is also to look outward to the world and there find the object of her God-given mission. 

The word “mission” comes from the Latin verb mitto, mittere, misi, missum, which means “to send” or “dispatch.” A mission is a sending forth. “But to whom is the church sent? Where are we sent as Christian missionaries?” The answer is, into the world. Jesus says quite clearly, “As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world” (v. 18). 

Here is why the evangelical church in the U.S. is not as much of a missionary church as it claims to be. It is not that the evangelical church does not support foreign missions. Rather it lies at the point of the evangelicals’ personal withdrawal from the culture. Many seem afraid of their culture. Hence, they try to keep as far from the world as possible lest they be contaminated or polluted by it. Thus they have developed their own subculture. As some Bible teachers have pointed out, it is possible, for example, to be born of Christian parents, grow up in that Christian family, have Christian friends, go to Christian schools and colleges, read Christian books, attend a Christian country club (known as a church), watch Christian movies, get Christian employment, be attended by a Christian doctor, and finally, one may suppose, die and be buried by a Christian undertaker on holy ground. But this is certainly not what Jesus meant when he spoke of his followers being “in the world.” 

What does it mean to be in the world as a Christian? It does not mean to be like the world; the marks of the church are to make the church different. It does not mean that we are to abandon Christian fellowship or our other basic Christian orientations. All it means is that we are to know non-Christians, befriend them, and enter into their own lives in such a way that we begin to infect them with the gospel, rather than their infecting us with their worldliness, which is the wrong way around. 

The second thing the text talks about is the character of the ones who are to conduct this mission. The point here is that we are to be as Christ in the world. This is made clear both in verse 18 and 19, for Jesus compares the disciples to himself both in the area of his having been sent into the world by the Father and of his being sanctified or set apart totally to that work. He says, “As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth.” In other words, we are to be in our mission as Jesus was in his mission. We are to be like the One whom we are presenting. 

Perhaps you are saying, “I do not know if I am like Jesus or not. In what areas should I be like him?” Obviously we are to be like him in every way. In other words; as his life was characterized by joy, so is our life to be characterized by joy. As he was sanctified, so are we to be sanctified. As he was characterized by truth, so are we to be. 

We are also to be like the Lord Jesus Christ in our unity. The world is fractured in a million ways. It is the logical outcome of the work of Satan, one of whose most revealing names is the disrupter (diabolos). If Christians would win the world, they must show a genuine unity which is in itself desirable and winsome and which at the same time points to the great unity within the Godhead, which is its source. 

Finally, the church must be marked by love, if it is to be as Christ in the world. Jesus loved the world; he really did. It was out of love for it that he died. Consequently, if we would win the world, we must love the world too – not the world’s system or sin, of course, but rather those who are in it. 

Once my family was eating in a restaurant, and my youngest daughter knocked over her glass of coke for about the thousandth time. I was visibly annoyed, as I always am (since we never seem to get through a meal without the identical accident). But we cleaned up and shortly after that left the restaurant. My daughter walked along in silence for awhile; but then she said, “You really hate it when we spill our cokes, don’t you?” I replied that I certainly did. She looked serious, but then she brightened up as if a particularly happy thought had just passed through her mind. She threw her arms around me in a big hug and added, “But you love me!” 

She knew the difference between love of the sinner and hatred of sin. And so will we if we look to Jesus. We must be like him in love, knowing that if we are, the world will see it and be drawn to him.  

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This is the fourth in a series of six posts by Dr James M. Boice concerning the characteristics of a healthy church.

Joy: The First Mark of the Church

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

by James M. Boice

That most of us do not think of joy as a primary characteristic of the Church probably indicates both how little we regard it and how far we have moved from the spirit of the early Church. For if anything characterizes the early Church it is that it was a joyous assembly. 

When the Jerusalem Church sent a letter to the churches of Antioch, Syria and Cilicia after the first Church council, they began their announcement of the momentous decision regarding Gentile liberty from law by the word chairein – “Joy be with you”  (Acts 15:23).  James begins his letter in the same manner – “Joy be with you” (James 1:2).  In Paul there are many such greetings. Thus, when in a letter literally flowing over with joy, the Apostle wishes to give final admonitions to his friends, the Philippians, he writes, “Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say. Rejoice” (4:4). 

But is the Church today joyful?

Are Christians? 

No doubt we think of joy as something that should characterize the Church ideally and will doubtlessly characterize it in that day when we are gathered together around the throne of grace to sing God’s glory. But here? Here it is often the case that there are sour looks, griping, long faces and other manifestations of a fundamental inner misery. 

We should be joyful, but often we are not. We are depressed. Circumstances get us down. Instead of the victory we should experience, we know defeat and discouragement. 

Since none of us wants to remain gloomy, let us see what we can find as a remedy. 

The first remedy for a lack of joy is on the surface of the text. Jesus says quite clearly, “These things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy” (John 17:13). This means that in one sense the basis for joy is sound doctrine. Earlier in these final discourses Jesus declared, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full” (John 15:10, 11). Joy is to be found in a knowledge of God’s character and commandments, and these are to be learned through his Word. When we are settled in our knowledge of God, his will and ways, we can trust him peacefully and joyfully whatever the circumstances. 

Does someone say, “Oh, but that is easy for you to say, but you don’t know my circumstances. I am thirty-two years old and unmarried. My parents are dead, and I am so lonely. I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to go on this way for thirty or forty more years…” Another says, “But I’m an invalid. I can’t get about. My circumstances are so hard…” If you are speaking this way, you are indicating your practical ignorance of the sovereignty of God and are confessing that your thoughts are not really settled in him. Instead of this, recognize that he has planned those circumstances and look for his purposes in them. 

Let me say something about circumstances, which we often think are so bad. Circumstances refer to things that are without. The word itself is based on two Latin words: circum, which means“around” (as in the word “circumference”), and stare, which means “to stand.” So circumstances are the things that are standing around us. They are external. But where is the Lord in this picture? Is he without? No, by contrast he is within. It is a case of “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1 :27). So why worry about what is without, if Christ is within? To know that he is within and that he is directing us moment by moment, day by day, is the secret of that super-natural joy which is our rightful birthmark as God’s children. 

The second remedy for a lack of joy in the believer’s life is fellowship, and that in two dimensions. There is a vertical fellowship: fellowship with God. And there is a horizontal fellowship: fellowship with one another. Jesus is the pattern for us in both cases. 

One thing we are going to notice in these six marks of the Church is that Jesus is the pattern for each one. And that is certainly the case here. For Jesus was joyful, even though we call him (rightly, but perhaps one-sidedly) “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” We know this from our text, because he speaks here, not just of “joy,” but of “my joy.” It is this that he holds out to us. What is his joy? It is the joy of moment by moment contact and fellowship with the Father. This is what sustains him in this prayer. It is what sustained him on the cross. 

It will sustain us as well, if we will only enter into the reality of that fellowship. Do not say, “But that is for Jesus; he was the Son of God, and I am just I.” Are we not also sons of God? Is it not Jesus himself who has taught this to us? He taught that we could be born into God’s family (John 3:3, 7). He taught that God could become our Father (John 20:17). Therefore, we can enter into the joy of Christ even as he entered into it – by constant fellowship with the Father. 

Moreover, we can enjoy it on the horizontal level also. In fact, we must enjoy it on the horizontal level, for fellowship with the Father and with one another always go together. So if you are not joyful, it may be that you have cut yourself off from other Christians, perhaps even with the thought of establishing your own private fellowship with God. It does not work that way. You need other believers, and they need you. Without them your fellowship with God will be diminished and your joy will not be full. 

There is one final part to God’s remedy for lack of joy. It is that we must live holy lives; for sin will keep us from God, and the fellowship with him that we need will be broken. In John 17 this thought is suggested by the sequence of the verses. For immediately after speaking of our need for joy, Jesus goes on to speak of our need for holiness, adding, “Sanctify them through thy truth” (v. 17). The same thing is suggested in Romans 14:17, where Paul says, “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” 

Many Christians do not have the joy that they ought rightly to have because they go their way, rather than God’s. They disobey his commandments. How much better to go God’s way in holiness, to rest in him, and thus allow him to “fill you with all joy and peace in believing” (Rom. 15:13). 

This is the first in a series of six posts by Dr James M. Boice concerning the characteristics of a healthy church.

Marks of a Healthy Church

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

Over the next several weeks the leaders of Walnut Hill Church will engage in a number of discussions concerning the health and direction of our church.  These discussions will cover a wide range of considerations. 

Walnut Hill, though a smaller church is in many respects already a healthy congregation.  I believe that if we were to compare ourselves with the majority of churches around the country, we would find that we are doing quite well.  But such comparative health is not our aim. Instead we want to be faithful to all that our Lord calls us to be and to do. We want to be and do everything that we were designed for; we don’t want to just be (or seem) better than some others.

Toward that end…

  • Our Elders will be going to Birmingham, AL in a few weeks to participate in the Embers to Flame Conference, which I expect will provide some common ground for our discussions.  The key concepts emphasized by the Embers Conference will then serve as a sort of “scaffolding” as we labor to strengthen and build and our various ministries.  
  • We will continue our process of moving from a church that prays toward becoming a House of Prayer for all Nations.  Already Walnut Hill displays a priority of prayer that is very encouraging to me as the pastor.  But we want to explore how we can still grow in this area. (I’ll compose several posts that I hope will clarify some of the distinctions between a Praying Church and a House of Prayer.) 
  • We will explore the Gospel, and its various aspects. And we will consider how the Gospel applies to us each day as followers of Christ, and not just as a plan of salvation to be explained to those who do not (yet) believe. (See Colossians 2:6, Galatians 3:1-3, and 2 Peter 3:18)
  • We will reflect on the Core Values, or the DNA, of our church, so we can build on those things that make Walnut Hill unique. And we anticipate developing a clear and comprehensive philosophy of ministry – which we will put in writing. Much of this is already in place, but still needs to be clearly articulated so we can communicate it to those who will be – and already are -joining us. 

These are a few of the things that we will be undertaking, and obviously only a broad sketch. But I wanted to share it with you so you will know how to pray for us. And I also wanted to provide an open door for you to consider some of these same things along with us. 

As part of our discussion I will also post a series of articles by Dr. James M. Boice from his series: How to Have a Healthy Church.  While these are not exhaustive, I find these insights to be very helpful and, as I look at Walnut Hill, encouraging.   

Dr. Boice suggests there are 6 Marks, which will be published in six subsequent posts: 

I invite you, the Walnut Hill Church family, to reflect on these marks, and consider to what extent they are evident at Walnut Hill, corporately; and in our own lives, personally.

To any degree you find us lacking, please pray that, by God’s grace, these marks would become increasingly evident in and among us.