North Star: Church

The church is the people of God who have been saved from sin. Now, we are in union with Christ because of and through the Gospel. For those of us plodding through the fallout of a life marked by fear, shame, and guilt, the gift of a new identity sounds like pretty good news.

That is until we spend a little time actually in the church. After a few Sundays you might begin thinking it wasn’t the Winslow’s who adopted you after all. Maybe it was the Bunker’s or even the Soprano’s who actually brought you into their family. Even though we are given a new identity, our old ways of being ourselves still linger. That is why the church is a living paradox — both saint and sinner, already and not yet, saved and being saved.

Visions of God’s beauty stir our souls, yet we still think that creation is better than the Creator (1 Corinthians 10:14).

Jesus creates this people and promises that he will build his church, yet we often turn from him to focus on our agenda, our strategy, and our plans (Matthew 16:18).

The church is created as a united people, yet Jim and Cecil get in a fistfight after the service over the all-engrossing issue of red or burgundy carpet (Ephesians. 4:4-6).

In short, the church is a powerful, pathetic, and altogether paradoxical bunch. However, Scripture is clear that the supernatural force of those first clauses of hope will always triumph over those second clauses of dysfunction. This is why we believe that the antidote to this dysfunction in the church is not a new list of programs and activities; rather it is remembering who we are. What if, instead of starting with what we should do as the church, we started with a fresh understanding of who we are as the church? The journey towards becoming a healthy church is the journey towards becoming the people God made us to be. We are worshipers, disciples, family, servants, and witnesses.

We Are Worshippers

True worship is our loving response to who God is and all He has done. Whatever it is we are most willing to sacrifice for, commit to, or celebrate is what we are worshiping. God is the most worthy object of worship, but whether we worship God or something else, every human worships. James K.A. Smith describes the continuous nature of our worship when he writes, “To be human is to be for something, directed toward something, oriented for something. To be human is to be on the move, pursuing something, after something. We are like existential sharks; we have to move to live. We are not just static containers for ideas; we are dynamic creatures directed toward some end.” Humans have trapped themselves in a cycle of worshiping creation instead of the Creator. When we encounter and receive the gospel, though, the posture of our hearts shifts. God moves us from worshiping His stuff to worshiping Him. He moves us into His Kingdom.

In the Kingdom, everything we do is an act of worship. In every business deal inked and in every diaper changed, in the way we speak to our spouse and in the way that we drive during rush hour, in every choice we make there is an opportunity to worship God or to worship something else. We can worship God by getting out of bed and going to church, or worship ourselves by hitting the snooze button. We can worship God with or we can worship the opinions of others. Citizens of the Kingdom are true worshipers of God who strive to both continuously and consciously give God their best praise. And yet, who among us has not hit the snooze button or found themselves in the depressing chains of comparison swiping through Instagram? This is where we begin to see our need for that second aspect of the Gospel: the cross of Christ.

The cross of Christ frees us from the guilt of half-hearted worship because Jesus is the one who perfects our worship as he intercedes with God on our behalf. His faithful worship of God led him to sacrifice Himself and it is His sacrifice that enables us to offer God true worship. That is why a Roman guard saw Jesus dying on the cross and proclaimed “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:38). That is why Thomas felt Jesus’s crucifixion wounds, looked at Jesus, and cried “My Lord and My God!” (John 20:27-28). In both circumstances, the cross moved people to declare Jesus was God. The cross is the great evidence of God’s love for us and experiencing this love moves us to worship (Romans 5:8).

So if worship takes place in the Kingdom and the cross enables our worship, what keeps us going is the third aspect of the gospel: grace. God’s grace motivates our worship. We worship the God who loved us enough to send His Son. We worship the God who loves us enough to die for us. We worship the God who adopted us into His family and made us citizens of His kingdom.

We Are Disciples

Disciples spend time with Jesus to become like Jesus. A disciple is someone who chooses to be with someone else so that they might become capable of doing what that person does and living as that person lives. In our journey from brokenness to wholeness, we come to Jesus to learn from Him and become like Him.

Citizens of the Kingdom don’t follow their own path but live under the rule of God and carry out His design. Trusting God’s divine provision for us allows us to seek the Kingdom and leverage everything we have for the sake of God’s Kingdom. As we do so, we flourish, becoming more and more like the people God made us to be. Though uncertainty fills this new way of living, we need not be afraid. “Don’t be afraid, little flock,” Jesus says, “for it gives your Father great happiness to give you the Kingdom.” (Luke 12:32)

However, notice that Jesus did not say health, comfort, and sacks of money would mark kingdom citizens. Full entrance into life with God entails suffering and hardship. If we come to Jesus to be like Him, then we should expect to join Him in his suffering. For every kingdom disciple, this means laying down our goals and plans and taking up God’s. Jesus explained the cost — and also the blessing — of this new rhythm to his disciples. “If any of you wants to be my follower,” he says, “you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.” (Matthew 16:24-45) Though it often feels like dying, the life of discipleship teaches us how to live. This is our new perspective on life and it is in the cross that we see the new way forward.

Such discipleship is not the result of mere human effort, though. Let’s be honest: there is only so much discomfort sane people will give themselves before returning to a life of ease. It is here that we must remember the gospel of grace that protects our lives as disciples. The cross of Christ brings us into God’s kingdom. And it is His grace that keeps us safe and moving on our journey. Grace is the free love and acceptance of God that initiates, maintains, and completes our discipleship.

We Are Family

The New Testament is full of various images of what it means to be saved by God. The clearest image, however, is probably that of a family because the goal of our salvation is the stunning reality that God adopts us into His family.

The church is where the world sees what grace is because God has saved us by grace. It is grace that creates our family and grace holds our family together. And if grace holds the family together, it is the cross that is the means by which God adopts us into His family. Jesus lived as a perfect member of God’s family because we couldn’t. He always lived by the family values as He went about the family business so that we could be adopted into the family! Because God loves us, Christ has died for us. This is what makes us family and, catch this, this is what allows us to endure despite our family’s dysfunction. Thus, because of the cross we can pursue life in the family knowing full well we will never be a perfect picture of God’s love until Christ returns.

Now, with all of that said, it is from the reality of God’s grace and cross that we can live as family members in God’s Kingdom. The church is a family whose Father is also the King of the universe. The church thus desires and submits to the will of its Father and King. That is why membership in this kingdom demands living lives congruent with the values of this kingdom. Just as parents instruct their children in what it means to be a part of the family, so too does God instruct his family. He tells us to commit to one another in a local church (Acts 2:37-47), to love one another (John 15:12-17), to share our possessions with one another (Romans 12:13), to bear with each other’s weaknesses (Romans 15:1), and to serve each other (John 13:14). Our life in the family of God shows the world what God is like, but it also serves to show us what the fullness of God’s kingdom will be like. Though a dysfunctional family may surround us, we also catch glimpses of how beautiful our family will one day be.

We Are Servants

God’s design for life often reverses this world’s values. Paradoxically, God shows us throughout Scriptures that the way up is the way down. As Michael Card observes, “In the upside-down Kingdom, true greatness is found in the servant’s kneeling with the basin and the towel.” In this Kingdom, the way to glory is through suffering; the way to success is through service; the way to preserve your life is to lose it. The fundamental orientation of the Christian is away from themselves and towards God. We step out of the spotlight so that the light of Christ can shine all the brighter.

However, to serve is to sacrifice our own lives for the sake of others just as Jesus sacrificed his life for ours. The church is thus called to lay down its life as it announces the good news of salvation accomplished by Jesus. We do not place the spotlight on our service or sacrifice. We do not proclaim our achievements as the key to new life. We proclaim Christ’s service, suffering, and sacrifice. Paul reminds us that we are “always carrying in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” (2 Corinthians 4:7-12). We embrace suffering and service so that the world might see Jesus in us. Our service cannot save anyone, but the service of Jesus can. And so we serve because we are kingdom citizens and the cross is our model of service.

This is why as Kingdom citizens through the cross of Christ, service is a gift of God’s grace. God’s free acceptance of us is both the means and the motivation of our service. We serve to become like Jesus. We serve to experience greater depths of God’s love for us. We serve as a joyful response to Christ’s suffering in our place.

We Are Witnesses

A witness is someone who has seen and experienced something and then declares what they have seen and experienced to others. As God’s witnesses, we experience restored relationship with God. As we experience this, we go to the ends of our driveways and to the ends of he earth inviting others to share in life with God. The entire world is God’s and so witnesses see every aspect of their lives as an opportunity to declare who God is and what he has done.

The Apostles lived as witnesses both by preaching sermons and by serving the poor. They taught the Bible and provided for one another’s needs. They evangelized and they met the practical needs of their city. Kingdom citizens are not accepted into an exclusive, secret society. Instead, they are brought into a spiritual cyclone. That’s because God never brings us in without sending us out.

Witnesses experience life in this kingdom and then go proclaim the goodness of that life. The invitation to the kingdom is a liberating one, too. Because of the cross, being a witness is not dependent upon anyone’s performance or ability. It is instead contingent upon the work of the Christ at the cross. This is why Jesus sends the church out not to earn salvation, but to announce it. Witnesses need not be winsome, sophisticated, or graduates of seminary. Witnesses only need to experience what Jesus has done and then be willing to share what Jesus has done.