“The Present Future!”

(Part One)

When the Lord Jesus Christ established his church, he entered into a missional covenant with the apostles. 

He sent them out to expand his kingdom by teaching his principles to a lost world, and baptizing them into the Kingdom of God. We find that in what we now call the “Great Commission.”

Mat 28:19-20—“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

We are in the end of the world and God has revealed to us his character – his goodness, his mercy, his love – and he has given this character to us in the form of his son, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ should be the love of our life. The only human being that we love more than our wife, or our husband or our children is this God-man, Jesus. And truly, he is the only person on earth worthy of our love and affection.

As time went on, the church gradually lost sight of this missional covenant. God wanted them to expand the kingdom. Now the expansion of the kingdom is not building buildings, it is taking the gospel to a dying world and becoming a partner with God in redeeming fallen sinners from their lost condition. But it has instead grown to look at the church as a clubhouse where religious people hang out with other people who think, dress, eat, vote, believe, and behave like them.

Most Christians were led to believe they would experience an abundant life.-- One that would be filled with adventure. A life that would give them the thrill of helping people find their way into God’s Kingdom. Instead, they have been brought into church captivity, only to do what’s good for the club, not having much of an impact on the lost souls in the community at all. This was not what they were promised. Where is the abundant life? Where is the thrill of winning others to Christ? Where is that joy-filled abundant life that I was told I would have when I gave my life to Jesus?

Like a lifeboat station that was established on the coastline to rescue perishing sinners, this perishing sinner ministry has become a country club, where we no longer brave the waters and launch out into the sea to save drowning sinners. Do we sometimes forget that the church was established in the first place for the purpose of rescuing people: our brothers and sisters, our neighbors and friends, the people we work with, the people we shop with?

If we are going to be a twenty-first century church that is relevant and missional in its outlook we must create a whole new mental landscape. Have our church members ever really experienced what missional living is all about or are they just experiencing Church?

New Reality Number One:

The Collapse of the Church Culture as we know it today.

The current church culture is on life support. It is living off the work, money, and energy of previous generations from a previous church culture. Did you know that eighty percent (80%) of the money given to congregations today comes from the people aged 55 and over? “The plug will be pulled” when the money they are donating runs out or in a generation or two when those institutional loyalists die off. 

In the last decade, alone the unchurched population has grown from 24 percent to 34 percent. The number of unchurched women has risen from 18 to 30 percent. The number of unchurched in America has risen form 26 to 40 percent. And in just a few years, over half the people in North America will be “un-churched.”

Ninety percent (90%) of young people leave the church by the time they are a sophomore in college, and there are over 112 million “churchless” Christians today. Many youth say they have left the church for a new and previously unheard of reason: to preserve their faith. They contend that the church no longer contributes to their spiritual development (and) that the church is out of touch, irrelevant and not caring about them or their life. Many of them have told the people who took these various surveys that the church has no involvement, their not conscious of the Internet, cell phones, MP3 players, or in the world in which they live. And so in order to find spirituality and spiritual development, they have chosen to look elsewhere because the church is for “church people;” not for them.

There is a “New Church” forming on the horizon. Now some of this may sound upsetting, but it need not be if we look ahead to the future, see where things are going and what’s going to happen and then make the future our present and capture the attention of some of these generations. 

There is a “New Church” forming. Much of what we now call “church” will not survive. Church activity is a poor substitute for genuine spiritual vitality and churches have often geared their entire ministry around their service. And their very lovely service, unfortunately, doesn’t do a thing for the community or the lost unless we go out and get them. Now, often those who understand the missional expansion of the kingdom are ridiculed or disdained. The club mentality tends to frown on people who “shake up the apple cart,” who challenge the traditional viewpoint, or who try to nudge the church into counterintuitive and contemporary ministries. And this is because we tend to like things the way they because we’re comfortable. It’s our clubhouse and we have the right to have it the way we want it.

Is not the kingdom of God a spiritual, living, breathing entity? Youth today are not satisfied with just making church programs successful. They want real spirituality, not church. It used to be (that) in the past the church filled some of those needs because our Sabbath school classes were not just places where we come and discuss doctrine or take a head-trip. 

Our Sabbath school classes used to be places where we would share what was going on in our lives, our pains, our fears, our hopes and dreams, and then we would study together to find meaning in life as a community and then we would pray together and minister to one another in the class. 

Our prayer meetings should be places where we can go to seek spirituality. Wanda came and she experienced a much deeper spirituality than she had ever known! And our prayer meetings need to be places where the deeply spiritual, the relevant and important information and experience with Jesus can be found there. The most important thing about our prayer meeting is that Jesus Christ is personally there, the people who come study the Bible, pray, and sing songs, and open their hearts to Christ, and they have an experience with God! 

Prayer meeting is not for me just to teach you. Prayer meeting is a place where we, together, open the Word and Christ comes down and fills us, and ministers to one another through the Holy Spirit, and walks among us in a spiritual place that is like the sanctuary in heaven. It is filled with light, and glory and angels! This church today is not just important because we’re having our very lovely service, it’s important because God is in the house! Church activity is a poor substitute for real, spiritual vitality.

The club mentality has often carried us through some difficult spots and we all enjoy being part of the club, but not our youth. They want real spirituality. They ask the question: When will we experience the changed life we have been promised? You sent us through church school, you sent us through Sabbath school, we learned all sorts of doctrines, we know the 28 fundamentals, when is our life going to change? When are we going to be filled with that vibrant, abundant life that Jesus has promised us?

Is that not a good question?

It’s not about church; it’s about Jesus! It’s about experiencing this abundant life by having a dynamic, exciting spiritual experience with a living being! But our club, refuge mentality has often displayed by churches that are living in the past only to exhibit denial of the present reality. They look around, see that the younger generations are not participating, and they’re wondering why.

The Refuge mentality is about churching the “un-churched.” The Refuge mentality is about cleaning people up. The Refuge mentality: Our church is a refuge from this evil world that we have to avoid at all costs is about changing their behavior, and making them “just like us” so they can join our club. But it should be evangelism.

The Evangelistic mentality is dedicated to connecting people to Jesus and expanding the kingdom of God. Churches that don’t get that become incredibly self-preoccupied. And that’s why churches die. It becomes all about them, their pleasure, their rules, their and regulations, and less and less about Jesus Christ and his spiritual kingdom.

New Reality Number Two:

There is a Shift from Church Growth to Kingdom Growth taking place in the world today.

Your church can be perfect and they still won’t come. It’s not about our carpeting. It’s not about our screen. It’s not about our video projector (although I want one desperately). It’s not about the beauty that we see. We have a lovely place to worship. It’s not about the place. It’s not about the building! This is one of the most beautiful sanctuaries you could ever ask for but you are the church! These pews aren’t the church; you’re the church. And the social graces are the last frontier of Seventh-day Adventism. We feel that it’s okay to talk to anybody any way we want. If they’re a brother (or sister), we criticize what they’re wearing, the way they dress, the way they eat, the way they walk, the way they talk. We haven’t learned yet to be socially graceful. And Seventh-day Adventists need to learn that because Ephesians 4:31, 32 tells us that we’re to be loving and accepting of others as Christ was loving and accepting of us.

Ephesians 4:31, 32—“ 32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”

Did Jesus make you clean up your life before you could come to him? Evangelism should be dedicated to connecting people to Jesus, not just getting them into a church, and expanding the kingdom of God by putting Christ within them. The kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21)! When Jesus comes, this (building) is just a bunch of firewood for the Second Coming! This temple (in us) is the one that’s going to go up! But it will be improved—the new, improved fireproof version. It becomes all about them, their pleasure, their rules and regulations. Please, God, help us to shift in our thinking. Do you really think “churchianity” is going to replace Christianity? 

In the New World view, people outside the church think that the church is for church people and not for them.

Do you remember when the Seventh-day Adventist Church was called a Movement? Elder Froom wrote a book entitled “Movement of Destiny.”¹ The movement was on a mission to take the gospel of the Three Angels Messages to the world so Jesus could come again. We have to get back to that attitude by abandoning the church club member mentality for the sake of following Jesus. We have to stop reducing Christianity to “joining the club” and start enlisting people in the mission to expand the kingdom.

We’ve got to follow the Holy Spirit and allow him to have His way in our modern church worship and thinking. We must ask him to change our mental landscape from a person who is enslaved to religion and legalism into a point person in God’s army spreading the gospel of grace! The church in North America is suffering. They’re suffering from “mission amnesia!” I don’t think they have the same problem in South America, or Africa, or Europe. They’re on a mission over there. They are baptizing people left and right. 

We have forgotten why we exist as a church! God is doing end runs around the traditional church. The fastest growing market in the radio world is Christian Contemporary music. God is using an army of Christian youth bands and singers to reach a generation that is largely untouched by the traditional church. While we’re living in the past, giant changes are taking place in the secular world. The tectonic plates are shifting that will usher in changes that will be monumental. We can’t predict the future, but we can read the signs. 

And this preaching series will be an attempt to make us think seriously about the new church that is just around the corner, and help us to begin to prepare for those changes today. If we want to be relevant and reach the youth of America, we have got to change our attitude and way of looking at things. Thank God, we don’t have to change our doctrinal beliefs! We don’t have to change a one. The 28 Fundamentals are as solid as granite bedrock and on them I stand. But we do have to change some of our social attitudes and the way we treat people.

Jesus faced the same attitude in the Pharisaical church of his day. He had to go around the “church” to reach the people. The church today has become so preoccupied with style over substance. We want it our way or no way. It’s become about self instead of service, catering to the likes of the club members rather than sacrificing to win the lost. We need to get back to our role as rescue workers on a mission. And that mission is to join God in his redemptive efforts to save the world! People all around us are in great darkness. They are going to perish unless we find a way to save them.

People need what they always have needed – God in their lives. They need a more spiritual church that takes prayer seriously. I want prayer triplets! I want to see praying members! Matthew 18:20—“ For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:19—“If any two or three ask anything in my name, it shall be done…” You can’t do it by yourself! You can’t pray as powerfully by yourself as you can with another one or two people praying with you. That’s spirituality. That’s true connectivity. Prayer is the most important weapon in the battle against the evil darkness we’re fighting. Prayer is the most important weapon for the new spiritual kingdom. Are we using it, church? If you’re waiting for the preaching to spoon feed you and help you do it, it ain’t gonna happen! Now some of you pray for me every day, but I want you to pray together! We’re so isolated! It’s like the guy who wouldn’t come to church…

The Quiet Sermon  
 

A member of a certain church, who previously had been attending services regularly, stopped going. After a few weeks, the pastor decided to visit him.

It was a chilly evening. The pastor found the man at home alone, sitting before a blazing fire. Guessing the reason for his pastor's visit, the man welcomed him, led him to a comfortable chair near the fireplace, and waited.

The pastor made himself at home but said nothing. In the grave silence, he contemplated the dance of the flames around the burning logs. After some minutes, the pastor took the fire tongs, carefully picked up a brightly burning ember and placed it to one side of the hearth all alone. Then he sat back in his chair, still silent. The host watched all this in quiet contemplation. As the one lone ember's flame flickered and diminished, there was a momentary glow and then its fire was no more. Soon it was cold and dead. 
 

Not a word had been spoken since the initial greeting. The Pastor glanced at his watch and realized it was time to leave. He slowly stood up, picked up the cold, dead ember, and placed it back in the middle of the fire. Immediately it began to glow, once more with the light and warmth of the burning coals around it.  
 

As the pastor reached the door to leave, his host said with a tear running down his cheek, "Thank you so much for your visit and especially for the fiery sermon. I shall be back in church next Sunday."  
 

We live in a world today, which tries to say too much with too little. Consequently, few listen. Sometimes the best sermons are the ones left unspoken. 

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything!

You need each other! And you don’t fellowship enough. You don’t pray enough; you don’t call each other enough. 

The devil wants to take you like your charcoal grill you used to have where you roast your marshmallows. And when you want to put out the fire, what do you do: you spread all the coals out and separate them from one another. You need prayer meeting. You need to get into a Sabbath school class and make a commitment. And don’t just go there and sit like a lump on a log. Open your heart and share where you’re at and pray with your brothers and sisters! Get real with God!

We need to be accepting of one another so we can confess our faults to one another and too often in churches, we become places where it’s not safe to be real. If we try to be real and reveal we have problems, we often get shunned, and put down, and ridiculed! Well may that never happen again in our church! People need God in their lives. They need a more spiritual church that takes prayer seriously and encourages each other in the quest for true spirituality – where discipleship involves gathering for prayer and encouragement, in the church and in the homes. Where daily Bible study, and community study is geared toward knowing Jesus better and helping others fall in love with him also. A people willing to go to them and love them the way Jesus does.

The Pharisees had an evangelism strategy, all right. Do you know what the Pharisee strategy was: “Come and get it.”

They said, “Become like us, believe like us, dress like us, act like us, like what we like, don’t like what we don’t like. If you become like us, we will consider you for club membership. Jesus’ evangelism strategy was a little different. He challenged their approach. He told the disciples, “Go get ‘em!” He welcomed sinners and ate with sinners! He didn’t make them clean up first. He ate fish after he was resurrected! I don’t think (that) today he would eat it to be honest with you. And we ought to eat as little of it as we can ‘because it is bad. You know, there is poison everywhere. Milk: Unclean! Unclean! If you want to read a book, call 888-Not-Milk. It’ll scare you half to death. It’s actually got me giving up my chocolate milkshakes.

(end of side one)

(side two)… he accepted them as they were, so they could come to their senses and THEN clean up their act.

You know, religious people have always been a problem for God. The Pharisees felt they were better than other people. Jesus taught that the ground is level in God’s Kingdom. Jesus talked about experiencing abundant life based on a personal relationship with God, not on keeping the club rules. Isn’t the assumption that people have to do church the way we do it, and become like us to genuinely be interested in God modern day phariseeism? As a church we need to make serious adjustments to make the church more available to people who are not a part of the church culture or lifestyle anymore. The target of most church ministry efforts has been on the church itself and church membership, and not on rescuing the community of lost souls.

Jesus’ strategy was to go to where the people were already hanging out. To weddings, to parties, to religious feast day celebrations. Jesus loved to be around people who were having fun and in their daily normal pursuits. 

Are we ready for church at the mall? Are we ready for the youth group to go and do a puppet program in the mall parking lot or in the Wal-Mart parking lot? Are we ready to go have church at 10 o’clock in the morning on a Sunday at the Olive Garden and accept them and teach them gradually about the doctrines of the Bible and them welcome them to this sanctuary on Sabbath morning? Oh, I’m way outside the box now, huh? Why not? People don’t usually use those restaurants till 11 or 12 (o’clock). We could use them; catch all the people coming in! 

Why not have church or a branch Sabbath school in the mall or where people are already coming? Why not do it in our homes and invite our neighbors to a spirituality conference in our neighborhood on our couches? We are going to be talking about how to find spirituality in this unspiritual world. People just might show up for that. No! We want you to come to hear the prophetic ministry of the 27 beasts. No! That’s okay, too. We’ll do that. We’ll do an evangelistic meeting and we’ll slap the beasts up there. I’ve got it all worked out already. As soon as you give me the money and the projection equipment, I’m ready to roll! And we’ll send out the handbills, and we’ll do it all: the traditional evangelist thing. That’s great. But in your home, you may want to invite your neighbors and talk about spirit things that affect their children, their lives. Help baby-sit their kids, give ‘em a loaf of bread, do all this stuff. We have a beautiful community service center and we are feeding them and giving them clothing. What are we doing for their spiritual nature? The problem I have with the (19)60s social gospel was (that) they fed ‘em and they clothed them but they never told them about Jesus! 

Now, I’m sorry. I know Marie has certain guidelines she has to follow and all our community service people have to follow these guidelines and I’m all in favor of that. But that is a Seventh-day Adventist community center and there is nothing wrong with us putting literature out, there is nothing wrong with us allowing them to come to us and ask us questions, and there is nothing wrong with following up with the interests we get down there at that community service center. We need to be concerned about their spirituality. To not – to just feed them and clothe them – is like someone who has a cure for cancer; working in a cancer ward, never tells ‘em about the cure and just makes ‘em more comfortable as they die! Not! If I have the cure for cancer, I’m gonna tell ya. If I have Jesus, who is the cure for every illness and malady this world has, I’ve got to tell you about it!

Club members, though, need to be willing to be inconvenienced! There are people who would come to this church who can’t get there ‘cause they don’t have a ride! Do you see the contradiction? To pick people up who want to come to church. To go out of our way for someone else?

ePeople want to come to church and hear the words you say. Sorry, I can’t bring them, I’m too busy today. I know they would receive you, I know they would be born again. Sorry, I can’t bring them; I’m too busy today. Lord, don’t make me go out of my way. I’ll work for you tomorrow, Lord, but I’m just too busy today. e -

Club members prefer to bullhorn people rather than engage them personally and up close. “Repent! The Sabbath is the seventh day! You Sunday-keepers, shame on you.” We don’t want to engage them personally, close up: pick them up in our car, take them to their house, and take them to our house. Let ‘em eat our food!

Sometimes we have played the Pharisee role. We accuse and heap judgment on people because they’re worldly. We haven’t been their champions. We haven’t served them by doing what’s in their best interest. And then, because they’re sinners, we condemn them. It’s not our job to convict people of sin. That is the Holy Spirit’s job. 

The church is absent from the streets, so people are turning to all kinds of false answers to their spiritual quest. Then we have the gall to sit in our church and pass judgment on people for their errant beliefs! We give them clothes, feed them, and help them, but do we engage them spiritually? Do we show concern for their family’s spiritual wellbeing? Do we love them, and show them the same kind of love and concern for their spiritual welfare that Jesus would have shown them?

The church has to stop sleeping on the job, and wake up to the great commission Jesus gave us. Seventh-day Adventists must become a movement again, flying in the midst of heaven! Do you have an Everlasting Gospel, good news, to preach to every friend, every neighbor, and every one you know?

The Present Future today! We have to stop the present focus of the church on itself, and what it takes to “succeed,” to how can we hit the streets with the gospel and expand the kingdom. Should our ministry be largely spent providing services to club members, becoming a hospice care facility for a dying church? Am I going to be just a Hospice chaplain to a dying church? Are we ready for a church transformation? Are we ready for a community transformation?

Oh yes, all these questions, they’re so unsettling and disturbing. We need to go where people are already hanging out. When this church service is over, your service has just begun. We need to be prepared to have conversations with them about vegetarianism, the Sabbath, what happens to you when you die? No! We need to have conversations with them about love of our lives. We are passionate and in love with Jesus! We must shift our efforts from growing churches into transforming communities!

They are not coming to us, people; we’ve got to go to them!  The corn doesn’t hop off the stalk and walk himself into the barn. Am I right? The cow doesn’t waltz into the barn and hook herself up to the milking machine, does she? Do your fish jump out of the water and hop into the boat? How about if your boat is sitting in your backyard on the trailer? Do the fish swim to the shore and wiggle up on the land and flop their way to the market? If you’re gonna go fishin’ you gotta go out in the lake and throw the line in the lake! If you’re gonna go home with something you have to go out in the field! You can’t harvest it in here. This is a barn! We’re sitting in the barn expecting the corn to come in and throw themselves into us!

Go ye therefore into all the world!

Father in heaven, we need a mental landscape change. We need to think of things as they are and as they can be, not as they once were. We thank you, for all the many, many, many, many saints who have come before us and in the culture of the past, we champions, and brought us to this point. And as we honor them, Lord, as they look at this confusing world with the computers and the cell phones, and the whole world that the under fifty crowd lives in, they don’t understand it and it’s confusing. And they don’t have to, they have done the work that you’ve called them to do and they are loving you and serving you, and giving their time and their money and their efforts to you, O, Lord. And they have given us great examples. But we, who are younger in this church, have to stop depending on them and their money and their works, and their labor, and we have to start doing things that you are calling us to do fir this generation! Father, anoint us with Holy Spirit power! Shake this church, Lord, with your presence! Shake these people! Fill them with your power and your presence so that they will know, Lord, what you are calling them to do.

With our eyes closed and our heads bowed, how many of you will pray with me for God to send someone to you this week that you can share the passion Jesus of your life and point them in the right direction and help them to see that Jesus is the light of your life, and make yourself available to them so that you can help lead them back to this barn where we gather?

Lord, as they go out this week, may they become the go to person at work who prays and everybody knows it, and when they have a sick child they go and find you to pray for their child, to take your prayer request to your church because when your church prays, miracles happen and everybody at work knows it and you’re the go to person for prayer!

Father, we have to get out in the community and touch people’s lives and be used as missionaries! We’re not a clubhouse; we’re a missionary outpost. Help us to get our focus on missions and souls to reach the lost.

How many of you today will pray: God, send me someone this week that I can share Jesus Christ and my love for Jesus with? Would you raise your hand? 

Father, please send someone to them. Please anoint this congregation with wisdom from on high. Give them the gifts of the Spirit, and help them to understand where their gifts in ministry are so that they can use them to be a point man for the expansion of your kingdom as missionaries this week. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

We are going to sing Number 350, Blest Be The Tie That Binds us together in Christian love. And may God bless you as you are awakened to the fact that you are on a mission trip for God. We don’t have to go to New Orleans; we don’t have to go anywhere but right here in our own town to be on a mission trip. Your family, your friends, your neighbors, the people you work with – they need a missionary, believe me. Let’s stand and sing Number 350 and may God bless you as you discover your ministry and your gifts and use it to serve others this week.

Transcription: Wendy J. Riebel

This sermon is also available on cassette tape.

Visit our churches websites:

Newark Church:

www.LivingWord.biz

Zanesville Church

www.zanesvillesda.org

¹ LeRoy Edwin Froom had been a key researcher for the General Conference staff since the 1930s. He had been around a long time, and had had his finger in many doctrinal puddings, according to what he tells us in his book, 'Movement of Destiny, "published in 1971.

http://www.sdadefend.com/sdadefend-old/Ad-history/Begin-end/Begin-End3.htm

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