85. Exactly Why the Local Church is the Hope of the World (2006)

[music] Welcome to the Dallas Willard Podcast. I'm your host and Dallas's daughter, Rebecca Willard Heatley. My down used to say that church is the hope of the world. He normally said this with an acknowledgement that there is plenty of room for improvement, but even that was said with a strong love and reverence for the church, because it is the instrument through which God has chosen to bring the whole world to Himself. He decided to explain this idea in great detail when given an opportunity to preach at Christ Community Church in Leewood, Kansas, while he was there to participate in a conference called True Spirituality, the life he were meant to live. Recorded in September of 2006, this is exactly why the local church is the hope of the world. [applause] Thank you, thank you, praise. Thank you. That's extremely kind of you, such a welcome. Thank you. Actually, it illustrates what I want to talk about this morning. And I'm delighted to be here to not just in the conference, but to be able to come to church with you on Sunday morning. And if you will look at the little sheet that is in your bulletin, you'll see the topic that I've chosen, the way I want to word the message. Exactly why is the church the hope of the world. And I know that I'm in the middle of a series, that your pastor has been teaching, and I'm going to take as a text, a text that he has already spoken on, on the general principle that anything worth saying is worth saying twice. And there's enough depth in this text that we will not run out of something useful to talk about. But before I get launched into the sermon, I just want to answer the question. Why exactly is the church the hope of the world? The text itself is very strong. Paul says to Timothy, "I'm writing to you, hoping to come to you before long, but in case I'm delayed, I write to you that you may know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth." Now you had to remember who's talking here. You're listening to a man named Paul, and Paul was at the center of something that was radically new on earth and was sweeping the face of the earth. Nothing like it had ever happened before. And so when he says these grand things about the church, he's speaking with a recognition of the human condition. And a part of that human condition is, we don't have all the truth we need, and much of the truth that we have we can't stand. You know that verse that says, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you flee." And we desperately need the truth. But then we have a problem with receiving it, because we're not in the truth to start with. And the general problem with the world is trying to manage the truth, so that people can live with it, and that usually means so they can get their way. And that poses a humane, tremendous problem because around truth in the world there's a huge amount of rejection. That's one reason why people are scared of the truth, is because the truth can be used on them to condemn them. And that really brings us to the center of the question that you have on your sheet there. Let me put it this way. Human beings come into the world, little babies, and they come into a circle of sufficiency for that child. The little baby has no means of providing for itself. And as it begins to grow, it becomes a little child. Its desperate need is for a circle of sufficiency, first of all in its mother's arms. And it needs to be able to fit into that with the sense of reception and completeness. And that's why we say, you know, to a little child, "Now, now everything's okay." But you know what? Everything's not okay. We say that because we want to create a circle of sufficiency in which the child will find themselves received and provided for. And they have nothing to be concerned about because they are whole in that circle of sufficiency. But we know that that circle of sufficiency is not sufficient to itself. It depends upon a father and a larger family to provide a circle for that mother and baby to be whole and safe and provided for. But we know how that circle is not sufficient. And just to illustrate very vividly and very briefly, now, for example, the means of livelihood that is provided by the father and the larger family can be interrupted in our day by things that happen halfway around the world. Circle of sufficiency. Where is a circle of sufficiency that is adequate to human life? And the answer is only in the trinitarian nature of God. The trinity is the ultimate circle of sufficiency. And into the broken world where there's so much rejection and failure. And the heart of the wound in nearly everyone you meet is rejection. And sometimes it's very explicit. And sometimes it's just a lack of reception. But in either case, there's that open wound of not having what our soul cries out for, which is basically a loving circle of people. Where when you go, there's no condemnation. There's love and there's support. And it is so great that it's not even human. No, we used to sing an old song, leaning on the everlasting arms. Anyone here ever know that song? That's biblical. And that is the answer to the human problem. And the reason why the church is the hope of the world is because that is where the everlasting arms are found in human form. And so the church stands in the middle of the world as the only place where the need of the human soul can be met. That's why the church is the hope of the world. Now when we think about the church, we need to understand that there are two main dimensions of it that we should talk about. And one is what is sometimes called the church militant or the church triumphant or both of those together. And we see Paul addressing that and that was very much on Paul's mind when he writes these words to Timothy. He wants him to understand the grandeur of the church. And here are some other words from him and Ephesians, the third chapter and the tenth verse. He's talking about the work of God in human history and the big breakthrough that came with the realization that God is at work in the human life every way. Roughly just call them Gentiles. That's for the most part that you and me, some of you not. But that means really the door is open that everyone is welcome. And it was a great mystery that God was going to do this in the whole world. And these words come out to describe what God is doing. Listen to them carefully who would. In order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church. Not just here, but universe wide might be made known through the church, through the rulers. and authorities in the heavenly places. The biblical view is that the world is actually governed through spiritual authorities of varying levels under God. And what God is doing with the church is actually making clear to the whole universe God's nature. As sufficient love, all sufficient love, all sufficient care. And when Jesus came, that's what He presented. And He was receptive of any one. Didn't matter what their situation was. And He set the model for what the church would be because the church is actually His enterprise and He's bringing out of history a glorious company of which you are members. As you put your faith in Him, He takes you in, you were received into the ultimate circle of sufficiency. That's what it means to come to Jesus Christ and to be born from above. It is to enter the ultimate circle of sufficiency where there is unqualified love and power to carry through. To the church as a local group is always living beyond itself. It is not a human instrument. In the sense that it is run by, run from, just human strength, it is a divine order. And Christ is bringing out of human history something that will stand for eternity. And we have these lovely words in Ephesians 5 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and blameless. That's the work of Christ in the people that He is calling out. And now you probably have used in the series already, the grand words from Matthew 16. Peter was inspired to say to Jesus, you are the one, you are the Messiah. That's what really Messiah means. The one that humanity is looking for is Jesus Christ. You are the anointed one. And that's what we look for in leaders. And sometimes when we look through and just in human leaders we become severely misled and tremendously destructive things happen. But we want to understand what Jesus means when He says, "Up on this rock." That is the recognition of Jesus as the one. Up on this rock I will build my church, my Eclosia. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Now sometimes you know the biblical imagery is a little hard to appreciate. And there's something very simple here being said. But if you got caught up in the gates of hell, you can spend a lot of time worrying about what that means. And you might think, "Well, the gates of hell, I've never seen them chasing people down and overcoming them." Well, Jesus is very simply saying, "This is an undying work. This is an eternal work." And it will never be swallowed up. He's doing an eternal work. And the outcome of that from human history is a community of loving persons who have been transformed by their reception by Christ and by the people of Christ and have now come together and God dwells in them. The temple of the Spirit now is your body. And you are called to a great progression of world history in which God draws together people from all kindreds and tongues and tribes and nations. And in that community, he dwells. He makes a dwelling place for him. We had time to develop that theme. There's much more that we could say about it. And Ephesians, of course, is a great treatise on the nature of the church and how God is building together. People on the foundations of the apostles and the prophets and you're a part of that company when you put your trust in Christ. Well, that's a great picture. We don't want to lose sight of it. We want to remember always that the work of the church is the work of God on earth. It is Jesus who builds his church. There's an important sense in which no one but God ever sees that church. And when we are thinking about the church now in its local manifestate, we want to remember that. It is Jesus that is building his church. He's calling out people everywhere you may live and where you may be calling out people to himself. That's what Ecclesia means, the ones who have been called out. And he is making a group that shines in the world like a light in a dark place. And maybe we'll have time to come back and spend a little time on that. But now let's just turn a moment to the church in its local manifestation, the church in its local manifestation. Now you understand the church is not a building. The church is not a denomination. Those are manifestations of the activity of the church. What we call churches are congregations of Christ's people. I like to think of them simply as a group of neighbors drawn together by their devotion to Christ and by his presence among them and between them. That's the local church, a group of neighbors. Neighbors here means people who are together in the normal course of life. And our contemporary society really challenge us as challenges us in that regard. Because we more or less live in areas, but we don't have much in the way of community. All through history, the church has been able to draw on the integrity of the human community as a place where people live together. And so they didn't just come to church for a few hours and in many of our churches, there's little provision made for real contact. And we have a few hours of carefully calibrated distance and that's what we call fellowship. So we have a real challenge to meet. In our day, it's very important to understand the problem and make arrangements to deal with it. But let me just say again, it's a group of neighbors drawn together by their devotion to Christ and by his presence between them and among them. When Paul went to Corinth, you will remember, I think I used this verse yesterday, but it's so important. He said to them in his letter, first letter to Corinthians, first Corinthians, I think it's three, two. I was determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And what that meant was that as he ministered in their midst, he was watching the movements of Christ between them and in them so that what he was cultivating and expecting was to see Christ manifest in who they were becoming and how they were treating and dealing with one another. And that's the secret of the local church, is Christ in you, Christ and him crucified. And Christ and him crucified means that he's simply going to take the human hands and let them do their work, but never count on that. Just Christ and him crucified in the transformation of human life that goes on in the community of Christ's people. So it's important to think of the church, the local church as a school of discipleship. It's important to understand what we are learning as Christ's disciples when we come to church. And now we move off of the grand cosmic scale and about what God is doing in history. And we really don't have to manage that anyway, but we do need to know about it 'cause we need to understand what is the work of the church and it is the transformation of people into Christ's likeness. It's a school of discipleship. And that's why in the great commission that we talked about last time or yesterday, the teaching is go make disciples. And today that's a challenge to us, is to be disciples and make disciples. And a disciple is someone who is a student. And there are many reasons why we lost discipleship in the last 70, 80, 100 years in the church. And we now have a situation where you can be a Christian without being a disciple. And you know, I don't know-- I don't want to get into the issue of whether or not you can go to heaven when you die if you're not a disciple. The issue for salvation is not so much what's going to happen to us later, but what's happening to us now. And if we have the life of Christ-- and I don't think God is trying to keep people out of heaven, I think he's trying to get as many into heaven as can stand it. You know? And so his generosity and his greatness-- I just leave that open. And I know it is his will that not anyone should perish, but everyone should come to eternal life. I'm thankful for that. And thankful that that's in his hands. But what we want to talk about in terms of now is being his student, being his student, and understanding coming to church in that respect. Now, I want to go back and hit that point why is the church, the hope of the world. It is because only in the church do you have students of Jesus gathered together to grow with one another into the fullness of Christ. All the wonderful things we see in Christ are available to us, but you can't find them on the street corner. You can't find them in the mall. You won't see them in the entertainment centers. Because only the church is prepared by its dependence on God to have the radical love of Jesus that accepts everyone without condemnation and brings them into a fellowship where they can grow with one another in such a way that they attain the fullness of the Christ life, and then they take that back out. Our families can't do it. Wonderful things in our families. But generally speaking, there are also problems there. And the families don't turn out to be the circles of sufficiency that ideally they would be. And that's partly due to the fact that they're finite and limited and they don't have the resources, but things get broken. And then it turns out that many of the greatest burdens of the human soul come from the family and rejection that is in the family. There's anger in the family. There's disappointment. There's failure of covenant in the family. And so we have to come out of the family into a fellowship that is based upon radical love, reconciliation from the sufficiency of God and then go back to the family. That's why you know one of the greatest things in the world that you can have is the ability to honor your father and your mother. To honor them. Because often they have not been good parents. And how can you learn to do that? You have to come into the fellowship of the church. And that can restore you through the teaching and presence of Christ and the lives of other people to the point to where you can return and honor your father and mother. For many people, that is a major turning point in their life. When they come to the point to where they can go back to dad and to mom and to say, "I honor you." Then you know it's interesting. That command doesn't say, "Love your parents." It's so touching how little children love their parents and how you never get away from loving your parents. You can be very angry at them and still love them. So the command doesn't say, "Love them." It says, "Oner them." And honoring them means to respect their place in your life and in God's purposes and to be thankful for them. Now, for many cases, you can't do that. Unless you really have received the reception that is in God from the sufficiency of the Trinity, you have to establish a circle of sufficiency that is big enough to go back and pick up the broken threads of life and mend them by the grace of God and say, "I am thankful. Thank you, God, for my life." You see, one of the ultimate things that comes to us as students of Jesus is the heartfelt ability to say to God, "You have done well by me." "You have done well by me." And that's a level of worship that sometimes we heartfelt, we sing the songs of praise to God, but we haven't moved to that level to where we honestly gush with gratitude that God has made us who we are and located in the family that we have and led us through the course of life that He's led us through. Thank you, God. You have done well by me. Now, I want to recommend that you try that wording out in a private moment. Or maybe you want to just do it right here now and just say, "Thank you, Lord. You have done well by me." Because when you come to the end, that'll take some teaching and some learning and the church is the place where you can begin to learn that. You come to the place to where all of the things were disappointments, your own failures. The questions you've had about your physical health, your heritage from your family. I remember in South Africa praying with a young woman who had in a degenerative disease in her family and she was so terrified of that coming down on her life. And I prayed with her and tried to help her see and prayed that God would reveal to her the sufficiency of what He has in her life for whatever comes. Now, that's what we're learning when we come to church. We're learning the sufficiency of God. We're learning it in the school of discipleship. We learn it in particular commandments that Jesus gives. And we begin to learn, for example, that all of the things He tells us to do is that's the path of abundance. When He tells us to pray for those who misuse us, that is a terrible thing that we have to do to please Him. That's the path of abundance of life. That's one of the things that we learn in church because the church is the context in which we're learning how to do the things that Jesus said by being with other people who are on the same path. That's a school of discipleship. We come to church to love and to learn to love. Now, I need to spend a little time on that because you don't come to church to check out the preacher or the music. That's a way of being together. And the music and the preacher are important, but only in their role in a school of discipleship. So the primary thing we come to church for is to love and to receive love from those who are around us. To bless and to receive blessing. See, and we need to understand that and find a place in our lives that allows us to learn how to do that. Sometimes when I have a more intimate setting, we'll ask people to just turn to one another and say, "The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace." See, the blessing is to flow between the members of the school and not just from the pulpit out that way. And we have to make sure that when we come to church, we come to observe, to watch, to note other people, to look upon the first act of love as attention. And so one of the things you do when you come to church as a school of discipleship is you pay attention to other people. Now you can't pay attention to everyone in the building. And of course, you have some. smaller groups where you meet. But I will challenge you to learn the joy of coming into these large meetings and thinking about the others around you and sending a blessing to them. And sometimes you may even want to say it. Now, if you've never done this, you need to do it. Take that blessing, the Lord bless you and keep you and take the person who is by you and say it to them and receive it from them. And these are things that we can actually do. And it's much stronger to do that than to say, "The Lord loves you and I do too." Okay, that's a good start. But we actually need to give a little more time to observe the people we're with, to perhaps note something about their expression, to enter into their heart and their life and say, "Well, but I've got to get home. There's a football game today." You can go to the football game and you can try practicing blessing at the football game. Especially if you lose. See? All I'm saying is we want as people that are drawn together in the everlasting arms and the sufficiency of Jesus Christ to be able to observe and take time to know one another. And it's in those interstaces of life that the power of Christ really does flow. I want to give you another word here from Ephesians. Paul has so much to say about the church and he was caught up in it because he recognized the greatness of what was happening. I wish I had time to enlarge on that today because we live in a hopeless world because it's full of people who are broken and have no place to go to restore the circle of sufficiency in which they were meant to live. See, the church is a trinitarian operation and Paul was so good on that. That's why he called the church the body of Christ. Now the body is pretty, you know, closely knit, isn't it? See, all of these pieces, they hang together very closely and you know what? They nourish one another. They strengthen what? Now listen to these words from Paul in Ephesians 4. He's talking about how we grow up into Christ. Ephesians 4.14 as a result and as he's talking about the result of this coming together in the power of God. As a result, we're no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming. See, that's what happens to human organizations when they're merely human. And that's why there's no hope in those organizations for all the good they may do. There is no ultimate hope in government, in business, in any of the other areas, education. There's no ultimate hope there because as a human enterprise, now when they're taken over by Christian people who have achieved this maturity, then the goodness of God flows out in them also. And you see, this diminishing, it's such a description, tossed about by children as so many people are. There's so much of it tossed here and there by waves carried about by every wind of doctrine. Sounds like public life, doesn't it? And that's what it is. But the contrast, but speaking the truth in love. And I love that phrase because it is so appropriate to describe the redemptive fellowship when people come together in Christ. They speak the truth, but they never speak it in meanness. They speak it in love. And they love, but they never love in falsity. They love in truth. Speaking the truth. Now that's where you see, you can't do that unless the everlasting arms are around you. And you know the sufficiency of those arms. And so you can speak the truth in love because you're depending on something that's far greater than you. Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects unto him who is the head, even Christ. And now get this from whom? The whole body being fitted and welded together. And Paul, you want to think of your body when you read this and you think about how all the parts are fitted and welded together by that which every joint supplies. So there is a supply coming through every person in the fellowship of the church to the other joints to the other people. That's the reality of what is going on in the church as a school of discipleship. According to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building of it of itself in love. I see love is the ultimate outcome, but we're talking about love that possesses people completely. Now this is why Jesus said in John 13, 34 and 35, he redefines love and he renews the old commandment. And he says, love one another, not as you love yourself because you don't love yourself adequately. If people just love themselves adequately, life would be transformed, but they don't. And so he says, now, he doesn't say love your neighbor as yourself. He says to the people who are called together in the school of discipleship, love one another as I have loved you. He now gives us the model of love. And it takes your breath away when you think about it because it will push your finitude when you try to do that. And you will say, rightly, I can't do that. And Jesus says back to you, yes, what else is new? Love one another as I have loved you. And then that great verse that you all know by this shall all men know your might disciples because of your love for one another. That's the test. No doctrinal test. Does that worry you? No doctrinal test because the only way you can get to this place he's talking about is by faith in him. And you have to learn that in the connections of ordinary life. And I wish I had time this morning to talk at length about Philippians too. You know that I'm sure. That great Kenosis passage. But it begins by Paul saying, let each consider other better than himself. No competition. No competition here. We want everyone else to do better than we do. One of the great deliverances I experienced years ago was being able to pray that other people who are speaking where I'm speaking would be better than me. No competition. Just praying, oh God, make it real good. You know. Now you can only come there when you know that you're in the everlasting arms and that you don't need to compete because God loves you and cares for you and you're not here to beat everybody else out or anybody else out you're here to see the glory of God. Let each consider other better than himself and then Paul launches their infilipe and stew into a discussion of Jesus. How being in the form of God, he didn't think there's anything wrong with that. The old version says he didn't think it was robbery to be equal with God. It was okay to be equal with God. He didn't do it because there's something wrong with that. Being in the form of God, he didn't think it was robbery to be equal with God, but he laid it all down. Now, insight into the Trinity comes at its most profound when you see what Jesus did. That he literally laid aside his position as equal to God and took upon himself the form of a servant and became obedient unto death even the most the worst kind of death. Crucifixion. Even the death of the cross. Then he goes on to talk about how because of this God has highly exalted him, given him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now we get to do that now. Everyone's going to do it eventually. And I used to think he was sort of stand on the neck of all these bad people who wouldn't acknowledge him and saying, "You better be straightened up here. You know, you've got to recognize me. No, I don't think so." I think that people are going to say, "Thank God Jesus is Lord." For many of them it may be too late to make a turn, but they're going to acknowledge that Jesus is Lord. And I think it may well be that they will say, "Thank God He's Lord and I'm not." I hope that that comes to pass. It's the goodness of God in Jesus Christ that breaks the heart and brings us to an acknowledgement not just of who we are before Him, but of who we are in relationship to our neighbors. Knowing our neighbors, no condemnation, no superiority, so much to say here, "Remember Jesus said, 'He that would be greatest among you will be servant of all.'" Again, you can only do that if you're on those everlasting arms, if you're resting in that. And you learn how to do that by coming into a fellowship of those who know how to do that. But all of you could identify people in your life that you knew to be resting on the everlasting arms and they reached out to you from the strength and wisdom that they derived from those arms of God that were around you. So the question really that we face when we think about our world and the church is, where else can you go? What are the alternatives? And they're really orginny. There are no alternatives to a community of loving people on the earth, living ordinary life together, but drawing their whole life from Jesus Christ and that circle of sufficiency, the ultimate circle of sufficiency, which is the Trinity. So it's the Trinity that comes to live in the local congregation with all of its unlikely looking people and teaches us to look at one another and to receive one another fully beyond all appearances and all performance and all qualifications because we're standing in the earth in Jesus Christ. Well, I don't know where you are this morning, but I hope you might think about this and rethink why the church is the hope of the world and what you're part in it is. Some of you may need to say, "Yes, I want to come in. I want to come into this fellowship. I want to put my faith in the Christ who is present in the people here. I've been so thrilled and delighted to observe the staff of this church and how they love one another and pray for one another and look to one another because that's emblematic of what your life can be like or my life can be like as we put our confidence in Jesus Christ. But then we need to think about why we come to church and what we do when we come to church. We need to put our soul and our life into the meetings we have with other people that we're sitting by, that we may pass in the hall or outside, standing around having a cup of coffee. We don't, you can talk about the ball game later, talk about Christ. What is Christ doing in your life? Share one another's burdens, enter into a loving relationship that will be there when you're apart so that your thoughts and your prayers, you carry one another in your hearts and you will see people growing up in truth and love and you find that in yourself and then you can take that out into a world that's full of anger and rejection and hatred and condemnation because you have learned the secret of Jesus when he says I did not come into the world to condemn the world but that the world through me might be saved. We'll make God bless these words to you. As you live together here, I hope you're going to see the church break forth in ways you've never dreamed because you've stepped into the richness of this life in Christ together. Thank you. Thanks for joining us today. You can learn more from Dallas about this topic and much more by visiting dwillard.org. You'll find a wide variety of resources and learning opportunities there, including our School of Kingdom Living, which is an opportunity to spend 18 months learning and growing in a redemptive community focused on Christ-like transformation. New cohorts begin every October. And it's on your favorite social media channels for thought-provoking quotes throughout the week and we have a Facebook group called Dallas Willard is my homeboy where you can discuss the things you're learning from Dallas about life with Jesus. This podcast is brought to you by Dallas Willard Ministries and the family of Dallas Willard. Our producer is Tim Williams, music provided by Chad Reiser. Until next time, keep in mind that what God gets out of your life and what you get out of your life is the person you become.