When we are not the church...

The following is part of the end of a sermon that I preached this past Sunday.  I would argue that we are not often actually "the church" - the Body of Christ in the world - but are more often simply a group of people who gather together each week.  More like a social club then followers of a world changing Christ.

The syndrome of being "luke warm," as Christ would put it, is more of an epidemic than we let on.  We are Christians like we are fans of a sports team or like we are residents of a particular state.  We may be proud about it and endorse it loudly at times, but it doesn't really set us apart as people who are defined by it.

It leads us to the difficult, yet frankly vital question we must ask ourselves.

If your life is not dramatically changed by being a follower of Christ, then are you really following Christ?  Or are you just claiming to?

God is alive.

God is here.

So what does all that mean? 

It means that the God who created all things has never given up on you. 

The God of all creation died for you. 

The God of all creation is working in you. 

Not just you as a congregation, but you as a person. 

He is shaping you into the person that you were created to be.

And he’s working in the person right beside you as well. 

God loves you. 

Even when we resist, God still sustains us and doesn’t give up, and he uses our failings to build us back up.

Jesus Christ is not a part-time God. 

He is fully invested in us.

But that also means that we can’t be part time Christians. 

We can’t pretend that God is with us right now then forget all about him as soon as kickoff happens. 

We can’t accept that God is working in all things, yet go back to work on Monday thinking that it’s all up to us to get things done. 

We can’t sit in the pews beside people that we just pretend to know.

We can’t just show up once a week and think we truly are members of a church.

We can’t be servants of God if every time we come to church, we expect to have God and others serve us.

We can’t call ourselves Christians if we ignore the people that Jesus tells us over and over are the ones his heart breaks for.

We can’t say we have faith in God’s grace if we are using our money as a means of attaining power and status.

We can’t call ourselves “the Body of Christ” if we don’t care about the things that Christ cares about.

We can’t ask God to fix parts of our life without allowing him to change the whole thing.

We can’t profess to believe in the communion of saints, yet treat each other merely like coworkers.

We can’t keep living like God needs us, like we do him a favor by blessing Him with an hour of our time here, or a few dollars there.

You NEED God.

God does not need you.

But…

God loves you.  He wants to be with you.  He loves you more than you can ever imagine, a love that is never ending.  And God does not change.  He does not give up on you.  He never leaves you, and will never stop working in you.

God is alive. 

And he wants to be alive in you.

He created you.  He sustains you.  He gave you a future – a future that ends not in death, but in life.

If we are truly going to call ourselves “the Body of Christ,” if we are to be the full time representatives of our full time God, then we need to give him full time access to our lives, to completely surrender to him.  

We need to fully trust him in all things, not just sitting in a room for one hour a week, not just giving him our leftovers or putting in our time.

We need to receive what Christ has done for us, to be shown that following Christ is more than just attendance and good behavior - to allow ourselves to be completely changed.

Jesus calls us not to simply show up, but to act. 

Jesus calls us to love each other, but how can we do that if we don’t even know each other.

The Psalmist tells us that God delights in those who put their hope in his unfailing love.  Not partially, but completely.

Paul was telling the Colossians, you can’t have it half way.

God created you and sustains you.

God is fully invested in you.

How invested are you in God?