The
Church
This
morning I would like for us to think for a little while about the Church--the
meaning of the church, the significance of the Church, the purpose of the
Church.
What is
the Church? What are the
functions, the duties, of the Church?
What are the duties of the members of the Church? What are the distinguishing marks of
the true Church, its identifying characteristics by which it is
recognized? What is the
relationship of the Church with the Son of God? On what is the Church based?
When
our Lord was on earth, there was no formal organization of the Church. Our Lord made only two references to
the Church recorded in Scripture.
One was on the occasion of St. Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi
when he said to Jesus, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living
God"; and Jesus replied to him, "Thou art
Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall
not prevail against it."
And the other statement that He made was, "If
your brother sin against you, tell it to the church."
What is
the Church? The word for
"church" in the Greek language is "ecclesia" which
translated means "the called out ones" or the "ones called
together," called to follow Jesus.
It is
interesting to note that when our Lord was on earth He did not found a church
organization as such, except to appoint leaders for it, the Apostles. With the Apostles as leaders, He
founded a fellowship. He founded a fellowship of believers, of which He was the
center. He was its foundation, its
leader, its life. The early church
was a small group of Christians, a community of believers, called out of the
world to witness to Jesus with selected leaders, the twelve Apostles, selected
by our Lord Himself.
And so
the Church primarily is a fellowship of believers in Jesus, bound together by
their faith in Jesus, bound together by and in the Spirit of God under the leadership
of the ones chosen by Christ Himself.
The
creeds tell us the Church through the ages has had, and still has, four chief
distinguishing marks or characteristics.
These four chief distinguishing marks or characteristics of the historic
Church came to be recognized during the first four hundred years of the
Church's history. We find them in
our Apostles' and Nicene creeds.
We in the Anglican Orthodox Church claim these distinguishing marks for
ourselves. And we are the only
church in the world that can.
These distinguishing marks of the Church tells us that the Church is
one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.
Let us look at these distinguishing marks for a little bit.
First
of all, the creeds tell us the Church is
One. The Church is one. In the Offices of Instruction in
the Prayer Book, we are told it is one body under one head. It is one because it is united under
one head, the Lord Jesus. It looks
to Him as Saviour and Redeemer. We
put our trust in Him as one Lord.
Since there is but one Christ Jesus, and since there is but one body of
Christ's teaching, we are all of one mind and one heart as we accept Him,
believe in Him, dwell in Him, and serve Him. The true Church is the believing body of Christ in the
world. Wherever Jesus is accepted
as the Son of God and Saviour, there is one of the distinguishing marks of the
true Church. The Church is one in
Jesus.
Secondly,
we say that the Church is Holy. In the Offices of Instruction we are
told that it is holy because the Holy Spirit dwells in it and sanctifies its
members. The true Church of Jesus
considers itself to be a holy fellowship set apart from the world, to worship
and to witness to the divine truths of God. The Church is holy because Christ is holy, because God is
holy, and God dwells in His Church in His Spirit and sanctifies it. And the Church is made holy as it seeks
communion with God through Jesus, and it is holy because God fills it with His
Spirit of holiness on account of our faith in Jesus. In the 19th Chapter of the Book of Leviticus, God
spoke to Moses and said, "Ye shall be holy; for I, the Lord your God, am
holy." And again in the 10th
chapter, speaking through Moses, He said, "By those near me I must be
treated as holy, that I may reveal myself (through them) to the people at large." We are called to live in God's Spirit
of Holiness, in order that the world around us may see something of His
Holiness, and goodness, and glory, and may be drawn by Him. We who are saved by Christ are called
to be Holy to the Lord, to give ourselves to Him so that He may sanctify us
with His Spirit of holiness and purity and infinite love and mercy. St. John tells us in his first Epistle,
"Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him
and he in God." And God is
holy, and He makes us Holy.
The
third identifying mark of our Church is
that it is catholic. By
catholic we mean universal, which is the basic meaning of the. It means that the Gospel message which
the Church proclaims is UNIVERSAL, for all men throughout all time. It applies to everyone, everywhere,
forever. It does not mean that we
are Roman Catholic, for we are more catholic than are the Roman Catholics. The Roman Catholics have perverted
Biblical truth with their errors and church traditions which they accept and
teach contrary to Scripture and the teachings of Jesus. As the Reformers said when the Church
of England broke from Rome, "If it is not Scriptural, it is not
catholic." We are Scriptural,
and therefore truly catholic.
All men
are meant to be the children of the father; all men are sinners; and the saving
grace and power made available by the life and death of our dear Lord is
intended for them all, for Jesus died for every one. St. Paul writing to St. Timothy said, "God will have
all men to be saved," but in order to be saved, they must hear the Gospel
message, they must repent, they must accept Jesus as their saviour, and follow
Him and serve Him.
The Church is described as One, Holy,
Catholic; and it is also Apostolic
because, as the Prayer Book says, "It continues steadfastly in the
Apostles' teaching and fellowship."
Our Church is descended from the Apostles of our Lord. It is descended from them in its teach
and its doctrine as well as from them personally by the "laying on of
hands" from Bishop to Bishop, through the ages, through the
centuries. The consecrated bishops
of our Church have received authority through an unbroken chain of
consecrations that goes back to the Apostles themselves, begun when St.
Matthias was consecrated by the Apostles to succeed the traitor, Judas
Iscariot, who betrayed our Lord and went out and hanged himself. We receive our ecclesiastical authority
from the Apostles, who were sent forth into the world by Jesus, the Son of God.
The
other bishops and I of this Church are burdened, therefore, with both the
authority and responsibility from God, from Christ, and from the Apostles
themselves to proclaim the ancient faith, to preserve Biblical morality, the
moral law revealed in the Scriptures.
We are burdened with the responsibility and authority by our
consecration vows to drive out of the Church "all erroneous and strange
doctrine," heresy, and to drive out of it those in the Church who would
destroy it, who would pervert the Church, its witness, its message of
salvation, and its godly heritage.
The
true Church of Christ has always been a fellowship bound together. From its beginning it has been a
fellowship bound closely together, bound by common ties and bonds. The basic bond has been Jesus himself,
His Spirit, His power, His love, His truth. When we sense within us the overpowering truth manifested in
His Life and death, utterly consecrated to God for us, committing Himself
finally, in the Garden of Gethsemane to the excruciating agony on Calvary for
us, then we surrender to Him; His utter devotion to God for us compels us to.
We are
bound together also by the joy that we experience together in Jesus, by the joy
that comes to those who delight in doing our Saviour's will. They know that He loves them, and
therefore they love Him, and one another.
We are
bound together in the Church in our common faith. St. Paul tells the saints in Galatia, "we are all the
children of God on account of our faith in Jesus Christ." We are bound together by our faith in
God who has shown Himself to us in the Holy Trinity, as God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Ghost. In
our Faith, we acknowledge one way of Salvation, the Way of the Cross, the Way
of the Lamb slain for the sins of the world. And we all look forward in one faith to the future glory
that is to come, the glory of the coming Kingdom of Heaven, to the glory of the
coming of Jesus, whom EVERYONE shall meet some day, face to face, some as their
blessed Redeemer, and some as their implacable judge.
We who
belong to the Church are bound together by a further bond; we are bound
together by a common task. We
receive passed on to us the commission which our Lord gave to his disciples: "Go ye
into all the world and peach the gospel to every creature." We to whom the grace has been given to
belong to the body of Christ have as our solemn obligation and responsibility
the task of spreading the Gospel message.
We must carry Christ's teaching to the frontiers, and there are
frontiers everywhere; there are frontiers for Christianity in Asia and Africa,
in Europe and in the Americas; there are frontiers here in the United States,
especially here in the United States, here in our own state, here in
Statesville or Rocky Mount or wherever we are. There are frontiers for Christianity in our government, in
our business lives, and in our home lives that call for the Spirit of Jesus;
and there are frontiers also within our own selves. Wherever the Spirit of God is found, and wherever Christians
are found, there are frontiers for them to bring the Gospel message to, against
the powers of ignorance and immorality, against plain laziness and indifference
to Spiritual things, against hatred and malice in the hearts of people, even in
indifference to Spiritual things, against hatred and malice in the hearts of
people, even in many who consider themselves to be Christians, and even in
me. There are frontiers against
the corrosive temptation of pharisaism--that a person is good enough to merit
for himself of himself, the Kingdom of God. We recall the Pharisee's remark, "God, I thank thee
that I am not as other men are," and the publican's words, "God be
merciful to me a sinner." We
remember words of St. John in his First Epistle, "If we say that we have
no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." We are bound together by a common task,
the spreading of Christ's kingdom--at home and everywhere, and each one of us
shares in this task. Our task is
to live and to give that the world may see something of Christ in us, and be
drawn to Him, and find salvation.
It is
the work of the Church also to serve the needs of man, as did our Lord. We seek to feed those who are hungry
for God as well as any deserving poor who may be hungry for food. We seek to feed those who are lonely,
who are hungry for Christian fellowship in which they may live joyfully,
triumphantly in the Spirit of Jesus, in the Christian community, in the love of
God.
We all
have the common duty to live and to work, to pray and to witness day by day for
the advancement of God's Kingdom.
But we cannot do this effectively by ourselves as individuals. We can do it effectively only with the
Spiritual help that comes from heaven, from God in Christian fellowship in His
Church. We can do it only with the
moral and spiritual support that we give to one another in Christian
fellowship. Truly our help and
strength for living the spiritual life come from God; and He gives this to us
as we worship Him together in mutual love and forbearance in the Name of
Jesus. Both the Bible and Prayer
Book tell us this plainly: we can
do no good things of ourselves. We
seek to build God's Kingdom here and now, both in the world and within our own
hearts; and as we seek to build, we must do it together, bowing down before Him
and offering ourselves to Him, a holy sacrifice to His Glory together.
We who
believe in Jesus, and who love Him and who love one another, are God's children
now, saved, redeemed by His blood.
We know the joy of walking with Him, serving Him, and we worship Him --
faithfully, gladly, by His grace.
And we pray that our lives may show, through our words, and through our
deeds, and through the Spirit of the love of God in us, that we are in
communion with our heavenly Father--working and worshipping in God's House, and
at work and at home, seeking to manifest something of the love of God, that
fills our hearts with joy. We
would live so that the world may see a bit of Christ Jesus in us and be drawn
to him. We would seek to be apprehended
by the holiness of God and, listening to his voice, do his will. God speaks to his children; He gives to
us His laws, His ethics of perfection which no man can live up to, and He tells
us of His mercy and forgiveness available to us through the blessed Cross!!!
But we cannot, we must not, we dare not, stop
with concern for ourselves. We
must lead others to Jesus, or die ourselves stagnated. We would lead people to pray as our
Saviour led men to pray; our lives must be incentives to others to seek a
living relationship with God through His Son. As we go about during the week, we should rejoice in
witnessing as a member of God's true Church, redeemed by the blood shed on
Calvary, a member of a holy fellowship.
We must be conscious of the fact that we are witnesses day by day of the
Faith we profess--the Christian Faith, the Hope of the World.
The
faithful ones in the Church, who are committed to doing His will are the
redeemed children of the Lamb, the Lamb of God slain on the Cross for the sins
of the world. And we in the Church
look forward confidently, full of hope and assurance, for the continual coming of the Kingdom of the
Spirit of God into our own lives now, and we look forward to the fullness of
joy that shall be ours, in communion with all His saints, with all of our loved
ones in Heaven, forever, some day.
And so
the Church is Christ's body--the whole Church--Bishops, Priests, Deacons,
Laity. The whole membership of the
Church is Christ's body of believers, and all of us are responsible to
Him--made free in Him, made free by Him.
We are the members of the one Body of which Jesus Christ is the Head:
God is
our Father,
Christ is
our Saviour,
and the
Holy Ghost is our sanctifier, keeper, life.
