The State of the Church: Dead is not Alive

28 October 2018

Leviticus 20:22-26; Revelation 1:1-3, 3:1-6

One of the hardest lessons to teach our children is self-sufficiency.  To prepare them for life in a heartless world, we have to teach them there are no “gimme’s”, no freebies.  Wanting something is not a matter of expecting it to happen if we gripe and whine long enough, and there is none of that ‘name it and claim it’ nonsense.  They must be willing to do the work, be patient and disciplined and diligent, and be prepared and willing to sacrifice any given moment or personal desire for something much greater. 

It occurs to me, in the reading of the Letter to Sardis, that salvation is a lot like this.  It is a Gift from Above, to be sure, but to call it “free” is misleading at best.  At worst, to say we don’t “have to do anything” is an outright lie; a lie so dangerous, so sinister, so insidious at its core that many have come to believe that and have become disengaged completely from the disciple’s life, have disengaged from Bible study, and have disengaged from corporate worship and the life of the Church – having been convinced salvation is a one-and-done deal; an ‘event’, a dogmatic ‘thing’ that has passed.  The nature and the fullness of the Invitation has been lost.

The Wesleyan ideal of justifying grace does acknowledge there are no works we can perform to ‘earn’ this Mercy.  It is not for sale, having come from The Father’s Heart.  Yet there is a cost, a price to be paid: we must repent, turn away from and give up a life of self-indulgent hedonism, a life of being a “good person” on our own terms.  We must “die to self” before we can be raised up in Christ, casting aside anything – and anyone – that keeps us connected and tied to this world. 

We cannot simply “take” this Gift of Mercy and go our merry way, assuming all is well, having heard only what we wanted to hear.  The prophet Jeremiah spoke to The Lord’s people who had been led astray by misleading or outright false information, “Thus says the Lord of hosts: do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you; they are deluding you.  They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of The Lord.  They keep saying to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to all who stubbornly follow their own stubborn hearts, they say, ‘No calamity shall come upon you’ (23:16-17).

The Lord also spoke through the prophet Ezekiel in saying, “[these false prophets] lead My people astray, saying, ‘Peace’, when there is no peace, and, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash” (13:10).  Like the tempter in the wilderness with Jesus, there was likely a fraction of The Word spoken but was ripped from its appropriate context and diluted by a popular context.

No, our Father spoke to His people long ago: “You shall be holy to me; for I The Lord am holy, and I have separated you from the other peoples to be Mine” (Leviticus 20:26).  Jesus affirmed this very thing when He taught, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

Same God, same commandment, same principle from the One who “does not change” (Malachi 3:6); from the One who is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8); from the One who is the “Alpha and the Omega, [the beginning and the end], the One who was, who is, and who is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8).

So when we read from the Letter to Sardis that this Church’s “works” have not been found to be “perfect”, we must sit up straight and take notice.  We must not shake it off with “nobody’s perfect” nor can we dismiss it as “all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23); for in commanding “holiness” and “perfection”, our Holy Father would not command the impossible of us, and St. Paul never allowed his audiences to surrender to their human impulses and simply given up.  The Lord would not ask of us a thing which can never be attained, such as perfection.  Yet to suggest there is no “work” to be done in this regard denies the doctrinal and biblical reality.

“Going on to perfection”, as written in The Letter to the Hebrews, is the Methodist ideal and has been from its inception as a movement in the 18^th century.  Don’t misunderstand; Methodism does not now, nor did it ever, claim to be THE ideal.  Unlike many other denominations springing from the Reformation, Methodism never claimed doctrinal superiority.  From the start, John Wesley insisted salvation is something to be lived into, something to partake of, certainly something we can – and must – contribute to and participate in.  It is continually “working out our salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12) – knowing that Precious Gift is delicate, priceless … and too easily taken for granted.

One cannot claim to be “Methodist” if one rejects the “method” of discipleship, the totality of our necessary commitment to Christ Jesus.  There is no room for ‘complacency’ lest we come to assume a relationship with The Lord is only something we talk about from time to time but never “have to” actually engage in.

The means of grace (i.e., praying {both talking AND making time to listen}, fasting, worship, the Sacraments, study of the Scriptures, fellowship in and with the congregation) are the “methods” we are challenged and encouraged to adhere to, but we are never taught we must do these things only for the sake of the practices themselves, fulfilling some kind of legal responsibility. 

Rather, we are encouraged and built up in these practices because they are the only way we can possibly know who we’re dealing with in “testing the spirits” (1 John 4:1-6), where we’re going, and what will be asked of us along the Way.  “Methodism” in its purest and intended form takes nothing for granted.

In thinking about that which “remains and is on the point of death”, the Church is being reminded of what was once very real but has been taken for granted to the point of being relegated to secondary status.  Over time, the Church has become too engaged with the dominant culture to the point of losing our way and forgetting who we really are.  Making disciples became much less important than making friends, and our recreational activities have become much more important to us than the work of the Church or the means of grace. 

Yet in spite of the rather harsh indictment, there is still hope.  There is still the call to The Lord’s people that He has not yet given up on us, that He refuses to quit on us even as we have quit Him – having “a name of being alive (being Christian in name only) but are dead (living apart from The Word in reality)”.  His Eternal Love is why The Lord is still speaking to the Churches and will restore us to wholeness (when we once “saw and heard”), but repentance is necessary.  It is time to disengage from the world which has ensnared us, and reengage with Him and with one another – because “there are still some … who have not soiled their clothes”.  These few actively engaged disciples can still teach us the means of grace and the Way of Salvation.

As the prophet Isaiah called out to The Lord’s people, so shall I, “Seek The Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near” (55:6).  These letters indicate He is still near, still calling out to us, and still wants to be found.  Let us call upon Him together and have restored to us what we have carelessly tossed aside; for “blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written … for the time is near”.  Amen.