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THE CHRISTIAN AND THE "CHURCH"
In The Church
It would be convenient if, at the moment you commit yourself to
Jesus Christ, your life would be instantly transformed.... you get
up from your knees, blink your eyes a few times and find to your
joyful astonishment that your mind is now filled with wonderful
new thoughts... you have become absolutely Christ-like. All the
nasty inclinations you had just an hour before are gone. Your worries
have evaporated. Your heart is now one marvelous fountainhead of
compassion and trust.
You walk out of church to find your car stolen ... it doesn't bother
you at all. You take a bus home, have a cup of hot milk and sleep
like a baby. The next day the person who was your arch enemy at
work for ten years finally succeeds in squeezing you out of your
job... you shake his hand, wish him God's blessings and just go
on trusting God. No matter what storms may rage outwardly, your
life continues to be all sunshine in the sweetness of the Lord.
There may be certain drugs which affect people in this way... or
hypnosis ... but not Jesus Christ. Beware of sudden transformations!
When people are suddenly "transformed" it is usually the
symptoms of an illness. Conversion to Christ may be sudden. A person
may suddenly come to repentance ... or be suddenly arrested by a
vision from heaven... or be suddenly visited by the Spirit of God.
But the full change of the actual life is never sudden.
It takes only seconds for the fire from heaven to fall upon your
heart making you a Christian, but it takes more than seconds for
the fire of God's love within to "come through" your flesh
in actual living. For you to live like one who is redeemed, or act
like a child of God, or think and speak like an incarnation of the
Spirit of Jesus takes some bending and molding and battering and
melting in God's "shop" until he has formed you into the
shape of his Son.... transformed you.
When you were born, you were immediately looked upon as a little
human being. You were given a name ... the same name you have now.
But for you to become the man or woman you are today took a bit
of work… it took some forming and training. If you had been
thrust out into the world as an infant to make your own way, you
would have died… because the man or woman in you was only
potential.
So how did you change from that squalling baby in diapers to the
person you are now? You were placed in a family ... among people
who belonged to you and you to them. In interaction with these other
lives some of your rough edges began to come off. When you laid
down on the floor and screeched and kicked your feet your father
picked you up and gave you something to screech about. When you
ate all the cookies that were reserved for supper dessert your mother
punished you. When you ran off with your brother's marbles he took
care of you in an effective way. When you were afraid of strange
noises your father explained them to you. When you were discouraged
your mother comforted you. Soon you were making your own way in
the world, but the roots... the principles ... that were planted
in you by your family continued to influence you ... and they do
to this day.
This is precisely what happens on a higher level when a person is
"born again" of the Spirit of Christ. In order to remake
you in the image of Christ who is now within, God puts you into
a family and in this family he begins to mold and grind you into
shape.
The church is not, as so many people seem to think, a place of escape
from the evils of the world. It is the workshop where God trans-forms
our fleshly life into the image of Christ ... it is the family where
our Father forms us into real people who can actually live like
Christians in the world.
This is why that little group of twelve men were gathered around
the table with Jesus in the upper room ... they were a family ...
individual men who had been drawn together so that in fellowship
with each other they could be formed into actual men of God. In
interaction with each other they were being molded into the kind
of men who could spread the fire of the gospel over the face of
the earth. They were being trained to be servants.
These men still had natures like other men. They were status seekers.
They were looking for approval. They competed for position. James
and John wanted the seats next to Jesus in the kingdom. Peter was
set to be the hero. Today when we have a gathering of men who all
want to be something we have an election ... we form committees.
We give everyone a status job. We harness this ego drive in man
and put it to work. The man who produces the most for the organization
gets the top position.
But when Jesus puts you in the church he does just the opposite.
He is not interested in making you a boss, or a celebrity, or a
hero... but a servant. All his training is aimed at just this. Until
you learn to be a servant ... to serve other men ... your Christianity
is worth-less. Until, in the family of God, you can perform the
thankless jobs, the dirty tasks, the monotonous duties, and not
be upset because your efforts go unnoticed, your Christianity ...
if you have any at all...is still infantile...you are in diapers.
Jesus, knowing that the father had given all
things into his hands, that he was come from God
and went to God…
He knew who he was. He knew how far above these men he was; he was
their Lord. Nevertheless he got up from the table, laid aside his
garments, took a towel and wrapped himself, poured water into a
basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with
the towel that covered his nakedness. The meanest, dirtiest, lowliest
servant's work that a man could perform… he did it.
Ye call me master and Lord, and ye say well, for so
I am. If I then, your Lord and master, have washed your
feet, ye ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given
you an example that ye should do as I have done to you.
Jesus put you in the church to make your Christianity real ... not
a ball of spiritual yarn tangled up inside your head, but actual
service to your fellow men. In the family of the church you start
serving your brothers and sisters. If they never say "thank
you"...if they never pat you on the back ... if they never
show appreciation… if they forget all about you ... just go
on washing feet.
The other people in the church are just like you are ... they're
blundering children. They have faults ... they make mistakes. They're
far from perfect. But their rough edges are the sandpaper in God's
hand to smooth all your rough edges.
We're so far from this idea of washing each other's feet that we
don't know where to begin to serve each other. To most of us, "service"
means teaching a Sunday School class, or being an usher at services,
or singing in the choir, or serving on a committee. These things
are fine... but the service Jesus means when he talks about washing
feet is much more simple and down-to-earth. If you want to know
what Jesus means by wash-ing feet, look for the words "one
another" in the New Testament.
Whenever the Spirit of God tells us to do something for one another,
he is calling us to a form of washing feet.
To wash one another's feet means first of all to submit to one another.
Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
You'll never be a servant of God out in the world if you haven't
learned how to submit ... to put yourself under another believer.
It makes no difference whether you are a newborn Christian or a
minister or bishop of considerable influence ... there is not one
believer in the church that you can stand over or stay aloof from.
In "the world" that other person may not make as much
money as you ... he may not live in as fine a house or have nearly
the education you have. But in the church these things mean nothing.
In the church you are the servant of that brother. If he wants to
talk to you, submit ... listen to him. If he has a word of loving
advice, submit ... consider what he says. If he wants to pray for
you, submit ... look upon it as an honor.
To wash feet means to bear one another's burdens.
Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill
the law of Christ.
This means bearing the burdens not only of your favorite objects
of charity, or your favorite friends, but any brother or sister
who needs a little help. There's an elderly couple down the block
who never have a visitor from one week to the next. Theoretically
they're members of the church but who bears their burden of loneliness
besides the pastor on his routine calls? There are people in your
congregation with financial burdens, burdens of disappointments,
burdens of disgrace. To wash feet means to get under their burdens
with them and help. If you are insen-sitive to the burdens of your
brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ your concern for people
and issues outside will never be more than sentimental.
To wash one another's feet means to forgive one another.
Be ye kind to one another, tenderhearted, for-giving one another,
even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.
The place where you learn to forgive is in the church. If you can't
be forgiving in God's family, how will you ever be forgiving beyond
it? When someone in the fellowship has wronged you or you think
he's wronged you ... this is simply a God-sent opportunity to wash
feet. Don't stand around with your feathers ruffled and your pride
hurting and threaten to quit. "They're nothing but hypocrites
anyway!" Lay aside your fancy robes and get down on your knees,
as your Lord did for you, and start washing that person's feet ...
forgive absolutely and utterly from the bottom of your heart.
To wash one another's feet means to pray for one another.
Confess your faults to one another and pray for one
another that ye may be healed.
How often do you pray by name for other people in your fellowship?
You pray for your pastor ... he surely needs your prayers to fulfill
the ministry he has been given. But there are other people in your
church who need your prayers too. Start with the ones you find hardest
to accept. What a blessing will come to them, and to you, as you
wash their feet by praying for them.
If we are ever to become in actual living what God willed us to
be when he made us his children at Calvary, the transformation will
take place largely in the church. This is the family where God has
put us to grow up ... this is the workshop where God rubs one life
upon another to mold them both into shape.
But we will never grow...our actual lives will never change... until
we begin in fact to wash one another's feet. God help us to do this
and to continue doing it until we all come in the unity of the faith
and the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood ... to the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
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