I'll be talking about 2 Corinthians chapter 6, if you have a Bible, verses 1 through 13, if you don't have a Bible, at least part of that text is in your order of worship. So I say to you, hear the Word of God. Working together with Him, then we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says in a favorable time, I've listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you. Behold now is the favorable time, behold now is the day of salvation. We put no obstacle in anyone's way so that no fault may be found with our ministry. But as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way, by great endurance and afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labor, sleepless nights, hunger, by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, by truthful speech and the power of God. With the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise, we are treated as imposters and yet are true. As unknown yet well known as dying and behold we live as punished yet not killed as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many riches, having nothing, yet possessing everything. We've spoken freely to you, Corinthians, our heart is wide open. You're not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. In return I speak us to children, widen your hearts also, let us pray. Father I pray now that you would come and make your gospel extraordinarily clear, I pray that you would give me grace and speech and I pray that you would give those who hear grace in their hearing, I pray that you would open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the death. Father I do pray that you would come this morning with great conviction and Father I pray that you be in my head and in my thinking and my heart and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking. Christ name we pray these things, amen and amen. The first service is always interesting to get feedback that told them in the first service that basically one of the benefits of being a neuroscience sales rep is working with psychiatrists is I traveled from basically Renton down to Vancouver and out to Port Angeles and called on every psychiatrist in between here and there as a sales person and one of the great things is basically you get like free therapy with every psychiatrist in the state or at least free diagnosis and among other things, among the many things that they told me about myself was this is how maybe you don't seem to have the capacity for anxiety and I'd say really is that bad? They said no, you know, firemen, police officers, rangers, you know, some people just don't have that much capacity for anxiety and actually turned out great because my partner actually suffered anxiety attacks so we sort of balance each other out and the reason I told him that is because I felt a little anxiety coming to church this morning talking about what I had felt like I had to talk about and it was interesting as a response to some people walked out and said man I never thought about that before and other people walked out and said that's the same thing you say every week so it was an interesting response and the bottom line is you're wondering you should be if you attend here often or if you've attended here lately why I'm not preaching for Samuel right we're in the middle of a series and the book of Samuel and yet I read to you from Corinthians and the reason is because there are several things that happened this week that made me feel like we needed to address some issues within our congregation we needed to almost have a time of decision as to what kind of church we are going to be basically what are the three things that happened this week basically there were some significant conflict that arose at the beginning of the week which ultimately had its genesis in the direction of the church what kind of church are we going to be what's the direction of this church and what is our focus going to be that was one thing the second thing was a meeting I had with the women's ministry leadership team I met with the women's leadership team and I actually showed them some stuff that I came up with 10 years ago they asked me to come and they said tell us what you think about what it means to gather what kind what does it mean for a church to do outreach and gather people in and I just showed them and several of the people there one of them in particular who's been in this church for 20 or 30 years said I've never heard this before have you have you shown this to the church or did you plan on showing it to the church and I said not I'm not really to be honest with you she said I think you should and I said I'll think about it and then after that my my wife gave me an article that she came across in world magazine and the reason she gave it to me is because she's been hearing me rant about this for almost 18 long years and after reading this article it pushed me over the edge and I said you know it now's the time when our church we need to talk about this because we're sort of wasting our time to do otherwise any article if you're interested in reading the whole thing later you can go to worldmag.com and just search high tight wire or tight wire you can read the whole thing and basically it's a short article and it's about the what basically there's a lot of new polling research out by Barna and other people that the poll not people who are not Christians from the ages to 16 to 29 and ask them what they thought about the church in other words it's people who are outside the church in the time of their life when they are the most apt to be considering going to church or not there's the time of their life when they're it's when people become Christians if they don't grow up in the church that's the time when they do it and so when they ask people who are who are outside the church they are non church goers tell me what you think about the church here was the results is the church judgemental 87% of them said yes hypocritical 85% old fashion 78% here's a fun one two involved in politics 75% out of touch with the reality 72% insensitive to others 70% boring 68% confusing 61% that should bother you that people outside the church whether the right or wrong perception is reality correct and so people outside the church think that the church is hypocritical and judgemental that's what we are to them and they're never going to come in now here's here's some more interesting information for you it affects our own children as well you know when I first came on staff about four years ago to the week almost I came on staff to to basically just help out with the CE and I guess because I was younger than Jeff significantly younger I might add not really many people who were older came to me and said you've got to help us figure out a way to get our children to come back to church in other words a lot of kids had grown up in church and then after they got into a certain age they went to college or whatever and they just never came back they they pulled those people to you know what those people said church is judgemental 52% churches hypocritical 47% old-fashioned 36% to involve them politics 50% people who grew up in the church are about 20 or 30 points better than those outside the church but at the end of the day the church has a pretty bad rap and here's the problem we deserve it we deserve it I hate to say it how come the church in the United States generally and our church specifically very rarely sees people come to Christ very rarely sees the Holy Spirit just work itself out in the confession of sin and people loving one another why is it and why is it in countries where there are oppressive political regimes it's the gospel booming it must be something different than politics or a position on this without or the other thing and you know what I'm going to tell you it's the gospel you see over time all churches tend to drift away from from the the first love everyone of them you know a lot of people would say to come to a church like ours which is 125 years old I think 1893 whatever the math is 125 years old is sort of rebooted about 30 years ago and a lot of people would say Tommy a church like that isn't going to change it can't change it can't become effective it can't the best thing to do is to leave those kinds of churches behind churches like ours and just plant new churches because new churches can do the things they need to do to actually see people come to Christ and I fundamentally disagree with that and the reason I disagree with that is just this is if churches couldn't change the Apostle Paul would have never written a letter he never would have why would he write a letter if they couldn't change he was wasting ink and it was pretty expensive back then and the letter we I've read to you today was the thing that kept coming to mind as I was thinking about our church it's possible the Apostle Paul's admonition to the people in Corinth we're going to look at three things this morning we're going to look at a appeal we're going to look at a reminder and finally we're going to look at a call for decision what is the appeal that the Apostle Paul makes to the Corinthians he says working together with him then we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain for he says in a favorable time I listen to you and in a day of salvation I have helped you behold now is the favorable time behold now is the day of salvation what's the problem in Corinth the problem in Corinth is the problem with every church that has ever existed and it's a problem I'm just gonna call Corinthian drift you see the gospel went into Corinth and it was preached and all these people became Christians and they had to deal with all these issues but then eventually they began to deal with other things like lawsuits between believers they began to have lots and lots of arguments about worship could you ever imagine something like that would happen at church Corinthian drift their focus was basically on everything but the important thing and so the first thing Paul does is he makes an appeal for them to to come back to that he says let me read it to you so I get it right he says working together with him we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain so that either means a couple of things one it means that that they received the grace of God but they really didn't or the grace of God was given to them but they didn't really receive it or they've received the grace of God but it really hasn't affected their lives it hasn't changed much it hasn't done anything or there's no fruit in their lives from the grace of God having come in and among them and the first thing Paul does to them is make an appeal today is the day of your salvation he just spent chapter five laying out the gospel what is the gospel he says in first 20 he says therefore we're ambassadors for Christ God making his appeal through us we implore you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God you see the starting point when a church begins to drift is to ask yourself do I believe the gospel do I understand it do I understand that the whole thing this whole gig this whole thing we're involved in is about one thing about God reconciling us to himself and in turn changing the whole world renewing the whole world do you believe that it's not uncommon for people to be in church 15 20 30 40 50 years and not really get that and Paul says today is the day of your salvation do you believe that how many of you have sat here have you been trusting Jesus or do you trust in your political party do you trust in Jesus or do you trust in your own righteousness do you trust in Jesus or do you trust in whether or not we use organ or guitars what do you put your trust in Paul says there's only one thing that can help you and it is the finished work of Jesus and if finished work of Jesus is the thing that defines you everything else doesn't matter in some sense ever or changes everything else and it changes your relationship to everything else how many people are brokenhearted and downcast and joyless and that's just the ones in the room to the extent that we have no joy and to the extent that we have no we have no passion is the same extent to which we don't really understand the gospel we can go to Bible studies and we can go to V.S.F. and we can go to Sunday night services we can do all these things and you can write your answers in the blanks but if you don't understand the gospel at a heart level it doesn't change anything and the question you have to ask yourself is have I been changed and if I've been changed how does it work itself out in the world and once I am changed what does that mean for myself and my ministry I think that's where Paul goes next because Paul's calling these the Corinthians back to what the way they started and the way they started was by understanding and embracing the gospel of Jesus and then Paul moved from an appeal to a reminder and Paul reminds them of how their church was started in the first place how was their church started it's going to surprise you because the way their church started is the same thing that our church and every other church needs to do in order to be effective for the sake of Christ let me read to you what Paul says Paul says in verse 3 we put no obstacle in anyone's way so that no fault may be found with our ministry that's it Paul says you want you want to know how I my ministry is faultless before you when I came to bring you the gospel of Jesus I put no obstacle in your way there's nothing between you and Jesus and be it having nothing between you and Jesus you therefore could deal with him in fact the gospel is all about taking down obstacles is it not why did Paul get beat up so much because he would go in and say the law is an obstacle it's not Jesus is taking care of it this is where most churches blow it I think and what a church does with this whole idea of obstacles is the complete difference between the typical church and the a typical church in other words the most churches are typical and this I'm going to show you now what I showed to the women's ministry leadership team that they thought you ought to see let's look at Brian do you have the graphic for me I want to look quickly at the difference between a typical church and an a typical church so if you click it typical okay in the click it Brian can typical church that guy right there let's call him Bob he's not a Christian don't don't get ahead of me Bob's not a Christian and he's like looking for something anything I wonder if church can help and so he comes to church looking for for something that can suit his soul something that can change him and transform him and what does he do Brian boom he runs into a wall by the way I have several walls here and I try to pick things that weren't going to be particularly controversial so the first thing is is he bumps into a wall he comes into the church and and just the fact of the church thinks they're they're they're they're being righteous and they're taking a stand and so Bob walks in and he begins to wonder I wonder if I have to have the same view about them to be here and the question is if Bob doesn't have the right view when he walks in what does he do then he's going to have to leave why would he keep going now if he does have the right view good for Bob he gets to go to the next step which is Brian something like gender issues they're not in any particular order so Bob walks in and like for example last a couple weeks ago when I came to the church early someone without any permission had put how to vote for the the referendum 71 all over our walls so Bob walks in and he thinks I guess if I'm not against this referendum this place isn't for me but if Bob if you have if you vote correctly you get to be here isn't that good news and you get to take the next step which is what Brian politics after Bob has decided whether he's pro life or pro choice and after Bob has decided how he's going to vote on this issue or that he then gets to answer the question are you a Republican or are you a Democrat and frankly in this church if you're a Republican you get to stay and if you're a Democrat you might stay but you really shouldn't tell anybody the irony is that most people most people I guess believe that Jesus actually endorses their political values they're in their political views and the reason for that is is because whenever election times come I get packets in my box that tell me Tommy here's how you can tell people how to vote for the Republican candidate but what they don't know is that I also someone in our church will also slip me things on how to preach how to vote for the Democratic candidate you see everyone even in this room doesn't believe the same thing and yet somehow you expect the church to take a stand on one issue or the other now the the irony is is when you think about issues like abortion is it really taking a stand to say we're against abortion which this church is wouldn't it be a bigger stand you can tell that a church like ours and churches all around are not really particularly concerned about abortion and you want me to tell you how I know it's because when you look at our congregation the pews are not filled with adopted children there's not and you know what you can say you care about abortion all day long but until our church and other churches start filling their pews with children that no one else wants does really mean anything to say you're against abortion it doesn't that wouldn't you rather go to a church that said you know what anyone who wants to adopt a child we will help you pay for it instead we we bicker about little budget line items when in fact we should be the most generous people in the world the Roman Empire changed in a matter of a century or so from being completely hostile to Christianity to being endorsing Christianity and the reason is why it wasn't because Christians chose the right candidate and made sure he got into the emperor's seat it was because Christians refused to have any obstacles in the way and because the way Christians lived their lives was completely different the Romans had low view of life and they got rid of of children they didn't want and they were big on abortion and children Christians took them in among other things what happens here well Bob if you can get past all three of these hypothetical walls what what is he find at the end of it Brian if he can get through all this stuff then Jesus is waiting at the back end graciously waiting to receive him now is it any wonder that very few people become Christians and our churches what's the next thing that happens Brian you see that gold that's a lens for the rest of his life what Bob is going to do is he's going to look at Jesus through the lens of those issues and Jesus is always going to be distorted and of course hit it again Brian usually what happens Bob just leaves it's typical church that's my experience over the past 20 years now if you can hit the next live Brian what's an atypical church like Bob comes in hit it again Brian and all those issues are still there and all those issues are important issues they're they're extremely important issues but in the atypical church the first thing that Bob runs into is not a wall that has to do with politics or or some issue the first thing he runs into is what Brian hit it the first thing he runs into is Jesus in the atypical church isn't that sad that in church the the you have to make it a point to say the first thing that people need to deal with is Jesus not all the periphery stuff the first thing he does is run into Jesus and then what happens to him Brian again who that's beautiful he's transformed and once he's transformed then what happens Brian then he begins to look at all these issues through the lens of Jesus and not the other way around and when he begins to look at the issues through the lens of Jesus they're completely different to him when I was in Capitol Hill I can't tell you how many women came in who are radical feminists and who are pro choice and everything else and they would come in and they would hear Jesus preach to their hearts would be changed and they would say after Tommy if the first thing you told me was about your pro life stance I would have never come back and now that I've come to know Jesus this is one of the most important issues in the world to me that wouldn't have happened unless she had had the opportunity to interact with Jesus that's what the A typical church does Brian I think that's it now the interesting thing is unless you think I'm trying I'm advocating we don't take hard stands on anything or we don't sort of put our foot down on anything or when you refuse to take a stand on this or that I've been called believe it or not a coward do you think do you think taking away obstacle so that people can interact with Jesus is more dangerous or less dangerous than just simply being being political or being you know driven by something else the Apostle Paul tells us right here here's what it's like to have a ministry that won't take a stand about on anything for Jesus let me read that to you he says the servants of God we commend ourselves in every way by great endurance and afflictions hardships calamities beatings imprisonments riots labor sleepless nights hunger purity knowledge patience kindness truthless speech the power of God the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left honor and dishonor through slander and praise were treated as impostors and yet are true as unknown yet well known as dying and behold we live as punished yet not killed as sorrowful yet always rejoicing as poor yet making many rich as having nothing yet possessing everything the reason that most people don't have this kind of ministry don't have the ministry that puts Jesus right out in front is because when you begin to emphasize Jesus and when you is opposed to politics or anything else it becomes very inconvenient very quickly because when people come to know Jesus things are very messy it's it's just not clean it's not as clean as deciding which who you're going to vote for it's not as clean as deciding what kind of music you like or don't like
but you can't have the joy you don't get the transformation you don't get any of that without the inconvenience let me ask you this you know I used to do this with church planners as well ask yourself this question yeah I used to make church planners I said what do I want you to do right on the piece of paper what kind of music you like what kind of worship style do you like for me it'd be traditional hymns almost 100% of the time that's my personal opinion and then I'd ask them to write in the other on the other side of the paper what kind of music would best reach those in your community and then look at them and say is it the same let me ask you to do that when you go home maybe you have that conversation what kind of music do you like what kind of worship style do you like and then say keep this in mind that the vast majority of the community that we live in is between the ages of 25 and 45 and 50% of them are not white so I want you to write down what kind of music and worship style you you like and then what kind of music and worship style you think would actually reach the people in our community and ask yourself are they the same and if they're not the same are you willing to change Paul says if you understand the gospel you will be Paul ends this passage with an invitation to the to the Corinthians and it's interesting to me notice what he says in verse 11 he says we've spoken freely to you Corinthians our heart is wide open you are not restricted by us but you are restricted in your own affections in return I speak as to children widen your hearts also what's the Corinthian problem at least here Paul says you know I've been straight up with you I've opened my heart wide here I've given you everything I got the only thing that restricts you is your own affections your affections the way you feel about all this stuff that's new language for Presbyterians I know and yet one of the one of the greatest reformed thinkers of all times maybe the degraders Jonathan Edwards when he was responding in the great awakening there are lots of abuses of things like you know people singing in tongues and all the different kinds of things that were just sort of crazy not not that that is but I mean there's just very interesting manifestations and Edwards would say that's not necessarily evidence of the spirit's working he wrote that in in his treatise on religious affections people come back and see John Edwards says all that stuff is an evidence of spirit's working and Edwards was not so fast in the other hand if your affections are not moved if your heart is not broken by your sin if your heart is not overjoyed because of what Jesus has done and it doesn't work itself out in your life then you probably don't get it either he would say in other words if the gospel is really affecting our lives and it really is is affecting within a our lives then everything else will take care of itself it really will spurge and said the same thing they said how do you grow a church and he says I preach the gospel nothing but the bold of pure and clear gospel and everything else takes care of itself and the question that you have to ask yourselves first EPC is that what you want do you want an inconvenient hard church that is overjoyed and just filled with people coming to know Christ and filled with with the spirits working and moving in our lives or do you want a cold place that votes for the right party I feel bad that I even have to stand up front and say that to be honest with you and yet it has to be said will we trust Jesus or will we not Paul brings a whole thing full circle he brings it all full circle that he says do not receive the grace of God in vain would that we as a church and not just our church but every church not receive the grace of God in vain let me pray for us father I pray this morning that you would come and just by your spirit I pray that you would both break us and I pray that you would you would over fill us with joy I pray that you would convict us where we need to be convicted and I pray that you would encourage us and enliven us where we need to be enlivened I pray that we would be a church that is not about the right things but about the right person and that is Jesus and I pray that as our church moves forward in the future and as elders work on strategies and philosophies of ministry all these things that we would become known as a church that is a blessing to the community and Christ's name we pray all these things a man a man