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How Do We Know When A Church Is Dead?
Revival and Renewal
But there was some life – the kind of life you get when you come home to a dead fire where you need to stir up the embers and then you need the wind. Five steps are necessary for a renewed and awakened church.
1) Revive
Wake up – v2 –”for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said: ‘Wake up, O sleeper,rise from the dead,and Christ will shine on you.'” (Ephesians 5:14, NIV). The first step towards renewal is honest awareness and admittance that something is wrong.
2) Reinforce
Strengthen what remains – what is of God and has not yet died.
3) Remember
The Gospel and the teaching we have received. It is a work of the Spirit to bring to remembrance and to life the old.
4) Repent and obey
We need to return to God as at our conversion. For Martin Luther repentance was a daily necessity. Are we any different?
5) Receive
Christ visiting his Church through his Spirit.
The Ultimate Church Makeover
Although Christ warns the Church in Sardis that we will come like a thief in the night (ie unexpectedly) he also offers them great hope. Sardis was a centre for woollen goods and claimed to be the first to ever have dyed wool. In its temples you were not allowed to enter with dirty clothes. Christ says that he knows that there are Christians who have not ‘soiled their clothes’, that is, accommodated their lives to the heathen customs of their neighbours. He will come and purify his church… to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:27, NIV). Their names are in the Lambs book of life and he will acknowledge them his own people. “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 10:32, NIV)
Often we do not see the Church as Christ sees. We don’t see with the ‘eyes like blazing fire’, the hypocrisy, the sham, the greed and the manipulation. It is rare that we see the real ugliness – which is why when we do we are so shocked and horrified.
But it is also true that we do not see the real beauty. We are like someone who is finely dressed, only to have their clothes taken from them and underneath is ugliness. Some people are deluded by the fine outer clothes, others are disgusted by what they find underneath, but we have to go deeper yet until we find the delight that Christ has in his bride.
The church is the most beautiful thing on earth because it is the bride for whom Christ died, and which he beautifies. Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us.
Alarm time for the Western Church
For my own nation of Scotland, for the UK, for Europe and for North America I think the Lord, having whispered to us in our pleasures, is now beginning to shout to us in our pains. We need to listen to the Spirit speaking to the Churches, not just individuals but us collectively. The Spirit inspires prophecy and quickens the dead. How we need Him to speak to us prophetically and to give us new life! The embers need to be stirred. The wind needs to blow. All our programmes, practices and plans will not change the church or bring her to life. We need the Spirit. Let’s ask!
David Robertson is the moderator of the Free Church of Scotland and director of Solas CPC, Dundee. Follow him on Twitter @theweeflea.
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