A Strong Church - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, September sixth. What should be the mission of the church? Today, Dr. Stanley gives a clear biblical vision for the body of Christ as one of the necessary elements in building a strong church. What is a church anyway? And so when you think about that, you think about, well, what kind of church do I want to belong to? Do I want to belong to a weak church or do I want to belong to a strong church? And so the title of this message is, A Strong Church. You may say, well, you know what, I came in here this morning and I don't even know that I'm interested in church. Well, you get me to get interested. For the simple reason, when Jesus said, I will build my church, anything that He builds, I have to be interested in.

I would want to be interested, I must be interested in. So, let's talk about what are the characteristics that make for a strong church, wherever you may go and whatever your church may be. And the first thing is this, Spirit-filled leadership. If you have leadership in a church that is not filled with the Spirit of God, you're starting out already with weakness. Because, if you recall, Jesus said to His disciples, you're not ready to do what I called you to do.

He gave them the Great Commission, but He says, I want you to stay in the city of Jerusalem until you be filled with the Holy Spirit. No staff of a church is adequate to do the work that God calls them to do unless they be filled with the Holy Spirit. That is not only the pastors, but the members of the staff. And so, if you're going to have a strong church, then the leadership of the staff must be filled with the Holy Spirit, listening to Him, and depending upon Him for direction and for guidance and for the power and the energy and the know-how to carry out the work of a church. Churches and what we attempt to do does not just happen.

There's a lot that goes on in the midst of it all. So, first of all, you have to have Spirit-filled leadership. And in their lives, out of their life, there should be the evidence that they're filled with the Spirit, which Paul gives us in Galatians chapter five, of love and joy and peace and all the rest he mentions. So, that's number one. That's the beginning.

That's first. Then, of course, the worship service would provide the atmosphere in which the people experience the presence of God and leave renewed in their commitment to obey God and serve Him. That's what should happen in every strong church. That's the kind of worship service. And so, a worship service is where we focus our attention upon God. Not upon the preacher, but upon God. Upon His Word. What God wants to do in our life, we open our heart and ask God, speak to my heart. And when you come into church, I think one of the first things you should do when you come and you should say, Lord, You brought me here this morning. I want You to speak to my heart. I want You to show me what I need to hear.

Help me to hear it, to believe it, and to accept it and to apply it to my heart. Because listen, this is not a theatrical place. This is a place of worship. This is a place where we meet God together. And people say, Well, you know what, I just don't need that in my life.

Oh, yes, you do. The Bible says, Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, which some do. When you neglect, when you neglect fellowshipping with fellow believers, you're going to be weak. The truth is, listen, we not only need God, we need each other. And the wonderful thing about a fellowship that's a strong fellowship, it's a fellowship where people recognize their interdependence upon each other. Now, you may not look around and say, I'm dependent on him, her, and she.

But we need each other. And worship is for a time for us to focus upon God, upon His Word, and to praise Him and to sing. I wonder about people, for example, who never sing. And some people, a lot of people sing stuff they shouldn't even be singing. But I'm thinking about people who never sing a hymn. Look at all the garbage they put in their mind, in their spirit. And they can sing the world's trash and never think about the awesome songs that we sing. Listen to this, amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

What makes it sweet? That saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found.

I was blind, but now I see. When I think about, when I think about the awesome songs we have in our worship service, they're to lift us up, to focus our attention upon God, not upon a man. And then, of course, when I think about all of these characteristics of faithful and generous in their giving. You don't hear me begging for money. You don't hear me pleading, putting pressure on anybody, because here's what I believe.

I believe if you obey God and you walk in His will and His way, and you choose to follow Him, you will give. Because the Spirit of God will motivate you and He's going to motivate you, listen, for this reason. He wants us to learn to do what?

To worship Him with our tithes and our offerings. And very seldom do I mention it. And people once in a while say, Well, why don't you preach on money? Well, I don't think that's what God wants me to do at times, most of the time.

But sometimes I will make those explanations and challenges if there's a reason. But my belief is simply this, if you are listening to the Word of God and you're obeying Him and you're believing Him and you're trusting Him and you want to have a strong family, be a part of a strong church, you will give. And every Sunday morning when I have the privilege of giving, if I miss, for example, I missed about three Sundays, then I'm going to have this Sunday's offer and I'm going to have those three. I'm not going to get behind. Because, listen, God never gets behind with me.

He's always ahead. And so, I owe Him my life. I owe Him my life. And somebody says, Oh my goodness, I've got the tithe.

No, you don't have to. You can be disobedient and not tithe. But what I want you to see, listen, it's the privilege of not just talking to God, but saying, Lord, I mean what I say when I say I'm thankful, I'm grateful for the wonderful privilege. I know that You say we're to bring a tithe in our offerings into the storehouse of God so that the work can be carried on.

I thank You for the privilege of giving. And I think about this, when somebody works, makes a salary, and spends it all on themselves and never tithes, you are not going to enjoy and you're not going to be successful financially. Listen, I can tell you about people who said, Well, listen, I've got millions. I don't need the tithe. Can't guarantee your health. Can't guarantee your safety. Can't guarantee what happens to your family. Listen, we are blessed and protected and provided for in ways that we oftentimes do not think. You have no promise whatsoever that you're going to get to work tomorrow morning.

Somebody says, Oh, you can't scare me. I would if I could. If it gets you right with God, I would. I'm simply saying this, listen, do you realize how blessed we are and privileged to live in this country? You've got a job. You've got income. You've got a family. You're taking care of your children. Times are tough. They're going to get tougher. And you know what, and we're going to be faithful right through the tough times to allow God to prove that taxes and government does not change His gift, His love, His grace to us.

It does not do it. And then, listen, Strong Church is strategically organized to reach their God-given goals. So we're organized. We have preschool. We have school-aged children. We have teenagers and so forth. We have adults.

We have programs for each age group. We're organized for everything imaginable. You say, well, the first church didn't get organized. Oh yes, they did. Because if you'll notice, for example, in Acts, early in Acts, here's what happens. The Bible says nobody was in need. Listen, if you had three thousand people get saved and nobody's in need, somebody got that crowd organized.

It could have been Peter or whoever it might have been. And for example, Jesus was organized. He said, you want to feed five thousand? Set them in groups. And we'll get them all fed.

We had some left over. Church is organized. The organization is beneath the surface. We're organized.

Why? So when you want to come on Sunday morning, we're going to start at a time we say we're going to start. That's organization. We're going to have singing. We're going to have preaching. We're going to have offerings.

We're going to have invitation. We're going to have a conclusion. All that's organization. A strong church is organized because it has goals.

Goals given to us by God to reach people. And so, that's why we are organized. And I think about churches that are not organized, there's something wrong.

And what happens is, if they're not organized, before long they are missing something. Then, of course, a strong church, the people serving the strength of their spiritual gifts. Now you say, well, some people would say, well, I don't know what a spiritual gift is. So, let me just give you a little briefing here in the twelfth chapter of Romans.

You might look there for a moment. He says in verse six of Romans twelve, since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. That is, according to God's grace and what He wants to do in and through your life, He gives you a certain gift. So, listen. He says, since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly. Now watch this. So, He names them.

The gift of prophecy, the gift of service, the gift of teaching, the gift of exhortation, the gift of giving, the gift of leading or administration, and the gift of mercy. Now, you say, well, how does that work? Okay, well watch this. You come to my house and I'm going to serve you dinner. And so, I have a wonderful dinner and everybody is served iced tea. So, not thinking I reach over to get the fork or knife and I knock my tea glass over, it falls over, it breaks tea everywhere and all over my pant leg and it's, and the lady was sitting right here, it's on her dress. It's just a big mess. And the person with the gift of mercy says, oh, I'm so sorry. Oh, I'm so sorry. The gift of service says, don't worry, but I'll take care of this.

And she's the first one to go clean up. The gift of administration says, let me tell you what we ought to do with this whole situation right now. And the gift of giving says, well, you can buy another glass, don't worry about that.

And the gift of prophecy, for example, it says, well, let me tell you something. You should be more thoughtful about things like that. And so, you've broken the glass and wasted money. The gift of exhortation says, well, look, next time push the glass a little further this way and you won't knock it over. Now, you say, well, that won't really happen.

Let me tell you something. You respond in that way and you don't even realize it. Now, you, not probably sitting around the table, because you have a spiritual gift that God has given you as a believer, that's how you operate. In other words, for example, I don't have the gift of mercy. Though I'm merciful to some degree, but in other words, my gift is, what do you think it is? Exhortation.

That's right. I want to encourage you to do your best, be your best, look your best. So, what I would say, exhorting, I'd say, well, you know, here's what we can do. And I'd be kind with it.

But mercy is all over herself. And the gift of service, she already has the broom and the mop in here before you can turn around. I'm simply saying, you have a gift.

You as a mother have a gift. And you operate in your business out of your gifts. For example, if somebody gave me a job of some jobs, I couldn't operate it.

I might can teach a little bit and I'm an exhorter. That is, watch this, when you operate out of your gift, you are the most efficient. And secondly, you operate out of your gift, you, listen, you are the happiest because you sense your ability and talents and skills, for example. And people have all different kind of gifts, people who are very creative in their spiritual gifts. So, that's the work of the Holy Spirit. Now, you put that into the church and this is where we have people who teach, people who are ahead of the organization, people who exhort. And you have all the different gifts in the church. And God has given us different people who do different things better. There's some people who can do many things better than I can. And if somebody says, What have you ever done besides preach? Well, I deliver newspaper and wash cars and maybe a few other things, but this is what God created me for. I'm the happiest doing this. I do my best when I'm doing this.

If I had to teach in a classroom with about twenty people and teach in calculus, I'd be a total flop because that's not who I am. You are who you are. And you need to find out what your spiritual gift is. You say, Well, I never heard of it before.

Well, I'll tell you what. A person who is the daughter of one of the most famous people in America said to me on occasion, You know, my husband and I were getting ready to get a divorce. I heard you preaching about spiritual gifts and she said, We listened to him. And she says, I want to tell you, I started saying, Oh, now I know why he operates that. Now, now I know why he thinks that way.

Now I know why she thinks that way. And she said, Save their marriage. It is a powerful lesson to learn. So, a strong church, a very strong church is a church where the people are operating out of their gifts. And then, of course, united in spirit. A strong church, people united in spirit. We have people from all the different countries in the world and we have people from every race, every nation, every nationality, all kind of languages. We've got people here from about fifty-five different languages that belong to our church.

Well, I think that's fantastic. And so, because we are the body of Christ. We're not this kind of body, that kind of body, this kind of body, we're just the body of Christ. Love each other, have a sense of unity and oneness. But, you know, if you have some problem, you should talk to some staff member or something if it's something you don't understand.

Usually what I find out are people just don't understand something. Unity, oneness, loving each other, helping each other, undergirding one another. And finding out who is in need and being with. That's what the New Testament church did. That's why they were so strong.

They revolutionized their day and conquered Rome. And because they stuck together and believed the Word of God. Then, of course, genuine love for one another. That's part of that being united. And love is what holds, it's like glue that holds the church together.

You see, if you sit in church and you looked across the aisle and you saw somebody that you just can't stand, you need to get right with God. Loving one another was what Jesus was all about. And when He said, I'll build my church, what did He build it on? He built it upon the recognition of who He was, the Son of God, and loving Him and loving one another.

That's what He said. Then, of course, the last one that I'll mention is a vision for a lost world that would result in the going of some and the giving of others. A church that doesn't have a vision for the world is not going to be a strong church. If we're expecting God to honor us and bless this church and bless the members and the families of this church, one of our responsibilities is to get the message of this church to the world.

Now, listen to this carefully. When you get committed to God's will and purpose in your life, you remember this, Almighty God comes to your rescue to help you and enable you and to open doors of opportunity. I would never have imagined that we'd be preaching the gospel all over the world. I don't brag about that.

I don't talk about that necessarily. And our goal is to get in every language we possibly can. We want to get the message in every language we can so that anybody and everybody who wants the truth, loves the truth, desires the truth, or are ignorant about the truth will be able to hear it and be saved by the grace of God. That New Testament church was a, had a vision for the world.

And the reason I know that is that I'm sitting here as a child of God and that's thousands of miles away. They never stopped. They were persecuted.

Rome tried to destroy them. And the gospel is strong today and getting stronger all over the world. So, what you have to ask is this, what is a strong church? And I've given you what I do believe with all of my heart are eleven very, very important characteristics of a strong church. Now here's a question I want to ask you. Are you listening?

Say, Amen. What are you doing to contribute to the strength of your church? Members of this church, this is this morning, and all of you who are listening, what are you doing to help strengthen, contribute to the strength of your church?

Second question, if others in your church follow your pattern, will the church continue to be strong and fruitful for the kingdom of God if they follow your pattern? Now, would you agree you've heard the truth this morning? Well, say that like you mean it.

Okay. All right, here's what I want to ask you. You've heard what a church is like, but I want to talk to you right this moment. You believe what you've heard, the gospel of truth. If you're willing to say to God today, Lord, I want to make a commitment today that I want to make whatever contribution I can make, whatever it may be, to the strength of my church.

Well, here's what we're saying. We're saying, Lord, we want this to be a strong church based on the Word of God and committed to reaching as many people as we possibly can. Amen. Thank you for listening to part two of A Strong Church. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.