St. Paul Lutheran Church
Sermon by Pastor Balogh
JAN 6, 2008
Ephesians 3:10-11 His intent was that now, through the church, the
manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities
in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he
accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
There are a lot of things that could be highlighted in this text. Yes,
there are a lot of things that could be spoken of but I have to confess
that the one thing that clearly caught my eye was the sentence before us.
Why did it catch my eye? Because of what I see going on in the
Christian church of today. Using our church as an example and taking our
last annual statistics just consider a few of the following things.
On any given worship weekend (Thursday night and Sunday Services) less
that 50% of the members of the congregation are in church. Actually the
statistic was 49.2% which by the standards of church going isn't all that
bad. The Synod average for that same period was 44% and the Conference
average was 42%. Still, what strikes me, perhaps only because I am the
pastor, is that on any given weekend of worship half of the congregation
is missing!
It's been that way for the past 25 years! Actually it's been that way
for the past many years. Just as a sampling I went and pulled one annual
report for a number of past decades and here is what I discovered. In
the 90's it was 48%. In the 80's it was 41%. In the 70's it was 41%.
In the 60's it was 45%. Pretty consistent over the years. But as a
pastor that really bugs me! Name one employer, one league, one social
group that would be satisfied and happy with only half of its members
participating?
Of course, it gets a bit more interesting when you start really looking.
In truth about only a third of your congregation is involved regularly.
That's the 90 or so members who form the core of everything that goes on.
The other two-thirds take turns showing up. One family is gone for two
Sundays a month and another for three. One family is involved about
every three weeks, another every 5 weeks and so on. In other words, they
all seem to touch base here and there over the year, enough so that they
keep their membership status but not enough so they could say, "I'm
really active."
Out of curiosity I tried to find out what was going on nationally. What
I learned is this. According to the Barna Group, highly praised for
their statistics, about 47% of American adults attend church on a weekly
basis. A group called Religious Tolerance reported attendance at 43% but
this site quoted a number of different sources that all indicated that
this figure should really be cut in half. They felt the statistics
didn't fit what was actually going on. They felt that many people
answered not according to what they do but rather according to what they
think they should be doing. The Barna group also reported these
interesting facts: Church attendance among: Mosaics: 33%, Baby Busters:
43%, Baby Boomers: 49% and Elders: 54%.
It was this last set of statistics that I found most interesting. Elders
would be my parent's generation, a group of that old time religion. Baby
Boomers is my generation and we learned from our parents. Baby Busters
are the young parents now and they seem to have learned from us. Mosaics
are their children but here is where the biggest drop occurs. There is
an influence out there that is teaching our children that church isn't
important.
That thing may be this little fact I found in my research. This again
from a Barna study. On the issue of "absolute moral values," that is, on
the issue of whether or not you believe there are absolute moral values,
moral values that don't change no matter what the circumstance, it was
reported that only 22% of people believed there were such values. That
means that 78% of people hold a "relativistic moral outlook." In other
words, the majority of our world believes that time, circumstance and
culture can alter our moral standards. Right and wrong is determined by
the surrounding circumstance, by how you feel and what you want and by
what the world says is okay to do. That's something I wasn't looking for
and was shocked at. It sure explains many things going on in our culture
today.
All of this because perhaps the church has failed at its job or maybe it
is because people have lost sight of what church is all about. Let's
look at our text and wrestle with: The Church. 1st. It is God's. 2nd.
It is to make known God's wisdom. 3rd. It is according to God's purpose
in Christ.
This particular verse of God's Word addresses an issue that is being
raised on a regular basis in today's world. It is the issue of "the
church." The idea that church is man's invention or the idea that
organized religion, namely the church, is somehow wrong and evil. Yet
clearly this verse tells us that God is behind the church. Our verse
said, "His (God) intent was that now, through the church, the manifold
wisdom of God should be made known." God's intent, his purpose for the
church is to let the world know his wisdom. God wants us to know him and
his ways. He has given us church for just that purpose.
Of course the problem is that man has twisted the purpose of God.
Instead of church being our place of comfort, wisdom and joy we start
looking for other things. We want fun and entertainment. We want
activity and help in fulfilling our purpose. We want church to serve our
social purposes and needs rather than be the spiritual base of God's
truth. Welcome to the world of sinful mankind.
What is interesting is to note that believers right from the start
(obviously Adam and Eve) though there was no law to command it, worshiped
God and gathered to give him praise. As the world became increasingly
sinful the unbelievers gathered too, to worship false gods and idols.
That's the way it still is. False religion took its cues from true
religion but today we tend to measure religion on the basis of the false
rather than the true. The world thinks, "Hey, since so many worship so
many different gods and we don't want to say that the majority is wrong,
therefore, we must conclude that all religions are the same and all
churches are equal. What we fail to grasp is that the underlying message
is that great lie that all religion is false and man made.
The truth is that God gave us church. He gave it in the Old Testament as
he commanded in His Law how, when and where his people Israel should
worship. He gave it in the New Testament as He lead the Apostles not
only to go out and establish churches everywhere but as he also sent his
Holy Spirit to record and write His Wisdom for all of mankind.
We learn simply that God gave church that we might know his wisdom. The
measure of the church is that it teaches God's wisdom. God's wisdom
reveals everything. It reveals how this world got in the condition it's
in. It reveals the corruption of sin and the nature of mankind. God's
wisdom reveals what is right and what is wrong. It tells us there is
such a thing as "absolute moral value." Not only tells us that it exists
but exactly what it is. God's wisdom reveals his love and his total care
for mankind. Most important, God's wisdom reveals the wonder of Jesus
and what Jesus the Savior came to do for us.
What did Jesus come to do? Jesus came to open the gates of heaven and
restore us to status as God's children. Jesus came to pay for our sins
and give us the gift of eternal life. Jesus came to reveal all the more
the truth of God, especially the truth of salvation by grace through
faith. God never intended that man should save himself from sin. God
never intended that we should believe or think that the rituals we do or
the works that we do should be the measure of our goodness. False
religion promotes that idea. False religion tells you that with the
right attitude and hard work you can achieve goodness and earn your
rightful place in the higher echelons of ...but that's where false
religions become a bit murky. Just where do you end up? Just think of
the many false ideas that are out there concerning "the afterlife."
God's picture of our eternal life with him is clear. It is not a "you
get to be a god world." It is not a "world of virginal pleasures and
lust." It is a place where we will live in the constant eternal glory of
God. Nothing bad, evil or harmful will be found there. It is a world of
such marvel and joy that even what is described we have trouble grasping.
What I can tell you is that it is God's world created by Him, a world of
service and joy in the presence and awe of God's total goodness.
That's what God's wisdom is about. It is about this world and what
happened to it. It is about how we can best get through this "valley of
the shadow of death" and into his kingdom. It is about his love
displayed for us in Jesus. But again, that's what our text tells us. It
said, "that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be
made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms,
according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus
our Lord."
Here is where the church of today makes its mistake. The churches of
today don't want to address the issue of sin and death. The churches of
today don't want to share God's wisdom in its entirety but rather are
content to share only what is considered "acceptable." The sad part
though, is that this means they most often leave out what is to be the
central message of the church: Jesus Christ, him crucified, risen and
ascended for the sake of our eternal life.
That's the eternal purpose which God accomplished in Christ. He so loved
us that He gave His Son to eternal hell to cover our sins. Jesus so
loved us that he took our justly deserved punishment for sin and paid for
it. That's the marvel of Jesus. His purpose was our salvation from sin.
His purpose is to make it possible for us to be in His family, accounted
his children and heirs of his kingdom. His purpose is to reveal the true
wisdom of God, the wisdom and depth of God's love as found in Jesus. It
is such a mystery that God should care. It is such a mystery that God's
Son is true man and true God. It is such a mystery that God's Holy
Spirit comes and works in us through the church and the means of grace it
administers. Yet please note that this was and still is God's purpose
and intent in the church.
God gave church to teach us his love and about his Son Jesus. We have
endeavored to do that here. We have worked at proclaiming Christ Jesus
and Him our Savior. We have proclaimed the gift of God given by grace
through faith. We strive to keep the purpose and intent of God in His
church. The purpose of revealing Jesus and the gift of eternal life.
So why the miserable involvement in God's church? Because we forget that
it is about Jesus? Because we think we can live without him? Because we
are buying the lies of the world that church is "man's thing" and nothing
important?
I pray that this year we work among ourselves to recapture the joy of
God's church. That we gather as His children to learn his wisdom that
our lives might be to His glory. That we assemble for worship to praise
His name, the name of His Son and give simple thanks for his salvation.
That we join in proclaiming the eternal purpose which he accomplished in
Christ Jesus our Lord not only for our sake but especially for the sake
of our children and the world. Amen.