Every morning during the week here at Capernwray New Zealand we have morning tea. It is New Zealand culture (first practiced by the English) to stop in the middle of the morning for a cup of tea a little snack, and a short break. Capernwray uses this time to give the students an opportunity to connect with one another, the staff and guests they have visiting. Once a week a staff member will share a thought with everyone during this time. Chris challenged the students with a message called ‘Why I go to Church.’ We wanted to share it with you as well.
Why do we go to Church?
“We are the Church” So I don’t need to go to Sunday service, just have my personal quiet time with God, right?
Why is Church so special anyways?
What if I were to say there is no salvation outside of the Church!
Now before you guys scream heretic and chase me out of Capernwray, let me explain what I mean. What I am not meaning to say is that going to worship service saves us. Or that the priest or pastor or anyone else is responsible for my salvation besides God Himself. “Whoever believes in Christ Jesus shall not perish, but have eternal life”. Yes, only in Christ are we saved and have eternal life. Let me share 2 other verses on salvation with you.
“I have been crucified with Christ, and it is I who no longer lives, but it is Christ who lives in me” [Gal. 2:20]
Wait… I have been crucified? I have died and no longer live? We have been crucified WITH Christ, we no longer live but it is Christ who lives in us. And Paul is talking about salvation. How could we have been crucified, but to have been included in Christ, or with Him, when He was crucified? We can because receiving salvation is to receive Christ himself. Not as one receives a free ticket, or a present, but as one receives a husband or wife. We receive a person not a thing when we receive salvation. And it is Christ himself who lives in us. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit. God dwells, lives in us! You are united with Christ, one with Him and consequently you have received and participate in what He has done – that is why Paul can say he has been crucified with Christ. We weren’t alive 2000 years ago, but we participated in Christ’s saving work when we receive Him. And the life we now live, we live by His life. New life.
Christ isn’t a distant saviour but is a personal, indwelling saviour who has come into us to bring us back into fellowship with God, and to live the Christian life, the way He designed us to – in relationship with and total dependence on God.
Do you know that God, the Creator of the universe and our Lord and saviour, dwells in you?? To what depth and wonder is our salvation that we have received in Christ!
We are truly united with Christ. He lives in us through the Holy Spirit, and we live now in Him. That is why Paul so strictly rebukes the Corinthian church who were continuing in sexual immorality.
“Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one with her? For it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh.’ But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him.” [1 Coriths. 6:15-17]
We are actually members of Christ, as members of one body. Paul was saying, so you know when you have sexual union with a prostitute, its like you are uniting the Lord with that prostitute because you are one with the Lord. You have been united with Christ, you are one with the Lord.
To be saved is to receive Christ, to receive His life and to be united with Him. Every Christian shares in this new life, this union with Christ which brings us back into a relationship with God. And so each of us are saved also into a body. Yes salvation is not just a personal thing, it is truly a communal, a corporate thing. We who have received Christ have been united to Him and are now members of His body. As Paul says above in 1 Corinthians 6 and again in Ephesians 1:22, “He put all things under His (Christ’s) feet and gave Him as head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all”. And again in Ephesians 5:29, “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the Church, because we are members of His body”.
We are members of one body, His body. So, can you understand my first statement a little now? There is no salvation outside of the Church, because the Church is the body of Christ, all of those united with Him and are now one with Christ and members of His body.
Have we made salvation and consequently Church an individualistic thing? Is it a private and personal thing for you? We have a personal relationship with God, in that we have received the person of Christ and can now know God – it is personal. But salvation is an inclusive thing too. We are saved into a body, into the Church, of whom Christ is the bridegroom. We are the bride, not brides of Christ. There is One Spirit, One body, One Lord, One bride.
No matter how different we are, no matter what backgrounds we come from. Regardless if we act like it or not, we are One body.
So why do I go to Church? Because, I am part of the Church, all of those that Christ has died for and brought near to God. Because on Sunday morning I can be together with those who have united with Christ, in who His Spirit dwells. Isn’t that a special thing? Where we can share in the Word of God, and the breaking of bread and praise our Lord. My salvation isn’t just an individual thing, it is wonderful and personal union with Christ that I share in with others. Yes, we are the Church.
And just like the body needs and depends on all of it’s members; feet, hands, eyes and ears, the body depends on all of its individual members, and likewise, we need each other. As members of His body, we need and depend on each other.
So how should we to act as one Church?
We should live like we are one.
“I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of your calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all”. [ Eph. 4:1-6]
“Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the needs of others.” [Phil. 2:3]
These are just a few of the many verses which explain how we should act in light of the reality of who we are in Christ as Christians. When we act selfishly and disunified, we misrepresent what the Church is. A dear friend and one of our professors at Moody Bible Institute, Dr. Marcus Johnson, who emphasized Christ and our union with Him in all of our theology classes, and who challenged my view of Church as it was before, describes the Church as a “living image of the gospel”. When we do not love one another, or hold long lasting grudges toward others, or never resolve conflict at Church; when we don’t live out the full reality of our salvation could we be misrepresenting the gospel to the world?
Jesus before he goes to the cross, prays with His disciples to the Father:
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word (that is you and me), that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one. I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” [John 17:20-23]
“that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” – is that not the gospel? That “God so loved the world that He gave His only son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life”? Jesus prays that we, His Church would be one, just as Christ is in the Father, and the Father is in Him, and as Christ is in us. So may we live as we are, one, in Christ Jesus our Lord. And let us ask Him that He would work in us and through us by the power of His Spirit to change and move our hearts toward obedience, humility and love, that we would love one another, and thus show Christ to the world.
The Mainlands 