How to Evaluate a Church
Joel Gorveatte · Tidal Church Moncton · August 28, 2022 · What Makes a Church Great? series
Joel Gorveatte looks at how Paul opens his letters, from Ephesians to 1 Corinthians 13, and shows that he measures every church by faith, hope and love. A great church is one growing in trust in God, hope in community, and love in action.
More from Joel Gorveatte · The What Makes a Church Great? series
Topics: Love, Hope, Faith, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:00] As we get ready this week to load up and move to New York City, I don't know what our future holds, but I have every confidence for you that God is going to do amazing things through this church, amazing, and we'll share a little bit tonight at the reception about what that means more specifically, the blessing that you've been to us. But I just want you to know beyond the shadow of any doubt that I mean all churches God loves.
[0:46] Right? All churches are part of God's plan. But there is something special here, something special that God has done in this place throughout history, the history of this church, and in the days to come I cannot wait to see from afar exactly what God has in store for you. And so we'll share a little bit more of that tonight, but today we're finishing up this little mini series that we set up last week, which really asks the question, what is it that makes a church great? What makes a church great? And we said last week that over the last few years some have evaluated the greatness of a church by what they did or didn't do with COVID, or some, you know, are looking for particular ministries in a church. And what do they have for my family in this way or that way? Some are looking for a well-organized church that have, you know, everything is just done with excellence and perfection and managed strategically.
[2:00] Others are looking for a missions-minded church. Some people say it has to be a big church in order to be great. Others say, no, big churches are bad. It has to be a small church. And some evaluate the greatness of a church by the style of music or the style of preaching. But what if it is so much more than any of those things? What if the Bible actually provides for us a framework to evaluate a church? And so last week we took a look at Acts chapter 1, chapter 2, and chapter 3, the very beginning days of the church as Jesus ascended into heaven and the disciples gathered in the upper room and the Holy Spirit fell on them on the day of Pentecost, and from that day forward the church began to grow. We saw in Acts chapter 1, chapter 2, and chapter 3. First of all, in Acts 1 we saw that anointing comes before activity.
[3:06] That anointing needs to precede any of our activity. You cannot expect to do the work of God apart from the Spirit of God. And so often Christians will run around doing all kinds of wonderful, important, valuable stuff, things that are good, good things for the kingdom, but the danger is that many times all of our busyness can lead to a bust. And we've all seen it, we've experienced it, where we're so often, maybe this has happened to you, where we'll drop out of ministry, maybe people will even quit the church and say, "I already tried all of that Jesus stuff. I already tried all the activities of the church and it seemed to make a difference for a while, but eventually I just got tired and burned out."
[3:56] And that is the danger of working for God apart from the anointing of God. And so we saw in Acts chapter 1 last week that their greatness was not their ministries or their music. It was the presence and power of God. That it was not their pastor or the preaching or their programming. It was the presence and power of God, and there was a great danger. There was a great danger in being a busy church or having a busy life without the presence and power of God. That is a recipe for disaster. And then we moved from Acts chapter 1 to chapter 2.
[4:45] And in Acts chapter 2 we found that quality comes before quantity. The early church started with just a hundred and twenty people. But they were a praying church. They were going deep. They were committed. They were inviting people. They were serving. And what began with a hundred and twenty people turned into Acts 2:41, "Those who accepted His message were baptized and about 3,000 were added to their number that day." Now, a growing church is exciting, but adding 3,000 in one day, that's mind-blowing. Like, that causes all kinds of discipleship problems. What are you going to do?
[5:30] But crazy as it sounds, it's not so far beyond the imagination. I mean, if you were to spread that out a little bit, if just a hundred people, if just a hundred people decided to invest their lives in trying to reach one person for Jesus this year, then within that one year that 100 would become 200. And if those 200 did it the next year, there would be 400, and then the next year it would be 800, in the next year 1,600, in the next year over three thousand, in just five years. It is so simple. If just a hundred people would get serious about reaching just one person, if you could invest in the life of one relationship this year and see one person come to Christ, in five years that 100 people would reach over 3,000 for Jesus. And that's just with a hundred. Imagine in a church this size, not even everybody. If just a thousand people, if just a thousand people were to commit to reach one person this year, one thousand becomes 2,000 in a year, and then 4,000, and then 8,000 the next year, and 16,000 the next year, and 32,000 the fifth year. If a thousand of you commit to reach one person in a year and just five years, we could reach 32,000 people for Jesus. And imagine if that math multiplied around the world. You see, listen, if we aren't praying and saying, "God, use me," then it doesn't happen, which perhaps explains why many people aren't coming to Christ in many communities around our world.
[7:33] But because I believe in you, I cannot wait to see what God is going to do in the coming days through Moncton and around the world. And would you pray for us the same thing in New York City, that God would begin a multiplication movement as we seek to raise up church planters to make a difference in global cities? And so that was Acts chapter 1 and Acts chapter 2. What did we see in Acts 3? That spiritual power comes before possessions. We saw in Acts chapter 3, we don't measure the greatness of a church by the size of its building or the size of its crowd or the size of its budget. Jesus wasn't rich. The apostles were not rich in money, but they were rich in faith, hope, and love, which is what we're going to look at today.
[8:30] Now that's where we left off last week. And so today, we meet the Apostle Paul. And we're going to settle in with Paul for the rest of our time together. And I mentioned last week, what many of you already know, that the great Apostle Paul originally was a religious leader who was against Christians. He actually was known for pursuing and imprisoning and even having Christians killed, but he had a radical encounter with God on the road to Damascus, and his life was transformed. And God commissioned him to begin planting churches around the Roman Empire, and that began to spread around the world, and it is because of the effectiveness of those churches that Paul himself started that most churches, including us, exist in the world today.
[9:29] And so with every church that Paul worked with, he always looked for three things. You remember what they are. He always looked for, number one, faith. Number two, what was it? Hope. Everybody shout hope. Let's start again. Faith, hope, and what was the third thing he looked for? Love. Everybody say love. See 1 Corinthians 13:13. Paul says in the end, when everything else has faded away, he said in the end these three will remain: faith, hope, and love. And here's what's wild: he said when you begin to understand these three things, it begins to unlock your understanding of what's going on in the New Testament.
[10:19] Paul wrote almost half of the books of the New Testament. Almost half of the books of the New Testament were written by the Apostle Paul as letters to these New Testament churches. And in each of these letters, it's interesting, when you read them, you notice that he never once asks about their attendance statistics. He never once asked about their budget. He doesn't check to see how their new building project or their sanctuary is holding up. He's not interested in their last concert or social event. He simply evaluates the qualities of faith, hope, and, what, love.
[11:08] And it's this great secret that I want to show you today. In fact, many people, including me, have read through the New Testament again and again and again and missed that there is this code. There is this metric that Paul uses in all of these letters that he writes to the church, and once you realize what to look for, you begin to see this evaluation grid that he uses in his letters to all the churches, and it's found in the introduction in chapter 1. Let me show you. For example, let's look at the letter that he writes to the Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 1, beginning in verse 15. Paul writes, "For this reason, ever since I heard about your what?
[11:56] Faith in the Lord Jesus, and your what? Love for all God's people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the what? Hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance." And so what was Paul looking for in the church? You find it right there in the very beginning. He starts out evaluating their faith, hope, and love. Now from Ephesians, keep going on, books to the right. Look at Colossians. This is Paul's letter to the church in Colossae. In Colossians chapter 1, verse 3, he says, "We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love you have for all God's people, the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel."
[13:04] Look at the next church he writes to, right after Colossians, you find 1 Thessalonians. And in Paul's letter to the church in Thessalonica, what do you think he was looking for? I bet you can guess. Look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, very first chapter, verse 2, right in the introduction. He says, "We always thank God for all of you, you Christians in Thessalonica, and we continually mention you in our prayers. We remember before our God and Father your work produced by," what? "Faith. Your labor prompted by," what? "And your endurance inspired by," what? "Hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." You see a pattern here? Yes.
[13:53] And you say, "Well, Joel, maybe this is just what Paul says to all the churches. Maybe this is just kind of his standard greeting." Actually, no. Because there is something that has changed when he later writes a second letter to this very same church in the city of Thessalonica. And so there is some time that has passed between his writing of 1 Thessalonians when he recognizes and affirms their faith, hope, and love. He says, "Good job." But something has changed, and I want you to notice the difference when later he writes back to them again in 2 Thessalonians, and in his introduction to the letter in chapter 1, verse 3, he says, "We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith" (so he speaks to their faith) "is growing more and more, and the love" (he speaks to the love) "all of you have for one another is increasing." But look what's missing.
[15:15] You can look through the whole thing. Yeah, and you'll see: he does not affirm their hope. Why? Here's what you find: that there were false teachers who were causing confusion in the church. Look at 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. So he affirms their faith and their love, but the noticeable absence of his affirming their hope, he addresses the issue and what's happened in chapter 2, 2 Thessalonians 2, beginning in verse 1: And our being gathered to Him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us, whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter, asserting that the day of the Lord has already come.
[16:15] And so what happened? He explains here that the false teachers are telling people that Jesus has already come back and they missed it. And so the people are discouraged. In fact, it says that he says you feel unsettled and alarmed because they have lost their hope. And so the focus of 2 Thessalonians. He says the purpose of his writing this second letter to them is to encourage the church and to speak the promises of God to them to restore their hope. And so now let's go back to 1 Corinthians where we started. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, and I want to show you something kind of strange here. This is to the church in Corinth, and it starts out very much the same like all the other letters to all the other churches, except I want you to notice.
[17:16] What's missing? 1 Corinthians 1:4. I always thank my God for you because of His grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in Him you have been enriched in every way, with all kind of speech and with all knowledge, God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. And go ahead, you can look through the whole letter. To the church in Corinth, what's missing?
[18:02] No faith. No hope. No love. He doesn't mention any of them. Now in verse 4, Paul affirms that they have received grace in Christ Jesus. In other words, he is not calling their salvation into question. He recognizes, he says, they are Christians. And even in the next part says that they're very knowledgeable. They know how to talk about God. They understand the Bible. And then he says that they do not, in verse 7, they do not lack any spiritual gift. Like, they are gifted and talented. But if you study the Corinthian church, you see that they have become spiritually lazy.
[18:53] And so he does not affirm their faith, hope, and love because they are not living it out. That they're just kind of sitting around in their little comfort zone. They have become spiritually selfish, where everything is about me, me. And look at what Paul says in chapter 3, 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 1. Brothers, he says, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit, but as people who are still worldly. Wow, I'm sure they loved getting this letter.
[19:41] He says you're still mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. Which brings us right back to where we started in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, where he talks about faith, hope, and love to this church in Corinth that he's calling out. He's challenging them and saying, you got some problems. You have not been growing spiritually like you ought to do. And so 1 Corinthians 13, we have what is commonly known as the love chapter. Now, I think it's much more fun and memorable to not say the love chapter. I like to call it the love chapter, right? It's more memorable if everybody says it with me: the love chapter.
[20:34] Now what is going on in the love chapter? Some of you have read this. If you're like me, read this a billion times before. In fact, I have done more weddings than I can count over the last 27 years, and at just about every wedding ceremony I have ever officiated, I have read this passage of Scripture from what we call the love chapter. Are you ready? First Corinthians chapter 13, verse 4. Now we understand who he's writing to and why when he says to them, church in Corinth, remember, love is patient.
[21:21] He says to them, but please don't forget what love really is. Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast and brag. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. And all of a sudden, when you read this, you begin to understand in the context of what's going on in the Corinthian church that Paul is writing these to a people who have become selfish and immature.
[22:09] Paul says, look, you can have all the outward signs of success. You can have large numbers and a big bank account with an amazing budget. You can be powerful and effective in so many different ways. You can have big crowds and you can be knowledgeable of the Word of God. You can teach great classes on the Bible and even be generous and committed. He said, but if it is not out of a heart of love, then you have missed the whole point of what all of this is about. And then he concludes this whole teaching in verse 13. And that's when he says those famous words: But in the end, these three will remain: faith, hope, and love.
[22:59] But the greatest of these is love. And so now we begin to see what the church is really about. Now, what do we do with this? What I want you to notice is that these three qualities are directional. Each one is reaching in a direction, and the health of a church and the health of our lives as Christians will be based on how we balance these three directions. And so on the screen we have a circle. Now, this circle represents the church, all of us, and it represents you individually. Okay, it can be both at the same time because you are in the church.
[23:56] And therefore, you are the church. And so what was the first thing that Paul and Jesus looked for in a great church? Faith, faith, faith in who? Faith. If you just believe in yourself. The world says if you can just believe in yourself, believe it, you can achieve it. The more you begin to believe in yourself, the more you will find self- actualization and fulfillment, the world says, and you can truly find your identity and who you were designed to be, if you can just live out your authentic self and believe in yourself, then everything will turn out great. How's that working for the world these days? See, one time Jesus was asked, "What is the greatest commandment? In other words, what is the meaning of life itself?"
[24:49] And Jesus said, "I know all the stuff the world says about what the meaning of life is about." But Jesus said, "Let Me tell you what it's really about." Jesus said it is this: "To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength." First, He said, the greatest commandment. Faith in God. It's the very reason for which we were created, is to have a relationship with our Creator, and nothing that we pursue in this world or within ourselves will ever be enough. Faith in God can move the mighty mountain.
[25:34] What comes next? What else? Does He look for hope? You remember what he wrote to the church in Thessalonica? In 1 Thessalonians, they were doing pretty well. He said, "I see your faith, hope, and love. Good job." But then by the time 2 Thessalonians has come around, they have lost their hope. Why? And Paul addresses the issue that they have not been going deep into the Word of God. They've been listening to false teachers and the stuff that people have to say, rather than getting rooted in the truth of God's Word, and that happens within the context of community.
[26:20] You see, the more we grow together spiritually, the more hope-filled we become. And so what else was Paul looking for in a great church, in a great life? Faith, hope, and what? Love. Love is reaching out. Love is an action word. Love is a verb. Love has to have feet on it. You can say you love, but 1 Corinthians says that no matter how much you say you love, if it is not manifested in tangible action, it's not real.
[27:10] This is what Jesus says to the disciples as He commissions them to go out and carry His mission to the world, to bring the gospel of salvation, that there is no other way than Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus. That faith connection with our heavenly Father will then manifest in a spiritual community that is founded upon hope, but it must never stop there. It has to then become tangible through expressions of love.
[27:57] Jesus said one day, "This is how they will know if you were truly My disciples by the way they see how you love." Now, you're pretty smart. You're pretty smart. So you already know where we're going with this, right? You've seen this picture before, maybe with different words you see around here. Everything we are and everything we do from the teaching of Jesus and the New Testament itself. Here's how we say this around here. It's God's love. Faith in us. Hope to the world.
[28:42] Why? Because love changes everything. And, my friends, that is the measure of a great church. Amen.
[29:28] Lord, I thank You for the season that You have allowed us to share together. And, Lord, I thank You for the great history of this amazing church and these wonderful people, some who have been part of this church their entire lives, 80 or 90 years or more. And some who are brand new, some here in this room and online who are brand new to their faith, who have just come to Christ, maybe some of the folks who were baptized a few weeks ago, some who are brand new to Canada, or even now have become part of our faith community online from somewhere around the world.
[30:18] What a privilege it is to be part of Your family, the body of Christ. And we know Your church is far from perfect because it's made up of humans like us. It's beautiful. Oh, it's beautiful, Lord. As Scripture says, how good and pleasing it is when brothers and sisters live together in harmony. Lord, I pray Your blessing upon these, Your people, for each and every person in there, in their lives throughout the week, in the choices that we make, in the relationships that we manage, and our financial priorities, in the ways that we order and prioritize our schedules.
[31:21] Lord, and in all that we do, that we would seek this balance of making sure that we prioritize, number one, our faith in You, in growing, number two, in the community of hope, and then sharing Your love with our city and the world. And so, Lord, I pray Your anointing upon these, Your people. And we look forward with great expectation for what You are going to do. In the name of Jesus we pray.