WHAT IS CHURCH?
PRESCRIPTION FOR A HEALTHY CHURCH
DR. JIM DIXON
SEPTEMBER 2, 2007
2 PETER 3:8
Barb and I have a son whose name is Drew, and Drew is a medical doctor. He got his MD from the CU School of Medicine, and then he did a one-year internship, and now he’s starting his second year of residency in ophthalmology (eye surgery). Now, we also have a son-in-law named Chris. Chris is married to our daughter Heather, and Chris is a clinical pharmacist, and he did his undergraduate work at CU and then received his doctorate from the CU School of Pharmacy. And people have said to Barb and I, how wonderful for you guys that your son can write your prescriptions and your son-in-law can fill them. And I suppose as we’re reaching that point in life where our bodies are beginning to break down, there’s a certain convenience in that, although it really doesn’t work that way.
By the grace of God Barb and I are not in need of many prescriptions. It is true, however, that spiritually we all need prescriptions from God in terms of our spiritual health—individually and our health as a church. We need God to write a few prescriptions, and that’s what we’re looking at today. In first Peter, chapter three, verse eight, there is a prescription from God through the Apostle Peter for the Church of Jesus Christ. And this verse begins with the word “finally.” Whenever you’re reading your Bible and you see this word “finally,” you should take notice, because that means something very important is about to be said. The Greek word for finally is the Greek word “telos,” and telos means “the end.”
It’s actually a title of Christ. Jesus is the beginning and Jesus is the end. He will bring history to consummation and He will sum all things up. But in the Bible, when you’re reading a letter or a book and you see this word “finally,” it’s the Greek word “telos,” and it means that the book is kind of coming to an end and there is going to be a summary statement. And they’re very important. So that’s what we’re looking at today. First Peter three eight: “Finally, all of you…” and then there’s this fivefold prescription.
The first is, “have unity of the spirit.” If the church of Jesus Christ is to be healthy, we must have unity of the spirit. Now, a few weeks ago, earlier in the summer, Barb and I went out to DIA to catch a flight to Europe. Now, we were going with our church group to Europe, but Barb and I left a few days early and, and we were out at DIA and we were taking a Lufthansa flight, and we were sitting on the plane at DIA and we were just kind of stuck there sitting on the plane for two hours because they couldn’t fix the air conditioning.
So we just kind of sat on the plane, and after two hours they still couldn’t fix it. And so they decided to just take off. And so we took off on a 10 hour flight without air conditioning. And it was stifling; it was claustrophobic; it was hot. And about a third of the way into the flight, basically the flight attendants just disappeared because they didn’t want to handle the complaints. About a third of the way into the flight, I took my shirt off. Now, I had a T-shirt underneath, but you know, I was just sweating like a pig. And a lot of people were like that.
So we arrive in Munich, and of course because of our two hour delay at DIA we missed our connecting flight. And so at Munich we scrambled and kind of went through a lot of hassles to get on another flight.
That flight took us to Berlin. In Berlin part of our luggage didn’t arrive. We were at baggage claim, and I start talking to a guy there who’s also waiting, and he is from Africa. He’s from the nation of Ghana. We start talking, and in the course of our conversation I tell him that I hope someday I’ll be able to visit his country. And he says to me, well, you know, I hope someday I’ll be able to come to the United States too. He said, however, I must tell you I think your president is an arrogant jerk. And I said, well, whatever your politics are and whatever your view of the war in Iraq is, it seems to me that you are judging what you cannot possibly know, because only God sees a person’s heart.
Only God knows the heart of George Bush, and we really can’t judge that. He told me that everyone in the world knows that our president is an arrogant jerk. He went on to tell me that America, the United States, is imperialistic. I shared with him a little bit my disagreement, how I feel that historically that’s simply not true. I mean, I suppose it’s true in terms of natural resources that we are huge consumers. And I think it is also true in terms of natural resources that we certainly scour the earth for the earth’s provisions. But it is also true that in the aftermath of wars, historically, our nation has not sought to seize geographical land spaces. We’ve not had expansionist policies and we’ve not tried to take over foreign governments, even in the aftermath of wars where we were successful.
In fact, with regard to our enemies in war, in the aftermath of war we’ve actually sought to help them and tried to help rebuild them. We’ve tried to help our enemies get back on their feet. We’ve respected their governmental sovereignty. I tried to explain that, but Barb and I, as we traveled around Italy and Greece and Croatia and Turkey, found a lot of people who were kind of angry with the United States of America. There’s kind of like a love-hate relationship for the US, and yet there is this huge desire to move here and live here and it seems as though there is a lot of anger towards the United States. And I’ve wondered, here in the United States, are we united?
Does the citizenry of this nation have unity of the spirit? I think not. I think we are not united, even though our national seal contains the Latin “E Pluribus Unum,” “One Out of Many.” I mean, our ideal is that in the midst of our diversity we would have unity. And yet it seems to me we are very divided. Democrats hate Republicans, and Republicans hate Democrats. And it seems to me like Democrats demonize Republicans and Republicans demonize Democrats, and I think it was all set up as a two-party system to provide checks and balances in a nation where we all love our country and we love each other. But it doesn’t seem to be working like that. It feels, to me at least, like a house divided.
You know what Jesus said about a house divided. Jesus said that a kingdom divided against itself cannot long stand. So you have to be a little concerned about our country. What about the church of Jesus Christ? Does the church have unity of the spirit? Again, I think not.
Just two weeks ago, a member of our church was telling me how they grew up in this little town in Iowa, A town that only had 28 people. He grew up in a town of 28 people, and they had three Protestant churches—probably all Baptists. I don’t know, three Protestant churches in a town of 28… maybe four people went to one church, four to another, and four to another. Some people, of course, didn’t go to church. It’s amazing. But isn’t that the church of Jesus Christ? It seems kind of divided, doesn’t it?
We don’t have this unity of the spirit. Now, the Greek word here in this prescription in 1 Peter 3:8 for unity of the spirit is the word “homophrones.” And homophrones does not literally mean unity of the spirit. Homophrones literally means “the same mind.” Phrones is the Greek word meaning “mind,” and homo is the Greek word meaning “same.” So it’s “the same mine.” It’s one mind. Peter is saying, Christ is saying that if there’s hope for the church, we must have one mind. And I promise you that one mind is the mind of Christ. “Have this mind in you, which is yours in Christ Jesus.” Philippians chapter two. That’s the hope of the church: that we had have one mind, and it would be the mind of Christ. We must focus on Jesus. The church of Jesus Christ has to focus on Jesus.
I think in the midst of our diversity, that’s really the key to unity: focusing on Jesus. There’s a lot of diversity even in this church. There are some people in our congregation and even on our staff who with regard to eschatology in the end of the age are pre tribulationist; some are post tribulationist; some are premillennialist; some are amillennialist. But we all love Jesus. It’s Jesus who unites us. And we all know Jesus is going to come again. Jesus is coming back. We have different views even on our staff with regard to the sacrament of baptism, and there are some people who only believe in believer’s baptism and they would never baptize an infant or a child. They would practice infant dedication. We have others who come from covenant backgrounds and would practice infant baptism. So there is disagreement. But it’s Jesus who unites us, and we all know we want to bring our children to Jesus. “Forbid them not.”
Even with regard to the sacrament of communion, which we celebrate today, there are differing opinions on what’s actually happening when we partake of the bread in the cup. And of course, people from Catholic backgrounds believe in transubstantiation and the physical presence of Christ. People from Lutheran backgrounds believe in consubstantiation. Many Presbyterians kind of believe in the spiritual presence of Christ as present in a special way in the taking of the bread and the cup. And then other people from baptistic backgrounds think, well, it’s a memorial. It’s a remembrance of what Jesus did for us. But you see, in the midst of our diversity, we’re united because of Jesus. It’s Jesus who unites us Jesus, and so we’re going to have one mind. You’re going to have to have the mind of Jesus. It’s the hope of the church, and that’s a prescription for the church.
Well, a second prescription from Christ and from Peter this morning is sympathy. “Finally, all of you have unity of the spirit and sympathy.” There is no hope for the church of Jesus Christ if we don’t have sympathy, if we don’t feel each other’s pain. Some of you perhaps are Michigan football fans, and we have sympathy. We feel your pain. Yesterday Michigan lost and it was a historic loss because Michigan lost in the big house, in their own place, with more than a hundred thousand seats. They lost as a ranked team. They were ranked fifth in the nation, and they became the first ranked NCAA division one team in history, to lose to a NCAA Division 1-AA team. They lost to Appalachian State. My guess is nobody in the state of Michigan today is singing hail to the victor. That’s my guess. And of course, I get sympathy. I get sympathy.
We all like a little sympathy. I get sympathy because of my hip. I have a bad hip; there’s sympathy for my hip. Thank you. three years ago, my right hip went bad, bone on bone, partly because of arthritis and partly because of years of jogging—35 years of jogging, many years running six miles a day, six days a week, and a lot of wear and tear. Many of you have seen me kind of gimp around, and you’ve shown sympathy. Some of you have given me recipes of aloe vera drinks, and some of you have suggested some unique mixtures of glucosamine and chondroitin. Some of you have suggested physical therapy and hydrotherapy, and some of you have suggested magnetic remedies. Some of you have given me the names of surgeons and doctors. I’ve received the names of more than 30 surgeons that have been recommended by you. Some of you would like me to have hip resurfacing and others total hip replacement. I thank you for your sympathy.
The word sympathy comes from the Greek word “sumpathos,” and the word sumpathos literally means “to suffer with,” to feel somebody’s suffering. I do want you to know, however, that I am not suffering. I’m not in pain. I have no pain when I sleep. I have no pain when I sit. I have no pain as I stand up here. I don’t even have any pain when I come up these steps, although I look weird. I do look weird, but I don’t have any pain because I’m using my left leg and my left hip. I just don’t use my right hip. And you know, if I were in pain, I would’ve had surgery long ago. I’m kind of a wuss. And you know, when the thought of surgery and the rehab from surgery seems more pleasant than my daily life, I’ll do it.
But the church of Jesus Christ needs sympathy. We need to feel each other’s hurts, and all of you need sympathy. You’ve had times where you’ve had pain. It might be physical, it might be emotional, might be relational, might even be spiritual, or might be economic pain. We all have pain, and the church of Jesus Christ is dead in the water if we don’t have sympathy.
Third prescription in this fivefold prescription is love of the brethren. “All of you have unity of the spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren.” And the Greek word here is “philadelphias,” which we get the word Philadelphia from. This Greek word, Philadelphias—”adelphias,” brother, and “phileo,” love, means love of the brethren. But you see, in the world in which we live, this word simply means to love people, maybe even to be philanthropic. But it just means love of people. But in the Bible, this word has a very special meaning, and usually, contextually, this word Philadelphia refers to the love of Christians.
The Bible tells us that when we come to Christ and we receive Jesus as our Savior and our Lord and we trust His sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of our sin and then we commit our lives to Him as Lord, we then join His family. What He has by nature, we receive through adoption. We’re brought into the family of God, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ becomes our Father. We become children of God—sons of God, daughters of God—and therefore brothers and sisters. In this context, this passage gives this prescription that we might love our brothers and sisters in Christ.
There’s no hope for the church unless we love our brothers and sisters in Christ. Now, as Christians, we’re supposed to love everybody, but we’re supposed to have a special love for the church and for our brothers and sisters in Christ. So in the early church, Christians met together every day. That’s what the Book of Acts tells us. Isn’t that amazing? The early church Christians met daily in each other’s homes, and they broke bread, and they fellowshipped and they sang songs and they worshiped and they hung out every day.
Of course, we’re the 21st century church, as we saw last week, and we don’t love our brothers and sisters quite that much, do we? It’s hard for us to kind of get together for one hour a week. And many of us have a hard time finding more than an hour every three months for our brothers and sisters in Christ. There’s not a lot of love of the brethren. A healthy church loves the brethren. That’s what Peter’s telling us. That’s what Christ tells us.
Remember, we have brothers and sisters all over the world. Remember, we have brothers and sisters that are not Protestants. We have Catholic brothers and sisters. Remember, we have Orthodox brothers and sisters—Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox. There is scope and variety of the Christian world, and we ought to love the brethren.
Now, I know there are some theological distinctives and issues of theology debated between Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox. But remember, love the brethren. On this trip that we went on for our 25th anniversary as a church, we went on with so many of you to the Vatican. We had an audience with the Pope at the Vatican City. It wasn’t just our group. There were 10,000 people having an audience with the Pope. Not all of our people could go, but over half of our group went. So we had over a hundred of us who went to this audience with the pope. And it surprised us because I think we thought it would be boring, liturgical, kind of cold and staid, but it was warm, friendly, and it festive. It was celebratory, and it was cool. There were a lot of brothers and sisters there. In fact, Barbara took a little video of some of what we saw and wanted you to just see it for a moment.
“’But I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.’ The gospel of the Lord. Among those present today are the following groups: from Iceland, the Lutheran Cathedral Choir; from Japan, pilgrims from the Archdiocese of Nagasaki, and the group of young violinists; from Canada, a group of administrators from Edmonton Catholic schools; from the United States of America, pilgrims from the Archdiocese of Chicago, Illinois, pilgrims from Holy Cross Parish, Batavia, Illinois, and pilgrims from Cherry Hill Community Church, Highlands Ranch, Colorado.”
You had people all over this 10,000 seat assembly hall, and they were all in their native dress. People brought bands, they brought stringed instruments, choirs, and it was so festive and celebratory. And of course, they had different priests or cardinals from the College of Cardinals that would address the assembly in different languages so they could recognize people from all over the world. One of these priests did mention our church. Then the pope spoke, and he spoke three different languages. Then he began to just mention a few special groups were there. And the Pope then said he wanted to welcome his brothers and sisters from Cherry Hills Community Church. He wanted to ask for a special blessing on our group and on our church, and that was really kind of cool.
We didn’t realize (because he had done this early in the audience) that you were free, when he welcomed you, to go crazy. I mean, we didn’t know that. We thought you’re supposed to be like very reverential and quiet. And then when a few other groups from around the world were mentioned and the band started playing and flags were waving and they’d sing the doxology or they’d just shout to the rooftops, we thought, wow, if we’d have known this, we could have done some damage. So, you know, it’s one of those deals where it just was a surprise. As we were there for two hours before the Pope even arrived and everybody’s talking, we recognized there’s a lot of wonderful people in that room and a lot of great brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. I hope you know the love of the Brethren.
Two days ago, on Friday, I was asked by Archbishop Charles Chaput to have lunch with him. I asked Judy, my administrative assistant, how many people are going to this? Because she said it was at his house. And she said, it’s just you. And I thought, well wow, that feels kind of awkward. I wondered if I could bring Barb and how he’d feel about that. But I went down there and I met the archbishop. I’d met him before, but I hadn’t had lunch with him at his house. His house is at the Pope John Paul II Institute of Evangelization, and on the grounds there is the residence of the archbishop. So I went up and Charles greeted me at the door.
We went in and he had the table set in the dining room. We sat down and we started talking. He’s really a great guy. There was a nun there who was also a professor of philosophy, and she actually served our lunch to us, and we had this great two hours. We talked theology, and we talked politics, and we talked about our daily lives. Most of all, we talked about Jesus. And we prayed together a couple of times. He loves Christ, and he’s such a great guy, a real brother in the Lord. He wanted me to know that he’s an even evangelical Christian with a love of Jesus and a love of all his brothers and sisters. Really, there’s not enough of that in the church globally and maybe not enough of that in the local church.
But the only hope of the church of Christ on this planet is that brothers and sisters would love each other. We’re a little too doctrinaire. I mean, doctrine and truth are so important, but sometimes we can focus on theological minutiae and kind of miss Jesus and fail to honor brothers and sisters. So this is part of the prescription for the church.
The fourth part of the prescription is tenderheartedness. Unity of the Spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren, and tender hearts. The word for tender hearts is the word “splagchnizomai.” I’m pretty confident that most of you don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that word. “Splagchnizomai” is the verb form, and the noun form can take the form of “eusplanchnos.” “Splagchnon” means intestines; it means bowels. And the prefix in the Greek “eu” means good. So the word means “good bowels.”
Maybe some of you do think about that. Maybe some of you do. But in the Greek world, the metaphor for the seed of emotion was the stomach, or the bowels. And in our modern western culture, the metaphor for the seed of emotion is the heart. So to render this word into our language, we would say tenderhearted. And so Peter’s saying to us, Christ is saying to us in this prescription for the church that we have to be tenderhearted. But this word is a powerful word, and it’s really more powerful than the Greek word “sumpathos,” because this means a great deal more than just feelings someone else’s pain or feeling someone else’s suffering. This word means that you’re moved to action. That’s the meaning of “splagchnizomai.” You’re move to action.
So you come to Luke’s Gospel, the 10th chapter, 33rd verse, and we see the word “splagchnizomai.” Jesus is telling the parable of the good Samaritan, and the good Samaritan, when he sees the wounded Jew by the side of the Jericho Road—when the good Samaritan sees this Jewish man who had fallen among robbers who stripped him and beat him—he was moved with compassion. “Splagchnizomai.” Even though the Jews call Samaritans dogs, even though the Jews call Samaritans half-breeds, this Samaritan, Jesus said, when he saw the wounded Jew was moved with compassion and he took action. I mean, he felt the pain, “sumpathos,” but he was then moved to action, and he went to minister to this man and to help this man. And you see, this is the hope of the church: that we would be like this.
We’re not going to have Sunday school teachers if we aren’t moved to action if we don’t feel what it’s like to be a kid. We’re not going have anyone tutor inner-city children if we’re not moved with compassion and become willing to take action. We’re not going to minister to each other in the midst of our daily lives, because life is sometimes hard and we all have problems. We’re not going to help each other get through it. We’re not going to be the body of Christ if we don’t have tender hearts.
So we have this fourth prescription, and then finally the fifth prescription: A humble mind. Unity of the spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren, tender hearts, and humble minds. The word for humble mind is the word “tapeinophrones.” It comes from “phren,” which means mind, and “tapeinos,” which means “low,” or “low lying.” So a person who is humble minded is a person who is willing to lower themselves.
But we understand the use of the Greek, and it means you’re willing to lower yourself in order to elevate someone else. This isn’t a lowering of yourself based on any self-loathing. This isn’t low self-esteem. This isn’t despising oneself. Christ wants us to love ourselves, but we should be willing to lower ourselves for the sake of elevating someone else. And so you look at Philippians two and it says, “Have this mind in you, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though He was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be held onto. But He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even unto death and a cross.”
And why did He do that? Why did He leave His enthronement in heaven? Why did He leave the heavenly host, the angelic host? Why did He come to earth? Why was He born in that stable? Why did He take on our flesh? Why was He incarnate? It’s because He’s humble. He’s willing to lower Himself in order that He might exalt us. He wants to exalt us. He wants us to bring us to the heights of heaven. He wants to give us eternal life. He wants to make us sons and daughters of God.
He wants to elevate us. And that’s what a humble mind does. Be willing to lower yourself in order to exalt someone else. And so, in this prescription from Christ and from Peter, we’re told this is what a healthy church looks like: people willing to lower themselves in order to exalt each other. I think if we all do that, we all get exalted. I mean, God’s brilliant. God is brilliant. So we have this prescription for the church that we would have unity of the Spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren, tender hearts, and humble minds. So let’s pray before we come to the table.