Article I: The Divine Intention

Before We Examine the Church

People come to church for many reasons.

Some are burdened by sin and want to know whether there is forgiveness. Some are hurting and looking for hope. Some are confused and searching for truth. A marriage may be failing. Someone they love may have died. Fear may have entered their life. They may be struggling with guilt, disappointment, temptation, loneliness, or circumstances they do not know how to bear.

Others may not fully understand what they are looking for.

They simply know that something is missing.

Life has brought them to a place where they need help.

And so they come.

They walk through the doors of a church believing, or at least hoping, that there they might encounter something of God.

They may come wanting help with what is happening to them.

Those needs matter.

But the circumstance that brought them may not be their deepest need.

Jesus said:

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Notice where He directs the burdened person.

“Come unto me.”

That gives great weight to what happens when a person comes among those who bear the name of Christ.

Will what he encounters there help bring him toward Christ?

Or might he encounter so many things associated with Christ that he never clearly sees the One whom he ultimately needs?

Most people who enter a church may never consciously ask that question.

They usually come with an assumption they may never think to question:

If this is a church, then what I find here must represent God and His Church.

But is that always true?

A person searching for God may know very little about Him when he first comes. He may therefore look to the church to help him understand who God is, what God requires, and how he can know Him.

What he is taught matters.

What he sees matters.

What he encounters matters.

If those who open the Bible before him teach something as the truth of God, he may believe it. If those who lead the church tell him this is how God desires His people to live, worship, or serve Him, he may accept it.

And why wouldn’t he?

He came believing this was the Church.

The difficulty is that he may not yet know enough to distinguish between what comes from God and what has merely been presented to him in God’s name.

A church may have a pastor.

The Bible may be opened.

Sermons may be preached.

Prayers may be offered.

Songs may be sung.

People may sincerely love God and desire to serve Him.

Everything may look like church.

And yet there remains a question we must be willing to ask:

Is this what Christ intended His Church to be?

We cannot answer that merely by looking at what has become familiar to us.

Nor can we answer it simply by comparing one church with another.

If we want to understand the Church, we must begin with the One to whom it belongs.

Jesus said:

“I will build my church.”

Those few words give us our starting point.

“My Church”

Notice first what Jesus calls it:

“my church.”

That may seem obvious, but we should not pass over it too quickly.

The Church does not belong to a pastor.

It does not belong to a denomination.

It does not belong to those who founded a congregation, purchased its property, constructed its building, or established its ministries.

Jesus says:

“my church.”

The Church belongs to Christ.

And the Church He is speaking of is not merely a building or an organization.

It is a people who belong to Him.

Everyone who serves among those people must therefore remember whose people they are.

A pastor may shepherd the flock, but the flock belongs to Christ.

A teacher may teach God’s people, but they belong to Christ.

Those entrusted with leadership may carry real responsibility.

But responsibility does not become ownership.

Now think again about the person who came through those church doors looking for help.

The pastor may help him.

The congregation may receive him.

Others may teach him, encourage him, pray with him, and care for him.

But none of them is the destination of his search.

They should be helping him toward Christ.

The Church remains Christ’s.

“I Will Build”

But Jesus did not stop with the words “my church.”

He said:

“I will build my church.”

From what we see, people appear to do much of the building.

People preach.

Teach.

Lead.

Plan.

Serve.

Scripture gives them a real part in the work of God.

Paul said:

“I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.”

Paul planted, and Apollos watered. Their labor was real and necessary.

But God gave the increase.

So perhaps the question is not simply:

Are we building something for Christ?

Perhaps the more searching question is:

Is Christ building through us?

Those two things are not necessarily the same.

The same outward activities may be present in both, so outward activity alone cannot settle the question.

Jesus said:

“I will build my church.”

People may participate in what He is doing, but participation does not become authorship.

And this matters because people are coming among us looking for help, truth, forgiveness, hope, and God.

What are they coming among?

If the Church is merely something we have learned to construct in Christ’s name, human ability may reproduce many of its outward features.

But human ability cannot become the Source of spiritual life.

Before we can go further, we must ask:

What is Christ building?

What Is Christ Building?

When we hear the word church, many things may come to mind.

A building.

A congregation.

A pastor.

A denomination.

A worship service.

Programs and ministries.

But Scripture describes the Church first by its relationship to Christ and to God.

Paul writes:

“And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,

Which is his body…”

The Church is Christ’s Body.

Christ is the Head, and the Church is His Body.

Immediately our attention moves beyond an institution and toward a living relationship.

Paul gives us another picture:

“In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:

In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”

People are being built together.

And for what purpose?

“For an habitation of God through the Spirit.”

Now think again about the person who came hoping that among God’s people he might encounter something of God.

Scripture shows us that his expectation was not without reason.

God intended His people to be His habitation through the Spirit.

Peter writes:

“Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house…”

Living stones—people being built together.

Scripture also calls them the household of God. Christ loves the Church and gave Himself for it. God’s people are His flock.

Different pictures, but again and again Scripture describes the Church by relationship.

Relationship to Christ.

Relationship to God.

Relationship to the Holy Spirit.

Relationship to one another.

Christ is building a people who belong to Him, in whom God dwells by His Spirit, and who are being joined together in relationship with Him and with one another.

This is not merely something organized.

It is something living.

Which raises another question:

Where does its life come from?

Where Does the Life Come From?

Jesus said:

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

—John 14:6

The life of the Church does not originate in the Church.

He is not merely the historical Founder of Christianity.

He remains the continuing Source of His people’s life.

Jesus gives us a simple picture:

“I am the vine, ye are the branches.”

—John 15:5

A branch does not produce its own life.

It receives its life from the Vine.

Jesus said:

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.”

—John 15:4

Notice His words:

“The branch cannot bear fruit of itself.”

The branch genuinely bears fruit, but the life producing that fruit does not originate in the branch.

Its life comes from the Vine.

That tells us something essential about the Church Christ is building.

Its spiritual life cannot be manufactured by the people who belong to it.

It must come from Christ.

And because His work is living, it does not remain merely outward.

God works within His people.

By His Spirit, He strengthens, changes, and transforms them so that something of Christ increasingly becomes recognizable in the way they live.

God builds from the inside out.

The Life of the Vine Reaches Others

The life Christ produces in His people does not end with them.

If His love is being formed in me, someone else encounters that love.

If He is producing longsuffering in me, someone experiences patience instead of anger.

If He is producing mercy in me, someone receives mercy.

Fruit grows upon the branch, but its benefit reaches beyond the branch.

This is why God’s work within His people matters to those around them.

Transformation is inward, but it does not remain hidden.

What God is producing within eventually affects how we respond, how we speak, how we endure, how we forgive, how we love, and how we treat one another.

Now think again about the person who walks through the doors searching for God.

He may hear someone tell him that God is love.

But what happens when he encounters people in whom something of the life of Christ is producing love?

He may hear a sermon about forgiveness.

But what happens when he sees forgiveness where resentment would have been understandable?

He may hear that Christ gives peace.

But what happens when he meets someone passing through tremendous difficulty with a peace his circumstances cannot explain?

Now he is encountering more than information about Christ.

He is encountering something of the effect of Christ’s life in people who are being transformed by Him.

Perhaps that is part of what he has been looking for.

Not merely someone who can tell him what Christianity is supposed to look like.

He needs the reality.

But here we must make an important distinction.

Knowing About Christ and Coming to Christ

Jesus once spoke to people who searched the Scriptures:

“Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.”

—John 5:39–40

The problem was not the Scriptures.

The Scriptures testified of Christ.

But knowing the testimony is not the same as coming to the One of whom it testifies.

A person may become deeply acquainted with Christianity and still face the question:

Has he come to Christ for life?

Jesus spoke of life.

He spoke of eternal life.

This means the issue reaches deeper than religious information or Christian behavior.

Life is in Christ.

A person cannot give himself spiritual life any more than he can give himself natural birth.

Jesus told Nicodemus:

“Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

—John 3:3

Nicodemus was religious.

He knew Scripture.

Yet he needed something he could not produce for himself.

New birth.

This brings the question of Source back to the very beginning of the Christian life.

I cannot give myself new birth.

I cannot erase my own sin.

I cannot reconcile myself to God.

I cannot give myself eternal life.

God must provide what I cannot produce.

And Scripture testifies of what God has done in Christ.

“He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities…”

—Isaiah 53:5

The direction is away from man’s sufficiency and toward God’s provision in Christ.

So the person who came because something in life had made him conscious of need must ultimately be brought farther than the circumstance that brought him.

Farther than the church he entered.

Farther than the servant who helped him.

He must be brought to Christ.

The Church was never intended to replace Him.

It was intended to bear witness to Him.

Christ, the Head of the Church

The Church receives its life from Christ.

But a living Body also receives direction.

Scripture says:

“And he is the head of the body, the church…”

—Colossians 1:18

Christ is not merely Source.

He is also Head.

Paul writes:

“Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.”

—1 Corinthians 12:27

And again:

“Speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

From whom the whole body fitly joined together…”

—Ephesians 4:15–16

Notice:

“From whom.”

Something proceeds from the Head to the Body.

Christ’s Headship therefore means more than acknowledging that He occupies the highest position.

His will matters.

His direction matters.

His purpose matters.

Everyone within the Church—including those entrusted with leadership—remains under Him.

There is only one Head.

Christ.

Christ gives servants to His Body, and their service is both real and necessary.

But they remain servants.

Paul planted.

Apollos watered.

God gave the increase.

The branch bears fruit, but the branch is not the Vine.

The servant ministers, but the servant is not the Source.

The Body functions, but the Body is not the Head.

Those entrusted with God’s people therefore care for people who belong to Another.

Their ministry should help God’s people grow toward Christ.

The servant is not the destination.

Christ is.

How Does the Difference Become Recognizable?

Jesus said:

“Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”

—Matthew 7:20

Fruit makes something of the source recognizable.

We cannot see the life of the Vine moving through the branch.

We cannot see with our eyes the Spirit strengthening the inner man.

We cannot watch transformation itself taking place within a heart.

But eventually what is happening within becomes recognizable without.

Fruit appears.

This is the inside-out work of God.

Paul described something similar when he wrote:

“My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.”

—Galatians 4:19

Notice the language:

“Christ be formed in you.”

The goal is not merely outward conformity to Christian behavior.

Something is being formed within the person.

And as that person is transformed, something of Christ becomes increasingly recognizable through his life.

Outward activity and visible success do not by themselves answer our question.

A simpler question remains:

What is being produced in the people?

Is there fruit?

Are people growing toward Christ?

Are they being transformed so that something of Christ is increasingly recognizable in them?

Are they becoming functioning members of His Body?

Paul writes that the whole Body is joined together:

“by that which every joint supplieth.”

—Ephesians 4:16

Every joint.

Every part.

The Church Christ is building is not a room full of people whose only spiritual relationship is with the person standing before them.

They are members of a Body.

They receive from Christ, and as they receive from Him, they begin to supply one another.

Someone encourages.

Someone teaches.

Someone shows mercy.

Someone serves.

Someone strengthens another member at precisely the moment strength is needed.

Different members.

Different functions.

One Source.

Now think again about the person who came through the doors needing help.

Perhaps he needed encouragement, and someone encouraged him.

Perhaps he needed truth, and someone taught him.

Perhaps he needed someone beside him, and someone stood beside him.

He receives.

He grows.

He is changed.

And one day he may find himself encouraging someone else.

The person who needed to be taught may become able to help another understand.

The person who needed someone beside him may find himself standing beside another.

The receiver begins to give.

Not because he has become an independent source.

He can give because he first receives.

The same life that is transforming him also begins to make him a functioning member through whom others may receive.

The Head supplies the Body.

The members, receiving from the Head, supply one another.

That is a Body.

When Someone Is Left Still Searching

Many outward activities associated with church can be reproduced by human ability.

But there is something human ability cannot manufacture.

The life.

The appearance can be reproduced.

The life cannot.

And perhaps this helps us understand why something can look so much like church and yet leave someone still searching for the reality of God.

He may have heard preaching.

He may have learned Scripture.

He may have participated in Christian activity.

He may sincerely have tried to become what he was taught a Christian should be.

But if he was left attempting to produce outwardly what only Christ can produce through His life within, repeated failure may eventually leave him discouraged.

He may conclude:

Christianity does not work.

But perhaps that is not what his failure proves.

Perhaps he has been trying to produce from himself what the branch was never intended to produce “of itself.”

And perhaps his disappointment with what he experienced in church does not mean Christ Himself has failed him.

His disappointment does not require us to conclude that everything he encountered was false.

He may have heard truth.

He may have met sincere believers.

He may have received genuine love.

But none of those things means that everything he encountered should be identified with Christ Himself.

Do not measure Christ merely by what you have encountered in His name.

Measure what you have encountered by Christ.

Jesus said:

“Come unto me.”

—Matthew 11:28

The Divine Intention

And so they come.

They come because life has pressed them.

They come burdened.

Searching.

Hurting.

Confused.

Guilty.

Hopeful.

Sometimes hardly knowing what they are looking for.

They come believing—or at least hoping—that among the people who bear the name of Christ they might encounter something of God.

Now we can better understand why that matters.

Jesus said:

“I will build my church.”

The Church is His.

He is its Builder.

He is the Source of its life.

He is the Head of its Body.

And those who belong to Him were intended to live from Him.

But His building is not merely outward.

God works within His people.

By His Spirit, He strengthens, forms, changes, and transforms them so that something of Christ increasingly becomes recognizable through their lives.

God builds from the inside out.

People are still coming.

When they come among us, what will they encounter?

Will they merely hear about the life of Christ?

Or will they encounter people in whom something of that life is actually being produced?

Will they merely be told what Christianity should look like?

Or will they meet people who themselves are being changed by the One of whom they speak?

That question belongs to all of us who bear His name.

And to the person who came searching—perhaps disappointed, confused, or wondering whether Christianity itself has failed—there remains the invitation of Christ:

“Come unto me.”

Do not stop with us.

Do not measure Christ merely by what you have encountered in His name.

Measure what you have encountered by Christ.

And come to Him.

The life is in Him.

The Church was never intended to replace Christ.

It was intended to be a people who belong to Him, receive their life from Him, are transformed by His work within them, live under His Headship, supply one another from what they receive, and through whom something of Him becomes recognizable to others.

That is the divine intention.

And whatever we encounter under the name of church must ultimately be measured by the One to whom the Church belongs.

Jesus said:

“I will build my church.”