Editor’s Note: This is one of two plenary sessions from SOLA Conference 2021. Find more resources and videos here.
The Church has been called to be a witness of Christ to the ends of the earth, but recently it seems like there are so many reasons to be done with the Church. What is the Church? And how does the Church provide no better witness despite being broken and blemished?
Below is a transcript of the plenary session. It has been edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the audio here.
Thank you for joining us for SOLA Conference 2021. I’m Harold, and it is my privilege to be able to bring you God’s Word on this topic of the church, the local church. And we’re gonna ask this question: “No better witness?” If you have your Bibles, please follow along. We’re going to turn to the book of Hebrews 10. I’ll begin reading these three verses for us, starting verse 23-25. This is God’s Word.
“Let us hold fast that confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” This is God’s Word.
The author, the preacher of Hebrews, tells us in essence: Don’t neglect meeting together. Don’t stop gathering together. As one saying goes: Because habits form character, and character determines your destiny.
And at least here in the state of California, as churches resume in-person gatherings, some very early on because of the essential need and or right to worship in person, other churches recently have resumed. Others will open this summer because of public health concerns and because of love of neighbors.
Well, the when, the how, and the why of churches resuming in-person gatherings is actually part of our public witness. For nonbelieving friends and for a nonbelieving world to believe what Christians believe, they should see Christians believe it first—how Christian people worship, work and play, and how Christian people go about voting, and even if you happen to disagree with someone in your church in voting, how we spend our money, our talents, our vacations, our physical bodies, how Christian people go about pursuing equality while keeping ethics, the pursuit of justice and peace for all—all—whether in person or online. This is all part of our public witness.
When Jesus Christ was asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” Can you whittle it down, summarize it for me? Jesus responded that the first is to love the Lord your God with all that you got. Love the Lord your God with everything that you have. And the second is to love your neighbor as yourself.” This is according to Jesus, who authored and summarized the entirety of the law.
Now I find that religion teaches you to be good with God without having to be good with people or good to people. Most of you listening in might be running from religion because you are far more concerned about being good to people without having to be good with God. But according to Jesus, he creates a whole new people. We call it a church—his church—who do both. Because Romans 5:5 announces to us that when the gospel rings true, when you believe and receive it and worship Jesus as king, the love of God has been poured out into our hearts. Jesus creates a whole new humanity. This is his local church, in whom the love of God has been poured out into their hearts so that that love would come flowing out in all of its manifold, beautiful ways. When Christian people love God with everything that they’ve got, and they love their neighbor as themselves, and they do it together, there is no better witness. There is no better witness.
Three Reasons Why People are Done with Church
But of course, so often I hear, “But I’m done with church.” Here are three ways I’ve seen and heard from friends and from people who visited as to why they’re done with church.
The first goes like this: I’m done with church because, frankly, I’ve got better things to do. Now, before this global pandemic, perhaps in your minds and experiences, there were a lot of better things to do—travel, vacation, you can hang out at the beach, skiing, surfing, the wonder of California, video gaming.
When I was growing up, I was not addicted to video gaming. But now I see the quality and the graphics, and I can begin to understand. But after this year, for some of you, who perhaps used to go into in-person worship gatherings, I’m afraid a lot of us might have grown comfortable and accustomed to virtual online worship. And we might be so used to that, and it might be very difficult to go back into in-person gatherings.
But here’s what Hebrews tells us. If you neglect gathering together, if you neglect meeting together and this becomes normal and habitual—no longer exceptional—you are actually giving up a lot of other things. In other words, if you give up meeting together, if you and I give up gathering together in person, you’re actually giving up opportunities to be encouraged. You are giving into our normal M.O., which is to waver, be no-committal, be confused, feel weak. And the rest of the book of Hebrews actually goes on to say, if you give up gathering together, you actually might end up giving up on Christian faith altogether and commit apostasy.
A second more pressing reason why people say, “I’m done with the church” is “I’m done with church because of the oppression and the abuse against” and then fill in the blank. And this one does hit home. So many are done with their church because of a personal pain experience, a personal story of oppression and abuse.
But I want us to consider, for example, how the Church of Jesus Christ was founded in the first place. Historically speaking, the early church launched the movement to set so many people free from all forms of oppression and abuse. Take for example, again, the earliest gospel author by the name of Mark, who bases the bedrock event upon which Christian faith rises or falls—the resurrection of Jesus Christ, in his bodily form, a literal, physical resurrection—all upon the first eyewitness reports of women. Of women.
Sorry to say that in Jesus’s day, women’s testimony was not even admissible in court. So why would a gospel author base the most important event of the entirety of the Christian faith upon the testimony of those who aren’t even deemed credible? This would be a senseless fabrication—unless this is what went down.
This would be a senseless fabrication unless this is exactly what happened. Women were there. They were there first at the empty tomb, on that first Easter Sunday morning. In Christianity Today on March 30, a remarkable article was written by Amy Orr-Ewing, who says, “Believe women.” “Believe women,” of course, has become a contested slogan of the #MeToo movement. She goes on to confess, “I know what happens if we don’t. I’ve been living in the eye of a storm of trauma, dismay, and profound grief.”
The reason why Amy confesses to that is because she as a fellow woman, dismissed and ignored the allegation of sexual abuse against the founder of the organization and the figurehead of the organization she once defended and served: Ravi Zacharias. But Amy goes on to say, “How prescient and poignant, then, that at the heart of the Christian faith, lies the historic testimony of women.” The gospel of Jesus Christ requires us to believe the word of women. The Easter message itself, “Christ is risen,” is the testimony of women.
Did you know that the first witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ know what it feels like to tell their stories only to be met with hard skepticism? Luke 24:11 actually reads, the men “did not believe them”—the women. So get this: Believe women. Believe in the Word and the testimony of women.
Not only listen, but cherish and protect and guard and value. Value the stories of our dear moms and sisters and aunts and daughters. This movement was launched by Easter. “Oh, I’m so done with their church because I got better things to do.” “I’m done with the church because it’s so oppressive and abusive against so and so.”
Third one, last one. There’s many more I’m sure. “I’m just not feeling needy, like other people, for the church. I have to be really honest—I don’t find it relevant. I think it’s a waste of time. I’m not like these other people who need something like that, you know? I’m not as weak and wavering. I’m just not as struggling.”
You know, sometimes memes are spot on. I will never forget this one because it has the face of Kevin Hart. (I’m not saying this was created by Kevin Hart.) But the meme went like this: Not going to church because there are weak and struggling and hypocritical people there is like not going to the gym because they’re out of shape people there. Not going to church because—look at those people. I’m not quite as messed up as those people. It’s like not going to the gym because you find people are still on a journey and different stages to get into shape.
Esther is a graduate of Juilliard. She’s a beautiful concert pianist. And I’ve sat in the audience live, heard her play numerous times, and I have been moved. I actually said to God, “This is the gift of God.”
Tragic fun facts: Esther and I have the same piano teacher. And Esther and I are blood-related. She’s my cousin. Whenever I play the piano, I guarantee people do not feel moved by God. They’re probably tempted to deny the existence of God altogether. Now, in no way is this an adequate or valid excuse. But it is a reality check. It is a reflection of reality. And here’s the real world, including the church. Christian people are all over the map when it comes to their likeness to their teacher and leader, Jesus Christ. They’re all over the map. But Jesus himself is not done with them. In fact, Jesus still loves them.
Here’s even better news: Jesus is not done with you. He still could be coming after you because he’s got a lot of beautiful, beautiful work to do. And do you know how he does that primarily? Do you know how he does that? He does it through his church. The local church, broken and battered and blemished and imperfect as it may, does more things around the world today than the press can or wants to cover.
The local church gives you hope and gives me hope. When there are days where other hopes have run dry, the church mandates and models repentance and reform. The church historically—historically—from its origins has this within its DNA. You might call it self-correcting mechanisms in which Christian people go through deconstruction and reconstruction. Because Jesus is not done with us. He’s not done with you. He still loves you, and he’s got a beautiful work to complete.
It’s Jesus himself who promised, and he promised this of no other group, club, movement, uprising, power, business, or a government. In Matthew 16:18, nothing, no one, no power, will outlast or outdo his church in making all things new, in healing and restoring it all back to what it should be .
What Church Is
Alright, so what’s church then? What is church? Saint Cyprian in the 3rd century famously said, “Outside the church, there is no salvation.” Outside the church, there is no salvation. Now, before you completely throw that away because it sounds so foreign, so absurd to our modern ears, there’s a weight of truth to this. There’s a lot of truth to that statement. Please don’t make rules out of the exceptions. What is church? Apostle Paul, of course, does one of the finest, best, Holy Spirit-inspired jobs of telling us what it is. Go ahead and turn to Ephesians 2:19-23.
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but your fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
So here’s what the church is, according to Apostle Paul. Three images. First, he says, citizens. Citizens of God. You can liken that to fellow American citizens under one president, governed by the Constitution of the United States and to fellow citizens under one nation—under an emperor or president. There are affinities there: common values and some common history.
Paul goes on with the second image in defining what is church. Not only citizens, we’re members of the same household. And in this household, the whole structure is founded upon Jesus Christ. So let’s call that household family—family of Jesus Christ. Family members are far closer than fellow citizens. You get to see each other, smell each other as they really are, as soon as they wake up. Citizens, then the second image: family.
Third, look at the final verse. All who grow up in a holy temple indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Temple, building, structures. If you imagine them to be built on cement blocks, in the image of a temple, these are cement blocks, plastered and stock cemented together.
So I want you to notice there’s a movement in those three images. It’s a progressive movement from citizens to family members and then cement blocks in a temple. In each, we’re drawing closer and closer together. But I also want you to think of what is God like in each of these three images of the church. Over a nation, God is like the president or the emperor over you. In a family, God is a father for you. Last but not least, in the holy temple, the cement blocks, this building, joined together and stuck together—you’re not going anywhere.
Where is God? What does God act like? It says, in the temple, it’s indwelt by the Holy Spirit. So there is a movement on the part of God, if you will, where he is at first over you, then he’s a father for you, and then he moves into you, through His Holy Spirit. And I want you to put these two movements together. I want you to put these two moments together. And here you will find what is church. Here is church. As you and I connect and get closer to one another, God himself moves in closer to you. As you and I connect and get closer to one another, God himself moves closer to you, to even be in you. Because you do know, after all, God is far too rich and great. He is far beyond our imaginations and what our minds can even fathom, which is why he reveals himself through his Word for any one individual to properly understand, appreciate, and experience God.
I’ve been telling this to my local church. Over a year in, and, man, this is hard. It’s hard for preachers. This is hard for me now. I’ve gotten used to staring into a video camera. There are three people in this room.
I’d much rather have live singing voices awakening me and drowning out my trembling, weak voice and singing. Where my heart would get moved by gospel truths being sung and played beautifully. Where we could take the bread and the cup and pass that around. Where I can see someone’s smile; where I can hear someone’s story. For our own survival, we’ve just been doing that on drive-thru services. Because I tell you as one preacher right here, the reason I look forward to the worship service the most is not so much because I get to do this. It’s because your voice, your presence, your gifts, your fellowship, is far more powerful than my own faith, left to itself. The word of my brother and sister, the voice of my brother and sister, is far more powerful to feel and strengthen and give me faith than if God just left me all by myself and said, “Oh, just follow Jesus. Make sure you do it well for the rest of your life.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, author of the book Life Together, who withstood the Nazi regime, paid the dearest cost for his faith. And he observed, “Oh, how Christian people not only need one another, how vital and what a gift that is from God by design, but we have to love one another, even when it hurts.” Christian people in a church not only need one another, but we have to love one another past our idealisms, our illusions, and even our personal comforts.
Quoting Bonhoeffer, “Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itself, become destroyers of that Christian community, even though their personal intentions may ever be so honest, earnest, and sacrificial. Live together in the forgiveness of your sins. Forgive each other every day from the bottom of your hearts.”
This is church. This is what church is meant to be. And she is a priceless gift for you. Because only as you connect and move closer and closer to one another, God himself moves in closer to you.
No Better Witness
So how do you snap out of the most common, popularized, dominant narrative and perception out there: “Oh, but there’s no church really like that.” How do you snap out of loving your ideals? How do you step out of dreaming? How do you snap out of just saying, “Well, if there would only be that perfect fit for me someday, then of course, I’ll commit.” How do you snap out of that and actually live out church?
I’ll put it this way. If right now, you’re oh so hesitant, oh so delaying, avoiding, neglecting, or hostile, and you hate the people of God, then I assure you that the one thing that you are not doing right now is really looking at Jesus. Did you see that in verse 20, the entire household is built on a cornerstone? The cornerstone, the most important stone, is Jesus Christ himself.
Can I encourage you, more than looking at the hurt, the hypocrisy, the abuse, the history, albeit true—can you look at the one who founded it, and the one who’s not done with it? And look at the way he treats and honors and loves her? Even with all of her blemishes and excuses, even with all of her sins? Because when you really look at Jesus, you’ll see someone who gave up his life for her. He gave up his life for her. This is what makes or breaks a church.
I’ve been married 19 years, and nobody’s going to ever properly prepare you of all that that entails—the ups and the downs, also parenting. It’s very similar to joining and belonging to a church for a long time. Can I ask you, would you make marriage vows to someone if you knew for certain that that someone would end up cheating on you? Would you still go through with it? Would you stand before God and before public witnesses and say, “I so and so take you for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness or in health, unconditionally. And I’m still going to take you, and I’m going to vow the rest of my future to you, even though I know you are going to smash my heart repeatedly. You’re going to rip it out.” How many of you would go through that?
Well, Jesus did. The marvel is, Jesus did. He did it in the most exclusive, unconditional, self-sacrificing, holy, and perfect way, of which all other love relationships are just rehearsals, according to Ephesians 5. Do you know what the church is? Do you know who she is? It’s just a group of people who can never get over this kind of love that we have found in Jesus Christ.
I’m going to close with this. So what does church do? What does the Church of Jesus Christ do? From Girl Scouts, to alumni, to cancer survivors, those in closest community to you become a part of you. 30 years after my college graduation, I may run into random strangers on the east coast or on the west coast, and they happen to have met my friend from college that I’m still friends with 30 years later. And it’s uncanny how often they say, “You know, Harold, you sound like an act like so and so. You guys remind me of one another.” I don’t take that as a personal insult, though some of my friends I don’t want to resemble. But, anyhow, it’s those who are closest to you that become a part of you. That’s why in my seminary days, I revered and admired my professors and those polished, almost seemingly perfect preachers. But it’s my roommates and my friends that have influenced me way more to this day. It doesn’t even come close.
Pound for pound, by any metric, what group has changed more lives for good? And why is this the case? It’s because the church has something no other community has. The Church of Jesus Christ has Jesus himself right at the center of it all, and we are his body, his bride, in the flesh, embodied. We are Exhibit A. We’re supposed to be Exhibition A—walking, breathing, talking billboards like neon signs that point to: “This is all real, it’s true, it’s all gonna come to an end, at the feet of Jesus.”
And when the new heavens and the new earth come down, all will bow. And all will confess: Jesus Christ indeed is Lord. To the glory of God, the Father. But until then, he offers it free of charge. You can taste. You can have this now, in my church, where you hear the gospel, and you see the gospel lived out.
It’s been a brutal year, in many different shapes and forms. But if you get a report that you lost your job, or you’re slowly going to lose your health, all of it—it’s imminent. Or I’ve seen my dear members of our church lose their spouse. What happens then? Church people line up, create a meal train for like two months. You send volunteers, practical relief, and gifts. They ask, “Do you need anything? Really, really— do you need anything? It would actually be my joy if I could help it any way.”
Texts and phone calls from people who care. You’re not going to be left alone. You’re going to be prayed over. You can be loved. You can be loved. Because the love of Jesus Christ has been poured out into the hearts of his people, the church. So here’s what Jesus prayed, and I believe he hears what he still prays to this day to God the Father. In John 17:22-23:
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 and me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them, even as you loved me.
You know, when the people of God keep changing to love God and to love one another as one, as Jesus prayed and promised: This is when the world will know. There’s no more powerful witness; there’s never a better witness. This is how the world can see and come to believe this is believable and true. Because the world right now needs far more than individuals. I’m not knocking that in any way, shape, or form. On a megaphone, on a TV commercial, knocking on your door, awkwardly sometimes forcing you to make some decision now—the world really needs much more than that. They need to see a collective witness of the church, being and doing what she should be and do.
As I close right here, I’ve never met anybody who met Jesus and come to believe that Jesus is for real all by themselves. Do you? Have you ever read any stories like that? Not too many. Because here’s what God does. I don’t know why God does it, but he does it. God shows up by showing up in his people. God shows up to a broken, dying world in and through his church. To that end, there still is no better witness. Please take heart, even as our hearts may break over the things we need to confess and repent of. Please take heart for Jesus has overcome the world. He’s coming back. He’s going to make it all right, all perfectly new, through his church. Let me pray for us.
Father God, I pray that your Spirit would speak to all those listening in right here, right now, by the power of your Word, so that we might look upon Jesus more. Help us to see him as he is and to see what he has done and what he is continually doing, in and for and through your beloved church.
And oh Lord, I pray that as you bring people to yourself, who cry out and pray, “Jesus, I do need you. I need you to wipe away all my sins. I need you to give me a new direction. I need you to come and live in me,” Lord, would you take these dear friends and bring them to join a church so that we might together show that you’re alive and well, and that your love has been poured out in all of our hearts. Oh God, for Your glory, for our joy, and for the salvation of many more whom we love. We pray this all in Jesus’s name. Amen.
For more resources from SOLA Conference 2021, click here.