Fundamentals and Faith
In real estate it is “location, location, location.” In sports, according the legendary coach and NJ native Vince Lombardi, it is “fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals.” Pat Williams, Vice-President of the Orlando Magic basketball team and former General Manager of the Philadelphia 76ers, tells the story that the then coach of the Sixers, Billy Cunningham wanted to reemphasize to his players the fundamentals of playing the game. At the first preseason practice, after a brief talk about the importance of executing fundamentals and winning, the coach held up the basketball and said to his players, “This is a basketball.” Moses Malone, then star player for the Sixers, interrupted, “Not so fast coach!”
In our rush to be on the cutting edge and to be creative, oft times we de-emphasize the fundamentals of Christianity in favor of the razzle-dazzle and the glamorous glitter. One of the fundamentals that often gets left in the smoke of our spiritual tail pipes is the Christian’s relationship to the body of Christ, ie the local church. There has been much over the years that I have said about the nature, purpose, and mission of the church, but when I think of the core, the basics, the fundamentals of Christianity I am drawn to 1 Peter 2:9. This is a fundamental verse that describes who we are as Christians, as believers, as those who claim the name of Jesus. “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.” This is our identity as Christians and as a church. Every time I read it, the awesome truth and impact of this verse overwhelms me. This is who I am as a believer and what I am supposed to do. This is who we are as a church and what we are supposed to do. While some are spreading the gospel in far away places, some of teaching in our seminaries, and others are leading para-church ministries and church agencies, my heart has always been with the local church because it is at the local church where the rubber meets the road, where the life-transforming gospel is directly applied to the brokenness of people’s lives. The local church is the front-lines in the battle against the flesh, the world and the devil. In his book, Courageous Leadership, Bill Hybels pastor of Willow Creek Church says, “The local church is the hope of the world.” I believe it is the last great hope for this greatest of all nations, we call our homeland. If it doesn’t happen in the local church, it is not going to happen at all.
Wrapped into this one fundamental verse is our identity as believers in Jesus, and what we are to do as Christians.
First, Peter declares, “You are a chosen people.” Please note here that the language is plural, not one, but many. Peter is speaking to a group of Christians, ie the church, the people as a group, a local church, if you will. At the gitgo Peter says that we did not choose God but He choose us. We then are a part of something far bigger than just here and now. Remember that God chose Abraham, and Moses, and David, and Elijah, and Habbakuk. It was God who chose Matthew and Peter, and Andrew and Paul. It is this same God through Jesus who chooses you to be in a special relationship with Him as Father/son/daughter, and to fulfill a special purpose and mission in His Kingdom and His church.
The problem is that oft times we who respond to God’s call upon our lives, get myopic—short-sighted, near-sighted thinking that God only works in our church. We lose sight of what God has done in the past and in other places with other people and what God is doing even now by His Spirit all over our planet. As Christians we are a part of this ‘great cloud of witnesses.’ And God has chosen us to be His people right here where we live out our daily lives, right here where God has planted us in South Jersey, right here at Sicklerville UM Church where God has led us. Why? Because He has chosen us to be His instruments of redeeming love and grace.
Not only are we a chosen people but Peter also says that we “are a royal priesthood.” As priests, who each and every believer is, our function is to be go-betweens, mediators, between a holy God and a sinful people. As priests each one of us has the right, authority, and ability to go directly to God. No secretaries, no middleman, no junior executives---right up to the very throne of God Himself.
A priest is also one who serves, who is available to bring God’s love and regenerating power and the hurts, sin, and brokenness of people together. The priest brings the Great Physician to sick people and sick people to the Great Physician. This is what a priest does. Ergo, we have the privilege of bringing healing to people, to bring new life and hope to those who are dying and hopeless, to shape young hearts and minds, to be channels of His grace and love by which God’s Spirit can work in the hearts and lives of people. This is both a holy privilege and awesome responsibility.
We can point people in the right direction. We can go with people helping them along their way to Jesus. When they meet Jesus, we can tend to them as a mother tends her new baby. As priests we can nurture them, teach them, and guide them along life’s journey. As Christians and as a church Peter describes us as a chosen people and a royal priesthood.
Peter then goes on to describe us as “a holy nation.” Again Peter is speaking to a group a people not just individual Christians. In the Bible holiness is the concept of being separate, of being unique, of being set apart of God’s special use. We tend to put a very narrow focus on holiness equating it with a very few special holy people, saints as it were. But God’s understanding of a holy people is not for a few but for every believer. Every Christian is called to be holy. What does that mean? It means that we are not to be like everyone else.
There is a humorous story about a church group who bought an old tavern that had operated for many years in the town. The church people where excited to have their very own place of worship and worked hard to renovate the old tavern into a church. They removed the old bar, put in new lights, replaced the tables with pews and did a total makeover of the whole joint. The day came for this new church to open its doors for their first worship service. Unbeknownst to them the tavern owner’s old parrot had escaped detection during the remodeling process. On that first Sunday the wise old parrot perched in the rafters and watched the proceedings. When the pastor walked in the parrot squawked, “New proprietor.” As the robed choir processed in, the parrot quipped, “New floor show.” As the parrot looked out over the people of the congregation, he dolefully remarked, “Same old crowd.”
In our day the major problem with Christians is that we are like everyone else. We talk like them, walk like them and quack like them. There is little or no difference between our pagan neighbor and us who claim the name of Jesus except maybe that we attend church sometimes. God calls us to a higher standard of living. We just ‘don’t sin,’ we flee from sin. We love our enemies. We go the second mile. We pray for those who spitefully use us. Our priorities in life are aligned with Jesus’ priorities. Our time is spent mostly on eternal matters and not on “Desperate Housewives” and in fact our marriages are strong and examples for others of what marital love and commitment looks like every day. We are called to be holy. We have our own act together and are dealing with the scars of our past sins. We are growing in our relationship to Jesus. There are certain things we don’t do because we are Christians, and there are certain things we do do because we are followers of Jesus. All because we are a holy nation, a people set apart from the rest, a people committed to know and do God’s will, a people willing to live in line with God’s way and not the world’s way!
Peter also describes Christians as “a people belonging to God.” One of the great needs of people is the need to belong. We are not made to be alone. God made us like Himself and that is to be in relationship, to connect, to love and be loved, to matter to someone and to others. Healthy, growing churches have developed the importance that people matter to God and to them. Too many churches communicate to first time worshippers something like this: “Nice to see you but we don’t really want you back and if you do come back, don’t even think about trying to horn into our action. We have our little group of friends and we like things just the way they are, so don’t come in here and change things all around.” That’s why so many churches are small and struggling and dying because they are not being obedient to Jesus and God has removed His blessing upon that church. That feeling of not be wanted, of being rejected, of not fitting in is a terrible, devastating feeling. That should never, ever happen in any church. Knowing God’s love enables us to love one another and welcome the stranger into our midst. If we don’t we are not being the people who belong to God, but when we do, God will bless and prosper us as a church. Because we belong to God, we also belong to one another.
That’s who we are as Christians, but Peter doesn’t stop with who we are. He goes on to describe what we do: “to declare the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His wonderful light.” We are not God’s people so that we can ring our own chimes, but to give praise and thanks to the One who has saved us, changed us, given us a new name and has put a new song in our hearts.
That is why our commitment and relationship to Christ is important. That is why our commitment and relationship to a local church is important. Being a church member gives us the place and the space to be obedient and to grow in our walk with Christ and to serve Him in practical and tangible ways. Being a church member gives us a sense of belonging and of connection with other people on this journey and adventure we call Christianity. People often want to separate our relationship with Christ and our relationship with other Christian people, called the church, but you can’t. In fact it is impossible. You can’t have one without the other! Spiritual vibrancy is directly related to one’s connection, commitment and viability in a local church. That’s why active membership in a church is important, critical, and crucial to your eternal salvation because it is we, together, with one another “declaring the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
As Billy Cunningham held up that basketball and proclaimed, “This is a basketball.” I am holding up the church, our church, and proclaiming to you this day, “We are the church of Jesus Christ and we ‘are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God that we may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.’”
My prayer is that God would grant us the insight and wisdom to know that the Kingdom of God is the most important place to be, and that it is the most important work to be done, and that it would be and become one of your highest priorities.