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Matthew 22:37-40
! Introduction
Since I turned 50 this year I went for a check up.
The doctor took my pulse and when he found one, I was glad.
He looked into my ears and didn’t see right through and so I thought that was a good thing.
I also had all kinds of blood tests and so on.
He was checking to see if I was healthy.
Sometimes at these check ups, doctors discover things that are not quite as they should be and it means that you may have to make some adjustments or take some treatment.
For example, if your blood pressure is high the doctor might prescribe exercise, less stress or give a prescription in order to get the blood pressure down.
If your cholesterol is too high, the doctor might suggest a change in your diet.
Can you check the health of a church?
They recommend that after you turn fifty you should have an annual check up.
Our church is over 125 so we probably need annual check ups.
Well this is the third year that we have done so.
On October 22 of this year, 30 of you participated in a survey to try to discern the health of the church and to discover what areas need the most attention in order to become an even healthier church.
What are the areas that need attention?
What prescription will help us come to health?
!
I. Healthy Church Survey
We have talked about this before, but I would like to remind you again about this concept of the healthy church.
Extensive research and Biblical study have revealed that a healthy church is effective and growing in eight essential areas.
These eight areas are:
Passionate Spirituality - which means that the members have a deep and growing love for God.
Loving Relationships - which means that those in the church care for each other.
Need oriented evangelism - which means that people of the church are aware of the needs of people who do not know Christ and seek to reach out to them.
Inspiring worship - which means that when the church gets together, the worship services encourage faith.
Gift based ministry - means that members are using their God given gifts to serve Him.
Functional structures - which means that the organizational structure of the church does not work against effective ministry.
Empowering leadership - means that leaders are allowed to lead.
Holistic small groups - which are groups which allow people to grow, be encouraged, cared for and held accountable.
The purpose of the survey is to discover which of these elements are the least effective at this time.
The life of a church changes and is dynamic and so things are always in flux.
This bucket illustrates the concept.
This bucket will only hold as much water as the lowest stave.
If you lengthen the long staves in the bucket, the capacity to hold water will not be increased.
If you lengthen the shortest stave, then you will be able to put more water in the bucket.
A church will be limited in its growth and effectiveness by the least effective of the 8 elements.
The strategy then is to work at the least effective elements in order to bring a greater health to the church.
Of course, we always work on all of these things, but, to work intensely at all of them is overwhelming.
The strategy we are following is to work in a more concentrated way on several of these elements.
Before I show you the two that ended up the lowest this year, let me answer another question.
Now that we have done this for three years, are we finding that it does any good?
Of course, in some ways the value of this cannot be determined in a few short years and this is a good thing to do because it deals with what is basic to being the church.
Nevertheless, let me assure you that early indications are that it is helpful.
The best illustration of that is to examine the least effective element from the last few years.
The first time we did the survey, need oriented evangelism was the least effective element.
We have worked on it over the last two years.
This past year, the “Power to Change” campaign and the seminars with David Balzer were two things we did to work on it.
God has also worked in us.
Over the last two years, this element has increased so that it is no longer the least effective.
Now of course, we cannot neglect this area and need to continue to be diligent in reaching out.
So what did the survey reveal as the least effective areas in our church?
They are Passionate Spirituality and Loving Relationships.
These are the things that we need to work on this year.
It is interesting and a little disturbing that these two have to do with what Jesus identified as “the greatest commandment.”
We have worked on the great commission and now we need to give concentrated attention to the great commandment.
One of the passages which deals with this is Matthew 22:37-40 and this morning we will read it and listen to what it has to say to us today.
!
II.
Love The Lord Your God
Passionate Spirituality was the lowest area.
Now let me encourage you that this area was low when we first did the survey and has improved, but we need to be very diligent in seeking to grow in our love for the Lord.
This is the area that needs most attention.
!! A. Where is the problem?
In order to think about passionate spirituality and our love for God, let us consider why this might be a problem in our lives.
!!! 1.
We Don’t Need God
One of the phrases in the Lord’s prayer is “Give us this day our daily bread.”
How many of us pray that daily?
Do we really need to pray that?
Is it not true that we have enough food in the freezer for many days.
The sad reality is that we have so much and life is so easy many times that we really don’t need God.
How often do we consider that if we didn’t have God in our lives we would still make it just fine?
When tragedy strikes or difficulties come, we begin to look in God’s direction, but much of the time we honestly don’t need God.
We have wealth and health and it seems to us to have come to us by our effort, so why do we need God?
We nod at God and we give token attention to Him, but the evidence of our life reveals that we just don’t need Him.
!!! 2. We Don’t Want God
I remember thinking before I got married that I didn’t want Jesus to come back now because I wanted to experience marriage first.
As I thought about that, I knew that there was something wrong with that, but it reveals another problem in our lives in regards to passionate spirituality.
If the truth were told, we don’t want God.
We have a life going that is just fine.
We are busy with things that we enjoy.
Our life is centred around things that give us fulfillment.
We have all kinds of plans that we want to accomplish.
They are good plans, nothing wrong with them, but we don’t want God to come into those plans and change what we have put our hope in and what we find joy and fulfillment in.
Living in a community in which most people attend church and the basic beliefs of faith and church participation are just underneath the surface in much of what we do is a tremendous blessing.
We feel quite safe and content in such a community and that is a good thing.
But there is a terrible danger in such a community.
It is possible to be a church member and participate in the church and not really have a loving relationship with God.
Is it possible that there are people in this community who are part of the church only because it is part of the culture to belong to a church.
They need the church in their lives, but they don’t want God in their lives.
!!! 3. We Don’t Trust God
When it comes down to it, a third reason, and perhaps the reason behind these other reasons is that we don’t actually trust God.
I think that sometimes we have this idea that if we really love God, we will have to do something like pray 4 hours a day or become a missionary.
We don’t trust God that he has our best interest in mind.
We don’t believe that if we fully turn our lives over to God and love Him whole-heartedly that we will be turning our lives over to one who loves us deeply and wants to bless us.
In other words, we don’t trust God.
We don’t realize that if God should call us to pray 4 hours a day or become a missionary, that that would be the best and most exciting and interesting thing we could possibly do.
I am convinced that one reason why passionate spirituality is so low is because we don’t believe that God loves us and wants the best for us.
!! B. Living Love For God.
A friend of mine once stuck his finger in an augur while moving grain and lost several of his fingers.
During and after rehabilitation, he mentioned to me that although it was very difficult, he would not trade it for anything because of the things that he had learned and how he had experienced God in the midst of his trial.
I have heard that statement from people of faith many times.
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