I Will. Sermon #8 - I Will Avoid the Traps of Churchianity.

Are we acting like the church or pretending? John talks about the traps of trying to get our way or seeking our own comfort. 

What is Eagle Community Church of Christ?

Teaching podcast from the Eagle Community Church of Christ in Mont Belvieu, TX.

John Gunter: 00:16

I hope it has been as enriching to your life as it has been to mine. This is something we started on, Wednesday nights, and everybody liked it so much, they asked us to do it on Sunday morning. So hopefully it has been good for you. As I have mentioned a couple of times, this is something that is certainly toe stepping for me. There are a lot of times that I just need reminders, refreshers, and a way to redirect my heart back to where it needs to be, and this is one of those books that does exactly that.

John Gunter: 00:51

Today's I will statement is that I will avoid the traps of churchianity. If you hadn't read this book, you don't know what that is. What Rayner says in this is there are ways that we could be the church, we could live out that life, and there are ways that we can just go through the motions and kind of fake it. Francisco, I think, did a wonderful job of calling us into being family, being the body of Christ, right? To get involved, and that's what we should do.

John Gunter: 01:27

Now, we have the option to check out, to not be involved, to maybe come every once in a while, or when we do come, we don't get involved, right? And so we can just kind of go through the motions. And that's what Rayner is talking about here is that we don't want to fall into this trap, and it's an easy trap to fall into, isn't it? You ever found yourself just kind of going through the motions? Maybe it is that that life has just kind of come at you and you've got a lot going on or maybe the things you have going on are so big and significant that it's, oh, how am I going to get my next breath?

John Gunter: 02:03

And so that's what he's talking about. I want to avoid these traps. And so we're gonna read a couple of verses here from 1st Corinthians 12 27. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. You know that church?

John Gunter: 02:19

You are the body of Christ. Sometimes we talk about church as the building, whether we think about it or not. We all know it's not. Right? We we know that we are the church, but what does that mean?

John Gunter: 02:32

You are members of the body. And so that's that's an imperfect metaphor because we have some things in our body. We don't know what they're used for. Right? But but members of a body should have a purpose.

John Gunter: 02:45

Right? We should be able to, get involved, work with other members of the same body, right? That's what we're called to do. He says this way in 1 Corinthians 12, for just as the body is 1 and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are 1 body, so it is with Christ. And so though we are many, we should be 1.

John Gunter: 03:12

And so hopefully that calls you to a life living for Jesus. Right? That I'm not just living for myself, I'm living for Christ, and what that means is so it is with Christ, that I live a life part of his body. And so some of the things we could do is is figure out, alright, what role do I fill? You ever sit and think, alright, well, how could I serve?

John Gunter: 03:37

How could I help? And now we we do a lot of begging in the church. Hey, we need we need Bible school teachers. Robert, you were over that for a number of years. It is not easy to get Bible school teachers.

John Gunter: 03:52

Any church I've ever served in, they've never said, You know what? We've got so many teachers, we just don't know what to do. You ever been a part of that church? I have not. If it exists, I'd like to know and we'll go talk with them.

John Gunter: 04:03

Maybe you have. But we should have people saying, How can I serve? How can I be involved? How can I benefit the body? But oftentimes, that's not what we get, is It is, I'm a little involved maybe or not at all and I just show up.

John Gunter: 04:23

And so, symptoms of churchianity. Church is a spectator sport and so that's a way to see, alright, are you involved? Are you just a spectator? I love this time of year. I love college football.

John Gunter: 04:40

I love the NFL. I love the cooler weather. I love the deer hunting, that has nothing to do with being a spectator, but I just love this time of year. And so, when I watch sports anybody have their their weekend either go very well or ruined because of a sport that you watch? Yeah.

John Gunter: 05:02

Arkansas, I don't know that Texas sees Arkansas as a rival, but Arkansas does not like Texas, Texas football. Not the state of Texas. I I wouldn't make that statement. But we don't like them. Right?

John Gunter: 05:16

And so, when we play, it's an issue, right, if we don't win. Robert is wearing a Texas shirt today just to make sure I pay attention to it, I'm sure. But we can treat church just like a spectator sport, can't we? We come in, we are not involved, we weren't involved in the plays or the practice during the week, right? We get here and we are just a spectator, just like we are with sports or anything else, just ready to make decisions, or call people idiots, or you know, that either went well or it didn't, right?

John Gunter: 05:51

It's the idea of I'm not involved, but I'm definitely going to make my opinion heard. Man, it's fun to look on social media on Saturday evening and see what people are saying about their college team. I it upsets me so much, I just don't look. Because, the Razorbacks lost again yesterday, so I am not even going to look. Some of you are happy about that loss.

John Gunter: 06:14

Beau Cox right there he is. He's happy. That was his team. But what we don't want to do is bring that same mindset from sports or whatever into church. Right?

John Gunter: 06:24

We are involved. We are part of the body. We are not this person to just look in from the outside. When I was going to University of Arkansas, the practice field for the Razorbacks was as you went up close to campus, you could actually from the road look down into and see practice. Well guess what?

John Gunter: 06:44

Everybody wants to see what's going on in practice, who's playing, who's not, all those things. So much so that they had so many wrecks from people rubbernecking and seeing what was going on. They actually had to cover it was a it was a wrought iron fence. Actually had to cover it up and put some stuff there so you couldn't see because too many people were looking over there and running into the person in in back of them. We love to spectate.

John Gunter: 07:05

But that's not what church is about, is it? It's about being a part of the body. Rayner says this, churchianity can be, like a spectator sport. Members attend, but they don't actively participate. They expect others to do ministry.

John Gunter: 07:16

For some, the only time they get passionate is at a church business meeting where they express their displeasure and anger. You ever seen that before? Well, I have. I've seen people show up that I didn't know were a part of our church. They showed up to gripe.

John Gunter: 07:30

Like, I didn't I didn't know that you were any relation to anybody here, and all of a sudden you're here because of some issue and you're griping about it. It's like, well, I'll show up when I want to, and and that's just a person that's not involved. Right? I've I've chosen to not actually be a part of the body, but to be a spectator on the outside looking in and kind of voicing my displeasure, when I won. It was kinda like this around the Olympics.

John Gunter: 07:52

I don't know if you can see this. It says, Americans judging an an Olympic athlete's performance while sitting on their couch polishing off a cup of ice cream. Right? How many of you, you know, you you like the Olympics? You like the Olympics?

John Gunter: 08:06

Yeah. We we always we're making sure we watch it every year. And so, you know, how many of us were like, oh, man. I can't believe they stumbled on that floor routine. Right?

John Gunter: 08:16

And how many of us have done floor routines? Right? And we are sitting there with that ice cream, what an idiot. Right? See, I could have done better than that.

John Gunter: 08:25

Until you get to the rings, I don't know how anybody does rip their shoulder out of socket on on those parallel rings or whatever they're called. But this is the way we can be, is we can be a spectator on the outside looking in. Number 2, church is about me. Now we've talked some about this in this series, but that is a question I think we ought to ask all the time. Am I making church, about Jesus or is it about me?

John Gunter: 08:54

Am I evaluating things like a spectator saying, yeah, now, no, no, no. Or am I trying to get closer to God, closer to each other? Something we pray about all the time. So, here's a way to to look at this. Signs at church is about me.

John Gunter: 09:07

Number 1, I told the preacher what I want him to preach. He just doesn't listen to me. Well, that's, that's always an interesting conversation because the things people won't preach about are always interesting. I'll tell you that. They ever come to you within times, just, yeah, have a different different conversation.

John Gunter: 09:25

Number 2, I don't like the temperature in the worship center, auditorium, whatever we call it. Yeah. I don't either. When I'm comfortable, Tiffany's freezing. When I when I'm hot, Tiffany's freezing.

John Gunter: 09:38

Okay? That's how it is. I don't like the temperature in the worship center, and and not only just that I would say that, like the air conditioner is not working, but, like, it affects me and I'm mad, right? That's what we're talking about here. Church becomes about me and my comfort.

John Gunter: 09:54

How many of you grew up or have driven vehicles with no air conditioning? What in the world? Was it cooler when you had those things? Are we all tougher? Somebody raise your hand.

John Gunter: 10:08

Just let us know. Do what? The top was down. Yeah. Anybody else wanna chime in?

John Gunter: 10:14

Now I don't even understand. Right? We we just we live in a time where I wouldn't you know, I hear about when the Olympic athletes go over to Paris and they have to bring their own air conditioner, that doesn't make sense to me, right? We have so much heat and humidity here, it's like we would drown if we didn't have air conditioning, right? Just from the humidity.

John Gunter: 10:30

But we can take this to a level where, okay, well it becomes about me. Number 3, if we don't change our music style, I'm not coming back. And for us, we may translate that. You know, if the the person I like leading, singing doesn't lead more or or whatever. Right?

John Gunter: 10:44

I'll find another church that can meet my needs. What is that saying about you? Right? Because we make it about the church. Well, the church isn't doing what I want to do and that that's a way that I'm being a spectator and not being involved in the body.

John Gunter: 11:03

Now, what we should be doing is encouraging, right? Helping build people up. Francisco was all over my sermon this morning when he was speaking up here, that we build people up. He said, I've not got any negative stuff yet. Start preaching more, buddy.

John Gunter: 11:19

You will get there. You do a wonderful job preaching, by the way. But when Evan came back from camp, preaching camp, I told him, you've got to get I was afraid he was gonna wanna preach on Wednesday night. I said, you've got to get up on Sunday morning because what you'll find is people want to encourage you. And to speak into that gift, right, to encourage and to build up, that's what we're supposed to be as a church.

John Gunter: 11:42

Again, one body, many members, we encourage growth. We don't, we don't look at it and say, well, I don't want them to do that, or, this is not meeting my needs. You know, I'd rather so and so preach that day. No. We encourage and we build up.

John Gunter: 11:55

Okay? And so we don't make this a point of this is about me. Number 4, someone is in our seat or pew. Have you seen that before? It's a great fundraiser.

John Gunter: 12:07

Hey, pay for it. I'm all for it. Buy your pew. Hey. Let let's do that.

John Gunter: 12:13

5th next 5th Sunday. We'll do that. I I have it. I think we've all experienced that. Have you?

John Gunter: 12:20

I don't think I've experienced it in this location. I think because we've moved enough. We've moved around enough. You guys haven't gotten settled enough. But you know, and I'm sure it happened at Lakewood.

John Gunter: 12:32

You could walk in there on a Saturday morning and you could see somebody's step stool for their feet, their Afghan to cover up with, their bible, maybe even a fan, maybe for fanning or switching. You don't know which. Right? They have little kids, you think, okay, dual use. Right?

John Gunter: 12:54

We we we see it. We we tend to nest, and so we become, for whatever reason, what what what matter what's the importance of a seat in the in that location? Like in the scheme of things. Anything? Absolutely not.

John Gunter: 13:12

But we've all seen it. You all started laughing, right, when we talked about it. Some people get upset because you are in my seat. I've been here for 60 years and you're sitting in my seat. You've been here for 60 years and you hadn't understood how to become a servant or to be humble or to let someone have your seat to make yourself lower than them, to see their needs as high.

John Gunter: 13:34

None none of that. Right? That's what we're telling on ourselves when we do those kinds of things. Someone's at our cedar pew. Number 5, the church the church decided not to offer the 7:30 AM service.

John Gunter: 13:43

I'm not for 7:30, by the way, anymore because only a few people are attending. Well, that's my service. If it's gone, so am I. Alright? Just because we didn't have a service at a certain time to meet your needs, I'm gone.

John Gunter: 14:00

Again, what that says is I really wasn't a part of the body in the first place. Now, we try to justify. Oh, yeah. I was. It was just so bad that I had to, you know, no.

John Gunter: 14:09

Uh-uh. You decided you weren't a part of the body. And so, okay. I'm gonna make this about me. A preacher did not visit my sister's mother-in-law in the hospital, even though I told him to.

John Gunter: 14:20

Always interesting. I knew a, preacher around, Dallas Fort Worth, and he said he only, visits people when they're, deathly ill. They have a pretty big church. The shepherds do all of that. And, except for one time he was visiting someone who was very ill, and he thought, oh, brother so and so's right down the hall.

John Gunter: 14:38

And so he went and visited brother so and so. Brother so and so was not deathly ill, but when he walked through the door he thought, what have they not told me? And so it's always interesting, but yeah, we can make this about, okay, ourselves. They didn't meet my needs, they didn't do exactly what I wanted to do, and so, I'm out of here. The church voted to paint the worship center a hideous color.

John Gunter: 15:00

I'm infuriated infuriated. I'm just might stop giving. There may be a time, Francisco, we're gonna choose that paint color. Is anybody gonna put your foot down and say, well, if it's not this color, I don't know what I'm gonna do. Right?

John Gunter: 15:17

We hope not, but fights have been started over less, haven't they? What color are the chairs? Well, all those all those things. Again, making this stuff about ourselves. The church is about dwelling on its flaws.

John Gunter: 15:32

This is number 3 in symptoms of churchianity. The idea that all we do is come and complain. Come and complain. If all my needs aren't met, if everything isn't going exactly where I want, if Jordan didn't sing the right songs, if John said something I didn't like, and we dwell on it. And for whatever reason, we we like to think about having unity until something happens that I believe we don't need to have unity about, and I'll become mad.

John Gunter: 15:58

Right? I'm gonna I'm gonna just voice my displeasure. I'm not happy anymore. Well, guess what? That is part of being a family.

John Gunter: 16:06

You understand that? How many of you have a perfect family in here at the house? Like when I leave here, I'm going back to perfection. When I see my kids, I know we all think that, well, I got some pretty kids, right? Everybody, I call it, what I used to call it.

John Gunter: 16:23

Every time one of my friends' kids got in trouble, they had an excuse for it. You have been there before too. It's like my kid can do no wrong. Part of being a family is to have disagreements, is to have things that go on that I don't agree with, but we are still a family. We are still this body, this idea that we are together.

John Gunter: 16:45

And so that's what scripture calls us to be, not a part of the body or think we're a part of the body that looks at other parts of the body and say, yeah, you gotta get out of here or I don't like you. Right? Because Jesus prayed for you today. What that means is, okay, we come together despite all that. Jesus wasn't crazy.

John Gunter: 17:04

He didn't think we had to agree on every single thing and and that, you know, every kind of discussion we had, we all came away with the same thing. His disciples didn't do that. Right? The apostles didn't. They had to come and pray together and and do different things because they didn't even know.

John Gunter: 17:19

Church is about dwelling on its flaws. Number 4, church has low expectations. Now, what Rayner says about this is sometimes churches can just exist. We can create a culture where, we don't do anything as a body. We have tried different things since we have been here, but I feel like, and you guys feel like you can agree or disagree either way, we felt like we've been in a holding pattern so much that it's almost sometimes we feel like we are waiting for something instead of moving forward, right?

John Gunter: 17:55

And I am talking about in our service and ways that we can reach the community and things like that. It's like, okay, what we are waiting on is the building before we can do it. And of course, as Francisco said, doesn't require a building. Right? That is a tool that we can use.

John Gunter: 18:08

But we can also reach out in different ways. We're gonna do that, here in just a little bit. But the church has low expectation. He tells a story of a woman who went to a church, and she said, I'd really like to be a member of this church, and to be a member of that church you had to be voted in. But nobody ever talked to her.

John Gunter: 18:24

She filled out a card, and all of a sudden one day in the mail she got a letter that said, Hey, you've been voted in. And that was it. Still nobody reached her. Nobody knew if she was even a Christian. She'd been voted in, and the only thing she received was that letter saying she'd been voted in, and a box of envelopes to send in her check.

John Gunter: 18:45

Because that's all the church required. As long as you're you want to be a part of this, as long as you'll send in your check, you know, we'll we'll keep going. Right? And that's a that's a church that has low expectations. So we as a church do not need to set low expectations, and all of us as people do not need to set low expectations for ourselves.

John Gunter: 19:04

Number 5, church has a clickish membership. You ever seen a click in action? That is not good, is it? And in church, this could entail, in smaller churches it can be families, right? I grew up in a family church that was so big that if the family was upset, everybody was feeling it, right?

John Gunter: 19:24

This can be I've seen it where it is eldership, right? Where an eldership was so to themselves, they weren't really shepherds necessarily, but they were a click unto themselves, which again, they can make it where no nothing gets done because we won't allow it or something like that. We never need to be in that situation where the church has a cliquish membership. One section of Scripture that we've covered in this book, and I think it's worth reading again, is Philippians 2 verses 1 through 11. So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

John Gunter: 20:08

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Boy, that's tough one there. In humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Is that where you are this morning? You're sitting here thinking, how can I be of service to someone else?

John Gunter: 20:29

That it's not about just what I want, but I care about you and seeing you grow closer to God. I wanna count you more significant than myself. I will give up my time. I'll give up my effort. I want to help in some way.

John Gunter: 20:44

He says, let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others. Have this mind among yourselves, 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 grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the father. Amen? Amen.

John Gunter: 21:29

This is who Jesus was and who we should be. People caring about others, humbling ourselves before others, that I care about you. How are you showing that today, that it's not just about me, it's about me caring for you? Did you come here this morning with that attitude that I'm not here just to hopefully hear my favorite song, but I hope somebody else hears theirs? Maybe it wasn't my day today, but hopefully you were uplifted in a way that maybe I didn't see, Right?

John Gunter: 22:04

Hopefully, that word was something that encouraged you. Right? Did you come here with that attitude? Luke 6:40, a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher. You wanna grow closer to god god and closer to each other, you live out Philippians 2.

John Gunter: 22:24

You live a life that cares about others. You live a life that humbles yourself, caring about others, and doing what you can for their growth. Not worried about these little things like, Did I sit in my seat? Did somebody else sit in my seat this morning? Did something go my way or not go my way today?

John Gunter: 22:42

But are you here to care and to love and to serve? That's a question for us now. That's a question for us every single week, every day. Who are we going to be as a church? Because that's what people are going to care about.

John Gunter: 22:55

I hope one day we have a fantastic building that we can serve people out of. But unless we impact the community, God's love, God's grace, God's mercy, the example that Jesus gave to us, what's a building gonna do, right? Hopefully, we have both. Amen. Hopefully, building allows us to do things that we haven't even grasped yet.

John Gunter: 23:21

Right? Things we haven't even thought of yet. Ways that we can serve that just become apparent because we can do that. But if we don't affect the community, I hope God causes us to fail that we don't build if if we're not going to affect the community. Because that's what it's about.

John Gunter: 23:37

Right? Whether we meet in here, we meet in homes as the early Christians did or on the side of the road or in a massive building. We need to be here to love God and to love us. Amen? Jesus called those the greatest to make.

John Gunter: 23:54

Are you gonna live them out? That's our sermon for today. Jordan has an invitation song picked out. We love it.