Church and Spirit #2

Now when I say Spiritual gathering, that doesn’t mean we dance around like a bunch of drugged up hippies, trying to connect with some kind of vague “meta-Spirit”. What I mean is that as a church we are ruled, guided, united and equipped by God’s Holy Spirit. It’s the presence of God’s Holy Spirit which sets us apart. So to answer the question about which church our newly arrived immigrant should attend, we can say that he or she should seek out a Spiritual church.

But that raises another important question: What does a Spiritual church look like? If I were to ask someone from Hillsong for an answer and then someone from St Andrew’s Cathedral in the city, followed then by someone here at Glenhaven I could get three very different answers, so our poor immigrant isn’t out of the woods yet. But this is where Ephesians 4 will help us. This is a great chapter for figuring out what church is and also for discerning the type of gathering we should seek out and in turn be a part of.

Starting in the middle of the chapter, we find two verses that anchor us with a simple definition of church:

Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Perhaps the best definition of the church is simply this: the church is the human community which is connected to Christ. Paul uses a body metaphor here, just like he uses in 1 Corinthians. Christ is the head, and we are the various parts of the body, all of which are connected to and controlled by the head. So when we say that the church is the community which is connected to Jesus, we don’t just mean that Jesus is the focus of our attention, or that his teachings are the ones we choose to read. Those things are true – we do want to focus on him and we do want to study his teachings – but the connection is a little more real than that.

When Paul says that Jesus is our head, he’s saying that Jesus is actually our living ruler. Remember that Jesus has been raised from the dead. That means that he is alive and active. And one way that Jesus is alive and active is that he is actively ruling his Church, this church, even as we speak. Jesus is not just someone we admire, Jesus is someone who is present and ruling his Church. Now this has massive implications for the way we do church. Whenever we lead in church, whether it be on a committee or in a bible study or by organising a roster, then we only ever lead as deputies to the true leader, Jesus. He is the chief shepherd, we are only ever the assistant shepherds (1 Peter 5).

I remember hearing a story about a young couple who were leaving their church here in Sydney to go interstate, and before they left they said to their minister “What are we going to do? You won’t be there to tell us what to do anymore.” And the minister said “Well there’s always the telephone”! I think he failed to realise that he was only an assistant shepherd. Their true leader was, is and always will be Jesus. And I think the young couple failed to realise this too! They didn’t need to be constantly linked to the one church even after they’d moved interstate, because wherever they found themselves to be, Jesus would still be their true shepherd.

So back to our immigrant looking for a church…what should they look for? A church which is lead by Christ. What church should Emmanuel Church Glenhaven be? A church ruled by Christ. If you are a leader, are you constantly deferring your leadership to Jesus? Do you recognise him as the one truly running the ship? If you see yourself as a follower, are you looking to Christ for leadership? or have you replaced him with the leadership of others?

A true church is one led by Jesus.

Well that’s all well and good, but how does Christ rule his Church? How is he active in the Church today? How do we defer leadership to him? How do we seek his leadership?