Title The Holy Church (John 17:14-17)
Contents
Last week I spoke about joy as the first sign of a good church. Today I want to talk about holiness as the second sign of a good church.
First, in order for our church to be a holy church, it must be a church that reflects God's disposition. In Leviticus 11:45, God says to the Israelites, "Be holy, because I am holy." What we realize from these verses is that God is absolutely holy, and that God's desire and purpose for his people is holiness. And that holiness is not achieved by observing any religious rules, but only when God's people know God deeply and become people who resemble God's disposition. Today, God says to our churches, 'Be holy because I am holy.' And it is the word to become a church that reveals God's disposition to the world.
It seems that many churches today are somewhat infected with the idea that money is everything. And as long as it works, it doesn't seem to matter much whether it's a humanistic method or a commercialistic method. But in the church, how effective a program is should not be a priority. What the word of God really is and how our Lord and the apostles of the early church acted should be our standard. At that time, the word makes the church the church and makes the church holy, and only in the church that has been so sanctified can the true life of the Lord and the power of the Holy Spirit be revealed.
Next, the secular spirit that the churches of our time should be wary of is quantityism, which believes that big is good, and that big is success. However, the mindset that achieving great things is success is not biblical thinking. For churches, membership should not be the goal. The most important concern of the church should be how each and every one of the members of that church are raised as children of God who resemble the image of Christ.