If you would like to send your offering through the mail, our mailing address is:
CrossPointe Community Church
P O Box 126
Chippewa Lake, OH 44215
On my flight back from Florida Thursday afternoon, I sat next to an Amish woman who was returning from Sarasota to her home halfway between Berlin and Mount Hope. And I asked her about the church she attends. And she was telling me that everyone in the community attends worship.
“Everybody?”
“Unless they are too sick to come or are away traveling like I was this past week, yes, everyone attends every Sunday.”
And I asked, “Are you folks required to attend worship and if you miss are there any consequences?”
And she said, “No we are not required to attend. Why would we be required? Being able to gather with my brothers and sisters in Christ to worship the Lord is very precious to me.”
And I said, “Can I quote you on that?”
And she looked a little confused and asked why I would want to do that.
And I said, “Because I know there are some folks who attend CrossPointe Community Church in Chippewa Lake who feel the same way.”
SCRIPTURE
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
Matthew 16:13-20
“Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.”
Then He asked them, “But who do you say I am?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus replied, “You are blessed, Simon son of John, because My Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build My church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.” Then He sternly warned the disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Messiah.
And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of His body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.
For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to Himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. And we are members of His body. As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Ephesians 5:21-33
SERMON
Love for Big and Little C
Randy K’Meyer
I’d like to begin with a question.
A question that at first glance seems simple, but upon reflection becomes profound. “Do you love the church?” Have you ever thought about that before?
We know that our Lord declared that the two greatest commandments are “to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves” (Mark 12:30-31). But does anyone here ever recall Jesus instructing us to love the church?
The question is worth pondering because we know Jesus loves the church. And if Jesus loves the church, shouldn’t we also love the church?
So let’s ponder. Perhaps you are wondering how do we know Jesus loves the church? We heard Him say, “I will build My Church,” (Matthew 16:18) but we do not recall Him ever saying He loves the church? Does one of the gospels record Jesus as saying “I love the church”? No, to be sure, not one of them does.
So, beyond assuming, how do we know that Jesus loves the church?
Well, the Apostle Paul actually lets us in on this in his letter to the Ephesians. It is probable that most of us missed this because the main point in the passage is husband-wife relationships. It is so easy to read that passage in that context and gloss over an important truth embedded therein. So let me read the passage again, and, if you will give me permission, I will omit the words about husbands and wives.
Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of His body, the church. The church submits to Christ. Christ loved the church. He gave up His life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to Himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. She will be holy and without fault. Christ cares for the church. And we are members of His body. Christ and the church are one” (Ephesians 5 selected).
Did you hear that?
Among some other important truths that we’ll come back to shortly, Paul said, Jesus “loved the church” (Ephesians 5:25). You probably noticed that Paul used the past tense, “Christ loved the church.” But this is not to imply that Jesus no longer loves the church. What Paul is saying is that Christ proved His love for the church. He loved the church when He gave up His life for her! In other words, Paul is tying love to action.
Indeed, of the four Greek words for ‘love’ used throughout the New Testament, Paul uses the past tense of agape here. Agape love is not a feeling word for love, but rather, an action word for love. Agape is not emotional, agape is a decision to act on behalf of the beloved. Jesus loved the church and demonstrated that agape love by giving Himself for the Church.
And we can be sure that His love for His Church that was demonstrated when He went to the cross continues to this very day.
So I repeat my initial question: ‘Do we love the church as Christ loves the church?’ And our answer must address both affectionate love as well as love in action.
My goal today and in the coming Lord’s days is to provide us with Biblical reasons to love the church with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. I will be sharing about how the church is the only institution in society dealing with the ultimate issues of life and death. I will be sharing about how the church is the only institution in society that provides perspective that lends dignity to all human beings. I will be sharing about how the church is the only institution in society that provides the kind of motivation for the most lasting, valuable, selfless efforts of humankind. I will be sharing about how the church is the greatest place for people to discover community, compassion, forgiveness, healing, and love. In other words, I will be talking about the many manifold benefits and blessings of belonging to and participating in a church.
By the way, when I use the word church, I am speaking about big ‘C’ Church and little ‘c’ Church.
When Jesus said, “I will build My Church” (Matthew 16:18) He was referring to big C Church. This is what the Apostle’s Creed refers to as when it says, “I believe in the holy catholic church” where catholic means ‘universal’ or ‘all-encompassing’ church. The members of the universal church consist of all those persons who have ever pledged their faith to Jesus and His death and resurrection.
Peter was the first member of the Church when he made his confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (Matthew 16:18). And I am sure the other disciples quickly followed. Yes, every person down through the ages who has ever come to the point where they recognized their need for forgiveness and cast themselves upon the Lord’s mercy for such were automatically made members of Christ’s Big C universal Church. Obviously, the vast majority of the universal church’s members have already joined the Lord of the Church in heaven. But until we answer the call up yonder, make no mistake, we are members of the Universal Church of Jesus here on earth.
And get this. The New Testament affirms over and over that anyone who becomes a member of Christ’s holy big C Church should as soon as practicable, seek out a small c church, what we call a local church to participate in.
Now with those clarifications, I return to my question: “Do you love the church?”
As I mentioned at the outset, a simple, yet upon reflection, profound question.
In simple terms, I am sure that if I were to ask anyone who wishes to stand and share why they love or have affection for CrossPointe Community Church we would probably go on for the next hour.
However; upon reflection, we must also grapple with this question in light of the way Jesus loves the church. Remember, He gave up His life for her” (Ephesians 5:25) He gave everything He had, He gave His all.
And so in answering this profound question, we must ask ourselves how do we demonstrate our love for Christ’s Church? To be sure, there are many ways in which I can do so. I want to take advantage of the moment to give us all a holy opportunity to ponder this simple yet profound question.
As we consider our love for the church listen to a letter written by a young communist to his girlfriend who is breaking his relationship with her because their relationship interferes with his devotion to the communist party. The young Russian lady who received the letter gave it to her pastor, who was moved to send a copy to Billy Graham, who included it in his book Call to Commitment.
We’ve been described as fanatics. We are fanatics. Our lives are dominated by one great, overshadowing factor: the struggle for world communism. We have a philosophy of life that no amount of money could buy. We have a cause to fight for, a definite purpose in life. We subordinate our petty personal selves to a great movement of humanity; and if our personal lives seem hard or our egos appear to suffer through subordination to the party, then we are adequately compensated by the thought that each of us, in his small way, is contributing to something new and true and better for humankind.
There is one thing which I am indeed earnest about, and that is the communist cause. It is my life, my business, my religion, my hobby, my sweetheart, my wife, my mistress, my bread, and meat. I work at it in the daytime and dream of is at night. Its hold on me grows, not lessons, as time goes on; therefore, I cannot carry on a friendship, a love affair, or even a conversation without relating it to this force which both drives and guides my life. I evaluate people, looks, ideas, and actions according to how they affect the communist cause. I’ve already been in jail because my ideals, and if necessary, I’m ready to face a firing squad.” 1
Speaking of facing a firing squad, as we consider how much we love the church, it is my responsibility to remind all of us about the real nature of what Jesus did for us.
Prior to flying to Florida, Gail and I happened to catch the Clint Eastwood movie, In the Line of Fire, in which he plays Frank Horrigan, a Secret Service agent, who ends up taking a bullet for the President of the United States. That’s similar to what Jesus did for us.
A few days ago, some of us saw the story of how former Cleveland Brown Peyton Hillis put his life on the line to save his children from drowning in the ocean and almost drowned himself. That too is similar to what Jesus did for us.
Both of those stories remind us of what Paul wrote in Romans 5:7: “Perhaps for a good man, someone would dare to die.”
But the next verse says, “But God demonstrated His own love towards us, in that while we were yet SINNERS, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
Jesus “took the bullet” for us on the cross, not because we were noble people or innocent people, but He died for us while we were sinners rebelling against Him.
That would be like the soldier laying down his life to save the very enemy who was trying to kill him! It would be like a policeman willing to die for the protester who was spitting in his face and burning the American flag. That is what Jesus did for us.
It was “while we were yet sinners” that Christ died for us. If we don’t understand that, then we don’t really understand our sin or God’s grace. God did not give Jesus for us because we were so good and we deserved it; He gave Jesus for us while we were rebelling against Him in sin. God Himself provided the sacrificial gift which would pay for our sins and make us right with Him.
The Christian message is not a list of things that you and I can do for God. The Christian message is what God, in Christ, has done for us!
He is the Savior of His body, the church. He gave up His life for us, to make us holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present us to Himself without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. We will be holy and without fault. (Ephesians 5 selected).
How should we then respond? By giving ourselves to Him, through the Church that we love.
1 Billy Graham, Call to Commitment, [Billy Graham Evangelistic Association], pp. 1-2, cited in Teacher’s Manual for the Ten Basic Steps Toward Christian Maturity [Campus Crusade for Christ], p. 389).
https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-3-financial-faithfulness-can-god-trust-you-selected-scriptures