His Generation

Part 4. Finishing God’s Work

November 20, 2007

Bt Ron and Karen Schwartz

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Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work (John 4:34)

It’s an interesting thought, is it not?  That is, finishing the work of God, especially since God supposedly finished His work on the sixth day.  What work was left unfinished, and how did Jesus finish it?

John 4:7-10 NIV

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?"  8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." 

Contrary to what most pastors teach, Jesus lived in the moment.  As He went through the normal course of his life, He watched for the opportunities that the Holy Spirit created and then He would act.  Essentially, the Holy Spirit began the work by creating the encounter, and then He would finish it.  Jesus did not view these encounters as chance or coincidence but as divine appointments.  He was always alert, always watching, and always ready to be about the Father’s business.  The Disciples of Christ learned to see the world as Jesus did, and when Jesus left, they also endeavored to finish God’s work.

Acts 3

Acts 3:1-9 NIV

1 One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer — at three in the afternoon. 2 Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. 4 Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, "Look at us!" 5 So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.

6 Then Peter said, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." 7 Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong. 8 He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God.

It is interesting that Peter and John did not wait for the beggar to ask for healing.  When he asked them for money, they saw it as a divine encounter and an opportunity for God to be glorified.  They did not pray, “If it be Your will, let this man be healed.”  No, they believed it was so, prayed for his healing, and let the Holy Spirit sort it out.  The Holy Spirit began the work by creating the opportunity.  They simply finished the work.

Let’s consider the crippled beggar for a moment.  His only hope each week was to receive enough to sustain him for another week.  The religious leaders who went in and out of the temple were too focused on their own ministries to worry about the beggar, but then they did not really possess what the beggar needed.  They had no means of changing his state.  They could only meet his needs for another week.

In many respects, the contemporary church is just like the crippled beggar lying at the temple’s gate.  Christians today look to their weekly meetings, to Christian broadcasts, and to other forms of media to get them through each week.  They talk about how hard life is and how they can barely hang on.  They do not resemble in the least bit the disciples of His generation.  They struggle just to make it through each week – they struggle, that is, in a nation of unprecedented religious freedom.  How pathetic is that?  What do you suppose would happen if we lost our religious freedom, or worse yet, if Christianity were outlawed?  Well, the spiritually crippled Christians would probably die right along with the contemporary church.

The census identifies 305,000 registered churches in the United States alone.  When you add to that number the unincorporated and other small churches that have no facility, the number doubles.  That does not even begin to take into consideration the house churches and mobile churches.  So if we made a conservative estimate to say that there are at least 600,000 churches in the U.S., we would be safe (some sources put the number well over a million).  That would mean that there are about 12,000 churches per state.  The state we live in has 560 towns.  This would give each town 21 churches.   But even if we go by the original census of 305,000 churches that would mean there is an average of 6,100 churches per state and, in the case of Michigan, 11 churches per town.   With an average of 89 members per church, this would mean there were an average 979 church members for each Michigan town.

Now for the quandary:

How is it that 120 disciples of Christ could evangelize an empire during a time of some of the most severe persecution and oppression Christianity ever faced, but today with 979 church members per town, or 27,145,000 in the U.S. (305,000 churches x 89 members), Christianity cannot even influence morality in this nation through elections?  Why is it that 27.1 million professing Christians cannot pray back the flood of decadence and depravity that is overtaking the U.S.?  There is over 226,000 times the number of original followers of Christ (professing) in this nation alone.  Why is it that 27 million Christians cannot evangelize their own nation during a time of unprecedented religious freedom?  The answer is simple: churches are not filled with the disciples of Jesus Christ but with lame beggars who lie at the gate waiting for someone to give them just enough to get them through another week.

The beggar lying at the temple’s gate was the polar opposite of the disciples of His generation.  Not only was he incapable of helping others but he was also incapable of helping himself.  Unlike the disciples who were as rivers of living water that spilt out on all with whom they came into contact, the beggar lived from week to week on the meager crumbs of the religious leaders who passed by him on their way each day to the temple.

The beggar thought he needed to be sustained from week to week, so that is all for which he asked.  He had no other expectations.  This also describes the state of most contemporary Christians.  Most Christians look forward to church each week, not to bring life, but to sustain it.  They are spiritually carried in as beggars and wait in anticipation for the pastors to spread their crumbs among them.  They are not changed but merely pacified and consoled for another week.  Their state has not improved.  They simply feel better about themselves.

Each week we receive notes from Christian leaders who look to justify their own incompetence and disgrace by trying to hide and rationalize away the spiritual condition of their church.  They invariably ask us: “What about all the good that the church is doing?”

Okay, what about the good things: after-school social programs for young people, financial seminars, mom’s day out and daycare.  We could consider the premarital and newlywed classes or the programs for singles and the “empty nesters.”  But even the meager monies that go toward missions or food pantries are simply to ease their consciences.  Most churches have no real interest there.  Most churches are surrounded by communities of people that the church members do not know.  They are within blocks of the poor about whom the church does not care.  They are so concerned about finding what they need to get them through another week that they do not care about anyone else, much less the poor and the lost.

These social events that churches sponsor are only to make them feel like they are doing something.  All they actually accomplish is to demonstrate that today’s church has no roots in the teachings of Jesus.  They are little better than a Christian social club that serves spiritual crumbs to the spiritually bankrupt.

So, what about the good that the contemporary church is doing?  Is its mission “to preach good tidings unto the meek… to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound?”  If it were, this nation would be transformed.  But even if only 1% of the 27,145,000 church members were true disciples of Christ, it would still mean that there are a quarter of a million disciples in our nation alone.

What, then, is wrong?  Why can’t churches produce anything but crippled beggars?  The answer is found there in Acts 3:  you simply cannot give what you do not possess.

Why?

First of all, like a frog in water gradually being heated to boiling, over time we have learned to lower our expectations.  The more that churches sink into apathy and sin, the more unlikely they will produce and know men like Peter or John or other disciples from His generation.  The longer churches are without the type of believers as those in the First Century, the more that apathy and sin becomes the norm.  Eventually, our expectations are lowered to the point where spiritually crippled beggars are the norm, and we create doctrine to explain just why it is that way.  Then, like the religious leaders during the days of Christ, we reject, rebuke, and punish those who act like disciples of Christ and expect it of others.

Secondly, the spiritual beggars that fill our churches are asking for the wrong thing: enough sustenance to get them through another week.  Their expectations are too low.  They are look for crumbs instead of transformation.   They go to church, week in and week out, expecting only enough to get them through to the next week.  What they need is the same as the crippled beggar: spiritual healing and spiritual transformation.  What they need is a change in state, not loose change.  But pastors have set such low expectations for their members because they need the beggars to return to their gates week after week in order to give their jobs relevance.

Finally, like the beggar at the gate, they are asking the wrong people.  They have positioned themselves near religious leaders and religious places hoping for just a little of what the religious leaders have.  And religious leaders are quick to meet these expectations by giving them just enough to get them through another week so they will be back for more the week following.  But the answer for their needs cannot be found in a place of worship or in its religious leaders.  It is found in Christ and the power of God.  Unless you seek Him, you will never be anything but a beggar.

The story in Acts 3 does not end with the crippled beggar being healed.  In chapter 4, we find…

Acts 4:1-3 NIV

1 The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. 2 They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. 3 They seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day.

Almost incomprehensible is the fact that even though these religious leaders knew that God had healed the beggar, they simply did not care.  They did not care that the God of the universe, whom they claimed to serve, just intervened in their midst.  They stood on their established theology and dogma and would not even let God get in their way.  The only thing they cared about was how the miracle affected them.  Religious leaders are no different today.  They do not care about how God moves, what He does or has to say today.  Nothing is going to change the way they “play” church or what they believe.

“The Teen Center”

“The Teen Center was like a coffee house in a store front building in the downtown area of a small community.  It was supposed to be a sort of teen hangout, complete with music, tables and chairs, a ping-pong table, free pop and some treats.  The Pastoral Association of that town decided to ask two teens from their churches to go be present when it opened to witness to the young people who came.

I was one of the two young teens asked to frequent the center.  I had been recently saved and was excited about the Lord.  I had also spent a great deal of time reading the words of Jesus and the Acts of the Apostles of Christ.  Because of my simplistic understanding of the New Testament, I simply believed.

I prayed each time before I went that God would provide me with an opportunity to witness.  I then asked that God would ‘root their feet to the ground so that they could not leave.’  I asked God to convict them when I talked to them, and I simply believed He would.  God did all that and more.  Many young people began to give their lives to God, and they, too, began witnessing there as well as on the streets.  These young people weren’t just saved, they were transformed, and so were their families.  At the same time, healings and other miracles taking place.  It was a wonderful and exciting time.  Word of what was happening quickly spread to neighboring communities.  Soon youths were coming from far away communities.  It was apparent that God was doing something miraculous.  The community was on the verge of revival.  And it was then that all the problems began.

I and some other Christian friends met almost nightly with these new Christians as well as taking them witnessing.  I would not, on the other hand, tell them where to go to church.  Since the youths were being saved, out witnessing about Christ, experiencing for themselves the power of God, and the communities around the Teen Center was beginning to feel the transformation of revival, I was naïve enough to believe that the local pastors would be happy.  This was not the case. 

I received a call from one pastor telling me that other pastors of the Pastoral Association wanted to meet with me at the Teen Center that evening, and that they were not happy that the newly saved teens were not being divided up among their churches.  I was horrified.  I couldn’t believe that they wanted to treat the newly saved as so much merchandise.  Needless to say, I, as a young teen, was both scared and intimidated.  I felt like Peter being dragged before the Jewish leaders.

As I entered the Teen Center that afternoon, the pastors were all seated quietly around a table.  I sat contritely in the one empty chair among them.  They began to interrogate and scold me for not sending them the youths to be divided up among their churches.  But true to form, it wasn’t long before they were so busy arguing over their doctrines that they forgot about me.  I eventually left the table and began to witness to the young people who had come in.  At the time, I was only sixteen, and I had just discovered what really motivated the Christian leaders whom I held in such high esteem.

It was a sad day for me.  I learned that they really didn’t care about what God was doing or even wanted.  They only wanted what was best for them.  I learned that they really didn’t care about what God wanted for His newly saved.  Their only motivation was to get their fair share of the new converts.  I learned that their high regard for their doctrine was more important than the lost entering in through the doors.  As they fought amongst themselves, they were not aware nor did they even care that people were being saved around them.

It was difficult for me to accept the fact that they simply could not understand what was happening.  It was not man-made but a sovereign act of God.  Who were they to set conditions?  Who were they to make rules for what God should do?  Why couldn’t they just rejoice in the fact that God was visiting their community?  I was shocked to realize the true motivation of these men.  They were not the benevolent men who characterized a model of Christian stature.  They were greedy and competitive, and they were completely blinded to what God was doing.   I thoroughly believe that what had began in the Teen Center would have eventually extended outward until it had visited each of the area churches and brought revival to each.  However, their disrespect for God stopped what might have been a great move of the Holy Spirit.

Not long after that meeting, the Teen Center was closed.  The Pastoral Association closed the doors because there was no direct profit to them.  I cannot express how the realization of the true nature of these men saddened me.  The building still stands but has never again been used for the glory of God.”  - Ron Schwartz, 1974

Were these pastors an anomaly, or are they the quintessential epitome of Christian leaders everywhere?  Does anyone really believe that anything has changed since 1974?  Are not most pastors as competitive as ever?

Over the course of many years and many such dealings with other pastors and leaders, we have learned that, in general, most pastors (though they may be benevolent men) are more motivated by “self” than they are by the Spirit.  And you can see that the motivation for “self” is then reflected in their congregations.  In general, the motivation of Christian leaders is to grow their ministries and their churches.  They measure their effectiveness by the size of their churches and the number of people they directly influence.

Consider all the remodeling and the building of newer and better churches, or the church spending on newer and better multimedia systems, pews, parking lots, or other wasted expenses, all in the name of drawing people or giving a comfortable and exciting experience.  The people these improvements are meant to draw are not the lost sinners of the community but religious people from other churches who are shopping for the best deal.  Churches and other Christian organizations in the U.S. pull in around $100 billion per year.  It is enough to virtually eliminate poverty, but instead it is wasted on buildings, programs, and pastoral staffs.  What a disgrace.  What will our Savior have to say about it upon His return?  Let’s learn from history, because it has once again repeated itself.

In AD 337, Constantine declared that Rome would allow the worship of any religion.  Compared to the prior centuries, it was a time of unprecedented religious freedom.  What happened to Christianity?  Christianity, now recognized as a legitimate religion, began to relax in its newfound popularity.  Instead of needing to battle the powers of darkness any longer, Christianity made peace.  They invited the worshippers of Diana by convincing them that she was really Mary.  They convinced the worshippers of the stars and nature to join them because these were in reality the saints and angels.  As a result, the church turned from away from the leading of the Holy Spirit to become driven by the culture of that era.

History has now repeated itself with contemporary churches basking in their religious freedom and making peace with the enemy.  Instead of winning and transforming the lost, they are simply invited in “as is.”  And to make them feel comfortable, the church has adopted the culture of this era.  It is the re-building of Catholicism all over again.  Instead of adding the gods of Mary, the saints, and priests, the contemporary church is adding the gods of wealth, affluence, and pastors/ministries in place of priests.  How do you suppose Protestant reformers could see that the formation of the Catholic church was not God’s will, but they fail to see that the infusion of the unsaved (today’s pagans) into today’s church matters?  They even encourage it.

Conclusion

Don’t bother to write us and admonish us to focus on the “good” that churches are doing.  It really does fall on deaf ears.  The good that contemporary churches are doing is a social good, and the disciples it produces are crippled beggars who live on their weekly fix – 27,145,000 of them to be exact!

You ask, “Aren’t they doing any good?”  And we ask, “Relative to what?”  Relative to doing nothing?  Or relative to the teaching of Jesus Christ and the standards His disciples set?  Sure churches are doing good, but then so is the federal government.  Even a satanist can do “good,” but is benevolent behavior the product of the church or a moral society?  The type of social good that churches are doing is a reflection of the values of our culture and not the result of the operation of the Spirit of God in its midst.  Just what is the difference between the good that churches are doing and the good that of other benevolent social organizations like Masons, Kiwanis, Jaycees, Moose and Elks, Big Brothers and Sisters, Neighborhood Watch, Boy Scouts, etc.

How can we place churches in this list?  Because it is the only way to measure their “good.”  You cannot measure them according to the teaching of Christ or the actions of the disciples.  You cannot measure churches by the spiritual influence they have on the “religious free” nations.  You cannot measure them by the spiritual transformation of their communities or the spiritual maturity of their members.  All these things are next to nonexistent.  You can only measure the spiritual crumbs they give their members, and the only scale that fits is that which is used to measure the benevolent effectiveness of other social clubs.  As long as benevolence is the measure of “good,” our churches will remain filled with the spiritually bankrupt and the spiritually crippled beggars.

If you really believe that churches are doing good things and are effective, then you stand in the good company of the Laodiceans.  The social scale they used told them that they were “rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.”  The scale Jesus uses told them that they were “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked (Revelation 3:17).”  Which scale are you using?

How do we become transformed from crippled beggars to Disciples of Christ?

To have the spiritual strength of a disciple, you need to eat their spiritual food.  Jesus taught, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.”  You don’t change yourself by trying to change others.  Surrender the notions of “my ministry” and “my church.”  What you consider your ministry and your church are usually little more than the fictitious inventions of your own ego.  If you can define “your ministry,” then it is probably only that: “your” ministry.  Enjoy it while you can!  It is, however, impossible to define the Holy Spirit.  Jesus said, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit (John 3:8).”

To eat the meat of Jesus means to “finish his [the Father’s] work.”  This requires that you be brave and to believe.  You must be brave enough to step out of your comfort zone and finish the work the Holy Spirit begins around you.  When a woman came to a well near where Jesus sat, He preached to her the message of the Kingdom of God. The Holy Spirit began the work by drawing her to the well and creating the encounter.  Christ finished what the Holy Spirit began by acting on God’s behalf.  We also must see these chance encounters as Jesus and His disciples did: not as a coincidence, but as divine appointment.  When Peter and John came across a crippled beggar at the temple, they saw it as the divine appointment God meant it to be.  The Holy Ghost began the work, so they finished it!  To Peter and John, meeting the crippled beggar wasn’t about gaining another follower or expanding the size of their church.  It was about allowing a life to be forever transformed by the power of God.  It is those times when we partner with the Holy Spirit that we grow, that we become spiritually strong, that we eat of the meat of the Holy Spirit.  As we work with the Holy Spirit to see lives transformed, we become the rivers of living water that the scriptures describe.  So, if you are spiritually depleted, do not look for a preacher to toss you his crumbs.  Look around for the encounters that the Holy Spirit has created and complete the work.

Sadly though, most Christians do not see divine encounters, they only see coincidences, and those who do recognize a divine encounter unusually do not act upon it.  It is because they have been so ingrained with the idea that they are not qualified to minister to others, it’s not their job, and neither do they have the authority to act, that the divine encounter simply slips away.  God described today’s Christian culture when He said, “I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none (Ezekiel 22:30),” and “Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.  And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor (Isaiah 59:15-16).”   A chance encounter at a store or school may look like someone asking for directions or other non-eternal information.  Recognize them to be like the beggar at the temple: their expectations are too low.  They may want to talk about hurting, children, or work.  Raise their expectation with the transformational power of God, and finish the work the Holy Spirit began.

If you are NOT a Christian leader or pastor, then be happy because you are in a far better position to do God’s work than they.  Contemporary churches are not designed for strong, mature Christians.  They are not designed for those who want to do the will of God.  They are designed for the socially active and for the spiritually effeminate, or “sissified,” believers.

If you try to believe, to do the will of Him who sent you, or to finish His work in contemporary churches, you will collide with the interests of their leaders because what they are doing is not the work of the Father.

Contemporary churches are designed for the Adams and Eves who want to hide from God.  These people can go there and blend in with the rest of the spiritual cripples, and they can feel good about themselves because no one else is the better.   More and more contemporary churches are being constructed all the time and beckon to the spiritual warrior to “come in.”  They say, “Just take a break, lay down your sword, and relax, because you’ve been working way too hard.  You must be exhausted.  After all, doesn’t everyone need a break now and then?”

Broaden your horizons and know that you are far more likely to find God at work outside of the contemporary church than inside.  Do not try to act like Christian leaders by creating yet another ministry or church.  Be like Jesus and the disciples: find the individual spiritually crippled beggars who do not necessary know what they need.  Above all, watch what the Holy Spirit is doing around you, and believe!