Choose Life
"The Architecture of God"
March 10, 2008
By Ron and Karen Schwartz
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Church development is determined largely by the
vision and objectives of men. They develop according to the goals and
philosophies set by their leaders. But what if… What if God set
the vision? What if God guided its destiny? What would our churches
become if God were in control?
God’s Objective for His
People
Ezekiel 37:1-10
1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the
Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2
He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor
of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, "Son of
man, can these bones live?"
I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone
know."
4 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them,
'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign
LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to
life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and
cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then
you will know that I am the LORD.' "
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there
was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8
I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but
there was no breath in them.
9 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of
man, and say to it, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four
winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.' " 10
So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life
and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
The story of the Valley
of Dry Bones is one of the most relevant Old Testament stories for the age in
which we live. In this passage, a man gifted by
God uses his spiritual gift to assemble “a vast army.” God does
use men, and He can work through their gifts. But we shall also see that
gifted men can take a body only so far. They can never bring it life and
power.
The Noise
Like the man of God in
this story, many gifted men today find themselves in a place of opportunity.
They come across a group of people who, like the “dry
bones,” are searching for spiritual life. They feel as if
they are in a valley of “dry bones.”
They see about them (in people) the evidence of life that once was.
Here in the West it is
not difficult to find groups of Christians who are like “bones
on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.”
Christians everywhere go here and there looking for life. Attend any
contemporary church on any given Sunday and you will hear people talking about
how dry they are. It is this search for spiritual life that is fueling the
vast number of independent churches that are springing up everywhere.
Spiritually gifted men see all the dry bones lying about and simply seize the
opportunity to bring their spiritual gifts to people.
The first thing that
occurs is “a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones
came together, bone to bone.” When new churches develop, it
always causes a noise in the community, and people begin coming together to see.
It is almost always interpreted as “a work of the Lord” – the sign of
God’s blessing and approval from above. More often than not, this
is as far as most churches ever get. They are little more than a bunch of
noise.
The sad commentary for
most Western churches is that most never proceed beyond this point. They
never become anything more than an assembly of dry bones. That was not
God’s objective. It is not the architecture He chose for the human body,
and it is not the architecture He chose for the Church. He is not
interested in church skeletons. God’s original question was: “"Son
of man, can these bones live?” Bringing together a bunch of
dry bones is not what God intended for His people. He wants His people to
live.
The contemporary church
culture has taught our gifted leaders that what God wants is for the bodies to
come together. So the goal of our church leaders is to do just that:
create more and more bigger and bigger churches. Now, we all know
intuitively that the people of God should assemble, so it seems like a good
thing, and it would be if our gifted church leaders would continue on to
maturity. However, it is at the “coming together” point where many of
them stop. Giving deeper spiritual instruction may offend some members and
cause them to leave, thus being counter-productive to “bringing the Body of
Christ together.” Going on to maturity would require them to build up
(mature) the body, which to some dry bones may be too much of a burden.
Going on to maturity may actually seem to tear down the “good work” that
they have already established. But going on is part of the maturation
process that these gifted men must experience. If contemporary churches
would quit emphasizing size and membership, our gifted leaders would not have
such a difficult transition going on to help build up (mature) the church.
One thing to keep in
mind when considering church size is that a human body can only contain a
certain number of bones – no more, no less. Trying to cram more bones
into the body in an effort to produce a larger one would only serve to deform
it. But because gifted men are taught that bigger bodies are what God
wants, they often find themselves inadvertently working against God’s plan.
God’s plan for His church is that every member would function in a significant
capacity, but God’s design has had to take a back seat in the age of large,
super large, and mega-churches. Gifted leaders must come to the
understanding that their preoccupation with church size as the barometer of
God’s approval is delusional. God is only interested in life, and these
bodies will never live if they are deformed.
The Shape
Some of our gifted
leaders are able to get past the numbers game and understand that the body must
be built up. They understand that bringing together dry people will not
produce a Body of Christ that is flowing with living water. These brothers
work together within their groups to build up the body. Through their
efforts, they actually see strength (muscle) and the image of Christ (skin)
begin to take shape.
Many gifted Christian
men are great teachers. They produce much valuable material concerning
Christian living. The problem that most of these great teachers have is
that they believe that their teaching or framework for Christian living is the
answer. They believe that what people need is more great teaching and
mentoring. But teachers have been with the church since the beginning of
the New Testament, and they were with the church through some of its darkest
periods. Good teaching cannot bring life to dry bones. It can cover
them with muscle and flesh. It can cause Christians to take the shape of
New Testament believers, but it cannot raise up a powerful army.
Too often, gifted
leaders stop with building up the “shape” of the Body of Christ. They
become too preoccupied with “shape:” how things look and appear. You
find gifted men in the home church circles who believe that everything can be
solved by meeting in homes. Some of these gifted men believe the answer is
found in their practical teaching of Christian living. Then there are
others who believe that the answer is in “looking” like their view of a New
Testament church. They create apostles and other ministry titles, they try
to manufacture gifts, and they stress authority. They believe that God’s
will is found in making the Body of Christ take the “shape” of the First
Century church. But that is another delusion. God’s will is for
His people to be alive.
The Life
Every now and then, we
stumble across a body that appears to be a group of mature Christians.
Note the word “stumble.” Mature Christians should not be people across
whom you stumble. Mature Christians are people about whom you cannot help
but know. Jesus and His disciples were that way. Jesus was a man
about whom everyone talked. Some people said He was of God and some said
He was of the devil, but no one said he was nothing. However, when we view
the landscape of Western Christianity, we see an army of churches like dead
bodies lying in a valley at varying levels of assembly. Most are nothing
more than skeletons of dry bones. Some actually take the shape of the Body
of Christ, but few are actually alive.
Generally speaking, the
average Christian (even a dead Christian) would describe his church as being
more or less dead. There is usually enough going on in his church to give
him a slim hope for life, but it is still dead. He can easily see that it
is little more than a lifeless carcass lying in the midst of its community for
years on end without ever affecting it. Nevertheless, such a Christian
continues to speak well of his church. The question he should be asking
is, “How can something that is dead give life to its community?” It
can’t. Nevertheless, as a lifeless corpse is where the vast majority of
Western churches end. Even so, most of our gifted leaders march
forward believing that they are doing God’s will and that the dead churches
for which they are responsible are by divine design.
Most gifted leaders
believe that God’s design is for them to have authority over the church.
What they fail to understand is that though they (through their gifts) can bring
bones together and build them up, they cannot give them life. In order for
them to have life, they must turn these bodies over to the Lord. They must
allow Him to take possession of the bodies and breathe life into them.
Paul described this when he wrote the following:
1 Corinthians 3:1-7
1Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere
infants in Christ. 2I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not
yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3You are still
worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not
worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? 4For when one says,
"I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you
not mere men?
5What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants,
through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6I
planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7So
neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes
things grow.
To truly be
effective, gifted Christian men must come to understand that their pursuit of
numbers is destructive to the plan of God, creating spiritually-deformed bodies
that can never know the life of God. They must stop trying to recreate a
New Testament church through their efforts and “ministries” into the shape
of what they believe a church should become. Instead they should embrace
life. They must give the church back to God to receive the breath of life
that can only come from Him.
Quite often,
we see churches torn apart as gifted Christian men fight for control. It
is not that these men are necessarily evil. Each man believes that his
vision for the church is the right one. In reality, it doesn’t matter
who wins because none of those who fight for control can ever give the church
what it really needs: life.
“Choose Life”
Contrary to
the opinions of most church leaders, God is not interested in big churches.
Nor is God interested in the New Testament “look-a-likes” to which the
prophetic and apostolic communities cater. God is interested in life.
The titles of “apostle” and “prophet” that many men take and that mean
so much to them mean nothing to God. It’s little more than a status
symbol to those who delude themselves into believing that holding a title
somehow makes them more effective. Other than those who claim them, such
titles impress very few. It’s like the emperor’s new clothes: the only
people who are fooled are those with the titles and those who desire after the
titles.
Christian
leaders have lost focus on what is important to God and just who exactly is His
enemy. God’s enemy is not those whose doctrinal beliefs are
theologically unsound. God despises the time and energy church leaders
pour into fighting with each other and drawing people to their side.
It’s not that He doesn’t care. He simply hates it!
Paul wrote:
“I
want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of
sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death (Philippians 3:10).”
Consider the gravity of the words, “the fellowship
of sharing in his sufferings.” Now try to draw this mindset into the petty fighting that
goes on among God’s people. Try to imagine that you wake up one morning
and find yourself standing in the midst of a coliseum with a group of other
Christians, lions slowly converging upon you. You know that you are facing
imminent death, about to partake in the fellowship of His [Christ’s]
suffering. Then you suddenly recognize the other Christians around you to
be people from other churches and denominations that espouse drastically
different doctrine than you. How concerned would you be about their
doctrine? How important would it be when you have only minutes to live?
Would you congregate with just the few who most closely believe as you?
With the time you had left, would you try to get as many as possible to come
over to your doctrine, or would you embrace them, realizing that you are all
about to die as brethren? Consider the mindset of Christ. He was
tortured and martyred, and for what? To give you license to fight and
divide up His Body like the soldiers who cast lots for his clothes?
Just as a whip once laid apart (divided) His flesh, Christian leaders are
dividing the Body of Christ.
You have a choice. You can choose the path to numbers and
congregation size. You can choose to play games with many of those in the
prophetic and apostolic circles who waste their time and energy trying to
impress each other with their titles. You can try to act the part of past
great Christians by imitating their styles, or you can choose life!
Choosing life is when you seek after God instead of seeking fulfillment in
ministry, seek the Holy Spirit instead of seeking spiritual gifts, love the
brethren instead of battling over doctrinal beliefs, and preferring others (‘Be
kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one
another (Romans 12:10)’) instead of
fighting to stay on top.
Summary
Most
church leaders are unwilling to give up their control over their churches.
They insist that they are essential elements for the operation of their
churches. Church leaders don’t understand that as long as they retain
control, the people will merely live their Christian lives vicariously though
their pastors rather than becoming alive in the Spirit. As a result, most
churches are merely reflections of their pastors instead of God. They are
little more than assemblies of dry bones or dead bodies left to rot in the sun.
It doesn’t matter how far Christian leaders lead their churches if their
churches never experiences life. Unless life comes to their churches, they
are doomed to become nothing more than piles of dry bones once again. And
some churches experience this in unending cycles. They have mini
“revivals” that bring people together with the promise of life just to be
left to root into dryness again. Over and over it happens because its
leader is unwilling to give up control.
Are
we saying that church leaders are unnecessary? No, we are saying that
church leaders need to understand their limitations and know when to get out of
the way. Church leaders can draw people together, they can instruct people
as to the shape and dynamics of Christian living, but they cannot give them
life. For life to come, they must recognize when the breath of God -
through the Holy Spirit - begins to breathe on people and get out of the way.
Once life enters into them, they have become part of God’s great and vast
army, under the command and leadership of God. Church leaders must then
allow them to operate as God directs. Mentor them? Perhaps, but do
not micro-manage or try to control them, as “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).”
For
a church to become what God intends, pastors must have the same heart as Moses
who said: “Would God that all the LORD's people were prophets, and that the LORD
would put his spirit upon them (Numbers 11:29)!”
This, however, does not appear to be the prayer of most contemporary Christian
leaders in this age of church “pyramid schemes” designed to insure their
place at the top.
When
church leaders attempt to fashion their churches according to a model of what
they believe God wants, they will end up with, at best, poor look-a-likes of
what the Spirit of God wants for them. This is because, like Ezekiel, many
church leaders have heard from God and understand God’s objective for the
people. They understand that God wants to bring “life” to His people.
They err when they assume that they can give that life to their church.
The best they can do is draw a crowd of dry bones together or cause people to
assume the appearance of a New Testament church (i.e., bring flesh onto the
bones), but they can never give life. For them to see God complete His
will in their church, they must do something completely out of character: step
aside and allow Christ to be head of His church.
It
isn’t magic. Just because a pastor is willing to allow Christ to be the
head of the church does not mean that the pew-sitters are just as willing.
Unfortunately, there are pew-sitters out there who do not want anything more and
will fight either passively or vehemently against it. There is nothing you
can do with a group like that. A dead lifeless church – a collection of
dry bones – will never stand up as part of God’s vast army, but it can be a
start. In order to go on any further, a body of believers must first
take the shape of a New Testament church, and that shape includes people
praying, waiting, and worshipping the Lord for as long as it takes for the
Spirit to fall upon them.
At the beginning of this note, we asked the
question, “What if God set the vision? What if God guided its destiny?
What would our churches become if God were in control?” The first church
was architected by God, born when His breath came upon it as “a
rushing mighty wind” bringing life to
“a vast army.”
It began where Ezekiel’s army ended. It began in life. That body of
believers came together with no objectives, goals, or personal philosophical
principles to protect other than waiting on the Lord. Their lack of personal
opinions and objectives allowed God room to establish them according to His
architecture, and God chose life.
If our churches are ever to become what God intends, they must cease to be what
church leaders want. They
must cease to be the architecture of man’s vision and instead become places
where people wait on the Lord.
Amen!
kmsrjs@triton.net (use the same address for MSN Messenger)
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