Revelation 1. Healthy Church - understanding the Church

Introduction.

In the next hundred days I want us to look at what it means to be a healthy Church.  There is a shed load of international, evidence-based research out there, that has shown that a number of health  “Quality Characteristics” are there whenever a Church is healthy and growing.  Just as there are  indicators like blood-pressure, BMI, heart rate, appetite, bowel habit (am I allowed to talk about that in Church?), mood, sleep patterns, that can show how healthy our bodies are, so there are signs of a healthy church.  Now the Quality Characteristics involve an adjective as well as a noun. We all have blood pressure – but some of us have high, some of us have low, and some of us have blood pressure in the middle range. 

These eight QC's are
1. Empowering leadership
2. Gift-based ministry
3. Passionate Spirituality
4. Effective Structures
5. Inspiring worship
6. Holistic small-groups
7. Need-oriented mission
8. Loving relationships

Being a healthy Church is not about being Baptist or Pentecostal; it's not about having Reformed or Holiness theology; it's about the way in which our beliefs are worked out, rather than just about what we believe.  And that means that, in the end, it's about how you and I work out our belief, in the way we as individuals relate to our church. 

But that is just an introduction.  I want us to begin at the beginning, with Jesus, to answer some fundamental questions about Jesus and his church before looking at the vital signs in detail.  So for the next few weeks, we are going to look at the first three chapters of the book of Revelation, where the Lord Jesus has some important things to say to seven local churches.  As we look at these chapters, I hope you will begin to spot the QC's, the signs of health, coming up in the passage. 


Revelation 1

Fifty or sixty  years after Jesus' earthly life, the Church was under threat. From the earliest days, if there was a riot because of the Christian message, local governors and councils would round up believers even though they had not started the riot. Emperor Domitian had recently requested to be addressed as “Lord and God” demanding absolute allegiance.   John, possibly the last remaining of Jesus' Twelve, a leader in Ephesus who was looked to by churches in the Western part of what we now call Turkey, was shipped offshore to Patmos, a wee island in the Aegean.  Whether he is on his own, or whether one or two of the locals began to join him, John was worshipping in the power of the Holy Spirit one Sunday (v 9f), when he had this “Revelation” – this unveiling, this look behind the scenes...  It's a revelation from Jesus.  It starts with God, and with Jesus Christ who is God the Son.  And it is addressed to the people of God – to Church and Churches.  The “Seven Churches” are real churches in real places, but John loves “Sevens” and the “Seven” represent the bigger reality: the Church in every place and time.  They and every other local church – are representatives and expressions of that bigger spiritual reality. 

Theologian Emil Brunner famously said “The Church exists by mission as a fire

Photo by G Lilly

does by burning” And people concerned with mission love that quote. Was he right?   Our wee dog loves to chase shadows.  It can be very irritating.  We have never had a dog that even noticed shadows; but Islay sees them; she chases them; she barks at them.  Sometimes we tell her to shut up.  And sometimes we try to reason with her: to explain to her, “Look,they are only shadows; they don't really exist; they are your pointed ears or my fingers...”    Is the church just something like a  shadow, that only exists because people engage in certain activities? Is it simply a collective noun, the code for a bunch of Christians? Is it simply the word we use for the people or organisation tasked with telling other people about Jesus?  Do we “do Church” when we come together? Do we “form a Church” when we band together?

Or does the Church exist anyway, and extend itself around us?  Is there something called “The Church” that God has called into being, that exists with or without human co-operation?  Does the Church really exist? That's an important question and I believe the answer is “Yes!”

When God took a lump of clay and said “let us make man in our own image”, then made mankind, and went to walk in the garden with the people he had made, he has always had “his people”.  It was God's plan that all people should be “The people of God.”  Rebellion broke that relationship and the history of the human race has been the story of consequences and of redemption – God doing what needed to be done so that there would be “The people of God.”  At the beginning of time, right through beyond the end of time, there is “The people of God.”

John certainly believed in the existence of the Church – the people of God.  The Church flows from and are formed by the historic events of the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus.  (v. 5: To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, 6 and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father – to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.)  and the Church is important enough that each local expression has its personal angel (v 20)

So when we talk about Church Health, we are talking about something close to God's heart. We are talking about expressing in the local situation, the very life of god himself; we are not talking about a “Club” for people who are interested in religion or an organisation that is there to get a job done or to maintain its own existence.  We are  talking about something that is going to persist into eternity. 

God, who speaks to this Church and these Churches, is the “Alpha and Omega” (first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, A to Z) who was and is and is to come – the “Yahweh” of the old Testament who also says “I am who I am and will be who I will be”.  (v. 8; cf Ex 3. 15).

So John sees Jesus. And Jesus looks like like a son of man.  The expression comes from Daniel, and tells us that Jesus is a supernatural being, who looks like a man.  He is wearing a  robe reaching down to his feet and his belt is golden.  These are the garments of the high Priest.  The hair on his head is white like wool, as white as snow.  He looks like the “Ancient of Days (Daniel 7. 9). John recognises that he is one with the Father.   His eyes are like blazing fire: nothing escapes his notice, and when he sees evil he judges it.

His feet like bronze glowing in the furnace.  His voice is like the sound of many

Picture by John Walker. In Public Domain

waters rushing.   The African name for the largest waterfall in the world, Victoria falls is Mosi-oa-Tunya – the smoke that thunders – and even our little Scottish waterfalls like those that rush through the Hermitage at Dunkeld, make quite a racket.  John can tell by looking at him that when he  speaks his words are powerful and make a difference, so much that John can see that like a two edged sword coming from his mouth.  His face shines like the noonday sun.  None of the weakness that John had seen when Jesus befriended him and his brother, all these years ago.  He is dreadful and awesome and beautiful. 

No wonder John “fell at his feet as though dead.”   That is the response we should make, when we encounter the Living God.  There's a song that says, “Surrounded by your glory, what will I feel?  Will I dance for you Jesus,  or in awe of you be still?  Will I stand in your presence, or before your feet will I fall?  Will I sing “hallelujah”? Will I be able to speak at all?  I can only imagine.”  Our response as individuals, to the splendour of the King, will surely be one of awe, wonder and worship.

Jesus is alive – more fully and wonderfully alive than anyone else John has ever seen.  And he is alive despite having been dead.  He is the Victor.  He holds the key of death and the world of the dead (a Greek term) and therefore even death holds no terror for his people.  He says to John, “Don't be afraid.  Whatever our circumstances – even in difficult personal circumstances, and even when following Jesus and witnessing is costly, we can be unafraid! Because Jesus is the Victor.

And this Jesus is there, among the seven lampstands (v 13), holding the seven stars (Which represent the angels of the seven churches, v. 16).  He has the Church's world, the church's circumstances, and the church's very life in his hands.  He is present, he cares for it.  He has access to all the resources the Church needs.  His values and methods will show us the way forward; his message is our message, his Spirit is our power. 

You can't understand the Local Church or the universal Church apart from Jesus.  And you can't fully understand Jesus apart from the church – because what Jesus is doing today (in the days until he returns to bring the triumph of his Kingdom) he is doing through the Church, and through local churches.

So, when we think about “Healthy Church” we are not simply doing some sort of tick-box analysis to apply sound business principles to the local Church.  Rather we are seeking to be the best we can be, so that the life of this risen Jesus can be seen through the Local Church.  And we are seeking to put ourselves in the place where we can draw upon the resources and power and energy and authority of the Risen Christ, letting him move us by the power of his Spirit.  Think of a cart with square wheels.  It's hard work to push it even a few feet along the road, if it will move at all!  But imagine the saem card, with round wheels and a mast and a sail; a kind of land-yacht.  We need the wind of the Spirit to blow and fill our sails... without the wind of the spirit, the best we can hope for is to push the cart around.  But in order for the wind of the Spirit to move us effectively, we need to do something about those square wheels.  Healthy church is about dealing with the square wheels in our thinking and action, so that we can catch the wind of the Spirit and be the wonderful church Jesus wants us to be.

© Gilmour Lilly September  2015