The Almost Church

 Last Sunday’s sermon was preached by Pastor Harry with the title “The Almost

Church” (Colossians 3:23-24; Romans 1:14-17; Malachi 3:6-10). The sermon and the

whole service can be watched on our WIC YouTube Channel.

A church can look like a church and function like a church; but the hearts of its

worshippers are lukewarm or cold, and self-centred instead of Christ-centred. Such a

church is a poor-quality church, instead of being top-quality. It is an “almost church”.

Quality is what unites today’s two subjects: the Reformation (biblical theology) and

stewardship (biblical stewardship).

1. The Reformation. Our church, like all churches with a Protestant profile, belongs to

the great family of churches that started with the Reformation in the 16 th century, over

500 years ago. But it was actually a return to biblical Christianity.

The universal church in Europe at that time was the Roman Catholic Church – but it was

very corrupt. The pope was building St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome; and funds were badly

needed. So the church authorities hit on the idea of selling vouchers (called

“indulgences”) to ordinary people. Catholics believe that baptised people go to a place

called Purgatory after death – where they are made pure and perfect for heaven; and

that inevitably involves suffering. So it’s not a place where you want to spend too much

time. The church started selling these vouchers with the amazing idea that the more

you pay for a voucher, the less time you’ll spend suffering in Purgatory. People were

urged to hand over their modest life savings, in exchange for a worthless piece of

paper.

This was a practice that many found disgusting – including Martin Luther, a young

German Catholic monk and professor of theology at the new university of Wittenberg.

He could see that people were desperate to get to heaven – but they all felt

condemned to undergo more suffering in the life after death; and so they were buying

these useless papers to shorten their time in Purgatory. And Luther himself felt

condemned! He saw no salvation for himself, no matter how many good works he did,

because he realized that he always fell short of God’s law. He had also had a terrible

father, who was never pleased with him – and these two factors made Martin think of

God as being like that as well: expecting too much, and being totally merciless.

But one day, as he prepared his lectures on the Book of Romans, he looked at chapter 1

verse 17 and had a sudden revelation over the phrase “the righteousness of God”.

Luther had always understood this – just like his church did – to mean that God was so

harshly righteous that there was no hope for people, except for further suffering in

Purgatory, or even in hell. But now, all of a sudden, he realized that God’s

righteousness is not something you have to earn or achieve by your good deeds, or by

going to church, and confession, and taking the sacraments, which people also

regarded as good deeds. A person cannot earn his way to heaven! But the Good News

that Luther discovered is that God’s righteousness is a free gift, given to us by God,

when we put our whole faith in Jesus Christ, who made that gift possible when He

cancelled our sins. “The righteous shall live by faith.” Sadly, most people are still trying

to earn their way to heaven by their good deeds.

Martin Luther made his Bible-based interpretations public, by nailing 95 points for

discussion to his local church door on 31 October 1517 – and this date is regarded as

the official start of that greatest of all revivals: the Reformation. It’s all about turning

away from poor-quality theology and practices – turning away from being “almost

Christians” and an “almost church”, to true Christianity and the true Church of God. It’s

not about denominations, but about your heart and mind.

2. Stewardship. In our context, good stewardship means “being a good servant of the

Lord” – because here again we have “almost stewards” and “true stewards”. The Book

of Malachi talks about this – giving God what is second-best, low-quality, instead of our

very best. The Israelites offered poor-quality sacrifices to God: lame, sick, even stolen

animals. Their intermarriage with pagan partners was also poor-quality, and not

pleasing to the Lord. Malachi’s prophecies are about money too: we are robbing God

by not giving Him at least a tenth of what we earn or produce. But remember – it’s not

about giving money as a “good work” and patting yourself on the head for being so

good. It’s simply about giving your whole heart in service to the Lord – which involves

all kinds of stewardship, including money.

November is stewardship month in our church. For several years now, each weekly

church collection in November has gone to help those who are needy. This November

our collections will again be going to help people in need, this time to elderly folks in

Warsaw.

What kind of a Christian are you? An on-fire Christian – or an “almost Christian”? What

kind of a steward (or servant) are you? An on-fire steward – or an “almost steward”?

Your theology – is it biblical theology, or man-made theology: “almost theology”? And

are your sacrifices pleasing to God – or are they “almost sacrifices”? The answers to

these questions will determine whether we are a true church, on fire for the Lord – or

nothing more than an “almost church”. Amen.