I have heard many say they are not interested in Christianity because of either a bad experience at a church or a preconceived notion about churches. Mahatma Gandhi famously said, “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” As a pastor, such statements trouble me. I have been charged to guard the flock of God, to set before them my life as an example, to hold the beautiful truth of God to them, and we together pursue Christ above all.
In that pursuit, Robert Louis Wilken reminds us of who we are. He says,
"The church is not an instrument to achieve any other ends than fellowship with God. It serves society by being unapologetically itself and by bearing witness to the justice that alone makes human community possible, the justice due God. The greatest gift the church can give society is a glimpse, however fleeting, of another city, where the angels keep ‘eternal festival’ before the face of God." (Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God, 210)
Each local congregation is an expression of the hope of God in Jesus Christ. When we do not use the gifts and resources to testify about Christ, we miss our reason for existence. A congregation that has derailed from its purpose must be confronted with the glorious truths of the gospel. Only the good news of God's salvation can set a wandering congregation on the faithful path.
The situation at the church of Corinth in the first century brought an occasion for Paul to confront a church that was not confirming Christ. This church was living in a licentious society. When describing a promiscuous life, it is still appropriate to use the term corinthianize. Amid this dark society, a light of hope shined. The congregation at Corinth were troubled. They were quarrelsome, unloving, confused, unconcerned, weak, immature, immoral, unfaithful, prone to idolatry, had a tendency to be antinomian, un-unified, prideful, disorderly, unsure, but above all they were saints.
Paul begins his letter to this church of issues in this way: To the church of God at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called as saints, with all those in every place who call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord - both their Lord and ours. Later he says, I always thank my God for you because of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in him in every way, in all speech and all knowledge. In this way, the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you...
The testimony about Christ is confirmed among us when we, in every way, fulfill the purpose of our calling. We affirm the truths of God when we live out the reason for our existence. The reason for our existence is to enjoy the benefits of being the recipients of God's amazing grace. Enjoying those benefits means living in the light of his eternal glory with each new day, and in every moment. In the case of the Corinthians, and in our case, God uses what is weak to shame the wise. The grace of God can take any tragedy that we have and turn it into triumph. Grace takes epilogues and turns them into prologues. God's amazing grace through Christ takes our shame and turns it into his glory through forgiveness, through the Cross of God, which rights all our wrongs and sets our crooked paths straight.
God has given us grace that outshines the world. Those who belong to Christ have much work to do to confirm the testimony of Christ. We must work diligently for this purpose. Those outside looking in probably see what seems to them as disfunction. We do them the greatest service when we point them beyond our distractions to behold the beauty of God. We must hold both truths before the world - our incomprehensible Savior who loves, heals and forgives, and our own lives, imperfect, but changed.
The difference between us and the world is we hope in Jesus to receive his cleansing power. We understand grace because we have received grace and right now we are working diligently to confirm what we say by the way we live.