4 EASTER 06 B

One balmy evening in the South Pacific, a Navy ship spied smoke coming from one of three huts on an uncharted island. Upon arriving at the shore, the crew was met by a shipwreck survivor. He said, “I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve been alone on this island for more than five years.”

The captain replied, “If you’re all alone, why do I see three huts?” The survivor answered, “Well, I live in one and go to church in another.” “What about the third hut?” asked the captain. “That’s where I used to go to church.” It is amazing how people view the church and what they think church is all about.

Charles Colson whom some of you may remember of Watergate fame and who later became a Christian and has continued to serve the Lord since his conversion, told one time of being in Japan with his wife Patty. They were taken to what they were told was the fastest growing church in the world.

After winding through crowded streets, they turned onto a beautiful tree-lined drive leading to imposing black gates marking the entrance to the headquarters of the PLKyodan or the Perfect Liberty Church. Since only members of this Buddhist sect could be admitted, they were content to stay outside and look through the gates.

Rich green lawns stretched as far as the eye could see, blending into a distant, sprawling golf course. From the front gates the drive meandered toward an elegant white mansion surrounded by artistically sculptured Japanese gardens.

Within the gates was a town of some three thousand residents. Perfect Liberty Church boasted the most complete recreational facilities in all of Japan, along with such landscape delights as artificial lakes, cherry trees and waterfalls.

While the Colsons gazed at the grandeur of the complex, called “paradise” by its founders, their host explained the simple theology of the Perfect Liberty Church: “We are all children of God who find the way to eternal peace and welfare by freely exercising our individuality. Since “all of life is art,” one can find free creative expression in prayer, golf, or group sex. The important thing is total freedom for individual expression, which results in complete joy and fulfillment. Perfect liberty and harmony. No wonder it’s the fastest growing religion in Japan.

Contrast that to some churches and religious TV shows today, who promise perfect peace, joy, happiness, and prosperity. God wants no one to be deprived, they say. Just ask. Ask and you will receive in abundance. Yes, abundance, abundance, abundance. In many ways these Christian churches and institutions have become Christianized PLKyodan Buddhism.

Ask people what they look for in a church and the number one response is “fellowship.” Other answers range from “good sermons” to “the music program” to “good programs for children and youth” to “it makes you feel good.” People flit around in search of what suits their taste at the moment.

It is what some have called the “McChurch mentality.” Today it might be McDonald’s for a Big Mac, tomorrow it might be Burger King for a Whopper, the next day Chick-Fil-A for a delicious chicken sandwich. Thus, the church becomes just another commodity. People change congregations and preachers and even denominations as readily as they change banks or grocery stores. Once we get them into church things don’t always get better. American Episcopalians have the lowest rate of worship attendance of any Christian denomination, a Gallup poll recently reported. Episcopalians come third from last on the table of weekly attendance with less than one in three attending services, beating only Jews and those who have no religion.

Polls also tell us what these consumers are seeking. According to a USA Today survey, of the 56 percent of Americans who attend church, 45 percent do so because “it’s good for you;” 26 percent cited “peace of mind and spiritual well-being.” Specific doctrines did not seem important, the pollster reported. Most appeared to be looking for that inner and more subjective kind of payoff from religion.

Other indicators point in the same direction. According to a recent survey the books selling in Christian bookstores are the “touchy-feely” ones that focus on self-esteem, self-fulfillment, and self-analysis while “devotionals, missionary biographies, and apologetics gather dust on the shelves. So do books encouraging self-sacrifice.

Again, Chuck Colson tells of a time that he and his wife were accompanied to church by a couple they had tried to influence for Christ. On the way, the woman said, “Oh, I hope the pastor will cheer me up today. I’m so depressed. I found a dead bird at the back door this morning.”

Another long-time acquaintance told how he was now attending a Unity church. “Why?” Colson asked. “You’re a Christian, and this is a cult.” “Really?” the man said looking surprised. “Of course it is,” Colson said, “They don’t believe in the Resurrection or even in one true God.” “But,” replied the man, “my wife and I love it. We always come away feeling better.”

What many are looking for is a spiritual social club, an institution that offers friendly relationships but certainly does not influence how people live or what they believe. Whenever a church does assert a historically orthodox position, one that might in some way restrict an individual’s doing whatever he or she chooses, the church is accused of being “out of touch,” as if its beliefs are to be determined by majority vote or market surveys.

Some view the church as a giant support group conducting what J.I. Packer calls “Hot Tub Religion,” which embraces anything that makes us feel better.

We look at our first reading today from Acts and we see a whole different image of the Church. They truly cared for one another. So much so that they were willing to sell all they had and give it to the apostles so that other members of their church who were in poverty would have enough to live on. It seemed that because the early church was so full of the love of Jesus and committed to spreading the gospel to others while living it amongst themselves that they became self-sacrificing.

While Jesus physically laid down his life for his sheep or his followers, past, present and future, the early church symbolically laid down their lives for others by placing the needs of others above their own needs.

Another aspect of the early church which is conspicuously absent from many churches today is their focus on holiness. Much emphasis was placed on living holy lives, not only as a testimony to the world but because it was the right thing to do. They also believed that because they were God’s children by adoption through Jesus Christ, and because God is holy, they should live holy lives.

John said in his epistle, which we read today, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called the children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.”

Do you notice it doesn’t say just keep sinning in any way you have been sinning until God takes that desire away from you? It says we take the initiative to stop doing that which is sin in the eyes of God.

If you are sleeping with someone outside of wedlock, stop doing it, even though you may not feel like stopping. If you are in the habit of gossiping, stop doing it even though you may not feel like it. If you are hating another person, stop doing it. If you are punishing your spouse by withholding your attention or affection, stop that and start loving them with the love of Jesus. Maybe you are always grumbling and complaining about something or someone. Perhaps you might seek to become, like Barnabas in our first lesson, a “son or daughter of encouragement.”

Before a person becomes a Christian by accepting Christ into their lives, our nature is totally given over to selfish sin. When we become a Christian we receive what the Bible calls, “a new nature.” That change in nature means that we no longer have to have sin be our master, our ruler. That does not mean that sin is not trying to win us back to slavery. It is. But we are no longer serving sin if we are seeking to grow closer to Jesus and remain close to him. We experience the true perfect liberty that the Japanese church I mentioned is seeking.

When John says, “No one who abides in him sins,” it doesn’t mean that you and I won’t sin. The Greek word here means to continually abide in sin, to be given over to sin completely.

However, the closer we are to Jesus and his righteousness, the less we will sin. No one who is a slave to sin has really seen or known Jesus.

The devil would like nothing more than to enslave us again to sin. When that happens we inevitably begin to withdraw from each other and from Christ. Satan wants to divide us from each other. Jesus, however, has come to unite us in one purpose and fellowship. That purpose is to unite ourselves so close to Him that we will be united with one another and thus, empowered to bring others to a living relationship with our Lord.

I like what C. S. Lewis once said, “I didn’t go to Christianity to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port wine would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly do not recommend Christianity.”

The question I want to leave you with today is this, “Are you looking for a hot tub, feel-good religion?” If you are I’m afraid you aren’t going to find it here. Oh, that doesn’t mean that you won’t feel good here, but that feeling comes from a proper understanding of the Church and a relationship with Jesus. If you are looking for a place where the truth of the gospel is proclaimed, and you are challenged to live a righteous life and to grow spiritually, then you have come to the right place.

The good shepherd, Jesus, is here. He is inviting anyone who does not have a relationship with him to invite him into their lives. He is encouraging those who know him as their good shepherd to seek him and follow him.