The Gift of the Church
Do you believe that your church is a gift? Not just the church. Your church. The local assembly of believers that you attend in person. The one with the messy people, the awkward people, the weird people. The one with the pastor you wish was a little more gifted at some things and a little less prone to others. That church. It’s a gift.
Yes, of course, there are bad churches out there—places that have become corrupt with unrepentance or tainted by heresy, or have even been infiltrated by abuse. But the normal, garden-variety congregation, warts and all, is a gift of God to the Christian.
So I’ll ask you again: Do you believe your church is a gift?
For All Eternity
It’s difficult to think that way when we’ve set our minds on the deficiencies of those around us. We might think the preaching should be better or the music more engaging. We might think the people could be more welcoming, more hip, or just more numerous. But when we rehearse in our own minds the faults and failings of the people with whom we share church membership, we practically forget the good news that put us all together in the first place. We might not have picked this family for ourselves, but God did. And his ways are infinitely wiser than ours.
The church is a very peculiar community, isn’t it? As with our blood family, we don’t really get to choose who’s in and who’s out. But unlike all of our blood family, we’ll have to live with our brothers and sisters in the faith for all eternity!
We should probably start figuring out how to do that now.
A Living Apologetic
Colossians 3:11 gives us a portrait of a family based entirely on the blood of Christ. There ought to be no advantage in the church to being of a particular ethnicity or from a particular earthly family, or holding any other social or cultural currency. This is not the way many of our churches conduct themselves, sadly, but in reality, every member of a church is equally a child of God and equally, with every other member, a coheir of the grace of Christ. And this makes the church unlike any other organization or community. Christ has come to call people of every tribe, tongue, race, and nation to share in the goodness of himself and the blessings of his kingdom. And the only thing qualifying sinners for this heavenly citizenship is saving faith. The gift of faith makes the gift of the church vitally real and utterly unique.
Of any other organization and community, people can say, “Well, sure. It makes all the sense in the world that those people would be together.” And of course that makes sense in the world. But the church is a heavenly reality. It is a gift from God. People from all kinds of families, social backgrounds, cultural contexts, political affiliations, and personal experiences—all bought by the blood of Christ, mystically united to him, serving out his mission on earth and, at the same time, seated with him in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6).
And so your church should be a place only explainable by the gospel. People should look at our churches and think, “There must be something to this God thing, to this gospel thing. There’s no other explanation of why those people would get together, much less actually love each other.”
Our churches should be a living apologetic for the strange reality of grace.
Reveling in Truth Together
And in fact, our collective experience of unity—our collective display of unity—is vitally connected to our individual and collective union with Christ. This is what Jesus refers to in his high-priestly prayer, when he says to the Father, “I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (John 17:23).
That last part just slays me. Jesus is saying to the Father that he wants sinners like us to know that the Father loves us just as he loves Jesus. Undeserving people like us are loved by the Father just as the holy Son is loved by the Father. I just can’t get over that.
And the church is the place where we get to revel in that amazing truth, rehearse that truth, and remind each other of that truth. That’s hard to do when we’re expecting everybody to measure up to our preferences and expectations. It’s hard for us to do when we’re expected to measure up to everybody else’s, isn’t it?
Family Made by the Gospel
Today, as you reflect on the gift that, yes, even your church is to you, contemplate this question: how will the world in need of Christ know the gospel is true? By the Holy Spirit, of course (and more on that tomorrow). But also, as Jesus indicates in his prayer, through the oneness of the church. The unity of the church is a testimony to the truth of the gospel.
The church is, in fact, a family made by the gospel. The grace of God has come in and through Jesus to call all kinds of people to be reconciled to God—and to each other—so that we together magnify his glory. In the gospel, strangers aren’t just made into friends. Enemies are made into brothers and sisters. What a wonder!
This article is an adapted excerpt from Gifts of Grace: 25 Advent Devotions by Jared C. Wilson (© 2022). Published by The Good Book Company. Used by permission.
Jared C. Wilson is assistant professor of pastoral ministry at Spurgeon College, author in residence of Midwestern Seminary, general editor of For the Church, and director of the Pastoral Training Center at Liberty Baptist Church in Kansas City, Missouri. His books include Your Jesus Is Too Safe, Gospel Wakefulness, The Imperfect Disciple, and Supernatural Power for Everyday People. He lives outside Kansas City with his wife, Becky, and their two daughters.