Title: Dealing with the scandals
Introduction: Today we are going to look at how we as the body of Christ are affected no matter what denomination you are from and how we need to deal with it when the scandals keep attacking the church..
Reading the newspapers and watching the TV News at night, we see again and again how the Episcopalian Church is being rocked with a ‘openly gay bishop’ appointment and ‘the molestation scandals of the catholic church’ and the ‘bishop that denies Christ’s deity in the Methodist church’. Everywhere you look, there seems to be some sort of scandal giving a black eye to the church. Sitting here in our little church it, we may say that it does not affect us. We are so small, how could it possibly affect us. It does.
When we go to use the gifts that Paul has told us about in the previous 12 verses of Corinthians, what are some of the responses you get? How does a person respond when you talk to them about going to church? Have you found yourself defending your faith from attacks of nonbelievers?
I have.
I have endured people telling jokes about religions and tried to defend the cause of Christ only to be ridiculed by some of those I work with. It would be easy to say, well, that is their church at it does not affect me but it does affect us. If you ask the average person how they feel about the church, you well get one of two responses.
The first one I got most of the time was, I believe but I don’t need to go to church. When you probe deeper you find out that the main reason they do not want to go is that they do not want to be associated with the scandals and they do want to be labeled as supporting something like child abuse or homosexual behavior.
The second reason I got was that they wanted to go but did not think they would fit in. Asking a few more questions, I found that the underlying reason behind that was they were still comfortable in their sin and did not want to give it up.
You may be asking yourself, How does this apply to this weeks scripture Pastor? Lets look at verses 13 and 14.
(13) For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. (14) For the body is not one member but many.
We are all one body and as such, any scandal involving the church involves us. Just as any grace and honor that is bestowed upon the church honors the whole church. It is our place as Christians to stand up and defend our church. We are the members of Christ’s Holy Church. We are not just members of our little church. We should stand up and defend matters of faith whether it is at work, in the schools or at the government level that the persecution comes from.
We have been given the gift of faith.
Ephesians 1:22-23 And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, (23) Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.
Romans 12:4-6 For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: (5) So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. (6) Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith;
We are the church. We are Christ’s representatives to the world. We are his ambassadors so to speak. Any scandal that affects any part of the church affects all of us. Just because we are not members of the Catholic Church does not mean that we turn a blind eye to the sin in it.
We live in a society that celebrates the bad news in life. The headlines of some of the best selling newspapers have been about tragedy. Last Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The day after he was assassinated was the third busiest day for newspapers in history. There were only two times that had more paper sales than his assassination. The first is Pearl Harbor and the second was the assassination of John F. Kennedy. We as a society have glamorized and glorified the bad aspects of our lives.
We have let the devil deceive us as a society to believe that he does not exist. He has been busy at this and if you ask the average person, they do not believe that Satan does indeed exist. We have come to believe that is our upbringing or our societal environments that have created the monsters we read about in the paper and see on the news. That’s a bunch of bull.
If the devil is going to do his best to tear the church down he is going to do it from the inside. When we see a pastor fall, who do we blame? Most of the time, the blame is placed on the church trying to cover it up and God. People have a tendency to ask ‘How could a loving God let this happen?’
God gave us free will and the choice as to whether or not we would love him and follows his ways or reject him and remain in our sin. It is possible for a person to be a pastor and not truly believe in Jesus Christ just as it is possible for a person to believe and still sin again. If any of us here thinks that we are with out sin in our lives, we deceive ourselves.
1 John 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
We can not separate ourselves from other churches just because they have sin in them. Yes, we are to repent and go and sin no more but we are all human. We all have sinful natures. It is not our place to judge the sin in others. In verses 15 thru 18 of today’s reading Paul tells us how the body cannot exist without all the individual members. We as a Church cannot exist without all the denominations and members. When we claimed Christ Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we committed ourselves to be all as one in the body of Christ. Anything that affects the Church affects us. We must deal with sins of all in the church in a loving and nonjudgmental way. Yes those who have sinned against the church will be held accountable to God but as a church, we need to concentrate not on the sin in the lives of the church but on Christ Jesus and the making of disciples for his Holy and Perfect Church.
God has placed all of us in His service in one way or another. We being the Body of Christ need to realize this and act accordingly. We need to care for all the members of the WORLD WIDE Church, not just our little corner of the world. Yes, we need to concentrate on our personal relationship with Jesus. Yes, we need to go to him in prayer but if we as members of the World wide church concentrate on the Body of Christ, it will all come together and Satan will find out he can no longer deceive us and the truth of Jesus Christ shall remain strong and true. Amen.
