Three Spirits That Will Destroy a Church- Part 2

A Spirit of Entitlement- 3rd John 9

3rd John 9, “I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not.”

The Apostle John wrote the 3rd book of John as a letter to a friend and fellow-laborer named Gaius. Apparently he had tried to write a letter to the church that Gaius was a member of, but a man named Diotrephes took the letter and did not read it to the church. Now, we do not know who Diotrephes was. He may have been the pastor, he may have been a deacon, he may have just been a layman who checked the mail, regardless of who he was, John tells us why Diotrephes hid the letter from the church and that was because Diotrephes loved to have the preeminence among them. What does that mean? preeminent means to be superior, or to be important. Diotrephes was large and in charge. The church was all about him, and he liked it that way.

There is a spirit in a lot of churches that rings of the spirit that Diotrephes had. It is the spirit of preeminence or entitlement. Allow me to explain, people who feel like they are entitled are very selfish people. Everything revolves around them. They believe they deserve whatever it is they want, they get upset when they do not get their own way, and ultimately they act like the world must cater to them and their wants and needs.

Allow me to challenge your thinking today. I heard a preacher ask the question the other day, “Is the church for the saved or the unsaved?” To me, as I read my Bible, the answer is very simple. The church is for BOTH the saved and the unsaved. Unfortunately, a lot of people do not see it that way. You see, a lot of those churches that started off with a mission to see the people in their communities get saved began to slip in the years. They started taking their focus off of outside the walls of the church and became more self-focused. Many churches today only serve the purpose of care taking for its members. They don’t want to hear Gospel messages because they are already saved, they want to hear deep theological messages that will make them grow in their Christian life, they don’t like to spend any money on outreach, and the tracts the church gets had better be those ones that you can get for free or for very cheap, because we don’t want to waste our money on those fancy looking tracts. So churches have adopted the mentality of, “What do I want,” and “What do I need,” but have lost what the entire true purpose of the church is: Others. 

The pastor is not the head of the church. The church is not supposed to follow an personal agenda that the pastor has. The deacons are not the head of the church. If the deacons have their own personal agenda they should not be followed. The members are not the head of the church. And very many times there are church members who have their own personal agendas and they should not be followed. Who is the head of the church? Jesus Christ! And Jesus does have a personal agenda for the church. He didn’t say, “Go ye into all the world and put money into your church savings accounts,” he didn’t say, “ Go ye into all the world and make sure all programs are catered to your own personal whims and desires.” No! Jesus said, “Go ye into all the world and PREACH THE GOSPEL!” Jesus’ personal agenda for the church is that the church preach the Gospel to every creature. The church was not built for your comfort, it was built to be a lighthouse.

A church stops becoming a church when it stops caring about the souls of the lost. A church stops becoming a church when it isolates and alienates unsaved people when they come through the church doors. Many times an unsaved person has walked into a church because they felt a spiritual need but found that the “holy” people of the church treated them terribly. Maybe it was the way they were dressed, maybe they had the smell of alcohol on their breath, maybe they had piercings and tattoos; whatever it was, it was enough for the Christians in the church to turn their nose up at that unsaved person. You could hear church members saying things like, “We don’t want that kind of person at our church,” or, “Who does she think she is, wearing that here,” or, “if more people like that start coming here, we are going to have ourselves a problem.” And here is what happens, we give these people the cold shoulder and then they never darken the doors of the church ever again, and this person, who Jesus loves and who Jesus died for, slips off into a Christless eternity in Hell. All because of a few people, in a church, who decided that the church wasn’t about reaching unsaved people, but about themselves.

There was once a coastal town that had a problem with ship-wrecks. Apparently, the water became very shallow in some areas and there would be sharp rocks that would tear ships apart. A small band of people wanted to do something about this problem so they created a life-saving station. They built up a little wooden hut on the beach, so that they could keep their eyes on the coast and whenever a ship would wreck they would go out and rescue those that were about to drown. After saving several lives, the town started to take notice of the work that they were doing, and being kind-hearted, many citizens of the town started pitching in with finances and supplies for this life-saving station. The station started to accumulate boats and equipment which made it a lot easier to save lives. At one point the station had enough money that they decided to built a fancy headquarters, complete with bedrooms for ship-wreck survivors to stay in, a beautiful mosaic floor at the entrance, expensive pieces of art on the wall, a restaurant to eat in, a indoor pool, and many other luxuries. Over a stretch of time though, there were no shipwrecks, meaning that there was no one that needed to be rescued. So the members of the life-saving station grew complacent. They started using the HQ for their own benefit, enjoying what they had built. Until one day a large ship sank right off the coast. The life-saving station was able to rescue every person and so they brought them to the fancy, expensive headquarters. This caused a problem with several of the members. Some of the members did not like that wet and dirty people were walking through their immaculate buildings. Some of the members did not appreciate the new-comers interrupting their programs and activity. The members of the life-saving station called a board meeting. In the board meeting there was a rift between the members, some no longer were interested in saving lives because they were just interested in having an expensive club, while others believed that it was their purpose to save lives. In the end, those that wanted to save lives left to start a new life-saving station, while those who just wanted a exclusive club stayed in their fancy club-house. This sad story gets even more sad, because this second life-saving station became successful, and with success came money, and several years later they too lost their focus and became a club instead of a life-saving station. Today, in that town, you will find yacht clubs everywhere, but there is not a single life-saving station.

When did our churches lose their purpose? There came a point when many churches decided that they didn’t care about lost souls anymore, they only cared about themselves. I cannot think of anything more selfish than that. How dare we use our churches as a social club, when we have the greatest news that must be spread! “Pastor King, you don’t understand, if unsaved people start coming here it will mess up the spirit of this church!” If the spirit of your church is so exclusive that the unsaved are not invited than the spirit of your church needs to be changed. “But Pastor King, if unsaved people come they might sit in my seat!” Yes, they might, and when they do it is your opportunity to reach out to them and love them. “But Pastor King, if unsaved people come I won't feel comfortable!” No, you won’t; and that is fine. Jesus didn’t create the church so that you could feel comfortable, he created it so that the lost could get saved.

Ask yourself this today: What is church about? Be honest with yourself. The obvious first answer is to glorify God. But how do we do that? By winning souls.

A church that is no winning souls is not a church at all, it is a club. How many places out there call themselves churches when they are not acting in accordance with what Christ commanded them to do? Far too many! My prayer is that Calvary Baptist Church in Hartwell, GA, will be in obedience to God and follow his Great Commission. We cannot afford to be self-centered, we must be Christ-centered and in being Christ-centered we will be lost-centered.

The spirit of entitlement will quickly destroy a church.

Click here for Part one of this series.

Also, in a few short weeks, I will be having a dear friend of mine write a guest post on this blog. He is my best friend Kreig Durham. To get acquainted to his writing click here

Three Spirits That Will Destroy A Church- Part 1

A statistic came out several years ago that said that 80% of churches in the United States have either grown stagnant, are declining, or are sharply declining in their attendance. Many have speculated that we are living in a “post-Christian” era in this country. I can also attest to this statistic. I have had the privilege of growing up in churches that were actively reaching their communities for the cause of Christ and seeing people getting saved and added to the church, but for every church that I have seen that was like that, there would be ten others who were the opposite. Churches that hadn’t seen anyone saved in many years, churches that used their baptistries as a storage area, churches that were focused on the wrong things, churches that got into more arguments about where the money was going than they would pray with each other for the lost souls of their communities. Died and dying churches. And for every dying church, there would be excuses for why they were dying, such as, “We are in a hard area,” or, “Nobody wants to hear the Bible anymore,” or, “Everybody in our town is already saved.” In my short time in ministry, I have learned that excuses are just what they sound like, Excuses. The problem very rarely lies in the unsaved in town, or in the town that the church is in. Most often the reason why a church is declining is in the spirit of the church. I believe that any Christian I'd talk to would tell me that they want to see their church grow and that they want to see people get saved, that’s normal, there are not many people in any churches that would say differently than that. Unfortunately there is a spirit that takes over a church and when that spirit take over, a church is as good as destroyed unless there is a miraculous intervention. I would like to talk to you about three spirits that will destroy any church if we allow them to.

1. A spirit of doubt- Matthew 14:28-31

Matthew 14:28-31, “And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. ²⁹ And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. ³⁰ But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. ³¹ And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”

We know from the context of this passage that the disciples were on the Sea of Galilee when a storm came. Jesus was not with them at the time, and so they feared. They were doing everything they could do just to stay alive, when out in the distance they see a man walking on the water. Of course, they began to be even more afraid because they thought they were seeing a ghost. But then the person walking on the water says, “Be of good cheer, it is I; be not afraid.” The disciples recognized that it was Jesus who was talking to them. Peter, who was the vocal one in the group then speaks, “If it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.” What was Peter saying? Basically, “If it’s really you, Lord, let me walk on the water too!” What a bold thing to request! We make fun of Peter often for his brashness and his wide-open mouth, but this is one of those instances where Peter was practicing an extreme faith in Jesus that we all should have. Jesus bids him to come, so Peter steps out onto the water, and sure enough, he is walking. Peter was walking on the water! Wow! So Peter starts walking toward Jesus but as he is walking, he looks around himself. He sees the waves, and the storm. He feels the wind as it blows onto him. Peter finally realizes what he is doing and becomes afraid, and as he did, he began to sink. Of course, Jesus saves Peter from drowning and asks chides him for his lack of faith.

As we read that passage in the Bible, many of us would ask ourselves, “How could Peter start off so strong but then finish so weak. After all, it took a great amount of faith to step out onto the waters in the first place, but it took a lack of faith, or doubt, to start sinking. As Peter stood on the water, in the middle of a miracle, he looked around at the circumstances and began to doubt the strength of God, and that is when he sank.

We have a lot of churches today that are sinking because of a lack of faith in God. They want to see God bless, and they want to see people get saved and baptized and added to the church, but they don’t believe that God can do that anymore. I have talked to many preachers and laymen alike and I have heard depressing expressions of doubt. If I had a penny for every time I heard someone say, “Times have changed and no one wants to hear the Gospel anymore,” I’d be a rich man! Unfortunately, we have bought into a mindset that since we live in the last days, no one is going to respond to what we have to say. People use 2nd Timothy 4:3 as an excuse as to why people are not getting saved, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.” And do not get me wrong, I understand that we live in a time where people are particularly closed to the message of the Gospel, but I also believe that I serve a God who is able to overcome those obstacles as long as I simply believe that he can. Peter’s walking on the water was directly linked to his faith in Jesus, when Peter started to doubt, he began to sink.

Do you want to see miracles happen in your church? Have faith! If you do not believe that people can get saved or that lives can be changed than the chances are that no one will. You and your church will sink just like Peter did.

I can’t help but think about the days in the past when great men of God stepped out in faith to start a church. They claimed a town for Jesus Christ and built a church, fully believing that God was going to do great things. I particularly think of Dr. Roland Garlick, who was the founding pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Hartwell, GA, the church I pastor. Dr. Garlick was a man who saw the need for an independent Baptist church in Hartwell, GA, so he took a group of 20 people and started Calvary Baptist Church. With the help of some church members, he built the building that we still worship in today, and he brought the attendance of the church from 20 up to 150. How was he able to do that? Because he believed in a God who could do that. Yes, times have changed; but I still serve a powerful God who can break the heart of stone and can perform miracles. Stop focusing on the wind and waves, stop concerning yourself with the obstacles and trust in God!

You may be reading this and thinking, “But Pastor King, it’s too late now. After years of doubt, I don’t think our church can turn around. We are as good as dead.” I want you to notice something. Peter was drowning, but Jesus came and rescued him. Peter would have died had it not been for the rescuing hand of Jesus Christ. I see many churches that are taking their final breathes, and I honestly believe that even in those final moments Jesus can still come and rescue the church that has a restored faith in Him. For instance, many of us know of Lancaster Baptist Church. I went to college there and learned a lot about the ministry from there. When Pastor Chappell became pastor there over 25 years ago, there were about 20 people, they were in a great amount of debt, they were renting their building out to another church, while they met in the upper room of the church. Things were looking bleak and from the outside looking in, any of us would have said that there is no hope for that church to survive. But what happened? A young man came into that church, believing that he served a God that could do great things. And guess what! God DID do great things. And Pastor Chappell would be the first to tell you that it didn’t happen because of anything he did, the church grew and people got saved because he serves a God who is powerful to save.

Before I move on, you may be sitting here and you may think that you have faith that God can bless your church. Let me ask you something: What are you doing to show that faith? Faith requires action. Abraham believed God, and because he believed God he left the city of Ur to the place where God promised. Abraham could have sat around in Ur and said, “Oh, yes, I believe God!” but if he didn’t get up and go, he wouldn't have seen the great miracles that he did. Do you believe that God can bless your church? Then you need to pray for your church. You need to go out soul winning. You need to invite your unsaved friends, family, and co-workers to church. You need to be faithful. Actions speak louder than words. Let’s be sure that our actions match up to the faith we claim we have. God can do great things, we need to believe that he can do them.

This is part one of my three part series on the Three Spirits That Will Destroy A Church. In the upcoming weeks, stay tuned for the next part of this series!