THE MISSING INGREDIENT
Edward Fudge

Something is sorely missing in the religious experience of millions of professing Christians today. Unbelievers sense it -- and scoff, or simply go their way. Believers sense it -- and languish in silence, or complain without avail. Whether they bemoan or bewail, many church-going elders, preachers and plain people in the pew, recognize in their own surroundings a particular New Testament picture they had as soon not see.

Often they find a sight like the Lord did in Sardis: “a name that you are alive, and you are dead” (Rev. 3:1-4). Too frequently Laodicea reappears. Churches claiming wealth and self-sufficiency are found under the divine gaze to be wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked (Rev. 3:17). Many are “holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power” (2 Tim. 3: 1 ,5). There is still a “false circumcision” (Phil. 3:2). Religious “Lambs” still rise from the earth - only to be betrayed by their dragon voice (Rev. 13:11, 13).

The answer is not found in mere moralism, nor will the problem disappear in a new flurry of activism. While the “Moral Majority” may be presently trendy, and even assuming it truly represents a majority, it is not nearly “Moral” enough to fit the need. What good will be done denouncing homosexuality - if we are quiet about adultery in general? Banning wholesale abortion is certainly commendable - but have we no concern about an arms race and a nuclear proliferation which threatens life at every age? Turning loafers off the welfare rolls might even have moral aspects -- but where are the voices crying out against corporate greed and demanding institutional justice throughout our land? Moralism suffers from the malady of any codified approach: no set of rules can go far enough, and no sinful person dares apply even the rules we have with an even and objective hand. Death in the church will not be dispelled by more rules, or louder preaching, or scathing denunciations of character flaws ever more minor.

Help will not come either from more activities. We are practically worked to death already. God deliver us from still more committees, or organizations, or meetings! The missing ingredient is much simpler than that -- and it has always been within reach of any generation who would stoop low enough to find it. Solutions to our ills in Christendom must come from outside ourselves. That solution is easier stated than lived. It is nothing other than a Christ-centered, Spirit-powered, well-rounded walk with God, in living fellowship with a committed church. Any individual can have it, at least down to the third comma. Several individuals together can make a “committed church.”

May I suggest five goals of such a group - a group which will exhibit life and attract seekers after reality? I intentionally say “goals” instead of “marks,” because the latter word so often takes on tones of “look at us” or “proof that we have arrived,” and no one who thinks he/she has arrived actually has! The five goals are:

1. Anchored on Jesus Christ alone. Any church that does not rest all hope on Jesus alone, preach Him alone for salvation, seek to draw people to Him alone for security and blessing, has no right to say it is anchored on Jesus. It matters not what name is over their door, what credentials they claim for their ministers, or what ecclesiastical history and pedigree they might boast (Matt. 16:19; Phil. 3:3; 2 Cor. 4:5). The group that truly is anchored on Jesus will be easily recognized, for wherever it acts and whenever it speaks Jesus will be held up and magnified. Cheap motels and counterfeit churches try to make up with signs what they lack in substance. Authentic products need no props.

2. Alive in the Spirit of God. We don’t need the Spirit to come, John Stott reminds us, for He came on Pentecost and has never left! We may well need to open up to His infilling, to submit to His guidance, to walk according to His direction. A church without the Holy Spirit is a form without power, a corpse without life. It is too bad that the adjective “spiritual” has accumulated its overtones of withdrawal from life in many instances. It is sad that the adjective “charismatic” has so many implications that mar its possible beauty. God’s grace (charis) should bring joy (char-), and His gifts (charismata) will do just that, properly received and used. But what we need most is a walk -- not just a word. We need action, not merely adjectives. Feed on the Word! Pray! Ask God to fill and empower and use! Then praise and persevere -- trust and obey -- alive by the Spirit of God to a life of the Age to Come, a quality of life the world cannot know apart from Christ Jesus!

3. Aglow with praise. When the early disciples met, they had a reason for coming together. Their activities were intended to build up (edify), stir up (exhort), and bind up (console). They focused on the God who is there -- and visitors could tell He was also here! One “mark” of the “true church” in Paul’s list of Philippians 3:3 is that it worships in the Spirit of God. Our assemblies today must also take on this character. I presently meet in a renovated barn with about 30 other saints, and we all have our frailties and sins. But when we come together in the name of Jesus and begin to lift up the Lord’s name in praise, anyone in the room knows that the primary Person present cannot be seen. We cannot conjure this effect by our own manipulation; we receive it as a blessing inherent in the promise of Christ that where two or three are gathered in His name, He will be in the midst. All we need to do, as one song puts it, is “forget about ourselves, and magnify the Lord, and worship Him!”

4. Alert in fellowship. Every disciple has his/her own range of interests in life. But we all overlap somewhere. Beginning with our common bond in Jesus, let us seek out the areas of overlapping, and cultivate the oneness we already possess. A concordance will provide much food for thought it we will simply look up every place New Testament writers use the expression “one another” or “each other.” God save us from a church-centeredness that robs us of the personal relationship with Christ! But God also save us from the “cowboy-mentality” of our individualistic Western culture which thinks we can walk with God down a road that no one is traveling but us! There is a false kind of “true church.” But there is a true church -- and God brings all His people together in it.

5. Ambitious in service. One of the tragedies of all time was when Israel, whom God had graciously saved from Egyptian bondage, then fell like flies across a great dessert. Let us beware today, lest having been delivered from the bondage of legalism, we perish in the desert of lethargy and indifference. We are not saved by our good works -- but we are certainly saved in order to do good works (Eph. 2:8-10; Titus 2-3). What a shame if those who claim to have learned the grace of God more fully, cast reflection on that grace by lives of selfishness, indolence and sheer unconcern. The fields are white unto harvest! There is a vineyard to be reaped! There is work to be done while it is today. Paul’s joy was that he labored more abundantly than his contemporaries, and that he did it all by the grace of God. Because some have misused and perverted its meaning, we still cannot afford to ignore James’ clear warning: “Faith without works is dead.”

Let us each pray, wherever we are, and whether we must say it alone or are privileged to say it with others:

“Father, I believe You;

Jesus, I receive You;

Holy Spirit, I now free You --

Create in me new life.”

A world is waiting and watching. -- 4 Sandra Lane, Athens, Al 35611