A Spiritual Home
Build & Fight, Part 1
The lay of the land
“Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” – Luke 14:27-33
I don’t believe that Jesus used the two illustrations of the tower and the war because those were just the first two that popped into His head. I believe He intentionally used them because those two images are an accurate picture of the Christian life. They capture what it means to be one of Jesus’ followers.
Building and fighting. Engaging in construction and going to war. We have been called to build things of eternal significance and value. We have been called fight in a real and spiritual war, where we go about tearing down the structures built by our enemy. The metaphor used by Jesus goes even deeper than that. In order to build we need both the tools and the plans. In order to fight we need both the weapons and the training.
2020-2022 were years of tremendous clarity. Many things that were hovering below the surface were brought out of the water for everyone to see. The spiritual condition of professing Christians and churches were put under a microscope, and the revelation was disheartening, to say the least. With government restrictions and bans on corporate church gatherings, some weight was put on the church. Not full-blown, violent persecution, but a measure of oppression nonetheless.
Here's what we learned:
Christians have not been given the tools or the plans to build what Christ commanded.
Whatever we have been building, it fell apart when pressed upon by the world.
Christians have not been given the weapons or the training for our spiritual war.
We are either dead on the battlefield, or we have deserted our army.
Spiritual construction workers
Followers of Jesus are commanded and required, by God, to “build” certain things. They are required to be built up in righteousness through the power of the Word of God. They are called to build healthy and holy marriages that appropriately reflect Christ’s love for His Bride. They are expected to build godly families with children that are trained in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).
In light of what has transpired in our world between 2020-2022, we have seen there is another “building” that followers of Jesus are required to build well, one which has been sorely neglected. Christians have been called and saved, in part, to build churches. I don’t mean physical buildings (though that often comes with it). I mean churches that have been built up according to Biblical principles and churches that honour Christ well.
Here is what the New Testament says:
“For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw - each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” – 1 Corinthians 3:9-15
“As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” – 1 Peter 2:4-5
“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” – Ephesians 4:11-16
The Bible as blueprints
First of all, Christians must build churches that survive the “day of fire,” when what they are truly made of is exposed and revealed. The day of fire most likely refers to the persecution and trials that Paul’s audience were about to experience within a generation of his letter. During the COVID era, a very light weight of pressure was put upon churches. We can expect an increase in persecution. What will your church do when persecution intensifies? Will your church stand firm on the foundation that is Christ Jesus, continue to be faithful and meet, and endure the world’s onslaught? If your church closed its doors for fear of a fine and the risk of poor public relations, when the real day of fire comes, what will you do? Will it last? What it’s made of will be exposed. We must build churches that endure the flames.
Second, Christians must build churches that offer “sacrifices” that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. I don’t mean literal sacrifices. I mean the Romans 12:2 kind of “living” sacrifices; our lives offered to God in service and faith. And what do local churches offer to God that is pleasing in His sight? We all know the answers to this question. Churches that are committed to the proclamation of the Gospel. Churches that stand upon the authority of the Word of God. Churches that practice baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Churches that practice church discipline. Churches that give sacrificially and cheerfully. Churches that equip the saints to edify the body. A church must be built up as a spiritual house where right sacrifices are offered to God.
Third, Christians must build churches filled with believers who are mature in their faith and who stand firm in truth. Our world is full of false religions, pagan ideologies, and philosophies that come against the truth of Christ. Followers of Jesus must be able to stand against the onslaught of lies, while at the same time establishing and defending the truth. The last several years showcased the spiritual immaturity of many local churches. There were churches that bowed the knee to woke Christianity, adopting Critical Theory and Intersectionality as lenses through which to see truth. Other churches folded under both the fear of man and the fear of costly obedience, opting instead to trust the god of the State or joining the COVID cult. If churches don’t stand firm upon the truth of the Word of God, they will be tossed like sailboats in a windstorm.
So, what are we called to build? What has Christ commanded that we build as His people? We are required to build churches that endure suffering and persecution, churches that offer worship that is pleasing to the Lord, and churches that are grounded upon truth well enough to stand against the waves of lies. How do we build these kinds of churches? What are the tools we must use, the plans we must follow, and the skills we must employ? Those are the critical questions.