Vital Throbbing Christianity

When I look in my Bible and compare the spiritual vitality of the early church of the New Testament to the modern church of our day, there's such a wide chasm of divergence that I wonder if what we call church on Sunday morning is really Christianity at all. The book of Acts is full of a vital, throbbing Christianity that pulsates with spiritual vitality on every page, demonstrating a Christianity that is willing to lay down its life at any moment for the sake of the gospel and its testimony in Christ Jesus. And the church in our day is unwilling to give up its favorite primetime TV episode and it throws a temper tantrum if the line in Starbucks is too long after church.

I'm sorry friends, but I can't find much resemblance between the two at all. I almost got into a fight with one of my seminary professors when I was taking my oral exam. I asked him why did the church in our day not possess the vital Christianity that's found in the book of Acts and he told me that was for that time only.

We can't have that now. I said why not, but I had to stop arguing with him because I needed to get my degree. Even though Christianity in America is in the last throes of death, vital Christianity is alive and well in the persecuted church around the world, such as the underground church in China.

Chinese believers are walking bibles and they've counted the cost and following a crucified savior, they're willing to forsake all for the cause of Christ in the gospel. Our trouble here in the west is we don't teach our bibles anymore. We just dialogue our opinions and we don't believe God is still the God of the impossible because we lack the faith to see God do the impossible.

If I could put my finger on the cancer sore of the American church that has robbed it of all her spiritual vitality, I would point to the startling fact that the church in this country has abrogated the doctrine of the lordship of Christ to the ash heap of disuse and thus has lost all her power and authority and influence in the world. Whereas the whole theme of scripture is lordship, the preeminence of Christ, Christ is lord of all over all things. The title of my message today friends is vital throbbing Christianity and my text can be found in the gospel of Mark in chapter 12.

You can turn in your bibles there now friends we will be in verses 28 to 30. Let me read us this striking passage of scripture at this time where our lord Jesus Christ teaches the greatest commandment. Here now is the word of God and may the spirit of the lord be pleased to attend the reading of his holy word.

And one of the scribes came and having heard them reasoning together and perceiving that he had answered them well asked him which is the first commandment of all and Jesus answered him the first of all the commandments is a hero Israel the lord our God is one lord and thou shalt love the lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength this is the first commandment. I submit to you friends the missing doctrine in the church today is the doctrine of the lordship of Christ. I believe that if the church in this country rediscovered Christ's teachings here and applied them to our daily living there'd be a revolution in this country of such vital Christianity.

It would be said of us as it was of those believers in the book of Acts they who have come here also have turned the world upside down. What Jesus is saying here in Mark chapter 12 is that he must be lord of all and in this passage Jesus lays out four principles of how to love and serve him. I want to break these down one by one friends for it is imperative for us to understand what this passage teaches us to apply it in our lives.

Principle number one thou shalt love the lord thy God with all thy heart. Listen to me friends and listen to me closely. Jesus Christ will not accept one who has a divided heart.

My God is a jealous God. He must have your whole heart and utter allegiance to him. Let's say you are engaged to be married and your future spouse informs you that once you are married they will need to spend several nights out of every week to spend time with a former lover.

You wouldn't tolerate that for one skinny minute yet we can tell Jesus that we love him with our lips when our heart is far from him as we are entangled with other loves, other distractions, other affections. We must be honest with ourselves and admit a divided heart is unacceptable in our love to God. Other things crowd out and take precedence over Christ Jesus.

Jesus states we must love the Lord thy God with all our heart. Where he has preeminence in our hearts he will have priority in our affections. Principle number two love the Lord thy God with all thy soul.

Man is spirit soul and body. The soul is the seed of the senses. The soul is the animating element man as the heart is the seed of the affections.

The soul is the seed of the senses, desires, appetites, passions. Each of these must be in subjection to the Lordship of Christ. There cannot be a partial obedience to God as he will not accept a divided heart nor will he tolerate partial obedience.

He must sit and rule and reign on the throne of our lives. He must be Lord of all. God will not tolerate sin in the life of a believer.

Most churches today teach a God that does not exist in my Bible, for they teach only a God of love and one who tolerates sin. But the God of the Bible is a God who must punish sin. The Lord God Almighty requires obedience to him and to his commands.

To love God with all thy soul is to put all things in our lives at his feet in subjection to a sovereign Lord who sits at the right hand of the Father and he earned that right by way of a bloody cross. The third principle is love the Lord thy God with all thy mind. The mind controls the body.

If the mind is out of love to God and in love with the world then the whole life will be out of harmony with God's best for us. Christ will have no followers who are in love with the world through a compromise of the world. All one has to do is read the story of the rich young ruler and how Jesus would not accept him as a follower of his because he refused to part with the world.

How about you friend? You belong to a church and you give your tithe to it. But six days a week you're obsessed with accumulating as much of the world as you can. Your mind and your energy is not focused on eternity but on this world.

Principle number four, love the Lord thy God with all thy strength. Strength is one's ability. Are we living for God or living for this world? As followers of Christ should we not live our lives in light of eternity? On the gravestone of Leonard Ravenhill are the challenging words.

Are the things you're living for worth Christ dying for? Are we existing in this world for our own enjoyment and pleasure like a Greek Epicurean? Or are we so consumed with Christ and the gospel that our lives are lived on the false stretch for our Lord? I believe most of us are more concerned about what movie to rent for entertainment than we are concerned for the souls of men who perish all around us and drop into a misery of eternal hell. A self must be dethroned and another enthroned there, the Lord Jesus Christ. If the church would only get serious enough with God, he would get serious with his church.

I believe if we Christians gave God the priority in our lives as we should, I believe our prayers once again have power to shake the gates of hell and the world would witness a throbbing vital Christianity that speaks with power and authority. But are we willing to give Christ preeminence in every area of our daily living? Are we willing to lose our reputation for the sake of the gospel? Are we willing to lose our life savings for the spread of the gospel? Are we willing to lose our every comfort for him and even lay down our own lives if necessary for our testimony in Christ Jesus? Let our prayer be that a holy God will send revival to his church in our day and bring times refreshing to her and infusing her a vital throbbing Christianity once again that will take the notice to the world, grip the attention of a sin-sick society that needs to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Let this occur and the church will once again have authority in the pulpit and power of God upon her to be a direct witness and influence upon society for good.

Let us pray.