By Tyler Warner
When Christianity swept onto the scene 2,000 years ago, it was a radical thing. The Thessalonians complained that the Christians had “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). Christians refused to observe the traditions of the Jewish elders, they refused to burn incense to Caesar, they really were their own community. There were no ethnic or class ties that held them together, just this strange faith in a man named Jesus. But later, when Christianity became mandatory, the Church was flooded with men and women who knew nothing of Jesus as their Lord, but only of the Church as a valuable institution.
This is the same battle we must fight today. Men will always try to cram the Church into their molds. Without personal loyalty to Christ, men will define discipleship in their own ways and build up the apparatus around Jesus rather than focus on the Lord Himself. But we are not called to build an institution, but to follow Jesus.
When we serve an institution instead of Jesus, we can justify all manner of wickedness in the name of progress or success. There are so many preachers today that twist the arms of people for money, promising healing, provision, salvation – all things that Jesus offers for free! Men have shown their willingness to lie, slander and scheme to benefit their denomination or their seminary. This is the exact thing Jesus warned against.
And don’t think you can weasel out of this by claiming your church is too slick or too small to ever be called an institution. Make no mistake, size has very little to do with institutionalism in a church. The American landscape is dotted with tiny little churches that are more stuck in their ways than the medieval Church ever was. And just because a church has a great sound system and state-of-the-art media does not mean that it is thriving spiritually.
It’s easy to cast judgment on the Church at large – or the Church hundreds of years ago! But let’s make this really personal now: Are you committed to Christ, or are you committed to a Christian institution? Evaluate your motives for following Jesus. A real Christian is committed to the person of Jesus Christ, wherever He goes. A phony Christian is along for the ride, as long as the train is heading their way.
The Devil always whispers that there ought to be “more” in following Jesus, that a mature Christian should be interested in “more” than just simple faith and love for Jesus. That is absolutely not true. Real spiritual maturity dives deeper and deeper into the person of Christ and has less and less interest in institutions as time goes on.
Tyler Warner is the senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Trussville. CCT meets on Sunday mornings at 9:30am, at 5239 Old Springville Rd. Listen to Tyler’s verse-by-verse Bible teaching at CalvaryChapelTrussville.com or Sundays at 8:30am on 101.1 FM.