Church, Come Forth

A messenger has frantically rushed to bring a report to Jesus from Martha and Mary in Bethany. The terse message alerts the Lord that his close friend, Lazarus, is sick (John 11:1-4). When Jesus receives the communication, He announces, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Christ’s glorification, not Lazarus’ death, would be the final outcome of His friend’s condition. Jesus goes on to tell his disciples that Lazarus is sick but that He would awaken him. This terminology confuses the disciples, so that Jesus has to bluntly explain to them, “Lazarus is dead.”
Jesus could be saying the same things about many churches in America today. In some places the church is sick. In other locations the church is asleep. Most alarming of all, there are churches that are dead and don’t even realize it. A sick church is riddled with dysfunction. The various parts of the body are not functioning properly and the church is unhealthy. Maybe it has become like the church in Corinth, ruled by strife, division and carnality (1 Cor. 3:3). Or it could be similar to the church in Galatia, where legalism has replaced living in the grace of Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:1-5). Regardless of the prognosis, churches experiencing these symptoms are in need of renewal.
Then there is the sleeping church. It is the church that snoozes, oblivious to the desperate need of the world around it. It sleeps while society plummets down a moral cliff into wickedness and perversion, unaware of the cries of hurting people all around. Sleeping churches remain unmoved as the lost slip into eternity to be forever separated from the God that loves them. To those churches the Scripture commands, “Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light” (Eph. 5:14).
Finally there is the dead church. It isn’t simply sleeping among the dead. It is stone dead. There is no spiritual pulse or sign of life. There may be activity in the church but there is no supernatural movement. A dead church makes no impact on the world around it. To this church, like the church in Sardis, Jesus says, “I know your works, that you have a name, that you are alive, but you are dead” (Rev. 3:1).
When Christ looks upon the state of these churches, I’d imagine His response is the same as it was when He stood before the grave of Lazarus and wept (John 11:35). Jesus weeps because He loves His church. The church is the pearl of great price (Matt. 13:45-46), the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15), Christ’s own body (1 Cor. 12:27), which the Lord purchased with His own blood (Matt. 16:18), the habitation of God through the Spirit (Eph. 2:22), that He is building into His prevailing (Matt. 16:18) and beautiful bride (Rev. 21:9). When the church functions according to its Biblical pattern, it is indeed glorious (Eph. 5:27). But most churches do not.
Jesus weeps over a complacent, lethargic and worldly church. He weeps that His church in America is suffering steep numerical decline. He weeps that every year 4,000 churches in this country close their doors forever. He weeps that those in the church have lifestyle standards nearly identical to the world around them. Jesus weeps over the fact that most people in America consider the church irrelevant. Yet Jesus does more than weep. In the case of Lazarus, Jesus prayed to the Father, ordered the stone removed from the tomb and cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus come forth” (John 11:43). When He did, Lazarus came out of his tomb. Today Jesus is saying, “Church come forth.” Like Lazarus, the church must respond to the words of Jesus and come out of its sick, sleepy and dead conditions to once again be fully alive.