Three Types of Churches

Today I want to continue this series of teachings on “What to Do When things seem to be going wrong.” We have dealt with some issues in a head-on manner in this series. My real purpose before God in this series is to challenge you to a deeper life in Christ. The life of faith is never to become complacent or stagnant. Walking with the Lord is to take you from one degree of glory to another. If you want to advance spiritually you must continually stir yourself up and shake off the spiritual dust that has settled on your life. This requires that you be in the right environment.
Things often go wrong when you are in the wrong spiritual environment, i.e. Church. Many don’t like to hear this, but the Church you attend can make or break you spiritually and this will have an effect on your whole life. So today we will look at something it has taken years for me to understand with God’s help. I call it three types of churches.

LEVELS OF FRUIT
The church you attend will have a lot to do with the level of true fruit or spiritual development in your life. By the way, I am not beating up on Churches, I am just teaching truth. If you look closely at Jesus ministry you will notice that He was tougher on religious leaders than anyone else. Check out these verses without personal or religious bias. Why we fight to protect our dead churches always makes me wonder.
12 Later his disciples came and told him, "Did you know how upset the Pharisees were when they heard what you said?" 13-14 Jesus shrugged it off. "Every tree that wasn't planted by my Father in heaven will be pulled up by its roots. Forget them. They are blind men leading blind men. When a blind man leads a blind man, they both end up in the ditch."
Matthew 15:12-14 (The Message)



THREE TYPES OF CHURCHES
There are basically three points of view (to use our phrase from a previous lesson) of Jesus seen in Churches that teach from the Bible today. I am talking about people that teach the Bible, not cults. Each is biblical and not wrong, but they go to various levels of spiritual depth. Remember, we are called to grow into perfection or maturity. So, to settle at any level is not the will of God.

So clean house! Make a clean sweep of malice and pretense, envy and hurtful talk. You've had a taste of God. Now, like infants at the breast, drink deep of God's pure kindness. Then you'll grow up mature and whole in God.
1 Peter 2:2 (The Message)

Different Churches have a different perspective of Jesus and hence produce different levels of spiritual fruit and growth in the lives of the members. None of them are wrong yet some go deeper into the life of God than others. The Bible depicts different levels of spiritual development. I don’t know about you, but I personally want the best that God has for me spiritually. You will never grow beyond the leadership you sit under, so find teaching that challenges you to grow if you want to be a real disciple. I want to be a real disciple of Jesus! Just going to Church is not good enough. Wouldn’t you agree that some schools offer a better education than others? Why are we so dull when it comes to spiritual education then?
The Bible teaches three levels of fruit; 30fold, 60fold and100fold. Why not go for 100fold?

20 And these are they which are sown on good ground; such as hear the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred. Mark 4: 20

Jesus taught three levels of fruitfulness. Fruit, More fruit, much fruit (see John 15: 1-5).
Here are the three points of view of Jesus taught by Churches today:

#1) Jesus as Savior
These Churches major in teaching salvation. Jesus saves. They teach this point of view of Jesus so strongly that many who attend think this is the whole gospel. You say, but Bernard isn’t salvation from sin the whole gospel? I say emphatically no! Salvation from sin is the beginning of the new life but it is not the complete life. You must be born again, like a new baby but you were born to grow. What would you think if you saw a fifteen year old still sucking on a bottle? I think you got my point!
Most of the community and seeker Churches are on this level. They are a great place to start, but poor places for maturing in Christ due to the spiritual diet of milk Sunday after Sunday. How healthy would you be physically if you lived on milk only?

#2) Jesus as the Head
These Churches go on from salvation to the Headship or Lordship of Jesus. He is not just our savior but He is our Lord. This means that He dictates how we live, where we live, how we give, how we spend our time and money. These Churches emphasize the will of God for your individual life and being in His will. They also teach about you finding your purpose. You will tend to find these Churches emphasizing order and authority in the home and society. They also tend to major in submission to authority. These types of Churches also tend to emphasize holiness and morality which many of the seeker churches don’t. You will hear them say Jesus is Lord! You rarely or never hear that phrase in the level 1 church. They (level 1) tend to say things like; we are all just sinners saved by grace.

#3) Jesus as King! The all conquering One!
These Churches teach salvation and lordship but they move into the rule, reign and realm of Jesus as the all conquering king. That He is preeminent on all things. Not just personal lord but Lord of Lords, King of Kings! The Greek says King of those kinging it, lord of those lording it! They not only see Jesus as Head of their lives they see Him as the One that should rule in every realm of human existence, like politics for example. I wonder is this Jesus a democrat or a republican? Hello!
These Churches tend to be ruling Churches that control the spirit realm in their territory. They embrace the fact that we are here to take over, under God’s help and Anointing. They also teach topics like faith, miracles, The Baptism with the Holy Spirit, The gifts of the Spirit, and miracles. They also teach dominion topics like The Devil is under Your Feet, The Authority of the Believer, Reigning and ruling from your position in Christ. You will never hear this emphasized in the salvation Church. The salvation churches are just happy that their nice pastor uses a Bible. When is the last time that you heard your pastor say; the devil is defeated and under our feet because we are the Body of Christ?

19 And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, 20 Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, 21 Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: 22 And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 23 Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.
Ephesians 1: 19-23

We must offer teaching on all of the different levels. We should always have classes for the babies, but we also need teaching and spiritual training for those who want to go on unto perfection. There is hardly any teaching in the latter today.

Hebrews 6: 1 (Amplified Bible) THEREFORE LET us go on and get past the elementary stage in the teachings and doctrine of Christ (the Messiah), advancing steadily toward the completeness and perfection that belong to spiritual maturity. Let us not again be laying the foundation of repentance and abandonment of dead works (dead formalism) and of the faith [by which you turned] to God,

Jesus did not mince words!

1-3 Now Jesus turned to address his disciples, along with the crowd that had gathered with them. "The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God's Law. You won't go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don't live it. They don't take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It's all spit-and-polish veneer.
4-7 "Instead of giving you God's Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn't think of lifting a finger to help. Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called 'Doctor' and 'Reverend.' 13 "I've had it with you! You're hopeless, you religion scholars, you Pharisees! Frauds! Your lives are roadblocks to God's kingdom. You refuse to enter, and won't let anyone else in either.
15 "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You go halfway around the world to make a convert, but once you get him you make him into a replica of yourselves, double-damned. 16-22 "You're hopeless! What arrogant stupidity! You say, 'If someone makes a promise with his fingers crossed, that's nothing; but if he swears with his hand on the Bible, that's serious.' What ignorance! Does the leather on the Bible carry more weight than the skin on your hands? And what about this piece of trivia: 'If you shake hands on a promise, that's nothing; but if you raise your hand that God is your witness, that's serious'? What ridiculous hairsplitting! What difference does it make whether you shake hands or raise hands? A promise is a promise. What difference does it make if you make your promise inside or outside a house of worship? A promise is a promise. God is present, watching and holding you to account regardless. 23-24 "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God's Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics!—you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that's wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons? 25-26 "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony. Stupid Pharisee! Scour the insides, and then the gleaming surface will mean something. 27-28 "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You're like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it's all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you're saints, but beneath the skin you're total frauds. 29-32 "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You build granite tombs for your prophets and marble monuments for your saints. And you say that if you had lived in the days of your ancestors, no blood would have been on your hands. You protest too much! You're cut from the same cloth as those murderers, and daily add to the death count. 33-34 "Snakes! Reptilian sneaks! Do you think you can worm your way out of this? Never have to pay the piper? It's on account of people like you that I send prophets and wise guides and scholars generation after generation—and generation after generation you treat them like dirt, greeting them with lynch mobs, hounding them with abuse.
35-36"You can't squirm out of this: Every drop of righteous blood ever spilled on this earth, beginning with the blood of that good man Abel right down to the blood of Zechariah, Barachiah's son, whom you murdered at his prayers, is on your head. All this, I'm telling you, is coming down on you, on your generation. 37-39"Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Murderer of prophets! Killer of the ones who brought you God's news! How often I've ached to embrace your children, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you wouldn't let me. And now you're so desolate, nothing but a ghost town. What is there left to say? Only this: I'm out of here soon. The next time you see me you'll say, 'Oh, God has blessed him! He's come, bringing God's rule!'"
Matthew 23: The Message