Rend Collective’s song ‘Build Your Kingdom Here’ makes the astonishing claim, ‘We are Your church. We are the hope on earth.’ How can this possibly be true?
Today we looked at our identity as the church. The church is not a building or a denomination; it is not an institution or a club. Nor is the church perfect in any way yet! It’s full of sinners who have been called from darkness into light, but we are all still totally dependent on the grace of God. The church is God’s idea and Jesus spoke confidently about this, saying, ‘I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.’ (Matt 16:18) The church is the hope on earth because we proclaim the message of the God of hope and have been entrusted with the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The church consists of people who have been called out (the ‘ekklesia’ of God). We must live differently now we have experienced God’s love, grace, mercy and forgiveness (see Eph 4:17-32). We have been given a task (to make disciples of all nations, as Matt 28:18-20 makes plain) and are called to be salt and light in the world. (Matt 5:13-14) The main way we can fufil this task is through love (see John 13:34-35). When we love even our enemies and love unconditionally as God loves us, we show the world what God is like.
The church is not the source of hope to the earth; only God can do that. Our job is to point people to the God of hope and to model His love, acceptance and forgiveness to all. We can have hope even in the midst of difficulties, because God’s plans will never be thwarted and His plan is for the church to be His body, led by His Spirit and strong because of God’s strength.