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The Balanced Church
By: M. S. Shiflett
This message was preached at Calvary Independent Baptist Church in Bloemfontein, South Africa.
Job 31:6 "Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity."
Let me begin by saying that I do not believe that there is such a thing as a 'perfect church'. Whenever you have human beings assembled together, you are not going to have perfection. Though I do not believe that there is such a thing as a perfect church, I do believe that some churches are more Scriptural than others. I do believe that some churches are more Biblical and some churches are more balanced than others. It is my desire and my prayer that our church be a balanced church. I would like to look through the word of God and see just how important it is to be balanced and what we need to do to be balanced.
In our text, Job is praying "Let me be weighed in an even balance." He is admitting the possibility of being unbalanced without God's help. He wants to be balanced and he even goes on to say that an even balance is a sign of integrity. The Lord knows that we need more integrity in this day and age, not only as individuals, but in our churches as well. Biblical balance should be our prayer.
I believe that we must strive to be balanced. We must put forth effort to be balanced. It is not always easy to be balanced. Look at this verse in Proverbs.
From these verses we see that it is possible to be balanced. We can be balanced. God is displeased with anything less. We ought to pray about it and we ought to pursue it, because it is possible for us to be balanced.
I have been in many churches down through the years. In 2003 while in the United States for 12 weeks, I preached in 45 different churches. I saw churches of every size and description. I saw every different kind of personality that a church can have. What saddened me is that of all the churches I visited, I would not have considered joining a large majority of them if I were looking for a church. These churches had neglected some important issues and in some areas they were not as balanced as they should have been.
Let me explain what I am talking about. When you think of a particular church, there are probably one or two things that stand out about that church more than anything else. Some churches are strong in the Word. They have good preaching but maybe they have poor singing. Then you have churches that have good, strong, spiritual singing that lifts up and edifies the believer, but the preaching is pitiful. The preacher just does not know how to deliver the Word with power and authority. Then you have some churches that are focused only on the youth. The elderly people are forgotten and neglected. Then you have churches that have all these ministries for the old people but they tend to forget about the youth. The scenarios are endless. Some churches are very missions minded, but do nothing locally to reach their city for God, and visa versa. I think that you get my point. I believe that there is a balance and it is my desire for this church to be balanced.
There are at least four areas in which we ought to be balanced and I honestly believe that if we can achieve balance in these areas, we will be pleasing to the Lord.
1. A Balanced Message
If you look in Acts 20:26, we will see what Paul said about his ministry. I would like to be able to say the same thing in the future looking back on the ministry here and the time that the Lord has allowed me to serve here:
No doubt he is referring to the Old Testament passage in Ezekiel 33 where the watchmen on the wall were to warn the city that the enemy was coming and that danger and destruction were on the way. If he failed to warn the people in the city, then the Bible says that their blood would be required at the watchman's hand. Paul was saying that he wanted to go on record that he was pure from the blood of all men. He could say this with confidence because in verse 27 he explained further, "For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God."
Now that is a key statement and a vital example of what it means to have a balanced message. In order to have a balanced message, I have to preach the whole counsel of God. There are 66 books in the Bible; each one of these books have different messages. They have different themes, they have different topics but all of them point to one thing; Jesus Christ. It is a huge responsibility to preach a balanced message. You do not know how heavy that responsibility weighs on me. A young preacher once got quite frustrated with this and made the comment, "There are only so many things to preach about!" I know the feeling. Imagine the stress I feel that comes with having the responsibility to preach or teach nearly ten times a week! As I began to study and prepare, I try to make sure that the message is one that is needed, yet one that is balanced. My responsibility as a man of God is to preach the whole council of God, not to just find one or two things and preach on it all the time. It is not right for me to find a couple of things in the Bible that fascinate me that I like and that I think is interesting and I subject you to that same topic every single time that you attend. That is one of my biggest concerns about the Charismatic preachers today. They do not give a balanced diet to their listeners. They talk about tongues, healing, prosperity, money, and the Holy Spirit but they leave out so much more of the Bible. The modern-day Charismatics are an excellent example of the end result of an unbalanced message. Fervent but weak; sincere but ignorant. It is pitiful, but true.
It is my responsibility to preach the whole council of God. That means the things in the Bible that you did not know were in there. That means the things in there that I did not know were in there, that I had to search and study and dig to find it. That means the passages that are not easy to read; that means pronouncing the names that are difficult to pronounce. That means talking about doctrines and topics that are not popular. That includes the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ that were divisive and caused people to walk away. The whole counsel of God means EVERYTHING! In order to have a balanced message, I have to preach the whole council of God. I need to preach all of it, from Genesis to Revelation and everything in between. It must be a balanced message, otherwise it is not pleasing to God.
I'm reminded of when I was growing up as a child. When we sat down at the table, we were not allowed to say about certain foods "I do not like that." If I said "I do not like that," I got two spoonfuls! If I come over to your house and you serve me spinach, I will eat everything on my plate. I will eat as much as you do, but if I had a dying meal, spinach would not be on the menu! My parents taught me that we cannot only eat what we like, we need to eat everything. My mom was into the color schemes, where you have to have every kind of color on your plate. She made sure you had something white and something yellow and something orange and something green and you have to have meat and bread also. She believed in eating a balanced meal. Likewise, spiritually you must have a balanced diet. The whole council of God is important. In Mathew 4:4 Jesus said: "...Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
Every word. This is one reason why we use the Authorized King James Bible. These modern translations have left out many verses and words and Jesus himself said we must live by every word! It would stand to reason that if we are going to give an account to God for 'every word', then we should have an 'every word' Bible. Amen? He has a purpose and a reason for everything He said. Just because you do not understand it does not mean that you do not need to hear the message or read the message. We need to have a balanced message by looking at the whole council of God.
As a preacher and as a messenger, I have a calling that involves more than just the fun parts!
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"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:" 2 Timothy 3:16
The first two words are what I want to draw your attention to. "All scripture" is given by inspiration of God, and "all scripture" is profitable. Do you see that? Notice what Paul told young Timothy. "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season..." 2 Timothy 4:2
I love to tell jokes as much as anybody and every now and then, I will tell a joke from the pulpit. I have been to places and I have heard preachers use more jokes than Scripture when they preached. People went to hear them because they were an absolute riot. The preachers were hilarious and the people would leave and say, "Man, that preacher sure was funny." They did not hear much of the Word because the man was not interested in preaching the Word. I believe that there is a balance when it comes to humor. A little bit of humor has its place, but I believe that you can have too much. The Bible says that laughter doeth good like a medicine. Of course I know some people that are overdosing because they are laughing too much and missing the truths of the Word of God in the process. Before I can be a balanced preacher, I must fulfill 2 Timothy 4:2. I have to preach the Word. I have to be instant in season and out of season. That means ready and prepared to preach at any given time.
This is my job description. I believe in order to have a balanced church, we must have a balanced message.
The hard part about having a balanced message is it requires studying. Studying is not always fun. The Bible says that much studying is weariness to the flesh. (Ecclesiastes 12:12) Studying is one reason why many people do not get the balanced message. They do not put forth the effort to find what is in there. The truth of the matter is there's more in there than I could ever preach. I heard a story once of a man in Kenya that found a page of the Bible and he read it and got saved. Then God called him to preach and he began to witness to people and to disciple them and he started a church and he preached for years. With one page of the Scripture!
There is more in there than I can preach in a hundred lifetimes. The sad part is there are a lot of things in the Bible that do not ever get preached. That is displeasing to the Lord. A balanced church must have a balanced message.
2. Balanced Music
Without a doubt, music is a very vital part of the service. I love music. I have loved music ever since I was a boy. My daddy re-dedicated his life to the Lord in 1976 and he literally threw the television out of the house. That was many years ago. I was such a ‘poor, deprived child' because I grew up without a TV in the house! Imagine that! I was forced to learn how to do other things. I was forced to learn how to play outside. Did you know that there are kids today that are ten and twelve years old that have never climbed a tree? It is kind of hard to get a computer up a tree, is it not? I had to learn how to play. I learned to draw. I learned to paint and I learned to play musical instruments because we did not have a television. By the time I was fifteen I could play five or six different instruments, all without lessons. At an early age I learned to love good, clean, godly, Christian music. I still love it. But guess what? You cannot build a church on music. You can build a big crowd with music, but not a true balanced church. You can get a big following with music, but not a Christ-centered church. The Beetles had a following. Elvis drew a crowd! We are talking about a balanced church here. Being balanced and being popular are two entirely different things. I'd rather be balanced! The Bible gives guidelines for balanced music.
It should be scriptural music
I do not think that anybody would disagree that the music must be Scriptural. Do you know how many songs people sing in churches that have no biblical basis to it whatsoever? I have been to church services and funerals where people got up and sang songs that did not mention God, Jesus, the cross, the blood, or anything at all to glorify God. It might as well have been a country song. It might as well have been a pop song. They just slowed it down and sang it with tears in their eyes. That does not make it a Christian song. The songs we sing should line up with Scripture and have a biblical message in them.
It should be spiritual music
Ephesians 5:19 says that the songs should be spiritual. That means Spirit-filled.
How can a song be Spirit-filled if it is not scriptural? How can a song be Spirit-filled if it is sung by someone who is not Spirit-filled? Answer that one for me. I would like to sneak into the Christian bookstore one night when every one is gone and I would like to take a big, black pen and put big quotation marks on both sides of the word "Christian" on a lot of their merchandise. It is not really Christian music; it is so-called "Christian" music! They have groups in there that look like rock stars. These guys have long hair, dog collars on, chains, necklaces and enough paint on their faces to paint a '57 Chevy. They have their electric guitar with a huge ‘I'm a Jesus Freak' bumper sticker on it. God help us! Folks, this isn't right! This is not spiritual singing. You might like it, and buy it and listen to it, but that does not make it spiritual. To be spiritual, it must be scriptural; and to be scriptural, it must be spiritual!
It should not be sensual music
I have been to churches where the people look like they are in love with the microphone! They just hold that thing real close and lay all over the microphone stand and breathe into it going, "Oooohhh, aaaah" and it embarrasses me to death! What is this? Why can't they just sing? Why do they have to get intimate with the microphone? I've seen women get up on the stage to sing and they have on these short mini-skirts or a dress that has slits up both sides or a pair of tight pants, and they stand up there and swing and sway back and forth. That is sensual and worldly! That is wicked!! That is why the world and the unbelievers love that kind of music - it feeds and fulfills their sinful lusts. That music has no place in the house of God!
We have this going on in churches and it ought not to be. God is not pleased with that garbage and as long as I have any say around here, we will not have that garbage here. I know that we have people that come here and they are new and they do not understand the songs that we sing because it is new to them. If they hang around long enough they will learn them and they will learn to like them. It might be new to them, but it is not new! Christians have been singing hymns ever since Jesus and his disciples sung them in Matthew 26:30. David said in Psalm 40:3 that when he got delivered out of the horrible pit, God changed his music! A church must have balanced music in order to qualify as a balanced church.
3. Balanced Ministry
I want to mention the four-fold ministry of the balanced church. There are many ministries that a church can have, but these four should be a top priority.
Salvation
The church ought to be a soul-winning station where lost people can come in and get born again. Did you know that the Africans actually differentiate between churches? You have 'churches', and then you have 'salvation churches'. I do not think the Africans are the only one's with that problem. I think we have that problem too! You've got 'churches' and then you've got 'salvation churches'. Now you may be wondering what the difference is. The difference is: In the 'churches', they go and sing a lot of songs and then a guy, (or a woman in some cases) gets up and yells for forty-five minutes to an hour about something that he knows nothing about and they all leave feeling good. Then you've got the 'salvation churches' where they sing scriptural songs and the pastor gets up and preaches salvation by grace through faith and how you can know that you are going to heaven when you die. He preaches from the Bible and people actually come down and get saved in the service.
Now my question to you is this. On any given Sunday, how many churches do you know of that have an altar call after the message where the people have the opportunity and the freedom and the liberty to come down to the altar and pray and to be born into God's family? How many of them are like that around here? You might not like invitations because you think salvation is a very personal thing and shouldn't be done in public. That sounds good, but that is not in the Bible! We can see public professions of faith throughout the entire scripture. In fact, the Bible says:
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"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Romans 10:9-10
In other words, if you got saved at your house, then the next time that you come to church, you need to stand up and tell everybody that you got saved.
If you cannot stand up and tell everybody that you got saved, I doubt whether or not you truly got saved. A church ministry should be one that stresses salvation.
Sanctification
In 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4, we see the importance of sanctification:
Our church should have a ministry of salvation and immediately after that, we should have a ministry of sanctification. Sanctifying yourself from the world and unto God. Sanctification is not talked about much anymore because it is not fun, it is not popular, it is not easy and it is not smiled upon by the world. You do not get medals for it; you do not get awards for it. You might get laughed at for it, you might get criticized for it and you will be called names for it. Nevertheless, it is the will of God that after you get saved, you get sanctified. Before a church can be balanced, they must teach their people this truth. We have to emphasize it. We have to proclaim it. We have to preach it. We must talk about it, focus on it and more importantly, we must practice it!
Separation
2 Corinthians 6:17-18 says "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."
Not only do we see that the church is commanded to be separated from the world, but it is commanded to be separated from anything that is unclean. According to the Bible, the church ought to teach and preach separation. There ought to be a distinct difference between a born-again church member and the world. There ought to be a distinct difference between a child of God and a child of the devil. In Ephesians it states that we were dead in trespasses and sins, but he has quickened us. Then in Ephesians 2:2,3 it goes on to say how we walked after the course of the world and after the lust of the prince and the power of the air. He goes on and talks about the path that we were on. If we are saved, then we should not be on that path anymore. We have been resurrected from the dead; we are now alive. We should now walk in newness of life. Separation is not popular but it is biblical. If you leave out separation you do not have a balanced church. The ministry is not balanced if it is not separated from sin.
Service
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"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." Romans 12:1,2
The Bible says that it is our 'reasonable service'. If the church does not teach its people to serve God, and I am talking about "rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty" kind of serving, it is not a balanced church. I am not interested in having a big crowd on Sunday morning and Sunday night and during the week, nobody is doing anything for God. That does not interest me. It does not interest God either. He didn't say for us to pray that the church would be full on Sunday! He told us to pray for labourers! In fact, that is the only prayer request Jesus ever had!
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Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. Luke 10:2
The whole reason why we are supposed to be saved, sanctified and separated is so that we can serve. That is the whole picture. That is the ministry of the church in a nutshell. That should be our ministry focus. That is biblical balance. As the old song says, "My house is full, but my field is empty!" God help us to get busy!
4. Balanced Mission
Everybody has a vision, but everybody does not have the right kind of vision. Some people have this vision of building a huge ecclesiastical hierarchy, building a huge empire and making a name for themselves. They have it all wrong. Their mission is not biblical. If you find a place where the house of God is treated like a business and the pastor is the CEO, you can know that something is definitely wrong. I do not see that taught or portrayed in the Bible. I do believe that we ought to have a vision and I believe that it must be a big vision. I am going to tell you the three objectives that I have for our church and I am going to back it up with scripture.
Local Evangelism
Notice the wording in this verse. There is a special message given here.
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"But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Acts 1:8
"Both" is the key word here. That word "both" means in all of those places, all at the same time! Now I mentioned in the beginning of the message how a lot of churches are out of balance when it comes to evangelism. They are forgetting the word "both". We are supposed to be reaching all of these places simultaneously. Now some people find that hard to do, but that should be our goal. That should be our ministry; that should be our vision; that should be our mission. If it could not be done, then the Lord would not have commanded us to do it.
Quite often, people come up to me and ask me what I'm doing here. When I tell them that I'm doing church work and missionary work, they assume that I'm working in the neighboring country of Lesotho. They seem to get offended when I tell them that I am working here in South Africa. Why here? I received a phone call from a man just the other day that said he did not understand why I preached to those that are already converted! I had to inform him that it is not just Africans that need to be saved, but the whole world! There are millions that are lost and on their way to hell. Our ministry is to reach the poor blacks, as well as the rich whites! Those that are not saved are all going to the same hell!
You may feel that you cannot witness to people because you don't want to offend them. Let me tell you something. Do not tell them how to get saved. Do not tell them they must be born again. Let them die in their sins and go to hell and when they are standing before God at the Great White Throne Judgment and their name is not found in the Lamb's book of Life and they are about to be cast into the lake of fire, then you can look at them and tell them that you did not want to offend them. I think then you will realize just how foolish that excuse was! It should be our mission to tell every man, woman, boy and girl that Jesus died for them; no matter who it is.
World evangelism
Now does anybody need someone to explain that verse? It is pretty self-explanatory. EVERY CREATURE is our responsibility. I know I preach about this a lot, and I am going to keep preaching about it. That was the last thing that Jesus said before he left. "Evangelize the world". The Catholics have done a pretty good job of spreading their lies. Over 1.1 billion people have been deceived by the church of Rome. The Muslims are gaining ground while the Christians are asleep! We have the truth, and the world is dying and going to hell without God! It is our fault. It is our problem and for us to be a balanced church we ought to focus on our city and we need to get a vision for the rest of the world as well.
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John 4:35 Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.
Discipleship
This is a vital necessity for the church to be successful.
That is a loaded statement. Paul is saying that you should take what you have heard from him, commit it, deliver it, hand it over to other faithful men so that they can go out and commit it to other faithful men. The problem today is finding faithful men to commit it to! Men today are pathetic leaders when it comes to spiritual things. We have some ladies in our church that are of marrying age that are praying for a godly husband. I feel sorry for them! They do not have much to choose from. I would hate to be a single woman nowadays looking for a good, godly man to marry. It is almost impossible to find good, godly men. Imagine how nice it would be to get men as fired up about Jesus as they are about sports!
I can tell you right now how you could build a church in no time. Imagine if every Saturday we had a soccer tournament and in order to be on one of the teams, you had to come to church on Sunday. I could pack the place out with men. They would sit there and sleep through the preaching just so that they can kick a ball around the following Saturday. They're not interested in serving God. There's a famine of faithful men in our churches today.
If we are going to reach the world, we need to have more men, and those men must be faithful men. It is my burden and my duty to commit unto faithful men the things that I have heard so that they can also teach others. I realize that I cannot do it by myself. I would like to have some help, but I am very particular about who helps me. They have to be faithful. They have to be faithful to this church, they have to be faithful to the services. They have to be faithful to the Word of God. They have to be faithful to the vision of this church. Furthermore, they must be faithful to God.
God will help us build a balanced church if this is our mission and our goal. There is a world out there that is dying and going to hell without God. If we do not get our act together, then we are going to have a lot to answer to God for one day.
It's time for the people of God to stop playing church and learn to submit to God's plan for the church. It must have the right message, the right music, the right ministries, and the right mission. If it does, it will be a biblical, God-honoring, balanced church.
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