Richard Ellis Talks

Richard Ellis: I don't mind people gathering and calling it church if that's what's going on, but let me tell you something, guys. The day you call it church and somebody who doesn't look like you and doesn't do what you do and isn't where you're from walks in the back door and they're not welcome, that church is in big trouble.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. Here we are in May already as schools are getting ready to finish the school year and summer vacations are being planned. But at the same time, there are many right now who feel like their train came off the tracks. They're shooting up the prayer flare and hoping God is listening.

Maybe that's you who's calling out Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. That's where we come in. We want to be that safe place of hope and encouragement to you. I'll share more for you at the end of the program, but for now, let's jump right in with today's talk. Here's Richard Ellis.

Richard Ellis: The message title today is Church: Who Needs It? Now, can you be church and not be perfect? Has anybody screwed up this week? Not everybody at once, but I mean, we can go around the room. It's not that nobody here has screwed up or has not made a mistake in the last week.

But guys, if you hold yourself up to be perfect, and everybody looks right, they sound right, they act right, they jump through all the right hoops and for that time slot, punching the clock, everything is great, and you walk in and walk out and everybody goes, "No problems, nobody here is sick, nobody here has marriages in trouble, nobody here is struggling financially, nothing is going on bad here," then you go in and look at all that and you go, "Man, this is a weird deal. I could never be like this. I'm a mess."

I did a funeral this week, and there was a man in there, if I spoke his name you'd know who it was. If you mention this guy's name, you know what people say. He is despicable. That would be one of the words that was used this week. He is a despicable man. You know what? Jesus came to save despicable people. And the problem with church is that we got too many quote-unquote "perfect" people and not enough despicable people.

Because see, if you ask Jesus, even the Pharisees and Sadducees, who he referred to as whitewashed tombstones, who on the outside were clean but on the inside were like graves, he said, like dead bodies. They're more despicable than the people they were calling despicable in Jesus' eyes. Guys, this ought to be a place where a people who are the church gather, where anybody, the old whosoever will, may come apply.

There's a book out there by Philip Yancey called What's So Amazing About Grace? and I read this a few months ago. There's a story about a girl, she's a prostitute, she's strung out on drugs, all kind of problems. And she sits down with this pastor guy and starts talking to him and relays the story that she is so hooked on drugs and is so desperate for money that she has, instead of selling her body, she is selling her two-year-old daughter's body because she can get more for her two-year-old daughter. Men who want kinky sex, one hour with her daughter is more than she'll make in a whole night.

And the guy had no idea what to say to her. But out of nowhere he said, "Well, have you thought about going to a church?" And her response was, "Church? Why would I go to church? That's the last place I'd go. All they'll do is judge me. All they'll do is condemn me." This ought to be the first place that comes to somebody's mind when they're in trouble.

Now, track this with me. If it's not this building or any building we meet in, if it's us, then why is it that people will be or will not be attracted to this church or a church? Is it because we don't have the lighting or the sound system? Who is it? Is it me, or could it be us? Because see, the only glimpse of church that people have is where Armand and Cindy or where Armand works or where Jack works. And I'll tell you something about Jack. Jack's life is different.

You go to Jack's office right now, and of course, I don't mean to single you out, Jack, but anyhow, here we go. You go to Jack's office, I promise you, you walk through Jack's office and talk to Jack's coworkers. Jack's not perfect, but something is going on in Jack's life and everybody in his office knows it. You know why? Because his life is being changed from the inside out. Jack's not going in and talking one talk and walking another walk and acting perfect and trying to fool everybody. They know who he was. They see who he's becoming and they're noticing.

Why is it that when you invite a friend, they say, "I'm going to come check this out"? It's not because there aren't any churches in town. They see a difference in your life, and people are dying to experience church, what it really is, a people, a body of believers. The Bible talks about church as a body, a bride, a building, it gives a lot of different analogies. And I'll read you some of these.

People want a place not just where I can connect with God and have a relationship with God, but where I can connect with other human beings. Regardless, some people gather for many different reasons. Some people gather geographically for church. Have you ever noticed that? It's people who live in an area. And if they gather geographically, sometimes then they gather geographically and economically. We live together, we're in the same socioeconomic strata.

And we have now, maybe it goes culturally, and culturally we can identify with each other. We all go snow skiing in the winter, we all do this, we bowl on the Thursday night. People have different reasons. We don't want to be with people who aren't like us. I don't mind people gathering and calling it church if that's what's going on, but let me tell you something, guys. The day you call it church and somebody who doesn't look like you and doesn't do what you do and isn't where you're from walks in the back door and they're not welcome, that church is in big trouble.

You say, "Well, most everybody in our neighborhood's white and that's who comes." Then if a black man walks in the back door, you better treat him like a man, not like a black man. And that goes the other way where if you're in a black church and a white man walks in. Where Jesus is, you are welcome. Regardless, and the Bible has Scripture talking about this, Greek, Jew, slave, free, male, female, it doesn't matter. And what drives people away from church is that they see the same hypocrisy, the same prejudice, the same crap at church they see everywhere else and they say, "I don't need a God who can't get people together."

And you can sit in a building all you want and talk to God and listen to somebody talk about God and do all this, but guys, the book says, Jesus said, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another." You say, "Well, I can hang with Richard and he's nice and he's helped us and talked to us all that." Let me tell you something. Forget loving me. If you don't love the person in front of you, behind you, you're in trouble.

You say, "Well, I just don't." Then tell God that. Say, "God, something's wrong, because I'm trying to do church and I don't give a rip about this person." And you get right down to it, they look different. They live somewhere I don't live. They have problems I don't understand. Who cares? People are looking for community.

You know what makes a family great when a family is working? That some kid in that family can be completely strung out, screwed up, and gone, and the whole family mobilizes to help that kid. And when that kid comes home for Christmas, the family responds and, "We love you and we're here for you." I don't even look around the room. I know parents in the room who've got trouble with kids, and they love them unconditionally. That's what people are looking for.

Don't worry. You say, "Well, if we just let everybody come and all these, we'll have drug addicts." We already do. "We'll have adulterers." We got some of them probably. Use a big old King James word, "fornicators." That's just sleeping with somebody you're not married to. We got some of those. We're going to have all those people in the church.

Guys, Jesus was surrounded with those people. And you say, "Well, they're going to come and stay." No, they won't. You know what? You either come to Jesus and get your life changed or you can't take the heat, you're gone. It's not because he doesn't love you. You just can't stand it. I got friends right now who won't even return my calls. You know what? It's not because I don't love them. It's because they know I'll tell them the truth because I love them and care enough about them. And they don't want to hear the truth. Now, do I take that personally? Sometimes. A little bit.

Guys, I would rather have a place where the truth is spoken in love and when somebody says, "You know what? I'm tired of compromise, I'm tired of screwing my life up. I know there's a place they'll love me, they'll take me in just like that and help me make it." If they don't come back because they can't take the heat, then let them go for a little while. Don't be trying to keep people around. I'm not here to scratch your ears and make you feel good. My job is to find out what church is about and have church. Not just on Sunday, but twenty-four-seven.

I don't want you just to look good on Sunday and play some part. I want you to wake up and love God. I want you, in the middle of the day, to go, "My God is an awesome God." I want you to know him. I want you to fall asleep at night and the last thing is, "God, you know I might not even wake up in the morning, but if it's here, you're with me. If it's there, I'll see you in a minute." It just keeps going. It's a relationship and it's sweet and it's precious. And even when it's hell sometimes, it still works.

We got some people in this room burned out about church. You got clobbered in a church somewhere. Somebody nailed you in some church. Somebody made you mad. And we got people who are easing back and trying it again. More than you think. All right, turn over, not literally, just Ephesians 4. Turn to Ephesians 4. I don't have time to hit all these guys, but I'm going to give you some if you write notes down. Read 1 Corinthians 12:1-31, the whole chapter.

While you're looking for Ephesians 4, and if you're new and you can't find it, I promise you it's probably in there unless you got some really wacky Bible. There's a concordance table of contents in the front, look it up. It's in there, Ephesians. Let me read you something in James. Don't turn to this, just listen to James 2:1-7.

"My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings and fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, 'Oh, you sit here in a good place,' and say to the poor man, 'Well you stand over there,' or 'you sit down here at my feet, you just sit right here on the floor.'"

Ever been in a church where you thought that was going on? "Oh, Brother So-and-So, we're so glad you're here today. You come down and sit on the front row." And he comes in, he looks all good. You know what the Bible says? Garbage. You pay attention to the one that looks good and put the poor guy down. "Have you not shown partiality among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brethren, has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts?" Who's suing you and throwing you into jail? The book says it's the rich. Not anti-rich, guys, but you see what he's saying? Do not they blaspheme that noble name by which you are called?

Don't distinguish. And I'm going to just throw this out here early in the game. If somebody walks in the back door and writes some big check for 40, 50 grand and thinks they're going to take over, nobody's in control here but him. Because somebody who can write a 40, 50 thousand dollar check and start stomping around and saying they're going to do this or that may not have given a fraction of what you who've been here from the beginning and all these months, you may be giving 30 percent of what you make sacrificially to keep this thing going.

And from God's perspective, the big 40, 50 thousand dollar check is chump change. God doesn't need our money. He uses it, but he doesn't need it. He needs us a lot more than our money. I can take you in this town and all over the planet to places who've got money out the kazoo, trust funds, money left in wills. They got money they don't know what to do with. But they're not doing church. You can have the money if we can have church. Because money doesn't change people's lives. It might change the condition of your life a little bit and we might be able to advertise and do some things and Rebecca and I may eat. That kind of stuff, it affects. But guys, people got money a lot of times. What they don't have is life. And Jesus came that you might have life and have it more abundantly, the book says.

All right, look at Ephesians 4. This is just one of these stories in here. Listen to this. Ephesians 4, verse 1: "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love." Listen to how he builds this thing up. Guys, that is patience.

I don't know who to pick. Mitch. I'll pick on Mitch. Mitch is out here. You know what happens? You know what that says? Mitch goes down this week and gets in trouble. We don't call each other and go, "Oh my gosh, did you hear what Mitch did? Oh!" We don't get on the phone and talk to each other about it. We get on the phone and call Mitch. Or we call each other and say, "Pray for Mitch. Mitch is in trouble. We're going to mobilize. We're going to be longsuffering and gentle and patient, bearing with one another in love."

You say, "But they're doing the same stupid thing. They're using drugs and they use them over and over and over again." So what? Till they're dead, they're ours. Or till they go somewhere else. We have a responsibility as a family, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. And then he goes in verse 4: "There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and church of all, who is above all, through all, and in you all."

It's one deal. Does anybody, I've asked this statistic before, does anybody know how many churches there are just in Dallas itself? Anybody have any statistics on that? I'll give you the answer. One. There's one church. You know how many churches there are on the planet? One. Now, that bothers some people. Let me tell you something, guys. You are either in the family or you're not. I don't care what kind of building you sit in. I don't care what you call yourself. I don't care what you tack on to the basics. But you either know the God of the universe through his son, Jesus Christ, and I'm talking about the Biblical church. It is about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Whatever tangents you want to go on from there, you cannot even do church without Jesus. And you can't do church by yourself. It is a body. It is a person that we are all members of and he talks about that here in a minute.

Verse 7: "But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift." Go down a few more verses. Verse 11: "And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers." For what purpose? Why did God gift me as a pastor teacher, the gift of evangelism? You know why that I'm doing this and why we do this and why we do these access groups and all this stuff we do? Verse 12: "For the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ."

Now, please listen very closely. If you think you're doing church by showing up here on Sunday and having a cup of coffee and a donut and listening to me talk, you're going to miss it. And you'll be gone in two or three months anyway. You know why? Because that's not what you're looking for. You think you want to come and be anonymous and just hide out and listen and do your own thing, but you want relationship. People want community. People want family. People want somewhere to belong. They want somebody not just God that they can't see, they want somebody to physically, literally accept them, love them, care for them, encourage them. Right?

So don't just come listen to me. And I keep hammering this and we're not going to do anything else but this. These access groups, and we're going to start some more, guys. Show up. Sure it's scary. Sure you got to get vulnerable. But it's where you're going to connect. You're going to sit in a room with somebody and eat chips and dip and drink a Coke and then go, "You know what? Here's what's going on with me. Can somebody help me?" And we all go, "You know what? We're all in trouble. We're all in process. We're not there yet, but we're here to help." You cannot do church in isolation. It is the devil's number one tool, I believe, of killing people. I know people in this room getting hammered and the devil starts separating you out from the herd. And he calls you out and he calls you out and gets you all by yourself. And you know what? You can't make it by yourself. You are safer in a pack, in a flock, than you are as a lone sheep. There are no Lone Ranger Christians that make it long term.

Connect this way. Care. Why do you think I get us to move around the room and touch each other and pray for each other and try to connect? You want to come in here and, "Oh, I don't want to get involved." You can't do church and not get involved. Because if it's working for you, it's going to mobilize you to what? To do the work of the ministry. If you think there's a day coming, I can't go to all the hospitals. I can't pray for all the sick people. You want to hire some preacher to do it, you're in the wrong place. I'm not here to be paid to do your job. I'm here to show you what your job is and let you go do it. Fine, call me when somebody's sick. But go see them. Beat me there. Find somebody gets put in jail. Call me and tell me. Go see them. You go bail them out. Ministry. I think I'm preaching again. I'll try to slow down. Anyhow.

For the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, for what purpose? Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Let me tell you how and remember this this week. Let me tell you how awesome Jesus is. It takes a planet packed with believers to accomplish what he did on his own. It takes every believer on the planet called the body of Christ doing their thing to even come close to what he is and what he is able to do. The God of the universe in a man. Now it's the God of the universe in a body, and it's all of us.

So what Jesus could do everything, I can only do a piece of it, you can do a piece of it, but guys, you're not going to see Jesus on the planet unless you're doing your part. You say, "I don't know what to do." Then let's talk about it. Let's figure it out. Find out what your passion is. Find out what stirs your soul. Errol back there loves kids. He volunteers in the nursery and he works with those kids. Why? He's got something inside him that stirs about that. And he's letting God use him back there. Don't just sit there the rest of your life. Laura's got a passion for Vanessa in the jail and following up on people who aren't here. And she does something. You say, "Well what if I screw up?" Let me tell you something. I'd rather be screwing up and learning and trying than not doing anything. "Well, Daddy, I'm going to try to learn how to walk. What if I fall down?" You're not going to learn to walk without falling down. Get trying. Let's do it. I'll help you up. But don't try to go from zero to a hundred. Take it one step at a time.

Verse 14, and we'll go on down to verse 16 and we're done. "That we should no longer be children." Why is this whole process necessary? "That we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting." You know what? You come in here and this and go, "Oh, it's too heavy and I don't want to do that, I don't want to give up my lifestyle." And you hear some guy on TV or the radio and, "Oh, that sounds like what I want to hear," and you just get swept off some new thing that's all exciting and then that thing goes away and you get blown over to some other deal. Guys, pick a lane. My wife drives me, you know, I'm all over the road. She says, "Richard, just pick a lane." I mean, I'm not saying you can't do it, guys, but I can't find Scripture for smorgasbord church. "Oh, I like so-and-so over there and I'm going to go over here this Sunday and I'm going to go over there next Sunday and I'm going to get involved there on Tuesday night."

There's people doing this potluck Christianity thing all over town. And you wonder why you don't ever get into church. Because you don't connect there. You're going and listening to stuff. You'll never put into practice all the stuff you're hearing anyway if you don't land somewhere and do what you hear somewhere and get it rolling.

Verse 15, and I bet if I had to pick a life verse, this would be close to it. "But, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head; Christ; from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love." Listen to all that. Everybody doing their part, its share, everybody carrying the load. Verse 15 again, though, "speaking the truth in love." Please do that with people. I mean, if you haven't figured out I love you by now, I give up. Well, I don't give up, but I mean, I'm not up here just trying to beat you.

I want you to make it. I want you to live. I want you to know God, not just know stuff about God. I want it to work tomorrow morning, not just on Sunday. Why? Because if it works for you guys, it's going to overflow to somebody else and they're going to go, "Wow, your life is changed." That's what the world's missing is changed lives. And when they see a changed life, they say, "Something's going on that I can't explain. I want a piece of whatever that is." Right?

And I can go around the room and name other people who are moving. They're trying to apply it. They're moving, they're growing, they're part of this building, and they're carrying their weight, they're doing what they can right now. And I tell you all this and just a couple of comments and we're out of here. Primary question, guys, when you call somebody, look around, see who's not here today. You know what? Don't call and ask them where were you, call them and ask them how are you. Church isn't about just Sunday morning. If you don't see somebody, well call and ask them how they are, not where they were. Because after a while, you start thinking, "All they want me to show up in church and write a check and they don't need me." And they're gone. It's not just that I need you guys to do what God's called us here to do, but somebody else out there needs you to make it or they won't make it because your life affects their life. Church: Who needs it? I do. You do. Everybody does when it's working the way it's supposed to work. All right, let's pray just a minute.

Thank you, Father, that without Jesus, there is no church. It doesn't happen, it doesn't work. Until we gather around the basic truth that he lived as God in the flesh, that he died on the cross, shed his blood to pay for our sin, was buried and raised from the dead. Until we agree on that truth and receive that gift of eternal life, then we're basically not in the family, Father. And I pray for anybody in the room that all this stuff sounds like religion and just a bunch of Bible stuff they've heard all their life, that somehow, Father, supernaturally, you would open their eyes, their ears, their heart, and let them see that eternity, eternal life with you, is a gift, absolutely free. It cost you your own son, but it's free to us.

And Father, it's not about religion, it's about a relationship. It's not about some place or some thing, it's about a person, someone, and his name is Jesus. And Father, for the believers in this room who have been burned out at church, been burned by some church, who've just given up that it can even be possible, Father, I don't hold out to anybody that we're the answer. We have the answer, and it's a person. We have our own stuff, we've got our own challenges. But Father, our desire is to know you and to make you known to other people and that our lives, one day at a time, would be changed and that people would see that change and that they would know it's you and that we would know it's you and that you would get the credit for all that's said and done.

Father, I pray for people that are looking for a home. God, if they're in the family, that's your problem where you want them. But if this is the place, Father, then give them a desire, give them a willingness to get plugged in, to get vulnerable, to risk again. Sure it's going to be painful. Sure it's going to cost of time and money and energy and talents, all that we have, Father, it requires all of that to care about people. But I thank you, Father, that you do it in us and through us and that you know where every person's supposed to be, you know what they're supposed to contribute, and we all do our part, we carry our load, we do our share, and it works, it happens. And I thank you for how it's already happening here, Father, in miraculous ways, unexplainable ways. And Father, when you're welcome here, anybody's welcome here. And I pray that that would be maintained. We love you, God, we thank you for loving us and we thank you for a time and place like this again and pray it all in Jesus' name that makes it possible. Amen.

Guest (Male): Thank you for listening to Richard Ellis Talks. We deeply appreciate you taking the time to be encouraged by Richard's unique way of challenging us to become more like Jesus every day. Here we are in the month of May, and we want to take a different kind of twist to these days.

There's a common distress signal that is used for life-threatening emergencies where those who are facing dire circumstances declare Mayday, Mayday, Mayday in hopes that someone will come to their rescue. Even though it's primarily used for aviators and mariners, we know that some of you are going through some really hard times. We want to be a part of your buddy system that will support you in prayer and encouragement to help your heart land safely.

So let me encourage you to go to our website, RichardEllis.com, and click on the prayer link under the more tab at the top. You'll go directly to our prayer wall where you can share your prayer request and know that we will be praying for you. And for those who want to pray as well, can click on the pray tab at the bottom of the request.

Because of a faithful donor, we have a substantial matching gift where your contribution will be doubled right now. Help us by becoming a prayer partner and by contributing to this ministry. Someone may have been there in the past to help you during challenging times. Now it's your turn to partner up with those in need through prayer and support. Let's make this day a great day in someone else's life. Go to RichardEllis.com and support this mission today. That's RichardEllis.com. You can also send us your gift by calling 855-6-Richard. 855-6-Richard. Thank you. And until next time, thank you for listening. We look forward to coming alongside you again for more Richard Ellis Talks.