It's a Wonderful Church

I’ve spent a lot of time this week dwelling on my favorite Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. I hope that you have all seen it and know the beautiful story that it tells. While not a theological masterpiece by any means, the film does do a marvelous job at showing just how much we are blessed in so many different ways.

To spare you all the details of the movie, in case you for some reason haven’t seen it, things begin to pick up when George Bailey and his Building and Loan find themselves in financial ruin. Serving as the only local bank in a humble small town, this is a problem that affects everybody around. The money is dried up and the big bank - represented by old man Mr. Potter - comes swooping in to steal away the business from the townsfolk of Bedford Falls.

This is where my thoughts begin to take off like a runaway train, and I beg you to stay with me.

Surely, the citizens of Bedford Falls would have been perfectly fine moving their investment from the Building and Loan over to Mr. Potter and the big bankers. The bank is big, after all, because it knows what it’s doing. It functions on a tried and true formula, it knows not just the local market but the global market, and knows where and how to invest its money. But the aim of the big bank was never to help its investors; the aim of Mr. Potter’s bank was to help Mr. Potter.

So sure, the people of Bedford Falls could take their money to the big bank and be in the hands of Mr. Potter or some other big city banker, but isn’t it far better if the one with whom you have invested knows you personally?

Bedford Falls invested in George Bailey and trusted him to handle their money with care. They trusted him not because he promised them fortune and wealth. They didn’t trust him because he had worldwide renown like Mr. Potter. They didn’t care that his company wasn’t going to become a phenomenon known across the nation. They trusted him - and invested their money in him - because he knew them. He knew their names. He knew their kids’ names. He knew their hobbies, interests, schedules, and histories. He had a proven track record not of simply caring for their money but of caring for them.

The truth is, all of us have something to invest - and whether knowingly or not, we do invest it. We invest our hope, our faith, and our trust into something. And just like Bedford Falls needed the Building and Loan, our world and our town needs the local church.

The world needs the church because we have something worth investing in. His name is Jesus. And when we invest our hope, faith, and trust in Jesus, we invest in one who cares for us, knows us, loves us, keeps us, sustains us, and is coming back for us. When we invest in Jesus, we invest not in a temporary fund that could go up or down and is sure to eventually be eaten up by the loan sharks of pleasure, addiction, or whatever else may give us glimpses of hope for a season. Instead, we invest into one who owns cattle on a thousand hills. One whose storehouses will never run dry. One whose hometown has streets paved with gold and walls of stunning jasper. And even better, we invest in one who is from everlasting to everlasting. The eternal spring of joy, the one who was, who is, and who evermore shall be.

Now, there came a point in the film when George Bailey had to fight for the Building and Loan - and he very nearly gave it all up. But eventually he did fight. And his investors fought. His people fought for it. And in the end, the Building and Loan was saved from ruin, preserved, and able to serve Bedford Falls for generations to come. Today, there are those who would love to close the doors of the local church. The “big bank” has come into town in the form of travel sports, shopping sprees, weekend getaways that seemingly never end, and whatever else may take up our Sundays. The loan sharks have infiltrated our churches with feel good preaching and teaching, ear tickling messages and singing, replacing the things of God with the things of man.

The local church is worth fighting for. It is worth preserving. It is worth maintaining. It is not merely a luxury for the community, but it is instead a necessity. Those other things of our world are hefty investments that in the end will leave you high and dry. But an investment in Jesus is one that will last you all eternity through.

May we preach Jesus, and pray that more and more souls will make that investment.

Merry Christmas. I hope your investment into Christ is richly blessing you today!