“All In” (1 Corinthians 12:12-26)

Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC

Sunday, September 22, 2019

            Who’s heard of Korey Cunningham?  Anyone?  How about Joe Thuney?  Ok, who’s heard of Tom Brady?  The Quarterback out of Michigan is widely considered the greatest player in the NFL at his position.  But if his left tackle, Thuney, his left guard, Cunningham, and the rest of the offensive line didn’t block, he would not have time to throw all those touchdown passes.  He needs his line’s protection.  He needs his receivers to catch the passes.  He needs his defense to stop the other team.  Brady may be who people know, but there are many essential roles on a football team.

            Take another example, the presidency of the United States.  Everyone around the world knows President Trump, President Barak Obama, President George W. Bush, and so on.  I’ve been reading the autobiography of Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s National Security Adviser and then Secretary of State.  She gives an insider’s perspective of everything required to make things run in the executive branch of the U.S. government.  There’s one president, but how many people work in the executive branch? There’s the vice-president, 15 cabinets heads, and 4 million employees.  In order for the president to be successful, those unknown workers need to do their jobs well.

            In church we aren’t trying to perpetuate the New England Patriots’ dominance or cement Tom Brady’s place in the football Hall of Fame.  We aren’t trying to support the leader of the free world.  Our calling is much higher.  We’re here to glorify the one true God whom we know through Jesus Christ, God in human flesh.  We want to worship and exalt him, love one another in his name, and draw to Him all who do not know Him. 

            I keep saying “we” because we can only be God’s church when individuals comes together to form one body.  First Corinthians 12:12-26 is about the church – the church universal, all Christians everywhere; and, it is about the local church, our specific congregation.  We discover unity and show the world Christ when we celebrate our diversity as each of us brings our unique qualities together for one work, building one community, and giving testimony to the one God.  The church is diversity because Christ is diversity; the church is unified because Christ is one. 

            As verse 13 indicates, “all-in” means all people are welcomed into the body of Christ.  Jews or Greeks; ethnicity does not matter.  We could just as easily say, North Koreans or South Koreans; Jews or Arabs; black or white; Tar Heels, Wolfpack, Demon Deacons, or Blue Devils; well, in that last example, we might need to check some nicknames!  Verse 13 also says, “Slaves or free.”  In other words, just as unity transcends ethnic and racial backgrounds, it also transcends socio-economic classes.  In Christ, black and white, rich and poor, stand side-by-side as brothers and sisters.  The church will not be its full self until it is open to and full of people from all expressions of humanity.  All are invited to (1) repent of sin, (2) die to self, (3) receive forgiveness, and (4) begin new life in Christ.

            Once you are in church, in the body, it quickly becomes clear that all have an important role to play.  The left tackle is as important as the magazine-cover quarterback.  The government worker matters as much as the president.   In a church that has 4 or 5 services per weekend, with thousands attending each service, the pastor is recognized, maybe even famous.  Media outlets rush to interview him.  From a Biblical perspective, the front door greeter matters just as much.  No one will remember the usher’s name, but in God’s way of seeing he is just as valuable to the church.  In fact, verse 22 says, “The members that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor.”

            Everyone matters.  You matter because you are you.  Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback church authored The Purpose Driven Life an immensely popular book that talks about what it means to be a Christian.  I find chapters 30-32 to be the most helpful.  In that portion of his book, he says everyone has a ministry “shape.” 

            S = Spiritual Gifts

            H = Heart (your passion)

            A = Abilities

            P = Personality

            E = Experience

            Last week the sermon was about spiritual gifts.  You can listen to it on our website, get the text by reading my blog honesttalkwithgod, or email and I can send the manuscript to you. 

            The ‘H’ in the acronym is ‘heart.’  This is your passion, what truly motivates you.  Some believers are fired up about worship.  Others get excited when they are involved in justice ministries.  In our church are attendees who faithfully do the tutoring ministry on Saturdays and they love it.  What is your ministry passion? 

            The ‘A’ indicates your abilities.  Last year when we built a ramp for a family with a family member in a wheel chair, David Seng and Tom Ross both used their construction and carpentry abilities from their professional lives to lead on that project.  Next week, we’ll look at the story of Dorcas in Acts chapter 9.  We’ll pay attention to her heart’s passion and her abilities and the way God blessed others through her life. 

            The final two letters in the acronym are ‘P’ for your personality, and ‘E’ for you experiences.  In July we took the Growing Young congregational survey and in October we’re having everyone in the church take a spiritual gifts inventory.  We don’t want to wear church members out with questionnaires and surveys, so we won’t do this now.  But at some point it really would be helpful if everyone involved in our church took the Meyers-Briggs personality type indicator. 

            I used to hate personality tests, but now, I find it useful in understanding myself and in understanding those around me and how I relate to them.  The Meyers-Briggs assigns letter combinations based on how you answer the survey questions.  The last time I took it, I came out as an ENFP.  I’m slightly extroverted and more inclined to intuition than to sensory data.  I’m going to respond more to feelings than thought, and I pay more attention to how I perceive the world in the moment than to judgments that are made.  The fact that I am a P and not a J has really helped me understand why some leaders in the church find the way I plan to be frustrating. 

            This matrix that is unique to each person, as understood by the S.H.A.P.E. acronym, has the potential to make our church life vastly more enjoyable, efficient, and effective.  Take the final letter, ‘E.’  When I am talking to someone new in the church, if he’s into sports, I can draw on my experience playing college football, even though I only played on season.  It’s a point of contact.  I can draw on my experience in army basic training to relate to someone with a military background.  Last week we had a first time guest and I as heard his experiences, I realized one of our members had similar experiences.  I introduced them and within seconds they were talking like they had known each other for years.

            We all have Spiritual Gifts.  Every one of us has a passion, a heart for some aspect of God’s truth.  We all have abilities we’ve developed in our lives be it video gaming, cooking, or design.  Everyone has a personality and everyone has experiences.  You have a unique combination of these five that no one else has.  Paul’s metaphor in verse 21 is apropos.  The body needs ears, eyes, hands, and feet.  The church needs the outgoing greeter, the quiet servant working in the background, the devoted pray-er, the committed small-group attendee, and the on-stage personality.  Paul cannot be clearer.  Each and every one is a valuable member of this body.  “All-in” means use what you have to glorify God, lead others to Christ, and build the church.

            At the end of verse 24 we realize that when we’re part of the body, we’re not just doing our share, meeting our responsibility.  We also enter God’s joy.  God’s hand guides the diversity in the local church.  The second phrase in verse 24 says, “God had so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member.”  When we are humble and give our best, each one of is that inferior member honored by God. 

            All are included.  All are important.  All are honored.  In verse 25, we realize all in the church must be invested in faith and the work of the church.  God has arranged things “that there may be no dissention within the body” Paul writes in that verse.  We don’t come with our own agendas.  We don’t participate in church in order to assert our rights and have our voices heard.  Our mission is to follow Jesus, love others, and share hope.  In the final words of verse 25 we read that church members “care for one another.”  Disagreements are O.K.  When we have passionate, respectful debate over topics of great importance, we all get smarter and stronger.  As long as in the end, we agree to glorify God and build up Jesus’ church.  We welcome healthy disagreement but allow no place for dissention.  All-in means we believe God has a purpose for this church and we are committed to advancing the mission of this church.

            Finally, all-in means we are connected to each other.  “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, we rejoice together.”  That’s verse 26.  America has promoted individualism from our nation’s very beginnings and American churches are plagued by this individualistic mindset.  When we are in Christ, we belong to one another.  We are accountable to each other in love. 

            If we are all in, what exactly does the church look like?  Hopefully, we’ll find out.  I close by inviting you to consider Paul’s message in 1 Corinthians 12.  Are you all-in with Jesus?  Are you all-in with the church universal?  Will you be all-in with HillSong Church, soon to be Hillside Church?  Serve God with joy, out of your gifting, strengths, and experiences, and enter into intimate relationships of trust with other church members.  If we have enough people committed to that, then we will be the church God wants us to be.  If we are the church God wants us to be, we will hear God say to us, “Well done, my faithful servants.  Come, enter the joy of your Master.”  That’s really what I long to hear from God.  How about you?

AMEN

Holiness

I just finished reading through Leviticus.  Some Christians see this Old Testament book as part of the Bible that go mostly unread.  Since Christ came, we don’t practice ritual sacrifice in worship. People would be appalled if upon entering the church they heard the pathetic sounds of cows and sheep about to fall under the priest’s knife.  No modern horror movie is bloodier or more macabre than worship in Israel in the day Leviticus was written.

            Most American Christians don’t observe kosher food laws.  And we don’t settle legal disputes according to the prescriptions in Leviticus.  What does this seemingly antiquated OT work have to say to Christians today?  It is part of the collect we call ‘word of God,’ Holy Spirit-inspired writings.

            It would be impossible to identify all the ways God speaks to our lives in the pages of Leviticus.  But here are a few thoughts to hold in mind.  First, Jesus did not overturn the truth and divine assertions we find in Leviticus.  Jesus doesn’t undo the word found there, or replace it.  He fulfills it.  All the hopes, dreams, and ideals intended in Levitical law reaches his fulfillment in life, teachings, and salvation of Jesus Christ. 

            Second, in Leviticus, we see the baseline truth upon which we build our faith.  Leviticus 18:5: “I am the Lord your God.  You shall keep my statutes and my ordinances; by doing so one shall live.”  What follows is a series of “You shall’s” relating to modesty, appropriate and inappropriate sexual expression, and religious fidelity.  The chapter ends with “I am the Lord your God.”  Then chapter 19 opens with “You shall be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy” (v.2).  Throughout that chapter, the reason given for each command is this: “I am the Lord your God.”

            The instruction of 19:2, “be holy,” carries the same sense as Jesus’ injunction in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount.  “Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect” (5:48).  This underpins the promise of 1 Peter 2:9, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.”  Our highest calling as followers of Jesus, the fulfiller of the Law, is holiness.

            Of course we may read through Leviticus and find some of the laws to be not to our liking.  Within the arc of the salvation that runs from Genesis to Revelation, much of the Old Testament practices are no longer normative for us as they were originally fixed in a culture different from modern cultures.  However, anytime history leads us to live in ways other than what is explicit in the Bible, we have to remain tethered to the call to holiness.  In our cultural practices, in our moral code, in our relationships, and in our ethics, we are called to be holy as our God is holy.  If we cannot support our life choices with easily seen Biblical precedents or principles, we need to change our life choices.  Yes, cultural expressions have changed throughout human history.  No, we cannot discard the divine call to holiness mandated in both testaments of the Bible.

            Thus each person must ask himself or herself, “Is the life I am living one that enables me to ‘lean in’ to God’s holiness?”  If it is not, I need to make different choices.  The standard is holiness.  If I why this is, God’s only answer is, “I am the Lord your God.”  No more need be said. 

I can probe the divine mind with my questions, and God would rather we be engaged, even in a tense engagement with Him, than we be automatons.  You or I can go to God with tears or with shouts or with shaking fists.  We can challenge God, rage at God, and rush at God with all our hottest, heaviest emotions.  God can take it and God will love us.  He may not answer all our questions, but God will always love us.  And whether or not we get the answers we seek, we are called to obedience and more strongly, we are called to holiness.  Why?  God is the Lord our God. 

As Christians wrestle with 21^st century cultural issues and shifting moralities, our baseline is the teaching expressed in Leviticus and perfected in Jesus.  We are to be holy as the Lord our God is holy.

Paul Prays (Ephesians 3:14-21)

Sunday, October 25, 2017

            I am a Detroit Lions fan.  In the early 1980’s, in one of the rare seasons in which they won more football games than they lost, they were nearly in the playoffs, but they needed to win one more game.  They had it!  Down, by a point, their kicker, one of the best in the league, lined up a long field goal attempt with just seconds remaining.  He makes it, and they are in.  As the ball sails through the air, the camera pans to the Detroit head coach, Monte Clark.  He’s on his knees, hands clasped, eyes toward heaven.   The field goal went wide right, by the way, as we Lions fans knew it would.  Those prayers are never answered, not for the Lions.

            What leads you to pray?

            We’ve seen it over and over here in our university town.  Graduation approaches, and what then?  Our church family’s graduates need jobs.  “I’ll pray for you,” we assure one another.

            A hurricane hits Texas.  And the voice on the radio says, “Our thoughts and prayers go up …”.  Then Florida, and the somber news anchor, “Our prayers go out tonight …”.  Then Puerto Rico, and the church prayer list is emailed out, “We remember all affected by the hurricane in the Caribbean …”

            What leads you to pray?  He discovers your affair and even though you cheated, you want to save the marriage.  Do you confess?  Beg forgiveness?  To whom?  Him?  To God?

In another family, a happier one, his wife whom he loves and who loves him calls to say, “They found a lump.  Biopsy to be scheduled.” 

What leads us to pray?  We have the ultimate praying holiday coming up – thanksgiving. 

So many prayers; so many different reasons for prayer. 

The question for today is what drives us to prayer?  The need to praise and worship God?  It’s not the most common response, but it is why some people pray – the driving force in the prayer story of some.  What about others?  A guilty conscience?  When we pray, is it confession?  Most of time, we’re praying for help or healing or consolation.  Sometimes we don’t know why we pray.  We just know there’s a need – we need God to do something or give something. 

Of the 100 or so gathered here, I am certain some among us right now feel the need to pray.  If that number of those compelled to prayer is 15, we will hear 15 different stories that end with you in church not sure of much except that you really need God.  No one reason is better than any other in prayer.  We come praising, confessing, or asking – in all cases, we are in prayer and God welcomes us.

What drove Paul the Apostle, the church planter, the defender of Christianity to his knees?  What incited Paul to pray?  Ephesians 3:1, “This is the reason, I Paul, am a prisoner for the sake of you Gentiles.”  Ephesians 3:14, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father.”

We look back to what Paul radical idea in chapter 2.  “By grace we have been saved through faith” (2:8).  No matter your birthplace, no matter your gender, no matter your cultural background, no matter your education or work experience, this gospel is true for all.  All are sinners.  Jesus’ death on the cross covers the sin of all.  All who come to him in faith and repentance and receive the gift of eternal life he gives are saved from sin, saved from death, and saved to life in the Kingdom of God. 

There, all divisions that separate people have been shattered by Jesus.  Therefore Paul says, also in chapter 2, “You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.  In him the whole structure is joined together in the Lord; in whom you are also built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God” (2:19-22). 

We pray when things are bad, when we need help or healing, or, when we need something.  We should pray in those times, and usually, some hardship or challenge is what leads the Christians I know to prayer.

Paul looked and saw what God had done.  Paul was driven to prayer when he thought about the implications of the salvation we have in Christ.  God had eliminated the division between Jews and Gentiles.  God had removed the barrier of sin that separated people from Himself.  In Jesus Christ, God had made a way for people to be adopted as His sons and daughters.  Paul saw that and it drove him to his knees in prayer. 

Think of it this way.  Imagine Tychicus, as the one carrying this document – the letter to the Ephesians. He is named in Ephesians 6:21.  He may have actually written the letter.  If so, he would have attributed it to Paul because the material comes from what he heard over and over as he traveled with Paul.  So imagine, Tychicus standing before the church with the task of sharing this letter. 

Now, imagine Tychicus with the letter in hand, transported from Ephesus, 90AD to the year 2017, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, HillSong Church.  Tychicus stands before us, and says,   

“OK, great!  You are God’s church, the household of God, the dwelling place for God.  Look at you.  You’ve got worshippers here with lighter skin shades and darker skin shades and shades in between.  You’ve got people from different language backgrounds.  I see babies and teenagers and people in their 70’s and 80’s and everywhere in between.  Yes, with all your differences, you are gathered together in Christ’s name.  You have salvation.  And the divisions have been abolished by the Gospel.  You are the household of God.”

He says that, and then he reads the prayer Paul wrote in Ephesians 3. 

            “For this reason I bow my knees.”  Because of what God did, Tychicus must pray Paul’s prayer.  The Ephesian church in the first century drew together people who had previously been at odds with each other.  Yes at times Paul prayed for healing. Yes at times Paul asked for provision.  And forgiveness.  But on this occasion, Paul was driven to prayer because a group of people who believed the message of the cross came together and became a community of Jesus-followers.  He was driven to pray for the church.

            Are we?

            We begin to understand the prayer and even more importantly, we begin to understand ourselves as the household of God as we look at who does what.  It’s in the verbs.  “I pray … that [God] may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through [the Holy] Spirit.”

            “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend … the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.”

            Paul prays all this so that the believers who make up the household of God “may be filled with the fullness of God.”

            There are some good verbs here driving this story.  Strengthened.  One strengthened knows himself or herself and is not swayed by temptations.  One strengthened lives a convincing faith because when others see her, in the force of her conviction for Christ they can’t help but admire her and want what she has.  The strengthened believer is a support to others in the church and a witness to God’s goodness before the unbelieving world.  Wouldn’t you like to be strengthened? We all would!

            Comprehend.  Combine strength with knowledge and wisdom in a follower of Jesus, and you have someone ready to love the poor with compassion, to support the discouraged with a word of hope, and to speak the Gospel into the face of sin and death.  Comprehension and knowledge enable the disciple to see the world for what it is and to help people move from the world into the Kingdom by showing how God gives what we need.  Wouldn’t you like knowledge, given by God?  I want it!

            Strengthen and comprehend are meaningful verbs.  So too is filled.  ‘That you may be filled with the fullness of God;’ that’s what Paul prays.  Anchored when the winds swirl, the one filled with God does not sway in the face of the moral failings blowing about in society, or break when Christian truth is seemingly reduced to one idea among many truths from which one might pick.  The one filled with God knows the truth of the Gospel, stands on that truth, and does not move when the surrounding world questions or mocks that truth.  We all want and need to be filled with the Spirit.

            So then what must we do in the story of our own faith lives in order to grow in strength, knowledge, and the fullness of God?  Wait a minute!  That’s the wrong question.  What must we do to be stronger, smarter, wiser, and fuller?  We read the Bible and memorize scripture.  We participate in worship and go on mission trips.  We can work on relationships with Christian friends who help us grow in our faith.  We should do all those things.  An active Christian life; spiritual disciplines; relationships with other believers; yes, all of these should be important in our lives. 

            However, look at the verbs!  Who does the strengthening?  God.  Who dwells in our hearts?  God – that’s Ephesians 3:17!  God lives in us!  Who gives us power and knowledge and most importantly love?  God is the subject of all these verbs.  God is the one doing these things.  We – His church – are the objects.  Through strengthening, dwelling, giving, and filling, God is at work on us, among us, and in us.  God does this to us and for us.  In the household of God, one of the things to see is God at work.  That’s why believers are called witnesses.  We see what God has done and is doing and we testify to what we have seen and experienced.

            I wondered, how do I depict the gifted, strengthened, in-dwelt, rooted, grounded, knowing, full life?  Is it the kind of thing where you know it when you see it?  To whom do we direct our attention?  Who can we look at and say, “That’s it!  That person is living the life I’m talking about here.”

            More importantly, how do we know we are living that gifted, strengthened, in-dwelt, rooted, grounded, knowing, full life?  What can you do to ensure that life is your life?  How can I fix myself in that life, that God-life?

            Once more, we’re back to the verbs.  I pointed out that God is the subject, and we the objects.  God strengthens, dwells in, gives, and fills.  There is one verb in this passage in which Paul put himself as the subject.  Paul said, “This is what I do.”  “I bow my knees before the Father.”  In verse 16, “I pray.”  In verse 18, “I pray.”  In the household of God, we – you and I – pray, God acts, and we live in response to God in action. The church doesn’t accomplish.  God accomplishes in and through the church.  We are God’s instruments.  God makes the music.  Paul prays.  We pray for healing and forgiveness and needs, yes, but also that God’s Kingdom come, that God’s will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. 

            When a community is gathered in Jesus’ name and in Jesus’ name the people pray, God acts, and the people live in response to and as witnesses of what God has done, then that community is the church, the household of God. 

            This chapter ends, and Paul’s pray ends, with a word, ‘logos,’ of glory, ‘doxa,’ lifted to God.  ‘Doxa.’  ‘Logos.’  Doxology.  A word glorifying God.  This doxology proclaims exactly what Paul has said about God in action and us in response.  It is how the prayer and this message concludes. 

            “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generation, forever and ever. 

Amen.

Porch Sitting and Coffee Sipping (Ephesians 3:7-13)

What do we learn about God when we come into the church?

            According to Ephesians 2:19, we are members of the household God – we being “the church.” 

            This summer, I visited a guy.[i]  His house is old, mildewed, run-down.  Junk is piled everywhere.  Stacks of seemingly uses papers and old clothes lay about.  What can I learn about the man by what I saw in his household?

            He sits on his front porch.  He had invited me to do some porch-sitting with him.  So we sat.  As we talked, people would walk by; people who are having a hard time in life.  He lives in that part of the city where drugs are easy to get, but work, not so much.  There’s an abundance of heartache and a shortage of love.

He knew just about all who passed by, and they certainly know him.  Many would stop, and he’d say, “What do you need?”  He would give a bag groceries.  I don’t know who donated all the food, but he never ran out.  On the table on his front porch were clean, neatly folded used clothes.  He’d pass those out too, as people had need. 

            This is not all he does.  Sometimes he preaches at the church where he’s an associate pastor.  That’s how I met him.  Sometimes, he goes to prayer meetings with other pastors.  Sometimes he does advocacy work for the underprivileged in Durham. And sometimes, he sits on his porch.

            What can we learn about the man when we look at his household?  That he needs to clean up and maybe paint the walls?  Or, that he is ready to meet people in their need with compassion, kindness, prayer, and groceries if they are hungry and clothes if they need them? 

I visited another household – one in the part of the city with spacious green lawns and two-car garages[ii].  People don’t walk by these houses, they drive up to them.  This couple, near 80, has known me for 40 years. 

They invited me into their neatly decorated home.  For over an hour, we sat at their kitchen table, drank coffee, and talked about share memories.  We discussed life in the church and race in America.  At lunch time, they had prepared a table on their beautifully furnished, shaded back patio.  After a sandwich and some coleslaw, she said, “Rob, you haven’t had enough to eat,” as she refilled my empty plate. 

By the time I departed, I was full of food, and even more full of love from people who have loved me for as far back as I can remember.  And wisdom.  Gently, they poured the wisdom of their years into me. 

What can I learn about these people from their household?  That they have worked hard and enjoy the privilege of good education and good salaries and cultural refinement?  Or, that they love me and out of their household flows welcome and generosity?

Both my hosts showed me that God is welcoming – welcomes all.  They showed me God is generous.  They showed me God is ready to sit on the porch with me and listen.  They showed me God has a place at the table set for me.  And after each visit, I left with my cup full, God’s grace flowing out of me.  On Sunday morning, do people leave our church full, with God’s abundant love pour over?

Verse 10 caught me as I read Ephesians 3 this week.  Through the church, the wisdom of God will be made know to rulers and authorities in Heavenly places.  Are we ready for that?  Angelic beings, heavenly creatures we cannot imagine, supernatural forces both evil and benevolent, ask God, who are you?  What are you?  What wisdom will you share?  God responds, all you need to know of me you can know by looking to earth, to the realm of humans.  Look to my church if you want to know anything about me.  Whoa!

My family visited several churches this summer[iii].  We met some wonderful people.  But I don’t know if I would call the church (church worldwide) exalted based on what we saw.  One church didn’t really welcome us.  They were very nice, but they barely noticed we were there.  Another was so polished in their welcome, so refined in their method, it felt kind of like they wanted to sell us something.  Each church had its strengths and weaknesses.  That’s true of us too.  There are things HillSong does well.  And areas where we need improvement. 

However, we would miss the mark if we thought we had to strive for that improvement in order to be the church described in Ephesians 3:10.  The church does not make God’s wisdom known to the heavenly powers.  God does it working through His church, imperfect as it is. 

The great reformation theologian John Calvin says, “Truth is not extinguished [from] the world, but remains safe because it has the church as its faithful custodian.”[iv]  We have custody of the Word of God; we are responsible to share the Gospel and to do it in an inviting, loving way. 

Our sins separate us from God, but Jesus took our sins and the end to which our sins lead, death, on himself.  On the cross, Jesus shouldered it all.  Removing our sin and replacing it with righteousness, Jesus makes us right with God and each other.  And then in resurrection, Jesus defeated the last enemy – death.  So, as we come to life in Christ, we step into the Kingdom, into eternal life as sons and daughters of God.  This is the Gospel.  Paul calls himself a servant of this Gospel (3:7).  We, God’s church, have custody of this word and must care for it according to God’s design.  

Bible scholar Marcus Barth says it another way, calling the church a functional outpost of the Kingdom.  The world yearns to be rescued from the decay of sin and delivered to live in the Kingdom of God.  As Barth thinks about the church as the place where the wisdom of God is revealed, he imagines an outpost.  In the church, we’re not in the Kingdom fully, not yet.  But, we are connected and we point the way. 

Eighteenth century evangelist and founder of the Methodist Church John Wesley reads Ephesians 3:10 and writes that the church is “the theater of divine wisdom.”  The church is where divine wisdom performs.  It is where God’s ways are displayed and it is where we are affected by God. 

The church is …

·         a faithful custodian – caring for how the good news of life in Christ is shared

·         an outpost – pointing the way so people can escape the clutches of pain and loss and find their way into God’s arms

·         the theater in which God touches all who come with love and grace

·         the front porch where we sit together and pray and listen and welcome all who come buy

·         the kitchen table where we talk over cups of coffee

Pay attention because in these pictures, we don’t come to church to see what we can get.  We just come as we are, no pretensions, and we receive what God gives.   In receiving, with God doing the giving, we become the medium in which the wisdom of God is made known. 

We come wounded and broken.  God restores and heals. 

We come sad.  God sits with us in our sadness long enough for us to see that we are not alone, but rather are part of a family who loves us.  Sometimes the way we see God sitting with us is in others in the church, our friends, putting their arms around us.  No answers.  No solutions.  Just presence and love. 

We come confused.  God says, that’s OK.  Follow Jesus, even when confused.  Does the confusion clear up?  Sometimes?  Yes.  Eventually.  Always?  Not necessarily.  Some mysteries of God remain as mysteries.  But keep worshiping God, keep following Jesus, and the Holy Spirit will work through us. 

We come with our questions, our doubts, and our fears.  God says, yes, come.  And God loves us, through the love of the church family.

What does the world learn about God when the world looks into our church and we are living as a people in a dynamic relationship with God in which we give up all control and authority to God?

One lesson about God is seen in examining ourselves.  We have been created to be receivers, not achievers.  America celebrate achievers.  Look at what he accomplished.  We put those who have accomplished a lot on pedestals.  But God made us to be in relationship with God.  We are designed to receive what God has to give.  We probably have trouble with this because for centuries, we’ve been condition to work for what we have, to earn it, so we can tell ourselves we deserve it.  In the way of the Gospel, life, the love of God expressed through the cross and the resurrection, and the presence of the Holy Spirit, can only be received. 

Oh, we work hard.  We work hard to turn the other cheek, to respond to hurts with forgiveness, to know the word, to tune out temptations, to bless others with our generosity.  We work hard, but our efforts flow out of our gratitude for the grace we’ve been given.  We work knowing everything we have has already been given to us before we did a thing.  That’s the wisdom of God revealed through the church.

A second lesson is we are created for a home, not created for the marketplace.  The marketplace is not bad.  Buying and selling is a part of human interaction.  There are examples of smart business people who became devoted followers of Jesus while continuing to be smart in the game of commerce.  Jesus commended shrewdness.[v]  Yet, we were not made for business.  We were made for home and family.

In America and in other parts of the world, church has become big business.  Churches compete for one another to draw people.  In that climate, worship attendees become customers who must be attracted and then satisfied.  Church members see themselves as stakeholders or board members.  The church staff are viewed as employees.  And the senior pastor is a CEO. 

The New Testament presents an entirely different metaphor for church.  In the New Testament, church members called one another ‘brother,’ and ‘sister.’  Paul described himself as Timothy’s father in the faith.[vi]  Ephesians 1:5 says we are all adopted as children of God.  If we are unsatisfied with our family, we don’t shop around until we find a happier one.  We stick with one another through painful, hard times.  We come alongside each other, brothers and sisters in Christ, and together we pray for healing, forgiveness, and new life.  We laugh and cry and sing and dance together.  The church is a household, not one option among many in a spiritual marketplace.[vii]

What does the world learn about God when the world looks into the church?

Life is received from God, not achieved.  Our effort comes as response to God’s grace.  God is a giver.

Church is a family of believers who make up a household, not a Sunday morning option that serves to make the attendees happy.   Church goers who are in Christ have joy in all circumstances and are equipped to walk through darkness and pain because they lean on Christ.  Churches do not bend over backward to give people what they want; rather, they meet the needs people bring with the love of Christ – love expressed relationally, emotionally, and tangibly.  God has a place for you. 

I began with my experiences – porch sitting with one brother in Christ; kitchen-table-coffee drinking with two others.  This week, the wisdom of God is going to be made known in the world through this church.  Don’t be surprised.  God does this every week.  You may have been a part of it.  God may reveal divine mysteries through you this week. 

Ground yourself in Christ – bound to the Gospel by God’s grace.

Do some porch-sitting.  Sit with someone and listen deeply, ready to welcome any who come, and pray for all.

Do some kitchen-table coffee sipping.  As you do, with gratitude, receive the grace of God others will pour into you.  Don’t keep your brothers and sisters in Christ at arm’s length.  Let them pour love into your heart – let someone love you to overflowing. 

The wisdom of God won’t only be revealed through us, but also to us. 

AMEN

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[i] My visit to Alan Jones of Mosaic Church in Durham, August 2017.

[ii] My visit to Sandy and Emerson Shelton in Richmond, VA, August 2017

[iii] The period of my Sabbatical, May-September 2017.

[iv] Institutes, Book IV, chapter 8.12.

[v] Luke 16:1-13

[vi] 1 Timothy 1:2.

[vii] Peter T. Cha and Greg J. Yee (2012).  Honoring the Generations, M.Sydney Park, Soong-Chan Rah, and Al Tizon, editors.  Judson Press (Valley Forge, PA), p.94.