“Character Counts - The Christian Community”
Scripture Reading: Ephesians 4:11-16, Matthew 4:21, I Peter 2:9, Hebrews 5:14
Sermon Transcript for February 5, 2006
By Rev. Dan Sinkhorn
We continue to look at the character of a Christian today. So far we have looked at Christian character at home, in the workplace, and now in what could be one of the trickiest places of all—we look at the Christian character in the local church or the community of Christianity. We have to remember as we begin this short journey today that the church is meant to be like a family. A special kind of family, though, where newcomers are always welcome and can easily become a part of the family. Adoption is easy in the church; not nearly as complicated as it is in the world. You have to remember that church is not a place where we make oppressive rules and demands on people. It is a place to nurture growth. Church is a place for shepherds, not generals. Church is a place that exists for the purpose of helping people grow and mature from being spiritual babies into becoming spiritual adults. Remember that even as Jesus told us that little children were the example of the way to a perfect relationship with Him, God, our Father, also expects us to grow up. When babies are physically babies, the things they do are cute and delight us. But when they grow up, if they still act like babies, it is not cute any more, is it? All of us are called to grow up as Christians and to continue to mature in our journey with the Lord.
So let’s read this passage from Ephesians, Chapter 4 that helps us understand how we are to be in the church. You may remain seated, but listen reverently to God’s word. “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers to prepare God’s people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge that the Son of God had become mature attaining to the full measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants tosses back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Him who is the head, that is, Christ. From Him the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work.” This is the word of God for the people of God, thanks be to God.
Here is the Apostle Paul’s prescription for a healthy church. Right away you recognize that he identifies the local church as an important part of every believer’s life. Involvement in the local church is important. It is a significant part of spiritual growth. How many of us have heard someone say, “I don’t like to go to church. They are just a bunch of hypocrites.” How many of us have heard someone say, “I don’t like to go to church. I can be near the Lord out in the wilderness.” Well, we’ve all heard that. As one who has always enjoyed the wilderness and has encountered his own share of hypocrites, I can tell you that both of those things can be true, but they are not the way that we are suppose to live. We are suppose to be a part of the local church because it is where we are grown up as Christians. It would be just like your children arguing with you about whether or not they should go to grade school. It’s an argument I’ve heard many days in my life. And my answer is always the same, “Well, get over it. You have to do this. Trust me, you’ll survive.” And this is what I say to those people who resist going to their local church. Sure there are some churches that are more effective than others, but we all have to be a part of a local church in order to grow up as Christians.
There are certain roles that are played in the local church and this is where Paul describes in verse 11, he spells out very specific leadership rules, for example. When God gave birth to the church in the first century, one of the things that God did was to empower certain individuals to put down in writing things that we needed to know for the church to be sustained throughout the centuries. And so that first gift then was to prepare the church for its existence. And there is where we get scripture. And we can all use for our betterment.
So what is God’s goal then in our reading scripture and learning from scripture? Well, the answer is found in verse 12 of this scripture passage that we just read. And that is “to prepare God’s people for works of service so that the body of Christ can be built up.” We have to prepare one another, and in particular as pastors and leaders in the church, we are called to prepare you for service in the church. Too many times our culture puts demands on pastors that aren’t really biblical. Pastors are considered the persons in the church who are to preach and lead, administrate, visit, marry, bury, care for and counsel, and then there is all of the administrative tasks. And, of course, well some people do expect pastors to be like super heroes. And some pastors even believe that they can be. There are lots of books on the pastor’s shelf about how not to get over your head in these kinds of things because the culture can be so demanding of pastors at times, when in fact, scripture prescribes an entirely different role for pastors. Ephesians 4:12 makes it very clear that the main role of the pastor is to equip and prepare God’s people to do the work of ministry.
According to Scripture, Pastor Bob and I have a primary job and that is to help you grow spiritually so that you can become willing and able to do the ministry of the church. Now some of you have been around awhile and you have heard pastors preach from this passage before. I don’t read this as a way of excusing myself from administrative roles and the various responsibilities that are definitely part of my job description. But there is a principle here that needs to be considered and dealt with in honesty and love. And the principle is that I have a job that I do here and Pastor Bob has a job here that is administrative, that is a professional version of the counseling and the care and the organization of the church. But we have a similar avocation or similar part-time responsibility with all of you. That’s what I want to talk about now. But first, consider that our role primarily as pastors is to prepare you for work in the local church.
That word “prepare” found in this passage is an interesting word because its root origin goes back to a Greek word and Greek was the language that the original New Testament scriptures was most commonly penned in. So we have a pretty accurate understanding. The word “prepare” translates back to a word that sounds a little funny, but it is “katartizo”. Katartizo is a word that speaks of repairing and preparing. We know better by what this word means by another place that’s found in scripture. In the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 4, there is a description of a couple of the Apostles working on their nets. And the same word for preparing is used there, katartizo, which means that basically these Apostles were mending places that were broken in their nets. They were pulling the seaweed out of their nets, they were pulling sticks out of the nets, and they were repairing the floats on their nets. They were carefully folding them and getting them ready for immediate use when it was time to go and bring in a catch. This is the word “prepare” that Paul uses to describe the role of pastors in the local church to help the people of the local church to repair what is broken in their spiritual lives, to get the seaweed and the muck out of it, to get the sticks out, to prepare it for immediate dispersal ready to do the work of the church.
Years ago when I was a volunteer fireman, after a fire we would spend a couple of hours mending our hoses and drying them and carefully packing them back in the truck so that when the alarm bell rang again a little later, we would be ready to immediately deplore that hose and use it to do what we had been trained to do. It’s the same kind of concept. So the role of a pastor is to help you prepare by mending your life’s nets so that they are ready to disperse and to deploy in the work of the local church.
And it looks like then, that this process of being prepared, assumes that you have much higher purpose than maybe you realize. This brings me back to the point I made a moment ago. We share an avocation or a part-time job. I certainly have administrative and leadership responsibilities that are a part of my daily day to day routine, but there is an avocation that we share where we are completely equals. And it is what the Apostle Peter called the “priesthood of believers”. In the first letter of Peter you are described as a “royal priesthood”. He makes no distinction between those who are employed to lead the church and those who are the church. We are all a part of the royal priesthood. We’ve been adopted into the family of God through Christ and made equal with Christ in God’s favor. And Christ is described in Scripture as the “great High Priest”, as the perfect example of what we all need to attain.
So my job as pastor and Pastor Bob’s job is to help you to become a fully functioning priest for Christ. Now if that word frightens you, I can understand why. For those of us who have grown up in other traditions, it is a little strange to hear ourselves call priests because we think of the Catholic Church or an Eastern Orthodox Church. But the reality is the word “priest” is a word that describes someone who is literally flesh and blood representation of Christ or one who is there to perform a role on behalf of the people so that the priest is a conduit between God and people, the people and God. When you are called by Peter to be part of that royal priesthood, Peter is simply saying that you are suppose to be a conduit. You are suppose to be a connection for people between themselves and God and God and themselves. To put this in a very practical way, it means that when someone who isn’t in a secure relationship with God or who feels distant from God needs to feel God’s presence, you may very well be the one who stands in the breech. You may very well be the priest or the intercessory person who speaks God’s word to that person when they need it most or who provides the loving touch of God’s hand when they need it most. And then you truly have been the priesthood of believers.
There are times in my role as pastor when I am truly a priest. When I preside in a funeral or a wedding or baptism, when I preside with communion, I am in affect simply serving to be the hands and voice of Christ. And for that hour I am not your friend, Reverent Dan, I am your priest who represents Christ. We wear a robe when we preach the sermon because of the same concept. To say that this is God’s word as best we can proclaim it and it is not about this person as much as it is about Christ speaking to you through this person. This is the essence of the priesthood of believers and all of you are called to it. All of you! And pastors are called to help you clear the junk away that prevents you from being fully priests for the glory of God and Christ’s service. And the service is simple. It’s found in Versus 12 and 13 of the passage we just read. It says that the purpose of the church is “that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
Our goal is to be like Christ. We have to become grown-up Christians. In the Letter to the Hebrews it says in Chapter 5:14: “solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” The author of that letter is making it very clear that babies have to eat baby food and adults must feast on meat. Now I don’t know if you have tried any lately, but you know that baby food is awful. It really is! And if you’ve been a parent feeding your little baby that stuff and scraping it off their face and all of that, you know there is this temptation, “Is this stuff really good?” And you know what happens when you try it, it’s awful. But the baby’s like it; for some reason it works for them. I think it is because their little baby palette is different from ours because we’ve outgrown that kind of food. And you know the process. Babies eat that awful stuff for a while but eventually they want what you are having. But you have to mash it up for them and make it something that they can consume without choking. And they develop a taste for what we are eating and before long they get teeth and then they start eating the same things we eat and they begin to grow right before our eyes so fast that if you miss two weeks with that grandchild they look a foot taller, don’t they?
This is exactly what the writer of the Letter to Hebrews has said to us. There will be those among us every day in the church who are eating baby food. And for those of us who have matured in the faith, what they are consuming will not seem palatable to us. It would be hard to imagine why that stuff tastes good. But we must be patient and understanding with them. We must recognize that they are eating baby food. Examples would be like the different styles of worship that we offer and the different levels of classes that we teach. For example, we teach ALPHA. ALPHA is a course, no offense to those of you who are in it, but it is a baby food course. It is a course that is specifically to give you the very basics of Christianity so that you can develop a palate for richer things, so that you can develop a taste for the meat. If you are looking for meat, I teach a class on Sunday nights called “The Christian Believer”. And do you know what we consume there? Doctrine and theology! So there are examples for you in the local church.
The goal for us all from wherever we start is to become like Christ. And to become like Christ is to constantly grow and mature in the faith, to mature into adult Christians. In verse 14, Paul has drawn a stark contrast. When I read that passage, I think of those waves crashing in on the shore hours before the hurricane hits. Most people are running away from them. But you know, there are always those few crazy people who are out there surfing because the waves are never that good. And you know, they do okay in those waves because frankly they are very skilled in surfing and they can handle it. But can you imagine a baby on board in such waves? There would be no hope. Paul is saying that we need to look out for one another in the local church because some are like babies on a board in a tempest sea and there is great danger for them. If you see yourself as a young Christian, I want to urge you to be aware. There are people out there who are misguided or who are quite evil. They simply want to take advantage of your immaturity in faith to lead you the wrong way. For those of us who know better and have been a little more seasoned in our spiritual journey, we need to watch out for them. Not to dictate to them or to lord it over them, but to simply care for them by being like big brothers and sisters in the faith. I was the second youngest of five and I can tell you there have been a couple of times when I was in grade school when my brothers took care of some of my problems for me. And I won’t say any more about that. I believe this is exactly what we are called to do for our Christian brothers and sisters--to guard for them against evil.
In Versus 15 and 16 of our passage today, Paul lists three ways that God grows up strong Christians. He says that we connect truth with love in communication, that we stay closely connected in the fellowship, and that we are willing to do our part in the ministry. So let’s take a look at these for a minute. The body of Christ is a body of many different parts tied together by ligaments. The first thing that Paul tells us then is that every part depends on the other part. It’s hard to imagine when I say this, but it would be as though my foot had a mind of its own and resented my brain for telling it to do something it didn’t want to do. Some are called to be feet and hands while others are called to do other things. Paul says to us in God’s word that we should “be truthful in love”. That we should recognize our differences, we should be willing in love to talk to one another, to acknowledge the things that don’t add up in our spiritual lives together. Now the language that Paul uses is very straightforward.
He says “truth and love”. And I believe that you can’t really speak with someone in truth without love and you can’t really love someone unless you are willing to speak the truth with them. And this is a dangerous thing because sometimes the truth hurts especially when we thought we were right and it turned out to be wrong.
When we speak to someone in our Christian fellowship, we must do as Jesus called us to do in the Gospel of Matthew (18:15-17). Jesus said, “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. It he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”
A lot of churches have split or suffered with schisms and pain and heartache because they weren’t willing to talk to one another in truth and love. And so the pieces of the body roped together without the benefit of the ligament or the sinew that is providing padding until there was such pain and suffering they simply had to be pulled apart in order to stop the pain. In the local church we have to be mature Christians who speak in truth and love and accept truth in love. Jesus urges us to do this. And Paul describes it as an essential part of life in a local church.
Now the second step towards maturity in our Christian journey is to stay closely connected in our fellowship understanding that it is God’s spirit that holds us together. When Paul speaks of this in Verse 16, he calls “the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament.” What he is talking about is enjoining reconciled relationships. That is, understanding that we are all sinners, we all fall short of the glory of God, that no one is so much greater than the other, that one person doesn’t hold significance in God’s eyes. We serve different purposes, we do different tasks in the body, but we are all of incredible importance to God and we are not a complete body without each of its parts. As I said earlier, when parts rub together without proper padding and lubrication, they cause tremendous pain. This is why communication is so incredibly important in the local church. This is why when you hear a rumor or something that sounds impossible to believe, you need to clear it up right away and don’t allow yourself to be a part of an incomplete communication for this is again that rubbing of parts to cause pain when truth and love provide the padding that joins us together. Seek truth and always in the spirit of love in order for all the pieces and parts of the body to function healthy and completely.
And the third step that Paul describes is a step of being willing to do your part in ministry. Now, in a lot of sermons this is the part where the pastor tells you that there are eight tablets out there in the lobby where you can sign up to join this function or that activity or to help with that task. I’m going to tell you that you don’t have to worry about that. There is only one that I know of and it’s in the coffee hour, so relax. I’m not trying to recruit you right now. Rather, I simply want to take a moment to acknowledge in truth and love what scripture says about your part in the local church. And it is clear, it is absolutely clear that in order to grow into adult Christians, we must willingly accept parts in the body of Christ and particularly in the local church. It is my job as a pastor, your senior pastor’s job, to create opportunities for you to mature and grow and for you to accept them. Our job is to help you clear away the junk from your nets, fold them neatly and prepare them for deployment. And deployment comes when you are asked to serve in the local church, when you are asked to participate on a mission trip, when you are asked to help with teaching Sunday School or to prepare a certain gathering or to participate in a particular class and the list goes on and on. There are too many tasks here at Grace church for a few paid people to take care of. That has always been true no matter how large or small this church has been. It’s true for a very good reason, because we are all the church. And everyone must do their part. Some will say, “I have done my part and I’m done with that.” I’m sorry to say that that simply isn’t acceptable. The gospel calls us to grow up constantly and I don’t see where it says “until you retire from the Christian faith”. I don’t see where it says that when you obtain a certain position or you’ve accomplished a certain number of things in your local church, you no longer have to help. It doesn’t say that. It says we must continually be a part of the work of the church.
And so I challenge you to listen to God’s direction and consider prayerfully whenever you are asked to participate. Please read your bulletin, read your newsletter, read the mail that comes from us, listen as we ask you in person or from the pulpit to help and be a part of the local church. The only way we can hope to become even more glorious in the sight of God and more alive to this community, is if we all take on the roles that we are asked by God’s spirit to take on. There will certainly be times when we will ask you to do something and the spirit will say “no” this one is not for you, it’s for someone else. And we accept that because in truth and love we know that not every person is called to be every part of the body. Each of us is called to be the part that God has gifted us to be. And so in our Christian growing we have to be willing to seek out that part that God has called us to be.
So we finish by remembering the words of Paul who told us in I Corinthians 12 that very familiar passage that calls us the body of Christ. That we are many parts, one body. Have you ever really thought about what your part in the body of Christ is? Have you thought about it much lately? Let me challenge you to leave here today willing for God’s power and spirit to transform you to begin by changing your mind. And that this week you might prayerfully consider honestly and in love ask the Lord to reveal to you what your part in the body of Christ is and believe that God does talk to you and God will show you the way. Not long ago, just a week or so ago, I called a lady and asked her if she would be willing to help with the Fellowship Team. She had retired at the first of the year. And do you know what she said to me? She said that during the days leading up to my phone call, she had gotten several signs from God that she should get involved in the church and help more now that she had time. And then I called and asked her and she said, “Well, there you go.” And immediately she said, “Yes”. It does happen, brothers and sisters, God is trying to tell you something. And you simply have to listen to Him and seek His guidance in truth and love.
And believe me when I tell you that whatever your role is in the local church, it is an important one. It’s distinctive and valuable, even if it is a small role. Trust me when I tell you that we are all important in God’s eyes and when we all do as God has asked us to do there is huge potential for the church and for His glory to grow expedientially in our community. Don’t sit on the sidelines any more. I encourage you to get plugged in as soon as possible. God has a plan for you; He has a plan for Grace Church and it is a good plan. He is our Heavenly Father and He knows exactly what we have to do—grow up into the Christian adults He’s called us to be. Let’s pray together as a church that He guides us towards that purpose because His plan is so perfect and all we have to do is join Him in what He is doing and God will lead us all the way to where God wants us to be. And may God add His blessing to the hearing of His word. Amen.
E-mail Comments to: Reverend Dan Sinkhorn