The web-slinging superhero has gone and done it again! Spiderman 3 opened on May 6, 2007 and on opening night grossed in excess of a staggering M$151 US – and climbing! This movie was different from Spider 1 and 2 in that Peter Parker, a.k.a. Spiderman, was forced to deal with what the overview calls “a strange black entity from another world” (source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0413300/) that tried to bond with Peter Parker. In this strange battle the black entity fights for Parker’s essence (we call it soul) – to turn him into something sinister and diabolical. It grows to the scene where Parker, in a bar brawl, accidentally hits the love of his life, knocking her to the floor. MJ (Mary Jane) looks searchingly at him and asks Peter, “Who are you?” to which he responds, “I don’t know...”
(quote taken from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0413300/quotes)
Who among us has not been there? The question has haunted many in the nightmares of ruptured families. Or, as members of the body of Christ we have often been searching while questions keep jumping out at us repeatedly. “Why am I here? What is my purpose? What can I do to make a difference? Where do I go from here,” wherever “here” happens to be. While we are asking the questions and searching for answers there is a dark entity that seeks to stop us in the journey of truth and godliness (the Bible calls him Satan, the Devil, a Deceiver, the Father of Lies, among other names). Often the answers are not and cannot be easily answered or summarized in the delivery of programs and church structure. As we come to lead this church for the term God has appointed us, we will often push the issue of questioning whom we are and what we’re about.
In the process of discovering purposeful life in the Body of Christ, we need to be aware of two things.
1. The Purposes of the Church.
The five purposes of the church were in the Bible before Rick Warren wrote them down for us. Warren is pastor of Saddleback Church of Lake Forest, California, and author of multiple books. Among his best sellers is “Purpose Driven Life”. He did help us in that he articulated in concise format what the purposes of the Church are.
· Worship (expressing love to God) – message of Mark 12:30 – “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength” – synopsis of first four commandments. Worship is not an activity confined to time and space. It is a practice of life…
· Ministry (expressing God’s love to others by meeting needs) – The teacher of the law who asked Jesus which of the Ten Commandments is the most important, received the answer of worship and then ministry – “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ’Love your neighbor as yourself.’” This command captures the heart of the last six of the Ten Commandments and these two commands are is the Mission Statement of the whole Bible. This is the Bible in a nutshell. Jesus acknowledged that no command is greater than these.
· Evangelism (telling others that God wants to be in relationship with them) – Mark 16:15: And then he told them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone, everywhere.”
· Fellowship (living in community as followers of Christ) – Acts 2:42: “They joined with the other believers and devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, sharing in the Lord’s Supper and in prayer.” Lord’s Supper: there is sufficient teaching to demonstrate that this was an experience of going from house to house having a regular meal as opposed to a rite or ceremony of the church.
· Discipleship (helping each other and others to follow Christ) – Matthew 28:19, just before Jesus ascended to heaven he commanded, “Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations”.
Understanding these purposes for us as members of the Body of Christ, we consider
2. Your Purpose in the Church
Most of us can recall a time in our younger lives when we talked about what we planned to be when we grew up. That often changed of course, as many people never ‘became’ what they talked about. I was watching a biography recently about Andre the Giant, a professional wrestler whose glory days were lived out in the WWF (World Wrestling Federation). The biographer spoke of significant challenges that Andre faced in life, being rejected because of his enormous size. He was well over 7 feet tall in his early twenties. The commentator spoke of Andre’s feelings of being viewed as “a freak”. It was Andre’s introduction to professional wrestling that the commentator said of Andre, “He found his calling”.
We are all designed for a specific purpose in life or we “have a calling”. God wired you in a certain way to perform a certain task(s) that is intended to connect you to His cosmic order of creation and life. Today’s Bible reading shows one example of this. (Read verses 11…)
We need to touch quickly on the appointments or offices outlined in these verses. “Apostles, prophets” was a specific calling to a specific era – the New Testament age when Jesus birthed the Church through his life, death and resurrection. These ‘offices’ if we could call them that, were given for a time when the New Order, or the second phase of God’s plan to save humanity, was brought into effect. The title “Apostle” was given to those who physically witnessed the resurrection of the Lord, Jesus Christ. “Prophets” were those who showed how Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of prophecies centuries earlier, teaching that He is indeed the Christ of God, the Messiah of the Jews of which we are the spiritual seed of Abraham, the spiritual Jewish community. These roles are no longer active in the church as outlined in the context of this passage.
“Evangelists, pastors and teachers” are the needs for the present time and have also been designated roles for every generation, past, present and for generations to come. Church leaders specifically fill these roles. One theological source explains it as an office occupied by people who have been given the care of a flock of God’s people. The purpose for this responsibility is then given in verse 12…
These verses articulate Glenys’ purpose and my purpose, but what about your purpose? Do you have a specific purpose as part of the Church? Definitely! This is clearly mentioned in our reading today – our purpose as your pastor-teachers to equip you to do the work of ministering. The author, Paul, also speaks of it in an earlier chapter of Ephesians, 2:10, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” You will hear me preach a message often during our time here. You may even get tired of hearing it! It is a simple message. God wired you the way you are to do a specific work for a specific purpose. Discover how God designed you and do the work that He has wired you to do. When you respond to that calling, you will be launched into the most exciting life you can imagine! Some of you are busy in your calling and giftedness that God gave you and you are having an amazing journey – and tons of fun along the way. Others of you are busy people, doing many great things and having a significant impact on people for God and good – but you’re not happy. You feel no joy in what you do. I believe that is partly attributed to being busy in the wrong place doing the wrong things. The Bible calls this discovery SPIRITUAL GIFTS. All of us have at least one and nearly all people have several. It is spoken of in the Bible in several places and one of the most familiar is 1 Corinthians 12. We’re told in verse one not to be ignorant about our spiritual gifts. Then Paul goes on to talk about different types of gifts and how those gifts should be used. The chapter does not cover every gift of course, but it provides sufficient categorical information out of which hundreds of gifts flow. The author then goes on to explain how the purpose of those gifts is to glorify God through the church. He uses the illustration of the human body to explain how every individual gift contributes to the whole – the value of the foot, hand, ear and eye and so on. It is a picture quite like that of a puzzle. I am not very good at puzzles – they require a fair amount of time and patience, not to mention putting pieces in certain places. You cannot force a piece to fit where it does not belong and if you are tempted to cut it so that it will fit, you will unleash a domino effect that will completely destroy the puzzle. The beauty it will have been meant to provide to the viewer will be less appealing.
This picture is too often what happens in the church. People are plugged in where they don’t belong, doing things they’d rather not do and having no life or purpose in the process. We essentially are cutting the puzzle piece of the person, to fit a mold they don’t belong in. We have to launch each other to be busy doing what we were wired to do. Leaders do not offer the same emphasis of other leaders simply because we are wired differently. The responsibility of the church is not to criticize what they think they should see but to celebrate what God has presented on the canvas of our fellowship and how that variety and uniqueness contributes to the whole.
I say all of that to say this – YOU HAVE A PURPOSE IN THE CHURCH! That purpose is not to be devoid of fun and excitement! God’s design did not intend your existence to be a boring, humdrum, dismal, or gray duty-type survival mode. He intended that each of us feel ALIVE in our labour and to excel in our effort. He wants us to be energized in our activity! If you are not energized and alive with passion in what you’re doing, you may need to reevaluate your activity and get connected to your gift(s). DISCOVER YOUR PURPOSE! If you want help and guidance in doing that, I have a few ideas that I’d love to share with you!
When you and I then put our individual purposes together in community life, we become a powerful force for God that the world cannot ignore and everything we touch ripples into the lives of this person and that person, which ripples into the broader family and into the broader community and it expands and grows and saves!
No good plan ever materializes without some pain and opposition. As I get ready to wrap this up, please let me say something about
3. The Challenge for the Church
Remember Spiderman, Peter Parker, and the black entity that fought for his soul – the essence of who he was as a person? We face the same reality every single day. The “black entity” I mentioned earlier, that pursues us with a deadly vengeance has many names – Satan, Devil, Deceiver, Father of Lies – the Bible mentions these among others. I will not cloak his sinister, diabolical, evil presence in the church and let him hide in the closets or behind the curtains or in our offices. He needs to be exposed as the self-serving master of disguises that he is. I fight the temptation often that would have me be so concerned about being politically correct that I deny Satan is real and at work in the world.
You face this challenge as well. The moment you become passionate about building God’s Kingdom and saving people’s lives from hell, that is the moment you will face the barrage of the enemy’s assaults. The Bible teaches us an important lesson as we are challenged to live on purpose. Again, from Ephesians, 6:12-13 this time…
WRAP
· The world needs a hero – He is Super, Extra-terrestrial, completely out of this world – Jesus Christ!
· He is lived out in this world when His people live on purpose – connected constantly to His design and desire and responding to every life situation in that pulse.
· We should seek constantly to understand the purposes of the Church
· We should pursue our individual, specific roles in response to that knowledge, living out our lives in the context of our specific gifts and created calling.
· Bathe these realities in constant prayer and following hard after God. Being in relationship with Him is the only counter-attack to the Devil’s efforts to destroy lives and disrupt the moving of God in the world.
