There is a group in our church which is planning a quilt. This quilt is to depict the history of our church, with each square representing a decade in the church’s life. The finished product will be put on display so that everyone can get a picture of our history.
Now this is not the first time that someone has thought of designing a quilt as a way to portray the church. Several years ago another group began to gather materials. This first group had an idea that was different from the group that is at work now. The first group wanted to make a square for every family that is a part of the church. Their vision was to ask each family to bring something that would represent them, and then all of these symbols would be put onto squares of cloth and sewn into a quilt. The finished product would portray our church family.
I got a little concerned about that. I said to someone, “But what about all the families who are not here yet? What about all the people who will join us in the future? A quilt like this should never be finished, because new people are coming all the time, and we would not want to leave them out." A good answer came right back, "We plan to leave one end of the quilt open. It will have no border. It will just be open, and then, as new people come, we can knit their squares onto the end, and the quilt will just go on and on." That felt a lot better. I didn’t want to see us suggest that the fabric of what God is doing here is finished. I wanted to make sure that we would include everyone that God chooses to lead to this family of faith.
A quilt, with all its different squares, is a wonderful image of what God is doing with His people. He brings us together, diverse and different though we may be. But our God is, in His church, attaching us to one another in spiritual friendship. Our God is knitting a quilt.
One of the most beautiful friendships in the Bible is described in much the same way. Two young men, different in background, diverse in personality. The Bible says of Jonathan and David, the prince of Israel and the shepherd boy, that "the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." Two souls, knit together. Their inner selves connected. What can we find out about being knit together? What does it mean for a church to be a knit quilt?
I
Notice first that we begin knitting souls together when we establish who our father is! We begin to knit souls together and to connect, when each one of us declares who our father is.
David had come out of nowhere and had defeated the giant Goliath on the field of battle. Small, young, untested, he had taken down the Philistine warrior who had been holding off the entire Israelite army. Nobody knew who David was. He just came out of the woodwork and fought the giant.
So King Saul, seeing David’s accomplishment, wanted to know who this is. He asked his question in a particular way. He wanted to know whose son this is! He did not ask what this young man’s name is, but what is his father’s name. He did not ask what are his credentials, and where did he go to school, and who else has he fought. He asked one and only one question, "Who is his father?"
When Saul saw David go out against the Philistine, he said to Abner, the commander of the army, "Abner, whose son is this young man?" Abner said, "As your soul lives, 0 king, I do not know." The king said, "Inquire whose son the stripling is." On David’s return from killing the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul, with the head of the Philistine in his hand. Saul said to him, "Whose son are you, young man?" And David answered, "I am the son of your servant Jesse the Bethlehemite."
When adults say to children, "Who are you?" what do they really mean? They mean, who are your parents? From what family do you come? Some of you ask me about various children around the church: who is that child? If I say, "Mark Green", that’s not enough. You say, "Is he one of Bruce and Kellie’s boys? And if you have been around here a long time, you say, "Is that Shade’s grandson?" We connect with each other when we know who the parents are. I could go back to my home church in Louisville right now, after all these years, and a few very elderly people would say, "Oh, I know who you are. You’re Margaret’s and Everett’s boy." We feel connected when we know the family somebody came from. "Whose son are you, young man?"
Ah, but what if we figure out that we all have the same Father?! What if it we realize that we are children of the heavenly Father, and that is more important than knowing the names of our earthly fathers? What if we discover that we are sons and daughters, born not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of the will of God? Doesn’t that matter above all things? Doesn’t that make all the difference in the world?
A church is a family of faith, where everyone acknowledges the same Father. A church is a family of brothers and sisters who are knit together not because of how they were first-born, but because of how they were born again. Souls start knitting themselves together in a quilt because they share a common origin; they share the one Father.
You know what? I think that makes irrelevant some of the things that we get excited about. I think that makes secondary some of the differences we talk about. If we all have one Father, does it make sense to use race as a way to identify and to divide? I think not; we are not simply children of the black race or the white race or the yellow race, or of any other race but the human race. Paul preached it, "Have we not all one Father; has not one God created us?" Tell me not who your earthly father was; tell me only that we share a heavenly Father, and I will knit you into my quilt.
Who is your Father? If we all have one Father, it makes it irrelevant how much money you have or what social class you fit into or where you live or what your education is. If you are in the Father’s family, you are no longer upper-class or middle-class or low-class or no-class. Great God, do you know who you are? You are a child of the King! And so is that brother or sister sitting next to you! We knit souls together into this great quilt of Christ’s church by making it clear that God is our Father.
I take great joy in the fact that our church embraces people from many walks of life. No place on earth should be more ready to embrace diversity than the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We do not ask where you came from, who your parents were, what your skin color is, or even why you talk with a funny accent. We ask only one question to qualify you to be knit into our quilt. Who is your Father? Who is your eternal Father?
II
So we begin to knit souls together into a beautiful family quilt when we establish that we all have the same father. But some of the sons and daughters do have a special role in knitting the quilt and bringing the patches together. Some of the sons and daughters of the King have a key part to play. For quilt-knitting will happen only when somebody with power, somebody with credibility, makes it happen. Just as when our quilting group has gathered all the patches, and they are spread out on the table in a higgledy-piggledy heap, somebody will have to decide which piece fits where. Somebody will have to bring them all together. In just the same way, those of you who have spiritual maturity are needed to bring the whole church together.
Notice how Jonathan stood by for a minute and listened to his father, the King. Notice how Jonathan warmed up to David after Saul, a person of power, a person he respected, had welcomed David:
When David had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was bound [knit] to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father’s house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul.
Why did Jonathan bond with David? How was it that the souls of these two very different young men were knit together? Jonathan stood by and watched while David and Saul spoke. The newcomer was acknowledged by the power figure, the authority figure. After that, after seeing his father’s example, the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David.
Every church has people who can do this. Every church has validators, people who make things all right or make them not all right. Every church has these special people. Back when I was doing substitute preaching around the little churches of Eastern Kentucky, I could go in some church on a Sunday morning, some church I had never gone to before, and usually within the first five minutes I could find someone who would stand out from all the others. He would look a little more together, he would seem to be telling others what to do, he would just have that feel of being the guy in charge. 90% of the time I was right. Before the day was over, he would have led the service, turned off the lights, closed the doors, and, most important of all, would have told me where I was going to have dinner! There are always folks in charge. There are always validators. There are always those whose acceptance and approval carry a great deal of weight.
Now that kind of power can be used for tremendous good or for stupendous evil. Your influence can make a huge difference in somebody’s life and in the life of a church, for good or for evil. I know one church, not very far from here, where there was one man ... one ... who was so deeply invested in a particular political party that if the preacher did not toe the party line, that preacher soon became history. That one man ran off several very good pastors. That church, by the way, is as good as dead now; where once there were hundreds of people, now they do well to have forty in Sunday worship. If you use your influence to be negative and judgmental, you can destroy the fabric. You can unravel the quilt.
But if you are a validator, you can also make a wonderfully positive contribution. You can be a permission-giver. You can be a welcomer and an embracer. You can bring new people into the fabric of God’s church. You can knit them into the quilt. It takes somebody with spiritual maturity to do that. Jonathan knit his soul to the soul of David when he saw the King, his father, welcoming David. Souls will be knit into this quilt when those who are spiritually centered reach out and intentionally knit others into this quilt.
III
So, we’ve established now that you start knitting people into God’s quilt by making sure of one thing, that God is their Father by the new birth; and we’ve established that people will be knit into this quilt-fellowship if someone who already has some spiritual maturity helps them get in. That’s all to the good. But now what do we do with you when you are well and truly knit in? What’s the point of anyone’s being knit into the quilt?
The point is to equip you to be successful in the struggle. The point is to equip people to do battle and to overcome the obstacles put in their way. Quilts are there, you know, not just to look pretty, but to protect somebody from the cold. Quilts are there, not just to look at, but to warm somebody up. So the patches in the quilt need to be ready to do what they are supposed to do. We must equip people to be successful in the struggle. Look at this beautiful image from the Scripture:
Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that he was wearing, and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt. David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him; as a result, Saul set him over the army. And all the people, even the servants of Saul, approved.
Remarkable and wonderful what Jonathan did. Instead of keeping all that was rightfully his, Jonathan stripped himself and gave everything to David. Jonathan spent his energies to equip David. And David became successful. Our task is to equip our brothers and sisters so that they can be successful in doing what God has called them to do. Our task is not to do everything ourselves; nor is our task to shrug our shoulders and say, "Get somebody else to do this job." Our task is to share what we know, our task is to train and to equip others, and then stand back and rejoice when they succeed.
Sometimes we get into that mode, "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself." Anybody here guilty of that? I know I am. "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself." I’m sorry, but that’s wrong! That’s a mistake! Because if you do not equip somebody else, you will miss the joy of discovering skills you didn’t even know were out there. Because if you do not equip somebody else, you dampen spirits and quench enthusiasm. Because if you do not equip somebody else, you miss the joy of seeing others grow in Christ. And, most of all, if you do not equip somebody else, you don’t knit souls together, and you fall into self-centeredness. We fall into sin. Do you hear? If we do not equip others to be disciples of the Lord, it is not only that we miss the joy of having them knit into the quilt; it is also that we, in our selfishness, believe that we are indispensable to the Kingdom. And none of us is. None of us. Sadly, some of us would just as soon quit knitting the quilt and keep a little scrap of the Kingdom for ourselves. What a shame! What a terrible shame!
But let me just tell you a story about the equipping spirit and how it can work. In our church, just in the last few weeks, one family arrived at a financial crisis. You will understand that I will say nothing about the details. Privacy is important. I would not violate confidentiality. But this family arrived at a financial crisis and came to me to seek the Lord’s guidance and to find out what could be done. I did what I could from our assistance fund, but that was far short of what was needed. So I turned to a number of you and wrote you letters suggesting either gifts or loans. What do you think came of that? We received such a generous response that not only have the loans been repaid; and not only did the family receive enough to meet their crisis; but there was even more than was asked for! Praise God, as I heard the choir singing during the revival, "Give, and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, and running over", I gave thanks that we are a church whose people have learned how to equip and empower. Many of us have learned, like Jonathan, to strip off the robe and the armor and the sword and the bow so that someone else might succeed. Praise God for that!
If you are at all interested in seeing this quilt grow and flourish, you will equip someone else to do what you do for the Kingdom. And you will give whatever is precious to you so that together we can train many for Kingdom service. So your soul will be knit to another’s, and the quilt will grow ever more beautiful.
IV
Of course, it is true that quilts do deteriorate. It is true that fabric wears out. The Smithsonian is spending millions of dollars to preserve the Star-Spangled Banner, which cost the Army on1y about $400 when it was commissioned to fly over Ft. McHenry. But now the fabric is old and worn out. Quilts do deteriorate. But there is a remedy. There is a repair.
You see, the only problem in the knitting of the souls of Jonathan and David was that the old man, Saul, got bent out of shape. Saul thought there was a competition going on, but there wasn’t, not really. Saul would have torn the fabric that knit Jonathan his son and David his protege together, because, in Saul’s anxiety, he felt discounted. He felt put down. He felt unappreciated. Listen to what King Saul felt:
As they were coming home, when David returned from killing the Philistine, the women came out of all the towns of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with songs of joy, and with musical instruments. And the women sang to one another as they made merry, "Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands." Saul was very angry, for this saying displeased him. He said, "They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands; what more can he have but the kingdom?" So Saul eyed David from that day on.
Saul eyed David with fear and suspicion. Why? Saul let doubt and self-loathing and anger infect his heart. Why? Saul destroyed himself. Why? Because he did not hear the success of David as his own success; he heard it as a putdown, but it was not. They did sing, "Saul has killed his thousands." They gave Saul his due. What does it matter if someone else does well too, as they are a part of the quilt? What does it matter if someone else outshines you or me if they are doing something for the Kingdom? It’s not about competition, Saul. It’s not about who is first or who is best or who gives the most money or who makes a good impression or who gets the applause! It is about whose heart is knit to whose. It is about whether our hearts are set toward the things of the Kingdom.
There is a scene in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, in which Madame Defarge, during the French Revolution, stands in the streets, knitting. She is knitting into her work names, the names of those who will die at the guillotine. She had begun by knitting the names of aristocrats and nobility, people who deserved to die for their crimes. But it is not long before Madame Defarge begins to knit in other names, too. Names of people she does not like. Names of people who have not given her what she wants. Names of people accused by others. Names. She knits them into her deadly quilt, and assigns them to death. Madame Defarge, with suspicion, fear, and selfishness, knitting for death.
But you and I know one who knits for life. We know one who has always been one with the Father. We know Jesus Christ, who seeks to make us one with Him, knitting our souls with His and knitting us into the quilt of His church. He knits for life.
You and I know one who knits for life and not for death. You and I know Jesus, the young prince of glory, who vouches for us. Who declares us acceptable. Who is able to forgive every sin, cover every wrong, and welcome us home. You and I know one who knits for life and is ready to welcome us, "Come home, come home. Enter into the joy of the Father’s Kingdom." Jesus Christ knits His quilt for life, eternal life.
You and I know one who knits for life and not for death. You and I know the Lord Jesus Christ, who calls us to be woven into His life, to be strengthened by His strength, to be empowered by His church. And just as a quilt square on its own is next to nothing, so also a Christian without the empowering Christ in His church is very little indeed. Jesus Christ knits here his quilt, His quilt for life, and invites you to be the very next patch.
