“Connected: Shaping Up”
Romans 8:5-11; Eph. 4:1-16
Throughout this series we have been considering how we, as individuals, get and stay connected with God, each other, and the world in which we live. But thinking about connectedness would not be complete unless we also consider what it means for the Body of Christ – His Church – to be connected in these ways. Paul, in fact, wrote about it in his letter to the Ephesian church: “…live a life worthy of the calling you have received... 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…” Paul teaches us how God is shaping up His church.
The Church begins shaping up by DEVELOPING TENACITY (1). “As a prisoner for the Lord then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” Paul’s tenacious commitment to Jesus, led him to prison. Paul was, in fact, imprisoned in two ways: he was bound to Christ by chains of love and in custody of earthly rulers out of loyalty to the gospel. No matter what the circumstances, Paul adhered to Jesus. To be the Church God has designed us to be WE MUST ADHERE TO JESUS CHRIST. This tape adheres to my skin; it goes wherever I go and holds this microphone in place. So we must adhere to Jesus. One of the reformers said that we need to stick to Christ like a burr to a topcoat. Whatever we do, we must do it for the Lord. This is the acid test of church life. Am I doing this for the Lord? Am I saying this for the Lord? Is this what Jesus wants? Any other motive, any other reasoning, stunts upward growth. To live a life worthy of your calling, adhere to Jesus Christ.
Shaping up also involves LIVING WITH CHARITY. Paul lists four attitudes. Verse 2: “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” Humility, gentleness, patience, and love. The shape of any church is partially dependent upon MEMBERS ATTITUDES TOWARDS EACH OTHER – how we treat each other, how we talk about each other determines whether or not we shaping and growing up. Those who walk worthy of their calling aren’t worried about feeling slighted and under-appreciated; they aren’t out to prove at any cost that they are right and others are wrong; they don’t busy themselves saying, “Our church would be so much better off without him or her. It’s people like that who destroy the church.” To be the community Christ calls us to be, every member must be willing to replace self-interest with Christ-interest. To live a life worthy of your calling, humbly and patiently bear with one another in love.
The third step in shaping up is STRIVING FOR UNITY. (4-6) “4There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to one hope when you were called-- 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” Our lives are bound up with each other because they are bound up with God. God has given us unity; God has already united us through His Son and His Holy Spirit. This is what Paul addressed in chapter 2 of this letter. But UNITY WILL ONLY BE REALIZED AS WE STRIVE FOR IT (3): “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” Make every effort. Literally, “Spare no effort.” The tense of the word means it is to be a continuous action. It was the wise preacher, in Proverbs, who wrote that the worst of the seven abominations against the Lord is to stir up discord within a body. In stating it a positive way the Psalmist proclaimed, “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! For there the LORD bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.” Jesus put it simply, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons (children) of God.”
Consider California’s giant redwood trees. Some of them have grown to 300 feet in height (that’s the length of a football field) – the tallest trees in the world. Yet the trees do not have an elaborate root structure with roots deep into the ground. Rather, the redwoods have fairly shallow roots but they grow together with the roots of other trees. As a result, the roots strengthen one another and protect the trees during storms. It’s a picture of the intertwining that Christ desires in His Church. So do you connect with, or disconnect from others? Do you sow seeds of peace or discord? Do you seek unity or division? It is so easy to have the right opinion but the wrong attitude, so simple to be right in the head and wrong in the heart. If we adhere to Jesus, if we are charitable, if we speak and act for Jesus, we will sow peace and live in unity. We are not walking worthy of our calling if we are busy doing and demanding our own way and ideas at the expense of unity within Christ’s body.
Another aspect of shaping up is LIVING OUT OUR DIVERSITY (7-12). Jesus has decided who will have what and who will do what: “To each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.” God’s grace is His undying, ever faithful, unconditional love – which we considered last week. But His grace also includes a wide variety of gifts and people, in endless combinations, to share that grace. Unity is not destroyed, but rather enriched by diversity. YOU, AND YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE BODY, ARE IMPORTANT. We cannot be complete or mature without you. Every time someone leaves we lose some diversity of giftedness and everyone who joins enriches our giftedness and makes us more mature.
The Reformed Church Liturgy for ordination and installation states this poignantly: “Holy Scripture teaches us that God…gathers to Himself from among the lost children of humanity a Church to life eternal, and that in this work of grace He is pleased to use the ministry of people…” You and I are PART OF GOD’S WORK OF GRACE IN THE WORLD. God wants us to have the privilege of sharing in the work of grace. The Church is more than a refueling station where we get our needs met and our attitudes adjusted, where we get pumped up for the next week – although all of that may happen. Rather the Church is primarily the launching pad to send us into ministry and service. I like what the charter of the Church of the Savior in Washington D.C. stated: “On the ship of the church there are no passengers; all are members of the crew.” This is why God has given pastors, preachers, and evangelists to the Church “…to prepare God’s people for works of service…” The word prepare means to strengthen, make fit, to furnish completely, to put in proper condition. My task, as a preacher and pastor, is to make you fit for serving Jesus. Your task is to serve. I received a clear call from God to preach and pastor. I must live a life worthy of the calling. But you, too, have been called, and are under the same obligation to live a life worthy of the calling. If you have insurance or stocks, you will periodically receive notification about official meetings at which some perfunctory votes will be taken. You can send in your vote by proxy – without being there. You cannot serve Jesus by proxy!
To follow these steps in shaping up, we will REACH MATURITY (13-16). All of these gifts, this diversity of people, are “…to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up…” They are for the PURPOSE OF PREPARING GOD’S PEOPLE. It’s as we do ministry that we attain unity and maturity. Each of us must contribute what we can uniquely give to the Body. If even one of us does not contribute, the church cannot reach maturity. Apostles must apostle, prophets must prophesy, evangelists must evangelize, and so it goes. Listen to what Paul wrote the Roman church 12:4-8): “Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ's body. We are all parts of his one body, and each of us has different work to do. And since we are all one body in Christ, we belong to each other, and each of us needs all the others.” The body depends upon you. Your life is to be a vocation for Christ. Every action, every word must be in service to Him. Eugene Peterson paints a great picture (12-13 MSG): “…to train Christians in skilled servant work, working within Christ's body, the church, until we're all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God's Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.”
This diversity of people and gifts is also for the PURPOSE OF REACHING ADULTHOOD. In verse 14 Paul lifts up the importance of spiritual growth once again: “14Then we will no longer be infants, tossed 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.” We have a responsibility to grow in faith and knowledge. Just hearing a sermon 2,3, or 4 times a month is not enough. Personal devotions and prayer, small group experiences, Bible studies, regular attendance at worship are all vital in increasing our knowledge and faith. Our service will die, or we will be misguided, if we do not have the fuel, the power, or the relationship with Christ to keep it alive. It is all too easy in this day of flashy marketing and instant communication to be swept away by the latest fad or popular personality. But that’s being immature. It’s like children who have a short attention span. They flit from one new thing to another. Perhaps that’s why some people move from church to church and never settle down, or who volunteer to serve in a certain capacity and then ask to be relieved after only a little while, or who are reluctant to make a solid commitment to any local body of believers. Service must be undergirded with an ever-growing relationship with Jesus and His body. Put a tree in the ground, and it will grow; put a post in the ground and it will rot. What’s the difference? Trees put roots down into the soil – a post does not. You bear responsibility for putting down your roots; you are responsible for your spiritual growth. Verses 15-16 (CEV): “Then we will grow in every way and be more like Christ, the head 16of the body.” To live worthy of our calling is to put our roots down deep into the soil of God.
Little Johnny was playing with his building blocks. The rest of the family was talking and watching television. Suddenly Johnny blurted out, “Shhhh. I’m building a church.” “That’s nice, son,” his father said. “But why do we have to be quiet?” “Because,” said Johnny, “there are people asleep in the church.” Every church has members who are fast asleep. That’s why, to the Roman Christians, Paul wrote (Rom. 12:4f.), “God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out when you have faith that God is speaking through you. If your gift is that of serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, do a good job of teaching. If your gift is to encourage others, do it! If you have money, share it generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.”
To say it very simply, we shape up the Church when we ALLOW THE HOLY SPIRIT TO SHAPE US UP. Paul wrote (Eph. 5:18) we are “to be filled with the (Holy) Spirit.” Most of us tend to think, “Well, I’ve already been filled with the Holy Spirit; this doesn’t pertain to me;” the tense here is, “To be continually filled” with the Holy Spirit. Be filled again and again and again. How do we do that? It is basically a two-step process.
The first thing to do is CONFESS OUR SIN. We must make a full confession of our sins before God – to clean ourselves out, as it were, so God can pour Himself into us. Two illustrations to help make it clear: Consider making a pot of coffee. You cannot brew a second pot until you first dump – clean out – the used grounds. You must get rid of the grounds before there is room for more coffee. Also, it’s like the internal combustion engine. When it begins to run poorly, it’s because there has been a carbon buildup on the inside. You can add more oil into it, you can do anything you want to; but unless you get that carbon out of there, the engine is not going to work properly.
Too often we are like the proud man who walked into the blacksmith’s shop to see what things were like. Just as he walked in, the blacksmith finished forging a new horseshoe and he threw it down on the hard ground to cool off and harden. The proud man leaned over and picked it up with his fingers, and of course, being instantly burned, let go of it right away. With a twinkle in his eye the blacksmith said, “It’s rather hot, isn’t it?” The proud man said, “Oh, no; it just doesn’t take me long to look at a horseshoe!” And isn’t that the way we act? We don’t want to admit that we’ve put our hands where they shouldn’t have been and have been burned ourselves. God says, “Admit it, be honest about it. You have been burned in life. We need to confess our sins to Him.
Secondly, we need to YIELD OURSELVES TO GOD. So often we say, “God forgive me”, but we turn right around and continue living the way we had been. We don’t give the Spirit room to operate. Hebrews 12:1&2 says, “We need to cast aside every weight and sin which clings so closely.” It’s like a hot air balloon. It has weights on it to hold it on the ground. Those weights must be cut away before the balloon can fly like it’s designed to. Sometimes in our lives we have things that are good, and perhaps righteous, in themselves; but they get in the way of our relationship with Jesus Christ. We need to get rid of them and say, “Lord I want you to have full control.”
WE NEED TO BE WILLING TO BE WILLING TO DO WHATEVER, TO GO WHEREVER, SO HE CAN WORK WHERE WE ARE. I was asked when I left Central College and came to Holland to go to Seminary, “Would you ever go and serve in Iowa?” And I said, “It’s a nice place to visit, but I’d never live there.” The first call I took was in Iowa! When I was in Iowa, I had a native of Kalamazoo ask, “Do you think you’ll ever serve in Kalamazoo?” I said, “No way; nobody ever serves in their home town.” “What about serving elsewhere in Michigan?” I said, “I really doubt it.” And God blitzed me again, didn’t He? I left Iowa and served first in Holland, and then in Kalamazoo. And since then I’ve been in Grand Rapids and now here. Hopefully I’ve learned to never qualify anything. God will keep telling us, “You’re not yielded yet,” and He’ll continue until we yield! After we confess our sins we need to yield ourselves to Him.
I’m reminded of the spider in a big barn. He crawled on a rafter and decided to spin his web. He came down much lower than where the rafter was because the bugs fly at a lower level. Then he spun a beautiful, large web. He caught many bugs and had a good home – until one day he looked up and he saw this one string that was hanging, seemingly, out of place in the web. Not knowing what it was there for, he proceeded to crawl over to it and cut it – only to have the web wrap itself around him as he fell to the floor. He had cut his lifeline from the rafter. Let’s maintain our lifeline to Jesus through the Holy Spirit so that we, and His Church, can be in beautiful shape.
I invite you to pray; “Jesus I know I’ve failed and I’ve burned myself; I’ve too often cut my life-line to you. Forgive me. I want yield myself to You, I want You to fill my heart. Shape me up so I, and your Church, can live in your power. Amen.”
