The Bible is full of different images to try to explain what the church is like and how it works. For example, the Apostle Paul often talks about the church as a building. But he didn’t mean a building made of wood or brick or stone. He meant a figurative building in which the members of the church come together, real close to each other, and become like stones, living stones, built together to make a temple. And when they are all in place, God’s Holy Spirit comes and lives among them, in his temple.
It may seem like a strange idea. But have you ever had a day when you came to church and you mixed with your brothers and sisters in Christ and it hit you, “God is here”? You experience God’s presence in the love of your brothers and sisters.
Maybe you felt it in some encouraging words from someone. And you appreciated them for saying it. But it felt like more.
Maybe you had been trying to figure out how to deal with some problem and someone said something to you that pointed you to the right thing to do and you just knew that God was helping you know what to do.
Maybe someone in the church offered to help you with some project that needed to be done at home. And you were thankful to them, but deep inside, you took it as a gift from God, too.
Maybe you’ve been under a lot of stress and its getting to you, and you get a thoughtful note or card in the mail. And something inside says, ‘Thank you, Lord, I needed that.”
When God’s people come together, in love and in unity, then we start to see glimpses of God breaking through, or shining out of his temple, the church. I think we have all experienced it.
And what a treasure it is to experience God in our midst. The Bible tells us to expect it, and it tells us to work to make it happen, to build each other up to be a temple from which God can shine. It doesn’t just happen automatically. There are so many things that prevent those stones from coming together. We all need to develop construction skills to be sure that God’s temple, the church alive, made up of all the believers, comes together. How are your church construction skills today?
Our text for this morning is, again, Ephesians 4:11-16. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.
11 The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 14 We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. 15 But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.
God puts spiritual gifts into every member of the church for the purpose of building one another up. Verse twelve of our text uses a construction term, building up. God’s temple is made up of living stones. In 1 Peter 2:5 we read, “like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.” But we need to be prepared if we will be good building material. We need to be strengthened to hold up the weight of the building. We need to be shaped, to have our rough edges knocked off so that we can come together. We need to be fitted together and fastened securely together in deep relationships. When we do that, God’s love and grace and power shine through us.
How can we build each other up? I’d like to do what we call a topical Bible study and pull out several verses that talk about how we can build each other up, how we can build that spiritual temple where God is pleased to dwell and shine.
In Romans 14:19 we read, “Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.” Peace and upbuilding go together. Every loving relationship we have is a resource for life that makes us stronger. Loving friendships make us more resilient. Loving relationships make it feel safe to ask for help when we need it. Broken relationships cut us off from those blessings. A solidly constructed building may survive most any earthquake. A building with cracks in its walls or foundation will fall with the slightest tremor. So living in peace with one another is an important part of making us strong. And Paul tells us to make every effort to preserve the bonds of peace.
How are your bonds with your fellow members of this church this morning? Are there cracks in some relationships, cracks that leave your relationship vulnerable to misunderstandings, cracks that will get worse as soon as a time of stress comes? This is the day to start reconnecting with that person. God’s blessings flow when there is true peace and unity. He dwells in his temple, the church when love is flowing, unimpeded by cracks and broken relationships.
In Ephesians 4:29 we read, “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.” There is tremendous power in our words for building up, and also for tearing down. The Bible says a lot about that and we have all had experiences of words that really hurt us. And we’ve all had experiences of words that built us up.
Words that build up give grace. They strengthen us. And words can also do tremendous damage. Years ago I was involved with a young man who had what we might call a nervous breakdown. He was so agitated he couldn’t sleep for several days. His mind was so disturbed that it was hard for him to put together rational sentences. At one point I was talking with him and he just threw a radio in my face.
He was a young man who had been deeply wounded by taunting when he was in school. Someone gave him a nickname from one of the Saturday morning cartoon shows, “Underdog.” And everybody gets nicknames and everybody gets some teasing, but this was so vicious that he was deeply wounded.
I thought of this young man, I’ll call him Donald, as we learned the background of the shootings at Columbine High School, back in April, 1999. Two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had been taunted by other students, especially athletes and ‘the popular kids.’ And they chose about the worst possible way of reacting, they went and shot up the school. There is no excuse for what they did. But let it be a measure for us of the pain that sins of the tongue can cause.
And is that only a problem of teenagers? I couldn’t begin to count the number of times I have sat down with someone who had stopped coming to church and they have told me that the reason they stopped coming was something that was said that hurt them. Words are so powerful to hurt and so powerful to build up. Let’s be sure we use that power for building, not hurting. It’s a major theme in the Bible.
But I have to say that for every time I have heard of someone being wounded by painful words in the church, I have received the blessing of encouraging words. There have been times when I’ve wondered if my ministry was being effective and someone came with a word of appreciation that helped me see something in my ministry that God had seen and I had missed. It reminded me that God is with me. It gave me courage to jump in and go at it again.
And is there anybody here who doesn’t need a word of encouragement from time to time?
In Proverbs 12:18, we read, “Rash words are like sword thrusts,” Is that an exaggeration? No, “but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” Have you ever experienced rash words that cut you like sword thrusts? Have you ever experienced words that brought healing?
Proverbs 15:4 says, “A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.” When we can trust that our brothers and sisters will speak gently to us, it is safe to reach out and connect and build the relationships that make the church strong. When the covenant of love is broken in the church, it really can break the spirit.
1 Thessalonians 5:11 says, “Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.” When we use our tongues to encourage one another, express our appreciation, help each other see God working in our lives, then we build each other up.
And that doesn’t mean a mindless approval of anything that goes, even unworthy things. Sometimes we need to confront misbehavior. But as we do that, we need to encourage people to take the right steps to work things out, not condemn, not attack, not try to cause hurt.
As I have worked to collect passages that talk about building each other up, the most common theme that I found focused on the words that we use.
But there are many ways to build each other up. And I want to encourage you to look at how you come to church. Do you measure the value of a Sunday morning by what you receive from others? Or do you measure the value of a Sunday morning by what you give to others? Do you let your spiritual batteries run down all week, and then come to church desperate and vulnerable, looking for everyone else to feed you? Or do you nourish your soul all week and come to church rich in soul and ready to give?
If you pray for your fellow members during the week God will speak to you ways that you can be an encouragement to them. If you study your Bible, in time you will have very useful things to add to conversations. If you make that little extra effort to get to know other members, soon you will see opportunities to be a blessing to them.
The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, in 1 Corinthians 14:26 “When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.”
He is especially talking about the charismatic gifts which had gotten distorted in Corinth. But each one of us can look to bring something to be a blessing on Sundays, something to build up the others. It may be a gift of music. It may be to share something you have learned. We are organized for that to happen in our classes, but it happen in the narthex or coffee hour, even by e-mail. It may be a word to help someone recognize God working in their life. It may be a thoughtful phone call or a note during the week. If you come looking to give, every one of us will have something we can do to build up one another. And when we do, God’s love shines through us. AMEN
