How Church is Done 3:
Growth via Small Groups
Let me give a quick overview so far in our message series on Ephesians. Eph 1-3 paints a picture of how God is running the show with all his love. The universe has meaning and purpose and God is in the middle of it. Yes the world we live in is dark but it is going through a whole renewal process and it all begins with two words:
1. GRACE and PEACE: this came thru revelation of Christ. God wants us to receive this!
2. JOY of God: Paul gives a picture of God the Father who is in His total joy has determined in his heart to bless the world. Eph.1 captures the pure pleasure of God. He enjoys doing this new thing in Christ. Invite upstairs for more.
3. Destined for Greatness: the church’s destination is greatness in the love of God: He chose us before the world was made.
4. Centre of all things in heaven and earth: Jesus who lived and died and resurrected. This same Jesus brought us forgiveness of sins by His blood, reconciling all things in heaven and earth.
5. Signed, Sealed and delivered: All believers are guaranteed God’s riches tru faith inscribed by the Spirit. Now we have a glorious inheritance.
6. Life change resulted: all barriers knocked down, sin, racial and cultural walls long erected smashed – the church is one, there is incomparable power for all who believe, the Spirit now dwells in the believer enabling, the church now is God’s pride and joy, revealing His masterful wisdom in getting us to be in the Kingdom of God.
7. New family: Paul prayer is that we get this vision of a new family in Christ together, rooted and established in love, be strong together, be alive together, under the reign and rule of God who blesses us with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Take pride in this family as God is taking pride in his church, his masterpiece, His creation His family.
8. Faith: All this can be had simply by faith, it is not by merit, by grace thru faith, not our works.
What a picture of new order of peace and grace. Contrast it to what we have now in our world, everytime you travel by air reminded it is not a safe world. A world that is teetering on the edge of insanity where even a bottle of water can be suspected as a weapon of mass destruction. Tensions with N Korea, our soldiers dying in Afghan, school shootings. Graceless world, a world with no peace, no guarantees that u can be safe, who knows what can happen next, an airplane could just smash into where you live just like the way a NY Yankees pitcher died recently. Thanks be to God, that God has revealed to us a world that is much better, where grace and peace exists, where safety is guaranteed, where no one is left to struggle alone, loved forever.
So what God revealed is all wonderful, but what does God expect of us now. Certainly the people of God cannot go back to sinful patterns of behavior they used to love in. How do will Christians live in the now.
1. GOD WANTS US TO GROW AND BE LIKE HIM NOW.
Expectation of scripture is that eternal life begins now, and new set of behavior is to be set in place in place of the rotten stuff the world churns out. Christians have a job to reflect the grace and peace of God in world dying for something pure and good. Our job is to translate this grace and peace of God to real life. Eternal life does not begin when you die, it starts now with new ways of relating to one another with Christ at the centre with a view of how great the family of God is, due to the greatness of love shown us in the first place thru’ the redemptive theology, Paul outlined in Eph.1-3. Paul writes now to us, with a view that heaven cannot wait. Heaven can be had now, though not in all its fullness and glory, but we can get a head start if we would live what Paul calls “a life worthy of the calling.” So Paul writes,
Ephesians 4:1-16
1As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 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.
The other day I heard England got beat by Croatia 2-0 in an Euro soccer contest. Big upset loss, Croat coach says England had great talented players but they did not work together as a team, resulting in the loss. Lots of talent didn’t amount to a hill of beans, if there is no unified effort.
There is a reason why church exploded in Acts. this is how church life was described, Acts 4:32 says All the believers were one in heart and mind. (cause they were acting growing in God-like ways) No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.
This is what Paul points us to, to live a life worthy of the calling, a calling of greatness in the love of God, a life that’s shared, just as God thru’ Christ shares heaven with us, giving us all the riches of heaven that belongs to Christ - a life worthy of the calling of grace.
2. Each one has a part to play in growing the church.
To further work that in real life,
7But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. 8This is why it[a] says:
"When he ascended on high,
he led captives in his train
and gave gifts to men."[b] 9(What does "he ascended" mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions[c]? 10He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) 11It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13until 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.
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. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16From 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.
What a picture of the church! Church is not a program, not a building, not the leaders but God’s people under orders by Christ doing a job “as each part does its work.” Gotta remember Paul writes to a situation where conflicts can be very real because of ages old discrimination and ill-will in the life of the folks in the region. Paul says that everyone has a part in repairing what’s been so firmly entrenched due to sin and evil, each one is given grace, enough grace by God to complete the picture of this new family in Christ (v.7). God’s people – are to serve one another (v.12) to pitch in to live together, work together, build together, this is what will make faith concrete and real.
Faith is not lived in the mountains in seclusion. Faith is not rehashing old blood feuds, exacting revenge and inspiring terror, friction, conflict, war. Faith is to be lived together with the hard work of always, remembering what God has done to unify all peoples everywhere. It is He who has given us the bond of peace, it is He who restored humanity to its glory, in the glory of the One who loved us and gave His life for us. Need to constantly renew our minds, that we are now cosmic winners, all heaven’s blessing guaranteed, through Jesus Christ and as winners in the tug of war for the lives and souls of people, need to get down to reality, of the nitty gritty work of serving others that they too may know and sense the blessing of God who makes us one! See the eternal perspective, see the joy of God, see the incredible grace that is now infused to each believer, revel in that, rejoice, respond to that and now let each part, each one work serving to build up Christ’s church.
It is time to do away with what used to separate people, it is time to bring people together under Christ, in view of His work on the cross to reconcile people to God and each other. It is time to see beyond what divides, to see who is unifying, has done the work of reconciliation, through grace and peace of God. It is time to build on what God began in blessing the believers with His resolve. It is time for the church of Christ to grow up to be the new family God pictures with everyone getting the fact we belong to each other, unified in the Spirit, God expects believers to work 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.. It is time for the church to flex its collective muscle to build the church of God’s dreams. It is time for the blessing of God to unfolded in our time and day! It is time for RCEFC to capture a piece of the action that God wants us to have. Paul gives a picture of what that looks like.
Perhaps you have heard that Christian and non Christian lifestyle is hardly any different. Sept. 2004 study by the Barna Group of Ventura, California, shows that the likelihood of married adults getting divorced is identical among born again Christians and those who are not born again. In a Gallup poll cited by Dallas Willard in his book The Divine Conspiracy – 94% of Americans believe in God and 74% claim a commitment to Jesus Christ. Yet America is not known to be a safe place, they have more school shootings, murders, huge drug war, racial problems still persist. Willard wonders why this has not changed statistics, why is that 94% of America is not changed dramatically. So where is the abundant life that Christians are supposed to possess? He wonders if we have developed an understanding of Christianity that somehow is devoid of God’s living presence. Let us do something, God expects this, to DO HIS WORK of translating grace and peace now to others.
Grace has been given each one of us says the Bible, can we give grace to another then? When you examine the account of the church in Acts 2, it is clear that there is profound difference. Everyday ordinary believers would make the commitment to meet, spend time together. God’s living presence is felt. We read…
Acts 2:46-47
Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
There is an atmosphere of celebration of grace received. From a people who have their hopes dashed, as their Master was crucified and dead, to a people who filled with hope and the Spirit as they rejoice over their a resurrected Lord and hope renewed. They were a people lost in a world dominated by another world power, oppressed politically, yet they celebrated in the present and live as if heaven has arrived. Indeed, God has arrived on the scene powerfully. Miraculous, mind-blowing things would occur, people knew God is alive, God is among them, God is active. There is freshness and celebration as the people of God discover a bit of heaven in a hell-bound world. You can see, in Acts 2, their daily lives exhibit a marked difference. And people who are not connected to the church, were attracted to such a rocking church. But it was a church committed to be together, in one heart and mind, rocked by a living Savior who loved them to pieces.
People of God, we need to become difference makers again. To do that we do this:
3. GET CLOSE: Be close enuff to make your faith real, get close enuff to hear truth spoken in love.
See Ephesians 4
2Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
Small groups is one way of doing it. It was the way Jesus started to train some bumbling dense imperfect people called the 12, lived with them got close enuff so that faith is not just academic knowledge and bible memory games, but faith became real. They dealt with each other’s imperfections in the unconditional love and care of the Master, they grew became world-changers, difference makers, who gave us the NT, who inspire us uncoordinated imperfect prone to be silly people to believe that we too can change and be like them. JI Packer says “The church will always flourish where is strong fellowship. The church will always be stagnant, moribund and ineffective where there is no fellowship ” in his statement re: heb.10:25, “let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing…”
Challenge: to grow get involve in small group so we won’t give up meeting together, sharing common life in Christ. Make faith real, not just your private interpretation of a free ticket to heaven. Feel safe to let down your hair and relax and sense God grace and peace thru another who has been given grace to build you up. Vital for spiritual life, give room for the Spirit to grow you, not be tossed around in your faith. Gk word for fellowship comes from a root word meaning “common” or “shared”, do we a common and shared life with other believers, close enuff to share and have something in common? Packer says “I believe that one of the reasons why great sections of the modern church are soften sluggish and feeble, compared wit our counterparts of one or two centuries ago, is that the secret of fellowship has been lost. Let us not talk glibly about following Christ, if we have not gotten close enuff to another believers to share life and faith together to bear another in love, to God expects believers to grow and be like him now… each believer has a part to play to make church come alive and be healthy and to do that gotta get close enuff. Join a small group, launch small groups in future, help us do that… help us make small groups of disciples of jesus…
