“All in the Family-The Church”
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……He is in the process of writing them right now and he is talking about this notion of light and that is what kind of gave me the inspiration for our children’s message. He is talking about how we are all created as lights, just as it says “We are the light of the world…” (Matthew 5:14) He is thinking of it on an individual level and I think that is something for each of us to consider just as we asked our children to consider it, as well. What kind of light are you?
But today we are going to change a little bit from that and we are going to talk about how the Church can be a light; and, in particular, how a church can be a light to families, from grandparents to infants and all of us who are part of the family of God, helping those with young ones grow in their love for Christ. As you saw, we are in part three of our series “All in the Family” and we are looking how families and churches can partner together and how we can work together to raise up the next generation of Christ’s followers. So with that, I want to jump in and simply ask, what is the role of the Church in that process?
Our Scripture tells us that the Church gathered is the light of the world. Notice that it said we are not called to strive to become light. It doesn’t say we need to do our best to become light. It simply says we are. We already are light and we are not to hide it, but we are to show it and principally through our acts or through service. Now, I think you probably know me well enough to know that I am typically not a big alliteration guy but I think it works in this case. If you turn your order of service over, you can see the alliteration in terms of the way that the Church shows its light and it is through educating, equipping and empowering. In doing that the Church is going to help families shine their light to each other, to the world and beyond.
So let’s jump right into that with that first “e” of educate. I think when we think about education, we typically think about it as being able to absorb information so that it will bring about right beliefs. How many of you had a time in your life where you had to memorize dates for a history test? O.K. perhaps even in college. That is mainly how we think about it. Can we spit back the information? But really, education is more than that. It is about the measurement of education in any subject you want to think about. It is about the ability to act on what we know; in other words, can we take that information and apply it to real life? And that applies to any discipline whether it is history, whether it is science, philosophy, things like learning a new skill and to things like faith, as well.
Listen to the words from James, Chapter 1, it says this: Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing. This simply says that we are to act on what we know. We are to act on what we know and the corollary around that is if we don’t act on it, it is proof that we don’t really know. I know I have used this illustration before but I am going to use it again because I think it makes the point. If you are facing brain surgery do you want a surgeon who has done the surgery before, or someone who thinks they know how to do it? O.K. Knowing is being able to live that out, and education is about bringing knowledge lived out in the world. And when we do that, we are letting our light shine. Now let’s bring that home to churches. We all know that part of the goal of a church is to educate the people of all ages, right, we know that. That is kind of a default for churches. But it is not just about learning information or learning principles, it is about learning for life change. Taking the information, taking those principles, we have to take those in so that they are understood, but then they have to be worked out in our lives. What does it look like? As I was thinking about and prepping for this message I was reading in my study bible and one of the things it said at the bottom of my study bible is helpful and it simply said, “Truth must be received in the heart and expressed in life.” Pretty straight forward, huh? So the big question for us, I think, in the Church, is well how do we know if that is really happening? How do we know if that is taking place? I think to do that we need to look at Christ and Christ says you measure that by asking: Is the person growing in their love for God and others? It is that simple. James, I think, takes that and says this is how you show that love. It is shown by what you do, i.e. how you serve, and you will see the blessing that comes from that.
There is research that has been done, lots of research, but one particular research I want to focus in on, and it is trying to address this question of how do we measure when people are growing? How do we know that? They looked at all kinds of churches from very big mega churches to very, very small churches to all churches in between. They looked at churches by denominations, across denominational lines. They looked at churches of different ethnicities. They looked at churches based on geographic area. They looked at all of that. You know what they came up with? They came up with, consistently the research shows, that people in churches fall into four distinct groupings when they are thinking about their spiritual development. They are a continuum. On the one end of the continuum is those who are exploring Christianity. Next to them then would be those growing in Christ. The next group along that continuum would be those that are close to Christ. And then finally at the other end, the far end of the spectrum, are those that are classified as Christ-centered.
As you look as these four groups, some of the things that they have discovered that I think is enlightening for us is that each of these groups have different needs and different expectations from the Church to help them grow in their life in Christ. For example, small groups are very important for those who are in this growing in Christ area; but for those who are Christ-centered way over on the other end of the continuum, small groups are not that important to them. Whoa! That bursts some bubbles for us. That bursts some preconceived notions for some of us in the Church, doesn’t it? It says small groups are not the end-all be-all for everyone in the Church. Do they have a role? Yes! But simply to get people into small groups because we believe that is the end-all be-all is not the right answer.
Another example, those as they move more towards Christ-centeredness, they need opportunities to become spiritual mentors. They need more opportunities to serve. They need the opportunity to learn how to feed themselves rather than relying on the church to supply their needs. That is a new understanding that we need to take into account if we are going to think seriously about this educational aspect of being light. So if we put that in the context of what we heard last week, that represents a whole lot of new opportunities for us to consider that we need to take seriously. I lay that out all to say, you know what? The Church needs to be about the business of educating the family of God from young to old and it is going to have to look very differently than what we are doing currently. We have to move beyond simply taking in information and we have to move towards life change that brings with it result of learning and doing.
So, if the church is to educate then it is obviously to equip, as well. Equip is, I think, really about the great commission. The famous lines from the end of Matthew as Jesus is telling his disciples, he says this: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20) The idea here is that we are called to make disciples; in other words, we are to bring more people to Christ so that they become Christ followers and thus expand the kingdom of God. Pretty straight forward, right? And we are light, we are light when we invite people to the great adventure of following Jesus. Do you look at your life as a great adventure, following Jesus? I hope you do because that is really what it is about.
The great adventure, and part of that great adventure, part of that being a light, is to invite people and it comes as twofold. One it means to evangelize, which is pretty self explanatory here; but the other thing that is a part of that I think that we don’t necessarily think about is it is being a priest, as well. Those roles, evangelizing and being a priest, are not mutually exclusive but they are two sides of the same coin, I think. Being a witness, or sharing your faith or evangelism, is one of the toughest nuts I think faith and most churches have to crack. If we are going to move forward as Don laid out, we have to crack that nut, folks, we have to crack that nut. There is just no other way around it, because every time we have done a survey here, the one that we did as part of this planning, and the one that we did a couple years ago, you know what came out? Both surveys said “I don’t feel equipped to share my faith.” So the last time we did that we offered classes. We are offering classes again— classes to help us be witnesses; but you know what? We don’t see a huge influx of people. So what does that tell you? Either our classes aren’t that helpful, or the truth is we really don’t want to be equipped to share our faith. Let me say, I know how you feel. I know that that is a scary proposition for most of us and it is scary because, truthfully, I feel the same way. I feel the same way. But, I am beginning to change my tune. I am beginning to get out of the mindset that my job is to have all the answers before I can share my faith and if I don’t have all the answers then I can’t share my faith. I am getting beyond that. I am getting beyond the notion that I have to be able to work somebody into a corner where they have no other choice but to cry uncle and say “O.K. Christ must be Lord, O.K.” That’s the mindset that all of us have I think for lots of different reasons. I think we need to rethink what witnessing looks like and begin to think of it in terms of living your life close enough to those who are outside of the faith that they can see your faith in action. So in other words it is about building friendships. It is about being an authentic friend and listening to their story. It is about listening to the Holy Spirit to know when to ask the right question. It is not hard. It doesn’t need to be scary, because the truth is that Christ does the work. The Holy Spirit is the one who nudges them towards faith. We just simply get to live next to them in that process. Living close enough to those outside the faith that they can see how your faith gets worked out in life. That may raise a question for you that you are thinking about yourself. How has my faith changed my life? It is another question for another day, but I give it to you anyway.
When we begin to think about ourselves and interacting with the people around us, it is about thinking about how can we serve those that we interact with on a daily basis? How can we serve coworkers? How can we serve our neighbors? How can we serve the employees at the places where we frequent, whether they be a gas station or convenience store, whether it be where we get our hair cut, whether it be the grocery store and the person that checks out our groceries? It is about seeing ourselves as making their day as opposed to how can they make our day? And that then leads us into this idea of our being a priest. Chris referenced that at the beginning of this series, that we are priests. We are New Testament priests. Do you realize that? Just as we read about the Old Testament priests, we are also New Testament priests, as well. Now, the difference is we execute our roles differently. The Old Testament priests executed their roles differently than you and I are to execute our roles as priests but the basic function is the same. The basic function of a priest is to serve God and, as a by-product, serve others. Isn’t that what they did in the Old Testament? Isn’t that what we are called to do?
And we are to serve both inside the church as well as outside the church as priests. And when we begin to think of ourselves as priests, part of that role is then to create within the church a sense of interdependence among all of us and that is where the body metaphor that Denny talked about a couple of weeks ago comes in that speaks to that interdependence. We are connected, and because we are connected and we all have different gifts and we all have different roles, part of our job as priests is to care equally for each other, isn’t it? It comes as making a conscience choice to become a priest, to serve each other with equal concern, equal care, equal love. That means standing in the midst of strife, standing in the midst of dissention, arm in arm, be the bothers and sisters of your fellow priests building a bridge of care where each of us can use our gifts at the proper time and the proper place in the proper way. In doing that we affect each others lives in a positive way and we affect each others eternities, I believe, as well. It is about standing arm in arm with your fellow priests and with God Almighty to accomplish the mission of the Church. (Matthew 28) Equipping is about growing families in a church so that they can impact the world and included in that world is the Church itself.
And finally, the Church is to empower, and this is truly about the Holy Spirit. It is truly about the Holy Spirit. Being equipped without being empowered is like having a car without gasoline. I think in its worst manifestation it is all about human self-reliance in full display. “I can do it myself!” Truth is we don’t need power. We don’t need power because the Holy Spirit has the power. Holy Spirit has the power, has all the power that we can ever need and the Holy Spirit resides within us. We must simply allow the Holy Spirit to be released in us and in the Church corporately. All you need to do is to look in the Book of Acts to see what that looks like, what that smells like, what that feels like, when the Holy Spirit is released in that way. For us individually as well as corporately, being empowered by the Holy Spirit starts with our submission before God. It means getting down on our knees, acknowledging as we did in our Prayer of Confession, our brokenness, our hypocrisy and crying out to God, diligently seeking him; and, as we do that, the doors of the church will open for all of us to be able to exercise our gifts in ways that build up the Church rather than tear it down. And when all of us are involved in using our gifts in ways that build up, there is a sense of ownership. There is a sense of excitement that happens within the church and all of sudden this is a pretty fun place to be. Out of that then, it creates kind of a back track because it creates more learning; it creates more equipping; and as a results it brings out more empowering, as well; bringing out those witnessing and those priestly actions we talked about. It creates a church that people want to be at. It creates a church where you want to be here. You want to be here so much that you are inviting your friends to be here too, for this is a pretty fun place because you are about the business of God.
Probably thirty years ago now, I had the opportunity to be part of a ministry like that that is really a microcosm of how a church should act. On a Wednesday night we had two hundred and fifty high school kids that met at a junior high in Bloomington. They came all the way from Edina to all the Bloomington schools to Burnsville (we actually had a bus that went down to Burnsville to pick kids up to bring them.) to Richfield, Minneapolis and St. Paul; and most of them didn’t know Christ. It was an opportunity for fifty committed Christian high school kids to make a difference in their friends’ lives. They were the core ones; they were the ones being the disciples; they were the ones who were being equipped. We had about thirty or thirty-five volunteers who were pouring their lives into their kids who were also being involved in the technical aspects of bringing that ministry together because they knew the difference it would make in the kingdom and in these kids lives. And I will tell you, it was an exciting place to be. It was a place you looked forward to going to every Wednesday night because you were going to see God work.
And now, thirty plus years later, I sometimes have a forty-year old come up to me and go “Are you Buck Day?” and I’m like, “Yeah.” All they needed to say is “I was a Summit kid.” The name of the ministry was “Son Summit.” He just said, “I was a Summit kid, thanks.” That’s all it takes. That is making a difference for the kingdom. That’s what we are called to do when we shine our lights, grow people in Christ. Equip them to do the work of ministry and let the Holy Spirit run wild in their lives.
Let’s pray.
God thank you. Thank you that you are Lord over all and you are the one who is calling us to a new place; so Lord, we come. We come with all of our fears. We come with all of our excitement and uncertainty and we lay it before your throne. Lord, be just that over this church. Be Lord over this church. Let your Holy Spirit have its way. We ask it because we are followers of Jesus. Amen.