There were three church leaders who got together one day to compare notes after an evangelistic mission in their town.
So they meet together over a pint in the local pub and the first one (a Methodist minister) says, “For us, it’s been great! Four new people have joined our church, praise the Lord!”
The second one (who is a Baptist pastor) says, “Well, that’s terrific, but we’ve done even better. Six new people have joined our church, blessed be the name of the Lord and hallelujah!”
So they look at the third one (who is a Church of England vicar) and they say, “What about you then? How did the mission impact your church?” And the third one goes, “Well guys, for us it was better still! Glory be to God in the highest, the ten most exasperating people in our parish have left at last!”
I want you to notice a little word that appears twice in our reading, once near the beginning and once near the end. The word is “unity.” Unity in the church must prevail - it must prevail.
Jesus said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” He didn’t say, “a divided house is a bit iffy” or “a divided house is not ideal.” Jesus tells it like it is. He says disunity, disharmony, disarray in the church cannot give birth to success.
Have you ever secretly thought to yourself, “I am glad so and so is a Christian, but quite honestly, I do wish he wasn’t a member of my church”? I’ll be honest with you; I have, definitely. Not in this church... not yet. But I have absolutely wished some people would suddenly feel called to take their ministry of gossip and their spiritual gift of moaning somewhere else.
Maturity
Basically, it’s all about maturity. Newborn babies require close attention 24/7. It’s all hands on deck round the clock. We don’t expect a one-year old to prepare lunch, fix the lawn mower and do the ironing do we? But as human beings grow from infancy to childhood to adolescence to adulthood they learn to take on more and more responsibility. (It’s true that in teenage years there’s a bit of a blip) but basically, we become less and less centred on having our own needs met and more and more aware of our responsibility towards others the older we get. We call that maturity.
And there is such thing as spiritual maturity as well. Spiritual maturity, like personal maturity is when someone really gets what Jesus said that “it is more blessed to give than receive.”
How does spiritual maturity come about? Does it just happen on its own? No. I lost my hair training and educating my kids to get off the computer and lay the table for dinner! In just the same way that you and I had to train and educate our children and grandchildren, those who are more mature in the faith have to train and educate those who are younger in the faith to become more like Jesus.
Our reading from Ephesians 4 talks about the ascended Christ giving gifts to his church to grow leaders and develop ministries that establish people in faith and character. It talks about equipping people and training them and building them up so that the church becomes grown-up.
Here’s a couple of extracts from tonight’s reading.
“When he ascended on high, he… gave gifts to his people… to equip [them] for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature…”
Calling
Verse 1 says, “Live a life worthy of the calling you have received.”
That is why we had a weekend away in Saltburn recently to reconsider what God is calling us to be and to do; to discern God’s direction for us here. There’s only one vision I’m interested in for Saint Mary’s and that’s God’s vision.
We came back with five priorities which the MDT and PCC will develop over the next few months. The priorities are as follows:
- Build up our corporate prayer life
- Grow our work with children and families
- Communicate who we are and what we do to the village, reaching out to all ages
- Build up our people by training and development (including leaders)
- Continue to develop quality worship
1. We’re going to build up our corporate prayer life.
Don’t we pray already? Of course! But prayer must continue to be at the heart of all we do The American pastor Bill Johnson once said this: “Anyone can pray in crisis. Show me someone who will earnestly pray without a crisis and I will show you someone who is ready if one comes.” And we want to get better at praying together as a community.
The risen and ascended Christ is giving gifts to his people to equip them for prayer so that the body of Christ in Long Newton may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and become mature.
2. We’re going to grow our work with children and families. Don’t we do GodZone and assemblies and baptism services already? Of course! But we want to grow that work because Jesus said we are to be fishers of men. And kids teach us so much about the kingdom as well.
There’s a story about a little girl who was talking to her teacher about whales. The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small. The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible. The little girl said, "When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah about that.” The teacher asked, "What if Jonah went to hell?" The little girl replied, "Then you ask him.”
The risen and ascended Christ is giving gifts to his people to equip them for growing our work with children and families so that the body of Christ in Long Newton may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and become mature.
3. We’re going to communicate who we are and what we do to the village, reaching out to all ages. But don’t we do Long Newton News, prayer visiting, the Community Lunch and pastoral care already? Of course! But we want to do more because the Bible says “Tell out, my soul, the wonders of the Lord.”
The Chinese church leader Francis Chan once wrote “Christians are like manure; spread them around all over the place and they help everything grow better but keep them all together in one big pile indoors and they stink horribly.”
The risen and ascended Christ is giving gifts to his people to equip them for communicating who we are and what we do to this village, reaching out to all ages so that the body of Christ in Long Newton may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and become mature.
4. We’re going to build up our people by training and development (including leaders). But don’t we offer Growing Leaders, pastoral care training and attend diocesan courses already? Of course! But we want to do more because the risen and ascended Christ is giving gifts to us, his people to equip us for it.
5. We’re going to continue to develop quality worship. But don’t we do that already? Of course! The leaders and preachers here are excellent. But we don’t want to sit on our laurels because the very best worship is fresh and creative and imaginative. Even when you are on the right track, if you just sit there and do nothing, you get run over. It only takes two days for tomorrow to become yesterday. Church is a living organism; not a fossil museum.
Let me quote to you from an article in an American newspaper objecting to new trends in church music.
“There are several reasons for opposing it. 1) It’s too new. Secondly it’s often worldly, even blasphemous. 3) The new Christian music is not as pleasant as the more established style. 4. Because there are so many new songs you can’t learn them all. 5. It puts too much emphasis on instrumental music rather than godly lyrics. 6. The new music creates disturbances making people act indecently and disorderly. 7. The preceding generation got along perfectly well without it. 8. It’s a moneymaking scam and 9) some of these new music upstarts are lewd and loose.”
This was an article from 1723 attacking Isaac Watts, the composer of When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.
The risen and ascended Christ is giving gifts to his people to equip them for developing quality worship so that the body of Christ in Long Newton may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and become mature.
Serving
What will be your part in all this? How are you going to serve? Some people I have met only want to serve the Lord in an advisory capacity. They like to give Almighty God their helpful ideas and advise him on what he can and cannot do. That’s not the sort of service this passage of scripture has in mind.
Verse 7 says; “To each one grace has been given.” Everybody here has been given a special and unique gift from God in order (v12) “to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.”
That word translated “equip” here has the sense of ‘prepare’, ‘to bring to completion,’ ‘to train’, ‘to perfect’, ‘to enable’, and ‘to bring to maturity.’ In each case it's someone else who benefits.
Let me ask you; are you further on in God than you were two or three years ago? Is your Christian service more fruitful? Are you of more godly character? Do you have the sense that you are learning and growing?
Growth
Some people say that the best way to grow as a Christian is to go away, cut yourself off from the hurly burly and commune with the Lord. That is a good thing to do. But according to the Bible, maturity comes through ministries, not monasteries.
Verse 16 says, “From Christ the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
Church is God's maturity workshop. As apostolic, evangelistic, prophetic, pastoral and teaching ministries shape your life, you will (v14) leave spiritual infancy, you will no longer be tossed back and forth or blown here and there by any wind of teaching. You will be equipped to grow and withstand the worst.
Ending
So as I close, let me ask you, “What is the Lord saying to you tonight?” Is he stirring you to be passionate about building unity with other believers? Is he reminding you of his unique calling on your life? Is he challenging you to articulate what that specific calling is? Is he drawing you get serious about fanning into flame the gifts he has placed in you so that others around you can be better equipped to serve? Is he speaking to you about your essential role in his body, the church?
Sermon preached at Saint Mary's Long Newton, 2nd June 2011
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