The Finished Work of the Church

I remember in the early days of being a family

the road trips we would take to various places.

Whether it was to Myrtle Beach, Florida, Raleigh, or wherever.

We would all pack into a car and heaad somewhere.

I remember my own journeys as a kid

traveling in the back of my parents station wagon

driving from New Jersey to Canada.

Dad refused to stop unless he decided to stop

or mom encouraged dad to stop.

We would all play travel games, sleep,

or whatever would occupy the time.

I don’t remember a time when my kids ever asked the question

are we there yet?

I may have blocked that out of my memory

or God has given me a divine touch of amnesia

Either way, I don’t recall ever having to answer that question to my kids.

Of course, in today’s modern times,

the question has changed from are we there yet

to what time will we get there because

I can give them an up to the minute time we’ll arrive

thanks to Google or Siri.

I remember the good ole days of student trips.

Shannon and I were the only ones that had a phone.

The usual trip involved calling from our location before we left.

Then the question of are we there yet would come up

mostly to ask if we could stop at a rest stop

to use the facilities

which meant using whatever cash they had on hand

to buy a ton of snacks and candy.

We would follow up with parents

at the last rest stop of the trip

and praying that parents would be there to take everyone home.

There were always a few parents that would show up an hour afterwards

figuring they could have some more freedom before having their students back

and there were always parents that took their students

before the van was completely cleaned

which meant I had to clean it.

On one particular trip

the kids had been out of sorts the entire time we were gone.

We were coming back from Florida

and they were getting restless

and I had gotten little sleep from the trip

because they wouldn’t go to bed at night.

I decided to help our parents out

by giving them a taste of the experience we had

and about 15 minutes from home

fed all the students tons of chocolate covered espresso beans.

By the time they got off the van

they were bouncing off the walls

and I gladly released them to their parents.

At first the parents thought they had had

an incredible time because of their excitement.

By the time they got back to their own homes they knew differently.

I remember the first trip I took with students

that involved students having smart phones.

I was expecting the question to come and it never did.

The question changed from are we there yet to

why did we stop at a certain location?

Suddenly the are we there yet question was irrelevant

because everyone had the google map on their phone

and texting their parents and friends where they were.

Ironically, we still had parents that showed up late.

But, gone were the days of the dreaded question.

Instead came the dreaded cell phone challenges

such as dealing with student complaining to parents

and parents responses to texts on a student trip.

If I can interject for my parnter in ministry Luke

if you are a parent, and allow your student to go with us to wherever.

Please allow ministry to take place instead of

intervening at long distances.

If you’ve trusted them to leave the parking lot with your child

allow them the privilege of returning them to you when they return.

The Lord deals with everyone differently

and if your child is away

perhaps that’s how the Spirit needs to get involved without you.

It’s the dumbest question on the planet.

obviously we aren’t there yet

if we were there, you would know.

The vehicle would have stopped.

You would be getting out of the car.

I wouldn’t have to be answering your dumb question.

and your parents can have you back.

It’s a question of impatience and eagerness

to arrive at the final destination.

It’s an emotional question.

It’s the question I ask at in the middle of some meetings I attend.

Or perhaps classes I am in

or even while someone else is preaching.

Often times as believers

we may ask this question of the Father

about when He is coming back.

I know my response if I were Him would be

are you with me yet? Then no.

You aren’t done yet.

Last time we spoke about Ephesians

we spoke of

equipping the saints which was the equivalent of

repairing broken bones

and we spoke about building up the body of Christ

which is the equivalent of physical therapy

When I went through physical therapy on my shoulder

the inevitable question was

Are We There Yet?

Because no one wants to go through one extra minute

of physical therapy than they have to.

But there’s always that touchy question you have to ask the therapist

Of when is this ever going to end?

And the typical answer is

When you are fully recovered

which means usually never

or at least it feels that way

I’ve been reading through the book of Mark for my quiet time.

The word Immediately, or something similar appear

so many times and usually refers to

someone that had been healed.

I’m not sure that physical therapists ever read the book of Mark.

I mean lets get real about this

the therapist is there to help people and make money

So the longer they can keep you in therapy

The better off you are

And the more money they make.

So you never really get to the point where they release you

At least I never have and that’s how it feels to me.

Maybe it’s a guy thing

I want a finish line.

Give me an end date.

I want to check this thing off

on my list of things I don’t ever want to do again.

It’s the impatience of

OK, Lord, I get it already

You can stop the pain and suffering now.

Because in reality

regardless if you can now move your arm, leg or whatever

You still are required to do the therapy at home

And the more you do the better off you are

So in essence, you never stop doing therapy.

And let’s be real

How many people that have gone through physical therapy

don’t still feel a twinge of pain

every time it rains or gets cold anyway.

So why bother?

That’s the negative side of things

because the same question can come up in the church.

When do we stop equipping the saints

For the work of the ministry.

And when do we stop building up the body of Christ

Discipling people is hard work

and that’s mostly because life is messy.

We either don’t want to get involved into the mess

of someone else’s life

or we don’t have enough time in the day

to put someone else first in our lives.

The answer to the question are we there yet

when it comes to the work of the church is

is the same as the physical therapist, never.

That’s not really true

we end when Jesus comes back or He calls us home to Him.

But there is actually another way to end

building the body of Christ

And that’s in verse 13

Ephesians 4:13 CSB

13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness.

So let’s look and see what that looks like.

Until we all reach unity

That sounds like never

This is pretty straight forward, maybe

what does it look like to be unified?

John Wesley used to say about unity

I want the whole Christ for my Savior, the whole Bible for my book, the whole Church for my fellowship, and the whole world for my mission field. 

DL Moody said there are two ways to be unified,

either frozen together or melted together.

Frozen together means involuntarily.

Speaking of Frozen

Has anyone has seen the movie Frozen?

For me, Frozen is an almost perfect parable of the Gospel.

The story begins with two sisters, Elsa and Anna,

playing happily in a beautiful castle.

It’s like paradise, until Elsa hurts her sister with her ice power.

Until then they had played innocently

but this one incident changes everything.

Elsa is afraid of what’s inside her,

she’s ashamed of what she’s done,

and she’s afraid of hurting people again.

We can relate to Elsa, not because we have ice power

but because we each have a cold side to our heart

and can hurt people with our words and our actions.

Frozen, like the Bible, talks about how to deal with a frozen heart.

The first solution in Frozen is to hide it.

Don't let them in. Don't let them see.

Be the good girl you always have to be.

I won’t sing it this morning because

most of you already are.

The second solution is Let it Go

There are tons of well meaning Christian parents

who teach children to hide their sin rather than deal with it.

Legalism teaches children that we can use rules

to hide the sin in our lives and avoid it.

The issue is, sin is not what we do, it’s who we are.

You can’t get rid of sin by hiding it.

you can’t have a set of rules to avoid sin either.

Just ask Israel.

The entire Old Testament is all about

how legalism isn’t the answer

Eventually, just like Elsa, they decide to let it go

Have you ever really listened to the lyrics of this song?

Couldn't keep it in, Heaven knows I tried. Don't let them in, don't let them see. Be the good girl you always have to be. Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know.  Well, now they know! Let it go, let it go! Can't hold it back any more. I don't care what they're going to say. It's time to see what I can do, to test the limits and break through. No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I'm free! That perfect girl is gone.

This is the battle cry of a generation that listened to the song

Think about our culture today

and how many have just let it go

and were allowed to let it go.

So many of us grew up in a generation of the conceal don’t feel

and boy we got in trouble when we let it go

even just a little bit.

By growing up that way

we vowed as our generation

not to let that happen to our kids

so when they let it go we came up with the saying

they are just being their true selves.

And that is the gospel truth

because our true selves are sin filled human beings.

God gave us rules to live by

so that we didn’t let it go

and when we did there were consequences.

However, we as parents don’t want to see our kids suffer

even when they are in the wrong.

I can’t tell you how many teachers I’ve spoken to that

get into trouble because their child is

incapable of doing any wrong.

If you want to experience the true sinful nature of students

I’ll give you the phrase middle school lock-in.

There are parents that hire lawyers for their kids

when they get a speeding ticket

to get them out of the consequences of their own wrongful actions.

Letting it go is not the answer.

The third answer was true loves kiss.

Anna is dying from a frozen heart

so her solution is to find true loves kiss

and naturally, true loves kiss comes from the prince.

I love the fact that in this movie Disney finally dispels the myth

that all of the problems will go away

and we’ll live happily ever after as long as we marry the prince

and have a relationship.

If our children don’t find help with the big questions of life,

or they don’t get what they need from their parents

they’re likely to rush too eagerly into relationships

that will ultimately hurt them deeply the way Hans did to Anna.

If they do not get the things they require from their parents

they will go searching for a relationship that will fill the gap.

The problem is that they will also compromise who they are

to get what they are searching for.

Even in the perfect parent relationship

there are things missing

unless we choose to place God above everything else.

So finally, we get to the ending of the movie

and the unlikely hero is the snowman Olaf.

He’s the only one in the movie that knows what true love is.

Comforting Anna in front of the fire he says,

“Love is putting someone’s needs before yours.”

And when she expresses concern that he’s melting he replies,

“Some people are worth melting for.”

He teaches her and shows her that

true love sacrifices for the sake of others. 

I hope I didn’t spoil the movie for you

but if you haven’t seen it by now, well...

Here’s the point

We can remain frozen and simply dwelling together as the church

or we can be united together in brotherly love, melted together

and can expect to have power.

That’s why people who aren’t believers in Jesus

don’t have a place in the body of Christ.

You can’t melt together two different things

and expect them to stay together.

That’s the power of unity.

Another way to put it

is from the theologian Charles Shultz who wrote the Peanuts cartoon

One day Linus was watching TV

And Lucy demanded he change the TV channel

Threatening him with her fist

Linus asked, “what gives you the right to come in here and make demands

Lucy answered, “These five fingers.

Individually they are nothing,

but when I curl them together like this into a single unit,

they form a weapon that is terrible to behold.”

“Which channel do you want?” Asked Linus.

Then he looked at his fingers and said,

“Why can’t you guys get together like that?”

Unity is one of the most powerful forces of mankind.

think about a mob mentality.

When a mob gets together and form a unit

They would be more powerful than those they are fighting against.

The problem is most times a crowd can’t get together on things.

What happens when the church is divided over things?

They are headed in two different directions

Pulling against each other

And potentially pulling so hard against each other

They end up coming to a split.

The issue is that one part of the church wants to go their direction

and the other part wants to go their direction

And they never realized that neither direction matters

Because as Paul said earlier

Christ is the head of the church.

When I was initially interviewed for the senior pastor position by Riley’s Creek

I think I got into trouble when they asked me

What is my vision for the church?

My response is, and still is, I don’t have a vision for the church.

That’s kind of an interesting thing

because next week is vision Sunday

and I’ll be sharing some things that we as a church body

are going to be directed to accomplish

or at least move toward for this year.

However, it’s all based on God’s vision for the church

not anything that I came up with.

I don’t even get a vision for the church.

If I try to implement a vision,

when I get called home by God

or the Lord reassigns me to somewhere else

the next pastor brings his own vision in

makes chaos for the church

and goes in a different direction than God may want the church to go.

Jesus is the head of the church

and He gets to set the vision for the church

And He already has

The vision, what the church looks like in the future

Is found in Revelation 7:9

Revelation 7:9 CSB

9 After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands.

The vision of God

is to have someone from every people group

Worshipping around the throne of God.

The Mission of the church was given by Jesus Christ

he gave it as a co-mission in Matthew 28:18-20

Matthew 28:18–20 CSB

18 Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. 19 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, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

It’s a co-mission because

we are guided and directed by Jesus Himself

And given His authority to complete it.

So between the co-mission of the church

and the ultimate fulfilled vision of the church

Is where we are now

And people are calling it the great pursuit.

So the bigger question is

what are we supposed to be unified around?

There are lots of things we could be unified around.

We could be unified in social justice

but no where in the Bible

does Jesus ever command that the church as a whole

Should be unified in social justice.

We could be unified in getting larger as a church

And building great big buildings.

But no where in Scripture does Jesus tell us to do that either.

What are we supposed to be melted together in doing?

What are we pursuing? What should we be unified in?

We are pursuing people that need Jesus

And believers that need to mature in Jesus.

And that’s what we should be unified in.

Paul puts it in two categories in Ephesians 13.

In the Faith

Ephesians 4:13 CSB

13 in the faith

That’s a big statement for only three words.

it’s not a generic faith

Paul was specific when he wrote in THE faith.

I’ll get there in a moment.

How do we know when we are in the faith and when we aren’t?

valid question.

Let me ask it a different way,

how does a person know they are following God’s Word

and when they aren’t?

That’s an easier question.

Remember what the Bible says about faith

Hebrews 11:1 CSB

1 Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.

I shared about hope last week.

hope is not something we wish for

hope is in something we know is going to happen.

How many times did God say something

and it didn’t happen?

Sure, there are still things we are waiting for

but how many times does God have to prove His faithfulness?

Faith is less an adjective and more of a verb, sort of.

James 2:17 not on the screen said,

faith , if it does not have works, is dead by itself.

Our action in faith is based on what we believe in

and our faith is worked out

in our lives and often

in times of pain and suffering

and shows what we believe in.

For the church to be effective

there should be times when the body of Christ

shows the world that we believe in the Lord our God

and trust in His providence and His direction

based on His Word

because His Word is true.

That leads to the second part of Paul’s unified approach

And In The Knowledge of God’s Son

Ephesians 4:13 CSB

13 and in the knowledge of God’s Son,

Again, people who aren’t believers and

following Christ have no business being

melted together with the rest that do.

Why would an unbeliever want to be part of the body of Christ

when they don’t believe in Christ to begin with?

This is why we have Discovery Class, Sunday School, discipleship.

It’s not just about what we believe

but it’s an opportunity to share the Word of what God says

about His church and His expectations for His bride.

He wants us to all be unified around these two things.

knowledge of His Son

growing in faith.

This is why Riley’s Creek Baptist Church is all about

introducing people to God

Developing followers of Jesus Christ and

Deploying them in to the world.

This is His commission

this is his command.

So how do we know we have matured in the faith?

Growing Into Maturity with a Stature Measured by Christ’s Fullness

Ephesians 4:13 CSB

13 growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness.

Christ is the standard by which we measure our completeness.

when we have reached the stature of Christ

we are finished maturing.

So, Are we there yet? No.

How long until we get there?

Not even Jesus knows the answer to that.

According to God’s Word

we will never reach this maturity on this side of heaven

because we are still living in sinful bodies.

Remember, sin is not what we do

sin is who we are.

We can attempt to avoid sin.

we can legalistically try to control it

we can be a hedonist and let it go

we can try to fill the God sized hole in your heart

by going in every direction

and getting involved in every relationship

other than the one God wants with us.

Nothing will satisfy the ache and lack of peace we have in our life

until we make the decision to follow God instead

and believe that He paid the price for our peace

by sending Jesus to pay that penalty.

We don’t have to understand all the details

other than to believe that Jesus paid it all for us

and that He is offering a life of peace and joy in return.

I can’t explain why I can have peace in pain and suffering

and to be fair, I still struggle with it at times.

All that means is it is time for some growth in my own life

where God is teaching me that my faith needs some help.

The bottom line of all this is

Until we can be unified around the vision of God

and unified in following the mission of Christ

we as a church will be at constant odds with each other

and struggle being frozen together

instead of melted together

thinking about the other person first

trusting in the leadership God gave us

following the Word He left for us.

This is the purpose of the church

to melt together the collective Body of Christ

to be used by Him for Him

to accomplish together what

no one individually can do alone

And that is reach the world for Him

and encourage each other to do the work

and get through life.

To help build each others faith stronger

in the knowledge of God’s Son.

The good news is

God isn’t done with us yet.

We have a lot of work to do.

We’ll find out more about that next week

when I have the privilege to share all that I believe

God wants to accomplish through us.