Signs 9: The Church as a Sign
Notes
Transcript
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B: John 17:20-26
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Welcome
Welcome
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Family Worship. I’m Bill Connors, the senior pastor, and I’m blessed to be a part of this family of wonderful saints called Eastern Hills Baptist Church. The church isn’t the building, it’s the people. If you’re here in the room and you’re just kind of checking Eastern Hills out today, I’d like to ask you a favor. Would you take a moment and take that welcome card that’s in the back of the pew in front of you and fill that out? We want to be able to send you a note thanking you for being here this morning, and to be able to answer any questions that you have about the Eastern Hills family. You can just put that in the offering plates by the doors or bring them down to me here at the front after the service, as I have a gift I’d like to get in your hands: a mug filled with chocolate. If you’d rather not do a hand-completed card, you can text WELCOME to (505) 339-2004, and you’ll get a text back with a link to our digital communication card. Either way, I’d still like to meet you and give you a mug if you have the time today.
Announcements
Announcements
Tonight at 5:30 we will have our bi-monthly business meeting, where we as a church come together to stay informed about what’s going on in the life of the church, as well as to make decisions together. The business meeting packet is out in the foyer if you’d like to review it before tonight. We have several important things to vote on this evening, including an update to our Personnel Policy and an updated contract with our architect because of some changes that have been made to the Master Plan for the building. We also have received information back from our church assessment that we did back in May, and I’m going to be sharing that information tonight as well. Quorum requires at least 50 members of the church be in attendance to conduct business, so plan to be here this evening at 5:30 for business meeting. Thanks in advance!
We take up our special annual offering for World Hunger and Disaster Relief in July, and our goal as a church this year for this offering is $5,700. Through last Sunday, we’ve received $4,855 toward that goal! Thank you for giving so faithfully to our special offerings.
Opening
Opening
This is the last week of our series focused on the signs of Jesus’ identity as God and Messiah in the Gospel of John. We’ve looked at each of the seven miracles: turning water into wine, curing an illness with only a word, healing a paralytic, feeding the 5000, walking on water, giving sight to the blind man, and raising Lazarus from the dead; as well as one additional miraculous sign: the sign of the crucifixion and resurrection itself. These signs all speak to Jesus’ power and authority over His creation, and to His mission as Messiah to save us from the power of sin and death. There is one last perspective that we want to take in this series, one last sign (which may or may not in your opinion be particularly miraculous) which testifies to Jesus’ identity and authority as Messiah and God. That sign is here in this room. Because that sign is us.
Let’s stand as we’re able and read our focal passage this morning, which comes from Jesus’ High-Priestly prayer in John 17:
20 “I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in me through their word. 21 May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me. 22 I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. 23 I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one, that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me. 24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they will see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the world’s foundation. 25 Righteous Father, the world has not known you. However, I have known you, and they have known that you sent me. 26 I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them and I may be in them.”
PRAYER (pray for Eagle Springs Baptist Church in Cuba, NM, Tim Liftin, Pastor)
Last October, because of the love and generosity of this church family, I got to check an item off of my “bucket list.” My family was able to go to Pittsburgh and see the Steelers play a home game at Heinz Field (yes, I know it’s Acrisure Stadium now). Here’s a picture of us after the game. We were there with like 60,000 other people, most of whom like football, and most of whom like the Steelers, specifically. We had a great time. We yelled and cheered and the Steelers beat the Broncos, so that was a plus.
All of us there were generally rooting for the same things at the same time. We wanted basically the same outcome. So I guess you could say that we had something in common with the mass of humanity in that stadium that day. But when it was over, everyone just got up and left. While we had a momentary shared experience, the end of the game determined the end of the sharing. I mean, I could never call on any of those people to get together for a board game or a cup of coffee. I don’t know any of them. I certainly wouldn’t call on any of them to help me in a time of crisis. I don’t know their numbers, and they don’t know mine. I didn’t do anything with those people besides cheer on a football team wearing similar looking clothing and eating the same overpriced snacks. I have no idea who they are, and they have no idea who I am. That time with those people holds no real meaning in our lives right now, apart from a really fun memory… and I guess now a little sermon illustration.
Is this how we see the church? Is it an event that we go to once a week with a decidedly smaller mass of humanity that is maybe fun or interesting while it lasts, but which holds no real meaning in our lives apart from that moment? Maybe it’s a box we check off on our list of things to do for the week? Do we see the church more like a social club or something we’re all fans of? Do we view the church the way we might view our favorite restaurant or hobby shop: “as long as it’s meeting my needs, I’m there.” Sadly, for many in our churches today, this isn’t far away from the truth, even though they might not say it quite so bluntly.
The truth is that if we see the church this way, there’s a terrible, two-pronged problem: First, we are missing out, because we are saved into a wonderful community of faith, not a solo endeavor. We’re meant to be together. Second, we damage both our own testimony and the testimony of the church, and not just the local church, but the entire Church, because according to this prayer from our Lord, our UNITY is a testimony to who He is and what He’s done—His identity as both God and Messiah.
What does it mean that we are to have unity in the church? I think that Paul painted a pretty good picture of it in his letter to the Philippian church:
1 If, then, there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, 2 make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.
This concept of unity of spirit isn’t complete uniformity, where we all look exactly the same and do the same things. That would go against God’s good plan for making His church out of many differing parts that come together to form a singular whole:
4 Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, 5 in the same way we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.
In Webster’s 1828 dictionary, there’s a great definition of unity of spirit:
“Unity of spirit, is the oneness which subsists between Christ and His saints, by which the same Spirit dwells in both, and both have the same disposition and aims; and it is the oneness of Christians among themselves, united under the same head, having the same Spirit dwelling in them, and possessing the same graces, faith, love, hope, etc.”
The church is to be decidedly different than a bunch of Steelers fans. We are to be unified in the Spirit and by the Spirit as we together form the body of Christ—His bride. In my article that is on the front of our bulletin, the EHBC Life, this morning, I wrote about unity between churches. But this morning for my sermon, we’re going to consider this topic mostly from the perspective of the unity of the local fellowship, the unity that is vital for every individual church family. I can say that we are blessed to be a part of this particular church family, because we currently have a very high level of unity here.
So the last “sign” that we are looking at in our series is the church herself. We are a “sign” (perhaps a different type of sign than the other 8 we’ve considered) of the fact that Jesus is both Messiah and God. Our focal passage is a prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ where He asks for a supernatural unity for His followers. We’re going to approach our focal passage from the six classic questions of WHAT, WHO, WHY, HOW, WHERE, and WHEN this morning. We’ll start with WHAT:
1) What is the foundation of our unity?
1) What is the foundation of our unity?
At the Steelers game, we had a clear foundation in our common interest in Steelers football. But did that mean we were united in spirit? Not according to our definition this morning. Just all of us being interested in Jesus isn’t enough to give us unity. There’s something more that’s needed.
When Jesus prayed this prayer, He opened with:
John 17:20 (CSB)
20 “I pray not only for these (meaning His disciples right there, whom He had just prayed for in verses 6-19), but also for those who believe in me through their word.
I remember the first time I read this passage after I came to faith in Christ and realized that the Lord Jesus Christ prayed for me in this prayer: since all of us are spiritual “grandchildren” in some form of “greatness” of the apostles. The apostles declared the Gospel to someone who declared it to someone who declared it… etc. all the way down to us. ALL of those “faith generations” are included in this prayer, so it’s for everyone who has come to faith throughout history and everyone who will come to faith in the future through their word.
And what is the word that they (the disciples) had? The message of the Gospel. The Word preached about the Word incarnate. John, the author of the Gospel we’ve been studying these 9 weeks, was likely the last of the original 12 apostles to be alive and write. In his first epistle (or correspondence) regarding the faith, he connected the identity of Jesus as the Word and the message of the Gospel with unity and fellowship:
1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—2 that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us—3 what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may also have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
For John, the foundation of our fellowship and unity is the Gospel: the Word preached about the Word of life. That Jesus, the Son of God, came in the flesh (as John said, that he heard and saw and watched and touched), and as we studied last week, Jesus took the punishment that our sins deserve so that we could be made right with God again because of the incredible love God has for us. He died so we could be forgiven, and He rose so that we can have eternal life, if we belong to Him through faith.
The reality is that if we aren’t basing our unity on the truth of the Gospel, then we have the wrong foundation, an unstable foundation. In Matt Carter & Josh Wredberg’s commentary on our focal passage this morning, they write (too long to put on the screen):
“Every Sunday morning when my church meets, I look around and see scientists and accountants, professors and students, blue-collar workers and management, small business owners and retirees, moms and dads, husbands and wives. There’s no reason for them to sit in the same room listening to me unless I am teaching the truth about Jesus revealed in His Word. We didn’t go to the same colleges, we don’t like the same sports teams, we don’t have the same hobbies, but our bond is far stronger than the bond shared by those at the same country club or stadium. All of us know and understand we’re sinners deserving God’s punishment and have received God’s grace because we believe on Jesus through the word of the apostles. We share something more powerful than a common experience or shared interest. We share Christ.”
—Carter, Matt; Wredberg, Josh. Exalting Jesus in John (Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary) . B&H Publishing Group.
And this is how we are to see ourselves as the church. We have a unity that transcends mere common interests. We have and are to cultivate a shared life, because each of us who are in Christ have been brought from death into this life by the ransom paid by Jesus on the cross and through our faith in that work. The Gospel is the foundation of our unity.
This leads us to our second question:
2) Who unites us?
2) Who unites us?
We must remember that our focal passage this morning is a prayer. In it, Jesus is asking the Father for certain things, and He is couching those requests in the image and example of the relationship between God the Father and Himself, God the Son, in the Godhead.
21 May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me. 22 I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. 23 I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one, that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.
We’ll look at the end of verses 21 and 23 again in a minute, but for the moment, consider this: Jesus prayed this prayer on the night that He would be arrested and tried, the night before His crucifixion. And at the very end of His earthly ministry, what did He pray about for us? He prayed for our unity—our ONENESS. His prayer is that we would be as one with each other just as He is with the Father. The perfect unity of the Trinity is the model He uses for how we should be united with one another! That’s incredible unity!
Jesus clearly stated His identity as God through His declaration of oneness with the Father in John 10:30:
30 I and the Father are one.”
And He also clearly said that a day was coming when those who believe in Him would know that He is in the Father, and would be in Him even as He is in them:
20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you.
Back in our focal passage, He paints the picture of the connection between the unity of the Trinity and our unity several ways in His prayer:
That we would be one just like the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father.
That we would be in God as well.
That we would be one just as the Father and Son are one.
That since the Son is in us, and since the Father is in the Son (and thus the Father is in us), that we would be completely one.
Notice that the oneness that we are supposed to experience with each other is predicated upon the fact that we are one with Christ. This makes sense since the foundation of our unity is the Gospel of Christ. Only those who have believed the Gospel message—those who have surrendered their lives to Him as Savior and Lord—are going to be united on the foundation of the Gospel.
The problem with unity in churches isn’t really an issue of personalities. It’s an issue of surrender. When we make our preferences, programs, and our priorities more important than God’s desires, direction, and designs for the church, that’s when we’ll find disunity. Being united takes humility, both to God, and to one another.
On now to the question of “Why?”
3) Why has God united us?
3) Why has God united us?
This is really the question that points to the “sign” part of the message this morning. God didn’t just decide to give us an example of unity to follow, and then to call us to that unity because it sounded like a good idea. Instead, there is a divine purpose behind the calling of the church to be united in spirit and purpose. And that purpose is contained in what we haven’t looked at yet in verses 21 and 23:
21 May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me.
23 I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one, that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.
So why has God chosen to unite us in Christ upon the foundation of the Gospel? So that the world might believe and know that Jesus came from the Father, and that the world might know that the Father loves us the way that He loves His Son.
This is what makes us a sign. We’re a sign that the world can look at right now and see in the flesh. And the evidence of that sign is our unity. Without our unity, our mission will struggle. Without a God-honoring mission, we’re nothing more than a club. Our unity makes a declaration to the watching world about the identity of Jesus as both God and Messiah.
Gerald Borchert wrote in his commentary on this passage:
This oneness of the community of believers with God is to be viewed as a kerygmatic vehicle (something that proclaims the Gospel) in the context of a divided world. When the world sees the church in harmony with God and with each other, the point of Jesus’ petition may be realized, namely, “that the world may believe that you have sent me.” Does this petition of Jesus not judge our church disputes as detrimental to the task of mission?… But unity is neither self-generated in the disciples nor their ultimate goal. Oneness is a means to enable the world to realize what God has been doing.
—Gerald L. Borchert, New American Commentary John 12-21
The world is radically broken and in need of hope. We carry in the message of the Gospel the hope that the world needs. However, if the world looks in and sees us doing battle with one another needlessly, what will they think about the message we claim to have—the message that is supposed to declare that Jesus is Savior and Lord, our Savior and Lord, whom we all claim to love and serve?
They will think that we do not live what we claim to believe. Instead, we are to live our lives worthy of the Gospel:
27 Just one thing: As citizens of heaven, live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or am absent, I will hear about you that you are standing firm in one spirit, in one accord, contending together for the faith of the gospel,
We are called to stand firm in the Gospel, side-by-side, and our unity in that will declare to the world that there is something different in the church, something that is missing in the world outside, something that they want and need. And that something is actually Someone: Jesus.
But how with the world see this unity? This is our fourth question:
4) How will our unity be seen?
4) How will our unity be seen?
The problem with the unity of the church is that it must be seen in order to be effective. We can completely agree on the truth, the explanation, and the meaning of the Gospel and still not truly be united in Christ. For our unity to truly be seen, there has to be action that accompanies it. For the moment, we are going to skip over verse 24, and we will come back to it after we look at verses 25-26:
25 Righteous Father, the world has not known you. However, I have known you, and they have known that you sent me. 26 I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them and I may be in them.”
Jesus declares that the world doesn’t know the Father. This is true. We saw last week in Romans 8 that those in the flesh, who have their mind set on the things of the flesh, are not pleasing to God, and in fact cannot submit to God. What Jesus said here in John 17 is that the Son has revealed the identity and the love of the Father. His Spirit indwells believers, and through His work of making us more and more like Christ, we become more and more united, and as we become more and more united with each other, we reflect the Father’s love for Christ in our love for one another, and the world can tell that Christ is in us.
They will know that we are Christians by our love for one another, which should overflow into love for them:
34 “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
14 Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.
Yesterday, we had a memorial service here in our building for the father of another church’s pastor. Many of you know Derek and Christee Witt (Wanda Hiett’s daughter and her husband). Derek is the pastor of Metamorphi Church on Eubank, and his father Glen went home to be with the Lord several weeks ago. Glen was a founding member of Mountain Valley Baptist Church in Edgewood, worked for with the FAA for decades, and then for the last ten years attended Metamorphi. I may have met him only once. Metamorphi doesn’t have a very large building, so they asked if we could host the memorial, which they expected to have about 400 in attendance. They were correct. Perhaps even short of the number that actually came.
But a couple of things at the service struck me so greatly that I immediately rewrote this part of my sermon when I got home. First, when Derek spoke about his dad, he spoke about how hospitable his father was—that he was constantly inviting people to meals or over to his home, or both. Derek mentioned that in many ways the modern church “gave up fellowship a long time ago,” but that his dad apparently didn’t get that message. He then did something that shocked me. He asked anyone in the room who had ever had a meal with or been in Glen Witt’s home to stand. Easily 3/4 of the people in the room stood. When I saw that, I was convicted. We’ve lost something powerful that the world can see about the love that we are to have for one another—the kind of love that does life together.
Second, the crowd in the service was really a good collection of people from various church families, but was primarily Mountain Valley and Metamorphi. The fact that Derek and Christee felt the freedom to call on Eastern Hills in their family’s time of need, and that our church family was available to answer that call and that need, with no expectation of anything in return—only to minister to a family and a church mourning and celebrating the loss of a dear brother—was just so RIGHT. And I was convicted of the congregational aspect of a verse that I’ve only really ever applied individually:
8 Above all, maintain constant love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Be hospitable to one another without complaining. 10 Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others, as good stewards of the varied grace of God.
Oh, church.... what would it look like to the world if this were the framework of how we lived? Next week, we’ll be getting back into our We Believe series, and we’ll be starting with the topic of stewardship, so this verse will feature prominently next week as well.
Ultimately, what I’m trying to get at is that we belong to one another, and we are called to love one another well. Obviously I can’t successfully fellowship often with every single family in this church body, but if ALL of us were intentional about engaging some of the rest of the church family through fellowship, hospitality, sharing, and caring, none of us would feel neglected or disconnected. And then what would the world see when it looked at Eastern Hills?
And on one last point for a moment: if you’re currently attending via stream every week, and you’re not streaming because of living in another city, or for health reasons, can I just invite you next week to come back to the building to worship with the church family? This body is incomplete without you, even if we don’t realize it. And since we don’t take attendance during Family Worship, the only way we can know you’re not here is if someone makes a note of the fact that they didn’t see you. But just as you can’t have fellowship with a screen, so those here in the room can’t fellowship with you. And for those of you who are streaming for those other reasons, please let us know if there is some way that your church family can minister to you or pray for you.
And we come to our last question this morning: When and where?
5) When and where will our unity be perfected?
5) When and where will our unity be perfected?
I’ll keep this last point short. The reality of our unity, even with the Spirit of God working in our lives, is that it’s not perfect. We don’t always submit to the work of God. We don’t always lay aside our preferences and priorities. We don’t always walk in humility, living our lives worthy of the Gospel. The unfortunate truth is that for now, our unity is imperfect because of the Fall. But the incredible truth of the Gospel is that that isn’t all there is. There is more to look forward to. Jesus spoke about this in verse 24:
24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they will see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the world’s foundation.
Remember that Jesus is praying for us here. He wants for us to be with Him in His Kingdom, seeing the glory that He has always had, since before the beginning of creation. Back in John 14, Jesus spoke of going and preparing a place for us for that day:
1 “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? 3 If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also.
Right now, we see just a glimpse of His glory in how He is at work in the life of the church to impact the world. Our vision of His glory is unclear, only a reflection as in a mirror as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13. And since we are partakers of that glory (see verse 22 again), we look forward to the day when we will be glorified in His presence:
2 Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him as he is.
What a great and precious promise to those who are in Christ Jesus! And only will we be glorified, but we will find that all division, all conflict between us will be gone as we all bring glory to Christ. How we should all look forward to that day!
Closing
Closing
So church, we ourselves are a sign that testifies to who Jesus is. And while we aren’t perfect, thankfully we actually get to testify with words about Messiah! So we should strive to be united in spirit and purpose, acting in love toward one another and toward all who meet us.
Invitation
Trusting Christ
Join the church
Repentance and prayer
Offering
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Bible reading Ezekiel 16
Instructions for guests
Benediction
Benediction
10 Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say, that there be no divisions among you, and that you be united with the same understanding and the same conviction.