Poised for More! (Multiplication)

Cats and Rabbits

Did you know that cats are among the fastest reproducing animals? Cats are good to go at five months old. And over the course of their lifetime, can have as many as 100 babies. They are capable of multiple litters a year with as many as 12 in a litter.

And rabbits? Their reputation is well-earned. The rabbit not only has babies early and often, the young ones are themselves ready to have babies only months after birth. One rabbit can be responsible for more than 800 children, grand-children and great-grandchildren in just one breeding season.

Poised for More!

We’ve come to the end of our Bible talks from the book of Ephesians for the time being. The church is made for more. The church is poised for more. Wherever we happen to be, Jesus is using us for more Jesus. We began by reflecting on just what it is that Jesus has planned for the church here on earth. Jesus plans to fill the entire earth with himself using the church. Jesus is using the church to fill all of society with himself. Jesus uses us where we live, where we work, where we play, and where we learn. We learned that Jesus is using the gospel, his Good News, to fill the church with himself and then fill the world. Along the way we considered that love is one of the main vehicles for Jesus filling all things. We also learned from Paul that there is an enemy that doesn’t want us to fill all things with Jesus.

If that’s Jesus’ plan, what does the outcome look like? We’ve seen a little bit of that… that when Jesus uses us to fill all things that we become agents of peace and forgiveness wherever we are at. It also means that we are involved in discipleship, following Jesus by placing our confidence in him for everything in life. But there’s is one thing that we haven’t quite or completely considered.

Here’s the key paragraph again. If there was ever a thesis statement for this letter is it found in these four verses. The great missionary Paul writes a letter to this gathering of believers in the ancient has just told this gathering in the ancient that they have been adopted as God’s children. They’ve been given every spiritual blessing in Jesus. That they have been given forgiveness of sins in the death of Jesus. It’s this new creation, these believers that Jesus will use to fill all things. Paul explains the big picture in the scripture reading we read moments ago:

Ephesians 1:22-23 “And God subjected everything under Jesus’ feet and appointed Jesus as head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.”

Jesus is now ruler over everything, and he is using His body, the church to fill all things in every way. Again, we looked at this weeks ago,

Filling all things in every way simply means that Jesus is using us where we live, where we work, where we learn, and where we play to bring more Jesus in those areas of our lives.

He does this through us wherever we are at. But the question still remains… where is this all going? Where are we headed? The answer is right there in front of us.

All things.

All things means “all things”. It doesn’t stop with just where you work, where you play, where you live, and where you learn. That’s the m.o. That’s what Jesus is after. You carry Jesus, or rather Jesus carries you wherever you go. But in the process, Jesus is multiplying his kingdom. This is how kingdom expansion works. It’s how it has always worked. We’re all missionaries. And Jesus is using all of us to multiply his body all over the world. Jesus is making good on his promise to Abraham to make his descendents like sand on the beach and stars in the sky.

You know how many grains of sand are on the earth?

Scientists estimate anywhere there are between 7 quintillion and 5 sextillion grains of sand on the earth.

Those numbers are virtually uncountable. Jesus is using you to multiply his followers over the face of the earth. This church body should not be the last church body in the RGV. At some point, hopefully sooner rather than later, Jesus will use the Table to plant another Table. All things means all things. Over all the earth. We read the passage earlier… all nations. Both sides of the border. Jesus is using the church to multiply his body over the face of the earth and that includes this body.

There’s a great story that we talk about all of the time here at the Table. In fact our shirts have a verse from this story on the back of the shirts. In John 6, Jesus and his best friends are with a big crowd and Jesus says, hey, let’s eat. And his friends are like, really? The numbers are in the thousands. A boy who is part of the crowd has five loaves and two fish. And before the day is over, everyone has eaten. Everyone. Thousands. From five loaves and two fish. Jesus multiplied the bread and the fish. And while that story is primarily about Jesus being the manna from Heaven who gives us life through His body, it is also not hard to see that Jesus gives life to thousands through an act of multiplication.

Jesus is in the business of multiplying.

“Filling all things” isn’t simply about being in every area of life, but also about multiplying those through whom he is “filling all things.”

The amazing thing about Paul telling this church that Jesus would use them to multiply His body is that he did exactly that. In another book in our New Testaments, the book of Acts, Dr. Luke tells the story of Ephesus. That church began when the great missionary Paul showed up in town and held some dialogue and debate with Jewish leaders in the city’s synagogue. Dr. Luke tells us that Paul and his missionary team, Apollos, Acquila, Priscila, and Timothy spent two years in that city planting a church and growing the leadership in that congregation. But that’s not all Paul and his team were doing. Ephesus was a hub of church planting activity. Over the next few years, Dr. Luke tells us this happened:

Slide for Ephesus expansion

Those churches are churches in towns and cities in and around Ephesus with a radius of about 100 miles. The church at Ephesus reproduced itself in that area of what we now call Turkey. This kind of expansion is Jesus filling all things with himself through the church at Ephesus. That pattern wasn’t simply true of Ephesus in the book of Acts. Ephesus was the product of the church at Antioch reproducing itself for hundreds of miles through Paul and his missionary team.

Jesus’ plan for the church in filling all corners of society with himself… where we live, work, learn, and play is part of his plan to fill all corners of the earth with himself. This is his plan for every church that has ever existed. His plan is different for every church. Different cultures, different people, different time lines, different methods and strategies… there’s no one-size fits all. But what is true is that multiplication is part of the design of the church. Multiplication and mission are in the DNA of church. Every member is a missionary, and every church is a mission-focused church.

The upshot is this. St Paul planted and multiplied itself through the Table. Jesus is using St Paul to fill the RGV with himself. The Table, at some point down the road, will multiply itself here in the RGV. That is Jesus’ design for the church, just like he did with the church at Ephesus. It won’t start with churches. But even as we think about ministry in the next year or two or three, this pattern should be embedded in our prayers and in the way we talk about what the Table is doing for Los Fresnos and beyond.

So here’s what this might look like for the Table.

Slide for Table expansion

This is the pattern of Ephesus as to what it might look like for us in the coming years. None of this is set in concrete. All of this is fluid. This is all an experiment. We have Bible studies or small groups that are meeting. It’s possible that Jesus uses one of these Bible studies or groups of people to being something new. He might not use any of this. But what I do know is that Jesus is using the Table to fill more corners of Los Fresnos and the area with himself. It’s already happening. And it’s graphs likes this, prayers like this that will keep that vision and mission in front of us.

You’ve heard me say it a hundred times. This Word and this Table, these are the means through which Jesus fills us to fill all of our lives with himself. This Word and this Table were not meant to keep to ourselves. But seeing the church at Ephesus and its expansion, it does raise the question, why don’t we think of church this way?

It’s the same problem we’ve had for thousands of years and it shows up in church. I find a good thing, what do I want to do? Yep. I want to keep it for myself. I want to hang onto it. We don’t even have to teach kids this. When a bunch of kids are in a room and you have a popular toy, or maybe it’s not popular, but the two-year-old who has a toy is popular… what do the kids do? We want. And when the kids do “we want”, what does the kid who has the toy do? Mine! Mine! Mine! We grow up, but adults are no different. Mine! Mine! We are narcissists by nature. We want to keep the good stuff for ourselves. We want to focus on what makes us comfortable. Pretty soon church becomes that for us as well.

Jesus is always giving himself away. But we don’t. And we won’t. We don’t want to give ourselves away. I get it. Me too. I do it too. But that’s not Jesus’ design for my life and it’s not his design for the church. Giving ourselves away.

Our bottled water giveaways are simply an image of this. We give the water bottles away “just because”. That’s a picture of the way we are supposed to be as a church with our service, with our gospel message. The church is designed to multiply itself… in giving itself away.

And it all begins with the way we were added to the church to begin with. Jesus’ forgiveness.

Forgiveness multiplies.

Paul starts the whole thing off in Ephesians by saying this:

Ephesians 1:7 “In Jesus we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace”

That’s our message. This is our hope. This is our life. This is our multiplication. However and wherever Jesus decides to expand the Table, this will be at the heart of it all. The forgiveness we receive from Jesus is the forgiveness we give to others. But it’s also the message we give to others. The Table is Poised for More with the message of Jesus’ forgiveness of sinners in grace. We live in a culture that knows nothing of forgiveness. We see a lack of forgiveness on the internet. Cancel culture. If you offend me, if I deem your actions and your words offensive, you’re cancelled. No forgiveness for you until you change XYZ… whatever you are thinking or doing.

But Jesus doesn’t forgive us that way. Jesus’ forgiveness is unconditional. Jesus doesn’t say, clean up your life and I’ll forgive you. He doesn’t even say… decide to clean up your life and I’ll forgive you. He simply says I forgive you. People cancel each other because they don’t know that Jesus has forgiven them. That His forgiveness is unconditional. Jesus fills all things with himself through the church using the message of forgiveness. And as He does so, he is also expanding and multiplying His body the church through that same message. We are poised for more with the message of forgiveness, where we live, learn, work, and play.

Let’s pray.

Multiplication. Jesus does it every week here. Forgiveness is multiplied all of the time here at The Table. Jesus’ body and blood are here for us… forgiving us so that we may take this message of forgiveness into the world. His life and forgiveness is for you right now. Again and again.