 GCO Mission and Goals | GCO Ministry Testimonials | Projects | Resources/Donations/Contact | SEARCH | |
Carpenter-Built: The Church
Presenter: Larry Kirkpatrick
Location: Bonners Ferry Seventh-day Adventist Church, ID, USA
Delivery: 2011-08-13
Publication: GreatControversy.org 2011-10-06 20:43Z
Type: Sermon
URL: http://www.greatcontroversy.org/gco/ser/kirl-carpenterbuilt.php
Let’s look today at something our Lord Jesus did.
In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor (Luke 6:12-14. Unless otherwise noted, all scripture references are from the ESV).
Jesus never wasted time; but few years were allotted to Him. His was a “mission impossible”: become human, grow up in the midst of a nation of rebels, in direct contrast to traditional thinking teach the truth, raise up an alternative covenant community, be sacrificed on the cross. All this, while existing in a humanity like ours.
He was a messenger from God declaring that His people had lost their way. It was not hard to anticipate how this would turn out. Such a mission must be a one-way passage to Golgotha. Only the deepest love for God and people could bring this. But Jesus kept on, straight to the hammer and the nails. He was lifted up before all people. He draws all of us to Himself (John 12:32).
When we look at what Jesus did, how He spent His time in these few short years, we see that much of His energy went into establishing His church. Today, some 2,000 years later, we belong to His church. We want to belong to it.
Then, becoming part of the church meant being cast out of the synagogue, treated as though one had died. Then, becoming part of the church meant being exiled from Rome. Then, becoming part of the church meant being regarded as leaving the Jewish nation altogether. It often meant being disowned by one’s family, or even family disintigration when husband or wife left you because of changes in living that came with your belief in Christ.
To us it could be as though our relatives would regard us forever more as strangers, like being cast out of the family. It could be as if we would no longer be considered citizens of the United States. It could that your husband or wife or children would abandon you. You might be fired from your job.
Is it surprising then that the early church as a community was central to the lives of these followers of God? The church was a life-raft after a shipwreck. Becoming part of the church was a help. It brought life. The life before had been wrong, a pathway to ultimate death. Now, one was on the pathway of life with Jesus. In that hour it must have seemed as though one's life had collapsed. Actually, illusions had collapsed. That is painful but good, because until illusions begin to collapse, what we think about God and living for God is deeply distorted. But Jesus said “And you will know the truth and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32).
Knowing the truth, acting on it, brings freedom. To whom does Jesus thus speak? In John 8:32 Jesus is talking to new believers. Adversaries overhear and heatedly oppose. But stop and think; does becoming part of a church automatically change us? Do we, as it were, step onto a moving floor as in an airport to be whisked effortlessly to freedom? Or, does becoming free require some investment of effort on our part? When God delivered the Jews, did He transport them to Canaan by slingshot and rubber-band, or did they start their journey home right on the doorstep of Egypt? He delivered them but then set them to journey from Egypt to Canaan, one step at a time. Jesus is telling these new believers that they have embarked on a special journey. They will know the truth more and more fully. They will draw close to Jesus more and more personally. They will leave behind confusion and error as they investigate His Word with ever increasing knowledge of how most correctly to interpret it.
God saves us freely. But to receive truth means we must surrender error. Who is inclined to surrender error if they do not think that it is error? How will you know what truth or error is unless you invest energy in truth-seeking, weighing it, thinking about it? Error, by definition, is especially subtle. It masquerades as truth in order to appear to be the very opposite of what it is. It is the truth that is mixed in with error that gives error its credibility.
In John eight, Jesus is telling new believers that they shall become free. Immediately Jesus' opponents speak up insisting that they are free. Jesus says that they are trapped in sin and entertaining thoughts of murder. They think they are in God's will but here is God come in human flesh and they are trying to kill Him.
Who will be set free? Those who believe, because those who believe gather together and are subject to something higher than themselves.
Jesus did not pick one apostle but 12. The church was not founded upon one man but upon the faith of all who accept Jesus as Lord. In one place the Bible pictures the church as a body with Jesus as head (Ephesians 4:15, 16). He picked a diverse crowd to start the church off, prayerfully selected. They were with Jesus up in the mountain. They listened to His instruction. They followed His counsel. They sought His will. In the book of Acts we see His church then gathering together to learn what God wanted them to do, and making decisions together as a collective. Look at the texts: Acts 1:12-26; 6:1-7; 15:1-35 (2, 6, 12, 22, 28).
It is true that we are individually directly responsible to God in terms of personal salvation. But it is also true that we need to grow and that we grow best in connection with others.
Listen to just two paragraphs from the book, Acts of the Apostles, by Ellen G. White. She is talking about church. Hear her words, not mine:
God has made His church on the earth a channel of light, and through it He communicates His purposes and His will. He does not give to one of His servants an experience independent of and contrary to the experience of the church itself. Neither does He give one man a knowledge of His will for the entire church while the church—Christ’s body—is left in darkness. In His providence He places His servants in close connection with His church in order that they may have less confidence in themselves and greater confidence in others whom He is leading out to advance His work (p. 163).
God has a church. Through “it” He communicates His purposes and His will. His church is not His only means of communicating, but we know that it is, in a most distinct way, His communicator. See how it is not through just one person, or two, that He works; He works through those who are “leading out to advance His work.” Maybe the most important part of the paragraph is how it points out that “He places His servants in close connection with His church” with the purpose of reducing their self-confidence and increasing their confidence in others in the church. Some are quick to think that they are right and that others are wrong. But just a few lines later, another paragraph addresses this tendency. Listen:
Those who are inclined to regard their individual judgment as supreme are in grave peril. It is Satan’s studied effort to separate such ones from those who are channels of light, through whom God has wrought to build up and extend His work in the earth. To neglect or despise those whom God has appointed to bear the responsibilities of leadership in connection with the advancement of the truth, is to reject the means that He has ordained for the help, encouragement, and strength of His people. For any worker in the Lord’s cause to pass these by, and to think that his light must come through no other channel than directly from God, is to place himself in a position where he is liable to be deceived by the enemy and overthrown. The Lord in His wisdom has arranged that by means of the close relationship that should be maintained by all believers, Christian shall be united to Christian and church to church. Thus the human instrumentality will be enabled to co-operate with the divine. Every agency will be subordinate to the Holy Spirit, and all the believers will be united in an organized and well-directed effort to give to the world the glad tidings of the grace of God (p. 164).
Not just peril, but grave, that is, spiritually deadly peril, is at hand for those are who regard their individual judgment as supreme. Any of us who has a tendency to this phenomenon need to pay close attention. We are warned that it is these very persons whom Satan tries to separate from those who are “channels of light,” experienced workers. The warning is for those who “neglect” and “despise” divinely-appointed leadership.
What is the solution? “Christian shall be united to Christian and church to church.” Jesus did not launch His church which He said the gates of hell would not prevail against (Matthew 16:18), only to neglect it and watch it whither away and fall into chaos.
In an orchard of fruit trees, you often plant multiple varieties so that trees can cross-polinate. In a garage you keep not only a screw-driver, but also a hammer, rechargable drill, and so forth. All the tools have their part in keeping the house in repair. In the kitchen you have not just a spatula, but also a blender, a cutting board, a toaster, a can-opener, and so on. Different tools help accomplish the preparation of food.
But in our world today the church has been moved from its central place in human life to the periphery. It is rarely seen as a lifeboat. Rather, it is more like one shiny pleasure craft competing with other shiny pleasure craft. Pick the one whose stripes you like.
Tendencies to do church on our own terms are nothing new. But we should come to church anticipating that God will speak to us—through the sabbath school, the hymns and songs and prayers of the worship service, and through the sermon.
Some in history have said that if you wanted to be saved, you had to belong to their church, indeed, that you were saved by maintaining your connection with it. I don’t think we want to say that. But can we agree that when we belong to a church, when we are in covenant relationship to a group of other seekers for God’s will, then our hearts can be softened. Then we can listen for God working through brother, sister, even the pastor.
Jesus knew what He was doing when He populated His church with a variety of people, perspectives, and gifts. His church is Carpenter-built. Jesus went out to the mountain to pray. He prayed through the night, and in the morning, from among His many disciples, He chose twelve to lead. In God's strength, those who were faithful led. The result was the creation of a covenant community that turned the world upside down. We live in an age when many become frustrated secular leaders who often seem to have limited competence. Church leaders are not infallible, but it is the plan of Jesus that they be chosen and that they lead. God gives them more than human help for their work. In an antiauthoritarian age, His leaders must lead. There is a harvest. Jesus asks us to ask Him for laborers. Among the laborers, the leaders of the church. GCO
© 2011 by GreatControversy.org. GCO grants permission to individuals, wholeheartedly encouraging them to copy and reproduce documents and files appearing on this site, in an unaltered state, and for non-commercial use, unless otherwise noted. All other rights reserved. Other groups or entities wishing to reproduce these materials are encouraged to contact us with reproduction requests.
 |