Spiritual maturity comes in
a lot of different packages. Rick Warren,
author of The Purpose-Driven Life, is pastor of Saddleback Community
Church in California. It is one of the
largest churches in the Southern Baptist Convention, with around 22,000
attending multiple weekend services[1].
Fewer
than half of their membership comes from people transferring from other
churches. They lead lost persons to
Christ and baptize over 50% of new attendees.
In a new initiative the church is planting more churches in 12 strategic
cities around the world to continue reaching the world for Jesus Christ.
But large
attendance is not the only thing for which Saddleback is known. That church is also a pacesetting example of
high expectation. Members are expected
to do more than attend; they are expected to grow as disciples and use their
spiritual gifts in service. That is
stated in the covenant new members sign when they join that fellowship.
So, what does the pastor of a vibrant, growing,
discipling and church-starting church have to say about growing to maturity as
believers? This:
“The truth is that it takes a variety of
experiences with God to produce true spiritual maturity. In addition to Bible study it
takes worship experiences, ministry experiences, fellowship
experiences, and evangelism experiences. In other words, spiritual growth occurs by
participating in all five purposes of the church.”[2]
Where
did Rick Warren get such an idea? The
Bible! Largely from the Book of Acts.
This
morning I want to take Pastor Warren’s statement, and passages from Acts, from
which he draws the five purposes of the church, and invest our time looking at
the process of becoming a mature disciple of Jesus Christ. This is what John Wesley called going
on to perfection. The Biblical
word telios is translated as “perfection” and it means to be
functional, mature, useful for that which it was created.
Incidentally,
I want you to know [up front] that I agree with Rick Warren about these five
purposes for all members of the church.
I also want you to know I have a goal for this message. That goal is your heart. The goal is to have God’s Word and purposes
clearly capture our hearts this morning so that we will turn to following Him
more closely than ever. The goal is for
us to become “purpose-driven” people for Christ.
Study
with me the five purposes of the church – five experiences that can make us mature,
strong, telios disciples, able to serve our Master.
1. Worship Experiences
Worship
was exciting for the first church, especially the first service they had. Three thousand got saved and baptized that
day! There was a sense of awe and
reverence that gripped the whole group.
I’ll bet they just couldn’t wait to get to church each Sunday. In fact, I know they didn’t wait til Sunday;
Scripture tells us they had church every day.
I must
admit that going to church service every day may sound a bit
“over-the-top”. On the other hand, that constant
exposure to the Word of God and worship made the church so strong and vital then. They were so full of Jesus that people were
getting saved every day. We could use a little
of that “over-the-top”, couldn’t we?
I’ve
been a pastor a long time, and I’ve encouraged a multitude of folks to get
regular about worshipping. But I’ve also
been told a similar multitude of times, Preacher, you don’t have to go to church to
worship. Now, I would say that
that is true; I am also certain that if you say you believe that, you really need
to say the whole sentence, which is:
You don’t have to go to church to worship, but if you don’t
you probably won’t.
Can
we talk? Aside from spending time with
my wife, golf is my major hobby (if you can call something you do twice a year
a bone-fide hobby). I will tell you these
few things:
·
I
cannot recall the last time I recited the Lord’s Prayer or the Shorter
Westminster catechism before the first tee.
I have prayed – to make a good shot; at least to not embarrass myself in
front of a good golfer – but mostly I am not worshipping! I am thinking about back-swing,
follow-through and putting.
·
I
have never thought of the Book of Discipline, or sung a hymn of praise to Jesus
on the golf course.
·
And
it is certain the only offering I’ve ever given on the golf course was required
– they called it “greens fees” – and they didn’t use it for missions!
Friend,
you can use that “don’t have to go to church to worship” thing any time you
want…just don’t do it with a straight face when you’re talking to God – He
doesn’t buy it. He knows it means, “I
really don’t want to worship God, and I’m gonna talk my way out of it if I
can.” You can’t!
I
have shared with you that I was saved at a young age, and then turned my back
on the Lord in my teens. When I came
back to Jesus in my late twenties, it was largely due to the efforts of my dear
wife who was seeking God, and a dear, tenacious neighbor lady. (Tenacious is a word you use when you learn
to love someone who was formerly just “obnoxious”). Bev is now with Jesus hearing “well done”!
This
neighbor badgered me about church so often I finally said “yes” just to get her
off my back. That’s when it happened;
one service led to another, and before I knew it, worship became an addiction. I want you to know that when Jesus finally
got my attention through that pushy next-door neighbor (bless her overbearing
and loving heart), I could not get enough of worshipping the One who loved me
enough to die for me. Worship has made
me a stronger disciple.
It’s
like filling the gas tank. Some folks
can go a long way in-between worship times; I can’t – not if I’m going to hear
“Well-done thou good and faithful servant.”
2. Fellowship Experiences
Breaking
bread means dinner-on-the-grounds; it means sharing the Lord’s Supper. It means both; but it means more.
Breaking
bread (in the sense of the church) means joining lives. The members of that first church hung out at
church, but they also cooperated daily in doing things that draw people
together.
We
live in a fallen world. When Adam and
Eve sinned, God came to them in the garden and had a hard time finding
them. They were hiding so they didn’t
have to face His face. Everybody here
can identify with that…who wants to see a holy God when you’ve sinned?
Unfortunately,
God is not the only one from which we hide; we also hide from each other. It is because we recoil from the idea of
trusting others. We know ourselves well
– we know that we are not trustworthy because we know our sins. Looking at others we see the same species; my
brother is no more to be trusted than I.
It
is a fallen world. One preacher told his
congregation about when he was just a boy one of his life’s goals was to make
all four of his sisters cry at the same time.
Now, that is descriptive of the anti-fellowship rule of a fallen
world.
It
is a fallen world.
·
In
that fallenness of our world we see on TV the likes of Jerry Springer,
Survivor, American Idol and others, it’s all in-your-face screaming
to come out on top, cut-throats, stab backs and claw your way to the
prize.
·
With
Oprah and Dr. Phil you are urged to be sensitive and make “nice-nice” with
everybody so we can all be sensitive and “nice-nice”.
·
In
corporate America it is lie, steal, and cheat, but get off with 5 months behind
bars with 5 billion in the bank.
·
Terrorists
say: “fly your plane into a government
building and fulfill your destiny”.
That’s a fallen world.
Real
fellowship is a matter of facing the “real fallen world” and knowing that your
brother in Christ is not the enemy. It
means breaking the bread of life together so, arm-in-arm you can storm the
gates of hell like Jesus said we should.
3. Discipleship Experiences
The
Book of Acts tells us that the people devoted themselves to learning all about
God. They received the word and learned
the doctrine. My friends you can’t do
that listening to a 30-minute sermon once a week. If you are serious about following Jesus,
there are some things that must change, IF the church is
going to persevere:
·
Sixty
years ago we had televisions the size of a sofa with a 6-inch screen. These days technology has given us a 6-foot
color screen in a cabinet so light you hang it on the wall. Are we better off?
·
Sixty
years ago we watched Mayberry and then read our Bibles because late night TV
ended at 9pm. Today you can watch TV 24
hours a day while the Bible gathers dust in the closet. Are we better disciples for the technology?
·
Sixty
years ago we went to church on Sundays and Wednesdays. We took two weeks’ vacation and that was the
only time we missed our Sunday School class.
Did we not give out pins for perfect attendance? Today everything else comes before
Sunday School and Worship.
There
just aren’t many disciples these days devoting themselves to the
apostle’s doctrine and prayer! I would
suggest that may be one reason people follow Joel Osteen; his teaching is all
about how to get stuff from God. Disciples,
on the other hand are trained in the Word of God to deny self and serve God.
4. Serving Experiences
Serving
is sacrifice. As with discipleship,
serving God means you give up things of the world in favor of giving glory to
God.
The
Bible tells us that the early disciples were so caught-up in the love of Jesus
that they went as far as selling-off personal property to make sure nobody went
hungry. Now, that doesn’t mean it is
wrong for us to have personal property.
It simply points out that a heart that is right will sacrifice to meet
needs if sacrifice is needed.
Serving
is a form of leadership. Jesus led his
disciples into servant-living by taking a towel and basin to do the lowly job
of washing dirty feet. And He did it
while they were debating over who was going to be the greatest in the Kingdom.
I
want to say this with loving care, but there is a need for leaders who will put
leading above personal pursuits of amusement, vacation and every opportunity
that comes along to get out of serving.
It is much better to decline to serve than to say you will serve and
then drop the ball.
Jesus
told a parable about a father telling his two sons there was work to be done in
the field. One son said, “No way – I’m
not going”; but he re-thought and then went to work in the field. The other son said, “Sure Dad, I’m your man”;
he too reconsidered, and went to take a nap.
Which served the Father, lip-service, or life-service?
I
wish you could have known Louise Blair.
Louise was in our church in Jacksonville, Florida. She was near 80 when I met her. She was our Women’s Missions director. She was an absolute delight for any
pastor. Her one question was always,
“Pastor, what can we do to help?” At 80
she was still going out on outreach.
One summer
day we held a neighborhood block party with game booths, clothes for the poor,
food, pony rides, popcorn, and a spacewalk.
Our daughter, Carrie, was dressed in a ball gown as Snow White, and each
child got his or her picture taken with the princess.
Do
you know what Louise chose to do that Saturday morning? Louise rented a clown outfit and manned the
booth marked “Clowns for Christ”. She
handed out tracts and bubble gum until every last kid’s cheeks were bulging
with Double-Bubble!
Servants
do that kind of thing! God needs more
servants – less spectators!
5. Evangelism Experiences
This
is one of those “easy-to-connect-the-dots” scenarios…Peter shared Christ with a
whole crowd…and 3,000 responded; they were saved. In turn, they went and shared that with
others. How simple is that?
We
sometimes make it rather complicated but sharing the Gospel as it came to us is
effective – after all, it worked that way at least in your case. The problem is not with evangelism being too
hard – it isn’t. The problem is more
with saints who won’t even give it a try.
My
brother Thom has a sister-in-law, Anne.
Anne visited the church I was serving some years ago. She is the opposite of a Yankee in North
Carolina; Anne is from Tennessee. She
married a New Yorker and moved to his part of the country.
Go
figure!
Anyway,
Anne shared with me about her young Grandson, David:
David was sitting at the breakfast table this
morning when he made a little noise and jerked backwards. He mashed something
in the tablecloth and threw it on the floor.
John asked, "What happened?"
David answered, "There was a spider there. I
killed it."
"Wow! You were so brave to kill it," I
exclaimed.
True honesty came to the fore when David
explained, "I’m only brave when the spider is little."
Friends
let me sum this up by saying that when it comes to evangelism, serving,
discipleship, fellowship, and worship, ALL the spiders are little! Next to God, everything in this universe is
little, and under His control.
Do
you want to move on to maturity in Christ?
Get serious about these five areas of experience; make them your life’s
major commitments:
WORSHIP – FELLOWSHIP – DISCIPLESHIP – SERVING - EVANGELISM
Worried
you can’t cut it? Take a little advice
from that great old preacher, Phillips Brooks, who helped many overcome their
fear of serving well…
Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger
people! Do not pray for tasks equal to
your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks.
Let
the church say, Amen!
Our Prayer
Father you know our hearts are captured and changed when our behavior begins to mirror what is in Your Word. I ask Your blessing on each of us this day. Grant us knowledge to know how to open our hearts to Your Spirit, so that Your Word will lodge deep there, and change us from inside-out.
For the glory, honor, and praise to
which You alone are worthy, o Lord, we pray in the Name of the Son, cooperating
with the Spirit, to honor and exalt the Majesty of the Father. Let it be so in each of our lives…Amen!
Title Image:
via Pixabay.com W Unless
noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation
No comments:
Post a Comment