Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Faith Moving Towards Perfection - TELIOS Series #1


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 

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[2] Rick Warren, Moving Members To Maturity, SBC Life, Nashville, Jun/Jul 2002, 10.



 

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