If My Church Is a Community,
Why Do I Feel Like a Piece of Machinery?
Series: The Reality and Responsibility of Unity
by Doug Goins
As we were planning the service for this morning, Ron Ritchie reminded
me of one of Ray Stedman's old couplets, in light of our anticipation of
the perfected, glorified community we'll enjoy in heaven, and the process
we're going through down here:
"To dwell above with saints we love, oh that will be glory,
but to dwell below with saints we know, well, that's another story."
I think that does speak accurately to the struggle we experience at times
to be the people of God.
We're trying to understand the church as community these two weeks. Last
week, out of Psalm 133, we focused on community as a gift of the grace of
God at work among us. We're to enjoy it with gratitude. That's the place
to begin in understanding community. Psalm 133 is a description of what
God has done and continues to do in the Christian community. The problem,
we discovered last week, is our sinful tendency to avoid the experience
of community by isolating ourselves. God's solution to isolation is for
us to see with new eyes both ourselves and those around us in the community,
to allow the oil of the Holy Spirit to soothe and heal abrasiveness in relationships
in this family, to become excited about the potential in our brothers and
sisters, to become loving optimists as we view them and where they are in
the process of growth the Lord has for them, to rejoice in the new believers
being drawn into the fellowship because of its attractiveness, because they
love how we treat each other! "They'll know we are Christians by our
love."
If community is a gift of God, as we affirmed last week, what responsibility
do we have with that gift? Candy and I have given all of our children bicycles
for birthdays or Christmas, expressing our unconditional love and acceptance
for them. They are given to enrich their lives; owning a bicycle is a privilege
for them to enjoy. But we tell them that "with privilege comes responsibility,"
and in all kinds of ways we try to communicate loving exhortations and imperatives
that result from our giving them the gift. So I lovingly yell, "Why
is your bike lying on the sidewalk halfway down the block?" "Don't
leave your bike in the rain!" "Did you lock the garage after you
put the bike away?" Those are loving imperatives of grace! They're
all a way of saying, "Take care of the gift."
The apostle Paul says essentially the same thing to the Christian church
regarding the gift of community. He's writing from a Roman prison to the
Ephesian church, but with the intention that the letter will be circulated
to a number of other churches because the issues he deals with are universal.
Churches down through the ages are exhorted to "[be] eager to maintain
the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Paul is saying here,
"Take care of the gift of community!" If Psalm 133 is a beautiful
description of unity, then Ephesians 4:1-6 is a powerful imperative toward
unity. It's a call to responsibility. Let's read it together:
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life
worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all lowliness
and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain
the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one
Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call,
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above
all and through all and in all.
In the opening statement of this paragraph, Paul says that community begins
with consistency between my daily lifestyle and with my identity in Jesus
Christ. Paul's "therefore" refers back to the first three chapters
of the letter. He is saying, "in light of all I have been teaching
you about God's riches of his grace and his blessing to you, in view of
my prayers for you, in the context of the eternal truth you're being blessed
with, I want you to live a life that is consistent with your adoption into
God's family." Paul has been unfolding in these three chapters God's
eternal purposes in human history. Through Jesus Christ, who died for sinners
and was raised from death, God is creating something entirely new and radical:
not just a new life for individuals, but a new community of redeemed men
and women. Paul has described an alienated humanity being reconciled to
God and to one another, a fractured human race that's being made whole.
God is even creating a new humanity. Let's look back at Ephesians 2:19-22
for a summary statement of this miracle:
So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you
are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself
being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and
grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it
for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
Clearly, we're called into a new community. Now, Paul's own life demonstrates
his commitment to who he is in Jesus Christ. He is writing from prison because
he's sold out to follow the Christ of the Gospel. He has surrendered to
God's accomplishing his will through his imprisonment. And as a matter of
fact, in the letter to the Philippians he tells them that his imprisonment
works to their advantage as a community. He makes the same appeal to them
as to the Ephesians in Philippians 2:1-2a: "If there is any encouragement
in Christ, any incentive of love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection
and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind...." He wants
them to think as Jesus thinks, to live as Jesus lives, and to "live
a life worthy of the calling to which [they] have been called."
Now, in chapter 4 of Ephesians, he begins the practical application of this
reality, and shows us how God expects his community to live and act. He
doesn't address the body as a whole here, but individuals within the body.
He focuses on personal implications for everyday living. This responsibility
to fulfill our calling as the church belongs to each one of us individually.
The question I must begin with in the light of verse 1, as I examine my
church and my place in this Christian community, is, do I walk my own talk?
Is my lifestyle consistent with who I am in Jesus Christ? When I think of
the problems in our fellowship, do I examine my own attitudes and behavior
first? C. S. Lewis said, "Of all the awkward people in my home and
in my office, there is only one I can do very much about." Paul makes
the appeal to me very personally. When I think about community, I've got
to start with myself.
In verse 2 he points out the need to examine my character, my attitudes:
"...with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one
another in love..." This runs contrary to my own natural tendencies
in community-building. If I want to begin building community or diagnose
and repair a breach in community, I don't naturally think of these personal
moral qualities, these internal character traits. I tend to think first
of the whole, the externally defined structure or organization. How can
I fix it? My first instinct in community-building is toward being an activist.
I want to schedule meetings, create organizational charts, encourage dialogue,
establish a budget, hire an ombudsman, get a policy statement down on paper,
etc. But Paul says I need to start with my own interior life in the Spirit.
He prayed earlier that we would be "rooted and grounded in love"
(3:17). And now he says to let that life of love be evidenced by four character
qualities that have a powerful influence on the community we enjoy.
First, we're called to humility or lowliness. That idea was despised in
the first-century Greek culture. They even caricatured that word as "the
crouching submission of a slave," cowering in terror before his master.
Jesus wiped out that caricature. He lived out a life of perfect humility.
He was the "servant of all" in his own words. The actual word
construction in Greek means to think humbly. It's the recognition of the
infinite worth and value of every other person in the body, the attitude
that they are of greater worth than I am; they deserve more deference than
I do. It's other-centeredness, not self-centeredness. It's Jesus' example
of self-emptying in Philippians 2: "taking the form of a servant."
Humility is a willingness to give up my rights for someone else. Paul says
it's essential for community.
He uses the word gentleness or meekness. Meekness is not a synonym for weakness.
It means strength under control. It means moderate reactions to things rather
than harsh overreaction or outbursts of undisciplined emotion. It's the
opposite of being manipulative and overbearing. Findlay says in his lexicon,
"It is the quality of a strong personality who is nevertheless master
of himself and the servant of others. It is the absence of the disposition
to assert personal rights, either in the presence of God or of men."
The community is enhanced by my choice to be a gentle man.
Patience means having a long fuse with other people. It means to be long-suffering
toward people who are aggravating, just as God is with us. When Paul wrote
to Timothy in his first letter, he was concerned about Timothy's reticence
to assume leadership, his poor self-image, his struggles to be who God called
him to be. Yet Paul talks in 1:16 about his own personal experience with
the unlimited patience of God and the perfecting of patience in his own
life. He can be merciful and patient with Timothy because he has experienced
God's patience himself. Patience is tolerance for the shortcomings of others,
and it is necessary for community.
The word forbearance is a bit different from patience. Forbearance means
the willingness to put up with people until God changes them. In 1 Corinthians
13 Paul says that "love bears all things." That expresses the
same idea. Literally he says "love covers over everything." I
see the struggles in your life, but I make a decision not to concentrate
on that, to see instead the Lord at work in you in these struggles. First
Peter 4:8 says that "love covers a multitude of sins." Unless
I learn to forbear with you, I'll be a detriment to the community. I won't
be able to enhance our relationship in the least.
Patience and forbearance protect us from having unrealistic expectations
of one another in the body, from a superficial idealism that says, "How
can they act like that?" When I say that it shows that I really haven't
learned patience through the Spirit. I haven't learned to be forbearing
with the failings of others. Patience and forbearance will help us live
with the imperfections we see in Christian community.
As a young man just out of college I was given a job on the program staff
at Mount Hermon Christian Conference Center. I was pretty cocky and arrogant,
and I thought I pretty well knew everything about running that place. I
wasn't content to do just my own job, but I was quick to tell everybody
else how to do their job as well. After about 18 months, some of the men
in leadership at Mount Hermon discussed the possibility of letting me go.
When I look back on it now, 25 years later, they had every right to do that!
I'm surprised that they didn't; it really showed patience and mercy. But
it was one man, Bill Gwinn, the executive director, who stood up for me
and said, "No, this young man is in process. We'll do damage to him
if we fire him." Now, he confronted me and told me the truth about
my attitudes, and God used that truth in my life. But he wasn't willing
to give me the thumb. I thank God for his patience and forbearance in my
life.
The umbrella word that ties these four characteristics together is love,
agape. It's the supernatural love of God. It can be expressed only when
the Spirit of God is in control of us, expressing himself through us. It's
the quality that embraces all of the preceding four: "And above all
these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony."
(Colossians 3:14.)
Again, when I think back over my adult life, my natural instincts have been
very much in contrast to asking the Lord to work on my own character and
pursuing individual relationships enabled by the supernatural love of God.
But whenever I begin to address problems in the community from the perspective
of external structures, I end up avoiding personal responsibility in relationships.
Neither my own heart nor yours can be changed by externally imposed organizational
structures. The problems that threaten community always have to do with
character, what's inside of us. They are issues of arrogance, insensitivity,
self-assertion, jealousy, impatience, pride, harshness, possessiveness,
irritability, lack of concern for others, holding grudges. They cannot be
organizationally managed. They can be covered only with the cleansing, forgiving
blood of Jesus Christ.
Do I see problems in my church? Am I concerned about unity at PBC? Yes,
I see faults and inconsistencies here. We have our blind spots. But I must
ask the Lord to give me greater humility, self-control, patience with other
people, and tolerance for others. I need to ask him to express his agape
love through me to others. I need to allow him to work on my character if
I want to see our community here affected by the power of the Holy Spirit.
We have considered in these first two verses how God wants to start with
us individually to enhance community. I want to skip over Paul's strong
exhortation to work at community in verse 3 and come back to it. Right now
I'd like us to consider what beliefs and experiences we share in common.
What are the objective foundational reasons for our common identity? Verses
4-6 focus on the Trinity. They establish the fact that community is based
on the indestructible unity of a God who is triune-three in one. Seven times
in these three verses you'll find the word "one." They will focus
on seven things that we have in common. Verse 4 addresses the ministry of
the Holy Spirit, verse 5 addresses the ministry of Jesus the Son, and verse
6 addresses the ministry of God the Father.
Look at verse 4. It talks about the unifying work of the Holy Spirit. "There
is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that
belongs to your call...." Because there is but one Holy Spirit, there
is only one invisible, universal body of Christ. And there is only one hope---essentially
becoming completely like Jesus Christ in every aspect. That's our common
experience.
The Holy Spirit is the power behind this place no matter what it looks like
externally. The prophet Zechariah was concerned about what instrumentality
God would use to effect change on earth. God spoke to him and said, "Not
by might, nor by power...," and both of those ideas speak of human
effort, of material resources, of external human organizational manifestations
of influence. In contrast, it will be "by my Spirit, says the LORD
of hosts." Our strength as a community here at PBC is not dependent
on money, numbers in attendance at any given meeting, or the wisdom of the
leadership of this church. It is dependent solely on the work of the Holy
Spirit of God. This is the consistent witness of the Scriptures.
And because there is only one Spirit, there is only one body. Paul writes
in 1 Corinthians 12:13, "By one Spirit we were all baptized (or placed)
into one body---Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-and all were made to drink
of one Spirit." Now, he doesn't say we're baptized into one organization,
but rather into one body, a living organism. What the parts of an organism
share in common is life.
Now, if the threat to community that we wrestled with last week was a desire
to isolate ourselves, the threat to community that occurs here is a tendency
to view community as an institution. This is another way we avoid spiritual
community. We turn the organism into an organization. When we don't view
PBC as a living body, then people are treated not on the basis of personal
relationships, but in terms of impersonal functions, what they do rather
than who they are. Goals are set that will catch the imagination of the
largest number of people. Structures are developed that will accomplish
goals through organization and planning. Organizational planning and institutional
goals become the criteria by which the community is defined and evaluated.
In the process the church becomes less of a community, that is, people who
pay attention to each other "in love," and we become more and
more, in sociological terms, a collectivism of contributing units. The result
will be less and less of a place where each person is taken seriously as
an individual, where we learn to trust each other, where we depend on others,
where we learn to be compassionate with each other, where we rejoice with
each other. And more and more we become a place where individuals feel like
pieces of machinery!
The one "hope that belongs to our call" that we share in common
is finally being made completely like Jesus Christ, as Paul says it in Colossians
1:27, "Christ in you, the hope of glory." That is our final expectation
as Christians, to be more like Jesus, and it is guaranteed by his Spirit
working on us from the inside out. That promise also shows up in Philippians
2:13: "God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good
pleasure." God will finish what he starts in us. That's our hope; that's
what we wait for. When we participate in the shared life of Christ here
in his body, involved with other people who are in the same process of growing
up, it will enhance that inevitable process that is leading us to the eternal
experience of perfected Christian community in heaven. It really will be
terrific, as the song says, "when we all get to heaven!" All the
things we struggle with now in relationships will be taken care of, finally,
completely. That's the blessed hope.
Verse 5 talks about the unifying work of the Son of God: "...one Lord,
one faith, one baptism..." Because there is one Lord Jesus Christ,
there is just one faith, the revealed faith that was given to the apostles
concerning trusting in the Lord Jesus. And there is only one spiritual baptism.
That's when we are instantaneously placed into the body of Christ by the
Spirit at conversion.
All those things speak of what we're convinced is true and what we agree
is true, our common belief. The early Christian confession of faith was,
"Jesus is Lord!" His Lordship is where we start. When we surrender
to his rightful authority, his desire to rule and reign in our life, then
we experience his work in saving us from our sins. That was emphasized in
Philippians 2:8-11:
And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto
death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed
on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
This says we all share a common position of submission on our knees before
Him as Lord. We're on common ground under his Lordship.
When the first-century Christians confessed the Lordship of Jesus Christ,
they also submitted to the apostolic teaching about life in Jesus Christ
that had been delivered to them, because Jesus had personally commissioned
the apostles to establish the doctrines of the one faith that Paul is speaking
of here. These doctrines are contained in the New Testament. Every Christian
who confesses Jesus as Lord has to submit to the common authority of the
Scriptures. The Bible is central to who we are and what we do at PBC. We
want to be controlled by the Scriptures-not more than the Scriptures say,
because it gets confusing when you add things to this one faith that's been
revealed, but not less either-taking it seriously in all that we do.
We experience one baptism as well. This is the spiritual reality of being
placed into the body of Christ at conversion. In Romans 6, Paul said we
were "baptized into his death." We have been made one with Jesus
Christ, united with him in all the value of his death and his resurrection.
That is symbolized physically by some sort of involvement with water-total
immersion, having water poured on your head, or having water sprinkled on
you. In drought times like this perhaps it's just being wiped with a damp
cloth! But what's important is not the symbol; it's the spiritual reality
it represents that we agree on.
These three unifying realities of "one Lord, one faith, one baptism"
define a community in full agreement on essential, central matters of faith.
There are many peripheral issues. But the core of what we believe must be
commonly agreed on. Martin Lloyd Jones writes:
The New Testament everywhere insists upon true doctrine. I emphasize this
because, as we have seen, the whole tendency today is to discourage talk
about doctrine and to urge that we work together, pray together, and evangelize
together, because "doctrine divides." Doctrine is being discounted
in the interests of supposed unity. The fact is, however, that there is
no unity apart from truth and doctrine, and it is departure from this that
causes division and breaks unity.
Verse 6 says that the Father himself is at work among us bringing unity.
"[There is] one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through
all and in all." There is one God and therefore only one Father. He
is the source and authority for all life.
We are unified in community by the Fatherhood of God. All of us are his
children, equals beneath his loving authority. Children learn that principle
quickly. My own children say to one another, "You're not the dad!"
That means there's only one dad in this family, and you ain't it! Both natural
children and we in the family of God spend more time than we should trying
to exercise fatherly authority over one another. The church is a family,
not a corporation. We upbuild one another in love, not corporate hierarchies.
In Matthew 23 Jesus tells the disciples, by implication, "All of you
are brothers." In Mark 10 he said, "You are servants of one another."
The Corinthian church had really struggled with relationships, especially
with their relationship to Paul, their loving father in the Lord. In his
second letter to them, the first chapter, concerning his own apostolic authority,
he said, "Not that we lord it over your faith; we work with you for
your joy." Our submission to God as our Father means we can freely
submit to one another in community.
So we see that our community is based on the unity of our triune God-the
Father, the Son, and the Spirit-and their work among us. Now practically,
what should our response be to these truths? Can we make this less of a
place where individuals feel like a piece of machinery? Will we give love
relationships priority over performance expectations? Verse 3 holds the
answer. It's a powerful imperative. "[Be] eager to maintain the unity
of the Spirit in the bond of peace." This (Revised Standard Version)
is a weak translation. The New American Standard is better: "being
diligent to preserve the unity..." The King James says, "Earnestly
endeavoring to keep the unity..." Markus Barth in his commentary on
Ephesians has this to say about verse 3:
It is hardly possible to render exactly the urgency contained in the underlying
Greek verb. Not only haste and passion, but a full effort of the whole man
is meant, involving his will, sentiment, reason, physical strength, and
total attitude. The imperative mood of the participle found in the Greek
text excludes passivity, quietism, a wait-and-see attitude, or a diligence
tempered by all deliberate speed. Yours is the initiative! Do it now! Mean
it! YOU are to do it! I mean it! Such are Paul's overtones in verse 3.
Finally we have an emphasis on activity, something to do! It's an activity
of maintaining, preserving, keeping what God has already created. We need
to recognize the reality of our unity and look for ways to pursue relationships
with people as a peacemaker.
Paul implies in verse 3 that we do have problems in unity in the body. We
have our differences. We are an extremely heterogeneous community in the
church universal and in the local church here at PBC. There are influences
at work to undermine our unity. We have an external Satanic enemy trying
to destroy the church, and at the end of chapter 6 of this letter Paul talks
about how to deal with Satanic attack. But here he's dealing with the internal
enemy. As Pogo said, "We have found the enemy and he is us!" We
are our own worst enemies in maintaining community.
In closing, let me share three things the Lord has been teaching me in recent
years about actively "maintaining unity in the bond of peace."
First, I'm learning not to trust relationships in the body that are based
primarily on natural attraction or affinity. I'm learning instead to choose
commitment to everyone whom God places before me and not to embrace just
the favorite few people that I feel most comfortable with in this body,
those toward whom I feel spontaneous warmth and pleasure. I'm learning to
commit myself lovingly to those who irritate me, those with whom I may disagree
on some things, or even those who repel me. Our text says we all belong
to one another inclusively.
After I'd been at PBC a couple of years, a dear lady stopped me on the patio
one day during the week and said, "I just want you to know I don't
like you very much. I feel uncomfortable with you. I don't like your leadership
from the platform on Sunday mornings." I said, "Is there anything
I can do?" She replied, "No, I just wanted you to know."
Now, at that point we both had a decision to make. She felt better for airing
her feelings, I'm sure, but she still had to live with me and be a part
of this church family. And I had to be involved with her. I could feel sorry
for myself, think about what an awful person she was, and keep my distance
from her. But as a tribute to the grace of God, for the last 10 or 12 years
she, her husband, and her children have become better friends with my wife,
me, and our children. We have learned how to overcome the differences and
the discomfort, and today I count her as a good friend!
That's the triumph of grace in all this, and it starts with choices I make.
There is a problem with relationships based primarily on natural attraction
rather than the sort of loving commitment I just described. Mutual attraction
will result in an unstable relationship, because both parties end up having
to work at being attractive, and the moment I fail to be attractive enough,
I may alienate the people who matter the most to me. Far from being a place
of acceptance and committed love, relationships based on attraction become
a source of anxiety and strain. Actively "maintaining unity in the
bond of peace" means expressing steadfast love based on commitment.
The second thing I'm learning is how to look at conflict differently, the
big and little differences of opinion. I'm learning how to avoid thinking
and talking in what I would call the we/they dichotomy, reinforcing "us
against them" attitudes. Listen to your language; when you start saying
"we" and "they," "us" and "them,"
you may be saying something really profound. There is a suggestion that
there are "in" groups and "out" groups, power groups
and powerless groups. It emphasizes stereotypical differences. It pigeonholes
groups and individuals within the church. Those attitudes are always self-serving
and self-protective. We do that kind of thing out of fear, or out of the
desire to hang on to our place or position. It usually comes across as self-righteous
or pharisaical. Or we can set ourselves up as a misunderstood or martyred
"poor, innocent victim" of some other, awful group of people.
I grew up in the church, and have seen more "range wars" and power
struggles than I care to remember. The results are always violence to relationships.
Individuals are not seen as persons anymore because prejudice distorts our
ability to see people clearly, the way God sees them. We do it to bolster
our courage and to protect ourselves from being intellectually and spiritually
wiped out. We dehumanize and stereotype "them" so they will seem
less threatening and we will feel less vulnerable. Actively "maintaining
unity in the bond of peace" is active love refusing to indulge in the
we/they dichotomy and encouraging others to understand that we are all in
this together.
To conclude, the third and final thing I'm learning about is my responsibility
to be an initiator, to be a peacemaker in relationship to others. I want
to close with the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi to be a reconciler,
a peacemaker, a person who makes a difference, a person who's part of the
solution instead of part of the problem in maintaining community. This prayer
may suffer a bit from its familiarity to us, but try to listen to it again
with new ears:
Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is darkness, light; and
where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and
it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
All five of the destructive things listed in the first section are at work
in our community, either in our own lives or in the life of somebody we
know: hatred, injury, doubt, darkness, and sadness. We have a choice along
with St. Francis of Assisi to express love in response to hatred; to offer
forgiveness; to encourage faith; to shine the light of truth in the darkness,
confusion, and despair; to bring joy. The second section lists legitimate
needs we all have. We all need consolation. We need to be understood. We
need to be loved. But again, we make the choice to offer consolation, to
extend understanding even if we don't feel understood, and to love aggressively,
expressing an in-spite-of kind of love to those we come face-to-face with.
Thus we become peacemakers in our community.
God has called each of us to the glorious responsibility of "being
eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." It
matters greatly to him. Let us do it!
Catalog No. 4248
Ephesians 4:1-6
Second Message
Doug Goins
March 17, 1991
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