As you may know, this past week the parking lot at our new building was scheduled to be paved. And so the asphalt company came out, took some measurements, hammered stakes into the ground, finished grading the lot, and sprayed oil down. And then first thing Monday morning, they hauled in their heavy machinery and began laying a fresh black coat of asphalt along the north side of the building.
As the dump trucks lined up across the parking lot and the men worked themselves into a good sweat, it looked as if they'd get most of the job done that day. But they had no sooner begun and they were forced to stop. The asphalt plant had literally broken down. And so for the first part of the week, our building sat there with an unfinished parking lot.
But then toward the end of the week, on Thursday, they got the asphalt plant up and running and away they went. The dump trucks began lining up again. The smell of oil filled the air. The steam rollers were racing back and forth. And right when they were about to finish, when they only had a little more to go, the asphalt plant broke down yet again and they were forced to stop!
A lot of you have witnessed how complicated it has been getting the church built. From trying to get the moisture in the gym floor lowered so we could lay down our gym floor, to trying to order the right colored acoustic panels, to getting everything moved, all the way to trying to get the post office and 911 folks to agree on what our mailing address should be, you know that it has been quite a ride! The truth is that none of this has been easy. In fact, it has been a lot of work.
As our building program comes to a close and the finishing touches are made to the building, I would love to say the rest will come easy. But the truth is, the real challenge is just beginning. It is not going to be easy building Christ's church God's way!
The challenge of building a healthy church.
Over the last seven weeks, we have been talking about the marks of a healthy church. We talked about excellence. Excellence honors God and inspires people. We talked about exaltation and how that everything we do is an act of worship to our God. We talked about evangelism because lost people matter to God. It is God's will that none should be lost, but that all should be saved. We talked about education. We talked about expectations and how God expects us to become like Jesus Christ. We talked about equipping and how every member has a ministry and every member should be using his gifts to serve others. And then last week we talked about encouragement.
I don't know about you, but I think it is hard work growing a healthy church! It is hard giving God excellence when we feel mediocre. It is hard exalting God with our lives when the remote control is in our hand, or when our mouse is clicking on internet links, or when we are responding to our critics, or when we are working up our monthly budget, or when we are coming home tired from work, or when we get cut off in traffic, or when we are faced with temptation.
It is hard reaching out and evangelizing people who are different from us; people who don't share our values and whose behavior offends us. It is not easy slowing our families down long enough to take Christian education seriously. It is hard cultivating Christ-likeness in our children! It is hard raising expectations when everyone else is lowering expectations. It is hard equipping other people when it is just as easy to do things ourselves. It is hard encouraging others when we ourselves need encouragement.
There just isn't anything easy about building Christ's church. Working with brick and mortar is one thing. Working with people is something altogether different.
The challenge of evangelism.
Consider for moment how hard it can be to win someone to Jesus Christ through evangelism. A few years ago, I began chatting with a professor from Temple University over the internet. This particular individual was extremely intelligent. He had a PhD in a highly specialized field of statistical mathematics that I could barely pronounce. He crossed every "t" and dotted every "i" and was as sharp as a tack. He was very logical and could easily remember word for word everything I would write. He didn't believe in God. He thought religion was a sham. His neighbor was a Baptist preacher who drove a Porsche funded by the offerings of a rather poor inner-city church where his personal secretary attended. The guy's basic philosophy of life was to let your conscience be your guide.
I spent over a month trying to crack his egg. Every night, I would study up and try to answer his questions in a satisfactory way. I would try to point out inconsistencies in his beliefs and show him the superiority of Christian living over any other way of life. I patiently debated evolution and creationism with him. We discussed human suffering and we laid out arguments for and against the existence of God. I recommended the best Christian books I could find and pointed him to websites containing the answers he was seeking. I told him that his Porsche-driving, money-begging, Baptist-preacher neighbor was not at all representative of Christians. I invested an enormous amount of time in my conversation with him. But he was a die-hard agnostic. He concluded that you just can't know for sure.
I wish I could have won him to Christ, but instead I learned a valuable lesson. Getting someone to change his entire philosophy of life, getting someone to buy into Christian values and morals, getting someone to embrace Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, getting someone to change his thinking after thirty or fourty years is tough. Friends, evangelism is tough work! Though I have had many successes and could share some great stories, you should know that I fail more often than I succeed.
The challenge of exaltation.
And what about exaltation? Everything we do is to be an offering to God. Romans 12:1 (NIV) says, "I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world."
This verse is easy to read but it's down right hard for us to glorify God when we have been wronged. It is hard for us to hold our tongues when some jerk gets in our faces. It is hard for us to forgive someone who has hurt us so deeply or taken advantage of us. It is hard to go that extra mile and extend a warm hand to someone with a cold heart. It is hard for us to sacrificially serve others when we'd rather be served. It is hard for us to swallow our pride, apologize, and accept responsibility. It is hard for us to follow Jesus when the crowd is going the other way. It is hard for us to give to God when we'd rather do something for ourselves. It is extremely difficult to stand before God and say, "Father, not my will, but your will be done."
If all of us were to be honest with ourselves, we would admit that as hard as we try, we fail to exalt God in our lives to the level we would like to. The truth is that we can barely measure up to our own standards, let alone God's!
Whether you are talking about excellence, exaltation, evangelism, education, expectations, equipping, or encouragement, it is all the same. We each have the awareness of how difficult it is to become the kind of people and the kind of healthy church God wants us to become. There is a big part of us that cries out to God, begging for divine power to make up that which is lacking in our life and church. Together, we acknowledge a need for something more than ourselves.
The good news of God's empowerment.
The good news is that we don't have to do these things alone. Excellence isn't an individual effort and neither is exaltation, evangelism, education, expecting, equipping, or encouraging. The good news is contained in that eighth and final mark of a healthy church. This mark is empowerment.
There are several verses that clearly express the importance of relying upon God when it comes to building a healthy church. Psalm 127:1 (NIV) says, "Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain." Apart from the Lord, our finest human efforts will fall painfully short. We can attempt to build lives for Christ, but if we leave God out of the formula, in reality we are building for failure.
In Matthew 16:18 (NIV) there is a stronger statement still. Jesus says, "I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." Ultimately, it is Christ who builds the church, not us. Though we are his instruments, he alone is the master builder and architect.
In Matthew 28:16-20 (NIV) Jesus issues the great commission and tells his followers, "Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded. But before Jesus ascends into heaven he adds the most important phrase of all. "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
Throughout Acts we discover that it is not the apostles and early believers who are credited with the church's growth. Rather, in verses like Acts 2:47 (NIV) we read, "And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."
Write it down. We do not become a healthy church apart from the power of God. The Lord builds his church. It is the Lord who empowers us to accomplish his purposes. God shares the burden of becoming and building a healthy church. The eighth mark of a healthy church is empowerment.
Now if you have your scriptures, I want you to find Ephesians 3:16-21. This passage helps us flesh out what empowerment is all about. As we look at this passage, I would like you to jot down three "p" words that help flesh out this idea of empowerment. You may also want to jot down the three verse numbers that go with each.
The first "p" is for power.
In Ephesians 3:16 (NIV) Paul says, "I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being." As we've just seen, the power we need is derived from God. God does the strengthening. God's spirit is the power source.
The second "p" is for partnership.
In Ephesians 3:20 (NIV) Paul says, "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us." Notice that God's power is not working independently of us. Notice that in this verse, man is not acting independently of God's power. Rather, God's power is at work within us. We are his instruments. He chooses to act through us. We are the means he uses to carry out his purposes. He works in conjunction with us. We are in a partnership with him.
The third "p" is for purpose.
If you take Ephesians 3:20-21 (NIV) together Paul says, "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."
Whenever God works his power, it is for his own purpose and glory. God doesn't work his power in us to make us look good. God doesn't work his power in us to accomplish our will. God's power is not a means to our end. Rather, God empowers us in the sense that he gives us his power to accomplish his purpose as we enter into a partnership with him. He never intended for us to achieve excellence without his help. He never intended for us to fully exalt him without his special enabling. He never intended for us to evangelize the lost without his presence. He never intended for education, expectations, equipping and encouraging to be done effectively apart from his strength.
He alone empowers us to accomplish his purposes as we enter into a partnership with him.
God's power in our weakness.
One of passages of scripture I regularly draw encouragement from is 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (NIV). In verse 7 Paul is wrestling with his weaknesses and personal inadequacies. He refers to his weakness as a "thorn in the flesh" or "a messenger of Satan." In reality, his thorn became a daily reminder of God's power. In these verses Paul says, "Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is make perfect in weakness.' Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
As you wrestle with your inability to be everything God wants you to be, be reminded that it is in only in our weaknesses and failures that we can truly discover God's power. To him who is able, be all power and glory and praise.