Churches can do programs, they can do ministry activities, we can do that until we’re blue in the face and yet not build relationships and not have a sense of community.

Community and Commitment

Have you noticed the more money people earn, the more choices we have- the more choices we have, the busier we are at work and with kids, and we get tired? And so these days, getting a sense of community going is really hard. There are lots of lonely people around the country and around the world and yet God has this plan for His family. God has a plan that His family should get together and be a family and that plan is called ‘church.’ Now, for a lot of people, church is a four letter word. A lot of people are browned off with church. They’ve tried it, they have had enough. People are starting to write text books about this huge number of Bible believing Christians, who have decided they are not doing ‘church’ any more. And for someone who hasn’t come to faith in Jesus Christ yet, the whole notion of church is old fashioned, out of date, and irrelevant. So church gets a lot of bad press. Yet God writes, Himself, in Psalm 68, verse 6, it says that, “God sets the lonely in families.” So God has a plan for His children, for His people to be a part of a family and that family, by and large, is called ‘church.’

Now our society is struggling with having a sense of community. Just out there every day in life, lots of people are struggling to connect with one another and a lot of people never do, a lot of people feel very lonely. And to tell you the truth, in a lot of quarters, the church is struggling as well, to create a sense of community. So often churches come up with programs, you know, they have this program for the youth and they do all these programs. It’s almost like you are going to McChurch, you know, it’s – two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun – approach to Church, where you’re kind of ground through the mill.

Community is about relationships. Community is about, well, it’s organic, isn’t it? It’s naturally people getting on with one another, living with one another as a family, helping one another, compensating for one another. I was reading something that a man by the name of Malcolm Langford wrote. He’s a lawyer and a musician. He wrote this, “I have a dream of a Christian community that when I entered, you were excited to see me. When I revealed my wounds, you held me close. When I lost my job, you paid my rent. When I needed a home, you became my family. When I followed billboards, you led me to the cross. When I ran after mini-loves, you opened my eyes to ‘The’ Lover. When I was self-absorbed, you taught me to love the broken. When I hurt others, you showed me the struggle for justice. When I destroyed everything, you helped me to create beauty. When I let you see my true self, you celebrated my journey and when one day heaven’s glories opened to call me home, I was torn.” That’s a beautiful verse isn’t it? It’s a beautiful picture of what Christian community should look like.

But sadly a lot don’t. Sadly a lot of people who attend churches, with the right intention – the intention of worshipping God, the intention of hearing His Word proclaimed, the intention of being part of a family. Where they love and are loved, where they support and are supported, where they’re cared for and they care. People go to church with that intention, yet so many churches struggle in this area of community. After all, if a church isn’t a family, if a church doesn’t provide community, well, we might as well all just stay home and listen to sermons on the radio or CD. That’s great but it doesn’t help us to be a part of a family. I would strongly encourage you, if you are struggling with church; you hang in with us, this week and the next three weeks, in this four part series that I’ve called, “Flourishing in the House of the Lord.”

Churches can do programs, they can do ministry activities, we can do that till we’re blue in the face and yet not build relationships and not have a sense of community. Community is the Holy Spirit stirring our hearts and moving our hands, you and me. And today in this message that I’ve called, “Flourishing in the House of the Lord,” the first in a four part series, we are going to look at three key impediments to that sense of community. We are going to name them, identify them and I pray, help remove them.

The first of those is the impediment of ‘commitment.’ When you think of a relationship, as a relationship between two people matures, it moves from being casual to ultimately becoming a relationship of commitment. Marriage is like that, boy meets girl, they are attracted to one another, they might date, they might stop dating, they might date again and progressively they go through a process of commitment, of becoming engaged, spending some time in engagement and then becoming married and the whole ‘marriage’ thing is supposed to be a life long commitment to one another. And as that commitment begins with marriage, so the relationship deepens and matures, that’s Gods plan. I know it doesn’t always work out that way. I know half of all marriages, almost, end in divorce, but that’s God’s plan of a mature relationship between a man and a woman, husband and wife.

In the New Testament, the word ‘church‘, well, there are two words for it. One is the Greek word “Ecclesia” Now, I don’t normally talk about Greek words, but this is important. One is the Greek word “Ecclesia”. It literally means – an assembly. I guess that’s what we do Sunday mornings or Sunday evenings, when the Church meets together. It’s the word that we get, “Ecclesiastical” from. The other word is “Koinonia”, it means – a fellowship, it comes from a group of words that have a root meaning of – to share something in common. You can do ‘ecclesia‘, you can meet together on Sunday morning as an assembly and have zero commitment, but you can’t do ‘koinonia’ church that is ‘fellowship ’church, without commitment being a foundation of the relationship. You might say, “Well, I’m committed to church, I think.”

Let’s have a read of what God says in Psalm 92, verses 12 to 14. If you’ve got a Bible, grab it and open it up. This is a great passage. He says this, “The righteous flourish like a palm tree and a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the House of the Lord and they flourish in the courts of our God. In old age they still produce fruit, they are always green and full of sap, showing that the Lord is upright, He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”

The plan for us is that we should be trees like the cedars of Lebanon and like palm trees, planted in the House of the Lord. The problem is that these days we want to be ‘pot plant’ Christians. We don’t want to put our roots down in the House of the Lord. We don’t want to be part of the fellowship. We want to say, “Well, I’m a Christian and I don’t need those other Christians. They’re a pain in the neck sometimes, so what I’ll be is, I will be a pot plant Christian. In my pot I’ll be protected, I won’t be hurt, I won’t be disillusioned.” Maybe you have been through that, in the past, in a church and you’ve had enough. The hurt has never gone and so you’ve put yourself in a pot instead of a forest. You put yourself in a pot instead of the House of the Lord, where we’re intended to flourish. You put a pot in the wind and it dries out, it blows over. Ultimately you put a pot out there in the weather and the chances are the tree will die. To flourish means to grow well, to thrive, to luxuriate, to be at a time of the highest productivity, and excellence or influence.

And my hunch is it’s not up to us to transplant ourselves from one church to another. You have heard of that term – going church shopping! Isaiah Chapter 61, verse 3, says that “we are trees of righteousness, the plantings of the Lord.” Where we are planted is God’s choice! Am I planted in the right place? Well, there are two answers to that question. What does God want and what do our feelings tell us, and frankly, sometimes they are different. Are we prepared to put the calling of the Holy Spirit above our feelings and say, “Lord, am I planted in the right place, have you got me in the right place?” If the answer is “Yes”, from God, then it’s time to get committed, but if the answer is “No”, we’d better find out where God wants to plant us and go there and be committed.

Pot Bound Christians

We are looking today at flourishing in the House of the Lord and I have made the point that sometimes people who call themselves Christians, well, they have had enough of the “church’ thing. Lots have, lots have left and yet still believe in Jesus Christ. Instead of being planted in the House of the Lord, they become pot plant Christians and when we are pot bound (have you seen a tree or a plant that’s pot bound?) You pull it out of its pot and its roots are all gnarled, sometimes you can’t even get it out of its pot. De-potting can be painful, sometimes you have to break the pot or prune the root-ball, but it’s necessary for the health of the tree.

We were reading before from Psalm 92 and in v 13 it says this, “When they are planted in the House of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God.” Have you ever been in an office building and seen some pot plants, and they are individual pot plants, but they are put in a container and they kind of put bark or stones over the top. And there’s this illusion that they are all in the one pot, but the reality is they’re still, (under the stones or gravel or the bark), they’re still in pots, separated from one another.

Let’s not kid ourselves! Am I pot bound, are you pot bound? Are we attending a church or being a part of a Christian fellowship and yet, still not putting our roots down, still not truly being a part of God’s plan? What’s my pot, what’s your pot? Is it maybe a past hurt, is it maybe a cultural thing, you don’t feel that you fit in with the other people? Have we become cynical, are we afraid of being hurt? I don’t feel like this or that, I feel out of place. There are so many reasons for being pot bound. But an amazing thing happens – when you take a plant out of a pot, maybe the plant is small and stunted, and you put it in the ground and you let its roots go down – deep into the ground, like an attitude of heart that we need to have, a deep attitude of heart – it gets strength, it grows. It does things it could never have done in the pot, it bears fruit. Now you might say to me, “But, Berni, I have been to a church or I go to a church – I just feel dead. In this so called fellowship, I feel like there are no connections, there’s no relationship.”

Have you ever seen a deciduous tree during winter? It looks dead, it just looks like a bunch of sticks that have died and yet in the season of winter, in that time of trial, cold, windy, blowing, that tree is storing up sap and getting ready to blossom in the spring. So often God calls people to a fellowship, calls them to a place and they transplant themselves before they bear fruit. In Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 13 and verse 6, flip there if you have a Bible. This is a parable, a story. Jesus told it. He said, “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard – that was an odd thing to do – and he came looking for fruit on it, and found none, so he said to the gardener, “See here, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree and I still haven’t found any, cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil”, and the gardener replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good but it not, you can cut it down.” What the heck was a fig tree doing in a vineyard? The answer is, the owner planted it there!

Sometimes we feel a bit like a fig tree in a vineyard. Sometimes we look at the vines and they look at us – they’re growing grapes and we are growing figs and we think, “I don’t belong here.” Yet in this parable, it was clearly the owner’s choice where to plant the fig tree. And in God’s family, I believe that it is God’s choice where to plant the fig tree, you and me. “Oh, I feel this, I feel that! It’s hard!” The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. I don’t believe it is up to us to get up and go. Are we operating in the flesh or in the spirit? Are we following our feelings or following God? If the owner came looking for you where He planted you, would He find you? And would He find you bearing fruit, because a mature tree should be producing fruit.

It’s not a tree inspection. The owner doesn’t come and look at the bark, and the texture and the shape and the colour and the leaves. The owner was looking for fruit. God is the owner. God’s not interested in looks or feelings, God is interested in fruit and in the church, God wants it to be full of established trees, producing fruit. Flourishing in the courts of our God. Flourishing in the House of the Lord. Something is wrong if there’s no fruit. Maybe if you go to God and you pray about it, maybe God will tell you, “I think you are in the wrong Church, I’d like you over here, or over there.” Now, my hunch is that’s in the minority, vastly in the minority, because there is no perfect church. But if you feel that God is saying to you, “I’ve got somewhere else for you to go, there’s a new fellowship, a new thing that I’m doing, get up and go.” But if God comes back to you when you pray about this and says, “No, you’re in the right place!” Well, maybe it’s time to say, ’Well, God, if I’m in the right place, if this is were you want me to be planted, even though I’m a fig tree and they’re all grape vines, I’m going break that pot. I’m going to get committed; I’m going to put my roots down in the House of the Lord. That’s the first major impediment, is a lack of commitment.

The second one is being judgmental. Flip in your Bible again to Matthew, Chapter 7, verses 1 to 5. You may have heard me speak about these verses before in a different context. Here Jesus says, “Do not judge so that you may not be judged, for with the judgment that you make, you will be judged and the measure that you give, you’ll be measured. Why do you see the speck in your neighbours eye, but you don’t notice the log in your own? Or how can you say to your neighbour, “Come here, let me take the speck out of your eye,” while a log is in your own eye? You hypocrite! First, take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye.”

We love to judge other people, especially if we are a fig tree and they are grape vines. We love to condemn, and backstab and gossip – people do. “I can’t believe what Mary did the other day. I don’t mean to gossip, but! I would never have done it that way.” How often do you sit down with people who say, “I am a Christ follower,” and hear them use language like that about other people? That is judgmental. Jesus said, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.”

I used to be in bondage to this. I used to have a saying before I came to Christ. ‘It’s so hard to soar like an eagle, when you are surrounded by turkeys.’ I was critical, I used to get so frustrated and it was ruining my life. I remember my wife, when we were first married, when she washed her hands, she would never wipe the sink down, and it used to drive me nuts, because I grew up in a house where we learned to wipe the sink down. Does that make me better than her? Absolutely not, she just doesn’t wipe the sink down when she has washed her hands, and it was ruining our relationship. It’s the little foxes that spoil the vine, and the same is true inside a church.

Let’s get a revelation here. I have enough of my own sins that God is working through with me, without being in bondage to your sins. Let me tell you, you have enough of your own without being in bondage to my sins or the sins of the people in your church and we get in bondage to other people’s sins when we judge them, because it drives us nuts. Because we focus on the things they are doing wrong, and when we become judgmental, it tears the family apart, just like it does brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. There’s no perfect church. If there was and I went to it, it wouldn’t be perfect any more. There are no perfect people. It is an absolute given, that if we say, “ Hang on a minute, God has called me to this church, He has called me to this place, I’m going to break the pot, I’m going to go….“ If we put our roots down we will experience, first hand, the sins of others. That’s the nature of the beast. We need to stop fighting that – come on! We have strengths and weaknesses, and the next person in the church has strengths and weaknesses, and if I am going to be a godly Christian, Spirit filled, committed brother in the body of Christ, will I accept the responsibility of saying to my brothers and my sisters, “I’ll love you even when you fail me.” How about it, will we?

But How?

Today we are looking at the fact that so often, we come to the church with a lack of commitment. We come to God’s family with a lack of commitment and a sense of judgment and we wonder why this whole ‘church’ thing doesn’t feel like a community. Isn’t it easy to go to a family, to a church and expect to be served rather than to be one of the servants? I’ve heard that term “church shopping’ so many times. It‘s not about being a consumer. It’s not about saying, “What’s the best for me?” For me the only reason that I should be a part of this church, rather than that church, is that God has called me to be in this church. Well it’s all well and good, to talk about trees and roots and pots and figs and grapes, but exactly how do we do this?

Romans Chapter 12, verse 2 says this. “Be not conformed to the ways of this world.” Can I take ’world’ out and stick ’church’ in for a minute? “Be not conformed to the ways of this church.” Sometimes in our churches, sometimes in our families, we’re dysfunctional. The grape vines are screaming at the fig trees, “Be a grape vine!” The fig trees are screaming at the grape vines, “Be a fig tree!” Yet God’s Word teaches us we are all different, and complimentary. Me, I’m not someone for having lots of people around all the time; I prefer to be on my own a little bit more. I’ve had some dysfunction in my family. I’ve been through divorce. I’ve spent some time thinking about that and my motivation is to proclaim God’s Word to you, just as I am right now. So I bring gifts and weaknesses to the table, that you don’t, and you, you bring gifts and weaknesses to the table, that I could never bring. If we can only be who we are and open ourselves to the Holy Spirit, to work out His love in us, what a wonderful place church would be.

Yes, grow, yes, become mature, yes, become holy, but don’t try to bear grapes if you are a fig tree. Be big, sweet, succulent, juicy figs, whatever the grape vines happen to think about you. We can over-spiritualise this stuff sometimes, but there are so many little things that you and I can do to exercise our giftings, in our church. To put our roots down, to share the goodness of God in our lives, with other people. I remember when I first went to church, there was a man called Peter Stringfellow, and he looked like a big sea captain, with a grey beard, you know, just like straight out of central casting, and if Peter hadn’t come and shaken my hand, you know, I was scared going to a church. It wasn’t what I wanted to do. If he hadn’t come and shaken my hand and done that little thing and served me, I don’t know if I would have gone back the next Sunday. I don’t know if I would be here with you now.

Or sometimes we see someone when we go there on Sunday morning, and think, “I don’t know, maybe they just need someone to lean on. Maybe I should invite them out for a cup of coffee during the week.” Maybe during the week you think about someone, maybe you could pick up the phone and call them. Can I suggest that it should be a priority for each one of us, to build at least one or two close friendships in the family of God? It’s the little things, the phone calls, the words of encouragement, the prayers. If you believe that God has planted you in this family, will you also believe that He will lead you to people for whom He has custom made your fruit? People who need to eat figs just like the ones you produce.

We need to be committed in order to flourish. We need to have the courage to stop judging. Set ourselves free from the weaknesses of other people, and we need to have practical acts of love going. It won’t always be convenient. The flesh won’t always like it and probably we’ll get hurt along the way, but will you be a part of this community for Christ’s sake? Will you go to the House of the Lord and flourish where God has planted you? “The righteous flourish like a palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon, they are planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God.”

Probably some of us are feeling kind of condemned and hopeless. We know we should be making real differences in peoples lives, but we’re not flourishing. Something is wrong. I feel so condemned.

Eternal Results

This week we are continuing on in our series called, “Flourishing in the House of the Lord.” As God calls us into His family, as we become one of His children, what we discover is, we have brothers and sisters in Christ, people who are our family, our brothers and sisters. Now being part of a family can be difficult. Being part of a family can, frankly, be a pain in the neck, some days, but it’s part of God’s plan. Part of God’s plan is that we should be together as His family. That plan we call ‘church’. For some people, that sends a shiver down their spine. But it is a part of God’s plan, and if it is God’s plan, then I truly believe that we are meant to flourish when we are planted in the House of the Lord.

One of the reasons that we don’t flourish sometimes, is that we get tied up in ‘doing’ a whole bunch of things that never actually impact on people. I’m a great fan of the British comedy series – I don’t know if you have ever watched it – called, “Yes Minister” and ”Yes Prime Minister”. One of the funniest series that has ever been on television since television was invented, and a senior public servant, by the name of Sir Humphrey Appleby, says to a junior public servant, called Bernard, he says, “Remember, Bernard, politicians love activity, it’s their substitute for achievement.” That’s a fantastic line, isn’t it? Activity is their substitute for achievement – can I maybe twist that line around a little bit and say, “Remember, Bernard, Christians love activity, it’s their substitute for achievement.” What can happen in God’s family, in God’s church, is that we all race around doing different things, and being busy, and being involved in this and that and the other, and we think, “wow, we’ve done a good job”. But the only real measure, the only true measure of the effectiveness of a church is eternal results.

Have you ever been on a sporting team that always looses? I have! When I was in the Army, a Cadet in the Royal Military College, Duntroon, our Officer Training Academy, I was a part of the bottom rung of football, and we didn‘t win one game the whole season. It’s cold, it’s wet, it’s sleeting, it hurts, to be tackled, it’s muddy, it’s dirty, you don’t win a single game. Let me tell you, it is not a lot of fun being part of a loosing team. Yet a lot of Christians are exactly that in their churches.

Am I actually involved in the business of winning, maturing and discipling souls for Jesus Christ? Are the nets of our church straining under the weight of the catch, or are we just a dysfunctional family, going no where? Has activity become our substitute for achievement? Has activity become my substitute for achievement? Because Jesus said to His disciples, “I am going to make you fishers of men.” If you’ve got a Bible, grab it, open it up at John, Chapter 21. The other place we’re going today is Luke Chapter 4 and 5 but we’re going to begin in John, Chapter 21. The picture here is, Jesus has been crucified, He has risen again. This is the third time that Jesus appears to His disciples. They are out fishing. They have gone from Jerusalem, about 120 kilometers north, back to Galilee, they are on the Sea of Tiberius, and they’re out fishing. They have been out fishing all night, and no catch, and a man calls out from the shore and says,”Throw out the nets on the other side,” and all of a sudden, they recognise that. They recognise that because it reminds them of something.

Let’s have a quick read of this passage in John Chapter 21. “After these things, Jesus showed Himself again to the disciples on the Sea of Tiberius, and He showed Himself in this way. Gathered together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathaniel of Canaan in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee and two others of His disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I’m going fishing,” they said, “Well, we’ll come with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught absolutely nothing. Just after day break, Jesus stood on the beach but the disciples didn’t know it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Guys, why haven’t you got any fish? And they answered Him, “We didn’t catch any.” and He said to them,” Listen cast the net on the other side of the boat and you will find some.” So they did, and now they weren’t able to haul it in because there were so many fish. The disciple whom Jesus loved, said to Peter, “That’s the Lord,” and when Simon Peter heard that, he put on some clothes, because he was naked, and he jumped into the sea but the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net, full of fish, because they were not far from the land, only about one hundred yards.”

So the crucifixion which was a horrible time, Jesus has risen again, He appears to His disciples, who have fled out of Jerusalem, north back to Galilee. They are out doing, what? They are doing what they always did before they met Jesus, they were fishermen. They have gone back to work, the party is over, Jesus was crucified. People were after them because they were following Jesus. That’s it, they are fishing and all of a sudden Jesus comes and they recognise Him because they’ve had this experience once before.

Flick back to Luke’s Gospel, Chapters 4 and 5.They had this experience the first time they met Jesus. Jesus was in His late twenties, His early thirties. He goes through the temptation in the desert. If you look at Chapter 4, verses 1 to 4, He’s tempted in the desert, He then commences His ministry. It says verse 4 Chapter 14, “Then Jesus filled with the power of the Holy Spirit returned to Galilee and a report about Him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their Synagogues and was praised by everyone.” So here is the beginning of Jesus public ministry. He is then rejected in Nazareth which is His home town. He casts a demon out of a man, heals people at Simon’s house, and He preaches in Synagogues and people are saying,” Wow, who is this guy? He’s amazing, He speaks with authority, He heals people, He casts out demons. Look at verse 32, it says, “They were astounded, with His teaching because He spoke with authority.”

Now let’s go to Chapter 5 verse 1. “Once while Jesus was standing beside the Lake of Gennesaret and the crowd was pressing in on Him to hear the Word of God. He saw two boats there at the shore of the Lake and the fishermen had gone out in them and they were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon. So this is three and a half years before the instance in John Chapter 21, we talked about. This is the first time Simon Peter meets Jesus. So they go out in Simon Peter’s boat, and Jesus sits down in the boat and from the water, teaches the crowds and when that’s done, He says to Simon, “Listen, let’s push out into the deep water and let down the nets,” and Simon answers, “Master, we’ve worked all night long but we haven’t caught a thing, well, if you say so, I’ll let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were about to break, so they signaled to their partners in the other boats to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw this, he fell down at Jesus knees and said, “Go away from me Lord, because I am a sinful man.” For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid, from now on you’ll be catching people.” When they’d brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed Jesus.”

I love this story because it begins with Jesus having to go out in the boat, there was so many people, He can’t talk to them on the land. He goes out on the boat and it says, the crowd was pressing in on Him to hear the Word of God. Let me ask you, in your family, in your church, where you go, is the crowd pressing the doors down to hear the Word of God? Tell, you what, there are a lot of churches where that’s not happening. There are a lot of churches where people are walking in with bored faces, they’re singing songs with bored faces and they are walking out of there with bored faces. I love this, the crowds had seen the wonderful things Jesus had done, and they were pressing in on Him to hear the Word of God, because He talked with authority, He healed people, His reputation had spread, He had rock-star status. Wow, what if people came to our churches and were healed like that? What if people came to our fellowship and wanted to hear more? What if they were astounded? What if they said, “WOW, this stuff really rings true? Powerful authoritative proclamation of the truth, healing and deliverance. That’s the stuff that makes God’s love real in people’s lives; it’s the stuff that makes people hungry for God’s Word. Is it happening in your fellowship? Are you flourishing in the House of the Lord? Or is this some kind of boring thing that happens and you go every Sunday, you don’t know exactly why you do, but you do out of habit?

Let’s have a look at Chapter 5, verses 4 to 7 again. “When they had finished speaking, they pushed out again into deep water.” Simon Peter and his blokes had been fishing all night, they came back, they were tired, they were unhappy, they were laboring, it’s had work. There was no machinery, they might have had some ropes and pullies, but that’s about it. They worked all night and they caught nothing. Tired, unhappy, then a carpenter comes along! A carpenter, not a fisherman, a carpenter, and says, “Let’s push out, let’s take our nets out.” Now these nets aren’t like the nets that you and I might understand, they’re more like thick cheesecloth. They were for night fishing, they weren’t for day fishing. Now if you or I had been like Simon Peter, tired, exhausted, dejected, would we have pushed out? I think when this carpenter gets on our boat, there are three possibilities. Three reactions we can have. The first one is, “You stupid carpenter, what do you know, you’re not a fisherman, and we say, “No were not going out, we’re just going to go out again tomorrow night the way we always do and catch fish.” The second response, would be so dejected, to say, “No, look, I’m tired, I’m giving up, I’m not doing this any more. Every night we go out there, we don’t catch any fish. I’m sick of fishing; I’m going to hire someone else to do this.” The third option is to do exactly what Jesus asks.

Some Options

Alright, well, we’re out on the boat, we’ve been out fishing all night, Jesus gets onto our boat, we haven’t caught anything, He talks to a crowd, He sends them away. He says to us, “Come, push your boat out, let’s give this another try!” How do you react? Well, reaction number one is – “You stupid carpenter! What do you know? You’re not a fisherman, these are night nets, they’re not day nets. We’re tired, fishing is hard work”. The Sea of Galilee was a dangerous sea. We see elsewhere that they went out on the Sea of Galilee and there were storms and people were killed. It was dangerous! Once you’ve been doing it for a few years though, I guess, you get pretty good at it. You get good at mending the nets, stacking them on the boat, throwing them in and dragging them out, and pulling them back in again and catching fish.

Then someone comes along and says, “Do it differently,” but not just anyone, a carpenter! “No, no, you don’t understand, carpenter, we’ve got it all sorted out. Night after night, year after year, just like our fathers, their fathers before them, we go out and we cast out our nets. Yea, ok, so we haven’t caught any fish lately, maybe there is a few out there, but, boy oh boy, are we good at maneuvering the boat, and casting the nets and hauling them back in again and fixing the nets when they are broken. We’re really good at that stuff. Oh I know we haven’t caught any fish lately, but hey, we’re good at this. Go away!” You slap one another on the back. Well done, good and faithful servant. Aren’t we doing a good job but still we catch no fish. Activity becomes our substitute for achievement.

Back in the Old Testament, in Jeremiah, Chapter 1 verse 16, where God is pronouncing judgment over Israel, it says this, “They worshipped the works of their own hands.” Isn’t that easy to do? Isn’t it easy to get caught up in what we’re doing, rather than what God’s doing, in God’s results and God’s work in other people’s lives, and the longer we do it, the greater the danger. It’s not that we somehow mean to leave God out of the equation, but you like I, have a sinful flesh, we can do this. You know, you get a part of a church, you become a Christian, all of a sudden, you’re on a committee, or you’re doing a program, or there is some activity. What am I involved in? Come on, where’s the catch? Where are the results? Where is the impact, the eternal impact on people’s lives? When someone comes along, like a carpenter, and says, “Have you noticed that you didn’t catch any fish last night? Do you want a hand? Come on; let’s throw the net out the other side.” When someone comes and says, “Let’s do it differently,” we can get so offended; you know we’ve been working so hard. We are so involved; we’re so busy, worshipping the works of our hands.

The Lord has a question for you today. “Will you lay this at my feet? Will you give up whatever I ask you to give up?” Is it the liturgy, is it the hymns, is it the organ, is it the drum? Is it the choruses, is it the guitar, is it the service times, is it the building? We are caught up in all of these things. There are more ‘holy cows’ in the Kingdom of God than for the Hindus sometimes. You know, we get caught up in this stuff. I’ve seen churches split because instead of singing hymns, they’re singing choruses. Give me a break! Again in Jeremiah, Chapter 25 and verse 6, God says, “Do not provoke me to anger, with the works of your hands.” This stuff is idolatrous, this stuff is missing the point, and you know something, it’s all about throwing the nets in the water, and not catching any fish. We need God to do His things in our midst, and He only does that when we do it His way. So the first option is to tell him he’s stupid.

The second one is to give up altogether. Fishing is a dangerous game, it’s hard work, it’s risky, it’s tiring, When Jesus ask Simon Peter to push out into deep water, he had to get the nets on board, he had to rustle up his crew, James and John, they had to set sail, they had to get out there, they were tired, they were dejected, they were incredulous. Ever worked all night at hard labour, an intensive job and achieved nothing? It’s the easiest thing in the world to give up. Maybe you keep the boats and you hire a crew. “I’ve had enough of this fishing game. Night after night, after night, and for what, a few lousy fish? That’s it! I’m out of here!” Lots of people make that decision. Lots of people are keeping pews warm in churches, and leaving it to the experts. “Well, that’s why we pay the minister. That’s why we pay the pastor. That’s why we have a part time worship leader.” Come on, are you flourishing in the House of the Lord? Keeping a pew warm? There is a beautiful parable that someone shared with me once that I would like to read to you. It’s a challenging parable. Have a listen to this.

On a dangerous sea coast, where shipwrecks often occurred, there was once a crude little life-saving station. The building was just a hut and there was only one boat but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought of themselves, went out day and night, tirelessly, searching for the lost. Many lives were saved by this wonderful little station. So that it became famous. Some of those who were saved in Various and the other surrounding area, wanted to become associated with this little station and give some of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought, new crews were trained, the little life-saving station grew. Some of the members of the life-saving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided, as the first refuge for those saved from the sea. So they replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building.

Now the life-saving station became a popular gathering place for the members and they decorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely, because they used it as a sort of a club. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea, so they hired life-boat crews to do this work. The life-saving motif still prevailed in the club’s decoration and there was a liturgical life boat in the room where the clubs medallions were held. About this time there was a large shipwreck off the coast and the hired crews brought in the boat loads of cold, wet and half drowned people. They were dirty and sick and some of them had black skin and some of them had yellow skin. The beautiful new club house was a mess, so the property committee met and immediately had a smaller house built alongside the club where the victims of the shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside. At the next meeting there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the clubs life-saving activity, as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club.

Some members insisted on life-saving as the club’s primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a life-saving station, but they were finally voted down and were told that if they wanted to save the lives of all the various people who were being shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own life-saving station down the road, so they did. As the years went by, the new life-saving station experienced all the same changes that had occurred in the old one. It evolved into a club and yet another life-saving station was founded. History repeated itself again and again and again, and if you visit that coast line today, you’ll find a string of exclusive clubs along the shore. Shipwrecks remain frequent in those waters, but today, most people drown.

It’s a sad picture isn’t? And to tell you the truth, if you were to take a jury of reasonable men and women, and they were asked to examine the evidence, I believe they would find that much of the church bears a strong resemblance to this parable. Not all of the church. Part of the church is doing great things but there are so many local churches that could read that parable and say, yep, that’s us. How easy is it for us to make excuses? I live in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. It’s a tough area. There’s no revival in living memory. A few flashes of enthusiasm over the years. People make excuses and yet there is a need.

Just flick your Bible, if you have one, to Proverbs 24, verse 10. This is what it says, “If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength being small, if you hold back from rescuing those taken away to death, those who are staggering to the slaughter, if you say, “Look we didn’t know this?” does not the one who weighs the heart perceive it? Doesn’t the one who keeps watch over your soul know it? And will He not repay all according to their deeds?” Listen to me; people are dying outside those doors. Has Jesus lost His passion for winning souls, do you think? Has Jesus lost His power for winning souls and changing lives, do you think? Why not is some churches, why not?

Saying “Yes” to Jesus

Well, we are on the boat, and we’ve got three options when this Carpenter from Nazareth comes and says, “Throw you’re nets in on the other side.” We can call him a crazy carpenter; we can give up in despair and hire experts to do the work for us, or the third option. The third option is the one I’d like to look at now. These disciples, if we flick back to John Chapter 21, had been to hell and back. They had seen Jesus crucified, they had seen Him die. They had lost all their hopes, their dreams, their own lives were threatened, they fled back up here to Galilee. They went back to work as fishermen, they’re on the boat, they didn’t catch any fish last night. Talk about a bunch of losers! These people were condemned, they were failures. They kind of knew that Jesus was resurrected, He was alive again but they still weren’t sure. They still didn’t get it and Jesus comes along and gives them a catch and they recognise Him. They race back to shore. What happens next?

Have a look in John, Chapter 21 verse 9. “When they came back to shore, they saw a charcoal fire there with fish on it and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you’ve caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish. A hundred and fifty three of them and although there were so many the net wasn’t torn, and Jesus said to them, “come and have breakfast.” Now, none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you,” because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time Jesus had appeared to His disciples.”

They are tired, they are hungry, they’re dejected and there’s nothing like getting off the boat and sitting down having a barbecue with Jesus, and letting Jesus feed you. Imagine how that felt for them. Imagine the sense of wonder and awe, and joy, at sitting down on the beach, eating with Jesus. Let’s be candid and honest here. The nets of many churches simply are not bursting with the catch. Some of the things we’ve talked about here may apply to you, they may apply to your church and probably some of us are feeling kind of condemned and hopeless. We know we should be catching fish, we know we should be making real differences in peoples lives but I’m not flourishing, we are not flourishing, something is wrong. I feel so condemned and Jesus comes along and you are feeling condemned and says, “Hang on a minute, have a rest, come and have breakfast. Let Me feed you. Have some fish, have some bread. Sit down with Me and have a yarn.”

There is condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Just when you are feeling down, just when you are feeling condemned, Jesus helps you. Jesus invites you to a barbecue. Jesus feeds you, then He picks the least faithful one, Peter, who denied Him three times, who said. “I don’t know Jesus,” when Jesus needed him the most, and three times He now asks Peter to do something. When they’d finish breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more that these?” and Simon Peter said, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you,” and Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” Second time He said to him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me,” and Simon said, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you,” and Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” and Peter felt so hurt, because He said for the third time, “Do you love me?” and Simon Peter said, “Of course you know, you know everything, you know that I love you,” and Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.”

Three times Peter denied Jesus, three times Jesus gave him an opportunity, an act of friendship. He said, “Go and feed my church.”

“Church, do you love me? Feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep, do my work. Not the works of your hand not the programs that you’ve got planned, not the things that you think. Do my work, follow me, flourish with me, be prepared to lay down every last little bit and do it my way.” How will you react when the carpenter gets in the boat with you? Stupid carpenter, give up completely, hire experts, or is your heart saying, “Yes”, is there a spark of love and friendship in your heart that says, “Lord I will lay aside all that I hold sacred at your feet. I’ll do it your way, so that your catch will be huge.” God has a plan. God’s plan is that you and I will flourish in the House of the Lord.

It’s the stuff that happens in our hearts, behind closed doors, the true us comes out in adversity.

Growing Under Authority

Today we are continuing on with the series called, “Flourishing in the House of the Lord.” God’s plan is, as we give our lives to Him, to put us into His family, it’s called the ‘church’. I know, I know, a lot of people are browned off by church, I know, a lot of people go running off in a different direction as soon as you mention the word ‘church’, but God does have a plan. God has a plan for us to be a family, His children and that family is called ‘church’. So often though, people find it hard to flourish in the House of the Lord. That’s why we are doing this series and we’ve looked at a whole bunch of issues. You know, sometimes, we become part of a church and we want to be planted in pots and not put our roots down, not become really a part of the family, and integrate with the other people around us.

Today we are looking at the subject of authority. Boy, put ‘church’ and ‘authority’ in the one sentence and people will really go running in a different direction. But I believe that ‘authority’ is God’s polishing cloth. It’s interesting that Jesus calls us to make disciples, not believers. Why is that? A believer is someone who is saved, who has eternal life, but isn’t equipped to live life. A disciple is a believer who is equipped. A believer is a person who has life, who has eternal life and is also someone who’s equipped. For what? To do what? What are we equipped for? For life, for mission! God wants disciples in His family, people who have learned life from Him. Life amidst adversity, life amidst all the things that happen, day to day, equipped to deal with that stuff. So often the world wants to rob us of the peace that Jesus died to give us. So often the world and the devil want to rob us of peace. Well if we are going to walk in peace, we have to do that on purpose. If the world wants to rob us of it, if the devil wants to rob us of it, we need to be mature in Christ or we’re going to be blown around, buffeted around like a cork on an ocean.

So many people want to be in ministry, they want to do things for God, to minister God’s love, His joy, His peace, but we can’t consistently give to others that which we ourselves don’t have. Let me say that again. We cannot consistently give to others that which we ourselves don’t have. It’s a tough saying, but if you go to First Corinthians Chapter 16 and verse 9, (by the way, if you have a Bible, grab it because were going to be looking, particularly today, at the first letter of Peter, right towards the end of the New Testament). But in First Corinthians 16:9, Paul the Apostle, says this, “A wide door for effective work is open to me and with it many adversaries.” The moment we decide to step out for God, the moment we decide that we’re going to live our lives for Christ, and shine His love into this world, that moment, as the wide door is opened for effective ministry, there will be many adversaries, we’ll be buffeted, be like a yo-yo, up and down. Christians cannot minister effectively unless they are strong in Christ. People want to race ahead and minister powerfully for Christ, when they are still green on the inside, you know, the fruit isn’t ripe yet. So it’s important, that we, if we believe in Jesus, decide that we are going to grow into maturity in Christ, letting the Holy Spirit do the work of the cross in us. Now that’s about hard yards, that’s about stuff that people don’t see. It’s about laying foundations in our lives. You know, when everyone else has gone home, it about what we do at home, it’s about how we live what we think, what we say, what we believe, how we react.

Corrie Ten Boom once said that as Christians we should have a soft heart and hard feet and she said, the problem is, so many of us have it the other way around, we have hard hearts and soft feet. So we need strength and maturity in Jesus Christ to deal with the stuff that life throws at us, but also to minister according to our gifting, and if you are a believer of Jesus, you are a minister of the Gospel. If you are believer and follower of Jesus, if you have given your life to Him, you are a part of the Royal Priesthood, you are a saint, you are a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! So, in equipping us, in building us up, in Jesus, how does God do that? One way certainly is prayer, but it doesn’t end there. I mean, sitting on the lounge, praying, by itself, is not going to make us mature. God uses the circumstances of life. We pray, “Lord, make me strong; Lord, give me wisdom; Lord, teach me to love,” and as soon as we do that, He allows us to walk through difficult circumstances because that’s where we learn those things. Now we may be out rebuking the devil, maybe we have a soft heart and hard feet, but so often we find it is the other way round, we have a hard heart and soft feet and to become a disciple, we need discipline. People with a hard heart and soft feet that call themselves Christians, often are little more that spiritual couch-potatoes.

Becoming a disciple is about taking the truth out of the Word of God, the Bible and adding that to the practical lessons of life. The Bible, plus the practical, equals disciple. Interesting, when I was at Bible College, studying all the theology in my ministry degree, two units, for two semesters I had to do practical field experiences. Same thing! Being a Christian isn’t just about the theology. Oh, that’s important. It’s important to know who God is. It’s important to know who we are in Christ. But we have to live it, it has to be authentic, we need to experience it and God uses that practical experience as the lessons of life. Sometimes we make the mistake that we don’t really want to learn the truth from the Bible and other times we say, “Well, I’ll take the truth but, um, I really don’t think I want to live this stuff.

Let’s see, one of the ways God deals with our flesh is to place us under authority. It’s God’s tool of discipleship. Have a read, if you have a Bible, open it at First Peter, towards the end of the New Testament, Chapter 5, beginning at verse 1, verses 1 to 4. “Now as an elder myself,” writes Peter, “and a witness to the sufferings of Jesus Christ, as well as one who shares in the glory to be revealed, I exhort the elders among you to tend the flock of God, that is in your charge, exercising the oversight – not under compulsion, but willingly as God would have you do. Not for sordid gain, but eagerly. Don’t lord it over those in your charge, but be examples to the flock and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will win the crown of glory that never fades away.”

In other words, Peter here, who was one of the twelve apostles, says, ‘Look, God appoints leaders in His Church and those leaders are to be shepherds not tyrants. They’re to exercise leadership.’ Now, how to be a leader is not the subject for today, but if you are a leader, I would encourage you to examine yourself, your motives and your maturity, and really ask the question, “Am I fit to lead?” A good chapter to read if you are a leader is Ezekiel, Chapter 34. Now we are not going there today. He talks about false shepherds. That’s as far as we are going with leadership today.

The first issue Peter deals with, well there are two issues, primarily. There is suffering, and authority. We are going to have a look through this passage, First Peter Chapter 5, beginning at verse 1 and going right through to verse 11, today, but the context of suffering, when we read later on, how Peter is talking about a ‘roaring lion’, our adversary, prowling around. These people were dealing with real persecution of the church. The ‘roaring lion’ was a real thing. Christians were being tortured and put to death and the question was, “How is this community going to deal with suffering?” When we are put under pressure, how are we going to deal with it, what is our godly response? How do we, the church, survive?”

Submitting Sweetly

So today on Christianityworks, we are looking at the subject of discipline and I said this letter from Peter, First Peter, Chapter 5 was written in the context of suffering, real suffering, going on in the church. People were being sacrificed by the Roman authorities, they were being beaten, they were being killed for their faith and Peter is answering the question, “Well as a community, how do we deal with this pressure, what’s our godly response, how does the church survive?”

He begins by saying, “Look, there are elders in the church and they are appointed as leaders, as shepherds,” and his answer is, “We survive by sweetly submitting to that authority.” Let’s read on, beginning at verse 5 of Chapter 5. “In the same way,” he says, “you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders, and all of you must clothe yourselves with humility, in your dealings with one another, because God opposes the proud, but He gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion, your adversary, the devil, prowls around you, looking for someone to devour. Resist him steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of sufferings, and after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore you, support you, strengthen you and establish you. To Him are the power and the glory, for ever and ever Amen.”

So Peter is answering the question here. He’s saying the way we survive, the way that we deal with the suffering – and by the way, everyone is dealing with the same sort of suffering, don’t think it is just you – he’s saying. He lists three things in this book. He talks about suffering in the context of human institutions, slavery. He talks about suffering in the context of marriage, and here he talks about suffering in the context of church leadership. How do we survive? Have a look, Chapter 4 verse 19. “Let those who are suffering in accordance with God’s will, entrust themselves to a faithful Creator, whilst continuing to do good.” What do we do when we suffer? Well what we really want to do is respond out of the flesh. We want to grumble and complain and have a bad attitude, and get revenge. And just recently, at the church that my wife, Jacqui, and I attend, we were organizing a lunch and a barbecue in the park and somehow we couldn’t get that coming off the platform. And it took a while for the Assistant Minister to get that and announce it and to set a date.

Now the really easy thing, and this was my temptation, is for my pride to say, “Come on, you’re only the Assistant Minister, get your act together, make this happen. I mean, I’m the head of a ministry here, I mean, you know, I’m important, I’ve got a ….!” That’s what the flesh wants to do, we all have that temptation. As I felt that welling up inside, I had to say – hang on a minute. This guy is the Assistant Minister of our church and I am under his authority. We all want to grumble and complain and have a bad attitude, when we are under authority. You show me a Christian who doesn’t complain and grumble under pressure and I will show you a mature disciple. You show me someone who gets that feeling that we all get and wants to rebel and react and pushes that down and humbles themselves and I will show you someone who is walking with Jesus Christ. It takes a mature Christian not to complain in adversity. It’s the little foxes that spoil the vine. It’s the stuff that happens in our hearts, behind closed doors, the true ‘us’ comes out under adversity and pressure, doesn’t it?

I love to keep coming back to Israel, as they left Egypt, in fact, if you have a Bible, flick right back to Exodus, Chapter 13, verse 17. As they were coming out of Egypt, God had performed all these wonderful miracles to get them out, and the plagues, and the Red Sea and knocking off the Egyptian army. This is what it says about them – verse 17, Chapter 13 of Exodus. “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was nearer, because God thought, “If these people face war, they may change their minds and return to Egypt.” So God led the people by the roundabout way of the wilderness, towards the Red Sea. Why did God take them the long way? Why did God take them the scenic route? I’ll tell you! Because they weren’t ready to fight the Philistines, they weren’t mature enough, they didn’t trust their God enough and what was actually an eleven day walk, took them forty years and all but two of them perished. Caleb and Joshua were the only two, who were adults when they left Egypt, who crossed the Jordon into the Promised Land. What defeated them? Their enemies? No! God protected them from their enemies. It was their bad attitude that defeated them.

So God sets about dealing with our attitudes. God’s plan is that we should flourish. That you and I should flourish in the House of the Lord. Let me tell you something. You and I are not going to flourish if we have bad attitudes – if we cannot submit to discipline. We are all subject to discipline. When I was a young man, just left school, I went to study to become an officer in the Australian Army, and that happened at the Royal Military College, Duntroon. As a young cadet, I had to learn discipline. It was harsh discipline, it was tough discipline and then I worked my way up the ranks and then I went into business and I became a senior person. Then I became a Christian and I went to Bible College, and I had to become a student again, I had to start at the bottom again. Boy, I tell you, that dealt with my pride, and I truly believe that as I’ve traveled that path, and started in this ministry as a volunteer, a junior cadet from Bible College, starting to do some work in radio programs, seven or eight years ago. I didn’t always agree with the person who was running the ministry and I don’t always agree with the people running the church, but God calls us to be under authority and I truly believe that if I had not learned the lesson of being under authority, God would not have placed me over other people in authority. Listen again what it says in First Peter, Chapter 5, verse 5. “In the same way you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders and all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, because God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.”

That is unconditional! Place yourselves under their authority. Now authority is ok as long as we agree with it, it’s when we don’t agree with it. It’s when you’re a young officer and you are training for war in the army and you don’t agree with the Captain or the Major and you just have to do it. It’s tough; it’s hard, particularly in our culture today, where we say ’anything goes’. Particularly in an egalitarian society, where we say, “Well, no one is better or worse than I am.” The military analogy is a good one. We are fighting a battle for a lost world, and that is already won because Jesus won it on the cross, but the devil still comes against us. We are called to live out the victory that Jesus has already won. We need to be a disciplined fighting force, and discipline needs disciples.

There are so many examples that I can think back on, where the training I received in the Army, of living under authority, has come back to help me in church. It’s not something you learn straight away. It’s something that you learn over time. It’s hard, it’s tough, it’s painful, but we are called to humble ourselves. The crux is ‘if it feels good, do it!’ Right? That’s what we say! I’m right, therefore I can defy authority. In our minds, it’s our license to have a bad attitude. Let’s read it again. “In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders and all of you must clothe yourself with humility.” Submit to authority – it’s from God – whether it’s human institutions, a boss, whether it’s wives to your husbands, whether it’s members of the church to the elders. In doing that we submit to God because those institutions are put there by God for us. As we sow, so shall we reap. Now we have talked about one-directional authority – unilateral authority, where we have elders over members of the church.

Called to be Disciples

We have been talking about authority. Authority is God’s polishing cloth, His tool of helping us to grow strong. We talked about unilateral authority, one- directional authority. The authority of leaders over those, for instance, who are members of a church. But now I would like to briefly, talk about mutual submission, bi-lateral authority, because it’s ‘mutual submission’ that stops a church from becoming a cult. Going back to that verse, verse 5 of Chapter 5 of First Peter. It says, “…and all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, because God opposes the proud, but He gives grace to the humble.”

When we get up in the morning, we have a shower, we go to the wardrobe, we open the wardrobe, and we pull out some clothes. Putting clothes on is a deliberate act. I heard Joyce Meyer once say, she said,” You know, when I get up in the morning those clothes just don’t jump on my back.” It’s right, we have to have a deliberate decision to put them on. ‘Clothe yourselves with humility,’ is a deliberate decision that we need to make. The proud person talks and never listens. The proud person has all the answers. They boss people around. If you want God to oppose you, one hundred percent of the time, be proud. God opposes the proud, but He gives grace to the humble. Humility is about listening; it’s about allowing yourself to be influenced, it’s an attitude of learning for others, of putting others first before our selves. It’s an attitude of independence, of team work, yet it is based on deep strength, a teachable heart that is strong in the Word of God. That’s what humility is about. God opposes the proud, but He gives grace to the humble.

And you know, if we believe in God, if we want to walk in His ways, and we keep on with this pride thing, God will do with us exactly what He did with Israel in the desert. God will keep putting us under authority, and never give us authority. Some people want position, because they think that means authority. Authority is something that God anoints into our lives and as we fail to submit to authority, God will keep us there. God will keep us there until we learn the lesson. How long Lord, how long am I going to be under this authority? How long am I going to be in this difficult situation? How long do I have to put up with this? Well, God tells us that. He tells us exactly that in verse 6. “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” How long? Until we get it! How long? Until God is ready! How long? Until God looks at us and says, “In this difficult situation where I have put My child under the authority of someone who grates on them, under the authority of someone with whom they don’t agree, I will take them out of that situation when they have learned the lesson, when they have laid down their pride, when they have humbled themselves under My mighty hand. Then, then and only them will I exalt them in due time.” Humility is about bringing ourselves low, it’s about putting the flesh to death and that is a partnership – a partnership between God and us. How long – in due time, in God’s time, when we get it.

How we behave in places where we don’t want to be, determines how long we are going to stay there. That’s important! How we behave in places where we don’t want to be, determines how long we are going to stay there. Some people are busy promoting themselves, some people throw around their positions and mistake that for authority, some people undermine their leaders because it suits them. If you have pride, if I have pride, God will oppose us, because God’s plan is that you and I should flourish in the House of the Lord. God’s plan is that we would humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt us in due time. Is it hard? You bet ya! Is it tough? Absolutely! Does it hurt sometimes? Yes! But when we are suffering, as Peter writes, in Chapter 4 of First Peter, verse 19, “Let those who are suffering in accordance with God’s will entrust themselves to a faithful Creator, whilst continuing to do good.” God has a plan for your life. His plan is for you to Flourish in the House of the Lord.

Don’t be conformed to the mould of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you can discern God’s will – the good, acceptable and perfect will of God.

Getting it Together

Welcome to another week of Christianityworks, and of course this week is Easter Week. This is the last message in a series that I’ve called “Flourishing in the House of the Lord.” Today we think in very individualistic terms, we think of ourselves as people in isolation. I guess that’s where society has taken us but when we look back at the history of Christianity, the history of the church, right back to the first century, what we see is that faith is also a corporate thing. God’s plan is for us to be adopted as children and for Christ to be the first born of many brothers and sisters. He’s our Lord and our brother and for us to live together as a family. If you have a Bible, grab it and just have a quick look at Romans, Chapter 8, verses 4 to 16; it’s exactly what the Apostle Paul has to say. He says this, “For all who are lead by the spirit of God, are children of God, because you didn’t receive the Spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba, Father” it’s that very spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if in fact we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him.”

So God’s plan is for us to be a part of His family, and His plan also is for us to flourish in His church, to flourish in the House of the Lord. You may recall a couple of weeks ago we looked a Psalm 92, verses 13 to 14. It says this, “The righteous flourish like a palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They’re planted in the House of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God.” That is a great picture of God’s plan for His children and His family. Three weeks ago in the first message, we looked at the fact that sometimes we want to become a part of that family, but we are like pot plants, we really don’t want to put our roots down and really become a part of the family. So we can be pot bound Christians. Then we looked at the fact that we become a part of God’s family and we don’t flourish because we do a lot of activity but we don’t achieve much. We really don’t commit to what God is calling us to do. Then, last week, we considered the whole subject which many of us find difficult these days, the whole subject of authority in the context of that family.

Well this week of course is Easter week and we are not going to talk about chocolate eggs and bunnies and all that stuff. Easter is about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and in terms of this series, it all kind of all fits together really well. It’s wonderful timing because we are going to talk about worship – the importance of worship and us flourishing in the House of the Lord and believe it or not, worship has an enormous amount to do with Easter, with the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The key issue that many of us have with our faith is that on the one hand we have the holy things in our life – praying and going to church and singing worship songs and maybe doing a Bible study. You know, we have that spiritual, holy side of our lives, but then we have the profane side, the living side – the playing soccer, ironing clothes, going to work, washing the car, driving the kids to school – side of life and for many of us, particularly in the West, we really struggle to bring life and our spirituality together. They’re almost in two separate boxes. Theologians call that ‘dualism’, we separate them in our minds and you talk about ‘flourishing in our faith’, and we can kind of imagine that maybe on the holy side, in our prayer life or in our worship time, but it’s really hard for many of us to think about flourishing in our faith – flourishing in the House of the Lord – 24/7 when were out there working, living life, bringing up the kids. That can be hard! It’s a beautiful picture to ‘flourish in the House of the God.’ The question is, how?

I remember when I was working as an IT Project Consultant, as I did for many many years before I did what I’m doing now. I remember one particular project, they’re a team of people – this was a really high tech, high value project, in the tens of millions of dollars – and they had all of the resources they needed. They had good technology; they had some outstanding individuals, really bright, smart people. They had everything they needed for success, yet a year later there was misery, failure, and waste. The whole thing had fallen apart. Most of team had resigned. There was bitterness amongst the individuals. You know, I think that’s a picture of many a Christian life. We have the Holy Spirit, we have Jesus Christ, we have our salvation, we have everything we need, but there is strife and conflict and pain. Flourish is such a profound word, it’s a wonderful word for God’s plan for His kids, but let me ask you something. If you are walking with Jesus, if you believe in Him, in your life, in your walk, are you flourishing in the House of the Lord?

Today we are going to look at how to do that, and a profound place for us to start is with the story of Easter. There are really two major parts to the Easter story. There’s the crucifixion and then there’s the resurrection. Now the crucifixion really starts a long time before but the whole decision for Jesus, the whole heart-decision and commitment to what He is doing, really comes to a head in the Garden of Gethsemane. If you have a Bible, flick it open to Mark, Chapter 14, verses 32 to 42. This is what it says. It says, “They went to a place called Gethsemane,” so this is just before He’s to be betrayed and crucified, “and He said to His disciples, “Sit here for a while and pray,” and He took with Him Peter, James and John, and He began to be distressed and agitated and He said to them, “I am deeply grieved, even to death, stay here and keep awake,” and going a little further, He threw Himself on the ground and prayed, if it were possible that the hour might pass for Him. He said, “Abba Father, for you, all things are possible, remove this cup from me, yet not what I want, what you want.” He came and found them sleeping and He said to them, “Are you asleep? Couldn’t you stay awake for just one hour? Keep awake and pray that you may not come into a time of trial. The spirit is indeed willing but the flesh is so weak.” and again He went away and prayed, saying the same words and once more He came back and found them sleeping for their eyes were so heavy, and they didn’t know what to say to Him. He came a third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough, the hour has come. The Son on Man has been betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let’s go. See, my betrayers are coming.”

You see a real change there for Jesus, can’t you? From the distress of – I am going to be betrayed – and at some point there when He was praying – as some point the went, from, “Lord, if you can take this away from me, Father, if you can take this cup of suffering from me,” and then He said, “But, Father, not my will be done, let your will be done.” Can I tell you, that heart decision, that heart decision to lay down His life; I truly believe that that is an act of worship. I’m sure that His heart was breaking but His spirit was breaking there in the garden. He promised for us too that we would have tribulation and trials in this world, but right in the middle of that His friends were no help. They were asleep; He was completely alone with God. He wanted the suffering to go away and He made that decision. Of course, we know that He died a horrible death on the cross and then, of course, there is the story of new life. We won’t go there right now, because of time, but if you look at Mark, Chapter 16, verses 1 to 8, there was a time after He was buried, three days later the stone was rolled away from the tomb. He came back to life; He got out of the tomb and lived. There are two parts to His spiritual journey here on earth. His death and His resurrection. And we need to understand how those play themselves out in our lives, here and now and in fact, worship has an enormous amount to do with how they play themselves out.

Two Kinds of Worship

Well, yes, it’s Easter, but what does that mean for us, here and now? We have been looking, over these last four weeks, at this whole subject of us flourishing in the House of the Lord. God has a plan for you, for me, to flourish in the House of the Lord, but as we live our lives kind of separating the holy and the profane, separating the whole notion of church and worship and praying and all those things we put in the ’holy bucket’ and the things we put in the ’profane bucket’, having them separate you know, life, living. When we separate those two, it’s really hard to flourish. It’s really hard to take our faith into the world and feel that it’s making a difference, feel that we are flourishing in our lives. God doesn‘t see them as being separated. God sees them as one and that’s where worship comes in. Worship for me is the thing that unites the holy and the profane, the spiritual and the physical, the stuff that I do in the secret of my own home, in prayer, and hoping and dreaming and all that stuff, in my real life out there, doing the things I do every day. Worship brings them together.

There are two words in the New Testament for worship. There’s one passage, Luke Chapter 4, verse 8, uses both of those two words at the same time. It’s when Jesus was being tempted by the devil to go and worship him and Jesus quotes the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, back at the devil. This is written in Greek, now, and of course, we read it in English. This is what he says. He says, “It is written, worship the Lord your God and serve Him alone.” The two words, ’worship’ and ’serve’ that have been translated to the English, are both Greek words for ’worship’. Now I don‘t normally talk about the Greek, but in this case, it’s going to mean something to us, so it is useful. “It is written, “Worship the Lord your God alone.” That word is the word, ’proskuneo’ it’s the word that we get from lying ‘prostrate’ on the ground. It means to bow down, to fall down to the ground, to put your face to the ground. That word for ‘worship’, that sort of worship, is used sixty times in the New Testament. Then the second bit that says, “And serve Him alone” that word ‘serve’, which is also sometimes translated as worship’, that word is ‘latreia’, it’s the word that we get ‘lateral’ from. You imagine things ‘going out’ from us. It means to minister, to render service, to worship. So here are two words for ‘worship’. That particular word, ‘latreia’ appears twenty two times in the New Testament. The fact that there are two different words for ‘worship’ – proskuneo worship, where I bow my spirit, and soul and body before God; it’s the worship that we do at church, when we sing, and ‘latreia’ worship, “Lord, I bow down my life before you, the things that I do, I bow down.” The fact that there are those two different forms of worship, talked about right through the New Testament, is really significant for me.

Proskuneo, that’s the ‘bow your face down to the ground’ style of worship, for me comes before the ‘latreia’ worship, the doing worship. You think about, if we go back to Jesus, there in Gethsemane, He had a heart decision to make. It was a hard decision, but it was also a ‘heart’ decision. So often we need to make tough decisions in our hearts before we can change our behaviour, and Jesus was so distressed that He said, “Father, if there is any way, any way at all that this cup of suffering can pass from me, take it from me because I just want you to,” but He also said, “But, Father, I want your will to be done – I bow down to you. I put you first, your will first, your purpose first.” Worship, the original, Anglo-Saxon, English word, was literally, ‘worth ship’. It means to ascribe worth. And here Jesus was ascribing worth to His Father God and saying, “You are worth more than I am. You are worth more than my suffering. You are worth more than my feelings.” What do we ascribe worth to, as people who say we are Christ followers, to our feelings? We all want to do what feels good, that’s life, that’s who we are these days. Do we ascribe worth to our feelings and our pleasure and our comfort? Or do we ascribe greater worth to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour? Before every Calvary, comes a Gethsemane! Before every act of service which is worship, comes a heart decision which says, “Father, my Lord, my God, I put you first, before everything else in my life, I put you first.” It’s a decision of the heart.

These days we’ve reduced worship down to what we do in church first on a Sunday morning, before the sermon, between the announcements, what do we do – we worship. Worship equals sing songs. A lot of people think worship is singing songs, that’s worship. And people come in casual and they are running late, and they are staring around at church – I wonder if so and so is here – and they’re singing worship songs – “Oh, I don’t like that blouse on her” – “Oh, Lord we worship you” – “Aw the music isn’t very good today” – “Oh Lord, praise you, hallelujah.” Is that worship? You know, people’s lips are working, yet their lips and hearts are miles apart.

There is a really interesting Scripture in Proverbs, Chapter 1, verse 7. It says this, “The fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom.” I believe if we are to worship we need to have a right fear of God. A right respect for who God is. And we are singing these songs and our hearts miles away and we wonder why we are not flourishing in the House of the Lord. The lips are working but the heart’s gone on holidays. God’s not interested in what we sing. God’s interested in what’s going on in our hearts. Worship is the Gethsemane and Calvary, all wrapped in one. It’s that tough ‘garden’ decision that Jesus made to put His Father first, it’s being prepared to suffer for Christ’s sake. Worship is, “Lord, you are worth more to me than anyone or anything else.” Worship says, “I will stand for you Father, even if I have to stand completely alone, amidst all of the earth, whilst the nations rage around me.” You want to flourish? Take up your cross, lay down your life! That is ‘proskuneo worship, it is bowing down before God and saying, “Lord, you are worth more than anything to me, you are now, you are tomorrow and next week and the month after and the month after that.” Worship is a tough decision, a heart decision, saying God is worth more than I am. I am His creation, He is the Creator and I’m going to bow down and worship Him. You know, when those songs on Sunday morning come out of that heart attitude, it is the most awesome thing that we can do, and when they come out of an idol, casual attitude towards God, I believe they are a clanging noise in the ears of God. Now there is another form of worship, the ‘latreia’ worship we talked about before.

Worship through the Cross

Well, we all want to flourish in the House of the Lord, but as I said before, one of the problems that we have is we put all the spiritual things in one bucket and all the day to day, mundane, average, ordinary things in another bucket and flourishing is really hard when we have our faith and our spirituality and our relationship with Jesus tucked away off to one side and it’s somehow separate for day to day, real life stuff. Jesus didn’t see it that way. That’s one of the reasons we’ve called this program ‘Christianityworks’. Our faith is meant to work in life and here at Easter time, we have been looking at the two parts of Easter. The death of Jesus on the cross and the decision He made before hand in Gethsemane. He was prepared to die, it was a heart decision. Songs that we sing are just one expression of our worship. The sort of worship that He did in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the cross, was a worship that said, “Father, I ascribe more worth to you than my own life.”

Now let’s talk about the second form of worship that’s talked about in the New Testament. There’s that second word called ‘latreia’ which is the word we get the English word ‘lateral’ which means ‘outwards’, and twenty two times in the New Testament we see this word ‘latreia’. Jesus did one form of worship on the cross which was laying down His life, but three days later, the tomb was empty, three days later He rose again, three days later He took up His life again. I don’t know if you have ever really thought about this, but at some point, that dead body lying in that tomb, came back to life through the power of God, the power of the Holy Spirit and through God’s power the stone at the entrance was rolled away and Jesus got up and walked out of the tomb. Why else was the stone rolled away? He had a new life, an eternal life. Yes, He had scars on His hands and feet, He asked for some fish because He was hungry, He cooked breakfast on the shores of the Sea of Tiberius, He was alive! Second Corinthians, Chapter 5 and verse 17 says this, “If anyone is in Christ they are a new creation. Old things are passed away and behold, all things are new.” Have you taken the ‘proskuneo’ decision, to lay down your life once and for all, no matter what it costs? It’s amazing to me how many Christians haven’t done that, and then compromises eat away at the roots of their faith like worms. They think, “Why aren’t I flourishing?” Maybe your not flourishing in your faith and flourishing in the House of the Lord because maybe you just haven’t taken the decision yet to worship God by losing your life – to worship God by saying, “Father, I lay it down at your feet – my hopes, my dreams, my desires, I lay them all down. I’m going to die to myself.” That is ‘proskuneo’ worship! Now, now it’s time for ‘latreia’, now it is time to walk out of that tomb and be a new creation.

Now when we do that, when we take up our new life in Christ, we are going to notice something and it’s startling, it’s disturbing, and the thing we notice is this ….the people around you they haven’t changed, they are still grumpy, and cranky and rude and selfish, just as they ever were, the world is at war, have you ever noticed? But it’s time for ‘latreia’ worship. Flick over to Romans, Chapter 12, verse 1. It says this, this is Paul writing, “I appeal to you brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” The word ‘latreia’ which is your spiritual ‘service‘, as some translations render it. In order to do that we have to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, which is your reasonable spiritual worship and service. Don’t be conformed to the mould of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” So that you can discern God’s will, the good, acceptable and perfect will of God? And then Paul goes on to talk about, “Look, you know, don’t think of yourself more highly than you should, be a team player. Serve each other; use the gifts that you have in the family you have been placed in – God’s family, the Body of Christ.”

Now that can be hard. I said before, just because we have made the decision to lay our lives down, it doesn’t mean that everyone else is going to and they are still going to be grumpy and rude and cranky and horrible and hurtful and selfish and it is so hard to live out your faith around people like that. Here’s the key, here‘s the key – present your bodies as a living sacrifice – is the bridge between all that spiritual stuff – prayer and church and worship – and the day to day, profane stuff. This is where the rubber hits the road; it comes together in the form of worship which is sacrifice and service. How do you do that?

Well, here’s one practical way of worshiping God, just one. Think of the three people in your life that bug you most, that annoy you, that hurt you, that ignore you, that drive you nuts. How can you worship God through those three people, this is how. Get down and pray and say, “Father, I have laid my life down, I’m here to be your servant. Father, can you show me through your Holy Spirit how I can bless those three people? How can I bless their socks off? How can I make a difference to their lives? That’s worship, that’s laying your life down, that’s living a new life, that’s being a new creation, walking out of the empty tomb. Faith without works is dead. If we keep our faith in this holy bucket over here and just have prayer and church and everything off to one side and life is in another bucket and we never bring the two together, faith without works is dead and you know, it’s really hard to flourish when you’re dead. You don’t flourish well at all, dead. But that’s exactly what God says about our faith. You separate it from works, you separate the ‘proskuneo’, praising God, laying down your life, all that stuff, over on one side, from the ‘latreia’ , serving God and worshiping Him, through what you do for Him, you separate those two and it’s ‘a gonna’ be dead! That’s the space where many Christians are living out their faith. You cannot flourish while you’re dead!