The Molecular Church
In 1665, the English physicist Robert Hooke looked at a sliver of cork through a microscope lens and noticed it was made up of individual parts. He realized that cork was made up of smaller sections he called cells because they looked like the cells that monks lived in. That finding started a flurry of scientific study that led to some of the most important discoveries about life ever made. This month we’re celebrating Wesley’s 35th anniversary. We’re going to look to the past and see where we’ve been and celebrate what’s happened. But more importantly we’re going to look to the future to try and see where we are going. Pastor John is going to help us envision where God is taking us as a church…how is it that God wants us to live out His values in the world? How can we become the kind of church that we read about in Acts chapter 2? That’s Pastor John’s assignment for this month…to help us move toward that vision.
As a former science teacher, I always want to know what makes things work, so as I began thinking about this month of looking at the church, and God’s vision for this local body, I wanted to take a more “molecular” look at the church. Like Robert Hooke with his cork and microscope, I wanted to get down to the nitty-gritty and examine the church at its most basic level. So I want to pose this question to you today…What is the church made of? That’s right; the church is made of people. All of us different, unique individuals with different, unique gifts and talents, and I must say, different and unique quirks and idiosyncrasies. Together we are called to become one body, with each part fulfilling its purpose. But how do we do that?
How do we, as individuals, join together to become a church with a compelling vision?...a church that is reaching our community with the love of Jesus?...a church that looks like the Acts 2 church?
I believe it starts with each of us developing a passion for the vision of the church, and developing a personal vision for our lives that drives us to become who we ought to be for the sake of Jesus and his church. There are some great passages in the Bible that talk about who we are to become and what we are to do.
Paul says in Romans 8:29 (NLT)
For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn, with many brothers and sisters.
We’re supposed to become like Jesus. It’s easy enough to say become like Jesus, but what does that really mean? What was Jesus like?
In Hebrews 4:15 (NIV) we read
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin.
Jesus was without sin, so our challenge is also to be without sin. We’re supposed to be without sin.
In the words of Jesus himself from Matthew 5:48 (NLT)
But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.
That’s a pretty tall order. Be perfect. I don’t much care for the way that sounds. That scares me because I know I fall short all of the time. Jesus challenges us to be perfect, but Paul writes in
Galatians 3:3 (NLT)
Have you lost your senses? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?
Jesus tells us to be perfect and we see here that we can’t become perfect by our own effort, it’s only through the Spirit we can become perfect. I bring this up because I got a little hung up on the word “perfect” during my preparations. I almost took the reference to Matthew 5:48 out because it was so intimidating to me. I need to be perfect? But then I found an explanation of “perfection” that I think hits the nail on the head. In this example perfection consists of three different elements.
The first part of being perfect is that we have a “Perfect Relationship.” We are perfect because of our eternal union with the infinitely perfect Christ. When we become his children we are declared “not guilty” and therefore righteous because of what Christ, God’s beloved Son has done for us.
The second element in being perfect is making “Perfect Progress.” We can grow and mature spiritually as we continue to trust Christ, learn more about him, draw closer to him, and obey him. We are growing toward perfection if we “keep working” as Paul says he is doing in Philip. 3:12 (NLT)
I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection! But I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be.
The third aspect of perfection in this example is being “Perfect Completely.” When Christ returns to take us into his eternal Kingdom, we will be glorified and made completely perfect.
I give you all of that about “perfection” because I want you to know how I am using the word “perfect.” I am primarily talking about the “Perfect Progress” we looked at a minute ago. If we continue to rely on the Spirit and we work on our walk with Jesus, we make that perfect progress.
Pastor John shared last week about how Jesus said the church would be built upon Peter, “the Rock.” I want to look at a passage that gives us some insight into what Peter says to us as we try to develop a personal vision of who we should be. And then we’ll try to apply this passage to “being perfect.”
I’m reading from 2 Peter 1:1-11 from the New Living Translation
Read the entire passage. You’ll find this passage printed on the insert in your bulletin.
Look at verse 3. As we know Jesus better, his divine power gives us everything we need for living a godly life. He has called us to receive his own glory and goodness!
As we know Jesus better, his power gives us everything we need for living a godly life. That is an awesome promise. If we get to know him better, we get what we need for living a godly life…the life we are challenged to in Matthew 5:48 that we just read. And we receive his own (that’s Jesus’ own) glory and goodness!
Verse 4 goes on, And by that same mighty power, he has given us all of his rich and wonderful promises. He has promised that you will escape the decadence all around you caused by evil desires and that you will share in his divine nature.
We’re promised that we will rise above the junk all around us and that we will share in his divine nature. What is his divine nature? To be perfect, to be sinless.
There are four areas we see in the next several verses that we need to work toward perfecting in our lives.
Look at verse 5. So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better.
If we try to apply these promises to our lives, our faith will produce in us moral excellence. That’s talking about our character. That’s the first thing we need to work on. We need to make every effort to build up our character so it will be strong. We need to develop a Christ-like character. That means we need to be honest. We need to have integrity. We need to “guard our hearts” as Pastor John shared with us a couple of weeks ago. We need to grow in character.
Verse 6 says: Knowing God leads to self-control.
To me having self-control means having holiness. If we have self-control we won’t do the things our sinful nature encourages us to do. We’ll be set apart from the way the world does things because we refuse to do those things we know are wrong. The way that we get holiness is by “knowing God.” I know that in this life we won’t be flawless, but we need to aspire to be as much like Jesus as possible, and that happens according to this verse by knowing God better. What are you doing to get to know God better all the time? What habits do you have that lead to a growing relationship with him? We need to grow in holiness.
Verse 6 continues with another of the areas we need to grow in.
Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness.
Patient endurance and godliness speak to our maturity. Are we enduring the challenges that come our way and maintaining our holiness? Are we being patient with ourselves and others when we fall short? If we can answer those questions with a “yes,” we are growing in maturity. I realize we can’t achieve Christ-like character and holy living all at once, but we must grow toward maturity and wholeness. Just as we expect different behavior from a baby, a child, a teenager, and an adult, so God expects different behavior from us, depending on our stage of spiritual development. At home, Karyn and I have different expectations for Nikki and Mattie. Nikki has to do her own laundry and help with the cleaning. Mattie only has to make his bed and pick up his toys. Nikki is older and we expect her to act in a more mature way. Spiritually, just like physically, we need to grow in maturity.
Verse 7 goes on…
[7] Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone.
We are also called to be growing in love. Not just a love for our families or for other Christians, but “genuine love for everyone.” The only way I’ve ever learned to grow in love is to practice it. I have to constantly work to put the needs of my wife and kids first if I want to learn to love better. Just the other night Mattie wanted to work on a wagon he’s building for his teddy bear. I had just sat down on the couch and he said, “Daddy will you help me with my wagon for Super Bear?” First off, I think Super Bear ought to just walk wherever he wants to go just like the rest of us, and I didn’t want to get up and go out in the dirty, cold garage, but I do want to grow in love, so I went. I want you to know that I’m not trying to brag. I don’t always go. But that’s a good example of a time when I made a conscious effort to work on showing love. We need to seek to love others as completely as God loves us. That takes a lot of hard work. We need to grow in love.
Verse 8 shows us some of the advantages of growing in these areas. The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
If we grow in these areas; character, holiness, maturity and love; we will be effective and productive in our knowledge of Jesus. We will become more and more like him.
We can’t be perfect according to our standards here on earth because we have a sinful nature. But I believe we can get at what Jesus is talking about if our behavior is appropriate for our maturity level—perfect, yet with lots of room to grow. Our tendency to sin must never deter us from striving to be more like Christ. Christ calls all of his disciples to excel, to rise above mediocrity, and to mature in every area, becoming like him. Those who strive toward the goal will be perfect one day, when we get to heaven, even as Christ is perfect.
If we who make up this body of believers called Wesley Church want to achieve the vision that God has for us collectively, we have to do the hard work of becoming who God wants us to be individually. There is an exhortation that bears looking at in the next part of our passage.
[9] But those who fail to develop these virtues are blind or, at least, very shortsighted. They have already forgotten that God has cleansed them from their old life of sin.
[10] So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Doing this, you will never stumble or fall away.
As followers of Jesus, if we don’t grow in character, holiness, maturity and love we are blind and we forget what God has done for us by forgiving our sin. If we work hard to develop ourselves to become more like Jesus, we’ll prove that we really are the “chosen ones.” I don’t want anyone to misunderstand and think that this passage means we can work our way into heaven. Peter is very clear that it is because of our faith that we are made right with God. This “work” to develop our character, our holiness, our maturity and our love comes as a by-product of our faith.
[11] And God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
If we keep working at these things, at the end of our lives, we’ll walk into heaven through gates that are thrown open wide. That is a great picture. God will open wide the gates of heaven for us to enter. We won’t have to squeeze in. We won’t have to push our way in. We’ll walk in through gates opened as wide as they can open.
At the “molecular” level, the church is us, individually. Because of the fact that all of us who have accepted Christ through faith make up the church, it is imperative that we are growing toward perfection. It is vital that we “press on toward the goal to win the prize,” as Paul talks about in Philipians 3:14.
In the critical days of World War II, England was up against the wall. The Germans were relentless in their attacks and the English needed to increase their production of weapons. In order to achieve the increase they had to produce more coal to fire the factories and run the generators. Winston Churchill called a meeting of labor leaders to give them the facts and enlist their support. He spoke in the powerful oratory way that only he had, and he closed his presentation by picturing in their minds a parade which would surely be held in Picadilly Circus after the war was over. First in the parade would come the men of the Royal Navy whom everyone knew had kept the vital sea lanes open. Then would pass the Army who had come home from Dunkirk and then gone on to defeat Rommel in Africa and fight under Montgomery in Berlin. Next would come the Air Force who had driven the Luftwaffe out of the sky and beaten them at their own game. Last of all there would come a great host of sweat-stained, soot-streaked miners. Someone from the crowd would cry out, “Where were you?” And from ten-thousand throats would come the answer, “We were deep in the earth with our faces against the coal.” The crowd erupted in a mighty roar, and many of these tough, hard men had to wipe tears from their eyes as they could picture the scene. Churchill’s story illustrates the importance of the hard work deep in our souls to produce what we need to “win the war.”
In the long run, our purpose of fulfilling God’s vision to become the church that He wants us to be is much greater than winning World War II. Our becoming the church we’re supposed to be will result in people being saved from an eternity in Hell. It will result in people experiencing healing and justice and mercy here on earth during their lifetimes. Becoming the church God is calling us to be has eternal significance that we can not overestimate. But it depends on each of us. It depends on each of us growing. In character, in holiness, in maturity and in love.
I’m going to give you a couple of minutes right now to think about what you can do this week to try and grow in these areas. I have given you a place in your bulletin to write down some specific steps you will take this week to become more like Jesus. Take a minute and fill those out and I’ll close us shortly in prayer. If you would like to come to the altars and pray, you are welcome to do that.
