Nothing you purchase comes ready to go. You can’t buy
anything ready to use. Everything takes finishing and
finagling before you can use it. You would think that when
you have paid good money for your purchase, it would be
ready. But not so. Something else always has to be done.
You have to unwrap it, cook it, cool it, register it, license it,
clean it, power it, whatever. Nothing is ever really ready to
go.
Even if you accept the fact that nothing is quite ready to go,
you might think that it won’t be difficult to get it ready. But I
call your attention to one of the world’s great
understatements, something that appears on packages all
the time, disguising agonies to come. I am speaking of the
phrase, “Some Assembly Required.” Do you know that
phrase? Have you seen that line? “Some Assembly
Required”?
You met it last Christmas Eve, when, after the youngsters
had gone to bed, you got out the crate that contained a new
bicycle. You thought you would just lift it out of the box and
put it on the road, right? But you hadn’t noticed that little
phrase, “some assembly required”, and you sat up until 3:00
a.m. with nuts and bolts and wrenches and screwdrivers to
build a bicycle. By the way, did you ever find those missing
parts? “Some assembly required”. What a deception! It
should say, “Trained mechanic required”.
But the truth, again, is that nothing is ever really ready to
use. Nothing comes ready to go. Everything takes finishing
and finagling before you can use it. And that is true of faith,
just as it is of bicycles. That is true of your spiritual life, just
as it is of mechanical things. Our spiritual life is going to
need work before it is ready to roll, and, though we may not
have noticed it, “some assembly” will be “required”.
The author of the Book of Hebrews must have seen this
issue in the lives of the earliest Christians, because he wrote,
“[Let us not forsake] the assembling of ourselves together,
as the manner of some is”. It would seem that even at that
early date, some folks were forgetting that their spiritual lives
were not ready to go without preparation. Let us not forsake
the assembling of ourselves together. Some assembly is
required.
Let me tell you the story of a piece of equipment that arrived
this week in the church office. It will illustrate what I am
saying today.
One of our members was good enough to purchase and pay
for a very fine printer, one that we can connect to our
computers and print out posters, newsletters, and other
special items. The printer was delivered this week. Do you
think that it was ready to go the instant it came into the
office? Do you think that all I had to do was wave a magic
wand and the thing began to turn out masterly materials?
Not on your life.
I
First we had to unpack it. It came in a huge thick box, and
once we cut that open, we found Styrofoam packing,
cardboard inserts, yards of orange tape, and several plastic
envelopes with a line marked, “Tear here”, which, of course,
no one other than the Biblical Samson can actually tear. We
had to unpack this critter, and that was quite a task.
A good many of us are like that. There is a lot to unpack
before we can ever even get started on being what God
intended us to be. We hide so much that needs to be
unpacked.
Some of us are holding on to guilt, for example. We did
something we know was wrong. We’ve never told anyone
about it, but we sit all packaged up, deathly afraid somebody
will find out. In my experience, and according to the Bible,
“you can be sure that your sins will find you out.” It’s
pointless to hide guilt, but we do it anyway. We need to
unpack hidden guilt and secret sin.
Or some of us are enmeshed in shame. Guilt and shame
are not exactly the same thing. Guilt is what I feel for what I
have done. It relates to something that I should not have
done, and I know it. Shame is what I feel for who I am, or
maybe for what was done to me. Shame is “just because”.
Many of us have not unpacked our shame. Someone did
something unspeakable with us sexually, when we were little,
and it’s stayed there, because we feel forever soiled. We’ve
never unpacked that. Or someone told us that because we
were black – and not just black, but dark-skinned – we were
not as good as others, and, even though up here in our
heads we know that’s a lie, down here in the tummy we still
feel it. We’ve never uncrated that; we’ve sat on it and
hidden it. Or when we were children, they made us feel
ashamed because we were different – we weren’t athletic,
like the other kids, we had to wear glasses, and, of all things,
we liked to go to school, we took music lessons, and we
went to church every Sunday. The adults applauded all this,
but we longed to have other kids approve us. We felt
ashamed because we just couldn’t be what the other kids
were. You can guess who I’m talking about, can’t you?
Yes, I had to uncrate my shame, I had to unpack my
negative feelings about myself, I had to get that stuff out into
the open before I could begin to become what God wanted
me to be.
The first thing we had to do to get our printer ready to run
was to unpack it. And the first thing you and I have to do to
be what God wants us to be is to unpack our sin, to uncrate
our guilt, to uncover our shame, and then the healing can
begin.
But that cannot happen in a closet. You cannot do that by
yourself. The Bible says, “[Let us not forsake] the
assembling of ourselves together”. Some assembly is
required.
II
Well, after we got the printer out of its package, what do you
think was next? Was it ready to go now? Could I now just
walk away and let it run? Not on your life. Not at all. In fact,
on the side of the carton, there was that awesome phrase,
“some assembly required.” Hmm. We’ll see about that.
What I had in front of me now was a big heavy part, a bigger
heavier part, a cable or two, a plastic thingamy, and
something that looked as though it had fallen off of
somewhere else. What was I going to do with all of that
stuff?
Well, now, you already know that because I am male, and
we brothers do not ask for help from anybody, I started trying
to fit things together. This looks like it should go here,
except that it doesn’t. This cable almost fits in this port, but
almost isn’t good enough. I tried, on my own, to make things
fit, but they didn’t. I attempted, out of my own instincts, to
put together a complicated thing, the likes of which I had
never even seen before, and duh! – it didn’t work.
It’s exactly what many of us do in our own lives. We just go
on the basis of what looks good at the moment, and it
seldom works. It seldom pans out. If I just bop along, day
after day, doing whatever comes to mind, I’ll have a very
busy day, but I will not have accomplished anything except
confusion. When our 17-month-old granddaughter comes to
our house, her little hands get very busy. They grab
everything in sight – toys, books, leaves on the plants,
pictures on the coffee table – she is very busy. But she is
just doing whatever comes to mind, without direction, and at
the end of the day she is worn out and the house is a
shambles! Not much has been accomplished.
Lots of us live our lives just like that. We eat and sleep and
work and play, but where is it all going? What does it all
mean? And if it turns out to be a worn-out shambles, what
do we do about that? Some assembly is required, but how?
When I stopped fiddling with printer parts long enough to
think a little more carefully, I saw something else that had
come in the crate. It was an instruction manual. “How To
Get Started” it said. “Read This First”, it said in very large
letters. You know, it only makes sense, because the
manufacturer of this equipment knows how he made it, and
therefore knows how to assemble it. It only makes sense to
follow his instructions, step by step. In sixteen languages, no
less, lest there be any problem!
Did you know that there is also an instruction manual for life?
Do you know that this human life business is understood by
its manufacturer? Our God has not just dropped us down
here on earth and let us wander without guidance. He has
revealed, in His written word, the Bible, and in His enfleshed
word, Jesus Christ, how life can be put together. I submit to
you that one of the reasons so many of us blunder along
through life, accomplishing little and messing up much, is
that we have never studied, never taken seriously what God
has prepared for us. Oh, we know a snippet here and a
verse there, but do we understand this book? We can recite,
“Jesus wept” and maybe John 3:16, but do we know the
Bible’s themes, do we grasp its plan, do we encounter
through its pages the God who has a plan for us?
Oh, I know we are proud, intelligent, sophisticated people; I
know that many of us have academic degrees, with
accolades ranging from magna cum laude to “oh my lawdy”,
but when shall we learn this: when all else fails, read the
instructions!? When life’s puzzle pieces won’t fit, read the
manual for life! Study it, take it to heart, live by it.
Some assembly is required, and for that, you need the
church and its Bible teaching ministry. Somebody must help
you understand. You cannot successfully guess your way
through life. Some assembly is required.
III
So now – when I had uncrated and when I had read the
instructions – it was at last time to get the parts put together.
It was time to take scattered thingamies and
whatchamajiggers and assemble something that would work.
Brothers and sisters, there is no substitute for assembling
ourselves as the church of the living God, to worship, to
learn, to be equipped to serve. There is no substitute.
There is no such thing as a solo Christian. There is no such
animal as a “do-it-yourself” believer. There is no such
creature as “private faith”. We need each other. We need
each other on a regular, intensive, deliberate basis. Families
need face-to-face encounters. I was touched this week
when our mission pastor, Dr. Adrien, said that he had not
seen his parents for fifteen years, and that he hoped the
Lord would not take him to his heavenly home until once
more he had been to his earthly home. When you are a part
of a family, some assembly is required.
We need to assemble here together precisely because we
do have a guilt problem. All of us have the guilt issue to deal
with. Church is not a place for perfect people to praise their
plentiful piety. Church is a place where we take seriously the
Biblical truth that “all have sinned and come short of the glory
of God”. And we learn here to be the channels of God’s
grace and forgiveness. We need to assemble so that we
can receive God’s forgiveness through forgiving one another.
Jesus said that if we do not forgive others, God will not
forgive us. That means we have to be involved with one
another, and yes, we have to deal with one another’s mess.
Some assembly is required for that.
We need to assemble here, too, because, again, we do have
shame as well as guilt. We are ashamed, all of us, in one
degree or another. We are damaged goods. You may sing,
“Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows but
Jesus”. But I will tell you that when Jesus knows your
trouble, He also puts somebody in your path who can help
you. Somebody who can listen, somebody who has an
answer, somebody is a resource. We need to assemble so
that we can be a community of love, where the wounded are
bandaged, where the heartbroken are cared for, where the
broken find wholeness, and where the lost discover
salvation. To use one of my favorite phrases, we are here
for the last, the least, the lost, and the lonely -- and that
includes all of us! We need to assemble in worship, as a
people of God. Some assembly is required.
I want to read you a few sentences out of a letter I received
this week. It’s from a young man in prison. He is not a
member of our church, but he has worshiped here. He has
attended one of our Sunday School classes, and he feels
connected to us. I cannot say more about him without
violating confidentiality, but I can at least tell you that this
young man is not only paying a legal price, because he is
guilty of breaking the law, but also that he is paying a shame
price, because he was sexually abused (and, if you are
concerned about this, yes, it was by a clergyman; no, it was
not a Catholic priest. Ask me sometime about how we outed
the man and got him out of the ministry!). But .. if you think
that church is a big nothing, that assembling for worship is
largely a waste of time, then hear this and weep:
“... Satan reminds me of how unworthy and criminal I really
am. He tries to convince me that I’ll just end up serving my
full three-year sentence, so why even bother to pray? ... On
this particular night, [I felt] every failure and wrong I have
ever done in my life, my past addictions, the pain I cause to
my children ... My strength left me. But God is faithful. At
the very moment I thought I would be crushed, God sent a
fellow believer, a prison guard, to my cell. .. It was the
guard’s last night working at [this prison]... We had never
spoken to one another. The guard’s words were these:
‘When I first started working [here] I believed that all
criminals deserved the worst, but watching you has changed
me ... Not one night has passed that I did not notice you
praying while I made my rounds. I now see that every
prisoner has the potential to know the Lord.’ [He] stepped
into my cell and gave me one of the most loving hugs I have
ever received.... God has not used me to save a nation ... or
to rebuild ... a city. However, ... His presence in my life has
changed a man’s heart. [I] have a purpose in God’s
sovereign plan, both for me and for that guard.”
Now that’s church. One loves the other, both out of their
neediness, and they are changed. God’s work is done. We
need each other. When we offer forgiveness, we are
forgiven. When we are forgiven, we offer forgiveness.
Some assembly is required. [Let us not forsake] the
assembling of ourselves together.
Conclusion
So – once more, back to the printer. I uncrated it. I read the
instruction manual. I assembled it. Did it work now? Was
there anything else to be done?
Ah, yes, of course. Plug it in. Turn on the power.
[Let us not forsake] the assembling of ourselves together, as the
manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the
more, as ye see the day approaching.
So much the more, as you see the day approaching. These
are urgent times. The day of reckoning is approaching. The
day when my life will be over is sooner than I want to think.
The hour when your life will end is just around the corner.
And who knows all of life will be no more. When that
awesome hour comes, I do not want to be alone. When that
final day comes, I do not want to be forsaken. When the
ultimate issues of life are joined, I want to be embraced by
the Lord, whom I have come to know with intimacy and
power in the embrace of His people.
Plug in the power today. Turn on the power that God wants
to give you. Unpack your guilt, uncrate your shame, listen
for His love. It will be spoken through a brother or a sister,
and it will be the voice of Christ. Plug in the power.
Plug in the power. Join with us in study, join with us in
growth, unite with us in mission, share with us in ministry.
See what we are doing as urgent - the day is approaching.
We do not build for our own glory. We do not erect walls to
shut others out. We seek only to be an instrument of Christ
for the last, the least, the lost, and the lonely. Plug in the
power.
Plug in the power. Let Jesus come into your heart. Just now
your doubting give o’er. Just now, throw open the door. Let
Jesus come into your heart. After all, some assembly is
required.
