Practically Sanctified

Mark 11:1-11 “As they approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, He sent two of His disciples, and said to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ you say, ‘The Lord has need of it’; and immediately he will send it back here.”
They went away and found a colt tied at the door, outside in the street; and they untied it. Some of the bystanders were saying to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?”
They spoke to them just as Jesus had told them, and they gave them permission. They brought the colt to Jesus and put their coats on it; and He sat on it. And many spread their coats in the road, and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields.
Those who went in front and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David; Hosanna in the highest!”
Jesus entered Jerusalem and came into the temple; and after looking around at everything, He left for Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late.”

Word of mouth is what it takes to sell something these days, it seems. 2,000 years ago that was the only way not just to sell, but to get news. For 3 years Jesus had been walking around teaching and healing and proclaiming the Kingdom of God. He challenged the Pharisees at every turn. Each year He had come up to Jerusalem for the Passover and this year would be no different – or so the word on the street was. During those 3 years his popularity and following grew. Jesus was coming! Would this be the year He would call down the power of God like Elijah and vanquish the foes? Maybe He would part the enemies like the Red Sea was parted so long ago by Mose. People were saying He was the Messiah, that we would finally have peace and prosperity. He would re-establish the temple worship and no more would we be under the control of someone else.

So in He comes, riding on a colt, the crowds gather and shout, “Hosanna! Blessed be the name of the Lord.” There is noise, a celebration prompted by the entrance to Zion of the Messiah. It is hard to imagine the hubbub, until you remember back a few weeks to the Gold medal game of men’s hockey at the Olympics.  So there’s dust and noise and celebration, and a run on palm leaves as people throw them on the ground for Jesus’ animal to walk on. Flash forward a few days and you see the same hubbub and noise, except instead of celebration you hear the anger as the crowds cry, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”

Why the difference between Palm Sunday and Good Friday? How can you explain the shift in public opinion? For some of it you can blame the religious leaders manoeuvring and back room deals, for inciting blame and even violence;, but that doesn’t account for how much people changed their thinking. This is a valid question for today as we see church attendance on the decline, as we see the emergent church leaving traditional ways and messages and many of them following a modified Gospel message. The truth is, the message never changes from one culture to the next. You and I are loved by the Creator of the universe. He sent Jesus to die for our sins so that we may have relationship with Him as we respond to His gift of grace. So why do people stop following Jesus?

Some people are just in it for what they can get out of it. They jump on any bandwagon that looks successful. These people want their “fire insurance policy” of eternal life but don’t really care for the whole “deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow Jesus” thing. That costs too much, and they are in it for what they can get, not what they can give. Consider Judas. He was probably called just like the others – he just wasn’t coming from a fishing background. Considering he became the group’s treasurer, he probably had experience in dealing with money. He had to leave what he was doing, maybe even a good job, but we also know he helped himself to funds belonging to the followers of Jesus. He was in it for what he could get out of it. When the opportunity came to cut loose of the organization and make a profit, he did. He grabbed his 30 pieces of silver and ran. In the end, he found that all that getting left him empty. He wasn’t happy, and his life ended up being forfeit.

Many in the crowd were like this. They wanted healing or a full stomach, and figured that Jesus was their meal ticket. They followed Jesus and His disciples as they travelled around the countryside.  People use the church like that today. They opt for easy way outs and look for religion to provide. They are more than happy to take, but giving is another matter. When the rubber hits the road, though, they would just as soon as join the crowd shouting, ”Crucify!” and then move on to the next church. The church is community. We are all in this together, as a body. It is about sharing what we have for the benefits of one another, and they do the same for us.

Some people are just in it for the hoopla, the excitement. They crave the adrenaline rush. They are not much different from the first group, but instead of looking for stuff, they are looking for emotion. They want something that makes them feel good. When you look at some of the mega churches out there with wonky theology, you ask yourself, “Why? Why do people go after that stuff?” The short answer is they want something that makes them feel good. They want a religion that says they can have “it” all, and there are no consequences. They want the short cut to health and wealth. They want to believe that they can have it all because they feel they have a right to it all. They get told that they deserve it, that God wants them to have it, and it becomes an emotional high. They get sucked in by the talk and the glitz and if that ever goes, so do they. These people who followed Jesus quickly left His band of followers when the rubber hit the road. They joined the next fashionable crowd, which was anti-Jesus.

Can you imagine going through life like that? Today people hop from church to church for the silliest reasons, rather than looking for the place where they get spiritual nourishment and a chance to participate in the body. The church and Jesus are about connecting to Truth, not just feelings. Truth is not always popular, but we are lost without it. A pastor just had gall bladder surgery this week. He had pain that came out of the blue. What would happen if he ignored it? If he didn’t feel like getting to the bottom of it because he was afraid of what it might be. Something like that is pretty hard to ignore, because your body reaches the limit of pain or endurance where you have to seek help. The truth is he was sick. He needed a doctor’s care. That little red light comes on your dash, saying something is wrong in your engine. What do you do? You tap it a couple times to see if it goes out. Maybe you turn your car off and on again to see if the light comes back on. You drive with it for a while and see if it stays on, and you feel great relief if it goes off. Then it comes back and you think, “Maybe I should do something.” Then it starts blinking… If that light starts blinking stop right away and get it looked at. While there is an outside chance that a sensor may be wonky, a blinking light means something is seriously wrong. How long can you go avoiding the truth? Don’t go for the hoopla and glitz – go for the Truth that will change your life.

Some people seek, but never commit. There are people who followed Jesus but never committed to what He stood for. They liked his ethics and morality, they liked his teaching, they even liked His worldview. When it came to making choices, though, they couldn’t side with Jesus. He was too radical, too much on the edge that He rocked the boat. They wanted truth, but not the hard truth. There was a hockey player that finally made it to the NHL. He put in his time in the Juniors and the leagues below and finally made the big time and was called up to the Montreal Canadians. After consideration he turned it down. He said the NHL life was not what he wanted. When he was faced with the truth of his pursuit, he decided it was not what he wanted. Wow! It shocked a lot of people, but he had some serious soul-searching to do. Those people who were following Jesus like that had no voice when the rubber hit the road. When the time came to make a decision, they too yelled, “Crucify!” They had the right words, but no power – they were hollow. To make a piñata you make a frame out of a balloon covered in paper and flour and water. When everything is dry and hard, you pop the balloon and you have a hollow shell that looks good on the outside, but empty on the inside. When the crunch comes, there is no strength, and the piñata gives in. Make that commitment that gives you a foundation in life.

Each of Jesus’ disciples abandoned him at one point. They struggled with choices when the rubber hit the road. Maybe they struggled with some of these issues, but they somehow found the ability to stay connected with one another, and with God. They found that deep down they had to understand and so they waited upon God, upon Jesus. Not only did God meet them where they were at, Jesus specifically met some of them to restore them. After Peter denied Jesus 3 times, Jesus asked Him 3 times to continue on.

Easter is about restoration. There is the restoration of Peter, of the church; of you and I in Jesus Christ. The simple Gospel is that Jesus died on our behalf. He died while we were yet sinners, while we were far from Him. He is in that process of bringing us near Him so we may see Him for who He is. In 6 days Jesus went from Triumphal Entry to hanging on a cross. What will you do with Him in the days you have this week? What words will come from your mouth when someone asks if you are a Christian? Spend some time with Him and reaffirm your choice to take up your cross and follow Him.

A new year; a new vision. A chance to start over again; to realign our life. God is moving in my thoughts in some very specific ways, and I want to share a bit of that with you. These things are for all of us, even me. These things come as the next step that God has put before us. They come as part of a plan He has for us as a church. I have invited friends here to day so that we can share a bit of who we are and where God is leading us. I have been asking myself a question for several years. “How does discipleship work?” I know there is no one easy answer, in part because we are all unique and need different things in our lives. But I do believe there is a core of knowledge, a core of behaviors that make up a body of discipleship. One of the largest churches in the USA discovered that they had been missing the boat for the last 20 years. Willow Creek has done a phenomenal job of reaching people for Jesus, but they have done a lousy job of seeing people discipled. How do we move pole into a deeper place in their relationship with Jesus. I know it is the work of the Spirit that does that, but God chooses to use us in that process. What can we do with our resources to help you become more Christ-like? I want to leave you with two thoughts. The first is the vision, the picture of what we can be; and the second is some foundational elements that drive our programs to that vision. We don’t do stuff for the sake of doing stuff. We do stuff for a purpose, a reason. First, the vision; one for the men, and one for the women:

Strong Men – it’s a guy thing
When one thinks of men one tends to think of sports. It is the area in our society where men can be men – rough and tumble, mixing it up with roughness. Heroes emerge and we look to the winners or the home team. Where else do we see real men today? Sometimes we find a political figure that takes a strong stand, but often the media represents that man in a negative light as a result. It is hard to be a man in today’s world. What would it look like if we had a church where we understood what it was like to be a man – a godly man?

Luke 2:52 says that “Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and man.” So if the men of our church banded together to challenge each other to go further and harder for Jesus Christ, would you be interested in a church like that? If we encouraged our men to grow in each of those areas of life – physical, intellect, spiritual, and social – would you want to see what God would do with those men? And men – what do you want out of life? Many guys like to cruise, to take the back seat and let others drive. Most often it is the women that pick up the slack… and the slacks! Our “get up and go” got up and left. We believed society and culture telling us that we are powerless, that the time for male leadership is past; that we need to let women be the things that used to be us. So men today are in confusion and stand on shaky ground when it comes to trying to define who they are and need to be today. As a church we want to provide the building blocks it takes to reinvent the Godly man of today.

There’s a commercial on today connected to the Olympics that shows athletes working hard at training and saying victory isn’t about destiny, it is about the months and years of discipline that comes before the event. The same thing rings true for men of today. We don’t just grow into men because we get older or because we get married. We don’t become mature Christians by osmosis or wishing. Men become men by working at it and by the encouragement of others. The verse in Proverbs says that as “iron sharpens iron, so does one man sharpen another.” Don’t read into this more than I have said. I am not advocating a return to aloof and power hungry leadership. I am talking about living out the calling Jesus has on our lives as men. He said that we need to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him. Does that sound like an easy task? Does that sound like something anyone can do without effort and support? The Romans pulled a guy out of the crowd to help Jesus with His literal cross because He stumbled. What if we stumble? Who do we have to help us? That is what the body of Christ is for. The church, our church, is here to help you be all you can be in Jesus. You have marching orders from Jesus. In Philippians 3:12 we read that Jesus laid hold of us for a purpose. Generally we find that purpose in verse 9 – to be “found in Him” with a “righteousness that comes from God”. And this “laying hold of” isn’t just a tap on the shoulder. It grabs and is forceful – do you want to turn your back on that?

Men, you are called to be strong; to reflect the image of Jesus. Ezekiel was a prophet in exile 2600 years ago. He spoke from the banks of the Euphrates River when Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylon. Jerusalem and all Israel were under judgment for being a people of apathy and idolatry. The spiritual walls of Israel were being breached by the enemy. God stood and “looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before Him in the gap.” He found none. Today the spiritual walls of our men and youth and society are still being breached. The enemy is still pouring through the holes with lies and deceptions and false promises. God is still looking throughout the land for men who would build up the walls and stand before Him in the gap.

How this applies, men, is really between you and God. I don’t know what God is calling you to. You may already be fulfilling that place and all we can do is come alongside and cheer you on. Regardless, you are not called to be a lone wolf. Each of us is called to function within a local body, using your gifts to build up not just yourself before God, but everyone around you.

Connected – for Women only
Now you ladies have heard the challenge to men. Don’t think we haven’t got a place and a challenge for you as well. We have, as a society, been inundated with strong feminist ideals. How is it then that we have so many women who don’t like themselves? I was trying to think of what the ideal woman would look like in our community. You can’t define ideal by anything external for the simple reason that God doesn’t look at the externals. Anything ideal flows out of what is inside. My thoughts went to “vibrant” or “full of life”. I pictured someone who was involved and happy and energetic, but I was still seeing externals. Proverbs 31 comes to mind as well, and there is a large online community of women called just that – Proverbs 31 Ministries. My desire as pastor is not to create any mould that people must match in order to belong. I desperately want people to be free to be who they are, to help people throw off the expectations and obligations so that they are free to be themselves – to live in the way they were created. So I asked Bonnie the question, “How would you define the Ideal Woman with one word?” Her answer was what I was trying to speak but couldn’t articulate – Connected.

So think about this: what would it look like if the women of our church were Connected in life; connected to their Creator, to themselves, and to those around them. To be connected to your Creator speaks to your spiritual condition. It speaks to holiness and the Spirit working in and through you.

To be connected to your Creator gives you the foundation to self. It gives you purpose, it gives you direction and focus. Your connection to your Creator gives you what you need to connect to yourself. God loves you.  He died for you, and He lives within you to give you confidence. Your self-esteem should be through the roof because the Eternal God, the Creator of the ends of the earth loves you, relates to you, has gifted you, guides you, and so much more. If God has your back, you can go out into the world and do wondrous things in His power. There is nothing to fear. God calls you to places where your love makes all the difference in the world. He calls you to places that men would be stupid and inept at. He made you for a purpose to, and is calling you to join Him in this wonderful adventure of life.  If I could do one thing for the women of Canada, the women of the world, it would be to let them know that they are accepted just the way they are. The god of this world beats you down in so many ways; but in Jesus you can find strength, acceptance, purpose, and so much more. As a pastor my desire is to make this place a sanctuary where we can all come and feel accepted, and in accepted understand the confidence that comes with God’s Spirit working in and through us.

Having this confidence in yourself gives you the strength to connect to others around you in deep and meaningful ways. Women often do so much for so many already, but much of it is done in isolation, even in the midst of a crowd. My desire is that your connections to other ladies becomes a catalyst for a larger work of God than is possible with everyone doing their own thing. I was so proud of the ladies involved in the Girls’ Night Out event a year and a half ago. We had numerous obstacles, and frankly, some of them were quite large. But the ladies involved and persevered and prayed, and God used us to reach over 200 ladies with the truths of Jesus. We did that. Us! We have also had some 70 women of Saskatoon go through 2 Your Best You conferences here in Saskatoon; another 40 in Olds, and an expected 40 the end of this month at the Bridge on 20th. No one person could do this alone. You have prayed and pulled together when needed, and given of your time and allowed others the freedom to do what is needed. God has much more in store for you ladies and for us as a church in the months and years to come. Isn’t it exciting?

So, here is the challenge for men and for women. How are we going to do it? It is one thing to get a vision and get all excited, but another to plot the way to reach that lofty goal. The Biggest Loser TV show takes obese men and women and through a combination of diet and exercise gets them to lose weight. How does one lose 213 pounds? The answer is one pound at a time. Every journey starts with a single step. The road to the grey cup starts at the first training camp with a sit down like this. The coach looks at his players and asks, “Why are we here?” Are we here to get some fresh air and exercise? Are we here to settle for 4th place? Are we here to get a big pay cheque? No! We are here to win; to win the Grey Cup. It starts today with this list of drills and skills development activities. And tomorrow we will do these ones… and so it starts.

And so we start here at Louise Street Community Church of the Nazarene. All that has gone on before has brought us to this point.  I don’t know all your commitments, but plug in when you can. Make following Jesus your top priority. This church is only one of many ways you can do that. I am not offended by people who go outside of what we have to offer so they can get what they need. We are all on the same team. My responsibility is this group, and so I teach and organize and equip with the resources at hand. Here are three things that are part of our game plan:

1. Identity in Jesus. At this church we focus on who you are in Christ. You will hear it from the pulpit, you will hear it in Sunday School, and if you phone me and ask, you will hear it on your cell. Don’t compare yourself with people around you – look to God instead. He is the one that loves you with an undying love that caused His Son to give up His life for you. He has promised to provide all that you need for today, both physically and spiritually. His Holy Spirit is at work in your life, quickening you with His eternal purposes. This is fundamental to our church.

2. A Focus on the Word. You will not get far in any argument with me if you do not bring Scripture to the table. My ministry and the ministry of this church is founded on the Word of God. I preach it on Sundays; it is taught in Sunday School, and if you phone me up… well, you get it. This book really is our playbook. The stories and truths it contains provide guidance and principles for us to live by. I will always challenge you to get into it. I was encouraged this week by one of our members who mentioned he was working on reading it through this year, as he has the last couple of years. Wow! One of Bonnie’s blog friends talked about how she tries to do that every year. She mentioned how she always fails, but that she knows the book of Genesis really well.

3. A Foundation of Prayer. This is another key element, without which we will not survive. You are a praying people. And we will continue to provide opportunities to do that, both individually and as a group. We will be starting a men’s weekly prayer group with a study. On top of that the men will be challenged to work through a booklet called Herald of Christ for Men. Who knows what God will bring out of that? Your Best You conferences will continue to be held, but we will also be starting a women’s prayer group. There is more that we will be doing in time to come, but know that God is leading and guiding us into some exciting times. Consider how you can be apart of what is happening here at church.

Ephesians 2:13-22 “13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, 15 by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, 16 and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. 17 AND HE CAME AND PREACHED PEACE TO YOU WHO WERE FAR AWAY, AND PEACE TO THOSE WHO WERE NEAR; 18 for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, 21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”

Introduction:

One of the temptations we often fall into in the Church is to think of the Church as a building. In the New Testament the Church is never a building. It is always a group of people gathered to worship God and to build each other up as the Body of Christ. Most of the churches of New Testament times met in houses or rented rooms, though some met outside. For several centuries the Church did not have legal status. Illegal organizations do not build buildings and put their names on those buildings. The New Testament uses a variety of images to describe the Church: the people of God, the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, the believers, the saints, the elect, and the field of God to name a few. The New Testament also speaks of the Church as the Temple of God. It uses the metaphor of a building to describe the Church, but it is not the building as building that describes the Church. It is the purpose and function of that building—the Temple of God—that describes the purpose and function of the Church.

Temples were noteworthy for several reasons in the biblical world. They were thought to be the dwelling place of the deity. They were sacred spaces where sacrifices were offered and worship was given. Temples brought people together for a common cause greater than local or even national interests. Often temples were the largest and most beautiful buildings in the city. They were monuments to the great devotion given to the god worshipped there. These characteristics of ancient temples suggest reasons the apostle Paul described the Church as the Temple of God even though he knew very well that the Church was a people, not a building.

The Church is a dwelling place for God (verse 22)

Paul declares in Ephesians 2:22 that in Christ “you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” The root idea of the word “dwelling” is house or home. The Church is to be a place where God is at home. This implies several truths. First, if the Church is God’s home, then God must be present in the Church. This means that Church is not primarily a place to talk about God or to do things for God. Church is a place where we are with God. And since Church is not a building, it is a group of people among whom God is present. If we gather for Church but God is not present, the fundamental reality of the Church as Temple has not happened. In 1 Corinthians 14:25 Paul describes what should happen when an unbeliever or someone who does not understand meets with the Church. That person “will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, ‘God is really among you!’” When neither church members nor visitors recognize the presence of God, then Church as the Temple of God has not happened among us.

A second implication of God being at home in the Church is that God must be host rather than visitor. Because Church—the gathered people, not the building—is God’s home, He is in control of the activities and sets the agenda. One might think we are confused about whose home it is because we often treat God as the guest and act as if the Church belonged to us. If God is the homeowner, then His values will be those that are lived out in the Church. If God is the homeowner, the Church will become a reflection of His character and interests, not ours.

A third implication of God being at home in the Church is that the Church must be a place where God is comfortable. We do not have to prove ourselves at home. We are accepted for who we are. If God is at home in the Church, we will not ask Him to prove himself. We will accept Him for who the Scriptures reveal Him to be.

The Church Is Built With People (verse 20)

Ephesians 2:20 declares that the Church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” The chief cornerstone was the first stone put in place in an ancient building. Its length and width edges had to be straight and perpendicular because the walls were laid out by sighting along the edge of the cornerstone. Its vertical edge had to be straight and perpendicular because the walls were aligned to that edge. If the cornerstone was not perfect, the walls of the building would not be straight and might collapse. Paul’s point is the Church always looks back to Jesus for our bearings. If we align ourselves with Him, the Church will be straight and will last. If we become out of alignment with Jesus, the Church will become misshapen and liable to collapse.

1 Peter 2:5 further describes the Church as built of “living stones.” This describes the individual believers that become part of the Church. This means the Church must be highly personal and relational. We exist as people in a relational structure, not as occupants of a building.

We are not free to determine the shape of the Church. Its dimensions and shape were laid out in alignment with Jesus by the apostles and prophets of the first Christian century. Each successive generation consists of more people placed as living stones in the building called the Church. Inanimate stones fit quietly beside each other in a physical building. Being living stones set together in the Church can be more challenging. Sometimes we are put in the wall beside other stones we would prefer not being with. It is not our task to change them or to seek another place on the wall. Our task is to align ourselves with Jesus and to live in grace and peace with the other stones seeking to be together the dwelling place that pleases God.

The Church is a holy temple (verse 21)

1 Corinthians 3:17 declares, “God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.” It is hard to be clearer than this. The Church must be holy because it is the Temple of a holy God. A holy God cannot be at home in an unholy temple. A holy God who builds His Church with living stones demands that those stones be holy. Because the Church is God’s and not ours, the Church’s holiness must be God’s holiness.

As the Temple the Church is designed to display God to the world. A church that is not holy provides false advertising about God. We might despair of ever accurately portraying God to the world except for the fact that we have a living example of what such a life would look like. It would look like Christ. Thus the holiness required of the Church means submitting to the discipline of allowing the Spirit to form more and more Christ in us, Christ among us, and Christ through us. The ultimate purpose of the Church as God’s Temple is to bring glory to Him.

Take it home

Don’t hinder God’s presence, in your life or in this community. How do we hinder? Unconfessed sins, stubbornness/hardheartedness, grieving the Spirit.

Focus on relationships, both with God and people. How do we do this? Dialogue/communicate (prayer), Find a way to work together, Look for needs you can meet, Get out of your comfort zone.

Practice love, both to God and your neighbour. The great Commandment. How do we do this? Live out grace (includes initiative, forgiveness), Live in Hope