Reading: Luke 18:18-30

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It seems like just yesterday I was standing at the altar in a small church in Minnesota promising a young girl that I would “love, cherish, and honor her in sickness and in health for the rest of my life.”  Next month, my wife and I will be celebrating our ninth anniversary.  Where has the time gone?

Someone told me that if a marriage makes it past seven years, then the statistical chances of divorce drop exponentially.  I wonder why that is.  Maybe the first years are so stressful – the adjustments of living with someone new, the major change of caring for a family, and the immaturity of youth are factors that lead to divorce.

Or maybe people learn how to work through difficulty and realize that love is not just a feeling but a commitment as well.

How many times have you heard someone justify their divorce by saying, “We just fell out of love?”  Do you know of couples that experienced the struggle of the “empty nest,” and divorced once all their kids left the house?

Perhaps many failed marriages occur because couples forget the reason for their relationship.  A relationship that was once fueled by passion has fizzled out into a mere business relationship.  “Did you get the kids from school?  What’s for dinner?  Are all the bills paid?”  Romantic dates have given way to the hectic life.  “What is the purpose of your marriage?”  Would love be a part of your answer?

Our reading today in Luke 18 is about purpose and love.  The story is of a rich man who asks Jesus what he can do to get to heaven.  What a typical human question to ask.  As a teacher, it reminds me of all the times my students asked, “What is the minimum we have to do to get an ‘A?’”  This man wants the minimum.

Jesus offers a curious response, instructing him to obey the last six commandments. Of the Ten Commandments, the first four deal with our relationship with God while the last six address our relationship with man. The rich gentleman confirms that he has obeyed those six.  This provokes Jesus to give an even stranger response.  “Go sell your posessions and give it to the poor.”

Why instead of then telling the man to follow the first four commandments, Jesus tells him to do something difficult?  The answer is that Jesus is making a point about the Law.  As Jesus tells the Pharisees in Matthew 22, the first and greatest command is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”  It is what suspends all of the Law and Prophets.   It’s as if Jesus were saying, “Okay, here’s the test.  Here’s what it means to have heaven.  It means to follow me.  It means to love me.  Do you love me more than your stuff?  Would you do this for me?  Would you make this sacrifice, not out of obligation and reward but out of a general desire to follow me?”  The man walked away.

And so with that one response, Jesus tells us what it means to follow Him.  The central purpose for our relationship with God is not to get something but to love someone.

Ephesus left their love for God.  Over time, church became a tradition.  It became a set of rules.  It became a get-together.  It wasn’t about loving Jesus.  Maybe it was about the doctrine.  Maybe like the Pharisees they were so consumed with protecting the faith that they just followed the rules and the policies.  Like the Pharisees, they honored God with their lips but their hearts were far from Him.

Why do we exist as a chuch?  Why do we exist as a human being?  The Westminster Chatechism answers this profoundly and beautifully.  “Man’s chief purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”  Do you wake up in the morning and say, “My purpose today in everything I do is to worship God, to enjoy Him?”  What a discipline that is, but it ought to be our goal – as an individual and as a collective Body of Christ.

Reading: Acts 20:17-35

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A few years ago, I was talking to my friend, who used to attend New Hope Chapel years ago before moving to North Carolina.  He’s the type of guy who likes to get involved in ministry, so at one particular church he attended, he said,  “I’d like to host a Bible Study.” As a former member of New Hope Chapel, he was shocked by the response.  “Sorry, you have to be a member before you can take any leadership role in our church.”

Over the years, churches have wrestled with how to protect themselves – how to effectively keep alert for the savage wolves, the selfish manipulators, and the power hungry about which Paul warned the Ephesians.  Many churches have formed policies like my friend experienced.  Other churches like ours, desirous to encourage involvement from new attendees, have steered in a different direction.  I’m not sure there’s a perfect answer.

In some ways, not much has changed in 2000 years.  As I shared on Sunday, there have been factions within churches and outside groups who have voted out pastors, severely altered the doctrine and practices of the church, and hijacked control of the church’s property.  It’s a frightening reality for many churches.  You can understand why many take Paul’s exhortation in Acts 20 very seriously.

What’s important to note is that Paul’s focus isn’t on policy; it’s on relationships.  Paul encourages the Elders at Ephesus to keep watch.  Like a shepherd watches over the sheep, Elders and Pastors are also to do the same.  How does one watch over their sheep?  Jesus says in John 14:10, “I know my sheep, and my sheep know me.”  The Greek word used for knowledge is ginosko.  It doesn’t refer to head knowledge; it refers to a relationship.  Jesus, our Good Shepherd, has a relationship with us, and he models for us the type of shepherds we need to be.

As Jesus demonstrates, the best way to get to know someone, to get to experience their heart, to see where they’re at spiritually, to evaluate their motives is by building a relationship with them.  Relationships are built through fellowship and vulnerability, and in turn they build accountability and trust.  This is a two-fold commitment on our part.  We have to make time to fellowship together and take our relationships beyond a superficial level.

I’m encouraged to know that if I ever did something really stupid, I would have a bunch of guys from within the church either calling me or knocking on my door, saying, “Justin, what are you thinking?  Let’s talk about this for a minute.”  But those relationships will also cause me to pause and say, “How will my motives or my actions affect these people I love dearly?”  That’s accountability, and it’s part of what Paul means when he says, “Keep watch over yourselves and each other.”

Reading: Ephesians 4:1-16

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Church has evolved quite a bit from the first century that it’s hard to read about these churches  in its proper context.  Today, we have churches at every corner.  It seems rather fitting in our consumer-driven society.  What flavor do you like?  How much Calvinism would you like with your cup of tea?  How high would you like your hierarchical church?  Do you like greater denomination accountability or less?  What type of polity sandwich would you like?  How hot do you prefer your corporate worship – the mild organ or the flaming electric guitar?  Oh, the choices we have!

On one hand, choices are good.  As a friend of mine says, “It takes all types of churches to reach all types of people.” On the other hand, choices can limit us.  They can limit us because what we look for in a church are people who are just like us.  They believe the same things (or close enough to it), they act the same, they look the same as us, perhaps they are in the same economic class.  We go where we’re most comfortable.  That doesn’t stretch us very much, and as a result, we’ve become very bad at working out our differences.

In the first century, because accepting Christ often meant being ostracized from one’s family, finding people who were also believers was everything.  They didn’t have an extensive library on how to live the Christian life, lessons on theology, or sermon podcasts.  Forget the notion of “Bedside Baptist” or “Mattress Methodist.”  For them, church was their community, their kinship, and their family.

There weren’t churches on every corner; generally there was just one for every major city or so. The church had a challenge.  People brought their baggage – their sinful habits, their heresies, their personal problems, their emotional tendencies, their cultural differences to the group.  In 1 Corinthians, we get a hint of just how screwed up that can be. The church had to balance the seeker sensitive and the mature.  It had to take stands on theology, and it didn’t even have a canon of Scripture.  Imagine the difficulty they had in working out their differences.  They couldn’t just leave.  They didn’t have anywhere to go.

Over the years, I’ve seen people leave a church and go to another one for a variety of reasons.  Most of us have done the same.  But can I be honest with you from a leadership standpoint?  One of the most frustrating things is when someone leaves over an issue without trying to help fix the problem.  I could understand it if people said, “I brought this issue up to the leadership months ago and nothing seems to have been resolved, and I’ve done everything I could.”  But many times the individuals do not say anything, let the situation brew, and finally they just leave.  “This is what the problem is, and by the way, we’re outta here.”

Could you imagine having a home with a leaky roof and saying, “Okay family, we’re leaving this house!” No, of course not.  You have too much invested.  Unless you’ve got oodles of money, you’re going to have to sell the home (after you make the necessary repairs) and buy a new one.  You don’t just leave.  You do what you can to fix what’s broken.

Churches are not perfect and never will be.  Period.  That is such a critical point to understand.  We all have issues because the church body is made up of people with issues.  We all bring our baggage to the table.  Nobody is perfect – not the Sunday School teacher, not the Elder, not the Pastor.  We have quirky personalities and odd habits, not to mention our wide spectrum of beliefs.  The key is to commit ourselves to a ministry of love and grace.  Church isn’t just a place to be entertained and be ministered to, it is a place where we minister, and we ought to expect the changing power of the Holy Spirit to work in both our lives and those within our church community.