In Here or Out There?

Posted by on March 2, 1997 under Sermons

Grandma died three days ago. She was 94. The whole family gathered for the funeral. It was the first time since Grandpa died ten years ago that the whole family was in one place at one time.

The funeral is over. By mutual agreement, it was a celebration. A celebration was the only appropriate way to remember Grandma. She was a loving, kind, godly woman who used life well. She was a blessing to her family, to the church, to her neighbors, and to the community. The way she used her life to bless others earned her a reputation that anyone would be honored to have.

Until the last two weeks of her life she lived in the home that she and Grandpa built the year after they married. All their children grew up in that home. It was filled with a lifetime of furnishings and memories. It had a huge attic.

After the funeral, the whole family gathered at Grandma’s house. It just sort of happened that all the brothers and sisters and all the adult grandchildren found themselves together in the attic taking mental strolls down memory lane.

Sitting against a far wall in the attic was an old, old table. At first no one noticed it. Finally someone asked, “Does anyone remember that old table?” It looked awful, but it was sturdy and in good repair. As they examined it closely they could tell that it had been heavily varnished and several coats of paint had been placed on top of the varnish. Slowly, they began to remember. The oldest could remember when it was just varnished. Others began to recall when it was white, or yellow, or black.

Someone wondered if it was worth anything. Someone said perhaps they need to throw it out with all the rest of the junk. But the oldest brother decided he would take it and strip all the paint and varnish off to see what was underneath.

It took a lot of work, a lot of patience, and a long time, but finally he got to the wood. He could hardly believe what he found. It was handmade by an excellent craftsman. And it was made of such fine walnut that such wood is not even available today. The combination of craftsmanship and quality wood made it a magnificent piece of furniture that would grace the finest home with its elegance. It was worthy of any food that could be served on any occasion.

But this magnificent table would have been discarded as junk unless someone successfully removed the paint and varnish.

  1. The church is like that table.
    1. To anyone who looks at in its present condition without bias and with honest eyes, it looks terrible.
      1. Because of its appearance, it is valued only by members of the family.
        1. The church is sturdy and well built, but it is ugly to all who do not love it.
        2. Those who love it value the church more for their past memories than for its present function.
        3. If those who love it were to say what they think in their hearts, they would admit that sometimes they wonder if the church is a junk piece.
      2. The majority of the people in a state or in the nation would not have it.
        1. When they look at it, they find it ugly and offensive.
        2. They do not see any need for it–it is just something that sits around and gets in the way.
      3. Those who love the church and value it are a minority.
        1. They look at it through different eyes.
        2. They see it “in a light” and with an affection that few others can.
      4. Most people think that they would not like to be served in any way at any time by the church.
        1. Just looking at it turns them off; the sight of it causes them to lose their appetites.
        2. It looks downright unsanitary to them.
          1. They see the fighting and arguing about concerns that make no sense to them.
          2. They see bickering, resentments, and ill will among members.
          3. They witness the obvious power struggles as people grasp for power and control.
          4. And they see and hear what they regard to be downright arrogance.
    2. The church has been varnished and painted so many times that it looks like something out of the past that is useless in the world today.
      1. When the people who have belonged to it for years talk about it, they often begin by saying, “I remember when . . .”
      2. It has been painted so many times that most people can’t tell what it really is.
        1. In the 1800s there was a lot of concern over the denominational concept of church, so it was varnished with undenominational varnish.
        2. In the 1900s issues were constantly arising, and with each new issue, it was painted again.
          1. Each debate over issues such as paid preachers, premillennialism, congregational cooperation, and worship issues resulted in it receiving a new coat of paint.
          2. Most recently it has been painted striped–white stripes were applied with conservative paint; gray stripes with progressive paint; and black stripes with liberal paint.
    3. The magnificence, the beauty, and the value of what God brought into existence will never be seen unless we carefully and lovingly strip away all the paint and the varnish.
      1. If we take the time, the patience, and do the necessary hard work to get all the way down to the original table, we will discover a magnificent piece of spiritual furniture hand-crafted by Jesus Christ.
        1. And it is the most unique piece of furniture that has ever existed–there has never, never been anything like it, and there never will be anything to equal it.
        2. This one of a kind, hand-crafted piece of furniture is not only made by the hands of Jesus Christ, but made from Jesus Christ!
        3. Jesus is both the craftsman and the spiritual material–that is why there will never be anything else like it.
      2. When we strip all the paint and varnish off and get down to Jesus Christ, this is what you see.
        1. You see acceptance of any person who accepts Christ no matter what his or her past is, no matter what he or she is or has been.
        2. You see love as it exists nowhere else.
        3. You see kindness as it exists no where else.
        4. You see compassion that surpasses all other expressions of compassion.
        5. You see mercy and forgiveness.
        6. You see joy, and hope, and gladness of heart, and purpose in living.
        7. And you see power, a most unusual power.
      3. Then and only then will the world see the magnificence and the value of the church.
    4. But how do we identify the paint and the varnish to be removed?
      1. We identify the paint and the varnish by allowing the scripture to advance our education instead of assuming we already know everything.
      2. We identify the paint and varnish by holding our basic concepts up to the full light of Jesus Christ.
      3. We identify the paint and the varnish by carefully going all the way back to Christ ‘s teachings.
  2. Let’s begin that process tonight by asking the question, “Did Christ build the church to have an ‘in here’ focus or an ‘out there’ focus?”
    1. As we are studying in the Wednesday night auditorium class, before the church existed, Jesus gave those who would open his kingdom both an “in here” and “out there” focus.
      1. Christians as God’s family are basically committed to evangelism.
        1. We understand that we are to share our Savior and his good news with all people in all nations, and that most assuredly includes all people within our own nation.
        2. We are to go to all nations to make disciples who follow Jesus as Matthew 28:19 encourages us to do.
      2. Christians as God’s family are basically committed to nurturing.
        1. The basic purpose of each New Testament epistle was nurturing.
        2. The epistles were not evangelistic in design or intent.
        3. They were written to help nurture and mature Christians.
        4. We must be just as committed to teaching the baptized to “observe all things” that Jesus commanded as we are to evangelism–that is Jesus’ specific instruction in Matthew 28:20.
      3. I must confess that personally I fear that our discussions of evangelism and edification tend to be more theoretical than practical, more theological idealism than spiritual realism.
    2. Let’s ask the question in a way that reveals a layer of the varnish that has been painted on the church: Which does God love the most:
      1. The church, which is nothing more than those people who have accepted salvation in Jesus Christ?
      2. Or the ungodly world, those people who have not accepted salvation in Jesus Christ?
    3. The answer to that question reveals an important answer to many questions.
      1. For example, should the church have the “defend the fort” mentality or the “yeast in the world” mentality?
      2. What is the “defend the fort” mentality?
        1. This is the thought that Christ intended Christians as the church to isolate themselves from all ungodliness in every place and every form.
        2. We gather up the saved within the church, and we do all that we can to isolate ourselves from the “real world.”
        3. Christians protect the church and each other by creating their isolated community and confining all possible meaningful contact to each other.
        4. We are to be friends only with each other, we are to spend meaningful time only with each other, we listen only to each other, and as best we can we restrict life to Christian contacts.
        5. We keep the church “in here” and we keep the world “out there” and we search for ways to force the world “out there” to conform to our standards and principles whether they believe in Christ or not.
      3. What is the “yeast in the world” mentality?
        1. In Matthew 13:33 Jesus said:
          The kingdom of heaven is like leaven (yeast), which a woman took, and hid in three pecks of meal, until it was all leavened.
        2. The woman took a small amount of yeast and put it in a huge ball of dough, and in time the whole ball of dough rose.
        3. The yeast mentality says, “I cannot have a positive influence on people who do not know or have not accepted Christ by refusing to have any contact with them.”
        4. “Jesus has placed me on this earth as a Christian for me to have contact with unchristian society.”
        5. “They need to see Christ living in me.”
        6. “That is the only way they will understand the value of being a Christian.”
        7. “They need to see the kind of life and relationships built by belonging to Christ.”
        8. “They will never look at the church differently unless they are touched by the lives of those who live in Christ.”
        9. “Therefore, I will have meaningful fellowship with Christians, but I will also have meaningful interaction with people who do not even understand Christianity.”
      4. The “defending the fort” mentality has been very popular since the 1950s.
        1. We painted the church with a thick coat of that varnish.
        2. We made the varnish with a very special blend:
          1. “Evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Corinthians 15:33, King James translation)–what was our message to Christians?
          2. “Abstain from all appearance of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:22, King James translation)–what was our message to Christians?
          3. A strong, reasoned teaching on never doing anything that would give anyone else a wrong idea.
          4. That made a thick, durable varnish, and we put a heavy coat of it on the church.
    4. Jesus said:
      1. We are to be the light of the world (Matthew 5:14).
        1. He said “we” are the light of the world–not our preacher, not our sermons, not our printed material, not our radio broadcast, not our television lessons, but “we.”
          1. All of those teaching approaches are desperately needed and very important–I have used and will use all of them.
          2. But our teaching is believable only if “we” are the light as “we” live in the darkness of the world.
        2. If we confine the light to inside the fort, how will the world ever see it?
        3. Jesus said we put the light up high like a city on a hill where all can see it.
        4. If we are not going to be light in the darkness, what is the point of being light?
      2. We are the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13).
        1. Again, he said “we.”
        2. If we put all the salt in the fort, how will the salt preserve the rotting world?
        3. Again, the salt is not what we teach; it is what we are in our lives, our actions, our relationships.
    5. So we return to our original question: Does God love the church more than he loves the ungodly world?
      1. If we give our reaction answer, we say, “He loves the church more than the world.”
        1. “He loved the church enough to die for it” (Ephesians 5:25).
        2. “He loved the church enough to purchase it with his own blood” (Acts 20:28).
        3. “He loved the church enough to call it his body on earth” (Ephesians 1:22, 23).
      2. But Jesus himself said:
        1. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son” (John 3:16).
        2. “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32).
        3. “Come unto me all you who are burdened and weary, and I will give your souls rest” (Matthew 11:28-30).
        4. There is not one single person in the ungodly world that he does not want as a part of his body (2 Peter 3:9).
      3. And what did Jesus himself do?
        1. He ate with tax collectors and sinners, and was criticized for it (Matthew 9:10,11).
        2. He forgave and encouraged the religious outcasts of his day.
        3. Among those he selected to be his special disciples were some pretty rough fellows.
        4. He even died between two thieves (Matthew 27:38).
        5. Jesus was light in the world; the light did not merely come from what he taught; it came from what he was, what he did, and how he interacted with the ungodly world.

Why did we apply the varnish of our fort mentality? Because we were and are afraid. For at least the last 40 years, the church’s mentality has been formed more from our fears than from our faith. Fear builds forts. Faith is yeast, and light, and salt.

Understanding: The Never-Ending Quest

Posted by on under Sermons

It is fascinating and terrifying to live in the middle of the knowledge explosion. Because we are intimidated by all that we do not know, we often do not realize how much we have learned. This morning I can ask questions about common knowledge that I could not ask thirty-five years ago. Thirty-five years ago, no one could have understood the questions.

Want two examples? Question one: “What happened when the shuttle mission visited the Hubble telescope?” You understand I am asking about the space shuttle and its trip into space to work on the Hubble telescope that provides information about the stars. Had I asked that question thirty-five years ago, no one, including me, could have understood the question.

Question two: “Did a member of your family have a quadruple bypass?” You understand that question. First, I am asking if someone in your family had heart surgery. Second, I am asking if four exterior repairs were made on the heart to remove blockage. Thirty-five years ago that question did not make sense.

All of us understand that with each new decade, there is more to know and more to understand. To refuse to learn the new knowledge and gain better understandings creates severe handicaps.

Just as refusing to learn and understand new knowledge produces handicaps in everyday life, so will refusing to learn and understand new knowledge produce handicaps in our spiritual lives.

  1. New knowledge and new understanding have always presented spiritual challenges to each age.
    1. I thank God that I was not a devout, godly Israelite living in Palestine when Jesus lived and taught!
      1. The Old Testament message of the Israelite prophets had been taught for generations in the Jewish synagogue.
        1. Those prophecies had been examined, analyzed, and interpreted.
        2. The meaning of those prophesies had been determined for a long time, and the majority of religious Israel accepted those explanations as being unquestionable truth.
      2. Then Jesus came.
        1. He came declaring that those prophecies were about him.
        2. He came bringing new knowledge, new understandings, new applications.
        3. He came teaching things that no one ever taught before.
        4. He came challenging those well-studied conclusions that devout Jews held.
        5. The greatest single barrier that prevented most of Israel from accepting Jesus was his new knowledge and understandings.
    2. In Matthew 13, Jesus taught lessons about the kingdom of heaven by using seven parables and explaining two of those parables.
      1. After teaching his disciples privately about the kingdom, Jesus made this statement:
        Therefore, every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household, who brings forth out of his treasure things new and old (Matthew 13:52).
        1. The scribe Jesus refers to is a person who made handwritten copies of Scripture.
        2. He became an expert in what was common religious knowledge.
        3. If he responded to Jesus’ presentation of the kingdom of heaven, he also acquired new knowledge and a new understanding.
        4. He could use the old and the new knowledge and understanding to open God’s treasures to others.
      2. Grasping Jesus’ new knowledge and understandings while he lived was extremely difficult.
        1. Not even his twelve special disciples really grasped his new knowledge and understanding.
        2. I find this statement significant in the Gospel of Luke–it is made on an occasion after Jesus’ resurrection when he appeared to the eleven:
          Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. . . (Luke 24:45)
          1. They knew the Scriptures.
          2. They just did not understand the references in Scripture to the Christ.
      3. Shortly after his resurrection, Jesus was walking with two disciples.
        1. They did not realize that this man walking with them was Jesus.
        2. Jesus’ death confused them because they hoped that he would be the person that God promised would deliver Israel. What they expected and what God intended were totally different.
        3. Earlier in the day they heard the report that Jesus was alive again, and that increased their confusion.
      4. This is what Jesus said to the two men:
        O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
        Beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures.         (Luke 24:25, 27)
        1. They had a lot to learn, a lot to understand that was new to them.
      5. It is clear that the first time Peter understood the full meaning of the prophet Joel’s statement in Joel 2:28-32 was when he explained it in Acts 2.
      6. It is also clear that not even the apostles received a complete understanding of God’s will at one single time.
        1. Peter had his mind opened to understand the Scriptures concerning Christ in Luke 24:45.
        2. Peter understood the full meaning of Joel 2:28-32 on the first day the gospel was preached in Acts 2.
        3. But some time after that, perhaps a year or more, the Lord sent a confused Peter to preach Jesus to some Gentiles.
        4. Only when Peter began to speak to them in Acts 10 did he finally understand a truth that was as old as God’s plans.
          I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears him and does what is right, is welcome to Him. (Acts 10:34, 35)
          1. That is the very first time Peter understood that truth.
        5. Late in life Peter wrote in 2 Peter 3:14-16 that Paul wrote in the wisdom that God had given him, and that some of the things that Paul said were hard to understand and easy to distort. From that statement, I take it Peter was still growing in understanding.
      7. As I said, I give thanks to God that I was not a devout Jew in the first century–it would have been extremely difficult for me to accept the fact that I needed new knowledge and new understanding.
        1. Knowing yourself, do you think you would have quickly accepted the new knowledge and understanding?
        2. Or knowing yourself, do you think you would have fought the new knowledge and understanding?
  2. I believe with all my being that the Bible is God’s inspired word, that it exists through God’s inspiration, and that it is the true authority of God and Christ.
    1. Because I believe that it is God’s inspired word, that it is God’s authority for us, that faith leads me to accept these understandings.
      1. I must never be afraid to learn and understand anything the Bible teaches.
        1. Since I will never possess perfect knowledge, I will always be learning.
        2. Since I will always be learning, I will always need to adjust my understanding.
      2. I must never use my reasoning to discard or ignore teachings that challenge my past conclusions.
        1. I must not ignore any “in context” Bible teaching.
        2. I must not decide that the principles it teaches are unimportant.
      3. I must constantly grow in my knowledge and understanding of Jesus Christ.
        1. Peter wrote that God had granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:3).
        2. My understanding of Jesus Christ must be the foundation of all my spiritual knowledge and understanding.
    2. Someone asks, “Well, doesn’t that frighten you?”
      1. “If you learn something from the Bible that you never knew or understood before, doesn’t that frighten you?”
      2. “If you learn something from the Bible that brings you to a more correct understanding, doesn’t that frighten you?”
      3. “If you learn from the Bible that you need to accept and believe some things that you rejected in the past, doesn’t that frighten you?”
      4. No, it does not frighten me anymore.
        1. Sometimes it makes me nervous.
        2. Sometimes it begins a struggle between my conscience and my understanding.
        3. Sometimes it is hard.
        4. But it does not frighten me anymore.
      5. “Why? Why doesn’t it frighten you anymore?”
        1. Because my commitment as a Christian is to get as close to God and Christ as I can get–in my mind, my heart, my conscience, and my understanding.
        2. Everything I learn and understand just brings me that much closer to God, that much closer to Jesus.
        3. A correct understanding of Scripture will never lead me further away from God, Christ, the Spirit, or truth.
  3. My grandfather on my mother’s side of the family was Granville Martin.
    1. He married a young lady a couple of years younger than himself when he was in his mid-teens.
      1. The first year Joyce and I were married they celebrated their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary.
      2. They lived to celebrate their seventy-second wedding anniversary.
      3. They had ten children, and my mother was next to the youngest.
      4. Before I reached my teens, there were five living generations in that family–we stopped having family reunions when we outgrew the park that we used in Nashville, Tennessee.
      5. All his work life he did hard, manual labor–he worked as a blacksmith then as a laborer in a brick yard for many years of his life.
      6. If I remember correctly, he had about a sixth grade education.
      7. He was a very generous, kind man.
    2. My childhood home was 120 miles from his home.
      1. That was long before interstate highways in Tennessee.
      2. There was a two-lane road coming out of the mountains that passed through every town and all the traffic lights.
      3. Since my Dad commuted 100 miles to work and back five days a week in the other direction, our visits to my grandparents were limited to a couple of times a year.
      4. In my earliest memories of him, he had snow white hair, and a lot of it.
    3. Granville Martin was a very devout, godly man.
      1. He was a diligent student of the Bible–I sincerely doubt that there were many days when he did not read and meditate.
        1. He studied from the King James translation.
        2. I seriously doubt that he would have studied from the Revised Standard translation which was published long before he died.
      2. He was a prayerful man.
        1. The day ended in his home with a family devotional, and if you were there you were a part of it.
        2. On the few occasions that I was there, he led the prayer.
        3. I can still see him getting down on his knees and leaning over his chair.
        4. For years he preached and taught on Sundays.
        5. He was a loved, respected elder in the Park Avenue congregation in Nashville, Tennessee for many, many years.
    4. When I was a sophomore at David Lipscomb College, the Park Avenue congregation asked me to teach their adult auditorium Bible class on Sundays for a semester–that was the class my grandfather attended.
      1. The class was studying 1 Corinthians.
      2. I remember well the Sunday I discussed 1 Corinthians 1:21–that in the wisdom of God it pleased God to choose the “foolishness of preaching” to save those who believe.
        1. The common explanation of this verse is that preaching was a foolish activity.
        2. I pointed out, as I had just learned, that proclamation was the common way to present and spread any message.
        3. The correct emphasis of this passage is that God chose the “foolishness of the thing preached,” the message about the crucifixion and resurrection, to save those who place their faith in the crucifixion and resurrection.
      3. I still remember my elderly, well-studied grandfather telling me after class that morning, “You may be right.”
    5. There are things that I understand from Scripture that my grandfather never had opportunity to know.
      1. Some of those things did not even exist to be known in his lifetime; we can know and understand more about the Bible today than was possible then.
      2. He never had the educational opportunities that I have had.
      3. He never had the learning environment that I have lived in all my life.
      4. Does that mean that my knowledge and understanding condemns him? No, it does not.
      5. Does my knowledge and understanding diminish his faith and godliness? No, it does not.
      6. Does the fact that I know and understand things he did not make me a better man than he was? Absolutely not!
    6. With his faith, education, and opportunity, he learned as much as he could, understood to the best of his ability, and became a devout man of excellent Christian character.
      1. If I am as committed to God as he was, I can do no less.
      2. Within my faith, education, and opportunity, I must learn as much as I can, understand to the best of my ability, and become a devout man of excellent Christian character.
      3. And if I do that, some day a son of mine will say the same thing about me: “Within David Chadwell’s faith and knowledge, he was true to his faith and understanding.”
        1. That will happen because each generation of Christians is growing in its understanding of the mind of God.
        2. That will happen because I already have a son who knows and understands things about Scripture that I will never know–because he has better knowledge, better education, and better opportunity to understand.

As Christians, we desperately need to learn to stop opposing Bible knowledge by creating a battle ground which we divide between right and wrong. We need to understand that much of the time we are making choices and decisions between good and better, not good and evil.

Don’t worship your religious heritage. Worship Jesus Christ. Don’t go to war over your conclusions. Lift up the crucified Jesus. Rightly divide the word of truth.

Greet One Another!

Posted by on under Bulletin Articles

We deceive ourselves when we conclude that being God’s family is more difficult today than it was in the first century. We are deluded when we conclude that it was simple to be a congregation in Jesus’ Palestine or Paul’s Roman empire. When slaves and their owners were God’s family in a first century congregation, it must have been incredibly complicated! Can you imagine working in a slave-master relationship at home and a brother-brother relationship in God’s family? How awkward!

Devout Jews did not socially associate with non-Jews. They commonly had little or no respect for non-Jews who worshipped idols. “Can you believe those people! They call a carved piece of wood or stone ‘god’? How ignorant!” Then, suddenly, a converted Jew found himself brother to a converted idolater–only because they both were in Christ. How awkward!

Non-Jews commonly had little respect for Jews. The non-Jews experienced rejection and discrimination for generations. “Those prejudiced, arrogant people! My money is always good, but I never am! They have absolutely no respect for us! They hold us in contempt!” Then, suddenly, a converted idolater found himself brother to a converted Jew–only because they both were in Christ. How awkward!

Those are three obvious difficulties. They clearly illustrate the urgency of an admonition repeatedly made to Christians. To the Christians in cosmopolitan Rome: “Greet one another with a holy kiss” (Romans 16:16). Twice to the Christians in decadent, sensuous Corinth: “Greet one another with a holy kiss” (1 Corinthians 16:20 and 2 Corinthians 13:12). To the Christians in wealthy Thessalonica: “Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss” (1 Thessalonians 5:26). To the Christians scattered throughout five provinces of the Roman empire: “Greet one another with a kiss of peace” (1 Peter 5:14).

They were urged to recognize the fact that they were family. Being in Christ made them family. They were to greet each other as family, and they were to physically express their family bond. “Greet each other warmly, genuinely, and sincerely.”

Greeting each other warmly, genuinely, and sincerely is no less important today. Because we are in Christ, we are family. That is the reality of our relationship, not a theological technicality. God through Christ made us family. We must build living bonds in that family.

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