Pentecost 10 08/13-06 Text: Ephesians 4: -16 Title: One for all, all for One.
Pentecost 10
Date: 08/13/06
Text: Ephesians 4:1-7; 11-16
Title: “One for all, all for one.”
Heavenly Father, creator and sustainer of all things we humbly come before you this morning realizing that we are not worthy of any of the gifts that you bestow on us. Thank you for sending to us Jesus Christ, your living breathing Word. Calm our minds by taking away all distracting thoughts so that though your words we will be shaped and molded into the vessels you want us to be. Amen.
My sermon this morning is based on God’s Holy Word in Ephesians 4. Would it not be great if our congregation, if the Christian Church throughout the world, were made up entirely of spiritually mature people? It would be wonderful, but as we all know, it is not, and never will be, that is, until the day the Lord comes back.
You have all probably seen, or maybe been involved in situations, in which two very intelligent and sophisticated people just could not work together for the good of the whole because they had different beliefs and contrasting ideas about how things should be done in the congregation. These intelligent and usually loving Christians, who both proclaim their love for the Lord will tie into it, all because each one thinks, they are right, that they are correctly following the Word of God.
There are many reasons behind that behavior, but the main reason is without a doubt, that there are too many people in the average congregation who consider themselves to be independent thinkers, who know what is best for the congregation.
They generally feel that the rest of the people are not spiritually mature enough to understand how the church should worship or do its mission. They are like the Lone Ranger, who as you might remember preferred to work alone. He would single-handily rescue the town from the bad guy, and then with a “high ho Silver”, he would ride off into the sunset to rescue someone else.
Our scripture points out this morning that a congregation that professes to follow Jesus is not meant to be a collection of brilliant Lone Rangers, as well meaning as they might be, but a collection of Musketeers, who work together for the common good, as they proclaim, “One for all, all for one.”
Working together in unity is a much bigger task than you might think, for just studying and working to become well-informed and mature as individuals does not create unity. It is hard to do because to become united is something that none of us can do on our own. It requires a community of people united in a common faith and mission. It requires each one of the community to work for unity.
Our Epistle reading for this morning does not leave us in the dark concerning the matter of Christian unity. Verses 4 and 5 tell us that “we are one body and one spirit because there is one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” I do not see any exceptions to the truths that God had Saint Paul write down that day in jail.
Paul is, as I mentioned earlier writing from prison, so he could write, “As a prisoner of the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling your have received.” In other words, live, as God wants you to live, not as you want to live. He continues, “Be completely humble”. In other words, do not think of yourself as being better than anyone else in the congregation.
As Paul continues to write, he tells us that Christians are to also be gentle. In Greek thinking, gentleness only came after being broken and trained. I want to spend a little time on the concept of gentleness only coming after being broken and trained, for it has implications for congregations today.
There are two ways to break and then train an animal. The first is what most of you are probably familiar with, the breaking of a wild horse. You tied the horse up, threw a saddle on it and then kept riding it until the animal learned that it could not throw you off. You had to break its spirit or will, which was always a painful experience for the horse and cowboy.
In breaking its spirit or will you could then start to train it to do what you wanted, although it would never perform its task willingly, for it was being forced to do what it was doing. It never would become as we say a team player.
In our Wednesday night Bible study each week we discuss the text that I am going to talk about the following Sunday. During our discussion Sue and Chuck Kraeger told us how they use to break and then train the miniature donkeys they used to raise.
They tamed their donkeys with love shown through kindness. The process would start the minute the donkey was born. They would hold it as they dried it off, help it to its feet, so that the newborn donkey would know that they loved it and wanted to do right by it.
As the animal matured, they stayed in close contact with it. They continued to show their love by petting, brushing, providing shelter, good food, playing with it, and rewarding the donkey when it did what they wanted it to do. The result was that they had a well-behaved, gentle, loving donkey that wanted to please them.
I share this with you this morning for many people think that the only way to become a true follower of Christ is to be broken, thus they live in fear of being punished by God. Oh, they know that Christ died for their sins, but they still are afraid of being punished, if they do not do everything just right.
That is not how God wants us to live. He does not want us to live in fear. He wants us to know the power of his love, for after all he came down to be one of us, to die for us, so that we can live in peace with God. God does not stop there, for he gives us what we need from birth to our death. Notice, I did not say what we think we need, but what he knows we need.
He gives us, his people, “one body and one Spirit, just as you were called, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” We are united in the oneness of God.
God does not just tell us that we are to be in spiritual unity, and leave us with that. He tells that we are to also “be patient, bearing with one another in love.”
What does it mean for those in the Christian Church, to be patient, bearing with one another in love? It means that we are to recognize that not all people in the congregation are spiritually the same. There are some who are just starting out on their spiritual journey. They are as God’s Holy Word tells us, spiritual babies, still drinking spiritual milk, while others are more spiritually mature, getting into the meat and potatoes of faith, with a whole bunch more somewhere in between.
You cannot expect a new Christian to behave and know everything a more mature Christian does and knows. Just like those donkeys, we talked about earlier, they have to be treated kindly and shown the right way, all done in love.
The Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a wonderful example of how one remains an individual while being in unity. As we confess in the Athanasian Creed, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are in perfect unity, but each is not the other. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, and so on.
The same is to be said of the Christian community, for in that community our individual personalities, and spiritual gifts are not destroyed, but united in one God, each of us using the gifts God has given each of for the common good of the congregation, God’s church.
The Three Musketeers proclaimed “One for all, and all for one”. We know that in sports it is important to be a team player, to be “One for all, and all for one.”, but for some reason in most congregations that “One for all, and all for one” mentality does not exist, or at least to extent it should and that is sad.
It is sad, because we have the one thing that no other organization has, whether it is a sport team or business team. We have the Spirit of God. We do not have to create team spirit from scratch, for God has given it to his church. It is the Holy Spirit who holds us together, builds us into one team united in one mission, the mission that God has given us, the people of God.
When each one of us, as part of this Christian congregation come to truly believe that “we are one body and one spirit because there is one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”, will we become the people that God wants us to be.
For it is only in God that you can become gentle, as he channels your selfish energies from yourself to caring for others in the congregation. It is only in God that you can have patience with others. Not just ordinary patience, but long-suffering patience as you spare no effort to be in unity.
We must all remember that we are called by God in our baptism to be one, and the realization of what that oneness means for us can help us to grow toward it. Every day each of us can grow, even if just a bit, in faith, hope and love. Every day the whole body of Christ can grow toward the fullness of Christ. Every day we need to be focused on what God intends, the unity of all things in the life of the triune God. For it is only then that we can join together as we sing out, “One for all, and all for one.” Or better yet, “God for all, and all for God. Amen
Date: 08/13/06
Text: Ephesians 4:1-7; 11-16
Title: “One for all, all for one.”
Heavenly Father, creator and sustainer of all things we humbly come before you this morning realizing that we are not worthy of any of the gifts that you bestow on us. Thank you for sending to us Jesus Christ, your living breathing Word. Calm our minds by taking away all distracting thoughts so that though your words we will be shaped and molded into the vessels you want us to be. Amen.
My sermon this morning is based on God’s Holy Word in Ephesians 4. Would it not be great if our congregation, if the Christian Church throughout the world, were made up entirely of spiritually mature people? It would be wonderful, but as we all know, it is not, and never will be, that is, until the day the Lord comes back.
You have all probably seen, or maybe been involved in situations, in which two very intelligent and sophisticated people just could not work together for the good of the whole because they had different beliefs and contrasting ideas about how things should be done in the congregation. These intelligent and usually loving Christians, who both proclaim their love for the Lord will tie into it, all because each one thinks, they are right, that they are correctly following the Word of God.
There are many reasons behind that behavior, but the main reason is without a doubt, that there are too many people in the average congregation who consider themselves to be independent thinkers, who know what is best for the congregation.
They generally feel that the rest of the people are not spiritually mature enough to understand how the church should worship or do its mission. They are like the Lone Ranger, who as you might remember preferred to work alone. He would single-handily rescue the town from the bad guy, and then with a “high ho Silver”, he would ride off into the sunset to rescue someone else.
Our scripture points out this morning that a congregation that professes to follow Jesus is not meant to be a collection of brilliant Lone Rangers, as well meaning as they might be, but a collection of Musketeers, who work together for the common good, as they proclaim, “One for all, all for one.”
Working together in unity is a much bigger task than you might think, for just studying and working to become well-informed and mature as individuals does not create unity. It is hard to do because to become united is something that none of us can do on our own. It requires a community of people united in a common faith and mission. It requires each one of the community to work for unity.
Our Epistle reading for this morning does not leave us in the dark concerning the matter of Christian unity. Verses 4 and 5 tell us that “we are one body and one spirit because there is one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” I do not see any exceptions to the truths that God had Saint Paul write down that day in jail.
Paul is, as I mentioned earlier writing from prison, so he could write, “As a prisoner of the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling your have received.” In other words, live, as God wants you to live, not as you want to live. He continues, “Be completely humble”. In other words, do not think of yourself as being better than anyone else in the congregation.
As Paul continues to write, he tells us that Christians are to also be gentle. In Greek thinking, gentleness only came after being broken and trained. I want to spend a little time on the concept of gentleness only coming after being broken and trained, for it has implications for congregations today.
There are two ways to break and then train an animal. The first is what most of you are probably familiar with, the breaking of a wild horse. You tied the horse up, threw a saddle on it and then kept riding it until the animal learned that it could not throw you off. You had to break its spirit or will, which was always a painful experience for the horse and cowboy.
In breaking its spirit or will you could then start to train it to do what you wanted, although it would never perform its task willingly, for it was being forced to do what it was doing. It never would become as we say a team player.
In our Wednesday night Bible study each week we discuss the text that I am going to talk about the following Sunday. During our discussion Sue and Chuck Kraeger told us how they use to break and then train the miniature donkeys they used to raise.
They tamed their donkeys with love shown through kindness. The process would start the minute the donkey was born. They would hold it as they dried it off, help it to its feet, so that the newborn donkey would know that they loved it and wanted to do right by it.
As the animal matured, they stayed in close contact with it. They continued to show their love by petting, brushing, providing shelter, good food, playing with it, and rewarding the donkey when it did what they wanted it to do. The result was that they had a well-behaved, gentle, loving donkey that wanted to please them.
I share this with you this morning for many people think that the only way to become a true follower of Christ is to be broken, thus they live in fear of being punished by God. Oh, they know that Christ died for their sins, but they still are afraid of being punished, if they do not do everything just right.
That is not how God wants us to live. He does not want us to live in fear. He wants us to know the power of his love, for after all he came down to be one of us, to die for us, so that we can live in peace with God. God does not stop there, for he gives us what we need from birth to our death. Notice, I did not say what we think we need, but what he knows we need.
He gives us, his people, “one body and one Spirit, just as you were called, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” We are united in the oneness of God.
God does not just tell us that we are to be in spiritual unity, and leave us with that. He tells that we are to also “be patient, bearing with one another in love.”
What does it mean for those in the Christian Church, to be patient, bearing with one another in love? It means that we are to recognize that not all people in the congregation are spiritually the same. There are some who are just starting out on their spiritual journey. They are as God’s Holy Word tells us, spiritual babies, still drinking spiritual milk, while others are more spiritually mature, getting into the meat and potatoes of faith, with a whole bunch more somewhere in between.
You cannot expect a new Christian to behave and know everything a more mature Christian does and knows. Just like those donkeys, we talked about earlier, they have to be treated kindly and shown the right way, all done in love.
The Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a wonderful example of how one remains an individual while being in unity. As we confess in the Athanasian Creed, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are in perfect unity, but each is not the other. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, and so on.
The same is to be said of the Christian community, for in that community our individual personalities, and spiritual gifts are not destroyed, but united in one God, each of us using the gifts God has given each of for the common good of the congregation, God’s church.
The Three Musketeers proclaimed “One for all, and all for one”. We know that in sports it is important to be a team player, to be “One for all, and all for one.”, but for some reason in most congregations that “One for all, and all for one” mentality does not exist, or at least to extent it should and that is sad.
It is sad, because we have the one thing that no other organization has, whether it is a sport team or business team. We have the Spirit of God. We do not have to create team spirit from scratch, for God has given it to his church. It is the Holy Spirit who holds us together, builds us into one team united in one mission, the mission that God has given us, the people of God.
When each one of us, as part of this Christian congregation come to truly believe that “we are one body and one spirit because there is one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”, will we become the people that God wants us to be.
For it is only in God that you can become gentle, as he channels your selfish energies from yourself to caring for others in the congregation. It is only in God that you can have patience with others. Not just ordinary patience, but long-suffering patience as you spare no effort to be in unity.
We must all remember that we are called by God in our baptism to be one, and the realization of what that oneness means for us can help us to grow toward it. Every day each of us can grow, even if just a bit, in faith, hope and love. Every day the whole body of Christ can grow toward the fullness of Christ. Every day we need to be focused on what God intends, the unity of all things in the life of the triune God. For it is only then that we can join together as we sing out, “One for all, and all for one.” Or better yet, “God for all, and all for God. Amen
posted by Pastor Rhoads | 12:21 PM
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