TOUCHING HOME
PLAY TOGETHER
DR. JIM DIXON
2 PETER 4:7-11
SEPTEMBER 11, 2011
Not all sports are team sports. For instance, I used to throw the Javelin in college for all four years. I was a Javelin thrower. After college I threw the javelin for a track club called the Southern California Striders. Javelin throwing is simply not a team sport; nobody wants to play catch with you. All across this country there are states that have banned javelin throwing at the high school level and colleges and universities some of them require that the javelin throwing competition actually take place on a separate field away from all of the other track and field events. It is not exactly a team sport. I hope you understand that we are the church, we are the body of Christ and we have been called to play together. We have been called to come together as a team. Christianity is a team deal. This is the will of our Lord and Savior. This is the will of Jesus Christ. Today, I want us to look at two things: first of all, our common cause. We come together in a common cause. I want to begin by taking a look at a little video regarding 9/11. Let’s look at this
…I think it is true that in the aftermath of 9/11, this country came together. I believe that we came together in common cause and we have a common cause. A cause that in our midst of diversity as Americans unites us. That common cause is liberty; liberty and justice for all. That common cause is democracy, democratic freedoms, civil rights, civil liberties. We believe in justice and due process, but there are enemies of liberty in the world. As Americans we need to stand united. We are gathered here today, not simply as Americans, we are gathered here as Christians.
As Christians we serve a higher kingdom. As Christians we do not battle against flesh and blood but against the principalities, against the powers, against the rulers of the present darkness, the spiritual host of wickedness in the heavenly places, we battle against all the powers of darkness and we battle against the Devil himself. We are engaged in a struggle for the souls of men, women, children the world over. This is the cause of Christ, a common cause for the church and this common cause unites us. You might say, “Well, how do we really define our common cause as a church?” Our common cause is stated in Matthew 28, that common cause is stated in Acts chapter one, that common cause is stated in Mark’s gospel the 16 chapter. And what does Mark 16, Acts 1 and Matthew 28 have in common? They have in common the Great Commission. They all have the words of Jesus Christ and the call of Christ upon the church to fulfill the Great Commission that we are to go into all the world. We are to go into every nation, we are to go to every ethnicity, we are to go to every language group and we are to invite people to receive Jesus Christ and to follow him, to become his disciples. The time is critical for us as Christians.
I think every Christian in the world today needs to do a little bit of triage. Do you know what triage is? Triage is a French word and it means to sort. In hospital emergency rooms they must do triage. My son is a doctor; he has worked in emergency rooms in many hospitals. People come in all kinds of dire straits and you have to do triage, you have to sort through what is most important. You have to determine your priorities. That is how it is in the world today as you live out your lives; we have to figure out what is most important, what really counts and how to sort this through.
Fortunately, in the Bible, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus does triage for us. What does Jesus say to us? He says, “Seek first the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness.” That is what counts, that is what is most important, and that is where you need to make your priority, with the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness. We have a common cause because we have the Great Commission. We go unto every ethnicity, we go the world over, we invite people to become disciples of Christ and to join in the seeking of the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness. This is our common cause. Frankly, when the church of Jesus Christ is distracted, when the church, in any generation fails to have this common cause, when the church loses its focus on the Great Commission, loses its focus on the kingdom of heaven, loses its focus on righteousness the church loses power and the church begins to fail. We live in critical times. We might come together in common cause.
I think the cause of the kingdom of God and the cause of Christ is oftentimes misunderstood and has been misunderstood throughout Christian history. The armies of the Muslim world, under the leadership of Saladin, waging war against the armies of the Christian world, the armies of Jerusalem, under the Leper King. This was the crusades. Muslims and Christians are waging war and doing battle over the city of Jerusalem and over many other sites in the ancient world that had been seized by Muslims from Christians. It was, on the part of Christians, a complete misunderstanding of the call of the gospel and the cause of the church. It was understandable because the Muslims, for 350 years, had seized Christian lands and Christian cities and Christians wanted to take those cities and those lands back. Understandable.
But the church of Jesus Christ has not been given the sword. We have been given the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, but we have not been given the physical sword, we have not been called to wage physical war. Islam has been a militant movement from the beginning and Muhammad was a militant leader. Jesus Christ has not called the church to militant action and he was not and is not a militant leader. He will come again, and he will come in power and great glory, and he will come with the armies of heaven and the kingdoms of this world will indeed become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. Now, we are called as his people, the church, to be people of peace. Our great cause is not militant. Our great cause is to take the gospel of Jesus Christ and the message of the cross to the nations and risking our lives as we go into other parts of the world and into other cultures with the love of Christ. The cause of heaven and its righteousness, we are to seek righteousness in our own life and righteousness on the earth. This is the cause that unites us and brings us together.
I know some of you have probably heard of John Huss. I wished all of you knew all about John Huss. I think in the Christian histories in the Christian world, very few have been as great and as anointed of God as John Huss. He died in the year 1415. He was martyred by the church. The church snuffed out the life of John Huss. Why was that? It was because John Huss, who was a pre-reformation reformer, said, “The soul authority in the life of the church is Holy Scripture, the Bible.” For that he was killed. John Huss said, “The soul head of the church is Jesus Christ.” For that he was killed. He was not anti-papal; he wished the pope well. He wanted all the popes throughout Christian history to serve well, but he believed that popes were sometimes wrong and sometimes in disagreeing with the popes you were actually honoring Christ. For that he was killed, he was martyred.
Upon his death, many of his followers, many in Bohemia, many in Moravia, gathered together and formed a kind of Protestant denomination before the rise of Protestantism. It was called Unitas Fratrum, unity of brothers. They drafted their own document, their own creedal statement. It focused on the authority of Scripture, the headship of Jesus Christ and the statement that there is no Christianity without community. Unitas Fratrum. You scroll forward in history and you come to the eighteenth century and you see Protestants being persecuted throughout the European world and many of them are being incarcerated and some of them are being executed and they are looking for places of safety. In the early 1700s there was a man named Count Nicholaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf and he was an Austrian ruler and a member of the royal family and extremely wealthy. He had a vast estate in Saxony. He was a lover of Christ and a lover of liberty and religious freedom. He invited all the Protestants to come to his vast estate in Saxony and to live in safety under his protection. Protestants came, including many Protestants from Bohemia-Moravia. They formed a city, a town, right on his vast estate called Herrnhut, the Lord’s watch.
That is where all these protestant Christians found safety, under the protection of Count Nicholaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. In 1737, von Zinzendorf found the original document, the Unitas Fratrum, with all of its beautiful statements. As he read it he was blown away. He realized he agreed with everything in that document and the whole reformation had really been in agreement with that document. He knew that the document had greatly influenced Martin Luther. He took the document, the Unitas Fratrum, to Herrnhut, to the Protestant Christians there. They all went through the document there in amazement. They agreed they would rebirth this Unitas Fratrum; they would rebirth that Protestant church. They called it the Moravian Church.
The Moravian denomination continues to exist today, with 600,000 members. They began the modern missionary movement. A lot of people trace the modern missionary movement back to William Carey, with the missionary activity in China. They call William Carey the father of modern missions. It was 70 years earlier; it was the Moravians. It was the people of Count Nicholaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, they sent for the first missionaries of the modern missionary movement. Two hundred and twenty-six missionaries were sent forth before the death of von Zinzendorf to the nations all over the world. Common cause that they might take Jesus and the message of the cross to the nations, that they might make disciples of Christ, that they might seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. They did this in unity, they did this as a team and that is why the Moravians had that hundred-year prayer meeting that they might bathe the team in prayer. Twenty-four women and twenty-four men each committing to an hour a day so that a woman and a man were both praying for an hour every hour of the day, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year for one hundred years because they were a team.
What were they praying for in that hundred-year prayer meeting? They were praying for the cause, they were praying that message of Christ, the message of the gospel, the message of the cross might go out to the nations, they were praying for the safety of the missionaries, for the empowerment of the missionaries, for the presence of the Holy Spirit, they were praying for the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness. They did this together in unity. We stand here today, we sit here today, we gather here today and we are the church of Jesus Christ. We need to be united in the cause if ever the church needed to be united. We are so distracted by so many gods, so much materialism, so much hedonism, so much egoism, so much ascentionism, all kind of isms and very little passion for the cause. We need the Holy Spirit to descend upon us in power and change us. We are the church.
We share not only common cause but one other thing. We share common goods. I want to make sure we understand as we come to the table this morning. We share common goods. If you read Acts chapter four and you see the early church in the city of Jerusalem and how they had this love for one another, a love so deep that they held things in common. We read in Acts chapter four how many of those in the early church sold their possessions and gave to a community purse that the poor amongst them might be provided for. They regarded nothing as their own, but had common goods.
This was not socialism, this was entered into, not by compulsion, this was entered into voluntarily. It was voluntary and it was heart-felt and it was based in love. It was not socialism. It was not only not under compulsion, but it was not mandated. If we read Acts chapter four and other passages, it is very clear that the church of Jerusalem, the church varied. Some of them still owned private property, some of them sold some of what they had, some of them sold all of what they had but they all had this love for one another and they wanted to meet the needs of one another. Common goods.
There is a passage, a communion passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 that is related to common goods. I want to take a moment and look at it. This passage in 1 Corinthians 11 regarding Holy Communion is so misunderstood. In this passage, the apostle Paul warns the Christians at Corinth that they are abusing Communion. They are not discerning the body and the blood; they come to the table and partake of the bread and the cup unworthily and therefore Paul tells them some of them are sick and some of them have died.
I remember as I was growing up pastors taking us to 1 Corinthians 11 and warning us about taking Communion improperly and that if we took Communion in an unworthy manner that we might get sick and we might die. I remember as a kid being afraid of Communion, being afraid to come to the Table. I remember thinking of myself as unworthy; therefore, I might bring judgment upon myself and might become sick and die. Of course, I heard many pastors say, “You shouldn’t come to the table unless you have repented of all sin and you are walking the straight and narrow and you have got it figured out and you are living right. You can’t come to the table with any known sin.” I remember how scared I was.
Now I look back, having studied Scripture and having studied 1 Corinthians chapter 11 for myself and I think it is so tragic. I think it is so tragic that this passage of Scripture has been so misunderstood. Communion is for sinners. We are all sinners in desperate need of grace. I hope with all of my heart that as we come to the table we come in repentance and I hope that as we come to the table we come with a hunger and a thirst for righteousness. But we come as sinners. I hope you understand that sometimes this battle against sin in some ways is lifelong. Some sins take a lot of time to overcome. This is particularly true of sins like gossip and slander. It is true of sins like pride. It is true of roots of bitterness. It is true of lust. It is true of the addictive sins. People who believe in Christ should come to the Table seeking his mercy and his grace and his strength and his power for victory and that they might overcome. Don’t be afraid to come because you are a sinner. What a tragic misunderstanding of 1 Corinthians 11.
What is 1 Corinthians chapter 11 really saying? If you look at it contextually it is very, very clear. Paul is saying that in the church of Corinth there is an abuse of the Lord’s Supper taking place. At the church of Corinth there are rich people and there are poor people. You have to understand that at this time and in this part of the Christian world Communion was a full meal, it was associated with the Agape Feast. It was a potluck. It was taken in the context of this potluck; it was how the church showed its love for each other. People brought their own food and their own drink and they shared it, they held it in common. The rich brought a lot of food and they brought a lot of drink. Many of the poor people couldn’t really bring anything at all. Many of the poor people looked forward to this weekly agape meal and celebration of Communion as their one good meal of the week. Paul said something had gone wrong in Corinth. As they came to the Lord’s Table, for the agape meal, the love meal, the rich people just ate their own food and did not share it. They were being gluttons just stuffing themselves. They brought their own wine and they drank it freely until they were drunk.
The poor people in the church had nothing. Paul said, “What? Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in?” He didn’t mean it is okay to be a glutton at home and he didn’t mean it is okay to be a drunk at home. He just meant that if you are going to abuse food and drink it is better to do it at home than in the church, better to do it at home than in the context of the Lord’s Supper and Holy Communion. Because you are doing this, that is why some of you are sick and some of you have died. It is gluttony and it is drunkenness and worse of all it is oppression of the poor and a violation of the very church of Christ because he has called us to hold things in common and to come together with common cause and common goods.
You might wonder that why it is after every Communion service as we send the congregation out into the world, you might wonder why we take an offering at the door after Communion. You notice as people leave and you notice as people go out that we have an offering at the door. You might be thinking, “Oh man, they want more money. They want money again.” I hope you understand it is about common goods and the poor amongst us. You know in this congregation, in this flock, we have people that don’t know how they are going to put food on the table. We have people who can’t pay their bills. We have people who are out of work and have been out of work for months; even years and we are trying to help each other. Common cause and common goods.
So, when you give after a Communion service that money all goes into a pot so we try to help each other and see each other through tough times. We are the body of Christ. We are the church. You are going to come forward, many of you, after the service today because after every Communion service we have our elders here and our elders stand down front and bring oil and as you come for prayer, they anoint you with oil and they pray for your healing. As you come with any prayer request, we pray for you. We want you to come with your thanksgiving too. I would love to have you come and say you want to have an elder pray over you because of the way God has blessed you in this way or that so that we could pray prayers of thanksgiving as well. It says in 1 Corinthians 12 that when one suffers, we all suffer together and when one is honored, we all rejoice together, we all celebrate together. Together. We are the body of Christ; we are the church and we have common goods. These common goods are not just material, they are not just financial; these common goods are even our talents and our abilities we offer in the service of each other.
We have used a lot of baseball metaphors in the last few weeks. One of the baseball metaphors I want to use in this moment concerns the role of the closer in baseball. I love the role of the closer. The closer is the guy who pitches in the ninth inning. Usually, the closer is brought in when the team that is ahead is ahead by one, two or three runs. What the closer is supposed to do is save the game, keep the other team from coming back, keep the other team from tying the game, and keep the other team from scoring runs so the team that is leading doesn’t blow it. On the Colorado Rockies, the last two years, our closer has generally been Houston Street, who by his own testimony loves Christ and is a wonderful Christian. Houston Street has been injured a lot and more recently we have used Raphael Bettencourt. Houston Street, as a closer, has 29 saves out of 32 possibilities. Thirty-two times he came into the game when the Rockies were just ahead by one or two runs and 29 times he held on and saved the game. You see, he didn’t do it for himself. He didn’t get the win; the closer never gets the win, almost never. The closer is saving the game for some other teammate, another pitcher gets the win. The whole team together gets the win, but in baseball there is this beautiful imagery that you see so often of people doing things, contributing their talents, their abilities for the sake of the whole, for the sake of each other, for the sake of the teammates and for the sake of the team. That is the body of Christ and that is how we come together and do what we do.
I really want to encourage you to take seriously what Mark said earlier today about coming into a Community Group. We are the church; we are the body of Christ. Would you like to be experiencing a little more common cause and a little more common goods? Would you like to be in a group where you felt always prayed for? Always cared for? Always loved? Would you like to be in a group where you can care for and love others? Would you like to be in a group like that? That is why Mark is telling us today about Community Groups. We have 600 Community Groups through the church and we have so much more but we don’t have enough group leaders, group facilitators. So, on September 22, on that Thursday night, we are going to have a time for all of you who are willing to be group facilitators to come. You can sign up today out in the lobby or the atrium at the table. This is such a critical thing because the call of Jesus Christ is that, “I will build my church and the powers of death, the gates of hell will not prevail against me.” We are the body of Christ; we are to come together with common cause and common goods.
I want to tell you a story before we come to the table. I want to tell you a story about a church in England. I just read about this yesterday in Christian Century magazine. This is a church in northern Yorkshire, England. It is a church called St. Hilda’s and it is an Anglican church. They just closed their doors and shut down. It was an 11th century church. The church has been serving Christ for 1,000 years and they just shut down and closed their doors. Why? Well, according to Christian Century, it was because of bats in the belfry. How incredible is that? Literally, bats in the belfry, an infested belfry of the church. Bats are a protected species in England. The church asked the government for permission to remove the bats and relocate them and the government said no. The church raised thousands of dollars to create a different habitat for the bats so that they could move them in a loving way and the government still said no. So, they could do nothing. They tried everything but the bats were still in the belfry and bat droppings were all over the church. People just didn’t want to come to a church where they had to deal with bat droppings everywhere, so they shut their doors. I have got to think that this is rare. I have got to think in church history has this ever happened before? I can’t imagine that there is any other church that shut down because of bat droppings. This might be the only one.
I will tell you why a lot of churches do shut down. They shut down because of what we might call church hoppings. It is not droppings, it is hoppings. There are just people all over the church world who are hopping from church to church. A lot of them begin by church shopping and after they shop, they hop. There are winners and losers in the deal. Many churches just don’t’ survive. There are a lot of reasons why this is happening. Some of it just has to do with the consumerism that characterizes our secular culture and world. Everybody is looking to one up what they have got. I think, too, people church hop because they haven’t found community. I think a lot of time people church hop because they really haven’t found community. Do you realize how critical this is that we offer and provide community? That as a congregation you do your part so that we can play together, work together and be a team? Don’t forget September 22. Don’t forget that Thursday night. Don’t forget the table in the lobby or the atrium. This is what it means to be the church that we might come together with a common cause and with common goods and be the body of Christ. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer before we come to the Table.