A Spiritual House
(Acts 2:42-27; 1 Peter 2:2-10) J G White
10:30 am, Sunday, May 11, 2014, Windsor UBC,
Weathervane at Parrsboro Baptist Church: breaking, and fell. Eight foot aluminum cross on Windsor Baptist steeple: wobbling, and fell. Wooden cupola cross at Windsor Baptist: rotting, fell.
Support posts at Windsor Baptist: due to be repaired immanently. Just like the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ. His arrival has been imminent for 1,985 years!
Be built into a spiritual house. Jesus the Cornerstone.
To build a spiritual house is to build a household, a family of sorts, a faith community. Things made of metal or wood or glass are tools for the living Church to use.
On a day when many remember and honour motherhood, it’s a good day to consider how we build a faith family. At the heart of our existence as a local church are our get-togethers, so often for worship. You know me; worship remains a main interest of my life, and a central focus in my ministry as a pastor.
It continues to be helpful to for us all to go back, again and again, to the inception of the whole, worldwide Church. We get these wonderful glimpses of the first Christian Church ever, in Jerusalem. We read about these folks, and God the Spirit with them, in Acts 2. I want to pay attention to four elements of the worshipping community, and yes, this preacher is still old-fashioned enough to alliterate: Preaching, People, Prayer, and Praise. (Maybe there will even be a Poem at the end!)
PREACHING
What is the central activity of a worshipping community, such as the first Church in Jerusalem, or this latter-day Church in Windsor? Teaching and Preaching? The instruction, the information, the facts?
We are told in Acts 2:42 They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. The first apostles of Jesus taught about His life and impact, and how to be disciples of this Master who was still active, by His Spirit.
Is a Church mainly about true information, what we preach?
The founding pastor of Windsor Baptist was David Nutter. (I have always tried not to make jokes about this Church being founded by a “Nutter”.) When thirteen people were organized to form this congregation, December 2, 1819, the Pastor spoke to them from 1 Timothy 3:15, which refers to the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.
There is a need for truth - from God - when we are the gathered community. There is also the need to work together on knowing the truth and putting it into practice. It is so obvious that believers in Jesus do not all agree about so many things.
I attended a little men’s retreat recently. In a small group for discussion, a couple of the guys were carrying their Bibles. One had this blue, leather-bound scripture, with a Masonic Lodge symbol on the cover. The other, with his plain, black-covered Bible, almost verbally attacked the other, declaring: that organization comes “straight from the pit,” as he put it. They clearly did not agree.
My own approach, as a preacher and teacher, has been to be diplomatic about many things. Really, I play it quite safe, and avoid controversy. More direct openness could be a real improvement for me; I know that. Differences of opinion and interpretation - and experience - need to be opened up and explored more in this day and age. Or else we will not be open and non-judgmental enough to reach many people of the oncoming generations with the Gospel of Jesus. We each still have things to learn.
PEOPLE
That earliest of all local churches certainly had people as a main focus. Acts 2:42 says They devoted themselves to the ...fellowship, to the breaking of bread…
Is a congregation mainly about people, our relationships? Many churches have been criticized for being more like social clubs than mission stations, and sometimes rightly.
I do wonder, at times, why are each of you are here, on a Sunday, some of you also committed to a committee or group that does some of our work. Is it really about God, or is it a human thing. I wonder why I am here too, why I have taken up a career in the Church. It is all about people, being together instead of alone, being supportive?
Acts 2:42 suggests to me it is a good thing to be devoted to the fellowship. To be devoted to sharing meals together, even.
I know I am so attached to worship being for the whole people of God, and those who are missing are truly missing.
A church - any church - is the people, of course, not the building, not even the event. So many folk get involved in this church because people connect and like each other, or the pastors are liked, or the leaders are kindred spirits with them, all that kind of thing. Very few people join Windsor Baptist because we are Baptist Christians. You did not join in for our statement of faith, or the purpose statement, or even for the new vision.
We are a living family of God. To be a more functional family, instead of dysfunctional, would be good. This takes hard work, and hard love. It takes Christ, who builds His Church, and builds this spiritual house out of people.
PRAYER
Acts 2:42 They devoted themselves to… the prayers.
I was impressed in 2002 with the praying people of Windsor Baptist, and I remain pleased. I’d say we are above average in some ways that we are prayerful. I’ve never tried to measure this, but the average might be mediocre among Baptists today. Many of you do well, have a gift for prayer, or have been trained to pray well and pray much, and to lead in prayer out loud. It is not so in every local church.
Jesus quoted Isaiah when he declared one day, in the Jewish Temple of Jerusalem, "It is written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer'; but you are making it a den of robbers." (Matthew 21:13)
Prayer, when it is thorough, is simply an activity between people and God. Conversation. Quality time together, even when nothing is said. It could be claimed that a church, a congregation, is all about people having a relationship with the Lord. “Believing all the right spiritual facts, and being committed to one another as a group of people are not enough, Church. Being people of God is what matters!” So it might be claimed. And this is part of the balance; certainly as we look at that picture in Acts 2 of the Spirit-filled folk who had preaching and prayer and people as priorities.
They also had PRAISE.
Acts 2:46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.
For some it may be that the great binding agent of church is the praises, the worship, the music. And it can be that a key desire of leading believers is to move worship into greater praise, fitting for the people we want to reach to give to God. Not the old forms; sing the new, new song. I know how important music is to my own sense of divine worship; though my taste is for more hymns ancient than modern.
As we consider singing and music, I note that my own mother is in the house today. So we have a woman here who once sang for the prime minister. Yes. When she was in school she was in a choir that did quite well, and they sang at an event before Prime Minister Diefenbaker!
Well, we hear inspiring Christian leaders today remind us that our worship is like a performance to an audience of One.
Psalm 149:4 For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with victory. There are other such phrases in scripture.
Children learn, in family life, to perform, especially for their parents. I don’t remember when I was a kid saying, “Mom, look at me, watch me, Watch Me, WATCH me!” But my brother and sister and I probably did that, as so many children do. I’ve seen it happen to some of you. What age is that when kids are so demanding for attention to their performance?
I’m grateful to Elijah for the use of his artwork on our bulletin today. I don’t know how spontaneously he produced this, but you know where I found this? On a bulletin board by his mother’s desk, here in the Church Office. When little, we want parents or other adults to take pleasure in the things we can offer. Most would have to admit this is still true in our adulthood, looking for approval from our parents.
The Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with victory. As a planner of Sunday mornings, it is so easy to get caught up in how every person takes pleasure in what we spent 70 minutes doing. We say, “Oh, that funeral was wonderful, it was the best! (It was to die for.)” And, “that commissioning service for the students in Wolfville the other night was great! Wasn’t the preacher good, and the singing, and the prayer; and that duet was a tear-jerker.”
How can we step back and know that the Lord took pleasure in His people? God received our song, and our offering, and our prayers? The Holy Spirit had a word for the people and spoke? We keep pointing this out the service; the words of some prayers and hymns keep the Audience of One before us.
I’m coming back to the heart of worship,
And it’s all about You, all about You, Jesus.
And, when it’s over… we keep our hearts humble before our God, and one another. “Look at me, look at me; look at us, look at us” becomes, “Look at Him, look at Him; on the cross; raised from death!”
Keep being built into a spiritual house. Attend to the people who are in danger of breaking and falling. Crosses of metal, wood or stone are erected and collapse: what Christ builds is eternal. Have this living God as your foundation for the organization. Be complete, with Preaching, People, Prayer and Praise as priorities. This is what God continues to create with you, in Christ Jesus.
