by Pastor Glenn Layne
January 5, 2003
(Ephesians 2:8-10)

Resolutions and Revolutions: Part 1
God has an adventure for you!

I listen to a lot of news radio, maybe more than I should. Currently there is a commercial for a Lutheran insurance company that if I were a Lutheran would drive me completely insane (as a Baptist, it still drives me about 60% insane)!

It goes something like this.

"And now, Mrs. Kauffman has some announcements."

"Thank you, pastor. This coming Tuesday, these will be a 'repeat performance' of the Sunday school's xylophone solo at 7 PM. Coffee and cookies will be served.

"Don't forget the upcoming potluck. I hear that Gladys Krumpke will be bringing her turnovers. It is a potluck without them? Coffee and cookies will be served.

"And this Saturday morning at 10 AM there will be a newcomers cookie baking party. Coffee and cookies will be served."

Then the announcer says, "Lutherans. It takes one to know one, doesn't it?"

Is the whole essence of being a Lutheran (or fill in any denomination here), that if you go to their thing, "Coffee and cookies will be served?"

There's a church not far from where I used to serve in Ohio, Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church, that has seen a marvelous work of God in their midst. Over the course of ten years, the church exploded from 70 to over 700 as they gained a new understanding of their calling as a church with a mission. Pastor Mike Slaughter spoke at our church there one time and said, "You know, when I came to Ginghamsburg, the church was known as the chicken dinner church. Everyone knew the church at the place that had the nice chicken dinners twice a year. And the really sad thing is that there are some people-some even in the church-who wish we'd get back to being the chicken dinner church."

Let's make this clear, this first Sunday in January 2003:

And here in this new century, we, the people of God in America, are in great danger of passing from the scene because we are seen as silly people doing irrelevant things. While America burns, we make chicken dinners, bake cookies and drink coffee.

According to a recent survey, evangelical Christians are ranked as less trustworthy than used car salesmen are and slightly more trustworthy than prostitutes.

Even more jarring are these statistics:

The GI/Builder generation (people born before 1945) is now 9.7% of the population; 60% of them are church members.

The Boomer generation (born 1946-1966) is 29% of the population; 40% of them are church members.

The next generation (Gen-X, the Survivors, born 1967-1981) is now 28% of the population. Only 18% of them are affiliated with a church.

Millennials (born after 1982) are 21%--and less than 10% of them are affiliated with a church.

Since time does not stand still, and since the Builder/GI generation is graduating to heaven, if present trends continue, how will the future look?

Church affiliation has stayed steady at about 43% for the overall population for the last 20 years. By 2010, that will drop to 23%. By 2020, that will drop to less that 15%.

This roughly translates to this: that in a mere 17 years from now, there would be about one-third the church adherents in this nation as today.

Folks, we are in an emergency situation. It is a silent emergency, like an undiagnosed cancer. If you care about the cause of Christ, and if you want to see Him still be lifted up in worship and followed by people in the country, then recognize that we are in an emergency situation of historical dimensions.

How did we get here? We became a bulwark instead of a beachhead. Somewhere along the line we forgot that we are a mission, not a mansion. We forgot that we are a hospital to heal broken lives and thought we were a resort for satisfied saints. We forgot that we exist to make disciples, not coffee, cookies and chicken dinners.

At New Year's, some people make resolutions that they usually forget by January 10. I'm not interested in resolutions. I'm interested in a revolution. Nothing less than a sense of emergency will stir the church; nothing less than a revolution will turn the tide of history; nothing less than a revolution has any chance of seeing the gospel of Jesus become a fading memory on the North American continent.

The infamous "paradigm shift"

What we need is a paradigm shift. I used to think that a "paradigm" was 20 cents. The word means, your basic way of looking at things. When you stop thinking of the church as "a nice place to go with you family and see your friends" and start thinking of the church as "God's mission in the world to turn people from darkness to light," you have experienced a paradigm shift.

But it has to start at an even more basic level.

The most basic of all: you and the Lord

It has to start with the basic way you see yourself in relation with the Lord. I like to put it in terms of…

Many people imagine that their relation to God is like a motorcycle and a sidecar. You are on the seat of the motorcycle. You have your plans and your directions. You want to get to this place and that. You have your plans for a career, a marriage, a family, and so on.

There in the sidecar sits Jesus. It's great having Jesus along. If you get lonely, He's there. If you get discouraged, he's there. If you get confused, He'll help get out the map and help put you back on the your road.

But let's face it-you don't need a sidecar to make a motorcycle go. It's purely optional. It's a matter of taste, not necessity. As a matter of fact, most people with motorcycles would much rather not ride with a sidecar.

The motorcycle and sidecar view of the Christian life is the one that most of us have adopted without even thinking about it. When I talk to people about their walk with God, so often I hear, "Well, He sure helped me out when I had thus and such rough time." In other words, they had a plan, a trajectory for their lives, and it sure was nice of Jesus to help them out.

But what if we have it all wrong. What if the idea isn't how Jesus can help me with my plans, but how I can fit into His? After all, it's not my life: He gave it to me. It's not my plan: It's His.

In other words, could it be that I'm the one riding in the sidecar? Could it be that He's the one who's supposed to be in control-in a direct and meaningful way?

Could it be that this life with God should be one of finding out what God is doing and latching on to that with all our might-not planning our path and praying that God will bless it?

God's "Workmanship"

In Ephesians 2:8-10, the apostle Paul makes two big points. Most evangelical Christians are familiar with the first point, but scarcely understand the second.

8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Two Big Points

#1: A person is made right with God by God, not by good things we do…all we do is exercise faith (Ephesians 2:8-9)

God's grace is what makes us right with God. God's grace is what saves us. God's grace-in Jesus' bloody rescue mission on the cross-is what gives us a new life with Him. We didn't add one cent, one drop, to His work. As one old writer put it, the only thing we contribute to our salvation is our sin. Then, the only thing we do are lift up empty hands to receive that rescue-that's called faith. That's big point number one.

But there's also big point number two:

#2: Even before we were made right with Him, God had a great idea in mind for us…to do the most exciting, adventurous and thrilling things in the world: to be part of His plan for the world (Ephesians 2:10)

Look at verse 10 again:

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

God had a specific purpose in mind when He saved you. He has made you to be a masterpiece of His craft (that's one meaning of the word "workmanship" here), and to do "good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

Here's Layne's Paraphrase of Ephesians 2:10:

It is God who has done the work, and we are His masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus to do good deeds, the deeds God prepared in advance for us to do. (Layne)

Again, maybe a story will help. Let's say I have a four-year old son, and one summer day, I say, "Where's that boy? I feel like doing something nice for him. He's loves chocolate milkshakes. I'm gonna take him to Baskin-Robbins for a big old chocolate milkshake.

So I look around for him and I find him out back playing in a big mid puddle. He's covered head to toe in mud. "Come on," I say. "We've got plans."

"Nope," he says. "I like it right here." He scoops up a big clod of mud and squishes it into his hair.

Not being plagued by modern psychological theories about child rearing, I pull the muddy lad from the muck and the mess and take him inside. I throw him in the bathtub and scrub him clear. I put some nice fresh clothes on him and comb his hair. Then I say, "Come on, let's go for a milkshake."

"I don wanna milkshake."

"That's the whole idea. I came to take you for a milkshake."

"I don wanna milkshake."

The Bible says that God got into the mud with us, into our sin, and then cleansed us, scrubbed us up, for a purpose.

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

God has saved us so we can enter into His purpose-not just to save us from hell when we die, but to use us for the cause of His kingdom here and now. No more coffee-and-cookie, little, trivial thinking!

Let me ask you: do you really want to spend your few precious years of life on the trivial, or are you prepared to give it all away for the sake of something vast: the work of God in the world?

There's an old poem:

Some men die in ashes; some men die in flames;
But most men die while playing silly little games.

People of God, let's hit the beachhead for the cause of Jesus. Let's be done with half-measures and small thinking. I'd rather die in ashes than live to a hundred and my life mean nothing.

Life's Pursuit: Find God's "Thing" and Jump on Board!

That means that the true pursuit of life is not my thing-my plans, my goals, my wants, desires and so-called needs. The true pursuit of life is this: what is God up to? How can I be a part of what He's doing?

This will always be an adventure. My favorite movie of all time is Raiders of the Lost Ark. But Indiana Jones has nothing on me. He circled the globe in pursuit of lost artifacts; I run after the will of God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth!

If God has these things to do, how do we get hold of them? We do that by taking the next step. There's always a next step, no matter how long you have known Him.

Here are some examples of what may be your next step:

1. Knowing Christ

For some of you, you haven't even taken the first step: a faith connection with God through Jesus Christ. Today's a good day for that!

2. Being Baptized

It may be you next step is to be baptized by immersion as a believer, according to the Biblical pattern.

3. Uniting with God's church

Others, your next step is to put down accountability roots by joining the membership of FBC.

4. Following Christ as a daily reality (remember the motorcycle!)

For many of you, hearing the story of the sidecar and the motorcycle, you have realized this morning that you've kept Jesus in the sidecar, and it's time to switch seats. That's your next step.

5. Moving forward as a disciple (some tools…)

Or perhaps you've come to realize that you've grown stagnant as a follower of Jesus. We have tools to help you with that. We have adult small groups (AKA as Sunday school classes) to help you. We have one-on-one discipleship to help you. We have a series of seminars held throughout the year (we call them "Temple University") to serve as markers of spiritual growth.

6. Maturing as a disciple

Perhaps your next step means dealing with a specific matter of spiritual wholeness. Perhaps it means getting free of memories that plague you, experiences that haunts, patterns that addict you. Maybe that's your next step.

7. Being mobilized to ministry (passing it on…)

And maybe your next step is to step into a ministry role. That could be as a 1-2-1 discipleship mentor, or as a teacher, or a leader in a ministry. Or maybe to launch a new ministry entirely. It's all a matter of finding what God is doing then doing that with all your might.

Two women, both members of Bear Valley Baptist Church in Denver, worked at the same nursing home on Denver's south side. One day over lunch they were talking about the loneliest people in the home: fairly healthy and alert residents who had absolutely no one who visited them. Some had no family-some had families who just didn't seem to care.

Their pastor had just finished a series of messages on finding your ministry, and they wondered if this might be theirs. With the Pastor's knowledge and blessing, they got together with six retired people in the church, and arraigned for them to make regular visits to these isolated seniors (that's what they called it: the Isolated Seniors Ministry).

Soon these folks were being visited on a weekly basis. Other people in the church got involved. In a year, about 100 people were being visited on a weekly basis in several centers all over the south side of Denver.

Then one more idea: a day came when they rented a meeting room in a restaurant. A pianist came and led them in some of their favorite songs of their generation. A retired missionary spoke to the group and extended an invitation to receive Christ.

And over 80 people, from their 70s to their late 90s, accepted Christ as their Lord.

All because of two nursing home workers who saw that God had designed them for adventure. That God had a plan, works prepared in advance, for them to do. Two women who came to know the real joy found in getting into the sidecar, and riding with Jesus.

The late John Lennon sang, "You say you want a revolution?" Yes, we need a real revolution, right now.

In 2020, either the church in this country will have contracted to the point of total functional irrelevance, or-or

It will have met the challenge in the power of the Spirit to do things of significance-eternal, kingdom of God, significance.

What will happen? I have no special guarantees for America. It could well be that as the church becomes more African, Asian and Latin American, that Christians in North America will be irrelevant.


© Copyright 2003, Pastor Glenn Layne, www.templecitybaptist.org