Morning Message Text: Ephesians 4: 1-6
Unity and Maturity in the Body of Christ
1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.
2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called;
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Morning Message:
It is August, and do you know what I start thinking about in August? Football season. For the next few months, I will be surrounded by football. What a wonderful time of year. Between Friday night high school, Saturday college, and Sunday Steelers football, I will spend my share of time watching and rooting.
I came across an article this week entitled, “Field Goal Theology.” Of course, I was drawn to it initially because of my interest in football, but I found it very theologically enlightening. It starts with a quote from C. S. Lewis: “The devil always sends errors into the world in pairs –pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one.”
This really started my mind turning. Thinking about the choices I make every day. The devil is so sly. He relies on our power of reasoning in order to pull us into something that God doesn’t want us involved in. Many times, we are tempted to choose the lesser of two evils, and eventually we end up accepting something that is outside of our faith.
The author of this article goes on to say: This thinking is in line with something I discipline myself to do that I call “Field Goal Theology.” My heart is to discover God’s truth on the matters of life and discern His right balance on these things. In doing this I try to think of what the errors are on either side of the truth or, in football language, what are the things outside of the goal posts. In biblical language I want to rightly divide the Word of God. Joshua and Moses spoke of not turning to the right or the left to be successful. The Proverbs say a false balance is an abomination, but a just weight is a delight. It is the things that we perceive to be small sins, slight variances from the truth, which draw us into a sinful existence. Looking right down the middle at God’s truth and living accordingly is difficult, but when we allow our thoughts and our vision to stray to the left or the right, we find ourselves in the wrong.
When searching for truth on something, it is good to know the opposite extremes. The truth is usually somewhere in the middle. By thinking through the ditches, we avoid error and even heresy and have greater sensitivity to the truth on an issue. Here are some examples of the point that I am trying to make. When it comes to living in liberation, I need to avoid the ditches of legalism or lawlessness. As Christians we are free from our sins through the blood of Christ and our faith in his sacrifice for us. Some, even though they are free, get drawn into legalism, trying to please God through works, while others may take their salvation as a right to freely sin because they know they are forgiven. Neither extreme is the right way to live out your faith. Balance in living out our faith. God is pro-family, and we need to be also. The danger is to make family an idol or take family for granted.
Let’s talk about money. Money is a great tool to steward for the Kingdom of God, but we need to watch out for the ditches of the Prosperity Gospel or the Poverty Gospel. You have all heard of the preachers who try to convince you that if you give generously to them that God will make you rich, and there are others that would tell you that you should give every penny and sleep in the street, trusting God to take care of you for your faithfulness. Both are wrong, and frankly, I would like to take some of those charlatans and kick them through the goal posts for distorting God’s Word. You should give from the heart of faithfulness that God has put within you. We have to find the balance, the center of the goal posts.
I am to speak the truth with grace. Truth without grace is meaningless. Grace without truth is meaningless. Grace and truth are meaningful. To only preach the truth to you about Jesus and fail to offer to you the grace of forgiveness that he provided on the cross would make no sense. To walk around reciting scripture out loud without telling people that God loves them is just empty words.
One time, the preacher D.L. Moody and a friend were on a great ship crossing the ocean. The ship caught on fire. The friend said, “Let’s go to the opposite end of the ship and pray. Moody said, “Let’s run to the fire and pass water buckets as we pray.” Not prayer without action. Not action without prayer. But right down the middle: prayer and action.
Let’s apply this theology to today’s scripture. Paul says, we are one body, made up of all believers everywhere. The devil will try to convince us that we are too different to be one body, or that one group is better than another group of believers. Both of these assumptions are wrong. Every believer is an important member of the Body of Christ. There is one Spirit that indwells in all believers, the Holy Spirit of God. There is one hope, which is Christ’s promise to return to take his followers to heaven. That hope should be in the center of all that we do. We can get sidetracked hoping for God to provide things in our lives on one side of the goal posts, or we can be placing our hope in other people or things. Our focus needs to be right down the middle.
There is only one Lord, Jesus Christ. We should not be spending our time looking for another. There is only one true faith, so we must stop putting our faith outside of our goal. Now listen, Paul says there is only one baptism, referring primarily to the baptism of the Spirit. I have a lot of thoughts on this, but for today I just want you to realize that the only reason to be baptized is to profess your faith and commitment to Jesus. Baptism is not a way to heaven, and it is not protection from the evil of this world. There is only one Father, one God. Don’t allow anything on the left or right to become your God. On any issue in life, we need to grow in discerning the right balance and kick the field goal.
In Christ’s Love and Peace,
Pastor Bob
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