Sermons

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I'm Not Finished With You Yet
October 15, 2000
Last in a sermon series on the Church
Pastor Dan Baumgartner     
Revelation 2:1-7

Today we want to complete our sermon series talking about THE CHURCH. In these last weeks, we have read and thought about the church as:

Called by Christ, equipped by the Spirit, given gifts for life in the community, the whole worldwide church…and last week, the church sent out by a God of mission.

Today I want you to think with me about the church as incomplete.

To do this, we’re going to deal with just a small section of the book of Revelation, always a dangerous thing to do. The book of Revelation is normally seen as wild, exotic, prophetic, and symbolic. And it is all of those things. But it is also a book written by a pastor, John… who is exiled on an island. It was written towards the end of the first century, and so the church has only been in existence for 50-60 years.

At the very beginning of the book, in chapter one, lies this spectacular vision of Jesus… long white hair, piercing eyes, a golden sash, etc. Then from chapter 4 to the end of the book is a very captivating story of warfare, visions, dragons, flames and the ultimate triumph of Christ. And some of us prefer to read these parts about Jesus, perhaps, and just skip over chapters 2 and 3…which talk about the church. After all, it seems sometimes that the church just gets in the way of real faith. The church is messy and unfinished and pretty darned human. It’s sort of like a house that hasn’t been picked up for awhile with three kids and a dog (wait, that’s my house!)…instead of some pristine showcase home. 

I remember living with a friend in college. We lived in the basement of a dear couple’s home just a few blocks from here. Our landlords just didn’t come downstairs very often. And as bachelors are prone to do, we got a little messy. Real messy. One day I was upstairs in the kitchen with Mrs. Larson, our landlady, and my roommate was down in our pit of a basement apartment. Suddenly Mrs. Larson said, “Oh, I need to come in your boys' room to get something out of a closet.” Absolute panic. I was downstairs like Paul Revere: “She’s coming down, she’s coming down!” We had less than two minutes to stuff everything in drawers, under beds or in a closet. When she got there, we were panting. But from all appearances, the place was neat and clean…unless you opened the wrong door.  It seems to me that the church is like that. Things are pretty messy and if looks like they aren’t, you just haven’t seen the right closet.

Eventually it comes out. We find out that the church really is a collection of sinners that God is in process with…not too romantic, even unappealing. So many of us want to avoid church, go right for Jesus, move from Revelation 1 to Revelation 4 and skip the church. But we can’t. The path of Christ is connected to the church.

Right after John’s chapter 1 vision, there are seven letters from Jesus to specific churches in Asia Minor (Turkey). These letters are both encouraging and difficult, and there is a lot to learn from them. This morning, the word that jumps out to me is: Jesus not finished with us yet.

The first one, to the church at the city of Ephesus: Revelation 2:1-7

This pastor John’s vision sees the writer of the letters as the risen Christ, one who walked among seven lampstands (the seven churches in Asia Minor). And it’s important to see that the church is not the lamp (Christ is), but merely the location where the lamp is.

Jesus’ words here have credibility because He is the one who walks among the churches. He knows what’s going on, He is qualified to speak. No one can say, “He doesn’t know what’s going on.” He’s there, and knows these people intimately. I wonder what Jesus would say to the church that meets at Bethany?

There is a very consistent pattern to each of the seven letters: positive affirmation, correction, motivation for the future.

The positive affirmation comes first. This is something a parent or a coach uses. It’s something I still deal with, especially when I coach my kids sports teams. I don’t want to just hone in on things to correct, but find FIRST the things to affirm. It changes everything. It makes them more willing to hear the things to work on. Jesus does that here. He affirms. And in fact, in the church at Ephesus…there is plenty to affirm: their deeds and hard work… these words mean real labor, sweat, to the point of exhaustion. These people have really sacrificed something for their faith and they are exhausted. And so Jesus says, “Way to go!”

The community at Ephesus has persevered, endured hardships for me, have not grown weary. They have kept the faith, and in an environment that is not at all friendly. Their situation is, in fact, terrible…in a number of ways. One is that they are suffering persecution. We’ve found a letter from a provincial governor at this time, named Pliny, to the Emperor of Rome (Trajan), asking for his advice on how to handle Christians. While he awaits the Emperor’s reply, he says: “In the meantime, I have handled those who have been denounced to me as Christians as follows: I asked them whether they were Christians. Those who responded affirmatively I have asked a second and third time, under threat of the death penalty. If they persisted in their confession, I had them executed. For whatever it is that they are actually advocating, it seems to me that obstinacy and stubbornness must be punished in any case.” 

And we also have the Emperor’s response: “You have chosen the right way!…Christians, if they are accused…are to be punished, but only if they do not deny being Christians and demonstrate it by the appropriate act, the worship of our god.”

And so Jesus says, “Way to go!”

“Cannot tolerate wicked, tested those claim to be apostles, not, found false.”

Within the church, people were running around making self-proclamations of their status as missionaries, preachers, authorities… and Jesus says, “Way to go, you have patiently tested these voices and stood your ground. (A little later): you hate practices of Nicolatians: As far as we can tell, the Nicolatians were people attempting to compromise with an unbelieving society, under the banner “spiritual liberty.” These are people within the church, not anti-Christian, but people who think that their faith is improved and modernized in a way that will fit with the pagan culture. And there were particular issues with this “fitting in” involving idolatry and sexual immorality.

You need to know the background of Jesus’ affirmations of the community at Ephesus. First, the city of Ephesus was a very, very important center of trade, governmental administration, judicial process and seaport business. There were as many as 250,000 people living there. And there was “spirituality” all over the place:

• The giant temple for the goddess Diana (Artemis) was 450 feet long by 220 feet wide. It had 120 60 foot columns, and hundreds of temple priestesses…prostitutes. It was acknowledged as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, a real magnet for tourists.
• Ephesus boasted at least six temples to worship three different Roman emperors as gods.
• As we read about Ephesus in the book Acts, we find through Paul’s journeys that it was also a place of trouble! Paul was chased from synagogues, encountered false prophets…and he himself upset the artisans who made a living selling statues and idols of Diana, nearly starting a riot. 

I’m belaboring this point so that you know that the environment in this city was really wild…and so when Jesus affirms the church at Ephesus for standing firm, for not caving in, for opposing false teachers and Nicolatians, for being willing to speak for their faith at the risk of life…it really means something. Jesus expects the church to make an impact on its culture, not vice versa. And so he affirms their faithful slogging away and steadfastness. There’s something just doggedly loyal and ordinary about this affirmation.

I’m reading a book right now called "A Traveler Toward the Dawn" by a Catholic priest named John Egan. It’s a remarkable book in that Egan was nobody famous or well-known, no author, no speaker. He was a faithful priest who slogged in the trenches, mostly teaching young people. And the beauty of this book, which is part of the journal he kept, is how extraordinary this very ordinary life was.

I wonder what Jesus would say to the church today? Wonder what he would say to our Bethany community today? Would he affirm our worship? Would he say, “Yes, you encourage young people in faith?” Would He think we take seriously ministry to those who are needy? Or the ministry of our home groups? How would he speak to us as individuals? Would he be able to say: “Way to go! You’re standing firm. You’re not just going along with the society, you’re thinking and making choices, you’re opening up to my spirit in your life, you’re growing! I think he would be very affirming. But…God is not finished with us yet.

Jesus next gives the church some correction. He wants more for the church. I’m so glad he does. Because Jesus loves the church, He wants the most for it. “The Lord disciplines those whom he loves.” (Psalm 94, Hebrews 12:6, 22) “God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.” He wants us to grow, learn. He wants more for us.

Sometimes it seems to me that today we can get in this mode where we say, “If you really love me…just accept me as I am, that’s real love.” And I certainly believe that’s part of real love. God claims us by grace, we find out who we are…we belong to God, in spite of and in the middle of everything. YET God is always at work, has a lifetime of growing and maturing. I had the privilege of spending time this week with a senior man who has walked with Christ for 45 years. Yet he is eager to talk about what God is teaching him NOW. No sense of “I’ve arrived.” No, he’s on a journey, and God isn’t finished with him yet.

And the church is always in need of correction. Why? We always find ourselves stagnating. The history of the church is like a pendulum….we become legalistic, and our spiritual disciplines become meaningless rituals, and our hearts get hard. Then the pendulum swings back, to the point where we say, with the Nicolatians: “It doesn’t matter how we live.” That’s not right either. Jesus is not finished with us yet.

The correction for the church at Ephesus is this: You’ve lost your first love, your passion. You’re in such a hard spot, you’ve had to be so careful to weed out the false teachers and protect the faith…you’ve lost the beautiful heart that you had at first…Your first love: your heart for me, Jesus says, and your love for each other.

The honeymoon is over…now what does your love look like?

Can you remember back to when you first met Christ…your heart was soft and teachable, it seemed like you were learning in every situation. Do you remember sharing faith with people, and how exciting it was to see glimpses of God’s church coming together? Then you got older, you lost a job, you had doubts, you hit a hard time, you went through depression. Or do you remember how when you first came to Bethany, everything seemed just so good…at last, you’d found it, the perfect church!! Unbelievable quality people, great music, gifted and good-looking people! But eventually somebody here offended you, you heard a boring sermon, you got in a small group and realized people are insecure. You gave and gave in ministry, but you finally sort of burned out, and now you’ve become a little calloused. That fresh, deep feeling of love seems to have disappeared. 

Jesus says to Ephesus: “Where is it? Where is the love you had for me at first? Where is the love for these your sisters and your brothers?” Would Jesus say the same to Bethany? Would he say, “Where is that tenderness now? You’re following through the forms of what has gone on, but where is my spirit allowed to spring free? Why are you not listening to where I long for you to go?” I don’t know where Jesus would point…at Bethany, or in your own life…I only know God is saying this morning: “I’m not finished with you yet.”

This happens to me all the time as a pastor. I get bogged down with things, thinking that as soon as our staff is all filled, and the right programs are in place, then I’ll feel that freshness. Jesus says don’t wait. I’m in the midst, want your heart right NOW. I find it as a parent…I want to delight in my kids all the time, so why do Anne and I so often find ourselves exhausted, strategizing how to parent, how to be firm, how to stay the course? Where is the heart that delights, where is the love you had at first?

I need to come back to the source, again and again. I need to allow God to teach me, correct, grow me. How does that happen? I often write in a prayer journal. A few months ago, Marlene led us in a time of prayer at the Dominican Reflection Center. A whole day (and there’s another one coming in November) of prayer and reflection time. I looked back through my journal the other day…page after page of what I felt like God was saying, and places my heart was soft to growing. Why? I had a whole day to listen, and allow God to renew my heart. We don’t grow because we decide to…we grow when we are open to what God has for us.

Lastly, each letter…provides some motivation for staying the course. Stay the course, Jesus says, “endure, you get the tree of life.” Eternal life. Heaven, and an eternity with Christ. The Spirit speaks to the churches, to Bethany, to us. Are you willing to listen? Are you listening, are you really listening? God is not finished with you yet. 

Brother Lawrence, a monk who lived hundreds of years ago once wrote:

“Sometimes I imagine that I am a piece of stone before a sculptor, from which he will carve a beautiful statue.” 

It’s a great image. We’re not there yet, the church is not there yet, but thanks be to God, He is not finished with us yet. Amen.