"But
when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my
father's hired servants have bread enough and to
spare, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I
will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I
am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired
servants."' And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a
distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and
kissed him. And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and
before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said
to his servants, 'Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a
ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it,
and let us eat and make merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he
was lost, and is found.' And they began to make merry." Luke 15:17-24
This is
really a description of us. We've come home to the Father. We've come home with
our broken, troubled, mixed up hearts, bruises all over our bodies, and we've
received a wonderful welcome. We're being made to know that we are not
outsiders. We're not hired servants... we’re sons and daughters. We belong. The
father has killed the fatted calf and there's a tremendous celebration, all
heaven is rejoicing.
But what
happens after the banquet? What happens to this prodigal son after his
celebration is over? You could say that every day is a celebration from here on
in. And in a sense that's true. But the one thing this
younger son now needs, now that he's come home, is to get some structure in his
life ... some order. Not monotony. Not legalism. Not rules and regulations like
his older brother, but some real order that will hold things together. All the
time he was in the far country squandering everything he had, he was trying to
be free, he didn't want any kind of order imposed on him from outside, and he
ended up not free, but a slave. Now, if he doesn't get some order in his life,
he's going to be back there again in a very short time. This man is going to
have to learn how to get up every morning and go to the father and
say, "Good morning, father." And to his older brother, who's
never been very nice to him up until now, and say,
"Good morning, brother."
Then he's
going to have to learn how to take his responsibilities on the farm. He's going
to have to learn to fit into his father's kingdom.
The Israelites crossed the Red Sea. The water closed in over the Egyptians
and they were free for the first time in hundreds of years. There was
tremendous rejoicing. People were dancing and singing and shouting and
hollering ... it was marvelous. But, they were a
motley crew. There were thousands and thousands of people, but they had no
discipline, no order, and they would never have been able to even make it to
the end of the wilderness and reach the borders of the Promised Land if they
didn't get some order in their lives. And so, in his mercy, the heavenly Father
brings them to Mt. Sinai. And there he begins to form them into a nation. He
begins to weld them and shape them, so they begin to get some order into their messed up lives. He gives them the tabernacle, the ten
commandments, he gives them sacrifices for thanksgiving, sacrifices for sin,
teaches them an order for living, an order for traveling. They begin to learn
how to function together as a nation. Without order, structure and discipline
they will never be able to conquer the Promised Land.
Jesus
called people to discipleship. And when he called them to discipleship
he called them to freedom ... new life, unspeakable
joy. And so they left their fishing boats, their tax
collecting, their political reaction, their political revolution and they
entered the Kingdom ... and it was wonderful. Now they saw a meaning they never
saw before. But, after he brings them into the Kingdom, Jesus sits these people
down and begins to teach them the ABC's of the kingdom of heaven. And we find
this basically in' the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6 and 7. Specific
teachings as to how to do it ... what to do ... how to function under God, how
to function with each other. Without that order and structure in their lives,
these men and women would never have been able to turn the world upside down.
Pentecost
comes. Pentecost is a wonderful outpouring of the life of God's Spirit that the
Body of believers is baptized in the Spirit of God ... life from above. New
joy, new freedom, new power. It's so abundant that it spills out over the rest
of the city of Jerusalem and three thousand people come into the Kingdom on
that day. But unless life is brought into some kind of form, shape, it will
just evaporate like a cloud, and in a couple of days or weeks it will be as if
it had never happened. And so we read in Acts chapter
2 verse 41:
“So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that
day about three thousand souls. “
They
started the day with one hundred twenty. They end the day with three thousand
one hundred twenty. How are one hundred and twenty people going to absorb three
thousand? We're told in the next verse:
“And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to
the breaking of bread and the prayers.“
Now they
begin to get some order, some structure in their lives. Without this it would
become empty and meaningless. And so today, in this place, two things are
happening, and they're happening from the hand of the Lord:
First,
the Lord is pouring out afresh, life from his Spirit, upon us. And it's like a
welcome home to the Father. It's like coming out of the Red Sea. New life... a
fresh Pentecost. Great things are going on. But now a second thing is being
added. In addition to this new life now we're being given by the hand of the
Lord some structure... some order. There has to be some kind of structure and
order in our lives, or we'll never fulfill the purpose we've been given in the
kingdom of heaven. And so we read in Ephesians chapter
2 starting at verse 13:
“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near
in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has
broken down the dividing wall of hostility…”
... first
there is the breaking down of the old structure...
“by abolishing in his flesh
the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new
man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in
one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.”
What we
read in this is that the old structures are being destroyed, the false vision
that caused the younger brother to run away to try to find freedom away from
his father's house ... that false vision is destroyed.
So is the
legalism that caused the older brother to stay on the farm and do everything
right and still think he’s an outsider ... that's being destroyed. The wall
between the younger brother and the older brother that has divided them from
each other all their lives... that's being destroyed. The Lord having broken
down the old structure draws us to the Father's house, makes us to know his
welcome; but now he forms us with some new structure...some order. Reading on
in the same passage:
And he came and preached peace to you who were far off (the younger brother) and peace to those who
were near (the older brother); for through him we have access in one Spirit
to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are
fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon
the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the
chief cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows
into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a
dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
So, a
dwelling place is being formed out of human souls and bodies to contain the
Spirit of God, built on the foundation of the cornerstone, Jesus.
Most of
us dislike structure. We're afraid of structure, that's why we ran away in the
first place. We left the father's house and took off, trying to find freedom,
and we ended up slaves to our own passions. Others among us don’t want any
structure because we've had enough. We're so full of rules and regulations and
legalism and do's and don'ts that we're sick of it. We don't want to be tied down, we don't want to be stuck in cement like a brick in
the wall. But what we need to learn is that for all that, there is some order
and some structure which is not only good, but essential, without which there
could be no freedom at all.
We have
to get over our fear of structure and order so that we can be formed by the
hand of God ---- not by the manipulations of men, not by people who are trying
to exploit us but by the Spirit of God. Formed into a Body in which we are knit
together so well that the Spirit of the Lord can move among us. He doesn't move
in this way with the individual, he moves in this way through the Body. So, We read in I Peter chapter 2 vs 4:
Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God's sight
chosen and precious; and like living stones be yourselves built into a
spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
In other
words, the hand of the Lord is building this thing that's alive and flexible
and moving and powerful. But this thing, like the human body has structure. How
would you breathe if you didn't have a backbone and rib cage? Your lungs would
collapse ... you'd die in a matter of seconds. How would you walk if you didn't
have leg bones, knee bones and foot bones? You'd just go down. How would you
talk or sing or eat if you didn't have jaw bones? There has to be structure and
order for life to exist.
And so
having brought us to the Father's house and welcomed
us in order that we can fulfill the joyful purpose we're given, two practical
things have to now happen in our lives:
1. We have to be built on the cornerstone ... our lives have to be joined
to the cornerstone so that from here on
the weight of our life rests on him.
2. We also have to be joined to each other ... formed. We're not just a
pile of bricks rolling down the hill, we're
a Body, a temple. We're members of each other.
Let's
look at the first one briefly. We are built on the cornerstone.
“Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God's sight
chosen and precious.” I Peter 2:4
...
committed to Jesus. All of us claim that we have a commitment if we eat his
body and drink his blood...we know that we're committing ourselves to be part
of him. But now we have to put some structure into that. Let's not be afraid of
a little bit of order. Let's be willing to begin each day of the rest of our
life with an act of the will expressed with the mouth in which we commit
ourselves to this cornerstone afresh.
"Lord, I begin this day committing myself to you. I want to be built
on you as my cornerstone. I want to be founded on you. I want the life of this
day to be absolutely established on you."
Consciously
willing this, the day becomes his and he becomes the foundation of this day,
the guide, the protector, the one who blesses and prospers this day. Without
such structure in our life we really can't fulfill the purpose of the Kingdom
of God.
But we
also need to be joined to each other. Not only are we told to come to the
living stone, in God's sight chosen and precious, but we are also told to be
like living stones built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to
offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. To be built
together. The one who does the building is the Lord. We don't build ... he
builds. But we have to cooperate. We have to be willing to be built. Willing
that I should be joined to brothers and sisters and linked to them... fit in
with them. I need to be willing that he should bind me together with cords of
love to these people with whom he has put me.
In John
13:34 we hear Jesus say to us:
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as
I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know
that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
And we
say, "Amen. The Lord will do it." But now we need to put some
structure to that. That we begin each day for the rest of our life committing
ourselves with an act of the will that's spoken with the mouth.
"Lord today again I commit myself ... I join myself ... to these
brothers and sisters with whom you've placed me. And I want to be with them and
function with them and see my life as an expression of the Body of which I am a
part."
We hear
the Spirit of the Lord saying to us and to many in the Body all over the earth,
"Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you."
Isaiah
60:1
These words not addressed to the individual, they are addressed to the
Body.
"For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the
peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you.
And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your
rising." Isaiah 60:2-3
But for
this light to come to us, and this glory to shine in our midst, and this word
to go forth as it will with power, and to be confirmed with following signs
from the hand of God, that light, that glory and that word are given to the
Body not the individual ... to those who are linked to each other in the Body
and become members of each other forming a holy temple through which the Spirit
of God can move.
Now the
one who does the building is the Lord God. He builds, we don't build. But we
have to be willing. We have to be willing to be built on the foundation. And
built on that foundation not just for three weeks, but for the rest of our
lives, and forever. Willing to be joined to each other not just for an
hour a week for the next five years, but every day, twenty-four hours a day, to
think of ourselves as part of the Body and functioning
in that way. Are we willing to repent of our secret aloofness, of our secret
isolation? Many of us have been involved for years and we sit
and we say, "Yes, maybe I'll do it. I know I
really ought to give up my sovereignty." And sometimes it almost feels
like a magnet trying to pull us to the altar rail, but we hold back because
somebody might catch me being emotional, or maybe somebody will see me cry, and
we back off.
Are we
willing to give up our sovereignty and allow him to build us together into that
Body? If we are, let's tell him, and let's show him that we are willing to be
members of each other, built on the foundation, the cornerstone, Jesus himself.
And if we are, and if we follow through with some order and discipline in this
matter, we will see the Spirit of the Lord moving in our midst with a power we
have never witnessed before.