J. Douglas Dortch, Jr., Ph.D.
First Baptist Church, Tallahassee, FL
“The Church: Fit to Be Tried ”
From the Series "Beliefs that Build Community"
Scripture: Ephesians 4:11-16
February 10 , 2008
There is an old expression that people sometimes use when they get angry. They will say, “I am fit to be tied!” Most expressions like that we never bother to unpack, but that particular one seems appropriately relevant to the topic we’re looking at today. When a person says, “I’m fit to be tied!” that person is expressing that he is so angry that he is out of control. He can’t be held accountable for his actions. Someone needs to get a rope and bind that person before he hurts himself. I think all of us have been there a time or two in our lives. It really isn’t a pleasant place to be.
But this morning I want to offer a new expression as we consider what it means to be the Church: “We are fit to be tried!” And what does that mean?
Before we can understand the purpose for which Christ formed the Church, we must first have an understanding of where the Church is today in the eyes of the world. Ask most people about the Church and they will probably respond with some comment about how the Church is irrelevant or out of touch. Some might say that the Church is a bother and an inconvenience. Some might even tell you that the Church is a drain on society, especially given the fact that churches pay no taxes on their holdings, which in some cases are quite substantial. In the thirty-plus years I have been serving the Church I have heard all of these complaints (and more).
And while I find them painful to hear on one hand, on the other hand they require me to take a hard look at the correlation between who we as a church say we are and who we as a church actually are.
For example, here at First Baptist, we say we are a “God-centered, Bible-directed, people-focused, caring body of baptized believers in Jesus Christ, led by the Holy Spirit.” That language comes from the mission statement of our church. We project ourselves as upwardly and outwardly focused disciples of Jesus; most churches do. But the reality is that far too many churches are so preoccupied with numbers that the lines between church and Wall Street have become tragically blurred. It’s about how many people we can get into the church as if the bigger a church is the better that church becomes.
If that be the case, then the temptation that will always be before us is the temptation to pander to the world instead of serving the world. The pull that we will always fight will be the pull to be popular and trendy instead of faithful and true. Those are not good directions in which to be going.
Do you remember growing up, how the least likeable kid was always the one who was trying the hardest to be liked? They were always laughing the loudest and doing everything they knew to call attention to themselves, all the while making the gulf between them and the people they most wanted to have like them wider and deeper.
Meanwhile, the kid who was the most liked always seemed to be the one who didn’t care about his popularity one way or the other. He was just who he was, doing his thing whether or not you were watching or whether or not you even cared. That was the kid most of us liked (and even envied).
What a lesson for the Church! We are most attractive not when we act desperate for attention; rather, we are most noticed when we are simply being ourselves, a people who come together to transform this world into the kind of place God created it to be – a place that is fit for His honor and His glory.
Now, that’s what Paul was saying to the church at Ephesus. The Ephesian church wasn’t very attractive in its day because it had forgotten what church was supposed to be about. Instead of everyone pulling together and serving together, it was every person doing his own thing and working for her own way. It was “me, me, me” instead of “Him, Him, Him.”
So, Paul had to remind them who they were. “You’re one body,” is what he told them, “and you have one Spirit and one hope in which you have been called.” “And furthermore, you have been gifted for works of service.” “Why? So that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature.” “Until we become like Jesus.”
I don’t know that we’ve ever fully understood that challenge. If I’m hearing Paul correctly, then we aren’t supposed to be like the world around us. We are certainly not supposed to pine after the world as if the world’s attention is our reason for being. Our reason for being is to manifest Jesus, and when people in this world begin to look at us and see Jesus, the really inexplicable thing is that when the do, the world will only then begin to show us some respect.
But the process is not without pain. When you seek to show Jesus, in the beginning not everyone will appreciate it. When you stand for the truth and when you stand with those who have no one to stand with them, you won’t be the most popular person in your office or in your classroom, or sometimes not even in your own home. But in the process of showing Jesus in the face of whatever trials might come your way, you will be walking in the steps of him who trod up Mount Calvary and was crucified that this world might know the power of a Holy Affection. In the process of being the person Jesus has gifted you to be in the place that Jesus has called you to be you learn more of what faith in Jesus is all about and day by day you become more like Jesus. And the joy of both knowing and showing Jesus more than makes up for whatever pain we may have to endure in the process. In fact, it toughens us as we rest upon his grace and live from out of the manner in which he has gifted us.
Max De Pree is a leadership consultant who travels about the country helping people live to their potential. He tells a story that illustrates how the trials of life often call us to draw upon our deepest resources.
Once upon a time there were some highly successful tomato growers in central California. They were masters at growing tomatoes. They had only one problem. They couldn’t find a way to get their tomatoes across the country without having them bruised. So, they set out to work and accomplished some amazing things.
First, they got a machine to pick the tomatoes while they were yellow, but very firm. Then they put them on an assembly belt and passed them under a certain kind of light for a short period of time. The tomatoes came out from that process with a rosy pink color. Then they devised a package so strong that they could put a bunch of tomatoes in a Styrofoam crate, and lift it twenty feet high above solid concrete and drop it without bruising the tomatoes.
But after all of that, they discovered they had a new problem. The tomatoes didn’t taste the way they were supposed to taste. Yes, they were shipped without bruises, but in the end, they were shipped without taste. And which do you think is how a tomato is supposed to be?
More importantly, which do you think is how a church is supposed to be?
I mentioned Phillip Yancey last week as one of my favorite authors. Some years ago, he wrote in Christianity Today about an encounter he had with a man who was in need of some serious spiritual direction. The man had said to him, “You once wrote a book called, Where Is God When It Hurts? Well, I don’t have much time to read, so can you just answer that question for me in a sentence of two?” Yancey thought for a second and replied, “Well, I guess I’d have to answer that question with another question: ‘Where is the church when it hurts?’”
You see, Jesus never meant for his Church to huddle comfortably inside these nice buildings to pat one another on the back and put on a show that might entertain the masses. Certainly, Jesus meant for us to worship. Worship is the first thing the Church must be about. But Jesus also meant for us to leave this time of worship prepared to give of ourselves just as he gave of himself that we might show his Presence in the difficult and painful places of life.
A while back I came across something that made me pause for several seconds. A person posed this challenge: Think about your community (in our case, Tallahassee). Now, imagine that a congregational virus has wormed its way into this city and suddenly deleted all the congregations. What would be different? Would anyone notice? Would anyone be worse off? Would anybody really care?
Well, it all depends. It depends on whether or not we’re going to be there when it hurts, even when it hurts us.
After all, that’s what Jesus did. And when in the course of life we get bumped and we get bruised, though it will hurt us, it will not kill us; not like it did Jesus. In the providence of God it will make us better and it will make us stronger, not because of who we are but because of who He is and what He is making of us. It is He who has gifted us and by His grace made us fit to be tried.