"Body Building"

A sermon by Pastor David Layman

February 20, 2005

I Corinthians 3 :9-11, 16-17

I Thessalonians 5:8-1

I Ephesians 2:19-22

"Encourage one another and build up each other..." I Thess. 5:11

In our readings, Paul pictures the church, the body of Christ's believers, as a temple under construction. Jesus, who brought to fulfillment the message God had communicated from the beginning, is the foundation and cornerstone of this building. (I Cor. 3: 11, Ephesians 2:20) The builder is God, and as I Thessalonians 5:11 notes, believers are exhorted to "encourage one another and build up each other". Paul, in I Cor. 3:16, goes on to write "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" Often, Americans have interpreted this verse to apply to an individual: "My body is a temple where God is to dwell, and I shouldn't pollute my body with harmful substances." Leave it to Americans, this land of rugged individualism, to interpret this verse as just speaking to individuals. When Paul writes "You", he is writing to the church, not to an individual. Paul is saying "You believers in Christ together are a body. And when those about you see you walking down the street, knowing that you represent Christ, we don't want them to say "That guy really needs a shave, a bath, and to take better care of himself." Instead, we want people to look at us and say "Wow! What a body! What a body of believers in Christ! They're toned! They're fit. They look like they're ready to

move mountains, and not just turn a few heads!"

If someone was to corne to America who had never watched television before, they'd think we are a nation really concerned about having great bodies. There's Moore's Nautilus, and this health club, and Nordic Track, etc. etc. Of course, most people you see on the street don't

look like the people on Moore's Nautilus! But Paul is talking about a different type of body building! The body Paul talks of is the body of believers in Christ, the Christian Church. And most of the church bodies Paul wrote to and worked among needed a good bit of work. They looked more like Roseanne than Pamela Anderson. They looked more like Barney Fife than Arnold Schwarzenegger! But Paul didn't spend forever telling the churches how bad they looked. Instead, he told them how bodies of Christ could begin to look better. The Apostle Paul was one of the world's preeminent "body builders".

We presume that when we reach 16 or 18, we stop growing. But as believers in Christ, we're to never stop growing, as individuals, or as the body ofbelievers! Our calling as believers is to grow to be more and more like Jesus. It's hard to grow as a believer all on your own. I'm no agricultural expert, but my understanding is that it takes cross-pollination to raise a good crop of com. You don't grow one stalk of com in isolation and expect it to produce. The same is true with Christian believers. We need others around us to grow.

First of all, we need other people to affirm our worth. Consider the words "Mommy, mommy, look what I did!" Children crave affirmation, acceptance, attention, affection. Just like a flower needs sunlight,rain and someone to cut out the weeds, children need others to cultivate and encourage them. Believers in Christ of all ages need the same things for us to grow! I have tried to be a loving and affirming pastor, but a pastor alone is never enough. I'll always remember in my first pastorate, calling on an elderly member in the hospital. She was not doing well, and I tried to see her frequently. She said to me one day "I know you have a lot of people to see and things to do, so don't feel like you need to call on me so often." I thought to myself "What a mature and understanding believer", and returned two or three days later instead of the next day. And the first thing she said to me was "Where have you been?" The truth of the matter is, as hard as a pastor or two pastors try, there's not enough of us to do all the affirming and encouraging that believers need. But God never intended one or two believers to do all the affirming! Paul talked about the body of believers being like a temple under construction. If there's only one or two workers doing construction, they'll never get it done! It takes a lot of hands to lift and put in place the heavy stones! If we all pick up a hammer and drill and do what we can together, a worthy structure begins to take shape. We commissioned 8 Stephen Ministers two weeks ago. But at times, we've had trouble lining up care receivers for our Stephen Ministers. Many will say "Oh, I don't need a Stephen Minister. I'll just have the pastor call on me." But if we are going to grow as believers and as a body of believers, we need to be a community where many are encouraging and supporting one another. Small groups, our Grace Groups, can become small communities of believers that build up and encourage one another! Would you rather be encouraged by one other person, or by 6 or 8?

A second truth is that, if we are to grow as individual believers and a church, we must humbly confess and acknowledge our shortcomings and needs. One of the biggest roadblocks to spiritual growth is our pretending that we have everything under control. Many fear sharing a need or shortcoming, worried that someone else will go for the jugular and finish them off! In James 5:16 we read "Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed." I've visited AA meetings, and the meetings begin by people introducing themselves by saying "I'm Bill, and I'm an alcoholic." If Bill is typical, he spent a lot of his life trying to deny he had a problem. He'd say "I can quit anytime I want to." It's a huge thing for Bill to confess before others "I have a drinking problem." At AA meetings, others don't gasp "Shame on you, Bill! Wait until I get home so I can tell all my friends. We're going to have some fun with this one." Instead, they respond warmly "Hi, Bill", and the meeting progresses as they discuss how they can help one another with their struggles. The church needs to be an affirming, life-changing community. The best place to share our struggles is often not before 180 people during worship, but with a handful of caring folks during a small group gathering.

One of the reasons Emmaus Walks have a profound effect is that you sit at a table with about 7 others for a weekend, listen to 15 talks, eat together, listen to other people snore together while you're trying to sleep, share insights about God, and often, your own struggles. You may begin the weekend with a table of strangers, but as time passes, people grow closer and closer. Emmaus Walks may be more important for men than women, because women often seem to get together and talk and process things. But men may just talk about the terrible seasons Purdue and IU are having, and not share their hurts and struggles. Tremendous power can be unleashed when a person dares share a hurt and receive affirmation and encouragement from others. One doesn't have to go on an Emmaus Walk to have such an experience. But one does need to grow close to a few other believers that you can be really honest with and that can help point you in the right direction. I'm sure there's a lot of fellowship that takes place in bars, but we need more than fellowship. There are times we need forgiveness from God, and to be pointed in God's direction. And it's an unusual bar that provides that!

We need to encourage one another. We need to humble ourselves and share our needs with others. And thirdly, we need to pray for and encourage others to make commitments that will change lives and the world in which we live. We often convince ourselves that change is impossible, that this is the way we've always been, that there's little hope for a different tomorrow. While we each need sympathy and affirmation, we need more than that. We need encouragement to change. And the only way we make changes is to make public commitments and receive encouragement and support to become more like what Christ wants us to be. It's one thing to admit "I really struggle with this, and it's the way I've always been." It's something else to say "I believe God can forgive me, and with his help and that of others, I can become a new person."

I went with the Stollers to a Recovery seminar in Knoxville a week ago, and as part of that meeting, met in a small group with three other men. Each of these men had struggled with an addiction problem. They each bore some scars, one on his face, from fights he'd been in. All of them bore scars on the inside. They'd all had women leave them, and one man in his forties confessed "I've never been married. All my life I've been living in sin." But they all had something else in common: they had made a commitment to change. And they didn't go off in a comer and confess only to God that they were committed to change. They made this commitment to God, in the presence of other believers, who would encourage them to keep their commitment. They were now members of churches and were seeking to grow in their own faith, and encourage growth in others. They wanted their churches to be places of healing, encouragement and growth. They wanted to be "body builders" for the Kingdom of God!

That's the kind of church body we need to be, and build. Let us make a commitment to be "body builders" for the church of Jesus Christ!

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