The Assembling of the Church

Recently, I saw an TV show that demonstrated the difference in leadership – that is, between the leaders of this world and the leaders in God’s kingdom. (see Matthew 20:25-28, Mark 10:42-45, Luke 22:25-27)

In this show, a lady was coming to a work site to help someone out. As she approached the site, there was a man with a clipboard directing other people as they hurried about doing their work. The lady walked up to the man with the clipboard, asking what she should do.

In this world’s way of looking at things, the man with the clipboard directing the others is the leader.

But, in God’s way of looking at things, the ones who were working the hardest serving others were the leaders.

In the world’s way of looking at things, the woman correctly picked the leader. She asked the leader what to do, and he directed her actions.

In God’s way of looking at things, the woman should have looked for the hardest workers and start following their example, serving as they serve.

In other words, for the church, the leader is not the one holding the clipboard directing the activities of others. Instead, the leaders are the ones working the hardest to serve other people.

Who are we following?

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I haven’t written about our friends in “the Neighborhood” lately. We met Mrs. W  in the neighborhood almost two years ago. At first, we had a hard time talking to her. It wasn’t that she was mean or anything, but she just wasn’t very talkative. Eventually, though, after visiting with her week after week for over a year, she started talking to us. She tells us about her life growing up around Wake Forest and about her family.

But, in all the times that we’ve visited her, she would never let us do anything for her. Even when we raked leaves for other neighbors, she said that she wanted to rake her own leaves. And, that was cool, because she likes to be outdoors and that’s about the only exercise she gets.

Just before Christmas, she mentioned that she was having a hard time cleaning her apartment. Her family had been helping her, but they didn’t clean like she wanted. She never asked us to clean her apartment, but one afternoon Margaret (my wife), Miranda (my daughter), and another lady cleaned her apartment. (see my post “Wednesday Afternoon Worship Service“)

Last Saturday, when we were talking to Mrs. W, Margaret didn’t even ask if she wanted her apartment cleaned again. She simply told Mrs. W that she wanted to clean her apartment again. The next day, Margaret asked if anyone would like to help her clean Mrs. W’s apartment.

So, this morning, Margaret, Miranda, three other ladies, and one of their daughters cleaned Mrs. W’s apartment again.

I appreciate their example of working together to serve others!

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My friend, Eric, at “A Pilgrim’s Progress,” wrote a post about helping a neighbor get his cat out of a tree. The post is called “Serving Isn’t Easy When the Cat is in the Tree.” Eric concludes with this:

I’m glad I could help my neighbor, but it was not easy. Service has a tendency to be difficult and dirty. It is also often inconvenient. Despite this, it is certainly worthwhile.

My neighbor is not a Christian. I’m hoping that this act of service will give me the opportunity to share the gospel with him. At least he knows we care.

Eric says some very important things here. Serving isn’t easy, and it’s often inconvenient. It can be dirty. In fact, we should rarely serve people in ways that we want to serve them. Instead, we should serve people in the way that they need to be served – which may not be what we want to do.

But, like Eric says, serving is always worthwhile. Always… even when, maybe especially when, it is hard, inconvenient, and dirty.

Yes, Eric’s neighbor knows that Eric cares, because Eric told him with his actions.

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Last weekend, someone mentioned Markus Barth’s (son of Karl Barth) commentary on Ephesians. During the conversation, I remembered this great paragraph concerning Ephesians 4:16 -

(1) It is Christ, the head, alone “from whom” the body derives unity, nourishment, growth – but Christ’s monarchy and monopoly do not exclude but rather create the activity of a church engaged in “its own” growth and upbuilding. (2) All that the body is, has, and does is determined by its (passive and active) relationship to the head – but this (“vertical”) relationship establishes an essential and indispensable (“horizontal”) interrelation among the church members. (3) While Christ provides for the body as a whole and makes it a unity, and while the body grows as a unit – no individual growth is mentioned here – the distinct personality of each church member is not wiped out but rather established by Christ’s rulership and the church’s community. What Christ is, does, and gives, is appropriate “to the needs” (lit. “to the measure”) “of each single part.” If the only things affirmed in Eph 4:16 were Christ’s own activity, Christ’s rule over all Christians, Christ’s relationship to the community, then this verse would have been phrased more clearly in Greek and could be more easily interpreted in a modern language. But in this verse there are several accents, not just one: the church’s and each member’s responsive activity is not only recognized or tolerated but receives an emphasis of its own: “The body makes its own growth so that it builds itself up in love.” (Markus Barth, Ephesians: Translation and Commentary on Chapters 4-6, Anchor Bible 34a, Garden City: Doubleday: 1974, 446-47)

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For those following Jesus Christ, there is not greater promotion above brother/sister and servant. (see Hebrews 2:11, Matthew 12:48-50, Matthew 20:26, Matthew 23:11)

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When Paul was writing to the Philippians, he said that he counts everything as “rubbish” or “dirty rags” (for the full contexts see Philippians 3:1-11):

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ … (Philippians 3:7-8 ESV)

The author of Hebrews presents another view of our righteous acts:

Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. (Hebrews 13:15-16 ESV)

So, are our righteous deeds dirty rags or sacrifices of praise that are pleasing to God?

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This is from Dave Black’s blog this morning (Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 6:45 am):

In Greek 4 we’re going through 1 Thessalonians. The last line on this page of my Greek New Testament is 1 Thess. 1:5, where Paul says “You know what kind of people we were among you for your sakes.”

These two brief prepositional phrases pack a wallop: “Among you,” “for your sakes.” What a vast area of thought that opens up! This was Paul’s missionary method and motivation. He did everything “among the people,” not from the outside (or from above). He did everything on their behalf, not for his own benefit. I must learn from Paul. I must live among the people when I am in Ethiopia — not above them or beyond them. And I must make sure that they know I am there to serve them, not myself.

Yes, yes. “Among you” and “for your sakes”… but not just for the people in Ethiopia, or other people “over there.”

What about the people you work with everyday? What about your neighbors? What about the people that you meet with every week? Do they know what kind of person (i.e., a child of God) you are because they way you act when you are “among them” is “for their sakes” – i.e., to serve them and for their benefit?

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Individual believers and churches demonstrate their love or lack of love by the way that they treat (for better or for worse) people who are different from them.

Individual believers and churches demonstrate their sevant’s heart or lack thereof by the way that they serve (for better or for worse) others when they are at their neediest.

Individual believers and churches demonstrate their fellowship or lack of fellowship by the way they share with one another (for better or for worse) when people are hurting and their lives are messy.

Individual believers and churches demonstrate their hospitality or lack of hospitality by how they share their possessions and time (for better or for worse) when they have very little to share.

Individual believers and churches demonstrate their unity or lack of unity by how they accept others (for better or for worse) when they are not accepted themselves.

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My wife and I had lunch with another couple. After lunch, one of our lunch partners said something like this:

It doesn’t matter how much we study the trinity, we will never understand it. And, continuing to study the trinity isn’t going to help the young girl on the corner to stop selling herself to get drug money.

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Lionel at “A Better Covenant” has written a great post full of thought-provoking ideas called “You Need A Leader And God Has Called Me To Be Yours.” The entire post is about a desire to follow a leader’s example (his life) and not following because of his position.

This is Lionel’s conclusion:

Everyone wants someone to submit to them, but nobody wants to serve. Everyone is called (I am not saying this calling is true only affirming the common mindset) to be a leader and says you should submit to them but again leadership begins with service. Leadership begins with reputation, practice, living it out amongst a group of believers. We love leadership here in America because it costs you nothing yet gains you everything. Man want to eat the fruit of being apostles but are [not] living like them. So you can miss (miss means to bypass in the urban vernacular) Lionel Woods. I don’t believe in submitting to positions in the body of Christ. I believe in submitting to people who have lived a life worthy of imitating. Self-recognized men who call themselves leaders and then require others to submit to them based off of some wrong biblical interpretation won’t work. I will submit to all believers as I see the work of the Lord Jesus in their lives and as the Spirit speaks through them. All that other stuff, is just stuff and titles and positions and at the end of the day it looks more like a Franchise than a family!

I wonder how many more people would be willing to follow a Christ-honoring, serving example. I wonder how many “leaders” would be willing to step down off the platform and start serving people on their hands and knees.

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