The Zone Gathering

I was destined to become an engineer from a young age. From the moment I stepped into my 4-year old kindergarten class, I was drawn to the corner of the room with the blocks. There were big blocks and small blocks and tiny blocks. The kids who got to school first got to play with the biggest blocks. The later you arrived, the smaller the blocks at your disposal. Since I was a girl, the boys usually made me play with the small blocks.

Upon entering elementary school, I discovered the joys of Lincoln Logs and Legos. When I was in the first grade, I had a Friday night tradition. I went to tap class, came home and watched the Dukes of Hazzard, and then I was required to play in my room while my mom watched Dallas. Those nights were filled with building projects.

In junior high, I decided I wanted to be a theatrical set designer. I constructed my own flat at the age of ten and marveled at my skills. Then I realized I had no artistic ability.

I went to college and was forced to endure the purgatory of organic chemistry. But the exciting part was the opportunity to get the modeling set.

This building obsession continues today. Two years ago, I was sitting at Cap City Brewery eating lunch, and I designed a theme park over lunch. Last Christmas, Ryan gave me a 4 tie-fighter lego set.

Despite this fascination with building, however, whenever I get a box that says, “Some assembly required,” I always have mixed emotions. On one level, I’m excited about the challenge. On another level, it’s a bit intimidating. It’s always an adventure, though, because I’m one of those people that doesn’t like to follow directions. For some of you, “some assembly required” gets your adrenaline flowing. For others, that little phrase strikes fear and trepidation in your heart.

As we comb the pages of Scripture, we find “some assembly required posted throughout. Sometimes it’s very physical, literal assembly, like Noah and the ark or Nehemiah and the wall or that idiot who built his house on the sand. Other times it’s more symbolic, like when Paul talked about building the church.

One leadership principle we want to focus on this weekend is this: that when it comes to creating community, making disciples, and doing ministry, there is always some assembly required.

In Matthew 28, Jesus doesn’t tell his followers to go find disciples; he tells them to go make disciples. Discipleship takes work.

Psalm 34:14 says we should ”work hard at living in peace with others.” Peter quotes that passage in 1 Peter 3:11. Community takes work.

In 1 Corinthians 3:8, Paul explains the various ministry roles in the church, and he says that each will be rewarded “according to their hard work.” Ministry takes work.

We cannot just wait for things to fall into place; there’s always some assembly required. That’s why one of our core values as a church is “Work like it depends on us and pray like it depends on God.”

The New Testament gives us several pictures of how Jesus intended the church to look. There are several relational metaphors, including a body (1 Corinthians 12:12-31, Ephesians 5:22-23, Colossians 1:18, Ephesians 4:15), the family of God (1 Timothy 3:15, Ephesians 2:19, John 1:12, Galatians 4:6-7), the bride of Christ (2 Corinthians 11:2, Ephesians 5:22-32, Revelation 21:9), and a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9, Hebrew 10:19-21). The New Testament also uses agricultural pictures such as branches on a vine (John 15:5), and olive tree (Romans 11:17-24), and a field of crops (1 Corinthians 3:6-9).

But the first time Jesus ever mentioned anything about the church is found in Matthew 16:18 when Jesus the carpenter turned preacher said, “I will build my church.” I always say that the church isn’t a building. I should probably revise that. The church is a building, but it’s not a static or completed building. It is a living, dynamic, on-going building project made up of people who connect to the community of faith and work together with God to build.

When Jesus made that comment, Peter (then called by his name Simon) had just confessed that he believed Jesus to be the Christ, the son of God. Jesus affirmed the faith of this impulsive disciple and characterized that kind of faith as the rock upon which he would build. He wasn’t talking about a physical structure, however. He was talking about a dynamic, living, growing temple of God made of people connected to other people. And Jesus told Peter that his name would no longer be called Simon, but Peter (”Rock”), to reflect the faith he had shown.

Thirty-five years later, Peter undoubtedly recalled those words and that imagery as he told the Jewish Christ-followers living abroad:

1 Peter 2:5 says, “And now God is building you, as living stones, into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are God’s holy priests, who offer the spiritual sacrifices that please him because of Jesus Christ.”

Peter tells us here that we fit into God’s construction plan in two ways. First, we are living stones. We are the raw building materials that he uses to form his temple. But we are also workers with him—we are his priests. We are his workmanship and his workmen.

The metaphor was also picked up and used by Paul in his letters to the churches at Ephesus and Corinth. Over the next 24 hours, we are going to look at the building metaphors in the New Testament as found in 1 Peter, Ephesians, and 1 Corinthians.

In each of these passages, followers of Christ are described simultaneously as God’s workmanship and his workmen. We are both the building itself—a holy temple for God, and the co-workers in God’s construction project. We are both the building materials and the builders. We will explore in these passages what it means to be pliable in his hands and the role we can play in the construction of his Kingdom. We will talk about what it means to be God’s workmanship and how we can be good raw materials that God can use to build his temple. And we will talk about what it means to be good workmen as we strive to be co-laborers with him in building his church.

Tonight, we are going to focus on what it means to be God’s workmanship– living stones in his hands that are carefully placed together to become his temple.

Workmanship
We are the raw materials that God uses to build his church. Peter calls us “Living Stones” and Paul told the church at Ephesus that they were being “built together.” Peter’s choice of “lithoi zontes” means “worked stones” that have been cut and shaped by the builder. In other words, we are stones that God has shaped and polished. He is in the process of removing the rough edges from our lives.
The action of the verse is in present tense, indicating continuous action. In other words, we have not completely arrived. We are living stones that God continues to polish, shape, and form for his purposes.

As I meditated on these passages, I thought back to some of my labs at LSU and my “strengths of materials” class where we learned about the physical and chemical properties of different building materials. We talked about things like tensile strength, density, and modulus of elasticity. We measured different physical properties to determine the integrity and strengths of the materials. We considered the aesthetics of the materials and their compatibility with other building components.

I want to talk tonight about three main properties of living stones that God can use: authenticity, integrity, and compatibility.

Authenticity
The first property of a living stone is authenticity.

When I was studying engineering, we had to take structure classes. We would take all kinds of different materials and stretch them and compress them and twist them to determine their physical properties. Normal engineers go through this process with wood and steel and concrete. But since I was in the weird biological engineering program, we did it with crazy stuff like bone and skin and hot dogs.

One day, we were focusing on food process engineering and talking about the difference between low-fat and no-fat foods. The biggest difference between a cookie and it’s low-fat equivalent is usually not in the taste, but in the texture or density. It’s a difference in the physical properties. Low-fat varieties replace the fat with synthetic gels or pastes. Sounds yummy, right? And in order to make low-fat products as close as possible in texture to the real thing and to make something people like, food engineers have to determine how and what quality of filler to put in so that the food has the same basic physical properties as the real thing.

We did this particular experiment with hot dogs. We compared hot dogs, turkey dogs, chicken dogs, and low-fat dogs. We put them all in a piece of equipment called an Instron machine, and we pulled them, compressed them, twisted them, and sheared them to measure their physical properties. The idea was the closer the dog matched the original in strength, the closer the texture and feel of the food in the mouth.

I didn’t eat another hot dog for years, and I can’t eat one today without those images in my head. There’s actually a point to this. We need to think about our authenticity as leaders. Here is my greatest fear– that I have learned just enough as a Christian and as a leader that I can fill myself with artificial junk to make me look good on the outside. But I’m not really authentic. Many of us can give ourselves just the “fix” that we need to make us look right and lead right, but we are not authentic.

What are we filling ourselves with? Are we the real deal before God and before men? Or are we puffing ourselves up with a bunch of gels and pastes in an attempt to fabricate the real thing as closely as possible?

I think there has been some struggle recently to define exactly what “authenticity” means in Christian circles—which, ironically, I think proves the fact that we are not authentic because we have no idea what that means. For some, authentic means to be weird or different. We firmly believe that maturity does not equal conformity, but some people take that to an extreme and think that if they are significantly weird enough, they must be “authentic.” Here’s another example of false authenticity: I met a guy this summer who firmly believed that Christians needed to write using lots of profanity because that was how people really talked and that was authentic.

The only way we will ever be truly authentic is to be completely all that God created us to be. And that’s found in filling ourselves with him. Not with gels or pastes or fillers. But with God. When we fill ourselves with God, he transforms us into being the people he created us to be.

Don’t be a no-fat hot dog.

Integrity
The second property of a living stone is integrity. You wouldn’t build with bad materials. In structures classes, we would talk about the integrity of different materials. If you are building a plane that goes from 0 mph to 900 mph in a matter of seconds, you have to use a metal with a certain makeup or a certain integrity or it will absolutely fall apart under the speed and pressure.

We talked about something called the modulus of elasticity, which is the amount of stretching a material can take and return to its original size and shape.

This is about leading ourselves well—incorporating practices into our lives that ensure we are built strong and can endure stretching and pushing and pulling and twisting.

Before we can even think about leading other people, we’ve got to know how to lead ourselves and that begins by being people of character. People with integrity.

Character comes from transformation—not information. So, how do we put ourselves into environments where our character can be transformed?

You cannot drift into character. You must be intentional about character formation; there is some assembly required. You take steps every single day. They are either taking you closer to the person you want to be. Or away from the person you want to be. You will wind up somewhere. And you will either wind up somewhere on purpose because you have intentionally moved in that direction. Or you will drift to a place with no anchor.

Let me tell you two things you can do to keep you intentional. First, you need a goal. And then you need some practices to get you there. Let’s talk first about the goal.

Goal
To form character, we need a vision of what is possible. You need to answer this question: what kind of person do I want to become? What kind of character do I want to display? What do I want to pour out of me when I get squeeed?

Let’s look at the pictures that are provided to us in Scripture. One picture is given to use in Galatians 5:22-23. “But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Here there is no conflict with the law.” When we are placed in God’s Instron machine and pulled and pushed and twisted, how high do we score in these different areas. Are these raw materials exhibiting these properties?

Another picture is found in Acts 2 when we see the early church described. We find disciples who exhibit four characteristics—they were seeking God through spiritual disciplines, they were learning about his truth, they were influencing one another through community and influencing others by sharing their faith, and they were investing their resources into God’s kingdom. We should set the same goal for ourselves—that we would be fully-devoted followers of Christ who strive to grow as seekers, learners, influencers, and investors.

Spiritual Disciplines
So how do you shoot for that fruit of the spirit? How do you aim at becoming that kind of person?

Paul said, “I beat my body and make it my slave so that after preaching to others I myself will not be disqualified.”

Spiritual disciplines give us opportunities to connect with God. I think that the Spiritual Disciplines are like athletic drills— they are things I don’t like to do. Is there anyone here who actually likes to run suicides? But event though we hate doing them, they do serve a valuable purpose. They make us stronger and quicker and more mentally engaged. We begin to do things by instinct. You are not going to slide correctly in the game if you don’t slide correctly during the sliding drill in practice.

The spiritual disciplines are the same way. I Timothy 4:7 says, “Spend your time and energy in training yourself for spiritual fitness. Physical exercise has some value, but spiritual exercise is much more important, for it promises a reward in both this life and the next.”

Spiritual disciplines are spiritual drills. They are not meant to be the goal- they are meant to be the preparation for reaching the goals of becoming more like Christ. They make us into raw materials that God can use.

There’s some assembly required. You need a plan for growth. You need to think about exactly what type of raw material you are and what you want to become and then place yourself into God’s hands to refine you and polish you. Think about the fruit of the spirit and how you can cultivate that. Think about the four dimensions of discipleship—seeker, learner, influencer, and investor—and develop a plan to grow in those 4 areas. You’ve got a spiritual development plan in your notes that can help you draft a blueprint for your own spiritual growth.

Compatibility
Finally, let’s talk quickly about a third characteristic of living stones—compatibility. We are not just living stones that hang out on our own. We are not simply stones that are living and built up as individuals. We are built together by God.

The New Living Translation says that we are “carefully joined together.” God is carefully joining us together so that we can be a Temple for him.

Tolerances
How closely are you fitting together with the other living stones around you? How does our stone fit together with the stones around us? God is the master builder of this spiritual temple, and he surely fits his stones together in a way that is tight, neat, and precise. In engineering terms, we would refer to the fit as a “tolerance”—meaning the maximum deviation from a standard value. When machinists make nuts and bolts and other fittings, there is a tolerance that is allowed– or the maximum difference between the copied part and the originally. It determines how perfectly the original and the copy match and therefor how tightly the pieces will fit together. If the tolerance is too high, the pieces will fit together loosely. IF the tolerance is too small, the pieces will not fit together at all.

God is forming each of us to perfectly fit together perfectly with others. What is your “tolerance” level when you consider how you relate and fit together with other followers of Christ?

Conclusion
We are living stones that God is preparing and building. What kind of raw material are you? Forget about your leadership for just a moment and consider your physical properties as a living stone. Are you authentic? Do you have integrity? And are you compatible with the living stones around you?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 at 12:54 pm and is filed under News and Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.