A City Transformed: The Jesus Movement
Dr. Tom Pace
February 17, 2019
Matthew 4:18-23; Ephesians 4:11-13
As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen.And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”Immediately they left their nets and followed him.As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them.Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good newsof the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. Matthew 4:18-23
The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. Ephesians 4:11-13
Before I begin to preach I want to say just a word about the General Conference of the United Methodist Church that will begin on Saturday in St. Louis. This is a special called session of the General Conference, which ordinarily meets every four years. Called by our bishops to address issues around same sex marriage and ordination. There are 18 delegates from the Texas Annual Conference who will go, 9 clergy, 9 lay delegates, none are members of St. Luke’s. What I simply want to do today is just say a few words about St. Luke’s, about how we respond to what’s going on around us and around this issue in St. Louis.
Here’s the first thing I want to say. We have no idea what will happen, what decisions will be made there. There are lots of plans and variations of plans that are there and some that change nothing. We don’t know what will happen. But I will tell you this, that whatever happens we’ll deal with it. We’ll work through it, we’ll pray through it, we’re a healthy church, we love each other, and we can talk about these things in a healthy way. So, whatever happens we’ll deal with it. I’ll be sharing that – it’s actually two weeks from now when we’ll know.
The second thing is that we always have been and will continue to be a church with a broad spectrum of people of theological beliefs and beliefs around social issues. We have always been that. On this issue we have people all across it and we have clergy all across the spectrum, each with nuanced views. It’s not a black and white kind of conversation. We’re going to continue to be that. This church will be open to everyone; we want everyone to feel comfortable like this is a place they can belong. I’ve tried to use the image that when you turn on the TV and it’s like there’s a cultural battle going on outside. We in the church aren’t going to look like that and our job on that battlefield – I’ll use this image – we are the international Red Cross. Our job on the battlefield is to love and care for and nurture and bring healing to everybody across the board, no matter what.
Here’s the third thing. This is kind of a “God-thing” because I didn’t plan it, that in three weeks we are looking at our vision and our mission. That’s what we need to stay focused on; that’s our North Star, what we keep looking at. There’s always going to be voices all over the place talking to us about what we ought to be thinking about, but we’re going to continue to be thinking about that North Star and keep focused on that.
If any of you would like to talk more about it personally please feel free to call, or email or reach out. I hope you’ll be in prayer about this. But I want to lead us in prayer about it now.
Gracious God, we know that you work through your people, the church, and we pray for our General Conference and its delegates as they deal with issues that impact the lives of the people you love. And we pray that they might discern your spirit and be guided by that Holy Spirit rather than by their own agendas. And we pray that you would continue to work among us to perfect your church and that your will and your purposes would be accomplished through us. And now, O God as we consider your mission and the word of God you’ve given us today, we pray that you would open us up, open our eyes that we might see and our ears that we might hear. Open our hearts that we might feel and then O Lord open our hands that we might serve. Amen.
If you weren’t here last week I want to encourage you to go online and listen to the message. You can see an individual handout that we gave out last week about our vision. And the vision is for all of the family of ministries at St. Luke’s. So that means St. Luke’s church, St. Luke’s Day School, the Story Houston, our Gethsemane campus, Nick Finnegan Counseling Center, our After-School programs, Bridges Academy, our Summer Camp. All of those share the same vision – that’s what unites us together. And we all are striving to bring about a City Transformed by the Love of Jesus. We talked last week about our city, about the church as a “city on a hill,” and we talked about the City of God, the heaven come to earth. The city they talked about in this incredible music we just heard.
Each of those ministry centers, as we call them, has its own mission aimed at a specific constituency, a specific group of people, a specific target, and what we want to do is to talk about this church – St. Luke’s, 3471 Westheimer, is trying to do. To bring about that vision of a City Transformed. What’s our part in it?
We’ve said that our mission is to “equip families and individuals to live and love like Jesus.” I want to jump right into it. We’re going to look at this Scripture from Ephesians to begin with because this is in some ways sort of the heart, the specifics.
“The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,to equip the saints for the work of ministry…” I love that phrase to equip.
For my 60th birthday I asked my wife for a motorcycle. So, on my 60th birthday she gave me an old Jeep. I didn’t get a motorcycle –that’s the way it goes. But it is a beautiful 1984 Jeep CJ7 and I love it. We ride around; we take the top off, take the doors off and play the music loud. You can pretend you’re going to the beach.
Now here’s the challenge. It’s pretty old and it breaks down all the time. So, it broke down again last week – last Thursday. Just kept dying on the road until I finally nursed it into a parking lot and I left it there. I took an Uber home, then got in the other car which actually runs all the time and drove around.
This weekend I decided what we needed to do was fix it. Now, it’s been in the shop at various places, and I was going to fix it. This weekend I knew it was going to need something significant and I in my brilliant mind, diagnosed that what it needs is something called a new fuel sending unit. The Jeep smells like gasoline anytime you’re near it. There’s something clearly wrong with the fuel system. You have to drop the gas tank, drain as much of the gas you can and then drop the gas tank. It’s all bolted in and has all sorts of things connected to it. You have to take it apart and put the new fuel sending unit in the top.
Here’s what I learned as I was doing this. I’m not equipped to take a gas tank off of a car. This is not something I’m equipped to do. Now its half torn apart, so I had to get equipped. First you need a floor jack because a gas tank is really heavy when it’s got gas in it. You have to get a jack to lower it down. The old cars have these fancy… crummy little clamps to hold the hoses on, and there’s a special tool you have to have to cut those off of there. So, I had to go get one of those.
Then I realized that my lack of equipping was not just tools, but also know-how. I wasn’t equipped in that way either. God gave us YouTube and you can get on there and look up anything you want to. I looked up on YouTube about how to drop a gas tank out of a car and replace the fuel tank. I’m looking at all that and then I realized that even with YouTube I’m still not equipped. There are some professionals in the congregation here who are going to help me get this thing so it’s really moving along.
Now here’s why I’m telling you that silly story. It’s because most of you in that case would leave your car to a professional. But we have to make sure when we talk about the Christian faith we’re not leaving it to the professionals.
The role of the church is to “equip the saints for ministry,” not for you to come and pay the professionals to do ministry. Ministry belongs to you and our job is to equip you to do that. The Holy Spirit has put gifts into your life and the church’s job is to help you develop those gifts, so they’re unwrapped. God has called you and God will equip you if you respond to that call, and we’re the agent, the instrument of doing that… to equip you.
We say we want to equip families and individuals and there’s a reason for that. We feel a special calling here at St. Luke’s to families so that the next generation, and the generation after that, and the generation after that are followers of Jesus.
Our Discipleship team brought to us a few years ago something called “Sticky Faith.” The idea is that what can we do to make sure that the children and youth who come out of St. Luke’s don’t turn away from the faith and just wander away once they get out. We realized that there are two key components to that. Actually, there are five, but one is that the parents and families are the primary teacher of the faith. In other words, the families don’t outsource teaching the faith to the church, but that it’s done at home. That means that we as a church have to equip families to do that. We have to help those families put Christ in the middle of their home.
The second key component is that all the studies (children’s ministry and youth ministry) show that what makes them be “Sticky Faith” is not so much that they have awesome youth or children’s ministries, it’s that those are a part of the whole work of the church. So that children and youth who come out of the church have relationships across generations with all sorts of people. That they haven’t been just put off to the side to go do youth ministry on their own, but they’re a part of a broader community of people so they have mentors in their lives who are 20, and 40, and 60, and 80. We want to equip families and individuals. Now, to do what? What are we equipping them to do?
The Scripture speaks of the powerful story where Jesus comes across Simon Peter and Andrew and he says, “Follow me.” Then he comes across James and John – who he later called “Sons of Thunder” – and he says to them, “Follow me.” So, they followed him. He sees Levi sitting in his tax collector’s booth and he says, “Levi, come follow me,” and he leaves his tax collectors booth and he follows.
And this theme is not just for the disciples. Later on, Jesus sees a man – he doesn’t have a name, it just says, “Jesus saw a man”- and he says, “Come follow me,” and the man says, “First, I’ve got to go say goodbye to my family, my parents.” And Jesus says, “No one who looks back is fit for this.”
Then he says to someone else, “Follow me” who says, “I have to go bury my father.” Even later he says to the disciples, “If any would be my disciple they must pick up their cross and follow me.”
So, what does it mean to follow Jesus? What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? It means two things. One, it means to be with Jesus. He said, “Come be with me.” The first responsibility of a disciple is to be with Jesus. But it means more than that. I want you to think of the game “Follow the Leader.” The leader is walking and if the leader sits down in a chair then you sit down in the same chair; then the leader steps up on the couch and walks across the couch and gets down … don’t do that at home. But you get up on the couch and walk, then if the leader shoots a basket, and you shoot the basket. The leader turns the other cheek to someone who strikes him, you turn the other cheek to someone who strikes you. The leader forgives his neighbor 7 times 70 times and you forgive your neighbor 7 times 70 times. The leader serves rather than be served, you serve rather than be served. The leader gives his life away for people he loves; you give your life away for people you love.
Our mission is to equip families and individuals to live and love like Jesus. I want you to imagine a movement of God, a movement of people flowing out the doors of 3471 Westheimer, living and loving like Jesus. And if that happened, when that happens, our city is transformed by the love of Jesus. The mission leads to the vision.
Now one other thing, and I don’t have a long time to develop it, but I want you to take hold of it. We also recognize that this decision to become like Jesus... the passage from Ephesians says, “…until all of us reach maturity, achieving the full measure of the stature of Christ…” That word stature doesn’t mean height in Greek, it’s not the best translation. The full stature means to grow up into, to become like. Sometimes it’s translated as visage, meaning it’s the look of. To achieve, to look just like Jesus. We need to grow into that. It doesn’t happen immediately. The images in Scripture are almost always gradual. A seed grows, a boy grows into a man and matures. Sometimes it’s about a journey.
I love this anthem, “to be a pilgrim.” We’re talking about how people are moving forward on their journeys.
I preached a sermon series in 2017 and I’ve had more response to that single sermon series than any other I’ve done in recent history. It was called “Unstuck.” It’s about how we get moving again.
I was having this conversation with a Discipleship pastor at another large church in our city about what they’re doing to help people grow. We were talking about people being stuck or unstuck. He said, “You know I think that about a lot of my people. It’s not that they’re stuck; it’s just that they’re idling. It’s like they’re comfortable, it’s like, ‘I don’t need to go anywhere. I don’t need to grow.’”
He used this image: It’s like they’re sitting in the car with the A/C running and the radio playing but not ever going anywhere.
I just love listening to Elizabeth talk about this desire to grow, to become, to move. That’s why we keep talking to you week after week about next steps, next steps. How can we keep growing until we mature to become like Jesus?
Now that goes three directions. First –up – we grow into a relationship with Christ. Hearts transformed by a relationship with Jesus. In Max Lucado’s book Just Like Jesus (1998) he writes: “God’s plan for you is nothing short of a new heart. If you were a car, God would want control of your engine. If you were a computer, God would claim the software and the hard drive. If you were an airplane, he would take his seat in the cockpit. But you are a person, so God wants to change your heart.” Hearts transformed by a relationship with Jesus. A journey up.
The second one is a journey in. A journey so that our lives are transformed by Christian community. Friday, we celebrated the life of Martha Loyd in a memorial service in the Sanctuary. I looked out in the church and so many of you were here, people who had known Martha over all these years. If you didn’t ever know her, I’m sorry for you. She was a beautiful incredible person. So, as I’m preparing for her service I go to the church’s database to look up all the things she’s been involved in, so I could speak about it. I kept scrolling down and down and down and year after year and thing after thing, things she’s been involved in, until we run out of database actually. Before the database began. What she did was that she wove her life into the life of the people of St. Luke’s. She wove herself into it.
That’s why when it’s taken out it hurts us so bad. Because it’s like a little tear in the fabric. When I speak to prospective members of St. Luke’s I tell them this is the most important thing I can tell you today – don’t just come to church and sit and listen but choose to weave yourself into the fabric of this community and be shaped and formed by the people who God has put in your life. That’s a journey in.
The last component of the journey is a journey out.
The Scripture says, “We are equipped for the work of ministry.” Matthew 4 says “Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news, curing every disease and every sickness.”
I wonder if you were here last week, if those words ring a bell. In Matthew 9 it’s the exact same language: “Jesus went all about their cities and villages teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news, curing all the diseases…” Then he calls the disciples to him. He sees the crowds and he has compassion on them as they “were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.” He calls the disciples and he sends them out to do the very same thing he’s doing. Out in the world. A journey out to transform our city with our service and our witness.
I was preaching at a men’s retreat a few weeks ago in the Hill Country. It was kind of a community retreat there; people from all over were there. One man came up to me and said, “I used to live in Houston.” He was a firefighter. He said, “I was stationed for many years at Station Three – just down the street on Alabama Street and I have been to your church many times.” So, we had a great conversation about what it was like to be a firefighter. I said, “What’s the best part about being a firefighter?” When I think about his answer, it really doesn’t surprise me. He said, “When there’s a fire. You know, we train and train, and we work on our equipment and we get everything just right.” Then he spoke about how he kind of felt sorry for firefighters who lived in the new suburban neighborhoods because they never have any fires. He said, “We do this, so we can go save lives. That’s what we want to do.”
We equip for ministry, we train, so we can go out and do what God’s called us to do. To be propelled out into the world. Imagine a movement of people pouring out of the doors of this place, living and loving like Jesus. A City Transformed.
We have a series of classes called Starting Point that will begin the first Sunday in March. We’re inviting all of our new members to take them and I want to invite you to take the classes also. They’ll be on Sunday mornings and will rotate all year long. Up, In, Out. Then the next month, Up, In, Out. Sign up for one. We’re also going to make them available to Adult Sunday School Classes so that they can use them as part of their curriculum as well. It’s so all of us can begin to understand this journey on how we can keep growing, closer to Jesus. Hearts transformed by the love of Jesus. Lives transformed by Christian community, and a city transformed by our service and witness.
Let’s pray together. Gracious and loving God, we pray by the power of your Holy Spirit you would equip us so that we might live and love like your son Jesus taught us to do and showed us how to do, and that by doing so, the city would be changed by your love. In the name of Christ, we pray, Amen.