We are working toward becoming one church community united by common learning goals, even as we are scattered commuting people.
This week we’re studying a passage from Ephesians that includes this line: “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.”
We want to highlight the process involved. The aim is to become more and more like Jesus, not just in outward appearance, but completely, the “full stature”. This is clearly not instant, but a maturing process, since no one on this earth has ever been completely like Jesus.
I have shared a few stories from when I studied engineering, and the importance of learning problem solving and analysis. That principle can be applied to any scenario, even the unprecedented and complex ones.
Discipleship is about theological problem solving in similarly complex and unexpected situations. Paul was involved in discipleship to help his church members avoid being thrown around by every idea, doctrine like a small boat in wind and waves.
Contrast a road and ocean. Some want faith to be a roadway, with clear boundaries, signs, maps and directions to follow. But the problem is that real life is much more like an ocean, where you can’t give a plan for every scenario , but follow a compass heading with a specific end in mind, but the actual journey will be less strictly defined. This is the pursuit of discipleship, to set a compass heading of what the bible calls “Christlikeness” – becoming like Jesus Christ. We will get there by navigating all sorts of wind and wave action, and keeping focused on the end goal.
This is a series on church community, becoming like family. Discipleship is a family effort, done in a group. I remember engineering projects that would have been impossible for me to do it alone – I knew one aspect of the project, while others knew theirs, and together we accomplished something greater than any one of us could do on our own.
In the same way, we aren’t meant to grow as a disciple alone. We need challenge, encouragement, and complementary gifts like the five we saw yesterday.
Question: Are you more comfortable in a spiritual ocean or roadway? What part of life feels like an ocean today?
Coffee Hours this Week:
Have questions about the challenges, do you want to meet others exploring the same content, or connect with Ryan?
Join us for our coffee shop drop-in tonight, Wednesay, October 30th from 7:30pm-9:00pm at the Starbucks in the Ajax Chapters. Look for Ryan Sim in the drink line, or a Redeem the Commute postcard on a table.
If you know in advance that you’re coming, please RSVP here
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“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ (Matthew 7:21-23 ESV)
We'll look at two misunderstandings of Christian faith.
One is that Christian faith is all about words you need to say. The other one says it's all about deeds you do.
We'll look at words today.
Jesus says people will come to him and say, "Lord, Lord"
Those are good words. Lord denotes respect and honour for Jesus.
There is a connection to God's name in the Old Testament. They even say it twice – this is no lazy acknowledgement.
But the motivation for saying these words is wrong. They are using good words like a password to get through the gates to heaven.
We've had several hacking attempts on Redeem the Commute, where computers try to guess our password with enough attempts. Guessing the password may get you in, but it doesn’t mean you belong in the admin section of our site! Guessing the passcode to a celebrity's home doesn't mean you know them.
Some act as if knowing the correct password gets you into heaven. Some think there is a particular prayer you have to pray, and that’s all that matters.
That's a misunderstanding because it makes it seem as if a magic, superstitious incantation is all God needs from us. That would mean we can do what we want – we could believe that we’ve already bought our ticket to heaven, so who cares what we do until then! But this is not true.
It would also mean Christians could manipulate people to make them say words out of fear that they don’t understand or follow through on.
It would also lead to some ridiculous deathbed confessions…where we could try to get people to say those words before they die, or people could delay saying them as long as possible until they were at death's door.
Now, it's indispensable to say Jesus is Lord. To avoid those words is to say I don’t want to live in his kingdom, heaven, where he’s Lord. Verbally confessing Jesus is critical. But that's not all there is to following Jesus.
Tomorrow, we'll see another perversion of Christian faith. Then on Thursday, we'll see what Jesus taught it was really all about.
Question: If Christian faith was just about saying the right words, how would this contradict what Jesus said earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, or elsewhere?
