Gifts for a Change
Living for A Change • Sermon • Submitted • 40:10
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· 62 viewsHow does the Spirit's power become active and stay active in us? Since the gifts of the spirit are initiated and sustained by faith then believers must think differently about the purchasing power of their devotional efforts. Fallen Condition Focus: It is easy to think that salvation is by faith but the operations of the spirit are contingent upon devout effort. Is that true? Are the gifts freely given or are recieved because of devout effort? It can be both-and.
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Scripture Introduction
Since the gifts of the spirit are initiated and sustained by faith then believers must think differently about the purchasing power of their devotional efforts.
Since the gifts of the spirit are initiated and sustained by faith then believers must think differently about the purchasing power of their devotional efforts.
Scripture Introduction
In the Mishnah tractate Sotah 9:15: Rabbi Yair says, “Heedfulness leads to cleanliness, cleanliness leads to cleanness, cleanness leads to abstinence, abstinence leads to holiness, holiness leads to modesty, modesty leads to the fear of sin, the fear of sin leads to piety, piety leads to the Holy Spirit...”
What the Mishnah is saying it takes devotional capital to get the Holy Spirit. The mishnah says there are at least six things that need to transpire in a person’s heart before one could even think the Holy Spirit would go “live” in their lives. Rabbis often called this the thorny path to the Holy Spirit.
This posed a real problem for most of Judaism because, “only a select few eminent rabbis and holy men were declared to be ‘worthy of the Holy Spirit,’ but not to possess the Holy Spirit.” the Holy Spirit was essential for Jewish communal life, the Jerusalem Talmud says, “if there is no Holy Spirit, there will be no synagogues or schoolhouses―as it were. In that case, as it were, the Holy One, blessed be he, will not let his Presence rest upon Israel.” (y. Sanh. 10:2, II.4.I)
if there is no Holy Spirit, there will be no synagogues or schoolhouses―as it were. In that case, as it were, the Holy One, blessed be he, will not let his Presence rest upon Israel.”
Jacob Neusner, The Jerusalem Talmud: A Translation and Commentary (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008).
“If there is no ruaḥ ha-kodesh there are no synagogues or houses of study” (JT Sanh., ch. 10, hal. bet.). And according to the Rabbis, “only a select few eminent rabbis and holy men were declared to be ‘worthy of the Holy Spirit,’ but not to possess the Holy Spirit.”
If there is no ruaḥ ha-kodesh there are no synagogues or houses of study” (JT Sanh., ch. 10, hal. bet.)
According to a surface level read of the Rabbis, the Holy Spirit’s activity is essential for the ongoing flourishing of Judaism but who would be worthy, pious enough, have enough devotional capital to have the activity of the Holy Spirit?
Eminent rabbis were declared to be “worthy of the Holy Spirit,” but not to possess the Holy Spirit.23
I like to think of the ancient rabbinic view as the Jedi Knight view of the Holy Spirit. You know, in a galaxy far-far away only a select few with special, very special features were worthy actively engage in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Today, we are going to look at another rabbinic opinion about this all important question, “How does the Holy Spirit’s power initiate and remain active in our lives?”
only a select few eminent rabbis and holy men were declared to be “worthy of the Holy Spirit,” but not to possess the Holy Spirit.
Insert Ha-foke Ba
For through the grace given me, I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think—but to use sound judgment, as God has assigned to each person a measure of faith. For just as we have many parts in one body—and all the parts do not have the same function— so we, who are many, are one body in Messiah and everyone parts of one another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace that was given to us—if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; or the one who teaches, in his teaching; or the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who gives, in generosity; the one who leads, with diligence; the one who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.
I want to find out just one thing from you: did you receive the Ruach by deeds based on Torah, or by hearing based on trust? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Ruach, will you now reach the goal in the flesh?
Sermon Introduction
When we ask the question, “Is there anyone with enough devotional capital to obtain and sustain the work of the Holy Spirit?” there are really only two ways of answering this question. The Spirit’s power is obtained and sustained as a free gift or it is through devout effort. It cannot be a both-and model. It is either given and sustained as a free gift or by devout effort.
If you think the Rabbis are the only ones who thought the Holy Spirit was obtained and sustained by devout effort, then you would be wrong. In the Christian world, this is a hotly debated topic and it gets debated incessantly in books, seminars, blogs, videos, tweets, pinterest posts and probably snap chats. One example out to suffice:
A Theology of the Holy Spirit: The Pentecostal Experience and the New Testament Witness VI. F. B. Meyer’s Doctrine of the Power of the Holy Spirit
“You say to me: ‘Sir tell me how I may get this power myself.’ I will. I know a little of it, thank God.… Any mechanic knows this law to be true: obey the law of a force, and the force will obey you.… Take water-force.… So it is with the Holy Spirit … you have never yet learned the law of the Holy Ghost; for if you had, the Holy Ghost would have come flowing through your life as much as through the life of a Peter or a John. You seem to think that God is a God of favoritism.”
“Five conditions:
It seems like F. B. Meyer a leading Christian theologian has taken his cue from the same ancient rabbinic position as we read before: devotional purchasing power is needed to have the Holy Spirit and to keep the Holy Spirit. Yet, is this really true? Doesn’t something sound a little off here? Can you really control the Holy Spirit like a force? Is it just as simple as keep all the right conditions and that will sustain the powerful activity of the Holy Spirit?
I want to say up front that I think is a dangerous line of thinking to hedge your relationship with the Holy Spirit based on your devotional capital. Dangerous because the outcome of such thinking is always so easy to predict either false-humility or proud self-righteousness.
A certain Rabbi one time met a man a train station and the man said to him, “Oh, Rabbi, I am just a chimney sweep in the shul. Let me carry your suitcase. I am a nobody, and you are a man of great gifts.” The Rabbi saw through the man’s self-effacing-self-righteousness and said, rather than saying, “No, no, you are really a great person” which is what he wanted to hear, he said, “You know, I think you’re right! You are just a chimney sweep.”
R. Kent Hughes, Romans: Righteousness from Heaven, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991), 220.
The other kind of self-righteousness, the loud and proud kind, well that does not need much illustration because it is so easy to spot in others but yet so difficult to see in ourselves.
I understand why people think it takes devotional capital to get and keep the Holy Spirit. After all, how can the Holy Spirit lives and use a person who has a “God will forgive me later” theology? That person whose theology allows them to rationalize separation from God for a season, for a relationship, for a pleasure, for an angry out burst, for recognition, or an advantage with the assurance that God will forgive later. As the person types in the dangerous URL, or drive down the forbidden street, or write down the false figure, or types out that nasty e-mail or tweet, or ignore the pain of another, we are counting on abounding grace to cover out-of-bounds hearts, aren’t we? Aren’t we still counting on abounding grace to cover out-of-bounds hearts so the Holy Spirit can remain active in our lives?
There is a certain logic to this kind of thinking. Perhaps, a logic that can’t be denied a logic that is the polar opposite of devotional capital it is the logic that Rabbi Paul puts forward in . It is the kind of logic that says grace capital is real but it should it should not drive us to sin; it should drive us from sin. In this is the precise point Rabbi Paul wants to make in answer the question, “Is there anyone with enough devotional capital to obtain and sustain the work of the Holy Spirit?”
rationalize our separation from God for a season, a relationship, a pleasure, a recognition, or an advantage with the assurance that God will excuse us when we get around to asking his forgiveness. As we type in the dangerous URL, or drive down the forbidden street, or write down the false figure, or ignore the pain of another, we are counting on abounding grace to cover out-of-bounds hearts
Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Sermons: Models of Redemptive Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 200–201.
Think Rightly About Yourself
Think Rightly About Yourself
For through the grace given me, I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think—but to use sound judgment, as God has assigned to each person a measure of faith.
Explain: We are hard wired for pride but we can be re-wired for humility.
Prideful thoughts are hard wired in everyone.
Pride is the grand illusion, the fantasy of fantasies. A fantasy that we are little gods but it leaves us empty at the center and repels the very people we want love from the most.
Once you start feeding on the pride thought loop you will submit to your internal fear of being found out to be a little less than you have thought your self to be. You will learn to swagger, bluff, use symbols to cover up your fear and insecurity.
Hebrew, the mind or reason has to do with emotion, heart and rational thought.
That space Jeremiah said, the “heart is deceitful” above all things Jer 17:9.
Before Messiah, we had a veil over our minds ().
Every time you meet someone your first most basic thought will be, “How will this person contribute to my need to prove that I count?” Life becomes a constant battle to use people to bolster your own. That is a sickness: pride, self-conceited thinking, which is a hunger for glory, a deep need for ultimate respect.
Prideful thoughts are the fantasy of fantasies.
Pride is the grand illusion, the fantasy of fantasies. A fantasy that we are little gods but it leaves us empty at the center and repels the very people we want love from the most.
Once you start feeding on the pride thought loop you will submit to your internal fear of being found out to be a little less than you have thought your self to be. You will learn to swagger, bluff, use symbols to cover up your fear and insecurity.
Every time you meet someone your first most basic thought will be, “How will this person contribute to my need to prove that I count?” Life becomes a constant battle to use people to bolster your own. That is a sickness: pride, self-conceited thinking, which is a hunger for glory, a deep need for ultimate respect.
Prideful thoughts can be re-wired to sober thoughts based on the measure of faith Yeshua.
The Roman believers need a better measure for judging themselves and others.
Validate: We don’t re-wire to humility for the sake of groveling.
C.S. Lewis once made this stunning observation about self-righteous thinking or pride. He said this, “We must not think Pride is something God forbids because He is offended at it, or that Humility is something He demands as due to His own dignity— as if God Himself was proud. He is not in the least worried about His dignity. The point is, He wants you to know Him: wants to give you Himself.”
Lewis, C. S. (2009-05-28). Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis Signature Classics) (p. 127). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Lewis is saying that self-conceit, prideful thinking keeps you from experiencing a rich relationship with God. Self-conceited people are worshiping a phantom god and not the real God. They look very religious and sound very religious. These people often admit that they are nothing in the presence of this phantom god, but the whole time they are really imagining how God secretly thinks better of them than other ordinary people. They pay a penny’s worth of false humility to this phantom god and get out of it a pound worth of self-conceit, pride and it keeps them from experiencing the real and living God.
They pay a penny’s worth of false humility to this phantom god and get out of it a pound worth of self-conceit, pride and it keeps them from experiencing the real and living God.
Don’t think that when you meet a person who has humility they will look like some monk or Rabbi who just tore his garments. Quite the contrary. The person who thinks this way always seems to make much of God and much of other people.
Lewis nailed it when he said, “Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.”
Lewis, C. S. (2009-05-28). Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis Signature Classics) (p. 128). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Apply: We are hard wired for pride but we can re-wire for humility.
Unfortunately, many believers reject this idea because they have been sucked into the positive self esteem movement under the false impression that the Mosaic command, endorsed by Yeshua, that we love our neighbor as ourselves is a command to love ourselves as well as our neighbor.
Unfortunately, many Christians seem to have allowed themselves to be sucked into this movement under the false impression that the Mosaic command, endorsed by Jesus, that we love our neighbor as ourselves is a command to love ourselves as well as our neighbor. But it really is not. Three arguments may be adduced.
But it really is not. Three arguments may be adduced. First, and grammatically, Yeshua did not say, “the first commandment is to love the Lord your God, the second to love your neighbor, and the third to love yourself.” He spoke only of the first great commandment and of the second which was like it. The addition of “as yourself” supplies a rough and ready, practical guide to neighbor-love, because “no one ever hated his own body” (). In this respect it is like the Golden Rule to “do to others what you would have them do to you” (). Most of us do love ourselves. So we know how we would like to be treated, and this will tell us how to treat others. Self-love is a fact to be recognized and a rule to be used, not a virtue to be commended.
Once you start feeding on the pride thought loop you will submit to your internal fear of being found out to be a little less than you have thought your self to be. You will learn to swagger, bluff, use symbols to cover up your fear and insecurity.
First, and grammatically, Jesus did not say, “the first commandment is to love the Lord your God, the second to love your neighbor, and the third to love yourself.” He spoke only of the first great commandment and of the second which was like it. The addition of “as yourself” supplies a rough and ready, practical guide to neighbor-love, because “no one ever hated his own body” (). In this respect it is like the Golden Rule to “do to others what you would have them do to you” (). Most of us do love ourselves. So we know how we would like to be treated, and this will tell us how to treat others. Self-love is a fact to be recognized and a rule to be used, not a virtue to be commended.
Didn’t rabbi Paul say somewhere else that one of the marks of “the last days” is that people will be “lovers of self” instead of “lovers of God” (). Their love will be misdirected from God and neighbor to self.
For through the grace given me, I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think—but to use sound judgment, as God has assigned to each person a measure of faith.
John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2006), 268–269.
Every time you meet someone your first most basic thought will be, “How will this person contribute to my need to prove that I count?” Life becomes a constant battle to use people to bolster your own. That is a sickness: pride, self-conceited thinking, which is a hunger for glory, a deep need for ultimate respect.
John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2006), 269.
How do we re-wire and not avoid a self-evaluation that is either too low or too high? Rabbi Paul says at the end of the verse, “Measure yourself against the real standard of faith, Yeshua. You wan to sober up your thinking about yourself? Stop comparing yourself to everyone else and start measuring yourself.
Who cares if you are a better husband then the ten guys to your left or right, are you a better than husband than Messiah?
Who cares if you are a better wife juggling more balls than the average woman, are you better than Yeshua who is managing the cosmos and at the exact same time Israel, the Nations, and the body of Messiah and he never looses his cool or pops his top.
The old adage is true that Humility is not thinking less of yourself; rather, it is it thinking about yourself less often.
I want to be real careful here and make sure you hear me correctly. Rabbi Paul is not saying the new devotional capital is getting rid of pride and self-conceit and getting humility to obtain and sustain the Holy Spirit.
Rabbi Paul assumes these believers have the Holy Spirit and the gifts are active in their lives and that is probably why they have such this religioius pride, self-conceit. They have been used of God and they think they have earned it with their devotional capital. Rabbi Paul is giving them a nudge and saying, “Think rightly about yourself in light of the measure of faith: Yeshua the Messiah.”
Then he says, you must rightly think about other people and your need for one another.
Think Rightly About Others
Think Rightly About Others
For just as we have many parts in one body—and all the parts do not have the same function— so we, who are many, are one body in Messiah and everyone parts of one another.
Explain Thinking Rightly About Others
Unlike where Rabbi Paul says we are “members of one body” here he says we are members of one another.” He is no doubt drawing on a famous story from Romans history where Menenius Agrippa in 493 BC is said to have persuaded the plebian soldiers who had withdrawn from Rome in anger to start a new city against Rome with a parable saying they were one body with Rome and that the benefit of one was the benefit of all and the determinant of one was the detriment of all.
You are not supposed to be in competition with each other but in harmony, unity with each other.
The point is that each person’s pride should not be in competition with every one else’s pride. Now what Paul wants to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive— is competitive by its very nature.
Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.
In the body of the Messiah our attitude must be one that says, “It is to my advantage to see you prosper and it is to your advantage to see me prosper.” Because we are parts of one another and each of serve a vital function regardless of the part we are.
Validate: The determining factor in your relationship with God is not just vertical but also horizontal.
I don’t know what your religious experience was growing up but mine was in Jewish space. In Jewish space, we always understand that there is dynamic tension between private devotion on one side and community dedication on the other side. In Jewish space, you did not eliminate either end of the polarity but you lived in between those two spaces.
I think I told you that when I was a child my dad did a few things that got us in trouble with the Jewish community and that caused us to get sent into Jewish exile in Sugar Land. Even though our relationship with our family members was really strained and stretched thin by what my dad did, we never felt abandoned or totally cut off and nor did we allow ourselves to live in such a way that we cut ourselves off despite the offense on both side.
Rabbi Paul is saying something that Rabbi Freeman loves to quote from Gladiator, "Whatever comes out of these gates, we've got a better chance of survival if we work together. Do you understand? If we stay together we survive."
Application: We know this but why is it so hard?
There are some legitimate reasons this can be hard. Abusive people, people who manipulate others or dominate over people. Two years ago, one of the largest mega-churches in the United States with a membership over 15,000, imploded. Not because of sexual scandal or financial misconduct but because the leader was an accountable tyrant that abused his staff and made sure that all the power stayed hoarded at the top with himself. He was forced to resign and the congregation basically dissolved into thin air. There are some very real reasons why body life does not happen and reasons why it gets dissolved.
When you get down to where we are here in Houston, Texas the reason why? Well we like
like to be right-er than almost everyone else.
like to be bright-er than almost everyone else.
don’t like to be told what to do by certain people.
don’t like it when those same certain people tell us how to live our life.
What Rabbi Paul is saying is that Pride will keep you from the people God gave you to help grow you. But to the degree you see other people united to you because they are now your family in Messiah to that degree will you really begin to grow, even with the most difficult of people.
I don’t want you to think to yourself okay Rabbi Vowell is saying that if I do these two things: think rightly about myself and rightly about other people then then Holy Spirit will go active in my life. That is not what I am saying at all. Do you notice that in v.3, and in vv. 4-5 there is always a connection back to the Messiah, back to faith.
The unfortunate truth is that you can be a follower of Yeshua and be filled with the Holy Spirit but also be full of yourself. I know some of you are thinking, “But that is just sloppy agape. That is just license to sin.” No, it is not. I think when grace is properly understood it drives you from sin. And, remember Rabbi Paul said in that we are God’s temple and His Spirit dwells in us and one day our works will be tried. He doesn’t say will be abandoned but our works that we did while the Spirit lives in us will be tried. Like i tell my kids all the time: the choices are now, the consequences are later.
I think if you were to ask Rabbi Paul, “How does anyone obtain and sustain the work of the Holy Spirit?” He would respond with and and say, you have to...
Lewis, C. S. (2009-05-28). Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis Signature Classics) (p. 122). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Think Rightly About the Activity of the Spirit
Think Rightly About the Activity of the Spirit
We have gifts that differ according to the grace that was given to us—if prophecy, in proportion to our faith;
Rom 12:
I want to find out just one thing from you: did you receive the Ruach by deeds based on Torah, or by hearing based on trust? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Ruach, will you now reach the goal in the flesh?
We have gifts that differ according to the grace that was given to us—if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; or the one who teaches, in his teaching; or the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who gives, in generosity; the one who leads, with diligence; the one who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.
Explain how these text both establish that the faith you have is the faith you need to see the activity of the Holy Spirit in your life.
Notice “we have gifts.” He does not say if you stop being so self-conceited you could get the gifts. Nope, and I know some people wish he would have said that. He says the opposite, “You prideful Romans have gifts and it is because of grace not because of your devotional capital.”
The most comfortable truth in the world is “God is a friend of sinners” and the most uncomfortable truth in the world is, “God is a friend of sinners.”
I want to find out just one thing from you: did you receive the Ruach by deeds based on Torah, or by hearing based on trust? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Ruach, will you now reach the goal in the flesh?
Explain how these text both establish that the faith you have is the faith you need to see the activity of the Holy Spirit in your life.
We have gifts that differ according to the grace that was given to us—if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; or the one who teaches, in his teaching; or the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who gives, in generosity; the one who leads, with diligence; the one who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.
Rom 12:
Explain: the gifts of the Holy Spirit do not transform a person’s character they encourage growth in Messiah’s kingdom.
There is no real rhyme to the order of the list as far as I can tell.
The point of the list is to show that every gift of God has a positive and a negative pole because of what I call divine-human leakage.
Conclusion
Conclusion
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The first three months I came to Beth Messiah, people immediately started showing up telling me what was wrong with the synagogue and especially what was wrong with certain people and how I needed to watch out for certain people. I was not surprised, this is not my first rodeo and this is a fairly typical occurence for the new guy on staff. What happened, though, is in the course of a couple of weeks three different people came to me talking about the same thing but very differently.
The first one came in and said, “Do you want to know what the problem with this synagogue is? Do you want to know what the problem is?” I’m a newby hear but sure. I say, “Yeah, tell me. What’s the problem with the synagogue?” He said, “The problem is … Look out there. Do you see the community out there?” The big problem with this synagogue is we don’t care about the lost. We don’t care about people who need Messiah.”
He said, “People are lost and hurting and we’re not going out there and helping out, and the problem is we’re not an evangelistic enough.” I said, “That’s very interesting,” and I appreciated him sharing that. Then the next week somebody came in and said, “Let me tell you what the problem with this synagogue is. Can I tell you what the problem is?” I said, “Yes, tell me. Please let me know.” She said, “Well, look out the window. Do you see the community out there?” I said, “Yes, I see the community.”
This lady said, “Do you know what the real problem with our synagogue is? Do you know who the people are out there who are in that community? They’re not people like us. A lot of them are of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. A lot of them are poor, and the problem with this synagogue is it has no heart for justice and compassion and mercy for people who are outcast, who are downtrodden, who are needy, and who are different than us. The problem is this synagogue doesn’t have a heart of compassion for the needy. That’s the problem.”
Interesting. You know, I looked out there. The same window. The same trailers. The same issue. Different problem. I said, “Gee, thank you very much,” and I wrote the thing down and made some notes. The next week a third person came on in, sat down, and said, “Would you like to know what the problem with this synagogue is?” I almost got up and said, “No, you don’t have to tell me. I already know what the problem with this synagogue is,” but I said, “No, what is the problem with this synagogue?” A fit of wisdom took me.
The person said, “Look out the window. Do you see the community?” I said, “Continuously, I see …” No. I said, “Yes, I see the community.” He said, “Do you know what? Many times we have tried to go out there and just visit those folks and deal with those people and invite the people in and find out what their needs are and try to minister to them, but every time somebody tries to get something off the ground, we fail to do it because we are an organizational disaster. We can’t communicate with each other. We can’t organize. Nobody knows how to lead a decent task force. We can’t set goals. We can’t get there. We are an administrative disaster. The problem with this synagogue is it’s not organized.”
You know, three people looking out the same window at the same community and coming up with three different positions. I began to realize every one of these people had a different gift. One person had an outreach gift, the gift of exhortation. They were very, very good at talking to people who did not know Messiah. One person had a gift of prophecy and mercy for people who were needy and people who were different, they wanted to see justice and aid immediately. Another person had the gift of leadership, an administrative gift. As a result, they were all looking at the same community, and they were seeing different problems.
Your giftedness means you are more able to discern certain kinds of needs. You cannot let this become your source of pride. Where you begin to say, “If only you you would do it my way.” And, “My way is the right way.” And, “Don’t you see how the Spirit has gifted me, it is a sure sign of my importance.”
The B string is vibrating like this, and the A string says, “Hey, C. What’s with B?” C says, “I don’t know. Do you hear anything?” “No, I don’t hear anything. I hear nothing. I don’t get it. What’s B vibrating about? What’s B so excited about?” Well, you see, B has the gift of “B”ness, and so B is vibrating to something that’s really there in the air that the C and A can’t figure out. He has a gift, a different gift, and A and C say, “Come on. I don’t hear a thing.”
I know the Spirit has gifted you but your importance is not because of your giftedness, even your spiritual giftedness, it is because of the gift of the Messiah given to you that you have immeasurable value.
WE are a body not just an organization, though it has an organizational side to it. It’s a union that calls for us to lay down our pride and selfish conceit. It can’t be developed through merger. Just saying, “Let’s get this synagogue and this synagogue together,” doesn’t work like that.
There was a guy who tried that once and tried to say, “Hey, let’s have a bigger and better body just by sewing parts together.” His name was Dr. Frankenstein. I’m not sure the results were all that sanguine. Do you? In the same way, body parts have to grow out of other body parts. One part has to grow out of another part. We started as a single cell. Every part grew out of every other part. You cannot sew it together. You cannot merge it together. There has to be a lively, vital, organic relationship between people that makes us a body.
The Spirit is active in the hearts of imperfect people with the simplest of faith.
Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).