Lake Cities Community Church Pastor Craig Schill January 12, 2014 “A Balanced Church” A vision for LCCC in 2014 There is one piece of playground equipment that I enjoyed as a child but the young children of our church will not – because it has been deemed to be too dangerous to exist in today’s world. No modern playground or park managed by a City or camp or church will have one. Playground design companies simple do not sell them any longer. I am talking about: the teeter-­‐totter! And some of you know why they are gone – if you were the kind of kid who used your weight to transform the teeter-­‐totter into a catapult… or if you the type of child who very quietly slipped off the teeter-­‐totter to send your friend crashing to the ground – then thank you for doing your part in ridding the world of this dangerous activity! You see the teeter-­‐totter was all about balance and balance is about holding two different things in tension. If the two children cooperated and they put tension on that board at the fulcrum, then it was a gentle and pleasant activity. Balance is wonderful but Balance when lost creates a dangerous situation. Today for a few moments I would like to argue for greater balance in our individual lives and in our church as we enter into 2014. Is that something you are interested in? Or do you have it all together? I am interested in us studying this topic for two reasons – with respect to running a church I believe balance and unity are closely related, and I pray we would maintain the unity we have as we enter into a building program and who knows what else this year. Second, I just started a doctoral program at 1 Dallas Theological Seminary – and took my first class last week – and I am trying to add this to my job as a father, husband, pastor, part-­‐time seminary instructor and major volunteer leader in two outside organizations. I am preaching to myself today. How do you know if you are out of balance? Think of the teeter-­‐totter. If you are flying out of control or crashing to the ground – probably you have lost your balance. There are 10 things I am going to say that I think may be of some importance, and you can follow along in the bulletin. I have already said two of the ten, (#1) that Balance is holding two or more things in tension. And because we don’t like tension we don’t like balance. Balance requires competing interests, multiple players – it is hard and complicated, and – (#2) balance is wonderful yet when lost it is dangerous – so the stakes are high. HOLDING THINGS IN BALANCE Continuing on – the third thing I would like to submit to your consideration about balance is that (#3) the problem with balance is that balance is boring. Isn’t that true? No reality TV show has balanced people on it. Extremes are interesting and intriguing to us. We love to watch the X-­‐games and violent football. For me to tell you our vision is to be a balanced church – is to invite yawns and glances at watches. Most vision messages in churches this time of the year use words like radical, extreme, big, huge and revolutionary – and there is a place for those adjectives. Our commitment to Christ should be 100%, fully committed with our whole heart! And it is true that our values are radically different than values of the world. 2 BUT…when we get to the business of the day-­to-­day living of life or the day-­to-­day business of church ministry – the Bible does not teach us to be radical or extreme – but to be balanced – balanced – balanced. BALANCED EXAMPLES I think what will help at this point is for me to give some biblical examples. I have chosen five brief passages that I think are both relevant to us and serve as good examples of what the Scripture teaches regarding balance. And if you are following along in your outline, these all fall under point four (#4): “Be balanced in regard to” the following. 1) Proverbs 24:13 and 25:16 reads: Prov. 24:13 My son, eat honey, for it is good, Yes, the honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. Prov. 25:16 Have you found honey? Eat only what you need, that you not have it in excess and vomit it. Solomon teaches here to be balanced with respect to Life’s Pleasures. Honey represents all good things. Honey was a sweet, desirable and rare. Solomon tells us honey is good – yet argues to eat only what you need – knowing that we will naturally move to the extreme of over indulgence. On the cruise our family enjoyed to celebrate my parent’s 50th anniversary – they had so much food as to be truly unbelievable. Trevor enjoyed all bacon you can eat – and all the 13 kids enjoyed delicious soft serve ice cream. And at times we enjoyed it too much and felt sick to our stomach. We all struggle, especially with the abundance of America, with finding balance in the pleasures of life. For a 7th grader, their honey might be video games 3 or sports. A little is OK – but too much can be destructive. For a young adult it could be Netflix or coffee. Men are often way too obsessed with sports, talk radio and hunting. Ladies might be tempted to spend too much time on Facebook or social media. Without balance any good thing can quickly make us sick spiritually. 2) Listen to another area of balance. Three related passages: Prov. 19:2 It is dangerous to have zeal without knowledge. Rom. 10:2 For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. 1Cor. 8:1b We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. These verses tell us to be balanced in regard to our passions. You would think zeal and passion would be commended in Scripture – but it is nearly always coupled with a warning – because -­‐ again – we move to extremes so easily. These verses are written to God’s people whose zeal for God ironically did damage to the church! One pastor I know was called to an established church – and he was at the time zealous about a particular philosophy of church ministry published in a recent book by a popular author. He came in with guns blazing and his zeal for this philosophy and author – split the church right down the middle. Someone once said rightly: “Passion is always willing master, but rarely a wise master.” If you are a leader in this church – please be balanced in your passions. Often we get so excited about something and we can’t understand why everyone else is not on board. Passion must be balanced by knowledge and love. 3) A third illustration of balance is from the Book of Daniel where Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are about to be thrown into a furnace for not bowing down to the 4 king’s idol: Dan. 3:17 “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. Dan. 3:18 “But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” This is a balanced view of suffering. There are three types of people: those in suffering, those coming out of suffering and those about to enter into it! And so we need balanced theology of hardship. Can God deliver you and release you from suffering? Sure He can. In our church we have (myself included) testimonies of God’s protection from accidents or bad financial decisions. Some here have witnessed God’s healing in their life. But, those three young Jewish give us six of the most important words in Scripture, “But even if he does not” we will not worship the idol. To believe God will always remove suffering or to believe God will never remove suffering are both dangerous extremes. In 2014 let’s all grow to have a more balanced view of suffering. 4) Listen now to Paul in Romans 14. He said Rom. 14:3 The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him. What we have here is balance regarding gray issues. When Gentiles came into the mostly Jewish churches they had very different convictions on what kinds of food were Ok to eat and what days to celebrate. The Jewish believers tended to be more conservative -­‐ coming out of the Law -­‐ and the Gentiles tended to live with greater freedom. And with respect to these kinds of issues Paul taught it is ok to have different opinions. He taught them to have balance with gray issues – which are not black and white areas of obedience. 5 I found it fascinating that in the class I took last week on the Book of Revelation, two of the ten pastors were dealing with conflict in the church over which bible translation they should use in public worship. Certain church members were restrictive arguing only the King James should be used – while others were open to more modern English versions. Paul would say to make your decision before the Lord, and love your brother, don’t judge him! And while we don’t have that issue in our church – we do have a building program where hundreds of gray-­‐area decisions will be made, and where good people will certainly have differences of opinions. Let’s together seek balance on gray issues. 5) Let me give one more example -­‐ listen to Paul’s words to Timothy about leadership: 1Tim. 3:2 An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 1Tim. 3:3 not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money. 1Tim. 3:4 He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity Paul teaches us that balanced leaders are the best leaders. In the church – leaders should be temperate, prudent – that is people who are stable, balanced and not prone to extremes. They are not addicted to wine or money – balanced with life’s pleasures. If they are balanced in how they run their home, they will be balanced in how they run the church. In 2014 we hope to add new leaders to both our Deacon and Elder boards – and we are looking for leaders who are balanced, because balance is a mark of ministry maturity. 6 We have talked about balance with life’s pleasures, passions, suffering, gray issues and leadership. Has it surprised you Scripture talks so much about balance. We don’t have time but there are many other areas where balance is taught and extremes are warned against 1 such as balance in peacemaking, in money management and in spiritual growth. The late Howard Hendricks said many, many times that (point #5) “Balance in the church is running from one extreme to another.” Isn’t that true? Paul said to the church in Rome, “Shall we continue to sin so that grace might increase?” Why did he have to write this? Because they had taken his good teaching on grace and pushed it to a sinful extreme. The church in Corinth was rebuked for division, because they had taken their good Bible teachers and turned them into celebrity idols -­‐ causing them to become divisive idols through celebrity worship. They again lacked balance. JESUS (#6) Would you agree that Jesus lived a balanced life? At first it may not seem so because he overturned money tables and rebuked Pharisees. But Jesus’ life reminds us that being balanced should not be confused with apathy or weakness. Balance IS our place of power. Jesus worked hard, but also took time to rest. He taught his disciples, but also spent time with tax collectors and sinners. He is our model of a balanced life. The answer to being more balanced is to be more like Jesus. To pray and ask Him to help us to show his character. 1 There are many other areas such as balance with money (Proverbs 30:8 – give me neither riches nor poverty) balance with lifestyle choices (Phil 4:12 I’ve learned to be content in all circumstances) balance is conflict resolution Prov 18:17 – the first who comes to plead their case seems right until another comes to examine him. Balance with spiritual growth -­‐ 1 Thes 5:14 – admonish the unruley, encourage the fainthearted – help the weak – be patient with all. Balance is everywhere in Scripture as a key to wisdom. 7 LCCC My deep, deep desire is that we would be grow as a balanced church. This is not a new goal, and some of you I hope would be able to identify various way we try to model balance. (#7) Take our music style. We strive for a blended selection of music – both quality old hymns and quality new songs. It would be easier to just be contemporary or just traditional (or what many today call “classic”). But we believe there is wisdom in balance and in trying to build a diverse congregation, not segregated by age. We have also sought to be (#8) balanced in our four church purposes. Worshiping, growing, loving and sharing. Each are important and a mandate from Christ for the local church. I have been in churches, and perhaps you have as well, where the teaching was very strong, but they seemed to not prioritize outreach as much. Or churches where outreach was huge, but growing and discipleship were lacking. May God give us balance in our purposes. APPLICATION Let me close with this question: (#9) How can your life and our church benefit from more balance? What do you need to take out of your life, or add into your life? What tension have you been trying to avoid? How well are you balancing life’s pleasures? What passions need to be reigned in for the sake of unity? Do we have a balanced view of suffering? Are we willing to get on the teeter totter with people different from you with respect to gray areas? Some of you know that my undergraduate degree is in marketing, and there is a really interesting sociology to pricing products. If you have two products and one is a 8 higher price and the other is lower – 80% of people will buy the higher priced item, because most people want to avoid the perceived lower quality of the lower priced product. But if you keep those two products and a third (either a higher priced or a lower priced – does not matter which) – now 80% of people will choose the middle option! There is something within us that seeks balance – something that is not too much nor too little. Darryl DelHousaye was my very first seminary professor at Phoenix Seminary – and he was both the president of the seminary and a pastor of a large church. He fielded all manner of questions from our class, and nearly always ended his discussion by saying, (#10) “Keep the bubble in the middle.” He always challenged us to see both sides of an issue – to avoid extremes, to be careful of zeal without knowledge. That is my challenge for us as we enter into 2014, to God’s glory. Let’s pray. Father, We confess that we often fly uncontrolled through life and then crash hard. We are often out-­‐of-­‐balance or off balance. Help us to live more balanced lives – each of us – and our church as we enter into this new year, by putting Christ at the center of all we do. Keep us unified, help us to be gracious when others disagree with us and to consider their perspective as well as our own. And may we then be an attractive witness to a world that is out of control and lost. This we pray in Jesus name. Amen. 9