INTRODUCTION:

A group of tourists were visiting a rather picturesque town on the outskirts of a well know city. As they walked by an old man sitting beside a fence. One of the tourists, in a rather patronizing way, asked, "Were any great men born in this village?"

To which the old man replied, "Nope, only babies." (1)

That wisecrack answer holds a lot of truth. There are no instant heroes, there is no instant status or fame, whether in this world or in the Kingdom of God. Growth takes time.

We live in the instant age. There is instant coffee, instant oatmeal, instant milk, instant soup, instant breakfasts and even instamatic cameras.

Modern humanity can't and won't wait for desires to be met. People today demand instant gratification. So, at fast food restaurants we get fast food. And we complain if it takes five minutes instead of three.

We don't even have to wait in line at the bank anymore; those with the right card can go to an automatic teller machine and make deposits or withdrawals. Today's kitchen has to have a the now indispensable microwave. Because now we don't even have to cook. Just pop it in the microwave and three to ten minutes later, dinner.

Today, the passage of Scripture from Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus reminds us that there is no such thing as instant faith. While there may be cases of an instant conversion, there is no such thing as an instant Christian.

Ephesians 4:1-16 (NRSV)

[1] I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called,

[2] with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,

[3] making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

[4] There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling,

[5] one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

[6] one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

[7] But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ's gift.

[8] Therefore it is said,

"When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive;
he gave gifts to his people."

[9] (When it says, "He ascended," what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth?

[10] He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.)

[11] The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,

[12] to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,

[13] 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.

[14] We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.

[15] But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

[16] from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.

Being a Christian takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. Paul tells us to Remember: To Live Worthy of the Calling. As we think about that, let's look at OUR WORK and OUR TOOLS.

I. OUR WORK:

OUR WORK IS TO "to equip the saints for the work of ministry."

To put it another way, we're called to help each other "grow up" in the faith. We called to help build one another up, in the faith. We're called to make disciples in our part of the world.

And this passage today tells us that it takes time for us to grow up, to become mature, in the Christian faith. We seem to forget in our age of instant convenience foods, products, and services that mature Christians are not produced by taking a couple of rounded teaspoons of freeze-dried Gospel, adding a cup of warm acceptance, adding quarter cup of grace and a quart of forgiveness. We don't add a sprinkle of the water of baptism, a pinch of hope and then fill it all with the Holy Spirit and voila, an instant, full-bodied Christian! (2)

The Christian faith is about growing and maturing in the faith. That's OUR WORK.

In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus list our job description this way:

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

You and I may not be able to go into all the world, but the ones who came before us, the ones who founded this Church did. Now as the heirs of their work and their faith, we're simply called to make disciples, to teach and baptize in OUR part of the world. That's OUR WORK. We called to grow up, ourselves and others in the faith. That's OUR WORK: to make disciples.

II. OUR TOOLS:

A. TO DO OUR WORK, WE NEED A SET OF TOOLS. Any time you build anything, you need tools, don't you? At minimum a carpenter needs a hammer, a saw, a tape measure, a level and a square. A mechanic needs a set of metric and standard wrenches. A seamstress needs needles, thread, scissors, straight pins, a sewing machine and cloth. An Ice Cream man, needs ice cream, a freezer and a scoop.

Paul tells us in this passage that as Christians, part of our job is to be builders. We're called to build up the body of Christ by equipping the saints for the work of ministry. All tools in our tool box have one purpose: "to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ"

B. Let's briefly look at some of those tools.

1. BIBLE: Of course the first tool in our tool box is the Bible. Scripture paints the background for and tells the reason and purpose behind everything we do. It's the Foundation of the Building we call Faith. It tells us Who WE are and Whose we are. It reminds us from the very beginning words that all we have and all we are comes from God.

Four pastors were discussing their favorite Bible translations. One liked the King James because of its beautiful language. Another liked the New Revised Standard version. A third liked the contemporary version The Message. The 4th minister said, "My favorite translation was my Mother's." The other preachers said they didn't know his mother had translated the Bible. "Yes, she did," he replied. "Everyday she translated the Bible into life and it was the most convincing translation I ever witnessed!" (3)

The Bible is an important Tool because it shapes and molds us into the people God would have us be. And when we are the people God would have us be, we make a difference in the world.

2. VISION: The second tool in the tool box is Vision. You can't build anything unless you've got and idea or a vision about what should be built. Remember the Vision notebooks that Rick Heidman put out at the very beginning of our Building Program. Before we ever started raising money; before we ever started drawing plans, we had to have a Vision of what this building would look like. We had to have a Vision of what we felt God was calling us to do.

Someone asked Helen Keller, "What would be worse than being born blind?" She replied, "To have sight with no vision." When we give to God's work, whether it's to support the ministries of the Church or to the Building Fund, we are saying that we have a Vision for what God can do with that money and what God can do with us because we've given that money. (4)

3. HOPE: the third tool is Hope. When there is Vision there is Hope because Vision engenders Hope. That Hope comes through Christ Jesus. We have obtained access to the Grace of God through Jesus. He is the only letter of recommendation we need. We don't need any other references but his. His Signature, his Word, his nail-scarred Hands are all we need. He is our letter of introduction, our entrance fee, our resume, and letter of recommendation. He is all we need. His very presence fleshes out the Vision and gives us Hope.

4. FAITH: And when we have Hope, then we can have Faith. Which is the next tool in the toolbox.

I got a phone call from IRS the other day. They called and wanted to know if I would help them. Not wanting to get in trouble myself, I told them I would, if I could. First the man asked if Woody Mathews was a member of our congregation and I said, "Yes he is." Then the man proceeded to tell me that for the last three years Woody Mathews has claimed that he has donated $20,000 to the church. Then the IRS agent asked: "Did he really write those checks?" And I answered the only way I could. I said: "He will." (5)

That's called Faith. You see I have faith that if that really happened, A.J. / Woody would write those checks. The point I'm really trying to make is: Going to church and giving to the church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to McDonald's makes you a hamburger. Or jumping into a swimming pool will make you an Olympic Swimmer.

You need Faith, faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God as your Savior. He's the one who offers chances and the one who changes everything, so we can live that second chance.

C. And once we discover and experience that change through, FAITH, HOPE, VISION AND our encounter with the BIBLE, THEN WE START USING THE GREATEST TOOL OF ALL.

I personally think that the Greatest tool we have in this Toolbox of Faith is "GIVING"

Giving transforms all the tools in the toolbox from hand tools to power tools.

Giving reflects the attitude of our heart. Giving reflects our relationship with God. Giving is a mirror of the soul.

An old story tells about a man who called the church office one day and asked to speak to the "head hog at the trough." The secretary was a little taken aback by this guys attitude and told him that was no way to talk about their pastor. He in turn replied, "Well if that's the way you feel, then I guess I won't give this check for $10,000 I was going to give."

To which the secretary replied, "No, no. Wait. I'll see if the big pig is in his office."

Have you ever noticed that for some reason, pigs and money seem to go together. We save money in a piggy-bank. We work to "bring home the bacon" so we can "live high on the hog." We don't ever "buy a pig in a poke" because we don't know what we're getting. When we spend a lot of money on frivolous things we've gone "hog wild." When someone puts us down for having too much money they call us a "Capitalist pig."

Even in the life of the church, pork meets penny. The term STEWARD traces back to the medieval English title "STY-WARDEN" Or "STY-WARD." Yep, a pig-keeper.

Jesus talked a lot about stewards and stewardship. Fortunately, the Hebrew word for steward had nothing to do with pig farming (which, after all, just isn't kosher). Never the less, stewardship of money was a very important topic to Jesus. The only subject he talked about more is the Kingdom of God. (6)

How we spend our money, what we do with our money has Kingdom consequences. Because what we have, isn't really ours. All we have belongs to God. We are simply Stewards, no matter which word you use, the English or the Hebrew, of all that God has put in our possession. We are simply stewards of God's stuff.

How we use this Tool of Giving determines how powerful the other Tools in our Tool box will be. Because the tool of Giving empowers all the other Tools.

And never think that your little bit is not enough. Or your little bit won't be missed. If you stopped putting your change in the Van Fund bucket. Or if you quite taking your load of papers to the recycling dumpsters it probably wouldn't make that much difference. But when you add what you do to what I do and what everyone else does, there is enough to make the payments on the Van. It's already paid one off and allowed us to purchase a second Van.

It's not the size of the gift that is at the heart of things. It's the size of the heart of the giver that matters.

Today in Yellow Springs, Ohio, people are still receiving Christmas presents from a seemingly small gift given by an ex-slave. His name was Wheeling Gaunt, he was born in 1812 and died in 1894. He worked odd jobs and saved $900 to buy himself out of slavery and another $500 to buy his wife out of slavery. Then the two of them continued saving until Gaunt's brother could be free.

After that, this industrious man built a personal fortune as a teamster, carpenter and farmer and in real estate dealings. His obituary listed him as the richest black man in Ohio. Just before he died, he deeded nine acres of land at the south edge of town to the village of Yellow Springs, the proceeds from the sale of which were to buy perpetual Christmas gifts for "poor widows," which the small town continues to buy to this day. Ten pounds of flour and 10 pounds of sugar arrive at the home of every widow in town just in time for holiday baking, thanks to this former slave. The inscription on his plaque reads: "Not what you get, but what you give." (7)

When we give from the heart, that gift continues to grow and keeps on giving.

CONCLUSION:

Remember: Live Worthy of the Calling. It's not the size of the gift that is at the heart of things. It's the size of the heart of the giver that matters. That's why your gift is important. No one person gave enough to build this building. Nor did 2 or 3 or even 10. It took every one of us. It took large gifts and small gifts to do what we've done. And it took all the Tools in our Toll Box.

The Bible laid the foundation for our Vision, which gave us Hope and Faith enough to say "Yes" to God's Vision when then enabled us to empower that Vision through our Giving.

Remember: Live Worthy of the Calling. What you give makes a difference.

OUR WORK IS "to equip the saints for the work of ministry."

What you give makes a difference it changes our hand tools into Power Tools for God's Kingdom and allows us to "Make Disciples".

1. Parables, Etc. (Saratoga Press, P.O. Box 8, Platteville, CO, 80651; 970-785-2990), February 1993

2. Adapted from Building The Body By: Rev. Adrian Dieleman, Sermon preached on January 3, 1999

3. Old Story

4. The Abingdon Guide To Funding Ministry, p 30

5. Adapted from a joke floating around the internet

6. Steve Laue (Anderson, Indiana), "Shepherd's Diary," September 1992, 2.

7. Dorothy Copus Brush "Random Thoughts" in the Crossville Chronicle, December 28, 2001

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Preaching Magazine (Preaching Resources, Jackson, TN)

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The New Interpreter's Bible, (Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1995)

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