George . Saylor
Transformers was the movie of the summer, but they didn’t even come close to Voltron. Most people have forgotten about Voltron- there’s no movie coming out celebrate their return. And it’s a shame because they were way better. There were five young men and women who came to planet Arus, searching the universe for habitable planets. Arus was held captive by the evil king Zarkon and his forces (evil always has a name friends). While they did not seek to be drawn into the fight, they simply couldn’t help it- they had to fight for the greater good for normal men and women. But even these young heroes were no match for Zarkon- until they discovered the five lions of Voltron.
The Voltron force would don their fighting machines- giant robots that would be transformed into Lions. And just when defeat seemed inevitable, one would cry out to the others, “Voltron Power!” At that moment the most amazing thing would happen, every week. You just saw it- the five individuals would come together to form one gigantic fighting machine. One would become the body, the others each of the limbs. Finally the head would emerge. Then together as a united force, Voltron would prevail. What they could not do as individuals they did as one body. The forces of evil were held at bay for another week.
I think a bible scholar must have been on the writing team of that show! That’s the church! That’s the Christian life! That’s Connections! Men and women coming together for the greater good; fighting evil in the world, seeking justice, mercy, goodness and love. People who have each been called to serve and share their unique gifts and abilities, and who have been given some amazing abilities. Yet people who can’t do it alone. Men and women who need each other, who need to come together, to work together, to each play our part on the team. Men and women who share their unique gifts to be used for the greater good. And when they do, man it’s awesome- it’s a force that can’t be stopped. For together, in the sharing of our gifts and resources, we are able to accomplish infinitely more than any one of us ever could on our own.
Most of you have heard the word “Synergy.” It’s one of the latest buzzwords, and it’s a great word. It’s this amazing reaction that occurs when 2 or more forces are combined and their effect together is more than they could ever have alone. But the effect isn’t merely one of addition, it’s exponential. For example, they say, if you take two horses that can each pull 1000 lbs and you put them together, you’d think they could pull 2000lbs, but somehow they end up pulling more like 2500lbs.
I’ve seen this happen in the church. I’ve seen this happen with Connections already- that the effect we can have isn’t just you and I adding our lives together- it’s more like multiplying our lives together. It’s seeing things happen that I couldn’t do alone, and you couldn’t do alone. Things that only happen when we connect.
This is the fifth and final movement of our series on Cultivating a Connecting Culture. This is our chance to start this church out right- to work the kinds of qualities into the soil that will nurture and grow our church. First we talked about trust- what would it look like for us, especially those of us who have been burned, to start trusting ourselves, to start trusting others, to start trusting God? Then we talked about acceptance. Because some of us that taken that leap of faith, that leap of trust with another person, and we’ve been rejected. So we looked into the bible and found a God who in Jesus Christ came to say I accept you, I love you, I’ll even die for you. With acceptance assured we looked to the truth, a culture of truth. Because the truth will set you free, but it’s really hard to be truthful with ourselves and others and God. But the only other option is denial, is lies, is living life with a mask. Once we embrace the truth of our lives we can start to experience healing. Now sometimes that healing comes to us physically in amazing ways. But what God offers all of us, each and every person, is a kind of inner healing. A healing that comes to our inner wounds when we simple admit I’m sick, I need a doctor, Jesus help me.
The last service was pretty heavy as we dealt with the healing, but we had to get into the hurt. But today is good. Today is about us getting connected. Today is about Voltron power! It’s about the amazing power of transformation that happens when we get connected to God through Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christ in our lives, get connected with other people. And connected with other people the impact we can have in fighting evil, and promoting goodness and blessing in our world!
This is obviously what we are about here at connections. I hardly know where to begin. But let’s start by looking at why connection is such a need.
In his book, A Generation alone, author William Mahedy writes of his work with college students in today's culture. William observes that many students are showing the same symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that war vets have suffered. He says that the culture has actually bred a PTSD generation due to the trauma of abandonment through divorce, psychological and sexual abuse as children, rape, overexposure to media violence and sexual exploitation. He can find no other explanation for...
“the widespread problems with stability, self-image, feelings of emptiness, depression, suicidal thinking, fear of the future, and lack of hope among the young.”His conclusion,
“Abandonment is the fundamental mental component of the generational disorders…the young have been abandoned by parents, loved ones, teachers, political leaders, even the culture itself. No one is really there for them now…More than any of their predecessors, they have been since birth a generation alone.” p. 28-29
Into a postmodern PTSD generation, read these ancient words about the church...
The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body — whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free — and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Now the body is not made up of one part but of many.
If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 26-27
It’s really a simple image-tThere are many parts, but one body. Every part is equally valuable. We rejoice, and we suffer, together.
Paul says there are two main problems with life in this world- we are separated from God and separated from people. Then he tells us there is one solution to both- being IN Christ.
This is really the heart of Christianity. The one point that should be so abundantly clear, but is easily missed. It’s this simple little phrase that if we’d experience it, and understand it, would change everything thing- is in Christ. If you are just now considering Jesus, this whole church thing, then you need to understand this. IF you’ve been following Jesus your whole life, you need to understand this, and you may have never really heard it put this way before.
More than 100 times in the New Testament we are told to be in Christ. This is the heart of the synergy we can start to experience in the Christian life. What we see throughout the New Testament is this image, this picture, this phrase that Paul continually uses about being “In Christ.” Put your faith, your hope, you life in Christ. But Paul actual goes beyond this. Paul is talking about nothing less than having an encounter with Jesus where we find ourselves, our lives, swept up into the person of Jesus Christ. He is actually talking about us putting our lives in Jesus. And as we read through the NT we start to see this everywhere- you do’t just put yoru faith in Christ, it is in Christ that we find our faith! Your salvation is in Christ, your sanctification is in Christ, your hope is in Christ. If anyone is IN CHRIST he is a new creation, the old life has passed away and a new life has begun!
Here’s the thing- too often the church has tended to teach, or at least people have heard, that we are to invite Christ to be in our hearts, in our lives, in our church. WE teach our kids to invite Jesus into their hearts, which is good, and it’s Biblical, to welcome Christ into our lives. And this is about all a kid can understand; because they actually think the universe is centered on them- you gotta love it! But the witness of the Bible time and again is not just to invite Christ into our life- it is to put our lives in Christ. It’s not about asking Jesus to be a part of my life and my plans. It’s about getting into Jesus, and being a part of his life and his plans. Do you catch the subtle but crucial difference? It’s not about me. It’s about Jesus. It’s about being in Christ. Putting my life in his.
And when we experience this new life in Christ for ourselves, something else happens. When you and I both give our lives to Jesus, when you and I are both in Christ, we find ourselves in a new relationship, a new context with each other. We are no longer two different people with our own experience of Jesus living our own lives and trying to figure out what it means to be the church together- instead we are two individual people, with our own unique experience and relationship with Christ, but each of us have that experience in Christ together. Jesus hasn’t come so much to the solitary sphere of my life- we’ve come into the sphere of the life of Jesus, and whether we like it or not, if we both in Jesus, we are in Him together for life.
OK, now I’m blatantly going to try to impress you, or at least justify the time and money I’ve spent on my education- there is an ancient phrase for this- “Unio mystica cum Christo” (The mysterious union of the believer with Christ). Mystically we are swept up into the person of Jesus Christ.
That’s the connection we are all about here- Individuals, known and loved and called by God living in Jesus Christ. And in Jesus Christ, we look around and see all these other people we are now connected to. Connected in a mysterious union that actually transcends our petty differences. A connection, that as the bible says, makes men and women, young and old, rich and poor, black and white, Canadian and American one in Christ!
Is this totally nuts? I don’t mind if this I hard for you to accept right now, if you still have questions. In fact I think that would be really cool if you had some questions about this stuff. But does that basic model of connection, of connecting to God in a relationship at least makes sense- that that way of Christ, the way of God, is not ultimately about fitting God into our lives- but about getting our life in God through Jesus, in they mysterious union with Christ. That is real life is found, that is where salvation is found, that is where hope is found.
This may be the hardest part of the bible, of the Christian message, of following Christ for moderns- folks basically around 40 or older who grew up in a culture dominated by a modern scientific rationalism that says the experience and autonomy of the individual are supreme above all things. This surrender of ones self, of ones life, to someone else, to some things else. But conversely, this may be the most exciting part of the message of Jesus for folks 30 and under, post moderns struggling with the PTSD of being abandoned in the culture, this message that you can be a part of something bigger than yourself and your life.
When the bible talks about the church, it never talks bout buildings or denominations or one-hour worship services once a week, it talks about a mystical gathering of people. Transformed people that have become the temple of the Lord. The church is the people; the people are the church. And because all Christians are living in Christ, we become part of him. I love it that we don’t have a church building yet, but that we are already a church. That we are already a people coming together to worship God, to love and support one another, to share our love and support with the world!
Just like those crazy kids that came together in Voltron, we come together in Christ. Just like they each had a unique role to play, each one of has a part to play. Just like each of those kids was gifted and talented in jus the right way, so each and every one of you have been given just the right gifts and talents. Just like when one of those kids was hurt or suffered, so all of us suffer when one part suffers. Just like all of those kids rejoiced in Voltrons victory, so each of us rejoice in the victory of life in Christ!
After leading groups through ropes courses I would always end with the same prayer. I’d make everybody gather around in a circle and put his or her arms around each other. Everybody hated it. I hate it. Who wants to put their arms around folks, especially after you’ve been sweating and working all day. But I’d make them get close, make them embrace, make them look at their neighbor- in the eye, not at the ground- and say to them
“You are part of the body of Christ.”Everybody loved that. Then we’d say,
“Christ loves you and gave his life for you.”That was a little more intense. Then the final prayer,
“Without you Christ’s body is broken.”
As I look around this morning I see the body of Christ. As I look at you this morning I want you to know that you can be a part of the body of Christ. I want you to know that Christ loves you and gave his life for you. I want you to know that without you Christ’s body is broken.
We are getting ready to launch Connections into London and I want us to come onto the scene like Voltron! I want us to be a force for good, for justice, for mercy and compassion. I want us to be a force of people in Christ together, many parts, one body. I want the parts of our body to touch every area of London- every business, every school, every neighborhood, every street, every house, every life.
If we are going to have that kind of an impact we need a big body. How many parts? I don’t know. God will give us all the parts we need. 100 parts? God has already shown us we need more parts than that before we’ve even started weekly services. So what’s it’s gonna be- 200 parts? 300 hundred? 500? 1000 parts? Where do you think this could go? What part do you want to play? What role can you and only you play in this body?
Connections Community Church will never be any more, or any less, than the people. The people who get connecting to Christ, in Christ. The people who get connected to each other in Christ. The people, connected in Christ, who go our into the world to be his hands, his feet, his eyes and ears and voice and heart.
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