Good morning.
Let’s start with a word of prayer.
Father, we just thank You, Lord, for this opportunity to come before You and worship You. We just thank You, Lord, for making the way, making the entrance, and providing the hope, Lord.
I just pray that the words I am about to speak would be beneficial to Your church. I pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.
Well, good to see y’all all here today.
What I want to talk about today is, I think, going to be just a reminder for everyone. It is something the Lord has shown me recently over the past couple of months—has reminded me of—and I felt like He would have me share this with y’all to remind you as well.
So, let’s start with some Scriptures. Let’s turn to Job 38:4.
This is when God is speaking to Job and setting him straight, correcting all of his friends’ wise counsel.
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Declare, if thou hast understanding.
Short and sweet.
Okay, next one is 1 Corinthians 13:12-13.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face;
now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known.
But now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Okay, then to Mark 10:14-15.
Another very familiar verse.
But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it at all.”
And finally, 1 Peter 2:4-5.
And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God,
you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
The burden for this message started in a most unusual place.
This past January, as part of my job, I was required to take a class at VCU. The class was on integrated circuit design. For you non-computer types, an integrated circuit is a computer chip. So, this week-long class was very high-level, to go over how computer chips are made and how they are designed.
Well, the first part of the first day of the class, the professor took about ten minutes and explained to us how the fundamental building block of a computer chip works. It took about ten minutes, and it was all elementary chemistry.
It was amazingly simple how this little thing has become what it has in our economy today. I think we spent the next four and a half days talking about a lot of different things you could do with that very simple foundation.
Well, on that first day, I was driving home. I was still marveling over the simplicity of how a computer chip works, and then a thought came to me. The thought was, the testimony of Christ is the same way.
And I thought, “This is weird. What do integrated circuits have to do with anything that is Christian? How can this little piece of technology have any relation to Christ, or His church, or my life in Christ?”
Well, over the next couple of months, the Lord has shown me how they do relate. That is what I want to share today.
Now, are y’all still with me? Okay, I haven’t lost anybody.
Well, I am a strong believer that God’s physical creation and physical reality are a picture of His spiritual creation and His spiritual reality. The way that He made things reflects His personality and reflects His character.
Scripture tells us that God is unchanging. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is consistent in His desires, and He is consistent in His designs.
So, God’s design of physical creation should tell us something about the design of His spiritual creation—and, more importantly for us today, the design of His church.
Now, God’s designs are based upon simplicity and elegance, and the results are magnificent and beyond imagination.
That class on integrated circuits got me thinking and doing a little bit of reading about the basis of creation. You know, how did God put all this physical stuff together? Just by doing some light reading, the Lord showed me the elegance and simplicity of His designs.
Now, let me explain what I mean by elegance. It is not somebody in a fancy dress.
In computer programming, an elegant system is a system that is built on a few simple rules, and these simple rules are put together in various ways to make something that is very useful.
In an elegant system, one can almost predict how to do something new based on how other things are done, because everything pretty much works the same way.
Now, a non-elegant system is a system that has no consistent rules. Everything behaves differently. In a non-elegant system, you have rules, but then you have exceptions to the rules, and you have exceptions to the exceptions.
Everything becomes very tangled and very convoluted, and it is impossible to predict how something new is going to work based on how something old works, because there are no rules.
Generally speaking, an elegant system has fewer problems and is more reliable than a non-elegant system. But an elegant system is much more difficult to design.
To design an elegant system, one needs to see the end—the end product, what that is going to be. Then, from that end product, you can know what simple rules you need to have to make the end product.
God’s designs are elegant. Take a quick look at three examples of His elegant design.
The first one is atoms, solar systems, and galaxies. You look at those three things—three very different sizes—and they all look the same. They are little balls circling other little balls. The only difference is the size.
Atoms you cannot see, solar systems you cannot see because they are too big, and galaxies you cannot see because they are too far away. But that is a consistency in His design: little balls circling other little balls. It is simple. It is elegant. It is reliable.
Take a look at DNA. DNA is a family of molecules that every living cell has inside of it. The DNA describes what the creature will look like and how that creature will live.
The DNA of a tree determines that the tree will be tall and woody and green. Your DNA determines what you will look like and how your body will live.
But did you know that there are only four molecules in DNA—four different molecules? With those four molecules, God has described every living thing.
The only thing that is different is the number of occurrences of the molecules and the order in which they occur. But it is a very simple, elegant design with four molecules.
Another one: currently, physicists believe that there are only six universal constants that really matter. A universal constant is some number that sets a certain value.
One universal constant is the force of gravity: how much two atoms attract each other across space. That constant is one of those six universal constants that matters.
If that number were just a smidgen higher, then everything would collapse on itself. If it were a smidgen lower, everything would fall apart. Of course, this is speaking from a purely physical perspective.
But it goes to show the incredible balance that God has put into the universe—that only six numbers, six constants, really matter.
Again, His designs are simple and elegant.
From these simple building blocks, He has constructed an infinitely diverse universe. Even though the building blocks are very simple—atoms, three parts of an atom: electrons, protons, and neutrons—everything is made out of that.
It is incredibly diverse and also incredibly unpredictable. Looking out the window, who would think that all of that is described with four different molecules? It is simply amazing.
Then His creation is amazingly beautiful. Again, because of the amazing diversity and unpredictability of His designs.
About a year ago, Brenda and I went up to Washington, D.C., for a little vacation, and we went to the Natural History Museum. We visited the mineral exhibit, and they had these display cases that were about three feet wide and floor-to-ceiling. In each display case, they would have one type of mineral on display.
There would be little samples with labels on them, but there would be dozens of these samples of one type of mineral, and each one was different and beautiful.
Each mineral was made of the same material, but came out different based on the conditions in which it was created.
Only God understands the whole of it all. Only He sees the big picture of how everything works together.
A scientist, a researcher, may be able to tell you what one little piece of one little strand of DNA does, but he cannot tell you what it all does. Nobody knows. Only God knows how it all fits together.
He alone has the capability to understand all the building blocks and all the diversity that comes out of them. He alone has the ability to step back and see the big picture of His physical creation.
Now, I believe that Christ has architected the church using similar methods. It would not be consistent for Him to design nature one way and design the church another way—for nature to be elegant and the church to be convoluted.
The physical creation is beautiful, but God sees His church as His ultimate creation. He does not call nature His bride. He calls the church His bride.
Like physical creation, I believe that His church is based upon a few very simple components. I believe that verse in 1 Corinthians defines the essential components of the church: now abide faith, hope, and love.
Just like those four molecules of DNA, those three components coming through us in the life of Christ are what the church is built of. We are the bricks of the church with those attributes.
Now, this contrasts man’s complexity. It is probably pretty clear that man cannot seem to build anything that is elegant, beautiful, or even works correctly. I think of that each time I use my computer.
God gave man the Ten Commandments and the Book of Leviticus, and then man turned around and made the Torah, which is volume after volume after volume of rules governing life and minutiae—tiny little things about how you should live.
Then there are people who do commentaries on the Torah, so it gets just even more complicated. It seems like man gravitates toward complexity over elegance.
I think it is because, well, one, because we are sinful, but also because we lack the big picture of how everything works together.
Look at man’s organizations that he creates. Take, for example, our government, or any government. There are thousands of people turning out thousands of laws to be enforced by thousands of more agencies.
Some of the laws overlap. Some of them contradict. But none of them make any real difference in the lives of men.
So, we know that God is wonderfully creative, and He makes beautiful and diverse, wonderful creation out of simple structures. Man, we are hopelessly clumsy, and we cannot even make a roof that does not leak.
But how does this impact our life today? What does it mean for us today?
We need to remember that the church is God’s crowning achievement—the bride for His Son. No other part of creation is good enough for Christ.
That crowning achievement is constructed with us, with faith, hope, and love.
Unlike His physical creation, which is made up of dumb components, His church is made up of components that have free will. We are intimately involved in the creation of His church, of His ultimate creation, but we are not involved as architects or builders. We are involved as the building blocks of that church.
We are involved in that we need to be willing to be placed where He would have us go. I think we need to keep in mind that distinction.
But oftentimes, we want to design the church. We get a glimpse of a little part of church life, and we decide that we can go off and build that.
So we go off and try to make that happen. We try to design and architect part of His creation. We need to remember that we are not the designer. We are just the material.
When we start to design, we also presume to be able to see the whole picture of how it all works together.
But we have not seen the whole picture. None of us will see the whole picture until He comes.
I think we should feel especially blessed when we do see a glimpse of His church. I think His showing us a glimpse of the church does not entitle us to design or build that part of the church.
But He gives us that glimpse to encourage us, to give us a glimpse of the glory to come, to give us hope in His returning.
To be the material of His most precious creation, we need to be living stones, as it says in 1 Peter 2.
So, what does it mean to be a living stone?
I think the first way to approach being a living stone is to approach it with childlike simplicity, as it says in those verses in Mark 10. We need to approach His life and His kingdom in a childlike way.
How comforting, how wonderful it would be to be able to sit on Christ’s knee, to look into His face, and to enjoy Him in a childlike way—to hear the things He has to say.
What a blessing it would be to spend a day with Him and just follow Him around like a child follows his father.
When a child approaches his father—when he approaches, I know the way my children sometimes approach me—they approach with excitement, with eagerness, with humility, and with a desire to learn.
They approach knowing the difference in position between the father and the child. They approach with complete openness, because they know the father is the father and they are the child.
That is one way that children get conformed to the image of their parents: by spending time with them in that openness and honesty.
I can think of a lot of wonderful times that I have spent with my children. They just want to cuddle up with me and enjoy what I am enjoying. They seem to think that if Dad is doing it, then it must be good. “I want to do that too.”
In childlike simplicity, my children want to be like their father. They want to know me. They want to enjoy what I enjoy. For some reason that I cannot really understand, they want to be like me.
How much more should we want to be like our heavenly Father—to be conformed to His image?
Now, I need to make a clarification. In Scripture, there seems to be a contradiction in being childlike.
On one hand, we are told that we need to come to the kingdom like children. But on the other hand, even in 1 Corinthians 13, we are told to put away childish things.
When are we supposed to be like children? When are we supposed to not be like children? Well, the distinction comes in the attitude that is shown there.
Scripture frequently uses the word childlike to indicate the proper, desirable aspects of a child’s nature—those that you see every now and then in my children.
Scripture tends to use the word childish, which indicates the improper, selfish, undesirable aspects of a child’s nature.
Now, Scripture calls us to be childlike, or to come to the kingdom in a childlike manner, but to abandon childishness.
So, to paraphrase that kingdom Scripture, it tells us to approach the kingdom with excitement, with openness, with humility, with eagerness, and to abandon selfish desires—to put aside our own desire to be first place or have a better place.
Now, as children grow up, they enter a phase called adolescence. It is arguable whether all children go through adolescence. I know that I did.
When I was an adolescent, I did not want to have anything to do with my parents. I went through that phase, Kenny, where I did not want to be seen with my parents in the mall.
They were strange. They did weird things. They were different. They dressed funny. I just could not believe that they were my parents.
But although I was a bratty adolescent, my parents still loved me. Adolescents do not have childlike simplicity.
Do we approach the church, approach the kingdom, with childlike simplicity, or do we approach it as an adolescent?
Children can be friends with just about anybody. They are instant friends with complete strangers. But adolescents want to be with people who are just like them. They do not want to hang out with anybody who is different.
Now, do we have an adolescent approach to church life where we only want to be with people who are just like us?
Another thing about children is that children are fairly accepting of the answers their parents give them about how things work.
Children can ask why something is the way it is, and the parent will give them an answer, and the child will accept that. They will be comfortable with that because they recognize that their parents are in control.
They are comforted by that fact. They do not need to be overly worried about a situation that may not be right, because they are under the authority and covered by the authority of their parents.
Now, when a child becomes an adolescent, those answers are no longer acceptable. The answer may be correct, but it is not justifiable anymore. The world must fit into how the adolescent thinks it must be.
If the adolescent sees something that is wrong, something that is out of place, he decides immediately that something must be done. It is a great problem that we must resolve today.
We must protest. We must do a sit-in. Tell all your friends. Spread the word. There is something wrong. We need to fix it.
Now, sometimes we approach the church as an adolescent. We have grown up. We have matured. We have been through some discipline. We kind of know what is going on. We have gotten a glimpse of part of the church.
But we start to place our understanding on the same level as the Father’s. We lose that assurance that the Father is still in control and that we are still covered under His authority.
At that point, we know just enough to be dangerous. We see things as they are, and we know that they are not as they should be.
So we attack the problem with a vengeance. We see a problem and we resolve to fix it at all costs, right now, no matter what. We fix our eyes on the problem and lose sight of the Father.
A childlike believer clings to the Father. When a childlike believer sees a problem, he trusts that the Father knows how to take care of the problem and just depends on the Father to do that.
We are called to be living stones—living stones set upon a foundation whose cornerstone is Christ Jesus.
Children are simple. But you know what? Stones are even simpler.
A living stone, I believe, is made up of the three ingredients that we talked about before: faith, hope, and love.
The stone needs these three things. If one of those things is missing, then the stone is defective and will serve poorly as part of the church.
All three of these things are not something that we come up with ourselves, but they emanate from the life of Christ within us.
But as living stones, we have a free will that can hinder that outflowing of the life of Christ in us.
There are many ways that we can hinder that, and I will not go into them today. But the existence of those ingredients does depend on our letting them flow through our lives.
Christ, being the loving God that He is—the loving Father—wants us to be good-quality living stones. So, to do that, He will firmly and patiently work in us, work through us, and work in spite of us to achieve His standards of quality in living stones.
The first ingredient of a living stone is faith. Without faith, there can be no righteousness and no salvation.
With that faith, we gain entry into the kingdom and become a living stone. But faith is not just our ticket into the kingdom; it also provides stability once we are there.
A living stone that has no faith will continually bounce back and forth, looking for some assurance that Christ is still in control. They become basically worthless, like a handful of Jell-O to a builder.
There is nothing you can do with a stone that has no solidity to it. So, we need the simple faith of a child—a steadfast confidence in the saving work that Christ has performed—to be living stones.
The second ingredient is hope. Without a hope of Christ appearing, being a living stone is basically a life of joyless drudgery.
We talked about hope a lot this morning in worship. Without that hope, why are we doing what we are doing?
If there is going to be no glorious inhabitation of the spiritual house that is being built, why are we building it?
So, we need the simple hope of a child—a longing for Christ to return and inhabit the spiritual house that we are a part of.
Now, the third, most active ingredient of a living stone is love. With His love, we can return love to Him, and we can love the other living stones that are in the house.
If we love Him, we will obey His direction and follow His commandments.
How often, as living stones, do we desire to decide where we go in the house? We do not want to obey the Lord. We jump up and run to some other place in the house that we want to be in.
We want to find our own place in the church and not where the Builder would have us be.
Without that love, we kind of wander aimlessly around the building site that is His spiritual house, looking for the best place for us—where we think we would go the best—and not really desiring where the Builder would have us go.
Of course, when we do that, we have no idea, in the big picture, where our place would best glorify the Lord, because we cannot see the whole picture of the church. We do not see the whole design.
If we have that love for our brothers and sisters, we will love the other living stones, and we will make a strong and unified wall for that spiritual house. Without that love, we are just a disjointed pile of rocks.
If we have a childlike love for the Father, we will desire what He desires. Love for the Father looks at Him and says, “What do You want me to do, Lord?”
If we love our Father, we love the things that He loves. That means we will love our brothers and sisters because He loves them also.
I do not think I can say enough about the need for love flowing through us to be living stones in His house.
Without love, there is no obedience. Without love, there is no unity. Without love, there is no evidence that we are actually living stones.
So, faith gives us strength, hope gives us purpose, and love gives us substance.
I look forward to seeing one day what the Father is building in the church—what He has made. I do not know what it will be. I have only had little glimpses of it.
But I am sure it will be glorious and it will be beautiful, because it will meet or exceed the rest of His creation.
While I have been thinking about this whole issue of simplicity in the church and the simplicity of our life, I kept having a nagging question: How much should I be involved? Or how much should I seek to know about the design and the architecture of His church?
I kept stumbling over that question of how much should I know—how much should I seek to know of that big picture that is His design?
Well, last Sunday during worship time, I was mulling over that question. I was distracted. I was not worshiping. I was thinking about simplicity.
I finally did the sensible thing, and I asked the Lord, “Lord, show me. Show me about how complex I should be and how much complexity I should get into in knowing Your church.”
Well, shortly after that, we were worshiping, and it was toward the end. We were standing up singing—I think it was the “Shout to the North” song—and I was looking up where the projector was showing.
My daughter Rachel was standing on a chair behind me. As we were singing, I heard this beautiful little voice behind me praising the Lord. It almost brought me to tears. I was so blessed by hearing my daughter praise the Lord.
The Lord spoke pretty plainly to me and said, “That is how complicated I want you to be.”
Just simple worship. Simple praise for the Lord, as from a child. That is all that He desires: worship and obedience. If we love Him, we will obey Him.
There is no complicated theology, no fancy creations of my own, but just simple love, adoration, and worship for the Father.
With that, He will make us into living stones that are suitable for His spiritual house.
When we stop and start looking at other people, when we start looking at other people’s problems, we start to feel all grown up and smart and complex because we can see their problems and we know how to fix their problems.
We stop being childlike. We start being an adolescent. We start to feel somewhat superior.
But when we focus on the Lord, there is no way that we can feel superior, or smart, or complex. The only way we can feel is like a child, or maybe even like a stone.
So, childlike simplicity is what the Lord calls us to: focusing on Him.
There is one more short passage from Scripture I want to read. You do not need to turn to it. It is Luke 10:41-42. It is a very familiar passage. It is the end of the story of Mary and Martha. It is where Jesus was correcting Martha.
But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things;
but only a few things are necessary, really only one;
for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”
Now, Martha was busy running around trying to make her home suitable for the King of kings. She was trying to make a creation that was suitable for the King.
She was focused on all the problems in her home, running around trying to fix all those problems, trying for things to be made right for the King.
But Mary—Mary was focused on the King. She was focused on really the only thing that mattered.
Now, may we cease focusing on all the things that need to be done and all the problems, and focus on the King. He will take care of the things that need to be done.
We focus on Him. He focuses on His creation. It is that simple.
Let’s pray.
Father, just thank You, Lord, for not requiring us to be complex or to be all grown up, but just allowing us and letting us be children, Lord.
I pray that You would show us more what it means to be Your children and to come to You in a childlike manner.
I pray this in Your most holy and wonderful name. Amen.