Mark Turman: So I want to talk to you today about a more perfect union. I've got some questions for you to lead off, but before I do that, I want you to listen to those wonderful, powerful, poetic words of Solomon in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes.
Mark Turman: Listen to the way he uses the word time. There is an occasion for everything and a time for every activity under heaven, a time to kill and a time to heal a time to tear down and a time to build a time to throw stones and a time to gather stones a time to tear and a time to sow a time for war and a time for peace as we celebrate 250 years as a country I wonder if you would ponder with me for a moment what time is it in America do you know that we have several days that we could consider our national birthday now I know that were fixated on yesterday and on July 4th but that was the day we declared our independence from our friends in Great Britain what Solomon might describe as a time to tear but when we were lining up watching watching everyone get ready for the Harbor Parade right out here in front of the chapel yesterday, somebody I didn't know walked up and we started a conversation and he said, you know, why did they pick July 4th? It's too stinking hot to have a national holiday. And it was hard to argue with him.
Mark Turman: And actually, we have several other choices if we want. If you say, well, July 4rd is great, wait, but what about September 1783 when they actually signed the Treaty of Paris and formally and officially ended the Revolutionary War between the American colonies and the most fiercest fighting force in the world at the time, Great Britain?
Mark Turman: Or maybe we could pick September of 1787 when they had actually signed a treaty and signed the Constitution and they had already learned in just about a decade how hard it was not just simply to win a war but to try to build a peace maybe we could go a little bit further than that and say june of 1788 when the ninth colony actually signed and ratified the constitution making it a majority decision and the constitution became legitimate but it would even be another year march of 1789 when the constitution actually went into effect so if you want to move it we can make a suggestion to the congress i suppose that we could back it up a little bit into june or move it a little forward into september when it's cooler but either way we have a lot to celebrate and just love watching those pictures of different places in our country many of you have been to many of them and you know how beautiful it is but the question I have for you this morning is what time is it in America I've been thinking about that for a number of months and I think it is time in the words of New York Times columnist Ross Douthat over the weekend it is Time for Us to Start Again and to build a more perfect union. You remember where those words come from, don't you?
Mark Turman: The preamble of the Constitution says this. We, the people of the United States, in order to form a what? A more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America. Now just ponder those words for a few minutes and the incredible six goals that they articulated.
Mark Turman: What an incredible aspiration for those 13 colonies that they would try to work together to build a unity and a union that would stand the test of time. And the thesis that I have for you this morning is this. If we do not rededicate ourselves to the first one, the building of a more perfect union, all of the other five will be utterly utterly unattainable unity is one of those values in the bible that is woefully undervalued by most of us not only in our country but in every other segment of our lives you've certainly heard the news you've seen the reports how there is division and disunity there's disbelief on on every corner we are perhaps more divided and more tribal than we have ever been as a nation if there is ever a time in my opinion to re-begin to restart to start over again building a more perfect union now is the time and you and i as the people of christ can play perhaps the leading role because unity is at the heart of the gospel listen to what the apostle paul wrote to his friends in the city of philippi a roman colony 2 000 years ago he says to them in chapter 1 verse Verse 27, just one thing, just one thing as citizens of heaven live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ, then whether I come to see you or I am absent, I will hear that you are standing firm, listen to this, in one spirit, in one accord, contending together for the faith of the gospel and not being frightened by any of your opponents. What an incredible call to each of us. We love to celebrate this thing called America. We love to celebrate the thing called the church. We love to have fireworks and to offer our prayers, but the question becomes to each of us when we walk away from a gathering like this, from a weekend like this. What what is my part? What is my role? What can I do to make this country and this generation better, not only for me, but for all of us? How can we live out the words of Jeremiah when he spoke on behalf of God and said to the people of his day, seek the welfare of the city that you are in, for as it prospers, you will prosper. you understand from the words of the apostle paul that you are a dual citizen you have a permanent home a permanent kingdom in heaven waiting for you but until then you get to be a part of this nation and you have mission here so how could we begin today to live out those words that we hear at times like this e pluribus unum out of one out of the many comes one how can you and i live out what c.s lewis said when he said you know there's a lot of people that think that that we christians are so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good that's really not true of very many of us if any at all if we would be more heavenly minded we would become not only the best citizens of heaven we would be the best citizens of our nation as well so think with me if you will about two or three ideas that are connected right here in the apostle paul's testimony about how you might be more about a perfect union in your family in your churches in your business in your relationships with your neighbors in every aspect where where God gives you the opportunity to live and have influence, how can we build a more perfect union?
Mark Turman: Well, just three ideas. One of those is you need to be more missional. You need to see all of your situations, all of you, all of our circumstances as an opportunity to give out and show the gospel of Jesus Christ, no matter what they are. The second thing you can do is be hopeful. There's a famine of hope in our country right now. and you and i have every reason to be people of confidence about the future we know where we're going we have hope to share and then the last thing we can do is we can be humble we can choose to put others first if we'll do those three things i think we'll be doing our part to make this a more perfect union paul describes those in the accompanying verses right around here he says It says, first, you and I need to decide to prioritize the goal of unity and mission.
Mark Turman: Everything that has value has a purpose or a mission behind it. You learned that about this country when you were in grade school. So let me just ask you to remind yourself. Put your hand over your heart and repeat after me.
Mark Turman: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all that is the mission of our great nation and it's something that we need to embrace and to be a part of but that's not our greatest mission the greatest mission is the gospel of Jesus Christ as we've sung about and as we prayed about this morning now I don't know if you have a a personal mission statement, but I suspect that the Apostle Paul had one. If I was trying to frame it for him, it might be like this. I want to take the whole gospel, all of the good news of Jesus, to the whole world by the whole church, by all of us. He describes that in his own testimony. If he had been gathered here today, he might have stood up like Jordan or Harriet and said something about his own experience of God's nearness, because here's what he says earlier in this chapter, verse 12. Now, I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is because of Christ. Most of the brothers have have gained confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment, and dare even more to speak the word fearlessly, to be sure some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill.
Mark Turman: Paul is writing to them, ironically, from another Roman prison, which is exactly the context where they first met this great ambassador of the gospel you may remember the story from the book of acts paul and silas are going all over the known world and they are sharing jesus anywhere that they can get a hearing and they come into this very important city called philippi a colonial town that had a privilege from rome of self-government they took their citizenship citizenship very proudly paul comes into the city starts talking about jesus and when he gets to that part about jésus being raised from the dead they're like this guy is out of his mind he's telling us to give our allegiance not to caesar but that there is another lord a guy named jesus who he claims came from the death they thought that was so ridiculous that they threw him and Silas in prison. You remember the story? You remember what happened? Instead of whining about it, crying about it, what do Paul and Silas do? They start singing hymns of worship at midnight. And all of the prisoners in that captive setting with them are dumbfounded until God sends an earthquake breaks open the jail the jailer runs in is about to take his own life because he knows that if the prisoners escape that means he's a failure and he'll be ended and so right before that happens paul says don't hurt yourself we are all still here you want to know the power of the gospel the power the gospel can turn fellow prisoners so captive that they're willing to to stay and watch the story play out rather than save themselves. It's ironic that Paul is now in another Roman prison writing to them, and he says, listen guys, you've heard that I'm back in jail, but you need to know that the gospel is not in jail.
Mark Turman: Do you hear what he said? The whole imperial guard of Rome, they they thought that they had taken paul prisoner when in fact they had been taken prisoner by the gospel and if you want to know how the gospel spread so rapidly across the world 2 000 years ago it was in part because of dedicated believers like paul and silas who went with a mission to share the gospel but when they shared it particularly with roman soldiers some of them were converted and as they were deployed across the known world for the for the benefit of the Roman Empire they became testimonies and witnesses and ambassadors for the gospel while they were being soldiers Paul says they weren't all converted but they all know why I'm here I'm here because I believe in this guy named Jesus Paul goes one step further and says not only did the imperial soldiers learn about why i'm here my faith in jesus he says my fellow believers that are around me and that hear about my story they gain courage because if i can live for christ in a roman prison they can live for Christ in their situation have you lived long enough to realize that both cowardice and courage are contagious is there anybody who doesn't feel better knowing Harriet's testimony about her children and grandchildren or Jordan's story about how God spared his life and restored his leg you want to know why we get together in rooms like this we get together to celebrate the greatness of God and to hear how God is at work in each and every one of our lives and we gain confidence from that we get courage from that we're like if that can happen to them then something good can happen to me God can be at work in my life just like he's at work in their life I can be bold for Christ just like they are being bold for Christ Paul is all about being missional whatever his situation and if you read the rest of this paragraph what you'll find is he says even my enemies who tried to mock me and to mock the gospel even my enemies became emissaries for the gospel they weren't preaching from pure motives they were doing it out of rivalry out of envy they were trying to mock what i am all about what i believe what i'm doing but they on the other hand are preaching the name of jesus even though their motives are not the best and jesus is being known own it's just amazing how paul was not really worried about his comfort he was worried about the communication of the gospel the greatest message for any nation for any person for any family anywhere i have a little text thread that that i'm on about two or three times a week week three of my closest friends and somebody will start saying something usually a really bad joke or sometimes a good quote and it just starts a conversation and this past week we got into a conversation and somehow it came up that one of my friends said you know what I just have discovered this week that I'm just a little bit too focused on my comfort and that caused quite a flurry of text messages among the four of us until we all kind of landed at the same confession that one of our favorite idols is our comfort and the apostle paul stands in stark contrast that even in a roman prison cell where he didn't know what was about to come next the most important thing to him chained to a roman soldier or anybody else do you know who Jesus is Paul was not in the room that first Easter evening when Jesus came into the room miraculously and spoke his words to those early believers as the father sent me I'm sending you I'm sending you i wonder if we could rededicate ourselves start again with a commitment to that mission of making him known. About 30 years ago, a guy by the name of James Davidson Hunter, sociologist at the University of Virginia, wrote a book called To Change the World. If you follow Jim Denison's work, you know that he considers this book to be foundational to his understanding of mission and ministry. James Davidson Hunter in that book coined a term that has stayed with us for 30 years the term is culture war and many of us have allowed ourselves to get distracted and off mission by being sucked into the cultural wars of our day and there's a lot going on there and a lot of it is important but here's my contention to you God never says to any of us that you are to be a cultural warrior he says to you as a follower of Christ that you're to be a cultural missionary. That you're to use your circumstances, your situation, your opportunities, your influence to represent Christ in all that you do. Because the most important thing you can ever do is to share his life and love with other people.
Mark Turman: The second thing we can do is we can be hopeful. Do you have a motto? I remember sitting in church as a brand new Christian 18 19 years of age when my pastor said you know what if you're looking for a life motto something that might end up as your epitaph on your gravestone you might consider this one the main thing is to keep the main thing what the main things some of you've heard it 30 years ago as well I don't know what your motto might be Oprah offered us one just go live your truth, or you be you. I've developed my own. It kind of goes like this, onward through the fog.
Mark Turman: It just feels like we're always just kind of onward Through the fog, and then my motto is just keep showing up. You know, they say 80% of success is just showing up, so I've added to it over the years. I started with onward Thru the fog now. It's onward thru the fog with the Spirit, it okay i think paul had a motto and i think he started it with the churches of galatia when he wrote to them he said to them in galatians 2 20 i have been crucified with christ it is no longer i who live but christ lives in me and the life i now live i live by faith in the son of god who loved me and gave himself for me and after he tried living out that motto and he said to one of his friends i'm gonna have that inscribed on my tombstone they said it's way too long paul you're gonna have to shorten it up and so by the time he writes to the philippians i think he's found a way to say it a little bit shorter because here's what he says in this chapter in verse 21 for me for me paul says to live is christ and to die is gain that's galatians 220 shortened up is what that is for me to live as christ to die as gain now if i live on in the flesh it means fruitful work for me and i don't know which one i should choose i am torn between the two i long Long to depart and be with Christ, which is far better, but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. And he goes on to say that I may help in the progress of your faith and love.
Mark Turman: How can a guy that's been multiple times thrown in prison, multiple times shipwrecked, multiple times beaten for his faith, how can he be so hopeful? hopeful. It's because of Christ in his life. It is because he knows what the future holds.
Mark Turman: That he is absolutely confident that if he is allowed to go on living in this life, that God will use him in powerful, profound ways to help others to know him and to walk closely with him. And if he happens to come to his worst possible end, that will just be one stepping stone into the very presence of God did you catch the reminder on Friday or Saturday that while we were anticipating the greatest fireworks shows that we possibly will ever see in our lifetime I hope you were reminded to remember the people of the hill country who a year ago at this time were We're scrambling to find children and lost friends in the water.
Mark Turman: 197 souls taken so abruptly and so tragically. Some of you know some of those people personally. Our lives are always lived at the intersection of sadness and hope. but because we walk with christ we know we have a certain future paul uses paul uses a beautiful word here to describe his hope in christ he says that if he is to die for his faith he says it is to depart that word is actually a nautical term it means to weigh anchor and to set sail for a beautiful, wonderful destination. Just like if you go out on a cruise ship or you go way up river like we did yesterday on the lake. It's like setting off the ropes of your boat and heading off to your final and permanent destination. Paul will use exactly this term in his very last letter in 2 Timothy. He says that I'm being poured out like a drink offering and I am ready to depart to set sail and to be with Christ. Many of you remember the book by Stephen Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Highly Successful People. He said that you and I need to think win-win. This is the ultimate win-winning. All deference to Stephen Clovey, this is the the ultimate when-win if I stay here I get to be used by God I get to speak the gospel I get the live the gospel, I get help people know the the greatest hope in the world, and if the worst thing that can happen to me here happens, I step right into the very presence of Jesus. What could be better? I saw a story about 10 days ago that illustrated for me how being hopeful and being grateful are deeply tied together. When you are a grateful person, you are looking back at all the blessings in your life, small, small, medium, and large, and you are just astounded that God would be this good to you.
Mark Turman: That's a great thing to do when you're out here at the lake. But that sense of gratitude should lay a foundation for you to be hopeful. So I caught the story of a Florida-based painter by the name of Vincent Saratella. I don't know what you were doing back in December, but he woke up one morning and he couldn't see very well which is a pretty big problem if your life is being a painter not a painter of rooms but of portraits of art and so he went to the doctor that doctor's visit led to another doctor visit that led to another and to another into another and within a matter of weeks they had diagnosed him with a brain tumor that was pushing on his retinal nerve and they scheduled him for surgery, and then two surgeries later, they had removed a tumor to take the pressure off of his retina. He spent 20 solid days in ICU. If you want to know what that's like, talk to Jordan. 20 solid Days. And while he was there recovering, not sure if he would get his sight back, he started thinking about all of the people who had surrounded him and taken care of him him over those number of weeks by the time he got through building a list in his brain he had more than 40 people his wife his family his friends who came to be with him his nurses the technicians the surgeons the doctors all of those people and so when he got back he recovered enough of his eyesight that he could start painting again so he decided that he would do a portrait of every one of those 40 plus people to honor them and to express his gratitude i love what the story said at the end he said you know what my vision is not as good as it used to be so therefore my portraits are probably not as Good as i would like them to be he said however while i i don't see as clearly as i used to i see people better than ever there's always a reason to be hopeful one last thing and then we're done if you want to help build a more perfect union recommit yourself to being humble paul tumbles his conversation into the next chapter let me just read a few verses of that chapter he says if there is any encouragement in christ any any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, any affection and mercy, make my joy complete, listen to this, by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose, do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves. Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others and then this profound statement adopt the same attitude of christ jesus and he goes on to describe how jesus stepped off of his throne and into human body so as to become a sacrifice for you and i and not just to die but to die even on a cross those words became poetic and likely were one of the first hymns that the early church ever sang.
Mark Turman: Paul gives us an exhortation. Make unity a high priority with your spouse, with your family, with your friends, with your church, with your company, with your neighbors.
Mark Turman: Make union important. How can we connect to each other in fresh and powerful and profound and helpful ways. That is the exhortation.
Mark Turman: The exercise, how do you make this happen? You choose day in and day out to put others first. To not just try to get ahead, to not get just what you want, but to seek what they need to put other's first. the example the example is one that we will be chasing for the rest of our lives adopt this same attitude of christ jesus who existing in the form of god did not consider equality with god as something to be exploited instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant taking on the likeness of humanity and when he had come as a man he humbled himself himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even to death on a cross for this reason god highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name so that at the name of jesus every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue will confess that jesus christ is lord to the glory of god the father that's an example that can challenge us so how do you know if you're doing this how do you know if you've adopted an attitude of humility one of my friends says that humility is the the virtue that you can never claim and still keep but how do you know if you are making progress how do you know if you are actually putting others first instead of putting yourself first what's the evidence of that well that happens just a couple of verses later when it it says this, for it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his good pleasure. Listen to this, do everything without grumbling or arguing so that you will be blameless and pure children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation among whom you shine like stars in the world. Wow. That's a great way to measure your progress.
Mark Turman: how much grumbling is there how much complaining is there how much collaboration is there my newest prayer came from an experience of worship about two months ago while i was sitting in church in mckinney my newest player simply goes like this lord every day every minute of the day make me humble make me wise and make me brave make me humble enough to lean on you lord make me wise enough to understand what you're telling me to do in any moment and make me courageous enough to actually do it it is 250 years plus one day a really good day to begin again after that long hot summer in philadelphia 250 years ago, those founders had decided that they had created the best document that they could make for the governing of these 13 colonies together as a nation, a union. And so they came to sign their names there in Philadelphia Hall to the Constitution of the United States. Benjamin Franklin, who many believed to be the first true American, American said on that occasion as he watched the signers place their names that for the whole summer he had been looking at this carving on the back of George Washington's chair as Washington presided over the constitutional congress he said that he had pondered through the arduous debates of the summer whether that was a setting sun or a rising sun of a new nation and when the last of those forefathers founding fathers signed their names to the constitution he said i have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting son well let's pray for that son to rise again. Would you join me? Father, thank you for this great day, for this great weekend, and for this great country that you've providentially allowed us to be a part of. Every person in this room could have been born in any other place and in any other time, but God, you have placed us here and now so that we might know and love you that we might walk in your will that we might be a part of your incredible redemptive mission so God fill us with your hope again a hope that never fades that is the anchor of our soul and God would you fill us again help us to adopt again the attitude of Jesus the attitude of humility toward you, toward each other, toward all the situations and circumstances of our day. And God, would you use us and all of your people in this time and place to build a more perfect union. That God, when people who don't know you look at us, they will know us because of our love for you for each other and for them in Jesus name we pray and everyone said together amen make it a great day make it