Summary of Vital signs
Preamble
Kirk leads into his message about his dislike of Doctor’s visits. Kirk doesn’t like many things that relate to hospitals and the whole care profession. But Kirk doesn’t avoid the hospital and doctors when he knows he needs it. He tells several stories of his experiences with doctors and hospitals. Kirk makes the point that he avoids it as long as possible until he knows a professional should really help him.
Spiritual life vital signs
Doctors have stats and probes that can help determine the health of a patient. Kirk talks about this idea regarding our spiritual lives.
God provides us checks and gauges to help determine spiritual health
Ephesians 4:11-12 “…so that the body of the church can be built up.” The expression “be built up” shows us that God does want the church to grow and make efforts to be built up.
Vital sign – engaging with the Bible
We must engaging with the Bible
When we chew on the Bible and investigate it and meditate on it we will grow. We will “no longer be infants.” But another benefit is that we will speak and proclaim the truth of God in a loving way. Jesus called for repentance but he always pointed back to God’s word and did it with a loving desire to see people turn to God.
God’s concept of Love – 1 Corinthians 13
To understand how we must be loving messengers of God’s message, we must understand what love is from God’s example and perspective.
We can balance the importance of our message with love
If a child was playing in the middle of a busy road the parent wouldn’t loving say, “hey buddy, hope your having fun!” But instead that parent — driven by love for the child — would yell and scream at the child to give direction and a message that would save the child.
Vital sign – Becoming more like Christ
Submitting to Jesus’ lordship in all things
This is a vital sign to show our spiritual health. We need to model ourselves after Jesus. This is so easy to say and have this as a philosophy but it is so hard to do in practice.
Vital sign – Unity with the church
The “body” of the church
Kirk uses this analogy to describe the church and how the body has warning signs that help to show the body is sick, and so does the church. When part of the church is sick the “body” will be unable to grow. But when the church is in unity and all aspects of the church are working together, it can grow.
Rick Warren, “We’re better together.”
Ephesians 4:15-16 “from Him (Jesus) the whole body…grows and builds itself up in love.”
God as the stone mason
Jesus calls up to tolerate one another in love so that God can smooth out our edges so that we can fit better together. This is unity. Damaged unity returns diminished impact! God has called us to go and reach people and we must be unified to accomplish this mission.
About this Message Series
This is a message in a series called Ephesians. The goal of this series is to discuss the topics and themes that arise from the New Testament book Ephesians. The book of Ephesians is a letter that Paul wrote while in prison. Sometimes it is called a Prison Epistle. It was written to encourage believers. He was encouraging other faithful followers of Jesus to serve in unity and love in the midst of persecution. This series was started in January 2016.
About the Speaker
Kirk Wood is the associate pastor of community engagement at SouthRidge Church in Langley. He grew up loving hockey and even became a pro hockey ref, as well as a fire fighter, all before becoming a pastor.