Peak Performance

God has much more in mind for us as a church than we can imagine. Human nature is to stop short of what God wants, to be satisfied or content with less than God's best, to limit what he wants to do. That's why we want to imagine what things would look like if we had "no limits."

Eph 3:20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us...

God is already at work within you! And with God's help, by the power of God's Spirit within, you can do far more than you ever thought possible!

Eph 4:11-13 (NASB) 11And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 12for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; 13until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

Several things are wrapped up in that word "equipping." God wants you to be equipped for ministry, so let's look at some of the implications of what it means to be equipped.

To be equipped means...

1.     You have been trained.

This is where the hands-on, practical experience comes into play. You've studied the play books and watched the films, but training takes you beyond the classes and the books.

Training means long grueling hours in practice—calisthenics and drills, listening to the coach, watching him model the moves and techniques. And finally comes the day when the coach sends you into the game—because you've been trained, you've learned the material, because he's tested you, and you're ready.

2.     You have been supplied. God gives us all the resources we need. This means two things:

(a) First, this means tapping into God's supernatural supply. God will provide us with everything we need.

Phil 4:13,19 13I can do everything through him who gives me strength... 19And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

2 Cor 9:8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

God gives the power and the strength supernaturally—beyond our natural resources. Before our teachers and mentors (who are only human) can equip us, we need Jesus to supply us with his resources.

(b) Second, we must use God's pipeline—often his supply comes through others, through the church, through the fellowship of believers.

Being equipped means more than having the basic equipment! You can get all the gear necessary to play hockey—a helmet, pads, skates, stick, mouth guard—but you're not fully equipped to play until you have a team. The team makes you fully equipped. You belong to something bigger than yourself.

If you're trying to go it alone, trying to be a maverick believer, unwilling to rely on the gifts and ministries of others, then you limit what God wants to do through you. You cut off God's supply. We need to tap into God's supply by using God's pipeline—the church.

The pictures of the church that Paul shows us in the letter to the Ephesians all underscore the idea that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. The individual parts come together to make something larger, something grander. We come together to become part of God's plan.

Each week we've been looking in Ephesians. If you haven't already done it, I'd encourage you to read through those six chapters to catch a picture of what the church is like. For instance...

Believers in the church are like...
a) Adopted children (1:5; 5:1) in God's household—the family of God (2:19; 3:15)
b) Members of a body—the body of Christ (1:23; 2:16; 3:6; 4:12,16,25; 5:30)
c) Citizens within God's nation—included; no longer foreigners or aliens (2:12,19)
d) Bricks joined together to be a building—a temple in which God's Spirit can dwell (2:20-22)
e) A bride in a marriage—joined to her husband (5:31-32)
f) Soldiers in an army, fighting for a cause (6:11-17)
g) Servants working for a master (4:12).

So being equipped means being trained and supplied (including the resources of all the others in the church), but being equipped also means...

3.     You have been enlightened. You get a whole new perspective—seeing God and seeing yourself in an entirely new light. That God has called you! That God gives you hope! That God gives you the power to do his will!

Eph 1:18-20 18I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead...

Being equipped means receiving new light, new understanding, straight thinking. When God revives us, he replaces our human perspective with a Spirit-filled viewpoint. We see things differently. The hope of the gospel enables us to see God, ourselves, and our circumstances in a completely different light.

A coach's job is to help his players see themselves as winners. He gets them to believe in something bigger than themselves. If the players believe in the coach, they'll start believing in the team. And when they believe they are part of something bigger than themselves, they start believing in themselves. They start seeing how each one of them can contribute to the good of the team.

God wants us to see that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. Christianity is about more than a "personal" relationship with Jesus. It's also about relationships with others. When God redeems us, he wants to redeem our relationships—with our spouse, our family, our friends.

God wants us to see a new perspective. It's not just about us anymore. When we come to Christ, we become part of a team, part of the church. We become part of something bigger than ourselves. This is a whole new perspective. Understanding this is part of what it means to be "equipped"—because now we're not facing the world and it's challenges alone. Now we're facing the battle together with others.

Accountability groups. Support groups. Study groups. Caring groups. We're not alone—but we need to see this perspective in order to be effective as followers of Christ. We need to have the eyes of our hearts enlightened.

Coach Carter is a movie about the true story of Ken Carter, a successful sporting goods store owner, who in 1999 became head basketball coach for his old high school in a poor area of Richmond, California. Dismayed by the attitudes of his players and their dismal performance on the court, Carter sets out to change both. He immediately imposes a strict regime that includes respectful behavior, a dress code, and good grades as a prerequisite of participation.
One particular player, Timo Cruz, initially refuses to accept the coach's demands and quits the team, only to return later with a desire to be reinstated. Timo asks Coach Carter what he has to do to play. Carter informs Cruz that he must complete 2,500 push-ups and 1,000 suicide drills by Friday——a task even the coach calls "impossible."
By Friday, Timo is short of both goals. Coach Carter, though impressed with what Timo has done, asks him to leave the gym. He has failed.
Suddenly, one of Timo's teammates, Jason, who previously had a personality conflict with Timo, steps forward saying, "I'll do push-ups for him. You said we're a team, coach. One person struggles, we all struggle. One player triumphs, we all triumph. Right?"
As Coach Carter stands speechless, Jason drops to the floor and begins doing push-ups. One by one the entire team begins to join in to help Timo reach his goal.

In Christ, we are not alone. We must understand this. To be equipped, we must gain this new perspective. We are a team. We are a church. And together with other believers and with the help of the Lord, we can do things impossible. We can minister with no limits.

God wants us to be enlightened to see this and grow in the faith and confidence to become what he has called us to become. To be equipped means we have been enlightened, supplied, and trained. But it also means...

4.     You have been mended. You've been repaired or restored, set straight, put in order. You cannot effectively minister to others if you yourself are crippled spiritually.

katartismos -  comes katartizō from kata (intensive) and artizō (to fit or adapt; put in order; restore to proper condition; to mend what has been broken). [TDNT, Clarke]

The same word is found in Matt 4:21 (NASB): "...James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets..." The word included several ideas—cleaning, mending, and folding the nets.

The word is also found in Gal 6:1: "...if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently..." Other English versions of this verse suggest other shades of meaning for this word: set him right and restore (Amp); help that person back onto the right path (NLT); help make him right again (NCV).

One other example. 2 Cor 13:11 in the NIV says "aim for perfection" to translate katartizō. NASB says, "be made complete." But the Revised English Bible, however, comes back to that idea of restoring and fixing something that is broken. It says, "Mend your ways" [also see Gingrich & Arndt].

So—hang with me here—to be equipped means first of all that anything out of whack or broken in your life needs to be put back in order. We need to be mended and restored if we're going to be equipped.

In fact, the word artizō was sometimes used by ancient Greeks to describe medical procedures like putting a dislocated limb back in place or mending a broken bone. [Clarke]

Here's the lesson for us: To be "equipped" to minister or to serve, we need to be mended spiritually.

We've all been broken by sin. We've been hurt by painful events. Emotionally we've been put "out of joint." We need to be set straight. We need to be put back in order. We need to be mended.

Our nets are useless if they are ripped and torn. We can't minister effectively to others if we're in need of spiritual repair. Tattered nets won't catch fish, and tattered lives don't function very well either!

Saints who are equipped are saints who have received spiritual healing. And we all need healing.

I remember when I was young playing "keep away" with a ball in a lake. We were having a lot of fun until I stepped on the jagged base of a broken beer bottle. Sliced my foot pretty badly. And even though I didn't want to quit playing, I had to. I had to get out of the water and go to the doctor and have stitches put in the bottom of my foot. I couldn't walk normally. I had to use crutches to get around for a while so I wouldn't stretch the wound. My foot needed to be put back together and mended so I could function.

Did you ever break an arm or a leg? You can't just "shake it off." You can't just "gut it out." You're not going to be able to operate at peak performance if you're injured.

If we're going to function in the body of Christ, we need to be put back together—we need to be mended and restored.

Every one of us has—in one way or another—been ripped and torn spiritually. We've been broken by sin, by disappointments, by various kinds of hurts or losses. Our hearts and our spirits have been wounded.

That's why we all need to be touched by the Great Physician—the One who repairs hearts and heals spirits. We need to be set straight. Our ripped and shattered lives need to be stitched back together. Until we are mended spiritually, we're not going to be able to fully live up to God's call and plan for us.

Two warnings about spiritual healing—

(a) Don't be too proud or independent to come to Jesus for healing. Some people try to fix themselves—they try to put themselves back together again. They work hard at it. They read self-help books and practice strict self-discipline. Sometimes they enroll in programs (all good, as far as they go)—12-step programs, anger management classes, counseling sessions.

But while these things help on the surface, unless we come to Jesus for forgiveness and healing, we're not going to get to the root of the problem. We need to surrender to the power of the cross; we need to open our brokenness up to God's healing forgiveness.

We need to treat more than the symptoms; we need to treat the cause! If you have a brain tumor, taking an aspirin for the pain isn't going to get at the real problem. And this is why we need Jesus to restore us and mend us spiritually.

God wants to set our lives straight—to heal and repair us from the damage of sin; from painful memories of the past; from the shame and disgrace we carry; from the burden of guilt; from debilitating, crippling habits; from behavioral ruts that restrict us.

We need healing from the past, but we also need healing for the present. We need God's continual, ongoing work of grace in our lives. Sometimes God allow us to go through more pain and brokenness so he can do a deeper work in us.

(b) Don't be discouraged if more pain or brokenness comes along. Sometimes God brings us through troubles so he can do a deeper work in us.

Several years back my brother flipped his Jeep in the Himalayas on a Peace Corp mission to the Tibet Plateau in SW China. He broke his arm in three places and then, after being outside for an hour at -10°, he froze several of his fingers. He was hauled into a nearby village where they tried to straighten out his arm...without any painkillers. He passed out.
When he came to, they said, "You need to stay here in the hospital." And he said, "No, I need to leave." So they put him on an 18-hour train ride back to his home in NW China. The hospital there said he needed an operation to pin his bones back in place, and they didn't want to do that. So they put him on a 4-hour plane ride east to Beijing. In Beijing, they said his frozen fingers looked so bad they wanted to send him for better care to Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, they said, "We'll operate on you, but we want to wait until tomorrow—January 1, 2000—to make sure our equipment hasn't been affected by Y2K."
Finally, four days after his accident, they reset the bones in his right arm. Later as it healed, however, something wasn't right. He couldn't rotate his arm to comb his hair; his mobility had been compromised. So he returned to the U.S. six months later to have it checked out, and discovered the two bones in his right forearm had fused together. That meant he had to have yet another operation to chip the bones apart and scrape them down.

Sometimes the painful things we go through are simply another opportunity for God to do a deeper work in us. Even after we've been mended spiritually, we will experience new disappointments and challenges. But new pain becomes an opportunity for God to give us fresh grace for each situation.

Isa 43:1-2 1But now, this is what the LORD says... "Fear not, for I have redeemed you... 2When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze."

And so by God's grace we can become "wounded healers"—people who can minister to others because they have experienced hurt and healing. We can be "equipped" because we've received spiritual healing by God's power.

Eph 4:11-13 (NASB) 11And He gave some... 12for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ...

To be equipped means you've been mended, enlightened, supplied, and trained.

It all begins by coming to Jesus,
by surrendering your heart to him,
by inviting him to come in to heal you from your sin and pain,
by seeing his will for you,
by receiving his Spirit and power,
by working with the leaders and mentors he gives you.

Will you be equipped?