The Voice: Part 14
It’s not what we are … it’s what we do!
His name was Sullivan. Louis Henry Sullivan. He was born in 1856 in Boston, Massachusetts and died in Chicago in 1924. He is regarded as the father of modern American architecture. Skyscrapers were his thing. Louis Sullivan became famous for the pithy phrase, “form ever follows function”. He had tapped into a principle of design that is basic to everything. It is a fact of life that speaks volumes to Christians. Or, it should!
In his recent book, “Shalom”, Steve Maltz quotes from Louis Sullivan, “whether it be the sweeping eagle in his fight, or the open apple blossom, the toiling workhorse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law. Where function does not change, form does not change.”
When I read that, I realised that the Lord was speaking to me very forcibly. When His voice thunders out, it’s best to take note! Leaving aside the world of architecture, it applies in an extraordinary fashion to my life of faith.
Words, words and yet more words!
Our English language is rich in nouns. Biblical Hebrew is rich in verbs. Hebrew is a doing language. One of the basic questions the Bible both asks and answers is, what are we supposed to be doing? What are we here for? The Lord God of Israel, our Grand Designer and Creator, designed and created us for a purpose; it isn’t random. There is a reason why we’re here and it has to do with what we are meant to do with our lives, how we believers are meant to live for the Lord.
In Ephesians 2:10, the apostle Paul wrote, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Our Father prepared good works for me to do. It’s why He created me. He prepared the good works in advance of my birth. He had a plan and purpose for me to fulfl and He designed me and brought me into the world to function according to that plan and purpose. What governed the way He made me is the blueprint He mapped out for me. My form was governed by God’s intention for my life, my function.
David Roschli was a clever designer we knew. He designed machines for a Swiss food manufacturer. Cooks and chemists would describe a new soup or readymeal they wanted to mass produce and he would take the specifcation and design a machine capable of making that product from start to fnish. To look at one of David’s machines was to see something awesome, so intricate, so impressive. But however marvellous it was, the machine was assessed only by its efectiveness. Did the form actually function as it was intended to? If not, the machine was quite useless. Form ever follows function. If it does not do what it is intended for, it is ft for nothing but the scrap-heap. Tragic but true.
The apostle Paul knew all about it. In 2 Timothy 3:5, he wrote of people in the last days, “having a form of godliness but denying its power.” Paul went on to tell Timothy to avoid people like that. That’s pretty hefty stuff isn’t it? “Avoid them!”
The preceding verses of the chapter describe the most appalling lifestyles and yet the people described have a form of godliness! They appear to be godly! Paul is describing last days so-called Christians!
This is what James refers to in his letter (1:21-22), “… get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. DO WHAT IT SAYS.”
Find your function!
Christians can appear to be very spiritual. After all, they go to church, they even attend the Holy Communion, they say prayers, they read the Bible, they may even appear to be very committed, but if we could scrape away the surface what would we fnd? In too many cases a veritable cess-pool akin to the description in 2 Timothy 3:1-5.
In our last issue of SWORD, I wrote about the strategy of the Holy Spirit in training us as athletes moulded by Him for our particular event. I am being trained to run the faith race and am being trained to succeed. But I must submit to His unique training programme which is tailor-made for me. Success depends upon it.
Jesus calls me to be a witness. That is my form, but is it also my function? If function is removed from form, the result is pathetic. I am a mere shadow of what I am intended to be. A dementia patient is no longer able to function and the result is heart breaking. The famous battle cruiser, HMS Belfast, sits in the River Thames by the Tower of London. It still looks like the mighty battleship that protected our nation from the Nazis, but it is now a pathetic museum piece; its armaments are neutralised and all visitors can do is admire its history. Form without function.
The evidence of true faith is not form, it is function. As James writes in 2:14-17 and 2:20-26, good works are not an alternative to faith, they are the evidence of it.
Down in a pit and down in the mouth The evidence of the Bible is compelling. Take Gideon for instance. In Judges 6 we are introduced to a man sick with fear.
He is attempting to do something impossible. He is attempting to thresh out clean grain while being in a pit in the ground. Threshing grain was normally performed out on an open threshing foor where the wind could drive the chaff away. Gideon was in a wine press, a pit in the ground into which grapes were thrown and trampled to produce juice for wine. Why attempt to thresh grain down in a pit? Pure fear. Gideon was petrifed that he would be spotted by Midianite terrorists who had invaded the land. All the Israelites were terrifed. It was their abandonment of God that had brought the enemy into the land and they were suffering the consequences. The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelites were forced to abandon their homes and to hide wherever they could – even in abandoned animal dens. Their pathetic state was exemplifed in Gideon.
But Judges 6:12 contains a profound shock for us as well as for him. An angel appeared to faithless, terrifed Gideon as he was grubbing about down in the winepress and delivered a personal message from the Lord, “The Lord is with you, mighty man of valour!” It surely qualifes for being one of the best jokes in the Hebrew Scriptures!
Quite understandably Gideon considered that the angel’s ‘Sat-Nav’ must have failed him and had led him to the wrong address! And Gideon was quick to point it out, “But sir, if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? … the Lord has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian.”
The Lord’s response is electrifying, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” (6:14) Gideon’s response is predictable. He sees himself as a total failure and he blusters, “How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in the Tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” Gideon’s credentials are certainly a tremendous hindrance, but he reckons without the power that comes with the call of God; “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together.”
Please note how the Lord had said “Go in the strength you have.” There is the truth of the situation. The Lord had already given Gideon extraordinary strength. Gideon was not aware of it but that changes nothing. The Lord had prepared him to function at an incredible faith level in spite of his form being so unpromising! Gideon’s form could achieve nothing because form ever follows function. It was Gideon’s true function that must impact his form. And it did! He immediately built an altar to the Lord and hacked down the idolatrous Asherah pole his father had erected. He went on to prepare his fighting force by reducing them from 32,000 to 300! But with that tiny army he defeated the Midianite hordes. Who would have thought it? His form was so unpromising, but his function had clearly been foreseen by God and that response of faith is what Gideon is rightly remembered for.
The Big Fisherman
Peter’s meeting with Jesus on the shores of the Sea of Galilee (John 21:15-23) has parallels with the Gideon story. Peter’s sense of personal failure could scarcely be exaggerated. Having denied Jesus three times in the courtyard of the High Priest’s palace and then feeing from Golgotha, we can only begin to guess at his depth of disappointment with himself. But three times Jesus challenges Peter’s love for Him and he, through pain and guilt, confesses His undying love for Jesus three times over.
In consequence of that commitment, our Lord calls Peter into an extension of his evangelistic ministry to include a pastoral one, a catcher of men is now in addition becoming a caring shepherd whose ministry would ultimately lead to death on a cross.
In 21:22 Jesus confronts Peter, who has just queried Him about his call by asking,“What about this man?” Hello, Gideon! And He presents Peter with the challenge that comes to me today (and hopefully, to you as well), “YOU MUST FOLLOW ME!” There is the heart of discipleship. Following implies movement. No change, no discipleship. No following, no discipleship. No function, no form.
Think about it … and get Steve’s book