One Direction

One Direction to Heaven

Our theme for Spring Advance was “One Direction,” and our theme verse for the weekend was Ephesians 4.4-6. We wanted to hit the main themes of unity, oneness, and Heaven with the kids.

If you know anything about the phrase “One Direction,” it’s also the name of an incredibly popular British boy band. Was this a coincidence about the naming of our theme? No. I’ve found that any time you can take Biblical concepts and connect it to popular things in kids lives, it makes more of an impact. We took the One Direction theme not to spotlight a boy band, but to point to the things we need to go the “one direction” to Heaven.

Tonight, I will break up our thoughts into two sections. The first is things we cannot do if we want to have a home in Heaven, and the second is things we must do to enter into Heaven.

1. We Cannot Be Divided
2. We Must Follow Jesus
3. We Must All Go One Direction

So #1, we cannot BE DIVIDED.

I love reading business books. I love making spiritual applications to our daily walks with God based upon different ideas put forth in business.

If you follow technology, computers, and mobile phones at all these days, you know it’s a multi-billion dollar industry. Look at who’s been successful in the world of technology in the last decade and you’ll immediately think about companies like Apple, Samsung, Google or Toshiba. They’ve had great success in being able to sell us things we don’t really need.

One of the amazing “failures” (I use the term failure loosely, as they compare to the likes of Samsung and Apple) is Dell. In his book “Insanely Simple,” business author and former employee of Dell and Apple Ken Segall compares and contrasts the two companies that he worked for. He contrasts their work habits, their ways of doing things, even their divisions.

Apple tended to be united more under a single-minded goal. The CEO was heavily involved in every decision from marketing to profit and loss statements - bordering almost on the edge of micro-management. But the result was amazing - a simplified, organized structure and a clear product line that average people could understand. They’ve sold billions.

Dell, on the other hand, has recently made news about selling the company. Dell tended to be divided more into divisions. For example, the business division of sales had no idea what the consumer division was doing. They, at one point, even wanted a new logo for the business division. The CEO was complacent enough to not be involved in “small” decisions, leaving months of work up to various teams and he would then decide which was best. This was a lot of wasted work. And the result was apparent - loss of customers, bad customer service, and a product line with so many parr numbers that it made even the most computer-savvy person scratch their head.

In other words, Dell was a company that their head didn’t know what their hands were doing.

Just like in business, division can be that apparent in our spiritual lives as well. Can we truly be the one body, the one faith, united under one Lord and still be divided?

Ephesians 4.4-6 isn’t Paul spouting off beautiful poetry. It isn’t his way of impressing the Greeks with his writing or language skills. Paul is writing to the very heart of the matter, to the church at Ephesus, who was apparently struggling with this concept. And if you go on and read the scripture, you’ll find another interesting idea that Paul makes.

Ephesians 4.11-16

Luke Guard, when he spoke to us on Friday night, gave us the illustration of a Mr. Potato Head. With the new-fangled toys the kids have these days, I’m not sure any of them play with Mr. Potato Heads anymore, but it helps make our point.

What if we were all just made of ears? We would be fantastic listeners…because that would be all we could do. Ok, so what if we were all eyes? We could see in all directions, but we couldn’t hear anything.

You see the point I’m trying to make. When Paul says what he says here in verse 11-16, he’s saying we are united in diversity. We are all different, but we should not be divided. We all have different talents, different things we can do for God’s Church, but we are united in the same purpose of serving God and getting to Heaven.

Just as our bodies have different functions - the eyes cannot smell, and the ears cannot see and so on - the parts still unite for the purpose as a whole.

Paul makes this point in 1 Corinthians 12, starting in verse 12. Read with me.

1 Corinthians 12.12-27

I want to spotlight verse 22 for a second. Paul says that “the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.”

In other words, the smallest and sometimes weakest parts are the ones that are the most important - the ones we can’t do without.

Think about this - your pinky toe. See there, you didn’t come here tonight and think you were going to hear about your small toe in the sermon. But your pinky toe, or small toe, is very unique on both of your feet. It operate autonomously from your other toes - it has it’s own tendon and flexor with some names that I don’t care to butcher here tonight. Right now, some of you are wiggling that toe just to see if I’m right, and going “Oh yeah, I guess it is. Huh.” Your pinky toe greatly affects the balance of your whole body. People that have lost pinky toes in accidents can adapt without them, but it’s hard to compensate on your balance without your pinky toe.

And Paul makes his point. Some of the weakest or smallest parts of the body are the most important.

Just like members of the church. Some of the greatest leaders are the ones you never see. You don’t see them up in the pulpit. You don’t see them teaching a class. But you also don’t see them sending cards, words of encouragement. You don’t see them visiting people in the hospital. You don’t see them making food and bringing it to people.

We all have different talents - different jobs, if you will - in God’s Kingdom. We all have different roles in the Church. But while we have differences, we must also be united in the same purpose if we are to get to Heaven. Being divided in any way from our purpose of serving God is not what He wants us to do. And if we are the ones that cause division, we are guilty of keeping someone else from trying to get to Heaven.

So # 1, we cannot be DIVIDED.

2, we must FOLLOW JESUS.

In preparing for Spring Advance and getting the speakers their lesson topics, I always came back to one phrase in Ephesians 4. “One Lord.” Paul goes on to expand this thought in the next verse, verse 6, when he says “one God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in you all.” All of us are HIS creatures, made in HIS image, and HIS children, which means we are all brothers and sisters in Christ.

Now, I would never badger or make fun of or disrespect any other religion, but it was amazing to me at the fervor and media firestorm that happened last week with the electing of a new Pope of the Catholic church. I’m obviously not a Catholic and I would think there’s probably not many with us tonight, but you have friends and some even have family members who are.

The Bible says nothing about a Pope or a Catholic church. It says nothing about a Euchrist and incense in services and Cardinals electing a man to be in charge of the church here on earth.

There’s only been one man in charge of the Church, and that’s Jesus.

Friday when we got to Advance, Brandon Lanciloti, our Saturday night speaker, came to me and asked my opinion on what he was going to do in his lesson. He said he had over 35 scriptures that he wanted to point out. And “One Lord” was his topic.

Not only was it great to see the kids dive into the word of God, but seeing Scripture working like that, telling a story across time and across language barriers has always been impressive to me.

When we talk about the ONE Lord, ONE God, I would hope that we think about the Almighty Himself, the creator of all things. But most of the world does not. We talked about division in earlier tonight - you want to talk about divided? Just look at the religions of the world. Don’t even look at other religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, or Islam. Just look at the way Christianity has fractured and divided and it will make you dizzy.

But the Bible paints a different picture of One God and One Faith. Let’s read a couple of passages to make our point.

• 1 Corinthians 8.5-6 // Even in Paul’s time, there were many fractured religions and Gods.

• 2 Thessalonians 2.1-4 // I call attention to the verse because of verse 4. Paul says here that a false God will take a seat in the Temple of God, the most holy of all places in the Jewish faith. The question you have before you tonight is: has something taken a seat in your temple? Have you put your career, your farm, your status, your hobbies - have they taken a seat in your temple? Meaning: have you put something in place of where Christ should be in your life?

If we’re all moving in the one direction to Heaven, we must be following Jesus.

So…

3 What is the ONE DIRECTION TO HEAVEN?

I love Tennessee roads. You can get a couple of places a couple of different ways. My favorite is taking 431 up to Franklin or Spring Hill versus taking 65. Great scenery out there. I took this picture in between Parsons and Scott’s Hill in West Tennessee. Pretty good roads there too.

I don’t know if its the way road planners did it or what, but the North Carolina east coast isn’t the same way. I spent about three years there while in the military. It’s pretty awful. There’s only one way, one road to get to everything out there. North and south and east and west. Side roads are impossible. Main roads are the only viable option.

As much as it pains me to say it, the road to Heaven is like those east North Carolina roads. There’s only on true way to get to Heaven, even though the world would have you believe that there are many different ways.

John 14.6

In this famous passage, Jesus himself says it very plainly - “I am the only way to the Father, to Heaven. All roads to Heaven go through me. They don’t go through Muhammad, they don’t go through a Pope, they go through ME.”

Those roads don’t go through you either. They don’t go through the stuff or the people we have put our trust in - our friends, our parents, our bank accounts, our retirement plans, any of that stuff. The road to Heaven only goes through Jesus.

Jesus is the one direction that leads to Heaven. That road is a narrow path, and that would lead me to believe that there’s not a lot of room on that path for other stuff.

Following the one road - the one direction - that leads to Heaven won’t be easy. But that’s why we have each other. That’s why we have a church family. We must be supportive, encouraging, and united in our effort to get to Heaven. That’s my goal. According to 2 Peter 3.9 that’s God’s personal hope for you as well. So what’s your hope in tonight?

Are you tonight walking that one direction to Heaven, or have you gotten sidetracked? There’s only one way, and that’s to be united in one God, one faith, one baptism. Baptism in water for the cleansing of our sins. We are a slate wiped clean, ready to serve a lifetime for Jesus.

Maybe some of you have been Christians for a while and you’ve gotten off on the wrong road. We can help you tonight. We can pray for you, we can help you spiritually.

Whether you need prayers from the church or the waters of baptism tonight, we stand to assist right now while we stand and sing.