There is a movement happening in our country today – one that I think is rather positive.  The movement seeks to establish healthy communities within larger struggling communities with the hope of bringing new life into what seems to be dying.  One of these movements is the Heidelberg Project in Detroit whose focus is “rooted in the need to improve the under-resourced and horribly blighted Detroit community where the project was founded.”  In their website, the Heidelberg Project says, “The Heidelberg Project works with neighborhood children to educate them on art, community and environment. These children walk to school past burned-out houses, rubble, debris, crime and decay. Our purpose is to offer them another view, another perspective - to positively change the environment the children see every day. In the process, we help build self-esteem and foster a sense of pride in their community. “
 

As I look through the Heidelberg Project website, I can see that the people love their community – but, at the same time, are very realistic about the real problems afflicting the city and its people.  But, they think that placing something beautiful and healthy into the decay will make a lasting difference.

On a much bigger, wiser and more effective scale, this is also God’s strategy for a world in which everything began to go wrong in Genesis 3.  You know the story:  In Genesis 1-2, God created a world that he described as “very good.”  Human beings were in right relationship with God being at the center of their lives – and this led to right relationships themselves, with one another and with the rest of creation.  But, in Genesis 3, people didn’t want a God other than themselves – so they put themselves into God’s place.  “We know what’s good for us and it’s not what God said, “ they thought.  But they were wrong.  And when the relationship with God was broken (and they hid from him), the result was that their own internal being was disrupted (they experienced guilt and shame), their relationship with one another was broken (they entered into blaming one another), and the rest of creation was harmed.  Like the Heidelberg Project people acknowledge about Detroit, our whole world is “horribly blighted”.  That’s the bad news we have to own up to.

But now – the good news:  “God loves the world.”  And God is involved in a rescue, reclamation and restoration project in our world.  Today, we will see that the main part of his strategy is the planting of beautiful and healthy communities among all the people groups of the world who will reveal his own beauty and glory and further his mission of rescue and restoration.  Let me show you this in the message today:

Part 1:  The church is God’s masterpiece.

God’s Word tells us that the beautiful piece of art that God is creating in this world is his church.  It is a global masterpiece but it is placed in time and space among blighted local communities – like our own right here in Pasadena.  In what many call “God’s manifesto for the church”, i.e., Paul’s letter to the Ephesians 2:10, God’s Word says this:

We (God’s church) are God’s masterpiece (handiwork, poem, work of art), created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

When she was only five, our daughter Heather made a Christmas ornament from cardboard cut in an angel shape and decorated with remnants of fabric, rickrack, old buttons, ribbon, lace and tassels.  A clothespin was glued to the back so the ornament could be put on the tree.  It was about 9" tall.  Each of our children receive an ornament at Christmas and have a box with their name on it so this ornament was placed in Heather's box for safe keeping.  The next Christmas, when Heather removed the angel from her box, she attached it to the Christmas tree, stepped back and said,  "I can't believe I could have made anything so beautiful".

It’s with that sense of wonder that God looks at us.  It’s not that he couldn’t imagine it – the Bible’s point is that he has always been imagining it!  Paul says in Ephesians 1 that God’s eternal plan has been to create a masterpiece – a family of once-lost but now-rescued, sinful but forgiven, and messed up but remade people from every tribe and language who will show the world what God is like – his unity with diversity, his ability to reconcile and redeem lost people, his compassion an justice and holiness…  He places us into the world to declare to the world, ”I dwell among you and I am good.  See my people?  They will show you what I am like.  They will call you to me.”

Now, I have to stop here for a moment and own up to something.  We at LAC are still a piece of reconstruction art project by God.  I have wept when I have read the survey that David Kinnaman conducted for the Barna group revealing what younger people in America think about local churches like ours.  They see big evangelical churches like ours and think (according to the survey) that we are judgmental, self-righteous, old fashioned, caring only about ourselves, insensitive to people different from ourselves, and boring.  That’s not a very pretty picture.  I’m sure some of that is bad press – maybe wrong perception.  But, we must show the world something very, very different from that.

So, I tell you, we are a work in process.  But God has said he will help us – convict us when we’re going wrong, guide us toward what is right through his Spirit and his Word, and empower us through his Spirit who is in this place.  Even as he is doing his work here, he will use us to declare his glory.  See again the rather shocking words in Ephesians 3:10 & 21: God’s intent is that now, through the church, his manifold wisdom should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms… To God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.

So, now, let’s think a moment about how God says he’s going to produce this masterpiece.

Part 2:  The Making of the Masterpiece

How will God get us from where we were (dead to him) to where we are now and then on to where God promises we will be, i.e., a masterpiece – people fully conformed to the image of Christ?  Well, it’s going to have to be reclamation art. One of the most interesting developments on the international art scene today is the growth of “reclamation art.”  Reclamation art seeks to repair damaged nature in ways that are somehow beautiful and meaningful. One of the most interesting reclamation projects now underway is the Nine Mile Run project out of Carnegie Mellon University featuring artists Bob Bingham, Tim Collins and Reiko Goto. The 230-acre Nine Mile Run site in Pittsburgh is a "brownfield," a dumping ground for slag from surrounding steel mills. A river runs through it, choked with pollution from municipal waste. Working with an interdisciplinary team, the artists have seen in Nine Mile Run an opportunity for reclaiming beauty.

Their project -- still in process--treats the site not as a brownfield, but as a complex ecosystem with enormous potential for beauty. They begin their art by envisioning what the site might become.  They ask: What plants exist here now? Over 144 species! How are these related to other living things? Which plants attract butterflies, for instance? How can the soil be reclaimed? The watershed made pure? I’ll show you just one example of what is happening:  
 

Before Restoration

After Restoration

Photographs by John Moyer 

This is what God has done with us.  He’s sees something in us – his very image -- that can be made beautiful again.  He doesn’t see us as trash that should be discarded.  But note this:  God’s masterpiece is a costly one to create.  Let me just walk through his process with you:

God’s Masterpiece-Making Process

#1:  God sees what we are meant to be with his divine vision – You may know the famous quote from Michelangelo about one of his works: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”  God sees with those kinds of eyes.  He sees what he made you to be – what he made us to be.  Yes, he sees also what we’ve made of ourselves but he’s loving and ready to go to work on us!

#2:  God established a way to make “unright” people right – He doesn’t see us as messed up junk to be disposed of – but, at the same time, he knows that there are parts of us that are ugly and deteriorating.  So, out of love, God came personally in Jesus:  he “lived the life we should have lived but have not and died the death should die but don’t have to – so that he can, as Paul put it, “declare the unjust to be just.”

#3:  God forgives – then gives himself – He forgives the sins of those who trust Jesus and then gives his Holy Spirit to all who trust in Jesus.  So, we become new creations with a new potential to live as God made us to live.

#4: God creates a community and places each member into it – In this community, it is not only the relationship with the Father that is made right but the dividing walls from people are down too.  Do you see it?  God is restoring in us what was lost in Genesis 3!  We say, “I don’t deserve this.  I have ugly parts.”  God says, “I see beauty in you and love you.”  We say, “I’m not good.”  God says, “I will make you good.”  And the place for us to grow and flourish is God’s new community, his unexpected family, i.e., the church.

#5:  God gives each part of his masterpiece an important place and role -- He pours down on his local family gatherings different gifts of his Spirit so that all we need to become the masterpiece is present.  Each one of us has the Spirit, each one of us is gifted by the Spirit in special ways, and therefore each one of us is important to the masterpiece.

#6:  God tells us not to forsake “doing life together” – to worship our Father and hear his Word with one another, to live life of encouragement and accountability with one another, and to serve alongside one another.  In a family in which such widely diverse people have been adopted in but where the walls the world erects are torn down, to live in unity demands humility.  Each one must give up personal pride and rights to live in loving church fellowship because it’s not our church anyway – it is God’s masterpiece that we’re in solely by his grace. As Paul put it in Phil. 2:3-5: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mind as Christ Jesus...”

#7:  God tells us to go and declare his glory – showing people the goodness of our Father by our lives and inviting them to the family with our words.  What kinds of people should we welcome into the family?  Oh, only the same kinds as Jesus welcomed.  Only those made in God’s image – those in whom God still sees beauty.  Only those God loves.  Only those Jesus came to rescue.  May I show you my favorite gospel verses again? God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him (John 3:16-17).  If we don’t love and welcome those he loves and welcomes, then we probably won’t like heaven very much.

It’s God’s masterpiece – his church.  As Carol Kenyon, artist and pastor wrote me, “A great painting is not about the paint. It's about who is using the paint. The paint in a masterpiece cannot proclaim, "Look at me! I'm great paint! I'm in a masterpiece!" Rather, a master artist could take the cheapest grade of paint in an art store and use it to create something great.”

The church is a costly masterpiece for the Artist to make.  But, it will be magnificent when he is done.

Part 3:  The Masterpiece-in-the-Making Has a Mission

Again, God’s work in re-creating us is like reclamation art projects.  The art is to become beautiful as it is being reclaimed – but the art has the mission of benefitting the whole society.  And that’s true of us too.

Some of this mission is personal and individual: As God is remaking you and me – even while he is in the re-creative process – he sends us back into our schools, workplaces and communities to represent him.  We won’t always be perfect – but when we seek to honor God, people will see us and say something like, “Wow, something good is going on in that person.”  And you can say, “Well, I’m still a rough piece of art but what’s happening – believe it or not – is due to my faith in Jesus.”  How did Peter put it in 1 Peter 1:12?  “Live such good lives out in the world that though people may accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your life and glorify God.”  So, what I want you to do when you leave here is -- care about people as Jesus did.  Develop friendships so that people can see what Jesus is doing in you.  And… I hope that you will want to bring them with you to your LAC church family.  They may come and say, “Wow.  That guy talks a lot.”  Or, “that’s not the kind of music I have in my I-pod.”  Or, “I can’t believe you like to be with all those different kinds of people.”  And you can agree with them and say, “It is pretty amazing, isn’t it.  But, really, it’s not about all that.  It’s about God and what he wants to do in our lives.”

But much of the mission is what God wants to do in and through us together. God says that we together are to reflect his glory to the world.  We are to worship together – grow together – reflect God’s love and unity to the world together.  And make a difference in the place God has put us together.  Remember Jesus words?  “By this shall all know that you are mine – when they see you love for one another.”  You see, that’s not something we can do alone!

So, we have to remain constantly grateful that we have the privilege to be in this family – only by God’s grace.  We have to keep serving together in this family.  We need to show God’s love and justice to the needs of our community together – e.g., looking for trouble in our public schools and making a difference, having eyes for those who are in need and reaching out, seeing those who are oppressed or alienated and letting them know they are not alone.  As we grow in love for one another, people will see it and they’ll know what God is like and they’ll be drawn to him.

The way God’s masterpiece becomes a global masterpiece is this:  In one community, some come to Jesus and are made right with God.  God says, “The walls that used to separate you from other believers are down too – forgive and be reconciled to one another.”  So, we become a part of God’s masterpiece in the making in the community we’re in.  He uses us to make a difference where we are.

But, we’ll see other places nearby where there needs to be reclamation work done.  So, we’ll make a sacrifice and some will go and plant a part of the masterpiece there as well.  That new church will get involved in the same mission.  Then, we will send people to places where no one has ever heard of Jesus and they’ll go and do there what we do here.  Through these ever-growing concentric circles, the masterpiece grows and develops until it embraces people from every tribe language and nation.

Let me tell you what God has put on my heart:  I long for us to be a growing and healthy part of God’s masterpiece – a place where each one of us is giving generously – of our time, treasures and talents -- so that we can affect one another positively and then our community as well. And, I want each of us to be involved in inviting others to come in to the family. So, go out and make friends – and then bring them in.

And I want us to bore down together to make a difference right here in Pasadena.  Pasadena should be more beautiful and blessed because God has put us here.

And, then, I want us to send out people all along the I-210 corridor so that parts of the masterpiece can bring God’s beauty and hope and good news to those not too far from us.  This is the Bible’s way of God furthering his mission.  God has put on my heart a desire to be more energetically involved in planting other reclamation art projects in our area.

Even as God was putting this on my heart – he was doing the same in Pastor Tate’s heart.  Last summer, he and told me that God had burdened him with something so fully consistent with this biblical masterpiece-making.  He and I and your Ministry Council have been praying about this for many months now.  This young gifted leader is sensing a call to plant a reclamation art project to the east of us.  I’ll let him come up now and tell us how God has been leading him -- and then I will come up and close.