“Answering Three Important
Questions”
September 15, 2013
John 6:35-51, Acts
2:42-47, Ephesians 4:1-6 Stephens City
UMC
Grace and peace to you
from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I.
For this fall our
theme will be “Committed to Fulfilling God’s Will for My Life and the World.”
A. There are numerous commitments we all make in life.
1. Many of us have demonstrated our commitment to buying
an automobile by making a down payment.
2. Some of us are committed to learning how to play an
instrument or to being a good athlete and both of those require discipline.
3. On our wedding day our spoken commitment comes in the
form of sacred vows and raising children takes a lot of commitment.
B. And being a disciple of Jesus Christ is the greatest
of all commitments.
1.
Let’s be clear –
Jesus asks everything of us.
2.
So if we are to be effective in our commitment
then we would be wise to reflect and ponder what our Lord is asking of us and
the role we are to play.
3.
There are three
important questions I can think of to assist us and they are profound
questions.
II.
The first question
is “Why do people need Jesus Christ?”
A. Certainly in our society there are plenty of people
who don’t think they need Jesus Christ.
1. Ours is a culture of rugged individualism.
2. “I don’t need anybody or anything because I think the
greatest sin is to ask for help.”
3. “Only the weak ask for help and I’m strong.”
B. Hey, I got news for you – there is no self-made man or
woman.
1. Now one of the most incredible human feats I’ve seen
in my life time was accomplished two weeks ago when Diana Nyad at the age of 64
completed her swim from Cuba to Florida, and those who think she legitimately
did it estimate that she traveled a distance of 110 miles.
2. I wasn’t there but her swim helps me to make the
points I want to make so I’m going forward and what was one of the first things
Diana Nyad said after she walked ashore at Key West?
3. She said, “It may look like a solitary sport, but it
is a team effort.”
4. None of us gets through life by ourselves and during
the course of life you and I are going to encounter some disappointments just
like Diana Nyad experienced after her four previous attempts to swim from Cuba
to Florida.
5. In her case she was defeated four times by jelly fish
and asthma and lightning strikes along with rough seas and strong currents not
to mention the potential danger of sharks.
6. But in the end with help from others she was
victorious.
C. What are the difficulties, the disappointments, the
set-backs you have experienced in life?
1.
Has your life at
times been like swimming for mile after mile after mile in a vast ocean
wondering “Is this really my purpose, to just wander or muddle through?”
2.
Has sin caused
you to feel not only lost at sea but drowning at sea?
3.
Do you realize
that that has been true for others and that you are not the only one to have
had that experience?
4.
I do and more
importantly so did God which is why He sent His Son Jesus to be our Savior
because some stuff only Jesus can do.
D. I would put forth that Jesus is the answer to people’s
greatest needs because he not only gives purpose to life but he literally saves
us.
1.
When all the
sinful, lousy, awful things you’ve ever done in life are weighing you down like
a boulder tied around your neck so that you are sinking to the bottom of the
ocean, it is by the power of the cross that you are released from that burden
and set free to both live and go in the direction God would have you to go.
2.
The Apostle Paul
stated it well in II Corinthians 5:17 when he said “Therefore, if anyone is in
Christ, they are a new creation; the old has passed away, behold the new has
come.”
3.
And when the new
comes your life has purpose.
4.
Apparently for
Diana Nyad it was to swim from Cuba to Key West.
5.
I know that that is
not my purpose and I doubt that it is yours, but as we’re going to be saying
with the LOGOS intergenerational ministry that Tobye David and Todd Legge are
going to head up for us beginning sometime in November “You are a child of God
and I will treat you that way.”
6.
And we’re going
to keep saying that because as a child of God your life has purpose and it may
take multiple conversations before the Holy Spirit makes clear to you your
purpose and how you can help this church better understand its purpose, but I
believe with all my heart and soul and mind and strength that Christ will help
you with that for that is His purpose.
E. Whatever is your deepest need in life and if you are
like me you have multiple deep needs such as for a rescuer from sin, a guide
for meaning and purpose, as well as a companion along the way – Jesus Christ is
the answer to your and to the world’s deepest needs.
III.
And that leads to the second question which is
“Why do people need the Church?” (And here I mean the Church Universal, not
specifically our church or any other individual church)
A.
One answer to
that question is that the Church is where the sacraments are offered and
properly administrated.
1.
It is through the
Church, that you are really introduced to the matter of water far beyond the
purposes of swimming.
2.
Through Holy
Baptism you are initiated into the family of God, called into Christian
discipleship, and sent on the journey of being made perfect in love.
3.
You don’t go to
the car wash to be baptized.
4.
The waters of
baptism cleanse you of your sin as spiritual dirt is a more serious problem
than physical dirt; they just kill in different ways.
5.
Moreover, with
your sin washed away you are not weighed down which allows the waters of your
baptism to become like a current to carry you to where you are suppose to go in
order to do what your purpose is to do in the name of Christ.
B.
As we in the
Church put things together one place you are to go is to the Lord’s Table to be
fed holy food.
1.
McDonald’s is
merely fast food.
2.
You will get hungry
again.
3.
At the Christ’s
Table you receive bread that will feed you for all eternity and it is only here
that you can partake of the Lord’s Supper and that spiritual food empowers you
unlike any other.
C.
Moreover, it is
in worship that scripture is read and the Word of God proclaimed.
1.
When we
Christians talk about the Word we spell that with a capital W because while we
will we use words with a little w to describe Jesus, Jesus is the ultimate Word
of God because he both reveals God and makes God known for he is God.
2.
This is why in
our Gospel lesson Jesus said of himself that he was the bread of life which
means we are to feed on him and one way we feed on him is to hear Jesus
proclaimed in sermon and in song and in prayer and in so many other ways during
worship and that doesn’t happen in a shopping mall unless there’s a church
meeting there.
3.
There is stuff
that needs to occur in people’s lives and it is only going to occur in Church
because through the Church one will experience the means of grace.
4.
If you were at
the worship service last Sunday you heard a significant number of people offer
testimony as to how they had seen and experienced Jesus during the past week.
5.
Some of what they
testified to required a setting which connects heaven and earth and that setting
was the Church.
6.
If it were not
for the Church with the large C which is the body of Christ here on earth,
those blessings could not have been transmitted and received.
7.
This isn’t well
recognized today but people need the Church.
IV.
Now the third and
final question for today is, “Why do people need this church?”
A. I sure hope you’ve got an answer for that!
1.
If you don’t then
you probably aren’t going to put a lot of effort into inviting others to be
part of our congregation.
2.
If you don’t
think we have something special to offer the people of this community then just
what do you think is our identity, just what is our unique purpose?
B. If you are struggling with this let me provide some
information to help you understanding how unique we are.
1. First, as our District Superintendent Larry Thompson
noted last Sunday, we are one of the oldest Methodist Churches in this country
as we can trace our beginning to 1775.
2. Only a handful of churches begun in the late 1700’s
still exist.
3. Unfortunately congregations have a tendency to turn in
toward themselves over time and they cease to have an outward focus.
4. The result is that they lose connection with their
neighborhood and when they lose that connection they die out.
5. Hundreds of thousands of churches in this country have
died out for that very reason.
6. Now not only are we still here but we have thrived.
7. In a recent article in The Circuit Rider which is the United Methodist magazine for clergy
the percentage of United Methodist Churches that average over 1,000 in worship
is only 0.6%.
8. The percentage of United Methodist Churches that
average between 500 and 1,000 in worship is 1.6 %.
9. The percentage of United Methodist Churches that
average between 200 and 500 in worship is 8%.
10.
Last year this church average 236 in worship.
11.
Your church is in the top 10% of all United
Methodist Churches in this country in worship attendance and that doesn’t
happen unless there is something unique about you and you are doing a number of
things right.
12.
Moreover, studies have been done in a category
referred to as “Vital Congregations.”
13.
“Vital Congregations” doesn’t have so much to
do with size as with vitality, i.e. is your church alive?
14.
A Vital Congregation strives to do 5 things
well: worship, Christian education, mission beyond the local church, financial
stewardship and people joining the church on profession of faith which means
that they are not transferring in from another church but because they have
been nurtured by that congregation they have come to publicly profession for
the first time that Jesus Christ is their Lord.
15.
Only 15% of all United Methodist Churches in
this country are considered to be a vital congregation.
16.
Every year in January like the other clergy of
this district I have a 30 minute meeting with our Superintendent and every year
Larry will look at me and say, “Only 15% of the congregations in our
denomination are considered to be vital and Stephens City is one of them.”
C. Folks, we’re not perfect – as your pastor I all on my
own have insured that, but the truth is that we are doing a lot right.
1. At least 85% of other United Methodist Churches in
this country wish that they were doing things as well as we are.
2. We offer a diversity of worship styles as well as
times to accommodate people’s needs.
3. Our Junior High Sunday School class that Rusty David
and Boogie Conner teach had 21 students the first Sunday this fall.
4. We are in mission in our local community with the Food
Pantry, providing space for the Frederick Country Senior Center, hosting the WATTS
homeless shelter every December, and much more.
5. We are striving to more profoundly connect with the
children of our community by starting up the Just4Kidz after school ministry
and to take some major steps to revitalize our children’s and youth ministries
and those plans may be imperfect but I’d rather try some new ideas and make
adjustments than keep doing the same thing and expect different results.
D. Unfortunately many churches in this country don’t want
to enter the future and so they get stuck in the past.
1.
When they do that
they miss out on the uniqueness Jesus to trying to engender in them and Jesus
is trying to do that because he has a unique purpose for them.
2.
I think our Lord
is trying to do that with us.
V.
So that’s what I
think, but what do you think?
A.
What are you
willing to say and do?
1.
I invite you now
to a time of prayer and as you silently pray to God I would ask you to listen
to what God is saying to you about how His Son Jesus Christ is the answer to
people’s deepest needs, and how Christ’s Body the Church is necessary to meet
those needs and particularly about how God wants to uniquely use you and this
church to accomplish His holy purposes.
2.
Let us ask God to
reveal that to us and to help us to commit.