Preached on: May 19 2013
Special Occasion: Graduate Recognition Service
Scripture: Philippians 3:4b-11
Series: Sermon
3 in the series: “This Present
Future: 4 Realities for Walking by
Faith”
Based on book by Reggie McNeal: This Present Future: 6 Tough Questions for the Church
Graduates – it
has been my honor to serve as your pastor and your parent’s pastor for the past
three years. When we moved here – you
all were just starting your HC career in the old High School as
sophomores. I have watched with
amazement as each of you has succeeded in your own way through these
years. I look forward to see how your
high school success and growth continues.
At the same time
– I have been watching your parents as they have prepared themselves for this
moment of graduation. Each of them is so
proud – but I have to tell you – it also tears at their hearts. Each of you – while in these new adult body –
is still your parent’s baby running around the house, playing ball, getting
into mischief.
Last week, for
Mother’s Day, I preached a monologue from the perspective of timothy. Timothy was Paul’s protégé, his scribe, and whom
he treated like his own son. When Paul
wrote the second letter to Timothy in the bible – the last letter we have from Paul
– he mentions the faith of Timothy’s Mother and grandmother. He said, their faith lives within
Timothy. Last week – I dramatized the
moment when timothy’s mother released her son to join Paul’s missionary
team. She raised him to be a man of faith
– then when the time came – she didn’t try to hold him back to take care of her
and her mother. Her love released him to
the life God desired.
Last Sunday
afternoon, I had a friend text me a response to the sermon. He said he normally things of a mother’s love
as protective. What he witnessed in
Eunice’s love, though, was selfless and guiding. Eunice loved Timothy enough and trusted God
enough – to release him to God. There
are times when a mother or father’s love must be protective – these kids of
ours have a tendency to get in all kinds of predicaments: we have to pull you down from the monkey bars
when you climb too high, watch out for sharp corners when you are learning to walk,
make sure we know now to put in a baby or buster seat.
However – if the
only way we love you is by protecting you – we will stunt your growth as
individuals and children of God. At some
point we have to release you to God.
One of the great
stories and lessons I learned from my dad occurred when I was just barely a
year old. After my parents adopted me in
Indiana, they moved back to Swainsboro, Georgia to be closer to family. In the summer of 1970 I was a cute toddler by
all accounts – by that I mean, my mom’s – and my dad was in his early 30’s. He and my mom and had spent years trying to
have a baby and trying to adopt a child.
That summer, my parents
traveled to Calloway Gardens in West Georgia for a Baptist meeting. For some reason, he and my mom thought
bringing me to a worship service at the beautiful IDA CASON CALLAWAY MEMORIAL
CHAPEL. The chapel has these high wooden
walls with big stained glass windows overlooking the lake and azaleas. Surprisingly,
I became too fidgety and loud for worship so my dad took me outside. As he walked around the chapel with me in his
hands, looking at the beautiful lake and gardens he said a prayer over me. This is how I remember it from my dad’s
retelling. I can imagine him bouncing me
as he says.
“Father – you
have given me this gift. Thank you. I know this gift is only me for a little
while. Help me to do my best in raiseing
Eric. And when the time is right, give me the courage to give him back to you.”
As I grew up,
graduated, and started my life journey – I didn’t know about this prayer. But I experienced the love behind it. My dad never tried to hold me back. I remember one January as I left our home in
Moultrie eager to get to Tennessee for a month of mission work. On the way out – I ran over a pile of paint
cans my dad had placed on the side of the road to be picked up. What a mess.
My dad came out; made sure the car was okay and sent me on my way. I don’t think I ever looked back. But I know my dad was there cleaning up my
mess, crying and praying, as I traveled to my next life destination.
My grandmother
once asked my dad while I was in college – “John, don’t you worry about Eric as
he travels all over the Southeast.”
“No, he said, I gave him back to God a long time ago – now, I just trust
his life in God’s hands.” What a
powerful story of releasing love.
So – what does a
heart wrenching story about my dad and our high school graduation have to do
with This Present Future of First Baptist Cornelia? I mention it – because this type of love – this
releasing love that trusts in God for the results – is the exact kind of love
and faith the church needs in the next 10 years.
In Reggie McNeal’s
Book – This present Future: 6 tough Questions for the church – he
outlines what he calls – Reality
#3: A New
Reformation: Releasing God’s People. In
response to the collapse of the church culture in America a New Reformation is
breaking out. Christians are being
released as the people of God in the world.
Just a quick
church history lesson: The first
reformation officially started when a former monk and Catholic priest by the
name of Martin Luther – nailed 95 Theses – 95 things that needed to be reformed
in the Catholic Church – onto the front door of the cathedral in Wittenburg,
Germany. It got someone’s
attention.
This occurred on October
31, 1517 – almost 500 years ago. When Luther
did this – he was not looking to start a new church – he loved the Catholic
Church, but he knew the church had drifted too far from God’s original design
and needed to be reformed. Rather than
reforms in the church, though, Luther’s act of civil disobedience caused him to
be kicked out of the church. Luther went
on to establish a new form of church – what we now know as Lutherans. Other reformers followed: Calvin, Zwingli, and John Smyth, and new churches
emerged: Presbyterians, Anglicans, and
Baptists to name just a few. It was a
powerful movement of God that lasted for almost 500 years.
McNeal suggests
that another reformation is now emerging as our church culture collapses – The release
of God’s People.
Original Reformation:
Decentralized the church
·
Instead
of one church that governed and controlled everyone – churches were released to
discover their individual purpose based solely on scripture. Many new churches emerged.
New Reformation:
Decentralizes ministry
·
Instead
of ministry being centralized in professional minsters and missionaries – the ministry
of the Kingdom is spreading into the pews.
Many new missionaries – who have non-clergy jobs, are emerging.
Original Reformation:
Moved the church close to home
·
Instead
of the church being controlled by strangers in Rome or Constantinople – the church
became localized and autonomous.
New Reformation:
The church is moving closer to the world
·
Instead
of the church sending professional missionaries to represent the church in the
world – now we see the church moving into the world – where our local church
and our members are missionaries in the world.
Almost
every church birthed before or during the 20th century functioned under
this Original Reformation. Because of
this, we have defined our primary responsibility as building our church on this
block. We have defined our success based
on this model. This has created
competition between churches – who has the best worship services, the sharpest
preacher, the best programs. It has also
created a consumer driven Christian – we shop around for the church that makes
me feel good – and when it doesn’t I’ll find another one that does.
This success model has forced us as church
leaders to protect what we do and striver harder to be the best.
The Apostle Paul understood this
tendency in people – and I’m sure churches as well. Here is how he describes himself in our
passage from Philippians 3:
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have
more: 5 circumcised on the eighth
day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born
of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal,
a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
Paul’s life before Jesus was designed
around protecting religion. He was
taught to protect and strive to be perfect in the Mosaic Law. So he became a Pharisee. He was taught to protect the Law and the Way
of Moses from anything that may lead others away from it. This is why he was so zealous about
arresting, torturing and killing the followers of Jesus. He could not control them. They were leading people away from what he
saw as God’s law. He did not care about
what the Holy Spirit was doing – his job was to protect the law. He strove to be righteous under the law –
blameless.
As I confessed several weeks ago – as
your pastor I struggle with this Pharisaism.
Not just about my own righteousness, though. As the leader of our church, I find myself
trying to make our own success as a church.
I strive to make our church blameless; I measure our church by the
success of the world’s standards: Will
those other pastors be jealous of our church, will all of the other Christians
see our church’s good works, will our church pews overflow, will our coffers
spill out into excess?
What happens is this: I push myself and I push each of you to try
harder in order to build a bigger church – I do this unfortunately so everyone
else can see our success, our blamelessness, and our righteousness as a
church.
Eugene Peterson comments on this
trait within the N.A Church: He
says:
“It is interesting to
listen to the comments that outsiders, particularly those from third world
countries, make on the religion they observe in North America. What they notice
mostly is the greed, the silliness, the narcissism. They appreciate the size
and prosperity of our churches, the energy and the technology, but they wonder
at the conspicuous absence of the cross, the phobic avoidance of suffering, the
puzzling indifference to community and relationships of intimacy.”
This tendency in the church and our
lives makes me and our churches ask the wrong question: How
do we turn members into ministers?
We have been asking this question
for so long as a church, we don’t even see what makes it wrong. What we are asking here is: how do we motivate church members to get
involved in the working of the church to make our church a success. We create lots of jobs in the church – and then
we go out and look for ways to get people busy inside the church.
Don’t get me wrong – we will always
need volunteers – choir members, musicians, ushers, finance committee members –
but when we make our purpose getting people involved in the church – we are
striving for the wrong goal – to make this church a worldly success. Like Paul, we are working to protect our
church and our way of religion.
The harder question is this: How do
we turn members into missionaries?
How do we release our members to be
missionaries in the world? This is a
very tough question – because it changes our purpose as a church. Look again at Paul in Philippians.
I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of
knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake
I have suffered the loss of all things,
and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be
found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but
one that comes through faith in Christ
Success for Paul was not righteous or
success in the eyes of others – instead, Paul’s purpose was the release of all
things for Jesus. Paul regarded
everything else but Jesus as rubbish.
How would we do church and even our
own lives differently – if we trusted God enough to release each other and our
children to Jesus for the sake of the world?
We might find our children – like a
friend of mine this week – moving to England to be part of a Christian discipleship
movement. She is trusting God to provide
her with enough income to live, but she feels called to invade the world for
God.
How would our community view us if
we were to begin to release each other to spend days serving and witnessing and
loving on other people – instead of building our own kingdom? We might see more people on nonprofit boards
or starting their own ministries.
How would we approach our nominating
process if our task was to release each other for the transformation of the
world? We might have fewer people
working in the church and more people ministering on Sundays.
How would we celebrate the work of
members when they are serving as missionaries in the world? We might have to bring folks home to hear the
whole story of FBC.
At our luncheon today – our walking
by Faith team will present a new vision for FBC based on on John 15:12. I hope each of you will stay to hear the
whole story. “My
command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”
Our
Vision: to Love the world as God loves us.
This vision raises our eyes from the Old
Reformation and directs them clearly to a new understanding of being
church. It challenges us to ask tough
questions. It forces to think not about
how to fill more slots in a church organizational chart – but to instead, how do
we mobilize an army of missionaries to love the world.
When
my dad watched me pull away in a black Honda civic hatchback – I know his
greatest desire was to hold me, protect me, and keep me from harm. Instead, he demonstrated for me a love he had
learned from God himself. He knew to
love me meant to release me into God’s world.
It’s scary. There’s no turning
back. Yet, it feels so divine – this kind
of love.
So
– this morning – I am challenging our mamas, daddies and grandparents to practice
a little of this divine love. It won’t
come easy and there will be fits and starts – but I know all these graduates
down here will benefit from this love.
God has great things for each of them.
At
the same time – I am also challenging our church as we dream and visualize our
future – to practice the same kind of trust, faith and love. I know our desire is to protect our church
and hold us back. Yet – God’s call into
the future requires us to release how we have measured success and done church
before. This releasing love will come in fits and
starts too – but as we practice this faith together –we will discover God’s great
future that we never dreamed possible.
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