"GOD IS AT WORK IN YOU"

Exodus 17:1-7; Philippians 2:1-13

9/25/2005

I had an epiphany this week,

and I need to tell you about it.

More than one person has said to me in the last couple of weeks

that it seems like I'm holding back when I preach.

And as you can imagine,

that didn't make me very happy!

I struggled with it, and cried about it,

and realized that like Jacob,

I was wrestling with an angel. 

I've been ordained for eighteen years as of last month.

It's been a wonderful eighteen years,

but for a whole host of reasons,

I've never served a church more than three years.

I started out as the solo pastor of a church about half the size of ours,

and served there for about two years.

From there I went to serve inHouston as associate pastor.

And if this guy who lived in California hadn't proposed to me,

I might still be there today!

But since I loved Paul more than that church,

I left Houston three years to the day after I'd gotten there.

After we had been married about ten months

I went to serve a church in California

that turned out not to be very healthy,

and so I left there after a year of my own accord.

Then Paul took a job with Novell in Utah,

so I went off to do some interim work.

I was interim pastor at one church for about a year and a half,

and interim associate at another one for about two years.

Then I answered the call to serve as an associate pastor in Austin.

About three years later, Paul and I became parents for the first time!

And so when Alex and Tatiana came home to live with us,

I quit to stay home with them.

And after taking about a year off while all four of us adjusted,

we made the move to Bonham.

That's been about two years, 11 months and two weeks ago.

Uh oh!

Before I say anything else,

please hear this: 

I am not leaving!!

But I think I also need to say that to myself.

After lots of soul searching this week,

I think that what some of you have said you're experiencing in my preaching

is some hanging back on my part.

The job of interim pastors is to prepare the way for the next called pastor.

Part of what that means

is that you don't get too close.

Well, I'm not an interim any more.

And a lot of the studies on church administration

say that the three year mark is where the rubber begins to meet the road.

You have discovered that I am human and imperfect;

I have discovered that you are human and imperfect.

The honeymoon must be over!

The next pastor is not on the way or even on the horizon,

and I'm not going to let things rock along till that time.

We need to be getting on down the road  -

and I need to be leading you where it is that I think God is leading us.

Consider yourselves warned!  ;-)

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So where is it that I think God is calling us?

I think God is calling us as a congregation to get off the spiritual mark.

Things aren't bad at all, are they?

Overall, I think life at our church is pretty pleasant, don't you?

But our goal is not to be non-offensive.

There's a whole lot more to discipleship than that.

God does not call us to be a pleasant people, friends.

God calls us to be a faithful people.

In the first part of the book of Revelation,

God speaks to seven churches.

Some get commendations, some get in trouble. 

All of them get promises from God.

But the church that gets in the most trouble is Laodecia -

because they are lukewarm.

"Would that you were either hot or cold,"

God says to them.

Friends, I do not want us to fall into that lukewarm trap -

the trap of attending worship for one hour a week

and thinking that we've done our duty.

It's not enough to just be a spectator

and sit back and watch worship happen.

Nor is it enough to do good things

because that's what good people do.

We need to know why we do them!

We are called to worship actively,

and to serve,

and to make a difference in the lives of others

because of the difference that God has made in our lives.

I talked this over with our Session the other night,

and I think you can find where God is leading us

by looking at our church mission statement,

which you can find in the bulletin // [as our Affirmation of Faith.]

One of the things I love about our mission statement,

if you haven't noticed it before,

is that it's cyclical.

We seek others to believe,

then we equip believers to become disciples,    

then we nurture disciples to become ministers,

then we send ministers out to? seek others to believe.

The other thing I love about our mission statement:

if you look at the first words in each line,

you'll notice that they are all action verbs.

We're not called to give only intellectual assent

or to meditate upon something.

We're called to do:

to seek, to equip, to nurture, and to deploy.

If we understand ourselves to be Christ's hands and feet,

then we have to get the body of Christ moving!

There are four areas of our church's life

to which the mission statement speaks directly.

The first part, "seek others,"

ties in directly to one of our strengths:

hospitality.

We've got a well-deserved reputation

for being one of the warmest congregations in town.

But our hospitality has to extend beyond those who find us.

Not long ago,

the Outreach Committee was discussing the future of the Tasters Dinners.

Someone said that they were so well-attended at first

because everyone invited their friends to come,

and now "all of our friends" go to this church!

Well, it's time to make some new friends.

And you've got a chance to do so on October the 8^th. 

Our mission to "seek others"

isn't over when all of our friends worship here;

and frankly, it's not limited to our friends.

There are plenty of folks in Fannin County who are hurting,

who are searching for that water that God provides in the wilderness.

And whenever and wherever we meet them,

it's our job to offer them a drink.

The next part of the mission statement

speaks directly to Christian Education.

And Christian Education does not come to an end

when one graduates from high school.

All ages need equipping in order to become disciples,

and to coin a phrase,

a disciple's work is never done.

Around the dinner table at our house,

almost every day we ask each other "what did you learn today?"

And each of us shares something that we learned -

whether it was about the letter T,

or how to control a soccer ball,

or about gigabytes and terabytes.

We stop learning when we stop breathing.

I want to challenge every one of us today

to get ourselves into one of the opportunities for education

that our church offers:

women's bible study, youth fellowship, MIB,

and of course one of the Sunday School classes. 

Every one of us should be involved in Sunday School.

If you're not teaching, get into a class.

And if you've been teaching for awhile,

think about taking a break and being a student.

There is something for you to learn.

The third part, about nurturing disciples,

happens mainly in this room.

What happens in worship is a two-way street.

We worship God, for no other reason

than to give thanks to God for who God is.

But in that process,

we allow God to work on us.

We have time during worship to praise God together,

we have individual time in prayer and meditation,

and we are strengthened here by God's gifts to us

of water and bread and cup.

Here is where we practice the trusting act

of giving God something very near and dear to our hearts -

our money!

And we trust that God will bless and multiply it

as Jesus did with loaves and fishes to feed a crowd.

Worship nurtures us

because it calls us outside of ourselves:

to sing with others,

to pray for others,

to give to others,

to break bread with others,

and in so doing,

to worship and honor our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.

And then, the call to deploy ministers

speaks to the mission field that lies outside these doors.

You've seen the signs around church

which remind us that all of us are missionaries,

and that upon leaving this building we enter the mission field.

We practice mission in a million ways around here -

with the Kool Lunch program,

feeding our guests from New Orleans and now Galveston,

helping our brothers and sisters in Leonard to get back on their feet,

building houses for others because of the one in whom we believe.

Just about everyone in this room

gives to our community in a million different ways.

What our mission statement challenges us to do //

is to know why.

You and I are called to leave this place and serve

because of what we have gained in this place.

And if we have been sought and equipped and nurtured,

then this will be the easy part.

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When Moses was leading the Hebrews through the wilderness,

they were certainly willing to go at first.

They understood that they were following Moses' leading

as Moses was led by God.

But when they got thirsty and impatient,

all of a sudden it stopped being God that they were following

and started being Moses!

They asked Moses, "Why did YOU lead us out of Egypt?"

And, guess what:  Moses wasn't perfect either.

I'm sure that Moses knew he wasn't interim.

But he surely got weary at times,

and I suspect that sometimes

even he wondered where he was leading them.

When he'd had a bellyful of the Hebrews' whining,

he goes to God and asks,

"What shall I do with these people?!"

God says to him in effect:

"Moses, here is what I am going to do with these people."

God reminded Moses that it wasn't about Moses.

The wilderness wasn't Moses' agenda;

it was God's.

And friends, popular or not,

our mission statement is not my agenda or the Session's agenda.

This is where God is leading us.

Now, I am not comparing myself to Moses!

I sound nothing like Charlton Heston.

I am your pastor, though, and I love you,

and because I love you, I need to say this.

If we are not as a congregation

both offering and taking part in

hospitality to others,

solid Christian education,

meaningful and vibrant worship,

and mission work based on who we understand God to be,

then I am doing a disservice to you

and we are doing a disservice to God.

So let's be about it.

Get involved in a Sunday School class.

Pray with God like you would talk to your closest friend.

Read the Bible just to read it.

Ponder why it's laid out the way it is.

Sing like you mean it, and think about what you're singing.

Make some new friends.

And serve.

You can find the list of committee chairs in the next newsletter.

Call one of them and ask them what they need.

In the words of our friend John Williams,

be the beloved and gifted people of God that you are.

it is God who is at work in you.

Not Sallie, not your Sunday School teacher,

not your Session or youth sponsors,

not even Moses.

It is God who is at work in you.

So let's get to work on ourselves for God.

Amen.