"Touch The World"
Sermon Transcript for December 30, 2001 By Rev. Mike BeckScripture Reading: Luke 2:21-35
It’s been a wonderful Advent season here at Grace. I hate to see the decorations go down. But remember, as they have just reminded us in this wonderful song, the gift goes on. Christmas is just really beginning. And I hope you have received and given to others a "Christmas touch" during these weeks of December. Our advent theme has reminded us to reach out and make room for others. That’s a literal challenge for us in some of our worship services here at Grace. If you weren’t here at 7:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve, we had 370 in attendance. We were grabbing chairs from every place we could find them and putting them in every place that we could put them. And then we had 170 to worship with us at 11:00 p.m. We’re learning how to make room for others.
We were invited to honor the overlooked persons around us. I hope as you checked out at Wal-Mart or got your car washed or the servers waited on you in the restaurant that you recognized and gave them honor. We were challenged to extend God’s love to those in our family who perhaps aren’t always easy to love. I had a person before the service say, "Today’s the day, Reverend Mike I’ve got to do that. Pray for me." We’ve been invited like Zechariah in the temple to experience God’s touch in unexpected ways in unexpected times. We were invited on Christmas Eve to reach out and touch heaven. God’s word tells us how we do it. We do it through the act of praise.
And today, on this final Sunday of the year, we want to reflect for a moment on how we can touch the world. Recalling the words of Simeon there in the temple as he spoke of the infant Jesus as the one who would be a light of revelation and salvation for all people. You’ve been doing that – reaching out and touching the world on a weekly basis through your mission gifts. And I want to invite you now to take out the mission insert that is in your bulletin this morning. To let your eyes look through those projects. I cannot begin to express the feelings of pride and joy that I felt in putting together this list. The words of Philippians 1 came to mind when Paul said as he began that letter to the church of Philippi, he said, "I thank God every time I think of you and pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel." This sheet, friends, represents a marvelous partnership in the gospel across the street and around the world.
Our Mission’s Conference would normally have been in October. We have moved it to April to separate it from our fall stewardship campaign. But when I saw the theme for today, "Reach Out and Touch the World", I thought prior to our Mission’s Conference four months from now, boy this would be a good Sunday to celebrate what God has done since our last Mission’s Conference in October of 2000. I would invite you to consider the lives touched by the projects that are listed front and back on this page.
You may notice as you look at our local projects that our most highly funded project is one that we never even speak much about because we want to protect the confidentiality of the families that we help. It is the Good Samaritan Fund. You’ll notice that over the last 14 months almost $10,000 has been given, some to families right here in our own church. Others to persons in the community who have called us up on the phone, who have been caught between a rock and a hard place and are needing some help to move on with their lives through utility payments, through a rent deposit, through medical bills, through making a car payment. And we’ve been able to help almost 50 families here in Franklin over the last 14 months. And the only way that I can give help, the only people who know who we’ve helped are Donna who writes the checks and myself. But the only way we are able to do that is because when that offering plate is passed on Sunday morning, hundreds of persons here at Grace make a gift to missions.
We receive a number of letters this time of year from missionaries that we support. Sherman and Marjorie Craven’s grandson, Brent, and his wife Beth are among those missionaries we support. And when I got their letter I was reminded any sacrifice that I might feel I make in ministry is pale in comparison to theirs. Two young children, successful careers, lay people, but who sensed the strong call of God and left careers behind them to go to of all places, Kazahkstan. Do you know where Kazahkstan is? It’s in the former Soviet Union. It’s very close to Afghanistan. In the wintertime it is one of the most desolate, cold places on the face of the earth. But I want to read you part of their Christmas letter.
"Dear friends, as I write this letter we are thankful to God for providing a house in Columbia, South Carolina. Ty and Chelsea’s school is in between our house and Columbia International University where we will study Russia. In late October we received two weeks of crucial training in language acquisition. The training focused on phonetics. We made sounds that parents usually shush their children from making and on how to successfully continue our language learning in Kazahkstan with a language helper. In a few short weeks we will be saying goodbye to family and friends. We will be leaving for South Carolina on the 28th. In the middle of May we will be spend one week in Dayton before attending three weeks of cross-cultural training in Colorado Springs. Our tentative departure date for Kazahkstan is early July. Many people are concerned and have asked us if our destination or our time frame has changed because the events of 9-11. As our friend, Jim Ramsey, said, "We can’t combat darkness by trying to keep it out and retreating in to a false sense of safety. We combat it by bringing the light to it and allowing the light to transform it." We are more eager and compelled to bring the light. God knew what would happen in the world before He called us to Kazahkstan. Where he leads, we are going. Thank you so much for your prayers and financial support. Some days following this call to go are overwhelming." (And I imagine among those days are when they are sitting in the classroom learning Russian thinking back to the security of the life they put behind them.) "The word from the Lord is to look at Jesus. His name is our hope plus praise God for the gift of Jesus this Christmas season. Merry Christmas. Brent, Beth, Tyler, and Chelsea Cravens."
As we think about touching the world we are honored today to have David Hamilton with us. David serves worldwide with the ministry, "Youth with a Mission". His wife Christine and their kids are down the hall ministering to our children now. David is the son of Keith and Marilyn Hamilton, other missionaries we support in their retirement if you can call it retirement. I asked David to come and to share for a few moments with you as we think today about touching the world. David, welcome back to Grace.
Thank you. It is such a joy to be with you this morning. The last time I was here it was a little over two years ago with my family at one of your Mission Conferences. At that time you hadn’t gone through the beautiful renovations you have gone through. I did PowerPoint presentations but didn’t have the advantage of this gorgeous screen. It’s a joy to be with you. And as you look at this list, we feel so honored and privileged that our name is here and that we’ve been beneficiaries of the great generosity, the love and the support of this church. Thank you Reverend Mike and Reverend Dan and all of you for being a part of our lives and ministries. You see our names on this list. Most of the people’s names are attached with a location where they are serving and ours doesn’t because…well this last year, just to give you an idea, the last 52 weeks I’ve crossed the border 46 times. And I’ve traveled about 170,000 miles. And, if you do the math, that comes out to almost 500 miles every single day. I’ve changed beds…I’ve slept in two different beds every single week this year always with the same woman – my dear wife.
But it’s been a wonderful adventure. We’ve been in 23 countries plus numerous territories equipping local believers to continue the work of extending the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s been wonderful. This year we began in Asia. We’ve ministered on every continent this year – in Latin America, and Africa, and Europe and North America, Pacific Islands as well. But we began this year in Southern Asia. And we were in Bangladesh and India and Nepal. About this time we were in Nepal in the very cold winter of the Himalayas. We’re amazed to see how God’s grace is growing and extending there. You know, at the end of this year we turn on our televisions and watch the news reports as everyone reflects back over this last year. We can’t think about this year without thinking of 9-11 and the horrible tragedy, that is. When you are watching CNN, or Fox, or ABC or PBS or whatever channel you are watching there is so much bad news that is reported it would seem that terror is winning. But that is not the case. Jesus is the One who is winning. And so much of the really significant news never makes it to the networks. Let me just share some of that with you. Because what you are doing as a church here in Grace UMC is contributing to the extension of that good news.
In Nepal, 36 years ago there were 18 believers in the whole nation. That’s about 2 or 3 pews of those gathered here today in the whole nation. I was privileged to ask some of my dear friends, some of the early believers who planted churches in far flung regions of Nepal, and today there are over a half million believers in that nation. The church is expanding by leaps and bounds that knows very few parallels in the history of the church. Some of you have visited my parent’s home over the last few weeks. They’ve been showing videos of a conference we held in Africa. I was responsible for organizing this conference that was training 2000 Christian workers, leaders, educators from around the world – nearly 100 nations. They were gathered in Egypt and Kenya, South Africa, Ghana. And they were connected through teleconferencing technology in to just an extraordinary event of worship and celebration and preparation for extending the Good News. But one of the amazing stories was in Kenya, there’s a team of 12-13 Nepal Christians. This is the first team that has ever left that Himalayan nation to go to another continent for kingdom purposes. They not only went to the conference but they spent a month in East Africa going to difficult places like Somalia and Sudan, Ethiopia in order to lay the foundations for establishing long-term mission efforts. They said, "We believe that we have a destiny in East Africa as Himalayan Christians." What an extraordinary thing. Never before in history have there been missionaries from Nepal to other parts of the world. This is an exciting day we’re living in. The good news that began in Bethlehem’s manger continues to grow. As has been sung here, the gift keeps going on and on and on.
We were in India. We crisscrossed the nation by railroad. My kids became very familiar with that vast land. Some when they think of India, they think of a land devoid of Christ. But you know, five percent of the population is Christian. You say, "Well, five percent that isn’t very much!" But when you’re thinking of more than a billion people that comes out to 50 million believers. It makes it the third largest church in the world. And you know that church, only 15 years ago, was just a fraction of what it is today. In the last 15 years it has grown nearly 45 percent. If they continue to grow like they are growing right now, these last 15 years, by the middle of this century there will be 20-25%, one out of every four or five Indians would be a committed Christian. That would mean an extraordinary change in the reality of that nation. Jesus and His gospel are growing and extending and expanding throughout the world. It is such a privilege to be involved in missions today. What you are doing, in partnership with us and so many others, as this list gives testimony to, is making a difference.
During the Second World War when many soldiers were away from home, even as there are many today, a song was written that has become a Christmas favorite. "I’ll be home for Christmas; you can plan on me. Please have snow and mistletoe and presents around the tree. Christmas Eve will find me where the love light gleams. I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams." It’s a wonderful song. We love hearing it as we walk through the department stores and on our CD players. I thoroughly enjoyed this Christmas being back home visiting my mom and dad. Last Christmas, I was on a small island off the coast of India, a long far-away place. But we can sing of those traditions, we can enjoy the love gleam because the first Christmas was because Jesus sang a different song. He sang, "I’ll be gone for Christmas". And He was. He left His home, He left His glory, He left His reputation, He left all the benefits and rights and privileges that He had as God to come, to cross over unimaginable barriers to become like one of us. He was the first missionary. He was the one who dared to go where no one had gone before. And because of His exquisite sacrifice of love we can celebrate Christmas and we can celebrate the fact that the season of glad tidings and of great joy continues to expand. And nations that only a generation or two ago had no knowledge of the reality of Jesus Christ are being transformed by the living reality of the Gospel in their lives. Jesus left home at Christmas to fulfill the Father’s dream.
And I want to thank you again as Grace UMC through your generosity and through your prayers. You’ve made that dream grow larger and larger this last year. I would encourage you as you go into this next year to continue to give of your time, to study, to learn to be aware of what God is doing around the world. To be engaged in that. Continue to give of your lives, to serve, to care, to befriend and demonstrate the compassion of Christ to those both near and far. Continue to give your resources to support, to encourage, to enable those who partner with you in this most important of missions to see His love touch the world. God bless you.
Thank you, David. As we close, let me continue to encourage you to continue to touch the world through your mission gifts. But let me leave you with a challenge. Our challenge for the year ahead is to move beyond simply our financial gifts, to have a far greater percentage of our people involved at some time during the year in hands-on involvement with the poor. God has a special place in his heart for the poor among us. An illustration of that, Chris and Angie Conoley and their kids live down the street from us. On Christmas Eve they stopped in the morning at our home. They’ve made it an annual custom in their family to take the kids with them to deliver good cheer baskets. And they stopped in, not to leave us a basket, but to see if we knew of any others who may have a need. (Part of transcript missing here when tape was switched to second side.) Grace church has helped that family get on their feet. But I said, "I’m sure they could use a little extra touch at Christmas." But my phone had rang that morning with a name of a man….I didn’t really want it to ring. It was Christmas Eve. That’s not when I’m wanting it to ring with another need. But a man had called and said, "We’ve moved to Franklin. I’ve started to work. I thought I would get a check before Christmas. I didn’t. There’s nothing for my kids. I handed Chris and Angie his name and phone number. They took it from there. They called him. They went to his home to see what the needs were. They went to Marsh and bought groceries. They went to Wal-Mart and bought toys out of their own resources. But here’s the payoff. I saw them on Christmas Eve at our worship service. The glow on their face at being able to be personally involved and being the body of Christ to a family in need in this community, we want that for more and more of you in this coming year.
Let’s close our worship with singing that carol that tells us to "Go Tell it on the Mountain that Jesus Christ is born."
E-mail Comments to: Reverend Dan Sinkhorn