"Getting The Story Straight"
Sermon Transcript for November 30, 2003Scripture Reading: Colossians 1:3-20
By Rev. Mike Beck
As we stand at the beginning of Advent, let’s take a Christmas quiz! It’s time for the pastor to check up on his people to see how well you know the Christmas story, to see if you’ve got it straight. So here goes…five questions…you simply answer them in your mind. No cheating—you’re in church!
1. What was the name of the angel that appeared to Mary? (Gabriel)
2. Matthew’s gospel traces Jesus’ ancestry back to King David. Who stands at the end of the family tree in Luke’s gospel? (Adam)
3. In what province of Israel was the town of Bethlehem located? (Judea)
4. I’ll be easy on you now. It’s ‘Yes/No’; you’ve got a 50-50 chance to get it right. Was the King Herod of the Christmas story the same King Herod that Jesus appeared before during His trial in Jerusalem? (No)
5. And then the former teacher’s got to give you a two-part question. How many Wise Men brought gifts to Jesus, and did they come on the same night as the Shepherds? (Unknown/No). The first part of the question—we don’t know how many wise men there were. No place in the Bible will you find the number three. We’ve assumed three because there were three gifts. But very unlikely the three kings set out without an accompanying entourage. And they did not go on the same night as the shepherds. We just don’t want to prolong the Christmas pageant so they come down the aisle right after the shepherds.
Well, how did you do? How many of you got them all right, let me see your hands? Aw come on, don’t be bashful. Surely some of you got them all right! We’ve heard the Christmas story so many times. The question I pose this morning is this, “Do we have the story straight?” And kind of a subliminal question, “What does it mean to have the story straight?” Some churches have “Bible Quiz Teams” for children and youth. Those learning experiences have value. Knowing the facts is important. But our little Christmas quiz this morning was to make this point—We can know the “facts” of the Christmas story and still be light-years removed from really understanding the message of Christmas.
In my year-end interview with the District Superintendent, he asked an interesting question. He asked it to all of his pastors. He said, “Where does your passion lie in ministry? What really motivates you?” And I didn’t have to think very long for my answer. My passion lies in God being my helper to move people beyond just going through the motions of religion to where they understand what a personal, growing relationship with Jesus Christ means. The results in their life being different and which results in the fruit of the spirit being revealed in their life.
My message today is a brief one and in a certain sense kind of unorthodox. Believe me, after the six “40 Days of Purpose” sermons, you deserve some briefer messages. Rick Warren in his church must have the luxury of preaching for an hour each week. We cut out almost half of his message just to get it down to thirty minutes. But what I want to share with you this morning has been on my heart and in my thinking for the past few months. What I want to do this morning is pat you on the back. To say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servants of Christ”. To say, “thank you” on behalf of a host of individuals you may never meet but whose lives have been touched this past year by your love and commitment to Christ. That was evidenced last evening. About a half an hour before the worship service, a young couple with three young children came in the lobby. I didn’t recognize them. I went up to talk to them. He had been out of work. Their gas had been turned off. They were looking for help. We are going to be able to help them through the Good Samaritan Fund that’s made possible by your mission gifts. But I said to them, “Come back on Monday morning and we’ll take care of your need.” And I said, “We have a worship service at 5:30 p.m. Would you like to stay?” They stayed. Three beautiful young children—I watched people greet them, I watched Stacey take them down and show them the children’s areas. You made a difference in that family’s life.
And I guess what I am saying is this--I sense that there are an ever-growing number of people at Grace Church who have got the story straight! Not in terms of knowing all the facts. In fact, one of the persons in my Disciple Bible Study with very little biblical knowledge, but he’s learning, came up to me after the service last night and said, “Reverend Mike, I flunked the test.” And I sad, “Well, you’ll do better after you finish Disciple.” But I said, “What I observe in your life--your service to Christ, your passion to know God better—you may not have passed the “fact” test, but you aren’t failing the “heart” test. And I think it’s Biblical for me to do this from time to time in my preaching. The Apostle Paul did it in almost all of his letters. Sometimes he’d get on his people. But as we read in the passage from Colossians, and I’m going to use the New International version, on almost every occasion he would say something like this to them. Verse 4: “We have heard of your faith in Jesus Christ and the love that you have for all the saints.” And then in Verses 9 to 12, he expresses what I feel for so many of you. Listen carefully. He said, “For this reason, since the day we first heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding and we pray this in order that you may live life worthy of the Lord and be pleasing in every way bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you might have great endurance and patience and joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of life.” And then reading on in verses 13 and 14, these words express the heart of the message of Christmas. Paul writes, “For Christ has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves in whom we have redemption, we’ve been brought back, we have forgiveness of sin.”
There are so many things that I could mention. But in that we just finished the “40 Days of Purpose”, I thought I would try to tie my examples into God’s five purposes that we have been learning for our lives.
Worship: In the area of worship, I’m giving thanks to God for you for allowing us to be innovative in worship, allowing us to offer different styles of worship to minister to a broader number of people. In our worship each week, when it comes time to take the offering, you’ll hear Reverend Dan or I often say, “Let us continue our worship with God’s tithes and your offerings.” Friends, what has happened financially here at Grace in 2003 is nothing short of miraculous! Now, there’s another side of that coin. Whenever you are trying to grow the kingdom of God, you are going to always operate on the edge financially. You are always going to come to the end of the year hoping to have a good December in terms of offerings. But our General Fund giving is up $1,000 a week over 2002. And during the end of 2002, we lost our top two giving units—one by death, one by a family that moved to another community. And you did all of that at the same time that in the last seven months you’ve given $230,000 to the Imagine Grace campaign. Donna is going to have very close to a million dollars go across her desk this year.
Fellowship: It’s exciting to hear stories from the small groups studies during the “40 Days of Purpose”. I got a letter from one of my golfing friends this week saying he wanted to have the group over for chili; he’s just trying to find the time. He said, “I have never ever been a part of a small group. But being a part of a small group and reading the book has changed my life dramatically.” When I listen to the story of newcomers talk about the way that you have greeted them warmly and welcomed them to this church family. When I hear the stories of Friendship Eight of relationships that are being built to where we are truly becoming more of a family, I give thanks to God. You are getting the story straight!
Discipleship: I knew it was going to be a lot back in the summer when I decided to teach a Disciple class on Sunday evening. But I want to tell you; being with those 26 folks energizes me. As I sat back last week at the beginning of the class, listened to them share what the class, what the reading of the “40 Days of Purpose” meant to them, my heart overflowed with rejoicing at their growth in discipleship. Some of you have been a part of Grace Church long enough to know the true miracle of what I am going to say to you now. On Wednesday evening of this week I went down to Price Hall and spent a few moments with 60 teenagers who had gathered for worship and a thanksgiving meal. In many ways, our children and our youth are leading us in terms of getting it when it comes to discipleship.
Ministry: I’ve had three different United Methodist Women’s Circles call me saying, “Can you give us the name of families that we can help at Christmas.” Because of our Capital Funds campaign, we didn’t even have a Missions’ Conference in 2003 but it didn’t stop you mission giving. It’s continued at record levels because you’ve come to understand mission is not an option. It’s essential to who we are as Christ’s followers. I’m so pleased with people like John Elliott and others in our church family. They are involvement in the group Christians for Peace and Justice in the Middle East. And so many of you, your ministry is not limited to the walls of Grace Church. You are doing things within this community through your community involvement to share the love of Christ with other people.
Evangelism: I received an e-mail last Sunday evening from a new person at Grace. She had two questions. First of all, she had a question about the sermon. She wanted a little more information. Boy, nothing makes a pastor feel better than that! Tell me a little more; I was listening. And then she said, “You mentioned this morning a couple of weekends in December that there’s going to be musical programs and that that would be a good opportunity to invite friends. I’ve got neighbors I want to bring with me. Tell me the dates of those services. She’s got the story straight. In the area of evangelism, your faith commitment to the building program, to a ministry budget that is ever growing, that at times causes even the pastor to say, “Can we do that?” In our strength, we can’t; but in God’s strength, we can.
I spent several years in coaching. You’d work with one of your kids trying to help them learn a particular wrestling move or how to hit a certain kind of golf shot. Sometimes the going would be slow and discouraging but you kept working with them and then at some point it was as if the light bulb came on and they got it. God, our great “coach on high” must feel that same way from time to time. He patiently tries to get His message across to us as individuals and to us as a church. And often times we are slow learners. The story we re-tell in the weeks of Advent and Christmas was God’s supreme act of coaching to try to get across the principle of self-giving love. He took a humble young girl, some lowly shepherds, a cave outside of town, angels proclaiming tidings of great joy, and the mystery of “God becoming man”. But how excited God must be when He looks down on humankind and turns to Jesus and says: “Look Son, they’ve got it! They’ve got the story straight! That’s just what I had in mind!”
Not in any sense of boasting, and not in any pretense of our having “arrived” spiritually, but I think God looks down on many of you in this congregation today with a smile on His face and says: “Yes, you’ve got the story straight!”
What I’ve tried to say today is this—That getting the story straight is far more than knowing the Angel’s name, which province Bethlehem was located in, the ancestral linage of Luke’s gospel, or in knowing how many Wise Men there were. The story of Christmas is far more profound and simple than that. It’s about receiving a present we didn’t expect or deserve. It’s about our Heavenly Father purchasing for us a gift far more costly than we could ever have imagined. And the Apostle Paul in his letter to the infant church at Colossia summarized that gift with these words. They are on the screen. Let me read them slowly. Let them sink in. “For God was pleased to have all of His fullness dwell in Christ and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior but now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you wholly in His sight without blemish and free from accusation if you continue in your faith established and firm not moved from the hope handed out in the Gospel.”
And if we’ve got the story straight, our return gift to God will be found in verses 10-13 of our scripture lesson for today. I’ve paraphrased them; but this is what God wants. It is your return gift. I invite you to read these words with me. “Living a life pleasing to the Lord in every way; bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened through His Spirit at work within us, and ever giving thanks that He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of His Son.” And friends, that’s good news!
E-mail Comments to: Reverend Dan Sinkhorn