"A New Year, A New Level"
Sermon Transcript for January 30, 2005
Scripture Reading: Philippians 3:12-14
By Rev. Mike Beck
Reading the Scripture that we used as our text last week, Philippians, Chapter 3, Paul writes, “Not that I have already obtained all this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus.” This is the Word of God for the people of God, thanks be to God. You may be seated.
We are spending a couple of weeks in the beginning of the New Year examining our individual lives and also looking collectively at us as a congregation. We read together last week our Mission Statement. It’s one that I hope you would even have memorized; it is on the front of the bulletin and will be up on the screen. Let’s read it together. Here is why we are here: The mission of Grace Church is to WORSHIP God; PRCLAIM Christ as Savior; ENCOURAGE GROUTH in Christ as Lord; FELLOWSHIP together; and CARE for those in need.
We looked at some numbers last week; and we reflected we are a very healthy church but our growth, at least for the time being, has plateaud. And to use a term that Bill Hybels has coined, our new Church Growth Task Force will be searching for “the new growth engines” that are needed to bring persons into our doors that haven’t come our way before. So with that as background, I invite you to take out that yellow sheet in your bulletin, our sermon outline for this morning. Don’t panic; we are going to get done on time. Quick review—we said as individuals that to move to a new level, we would have to do three things. We would have to first of all admit we haven’t arrived yet. And I asked you to fill in the blank of this statement, “I’m not yet _________” and invite God to work in that area of our life. We need to know our focus. Paul said, “This one thing I do.” And then we need to pursue God’s purposes for our life. Paul said, “I press on toward the goal.” And in doing so, we are going to have to take advantage of those spiritual disciplines—prayer, gathering together, worship, the reading of the Word—that are means to that end.
We talked about five things that may be needed to move us to a new level as a church; the first of which was increased support of our General Fund. For those of you who have turned in your card for this coming year “thank you”. For those who haven’t yet, this is important to our future! We need, secondly, as a church to do a better job of assimilating newcomers that begin to worship with us. We need to have, thirdly, more persons sharing in the ministry of the church using the spiritual gifts that God has given to them. Fourthly, we need to create some new small groups, places where people can belong. I encourage you; if you haven’t been a part of a Friendship Eight group before, take that step. You’ll be blessed beyond measure. And then, finally, we said we need to become more intentional and more invitational.
And it is those two things that I want to speak to this morning. We are going to move quickly. I won’t have time to illustrate those points scripturally, but I think for each of these eleven principles, you could find solid biblical foundation in scripture. So here is what I believe are some important keys to move to a new level. They apply to us as individuals; they apply to us as a church. And I pray that the Holy Spirit will speak to you as we share them together.
· We need to be prepared to respond to the challenge of change. I hope you got a pencil or a pen out. Now I’m giving you the answers today. Those of you who didn’t make 70% on the test last week, you’ll be getting your letter letting you know when your remedial course will meet. Change is never easy; but change is inevitable. In fact, I think we can safely say, if we don’t change, we slowly die. So, we have to be prepared to respond to the challenge of change.
· We have to take regular inventory of our progress. That’s why you need to strongly consider the Marriage Enrichment or the Singles Relationship Workshop. It will force you to stop and intentionally take inventory of where you are at, how you can make good relationships, great relationships. Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
· Thirdly, and this is pretty self explanatory, if we keep doing what we’ve been doing, we’ll keep getting what we’ve been getting. And one of the things that goes with that is sometimes hard. We have to take a careful look and say, “What have we been doing that is no longer productive?” And stop doing it so we have some room on the plate to add some things.
· Fourthly, and this one you may need to think about a little bit. Sometimes we have to lose in order to gain. As individuals I want you to reflect for a moment on how that principle has been true in your life. Something that you were able to accomplish, but yet you had to lose something in order to gain and to move forward. I was over at the United Methodist Community this week. I finished my Intercessory Prayer group. By the way, those of you who live at the community, if you would like to see Rev. Mike on a regular basis, come to the Intercessory Prayer group at 3:30 p.m. on Monday afternoons. Most weeks, I’m there. But I was walking out the door when I heard John Eley talking with another staff member. And he said, “Are you going to be a part of my “Dump the Plump” team? And I stopped dead in my tracks and I turned to him. I said, “John, what is “Dump the Plump”? And he said, “Well, it’s a Johnson County initiative where we are gathering teams together to lose some of the weight we’ve accumulated that’s holding us up. We are going to “dump the plump”.
Sometimes preachers talk about a “back door revival” being needed in the church. In a back door revival, what that means is some folks who are good folks, hear that carefully, wonderful folks, exit by way of back door because they are not comfortable with change or they don’t buy in to the vision and they are no longer comfortable. But they almost get in the way of the future God has for the church. I remember Mike Slaughter, pastor over at Ginghamsburg; he’s been there over 25 years now. Yes, that is possible in the United Methodist Church! He talks about the first year he was there. There were averaging 75 in attendance. And he said, “The first year I succeeded in reducing the average attendance to 50.” That church today averages 5,000 in worship. Sometimes you have to lose in order to gain.
· Talking and actions are two very different things. Now there is certainly validity for times of reflection. We shouldn’t hurriedly move to action. My sister e-mailed me asking about our new building because in their church they need a new facility. And I told her it was six years from the time we initially started planning until the new building was completed. But sometimes committees drive me up a wall. They’ll meet for two hours and talk about something and they’ll leave with no action plan at all. And they’ll think they’ve accomplished something; they have accomplished nothing. All they did was talk about it. Talk and action are two different things.
This is one of the most precious gifts I’ve ever received. It’s in my office. On the bottom of it, it says, “To Reverend Mike, December 25, 2003, Love, Austin Ramsey”. He bought it for me at his school Santa Shop. But here is what it says. It’s got a little golf club and a ball. It says, “In golf as in life, it’s the follow through that counts.” That’s what this principle is about. It applies individually; it applies collectively.
· Attitude is everything. I can find out a lot about a person by just listening to them talk. And I can determine pretty quickly whether their attitude toward life is, “The cup is half full or it’s half empty.” We’re not positive, but we are very hopeful that on February 26th and 27th Joel Sonnenberg will be with us here at Grace. Some of you have seen Joel Sonnenberg you just don’t know it. Sarah knows him. Joel Sonnenberg when he was two years old, his parents were stopped at a toll booth in New York state when their car was rear ended by a semi then burst into flames. Joel was in the back seat of the car in a car seat. And it took Mike a minute or so to get him out of the car seat. Joel was burned beyond recognition. He had no business living. I hate to think how many surgeries that man has had to try to create a face. And Sarah it’s true; the first time you see Joel you almost want to turn away because his face is anything but normal. He doesn’t have an ear on the one side; he has two stubs for hands. But he drives a car; he graduated from Taylor University; he hopes to get married and have a family. He just graduated from theological school. The reason we don’t know for sure that he can come, he is currently in Korea speaking. When he gets back we’ll know for sure. He’s spoken on the Crystal Cathedral’s “The Hour of Power”. Attitude is everything. And when you meet Joel Sonnenberg and you see the smile on his face, you say to yourself, “I may be dealing with some heavy stuff, but if that guy with the help of God can make it, so can I.” Attitude is everything.
· The truth can be painful but it leads to health and wholeness. I’d like for you to reflect on the fact that we never come to know Christ without first coming into contact with the truth about ourselves—our sin, our need of God. Jesus said to a man who was sick one day, “Do you want to get well?” In John 8:32 Jesus said, “If you know the truth, the truth can set you free.” And in the church we have a delicate balancing act to do. On the one hand we are to exercise grace and acceptance just where the person is. But on the other side, we want that person to find wholeness and help. And the keys to wholeness and help can perhaps be found in two statements. The honest statement, “Maybe I need to rethink that.” Or the statement “I’m sorry, I was wrong.” The truth can be painful but it leads to health and wholeness.
· If we want to move to a new level, we need to be prepared to respond to the resistance of our spiritual adversary. I tell you, if you are satisfied with the status quo, Satan will leave you alone. He’s not worried about you. But if you want to move to a new level and the church wants to move to a new level, take it to the bank, Satan, like Peter said, is going to be like a worried lion slowly going about seeing where he can attack. I don’t profess to know how spiritual warfare works, but I know it is real. And if we are going to move to a new level we have to be prepared to respond to the resistance of the one who is opposed to it.
· The important must be given priority over the urgent. Jeff and Julie as they shared, they made their marriage important and they invested 24 hours in it with marvelous results. In your mind, I want you now to list the three most important things in your life. What are the three things in your life that you believe are most important? Then I want you to seriously reflect on how much time you devote to those three things. And I’ll bet you’ll find there is a big gap. And do you want to know the reason for the gap? The urgent has taken priority over the important.
Next weekend I want to urge you to attend worship here at Grace on both Saturday and Sunday. Our Bishop will be in on Sunday to consecrate the new building but we are going to gather as a church family on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. to pray--prayers of thanksgiving, prayers of victory, prayers of healing. And we want you to come. In fact, if you come on Saturday you’ll truly be ready to celebrate on Sunday when our Bishop is here. If you come to both of those services, and some of you are thinking, “Oh, that’s three hours time, I don’t have time to do that.” Let me ask you the sobering question, “If you say you don’t have three hours to come both times, how many hours will you spend glued to the tube next Sunday afternoon watching the Superbowl?” You see, the urgent is given more importance than the important.
· A conversation and an invitation are not the same thing. Now for next Sunday I want you to make an invitation to bring somebody with you. Here is what is not an invitation, “Lord we’d love to have you come to Grace Church sometime.” That is not an invitation; that’s conversation. Here is an invitation, “This coming Sunday our Bishop is going to be at Grace. We’re going to have a chance to see our new Educational Building. Could I pick you up at 9:00 a.m., have you come with me, and then we’ll go out for lunch following the service?” That’s an invitation. What’s the difference? You have called for a response. Anything less is just a conversation and it makes all the difference in the world when it’s specific. Seventy-five percent of newcomers to a church they do not come because the preaching is that great, they do not come because we spent $500 on a full-page ad in the Daily Journal. They come because a friend, family member, or co-worker personally invited them to come with them.
· And then, finally, the Christian life in the church is to be lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. Many of you have participated in the Walk to Emmaus. And you know toward the end of that three-day retreat, the lay director places around the neck of each pilgrim a cross. The lay leader says as the cross is placed around their neck, “Christ is counting on you.” And Christ is counting on each of us to help move Grace Church to a new level. But then the pilgrim responds, “And I am counting on Christ.” The Good News in the life of faith is—we don’t make the journey alone! We’re empowered by the wonderful person of the Holy Spirit.
Let me use this scripture in closing. In fact, read it with me. It’s on the screen. II Corinthian 5:17, “If anyone be in Christ, they are a new creation. The old is passing away, and the new is coming to be.” As Sarai sings for us, take a look at those eleven principles and let the Holy Spirit speak to you.
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