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"A
Church Where I Belong" January
6, 2002 Rev. Gary LeTourneau Consider your own call, bothers and sisters:
not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not
many were of noble birth. But God
chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in
the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world,
things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might
boast in the presence of God. He is
the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and
righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is
written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord." 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 [first
section missing from tape] point back to what Jesus' life and ministry would be
about from the very beginning. Now,
you may not have caught the Christmas theme in this passage, but let me share it
with you. Paul is the pastor,
distant from the church in Corinth, which he himself founded. The Corinth church was having some trouble.
People were becoming proud. People
felt like they belonged and others may not belong, or at least some felt like
they had super gifts of the Spirit and were super-spiritual and others were not.
Divisions were arising and Paul is trying to address them.
And so he says to them: Consider your own call [that is, who you were when God called you
to be part of the Church--and then he says]:
Not many of you were wise, were powerful, were of noble birth.
And
he could have said, "You were a lot like Mary and Joseph."
Not wise, not powerful, not of noble birth.
Just a carpenter and a teenager. That's
how God began His great work of redemption in the world.
Paul
could have said, "Remember who the very first people to celebrate the
coming of Christ were: Shepherds."
Shepherds who were despised in Palestinian society.
They were thought of as dirty laborers who couldn't get a better job, who
could not keep themselves ritually pure, and so were forbidden from worshiping
in the temple. It was assumed that
because they were paid so little and they spent their lives out in the hills
alone, that they stole sheep and slaughtered them, and ate them, and sold the
wool at the expense of the owners. If
you thought of a shepherd back then, you would think, "There is a dirty
thief." And who were the very
first persons to hear the good news of the Savior's birth, and to worship Jesus,
and to become the very first evangelists--to go out with joy, celebrating what
God was doing in the world? Paul
might have said, "Remember who they were.
They were just shepherds." Paul
could have reminded the Corinthians, "Think about the disciples that Jesus
chose. Not many of them were rich,
or well educated, or of noble birth. They
were tax collectors--despised. They
were fishermen." You remember
in Acts when those fishermen, filled with the Holy Spirit, began to preach at
nine in the morning--do you remember what people said about them?
"Well, they're Galileans. We
all know what kind of people live in Galilee--they're hicks!
They're fishermen. They're
uneducated. They don't know Greek,
they don't know Hebrew, they don't know Latin.
They can't even spell their own names--they sign with an 'X.'
It's nine in the morning and here they are talking.
They must be drunk." Those
were the ones Jesus told to be the first disciples, and called and empowered to
be those disciples. And
so Paul begins with the Corinthians by reminding them of something very
important about the Church of Jesus Christ and those who are called to be
members of it. And he kind of does
it on the one hand abruptly, on the other hand gently.
He says, "Not many of you were wise by human standards."
Notice he doesn't say, "Not any of you . . ." because
it's possible there were one or two wise people there.
It's possible there are perhaps some wise persons here today.
One woman, a prominent Christian, wrote a testimony entitled, "Saved
by an 'm' "--because she was from a well-to-do family with a lot of
influence, but nevertheless became a Christian.
And she always said if this had said not "any" of you were rich
and powerful, then she wouldn't have had a place,
But she was saved by an "m" because she was one of those
exceptions. But
Paul says, "Not many of you were wise, not many of you were powerful, not
many of you were of noble birth." What's
he really saying? "Remember
who you were. You were just a bunch
of average nobodies. That's who you
were." That sounds harsh,
doesn't it? Someone said after the
sermon last night, "You know, at first I thought it was harsh, but then I
read on in the passage." If
you read on carefully, I may be being a little bit more polite than what Paul
says about the weak, and the low, and the despised that God chooses to use.
God has called into the Church, in His great plan for the redemption of
the world, not highly educated, influential king-makers.
He's chosen ordinary, average people, like you and like me.
That's a church that I could be a part of. There's room for me in a church of average nobodies!
If you have to be influential, or rich, or noble, there may not be room.
And Paul is saying to the Corinthians, "Remember what you
were." Several
years ago I was flying to Dallas, I think it was.
I went to check in, late afternoon.
The flight was canceled because of mechanical trouble or something, so I
was told I had to come back the next day. I
sort of whined a little bit and talked to the agent and they did their deal and
finally said, "Well, we can get you on a flight about eight tonight,
but--oh, it's first class. Will
that be all right? We'll upgrade
you." You know, it takes about
a nanosecond to adjust from the thought of flying in coach to flying in first
class! I thought, "Oh.
OK. I'll take it.
Sure." I
got on the plane. You know--first
class, and sat down. And just
immediately I sort of sat up a little higher.
Oh, this is going to be fun now! I
think I did once as a kid at some point, but I'd never been in first class as an
adult. You know right away (maybe
you do this all the time. I don't.)
Right away there's someone there, "Would you like something to
drink?" I did have this
observation. I used to resent,
sitting back in coach, that the first class people had their own bathroom.
I've now concluded that's a necessity up there, because any time you
finish whatever you're having, someone's right there asking if you want
something else. Those dozen people
need a bathroom full time in the front of the plane!
It came time for the meal service and I kind of felt like, "Gosh,
how do you do this?" They have
linen tablecloths (just like we do at home every night . . .)
and silverware . . . "Oh, I'll have the steak, I guess.
I don't really care. That
will be fine." Then I started
looking around at all the other people and I thought, "I wonder how many of
them are just like me? They know
they don't belong here, but they're trying to pretend like they do this every
day of the week." That's
sometimes what church is like, isn't it? We
come to church and we put on an air, and we make some assumptions about
ourselves and other people. The
point the apostle Paul is making is, just like me getting to fly first class on
an airplane, there's only one way you're going to be there:
Not because you deserve it, but by grace.
It comes to you as a gift. There's
only one way that each one of us is a part of the church of Jesus Christ,
members of the Kingdom of God, joint heirs with Christ of all that God has to
offer us. And that's because God has called us by grace.
Paul
says, "Remember how you were called. You
didn't deserve it, but God gave it to you as a gift."
You see, that message is right there at the birth of Christ--Joseph and
Mary, the shepherds. The theme continues with the disciples. But the apostle Paul doesn't leave it there.
He says you're here only by grace and now that you are here, what you are
becoming is something wonderful and something fantastic.
Don't forget that, either. As
the book of Corinthians unfolds, Paul says to those average nobodies (just like
you and me), "Did you know that you are the body of Christ?
Did you know that you are, together, the physical presence of Jesus in
the world? Jesus is not physically
present and He can no longer heal, He can no longer help, He can no longer
touch. But you can do it because
you are the body of Christ." He
says to them, "Don't you know that you, you average nobodies that God
called together to be the Church, are the temple of the Holy Spirit?
That God is actually present in you together as the Church of Jesus
Christ and so this is a holy gathering, not because of the place, but because of
the people who are present who are holy? Don't
you know, says Paul, that you are an ambassador for Christ?
And there he uses a very lofty word--an "ambassador." How do you address an ambassador? You don't just call him "Joe."
It's "Mister ambassador," because they represent the king, and
the kingdom, and the king's values. "Don't
you know that God has called you from what you were (which was not very much) to
become the body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit, and ambassadors of the
Kingdom?" God has huge plans
for you, but it's all by grace. It
has nothing to do with who you were and what you've done, and everything to do
with who Jesus is and what He's done, and what He's given you to become in
Himself." Now,
there are two applications I wish to draw from it.
The first has to do with what difference does it make that God has called
us to become more than we are. Well,
the fact is that two thousand years later, we remember and celebrate the
activity of shepherds because God called them to become more than they are.
The fact is that the Church of Jesus Christ exists because some fishermen
and tax collectors heard the call of Jesus Christ and became more than they
were. They became teachers, and preachers, and they founded a
church, and they established a great missionary enterprise, which has lasted two
thousand years and is ongoing, and is now consisting of billions of people on
earth. That's
pretty impressive for some fishermen from Galilee!
And Paul wants the Corinthians to know that God has great plans for you.
You and I might be tempted to think, "Not me.
Who am I? I'm an
average nobody. I'm
insignificant." One
author put it this way: "If
you think you are too insignificant to be effective, you've never been in bed
with a mosquito!" Very small,
but incredibly motivating and effective when it's 12:30 at night and they're
buzzing around your ear at about 100 decibels! God
can use you and me to do great things in His Church, just as He did from the
very beginning in Bethlehem. Second
application: You and I will almost
always underestimate the potential value or lasting impact of the simple acts of
obedience and faith, the steps of simply caring for others as the body of
Christ, being witnesses for the Kingdom as ambassadors for Christ--the things we
can do--and we'll always sort of inwardly sigh and wish that we'd done something
incredible or fantastic. And God
just wants to use us in the ordinary events of life. Let
me give you an illustration of that--how God uses just ordinary people to do
extraordinary things and to touch other people's lives dramatically.
This is from Bill Henson, a pastor.
He remembers his student days at Emory University, not when he was in
seminary, but after he'd had a pastorate and went back as an older student to
get an advanced degree. He writes
that he remembers being one of the oldest people in the class.
There was one other man there who had also served in a parish for some
time. He
sat on the other side of the room from me.
[Bill Henson writes that] both of us probably didn't relate too well with
the younger students because we had our own agenda, we had the experience of
being out in the pastorate, we had our own reasons for being there.
I remember one day going over to see this man, who happened to be a black
man--the only black person in the class--and at the end of the class I walked
over to his side of the room and I said, "How about having lunch
today?" And
he said, "Fine. Where do you
want to go?" "Well,
let's try the cafeteria," I said. We
went to the cafeteria and enjoyed lunch, began to talk about our churches.
It ends up that this man serves one of the largest predominantly black
Baptist churches in the country. We
began to talk about our work, and out of that grew a friendship, so the rest of
our time during our residency, we were together almost all of the time.
Toward the end of our residency [Bill Henson writes], he invited me to go
home with him one weekend to preach in his church.
I gladly accepted the invitation. It
was a great church! I was waiting
my turn to go up to preach. [incidentally,
in a lot of black congregations, you know, you don't just get one sermon.
You might get several. So he
was waiting his turn to preach] and he said something in his introduction of me
that choked me up so much I found it difficult to continue. As
he introduced me he said to the congregation, "I want you to know that I
set a deadline on the day I met this man. I
told God that morning that if I didn't meet someone that day who said 'hello' to
me, and wanted to spend some time with me, wanted to be my friend, then I was
giving up on my education and I was coming back home.
And Bill Henson walked across the room and said, 'Let's have lunch
together.' " [Bill
Henson writes] I got all choked up. I
still do, because what I had done was such a small gesture. A nothing. "Let's
have lunch together." And out
of it, I not only found one of the best friends I have, but God used that word,
unknown to me, as a word of encouragement to that man in a time of bleak
despair. Isn't it amazing that God
can let an imperfect person be an expression of His word of grace? Look
at how the apostle Paul puts it: God chose what is foolish to shame the wise.
God chose what is weak to shame the strong.
God chose what is low and despised, things that are not, to reduce to
nothing things that are, so that no one can boast. God
has designed His Kingdom in such a way that I believe the most powerful things
that happen are not the splashy things that are on television or a billboard.
But they're simple acts of caring, and kindness, and being an ambassador
for Christ, and living out the truth of what we believe in the gospel of grace,
the good news of grace, in our lives with each other and with our family, and
friends, and colleagues. Those are
the things that will change a life: "Let's
have lunch together." "Hey,
would you like to have coffee?" "C'mon
over and let's talk." "I
really enjoyed our time. Could we
do this again?" People
like that are going to change the world, if the apostle Paul is right.
And I believe he is right. It's
little steps. As
we begin a new year together as a church, I want you to be reminded: We're a bunch of average
nobodies. It starts at the top and
goes down. There's no
super-mystical presence here. That's
who we were, but it's not who we're becoming.
Who we're becoming is the body of Christ, the temple of the Spirit,
ambassadors of the Kingdom--because God has unleashed His Spirit on us. And I want you to consider how you can be making yourself
available to God with simple acts. I
have one specific. We're going to
start our Alpha course in a couple weeks--January 17th we have our banquet.
The course starts the next week. There's
information in the pews--a red handout and some green brochures.
This is an introduction to Christianity.
Christianity 101. Who is
Jesus? What did He do?
Why should I believe in Him? How
do I pray? What is the Bible? What
difference does it make? That's
what we talk about. It's not
embarrassing. Anybody who comes is
going to feel like finally they have a chance, as an adult, to explore the basic
issues of being a Christian that they never had a chance to as a kid. I find, and I read, and I sense, that with all that's
happened in our world in the last four months, that there are a lot of people
who are actively reassessing their lives, and what it's about, and want their
lives to be headed and going. And
I think you know yourself some people that you work with, are friends with, are
neighbors with, who are in a search. It
may not be a public search. It may
be a private search. And maybe this
would be a great time to start a dialogue and say, "Hey, how would you like
to come to dinner with me? We'll
take care of your kids. We'll feed
you. You can listen to a talk.
If you don't like it, never come back.
But if you do, we'd love to have you keep coming."
And tell them something about the Alpha course.
Maybe
take the approach, "You know, this is something I would like to do, but I'd
really like a friend to do it with me. Could
you be that friend for me?" And
maybe they'd come. I know, because
we have experienced now (in four times through, I think) that people who come to
Alpha report that it's a life-changing class.
It's our church's main strategy to reach out to others and to grow in
Christ. I'd like you to be praying
about how you could take just a small step, as an average person, to be an
ambassador for Christ and change somebody else's life.
It's the greatest gift you can give them. Let's
pray together. Lord, thank you that
you've given us the freedom here in the church to admit that we don't always
have all of the answers. We're not
always strong. Sometimes we're
weak. We're imperfect. Thank you for giving us the gift of grace--that even as we
are, you love us, and you meet us, and you claim us for yourself, and you set us
up into a high place as brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ.
Lord, I pray for your blessings on our church in this new year.
I pray you give us wisdom as we make decisions about how to go about
being the church of Jesus Christ. I
pray that you empower each one of us to be the body of Christ in the world. It's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. Rev. Gary LeTourneau Senior Pastor Faith Presbyterian Church Minnetonka, Minnesota [Transcribed from an audiotape of the 9:00 a.m. worship
service on January 6, 2002] |
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