Pastor Edgar Mayer;
For more sermons and other writings check out pastors homepage: http://www.lca.org.au/pastors/edgarmayer
Beginnings
Determine Endings
Two weeks ago Tatjana shared about our
calling in life and last week we reflected on the vision of this congregation
for 2007. There is much before us but this morning lets pause for a moment and
ask ourselves the question: At
the beginning of a new year taking stock and sorting our plans for another 12
months how do we feel about Living Grace? Where do we fit in and do we want
to come on board support the effort of going further?
Last week we said that if beginnings determine
endings, then we could suggest that whatever God has planned for us next, builds
on the past and leads us further into the things of the Spirit and church
unity. Thus, on Sunday 18 February we launch the course Experiencing God by
Henry Blackaby congregation-wide seeking once again more of God. We now make
available Life Journals which feature a Bible reading plan, simple Bible
reading instructions and empty pages for journaling our daily encounters with
God. Then, as a congregation we want to join Christians from across the nation
asking tough questions in the face of the ongoing drought, coming to terms with
apparent judgement on our nation, repenting, seeking Gods will and favour for
Australia. This culminates in local prayer meetings and a nation-wide Solemn
Assembly in
There is more on the cards but do we want more? Where
do we fit in and do we want to come on board support the effort of going further? On Tuesday one and a half weeks ago we had a prayer meeting for Living Grace and one person did share that
what others seem to be getting out of worship sensing the presence of God,
a touch of God he didnt get that, he
didnt feel that, and he was becoming uncomfortable with the direction of our
congregation.
That was honest and in some ways we can all relate to
that. Its like when at a party everyone has a good time but for whatever
reason you are not with it. At times those that are more open and determined to
seek the Spirit or those that simply may have different spiritual gifts can
make you feel like a lesser Christian. A few days ago a team of us prayed
through a building and as we were working our way through the various rooms the
people on the team that were prophetically gifted would begin to see before
them words like witchcraft or they would get physical impressions such
as in one case a burning sensation on their feet or they would see pictures.
All of that was understood to be from the Holy Spirit pointing us to the prayer
needs for that building and the people moving into it. However, I was the odd
person out mostly oblivious to the spiritual revelations until they
were shared. That can make you feel a
little stupid.
This week I spent a few days with five other pastors
praying and planning for the year. One pastor had a special prayer gift whereby
feeling perfectly normal, praying
like everyone else in the round the
Spirit of God would suddenly come on him and he would begin to travail under
strong spiritual impressions, sobbing, groaning, barely
able to sit up until it passes.
What a revelation of Gods heart. We prayed about the state of the church and
he was overcome but I and the other four pastors did not feel any of that. That
can make you feel stupid thinking: I prayed about the same thing but
had no idea about how deep this goes.
Where do we
fit in? There is another reason why we might not want to come on board with any
further church visions. A pastor shared at a mission conference that there was
a tragic number of young people who at one point in their lives dreamed of
radical obedience to Jesus and were joyfully willing to lay down their lives
and sacrifice anything to make Jesus known among the nations, but then faded
away into useless, Western prosperity because of a gnawing sense of
unworthiness and guilt over sexual failure that gradually gave way to spiritual
powerlessness and the dead-end dream of middle-class security and comfort.
There is truth in that and not only when it comes to sexual sin. As God awakens faith, as God makes us love
him, as God makes us glorify his holiness, the devil comes in and says: Yes,
God is so great but you keep offending him with your sin, the same sin. You are
not worthy. These accusations sting
because they are true. We are not worthy. We keep soiling what God has made
clean. We are so disappointed in ourselves. Despondency and despair, a
gnawing sense of unworthiness and guilt because we sin keep sinning against the God whom we love. In the end it seems easier to walk away
from the heartache. We give up because God deserves better than us.
Is that what we are tempted to do? Give up? I quote
stirring words of John Piper who addresses mainly the young: The great tragedy is not mainly masturbation
or fornication or acting like a peeping Tom (or curious Cathy) on the Internet.
The tragedy is that Satan uses the guilt of these failures to strip you of
every radical dream you ever had, or might have, and in its place give you a
happy, safe, secure, Western [original: American] life of superficial pleasures
until you die in your lakeside rocking chair, wrinkled and useless, leaving a
big fat inheritance to your middle-aged children to confirm them in their
worldliness.
We said that
beginnings determine endings. Lets go back beyond the beginnings of Living
Grace to the real beginnings of every Christian life. The Word of God in the
Bible says Ephesians 1:4-8: The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in
his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his children through
Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his
glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we
have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with
the riches of Gods grace
Our
beginnings are all about God his goodness, his grace, his generous fame toward us,
glory that fills the earth and the heavens. We ask questions about where we fit in and whether we want to go
further. So much is about us. We ask these questions and they
reveal how uncertain we are about who we are our identity and why we are what we are and whats
important.
Why should a
prophetic Christian or a gifted praying Christian or someone elses passion for
Jesus why should that make me feel less secure.
Likewise, why should I in the face of overwhelming temptations succumb to a
gnawing sense of unworthiness and guilt give up in the process?
Consider God
and our beginnings. Our beginnings depended not on us but on him. God chose you
and me in Jesus before
the creation of the world. He predestined you in love to belong to him to the
praise of his glorious grace. God somehow on his own initiative and with loving
intent made you his child made you his family, which means that you now share his home of heaven. There is an
inheritance for you of eternal life in the eternal presence of God in heaven
and we will be there one day. God made us his children and thus he lets us
share in the power of his household already now through the Holy Spirit. He
privileges us as his children to access the untold riches of a new life: supernatural
joy, love, hope, healing, wisdom,
According to the
words of the Bible John 1:16: From
the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.
Consider God
and our beginnings. We hone in on one verse the last one from
before Ephesians 1:7: In him
we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance
with the riches of Gods grace. This is a short summary verse of the core
truth of our salvation and we may think that we know it well enough but we
often dont.
In Jesus we
have redemption through his blood. Can we fathom how precious every single drop
of blood was that flowed from the dying body of Jesus when he hung on the cross
for the forgiveness of our sins? The Bible says 1 Peter 1:18-19: For you know
that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were
redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers,
but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. The blood of Jesus was the blood of a man
that was without blemish, holy, perfectly obedient to the will of God the Father.
The blood of Jesus this most precious substance contained the life of pure godliness which was the light of the world
speaking truth with power, healing and freeing people from the bondage of
Satan.
Yet, it was
sacrificed for you and me. We see
so many crucifixes and we talk so much about the saving death of Jesus that
some sort of desensitization sets in whereby we are no longer impacted by the
enormity of receiving Jesus blood as the balm that heals us from sin. The
Bible talks about the Son of God Jesus when it says 1 Peter 2:24:
by his
wounds you have been healed.
This is so
important that we understand. In our culture we are not that good with our
children. Many of our babies we kill in the womb. Only recently we have
legislated that we want to clone human life for the sole purpose of
experimenting on that life and then destroy it. How much do we value our
children? Many children suffer from absent fathers because families break down
or we no longer expend the effort of raising our children. Then just consider
what we do to the next generation when we make them watch the TV programs which
we produce, the video games, the internet the x-rated stories, the uncertain
values, the lies, the sinfulness which lodges itself in impressionable youth.
Thats whats
happening in our culture and therefore we may not quite appreciate that God is
different and that he loved in untold dimensions loved his only begotten son Jesus Christ. Heaven was not the same toxic
environment as our culture. At the sight of Jesus blood pouring from torture
wounds which we sinful humans inflicted on him God the Father broke down with grief. His Son his Son suffered and died. His blood stained the
ground.
These are
our beginnings the seeds of circumstances and action and Gods
intent which determine our endings. God
the Father loved his son but at the same time he loved us also. As sinful and
unclean as we were we are he is
passionate about us. God is I say this with reverence God is crazy about us and therefore with
the madness of love because there was no other way he gave away the blood of his son Jesus for us so that it is true Ephesians 1:7: In
him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in
accordance with the riches of Gods grace.
Do we fit in
with the people of God? Do we want to come on board support the effort
of going further in obedience to God here
at Living Grace? What about those that seem to be more mature or simply more on
fire or maybe just strange and what about my gnawing sense of unworthiness?
These
questions are not worthy of our beginnings. In fact our beginnings in God
expose the lie of these questions the underlying
assumption that somehow we would not fit in with the other people of God, that somehow this journey with God is not worth it or
somehow maybe we are left behind, because of sin should stay behind. No. These questions are too much about us
when our beginnings which determine our endings do not depend on us but God. The
blood of Jesus makes us what we are: forgiven, clean and holy, the children of
God family heirs of everything
good from God because of the blood of Jesus.
We do fit in
because God makes us fit in. Therefore stir yourself up we reject any gnawing sense of unworthiness
because God covers us with the worthiness of the blood of his Son Jesus. You
and I come on board because God promised in the Bible that our beginnings in
him will give way to even better endings Romans
The logic is
compelling. God gave up his own Son. He was most precious to him but nevertheless
he gave up his blood for us. If
God did that, why should he hold back anything else? Weve already been given the
best. How will he not also, along with Jesus, graciously give us all things?
This year 2007 resolve not to miss out. Beginnings
determine endings and every single one of us together we have our beginnings in the blood of Jesus which determines
our endings God the Father giving us, along with Jesus, graciously all things.
Amen.