Sunday, October 7, 2007
Ephesians 4:1-6
Senior Pastor
Let’s start this morning with a brief quiz. No need to panic, this will be multiple choice.
Here’s the question: Who has the most outlets in the
United States? Three possible answers:
McDonald’s, Mainline Protestant Churches, the United States Post Office?
(Jeopardy music interlude).
The answer is Mainline Protestant Churches with more than 66,000 local establishments. Yet, something is awry because we are shrinking as we speak. Did you know that the most recent numbers showed that the United Methodist Church lost 1500 members for the last reporting year… per Sunday. The total number was 80,000 members.
We have the outlets, but we have lost our zip, our zeal, our influence in people’s lives.
We are positioned well, but we are not functioning well.
This week the floor upon which I am standing was supposed to be sanded and stained. The floor guys came in Monday morning and tried to get things started. But their sanders kept blowing the circuits. They couldn’t get the right amount of power to operate their tools, so they could not do the job. They were in the right place but did not have the power to do fulfill their mission.
The tools by themselves are useless without receiving the
power to run them. I think this is part
of the problem in our churches today.
Somehow we are not well connected to our power source. For Christians the power source is God; it
is the power of the Holy Spirit. In the
words of our text today, we have lost a connection to our calling from God.
I therefore… beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called. And what is that calling? It is a calling to embody love and unity. It is a call to embody Christ, is you will. Listen as this writer to the Ephesians continues: with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (v. 1-3)
Then in the last verse we read, verse 6, it is made clear that this calling is empowered by the one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. In another translation it is even clearer when it translates this verse to say, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. (The Message) Our calling is to be a vessel through which God works, just like Christ was. Can you hear that as your call? Do you take your call that seriously?
The Good News for you and me is that we do not have to generate the power. The power is ready and available when we plug in. The power of God is here for us. Somehow even those of us who go to church regularly often miss this.
I know one woman who was raised going to church. Late in her teen years she married a man who was studying to be a Methodist minister. He finished his studies and did indeed become a Methodist pastor. She went with him to his appointed churches and heard him preach every Sunday for years and years. He was a very good preacher, one of the very best I have ever heard. So she heard some really good sermons and she went to Sunday School. But it was not until she was in her forties that she had an experience that really plugged her into the power of God’s Holy Spirit.
She went on a retreat the United Methodist Church sponsors called The Walk to Emmaus. It is a long weekend retreat that focuses on the basic teachings of the church. But beyond the teachings, the people who host this weekend work really hard to embody Christ in all things so that people have the experience of a loving God in the a human setting. This minister’s wife said to me after her weekend experience. “I finally understand grace. I never really understood it before. I had never really experienced it before.”
I was shocked. How
can that be? Forty years in the church
and in worship every week, but finally something clicked in her in a way that
plugged her into God’s grace and power and energized her in her Christian life
and walk in a new way.
That is what the church is at its best. It is a place and, more importantly, a people who embody Christ in all things. One of the reasons I am a proud Methodist is because we work really hard to never let our doctrine get in the way of embodying Christ in all we say and do. We always want to keep Christ at the center of our life together.
This letter from which we read today is an excellent reminder of this very thing: I therefore… beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (v. 1-3) I believe people are hungry for that kind of community. I believe we are that kind of community.
Just this week we have been that community to a woman who just lost her husband to death after spending her life with this man who is now gone. We have been that community to a young mother who is really struggling to make ends meet. She is working two jobs and has a two-year-old son and she needs some help and has come to us. We have been that community for a man who has lost his job recently and now at mid-life is searching for which way to go.
I am proud to be a Methodist when I know that we have been that community embodying Christ for a fellow who was recently arrested for drug possession but really wants to lead a Christian life and is working diligently at doing so. We have been that community for a man living with AIDS. We have been that community for an older couple who are both experiencing health problems and need some support as they face these difficult changes that come with advancing age and failing health. We have been that community for a family who has a family member deployed overseas and needs some prayer and support in these trying and dangerous times.
The experience of the church over the years is that participating in Holy Communion is one of the central ways to plug into the power of God. I invite you to open yourself to experiencing the power of God surging through your life in a new way this very morning. Let this time be your time to plug in anew to the power of God through Jesus Christ.
Reason
#5: We Embody Christ in All Things
Ephesians
4:1-6 10/7/07
Who has the most outlets in the United States? McDonald’s,
Mainline Protestant Churches, the United States Post
Office?
We are positioned well, but we are ______ functioning
well.
…we have lost a connection to our ______________ from
God.
…one God and Father of all, who rules over all,
__________
through all, and is present in all.
Good News…
is that we do not have to generate the __________.
…the experience of a loving ______ in the a human
setting.
…the church is at its best. It is a place and more importantly
a ____________ who embody Christ in all things.
We always want to keep ____________ at the center of
our life together.
…participating in Holy Communion is one of the central
ways to ________ into the power of God.
Kid’s Question:
What do we want to keep at the center of our
life together?