Listen to the Sermon or the Entire Service
July 28th:
Call: James 1: 19-25
Text: Colossians 1: 21-28
Note: Worshipping With Chuck - Week One
Teach and Warn
Paul wrote:
"And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,
He has now reconciled
In his fleshly body, through death
So as to present you
Pure
And blameless
And irreproachable before him
PROVIDED
That you continue
securely established and steadfast in the faith
Without shifting from the hope
[that is] promised by the gospel which you heard
Which has been proclaimed
To every creature under heaven.
I, Paul, became a servant of this gospel." [1: 21-23]
Do we really grasp what Paul is saying?
He is proclaiming that in His death
Jesus wiped our slates clean
Leaving us - you, me, and all others -pure and blameless
And he is saying too: that we continue that way
So long as we remain steadfastly established in the faith and hope
that is promised in and by the gospel
A gospel promised not just to us
But to every creature under heaven.
You and I - and everyone else in this world -
have a chance to start fresh,
unencumbered by previous sins and failures
And our lives will be written on that clean slate
So long as we remain faithful.
I liked that message so much that
I selected it as my text this morning
Even though I had no idea as to how I was going to present it
However, as I read Andrew T. Lincoln's commentary on the scripture, I came to understand that:
We come together in the church
Knowing that it is Christ - and not the church - that saves us
[And that is a good thing because
the church is made up of imperfect people
and is led by imperfect pastors.]
We come together in the church
and here I mean the universal church
- not just this congregation or denomination -
As a community of believers
In which the divine purpose
of God's reclaiming the entire creation
is anticipated
and [we come] as a reconciled and reconciling community
through which that purpose is furthered.
That being the case, the most urgent tasks of Christians are
First, to do their part in making the church
A place of healing for broken relationships
And a place
where divisions caused by
Class, race, wealth,
Education, age, gender,
Nationality or religious tradition
Are overcome
And Second, to be an agent of peace and justice in situations of conflict,
In the home or the workplace
At the national or the international level.
Our focus as parts of the church
Is to say and to do all we can
As agitators for the values of the coming new world.
Values like love, forgiveness, kindness, & awe of God
That gospel of the clean slate and the role of the church in responding to it
Is the gospel to which Paul became a servant.
And it is the gospel to which you and I
Must become servants
That servanthood is amplified in the remainder of the text
[1: 24-29]
Paul tells us that it is Christ that we proclaim
Warning and teaching everyone
Paul admits that he struggles and he suffers as he attempts to do so
But despite that, he perseveres
And that he is enabled to do so
By the energy Christ powerfully inspires in him.
Paul is telling us
that God wants everyone in creation to hear the story.
Paul is telling us that Christ has called him to
Continue Christ's work on earth
By being Christ's servant in making the word fully known to everyone
Even though Christ's servants suffer as Christ suffered
And Paul is telling us that he can endure while doing that
Because of the energy that that the Holy Spirit
Powerfully inspires in him.
But the purpose of our listening to Paul's words
Is not to celebrate Paul
Although he certainly deserves at least a pat on the back
The purpose is to instruct us and to warn us
of what we are expected to do
If we, like Paul, want to say,
"I became" or "I am" "a servant of this gospel"
By Paul's words and example
We are taught that we are to share Christ's story
With everyone
By our words and our examples.
We are warned that in doing so,
We too may - in fact, probably will, suffer.
Charles Wesley's words are in the hymns
which will be guiding and leading us for 6 weeks of worship
and his example shows us both the success and the suffering
After all, Wesley was often attacked as he preached
potatoes, stones, and even excrement were thrown at him
a sword was put to his chest
buildings in which he preached or was to preach
were torn down and some were burned.
And yet, he persevered and he persisted
Obviously empowered by the same Holy Spirit
That empowered Paul and is available to empower us
And despite all he went through, he encouraged and instructed us
By writing in 1744,
"Ye servants of God, your master proclaim
And publish abroad, his wonderful name"
And recognizing the fact
that it wasn't easy and that we might well suffer
he followed those words with hope and assurance
"the name all victorious of Jesus extol
his kingdom is glorious and rules over all."
We sang those words a few minutes ago and so I ask:
In singing them did we do so
As persons who saw themselves as servants of God?
Or did we sing them
As mere observers of others who are Christ's servants
Distancing ourselves
from both the suffering And the servanthood?
Are we what James, in our call to worship, warned us not to be
"Hearers, but not doers?"
Or are we what he called us to be
"Doers who have heard?"
Do our lives convey - not to a few, but to everyone -
The values of love, forgiveness, kindness, and awe of God
Or do we allow our selfishness and differences to push some away
If we find ourselves afraid of the suffering required of doers
Then we need to recall
Not only the examples of Paul and Chuck
But also the lesson we learned from the self pitying Elijah:
That we are not alone
Chuck makes that point in our next hymn where he writes
Our redeeming lord joins us by his grace
That each to each we are restored
So that TOGETHER we can seek his face.
And that Christ
bids us to build each other up
And be gathered into one
Fulfilling our glorious calling
By hand to hand going on.
Christ's word is for everyone together: Paul, Chuck, you, and me
And so, if you and I are to be Christ's servants
We must together proclaim by teaching and by warning
Paul understood that. Charles Wesley understood that. Do we?