Random Thoughts and Ramblings

Tag: Evangelism

  • Sermon: “Sharing Jesus With the World”

    More or less, here’s the sermon I preached this morning. In hindsight, I probably should have changed the title because the sermon took a slightly different turn than what I envisioned earlier in the week. I ended up approaching the text as a prayer for the disciples Jesus would eventually leave behind. By extension, I believe Jesus was also praying for us, specifically that we would be united in our mission of spreading scriptural holiness throughout the world and that we would be sanctified by truth of God’s love. In other words, this is a call to unity, not uniformity in all things.

    I hope you receive a blessing from my attempt to articulate the message of Jesus.

    Text: John 17:6-19 (NLT)

    Think to when you can first remember hearing about Jesus. Who was sharing the good news with you? If you’re like me, it was probably your mother or someone in your life who’s like a mother to you. For me, it was my mother who I remember as the first one to teach me anything about faith. I was very sick when I was a child, something I’ll talk about someday, but this gave us a lot of time to talk about God and things about the faith. Momma was the first one who taught me to pray at bedtime and to pray when I was scared when I’d have to go to the doctor or to the hospital. She shared many a story out of her Bible. She was far from perfect, but my mother was the one who introduced me to Jesus.

    No matter who first shred Jesus with you, they still had to take the time and make the decision to do so. Every single one of us is set apart for a ministry of some sort, something that’s perhaps unique to how we’re gifted and equipped. There’s one ministry we are called to called to: Sharing the gospel. We get off in the weeds about having the correct words and all of that, but Jesus has already prayed for us to be prepared. He’s already prayed for us as we carry out the mission he started. Do we claim that? Are we united in this mission? This is precisely what Jesus prayed for and his desire for us today.

    Jesus knows that his time is growing short. If you’ve read ahead or know already, then you know that this just before he is betrayed and arrested. Jesus is obviously concerned for the apostles that he’s leaving behind. He knows that they’re still a rag-tag bunch who still don’t understand everything he has been trying to teach them. That kind of sounds like us, doesn’t it? He knows they have their disagreements and their arguments. Still, Jesus knows that he can’t stay much longer and so he does what our moms taught us to do in times of trouble: Pray. 

    Notice something about Jesus’ prayer: He wasn’t praying for his own worries or to otherwise be comforted. He prayed for each one of his students. And, honestly, I can’t help but believe he was praying for us too. He prayed that they might be protected from the whims of the world and those of the enemy. He prayed that the apostles be set apart as being in the world but not of the world, that the world might know that they are here but that their loyalty lies with God and God only. He prayed that they might be protected by God’s guidance and sanctified by the truth. He prayed that they might be emboldened to proclaim the gospel and that they might united in that truth. 

    Jesus also prayed that they might remain in the world to be His presence after he eventually ascended. Again, Jesus knew that his time was short, but he did not want the mission to end once he died, rose, and eventually returned to the Father. Jesus wanted the mission of reconciling humanity to God to continue and even to expand. Jesus knew that this would begin with his apostles being emboldened and strengthened to be the ones to keep it going. 

    I want us to receive this as a prayer for us as well. We are the continuation of the work of these apostles. We are not only the recipients of the gospel through others who answered the call of Jesus to proclaim, we are entrusted with the task of spreading the gospel t others. The best news that the world has ever received should not be kept solely hidden in our hearts, it should be shared and lived as loudly as possible. 

    Do I believe that Jesus expected all believers to be united in everything? No, I don’t. Jesus understood the reality of his people. As I already mentioned, the very apostles had disagreements amongst themselves and even disagreed with the meanings of Jesus’ teachings. The history of the Christian church is full of disagreements, splits, reunifications, even wars. Disagreement is part of the human condition. Jesus certainly knew that believers would not always agree. What I sense in this prayer is that Jesus does want us to be one in the mission to share the gospel, live the gospel, and make disciples who go out as sanctified believers to proclaim the gospel to new people. 

    This is a good opportunity to weigh where our loyalties lie. If we are supremely loyal to anything or anyone besides Jesus, then we need to repent. People, institutions, you name it… they all disappoint, disappear, reappear, and go through all the parts of a lifecycle. None of that is true about God, because God never changes. Jesus is always our messiah. We are his hands and feet. None of those things ever change.

    We are not called to be of one mind on everything but we are called to be unified in Christ. The fact is, people aren’t always going to agree on everything. Jesus didn’t pray for uniformity, where the believers would agree on literally everything, He prayed for unity, something that’s stronger than any differences that we, as the church, share. If we’re striving for uniformity, we are not going to be satisfied because there is simply no way that people are going to always agree on anything. This is simply not possible. Unity means we willingly set those differences aside for the sake of something much bigger than ourselves or our disagreements. In this case, we find unity in Jesus.

    A quote that I’m about to share is often attributed to St. Augustine but he didn’t say it. It was Marco Antonio de Dominis who gave us a great quote for today. What’s important for us to know about Dominis is that he was twice declared a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church during the days of the inquisition because he did not agree with some of the tenants of the Catholic faith, specifically the papacy. At some point during all of that, he wrote this: “in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity.”

    As we prayed last week when we came to Christ’s table:
    By your Spirit make us one with Christ,
    one with each other,
    and one in ministry to all the world,
    until Christ comes in final victory
    and we feast at his heavenly banquet.

    May it be so, Lord. If we truly want to honor the person who first told us about Christ – maybe even our mothers – the best way to honor them is to remember that we are not of this world, but we are in it to be Christ’s presence and his hands and feet. Surely, we can all agree on that.

  • Back to our Roots: Going to the Market Cross

    john_wesley_preaching-264x400In 2016, I took a trip made a pilgrimage that had a major impact on my life and especially my ministry. The Wesley Pilgrimage sponsored by United Methodist Discipleship Ministries took me and my fellow pilgrims around several places where John Wesley and others began what we know today as Methodism. One of those places was Epworth where John and his siblings grew up while their father, Samuel Wesley, served as rector of Saint Andrews Church in Epworth. After touring Saint Andrews and its rectory where the Wesley family lived we went on a walking tour of Epworth on our way to have tea at Wesley Memorial Methodist Church. One of the places we came to was the market cross at High Street. John Wesley used to preach here, in fact preaching at the market cross was a common practice for him. This was because the market cross was a gathering place for the people, where they would come to do their shopping and to meet with one another. With this in mind, it made sense for preachers like Wesley to gather people for worship and proclamation.

    In other words, he went to where the people were rather than expecting them to come to him.

    In 2019, we find ourselves in challenging times for those of us in ministry. The old ways of “doing church” are still alive but are barely hanging on by a thread. The idea that people will come to the church, while sometimes true, is often not the case anymore. Depending on who you are or what study you look at, there are many reasons for this including distrust of institutions, pain from previous negative experiences, and the church’s (speaking collectively) reputation for being judgmental and unaccepting of those who are different. Really, the reasons don’t matter. Nothing will change the fact that the days of people coming to church “just because” are over and they are not going to come back.

    Truthfully, those days should have never been.

    I shared with my congregations on Sunday that when Jesus gave the Great Commission in Matthew 28, he did not say anything about making disciples of the people who show up for worship at our campuses. Here’s what the text actually says – read it carefully. “Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:19 NLT) The keyword is “go.” The Greek language used here is used in an imperative sense, meaning that going is not optional. Further, Jesus did have people come to him but he always went to them first. The people are not going to come to us just because we have a nice building or a reputation for having vibrant worship (though those things are good). We must go to the people and give them the good news.

    I say again: We have to get back to our roots.

    The American church is in a challenging time but, truthfully, it’s a time that largely of our own making. We have forgotten why we exist. William Temple, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, is quoted as saying that, “the Church is the only institution that exists primarily for the benefit of those who are not its members.”We are more worried about our own survival as an institution and our own comfort rather than bringing those who are outside of our walls into the fold. We must remember our purpose and get back to it.

    We must get back to our roots.

    In the movie Sister Act, the nuns who Whoopi Goldberg joins as Sister Mary Clarance hide behind their walls because they are afraid of their neighbors. The neighborhood in which their convent is situated is not the best in the world, with adult stores and bars all over, along with homeless and poor people all around.  Finally, they have a wake-up call and start ministering to their neighbors and otherwise being part of the neighborhood. The result was people learning to trust them and the church’s pews were packed during worship. You may be surprised to know that this exact same thing happens in real life everyday when congregations step out of their walls and go to the people.

    I say again: It’s time to get back to our roots.

    How can we do this? It’s simple, yet difficult: We have to be the church. We have to find our own market crosses and proclaim the gospel to those who are there. But, we don’t have to use a firey sermon like John Wesley. We do this by meeting needs, showing compassion, and accepting people as they are. We have to step out of our comfortable boxes and do some ministry. We have to stop expecting people to come to our buildings simply because they are there and we have to stop expecting people to be just like us, including how they dress and even how they talk. Change occurred because Jesus accepted people as they were without trying to put them into a mold.

    I say again: It’s time to get back to our roots.