Come enjoy an early Thanksgiving feast at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, November 7 at Open Door Lunch.
Turkey and traditional accompaniments are on the menu and you’ll enjoy the company of church and community friends.
All donations will benefit Samaritan Ministries.
You’re invited (men and women) to a Bible Study on October 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 and November 5 at 10:30 a.m. or 6:30 p.m., your choice; the study will be held in the banquet room (morning session) and in the conference room (evening session).
We will be studying the first seven chapters in the book of Acts. Mary Ruth McRae and I are so excited to bring this study to you. As part of this study, we will see our resurrected Jesus with His disciples giving them their last instructions, study the birth and growth of the early church and learn who was named to replace Judas. We will also be studying the Holy Spirit coming at Pentecost.
We hope to see you in October, you only need to bring your bible. If you have questions just give me a call – Grace Shutt – 336-408-4969
2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17
June 17, 2018
Today is Father’s Day and I am wearing my dad’s tie. My dad died from cancer just after I accepted the call here to New Philadelphia. He was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer in early September 2016 and not even two months later, he died. I remember the day before his funeral. Kelly and I were out looking for some appropriate clothes for Zach to wear- even though he is a pastor’s kid (a double PK actually) he doesn’t often wear a jacket and tie. While we were shopping, I decided to look for a new tie for myself. But not just any old tie.
My dad was a lifelong Wake Forest fan. He graduated from Wake in 1965 and rarely missed a football or basketball game. That love of Wake Forest sports was definitely passed on to me, and I decided to look for a tie in old gold and black for his funeral. I looked in a number of stores but just couldn’t find the right tie. So decided to just wear one of my regular old ties.
The day of his funeral, Kelly and Zach and I were getting dressed at my parents house. And I just happened to look through my dad’s ties, where I found this one. It was EXACTLY the tie I had been looking for to wear. So I asked my mom if it was okay for me to wear it for the funeral. Of course she said yes. And that I should just keep it if I wanted it. It has become my favorite tie. I wear it on the most special and important of occasions; like Father’s Day.
As I was looking over the scriptures for today- I had really planned to focus on the OT or the Gospel lesson. I preached on 2 Corinthians two weeks ago and Worth used it last week, so it seemed like this week was a good chance to move on to something else. But as I read the verses from 2 Corinthians, and remembered that it was Father’s Day, I knew that I would HAVE to preach one more time on Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth. It just fit too well to do anything else.
There are three phrases in those verses that have stuck in my mind all week: for we walk by faith, not by sight…For the love of Christ urges us on… and if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! I think that each one is special enough to spend a little bit of time on this morning.
When Paul wrote to the Corinthians that we walk by faith and not by sight, he was doing so as a way of affirming their belief in Jesus, even though they had not ever seen Jesus during his earthly life. For that matter, neither did Paul. And that was a bit of an issue for Paul. In those first decades after Jesus was crucified and died, then was resurrected and ascended into heaven, there was some controversy about the legitimacy of those believers who never knew Jesus in his earthly life, especially about those who called themselves “apostles” yet never knew Jesus. Those who knew Jesus while he walked on the earth wondered if someone who didn’t actually know Jesus in the same way that they did could preach the “true gospel” of Jesus.
Yet Paul did preach the true Gospel of Jesus and he wanted to assure those who heard it from him that it was okay, that he was a legitimate apostle. Paul also wanted to tell them that even though they had never seen Jesus, even though they didn’t know him they way that those who were with him did, they too were still true followers of Jesus. Their faith was just as genuine as the sight of others.
It may not seem like that big of a deal to us today. We are all like those followers of Jesus who didn’t ever know him. We are thousands of years and thousands of miles removed. We know that we don’t have to have seen Jesus to know Jesus. We all walk by faith and not by sight. While we don’t need to hear Paul’s words in the same way the believers in Corinth did and we don’t need them to reinforce our legitimacy as Christians, we still need to hear them. Because even though we have no doubt about our legitimacy as believers, we still need to remember that we walk by faith and not by sight.
For us, walking by faith and not by sight is not so much about our faith in who Jesus was and who Jesus is, it is more about what Jesus is going to do. It is about how Jesus is at work in our lives. The faith that we walk by is a faith in God who creates, redeems, and sustains his children. It is a faith that trusts in our God enough to know that every little thing is going to be alright.
This journey that we are on that we call our lives often seems like we are stumbling around in the dark. We don’t know what we are doing and we can’t see where we are going. Even though we can’t know or see the future, we know that God will continue creating, Jesus will always be redeeming, and the Spirit will constantly sustain us, as we walk by faith and not by sight and follow our Lord and Savior.
For the love of Christ urges us on… it’s not always easy to be a follower of Jesus. It’s hard to walk by faith and not by sight. The Apostle Paul knew this and we know it too. Paul faced many challenges and difficulties even after he encountered the risen Christ- maybe even especially after he became a Christian. As I mentioned before, his legitimacy and authority as an apostle was questioned and constantly challenged. And he suffered from what he called “a thorn in his flesh” that kept him humble and made his life difficult. He was not that different from us.
We have challenges and difficulties in our lives as followers of Jesus. We struggle with being in the world but not of the world. We are challenged by the call to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. And we even struggle to love ourselves; especially to love ourselves in the same way that God loves us.
We are often incapable of looking at ourselves and seeing us the way that God sees us. We see our faults and failings; and God sees them too. But unlike they do to us, they don’t matter that much to God. For God loves us unconditionally, despite our faults and failings. God looks at us and sees all of those things that we see in ourselves that make us unlovable; unlovable by ourselves or anyone else, yet alone by the Creator of the heavens and earth and all that it is. God looks at us and sees our faults and failings and God loves us anyway.
God loves us so much that he died for us. When God became human, when Jesus died on the cross, it was all done for us and for our salvation, so that we might not die but may have everlasting life. This is the love of Christ that Paul writes about. It is the love to urges us on… it urges us on to love each other and to love the world in the same way that we are loved. It is the love that urges us on to love each other, despite being keenly aware of each others faults and failings. The love of Christ urges us on to love each other anyway.
It urges us on to live, and to love, not for ourselves, but for others. Which brings us to the last phrase from 2 Corinthians that has held my attention this week “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” This is the one that convinced me to preach one more week on this same letter. Because this is the one that reminded me so much of my dad.
For my brother and sister and I, we knew that we were loved unconditionally, supported and encouraged in all our endeavours. We were urged on by his love. My dad had a way about him that made it comfortable to be around him, even when there were no words to be said. When you were in his presence, you just knew that you were loved and accepted and valued and safe.
In addition to being a great father to me and my brother and sister, my dad was a “father” to many other boys, and later to many other men and women. He spent his life helping others to see themselves as the “new creation” in Christ that they are meant to be. Much of my dad’s career was spent as the director of the Winston-Salem Boys’ Club. It was those same gifts that he shared with us that enabled him to be a second father to countless boys who desperately needed a positive male influence in their lives. As he did with his own children, he loved them into seeing themselves as new creations in Christ.
After leaving the Boys’ Club, he went to work at Prodigals Community, which was a recovery community for people struggling to overcome addiction. At Prodigals, he helped many men and women to know that they were beloved children of God, that they were loved and forgiven- unconditionally and completely. It was at Prodigals where dad became the true representation of the Father as he greeted God’s beloved children and welcomed them home to the love that they desperately needed, greatly desired, and so deeply longed for.
My dad helped countless people to be able to see themselves as God sees them; he helped them to claim their identity as a child of God. No longer are they defined by their faults and failings, but they are “new creations” in Christ, everything old has passed away- all of the sins and shortcomings, all of the selfishness and striving to fit into the world, all of that is gone and we are made new.
I used the word “we” intentionally. For it is not just fatherless boys and substance addicted men and women who need to know that they are loved. It is not just them who need to see the old pass away and all things made new. This is something that we all need. We all need to claim our identity as new creations, as God’s beloved children.
I don’t want you to leave here thinking that my father was some kind of saint. He was a great man but he also had his own faults and failings. However, he didn’t allow those faults and failings to prevent him from seeing himself and others as God’s beloved children. On this Father’s Day, I know how very blessed that I am to have had a father who helped me to see and know this. But I also know that many aren’t as fortunate as I am. Many people struggle with Father’s Day. Either because their father’s are no longer with them (like me) or because their fathers have never been with them or, even worse, they had fathers who were the exact opposite of what a father is supposed to be.
Yet I also know that God gives us a father. Maybe not in the men who caused us to be born or who were married to our mothers, but God gives us at least one man in our life who fills that role of father, who helps us to walk by faith and not by sight, who urges us on with the love of Christ, who helps us to see ourselves as new creations in Christ.
So on this Father’s Day, just like I wear this tie to honor and remember my father and to give thanks to God for giving him to me, I want us all to take a moment to honor and remember our fathers, and give thanks to God for sharing them with us. Whether it is our actual father or another who was or is like a father to us; they are indeed a gift of God.
And even as we give thanks, let us also be challenged to be like them; to do for others as they have done for us. For we all need those people in our lives who see us as God sees us and who help us to become who God has created us to be. And we are all called to be those people to each other and to the world. It doesn’t take being a father or a mother, but it does take the being able to love like a father or a mother, it takes being able to love each other as we are loved by God- who creates us, redeems us and sustains us. It takes someone who knows that they are a new creation in Christ and wants to help others know that they too are new creations in Christ. So let us urge each other on with the love of Christ as we walk by faith in that love.
Amen
Jars of Light
2 Corinthians 4:5-12
June 3, 2018
My wife and I went to Raleigh this week. Since she is serving as pastor of a Lutheran Church now, not only did she have to go to the Moravian Synod, she also had to go to the Lutheran Synod. It was held on Friday and Saturday in Raleigh. They have Synod every year instead of every 4 years like we do. So they have it not at a conference center, but at a hotel. Even though I had no desire to attend another Synod, we were paying for the room, so I decided to tag along and just hang out. Thankfully I didn’t have to actually attend any meetings.
Driving down to Raleigh on Thursday, I felt a little tug at my heart when, as we rode on I-40 through Greensboro, I saw the exit for 421 South towards Siler City. I remember taking that exit many times as a kid going to visit my grandmother. My dad grew up in Siler City and his mother (my grandmother) lived in Siler City all her life. When I was young, we would often go down and spend the weekend with her.
There wasn’t a lot to do in Siler City. Those Saturdays were spent visiting my great aunts and uncles and riding by Aunt Bee’s house. After she retired from show business, Aunt Bee- from the Andy Griffith Show- moved to Siler City. So we would always have to cruise by her house when we were in town even though we never actually saw her. Those visits to Siler City were far from exciting, yet I remember always enjoying them.
The best part came on Saturday evenings in the summertime, when my brother and sister and I would each get an empty glass jar, poke holes in the lid, and take it outside into my grandmother’s yard and try to catch lightning bugs. Her yard seemed to be covered with thousands upon thousands of those fascinating insects.
We used to fill those jars with as many as we could catch and then we would shake the jar, just a little bit, to try to get them to all light up at the same time. It was a beautiful sight to see those little bugs making their own light shine, to see that light make that whole jar, even the whole night, shine so bright. Of course it had to be a glass jar. It wouldn’t have had nearly the same effect with any other kind of jar. Maybe we could have seen a little bit of the light shining out of the top of the but that is not nearly as good as seeing all the light, shining together.
I was thinking about this as I was contemplating what Paul wrote to the Corinthians about the light of God shining in in our hearts and about how we have this treasure in clay jars, so it can be clear that it comes from God and not from us. I’m not really sure how keeping this treasure in a clay jar is helpful. It would be kind of like keeping those light’ning bugs in a clay jar. It would tend to be contrary to the whole point of it all. What’s the point of having treasure like that if you can’t even see it. Didn’t Jesus tell us not to hide our lights under a bushel basket? This seems like the same thing.
It’s an interesting idea, keeping treasure, any kind of treasure, in clay jars. It doesn’t make much sense at all. Not now and it probably didn’t even then. When Paul was writing, a clay jar would have been far down the list of places where anyone would keep treasure. They are too fragile, too porous, too cheap- they are easily thrown away.
They are even mentioned in the cleanliness laws in Leviticus. Where most things that come into contact with something or someone who is unclean can be washed and made clean again, a clay jar can’t. Once that happens it has to be broken and destroyed. That is how easily contaminated they are. And also how disposable they are. When I have a treasure, I want to keep it in something solid, strong, and permanent- basically the opposite of a clay jar.
The RSV and KJV translations use “earthen vessels” instead of “clay jars”. I think that this is helpful. It helps me to not get so hung up on the whole literal image of a clay jar and see the deeper metaphor that Paul was using. Certainly a clay jar is an earthen vessels, it’s made from the dust and dirt of the earth, but there are many more things that also qualify as earthen vessels, including our own human bodies.
I think that this is what Paul was getting it. WE are the earthen vessels, the clay jars, that the treasure is kept in. That makes a lot more sense. For we are certainly like clay jars, at least our bodies are. They are fragile, they are breakable, they are even disposable. And they are temporary.
As Paul wrote in his first letter to the church in Corinth:
What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:
“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
When Paul writes of keeping treasure in jars of clay, he is reminding us that God dwells in us. The God who created everything that is- the heavens, the earth, and life itself, dwells in our fragile, breakable, disposable bodies. This is the treasure that is in us, this is the light that shines out of the darkness. It is the light and the love of God.
God made that light and love visible to humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. When God became human, when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, the light began to shine in and through the darkness. The darkness that could not, and can not, and will not, overcome it. And we see the glory of God in that light, in him, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
We see that glory and that glory shines in our hearts as Jesus dwells within us. It is not us that shines, but it is the glory of God shining in us and through us. It is telling that Paul refers to this as an “extraordinary power.” I don’t think that he is referring solely to the power of the light shining in the darkness, though that certainly is an extraordinary power. I think that even beyond that the extraordinary power that dwells in us is the power of love.
Love is why the Word became flesh, love is why God became human. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” God did it all because of love. God became flesh and dwelt among us because He loves us. God gave up all that he has and all that he is because He loves us. God then gave up the life He had taken on, He allowed himself to be shamed and humiliated, He allowed himself to be lifted up on the cross to die, because He loves us. “For God so loved the world…” That love represents an extraordinary power.
I think that we get so caught up in the the first part, in the whole business of not perishing but having everlasting life, in our worry about our lives lived in these earthen vessels, that we lose sight of the second part. We lose sight of the love. It is kind of overwhelming to contemplate the idea, the fact, that the same God who created the heavens and earth and all the dwells in them, the same God who was and is and is to come, the same God who is all seeing and all knowing is also all loving. How can God look at the world, with all its faults and sins and hatred, and love it so much that he sent his only Son to save it?
For that matter, how can God look at us, with all our faults and sins and selfishness, and love us so much that He became one of us, and allowed himself to die so that we might have eternal life? How can God love ME so much that he died for me? Yet that is exactly what God did. The truth that God came to us and Jesus died for us tells us that the extraordinary power of God that dwells in us is LOVE.
These clay jars, these earthen vessels where we keep this extraordinary power, well they are meant to be broken. I don’t mean that our bodies are necessarily meant to be broken, to be injured, to be hurt, even though they are fragile and those things happen to them all the time. What I mean is that they are meant to let the light shine, to let the love out, to let loose the extraordinary power that dwells within them. Because even though our bodies are only temporary, the light of the love of Jesus that dwells within them is eternal. And it needs to be seen.
So even though we are afflicted in every way, we are not crushed; we are perplexed, but we are not driven to despair; we are persecuted, but we are not forsaken; we are struck down, but not destroyed. This life that we live is hard, but it is not our only life. There is something more. We are something more than these earthen vessels, these clay jars. We have the light of God in us. We have the love of God in us.
We can let that light, that extraordinary power of the love of God that dwells in us, we can let it out. We can let it out of these earthen, temporary vessels, and we can share it with the world. Because we know that no matter what, one day our perishable bodies will put on imperishability and our mortal bodies will put on immortality and death will be swallowed up in victory. Death is at work in us, but the life of Jesus, the love that dwells in us and the light that shines through us is greater than death and has overcome death.
Brothers and sisters, We are not jars of clay but we are jars of light. Let your light shine and let the love of God that dwells in you, break free so that it can bring light and love into this dark world. Until he comes.
Amen.
Friday May 4
Speaker: David Stanfield and Bill Byrd
Breakfast served at 7 a.m. *sharp*
First timers, your breakfast is “on the house”
Nursery available for All Services
Palm Sunday
Sunday, March 25, 9 AM & 11:10 AM
Holy Week Readings
Monday, March 26, 7 PM
Tuesday, March 27, 7 PM (Band prelude 6:45 PM)
Wednesday, March 28, 7 PM
Maundy Thursday Communion & Readings
Thursday, March 29, 7 PM (Band prelude 6:30 PM)
Good Friday Tenebrae Service
Friday, March 30, 7 PM (Band prelude 6:30 PM)
Easter Worship
Sunday, April 1, 10 AM (no Sunday School)
Parents are asked to gather their children from the nursery prior to the Easter Liturgy so we may all worship together as a complete congregation.
Easter Morning Liturgy
Sunday, April 1, 11 AM (Begins at the front of the church and processes to God’s Acre.)
Remember to bring fresh flowers and greenery on Easter morning. A large wooden cross, wrapped in wire, will be in the sanctuary.
Come early and arrange your natural spring bouquet on the cross before worship.
February 18 – First Sunday in Lent/ Communion
February 19 – 10:30 a.m. 1 Peter Bible Study, six sessions looking at the book of 1 Peter led by Grace Shutt
February 20 & 27, March 6, 13, 20 – 12 p.m. Who’s Who in Holy Week, five sessions meeting the people we hear about in the stories of Holy Week led by Pastor Joe Moore (day)
February 21 & 28, March 7, 20, 27 – 6 p.m. Who’s Who in Holy Week, five sessions meeting the people we hear about in the stories of Holy Week led by Pastor Joe Moore (evening)
March 4 & 11 – 4:30 p.m. Gospel of Mark study session led by Pastor Worth Green in preparation for the March 18 “Gospel of Mark” presentation by John Robinson
March 4, 11, 18 – 4:30 p.m. Children’s Lenten program “What Lent Means to Me” led by Evie Blum (March 11 New Philly Kids incorporated into this program.)
March 18 – 4:30 p.m. “Gospel of Mark” presentation by John Robinson
March 25 – Palm Sunday
March 26 – 30 – 7 p.m. Holy Week Readings – including Maundy Thursday Communion and Good Friday Tenebrae Service
March 31 – Egg Hunt (details TBA)
April 1 – 10 a.m. Easter Morning Worship
Fly Eagles Fly – sermon by Rev. Joe Moore
Isaiah 40:21-31
February 4, 2018
For the last two weeks, I have been driving my wife crazy. (Well, she would probably say that I have been driving her crazy for the last 22 years) But specifically for the last couple of weeks, I have been texting her or calling her or just asking her “Hey, did you hear that the Eagles are in the Super Bowl?”
Yes, I am an Eagles fan. I come by it honestly. As I mentioned last time I preached, our first church was in New Jersey. South Jersey to be exact. And South Jersey is basically a suburb of Philadelphia. We could actually see the Philly skyline from our house in New Jersey. So naturally, the Philly sports teams dominate the news. The Eagles, Phillies, Flyers, and 76ers are all anyone talks about.
So while we were living there, I adopted some of those teams as my own. I would root for the Phillies (if they weren’t playing the Braves) and the 76ers (on the rare occasion that I paid attention to the NBA) and I even had a Flyers t-shirt (despite knowing nothing about hockey). But the Eagles became my team, primarily since football is my favorite spectator sport.
While I naturally wanted to support the local teams, it also helped me as a pastor there. It gave me an instant conversation starter with the members of the congregation. It was kind of like what Paul meant when he wrote “To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.”
I’m not saying that I became an Eagles fan “for the sake of the Gospel” but it helped to establish some common ground with people that I really didn’t have much in common with otherwise. Being a North Carolina boy in New Jersey made me something of a stranger in a strange land. That is really the first steps in sharing the Gospel- finding something that brings you together, establishing a relationship, building trust. Coming together over things that are less significant allows you to then share about the more important things- like the good news of Jesus Christ.
From the very beginning of Christianity, followers of Jesus have been called to share the gospel- Jesus sent his 12 disciples out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Then the risen Christ expanded that mission when he said “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” and “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”
Sometimes I feel that we don’t really take that call as seriously as we should. We know that we are supposed to share the gospel. And we try to share the gospel. But it is not the driving force of our life and faith. We share it when it is convenient, or comfortable, or safe. But we seldom take risks to share the gospel, we seldom venture out of our comfort zones, we don’t have a sense of urgency or expectancy. We don’t feel like Paul does when he proclaims “Woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel!”
That’s a pretty powerful statement. I don’t think that we have ever felt “great sorrow or distress” when we fail to proclaim the gospel. We may feel a little bit guilty, but it is a passing guilt that quickly fades. We may know that we should but we don’t really feel that bad when we don’t. We certainly don’t feel “woe”
I see three main reasons for this- 1) the sense of urgency isn’t as great for us as it was for the first Christians and 2) We haven’t had the Gospel “proclaimed” to us and 3) proclaiming the Gospel is hard! I want to spend a few minutes taking a closer look at each of these.
1)We don’t proclaim the Gospel with the same urgency that the earliest Christians had. Let’s face it, over time the sense of urgency will fade. Jesus’ original disciples, and other first century Christians, like Paul, believed that the return of Jesus was imminent. They believed that it would happen in their lifetime. Therefore they did not have much time to share the Gospel, the good news of Jesus, with the
Knowing both the command of Jesus to be his witnesses to the end of the earth and to make disciples of all nations combined with the belief that Jesus was returning soon, meant that they HAD to share the gospel as quickly as possible. I imagine that if we were living then, we would feel the same. But we aren’t living then. We are living now, and almost 2000 years have passed and believers are still waiting for Jesus to return. And we all know how that works. The longer we wait for something, the less urgent, the less immediate it seems. Sure, we still believe that it is going to happen. But instead of expecting it to happen tomorrow or next week or even next year, we just think that it is going to happen “someday” but who really knows when.
So we don’t feel that urgency to share the gospel. We know that if we don’t take advantage of the opportunities we have today, there is always tomorrow. And if not tomorrow, there is always the day after that and the day after that. For two millennia, there has always been another day, another opportunity, to share the good news of Jesus. It seems almost arrogant of us to think that this is THE day or this is THE time.
But maybe we should. Maybe we should try to revive that sense of urgency and immediacy to share the gospel that motivated the first Christians. Because we have been entrusted with the same gospel that they felt such urgency to share. We have been given the same mission, received the same calling. And the news is just as good now as it was then. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that whoever believes in him will not perish but will have everlasting life.”
This news is something that we should never hesitate to share. It is news that can’t wait until tomorrow. It is news that requires being told to the whole world. For God did not send his son, the Word did not become flesh, just for us, or for some of us. But for the whole world and it is up to us to tell the world. So we can’t stop until we have made disciples of ALL nations, until we have been Jesus’ witnesses to the very ends of the earth. We need to reclaim that sense of urgency.
The second reason that we don’t proclaim the Gospel as we should is that we have never had the Gospel proclaimed to us. Yes, we are all believers but our faith is primarily an inherited faith. It is something that we have received from our parents and family and church. Our faith is not something that we didn’t have one day and were told about the next. But it is something that we have always had, and always known. It is something that we have cared for and nurtured over the course of our lives. And that is a good thing. But it also limits our understanding of what it means to have the Gospel PROCLAIMED to us.
Imagine what it would be like to hear about Jesus and his love for the very first time; to hear the Good News that you had never heard before. It would be news that was actually NEW. I would want to run and tell everyone all about it. Kind of like how I have felt the need to text Kelly every day about the Eagles being in the Super Bowl. It’s just something that is impossible to keep to yourself.
We need to treat the Gospel in the same way. We need to be so excited about it, so amazed by it, that we can’t help but tell everyone we meet about how exciting and amazing it is. We believe that, don’t we? We believe that the Gospel of Jesus is exciting and amazing, right?
The final reason that we fail to take our call to proclaim the Gospel as seriously as we should is that it is just hard to proclaim the good news. And I mean that very literally. It is hard work. It takes confidence and commitment. It takes patience and persistence. Like a Boy Scout earning his Eagle award.
To proclaim the Gospel, we need to elevate the gospel. We need to see it- not as something that is essential on Sunday morning but nonessential the rest of the week- but as something, actually the ONE thing that is essential always. We need to remember that we need the good news; that everyone needs the good news.
And we need to believe that it is up to us to share that good news. Yet, in the midst of our calling to share the good news, we need to know that even though everyone needs the good news, not everyone is ready for it. Not everyone is ready to hear the gospel, to receive the gospel, to believe the gospel. But we can’t let that deter us, we can’t let that defeat us. We can’t let that even slow us down or stop us.
We have to keep on sharing the good news of Jesus even with people who aren’t ready to hear it, or receive it, or believe it. We have to keep on doing it until God makes them ready. It’s not up to us to determine when and where people are ready to hear and receive the gospel. Our task is to proclaim it- to all people and all the time.
God knows how difficult that can be. God knows and God helps. The words we read in Isaiah make that clear. The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
God gives us all that we need to fulfill the mission he has given us. God gives us power and strength. God allows us to fly like eagles, soaring higher and higher, as we seek to help the world claim the victory over love over hate, of light over darkness, of life over death. That is the Gospel, that is the good news. Through Jesus, love wins over hate, light overcomes darkness, life defeats death.
So let us regain that urgency that Christians once had because the good news is THAT good. Let us proclaim the Gospel that we have received. And let us walk and not faint, let us run and not be weary. Let us fly like Eagles and tell all the world the good news of their salvation. Do you not know? Have you not heard? We do know and we have heard, so now let us go and share what we know and tell what we have heard.
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