Grace Series: E is for Equipping

Pastor Burcham's Sermon

  Sunday, October 8, 2006

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Saturdays and soccer, they just seem to go together, at least in my house. I'm guessing in some of your houses, maybe in the past it was that way or maybe you're still in that stage, but every spring and every fall, Saturdays and soccer just seem to go together. I know some of you are saying Saturday? Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. In my house, it's just Saturday.

The two younger ones like to play soccer and they have for several years now. It's gotten more interesting, I have to admit, as the years have progressed. Madison, the older one, is 7½ and has progressed from herd soccer. You know what herd soccer is, don't you? That's when you have six children who just move around in kind of a herd around the field and then, every now and then, the ball goes into one of the nets. It really doesn't matter which side it goes in. Everybody cheers. Everyone's excited, and we move on to the next thing. We've progressed from that now, and it gets a little more interesting to watch because they actually pass the ball, run up and down the field, run plays. It's pretty exciting. But it just kind of goes with the season, and it's enjoyable.

But Saturday soccer also means a Saturday routine. A Saturday routine means you're going to have to get up early. You're going to have to get the kids out of bed, get breakfast in them, and then, just before you're ready to leave the house, you have to make sure they have all of the right equipment on. At this stage at least, there's not a whole lot of equipment for soccer but there are some essentials you have to have. You have to have your jersey on. You have to make sure it's the right color, either purple or yellow. You have to make sure you have your shorts, your socks, and all that kind of stuff. You have to make sure you have cleats on. Otherwise, you're going to slip and fall and really hurt yourself. You have to make sure you have a soccer ball, and you have to make sure you have shin guards. Now if you don't have the equipment, you really shouldn't play the game.

Example: Last spring, both girls had a game early. So we're out the door by 7:30 or some ungodly hour. And so we're rushing and hurrying, getting in the van, and we go off. Madison has her game first. No problem, everything goes well. Now we have to drive across the street, of course, for Mackenzie's game so we drive across the street. We're getting out of the van, getting things ready, and we notice we forgot Mackenzie's shin guards. Now maybe that doesn't seem like a big deal to you. In that case, you've never seen a group of 5-year-olds play soccer. Because the way 5-year-olds play soccer is they just kick wildly. Whether the ball's around or not is really irrelevant. They're just out there kicking on the field. Now certainly, I could have sent my daughter out on the field without those shin guards. But, more than likely, she would have returned to me bruised up, banged up, and maybe even injured from that. If she doesn't have the right equipment, she's not going to play the game.

If you don't have the right equipment, you shouldn't play the game. Our fifth and final statement of our vision is Gloria Dei will be an equipping center. In other words, in the game of life, that is, trying to navigate through life in this world, we need to have the right equipment, the equipment God gives us through His Word, His instruction, His direction, His guidance. If we don't have the right equipment, certainly we can live in this world. Many people do without God, but I guarantee you they're banged up, they're bruised up and, more than likely, they're pretty injured. But if you have the right equipment, it protects you from a lot of that.

That's why the vision of our congregation is we will be an equipping center, taking God's Word and putting it in relevant, meaningful, practical ways for people's lives so they have some guidance and direction as they try to live life to the fullest, as Jesus said, and as we get ready to live life for an eternity. But the vision of our congregation goes even beyond the fact of just being an equipping center for those who come through our doors, but our vision is larger than that. It's bigger than that. And we said we need to be an equipping center for the whole kingdom of God , that is, if we can, to be an equipping center for the church at large, and equipping center so we can navigate through life.

You see, an equipping center is the vision of a congregation that gets people ready for life. That's what a church does. It's what a congregation does. That's what many of the gifts God has given us are directed towards. If you look at the Book of Ephesians, we read it a moment ago, “It is He that is God who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some to be pastors and teachers, but for what purpose?” He says, “To prepare God's people, to make God's people ready.” To equip God's people is another way you could translate that word, to equip God's people so they can live in this world, so they could navigate through life. God seeks to equip us so we can live life to the fullest. And the number one tool He gives us, the number one piece of equipment He arms us with is Word. God gives us His Holy Word. In the pages of scripture, there is everything we need to know about God contained in there. Everything we need to know about our self is contained in there. In fact, I would be bold enough to say everything we need to know to face any and every circumstance in life is in God's Word. It may not address it specifically word for word, but contained in God's Word is all we need so we can face life and navigate through life.

St. Paul , when he was writing to a young pastor, Timothy, talked about God's Word this way, “All scripture is God breathed, that is, it's inspired by God and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training, and righteousness so the man of God, the woman of God, the child of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” God gives us His scripture so we can be equipped for life. Scripture is the only source of truth we have. It's the only unwavering document there is. God's Word never changes. It is the firm foundation. It's the only dependable resource we have that we can build life upon. It's the solid foundation we can always come back to. So it's the vision of a congregation that takes that Word, that truth God has revealed to us, and then applies it to our lives, giving people the tools, the instructions, the guidance, the comfort they need so they can live life to the fullest. It comes down to this: It's the vision of a congregation where, when the children come through our doors, we equip those children from the youngest of ages. So, from the youngest of ages, a child knows there is a God in heaven who loves them, that they have a Father who's in heaven who is intimately involved with them, that they are a special person uniquely made by God and loved by God. So when they grow older and somebody tries to tell them no, no, no, they didn't come from a loving God but they came from evolving out of monkeys in the trees or some goo that was zapped with a bolt of lightening, they know at the core of who they are, in the deepest recesses of their soul, they know that's wrong. They know there is a God who created them, a God who even knows the very hairs on the top of their head. That's equipped for life.

It's the vision of a congregation where children, when they enter into adolescence and they have to go through those early teen years and they have to deal with all of the emotions and all of the hormones and they face decisions, Friends, you and I didn't have to face at that age and they're bombarded with temptations you and I never had to fend off and when they're forced to make those tough decisions surrounded by their friends, tough decisions about drugs and alcohol and sex and being rebellious to their parents and rebellious to teachers and powers of authority, they have a source of truth in their life, they have a place where they can find guidance, direction, where they can receive advice of this is how God wants them to live and this is the best way to live. They have a place where they can be surrounded by fellow Christians so they can have the courage to stand up to the peer pressures they face each and every day of their life. That's equipping them to navigate through life.

It's the vision of a congregation, as a high schooler graduates and goes off to college, they have such a firm foundation, they've been built up so much in God's Word, they're ready, as ready as they can be, to face the independence, the freedom, and the temptation that often comes with college life.

It's the vision of a congregation where young couples, when they come together and they join their lives and are married, they have a place where they can find out what are the biblical principles we can base our marriage on? What does God's Word have to say about our family and raising our children?

It's the vision of a congregation, when someone is hurt, when they're grieving the loss of a loved one, yes, they hear the good news their loved one is in heaven, one day they'll be there, too, but it's a congregation that goes beyond that and says, “We'll walk along side of you and we'll help you through the grieving process.” It's what's been happening on Thursday nights right now already. There are 32 people. Yes, they know their loved one is in heaven. But 32 people are going through the grieving process with other people who understand their pain and understand the process they're going through. You see, it's a congregation that goes beyond just saying, “This is what God says,” but then applies it in a meaningful and relevant way in their lives.

It's a congregation that says more than you should pray, but it says, “These are some of the ways in which you can pray.” It's a congregation that says more than you should lead a godly life but it says, “These are some of the ways in which God tells us we can lead that godly life.” It's a congregation that says more than you should give up your addictions but it says, “We'll walk along side of you and show you from God's Word how you can have the strength and the courage to abandon those addictions.”

It's the vision of a congregation that equips people for life, equips them as they try to navigate through this world while, all the while, being ready for the next life God has promised to us. But the vision is larger than that. The vision for our congregation is larger than just the people who come through our doors. The vision expands beyond our walls, beyond our community, because the vision says we can be an equipping center for the church at large. It means there's going to be a change in focus. For many congregations, maybe most congregations, their primary concern is on their own ministry and on their own community and, for most of them, that's rightfully so because if we're honest about it, if we look across churches, across denominations, you'll find out that many, if not most, congregations are just trying to survive. They don't know if they're going to be in existence next month, next year, and they're focused just on survival. When you contrast that to the blessings of this congregation, we're not just trying to survive, we are thriving. We are thriving because of the blessings of God. And if God has so showered us with so many blessings, then I believe it's our responsibility to share those blessings, to share those blessings with the church at large. If we can, in the humblest of ways and giving all credit and glory to God, if we can be an equipping center to reach out to the church at large, if we can help other congregations, if we can help build the kingdom of God , you see, it's a shift in focus. It's a shift in focus from just building up our ministry but building up the whole kingdom of God and seeing ourselves as God's servants to do that. That's a vision of equipping the church at large.

What it means is we see ourselves as raising up and training church leaders. That means we're going to support and we're going to encourage men and women to go into full-time ministry and we're going to walk along side of them. And then we're going to launch them off and we're going to send them out beyond our community, maybe beyond our state so they can have a flourishing ministry someplace else and other people can be equipped by God's Word. It means, as a congregation, we're going to invite in people so they can learn from us. Maybe that's an intern in children's ministry or youth ministry. Maybe that's a vicar from the seminary who comes here and learns from our staff, learns from you, the congregation, learns from our ministry, and then we send them out. We send them out to the church at large so they can be a blessing to their congregation, they can be a blessing to the whole kingdom of God .

You see, it's the vision of a congregation that says when we develop something for our ministry, we're going to share that with others. An example of what I'm talking about is, a couple of years ago, we did 40 Days of Purpose . Unbeknownst to us, we did Rick Warren's book but we had our own curriculum, our own Sunday School material we developed. All of a sudden, congregations were coming to us saying, “Can we use that? Can we have a copy of that?” Because of that, that material is spread out over state lines. So when we developed the Ablaze material we went through last January through the spring into early summer, we had that in mind. And right now, the Ablaze material we went through this year, at least in a half a dozen congregations between here and Florida , it's being used. God is using what we have been blessed with to bless other congregations, to bless the kingdom at large. That's what it means to be an equipping center for the church at large. We give all the credit to God and in the most humblest of ways.

But it seems to me it's our responsibility, if God has blessed us so richly and if other congregations are in need, if the rest of the kingdom of God is in need, is it not our responsibility to share with them and to give them whatever resources we may have so the whole kingdom grows, the whole kingdom of God is flourishing. That's the vision of equipping the church at large.

Because I need to tell you, if you're going to play the game, you have to have the right equipment. I'm not going to send a 5-year-old out on the field without shin guards, and I wouldn't want to send anyone out into the world without being equipped with the Word of God. Gloria Dei will be an equipping center. Amen.

Copyright 2006 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church