Building an Effective Church: Boldness and Courage

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

Sunday, October 28, 2007

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

Well, leave it to Bill Gates to take the same kind of boldness that he used in the software industry and transfer that into his philanthropic interest. A recent article in the Seattle Times is entitled, “Boldness Welcome.” It talks about a new initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It seems that they are going to give away $100 million over the next five years in what he is calling The Fast Track Grant Program. Fast Track Grant, that’s almost like an oxymoron. Grants are not given away quickly. Grants are usually an arduous procedure where there has to be a lot of research and then a group of scholars comes together and evaluate the work and then there has to be some results that are shown. So if you’re going to receive a grant, the person giving it wants some kind of guarantee that this is going to pay off.

Not so for Mr. Gates in this bold, new move. He states the goal is this, to encourage scientists worldwide to explore creative, unorthodox ideas that could lead to major breakthroughs against some of the greatest health challenges facing poor countries. The article concludes, “The initiative’s approach, while tempered with shrewdness, is audacious as the scientific ideas that it hopes to yield.”

Boldness. Not foolhardiness. Not impulsiveness but boldness. As we conclude our series of messages on being an effective church, we learn from the early church and we learn from history that God’s church is a church which is bold in proclaiming the resurrected Jesus. It’s bold in getting the message out. Certainly, we could see that in the Book of Acts. We just read a small account from Chapter 4 of Peter and John and their boldness. Today, as we celebrate the Reformation, we think back to Martin Luther and the other leaders at that time and certainly we can say they made some bold moves to bring the gospel back into the church. And I believe we can even look at the history of our own congregation and we can see some bold moves by God’s people. The question remains, though, what is the next bold move for God’s people?

As you look at boldness, I notice three distinct characteristics. Boldness usually comes from a conviction, a deeply held conviction. That deeply held conviction then usually translates into some sort of action and that action then is empowered by something. We can certainly see it in the early church. All we have to do is page through the Book of Acts and we can see one bold account after another. We read from one in Chapter 4 with Peter and John. Let me give you just a little bit of a history of where that comes from. It’s not too long after Pentecost. Pentecost is when the Holy Spirit came down upon the apostles. They were inspired. Peter got up. He preached the best sermon ever preached. Three thousand people came to faith. That was Chapter 2.

Chapter 3 is where we pick up with our current story. Peter and John are on their way to the temple once again. As they’re going along their way, there is a man who has been lame since birth and he’s begging because that’s the only way he can make any money so he can feed himself so he is begging for money and he does the same with Peter and John. Peter says to him, “Money I do not have but what I do have, I will give to you.” And he says, “In the name of Jesus Christ, be healed,” and the man stands up. Now can you imagine? He’s been lame since birth. And all of a sudden, he has strength in his legs and he can stand up. Well, he’s not going to let this go by. Peter and John try to carry on their way to the temple. This guy’s dancing around. He’s following after them. And all the people are looking at him saying, “Isn’t this the guy that was always begging? He’s been lame from birth.” Pretty soon, a crowd gathers round and they’re wondering what’s going on. And so Peter and John use that opportunity to say, “We didn’t heal this man. It’s the power of Jesus of Nazareth. Let me tell you about it.” And so they go on to preach this message about Jesus and how forgiveness is found in His name and about His resurrection and they just get to the meat of things and the religious leaders catch on. And they don’t like this. No, no, no. Not a good deal at all. So they take Peter and John and they don’t know what else to do with them, so they throw them in jail. But now that they’re in jail, they are like, “What do we do with them? After all, this guy who’s been lame since birth is now running marathons and dancing the jig. We can’t hardly punish them because this guy has been healed.” So they say to Peter and John, “Listen, don’t ever talk about this Jesus again. Now go on. Get out of here.” That’s the early church.

The conviction of the early church is found in this account of the healing of this lame man. The conviction of Peter and John is found when they speak to the leaders in their own defense. So we pick it up in Chapter 4. Peter and John are standing in front of the whole religious leadership of that time and this is what they say to them, “It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified but God raised from the dead that this man stands before you healed.” And here’s their conviction, “Salvation is found in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” This is their conviction. Salvation is found in no one else but Jesus. You see, they have become convinced. They are convicted. They hold to the belief that Jesus of Nazareth is actually Jesus the Christ, that He is the Messiah, the long-awaited one and beyond that, He is also the Son of God. And He lived among them and they sat at His feet for three years. They watched Him die on a cross and three days later, they witnessed the fact that He came back to life. And they are convinced, their conviction is that salvation is only in Him, that forgiveness only comes through Jesus, that eternal life, heaven itself only comes through the name of Jesus Christ. This is their conviction. They are so solid on this conviction that nothing will stop them from preaching about Jesus.

The religious leaders say to Peter and John, “Alright, listen, we’re going to let you go but don’t you ever talk about Jesus again. Now get out of here.” Peter and John reply this way, “But Peter and John replied, ‘Judge for yourself whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God for we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and what we have heard.’” In other words, “Throw us back in jail. Take our very lives. We don’t care. We will not stop speaking about Jesus.” This kind of conviction leads to some pretty bold moves.

Let’s go back to Chapter 3 for just a moment. You want to talk about a bold move. Peter and John are speaking to the people in Jerusalem. Now obviously, they’re all Jewish people and they’ve all been waiting for the Messiah, right? This is what they say to them, “You disowned the holy and righteous one and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life but God raised Him from the dead.” Don’t know if I’d be that gutsy in a sermon. They were. They basically told them, “The Messiah that you’ve been waiting for for hundreds of years, generation upon generation, He was here. That was Jesus. You remember. You decided you wanted Barabbas, the murderer, to be released instead of Him. Do you recall the case? Yeah.” And then he goes on to say, “You killed the author of life.” So he says, “The Son of God was here and you killed Him.” That’s a pretty bold statement to make in a crowd of Jewish people that they had killed the Messiah but see, they had a conviction. Salvation could be found in no one else. So they wanted to convince the people that Jesus is the Son of God, that He is the Messiah, that salvation is found in His name.

What’s the result of their boldness? Chapter 4 tells us, “But many who heard the message believed and the number of men grew to about 5,000. Acts 2 we got 3,000 men and women. Now we have another 2,000 of just men. So how many other families? 2,000 plus people come to faith because of the bold move of Peter and John. The thousands of believers in the 1 st Century turns into 10,000 and then it turns into millions and then it turns into billions of believers and those billions of believers? They turn into you and they turn into me. Because of the boldness of the apostles. Because of the boldness of their preaching, the Christian church was born and you and I are gathered here this morning putting our faith and trust in Jesus alone. They didn’t do it just on their own power and might. They were empowered by God’s Holy Spirit. Peter, just before he gets up to talk to the leaders, scripture says this, “Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them.” Maybe even more dramatic than that is when the early church gets together after Peter and John are released and they’re praying and they said, “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your Word with great boldness.” After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word of God boldly. They prayed to God and God answered with His Holy Spirit and gave them the courage and the encouragement to speak boldly.

Let’s fast forward about 1,500 years, shall we? We’re into the Middle Ages. It’s a dark time. It’s a dark time in the history of the world but it’s also a very dark time in the history of the church. The church has lost its way. The church has actually lost the actual gospel message. The church at that point was a very political force in the world as much as it was a spiritual and religious force. And the church, all of a sudden, was teaching not that salvation was found only in Jesus, not that forgiveness was found in His name but instead, the church was teaching that forgiveness is only found when you make up for all the wrong things that you’ve done, that you have to work off all of your sins and all the nasty things you said and all the wrong things you did. Somehow, you have to make up for that. Maybe you have to punish your body. Maybe you have to recite something. It even got to the point where the church said, “You can purchase your forgiveness.” They called it an indulgence. If you just paid a certain amount of money buying this indulgence, all of a sudden you would be absolved of sin and, worse than that, they said, “You know, your loved ones didn’t make it to heaven because they didn’t make up for all of their sins so they’re in a place called purgatory. But, listen, have we got a deal for you. You can buy an indulgence for your loved one in purgatory and as soon as you buy the indulgence, bang, they go right to heaven.” That’s where the church had gotten to. God was an angry judge up in heaven looking down on His people ready to squash them. And so God’s people lived in fear of God.

Onto the scene comes a man called Martin Luther. Through a series of events, he becomes a monk. Then he becomes a priest. Then he becomes a teacher in the church. And all of a sudden, he starts digging into God’s Word and, through books like Romans and Galatians and Ephesians, God opens up his eyes. Forgiveness is not about what we do but it’s about what God has already done for us. So the conviction of the Reformation, the conviction of Luther can maybe be summarized in Romans 3:23-24, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The church knew that but they missed Verse 24, “And are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Justified freely by His grace. You mean forgiveness, salvation is God’s free gift to His people? That’s what Luther discovered and he would stand by this conviction that we are saved by grace through faith. This is something God does for us. It has nothing to do with us. It’s God’s greatest gift to us. God is not an angry judge but He’s a loving and merciful God. This is his conviction. He held this conviction so tightly, he would not move on this. When the church came to him and said, “Martin, recant of those teachings.” That is, say that he was wrong in teaching that. “Otherwise, you will be excommunicated.” In other words, “Sign your own death warrant here, Martin.” Maybe you recall the quote, “I will not and I cannot recant. Here I stand. God help me.” That’s boldness. Boldness. Because of that conviction.

And that conviction led to more boldness. October 31, 1517, he nails to his church door a series of statements that he wants to have debated. We know them as the

95 Theses. Well, it’s not all that uncommon to debate things except for the things he called into question in those 95 statements because he called into question such things as purgatory. He called into question the selling of indulgences and, the worst of all, he called into question the authority of the Pope himself. At that time in history, you didn’t question the Pope. You question the Pope, you ended up dead. Boldness.

What was the result of that? The entire Protestant church. More important than that, the gospel being reintroduced to his people. All of a sudden, God is not someone to be feared. He’s not some angry God. He’s a loving and compassionate God, a God who loved us so much He sacrificed His Son for us and the forgiveness and salvation is His free gift. That was the result of that bold move by God’s people, by God’s church. Luther didn’t do it alone. He was empowered. He himself talked about that and he talked about the work of the Holy Spirit. In the Small Catechism, he says the work of the Holy Spirit is that he calls, gathers and enlightens his people. Luther was enlightened by the Holy Spirit as he read the Book of Romans and Galatians and Ephesians and, thus, the gospel was restored to God’s people.

Let’s fast forward again, shall we? Not quite 500 years. Let’s come to our own congregation. What is our conviction? Well, our conviction is strong, is it not? We are a Lutheran congregation. We hold onto the fact that we are justified by grace through faith and we will hold onto that, that salvation is God’s free gift to us and we have nothing to do with that. We hold onto the fact that scripture is the only rule and norm for our lives and we will hold onto scripture and we will uphold scripture and we will teach scripture and all of its truth and its purity that God works through the means of grace, His Word and also His Sacrament and we will be immoveable on this conviction. When the opinions of scripture are not popular in the world, we do not change. We hold true to scripture. When some say that we’re narrowminded or we’re just judgmental, we are immoveable because we stand upon God’s Word and we’ll boldly proclaim that Word. That’s our conviction.

That conviction has led to some pretty bold moves. I think it was pretty bold back in the 1960's, frankly, to have a group of you come together and say we’re going to form a Lutheran congregation in Urbandale, Iowa, so a handful of you worship over at Olmstead School. And then in 1964, another bold move. Let’s build the first sanctuary. Now I don’t know but, to me, it had to be pretty scary standing in that sanctuary with just a few of you gathered there saying, “Where’s God going to lead this?” But that bold move led to the growth of God’s people. It led to the spread of the gospel, so much so that by the 80's, we had to add an Education wing so we could teach our children and adults, so much so that by the late 1980's, you couldn’t fit in the sanctuary anymore, so we had to build this beautiful place to hold God’s people. And the first service you had here, you must have looked around and said, “What are we going to do with all this space?” And yet now God fills it up time and time again on a weekend. But you didn’t stop there. In 1999, we had to build more because more of God’s people were coming to learn from Him and to be introduced to Him and then, in 2000, it may have been the boldest move yet that we’ve made as a congregation. We established our vision of grace. We came together and, through prayer and through study and through discussion, we said, “What is going to be the guiding document as we seek to be faithful to God and faithful to our convictions?” And so we took the word Grace and made it into an acronym and we said that each one of those letters stood for what we were going to strive to do.

We said this is going to be a place of Growth, spiritual growth, we’re going to grow in our faith and our relationship to God. It was going to happen through worship, through study, through any means possible so we could mature in our faith and our relationship with God. We said we’d be Relationship-centered, that we are made to be in community with one another, that our relationship with God is supreme and that’s the utmost but also a relationship with one another and we’re going to work on that relationship and be in relationship with one another. We’re going to be A beacon to our community. We’re not just going to be in the community. We’re going to be a vital part of that community. We’re going to be a beacon to the people around us. We are going to be Courageous, my friends, courageous in reaching out and testifying to Jesus and what He has done, that every single one of us will have a passion for sharing our faith, sharing it with our families, our friends, our coworkers, our neighbors. We will share our faith across the street, across town, across the state, across the country and, yes, even across the oceans. We’re going to be courageous in sharing the news of Jesus. We’re going to be an Equipping Center so God’s people can come and learn from His Word and be equipped for life and see the practicality of it and even beyond that, in the humblest ways, if we can equip other churches to be about this work with us, we’re going to do that.

That was a bold move. What’s been the result of all these bold moves? Well, from a handful of people back in the early 60's to well over 2,500 people that call Gloria Dei home, from worship numbers in the double digits to well over 1,000 people a weekend coming to hear from God’s Word and partake of the Sacrament, from a few dozen kids learning about God’s Word to over 250 children and young people who come together on a weekly basis on a Sunday and on Wednesday to learn about their Savior and to know how their faith applies to their life, I’d say that those bold moves had an impact.

But we didn’t do it alone. We did it by the power and the blessing of God and empowered by His Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that was there at the early church, the same Spirit that was there at the Reformation is the same Spirit that lives among us now as we boldly, boldly reach out with the message. I said boldly, not foolhardily, not impulsively but boldly. That’s what an effective church does.

My friends, I believe Gloria Dei is an effective church and I believe that we will continue to be an effective church. I also believe that we will continue to be bold in our witness to Jesus Christ. For the last two years, the leadership has been working on a strategic plan for our ministry to answer the question, “What are the next bold moves for this congregation as we speak about the resurrected Jesus?” You’re going to see that strategic plan in January. What that final plan ends up looking like after you see it and you react to it and it changes and it molds and it shapes, only God knows what that plan will look like. But what my prayer is, is that we as a congregation will pray the prayer of the early church, the same one in Acts 4, that we’ll come together and we’ll say, “Now, Lord, consider the threats but enable your servants to speak your Word with great boldness.” That we would pray those words, that the very foundations of this building would be shook as God made His presence known and that some time in the future, people would look back and say, “They were bold in reaching out with the message of Jesus.” Amen.

Copyright 2007 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church