A Time to Sing and Celebrate

PASTOR BURCHAM'S SERMON

Sunday, November 7, 2004

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

Before I begin, there's one thing I have noticed about both the 8:00 worship and also this worship service today. Lutherans can clap! Wow, Lutherans can clap. And we should clap, and we should have a good time. Because today is about celebrating. It's about celebrating what God has done among us and what God has done for each of you individually.

We have been on a journey for 40 days. Now it's hard to believe it was 40 days ago we started. And at the beginning of that, we asked quite a commitment. In fact, it was a large commitment on behalf of the congregation and it was a large commitment on your part to give a significant amount of your time and resources to delve into God's Word and to study God's Word and discover the purposes He has for you. And you turned out in droves to do just that.

Over 500 of you gathered on a weekend on a weekly basis and studied God's Word and had discussions in your small groups. Over 920 of you averaged came here every Sunday morning so you could worship God, praise Him, and also receive from Him His message and also His grace He has for you. It has had a phenomenal effect on our congregation. We walked through the building on Ministry Sunday and Mission Sunday and you couldn't make it through the center wing because there were so many people hungry, eager to find out how they could be involved in ministry, how they could accomplish the mission God has given to us.

It has been a phenomenal 40 days, and it's time for us to celebrate as the people of God. Now we know the journey is not over. We can't just leave behind all we've learned, but we're going to leave that discussion to next week and Pastor Tim is going to lead us in that. But for today we're going to celebrate. In fact, I'm going to add to your celebration. I'm going to keep my message really short this morning. Promise, I'm going to keep it short. Because really all we want to accomplish this morning is just sort of to look back over the past 40 days and to maybe summarize that or get a recap of what we've been through.

And the best summary I know comes from the first chapter of the book, in fact, the very first line and it's rather short. It says, “It's not about you.” And that really capsulizes the book. It's not about you. That's central and core to the book's theme, and it's also central and core to our relationship with God. It's not about you. It's not about me. It's about God and all God has done for us. And see, we need to understand that and realize that from the very beginning. Otherwise, the five purposes won't make any sense at all. We have to realize this is about what God has done for you through Jesus Christ. And God has plans for you.

You see, the question is not, “Let's read the book and find out what I'm going to do with my life.” The real question is, “What has God done for my life? In fact, what has God done for my eternity.” It's not about us, and it's not about our career choices and about the path we take. But it's about God and what God has done for us and how we can respond to God's love in our life.

You see, it all really begins with John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” You see, it all begins with God and what God has done for us. How many times in your reading of the book or your study of scripture did you have that discovery? It's really about what God has done for you. How many times was it pointed out to you if you were left on your own, if you were just abandoned, if you had to wander through life with no direction, we'd be completely lost? We can't make it on our own. We wouldn't know which way to go. In fact, scripture tells us we'd be eternally lost. But it's about God and what God has done for you, the fact that God has such a powerful love for you, that He has such an enduring love for you, that He was willing to say to His only Son, “Son, I want you to go into the world and take on flesh and blood. But I have to tell you, you're going to take their place.” It's about God's love that is so deep the Son was willing to come and live among us, take on flesh and blood, and He was willing to sacrifice Himself for us.

Romans 5:8 puts it this way: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” While we were still sinners, while we were still enemies of God, while we were still separated from Him and our relationship with God was broken, Christ came and died for us. He died so that relationship could be restored, so once again we could have fellowship with our Father in heaven. That's what God has done for us.

Maybe Ephesians 2 puts it the best, “It is by grace through faith that you've been saved, not by works so no one can boast. It's the gift of God.” It's about God's gift to you. It is God's gift of life. It is God's gift of eternal life. It's the gift of forgiving you all of your sins that we're reminded of each and every day and specifically here in our worship service. It's the reminder that when this life is over, it's not the end but God has an eternity planned for us. An eternity. An eternity which is so much better than this life we can't even imagine it. It's about God doing all that for us and, frankly, if we don't get that, if we don't understand it's not about us, if we don't understand it's all about God and what He's done for us, then the rest of it doesn't make sense. Life doesn't make sense, and certainly these five purposes that have been outlined don't make sense. The five purposes just turn into five laws, rules, and regulations, five things more you have to do. And that's not it at all. It's all about what God has done for you.

And when you realize God's love and grace in your life, then you have to ask the question, “Then how does God want me to live? How can I respond to that? How can I respond to all God has done for me? How can I live a life which brings glory and honor to Him?" Now that's what the five purposes answer for us. They say there are five reasons why God created us. And in response to what He has done for us, then we're going to live out those five purposes.

So it says, first of all, God created us for his pleasure, that is, for worship. That we could come together and worship God. Now certainly we're talking about corporate worship as we gather each and every Sunday morning, but what we've discovered even about corporate worship is that when we come together to worship God, Jesus says He wants us to worship Him in spirit and in truth. In other words, we don't come in Sunday morning and occupy a space in the pew out of obligation and somehow feel that as long as we do that, we've served our duty and we go home and live the rest of our lives as if nothing happened on Sunday morning. That worship isn't about just coming in and going through a bunch of rituals, saying the right things at the right times and somehow thinking that we've fulfilled something. We worship in spirit and truth, which means we encounter God in worship and we praise and honor Him and we receive from God His Word, we receive His Sacrament as He comes and builds us up in the faith and reassures us of His love. That means worship can happen in any number of places. It can happen in any number of styles. It can be contemporary, traditional, somewhere half way in between. It can be with a band or with an organ. It can be in this or it can be in jeans. But we worship in spirit and truth. That's what worship is about. But it goes beyond that. It goes beyond that to the fact we worship God in everything we do. Once we know God loves us, then we respond by saying we're going to love God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our body, and with all of our strength. Which means that in every breath we take, in every activity we're involved in, we can do that to the honor and praise of God. Whether we're out here on Saturday digging bushes and planting them and beautifying God's property or whether we're in the office on Monday morning. It all can be praise to God, and we decide we're not working for ourselves, we're not working for the boss, but we're working for God. And every task we do, we do it as if we were doing it for Him. That's how we worship God.

We discovered God wants us to be in the fellowship. God wants us to be part of His family. There is a connection between all of us here, and the connection is the common faith we have in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, which means the person on this side of the room may not know the name of this one over here but there's a connection between the two of you and the connection is your Savior. Scripture says we have one faith, one baptism, one Lord and it unites all of us. So God has given us this fellowship of believers, whether we're here in Urbandale , Iowa , or we're over in Toyoko , Japan , or we're down in Viet Nam or we're in Kentucky , the Christians all have a common bond that brings them together. Christ unites us. And in the fellowship, which we need, we come together and celebrate as this Sunday's all about. We're going to laugh and we're going to joke and we're going to have smiles and we're going to enjoy food and fellowship down in the other wing. Fellowship also means that we carry each other's burdens, that we cry with one another, we pray for one another, we help and support one another. Because we're part of this family, God's family.

It's about discipleship. It's about becoming more and more like Christ. It means we have a hunger for God's Word. We hunger to know what God has to say for our lives. Once we know that we've been redeemed and we've been saved, we want to then respond in a life which is worthy of this great calling God has given to us. In essence, what we want to do is we want to become more and more like our Savior, Jesus. Now first and foremost, Jesus is our Savior. He's our deliverer, but Jesus is also our example. Did you notice in the gospel lesson Jesus washes the feet of the disciples and He says, "I've done this for a purpose. I've done this to show you what it is to be a servant. I've done this as an example." And He finishes it by saying, "You'll be blessed if you do these things." It is our hearts' desire to become more like Jesus. In reality, we want to have a change in attitude, a change in the way we think. We want to have the same attitude as that of Jesus, so we make our decisions the way He would make the decisions, we would conduct our lives in the way He conducted His life. It's a lifelong process. It's something that's going to happen from now until we reach heaven. It's called discipleship.

We discover that each one of us has a ministry. Each one of us was created to serve. Isn't it amazing to think that God created each and every one of you distinct? Each and every one of you has a specific DNA. No one else has that DNA, and God is the one who designed that DNA and God is the one who made you just who you are. And scripture tells us that God specifically gifts each and every one of us uniquely. There is no two of us alike, which means that each and every one of you have a special gift God has given to you and He gave you that gift so you could be involved in ministry, that is, caring for the family of believers. As you care for the family of believers and you help and support one another, as you use the gift God has given you to build up this body of believers He has bestowed upon us, that's when you find significance. You're not going to find meaning and significance in your career. You won't even find it in your family, but we find meaning and significance when we're involved in God's ministry, when we're involved using the gifts He has given to us.

We discovered God has a mission for us, and He has created us to accomplish that mission. Now I don't understand why He's given us the mission. In my book, I think God should have given it to the angels because they would have done a better job than we are. The mission God has given to us is to take the gospel message, the good news of Jesus, and to spread that throughout the whole world. It's our responsibility and it's our privilege to do that, which means we make the most of every opportunity we have to make sure we can be a good witness for Jesus and all He's done for us. And I have to tell you I'm extremely proud of this congregation. I'm proud of the way you reached out at work, the way you reached across the fence to your neighbors, the way you picked up the phone and you called your friends and you invited them to study God's Word with you for the last 40 days. And I know a number of them responded in the positive, and you've come together on a weekly basis. You know, I don't think there's a way in which you could show how much you care about another person, how much their friendship means to you than to be willing to have the courage to invite them to study God's Word so the love you know from God you can make sure they know that love also.

But the mission doesn't stop there. The mission doesn't end after 40 days. In fact, God has told us this mission is going to happen until He returns. But if God gives us a mission, I guaratee you He equips us so we can accomplish that mission. And He's equipped us with the message, the message of salvation by grace through faith and He's also equipped us with His Holy Spirit, the power so we can accomplish the mission. Each and every one of us has the Holy Spirit in our heart. God gave that to you at your baptism, and it is that spirit which empowers you, which gives you the courage, which gives you the very words to speak up and to share the message of Jesus with your friends, your neighbors. In fact, God says we have to go beyond these walls. We have to go beyond these walls out into our neighborhoods, out into our community. We have to go beyond our community. We have to go to our nation. We have to go beyond our nation; in fact, God says we have to go to the ends of the earth so everyone, every person can call upon Jesus as their Lord and Savior, that every human being could know His love like you and I know His love.

That's why God created us. That's how we respond to God's love. You see, it's not that we love but it's that God first loved us and now we respond back in love. And we love God when we live out the five purposes He has for us. Now this is just the beginning. We need to discover how we go on from here now that the study is over. But for this morning, we have to have a good time because we should. We should as Christians have a good time and celebrate, celebrate what God has done in your life and celebrate what God has done as a congregation. So join me for the next few minutes and let's relive the past 40 days. (Video with music)

An incredible 40 days it has been. All praise and glory to God.

Copyright 2004 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church