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“You
Were Made For a Mission" |
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“You
Were Made For a Mission" |
Sermon
seven in the 40 Days of Purpose programme Rev.
Dr Robert Iles
at Golden Grove Uniting Church, S Australia.
21.11.04
I hope you had an enjoyable week thinking
About your gifts and talents. Rick suggested some that may apply to you.
Have we discovered any embalmers amongst us? Or weapon makers – perhaps?
We are on the home run with our 40 Days of Purpose series.
And in the latter half we have focused on responding to
The fact that you are made for God and what are you going to do about it.
I challenged some of you to dedicate your life to Christ and others to
Be involved in ministry, as Sandy and Trevor were as excellent
First-time worship leaders.
We were challenged by Scripture last week to consider how we can
All be ministers in the congregation exercising gifts and talents.
You find them by experimenting. Reading the Bible in church.
Visiting someone. One humble person said the think I am most happy with is helping do the morning tea dishes. Wonderful.
One morning before worship a young girl came into the vestry to commend her talents.
She was a disturbed, young girl who was being fostered.
She said “I want to play a song this morning to the congregation”
This is the same young girl who had sat next to me in the front pew when we had a guest speaker and who asked rather loudly five minutes into the talk:
“How much longer is he going to speak?”
She was determined to play “Let it Be” on the piano this particular morning.
I said: Samantha we have planned morning worship but play it for me after
Worship and we’ll see”. Pacified, she did. When she played there was not one note in what she played
That remotely reminded me of the Paul McCartney classic. Her talents may have been in other directions. So experiment with yours, publicly, privately. Whatever gives you most joy, whatever prompts you to pray,
Whatever others affirm and benefit from, shows you have that gift
For building up God’s people or serving others outside the church.
That was last week. Then we saw a marvellous display demonstrating gifts and talents in our Mission Fair.
All accompanied by a couple of trendy musicians, out in the hall,
Plied with sausages and onions What a morning!
Today I want to introduce the theme by asking you about a television movie.
And this is a risk asking you about a movie two weeks ago.
It’s risky because at the slightest mention of its songs, you may be distracted for the rest of this morning.
For example, “Doe, a deer, a female deer”……”I have confidence in confidence alone…” The hills are alive…” Did anyone watch the Sound of Music the other night?
It’s a timeless, powerful, engaging movie that has been around since 1967, when some of you weren’t even born. Not many of you but some of you.
It is a fascinating story but it is largely wrong. Don’t let me spoil the songs or the movie but the facts have seen some adjustment. The movie changed the story
At a number of key points. One of the von Trapp children wrote a book.
The fact is that there was no family flight over the mountains.
When the family fled, they went to the rear of their home and caught a train
Out of Austria. And Maria was not the benign, effervescent Julie Andrews,
She was a tough task-master who worked them very hard for years
As singers.
Getting the story straight is important. And that applies to the Christian faith above all.
Many people have no real idea what Christianity is all about.
Some think the main interest of God is blessing
Rich nations and conservative politicians. That his main interest is
In endorsing and blessing everything we do. That he is more concerned with our tax bill than Christians in Sudan, Vietnam, Iraq, Iran and N Korea.
The reality is that we have a message of Good News.
A W Tozer said: Only the Christian church of all the world religions
Is able to proclaim the Bible’s Good News that God, the Creator and Redeemer,
Will bring a new order into being”.
For at one point in human history, after thousands of years of alerting the world to the existence of God through Israel, God chose to become a human being.
He was human in such a way that it did not interfere with his being the Son of God. He was the Son of God in such a way that
In did not stop him from being fully human.
He showed what God was like. He came to his own people but they did not want to know him. Only a tiny group did. He taught and preached.
He said little about sin but dealt with it and its effects all the time.
He died because of it, rose to defeat it and offered a new life to all who
Would accept him as saviour and Lord.
He is Lord over all – all within us that is good and bad, he is Lord over the nations with both the US and N Korea both equally in need
Of his mercy and grace. And that is all Good news made brighter as the world becomes darker.
Two verses in the New Testament summaries the true story of Christianity:
2 Cor 5: 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
So Jesus says in Matthew 28,
to all who have come to him in repentance and faith:
“G”! Do something with the Good news I have given you.
I thin we have become so familiar with this Good News that we need to be reminded that it is good news. And Good News is that there is not only a God but
He has shown himself in Jesus Christ and he is for us, he loves us and nothing can separate us from that love.
So he says Go. Be evangelists. The word may leave us cold but the message should not.
There is no area in which it is possible to feel guiltier than evangelism.
That we don’t do it enough; that we don’t do it well enough; that
We don’t get results we would like to see.
And yet evangelism is like this. There are many things in the world you and I cannot change. Iran’s nuclear programme, Islamic persecution of Christians and much more but there is one thing we can change, and that is other people.
As Rick Warren says: Every time a human need because apparent to you
God has lain before you an opportunity to bring his Good News
But for most of it is the going that is the challenge. Most of us are very shy.
We don’t like imposing on people. We don’t want to embarrass them or ourselves.
We don’t want to strain relationships or make people dislike us.
But think of evangelism like this: all of you often help people.
People often call in at our place, lost in Golden Grove. I tell them where to go and so do you. If you knew a solution to cancer but kept it to yourself,
That would not be right. People share herbs they have found helpful.
People talk about who are the best local doctors are or if not the best then at least identify those who bulk-bill. Evangelism is helping people find Good News for their lives.
We had Good News to share with you about the government grant
And delighted in bringing it. So we can share the Good News of Jesus with people if we have found it to be Good News ourselves.
And it will always be Good News when we see Jesus as he is for us and with us and commanding “Go”. Jesus becomes Good News when see that God is not a moral
and spiritual policeman hanging around to condemn us.
John 3: 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
As we approach Christmas we have a chance to go.
More so. People will be coming here, on our premises.
How can we best respond to that? A man rang the other day and said he was a professional singer and sang at many carols nights.
At dinner with some friends they said they did not like
Big events on ovals. Were there any smaller carols events in local churches?
He told them he had been here and that our carols night is wonderful. So he will be here with his friends on Dec. 22. Unfortunately Barbara, he wasn’t looking to join a choir.
But he will be coming here, and that is an opportunity. We can welcome people, Denis follows them up and we can all build on that.
Jesus tells us to go but some of our greatest opportunities are when people come.
But let me talk with a couple of people who did go.
We have a young woman who
Gave up some of her life to go and work with YWAM.
The Athens Olympics wasn’t just about Ian Thorp’s gold medals.
Carlie, come up to the front. (Carlie went with Youth With a Mission to the Athens Olympics to undertake evangelism and outreach amongst the visitors)
Evangelism is something we can all do. If you can tell people about a good movie you can be an evangelist. If you can say: I go to church at Golden Grove you are being an evangelist. If you can say: I read my Bible, you are being an evangelist.
Let’s not keep to ourselves the true story about Christ:
God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself and entrusting to us the ministry of reconciliation. You can do it. Jesus needs you to do it. The lost need you to do it. Don’t keep it to yourself.