It’s an awesome task - to preach.
You may have heard of that old story of the preacher who was invited to be a guest preacher in another congregation. He preached what he thought was a good sermon and stood at the door of the church to greet the worshippers as they left. one by one, the people shook his hand, exchanged the usual platitudes, and went their way. one teenage boy came through, shook hands, looked the preacher square in the eye, and said, “You preached too loud,” and
then walked away. Now that’s not the kind of thing we ministers are accustomed to hearing. It upset the preacher, but he was able to shake it off and go on greeting the worshippers. Very soon, however, the same young man appeared in the line. He looked the minister in the eye, shook his hand again, and said, “And you preached too long.” Well, this really upset the minister. But he pulled himself together and continued to be as responsive as he could to the people who were greeting him. But here came the young man again. He shook the minister’s hand, looked him squarely in the eye, and said, “And what you said wasn’t worth saying.”
A woman of the congregation had been standing close by and had witnessed all of this. Seeking to be helpful, she approached the minister and said, “Now don’t pay any attention to that young man. You see, he’s mentally retarded. And all he knows to do is just repeat what someone else is saying.”
As I close this series with you, I don’t want to simply repeat what someone else is saying -- but I do want to repeat what I’ve been saying. Some of you have seen this little book, Let Me Say That Again. I was flattered a couple of years ago when Janice Grana and Charla Honea asked me to go through my writings and glean from those writing some of the truths expressed in a sentence or two that might capture the mind and heart of people and give them something to chew on -- “something,” they said, “like the popular Life’s Little Instruction Book.
Someone suggested, tongue in cheek I’m sure, that it might be called “Maxie’s Maxims” -- but we all knew that wouldn’t do. I began to think about my preaching -- my communication style. Now I seek by repetition to plant a truth firmly in the mind of listeners. Perhaps you have noted it. Many times, when I state a truth and really want it to sink in -- before I move on to elaborate it, I use a phrase redundantly, “Let me say that again.”
So that’s what we called the book -- and that’s what I decided to do in this concluding sermon. What better thing could I do than simply say again what the Christian faith is all about -- to rehearse the essence of the gospel, and tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love. So here goes.
I. One, God loves you.
Let me say that again. God loves you. In fact, God loves you as though you were the only person in the world to love. We have that on the authority of Scripture. This is the golden thread that runs through the Bible. You remember Psalm 8: “When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and stars which thou hast ordained - what is man that thou art mindful of him or the son of man that you pay attention to him - for you’ve made him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor.” The birth of stars and galaxies - creation alone was not enough. Creatures for relationship were essential for God’s being. So we’re the pinnacle of creation, made in God’s image, and God loves us.
One of the most haunting words in the Old Testament which captures this is Isaiah’s record of God speaking of his people, Israel. Isaiah 49, verses 15-16.: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget; yet, I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.”
And the ultimate expression, of course, is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” It’s the golden thread that runs through the entire Bible. God loves you. That means at least three things. One, you are special. Two, you have access to the Father, and three, you can be forgiven. I can’t elaborate on all of these. Focus for a moment on the third. Nothing is more important for us to know: we can be forgiven.
Let me say that again. God loves you - you can be forgiven. Now I don’t say that casually. This is no superficial religious expression of the psychological dictum, “I’m OK, you’re OK.” This is the profound expression of the heart of the Gospel. I chose my words deliberately. I was tempted to say, “You are forgiven.” I deliberately said, “You can be forgiven.” There is a difference. God’s forgiveness is a fact. The cross is God’s great act of love and forgiveness. But to appropriate that requires something of us. The demand of repentance is laid upon us - deep grief and sorrow for our sin. As the liturgy for Holy Communion puts it - an intention to “lead a new life by following the commandments of God.” When we know that we’re loved by God and when we know that God’s ultimate act of love is to forgive us - if we know that in our heart of hearts - we are driven to repentance.
Repentance flows out of gratitude for what God has done for us and the opportunity that can be ours to find and live a new life, free of sin and guilt.
One of the most thrilling things at the Seminary is our worship services on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I wish you could share in those experiences some time. Estes Chapel is full of students and faculty as we worship together, and the singing - it is glorious. Many times we will have testimonies. During senior week at the beginning of May, we had chapel every day.
Seniors plan the services. In every chapel we not only had a preacher we had at least one testimony. I never will forget the testimony of one of our young men. All of his adult life - until he was 27 - he had practiced a homosexual lifestyle. He told of his pain and guilt, his anguish as he struggled with what he called his distorted sexual lust. He told of his deliverance - expressing appreciation for a church that acted as a transforming congregation in his life - of twelve-step programs that had tremendous meaning - especially in terms of support and acceptance. But then he made this powerful statement - “It was not until I accepted the love of Christ, and repented, that I was loosed from the power of my homosexual lust.”
He left that lifestyle, answered the call to preach, has spent four years at Asbury - and is now being appointed to serve a local church. That young man will be able to talk about the love of God, a love which forgives and transforms - a love that has the power to break every shackle that binds us. Let me say it again: God loves you - you’re special, you have access to the Father, and you can be forgiven.
II
Now, a second affirmation. God calls you.
He calls you to follow Jesus - to be a disciple, to witness. Let me put it radically: He calls you to be Christ in the world. It sounds trite, but it’s true: you are the only Bible some person may read. you are the only Christ some person may see.
One of my favorite saints is St. Francis of Assisi. His best-known word is his prayer:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace!
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is discord, union;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in forgiving that we are pardoned
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
There is a lesser-known word that is more cryptic and just as challenging: “Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary, use words.” We are called to be disciples, to be Christ to others, to be witnesses. Again, I can’t elaborate all facets of this, so let me share an experience to underscore the issue.
In the fall of 1994 I was in Tallinn, Estonia. Most of the world had never given much thought to that little country, and probably did not even know the name of the capital city - Tallinn. But on September 28 and 29, television around the world carried the story: the worst non-military sea tragedy since the Titanic, claiming over 900 lives.
On Monday afternoon, I had taken a long walk with a friend down to the harbor. There were small boats and large sea-going vessels. Among them was a ferry with its name prominently painted on the bow: Estonia. It was a huge thing and we marveled at the size of it and the number of people, trucks, and automobiles it could carry. We awakened on September 28th to the news that this vessel had gone down at sea in a torrential storm in the middle of the night. A pall fell over the entire nation. At the special celebration of the church in Estonia on Thursday night, we were requested not to applaud after any of the singing, and candles were lighted in memory of those who had perished.
That day, I had taken a walk with another friend. We were talking about the vibrancy of the new Christians there in Estonia - persons who have come to the faith during these past few years since the church has been able to evangelize. Perhaps it was because I was examining my own faith commitment and my own apostolic passion, that I asked my friend this question, “Do you suppose that a part of the gravity of concern on the part of these new Christians here in Estonia for the people who perished on that sunken ferry was their concern about their eternal salvation?” And we examined our own selves in light of that - asking ourselves the question - if we had known that ship was going down with 900 passengers aboard, would we have dismissed our meeting of the World Methodist Council and gone down to the harbor to share the good news of salvation with those who in that culture may have not yet heard it, because the church has not been able to freely proclaim the message?
That experience put me to thinking more deeply and more sensitively about our apostolic task. It is not just people in countries where the church has not been free to publicly proclaim the gospel who are bereft of the gospel truth and power. It is not just people groups in far-flung corners of the world to whom the gospel has not yet been preached and in whose languages the gospel has not yet been translated, who are bereft of the gospel truth and power.
A huge portion of the enlightened world has trusted in the gods of the enlightenment and are thus bereft of the gospel truth and power. There are people in your community who have no Christian memory and who do not even understand the language we normally use to talk about the faith. My friends, the whole world is on the ferry! How passionate are we in sharing the gospel? How creative are we in presenting the gospel to secular people? How willing are we to get out of our traditional boxes and experiment in our worship styles and music and delivery systems? Are we passionate enough about the offer of Christ’s love that our compassion will make us servants after the style of Jesus?
Let me say that again: God calls you. Are you responding?
III. And now this final word. God empowers you, and will sustain you to the end, and through the end of this life into His blessed eternal kingdom.
In our scripture lesson, Jesus was talking to His disciples about His coming death. He knew their concern. What were they going to do without Him? In verse 18 He said, “I will not leave you alone.” The Jerusalem Bible renders that “I will not leave you orphans.” Listen to more of what Jesus said in that setting: “I will come to you.”
“I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever, that Spirit of truth whom the world can never receive since it neither sees nor knows him; but you know him, because he is with you, he is in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come back to you. In a short time the world will no longer see me, but you will see me because I live and you will live. On that day you will understand that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you.” (John 14:16-20)
The promise and the possibility are clear. Christ has given Himself to us in the Holy Spirit. So let me say it again: God empowers you, and will sustain you to the end and through the end of this life into His blessed eternal kingdom.
I can personally witness to this truth. I have not always been completely faithful to my calling, and I have sometimes misunderstood, but I have sought to be faithful, often taking the road less traveled because I believed that God was calling me. But my last turn in the road -leaving Christ Church and going to Asbury - has been my most dramatic one. For a 60-year-old to accept such a radically different expression of vocation - maybe at 45 or 50, but at 60! - smacks of recklessness.
But the Lord has been faithful. We have been empowered and sustained.
God is good - all the time. At particular times, when I needed the witness that I was not crazy, Christ was there. I had been at Asbury a couple of months, and the questions were swirling - what in the world am I doing? On a particular day when my confusion was almost debilitating, I met Joy, a young Chinese student. She told me the story of her conversion. She was exuberant and wanted me to know that through a missionary she had gotten a copy of my Workbook of Living Prayer and that had played a tremendous role in sustaining and shaping her spiritual life. she said, “I worked for three years to get to Asbury, never dreaming that the person who wrote the book that had meant so much to me would be my president.”
On another occasion, when I needed confirmation that I was following God’s call, another student came to tell me his story. He’s a second-career person - has been a very successful attorney in Cincinnati. He said, “I need to tell you my story” and he did. He was set on fire by an Emmaus experience in Cincinnati. Through that ongoing Emmaus experience and the use of my book Alive in Christ he was spiritually nurtured and called to ministry. With tears in his eyes, he said, “You brought Emmaus to Cincinnati, you wrote that book, and here I am in seminary and I can’t believe it - you’re my president!”
God is good - all the time. Jerry and I have never been happier, never felt more in the stream of God’s grace. We have been empowered and sustained. And you know what? I believe God may make these next 10 years the most fruitful and exciting of my life.
So let me say it all again: God empowers us and will sustain us to the end and through the end into His blessed eternal kingdom. You can count on it.
1) God loves you. That means you are special, you have access to the Father, and you
can be forgiven;
2) God calls you - to discipleship, to witness, to be Christ to others; and
3) God empowers you, and will sustain you to the end and through the end of this life into His blessed eternal kingdom.
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