Vision for Resurrection
from Pastor George:
Our Dreams
for our new property and our new church:
God has been
leading us on an astonishing adventure, in ways few of us could ever have
imagined. It is exciting and frightening, but He is in it and He will see it
through to the end.
Today we
formally sign the contract to purchase thirteen acres of land. We’ve been on
this land, prayed over it, prayed about it, and discovered hopes and dreams in
our hearts that once we never dared to dream, but He is in it, and in them.
Some of us
see God’s hand in the beauty of the land, the grasses, the ponds and the many
mature trees, in the quiet and isolation in the middle of a busy and growing
suburb. Others see the sanctuary there, with worship that glorifies God and
captures hearts, and an outer beauty that captures the imagination of all the
commuters on Roosevelt Road or on the train that may someday go past. Some see
gardens there, for themselves and the neighborhood. Some see a café, open
regularly, where lives open up and friendships with God and each other are made,
where people with abilities and disabilities work together serving good coffee
and homemade pie. Some see a library, and a small chapel, a place for the ashes
of members who have stepped into glory. Others see an outdoor place for worship,
a theater, and classes: in scripture, in parenting, budgeting, decision-making,
theology, maybe even woodworking or auto repair, stained glass or pottery. Some
see a fireplace room for meetings, others a fire pit outside for meals and
marshmallows and God stories. Some see a bus, collecting children from the
neighborhoods, and bringing them to experience God and learn to love like Jesus
loves them. Some see a free clinic, or a credit union, or classrooms to teach
science, art and acting for homeschooling families.
Some see a
reaching out into the neighborhoods, children and adults together, joyful,
sharing Jesus, caring for others, inviting them to salvation and new life in
Christ – families from many nations, in many colors and languages, treated not
condescendingly as objects of ministry but as families of one God.
Truth be
told, all of these dreams are possible, and many of them will come true. They
can be lived out by us, as we allow God to work through us. The land and the
buildings we will construct are the launching pad for much ministry, the center
for the community, a place which will buzz with the work of the Lord every day
of the week. The land and the buildings are not the church, but they enable the
church – which is you and me – to do the mission Jesus has given us.
What we must
not do is confuse the necessary work of planning, raising funds and putting up
facilities – a lot of hard work for a long time - with the vision of the church.
The vision is not the land or the buildings.
If we
understand the vision and live it out, we will also succeed in planning, raising
funds and putting up facilities. But the opposite is not true: if we focus just
on the creation of the facilities, God will not be in it, and it will not
succeed.
The vision
is you, bringing God’s kingdom to life, knowing the love of Jesus, and making it
known. Living out the words Jesus quoted from Isaiah 61. Living out his vision,
as his body, his witnesses in this world.
So let us
look for the vision of Resurrection. We'll start with Jesus reading Isaiah 61,
which is Resurrection's key scripture:
Luke 4:16-21 16
He went to
Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the
synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read.
17
The scroll
of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where
it is written (from Isaiah 61):
18
"The Spirit of the Lord is
on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent
me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to
release the oppressed,
19
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
20
Then he
rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of
everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him,
21
and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in
your hearing."
And then listen to what Jesus promises his followers:
John 14:12 I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I
have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am
going to the Father.
13
And I will do whatever you
ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.
14
You may ask
me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
And
Jesus did just what he promised. After he ascended to the Father, the Holy
Spirit was sent to the waiting disciples, at least 120 of them, perhaps three
times as many, including women and children, and they immediately began to act
in power as well!
It
was Satan’s worst nightmare. God, in love, sent his Son to the world to
reconcile all of its people to Him. Satan thought he had him killed, and then by
the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus rose again from the dead – and then
multiplied himself on earth, first by hundreds, then thousands, now millions –
as the Holy Spirit was given to all who believed.
One
of the great crimes the church has committed against itself is its denial of the
power of the Holy Spirit. We must not repeat that mistake. Let us live as
compassionate servants – as Jesus taught us – empowered by the Spirit to spread
the good news and change lives!
Let’s listen
to a few
Selected
verses from the first chapter of the book of John, from The Message by
Eugene Peterson:
The
Word was first,
The Word present to God,
God present to the Word
The
Word was God,
In
readiness for God from day one.
Everything was created through him;
Nothing---not one thing!---
came into being without him.
What
came into existence was Life,
And the Life was Light to live by.
The
Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
the darkness couldn’t put it out. . .
The
Life-Light was the real thing:
Every person entering Life
He
brings into Light.
He
was in the world,
the world was there through him,
and yet the world didn’t even notice.
He
came to his own people,
but they didn’t want him.
But
whoever did want him,
who believed he was who he claimed
and would do what he said,
He
made to be their true selves,
their child-of-God selves.
These
are the God-begotten,
not blood-begotten,
not flesh-begotten,
not sex-begotten.
The
Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We
saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish. . .
We
all live off his generous bounty,
gift after gift after gift.
We
got the basics from Moses,
and then this exuberant giving and receiving,
This
endless knowing and understanding---
all this came through Jesus, the Messiah.
No
one has ever seen God,
not so much as a glimpse.
This
one-of-a-kind God-Expression,
who exists at the very heart of the Father,
has made him plain as day.
This
tells us what Jesus did, how he came into the world to save it. He washed his
disciples feet, and told them to follow his example in their service to the
world: humble, and compassionate. Here’s how Henri Nouwen described this:
"Here is what compassion means.
It is not a bending toward the underprivileged from a
privileged position; it is not a reaching out from high to those who are less
fortunate below; it is not a gesture of sympathy or pity for those who fail to
make it in the upward pull. On the contrary, compassion means going directly to
those people and places where suffering is most acute
and
building a home there.
God's compassion is total, absolute, unconditional, without reservation... It is
the compassion of a God who does not merely act as a servant, but
whose servanthood is a direct expression of his divinity."
-Henri J. M. Nouwen
From
Compassion: A
Reflection on the Christian Life"
in
Why haven't you left? Letters from Sudan.
p. 134.
RESURRECTION'S VISION:
I have a vision of God’s Kingdom, where the most visible
feature of its citizens is not their color, age, gender, language, or ability,
but their humility and compassion, the very Presence of God and the Power of
Love radiating from them, and restoring everything they touch, living out, as
the body of Christ, the very words Jesus quoted from Isaiah 61. A kingdom where
the children and the adults all seem ablaze with joy and a light from within,
where they can cannot contain the love of God that fills them, because they are
anointed to preach good
news to the poor, sent to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of
sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the
Lord's favor.
I have a vision of a church whose worship is so filled
with wonder and awe that its members cannot stay away, and where their
neighbors, friends and co-workers cannot shut them up about it, where they
experience Jesus as real and his power as life-changing, and they invite their
friends to worship with them because they can’t help it!
I have a vision of a church so filled with joy and the
love of God that it bursts from the smiles of the children and adults that greet
them at the door, and it drops them to their knees when they enter the
sanctuary.
I have a vision of a church whose members worship not only
on Sunday, but where worship leaps from their hearts every moment, in acts of
kindness in which God dwells, where their eyes fill with tears for the very joy
of serving others in God’s name.
I have a vision of the Body of Christ which will not
divide rescuing the lost from restoring them to well-being, but always does both
– which always and without exception turns every one rescued into one who
rescues, which looks upon those in need not with disdain, but with awe, seeing
the face of Jesus in each one.
I have a vision of a church - men, women and children - as
the body of Christ, the blazing light of the world, touching every life with the
love of God, not waiting for the hurting to come to us, but moving out
neighborhood by neighborhood, home by home, serving in ways practical and holy,
simple and miraculous, drawing every man, woman and child to Jesus, healing and
restoring the lost, and then seeing the Holy Spirit ignite each one of them
with power, sending them out with the love of God – like fiery traces
from an explosion, setting neighborhood after neighborhood on fire for the
Gospel.
But the real vision statement of this church is you.
You are the vision, your lives are the living testimony of God’s grace. It is
how you live – how I live - in humility and compassion, how you trust God, how
you share the love of Jesus, how you are servants to this world in the power of
the Holy Spirit, how you carry the Word of Life to the neighborhoods, to work
and school, to the needy both rich and poor. Jesus said in serving these you
serve him. So how you serve Jesus – that is the only vision statement that
matters.
How you serve Jesus, how I serve Jesus – that is the only
vision statement that matters.
God has begun a great work among us.
It will cost us our lives and our fortunes. We cannot be self-indulgent if we
are truly to serve God. We must sacrifice – take up our crosses – and give in
ways few of us have ever given. Above and beyond anything we could have imagined
financially. Above and beyond anything our peers at work would consider sane or
sensible. The work will consume our hours, days, weeks and years, and rather
than wither, we will grow from strength to strength. We will find God in every
moment, and we will wonder why we ever held back before. We will work
harder than we ever have in our lives. We will not complain, but will praise him
without ceasing for the privilege of serving. We will do the impossible, because
the one through whom all things are possible is in the midst of it.
This isn’t just about buying property, but it includes
that. This isn’t just about building a church building, or classrooms, or
gardens, or a chapel, or a library or a retreat center or a gymnasium, or a
café, or a clinic, but it includes that. This isn’t just about planning, and
designing, and budgeting, and tithing and giving far above and beyond our tithe,
but it includes that.
This is taking Jesus at his word, and taking Him to the
streets.
You remember back in grade school that certain someone you
thought you liked, and you wondered if they liked you too, and you wanted
someone to find out for you because you were afraid to ask and be
embarrassed?
And you know how you think you might just maybe love
Jesus, and you’ve heard these things about how he loves you, but you don’t want
to go too crazy about it until you know for sure?
I asked for you. Guess what?
He loves you beyond your wildest dreams! Do you get it?
Jesus is nuts about you. Head over heels in love with you. So crazy about
you he willingly died for you, to set you free from death and all the snares and
woundings of this world.
He feels that way about everyone, even those who don’t
know it yet, and he’s elected YOU to let them know. They’re afraid to ask too,
but you have to tell them: God is crazy in love with you! The news
doesn’t get any better than that! God is crazy in love with you!
That same Spirit and Power, the love of God – which Jesus
had with such humility and compassion, he now passes on to his followers, his
body – you! – to carry into this world and all those in it who need Him, who
need His life and power and love, who need to be rescued from the snares and
woundings of this world, who need the good news that they can be saved –
taken away from the jaws of death - and given new life. Jesus will do it because
he loves them SO MUCH. We take him at his word.
He calls upon his church, which is his body, which is
you, to do this.
You are
anointed to preach the
good news to the poor, and to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and recovery
of sight for the blind – physically blind, spiritually blind - to release the
oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
We cannot do this without
him. Together with Him, we can and we will.
He said we should love God – not in some detached,
cerebral manner – but with all of our heart, and mind, and soul
and strength. And love our neighbors as ourselves. Passion for
God, compassion for others.
Remember Nouwen’s words:
“compassion means going directly to those people and places where suffering is
most acute
and
building a home there.
God's compassion is total,
absolute, unconditional, without reservation... It is the compassion of a God
who does not merely act as a servant, but whose servanthood is a
direct expression of his divinity.”
And folks our servanthood is a direct expression of the
divinity of God poured through us. It is what Jesus delivered on. And he
promised it to us and he delivers on it!
Again: the real vision statement of this church is you.
You are the vision, your lives ar eto be the living testimony of God’s grace. It
is how you live in humility and compassion, how you trust God, how you share the
love of Jesus, how you are servants in this world in the power of the Holy
Spirit, how you carry the Word of Life to the neighborhoods, to work, to school,
to the needy both rich and poor. Jesus said in serving these you serve him.
So how you serve Jesus – that is the only vision statement that matters.
We
cannot do it without him. But together with Him, we can and we will. Amen.
Love
God, neighbor and enemy. 
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