Sermon Central
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For Such A Time As This...
Contributed by Bruce Rzengota on Dec 28, 2011 (message contributor)
Summary: IT IS FOR SUCH A TIME AND PLACE AS THIS THAT WE HAVE BEEN CALLED.
For Such a Time as This...
Phil 1:20
August 21, 2011
Installation service for Michael and Amy Bochman, Wayne and Christa Mushett
INTRODUCTION
Ninie Hammon is the executive editor for The Southeast Outlook in Louisville, Kentucky, but in 1988 she worked as a reporter for a small newspaper in Lebanon, Kentucky. On May 14th of that year, newspapers throughout the country carried the story of the bus crash where 24 children and 3 adults died in what was called "the worst drunken driver accident in Kentucky" history.
The bus carried the youth group of the First Assembly of God church in Radcliff, Kentucky. Though Ninie did not cover the story, many of her friends were reporters in the county where the children were from.
Witnesses who survived the crash told of one particular passenger, Chuck Kytta, the youth minister of the church. Chuck was seated in the front of the bus behind the driver, and when the gas tank exploded a heartbeat after the collision, he was instantly encircled in flames.
When Chuck saw the flames around him, witnesses said, he looked up, lifted his hands and cried out, "Jesus, I'm coming home!" Some of the kids said he was smiling.
Ninie wrote, "I was not a Christian in 1988, so I couldn't make any sense of what Chuck did. Here's this guy so cool a bunch of kids call him "Banana," standing in flames moments from a horrible death and he's smiling?"
No matter how hard she tried, Ninie could not erase from her mind the image of Chuck. Ninie wrote, "The only way to explain how a man could calmly accept, almost welcome, a painful death was to acknowledge that he understood some great truth I didn't, that he had something—faith? hope? God, maybe? something!—I didn't have. And try as I might, I couldn't help yearning for whatever he had that made death a thing to embrace rather than to fear."
Two years later, Ninie would come to Christ. She says, "Chuck Kytta planted a seed in me that took root in my heart. One day, I will see Chuck in heaven. I'll tell him how the manner of his death pointed me toward eternal life."
T.S. Chuck Kytta understood the true call of ministry Just as the apostle Paul understood the true call of ministry. Let me read you his words which will serve as my challenge to you as you assume your roles as Pastor of Family Ministry, Worship director, Lead Pastor of the Sandusky Initiative. As the Norwalk Alliance Church we acknowledge that we live this call with you and today are again reminded of what the call requires of us.
IT IS FOR SUCH A TIME AND PLACE AS THIS THAT WE HAVE BEEN CALLED.
20 I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.
I. Live your lives in such a way as to not be ashamed.
aischunomai; from aischos (disfigurement, i.e. disgrace); to feel shame (for oneself):
1. the confusion of one who is ashamed of anything, sense of shame
2. ignominy, disgrace, dishonour
3. a thing to be ashamed of
Aischuno from Homer onwards thus meant originally "to disfigure, to make ugly."
The shame exposes one to the ridicule of society.
Ill: Megachurch Pastor Found Dead in Hotel
The body of Rev. Zachery Tims, Jr., who led an 8,000-member church in Florida, is discovered in a Times Square suite. White substance on him. Divorced, because he had a one year affair with a stripper.
Live in such a way that you do not disfigure the what God would have for you and to do with you, live in such a way that you never have to face the ridicule of society.
Do that by always passionate caring for two things.
Care for your souls.
Above all else, grow deep in him. Do not trade busyness in ministry for intimacy with the forgiver. Live in such a way that you will not be ashamed.
Appl: I do not care how deep you are in your walk with God right now, I charge go deeper, become more in him. Do not settle for what has been long for more of the image of the forgiver in your life.
Care for your families.
The most public testimony of your values will be displayed in the lives of your children. Love them, challenge them, mold them. Live in such a way as families that you will not be ashamed.
Ill: Monthly the news media is filled with stories of pastoral families which fail in this aspect of their calling.
* Megachurch pastor's son arrested for indecent exposure
