Sermon Central
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Moving The Fence
Contributed by Sermon Central on Jan 13, 2009 (message contributor)
MOVING THE FENCE
Millard Erickson wrote, "The church is the repository of grace...it possesses the gospel, the good news of salvation"
During World War II, some American soldiers took the body of their buddy to a local cemetery. The priest stopped them saying, "You can't bury your friend here if he is not a Catholic." Discouraged but not defeated, the boys buried their fellow soldier just outside the cemetery fence. After the war they came back to pay their respects but they could not find the grave. They questioned the priest about it, and he said, "The first part of the night I stayed awake disturbed by what I had told you. The second part of the night I spent moving the fence."
This is the mission that comes again to the church in every generation. We are the hands and feet of Jesus, going out into all the world with the Good News and seeing people enter into a saving relationship with Jesus, passing from death to life. The church in every generation has the responsibility to preach the gospel and win the lost and train the disciples and heal the broken-hearted and lift up those who are fallen. To keep moving the fence to include others.
(From a sermon by Stephen Sheane, "What is the Church?")
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