Are You Arrogant Or Ignorant? God Has The Cure

My friends, you and I live with advantages that we are so ignorant of - so ignorant at times. We tend to think that other churches have so much more going for them, unable to see the gifts that we have right here. And we live so afraid of the future. When we think about the future of our congregation - how many of us wring our hands and wipe our brows worrying about how we’ll pay our bills or how we’ll keep afloat? Are you afraid to invite someone to our church service because we have such a conservative theology? Are you tentative to share your faith because you’ll “probably get laughed at?” Are you afraid to build a building or to try a new project because “someone else is already doing it,” or “it will take too much work.” How often do we sit behind our shield of “conservatism” and cliche’s of “at least we’re preaching the truth,” and remain afraid to try anything besides VBS to reach out to the community. I know the thinking - because I’m steeped in it. It shows a lack of faith.

Think about the truth. We know that we are going to heaven through the grace of God. In today’s text, God promises you that He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. As long as we stay connected to His Word and sacrament - He will be able to keep us in the faith until the end. Paul later on told the Corinthians in his second letter, He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. We have the Gospel - the ministry of the Spirit - the only tool that can bring people from death back to life. We are not a religion that is based on the law - but an Evangelical church - gospel based. So what should be our attitude? As Paul said, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. You are a conqueror - a victorious king - nothing can stop you - for you have the most powerful weapon in the world - the Gospel of Christ. You have a gift that gives you eternal life. You have the promise of the Almighty God that he will never leave you or forsake you - that all things are yours.

Let’s think about that as we face our future. We don’t want to be arrogant. But we don’t want to be ignorant as well. We have many gifted people within our congregation. We have talented musicians, talented artists, talented builders, talented teachers, talented businessmen- the list goes on. Who’s to say that God couldn’t use these gifts to help our church to grow? Should we cut God’s arms short by saying that we couldn’t handle an ESL or a pre-school? Why should we live with the worry that our congregation will not survive - that we won’t be able to pay bills or that we will grow old and die? We’ve got one life to live. In this life we’ll stay close to God in His Word and sacrament. And God will keep us close to Him and take us to heaven. That’s God’s promise to us. When it does come time for us to die, don’t we want to say we gave it our best shot? We tried our best? God forbid that we end up like the man in the parable who said, ‘Master, I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’