At the very center of the Christian faith there is Christ. That sounds self-evident: it seems obvious. But we keep forgetting it. We keep on trying to live without a center.
Think about a wheel which has no hub; if you try to roll that wheel, its spokes will collapse. And no church will hold its course unless it is tied to a center. A church without that center will become just so much activity, with no real direction, no coordination. Such a church will do a hundred good things, but it will fail to do the one thing it must do. Such a church will have a little something to please everybody, but will not make any sense. Just as the Bible says, or ought to say, "Blessed are those who go around in circles, for they shall be known as big wheels.” Such a church will be a busy church, but a heartless church. For at the very center of the Christian faith there is Christ Himself.
Or, again, imagine a spinning top. It is clay on the outside, but jelly on the inside. If you spin a top which has a soft and sloshy jelly for its core and pliable clay on the outside, the faster it turns, the more the jelly swishes and sloshes, and eventually the top will fly apart. It will disintegrate. And no church will hold together unless at its core there is a solid commitment to Christ. Not to a leader, not to a pastor, not to a tradition, not to a denomination, not to the way we've always done church, not to anything, ultimately, but Christ Himself. At the very center of the Christian faith there is what? Christ Himself. Not really a what, but a who. The person of Christ.
Over the past few weeks I have talked with you about our church and its life. I have lifted up our mission statement; I've filtered it through Paul's Letter to the Romans. Look at it with me again.
We thought about being a free and trusting people, and have said that our aim is to include all persons, to be taught as well as to teach. And it is important to be a free, trusting, inclusive people, if we understand that first we have to trust Christ. Not our ethnic heritage, not our cultural values, not our taste, not our personal preferences, but Christ Himself. For at the very center of the Christian faith there is Christ, Christ Himself.
We talked also about being evangelical in spirit, how it is our responsibility that all people hear the good news. We affirmed that everyone has the right to share in the good news. And that is important; but it is even more important to remember that the good news is not something about happiness or fulfillment or being comfortable. The good news is about Christ the redeemer. Why? At the very center of the Christian faith there is Christ Himself. Not ideas, not feelings, but Christ Himself.
On and on I could go. I could remind you that we affirmed our intention to be a people of inquiring minds, using the Scriptures as our source of hope and harmony. But our basic loyalty is not to a book, nor is it to our own intellects. Our loyalty is to Christ. Why? At the very center of the Christian faith there is Christ Himself, personally, the living Word.
And even last week, thinking about what we need to take into this community, we settled on love. We said that what would make us comprehensive in compassion was love. But I hope you did not miss out on hearing what the source of love is. I hope you did not hear me saying that somehow we can just cook up this thing called love out of our own energies. Not at all. We cannot. Love comes from a relationship with Christ Himself. At the very center of the Christian faith there is Christ Himself.
And so in this the last message on our mission statement, I am asking you to gather up all of the bits and pieces we have strewn on the landscape the last several Sundays. I want us to hold them all together around one great center. That center is Christ. A personal, intimate, day-by-day, living, dynamic, life-shaping relationship with Jesus Christ.
So read the last portion of the mission statement with me, please: WE ARE, IN ALL THESE THINGS, EMPOWERED BY AND CENTERED ON CHRIST ... HAVING A CENTRAL PLACE IN OUR LIFE FOR WORSHIP, PREACHING, MUSIC, AND ALL THE THINGS THAT CREATE DEVOTION TO HIM AND NAME HIM LORD.
Watch with me some key phrases: In all these things ... centered on Christ ... a central place … for all the things that name Him Lord. All things.
That phrase keeps ringing through the Scripture as well as through our mission statement. "All things". ALL things. Listen to these familiar words and hear it: "all things".
Romans 8:28-39
I
The first time the phrase "all things" occurs, it is in that wonderful but sometimes troubling 28th verse that tells us, "all things work together for good". All things work together for good, but for whom? And under what conditions?
"All things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son."
Don't get hung up on this "predestined" bit. We'll take care of that in our Wednesday night Bible study! But focus on this: all things work together for good if your focus is on loving God, listening for His purpose, and being shaped by the image of His Son!
This church, this beehive of activity and committee work and holes dug in the ground, choir rehearsals and mission statements and youth group and marriage enrichment and children's worship and all the rest ... does it make any sense? Is it going anywhere? Does it have a center?
Yes. It does holds together. And yes. We do need all of this stuff. Bible study and ministry and evangelism and all the rest of it. Though we are a small church, we cannot afford to focus on only one or two or three things, not if God is to do what He wants to do through us. For God wants to do all things, and make all things work together in us who love Him, listen to Him, and will be conformed to the image of His Son. If our aim is to center on Christ, we cannot leave out any of the work of the church. We must do it all.
Being a Christian is so much, much more than showing up for Sunday morning worship. Being a Christian involves taking seriously the disciplines of prayer and study, of ministry and evangelism. Being a Christian means developing redemptive relationships with others. If all you do is sit through Sunday sermons, you are missing the breadth and depth and length and height of it all. You are only touching the surface. We cannot leave anything out. The fullness of Christ's mission demands everything in this mission statement. We must do it all.
All things work together to make up good. At the very center of the Christian faith, not only holding together all of the church's multiplied activities and ministries, but in fact demanding them, insisting on their breadth, is Christ Himself. For all things work together to be conformed to the image of His Son. At the very center of the Christian faith is Christ Himself. All things.
II
But now drop down a little farther in the text. The phrase "all things" shows up again, this time in verses 31 and 32. "What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else" ... or will he not give us all things? All things.
As I have spoken to you over these past several weeks, have you felt overwhelmed? Have you wondered if it is really possible for us, little us, to do all that is required of us? Can we build a program and reach people and renovate this building and create new ministries and start new groups and counsel the weary and teach the searching, do it all? Is that possible? Are the obstacles too great? Is the cost too high? Is there that much energy here?
My study leave really did give me a new perspective on things and a new energy. As I have thought about us, I can tell you that I find myself wanting to dedicate every fiber of my being to the "all things" that God is calling us to. I find myself wanting to give every ounce of energy I can muster to this church's possibilities. Why? Is it a success drive? Is it a need to achieve something? No, I think it is something far different that motivates me.
Here it is; one and only one great reality: Christ died for me. Christ died for me. For you, yes; for all humanity, yes; but what drives me, in the end, is that Christ died for me. And if He can pay that price, I also can pay a price.
Listen to Paul, "If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us all things?" God has given our church what we need. We are not to weep about what we do not have; we are to be faithful with what we do have. We are not to grumble because someone else's church is bursting at the seams; we are to be glad for them and are to look right in our own backyards for those we can reach. If God is for us, who is against us?
At the very center of the Christian faith is a gift. That gift is the atoning sacrifice of Christ Himself. "He who did not withhold his own son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us all things?" No price is too high to pay, no burden too heavy to carry for this church, when the Christ of the cross is at its center. Remember, at the very center of the Christian faith is Christ Himself. All things. All things He will give us.
III
Finally, one more time in this great passage we hear the phrase "all things". Here is the final empowerment that we need. Listen for it:
"Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No!" No! Can you hear Paul's victory cry? "No, No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."
In all things … conquerors. How? Through him who loved us.
No one has ever promised us that living as the church of Jesus Christ in Takoma Park will be easy. No one ever promised that it will be without tension. Paul speaks of hardship, distress, and peril. That's all here. We are a people with tensions. We have some distresses.
In fact, it's uncanny how this shows up. One of you came to my office for counseling this week and, before we got into your own personal needs, you said, "Are there some points of contention in our church?" How did you know? How did you feel that?
"Well," I said, "Yes. Yes, there are. Without interpreting them all, there are some points of contention. There are some differences among us." There are differences about the way the Bible is read and understood. There are differences about the means we use to shape our worship. There are differences about how leadership should be exercised. There are tensions.
But to me, it is not a negative thing to have tensions. It is not destructive for us to disagree. The one thing we do have to do is to live out of the love of Christ. The one thing which will hold us together in creative tension, productive tension is to approach each other with the love of Christ.
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will generation gaps or tastes in music? Will questions about motives or complaints about money? Will issues of race or problems of morality?
No! No. Not if we are focused on living out of the love of Christ. Not if we build trust and love toward one another. Then nothing will separate us, nothing will destroy us, nothing will defeat us. No! No! In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
You have mentioned today that I have been pastor here for eight years. And that is correct. But in a sense you are two years off the mark. I began preaching here almost exactly ten years ago, in August of 1984. This week I got out the notes from that first sermon ... how many remember it? Wait, don't humiliate me by even pretending to answer!
But in that first message ten years ago I preached out of I Peter 5:7, "Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you." And I said in that message that some of our anxieties are imaginary, but that the light of the Scriptures drives those away; that some of our anxieties are real, but that the presence of the Spirit gives us assurance; and I said that our ultimate anxiety is that we shall die and mean nothing. But I told you then, and I tell you again, ten years older, twenty pounds heavier, and graying at the temples, that Christ lives and takes away even the fear of death. Christ lives!
What if, in the course of being church here on this corner, we should spend ourselves out and die? What if we should fail in all that we try to do? What of it! Christ lives. Christ lives. And I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present (like disagreements and tensions), nor things to come (like building debts and strategy decisions), nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
For at the very center of the Christian faith there is but one thing that matters, and that is Christ Himself. Lord of all things.
