Rally Sunday
Sept 11, 2011
Intro:
What’s your dream? Do you have one??
I don’t mean the Oh, I’d love to visit Australia kind of dream. Nor the I wish I were beautiful and popular and skinny like celebrity so-and-so kind of dream.
Those are either not really that important (no offense to Australians – though I’m sure it is beautiful, it probably won’t make or break your life); or completely unrealistic (no offense to any of us present, but none of us are tabloid celebrities, and we can add that to the list of things for which we are thankful).
When I ask what’s your dream, I mean instead what is it that, when you imagine it as a real possibility in your life, grabs hold of your head and your heart. What is it that, when you imagine it, makes you say a big yes and sparks your thinking and makes you want to jump up and do something?
What’s your dream, and do you have one?
I have some. Some that are, in the big picture, minor: I dream of a church building with a functional basement again. Where engineer’s reports are written, solutions implemented, walls and kitchens and washrooms rebuilt, insurance companies have paid the bills, disposed-of items are purchased and delivered and unpacked and put in place, and we can get back to doing ministry together.
But others are more significant, and I’ve felt God re-awakening these within me in the last little while.
A single day in your courts is better than a thousand anywhere else! Ps 84:10
I dream of us recapturing a deep desire to worship. I’m not saying we don’t have a desire to worship, but I have been dreaming of more – a community eager to gather to stand together in the presence of God and bring Him an offering of worship that we are excited to bring Him – that we’ve been planning and anticipating and working to make beautiful. Where we show up for our time of gathered worship ready, focused on that which really matters (Jesus!), and then we all engage with loving the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength. And at the end our thoughts are not at all on any of the details of song or flow or music type or the fact that Steve got a haircut and now looks more bald that usual – our thoughts are on what an amazing God we serve who loves us so much and to whom we have just given of ourselves, together, in this experience of worship. I dream of us recapturing that deep desire to worship.
Whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus Col 3:17
I’ve been dreaming again of the pursuit of excellence. In my formative adult years I read a little book by Jerry Bridges called The Pursuit of Holiness, and it impacted me deeply. There were some other writings and people and influences around the same time, through whom the Holy Spirit worked to create within me a craving to pursue excellence, to do everything I put my hand to with that standard of care, of quality, of excellence, that I believe reflects who I am as a child and ambassador of Christ, and that leads me to live a deeply satisfying life as I look at the things I have endeavored to do and am pleased that I put forth my best effort. A bunch of different parts of life have conspired against this desire within me, and it has slipped. And so I’ve been dreaming again of living in excellence, of modeling that, and of inviting others into this way of life that is not about striving for perfection or about human effort to make things happen outside of who God has called and created us to be, because that is not pursuing excellence. Rather inviting us into a life pursuing excellence is about knowing and accepting who God has called and created us to be and living that out fully, without holding back, in complete surrender and abandon and obedience. With excellence.
I rejoice in your word like one who discovers a great treasure Ps 119:162
Further, I’ve been dreaming about us falling in love with God’s Word. I think many Christians today have fallen in love with God’s action and God’s voice in our lives. We like it when God acts and speaks. But I wonder to what extent we are seeking that in and through God’s Word. Sometimes the attitude I perceive is that we stand above Scripture, choosing what parts to agree with and put into practice, and what parts to place to the side. We need the opposite, we sit under Scripture and allow and create space for the Holy Spirit to shape us as we read and study and wrestle with how to obey. A big part of this dream is the Word of God illuminating the sin that we entertain and play with and that is destroying us, and calling and inviting us instead into lives of obedience that are so much more full of life and joy than any of the temporary pleasure that sin offers.
Go and make disciples Matt 28:19
Lastly, I’ve been dreaming about a theme you’ve heard a lot about, that of us as God’s sent people who are called and empowered as His witnesses in a world that needs to know what we have discovered – that in Christ is forgiveness, freedom, unconditional love, and abundant life. And seeing God’s Kingdom come, and His will being done.
Turning Dreams Into Reality:
I think those are worthy dreams. But if they remain only dreams, it means nothing. Dreams must become reality, especially when we are talking about the kinds of dreams I’ve been talking about here. So how do I – how do we – turn those dreams into reality?
Today is Rally Sunday, the kick off for our new fall seasons of ministry, a time of fresh beginnings and starting once again after a summer which I have hoped and prayed would be a time of rest, family, joy, and rejuvenation. Now September is here, the rhythms of our culture change, and we get back to it. Why do we do all the things we do? What are we trying to accomplish, what are we striving after, why do we invest our time and energy in the things we do, and are those activities forming us and expending us in the areas which we most value? Let me take those dreams one by one…
A Deep Desire for Worship:
How do we turn the dream of a deep desire for worship into reality? We pray that we would all remember/rediscover/recapture an understanding of the terrifying, loving, worthy God who has invited us into relationship with Him. We pray that we would remember/rediscover/recapture an awareness that when we gather together and say we are here to worship, we are standing together in the courts of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the God of the Universe, the Alpha and Omega, the Lion of Judah, and we had better not bring him a garbage offering because we’ve been lazy or distracted or focused on petty things like wanting to sleep in a few extra minutes or linger longer over the newspaper because we don’t have a boss who is going to yell at us if we are late or a teacher who is going to get us in trouble for being late. We say, and believe, that worship is a matter of the heart and not externals, and this is true, so we had better come with a heart of love that believes that worship matters, that what we do together deserves our best efforts, because it is God we gather together to worship. It is God who is waiting for us to come to Him. It is God who is hoping and desperately wanting His children to come to Him with expectancy and eagerness and love and not out of force of habit or guilt or with casual indifference. It matters to God. And, as a side benefit, it deeply enriches our lives because of how this integrity of worship creates space and freedom for God to bless us, heal us, and fill us with life abundant.
In addition to prayer, those of us who lead in worship, both as pastors and as those who sing or play or read or pray or serve communion or push buttons on the computer to make the right slides appear – we need to come expecting to worship and to lead others whom we love into the presence of God. What an incredible privilege! Let’s do it with an excellence of heart, out of an overflow of love, for the glory of God.
A Pursuit of Excellence:
How do I turn the dream of pursuing excellence into reality? I’m recommitted to modeling it. I’ve called my staff back to it. I’m seeing it again as doing and saying everything as a representative of the Lord Jesus (Col 3:17). And I invite you into it. See, God has placed His Holy Spirit within us, and that gives us an amazing capacity for excellence. We just have to care, we just have to turn our backs on laziness and sloppiness, we have to alter our perception of our lives as mundane, boring things that don’t really matter and realize that God’s only plan for all of His creation rests on ordinary people like you and me being filled with the extra-ordinary Spirit of God. We have to rediscover what really matters – loving God and loving others – and sincerely making those our priorities and then pursuing them with intentionality and whole heartedness and a burning desire to be fully alive within the giftedness and uniqueness for which God has created us.
A Love of God’s Word:
What about the dream of falling in love with God’s word? This is one of the purposes of Sunday school, so two quick words here: those of you who are teaching our children and teens, will you love them enough, and love God enough, to fall in love with God’s word? And then to let the Holy Spirit bring it alive to them, through you? Wow, that is a glorious thought, isn’t it? Imagine the kids you will teach, one day looking back and saying I remember so-and-so, they taught me Sunday school when I was a kid, and I don’t remember exactly what I learned but I remember how deeply they loved the Bible, and I caught that….
For adults, this is going to be my whole focus of our Adult Education time that runs after the service while our kids are in Sunday school. I have in mind the lofty goal of helping and leading us to fall in love with God’s word through that Adult Education space. I’m going to need some help with that, but that is the goal, and I have a bunch of ideas swirling in my head that should help push us down the path towards learning to engage with Scripture, learning how to listen to God speaking through it, learning and appreciating where it comes from and how we got it and how diverse it is, and learning how to build disciplines that allow us to be molded by Scripture.
Making Disciples:
The last dream I spoke of is the dream of making disciples. This is the vision behind our weekly Wednesday night gathering, and there are some exciting dreams within this that we began to talk about and shape together this past week.
Like a dream of putting feet to the command we read earlier to feed the hungry, collecting food for the food bank one Wednesday night this fall.
Or the dream of sharing, and witnessing to, the entrance of God into the world in the incarnation of Jesus which we celebrate at Christmas time, and taking that good news of great joy out into our community by throwing a great Christmas banquet like we did last year.
And the dream of connecting with our partners in Bolivia, through a visit from one of our missionaries at the end of September, our annual fundraiser in November, and the preparation already under way to send a team in January to equip and encourage teachers at the Casa.
Perhaps most exciting of all, the dream of forging relationships with people suffering from the terrible-yet-very-treatable disease of loneliness. Randy Loewen and Pastor Garret and Brian Blevins have some great ideas of how we might build relational bridges with people who are incredibly lonely and lost, and we are going to build that and flesh that out together over the next couple of months.
There is lots, lots more as well but we’ll leave that for Wednesday.
Invitation:
So we begin again this fall. I invite you to share my dreams, because to be completely honest I don’t think they are just my dreams for us, I think they are God’s dreams for us. And I get excited when I imagine that I would be part of this community shaped by these dreams, a people where we all say A single day in your courts (Lord) is better than a thousand anywhere else! (Ps 84:10); where whatever we do or say, we do (with excellence) as a representative of the Lord Jesus (Col 3:17); where we rejoice in (God’s) word like one who discovers a great treasure (Ps 119:162), and where we gladly and eagerly Go and make disciples (Matt 28:19).
And then we see God’s Kingdom come. Will you join me?
