Remove not the Ancient Landmark
Sermon 3 in the series “Church Matters"
Chuck Sligh
June 30, 2013
TEXT: Proverbs 22:28 – “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”
INTRODUCTION
When the Israelites entered Canaan and land was divided among the various Israelite tribes, each family was given a plot of land to provide a livelihood for themselves. On their land, each family put down “landmarks” to mark their property. Unger’s Bible Dictionary says that a landmark was “a stone, stake, or other monument to designate the boundary of land.” Some versions translate this word as a “boundary stone” a good modern translation.
To remove a landmark in Old Testament times was tantamount to stealing a man’s land. Unger says that “it was prohibited in the Mosaic Law on account of the close connection in which a man’s possession as the means of his support stood to the life of the man himself.”
Now, here at Grace Baptist Church there are some definite landmarks we drove deep into the ground at the very beginning to set the parameters of what we wanted our church to be like. In fact, I preached today’s sermon on July 18, 2004 when we officially organized our little weekly Bible study into a church, giving it the name Grace Baptist Church. We planted these landmarks deep into the soil of this church’s history, and God forbid that we would ever move the original landmarks; move from what this church was founded on; move from what it was meant to be by our founding members.
Today, I want us to go over our spiritual property, so to speak, and make sure the landmarks are all still there so that we can celebrate it a year from now when we celebrate our 10 Year Anniversary.
THE FIRST LANDMARK WE DROVE IN WAS THAT OF SIMPLE FAITH IN GOD.
Without a doubt, faith is the most important landmark we could have driven down because Hebrews 11:6 says “But without faith it is impossible to please [God]…”
Back in September 2003, a little band of people met for the first time as a Bible study. We didn’t know how it would be done and how long it would take, but a firm faith arose in our hearts that God was going to bless this endeavor.
And my, has He ever! I went back in our records this week to see what our attendance was the Sunday we organized and my records show 17 people! We’ve got a considerable higher amount attending these days as this chart of average morning worship attendances attests…
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 (to date)
AM 36 48 62 81 109 113 160 159 168 166
In the interim, we’ve seen many brought into God’s Kingdom; many who sold out to Jesus wholeheartedly; many whose marriages were salvaged; and many who discovered a key truth that set them on the road to victory in their lives.
Back in 2004, I told our people that we really needed to drive down two landmarks of faith for those who follow, and I would cast the same vision for you here today:
• First, let us not remove the landmark of faith in God for salvation.
This is clearly laid down in our church’s Articles of Faith as a main distinctive because this is the clear teaching of Scripture. You can live a good life, take communion, go to church, be confirmed, be baptized or be religious, but none of those things will make you right with God or give you eternal life. Salvation is available only by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ and His death on the cross for your sins.
Paul sums it up in Ephesians 2:8-9 – “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.” This doctrine of simple faith in Christ for salvation and not through works must always be a central doctrine of Grace Baptist Church. Let us vow to NEVER remove this glorious landmark!
• The second stake of this landmark of faith is faith in God’s ability to bless this church and supply its needs.
When I preached this sermon is 2004, I laid out a vision that I knew would require great sums of financial and personal sacrifice: to start supporting missionaries, which we began that very service by taking on our very first missionary; to start our K.I.D.S Church, which we begain in 2004; our evening service kids’ program, which we started in 2005; to begin taking on a greater and greater portion of the pastor’s financial support so that eventually it could support a pastor full-time, which we started in 2005; to buy some property or a building, which we did in 2006; to remodel it and furnish it, which we did in 2007;.
We envisioned starting numerous new ministries and programs to spiritually feed our people, but which I knew would require an army of volunteers: a ladies Bible study, which we began in 2005; a men’s ministry, which we started in 2006; a Sunday school, which we began in 2009; and a teen ministry, which was started in 2010.
In 2004, as we 17 people organized as a church, we had no idea HOW we could possibly fund all these things or staff all these programs. But we had faith to see a vision of what we could not see with our human eyes. Faith in God that HE would accomplish these things. And God has sustained us and met our every need every year without faith and I believe with all my heart the best days of Grace Baptist Church are yet to come!
But that will only be true if we never remove the absolutely critical landmark of faith in God for salvation and faith in Him to bless us and supply our needs through God’s people.
II. THE SECOND LANDMARK I PRAY WE NEVER REMOVE IS A LOVE FOR THE LOST AND A COMMITMENT TO OBEY THE GREAT COMMISSION.
Turn in your Bibles please to Matthew 28:19-20. Here Jesus gave the church its marching orders in what is called the Great Commission. – Matthew 28:19-20 – “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”
Here it is: a three-step command 1) to go and win the lost to Christ; 2) to baptize them, thereby bringing them into the fellowship of believers in the local church; and 3) to teach them all that Christ has commanded.
This whole process begins when God’s people have a fervent love for the lost. God help us to love people; to be concerned about their spiritual condition; to bring them to where they can get under the sound of the Gospel. We can do that by inviting them to church; by starting spiritual conversations; by sharing the Gospel with them; by telling them what Jesus has done in your own life.
But now please go to Acts 1:8, and as you’re turning there, remember that if we put all our efforts into reaching Grafenwoehr only, we will have only fulfilled part of the Great Commission.
Please turn to Acts 1:8 where Jesus tells us the SCOPE of our evangelistic efforts – “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”
Now notice the scope of the church’s efforts to carry out the Great Commission: Jerusalem was the city these people lived in; Judea and Samaria were the larger areas outside Jerusalem, maybe like Germany and Europe to us; and the final frontier is “the uttermost part of the earth.”
Now OUR Jerusalem is Grafenwoehr. We are to labor and pray and do all we can to reach Grafenwoehr—our Jerusalem—with the Gospel. We’ll do it through preaching but also through personal witnessing.
But we can’t stop there. It’s not enough to only evangelize our Jerusalem.
Jesus says we’re to also be witnesses in Judaea and Samaria and the uttermost part of the earth.
How can we do this?—There’s only one way I know of: by supporting those who will go throughout the world sharing the Gospel on our behalf. This is what missions is all about.
One of our very FIRST matters of business in our organizational meeting was to take on our first missionary, and we’ve taken on many more since. If you’re not giving towards our Faith Promise Missions Program, all you have to do is mark “Missions” on your offering envelope and give what God lays on your heart. I hope you’ll help us maintain our current slate of missionaries.
Let’s never remove the landmark of a love for the lost and a commitment to obey the Great Commission!
III. THIRD, LET US NOT REMOVE THE LANDMARK OF FRIENDLINESS AND WARMTH.
I don’t believe that there is anything that kills a good church faster than a group of self-centered, inward-focused cliquish people.
You’ve seen it before... You go to a church and nobody shakes your hand; hardly anyone even says “hello” (or “howdy” if you’re from Texas); and nobody’s roaming the auditorium welcoming visitors. And there are no groups of people fellowshipping, or off in a corner encouraging and lifting up a discouraged brother or sister in the Lord. A church where people don’t seem to have joy and warmth and love for one another.
Folks, that’s the OPPOSITE of the way the early church functioned, and even today, nothing turns away people like a cold, lifeless church not concerned about PEOPLE.
Listen, the house of God ought to be a place that’s filled with “body life!” By body life, I mean where God’s people in a local church are alive with love and fellowship and concern and abiding friendships.
No place engenders this to a greater degree than our homegroups where you really get to know other members personally and close up and where you personally minister to and are ministered to by that close-knit group.
But even on Sunday, the church ought to be a place of joy and warmth and rejoicing! Let the world see the gloomy side of life—let’s not bring it into the church! Let the world be cold and calculated and lifeless—but let’s be friendly and welcoming and smiling and caring and interested in others at Grace Baptist! Let the world frown—because they’ve got something to frown about!—but when a visitor walks through those doors back there, he or she ought to be immediately struck by the fact that there is LIFE here; that the people here have something worth having; that there’s joy and happiness and love and care and concern here; that this must be a place where JESUS is!
This has usually been a distinguishing mark of Grace Baptist, and I hope we never remove this important landmark. But I find that we can get insular and self-centered really quickly. Decide that YOU will be the friendliest person in the church to new visitors. Don’t leave the job of greeting to the ushers and official greeters. Overflow with friendliness, and warmth, and open your heart to of love and acceptance of those who come to Grace. May folks leave here saying, “This is the friendliest church I’ve ever been to. They’re the nicest, most pleasant, most loving group of people I’ve ever seen.”
Let’s never remove the landmark of a church of warmth and friendliness and joy.
IV. FOURTH, LET US NOT REMOVE THE LANDMARK OF HOLY LIVING.
Peter exhorts us in Peter 1:15-16 – “But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; 16 Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.” Today—as never before—the world’s philosophies, and the world’s thinking, and the world’s ways, are creeping into our lives! Instead of the church being IN THE WORLD, as God designed it, the world is getting into the church.
Illus. – The church is like a boat floating in water, the water representing the world. The boat’s supposed to be in the water just like the church is supposed to be in the world. But you’ve got BIG problems when you start getting water in the boat! And when the world seeps into the church, we’ve got big problems.
This ought to manifest itself in every part of our lives, in the way we live, in the way we act, in what we expose ourselves to, in our character and in our testimony. We ought to live in order to please the Lord, not ourselves, or what the world thinks. We ought to live so that we reflect the righteous character of Jesus. We’re to love not the world, the flesh and the devil.
May we never remove the landmark of holiness! Let us covenant together to live right; to be honest and moral and upright; to show in our lives the fruit of the Spirit; and to be kind and loving and humble! And may these traits be evident at home, at work, and in our neighborhoods.
V. FIFTH AND LAST, LET US NEVER REMOVE LANDMARK OF A SPIRIT OF SACRIFICE AND COMMITMENT AND HARD WORK.
This has always been an area where Grace Baptist has shined! Truthfully, you stand on the shoulders of giants who served and sacrificed magnificently before you.
Our people sacrificed materially to give us what we have today. The Sunday I preached this sermon in 2004, I cast a vision for that little band of 17 to start saving money as a church for a down payment on a building. They looked at me like I had rocks in my head, but they followed me and we started squirreling away every penny we could.
A year later, when we found this building and we were running about 30, I challenged the church to give sacrificially above their regular tithes and offerings so that we could have enough money for a down payment and closing costs. Somehow—and to this day I don’t completely know how—that little band of 30 that a year later had grown to 50 had saved up 100,000 euros, just barely enough for our down payment and closing costs.
Then over the next year, between money we raised in the U.S. and the continued sacrifice of our own people, we raised another 100,000€ to remodel the building.
Folks, it took SACRIFICE to get where we are today. This church is built on the backs of TITHERS and GIVERS and people who loved their church and wanted to have an investment in eternity. I’m proud to have been a part of it!
But this church also drove deep the boundary stake of working for our wonderful Lord—people willing to roll up their sleeves and work with kids in GrowGroups and K.I.D.S. Church classes; people willing to work in our nursery and love our little ones; people willing to wait on tables so we can have fellowship meals and our monthly potlucks, and then clean up the mess afterwards; people willing to cut the grass, clean the church, tend our garden, clean off debris from the property; people willing to host homegroups and be homegroup leaders; people willing to maintain the building; people to supervise all these tasks.
Now let me share two facts that may surprise you:
• First, unlike the chapel that pays many of its workers, all the people who do all the things I just mentioned are VOLUNTEERS. – I am the only paid staff in the church and the only other thing we regularly pay someone for is a German widow who cleans the downstairs weekly.
• The second fact is this: unlike the chapel, this church receives no outside support for funding, and except for about 50% of my income which comes from supporting churches stateside, this church is totally self-supporting and self-sustaining.
How is it possible then to do all that we do?—By people like you, some members, some regular attending non-members, who are willing to be servants who work for the Lord and serve in this local church; who are willing to give financially to support the work we do here; who are willing to sacrifice for a cause bigger than themselves and their own individual lives.
Those who went before you and provided all that we have here have passed the baton to you in this new era of our church. God help us all to rise to the challenge and keep this wonderful landmark of sacrifice and hard work for Jesus.
Why don’t you start right away giving and tithing to Grace Baptist Church? – The offering envelopes are on the back cabinet every week. Why don’t you find a place to serve God in Grace Baptist Church – All you have to do is tell my wife or me that you want to serve once a month in one of our K.I.D.S. Church classes, and we’ll put you on the rotation; or you want to serve one service a month in the nursery; or you want to be a greeter occasionally or regularly on Sunday mornings; or you want to sing or play an instrument on the worship team; or you want help clean the second floor once a month.
CONCLUSION
Illus. – Friday I was here on the property and I walked over it from one end to the other. I thought about how gracious the Lord has been to us to give us such a great facility and how mightily He worked in the lives of our people to give it to us, a story I’ll share in detail at our Tenth Anniversary service a year from now.
I sat down in the grass in the back for a long while and thought about all the precious saints who have crossed our path since we started this church in 2004. Then I thought about the people who’ve been saved; the people who’ve grown deeper in their faith; the people who learned to serve here; the people who learned to give for the first time in their lives; and the people whose marriages were saved; whose kids were taught the Bible and brought to Christ through one of our teachers.
And I just bowed my head and thanked the Lord.
But folks, the job’s not finished yet. There’s a new crop that has to come in and put their unique stamp on this church. There are new mountains to climb; new giants to slay; new heights to reach.
Are you willing to go there with us? We’ll only do it if we remove not the landmarks that God has used to build up His church:
• The landmark of simple faith in God.
• The landmark of commitment to reach the lost for Christ.
• The landmark of warmth, love and friendliness.
• The landmark of holiness.
• And the landmark of sacrifice and commitment and hard work.
