Why are you here this morning? 60% of those who live in this country are not here. They have good reason. So many things are competing for their time. They are on the run on Saturdays with kid’s sports and family matters. They have to have some time to sleep in and Sunday’s the only day available. Or it might be their favorite sporting event is taking place and tailgating is very important. Maybe the activities of the week have left Sunday as the only time to do that grocery shopping that is needed. Perhaps they get their religious fix on social media by watching the service at the latest mega church to hit TV.
Some just don’t buy into the church scene anymore. They are Christians because they were born here or they grew up in a Christian home. Churches have a reputation of rejecting certain people while advertising everyone is welcomed here. What the church really means is as long as you are like us. Church leaders are charlatans with only one thing on their mind, money. They are looking to get rich off the backs of foolish people.
But you are here. You must not feel that way. So why are you here? According to the latest Gallup Pole 23% attends for spiritual growth. That’s a good reason. Let me ask you a question. How many of you can recall any of my sermons without looking at your notes? It’s okay. I can’t recall many of them and I preached them. But I bet you don’t recall every meal you have ever eaten but you have still grown. I know that’s true for me. So I feel you are getting your spiritual growth.
20% stated that church kept them grounded and inspired. 15% felt it was part of the faith. Another 15% come to worship God. 13% come for the fellowship with fellow believers. 12% come to support their belief in God or the denomination that they are a part of. Another 12% come because they were brought up that way.
Adding some numbers together we discover that 39% of people attending church feel obligated to do so. And they are correct in feeling that way.
When Paul wrote the Romans he was in Corinth. The church in Rome was a diverse church made up of both Jews and Gentiles. He wrote the letter to Rome to help bond these two groups together and show them the importance of unity. They were now one family, united through Jesus, with God as their heavenly Father. And because of that they had an obligation to each other.
We are family also. And because of that we have an obligation to each other. So let’s look at these obligations that Paul spelled out in the Book of Romans.
We have an obligation to bring our spiritual gifts.
Romans 1:11 “For I long to visit you so I can bring you some spiritual gift that will help you grow strong in the Lord.”
It was the last day of school and children were bringing gifts to their teacher. She had set up a table in front of the classroom for them to place their gifts. The florist’s son brought the teacher a bouquet. The candy storeowner’s son brought the teacher a pretty box of candy. Then the liquor storeowner’s son brought a big, heavy box. The teacher noticed that it was leaking a bit. She felt sure that he had accidentally busted the bottle. She touched a drop of liquid with her finger and tasted it. “Is it wine?’ she guessed. “No” said the boy. She tasted another drop, “Champagne?” “No,” said the little boy. “It’s a puppy!”
Reality is we all have a gift to bring to the table. These gifts are given to us to help each other grow stronger in our faith. I see many gifts already active in our church. The gift of serving, the gift of encouragement, the gift of giving, the gift of faith, to name a few. But I also know that you have not discovered all the gifting that God has given you.
1 Corinthians 12:7 “A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.”
Here is the question to ask yourself. What am I doing that helps others? As I said, I see almost everyone serving in some capacity. But are you serving outside of these four walls? What are you doing to reach your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors? Are you sharing your gifts with strangers that you meet? A gift given that is left unwrapped or not used is a gift wasted. God’s desire is that we do not waste our gifts.
We have an obligation to encourage each other.
Romans 1:12 “When we get together, I want to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by yours.”
Let me tell you the true story of Larry Walters. Larry was a truck driver, but his lifelong dream was to fly. When he graduated from high school, he joined the Air Force in hopes of becoming a pilot. Unfortunately, poor eyesight disqualified him. So, when he finally left the service, he had to satisfy himself with watching others fly the fighter jets that criss-crossed the skies over his backyard. As he sat there in his lawn chair, he dreamed about the magic of flying.
Larry was known among his friends as a person who encouraged them to follow their dreams. One day he decided to follow his.
He went down to the local Army-Navy surplus store and bought a tank of helium and forty-five weather balloons. These were not your brightly colored party balloons; these were heavy-duty spheres measuring more than four feet across when fully inflated.
Back in his yard, Larry used straps to attach the balloons to his lawn chair, the kind you might have in your own back yard. He anchored the chair to the bumper of his jeep and inflated the balloons with helium. Then he packed some sandwiches and drinks and loaded a BB gun, figuring he could pop a few of those balloons when it was time to return to earth.
His preparations complete, Larry Walters sat in his chair and cut the anchoring cord. His plan was to lazily float up a ways, and then lazily back down to terra firma. But, things didn’t quite work out that way. When Larry cut the cord, he didn’t float lazily up, he shot up as if fired from a cannon! Nor did he go up a couple hundred feet. He climbed and climbed, until he finally leveled off at eleven THOUSAND feet (3 miles)!
At that height, he could hardly risk deflating any of the balloons, lest he unbalance the load. So, he stayed up there, sailing around for fourteen hours, totally at a loss as to how to get down. Eventually, Larry drifted into the approach corridor for Los Angeles International Airport. A Pan Am pilot radioed the tower about passing a guy in a lawn chair at eleven thousand feet, with a gun in his lap.
LAX is right on the ocean, and at nightfall, the winds on the coast begin to change. So, as dusk fell, Larry began drifting out to sea. At that point, the Navy dispatched a helicopter to rescue him. But the rescue team had a hard time getting to him, because the draft from their propeller kept pushing his homemade contraption farther and farther away. Eventually they were able to hover over him and drop a rescue line with which they gradually hauled him back to earth.
I want to encourage you in your pursuit of finding your ministry. I want to be an encouragement to you as you grow spiritually. And I need you to encourage me. And you do by your presence, your service, and your financial giving. And you need to encourage each other. You do that by fellowshipping with each other.
We have an obligation to exhibit spiritual fruit.
Romans 1:13 “I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to visit you, but I was prevented until now. I want to work among you and see spiritual fruit, just as I have seen among other Gentiles.”
The spiritual fruit that Paul speaks of is often misunderstood. I once saw a church sign that read “God desires spiritual fruit, not spiritual nuts.” Spiritual fruit is not any sort of supernatural manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Rather it is a lifestyle. The Bible lists the spiritual fruit in Galatians 5:22-23. “But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!”
We need to list these things as a checklist and see how well we show them in our daily walk.
Let me share another true story with you.
For the first 33 years of her life, Charlotte Elliott was a vivacious young woman. At the age of 33, she began suffering from crippling fatigue.
During her illness, a well-known preacher, Cesar Malan of Switzerland, came to visit her. He asked her if she had peace with God. She was facing many inner struggles because of feeling useless, and she resented the question. She refused to talk about it that day, but a few days later called Dr. Milan and apologized. She said she wanted to clean up her life before becoming a Christian. Dr. Milan answered, "Come just as you are." She gave her life to Christ that day.
In 1835, about twelve years after her conversion, her brother was raising funds for a school for the daughters of clergymen--St. Mary's Hall. Unable to help with the project, Charlotte felt useless. Perhaps God had even rejected her!
She fell into deep doubt. As she pondered her situation, she remembered the words of Cesar Malan and decided to write a poem for others who were in her situation. The words she wrote became one of the greatest soul-winning songs in the history of hymns.
“Just as I am, without one plea
But that Thy blood was shed for me
And that Thou biddest me come to Thee
O, Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
This hymn would affect many lives, mine included. She
could have languished in self pity but instead she decided to exhibit the spiritual fruits.
Later she would write "My Heavenly Father knows, and He alone, what it is, day after day, and hour after hour, to fight against bodily feelings of almost overpowering weakness and languor and exhaustion, to resolve, as He enables me to do, not to yield to the slothfulness, the depression, the irritability, such as a body causes me to long to indulge, but to rise every morning determined on taking this for my motto, 'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.' "
We live in a world filled with hostility, anger, selfish ambition, dissension, envy, quarreling, jealousy, sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, drunkenness, and wild parties. Paul describes these things as the fruit of the flesh. We need a place where there are people to help us can find peace from this haywire world. We are obligated to each other to bring that peace through the spiritual fruit.
We are obligated to the world.
Romans 1:14 “For I have a great sense of obligation to people in both the civilized world and the rest of the world, to the educated and uneducated alike.”
Let me share this story of an instructor of student truck drivers. The instructor gave this scenario to his class. "‘You are in an 18-wheeler with a heavy load, barreling down a mountainous two-lane highway. Ed, your co-driver, is asleep. There are six trucks behind you, and as you come over the top of a hill, one of the trucks behind you pulls out into the left lane to pass. As he comes along side you, you see several trucks coming from the opposite direction moving towards you. One of the trucks coming at you is in your lane because it is passing an on coming truck. There are five trucks behind and one beside you. There are several trucks in front of you and the two out front have both lanes blocked. The question is, “What will you do?” ’
'The answer is simple' a student called out. 'I would wake up Ed.'
'Why would you do that?' asked the instructor.
The student replied with, 'Because, Ed ain't never seen a truck wreck like this before!'"
We have within us something that the world has never seen before. We have the key to the guarantee of eternal fellowship with God. We are comfortable around those who are “civilized” like us. We love to hang out with those who are as “educated” in spiritual matters as we are. We feel our obligation to care for and fellowship with each other.
But Paul says we have an obligation to those who are sinners in our eyes, the “uncivilized.” We have an obligation to those who are ignorant of the truth in our eyes, the “uneducated.” My obligation to tell others about Jesus doesn’t stop with you. I am obligated to tell everyone that I meet if the opportunity presents itself.
However, we need to be civilized and educated to share with the uncivilized and uneducated. That is the role of the church. I gain knowledge when I prepare a sermon. I share that knowledge with you because I am obligated to do so. Then we are obligated to share that knowledge with the world.
We are obligated to be eager.
Romans 1:15 “So I am eager to come to you in Rome, too, to preach the Good News.”
One Sunday morning, a mother went in to wake her son and tell him it was time to get ready for church, to which he replied, "I'm not going."
"Why not?" she asked.
"I'll give you two good reasons," he said. "One, they don't like me, and two, all the do is stare at me."
His mother replied, "I'll give YOU two good reasons why you are going to church. One, you're 54 years old, and two, you're the pastor!"
How eager are you to get to church? Does it rate the same eagerness as going to work? People, especially family, will notice your lack of eagerness. And if you are not eager then why should they be? Think about what you encounter once you get here. I hope that it’s a sense of family and the presence of God. Become eager about being here in this place and let it shine on others. No one wants to go to a place of dread.
