MATTHEW 28:16-20
“Let’s Not Drop The Ball”
By: Rev. Kenneth Sauer, Pastor of Parkview United Methodist Church, Newport News, VA
A man was taking a daily walk as part of a regimen recommended by his physician after a heart attack.
At home, the telephone rang and his wife answered.
On the other end of the line was the representative from the Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes. The call was to inform the man who was taking the walk that he had just won the sweepstakes and a certified check for $1 million dollars would soon be arriving.
The wife was ecstatic!
All of her dreams would come true. All of their bills would soon be paid, and they would have the opportunity to investment beyond their wildest dreams!
The she suddenly thought of how the news would affect her husband…
“Will the news give him another heart attack?” she wondered.
After a good deal of thought, she decided to call their pastor for some advice. Surely the pastor would know how to handle these difficult decisions….
“Pastor, I just received the news that my husband has won the Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes,” she said. “What on earth do I do now?”
The pastor was a bit confused by the question…. “That’s great!” the pastor replied to the wife….
…. “But what seems to be the problem?”
In a worried tone, the wife answered, “I’m afraid my husband will have another heart attack when I give him the news. He may even die!”
The pastor said, “I’ll be right there.”
The husband returned from his walk to see the pastor’s car in front of the house. He rushed inside and was met by the pastor…. “What’s wrong, Pastor?”
“Now calm down, Ed,” the pastor assured the worried husband. “Ed, I’ve got a little problem I need to discuss with you.”
The husband responded, “Pastor, you know I’ll help you any way I can. What is it?”
Taking a deep breath, the pastor continued: “Ed, it’s a problem about stewardship. Let me give you an example. What if a person like you suddenly received word that he had won a million dollars…what would you do with all that money?”
The husband smiled and put his hand on the pastor’s shoulder: “That’s easy Pastor. You know the first thing I would do is give $750,000 of it to the church.”
Hearing his answer, the pastor had a massive heart attack and dropped dead!!!
Now, most church leaders may not react in the same way, but many of them would be delighted to hear about that kind of loyalty among their parishioners.
And that kind of loyalty is exactly what Consecration Sunday is all about!
According to Webster’s Dictionary, the word “consecrate” means to “make or declare something sacred.”
Therefore, by filling out our pledge cards for the coming year….we are making a sacred pact between ourselves and God that we will do what we pledge to do.
The decisions that we make today will affect the future of Christ’s Church…and most importantly…it will reveal our loyalty (to God and ourselves) to The Great Commission of Christ which is to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
Otto Michal has said that Mathew 28 is the key to understanding the whole Gospel….it is “the summary of the whole Gospel!”
There is a definite emphasis on doing in The Great Commission…
….the Christian life is not something to simply learn about theoretically, but it is to be lived and to produce.
Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7 “You will know them by their fruits.”
The Christian life is not a possession but a life-producing stewardship…
…and if it is not it will be taken away from us—Jesus says: “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”
Plenty of churches have died because they were not producing fruit….the buildings now stand boarded up or are being used by other Christians who are making disciples for Jesus Christ.
The greatest evangelistic movement in Western society at one time was identified with Methodism.
Yet, in the past several decades this denomination has sustained the largest membership loss of any church in North America.
Many churches are walking right on the precipice of extinction….
Why?
It is because many of us have lost our focus…our meaning…and therefore are not producing any fruit!
It is my belief that basically all of the present problems facing this world are directly connected to the fact that many of us have “dropped the ball.”
We have already lost at least two generations…those who do not attend a church---and on this consecration Sunday it is our responsibility to pledge that we will not only do everything we can to win back these lost souls…
….but also to make sure we never lose anymore!!!
And this means that all of us must be completely dedicated to doing what we have promised God to do when we joined the Christian Church!
We promised God that we would uphold God’s Church by our prayers, our presence, our gifts and our service!
The salvation of the world depends on how well we keep up our end of that sacred pledge!
The founder of the Methodist Church—John Wesley was already a priest in the Anglican Church when he had his “heart-warming” or born again experience.
And from that moment on…he began to preach salvation by faith through grace alone….he began to preach about the life-changing experience of dedicating one’s life completely to Christ and having a personal relationship with Him…
…and I’m sure many of you know what happened to him…he was kicked out of the Anglican Church…
…but this didn’t stop Wesley…he simply made church in the fields where the poor, disenfranchised, those who knew they were lost came to hear him by the thousands….and lives were changed….souls were saved by the millions!!!
And that is the number one priority of fulfilling The Great Commission of Jesus Christ---the salvation of souls!!!
Jesus said: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.”…
… “My food…is to do the will of him who sent me to finish his work.”
We live in an age of causes—from “save the seals” to “ban the bomb.”
And these causes have invaded the hearts, minds, and calendars of many members of many churches.
Some of these causes are worthy, and many are utterly worthless in comparison to what really matters!
Jesus reminded the disciples of the most important cause of all….
…as a matter of fact, this cause is more important than the basics of life itself!
The cause is souls!…
…and as the church we must never forget that our first obligation is evangelism!
In the Great Commission, Jesus forever established our priorities: “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Jesus told His disciples that He was finishing the work the Father gave him to do.
Obviously, the earthly part of that work is now in the hands of us—the believers!
The One who announced that He was the “light of the world” gave the commission to us—His followers: “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.”
Therefore, the purpose of every sermon is souls…
The purpose of every song is souls….
The purpose of every Sunday School Lesson is souls…
The purpose of every meeting is souls…
The purpose of every bar-b-q, Pumpkin Patch, Kid’s Night Out, Vacation Bible School, Lunch on the Grounds, United Methodist Women’s meeting, United Methodist Men’s meeting, Youth Group gathering, Bible Study, etc., etc., etc. is….what?…SOULS!!!
And the purpose of Consecration Sunday—where we are asked to make our spiritual and financial pledges to God is souls!
There are no bench sitters in Christ’s Church---there is no second string…
…each and every one of us has a job to do…
…each and every one of us are called to be Ambassadors for Christ!
And that means that when the Nominations Committee asks us to serve Christ’s Church through being part of a committee…
…well we had better have an awfully good reason to say “No.”
There are very few legitimate excuses for not actively serving the Kingdom of God! Christ made no excuses, and we are commanded to carry out His work!
There are very few legitimate excuses for not showing up for the monthly prayer vigil…
…for not signing up to help out with the Pumpkin Patch…
…for not being consistent in our worship attendance…
…for not volunteering to help teach a Sunday School class…
…for letting only a hand-full of people do the majority of the work…
…for not attending Bible study…
…for not volunteering to help recruit, and help teach children during Kid’s Night Out…
…and let’s face it…without children…there will be no Parkview United Methodist Church in 10 or 15 years….or any church for that matter!
….the avenues for being actively involved in the church are endless…
…the needs are endless…
…and there is no legitimate excuse for not making a financial pledge!!!
Jesus said, “Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!”
As usual, Jesus’ followers looked at the temporal instead of the eternal.
Those around Jesus heard Him talk about a harvest, and they immediately thought about the harvest of crops.
Jesus saw a different harvest.
He looked at the fields full of lost souls.
He knew they were hungry for the peace and forgiveness that only comes from God.
He knew He was the only answer for the forgiveness of their past and the hope for their future.
Jesus says…and we must believe it: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
If we don’t believe this…we might as well just be another civic group, or social club….because we will be doing more harm than good if we call ourselves Christian!
We have a pressing harvest on our hands…
…and this is a lesson for every Christian who fills their calendar…
…the big question is: “what event on this calendar doesn’t relate to the harvest?
If one is found, careful consideration should be made to its immediate removal!
Salvation is the now!…
…as 1st Corinthians reads: “Now is the day of salvation.”
And the good news is that sharing Christ is the one thing everyone can learn to do!
There may be different methods, but the work can still be done by the youngest and the oldest in the faith.
Paul said to Timothy, “The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.”
Every believing member of Christ’s Church must see themselves as a God-anointed link in the chain of the Gospel.
It makes all the difference in the world to understand that everything that is learned is learned so that it can be taught to someone else!
In the cause of the Great Commission….within Bible believing churches….every ministry counts towards the saving of souls….
….so let’s not drop the ball!
