The First Church of the Potpourri
By Pastor Jim May
Oh what a difference the Spirit of the Lord makes in the life of a man or woman who has come to know Him as their Lord and Savior!
Victory Temple, we are a part of the Body of Christ, part of the Bride of Christ, washed in the Blood of the Lamb, purchased by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross at Calvary, a new creation, born again into a new man. Old things have passed away, and all things have become new. What a glorious future awaits those who love the Lord and serve Him!
But where did we come from? How did we ever get to be a part of this Body of Christ? Looking at where we have come from and what we once were, to see where we are today and where we are going, is to take a journey through an almost unbelievable course of events. One by one Jesus chose each of us; lifted us out of the miry clay, out of the sea of humanity because He saw something in each of us that we could not see in ourselves.
He has taken something that was nothing and turned that nothing into something that can do something with nothing and lead more that are nothing into something that is really something. (Did you get that?)
I like to refer to our local body, this congregation of sinners saved by grace, as the First Church of the Potpourri!
Do you know what potpourri is? I went into the washroom of the church earlier and there it sat, in a pretty little bowl. To look upon the potpourri was to see a bowl that was filled with what looked like pieces of dead, dried up flowers. But out of that dead, dry material there came a sweet smelling aroma. Somehow I don’t think that the sweet smell was just a result of the mixed up pieces in that bowl. There had to have been some outside force that was acting upon them that caused them to unite and collectively give the sweet odor that filled the room.
Here is the definition of Potpourri – “A combination of incongruous things; A miscellaneous anthology or collection; A mixture of dried flower petals and spices used to scent the air; a piece of music made up parts brought together without order or bond of connection.”
The church, this church, every church is very much like that potpourri!
King David was on the run from Saul, King of Israel. Saul was out to kill David because David was already anointed as the next king. David ran to the cave of Adullam to hide from Saul and it was there that God would begin to build David’s army. But what an army David had! I don’t know of many generals that would want to lead a rabble such as this.
1 Samuel 22:1-2, "David therefore departed thence, and escaped to the cave Adullam: and when his brethren and all his father’s house heard it, they went down thither to him. And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men."
How would you like to lead an army of stressed out people, who were in debt over their heads, and a gang of malcontents? That’s what David was given by the Lord.
Now, I don’t want to hurt your feelings but that’s that same way that God still builds a church today.
1 Corinthians 1:27-29, "But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence."
Have you seen some stressed out people in the church lately? Just open your eyes and you will see. Just about every one of us gets stressed out at times over the circumstances of our lives. Stress is a killer that causes hypertension, strokes, anxiety attacks, and even heart attacks.
Illustration:
You know your family is stressed when...
·Conversations often begin with "Put the gun down, and then we can talk".
·The school principal has your number on speed-dial.
·The cat is on Valium.
·People have trouble understanding your kids, because they learned to speak through clenched teeth.
·No one has time to wait for microwave TV dinners.
·"Family meetings" are often mediated by law enforcement officials.
·You have to check your kid’s day-timer to see if he can take out the trash.
·Ritalin and Decaf coffee makers give you industrial rates.
And for those of us who are stressed over being “circumference challenged” remember this: "stressed" spelled backwards is "desserts."
These might be even funnier if they didn’t carry such a ring of truth for today’s society!
Have you seen some debtors in the church? I’m not just talking about worldly debts, because we all have some of those too, at least most of us do. I’m talking about debtors who owed a debt that they could never hope to pay.
Illustration:
One member of a church that I heard of called the police and reported that all of his wife’s credit cards had been stolen. Then he added, "But don’t look too hard for the thief. He’s charging less than my wife ever did."
Illustration:
A man was once bragging over what he had and said, "We have a whole room full of furniture from France that goes back to Louis the 14th." "That’s nothing," replied the other. "We’ve got a whole house full of furniture from Sears that goes back on the first."
There is a chorus that we sing that goes like this:
HE PAID A DEBT HE DID NOT OWE
I OWED A DEBT I COULD NOT PAY
I NEEDED SOMEONE TO WASH MY SINS AWAY
AND NOW I SING A BRAND NEW SONG
AMAZING GRACE
CHRIST JESUS PAID A DEBT
THAT I COULD NEVER PAY
We were all such huge debtors before Jesus paid the debt for us with His own blood. I am bought with a price, and now I belong to Jesus. Satan has no claim on me now. I’m free; I’m a child of the King and a part of the Body of Christ!
What about the malcontents? Have you seen some people in the church recently who just weren’t contented with where they were, what they had, what God had for them to do, or for some other reason could not be comfortable with you, me or the church as a whole?
What do you think makes most people jump from church to church? It’s the fact that they are nothing more than the malcontents who are ever searching for a church where they produce milk for the Lord like contented cows in a dairy farm pasture.
Most of these folks are so discontented that their lives produces nothing more than sour cream or sour milk. No one can ever count on them. Nothing sweet or edifying ever comes from their lips. Their whole life is spent searching for an answer that is elusive because they are just too discontented to settle down anywhere.
I want you to know that when the malcontents joined David’s army, they had found a home where people could relate to them and could join with them because many had come from the same place. They had found a place where they belonged and they were no more a group of malcontents but they were forged into a might army for Israel and King David. Later on you read where many of them are described as mighty men of valor!
How do you turn a malcontent into a mighty man or woman of valor for the Lord? The only way is to allow the Holy Spirit of God and the Word of God to change their heart!
Yes, that’s what we are! We are the First Church of the Potpourri! We were nothing more than a bunch of dried up wall flowers, dead roots of bitterness, colorless petals of a dead life that may have been thought of once as a thing of beauty, dead sticks that could only receive life by being grated into a living vine by some miracle and not by our own power for we were dead in trespasses and sin.
We are nothing more than a combination of incongruous things – none of us thought alike, looked alike, dreamed alike, had the same desires, had the same goals in life, and certainly none of us had any thought of Jesus until He came along and knocked on our heart’s door.
We are a miscellaneous anthology or collection of misfits that wouldn’t fit into the Kingdom of God, wouldn’t be considered worthy of being placed in a position of honor and fit only for the trash heap of society – until Jesus turned us into something better for His own glory and for our own good.
Every one of us was a separate piece of music. Each of us was marching to the beat of a different drum, going our own way, until Jesus rang our bell and allowed us to fall into step in His army, making us a mighty force for the Lord and a force that the devil fears and one that makes him tremble when we move under the direction and anointing of the Holy Ghost and fire.
Just like that potpourri that I saw earlier, the sweet smell didn’t come from the dead material that had no life of its own. The sweet smelling aroma came from the spices that were added by an outside force.
The potpourri has no power to decide what it wants to look like, where it will be placed, what scent it will give off, or when it will be used. It’s dead, with no ability to do anything of its own power.
That’s the way that the church must be also.
It’s like an old chorus that we sing that says we must wait upon the Lord for
” without Him we can do nothing. Without Him we would surely fail. Without Him we would only be drifting, like a ship without a sail.”
But God takes us all, dead, dry and lost without God, lifts us up and brings us together under the direction of the Holy Spirit and makes a mighty force out of us for His purposes.
He takes us and molds our dreams together to create a Bride of Christ that He can proclaim as clean, pure and holy at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
Out of nothing He brings a sweet smelling savor and we are made into “Profitable Servants” for our God.
I’m so glad that Jesus chose you! I’m so glad that Jesus chose me! I’m so glad that Jesus has made us all into the “First Church of the Potpourri”.
Let the world hear your song! Let the world know that you are now a part of the Body of Christ and that your life is forever changed! Let the world see Jesus in you!
