What The Church Can Learn From Geese

INTRODUCTION

 Sometimes it is fun to just look around and see what we can learn.

 I remember watching cartoons when I was a kid. I learned a lot from watching the Road Runner. (GIVE EXAMPLES)

 Sometimes we can learn some lessons from some interesting places. If we would take the time to look around us, we could learn some good object lessons.

 One of the things that I have enjoyed about living where I do is that there is a lot of wildlife to watch and enjoy.

 During the summer, my neighbors have a lot of geese around their ponds. I enjoy watching the geese, I know that my neighbors would like to see them gone, but since they are not eating my crops or fertilizing my yard, I like to watch them.

 I have noticed that geese seem to be able to do something that we in the Church should want to do. Their flocks seem to get larger. These geese do this by reproduction, but they also must invite other geese to come join them. I do not think that geese have a newspaper or radio to communicate with one another, but as I watch the geese, their flocks get larger and larger as the summer goes on.

 In John Maxwell’s book, “Developing Leaders Around you”, Maxwell has reproduced part of a story entitled “Are You A Goose?” from a 1992 magazine article that tells us a few things that scientists have learned about geese regarding why they do what they do.

 I want to use this little section of the article as a skeleton for today’s outline for our message.

 What are some lessons that the church can learn from the world of a goose?

SERMON

I. GEESE ILLUSTRATE THE CONCEPT OF FELLOWSHIP

A. What is fellowship? I am sure that you have heard this word from the pulpit before. Fellowship means “to have in common”, “to share”, “to participate for a common cause”.

1. ACT 2:42 And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

2. I want to ask you, “As Christians, what are we doing together other than meeting on Sunday ?” Why do the geese get together before they head south for the winter (God made them that way, they do not think about it)? The geese get together because together, the journey is easier.

3. When you see geese heading south for the winter flying along in a "V" formation, you might be interested in know-ing that science has discovered why they fly that way. Re-search has revealed that as each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird immediately behind it. By flying in a "V" formation, the whole flock adds at least 71 percent greater flying range than if each bird flew on its own.

B. People who share a common direction and sense of community get where they are going more quickly and easily because they are traveling on one another’s thrust.

C. Part of being in fellowship with one another is making sure that we are going in the same direction and that we are flying in formation. Have you seen a group of geese heading out in all directions as they try to head south?

1. Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go it alone. It quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird immediately in front.

2. When we fall out of formation with God, we also feel the resistance pull us down away from our goal of growing closer to Jesus.

3. If we will embark on our journey to heaven together, the journey becomes easier.

4. The geese because of their instinct given to them by God, get together and head south for the winter for their survival. As Christians, we need to get together and walk together, we need to spend time together and grow together.

5. 1JO 1:6-7 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

6. The geese stay together and head south for their survival, we too must work together as one body for our survival.

7. As a church, each of us need to think of ways that we can grow together in Christ.

8. If we as people have as much sense as a goose, we will stay in formation and so will those who are headed the same way we are.