drop of water got in the house that day. Our work was a success. It was meaningful. The Millers were very happy and so were we.

Transcription

1 TRANSFORMING LOVE July 26, 2015, the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost Ephesians 3: Adam D. Gorman, The Brick Presbyterian Church in the City of New York Holy Spirit you are welcome here, Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere. Your glory God is what our hearts long for, to be overcome by Your presence Lord. And now may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen This morning we will be reflecting on the transforming love of Christ, and much of what I am going to talk about will come from the mission trip to West Virginia that Peter Manning, Blake Myers, nine high-schoolers and I embarked on last month. More than once on the trip Peter and Blake said, How do we bring this home? How do we tell people about this trip? They will never understand. It s amazing and yet impossible for people to comprehend unless they are here with us. Today I am going to share some of those stories with you and I am going to do my best to give you a glimpse of the trip. So, no, I am not going to try and change our definition of love, or to transform it, but rather I will talk about the transforming love of Christ within us, through the power and love of our Lord, as written in this morning s Scripture passage. Last month we headed out on a weeklong trip to Braxton County, West Virginia. The twelve of us loaded up two SUVs with all sorts of construction equipment, our pillows and sleeping bags, our toothbrushes and towels, and off we headed on an eight-hour drive. And believe it or not, on that car trip we began to be transformed by the love of Christ. In both cars we had packets of information that included a lesson plan that got us in to a mission mindset. Every student had a packet and we all took turns reading out loud from them. Well, not the drivers of course, but we were listening intently

2 These packets guided us through scripture to have conversations about being humble servants, fervent listeners, zealous developers, and to become discontent ambassadors. Topics ranged from avoiding poverty tourism and avoiding a savior mentality to sharing Christ s love through community partnerships. Roots were being planted and grounded in Christ s love before we even arrived in West Virginia. Our packets taught us that, as discontent ambassadors, we hold a significant responsibility. That our responsibility is to carry Christ s name in a way that honors Him. That His strength is our momentum to continue sharing love and hope, when situations are grim and hopeless. Again, this was on the drive to our mission trip and already the beautiful roller coaster ride of Christ s love was on its way. When we arrived in a little town called Gassaway, we could sense the extreme poverty we were going to face, but we were welcomed by Christ s love shining brightly. A whole bunch of college students and recent college graduates who worked for the missions company called NextStep Ministries saw our vans arriving, and so they all gathered together and came running out of the church to give us a big warm welcome. They smiled, they cheered, they clapped and they turned music on really loudly. It was going to be a good week. Not just a good week but a great week. A transforming week. Immediately some of our kids began to engage with kids from the other youth groups that we would be spending our week together with, one group from Wisconsin and one from Indiana. They started playing soccer, basketball and volleyball together while we waited for the evening s worship service to begin. Bonds were beginning to form and they didn t even know it. That first evening s worship service was like none that anyone from our group had ever experienced. It was very much a contemporary worship service with a rock band and a large screen that would show us a video of our sermon series throughout the week. I think Ellsworth would ve fainted. At first it was a little bit too much for all of us from The Brick Church. It was a new format, new songs, new enthusiasm, different movement, but it was worship and it was done well

3 The power of the Holy Spirit was present. The love of the people who were leading the worship service was palpable but even so it was an adjustment for everyone. It was different, felt a little strange; it was all a little too much. But those feelings were going to change throughout the week as we became more comfortable with that type of worship service every night. After that first night of worship, everyone broke into the groups that they would be working with for the week and we found out that we, the New York City group, would be working on our own at The Millers House. Selfishly I was very thankful that we would stick together as a group and not be split up. This way we would stick together and grow and bond together as a group even more. The Holy Spirit was already moving. The next morning, the first day, that is, we woke up, got ready and before we left to go to the Millers House we split up and did morning devotions. Whenever the youth and I go on trips like this, we do what we call morning devotions, or devos, and sometimes simply call it quiet time. Many of my friends from the south call it Get With God Time. It is a time to separate yourself from everyone else and to enter into a time with God. To listen for His voice, and to reflect; to center ourselves on Christ. Anyhow, the devos for this trip were provided to us by NextStep Ministries, and everyone on the trip was reflecting on the same thing. These devos had us questioning things that ranged from questions like, Have you found it difficult to see God in your life? To even more difficult ones like, Have you ever thought about how an all-loving and an all-powerful God could allow His people to experience hardship, tragedy or pain? Every morning began with deep thoughts and deep questions for us to reflect on throughout the day. After our devotional time, we packed into our SUVs and headed out to the site we would be working on for the week. Again, our site was The Millers House. It is more of a homestead than just a home and it was a home that needed some serious work. It was beautifully built a long time ago into the side of a large hill and in order to get to it you had to drive over a wooden bridge that crossed their stream or crick that was in their front yard. In this house lived a grandmother Carolyn (who wasn t called grandma because grandma had been the person who - 3 -

4 had always lived in the house and who recently passed away). So Carolyn, her daughter Jenny, and Jenny s two daughters Destiny and Karma were the ones who live there. To the left of the house, about twenty-five yards away, raised up on a small hill, was what appeared to be a garage but was really just a structure for storing things. This structure s top beams were made out of long skinny birch tree trunks, it has a dirt floor, and the things that were being stored in it appeared to be trash. However, to the Millers it wasn t trash at all but rather memories. There was a broken antique Maytag washer that must have been over fifty years old that their grandmother had always used. There were clothes about that the kids wore when they were younger and broken dolls and toys scattered about; all sorts of things. Not things we would necessarily keep, but things that were treasures to them. Things that represented fond memories and love. I m just trying to give you a picture of the scene, not to make you feel bad for the Millers. Now, the reason we, or NextStep, was able to get to this house to help fix it up, is all because of a local missionary there named Dani, who is their neighbor on Two Mile Road. Dani and her husband Clark had been building a relationship with the Millers for years. The Millers trusted Dani and therefore Dani was able to lead us and other groups one step at a time to fix things up at the house. Because, like I mentioned, this was their stuff, their treasures, their prized possessions and we all needed to take it one step at a time. Dani, through her love of Christ, was able to minister to this family over the years and to get their permission to let groups come in and work on things on the outside of their home. Throughout the course of the week we were able to dig huge trenches behind the house, up on the hill, and down along the sides of the house, to catch any water run-off and to send it as far away from the foundation of the house as possible. There were literally spots in the back of the house where you could see that water had constantly come down the hill right into the house from the back. Toward the end of the week when we definitely no longer wanted to move dirt because we were tired of it, because our bodies were sore from it and our hands were blistered and callused from it, there was a very large storm. And you know what? Not a - 4 -

5 drop of water got in the house that day. Our work was a success. It was meaningful. The Millers were very happy and so were we. Others from our group painted the entire outside of the house. And it looked gorgeous! We also re-cemented the front porch as well as built and stained all new wooden banisters that were up to code and looked great. We built a huge, sturdy and strong set of shelves for the garage/shed, and hopefully these shelves will contain all of the clutter that are their memories and free up all the other space for more practical things. And finally, we were able to buy them and build them a brand new jungle gym for the little girls, Karma and Destiny. The swing set they had was very old and frankly unsafe. But I ve got to tell you, as much as we felt we gave them, really they gave us so much more. In the beginning of the week we had been told that we probably wouldn t get to see the Millers until the end of the week because they had to work, but somehow they were able to get out of work early on that first day of our work and surprise us. The four of them came back to their house like a ball of blonde energy and you could just see the love they had for each other written all over them. Towards the end of that afternoon, Jenny, the one who is Karma and Destiny s mom, sat with our youth and told them her story. She told them how she had been addicted to Methamphetamine, how she had been through hell and back and how through finding Jesus, her Lord and Savior, she was able to come out of the depths. She had now been clean for over eight months and wasn t going to lose her daughters. A story of transforming love. And then we thankfully, at worship in the evenings, happened to sing a song that speaks to that type of thing. The words are simply, There is power in the name of Jesus, to break every chain, break every chain, to break every chain. There is power in the name of Jesus. What we realized then was that we needed to teach the youth what those words meant and what our chains are. Then we had a discussion about whatever chains you have, whatever holds you from loving Jesus, or if you have a feeling you are not loved by Jesus, there is power in the name of Jesus to break those chains. To help you fight addictions, to remind you that you - 5 -

6 are not alone, whatever it is that makes you feel captive, Christ is there for you, He loves you and He died for you. An image that we shared with our youth to illustrate this was placing two chairs in front of each other, facing each other. Reminding them that God s chair always faces our chair. That He is always reaching out to us with outstretched arms because He absolutely loves us and would never turn His back on us, but at times we turn our back on God. We turn our chair around and we face the other way. Today s text is telling us to turn back toward Him. It is a prayer for us to love Him the way He loves us. And that through that love we can comprehend what words cannot grasp, to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. We saw that love one afternoon when the Millers gave each one of us an ice pop. You know, the ones that come in blue, red, purple, yellow, orange, or green. Well, when the Millers offered them to us, at first some people, me included, were hesitant to take one from them. We knew how little they had and how much of a treat it was for them to have ice pops. But what we learned was that it was even more of a treat for them to be able to give them to us. To celebrate our hard work together. To say thank you, and I love you, in such a small yet so large of a gesture. Love was shared together in the simple-ness of a small frozen ice pop like we all had when we were children. Here we were, children of God, beaming in Christ s love for us and for the love we have for each other, shared in a unassuming ice pop. Then, later on in the week, during one of our last lunch discussions, we had everyone in the group come up with someone that they know whose life is characterized by following Jesus, and to share why they chose that person. Mothers, fathers, friends and even Ellsworth was mentioned! But what really struck us was when one of our leaders, a young man named Ross, said, Well, there are so many. I can t name just one. It s been important for me in my life to surround myself with loving, caring Christians, so I can t name just one That s my prayer for all of us. That is Paul s prayer in today s scripture for all of us when - 6 -

7 he said, With all the saints. Do we love Jesus so much that we surround ourselves with others who love Him too? How many saints do you know? I could stand here and share stories from the trip with you for hours, but I really have to start wrapping this sermon up. I ve got to tell you something about the last night of worship. Our kids worshiped harder than I have ever seen them worship before. Most of them went to the front row and got as close to the Narthex, or the stage, as possible, and then they sang their hearts out. And today I want to share with you the lyrics of one song we all belted out that night. That the whole town probably heard as we sang at the top of our lungs. As we let go and let God. We praised Him and we felt His love fill us as we sang a song called One Thing Remains. Its words say: Higher than the mountains that I face, stronger than the power of the grave, constant through the trial and the change, one thing remains. Your love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me. On and on and on and on it goes. It overwhelms and satisfies my soul. And I never, ever, have to be afraid, one thing remains. In death, in life, I m confident and covered by the power of Your great love. My debt is paid, there s nothing that can separate my heart from Your great love... Your love never fails, never gives up Never runs out on me. That song has stuck in my heart since that night and I catch myself singing it as I walk through the city. It has become like a mantra to me and I pray that it has to the kids as well. That s what Paul was praying for all of us. So in conclusion with - 7 -

8 Paul s words to the Ephesians I leave you with this today: Now to Him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen