God So Loved The World (World Communion Sunday) October 2, 2016 John 3:16-17 Pastor Vic Willis

Transcription

1 God So Loved The World (World Communion Sunday) October 2, 2016 John 3:16-17 Pastor Vic Willis 1 (Slide#1) 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (Slide#2) 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. One principle I have learned more than once in ministry is, (Slide#3) Good intentions don t always bring about good results. You remember about four years ago, we celebrated World Communion Sunday with several other local churches under a tent outside, one year at the sports complex another year in the parking lot in front of OB's sandwich shop on 776? We did this with the intention of giving a witness to people in Englewood driving by of our unity in Christ. All these churches 7 of them the second year who may differ on minor worship practices or tenets of belief, coming together around the most important part of our faith Christ s Body and Blood given for the redemption and transformation of the world. I thought it was a powerful witnessing opportunity all of us pastors did! I realized after those two years that there was a disturbing trend in the works. These were our lowest attended services of the entire year! And not by a little!

2 What s more, these outdoor World Communion services were not fostering a 2 continued working together and goodwill between the churches involved. You may be wondering why we don t do them anymore. Well, that s why! Turns out we don t much like having outdoor communion on hot October mornings. We ll have close to 800 here today for Holy Communion in three services. On those two World Communion Sunday s four and five years ago we had more like from our church. We were, in essence, discouraging about ¾ of our congregation from receiving Holy Communion on World Communion Sunday by having it outdoors on a hot October day. It was then that I remembered something my Grandad Willis used to say he said, Son, when the horse dies Dismount! Good intentions don t always bring about good results. (Slide#4) But I m not finished with the story a very cool thing came as a result of those sweaty communion services on the blacktopped parking lot in front of OB s Our churches started talking about what we could do together to not just show our unity through worship, but through service to our community to be the hands and feet of Jesus in our community. Family Promise was a direct result of those discussions. So now we focus our ecumenical energies on ministries like Family Promise

3 where we are engaged with 12 other churches to help homeless people break the 3 cycle of homelessness and attain permanent housing and a job. And next year we ll work with several other churches in offering Celebrate Recovery to help people with habits, hurts and hang-ups break the cycle of addiction in their lives. So the good intentions of those outdoor communion services had an up-side a very good up-side! Life is like that. God is like that! This got me to thinking about some other good-intentions that went south, and then even had an up-side to them. The Bible is full of them! It seems to be one of the patterns of the Gospel. Situations that started out with the best of intentions, had major problems, but then turned out better than anyone could have imagined. If you would graph it, it would look like this (Slide#5) (Vic with pointer) Starts out with hope and optimism, but you run into some problems major problems, almost to the point of thinking, what s the point? Why try so hard? but then something happens that presents an even better expression of what you were trying to do in the first place. It s the pattern of the Gospel, I tell you. It s the pattern of life, really. It s replicated in the Bible over and over. Take Joseph in the OT for example Joseph...this good-intentioned stary-eyed dreamer, and a bit of an arrogant favorite child made his brothers so jealous they faked his death and sold

4 him into slavery. But God was not finished with the story the brothers would 4 be saved by him years later when they went to Egypt to escape famine and drought in Canaan. Moses This baby born when babies like him were thrown into the Nile who was found nurtured and raised by Pharaoh s daughter and became a prince. He was well-intentioned that day he witnessed the harsh treatment of a Hebrew slave, got really angry and killed the Egyptian abuser, was self-exiled for 40 years tending sheep. But God was not finished with the story Moses then heard God s call to let his people go and he became the man with the plan for freeing God s people from Pharaoh. Paul this really good intentioned guy who wanted above all else to serve God a Pharisee of Pharisees very religious he thought he was serving God by killing people who followed Jesus. But God was not finished with the story he got knocked off his donkey on the way to Damascus to do just that (kill Christians), he met Jesus then became one of the greatest Jesus followers of all time, introducing the Gospel to Gentiles and the rest of the world! These are just a few of the good-intentions-gone-bad-then-better-thanever stories in the Bible. All of these good intentions happened for a larger cause the cause of sharing the gospel with the World.

5 In our world where it seems we are on the steep down-side of the curve, we 5 need to know there s never a better time to be bearers of The Good News. Our World is in desperate need of the Gospel and, people are more ready to hear now than any other time in history! And you could say the Gospel story that verse we all know and read today John 3:16--(Slide#6) 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. is the ultimate good intention gone seriously wrong, but then with the best result that could ever be imagined. You see, (Slide#7) God had the best of intentions by sending His Son he did it because God loved us, but Jesus was rejected and spat upon and beaten within an inch of his life, then forced to carry a cross on which He would die to the top of a hill, where he was nailed to it and let hang there for several hours until he breathed his last. But God was not finished with the story on the third day He was raised from the dead and lives today to bring us life a purpose-filled life and eternal life if only we but believe in him as Lord and Savior. I don t know where you are on this pattern today. Some of you may be on the initial up-swing in a season of hope and optimism just launching out with the best of intentions in your new job, your new marriage, your new life as a retiree, your

6 new role as parent or grandparent 6 Or maybe you re experiencing the down-turn of things. The shine has worn off, the newness is gone. You re beginning to experience some really difficult times maybe a tough diagnosis maybe a break in a long-time friendship maybe a separation with a spouse, or divorce maybe even a death in the family that has overshadowed your existence lately. It s a real part of the story that we all must go through. Wherever you are on this continuum, know that our God is a God of Redemption and reconciliation and repair. He does not leave us in our distress. He makes for us a way through it or around it or under it, but nonetheless, it that desperate time becomes an important part of our story, where one day we turn around and say, you know, He was there all the time! He never left me to fend for myself. He was always by my side, even when I didn t know he was there. Then something better emerges. If nothing other than the knowledge of his faithfulness of his presence of his love that will be more than enough! It s the something better that is very much a part of your life now better than you ever could have imagined! New life! New hope! That s the Gospel story. Dr. Marv Eastland sent me this video of this young man named Logan

7 Henderson he shares what I m trying to say better than I can listen. 7 Video So as you receive the broken body and poured out blood of our Lord (in airconditioned comfort,) remember, that God understands he will always understand. Just run to Him.