January 19, 2014 John 1:35-42 Pastor Janet Shaver Creekside COB Exciting Faith JOKE: A visitor entered a church for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed the service. He was clapping and moving with the beat or the praise hymns. He was shouting Amen during the testimony time. All during this time, you can see the congregation was very uncomfortable with this kind of expression of faith. They were fidgety and looking at one another. Even the preacher did not know what to do. Finally, right before the sermon a rousing song was played and the visitor began praising God by waving his arms back and forth, it is all the ushers could take and a usher approached and asked him what he was doing. The visitor said, I can t help but raise my hands, I just caught the spirit. The usher said to him, Well, you didn t catch it here so put your hands down. Illus: Byrl s evangelism technique We have found the Messiah. The Messiah is with us. Now that is exciting but sometimes we forget how exciting it is to have God in our midst. Sometimes we lose our luster; our excitement dissipates. We get involved with the works of the church and they become a matter of every day church life. Church as usual. So what does it take to make our faith exciting again? The scripture lays it out for us. POINT ONE: Look Here is the Lamb of God We are excited because: We remember that when we enter in we are a part of something greater than we know. Most of the time we cannot see the fruit of
what we are doing but knowing that all the good we sow into the kingdom of God, it is all used for God s work in the world. Nothing is discarded, every good we do will be used to build the kingdom. It all points to God. I think that is pretty humbling place to stand. JOKE: There's an old joke among religious educators. When a teacher broaches the subject of humility, he or she begins by stating a simple, but self-defeating command: "Raise your hand if you are humble!" Humility is a learning process that keeps us close to the kingdom God desires. Humility keeps us pointing to the Lamb of God, giving God glory and we are excited that we are all serving God for a greater understanding than we know. John the Baptist knew this. He knew that God was who he was living for. His entire life was given for this calling. That gave him great excitement. John is humble in the way he lived his life. He has a high calling on his life, yet he does not live like the scribes and Pharisees. That is who we are as Christ s disciples. Our life is our calling. We are humbled knowing that God is gifting us and showing us the way through the Messiah. All our ministries are pointing to God. Each one of us has gifts, skills and talents and all of them are from God. Whether we have a gift of encouragement, healing. Whether we have the talents of singing or fixing things. Whether we are faithful prayers or faithful doers. There are no ministries greater than the other and each one of these build s body of Christ pointing to God. All of our ministries are a part of something greater than we know. POINT TWO: As soon as they heard it they followed Jesus
Two guys who were fishermen went followed him. Dropped what they were doing in life and followed him. Don t be afraid to do something different. That will get you excited about your faith. Let your heart and your eyes see the things that would cause you to turn the worlds heads to see what it was all about. That is why so many people followed Jesus around. He was bringing a new and fresh understanding of God. I was reading a book recently that said if we want to do something extraordinary for God, then we should be doing things that are out of the ordinary. Not only out of the ordinary for us but out of the ordinary for the church. If you think about Jesus, he really did everything out of the ordinary of the religion of that day. He floored people with his dynamic extraordinary ministry. He said now this is the way it should be done. He changed the direction of their thinking; he included and accepted people that the community of God in that day never would. He entered into places that the community of God would not have dwelled. Jesus showed extraordinary exciting faith and compassion. How can we turn the world upside down with the way we think and act and be the church in the world? We do things that are counterintuitive to the world s way of thinking and acting. ILLUSTRATION: POPE FRANCIS The things he is doing is discipleship plain and simple and because his position he is in the limelight. We don t have to go far to see a Jesus disciple turning the world upside down. It is Pope Francis. There isn t a week that goes by that he isn t doing something that is turning not only the world but the Christian world. He is not afraid to do something different and new. He is not afraid to tear down barriers that the church has placed
between the world and them. His ministries embrace Jesus message of justice and mercy and compassion. Now don t get me wrong; he isn t where we would like to be as a church. But he is outlandish and courageous in his love for God, God s people and God s call on his life. He is excited about his faith and it pours out in his life. POINT THREE They remained with him that day We get excited when we: Remain committed to where God has us right now. Remain committed to embracing the body of Christ right where you are. We know Andrew and Peter remained committed to Jesus throughout their lives. They followed him and their lives became a place of discomfort of upside-down living that they stuck with it. Be a part of what God is doing here. Take ownership in the place where God has called you. Illustration: Ownership in the church I remember when I was serving a church in Southern Indiana, I had a family that attended there every Sunday. It was a family where there were four generations of members who attended there. There might have been 10 of them all together and about 3 were children. I remember one of the families received a large settlement and they did not give anything to their church. I felt bad that they didn t think of giving to their church when they received the money. I felt bad enough to begin asking God why would they not give to the church what was it that held them back. They had gone to church there for years. And one day it came to me why they did not think about giving money to the church; they did not take ownership in the church. Not one of them were involved in anything in the church. The same people took the same seats at the table every year and it never changed. When I came there the same people had been in the same seat for years. They never changed and this family did not know how to do it. They did not know how to sit at any of those tables. Before I left, each adult in that family was asked to be a part of
a ministry at that church. One of them went to finance, one went to properties, one went to Nurture and one went to Witness. I made sure that they did not serve with each other and that each of them had talents to match those areas that they sat in. Ownership in the place of our calling we remain committed to our church because we become a part of what God is doing. Being faithful in worship doesn t help you express the Good News that you take with you. In Acts, all of those people began taking ownership in their place of calling. All of the house churches grew and each one gave to be a part of what God was doing. They were taking ownership. They were excited about their faith. Jesus came so that all of us could be committed to God s kingdom for all of us to realize that we take ownership in this kingdom life. POINT FOUR We have found the Messiah...He brought Simon to Jesus and Jesus said you are Simon son of John, You are to be called Cephas which is translated Peter. We are excited because all of us make a difference: WE MAKE A DIFFERENCE Andrew all he did is introduced his brother to Jesus and Peter became the keeper of the keys in apostolic succession. Many denominations claim Peter to be the head of the church. He is the one that Jesus said would hold the keys. It doesn t matter who you are and where you have been, your calling in this season of your life makes a difference. Everything that you have experienced and learned up to now, God will be glorified and God will use to build the kingdom of God.
The children you are teaching in Sunday school. The hospitality that you show to people inside and outside of the faith tradition will impact the world in God s name. CLOSING: Jesus knows all things and names Peter. Jesus knows that Peter has great potential to bring about the kingdom of God on earth. Jesus knows our potential. Jesus knows that we have great potential to do good things for God. It is exciting It is humbling to realize that we are a part something much greater than we know. That we are equipped to turn the world upside down, that we are creative enough to do things out of the ordinary. That we are committed and take ownership of what God is doing right now in this place. That we make a difference in the slightest handshake and smile to a stranger, our prayers, or leading a spiritual awakening in the midst of Elkhart. Each and every good act we do makes a difference. Now that is exciting. I am excited. How about you? Anointing If you want to be anointed for a fresh and exciting walk in your faith, please come and be anointed.