(Psalm 139; Jeremiah 18:1-11)
10:30 am, Sun, Sept 8, 2013 Windsor UBC, J G White
This summer Sharon and I went to a candy factory in Kentucky and saw how marshmallows and caramels are made. I went to Cape Tormentine and learned to catch delicious mackerel off the wharf. Just three days ago I went down to our big church kitchen and was reminded how to make mustard pickles.
But I never, recently, have seen pottery being fashioned from clay, thrown on a wheel, moulded by hand.
The Lord God told Jeremiah the prophet, “Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear My words.”
This ancient prophetic picture reminds us there are many ways our God moulds and shapes God’s people. It is, actually, not about the Potter fashioning one person, and moulding him or her, me or you. It is about the whole people of God, and the useful vessel they (or we) become in the Master’s hands.
Through the years, this fellowship has been fashioned into a people who aspire to live our lives in certain ways, ways described in our Covenant. Next week you’ll get the whole of our Church Covenant published in our newsletter, the Hub. This document, about how we live our lives as a fellowship - a family of God - is built on what we find in the Bible.
As our God molds and shapes us, again and again in our history - and in our present - we are prepared to face what life brings, and death. By Jesus we are truly made victorious over the hard things of life.
I got back from vacation on Thursday, and started catching up on life around here, and how the whole world is turning. Three teens died in car crashes last weekend in Hants County. Earlier, the adult son of a couple elderly church members died in a tragic way. On Thursday I go to the local hospital, find out the husband of a woman I know is there, but get to his room and find he had died earlier that day.
From to local to the global… the fukushima nuclear plant in Japan is in the news - its radiation and clean-up not a simple matter. And what will happen in Syria and the Middle East next?
We, here, have been molded by the great Potter into a people who know we face these days not alone, but with a living, loving God! And these ways we live our lives together with the Lord are to strengthen us in this hard, hard world.
Lordship of Christ - Jesus in charge
Member Relationships - true support
Christian Growth - strengthening the soul
Stewardship - freedom to give and help
Family Relationships - centre of society
Social and Moral Issues - right living & justice
Witness - showing the goodness of God!
We commit to these, for the sake of being a Church, a community of faith, a fellowship of believers, a Church family. A people of hope. One of my conclusions about this covenant is this: our moulding into covenant people is by God, first and foremost. Four elements outlined in the conclusion of our Church Covenant are these: humility, grace, the word, and the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit.
Even though in response to Christ’s love we have agreed to the preceding Biblical guidelines for Christian
conduct, we humbly recognize that we cannot fulfill
the demands of this covenant apart from the grace of God and the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. We further recognize that this covenant helps us to see our standard in Christ but it should never be a substitute for His Word and His abiding presence.
As much as we need to be the kind of people described in the covenant, we are always striving to fit this picture; and the more we rely upon God, the more He will achieve the ideal among us. Imperfect as we are.
Gates Presbyterian Church, on the outskirts of Rochester, New York, has an interesting building, built in the late 1960s...
The bricks that make up the exterior walls as well as the walls of the sanctuary are called "clinker" bricks. These are basically the bricks that were normally rejected by masons because they were imperfect or defective. These "clinker" bricks represent not only that we as Christians are all unique, as no two bricks are the same, but also that God, as well as the church, accepts and loves us with all our imperfections. (http://www.gatespres.org/ourchurch.htm)
The Potter who fashions the clay can still take a bunch of clinkers, misfits, sinners, and build a church family like us. Yeah, I’m mixing metaphors, and we can’t take Jeremiah’s vision of the Potter and the clay too far… but we have a God who builds and rebuilds His people!
God knows us so well, we can’t hide. Why hide from one another? That wonderful Psalm 139 expresses so much.
You know exactly how I live.
Lord, even before I speak a word,
You know all about it.
Our God is a realist, the Lord knows who He is working with, and He can do it. Jesus said to disciple Peter, “I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it!” The terrible things that would frighten us - the Potter molds us to stand against them.
Another conclusions about our Covenant: It is the basis of our life, but is not our guiding vision. Here is where I switch gears.
As I said, our covenant is just the beginning, simply the background for our life together in Christ. Our specific calling together at any moment is likely above and beyond this. Though we could say that our vision for the rest of this decade is to be a covenant community and grow into living this covenant.
But we might just as easily say that our present purpose is…
To be the Church that reaches young families in West Hants with the Gospel. Or...
To be the Church of great worship and music.
To be the Church of ministry outside our building.
To be the Church that ministers in cooperation with the other congregations in our town.
To be the Church strong in preaching and teaching.
To be the Church growing through small groups.
To be the Church impacting the needy in our own communities.
To be the Church that listens to it’s community and it’s needs.
To be the Church that is focused on having people Gather, Grow, and Go.
Or, to be the Church of something else...
We cannot choose all or most of these things as our defining vision for the rest of this decade. But we had better choose something. Get focused.
And we had better choose with our God, the Potter.
I excitedly await the opportunity to delve into our church vision. I’ve been looking for this for a long time, as you know. Remember my talk about 20-20 vision back in 20__? I’ve used the tools I have to stir the creative pot and cook up our vision. I wonder who our God has in store to help us find and focus on it.
Duane Whittey, of Commitment Ministries, may well be the servant for the job. Last fall I got introduced through a webinar I took. I got to sit down and meet with Duane and his father in January. In March, I recommended my deacons consider what these folks could do for us. We met with them, and checked things out.
We also have felt passionately that we, Church, need a clear vision, a God-given focus that ties all our ministries together. Some of you have felt we are very scattered. Sharing life as Christians, and as Baptist Christians, is not enough. Our church covenant is not enough to make us one. The specific calling - the work before us - is our identity, from God. It is God’s work we seek, what God sees for us that we want to be able to see.
And we can be surprised. We are so wonderfully created for good things, beyond our expectations. Ponder these famous predictions that underestimated the incredible power of vision.
• Consider this Western Union memo from 1876: "The Telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication."
• Thomas Watson, the chairman of IBM in 1943 said, "I think there is a market for maybe five computers in the world."
• Or consider the words of Decca Recording company, when why they turned down signing the Beatles in 1962: "We don’t like their sound and guitar music is on the way out."
• Charles Duell, commissioner of the U.S. Office of Patents said in 1899, "Everything that can be invented has been invented."
Our God has more inventing to do! Let us go again, down to the Potter’s house, and see what we shall be molded to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment