Broadway Christian Church  - Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship - April 10, 2005

Third Sunday of Easter

Prayer of the Day

Within your whole family on earth, O God, we gather as a portion of your church in the name of Jesus Christ.  It is here that we receive the gifts of ministry and reconciliation.  May your Living Spirit open all of us who call ourselves disciples to worthy visions of worship, fellowship, service, and mission!  This we ask in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Scripture
Ephesians 3:20-21

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!  Amen.

Message
Worthy Visions
Rick Frost

Today we are going to talk about visions, so let’s make sure we get started on the same page.  I’m going to ask somebody to help us.  Phil Fancher, stand up please.  You should have seen the look on his face, folks.  It was marvelous.  All right, Phil, will you help me today?

[Phil responds] “I’ll do what I can.”

OK.  Good.  Are you going to trust me?

[Phil responds]  “So far, yes.”

OK.

[Phil responds]  “That could change.”

All right.  Close your eyes for me.  Keep them closed.  Turn around three times right where you are.  Now without any help from anybody else, don’t touch, don’t say anything, Phil, I want you to come up and stand next to me.  With your eyes closed.  Very good.  Easy.  Careful.  Slowly.  That’s it.  That’s it.  You are doing well.  Do you have your eyes closed?  Are you getting close?

[Phil responds]  “Yep.”

OK.  Turn around.  Open your eyes.  Ladies and gentlemen, here is man with vision.  Right here.  Thank you.  Sit down.  That was really trusting.  Thank you for doing that. 

Gosh, we take the ability to see so much for granted.  Anybody here that has difficulty with his or her vision knows how important it is.  It is a priceless, priceless gift.  The ability to see where we are and where we are going is very important. 

Now, that is one kind of vision.  There is another kind of vision, and that is the kind of vision the Bible talks about.  When the Bible talks about vision, it talks about people who are seers.  Do you remember that in the Bible?  They were persons who could see, who were given the gift of seeing, not just where they were and where they wanted to be.  And it was not just dreaming where they were and where they would like to be, or where other people would like to be.   They had the gift of the ability to see what God wanted.  In the Bible, they were called seers.  Amazing people.  They were people of vision.

Now here is my question to you today.  What is our vision?  What is Broadway’s vision?  Can you name it?  Now, I’m not talking about a mission statement.  Can you name Broadway’s vision?  Can you say it?  Can you say it in three sentences or less?  Broadways vision…  Because you see, if you can’t say it, if you can’t see it, then it doesn’t exist. 

Let me illustrate.  Jan was flipping through this national magazine that sells millions of copies all over the world.  She came across this wonderful little ad.  Maybe you saw it.  It is this big bulldog.  There is this picture of this really friendly looking bulldog, and there is just this black background.  The caption is this: “New Year’s Resolutions.”  The first resolution is, “Make up with the postman.”  Resolution number 2: “Give cats a chance.”  And number 3: “Lose a few pounds.” 

It's a hysterical ad.  We are laughing as Jan is showing it to me.  We decide to tell Molly about it.  She’s our little advertising major at our house, soon to graduate, looking diligently for a job.  (That is our mantra: “get a job.”)  We are describing this hilarious, funny, catchy ad, and Molly asks without skipping a beat, “Mom, what was the product being sold?”  And you know what?  Neither one of us had a clue.  We had no clue.

Bad news!  Catchy ad, but ineffective.  Somebody, some company, spent thousands and thousands of dollars to no avail.  If you can’t name it, folks, it doesn’t exist.

Now, with all the wonderful things that happen in this community of faith day in and day out, and they are many, if you, if we, if the persons sitting next to you in the pew cannot name what our vision is, if they cannot see that vision, then it doesn’t exist. 

That is the reason we are going to be getting together on Saturday morning.  We are going to invest a significant amount of your time.  We are going to invest a significant amount of your money receiving and building a vision – a vision that every one of us, when it is all said and done, are going to be able to see, to visualize, to name, “This we believe is what God wants this congregation to do in the next chapter of its ministry.”  Now, there is the catch.

There are a lot of things we would like to do.  There are so many possibilities.  There are as many possibilities as there are people in this congregation.  We are not interested in getting together just to share visions and dreams.  Our concern is to come up with worthy visions.  There is all the difference in the world.  What can we do together that is going to take our best?  What is going to be worth a significant amount of your time and a significant amount of your money, and a significant amount of your work? 

How are we going to measure worthy visions?  I believe the Scripture I read to you today gives us a wonderful yardstick.  I don’t know whether you heard it or not.  Let’s go back and visit it again.  It’s found, as I said earlier, in that little letter Paul writes to the church at Ephesus.  It goes like this:

“…To God be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!”  And we all say together, “Amen.”

Let’s take it one step at a time.

Our visions will be worthy if what we decide to do gives glory to God.  Do you get that?  If what we do glorifies God, it will, in fact, by definition be worthy.  From the earliest days of the Judeo-Christian faith, we have taught our people when they have asked this question, “What is the chief end… what is the main purpose of our lives?”  Do you know the answer we have given for 2000 years?  It is this: “The purpose of our life is to, number one, glorify God.”  Did you know that?  Glorify God and enjoy God forever.  If you want to know the Christian understanding of the purpose of life, it is in that one sentence.  We have been teaching it to our children for generations. 

Now, it is one of those things that we repeat, like a mantra, every Sunday in the Lord’s Prayer.  We talk about it like this: “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever.  Amen.” 

Folks, here is one key question.  Does what we do as a community of faith, or more importantly, what we are going to be doing in the future give glory to God?  Or are we just staying busy?  Are we just doing things, because we think that is a good thing to do?  Do you remember that old song: “Sittin’ on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away.  Sittin’ on the dock of the bay, wasting time.” 

Nobody here wants to waste time.  Everybody here wants to do that which will glorify God.  Will what we do tomorrow, will what we do next week, next year, three years from now be worthy?  Will it glorify God?  If it glorifies God, it will, in fact, be worthy. 

Our visions we come up with together will be worthy if they are faithful to the nature of Church of Jesus Christ.  If they are faithful to the essential character, the basic constitution of the Church of Jesus, they will be worthy.  “To God be the glory,” said Paul, “in the church.”  Ever since Jesus called twelve disciples together and gave them work to do, we have had a church.  It is not our idea.  It’s been his idea from the very beginning, and it still is. 

In his day, folks, the Temple was the epicenter around which Jewish life revolved.  Jesus loved the Temple.  He just didn’t like what was going on there.  In our day, the community of faith, the body of Christ, the Church that you and I are a part of ought to be the epicenter of Christian life.  Here are five good reasons:

There are churches everywhere.  Have you noticed that?  You can hardly go any place without a church, a community of faith, being right there in front of your face.  Every town in America has a church.  It’s amazing, just amazing.  Do you know how many churches are connected with Christ in this community in which you and I live, in the city Columbia?  I spent a fun hour or so counting them in the phone book yesterday.  There are 134 churches in the city of Columbia, listed in your phone book.  Go ahead.  Count them.  Check me out.  Churches are everywhere. 

Now the greatest number of Christian churches, and I mean people who are connected with Christ, are south of the equator.  Churches in South America and in Africa are growing by leaps and bounds.  They are just springing up all over the place.  It is interesting that in Western Europe, however, the original birthplace and home of Christianity, the Church is on the margins of society.  In France, less than five per cent of the people of that country are part of the community of faith.  Now that doesn’t mean churches aren’t popping up.  The Muslin Church, the Islamic Faith has communities popping up in Europe like crazy.  They are growing by leaps and bounds.  They are flourishing there the way Christianity is flourishing in Africa and South America. 

The Church is everywhere, and there is every sign that it will become the epicenter of Christian life again.  In fact, I learned this week that 3.5 billion people worldwide live within walking distance of some community of faith.  Isn’t that phenomenal? 

A church is rather like an embassy.  Do you know what I’m talking about?  In almost every country in the world, America has an American embassy.  It is a little bit, a little place of America in a foreign land.  Well, I suggest the Church is a lot like that.  The body of Christ is a little bit of heaven in a strange, secular, sometimes foreign land. 

The Church of Jesus Christ ought to become the epicenter of Christian life, because: (1) It’s everywhere. (2) It’s open most of the time. (3) Our church grounds and facilities are used for service almost seven days and nights a week.

My goodness.  You may not know this.  We have self-help groups, Scout groups, athletic groups, study groups, training groups, neighborhood groups, group groups just meeting here all the time.  There was a group here when I got here this morning.  They had been here all night long.  Broadway is a center for the community.  You have to call ahead if you want to have a wedding here, and you better plan your memorial service carefully.  You have to get on the schedule.  This is a center for community life.  You just try to schedule something.  You’ll see. 

(4) Now here is one you may not know.  The Church has the potential to mount the largest voluntary force in the world today.  The people right here in this room could organize to have a tremendous influence in this community if we had worthy visions, if those visions gave glory to God, if they were consistent with the nature of the Church of Jesus Christ, and if the people in the church, most importantly, were so inclined. 

But, folks, that is not going to happen, it is never going to happen, as long as a big slug of us in this room are church goers.  And that means you are good people, and you go to church.  Then you go home.  That is not going to get it.  Jesus didn’t call people to go to church.  Jesus called people to be the church.

I was part of a congregation like that in my former life.  Folks, good people, salt-of-the-earth people, came to church every Sunday, and then they got in their cars and left.  It was a complete disconnect with their every day life.  Consequently, they had no worthy visions.  Without worthy visions it was just a matter of time before they closed up shop.  It was tragic, just tragic.

(5) The Church is going to become the epicenter of Christian life again, because when we are at our best, I think, when we are pursuing genuinely worthy goals, people can and do encounter the Spirit of the Living Christ.  We say it every Sunday here.  Lives do get changed.  They do get transformed.  It becomes a spiritual home for people in a secular world, a people who unashamedly seek to do what is good, and right, and loving, while they, at the same time, try to avoid things that are bad, and wrong, and evil in a culture that everybody here knows is increasingly having difficulty knowing the difference where the line is between those two things.

Most importantly, it is a community involved in good works.  It is people doing good things for other people in the name of Jesus Christ.  Our vision will be worthy if we actually do good works for others.  Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works.”  And do what?  “Glorify your God who is in heaven” (Matthew 5).  Paul said, “Remember this.  If you sew sparingly, you are going to reap sparingly.  If you sew generously, you are going to reap generously.  Every person has to make up their own mind what in their heart they want to do, not reluctantly nor under compulsion, because God loves a cheerful giver.”  Now that is where we usually stop.  But listen to the rest of this.  “God is also able to provide you with every blessing in abundance so that you may have plenty of everything and may provide in abundance for every good work” (II Corinthians 9). 

Our vision, folks, will be worthy if they do good things, if they do good works in the name of Jesus.  Go and work in the soup kitchen, but do it in the name of Jesus.  Teach that Sunday School class in that room, in that series of rooms we are going to have soon, but do it in the name of Jesus.  Sing in the choir, and the ensemble, and play your instruments as we create space and create beautiful music that stirs and lifts people’s souls, but do it in the name of Jesus.  Give of your time and your property.  Gosh!  Habitat for Humanity – we are getting ready to do that again.  It takes a lot.  We are going to help a family own a home in just a couple of weeks.  Do it in the name of Jesus.  That activity center that sits out there that also use to be a sanctuary, turn it into the coolest youth center in this town, so that tons of teens can be helped to find a faith that is really theirs, in the name of Jesus. 

Folks, reliable experts say that 60% of the people who live within two miles of this piece of property, of this church, have little or no faith.  Did you know that?  Now here is the big catch.  Fifty percent of those people wish they did.  They are on a mission.  Fifty percent wish they had a faith.  For some reason, they’re not taking that step.  They’re not sitting next to you.  There are some things we can do about that.  Our vision will be worthy if we include those folks. 

Finally, our visions are going to be worthy if they honor all generations.  “To God be the glory,” said Paul, “in the church of Jesus Christ, to all generations.”  Now, everybody in this room knows the community of Columbia doesn’t have just one generation, and not just three generations.  We can identify at least five generations.  They are the Builders, the Silents, the Baby-Boomers, the Survivors, the Millenials.  Now, just like any family, all of us know that what is important to one generation is not always important to all the others.  Surprise, surprise!  For instance, what is significant to that Builder generation, those folks who defended God and defended America, Motherhood, and Apple Pie have things that are important to them that are not always important to their kids.  It’s not always important to their grandchildren.  And they are getting old enough now where it’s not even important to their great-grandchildren.  Now, here’s what is important.  All five of those generations are important to God.  If we focus on just one or two of those five, we are making a mistake.  We need to be focused, if we are going to have a worthy vision, and it needs to incorporate all five of those generations.

Well, that means we’re going to have to love each other.  We’re going to have to live with each other.  We’re going to have to affirm each other, even though we are very different, because we are going to have to act like a family.  Just like you have to act with your family.  My goodness, the family I’m a part of is as different as night and day, but we are family, and we have to take care of each other.

Well… time is up.  It’s been fun.  Come be with us on Saturday.  Hopefully I’ve given you just a taste of what is waiting for you.  Please sign up on the way out the door.  We need to know, so we can plan for you being there.  We are expecting a huge, huge number of you.  We want you.  We need you.  We want you to help us receive that vision and help us build that plan from the one who, Paul said in the Scripture today, “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to God’s power that is at work within us, to that Spirit be the glory of the church and of Christ Jesus throughout and across all generations.”

And we all say together… “Amen.”

Benediction

God of our visions, may all that we do, give glory to you.  Make us faithful to your purposes for this church.  May our efforts honor the saints who have gone before us and strengthen foundations for those who will sing your praises for years to come.  Amen.