The State of the Union is not too far away. So in the spirit of that State of the Union, I plan to share a State of the Church message this morning.
It is well known that Lord of Life had it share of difficulties in 2007. We enter a new year, 2008, as a year of transition with some great uncertainties.
First, we enter the year with the knowledge that Pastor Barry has accepted the call to become the pastor of First Lutheran in Texarkana, TX. God’s hand has incredibly guided this change, and we will continue to trust in his guidance. While he is still present with us, we will continue to take the opportunity to celebrate the leadership that he provided for Lord of Life along with the leadership that Nancy provided for women’s ministry up until the time they leave and even beyond.
Furthermore, last Fall, through the God is Able campaign, our congregation was made aware of the ongoing financial shortfall that Lord of Life has been experiencing for the last year and beyond. While we can point to success in the God is Able campaign, it still fell short of what we had anticipated and hoped for. Now God has amazingly continued to meet all of our needs and expenses, but it has become abundantly clear that God is teaching us here to live within his provision as a church.
As such it is necessary that we move to cut our expenses for the year 2008. And it is clear from our budget that the only significant cuts in these expenses comes at the cost of our dedicated staff.
Therefore, with great reluctance, I made the recommendation at a specially called meeting of our executive committee, a week ago last Thursday, that we move to release Ben Lander from employment as the Director of Music and Worship of Lord of Life Church. This recommendation was subsequently motioned and approved to be effective two weeks from that date.
What this means is that this will be Ben’s last Sunday with us. Please keep both him and Joy in your prayers as they seek to transition and follow the Lord’s leading wherever it is he might be calling them. At the end of today’s worship we want to invite them to come forward and we are going to lay hands on them that the Lord would use them in an incredible way wherever he might send them. Furthermore we want to invite you to come to the potluck of blessings after our 11am worship where we can show our appreciation for their work here among us and how God used them as ministers of the gospel.
I ask that you would please avoid speculation about this dismissal. The main motivation here is one of economics. I also want to direct you to consider the provision in our membership covenant where we agree to avoid gossip and speculation.
Furthermore, with the Pastor Kolb leaving, it leaves a void in the role of Senior Pastor. It is my intention to fulfill this role in the interim to best of my ability according to the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
However, I fear it is being taken for granted that I would simply inherit the position of Senior Pastor by default. 2 Timothy 2:16 it says, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”
It is important to me that if this is the calling the Lord has prepared for me, that I would be shown as a worker approved by him through you the congregation of Lord of Life, to extend a call at a regularly called voters meeting of the congregation.
At this time, I do not believe it economically viable for Lord of Life to afford two “called” pastors on staff. Therefore, it is my intention that when a new Senior Pastor is called, whether that would be myself, or someone else, that the position of Associate Pastor would be eliminated from our staff.
With Nancy Kolb leaving her role as women’s ministry director it would not be my intention to fill this position at this time. This means the elimination of three current positions – Associate Pastor, Director of Worship, and Director of Women’s ministries.
These cuts in staffing enable us to get where we need to be financially. To be in a God honoring position where we are not taking on further debt and living beyond his provision. The cuts will enable us to stand on a firmer financial footing to allow us to better do the work that God has called us to.
These cuts run deep and no doubt these cuts hurt, severely. It is a difficult day for Lord of Life Church, but I firmly believe that God has got us right where he wants us to be. We are at a point of total reliance upon him for everything. We rely on his provision to move us forward into the unknown future.
We are humbled before the Lord. Our pride, our ego, may be deflated. But there is a glorious day not to far around the corner. A day where these former things will be not of our present things, but of our past things.
No doubt as a church we have made mistakes. More than mistakes, I am reminded in the book of Romans that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I am reminded of Nehemiah, the prayer we heard in the reading in earlier, before he assumed leadership over God’s people in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, he corporately prayed and confessed the sins of God’s people. We have some walls to rebuild at Lord of Life. I almost feel like I am in Nehemiah’s shoes.
How have we sinned as a church?:
We have not obeyed the commands of God. We have taken on debt. Debt is not honoring of our Lord. We took out debt we should not have. We did this out of pride that we could pay it back. Now we are staring in the face the reality of the consequence of this sin of pride. We relied upon our supply and our ability to get the job done, rather than rely on God’s supply. All this in spite of the blessing we speak most every Sunday.
We have sinned by causing division. We have not loved and welcomed the stranger into our midst. We have treated each other harshly. Speaking words of criticism before words of encouragement. Thursday night at praise team practice I asked Ben and Joy for forgiveness, that we did not receive them in Christian love as we ought during the time that they were here.
We have sinned by being quick to hold a grudge yet slow to forgive. Speaking gossip, what we say behind the back of another, we do not say to their face. We have been quick to speak, slow to listen. Quick to judge, to point out their less than godly motivation, to see the speck in their eye, but fail to see the log in our own eye.
We have sinned by withholding our individual tithes. We have given back much less than 10% of God’s blessing to him. We have not returned his blessing according the measure that he has blessed us with. We have given God what is left over rather than our first fruits.
We have sinned by not respecting or honoring those who are in authority. We have not followed them willingly because they led us in a direction we did not want to go. Or their personality or their style did not match ours.
We have sinned in the fact that our worship to the Lord is sometimes non-chalant and irreverent. We leave our minds restless about worldly things, rather than things above. We wander into worship on our time, rather than on God’s time. Our praise of him is less then enthusiastic or whole hearted. We are embarrassed of what others might think if we were to express ourselves to honor the Lord in the way he deserves.
We sin by looking to be served, rather than to serve. And when we were not served in the way that we liked to be served, we complain that it was not good enough.
These are hard truths to confront, but necessary truths to confront on the road to recovery.
The letter “O”
Openly examine and confess my (our) faults to God, to myself, and to someone I trust.
To be pure in heart starts with examining our heart.
The book of 1 John 1:8 says, If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we are not willing to confront the truth and the reality of our shortcomings or sinfulness – there is no recovery, there is no going forward.
I believe there is a glorious future in store that awaits, a recovery, where God will take us further than we ever dreamed possible, but before we can go there, it starts today to get down and dirty and to confront an unpleasant reality.
1 Peter 5:6 says, “humble yourselves under the Lord’s mighty hand that he might lift you up in due time.” I heard a great quote the other day, that when you are down to nothing, God is up to something.
There is a story in the Bible (2 Kings 5) about Elisha and Naaman. Anyone remember that story. Naaman was a foreigner, the commander of army of the King of Aram. He was diagnosed with leprosy. There was no cure, in spite of searching the world over.
One of Namaan’s servant recommended that he go to the prophet of Israel, Elisha and be healed. Reluctantly he goes to Elisha. There is this whole thing where Elisha tells Naaman to wash himself in the Jordan River, but Namaan thought that was beneath him to wash in this dirty foreign river. To make a long story short, Naaman does wash in the Jordan River and he is healed.
But what I want to get at is what happens next. Naaman wanted to pay Elisha for healing him. But Elisha refuses payment from Naaman. It’s becase it was a grace thing from God. But Elisha had a servant named Gehazi. How would you like to give your child that name?
2 Kings 5:20: Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said to himself, “My master was too easy on Naaman, this Aramean, by not accepting from him what he brought. As surely as the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something from him.”
So Gehazi tracks down Naaman, demands payment from him. Having been healed, Naaman gladly obliges.
You can imagine when Gehazi gets back.
25 Then he went in and stood before his master Elisha.
"Where have you been, Gehazi?" Elisha asked.
"Your servant didn't go anywhere," Gehazi answered.
But Elisha knew. And as a consequence, Elisha says,
27 Naaman's leprosy will cling to you and to your descendants forever." Then Gehazi went from Elisha's presence and he was leprous, as white as snow.
Gehazi had sinned, and in that moment he felt the full consequence of that sin. Maybe in this moment we are experiencing the consequences of our sin.
But you know what. There was a brighter day ahead. 2 Kings 8:4, this is four chapters later in history.
4 The king was talking to Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, and had said, "Tell me about all the great things Elisha has done."
Gehazi was standing in the presence of the king. How did this happen? How was he restored? How did he recover? His promising future had been aborted, his marriage was probably over, his finances were surely in the tank. But then later he is standing in the presence of the king. What brought about this great comeback to glory?
There is no mention of Gehazi being cured of his leprosy specifically. But there is this interesting story in between where Gehazi develops leprosy and where he stands in the presence of the king. Jerusalem is under siege by an invading Aramean army – (interesting this is the same army that Naaman had been commander of).
2 Kings 7:3-4 NKJV
Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate; and they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die? If we say, ‘We will enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. 2 Kings 7:3-4a.
These men came to a realization of their condition and situation. If we sit here we will die! And this is where the recovery begins. The recovery is not easy. The journey to recovery is the recognition that we cannot stay were we are at.
Maybe you are at a place where you are fooling yourself. You are telling yourself everything is going to be ok. There is no problem. I’m ok. Yeah, I’ve made mistakes, but it’s not that bad. Maybe it’s like hear no evil, see no evil, do no evil. Maybe you got your hands over your eyes and your saying my marriage is ok, the way I raise my kids is ok, the way I manage my finances is ok, and my relationship with God is ok.
These four men couldn’t stay were they were at. They get up, and they begin to march on the army of the enemy. An as they begin their march, something miraculous happens. The enemy army hears the approach of an overwhelming army, but it is nothing more than an army of four lepers. Hearing the sound, causes the army to flee in fear. And as the four lepers enter the camp it is deserted, with everything left behind for plunder.
God produced the victory. And it all started with the four lepers realizing that there was nothing they could do in their situation but give the situation to God. I can’t help but think that in some way or another, that this was an important step in Gehazi’s recovery, his comeback.
This morning we have that opportunity for recovery. The opportunity for comeback. No matter how down, no matter how out we may find ourselves. Remember that when we are down to nothing, that God is up to something.
This morning you can sit in your chair, and remain where you are at. Or you can to the step and openly admit, “I am a sinner, I have made mistakes, I need your help God, I’m giving the situation to you.”
That is what we do in the Lord’s Supper. We get up from our place. By coming forward you are admitting you are not perfect. You say, I have let God down, I have let my church down, I have let my family down, I have let myself down. I want a return. I want a comeback. I want a fresh start. Lord I need you today.
The amazing thing is that as we draw near to him, he holds out his physical presence with us. It is reminder that he is here in our life, that we can both touch and taste. He comes to us in body and blood through the bread and the wine. And as we recognize the sin in our lives, we will also see the forgiveness he won.
The victory to behold. We are humbled and as we are humbled, we will stand up and begin our march one the enemy army. God is on our side, we’ve got nothing to lose.
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