Saturday, March 20, 2010

March 21st sermon - Walking on water in concrete overshoes

Walking on water with concrete overshoes
WOnW #5
March 21,2010

The council chair and the chairman of the trustees invited the pastor fusing one day.   After an hour or so the chairman of the church council said, "I'm thirsty," and stepped out of the boat. He then walked on water and took a drink from a cooler he had sitting on the beach and walked on the water again back to the boat.
Later on, the trustee chair said, "I'm thirsty," and stepped out of the boat. He then walked on water and also took a drink from a cooler he had sitting on the beach and walked on the water again back to the boat.
Later on, the pastor said, "I'm thirsty.” However, as soon as he stepped out of the boat, he drowned.
The other two men looked at each other and said, "Think we shoulda' told him where the rocks were?"

I’ll bet that pastor felt like a failure didn’t he? 
Have you ever started something, thinking it was a great idea, and just fell flat on your face?  Sure, you have.  We all have.  Sometimes we think we are ready, we think this is the great idea; we think we are doing the right thing.  We step out of the boat only to realize that we forgot to take off our concrete overshoes.  And we sink like a rock.
Or maybe you can relate to this as  we were talking in Thursday Bible Study, one moment you think you have it all together and you’re not only walking on the water, but jogging across the sea with Jesus, and suddenly you trip, splash flat on your face and begin to sink like a rock.
Or maybe in one aspect of your life you are faithful and water walking but in another you are fearful and cowering in the front of the boat just hoping the storm will pass.
The truth is even when we become water walkers; there will be times when we sink.  There will be times when we doubt.  There will be times when we fail.
Do you know that the name Peter, or Petros, means “rock?”  Do you suppose that Jesus might have had this sinking incident in mind when two chapters later in Matthew he told Peter “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”  Maybe there is more to that than we realize.  Could it be that Jesus was saying that he and his kingdom really depend on faulty, fallible, (do we dare use the word failures) like Peter . . .  and like us?

Don’t be too hard on Peter or yourself though.  God is used to working with people who are less than perfect.
Just to mention a few: should we start with Adam and Eve and the famous Apple incident?  The Tower of Babel is not such a high point in human history.  Noah got drunk, passed out naked, and forgot to close his tent flap. 
Abraham went running off to Egypt instead of trusting God when things got rough.  Jacob is a conniving cheat.  Moses has an issue with obedience and trust.  David is an adulterer and a murderer.  Peter takes his eyes of Jesus and sinks into the dark waters.  Later he will deny Jesus three times.  And yes, even Paul was a failure – he writes to his young pastor friend Timothy and says,
Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the worst..” (I Timothy 1:15,16) 

So we need to abandon this picture of the super-deluxe perfect Christian.  He or she doesn’t exist in Scripture and he or she doesn’t exist today.  As individuals, each and every one of us-- me especially -- we all have all failed and will fail again.  We as a church have fallen before and we will fall again.  If anyone is looking for the perfect pastor, the perfect church, the perfect Sunday school class, the perfect program, a perfect Christian of any kind they will have a long search ahead of them, because I don’t think there is any such thing.
No one gets out of the boat to easily and flawlessly stroll with Jesus on the sea forever and ever AMEN.  BUT… that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to be faithful.  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t get out of the boat.  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to walk with Jesus.


The main message of this series and the first lesson today is we are called to be faithful: not successful, not perfect just faithful.   Let me tell you our hearts are perfectly suited to water walking.  We want to - we yearn to walk with Jesus.  Just because my skull is like Peter’s as hard as a rock; just because our egos may be a bit large and may trip us like a pair of clown feet.  Just because my hands may spend too much time perched in my pockets rather than reaching out to neighbors does not mean I shouldn’t try!
·         Did God know that Adam and Eve would eat the apple?  Probably.  Did that stop God from creating them?  Obviously not.
·         Did God know that the Israelites would complain and worship other God’s in the wilderness?  Probably.  Did that stop God from freeing them from slavery?  Obviously not.
·         Did God know that David would make bad personal choices becoming an adulterer and murderer?  Probably.  Did that stop God promising that he would establish his house forever?  Obviously not.
·         Did God know that Judas would betray Jesus?  Probably.  Did that stop God from using him as a disciple?  Obviously not.
·         Did God know that peter would get a sinking grade in waterwalking 101 and end up betraying Jesus 3 times?  Probably.  Did that stop God from calling him and using him as a model for all of us?  Obviously not.
·         Does God know that some of the things we do, as individuals are not going to come out right?  Probably, does that stop God from calling us to get out of the boat in faith?  Absolutely not.
God knows better than we know ourselves that we are not perfect-  But God doesn’t call us to be perfect- God  doesn’t callus to be successes-  God doesn’t call us to be water walkers.  He calls us to step out in faith.  And when we do that often enough, eventually the odds are, with Jesus waiting for us we will walk on the water.
L.I.G.H.T. is a perfect example of that. 
·         We see a need to do something different to reach people for whom Sunday Morning doesn’t seem to work anymore. 
·         We look at the average attendance of 9 out of 34 elementary  students and  .75 out of 24 High school Students in Sunday school and we know  that we are not meeting the need for faith education and spiritual growth. 
·         We see many families who don’t seem to be able to come on Sunday morning, for different reason, and we know that we are not reaching them to connect them with the faith. 
We have created this program in order to try to do that.  Will it work?  Only God knows.  We all have to pray that it does, but if not; it does not mean that we were wrong, or that we are failures, or that the need isn’t there.  It might mean many things but it would not mean that we are a failure.  So we don’t even need to worry about that.  Far from being a failure, no matter what happens, we are stepping out of the boat in faith.  That is what God asks.  Step out in faith.

The second message is when we do step out and find ourselves sinking; we have to realize that we have a limited view of what failure is and what success is. 
The truth is often what we think is a great failure God is able to use and transform into a great victory. 
One example is the story of Michael Cassidy a South African evangelist.  He tells is of his first evangelistic crusade with Youth for Christ in South Africa.  He preached his heart out and then he gave the invitation and the only two people came forward, an old drunk and a little boy.  For years, Michael Cassidy called it the worst day of his evangelistic career.  But some thirty years later, he met a man who asked him if he remembered that crusade.  Michael said, “Do I ever. It was an awful night.”   
The man said, “Do you remember who responded to your invitation?” “Yes, said Michael, “An old drunk and a little boy.” The man looked at Michael and said, “I was that little boy, and today I train evangelists to preach the word of God.”
Michael Cassidy says he was humbled and overjoyed all at the same time.  Overjoyed that he was enabled to see that God used that one man to train hundreds of evangelists.  But humbled because all this time he had belittled the work that God had done that night and had thought it was insignificant.
Sometimes what we think are our greatest failures God uses in ways we cannot imagine or see.
I could point this out in a hundred Biblical characters, but we’ll just look at just two.  What if Peter hadn’t stepped out of the boat?  What if Peter hadn’t stepped into the boat?  What if Peter hadn’t responded to the call of Jesus at all?   John Ortberg would have to come up with a different title for his book and I wouldn’t have had all this fun preaching this series.   And we wouldn’t have his example to follow.
What looked like a failure has inspired Christians for 2000 years.
And what about Jesus.  Couldn’t the arrest, capture, and execution of the son of God have been considered a failure?  He was rejected by the leaders , by his family, and he died for heaven sake- isn’t that a massive failure?  From a limited perspective, Jesus was a miserable failure.  However, I doubt that anyone here even with our limited perspective thinks that to be true. 
How much more so from God’s perspective.
For many years from my perspective, I was a failure.  In 1994-5 when I left the parish I considered myself a failure as a pastor,   blamed the local church for failing to love well, and blamed the general church for failing to hold the local church accountable.  I thought it was a great big failure and all those years of school and ministry went down the tube.
Now 15 years later and (I think even at the time from God’s perspective) that was not a failure.  As hard as it was at the time,  from where I stand now, the things I learned and the person I became as a result of that and in the following years has more than made up for what happened.  A short-term failure in my eyes became a long-term blessing in God’s eyes.  
We must be careful declaring ourselves or our efforts failures- because to do so is to shortchange the God who made Easter from the crucifixion, a water walker from an impulsive disciple, and makes many of our so-called failures into great blessings. 

We are almost to the end of this series.    Next week will wrap it up as we walk with Jesus not just on the sea but something much harder.  We will walk with Jesus into Jerusalem, and the crucifixion.
I don’t know about you, I think God has taken a little story and turned it into a possibly life changing event for us and for this church.  Maybe you don’t feel that way.  Even if you were terribly disappointed, I wouldn’t declare it a failure.  I wouldn’t declare it a failure because there are a lot of people who have been talking about getting out of their boat.  The whole congregation is with the help of the new L.I.G.H.T. program stepping out of its boat.  And no matter what anyone says that is being faithful to the call of God.  My friends the biggest tragedy is not when we get out of the boat and begin to sink.  The biggest tragedy is to never get out of the boat in the first place.   Come on; let’s get out of the boat.

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