Sermon Central
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Because, You Can't Just Sit There
Contributed by Thomas Bowen on Feb 1, 2003 (message contributor)
Summary: A call to the church to see the past vision and to find today’s vision for our church.
Because, you can’t just sit there
Today we are continuing on a line of thought we started 2 Sundays ago. I have been leading you down a path and pointing out the things that God has placed along the way. I have been pointing out that you have to read the map for yourself. so that you can get where your spiritual journey is taking you.
We have looked at the fact that God expects you to grow up and quit taking whatever someone feeds you, to be able to decide from your own study of the Word of God where you are headed. Last week I pointed to additional information, who you are, a priest of God and what you are to do - serve in the kingdom. As a Christian we are all priest and we are to do the work of the church, Not church work. The work of the church is finding ways of inviting people to have faith and become disciples. The most important role of the priest is to represent God to the people that are outside the church, the ones that are suspicious, board, hurt and any other situations that separate a person from a relationship with God.
A few years ago, there is story a about a man by the name of Larry Walters, 33-year-old when the incident occurred. Hw decided he wanted to see his neighborhood from a new perspective. So, he went down to the army surplus store and bought forty-five used weather balloons.
That afternoon he strapped himself into a lawn chair, to which several of his friends tied the now helium-filled used weather balloons. He took with him, something to drink, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, and a BB gun, figuring he could shoot the balloons one at a time when he was ready to land.
Walters, assumed the balloons would lift him about 100 feet in the air, he was caught off guard when the chair skyrocketed more than 11,000 feet into the sky--into the middle of the air traffic pattern at Los Angeles International Airport. He was too frightened to shoot any of the balloons; he stayed airborne for more than two hours, and forced the airport to shut down its runways for much of the afternoon.
Soon after he reached the ground, he was arrested, reporters asked him three questions:
"Were you scared? "Yes."
"Would you do it again? "No.
"Why did you do it?" "Because you can’t just sit there."
Now, this man had some problems in his logic. Perhaps he was not as prepared with the facts as he should have been. Maybe he needs wiser friends to guide him in the decision making process.
But he had something right. He was willing to take a risk, to try something new, he was willing to make a plan and try. Why?
Because, You can’t just sit there.
On the past couple of Sunday’s I have felt that I am bring you a reminder of what church is about.
It is not about coming here just to be fed. It is not about coming to visit with friends, family or to be entertained. Don’t get me wrong, that is part of the picture. Church is not supposed to be like watching TV, where everything is handed to us. It is interactive, it works best with both take and give, hearing and sharing.
Do you remember your first invitation to church, some of you may. More likely many of most of you may think that it has always just been apart of life. Born, then bingo, you were at Church every Sunday and Wednesday.
That was a big part of the culture many years ago. Perhaps you raised your kids the same way. But the culture has changed around the church and the automatic nature of church has been gone for a long time. For well over half of this country the norm has nothing to do with church.
We are a culture that wants excitement and action. We get board if stuff is not flashing by. The remote control is the power to visually experience WWII to live sports all over the world.
When you came to this church - how different was it than it is today? Physically, outside and inside. Does it look pretty much like it did 5, 10, 25 maybe 30 years ago. How about the Sunday school lessons and the preaching? The format of the worship and the classes?
Do you think that this church has a chance of attracting someone who is not already knowledgeable about church and church people? Really?
When you were a child and a young adult, who was here taking care of business?
Who taught the classes and served as leaders.
Several of you were here when the foundation was dug and the block laid. Who did the work and paid the bill? Did they do it to look big or did they do it for God and their family and friends?
