Footprints in the Sands of Time

Joshua 1:3-7 October 14, 2012 70th Anniversary Celebration Footprints in the sands of Time Story of 3 sisters who didn’t know if they were coming of going 3 sisters lived together. One was 96, one 95, and one 94. The oldest sister ran some bath water, began to step in the tub but she got confused, she couldn’t remember if she was getting in the tub, or out of the tub. Her middle sister decided to come up the steps to help her. But she had to stop halfway up the stairway. She couldn’t remember if she was going up the steps table eating breakfast. All she could do was shaker her head and knock on wood. Thank God her memory was not as bad as her sisters. I will be there to help you two figure out what is going on, just as soon as I see who it is that is knocking at the door. The importance of church anniversary Are we coming, or are we going? Is it time for us to remember the past or to walk toward the future? Are we old School or new school? Today we acknowledge the 70th anniversary of Rust Church. It is important in the black church to celebrate church anniversaries. It is a celebration in the church, that no one can quite remember how it got started. And yet it matters – the church has always been an important part of our culture. The church has given birth to opportunities for people, for our call to justice in the world, to education, to dignity. The church has given us a lot of gifts. Rust Church has given a lot of gifts to the community and the kingdom of God. In its history it has produced and prepared many lay and clergy for ministry, it has given to gift of song and fellowship through its choir, it has reached out and mentored and trained many young people for service. Today is a time to acknowledge what God has done through this church. It is a time for us to remember the gifts of those before us, it is a time to accept the challenges ahead. But it is also a time to mark the present – to marvel at the grace of God. Not everything is going as expected, may not be as far as we would like, but praise God we are here for yet another year- to serve in His presence. Amen. Church anniversary is time to hear a message of hope, to hear good singing, to see old friends, and to be in fellowship over good food. I don’t want to keep us from the food – this is a time of celebration – celebration of what God has done. The context of Joshua chapter 1 The message for this morning comes from the book of Joshua – chapter 1. Three times in this chapter God says to Joshua - be strong and courageous. And that is the message for us this morning – be strong and very courageous – for God is with us! In the beginning chapters of Joshua- the people are in a sad and confusing time because they discover that Moses has died. He was the one they looked up to for leadership for years, and now he is gone. No one could possibly take over his authority. Moses spoke of the promises of God, they followed him experiencing miracles, and walking toward the promiseland. With him gone, who would lead them now. Shavet – in intimate minister The bible uses an interesting word when talking about Joshua – they call him a shavet – a minister. One who not only serves, but serves in an intimate way. Joshua serves Moses as a minister – carrying our his every command. But now Joshua is a shavet to God. God has a plan for his people – and he needs Joshua to carry out that plan. But the only way Joshua can do that is be a minister of God. To serve God with all of his being. A minister is not necessarily a pastor. A minister is a lay person, with a heart for God and for God’s word. In this chapter, Moses was important, but Moses was a part of the past. The promise he gave was about yesterday. Joshua was a man of action – a man of the present. Moses yesterday, Joshua today In the time of Moses, the children of God were a people. They were preparing themselves to come into the promisland. It was under Joshua – that they finally laid eyes on the land – when the land came in sight – they united into a nation. When the future becomes real for us – we will step into destiny. We don’t have to stand on the promises, because we live in the reality. As long as we have God on our side, all things are possible. AS LONG AS GOD IS AWAKE A mother and her little four-year-old daughter were preparing to retire for the night. The child was afraid of the night. The child was afraid of the dark, and the mother, alone with the child, felt fearful also. When the light was out, the child caught a glimpse of the moon outside the window, "Mother," she asked, "is the moon God’s light?" "Yes," said the mother, "God’s lights are always shining." The next question was, "Will God blow out His light and go to sleep?" "No, my child, God never goes to sleep." Then, out of the simplicity of a child’s faith, the little one said that which gave reassurance to the fearful mother, "Well, as long as God is awake, I am not afraid." (Source: Sunday School Times. From a sermon by Bill Butsko, "Bread from Heaven" 7/28/2009) It is time… Take the Life that you have ~ and give it your best... Think positive be happy ~ let God do the rest... Take the challenges that life ~ has laid at your feet... Take pride and be thankful ~ for each one you meet... To yourself give forgiveness ~ if you stumble and fall... Take each day that is dealt you and give it your all... Take the love that you’re given and return it with care... Have faith that when needed it will always be there... Take time to find the beauty in the things that you see...Take life’s simple pleasures let them set your heart free... The idea here is simply to even the score As you are met and faced with Life. The man and the lion tale Adrian Rogers tells about the man who bragged that he had cut off the tail of a man-eating lion with his pocket knife. Asked why he hadn't cut off the lion's head, the man replied: "Someone had already done that." God has cutoff the head of our deepest fears, and asks us to claim the victory. Take the tail with pride it is yours. Take on what God has challenged you to do. Live life in fear Lately live a life of fear, not sure if I am up to the challenge of today. Spend all night working over one sermon. Realized I didn’t have any old sermons – spent all night working on two different sermons in two different directions. Every day is like that. Everyday – have to rely on God for strength. The good news is that he has not let me down yet. Joshua took on daunting task of leading after Moses. Took on daunting task of leading people don’t want to go, and have no idea of where they are going. Joshua like Martin Luther King – I have seen the promiseland – time for us to go. Each of us asked to take on the Joshua spirit in our lives. Become the Joshua generation. Be willing to be a minister, not of the church but of God. Not enough to know the word, not enough to feel the presence of God in our lives – act on what God has called us to do. Generation to make promise a reality. Everything you step on will be claimed for God. Everyplace you step will be claimed for God Rest on your feet all over the church and repeat after me, “Every place the sole of your foot shall tread God has already given it to you!” Now lift your left foot and put it down. ‘A’: “Ask and it shall be given. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door will be opened!” (Every place the sole of your foot treads!) Now lift your right foot and put it down. ‘B’: “Be thou faithful unto death and I shall give thee a crown of life!” (Every place the sole of your foot treads!) Lift your left foot and put it down. ‘C:, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!” (Every place the sole of your foot treads!) Lift your right foot and put it down. ‘D’: “Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.” (Every place the sole of your foot treads!) Lift your left foot and put it down. ‘E’: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you,…” (Every place the sole of your foot treads!) Lift your right foot and put it down. ‘F’: “Fret not thyself because of evil doers, neither be thou envious of the workers of iniquity for they shall soon be cut down!” (Every place the sole of your foot treads!) Lift your left foot and put it down, ‘G’: “Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised!” I tell you, EVERY place the sole of your foot shall trod God has already blessed for YOU! God tells each of us to be strong and courageous. One summer morning as Ray Blankenship was preparing his breakfast, he gazed out the window, and saw a small girl being swept along in the rain-flooded drainage ditch beside his Andover, Ohio, home. Blankenship knew that farther downstream, the ditch disappeared with a roar underneath a road and then emptied into the main culvert. Ray dashed out the door and raced along the ditch, trying to get ahead of the foundering child. Then he hurled himself into the deep, churning water. Blankenship surfaced and was able to grab the child's arm. They tumbled end over end. Within about three feet of the yawning culvert, Ray's free hand felt something--possibly a rock-- protruding from one bank. He clung desperately, but the tremendous force of the water tried to tear him and the child away. "If I can just hang on until help comes," he thought. He did better than that. By the time fire-department rescuers arrived, Blankenship had pulled the girl to safety. Both were treated for shock. On April 12, 1989, Ray Blankenship was awarded the Coast Guard's Silver Lifesaving Medal. The award is fitting, for this selfless person was at even greater risk to himself than most people knew. Ray Blankenship can't swim. God wants you to be strong and courageous, because God is about to do a new thing in you, in us, In Rust Church. God says be strong and courageous because I will be with you wherever you go. God is the source of our strength. God was with us in the past, God is with us now, and God will lead his people, his ministers into a new and challenging future. Let us stand strong and see what God will do. What new gifts God will bring to the world through the people of Rust Memorial Church. Let us pray this prayer together…. This is material not used…… IV. Moves/Points Move/Point One – God blesses our courageous, faithful obedience to God’s commandments. a. Our Church was built on biblical principles; b. We must trust those teachings that have sustained our congregation; and c. Faithfulness to Godly teachings will grant to us success. Move/Point Two – God promises to be with us today as God was when we began our journey. a. God guided and blessed Moses; b. God has guided the Church and blessed her labors; and c. God will guide and bless you! Move/Point Three – No formidable foe will deter God’s people. a. God has not promised that there would not be challenges on our journey; b. God has promised that no challenge will prevail against us while we remain in God’s will; and c. The promises of God are for a lifetime. V. Celebration Listen to God’s voice as God speaks to us even now, “Every place the sole of your foot shall tread, I have given unto you!” God’s promise to Israel is still God’s promise to us today. We are the New Israel, the Ransomed and Redeemed Community of Faith. We are God’s twice-born children. We are the Ekklesia, the called out, sanctified servants, and therefore, blessed of God to be called “the Church.” God’s promise belongs to us as well! It was delivered on the Cross of Calvary. It was written with the blood of our Savior. It was sealed in the power of his resurrection. It is available to us even now! As a child growing up, my mother taught me that the Bible is a book filled with God’s promises, “but you cannot claim even one of them,” she cautioned, “if you do not know them.” VI. Illustration(s) Rerouting, Rerouting Now, you don’t have to go to a gas station to ask what is the quickest way to get from point A to point B. All you need to do is pull out your handy Global Positioning System (GPS). Plug in the address and simply follow the directions. One day as I was driving with a friend, we decided to use my GPS to get where we were going. The GPS said turn right and we turned right. The GPS said enter I-85 and we entered I-85. However, when the GPS said make a right, I was running my mouth so I did not hear the GPS correctly. Instead of making a right, I told my friend to make a left. Because we were listening to my voice and not the voice of the GPS, when we turned left, the GPS said “You are now off track.” But I’m so glad the GPS did not stop there. A second later, it said, “Rerouting, rerouting.” Isn’t that like the GPS? I’m not referring to the Global Positioning System. I’m talking about God’s Positioning System. When we get off track God starts rerouting. “Celebration stands at the very center of our lives. Sociologists as well as Christians say that it is essential to the ongoing of our lives. It not only keeps life from being hum-drum, boring, needlessly repetitive, but it enables us to discover again and again who we are, from whence we came, and what we need to be about in our daily lives. In remembering and doing the essential works of the Faith bound up in the sacraments and in the Sunday morning liturgy, we recapture the faith.” Dow, Norman. “A Number of Ways to Celebrate an Anniversary.” Centennial Celebration Committee, First Presbyterian Church. Cisco, TX. Online location: http://synodresourcecenter.org/evang/committee/anniversary/0001/celebrate.html accessed 2 January 2011

Press On, Move Forward

Englewood UMC “Press on, Move Forward” Galatians 5:13-16, 22-26 Galatians 6:2-9 Philippians 3:12-14 138th Anniversary Celebration November 13, 2011 Story of 3 sisters who didn’t know if they were coming of going 3 sisters lived together. One was 96, one 95, and one 94. The oldest sister ran some bath water, began to step in the tub but she got confused, she couldn’t remember if she was getting in the tub, or out of the tub. Her middle sister decided to come up the steps to help her. But she had to stop halfway up the stairway. She couldn’t remember if she was going up the steps table eating breakfast. All she could do was shaker her head and knock on wood. Thank God her memory was not as bad as her sisters. I will be there to help you two figure out what is going on, just as soon as I see who it is that is knocking at the door. I want to ask you – are we coming or going? A church anniversary – is it time for us to look back at what the church used to be, or is it time to press on and move forward? A church anniversary is indeed a good time to reminisce. To look at pictures, to remember old relationships. It is not a time to rest on our laurels, to stay stuck on what we used to be, too just sit on our butts. It is time to Press on and move forward. Biblical referenced for Press on Move Forward Press on move forward – that is a good message for us this morning. The bad news is that it is not biblical. I spent all weekend looking for a biblical reference to those powerful words. Paul didn’t say those words, Jesus didn’t say those words, and the prophets didn’t say those words. The good news is they didn’t have to because the concept is everywhere throughout the bible. For instance in 1 Corinthians 9:24 Paul says to run in such a way as to win the prize – that means to run forward – running backward won’t get you anywhere. In Philippians 3:13-14 Paul says But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward. In Luke 9:62 Jesus says no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God. In Genesis 19:17 an angel tells Abrahams cousin Lot to flee for your lives, don’t look back and don’t stop until you reach the plains. Message is to move forward and don’t look back In all of these verses the message is not just to move forward, but don’t look back. No matter what the past may hold, leave it behind and move forward. In order to move forward there is something that we have to let go of. Something on our list that we have to forget about, something that we have to prioritize. The religion of the Jews is a religion that places a priority on history, on ancestors, on wisdom of the past. The religion of Jesus does not take away from that past- it just reminds us that our hope is in what lies ahead. People of faith are those who are moving forward. The logical reason – we face forward not backward And when you think about it that makes sense. When a baby is learning to walk – you don’t stand behind her and encourage her to walk backwards. You stand in front of her and encourage her to walk forward. You tell her to come here – God does the same for us. God calls us forward in everything. Our feet, are in front of us. Our face in front, our eyes in front. An interesting fact that I learned this year, If you pull aside the feathers on an owls face, you will discover that the owl has two totally different shaped ears. An owl has superior hearing because those two different ears are oriented in two different directions. An owl has superior hearing because he can hear what is in front of him, and what is in back of him at the same time. But humans, we don’t have eyes in the back of our head, and those big lobes on the side of our face – they are specifically designed to catch the sound in front of us, not in back. Why is it that all of our senses are in the front of us and not in back of us, who do we not have special tools to look behind us – because we are not headed in that direction. We don’t need to look back – there is nothing for us. There is nothing wrong with the past; we are just not headed in that direction. Press on, move forward. In Christ we are a new creation, we have a new life, our eternity is in the kingdom to come. The command is forward march – not backward march. The story of Alexander’s army Alexander the great was known for commanding his army to march upon a village and just taking over everything around him. Most kings were intimidated by the sheer number of his army. Once he met a king who resisted – why should I just surrender and give you control of my kingdom just because you asked for it. Alexander the great told him because he had a powerful army. The king was still not convinced. So Alexander had to give him an example. He gave the order forward march. On the army marched onward. They continued to follow the command of their leader, and marched on. They were near a cliff, but had not received the command to stop. It has been a long time since I was in marching band, so I forget the command to stop. But Alexander finally gave the command to stop. But it was not until 3 or 4 rows of the army had marched off the end of the cliff. Alexander turned to the king, what makes my army so powerful – they will do whatever I tell them to do. The king immediately surrendered. Alexander had an army that was willing to press on and move forward. Don’t we feel that we are falling off a cliff sometime? Just as in that story, do we sometimes think that moving forward is like falling off of a cliff for God. After all – move forward – move forward into what. Where are we headed as a church? What does the future hold for us? how can we look forward to a future that we can’t see? Who are the people coming behind us? what do we have to look forward to when there are more funerals than baptisms? What do we look forward to, when we can look back and see better days behind us? We can be tempted to think of a church anniversary as a time to look back and remember the good times. The cemetery with a church Okay I was going to save this story for another sermon, but I can’t resist. I have been looking online all weekend for sermons on church anniversaries, trying to find exactly what you say at a time like this. And I came upon the story of a pastor who like me, did an internet search and found a story that he was very interested in. It was preached at St. Matthew church, somewhere in England. He was really taken with the anniversary sermon and wanted to learn more about the church. What ministries did they have that warranted such a good sermon? What did they do for the community? He did an internet search, not only did they not have a website; he could find nothing about the church. The pastor, pastor Johnson had a website, but funny thing it didn’t say anything about the church. It was time for him to preach his sermon – and he was frustrated that he couldn’t find anything. So in desperation he decided that he would just look up pastor Johnson and call him personally. Pastor Johnson was in total shock. St. Matthew church had not been an independent church for 5 years now. They had merged with 3 other churches, and it had been 10 years since they were able to afford anything other than a student pastor. The only reason the name St. Matthew was still known was because the cemetery attached to the church was still open. The building was only used once a year. That sermon for the annual church anniversary – a fundraiser to keep the cemetery open. So much for a church anniversary sermon focused on the past. Galatians 6:9 Speaking of falling off cliffs, I thought that my sermon had fallen off a cliff this weekend, as I continued to do my planning for today. I picked this theme of press on move forward last month or so. But didn’t read Galatians 6:9 until Friday. The verse says “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” It is a great message - but doesn’t have anything to do with press on move forward. Somewhere along the way – I got my signals messed up. But I truly do believe that when it comes to the message of God – there are no mistakes. There is always a reason that a word is revealed. And for some reason God wanted those too messages to come together. I am I am not just saying that because I didn’t look at this text until Friday, and realized that I needed to have to say something that made sense on Sunday. Our faith is grounded in obedience If we look back at our story about the army of Alexander – it is an example of what it means to press on and move forward. But that is not the point of the story. The point of the story is obedience. Obedience to press on and move forward no matter what. God calls the church to be focused, and unwavering in our obedience to God. To press on and not look back, to trust God into an unknown future. To never grow weary in doing what is Good – because that is what God tells us to do. The harvest comes for us in the future, not in the past. The harvest is God’s and not ours. Our faith is grounded in hope The faith of the followers of Christ is grounded in hope. Hope in new life, hope in new creation, hope in things to come, not times gone by. Religions of the past got their meaning from where they come from, what they did, who their ancestors were. The religion of Christ is a religion of the future. We get our meaning from the future no the past. We walk toward where are going, no where we have been. We press on move forward, never growing tired of our task to do what is good, in world obsessed with what is wrong. The greeting of keep moving forward One man noted that whenever he visits the church that he grew up in, the usher always notices him. Mr. Cotton Jones always says to him – it is good to see you, keep on moving forward. His greeting - keep moving forward is a challenge. A challenge to learn more, to grow more, to achieve more, to live more fully. Press on Englewood – move forward! Let us pray….