Why Are You Here Today?

[The following was delivered at New Gilead Reformed Church in Concord, NC, on July 6, 2008.]

Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the Lord is the great God, and the King above all gods. In His hands are the deep places of the earth; the heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His land.

-- Psalm 95: 1-7

Thus says the Lord: "Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest? For all those things My hand has made, And all those things exist," Says the Lord. "But on this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word."

-- Isaiah 66: 1-2

Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

-- Ephesians 2: 19-22

In the early days of the church, Christians suffered persecution and took great risks to gather together to meet and worship Christ. The Apostle Paul is a good example of what befell early followers of The Way -- tortured, beaten, imprisoned, executed. Ten of the original twelve Disciples were put to death for their belief in Christ. (Judas committed suicide and John was exiled to the Isle of Patmos.) We could certainly understand if these early Christians had decided to skip a worship service every now and then. After all, they could be dragged off to prison if caught praising Christ. But they kept their faith and they kept their worship alive because they loved the Lord and they loved the church.

Why are you here today? There can be many answers to that question, but before we look at them let me take a moment to tell you why I am here, and in so doing tell you a little about who I am.

I am here because Brother Ned Weavil asked if I would come. Of course, there's a little more to it that that. One reason I am here is that I need opportunities to address congregations just like yours. While perhaps not your typical student, I am currently in seminary studying to do, in part, what I am doing here right now. There is certainly much more to being a minister than standing in the pulpit each Sunday morning delivering God's word and exhorting the masses, but this may well be the most nerve wracking, at least for me. Fortunately, I trust in God to put the message He wants you to hear into my head and my heart, and to speak His words through my mouth. So that is one reason I am here: in a nutshell, because I need the practice.

But I am also here because I believe you and I walk a common ground. I can relate to where you are as a congregation because I have been there. My understanding is that you have been in a pastoral search for a little over three years now, and just recently parted from the United Church of Christ. My church, St. James Reformed Church in Mt. Pleasant, spent over three years in an introspective study and a following search for the minister to lead us. During that period we looked closely at ourselves, led by a gentleman trained specifically for that task, Rev. Bill Davis. We dug into our collective hearts and determined what we wanted and needed from our church, where we wanted it to go. And after that prolonged study and search, we issued a call to Rev. John Bigelow, who God placed along our path and who has ministered to our needs these seven years since. As a congregation, we left the UCC about two years ago.

During that period we learned a few remarkable things, chief among them that we could manage the affairs of our church quite well on our own. While we needed a shepherd, a pastor in the Biblical sense, we did not need someone to lead us, to do things for us. We could lead ourselves, we could control our church's destiny. From what I know of you and this church, you either knew this all along or have discovered it for yourselves. You are a strong, healthy church, as evidenced by folks taking charge when something needs doing, seeing to it that jobs get done, and by simply being here each and every Sunday keeping the doors open. And I can relate to the level of effort and dedication involved in all this because I served on both the study steering committee and the search committee during our long period without a pastor.

Those are a few reasons why I'm here. Why are you here? Probably not just to hear me. Maybe you're here because your spouse (or mother or father) kept fussing at you to "Get out of bed, we're going to church!" this morning. Or maybe you're here because there is no ball game this afternoon that you need to leave early for so as to get a good seat. Or maybe the fish aren't biting right now because it's been so hot lately. Maybe you're here because you know that people expect you to be here -- that's what good Christians do, go to church on Sundays, and you're a good Christian. Now I'm not saying someone is not a good church member or Christian if they're not here today. There are many legitimate reasons for not being in church on Sundays. I'm not in my church this morning. I'm just giving a few answers some folk might give for being here, whether out loud or in their hearts.

And God is looking into our hearts to see the motives that drive our actions. It isn't so much what we do as why we do it. Do we do this thing because we have to, or because we want to? For instance, do we go to church because we have to, because people expect us to, or because we want to go, because we love God? Does love provide our motivation, or does fear? Do we love God, or fear Him? To me, it is far easier to sing praises out of love, than out of fear. God loves us, so much so that he gave us His Son. How much do we love Him?

Now getting back to those possible reasons I listed for why you might be here today, I don't really believe any of those to be true for anyone in this congregation, simply because of what I said earlier. If you did not have the true desire within you to keep this church open and functioning, the doors would be locked and this beautiful sanctuary would be quiet and still. You realize you have to be here for as many service events as humanly possible, and you have to pitch in and help accomplish as many jobs as you can, for your church to survive. So you're here today because you love God, and because you love your church and care about it and its future.

And that begs the question, what is the church? I'm sure this will come as no great surprise to you, but this glorious building is not the church. Some people call this the House of God, but this structure could no more house God than a water glass could contain the ocean. No, the building merely provides shelter from the elements for the church. I think Paul said it best, in his first letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 3, verses 16 and 17: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are." There you have it: you are the church. You, me, your brothers and sisters sitting beside you and those not with us today, we are the church, we are the body of Jesus Christ left on earth to carry out His great commission.

Later, in Chapter 12 of the same letter, verses 4 through 7, Paul adds, "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free — and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually." In those few short lines Paul lets us know that (1) it is the same God who works everything in all of us, (2) we are to use however God chooses to make Himself known in us to the betterment of all of us, (3) the many individual members, you and me and everyone else, are just parts of the one body of Christ even while being individuals, (4) Gentiles as well as Jews are included in the body of Christ, and (5) again, unequivocally, we make up the body of Christ.

Think about that for just a second... God, the Creator of all, the infinite God over the finite universe, whose being is without limits or boundaries, who could not be contained in a million million buildings like this one... God chooses to live within us, within our hearts, because we are the body of Christ. We are the church. We are the House of God. Go back and read today's scripture from Paul's letter to the Ephesians: "in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit." Of course, our hearts cannot completely contain God either, for He fills us to overflowing and spills out from us to fill others! Through our actions and interactions with other people, God can fill them with His Spirit.

Do you remember the old movie, "Caddyshack"? Bill Murray played a dubious golf pro trying to train a young man enough about the game to win a contest. He wants the young man to visualize the ball leaving the club's head, lofting through the air, and rolling into the hole. He closes his eyes and holds out his hand and instructs the young man, "Be the ball. Be the ball...".

Be the church. Paul tells us we already are, we just need to understand and believe it. Be the church. We are encouraged to spend our time together with other Christians, to congregate with other believers as much as possible. This helps us keep our heads and our hearts in the right place. Be the church. Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ? The dictionary defines a disciple as a follower, a student, someone who believes and helps to spread the doctrine of another. Be the church.

If we are the church, if we are the temple of God, then church is never over as long as we take breath. When we leave this building today, church is still in session. As you go about your normal daily business during the week, try to remember that you are in church as you deal with other folks. They are sitting in the pew right beside you. God is preaching the sermon. The choir is in excellent voice. Bright smiling faces all around. Visualize that scene with everyone you come in contact, and you cannot help but act in a manner pleasing to Jesus our Savior.

Be the church.
Amen.