FROM YOUR PASTOR

Getting Ready for the Future   

 The stewardship season is upon us and this year it has special significance. Our  goal is to be able to call a full-time, installed, “real” minister in 2020.    I love our church and its people. You have the spiritual maturity, the loving  heart, and the commitment to continue being the Living Body of Christ in Hanahan.  The only thing holding you back is the lack of daily pastoral care and comprehensive  program development. I am convinced God is calling our church to a larger future that  he has already planned.    Financially, the church is almost at the point where it can call a minister.  Stewardship is always a private relationship between God and the individual. We don’t  tell each other what to give. Nevertheless, I can ask you to make your stewardship a  matter of prayer saying, “What is my best gift for the coming year?”  If each of us does  that, I believe the way will be clear to call a pastor in the new year.   We already have presbytery’s permission to form a Pulpit Nominating  Committee and search for full-time leadership.  Our hope is to be ready to elect that  committee and begin the search early in the new year. We can do that if each of us  prays, “What is my best gift for the coming year?”   

[On Sept. 22 of this year, we had a Sunday dedicated to honoring our teachers and our Christian education program. That was the Sunday I missed worship due to a violent experience with vertigo. But I already had a sermon on the importance of Christian Education typed up and ready to preach. Now being of Scottish ancestry and loathe to waste anything, I bring you that sermon this morning. The subject is no less important than it was on Sept.22.]

"YOUR GOD IS KING"

Isaiah 52:7-10

      In a few words, Isaiah draws a thrilling picture of joy and victory. At least it’s a thrilling picture if you understand what he is talking about. In ancient days, when two armies met in battle, it was believed that the Gods of each side also did battle. The winning army was evidence of which God was victorious. When the battle was over, a runner was sent to announce the results of the battle to the people. The most famous of these runners was Pheidippides, the runner at the battle of Marathon, who ran 26 miles 385 yards from the battlefield back to Athens to bring the news that the Greeks had defeated the Persians.

     This is Isaiah’s picture. A runner races through a mountain pass shouting as he goes, “Your God is king! Your God is king.” Beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of him who brings good news. My mother always said she could tell whether or not I had a good report card by the sound I made coming down the front hall. If my brogans echoed off the walled as I ran, then there was good news. If there was the sound of dispirited trudging, then the news was bad.

     It is a thrilling picture.” Beautiful upon the mountain is the sound of running feet bringing the good news, “Your God is King!” Ever since the birth at Bethlehem and the crucifixion at Golgotha and the resurrection at the Garden Tomb, this has been the message to the church. The great battle between good and evil has been fought and the outcome is known. God has won the battle and the death of death is now preached around the world in the name of Jesus Christ.

     I want to suggest quickly that to know God reigns, that he indeed is king over our personal destiny as well as human history, means different things at different times in life. The message is the same but it’s relevance to our experience changes as we change.

1. Run say to the young children, “Your God is king.” A young child cannot conceptualize ideas. They take everything literally and concretely. A three-year-old was coming to worship for the first time. His mother explained that they were going to God’s house to worship him, to sing songs for him, and pray to him and that the little boy must be quiet and respectful. I saw them seated near the back, the little boy standing in the pew beside his mother. After church, the mother couldn’t wait to tell me that when I sat down where the little boy couldn’t see me,he leaned over and whispered, “Where did God go?”  Not everyone in the church felt the same way.

For a young child, the first thing they are able to understand is that God is somebody they like because the people who love God love them as well. “Jesus loves me this I know” because the people who love Jesus love me as well.The love of God in Jesus Christ is not learned; it is absorbed. We are here this morning because along the way there were family members and friends who loved us completely and who told us God loved us as well. We believed them because they believed in us. These little ones are part of the living body of Christ and should be treated as such. If you know a child’s name, you’ve got a friend. It conveys the dignity of individuality. It isn’t very convincing to say God knows your name and loves you if the rest of us can’t call their names.

 2. Run proclaim to the growing children, “Your God is King.” At this stage of life, knowing that God is supreme means learning the content of faith. Content of our faith as a historical religion. You must know who Abraham and Sarah were and what happened to them. You must know the stories of King David and what God did with Israel. You must know the parables of Jesus. Knowing the Bible stories puts our life in the right context. We absorb the reality that we too live our life under the authority and presence of the Living God.

 3. Run, proclaim to the high school and college students, “Your God is King.”Toknow that God is king at that age can be boiled down to one thing “Respect yourself.”  Your value and dignity are not found in ipods, cell phones, and trendy clothes. Your success as an individual is grounded in the love God has given you in Jesus Christ. You are precious to God and so you are not free to waste your life in shallow, meaningless goals, relationships that are nothing more than cliques, and riotous living that wastes your physical life. The Montreat youth conferences encourage living up to what you can be, not down to the lowest common denominator of behavior. My college has a motto, “Be your best, do your best, no regrets.”

 4. Run proclaim to the young families. “Your God is king.” This is where life is the most frantic and where a family is most likely to fall away from the church. The demands made by marriage, work, and child rearing seem to be overwhelming.But precisely because the demands are so great, this is the time we need to know that our sacrifices are important to God. If we look at our life as the gift of God, then our responsibilities become sacred. Spouse and children are gifts worthy of our loyalty and labor. We are free to love and be loved, to give and receive support, and to offer up our days as offering to the God who is king of our lives. 

5. Run, proclaim to those whose years are full, “Your God is king.” At the last stage of life, to know that God is king is to know that we have been part of something important, something lasting. And it is to give back to the community of faith that has supported our journey. Levinson, in his book, “The Seasons of a Man’s Life,” says that the goal of life in one’s 70’s and 80’s is to be a wise good person willing to mentor those who are younger. Those who have come safely through the storm and danger of life’s challenges have earned the right to be an example of God’s mysterious love. We look at the older members and think, “Well, if God has been faithful to them, he will be faithful to me as well.”

     The message never changes and yet it means different things to us as we go through the plateaus of life. Our education in the ways of God always presents us with something new to explore. And as we discover God in every time of life, we become the messengers. We are the ones who run on happy feet shouting as we