March 22, 2009 Sermon

From Death to Life
Ephesians 2:1-10

Our passage contains a beautiful summary: “For by grace you have been saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8a). God's grace saves through faith. God's grace is the love and favor of God which we have done nothing to earn, yet which God gives us freely. God's grace saves. It saves us from death. Sin brings death, yet God's grace keeps us alive—and will forever. And this incredible blessing becomes ours through faith. When we have faith in Jesus Christ as our risen Savior, God's grace saves us. Note that the passage does not say that our faith is some kind of achievement on our part. No: the whole thing depends on God's grace. Only by the grace of God do we have faith. Only by the grace of God do we get saved. Praise God!

I can think of no better illustration of how God's grace raises us up from destruction than our newly-completed building project. It created more than its share of rubble. It brought ruin to a few relationships in the congregation. It brought ruin to one whole set of roof trusses—not to mention the tens of cubic yards of building material we dumped (as in any project). It could still bring financial ruin to our church, and I want to explain this very carefully.

My son at college, 450 miles away, sent me an email this week. He had heard that I have said our congregation might fold because we cannot meet our mortgage payments. I told him what I tell you now: this is a classic case of a seed of truth being converted by gossip into an overgrown weed. The truth is we must make two mortgage payments each month. Add all the other expenses that go with running a church (paying the pastor and staff, utility bills, insurance, supplies, etc.), and we are stretched. In fact, the congregation passed a budget for 2009 that plans for us to spend about $24,000 more than we expect to receive. And this has happened in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in most of our lifetimes.

Of course I have concerns. But please listen carefully as I express them carefully. The leadership of this congregation (including me) must diligently accomplish the ministry to which Jesus Christ has called us. If we use the gifts he gives us—including that new building—this church will grow. It will survive. It will thrive. By the grace of God I have faith that we will live: live as a church, live in the light of Christ which has entered this world, and live eternally in the presence of God Almighty. This year's Odyssey of the Mind team has adopted the slogan, “Reach the roof!” They want to do their absolute best. This congregation has already reached the roof for our physical plant. Now we must reach the roof in ministry. We need to grow this church. If we minister properly in the name and Spirit of Christ, we will.

NLCC has about 165 members. Something like twenty of these are college students and young adults who live away. Around twenty more are too elderly or too messed up physically to do construction work. Another twenty or so are teens. This means that with about 100 members we have built two buildings. Why would I fear that NLCC cannot do the ministry with which Jesus now intends to fill them?

Go back a few months. Our new building had walls and a roof. The interior had frames and bare wooden sub-floors. We called for a Saturday “insulation blitz”. In five hours a crew of over thirty installed the inside insulation. Then the drywall crews started. Several men and women virtually lived here for the next couple of weeks, their clothes and lungs coated with sheetrock dust. A group of women volunteered to hold a painting bee. In one evening they painted more than half of the interior. Yet more crews appeared to install the floor tile. People whose knees have aged beyond the expiration date spent one whole Saturday down on those knees. They were not praying (so far as I know!); they were painstakingly cleaning the glue from the tiles, one crack at a time. Meanwhile, others painted Christian song lyrics on the children's room walls. Mirrors got hung in the bathrooms. And a man who does not even belong to our congregation spent untold money and hours erecting work-of-art storage shelves in the basement.

Are you tired from listening to all this work? This is only a sampling of all the time, energy and heart that we poured into that building. Came the day when the township awarded us our occupancy permit. We had done it. We had built the building. But the work continued unabated. We had ministry to do! The Children in Worship program started. That is, the classes started. But its director and a small support committee had already invested hundreds of hours in preparation for the first precious child of God to walk through the door. And the week we officially opened those doors over there we hosted Safe Harbor. Before we received our first guest our people spent days arranging our space to accommodate them. They planned menus and stockpiled food. They drew up schedules for volunteers. They reached the roof, almost, on ladders hanging tarps to mark off sleeping areas. And each morning a cleaning crew restored the area.

“By grace you have been saved,” Ephesians 2:5 tells us, “and raised up with (Christ).” All this work we have done and will do does not save us. We have already been saved by the grace of God. We work to say thank you to Jesus Christ, and to extend his love to ever more people. We raise the roof to raise Jesus before the hearts and minds of people who long for the peace he offers. “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” We work because God has created us to lift high the cross of Christ. God's grace saves through faith. We have faith because God graciously gives it to us. We work to display the truth of this Good News to the world.

Jesus performed the greatest work of all. Though he did not deserve it, he permitted the Romans and his own Jewish people to crucify him. The Jews falsely accused him of blasphemy against the Holy God. The Romans falsely accused him of rebellion against their authority. Jesus was guilty of neither—indeed, he was guilty of nothing. He never sinned against God or humanity. He became the sinless, sacrificial lamb who paid the price for our sins. He died in our place. As Ephesians puts it, we “were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived.” We still trespass. We still sin. But when we believe in Jesus as our risen Savior we also believe he has freed us from the death our sins should earn us. He has brought us from death to life.

I call upon all members and friends of the Northern Lakes Community Church to raise the name of Christ before the world. We have built two buildings. Good for us. Now let us fill them with ministries of compassion and teaching and fellowship. Jesus has brought us from death to life. Why not tell others this Good News?

First, let us reach out to people who seem to be drifting away from our church. An odd thing happens when people stop attending church events as often as they once did. We notice, but we do little about it. We fear butting into other people's business. We don't wish to act impolitely. We hope somebody else will take the initiative to reach out to them. Ask yourself a question: what if you were in their position? What if for whatever reason you had diminished the frequency of your participation? Would you not want somebody, anybody to notice? I do not know how many times I have heard some variation of, “When I stopped going, nobody cared.” I have heard this said of other churches, and I have heard it said of NLCC. It is, of course, wrong. The more accurate way to put it would be, “When I stopped going, nobody cared enough to do anything about it.” Let us not keep making that mistake. Make that phone call. Ask that question—carefully, but caringly. Reach out.

And while we seek to close the back door to our congregation, let us throw the front door wide open. Invite people to participate in the life of Christ as it happens here in our congregation. Sure we're imperfect representatives of Jesus. Sure we sin. But the life given by the Holy Spirit courses through this church. God has created us as part of the Body of Christ. I have said it before and now I say it again: when we discover a new restaurant, a great movie, a wonderful hiking trail, or (fill in the blank with almost any new experience), we tell our friends. Tell your friends about this church. Invite them. Ask them to participate in whatever part of what we do seems likely to meet their needs. Make no wild promises about us. Tell people that our church preaches the Gospel, serves the needs of broken people, has a fine youth group, or whatever. We do it all imperfectly. But we do it. And people need to know Jesus, now more than ever.

We have raised two roofs. We have weathered many storms. We have come to this time and place of celebration. Praise God for our new building! No: praise God for God’s new building! Now let’s get out there and fill it with a vibrant church that ministers in the power of the Holy Spirit to life high the name of Jesus Christ!