Sermon - The Future of the Church in the Eastern Wheatbelt

The Future of the Church in the Eastern Wheatbelt
Combined Churches Service
August 2008

Introduction
Do you ever think about the future of your own congregation? Where is it headed? What will it be like in 10 years time? How do you feel when you think about that? Excited? Anxious? Hopeful? Depressed?

What about when you look back over the last 10 years (for those who have been here long enough)? When you think about what you have seen happen in your congregation over that time to bring you to the point that you are today, how do you feel? What about when you take a longer look back to the last 15, 20, 30 years?

What has God been doing in the churches of the Eastern Wheatbelt, and what is He going to do into the future? Is there any way of really knowing?

Well today you don’t want to hear me speculating on the subject of the future of the Eastern Wheatbelt Church. What we all need to hear is what God wants to say to us about what He is doing and wants to do in us and through us as we follow Him. We are going to listen to Him by reading His word together and asking Him to show us how to put it into practice in our lives and in our churches.

John 5:17,19
Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.”

19 Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

God is Always At Work!
Just as Jesus did nothing on His own, but only did what the Father was doing, so we need to learn to see what God is doing, and join in!

Hebrews 12:1-3

v. 1a “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses…”
We need to recognise that we do not run this race in isolation from one another. So often our focus narrows to just ourselves and our own congregations, and we forget our place in the wider kingdom of God. In this letter to early Jewish Christians, they are being reminded that they are not alone, they are part of a wonderful heritage. They belong to a tradition of people who have put their faith in God and followed Him (chapter 11).

You and I are also part of that tradition. As well as these ancient men and women of faith we can add to our list the people who have been examples to us throughout the last 2000 years. We can add the people who may no longer be a part of our congregations, people who have made a difference to us. We can be thankful to be a part of this tradition.

The picture of being surrounded by a large cloud of witnesses is this: simply that these people have run their race. We can be thankful, we can be inspired by them, but now it is our turn to run! We don’t sit around and say, “Gee, I wish so-and-so were still here and running their race here”. It’s our turn, this is our time!

Verse 1 finishes with these words:

and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

The future of the Church of the Eastern Wheatbelt lies with Christians of the Eastern Wheatbelt who run the race that God has marked out for them. Not people who want to sit around and watch other people run the race. Not people who want to be served, people who want to serve. Not people who just want to be loved, people who want to love. Not people who want to get their own way, people who want to submit to others out of reverence for Christ. Not people who want to remain as they are, people who want to follow Jesus where He leads.

If we are going to do this we will discover that following Jesus requires perseverance. It will not happen easily, it will require hard work of us. The middle part of verse 1 describes what this work will entail:

let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles

We cannot follow Jesus and harbour sin in our lives at the same time. It is one or the other. That is not to say that we don’t sin, but it is to say that we don’t allow sin to remain in our lives. We confess it, experience God’s forgiveness and healing, and then we live differently. That’s true for us as individuals and it’s true for us as groups. Sometimes sin infiltrates groups. Behaviours are tolerated that should not be tolerated. Attitudes and patterns of speech become normal, that should never be normal for followers of Jesus. Sometimes we need to decide as congregations to throw off some things. Don’t pretend they aren’t there, they need to be exposed, healed and left behind.

Dealing with your own sin can be very difficult. Dealing with sin in a group is much more difficult. Yet it must be done if our congregations are going to be able to follow Jesus.

So that’s what we are to do with sin, but what about the “everything that hinders”? Are there things about us that are hindering the work of God in this region?

This phrase reminds me of Jesus’ teaching about the 4 soils. One soil was described as full of thorns. Jesus said this stands for people who are “choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and do not mature” (Luke 8:14).

All of us are surrounded by distractions and disasters, the question is how much they are able to divert us from following Jesus and doing what He calls us to do.

Another thing that looms as a danger for us are our differences. My own congregation is very different from the other congregations in the Shire of Narembeen. We worship on different days, we have different styles of worship, different traditions, different types of people, different convictions on certain subjects. Those differences can keep us separate, and because we are separate we become estranged and we lose sight of the larger picture of the Kingdom of God.

It’s OK to be different. It’s OK to be separate in aspects of what we do. But we are one Church. We are to love one another. We are to serve one another and serve together.

Read: 1 Corinthians 12:12-27
This letter is addressed to the Church of God in Corinth. It’s God’s Church, not Paul’s or Apollos’ or anyone else’s. There is no Church of Mike in Narembeen or Church of Neil in Bruce Rock. There is only the Church of God. And it’s not the Church in Corinth that meets at Fred’s place, or the Church of South Corinth, or the Corinth Church of Christ. The Christians at Corinth all together form one body, and each has a part to play.

In fact this principle can be zoomed in and out. The Christians in each congregation are one body, each with a special part to play. The Christians in each town form one body, each with a special part to play. The Christians in each region form one body, each with a special part to play. The Christians in each county form one body, each with a special part to play, and the Christians in the whole world form one body, each with a special part to play.

How does that play out? Well, within a local congregation each individual has a unique role according to God’s calling. Within a town or region each congregation has a unique role according to God’s calling, and it keeps growing from there.

You have a part to play, your congregation has a part to play in enabling us as a body to run the race that has been marked out for us.

I wonder how you feel as you hear that? I wonder how many people are feeling like they are already putting in a huge effort just keeping their church going – that it’s a struggle to even get together to worship God and to receive teaching and to share in what some of us call “the sacraments”.

I wonder how many of us have felt let down or abused by others in the church, and have little desire to come together as a body.

I wonder how many have had strong disagreements which have caused them to isolate themselves from others in the body.


2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

If you are weary today and have lost heart – or are in danger of losing heart – what can you do? You might wish that your circumstances would change and things would be suddenly easier, but God never promises that. He does promise to help us endure and to make us fruitful, so long as we fix our eyes on Jesus and follow Him.

Jesus knows what it is like to be tired. He knows what it is like to feel betrayed. He knows what it is like to feel alone. He knows what it is like to be treated unfairly. He knows what it is like to be rejected. He knows what it is like to be misunderstood. He knows what it is like to be criticised. He knows what it is like to suffer extreme stress. He knows what it is like to suffer excruciating physical pain.

Yet Jesus persevered, and He achieved a great victory as a result. He has given us His Spirit to help us endure also.

Never give up. Realise that Jesus understands and that He will help if you allow Him to.

Conclusion
What is the future of the Church of the Eastern Wheatbelt?

• We have heard that God is always at work, and our role is to join Him in that work.
• We have heard that Jesus has marked out a path for us to run.
• We have heard that we run as one body of believers, and we all have different parts to play.
• We have heard that there are things that we will have to throw of if we are to do that.
• We have heard that we can persevere in running this race by fixing our eyes on Jesus.

You might say “Well those are great principles and nice theories, but what should we actually do about this? We still don’t know what to do, and we still don’t know what God is doing.”

You’re right! This sermon is pointless if it finishes here. Yet I do not have the answers to these questions!

We need to start a conversation with God and each other to hear what God is doing, and to find out what we must do.

Let me explain:
Let’s say there was a group of Christian men who attended a men’s conference at the start of this year, which gave them a chance to meet other Christian men in their area. Out of this comes an idea to start a weekly Bible study. So a group starts, and the result is that Christians from a number of different traditions come together to be encouraged and to grow, and to think together and work together to build God’s Kingdom in that area. Sound good? It’s happening in Hyden!

Let’s say someone else believed God wanted them to go to farms that had not received rain and to pray for rain. What if they shared that with other Christians and they ended up with prayer meetings around campfires on farms as people come together to pray? Sound good? It’s happening in Mukinbudin!

Let’s say that someone believed that God wanted them to pray for a husband’s work colleague and to invite her to church, and the result was that this lady is now a member of the church and is bringing more family members along. Sound good? It happened in Kondinin!

These stories are happening all over the place, and I’m sure that I’ve only heard the tiniest proportion of them. God is at work, and He longs for each of us to join Him in that work.

So here’s what I want us to do today. As we break for lunch in a few moments we’ll enjoy catching up with old friends and making new ones, which is great. But let’s not do that in the same way that everyone else does. Let’s do it as members of a body that wants to run the race together. Let’s ask each other about what God is doing in our lives, our congregations and our regions, but let’s not get into any sort of competition to see who’s number 1! We’re all at different stages. Some of us are in the middle of tough stuff at the moment and need to be encouraged to hear stories from others who might be feeling more excited and encouraged. It’s OK to say “I’m not sure what God is doing at the moment” - have you ever read the Psalms!

Here’s some questions that I reckon we can ask one another today:
• What do you see God doing at the moment?
• What can I pray for God to do for you?
• What are some other ways that we can come together?

For example, one person might say “I’m concerned about a lack of Christian peers for my children, they seem to be doing the same sorts of things as their mates and they don’t seem interested in God”. That’s a common struggle isn’t it? Yet there are churches who have good programmes and good core groups of youth. There are great camps and other events that can have a huge impact on young people. We can help each other!

Let’s not be spectators here, let’s all get active and run this race together!