Calvary United Methodist Church May 3, 2015 JUST DO IT Rev. R. Jeffrey Fisher Children’s Sermon: John 15:9-12 Of all of God’s children, I invite our littlest ones to come forward this morning for the Children’s Message, if the children will come forward. Welcome! Did you all have a good week? Pretty nice week? It’s warming up. A chance to get outside and play some. Did you go out- side? It’s been very nice outside. Well, I welcome you this morning. I want to talk a little bit about that word we talk about a lot here in the church…about love. It is a very important word and sometimes it’s not always as easy as we like to spread love because we have all of our own interests. But this mes- sage is again telling us that God showed us how to love through Jesus as he walked along and taught us how to be nice to our brothers and sisters, to our mothers and fathers, our family and friends. So I invite you to hear these words: As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be com- plete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
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Transcript
Calvary United Methodist Church
May 3, 2015
JUST DO IT
Rev. R. Jeffrey Fisher
Children’s Sermon: John 15:9-12
Of all of God’s children, I invite our littlest ones to come forward this
morning for the Children’s Message, if the children will come forward.
Welcome! Did you all have a good week? Pretty nice week? It’s
warming up. A chance to get outside and play some. Did you go out-
side? It’s been very nice outside.
Well, I welcome you this morning. I want to talk a little bit about that
word we talk about a lot here in the church…about love. It is a very
important word and sometimes it’s not always as easy as we like to
spread love because we have all of our own interests. But this mes-
sage is again telling us that God showed us how to love through Jesus
as he walked along and taught us how to be nice to our brothers and
sisters, to our mothers and fathers, our family and friends. So I invite
you to hear these words:
As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Now remain in my
love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I
have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told
you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be com-
plete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
Do you have commands in your house? Do moms and dads ever say
something to you that if you listen, what? Are they happy when you
listen? Pretty happy, aren’t they? Like doing chores around the
house, helping with things we have to help with, being nice to people
when they come into the house, all those nice things. When we see
this symbol…what is the symbol that they are showing in this photo?
Anyone know what that is? That’s a heart. Why do we use a heart?
That’s something inside of us that keeps ticking, but why is that used?
To show love.
There are so many symbols of love around. In the animal kingdom,
these are two swans, and they make that heart too. We have a very
special time of the year around Valentine’s Day that we have these
hearts. And in this photo you’ll see someone holding on to this big
heart.
Is love something we just hold for ourselves? No, we are supposed to
share it with other people. There are times when it feels good. When I
see my mother, because I don’t see her that often, I love to hold her,
just like that, and I don’t want to let her go sometimes because I love
her. And there are times when we are sad and we are unhappy and
we’re going through difficult times. We want to be hugged because…
does it make you feel good when you are having a bad day and Mom
or Dad or a friend or someone helps and holds you a little bit? Does
that make you happy? It doesn’t work for everybody, but some people
like hugs. But whatever it is, we have to find a way that we can share
God’s love.
When we read stories about Jesus Christ, we often hear of him having
a lot of fun. He loved children. He liked to play. He loved strangers
and there are a lot of examples in what he did that tell us that no matter
who we are with, we really can have fun. And talking about some of
the things he did, it was about diversity. Anyone know what diversity
is? It can be among people, the diversity. There are all kinds of peo-
ple, there are tall and short and there are people from different races
and different creeds, and it is important that we learn that just being
different doesn’t mean it’s bad, it’s simply different. We can all be
very different and still love one another, still care for one another.
I want to make this a very concrete example of diversity. How many
of you like cheese pizza?
But if we went to a pizza buffet, there is a lot of diversity. Have you
ever gone to a pizza buffet? I have seen some people in this church at
pizza buffets, but I won’t mention their names. There are all kinds of
pizza. Do you like all kinds of stuff on your pizza? You do? Do you
like pineapple on your pizza? Corn on your pizza? Bugs on your piz-
za? Some people like all kinds of things. They might put seafood on
their pizza. I saw this one photo on the pizza book…does that look
good to you? I don’t even know what it is but just because it is there, I
think it said it is some kind of a special caterpillar that people like.
Now, it doesn’t mean it is wrong. We’ve never tried it. It might be de-
licious. And sometimes people like exotic things like scorpions on
their pizza and I’m not ready for that.
But my point is there are all kinds of different things. Just like people.
We are all different and things aren’t right and wrong, they are differ-
ent and some of them you’ve just never tried. And sometimes when
we go to school and go to other places we will meet all kinds of differ-
ent people and some of them you’ll say “Boy, they are different than
me. My family doesn’t do things that way or this way.” Or they play
different games, they speak different languages and in all of those
things, it doesn’t mean that it is bad; it means that it is different.
When we talk about love and the things that God wants us to do, there
are many things that happen in the world where people really need our
love. If you have watched the news, have you ever heard of things
called tornados and hurricanes? Well, some of you are pretty young
and I hope you don’t see all those things, but it’s big windstorms and
sometimes wind knocks over things. If you were flying a kite you
could just make it go away it’s too much. And sometimes wind blows
over things. Well, these kinds of storms are really powerful and some-
time people lose their homes, just like there would be a fire or earth-
quake or those things you might hear people talking about and there
are times that we need to help one another.
It is not always about hugs, but it is about caring for one another and
God says when we love one another, we care for one another. When
people have babies, are they happy about that usually? Most times, I
think. And sometimes babies are adopted. It is people who make a
choice, they want a child and so they go find a child somewhere that
they are able to love and to raise with all the love they have. It is a
great chance to celebrate and show love in new ways.
Sometimes when people get together it is graduation time. In the next
month around here, there will be people graduating probably from pre-
school and kindergartens and elementary and middle schools and high
schools and colleges and technical schools and military…all kinds of
graduations and if there is anyone here getting ready to graduate, it is a
great feeling, isn’t it? We have parties because we are excited about
what’s out there and so we embrace them, we love them, we congratu-
late them. It is a way of sharing.
Even the animal kingdom shows its love to one another. Sometimes
things that aren’t supposed to get along like cats and dogs get along
real well; sometimes they even embrace one another. Sometimes
somebody needs help and this horse helped this goat to get up there to
get those leaves. It is amazing what we can do. And sometimes, even
if we want to play with the same stick or toy, we can learn to get along
together. Sometimes animals that normally aren’t friends become
friends because they are able to share love.
God is talking to us always through His word to tell us that we should
love with our arms open wide no matter who comes our way, we
should try to learn about them. And love can be an exciting thing.
When I meet a new friend, it’s not kind of a passionate love, but it’s a
friendship and it means that I am so excited to meet a new friend, to
learn more things about more people. And someone that might that
might share with me some things that I have never known before.
There are all kinds of neat reading I like to get now a days and one of
them talks here about “Be the reason that someone smiles today.”
When you get up, and I bet when you see your friends and your family,
when some of them see you, they get very happy. I bet that. And I bet
they smile all day long because you made them so happy. Some of
these other things tell us that we should be someone who makes every-
body feel like a somebody. It is important that we respect even people
we don’t understand, even people we don’t know, even people that are
different from us, that we can give them sort of a good feeling that
they have met us.
Love is not something that we hold on. God says love is something
that we share with others because when we come here to the church we
often call this the church, but it is actually a church building. The
church is all of us. We are the people of God, we are the body and we
are called to go outside of here and show God’s love. Actually we are
to get on fire for God.
So, I hope when you go from here today that you will show God’s love
to strangers and to friends and to family members that will let other
people know that you love God.
Thank you for coming up today. Have a great week!
Message: Acts 8:30-39
Has anyone ever told you, when you are about to back off of some-
thing, to just do it? Did you ever walk up on a high dive…I did it a
few times when I was younger. Then when I got a little older I walked
out, looked down and I thought…no way! Everyone says “Just do it.”
The message today is a story, actually, about a gentleman in the Bible
named Philip, a follower of Jesus Christ. He was taking a journey one
day and he meets an Ethiopian eunuch and he sees this man along the
road and he’s reading God’s Word and he hears him talking about a
prophet and he’s wondering to himself, “I wonder if this man really
understands what he’s reading?” Now, there’s a great chance that a lot
of us today, being shy as we are, in terms of faith, would see someone
reading or talking about the prophets and we might not say anything
and yet he did what he had to do, the just went over and talked and
said “You really understand what you are reading here” and the eunuch
said “No, how am I to understand if no one explains it to me.” And
this story is a very interesting story because there are a lot of people in
the world today, many in our own families and communities, who
might have heard us talking about faith, heard us talking about Jesus
Christ, maybe heard us reading scriptures, but they have never had an-
yone explain to them why we do it. What’s important? What does Je-
sus do for our life? What is the difference in our life because of God?
I would like you to hear this story today and consider what it is that
God is calling us to, to be faithful in this year of our life: “Do you un-
derstand what you are reading?” Philip asked. “How can I,” he said,
“unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come and
sit with him. This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before its
shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation, he
was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his
life was taken from the earth.” The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me,
please, who is this prophet talking about, himself or someone else?”
Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him
about the good news about Jesus Christ. As they traveled along the
road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is wa-
ter. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” He gave orders
to stop the chariot. Both Philip and the eunuch went down into the
water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water,
the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did
not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.
The power of God in this day and age. Thanks be to God for His
word.
There are things in our life when some people ask us jump off the high
dive…stop right there, right? Get on that horse…stop right there! Go
play with those snakes…stop right there, right? In this day and age go
pray for someone, for many people even in the churches…”stop right
there! I can’t pray.” Go share the Word of God, be evangelist of some
kind…stop right there, I can’t do it. And I wonder to myself, at what
point do we depend on only people hearing of God when they come to
a church? If we are all quiet and we want the world around us to
change, to find God’s peace, to become members of the family of God,
who will they ever know if we all say “I can’t do that!”?
Unlike Philip, who was not ordained, who was not college educated to
our knowledge, who didn’t have any specific skills other than he had
met God himself through Christ and realized that this was a message
he wanted to share.
I’m assuming if you are in this house this morning you’ve met God.
Some of you have been in this house for a lifetime. That means we
have some knowledge about God. We never have all the knowledge
and we never are all secure and, no, we aren’t all called to preach. But
all of us are called to share our faith in one way or another. Typically
when a pastor asks someone, well, actually when I started ministry
thirty years ago it was quiet different especially in a rural parish, I
would just say “Sister so-and-so, would you lead us in prayer.” If I did
that today, this is what it would look like, right? Ahhhh…you want me
to do what in front of this crowd of people? For those of you who
don’t recognize these folks, you might remember that kind of look.
I was reading a sermon of Rev. Melvin Newland, I’ve read his works
for years and talked to him and chatted with him. I just really like his
writings that he does in his books. And in it he was sharing that one
day he was sitting in an airport and like a lot of folks, you take ad-
vantage of meeting someone new. And they started talking and he
shared that he was a pastor and she shared that she had been a person
of faith and that she had been in a church and when he was talking to
her about her relationship with God and being a Christian, she said
“You know, I have been in a church from the time I was an infant to
this time,” and I think he said she was in her fifties. “And I really
don’t know that anyone ever told me about Jesus Christ.” She had
never made a decision to have Christ as her Savior. And I thought
that’s sort of weird. And then I thought to myself, what would keep
her from doing that, why would you go to church, and then I remem-
bered that we go to church for a lot of different reasons. Bingo, well
maybe not just for bingo, but we could go to church to fellowship with
people. We can go to church because we like the youth program, be-
cause we like some other program that the church is doing, maybe for
those who are grieving or those who are going through divorce. Per-
haps we just have gone there forever because our family did. But go-
ing to church, being in church doesn’t make us necessarily someone
who’s committed to Jesus Christ and I thought there is some point in
our life we have to just do it! We have to break out of our own shell
and become the people who can witness to others around us, who are
looking for more than just coming and going. They want a relation-
ship with Jesus Christ.
And I’m of that story you’ve probably always heard that just because
you stand in a garage doesn’t make you a car, right?
And some years ago I was privileged to pay to work a year at Hershey
Medical Center as a chaplain and I was privileged to walk in and Dr.
Pierson allowed me to scrub up and watch open heart surgery. Anyone
here want me to operate this afternoon? No, I don’t think so! Just be-
cause I was in a surgery room doesn’t make me qualified. Just because
you are at this church or any church doesn’t mean that you are neces-
sarily in a tight relationship with God or Jesus Christ. My question is
at what point will we decide that we want that relationship? At some
point, if I was that woman, I would say, “Well, why would you contin-
ue to go there without questioning what more is there?” But there are
times we spend a lifetime. I have been in many churches where we
celebrate the members of the church. “We’re 50 year members!”
When I recalled this story as I read it this week, I remember a man tell-
ing me in Red Lion when he was about 88, he says “I’ve been in
church all of my life since I was a baby and I don’t know that I ever
met Jesus Christ” until Rev. Stokes and I were there preaching. And I
thought “That’s sort of odd.” And I’m not puffing us up. It’s about an
invitation.
This isn’t about holy-rolling and people coming to an altar and falling
down and crying out. That’s not who I am and that’s not who Calvary
has been, I don’t believe. But it’s about knowing a peace that passes
all understanding, that you know, that you have a relationship with
God through Jesus Christ. It is about knowing that you can have that
personal decision. It is about a reminder that we are sinners, that we
can’t save ourself, that we do need a God who is bigger than us. We
need one who can lead us into a path of salvation, one who can offer
us new life, one who can offer us peace that will change the world.
When I think of what it is that we are as Christians, a lot of people
think that, well, going to church will make me a Christian. Serving
God will make me a Christian. Being faithful with my gifts will make
me a Christian. But it’s really none of that. The hardest problem for
people coming into the Church of Jesus Christ and those who have
been there forever is realizing that it’s this…it’s a gift. It’s a gift!
There is nothing that any of us can do to earn God’s love. It is a gift.
God says “If you love me, I love you. If you’ve confessed me as your
Savior, I am yours, you are mine.” That’s all! Now out of faithfulness
we do give, we do serve, we do fellowship, we do worship, we do all
of those things. But it is not the works that save us. When Jesus
Christ came and was baptized by John the Baptist, he came up out of
the water and the clouds opened and the doves descended. It was re-
minded that even this Savior was coming to new life.
Some of us were baptized as youth; some of you were probably bap-
tized as infants. That whole process of baptism is a reminder of get-
ting washed up. In our faith, where we are today, we baptize infants.
We baptize them because it is the parents saying: I have found God
meaningful in my life. I make a pledge that I will train up my children
in that way that by the time they are of an age to make some decisions
on their own, I think they will love God because, if you ask a child of
12 or 13 that’s been in church all their life, well, of course I want to be
a Christian. This is all I’ve known, I love it. That’s where I find my
peace.
And so when they come in here in a few weeks, this was a flashback, I
couldn’t find last year’s photo, I think this is like 2005 confirmation
class at Calvary, you might recognize a few folks in there, and you say
“I today will take on the pledge for myself that my mother and father
or parent or whoever it was made for me when I was a child. I choose
this day to follow God, to commit myself to Jesus Christ.” And there
are reasons we do this. It is that we might be planted, that we might
see what it is like to be a part of the kingdom; that we might know the
power that we have to go into the world to change the world, to make a
difference with what God has done with our life. And if you don’t
think we need that, read the news. Listen to the news. Listen to your
family. Look at our own lives. We are sometimes sinking.
Did you ever have those moments when you think you are sinking?
Oh, heavens, yes! All of my life I’ve had those, sometimes stretches
of wonderful years and then something happens that you feel broken:
someone that you love passes; someone that you love moves out of the
area; you have a loss of some kind or another. Or sometimes it’s
something good that happens in our life and our ship is changing so
much and we just need someone to save us.
It’s so important to be able to receive a life preserver, but it is also im-
portant that we know how to send out a life preserver to bring salva-
tion to other people. I think there are many days that we feel we’ve
been here but we don’t have much to share with other people to save
them. And you do. You have a lifetime of your own experiences of
what it has been like to live with God, what it’s been like to live
through the disappointments, the celebrations, the illnesses, the losses,
the difficult times we’ve had, and it is to those things people will come
to you because many people who come to church and many people
outside the church who look at us have questions. Why would you fol-
low God? You’ve gone through so many losses, you’ve had so many
trials, what’s in it for you? What’s in it for me? Is that the only reason
I’m here? I hope that’s not why we come to church, for what’s in it for
me. I hope it’s because I want to be obedient to the God who’s given
me such a wonderful life. I have so much to be thankful for. I have so
much to give thanks to God all the time.
But there are indeed people who are crying out for help and we the
church, I think in the last forty or fifty years, have moved so far away
of what it means to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I remember my
younger days as a Christian going with…some of my family were
Mennonite, some were Amish, some were River Brethren…and I re-
member shouting and screaming and coming to the pews and crying
and I was a nervous frightened wreck. That’s not who I am. I am not
that kind of a person who enjoys that kind of fellowship. But there are
folks just have those kinds of needs, but they might not need all that
kind of experience. There are people saying I have gone through so
much and especially in this day and age where we move around and
we don’t have any family or friends near us, I want someone to give
me something to stand on.
I love the old hymns because they were my anchor. I’m standing on a
solid what? Rock! I will not be moved! I have a fortress! And so
they are crying out for someone to say, lead me somewhere where I
know I can make it to tomorrow and then the next day and I know I
will find my pathway to peace.
For me, as much as I believe in personal salvation, I’m not a preacher
who wants to just get people to be saved and that’s it. I want us to
have a personal relationship with God, that gives me a peace that pass-
es all understanding, one that I know even though I go through the tri-
als and the valleys of the shadows of death that I am not alone, that
God is with me. And that’s what I see as our calling, to offer that
peace of Christ to other people who are looking, not just for some
quick fix, but for a long term relationship with the God who is our cre-
ator who promises to be with us always.
And we have some commands from God that will enable us to do this.
We have this Word of God in Mark: Go into all the world, preach the
Good News to all creation.
Why? Because there are people who are lost! Have you ever been
lost? It’s frightening. It’s frightening. I remember even in adulthood
getting in a car and driving into New York City. I’ve driven into a few
other larger cities and there are times you have mini-panic attacks:
What’s the worst thing that can happen here? I have to stop and ask
someone. It is not really like I am in a whole new world. I am still on
American soil. Now, that might sound goofy to you but there are times
we feel that lost in life, not just about driving, but someone has just
been taken from us, our relationships have changed, the job, whatever
it is. We feel lost! We feel like we are sinking. And we’re hoping that
someone would have a preserver to save us and God is saying “You,
members of Calvary, friends of Calvary, family, whoever you are here
today, are the very life preserver for someone who needs hope.” You
are the one who has your personal story of faith to share with others,
that you will overcome.
So when this eunuch was long the road and when Philip saw him along
the road, he didn’t just pass him by and say, “Whoa, I know that man
needs someone but I’m going to keep on rolling. I’m not going to
pray, I’m not going to read, I’m not going to share.” Not just because
he had fears, but because he knew that God had called him to some-
thing greater.
God calls us. He says to those who will seek first the kingdom of God
and one of the struggles today is that this world we live in, especially
in America, is so wonderful, that we don’t seek God first. If you don’t
seek God in His word by reading the Bible or seek God in prayer or
seek God in relationship, how can you be known as one who has a
faith to share? If you’ve never practiced knitting, I don’t imagine
someone is going to ask you to come and teach them how to knit, or
cook, or whatever it might be. If faith is really what we are about in
this journey, most of us aren’t going to make it much more than 110,
right? That’s a pretty short journey if you look at all eternity.
If we are going to do what God calls us to seek His kingdom first, then
we must really do it. That’s a command. It’s not just “Ah, if you like,
it would be nice if you’d follow me.” It’s a command from Almighty
God.
Some of the reasons people seek God are like this woman who felt
judged by everyone around her, condemned by everyone around her
and there is no one in this room who hasn’t felt that: that somehow we
don’t measure up. It’s not all paranoia. There are people who don’t
like us for various reasons and God’s crying out to say “You must go
out. You must go forth,” And when you see someone like that woman
who got up from the well that day and ran and told everybody about
Jesus Christ, that’s what it’s like to be baptized and made new.
This man comes up for water and he has a victory sign. How wonder-
ful it is to be washed up, cleaned up, to be made new again because
this water, which is only water, is a symbol of what God does. Water
refreshes, it cleanses, it brings life, it brings joy, it brings renewal.
When we were baptized, it’s God saying “You’re mine! I’ve cleaned
you up and I’m going to forever be with you. I’m going to be the one
who sends comfort to you.”
And we need to know that we don’t have to be some ordained or in-
structed or highly educated person to share our faith. Philip was an av-
erage person who because he had met God, because he experienced all
those things, was willing to share. He was willing to go out, he was
willing to give a hand to someone who was looking for life and he
wanted to give him life and give it to him abundantly.
Why do I want people to have God? Because I believe when we hear
these words: “May the God of Peace equip you with all good work
that you may do His will.” All these words, for God doesn’t call the
qualified, He qualifies the called. God will equip us that we might
serve.
We could go all through the Bible to folks like Moses and others who
all had excuses of what they couldn’t serve and God said “Don’t you
worry, I will make a way. I will make things.”
He calls us to be fishers of people that we might bring others to a rela-
tionship with Jesus Christ.
He says again in Matthew 28: Jesus came to them and said, “All au-
thority in heaven and earth has been given unto me. Therefore, go and
make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey every-
thing I have commanded you.”
And he tells us, “If you love me, you obey what I command.”
In just several weeks you are going to see the confirmation of our stu-
dents. It is a small class this year. On that day of Pentecost long ago,
over 3000 people on one afternoon decided they wanted to follow God
because they wanted that peace. That’s what I would love more than
ever, that this congregation would go out and tell others and I don’t
care if they come to Calvary. I just want the world to become a place
of peace, a place where we can find God, a place where we would see
someone sinking and that we would offer them a preserver, that we
could be like the people that if someone gets off of their buggy, or
someone gets out of the car, or someone is walking along the street and
saying, “Would you talk to me about God? Would you offer me bap-
tism? Would you help me clean up?” that we would be as excited as
the crowds of people that still gather along the Jordan when they are
baptized, or walk into that water remembering that baptism of Jesus
Christ.
“If you love me, you will obey what I command.” We have a privi-
lege. We have been loved. We have been loved exceedingly by God
and God invites us to share that love with our neighbors and I pray we
will take that into the world in which we live.
Let us pray:
Almighty and Everlasting God, we thank you for the love you gave us
through Jesus Christ. Lord, we all experience your love in different
ways and you call us to share it in different ways. Not all of us are
called to be public speakers, but, Dear Lord; I do believe you call us to
share our faith. Help each one of us to find how that would work for
us. Find and seek people who would love to hear about you, not con-
demning and not in any kind of self-righteousness, but just sharing
your love. Surround us with your Holy Spirit, comfort us, equip us
and empower us to do what you ask us to do. We ask in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
It is our privilege to return to our Gracious God our tithes and our
gifts. The ushers will wait upon you at this time.