God in Exile (Jeremiah 29:1-14)

Sunday, October 13, 2019

            It doesn’t feel like exile, this life I am living.  Do you feel like you live in exile? 

            Some might.  In our community and our church family, we have brothers and sisters who are far from home and cannot go back.  Life here may be wonderful, but it’s a life they been forced into, not one they chose. 

            How the heck would I know what exile feels like?  I’ve lived in this country my entire life.  “American” is all I know.  I feel safe here.  Some here have lived in Chapel Hill or Carrboro all your life.  What could be more like home than this?  Yet, here, even if we love it here, we’re far from the home God has for us. 

The flesh is the part of each of us prone to sin and reject God’s goodness.  Sin lurks and sooner or later we give in.  All human beings do.  The fallen state of the world is the outcome of generations of humans sinning.  Look at the horrors happening to immigrants at the U.S.-Mexican border.  Look at the evils of the Jim Crowe south.  Look at the ways addiction wrecks people’s lives.  These are but a few examples of the effects of sin.  Wherever on earth “here” is, when we feel at home here, that’s the flesh at work.  In addition to leading us into the sin, the flesh also prevents us from seeing the good God has for us.

            God did not intend for us – we who are made in his image – to live with cancer, opioids, mass incarceration, divorce, aborted pregnancies, corruption from our leaders, war, and hunger.  These little hells are manifestations of the fallen state of the world; God never meant for it to be this way.  Yet, it is this way, and we, the church of Jesus Christ, live in the world as it is.  God has placed us in the midst of the misery.  Why?

            Jeremiah prophesied for 40 years in Judah: 40 years of ominous forecasts for the nation.  He warned of coming calamity, punishment for Judah’s rebellion God.  This rebellion was seen in Judah’s willingness to worship false gods.  It was evident in the way Judah’s elite class abused and took advantage of the poorest, most vulnerable people in society.  Judah trampled those at the margins, so God, sent Judah into exile in Babylon.  The wealthy and educated of Judah, the governing class, became people on the margins in exile.  The Lord declares “I have sent [them] into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon” (Jeremiah 29:4). 

History says the Babylonians defeated Judah and destroyed Solomon’s temple.  Babylon overwhelmed many ancient peoples, Judah being just one.  That’s the ‘objective’ historian’s assessment.  By faith we know the Babylonians who appeared to be so mighty were nothing more than tools God used to get the attention of His people.  A century later those same Babylonians were be routed by Persia.  Unwittingly, they served God’s purpose.

How long would God’s people have to stay 1000’s of miles from home, in exile among godless heathens?  In the letter he sent, Jeremiah told the people not to listen to the prophets who promised exile would be short and they’d be home quickly.  Jeremiah was no second Moses telling the foreign king to “Let my people go.”  His message was very different.

“Build houses and live them.”  How long does it take to build a house?  “Plant gardens and eat what they produce.”  Ok, we’ll be here at least an entire growing cycle.  What edible crops come to harvest the quickest?  “Take wives and have sons and daughters.”  Whoa!  That’s a minimum of 9 months.  Well maybe the growing of the crops and the building of the house and the gestation period can all overlap. 

“Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there and do not decrease” (Jer. 29:6).  This exile will last until you become grandparents.  Grandparents are not mentioned much in the Bible.  Lifespans weren’t what they are now.  People often died before they ever became grandparents.  How long with the exile last?  Your entire life.

God did not create Israel or Judah for the purpose of rejecting Him.  God did not set up Babylon to be an imperial power that ravaged and enslaved her enemies.  God doesn’t cause human beings to be evil to each other.  God gives us free will.  Wonder why evil has run amuck in the world?  Remember, God allows humans being to choose his way or their own way.  When, in the flesh, they choose to reject Him, God allows the consequences to play out. 

However, God also works in the brokenness of the world to save it; to save all of us.  God didn’t create the evil conditions, but God doesn’t abandon us to evil either.  God uses exile as the moment He begins creating something new.

We exist to live in relationships of love with God and each other.  We don’t have what God intends for us right now, in the world as it is, fallen in sin, and certainly people who don’t know Jesus are not living the life God intends for them.  So, God places us – his church - in the midst of the world’s pain as his agents pointing hurting, lost people to His light.  Our purpose is to go to before God on behalf of our city, and to go to our city as agents of God’s goodness.  God has set us here for everyone’s benefit.

The entire story arc in the Old Testament flows from God leading Abraham to the Land to flight from the Land during famine to Moses leading the people out of Egypt back to the Land.  It appears that the land is at the center of the story, but that’s not the case.  The holiest of moments come when Moses receives God’s word for His people while they landlessly wander in the wilderness.  The pinnacle of life with God in the Bible story comes in the wilds of Sinai when all the people have is their complete dependence on God.  The Land is just a fulfillment of God’s promise.  God will always make His word good, in any land, anywhere on earth.

Landholding is rebellion against God, claiming for ourselves what God has given as a gift of grace out of His generosity.  Clinging to the past or holding tight to the life we know and control – that’s idolatry.  We think that past, known life is so great that we forget to trust that God’s tomorrow is infinitely better than our cherished yesterday.  We put more faith in what we know than in what God promises. 

So, God lets us fall into exile.  God leads us into the valley because God wants us to meet Him there.  When we thought life was so good, or at least understandable and manageable, we didn’t see God.  We forgot we needed Him. 

Land-loss is whatever it is that you or I lose when we decide we will not look back to the past or try to make our way to a past life.  What your life used to be; what the church’s life used to be; what the community used to be; we don’t look back. Moving forward from the past and from the life we had, good or bad, is an act of faith.  Walter Brueggemann writes, “Exile is the way to new life in new land.  One can scarcely imagine a more radical, less likely understanding of history.  In New Testament categories, death is the way to new life” (Luke 9:23-27; Romans 6:1-11).[i]

Last week we took comfort in Lamentations 3 and the promise that God’s mercies are new every morning.  Even with new mercies, we’re in exile, and that’s no accident.  The only way for the people of God is the way forward from right where we are.  There’s no going back, and when we truly understand what God has done in nailing our sins to the cross and giving us new life in Christ, we won’t want to go back.  Made new in Christ, we embrace the call to exile. We’re made for the Kingdom.  As we live our lives answering the exile call, God prepares us for our eternal home, the one we’re missing so much right now, even if we don’t fully understand it. 

So, if the world is broken and we’re called to live in the middle of the mess, what do we do?  Conveniently for us, Jeremiah answers that question directly.  Build houses.  Plant gardens.  Get married.  Have families.  Be rooted in the world.  Expand, do not decrease.  Don’t sink into holy huddles praying for the end of time.  Live!  We are active participants in the life of Carrboro and Chapel Hill, Hillsboro and Pittsboro,Durham and Raleigh.  We are God-worshiping Jesus followers who live to draw others to Jesus. 

But, building, planting, and living daily life is just the beginning of how we answer the call to exile.  What else does Jeremiah instruct?  “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you, and pray to the Lord on its behalf.”

HillSong church, soon to be Hillside Church, seeks the welfare of the city.  Physical disability makes life hard in ways God did not intend.  Jesus associated physical pain and sickness with evil from Satan.  Earlier this year, we built a ramp on someone’s home.  We plan to do similar projects in the future.  It was a collaborative effort that resulted in a wheel-chair bound individual having an easier time. We believe this contributes to our city’s wellbeing and our part in story is an expression of our obedience to the God who is at work in exile.

More recently, we opened a food pantry in our church because we believe hunger is evil.  No one in our city should have to deal with food insecurity.  Here in exile, we want to show our neighbors that God cares about them.  God wants all bellies to be filled.  By hosting the food pantry, we join God where God is at work.

Through hospitality we seek the city’s welfare, whether hosting the food pantry, the scout troop, the preschool, another church’s funeral service, or other groups that come in.  We welcome them with friendliness as we share the message that we care.

In addition to building, planting, and living, and seeking the wellbeing of the city by joining God where God is at work in the city, Jeremiah says, “Pray to the Lord on the city’s behalf.”  Jeremiah told the exiles to work for and pray for the very enemies who had dragged them into exile.  Jesus says the same thing.  “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).  The Jews in exile may have feared that the Babylonian God had defeated Yahweh.  Jeremiah exploded that reasoning.  You’re not in exile because God lost.  You’re in exile because God sent you there.  God is God in exile.  God is God everywhere.

That neighbor you cannot stand?  Pray for him.  You’re both exiles.  The president who makes your skin crawl, either the current one, the previous one, or the next one?  Pray for him (or her).  Jeremiah’s call to prayer called on God’s exiled people to care deeply about the “other” even though that other was also “enemy.”  Jesus extends that call to us.  To meet God in exile, we have to plant ourselves in exile, work for the good of the city, and pray for those around us. 

In a couple of months, we become Hillside Church, a community that follows Jesus, loves others, and shares hope.  God has given us a mission to bring people in our town to Him that they might know him, turn to him in faith, and join us in the journey out of exile and to our true home in his Kingdom.  We’re planting our church in exile as a step of faith, trusting we will meet God here and He will lead us to where we need to be. 

AMEN

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[i] Walter Brueggemann (1977), The Land, Fortress Press (Philadelphia), p.122.

"New Mercy" (Lamentations 1:1-6; 3:19-26)

            It was a Sunday morning.  Just as we have gathered here today, the folks at First Baptist Church came together.  You know what you expect on Sunday.  Maybe you’ll see friends you haven’t seen all week and church is a happy re-union.  Maybe you’re seeking truth and you hope church is where you’ll find it.  You hope church will be where you meet God.  Maybe you’re struggling and not sure what to do next.  You hope church might provide some hope, or at the very least, a friend to pray with you.  Sunday morning is so many things.  That’s true every Sunday at HillSong.

            It was just as true on November 5, 2017, at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, TX.  The people there came for the same reasons we come every Sunday.  Devin Patrick Kelly entered the building with an assault rifle.  He killed 26 people, the youngest 5 years old, the oldest 72.  Sunday morning would never be the same. 

            Questions arise from survivors and from people who hear the story and are horrified by it.  How could there be a God who would let this happen? There must not be a God.  Or this: if there is a God, He must not be good.  If God were good, he would prevent such an atrocity. Thus, there is no God; or, if there is a God, that God is not good and cannot be trusted.

              Elie Wiesel, the great 20^th century writer, was a teenager during the holocaust when, like so many European Jews, he was taken into a concentration camp by the Nazis.  He witnessed unspeakable horrors including the hanging of three prisoners, one, a young boy.  Watching it unfold, he heard another prisoner behind him say, “Where is God now?”  Deep inside himself, Wiesel heard this response.  “Where is God?  Here he is, hanging on the gallows.”  Elie Wiesel believed, in that moment, that God died.   He writes, “That night the soup tasted of corpses.”[i]

We have no right to judge worshipers at First Baptist of Sutherland Springs, TX if like Elie Wiesel, they decided that God is dead after the shooting.  The Biblical book of Lamentations allows no place for judgment.  People in great pain need mercy. 

We all need mercy.  Most people will never experience the sudden shock of a mass shooting or the unthinkable agony of genocide.  But every person is hit with loss and deep disappointment at some point in life.  Hurt and sorrow visit even calm communities, and sometimes people give up on God. 

The ancient Israelite who wrote Lamentations lived in inconsolable grief.  The Southern community of ancient Jews, Judah, which included Jerusalem and the great temple built by King Solomon, had been completely and finally defeated by the Babylonian Empire.  The Babylonians destroyed the city walls and razed the temple, leaving a pile of ash and rubble in its place.  They took the leading citizens, Jerusalem’s best, youngest, and brightest, into slavery, driving them to live in exile in Babylon.

The book of Lamentations comes out of that exile.  It is a collection of five poems.  Many Bible readers attribute authorship to Jeremiah, but the book itself does not claim any author.  This book is not from a single writer.  This book comes from a community; the chosen people of God.  

They knew it was their failure to live faithfully and abide by God’s laws that brought the exiles.  The Babylonians tried to crush Judah’s spirit.  Their house of worship was destroyed.  Their priests and royal officials were reduced to slavery.  The Babyonians tried to unmake Israel.  But the Jewish people knew it only happened because God allowed it. 

Rejecting God was not an option for the Jews.  There is no Hebrew word for atheism.  Conceiving of an existence apart from God was impossible.  They could only understand their plight in relation to who God is.

We can learn from this.   I don’t know how things are in your life right now.  Maybe you love your job, your relationships bring happiness, and everything besides the past 10 minutes of hearing a downer of a sermon is looking up.  Or, things in your life are neither bad nor good.  For you, right now, life is an unremarkable Tuesday; not bad, not great, it just kind of is.  Or, maybe, you can relate to stories of sorrow because that’s what you’re living.  I think that whether life is good, bad, or boring, we can only truly face if when we stay connected to God. 

“How lonely sits the city,” reads chapter 1, verse 1.  A God-focused life is relational.  Cities become lonely.  “She weeps bitterly in the night; … she has no one to comfort her” (1:2).  “The roads to Zion mourn” (1:6).  Majesty has departed.  Have you walked the weeping road, or lost so much that you feel unmade?  Lamentations ring heavy because sorrow weighs so much. 

If abandoning God is not an option, what does the suffering person do?  If we cannot cry out, either God is not God, or God is not good, then what can we say?  The only course is to bring all the emotion to God’s throne.  No matter how life is going, there’s nowhere else to turn.  Good, bad, or boring, we have to deal with God. 

The singer in Lamentations shows us one way to do this.  “See, O Lord, how distressed I am,” sings the poet in 1:20.  “My stomach turns; my heart is wrung within me.”  Complain!  Hand God all the frustration.  And the responsibility!  In chapter 2, the poet asserts that the calamity is from God.  “How the Lord in his anger has humiliated daughter Zion!  He has thrown down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel; The Lord destroyed without mercy” (2:1a-c, 2a).  The book of Lamentations, woeful cries, ends uncertainly.  “Restore us to yourself; O Lord, that we may be restored; renew our days as of old – unless you have utterly rejected us, and are angry with us beyond measure” (5:21-22).  That’s the last word in the final poem.  Unless …

The singer doesn’t know how the story ends.  Yet, suffering as he is, unsure of resolution, he is certain of this.  He must deal with God. 

Pain destroys our perspective.  We can’t see the big picture.  Wrestling with relatively minor anxieties, in the midst of worrying, I forget to see the entirety of life.  We all do.  The poet, in the midst of his laments, discovered clarity.  Lamentations 3:21-22:  “This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never end; they are new every morning.”  Speaking directly to God, he declares, “Great is your faithfulness.  The Lord is my portion.  I will hope in him.”

The poet sings these words in the middle of his suffering.  It would be as if a worshipper at First Baptist Sutherland Springs sang of hopeful faith on that afternoon, a few hours after the shooting.  Imagine someone in a concentration camp remembering this scripture in the middle of the horrors.  The Lamentations poet can only speak such hopeful faith out of memory and relationship. 

I have suggested that the God-focused life demands that we deal with God in all circumstances including of great sorrow.  We can only deal with God when we remember God and are in relationship with God.  Faith can only be hopeful faith when we remember that we know God and God knows us. 

God’s mercies are new every morning?  Mercy is given in the context of relationship.  Even if the giver is a stranger to the one receiving the gift of mercy, once the gift is given and received, they can never be strangers again.  The offender deserved to be punished.  The offended party deserved justice.   But, he says, no, I forgive.  I will put away the punishment and instead extend mercy.

That’s God when God puts away our sins.  Our sin brings death, but God says, no, I give life.  On the cross, Jesus took all the death on himself.  Through Jesus, God, gives life and presence.  Because of the cross, we know God identified with the Jews wallowing in Babylonian exile.  God stood beside his people in the concentration camp.  God embraced each worshiper that Sunday morning in Sutherland Springs.  God was there.  God takes the sorrow on Himself. 

God is here.  Because of the cross and the sacrifice of Jesus, the giver of new mercies knows what we’re going through.  Whatever you face, you don’t have to face it alone.  God is with us and loves us.  God has mercy for us, mercy that never fails.

So, when we come to the table to take the bread and drink the wine, we bring everything that is in our hearts; every regret; every disappointment; every shattered dream.  We bring it all to God who can takes our losses and gives new mercy.  He turns every death we die into new life.  Jesus said, take this bread and drink this cup “in remembrance of me.”  We remember that in Christ, God understands us and knows us.  And in Christ, we live in relationship with God.  Christ is the guarantee of the hopeful faith of Lamentations 3:22.  His mercy is new every morning, exactly what we need to face the day.  His mercy exceeds our pain. 

You are invited to pray as we sing, and then to come to the table. 

In the midst of a great, happy season of life, come for bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ. 

In a season of blahs and boredom and sameness, come!  Your ennui will not lull your faith to sleep.  God’s mercy will spark you to life. 

If you are in deep pain, God loves you and walks through the dark valley with you and never leaves your side. In your pain, come!  Yes, it is heavy, but drag yourself to the table of forgiveness, hope, and new life.  Don’t let sorrow turn God off.  Come to the source of new mercy.    

Everyone, come, to new life in Christ.

AMEN

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[i][i] E. Wiesel (1960), Night, Bantam Books (New York), p.62.

"You are ..."

"You are ... "

In the movie "Overcomer," the main character is a high school runner who comes from a troubled family.   She has to overcome her tough background as well as asthma in order to succeed both in cross country meets and in the relationships in her life that are so broken.

At one point, her high school principal suggests that she read Ephesians.  She tells her she will discover who she is by reading Ephesians.  

After seeing the movie, I decided to read Ephesians to discover who I am.   Here's just a little bit of what I came up with:

I am loved  (2:4).

I am saved (2:5, 8).

I am created for good works (2:10).

I have been drawn close to God by the blood of Christ  (2:13).

I am a member of the household of God (2:19).

I am strengthened (3:16).

I am called (4:1)

That's just a taste, and that which is true of me is true of you too. 

Do you go through periods where you are really down on yourself?  I do.  I beat myself up pretty good.  Sometimes, I believe that voice in my head that tells me, “Rob, you’re a failure.  Rob, you’ll never do any better than mediocre.  Rob, you best days are way behind you.”  Those voices nip at my heels and I hear their sinister whispers and believe the lies.

Reading Ephesians, I rediscover who God says I am. God gets to be the authority, not those voices.  God gets to say who I am and who you are.

            Who will you believe, God, or those voices? You are a beloved child of God.   Read through Ephesians and rediscover who you are. 

"A Disciple named Tabitha" (Acts 9:36-43)

Sunday, September 29, 2019

            “Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha.”  Luke, the writer of the book of Acts, does not go out of his way to explain why a woman could be a disciple.  Yes, he knew that the 12 were all men.  But we know, because we’ve read his two works, Luke and Acts, that there were many women who followed Jesus with devotion and at great personal cost.  They were among the most crucial in his circle.  It was this way from the very beginning.  Luke offers no qualifiers or any word that minimizes what he’s said.  There was a disciple; a passionately devoted follower of Jesus.  Her name was Tabitha.

            Luke does tell us she was “devoted to acts of charity.”  When I started at HillSong, our mission statement was “we exist to make passionately devoted followers of Jesus.”  We understand devotion.  The word Luke used that is translated “charity” literally means “good works;” works that help people who need help.

            The picture comes into focus.  In Joppa, this disciple stood out for her care for people, especially the most needy of people.  She did not do it to be recognized and admired.  No one seeks glory by devoting their time to serving the poor.  No, Tabitha, also known as Dorcas, followed where Jesus led.  Jesus led her to poor widows, among the most vulnerable people in a society without any form of social welfare.  Once Jesus led her there, she loved with action, out of her own abilities. 

            Then, the story takes a drastic, unwelcome turn.  Dorcas the Jesus-following caregiver died.  The heartsick community so blessed by this disciple did what we’d expect them to do.  They washed her body and prepared her.  The women who followed Jesus intended to do the same thing with his body upon his death.  They went to the tomb with spices to clean him and bury him properly.  These women around Dorcas, the Jesus follower did the same – except, they knew the story.  They knew Jesus rose from the grave.  So, after the washed Dorcas, they didn’t bury her.  They laid her body in an upper room.

            Then they sent for the disciple, one of the 12, Peter, the miracle worker.  They knew Peter’s power came from the Holy Spirit.  These Joppa Christians had been in Jerusalem and seen the Spirit’s power themselves.  Or, if they weren’t present at Pentecost, they came to faith in Jesus through the preaching of some who were.  Either way, they knew Peter was connected to the Spirit of God.  And they knew whatever Peter did came not from himself but from the power of God.  So they sent for Peter.

            He was, Luke tells us, going here and there among the believers.  His agenda was whatever God set before him.  Oh, a disciple devoted to acts of love for the poor has died and the grieving community wants me to come?  Peter went.

            He was greeted by weeping widows.  The text says they showed Peter the tunics and clothes Dorcas made with her own hands.  The English doesn’t indicate as clearly as does the Greek: the women were wearing these clothes.  They reason they could be dressed in nice garments instead of filthy rags was Dorcas made the clothes herself.  They didn’t show the wardrobe to Peter.  They displayed it on their bodies thus giving witness to how much Dorcas had blessed their lives. 

            Having taken in the scene and absorbed the sorrow, he put the mourners outside.  Then Peter did what he had seen his Lord do.  He knelt by the body of the deceased woman and channeled the life-giving breath, the Holy Spirit of God.  “Tabitha, get up,” he said.  She opened her eyes and he helped her to her feet.  When he expelled the weeping widows from the room, it was not done out of insensitivity.  He had to do God’s work, just as Dorcas had done God’s work by caring for them, and they had done God’s work by calling him. 

            The final act in the drama is verse 42.  The raising of Dorcas, verse 42 says, became known throughout Joppa.  We tell stories from scripture to testify that the power of God saves us.  The church has been testifying in this way from day 1 of its existence.  As followers of Jesus, as his church, we are a story-telling, testifying people.

            In recent weeks, we have looked at the S.H.A.P.E acronym, originally found in Rick Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Life.  S= spiritual gifts; H = your heart’s passion (what really motivates you); A = is your abilities; P = personality; E = experience; it all comes together to describe each of us as disciples.  Furthermore, as we live into our shape and then out of our ministry shape, we serve God and love people and do so working out of our strengths. 

            Peter possessed spiritual gifts that are easy to see.  In Acts 2 – 5, he preaches with transforming power.  He exhibits leadership and clarity of vision.  Now, here in Acts 9, he demonstrates miracle-working in the most dramatic way, bringing someone back to life.  Spiritual gifts are very important.  We can see Peter’s easily.  Yet, Spiritual Gifts are just one facet of the S.H.A.P.E. picture. 

            Peter’s experience also comes into play.  He was willing to hang around the city Lydda, being present to the nascent church there.  He was then available when believers from Joppa called him.  We know Peter was married.  We don’t know if he had children.  We don’t know if his wife was back in Jerusalem or traveled with him.  Whatever happened in that aspect of his life, his experience made him available to God. 

            What excites me more than just Peter in this story is the way God speaks through Tabitha’s shape.  Tabitha, Dorcas, had a heart for God.  We become devoted to something when it grabs us.  That was Dorcas when it came to caring for the needy.  She was a disciple, active in the church.  When she met poor members, she didn’t need the pastor or anybody to tell her how to care for them.  She just knew and jumped in.  There’s some aspect of church life or ministry or community life that just comes naturally to you.  Susan Dunn and record-keeping and history is something that immediately comes to mind for me.  She just knows how to keep the minutes and keep track of the church’s story.  If I had a dime for every time I tapped into her institutional knowledge, I’d pay off our mortgage.  That’s one example of a passion matching a ministry need.  I could offer many other examples.  And that it certainly not Susan’s only passion.  Dorcas was passionate about helping the poor.  That’s the ‘H’ in her shape.

            We also see the ‘A’ displayed on the bodies of the women who loved her so much.  Can you sew and make your own clothes?  Some of you absolutely can.  You can identify with Dorcas better than me.  She used her ability to meet a very practical need for impoverished people. 

            The story of Dorcas is not important because she was raised by Peter’s miracle. She would go on to die again and, then, like all of us who are in Christ, be raised when Christ returns at the end of time.  The importance of this story is the way we are invited to retell it in the living of our lives. 

            Acting out of her heart’s passion, Dorcas offered what she had and God’s church was blessed.  What do you have to offer?  What is your ministry shape?  This summer on the youth mission trip, some of our teens were exceptionally outgoing.  They easily befriended kids from other groups.  Others in our group were shy and falling into isolation.  I am glad I was there to witness what happened.  The kids with the outgoing personalities almost literally dragged the shy kids into interactions with other students.  By the end of the week, those shy students sat at the center of the crowd, enjoying the ministry.  They got there because their fellow students loved them enough, acting out of their outgoing personalities to include them.

            Recently, we had families with teenagers visit and our youth group went out of their way to welcome these families.  One of our members commented to me, “I was so glad to see our youth go over and speak to those visitors.”  That’s an example of a young person leading the way by living out of his ministry shape, specifically his personality. 

So, what do you have to offer?  What are your spiritual gifts, your heart’s passions, abilities you’ve developed in your life, your personality, and your experience?  Put this all together.  It’s not for the sake of you or me brilliantly leading people to Christ and building up the kingdom.  It is God’s kingdom and God doesn’t need us.  We bring our ministry shape to God as an offering.  The story of Dorcas invites us to do what she did. We offer ourselves to God for God’s use in the kingdom.    In Philippians 2:17 Paul writes “Even if I am poured out as a drink offering … I rejoice.”  We offer our very selves to God to be poured or used as God sees fit.

One of the ways churches are critiqued is with this question: if the church disappeared would anyone notice?  If HillSong suddenly stopped existing as a church, would Chapel Hill notice?  I think so.  When Dorcas died, the people around her noticed.  Dorcas was caught up in serving God and people wept at her passing.  Our Chinese Pastor, Hong Zhou puts it this way.  When she’s trying to get people involved in ministry, she incredulously asks, “Don’t they realize this work of God is the most amazing thing they’ll ever be part of?” 

Do we see that?  Do we see that when we serve God, especially when we serve out of our shape, who we truly are, we will know the greatest joy that can be known?  They noticed when Dorcas was gone.  God worked through her.  She was passionate.  And lives changed.

Her story begins “A disciple whose name was Tabitha.” 

Now, it’s time for your story and mine.  What we’ve read in the Bible comes to life when we walk of here following Jesus, serving him out of our shape.  We are passionate.  God works through us and people are blessed.  And lives are changed as they turn to Jesus.

The opening lines of this story are “A disciple whose name was _________.”  

Your name fills in that blank .

AMEN