The Call: Listen to the Word, Speak the Word

[This message was shared yesterday afternoon during the Service of Installation of Brian McGee as associate pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Springfield, Ohio.]

1 Samuel 3:1-11
Ephesians 4:1-16
A colleague of mine sat down on the steps of the chancel at the church he served to do the children’s sermon. The gospel lesson appointed for that Sunday was Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. My friend had planned his message and began by asking the children if they had ever heard about the prodigal son. 

One boy raised his hand and proceeded, in his own words, not only to tell the parable but to unpack its meaning. 

He said that God the Father never gives up on finding us no matter how lost we may become. And that was why the Father sent His Son Jesus: so that everyone who turns away from their sin and follows Jesus will have life with God forever. I heard a recording and can vouch for both what the boy said and for what happened next. The pastor and congregation had listened with rapt attention. There was silence for a few moments.

Then the congregation burst into applause not, I suspect, only for the boy who told the gospel story, but also and more importantly, for the gospel itself: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) That is always good news! 

It’s the hearing of this Word--read, sung, proclaimed, embodied in Holy Baptism and Holy Communion--that is, as Saint Paul reminds us in Romans, “the power of God,” the gospel that, when believed, transforms our lives now and forever. The good news about Jesus, this Word of God, brings forgiveness, reconciliation with God, the ability to live each day with hope, and everlasting life with God!

I recently gave a ride to a woman from our church. Macular degeneration has significantly robbed her of her sight, so she relies on rides from friends or Uber or Lyft to get to and from events at our building. She was talking about the people of the congregation. I said, “Yes, it’s a wonderful church.” 

“No, Pastor,” she said, “it’s not just that. We have the gospel. I had been a Christian for seventy years. But I finally heard the gospel among the people of this congregation. I finally realized that as I turn to Jesus and spend time with Him in His Word, He gives me life!” “And,” she went on to tell me, “by getting close to Jesus through the Word each day, God has helped me share Him with others and I’ve learned something: People are starving to hear God’s Word!”

I’m convinced that she’s right. People are starving for the Word about, the Word of Jesus: the Way, the Truth, and the Life. When they hear it, they respond like my colleague’s congregation did when a five-year-old boy hijacked the children’s sermon. 

Even when people don’t consciously know it, they are hungry for God’s Word, hungry for the God we know in Jesus. 

When God and His Word are absent from our lives, we may not notice. But when God and His Word invade our ears, our minds, our hearts, our wills, we know that God is at work in our lives...and we rejoice. We know what we have been missing and are overjoyed when God finds us!

In the first Bible lesson that Pastor Brian has chosen for this afternoon, we meet another boy, Samuel. Samuel’s mother had prayed fervently for a son. God heard Hannah’s prayers and, being so blessed, she decided her son was to be in service to God at the temple under the supervision of Eli the priest. 

That’s where young Samuel was, trying to fall asleep one night when God and His Word came to him. 

Samuel didn’t know what to make of it because, as one of the saddest passages in all of Scripture tells us, “In those days the word of the LORD was rare…” Days when the Word of the Lord is rare should be non-existent for those who know the God first revealed to Israel and then revealed to us all in Jesus Christ! If you and I aren’t hearing the Word of God every single day--in quiet time, in study with other believers, in regular worship, it doesn’t mean that God has stopped talking with us; it means that we have stopped listening. If we refuse to hear God, we won’t hear God.

When Samuel heard the Lord calling him, he thought that it was Eli. He ran to Eli several times to see what the old priest wanted. Finally, Eli  told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’” When God called Samuel again, Samuel responded, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” In verse 11 of our lesson, we’re told, “And the LORD said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle.”

Pastor Brian, your call here at Grace Lutheran Church in Springfield, no less than that of Pastor Tom, with whom and under whom you serve, is to listen to God’s Word, then to share it so that “the ears of everyone who hears about it [will] tingle.”

This doesn’t mean that your preaching, teaching, praying, visiting, serving, or leading need to be dramatic or memorable or eloquent or, God help us, cute. 

In fact, the word in the Hebrew in which 1 Samuel was written connotes something more mundane than we might mean when we use the English word tingle. It refers to the simple vibration that words or sounds we hear make on our eardrums. In a world like the one in which Samuel lived, where the Word of God was seldom heard, simply hearing it would bring about a reaction. 

That is no less true in 2019: If we will speak the Word of God, if we will share Jesus, that message will reach its target and God will go to work to create the faith to listen to it and the boldness to speak it in those who listen.

I concluded after the events of 2009 when many of us who were part of a church body saw that body’s witness for the Word and for Christ being hijacked and syncretized with false teachings by those who seemed to specialize in drama and cuteness and relevance, that what the Church needs and what the world needs is not preachers who are clever or brilliant or dazzling. The Church and the world need pastors who listen to the Word of God and speak the Word of God. 

It is precisely such faithful pastors who fulfill the pastoral calling as described in our second lesson this afternoon. They “...equip [God’s] people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” 

That’s because it’s this Word of God, heard, spoken, enacted, that creates faith: “...faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” (Romans 10:17)

Pastor McGee, my friend, listen to the Word of God, speak the Word of God. If you do these two things, you will be equipped to fulfill the call to which you, with the help of God, commit yourself today.

Dear friends of Grace Lutheran Church, your charge is similar, to listen to the Word of God here proclaimed and shared in the water, bread, and wine, considered in your quiet time with God, discussed in your small groups, and prayed over and then to speak that Word to others.

As you join together today as pastors, people, and staff, may you be seen by a world hungry for the God we are privileged to know in Jesus Christ as a congregation in which all of you listen to God’s Word and speak God’s Word. Amen

[Pictured above: Artist Marc Chagall's etching of God's call to the boy Samuel.]

[This picture was taken after Pastor McGee's installation. He's shown here in the center. The other colleagues, from left to right, are: Pastors Bruce Kramer, Tom Brodbeck, Patti Morlock, and me.]

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Growing Up

[This was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Springboro, Ohio, this morning.]

Ephesians 4:1-16
Today, I want to talk with you about growing up, becoming mature. 

We all know people, I’m sure, who have grown older, but have not grown up. They’re just as childish at fifty-five as they were at five. They go through jobs, partners, and friends as quickly as Kim Kardashian produces selfies. 

The reason for this is simple: Growing up is hard work. It’s easier to be childish. 

Growing up means learning things like deciding on our values and if we will live in accordance with them, the art of compromise, how to handle disappointment, how to handle success, being accountable to others, living within our means, or striving to be better today than we were the day before. Growing up means moving away from being me-centered to being we-centered.

Since we all have to live together, it's the responsibility of every human being on the planet to grow up. And to never stop growing up because every new phase of life, right up to the moment of death, challenges us to grow, change, adapt, and create. 

We are either growing or we are dying; there is no third choice. 

Now, we all know this about growing up in how we relate to our families, our friends, our jobs. But in my years as a pastor, I have been astounded by the number of church-going Christians who work hard and intentionally at maturing in every other aspect of their lives except the most important one, their relationship with the God we know in Jesus Christ and with the people of Christ’s body, the Church. 

I can’t tell you how many good adult people I have watched over the years try to confront the big challenges of their lives--job loss, the loss of loved ones, relationship issues--with the faith of a newly-confirmed fourteen year old. 

There's nothing wrong with the faith of a newly-confirmed fourteen year old for as long as the confirmand is still fourteen years old. 

But because many people don’t keep growing as disciples of Jesus Christ beyond the age of fourteen, they’re ill-prepared to deal with the challenges and possibilities of adult life. 

Listen: We only more fully experience the greatness of God’s love, grace, and power in our lives when we commit ourselves, intentionally, to daily maturing, as disciples of Jesus Christ. 

“When I was a child,” the apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:11, “I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” 

As Christians, we need to daily commit ourselves to putting away the ways of childhood behind us. 

All three of our Bible lessons for today present God’s call to those who would follow and claim to believe in Jesus Christ to grow up in their faith. This call comes through with crystal clarity in the second lesson, Ephesians 4:1-16. 

In verse 1, Paul writes: “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” 

The calling that the Ephesians received is the same calling that Juliet has received this morning: to live and be the trusting children of God that Christ’s death and resurrection has set us free to be. 

We are to live our calling as people who have been bought and paid for by Jesus Christ through the expenditure of His body and blood on the cross. We’re to live our faith like we mean it. 

Do we mean it when we confess the words of the Apostles’ Creed or offer the Lord’s Prayer? Paul would say, then we need to live it. 

Do we mean it when we say we have been saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ, that we are committed to love God and love neighbor, that we accept Jesus’ great commission that we make disciples? Paul would say, then we need to live it.

Are we repentant for our sins and committed to showing humble compassion to our fellow sinners? Again, Paul would say, then we need to live it.

In Luke 16:10, Jesus says, ““Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much…” When we were growing up from childhood to adulthood, it was exciting and exhilarating being entrusted with more demanding tasks as we showed ourselves to be increasingly capable. We need to work at being grown-up in Christ so that we're people who can be entrusted with more and more of the challenging and important work of being Christ’s ambassadors in our everyday worlds. Nothing is more exhilarating.

Paul next describes how it looks when we’re living out our call as disciples of Christ: “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” 

Christians are not Lone Rangers. The Christian life is not about "Jesus and me," but about "Jesus and we." You can’t do Christian faith solo because you can’t do Church solo. 

When Juliet was claimed by God this morning in the waters of Holy Baptism, she was also welcomed into the Lord’s family, the body of Christ, the Church. 

As Christians, as disciples who are part of the Living Water community, we’re to be gentle and humble in our dealings with each other. We’re to be patient with each other, knowing that, though we may all be committed to growing up as followers of Jesus, the Lord isn’t finished with any of us yet. 

Just as life in our families is meant to fortify and prepare us to deal with the world each day, so life in the Church is meant to fortify and prepare us to move out into our daily lives with faith and hope, the power to resist temptation, the power to share our faith, the inspiration to keep surrendering to Christ in prayer and study of His Word. And the Church is also meant to fortify and prepare us for all that God will have for us to be and do in eternity with Him.

Paul goes on to explain, starting in verse 11, how disciples are empowered for growth in the Church: “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers,  to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up  until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” 

In churches committed to helping disciples grow up, leaders equip the rest of the body of Christ to use their gifts, talents, abilities, and lives to live their faith out in the world, not just to be volunteers for church activities. 

The point of Living Water's mission trips and other mission efforts, for example, isn’t just to serve the people we serve together in Jesus’ name. It’s also to take us out of our everyday comfort zones and teach us to commit the same acts of witness and service in Jesus’ name in our everyday lives. 

And my job, Dan’s job, Mark’s job, the job of every Sunday School teacher and ministry leader, is to equip you to be disciples in your everyday world, to set you free to grow up as disciples of Jesus Christ. To equip you grow up. 

We are called to equip you to reach up to God and reach in to others in this church family and to pray and study God’s Word with others in our church family, so that you can reach out to the world with confidence and hope and faith in Jesus Christ. 

And we do that by encouraging you to adopt six central disciplines of Christian faith: 

(1) regular daily prayer (we will be providing you with tools for that in the months to come);  

(2) regular corporate worship on Sundays;  

(3) regular reading and study of God’s Word, both on your own and with small groups of Living Water folks (more help with that is coming, but you can still be part of Journey Through the Bible);  

(4) being part of intentional Christian friendships, small groups of people with whom you share your daily journey of faith, who encourage you when you’re down, and give you a kick in the seat when you need to grow more; 

(5) service and witness in Jesus’ name;  and  

(6) finally, giving of yourself and your possessions to the cause of Jesus Christ in the world. *

As we implement Simple Church and the discipleship culture at Living Water, you will hear more and more about these disciplines of the Christian life. 

In coming months, we’ll begin some tiny small groups that will carry the seed of deepened discipleship and spiritual growth to the next step in our congregation and we will offer frequently-changing educational opportunities for you wherever you are in your life, wherever you are in your spiritual growth--from reaching up to reaching in to reaching out. 

We want every disciple of Christ who is part of this congregation to have the chance to grow up and keep growing up. That process should start for all of us, from the moment we are baptized and continue to the moment we pass from this life into the presence of our Lord Jesus.

Taking our cue from Paul in today's second lesson, the aim of all this equipping is simple. Verse 12 on: “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,  until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” 

God’s Holy Spirit is at work in this congregation. You can sense it every time we gather--whether for worship or a church council meeting or a mission effort. 

My experience is that every time God is doing great things in a congregation, Satan tries to mess things up. He attacks. He sows division. He puts up obstacles. That's because Satan is the biggest jerk in the universe. 

But, we must always remember that, no matter what trouble he may cause us, Satan has already lost. Jesus has already conquered sin, death, and Satan. And we who confess Jesus Christ as God and Savior and Lord belong to Jesus Christ forever. 

If we will commit ourselves to working at growing as disciples of Christ, to lives in which God will keep us growing and thriving through daily prayer, corporate worship, the study of God’s Word, service in Jesus’ name, engagement in small groups, and giving to the cause of Christ, both through Living Water and elsewhere, we will be ready for anything, unshakeable, able to speak God’s truth to anyone with love and respect and compassion. 

And we will grow to be a united force in the world for the One Who died and rose to make us children of God, Jesus Christ. 

Wherever we may meet for worship, Sunday School, Bible study, mission work, or planning meetings, folks, this is where God is taking Living Water: to a life growing up, of continuous maturation, as disciples of Jesus Christ, so that God can use us to do all the wonderful, remarkable things He wants to do in us and through us for the world He loves. 

I ask you today, right now, to commit yourself to continued maturity as a Christian, to continued surrender to Jesus Christ, to continued commitment to each other as Christian sisters and brothers, for the good of every other disciple who is part of Living Water and for the good of the world we are called to reach with the gospel, the good news, that all who repent and believe in Jesus Christ will be saved. 

By the grace of God, I commit myself to that right now as well. Amen 

*The colors in which the six spiritual disciplines are printed correspond with the three aspects of our mission as a church:
Reach up
Reach in
Reach out