February 11th, 2007 First sermon of series of six as congregation studies small-group series from Purpose-Driven entitled "Growing to be Like Christ"

Over the next six weeks, I’d like our worship times together to be a chance for further reflection, as well as a time of reinforcement for what we are learning together as a congregation in our small-group times together. If you’re not involved in our small-groups, I haven’t set up our worship on Sundays so only those who are involved in the small groups can understand or feel a part of the direction I’ll be going in the message, because, ultimately, the book the groups are following is called “Growing to Be Like Christ,” which in Biblical terms is “discipleship,” which we as a church are meant to be all about 7 days a week, 365 days a year anyways, right?

It’s not like we’re trying to reinvent the wheel here, are we? Here at Middle River Church of the Brethren, it’s important for remember the fact that we are part of something so much bigger than our individual sense of accomplishment or purpose or success; we are a part of the kingdom of God that burst into this world with the coming of Jesus, and so we humbly bow before God as millions upon millions of others have done in the 2,000 years since Jesus walked on this earth and showed the way of love, of humility, of righteousness, of suffering, and of victory over evil.

So let’s pray together as we enter into the time of the message this morning (Pray)

Recently my friend Dee asked me to run a half-marathon with her- a race that would take place in a few months. Although I wanted so much to run the race with her, to experience the excitement of being in a marathon, and spend time with her, my initial answer to her was no. I went home thinking about why. Why didn’t I want to run this race? Eventually the reason became clear: I wasn’t willing to do what it would take beforehand to run the race well. I wasn’t willing to pay the cost of time and training in my schedule. I have other priorities that are more important to me.

(How many of you guys have ever experienced this reality? We would LIKE to do certain things, but when we find that something demands hard work, we throw up our hands and give up?)

I face the same decision every day in my spiritual life. If I really want to know Jesus intimately, it takes time, energy, and the decision to let the Holy Spirit be in control of my life. Frankly, there are many days when I don’t feel like sweating that hard! The only reason I drag out those spiritual running shoes one more time is that I’ve had glimpses of the prize- knowing Jesus. Experiencing the prize motivates me to do the tough training.

(Read the NT passages talking of rigorous training, THIS IS LIFE DEFINING STUFF!!).

Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 11, if you would. Anyone here ever been to a Hall of Fame (baseball, football, rock and roll, any of those? Usually a statue of those honored, along with a short description of what made them famous. Well, Hebrews 11 is the Hall of Fame of sorts for us as the church, a sort of snapshot of those who have passionately pursued God; I look at the stories represented here, and often feel tempted to respond in two ways:

1) I tend to look at these folks as if they’re fundamentally different than I am; like God loved them more than me for some reason, and

2) I look at what took place in their lives, and how they are given as examples of tremendous faith, and I think it’s utterly IMPOSSIBLE for me to even sniff at the kind of faithfulness they’re known for.

Visually speaking, it often shapes up for me in seeing the folks represented here on one side of a great canyon, where they’re either encouraging me to cross without recognizing how big and impossible to cross the divide is, or pointing and laughing at me for how inadequate and faithless I am on my side of the canyon.

I mean, here are some of the stories (Read verses 1-12)

But the passage shifts in focus here from verses 13 on when it hits on a central and important point of what faith really means. You can go to Family Christian Bookstore and probably pick up 150 books on “faith” today, and I think 92% would either have a terribly inadequate definition of faith or just be a ridiculous twisting of certain Scriptures that reduce God to a puppet who works if we pull the right strings. But when it comes down to the heart of faith, if we really want to know, Biblical faith is not “positive confession” or “the prayer of agreement” or “speaking into being what is not there.” Biblical faith, at its heart, is trust. And I have confidence in saying this because you and I have been created to be in an open relationship with God, and in order to have a healthy relationship with someone, what is an ESSENTIAL thing you need? (You HAVE to trust the other person!)

The faith that lights a fire under us and compels us forward as a Christian community is less believing with our heads in the existence of God and more a practical trust in who He is in every situation and under whatever pressure we’re faced with. We don’t just sit around giving each other reasons why we think “God exists”; we read about and remember together what he’s done in the past, whether that was 2,000 years ago or yesterday; we worship him for who he is today, and we trust Him as our Creator and the One who loves us. These stories we tell and memories we carry sustain us in the times that are rough… they bring the mind and heart together. Against incredible obstacles and sometimes without a clue about the future, the trusting heart says, “Father, I surrender my will and my life to you without any reservation and with complete confidence, because you love me.”

And Hebrews 11 makes a shift in verse 13 to really strike at the heart of what faith is all about. (read 13 ff, focus on Moses and 32 ff)

And this is the point where I want to introduce you to an extraordinary follower of Jesus named Brennan Manning. Brennan wrote a book that would be GREAT for future small group studies call The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-up and Burnt-out that in many ways emerged from the struggle of faith he pursued in the incredible ups and downs in his life.

And Brennan in that book audaciously wrote in the beginning:

“This book is not for the super-spiritual, it is not for muscular Christians who have made John Wayne (or Clint Eastwood or James Bond) and not Jesus their hero. It is not for professors who would imprison Jesus in their ivory tower of (what THEY think he was all about). It is not for noisy, feel-good folks who manipulate Christianity into an appeal to emotion. It is not for hooded mystics who want magic in their religion. It is not for Alleluia Christians who live only on the mountaintop and have never visited the valley of (suffering). It is not for the fearless. It is not for red-hot zealots who boast with the rich young ruler of the gospels: “All these commandments I have kept from my youth.” It is not for the (self-righteous), hoisting over their shoulder a (bag full of) honors, diplomas, and good works actually believing they have it made. It is not for legalists who would rather surrender control of their souls to rules than run the risk of (following Jesus in relationship). The Ragamuffin Gospel was written for the bedraggled, beat-up, and burnt-out. It is for those who are burdened, who are still shifting the (heavy burdens they carry) from one hand to the other. It is for the wobbly and weak-kneed who know they don’t have it all together and are too proud to accept the hand-out of amazing grace. It is for inconsistent, unsteady disciples. It is for poor, weak, sinful men and women with (repetitive) faults and limited talents…it is for the bent and bruised who feel that their lives are a great disappointment to God. It is for smart people who know they are stupid and honest disciples who admit they (can be rascals sometimes). The Ragamuffin Gospel is a book I wrote for myself and anyone who has grown weary and discouraged along the Way.”

And maybe that sounds like it rings a little true to you right now, but Brennan’s life story will really hammer the need to trust God home. He had a regular life like many other folks his age in the 1940s, but in his early 20s, even though he thought he wanted to be a journalist, he left college, restlessly searching for something "more" in life. "Maybe the something 'more' is God," an advisor had suggested, triggering Brennan's enrollment in a Catholic seminary in Loretto, Pennsylvania.

In February 1956, while Brennan was doing his best to pray, he had a powerful experience of the love of God that radically changed his life. "At that moment," he later recalled, "the entire Christian life became for me an intimate, heartfelt relationship with Jesus." Four years later, he graduated from St. Francis College and went on to complete four years of advanced studies in theology, and he was ordained as a priest

Brennan's ministry responsibilities afterwards took him from teaching in universities to working every day with the poorest of the poor in Spain in the late sixties. He joined a group of Catholic priests committed to living with the poor, transporting water to rural villages with a donkey and wagon; was a dishwasher in France; a voluntary prisoner in a Swiss jail, lived by himself in cave for six months in the desert. "

In the early seventies, Brennan moved back to America and he and four other priests started a community in a seaport on the southwest coast of Alabama. The men settled in a house on Mississippi Bay and worked on shrimp boats, ministering to the shrimpers and their families who had been considered unimportant by others. Next to the community house was a chapel that had been destroyed by Hurricane Camille. The guys restored it and offered a Friday worship service which soon began transforming this shrimping community. From Alabama, Brennan got married, and moved to Florida in the mid-seventies to be campus minister at a local Community College. (this is a wonderful story so far, right?)

His ministry was harshly interrupted, however, when he moved to New Orleans and suffered a terrible and quick collapse into alcoholism.

Brennan remarks again;

"Picture me sitting on a curbstone along General Meyer Avenue in New Orleans. I am intoxicated after a relapse with alcohol. My clothes are in tatters; I reek with rancid body odor; I am unshaven. My face and belly are bloated, my eyes bloodshot. I am clutching a fifth of Smirnoff vodka- only a few ounces left. My marriage is collapsing, my friends are near despair, and my honor is broken. My brain is scrambled, my mind a junkyard of broken promises, failed dreams, unkept resolutions. Fifty yards behind me is the detox center at the hospital. As I take the last swig, I shudder at the pain and heartache I have caused. Going to AA meetings, working the Twelve Steps, talking to my sponsor, reading the Big Book, praying- these all have worked for others. Why have they not worked for me? I know I will never hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Minor panic: no more booze. Reaching into my pocked, I find a five-dollar bill. Staggering down four blocks, I find a convenience store, still open at midnight. I buy a pint of Taaka vodka. Cheaper. I retrace my steps, weaving across the avenue to reclaim my seat on the curb. I do not want the lifesaving treatment of detox. I continue drinking. My eyes fill with tears. Now I am crying. God’s drunken child. “Jesus, where are you?” I say. Soon I pass out with the half-full pint resting on my chest. When I wake up the next morning, I learn that two staff members had come out on the avenue and carried me to detox.”

And this became ANOTHER turning point in Brennan’s life, because it was here that he began to write and his story impacted peoples’ lives. (Now, do you think this guy’s got something to share about the unconditional love of God?!?!? I’d say so)

And all of Brennan’s life experience and his embracing of God has led him straight to this point; Anyone God uses significantly is always deeply wounded. We are, each and every one of us, insignificant people whom God has called to use in a significant way, no matter what our job, our upbringing, how much money we make, our past, or our significant weakness that keep kicking us to the curb and wounding us and others.. In God’s eyes, the high-profile ministries and massive churches are no more significant than those that draw little or no attention and publicity.

Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.

Every single one of the people we see in Hebrews 11 were imperfect human beings; no different than you or me. But these folks stood out from others around them because out of their failures and inconsistencies and struggles and ups and downs of life, they trusted God, even if their trust shortened their life. And we don’t have to look too far today to see people who are amazing examples for us of trusting God in every circumstances. Brennan Manning is one among many who prayed the prayer, “Father, I surrender my will and my life to you without any reservation and with complete confidence, because you love me.”

And what we need are opportunities to pray prayers like this, because we so often forget, and so often fall flat on our faces, we need opportunities to say to God; I give this to you the very best that I can. I trust you. And so as our worship gathering comes to a close today, I’m going to play a song called “Ready for You” that really puts into music this thing of trust that is SO HARD to do in our lives, and I’d invite you to move out from your chair if you feel led to just tell God very simply for the first time, or the 450^th time, “Father, I surrender my will and my life to you without any reservation and with complete confidence, because you love me.”

Lyrics to "I am Ready for You" sung by Kutless in album "Strong Tower"

Lord, You take my heart away with Your love
and I am willing to put on my faith in Your plan.

Come and take my life.
Make my soul refreshed in truth now.

I am ready for You.
Take my heart and make me new now.
I am ready for You
to come and fill my soul.

Cleanse all of my mind that is not of You.
Break me, teaching me how to find rest in Your hands.

Come and take my life.
Make my soul refreshed in truth now.

I am ready for You.
Take my heart and make me new now.
I am ready for You
to come and fill my soul.
To come and fill my soul.

Whatever it takes,
I'm needing to make Your will be done
and I'm letting go of my control,
for I see what You've done in me.

I am ready for You.
Take my heart and make me new now.
I am ready for You
to come and fill my soul.