Happy Are Those...

This morning's sermon had a lot to do with an upcoming decision facing Fairview and for those of you who read this but do not attend Fairview may be a little lost but my hope is that God's message will still find you.  

Psalm 32

Of David. A maskil.

1 Blessed is the one
    whose transgressions are forgiven,
    whose sins are covered.
2 Blessed is the one
    whose sin the Lord does not count against them
    and in whose spirit is no deceit.

3 When I kept silent,
    my bones wasted away
    through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night
    your hand was heavy on me;
my strength was sapped
    as in the heat of summer.

5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you
    and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, “I will confess
    my transgressions to the Lord.”
And you forgave
    the guilt of my sin.

6 Therefore let all the faithful pray to you
    while you may be found;
surely the rising of the mighty waters
    will not reach them.
7 You are my hiding place;
    you will protect me from trouble
    and surround me with songs of deliverance.

8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
    I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
9 Do not be like the horse or the mule,
    which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
    or they will not come to you.
10 Many are the woes of the wicked,
    but the Lord’s unfailing love
    surrounds the one who trusts in him.

11 Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous;
    sing, all you who are upright in heart!

Have you ever had one of those days, weeks or even months which seemed to last forever?  Have you ever been overly exhausted for doing very little?  As we read Psalm 32, that is exactly what is afflicting David.  David writes that his bones are wasting away, that his energy is zapped as if it were the heat of summer.  Did you catch why David felt this way?  He was trying to carry the burden of his sins and guilt by himself.  He was trying to deal with them on his own.  At times, we can get run down, we can become exhausted trying to carry the burden of our shortcomings by ourselves.  That is why David says that it is truly a blessing to confess those sins because the burden is then lifted off your body and mind.  Jesus carried those burdens with him, therefore there is no need for you to do the same.  We often let our pride stand in the way of our salvation because we tell ourselves that our sins are either too minor to bother God with them or too major that it seems God will never forgive them.  There is nothing too major or too minor to lift up to God.  Others may seem more blessed than we do while others may seem overwhelmed by what is on their plate.  For example, Alyssa Scheve and her family have gone through something very difficult and they had the option of handling it very quietly or letting the community go through this with them.  Because of their willingness to share with us the battle they are facing, our community has come together.  We have been united by Alyssa who has battled and fought for her life and look at the good that has come from all of this.  I hardly know the Scheve family, yet I now pray daily for Alyssa to pull through this experience and I almost feel a part of their family.  The heavy financial burden of the surgeries and hospital stays would have worn them down, it would have exhausted them now we have a chance as a community to help ease those burdens.  

When we lift our sins up to God, we no longer have to carry the heavy burden.  When we lift up our shortcomings, God finds a way to use them.  David says that God did not just try to “cover up” his transgressions.  As a society we try to cover up a lot of our shortfalls with fancy clothes, big houses, and credit cards but there is no need.  God does not care how we dress, He cares about how we take care of each other.  God is concerned with how we facilitate the needs of others just as Christ facilitated our need to be forgiven.  A Christian theologian named Dietrich Bonhoeffer felt that the German-Protestant Church had fallen short in the face of the Nazis.  Instead of standing against Hitler and his radical ideas, the church conformed to those ideas while sitting back and watching the systematic killing of millions of Jews.  Bonhoeffer maintained that the church should not retreat from the world; instead, Christians should act within the world because we must acknowledge Christ’s sufferings as our own.  We are called to take care of each other and the proposed church building helps us do that.

Ever since receiving those funds from the Kading family, there has been a huge elephant sitting in the middle of this sanctuary.  It caused division from those in town as well as division among some of you.  Whether to build, renovate, or save the money were some of the options but no matter what ultimately gets decided, we have to stay concentrated on our true focus as a church.  By saving the money, who are we helping?  Are we just saving it so we can keep our doors open?  At our current operating expense of about $1,000/week we could keep the doors open for about 5 years if the giving stopped today.  What good does that do us? And more importantly, what good does that do for the kingdom of God?  Just keeping the doors open is not what God calls us to do.  There will be hard times in the future, I have no doubt of that but if we choose to do nothing with this amazing blessing we have received, who is to say that those hard times will somehow miss us?  If we do not make this church more easily accessible, if we do not give young families a nursery then there is a possibility that we will start losing our congregation and it will not be because they do not want to come here.  It will be because they can’t or because it is not convenient to do so.  We pride ourselves on being simple and that is perfectly ok.  This proposed building does not change that, it does not change who we are or what we stand for.  We are very wrapped up in maintaining our identity but this proposal does not change that either.  However, It does change how we cater to the needs of those who may attend here.  If this proposal does get approved, it does not mean that our membership will grow by 100’s families and you have to be ok with that or this will never work.  Hypothetically, if the addition gets approved and our membership does not grow, would you consider it a waste?  If I were sitting where you are, I would think not because it still better facilitates those who are already members of this church.  It is ok do something that is beneficial for ourselves.  God will not condemn us for using this blessing.  That would be like saying that I should not preach even though God has given me the tools to do so.  I fought with God on this issue and I am telling you to do the same.  You personally ask God what is best and see what He reveals to you.  Even though I have spoke on this issue, I still won’t tell you what to do.  That choice is yours and yours alone.  

Whatever we decide to do as a church with the Kading memorial money will cause rifts among us.  There will be people on either side that will not like the result and we must stay together.  We often refer to this place and the people in it as a family and as family, we will have our disagreements but we have to get past these or we will never survive as a church.  No matter the decision, we must be unified in Christ, we must stay strong and not talk negatively about those whose ideas are different than our own.  It is the people who make this church, not the building itself and we must not forget that.  The Kading family blessed us and it would be a shame if it was that blessing that destroyed what we have here.  We must accept each other for who each of us are, no matter where we stand on this issue or any other.

David tells us that God will instruct us, teach us and counsel us with His loving eye upon us and goes on to tell us that “...the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in Him.”  All we can do is place our trust and faith into God while actively participating in the world in which we are placed.  God does not want us to sit idly by and allow the world to keep moving while we stand still.  The burdens of this world can seem very heavy.  Thankfully we worship a God who takes care of those burdens.  If the burdens of this life seem too many and are overwhelming you, take a moment to lift them and hand them over to God.  The burden has already been taken care of, it is just up to you to get rid of them.  Amen.  

Since it is Father's Day, I couldn't resist posting a picture of the little man that makes being a dad an absolute blessing.

God Bless,

Clinton