Sent Out To Live Transcript

Why do we come to worship? Why do we come here? We heard in the first passage David's proclamation that even the highest heavens cannot contain God, let alone the temple. So why is it that need to build the temple so that people come to it? And if the temple cannot contain God, then how in the world can a church contain God? There was a mode of thinking at this time, and I think it still exists in our hearts and minds today, even though we don't really agree with it when we say it out loud, that we expect God to be in the church. We go about our daily lives as if God isn't there, that God isn't with us, that God isn't watching, that God isn't present with us. We give God some fleeting thoughts, but it doesn't dawn on us that every moment of the day God is with us and we are able to worship him anywhere. We think of worship as a moment of worship, but we don't think of that thing that we do on roughly an hour, depending on how long-winded I am on that given day. Worship is that thing we do here in this building. We come, we worship, we go through the steps, the parts we've been talking about these last few weeks. I send you on your way, and we've done our duty. We've worshipped for the week, but we are encountered with the same challenge that David had. Why do we come? Why do we worship? Why do we worship? Why do we worship? Why do we worship? Why do we come here if I can worship God anywhere else? And that has been used as an excuse for a lot of people to not feel like they need to go to church on Sunday morning. Well, I'm okay. I don't need to go to church. I can worship God wherever I am because God is there, and that is true. So what is it about this place? What is it about this time? As I've been talking about these last few weeks of the various parts of our worship and why we do them and how they shape our daily I'm trying to give you that answer because we don't just come here to worship God. We come here to be shaped by our worship so that when we leave this place, our lives look different. Our hearts are changed. When we gather with people who may not be like us, look like us, believe like us, or sound like us, we understand what it means to be a part of a global church that will look like the church we live in. We understand what it means to be a part of a global church that will look like the church we live in. We are triumphant in heaven where the multitudes of people will be present. Too many times in our lives we surround ourselves with those who are like us, so we need those gathering moments where we don't get to pick who's around us. We talked about how our worship and our offering shapes us to live as generous people outside of these walls. We've talked about how reading God's word can build us up and shape us so that when we leave from this place, we encounter God in the reading of his word on our own, but we can do it shaped by our time together. The prayers of the people that we lift up each week, the joys and celebrations of what God has done reminding ourselves and one another that God is at work in this world, but also lifting up to God those loved ones whose lives are hurt and broken. We pray for one another and some days we lift up to God. We pray for one another and some days we lift up to God. We pray for one another and some days we lift up to God. We pray for one another and some days we lift up to God. we recognize and remember that God hears and listens to our prayers. This morning we conclude this series that's looking at our worship, and there are things that we did not talk about. We did not talk about baptism. We didn't actually talk about why we sing hymns, but today we're looking at that benediction and the sending out. Now, these words of benediction and sending out, you may be wondering, they are. And sometimes I reduce it down to this is what I said during my sermon, just in case you weren't listening or you forgot between the end of the sermon and the end of the service. But what the benediction is, is a blessing. It's a reminder of what God has done and a blessing as you leave this place. Sometimes we don't know what to ask for. Sometimes we don't know how God will bless us. As we stand together about to depart this place, we receive a blessing that I hope will carry you through the rest of the week, give you the strength to live out what you have learned and what you have done, give you the strength and the courage to worship wherever you are. A reminder that in this time, I pray that God has blessed us and will continue to bless us when we leave this place. We talk about God's blessing, as what we see over and over again in the scripture, is that God does not bless us for our sake. Now, we will benefit from God's blessing, but the scripture tells us that God blesses so that we might be a blessing to others. God gives us what we need and overflows what we need so that we can pour ourselves out and be a blessing to others. We see God saying this to Abraham. We see this God saying this to Israel, the person and Israel, the nation. I will bless you. I will bless you so that you can be a blessing to the nations. In that benediction, my prayer is that it is a blessing that will overflow you to those who you interact with in the week to come.

Following the benediction, there's usually a charge. Go from this place, sharing all that you have heard, experienced, learned with everyone you meet. Ultimately, the big question is why we come here. If our life is no different, if we do not interact with people outside of these walls annually differently than we did when we first came in, if our life does not change in any way whatsoever from when you came in that door to when you left, then this has been a wasted hour and I have failed. If we have not encountered the living God, if we have not encountered his word, we have not encountered God's challenge, to live out as his disciples differently than when we came in, then I have failed you. And there really is no need to come here because we as Methodists believe that our life of faith is incremental. We do not become the people that God made us to be magically as soon as we decide to follow Christ. We do not become perfected all of a sudden in that moment so that every way that we live from there on out is perfect in love of God and love of neighbor. We recognize that it is a relationship with Christ and a relationship with the power of the Holy Spirit that each day we strive to love God more, to love God's people more, to love God's creation more, and have that love shown in our words and deeds. This is the life of faith. This is the life of discipleship. This is what it means to follow Christ. And it also means that while we believe it is possible to be made perfect on this side of heaven, the chances of us doing it, especially on our own, is slim. John Wesley once said he knew a lot of people that he believed were made perfect in love in their lifetime. But the catch is anyone that claimed it for themselves usually didn't make the cut. We are made perfect in love. Made perfect in love. And how we love God and love his creation. The sending forth after receiving that blessing, after doing everything that we have done so far, is a commissioning, a reminder of what Jesus told his disciples to do, to go out into the world proclaiming the good news, sharing who God is and what Christ has done with the people that want to hear it. Where people might be sitting next to, someone who is a Christian on an airplane, you know, in that middle seat and they can't get away. And they say, do you know Jesus Christ? And then they'll talk the whole flight, whether you want them to or not. I'm not talking about forcing Christ on anybody, but I am saying that there are people you will interact with no matter where you are, who are questioning faith, who are questioning what is the purpose of this existence. Is there meaning? Is there purpose?

Because I'm so sure of that. There is something that you may not be able to understand in the news, that atheists are the predominant group, and there is active resistance to the faith. I contend that that's not true. I contend that the biggest group of people in the world today are those who are unsure. Who have questions. Who want to know more. Who I hope will see in you, in your life, and in your faith, something that makes you stand out, something about following Christ, whether it is the joy of knowing, the peace that comes with knowing Christ, whether it's the assurance to know that no matter what is said, no matter what is done, no matter what fears people try to throw in your direction, that my hope and my trust is grounded in my faith in God. And because of that, I do not have to be afraid. I do not have to be dominated by the fear that tries to be shared. Now, some of you have life-change stories that you may share with others. Some of you may not. Too often we think about these life-change stories as, this is how bad I was, and this is how I am now, and it's this dramatic difference. But many of you grew up in the church. Many of you have grown up following Christ and learning what it means. Many of you have started that journey towards perfection before you hit rock bottom. And that's a story worth sharing as well. Our worship, our time, time together, when it concludes each week, should be recognized and should have this moment of, what am I going to do with this? How am I going to live it out? What difference will it make in my life now? What difference will this hour make for the other 167 hours in a week? And what I would tell you is that as that difference is made, this act of worship with music, scripture, preaching, and prayer will bleed into a different kind of worship outside these walls. Giving thanks to God for what he's done. Giving hope to the hopeless. Praying for those who are hurting. Seeking out the lost and questioning and saying, I can handle your questions. I may not have the answer, but we can ask the questions together. And I can show you what God has done for me. And we will see healing in our communities. We will see people who are asking questions out of pain, out of sin, out of hurting, out of curiosity. Our task, our sending out, is not to provide all of the answers and tell people what they need to believe, but to hear them from where they are, walk beside them, lending an ear. And not saying, this is the answer, but this is how I think it is, and inviting them along the process. And you will see lifting up. You will see transformation, and you will see a way of worship that encompasses all aspects of our lives, as we live out that call to go into the world. sharing the good news. So my hope and my prayer each week is this, that as I send you out, send to us all the people who feel unwanted, unloved anywhere else, and if they won't come to us, send us to them. That is our commissioning to go out into the world to take what we have heard and said and done in this hour and live it out in meaningful ways.

And when the world beats us, makes us down, and we experience challenges, and feel our batteries draining, we gather again the next week to pray, sing, hear, read, proclaim, be blessed, and be sent out all over again for the next week, recharged by the Spirit, that yes, I hope we feel in a meaningful way when we're gathered, more so than when we're not. This is why we gather. This is why we worship. This is why we remind each other of who we are in Christ. This gives us hope and grounding and energy and courage for the week to come. And if we've done that, then our time together, our worship with all of its different parts, has done exactly, what they're intended to do.