What Do You Want People to Say about Your Church?

I’ve been thinking about our church’s reputation: what do you want people to say about your church: It is a friendly church? It is a church where they have exciting worship services? You can hear good music there? You can hear good Bible preaching and teaching there? They have good food there on Wednesday nights? They have nice buildings and property? All of those are important. But I haven’t gotten to what I want people to say about us yet. Here is what I want people to say about New Hope Baptist Church: “People are being changed for the better in that church.”

Now, I know that in order for people to say that about us, they are going to have to spend time with us. We don’t change and become like Jesus overnight, so it is not something that people can see if they only visit us a time or two. But the Bible says in Galatians 5:19-23, “When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

What if someone stayed around New Hope and really got to know us for say three months? Would they see some members or regular attenders giving up such things as lustful pleasures, hatred, selfishness, and outbursts of anger and finding and sharing love, joy, and peace? I think that if they had eyes to see, they would see such change in some people’s lives here. I see it in some New Hope people. I pray to see more of it among us and believe that I will.

That is what I want people to say about New Hope. We see people becoming more like Jesus in that church, more filled with his Spirit of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

Judging Others

From teachings on Real Love by Greg Baer come these thoughts, which I relate to Jesus's teachings on judging others.

How easy it is for us to focus on what other people are doing that we don't like or approve of, instead of looking at what we can do to create the happiness we say we want to find in our lives. Every time we put our attention to something we have no control over (like other people's choices) we set ourselves up to go straight into our own Getting and Protecting Behaviors and pursuit of Imitation love: we feel like a victim because of what they are doing, or we attack and feel powerful as we criticize and judge others (as we gossip or become offended or just make loud judgments as we listen to the news), we find praise as we decide we're so much better than those offending others, and we can feel safe as we surround ourselves with other people and ideas that don't challenge us.

We make other people's mistakes our business whenever we criticize, judge, ridicule, condemn or blame them. We make their mistakes our business when we feel hurt or victimized by them. We even do this when we feel sorry for them. We do these things consciously and unconsciously, and probably more often than we even realize.

The trouble with all of this is, of course, that we can never be happy when we go down this road. Remember, the three pieces of the happiness puzzle are to 1.) feel loved, 2.) be loving and 3.) be responsible. When we focus on other people's mistakes, we make it impossible to do any of these - we can't feel loved when we're worrying about what other people are doing that we don't like, we certainly aren't being loving while we're judging and criticizing or fearing them, and we're not taking responsibility for what we do have control over, like taking the steps to do #1 and #2: feel loved and be loving.

Matthew 7: 1-5 Judging Others

‘Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, “Let me take the speck out of your eye”, while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

Praying for God's Will to Be Done

Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, just before he went to the cross, “Not my will, but your will be done.” I want to pray that. I want to deny myself and follow Jesus. How do I know that I am actually doing that? The words of a prayer have helped me and comforted me. Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk at the Abbey of Gethsemane in Bardstown, Kentucky. I saw him there when my Church History class from Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville visited his monastery in 1966. Merton’s writings have helped many people. This is his prayer.

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."

I am comforted by these words in the prayer: “Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.” The spirit of those words is humility and trust. Even though I cannot know for sure that I am doing God’s will, I can trust God to accept my intentions to do what God wants. The desire to please God counts, because God is merciful. God knows that we are limited, frail and fragile humans. God will take my desire to please him and bless and use it for the sake of the kingdom.

"God Meant It for Good"

Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish Christian thinker said, “Life has to be lived forward and understood backward.” Only as we look back over the events of our lives can we begin to see what God has been doing. Often we see how God seems to have orchestrated events to do us good. A classic case of looking back and seeing God’s providential care is in the story of Joseph in the Book of Genesis.

Spoiled by his father, Joseph got a “coat of many colors” which made him look like a dandy in the eyes of his brothers. He bragged to them about his dream in which all the brothers were gathering sheaves of grain and all the sheaves bowed down in front of Joseph’s. Then he told them of a second dream in which he was the center of the universe and the sun, moon, and stars all bowed down to him.

Joseph’s brothers conspired together: “Let’s kill the Dreamer.” As it turned out they sold him into slavery in Egypt. There God was with him and led him through a series of setbacks including imprisonment all the way to the top of Egyptian society. Because of his gift for dreams and their interpretation, he rose to be second in command in the government and led a campaign to store up seven years worth of grain, saving the county from starvation when a drought hit the whole region.

When Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt to buy grain, he recognized them, and they had no idea who he was. When he finally revealed to them that he was their bother, he was overcome with emotion. Near the conclusion of the story came Joseph’s famous line: “What you did to me, you meant for evil, but God meant it for good.”

We love and serve Joseph’s God today. The God who revealed himself to us in Jesus is God at work in all things for good for those who love him and respond to God’s purposes at work in our world.

Just the other day, I heard some widows in a Grief Support Group talking about how they have seen God at work in their lives even in the midst of their pain over the deaths of their husbands. That is the God we know. God is always asking us to trust that whatever happens to us, He intends to do us good. In the Kingdom of God, we can count on God to take the worst that can happen and turn it into something good.

Talking about New Hope

“God is good.” “Maybe the word is getting out.” “We are not a typical Baptist Church.” I heard these three statements from three different members of New Hope this past week.

Lois Cox, our Church Clerk and head money counter, emailed the news to me about our $4480 offering last Sunday. She wrote, “God is good.” Last Sunday was a special day in the life of New Hope Church. One hundred thirty four people attended our two worship services and gave that great offering.

I told our John Burlingame about the high attendance and the offering when I visited him at Sandlewood rehab facility on Wednesday, and John said, “Maybe the word is getting out!” That stayed with me. I thought, John is proud of his church, and he wants people to know about New Hope and join us as we try to do good work for God.

I overheard Judy Hutchinson say to another member of our Tuesday Grief Support Group, “We are not a typical Baptist church.” She is so right.

Let’s get the word out. If you are a member of New Hope, how about telling anyone who needs God and a good church that we are alive and serving. What could you tell people about us? How about these things for starters?

· We are learning to live by what Jesus said is the most important thing in the world. "'Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.' This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them" (Matthew 22:37-40 The Message).

· In our small groups we walk beside each other and care for each other.

· We are a thinking church as opposed to one in which members are supposed to hew to a strict list of “official” doctrines.

· We are aware of the wideness of God’s mercy and try to show that mercy in the ways we relate to each other and to people who are not like us.

· God’s Spirit is working in our lives as we learn how to love each other as Christ loves us.

Healing the World

Our Minister of Music Dennis has inspired me to think about my favorite hymn on love: “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee,” number 7 in The Baptist Hymnal. It begins, “Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee, God of glory Lord of love,” and ends, “God our Father, Christ our brother, all who live in love are thine. Teach us how to love each other. Lift us to the joy divine.” The words are by Henry van Dyke, a popular Presbyterian preacher, poet, and writer in the last half of the nineteenth century. His meditation on First Corinthians 13 is a powerful little book titled, The Greatest Thing in the World. Learning to love each other is the greatest thing in the world.

One of van Dyke’s most popular stories, The Story of the Other Wise Man (1896), is a parable about loving people. He adds Artaban, to the story of the three Wise Men in the Bible. Artaban sells all he owns to bring three precious jewels to the newly born Christ child. All along his way to meet the baby Jesus, however, people who need his aid delay him, and as a result, he finally uses up all his precious jewels to help people and never gets to see the baby Jesus. In the end, Arbatan has a vision of Jesus Christ telling him that in helping others, he has seen and helped Christ himself.

The scenes of violence in Cairo, Egypt are hard to watch. Our hearts go out to the people who are caught up in the chaos. We pray for the people of Egypt and hope that the violence will stop before more people are killed and injured. How can we make a difference?

As people who follow Christ, we want to be part of healing the world. Jesus’ words apply to us: “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God,” and “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.” As we learn to respond in compassion to people in their needs and fears, we become peacemakers, salt and light in the world. Since we can’t change the whole world, we concentrate on learning to love. Henri Nouwen wrote, “All people, whatever their color, religion, or sex, belong to humankind and are called to be kind to one another, treating one another as brothers and sisters. There is hardly a day in our lives in which we are not called to this.”

The Joy of Preaching

As we begin the New Year, what are you most thankful for and most excited about? As you might expect, my heart gets beats faster and my gratitude flows for the opportunities I have to preach. Each week, I get to study and listen to a passage of the Bible and then tell you what I think I have heard. It is my privilege and responsibility to try to bring a word from God to a congregation of people who listen and try to be shaped by truth from the Bible.

Preparing to preach is a daily, continuing job. Most days, if anybody asks me, “What are you doing today?” I can honestly answer, “Getting ready for Sunday.” But, to be open with you about how I get ready, I have helpers. I remember, when I first started learning what preaching was all about, I realized that I need lots of help. My help comes in the form of commentaries, books, and other preachers’ sermons. My challenge is to keep you, the people of New Hope in mind as I prepare. The message is not a general message for everybody. It is for a specific audience: you, the people of New Hope.

What I hope will happen when I preach is that someone will hear and learn something about how to live knowing God’s love and wanting to do God’s will. So when you pray, ask God to use the sermons that are preached here at New Hope to change lives. Ask God to speak through me. When you come into our sanctuary on a Sunday morning, take a moment to ask God to use the whole worship service as well as the sermon to get truth and assurance of God’s care into all of our hearts and especially into those who have been far away from God.