TAKE A SEAT
EVERY SEAT HAS A STORY, PART 1
DR. JIM DIXON
LUKE 6:37
SEPTEMBER 12, 2010
“Cathedra” is the biblical word and the Greek word for seat. From this word cathedra, we get our English word cathedral and that might make some sense to you. You might think, well a cathedral is so called because it contains cathedra. It contains seats. A cathedral contains pews, chairs, seats. But that’s not really the explanation. You see, the biblical word for seat, this Greek word cathedral had scope of meaning and really so has our English word seat. We can use our English word seat to refer not only to a physical seat but also to a seat of authority or to a seat of power and that was true of the word cathedra. It could also refer to a seat of authority or a seat of power. So, you had normal churches but then you had cathedral and cathedrals were churches that were bigger and better than normal. Cathedrals were churches that contained a bishop and the bishop had his headquarters at the cathedral. That was his seat and from there he could speak ex-cathedra. He could speak from the seat of authority. So that’s what is behind the word. Of course, those bishops in bishoprics were appointed by the powers that be. The people had no vote.
Now, this is Cherry Hills Community Church and at Cherry Hills Community Church we have a Presbyterian form of government. This is not a cathedral. This is not a bishopric. We have no bishop here. In our form of government, it is a representative government. In fact, did you know, the United States government was founded on the Presbyterian form of government? Scottish and European Presbyterianism was the basis of America’s formation of government. So Presbyterian government is a representative government. The people elect and the people vote and elect representatives who serve for terms and in our nation’s government the people elect leaders who lead for terms. We elect senators, we elect representatives that serve in the Senate and the House and they serve for terms. The Presbyterian form of government we elect teaching and ruling elders who serve on the church session for terms. Now the ruling elders are lay people and the teaching elders are pastors and those pastors are approved by the local presbyteries. They have met standards of ordination. This is Presbyterian government.
Now here in this church, having no bishop, we are a community of equals. I mean I hope you understand that. We are a community of equals. The seat of authority is Christ. Christ speaks ex-cathedra. We are his servants and we seek to be faithful and we come to the communion table as equals, sinners in need of grace. We come to worship as equals and we want everyone to have the same seat. No special seats. Now you might look around you in the worship center this morning and some seats do look better than others. You look up on stage and we have some examples of some of the seats that were actually just out there in the worship center, but they’re now threadbare. We’ve moved most of those, as you know, to the sides, both in the balcony and down here, but some of you are sitting in threadbare seats and some of you are sitting in better seats. It’s not how we want it. So, we have this Take a Seat campaign. We’re seeking to restore the seats so they’re all the same. Seeking to repair the ceiling. Seeking to replace the carpet, seeking to restore and repair our video, our lighting and our sound.
And to that effort this morning, I want to take a look at two stewardship principles and the first is the principle of investment. Now the Bible makes it very clear that as good stewards, we must invest and we must invest well. Now, I think all of you are interested in investment. You want an investment that gives a very good return. You want an investment that gives a healthy return. You like to see profitability, right? And the Bible tells us we need to invest in the Kingdom of God. We need to invest in God himself and in his cause. If you do that, you’ll never be sorry. And the return will always be great. We need to look at this.
Now a couple of weeks ago Barb and I spent a night at the Broadmoor Hotel down at Colorado Springs. We celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary. Now, we had purchased that night at the Broadmoor at an auction here at the church. We had our Cherry Hills Christian School’s auction and we were auctioning off a night at the Broadmoor so Barb and I bid on that and then we had to bid higher and then we had to bid higher and then we had to bid higher, and so on and if you lost, we’re sorry. But we wound up bidding far more than it really cost to spend a night down at the Broadmoor, but we knew that it was going to a good cause because the money was going to Cherry Hills Christian Schools and we love our schools. Plus, we got spend a wonderful night down at the Broadmoor to celebrate our anniversary.
Now, the Broadmoor is owned by the Gaylord family out of Oklahoma. They own beautiful resorts all over the world. They own Opryland. If you go back to Tennessee and all the country music there, Opryland Hotel, that’s all owned by the Gaylord family, but really the Broadmoor is where they have poured millions and millions and millions of dollars. So down at the Broadmoor they’ve built this swimming pool pavilion, they’ve built the new spa. They’ve built a whole new golf course clubhouse. They have three golf courses. They’ve built all new towers. It’s an amazing place and as Barb and I walked around the lake, we were thinking, “Wow, this is like you’ve gone to some other country.”
Now there’re a lot of restaurants there and one of the restaurants is on top of the south tower and it’s called the Penrose Room and we did not eat there because it was really expensive. But years ago, we did eat there and you can get a wonderful $50 steak for a hundred bucks. So it is an amazing thing. But I hope you understand the Penrose Room is so named because of Spencer Penrose. You’ve probably heard of him. He was a mover and shaker in early Colorado. He built the Broadmoor. Came to Colorado in 1891to make a fortune and he left the east coast. He said to his brother, Boyce Penrose, “I’m going to go out to Colorado. I’m going to strike it rich. I’m going to find gold,” and Boyce Penrose said, “No way.” And Spencer said, “I want you to invest in this. I want you to give $1,500″ (a lot of money in 1891), and Boyce said,” I’m not going to do it.” He said, “You’re a dreamer” You’ve always been a dreamer, always will be a dreamer, you know nothing is going to come of this. You take your own risk.”
And so, Spencer Penrose came out to Colorado and you know how he struck gold up in Cripple Creek Colorado and became rich almost overnight: fabulously rich. Now during that time his brother Boyce sent him $150, not as an investment, but for him to come home and not waste his time. Sent him $150 bucks and said, ” Here, this is for your train travel back to the east coast and I’ve given you extra money to give you extra incentive to come home. Quit wasting your time.” Well, after Spencer Penrose struck it rich, he went back east, he gave his brother Boyce a check for $75,000. In the 19th century, that was huge—it’s not bad today. And Boyce said, “What’s this?” Spencer said, “This is your return on your investment.” Boyce said, “Well, I never invested.” Spencer said, “Yes, you gave $150 and I put it into the Cripple Creek Mine. This is your return, $75,000. If you’d given me what I asked, if you’d given me the $1,500, I’d be giving you a check right now for $750,000.”
That’s an investment. That’s a major profit, a major return on your investment. Now you can go to Glen Eyre. Many of you have traveled down to Glen Eyre, Colorado Springs, on the north side of town towards the mountains. Glen Eyre is beautiful, near the Garden of the Gods. It is now the world headquarters of Navigators, which is a Christian ministry and there’s the Glen Eyre castle and the grounds and it’s just beautiful grounds and Doug and Pam Nuenke, the national director of Navigators: wonderful people. Doug used to be on our staff right here at Cherry Hills Community Church and the Navigators have a wonderful ministry in discipleship and that land, which the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association once almost bought as the world headquarters, actually belonged to General Palmer who was another mover and shaker in early Colorado.
General William Jackson Palmer built Glen Eyre there as his residence for himself and for his wife, Queen. Now they had come to Colorado from the east coast and he was a Quaker and he did not believe in war but strangely he had become a hero in the Civil War and he believed that Christ, he believed that Jesus, was against all violence, but he so hated slavery. He so hated the institution of slavery that he joined the Union Army, received the Medal of Honor, became a war hero and moved here to Colorado. He struck it rich and he built railroads and industries serviced by rail. He built the Denver Rio Grande Railroad and that became part of the Union Pacific Railroad. But a mover and a shaker, and he was the founder of Colorado Springs. That’s a question rarely asked, but who was the founder of Colorado Springs, Colorado? General William Jackson Palmer. And his private residence was Glen Eyre. Indeed, in all of his investments he received dollars on the penny. Dollars on the penny, and that’s what you’re looking for right? You’d like dollars on the penny.
Now in this environment, this economy, you’re more likely to get pennies on the dollar, right? Pennies on the dollar, and of course, it’s kind of a scary time. Hard to find those investments where you can get great profitability and great return, but the Bible says invest in God. So, you have these passages in the Bible that are very clear but I think rarely believed. So, one is Malachi chapter 3 and you hear the word of the Lord there. Malachi, chapter 3. As you look at those words in Malachi 3, we see the voice of God and he said:
“I am the Lord. Do not change, therefore you, oh sons of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your fathers, you have turned away from my statutes and have not followed them. Return to me. Return to me and I will return to you. But you say, How shall we return? Will men love God? Well, you are robbing me. But you say, How are we robbing you? With your tithes and with your offerings. You are cursed with a curse. The whole nation of you for you are robbing me. Therefore, bring the full tithes into my house that there might be food in my house. And put me to the test, says the Lord God of Hosts, and see if I will not open up the windows of heaven for you and pour down upon you an overflowing blessing. I will rebuke the devourer for you and he will no longer destroy the fruit of your soil and the vine of your fields will not cease to bear and all nations will call you blessed and you will be a land of delight, a land of happiness, says the Lord God.”
Wow! Now, whatever you think of tithing (and I believe in tithing), you got to marvel at the reciprocity in a passage like that, the reciprocity that God is offering. “Return to me and I will return to you. Give to me and I will give to you. Bring the tithes into my house and I will open up the windows of heaven upon you.” Amazing reciprocity. The question is, do you really believe it? And then you look at the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and in the Sermon the Plain in Matthew, chapter 6 and in Luke, chapter 6. The words of Jesus: “Judge not and you’ll not be judged. Condemn not and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and it will begiven to you in good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, it will be set in your lap for the measure you give shall be the measure you get back.” Amazing reciprocity again. But do you believe it? Then you go to 2 Corinthians chapter 9 and you see the words of the Apostle Paul. “He who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly. He who sows bountifully shall reap bountifully. Let each one gives as he has made up his own mind.” Do you want to sow bountifully or do you want to sow sparingly?
So, you have these principles of investment in God and you see it in the Bible again and again and again. Really, the parable of the talents and the pounds are about investment. The Master is going to return and he will reward those who have invested in him and invested in his kingdom. You invest your time, you invest your talent, you invest your treasure in him and in his cause and he will reward you. The disciples said to Jesus, “We have left everything to follow you. Houses, lands, homes family.” Jesus said, “Truly, truly I say to you, no one has left houses and families and homes and lands for my sake and the sake of the kingdom of God but what they will receive manifold in this life and more in the life to come.” This is the promise of Christ.
Now, this is not prosperity teaching. I’m not saying, and the Bible is not saying, that if you give money to God, he’ll make you rich. That’s not what the Bible is saying. It’s simply saying if you give, he will bless you. If you give, you’ll be a blessing and you’ll also be blessed by God and you will be blessed in this life and you will be blessed in the life to come and the blessing might take many forms. He may bless your health, he may bless your relationships, he may bless your ministry, he may bless you financially and materially, but he blesses the faithful and then he’ll take your gifts and bless others. This is the teaching of Holy Scripture and I hope you understand that when you give to this campaign, in the Take A Seat campaign, you will be blessing a lot of lives because amazing things happen when people take a seat.
I want to submit to you that when someone comes into the house of Jesus Christ and takes a seat, it’s even more wondrous. I want to ask you to believe that when someone comes into the house of God, takes a seat in the house of Jesus Christ, it’s more wondrous. It’s about touching the eternal. What an amazing wonder that you can come into the house of Christ and touch the eternal. You can meet the Father Everlasting. You can join his family. You can enter a heavenly cause and you can receive eternal life. Nothing is more wondrous than what happens when you take a seat and the church of Jesus Christ. And that’s why we ask you to support this cause and this church, so that you might have a part in everything that happens in every seat and every life that is touched.
You know that Barb and I subscribe to many publications and one is a publication called Books and Culture. It’s a wonderful publication. Barb was reading in it recently and she called to me attention an article in the Books and Culture about a graduate student in China and she was in China and apparently not a believer, not a Christian, but part of her work was to examine the view of Jesus Christ in the Chinese culture and amongst the Chinese people. This was part of her graduate level work, though she herself was not a Christian.
So, she asked the help of a professor at Baylor University in Texas who was in China and engaged in academic work over in China. She asked his help and so this article was all about that as this professor at Baylor tried to help this unbeliever in her graduate studies in China as she was researching how the Chinese viewed Jesus Christ and she would ask Chinese people “Who is Jesus Christ to you? What do you think he looks like?” She thought that they would say, “Well, Christ Jesus looks Asian. He looks kind of Chinese.” No, they said Jewish. They said Jewish and she said, “Well, how do you feel about that, Jesus looking Jewish?” And they said, “We think it’s wonderful because we know how the Jews have suffered through the years and he understands suffering and he understands me.” Pretty cool stuff.
As they went around China, they heard people singing about Christ and of course the question many people now are trying to examine is, how many Christians are in China? And just this past year two surveys and studies have been conducted with very different results. One concluding that there are 57 million Christians in China, the other concluding that there are 111 million Christ followers in China. And it’s hard to get exact numbers because the underground church is massive. And then in addition to the underground church there’re also the Three-Self Patriotic Movement churches that are endorsed by the government. But this gal wanted to go to a Three-Self-Patriotic church in Beijing and so she went, and Books and Culture tell the story of what happened when she went.
She’s in this church and they announce at the beginning of the worship service they have guest who asked to speak from Mongolia, a man named Mr. Kahn. So he’s from Mongolia and he’s a herder, a man who works in an agricultural setting and herds animals and he was out working with his animals when he had a vision. He claims that in his vision he saw this massive celestial city that was glass, and like gold and glass, and it was descending from the heavens, so massive you could not describe it and as it descended in his vision, closer and closer to the earth, he was just stunned and could not move and even the animals around him were just petrified. And then, in his vision, a man appeared clothed in a white robe and introduced himself as the Lord and said, “I have a message I want you to bear and I want you to take it. I want you to carry it to a church of mine in Beijing, China and I want you to tell them that I know your sufferings. I know your tribulation. I know your persecution and I love you. I want you to say to them, ‘Be patient, for I am coming soon.’” And so this man, by his testimony, then sold a large portion of his animals and he and his wife made the journey to Beijing to stand before the congregation to tell them of this vision he had of Christ and the New Jerusalem and everybody in the church was just stunned.
Now this is what I want you to understand. These kinds of stories are coming out of China. It’s almost pandemic. The stories like this that are coming out of China of visions, miraculous visions, and promises of Christ’s return. Now I think you know, here in America, I think it’s a much different climate and culture. I think it is true that we have many Gods here in America and our Gods have to do with money and materialism and comfort and we are absorbed in the daily pursuit of those gods, but God is doing incredible things all over the world. Christ is at work and I promise you it doesn’t matter what church you go into whether you’re in America or Beijing China, Christ is at work as you take a seat. Christ is at work and amazing things happen. I promise you that the New Jerusalem will come. Christ will come. He will bless the faithful. He blesses them even now in this age of the world, in this lifetime, but he will come again and his blessings will be many. So, we have in the Scriptures this promise that if you invest in God and into the things of God, your return will be great.
Now secondly, and just briefly, I want to mention a second principle of stewardship called maintenance. In the Bible it’s very clear that stewards have to maintain what has been entrusted to them. Maintenance. Now you all have bodies, I think it’s’ safe to say, and you would not be here if you did not have a body. Just a few weeks ago I had a meeting with a group of people here in the church and it was in relationship to this campaign. I asked them if they loved their body. Do you love your body? And I saw differing responses and some people’s, “I kind of love my body” and other people kind of shaking their head no, not so much. Not sure I love my body. Of course, some of us are older, some of us are younger, and that might affect how we feel about our body. We have various shapes and so of course, those who work with human anatomy know that there are many body types. Some are ectomorphs and they’re very thin and some are some are endomorphs and mesomorphs, many different body types.
I told the group that night that I am a messy morph and becoming more so all the time. But we’re called to be stewards of what God has given. God loves our bodies. God created our physical bodies and the Bible tells us God said it is good. There is no platonic dualism in the Christian faith. There’s not you know, this worldview where spirit is viewed as good and physical and the material is viewed as evil. That does not exist within Christianity. And so, God creates the material physical and God says it is good and he loves our bodies although they are fallen. God loves our bodies so much that he is going to give us new ones. He’s going to give us new ones and they’re going to be resurrection bodies like the resurrected body of our Lord Jesus Christ. We’re told that they will be indestructible and no longer subject to decay and that they will be sent to the heavens. Amazing promises in the Bible from God.
But now, in this lifetime, we’re called to maintain the bodies that we have and to take care of them and that’s not always easy. I think particularly in a culture where there’re many enticements. And it’s not easy to exercise right and to eat right and we’re all getting older. Barb and I are getting older and we’re just kind of laughing about how we’re just taking more and more medicine, you know. And Barb is taking a statin for cholesterol and I’m taking something called Cozaar for blood pressure and I’m taking a beta blocker for atrial flutter and we kind of lay our pills out in the morning. You know, not an easy deal. And of course, it’s harder as we go, but you got to take care of yourself.
I was going to show you a clip from the movie Supersize Me, but I think it is true that we have a problem in this culture, right? And we want to supersize everything and people are living more and more on fast food and it’s a real problem of stewardship. Now you understand the word steward and its derivation, its etymology. The word steward comes from the Middle English. It actually comes from stig wearden and the word evolved. So stig eventually became stye and wearden became warden, stywarden, styward, steward. But the original meaning had to do with a stig, which was an enclosure. A stig was a gated, fenced-in enclosure and within it were animals and there was an owner and then the steward was responsible, the stigwearden, was responsible for guarding and warding what was inside the fence, the enclosure. Taking care of it, maintaining it. He had to maintain the fence, had to maintain the quality of the fence, its enclosure, and everything inside.
Now the biblical view is that we’re all stewards, and within your sphere of influence there’s something, and it’s all within your enclosure. You have a stig, you have an enclosure and God has put a lot of stuff in it. You’ve got to be a good steward. You’ve got to be faithful. You’ve got to maintain it, and your body is part of it, but your bank account is also part of it and your house is a part of it and the kingdom of God and the church of Jesus Christ is part of your stewardship as well and you’ve been called to faithfulness.
Now, Barb and I, as I have shared with you this morning already, just recently celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary. I can’t tell you how, for me, Barb is a dream fulfilled: a dream come true. I can remember as a single young man, as a boy, dreaming of having a wonderful wife and falling in love and having someone whom I could love with all my heart and somebody who would love me like that. And I remember our wedding night. It was 39 years ago, but it was a dream come true so I remember it perfectly. I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember exactly how this Baptist church looked, although we never attended there. Our two churches had been damaged in earthquakes. But we were married in this Baptist church in Southern California. It was 100 degrees, there was no air conditioning, but I remember every moment. I remember the kiss when we were pronounced husband and wife, “You may kiss the bride.” I remember we were both sweating profusely. It was a salt kiss, but I can remember the dream come true.
We all like to dream, we all like the thought of something like that coming true. But now marriage you got to work at. I mean, now, I mean it’s God gift, but now you got to work at it. It involves maintenance. Now that’s a lot harder for Barb than for me cause Barb married me so you know, for her you know, making this deal work is a lot harder cause she’s married to a guy that’s not that easy to live with. For me it’s a lot easier. I mean truly it is. I mean I’m so blessed and my job is relatively simple, but yesterday we had a hard day. We had an argument and it’s just a lot of tension and frankly it’s kind of been a hard summer with lots of stuff going on and huge life changes and transitions and we noticed at the beginning of the summer how our house was falling apart. All of our mulch had gone to dirt. You can’t really tell that there was wood there. How that can happen? And our yard and our deck had gone to rot in the back to where boards were all coming loose and you could not re-nail them down because the sub-boards were rotted and we were having some problems in other parts of the house in the bathrooms and our carpeting was becoming threadbare and no good and we decided, we got to work on all this this summer.
We had our deck redone and Dan Arno, who’s one of our ushers here at the church and a part time carpenter, part time missionary, part time missionary/carpenter, came and worked on our back deck. He did a great job and you know. We’ve got our bathrooms worked on, we’ve done the whole mulch thing and now we’re doing the carpeting and we have carpeting on the main floor and carpeting on the bedroom upstairs and down in our basement we have carpeting, so it involves three floors and you’ve got to move everything off the carpet to redo the carpet and, in my study, I have bookshelves but they’re not built-in bookshelves. These are bookshelves that we kind of took and connected together so we have to move them all out. So, we have to move them all out. You’ve got to put carpeting underneath. You got to take all the books out. Dozens and dozens of boxes of books and our whole house is in total upheaval as we’re trying to move space to move everything for the carpenters, and they come in tomorrow morning.
So we’re in the midst of what feels like a war zone and we’re having trouble getting the video stuff to work and so Barb is on the computer and it’s just kind of feels kind of tense and Barb says to me, “You know, sometimes I really resent the large village it takes just to keep you afloat.” You know and it’s true. I mean it’s absolutely true, and at home she’s pretty much the village. I mean, I do some stuff. I do some stuff; I mean I do mow the lawns. I put the pills out in the morning. That’s no small thing, as I put all the pills out in the morning. There’s some things that I do, but you know, when your house is a total mess it just doesn’t feel like the person you’re living with has done anything…
And here at the church, the village is massive and it is true, it takes a village. But it’s not really about me. It’s about Christ and the cause of Christ and coming together and trying to get stuff done for Christ but you understand, surely you understand, that stewardship is maintenance. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about your house or whether you’re talking about your marriage or whether you’re talking about your church. You’ve got to be faithful and you’ve got to maintain and you can’t just celebrate the dream.
There was a time in 1995 that this sanctuary, Worship Center, was brand new and it was like marriage. It was like a wedding. It was like, incredible, but you know, you’ve got to work on it. You got to work on it. It’s part of what it means to be a faithful steward. Of course, we just remembered 9-11 as a nation and we remember that horrible day when we were attacked as a nation and the Twin Towers fell and lives were lost. That memory is forever etched on our minds. I mean we all know where we were when it happened and how shocked we were.
This nation was born with a dream. This nation was born with a dream and God gave gifts but you know, we got to work on it now. The gifts are precious and you can’t just celebrate them, you’ve got to maintain them. It takes commitment. It takes people who never forget. It takes people who are willing to die. And if our nation is a blessing, and we’re privileged to live here in the land of the free, then I tell you, there’s no greater blessing than the Kingdom of God. There’s no greater blessing than the kingdom of heaven. It is the greatest of gifts, but oh, what a call, and what a responsibility.
So here we are, our time is up and we have a challenge set before us and I want to ask you to be prayerful. I want ask you to be prayerful about what God might ask you to do and remember anything you give to the restoration of our church has to be over and above what you give to the ministry here. We can’t damage the ministry for the sake of the facility. We built the facility in order to minister so you can’t shrink what you’re giving to the ministry in order to help with the building and yet we got to do both. So, it’s a time for prayer, right? And the need is great. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.