Stewardship

STEWARDSHIP
DR. JIM DIXON
MATTHEW 9:36
MARCH 8, 1992

In 1895, Lord Kelvin, who was an Irish physicist and mathematician who laid the foundation for the science of thermodynamics, made this statement: he said, “Heavier than air flying machines are absolutely impossible.” In 1905, Henry Ford’s banker refused to give him a loan, making this statement: “The horse is here forever, but the automobile is but a brief curiosity.” In the year 1923, Robert Milliken, the Nobel Prize winner in physics, made this statement: “Mankind will never tap the power of the atom.” In 1939, early in the year, Gary Cooper, the Hollywood actor, made this statement: he said, “The movie Gone With the Wind is going to be the biggest bust in the history of Hollywood. I’m just glad it’s going to be Clark Gable falling on his face and not me.” In 1962, Richard Nixon, having just lost in the California race for the governor, which was his home state, called the press and the media together and he told them it would be his last conversation with them. He told them he was retiring from the world of politics, and he said to the nation, “You won’t have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore.”

Now, obviously, only God knows the future. It’s very difficult for our men and women to look into the future and know what’s going to happen. It’s very difficult for us to look into the future and know what’s going to succeed and what’s going to fail. And I’ve been asked this morning to speak to the future of Cherry Hills Community Church. I must say, first of all, I don’t know the future of Cherry Hills Community Church, but I believe this: I believe that our future will be bright if we honor supremely the person of Jesus Christ.

This morning, I’d like us to take the name of Christ, the title Christ, and use it as an acrostic so that each letter in the title Christ represents an attribute that we need as a church if we are to be blessed in the years to come in the decades ahead.

First of all, let’s let the letter C represent compassion. If God is going to bless this church in the years ahead, we need to be a church of compassion. William Willimon, the United Methodist chaplain at Duke University was walking across the Duke campus with his friend Stuart Henry. It was in the midst of the Octoberfest celebration, and the kids, the students on campus were having just a wild time, and many of the kids were half naked. Many of them were drunk. They were, you know, playing rock music, and this United Methodist chaplain was not entirely pleased. As he looked out over the crowds and the kids and all their partying, he turned to his friend Stuart Henry, and he said, “You know, Stuart, what it is more than anything else that proves for me the deity and the divinity of Jesus Christ?” Stuart thought it was a strange time and a strange place to mention a subject so theological. But he said, “No, William, what is it that for you more than anything else, proves the deity of Jesus Christ?”

William Willimon said, “You know, it’s a statement the Bible makes about Christ, a statement that clearly shows how different Christ is than we are, how different his heart is than our heart, where the Bible says, “Jesus looked on the multitudes and He was moved with compassion.” If this church is to be blessed in the decades ahead and in the years to come, we must be a church that looks on the multitudes and we’re moved with compassion.

I thank God for Manna Ministry. I thank God for Maxine Jones and all the volunteers that labor so faithfully in Manna Ministry so that people who do not have food can be given food, and people who do not have clothes can be given clothes, and people who cannot afford medical care can be given medical care. I thank God for the ministry of Manna Ministries in our church, for the compassion of Christ that it represents. As we look at the years ahead, my hope and prayer is that we might broaden the scope of Manna Ministry, and that our outreach and compassion might even be greater. I thank God for Everett Dye. I thank God for Mike Anderson. I thank God for all those volunteers that minister at the hospitals, that minister in grief ministry for the compassion that they show in the life of our church. I thank God for Gene Kissinger and for the Missions Committee, for their heart to take the gospel to people the world over. The compassion that they have for men and women, wanting to see men and women come to know the love of Jesus Christ, both here in the United States and abroad.

I really believe that if our church is to be blessed in the years ahead, we must be a people of compassion. All ministry is rooted in compassion.

Let’s let the H in Christ stand for humility. If we’re going to be blessed in the years ahead, we need to be a people humble before God. Some of you may have heard of Lord Ponsonby. Lord Ponsonby was a British diplomat, and he was known for his arrogance and also for his wit. He was on diplomatic assignment many decades ago to Turkey. The Sultan of Turkey was really put out with Lord Ponsonby because it seemed to the Sultan that this British Lord was not adequately humble when entering the royal presence of the Sultan of Turkey. That particular day, one day, the Sultan of Turkey knew that Lord Ponsonby was going to be coming in for a meeting in his audience hall. So the Sultan ordered that the door that provided the entrance to the audience hall be made smaller, and that the top of the door be brought down so that when Lord Ponsonby came to see the Sultan, he would have to kneel and crawl into the presence of the Sultan, and thereby might be forced to show proper humility. But Lord Ponsonby was equal to the task, and when he came and he saw the small opening, instead of crawling through and kneeling and bowing in the presence of the Sultan, he turned around and backed through that small opening showing the Sultan of Turkey his heels and his posterior.

You know, our Lord Jesus Christ does not try to force us into humility. He invites us to choose to be humble before Him. He invites everyone in the world to choose to be humble before Him. If you’re a Christian, then you came to a moment of humility when you acknowledged that you were a sinner and in desperate need of grace and mercy, and you invited Jesus to be your Savior. You came to a moment of humility when you acknowledged that God is God and you are not, and that Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and you invited Him to sit on the throne and to reign over your life, and you pledged yourself in obedience to Him as Lord and Savior. If our church is to be blessed in the decades ahead, then corporately, we must have this humility before Christ that we would know that we are sinners in desperate need of grace and mercy and grateful for a savior. We must have this humility that acknowledges the reign of Christ and takes every word of Christ as our command. Humility that acknowledges that every good thing that happens in our midst is not from our own hand, but from the hand of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s let the R in Christ represent rejoicing, because if we’re going to be blessed in the decades ahead, we need to be a church that is characterized by joy. The Greek word for rejoice is the word “chairein,” and it comes from the Greek word “chaira,” which means joy. The Bible tells us that our Lord Jesus Christ has more joy than anyone else in the entire creation and in the entire universe. The Bible tells us that our Lord Jesus Christ was anointed with the oil of gladness beyond all others. Our Lord Jesus Christ tells us that it is His desire that His joy might be in us and that our joy might be full. It says in the Book of Acts that when the early church gathered, they gathered with great joy, and that day by day, the Lord added to their number those who are being saved. The world is drawn to a joyful church.

I look back on the 10 years of our church, and I believe there has been an anointing of joy on Cherry Hills Community Church. Sometimes that joy has been manifested in a kind of flaky humor, which I think is good and healthy. Sometimes that joy has been manifested in just a celebration of all that God has done and is doing in our midst. Sometimes the joy has just come from the awareness of the precious presence of Jesus Christ in our midst. I know that as we look to the future, we’ve got to ask Christ to continue to anoint us with His joy. We’ve got to ask the Lord how we can keep the joy from going out of this deal as we grow together in Christ. You know, a church that has the joy of the Lord is a church that ministers to all the community that surrounds it.

Let’s let the I stand for intercession. If we’re going to be a church that is blessed in the years ahead, we need to be a church of prayer. We need to be a church that is interceding for each other and interceding in prayer for all the needs of the ministry and all the needs of the church. You know, on February 24th, last year, February 24th, 1991, a massive ground assault was launched by the United States and the Allied Forces in the Persian Gulf War. The Iraqi defensive forces were shattered in a matter of just a few days. In a matter of just a few days, the Iraqi army, the fourth largest army on planet Earth, was absolutely devastated. How did that happen? Why did that happen? It happened because in the months prior there had been a relentless air campaign targeting the Iraqi ground forces. There had been a strategic air penetration of the Iraqi infrastructure, which rendered the Iraqi army virtually impotent. The ground battle was won because it had been preceded by a relentless air campaign.

God wants His church, God wants this church, to understand that the ministry we’re called to do here on earth must be preceded by a relentless air campaign of prayer. Our ministries in this church must be bathed in an air campaign where we literally target all the obstacles of the enemy, where we are faithful to pray without ceasing for the needs of this church. We have great challenges ahead of us. We’re in the midst of great challenges right now. And unless we become men and women of prayer, the future isn’t going to be so bright.

Now, let’s let the S stands for sacramental. If we’re going to be blessed in the decades ahead, we must become a sacramental church. I don’t mean sacramental in the sense of the seven sacraments celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church, or even the two sacraments generally honored in Protestantism, but I mean sacramental in its primary, its original meaning, the Latin word “sacramentum,” which referred to the sacred oath. The sacramentum, which referred to that sacred pledge of consecration. You see, when Roman soldiers, when the Roman legions, when the Roman military brought a new soldier into their midst, that new soldier was required to take the sacramentum. That new soldier was required to take that sacred oath and make that pledge of consecration to the service of the emperor and the empire unto death. The sacramentum. They pledged themselves in the service of the Roman Empire, and they made that pledge unto death that they would serve actively the needs of the empire.

Now for a long time, in the early church, the Christians were so aware of the fact that the kingdom of Jesus Christ is at war. They were so aware of the fact that Christians are called into service, that they called baptism the sacramentum. When Christians were baptized in the early church, those Christians were viewed as making a sacred oath, a pledge of consecration to the service of the king and the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And that moment of baptism was called the sacramentum. Then communion began to be called the sacramentum as well, because it was a time when Christian men and women reaffirmed their commitment to the service of the kingdom of Jesus Christ and of His great church.

I told the Women’s Bible study this last Wednesday about Mike Fitzgerald, who was the first custodian here at Cherry Hills Community Church. Bo Mitchell, whose vision it was to have this church, really asked Mike if he would come and be the custodian at our church. Mike Fitzgerald had been the custodian at Cherry Hills Country Club, and Bo had been a member there. He invited Mike to come and work for us here at the church. Mike was an Irish Catholic. You know, through the years we grew to love Mike, and Mike grew to love Christ deeply, and there was a lot to love about Mike. He had a lot of endearing qualities. One of the endearing qualities in Mike was the way he sometimes got words a little bit confused, but you kind of knew what Mike meant. I remember one day I was standing out in the narthex and Mike came up to me and he said, “I don’t know how you do it.” I said, “What’s that?” He said, “I don’t know how you do it. I don’t know how every Sunday you get up there and you preach to all those pagans and heegans.”

Now, I don’t know what a heegan is, but I know what a pagan is. The word pagan comes from the Latin word “paganus.” You see, for a long time, etymologists, philologists, and linguists wondered why it was that Christians chose the word paganist to describe unbelievers. After all, the word paganist literally means village dweller. Why did Christians choose this word paganist to describe the unbelieving? Well, historians and philologists have come to understand that this word paganist had a special use, a special application. Paganist was the word used by the Roman army, by the Roman legions, to describe all civilians. Everyone who was not a member of the Roman army, everyone who was not a member of the Roman Legion, everyone who hadn’t made the sacramentum, who hadn’t pledged themself to the service of the emperor of the Empire, was called paganist. You see, the early church understood that when you come to Christ you’ve made a pledge. If you’ve truly come to Christ to enter into the active service of His kingdom. This kingdom is at war, and He’s called us in a spiritual battle.

I got to say, there’s probably many people in this church who are pagans. I don’t want to spend the decades ahead preaching to a church that is primarily pagans and heegans. Now, I recognize, you know, that we’re a church that really desires to have unbelievers present, people who are pagans. I mean, we want people who are unbelievers to feel welcome here and loved here because God does love all, and we want them to hear the gospel. We want them to hear the love of Christ and to fall in love with Christ. But if our church is going to be blessed in the decades ahead and in the years to come, we must have a growing number of members who have taken the sacramentum, a growing number of members who have truly pledged themself unto death to the service of Jesus Christ and to His eternal kingdom, a sacramental church.

Finally, if we are to be blessed in the years ahead, we need to be a teaching church. Just let the T stand for teaching, a church where the teaching is centered squarely on the word of God, knowing that as God’s word is proclaimed, it will not return void but will accomplish that for which it is purposed. This past week, I had lunch with a friend who told me that he’s just recently started attending Wednesday night services. He told me what a blessing it’s been to be able to hear Bob and to receive Bob’s teaching. He said, “You know, it’s like when Bob teaches and as he speaks, before the words reach your ear, it’s like the Holy Spirit just anoints those words so that He might impact your life and your heart.”

There’s an anointing, you see, on Bob’s teaching. I saw that when first I heard Bob teach many years ago, a special gift. We’re blessed as a church to have Bob’s gift of teaching, serving us. You know, I remember sitting down and talking with Bob, before the church began, more than 10 years ago, having prayed, we were asking, what kind of a church does Christ want Cherry Hills Community Church to be? And we felt led clearly of God, this was to be a church where the Word of God was always proclaimed faithfully in teaching and in preaching, in proclamation, knowing that God’s word never returns void. This church will be blessed in all the years ahead if we never lose sight of that, that this church is built on the teaching of the word of God, knowing that God’s word is living and active, profitable for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.

So as we look to the future, we know God’s blessing will be upon us if we are a church of compassion, a church of humility, a church of rejoicing, a church that’s faithful in intercession and prayer, a church that is sacramental, sold out to the service of Christ’s Kingdom, and a church that is built on the solid teaching of God’s Word. Let’s pray together.