Live in God's Glory

Introduction

Every once and a while God hits me with a message that is so clear I cannot possibly ignore it. This was one such week. As I was reading the Scripture this week this part of the lectionary passage stood out to me. Paul is praying for the church in Thessalonica, telling them that we wishes for God to transform them into objects that reflect his glory. To really understand what Paul was saying here we have to understand what was going on in the church in Thessalonica. They had become lazy, they had become complacent. They thought Jesus was coming back soon and so they stopped working for the Gospel and were content to simply sit and wait for Jesus’ return.

Paul was not happy with this. He wanted them to continue to live their lives in Christ’s image, he wanted them to continue to spread the Gospel. So they did.

So this week I had several things happen that confirmed this was the message God wanted me to preach today. Durning Bible study this week we were talking about how this generation seems to be lest interested in preaching the word, in prayer and in evangelism. And it gave me the opportunity to share a message God gave me several years ago.

My last year in seminary I took a class called “Congregations and Social Change.” During this class we read a book that changed my life and the way I see ministry. The book was called “Patient Ferment of the Early Church.” It sounds like some overly academic book about the apostolic church, or maybe it was a book about the early church’s practice of making compost for their gardens.... What this book was about was that the church did not evangelize, they did not preach the Gospel in public or try and lead people to Christ. But their lives were so fully changed by Holy Spirit that their faith became infectious and other people wanted to know about it, they wanted what believers had and so during that two hundred year period more people accepted Christ than any other time in history.

So what was the message God gave me? He told me that the church had strayed from its original purpose. In 326 AD the church began to morph into something that was unintended. The priestly class took God’s worship and God’s holiness from the people. Worship became something that the priestly class did for the people and it was no longer the people worshiping God. We can still see this expressed in the modern Orthodox church and to some extent the Modern Catholic Church.

This trend lasted for everyone for almost 1200 years until Martin Luther attempted to reform the Catholic church and begin the protestant revolution.

We’ve gone back and forth since then, but in modern times we tend be falling back into our old ways. Our worship tends to be more someone else worshiping for us and our holiness seems to be relegated to a certain priestly class.

But God told me that is not going to work much longer. As our culture moves further away from Christendom, from a culture that accepts Jesus as our ultimate authority, people are less and less willing to hear the saving message of Christ from those who are designated to lead us.

So what is the answer? God gave me the answer, he told me that it is Holiness. We as believers have to live out our faith in such bold ways that we are infectious to the world around us.

Collectively, believers have become like the church in Thessalonica, we have become lazy and complacent, hoping others will do the work of evangelizing and worshiping God for us. But Paul gives this advice not only to the Thessalonians but to us also. He tells us .....

We must let God make us worthy

He gives us a desire for goodness

Our nature is about selfishness

God can transform our nature to goodness

To think of others before we think of ourselves

To care for everyone we meet

To no longer harbor our sinful racist tendency

He prompts us to do good works

James 2:14-16.

It only works if we submit to him

We must let God be glorified in us

We are created in God’s image

When we claim to have faith we are examples of God’s kingdom on earth

When we show love, grace, and mercy people see God in us.

Conclusion

So this week in Bible study I had the chance to give encouragement. Whenever we labor for Christ. Whenever we should love to other people, when ever we give to others, whether our time, our talents, or our resources we are glorifying God.

So those of you who engage in ministry, whether its serving people at pantry, whether its helping at the Loft, whether its serving on the board, or in the kitchen, or even mowing the church lawn you are the face of God. So let God’s light shine in each one of you. Remember you are a city on a hill and a cities light can never be hidden. Let us pray.