Life of Webster Groves Baptist Church

Preached by Terrell Carter on 5/26/13

A 5 year old boy was in the kitchen with his mother making supper.  She asked him to go into their large pantry and get her a can of tomato soup, but he didn’t want to go in alone for fear of the dark.  He said, “I can’t mommy.  It’s dark in there and I’m scared.”  His mother said, “You don’t have to be afraid of the dark.  God loves you and is always with you.  He’s with you even in dark pantries.”  With that, the boy slowly walked to the pantry door, opened it and saw how dark it was inside and said, “God, if you’re in there, would you please hand me a can of tomato soup?”

Most of us know cute innocent children like that.  Some of us probably were cute innocent kids at one time.  It’s obvious that within the story, this child clearly misunderstood what it meant to call on God’s name.  He misunderstood what it meant for God to be present with him.  He misunderstood what it meant to be friends with God and what it means to be able to depend on God.  That’s okay.  It’s only a story.

But, as cute as this story is, it stands as an example of how, in innocence, people who sincerely love and believe in God can sincerely misunderstand what it means to have a loving relationship with God filled with trust, devotion, and protection.  This type of misunderstanding is not new.  Humans have been misunderstanding God and our relationship to the Holy One since humankind was created.

In light of this, I want to ask a question this morning.  And the question is this: Is there a way for people to combat or overcome our misunderstandings as it relates to our relationship with God?  Is there anything that we can know that can help set our minds at ease as we interact with the Holy One?

I believe that the answer to that question/those two questions is a resounding ‘yes’.  Why am I able to be confident in my answer?  Because of the passage of scripture we read in our bulletin a few moments ago.  The passage comes from I John 4:7-13.  As we prepare to take a deeper look at the passage, I want you to understand some of the underlying history of the book.

One of the reasons that John wrote this letter to the church was in order to equip believers to combat misconceptions about God and God’s relationship to the world.  Why would John need to do this?  As Christianity grew, so did the number of misconceptions, misunderstandings, and heresies about God.  The challenge was that these misconceptions were not only happening in sects and cults.  Multiple types of misunderstandings occurred within the church.  One erroneous philosophy that had infiltrated the church was called Gnosticism.

Gnosticism was a system of belief that taught that the spiritual world was good, but the physical world was bad, and the two worlds could not mix successfully.  The system taught that there was a battle going on between the spirit world and the world of matter.  The system also taught that God the Father was the High God over a lower division of angelic spirits, which included the Christ Spirit.

Gnosticism’s adherents taught that because spiritual things could not mix with physical things, this meant that God, who was spirit, would not have anything to do with creating this world because, by default, it was impure and defiled because it was made of matter.  And if God would not create this kind of world, God would not save it.  This also meant that God could not have a meaningful relationship with mankind because they are of the flesh.  For Gnostics, the logical conclusion from all of this was that if God didn’t have a relationship with mankind, men were not obligated to live according to some moral set of obligations that God would hand down.  Instead, people could simply do what they wanted.

John wrote this letter to the church in part to refute this teaching.  But I believe that he wrote the letter for another reason.  I believe that he wrote it in order to reassure the church that they could have a relationship with God.

But what would be the evidence that the church could lean on to assure them that they were in relationship with God?  The evidence would be God’s love.  God had already proven it to them through His love for them.  John tells them that God had practiced love on their behalf, and for God, the true God Jehovah, not the god of Gnosticism, practicing love was the foundation of being in any meaningful relationship.

How did God practice love on their behalf?  He did it in one glorious way.  But before we look at the way God practiced love, lets identify what John means when he uses the world love, which appears so many times throughout this letter.

Overall, what John is talking about is not a feeling or an emotion.  What he is referring to is action.  He is referring to a state of being.  What John means is that God is love.  Not love is God.  But, God is love.

In the Greek, there was no article for the phrase “to love.”  Instead, the phrase could be translated, “to God.”  God’s essence is love.  Who God is is love.  God is compassion.  God is concern.  God is care.  This is who God is.

John wants the reader to understand that love starts from God and who God is.  Love begins with God.  It then moves outward.  God is love in action.  God is intimacy.  God is kind.  God is altruistic.  God is abiding.  God is sacrificial.  God is mercy.  God is loyal.  God is steadfast.  God is binding.  God is gracious.  God is abundant.  God is forgiving.  God is undeserved.

You may be thinking, “Terrell, you just threw a bunch of words at us, but you didn’t give us a simple definition of the word love.”  Well, the simple definition of love is…God.  All that God is and does on our behalf and the behalf of all creation.  That is love.  Or, at least, that’s what I think John is telling his readers.

God is…and God is love.  God’s very existence is the practice of love.  And because God is love, God practiced love on the behalf of John’s readers.

John identifies the most important way that God practiced love.  It was the sending of His Son, Jesus the Christ.  Verse 9 says, “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.”

Clarence Jordan wrote it this way in his paraphrase called the Cotton Patch Gospels, “And God’s love took shape in our midst when he sent his one and only son into the world so we might start living.”

God’s love was manifested for humankind through action.  That action was the sending of Christ from heaven to earth in order to restore, to rebuild, to repair God’s relationship with men and women.  God loved humankind and did something about it.  Without being prompted or asked, God moved.

God sent Christ in order that John’s readers could live and have the opportunity to start living.  God sent Christ in order for humankind not to be separated from their Creator.  Instead, they would have fellowship with God.  They would be able to have a relationship with God.  That is what true life entails.

This is love.  God’s act of unmerited, unwarranted action on behalf of mankind.  John says, “Not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

That word propitiation is a big $5 word that means “a willing sacrifice.”  An action that was committed on our behalf without being prompted or compensated that sets us free from spiritual debt.  Love is God sending Christ, and Christ willingly giving Himself for us.  The writer John Stott says, “While the origin of love is in the being of God, the manifestation of love is in the coming of Christ.”

So complex, yet so simple.  Because of whom God is, God wanted to have a meaningful relationship with men and women.  God was willing to put that desire into action through the Son, Jesus.

And what does God expect out of men and women in response to this love that has been manifested for them?  God expects that men and women would become love for each other.

God’s desire is pretty straightforward.  Verse 11 says, “if God so loved us, we ought to love one another.”  Is there really any legitimate argument against this “If, then” proposition?  If God did something, then we should do something.  If God loved us, then we should love others.

And how much easier should it be to love people we see and know?  We have never seen God, but we are able to love Him.  It should be just as easy for us to love people that come in and out of our lives on a regular basis.

When we practice love, we practice God’s attributes.  We show that God’s love is “perfected in us” or “made perfect” through us.  What John means in that statement is that when we show love, we are fulfilling God’s purpose for us.  That we are doing what we are built to do.  We are growing and becoming spiritually mature.  We are being conformed to the image of God.  Apple says, “Our loving others is not the condition for God coming to abide in us; but it is the evidence, the manifestation, of that indwelling divine presence.”

For John’s readers, the Holy Spirit was the guide that would confirm all of this in their hearts.  The Holy Spirit would reassure them that “God is” on their behalf.   The Holy Spirit would confirm that their relationship with God was real.  The Holy Spirit would confirm that their relationship with God was tangible and personal.  Because of their relationship with God, which was made possible through Christ, they no longer had to fear God or God’s wrathful judgment.

I want to make sure to say that I don’t necessarily think that John’s readers viewed God through rose colored glasses.  John’s readers were likely raised believing that under certain circumstances, God would and could display wrath and pronounce judgment.  They also understood that after this life, all people would have the opportunity to stand before the throne of judgment to hear God address them as heaven-bound children, or pronounce a condemnation of separation against them.

But, John reassured them that they no longer had to fear God’s judgment.  Why?  Because as Christ is before God, so were they.  As John had stated, Christ’s sacrificial act on their behalf made it possible for them to no longer be under God’s judgment.  Because of this, they no longer had to fear God, or the afterlife.  They didn’t need to be afraid of God.  Instead of fearing God, they could accept God’s love and forgiveness.  They could live in peace with the Holy.

Okay, Terrell.  We can tell that you’re trying hard to put a happy spin on this passage.  But, what are we supposed to do with this?  Why is it so important for us to have thought about this today?  Let me ask another simple question.   Who do you understand God to be?  I’m not asking what your mother or father thought about God.  I am not asking what you understand Baptists think about God.  I am not asking what you think I think about God.  I am asking what you understand about God.

Do you see God as some cosmic celestial force that is out there that sometimes moves in the earth, causing certain things to happen in people’s lives just so they can know that He is around?  Do you see God as a destructive force like the tornadoes that were experienced last week in Oklahoma and Texas?  Do you see God as an impartial force that makes arbitrary decisions on who lives and dies and which house gets uprooted?

Do you see God as some menacing force that is always on the lookout to get you every time you mess something up, make a mistake, or commit a mistake?  Do you see God as some abstract detached deity that you really aren’t sure cares about you and what happens in your life?

What would it take for you to see God differently?  To see God as God truly is?  What would it take for you to see that God is a personal participant in your life?  What would it take for you to know that God actually does know you and is concerned about you?  That God is not constantly sitting in judgment over you, but actually has compassion for you.  That God’s heart aches when yours does?  That God is aware of your needs?  That God celebrates when you celebrate?  That God cheers for you?  That God is your biggest fan?  That God is aware of your faults, fears, failures, and still loves you.

I encourage you to realize that God knows and loves you.  Period.  Nothing else needs to be added to the equation.  God is love and God loves on your behalf.

But, what does this mean for WGBC?  God still loves this body of believers.  God has not forgotten about you.  God has not turned a blind eye to you.  God still has a plan for you.  The pews may not currently be as full as they have been in the past, but that’s okay.  The number of people that attend any given service is not the measurement for how much God loves you or how much WGBC loves God.

My encouragement this morning is that you don’t have to be afraid of the future.  Yes, it may look uncertain.  But our certainty is not in men.  Our certainty is in God.  God, the one who loves us unconditionally.  God, the one who supplies all of our needs.  God, the one who said in Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith Jehovah, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope in your latter end.”  In the CEV, this verse says, “I will bless you with a future filled with hope–a future of success, not of suffering.”

Let us look expectantly towards that future.

Will you pray with me?

Preached by Terrell Carter on 5/19/13

I read a survey recently about workers and their job satisfaction.  In 1987, job satisfaction was at 61%.  In 1995, job satisfaction was at 58%.  In 2000, it was at 50%.  In 2005, it went up to 52%.  In 2009, it stood at a resounding 45%.   If you were surveyed about your current job, what level of satisfaction would you be at?  If you are retired, what would have been your level of satisfaction when you were still a part of the workforce?

Sources of low job satisfaction and workplace burnout typically include problems with workload; the level of required work versus access to resources in order to complete tasks; unrealistic expectations and deadlines; how much control a worker has over his or her job duties; the kind of recognition or reward given for the job; how well relationships with coworkers are going; whether a worker feels he or she is being treated fairly; and whether important values for a worker are supported by the work being done.  The person conducting the survey surmised that the biggest hindrances to job satisfaction were a lack of “Challenging and meaningful work.”

Do any of you relate to this survey?  For some of us, work may not a good place to go to.  Co-workers may not necessarily be the nicest people in the world.  Your boss may not be very smart.  If the truth was told, you were probably the person that trained him/her.  Or, you may have several years of experience doing your job, but you can’t seem to get promoted because you won’t participate in office politics.  Or, you have years of experience, but they hire a new college graduate so they won’t have to pay you a higher salary.  Or, your boss is such a micromanager that your creativity and enthusiasm are stifled because they have to control every piece of paper that comes out of the office.  Or, you have given years of blood sweat and tears, only to be let go during the last round of downsizing.

You may dread the drive in to work every morning and watch the clock as it moves ever so slowly and painfully throughout the workday.  You may not feel fulfilled or appreciated as you leave the office in the evening.  I think we all have probably experienced something like this, haven’t we?

In life, we want to feel fulfilled by the work we do and the relationships that we are involved in.  We want to feel valued and appreciated.  We want to feel like we are valued by people that we give so much of our lives to.  In life, we want to feel like we are important.  But, the cold reality is that sometimes, we give our hearts, time, energy, ideas, etc. only to be disappointed.

Let me ask all of you a question.  Have you ever felt like this when it comes to your spiritual journey?  Have you ever felt like this when it comes to your walk with God?  You live your life in such a way that you are pretty sure that what you do is pleasing to God.  You give of your time, talents, and possessions, but it seems like nothing is going right for you?

If you were surveyed about your satisfaction with God and how your life is going, what would you say?  Would you say that you are satisfied?  Would you say that life is where you want it to be?  Would you say that you feel like God appreciates you?  Or would your survey say something totally different?

If your survey would say something totally different, don’t feel bad.  It is not something to be embarrassed about.  You would actually be in good company.  I believe that if they were asked, some of the patriarchs and matriarchs of our faith would not be able to say that everything was always good for them on their journey through life.  We all know that Job questioned what God was doing during the time that he was being tested.  In the Psalms, we can feel David’s frustration and pain as his life descended into a tailspin due to political and family discord.  In despair, Solomon called life “vanity.”

I also think that Paul would be one of those people who, if pressed about it, could give examples from his life about times where he may have hesitated if he was asked to fill out a survey.  Paul experienced many times in his life where he had opportunity to question what God was doing.  One of those times is found in the Acts passage that is found in the bulletin.  Acts 16:9-15.

Before we go too far, let’s take a look at the verses that precede our printed text.  In Vs.1-5, Paul has met Timothy, a young man with a glowing reputation.  Over time, Timothy had become a trusted companion of Paul.  The two of them made significant strides to strengthen the church through their journeys together.  God blessed that as a result of their efforts, the church grew substantially.  In Vs. 6-8, Paul and his companions try to go to different areas to preach the gospel, but the Holy Spirit forbids them to do so.  We don’t know why, and we are not given an explanation.  We just know that they wanted to share the gospel message in a particular area, but the Holy Spirit said “No.”  Has this ever happened to you before.  The sense that we get is that this was the first time that it happened to them.

Verse 9 opens with Paul having a vision from God.  In the vision, a man from Macedonia beckons him to come over to where he is.  We don’t know how Paul knew the man was from Macedonia, but he takes this vision as a sign from God to travel to that area with the intent to share the Word with whomever they found.

In the past, God had caused people to have visions that led them to go to particular places where they were able to share the gospel with entire families, who in turn all entered in to relationship with God.  One example in particular was when the disciple Peter was on a rooftop and he had a vision of a sheet being lowered down containing all kinds of animals that Jewish law said was unclean.  After having that vision God, through a strange turn of events, brought Peter to the home of a Gentile, who, according to Jewish law, was unclean.  But by God’s grace and power, this man and his whole family believed on Christ as Savior and were saved.

I imagine that Paul had heard about this story.  This experience by Paul has similar qualities as the experiences of Peter.  I can imagine that Paul is waiting to see God work wonders as God did in Peter’s situation.  So, with great anticipation and great expectation, Paul and his group set out to go to Macedonia to do God’s work.

They set sail from Troas and travel to a place called Samothrace.  They leave Samothrace and sail to Neapolis.  From Neapolis, they sail to Philippi.  Altogether, they travel somewhere around 125 miles, changing boats three times.  They do this just to be able to follow a vision of sharing the gospel.  These people are troopers.  I know people who won’t drive 5 hours to see distant relatives.  Some of us would have a hard time getting excited about going to a family reunion if our flight had more than one extended layover.

When their feet touch ground in Philippi, I bet that Paul and his companions are excited.  They have travelled a long way to get there and they are ready to go.  They are ready to get to work doing something.

But the writer of Acts says that instead of getting directly to work, they waited.  And they waited.  And they waited.  Luke, the author of Acts says that they waited for “some days,” seeming to indicate that they were there for a while before anything positive happened.

So, Paul had this vision, obediently and immediately set out to comply with it like God wanted them to do, but nothing happens when they get there.  Instead of getting to work, they hurried up and waited.  I can imagine that they were disappointed.

On the Sabbath, Paul and his friends can’t even go to a synagogue, which was their usual habit when they visited a new area, because there wasn’t one there.  This is a sign that there seems to be no viable spiritual leadership present in the area.

But, as they walk outside the gates of the city, they meet a group of women.  Many towns in that day had laws that didn’t allow foreign religious practices to occur within their city walls for fear of the wrath of the particular gods of that city.  So, people like the Jews had to go outside the gate to pray.
Paul and Silas begin to talk to these women and one of them named Lydia pays attention.  It turns out that she worshipped God on her own, in spite of the lack of a synagogue.  She believed their message and is saved.  And not only her, but her whole family as well.  After receiving the message and being baptized, she invites Paul and his companions to visit her home.  Does this sound familiar?  It is similar to what happened between Peter and the Gentile.

And guess what happens next!  Nothing.  Nothing else spectacular happens.  We don’t hear about Lydia doing anything spectacular.  We don’t see her family accomplish anything out of the ordinary or earth shattering.  Actually, after this passage, we don’t hear Lydia’s name mentioned again.

So, Terrell, you’re telling me that Paul and his friends traveled a lot of miles over several days and took multiple boats only to see this one family saved?  Yep.

This chapter of Paul’s journey ends in a very unspectacular way.  We don’t hear of Lydia doing anything else or anything else positive happening in this area.

Does the story end there?  Paul probably wished it had, but no, it doesn’t end there.  Things went from boring to bad in a short amount of time.  The rest of the chapter tells us how Paul and Silas were traveling trying to find a place of prayer, and were approached by a woman possessed by a spirit of divination.  This woman, filled with an evil spirit, made a lot of money for her owners.  Eventually, Paul and Silas cast this spirit out of the woman.

When they did this, the woman’s owners accused them of a crime and had them thrown into prison.  While in prison, they were beaten and abused.  At some point they were put into shackles and locked away tight in the prison’s most secluded area.  That night an earthquake shook everything in the area and their shackles fell off.  The guard who was responsible for keeping them locked up thought they had fled, and was ready to commit suicide in order not to experience the wrath of his superiors.  But instead of letting the guard kill himself, Paul and Silas let him know that they were still there.  They then shared the message of God’s love with him.  This guard believed their message and he and his family were also saved.

Now, guess what happened after that?  Paul and his friends were asked to leave the city and not to come back because certain people thought they were becoming a distraction.

Wait a minute, Terrell.  You’re telling me that not only did Paul and his friends endure a long, drawn out trip, but, they got in trouble for essentially freeing a woman of an evil spirit, were beaten for doing it, were thrown in prison, and eventually were kicked out of the city and told never to come back.  And the only good thing that came out of it was that two families were saved?  That seems like a lot of work and major headaches for little reward.  They could have done all of that in Troas or any other city close to home.  My answer is “Yep, you’re right.”

Okay, Terrell.  That was not a very uplifting story.  Are you telling me that God sent Paul and his companions to a place that God knew would be difficult for them to operate in?  Are you telling me that God intentionally sent them to a place where God knew that they would experience pain and suffering?  Are you telling me that God sent them all that way just to interact with two small and insignificant families and a possessed woman?  Are you saying that God sent them somewhere knowing full well that they would be misunderstood, misrepresented, and manhandled?  What are you expecting me to get out of this?

I think what we can take away from this passage is simple.  In our spiritual journey, in our attempts to live out our lives for God, we will be allowed to go to what we think are insignificant places.  Some might say that God sends us to insignificant places.  During our efforts to become closer to God, we will inadvertently help/work with people who we typically may consider to be unimportant.  Someone might say that God sends us to work with unimportant people.  Sometimes, God will allow/cause us to participate in things that cause us more frustration and pain than what they seem worth.

Sometimes, God will send you to a place that when you get there, there will be no fanfare.  There will be no cheerleaders.  There will be no welcoming committee and no golden shore.  When you get there, you may be all alone.  When you start the work that God has for you, you may not get any accolades.  Actually, people may actively stand against you and what you are trying to do.  No one will tell you how good of a job you are doing.  There will be no pats on the back.  You may do exactly what you know God wants you to do, but you will be misrepresented.  You will be misunderstood.  People will not appreciate you.  You may want to leave.  You may want to retreat.  You may want to throw in the towel.  But don’t.

If it was important enough for God to send you, it’s important enough for you to stay.  If it was important enough for God to put you there, it’s important enough for you to finish the work that has been started.  If it was important enough for God to open the door, it’s important enough for you to walk through it and see what God has in store on the other side.

If Paul was surveyed after this experience, or any of the other experiences where he was met with opposition and ridicule, he may have said that he didn’t think God was using his skills correctly.  He may have said, “I am smarter than this.  I should be used for a much greater work than this.”  Or he may have said that he was tired of how his life was going, especially in light of the fact that he had dedicated it to God and the coming of God’s kingdom.  We all could sympathize with Paul and his companions if they felt like that.  To go through what they went through would leave anyone frustrated.

But I think that if you would have surveyed Paul years later, his attitude probably would have changed.  Why do I think this?  What Paul found out years later was that there was a faithful church in that region, which I imagine started with those two families that he preached to.  And this church was to whom the book of Philippians was written.

This church was acknowledged by Paul as being one of the most faithful churches around.  Not only was that church faithful to God, but they were also faithful to Paul.  When Paul needed support throughout his travels in ministry, the church at Philippi was the only group that supported him emotionally and financially without fail.  They did this when other churches dropped by the wayside.

If Paul would have been surveyed years later, after seeing what likely grew from these two small families, he probably would have said that his time and effort was spent right where it needed to be.  He probably would have said that the time that was spent there was blessed by God.  Paul, and his companions probably could recognize that God had been doing something important, even when they did not know it.

But what does this mean for WGBC?  We should be encouraged and know that where we are right now is where God wants us to be right now.  But, we should also be encouraged and know that where we are right now is not where God will have us in six months or a year from now.  As we seek to faithfully follow God, honor our Savior Jesus, and yield to the leading of the Holy Spirit, we will be transformed and moved to a different place and grow spiritually and numerically.

My prayer is that six months from now or a year from now, we do not look like we look today.  My prayer is that God will take the faithful people that gather at WGBC and multiply our number as happened in Philippi.  My prayer is that God will build this church as a faithful witness to this community, not for the sake of simply increasing the number of people that attend, but that as we grow, there will be more laborers and workers in God’s field helping to build the coming kingdom.

Will you pray with me?