Sermon Series: The Essential Expectations: Part 1 

I Will Share the Responsibilities of My Church 

1 Chronicles 4:10; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-2; Luke 14:23; Romans 15:7 

PSBC, May 6, 2001

In a nutshell: The very least we should expect from every member of our church is to pray for our church growth; invite the unchurched they know, to attend; and warmly welcome each person who visits our church.

I. Introduction

A. Casey Stengel quote

On the front of your WIG's this morning, are some very profound ecclesiastical words from a very un-ecclesiastical source. Many of you remember the great baseball manager, Casey Stengel, who managed the New York Yankees baseball team during one of their hey day periods in the1950's and 60's. During that time he had some really great baseball players on his team-guys like Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, Elston Howard, and Yogi Berra. Once he was asked, "how did you get so many good players on your team?" And his answer was…

"It's easy to get good players. Getting 'em to play together, that's the hard part."

Well, friends, in that regard, the church is no different then baseball. Every church on the face of the earth-effective churches, ineffective churches; strong churches, weak churches; rich churches, poor churches; rural churches, city churches; large churches, small churches; ethnic churches and multi-ethnic churches-every church has a common denominator…

Every church has good people in it. The hard part is getting them to "play together".

B. Transition

Today's sermon will be the second message in a sermon series I'm calling, The Essential Expectations: Part 1. This four-part series is designed to get us thinking about something I would like added to our church constitution-something that's called a membership covenant.

A membership covenant is nothing more than the essential expectations every member of a church can expect from every other member of that church, when they unite together and begin working toward a common goal and a common vision.

Last week we began with the first of these four expectations. I labeled it… "I will protect the unity of my church". This week we'll look at the second expectation. I'm labeling this one… "I will share the responsibilities of my church." Understanding this one will, in the words of Casey Stengel, will "get us to play together" like a real team of great players.

C. Problem

But as we get into the three responsibilities that I want to outline for you, we have one problem. We're not all at the same level. -Some of you are brand new Christians-just weeks old in your faith in Jesus Christ. While some of you are seasoned saints, and have been Christians for over 75 years. -Some of you are physically able to do just about anything you set your mind to doing. Others of you are very physically limited in what your body can do. -Some of you know the Bible backwards and forwards. Others of you are still learning what books are in the Old Testament and what ones are in the New Testament. -Some of you know your spiritual gifts and are using them to intentionally advance the Kingdom of God. Others of you are still working at discovering what gifts God has given you to help with His Kingdom advancement.

So, do you see the problem? We're not all on the same level. And when I say that I'm talking about a variety of levels on which we're not all on the same level with each other.

So what responsibilities can we expect of young and old, weak and strong, mature and immature, active in ministry and those still discovering their niche?

As I've searched the scriptures for the answer to that question, and as I've consulted experts in church growth and church development, I believe that there are at least three things that all of us can expect from each other, regardless of our backgrounds, regardless of our spiritual maturity, and regardless of our ages. That's what I want to examine this morning…

II. The Three Responsibilities

A. …by praying for its growth

The first thing every one of us should come to expect from every other one of us is this …we will each pray for our church's growth.

Many of you have seen or read the book that was recently published, The Prayer of Jabez. It is so powerful, and has touched each of the pastors so much, that I plan to do a sermon series on it in the fall. But if you're not familiar with the prayer, it comes from the lips of an obscure man in the Old Testament, whom God blessed in marvelous ways. His prayer is recorded like this…

1 Chronicles 4:10 10 Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." And God granted his request.

Then the apostle Paul sets a model for each of us to pray for our church, when he wrote to the Christians at Thessalonica…

1 Thess 1:1-2 The church at Thessalonica-to you who belong to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: May blessing and peace of heart be your rich gifts from God our Father and from Jesus Christ our Lord. 2 We always thank God for you and pray for you constantly. TLB

Thanks to Merle Thiemens, I now have a 5" x 7" card on the bulletin board in my office with lovely flowers and other living things illustrated on it, which reads, "The only evidence of life is growth!"

And folks that's an axiom for the church. The only way we know we are doing what God wants done in this locale is if this church is growing-and I'm talking about us growing both spiritually, and numerically. And that's how each of us needs to pray for this church, every day. Pray that our church grows spiritually and numerically!

1. Spiritual growth

The spiritual growth part is hard to quantify. But let me tell you, it will become evident over time. Spiritual growth will first come out in… …your individual demonstrations of personal godliness and right choices, …in how each of you use your finances, …in each of your individual commitments to biblical principles, …in how you get along with those who are both inside and outside the church. …It will be evident in what you value. …And it will be evident in your concerns for society.

Like I said, since we can't see these things, they are hard to quantify. But only at first. You see, based on my experience, and my observations of hundreds of growing churches in north American, I can emphatically say that eventually, a church that is growing in these un-quantifiable areas will begin to demonstrate quantifiable growth… …by making decisions that are bold for the advancement of the Kingdom of God; …by attempting things that demonstrate a complete trust in God's ability; …and by being at peace and unity with each other in all matters of the church's life.

2. Numerical growth

But there is an area of growth that everyone of us should notice, all the time, in a growing church. Here I'm talking about numbers. -Are new people coming and staying at the church? -Are people joining the church? -Are pre-Christians regularly becoming Christians through the ministry of the individuals and programs of the church?

That's why we are putting attendance figures in the WIG each week. It's an accountability thing, as well as it's a gauge for all of you to see how we are growing.

Illustration: If you'll notice this week, we list the April figures, comparing this year from last year. It shows our worship attendance has grown 4%. What it doesn't show is that since April of 1999, we have grown by over 30% in worship attendance. It was April of 2000 that we turned a corner and began a pattern of continual growth, each month, over the year before.

God is blessing our church through numerical growth. But we cannot take it for granted. There are other good churches in this area, with good people in those churches, that are not growing. In fact, many are declining in attendance. This church was in those ranks, just a few years ago. What's made the difference. In Casey Stengel's words, "we've started to play together." It is happening because of the power of the prayers of the people of this church. This congregation is praying more than just about any other time since the early days of it's beginnings. And it's paying off!

So, here's the point to all this. No matter if you are mature or immature in your faith. No matter if you're active or inactive in the programs and ministries of this church. No matter if you're 16 years old, or 96 years old. If this is your church, we should expect that you all will pray for the growth of Palm Springs Baptist Church. That's one of our basic responsibilities.

B. …inviting the unchurched to attend

A second basic responsibility is that we all should be inviting the unchurched to attend our church.

As you remember from other teachings I've given you, the term, Kingdom of God refers to Jesus' rule in your life, as the Forgiver of your sins, and the leader of your life.

This is the relationship God wants every person on the face of the earth to enter into. He wants His Kingdom to advance into every heart of every person you make eye contact with. Because without that relationship and Kingdom citizenship, a person is condemned, by their own sins, to eternal Hell.

Explanation: Well, in Luke 14, Jesus tells a parable about the Kingdom of God, where God is portrayed as a wealthy man who is about to give a great banquet. The banquet in this story represents God's free offer of eternal life.

But as the servants of the wealthy man (and by the way, in the story, those servants represent the followers of God-us!) go out and invite the respectable citizens of the town to the banquet, they get all kinds of excuses why those people won't attend.

So, the wealthy man tells his servants to starting inviting the homeless, poor, destitute and not so respectable people to the banquet. And the servants say, "Sir, we did that already! But there is still room. What do we do now?"

And this is what the wealthy man says…

Luke 14:23 23 "Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full.

He tells his servants to start thinking outside the box of who they know in the city, and start developing some new relationships with people they haven't known so far that are outside their city.

Now, don't miss the point of Jesus' story. Basically the wealthy man said, "Get out of town and start inviting some new people to this banquet. Start intentionally developing new relationships with new people who just might come to my banquet, if they were invited."

The key word to all this is in verse 23. It's the word, "GO". In the Greek, it literally means, get off you duff and do something intentional!

And friends, that's what we have to do. We need to be intentionally initiating new relationships with people who don't have a relationship with Jesus, and invite those people to church. Let me ask you… -Do you carry some gospel tracts with you, so you can leave them for a waitress, when you give her a good tip? We'll imprint those with our church name and address if you like. That's one way to invite someone. -Do you know the difference between our two services, so you can invite a younger person to our 11:00 service, and someone who would be comfortable with a slightly slower pace of music to our 8:30 service? -Are you praying specifically for individuals you know, to know the Savior? Then do you ask God to use you in their lives? -Are you displaying a church license plate frame somewhere on you car? If not, get one from the Welcome Center, outside, before you leave. Then remember to drive courteously!

Friends, that's what we should all expect of each other. That's specifically carrying out the Great Commission, which our Lord Jesus Christ gave us before He left this earth-to go out into all the world and give out the gospel to every person in our sphere of influence.

At the very least, every one of us should be inviting the unchurched that we know to our church. They will hear the gospel every week, and they'll see a loving and accepting family of believers meeting together in unity. Then it is up to them and the Holy Spirit's work in their lives as to how they respond.

But at the very least, you and I need to do our part. We each have the responsibility to invite people to our church services.

C. …by warmly welcoming those who visit

And that leads to the final basic responsibility we should all count on every one of us doing… …warmly welcoming those who visit our church.

Rom 15:7 7 So warmly welcome each other into the church, just as Christ has warmly welcomed you; then God will be glorified. TLB

In the Christian Reader magazine, about 5 years ago, a story appeared entitled: Residents of Wauconda, Illinois: They refused to let the plug be pulled on Christmas.

It helps define this key word in Romans 15:7-glorified…

Two water towers have always served as landmarks for travelers heading for their homes near Wauconda, Illinois. But especially at the holidays.

More than 40 years ago, John Kuester, then village police chief, suggested mounting large twin crosses on the towers to luminously mark the season. Adopted by the village, the display of crosses became a tradition. Right after Thanksgiving, when Christmas decorations went up, the crosses also lit the sky from their near-heavenly height.

But (in 1989), Robert Sherman, spokesman for American Atheists, Inc., heard about the crosses. Since Wauconda's crosses were on government property, Sherman saw an alleged violation of church and state. He delivered an ultimatum: remove the crosses from the water towers or meet in court.

Several town hall meetings followed. Resident Joyce Mitchell, a member of Crossroads Community Church, asked God to give her the right words and right spirit before each meeting.

"The Christians in the community were united with the rest of the community--whether they were churchgoers or not--in refusing to let some outsider tell us how to celebrate Christmas."

But the decision was forced by economics. Realizing a similar case had lost in court, the residents of Wauconda opted not to burden themselves with hundreds of thousands of dollars in court costs.

Then a grassroots group of residents had the final say.

"Our business, Wauconda Boat Company, is located across from the village hall," resident Rosemary Buschick explains. "The meeting about the crosses was on a Tuesday night, and when it was over, we knew the crosses would have to come down. Then my husband, Chuck, went to the back room of the shop and constructed a window-sized cross with lights to display the next day. Will Shumaker, whose home appliance store is also on Main Street, also put up a cross. Within weeks, crosses were appearing on houses everywhere--attached to antennas, stuck in yards, beaming from trees, shining in windows. It seemed to just happen."

When Joyce Mitchell drove around the village with her daughters, who were 6 and 9 at the time, she began to cry. "The media portrayed us as losing the fight, but we didn't lose. Two crosses had been replaced with hundreds. God was glorified in the end."

The crosses continue to shine each year. "No one will tell us to take our cross down," says Rosemary Mers of Mers Restaurant, which inherited one of the original tower crosses. "That cross is up there forever."

Now, friends, do you understand what that word glorified means? It means that God wins!

When any person-visitor, regular attender, or member comes to our church and you have the opportunity to come into close enough proximity to say something to him or her, or to meet that person, or to shake their hand during our "greeting time"…, WHAT HAPPENS? Look at that verse again…

Rom 15:7 7 So warmly welcome each other into the church, just as Christ has warmly welcomed you; then God will be glorified.

God wins! And the cynicism and selfishness and loneliness of the world loses. People experience God and His love for them, when they see His love coming out through you.

Gary Harrison, when writing about church growth in a Leadership magazine article a few years ago said this, "No matter how much the church wants to reach out, growth will not happen if the building and the people fail to say "Welcome!" (Gary Harrison in Leadership, Vol. 7, no. 3)

This is the third of the three basics things we should all expect from each other. Warmly welcome those who visit.

III. Conclusion

So there you have it. I will share the responsibility for my church… …by praying for its growth, …by inviting the unchurched to attend, …by warmly welcoming those who visit.

Any person in this room, who calls Palm Springs Baptist Church their home, should be expected to do these three things. -These three things span age groupings. -These three things span abilities and giftedness. -These three things span maturity levels.

So, here's your question, then. Are you willing?

Are you willing to do your part, to help us be the church that is a FORCE for Jesus Christ, and breaks down the walls that Satan has so effectively erected around the lost people of the Coachella valley?

Are you willing to share in the responsibility? 

Amen.