Coopersville CR Church 100^th Anniversary Celebration

Matthew 5: 14-16

Context for this message is the 100^th anniversary of a Christian Reformed Church in Coopersville MI. This was one of three messages celebrating what God had done among this congregation, what he is doing, and what he will do in the future. It was my responsibility to focus on what God is doing in the church.

Matthew 5: 14 “ You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

 When a congregation reaches 100 years of age, it is a good thing to stop and take account of itself. As a congregation, how did we get here? So how do we come to be meeting in this place. In this town, in this year with these people?

 Maybe that last one is the most difficult for us to answer. How did you come to be a part of this group of people? Maybe your family has been here from the start. You might have a hundred years of history here. Others might be here because you married someone who was a part of the congregation and so, here you are. I got here because I was invited to preach here over a decade ago. Since that first occasion, I have had many opportunities to open God’s word with you and lead in worship. That has been a real privilege for me.

 At any rate, there are any number of reasons you might have for how you come to be here. All are good reasons!

So today, in the year of our Lord 2020, we can take a moment in our history to give thanks for what God has done among us over this century. One of the reasons we should do that is to refocus ourselves as a congregation on what is important in our life together. Churches can get stuck in their ways, they can forget that God is always on the move, and he is calling to us to join up with him in his mission to save humanity from ourselves.

One need only take a look at our culture and see that this is not the time to fearfully hide behind some walls. Our world belongs to God, and he is calling us to be a light in this world, where it seems like darkness is encroaching on the church and pressing us in.

But I said that wrong. God is not calling us to be a light, Jesus is announcing to us that we are, actually are, not might be if we get our act together, or could be if we would just shape up, or could be awarded the title as long as we stop our sinning. No, Jesus is simply declaring that today, on this 100th anniversary, the Coopersville Christian Reformed church as a congregation IS the light of the world. The word you in Matthew 5 is a plural, it draws us all together into a single beam of light. That beam  of light is for the world. When I was a kid, there was a little airport about 10 miles away. Every night the searchlight would turn on and a beam of light would penetrate the darkness for miles around. It was a signal that this was the place to land for any small aircraft that had lost its way.

Today, as we think about what God has been doing here for a hundred years, we have to realize that the purpose of this congregation is to be a searchlight to the world where we live. We are the light of the world, so we are that beam of the searchlight as a signal to all who have lost their way, that this is a safe place to land.  

One of the hard questions I have had to try to answer over the years of my ministry was, if this congregation simply disappeared, would anyone in the surrounding community miss this church? Would they notice that the light was gone? This is not about would anyone miss you as a person in your life, but rather, does this congregation light up Coopersville in a way no other light does?

Have you noticed anywhere that a sign is posted that we are experiencing a coin shortage in the US? 500 years ago, Great Britain was experiencing a coin shortage too. Legend has it that Oliver Cromwell, then the person who was leader of Great Britain, sent out his soldiers to see if they could find any gold to be made into coins. They came back and said the only gold they could find was the gold statues of saints in the churches. He ordered them to go out and take those saints out of the churches, and melt them down and get them back in circulation.

I cannot help but think that in many ways God’s people today are cowering in the church buildings, out of circulation, and Jesus is thinking, I’ve got to get those saints out of the churches and back in circulation for the sake of their country.

 Today, hear the Lord say of us, you are the light of the world. Let your light shine before mankind that they can see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven. Let your light shine. So that others can see that you are bringing light into their lives.

Do that so that they will see it, and thank God for this congregation. Today is a day to realize that God has been among his people in this place for a century. Today is the day to realize that we need to be the light Jesus tells us we are. Today is the day to celebrate the goodness of God among us.

I want to pray a prayer over us here this morning that comes out of one of Pauls letters, In Ephesians 3 Paul gave us a prayer we can pray for each other so that we can be what God is declaring  us to be.

 Let’s pray

14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.  And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge— that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

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Ecclesiastes 3  Dancing Backwards

A sermon for the end of a year

The context for this message in its present form is a worship service at the end of a year. At this service, we would usually think back to some big events of the year and how they impacted our lives. This time, I wanted to have us think about how we fit into the rhythm of life as it is seen in Ecclesiastes 3.

You have probably seen at least parts of the Disney movie and Broadway show called The Lion King. First released in 1994, it has become an enduring classic. A year ago it was re-released in 3D and had a massive opening weekend. In the course of the story, we learn that there is a cycle of life that goes on and on. We are born and we die. One generation rises and the former falls.

While it is a so-called animated children’s movie, it has a profound life lesson. There is a song in it that goes like this

From the day we arrive on the planet and blinking,

step into the sun

There’s more to see than can ever be seen

 More to do than can ever be done

There’s far too much to take in here

More to find than can ever be found

 But the sun rolling high

Through the sapphire sky

 Keeps great and small on the endless round

 It’s the Circle of Life

And it moves us all

Through despair and hope

Through faith and love

 Till we find our place

On the path unwinding

In the Circle The Circle of Life

As people have thought about the story line of the lion king, we discover that there are echoes in the story itself of Shakespeare’s stories, and more significantly, of the stories of Joseph and Moses.

We find echoes of the truth that cannot be ignored by anyone who takes the time to think about life. Every time we come to the last time of worship in a year, my mind takes on a reflective posture. It is an evening to stop and think about what has just gone by.

And with Robert Burns ask the question, “should auld lang syne

What have we seen in the year 2012? What should we recall as we remember what this past year has been?

 I think it says a great deal about us when we tally up the score for the year. Was it a good year? A not so good year? A year we are glad is over? A year we wish we could live over again and try to get it right? What have we done with our time in the year 2012?

You and I have both had an exactly equal number of days and minutes to live over the past twelve months, what have we done with them? As soon as I ask that question, I am sure that our minds begin to think back over the year and we ask ourselves, have I been productive?

And that is not a bad question. Because it forces us to ask what it is that we have been using our time for. However, it asks the wrong question of our lives. The question we need to ask is this: have I been in sync with God’s rhythm in my life? That, I think, is a far better question to ponder.

Just like the Lion Kings says, there is a circle of life. In the Bible it would use the term cycle of life. When you watch the wheels on a car go round and round, you see a given spot on the tire rise and fall.

Have I been in sync with that cycle that is God’s plan for life?

The great chapter on time in the Bible is Ecclesiastes 3. It begins by positing a very significant concept. There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.

There follows what can be called a relentless hammering at the idea of time. There is a time for this and a time for that. All of them use a word which in Hebrew means a spot on a calendar.

 When I have an appointment with someone, I write on my calendar a time for that appointment. And I try to stick to that appointed moment on the calendar. I have been known to show up a day early because I got it wrong on my calendar, but normally that doesn’t happen. The idea is that there is a moment on our calendar when it is time for some event.

The teacher of Ecclesiastes tells us that there is an appointment on God’s calendar for everything. There is a time to be born and a time to die, is where he begins. The days of our lives are all numbered by God himself. Now I will hurry on to say that in our current medically saturated culture, we are trying very hard to make sure that the time to die is held off for as long as possible. But God is the one who is in control of all of those two key elements of our lives.

 Each of the following pairs contains what seem to us to be opposites. But what they are saying is that there is a time for everything. And since many of these are under our control, we need to be sure we are in sync with God’s rhythm for our lives.

 The very first pair tells us that the most significant events of our lives – the ones recorded on our tombstones are the time of birth and the time of death— since those are in God’s hands, we do well to keep our proper perspective when the rest of our lives are playing out. Listen again to the rhythm of God.

3 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3 a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

 6 a time to search and a time to give up,

 a time to keep and a time to throw away,

7 a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

 8 a time to love and a time to hate,

 a time for war and a time for peace.

 And then comes this most troubling line in this chapter,

God has made everything beautiful in its time.

 Some years ago, in an effort to prove ourselves cool, my wife and I took ballroom dancing lessons. Week after week, we kept an appointed time for our lesson with a whole group of other clumsy people. What I remember the most about those lessons was how important it was to hear the rhythm of the music and to move in sync with it. The second most important thing was that I was the lead and Janine was the one who had to learn to follow my lead. She had to do everything backing up, while I could dance going forward. I could see where I was taking her, she had to just backup, trusting that I was not leading her into a collision with others.

What that has to do with this evening at the close of a year is this: I do not think God is interested in how productive you have been in 2012.

 I don’t think God would be asking you if you made lots of money in 2012.

I don’t think God would want you to ponder whether you have been as good at your professions as you could have been in 2012.

 No, God is asking us tonight to look back and see how we have done in our dance lesson this past year.

 Let me explain. God wants to know if have we had our ears attuned to his music in the creation or have we been listening to some alien music that has the wrong rhythms and questionable notes.

Further, God want to know if we are practicing to be the bride who dances with the divine bridegroom, Jesus. Why? Because then we will realize that it is not we who lead the Bridegroom, but it is we who follow his lead. He is the one who needs to see where we are going together, we, as followers, simply follow his lead even though we cannot see where we are going.

The most difficult thing for us to learn is to be a follower who cannot see where we are going. As the Apostle Paul puts it, We walk (shall we say dance?) by faith, not by sight.

There is this cycle in life the teacher of Ecclesiastes tells us. God knows where the cycle is going, and he will make everything beautiful in its time. We just need to trust in what God is doing.

 So I ask you, how has your dance lesson been going? Are you learning to follow the lead of your bridegroom? Ponder that as you look back over the year. Because that is really the only thing that will matter in a hundred years from now.

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Sermon for a New Year

Scripture reading is Ephesians 3 14-21  

Context for this message is  the beginning of a new year in 2004. The congregations is made up of people who are searching for the path God is laying out for them as a church. This is intended to give them a vision of God’s encouragement. The idea of being bound for greater things is from a song by Ken Medema “Bound for Greater Things.”  Here is a you tube location of a chpir singing the song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS4qsZDek1w

It’s a new year! The old has gone, and behold the new has come. That’s a line from the Apostle Paul as he speaks of how when a person comes to know Jesus, the old way of living is past and the new way of living for Jesus is future.

I think that the passage of time can be looked at in something of the same way. As we turn over the calendar, we see all that is fresh and waiting to be filled with activity in the new year. What will we do with all that time? Do you know how much time you’ve got in the new year? Every day you have 24 hours. What is very interesting to me is that every one of us has the same amount of time each day.

 I know that there are many of us who say, I just don’t have time for this or for that. But some how it would seem to me that we could make good use of that time to do something for the Lord. Imagine what would happen if you and I would set apart a bit of every day this year for the use of God.

Just think of what would happen if you and I  would pray this prayer every day for all of 2004!

And instead of praying that God may strengthen you, we’d put first of all our own name. I pray that you my God will out of your glorious riches, that you will strengthen me, Bob Zomermaand, with your spirit in my inner being.

And then that we would pray for each other that way. Imagine what God might do in 2004 if we would begin to pray every day for the next person down the line from ours in the church directory. Each day you move on to the next one. Now your church directory becomes much more than just a list of names and addresses, it becomes a list of people you are concerned about.

 And then each day, you would , in some way, let that person know that you are praying for them. That’s all. No big speech or anything. Just a quick message to say, today I prayed the Ephesians prayer for you!

 I know that if I got home each afternoon and saw that my answering machine light was blinking and a different person each day would be saying to me, Bob today I prayed for you. Wow! I would never feel that no one cared. And neither would anyone at all in the whole church.  And you and I would begin to realize that what we are praying for is something that is so profound that Paul had a hard time expressing it.

He wanted us all to have the power to grasp how wide, and how long, and how high, and how deep is the love of Christ. It is so amazing, this love of Christ is, that Paul needs to express it in four dimensions. We normally think in three dimensional terms. Height, length and width. But Paul adds depth to it as well. I think that why he does that is to get us to think in terms of being in the middle of a giant ball.

We are surrounded by the love of Christ. We cannot go in any direction and get away from it. For it is so huge that we have it all around us. So Paul is saying that he desires us to lay hold of that which is not holdable, if that is a word. He wants us to know the unknowable. For how in the world are we, finite as we are, how are we to know what is unknowable? And furthermore, he wants us to contain the uncontainable when he says that he wants us to be filled with all the fullness of God. The universe cannot contain the whole of God, and we are supposed to do that in ourselves?  

Paul is teaching us to pray. He’s teaching us that our prayers are all too often very miserable little prayers. For how many of us have truly longed for God to fill us with all of his fullness? How many of us even would dare to pray that prayer? For to be filled with the fullness of God is to become God’s image bearers here on earth, and that is a very intimidating prospect.

But it is what we are to see as our privilege. God is not only restoring us to what we were created to be, he is pushing us even further to become something greater for him. He wants us to be bound for greater things than we have ever begun to think or imagine. For just think of how Paul is describing our God. He tells us, just think of your greatest dream for the church and for the kingdom of God. God is able to do immeasurablely more than all we ask or imagine!

God is able. God is able. Do you think that is true? Do you believe that is true? Do you have in your heart a dream you would have for this church?

Let’s start to imagine some things. Just imagine that you are standing at the edge of Lake  Michigan. You are standing at the edge of a lake that looks like it will drown you if you are foolish enough to venture into it. And behind you is an army that, when they catch up to you are going to do one of two things, they are going to kill you or take you and your family back to their country as slaves. What are you going to do? You cannot think of any alternatives. It looks like you are destined for a catastrophe in a few days.

Jer 29: 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. And he opens up a way through the lake and you walk through on dry ground. Something you never thought possible.

Or you are now in the wilderness, and you’ve been wandering around for forty years. And you begin to wonder will I ever see that land that God promised? And God says, just wait, you ain’t seen nothing yet! Jer 29: 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  And God opens up the promised land to you and you go in an you lay claim to a land that was not yours, except by the promise of God and you receive something that you could not have even dreamt of in those years in the wilderness. And God says, see, I told you I could do it.

Or you find yourself in a prison and all you have left that you can do is sit there with your feet in the stocks and you can sing for your soul is not confined. And so you sing and God sends and earthquake to set you free because God says, Jer 29: 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

 You and I are so hesitant to pray for the great things of God. The great things God can do and the great things God is able to perform for us. We are so hesitant to pray to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine, and he will do it by means of the   great power that is at work within us.

That is the power of God that is at work within us. The power to create the universe out of nothing. The power to give you and me life itself. The power to make snow flakes in all of their dazzling complexity and  simple beauty. The power to feed five thousand people on a hillside with just a few loaves of bread and two little fish. The power to make the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear and even, yes even to forgive sins, that power is at work in us. Why? So that we may bring glory to God and to his name.

What is your dream for 2004? Maybe it’s something in your own life, maybe it’s a dream for your business, for your family, for our church, for our city. Whatever your dream is, do you dare to pray that God will do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or  imagine? Here’s my dream, that we would begin to pray this prayer for our church. We are at the threshold of a new year, at the threshold of a new segment of God’s time during which God desires to do more than we could ever hope or imagine.

But are we ready to have him do it? It will mean that we have to have God be at work within us. It will be his power that makes us able to do great things for him but we are bound for greater things than we have ever seen in this church. We are at a point where we are truly going to become an intergenerational church that seeks to be servants  to God, to each other , and to our city, especially the lost people of our city. And in ourselves we will say, but I am not able. And God says, fantastic, you’re just the kind of person I want to have. For then you will allow me to be able.

Is your God able? A pastor I know has a prayer corner where he goes to pray each day. And there he has a Bible, a notebook that helps him remember his prayer list, and a little wooden sign he had made for him that says simply, God is able. He says, when I begin to pray, I need to be reminded again that God is able. If I didn’t believe that, then there would be no point in going on.

 I know many of you think that you are not able to do things for God. I’ve heard you say it over and over. But I need to tell you that God is able to use you in your weakness. In fact, God is best able to use you in your inability. For then you will allow him to be the one who works in you both to will and to do according to his good pleasure.

Take Ephesian 3 home with you. And begin to pray and believe that God is able to do far more than we could ever ask or imagine!