Calvary United Methodist Church

May 3, 2015

JUST DO IT

Rev. R. Jeffrey Fisher

Children’s Sermon: John 15:9-12

Of all of God’s children, I invite our littlest ones to come forward this

morning for the Children’s Message, if the children will come forward.

Welcome! Did you all have a good week? Pretty nice week? It’s

warming up. A chance to get outside and play some. Did you go out-

side? It’s been very nice outside.

Well, I welcome you this morning. I want to talk a little bit about that

word we talk about a lot here in the church…about love. It is a very

important word and sometimes it’s not always as easy as we like to

spread love because we have all of our own interests. But this mes-

sage is again telling us that God showed us how to love through Jesus

as he walked along and taught us how to be nice to our brothers and

sisters, to our mothers and fathers, our family and friends. So I invite

you to hear these words:

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Now remain in my

love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I

have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told

you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be com-

plete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

Do you have commands in your house? Do moms and dads ever say

something to you that if you listen, what? Are they happy when you

listen? Pretty happy, aren’t they? Like doing chores around the

house, helping with things we have to help with, being nice to people

when they come into the house, all those nice things. When we see

this symbol…what is the symbol that they are showing in this photo?

Anyone know what that is? That’s a heart. Why do we use a heart?

That’s something inside of us that keeps ticking, but why is that used?

To show love.

There are so many symbols of love around. In the animal kingdom,

these are two swans, and they make that heart too. We have a very

special time of the year around Valentine’s Day that we have these

hearts. And in this photo you’ll see someone holding on to this big

heart.

Is love something we just hold for ourselves? No, we are supposed to

share it with other people. There are times when it feels good. When I

see my mother, because I don’t see her that often, I love to hold her,

just like that, and I don’t want to let her go sometimes because I love

her. And there are times when we are sad and we are unhappy and

we’re going through difficult times. We want to be hugged because…

does it make you feel good when you are having a bad day and Mom

or Dad or a friend or someone helps and holds you a little bit? Does

that make you happy? It doesn’t work for everybody, but some people

like hugs. But whatever it is, we have to find a way that we can share

God’s love.

When we read stories about Jesus Christ, we often hear of him having

a lot of fun. He loved children. He liked to play. He loved strangers

and there are a lot of examples in what he did that tell us that no matter

who we are with, we really can have fun. And talking about some of

the things he did, it was about diversity. Anyone know what diversity

is? It can be among people, the diversity. There are all kinds of peo-

ple, there are tall and short and there are people from different races

and different creeds, and it is important that we learn that just being

different doesn’t mean it’s bad, it’s simply different. We can all be

very different and still love one another, still care for one another.

I want to make this a very concrete example of diversity. How many

of you like cheese pizza?

But if we went to a pizza buffet, there is a lot of diversity. Have you

ever gone to a pizza buffet? I have seen some people in this church at

pizza buffets, but I won’t mention their names. There are all kinds of

pizza. Do you like all kinds of stuff on your pizza? You do? Do you

like pineapple on your pizza? Corn on your pizza? Bugs on your piz-

za? Some people like all kinds of things. They might put seafood on

their pizza. I saw this one photo on the pizza book…does that look

good to you? I don’t even know what it is but just because it is there, I

think it said it is some kind of a special caterpillar that people like.

Now, it doesn’t mean it is wrong. We’ve never tried it. It might be de-

licious. And sometimes people like exotic things like scorpions on

their pizza and I’m not ready for that.

But my point is there are all kinds of different things. Just like people.

We are all different and things aren’t right and wrong, they are differ-

ent and some of them you’ve just never tried. And sometimes when

we go to school and go to other places we will meet all kinds of differ-

ent people and some of them you’ll say “Boy, they are different than

me. My family doesn’t do things that way or this way.” Or they play

different games, they speak different languages and in all of those

things, it doesn’t mean that it is bad; it means that it is different.

When we talk about love and the things that God wants us to do, there

are many things that happen in the world where people really need our

love. If you have watched the news, have you ever heard of things

called tornados and hurricanes? Well, some of you are pretty young

and I hope you don’t see all those things, but it’s big windstorms and

sometimes wind knocks over things. If you were flying a kite you

could just make it go away it’s too much. And sometimes wind blows

over things. Well, these kinds of storms are really powerful and some-

time people lose their homes, just like there would be a fire or earth-

quake or those things you might hear people talking about and there

are times that we need to help one another.

It is not always about hugs, but it is about caring for one another and

God says when we love one another, we care for one another. When

people have babies, are they happy about that usually? Most times, I

think. And sometimes babies are adopted. It is people who make a

choice, they want a child and so they go find a child somewhere that

they are able to love and to raise with all the love they have. It is a

great chance to celebrate and show love in new ways.

Sometimes when people get together it is graduation time. In the next

month around here, there will be people graduating probably from pre-

school and kindergartens and elementary and middle schools and high

schools and colleges and technical schools and military…all kinds of

graduations and if there is anyone here getting ready to graduate, it is a

great feeling, isn’t it? We have parties because we are excited about

what’s out there and so we embrace them, we love them, we congratu-

late them. It is a way of sharing.

Even the animal kingdom shows its love to one another. Sometimes

things that aren’t supposed to get along like cats and dogs get along

real well; sometimes they even embrace one another. Sometimes

somebody needs help and this horse helped this goat to get up there to

get those leaves. It is amazing what we can do. And sometimes, even

if we want to play with the same stick or toy, we can learn to get along

together. Sometimes animals that normally aren’t friends become

friends because they are able to share love.

God is talking to us always through His word to tell us that we should

love with our arms open wide no matter who comes our way, we

should try to learn about them. And love can be an exciting thing.

When I meet a new friend, it’s not kind of a passionate love, but it’s a

friendship and it means that I am so excited to meet a new friend, to

learn more things about more people. And someone that might that

might share with me some things that I have never known before.

There are all kinds of neat reading I like to get now a days and one of

them talks here about “Be the reason that someone smiles today.”

When you get up, and I bet when you see your friends and your family,

when some of them see you, they get very happy. I bet that. And I bet

they smile all day long because you made them so happy. Some of

these other things tell us that we should be someone who makes every-

body feel like a somebody. It is important that we respect even people

we don’t understand, even people we don’t know, even people that are

different from us, that we can give them sort of a good feeling that

they have met us.

Love is not something that we hold on. God says love is something

that we share with others because when we come here to the church we

often call this the church, but it is actually a church building. The

church is all of us. We are the people of God, we are the body and we

are called to go outside of here and show God’s love. Actually we are

to get on fire for God.

So, I hope when you go from here today that you will show God’s love

to strangers and to friends and to family members that will let other

people know that you love God.

Thank you for coming up today. Have a great week!

Message: Acts 8:30-39

Has anyone ever told you, when you are about to back off of some-

thing, to just do it? Did you ever walk up on a high dive…I did it a

few times when I was younger. Then when I got a little older I walked

out, looked down and I thought…no way! Everyone says “Just do it.”

The message today is a story, actually, about a gentleman in the Bible

named Philip, a follower of Jesus Christ. He was taking a journey one

day and he meets an Ethiopian eunuch and he sees this man along the

road and he’s reading God’s Word and he hears him talking about a

prophet and he’s wondering to himself, “I wonder if this man really

understands what he’s reading?” Now, there’s a great chance that a lot

of us today, being shy as we are, in terms of faith, would see someone

reading or talking about the prophets and we might not say anything

and yet he did what he had to do, the just went over and talked and

said “You really understand what you are reading here” and the eunuch

said “No, how am I to understand if no one explains it to me.” And

this story is a very interesting story because there are a lot of people in

the world today, many in our own families and communities, who

might have heard us talking about faith, heard us talking about Jesus

Christ, maybe heard us reading scriptures, but they have never had an-

yone explain to them why we do it. What’s important? What does Je-

sus do for our life? What is the difference in our life because of God?

I would like you to hear this story today and consider what it is that

God is calling us to, to be faithful in this year of our life: “Do you un-

derstand what you are reading?” Philip asked. “How can I,” he said,

“unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come and

sit with him. This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:

“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before its

shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation, he

was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his

life was taken from the earth.” The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me,

please, who is this prophet talking about, himself or someone else?”

Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him

about the good news about Jesus Christ. As they traveled along the

road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is wa-

ter. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” He gave orders

to stop the chariot. Both Philip and the eunuch went down into the

water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water,

the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did

not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.

The power of God in this day and age. Thanks be to God for His

word.

There are things in our life when some people ask us jump off the high

dive…stop right there, right? Get on that horse…stop right there! Go

play with those snakes…stop right there, right? In this day and age go

pray for someone, for many people even in the churches…”stop right

there! I can’t pray.” Go share the Word of God, be evangelist of some

kind…stop right there, I can’t do it. And I wonder to myself, at what

point do we depend on only people hearing of God when they come to

a church? If we are all quiet and we want the world around us to

change, to find God’s peace, to become members of the family of God,

who will they ever know if we all say “I can’t do that!”?

Unlike Philip, who was not ordained, who was not college educated to

our knowledge, who didn’t have any specific skills other than he had

met God himself through Christ and realized that this was a message

he wanted to share.

I’m assuming if you are in this house this morning you’ve met God.

Some of you have been in this house for a lifetime. That means we

have some knowledge about God. We never have all the knowledge

and we never are all secure and, no, we aren’t all called to preach. But

all of us are called to share our faith in one way or another. Typically

when a pastor asks someone, well, actually when I started ministry

thirty years ago it was quiet different especially in a rural parish, I

would just say “Sister so-and-so, would you lead us in prayer.” If I did

that today, this is what it would look like, right? Ahhhh…you want me

to do what in front of this crowd of people? For those of you who

don’t recognize these folks, you might remember that kind of look.

I was reading a sermon of Rev. Melvin Newland, I’ve read his works

for years and talked to him and chatted with him. I just really like his

writings that he does in his books. And in it he was sharing that one

day he was sitting in an airport and like a lot of folks, you take ad-

vantage of meeting someone new. And they started talking and he

shared that he was a pastor and she shared that she had been a person

of faith and that she had been in a church and when he was talking to

her about her relationship with God and being a Christian, she said

“You know, I have been in a church from the time I was an infant to

this time,” and I think he said she was in her fifties. “And I really

don’t know that anyone ever told me about Jesus Christ.” She had

never made a decision to have Christ as her Savior. And I thought

that’s sort of weird. And then I thought to myself, what would keep

her from doing that, why would you go to church, and then I remem-

bered that we go to church for a lot of different reasons. Bingo, well

maybe not just for bingo, but we could go to church to fellowship with

people. We can go to church because we like the youth program, be-

cause we like some other program that the church is doing, maybe for

those who are grieving or those who are going through divorce. Per-

haps we just have gone there forever because our family did. But go-

ing to church, being in church doesn’t make us necessarily someone

who’s committed to Jesus Christ and I thought there is some point in

our life we have to just do it! We have to break out of our own shell

and become the people who can witness to others around us, who are

looking for more than just coming and going. They want a relation-

ship with Jesus Christ.

And I’m of that story you’ve probably always heard that just because

you stand in a garage doesn’t make you a car, right?

And some years ago I was privileged to pay to work a year at Hershey

Medical Center as a chaplain and I was privileged to walk in and Dr.

Pierson allowed me to scrub up and watch open heart surgery. Anyone

here want me to operate this afternoon? No, I don’t think so! Just be-

cause I was in a surgery room doesn’t make me qualified. Just because

you are at this church or any church doesn’t mean that you are neces-

sarily in a tight relationship with God or Jesus Christ. My question is

at what point will we decide that we want that relationship? At some

point, if I was that woman, I would say, “Well, why would you contin-

ue to go there without questioning what more is there?” But there are

times we spend a lifetime. I have been in many churches where we

celebrate the members of the church. “We’re 50 year members!”

When I recalled this story as I read it this week, I remember a man tell-

ing me in Red Lion when he was about 88, he says “I’ve been in

church all of my life since I was a baby and I don’t know that I ever

met Jesus Christ” until Rev. Stokes and I were there preaching. And I

thought “That’s sort of odd.” And I’m not puffing us up. It’s about an

invitation.

This isn’t about holy-rolling and people coming to an altar and falling

down and crying out. That’s not who I am and that’s not who Calvary

has been, I don’t believe. But it’s about knowing a peace that passes

all understanding, that you know, that you have a relationship with

God through Jesus Christ. It is about knowing that you can have that

personal decision. It is about a reminder that we are sinners, that we

can’t save ourself, that we do need a God who is bigger than us. We

need one who can lead us into a path of salvation, one who can offer

us new life, one who can offer us peace that will change the world.

When I think of what it is that we are as Christians, a lot of people

think that, well, going to church will make me a Christian. Serving

God will make me a Christian. Being faithful with my gifts will make

me a Christian. But it’s really none of that. The hardest problem for

people coming into the Church of Jesus Christ and those who have

been there forever is realizing that it’s this…it’s a gift. It’s a gift!

There is nothing that any of us can do to earn God’s love. It is a gift.

God says “If you love me, I love you. If you’ve confessed me as your

Savior, I am yours, you are mine.” That’s all! Now out of faithfulness

we do give, we do serve, we do fellowship, we do worship, we do all

of those things. But it is not the works that save us. When Jesus

Christ came and was baptized by John the Baptist, he came up out of

the water and the clouds opened and the doves descended. It was re-

minded that even this Savior was coming to new life.

Some of us were baptized as youth; some of you were probably bap-

tized as infants. That whole process of baptism is a reminder of get-

ting washed up. In our faith, where we are today, we baptize infants.

We baptize them because it is the parents saying: I have found God

meaningful in my life. I make a pledge that I will train up my children

in that way that by the time they are of an age to make some decisions

on their own, I think they will love God because, if you ask a child of

12 or 13 that’s been in church all their life, well, of course I want to be

a Christian. This is all I’ve known, I love it. That’s where I find my

peace.

And so when they come in here in a few weeks, this was a flashback, I

couldn’t find last year’s photo, I think this is like 2005 confirmation

class at Calvary, you might recognize a few folks in there, and you say

“I today will take on the pledge for myself that my mother and father

or parent or whoever it was made for me when I was a child. I choose

this day to follow God, to commit myself to Jesus Christ.” And there

are reasons we do this. It is that we might be planted, that we might

see what it is like to be a part of the kingdom; that we might know the

power that we have to go into the world to change the world, to make a

difference with what God has done with our life. And if you don’t

think we need that, read the news. Listen to the news. Listen to your

family. Look at our own lives. We are sometimes sinking.

Did you ever have those moments when you think you are sinking?

Oh, heavens, yes! All of my life I’ve had those, sometimes stretches

of wonderful years and then something happens that you feel broken:

someone that you love passes; someone that you love moves out of the

area; you have a loss of some kind or another. Or sometimes it’s

something good that happens in our life and our ship is changing so

much and we just need someone to save us.

It’s so important to be able to receive a life preserver, but it is also im-

portant that we know how to send out a life preserver to bring salva-

tion to other people. I think there are many days that we feel we’ve

been here but we don’t have much to share with other people to save

them. And you do. You have a lifetime of your own experiences of

what it has been like to live with God, what it’s been like to live

through the disappointments, the celebrations, the illnesses, the losses,

the difficult times we’ve had, and it is to those things people will come

to you because many people who come to church and many people

outside the church who look at us have questions. Why would you fol-

low God? You’ve gone through so many losses, you’ve had so many

trials, what’s in it for you? What’s in it for me? Is that the only reason

I’m here? I hope that’s not why we come to church, for what’s in it for

me. I hope it’s because I want to be obedient to the God who’s given

me such a wonderful life. I have so much to be thankful for. I have so

much to give thanks to God all the time.

But there are indeed people who are crying out for help and we the

church, I think in the last forty or fifty years, have moved so far away

of what it means to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I remember my

younger days as a Christian going with…some of my family were

Mennonite, some were Amish, some were River Brethren…and I re-

member shouting and screaming and coming to the pews and crying

and I was a nervous frightened wreck. That’s not who I am. I am not

that kind of a person who enjoys that kind of fellowship. But there are

folks just have those kinds of needs, but they might not need all that

kind of experience. There are people saying I have gone through so

much and especially in this day and age where we move around and

we don’t have any family or friends near us, I want someone to give

me something to stand on.

I love the old hymns because they were my anchor. I’m standing on a

solid what? Rock! I will not be moved! I have a fortress! And so

they are crying out for someone to say, lead me somewhere where I

know I can make it to tomorrow and then the next day and I know I

will find my pathway to peace.

For me, as much as I believe in personal salvation, I’m not a preacher

who wants to just get people to be saved and that’s it. I want us to

have a personal relationship with God, that gives me a peace that pass-

es all understanding, one that I know even though I go through the tri-

als and the valleys of the shadows of death that I am not alone, that

God is with me. And that’s what I see as our calling, to offer that

peace of Christ to other people who are looking, not just for some

quick fix, but for a long term relationship with the God who is our cre-

ator who promises to be with us always.

And we have some commands from God that will enable us to do this.

We have this Word of God in Mark: Go into all the world, preach the

Good News to all creation.

Why? Because there are people who are lost! Have you ever been

lost? It’s frightening. It’s frightening. I remember even in adulthood

getting in a car and driving into New York City. I’ve driven into a few

other larger cities and there are times you have mini-panic attacks:

What’s the worst thing that can happen here? I have to stop and ask

someone. It is not really like I am in a whole new world. I am still on

American soil. Now, that might sound goofy to you but there are times

we feel that lost in life, not just about driving, but someone has just

been taken from us, our relationships have changed, the job, whatever

it is. We feel lost! We feel like we are sinking. And we’re hoping that

someone would have a preserver to save us and God is saying “You,

members of Calvary, friends of Calvary, family, whoever you are here

today, are the very life preserver for someone who needs hope.” You

are the one who has your personal story of faith to share with others,

that you will overcome.

So when this eunuch was long the road and when Philip saw him along

the road, he didn’t just pass him by and say, “Whoa, I know that man

needs someone but I’m going to keep on rolling. I’m not going to

pray, I’m not going to read, I’m not going to share.” Not just because

he had fears, but because he knew that God had called him to some-

thing greater.

God calls us. He says to those who will seek first the kingdom of God

and one of the struggles today is that this world we live in, especially

in America, is so wonderful, that we don’t seek God first. If you don’t

seek God in His word by reading the Bible or seek God in prayer or

seek God in relationship, how can you be known as one who has a

faith to share? If you’ve never practiced knitting, I don’t imagine

someone is going to ask you to come and teach them how to knit, or

cook, or whatever it might be. If faith is really what we are about in

this journey, most of us aren’t going to make it much more than 110,

right? That’s a pretty short journey if you look at all eternity.

If we are going to do what God calls us to seek His kingdom first, then

we must really do it. That’s a command. It’s not just “Ah, if you like,

it would be nice if you’d follow me.” It’s a command from Almighty

God.

Some of the reasons people seek God are like this woman who felt

judged by everyone around her, condemned by everyone around her

and there is no one in this room who hasn’t felt that: that somehow we

don’t measure up. It’s not all paranoia. There are people who don’t

like us for various reasons and God’s crying out to say “You must go

out. You must go forth,” And when you see someone like that woman

who got up from the well that day and ran and told everybody about

Jesus Christ, that’s what it’s like to be baptized and made new.

This man comes up for water and he has a victory sign. How wonder-

ful it is to be washed up, cleaned up, to be made new again because

this water, which is only water, is a symbol of what God does. Water

refreshes, it cleanses, it brings life, it brings joy, it brings renewal.

When we were baptized, it’s God saying “You’re mine! I’ve cleaned

you up and I’m going to forever be with you. I’m going to be the one

who sends comfort to you.”

And we need to know that we don’t have to be some ordained or in-

structed or highly educated person to share our faith. Philip was an av-

erage person who because he had met God, because he experienced all

those things, was willing to share. He was willing to go out, he was

willing to give a hand to someone who was looking for life and he

wanted to give him life and give it to him abundantly.

Why do I want people to have God? Because I believe when we hear

these words: “May the God of Peace equip you with all good work

that you may do His will.” All these words, for God doesn’t call the

qualified, He qualifies the called. God will equip us that we might

serve.

We could go all through the Bible to folks like Moses and others who

all had excuses of what they couldn’t serve and God said “Don’t you

worry, I will make a way. I will make things.”

He calls us to be fishers of people that we might bring others to a rela-

tionship with Jesus Christ.

He says again in Matthew 28: Jesus came to them and said, “All au-

thority in heaven and earth has been given unto me. Therefore, go and

make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father

and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey every-

thing I have commanded you.”

And he tells us, “If you love me, you obey what I command.”

In just several weeks you are going to see the confirmation of our stu-

dents. It is a small class this year. On that day of Pentecost long ago,

over 3000 people on one afternoon decided they wanted to follow God

because they wanted that peace. That’s what I would love more than

ever, that this congregation would go out and tell others and I don’t

care if they come to Calvary. I just want the world to become a place

of peace, a place where we can find God, a place where we would see

someone sinking and that we would offer them a preserver, that we

could be like the people that if someone gets off of their buggy, or

someone gets out of the car, or someone is walking along the street and

saying, “Would you talk to me about God? Would you offer me bap-

tism? Would you help me clean up?” that we would be as excited as

the crowds of people that still gather along the Jordan when they are

baptized, or walk into that water remembering that baptism of Jesus

Christ.

“If you love me, you will obey what I command.” We have a privi-

lege. We have been loved. We have been loved exceedingly by God

and God invites us to share that love with our neighbors and I pray we

will take that into the world in which we live.

Let us pray:

Almighty and Everlasting God, we thank you for the love you gave us

through Jesus Christ. Lord, we all experience your love in different

ways and you call us to share it in different ways. Not all of us are

called to be public speakers, but, Dear Lord; I do believe you call us to

share our faith. Help each one of us to find how that would work for

us. Find and seek people who would love to hear about you, not con-

demning and not in any kind of self-righteousness, but just sharing

your love. Surround us with your Holy Spirit, comfort us, equip us

and empower us to do what you ask us to do. We ask in Jesus’ name.

Amen.

It is our privilege to return to our Gracious God our tithes and our

gifts. The ushers will wait upon you at this time.