The Ultimate Issue

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CrossPointe Community Church
P O Box 126
Chippewa Lake, OH 44215

In a Christianity Today article, Daniel Darling, (By the way, how would you like to have the last name ‘Darling?’ Randy Darling?) anyway Daniel Darling writes:

Like any long relationship, there can be seasons of great enthusiasm and seasons of drought in church life. There will be times when participating in a local body is fun, exciting, and full of energy and hope. There will also be times when church, and all that goes with it will be hard, stressful, annoying, or boring. It is important to remember that even those times can, and often do, bear fruit. I also believe that in some ways the church does—or did—save me. It didn’t save me in the ways you might expect: a spectacular Sunday service, a homerun sermon, or a gripping worship set. God’s primary tool to transform my heart was not the conference speaker or the travelling revivalist or the worship concert. Those events were important, but now I realize that, more often, God changed my life using routine worship services in which I sang hymns I didn’t quite understand and heard messages I didn’t quite grasp. ¹

I’m so glad we don’t have to produce a “gripping music set” or “homerun sermon” in order to accomplish the will of our heavenly Father in a church worship service. We don’t have to be perfect, or even close to it; because Jesus is among us and He’s all we really need, you see. Jesus takes the paltry five loaves and two fish that we have to offer and He multiplies them into a service of worship that can minister to our needs, but more importantly glorifies Him!

We are far from perfectly understanding that which I am about to read; however, what I am about to read WILL have an impact on our souls.

Then as I looked, I saw a door standing open in heaven, and the same voice I had heard before spoke to me like a trumpet blast. The voice said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must happen after this.” And instantly I was in the Spirit, and I saw a throne in heaven and someone sitting on it. The one sitting on the throne was as brilliant as gemstones—like jasper and carnelian. And the glow of an emerald circled His throne like a rainbow. Twenty-four thrones surrounded Him, and twenty-four elders sat on them. They were all clothed in white and had gold crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning and the rumble of thunder. And in front of the throne were seven torches with burning flames. This is the sevenfold Spirit of God. In front of the throne was a shiny sea of glass, sparkling like crystal. In the center and around the throne were four living beings, each covered with eyes, front and back. The first of these living beings was like a lion; the second was like an ox; the third had a human face; and the fourth was like an eagle in flight. Each of these living beings had six wings, and their wings were covered all over with eyes, inside and out. Day after day and night after night they keep on saying,

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty—
the One who always was, who is, and who is still to come.”

Whenever the living beings give glory and honor and thanks to the One sitting on the throne (the one who lives forever and ever), the twenty-four elders fall down and worship the one sitting on the throne (the One who lives forever and ever). And they lay their crowns before the throne and say,

“You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power.
For you created all things, and they exist because You created what You pleased.”
Revelation 4:1-11

SCRIPTURE

Then He (Jesus) said, “When I was with you before, I told you that everything written about Me in the law of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And He said, “Yes, it was written long ago that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise from the dead on the third day. It was also written that this message would be proclaimed in the authority of His name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: ‘There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.’ You are witnesses of all these things.
Luke 24:44-48

This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all. But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of His great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in Him and receive eternal life. All honor and glory to God forever and ever! He is the eternal King, the unseen one who never dies; He alone is God. Amen.
I Timothy 1:15-17

SERMON

The Ultimate Issue

Randy K’Meyer

Only in the church.

One Sunday during announcements the pastor said, “There will be a meeting of the Church Board immediately after the service.” After worship, the Church Board gathered at the back of the sanctuary for the announced meeting. But there was a stranger in their midst; a visitor who had never attended their church before.
“My friend,” said the pastor, “Didn’t you understand that this is a meeting of the Board?”
“Yes,” said the visitor, “and after today’s sermon, I suppose I’m just as bored as anyone else who came to this meeting.”

Only in the church.

A pastor was in the middle of his sermon when he noticed a man had fallen asleep with his head on his wife’s shoulder. “Wake up your husband,” Pastor Riley snapped.
The wife smiled and replied, “You put him to sleep, you wake him up.”

Then there’s the story about two Jews, two Catholics, and two Baptists marooned on a desert island. Years later, their rescuers finally arrive to discover the Jews had their Temple Emmanuel, the Catholics had their Church of St Christopher, and the two Baptists had First Baptist Church and Second Baptist Church.

Only in the church!

On the other hand, Dr. Tony Evans, in his wonderful book, God’s Glorious Church, posits,

Have you ever stopped to think about how truly amazing and unique the church is? Try to name one other organization, institution, company, government or any entity involving human beings that is still committed to carrying out its founder’s purpose and mandate two thousand years after it was formed!” ²

For the past month, we’ve been talking about, if I can borrow Tony’s title, God’s Glorious Church. If you missed any of those sermons or wish to review, you can google Crosspointe.cc and find these messages in writing and on video.

Last Sunday, my main point was that I believe in and love the church of Jesus Christ because it is the one institution in society that provides the perspective to convey that dignity to all human beings.

From that statement follows today’s premise: I believe in and love the church for it is the only institution on God’s good earth dealing with the ULTIMATE issue for all humankind.

We could discuss dozens of various societal issues and crises that need solving. Beyond the ongoing war in Ukraine, there are 7 civil wars currently being waged. Several humanitarian organizations are warning that 2023 is going to herald a global food crisis. Here in our own country, there is an ongoing immigration crisis and closely related drug crisis. Violent crime and gun violence are on the rise. Many economists are warning of a looming recession. And the culture wars are escalating at an ever-increasing rate causing our country to become more and more divided as the voices on either side become louder and louder. And we could go on and on.

But I am here to remind us that if every woe on this wayward planet gets solved, you and I and every other person on this planet are going to find ourselves at some point in the future standing in eternity before a Holy God.

Speaking for myself, it doesn’t matter if I join the Rec Center and/or go on a diet of broccoli and blueberries, within the next 15 or 20 years or so, when someone says to me, “Nice to see you,” I won’t be able to reply, “Nice to be seen” because I will have gone toes up, six feet under, if you will.

However; we don’t like to talk about such things.

Some of you may be familiar with the classic novel Water Ship Down, written by Richard Adams back in 1972. Water Ship Down is dealing with the ultimate issue for human beings, but because we live in a society that doesn’t want to talk about these things, Adams speaks about it through a society of rabbits. A group of rabbits are living in a warren and one day the ground begins to shake. One of the rabbits says, “There is danger afoot, something awful is going happen.” (A bulldozer is going to destroy their home to make way for a high-rise apartment). And he takes on a prophetic role and tells the rabbits that they are going to have to leave their home and follow him to a place called Water Ship Down; sort of a rabbit promised land. And it isn’t very long before we begin to realize that we have sort of a fuzzy Moses on our hands. And he is successful in wooing a group of fellow rabbits to follow him to find their new home.

In their exodus as they come across another group of rabbits, but they are a great deal different than they are. They have longer hair, they are fatter, and they very contented. In fact the just sit around, chew their cud and hum quiet little songs. Our rabbits move in with these rabbits and begin to learn a new way of living. They ask these contented rabbits, “What do you eat? Do you dig for roots?”
“No, we don’t bother with that; we just walk over to the edge of our rabbit hole where one day we discovered these crockery jars filled with pellets. So now, we just that we eat these pellets and we get fatter, our hair grows longer and we just hum quietly.”

Our new group of rabbits find this to be a very exciting idea; who in the heck wants to dig for roots if you don’t have to? So our little furry buddies start to eat the pellets and grow fatter and longer hair. One day our little Moses rabbit discovers that one of the biggest and fattest rabbits, Old Fuzzy, has disappeared. He goes around and asks the other rabbits what happened to Old Fuzzy? But nobody wants to talk about Old Fuzzy; Old Fuzzy is just gone.

So he wanders around and eventually finds a snare and he becomes sick at his stomach as he realizes that Old Fuzzy has been caught by this snare and is by now in the farmer’s pot. So he tries to go around and talk to the other rabbits about this problem. They, however, when faced and confronted by him say, “We don’t talk about these things; we just eat our pellets and grow fatter.” ³

Now, by and large, we live in a society that also doesn’t want to discuss such things; we just want to eat our pellets, and, as much as possible, live a life a life of ease.

That’s precisely why I believe in and love the church of Jesus Christ, our Lord because it stands in the midst of such an animal-like society and speaks out about the real issue we all face.

You and I are either creations of God or we are not. You and I are either complex neuro-physical beings moving without rhyme or reason throughout time and space, who came from nowhere and are going nowhere, or else we are unique creations of the holy God.

If we are simply cosmic accidents, if we just happened to have evolved from some primordial soup and this whole thing is some kind of great cosmic practical joke, the worse thing about that joke is that someday there is not going to be anybody around to even laugh at it. Or as Solomon quipped: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2).

If that is true then you and I have a deep problem that we cannot solve with all the oratory in the world. All the pellets in the world is not going to change that fact! No 5 bedroom, 3 bath house is going to change that! A new hot tub, Tesla or yacht in the harbor is certainly not going to change the fact that you and I are going to die.

But if on the other hand, this is our Father’s world and if Jesus Christ is the Son of God came into this world for the express purpose of dying on a cross so that people like you and I can face that which awaits us all without fear because our faith in Christ has prepared us to stand before our Holy God; if all of that is true, then some institution on the face of the planet must stand up and boldly declare this truth!

“This is a trustworthy saying,” Paul declares, “and everyone should accept it: ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’” (I Timothy 1:15).

In, God’s Glorious Church, Dr. Tony Evans comments on that verse:

The Word of God tells us that there is only one way to reach God, and that is through Jesus Christ. This basic truth has become a flash point of controversy because everyone is bending over backward to show that we are all just one big family and that Christians and Muslims and Hindus, etc. worship the same God. No way! It doesn’t matter if the world thinks the gospel is narrow or intolerant. But neither Buddha, Mohammad, nor any other religious figure can bridge the gap between sinful people and a holy God. That chasm from hell to heaven was bridged by Jesus, and only by Jesus, on the cross.” ⁴

And Jesus said that His Church is going to be His intended instrument to proclaim that truth and that He would stand behind it and empower it to do just that. And He Himself is going to build His Church one life at a time through His Church, and consequently through people like you and I who have the honor and privilege to point people to Him!

Now before I close, I want to stop and give you a chance to think about what I have just declared to you. Because it will not do Jesus and His Kingdom any good if what I just said to you goes in one ear and out the other, now will it?
So I’d like for you to think about how you can take this truth and do something with it. Or if you have questions, ask them. Or if you’d like some advice on how you can apply this teaching, I’d be happy to give it.

So as we close, let me say again that we are here today to celebrate the fact that we are part of the church of Jesus Christ, a church that has far-reaching impact all over the globe. It’s a church that He put into existence and to which He said, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel.” And that simple commission has been augmented and amplified over the centuries in the most glorious of terms, until when you say to somebody that you are part of the church of Jesus Christ, you are identifying with the single most important entity on the face of God’s good earth!

One of my favorite movies is The Right Stuff.

It tells the story of the pioneers of the American Space Program and how on February 20, 1962, the eyes of the world were focused on a single person: John Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit the earth. One of the highlights of his flight for me occurred in the darkness over Perth, Australia.

Someone in that community wondered if astronaut John Glenn would be able to see the lights of Perth from 120 miles up. The idea spread and it kind of became a mission and city officials encouraged everyone to turn on their lights in their homes, schools, public buildings, factories, even car headlights to see if Glenn could see them from so far off. They were successful in getting word to NASA that the lights of Perth would be on.

And as Glenn looked down from 120 miles above the earth, moving at 17,350 mph, he was able to readily see the lights of Perth shining through the darkness. And John Glenn radioed to Capcom and fellow astronaut, Gordo Cooper, and said, “The lights show up very well and thank everybody for turning them on.” Later John Glenn dubbed the city of Perth as “the city of lights.” ⁵

I pray to God that CrossPointe Community Church will be known as, if not a city, a village of lights. A community of people who will do whatever they can to shine the light of Christ for Jesus said,

You are the light of the world; like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.
Matthew 5:14-16

1 Daniel Darling, Boring Church Services Changed My Life,
Christianity Today, February 15, 2017
https://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/2017/february-web-exclusives/boring-church-services-changed-my-life.html).

5 Remembering John Glenn and the City of Lights,
Staff reporters and AAPThe West Australian
Thu, 8 December 2016 8:30PM
https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/remembering-john-glenn-and-the-city-of-lights-ng-ya-125345