If you would like to send your offering through the mail, our mailing address is:
CrossPointe Community Church
P O Box 126
Chippewa Lake, OH 44215
SCRIPTURE
One day Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock far into the wilderness and came to Sinai, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up. “This is amazing,” Moses said to himself. “Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go see it.”
When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
“Here I am!” Moses replied.
“Do not come any closer,” the Lord warned. “Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground. I am the God of your father; the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
When Moses heard this, he covered his face because he was afraid to look at God. Then the Lord told him, “I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey—the land where the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites now live. Look! The cry of the people of Israel has reached Me, and I have seen how harshly the Egyptians abuse them. Now go, for I am sending you to Pharaoh. You must lead my people Israel out of Egypt.”But Moses protested to God, “Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am I to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt?”
Exodus 3:1-15
God answered, “I will be with you. And this is your sign that I am the one who has sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God at this very mountain.”
But Moses protested, “If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what should I tell them?”
God replied to Moses, “I am who I am. Say this to the people of Israel: I am has sent me to you.” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: Yahweh, the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you. This is my eternal name, my name to remember for all generations.
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us. Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.
In His grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.
Romans 12:1-8
SERMON
Who Am I to Go?
Randy K’Meyer
There was a very well-to-do rancher who lived in Texas, and besides cattle had a collection of a dozen or so alligators he kept in a large pool in his backyard. One day, this rancher hosted a huge dinner party. After dinner, he announced to his guests that he would offer a special blessing to anyone who was willing to swim from one side of that alligator-infested pool to the other. He said, “I will bless that person with either a million dollars, or a thousand acres of my land or my only daughter’s hand in marriage.”
He no sooner got those words out of his mouth than everyone heard a splash and turned to see a 30-year-old man swimming across that pool for all his worth. The crowd of people started to cheer him on, and other than a few bite marks he emerged from the other end of the pool, somewhat bloodied, but alive. The rancher said, “That was fantastic and since I am a man of my word, would rather be blessed with a million dollars, or a thousand acres of my land, or my daughter’s hand in marriage?”
After the man caught his breath, he said, “I don’t want your money, I don’t want the blessing of your land, I don’t even want your daughter; I just want the man who pushed me in!”
Today, although I am speaking about being blessed, I am not going to push you into it for God doesn’t work that way. He offers and gives us the opportunity to choose whether or not to receive it. And in today’s case, God offers us, as He did Moses, the opportunity to respond to the call to ministry in His name.
When Moses drew near to God, God said to Moses, “The cry of the people of Israel has reached Me, and I have seen how harshly the Egyptians abuse them. Now go, for I am sending you to Pharaoh. You must lead my people Israel out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:9-10).
Wow, what a blessing. God was actually offering Moses the opportunity to accomplish a great task on behalf of God and His Kingdom!
And how does Moses respond? Verse 11, “But Moses protested to God, “Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am I to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11). Two verses later, “But Moses protested, ‘If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what should I tell them?’” (Exodus 3:13). This line of protesting continues over into chapter 4: “But Moses protested again, “What if they won’t believe me or listen to me? What if they say, ‘The Lord never appeared to you’?” (Exodus 4:1) And again in Exodus 4:10, “But Moses pleaded with the Lord, “O Lord, I’m not very good with words. I never have been, and I’m not now, even though you have spoken to me. I get tongue-tied, and my words get tangled.” And one more time, “But Moses again pleaded, “Lord, please! Send anyone else.” (Exodus 4:13).
Now most of us are aware that after God assures Moses that He will have his back, Moses accepts his God-given role and leads the Israelites to freedom.
One New Testament counterpart to Moses was Peter, who I am sure was as reticent as Moses to go in Jesus’ name after he denied three times that he even knew Him. ‘Who am I to go . . . and proclaim anything on behalf of Jesus?’ But after some cajoling from Jesus in John 20 on the day of Pentecost Peter made a decision to heed God’s call to ‘Go,’ with the result that 3,000 souls were born anew.
These Biblical characters heard and after some encouragement from God responded to God’s call to go and witness and serve in ways unique to their gifts and abilities and to the perceived needs that surrounded them. Accepting the call, each shared the good news of God’s love, with the result that the kingdom of God was nurtured.
Would you believe it if I told you that Moses and Peter have nothing over us?
All Christians are called to the ministry of servanthood in the world. In His Great Commission to the entire Church, Jesus said,
I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
Matthew 28:18-20
Paul, speaking of our call to the ministry of reconciliation states in II Corinthians:
All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors.
2 Cor 5:18-20
Because of these and other passages, our own founding document containing our beliefs and values states:
We believe that all Christians are called by God to be involved in some sort of ministry that is suitable to them. We believe that the Holy Spirit has gifted each Christian with one or more spiritual gifts (teaching, serving, leadership, preaching, etc.) that indicate where and how a person should minister.
I Corinthians 12:4-7, Ephesians 4:11-12, I Peter 4:9
All Christians are called to the ministry of servanthood in the world; most importantly, for the glory of God but also for human fulfillment.
Our call is the way God wants us to use our lives to serve Christ’s purpose. Our call can be found in the place where three streams intersect: 1. our God-given gifts and/or abilities, 2. the activities that give us a wonderful sense of fulfillment, 3. and the needs that match up with 1 and 2.
Of course all of this is easier said than done. Many, like Moses, are inclined to say, “Who am I to go?” We too wrestle with doubts, fears, and insecurities as to our abilities. Many feel unworthy to get involved in any sort of ministry. Some are too preoccupied with our own needs to be aware of others. And others are just too darn busy to take on one more thing.
But make no mistake about it; we are called to ministry by Christ Himself. While we are here, He says, “Come to Me, all you who are weak and heavy-laden, and receive the free gift of life given to those who have faith that only I can save. And so we hear the old, old story, and at some point, grace upon amazing grace, we respond with a life giving commitment of faith.
But no sooner do we come to Christ than we begin to understand (if we are taught the truth) that He is saying, “Go!”
Who are we to go? We are not only called . . . but also gifted. Each one of us has been given at least one and often more than one spiritual gift to be used in serving others in some way as Paul writes in Romans. And not only there, Corinthians, Ephesians, and I Peter all attest to the same idea.
Who are we to go? We are God’s people; called and equipped by the same God who called Moses, who was a murderer and Peter who denied knowing His Master and placed them and us in a world that is in desperate need of God’s love.
To respond faithfully to God’s call means using God’s gifts to build up His Church and serve the needs of the world. As we submit to that call, we will be fulfilling God’s transforming purpose and growing as a person.
It may not be easy and often isn’t. To hear and heed the call to ministry requires sacrifice and vulnerability. But it also means a sense of satisfaction and well-being that’s beyond words. Discovering your gifts and using them to fill that need in the kingdom of God usually raises our self-esteem 1000 points.
Just ask Peter. Think of Peter on the Day of Pentecost, speaking to thousands of people on the streets of Jerusalem and at the end of his talk 3,000 people come forward and are converted to Christianity and the Church is born!
And I wonder what was going through Peter’s mind as he was staring at the ceiling after going to bed that night. And I can imagine Peter thinking, “This is unbelievable. I was a commercial fisherman. I sat in boats and caught, scaled, cleaned and hawked fish for a living. And then I run across Jesus and He hooked me up with the idea of world redemption, changing peoples’ lives. And He developed me and He trusted me and He mentored me, and He gave me training and coaching and He gave me spankings, and He forgave my foul-ups and He kept urging me on and look who I am now!
I can see Peter laying in bed and looking up at the ceiling and thinking, “Look what I did today. I didn’t know I could preach. I didn’t know I could say something that would impact lives. I didn’t know that the church would be born as a result of what happened today. Look who I am becoming!”
Peter discovered for himself the truth of which his compatriot Paul wrote to the Ephesians: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (2:10)
How then will you respond to God’s call upon your life?
Why do I bring all of this up?
Back in the 1950’s there was an emphasis in the evangelical church on offering people, particularly young people a calling of some sort. That Christ followers should humble themselves and surrender themselves and make their lives available to God and stay in that surrendered condition until the Holy Spirit imprints upon them an important vision or mission that God wants them to achieve with their life.
And a lot of these kinds of meetings would happen at youth camps and summer conferences where at some point a teacher or leader would say to a group of people gathered: “What is your life going to be about? What is your calling? What does it matter that you are taking up space and breathing air in the universe? When you get to the end of your life and you look in the rear view mirror, what will you have achieved that has really mattered?”
And these teachers and these leaders would say, “It’s time that you discover your purpose, God’s purpose, your mission, the calling for your life. Because otherwise you know that you are going to fall into the self-destructive pattern of just fulfilling the all American dream, try to get better job, with a bigger salary, so you can get a bigger house, and drive a more noticeable car, and buy a vacation home, and on and on. And even though all that is nice, although it serves you well, you know it doesn’t really serve others.
So these leaders and teachers would say, “We want to lift you out of that boring self-indulgent lifestyle and when you find God’s purpose and calling for your life and you set your sights on it, it will give you energy, it will give you passion, and when you get to the end of your life you will be able to say, ‘God, I achieved the mission You gave me, I have fulfilled my calling.’”
And so these teachers and the leaders would explain this and then there would come those camp fires, those final nights of these conferences, and the teachers and the leaders would say, “OK tonight, God is calling you into the ministry. He’s calling some of you to get busting and discover how He has gifted you so that you can begin to serve Him in whatever area that your gift fits. He’s calling some of you to be a Pastor. He’s calling some of you to do youth work. He’s calling some of you to be staff members in churches. Or God is calling you to be a missionary, some to foreign mission field, but more in your own backyards, in your neighborhoods. Or God is calling you to ministry in your workplace ‘sharing God’s grace with others’ exactly where you are.
And then they would ask people to stand and to come forward; not to be converted but to grab hold of, to grasp the calling that would be the compass heading for the rest of their lives. And people would get up and leave their seats, and they would walk forward and they would say, “I really believe that God is calling me to do this or that.” And they’d go down front and they’d pray with the leader and say, “Until God tells me otherwise, this is going to be the course of my life.”
And the result of all that was that thousands of young people sensed a calling from God and they stepped out in faith and they ordered their lives around that calling and they gave themselves to it completely. And some of the greatest churches existing today, some of the greatest colleges, some of the greatest relief organizations have come to being since that time. Some of the highest potential para-church ministries, evangelistic organizations, seminaries and Bible colleges have come out of those kinds of meetings when people were challenged to consider what their calling was and when leaders had the audacity to ask people to order their lives around their callings.
Why am I bringing this up? Because the people living in our sphere of influence are in desperate need of the transforming power of Jesus. Because from what I read large segments of American society are privately turning away from God.
I am bringing this up because I believe that the Church is the hope of the world as well as this community! The Church has the gospel which can transform human hearts. The Church has the life-transforming message of the love of Christ. The Church has the gift of community to offer wayward and wandering and lonely people. The Church has the incredible potential to transform society one life at a time. I’m convinced that God is still in the business of calling and empowering people to make a positive difference in other peoples’ lives. And when that happens, it will make a positive impact in our lives too!
“Now to Him who is able to do abundantly beyond all that we ask or even think,
according to the power (His power) that works within us; to Him be the glory in the church forever and ever.” Amen!?