Sermons
Growing in Faith - 2010-06-13
Sermons for the Growing SeasonGrowing in Faith
Mark 9:14-29
June 13, 2010
It is the growing season, which is another name for “Ordinary Time” on the church calendar. So we are beginning a seven part sermon series called “Sermons for the Growing Season.” The sermons will be Growing in Faith, Growing in Trust, Growing in Spirit, followed by Growing in Freedom, which happens to fall on July 4. Then Growing in Service, Growing in Love, and Growing in Hope.
Growing is good. It is good to grow. It is good to watch others grow. It is also good to watch things grow. Have you heard about our new organization in the church, the UBC Agrarians? Karen Walker was working in her yard and had a thought. “I bet others would be interested in sharing some of their secrets to gardening and maybe sharing some of their produce with one another. So she sent out a couple of emails to see if there was any interest, and this thing has taken off! There are over 20 folks swapping gardening tips. There is everything from Graham Hales’ secret compost recipe to how to give Bethany Rigney advice in getting rid of the bugs on her basil! The Agrarians are growing things and loving it. They even have a Bible verse; Isaiah 55:10-11. “For as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving it seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” So come on Wednesday nights and you will see that the UBC Agrarians have a table set up with their produce which you can purchase. The money will go to local mission work, specifically the Bread Basket Ministry. It is good to see things growing.
Every day I go out to look at my tomato plants to see how they are doing. We are excited about vegetables and fruit. How much more so to see a person grow; to see yourself grow physically, emotionally, and intellectually, and especially spiritually? You are still growing, aren’t you? You haven’t arrived yet, have you? I was in my office one day when a guy in his 80’s came in. He said, “I want you to look at this pamphlet.” It was a pamphlet from Southern Seminary in Louisville, KY. It was for a Lay Ministry school. He said, “I’ve always wanted to go to this. Do you think it would be any good?” He was in his 80’s, but he still wanted to grow. There was another old gent in the church who invited me over to his house and showed me his own personal library. He had more commentaries than I did. He told me he was teaching himself the Greek language because, as he put it, “I am tired of taking you preachers’ words for it.” He was in his 80’s and still growing.
You are still growing, aren’t you? Today let’s talk about growing. The scripture this morning from Mark 9 is the story of a father and a son. The son was suffering from what today we would call epileptic grand mal seizures. Have you ever witnessed anyone having one? I have, and it is frightening. Verse 18 depicts exactly what it is like: going rigid, falling to the ground, literally frothing at the mouth, gnashing teeth. A person having a seizure like that can actually injure themselves or bite their tongue severely. It is a terrible and frightening thing. The father wants his boy cured. What father wouldn’t? He takes the boy to the disciples. For whatever reason, the disciples can’t help. He approaches Jesus, and I think he is trying to be nice when he says to Jesus, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” We can’t get in Jesus mind, but he almost sounds indignant when he comes back and says, “If you can? Man, don’t you know that everything is possible for those who believe?” And the father responds with a verse that is a favorite of many. “I believe; help my unbelief.”
The father is speaking for all of us, isn’t he? We do believe. But sometimes, under stress, we wonder. We question, “Is God there? Will God help me?” Even, “Can God help me?” Sometimes wonder. Even though we know scripture calls Jesus “Immanuel, God with us”, even though we know that Jesus said, “I’ll send the Holy Spirit to walk alongside you,” sometimes we wonder, “Am I alone?” Is living this thing called life, which is full of its “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” is it all up to me? Do I have to do this all on my own? Or is there really a God Almighty who gets involved in real ways in human life to help those in time of need? Can I count on God? You know you can, but sometimes you wonder. In other words, we are just like that dad in the scripture. I believe; help my unbelief. Help my faith grow stronger.
How can faith grow? How can it grow in us, and how can we help faith grow in others? Well, how do plants grow? First you have to have good soil in which to plant the seed. Then you get about the business of tending the soil and tending the young plants as they come up. Then you begin to reap the harvest. Good soil is the beginning point. How did faith start in you? I don’t know your story that well, but I know mine. Faith started in me in my own home, watching my parents, and growing up in church. I was taken to church on Sunday morning by my parents who lived outside of church not all that differently from how they lived inside of church. That is important. The attitudes and the actions they exhibited in the sanctuary were consistent with those out in the world. In other words, faith started to spring up in me because I saw an authentic faith in people I trusted. I saw my parents worship. I saw my father bow in humility, in prayer, in church. That is a big thing. I never saw him bow to another soul. I never saw him defer to anyone else. So maybe this God that was talked about was real to him, and powerful, and holy, and in front of whom he needed to be humble and reverent. And he was. I grew up watching that.
Clayton Sullivan did a great job last Wednesday night on a topic called “The Impossibility of Atheism” from what he called semantic and philosophical perspectives. It would have been impossible for me to be an atheist, because of where I came from, because of seeing faith practiced in people in whom I trusted. Don’t underestimate where you are this morning. You are in church, bowing in worship, praying in reverence and humility, and those around you, especially younger ones are watching and learning. What is happening here this morning is a perfect recipe for a compost heap of faith.(Now you can go home and tell all your friends that your preacher called you a compost heap!) But it is a good compost heap. This is the stuff in which faith grows and springs up.
To continue my story, which I am sure is like so many of yours; because of how I started I then wanted to make a profession of faith and be baptized. Because I saw what they had done, and because I trusted them, I wanted to follow suit myself and make that profession of faith which you have already made this morning as you read the Call to Worship. “We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who died for our sins and was raised on the third day.” In believing that, I was baptized into the faith. I remember my baptism. Do you remember the fertile soil of faith in which faith first began to grow in you? Remembering that is the beginning point of the growing season.
Then, when plants come up we have to tend them a bit. But only a little. Don’t over tend young plants. You will mess them up. Don’t over tend them, and don’t over water them. Too much cultivation and trying to root out the weeds can also root out healthy plants that you really do want. Too much watering can lead to disease and weak, immature plants. Do you ever listen to Felder Rushing on the radio? He says that one of the common mistakes that amateur gardeners make is over watering. Let the plants get thirsty. Let them get stressed. If they are thirsty and they are stressed, their roots will go deeper, and they will be stronger. What I am saying is, as faith grows, let’s don’t be afraid of stress and adversity in our lives. That causes our faith to grow. It causes us to go deeper in our understanding, and stronger in our belief. Yes, I had a good beginning in my life of faith. But that was an untested faith. That was faith of my father. But I need to make that my own. Paul says, after his wonderful Christ hymn in Philippians 2, where he describes who Jesus is in a more beautiful way than you will find anywhere else in the Bible, the very next thing he says is, “Now you work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” In other words, Paul is saying, “That’s my hymn. That is my statement of belief. You work out your own.” How did Paul come to such a firm foundation of faith, such a strong faith? He had been through a lot. We think the letter to the Philippians was probably written in jail, maybe even as Paul was in shackles and awaiting his execution. He had come to the strongest statement of faith he would ever make. Stress can do that for us. Let’s don’t be too afraid of it, because hard times are not the abandonment of God in our lives. It is not that God is turning his back or punishing us. Maybe God is giving us an opportunity to grow. Maybe God is helping us become strong in our faith, because without adversity we can’t stand up in this life.
Do you remember the early 90’s experiment of the biosphere in Arizona? A totally enclosed 3.15 acre ecosystem was going to be the perfect environment for which plants and trees could grow, produce, and reach maturity. Do you know what happened? It failed. When the trees grew up in the biosphere they fell over because they didn’t have deep roots. They hadn’t been strengthened by the adversity of storms, wind, and drought. So their roots were very shallow, and they fell over and died. We tend our plants. But if we tend them too much, we will produce diseased, weak, and unproductive plants. It is the same in growing in faith. Let’s not be too afraid of stress and hardship. That is when our roots can really go down, and we can really be firm.
This is a nice illustration and metaphor. It is hard to live it though. Some of you are stressed and hurting today. Some are hurting and some are scared. And for some, these are the toughest days of life. God bless you. God strengthen your faith. God caused this dry time, or hard time, or stormy time in your life to really help you. Remember that God is with you. This can help you and really strengthen you.
Finally we begin to harvest the produce. My tomatoes are coming in. I had my first tomato sandwich lunch last Tuesday. Oh, it was good, and there will be a lot more. Here is a little secret that gardeners know. When it comes to tomatoes, beans, peas, and some other plants like that, the more you pick, the more they produce. They don’t stop producing simply because you picked them. I loved learning that when I was younger. If you just keep picking, those things will keep producing. For many plants harvest does not deplete the crop, but it multiplies the crop. It is the same in our life of faith. Our faith is meant to be used. It is meant to be shared. It is meant to be put to work, and it will help us grow. That happens to me on mission trips. We will be taking another in a couple of weeks down to Mexico. It will be hot. It will be long. There will be a lot of hard work to do. There will be a thousand and one details to attend to. You would expect me to be worn out when I come back – right? I won’t be. I’ll be spiritually jazzed. I call mission trips “spiritual steroids.” You just get pumped up. It seems that the more you give, the more you are enriched. The more you give away the things of faith, the more you have to give away, the more productive you become.
Tom Long has written a book entitled, Testimony. The subtitle is Talking Ourselves into Being Christians. He is operating on the same principle I just described. He is saying that if you will dare to try to share your faith with someone else do you know what will happen? Your faith will become sharper, more focused, and stronger, simply by sharing your faith with someone else. Make yourself talk about what you believe to someone else. Yes, you will probably be helping them, but you will really be helping yourself. When you have to articulate it, when you have to put faith into words, it strengthens and sharpens your own faith. Yes, I know how much you love personal evangelism! Boy, you just can’t wait to do that – right? I know it scares you. I know you would rather do just about anything else than have a one on one conversation talking about the Gospel to somebody else. It is hard. I don’t know why but it is. Let’s just admit it. Some people have that gift. Most of us don’t. Most of us would rather do anything other than that. But if we make ourselves do it, they can be helped, but we can be so greatly helped by picking the fruit of our faith, our own story about what Christ means to us and how we came to know Christ and what we think about Jesus and what God has done in Christ. If we can just say that to someone else we can be strengthened. We can grow in faith.
This is the growing season. It is time to remember our baptism. It is time to not be afraid of a little stress, because it is good for us. It is time to be used, to be harvested, so that we can grow stronger. Let’s thank God for the season that is upon us.