Creekside Church Sermon of January 21, 2001 "Step Aside!" Acts 15:6-14, 19-21	Rev. David Bibbee
Send this sermon to a friend

No Fulp had ever been a member of anything. They weren't opposed to clubs or organized activities. They just had never been moved to seek membership. When a Fulp needed companionship or intellectual stimulation, he or she sat down with another Fulp or else forgot about it.

One October, the Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians in town got worked up over evangelism and launched a big community crusade to reach the unchurched. They rented a billboard and posted a message for the unchurched with a phone number to call if interested. They took out a full page in the weekly paper listing the hours they worshipped. Prayer and study groups met in homes to study why the unchurched were that way and to pray they would change.

The Methodists and Baptists met each night for a week to sing, pray, take up a collection, and listen to an evangelist who said their churches would "dry up and die" and be "bad off as the Episcopalians" if they didn't get some new members and "have a rebirth of commitment to Christ." The Methodists hired an expert who told them that they needed to reach out and love and go where the people are, so the Methodists started a bridge club for the town's senior citizens. The Baptists heard an expert who said they needed a community religious survey to determine where the unchurched were, why they were that way, and to get them to church. The survey turned up one lapsed Catholic and a Baptist who was angry because he lost a fight over the church parking lot. The only ones who stood out were the Fulps.

Three women, two Baptists and a Presbyterian called on the Fulps. Mrs. Fulp welcomed them warmly and offered coffee as the Fulp children introduced themselves and said Mr. Fulp was fixing gears on the tractor. Discovering the Fulps were unchurched, the women urged them to begin attending. They urged the little Fulps to attend Sunday school. A lady from the Baptist church told Mrs. Fulp they taught only the Bible in their Sunday school, and that each year the youth group went on a choir tour to New Orleans. The Fulps listened politely, thanked them, and said to come back anytime.

The pastors were alerted to the Fulp's plight. One woman said they seemed to be searching for something. Another said Mrs. Fulp had a fine voice and could probably sing in the choir. The pastor speculated that Mr. Fulp was probably your irresponsible type of father but maybe he could be reached if visited by a couple of business men from town. A prayer group prayed for the Fulps each day at noon and 4:30. The Ford dealer called on Mr. Fulp. Mrs. Fulp was visited six times by women who brought chocolate pies and a cassette recording of an inspiring address by Dale Evans. The Baptist youth group decided to adopt the Fulp children as a fall project. When the Fulps came to town, merchants watched for them and tried to get a commitment to go to church.

All the ministers called each week, leaving stacks of materials and the Upper Room. The Methodist minister spent one afternoon explaining the Methodist social principles and clarifying why the General Board of Discipleship had gone on record in favor of binding arbitration in labor disputes.

The Fulps were overwhelmed. The little Fulps started attending church and were hardly at home anymore. Mrs. Fulp spent most of the day on the phone with women from other churches and listened to a tape of The Total Woman. Mr. Fulp stopped going to town because he felt harassed in every store where he shopped. Mr. and Mrs. Fulp weren't speaking to each other after a three-hour argument over predestination. The fourteen-year-old Fulp who learned to smoke on a Baptist youth retreat was becoming insufferably rebellious.

The pressure got to Mr. Fulp. One night after their new practice of family devotions, he climbed into his pick-up truck and was never heard from again. The Fulp children each went to a different Sunday school. The eldest Fulp ran away to California with a seventeen-year-old majorette who he had met in the New Orleans choir tour. Mrs. Fulp sold the farm, moved to town and joined the Presbyterian church, which left half the town's women vowing never to speak to her again, which led the Methodist minister to call the Presbyterian minister and accuse him of stealing Mrs. Fulp from the Methodists. The Baptist minister said that he detected that Mrs. Fulp was emotionally unstable and he hoped that the Presbyterians could give her whatever it was she was looking for. Mrs. Fulp now does parent effectiveness training workshops and can be reached through the Presbyterian Synod in Iowa City.

From the moment Jesus told his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations, the church has had a mandate to reach out to those who don't know him and share the message of his saving love. We frequently mention the responsibility we bear to share with others our faith in Christ and our love for our church. In ways as unique as we are, we have opportunities to point people to God. But there are times when well-intentioned efforts hinder the very thing we try to accomplish. The relentless efforts of the churches to make Christians of the Fulps proved to be the Fulps undoing.

In Romans 14: 13, Paul said we must "decide never to put a stumbling block or a hindrance in the way of a person." Today I want you to consider the importance of stepping aside and getting out of the path God is preparing for another person, or for that matter, you.

After Jesus' departure and under the disciples' leadership, the church grew rapidly. But success created a problem. Jews were drawn to Christ through the disciple's preaching, but so were many Gentiles. Jews refused to associate with Gentiles. A group called the Judaizers reasoned that if being a Jew was good enough for Jesus, and since he observed Jewish law, so should the Gentiles. If they kept the feast, and abided by regulations, and oh yes... if they were circumcised, they could be accepted. Simply put, Gentiles couldn't become Christian unless they first became Jews.

Then Peter spoke. "The Holy Spirit came to the Gentiles and cleansed their hearts, just like us. Now you want them to observe rules that even you couldn't keep?" The church was at a perilous point. The possibility of a huge division hung over them. Then Peter, speaking to the Jewish Christians said, "We believe we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as the Gentiles will." Then James, the brother of Jesus and the leader of the Jerusalem church said, "In my opinion, we ought not to put fresh difficulties in the way of those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles." This is how James Moffatt translated it. The path to God has enough challenges of its own. Why should we make it more difficult? The grace of the Lord Jesus has saved us, and it will save them, too. So step aside. Don't get in the way of the Spirit's work.

I've heard people talk about how good it feels to lead someone to faith in Christ. Some speak of "winning" someone to Jesus. I never liked that imagery. To win implies you're in competition. You've come out ahead. As someone put it, there is a difference between caring for and coveting a person's soul. If this is your attitude of evangelism, you're getting in the way. Offensive interference is not our infraction. Still, I think the number of those who have come closer to Christ because of our words, acts, and attitudes are far fewer than those who have been repelled.

There was a pivotal moment in Mahatma Gandhi's life when he was attracted to Christianity. He felt pulled toward Jesus while reading the gospels. He was living in South Africa at the time and went to church. But the young Gandhi was met at the church doors by "Christian" men who denied him access because he was a man of color. Gandhi almost became a Christian but someone stood in his way. Peter Gomes recalls an Easter sunrise service overlooking the Atlantic at Plymouth Rock. People were huddled together waiting for the sun to appear on the horizon. He said the sun doesn't rise as much as it pops over the horizon. When it popped, the minister said, "Christ has risen!" Holding out his hands and arms which blocked the view of the rising sun until it had risen and everyone, except the minister, missed it. He had unintentionally stood in the way.

Standing in the way of a meeting with God can be intentional or unintentional, but the effect is the same. We are not all called to be evangelists. Aren't you relieved? Jesus didn't tell the disciples, "you are my evangelists to Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." He said, "You are my witnesses..." A witness speaks of what he sees and has experienced and what it means to him. A witness tells her story and points people to the source. A witness shouldn't approach a person the way the churches overwhelmed the poor Fulps. When it comes to sharing faith, we do three things... we show it, we speak it, and we step aside.

We get in the way when we coerce people against their will. We don't wear them down by singing "Just as I am" twenty-seven times to get them to fall contrite at the altar. We get in the way when we think another person's experience should be like ours, or ours like someone else's. We get in the way when we insist that others use the same words and believe all the same things. If so, we should step aside. Do we believe so little in God's ability to know and to do the right thing at the right time? It's amazing what God does when we do our part and get out of the way and allow God to work as God wills.

Years ago I visited a young couple in hopes of encouraging them to come to church. Bruce had grown up in the church. Jeanie was a non-practicing Catholic. At the first visit, Jeanie received me with the warmth of an artic cold front. They would come at Christmas and Easter. That was it. She was polite but distant, and wanted to keep it that way. Three years later Jeanie showed up for a membership class. When the series was over she was baptized. Afterward we talked and I asked, "What changed your mind?" She said, "I knew you cared, but you didn't push me. I had not come to terms with God yet. I needed the time and space to do it." Apparently God knew what to do.

If you'll stay with me just a little longer, I will relate an incident from last summer. I have mentioned before that I periodically join a group of guys in Ohio called the Mohican Rangers. It's a gang of thirty to forty graying, balding, soft around the waist middle-aged guys who spend a long weekend camping and pretending they're twenty. With the exception of two or three none go to church. They are not church people. They don't talk or behave like church people, and I don't relate to them as church people. As a pastor, I'm a novelty item.

For some reason these guys have grown close. I wasn't able to attend the summer outing but my best friend asked me to write a prayer that would be shared before the Saturday night meal.

They gathered at the mess tent, laughing and making wise cracks about praying. Then Vaughn read this prayer:

God, praying feels really awkward to us. Most of us aren't used to it. Maybe none of think we know how, but you won't let a little thing like that stand between us and you. When we try to imagine who you are, and think about who we are, we feel so small. We don't tell each other we even think such things because we don't want to feel like fools. But help us take comfort in knowing that when our thoughts turn to you, we at least aren't being damned fools.

God, we know little about you, but you know us. We're like the fish in the lake around which we camp. They aren't aware of the water they swim in, and we usually aren't aware of your love that surrounds us.

We thank you, God, for making us Rangers. We keep coming together for a reason, and it isn't camping, eating, drinking, golfing, cigars, guitar picking, or even picking on each other, fun as it is. God we are hungry for friendship, trust, and meaning in our lives. Even if only one or two of us are brave enough to believe it, give us faith enough to believe you are planting among the Rangers the inkling of hunger for you. Thank you for already using some of us to make others of us know our need, and for putting us on the path to becoming better men. Thank you for the food that feeds our bodies and your life that fills our spirits. Thank you for Jesus who came to us so we could come to you. Amen.

After the prayer was read there was an odd silence. Vaughn said that three of the more crusty guys had tears in their eyes. They since have adopted this as the official Ranger Prayer and it is prayed at each outing. What happened? Why the silence? Why the tears? I prayed it on paper and got out of the way. It seems apparent to those who are aware of such things that God was up to something... and God always is.

We ought not to put fresh difficulties in the ways of those that are turning to God.

All of the sermons that have appeared in text form on our Web Site since August 1996 are available here in the On-Line version. Use the search engine below to find the sermon you want. You may search by date, sermon title, or content. The sermons are full-text searchable.

Sermon Search:



Exact phrase    All words (AND)    Any word (OR)