Creekside Church Sermon of September 29, 2002 "Characters with Character" 2 Corinthians 3:17-18	Rev. David Bibbee
Send this sermon to a friend

When you get to the middle of a sermon series, it's a good idea to refresh the memory banks about what has been said before, in case you by chance have forgotten. We began by asking what is so important about worship and why we should think how we go about it. We considered the impact of culture on worship and how, if we are not careful, the methods we adopt from our culture can subtly dilute the integrity of Christian worship and witness. Last Sunday we discussed the necessity of returning God to the center of worship replacing things like our tastes, needs, or preferences.

Today I will talk about what happens to us when God is the subject and object of worship. In particular, what becomes of people like you and me when we worship - to sing, pray, listen, give, and respond to God? As you would suspect, different Christian traditions emphasize different things. Peter Wagner, who teaches at Fuller Seminary in California says churches judge their effectiveness on the following basis;

"Pentecostal churches will measure what percentage of their members are baptized in the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues. Southern Baptists don't agree. They measure Sunday School enrollment. Episcopalians don't agree. They measure how many take communion. Quakers don't agree. They measure how many stand up for non-violence. Seventh Day Adventists measure tithers. Lutherans drink beer and argue for doctrinal purity. Fundamentalists fight for doctrinal purity and don't drink beer. Presbyterians believe salvation is a never-ending process, while Nazarenes believe it can be sudden and total."

But there is something upon which all agree. The quality of a church is judged by the quality of Christians it produces and the facet of the church's ministry that plays a prominent role in shaping the character of believers is worship. I know that in Romans 5, Paul says that "character comes from endurance." (5:3) But endurance alone does not do it. Two weeks ago I said that on average, American adults watched TV twenty-eight hours a week, and children, even more. When we stack against this the fact that church-goers average an hour a week in worship, it should cause us to ask, "Which has the upper hand in shaping character?"

Character is fashioned by all the things we do each day of our lives. Whatever captures our attention and imagination will exercise a great influence upon us. If I spend the family's money playing the lottery, then I show that I trust chance more than God. If I immerse my thoughts and fantasies in pornography, my goal will not be to love people, but use them as objects for my personal pleasure. If I bathe myself in the things of God-if I worship God's wonder and ponder the fact that God has given me life and breath and a purpose and a hope, it keeps me reaching out to God and my neighbor. The better I worship, the more I will be living the only life worth living.

Every week in the mail I get glossy, color brochures promoting conferences and programs that will change my life, empower my ministry, and rescue the church. Organizations offer programs "guaranteed" to bring revival and phenomenal numerical growth to the church. They often include testimonies from pastors who enrolled in the programs. Pastor Joe Bob Sweeney of the Sweet Home Baptist Church in Tyler, Texas says, " We've been truly blessed by your easy to administer program. We've grown from ten members to ten thousand in just ten months."

These are difficult days. The church is steadily losing ground. The old models don't work any more. Churches and pastors become desperate and latch on to the next holy grail program or worship trend thinking this will breach the losses. But in the end, they accomplish little. There is a reason. Check out the quote at the heading of your bulletin. Find the sentence in the fourth line that begins ,"People are…" Read it with me. "People are God's method. The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better people."

Left to its own devices, the world is full of characters. This has been the year of corporate corruption and cover-up. Huge companies have gone belly up. Thousands of employees have lost their jobs and retirement savings while the executives walk away with multi-million dollar severance packages, which confirms what we have know all along-business ethics classes are "short" courses. People are cynical about government. Instead of being seen as public servants, politicians are seen as self-serving scalawags with little signs above their heads that say, "Questionable Character."

America is a very religious country. Gallop polls tell us that sixty-five percent of American adults believe in God. They believe Jesus is God's son. They believe the Bible is God's Word. But when asked if they belong to a church, the numbers drop dramatically. Respondents had a hard time answering questions about how their belief is connected to daily living. We are supposed to be a religious country. There is great interest these days in spiritual matters. So how's come society's moral foundations are crumbling beneath our feet? Why all the revelations about clergy sex scandals? Why all the violence? Why all the excess, greed, and addiction? Why do the ranks of the poor continue to increase in the most prosperous nation on earth? Why? Good old-fashioned sin.

Do you know how many narcissists it takes to screw in a light bulb? Just one. He puts the bulb in the socket and the world revolves around him. Left to ourselves we're a bunch of characters who live as though we are the sole center of the universe. Sin is being surrounded on all sides by ourselves. Narcissism corrupts our desires to be better people. People believe they can treat themselves. They buy into the self-help philosophy. Yes, we are "participants" in our betterment, but it is only by the grace of God that we become new people. It is only by the Holy Spirit at work within us which gives us the desire and the power to be the better people that God wants us to be.

This is hard for Brethren to take, but "we" will not achieve world peace. "We" will not bring an end to poverty. "We" will not eliminate hunger. "We" will not fix the world. "We" don't have to. God is taking care of things. The resurrection is God's seal of assurance that all will work out according to plan. The war has already been won, and relieved of that burden we can give ourselves to the work that God has given. God doesn't need methods or strategies. God needs us…not just our belief, not just our feelings, but our will.

Paul told the Corinthians about the work of The Spirit who frees us. When we offer ourselves in worship before God's glory, Paul says, "We are changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is The Spirit." (2 Corinthians 3: 18)

"Choose your friends wisely, " we were told growing up. "Be careful of the company you keep. The more you're with them, the more like them you will become." At times, I think of how very different my life would have been had the church not been part of it. What would have become of me, or you, if all our friends and influential mentors had not come along, but others were in their place. I'm glad I don't know how my life could have been. We are who we are with.

Leonard Griffith was an influential British pastor. He once said there are three tests of character. (1) What does he have time for? (2) How does she spend her wealth? (3) What does he allow to interrupt him? How we answer says a lot about who we are. But if Dr. Griffith doesn't mind, I will add a fourth test; (4) What do they worship?

To what do we attach untimate significance? Before what gods do we bow down? Something from "Gods-R-Us"? Money? Success at any cost? Materialism? Pleasure? The god of, "I'll have it my way"? What we worship determines what we will become.

The world-renowned surgeon, Paul Brand described listening to a pianist perform at Carnegie Hall. The pianist was slumped over, his eyes were sunken, his faced wrinkled. He was after all, over ninety years old. He sat at the bench, took a deep breath, raised his hands and held them above the keys several moments. Then he began to play and all notions of age and frailty slipped away and everyone's attention was fixed on Arthur Rubinstein. He played Schubert, Rachmaninoff, and Beethoven flawlessly, and the audience responded with thunderous applause and shouts of, "Bravo!"

Afterward, Paul Brand wrote;

"He delighted my ears and engrossed my eyes. Hands are my profession. I've studied them all my life. Pianist's hands are a glorious ballet of ligaments, joints, tendons, nerves, and muscles. From my own calculations I know that some of the movements were simply too fast for the body to accomplish consciously. Nerve impulses do not travel fast enough for the brain to sort out that the third finger has lifted in time to order the fourth finger to strike the next key. Months of practice must pattern the brain to treat the movement as subconscious reflex actions…musicians call it, finger memory."

How do we do what consciously can't be done? Practice! Practice! Practice! What we do each Sunday is sometimes called the, "Practice of worship." Many here have practiced worship since infancy. There were times you did it reluctantly. Some of you, as my father would say, had a "duck-fit" about it. There were times you didn't feel like coming or thought of doing something else instead, but you practiced. Why? Because God, who seems so unavailable, might show up and surprise us. Why? Because Sunday by Sunday, hymn by hymn, prayer by prayer, sermon by sermon, our character is formed.

There is no way to calculate the impact of worship, but underneath is the belief that God is totally trustworthy. In worship we are changed into the likeness of the God we adore. We remember the promises. We remember the stories. We remember Jesus and the abundant life he gives us. As we worship, we become "different" people; out-of-step people. We practice worship to learn to be odd in the world's eyes. Being the fickle, flawed characters we are, through worship, we become people of character…the "better people " God counts on to get the Word out.

It is not my intent to tell how each aspect of worship changes us. I want to start you thinking of how you have been shaped by worship. I want us to think about the importance of careful planning and quality worship with energy and substance.

Walter Wangerin is a Lutheran pastor and acclaimed author who teaches at Valparaiso University. I will leave you with a story he told which I see as a vision of how God molds us in worship. An inter-racial choir of members from his church was on a concert tour out West.

They neared the location of their last concert. At the entrance the administrator said, "No pocket knives, no matches, no metal of any kind. No handbags, nail files or photo film. They can make bombs out of that." They were about to enter the Colorado Women's Penitentiary. "The girls are free to listen or not," he said. "Line up in two rows, male and female. Raise your arms, thank you."

They were ushered into the auditorium and began to set up. The director called everyone to practice. "Who will listen?" Wangerin wondered. What should they care? Will they sneer us in the face of our earnest offering, these women who walked like men and swore like mercenaries? Hollis hit a chord on his bass guitar, and it began. The director couldn't see bands of women walking in behind her. The more they filed in, the more Hollis put swing into rhythmic runs on the bass. It wasn't even time for the concert to begin. Yet they kept filing in. Little pockets of applause were heard.

The director led them into another song. "Soon and very soon we are going to meet the king." The choir was totally into it. The women laughed. The song had taken them over. All nervousness was gone. The women began clapping. Some took to dancing as the auditorium continued to fill. The choir felt free…in a prison…free from fear, free from being "proper", free to be one with the women.

Song by song the women clapped and cried. Everyone joined hands, lifted them above their heads and sang and swayed to "Oh, How I Love Jesus." The choir didn't sing the last song. Thirteen women ordered the choir to sit. With shaky voices, in nasal Spanish, and embarrassed as school girls, they put their arms around each other for support, and sang a song familiar to some of you who have gone on Emmaus Walks:

"DeClores! DeColores! The sun gives its treasure, God's light to the children-- And so must all love be of every bright color to make my heart cry."

They sang. The choir answered "Yes," and God poured out the light from within.

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)