Creekside Church Sermon of April 24, 2005 "Bologna or Fried Chicken?" Ephesians 3:14-21	Rev. David Bibbee
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Jesus could have cared less about a church building. He was building a body of believers. But even Jesus understood that capital comes before construction. In Luke 14, Jesus asked, "If you want to build a tower, shouldn't you first sit down to crunch the numbers and count the costs? Otherwise you'll start the project and not be able to finish. Then everyone will think you're a fool."

An upscale restaurant was supposed to be built in downtown Elkhart. The site was wonderful… on the St. Joseph River facing Island Park. The foundation was poured, the structural steel components were set, and the framing had begun when construction abruptly stopped. There was no money to finish the project. The uncompleted structure remained that way almost three years as a memorial to inept planning.

It is just a matter of weeks before the first shovel-full of dirt is turned over, and the construction of our new church home begins. Given our situation, what is the most important component of starting and finishing our new building? If your answer is, "Money!" You are right. But you are also wrong. Money matters must be addressed, and the "Building for Christ" campaign is the last push before construction starts in June. We know that funds and fun must be raised to guarantee success. But money is our secondary concern.

In the Doxology we sing, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow…" Praise precedes blessing. You've heard me say that "feeling good" is not the goal of worship, but a by-product. Right worship makes God the object of our praise. To the extent that we lose ourselves in God's presence in worship, we often find that we are given what we need.

The leaders you called have counted the cost. Capital is necessary, but spiritual capital is more necessary. Listening to God, and acting upon what we have discerned so far, the thousand-piece puzzle has come together. The "rightness" of our decisions has been confirmed along the way. This is why "Building for Christ" must be immersed in prayer.

We could have skipped the campaign process. We could have said, "Okay, folks-- here's the project. Here's the cost. Here's the breakdown of how many givers we need at each level. Make your check payable to "Creekside," and we'll get this show on the road!" Who knows? The results could have been great, but it wouldn't be God's project. Some of the best times for the church are when we are in over our heads. When the Cornerstone Team met the first time, the consensus was, "How are we ever going to build a church?"

When attempting to do what we cannot do, the need for resources beyond ourselves becomes apparent. If you don't want the campaign to succeed-if you don't want the spiritual capital of the congregation to be unleashed and increase-don't pray. It's as simple as that.

If you do pray, remember, the Holy Spirit doesn't jump through hoops at our command. Jesus told Nicodemus, "The Spirit is like the wind. You can't see it. You don't know when it's coming. It comes and goes as it pleases." If you don't want the Spirit, don't pray for it. If you like things as they are, and are satisfied with yourself, then by all means, DO NOT PRAY.

But if you do want the Spirit, prayer is the prerequisite. Someone suggest that if you are the kind of person who likes to be on the porch when a storm is coming so you can feel the power that pushes the trees around, chances are you should pray for the Holy Spirit. If you pray, "Come, Holy Spirit," and mean it, you had better hang on to the porch railing. You don't know when or how, but if you pray for God's Spirit, brace yourself.

David Hudson is Chaplain at Elkhart General Hospital. He previously pastored the Crossroads Church. You may remember David preaching for me last summer. I've learned a lot from him. There were amazing parallels between the journeys of his church and ours. When Crossroads decided to recast its vision, relocate, and build, David was scared silly. He prayed, "All right, God, what am I supposed to do now?" Time flowed with no clear direction, and then God spoke to Dave. It wasn't an audible voice, but a question came to him. God asked, "What do you want?"

Dave continued to pray over the "What do you want?" question until he could express it in black and white. "God… I need $1 million." He didn't specify if he wanted a check or cash or some equivalent. The church members were getting antsy. They worshiped in a school. They purchased land, but that was all they had. The leaders prayed for direction, after which a series of events unfolded. Their former building sold. The church was approached about selling a few parcels of land for offices. Dave sat down and started working the numbers. The total of all sales? $1 million!

Writing to the church at Ephesus, Paul wanted the people to know his heartfelt prayer for them:

"For this reason I bow on my knees before God… that Christ might dwell in your hearts through faith, that being rooted in love, you will comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, length, height, and depth, and know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.

Now to him, who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

Consider this claim. "… to him whom by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or think…" The implied message is that God longs for contact-not only when things are fine or falling apart, but also a daily part of our lives. God wants us to know that regardless where or how we are, that He is present. The more we carry to God in prayer, the more we perceive the "breadth and length and height and depth" of his love. In our lucid moments, we know that we possess nothing. But though we possess nothing, we inherit everything. As a church, we discover that the things that are truly worthwhile are the ones we wouldn't dare try without him.

When priorities are straight… when needs are legitimate and in harmony with God's desire for us, and then through prayer we seek to align ourselves with God's desire, our needs will be met.

The road we've traveled these past years hasn't been easy, and it hasn't been dull. There were moments we doubted if we could achieve the goals we had set. But when we prayed together and worked together, what was "out of reach" came within our grasp. God provided more than we imagined.

Years ago I came across an essay by Bob Bensen. He begins asking… Do you remember when they had old-fashioned Sunday school picnics? During the announcements someone said, "We'll all meet at Sycamore Lodge in Shelby Park at 4:30 on Saturday. You bring your own supper and we'll furnish the iced tea."

If you were like me, you came home at the last minute. When you got ready to pack your picnic, all you could find in the refrigerator was one dried-up piece of bologna and just enough mustard in the bottom of the jar so that you got it all over your knuckles trying to get to it. Add just two slices of stale bread to go with it. So you made your bologna sandwich and wrapped it in an old brown bag and went to the picnic.

When it came time to eat, you sat at the end of a table and spread out your sandwich. But the folks who sat next to you brought a feast. The lady was a good cook, and she had worked hard all day to get ready for the picnic. And she had fried chicken and baked beans and potato salad and homemade rolls and sliced tomatoes and pickles and olives and celery, plus homemade chocolate pies to top it off. That's what they spread out there next to you while you sat with your bologna sandwich.

Then they said to you, "Why don't we just put it all together?" "No, I couldn't do that. I couldn't even think of it," you murmured in embarrassment with one eye on the chicken. "Oh, come on, there's plenty of chicken and plenty of pie and plenty of everything. And we just love bologna sandwiches. Let's just put it all together." And so you did, and there you sat, eating like a king when you came like a pauper.

One day it dawned on me that God had been saying just that sort of thing to me. "Why don't you take what you have and what you are, and I will take what I have and what I am, and we'll share it together." I began to see that when I put what I had and was and am and hope to be with what he is, I had stumbled upon the bargain of a lifetime!

I get to thinking sometimes, thinking of the sharing with God. When I think of how little I bring, and how much He brings and invites me to share, I know I should be shouting to the housetops, but I am so filled with awe and wonder that I can hardly speak. I know that I don't have enough love or faith or grace or mercy or wisdom, but God does. God has all those things in abundance, and He says, "Let's just put it all together! Everything I possess is available to you. Everything I am and can be to a person, I will be to you."

When I think about it like that, it really amuses me to see somebody running along through life hanging on to his or her dumb bag with that stale bologna sandwich in it, saying, "God's not going to get my sandwich! No sirree, this is mine!" Did you ever see anyone like that-so needy-just about half starved to death, yet hanging on for dear life? Its not that God needs your sandwich. The fact is, you need God's chicken!

Go ahead-eat your bologna sandwich as long as you can. But when you can't stand its tastelessness or drabness any longer, when you get so tired of running your own life by yourself and doing it your way and figuring out all the answers with no one to help; when trying to accumulate, hold, grasp, and keep everything together in your own strength gets to be too big a load; when you begin to realize that by yourself you're never going to be able to fulfill your dreams, I hope you'll remember that it doesn't have to be that way.

You have been invited to something better, you know. You have been invited to share in the very being of God."

Sometimes I think we're in danger of losing the word "prayer." Once, only people in religious communities said, "I'll be praying for you." Now everyone is doing it-politicians, entertainers, people who have no religious formation. I wonder if we might even lose it in the church, given how much we use the word without considering all that prayer implies.

But what finally matters is not what we say about it or think about it. What matters is what we DO ABOUT IT. Immersing the Building for Christ Campaign in prayer at every level is where it begins. We pray for God's blessing and direction throughout the process, not because we should, but because we must.

We've bitten off more than we can chew. God loves us when we do it. God wants to build an outpost for his Kingdom with us. Dried up bologna sandwiches won't get us there. Raising $300,000 alone won't get us there, either, unless we pray for the church and the adventure we've undertaken, and feed on the bread of heaven, or, if you prefer, the chicken of heaven.

I'm not concerned with "how" you pray… only that you reserve time to pray-for the power of the Holy Spirit-- for Ted, Doris, Sabrina, Mark, Judy, the board, the hosts and presenters, and everyone who has been preparing us for these very important weeks ahead. I'm not asking you to pray that we reach our goal. God may want us to go beyond it. As you pray for others, pray for yourself that you will know God's desire for you in this process.

Let's be clear about what we pray for. Believe that God can and will answer us. Sit back and watch what's about to happen.

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