I spent a few
hours on Tuesday and Wednesday burning leaves.
I would make a big pile, start it on fire, and watch as the flames
engulfed the leaves. But in a few
minutes the flames would subside and I had a large pile of smoldering leaves
with no visible flames and a little smoke.
The pile didn’t do too much. It
just kind of sat there.
As I prepared for
tonight and read St. Paul’s encouragement to Timothy to “fan into flame
the gift of God”, I was reminded how a smoldering pile of leaves can be a
picture of our congregation. At
one time the congregation must have been on fire for the Lord but now it just
kind of smolders along and not much seems to happen.
Our congregation has a little warmth to it deep down but it offers
little light to the community. This
phenomena also happens in peoples lives.
Jesus describes it in the parable of the sower as the seed which lands
on rocky soil and immediately sprouts up but then withers and dies.
At some point in our lives we must have been excited about our faith
and willing to do great things for God but now we kind of go with the flow and
are most content with little or no change in our spiritual lives and very
reluctant to make any changes to bring us closer to God or to serve him with
boldness and confidence.
And that is a
pity–for an individual and for a congregation!
Jesus condemned Laodicea for being complacent in Revelation 3
These
are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s
creation. 15I
know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one
or the other! 16So,
because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out
of my mouth. 17You
say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you
do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.
Jesus
calls us to make radical changes in following him.
What good is a smoldering pile of leaves?
What good is a smoldering congregation that stands pat while the world
is becoming more and more ungodly? What
good is it for you to be gifted by God but for you to refuse to use your gifts
to his glory whether it be because of mistaken priorities or because of fear?
So
what do we do? As I burned those
leaves, the wind would kick up and cause the pile to burst into flames again
as the wind fanned it into flames.. God
wants us to use the faith and the gifts that we already have and
Fan Into Flame the
Gift of God
Context:
This is St. Paul’s second letter to a young pastor named Timothy.
1. Paul thanked God for Timothy in his prayers.
Application:
We can also give prayers of thanks for our fellow Christians.
2. Reminded of sincere faith which had been handed down to
Timothy from his mother and his grandmother.
Application:
Even the most inactive member of the Holy Christian Church has faith.
Whether that faith be vibrant and living or like that of a smoldering
wick or as small as a grain of mustard, it is still faith in Jesus and has
power in a person’s life.
Through
the church, mothers and grandmothers as well as fathers and grandfathers are
aided in handing down the faith to their descendants.
Appreciate the opportunities we have to hand down our faith in baptism,
Sunday school, Lutheran Elementary school, Vacation Bible School, religion and
confirmation classes, personal Bible reading and devotions, YPS, Bible class,
worship services, high schools, etc.
3. Now it was time for Timothy to fan into flame the gift he had
received at his ordination.
Crisis
for Timothy.
1. Tempted to be ashamed to testify about Jesus.
2. Tempted to be ashamed about Paul who was in prison in Rome
and facing execution.
This
is an encouragement to Timothy to be willing to suffer for the sake of the
Gospel. “Because God saved
us–not because of anything we had done but because of his own purpose and
grace.” Timothy was to push
ahead in faith and with a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline as he
pastored this congregation.
What
crises do we face?
·
Courage to make God-pleasing decisions.
·
Use money in a God–pleasing way.
·
Rebuke and forgive someone who has sinned against us.
·
Face death and the loss of a dear friend or relative.
·
Deal with new fears and threats as a result of terrorist activity.
What
challenges or opportunities do we as a congregation face?
·
Build an addition so we can better serve our members and reach out to
the community with a possible preschool and an enhanced children’s ministry.
·
Reclaim our youth who seem to drift away after confirmation.
·
Build up our volunteer corps as those who served in the past so
faithfully are slowing down not in spirit but in power.
·
Come to terms with a looming financial crisis due to a reluctance to
maintain our ministry or to support an expanding ministry.
·
Renew our sense of mission and purpose.
·
Come to grips that “doing business as usual” may well serve one
generation but is neglecting an entire other generation.
·
Realize that the purpose of our congregation isn’t to get as much as we
can for the least amount of effort but to do as much as we can to benefit the
most people we can. And after we
have done everything to be like the servant in our Gospel lesson:
10So
you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We
are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”
We
may not be faced with the threat of persecution, but we are tempted to be
ashamed of truly testifying about Jesus by the way we conduct ourselves.
Application
As I envision the challenges
and the opportunities we face, I get discouraged when I focus on us and not on
God. Discouraged because as a whole
I would describe our congregation as a smoldering pile of leaves.
There is some fire deep down, some evidence of activity, but in general
we are slowly shrinking and not much progress is being made.
As evidence of that I submit the following observations made over the
past three years and the past 15 by my predecessor:
·
Giving levels remain relatively the same.
·
Youth seem to abandon their confirmation vows and parents let them to it.
·
Bible class attendance dwindles.
·
Even the choir is shrinking.
·
New opportunities such as Teen Topics are met with skepticism or apathy.
·
Lack of commitment to missions.
·
Leaders sometimes blame rather than encourage.
·
Councilmen at an apparent loss on how to deal with how to encourage other
members to support important projects.
At
times it just seems so futile.
I
suppose it didn’t look so good in the early hours of Pentecost either.
120 believers huddled together behind locked doors waiting for the gift
of the Holy Spirit uncertain what the future would hold–knowing only what had
happened to the last person who had stood up for the faith.
And
then it happened! The Holy Spirit
gave them a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline.
He gave them sincere faith, spiritual gifts, resources, opportunities,
and a fellowship of believers to encourage each other which has continued to
grow to this day throughout the world. We
can only imagine what impact this text had on Timothy when St. Paul urged him to
fan into flame his gift and the impact that had on his congregation.
We have the promise of Jesus that even if our faith is as small as a
mustard seed we can do great things.
Smolder
if you want–I don’t recommend it myself.
St. Paul urged Timothy to fan his gift into flame.
God has given us a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline.
Fan your gift into flame and be a light shining for Jesus as you take a
more active role in the life of your congregation.
Amen.
