Built on the Rock

Reading: Matthew 7.21-29


Fourteen years ago, on 22nd June 1977, the Uniting Church in Australia came into existence through a union of Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian Churches.  Some saw it as managerial and economic sense; others as an act of obedience to Christ; for all it was a step of faith into the unknown.

   I recall a conversation with a friend of many years who had chosen to leave the Methodist Church prior to Union and has taken a leading role in another denomination.  How can you be part of the Uniting Church?  he was saying, listing a number of serious imperfections.   Above all, what about our Wesleyan tradition? Others too had expressed their concerns about the Reformed and Congregational heritages and have not taken their place with us in the Uniting Church.  Let me assure you that my friend is still a warm friend and we keep in touch.  I trust we can all express our love, openness and fellowship towards those who worship in other congregations of the Lord's people.

   My reply to my friend was this, "I have always believed that the heart of the Wesleyan tradition was not Wesley himself but the grace of God experienced in his conversion, the Scriptures which he accepted as his authority and the mission to which he gave himself so relentlessly.  Adherence to these principles is not guaranteed by being Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational, Uniting - or anything else.   Indeed, in the Uniting Church I see a fresh openness to get back to the basics and to look beyond the traditions of the past few hundred years."

   That was about thirteen years ago, when the Uniting Church had a certain flexibility of structure, an acceptance of diverse opinions, an openness to mission...

   But now that fourteenth birthday has come - where are we going?

   Jesus said the wise man is the one who hears His words and does them.   Paul wrote to the Corinthians that there is only one foundation for the Church - Christ Himself.   Not the Church's method of government, not the structures and traditions, not the historic or present Church leaders, not the TV evangelists or roving teachers, not the Basis of Union - but only Christ Himself!

   The most exciting thing about the Uniting Church is the number of people, congregations and parishes who are consciously seeking to know Christ and to express His mission.  So let's think about the basics - well, some of them at least!

THE GRACE OF GOD

   Central to the life of the Christian and of the Church is the grace of God.  Well - God is at the centre and worship is our central activity as the centre pages of our Church News so consistently proclaim.  But an experience of God apart from grace would blow us apart!

   I do not deserve to live in the presence of God.   No matter how hard I try, I cannot make myself good enough to come to Him.  It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God!

   John Wesley records in his Journal in 1938 after he returned from missionary service in America, "All my works, all my righteousness, my prayers, need an atonement for themselves; so that my mouth is stopped.  I have nothing to plead.  God is holy; I am unholy.  God is a consuming fire; I am altogether a sinner, meet to be consumed."

   When we talk about "grace", we are thinking about what God in His love has done through His Son Who took all the aweful consequences of our rebellion and sin.  Grace speaks of God's new attitude towards all who now put their trust, no longer in their own strivings to be good, but in the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us.

   Then, on May 24th 1738, Wesley records that he went very unwillingly to the society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans.   "About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.  I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."

   The Fourth Assembly of the Uniting Church placed strong emphasis on every member having a "conversion faith".  It's not a question of whether your experience is the same as Wesley's or someone else's, but whether you live in the knowledge that God's grace alone is sufficient for you.

THE SCRIPTURES

   The Uniting Church pledges all its Ministers of the Word, Deaconesses, Lay Preachers....   to accept and teach from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments in which alone we can hear the Word of God.

   At the heart of the Church's life is the conviction that the God Who is has spoken, made Himself known to us.  The Bible is His Word written.

  The early Presbyterians wrote in the Westminster Confession in 1643 - "The authority of the Holy Scripture ...   dependeth not on the testimony of any man or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof ...   Our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness, by and with the Word, in our hearts ...  Nothing is at any time to be added - whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men ...  The Church is finally to appeal to them..."

   We live in an age when truth is seen to be relative, not absolute, when there is an emphasis on what feels good and therefore on finding what's "true for you".

   Let me ask you a question.  Did anyone get lost coming here this morning? Have you ever got lost going somewhere?  Did you believe the place was somewhere, but it wasn't there after all? It may be fine, comforting, and a lot of other things besides, believing something, but does it correspond to reality?

   As a Christian, I believe a lot of uncomfortable things.  Why? Because they are the truth.   In fact, I do find that they make very good sense of the realities about me.  If I just want to talk about the love of God, but not about His holiness, His standards for living, the tragedy of human sin and the certainty of God's judgment, I am talking a cruel deception.  My hearers may believe it "in spite of" life.  Most likely, however, they will reject it because it fails to tally with the rest of their experience.  Then, because I have not been credible to this point, they will not hear the good news about what the loving God has done for us in Christ.

   The Bible is God's message for us.  Do you regularly read it, think about it, absorb it, allow it to feed your spirit, live by it?

MISSION

The overall mission of the Church and the "missions" of our individual lives are all related to the sending of Christ, what we call His commission.

   "Hear my words and do", Jesus said.  He gave us some specifics for our lives and some great objectives for the Church.   The Christian life involves us in pursuing His priorities.  Jesus said it is not the one who says, "Lord, Lord", who will enter heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

   On the one hand, making Him Lord will involve us in a simpler life-style for the sake of the Gospel.  This will enable us to give far more than we presently do for the support of the Lord's work in the Parish and beyond.  It will also free us for greater personal involvement in that work with our various gifts.

   The mission of the Church - to go and make disciples - involves every one of us.  The need is great and many are near a point of openness.  The real question is whether the heart of the Church is set on mission - or on maintenance - whether your great desire for our Parish is mission or maintenance.

   Back in the time of Queen Elizabeth I there began the movement later known as Congregationalism.  These people contended that the Church should only consist of those who had responded to the call of Christ and who had covenanted with Him and with each other to live together as His disciples.  They saw that the ecclesiastical regimentation of their time was stifling the life and mission of the Church.  This could only find expression in the independence of the local congregation.  This commitment to mission found a particular expression in the founding of the London Missionary Society in 1795.

   Mission - a desire, a commitment, a priority - for the sake of the Lord, for the sake of the Gospel, for the sake of others, for the sake of the world!

THE LORD CALLS US...

   Being a Christian is more than being a hearer - it is being a doer.  It is more than calling Jesus "Lord" - it is doing the will of the Father.

   Remember the song about "too many chiefs and not enough Indians..."? Too many of us just want a passive, listening role.  But, as all the Bethel students well know, we are "blessed to be a blessing!"

   On this birthday, Jesus is calling us into action - to receive His grace and to share it; to hear His word and to do it; to accept His commission and to be about it.

   Happy Birthday, Uniting Church! Many Happy Returns of the day!


© Peter J. Blackburn, Morningside, 23 June 1991
Except where otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New International Version, © International Bible Society, 1984.


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