{"id":579,"date":"2020-01-20T09:57:50","date_gmt":"2020-01-20T09:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=579"},"modified":"2020-01-20T15:00:45","modified_gmt":"2020-01-20T15:00:45","slug":"second-sunday-after-epiphany-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2020\/01\/20\/second-sunday-after-epiphany-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Second Sunday after Epiphany"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

     \n1 Corinthians 1:1-9<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me begin by saying, just\nas did the Apostle Paul, \u201cI give thanks to my God always for you because of the\ngrace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have\nbeen enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind – \u2026.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Now)\nI am not the oldest one here, and I may not have been as deeply involved in the\nchurch and for as long a time as some of you here, but I\u2019ve been around long\nenough, (long enough) to have seen a lot of church members react and overreact to\nproblems and become obsessed with the negative possibilities. If you will take the\ntime to read my pastor\u2019s report, you will see, that I too can obsess about the\nnegative, at least for a time. Things like worship attendance, budgets and finances,\nprogram changes, questions of commitment and how do we solve the next problem to\ncome down the pike, can become, for me, a source of obsession; maybe also you. There\nis nothing wrong with our taking seriously the issues before us and looking for\nways to make improvements, but when we let ourselves obsess over these\nproblems, we are leaving someone out of the equation. That someone is God,\nJesus and the Holy spirit and we are setting aside our faith in God for a\ndifferent kind of faith. We begin to believe that we alone are responsible for\nmaking things better and the only ones capable of making things right. We\nforget that God is with us, that Jesus has a plan for us and our church, and that\nthe Holy Spirit has not left us lacking in any of the needed resources and will\nprovide us with any additional resources that we may need to solve our church\u2019s\nissues, great and small and help us to minister to our communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\na pastor I\u2019ve been blessed to see the power of God working in congregations faced\nwith tremendous issues, and in seeing congregations pull their memberships together\nand with faith and prayer take one step at a time to solve their issues. And\nI\u2019ve also seen the futility of great human ingenuity in situations where God\nwas left out of their efforts, when with all confidence the congregation set\nout to solve the church\u2019s problems all on their own. We are not in this alone\nin ministry. Concerned members of St. Peter\u2019s occasionally ask me about the issues\nmentioned at the beginning of this sermon, you know, worship attendance and budgets\nand finances and membership commitment, and they often present their questions\nwith an almost defeatist look about them. The Apostle Paul in his greeting to\nthe church in Corinth, and likely in response to their previously stated\nconcerns, reminded them how that they have been enriched in Jesus, in speech\nand knowledge of every kind, so that the testimony of Christ has grown among\nthem. And Paul reminded them that the church in Corinth was not lacking in any\nof the needed spiritual gifts. And again, he reminded them that Jesus will by\nhis Spirit strengthen them to the end. (The words \u201cthe end\u201d had two meanings as\nunderstood by the members of the Corinthian church, one, that the time of\nChrist would soon come to bring an end to the world as they knew it and two,\nthat they may each of them soon come to an end by Rome\u2019s efforts to cleanse the\nempire of the Jewish\/Christian blight. Persecution was for them a daily\nconcern; they lived with a real risk of arrest and crucifixion, of torture and\nbecoming the entertainment in one of Rome\u2019s colosseums as the prey of a lion or\na gladiator. They had good reason to be afraid.) But God, Paul additionally reminded\nthem, is faithful. All these reminders are also for us. Here at St. Peter\u2019s,\nwe\u2019ve done fairly well, as compared to many congregations. Our membership\ndropped by just one member in 2019, that, because we continue to receive new\nmembers by baptism, transfer and other ways. Our budget remains a struggle, as\nwe have lost some strong and committed members, but we continue to exceed our\nbudget\u2019s expectations and cover our deficit with our investment dividends and\nearnings (funds handed down to us by members who first supported St. Peter\u2019s\nwhile they lived). The Lord gave to each of us the gifts that are needed to\nsustain St. Peter\u2019s. But not just to sustain St. Peter\u2019s, to also give St.\nPeter\u2019s the heart and ability to minister with great love to the community, to\neach other and to minister to worthy causes worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\ngood as we are, that doesn\u2019t mean that we as a congregation are doing all that\nGod has called us to do, all for which we have been given the gifts to\naccomplish. We still have much to do; we need to become financially independent\nof our church\u2019s investments so that we may use them more for ministry and less\nfor church expenses, and while there will certainly be struggles ahead, that in\nno way means that we have reason to fear for the future of our church or the\nministry of Jesus Christ. Jesus is not finished with us; Jesus is not finished\nwith St. Peter\u2019s; Jesus is not finished with all the peoples of the world. There\nis much more to be done! We have a purpose, and while I do not know exactly\nwhat Jesus has in mind for us, I know that it will require of us a greater\ncommitment to ministry than we have yet to make. Our faith and the ministry of\nJesus Christ will need to become more than a once a week thing for us; it will\nneed to become a real priority in our lives. I appreciate all that everyone is\nalready doing, but you know better than I, that you could do more; I know\nbetter than you that I too could do more. Our faith in the living Lord has\ngiven us talents we have never fully used. Today\u2019s meeting of the congregation\nand the reports given can help us to see where our God given talents have been\nused to the glory of God and how we may grow the ministry of St. Peter\u2019s, and\nthis meeting and its reports can help to point us in new directions where we\ncan more fully use the gifts of the Holy Spirit given to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nwill close as I begin: Thank you Lord for the gift of this ministry and for the\njoy of working with the family of St. Peter\u2019s. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      1 Corinthians 1:1-9 Let me begin by saying, just as did the Apostle Paul, \u201cI give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":580,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions\/580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}