8-29-2020 8:49pm

Pastor's Corner: Von Anderson

Rick Amburgey Neighbor

Jonah 1:2, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” (ESV)

We begin this week with the original calling of Jonah from God. We are not given very much information as to who this Jonah is, but it is enough for us to know this. That God doesn’t use only famous people with great pedigrees or resumes, with all kinds of accomplishments or accolades. God calls and uses all who are His. Each one of you, who call yourself a follower of Christ, have been called by God to go into the world and make disciples of all nations. So, here we have Jonah being called by God to go to this city of Nineveh and to let them know that their sins have been brought before God to be judged. For this week, I am not going to focus in on Jonah’s response but instead I want to focus in on the calling itself. I feel/believe that the church as a whole has left the calling the God has placed on it and its people. Most Christians can recite Matthew 28:19-20, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”(ESV).

Unfortunately we have left the primary command in that statement. That word is “GO”. Instead we have changed it to “come”. We have bought into the idea of Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, “Build it and they will come.” The church has turned their focus on the “inward” instead of the “outward”. Constantly trying to find and develop ways to bring more people to the church, when the focus is supposed to be, How do we take the church to the world? It is not supposed to be us building the church, that is what Christ said would be His responsibility. Matthew 16:18, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church…”(ESV)

Our responsibility is to go out and bring the people into what God is building. But we have become lazy and don’t want to go out. In the book of Isaiah, chapter 6, Isaiah sees the Lord God high and lifted up in all of His glory. In verse 8 God asks this question, Isaiah 6:8, And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”(ESV). The idea and call to go is throughout the scriptures. God never asks His people just to stay where you are and wait and He will send some people to you.

So why do we struggle so much with this. One simple answer is, it is easier to ask and invite people to come, than it is to go where they are. It in the long run costs us more to go than to stay. There are sacrifices required, there are true resources that have to be spent, and more than anything else it costs us our very comfort. We are more comfortable sitting in/on our pews on Sunday, feeling pretty good about ourselves, than for us to actually go to where people are hurting, struggling, dying, and the lists go on. I have now lived in Dayton for two years. In that time have a met several individuals who belong or attend church. Some have been quite involved and faithful to their churches.

Yet, in these last two years, I have a total of zero individuals even ask me to come to their church. We have done a very poor job in giving this world around us a true good example of how to be influential in this world. The church is slowly but surely becoming and afterthought and the butt end of jokes in the world around them. In the beginning of this country, on any given Sunday, the majority of a town or community would be in church services together. Most if not all businesses would be closed, if not even illegal to be open on a Sunday. It was a day that was to be set aside for worship and gathering with our families, in a day of rest and community. Now, we don’t even require people to even make the effort of getting out of their PJ’s to attend church. Everything is online or live streaming. We have even removed the need to ever even go out to church, and still be considered a productive member of that congregation.

What started out as a ministry to those who were truly shut-in and physically incapable of coming out to service has now been turned into a convenience. The church is basically saying, we don’t want to put any real burdens on you and make you really commit to anything so if you don’t want to come that is ok, just worship with us via the internet. Just make sure you send your tithe in through PayPal. In the meantime most of these people have made major commitments to every social event in their community while the church gets a hit on their webpage. So what’s the result? The church continues to lose their influence and voice in our world around us.

What’s the solution? Simple, get back to the call of God and not just the convenience of man. Get out in the world and talk to people, go to where they are. Stop telling them you will be praying for them and not raise one finger to actually help them out of their needs. For example, you see someone hungry and struggling, you tell them you will be praying for them, then you and your family go on out to your favorite steakhouse for dinner. Would it really have been that difficult to invite these people to your house and feed them, or even just taken

them with you? To follow Christ costs everything we have, especially our convenience and comfort.

God has commanded us to go out into all the world. It is not a question, or, if you are not too busy could you do me a favor, it is a command. So just as in Isaiah’s life who is going to stand up and say, “Here I am, ready to go.”