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TO ALL GENERATIONS

May 4, 2008

Pastor Bob Sanders

We’re departing from our series on Philippians this morning to think together as a church about this Sanctuary Enhancement Project we’ve been hearing about.  The theme of the campaign comes from Paul’s great prayer in Ephesians 3 beginning at verse 14.  Let’s listen to that prayer now:

Ephesians 3:14-21

14For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. 16I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, 17and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 18I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Sacred Buildings

When I think about church building campaigns I’m reminded of the story of the mother who found her five-year-old son in tears as he tied his shoelaces. 

“Why are you crying?” she asked. 

“Because,” he sobbed, “I have to tie my shoes.” 

“But you just learned how,” she said, “and it isn’t all that hard, is it?”

“No, it isn’t,” wailed the little boy, “but now I’m gonna have to do it for the rest of my life!”

Sometimes I feel that way about building programs.  The first church I served undertook a multi-million dollar program to build a new sanctuary one month after I arrived.  The next church I served went through two major building campaigns during my time there.  And this will be the fourth building program since I’ve been here at Lake Grove and something like the seventh building fund or debt retirement campaign. 

But I’m deeply grateful for the results: the offices and reception area, the classrooms and nursery, the library and the choir room, the added pews and increased parking spaces (believe it or not, we used to have even fewer).  What would we do today without these?  Or look back even further.  What would do without the vision and the commitment of those who built the sanctuary in the late 1950s, or the Fellowship Hall in the late 1980s? 

We all know that the church is more than a set of buildings.  The church is the people of God, ransomed and redeemed in Jesus Christ.  Sometimes it’s the gathered people of God – like now, on Sunday mornings, when more than 1,000 of us gather here in these buildings for worship and study and fellowship.  For most of the rest of the week we’re the scattered people of God – scattered throughout the community in homes and neighborhoods, offices and shops, schools and stores.  Some people think it’s spiritually second-rate to talk about church buildings.  But the fact is we need them.  Eugene Peterson is one of my favorite authors, and in his recent book on Christian spirituality entitled The Jesus Way he writes,

"We sometimes say, thoughtlessly I think, that the church is not buildings.  It’s people.  I’m not so sure.  Synagogues and temples, cathedrals, chapels, and storefront meeting halls provide continuity in place and community for Jesus to work his will among his people.  A place, a building, collects stories and develops associations that give local depth and breadth and continuity to our experience of following Jesus.  We must not try to be more spiritual than Jesus in this business.  Following Jesus means following him into sacred buildings that have a lot of sinners in them, some of them very conspicuous sinners.  Jesus doesn’t seem to mind." 1

Did you get that?  Buildings provide continuity and community for Jesus to work on us.  The key is to pay attention to what he’s doing in the lives of the sinners who occupy these sacred buildings (that’s us, by the way).  You don’t want to get “more spiritual” than Jesus.

I think of some of the sacred buildings in which I’ve gathered with other believers to worship: an ancient and awesome stone cathedral in Salisbury, England, a tiny cinder block house in Baba Garage, Senegal, a vast megachurch in Denver, a converted warehouse outside Philadelphia, a vaulted gothic chapel in Paris, a funky high school auditorium in east Portland (to say nothing of the sanctuary and fellowship hall of Lake Grove Presbyterian).  Each building was different, but in each I experienced the presence of the living God.  Certainly our God is never confined to any building made by human hands.  But we are creatures of space and time, and in his amazing grace our Lord condescends to meet us in places like these, to enter and use these buildings for his own purposes.

What I’m saying is that sanctuaries and fellowship halls, classrooms and offices, choir rooms and kitchens – these are tools, instruments the Holy Spirit uses to bring folks like us into a relationship with Jesus Christ, tools to get us connected to other believers, tools to break our hearts with the needs of the world and get us to respond.  Whether it’s a tent of meeting (like in the book of Exodus) or a grand temple (like the one Solomon constructed in Jerusalem), whether it’s a house of prayer (like a synagogue) or an upper room (where Jesus first broke bread and gave it to his disciples), they provide a sacred space where we encounter before God in worship,

where we lift up our voices in songs of praise,

where we offer heartfelt prayers of adoration and confession and intercession,

where we hear the Word of God proclaimed,

where we join our hands and our hearts to one another in covenant relationship,

where we sense the tug of God’s Spirit drawing us into new forms of mission and ministry.

Just buildings?  Yes, but when the wind of God’s Spirit blows through them they become more.  They become sacred places, holy space, and we who follow Jesus in them come away blessed, sometimes broken, but always transformed.

To All Generations

That’s the kind of thing Paul is praying for in Ephesians 3 – that we would be transformed – strengthened with power through the Holy Spirit, that Christ would dwell in our hearts, that we would know the love of Christ and be filled with the fullness of God.  That’s a prayer that dares to ask God for big things.  It’s a prayer I hope you’ll pray for yourself, your spouse, your kids, and your church.

It ends with this great benediction in verses 20 and 21.  It’s one of my favorite passages in all the New Testament, and our pastors use it from time to time at the close of our worship services:

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

It says our God is at work within us, and by that power he is able to accomplish abundantly far more than we could ask or even imagine.  No matter what your biggest dream, your greatest wish, your grandest desire, God is able to do far more.  To him be glory, it says, glory here in the church, and in Christ Jesus, to all generations, forever and ever. 

“To all generations” – that’s the theme of this campaign.  That’s what we’re affirming in this Sanctuary Enhancement Project.  We stand on the shoulders of faithful generations who came before us.  And we build not just for ourselves but for generations who will follow, generations not yet born, who will take what God is doing now and extend it even farther.

You have to understand that Biblical faith is always multi-generational.  Again and again in the Old Testament we hear this three-generational emphasis: “you . . . and your children . . . and your children’s children.” 2  In Psalm 78, for example, the psalmist acknowledges what’s been received from previous generations and then goes on to make this promise:

Things that we have heard and known, that our ancestors have told us…we will not hide them from [our] children; we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done…that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and rise up and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God. 3

“That the next generation might know them.”  It has been said that the Christian faith is always one generation away from extinction.  If one generation fails to pass on to the next the things of God the cost can be very great.  As Christians we didn’t get here all by ourselves.  We didn’t make up the content of our faith.  We received it from those who went before us.  Previous generations of believers passed it on to us and then the Holy Spirit made it real in our experience.  It is up to us not just to hang on to this truth we’ve received, but to pass it on to the next generation and pray they will hang on to it and transfer it intact to yet another generation. 

Think about that when in a few minutes we repeat the Apostles’ Creed together.  Think about the generations past, present, and future when we say, “I believe in the communion of the saints.”  Because that’s what we’re affirming – that we are a multi-generational family of faith, a family that includes those who’ve gone before us, and those who are here with us today, and those who the Lord will add to our number in the days ahead.  The communion of the saints – God’s holy people in Christ Jesus – who were and who are and who are still to come. 

And think about what happens in a sacred space like our sanctuary.  Think of what we say and do, week after week, year after year, and how that embraces all generations and draws us together in Jesus Christ. 

Think about baptisms, where we bind our lives together to little ones and their parents, promising to be that extended family – brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, parents and grandparents in Christ.  Glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations.

Think about weddings where we celebrate the joining together of a man and a woman in a bond of love and faithfulness that will last all the days of their lives.  Think about the services where couples come back after twenty-five or even fifty years and renew their vows: to love and to cherish, “in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live.”  Glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations.

Think about the installations and the commissionings, where we set apart certain people and lay hands on them and pray for the Holy Spirit to bless them, equip them, protect them, and use them as they do Kingdom work right here as pastors and elders and deacons, and as ambassadors around the world in places like Senegal and Zambia, Mexico and Honduras, Pakistan and Mongolia and Cambodia (to name a few).  Glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations.

Think about the memorial services where we gather to bid farewell to one who has died, to remember that precious life, to hear the promises of resurrection in the Scriptures, and to comfort those who are grieving.  Think about the memorial services you’ve been part of, especially if it was your loved one who died.  Glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations.

Think about the worship services Sunday after Sunday, the hymns and anthems of praise, the confession and pardon, the preaching of the Word, the times we’ve been fed at the Lord’s Table.  Think of the lives touched, the relationships healed, the commitments made, the journeys begun, the missions funded, the ministries empowered.  Glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations.

The Pitch

When you think about it, it is pretty glorious stuff.  But before we close I have to bring us back down to earth, and do what I’m supposed to do here, and that’s make the pitch – ask for your help. 

So here goes.

The cost of the project is around $1.7 million.  To date, we have received commitments of around $450,000 from 77 families, averaging $5,800 per family.  In your bulletin you’ll find a pledge card to take home and pray over.  You can make a one-time gift and/or a four-year pledge.  If 500 individuals or families pledged an average of $3,000 over four years (that’s $750 per year), we’d have all we need.  I realize some of us are not able to pledge that much, but I also realize some of us can do that and more. 

We plan to dedicate our gifts and pledges next Sunday, May 11 (which happens to be both Mother’s Day and Pentecost, as well as the last Sunday we’ll be in the old sanctuary).  Please bring back your completed card next Sunday, or if you can’t be here mail it in to the church office.

Whatever the amount, your response is extremely important.  We all will benefit from this project (you and me, our children, and our children’s children).  We all need to help fund it.  And just so you know, I personally support this campaign – for three reasons:

One, it’s good stewardship.  We’re not spending multi-millions on a whole new building.  But the sanctuary is over 50 years old and it needs repairs.  The asbestos tile in the floors is breaking up, the lighting is terrible, the sound is inadequate, and on a cloudy morning it looks like a cave.  It’s better stewardship to fix the whole room all at once than tackle it piecemeal, one job at a time.  It’s very good, very responsible stewardship.

Second, it’s missional.  Some people are afraid it will keep us from doing mission, but if you’ve been paying attention at all, you’ll notice we’re doing more mission (not less) as we proceed.  We want to create a space where more people can come and encounter Jesus Christ and become part of this missional community at Lake Grove.  Each of the mission partnerships we’re part of was launched in the context of worship.  That’s why I see this new sanctuary as a springboard for increased mission in the days and years to come.  It’s thoroughly missional.

Finally, it’s time.  There are certain times when a congregation has the right window to do something like this, and this is one of those times for Lake Grove.  I’ve been pastor here for over 17 years, and that affords a certain stability for a project like this.  If I were to retire (which I will someday, but not right away, Lord willing), a new pastor would probably need at least five years to get established before doing anything to the sanctuary.  We’re debt-free.  We’re in a great place in terms of members and missions and staff.  If ever there was a time to take on sanctuary renovation, this is it.  It’s fallen to us.  It’s time – our time.

Yes, I know some might say this is a terrible time economically to do something like this.  But as I’ve looked back, I’ve noticed that each time we set out to build over the past twenty years it’s been in a down time economically.  And isn’t it good to know we serve a God who is able to accomplish far more than even the Federal Reserve can ask or imagine (that’s the NSV – the New Sanders Version)?  So I say it’s a good time, and I’m asking you to respond as you have in the past – with courage, with faith and with generosity. 

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in this and every church – in our buildings and budgets, in our people and programs – and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.  Amen.

1. Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way (Eerdmans, 2007), p.231.
2. See Deuternomy 6:1-9, for example (v.2 - “you and your children and your children’s children”). 
3. Psalm 78:3,4,6,7 (NRSV).