When I read the epistle lesson for today the last line reminded me of a story. The last line from the reading from Hebrews says, Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
The part in that verse about drawing near to the throne of grace reminded me of this story. It’s the story of a little girl, appropriate for LWML Sunday. This little girl lived in England in the time of King Edward some 70 years ago or so. One day the king was coming to the town where this little girl lived to dedicate a hospital. All the school children turned out along his route to and from the hospital.
As king Edward returned past where she and her classmates were, they all waved and clapped a second time as he passed by and then returned to their school room. They were all excited to have seen their sovereign, except our little friend… she was crying. Her teacher took her aside and gently asked what was wrong, hadn’t she been able to see the king? In a small voice quavering with sadness she said that yes she had seen the king… and she took a big breath, and then said, but the king didn’t see me.
The king didn’t see me. She was sad because she wasn’t seen by the man who occupied the throne. That strikes a different note than what the writer of Hebrews says today doesn’t it? We draw near to the throne of grace in confidence! We know that the Man on the throne of grace sees us.
Christ our king does see us. He knows us and He knows our needs. He knows what each of us individually need, like our little friend who needed to be seen by her king. Jesus knows that we need His attention.
He also knows that we as a congregation of His own also need His attention. He knows what we need to see here, to capture, as His vision for this place. We’ve talked for some time now about Strategic Ministry Planning and the month is now upon us. And Christ our king knows that we are expecting Him to see us and to meet us in and through this planning process. He knows that that will happen and He won’t fail to make His will known among us. Is it possible we might hear wrong – yes. But He won’t let that stop His plans from going forward. He works all things for good for them that love Him, St Paul reminds in Romans.
For those who love Him. That is, for those who rest their hope on Him. In the sermon title today the question is 'Do You Rock?' R o c k was the theme for the national LWML conference this year and rock stands for 'rest on Christ the king'. That is what we are doing in the SMP process. We are resting the future of who we are here at Mount Olive on the vision that will come through meeting with Christ our king.
Now, I want to warn you – seriously – that once we have this vision at the end of the Planning process, what we once were here is dead! After that point – the old Mt. Olive is gone. In Christ all things are made new we’re told in 1st Cor, and that includes us, this congregation. In this process we’re moving toward a greater dependency on Christ our king.
We will be new. And things here will not be what we were, not in the last 5 years, the last 10 or even 15 years. Some want to say we are dying congregation – I disagree, we are not a dying congregation. We are a dead congregation. We are dead and we need to recognize that. We are dead, we are dead to what we were, to what we think we should have been and we’re dead to our selfish desire to simply preserve what we think we have.
We have to die to those things and let go of them. We must be cut off from the things in the past that would hold us back from resting our future on Christ the King. Remember what it says in the Hebrews passage today, For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow
You know we’ve been praying for Chelsea Brooks, she’s the daughter of Pastor Glenn Brooks over at Harbor Community church that meets at the jr high school. I went to lunch with Pastor Brooks this week and he told me that with the particular form of virulent cancer that Chelsea has, what they have to do now is to basically kill off her blood cells, especially her white blood cells. They will put her in isolation for about three weeks and kill off her blood cells and then rebuild her blood from her own stem cells so that they attack her cancer instead of ignoring it.
That is what Strategic Ministry Planning is for us, it’s rebuilding our blood. We are making new dna here. We keep the heritage that is ours and let Christ divide away those things, by His Word, that we need to leave behind. Again in the Hebrews reading today it says, Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession
We hold fast to our confession of Christ; to the whole confession of Jesus and His death and resurrection and the new life that is ours as we rest on Him. He makes all things new. We can’t let the fear of the past and let the bad and painful things that have gone on, we can’t let those things constrain us. Instead, we hold onto the confession of grace that comes from Christ our king and move forward in new life in Him.
We also don’t wait to serve God. We don’t let fear or the past hold us back from our service to Him. The theme verse for the LWML from psalm 100:2 is very fitting for us today, it says that we serve the Lord with gladness. It doesn’t say we will serve the Lord, it says to serve the Lord. And it is Him we serve, we don’t serve things or our own expectations or fears. We serve a living God a king who sees us and knows us.
The psalm also doesn’t say that service is optional. It’s not, ‘maybe we’ll serve the Lord with gladness’. No, it is in the imperative, we are to serve. But we serve with joy. Our service is not done in servitude, it’s not something we do grudgingly, we do it with joy. We do it because we have first been served. We’ve been served by the King of creation. And so we, in loving and joyful response listen to and obey our king.
Thinking back to Hebrews again, it’s the sword of our Sovereign King that pierces and divides away those things that keep us from joyful service. He will cleave away from us that which must be let go of. Remember what they have to do to Chelsea and her blood. We need to see that process for ourselves of killing off the old blood so that the new blood, the new life can thrive and grow.
Christ’s disciples had to leave behind their old life of depending on themselves and instead focus on the new life that was theirs in the blood of Christ. Jesus said in Matthew 28:19 to go and make disciples of all nations, that going was not the disciples idea that was the vision that Jesus gave.
Also we, like the apostles must each leave our dead carcasses outside the gate and put on the new life in Christ that is ours, individually by grace through faith alone. I’m not talking about our congregation now, but about each one of us. None of us have life apart from life in Christ. That’s hard for Americans to hear. We think of ourselves as independent not dependant people. We think of ourselves as able and powerful and capable.
If you’ve been watching the Ken Burns movie on wwII on pbs the past two weeks or so you can’t help but feel the pride of a people who have done the hard things and sacrificed for something greater. And so it goes against our native pride to think we are needy, weak and unable to help ourselves. But that is true of each of us. We are the needy ones, and God has served us. We’re the ones for whom the King sacrificed greatly for so that we would be saved.
We all want to be noticed by the king. And His sacrifice shows us that we are. I often think of this story of the little girl when I walk in over at the preschool. So many of them call out, ‘hi Pastor Tom’ when I walk in and they all say ‘bye Pastor Tom’ when I leave. I try to make eye contact with them and will often stop and talk with them on my way in or out. I want them to know that they have been seen.
You have opportunities like that in your life as well. A neighbor’s child waves and says hi. A grandson or daughter tries to tell you about their day on the phone. There are many instances in your daily life where you can ‘see’ the people around you. God has seen you and you have been served by Him. You can show the joy that is yours in Christ when you take the time to notice others and to let them know they have been seen.
Again before we close, going back to Hebrews, we have confidence in the sacrifice of Christ our King. And so we draw near to His throne of grace in that confidence of knowing He knows us. In the weeks ahead let us take after the LWML in their example this year. Let’s remember to rock; to rest on Christ the king. And as we rest on Him and in the blood of His sacrifice, we get new life, each day by God's grace alone. And with that new life we together, here, will serve the Lord with gladness.
In Jesus' name, Amen.