Soul Artists Live a Life of Adventure

Intro to Scripture:

The founder of Methodism, John Wesley stated, “What good does it do to convert someone and then leave their soul for the devil. Conversion without nurture is like giving birth to a baby and then thinking your job as a parent is done.

The Apostle Paul wrote his letters to new and fledgling churches. Most of the people are new to what is called “The Way,” this new faith we now call Christianity. All of his letters are written to address specific issues and problems that these new churches are experiencing. Birthing a new movement or leading people to a new way of life is never easy, even when it is filled with hope and promise. Why do we or should we do things differently? It is not the way we have done it in the past, or how we were taught by our family or our religious leaders. Paul writes to help these new followers of Jesus find solutions to these growing pains while he shares teachings about the faith and the joy and hope of new life it brings to them personally, and to the community they share together.

The passage I am about to read expresses the deep hope that the writer of this letter has for church. It expresses the dream and purpose of growing in the faith. This section is entitled by some as “The Apostle’s Prayer.” Let us hear the prayer for the Ephesian church, knowing it is still a prayer for us all today.

Read Ephesians 3:14-21

Sermon:

Our girls were about the ages of one and two at the time of this story. Nancy and I had been shopping, and when we returned home, we saw the light blinking on our answering machine. When we played the message, we heard the familiar voice of a dear friend from the church we had just moved from. She said, “Hi, this is Suzi. I wanted to call and let you know that my grandson just died from SIDS. I knew you would want to know. Call me when you get a chance.” We of course knew we needed to call her back, but before we did, we had this tremendous need to just hold our girls for awhile. We needed to love them and maybe even more importantly, we needed to let them love us.

Today’s sermon title is “Soul Artists Live A Life Of Adventure.” This is about the third sermon I wrote this week with this title. At first I was trying to show how God calls us to become new creations, and that our lives become so much more when we say yes to God and the presence of God’s Spirit in our lives. This yes to change leads us to new places and new experiences that enhance our lives. As true as this all is, it just was not feeling right. It was not touching my spirit. Finally, I realized I was trying to convince you of taking the journey or being open to living an adventurous life, instead of simply identifying what the incredible adventure is that God has called us to experience.

We heard the adventure laid before us in the Apostle’s Prayer, in Paul’s petition to God for the church then, and for us today. Paul prays that God will “strengthen our inner being with power through the Holy Spirit.” The word translated “inner being” from the Greek is the word eso. If I read my Greek Lexicon correctly, a derivative of this word is translated “soul.” Hence Paul is praying for the strengthening, the creating, the artistry of God that changes of our soul.

So what does Paul pray for as we seek to be empowered by the Spirit and have our lives shaped by God’s artistry? Paul prays for Christ to dwell in our hearts and that we may be rooted in love. This is the adventure we are called to live and to experience in our lives as followers of Christ. John Wesley said the same thing, using different words when he described what we are about as Methodist’s seeking to live a life grounded in Christ. Wesley said we are to strive toward perfection. By this he means the focus and goal of our lives, the adventure he calls us to live is to strive toward becoming the most loving and caring people we are capable of becoming. Wesley says that some may even realize this perfection in this life, but what I find truly encouraging is, if we make this our life’s goal, then when we die, we will have become the most loving people we were capable of becoming.

I shared the opening story, because we all have had those times where our lives have been touched deeply by the circumstances and experiences of others. We can place ourselves into their experience and have our own deep feelings. We needed to be loved by our girls, because we needed to just be overwhelmed by the gift of their presence with us. This was important, for we of course could not help but think and feel what life would be like if we were the ones making that call. Love touches the very core of who we are, and then directly influences the choices and directions and responses we make in our lives. Love is what God asks us to allow the shaping of the adventure and experience we call life.

Look at what happens when our hearts are influenced by love. As tragic as Haiti is, look at what it has done to pull us together as a world and as a nation. Look at how quickly nation after nation responded to the devastation, for the soul purpose of helping brothers and sisters in the human family. Cooperation far beyond anything we may have imagined if we tried to do it on our own. I will never forget the response of this church to the disaster of hurricane Katrina. In about two weeks this church alone donated over $35,000 in money and supplies to the relief effort. At that point I said to myself, there is not a money problem here, for we have a spirit based congregation who responds generously to real needs. Who lives from the passion of their hearts.

Paul tells us that when we live our lives in this adventure called love, God is able to do more in our lives than we can even imagine. If we are willing to live the adventure of allowing the Spirit to work God’s artistry in our lives. I share this as I have experienced it personally. Knowing what God has done in my life, I know beyond the shadow of doubt that God can do some amazing things. I share this not as one who brags, but one who is totally amazed that God can take a very ordinary boy who grew up in a lower economic family who did not show growing up any extraordinary skills or talents, and allow me to have lived and experienced what I have.

God has allowed me to serve the church, to be entrusted with the gift of pastoral ministry is far beyond anything I could have imagined growing up. Even in ministry, I never conceived that I would be able to serve and do as I have. To think that God has allowed me to be a major catalyst in helping change the lives of hundreds of orphans is overwhelming. To think about the impact that will make for generations is beyond my imagination. That God has allowed me to help change the culture of a church that touches the lives of millions of people is beyond comprehension.

As you look at the life of this congregation, one cannot even begin to know the breadth and width and depth that Paul tells us about when it comes to its service of 140 years. We can see even now the deep impact of our many and varied outreach ministries. I wonder if any who began these ministries could really imagine that they would be serving to the capacity they do today.

Soul Artists live a life of adventure, for it is a life grounded in God’s Spirit and rooted in Christ’s love. It is one where we stay open to the real possibilities of what God can do if our souls are empowered by God’s Spirit and our lives are lived in Christ’s love. As we walk with God this year, may we make this journey an adventure with God. If we do, we will no longer simply rely upon accomplishing what we think we can, but may look back and say, never in my wildest dreams did I believe what God could accomplish in this church and through my life.

Sermon delived by Rev. George Cushman on January 24, 2010.