Welcome Home
The other day I came across this Welcome that one church uses on Sunday. Read this and see what you think:
“We may be a little different than other churches you might visit, and we hope you feel it when you join us in person, watch a message online, or listen to a podcast. We are a spiritual community seeking to live out a more just and generous Christianity.
We think that faith is less about doctrines and dogmas demanding total agreement, and more about a life to be lived, enjoyed, and shared with others.
What unites us is a growing awareness that life is a gift and love is the point. We want to learn how to love better, and share that with the world.
We welcome the entire human family regardless of race, age, creed, physical abilities, marital or economic status, gender identity, or sexual orientation.
So, if you are curious and have come to see,
if you are tired and have come to rest,
if you are grateful and have come to share,
if you are journeying and have come to grow,
if you are wounded and have come to heal,
if you are joyful and have come to shine,
Welcome.
Welcome home to church.”
Who is welcome? And who is not?
I don’t know about you, my guess is that you might struggle with some of the language in this welcome, but there’s something about it that I kind of like.
I kind of like it because it welcomes people home into church, into the family.
I kind of like it because it opens the door. Maybe one of the worst things the church has become known for, and Christianity in general has become known for, is that we’ve closed the door.
We’ve talked about this before, but by and large, we’ve become known more for what we’re against than what we’re for. We’ve closed the door to certain kinds of people, certain groups of people, certain people that hold a particular world view or certain ideas that we don’t agree with.
And because of that, there are so many people who are closed off to Jesus. Not because of anything Jesus ever said or anything Jesus ever did. But because of things that the church has said and things that the church has done!
Remembering the Headline of our Story
Here’s the problem, from the very beginning of our story as Christians, as Christ-followers, the headline of our story has never been… Agree with me. The headline of our story has never been… Live perfectly. Or, Believe correctly. Or, Worship rightly.
The headline of our story has never been a long of list of all we’re against or all you have to get right before you can join.
The headline of our story has always been LOVE.
And, in the words of the great theologian Ana, from Frozen,
“Love is an open door.”
We become a welcoming church when we decide to love first, not judge first. And when we make the move to love first we open the door to share the love of Jesus with others.
When Love Opens the Door
Now I know this probably raises all kinds of questions for you and I don’t want to downsize those questions, but I do want to be clear that my point is that God has opened the door to Himself through Love, through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus so that anyone who believes in Him can be saved.
We see what happens when love opens the door to someone for whom the door had previously been closed in so many ways. Here’s the story from Acts 8.26-41.
As for Philip, an angel of the Lord said to him, “Go south down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza.” So he started out, and he met the treasurer of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under the Kandake, the queen of Ethiopia. The eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and he was now returning.
Philip is directed by, guided by, led by the Divine. When Philip hears the voice of God, Philip obeys.
Some of you may want to hear the voice of God. Some of you may wonder why you don’t hear God speak, can’t hear God speak. I don’t have all the answers to your questions about how to hear God, but don’t miss this. Philip hears the voice of God because Philip is on mission for God!
If you want to hear the voice of God then you need to be actively engaged in the mission of God. As far as I can tell, the voice of God is most often heard by the people of God engaged in the mission of God.
Philip not only hears the voice of God, he’s obedient to it. It’s one thing to hear a word from God, it’s another thing to be obedient to it.
Some of you know what this is like. You’ve experienced this. You may not have heard the audible voice of God, but you’ve felt prompted by God to do something, to speak to someone, and you didn’t do it. You knew you should have. But you didn’t. It’s one thing to hear a word from God, to be prompted by the Spirit of God, but it’s another thing completely to be obedient to it.
Philip has already moved from Jerusalem to Samaria. From comfort to discomfort. From where he wanted to be to where God wanted him to be. Now he continues that movement out of his comfort zone into the will of God.
Trusting the Leading of the Spirit
Philip has gone from sharing the message of the love of God with those around him in Jerusalem, to those in Samaria. And now, God has led him to an Ethiopian. And not just an Ethiopian, but an Ethiopian eunuch.
Maybe you’ve got questions about who Jesus would welcome into His family. I’m sure Philip had those same questions. Talk about having questions about someone’s sexual identity or sexual orientation, to be a eunuch raised a million questions.
But Philip didn’t concern himself with any of those questions, he just followed the undeniable leading of God to go to this man God had put in his path. And here is what Philip heard when he got close.
Seated in his carriage, he was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah.
The Holy Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and walk along beside the carriage.”
Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
Now I want to make sure you see this… before Philip speaks, he comes near and he listens. Before he opens his mouth, he opens his ears. And when he decides to speak, he doesn’t start with what he believes or what this man should believe, he starts with a question.
“Do you understand what you are reading?”
The man replied, “How can I, unless someone instructs me?” And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him.
Because Philip listened before he ever said a word, because Philip started with a question before he started with apologetics, Philip is invited into this man’s carriage and into this man’s life. And that opens the door for Philip to tell him about Jesus!
The passage of Scripture he had been reading was this:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter.
And as a lamb is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
He was humiliated and received no justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”
The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, was the prophet talking about himself or someone else?” 35 So beginning with this same Scripture, Philip told him the Good News about Jesus.
Stories Matter
Have you ever thought about this? Stories matter. How we tell the stories we tell matters. How we speak of God matters. And that we speak of God when we tell the stories we tell matters.
People need to hear stories of love, of grace, of forgiveness, of hope, of second chances, of acceptance. People need to know that there is good news in this world of fake news, in this world of bad news, there is good news. And this good news is about Jesus.
As they rode along, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “Look! There’s some water! Why can’t I be baptized?” He ordered the carriage to stop, and they went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.
Because Philip listened…
Because Philip obeyed…
Because Philip shared the story….
This man accepted the invitation of Jesus and was baptized! He stepped into the baptized life, into the story!
“Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.”
Now, most people who research such things don’t believe those words originated with St. Francis. But those words have given many Christians for many generations an excuse not to talk about Jesus. To not use their words.
Here’s the problem, if we don’t use our words, how will people ever know Jesus?
The Holy Spirit will orchestrate but the Holy Spirit will never dictate. The Holy Spirit will put you in position to speak about the love of Jesus into someone’s life but you have to make the next move. You have to choose to speak words of life.
Here’s what I want you to see today.
God is always already at work in the hearts and lives of people around you.
You may or may not always be aware of it. But God is constantly at work in the lives of the people around you to bring them to faith in Jesus. And God is positioning you in their lives to help them.
It doesn’t matter that you’re not a trained missionary, that you’re not a Bible scholar, that you don’t know all the answers to life’s hardest questions. Philip didn’t either. He went from taking food to widows to leading people all over the world to faith in Jesus. As a believer in Jesus, this is what you do. Be aware that God is always already at work in the hearts and lives of the people around you.
The Holy Spirit will help you
And here’s the good news, the Holy Spirit is going to help you. This is one of the primary reasons Jesus said He would give us His Holy Spirit. This is one of the primary reasons you have the Spirit of Jesus living inside of you. Jesus said it this way…
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” – Acts 1.8
You shouldn’t be afraid to tell others about Jesus, because… You never know what hangs in the balance of your decision to tell another person about the love of Jesus!
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