"The Power of Commitment"
                                  April 27, 2008
   Dan Wilkie, TEI Graduate, Assistant Minister      

Scriptures  John 14:15-21   Colossians 3:12-17

          The entire month of April we have been talking about what it means to be church.  On April 6, Pastor Sharyl talked about being “Spiritual or Faithful”, and what makes a group church, and pointed out: “It is not where a group worships, but what and who they worship.  It is God, the Christ, The Holy one around whom their identity is formed.  It is the One in which or who, they believe and what they believe about the Holy One – that draws them together as church.

          On April 13 she preached “The Same Mind in Us” which dealt with recognizing Christ as the head of the Church, and helped us to explore what it means to be one with Christ, “If we believe it when we say Christ is the head of the church, and we want to follow Christ, then we and all of His followers, should act so much like him that we even think and love the way He did.”

          Last Sunday April 20 she preached “Being Church We Believe” and helped us look at the things we believe about our God and how we profess that belief. 

          Today we are going to focus on commitment, which is the glue that pulls all these pieces together and gives us the ability to fulfill and live out our call to be church.

          But what exactly is commitment?   Webster’s New World Dictionary defines commitment as “A pledge or promise to do something.” 

          And we make all kinds of commitments in our lives; we say vows when we get married, we say vows for certain public kinds of jobs, we say vows when we join the church, or we are installed or ordained as ministers.  One of the greatest kinds of commitments we agree to for instance is getting a drivers license.

          Now if one looks closely at commitments we see that each one of them is relational in some way, in a marriage we have a relationship with our partner, in a public job our constituents, in the church as ministers our congregants, and as drivers our relationship is with all other drivers on the road. 

          Something else you notice, is that commitments have benefits when they are fulfilled, and consequences when they are not.  Lets look more closely at the driving example, when you receive a drivers license, you are making a commitment to follow the laws of the road, to not drive impaired, to maintain your vehicle, drive for road conditions, and provide mandatory insurance.  You relate with all other drivers around you when you are on the road, and depend on them to also realize their commitments to you.  If the commitments are fulfilled, the benefit is that everyone gets where they are going safely, property damage is reduced, etc; however, if the commitments are not fulfilled the consequences can be property damage, injury, or death.

          In our scripture passage from John, we can see that Jesus understood this principle, and we can see the scripture basically as two different parts.  Jesus is preaching to the disciples, because he knows he won’t be with them long, and he is reminding them of their commitment to him, reminding them that even with him being gone that their work is not finished “If you love me keep my commandments”.  The second parts of this scripture passage are His commitments to them, “I will ask my father to provide another Advocate for you, the Spirit of Truth (The Holy Spirit)”, I will not leave you orphaned. The benefits basically are that if they keep his commandments, fulfilling their commitment to him they will see him again, the implied consequences are that they will not see him, they will be excluded in essence from God’s Grace. 

          So how does this impact us, and make us church?  Well like the disciples who followed Jesus we have certain commitments to the church, or the body of Christ and this is how this ties us together.  First, we must be committed to our faith, to understanding who it is that we worship, and what it is we believe in the Holy One.  Secondly, we must be committed to being of one mind with Christ, to think and love as He did.  Third, we must be committed to growing our faith understandings, and exactly the things we believe and how we profess that faith to others.  And lastly, we then we must be committed to living out our faith in the world. 

          This is where the second scripture passage from Colossians comes in, because in Paul’s letter we see the ways that we must live if we are truly committed to Christ’s commandments and ultimately being church. “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.  Bear with one another, and if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.  Above all clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.  And be thankful.  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to God.  And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

          So as a church then exactly how do we live these commitments?  Think about the ways that we are called to live out our faith in the world, that is assuming that we are truly committed to being Christ’s followers believing He is the head of the church.

          We are called to share the “Good News” with others, to preach and teach, so we might invite others to our worships service.  Now many of you might have been wondering what that little piece of paper in your bulletin was about that asks the question “You should come to our church because:” it is a starting point to begin this discussion, and I’ll bet all of you can answer at least one question, and the majority of you can answer two, but I challenge each of you to answer all three.  As you do this though I want you to think about our second Sunday’s lesson and that is being of one mind with Christ, remembering that Christ didn’t just associate with the rich and powerful, but ate with tax collectors, blessed beggars, healed lepers and rescued prostitutes.

          We are called to be clothed in love, or to love others, which we do through our mission and ministry, maybe by supporting our camping programs for our youth, or working at Homeward Bound or Catholic Outreach, or perhaps serving on one of our church boards, or in an Association or Conference position.

          We are called worship together, to sing praises to God and be thankful for all of our blessings, because it is in communal worship we find inspiration, strength and renewal to continue our work in the world. 

          And finally everything we do, we do in the name of Jesus Christ as the head of the Church, the body of Christ in whom is our strength. 

          Remember that nothing great every happened without commitment:  This church would not exist without the commitment of our church ancestors and so many of you who wanted to build a church in Grand Junction and worked and labored to see it happen.

          The beautiful stained glass here in our sanctuary would not exist without the commitment of people like Harold Hamel, Eric Rockingham, Sam Overdorf and so many more who labored to build and install these pieces. 

          The very country we live in would not exist were it not for people like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and others committed to individual freedom and personal liberty. 

          I can go on with other examples, John F. Kennedy and PT. 109, British RAF pilots during WWII.

          So if we really want to be the church Christ has called us to be, then we must be committed to all that being church is, as we were in the past, are today, and hopefully will be in the future.

          So I ask you this: as followers of Christ, are you committed to your faith and in what or whom you believe and how you believe?  Are you committed to being of one mind with Christ, to thinking and loving as Christ did?  Are you committed to growing in your faith so that you can express your belief and live out your faith in the world?  And lastly are you committed to living out your faith in the world fulfilling Christ’s commandments?

Amen.