 |
Pastor Randy Ott, who graduated in 89 with Joel Lillo and other Shrinkers,
has proudly posted this sermon on his church websty.
The sermon is reproduced verbatim below. |
MORRISON
ZION EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH
October
28, 2012
150th
Anniversary Worship
Pastor
Jim Skorzewski Lesson: Ephesians 2:1-9, 19-21
Kill
The Cow!
It’s Not About The Building
Yep...that’s
one of those things. I came in today
and I ran in Pastor Ott and he said, “Hey, you brought your gown, right?” I said, “You told me not to.” He said, “Oh yeah, that’s right.” Warm welcome to my guest visitors. My name is Jim Skorzewski. I go by Pastor Ski. I’m a pastor in downtown Appleton at The
Core.
I kind
of have a disclaimer this morning. If
you have your worship bulletin, inside your worship bulletin, kind of in that
insert there you’ll see; you’re going to need that. Also, as Pastor Ott talked about this morning, you have some
pencils. We are going to start right
down here. What I found is, I’m kind of
a boring preacher, so the way we keep people awake is we make them write lots
of stuff down.
The
other thing you also need to understand is the way we do things in my church is
it’s very much interactive. I don’t
preach again until about 5:30pm, and I have lots of time. So the longer it
takes for you to respond, the longer the sermon gets. That’s just one of those things.
How
many of you have ever heard the term “sacred cow”? I know I’m 40 years old. I’m old. A lot of people don’t necessarily talk that way anymore, but I
think it’s one of those things. Have you ever heard that term “sacred
cow”? If you have, just put your hands
up, it’s okay. Anybody want to venture
out and say what that is or define that? 5:30pm... lots of time. Don’t worry, if you’re wrong, I’ll just tell
you. It’s okay. (India?)
In
India they actually worship animals, cows, sacred cows. But in our context, in our society today, a
sacred cow is something that is holy and no one would ever talk about, touch,
look to change, because it would so upset the culture. So when Pastor Ott called me and he said,
“Hey, I would love for you to come and talk at our 150th Anniversary. Would you like to do that? What would you like to talk about?” I said, “How about I talk about why your
building is bad?” He went, “Great! Love it!”
So if
you have your notes today, one of the things we are going to look at right away
is Point 1. It says this... whenever we
talk about any kind of a cow or sacred cow, we need to make sure that we always
“check our motivation.” One of the
things we have to recognize is this... something like that, a sacred cow, can
actually come in and stand in the way between our relationship with our
God. And if we’re honest and we are
clear, anything that stands in the way of our relationship with our God is an
idol.
You
have that passage right away... Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to
your earthly nature... which is idolatry. (Colossians 3:5.)
I know
right now you’re thinking “Oh man, 150 years.
We were going to come today and talk about how great it is. We are going to talk about all these
incredible things that happened.”
Maybe? Maybe. But let’s be
really honest and let’s look at all of the ways God has blessed us. Let’s say first and foremost that we are
going to check our motivation. Nowhere
is that clearer where maybe they started out in a really positive good way, but
all of a sudden that motivation shifted then back in the Old Testament.
Maybe
one thing I should clarify too, one of the things we really believe downtown, I
know you guys believe this too, is that the Bible is the greatest book ever,
right? Can I get like an “Amen” or
something? It’s the greatest book
ever. One of the things we do is we do
everything topically. We take and we
have this crazy idea that the Bible proves itself. From the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation, it all
focuses on our Savior Jesus Christ and it weaves that altogether. So in my sermon today, you are going to see
passages from all over that drive this point home.
Nowhere
is it more clear that we need to look at motivation than the Old Testament in
Genesis, right? If you have your paper
in front of you, just look at this text.
There’s a part of it you’re going to join in and read with me. So check this out. If you grew up in the church, you know this, right? We have the tower of Babel and this is what
happens. It says, They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake
them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build
ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make
a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole
earth.”
(Genesis
11:3-4.)
So
what’s going on is all the people have been kind of nomadic. They lived in tents. They’ve had temporary
shelters, and now they get this great idea that they are going to take and
become permanent. Maybe for you guys
here you can kind of understand that looking back. When was your building built?
1927 but you actually started in 1802, right? 1862, I need my glasses.
I took piano instead of math.
Let’s be honest, right? So you had a long time where you were in a
temporary structure. So you can get
this. You can get it.
So look
at this next part... “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that
reaches to the heavens... Read the next nine words with me... so that we may
make a name for ourselves. Whoa, I said
nine words. Just nine. So that we may make a name for ourselves,
and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.
I’ll be
honest, this morning I got into my office really early. I Googled how to get here because I had
never been to Greenleaf or Morrison. I
still get lost in Appleton after five years.
I’m driving down County W and all of a sudden, guess what? I see this immense structure. I say, “That’s got to be the church.” There it is, standing out, drawing in
people. And I thought right away, “Man,
this is so crazy because this is just like the thing.” When this building went up, why did we build
the building? Didn’t we do this thing
because we, as simple people, we love to do things like this. And maybe we don’t always realize we do it,
but if we’re honest and we look at our heart, we do this. We look and we say,
“We are going to build this incredible thing,” and we couch it and we hide it
and we say things like this, “for the glory of God,” when really we’re thinking
in our hearts, we are going to say it’s for God’s glory, but we want to make
sure that this is for us.
I’d be
willing to bet that as part of your 150th celebration, there are tons of things
you looked at and said we are going to fix and we are going to make
better. You kind of went down and you
had this checklist and you said, “Man, this is going to be good, and this is
going to be good.” And maybe even you
couched it this way... “We’re going to make it better so that when people come
in, it will be warm and it will be welcoming and they will love it, and they
will want to come back and this will all be for the glory and the honor of
God.” Did you do that? No one is answering now.
I’m not
saying that’s wrong. But I’m saying,
are we honest? So many times what
happens is pride creeps in and we say we want the best. We say we want it for God but really we want
it for us. I know this. I’m a pastor downtown. We spent the first four years, three and
one-half years, in temporary places. We
started at an IMAX movie theater, moved to a concert hall, and here it is. Are you ready for it? Just recently, in June, we bought a bar that
we turned into a church. When you do
that, you really can’t call it a “burch” or a “char.” We call it a “chaloon.”
It just sounds better. As we are remodeling it, we can take and we can
couch and say “We better have this. We
have to have this because guess what?
We want to do this for the Lord.”
Let’s be really honest. This is
Point 2 if you have your notes. This is
Point 2. Let’s be really clear...
“church doesn’t equal building.”
Church
doesn’t equal building. So one of these
great things, you have the passage in front of you, right? Matthew 16, one of my favorite sections of
all Scripture. Jesus replied, “Blessed
are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and
blood, but by my Father in heaven. And
I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the
gates of Hades will not overcome it.”
(Matthew
16:17-18.)
Jesus
takes his disciples up on a mountain, and this is what he said. He asks them this question. “Who do people say I am?” His disciples just start going, “Some say
you are John the Baptist. Some say
you’re a prophet.” Then Jesus flips it
and he drops it on them and he says this, “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter, who we can all relate to
because he’s impulsive and he doesn’t think things through, he just starts
talking. He looks and he says, “You’re
the Christ. You’re the Son of the
Living God.” Good job Simon. Jesus comes back and he changes his name
from Simon to Peter and he does this. Check this out. Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to
you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build
my (say it...) church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”
I have
three kids. I have a 15-year-old
daughter who goes to Fox Valley Lutheran High School. I have a 12-year-old who is a 7th grader at St. Peter. And
I have a 5-year-old who is also at St. Peter in kindergarten. When my wife told me that we were expecting
our third, I got a little bit nervous, but also a little bit excited. In our house, we kind of name our kids for
very specific reasons. My oldest
daughter’s name is Abigail. That name
means “the joy of my father.” My second
daughter is Megan. It is a derivative
of Margaret and means “the blessed one” or “the pearl,” brings a lot of
joy. So I said to my wife, “Man, if
we’re having a third child, I need to know what it is, because if it’s going to
be a girl and I’m going to have three girls, I have to prepare, and we are
going to name her Mara,” which means “bitterness.”
So we
get to that incredible point where we get to have the ultrasound, right? Those of you that have kids, you know
this. I was a pastor in Milwaukee. Sometimes being a pastor gets perks because
when you go in for the ultrasound, you’re not supposed to take people. It’s just you. But we were big like “you kids are part of it and you are going
to have a little brother or sister and this is huge and we are going to find
out.” We said to our tech before, it
was someone from our church, “can we bring our kids?” They said, “Pastor, you’re not supposed to, but you’re my pastor,
so sure.”
So we
go CIA on our kids. “We are going to
take you in this room. It’s going to be
dark. Don’t talk. You’re not supposed to be there. It is a huge responsibility. She is breaking rules.” My kids are like “Okay.” So we go in and my wife is sitting
there. They put the goo on and move it
around and all of a sudden you hear the “whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.” You know what I’m talking about? My kids are there and the lady has the
little baby up on the screen. She grabs
the John Madden pen and she says this... “Do you want to know what you’re
having?” I looked and I went, “Yes, of
course I do.” She took the John Madden
pen and draws a huge circle. She puts a
dot right in the middle and says, “That right there is a scrotum.”
My
daughter who was seven jumps from her chair and does this... “YES!!!! A SCROTUM!!!!” I thought the baby was going to be born right there because my
wife freaked out. The tech doesn’t know
what to do. My daughter turns to her
sister and goes “Abby, what’s a scrotum?”
I know
right now you’re thinking, what does this mean? That’s a good Lutheran question, what does this mean? I think that’s just what happened on the
mountain, because Jesus says this.
Peter makes this confession, right?
“You’re the Christ. The Living
God.” And Jesus comes back and he says,
“Peter, on this rock, on this confession, on what you just said, I’m going to
build a church.” And I bet the
disciples were like this... “WOO!!!”
“What’s a church?” This is the
thing. You have common people. You have common people, Jewish people. The only place they went was synagogue, not
church. This is where Jesus instituted
it.
Notice
what he said. He’s not saying “Hey
look. Peter, this is what I want you to
do. I want you to lie down and we are going to put in the foundation and we’re
going to put pillars on you and boom, this is it.” No, he looks and he says, “You guys, you disciples, you Peter, this
message, this message that Jesus Christ is the One who was promised, the One
who came, the One who lived, the One who died, the One who would be crucified
and resurrected, all to fix a broken relationship with a God who is perfect,
this message is the church.” This
message.
We have
a saying downtown and it goes a little something like this... Hell is hot and
eternity is long, and because of that, we don’t want people in hell for
eternity. Someone called me out
recently and said, “You know, when you say that, hell is hot and eternity is
long, that’s kind of negative. Why
don’t you say this, ‘Heaven is really good and eternity is really long, and we
want you there with us.’” I said, “I
like that.” This is what it is... Jesus
loves you and he values you so much that he lives and dies for you. He lives and dies for you. That changes everything.
Notice
what he says. Look at this
passage. Pastor Ott read it before from
the Lesson. Look at what he says... Consequently, you are no longer foreigners
and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his
household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ
Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy
temple in the Lord. And in him you too
are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
(Ephesians 2:19-22.)
Downtown
at my place, this is how I dress. I’ll
tell you, I get more ministry done outside of that building than I get done
inside that building. But it’s one of
those things as we are getting our building set up and kind of how we conducted
our ministry, you might not believe this, but we get some flack.
In our
new building, we have a 44-foot screen, and a stage, and a band. I almost got in trouble when your kids sang
because I was going to start clapping.
We clap. We’re clappers. It’s just one of those things. One of the things I hear is this. People will come and they’ll look at what we
do. They don’t worry about what we
preach. They don’t get caught up in
that because that’s not really what’s important some people would say. I disagree.
They look at how we do things and they say things like this... “What
you’re doing isn’t really how Jesus would do it.” Now let’s be really clear, if we’re going to do things the way
Jesus did things, and we’re going to look at how Jesus did things, and we’re
going to pattern and model everything after him, I’m going to tell you right
now that you have a huge remodel project because Jesus wore sandals and
preached from a boat.
Do you
know what the crazy thing is? He didn’t
have gowns. He didn’t have altars. He
didn’t have screens. He has a message. The message is this. The world is sinful and broken. The world needs a Savior. The world needs to be shown what love is and
what value is. And he says this, “I not
only will tell you, I will do it.”
I read
a lot. Not necessarily books, but blogs
and things like that. I heard this
great story. This couple was coming out of marriage counseling. They go their separate ways. He goes back to work and she is going
home. As she is going home, this is
what happens. She’s driving by this
house and she sees this 86-year-old woman out there with a lawn mower in 97°
mowing the lawn. She stops. She gets out. She has heels on. She has
a dress on. She says to the lady, “Hey
look, I am going to mow your lawn for you.
I want to do this.” The lady
looks and says, “You don’t even know me. Why would you do this?” She says, “Because I love you. That fact that it’s 97° out, you’re in your
80s and you’re out here mowing, I love that, and I love you. I believe that love does.”
So the
wife gets out and starts mowing the lawn.
The lady goes around the house and she goes into the garage and gets
another lawn mower and starts mowing the other side with her. She says to her “It’s because love
does. I’m so overwhelmed by your gift.”
This is
the thing. I’ll call Pastor Ott out
right away. I loved everything he said
in the beginning except one thing. He said
we have to preach the Gospel. I don’t
ever talk like that. I’ll never talk
like that. Because guess what? I get
to. I get to. It’s not a have to. This
is it. When you recognize true faith,
what Jesus has done for you, everything changes. For some of you here, you maybe never had that moment. I know.
This is one of the things I believe, and you’ll hear me say it over and
over again if you come to our church.
If you want to impress people, talk about your successes. If you want to impact people, talk about
your failures.
So you
want to talk about things not happening in church and buildings are great and
we’re going to get there, but let’s talk about what happens outside the
church. I’m going to tell you a story
about my failure as a pastor. It was my
vicar year. I vicared at Neenah, Martin
Luther. It was a Friday. I had to have my sermon in. I was late and my bishop calls me and says,
“I need you to go to the hospital.” I
didn’t want to go to the hospital because I had to get my sermon in because I
had a deadline. But I went to the
hospital. I’ll tell you, I ripped the
guy off. The guy I went to visit, the
guy I did devotion with, I ripped the him off because I wasn’t there. I was there physically, but I wasn’t there
emotionally, I wasn’t there spiritually and I wasn’t there mentally. I ripped him off because I was so caught up
in what I had to get done.
I got
in the elevator... understand, this is like in May or June, and vicar year ends
in August. So really I’m about 15
months from being a “real pastor.” It
was close. I get in the elevator and
I’m going down. There were two people
in there. Two people. They were talking about someone who had
cancer. I think it was their mom or
their aunt. They were weeping and talking about there being no hope. Guess what I said? Nothing. In fact, this is how bad it is. I left.
I got in my car. I drove back to
my house. I got seven blocks from the church, and it was like this... what are
you doing?! I turned back around. I drove back in. How many of you have ever been to Theda Clark in Neenah? They have the nice older ladies who are
always sitting at the counter. I went
in and I said, “Ma’am! I was just in
the elevator with two people! They were
talking about someone who was sick and dying.
Do you know who they were?!”
You’re in a hospital. I remember
walking back to my car and thinking “Guess what?” Never again.
I loved
something right away when I came in here and sat down. I loved this. On the front of your bulletin, you have this... Morrison Zion
Evangelical Lutheran Church, Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. And you have this... Our mission is to
glorify God as we help people grow in the Gospel and go with the Gospel. I wonder, I don’t know because I’m not here,
I wonder if your people know it and they see it and they do it and they live
it. I would challenge you. You’re the church. You’re the church. Church isn’t about buildings. You are the church. Do you do that? Do you adopt this as your own mission statement? Or do you have your own mission statement?
Our
church’s mission statement downtown is this... The Core exists to transform
lives for Jesus through faith that is real, relevant and relational. My personal mission statement is this,
because I’ve developed my own... From every pore of my body, I will ooze Jesus
Christ so that in this world, as I brush up against people, my sweaty, oozy
Jesus will get all over them! Every day
he gives you opportunities. Every day!
This is
the thing though, final blank. We know
that “God brings incredible blessings through buildings.” 150 years?
I want you just to think about this for a second. We’ll put your pastor on the spot. How many baptisms have been done here? All of them? Good. Got a number? Lots. How many confirmations? Lots.
How many weddings? In fact, I bet some of you who are here when you walk
in here you remember how you stood up here with the pastor. It may not have been Pastor Ott. It may have been someone else because we’re
interchangeable, right? Pastors come,
pastors go, it’s that message now here with the Word and in front of your
friends and in front of your family and before God when you made those
vows. Now every time you come in here
you’re reminded how incredible it is that God blesses you. Think about how many people have had
funerals here where you have celebrated they had won the race and they’re now
home. You can’t do that on a street
corner.
Buildings
are incredible blessings. But let’s be
clear. It’s here where you bring
people. It’s here where you come to be recharged. Look at this passage... One thing I ask from the Lord, this only
do I seek: that I may dwell in the
house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple. (Psalm 27:4.)
You
have to understand, our building is so not like this. Right Mark, Reese? Not like this. So this morning I come in, and
I was really paranoid because I figured I was going to get lost. It’s just one of those pastor things when
you are guest preacher and I kind of figured that I was going to roll in at
like 9:05am and be lost driving around like “Where is the church?” But here it is. I walked in and I looked up here and this is exactly what
happened. I was just like this... “Oh
man! This is so cool! So cool!”
This is what I noticed. Your
building is so visitor friendly. You
have good people. I sat down this
morning and the people behind me introduced themselves to me, and they said,
“You must be Pastor Ski.” I think the
mic gave it away, I don’t know, might be, right? Everything is neat and it’s
tidy. And this is the thing... you are
prepared to welcome guests, because it’s that message that is so important.
I know
that we cannot do anything to enhance the Gospel. I loved what Pastor Ott said before... Our future is not our
kids. Our future is not our
building. Our future is this
Gospel. And you realize it, right? It’s not about form. It’s about that message. I love that he says
“I want to dwell in the house of the Lord.”
I don’t know how it is for you, but this is how I hope it is for
you. This is how it is for us
downtown. On Sundays, our people look
forward to coming because it’s here where they get recharged. It’s here where they get to hear how much
Jesus loves them. It’s here that no
matter what kind of week they have, when they walk through the doors, there are
people who look and say “Hey, I love you and I’m glad you’re here and I’m glad
you’re here to hear what He’s done for you, because it fills your cup and it
sends you out.”
Last
passage, check this out... Lord, I love the house where you live, the place
where your glory dwells. (Psalm 26:8.) This is what I think. Do you remember this one? You all know it...
do it. Here’s the church... 5:30pm! I want to see all the hands up. Here’s the
church, here’s the steeple, open the doors, see all the people. Good.
You can clap for that. We’ll
clap for that, it’s nice. Understand
this, how do they get here? How do they
get here?
I don’t
know Morrison at all, but I know this.
I know there are people in your life right now who don’t know
Jesus. Or maybe, maybe they know a
Jesus, but they don’t know the Jesus.
They’re hurting and they’re broken.
This is my hope... my hope is that you have this incredible building and
this is what you do... you don’t come in and look and say this is a museum of
saints. I hope you don’t come in and
say things like “this is my pew” or “this is where my family sat” or “this is how
it is” but rather that “this place here is a hospital for sinners,” where
people who you know in your life you can bring in and you can say things like
this, “Man, you’re life stinks right now.”
Or “Man, you’re hurting right now?
Let me tell you about my best friend, because my best friend makes it
better.” “You’re feeling unloved or
unwanted or used? My best friend
doesn’t do that. In fact, my best friend says the opposite. You are so loved. You are so valued. You
are so wanted that he lives for you and he lays his life out and he dies for
you.” I tell you, that’s humbling. It’s humbling.
I don’t
know what kind of people you are, but I think this is my thing. This is what we built for downtown. I know Randy and I know he does this. It’s great to look back and it’s great to
celebrate what God has done, but let’s be crazy. Let’s be reckless for the Gospel. Let’s look forward. Let’s
ask questions like this... the last 150 years have been incredible, what are
the next 150 years going to look like?
When we say how many baptisms and he says all of them and he says lots,
what does that mean in the future? This is the thing, you are a part of that!
In my
church downtown, we’re a huge outreach.
That’s what we do. We push that.
We push that. We push that. Somebody always asks this question to me...
how many people do you have on your outreach committee? How many people are on your evangelism
committee? I always laugh and I say to
my assistant, “How many people were in church last week?” She says “270.” I say, “What about the week before?” She says “330.” I say, “That’s how many we’ve had the last two
weeks.” They look and they say “You
don’t have an outreach committee? You
don’t have a evangelism committee?” I
say “I do, they’re called Sunday worshipers.”
We’re not going to do that. We’ve removed the responsibility from the
people. Rather it’s this message that
changes hearts, changes lives and if we are honest, it changes eternities and
that’s our responsibility. The thing is
that it’s not a have to, it’s a get to.
It’s a can’t help but.
This is
my hope and my prayer for you this morning... we get to look back a little bit,
but we look forward, and we get excited to see what our God is going to
do. We get fired up. And man, from every pore of your body you
ooze that goodness, that love, that compassion. And that you bring those people here so that they can hear what
he has done. We ask for his help in
this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Faith certainly does receive the gifts procured by Christ on the Cross...which is why it is a *requirement* for salvation. No faith, no salvation. As much as I hate this song, it is worth quoting in this instance: "the vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives." Amen.
The language you use sounds very much like the heresy of the election controversy. It'd be good to avoid that which forces God into favoritism, and God does not show favoritism.
St. John 3:18: “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."
St. Mark 16:16 "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned."
I could go on. That all sounds like a requirement being met for salvation to me. OBVIOUSLY faith is a gift, miracle, and working of the Holy Spirit. NO ONE has ever denied that on this blog. But that doesn't make it any less of a condition. Just like Baptism is necessary for salvation. It's not necessary because it's a human work, just as faith isn't a human work. It's necessary because it's the work of God and the vehicle of grace and forgiveness.