NOTE: I am putting my weekly sermons on the church website. It will be on for two weeks (usually posted on Friday) and then placed in the Archives area by date. You can download in a matter of seconds.
Let me know what you think. The church Email is: SLUMC@att.net, Phone: 480.895.8766
March 3, 2002
Sermon: "A New and Improved Product?"
Scripture: Romans 5:1-11
Reverend Larry Gerber
On this, the first Sunday of the month, as we prepare to partake of the elements that represent the body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ, I wonder: "How many of us really understand, or grasp, the power behind The Last Supper?" We are going through the ritual of 40 days of fasting, contemplating, wondering, and anticipating. We are getting excited about Easter 2002, a time of witnessing the Risen Savior. But, are we advertising the coming event. Are we preparing the listener, or reader of The Word, in a way that they will know and receive the full impact of this event?
Ads are everywhere. Inescapable. Unexpected. Sometimes annoying. But there's a message in all of this for us. Our assignment, each and every day in an all-surrounding way, is to be an ad for God.
For about $20,000, a company can get a half-mile of ads up and down the beach every day for a month. The ad might not last long, but it's bound to make an impression on the sun worshipers who are gazing out over the sky, the surf and the sand ... sand that is imprinted with as much as 660,000 square feet of pitches for Skippy peanut butter or Snapple iced tea.
These ads are
part of an exploding phenomenon called "ambient advertising," meaning
advertising that is pervasive and all-surrounding. Can you guess how many ads
the average American now sees every day? 100? 1,000? 3,000?
Fact is, we're now bombarded by up to 3,000 ads PER DAY! This ambient advertising
is nothing less than an all-out assault on our senses.
Even if you don't plan to hit the beach this summer, you can't escape the long arm of ambient advertising. You'll find ads at gas pumps, on stickers plastered to apples and bananas, on sidewalks and on rooftops. You'll be subjected to full-color, full-sound videos before you withdraw your money from an ATM. Ads are on the doors of public bathroom stalls. They're mounted on slim, billboard-carrying trucks. They're even inside the holes on the golf course. These days, conventional mass media is being snubbed in an effort to reach consumers where they shop, and where they work, and where they least expect it.
They're everywhere. Inescapable. Unexpected. Sometimes annoying. But here's the point: God would love for us to be his ambient advertising to the world. Our assignment, each and every day, is to be an ad for God. Not to be overwhelming or offensive, like a noisy radio ad coming out of a gas pump, but ambient. That means all-surrounding, pervasive, in every dimension of life.
In his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul says that we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God (5:2). We boast, like the advertisers of a "new and improved" detergent, about the quality of the item we want to share with the world. Not that what we are "selling" is "new and improved." What is it about things that are "new and improved," anyway? If a detergent has been improved over 90 times in 55 years -- as one famous brand has been -- how BAD was the product to begin with?
What we present to the world really needs no improvement ... just amplification. According to Paul, we can boast about:
* Our peace, which we have with God through faith in Jesus (v. 1)
* God's grace, which has brought us new life (v. 2)
* The glory of God, which we hope to share (v. 2)
* Our trials and adversities, which produce endurance and character and hope (vv. 4-5)
* The love of God, given to us through the Holy Spirit (v. 5)
* The sacrifice of Christ, made to save us while we still were sinners (v. 8)
* Unexpected gifts of justification, salvation and reconciliation (vv. 6-11)
* Friendship with
God, made possible by our Lord Jesus Christ (v. 11)
This ad is not bad, is it? Paul captures in 11 catchy verses a great deal about
who God is and what God has done for us. Our challenge is to take this message
into the streets and to walk around as ambient ads that boast about peace and
hope and trials and divine love and salvation and friendship with God.
Does this mean
that we are called to cover fire hydrants with stickers that scream "John
3:16"? Not exactly. When we hit the streets, our job is to show the love
of our Lord in whatever way we can, using deeds and words and attitudes that
carry the surprisingly good news of what God has done through Jesus.
The core message is this: "While we still were sinners Christ died for
us" (v. 8). It's simple. Elegant. Kind of shocking. Rather profound.
While we still were weak and wandering, Paul proclaims, while we still were self-centered and sinful, Christ sacrificed himself to connect us with God. While we were on an elevator ride to the bottom floor, hurtling quickly downward through levels of greed and dishonesty and cruelty and self-abuse, God sent us a message, and it wasn't a 45-second video message containing weather, news, traffic reports and commercials, a message which is actually beginning to appear on some elevators today.
Instead, God's
message was one of acceptance, forgiveness and love. It told us that God has
made us his friends through the death of his Son. It's a gracious gift, completely
undeserved -- the very thing that hurting humanity most needs to hear.
So how do we pitch it? How do we go out into the world as ambient ads for this
fantastic free offer? What is it in us that will enable others to see this gift
of God?
We aren't going to get it done through program-length "infomercials" that masquerade as news programs. We aren't going to do it by coating a city bus with religious messages. And we sure aren't going to shoot laser commercials into the sky. We're going to do it, instead, with the lives we lead.
This means choosing forgiveness instead of revenge when a neighbor hurts us terribly. It means being sacrificial, instead of self-serving, with our time and ability and money. It means reaching out in friendship to persons of different races or nationalities, instead of ignoring them or seeing them as intruders. It means striving to show the unusual, unconditional love of Jesus Christ, instead of the commonplace, conditional acceptance of contemporary American culture. It means speaking clearly -- even boldly -- about what God has done for us through Jesus, and sharing with the world that this wonderful gift is available to all who need forgiveness and new life.
In all of these things we are to "boast" -- boasting is a triumphant, rejoicing, celebratory confidence in the goodness of the Lord. Because we have been accepted, forgiven and renewed by God, we can "boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God" (v. 2), "boast in our sufferings" (v. 3) and "boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation" (v. 11). Our confidence comes from God, not from anything human, and our enthusiasm arises out of God's wonderful willingness to receive us and be in relationship with us, now and always.
Is this too good to be true? No, it's both good and true. In addition, God's acceptance is ambient -- it's all-surrounding, pervasive and in every dimension of life.
We are invited
to sit at the table with Him, to be received by Him, to be forgiven by Him,
and then, we are invited to take, not the left overs, but the full meal to others
who are searching the billboards for a sense of direction. Come, the table is
waiting
Let me know what you think. The church Email is: SLUMC@att.net,
Phone: 480.895.8766