Sunday sermons | Passionate worship

This sermon was preached by Elder Philip Melton at Swift Presbyterian Church.

June 18, 2017 | 11th Sunday Trinity in Ordinary Time ◾ Father’s Day

Walking in the Light

Matthew 9:35–10:8

G OOD MORNING. GRACE AND PEACE to you from our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ. It is a pleasure to be here. My name is Philip Melton, I serve as an elder here at Swift Church and I am attending the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary as I am working to complete the lay pastor course of study, which I should complete by spring next year.

I have been providing pulpit supply throughout the Presbytery of South Alabama for the last two years and I welcomed the opportunity to proclaim the Gospel here when Pastor Keith extended the invitation to me. I grew up here at Swift, attending with my parents after Dad retired from the Marine Corps in 1972. I was baptized here when I was 12 years old and have been an active part of the life of the church much of my life.

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WILL YOU PLEASE join me in prayer?

O God of promise, your Word made flesh in Jesus Christ is trustworthy and true. By the power of your Holy Spirit, speak to each of us this day — so we can clearly hear your call — as we live in the covenant of grace and respond to that grace by walking in the light of Christ as leaders in your church. Amen

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AS I WAS TELLING YOU when I introduced myself, I have been an active part of the life of the church much of my life. As a child, I grew up attending Swift. My parents were active in the ministry of the church, I remember my father being the Sunday school superintendent and serving on session. My mother also served on session as well — and she sang in the choir. My older sister, Lynn, and my older brother, Mark, and I attended Sunday school, Sunday service, Wednesday night programs, vacation Bible school, and summer camps at Camp Pinetreat. Our lives were a part of the fabric of the life of this church.

When I was in high school, my good friend Wil Tuggle and I led the youth program for a time and we worked at our beloved Camp Pinetreat as summer camp counselors.

This was my foundation in the church. And after college and a career working all around the United States I came home with a deep longing to reconnect with my church. For me, there was something missing in my life that I could not find out in the world; it was my personal relationship with my Savior, Jesus Christ.

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SINCE RETURNING TO MY FOUNDATION, Swift Church, I have reconnected with the most important part of my life. I walk in the light of Christ as I serve on session as an active elder. This is a church leadership position that I have held for six of the last seven years, before that I served as a deacon in the church. And today, well I am here to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ from the very pulpit that I once pretended to preach from as a child. Life has truly come full circle for me.

As I tell you of my background at Swift, my walk down memory lane is intended to be more than reminiscence. Instead, I am telling you this as an illustration of the faith journey that led me to answering God’s call to participate in his ministry in the church.

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THE CHURCH, BOTH HERE at Swift and in the broader sense, is always searching for leaders. This is true whether the leader occupies an actual governing office or is a volunteer nursery worker or a Thursday bulletin folder. Answering the call to ministry and answering the call to leadership involves a common call by God. Pastor Keith’s call to ordained ministry as a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church is the same as the person who answers the call to be a volunteer nursery worker because all God’s people are called to ministry. We are all called to walk in the light of Christ and every person in the church is called to mission, regardless of age, sex, or color. The only questions are “where?” and “among whom?”

As Charles Spurgeon, a Reformed Baptist minister in England, once said, “Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter.”

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IN TODAY’S SCRIPTURE, THE AUTHOR of Matthew’s gospel shows Jesus seeing the crowds of people gathered around him having great compassion for them. He sees them as “sheep without a shepherd,” he sees them with the eyes of God, knowing that there is not enough time for him to shepherd the people all by himself. So he issues a call for leaders, saying: “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”

The crowds gathered before him are the fields — ripe for harvesting — and he tells his disciples that laborers are needed to bring in a bumper crop. I believe this message is the same for you and me today: We are the crowds gathered with Jesus in the church, the crowds that he has great compassion on; we are the fields that are ripe for harvest. And now Jesus is calling for workers to answer the call to be harvesters in the church. So I pose this question to you today: “Who here will answer the call to be leaders in God’s church?”

Who here will answer the call to be harvesters out of gratitude for a Savior who loves you extravagantly? Who provides for you in great abundance with all that you have — from the clothes on your back to the air that you breathe: “Who will answer the call?”

The church has been commissioned by Jesus to make disciples. The only way God’s church can accomplish that task beyond the walls of this church is by having engaged, involved and active disciples within the walls.

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FOR THE LAST TWO AND A HALF YEARS, one of my focuses as missions elder has been the food pantry. I use this as one example for being active and involved disciples within the walls of this church — an activity that reaches beyond the walls of this church.

Our food ministry brings in people from the community who are having difficulty. Most of those who come are elderly, and it is my suspicion that in today’s society the needy elderly in our community are faced with having to choose between prescription medications and eating. Limited funds only go so far in our world, and the truth is that there are hungry people in our community that could use a meal.

As harvesters for Christ the members of Swift volunteer to staff the food pantry where they get to meet and interact with the men and women who come here for a bag of food. As harvesters for Christ, the members of Swift buy extra food when they go grocery shopping so that someone else can also eat. As harvesters for Christ, the members of Swift give money specifically for the food pantry ministry. These things are done because as harvesters we have compassion upon the crowds like Jesus does, we see something of Jesus Christ in the faces of the men and women who come through the doors looking for a meal and those same men and women see something of Jesus Christ in the members of this church as it reaches out to them with compassion.

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ANOTHER WAY WE ARE ACTIVE and involved disciples of Christ is when we prayerfully respond to the grace of God by serving as a deacon, elder, lay pastor, or a teaching elders in God’s church.

As a member of the church, I have served on the committee that prays about and seeks out those whom God is calling into his service as a leader at Swift. And I can tell you this is a heartfelt practice in spirituality that is often met with resistance from those who are asked by the committee to consider serving.

Pastor Samford Turner says: “ ‘No’ is just as Holy an answer as ‘yes.’ ” Those who know Samford call his sayings “Samfordisms.”

As a member on that committee, I have heard a lot of people answer “no,” which has led me to consider why so often the answer is “no” and in particular why the first time I was asked to serve I myself said “no.”

The truth for me was that I did not think I had led a life worthy of God and to serve the church might be seen as a contradiction — coupled with the inability to forgive myself even though I believed that God has forgiven me. Plainly put: I wasn’t good enough.

I suppose that this is true of so many people in the church today as they consider how they might walk in the light of Christ when they are saddled with guilt, blame, loss, hurt, broken relationships, broken hearts, sin, and fear.

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WE ARE HUMAN BEINGS with real human emotions and real human problems. And as we look closely at the scripture, I am comforted, though, by the people who Jesus picked to be on his team.

Of the 12 disciples, one of them was a tax collector, which means that he was despised by Jewish society. He worked for Rome, he was a part of the Empire — for you Star Wars fans, he was drawn to the dark side.

Then look to the other side of the aisle and there sits Simon the zealot. He was an enemy of Rome; he worked for the resistance. This is like having an extreme left-wing liberal teamed up with a staunch right-wing conservative working together. And I will resist getting started about the greedy Judas Iscariot — the traitor — but these are the very people that Jesus chose to spread the good news of the grace of God.

A bunch of imperfect human beings that had real human emotions and real human problems, they all had pasts, just like every one of us, yet God called them — just like God calls you and me.

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THERE LIES THE BEAUTY OF GRACE: that while we were still sinners — while we were so not worthy of such love — God made himself incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ so that we might be made whole even though we were broken. Opening the door to salvation by paying the high price for our sins on the cross — what a gift the covenant of grace is.

Out of gratitude, we respond in the life and ministry of the church by walking in the light — by finding the courage within ourselves to say, “Yes, LORD, I will be your servant. I will serve as elder or deacon. I will be your harvester to the best of my ability, even though I deserve your wrath.”

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BEFORE I END TODAY, I would like to share with you what I have experienced and learned as an elder at Swift. This church is filled with good men and women who are not perfect but have a servant heart and have been created new by God. I have learned that there is much to be done to in the Kingdom of God — here at Swift and in the world. And God needs each and every one of us to serve him in the harvest.

I have done tasks on the session that I was very suited for, tasks that fell into the comfort zone of my spiritual gifts. I have also done tasks that I felt very inadequate to do — tasks that were very much outside of my comfort zone. But I have learned that it is OK to make mistakes because I do not have to be perfect — because my Redeemer and Savior is perfect.

The joy and satisfaction that I have experienced these past years serving God have been the most profoundly impactful years on my faith journey.

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SO, I REMIND YOU THAT JESUS is telling you: “The harvest is plentiful.”

There is an abundance of grace for each and every one — enough to go around.

So I encourage you to experience the joy of serving God as harvesters — to answer the call to be workers of healing and compassion, to be instruments of the gospel — to walk in the light. Amen.

— Philip Melton

Matthew 9:35–10:8

Holy Bible, New International Version

The Workers Are Few
³⁵Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. ³⁶When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. ³⁸Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Jesus Sends Out the Twelve
10 Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.

^₂These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; ³Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; ⁴Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

^₅These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. ^₆Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. ⁷As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ ^₈Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy,^_[a] drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.