It has been over 20 years that I listened to a sermon in German, which is a shame, seeing that I am German. My niece sent me a link for online sermons and suggested this one lady who is funny, she said. So it picked one of her most recent ones and listened for an hour…I have to say, something changed in me. Not only the content of what she preached on, but also the fact, that it was in my own language. Growing up, I went to a church of mostly old people. Going to church was a chore; it was boring and basically a punishment. You had to sit still and be quiet. You had to dress up in a skirt or dress and brush your hair…all the things I despised as a kid. I was more of an outdoors kind of person, basically living in trees, riding my bike, playing in the dirt…you know the type. And now this church thing. Wow, that was a drag. But there was a good thing, music. I loved singing, I loved playing guitar, which was totally awesome. During a bible study of the obligatory over 60 crowd I felt this urgency to make things right with God or else I’d go to hell if I died that day. I was so relieved and joyful. That was the best summer I ever had. I told everyone about Jesus, I invited my friends to summer camp, gave our scripture calendars and was all that. As the years progressed, we moved to another church, joined a youth group and I drifted further away from God. I had this idea that I had to perform good deeds, that I had to make myself behave, that I had to achieve goodness somehow. This caused a great deal of a strain on me. I finally realized, I can’t live up to that ideal image of a great Christian and I gave up. At about 16 years old, I started living like the world, and people who had known me from before where astounded how I tried to fit in with them. This is how I came to know my husband and we got married. I lived the life of a pagan for about 10 years, when the faithful prayers of my family paid off. I was drawn back to God, and started going to church again. I was living in the US by then, so the next sermon I heard was in English, in a Baptist church. Funny enough, I ended up getting baptized on my middle sister’s birthday in 1996 by a Pastor German. God has such a poignant sense of humor, I love him for that. I found this church when I ran out of options at a few minutes before 11am on a Sunday morning by asking God for a sign…he provided that in form of a real sign on the other side of the street. There’s your sign!
Well, this lady I just listened to was born in Austria, somehow ended up in the bible belt of the US in a Baptist church herself. And that is a wonderful parallel to my life. During her sermon she said, when she felt the calling to go back home to Austria, she was taken aback, at first. Having been immersed in the gospel while in the US, it seemed strange for her to preach in German. But she said the mission Jesus gave his disciples was not to go into the US but to the entire world. So she did. I found that to be so true.
The sermon she preached was on John 15, to remain in Him. She said that we like to think that we can be so useful to God if we could only be missionaries here, or there. But what God wants from us is that we live a life for him daily right where he put us. We are to be missionaries right in our own family, in our neighborhood, in our workplace, at school. God put us there for a reason, and to think, that only once we become full time Christian workers, then we could be of use to God is ludicrous. She said, start each morning by thanking God for everything, and then asking him, what he wants us to do. God will provide the opportunities for us to witness for him and minister to the needs of those people in our lives. She said, when we feel inadequate, God will be able to use us, because he supplies all our needs. People that feel they are called into a specific ministry scare her, she said. Then you are all full of yourself. I heard this somewhere else “knowledge puffs up, love builds up”. That is so true. We have to come to a point of complete destruction of our own feeling of self importance. This brings us to complete dependence on God, which will allow him to use us for his purpose. She said that faith is not what’s as importance as obedience. She said, when God told her to pray for a person with warts on their hands for healing. She turned around and there was a man with warts all over his hands right behind her. She prayed for his healing, not believing it would actually happen. She said, she avoided him for the next 3 Sundays out of embarrassment, because she couldn’t believe it would actually work. Then she was told through other sources, that they all disappeared. At that point she realized, that her obedience to God’s command was all that was needed. It is not dependant on our faith being strong enough or us being good enough. It’s all about God being powerful enough and us being obedient to his call. That is such an awesome truth.
Then she shared a story that clarifies this point a bit further: She said she sat down in the woods and saw a fat caterpillar next to her and she heard God ask her, ‘Do you like this caterpillar?’ She said, I guess he is pretty, but I don’t like his attitude. Caterpillars are ego-centrical and only look for their own wellbeing and their next meal. God asked her ’Do you know what’s inside this caterpillar?” and she responded that she knew from biology class that a butterfly forms inside. And thinking about the comparison between the caterpillar and a person who is only out for number one, only trying to find what makes them feel good, even a nice sermon, a prayer group that understands you and accepts you, a preacher that says just the right things to build you up…but one day, it becomes stale, you try another leaf and it just doesn’t satisfy. Then you just withdraw, think there is no one else like you, you attach a string to a tree and start spinning a cocoon around yourself until it gets dark and soon enough you don’t know what’s up or down and you’re all lost in self pity. Until one day, you have this urge to break out, and when you do, you can fly. Everything has changed, you try the leaf, but it is not tasty any longer. You are a butterfly. You have been transformed. Then looking back at the empty cocoon, there is nothing left in there, not even any crap that the egotistical caterpillar would have produced during his time. God even uses the crap we produce in our lives to make us into effective Christians. That’s awesome. He wastes nothing in our lives, he can use bad experiences for his good purpose. I love that truth.
If we just let go of our own understanding and our own plans, and submit ourselves completely to God’s guidance, he will use us for his higher purpose and he will accomplish his good works through us.
Wow. That’s just awesome!
2 Corinthians 12:9 (New International Version)
9But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.
http://www.online-predigt.de/neue_dateien.php
Maria Prean 05/13/10
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