Meditation --Fixed on Jesus
Pastor Mark Breland
October 5, 2008

Some months ago I talked about my music preference as being one of always looking back.  I don't always look forward anymore to see what new songs are coming out.  I'm buying all the old music I remember from yesterday.  And today I'm remembering the ignorance of my Christian faith.

I remember when I first fell in love with Jesus.  I didn't think about all the differences that happen in churches.  There is something great about just going to church, being with the church family, knowing your friends go to a different church.  Church was just church! 

And that was OK.  That was cool.  There's nothing bad about that.  Then you find out, as you go further along the process and get more serious about your faith, that being a part of church can be difficult at times.  Because no longer is it OK just to be a member of a church.  You've got to be part of the right church. 

I'm thinking about my high school and college years.  With some folks, you've got to use the King James Version.  For them, that's the Bible.  For some folks, if you're not using that, then something's wrong with your church.  For some churches, you have to speak in tongues.  I've had some bouts with that.  Understanding that, in the Christian faith, you have to do all these things that make church what it's supposed to be.  Every church is different, and I miss those days when just loving Jesus was all right.

Just being a part of His church is all right.  It's OK to be in whatever church you go to.  And I wonder at times if, as I think about this text, we as Christians don't put a stumbling block out there for other folks who may want to know Jesus and get to be a part of this church and get to know us, when we can hardly get along.  So I miss those days of the Christian “ignorance,” when just loving Jesus was the thing.  And now we have to argue about doctrine and what version of the Bible do you read and what type of worship do you have and all those different things that seem to be a stumbling block for us.

And then we have a day like today, when Christians from all around the world, whatever time zone you may be in, whatever tribe or race or denomination you are or whatever tradition you follow, that folks are taking Holy Communion.  Or, the great thanksgiving, or the Eucharist or whatever you call it.  We are having the cup and the bread together and it's OK.  Even for those churches that are not participating, we're all working for the same Lord.  That excites me, knowing that we're having a common witness like no other Sunday.

Pastor Dean knows this and I say it quite often.  I get a kick out of this.  When I meet other pastors and other people, and find out they go to a different church, we get to talking about what's going on, our different ministries.  I like to tell them that their church is my church and my church is their church.  And some folks don't always know what to do with that, but I truly believe that.

I don't like the division of the church.  I know we can’t all fit right here, although, as you can see, we do have some room for more folks.  But it's good to be in different churches.  We have a wonderful nation where we can go to church or not, worship how we want, go Saturday night or Sunday or any day we want.  We can go seven days a week.  We are blessed with that wonderful thing called God's church, and we are blessed to have one another.

There are two questions that sometimes we Christians deal with.  The first one is “What does Jesus mean to me?”  And that's a good question.  We like to hug ourselves and wrap ourselves in that question.  Hopefully we do go to Sunday school and we do have are devotions and we do look for ways to be involved in ministry, and we try to deal with that question so that we can grow in our faith.  We like to spend a lot of time there. 

There's a challenge and Paul's letter today to the folks at Phillippi, dealing with those folks who were coming to the faith new.  One thing was that these folks, who were already part of the faith, came from Jewish backgrounds.  They had circumcision and dietary rules and a lot of other customs.  A they were feeling that folks just coming to this new way of living, coming to know Jesus, needed to follow a set of rules.  Paul was speaking against that - that the Jews should not make these new people, these Gentiles, folks like you and me follow those rules.

Jesus ought to be what we are focusing on.  That's what Paul was focusing on, and he used himself as an example, in terms of how he lived his life.  He had persecuted the church.  But being of the tribe of Benjamin, he was circumcised and was all those things that he needed to stand firm on.  But really, all of us should stand on Jesus.    None of us have earned Him.  He is a gift.

And so I think about Paul and about him being fixed on Jesus.  And this fixation wasn't just for himself, I think, but a fixation so that other people would come to no Jesus, to want to believe in Jesus and want to serve Jesus.  Accept this wonderful gift.  Jesus is that perfect expression of God's love - God's love yesterday, God's love today, and God's love tomorrow.

The second question is “What does Jesus mean to the other person?”  So I say to myself are we putting obstacles in front of other people?  People ask, “What is a Moravian?”  And I've been trying to answer that question all my life.  I like being a Moravian, but I like to tell people that they need to come and experience us.  They need to come and hang out with us.  They have to come and worship with us.

You know, it's not who we are, but, hopefully, whatever the answer may be in terms of being a Moravian has a lot more to do with people being followers of Jesus Christ.  Come and experience our love feast.  Come and experience our story, our history.  Maybe adopt it as part of your own personal history, your own story as well. 

But we need to spend more time thinking about “What does Jesus mean to others?”  What can we do that we can be so fixed on Jesus that our lives, our witness, our talking, that our doing, makes people ask what is doing down at the Moravian church that would help us get to know Jesus.  And that we support other churches, other ministries, and what they're doing what they are saying to help others get to know Jesus.  We don't want our witness to be an obstacle or a stumbling block for anyone to come to know the Lord. 

So that's why I'm excited about Worldwide Communion Sunday.  Because in my mind, and my experience, it's a wonderful thing to think about brothers and sisters in the faith all around the world coming to the Lord's table, receiving the bread, receiving the cup, and partaking.  And that we're having a common witness, not only for us but also for anyone who may come through our doors.

And I hope and pray that as we are living our lives, that we will think about Paul, and that of all the things that we think are important, Jesus needs to come first.  There is nothing about the traditional Moravian way that we do things that should ever prevent anyone from coming to know the Lord.  We should be inviting people and welcoming them, rather than giving them a prerequisite course of things they need to do before they can be part of our fellowship. 

None of us have earned the right; all of us have received it because it is a gift.  Paul talks about pressing on twice in the scripture.  Pressing on.  We need to be fixed on Jesus and he needed to press on to that goal.

I hope and pray that Jesus will be our goal and that we press on individually and collectively as a church.  That, as we attain that goal, or try to attain that goal, that we will bring others along with us.  That we will not push anybody aside, but rather we will bring him or her on and encourage them on so they can also join in this search. in this longing, and in this grasping and embrace God's perfect gift, God's perfect expression of His love.  The love that is given to folks yesterday, the Love that is given to us today, and the love that will continue to be given to us tomorrow.  Let us be fixed on Jesus for he is God's perfect gift, given to us all.
Lititz Moravian Congregation | 8 Church Square | Lititz, PA 17543 | 717 626-8515 | Admin