Gathering, Growing, Going

 Trinity Sunday is one of the notoriously difficult days upon which to preach in the church calendar. 

As a final sermon in a church it could easily go horribly wrong, so I’m going to cheat a little bit and whilst celebrating the Trinity, God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God who has and is creating, saving and empowering us, I’m going to think this morning about a different trinity – our diocesan trinity of Gathering, Growing and Going… 


Part of the vision of the diocese is that we Gather in God’s name, we Grow into the likeness of Jesus and we Go out, led by the Spirit, to make disciples of others… 


And just as the Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are inseparable, to a degree, in the life of any church, these things must also be inseparable. 


Back to the foundation stone of our faith and it is there towards the end of this morning’s gospel reading (John 3:1-17), 

‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.’


These verses are some of the most well known verses of the Bible and yet it’s easy to forget how important the words are… 

When we gather, when we come together as a church or meet together as Christians, we do so as part of a family. Meeting in God’s name means we don’t meet in private huddles, we don’t meet in cliques, but as part of a worldwide body, concerned for each other, devoted to worship and praise and prayer and studying the bible together… 


God loves the world so much that he wants everyone to gather together and so when we meet, we do something that God intends for us… There is the old analogy about coal which when put together in a fire stays alight, with each piece receiving and giving heat to others, but when one piece of coal becomes isolated it soon loses its heat… 


So it is with the church – we need each other… We live in challenging times for all kinds of reasons at the moment and the church faces many challenges as we increasingly recognise that whilst it is important to be part of a close family that we might call our own church, it is equally important to recognise that we also belong to a much wider family, so when we speak of gathering in God’s name, we’re not gathering alone, we’re not celebrating our own little club or brand, but we are part of something bigger… 


And that something bigger can be wonderful as we recognise that we don’t threaten one another, we’re not out to compete with each other, but we are a family, united in love… 

Like any family, we will have our struggles, we will have our problems, but we are called to be one – privileged to gather in God’s name… 


But we must never stop at the point of gathering. For some churches, that is it – we get together on a Sunday, but we stop there. 

Well, that isn’t church. If we’re just concerned with protecting our own building, that isn’t church, it’s just a group of friends gathering together… We must move on from just gathering, to growing and going out or we will stand still and ultimately and even worse, go backwards and die off. 


Too often that is the church of today. We’ve become insecure, uncertain, lacking in confidence, lacking in a real vision to see what God sees and that is all kinds of hope and possibilities, all kinds of people with lives that are important and valuable but are not being lived with the fulness of life that God wants for people everywhere.


When there is publicity about the church, it is so often filled with doom and gloom, rather than with excitement and warmth and welcome and hope and peace and love… Sometimes people portray a church that is judgemental and far too ready to say no to things, but that isn’t the church – as the final verse of our gospel reading said, ‘God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.’


Whilst we might sometimes get discouraged and believe there is little hope for the church in a world that contains too much opposition to it, God will never give up…. Into a world controlled by Roman authorities, into a world with corrupt religious rulers, into a world of people worshipping all kinds of things, into a world of superstition and conflict, God sent his Son and his Son changed everything, for the world and that means for us… 


In Paul’s letter to the Romans (8:12-17) he talks of the dangers of living according to the flesh as opposed to living by the Spirit, meaning that we take the worldly view rather than God’s view, and it’s an easy trap to get caught into… 

It’s so easy to bend the gospel message a little bit, to seemingly make it a little more attractive, but there is no message, and there can be no message more appealing than the one that says, God created us, God loves us, God offers us life in all its fulness.


And to enjoy that life to the full we have responsibilities, responsibilities to seek to grow to be people who are more like Jesus – and we will never do that if we stop at just gathering together – 

we grow by talking to each other, we grow by praying together, we grow by studying the bible together, by enjoying fellowship together, and we grow as we seek to display something of the love of Jesus outside our buildings, outside our comfort zone and into a world that needs to know something about creation, about salvation and about the empowerment God offers. 


So, we gather and we grow and we must go out… 

Jesus told us to go out and preach the gospel to all nations… 

He doesn’t ask us all to do it in the same way, we will all have different gifts and talents and different opportunities, but we are all to do it. 

And he doesn’t leave us alone to do it either. 

Firstly he offers us the gift of each other – people to support us, encourage us, offer advice and comfort when things don’t quite work out, but even more importantly he offers us the gift of the Holy Spirit. 


The gift of the Holy Spirit can fill us to do God’s work in the world, to be the people he really wants us to be, being part of building the kingdom he wants to build. But to do that, we have to trust. We have to believe that God can and does change lives today; that God really is involved in our lives and the life of the world today… 


Jesus didn’t come down to spend 30 or so years on earth and just leave – through his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, he changed the world forever… Now we have an example to live by, now we have the witness of God’s love offered so freely to us; now, we can see the power of God who can even conquer death and we can recognise the trust God puts in us, his people, to share his love, his message, his peace, his hope, today… 


The message of the gospel is one that remains counter-cultural in so many ways – it’s not about fitting in with the standards and expectations of the world, but about offering new life for all, new life where we recognise the unending and limitless love of God… 


Our Old Testament reading (Isaiah 6:1-8) ends with Isaiah hearing the words of God, ‘Whom shall I send and who will go for us ?’ and responding, ‘Here am I. Send me !’


We gather, we grow and we go out - and we can’t separate those things if we are responding to God’s call… 


The church today is absolutely not a lost cause – God will still be present and active whatever happens to any church building, but the family of the church, the body of Christ on earth will only be strengthened to proclaim Jesus into the world when we are willing to meet God regularly – to pray, to listen to the bible, to enjoy fellowship together, to worship and praise God together and to constantly seek a new encounter with God… 


I’ll finish with some words I read sometime ago which said, 

“Commit today to take the time in your life to put your mind on the things that are above. Commit in your life today to separate yourself, if only for a short while each day, to seek God and his word. 


When you approach the table of the Lord’s Supper, pause to gaze with the eyes of your praying soul upon Jesus Christ dying on the cross for you. 

When you see the baptismal waters of the Covenant of Grace dripping from the heads of God’s children, close your eyes and give thanks to God who has washed you in his forgiving grace…..  

This is what happens when you meet God. Everything changes.” 


I said I would finish with those words, but that’s not quite true because I’d like to offer this short prayer, let us pray : Bound together in love, may God bless each of you, may you gather together regularly in his name, may you grow in the likeness of Jesus and may you go out in the power of the Spirit to make disciples of others. AMEN 


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