Christianity, Boring?

Sermon on Christianity, Boring?

Text: Joshua 4:19-24

Sermon Theme: Believe in the amazing God of Christianity

Goal: to encourage the congregation that Christianity is amazing because of the works of Christianity’s God.

Need: Many consider the Christian faith boring.

Sermon Outline:

Introduction about boring Church
Christianity has a powerful amazing God
Christianity has a motivating task
Christianity expects an inconceivable reward
Conclusion

Sermon in Oral Style:

Does church bore you? “What who me? No…. I just rest my eyes during the sermon, think intently and nod in agreement with your sermons, pastor. I don’t sleep during church at all. Not me.”

Honestly now, does church bore you?

If I had to be honest, I would have to say that before I had to plan worship services, come up to the front and preach and lead all the different aspects of the worship service, I would say church bored me.

Some times we come and services bore us time after time.

Is church boring? I wish we could tell every new comer that church was never boring. But honestly, aren’t we allowed to be bored by church sometimes. If you are never bored at a church service, praise God for that. If you’ve never run through your weeks schedule or you fantasy football roster during prayer, that’s great! But shouldn’t we be okay with it if every single worship service doesn’t get our blood flowing. We can’t be on a spiritual high all the time.

What I want to talk about this morning is a question that is a little bit different. Church can be boring, but is Christianity boring. Is the Christian faith and religion boring? Sometimes we might believe that because church is boring, and because church does rituals and practices that we wouldn’t dream of doing anywhere else, that Christianity as a faith is boring.

Is it? Let’s look at some of the reasons that might help us realize that Christianity, faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and savior, is not a boring religion.

What would the opposite of boring be? If a movie is boring, that’s because it wasn’t entertaining. If anything that isn’t entertaining is boring, then Christianity is boring by that thinking. But there are other opposites to boring. How about amazing. Standing at Niagra Falls is not entertaining, but it definitely isn’t boring. Its because of the amazing power and force of the Falls.

That’s why we read the passage we did. The first thing we need to think about is that the God of Christianity is amazing. Stories like the one in Joshua are amazing. This real nation of people, the Israelites are walking through the wilderness for 40 years. Then they come to the Jordan River. Its their last stop before they enter into the land God told them was going to be there’s. The priests step into the water of the river. And what happens. The River parts!

That is amazing! Joshua sets up stones after everyone crosses so that when ever they see those stones, parents will tell their children what they experienced. The power of God.

Joshua 4:24 says, “He [put up the stones] so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.”[1] The God of the Christian faith is a powerful amazing God.

The wonders of God happen all over the place in Scripture. Oh…. Jesus turned water into wine. Hmmm. Jesus made 5 loaves enough to feed 5000 people… yawn. Oh, Jesus came back to life…. Somebody pass me a king peppermint, I can keep my eyes open with this boring stuff. Wait a second. God is powerful. Jesus does miraculous things. You can be the judge about if that is boring.

The Power of the Holy Spirit continues to amaze today. Visions, speaking in tongues, miraculous healings. Simple answered prayer. Protection. Daily Bread.

I could tell you stories from my life and from my childhood where God worked miraculously. Maybe you personally have a story where you can see that it was God at work. Or it doesn’t take long talking to others to find out ways that God still today has done miraculous things.

But listen to this story that I heard from my best friends dad, who also happen to be my grade 7 science teacher. He and his wife had to hear the devastating news that they probably wouldn’t ever have children. They had something like a 1:1,000 chance of getting pregnant. It would have been considered a wonder if they got pregnant at all. They had four children.

I have no idea of the biology behind it, but mathematically, the chance of having four children in that situation: 1:1 trillion. God is at work.

That’s just one example of a way that God makes the mathematical and biological near impossibilities and makes them real. God is anti-boring. He is amazing. Healings today. Protection. Resurrection from the dead. Parting the Red Sea and the Jordan River. A virgin birth. Why not be amazed?

The opposite of boring could be amazing. It could also be motivating.

I have a thing here. It’s a puzzle cube. I got it from my uncle for being ringbearer in his wedding when I was 7 years old. I thought it was cool, took it apart and couldn’t put it back together again. It sat in my junkdrawer at home, unfinished for years. Then one day, I decided I was going to figure out how to put the thing back together again. The challenge of solving the puzzle kept me motivated for hours until I finally solved the thing. That was quite the accomplishment. And if there are any students who want to try and put it back together for me again, I would happy to have them help.

But Challenges motivate people!

Christ lays out the biggest challenges a person could ever imagine. Is it possible if you find Christianity boring, you haven’t taken seriously the challenge Christ puts before Christians. Christ challenges Christians to be servants of all. To love all. To spread the good news of salvation from sin through his blood. I don’t know of anyone who finds even one of those tasks simple. I have been a Christian my whole life. Some of us have been Christians for decades already. We haven’t arrived yet.

The challenge also is to really take Christ to the work place with you. Not just to keep you from swearing or from gossiping. Christ in the work place gives you the challenge every day to think, “does this work that God has put me in right now, am I doing it in a way that glorifies God.” Whether you’re the pastor of a church, work at a call center, build houses, cut hair, cruch numbers or work with the disabled. Every job can be done in a way that makes God proud, it can be done in a way that serves the creator of work, and the savior of our every day lives.

We need to love like Jesus loved. We need to serve others. We need to bring others to feel and accept the love of Christ. And wouldn’t it be motivating to realize that what you did at work each day actually advanced the kingdom of God in the world. That would be incredible!

Christianity has an amazing God. Christianity motivates us to change the world. The third way we might reconsider the boringness of Christianity… the AWESOME promise of eternal life.

What would strike me as a boring religion would be one that would ask a person to live their best, do the most they possibly can in one life time. Enjoy it until you die because after that you just disappear. It wouldn’t be boring so much as just pointless and discouraging.

The one thing Christ has always promised was that this world is not the end of reality. When this world comes to a close, whether a comet eliminates most life on the planet, or global warming makes life unbearable, or whether before any of those things could even begin to happen, Christ it would return. When the end of the world happens, something new will happen. Its called the new creation.

Revelation talks about it in chapter 21. The new Jerusalem. At the end of the book of Revelation John sees a vision of what will be after this world is finished. He sees this place that is almost impossible to describe. In fact, I think it is impossible to describe. Eternal life promises the best that God has to offer. You think a puny human mind or imagination could even begin to grasp what that new creation is really like.

Well John gives it a shot. And this New Creation, the new Jerusalem is ridiculously spectacular. It is over 2,000 kilometers wide, and long, and tall of all things. It’s walls are thicker than the length of a hockey rink. It has 12 foundations with Gemstones covering all 8,000 miles of diameter of every foundation. There are 12 gates. There’s no sun. Everything is made of pure gold.

This isn’t a real description like …. “Now if you see a city coming out of the sky, watch out for the one with only 9 foundations and is 900 kilometers square. You want the other one.” The point is eternal life with God is going to be greater than an person could ever even understand though visions directly from God. You just HAVE TO EXPERIENCE IT FOR YOURSELF.

And I hope we all get to.

So, I hate to say it, but church won’t always be exciting. I hope it is never just entertaining. But Christianity… following the Lord and savior Jesus Christ… its anything but boring. Christianity’s God is amazing. The task that comes with Christianity is motivating. And the promised eternal life for those who accept Jesus Christ. It is magnificent like we could never imagine.

We want to be a part of that. AMEN?

Let’s Pray.

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[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984