Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
It is always a blessing to be able to celebrate milestones. It reminds us how our Lord has been good to us and how His grace and mercy and love pervade our lives. We celebrate birthdays and anniversaries and baptisms and retirements and graduations.
This month we are giving thanks to God for half of our church building paid for. Is this something to celebrate knowing that we still have $1 million left on our mortgage? I believe it is. For those of you who have been around since we built what were your thoughts when you saw a $1.8 million building with cost overruns of $200,000? Did you freak out at $2 million? Did you quietly ponder the enormity of it with the size of our congregation? Did you have faith in our Lord and His gracious hand to provide? A combination of all of these?
If you have been an adult for any length of time you know debt. College debt. Mortgage debt. Car loans. Credit cards. You know I don’t like debt. Unfortunately to live in the world it is almost unavoidable. On the other hand I know the blessings the Lord provides. A vehicle to get around in. A home with a hot shower (most of the time!). A future for our boys because of college. We could look at this upcoming year two ways: 2 kids in college –yikes! Or we can see how the Lord has provided for one and how He will lead us with two. We just studied this recently in a family gathering and we can move forward with trust in our gracious Lord.
That is what Good Shepherd did in 2000. We moved forward with trust in our gracious Lord. It hasn’t always been easy or without some minor challenges but I hope we all see the bigger picture here. It takes time and patience to pay down debt. This is the beauty of Jesus. He is patient with us. He could have demanded something from us, but He didn’t. He took all of our debt of lack of trust and other sins and paid for it with his bloodied body on the cross. He then promises an eternal future with no more payments of any kind. The eternal home is ours – debt free and for eternity!
I’ve said this in a sermon before, but what I want on my headstone is this: “He never paid a finance charge.” Not just financially but theologically as well. The Lord paid it all for me. He paid it all for us.
What about the $1 million left? We can look forward to that celebration. The Lord knows – oh, He knows. His plans are greater than ours. Trust that.
In Christ,
Pastor