SPECTATORITIS---- Phill Vickery----- 12/2/2017

Readings, Mathew 4 18-22 John 1: 43-50

Our readings talk about the call of some of Jesus’ disciples. Two scenes that describe Jesus’ interaction with people and their response of following Jesus. The personal challenge to Simon Peter and his brother and fellow fishermen James and John that I find summed up so well in Graham Kendrick’s song. ‘Simon’s Song Footsteps on the sea’. ‘Eyes that bore the sea , Athousand ages old, Fixed their gaze on me , athousandtales were told, I was only singing songs of billowed sails and sea, Mending nets on yellow sand , when he said Follow Me’

The encounter of souls and minds of grace and love leaving Simon no otheroptuion than to follow his Master.

John’s account talks of Philip bringing his friend Nathanael to Jesus who’s miraculous word of knowledge about who and where he was convinced him that this is the Messiah the Son of God and the one to follow.

The calling of the disciples involved sacrifice on their behalf as they gave up homes and employment to follow Jesus on a missionary journey. It involved a real encounter, a miraculous coming together with the living God. It involved a journey with changes and growth.

Al of us met Jesus at the beginning of our journey of faith in different ways. But our meeting must have been a real encounter and must continue to be a real encounter .

Often leaders are passing on things to us not from revalation , not from a real encounter with God but from our reading or other inspiration. We have a responsibility to ensure our inspiration is real, relevant and immediate, not just religious, read from a book or, interesting. Not that these things are wrong but we must remain firm to our commitment to base what we say in the reality of God’s amazing grace, of our real meeting with Jesus and in the real presence of God in our meetings by the Holy Spirit.

We, as listeners, also need to be aware of this. Seeking always to encounter a living Lord Jesus in our services and meetings. We may not always feel like this and sometimes we will need to remember the reality of God in our lives when God was very close those miracles when we wereclose to God and God close to us.

There will be times of doubt and turmoil and it helps in those times to remember. I often look back with assurance at my call to ministry .

At University I had been involved in a mission and at a prayer meeting after the mission one of the people shared a picture that described the misssion as a torent of living water that was all froth and bubbles. But the torrent seemed to have been silted up as if a floodgate had been closed by silt. In response I prayed, ‘Lord, show me how to open up the flood gates in my life’.

A few months later, at a large meeting in Central Hall, Westminster, the speaker was talking about the move of God in his church as being like ‘a torent of living water that was all froth and bubble.’ I remember thinking that sounds familiar, he thendescribed the water as becoming blocked by silted up flood gates and began describing a process of unblocking the flood gates by removing sandbags of wrong things in their life. I began hearing God naming sandbags in my life and began removing them. As the meeting progressed, there was a message in tongues in the downstairs of the hall, (I was sitting in the balcony) and an interpretation given by someone o the platform “the floodgates are open, go and minister to my children.” There was no mistaking that was for me. I get great comfort fom that and recalling it often dispels doubts and turmoils that I come across.

Last week Ralph talked about us being doers of the word as well as hearers. To do this we need to intentionally involveourselves in worship and service, not just watching but participating. The problem is that we often, like many in the church, suffer from SPECTATORITIS.

Many have diagnosed this problem, one church leader, Martin Luther King, described below:-

There are many people who have caught the contagious disease of “Spectatoritis”. Such persons are only spectators or onlookers but not participants. Such persons watchthe minister and choir indulge in prayer and praise. They come to see what is going on rather than to help ceate, give direction and enrichment to what is going on. The mood of the true worshipper is not passive, but active. He comes not just to get but to give, not to observe, but to participate;not just to see what is going on but to contribute to what is going on.

1957 , Martin Luther King Jr., Papers Project “Worship Srmonat Dexter Avenue Baptist Church “ cited by Larry Peabody, 2016, Curing Sunday Spectatorits from Passivity to participation in Church , Skyforest CA , Urban Loft publishers

The Cure for this disease is to actively participate, to allow space in services for participation, to come to worship expecting to meet Jesus, the Jesus who first met you and called you to follow Him, who miraculously spoke to you, healed you, forgave you.

As we now take part in Communion let’s really participate. This is not just bread and wine, this is the body and blood of Christ. Not just remembering him but participating with Him, partnering with Him.

Let me step to one side and point you to Jesus, just as my name’s sake in the reading from John said,

‘Come and see’ , COME AND MEET WITH THE LIVING GOD.