This is a very special time. It is a special time for congregations around the world because it is the first weekend in Lent. Lent is a season of preparation for Easter, a time set aside for personal reflection and re-commitment to your relationship with God through Jesus Christ. This preparatory season dates to at least the 8^th century if not before.  Depending on your background, you may never have experienced Lent. A few years ago, a woman shared with me that she grew up in the south as a Baptist. Lint, she said, was something she didn’t want on her blue Easter dress. When I explained to her what Lent was, she said, “Oh, we used to go to Madri Gras and party with our friends. Now I understand why everyone is going crazy. They have to act good for 40 days before Easter.” Well, she almost understood.  

 

When Lent first began it was a special preparation time for joining the church. If you wanted to accept Jesus as your Savior, you’d show up at church on Ash Wednesday. Then, you’d spend the next seven weeks fasting, praying, and studying the Bible to become a Christian.  To join, you had to commit seven weeks. I can’t imagine this.  We have a tough time getting people to a three hour membership class. One of the consistent things I hear from you is “I just don’t have time.” The amount of discretionary time we have is shrinking and so we give away hours very carefully.  

 

As Lent begins, the majority of congregations around the world study the temptation of Jesus.  It is always the lesson for the first weekend of Lent. This makes it a special time because most Christians are studying the same lesson. I think that’s a wonderful image. Christians in Africa and Australia and Europe, Christians all around the world, study the same story.  This year, we read the gospel of Luke’s version of the temptation. I like it the best because of the last line. “When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.” (Luke 4:13)  Jesus will face temptation again at an opportune time. It is a powerful truth. Temptation is always around. If there is anyone here who thinks that once you beat temptation down, you are done with it, you need to memorize this verse. Even Jesus had to deal with temptation on a regular basis. “When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.”

 

“…. until an opportune time.” It is an interesting phrase. The ancient Greek language had two words for time and they each had distinct meanings. One was chronos, the other kairos. Chronos is the time that we feel is shrinking. When we say there aren’t enough hours in the day, we’re talking about chronos. When we talk about forty days of fasting, that’s calendar days, chronos. You’re concerned with chronos when you look at your watch, halfway through the sermon, worried about how long I’m preaching and whether or not you will get out on time.  That used to happen more than it does now. I thought it was because I was getting better as a preacher until I read in the Indianapolis Star that fewer people are wearing watches. The younger you are, the more likely you are to look at your iPod or your cell phone. Maybe that’s why cell phones go off in worship. People use them to keep track of time, chronos. Chronos is chronological times. In fact, it is where we get the word chronological.

 

Kairos is a different type of time. It is what Luke says the devil was looking for with Jesus, an opportune time. It is a little bit like our expression, “being at the right place at the right time.” But for the ancient Greeks, the word meant more than this. They recognized that everyone has defining moments that change everything that follows. I hear stories about your kairos moments when you recall meeting a spouse or making a career decision that changes your life. You can see these moments in the Bible. Moses before the burning bush is a kairos moment. Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus is kairos. Jesus temptation is kairos and the devil is looking for another kairos, another opportune time. The Bible tells us that kairos moments are moments when God can shape the future. 

 

Kairos moments aren’t just opportune times for individuals. There are kairos moments in community where history is literally changed. Our lesson from the book of Acts is clearly a kairos moment for Christianity.  At the festival of Pentecost, God steps in, transforms a chronos moment, a Jewish holiday and makes it a kairos moment which defines the modern history of humanity. Christianity is born; the church is launched. It is because of that kairos moment that we are here today.

 

The leaders of this congregation believe that this is a kairos moment for our congregation. We believe that God is redefining the future of our congregation. The leaders of this congregation believe, the staff of this congregation believe, I believe that God is transforming us in this kairos moment and if we respond faithfully and sacrificially, it will dramatically change our lives, our children’s lives and the lives of thousands of people in our community over the next forty, fifty, maybe even a hundred years. 

 

We are calling this kairos moment Connecting Promises. The theme comes from the kairos moment in scripture we know as Pentecost. As Peter comes to the end of his sermon on Pentecost, he invites his listener to connect with the promise. It is our theme verse for the campaign and I hope by the end of the five weeks, you can say it by heart. It is on the front of your bulletin. I want you to read it with me. “For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him." (Acts 2:39)

 

What is the promise? It is the promise that Jesus made his Disciples in the upper room on the night he was betrayed. Knowing that he was going to leave them, he promised that God would not abandon them. God will send them the Holy Spirit.  He says, “the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” (John 14:26).

 

Kairos moments are when God’s Spirit is actively shaping the future. Peter invites people to connect with the promise and three thousand immediately said, “Yes, I want to be a part of this” and God began shaping them just as Jesus promised.

 

This kairos moment that we are calling Connecting Promise has the same invitation. Every member of this congregation gets the opportunity to ask, “Do I want to be a part of this?”  Some of you have already made up your minds. You are just that way. I heard recently that approximately 2% of the general population is predisposed to saying yes to everything. I could say, “From now on, every time we worship, we are going to wear red clown noses and big floppy shoes” and that two percent will say, “Okay, count me in.” I also heard the 2% of the population are predisposed to hold a negative position. It doesn’t matter what you suggest, they are going to say no. I could say, “I think we should say the Lord’s Prayer in worship” and they’d say “No way. I don’t want to do it.” Of course I say, “But we already say the Lord’s Prayer” and they’d say, “I don’t care. I’m against it.” They are hardwired to be “no people.”

 

The rest of us fall somewhere in between. Some of us are agreeable and positive; some of us tend to be more pessimistic and negative. You probably know how you tend to respond but what I ask you today is this:  “Please don’t respond too quickly.”  A kairos moment is too important to make a hasty decision.  The leaders and staff of this church have been praying and studying and talking about this for over three years. Now we take the next five weeks to pray and study and talk about our personal commitment to Connecting Promises. Let the Spirit work on you. Pray about it. Figure out how God is using you in this kairos moment because the promise is for you.

 

Let me tell you how this promise will make a difference in your life. You will grow spiritually. We are already beginning to see this. Over 100 people are involved in leadership positions in the Connecting Promises campaign. There are a number of people who are volunteering for the first time. They are discovering the joy of serving, whether the job is large or small. They are learning new information that our church needs. They are discovering new ways of connecting to church and connecting with the congregation.

 

Spirit filled churches that embrace the promise grow stronger Christians and stronger community. Every time we are at one of the kairos moments in the life of our church, when we are doing something dynamic and transformational, there a people who are concerned that we will grow too big or we will lose that family feeling or that they will get lost. For most people, that is just the opposite of what happens. Look at our story from Acts. The Disciples were a group of 12 and a few others who had followed Jesus to Jerusalem. At Pentecost, they add 3,000. They go from small to huge. What does the text say? “Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.” (Acts 2: 46-47). They got closer; they became a stronger community. They grew spiritually as the Body of Christ.

 

Last spring, I shared with one of the basic principles of a multi-site congregation to “get big AND stay small.” Take that principle and add to it the principle of growth found at Pentecost of a strong community and the promise is for you. Connecting Promises will allow you to grow spiritually and the congregation to have more intimacy. Do you want that? Do you want to grow spiritually? Do you want our congregation to grow spiritually and to become closer to one another?  Success in Connecting Promises will make this happen.

 

It will also inspire you. Do you catch that in the Pentecost story? This is how they were described: “Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done.” (Acts 2:43)  Do you want to live an inspired life?

 

I am confident that I don’t know anyone who wants to be bored. People walk out on movies and speakers who are boring. People complain about work being boring. Our children’s lives are filled with activities and entertainment that if they have just a few minutes of downtime, they say, “Dad, I’m bored.”  By nature we all want to be engaged and interested in what is going on but even that’s not truly enough. Deep down within by nature, we want to be inspired and we want to live inspired lives.

 

It is why we teach our children stories about American patriots like George Washington or Patrick Henry or Nathan Hale. It’s why we all know stories about average men and women like Rosa Parks or Todd Beamer who at a kairos moment, rise to greatness. It is why we watch movies like Amazing Grace and are inspired about the force of one man,  William Wilberforce, and the kairos moment that changed a nation. We want to be inspired and we want to live inspired lives. Someone has said that the quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to the commitment to a great vision. 

 

Connecting Promises is a great dream, a vision for future ministry that will impact many lives. It is a kairos moment for our congregation and if you participate in it, it will inspire your life. Do you want to be part of something that is truly making a difference? Do you want to be inspired and live an inspired life?

 

You may be surprised by this first sermon in our series. I haven’t talked about building. I haven’t described what will be built here or what we will build at the north campus. There is a reason. This isn’t about a building; it is about ministry. It is about what God is calling us to do.

 

As you leave worship, you’ll get packet of information. It has the pretty pictures. It gives you information about the “what.” But right now, we need to focus on the why. The why is, once again, the leaders of this congregation and I believe that this is a kairos moment, the spirit filled opportune time for us to strengthen our ministry to each other and to be more faithful to our children and to those whom God will send. With that packet in your hand, I have to ask you again to be patient and let the Holy Spirit work.   “Please don’t respond too quickly.”  A kairos moment is too important to make a hasty decision.

 

In this sermon, I gave you some questions. One of the reasons that I did this was from my own personal experience. Three years ago, when we began to study the possibility of expanding our ministries here and at a second site, one of our trusted leaders turned to me, put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Do you really want to do this?” For months, every meeting, he asked me that question. He’d ask it in different ways, but he kept asking. We kept praying, searching, testing, questioning and the answer we came up with was yes. 

 

This is your time to do that. I’m putting my hand on your shoulder. I’m asking you these questions and I want you to prayerfully consider them this week.

 

This week, ask yourself:

1.      Do I want to grow spiritually?

2.      Do I want my congregation to grow spiritually and to become closer to one another? 

3.      Do I want to be a part of something that is truly making a difference?

4.      Do I want to be inspired and live an inspired life?

 

Ask yourself these questions. Pray about them. Let the Spirit work on you. Figure out how God is using you in this kairos moment at Geist Christian Church because the promise is for you.