Where would you go to get thin?  A spa?  A fat camp?

       Unlike us, when the old Celtic Christians used to talk about going to a “thin place,” they weren’t talking about a diet center or a gym.  To the Celts, a thin place was a place where the wall separating you from God is so thin that the love of God is easily able to flow through and envelop you. 

       When Carol and I were on sabbatical a couple of years ago, we spent a great week in the monastery of Iona on the island off the coast of Scotland.  The Celts always regarded Iona as a thin place – one of the thinnest.  After being there for a week, I was able to begin to understand why.   The very air is somehow aglow with the presence of God.   You may have experienced that same sense of God’s immediacy at special places like Forest Home.

       Where are the thin places in your life?  Where are the places where you are especially open to God?  When was the last time you gave God even ten minutes of silence?  When was the last time you gave Him fifteen minutes of stillness?  When was the last time you said nothing at all to God, but quietly yielded to His love? 

       If God doesn’t seem real to you, it may be because you haven’t provided Him with a quiet time in which He can embrace you with His love and fill you with His presence. 

       We will give our time to what we want to honor.  Pastor Errol Hale here in Moorpark, told me about an experience that he had on the weekend before Ronald Reagan was buried up at the library.    Errol was at the gas station when three men drove up in a rental car.  In heavily accented English, they said they were looking for directions to the library. 

       As Errol phrased it, “I didn’t think they were looking for the Moorpark Public Library.  I told them how to get to Olsen Road and up to the library - but I warned them that the lines were very, very long.”  They said, “We have already come a long way.  We have come here from Rumania to pay our respects.  President Reagan saved us from the Soviet Union.  So we don’t care how long the lines are.  We have to be here.”

       Well Jesus, the One who has set us free, says that we honor Him by moving to a thin place in our lives.  We honor Him by coming to a place where we connect with Him and with His people.  That is what worship is supposed to be for us.

      I have been preaching through Paul’s Letter of the Colossians.  In Colossians 1 and 2, Paul has told us all that God has done for us in Jesus Christ – how Jesus has set us free.  Then, in chapters 3 and 4, Paul talks about our proper response to the great love God has shown us.  We are going to look at these chapters verse by verse and, in some cases, word by word.

       This morning, however, I have jumped ahead to Colossians 3 verse 16 because this is a very appropriate verse for this very special weekend.  Last night we shared a wonderful time of worship and celebration with our music ministry.  Paul will talk about what we experience in music in this verse.  Early this afternoon, soon after worship, we will share a good meal with each other and then feed each other with our thanks and praise.  Paul also talks about this in verse 16.

       I’m looking forward to this.  Each year, on laity Sunday, we hear what God is doing in the lives of two families.  Today is an opportunity for many of us who wants to share the good news of God’s gracious love.  The culmination, of course, will be the ground breaking on our new sanctuary.

        Let us prepare ourselves for all that we will share this afternoon in the Word of God.  For Paul begins Colossians 3:16 by writing “Let the Word of Christ richly dwell among you.”

       In Victor Hugo’s Les Miserable, Jean Valjean leaves the prison and journeys a great distance on foot. He is rudely rejected wherever he seeks food or lodging. On the fourth day, as a cold rain chilled his body, a kindly stranger suggested he knock on the door of Bishop Bienvenu's house.

       When he did, the good bishop welcomed him with a warm "Monsieur!" that startled him. "This is not my house," the bishop explained, "it is the house of Christ. It does not ask any comer whether he has a name, but whether he has an affliction. You are suffering, you are hungry and thirsting; be welcome — whatever is here is yours. Your name is my brother."

       Victor Hugo later said of his Bishop Bienvenu: “He did not study God: he was dazzled by Him.”

        Well God will dazzle us as we get to know Him in His word.  But we need to realize that just reading the word is no guarantee that the Word of Christ will “dwell in us richly”.  The parallel quotation in Ephesians 5 teaches us that God’s Word must also be read and meditated on under the influence of the Holy Spirit if it is to dwell richly in us.  It is not just a question of disciplined study.  It is a matter of the heart.  Our goal is Spirit-filled participation in Christ and His Word.

       That is where worship gains its power.  Our English word worship comes from “worth-ship.”  Worship is the recognition of the merit of another.  Worship is appreciation.  It is the awed and glad spontaneous response of people confronted by the God who reveals Himself in Jesus Christ -- the God of creation and redemption.  Worship is what we rightly do when we see who God is.

       John Stott wrote a commentary, “Theology (our belief about God) and doxology (our worship of God) should never be separated.  On the one hand, there can be no doxology without theology. It is not possible to worship an unknown god.  All true worship is a response to the self-revelation of God in Christ and Scripture, and arises from our reflection on who He is and what He has done… Worship without theology is bound to degenerate into idolatry.  Hence the indispensable place of Scripture in both public and private devotion.  It is the Word of God which calls forth the worship of God.” 

       “On the other hand,” Stott continues, “there should be no theology without doxology.   There is something fundamentally flawed about a purely academic interest in God.  God is not an appropriate object for cool, critical, detached, scientific observation and evaluation.  No, the true knowledge of God will always lead us to worship, as it did Paul.  Our place is on our faces before Him in adoration.”

        A British preacher once observed about the message of Colossians 3:16 that “The surest sign that you are carrying a full bucket is wet feet.”  That’s true. Whenever we attempt to carry a full bucket to clean the floor or wash the car, we always get wet feet!  And when our lives are full with the Word of God, they will overflow into the lives of others.

       Paul says in this verse that the wisdom that comes from God’s Word dwelling in us gives us our capacity to “teach and counsel one another will all wisdom.”  As we let the Word of God dwell in us richly, we naturally become communicators of the Lord to each other.  Christ never gives wisdom for intellectual word games or to impress others.  He gives His gift for costly ministry.

       As a pastor, I have spent some long hours in the intensive-care waiting room – waiting with anguished people -- listening to urgent question: will my husband make it?  Will my child walk again?  How do you live without your companion of thirty years? 

       The intensive-care waiting room is different from any other place in the world.  And the people who wait are different.  They can’t do enough for each other.  No one is rude.  The distinctions of race and class melt away.  A person is a father first, a black man second.  The garbage man loves his wife as much as the university president loves his, and everyone understands this.  Each person pulls for everyone else.  In the intensive-care waiting room, the world changes. The primary focus is the doctor’s next report.  If only one of the patients represented by these poor family members will show a sign of improvement!  Everyone knows that loving someone else is what life is all about.

       That’s what it’s about.  And this afternoon we have a special opportunity to share a gift of loving encouragement with each other.

        Here’s what’s happening.  Right after the second service, we need to drop the chairs so we can put up tables so we can eat.  Some of the men are outside right now at the barbecue making the magic happen so we will eat soon after the close of worship. 

       That’s an important step in praising God.  The Psalm says, “Bless the Lord O my soul, and all that is within me bless his Holy Name.”  That “all that is within me” includes tri-tip.  If there isn’t enough room in this hall for everyone who comes, and I hope there’s not,  we will have a dining annex in the youth room.

       After lunch, the younger children will go for a special children’s program in the youth room while any adults and older youth who ate over there will join us over here.  Then we will have a sharing time. 

       Our Executive Presbyter, Ken Working and his wife, the Rev. Miji Working will lead us in an exciting time of celebration and testimony about what God is doing in our lives.  There will be four different times on four different themes for us to share with each other – each set against a background of teaching, scripture and music – about and hour and a half in all. 

       When I was talking to Ken about this last November, he told me about a similar  exciting time of personal sharing that had just taken place at our Hispanic New Church Development, Word of Life, in Port Hueneme. I jokingly suggested that maybe we could import some people from that church for our sharing time today – just in case we get all shy and reserved and tongue tied with each other and aren’t able to do what Colossians 3:16 tells us to do.

       I actually don’t think we’ll need their help.  God has certainly blessed us in big ways – as individuals and as a church family.  We should have no problem living the Word. 

       Finally, at about 2:30, we will share in the ground breaking for our new sanctuary.  Then cake.

       I’m looking forward to all of this.  But be warned.  As we let the Word of Christ dwells in us richly and as we teach and encourage each other, something wild might happen.  As Paul points out last in our text, we might make some noise.  We might even speak to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

       A while back the Washington Post ran a news report.  According to the Post, Bubba’s Cycle Shack, the Exposed Temptations Tattoo Shop and Blessed Victory Church share a building in Manassas, Virginia.  And it’s not working.

       It started with a complaint to the city council.  The Exposed Temptations tattoo shop owner told council members that the gospel music was distracting him from his work. “It’s like any kind of art,” he said of tattooing.  “You want to focus on the concentration and the client.”

      It was even worse downstairs at Bubba’s Cycle Shack where all of the activity from the church above caused some tiles to fall from the ceiling and merchandise to drop from the shelves.

       There were only 20 members in that church.  Just think of the chaos we could cause with our numbers.

       Well with all due apologies to Bubba’s Cycle Shack and the artist at the Exposed Temptations Tattoo Shop, music happens.  And music especially happens when you know what the Lord has done for you.

       As Paul wrote this letter, he knew that the Colossian Christians faced hard things.  So Paul challenges them to become a singing church.  He knew that if the church could sing the Psalms and the Scriptures, along with some of the new praise choruses that were used by believers, it would not be long before assurance and hope would be reborn.

       From the beginning the Church was a singing church.   The gratitude of the Church has always gone up to God in song.

       You can find this repeated over and over again in church history.  Whenever the Word of God is recovered, it is received with great joy which is always expressed in song.  The medieval Latin hymns cluster around the fresh days of monastic movements.  The Protestant Reformation brought a rebirth of music to the Church.  When we think of the Methodist Revival, we don’t only think of John Wesley, but his brother Charles who has given us so many great hymns.  The great harvest of souls here in our own country in the Jesus Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s brought a revival of Scripture singing.  When the Word of God dwells richly within you, you want to sing “with gratitude in your hearts to God.”

       But that won’t happen unless we know what we really need from God as we engage with a needy but sometimes hostile world.  Great singing grows out of great pain.  Karl Barth once said, “A church which has no great anguish on its heart will have no great music on its lips.”  But as we let the Word of Christ dwell in us, as we encourage each other with our words, as our thankful hearts overflow with praise, something wonderful happens.  We keep our focus on who we are and what we are called to do. 

       Objectives can easily be lost.  They don’t disappear in a big explosion.  They usually just gradually erode away. 

       One man wrote: “When I lived in Atlanta, several years ago, I noticed in the Yellow Pages, in the listing of restaurants, an entry for a place called Church of God Grill.  The peculiar name aroused my curiosity and I dialed the number.  A man answered with a cheery, “Hello! Church of God Grill!” 

       I asked how his restaurant had been given such an unusual name, and he told me: “Well, we had a little mission down here, and we started selling chicken dinners after church on Sunday to help pay the bills.  Well people liked the chicken, and we did such a good business, that eventually we cut back on the church service.  After a while we just closed down the church altogether and kept on serving the chicken dinners.  We kept the name we started with, and that’s “Church of God Grill.”

       Let’s not let that happen.  Let’s not let the fringe stuff of church crowd out the center. 

       As I preach, I am in my mid-fifties.  I feel about my age as Lou Holtz said he felt about coaching at the University of Minnesota: “It isn’t the end of the world, but you can see it from here.”  Perhaps I have some good, productive years of ministry left in me.  God only knows. But whatever time I have left, I want only to do the things I can’t do unless God does it.  I want there to be an abundance of what one pastor called “God room” in all my endeavors. 

        “God room” is the gap between what we can do by ourselves and what can only happen if God steps in.  I want to live in the thin places where God can break in and has to break in if anything worthwhile is going to happen. We don’t build the kingdom, Christ does.  It isn’t an acquisition, it’s a gift.  We need the gift.  For as we break ground, let us do that in the firm conviction that if we can build a church by ourselves, it isn’t worth building.  God has to do it.