Genesis 1:28; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; Matthew 28:16-20
June 23, 2013
Packing the Essentials, Part 8
Rev. Dr. Meagan M. Boozer
We are in the home stretch of our sermon series called, “Packing the Essentials.” Next week
we will pack our final essential tenet of the Reformed faith for our potential move to a brand new
Presbyterian denomination (pending an affirmative congregational vote on July 7th and an
affirmative presbytery vote on September 24th). It’s been a couple of weeks since we checked what
we’ve packed so far, so let’s do a quick review.
First of all, something is deemed essential if it is necessary, indispensible, and foundational. If
you are going spelunking (cave exploring) a flashlight or headlamp is absolutely essential. If you
want to make a strawberry pie, strawberries are absolutely essential. Something essential is
something that is necessary, indispensible, and foundational.
Secondly, a ‘tenet’ is a principle belief. Our potential new denomination, The Covenant Order
of Evangelical Presbyterians (ECO) has established eight principle beliefs that will serve to define and
connect all member congregations together. When I was interviewed by ECO regarding my own
transfer out of the PC(USA) I was asked if I agreed to the essential tenets. When your elders were
interviewed, every elder was asked individually if they agreed to the essential tenets. From here on
out, assuming we will be making the move to ECO, every elder and deacon (ordained offices in the
church) will be asked the same question before being installed into office. The point is: There are
many things we can and will disagree about in the life of the church (that’s normal), but our essential
beliefs, based on the Word of God, should not be matters for disagreement. And in my experience,
even what we might consider a ‘small’ disagreement can often be resolved by going back and
studying the truths taught in the essentials. So let’s take a look at the essentials we’ve packed so far:
 Essential Tenet of the Reformed Faith #1: God’s Word: The Authority of Our Confession
 Essential Tenet #2: Trinity: One God in Three Persons
 Essential Tenet #3: Incarnation: Jesus: Fully Human and Fully Divine
 Essential Tenet #4: God’s Grace in Christ
 Essential Tenet #5: Election for Salvation and Service
 Essential Tenet #6: Covenant Life in the Church
Essential Tenet #6 was given to us last week by our team of men on Father’s Day in word, in
song, and in the visual of them sitting up here together for the whole service of worship. No one left
when they had ‘done their part.’ They stayed together the whole time – supporting one another as
they taught us about Essential Tenet #6: Covenant Life in the Church.
A covenant is an agreement between two parties. On His side of the covenant God has said to
us, “I will be your God.” On our side of the covenant we have responded to God’s call by saying, “We
will be your people.” God will never fail to keep his part of the covenant. He cannot fail. God is 100%
faithful and true. In Christ, all God’s promises are already ‘yes’ and ‘amen’ (1 Corinthians 1:20). And
the crazy and wonderful truth is this: In Christ, God himself fulfills our side of the covenant for us.
He knew we couldn’t be completely faithful and true on our side of the covenant, and so he sent Jesus,
and then Jesus sent his Holy Spirit to fulfill for us and through us what we (as sinners) were unable to
do on our own. God himself establishes and fulfills the covenant. Why? Love. Pure, Unconditional
Love.
The Church is a covenant community (we’re making an agreement with one another),
modeling the covenant God has made with us through Christ to forgive us, to receive us, to always be
with us and for us, to hem us in behind and before, to never leave us nor forsake us, wretched sinners
though we are.
Our call as a church community, as Christ’s body now on earth, is to model the faithfulness of
God’s covenant with us to one another for the sake of the world he came to save. Our call is to be
with and for one another – committed in thought, word, and deed to one another – doing for each
other what we sometimes cannot do for ourselves - having each other’s back – choosing (even when
we are annoyed or frustrated with one another) to see that because God has brought us together, God
will help us learn from one another what we could never learn in our own little corner: God will help
us learn how to love. Pure, unconditional love.
Let’s read together just the first paragraph from our potential new denomination’s essential
tenet #6: Covenant Life in the Church, “We are elect in Christ to become members of the
community of the new covenant. This covenant, which God himself guarantees, unites us to
God and to one another. Already in the creation, we discover that we are made to live in
relationships to others, male and female, created together in God’s image. In Christ, we are
adopted into the family of God and find our new identity as brothers and sisters of one
another, since we now share one Father. Our faith requires our active participation in that
covenant community.”
As children of God, brothers and sisters in Christ, we are called to be an active part of the
Church – not just show up now and again – not just show up on Sundays to ‘get’ something from the
preacher or from the music or from the people we ‘like.’ We are called to give in the family of God –
just as in your biological family. It is in giving, in serving, that my part and your part find a common
purpose, a common joy, and a common rhythm that moves the Church forward in faith, in hope, and
in pure, unconditional love. Thank you to all the men (and Chris) for modeling Essential Tenet #6
last Sunday: Covenant Life in the Church.
Today – the next-to-last Essential Tenet finds its way into our suitcase: Faithful Stewardship
of All of Life. Again today we will find that this essential tenet has much to do with our life together
in the church. Let us pray:
Heavenly Father, please help us learn and grow in faith, hope, and love as we continue to try to
grasp and articulate what it is we believe as your followers here in this place. Help us to pray with the
Spirit and with understanding, to sing with the Spirit and with understanding, and to grow with the
Spirit and with understanding. Come, Holy Spirit – we need you now to open our hearts and our minds
to your blessed Word: your eternal Truth. This we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
When you hear the word ‘stewardship’ most church members think of the one Sunday in
November when the preacher talks about how much money we’re supposed to give to God’s work in
the church. “Stewardship Sunday.” Am I right? Why is it called that? What’s the connection to ‘our
money?’
A steward is another word for manager. If a man owns a business and goes away for a
vacation, he leaves his business under the watchful eye of his manager. The business owner entrusts
the business to his manager – trusting that the manager will responsibly care for the business as if it
was his own. The manager is a steward of the business on behalf of the business owner.
Let’s take a look at a couple of Scriptures:
 Genesis 1:28, “God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth
and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every
living thing that moves upon the earth.”
 1 Peter 2:9, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in
order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his
marvelous light.”
 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within
you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price;
therefore glorify God in your body.”

Matthew 28:16-20, (The Great Commission): “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the
mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some
doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to
me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.
And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
From the beginning, God entrusted everything to our care – and when He saw that we couldn’t
manage all that he had given us as individuals, he set us in families to share both the joy and the
responsibility of our stewardship. He established the Church to help us fulfill our responsibilities
together – the responsibility of proclaiming God’s Word (the prophetic role), the responsibility of
sacrificially caring for one another, bearing one another’s burdens (a priestly role), and the
responsibility of establishing and enforcing a Biblical structure, an order, that enables us to do what
Jesus commanded us to do (a kingly role) in the Great Commission.
Perhaps you never thought about the offices of the church as an expression of our
stewardship (of managing) what God has given to us. Let’s take a look at ECO’s first paragraph of this
essential tenet: Faithful Stewardship of All of Life: The ministries of the church reflect the threefold office of Christ as prophet, priest and king—reflected in the church’s ordered ministries
of teaching elders, deacons, and ruling elders. We affirm that men and women alike are called
to all the ministries of the Church, and that every member is called to share in all of Christ’s
offices within the world beyond the church.
So, though the pastor (the teaching elder), the session (the ruling elders), and the deacons
have a particular call to specifically manage what God has given us to do in our various areas of
responsibility, an important part of my call and their call is to equip and empower the whole church
to fulfill the Great Commission of making disciples, baptizing, teaching…
How do we do that? We have to begin by recognizing that everything we have, everything we
are, everything we know about God and His Word is not ‘ours’ to have and to hold tightly to the chest.
We are stewards of the greatest gift the world has ever been given: We are stewards of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ – and that gospel reaches into every single corner of our lives. Every. Single. Corner.
What we know about God and His Word – what we know about Jesus and the power of His blood
over our sin should be impacting every part of our lives. For the true follower of Christ, there is no
‘secular’ and ‘sacred.’ The way we try to behave on Sundays between Sunday school and the end of
worship should be the same way we are trying to behave every other hour of the week. If we’re
watching our mouth while we’re here with our brothers and sisters, we should be watching our
mouth every other hour of the week. Worship is not meant to be just for one hour of the week –
corporate worship, perhaps yes. But our whole life is meant to be an act of worship and thanksgiving
to God – being able to answer the question from 1 Corinthians 6, ““Do you not know that your body is
a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?” “Do
you not know?” YES! I DO KNOW! I was bought with the precious blood of Christ, therefore in all
that I do I will try to honor God with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my mind. (This is
faithful stewardship of all of life!) Why? Because apart from Christ, I have nothing, I am nothing, I
can do nothing. For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.”
The last two paragraphs from this tenet from ECO are as follows: Every Christian is called to
a prophetic life, proclaiming the good news to the world and enacting that good news. Every
Christian is called to extend the lordship of Christ to every corner of the world. And every
Christian is called to participate in Christ’s priestly, mediatorial work, sharing in the suffering
of the world in ways that extend God’s blessing and offering intercession to God on behalf of
the world. We are equipped to share in these offices by the Holy Spirit, who conforms us to the
pattern of Christ’s life.
Jesus teaches us that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our
soul, and with all our mind. There is no part of human life that is off limits to the sanctifying
claims of God. Historically, the Presbyterian tradition has been especially called to explore
what it is to love God with all our minds, being committed to the on-going project of Christian
education and study at all levels of Christian life.
This congregation was founded as the Upper Path Valley Presbyterian Church in 1766. I don’t
know when it came to be (maybe it has always been this way) that the larger church (the
denomination) of which this congregation has been a part has been the “business owner” of the
property. As long as any of us have been living, this is way it has been. Though it has been the people
of this area who have given their tithes and offerings and blood, sweat, and tears to take care of what
God gave us – though it was our horses and our buckets and our shovels and our backs that were
used to dig out the basement beneath us in 1928 – all of this (including the property in Amberson,
the cemetery, the two lots we bought in 2004) has never truly belonged to us. We have always held it
“in trust” for the “business owner,” the “big brother” Presbytery in Camp Hill, or the “parent”
denomination in Louisville.” I believe this reality regarding ‘business ownership’ is what has held
this congregation (and many others) back from doing what it has wanted to do for decades –
separate from the denomination. Even though we knew the essential tenets that we believed were
no longer the same as the ones held by the denomination, we did not separate because we were
afraid that the ‘business owner’ would take all the property from us including all the assets on the
balance sheet - everything we had worked hard to care for and maintain for 247 years.
But Essential Tenet #7 declares the truth we forgot in the midst of our fear. The
denomination doesn’t own this property anymore than true followers of Christ own our own bodies.
The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. It was all created by Him, and it all belongs to Him –
whether it is acknowledged as such or not. In the beginning, GOD created: God formed us; God
formed the earth; God formed the church as a temporary demonstration of the covenant that He
established and He fulfilled.
And so holding on to this truth, and letting go of fear by remembering that even if the vote
right here is a ‘yes’ on July 7th and even if the vote at Presbytery in Mifflintown is a ‘yes’ on September
24th, we will still not be the owners of the property, we will still be faithful stewards of it (for GOD IS
the rightful owner): We walk forward by faith, with hope, and with an ever-increasing love in our
hearts, in our souls, and in our minds for the Lord our God – trusting in His promises. We choose to
boldly and clearly speak and teach the truth of the gospel to one another and to the world, we choose
to sacrificially care for each other in whatever way we can, and we choose to submit to the authority
that God has established within the Church for the sake of Christ and His coming kingdom.
There’s no place I’d rather be than right here with you as we prepare to take this step of faith.
Are there risks involved for you? Yes. For me? Yes. But I believe that over the last two years we
have established this fact: What we do, we don’t do for us. What we do, we do pen-ultimately for
those who came before us and for those who will come after us. What we do, ultimately we do for
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit in grateful response for all he has done for us.
Allow me to pray for us now, using the prayer from Ephesians 2:14-21, “I bow my knees before
the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the
riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through
his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded
in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and
length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may
be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to
accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in
Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”