First Sermon

By Clevis O. Laverty

It is with mixed feelings that I stand before you this morning in this our first service together. First, I am glad of the opportunity of being with you and serving you, and I am trusting that I shall have your support and understanding. We are all workers in the vineyard of the Lord, let us labor together for the advancement of His Kingdom on earth.

Many of you, no doubt, came here this morning wondering what kind of man the new preacher might be. So let’s get acquainted. First of all, we are no stranger to the coast of Maine. Maine was my birthplace, and I love it and am happy to be back. I have had experience in several fields of endeavor but now I am in that field that has been calling me for some time. My family and I are happy to be with you. We want to work with and for you for the advancement of His work. “I was a stranger and ye took me in” may be true at present but I trust we shall not be strangers long.

Much can be accomplished by us if we work together and pray together. I want you to feel free to come to me and I want to feel free to consult with you.

For the topic of my first sermon with you, I have chosen “The Three Doors: Welcome, Worship, and Work.”

Have you ever stopped to think what a symbol the door has become to us? I know many churches picture a door on the cover of their bulletin that looks very inviting. Opportunity is pictured as knocking at a door. A groom carries his bride over the threshold through a door. Companies wishing to give prospective employees the idea of advancement picture the door of success.

In the third chapter of Revelations, John the Divine writes to the church at Philadelphia, “I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut;” or “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”

Let us take the door of welcome. It works both ways, the welcome that I give to you who are already here and the welcome with which you greet me when I enter through the doorway to come to you.

Did you ever stop to think how intriguing this door of welcome can be? You go to a strange house, approach the door and lift your hand to knock and a steady stream of thoughts go through your mind. What’s going to be the response to my knock? What kind of a greeting am I going to get? Will I have to fight off the dog? Will I get a welcome or the bums rush? What kind of people are on the other side of that door? It’s almost like preparing to enter another world with which you have no familiarity.

I am minded of an experience a friend of mine had after he had accepted a new pastorate. He said that he started out on his pastoral calls to meet the people of his parish and at one home he went to, he knocked on the door. A man’s voice from within bade him come in. However, he knew that this man did not know him because he had never seen him before so he knocked again, and the voice again told him to come in. Still he knew that the man had no idea who he was inviting into his house so he knocked again that that seemed to be the signal. From the other side came a long steady stream of oaths followed by “I said come in, now come on in or go away.” He went in and saw a man sitting there watching a baseball game on TV who looked up in amazement and said, “Who are you?” My friend said he stood there with his bare face hanging out and said, “I’m the new preacher.”

What kind of a welcome are we going to give at the door? Is it to be a come in you’re out indifferent attitude or do we go to the door with a happy anticipation for whomever is on the other side? They are both a welcome at the door. The one gives the welcomed a warm feeling that hi is about entering on a delightful adventure, the other a cold feeling of just being tolerated.

Then there is the door of worship. “I was glad when they said unto me, ‘Let us go into the house of the Lord.’”

All men everywhere instinctively worship something or someone. Even the natives of darkest Africa have their god or gods whom they worship. In times of stress or danger, people turn to a greater power.

The worship that I refer to is not one of merely lip service consisting perhaps of attendance at church on Sunday and serving on boards and committees but it is a worship that we carry with us wherever we go and whatever we do.

I do not mean by this that we are to be solemn and gloomy. Far from it, Christian experience should be and is a happy experience and the Christian people should be the happiest on earth. We can carry our worship into our daily lives without making ourselves obnoxious to our fellowmen.

Faith we must have. Faith that will sustain us and keep us even when things look dark and gloomy. In this regard I am minded of the maiden lady who took her first ocean voyage. A few days out there was a terrible storm and she went to the captain and asked if there were any danger. He told her to see what the crew was doing. She went forward and found them playing cards and cursing. She was shocked and reported to the captain who said, “If there was any danger, they would be praying.” The storm continued and if anything got worse. Once again the elderly lady went forward to see what the crew was doing. She observed them a few moments and was then heard to remark: “Thank heavens, they’re still swearing.”

Faith we must have but by itself is not enough, which brings us to the door of work. Work is going to be necessary. In fact, faith without work is of no avail. We have faith when we pray but the true Christian will go out and try to answer his own prayers. We must give as well as receive. In no other way can the Kingdom of God be established on earth. Christ said I must be about my Father’s business. We are all in the same business as the shoemaker who remarked when asked his business: “My business is serving God, but I mend shoes to pay expenses.”

Then there were the two men who hired a boatman to row them across a river. On the way over they argued about faith and work. One said faith was more important, the other said work. In the heat of their discussion they noticed that they were going in circles and called the boatman’s attention to it. He said, “one of these oars is faith, the other work, just now I am using faith alone and getting nowhere.”

And so must we, as we begin our Christian experience together, open the door to give the proper welcome, exercise our faith through the door of worship, and then put it all to work as God intended. Then and only then can we attain that peace of mind that satisfaction of a job well done.

In a certain Yorkshire township a squire of a large estate had lost his hired hand so he went into the village as was the custom to find another one. After due looking around he spied one who seemed to fit his specifications, who looked as though he could do a good days work and asked him if he were available. The man lowed as maybe he was. When asked his name, he replied that it was John and that he was a good farm hand, so the squire asked him what he could do. “Well,” he said, “among other things I can sleep on a windy night. The squire thought that this was quite an original answer and hired him.

Several weeks later, a bad storm arose and the wind became very strong. The squire became worried, so he went to the foot of the stairs where John slept and called him. There was no answer. He went up the stairs and called some more. Still no answer. The squire figured that John really could sleep on a windy night so he dressed and went out around the estate to make sure that all was well. He went to the chicken house to loci it up and found it all locked. He went to the barn and found the gates all barred, all the equipment put away and secured, found the haystacks all covered with canvas and tied down. Everything was in order for any emergency. John knew how to sleep on a windy night because he had his work done and done right.

Welcome, worship and work. How do you sleep on a windy night?