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"Are You Ready to Launch?"
By Dr. Mickey Anders
South Elkhorn Christian Church
Lexington, Kentucky
January 25, 2008
 
Text: Mark 1:14-20
 
Today we begin a new focus for our "Are You Serious?" campaign.  For the next two Sunday's, we will ask, "Are you serious about hope?"  I want to focus this first Sunday on hope for the coming year of ministry in our church.  We have just completed our cabinet retreat and we are ready to launch a new year.  Next Sunday, I plan to more generally address the meaning and substance of Christian hope.
 
Our text for today marks the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry.  We are only 14 verses into Mark, and already we have the appearance and arrest of John the Baptist, the baptism of Jesus and the temptation behind us.  In Mark we find an urgency about the message of Jesus.  The most characteristic word in the book is "immediately." 
 
This passage marks the launch of the three years of Jesus' work and ministry.  Mark proclaims, "Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near,"
 
Today, I want to make a simple comparison between the launch of Jesus' ministry and the launch of a new year of ministry in our church.  Our church is ready to launch. 
 
This weekend twenty members of our cabinet met for hours to review, analyze, strategize and plan for the coming year.  We conducted an organizational scan discerning our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.  Then we set many goals for the coming year.  Today we have officially installed our church officers.  We look forward to this year with hope and dreams of a great year in the cause of Christ.  We are ready to launch a new year of service to God through this church. 
 
When I thought about launching into the ministry of a new year, I visualized a fighter jet launching sitting on the deck of an aircraft carrier, ready to launch.  I got so excited about that visual image that I went out and bought the movie, "Top Gun."  As I watched the movie again, I realized that we are like an F-14 Tomcat sitting on the deck of an aircraft carrier with engines rumbling ready to take off into the wild. 
 
I wanted to show you scenes from the movie, but we don't have the proper licensing for a public showing.  But I did find an unrestricted video clip from a government web site.  I want you to watch this file video of a launch off the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk.  Imagine this jet as our church launching into our mission for Christ in the coming year.  And I want you to particularly notice the people on the deck involved in the take-off.
 
(Show video clip)
 
The plane got safely in the air to fly its mission, but first, there were some steps that had to be taken.  Did you notice all the crew members working on the deck?  Every one of them has a specific job.  The entire process is directed by the hand signals from the deck crew.  The main person on the deck is called the "catapult officer," also known as "shooter." They are usually the ones dressed in yellow with a green helmet.
 
Did you notice his hand signals?  In fact, there are a great number of hand signals used to communicate between the catapult officer and the pilot, but there are five essential signals that have to be given before each launch. 
 
(Make the hand signals - fists pulled apart, thumbs up, salute, a twisting motion of the uplifted finger, and stepping aside to point the way forward,)   
 
Each of these hand signals has a special meaning to the pilot and serves as an important step in preparing for the launch.  Each step must be carried out in proper sequence before the big jets can set off on their appointed missions.  I want to use these visual hand signals as the outline for the launch of Jesus' ministry and suggestions for the launch of our new year at church.
 
1. The first duty of the catapult officer is to signal the removal of the "chocks," the small clamps that lock in place the aircraft's wheels and keep them from rolling.  The hand signal for removing the chocks is to put your two fists together, pinkies touching, four fingers facing you and thumbs pointing outward in opposite directions. Suddenly thrust each fist in the opposite direction.
 
The chocks have the same function on an aircraft carrier as the blocks that we place under the wheels of an automobile. They are little more than glorified doorstops. By jamming the wheels, the chocks make it impossible for the big jets to roll forward. Without the signal to remove these chocks, the flight cannot get under way.
 
Jesus removed the blocks before he began his ministry.  The verse before our text for today says, "He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan."  This temptation of Jesus is mentioned in all three of the synoptic gospels as the immediate precursor to his ministry.  Jesus knew he had to remove the barriers which might halt him from going forward effectively.
 
In our passage today, Jesus tells his disciples to "repent, and believe in the good news."  Before anything else can happen, even before he urges listeners to "believe in the good news," Jesus preaches repentance. Jesus knows that our sins, prejudices and preconceived notions can effectively block us from making any headway in our search for God's kingdom.
 
In the same way, our church cabinet began by examining our weaknesses and threats.  We realized that we need to get more people in Sunday School, increase our diversity, assimilate new members, get more people involved.  We realized that the downturn in the economy can be a threat to our church.  The first step in going forward is to remove the barriers.
 
2. Next, the catapult officer next looks into the cockpit of the plane to see if the pilot is ready.  The catapult officer finds a spot where he can see the pilot's eyes.  Then he makes a thumbs-up signal, which is almost a question, and waits for the pilot to return the signal, which is the answer.  The pilot's responding thumbs-up means that the pilot is as ready as the plane is.
 
In our text for today, we read, "As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me…’"
 
A part of our calling as Christians and as a church is to see Jesus eye-to-eye and hear his call, "Follow me."  Thumbs up is our way of saying, "Yes, I will follow Jesus!  Let's go for it!"
 
This weekend, I told the cabinet that we did not want to just be spinning our wheels at church.  We are here for a purpose - to call men and women, boys and girls to follow Jesus.  We are called to be disciples, and to take that calling seriously.
 
At our retreat, we set some goals in the area of discipleship.  We want to see every member of our church involved in at least one small group.  In small groups, we are challenged to follow Jesus more fully, and there we experience the intimate fellowship with others who are taking their discipleship seriously too.  We are going to push for more people to be involved in a Sunday School class.  We will promote our existing classes and start new classes.  We want this to be a church where we are serious about discipleship; serious about following Jesus.  We will look each other in the eye, and give the thumbs up!  "Yes, let's be disciples!  Let's go for it."
 
3. The third signal given by the catapult officer offers the pilot a formal salute.  This salute is a serious gesture, a somber moment in the procedure.  It recognizes that there are dangers that accompany the mission, no matter how routine any mission may appear. By saluting, the catapult officer reminds the pilot of the seriousness of the venture and elevates what may be routine into a significant moment.
 
Jesus called his first disciples not only to learn at his feet, he added, "and I will make you fish for people."   Jesus still calls us to fish for people.  Ours is a serious task.  At our cabinet retreat, we set some serious goals about evangelism.  We had 33 new members last year, and we want to do better than that next year.  We want to reach a broad spectrum of diversity in the people that are called to Christ through this church.  We set goals to target the parents of Little Elks children and the parents of the Latin School children with an inviting message.  We will be recruiting a Visitor Care Champion to help me oversee our outreach to new people.
 
The last thing Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew was, "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 I have commanded you.  And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
 
4. The fourth duty of the catapult officer is to signal for preparation of the engines.   The catapult officer does this by making an upward spiral motion of the hand--like a twister. This signal means that the is to give the engines full-throttle, make them scream to life, ready to propel the plane down the runway when the time is right.  A jet plane goes nowhere without power.  If the engines are not ready for a full-thrust, the plane will rumble down the runway and plunge into the sea.  Power, jet power is needed for a launch.
 
Jesus' time in the wilderness was not just a time for getting the temptations of Satan behind him; it was also a time for reconnecting with the source of power for his ministry - God the Father. 
 
In our text, Jesus proclaims, "the kingdom of God has come near."  He was telling his disciples that this was no ordinary time; it was the time for God's intervention into human affairs.  And Jesus would later tell his disciples where they could get the power to do their own ministry.  In Acts 1:8, we read, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
 
At our cabinet retreat, Chris Weiss gave one of the devotionals in which he led us in singing these words:
O God, unseen yet ever near, Thy presence may we feel; And thus inspired with holy fear, Before Thine altar kneel.
 
And we discussed the fact that behind, underneath, above, and beyond everything we do in this church, behind all our goals, is the power of God.  There is a prayer I love that is attributed to St. Patrick, and it says, "God with me, God before me, God behind me, God within me, God beneath me, God above me, God at my right, God at my left, God in the heart of everyone who thinks of me, God in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me, God in every eye that sees me, God in every ear that hears me."  Our power comes from God.  Let's rev the engines up!
 
5. The final gesture the catapult officer makes sends the waiting plane and pilot off into the sky. This gesture is the grandest of the lot. For now that everything is ready for takeoff, the catapult officer must do one more thing. Can you guess what it is?  Get out of the way!
 
The catapult officer takes a giant step to the side, then makes a grand forward-pointing gesture with his whole arm and body. The catapult officer points the pilot off the flight deck, into the direction of the carrier's mission.
 
Jesus did the same for his disciples at the end of Matthew.  I like the imperative in that verse from Matthew 28, "Go, therefore!!"  Just as the early disciples were called by Jesus to take the gospel to the whole world, so we are called to launch forth in the same mission.  We have laid the framework and set our goals.  Now is the time to do the work of Christ.
 
Do you remember the signals?
1) Remove the chocks!  Repent.  Remove all barriers to our progress.
2) Thumbs up!  Look Jesus eye-to-eye and hear his, "Follow me!"  Respond with an affirmative thumbs-up!
3) Salute!  Remember that ours is the serious business of fishing for people.
4) Rev the engines up!  Our power comes from God.  Pull out the throttle.  Prepare for launch.
5) Point forward!  Go therefore!
 
(Show the aircraft carrier launch again.)
 
1) The idea of the five steps of this sermon came from "Five Steps to Takeoff," Homiletics, 1/26/1997.