|
The Power to See It
Through
A sermon by Dr. Russell Dilday
First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
January 14, 2007
II Corinthians 4:1-18
I don’t know of any church
that has more justification for being called “First” than FBC Richmond:
1st
church of any kind in Richmond – more than 225 years ago
1st
Baptist church in Virginia
1st to
have a missionary society for women
1st to
have a S.S. for children
1st to
send your own members as missionaries to Africa
You are indeed a “First”
church with a first-rate impressive heritage.
I had the privilege
of hearing Dr. Ted Adams preach and even got to meet him once. How many of you
were here during Dr. Adams’ ministry?
I preached here
during Luther Joe Thompson’s ministry – even played golf with him.
And of course my
long friendship with and admiration for Dr. Flamming has given me an even
greater appreciation for this congregation. You’ve been an affirming family of
faith for my personal family here, so it’s a humbling privilege to be your
interim preacher for a few months.
Interim is an
interesting word, actually a Latin word meaning meanwhile, meantime The
definitions for interim are not very flattering or complimentary: tentative,
stop-gap, makeshift, interruption, lapse, HIATUS = A gap where something is
missing.
And even worse – in
one of David Powers’ emails, he said I would be preacher for a quarter – it
sounded kinda cheap, a preacher for 25 cents – a two bit preacher!
But as your
meanwhile preacher, I want to remind you that interim does not mean intermission
or recess. There’s nothing tentative about this time between pastors. It’s time
when the church keeps moving on, advancing, growing. Remember, Dr. Flamming
said, This is God’s church. You have a strong staff team of committed talented
ministers, and there’s no reason why this meanwhile time can’t be a positive and
constructive chapter in the life of FBC Richmond. So I look forward to these
next Sundays with you.
The title for the
sermon, is “The Power to See it Through.” And the text is found in II Cor. 4.
Let me read a few of these verses for you.
Did you see the
Fiesta Bowl Game on New Year’s night between Underdog Boise State and Powerhouse
University of Oklahoma? David vs. Goliath! One of the best Football games I’ve
ever seen!
After coming back
again and again against the stronger team, the exhausted Boise St. players were
crushed to have OU take the lead with one minute to go. It looked hopeless.
But they didn’t give up. A remarkable pass and lateral, and Boise St. tied the
game with 7 seconds left on the clock to go into overtime.
Then another
heart-breaking set back, OU made a touchdown and led again, and once more it
looked hopeless. But they didn’t quit and came back and scored again! Then in a
stunning finish, instead of kicking the extra point to tie the game, Boise St.
used the old Statue of Liberty play for two points, and won the game!
How does a team, an
individual – or a church for that matter -- find the courage and strength to
keep coming back, to refuse to give up, and see it through? When you’re tired
and you feel defeated, and you’re tempted to quit, how do you keep from losing
heart? Where do you find the power to keep going and see it through?
The Bible has a lot to say about the dangers of
losing heart, fainting, despairing, or as Paul described it, “becoming a
castaway.” We read about Elijah the prophet who fell victim to self-pity and
complained to God, “I'm the only faithful one left, you might as well take my
life too. I quit." There have been times when we’ve felt like that.
Then there is David, who in spite of composing all
those uplifting poems, encountered debilitating despair. He repeats one forlorn
phrase so often in the Psalms that it begins to sound like his trademark, "My
soul is cast down. My soul is cast down." Most of us can identify with
that. We've had that feeling of a cast down soul.
But the Bible also tells about people who somehow
found the strength to keep going. Women and men with the inner capacity, the
faith, and some secret reserve that allowed them to see it through in spite of
disappointments and discouragement.
They’re like that indomitable Bunny who advertises
batteries. They just keeps on going and going and going.
The apostle Paul was one of those. He
courageously endured unimaginable obstacles, and toward the end of his life
summarized it by saying, "I fought a good fight, I kept the faith and I
finished my race.” His advice to us was, "Be steadfast, unmovable, always
abound in the work of the Lord." Good advice, Paul, but how do we do that?
His answer is in II Corinthians 4:
I. POWER
TO SEE IT THROUGH COMES FROM INVOLVEMENT IN A SIGNIFICANT CAUSE
Therefore, having this ministry by the
mercy of God, we do not lose heart. (II Cor. 4:1) The
Apostle did not lose heart because he was involved in a significant ministry.
There is a compelling motivation associated with being caught up in a crucial
enterprise, an endeavor of ultimate value. Paul couldn’t quit because he had
been recruited by the Lord Jesus and given a vital role in the eternal work of
His kingdom. The dimensions of that work were enormous, the tasks so
challenging, and the stakes so high that it captured him, and pulled him along
by its magnetic gravity.
Leadership guru, Max De Pree, quipped, “Once you
teach a bear to dance, you have to dance as long as the bear wants to!” Once
you give yourself to a gigantic cause that’s bigger than you are, it has a way
of capturing you, invigorating you, and you can’t quit. That’s the explanation
Paul gives in II Corinthians 4, “I have this ministry, so I don’t lose
heart! That’s how I keep on witnessing, I keep on traveling, I keep on
preaching in spite of persecution and calamities. What I’m called to do is so
compelling I can’t quit.”
“Trivial Pursuits” is not just
the name of a popular table game, it’s also describes the empty existence a lot
of Americans endure today. Their lives are trivial. They get up every morning
and go through the same dull routine, never engaged in anything crucial or
worthy of their best.
But that’s not you or me.
Having given our hearts to the Lord, we’ve been transformed by His power and
given responsibilities that stretch our capacities.
Our work is not trivial. To
share the good news of Jesus Christ, to reach out to people in His name, to
build up His church so His word can be proclaimed, so men, women, youth and
children can learn about Jesus and be transformed to serve him too - this is not
a game. It is eternally important and therefore it calls out the best from us,
giving us supernatural energy so that in spite of the hard times, we keep on
witnessing and giving and worshiping and serving. We can't quit. This is too
crucial. “Therefore having this ministry we do not lose
heart!”
They say that when Handel wrote his incomparable
oratorio, "The Messiah," he completed the entire composition in twenty-two days.
He hardly ate and slept. The task was so engaging, so compelling that it gave
him energy and endurance. He couldn’t quit until he finished it.
It’s that engaging motivation that encouraged Paul
to write,
“Be
steadfast unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord in as much as you
know your work is not in vain in the Lord.”
II. POWER TO SEE IT THROUGH COMES FROM A
GENUINE COMPASSION FOR OTHERS
One cannot fully understand
the persistence of the apostle Paul without recognizing his intense compassion
for other people. He had a broken-hearted concern for the lostness of the
multitudes who inhabited his Mediterranean World. From the time he heard and
responded to the call from Macedonia, “Come over and help us,” Paul was
driven by a compassionate regard for others.
In this fourth
chapter of II Corinthians, he speaks of the unevangelized as “perishing,”
they are “blinded by Satan.” Remember his impressive testimony in Romans
9 and 10?
“My heart’s desire and prayer
to God for them (Israel) is that they may be saved.” “For I could wish myself
accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen by
race.
He cared about people, and
that compassion kept him going, gave him the power to endure. He couldn’t
quit. He couldn’t turn back. He kept on traveling and preaching and witnessing
in spite jails and beatings and stonings and shipwreck, driven by their cry for
help.
Following a serious automobile
accident on a Dallas freeway recently, one car ended up on its side, burning
with the driver partially trapped underneath. Another motorist pulled over, got
out and rushed to the overturned car. With uncanny strength for a man of only
modest stature, he lifted one side of the heavy car enough that the woman
underneath could free herself and escape. Later, when he was interviewed by
television reporters at the scene, they asked, “How did you have the muscle to
lift that big car?” He answered, “I don’t know! I don’t think I could do it
again, but when I saw the fire spreading and heard that woman screaming for
help, I just reached down and did it! Adrenalin, I guess!”
So when you truly
care about others, you can’t quit or turn back. There’s something about a
frantic cry for help that generates unexplainable spiritual “adrenalin” to see
you through.
When we realize that
½ of the people in Virginia are unchurched, that millions more in our country
and around the world are lost, facing an eternity separated from God, hungry for
meaningful life, not matter how tired and discouraged we are, we can’t quit. We
keep on witnessing and worshipping and giving and serving because we care.
Genuine compassion
for others gives us the strength to see it through.
III.
POWER TO SEE IT THROUGH COMES FROM FAITH IN GOD’S TRANSCENDENT POWER WITHIN US
While the other
two insights are helpful, Paul’s ultimate secret source of power is
supernatural. We are able to overcome adversity and discouragement because the
Holy Spirit who inhabits the lives of believers offers us God’s omnipotent
power. Listen again to Paul’s amazing declaration of that secret in II Cor.
4:7-11, 16 & 18
The absolute power to see it through “belongs to God and not to
us.” When we have a personal relationship with the omnipotent God through
faith in His Son, we have access to His unlimited power. Through our faith in
Him we become “more than conquerors” and “all things are possible.”
Paul is amazed and humbled that this “transcendent power” abides in
ordinary people, “earthen vessels,” like us. (Literally, “terra cotta
jars.”) Without that power, we are weak, empty, and vulnerable to debilitating
discouragement and headed to inevitable defeat.
If you’re the kind of person who has to have accommodating
circumstances to keep going, then when the circumstances turn sour, so will you,
and you'll quit. If you have to hear applause to keep going, then on those many
days when nobody notices, you’re going to be discouraged, and you won't stay
with it. If you have to see positive statistics, measurable evidence of progress
in your work to keep going, then when the statistics are zero as they often are,
you’ll be disheartened and you'll turn back.
But if you know the Lord Jesus personally like
Paul did, and if God’s invisible presence lives within you, and if your
relationship is so close that you hear him say, "Don't be dismayed; don't be
discouraged; I'll be with you; I'll never forsake you," then that makes
everything okay. It doesn't matter what the circumstances are. It doesn’t
matter whether anybody notices or not. It doesn’t matter what the statistics
say. Your sufficiency is not found in things that are seen, but in things that
are unseen. His invisible presence provides all the staying power you need.
David, the same poet who said so often, “My
soul is cast down,” also said over a hundred times in his poems, “The
Lord is my strength.” He said it so often, he practically exhausts the
Hebrew thesaurus, using eleven different synonyms for strength. Over and over
again, in every possible verbal form, he repeats it, “The Lord is my
strength.” That’s the lesson we need to remember. We’re not alone. We
don’t have to depend on accommodating circumstances, or applause, or statistics,
or human grit, or determination, or cleverness. We have an invisible source of
power to see us through. That means, like Paul, we can be:
Afflicted in every way, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not
forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed…
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer
nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day…
because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are
unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are
unseen are eternal.
I saw a dramatic illustration of that invisible
power in New Mexico a few years ago. We drove into Albuquerque one afternoon to
do what a lot of tourists do. We rode the famous tramway to the top of Sandia
Peak just north of the city. It’s the longest tramway in America. One of the
passengers who boarded the tram with us at the base of the mountain was a young
man with a huge canvas bag. We had to help him drag it on board, and when we
arrived at the top of Sandia Peak, we again had to help him get it off.
He tugged that canvas bag over to the edge of the
mountain where a sharp precipice dropped off straight down to the valley floor,
and as we watched him, he unzipped that bag and pulled out pieces aluminum
tubing and nylon cloth. It was a hang glider, and when he finished putting it
together, he walked over to the edge of the mountain and tied a ribbon to a bush
to check the wind direction. Then, putting on a helmet, he slowly walked around
his glider twice carefully checking every connection and every guy wire. (If
that had been me, I'd still up there walking around checking the connections!)
When he was satisfied everything was okay, he strapped that thing on, and while
we literally caught our breath, he ran and jumped off the mountain.
He fell a few feet as the air caught the sails of
his hang glider, and then he began to glide so gracefully, effortlessly,
silently across the Sandia valley until he encountered what aeronautical experts
call a “thermal.” It’s an invisible column of warm air that circulates upward
and provides lift. He circled over the warm air like the birds do, and it began
to lift him higher and higher until he was at our eye level again, and then
above us several hundred feet. He circled at ten thousand feet effortlessly,
gracefully, silently suspended by that invisible thermal lift.
Meanwhile, we were distracted by an echo from the
airport on the other side of Albuquerque. It was the sound of a big commercial
jetliner taking off. Burning hundreds of pounds of jet fuel, it lumbered down
the runway, shuddering as it slowly lifted its load off the concrete and climbed
over the mountains.
While all the time, there was our hang glider
friend at ten thousand feet flying effortlessly, silently, gracefully suspended
by that invisible column of air.
And this passage came to mind. You don't have to
depend on your own ability, drive, determination, and grit. You don’t have to
burn all that energy. You have an invisible lift, an unseen source of power
enabling you. That unseen presence gives you the supernatural ability to
overcome and see it through.
Because we look not to the things that are seen
but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient,
but the things that are unseen are eternal.
Jane Merchant’s story is an example. She was a
writer whose inspiring poetry was often printed in The Saturday Evening Post,
and Good Housekeeping a generation ago. Jane Merchant’s hardships would
make most of ours seem trivial by comparison. She endured a combination of
physical distresses any one of which would have defeated most people. In a
wheelchair as a little child, and then bedfast after the age of twelve, she
eventually lost her eyesight and her hearing. But she had an indomitable faith
in the Lord and experienced that invisible power Paul wrote about in II
Corinthians. Here is how she expressed it:
For half a hundred times I've sobbed, I can't go
on; I can't go on,
And yet full half a hundred times I've hushed my sobs and gone.
The reason, if you ask me how, may seem presumptuously odd,
But I know that what kept keeping on when I could not, was God.
|
