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Setting Our Sails to God’s Winds
A
sermon by Dr. James Flamming
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, October 16, 2005
We
have been in these last Sundays looking at how often the message of the Gospel,
the truth that is given to us in our Lord, is somewhere in the vicinity of
water. Or boats. Or nets.
You
know in the Old Testament, there is a seacoast city to the north of the Holy
Land called Tyre, often put with its sister city, Sidon. Back in Ezekiel’s day,
it was known as the center of craftsmanship in all of that part of the world.
When Solomon built his temple, most of the craftsmen came from Tyre. They
brought their materials with them.
Ezekiel got here many decades later. Ezekiel, as we noticed this summer in a
series of sermons on Ezekiel, had a way of meddling in other people’s business.
And in this case, the meddling was necessary. That’s always true of a prophet
and sometimes the listeners don’t want to hear, but in this case, he went up to
Tyre and he let them know what God thought about them.
They
were very proud people. Their leading industry was the making of ships. They
were in some ways the hub of commerce in the ancient world. They made the best
ships, the strongest ships, the most beautiful ships. Ezekiel talks about the
amazing fact that their most expensive ships had sails made out of embroidered
linen from Egypt.
Now
says Ezekiel, “Dear friends, you think you are gods. You think you are sitting
on a throne in the middle of the sea. But you are only men, women; you are not
gods. And though you think you are as wise as gods, you’re not.”
And
then he comes in thirty-eighth chapter, seventeenth verse, with one of the most
profound thoughtful judgments that I know of in the Old Testament. He says to
these Tyre folks, “You have forsaken your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.”
Ahh!
Dear friends, here at our church, we have had a wonderful celebration year – 225th
Anniversary. If you were with us back in June when we celebrated that grand
day, it was unforgettable. You know it, it is just remarkable. Two hundred and
twenty-five years. I don’t know of many churches that are two hundred and
twenty-five years old that are still with a heart for the Gospel, for the Lord
Jesus, for children, for people. I commend you. I thank the Lord. And there
are a whole lot of folks that have gone before you who make this possible. But
this day, your pastor has something to say to you.
Any
church, any church, suburb, inner city, small, large that is celebrative because
of what they have done is one half step away from forsaking their wisdom for the
sake of their splendor. There is one thing that can keep us from doing that.
And that is to heed the words of our Lord in one of the two great commissions we
have in the New Testament.
I ask
you to turn to Acts, the first chapter. I am going to begin reading with verse
4. This is after the resurrection and Jesus is with his disciples and it says,
“On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command, ‘Do
not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised and which you have
heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days, you will
be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ So when they met together, they asked him,
‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’” Let et me
paraphrase that. O.K.? “‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the
splendor of Israel?’ And the Lord said to them, ‘It is not for you to know the
times or dates the Father set by his own authority, but you will receive power
after the Holy Spirit comes on you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
and in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ And after that, he was
taken up before their very eyes and a cloud hid him from their sight.”
What
is our wisdom? Well, it is manifold, but it begins with Christ as the center of
everything and it is Christ who is speaking these words. But it goes from there
quickly to the scripture because if we didn’t have the scripture, I couldn’t
read those words to you. While Christ is the center, it is the scripture that
witnesses to him. Close to the center of our wisdom is worship and you are here
today, and I bless you for it. And it’s kind of uncanny, isn’t it, it is to me
at least, to think that for two hundred and twenty-five years, folks been
meeting on the Lord’s Day like you are. But friends, nestled close in, cuddling
as it were, to the heart of the wisdom of Christ’s church and our church, is
missions. And if you haven’t caught that, somewhere along the line you’ve
missed what we are about here. Emile Bruner, a theologian of another era,
used to say “The church exists for mission, as a fire exists by
burning.” And when and if we ever forget that this is very close to the heart
of who we are, we have surrendered our wisdom for the sake of our splendor.
You
say, “We are not splendor.” Wake up! Our church is located on the most
well-known Boulevard in Richmond. On a corner that is surrounded by houses
almost nobody in this room can afford to buy. We have been here longer than any
other organized independent church in Richmond.
I am
sorry. Although we do not see ourselves as splendor, that’s the way others see
us. And it is so crucial to the Lord God that we understand in a year of
celebration that we are always a half-step from forsaking our wisdom for the
sake of our splendor.
Now,
Jesus gives us exactly the recipe. It’s the North Star. It’s where we’re
supposed to get our bearing. The first one is to begin with the Holy Spirit.
Jesus says, “After the Holy Spirit has come upon you…” You see, missions and
worship and education and discipleship and fellowship doesn’t begin by sitting
down with a chart and planning it out. It begins because the Holy Spirit has
grabbed onto us and says, “This has to happen.”
Have
you ever heard of the Asbury Revival? Asbury is a small Christian college that
is located up in Kentucky, and some years ago, they had kind of slowly drifted
into a situation of spiritual indifference. They had chapel required, took
roll, but the truth is that during their chapel, students would get their next
lesson for the next class, or doze, or read the newspaper. Professors were not
particularly spiritual people. One day, after chapel, when students and faculty
were rising to go to their classes, a student stood up in the back and said,
“Pardon me, let me say a word, please.” Came down to the front, said, “I need
to handle something. Last semester, I stole something very important from my
roommate and it has bothered me ever since.” And he looked at his roommate and
he said, “I am sorry. I am really sorry. Will you forgive me?” And the
student stood up and said, “Thank you. I wondered whether you took it. I
forgive you.” And another student stood up and said, “I’m gonna tell you
something. I haven’t slept well lately because I cheated on my last history
exam, and they weren’t my answers. They were the answers of the one sitting
next to me who is an excellent student.” And looking at the history professor,
said, “I’m sorry. I confess my sin. And I don’t know how you make restitution
for cheating on an exam, but I’d like to do it.” And that professor stood up
and said, “I have a confession to make.” By now, everybody had been seated. He
said, “You know, I felt called to teach. I really did. And I felt called to
come here. But in the process of the years, I’ve gotten all caught up in my
writing. And I write articles and I write books, but I’m gonna tell you
something, students. I haven’t cared anything about you. It hasn’t been you
that’s been my focus, it’s me that’s been my focus. And I’m sorry. And you
know what I need to do, I need to turn my life around, back to where it was in
the beginning. Where I really cared about you students and I gave myself to
you.” Another one stood up, and another one stood up, nobody left. Nobody went
to class. They cried and they prayed and they praised and they repented. And
for seven days, there were twenty-four hour sessions in that room. People left
to sleep, left to eat, but for twenty-four hours, that door was open and the
place was full. People in town heard about it and they began to come in. After
seven days, it was over. They knew it. Everybody went back to their routines,
changed, redirected, empowered.
A
year later, Student Government got together and the faculty got together,
trustees came in. And they said, “Man, we need to have another week like that.
And they organized it and they planned it and they had all their committees and
they called it the Second Asbury Revival. And they had it, but guess who didn’t
attend? The Holy Spirit. See, you can’t manipulate the Holy Spirit. The Holy
Spirit comes as the Holy Spirit chooses. If you don’t like that, you talk to
Him about it, but that’s the way it is! And I have lived long enough to know He
knows what He is doing. Let me tell you something. If you think and I think
that we can just do church and ignore the Holy Spirit, we have forsaken our
wisdom for the sake of our splendor.
Second thing he says is, “You shall be witnesses. After the Holy Spirit comes
upon you, you shall be witnesses.” How do you witness? How do you become a
witness? A witness is simply telling your story, or identifying with another
person in prayer. Or just sharing your Christian joy which is such a rare
commodity in our kind of world. Let me mention just a way or two. How about
sharing your story? You are at the job and it’s coffee break time and somebody
has come in and sat down by you and nobody else is close and they share a
heartbreak. They’re struggling. And you listen and there will come a pause.
There will come a pause, and at that pause, to say softly, “Let me tell you
something that’s happened to me that God has helped me with.” And share it,
share your story. Or suppose you can’t identify with what they are talking
about, pray. Just to say to them, “I want you to know I’m gonna pray every day
for you, many times a day, ‘cause you’re struggling. And I believe in prayer.”
Or,
just share your joy sometimes. That’s a witness. A fellow by the name of
Holloway had taken a kind of a pleasure trip with some of his Christian brothers
right off of the coast of Costa Rica. Their crew was Spanish speaking and only
one of them was Spanish speaking and they had a great time. And they were
laughing and they were just having the best Christian fellowship and after the
day was coming to a close, one of the crew came up to the Spanish speaking one
of the three, and he said (in Spanish), and they talked in Spanish and Spanish
and went on and on, and finally they were finished, and the two who spoke
English said, “What was that all about?” He said, “Well, he came up to me and
he said (in Spanish), ‘I don’t know who you are. I’ve never seen you before in
my life but you’re different. We go out everyday with passengers just like you
but you’re different. And you’re so happy. And it’s obvious you love each
other. And I don’t know what you are about and I don’t know what you are into,
but I know this, I want it.’” And so the man said, “Well, listen, let me tell
you what makes us like we are. Jesus Christ has come into our lives and He has
given us joy and he has given us happiness. And that could happen to you. And
that was what the conversation was all about.”
Let
me tell you something. Joy in our kind of world is so rare that if you’ll let
it surface in your life, you’ll have an opportunity to share the Lord. It just
happens that way. You shall be witnesses.
And
then there is a location strategy. Start at Jerusalem and go to Judea and
Samaria which for us would be like the counties and the state and the whole
mid-Atlantic and go to the ends of the earth. How are we doing here? Have we
forsaken our wisdom for the sake of our splendor when it comes to missions? No,
I don’t think so. Except in one way, maybe. Here at home, I tell you what.
Our people have put together the most incredible Community Missions program I
have ever seen. Steve Blanchard and all of his volunteers. Goodness! See,
they studied it and they found out that those who are on the street or those who
are on the underbelly as it were of our economic structure, they need food and
they need clothes and they need a place to take a bath. If you are a street
person, where do you get clean? And they need worship. And prayer. And not
only that, they need to have the opportunity to find a job. And so, we have a
Food Pantry, a Clothes Closet, a shower ministry, and on Thursday nights, with
Grace Fellowship, we have some of the most wonderful volunteers you can
imagine. Started in a little room over here not far from us, but ten years
later, now we are having over a hundred on Thursday nights for worship and
prayer. And some of our people volunteer their time to help them make a resume
and seek out what jobs are available and so forth.
I
tell you where it misses the boat. Not with them. Not with the poor and the
marginalized and the disenfranchised. I tell you where it misses is us. In our
neighborhoods and at the job. How long has it been since you invited somebody
to church? How long has it been since you shared your Lord with a neighbor? Or
somebody at work? Or somebody at school? We are so satisfied here with our
fellowship and our worship and our community ministries. We forget there are
some folks around us who are lost and need the Lord Jesus. And need the joy
that He brings. And we may be the only person in their universe that has the
creditability to share with them what the Lord is all about. And as far as the
ends of the earth.
Friends, I think we do an exceptional job there. Over twenty of our members
came through our church and are now missionaries across the face of the earth.
In addition, we have laypersons that go to our partnership churches. Some got
home from Curitiba, Brazil the other day. They have been down there five years
in a row. And the Pastor says, “Every time you leave, we are a higher spiritual
level.”
What
God is doing in these partnerships is utterly and completely amazing. We have a
partnership in Austria. We’ve been over there several times. They’ve come here.
Well, when all of that happened with Katrina and the Gulf Coast, they saw that
on television. And they said to themselves, “We know First Baptist Church well
enough to know they’ll be sending a group. And a bunch of the young adults got
together and they said, “If they go, let’s go and help them.”
So
they came Saturday week ago and they have been down to the Gulf Coast. Steve
Blanchard got back and he’s here with us today and I said, “How’d it go?” He
said, “That was just the most incredible week.” And he said, “We worked together
so well. Our church and their church. All together, he said you wouldn’t
believe the devastation and you wouldn’t believe how hard we worked, but we did
and we did it together from half-way across the globe.” See what I mean?
I
tell you where we are missing it. The Judea and Samaria. You know how long it
has been since we started a church out in the counties, out in other parts of
Virginia. Several decades. Now let’s see. Wait a minute. Jesus said
Jerusalem and then move to Judea and Samaria . Hello there! Look, if the
University of Virginia can beat Florida State once every decade, don’t you think
we could start a church somewhere every decade?
Dear
friends, we have been through a wonderful year of celebration. We have
celebrated the past. We have celebrated those who have gone before us. But it’s
time to turn around and look ahead. It’s time to listen to the Holy Spirit.
It’s time to pray. It’s time to open. It’s time to step forward.
Our
Passion Teams have been working for two years and they are bringing their
reports, some of them Wednesday night. What we’re lacking, frankly, is you. We
need you. We need volunteers. We need people to say, “I am ready. I have sat
long enough.” Hear it again! “You have forsaken your wisdom for the sake of
your splendor.” It’s time to change and look ahead to the future. God’s out
there in front of us. And he’s saying, “Come on with me.”
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