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The Purpose Driven Witness
A Sermon Preached by Dr. James Flamming
First Baptist Church, Richmond, Va.
October 31, 2004
Scripture: Luke 16:19-31
Five smooth stones taken from the brook. That is what David
did as he prepared to face Goliath. We have let those five smooth stones
represent the spiritual stones we need to meet the Goliaths of our day.
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The first stone is Worship – the key word
is offer, offering whatever happens in our lives to God as an act of
worship.
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The second stone is Fellowship – the key
word is oneanothering, sharing our lives, our faith, our ups and our
downs, with fellow believers.
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The third stone is Discipleship – the key
word is modeling, modeling our lives after Christ as we grow as
Christians.
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The fourth word is Service – The key word
is serving, serving other believers in the name of Christ.
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This morning we complete the five with
Mission – the key phrase is, witness.
Friday night at the deacon’s banquet John Upton was the
principal speaker. He asked a question I have asked myself. How do we explain
the success of The Purpose Driven Life? It has been on the New York Times
best seller list for something like 67 weeks in a row. It’s success has brought
its detractors from every theological stripe. Still it keeps selling.
John Upton offered a beautiful explanation for the success
of The Purpose Driven Life. He said we have lived in and still live in a
consumer driven society. Life has been all about what we could buy, get, gain,
and store. Said he, our nation is starved for something to live for, a purpose
bigger that who we are, a destiny that reaches into eternity. Come to think
about it, what we consume wears out or wears us out. This much is true, we can’t
take any of it with us.
A Parable
Jesus once told a parable about a consummate consumer. He
was a profit driven rather than a purpose driven man. (Luke 16:19-31) He dressed
in the finest clothes and ate the finest food. Every morning when he left for
the office he walked out the door, through the gate and into his carriage. By
his gate was a beggar. Not all beggars are worthless or evil, just as all rich
people are not good and worthy. This beggar was a man of faith. He wound up in
heaven. I picture him being without family, and when illness overtook him.
There were no food stamps in those days, no Medicare or Medicaid. He was left
with one distasteful alternative. He had to beg. He was wise enough to put
himself outside the gate of the rich man. There by the gate he could get the
scraps that the rich man left behind.
Fast forward please. It is eternity time. Both the beggar
and the rich man die and are in eternity. The rich man could take nothing with
him, not even his prestige. He wound up in hell. The beggar had nothing to take
with him. Now both of these men had had a kind of faith. The rich man had faith,
but it was faith in himself. The beggar had faith also, faith in the God who had
not abandoned him when everyone else did.
Jesus paints the picture in vivid strokes. The beggar, so
poor in things, is rich toward God. He has a name, Lazarus. The name Lazarus was
probably carefully chosen by Jesus. It means, “one whom God helps.” We are
never given the name of the tycoon. He wound up in hell, in torment, begging for
Lazarus to bring him some water. Then he pled for an angel to be sent to warn
his brothers. The eternal word came, “It won’t do any good. If they wouldn’t
listen to Moses and the prophets they won’t listen to someone from the dead.
They won’t listen any more than you did.”
Look at the Gate
On this morning look at the gate please. For we all have
gates in our lives, gates of awareness, gates of anger; gates of pleasure, gates
of pain; gates of possibility, gates of purpose; gates of success, gates of
failure; gates of fantasy, gates of reality. We all have invisible gates in our
lives through which we pass. One of the key gates is the gate called witness.
Here is a rich man. He too had a gate. It was his gate. It
was all about him. When the carriage came to pick him up, he stepped through the
gate and into the carriage. He never saw the beggar by his gate, never nodded to
the man, never greeted the man, never learned his name. His gate had nothing to
do with the witness of his life or his possession. For his gate was all about
him.
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It was a gate of recognition, but not a gate of
redemption.
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It was a gate of superiority, but not a gate of
salvation.
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It was a gate of privilege but not a gate of
purpose.
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It was a gate of protection, but not a gate of
providence.
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It was a gate of possibility, but only for him,
not for anyone else.
How interesting that when Lazarus reaches the other side,
they all know his name. Nobody on the other side calls the name of the
privileged one. The Bible says, “The Lord knows those who are his and he calls
them by name.”
Lets look at the gates in our lives.
The Gate of Witness Called Awareness
It hurts me to see the ugly truth that the rich man never
saw the beggar. I wonder how many people we walk right by. How many do we notice
but never see? How often are we so tied up in our own problems we have no real
awareness of the presence of those in need.
In our society it is even worse. For we can live in a good
neighborhood, drive down streets of good neighborhoods, get on a wide street,
travel to a nice office, and never see the people at the gate. And we get in the
habit of it. So that even in the office we may not notice the co-worker, or the
secretary or the associate or the custodian who is at the gate of pain. We walk
by unnoticing, without the glance of God.
Before you can care, you have to be aware, aware of the
people at your gate. On this morning I salute those of you who have been
involved in the Divorce Recovery Ministry. Only eternity will reveal the full
benefit and blessing that you have been.
Before you can care, you have to be aware. Let me tell you
a story.
About a month ago in the 11:00 service a little baby cried
through much of the worship service. It was a little more obvious during the
sermon. Furthermore, the dear mother nursed her baby while I was preaching. Some
of you will remember that Sunday. You were distracted. So was I.
It reminded me of one of the first sermons I ever preached.
I was a Junior at the University, a football player who was going to make a
preacher and therefore a novelty. I was invited to preach a youth revival at a
small country church called Noodle Baptist Church. In Billy Graham terms I guess
you could call it, “The Greater Noodle Crusade.” I only had one sermon so
getting three ready was quite a chore. A baby cried through the whole sermon.
After the service the little mother came up to me and introduced herself as the
mother of the baby who cried. I didn’t know what to say. I said, “Oh, your baby
didn’t bother me any.” She said, “Oh, I wasn’t worried about that. You were the
one bothering her!”
Well, back to the crying baby of a month ago and the mother
who nursed her baby. Open your gate of awareness and let me tell you the full
story. She had came to Richmond from a foreign country because her baby needed
heart surgery. You may be proud that Richmond is a center for the treatment of
young children who need surgery. She was staying at the Ronald McDonald house.
The baby was to have surgery on Monday morning. She got up Sunday morning and
said to the one in charge, “I would like to go to church today, but I would like
to go to a church that prays. Where should I go?” The person in charge said,
“Well, if I were you I would go to First Baptist Church, and I will show you how
to get there.” And she came. At the close of the service she came forward. She
asked for prayer. We prayed.
Now that you are aware of the whole story, does it really
matter that the baby cried and that she nursed her baby during the sermon? I
wonder how many times if we knew the whole story we would be so much more
compassionate.
See, awareness changes so many things. Awareness, you see,
is a witness all in itself.
The Gate called Giving
There is no evidence that our man in Jesus’ parable ever
gave anything to make the world a better place to live. Out of all of his
wealth, it was all about him. Out of his life, it was all about him.
The father of one of our members passed away recently. As I
met with the family and they reminisced about their Dad, one of the things that
really impressed me was his question at the end of the day around the dinner
table. He would ask, “And what contribution did you make today to make the world
a better place to live?”
At the close of the service today we will adopt the church
budget for 2005. The needs are so many and the resources so few. Our
contributions have not kept up with our vision and our mission. One of the
things that took a hit was missions. That hurt. There are so many needs in this
world besides ourselves. I wonder sometimes if we realize how much we make a
difference by what we give.
Sam and Rachael James have been part of us for a long time.
Having tried to retire several times they keep getting sent to the troubled
parts of the world to counsel and reassure the missionaries. I received an email
this week from Sam. They are so proud of our missionaries, their heroism in the
face of danger, their willingness to risk themselves for the sake of the gospel.
He shared about medical missionaries in a small, poverty stricken country in
Africa. A group which has been historically known as war driven, killing driven,
robbery driven has been reached by these medical missionaries. People are giving
themselves to Christ. They have seen the difference Christ makes.
Now, friends, it may seem to you to be too simplistic, but
it matters to me that we helped put those people there. This much I know, if
there were not hundreds and thousands of people like you and me who faithfully
give, they would not be there. Purpose Driven Giving.
The Jesus Gate
Oh, one more thing. Jesus said, “I am the Gate.”
John 10 is such a strategic chapter. It includes two of the
seven “I am's” of Jesus. The first one in chapter 10 is, “I am the Gate”– the
gate to life and life eternal. The second is, “I am the good shepherd.”
What an incredible gift Jesus gives us. He says, “I will be
the gate that opens all kinds of possibilities for you. This is your basic
commitment, your basic yes.” But then I will walk with you through life. We
will walk as friend with friend, and I will never leave you nor forsake you. For
I am the Good Shepherd.
The gate called Jesus opens the door to you this day. May
your life and purpose be to walk through the Jesus gate. His promise to you is
that he will then become your shepherd.
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