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If You Die, We Cannot Be Born
A sermon by
Rev. Jim Pardue
Interim Preacher
First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, February 10, 2008
One of the most important
celebrations in the Jewish faith is the feast of Purim. The Book of Esther is
all about the reason for this celebration. The people had been overrun by the
Persians and the Persians had taken many of their top leaders and people who had
ability and took them to the country of Persia and many of those people began to
get important places of responsibility. Some of the Persians decided that what
they would do is kill them all.
The man in the story is named
Modecai. Modecai overheard part of this plotting and he knew that the only
person who could make a difference, the only person who could stop this
slaughter was Esther. Esther was a beautiful young girl who had been asked to be
one of the Queens of Persia. And so he knew if anybody could get the king’s ear,
it would be Esther.
Esther sent a word back and
said, ‘Surely you understand the law of the land is that no one can walk into
the presence of the king.’ The only way they can get in is he must invite you.
‘And if I walk in, I’m going to die.’ Modecai said, ‘You must understand that
you are our only hope.’ And the whole book is the question of a young girl
having everything she needs, being the queen, is she willing to take a risk to
save her own people. The good news is, she did.
Let me read a portion of this
book, right in the middle of it, chapter four, verse 12, “When Esther’s words
were reported to Modecai” (these words saying I can’t go in or he will kill me).
He sent back this answer, “Do not think that because you are in the king’s
house, you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this
time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you
and all of your family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to
royal position for such a time as this.”
There were two German
brothers named Jacob and Wilhelm. Their last name was Grimm. And they decided
that what they wanted to do was to save all the children’s stories in Germany.
And so they would go to houses and to town meetings and try to get all of the
stories they could so that the succeeding generations could hear what they had
done. Today you can go to the library and look up this book, it’s two books “The
Works of the Brothers Grimm,” and in it they are able to conserve about 250 of
the stories of Germany. MGM decided it was such a good book that they made a
motion picture out of it. And in the motion picture they made Jacob the bright
fellow who was always pushing to get it ahead. And Wilhelm was the moody sort of
fellow who somehow felt that they were never going to get this job done and all
of these stories were going to be lost. He became so depressed that he crawled
in his bed, put his back to the window, looked only at the wall and one day in
one of his moody moments he heard these words, “Wilhelm wake up and look out the
window.” When he looked out, he saw a giant and the giant said, “Wilhelm, you
cannot die, we must save these stories. Look out your window, Wilhelm. If you
don’t save the story, then all of these people are going to die.” And when he
looked outside, there was Rumpelstilskin, there was Snow White, there was Tom
Thumb, there was Cinderella and all of the stories you have taught your
children. And they all said in unison, “Wilhelm, if you die, we will never be
born.”
The story of Esther is how
God took a young girl, put her in the middle of saving hundreds of thousands of
people and the word came, “God placed you here so that you could accomplish his
purpose and his will” and it happened because this one girl took a chance.
What I wanted to write in
your mind today is that God has placed you in a certain spot and that God has a
special task for you to do. And what I wanted you to do today is to look out the
windows of your life and see the things that will not happen if you don’t do it.
And God has initialed on your spirit, your name and said, “I need you to do this
work.”
One of the reasons that I am
emphasizing that today is because of the unique situation your church is in.
Your church is in a situation where in the scheme of things, before too long,
you will have a pastor. Your pastor is going to have to pray to say, “Is this
what God wants me to do?” But you understand it has to be also on the other
side. You have to say, “God I want to be in your will and I want to do what you
want us to do and I want our church and our new pastor to have the opportunity
to fulfill your dreams for us.” And I want all of you to look out the window and
help you to understand, if you don’t do it now, you’re going to miss many
opportunities to do it in the future.
I have a friend who is an
Army Chaplain. He told me the story of flying back when the War in Vietnam was
on, he was coming back to the states. Sat down next to another military person
and in the course of the conversation he asked him this question, “What did you
do with your spare time?” The fellow said, “You can’t believe this but,” he
said, “I’m a career fellow, this was the worst assignment I’ve ever had and I’ll
tell you I just didn’t do anything.” He said, “I got drunk a lot, chased skirts
some, just tried to get by with the time. That’s all I did. Can’t wait to get
home.”
They landed in Hawaii. They
changed planes. My friend was seated next to somebody else. He asked him the
same question, “What’d you think about the tour of duty and what’d you do with
your spare time?”
“Man, I want to tell you this
is the best assignment I’ve ever had. I could hardly wait to get up in the
morning to do what I was asked to do.” And he said, “I found out there were some
missionaries, not too far. And I went over and helped them with their work and
there were some orphanages and I was helping with kids. My problem was I didn’t
have enough time to do everything I wanted to do.” Now, you understand these are
two people at the same place at the same time one fellow could find nothing to
do and one fellow wished he had more time, he could do more. I know worlds of
people who day-by-day try to ignore what is around them and do not have the
chance to have the opportunity to really make a difference for him.
I have another friend. This
is the prayer he prays every morning, “Oh God, with anticipation of what you are
going to do in me and around me today, may I be open to your will.”
What a difference it would
make in your life if you would hear the words again that Modecai gave to Esther,
“Don’t you know that you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this.” And
so many of us live and just go on about our work and miss the opportunity to be
of service.
In the Bible there are two
words for time. One word is “kronos.” Kronos is where we get the word
chronology--it’s just marking time, time on top of time. But there’s another
word, “karios.” Karios means that you come to a fork in the road and you have to
decide which way you’re going to go. You see you can just live and breathe and
get by with kronos, but if you really want to make a difference, your are going
to be alert to how God is using you for his honor and glory.
One of the things that you
need to know (if you don’t know, talk to some of these ministers and they can
help you), you need to know, what is the specific gift or gifts that God has
given you. And you need to develop them for use for his glory. When you became a
believer, God put his spirit inside of you and the spirit then gave you a gift.
And you need to know what that it is so you can best serve him and serve him for
his glory.
I have a little statement on
my desk that I’ve had on it for decades and this is what it says, “Some people
are going to do life the next time around, not knowing this is all there is.” My
question to you is, “Have you sensed what God wants you to do and have you
committed yourself to carry out his ministry and work?”
I’m aware that sometimes when
you hear something like what I am saying, the question is, “Well, what can I
do?” I was raised in South Louisiana, as I may have mentioned to you, and below
Baton Rouge and north of New Orleans, for many years was the only leprosarium
hospital in American. At that time people still thought leprosy was contagious
and so they put them in this hospital down around New Orleans. And one of the
men who went and donated much of his time there was Dr. William Bran. Dr. Bran
had served overseas as a missionary, came back and was working there. And when
he first was there he began to go around and talk to all of the people. He
talked to one of the men and all of a sudden he realized the man was crying. And
Dr. Bran said, “Oh, I’m sorry, did I say something to hurt your feelings? What
did it do?” He said, “Dr. Bran, you don’t understand. I have been put here
because--not only do I have a disease--I’m even called a Leper. I’m actually a
Leper. Who I am is a disease. And Dr. Bran, you are the first person who’s
touched me in twenty-five years.”
Do you know that there are
folk who are members of this church who are waiting for somebody to touch them?
It was on her bedside. When
they found her, every page was the same. “Nobody called today.” “Nobody called
today.” “Nobody called today.” And she took her own life because nobody called
today. You see, I’m not talking about that you go out and build some new
building. I’m talking about--do you know that this is your time to do your work.
You’ve got to take some risk and do what God wants you to do.
The second thing you’re going
to have to come to is the realization that God can use you. I can always tell
when the devil is around. The devil is around when you hear words like this,
“Well, I can’t do anything, everybody else’s got all this ability and talent and
I can’t do a thing.” I always know when Christ is around because he sees people
who have little ability but when he gets finished with them, they believe they
can do something special. And you can, today, begin to believe in you that
somehow or another because of what God has given you, you have the ability to do
something for God. I know that there are people who say, “You know, they don’t
even ask me to lead in silent prayer.” One man told me, he said, “I get letters,
when it says occupant, they don’t even deliver that. The only thing I’ve been
selected for is to be a cheerleader on the golf team.” Think through that in a
moment. You don’t think you can do anything. God thinks you’re somebody and God
wants to use you for his honor and for his glory.
The third thing that’s going
to have to happen is, you’re going to have to have a new vision of what can be
done out there. Let me remind you of what Jesus did in John chapter four. He
took his disciples and he said, “We’re going to leave the southern part of the
country and we’re going to go to the northern part.” The land between the north
and the south, there was the province of Samaria. And the Jews wouldn’t walk
through it. They’d walk all the way around so they wouldn’t touch a Samaritan.
Jesus said, “We’re going to walk through Samaria.” And I know what they were
saying in their heart, “Boy, I hope this doesn’t last long, hurry and get out of
here.” And Jesus said, “Lift up your eyes - the fields are white unto harvest.”
If you say to me today, “I
don’t know of anything I can do where I am.” You need to hear the word of Jesus,
“Lift up your eyes. I will help you to see opportunities and challenges you
never though were here.” He could have taken his disciples down to Jerusalem but
he took them to the most desolate place that the Jews had to go and he said to
them, “Lift up your eyes, the fields are white unto harvest.”
Now, Modecai could have never
made a difference, Esther could have never made a difference until they were
willing to take a risk and hear it afresh, God honors risk. If you want to just
sit down and say, “Well, I know things are bad but I don’t know anything to do
or how to do it.” Please understand, God can’t use that. What he uses is, “I’m
willing to push the boundaries, I’m willing to take a chance, I’m willing to do
it,” And God honored it and every time the Jewish people get together they
celebrate--not only Esther and Modecai--they celebrate God. And what you want is
for people to celebrate what God is doing at First Baptist Church. I hope today
that you will understand that God has a place for you and you’ll use it.
When I was a young man, I
became a pastor of an English-language church in West Germany. I was outside of
the Ramstein Air Force Base which at that time had more Americans than any other
place outside the United States. And the men and women in the military had gone
off base and built a building and started a church and they called me and asked
me if I’d come be their pastor, which I did for three years. The men and women
got together one night in a planning concept and they said, “What can we do,
while God has us here. I know we’re here militarily, but why are we here
spiritually and maybe we can do something.” And what we began to do, we began to
invite leaders from Baptist work all throughout Eastern Europe and Russia and
all over. And they would come over about once every two or three months and talk
to our men and women in the military. One day one of the men who came was Dr.
Stanley Slavick. Dr. Slavick was head, at that time, of what they used to call
Czechoslovakia. And when he came he began to tell us he could never leave the
country and take a child with him because they thought that he wouldn’t come
back. The children had to get out everyday and find wood to keep them warm. He
said “my daughter doesn’t have a jacket or a sweater.” They took him down to the
PX and he said, “My children have never eaten a Hershey bar.” He told us about
the churches and the difficult way of serving God under a Communist regime. On
Monday morning I drove him back to Berlin to put him on the train and let him
get back to Czechoslovakia. The night before, I had dozens of military people to
come by. “Here’s a box of Hershey bars for the daughter.” “Here’s some money.”
And then he turned to me and tried to express appreciation. Dr. Slavick had two
earned doctor’s degrees, he had five honorary doctor’s degrees. He was one of
the most brilliant and deep men of God I’d ever met and when I turned to him, I
said Dr. Slavick before you get on the train, here’s some candy, here’s some
money and here’s that sweater for your daughter. He picked them up and got ready
to get on the train and he turned around and he said, “Listen, God had placed
you and your men and women in a very, very important place. And I hope that you
will recognize it and understand that God has called to you this time. I got in
my car and went on back. Then next Sunday I told the congregation about it. My
congregation was large for Germany, had some of the best military people that
I’d ever been around. But that day when it was finished, I saw those men, many
of them who’d come back from Vietnam, with tears running down their cheeks
realizing they had made a difference.
God wants you to make a
difference. He wants this church to make a difference. You need to ask the
question: “What would my home be, what would my job be, what would my community
be if I understood that I was called to this hour?”
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