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The Right Message
A sermon preached by Dr. James Flamming
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, VA
Sunday, March 6, 2005
A couple from Minneapolis decided to go to Florida to thaw
out in the midst of a very icy cold winter. They planned to stay at the same
hotel that they stayed in 20 years before on their honeymoon. Because of their
hectic schedules it became difficult for them to go at the same time so it was
decided that the husband would go on Thursday and the wife would follow on
Friday. The husband checked into the motel. There was a computer in the room
where he could plug in. He took out his laptop and he decided he would send an
email back to his wife to let her know he had arrived safely. Unfortunately
without realizing his error he left out a letter in the email address.
Meanwhile somewhere in Houston a widow and her family were together following
the celebration of the passing of her husband, their father and grandfather.
He was a retired minister. He had fought a good fight and finished his course.
A lingering illness had allowed him to graduate to glory. So in spite of the
loss it was something of a celebration and the family was all together. The
widow decided to check her email expecting messages from relatives and friends.
But after reading the first message she fainted and her son came running in,
looked at her and then at the screen and saw what it said. To: my loving wife,
Subject: I’ve arrived. The text read like this: I know you’re surprised to
hear from me. They have computers here now and you are allowed to send emails
especially to your loved ones. I’ve just arrived and have checked in. I see
that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to
seeing you then. Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine. PS: sure is warm
down here.
In life and in faith it is wise to send the right message
at the right time to the right address. In Luke 18 you have some people who
take the right message or hear the right message, their response is something we
need to look at. I’ll tell you why. On this day when we gather around the
Lord’s table we’re instructed by Paul, we are to prepare ourselves, we are to
examine ourselves. Luke 18 will allow us to do that. Look first at a very
famous and favorite parable. It is about a Pharisee and a publican. I picture
the Pharisee being a buttoned down, buttoned up member of the church. He thinks
that he’s in the right place, he has the right words, he has it all figured
out. And the Scripture says: “As Jesus is talking to those”, in verse 9, “who
are confident of their own righteousness that the Pharisee prayed like this;
God” verse 11, “I thank you that I am not like other men, robbers, evil does,
adulterers or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, give a 10th
of all that I get.” Good prayer but did you hear anything about being dependent
on God? Except for the address did you hear anything about God? More crucial
and very much related did you hear anything of his own personal need? Did you
hear of a flaw? Was there a confession? Was there anything in there that said
God I need you?
The Scripture says Jesus was speaking to those who were
proud of their own righteousness. On a scale of 1 to 10 they scored 10 on
viewing how good a shape they thought they were, how much they were managing
their lives and in control of everything. Jesus says Mr. Pharisee, Mr.
Confident Member of the congregation, Mr. Guy who has it all figured out, Mr.
Self Manager who has everything in place come with me. Come with me to the foot
of my cross and I’m going to give you a heart x-ray, a spiritual heart x-ray.
And I’m going to put it up on the light of my screen and when I do that, when I
do that you’re going to be surprised because see that publican over there, that
tax collector over there, he’s the one that is the winner. Look what the tax
collector prayed: “God have mercy on me a sinner. And Jesus said ‘I tell you
this man rather than the other went home justified before God.’” Back in the
shadows, back pew, kind of crunched down a man that nobody really would pick to
be Mr. Anything. As we say he was guilty as sin. His is the head bowed asking
for mercy, his posture is that of a broken man. He has sinned, he knows it, he
is scorned by the public, rejected by popular opinion, his heart is breaking and
there’s no place to take it except to God and so he does. His guilt gets
heavier in the backpack of his conscious his past demons haunt him. Who has the
power to get rid of the demons?
A man named Wainwright used to write books about how to
take hikes, how to walk through the mountains, the trails, which ones to take.
He would describe how to get there, point out the trails, look at the options.
But guiding the hiker along the trail he would very interestingly not put any
distances. Instead he would put things like turn left at the 3rd
birch tree, which of course meant you had to be on the trail to know what he was
talking about. You had to walk the walk. When you come before the Lord God in
worship walking the walk doesn’t mean putting your shoulders back and in an
arrogant way saying look how well I have done. It means opening yourself up to
God and recognizing your dependence upon him.
The next picture that Jesus draws that Luke gives us is of
children. Luke like the other gospels portrays Jesus as one who loves children
and it was infectious, spread throughout the parents. Parents have a network of
there own and pretty soon the parents were bringing their children to Jesus to
bless them. Listen: “People were bringing their children, the disciples
rebuked them.” Most of the disciples were young did you know that? Not an old
geezer in the bunch. Some of them still teenagers, probably. Most of them, at
this point at least, unmarried and they were bothered by these kids and Jesus
became bothered by them, his disciples. He chose them. He says cool it guys,
that’s a rough translation, and he says go sit down over there and I want you to
study these kids, watch how they come to me. Watch their faces, look at their
gestures, look at the open arms. Watch what happens when I sink down on one
knee and here they come running. Jesus says that’s the way you worship God, not
dragging in because you have to but running in because you want to.
Picture please a father returning home after work. His
daughter has asked her mother a zillion times and one, when’s Daddy coming
home? He eventually gets there and she hears the door open and she comes
running toward the door, the toys left behind, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, and he sinks
down on one knee and he puts his brief case aside and his arms go open and she
runs into them. And suddenly everything he’s done all day is worthwhile. Now
friends, Jesus called God Father and the word he used as many of you know is
Abba which is Aramaic for daddy. Can you picture yourself or is your idea of
God so sovereign you can’t do this, can you picture yourself like a child? You
are His child. Can you picture yourself running and Him down on one knee
waiting for you to get there and picking you up and putting His arms around you
and holding you close and if I can transgress and put a human thought in His
mind saying to Himself the cross was worth it all.
On this day as in a few minutes we gather around the table
listen to Jesus again when He says I tell you the truth if you do not, this is a
negative, if you do not come to God as a little child you can’t enter the
kingdom.
The final picture is of a very wealthy person. The problem
is not with his wealth the problem is that his wealth has become his prison.
The problem is not that he has more than most of the rest of the people in his
whole town the problem is what he has has him. I don’t think he’s a very
religious man. There is no religious language in what he asks except to ask
what must I do to inherit eternal life. Terrible question because you can’t
inherit eternal life.
I told you once about on vacation going to play golf on a
strange course and being hooked up with somebody I’d never seen before. And
about the 4th hole my partner for that day asked me what I did for a
living and I told him I was a minister. He was putting at the time and he
missed the putt by a yard. The next holes were very different than the first
holes, the language, the betting, the whole bit. Now you know I went through
the university in an athletic dormitory. There are very few words I haven’t
heard but as soon as you get the label “minister” all of a sudden you get put in
a, well somebody has put it this way there are males and females and clergymen.
I don’t think that I’ve ever seen it more pronounced than on that day. At the
nine we stopped for a Coke, we were both sitting there and he said you know I’m
not much of a church goer but you know my mother was a saint and I figure that
will count for something and I said to him it won’t. And it ruined his golf
game for the rest of the round. You see you can’t inherit the kingdom.
Spiritual life is between you and God. It can be encouraged by others. It can
be for you that kind of experience with others that lifts you up but in the
beginning and in the ending you and eternity are alone. The Lord Christ comes
into your life individually and when you go to meet God you go alone. You can’t
inherit eternal life.
I am fascinated with what Jesus said. He said keep the
commandments and then he listed five not 10. I noticed they are bringing before
the Supreme Court the 10 Commandments and whether they can be put in public
places. It’s so fascinating Jesus at this point and with this individual who’s
probably very secular, he’d organized his life without God completely, that what
Jesus uses is the five commandments that don’t have anything to do with
religion, don’t have anything to do with God. Don’t commit adultery, don’t
murder, don’t steal, don’t lie, honor your father and mother. Isn’t it
interesting, let me just mention the genius of Jesus. See, if you want to think
about it you could put those five anywhere, virtually any place and in their
best moments who would object. It’s as if Jesus is saying unless, regardless of
whether you’re religious, regardless of whether you believe in God, if you don’t
build your society, if you don’t build your nation around these five, things are
going to crumble.
The man said I’ve kept them. I personally think he was a
liar, anyway he said I’ve kept them. Now Jesus does the most amazing thing. He
never mentions the first commandment which is don’t have any other gods before
me. Instead he does a circle around the corral and comes in the gate with what
his real god is and it’s his wealth. It’s the only time in the scripture that
giving away your money is part of salvation. But it didn’t have anything to do
with money. What it had to do with was what had him, what his god was, you
see. The question is not about dollars but about devotion, not about money but
about the master, not about what he has but about what has him. His wealth had
become his prison. It could have become a means to serve, instead Jesus said
give it away. And the scripture says he went away sorrowful. Other
translations: troubled, it is the word for grief. Here is a man who was asked
to let loose of the one thing he had built his life around. It was his prison.
I have to ask myself, you have to ask yourself this day as we gather around the
table what is at the core of our beings? Has something we’ve put together that
we’re so dependent upon become our prison? I ask you today will you be a little
bit like that publican, that spiritual street person who is able to come to the
Lord and say have mercy on me, put me back together. Or could you come like a
child running into the Father’s arms, or could you be bold enough to ask the
question: what has me? And if it’s not God now’s the time to look at it and
confess it.
Pray with me, will you? In the quiet of the moment
prepare your heart and I ask you right now, right now, right now to determine in
this very moment to make this into a time of worship not mind wandering, into a
time of devotion not a time of distraction. Oh Lord our minds probably will
wander but help us to bring them continually back to you that in these next
moments we might connect in significant and wonderful ways. Lord as
enthusiastic little children just now we run into your arms, in Christ’s name,
Amen.
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