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Making a Difference
A sermon by Dr. James Flamming, Pastor
First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, May 14, 2006 – Mother’s Day
In 2001, T. D. Jakes appeared on the front of Time
magazine and underneath that picture of him was the question, “Is this the new
Billy Graham?”
T. D. Jakes, if you don’t know that name, is
African-American. Some years ago he started a church in Dallas which he calls
‘The Potter’s House.” It now has 28,000 members. He is in demand for crusades,
speaking here and there, talk shows, and the like. His television ministry
reaches, literally, around the world and he has many books in print, the last
one of which has just been published and it is entitled “Mama Made the
Difference.” He writes,
“Learning from our mothers, whether they are biological, emotional, or spiritual
mothers, is something that all of us share. You see, everybody has a mother,
whether it is a hardened criminal or somebody at the top of a company on Wall
Street. Heads of state and heads of major corporations all entered life the
same way, through the painful labor of a woman. And if that woman didn’t raise
and nurture them, somebody stepped in to take the place. It might have been an
aunt or a big sister or a church mother who loved them as her own. Indeed, if
there is one thing every member of the human race has in common, it is this --
we are all a child of someone. We all begin our life’s journey in a mother’s
womb. God trusts mothers so much that he allows them to share in his creative
work.”
And I love this sentence – “Mothers are the banks in which
God has chosen to deposit life.”
How did his mother make a difference? He spells it out in
the chapters in that book, but you can boil them down and almost predict them.
She was a follower of Jesus and although she taught as well as raised the family
she made no bones about the fact that what got her through was her relationship
to her Lord. And for that family, they had a steady diet of church, praise,
prayer, and Bible. It was as much as the food on the table.
In Matthew, the fifth chapter, our Lord speaks in a very
abrupt but also simple way. Listen as he, as he read, as he says to us “Let
your yes be yes and your no be no. And anything beyond this comes from the evil
one. Let me say it again. Simply let your yes be yes and your no be no. And
anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”
If you’ve listened to me through the years, on occasion I
have turned to that text but I don’t know as I have ever looked at it in just
the same way as when it dawned on me that making a difference finally boils down
to how well you have defined, for God’s sake, the yeses of your life and the
no’s of your life. Now, friends, you live in a secular culture that has no
orientation toward God. And if this comes to the surface, an orientation toward
God, it is often quickly snuffed out, in the name of freedom. OK. But if you
will think about it, the people who have made a great difference in your life
are the people for whom the yeses and the no’s were very clarified. For Jakes
-- church, prayer, praise, Bible. The no’s, interesting: you can’t drink, you
can’t smoke, you can’t criticize others, and you can’t build yourself up and
somebody else’s expense. The no’s.
Let me ask you something. Have you spent any time
clarifying for your life what are the yeses and what are the no’s? That’s what
makes you a person. And most of the people in our world have no idea what are
the yeses and what are the nos. We live by the axiom: There is only one yes.
Everything’s negotiable. If you want to make a difference in somebody’s life
besides your own, you better decide that everything is not negotiable.
Jesus said that in the Sermon on the Mount and he said it
in ways that are just unforgettable. For example, go over to the seventh
chapter. And in the seventh chapter, you’re going to find in verse 12,
something we have come to know as the Golden Rule, “So in everything, do to
others what you would have them do to you. And this sums up the law and the
prophets.” In this passage, Jesus speaks to us of four things that I will say
begin with a ‘w’ and they help us spell out yes and nos. The first one is a
winner; the second one is a warning; the third one is a wonder; and the fourth
one, a wounding. Let’s look first at the winner and I will put the other
bookend at the end.
Here’s the winner. Your world would be changed immediately
for the better if just half of us would start living by the principle of the
Golden Rule. King James says “Do unto others as you would have them do unto
you.” Short version by C. S. Lewis, “Do as you would be done by.” Peterson, in
his paraphrase, translates it, “Here is a simple rule of thumb guide for
behavior. Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the
initiative and do it for them.” The Flamming revised version goes like this,
“Treat others like you would want to be treated.”
Have you ever thought about that being the core commandment
of raising a family? Have you ever thought about treating children as you would
be treated? Or, kiddoes, treating your parents like you would be treated. Or,
relating to one another like this at school? Or, at work? Or, in the
classroom? Or, even on the playing field? A wise person has said that the
golden rule has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found hard and
not tried.
Before we go much farther, let’s go past this winner and I
want you to look at the warning. Because Jesus says, in verse 1 of the 7th
chapter, “Do not judge or you will be judged. For in the same way you judge
others, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured
unto you.”
I call this the echo principle. It means that whatever you
send out’s coming back. Another way to look at it is the boomerang principle.
Whatever you send out is going to come back. Peterson translates this, “Don’t
pick on people. Don’t jump on failures. Don’t criticize their faults unless,
of course, you want the same treatment.” That critical spirit has a way of
boomeranging. So that means if you have a judgmental attitude, get ready.
Sooner or later it is coming back your way. And I have lived long enough to see
this so often and in so many ways and in so many different situations. And in
my own life. If you’ll just be observant, the echo principle is constantly at
work.
Now it has a positive side as well as a negative side. For
example, in the Beatitudes which is the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in
Matthew 5, one of the beatitudes says “Blessed are the merciful for they shall
obtain mercy.” Send out mercy, you’re going to get back mercy. Send out
compliment, you’re apt to get it back. Have a positive attitude toward others
and they’re apt to return the favor. But listen to the way Jesus says it. If
you’re going to be judgmental, get ready. If it’s a loud pop, a loud pop comes
back. If it’s a whisper, a whisper. The measure you give out is the same way
it will come back. If you send out blessing, blessing returns. If you send out
cursing, cursing returns. If you send out affirmation and grace, affirmation
and grace will return to you. If you send out condemnation and judgment, get
ready.
I was amused at the results of the questionnaires children
filled out about their families and you can really hear the echos in all of
this, almost a reflection of the families from which they come.
When asked what their mom and dad should, that what their
mom and dad had in common, Alan, aged 10, and all of these were children ages 7
to 10. Alan, aged 10, wrote, “It’s good if both parents love sports but she
should keep the chips and dips coming.”
Laurie, age 8, said “I think my folks have only one thing
in common. Both don’t want no more kids.”
To the question “How do you know if you’re old enough to
get married?” Kristen, age 10, worked a little bit of religion into her report.
She wrote, “No person really decides before they grow up who they’re gonna
marry. God decides it all way before. And you gotta find out later who you’re
stuck with.”
Pam, age 7, answering the question “When is it OK to kiss
someone?”, replied “When they’re rich.”
And one of the saddest, to the question, “How can a
stranger tell if two people are married?”, Eddie, age 9, wrote “Married people
usually look happier when they’re not talking to each other but to somebody
else.” And that one hurts. Deep down. Because, you see, it leads right into
something the Lord is going to talk about in a minute when he says “Ask, and it
shall be given.”
But after that warning, there is a wounding. Jesus warns
us. We’ve been on both sides of this, everyone in this room. Listen to what
Jesus says, verse 3, chapter 7, Matthew:
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no
attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let
me take the speck out of your eye’ when all the time there’s a plank in your own
eye. You hypocrite.”
Anybody here like to be called hypocrite? But I really
think we ought to have a hypocrite’s day, don’t you, since we all, sooner or
later, are guilty. And what a hypocrite is is somebody who demands of another
person what they themselves won’t do. Or criticize another person for what they
themselves are guilty of. You hypocrite! First, take the plank out of your own
eye. Oh, everything begins at home, inside of you. Inside of me. Inside of
the family, it begins with the number 1 person, hmm, you. And Jesus says, “Then
you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Let your yes
be yes and your no be no. Here, here’s a no. Be careful when you criticize
that you aren’t revealing something that is in you that you haven’t handled.
Now, let’s turn to the wonder. And the wonder is that God
asks us to talk to him. Listen to this, this is wonderful. “Ask and it will be
given …” How do you ask? You pray. Ask anytime wide open eyes, whatever,
you’re driving, eyes open but you’re talking to God, you’re praying. You’re
asking. Jesus could just as well have used the word ‘pray’ but some people
would have turned him off. Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and ye shall
find. Knock, and it will be opened unto you. And which of you, if his son asks
for bread, will give him a stone. Or, if he asks for a fish, will give him a
snake. If you then, being earthly parents, know how to give good gifts, how
much more your father in heaven will give good gifts to those who ask him. So,
in everything, do to others as you would have them do to you.
Wonderful lady who used to live down the street a little
bit, one of ours now home with the Lord. She graduated to heaven. She used to
say about people with a little grin in her face, “he has no skill at making
small talk.” Now what means is “no chatter.” You know what God would love to
get from you and from me? Small talk. Chatter. Sharing life. That’s what
Jesus is talking about. Letting him in to the flow of your life and, if you do
it, you will have to go against all of the streams of your culture because you
live in a culture that has organized itself without God. And you know what’s
happened to us? We treat God the same way. We put God in this church. Or we
put God at certain times of the day, like at the mealtime when we say the
blessing. Or maybe we have a quiet time in the early morning or the late
night. Why not? Why not small talk with God throughout the day? Let God into
the flow of your life. Don’t shut the door. Jesus is saying, “Let the Lord
become part of your life.”
What a difference it would make in a family. If just once
a day you sat down and shared with one another the needs of the day and how you
could pray for one another. Mama is concerned about a friend who is in the
hospital. Father, facing a major decision at work, and says “I need your
prayers.” Sister has a big test and brother has a big game. And you know what
most Christian families do? We love each other to death through it. But do we
ever pray for one another while we’re doing it. See, that’s the secular way.
You just put God on a shelf, bring him down for a few religious times, and
that’s that. What Jesus is saying is, “Mix God into the flow of your life.”
Now it might be awkward for you to do this. But try it.
Let me change, let me paraphrase verses 9 through 11:
If you as a parent were quite ill in bed and you asked your
child to bring you a glass of water, do you think the child would refuse. No.
Why? They love you. You’re ill, you’re weaker than you’ve been. Put it
another way. If you were very ill and you asked one of your children to bring
you a little bread and milk before you took that very high-powered medicine, do
you think they would bring you a stone. No. They’d bring you bread and milk.
They love you. Now, if we can do that for each other in a family, couldn’t we
turn it Godward and just let the Lord God become part of the way we live and how
we live and where we live and, most of all, the needs that we have.
Suppose, dad, on a very crucial day in your life down at
the office or in the business, you said, “Family, I need you to prayer for me
today. This is a biggie. This is a whopper. Will you do it. And, before I
leave and before you go to school, will you pray for me?” You know what that
would do? That would show first of all you’re a human being just like they are
and that you have needs for prayer just like they do. But the second thing it
would do, it’d bring God into the whole picture. Do you want to learn how to
make a difference? Let your yes be yes and your no be no. And here’s a yes the
Lord Jesus commends to us. Ask.
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