|
|
What Was, What Is, What Is to Come
A sermon by Dr. James Flamming
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, VA
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Two weeks ago we celebrated our 225th
anniversary as a church. It was a grand day. People saw that in our telecast and
I have heard about it all over, grocery store, service station, eating lunch.
Almost always they have expressed astounding interest in the fact that we’re 225
years old. I assure them I was not the original pastor. I do want you this
morning: change channels. Will you pick up the remote and change the channel
from what was to what is and will be.
Now if I were to ask you, “Are you anxious about the
future?” almost every one of us would say yes. That’s part of who we are. It
reminds me of a group of expectant fathers. They were in a waiting room while
their wives were delivering. They would sit awhile, pace awhile, go get a drink
out of the water fountain, look out the window. I’ve been there and some of you
guys have. Finally a nurse came in and walked to one of the expectant fathers
and said congratulations your wife has just given you twins. And he said
twins? Oh that’s wonderful! You see I play baseball for the Minnesota Twins.
He went out to find anybody he could to announce to them twins. The others,
still pacing, when another nurse came in and walked to one of the young fathers
and said congratulations sir your wife has just delivered triplets. And he said
triplets, well you know what? That fits because I work for 3M. About that time
the third of the fathers slid down from his chair, rolled over. They asked if
he was ill. He struggled to his feet and said no but I do work for 7UP.
The future can be more than we bargain for and maybe, no
certainly that’s why when God tells the Apostle John how to describe Him in the
book of Revelation He doesn’t begin as I would begin and most of you would. I
am the God of the past and the present and the future. The God who was, the God
who is, the God who knows the future. That’s not what God says. He says I am
the God who is. That’s in Revelation 1: 4 & 8. Now why does God start with the
present tense? It is because the past is unimportant unless it affects the
present. Isn’t that right? What did you eat for lunch three years and two days
ago? It is completely unimportant but something in the past that impinges upon
you right now that’s what makes the past important. And the future? The future
is important only as the present open the door to the future. God is so wise.
He begins by saying I am the one who is.
Thirteen miles north of San Francisco is a coastal forest
of giant redwood trees. These trees can reach a height of 300 feet and can live
1,000 years. Deep in that redwood forest there is a circle of nine trees and in
the middle of that circle is a small tree. It has seen better days. As a
matter of fact if you compare it to the ones around in the circle it is little
more than a stump. But the day was when it was a 200 feet tall tree and then
having reached its prime began to scale back as it were. But when that happened
those who study those things say that underground a network went out and from
that network of underground sprouts came some shoots that went straight upward
and became trees. It was as if the tree was surrounding itself with what needed
to be. And if you were to visit that place now you would look at it and you
would say it is as if those huge 200-foot tall trees are now protecting as it
were in a great presence the one who is in special need.
If you will look at this passage there are nine words that
reach out and surround you. Whether you are strong or whether you are weak let
me point them out because they are the description of God’s grace in your
behalf. Verse 4; grace and peace from Him who is, number three, who was and who
is to come. And the seven spirits which is a symbol of the Holy Spirit and if
you will look down the Alpha and the Omega and the Almighty. You’re surrounded,
if you are sensitive to it, by the God who has spanned the ages, who walked on
the cliff of nothingness and looked out into the blackness and with a word
formed light and brought into being all of the worlds and the universe as we
know it. And the God who if Revelation speaks as we understand it to speak all
that is will someday be folded up like a tent and put on a shelf and God will
begin creating a new heaven and a new earth and shall wipe away all tears from
the eyes and there will be no more separation.
What shall we say of the future? We are as human beings
absolutely unable to predict the future. Now there are all kinds of people who
look at the future and predict it, almost without exception they are wrong. I
remember an Ebenezer from our own past. Ebenezers are what the Hebrews put
alongside the river to remind them what God had done. Ebenezer, one of mine is
when back in ’89, ’90, ’91, ’92, ’93 we did a study of who we were and what we
were to become and out of that came our new children’s wing, the gymnasium was
turned into a formal dining room and the new gymnasium was built. The former
dining room became the choir suite. All of that we now just take for granted
but I remember when it was discussed on the church floor just like we discussed
this morning the visions of the Passion Teams and by the way the five
recommendations passed and we are moving ahead. I remember back in ’90, ’91
when we were discussing this and one of the men stood up and said how much is
this going to cost? Good question. Well we didn’t know exactly because we
hadn’t taken bids on anything. We were finding out if the church would give us
the go ahead to do that and the chairman of the deacons said about 5 million
dollars and he gasped, we can’t ever raise 5 million dollars. Truth is it cost
us 7.2 million. What is so amazing to me is we did it and not only that we paid
for it by 1999. Don’t try to predict the future. At that same business meeting
a man got up he had just read a book written by an economist who said that in
the early ‘90s the nation was going to go into an economic crash and that in
fact it was the worst time we could possibly be trying to build a building,
increase our facilities, etc. Well the church went ahead anyway. Well you know
what the ‘90s were. We did have some tough times in ’90 and ’91 but then began
what may be the most significant economic advance in one decade in the history
of the country. Don’t try to predict the future. Why don’t you give the future
to God? Delegate it, that’s what Jesus said to do. In the Sermon on the Mount
He said don’t worry about the future. Pay attention to today because everyday
has challenges enough of its own. But the big thing, the significant thing is
the right now. It is in the right now that things just open up that you make a
difference in your world.
Now I want you to do something I’ve asked you to do many
times. I ask you to do it again, think of your world where you drive, where you
live, where you go to school. The exercise place you may go to where the
grocery store is, the map of your world. Do you realize that the Lord God has
such a place for you in that world and that you are crucial, absolutely crucial
to what he is trying to do? It’s only a little world but that’s where Jesus
began and that’s where the apostles began and think of the difference that He
made in that world not to speak of our own.
There is a movie, which is frequently shown during the
Christmas season. James Stewart is the star in it and it’s called It’s A
Wonderful Life and James Stewart plays George Bailey who is a banker in the
small town of Bedford Falls. At one point in his life Bailey becomes very
depressed, took to drinking. Not only that he thought about even taking his
life, went to a bridge, thought he’d jump off of it. But there was an angel, an
apprentice angel who was trying to earn his wings who was assigned to George and
he was trying, in order to earn his wings, Clarence the angel was to bring
George back into his sanity. One day after he had been assigned he took George
on a journey to look over the city he thought he knew so well. And it was a
horrible sight. Things were in terrible shape. The area that he had often
loaned money to the lower middle class in order that they could own a home was
desolate. It had in fact been made into a cemetery. Crime was rampant. The
whole city was a mess and George couldn’t understand it. I mean after all it
had only been a day or so since he had been there. Clarence what’s going on he
said and Clarence says you’ve been given a great gift, George. You have been
given the chance to see what your world would be without you. There is a pause
and then Clarence says strange isn’t it that every person’s life touches so many
other lives and we don’t even know it. And we don’t notice it and when that
person isn’t around what an awful hole is left.
It was December our staff met at Richmond Hill Retreat
Center which is up on Richmond Hill overlooking the city. We had a good day but
at the end of it Ben Campbell who overseas all of that and really is the one who
put it all together after it ceased to be a monastery Ben Campbell came in to
see us, said I want some time, can I have it? And we looked around at each
other and said sure, I mean we’re their guests, right? I mean sure, you can
have it. He sat down at the head of the table, he said I’ve been wanting to do
this and I’m going to do it now and he looked at me and he said some day when
you’re in a pulpit I want you to tell your church this. I’m telling you now,
here’s what he said, he said I want to thank you for making the decision in 1989
to stay downtown. He said you have no idea what a hole would have been left if
you had left. And then he began to list; I didn’t even know he knew our church
that well. He began to list the things we do every year that wouldn’t be done,
everything from feeding the hungry to the divorce recovery to ministry to little
children, to ministry to the youth and what the youth do in mission projects,
the deaf congregation, on and on. I didn’t know he knew that and when he
finished he said I just want to say think you because it would make so much
difference to Richmond if you weren’t there. Thank you for being who you are
and what you are to our city. I have just given you his message. I don’t know
of anybody who knows Richmond better than Ben Campbell and what he just said was
that the God who is put us here and he put us here for a unique and special
purpose to be fruitful in His name, to bear fruit for His sake and to minister
to those like ourselves who are in need. Now I turn it to you. What would
happen if you weren’t in your little world? God made you, absolutely and
crucially God made you. Before you leave this building this day would you reach
out and grasp and seize that as Paul said I have been seized and I have seized
the One who called.
|
