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The Call of God, The
Gift of Power
A sermon
by Dr. Sam James
First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, July 29, 2007
It was the evening of
the first day of the week, on the day that Jesus was raised from the dead. In
John 20 we have the story of the disciples meeting that evening in a room with
the doors closed for fear, as the scripture says, of the Jews. They weren’t sure
if they might come after them just as they had Jesus, to be crucified. They had
watched him die on Friday, and now it is Sunday, Sunday evening. I wish in a way
that I could be in the midst of them to feel what they’re feeling, to sense what
they were thinking and talking about in that room. There had been rumors that
Jesus had been raised from the dead. Most of them had not participated in any of
that. And you know, when you have someone who is so precious as Jesus was, there
must have been a great deal of grief in that room. A great deal of uncertainty,
perhaps disillusionment, because the one, the one who was the most precious,
important person in their lives, they had watched taken away from them. The one
who had claimed their utmost attention and allegiance was no longer there. The
one who had taught them as they walked the dusty trails, as they sat on the
mountainside and listened to him, as they went across the Sea of Galilee in the
boats and heard him, as they watched him heal the blind and the lame, and as he
did all of the things that Jesus did as they walked with him. And now he was
gone. I can’t imagine what was going through their minds.
Some of you know what it
is to have someone precious taken from you by death or by divorce or some other
reason. And after all the excitement or the formalities are through and you go
home to that room at night, there is that sense of loneliness and that sense
sweep of grief that comes over the soul—and you realize that that person is no
longer there.
No doubt the disciples
were experiencing some of this as their Lord, their Master was now gone. And in
that 20th chapter of John we have the scene, this beautiful story. On
the evening that first day of the week when the disciples were together with the
doors closed—locked—for fear of the Jews, Jesus came. Suddenly appears in their
midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” He showed them his hands that had
been pierced there on the cross. He showed them his side which had been pierced
there on the cross, too. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
And again Jesus said, “Peace be with you.” You know, no doubt their minds must
have gone back to a time previous to that when at a troubled time Jesus had said
to them, “My peace I give unto you. My peace I leave with you; not as the world
giveth. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
We just sang that
beautiful song—Peace. The world didn’t give it and the world can’t take it away.
That’s what Jesus was saying to them in a great time of comfort to them. But
then, as he had their attention, he looked at them and he said this, “As my
Father has sent me, I am now sending you.” What a task! What a challenge! What a
commission! The first great commission to those who would follow Jesus. And
unless we think that this was given to just a handful of disciples meeting in a
room that night and would all be over when they’re gone, we have to realize that
this commission was given to all who follow Jesus—not just a few. So that those
of you who sit here in the pew this morning and those of you who are in churches
all over the country, those of you who follow Jesus in whatever capacity, that
is the commission that Jesus gave to us. “As my father hath sent me . . .” Jesus
had defined that for them at one point. He had said to them, “My purpose,” he
said, “the son of man came to seek and to save that which is lost.” He gave his
life for that, on the cross, to bring those who are lost, without hope, without
forgiveness, to himself to receive eternal life. “As my Father sent me, I’m now
sending you.”
In another place, he
said, “The son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a
ransom for many.” “As my Father sent me, I am now sending you.” What a
formidable thing to say to those disciples that night--that they might have to
give their life? They might give up who they are—everything that they are and
give their lives so that there might be those who are ransomed from their
destruction and sin and delivered into a brand new life of peace and joy and
holiness and eternal life? “As my Father has sent me, I am now sending you” you
see. What a task.
And now comes the
contrast from being in that little room—disillusioned, in grief, with little
hope wondering what is the future? What are we going to do now? Jesus is gone.
He’s not leading us anymore and having Jesus appear to them.
Now we move to Acts the
second chapter. We have a similar scene, but very, very different. In the second
chapter of Acts, we read in the first verse when the day of Pentecost came—this
is days after Jesus had appeared to them that first night, that night of the
first day of the week—when the day of Pentecost came they were all together
again, there in this house. I don’t know if it’s the same house, but they’re
there in a house. This time the doors are not locked because Jesus has been
teaching them. He’s appeared to them many times after that. In fact, he gave
them three great commissions. He said, “As my Father has sent me, even so I am
sending you.” And then later, just before they go up to the mountain when Jesus
is to ascend into Heaven, he said, “Now, as you go, preach the good news to
every person, to all people, baptizing them. Teaching them all things
whatsoever, so observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” And he says,
“Lo, I will be with you to the end of the age.”
And then on the
mountain, just before he is taken into Heaven, he gives his last commission to
them. He says, “Now, tarry in Jerusalem [wait in Jerusalem], ‘til you receive
power from on high and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in
Samaria and to the uttermost part of the earth.” You see, he has been teaching
them and now they have chosen someone to succeed Judas who had betrayed Jesus
and here they are in this little room, and suddenly something happened. They
were all together. Suddenly, a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came
from Heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. And they saw
what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of
them. And all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to speak
in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. And we know in the next verses that
the tongues were not some kind of unknown tongues that nobody could understand,
they were speaking the tongues, the language of the people who gathered there.
The scripture says that those who were in Jerusalem that day heard the rushing
of that mighty wind and they gathered to find out what is this all about. And
the disciples, instead of being locked in the room afraid of what might happen,
have opened the doors and the windows. And they move outside of the house. And
they go out among the people boldly. These are the people who had put Jesus to
death on the cross, but that was not an issue anymore because the Holy Spirit
had given them the power. And now they move out among the people.
And then Peter stands
and preaches. We know that there were at least three thousand people there. They
came from all over the city to find out what was happening here. At least
three thousand people.
As I have meditated on
this I wondered, often times, how did he project his voice? How did he get
through to three thousand people with no electricity in that day, no speakers?
And my mind goes to one day when I was on the coast of Vietnam. I was out there
for a few days to teach some extension seminary students—there were 12 of them
who were going together for me to teach. When I got to the village, there was a
field absolutely filled with people—hundreds and hundreds of people were in this
field. I asked my students, “What is going on here? What are all these people
here for?” They said, “They have come to hear you share the Word of God to them.
They want to hear.” As I looked out over that crowd I said, “How am I going to
do it? We don’t have any electricity. We don’t have any speakers.” And they
began to get Coca Cola crates together and they stacked them up about as high as
they could. Then they helped me to stand on top and I was kind of teetering
there, afraid I was going to fall, holding my Bible and preaching to hundreds
and hundreds of people. What would it be if I fall down in the midst of my
sermon? And yet, God projected the voice out to the edges of that crowd. Somehow
they heard. I don’t know how many came to know Jesus that day. So it can be
done, I know that.
And here is Peter
standing here preaching to this whole multitude of people and what a sermon it
is! If you read that sermon in the second chapter of Acts, it is what some
people call a “barn burner.” I mean it is forthright. It is direct. It is right
to their heart. He bares no words. In one place he says to them, “This man was
handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the
help of wicked, men put him to death by nailing him to the cross.” Now that’s in
your face! They could have been hostile. They could have come forth and grabbed
them and arrested them and taken them to the cross and crucified them. “You
don’t talk to us that way.” But this was a sermon empowered by the Holy Spirit
and the presence of the Holy Spirit. And at the end of the sermon, he [Peter]
says this, “Therefore, let all of Israel be assured of this, God has made this
Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. Both Lord and Messiah.” Oh,
that would have been a red flag to them. But for some reason they didn’t turn on
them. The first thing that they said--they cried out—was, “Brothers, what shall
we do? What shall we do?” Conviction on their hearts. “What do we do now. We
have done this to the Messiah.” Peter says to them very straight, he says,
“Repent. Turn, turn from where you are. Change you mind. Change your thinking.
Turn from where you are. Be baptized. Receive the remission of sins—the
forgiveness of your sins—and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
And the scripture goes
on to say, that day those who accepted his message were baptized and about three
thousand were added to their number that day. What a message!
You know, I’ve tried to
get in to those disciples and stand with them a little bit and see if I could
see Peter standing there. What would have been going through my mind? What would
I have seen that his man, his humble fisherman, as they say “uneducated”
standing before masses of people, bringing this message. What was there that
caused them to listen, to hear him? You know what I think? Of course it was the
power of God in his life, but I think Peter and those disciples were reflecting
a genuineness, an honesty, a decency, a wholeness. They had been with Jesus.
They knew that. They felt that in their lives and there was something honest
about them. They were willing to hear what they had to say.
I want to come to you to
say, if there was ever a time when we who follow Jesus need that, that honesty,
that genuineness, that commitment, that giving of the life to the Lord, it is
today in this broken world in which we live. What a world it is!
I go in the Middle East
and North Africa, in the heart of Islam on a regular basis. I fellowship with
Muslims. I fellowship with our personnel even more who work with Muslims, and
I’ve come to see in the last couple or three years that there are those who are
totally disillusioned by their religion. They see it in the newspapers. They see
it on television and they are saying, “I can’t follow this religion anymore that
is beheading people, that is killing people. They’re committing suicide in
market places and killing women and children who have no reason to be killed—who
are innocent. How can I continue to follow this?” Yet, where do they turn?
You see, when you go to
some of these Bedouin villages and these little refugee camps on the edges of
the cities, you see the poor homes and the cardboard boxes and the tin houses
they have built and they are trying to live in [them], but you know what else
you see? Right on the roofs are television are antennas, a sea of television
antennas. It seems like everybody has television and they love American
programs, American movies. All of this. They get CNN. They get it all. And there
was a time when they thought of America as a good nation. As a peaceful nation.
As a Christian nation. And you know what they see? They see an awful lot of
violence, murders. They see the testing the limits of morality and ethics. And
can you turn on your television at night without seeing well-known celebrity who
has gone beyond any limits of reason in behavior? They see that and they say,
“That is America. They have nothing to give to us. Why should we follow? Why
should we follow that? Why should we believe that?” And so it becomes difficult
to say, “We have a good choice for you.” So it requires someone, someone who
embodies the presence of the Lord Jesus, someone who is committed to him, who
has given his or her life to place it in the midst of those people so that they
see something other than what they see in the mass media. And they see who Jesus
is.
How many times I’ve
walked the alleyways and the highways and gone through the hedges and have
prayed, “Lord, don’t let them look at my round eyes and my white skin and my
grey hair (almost bald). Help them, Lord, not to look at that. Can they see
genuineness? Help them to see Jesus. See who HE is, to experience HIS presence.”
This is what is so
needed in this world. It’s needed in this city. It’s needed in this great land
of ours and it’s not going to be done through legislation of morality. It’s
going to be done when you and I hear what Jesus said, “As my Father has sent me,
I am now sending you.” That’s what it’s going to take.
Come with me to a
country in North Africa where I was asked to share the Word with a whole group
of people gathered in a home. They were from a people group that was unreached
by the Gospel of Jesus. Most of these believed in the Lord. That night I decided
to go ahead and preach the Gospel, as the scripture has it, and I said to them,
“Jesus died on the cross.” I explained that. “Jesus was buried.” I explained
that. “Jesus was raised from the dead and he appeared to the disciples many
times.” I went on sharing that which flies in the face of Islam because they
don’t believe any of that is true. Yet, as I watched them, they were listening,
they were drinking it in.
At the end of the
sharing that night, a man came and sat next to me and he said, “May I talk with
you?” “Yes,” I said. It was in broken English that he was speaking. He said, “I
want you to know that for some years I have wanted to leave my religion. I just
can’t follow it anymore with all of the violence and the things that I see in my
religion. I am disillusioned by it. I have no hope in that religion any more.
But, I haven’t had anywhere to turn. I didn’t know what to believe. I didn’t
know which way to look, which way to turn for help. Tonight I have heard about
Jesus and his forgiveness and his love and his compassion. I want that tonight.
I want to follow Jesus.”
I am so excited by that.
I’m so thrilled by it, but my heart is so heavy because there are seven million
people in this people group. He is only one. I have to ask, “Who is going to
go?” Who will put their life in the midst and say, “Here is who Jesus is. Here
is who he really is.” Who will live that genuine, honest, open life of integrity
in their midst so they can say, “Yes. This is what I want.” Oh, that’s so needed
here. It’s needed there.
There’s another story I
would share with you. When I go to Vietnam to train house church leaders, I
usually have some time off. So I go to into a Buddhist temple sometimes on that
day and spend half a day in the Buddhist temple. I usually sit there and talk to
people as they come and go, because that’s my language and it’s easy to talk
with them and feel with them. I talk with the Buddhist monks. That day I went to
one of the leading pagodas in downtown Saigon and heard an old monk teaching.
You know what the title of his sermon was? It was Where Do You Go When You Die?
Of course the Buddhist believe in reincarnation—you are reborn in the world.
But, you are reborn in the form according to the life that you have lived. What
he was saying is to them that under the communist society, we are not having any
teaching in value and ethics and morality. Our children are running wild. They
are not getting instruction and so very in their life they are committing wicked
things. Bad things. And every time they commit those things, that sticks to
their soul. It make their soul heavier and heavier. Then, when they die, it is
too late. They will be reborn into something of another form. He went on into
detail about this. He kept saying to them, there is no way once they have
committed these things to erase that. If it happens early in life, it simply
compounds itself through their life, so let’s teach our children while we can.
There is no way to erase it. No way to forgiveness. You can do good deeds and
hope it will be enough. You know what, I sat there just outside of that window
listening to that Buddhist monk and I wanted to get my Bible. I wanted to run in
there and say, “I have good news, folks. You CAN be forgiven. Your sins can be
washed as white as snow.” I wanted to do that, but in that communistic society,
it is not allow and I couldn’t anything. But how helpless I felt! I stayed
around and found whoever I could to talk with and to fellowship with because I
just couldn’t let them go away feeling that life is hopeless, there is no
salvation.
But I keep asking the
question, “Who is going to live among them and show them who Jesus really is?
And who is going to fellowship with them and set up that relationship that
genuine, honest, pure, clean relationship that would cause them to turn and say,
“What I want more that anything in my life is to follow Jesus.”
He is saying to you this
morning, “As my Father has sent me, I am now sending you.”
I was down at the bus
station taking my grandson to make a trip. It’s been a long time since I’d been
down there. I looked over that bus station and I saw he was in shock. He’s come
from London and he lives among all kinds of people there, but he was not
prepared for what he saw in there. He was kind of shocked. There were people in
there who we don’t touch very much and yet they have a soul, they have a life
and they need somebody who goes and sits with them and says, “Here is who Jesus
is.”
Only in the embodiment
of Him do people respond like they did that day to Peter who was embodying the
very presence of the Lord Jesus. I ask you today, “What is your place in the
Christian life? Where are you now?” I believe this church would be filled to
overflowing every service and adding services, if some how we opened our hearts
and l the Holy Spirit came into us and imbued us with the power and sent us out
to touch the lives of people all over the city. Yes, to the ends of the earth.
Here am I, Lord. Send
me.
Father, in the quiet of
these moments we pray that your spirit might come and visit us. Come into our
hearts, Lord Jesus. Fill us to overflowing with your presence so that, Lord,
each of us might hear in our own way, in the way that you have for us, the call
to be what you want us to be in a very lost and broken world. Father, we give
ourselves to you this day. Cleanse us, make us pure and clean in this moment, so
that there is nothing that hinders us from letting Jesus possess us entirely.
And with every breath we take and every step we take, every move we make is done
with His power. We want to give you thanksgiving and praise, for it all in Jesus
name. Amen.
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