27
February
2006
OUR SPECIAL VISITOR
The first Sunday he visited our church, he didn’t utter a word. He laughed. He offered a toothless grin – not at one of my jokes, mind you. Then he cried all the way through my sermon. Dressed in shabby clothes and wearing no shoes, he seemed to have no regard for his appearance. I noticed that he stayed hidden somewhere on the back row where no one could see him.
He hadn’t been around very long. Most of our folks had never met him. In town, he carried no weight, held no social standing to speak of, no power, and no reputation. He had not learned to read or write and had no interest in the subject. Would you believe he couldn’t even write his own name? He didn’t even know His own name – at least as far as I could tell about him.
This was one of those people who depended on other people to keep him up. He couldn’t walk. When he did try to walk he’d stumble and fall down every time. Somehow, he never got hurt. Someone in his family brought him up in front of the whole church right in the middle of the service. There we prayed for him and all promised to help him.
I reckon everyone in church that first time he visited could tell that he didn’t own a dime to his name. It seemed obvious that he wouldn’t be one of the big givers to the budget or do anything productive unless – unless, of course – something changed. He couldn’t work at anything, as much as we needed bus drivers and teachers. He didn’t even know how to drive. As a matter of fact, no one had ever seen him sitting behind the wheel of a car.
When the service came to a close, he didn’t come forward to join the church or to make any kind of decision about the Lord. I don’t suppose he really gave God a thought, absorbed in his own little world. Mostly he just distracted everyone else. But I felt sure that God was going to do something wonderful with his life.
After church we all met down in the fellowship hall for dinner. One of our deacons had to carry him down the steps because his legs were too weak to carry his own weight. We didn’t want him to tumble down the steps and get hurt. But our special visitor didn’t eat a bite of all that delicious food. No chicken and dumplings. No potatoes. No chocolate cake. Because he was on a special diet and couldn’t chew well, someone brought him a drink. It wasn’t the kind of drink you normally see at a church fellowship dinner. He gobbled it down most unmanerably.
Now a fellow like that, you don’t normally expect him to carry on a good conversation with anybody or make friends with everyone. He sure didn’t. He never learned anyone’s name, never shook a single hand, and didn’t even fill out a guest card – as you might imagine. But let me tell you the big surprise of the whole day! Everybody loved him.
That’s right. They had a fit over him. I had preached one of the most powerful sermons I had ever preached in my life, and only a handful of people even complimented me. But this guy, who couldn’t do anything to help the church grow, ended up getting all the attention. People made over him – especially the girls. They thought he was cute and even told him that. They never said anything like that to me.
Our visitor was special all right. Somehow or another, his presence created the most wonderful spirit in our church that day. People seemed so happy – laughing and enjoying themselves, so glad that he had visited our church. He made everybody feel so good. He melted the hardest of hearts. Most everyone in the church laid hands on him and blessed him and hoped that he would come back the next week.
When he left to go home, he cried. He lay in the back seat of the old Blue Buick and cried ‘till he disappeared from our sight. I don’t think he wanted to leave us. We all waved at him and said good-bye – though we knew he would not acknowledge our farewell.
Years have passed since that special fellow first visited our church. I have thought a lot about him since that day. We never forgot how he blessed our church. God touched him and changed his life that Sunday. He realized through the years how our little church had loved him and accepted him, though he could not acknowledge our love. He has been in church many times since then and has grown and learned a lot about the love of God through us.
I can still see him now – the way he looked back then – the way our people embraced him and prayed for him. Would you believe he drops money in the offering plate each Sunday now? He even helps people who are just like what he used to be. He has learned to love our church. Now he speaks to everyone and makes all our special visitors feels special. Do you know him? He’s in every church – I hope and pray. Without people like him in our churches, we might as well close the doors of the church. Do you know who our special visitor might be?
Posted: Thoughts
22
February
2006
I Corinthians 2:1-5
As a Christian, I am constantly aware of the struggle between discipline and acceptance. I have witnessed some Christians who disciplined others in a mean spirited fashion that made them appear more like the Pharisees… judgmental and delighting in putting others down. They condemned sinners and placed upon them strict religious rules that were impossible to fulfill.
On the other hand I have seen Christians who were so loving and accepting that they offered forgiveness without any sorrow or repentance and watered down the gospel so far that anyone could easily receive it without any cost. It became an “anything goes” gospel with a “God loves you no matter what you do” theology. Neither view seems accurate to the scriptures. One story from the ministry of Jesus where I see this struggle is John 8:1-11. Jesus told the woman caught in adultery “neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” He loved the woman, but told her to turn from sin.
I suppose the answer to this struggle is found in only one place: The cross. Paul expressed gratitude that he had baptized so few people. That doesn’t sound like a church growth specialist. In I Corinthians 1:17-18 he wrote, “For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.”
Most Christians readily accept the doctrine that Jesus’ death on the cross was a once-for-all substitution. He died in “my place” so that I would not suffer and miss out on abundant life. I must agree with this. When Jesus cried, “It is finished!” he knew that he had done everything that was possible to provide salvation to sinner. But that is not all the Bible says about the cross. Paul does declare in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” Yet Jesus also declares in Luke 9:22-23, “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day. And he said to them all, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”
I see this passage as Jesus declaring that he must suffer and die and be raised again. But we, in order to truly receive Him, must deny ourselves and take up our cross. So the message of the cross is two-fold. Jesus died to provide salvation through his blood. We must die to self and carry our own crosses in order to genuinely receive Him. This is no watered down gospel.
In Romans 6:6-8 Paul tells us that, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.” I can determine from this passage that we die, our old selves, die on the cross with Jesus. But we take up a cross individually in the sense that we are willing to give up our selfish desires and suffer for Him. Without this surrender to Jesus and the sacrifice of our pride, we cannot follow Jesus.
What does this have to do with the passage I have read in I Corinthians 2:1-5? Paul declared in verse two that he “determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified”. This doesn’t mean that Paul never spoke about any other doctrines or never offered counsel about spiritual growth and church polity – because he certainly did. What Paul asserted here was that the cross is our power and, furthermore, the Christian walk is a walk with a cross. It is a life of sacrifice and surrender.
The cross truly is an “emblem of suffering and shame” as the hymn states. So much for the prosperity gospel! So much for Christians being guaranteed a life of riches and success and becoming kings on our own personal little thrones! This kind of gospel not only blasphemes Jesus call to take up a cross, but it mocks every saint who has ever given his or her life for the sake of the gospel message – missionaries, martyrs, and all the humble cross carrying preachers and prophets through the ages.
Paul shared about “his life” verses “their lives” as Christians in I Corinthians 4:8-13, “Now you are full, now you are rich, you have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you. For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; you are honorable, but we are despised. Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place; And labor, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it: Being defamed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the off scouring of all things unto this day.”
That was how Paul walked the Christian walk. Others seemed to be comfortable and sat up on pedestals. Paul and his fellow apostles were cross bearing servants of Christ who gave up everything this world offered to follow Him.
He told the Philippians in 3:7-10 that he “counted all things but loss” in order to know Christ, even the things which he once counted as gain. He desired to know Christ even in “the fellowship of His suffering, being made conformable unto His death”.
In this passage today, Paul offers us his goal for coming to and preaching to the Corinthian people in verse 5: “That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God”.
He talks about his coming to them, how he did not come and how he did come.
First, How Did He Not Come?
1. In verse one, he admits that “I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom”. He did not claim to be a great orator.
2. In verse four, he speaks of the motives behind his speech. “My speech and my preaching were not with enticing words of man’s wisdom”.
Paul did not preach a gospel that was so watered down and entertaining that it lured everyone in. He could have used the tactics and gimmicks of worldly wisdom to draw a big crowd. But he did not want people to respond to the gospel simply because he was such a great orator or because he was a talented actor. Do you think that a lot of the gospel presentations we observe today are based on the best secular strategies and skills that can be discovered? There is a popular phrase for this kind of speech. It’s called “sweet talking”. With the most carefully chosen words and the atmosphere of comfort and prosperity, most preachers could pack a church. But they wouldn’t find many cross bearing disciples.
I Thessalonians 2:3-6, “For our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile: But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which tries our hearts. For neither at any time used we flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak of covetousness; God is witness: Nor of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others…”
Look at Paul’s style in Acts 17:2-3, “And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ.”
Paul used “great plainness of speech” (2 Corinthians 3:12) to bring the Gospel. Integrity was at the heart of his intentions. 2 Corinthians 4::2, “But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.”
This does not mean that Paul went to the other extreme to impose so many rules on people that they would stop trying. He did not spew a diet of judgment and condemnation so that people who grow tired of listening. He desired to reach people and see them happy, but he never used the gospel to promote himself. Look at I Corinthians 10:33, “Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.” Yet his ultimate goal was to please God. Galatians 1:10, “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.”
Second, How Did He Come?
1. In verse three, Paul tells how he came to these Christians. “I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling”.
What was his weakness? Paul was accused in 2 Corinthians 10:10, “For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.”
Paul even told of his own weaknesses in Galatians 4:13-14, “You know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation which was in my flesh you despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.”
Apparently Paul suffered from some kind of physical ailment or chronic condition. Remember his “thorn in the flesh” that he prayed three times for God to remove? He finally found grace and learned to accept his weakness. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, “And he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” He bore in his body “the marks of the Lord Jesus” (Galatians 6:17).
I believe the Apostle Paul preached with fear and trembling, not because he lacked courage and faith, but because he recognized the tremendous responsibility placed upon him by Christ. 2 Corinthians 3:5, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God.”
2. In verse four, he adds that his ministry to the Galatians was “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power”.
Paul did not want the cross to be emptied of its power. He wanted no gimmick, no dramatic miracle, no fancy rhetoric, and not even baptism to draw attention away from the power of the cross. 2 Corinthians 4:12 gives evidence to where Paul wanted the credit to go: “For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.”
Timothy received this instruction about power in 2 Timothy 1:7-8, “For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.” Since we do not minister in our own strength, we do not have to live in fear. Peter stated in I Peter 1:5 that we are kept by the power of God. In Ephesians 3:20, the Apostle Paul praised God in this doxology, stressing that it is God’s power that does the work. “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.”
Paul continued to preach wherever he went the full gospel, “Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God…” (Romans 15:19)
In conclusion, scripture testifies to the fact that in the cross of Christ we receive our power. Galatians 6:14 shows Paul’s determination to keep focus on the cross, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” Our power is the cross of Jesus that works through our weak vessels for His glory. When we surrender to Him and take of our crosses of sacrifice, we truly walk in power. Our weaknesses become our strengths through Christ. 2Corinthians 13:4, “For though He was crucified through weakness, yet He lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you.”
Posted: Sermons