A message by
Rev. F. David Throop, Pastor
April 20, 2008
Scripture: Psalm 51, II Corinthians 5:14-21, I Timothy 1:12-17
Please pray with me:
Gracious Lord God, the songs we sing in worship today are the songs giving guidance to why we are here. We are here worshipping before Your throne and in the midst of Your very chambers because we simply do not want to remain the same. We are here not in our glory but in our sin, for we have come just as we are. We are here because we believe that You know us, even our names. We are here because our faith reminds us that at the foundation of each of our lives is grace alone, Your grace, a grace which truly is an amazing grace. And we are here because when all is said and done, the light of Your love does shine on us, that through us Your light might continue to shine on others, all others. In the name of Jesus, our Lord, we pray. Amen.
You and I live in a world filled with distractions. We live in a world doing its very best, and all day long, to distract us, and to distract us always in its own direction. And yet, in the midst of a world filled with distractions, you and I are called to love Jesus Christ and to serve Jesus Christ who is our Savior and Lord. In the midst of our convictions, as you and I live in a world filled with distractions, our call is to keep that focus clear.
In case you don’t know, in case you are not aware, the main thing today and everyday is to keep the main thing the main thing. And the main thing for followers of Christ, living in a world filled with distractions, is to do what scripture constantly reminds us, and that is “to throw off everything that hinders, especially the sin that so easily entangles, and to run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” And as we do so, we are to “keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith . . .” For by doing this day after day after day after day after day, we are doing our part, as faithful followers of Christ, to keep the main thing the main thing, and not to be so continually distracted by the affairs of the world.
Distractions. Not long ago, I read about a man by the name of Bill Ketchum, a southern gentleman, and he was attempting to make an operator assisted phone call to a friend of his living up north in the Boston area. Not having the phone number, he dialed the information operator, and after giving the name of the city and state, he said with a typically slow, southern drawl, "Ma’am, ah need the phone numba of a Mr. Fred Baiiiley." The somewhat puzzled operator replied, "Excuse me, sir, what is that last name again?” “Baiiiley, ma’am, it’s Baiiiley.” And then she said, “Would you please spell that last name." Mr. Ketchum said, "Yes, ma'am. Baiiiley — B as in boy, A as in animal, I as in ink, and L as in lion." Whereupon the somewhat distracted operator interrupted, "Excuse me, sir, L as in what?" And Bill said, "Lion. I'll spell it out for you. L as in laundry, I as is igloo, O as in office, and N as in newspaper." Whereupon the operator replied, "Excuse me, newspaper? Which one, sir?" I’m not certain if Mr. Ketchum ever did get the phone number for his friend up in Boston, because along the way, distractions sort of took over.
Distractions are everywhere, all around us and all day long. And when it comes to the very core of our Christian faith, despite what we have learned since we were small children, and despite what we are continually learning as we go along, distractions continue to pull us away from the main thing.
More than anything else, I want these words to be as clear as possible. And at the completion of worship this morning, my hope is that each one of us will leave this place of worship, not with any further distractions, but saying and knowing, “Oh, that’s what it’s all about.”
At the very core of our Christian faith is Jesus Christ. Beginning when we were small children, we have been hearing stories about Jesus, and we have been reading stories about Jesus, we have been given object lessons about Jesus, we have been singing songs about Jesus, we have been studying the scriptures about Jesus, we have been visiting about Jesus, we have been praying to Jesus, we have been watching movies about Jesus, we have heard a ton of sermons about Jesus, and some of us have written a ton of sermons about Jesus!
So, let me ask: In light of all of these years of what I have just described, do you know clearly who Jesus is, and can you articulate clearly why he came? Do you know clearly who Jesus Christ is and can you articulate clearly why he came? That is, if your unchurched next door neighbor asked you with complete honesty as well as great interest who Jesus Christ is and why he came, would you know what to say?
For just a very brief moment, I want each of you in silence to complete the title for these words: “Jesus Christ came . . . . .” So, as a follower of Christ, as one who has professed Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, just how did you complete the title to these words? “Jesus Christ came . . . . . . ” How did you complete this statement?
If any of you are stuck, let me help you out. The clearest, most concise answer any of us will find anywhere in scripture is what we read just a few moments ago from Paul’s letter to his friend, Timothy: “Jesus Christ came into the world to rescue sinners.” It doesn’t get any clearer than this. “Jesus Christ came into the world to rescue sinners.” And to this, Paul then adds a very personal touch. He adds, “. . . of whom I am the worst.” If you ask me, that’s one of the sincerest, most honest affirmations and confessions any of us will ever read in all of scripture: “Jesus Christ came into the world to rescue sinners — of whom I am the worst.”
As we get to the very core of what it means to center our lives in Jesus Christ, let me simply say this: it has absolutely nothing to do with what you and I can do with ourselves but mostly with what God has already done for us. Centering our lives in Christ has nothing to do with lifting up personal honor and glory, but everything to do with admitting personal brokenness. If any of you want to know exactly what it is that qualifies any of us to be here today, if any of you want to know what qualifies any of us to become a part of Christ’s church, if any of you want to know the requirement for membership in the body of Christ, it is the recognition of our own brokenness, that we have turned our lives in upon ourselves, and in doing this, we, just like the Apostle Paul, need also to be rescued from our sin. You know something, what I have just shared is not a very sophisticated thing for us to admit as those living in the midst of affluent Orange County in this 21st century — that Jesus Christ came to rescue sinners, of whom we are the very worst.
Well, we won’t get very far in the Christian faith unless we begin with the truth of what scripture makes clear to us, and that is, that all of us have sinned, and thus, all of us have fallen short of the glory of God. Do you remember what we read from Psalm 51 a few moments ago, words written by King David after the prophet Nathan indicted him for his adulterous affair with Bathsheba? “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your unfailing love; according to Your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always in front of me. Against You, and You only, O Lord, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight.”
Most people just don’t want to talk much about sin these days. Even in most churches, as I shared a few weeks ago, there is very little focus on personal sin. You know as well as I do that the world just doesn’t want to talk about sin. As I shared recently, Church growth gurus will tell us that you can’t grow a church by reminding people of their sins. I also shared that from what I continue to see on television, I have yet to see any of the large mega-congregations of ten, twenty, even thirty thousand people in worship being called into an extended time to confess their personal sins. Over the years, however, I think the one person who has done this consistently and with great compassion is the Rev. Billy Graham. But apart from the Billy Graham crusades, even within the mainline church, there seems to be such a reluctance to spend much time in talking about, well, you know, the “s” word. Therefore, we will.
The simplest definition of sin is this: “missing the mark.” Sin is simply missing the mark of what God wants each one of us to be and do. Sin is taking the gift of life and turning it all in on ourselves. Sin is making our will more important than God’s will. Sin is taking life not as a gift but as something we think we deserve, and then using our lives and resources mostly on what pleases us. Sin is not so much the breaking of laws as it is the breaking of God’s heart. Sin is not so much the individual activities we do as we live apart from God, as it is an attitude and then a lifestyle which simply puts God out of the picture.
Let me ask you something: have any of you ever been approached by another Christian doing some, you know, “sidewalk evangelism,” and as they approached you, they handed you a small booklet entitled, “The Four Spiritual Laws?” Has this ever happened to you?
The people who are volunteering their time to do this are wonderful people, and they’re doing the right thing and for the right reason. The ones I have met truly have a heart, indeed a passion for serving Jesus Christ, and they simply want to do their part in helping others to come to know Christ. And if you’ve ever taken the time to read that little pamphlet, you will find that the four spiritual laws are absolutely at the very core of our Christian life and faith.
And the first law is this: “God loves each one of us and offers a wonderful plan for our lives.” You surely remember John 3:16, the greatest truth in the entire Bible, where we read that “God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” And then, a few verses later on in John, we read Jesus’ words, “I have come that you might have life and have it in abundance.” That’s the first of these four spiritual laws: God loves each one of us and He wants us to know that He has a wonderful plan for our lives.
But the second spiritual law goes like this: “You and I are sinful people, and we continue to separate ourselves from God.” And as we continue to separate ourselves from God’s love for us, we simply cannot know and we cannot experience God’s plan for our lives. Once again, scripture reminds us that, “All of us have sinned and thus all have fallen short of the glory of God.” And the wages of sin, the result of living life apart from God, the result of continually missing the mark of what God wants each of us to be and do, is spiritual death. Read the Apostle Paul’s letters. His greatest concern was in reaching people with the love of Christ so that they might not be lost, but that they also would be included in the wonderful embrace of God’s love.
And thus, we have the third spiritual law: “Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for our sin, for only through Christ, can we know and experience God’s love and God’s plan for our lives.” Let me put it like this: Jesus Christ is God’s plan. There is no plan B, and there is no plan C, and there is no plan D. Jesus Christ is it. Jesus Christ is plan A, and there are no further plans. Jesus Christ is all-sufficient. And Paul reminds us in scripture that while we were still in our sin, Christ died for us, Christ rose from the dead for us, and Christ now reigns in power for us. Jesus Christ, as the complete incarnation of God, is our only hope for knowing God fully.
Therefore, as the fourth of these spiritual laws proclaims, “You and I must individually and daily receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; for only then we can know and experience God’s love and God’s plan for our lives.” Do you remember what we read in every Christmas Eve candlelight service? “In him, in Christ, is life, and to all who receive Christ, to all who believe in his name, he gives the right to become his children.” For it is by grace, and only by grace, that you and I are saved.
And in all of this, you and I individually, and together all of us corporately, must not only receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord but we must then center our lives daily in him. There is no such thing as a “shirt-tail Christian.” We do not come to Christ on the faith of our fathers or the faith of our mothers or the faith of our grandparents. Listen clearly: God has no grandchildren. Do you understand? God has no grandchildren. God has only children. And only when we admit to our sins, only when we rely on God’s grace to release our hearts to Him in Jesus Christ, only when we accept God’s forgiveness, and only when we surrender our wills to God’s will in Jesus Christ can we fully experience God’s love for us and then God’s plan of goodness for our lives.
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. And the main thing, yesterday, today, and forever, is that “God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Translation? God was in Jesus Christ rescuing you and me from our sins.
Some of you may have heard this short parable which I am going to share in this concluding moment, but it is the kind of modern day parable we should always keep in front of us. In parabolic form, it is a reminder that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Jesus Christ came into the world to rescue sinner. Listen: "On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur, there was once a crude little lifesaving station. The building was just a hut and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves they went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. A great many lives were saved by this wonderful little station, so that in time it became famous. Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with this lifesaving station and give of their life and money and effort for the support of the work. And so, new boats were bought and new crews were trained, and the little lifesaving station grew."
"Now, some of the members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge for those saved from the sea. So they replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now, in addition to the lifesaving work, the little station became a popular gathering place for it's members, and so they decorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely because they used it now as a sort of club. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, so they decided to hire lifeboat crews to do this work on their behalf."
"The lifesaving motif still prevailed in the club's decoration, and there was even a liturgical lifeboat in the room where the club initiations were held. At about this time, a large passenger ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boat loads of cold, wet and half drowned people. They were dirty and sick and they were of various skin colors. The beautiful new club was considerably messed up. So, one of the committees immediately had a shower house built outside the club where the victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside."
"At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's lifesaving activities as being unpleasant and a hinderance to the normal social life of the club. However, some members insisted upon lifesaving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a lifesaving station. But they were finally voted down and they were told that if they wanted to save the lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own lifesaving station further down the coast. And so, they did."
"As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a club, and yet another lifesaving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself, and we are told that if you visit that coast today, you will find quite a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are still frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown."
Friends, “Jesus Christ came into the world to rescue sinners.” That’s what it’s all about.
Will Campbell, writer, preacher, philosopher, was once challenged by a renegade newspaper editor by the name of P.D. East, who himself viewed Christians as the enemy and who simply could not understand Will Campbell’s stubborn commitment to his religious faith, to summarize in only ten words the essence of Christianity.
After thinking for only a brief moment, Will Campbell looked him in the eyes, and replied rather bluntly: “We’re all bastards . . . but God loves us anyway.”
Or, in the words of John 3:16, “For God so loved . . . you and me . . . that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
And so, once again, “Hello, my name is David. Yes, I am a sinner, but I know that God has a wonderful plan for me, and here and there I have turned away from God. I now know that I cannot save myself, but I know that through Christ’s death and resurrection, God has forgiven me, and that God continues to embrace me with a truly amazing grace. And I now know once again that God has given to me His gift of eternal life.”
Unison prayer:
Lord Jesus, I need You in my life, and I confess my sins before you. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I now open the door of my life anew, and I welcome You once again as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins, and thank you for the gift of eternal life. Beginning anew right now, please take control of the throne of my life, and help me to become the person you want me to become. In your strong name I pray. Amen. Copyright © 2008 by Rev. F. David Throop. All rights reserved. No part of this sermon may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of a very brief quotation, which will acknowledge the source. |
