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The Fifth Great Awakening and the Future of America

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The Fifth Great Awakening

and the Future of America

James C. Denison

There is a Fifth Great Awakening occurring in our world today. According to David Barrett, author of the World Christian Encyclopedia, 82,000 people become Christians every day. More are coming to Christ than at any time in Christian history. Today, 32,000 will become followers of Jesus in Africa, 25,000 in Asia, and 17,000 in Latin America.

More Muslims are becoming Christians than at any time in the history of Islam. Thousands of Muslims are seeing visions and dreams of Jesus and coming to faith in him as their Lord.

Saudi Arabian Muslim leader Sheikh Ahmad al-Qatanni recently reported on al-Jazeera television that every day, “16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity.” He claimed that Islam was losing six million a year to Christian faith. While he could be inflating his numbers to incite Islamic reaction against Christianity, it is clear that a significant Christian movement is occurring in the Muslim world.

However, of the 82,000 coming to Christ every day around the world, only 6,000 are in Europe and North America, combined. While much of the world is experiencing an explosion in Christian growth, we are living in a time of unprecedented skepticism in the Western world with regard to historic Christianity.

According to the latest American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), the number of Americans who describe themselves as “Christian” has dropped from 86% to 76% since 1990. At the same time, the number of those who say they have “no religion” has nearly doubled to more than 15%. The number of those who call themselves “atheist” or “agnostic” has quadrupled, and is now almost twice the number of Episcopalians in our country.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life recently released their “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey.” Among its findings:

More than one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion, or no religion at all.

Among Americans ages 18-29, one in four say they are not affiliated with any religion.

Spiritual trends in Europe are even more discouraging. A recent Harris Poll conducted a large survey of religious beliefs in France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, and the U.S. America was the most religious country, with 73% describing themselves as believing in “any form of God or any type of supreme being.” Behind us, belief in the existence of God falls quickly: 62% in Italy; 48% in Spain; 41% in Germany; 35% in England; and 27% in France believe in any form of a supreme being.

In Great Britain today, there are four times as many Muslims attending mosque on Friday as Christians attending worship on Sunday. Twenty-five percent of Brussels is Muslim. Fifty-four million Muslims live in Europe; their numbers will continue to increase due to immigration and high birth rates.

I recently participated in a debate with Christopher Hitchens, author of god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. His book reached #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List in only its third week of publication. Mr. Hitchens and other well-known atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dawkins are selling millions of books to our culture.

Why are we not seeing a great spiritual movement in Western Europe and North America? Because we live in a culture which views God as a hobby. In our society, Christianity is for church, religion for Sunday. Our faith is to be kept separate from the “real world.” But everywhere God’s people are making God their King, the Lord and Master of every day and every dimension of their lives, the Fifth Great Awakening is coming. How can it come to our culture? God’s word contains our answer:

When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:13-14).

Do we need a spiritual awakening?

A “spiritual awakening” can be defined as a socially-transforming spiritual movement. A “revival” is a spiritual rebirth which transforms a person or a church or even a community into New Testament Christianity; a “great Awakening” transforms a nation. There have been four such Awakenings in American history: in 1734, 1792, 1858, and 1904-05. Each created a movement which changed its culture and altered its history for great spiritual good.

I believe that such a movement is the greatest need of our country in these days, and that believers should be praying and working toward this purpose in every way we can. Why does America need a spiritual awakening?

As 2 Chronicles 7 unfolds, Solomon and the people of Israel have just finished their Temple. This is the high-water mark in the history of the Jewish people. Their borders extend from present-day Syria to the Sinai Peninsula. Their wealth and military might are unequaled in the region. Their king has accumulated 100,000 talents of gold (3,750 tons) and a million talents of silver (37,500 tons; 1 Chronicles 22:14)—a net worth of more than $58 billion. Solomon is also the wisest man who has ever lived. And now he has just constructed a spectacular house of worship for his nation’s God.

But Israel’s future prosperity was in no sense guaranteed.

Their Lord warned them that future rebellion would lead to his punishment. In this event he would “shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people” (2 Chronicles 7:13). In a world dependent on rain for crops, defenseless against ravaging locusts or plague, such events would be totally catastrophic.

As it turned out, their future was in greater peril than they knew. Shortly after Solomon’s death, their nation would be divided by civil war. The ten northern tribes would be annihilated and absorbed by Assyria; the two southern tribes would be enslaved by Babylon and then dominated by Persia, Greece, and Rome before their nation was disbanded and destroyed. Their nation would not be constituted again for 20 centuries, and today faces hostility from enemies on every side.

But all of this relates to Israel, the Hebrew people. Few reading this essay are Israelis. Why is this warning in the Bible? Is it still relevant to our day and our nation?

America is the world’s only superpower. Our economy, even in these difficult times, is as large as Japan, China, Germany, India, and Great Britain combined. More Americans go to church each week than in any other nation in the Western world. Surely our future is assured. Or perhaps not.

We are struggling through the greatest financial crisis we’ve seen in 80 years. The Dow finished 2008 down 35%, the worst year for the markets since 1931. The crisis has wiped out nearly $14 trillion in market value. The “Great Recession” has destroyed four million jobs, pushing unemployment near 10 percent.

Our military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has continued longer than our engagement in World War II. Global climate change is accelerating faster than even pessimists were predicting a few years ago. Militant Islam continues its ascent, constituting what I consider to be the greatest threat the West has ever faced. At its root it is a spiritual movement, and must be countered by a spiritual movement of even greater power and passion.

I am convinced that God redeems all he allows or causes. We can debate the degree to which God has caused all of this, but we must admit at least that he has allowed it. For what purpose?

Will you humble yourself before God?

Our text begins: “If my people, who are called by my name…..” All who make Christ their Lord are included. We are “Christians,” literally “little Christs,” those who are the children of God and own his name. Awakening in the nation starts with us.

How? Our first step is to “humble ourselves,” to admit our need of God. We will return to this momentarily. Once we admit that we need God’s help, we “pray.” The Hebrew word describes a national plea for repentance. Then we “seek his face.” The Hebrew phrase describes a person who is returning to God in individual repentance. We see the need of the nation, then we admit the need of our own hearts and souls. In that light, we “turn from our wicked ways.” We decide to turn, to change, to realign with God, to submit to him in all our ways.

When we do these things, God promises to hear from heaven and forgive our sin and heal our land. The spiritual transformation of the culture is the result, a rebirth of nothing less than New Testament Christianity.

So we begin with humility before the Lord. It is a spiritual fact that God cannot do for us what we try to do for ourselves. If you do not believe that our city and nation needs a mighty movement of God, you will miss that movement. A doctor cannot heal a patient who will not admit an illness. God cannot give what we will not admit we need. If we do not believe that we need more of God than we have, we will not have the God we need.

God will not share his glory. Humility is the indispensible factor in spiritual movement. Paul commanded us to “be completely humble and gentle” (Ephesians 4:2). James, the half-brother of Jesus, told us to “humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (James 4:10). A Roman centurion told Jesus, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof” (Matthew 8:8), and the Bible says that “his servant was healed at that very hour” (v. 13).

A Gentile woman told Jesus that “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table” (Matthew 15:27), and “her daughter was healed from that very hour” (v. 28). Paul said of himself: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst” (1Timothy 1:15). And God used him to write half the New Testament and take Christ to the entire Western world.

John the Baptist said of Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30, KJV). And Jesus said of him, “Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11). Now it’s our turn. We can point people to Jesus, or to ourselves, but we cannot do both. I cannot convince you at the same time that I am a great writer and that Jesus is a great Savior. The time has come for us to choose—will we humble ourselves? Will we seek to glorify God with everything we think and say and do? Will we be a means to his end, or will he be a means to ours?

I once heard Rick Warren say, “Stop asking God to bless what you are doing, and ask him to help you do what he is blessing.” What God Almighty is blessing is a global spiritual awakening, a movement of the Holy Spirit wherever God’s people humble themselves, pray, seek his face, and turn from their wicked ways. That is what God is doing in these days.

Here’s the question: Will you join him? Will you admit that your church and community and nation needs more of God than you have known? Do you need to experience the power of God, a transforming spiritual movement? Will you admit your need of God and humble yourself before him? Will you seek to glorify him with everything you think and say and do this week? Will you pray every day for spiritual awakening to come to America, starting with you?

Emerson insisted, “One of our illusions is that the present hour is not the crucial hour.” He was right. We don’t have another year or another day to wait. The hour is upon us. We must seek awakening, while there is still time. Tomorrow is promised to no nation, including ours.

Will you pray for your nation?

If you were asked to name the world’s greatest military, strongest economy, and largest empire in the year 1900, the answer would be Great Britain. If you were asked to guess the army with the most troops, tanks, artillery, and nuclear weapons in 1980, the answer would be the Soviet Union.

Can the same happen to America and the West? Is it happening to America and the West? Consider the cultural crisis of our time, our battle with Radical Islam.

All Muslims believe that God’s final revelation is the Qur’an, and that he wants all people on earth to convert to Islam. Radical Muslims take two steps further. First, they teach that the West has been attacking the Islamic world since the Crusades and especially with the establishment of Israel. Second, they believe that since the Western world is democratic, where we elect our leaders and our taxes support our military, none of us is innocent in this attack.

Since the Qur’an expressly forbids Muslims to initiate violence but requires them to defend Islam, these points are critical to understanding 9-11 and the mind of al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations like Hamas. In their minds, lobbing rockets into Israel is a defense of Islam mandated by the Qur’an.

We have been at war with Muslim extremists far longer than most people realize. We could begin our reckoning with the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979. Consider the following:

In April of 1983, Hezbollah attacked the American Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 and wounding 120.

In October of that year, another Hezbollah suicide bomber attacked the American barracks at the Beirut airport, killing 241 U.S. Marines in their sleep.

In 1984 and 1985, terrorists hijacked airliners and cruise ships, killing Americans each time.

In December of 1988, Libyan agents bombed Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 270 passengers.

In 1993, a truck bomb exploded in the garage of the World Trade Center, injuring over a thousand people.

In 1996, a truck bomb attacked American soldiers in Saudi Arabia, wounding 240.

In 1998, our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were attacked on the same day, killing more than 200.

On October 12, 2000, a boat carrying suicide bombers attacked the USS Cole, killing 17 American sailors.

On September 11, 2001, 2,740 Americans were killed by Islamic terrorists.

Radical Islam is a spiritual ideology. This war is more like the Cold War than World War I or II. Killing Osama bin Laden will not end this battle. This is a war for the souls of mankind, the battle of our generation.

Madrassas are Islamic schools scattered around the world. Saudi Arabia has spent $100 billion exporting radical Islam through these schools. There are approximately 24,000 educational institutions in America; there are more than 37,000 Muslim madrassas in Indonesia alone.

So far, the West is not responding well to this threat. As we have seen, four times as many Muslims go to mosque as Christians go to church in Great Britain today. Anglo birthrates in Europe average around 1.2 children per household; Muslim birthrates average around six children per household. Many are speaking of Europe as “Eurabia.” This is a spiritual movement, and must be countered spiritually.

Our oil-based economy is more vulnerable than ever before. There can be no doubt that oil is the gold of today’s global economy. The United States has an estimated 29.9 billion barrels of reserves, ranking 11th in the world. The top five nations (in order) are Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, with a combined 716 billion barrels, 60% of the world’s supply. If the Muslim Arab world wants to shut off our oil, it can.

What can we do to face these cultural, moral, and economic crises? Undoubtedly our response must include military and economic measures. But you and I have a critical role to play in the future of our nation and culture. Our text calls us to “humble ourselves and pray.” The Hebrew word means to call for national repentance and turning to God. This is our mandate from our Maker for this day.

We must pray every day for the conversion of Muslims to Christ, for missions to the Muslim world, and for awakening to come to America. We must pray every day for a spiritual rebirth and moral awakening in America. We must pray every day for God to use this economic crisis to turn Americans from themselves to him. And we must ask for Awakening to begin with us.

A spiritual mystic once said, “There is one thing that must never be forgotten. It is as if a king had sent you to a foreign country with a task to perform. You go and perform many other tasks. But if you fail to perform the task for which you were sent, it will be as if you had done nothing at all.” Will you do what God has sent you to do for your nation?

An elderly father could not decide which of his two children should inherit his mansion, so he devised a test. He gave each of them $20, instructing them to buy something with which to fill every room in the estate. One bought straw and scattered it as far as it would go, but it did not nearly cover the mansion. The other brought candles, placed one in each room, and filled the entire mansion with light.

Which child are you?

Will you seek God personally?

Our text calls us to humble ourselves, admitting that we need a great movement of God’s Spirit. Then we must pray for our nation to turn to God in the face of the great challenges of these days. Now God calls us to “seek my face.” This is the most amazing, exciting, transforming invitation a human being can ever hear. And the most urgent.

God is seeking you

The Bible clearly depicts a God who is seeking us. God sought Adam and Eve in the cool of the Garden of Eden. He sought Noah, calling him to build the Ark which would save the human race. He sought Abram in the land we call Iraq today. He sought Jacob on that night they wrestled together, and Joseph in Egypt, and Moses at the burning bush. He sought David after the king had sinned horrifically, and the prophets to speak his word to the world.

Then he sought us in the most miraculous, unexpected way of all—he became one of us. He folded the glory and power which created the universe down into a fetus who grew into a baby who breathed our air, walked our dirt, faced our temptations, felt our pain, died on our cross and rose from our grave. We could not climb up to him, so he climbed down to us.

He sought fishermen beside the Sea of Galilee, tax collectors in their booths and trees, lepers in their abandoned loneliness, and demoniacs in their cemetery hideouts. He was the housekeeper who sought the lost coin, the shepherd who sought the lost sheep, the father who sought the prodigal son. He sought Peter after his denials and Paul in the midst of his persecutions.

And then the day came when he made you. Your God has given you a heart which pumps enough blood through your body every 24 hours to fill a railway tanker. Every day it exerts as much effort as it would take to shovel 20 tons of gravel onto a platform as high as your waist. He has made you of protons, the core of atoms. Look at the dot on an “i” in this sentence. It holds something in the region of 500,000,000,000 protons, more than the number of seconds contained in half a million years. Your Father made all of that, for you.

You live in a visible universe that is now calculated as a million million million million miles across. Through a telescope you can see around 100,000 galaxies, each containing tens of billions of stars. And you’re watching all this on a planet which spins at the speed of 1,000 miles an hour at its equator. Your Father made all of that, to make a place for you.

And then he made you. His Son died on the cross for you and rose from the grave for you. His Spirit led you to read these words. The God of the universe wants an intimate, passionate, personal relationship with you. He is seeking you.

Are you seeking God?

The question is, are you seeking him? A friend recently forwarded me this question: “Is there any logic in believing that God started his Church as a Spirit-filled, loving body with the intention that it would evolve into entertaining, hour-long services? Was he hoping that one day people would be attracted to the Church not because they care for one another, not because they are devoted to him, not because the supernatural occurs in their midst, but because of good music and entertainment?”

The world’s religions have always seen worship as a kind of transaction. Make a sacrifice to Athena so she will bless your olive harvest. Practice the four noble truths on the eight-fold noble path so you can achieve enlightenment. Declare that there is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet; pray to Allah five times a day; go to Mecca; fast during Ramadan; give to the poor—all so you will perhaps be accepted by God into his paradise. Give to get. Transact business. Come to church, pray, read, give, so God will bless you or strengthen your marriage or help your family.

None of that is the biblical invitation. God says, “Seek my face,” not “Seek my favor.” Seek to know me, more intimately and passionately than ever before. Love me, for I love you. Want me, for I want you. Know me, for I know you. Seek my face.

“Seek” translates baqash, a Hebrew word which means to search out, strive after, ask, beg, beseech, desire, request, require. It describes a passionate search for something of great value. Such is to be our desire for God:

“Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always” (1 Chronicles 16:11).

“Devote your heart and soul to seeking the Lord your God” (1 Chr. 22:19).

Rehoboam “did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the LORD” (2 Chr. 12:14).

Good king Asa “commanded Judah to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, and to obey his laws and commands” (2 Chr. 14:4).

Scripture says of Hezekiah, “In everything that he undertook in the service of God’s temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered” (2 Chr. 31:21).

The Bible says of good king Josiah, “In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David” (2 Chr. 34:3).

David assures us, “The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you” (Psalm 9:9-10). He later prayed, “may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation always say, ‘The LORD be exalted!'” (Ps. 40:16).

Now the prophet exhorts us, “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near” (Isaiah 55:6).

God told Jeremiah, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13), a passage Janet framed for me to put on my desk where I can see it every day of the week.

Seek “my face,” the Lord calls to us. “Face” translates paneh, the countenance or presence. To seek a person’s “face” is to seek an intimate, face-to-face encounter with her or him. To seek God’s “face” is to seek a closer relationship with him than you have right now.

How do we seek God’s face? Desire to know God more than you know him now. Desire to be in his presence, to experience his Spirit’s touch in your spirit, to draw close to him. Make some time to do this. As with any relationship, it takes an investment of time and energy to build a closer intimacy with God. It is best to do this at the start of every day.

Seek God’s face as did the people who came to worship him in the Temple which Solomon had just constructed in our text. As they climbed the steps into the outer courts, they came singing psalms of praise to God. These were called “psalms of ascent,” because they were used as the people ascended to Jerusalem and then up the steps to the Temple. In the same way, we enter the gates of the Lord with thanksgiving and his courts with praise (Ps. 100:4). Sing or say a psalm, a hymn, a chorus. Praise and thank your Father for all he has done for you. Remember his last blessing and give thanks for it. Come to him in worship.

Now continue in sacrifice. The Jews brought the sacrifices for their sins to the priests, where they were laid on the altar. Jesus’ death is the final sacrifice, the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Bring him your sins and mistakes, anything which would separate you from your Lord. Ask the Spirit to show you anything which displeases your holy God, and confess it to your Savior. Claim his promise to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).

Now you are ready to bring your offerings to the Lord. The people brought offerings from the harvest and from all the blessings of God. In the same way, we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God as our spiritual worship (Romans 12:1). Submit and surrender your plans, dreams, agendas, and problems. Yield them all to him, asking him to fill you with his Spirit and use you for his glory. Ask God to make his presence real to you, to fill you with his peace and joy. And they will be yours.

God wants you to know him more than you want to know him. You must now decide—do you want to know God intimately and personally? Do you want awakening to come to your heart and life? There is an Oriental saying: “No man can carry two melons in his hand.” There is room for only one on the throne of your heart and life.

Thomas Kelly, the Quaker educator and author: “Over the margins of life comes a whisper, a faint call, a premonition of richer living which we know we are passing by. Strained by the very mad pace of our daily outer burdens, we are further strained by an inward uneasiness, because we have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence, a life of unhurried serenity and peace and power.”

Is it yours? Will it be yours?

Will you turn from your wicked ways?

If we would experience true spiritual awakening, we must humble ourselves and admit that we need God’s power and purpose. We must pray for the nation and seek God’s face personally. Then we must align our lives with his call.

The last phrase of our key text makes the point clearly: God’s people must “turn from their wicked ways.” “Ways” translates a Hebrew word for road, path, journey, mode of action, course of life. It pictures the normal ways we live, places we travel, our lifestyles. “Wicked” translates a Hebrew word for superlative evil, that which is exceedingly wrong.

Does America need to repent of her “wicked ways”?

My parents remembered a time when moral standards were unambiguous and social expectations were clear. But that day is no more. Forty two percent of those who use the Internet view pornography on it. Ninety percent of our children, ages 8-16, have viewed pornography on the Internet, most while doing their homework. Sixty five percent of Americans see nothing wrong with premarital sex. Drunk drivers kill someone every 30 minutes in this country.

Why has the moral climate of America changed so much in recent decades? Here’s the academic answer, in brief. The Reformation shook the foundations of medieval Catholic authority. In response, a mathematician named Rene Descartes (1596-1650), in a desire to argue for objective truth and his Catholic tradition, developed a theory that truth comes through the unaided use of the mind. Philosophers in England countered that truth is known through the senses. A German thinker named Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) combined the two views, arguing that knowledge is produced when our minds interpret our sense data. However, Kant asserted, we cannot know the “thing in itself,” only our experience of it. Knowledge is personal and subjective.

Two centuries later, this approach to truth has become the dominant academic view in our country. Ethics are personal and subjective. You have no right to force “your truth” on anyone else. So long as we are sincere in our beliefs and tolerant of others, we’ll get along. The result is a culture which has lost its moral foundations.

Few Christians would claim that America’s moral climate is pleasing to God. But note that his word focuses on “my people, called by my name.” We are the first who must “turn from their wicked ways. Not Radical Muslim terrorists, or serial killers, or drug dealers. God is pointing to the things you and I do each and every day, the ways we live. God says that our ways are “wicked,” evil in the extreme.

Do you think of your sins as “wicked”? You probably haven’t committed adultery or murder this week. I doubt that you mean to harm other people. Neither do I. But the white lies, the sinful thoughts, the little things we know we shouldn’t do—all of them are called “wicked” by God. If we humble ourselves, pray, and seek his face, we will see ourselves in the light of his holiness. Then we will see our sins the way he sees them.

That’s what happened to Isaiah when he saw the Lord high and lifted up—he cried out, “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (Isaiah 6:5). That’s what happened to Peter when he saw the miraculous power of Jesus—he said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8). That’s what happened to John on Patmos when he saw the glorified Jesus—he fell at his feet as though dead (Revelation 1:17).

When we see our sins as God sees them, the way to get off of the wrong road is to stop now. The further we go, the further we’ll have to go back. Decide you want to go the right way, “turn from your wicked ways,” and go there.

How? Begin with a “spiritual inventory.” Make some time to be alone with God. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you anything in your life which displeases the Father. Write down what comes to your mind, specifically and honestly. Confess your sins individually, with repentance and contrition. Claim God’s promise to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).

Do this regularly. Know that God is ready to forgive every sin you’ll confess, but that he can heal your land only if he first heals his own people. America’s repentance begins with yours.

Gypsy Smith, a great evangelist of an earlier generation, was asked how revival begins. His response: “Take a piece of chalk, and draw a circle around yourself. Get on your knees and pray until everything in that circle is right with God, and revival will be upon us.” Will you take his advice today?

Will you pray for Awakening?

God calls his people to humble ourselves, admitting that we need a great movement of the Holy Spirit; to pray for our nation to turn to God; to seek his face with personal intimacy; and to turn from our sins and failures. If we do, his promise is clear: “then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

God has honored his promise every time his people have fulfilled its conditions.

The First Great Awakening began in 1734. The crisis in the colonies was severe. Moral conditions were dire. Not one in 20 people claimed to be a Christian. Samuel Blair, a pastor of the day, said that religion lay as it were dying and ready to expire its last breath of life.

But Theodore Frelinghuysen, a Dutch Reformed minister who had come to the colonies from Holland in 1720, would not give up on his adopted homeland. He began praying fervently for revival to come to the colonies, first with himself and his church, and then with his larger community. Others began joining his fledgling prayer movement. The Spirit began to move.

Then Jonathan Edwards, an intellectual recluse who studied 12 hours a day and read his sermons, face buried in the manuscript, experienced the anointing and power of God. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God shook his church and then the young nation. The preaching of George Whitefield gathered and galvanized thousands. The First Great Awakening was the result. As much as 80% of the colonial population became identified with a Christian church. It started with a group who prayed for the power of God to extend the Kingdom of God in their Jerusalem and around the world.

The Second Great Awakening began in 1792. After the War for Independence, social conditions grew even more deplorable than before. Drunkenness became epidemic; out of a population of five million, 300,000 were confirmed alcoholics; 15,000 died of the disease each year. Women were afraid to go out at night for fear of assault. Bank robberies were a daily occurrence.

John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States, wrote to James Madison, Bishop of Virginia, that the Church “was too far gone ever to be redeemed.” A poll taken at Harvard University found not a single believer. Two were found at Princeton. Tom Paine claimed that “Christianity will be forgotten in 30 years.”

But he was mistaken. In 1784, a Baptist pastor named Isaac Baccus gathered a number of ministers. They wrote a circular letter, asking believers to pray for awakening. Prayer groups spread all over New England. In 1792, revival broke out on college campuses, where hundreds were converted. “Camp meetings” spread across the frontier; eventually more than a thousand were meeting annually. Churches doubled and tripled in membership. One Baptist church in Kentucky with a membership of 170 baptized 421 during a single revival meeting.

In that year, William Carey began the modern missions movement. The American Bible Society, American Tract Society, and a variety of missions organizations began as a result of this Awakening. All because a group prayed for the power of God to extend the Kingdom of God in their Jerusalem and around the world.

The Third Great Awakening is dated to 1858. The Gold Rush of 1848 had led to a booming economy which crashed in 1857. If it were not for the Great Depression of the 1930s, the collapse of 1857 would have that title. Fear of civil war was increasing. Turmoil was everywhere.

In the midst of such fear and anxiety, a group of laymen began meeting for prayer on Wednesday, September 23, 1857 at the Old North Dutch Church in New York City. They were led by a Presbyterian businessman named Jeremiah Lamphier. The first day, six people came to his prayer meeting. The next week there were 14; then 23; then the group began to meet daily. They outgrew the church and began filling other churches and meeting halls throughout the city. Such meetings spread across the country.

The result was one of the most significant movements in Christian history. More than a million were saved in one year, out of a national population of only 30 million. 50,000 were coming to Christ every week. The revival continued into the Civil War, where more than 100,000 soldiers were converted. Sailors took the revival to other countries. Thousands of young people volunteered for mission service. It all happened because a group prayed for the power of God to extend the Kingdom of God in their Jerusalem and around the world.

The Fourth Great Awakening began in Wales in 1904 in the heart of a coal miner named Evan Roberts. He was convicted of his sins by the Spirit, and turned to God in prayer and repentance. He then began preaching to the young people in his church, calling them to prayer and repentance.

Prayer meetings broke out all over Wales. Social conditions were affected dramatically. Tavern owners went bankrupt; police formed gospel quartets because they had no one to arrest. Coal mines shut down for a time because the miners stopped using profanity and the mules no longer understood them.

The revival spread to America, where ministers in Atlantic City, NJ reported that out of 50,000 people, only 50 adults were left unconverted. In Portland, Oregon, more than 200 stores closed daily from 11 to 2 so people could attend prayer meetings. In 1896, only 2,000 students were engaged in missionary studies; by 1906, 11,000 were enrolled. All because a group prayed for the power of God to extend the Kingdom of God in their Jerusalem and around the world.

Now there is a Fifth Great Awakening on the move around the world. Will it come to America? No question is more urgent for our nation in these critical days.

Two centuries ago, Alex de Tocqueville traveled across America for his French government, searching for the secrets of our nation’s successes. Here is his report:

I searched for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there. I searched for the greatness and genius of America in her fertile fields and boundless forest, and it was not there. I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her public system and her institutions of learning, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

Will you join me in praying fervently for a Fifth Great Awakening in America today?

The First Statue of Liberty

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The First Statue of Liberty

Matthew 28:18-20

Dr. Jim Denison

Once upon a time there was a stonecutter. He lived all alone. Though he had great skills, he was very poor. He lived in a tiny bamboo hut and wore tattered clothing.

One day as the stonecutter worked with his hammer and chisel upon a huge stone, he heard the king’s procession approaching his humble village. Joining the crowd, he stood in awe at the marvelous silk robes and regal splendor of the king. “Oh, how I wish I had the power and glory of the king,” he thought. “He has soldiers at his command. No one is more powerful.”

His cry was heard, and immediately the humble stonecutter was transformed into a powerful king, riding a great horse, waving at the crowds who flocked to see him. “This is power,” he thought.

As summer came, however, the king watched the power of the sun on his people. Men, animals, and plants withered under its powerful rays. “How I wish I were as powerful as that,” he thought. “I wish I were the sun.” And immediately his wish was granted.

The stonecutter relished his new role as the sun, and gloried in his power over the earth below. Then one day a tiny cloud moved over the land, shielding the earth from his bright rays. Seeing that here was something more powerful than himself, he thought, “I want very much to be a cloud.”

Again his wish was granted. Now he blocked the sun’s rays and felt important. He poured rain on the earth, flooding the streets and farmlands below. Everything was under his power, except the rocks. Again he had found something more powerful than he.

“There is nothing as powerful as a rock,” he thought. “How I wish I were a huge stone.” His wish was granted.

As a stone he remained motionless and powerful, unmoved by sun or wind or rain. He felt exempt from all the forces that shaped the existence of those around him.

Then one day a man approached, carrying a bag. When he stopped, he pulled out a chisel and hammer and began to chip away at the rock. Realizing that the man with the tools was more powerful than any rock, he cried out, “Oh, I want to be a stonecutter.”

Once again his cry was heard, and he became a stonecutter. Once again he lived in a bamboo hut and made his living with hammer and chisel. And he was at peace, for he had found his life’s purpose at last.

We must each find our reason for being. Abraham Maslow said it well: “An artist must paint, a poet must write, a musician must make music if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.” What were you made to be? What is your purpose, your vision for your life? And how does that vision relate to the country whose birth we celebrate today?

Why are you here?

Where do we go for the answers we seek today? A counselor? A trusted family member or friend? How about the only person in all of human history who said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18)?

“Authority” here means power, control, sovereign lordship. “Heaven and earth” of course includes everything that exists.

He proved this authority by ordering the winds and the waves, healing the sick and raising the dead, then defeating death himself. The only person ever to do so.

So he has “all” authority. Over the way we do our businesses and work, our politics and government, our society and culture, and our personal lives. He alone has the right to tell us why we’re here, what we’re made to do. Because he made us.

What does he say?

“Therefore,” as a result of his authority, “go and make disciples of all nations.” A disciple is a “fully devoted follower.” We are to make fully devoted followers of Jesus.

In all nations—the word means all people groups, every person we know. We start by “going”—the Greek says, “as you go.” Wherever you go, with those you already know today, the people you will meet this week. As you go, help people follow Jesus. That’s why you’re here, he says.

To whom is this addressed? Simply put, this vision statement applies to every Christian. Jesus’ “Great Commission” was addressed to every believer, not just the apostles, the so-called “clergy.” He addressed this to carpenters, farmers, fishermen, pottery makers, tax collectors, soldiers, every conceivable career.

Your vocation—your calling—is to help people follow Jesus. Your career is how you do it. You help people follow Jesus by being a lawyer, or a hotel operator, or a banker, or a teacher, or a coach. Your career is a means to the end of your vocation.

If God could give us a one-question test today, “What is your life’s purpose?” the only right answer is this: to help people follow Jesus. That’s your life vision, according to your Creator and Lord.

How do we do this? Some people we need to evangelize—”baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (v. 19). We pray for the lost people we know, invite them to church or other spiritual activities, tell them what Jesus has done for us. We show them God’s love in ours.

The high school students I met when I started going to church evangelized me by their care, their love for me, and their joy in Jesus. I wanted what they had. Then my Sunday school teacher simply explained John 3:16 to me. We help some people to know Jesus.

Others we equip to follow Jesus—”teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (v. 20). We help Christians to follow Jesus more personally, more closely, more passionately.

And we do all of this out of that personal devotion to Jesus which empowers all we do—”And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (v. 20b). We do this in his power and ability.

I read every day from a devotional guide which tells stories about each date in Christian history. This past Monday I really needed the story I found. Mondays are hard for me. I was tired, emotionally and physically. Then I read about Hudson Taylor, one of the pioneer missionaries to China. Everything was hard for him—he got sick, conflicted with other missionaries, and grew more and more depressed. Then one day he received a letter from his friend John McCarthy, who told him to try “abiding, not striving nor struggling.” Christ himself is “the only power for service; the only ground for unchanging joy,” McCarthy wrote.

Hudson said, “As I read, I saw it all. I looked to Jesus; and when I saw, oh, how the joy flowed. As to work, mine was never so plentiful or so difficult; but the weight and strain are gone.” The writer says, “New voltage surged through his life and ministry as though he were connected to a heavenly power plant. By the time Hudson Taylor died, CIM had 800 missionaries in China” (Robert J. Morgan, On This Day, June 27).

This is why we must first know Jesus before we can make him known. We must walk with him daily, seeking him in prayer and scripture, worshiping him, loving him. Then we can help others love him. I exist to follow Jesus and help you follow Jesus. So do you.

Why in America?

Now, why talk about all this on July 4? For one thing, last week our church conference adopted a vision statement for our congregation which says that we exist to help people follow Jesus. We will now evaluate every program, every worship service, every ministry by the degree to which it helps people follow Jesus. This is important.

But the other reason is simply this: helping people follow Jesus is the most patriotic thing you can do for America. You may think that America is a Christian nation today, that most of us are following Jesus, and so our church’s vision statement isn’t essential to our personal lives and witness here. You’d be wrong.

I love America. When I travel overseas, I am always thrilled to be back. My grandfather fought in World War I, and my father fought in World War II. I read Tom Brokaw’s book, The Greatest Generation, and agree that the World War II generation saved this country. I will forever be grateful to God for America.

Because I am grateful for America, I want to serve her greatest needs. And my friends, her greatest needs are spiritual. They always have been.

At the time of the American Revolution, only five to ten percent of the population was even affiliated with a church, and many of these were only nominal members.

Even today only 36% of Americans say they have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. There are some 251 million Americans; 173 million of them are spiritually lost. 100,000 of those live within three miles of this sanctuary.

You heard me cite the statistics last week: 91% of Americans say they lie regularly; 53% would cheat on their spouse if they weren’t afraid of getting caught; 74% would steal from someone who wouldn’t miss it. By the age of eighteen, the average American child will have seen 200,000 violent acts on television, including 40,000 murders.

Would God say that we are a “Christian” nation?

Alex de Tocqueville traveled across America for his French government early in the nineteenth century, searching for the secrets of our nation’s successes. He wrote: “I searched for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there. I searched for the greatness and genius of America in her fertile fields and boundless forest, and it was not there. I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her public system and her institutions of learning, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

Does America need us to help her people follow Jesus?

Conclusion

Would you agree with Jesus this morning? Would you make this your personal reason for being: helping people follow Jesus? Would you make your career, your relationships, your work this week a means to that end? Would you help America follow Jesus by starting with the Americans you know?

Last summer I saw the Statue of Liberty up close for the first time. It was a breathtaking experience for me. I’d long seen pictures, and had even seen it from an airplane. But I took a day, rode the ferry over, and walked around the Statue herself. I highly recommend the experience.

You know her history. On July 4, 1886, the people of France presented her to our country as “Liberty Enlightening the World.” The statue represents a proud woman, dressed in a loose robe which cascades in graceful folds to the top of the pedestal on which she stands. In her right hand she holds a great torch raised high in the air. In her left arm she grasps a tablet bearing the date of the Declaration of Independence. A crown with huge spikes like sun rays rests on her head. At her feet lies a shackle representing the overthrow of tyranny. This great statue, the world’s modern symbol of freedom, has withstood the storms of world wars and the tests of time. She stands today, celebrating her continuing offer of freedom to all who come to her shores.

There is another statue of liberty. It was made of wood. It was not erected in friendship, but in anger and hatred. It is the cross. And on that cross was nailed our Savior, Jesus Christ. His crown was made of thorns. His robe was gambled for by the Roman soldiers. He died on that cross, but it did not end there. The cross was only the beginning, for Christ rose from that death to triumph over all death and sin.

The cross, too, has withstood the storms of time and today remains a symbol of freedom, pointing the way to heaven. As the nails were driven through Jesus’ feet, the shackles of sin were broken. Now Jesus stands with arms outstretched, still lighting the way for millions to freedom. Each Sunday is “Independence Day” as we celebrate our freedom from sin and hope of eternal joy.

All of America knows the Lady of Liberty. Do they know the Man of Liberty? The Lady was a great gift to our country. The Man is even greater. And we can give him to our friends, our community, our country.

This is the highest purpose in life. Is it yours?

The Formula for Eternal Significance

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Topical Scripture: Luke 19:1–10

It’s been a confusing week in the news.

Prince Harry and Meghan have been negotiating with the Queen of England to resolve their status as members of the royal family but not. They will give up their royal titles and duties and repay the funds used to refurbish their UK home, but they can maintain their private patronages and associations.

President Trump signed an historic trade agreement with China on Wednesday, then the Senate ratified his revised North American trade agreement on Thursday; in between the two events, the House delivered formal impeachment articles against him.

The manager and general manager of the Houston Astros have been penalized for their role in the sign-stealing scandal, but the team retained its World Series title. The manager of the Boston Red Sox was fired for his role in the same scandal, but his team retained its World Series title. Now the Los Angeles City Council will vote on a resolution urging baseball to award both championships to the Dodgers, who lost to the two teams.

We live in a confusing, performance-driven culture based on grades. Jesus offers us a simplified, purpose-driven life based on grace.

This season, as we walk from Christmas to Easter, we’re focusing on the uniqueness of Jesus. Last week we discussed the uniqueness of his power. If he could heal a leper with just a touch and a centurion’s servant with just a word, his power is greater than our needs, whatever they might be.

Today we’ll focus on the uniqueness of his grace. Despite what the world thinks of us, despite what we have won and what we have lost, Jesus focuses not on what we have done or what we have but on what he can do with us. No matter your past burdens or your present problems, God has a future in mind for you that is greater than your greatest dream.

We’ll meet a man whose story proves that fact, then we’ll decide whether to make his story our own.

“He was a chief tax collector”

Our text begins: “[Jesus] entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus” (Luke 19:1–2a). His name means “pure one,” which was tragically ironic until Jesus made it true.

What did our Lord see in this man?

It was certainly not what he had done: “He was a chief tax collector” (v. 2b). In Jesus’ day, tax collectors were the most hated people in any town, for two reasons.

First, they were traitors. They were Jews collecting money for the hated Romans. If you’re a Jew living in Poland when the Nazis capture your town and the next week your neighbor comes knocking, collecting taxes for the new government, you’d be no more outraged than the people of Jericho were with Zacchaeus.

Second, they were corrupt. Rome charged a certain amount per person in taxes, then allowed the tax collectors to take anything above that they wanted for themselves. Zacchaeus could stop you on the road and charge you tax for the road. He could tax you for your cart and each wheel on it, for the animal drawing the cart, and for the bags it carried. And Roman soldiers stood guard to protect him and enforce his greed.

As a result, people like Zacchaeus were the social lepers of their day. They were grouped with murderers and robbers in the mind of the public. They were barred from the Jewish synagogue. A Roman writer says with amazement that he once saw a monument to an honest tax collector.

Yet, Jesus chose him.

It was not for what he had, either. Luke tells us that Zacchaeus “was rich” (v. 2c). He had grown wealthy through his corruption. In fact, some scholars believe that he was likely the wealthiest man in his city of one hundred thousand people. Given its size and location, this was one of the greatest taxation centers in the entire region of the Empire.

This is how we know he was abusing the system. If he had merely collected what Rome asked, he would have been provided for, but he would not have become rich. His extreme wealth shows the level of his corruption at the sacrifice of his fellow Jews.

Later on, Zacchaeus gives half of his belongings to the poor and has enough left over to repay the people of Jericho four times what he had taken from them. He was extraordinarily rich.

But Jesus didn’t choose him for his wealth.

“I must stay at your house today”

Our Lord focused not on what Zacchaeus had done or what he had, but on what he could be.

The story continues: “And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature” (v. 3). He was so hated by the people that they would not let him through. And he was so short that he could not see over them.

So “he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way” (v. 4). This is a wide-open tree with a short trunk and low branches. It is easily climbed. It would become associated with Zacchaeus from his day to ours.

What came next must have shocked Zacchaeus as much as it did the rest of the crowd: “When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today'” (v. 5).

Note three facts.

First, Jesus “looked up.” In such a crowd, others would have been looking down and around, but Jesus “looked up.” He is the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine sheep to go out looking for the one.

Is he looking up at you today?

Second, he called Zacchaeus by name. We have no evidence that the two had ever met. But just as God called Moses by name at the burning bush, and Samuel by name as a boy, and Saul by name on the road to Damascus, he calls this notorious sinner by name.

Did you know that he knows your name?

Third, he invites himself to Zacchaeus’ home. In fact, he says, he “must” stay at his house that day. He did not wait for Zacchaeus to come to him—he came to this man. To this notorious, hated man, Public Enemy #1 in his city. Imagine the most ungodly, hated, despised person in your town, then imagine Jesus inviting himself over.

Does he want to go to your home today?

“Today salvation has come to this house”

Zacchaeus did not wait: “He hurried and came down and received him joyfully” (v. 6). Unsurprisingly, when the crowd saw this, “they all grumbled, ‘He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner'” (v. 7).

Now watch what happens: “Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor” (v. 8a). He calls Jesus his “Lord,” his Master. Then he proves his witness by his works, giving half of what he has to the poor in his city. This is present tense, indicating an action he is performing right now, perhaps through his servants.

Even more astoundingly, he adds, “And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold” (v. 8b). Jewish law required that a man caught stealing return what he stole four- or five-fold (Exodus 22:1). But, if the thief admitted his crime voluntarily, he was required only to return what he had stolen plus one-fifth (Leviticus 6:5; Numbers 5:7).

Zacchaeus gave back far more than he was required to give. But he has experienced the uniqueness of Jesus’ grace, and he must give grace to others in response.

Jesus responded: “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (vv. 9–10). Now he calls us to give the world what he has given to us.

Conclusion

Jesus is looking at you now and calling your name. He wants to come home with you and make your home his own.

If he could forgive Zacchaeus, he can forgive you. If he could use Zacchaeus, he can use you. What the crowd says about you doesn’t matter. What the Christ says about you is the truth.

Our problem is that we measure ourselves by what we think we can do for Jesus. And we all know our failures, our faults, our frailties. We all know how little we can actually do for the God of the universe.

The question is not, what can you do for Jesus? The question is, what can Jesus do with you?

Is Jesus in charge of every dimension of your life? Is he in charge of the money you keep as well as the money you spend and donate? Is he in charge of your time in private as well as public? Is he in charge of your marriage and family, every moment of the day? Is he in charge of your weaknesses as well as your strengths?

He can do so much more with us than we can do for him. To limit to our finite capacities the One who stilled the storm, healed the leper, and raised the dead, is the sin of self-reliance. To be used by the Son of God to change our Jericho is the result of self-surrender.

Whatever it takes, whatever he asks, whatever the cost—that’s the formula for eternal significance.

Tony Evans is right: “God will meet you where you are in order to take you where he wants you to go.”

Is Jesus calling your name today?

The Fourth King

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The Fourth King

Matthew 2.2

Dr. Jim Denison

What do you give a King who has everything?

The nation of Brunei sits on the northwest coast of the island of Indonesia in Southeast Asia. It occupies just over 2,200 square miles, about the size of Delaware, or the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex. 358,098 people live there, including one of the richest men in the world, the Sultan of Brunei. He inherited $40 billion from his father, and his lifestyle shows it.

His palace boasts 1,788 rooms, the world’s largest palace still in use, with 388 more rooms than the Vatican. His royal banquet hall can seat 4,000 guests. He owns 400 cars, a sports complex and a polo field. His many horses are stabled in air-conditioned quarters, of course.

The nation is allowed into his palace on his birthday, July 15. In 1979, I happened to be a summer missionary on the island of Borneo and the country of Brunei on his birthday. And so I saw his palace. I’ve never seen anything like it. Gold-plated door knobs and hinges, diamond chandeliers made of real diamonds. He has everything his country can offer, except the affection of his people. That they must choose to give. And most do not.

How the wise men became wise

“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him'” (Mt 2.1-2).

Here is what we know, and don’t know, about them.

We know that these “magi” were priests in Persia, modern-day Iraq. They specialized in magic, astrology, and the interpretation of dreams. We typically translate “magi” as “wise men.”

We don’t know their number. They usually traveled in groups of twelve. Tradition identifies them as three, but that’s only because they brought three gifts.

We don’t know their names, though by the 6th century they were given the names Balthasar, Caspar, and Melchior.

We don’t know that they were kings, though the medieval church erroneously identified them as the kings of Arabia, India, and Persia.

We don’t know where they died, though their bones were supposedly discovered in the fourth century and moved in 1162 to Cologne, Germany where they reside today.

But we know that they were wise men. They were wise enough to know that the King of Kings had been born, and they must find him and make him their King. They must give him the one thing he doesn’t yet have—their hearts. How can we be that wise?

How we become wise

Go to the Child by faith, personally.

They came personally. They didn’t send representatives or ambassadors or emissaries. They had to come to crown this King themselves.

It’s not enough that your parents have come to him—you must go yourself. No one can get married for you, or go to the doctor for you, or go to Christ for you. You alone must crown him your King. Ask his forgiveness for the mistakes of your past, and surrender your present and future to his will. Put him on the throne of your heart and life.

Worship him with your heart.

They traveled more than 500 miles across two years, risking their fortunes and their lives, so they could “come to worship him.”

Worship him each day in your heart, and each week with your faith family.

Give him your best.

They gave him gold, the gift to a king; frankincense, the gift to a priest; and myrrh, the gift to a sacrifice.

Make him your king, your priest, and your Savior by giving him your best. Not just your worship attendance on the eve of his birth, but your service and commitment each day of each year.

This is how you crown the fourth King your King. And it is how you can become wise this year.

Conclusion

Take a Christmas trip with me. Climb down a dozen steps into the cavern below. Watch your step—the stone is narrow, worn with the centuries. The walls are clammy and covered with moss. The smell is pungent and a bit rancid.

At the bottom of the steps, turn to your left. You’re in a cave now. Maybe ten feet from side to side, perhaps twenty to its back. At its center, it’s tall enough for us to stand. But it slopes quickly to the rounded walls, so watch your head. The dank, musty smell is even sharper here. The only light comes from electric bulbs strung overhead.

Imagine it by the light of a flickering fire. Smell the burning wood; feel the sting of the smoke in your eyes. Cough if you must. Hear the snorts of the animals. Sense the field hands crowded next to you; see the dirt caking their hands, the sweat running from their streaked faces onto their stained, rough burlap shirts.

Turn to what they’re watching. It’s a baby—a newborn, helpless infant. Cradled by a very young adolescent girl, her eyes dark circles, her face still marked with the pain of her delivery. Half sheltering, half protecting her is a rough peasant, more than twice her age, his gnarled hands testimony to his life’s labor.

See in their eyes something glimmering, some spark inexplicable in the gloom of their circumstances. Turn to the rough field hands attending his birth in wonder. Listen to the angels in their songs of triumphant worship. What have they given to him? The same gift which is in your hands and heart this moment.

Bulgaria was allied with Nazi Germany during World War II, but not a single Bulgarian Jew died in a concentration camp, largely because of the stand that Bulgarian Christians took against the persecution of Jews by the SS. Here is one example.

One day the Nazis rounded up hundreds of Jews and imprisoned them behind barbed-wire enclosures at the train station in Sophia. Soon the train would arrive, and they would be sardined into boxcars and shipped to Auschwitz and almost certain death.

As the panicked Jews waited, many sobbing hysterically, a strange image appeared out of the mist-filled night. It was Metropolitan Kyril, head of the Orthodox church in Bulgaria. He was already tall, but the miter on his head made him look like a giant. His flowing white beard hung over his black robe. He walked so quickly that others had to hustle to keep up with him.

He stormed to the entrance of the barbed-wire enclosure. The SS guards raised their machine guns and shouted, “Father, you cannot go in there!” Metropolitan Kyril defiantly laughed at them, brushed aside their guns, and marched into the midst of the Jewish prisoners. They gathered around him, wondering what a Christian leader would say in such a desperate hour. With arms upraised, Metropolitan Kyril recited a single verse from the book of Ruth: “Whithersoever you go, I will go! Your people will be my people! Your God will be my God!”

With these words, the frightened Jews were transformed into an emboldened mob. They cheered their Christian friend. Christians outside the barbed-wire enclosure cheered them, and they became one. Responding to the noise at the train station, the townspeople came out of their houses and joined the crowd.

The SS troops decided that discretion was the better part of valor. When the train arrived, they boarded it without their prisoners and left town.

At Christmas, the King himself invaded our barbed-wire prison, and won’t leave until we go with him. He has everything but your heart, tonight. What will you give such a King as this?

The Game of Life

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The Game of Life

Exodus 20:1-3

Dr. Jim Denison

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is the most popular show on television these days, with 33.6 million viewers most recently. And not long ago, an IRS agent named John Carpenter actually won the million dollars. I’ll bet he paid his taxes.

It looks like a simple game, but I discovered personally that if you don’t play by the rules you cannot win.

Did you call that number they advertised a few months ago to see if you could qualify to play? I actually did one night, just out of curiosity. I knew the question the recording asked. But I got flustered and didn’t push the buttons on the phone in the right order, the way they said to. I broke the rules. And so, sadly, I couldn’t play.

In the same way, the Ten Commandments are the “rules of the game.” These ten principles tell us how life works, and how to live if we want to live well.

In weeks to come we’ll learn how to handle our ambitions, religion, stress, parents, enemies, sex, possessions, lies, and lusts. These are God’s rules for every game we play.

Unfortunately, most people don’t know the rules, at least not very well. Newsweek magazine recently reported that only 49% of all Protestants, and 44% of all Catholics, could name even four of the Ten Commandments. Can you? Are you living by them, and thus living well?

The setting

Go back with me some thirty-four centuries into the past, and stand with ancient Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai.

We are on a sandy plateau some four thousand feet above the Mediterranean Sea. This is a plain roughly two miles long and half a mile wide, with enough room for two million people to stand together.

Towering overhead 2,200 feet is a huge granite mountain peak, altar-shaped and awesome. This is the mountain of God’s law, the throne from which the King of Kings proclaimed his Ten Commandments.

These words were inscribed by the finger of God on two tablets, written on both sides. If these tablets were twenty-seven inches long by eighteen inches wide, the 172 Hebrew words of these Ten Commandments could easily have been inscribed on them.

Moses shattered them in rage when he descended from the mountain and confronted the idolatry of the people. God made them again. Moses eventually laid them in the Ark of the Covenant, the sacred box carried before the people for centuries and eventually stored in Solomon’s Temple. When the Babylonians destroyed this temple in 598 BC they likely took the Ark, and it is now lost to us.

But the words it contained are not. Imagine it: an obscure tribe of Egyptian slaves plunges into the desert to hide from pursuit, and emerges with a code of ten “words” which is still authoritative today, 34 centuries later. A depiction of Moses and these Ten Commandments adorns the courtroom where the Justices of the Supreme Court meet, deliberate, and lead our nation’s legal system. These ten principles are still the foundation stones of moral and legal systems the world over.

Today we examine their first, and foundational command.

What does God say?

Western Union decided in 1876, “The ‘telephone’ is inherently of no value to us.” Lord Kelvin, president of the Royal Society, said in 1895, “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” Charles H. Duell, Commissioner of the U.S. Office of Patents in 1899, said, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” Irving Fisher, professor of economics at Yale University, said in 1929, “Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” And Decca Recording Company said in 1962, “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” The group they rejected was the Beatles.

By contrast, our text begins, “And God spoke all these words.” Fortunately, this command is not based on our predictions, our rules, our laws, to be changed by the whim of our legislators.

God said this.

He is the “LORD,” the Hebrew word YHWH. This is the holiest name of God, meaning the One who was, is, and ever shall be.

He is “God,” the Hebrew word “Elohim,” the typical name for God.

He is “your” God—this God is personal. No Buddhist would say “Your Buddha;” no Muslim would say “Your Allah;” no Greek would say “Your Zeus.” But YHWH calls himself “your God.” We can know him personally, as you would know “your wife” or “your husband” or “your son” or “your daughter” or “your friend.”

He is the holy YHWH, who is yet our personal God.

What does he want of us? “You shall have no other gods before me.”

Remember that the Hebrews have just come from Egypt, where the people worshiped Ra, Phthah, Osiris, Isis, Horus, the animals, and the pharoahs.

They were going into polytheistic Canaan, the land of Baal, Ashtoreth, Asherah, Molech, and Dagon.

Their own ancestors had made the Tower of Babel, to make themselves God. Joshua had warned them, “Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshiped other gods” (Joshua 24:3).

This would be their tendency as well. In fact, they would make and worship the golden calf even as YHWH was giving this command to Moses on the mountain above.

So, God says, “Have no other gods before me.” “Before me” means “against my face,” and requires absolute and unconditional allegiance to God and worship of him alone.

What a shocking surprise! Before this, everyone knew that the universe was wild and chaotic, a jungle of warring powers: wind against water, sun against moon, life against death. There was a god of the spring planting and another god of the harvest, a spirit who put fish into fishermen’s nets and a being who specialized in caring for women in childbirth; and at best there was an uneasy truce among all these, at worst a battle.

Now along comes this Moses, from an insignificant band of desert wanderers, and shouts that all these processes are one process from a single source, that the obvious many are the unthinkable One. And he shouted it so loud that it has echoed down all time. This was the greatest discovery ever made (from Joy Davidman, Smoke on the Mountain, 21).

Are you keeping his command?

How are you doing with this, his command to have no God but God?

Our country is not doing so well with these ten commands. Only 13% of us say we believe in all ten of the Commandments. 69% of us say that there is no moral absolute today—we’re our own moral determiners. We’re in charge, not God. Or so we think.

Who’s in charge of your life? Who comes first?

Paul Tillich, the German theologian, says that everybody has an “ultimate concern.” We all have something or someone who matters most to us. How do you know what yours is? Ask yourself three questions:

Where and how do you spend your time? That’s the real currency of our day. The average Christian spends ten minutes a day in prayer and Bible study. If I told you I loved Janet and my boys, that they come first in my life, but only spent ten minutes a day with them, would you believe me? Does your time serve God?

Who are you trying to impress? If you had to choose between pleasing God and impressing your friends, or your girlfriend or boyfriend, or your boss, or your employees, who would you choose? Is it your ambition to please God?

For what would you sacrifice? When was the last time it cost you something significant to follow Jesus? Today, I hope.

How’s your soul with the first commandment this morning?

Why should God be your Lord and boss?

He’s YHWH, the creator of everything that is. Maybe you think life began as a cell in a pool of water—where did the cell and water come from? If the universe began as a Big Bang, where did the Big Bang come from?

He’s our redeemer, the one who brought us out of “Egypt,” out of bondage to our sins and eternal death in hell.

He’s our personal God, “your God.”

He is the only God there is: “I am the Lord, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:6); “There is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me” (Isaiah 45:21).

He demands our worship: “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols” (Isaiah 42:8). Jesus said to Satan, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only'” (Matthew 4:10).

How can you make him your Lord and boss?

Ask for his help. Each of the Ten Commandments addresses a problem God knows we have. So here, God knows we have trouble making him our only God, our boss. Adam and Eve first sinned by trying to be as gods, and we’ve done the same thing ever since, from Nero to Hitler. Ask God to help you.

Examine your life. For what would you die? For what are you sacrificing today? What or who matters most? If the answer is anyone but the Lord God, obey Joshua 24:23: “Throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.”

Make time every day, early, to worship him: “It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him” (Deuteronomy 13:4). Decide each day to live that day to please God.

Start today, before you leave this place of worship. This is the only day you have.

Conclusion

People who don’t use seat belts spend 54% more time in the hospital each year than people who wear them. Are you wearing God’s seat belts for your soul? Put yours on, while you still can.

Ephesus was the largest, richest, and most influential city in all of first-century Asia. Their Temple of Diana was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. 425 feet long by 225 feet wide, she possessed 127 columns, each 60 feet high; 36 of these columns were covered with gold, jewels, and carvings. A spectacular sight, to be sure.

But according to Revelation 2, the Christians here lost their “first love.” They stopped loving Jesus as their highest priority, their first commitment. Jesus warned them that if they did not return to him, essentially to observing the First Commandment again, he would remove their church and their city would cease to be.

What happened? Ephesus is today a city of abandoned ruins. And the Temple of Diana lies in rubble, a stark sermon in stone to any who violate the First Commandment. We don’t break God’s rules for life, we break ourselves on them.

How is your soul with God today?

The Gift Only You Can Give

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The Gift Only You Can Give

Matthew 2:1-12

Dr. Jim Denison

In 1858 a scientific expedition passed through what we today call the Grand Canyon. A young lieutenant wrote in his report: “This region is altogether valueless. It can be approached only from the South, and after entering it there is nothing to do but leave. It shall be forever unvisited and undisturbed.”

In 1863, when Abraham Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address, a newspaper editor in Harrisburg wrote, “We pass over the silly remarks of the President. For the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they shall no more be repeated or thought of.”

Two thousand years ago a baby was born in a tiny town called Bethlehem. The next morning, anyone in the community would have agreed, “Nothing significant happened last night.” And yet the hinge of history is on the door of that Bethlehem stable. That one event changed the world forever. God became one of us, that we might become one with him.

So far in the Advent season we have found hope in the promise of heaven; peace in the fact that the Christ who changed Matthew can change us; joy in the knowledge that we are all welcome at the party; and love in obeying his perfect will as Joseph did.

We’ve shared Christmas with Matthew. Now let’s watch him end Christmas, and make the story our own. Yesterday we opened our Christmas presents. Now let’s give the Christ of Christmas his, today and until the first Christmas leads to the second. What does God want for Christmas this year? Why will the question matter to your soul all year long?

How did they find him?

Matthew alone tells us about the “Magi,” the Greek word for “wise men.” Let’s separate biblical facts from 20 centuries of tradition.

We typically put three wise men in our manger scenes, since they brought three kinds of gifts. But they usually traveled in groups of twelve or more for safety.

We have named them Melchior, an elderly man with a long, flowing beard; Casper, a young, clean-shaven man; and Balthasar, with a newly-grown, stubbly beard. But their names are found nowhere in Scripture.

Pilgrims claimed to have discovered their bones and relics in the fourth century. In 1162 they were supposedly moved to Cologne, Germany, where they are enshrined today. But no one really knows where they died and were buried.

In truth, the Magi were much more like us than any others in the Christmas story.

Like us, and unlike Mary and Joseph, they were Gentiles. They lived in Persia, the first foreigners invited to worship the Christ.

Like us, and unlike Mary and Joseph, they were people of means. In fact, they were so wealthy that they could afford to leave their homes for a journey lasting more than two years, and afford the finest gifts to give the Child.

Like us, and unlike the shepherds, they were well educated. In fact, they were the most learned people in their society–scholars in philosophy, medicine, and science.

Like us, and unlike the shepherds, they were religious men. In fact, they were leaders among the people of faith in ancient Persia, corresponding to the Levites in ancient Israel. No sacrifice could be made in their worship unless one of the Magi were present.

How did they know of the birth of the Christ?

The Jews had been enslaved in their country seven centuries earlier, and talked of a “Messiah” who would one day set all mankind free from sin and death.

That idea became even more popular in the years preceding Christmas. The Roman historian Suetonius wrote, “There had spread over all the Orient an old and established belief, that it was fated for men coming from Judaea to rule the world.”

The Roman historian Tacitus said, “There was a firm persuasion that at this very time the East was to grow powerful, and rulers coming from Judaea were to acquire universal empire.”

According to the Jewish historian Josephus, the Jews believed that “about that time one from their country should become governor of the inhabitable earth.”

The Jewish scriptures even told the Magi when the Messiah would come:

“A star will come out of Jacob, a scepter will rise out of Israel” (Numbers 24:17).

And so, “Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn” (Isaiah 60:3).

“Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba [the Magi’s homeland] will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord” (v. 6).

So the scriptures foretold that a star would come to announce the birth of this Messiah and lead us to him. Then just such a star appeared before them, as we learned on Christmas Eve. The Scriptures said the King of the Jews would come; the scholars agreed; now the stars seemed to lend their assent. So the Wise Men set out on pilgrimage to find and worship him.

Why did they find him?

Their journey took longer than our manger scenes allow. Much longer, in fact.

To find the Christ, they had to travel for two years after his birth. This is why Matthew’s account says that they came to his “house,” not his manger, and found the “child,” not the “baby” (v. 11).

This is why murderous King Herod killed all the Jewish boys in the vicinity from two years old and under (v. 16).

They came first to Herod in Jerusalem, assuming he would know of the birth of the King of the Jews. He did not, but his scholars knew that the boy would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). And when they saw again the star which first announced his birth, leading them to his home, they were overjoyed (v. 10).

They brought him gifts prepared for just this moment.

Gold, for Persians never came before a king without it.

Frankincense, a cinnamon incense which priests used to cover the odor of burning sacrifices. A gift for a priest.

Myrrh, an anointing substance for embalming and burial, something used only for a sacrifice.

And with their gifts, the Magi were wise enough to give him their obedience.

They refused to tell Herod where they found the child, though he had the power to kill them.

They returned to their homeland and told there the story of this child Christ. There is a Christian movement in Persia to this day which traces itself to their witness there.

Have you found him?

If the Wise Men could visit us today, they might well ask, How wise are you? Are you wise enough to do what they did, to seek out and worship the Christ?

Some refuse the child like Herod, afraid he will interfere with their plans and dreams.

Some ignore him like the religious scribes and priests in Jerusalem. They refused to go with the Magi to find the Messiah, so busy with their own lives and work they made no time for him.

And some worship him as they did. For wise men still seek him.

Wise men still seek him as their Savior, their sacrifice. Wise men and women accept his death on the cross for their sins, and trust him for their salvation. As the Magi offered their myrrh, so wise men offer to him their faith in his sacrifice. Are you this wise?

Wise men still seek him as their Priest, every day. As the priest offered daily sacrifices, led daily rituals, met the people daily for worship, so you can meet him daily, now. You need not travel 500 miles across two years, for he is here, for you today. To be your priest, all day. To pray for you. To lead you into the presence of the Holy Father. To guide you into his Kingdom and service. As the Magi offered their incense, so wise men trust him to be their priest. Are you this wise?

Wise men still seek him as their King, with their best gold. They give to him their best gifts and abilities, possessions and time. Not just that which is convenient or habitual, but their very best to him as their King and Lord. As the Magi offered their gold, so wise men give to him their lives. Are you this wise?

Most of all, wise men give him their worship. Before the Magi opened their treasures, they first opened their hearts. They bowed and worshipped him. They gave him the gratitude of hearts filled with joy in his presence. So can we.

Wise men give to him their waking thoughts as they begin the day; they converse with him all through the day; and they offer him their waning moments at its end. They practice his presence, worshiping him consciously all through the day. As the Magi offered their worship, so wise men walk all day long in his presence. Are you this wise?

Conclusion

Wise men still seek him. Will you be a wise man, a wise woman today? There is only one thing in all of creation which this Child cannot take for himself, and that is your heart. This is the only thing you can give him which he does not already own. This you alone can give him. What he wants for Christmas is you.

Two hundred years ago, Charles IV was king of Spain.

Napoleon was coming. And so the king directed a servant to hide his priceless collection of antique clocks, and the crown jewels of the Spanish monarchy. The servant was instructed to bury the clocks in the wall of one of the 365 rooms of the royal palace, and the jewels in another room. The servant did as he was told, and cut a piece of cloth from the draperies of these two rooms to mark them, should the Spanish monarchy ever recover the throne.

In 1814, Charles’s son, Ferdinand VII, restored the throne to the Spanish royal family. The first thing he wanted to do was to find his crown jewels. But there was a problem. Napoleon had changed the draperies in every one of the rooms of the palace. The only way to find the jewels and the clocks was to tear out the walls of every room of the palace. Ferdinand decided he’d rather live without clocks and jewels than walls.

Everyone thought the story was just a European legend until a plumber working on some pipes in one of the palace rooms discovered the antique clock collection. Now all that remains is to find the only lost crown jewels of Europe. Imagine how exciting it will be one day for someone to discover the crown of a king.

This morning, the crown of the King of Kings is in your hands. You can place on his head, or yours. You can bow before him in worship and make him your King, your Priest, your Sacrifice. You can spend the coming year in his worship and service. The Magi had to leave the stable, but you don’t. Wise men still seek him.

How wise are you?

The Gift You’ll Never Return

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The Gift You’ll Never Return

Revelation 21:1-5

Dr. Jim Denison

Once again, we flooded the stores on the day after Thanksgiving, a shopping day only to be rivaled by the day after Christmas (when we bring it all back and exchange it for other stuff). You could give the items listed in “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” but this year they will cost a total of $65,264.28 (up 18 percent from last year). Or you could sit it all out. I found a website which sells “Bah Humbug!” t-shirts, and another titled “xmasresistance.org,” whose home page blares, “Christmas Resistance: No Shopping, No Presents, No Guilt.” Somehow I think they’ve missed the reason for the season.

Today I want us to consider the best of all Christmas gifts: how we can receive ours, and give it to everyone on our shopping list. There is literally no subject we can discuss of greater significance, for today and for eternity.

What is heaven like?

Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection were intended for this central purpose: to make it possible for us to be in heaven with our Father. He was born so we could be born again. He came to earth so we could go to heaven. He died so we could live. He was raised so we will be raised. He exchanged a crown for a cross, angels for shepherds, his throne for our thorns. He was born in a stable, so we could be born again in glory.

Now let’s learn some facts about the heaven which Christmas offers us. First, it is a real place: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth” (v. 1).

John “saw” it. He didn’t feel it, or dream of it, or hear about it. He saw it, and we only see things which are. Heaven is a place.

Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you” (John 14.2; emphasis mine).

Second, heaven is the place where God dwells (v. 3).

John reveals, “Now the dwelling of God is with men.” When we get to heaven, we get to God.

Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven” (Matthew 6:9). Heaven is a real place, where God is. It’s being with God.

Third, heaven is a blessed place (v. 4). Because God is there, all that is perfect is there as well.

There will be no death in heaven, thus no mourning or crying or pain. Our greatest enemy will trouble us no more as we spend eternity in paradise.

It’s a place of incredible joy: “You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand” (Psalm 16:11).

Heaven is a celebration, a party: “Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God” (Luke 14:15).

We reign in heaven: “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne” (Revelation 3.21). In heaven, we’re royalty!

We’ll have perfect understanding there: “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

No wonder Jesus called heaven “paradise” (Luke 23:43). It is that, a place of blessing beyond all description: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what the Lord has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9; cf. Isaiah 64:4).

Who goes there?

I read about a man who died and went to heaven. Walking around, he was shocked at some of the people he saw there—people he never expected to find in heaven. Then he noticed the look on their faces—they were shocked to see him as well.

A woman woke up after surgery and looked around. She asked, “Is this heaven?” Then she saw her pastor standing beside her bed and said, “Oh, no, it can’t be—there’s Dr. Smith.”

Who goes to heaven?

We discovered the answer last week: “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15). But if your name is written there, you are with the Father forever: “He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels” (Revelation 3:5).

God keeps this promise, no matter what you’ve done or haven’t done.

The rich young ruler kept all the commandments, he thought. And yet he left Jesus sad. The Pharisees and priests were the religious Marine Corp of their day, zealous for the law in every detail. Yet they rejected the Messiah of God.

Conversely, David committed adultery with Bathsheba and arranged for the murder of her husband Uriah. And yet he knew that he would “dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6), despite his sin. And he was right.

We can all go to heaven, but only if we have asked Jesus to take us there: “I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:3).

He is driving the only car allowed through the front gate, and he’s stopped to pick you up. But he won’t kidnap you—you must choose to get in. He doesn’t care what you have done or haven’t, how religious you are or are not. He cares only that you trust him enough to get in his car and let him drive. Are you in the vehicle, or trying to walk there on your own?

Is heaven fair? (1 Corinthians 3)

After the worship service last week, a man asked me a very good question. A Christian breaks into someone’s home, and kills the man living there. Police then shoot and kill him before he has time to confess and repent of his sin. What happens to him?

It bothers many people that heaven is God’s free gift, offered to any who will take it regardless of their sins and failures. It offends us that Jeffrey Dahmer, the most horrific criminal most of us have ever heard of, could trust Christ in prison and go to heaven. And yet our honest neighbors and friends who have never committed any of Dahmer’s sins but have not trusted Christ as their Lord, will go to hell. How is this fair?

There are two facts to consider. One: if heaven were fair, none of us could occupy it. The last sin you committed was enough to keep you out of God’s perfect paradise. If God starts choosing which sins exempt us and which do not, he has no fair way to decide. Adultery keeps us out, perhaps—but Jesus said that lusting after a woman is adultery in the heart (Matthew 5:28). Murder surely exempts us—but Jesus said that hatred is as bad in the eyes of the Lord (Matthew 5:21-22). We want everyone’s sin to count but our own. Either everyone gets in by grace, or no one gets in by grace.

A second fact: there are most definitely rewards and loss of rewards in heaven.

In 1 Corinthians 3 Paul described some of our works as “gold, silver, costly stones,” but others as “wood, hay or straw” (v. 12). At the Judgment Day, we’ll know which was which: “the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames” (vs. 13-15).

Once we trust Christ as our Lord we become the children of God. Nothing can change that fact—my sons will always be my sons. But they can receive reward or lose reward from their father, based on their choices. So it is with our heavenly Father. He simply cannot be the holy God of the universe and reward disobedience. If we refuse to live in his word and will, we lose eternal reward.

This fact applies even to confessed sin. When we confess our sins, God forgives them and chooses not to punish us (1 John 1:9). But we lose reward for the obedience we refused to give. And that moment, that hour, that day of sin can never be recovered. That reward is lost forever.

What works lose reward?

Secret, unconfessed sins will be judged: “God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil” (Ecclesiastes. 12:14). Jesus confirms it: “There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs” (Luke 12:2-3).

Our words will be judged: “I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken” (Matthew 12:36-37).

After listing all sorts of sin, Peter declared that those who do such things “will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead” (1 Peter 4:5).

On the other hand, “gold, silver, costly stones” are rewarded. What kind of rewards?

There is the “crown of life”: “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him” (James 1:12). Jesus said, “Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10).

There is the “soul-winner’s crown”: “What is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you/ Indeed, you are our glory and joy” (1 Thessalonians 2:19-20).

There is the “crown of righteousness”: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:7-8).

For Christian leaders there is the “crown of glory”: “Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away” (1 Peter 5:2-4).

Gold, silver, costly stones will be rewarded with everlasting crowns. For what? Enduring temptation; winning souls; staying faithful to God’s purpose; serving God’s people in love. Live for these. Jesus said, “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:20). These are rewards which last forever.

Conclusion

What will you give the people you love, this year? For guys you know, there’s a new watch on the market, with a strap made out of duct tape—waterproof, of course. For bird watchers on your list, there’s now a sound amplifier focused on birdcall frequencies; they can wear it as “binoculars for the ears.” For every husband I know, there’s a new remote control which connects through the Internet to control 255 operations at once. All gifts you can live without.

Here’s one you cannot, literally. Here’s the Christmas gift Jesus came to give you: if you have made him your Lord, your name is in his book of life and heaven is yours forever. His book of works will determine your reward or loss of rewards in eternity. Ungodly words, secret sins, immorality will be burned away and suffer loss; holiness, soul-winning, faithfulness, and loving service will be rewarded with eternal crowns. These are gifts you’ll never return.

Are you ready, today? Are you using your life to help others be ready tomorrow?

The Gift Your Soul Needs Most

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The Gift Your Soul Needs Most

Colossians 2:9-15

Dr. Jim Denison

Last Tuesday morning I needed to get a book at one of the local bookstores. I had not yet purchased Janet’s Valentine’s Day card, and knew time was running out and nothing would be left. Turns out I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The side of the Valentine’s Day card display which held cards wives would buy for their husbands was completely picked over. Scavenged. A few envelopes stuck down in the cracks at odd angles. The side which held cards husbands would buy for their wives was pristine. Undisturbed. Five o’clock that afternoon would be a different story–a rugby match, arms broken, blood on the ground, fighting for the last card with a pink heart on it.

I told that story to some of our staff at lunch that day, and one of them told me about the year when she got a card from her husband which read, “Happy Valentine’s Day on our first year together.” The problem was, they’d been married 25 years. He didn’t even notice.

Speaking for guys everywhere, we want you to know that it’s the thought that counts–if we had one.

At least with my Valentine’s Day habits, we don’t run the risk of gifts unopened. One year Janet bought birthday and Valentine’s Day cards so far in advance that she couldn’t find them when the days rolled around. I’ve never had that problem. Imagine buying chocolates and forgetting where you put them, so they sat there and grew rock-hard and moldy. Flowers still in the box, wilted and dead. Airline tickets in the drawer, unused and expired. Years ago the comedian Robin Williams remarked: the greatest gift is life. The greatest sin is to return it unopened.

In Colossians we’ve learned that Jesus expects us to live for the glory of God, in his fear, radically committed to him as the Lord of every part of our lives, not just our religious activities. This week we receive the gift which enables us to do all of that, to experience the victorious and joyful, radical and free life Jesus offers. Like all gifts, this one must be opened. Don’t return it today.

Open the gift of God

What is this gift? Think of it as four packages, one inside the next. The first package is the largest, because it contains all the others: “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (v. 9). The first present is God himself.

“In Christ,” and in no other. Mohammed, Buddha, or Confucius never even claimed to be God. From the beginning, despite The DaVinci Code’s fabrication, Christians have worshiped Jesus as God.

“All the fullness of the Deity”–not just part. It’s found in him and nowhere else. Jesus claimed, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6); “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (v. 9). He was omniscient, omnipotent, sinless; every attribute of God the Father belongs to God the Son.

“Lives in bodily form”–God became one of us, that we might be one with him. We couldn’t climb up to him, so he climbed down to us. Traveling in England this past summer, I encountered a number of cathedrals with stunning architecture and artwork in their vaulted ceilings. Knowing that tourists like us wouldn’t be able to stare straight up for long, the church wardens placed large mirrors angled on the floor. Looking down, we were able to look up.

In precisely that way, Jesus is the mirror image of God, God come down for us. In Christ, God has come to present himself to us. If Jesus is your Lord, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. You have God dwelling in you today.

The second package comes from the first: the nature of God, now available to us: “you have been given fullness in Christ…in the putting off of the sinful nature” (vs. 10, 11).

“You have been given”–this is a gift, something done for us, not earned but received at our salvation. “Fullness in Christ” means the full nature and capacity of Christ. His Spirit has come to replace the “sinful nature” with his holy presence. The former tenant has been evicted; the new owner has moved into the house. The same Spirit who indwelled and empowered Jesus indwells and empowers us.

Now we can experience the nature of Christ. Be “Christians”–“little Christs.” We can manifest his character to the world–his love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). We can conquer temptation and defeat sin. We can live the victorious, abundant life of Jesus. We can literally be the presence of Christ today.

The third package is contained in the second: the power of God. When we asked Jesus into our lives we received “the power of God, who raised him from the dead” (v. 12). The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the grave lives in us.

Jesus promised: “Anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it” (John 14:12-14).

In answer to prayer, the Holy Spirit living in the first believers enabled them to heal the sick, raise the dead, stand with courage before the Empire, die in victory, and live in joy. Everything Jesus did, they did. That same gift is ours now.

The last package is contained in all the others: the forgiveness of God. “He forgave us all our sins” (v. 13), not just some. Not just the negligible ones. He forgave Moses and Paul their murders, Peter his denial, David his adultery and murder, the crowd their cross. He has forgiven every sin you’ve ever confessed.

He “canceled the written code”–the word was used for wiping writing away. Ancient writing materials were expensive, and did not absorb ink. So a scribe could wipe it off and reuse the papyrus or parchment. When you erase a chalkboard, the writing that was there is now gone forever. So it is with our sins. They are wiped away, the debt cancelled, the record expunged forever.

Now the spiritual “powers and authorities” of the enemy have been defeated publicly at the cross. They are vanquished foes, their power over us broken forever. We can start over, our past forgotten forever.

The will of God never leads where the power of God cannot sustain. God has called us to live for his glory, in his fear, radically committed to him in every part of our lives. Here’s how he will help us: he gives us himself, his nature, his power, his forgiveness. The strength to live for his glory, in his fear, radically surrendered to Jesus.

But now I must ask you: do these commitments mark your life? Do they describe your experience? Did you truly live for his glory, in his fear, radically surrendered this week? If not, why not? If this gift is available to us, why haven’t we opened it?

Why we don’t open this gift

I cannot speak for you, but I can give you my answer to the question. For a long time I would have to answer honestly that I did not live in the power of God, for several reasons.

One: I didn’t know I could. For the longest time, I thought Christianity was a life of religious achievement performed in gratitude for salvation. Going to church, reading the Bible, praying, giving, witnessing, serving–all the things we do for God.

I had no idea that the same Spirit and power which resided in Jesus was available to me. I had no idea that I could ask God for his help in defeating temptation, for his courage in witnessing to my neighbor, for his wisdom in making my decisions.

Deism is the belief that God made the world but has nothing to do with it now. This was the theology which motivated Thomas Jefferson to cut all the miracles out of the New Testament.

It is still dominant today. Do you really expect God to heal terminal illness? To save notorious sinners? To give you victory over temptation every hour of every day? We get what we expect in life. Do you know that you can do what Jesus did? That you can have his character and his ministry as God wills? That you can literally be the presence of Christ today?

Two: I didn’t pay the price. Even Jesus had to get up a great while before day, and go to a solitary place to pray (Mark1:35). He had to pray all night before choosing his apostles. He had to pray before his miracles, and in his Gethsemane, and on his cross. Even he needed to connect with God to have the power of God.

I didn’t do that. I prayed at the start of the day, and occasionally if a problem arose. I had my “quiet time” and thought I had done all God expected. I didn’t keep the drill plugged into the socket, and wondered why it ran down so quickly. I didn’t begin the day by surrendering it to Jesus, and keep it before him all day long. Do you?

Three: I didn’t want more of Jesus than I had. I wanted to live in two worlds. I wanted to serve God’s agenda but mine as well. I wanted people to trust in Jesus, but also be impressed with me. I wanted the Kingdom to grow, but my church as well. I wanted God’s plans to succeed, but I wanted my career to succeed also. I bought into the spiritual/sacred division, and wanted a foot in both.

I didn’t have all of Jesus I needed, but I had all I wanted. Meanwhile, my soul was shriveling up. I was burning out and didn’t know why. My faith had become routine, my ministry a job, my life overcast and dull. Because I had all of Jesus I wanted.

All the time, the gift of God himself, his nature, his power, his forgiveness, his victory and joy, lay on the shelf unopened.

When did any of that change for me? I’ve told you the story before. It was a silent retreat in 1997, at Ignatius House, a Jesuit retreat center in Atlanta. I was sitting on a deck overlooking a waterfall one Monday afternoon, when God spoke directly to me. When God showed me that I had lost my soul, that I was no longer dependent upon him or close to him.

I could not remember the last time I prayed except to deal with some specific problem, the last time I read Scripture except to complete my morning quiet time or to prepare a message, the last time I listened to his Spirit. I could not remember the last time I told him that I loved him.

During those two days, God called me back to himself. He called me back to loving him and depending on him and not myself again. He called me back to an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. The two days of that retreat were as transforming for me as my salvation experience. I have gotten away from them several times since, and had to return to Jesus.

God has led us to the changes we are making at Park Cities with Miller Cunningham’s coming, in part so I can get back to my soul with my Savior. In part so I can stop running a church and yet trying to listen to the Spirit, responsible for an organization and yet responsible for God’s word to our souls. I have learned that I cannot do both and do either fully. I am grateful and thrilled for the privilege of returning to my first love, and sharing him with you each week.

Conclusion

Do you need an Ignatius House for your soul today? Do you need to repent of self-sufficiency and make him your first love again? When last did you ask Jesus to give you his character, his power, his forgiveness and victory? When last did you ask him to be in your body what he was in his own? When last did you exchange your life for his?

That’s the last time you opened the gift your soul needs most. Let’s open it again today.

The God Who Send and Saves

Written by

The God Who Sends and Saves

Matthew 18:1-4, 12-14

Dr. Jim Denison, Senior Pastor

Vacation Bible School begins Monday; here’s a sense of what our teachers are up against. A boy named Tim was in the garden filling in a hole when his neighbor peered over the fence and asked politely, “What are you doing there, Tim?” “My goldfish died,” said Tim tearfully, without looking up, “and I’ve just buried him.” The neighbor observed, “That’s an awfully big hole for a goldfish, isn’t it?” Tim patted down the last heap of earth, then replied, “That’s because he’s inside your stupid cat.”

Despite the challenges they present, God believes in children. So much, in fact, that he became one. And that he tells us to do the same. Here’s why your eternity depends on it.

The perennial question

“Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” our text begins. After the Mount of Transfiguration, the disciples are now convinced that their Master is indeed the Messiah, the King of heaven come to earth. Now they want to know how they can get in line to share in his power and glory. Think of a presidential candidate who becomes the front-runner and finds himself with all sorts of new friends. “At that time” is literally, “in that hour,” relating to his time in Capernaum, most probably at Peter’s home.

The disciples’ debate has been going on for a while. Mark tells us, “On the way they had argued about who was the greatest” (Mark 9:34). Their argument would continue from here to the cross: “Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him. ‘What is it you want?’ he asked. She said, ‘Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom'” (Matthew 20:20-21). The disciples want to be “great” in the coming Kingdom of God, as do the rest of us.

Their very human question reminds me of something John Claypool said in his Yale lecture series: “People used to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I was shrewd enough to fashion my answer according to what I thought they wanted to hear. For some it was a policeman, for others a fireman or a preacher. However, in my own heart of hearts, I had my own private fantasy that I never dared to share with anyone. Do you know what it was? I am telling you the gospel truth: I wanted to be president of the world!” (The Preaching Event 64, emphasis his). Most of us want the same.

New Testament scholar William Barclay comments: “In life it is all a question of what a man is aiming at; if he is aiming at the fulfillment of personal ambition, the acquisition of personal power, the enjoyment of personal prestige, the exaltation of self, he is aiming at precisely the opposite of the Kingdom of Heaven; for to be a citizen of the Kingdom means the complete forgetting of self, the obliteration of self, the spending of self in a life which aims at service and not at power. So long as a man considers his own self as the most important thing in the world, his back is turned to the Kingdom; if he wants ever to reach the Kingdom, he must turn round and face in the opposite direction” (Mt 2:175).

The shocking answer

So Jesus “called a little child and had him stand among them.”

They are staying in Capernaum, probably at Peter’s home. Perhaps this is his child. Or, according to early tradition, this child grew up to become Ignatius of Antioch, a great theologian, preacher, and martyr.

Whoever he was, there is no question what he was. In their day a child was a possession, not a person. He had no legal rights, protections, or standing. He lived at the very bottom of the social ladder. To “change and become like little children” was counter-cultural in the extreme. This is like telling a four-star general to become a draft dodger, or a Supreme Court justice to become a prison inmate, a person with no legal standing whatever.

But Jesus was insistent: “I tell you the truth” (v. 3a). In fact, if they don’t “change and become like little children,” then they “will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” By contrast, “whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Remember that Jesus is speaking to his disciples, the twelve who would lead the Church to reach the world, the apostles who would be foundational to the Christian movement across all time. But even they must “change” and become “like little children.”

Why?

Not because children are faultless and perfect–any parent can tell you stories about the early age at which their children discovered disobedience and selfishness. My parents spent as much time in my elementary school principal’s office as I did in the classroom.

Rather, we are to become “little children” for one reason, in one word: dependence. Children do not try to find employment and support themselves. In danger they instinctively run to their parents. They know that their lives, safety, and future are dependent on their parents.

In the same way, those who try to save themselves are lost. Those who think that Christians are good people who believe in God, that God helps those who help themselves, who believe that they are moral enough for the Lord and his heaven–they are the deceived and the lost. They “will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

But those who depend on God, who yield every day to his Spirit and word, who live as children trusting their Father, they are “greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (v. 4). Dependence is the key to spiritual and eternal success, for God always gives the best to those who leave the choice with him.

Do you remember the day when you admitted that you were a sinner, that you could not save yourself? The day when you asked Jesus to forgive you, take charge of your life, and make you God’s child? If you don’t remember that day, make today that day.

And if you have, reject the self-reliant culture in which you live. Decide that you cannot make your life what God can make it, that he can do more with your time, money, and abilities than you can. Enter or return to a life of dependence on the God of the universe. And you will learn that your Father saves all who are humble enough to receive what he died to give.

Jill Briscoe was right: “Christianity is the ‘I’ crossed out. Think of that every time you look at a cross.”

At the University of Edinburgh there was a beloved and brilliant Old Testament scholar known affectionately to his students as Rabbi Duncan. The “rabbi” could speak several languages fluently; he could translate the Old Testament Hebrew at sight, and was known across the larger academic world for his brilliance. One night some of his students, knowing their professor’s meticulous personal schedule, decided to hide in his study to hear his nighttime prayers. Right on time, the distinguished scholar entered the room and bowed his head on his desk. The students expected a theological discourse with the Lord, replete with brilliance of insight and learning. They were shocked to hear their esteemed professor pray, slowly and with great reverence, “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, pity me a little child. Suffer my simplicity, and grant me grace to come to Thee.” And he did.

The transforming purpose (vs. 12-14)

Now Jesus changes the metaphor from dependent children to dependent sheep. A sheep has wandered from the flock and is now lost.

This was notoriously easy for sheep to do in Judea. The pastures are in the hill country, a narrow ridge-like plateau, only a few miles across, running like a spine down the middle of the country. There are no restraining walls. The sheep are liable to wander off in search of grass, and to fall into gullies and ravines where they will be attacked by wolves or trapped and starve to death. Finding a lost sheep was a common task for shepherds of the day.

These men typically worked in a communal setting, with two or three to watch over the sheep of a village. Thus one can leave the flock to the care of others. But would he?

He could easily give up on the one lost sheep. After all, he’s got 99 more to care about. They are the ones who are here, who want him to be their shepherd.

Or he could wait for it to find its way back to the pen. A few sheep occasionally did.

But not our Shepherd. Our Good Shepherd takes the initiative to find his lost sheep. And he calls us to do the same. Our God saves to send. Nothing makes him happier than when a sheep returns to the fold. Or when his undershepherds go to find another of his lost sheep. In this light, our members will please God greatly this summer.

Vacation Bible School will involve more than 1,400 children and workers.

24 summer camps will involve 1400 campers and 120 workers.

Six mission trips will engage 180 participants.

Children’s first-ever Fish Camp has enlisted 100.

Youth Thee Camp will involve more than 400 youth and adults.

VBS at four locations besides PCBC will serve at least 200 children.

Summer reading club will enlist more than 200 participants.

In total, more than 2,000 different people will be involved in a mission or ministry project this summer.

God saves to send. If he has saved your soul, now he wants to send your life. The question is not whether you are called and commissioned, but whether you will be obedient to the call of God on your life.

Conclusion

Are you saved? If so, you are sent. Are you willing to go, to make this our greatest summer of ministry and missions? If our church were as faithful to God’s call as you are, would that be a good thing?

The God who saves and sends is a God you can trust with your time and your life. Dr. Shadrach Lockridge makes the point better than I can, with this remarkable description of the God we are called to trust and serve today:

“God is greater than all the superlative statements of supremacy ever shared. No far-reaching telescope can bring into focus the shoreline of his unlimited supply. No deep-digging dredge can discover the depth of his determination to deliver you. You can trust him. He doesn’t need me, and he doesn’t need you. He stands alone on the solitary pinnacle of his omnipotence. He is enduringly strong, and entirely sincere. He is eternally steadfast, and impartially merciful. He is unparalleled and unprecedented, unique and inescapable. He is the cornerstone of all civilization. He is God’s Son, our Savior, and you can trust him.

“He can meet all your needs, and he can do it simultaneously. He gives you hope when you’re hopeless, help when you’re helpless, peace when you’re in pain, strength when you struggle, rest when you’re restless and courage when you cry. He sees and sympathizes. He guards and he guides. He heals the sick, cleanses the leper, sets the captive free and forgives sinners. I’m telling you, you can trust him.

“He is the key to knowledge, the wellspring of wisdom, the doorway of deliverance, and the pathway to peace. He’s the roadway to righteousness, the highway to holiness, and the gateway to glory. You can trust him. He is the master of masters, the captain of the conquerors, the head of the heroes, and the leader of the legislators. He is the governor of governors, the prince of peace, the prince of princes. He is the Lord of all lords, the king of all kings. You can trust him.

“I wish I could describe him to you. He is indescribable, irresistible, irreplaceable, indisputable, invincible. His word is all you need. He is love, and it never ends. His grace is sufficient, and his mercy never fails. His yoke is easy; his burden is light.

“I tell you, you can’t outlive him, and you can’t live without him. Pilate couldn’t stop him, Herod couldn’t kill him, death couldn’t handle him, and praise God, the grave couldn’t hold him. He is alive forevermore, and forevermore you can trust him.”

This is the promise, and the invitation, of God.

The Gospel According to Cleopas

Written by

The Gospel According to Cleopas

Luke 24:13-35

James C. Denison

People send me lots of stories, some of which I can actually tell in church. Here’s my favorite so far this year. A man says, “As a young minister, I was asked by a funeral director to hold a graveside service for a homeless man who had no family or friends. The funeral was to be held at a cemetery way back in the country, and this man would be the first to be laid to rest there.

“As I was not familiar with the backwoods area, I became lost. Being a typical man, I did not stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late. I saw the backhoe and the crew eating lunch, but the hearse was nowhere in sight. I apologized to the workers for my tardiness and stepped to the open grave, where the vault was already in place. I assured the workers that I would not hold them up for long, but that this was the proper thing to do. The workers gathered around, still eating their lunch. I poured out my heart and soul.

“As I preached, the workers began to say ‘Amen” and ‘Praise the Lord.’ I preached and I preached as I’d never preached before, from Genesis all the way to Revelation. I wasn’t going to let this homeless man go out without someone taking notice of his service. I closed the lengthy service with a prayer and walked to my car.

“As I was opening the door and taking off my coat, I overheard one of the workers say to another, ‘I’ve never seen anything like that, and I’ve been putting in septic tanks for more than 20 years!'”

There are many reasons to have church, but none surpasses today’s. This is the Sunday when Christians the world over gather to celebrate the fact that Jesus rose from the grave and is alive today.

We do this because we need to–because we need the hope and encouragement and help which remembering the resurrection gives us. We do this because we’re Easter celebrants, but we’re also people with problems. We’re courageous and fearful, faithful and backslidden. We’ve had victories and we’ve had failures. Some days we’re excited to be alive and some days we’re not. Some Sundays we’re inspired, and some we want to sleep in. Some weeks we win, and some we lose. Some weeks we’re with Cleopas, and some weeks we’re with Christ.

Today we’ll learn why choosing latter over the former is the most important decision of life.

The gospel according to Cleopas

Our drama begins as two players enter the stage. One is named “Cleopas”–that’s all we know about him. Nothing more, just his name. We know even less about the second actor in the play, as he or she is never named in the script. Maybe this person is the wife of Cleopas, as they went home together; or perhaps his brother or close friend. That’s part of the beauty of our story–they are Everyman, Everywoman. Every one of us, at some time in our lives.

Now it’s Easter Sunday, the greatest day in human history, the day God’s Son rose from the grave, defeating death and sin and Satan and hell, the day he fulfilled the promises of God’s word and God’s plan and purchased salvation for all who would trust in him. The day that the Church began and the world changed.

But Easter has missed Cleopas and his companion. No “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” for them; no “Up from the grave he arose.” They’re shuffling off from Jerusalem to their home in Emmaus, a small village 7½ miles west of the Holy City, a place known for medicinal springs in the area and not much else. They’re trudging from Dallas to Grand Prairie. The sun is setting on their day, and their souls.

Somehow they know a lot about the One who was crucified two days ago. They know that “he was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people” (v. 19), God’s spokesman and preacher. They know that he has been “crucified” (v. 20). They had hoped that he would be their Messiah, “the one who was going to redeem Israel” (v. 21); probably they had been part of the Palm Sunday crowd the Sunday earlier, throwing their palm branches before Jesus and their “Hosanna”s into the air with the jubilant crowd. They’ve heard rumors that some women have seen him alive, but the apostles “did not see” him (v. 24).

They know all about Jesus. And yet they don’t know him. He’s right here, walking beside them, and they are “kept from recognizing him” (v. 16). Perhaps by their grief, or their disillusionment, or something else. We don’t know. All we do know is that they appreciate Jesus for the good man he was, but nothing more. No living, life-transforming Lord for them.

Cleopas is alive and well and skeptical still today.

Atheism is making a comeback these days. Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, the man who said a few years ago that “religion is a virus in the software of humanity,” is publishing bestsellers with titles like The God Delusion. Sam Harris’s last book is called The End of Faith. They and others like them are telling all who will listen that the resurrection of Jesus is a myth, that religion is superstition we must outgrow.

Maybe you wouldn’t go that far, but some of us here today aren’t sure if it’s all really true. You’ve never seen Jesus, touched him, heard his voice. It’s all a nice story, fine for those who want to believe it. Churches do lots of good in the world; if faith helps you get by, there’s nothing wrong with that. Do whatever works for you. But don’t ask me to believe it just because you do. Just because some people say they’ve seen him doesn’t mean they have. Every religion claims to be right. Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims say they have met God or the gods. It’s a lovely story, a treasured tradition, Santa Claus for Christians. But nothing more.

For you, Jesus was a good man, even a great one. A wonderful teacher and example. We ought to imitate him and try to do what he says, honoring his memory and continuing his legacy. But he was just a man.

A little boy was asked in Sunday school what “faith is.” His definition: “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”

You can find Cleopas in the culture, and in the church as well. Some of us who come every week have read his “gospel” and know that his story is ours.

Like lots of people in church, you accept the story of Easter on a level of history, the idea that Jesus Christ rose from the grave on April 19, AD 29. You know that there’s no explanation for the empty tomb: if the authorities had the body, they would have produced it; if the disciples stole the body, they died for a lie. You know that 500 early Christians saw him alive, and that there is no other good explanation for the birth and miraculous growth of the Church.

You understand the theological importance of the resurrection: that Easter fulfilled the biblical predictions that God’s Son would rise from the dead (cf. Matthew 16:21); it proved the divinity of Christ (John 20:28); it guarantees our victory over death and the grave (John 11:25-26; 1 Corinthians 6:14; 1 Corinthians 15:22).

You know all of that. But to you it sounds like so much data, statistics without relevance. It’s been a while since you felt the touch of his power, his answer to your prayers, his help for your needs. It’s been a while since he gave you his joy or changed your life. For you, Easter is a story and a tradition but not much else. It’s not your story today. You’re with Cleopas. His gospel is your gospel.

The gospel according to Christ

Fortunately, Luke’s Easter drama doesn’t end with verse 24. In response to the misgivings and doubts of Cleopas, the Christ preaches a sermon I want very much to hear when I’m in heaven: “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (v. 27).

He showed himself alive in the word of God, and in the worship of God: “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. [This describes what we call the Lord’s Supper today.] Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?'” (vs. 30-32).

He showed himself alive in God’s word, and worship, and world: “They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, ‘It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.’ Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread” (vs. 33-35).

Jesus is still alive in his word and worship and world, for any of us who will do what Cleopas and his companion did. If we will listen to his word and his Holy Spirit. If we will meet God in our worship and our world. If we will settle for nothing less than a personal, intimate, passionate, daily relationship with the risen Christ, it will be ours. Yours. Today.

When last did you start the day by giving it to Jesus? By spending time in his word and worship? When last did you go out into the world in prayer, walking with him through the day? Praying first about all that came your way–the problems and opportunities, frustrations and joys of life? Practicing the presence of God, surrendered to Jesus as the King of your life? When last did his word and worship change and empower your soul? When last did you experience Easter? Today you are walking to Emmaus, and he has joined you. He is at your side right now. He is ready to walk through this day and this year with you. Are you ready to walk with him?

Conclusion

Is Easter the story of Cleopas or Christ for you? Have you come to give thanks for a good man, or to meet God? When last did meeting Jesus bring Easter to your soul?

Jesus rose from the grave on Easter Sunday–I can show you that it’s so. Two weeks ago, it was my privilege to be part of a group following the footsteps of Paul and John in Greece and Turkey. On Sunday morning we made our way to Patmos and the cave where John received the Revelation of Jesus Christ.

It was AD 95. John had been Jesus’ best friend on earth for 60 years. Probably the first to join his apostolic band, and the last to leave it. The only one at his cross; the one to whom Jesus entrusted his mother. His “beloved disciple.”

Now six decades have come and gone, and all the other disciples are with Jesus in heaven. Only John remains of the original twelve. He has been exiled by Emperor Domitian to Patmos, the Alcatraz of the ancient world off the coast of modern-day Turkey. Separated from his family, his friends, his congregation; his witness silenced and his ministry over. At least that was Domitian’s plan. But John won his jailer to Christ, and his fellow prisoners, and started a tiny church on that island rock.

Weeks went by. It was Sunday, and John was with his trusted assistant Prochorus. They were worshiping in their cave on the island, when there came a voice he had not heard in 60 years. He turned and found his best friend, the One he never expected to see again on this side of heaven. The One who rose from the grave on Easter Sunday and is alive today. And the risen Christ gave him the Revelation, the last book of Scripture, truth which is still changing souls across the world 20 centuries later.

Two more years passed. Domitian was executed, and replaced by Emperor Nerva. Nerva freed John to return to his home in Ephesus. He left that prison island and his tiny church behind, never knowing what would become of them. He died a few years later and went to join his best friend in heaven.

Now 2,000 years have passed. Two Sundays ago, our tour group entered John’s cave. There we found the table where the Revelation was written, and the handhold he used to get up from the ground after praying. And John’s church. Worshiping Jesus in the cave, as they have since John left. As they will until Jesus returns. All because the risen Christ brought Easter to Patmos. And never left.

Now he’s ready to bring Easter to Dallas. And to your soul. This is the invitation and promise of the living God.