And the Americans just sat on the sidelines, trading them fifty old destroyers in exchange for long term leases on some ports and airbases, mostly in the Caribbean. Churchill had begged Roosevelt to enter the war, but Roosevelt told him that he could not fight unless Congress declared war, and Congress was in no mood to get involved.
1941 had also been terrible. Hitler had chosen to invade Russia and had the Russians on the run. His armies had driven almost to Moscow, deep in the heart of Russia, and there didn’t seem to be anything that would keep those armies from completely defeating the Russians in the spring to come. In North Africa, the German tank commander Rommel had pushed the British forces clear back to Egypt and were threatening to breakthrough to Cairo and then the Suez canal. And shipping losses were mounting. Churchill was being forced to make decisions between buying food and buying vehicles from America because of a lack of ships, the enemy submarines were so effective. And still, the Americans, with an economy as big as Germany and Britain combined sat on the sidelines, not at all interested in sending American troops to die in Europe for the second time in thirty years.
And the bad news of the war was wearing on the politicians. Even now there were rumors from Parliament of some members who thought Britain should negotiate a peace treaty. There would be a vote of confidence in Churchill soon.
Proclaiming Christ is not a matter of how loud you are or how much you know. It is just a matter of priorities.
The man on the corner in New Orleans could have spent the evening with friends and family, but he chose to spend it with people who needed Christ. The couple in the shop could have chosen to sell more quickly, but they choose to talk about God and Christ. Our friend Ruth could spend her days watching television, but she chooses to find young women and teach them what she knows about Christ. Even Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt chose to proclaim Christ when they met with Stalin. It is a matter of priorities – teaching what you know to those who will listen.
That’s why I preach two sermons a week and lead three groups a week – Wednesday mornings and evenings, and Sunday evenings. If you want to learn, I willing to teach. It is a matter of priorities.
It is something you can do. For it is a matter of priorities. The knowledge comes after the desire and the desire leads to more knowledge. Teaching another teaches yourself.
Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13;2 Peter 3:8-15; Mark 1:1-8
Late on December 7th, Churchill was sitting at home in front of his fireplace, drinking his whiskey and smoking a cigar that evening when the first phone call came around 8:30 pm. The Japanese had attacked Hong Kong, were in the process of sinking a British battleship near Vietnam, and were landing in the rubber-rich British colony of Malaysia. “And, by the way, sir, they appear to also be landing in the American-held Philippines and are bombing Pearl Harbor and the American Fleet. It looks bad!”
Churchill had been to America a few years earlier. In fact, he had been run over by a car and almost died in New York City while he was on a speaking tour. His mother was American, and so he had a deep knowledge of America – and he knew that if the Americans went to war, he had faith that they would fight hard and put everything into it.
That evening Churchill prayed.
Churchill had faith in Christ. And Churchill had faith in the promises of Roosevelt, who had told him that he would like to get more involved in the war, but was duty-bound to honor his Constitution that gave Congress the power to declare war.
Churchill had another whiskey and smoked another cigar while he thought about what the loss of the American battleships would mean for the Pacific. There would be no stopping the Japanese in cutting off his precious supply of rubber for tires from Malaysia. They would threaten Australia and even India, the largest and most important part of the British Empire. The night grew even darker as the fire burned low in his fireplace. Churchill brooded, with his brows frowning. He prayed some more.
And then, a bit after 11 pm, the phone rang. Churchill stood and walked to the phone. A familiar voice, Roosevelt, was on the other end. “You’ve heard about the attack this morning in Hawaii?”
“Yes, Mr President.”
“Well, Japan has declared war on us and tomorrow I’ll ask Congress to declare War on them. I guess we’re all in this together now!”
And after a few more words, they hung up the phone.
Churchill stood by the phone for a half a minute, thinking through the gravity of the situation. And then, a sparkle came into his eyes and he suddenly danced a jig for a moment. As he wrote in his history of the war…”We had won! The war was won!”
You see, Churchill had such tremendous faith that Christ was with them, faith in the ability of the United States and now faith in the desire of the Americans to win, that he knew the war was won. On December 7th, 1941, just as most Americans were realizing that they would be going to war, Churchill was celebrating the victory that he could see coming. For Churchill had faith.
It is no coincidence that just a few years later at a war conference, Roosevelt and Churchill were tag teaming the Communist atheist Russian leader Stalin about the truth of Christianity. Oh yes, Churchill and Roosevelt tried to personally convert Joseph Stalin. For, you see, they had faith, tremendous faith. And on Jan 29th, 1942 , the British House of Commons voted 464 to 1 to support Churchill in his prosecution of the war. The Members of Parliment reaffirmed their faith in Churchill.
Churchill and Roosevelt’s faith goes back a long way, clear back in time to a man standing beside the Jordan River in ancient Palestine, nearly 2000 years ago...
The man is odd looking. His hair is not trimmed – it is a deep black in color and hangs down to his waist. His clothing is not the ordinary, instead of linen, he is wearing a rough garment made of woven brown camel hair. He has a leather belt around his waist, not a linen belt. On that belt hang several pouches in which he keeps his food.
He doesn’t eat ordinary food – no beef or lamb or mutton for this man – instead he eats the pods from the Old World locust tree and covers them with honey he has found in the wilderness. The man is deeply tanned from years alone in the wilderness, his long black beard is uncombed. He is thin, but has a strong voice with an accent that tells you he is from near Bethlehem, in the are of Jerusalem.
“After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. “ He speaks at length of the Messiah to come, the one Isaiah prophesied of 800 years earlier. His eyes flash and there is a crowd who is listening. “Repent”, he says, meaning to rethink what God wants. Someone asks him if he is the prophet Isaiah returned. “No," he shakes his head. "I am one calling in the wilderness,” and the crowd remembers what Isaiah had said about a man who would proclaim the arrival of the Messiah, who would go out ahead and order that the rough places should be smoothed over and the hills and valleys be graded to prepare a pathway for the glory of the Lord to be revealed.
John called upon them to repent again, to change their minds about God’s personality and to change their way of dealing with each other. They were not to treat poor people as dirt, but were to help each other. And when they had made that decision to repent, John offered to baptize them in the river.
Baptism. It was a young word. It had first been used about 150 years earlier to describe what happens when you put cucumbers in vinegar – they are baptized, they are cleaned and washed, but they also change their state. Several wonderful things happen to the cucumbers. They taste better. They are cleaned. They are safer to eat with the bad stuff washed off of them, in some way better than if you used plain water. And they are preserved, they don’t rot like cucumbers sitting around do.
John would baptize the people in the Jordan River, the holiest water in Palestine, the water that came from snows on Mt Hermon, high in the north, ran into the Sea of Galilee, and then fell down in rapids to the Dead Sea. The Jordan river, the river that Joshua - Yeshua - the leader of Israel had crossed to enter the Holy Land.
But John also spoke of the Messiah to come. “I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
What was this Holy Spirit? Saul, the first king of Israel had received the Holy Spirit one day and he had prophesied with the other prophets, speaking on behalf of God. Over the centuries, that same Holy Spirit had come onto a few people of Israel and they had spoken on behalf of God as prophets. Now, John, this “one crying in the wilderness” said, “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
And we know the rest of the story. How John attracted disciples, including young men named Andrew, John, and Peter. How one day John pointed out another man, perhaps a bit taller, not as odd looking, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” How John’s disciples spent some time one afternoon with that man, who was also called Joshua, Yeshua, or as the Romans would say, “Jesus of Nazareth” and then decided to follow Him.
We know that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, the savior of all Israel – and the world. We know that he taught for about three years, that he was John’s younger cousin by a few months, and that after John’s death Jesus’ ministry grew and grew until He also was arrested and executed by the authorities. But we also know that Jesus arose from death and was seen by over 500 people in at least eleven separate appearances and He walked with his students and talked with them and ate with them and even cooked several of them some fish just a few days after He came back from death.
And then…He went away, promising to return some day.
While Jesus has been gone, the world has changed.
Unlike the men of ancient Palestine, men no longer fight with spears and swords much, but instead use guns and tanks and missiles.
Men and women no longer die much from a minor cut or illness, but people have discovered and produced medical treatments that mean a simple cut is no longer life-threatening – and people have even developed methods to replace kidneys and lungs and even hearts.
Today, in many countries, men and women do not die of starvation if they do not wish to, for men and women now select rulers for themselves who will take care of those who have no land, no farm, no wealth by taxing the well-off and giving to the less well-off.
And we rarely suffer from the cold in winter nor the heat in summer, for men and women have developed methods of keeping homes comfortable, of killing fleas and lice, of giving us clean water, and our clothing no longer takes weeks or months of work for a simple set of clothes, but now can be found for the equivalent of a half-day’s wages.
And the reason for all this change was the Messiah that John proclaimed at the River Jordan so long ago. The reason is that people understand they are to care for their neighbors as they care for themselves. medicine, representative democracy, comfort - all these things come from those teachings of Jesus that we should care for all people like ourselves, and that everyone is important in the eyes of God.
Today, our faith is tested. There are many in this world who look at those who trust in the promises of Christ with disgust. Our culture tells us to have faith in nothing but our bank accounts, our 401k accounts, the products that that particular commercial is selling to you. Our culture says that we should have faith on in “evidence-based studies”, in scientific studies that are funded either by political appointees or by corporations, by statements made only by those who are in power or have put others in power. Our culture says to not have faith in anything unless those without faith deem it a legitimate point of view.
But hope leads to faith, and experience leads to faith, and knowledge leads to faith. And we have encountered God in our lives and in writings that date far before our politicians and CEO’s took control of our information. And so we can have faith in what wise men and women whom we know can tell us.
If I were to run past the front of my speaking platform with my eyes closed, I would rapidly drop a foot or two, wouldn’t I? How do you know? You’ve seen similar things, you have knowledge, you’ve experienced the fall yourself when you were younger, you know of a force called gravity and you have faith that gravity always works, because in your experience it has always worked for you …and for others you know. And so your reason puts together what you see at this platform, it remembers what you have experienced, it pulls in what you have heard and read about that others have experienced, and says, “Don’t step forward unless you expect to drop suddenly down!” You have faith in gravity because of your experience and knowledge. Our faith is based upon facts.
And so there is the question of our faith in Christ and Christ’s return – and the promises He made to us. What, exactly should we have faith in? Consider these three points.
First, Jesus promised us that He will return. He promised us that if we follow Him we will have eternal life. We have faith that His promises were made.
Second, The Bible, the written testimony of those who knew Jesus when He walked upon the earth, tells us that God never lies, that Jesus never lied, and that Jesus is God in a particularly complex way. And this is confirmed by the experience of the godly men and women we know. Wise people tell us that Jesus and God always keep their promises. We have faith in the Biblical witness and so we have faith in the ability of Christ to keep His promises.
Third, we have each encountered the love of Christ, and so we have faith in His love. We have faith that Christ will want to keep His promises. Our faith is based upon our experience and our knowledge.
And if you find it difficult to have faith, there are probably two, interconnected reasons:
First, people have let you down in the past. For keeping promises requires that you have the ability and the desire to keep the promises. Many times, people don’t have the ability to keep their promises. Other times, they don’t have the desire.
But Christ, the Son of God always has the ability to keep His promises. And Christ, who showed his love for us in dying on the cross has the desire to keep his promises for us. Furthermore, by coming back to life, He showed his ability to defeat even death when He desired. Jesus alone is worthy of your faith.
Second, you haven’t learned enough about Jesus of Nazareth. You haven’t carefully read the four Gospel stories of the New Testament. You’ve simply relied upon others and don’t really know which way to turn, like a teenager trying to learn how to drive from teenage friends, .
Read the Gospels. Listen to a pro teach you. Take the time to learn in depth. Ask the questions. That’s one purpose of the various studies and Sunday School classes we have each week. It’s to go in depth. It’s so you can make your faith rock solid and then begin to tell others about Christ, to proclaim the Good News of Christ.
So now there is a new question.
Who will Proclaim that the Lord will return?
Who will Proclaim that Jesus keeps His promises?
Who will have the Faith to Proclaim in the face of ridicule, laughter, hardship, and trouble that following Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life?
We have all met hundreds of people who are not worthy to lead us.
We have all met hundreds of people who are petty, nasty, and would sell their grandmothers for the right price.
We have all met those who blindly follow the devil into Hell. So who will stand up and proclaim, “Jesus is the way to life?”
About twenty years ago, Saundra and I went to see WVU play Florida in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. WVU got clobbered, so sometime around the beginning of the fourth period, Saundra and I left the stadium and drove down Bourbon Street.
The night was foggy and a bit chilly. There were already hundreds and thousands of drunk fans and locals walking around, so I drove very, very slowly, allowing people to cross in front of me. The fog was everywhere and we could only see about twenty feet, but there were neon lights and street lamps all around, giving the place an eerie red glow.
Suddenly, in front of us on the street corner surrounded by those drunks and partiers, was a sight I will never forget. Bathed in red light in the fog, there loomed up a dark man, naked from the waist up. He was at least 6’ 5” and must have weighed 275-300 lbs. This was a BIG man and he was holding up a 9-foot high cross. And from his deep voice came the words:
“REPENT! TURN FROM YOUR EVIL AND TURN TO JESUS CHRIST!”
Late on December 7th, Churchill was sitting at home in front of his fireplace, drinking his whiskey and smoking a cigar that evening when the first phone call came around 8:30 pm. The Japanese had attacked Hong Kong, were in the process of sinking a British battleship near Vietnam, and were landing in the rubber-rich British colony of Malaysia. “And, by the way, sir, they appear to also be landing in the American-held Philippines and are bombing Pearl Harbor and the American Fleet. It looks bad!”
Churchill had been to America a few years earlier. In fact, he had been run over by a car and almost died in New York City while he was on a speaking tour. His mother was American, and so he had a deep knowledge of America – and he knew that if the Americans went to war, he had faith that they would fight hard and put everything into it.
That evening Churchill prayed.
Churchill had faith in Christ. And Churchill had faith in the promises of Roosevelt, who had told him that he would like to get more involved in the war, but was duty-bound to honor his Constitution that gave Congress the power to declare war.
Churchill had another whiskey and smoked another cigar while he thought about what the loss of the American battleships would mean for the Pacific. There would be no stopping the Japanese in cutting off his precious supply of rubber for tires from Malaysia. They would threaten Australia and even India, the largest and most important part of the British Empire. The night grew even darker as the fire burned low in his fireplace. Churchill brooded, with his brows frowning. He prayed some more.
And then, a bit after 11 pm, the phone rang. Churchill stood and walked to the phone. A familiar voice, Roosevelt, was on the other end. “You’ve heard about the attack this morning in Hawaii?”
“Yes, Mr President.”
“Well, Japan has declared war on us and tomorrow I’ll ask Congress to declare War on them. I guess we’re all in this together now!”
And after a few more words, they hung up the phone.
Churchill stood by the phone for a half a minute, thinking through the gravity of the situation. And then, a sparkle came into his eyes and he suddenly danced a jig for a moment. As he wrote in his history of the war…”We had won! The war was won!”
You see, Churchill had such tremendous faith that Christ was with them, faith in the ability of the United States and now faith in the desire of the Americans to win, that he knew the war was won. On December 7th, 1941, just as most Americans were realizing that they would be going to war, Churchill was celebrating the victory that he could see coming. For Churchill had faith.
It is no coincidence that just a few years later at a war conference, Roosevelt and Churchill were tag teaming the Communist atheist Russian leader Stalin about the truth of Christianity. Oh yes, Churchill and Roosevelt tried to personally convert Joseph Stalin. For, you see, they had faith, tremendous faith. And on Jan 29th, 1942 , the British House of Commons voted 464 to 1 to support Churchill in his prosecution of the war. The Members of Parliment reaffirmed their faith in Churchill.
Churchill and Roosevelt’s faith goes back a long way, clear back in time to a man standing beside the Jordan River in ancient Palestine, nearly 2000 years ago...
The man is odd looking. His hair is not trimmed – it is a deep black in color and hangs down to his waist. His clothing is not the ordinary, instead of linen, he is wearing a rough garment made of woven brown camel hair. He has a leather belt around his waist, not a linen belt. On that belt hang several pouches in which he keeps his food.
He doesn’t eat ordinary food – no beef or lamb or mutton for this man – instead he eats the pods from the Old World locust tree and covers them with honey he has found in the wilderness. The man is deeply tanned from years alone in the wilderness, his long black beard is uncombed. He is thin, but has a strong voice with an accent that tells you he is from near Bethlehem, in the are of Jerusalem.
“After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. “ He speaks at length of the Messiah to come, the one Isaiah prophesied of 800 years earlier. His eyes flash and there is a crowd who is listening. “Repent”, he says, meaning to rethink what God wants. Someone asks him if he is the prophet Isaiah returned. “No," he shakes his head. "I am one calling in the wilderness,” and the crowd remembers what Isaiah had said about a man who would proclaim the arrival of the Messiah, who would go out ahead and order that the rough places should be smoothed over and the hills and valleys be graded to prepare a pathway for the glory of the Lord to be revealed.
John called upon them to repent again, to change their minds about God’s personality and to change their way of dealing with each other. They were not to treat poor people as dirt, but were to help each other. And when they had made that decision to repent, John offered to baptize them in the river.
Baptism. It was a young word. It had first been used about 150 years earlier to describe what happens when you put cucumbers in vinegar – they are baptized, they are cleaned and washed, but they also change their state. Several wonderful things happen to the cucumbers. They taste better. They are cleaned. They are safer to eat with the bad stuff washed off of them, in some way better than if you used plain water. And they are preserved, they don’t rot like cucumbers sitting around do.
John would baptize the people in the Jordan River, the holiest water in Palestine, the water that came from snows on Mt Hermon, high in the north, ran into the Sea of Galilee, and then fell down in rapids to the Dead Sea. The Jordan river, the river that Joshua - Yeshua - the leader of Israel had crossed to enter the Holy Land.
But John also spoke of the Messiah to come. “I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
What was this Holy Spirit? Saul, the first king of Israel had received the Holy Spirit one day and he had prophesied with the other prophets, speaking on behalf of God. Over the centuries, that same Holy Spirit had come onto a few people of Israel and they had spoken on behalf of God as prophets. Now, John, this “one crying in the wilderness” said, “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
And we know the rest of the story. How John attracted disciples, including young men named Andrew, John, and Peter. How one day John pointed out another man, perhaps a bit taller, not as odd looking, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” How John’s disciples spent some time one afternoon with that man, who was also called Joshua, Yeshua, or as the Romans would say, “Jesus of Nazareth” and then decided to follow Him.
We know that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, the savior of all Israel – and the world. We know that he taught for about three years, that he was John’s younger cousin by a few months, and that after John’s death Jesus’ ministry grew and grew until He also was arrested and executed by the authorities. But we also know that Jesus arose from death and was seen by over 500 people in at least eleven separate appearances and He walked with his students and talked with them and ate with them and even cooked several of them some fish just a few days after He came back from death.
And then…He went away, promising to return some day.
While Jesus has been gone, the world has changed.
Unlike the men of ancient Palestine, men no longer fight with spears and swords much, but instead use guns and tanks and missiles.
Men and women no longer die much from a minor cut or illness, but people have discovered and produced medical treatments that mean a simple cut is no longer life-threatening – and people have even developed methods to replace kidneys and lungs and even hearts.
Today, in many countries, men and women do not die of starvation if they do not wish to, for men and women now select rulers for themselves who will take care of those who have no land, no farm, no wealth by taxing the well-off and giving to the less well-off.
And we rarely suffer from the cold in winter nor the heat in summer, for men and women have developed methods of keeping homes comfortable, of killing fleas and lice, of giving us clean water, and our clothing no longer takes weeks or months of work for a simple set of clothes, but now can be found for the equivalent of a half-day’s wages.
And the reason for all this change was the Messiah that John proclaimed at the River Jordan so long ago. The reason is that people understand they are to care for their neighbors as they care for themselves. medicine, representative democracy, comfort - all these things come from those teachings of Jesus that we should care for all people like ourselves, and that everyone is important in the eyes of God.
Today, our faith is tested. There are many in this world who look at those who trust in the promises of Christ with disgust. Our culture tells us to have faith in nothing but our bank accounts, our 401k accounts, the products that that particular commercial is selling to you. Our culture says that we should have faith on in “evidence-based studies”, in scientific studies that are funded either by political appointees or by corporations, by statements made only by those who are in power or have put others in power. Our culture says to not have faith in anything unless those without faith deem it a legitimate point of view.
But hope leads to faith, and experience leads to faith, and knowledge leads to faith. And we have encountered God in our lives and in writings that date far before our politicians and CEO’s took control of our information. And so we can have faith in what wise men and women whom we know can tell us.
If I were to run past the front of my speaking platform with my eyes closed, I would rapidly drop a foot or two, wouldn’t I? How do you know? You’ve seen similar things, you have knowledge, you’ve experienced the fall yourself when you were younger, you know of a force called gravity and you have faith that gravity always works, because in your experience it has always worked for you …and for others you know. And so your reason puts together what you see at this platform, it remembers what you have experienced, it pulls in what you have heard and read about that others have experienced, and says, “Don’t step forward unless you expect to drop suddenly down!” You have faith in gravity because of your experience and knowledge. Our faith is based upon facts.
And so there is the question of our faith in Christ and Christ’s return – and the promises He made to us. What, exactly should we have faith in? Consider these three points.
First, Jesus promised us that He will return. He promised us that if we follow Him we will have eternal life. We have faith that His promises were made.
Second, The Bible, the written testimony of those who knew Jesus when He walked upon the earth, tells us that God never lies, that Jesus never lied, and that Jesus is God in a particularly complex way. And this is confirmed by the experience of the godly men and women we know. Wise people tell us that Jesus and God always keep their promises. We have faith in the Biblical witness and so we have faith in the ability of Christ to keep His promises.
Third, we have each encountered the love of Christ, and so we have faith in His love. We have faith that Christ will want to keep His promises. Our faith is based upon our experience and our knowledge.
And if you find it difficult to have faith, there are probably two, interconnected reasons:
First, people have let you down in the past. For keeping promises requires that you have the ability and the desire to keep the promises. Many times, people don’t have the ability to keep their promises. Other times, they don’t have the desire.
But Christ, the Son of God always has the ability to keep His promises. And Christ, who showed his love for us in dying on the cross has the desire to keep his promises for us. Furthermore, by coming back to life, He showed his ability to defeat even death when He desired. Jesus alone is worthy of your faith.
Second, you haven’t learned enough about Jesus of Nazareth. You haven’t carefully read the four Gospel stories of the New Testament. You’ve simply relied upon others and don’t really know which way to turn, like a teenager trying to learn how to drive from teenage friends, .
Read the Gospels. Listen to a pro teach you. Take the time to learn in depth. Ask the questions. That’s one purpose of the various studies and Sunday School classes we have each week. It’s to go in depth. It’s so you can make your faith rock solid and then begin to tell others about Christ, to proclaim the Good News of Christ.
So now there is a new question.
Who will Proclaim that the Lord will return?
Who will Proclaim that Jesus keeps His promises?
Who will have the Faith to Proclaim in the face of ridicule, laughter, hardship, and trouble that following Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life?
We have all met hundreds of people who are not worthy to lead us.
We have all met hundreds of people who are petty, nasty, and would sell their grandmothers for the right price.
We have all met those who blindly follow the devil into Hell. So who will stand up and proclaim, “Jesus is the way to life?”
About twenty years ago, Saundra and I went to see WVU play Florida in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. WVU got clobbered, so sometime around the beginning of the fourth period, Saundra and I left the stadium and drove down Bourbon Street.
The night was foggy and a bit chilly. There were already hundreds and thousands of drunk fans and locals walking around, so I drove very, very slowly, allowing people to cross in front of me. The fog was everywhere and we could only see about twenty feet, but there were neon lights and street lamps all around, giving the place an eerie red glow.
Suddenly, in front of us on the street corner surrounded by those drunks and partiers, was a sight I will never forget. Bathed in red light in the fog, there loomed up a dark man, naked from the waist up. He was at least 6’ 5” and must have weighed 275-300 lbs. This was a BIG man and he was holding up a 9-foot high cross. And from his deep voice came the words:
“REPENT! TURN FROM YOUR EVIL AND TURN TO JESUS CHRIST!”
And then, he would pause for a couple of seconds and repeat it:
“REPENT! TURN FROM YOUR EVIL AND TURN TO JESUS CHRIST!”
That was faith in action.
I knew of another. In a small town I know, there was a man who owned a small shop. He rarely had more than one customer at a time, but when he did, his wife would help out. And when you went to that shop, you took your time, because sometime, somehow, he or his wife would turn the conversation around to God and Christ and Christianity. They always had time to talk about God – and God always gave them enough customers to live comfortably. They proclaimed Christ just as much as the man in the fog in New Orleans did. They just did it more quietly.
In Atlanta, there is a woman we know who meets young women and offers to spend an hour a week teaching them about Christ, about being a good wife, about being a Christian mother. Ruth is known all over Atlanta in the Christian community for her proclamation of Christ and for the young women who have graduated from her teaching.
That was faith in action.
I knew of another. In a small town I know, there was a man who owned a small shop. He rarely had more than one customer at a time, but when he did, his wife would help out. And when you went to that shop, you took your time, because sometime, somehow, he or his wife would turn the conversation around to God and Christ and Christianity. They always had time to talk about God – and God always gave them enough customers to live comfortably. They proclaimed Christ just as much as the man in the fog in New Orleans did. They just did it more quietly.
In Atlanta, there is a woman we know who meets young women and offers to spend an hour a week teaching them about Christ, about being a good wife, about being a Christian mother. Ruth is known all over Atlanta in the Christian community for her proclamation of Christ and for the young women who have graduated from her teaching.
Proclaiming Christ is not a matter of how loud you are or how much you know. It is just a matter of priorities.
The man on the corner in New Orleans could have spent the evening with friends and family, but he chose to spend it with people who needed Christ. The couple in the shop could have chosen to sell more quickly, but they choose to talk about God and Christ. Our friend Ruth could spend her days watching television, but she chooses to find young women and teach them what she knows about Christ. Even Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt chose to proclaim Christ when they met with Stalin. It is a matter of priorities – teaching what you know to those who will listen.
That’s why I preach two sermons a week and lead three groups a week – Wednesday mornings and evenings, and Sunday evenings. If you want to learn, I willing to teach. It is a matter of priorities.
It is something you can do. For it is a matter of priorities. The knowledge comes after the desire and the desire leads to more knowledge. Teaching another teaches yourself.
Each of us needs to find his or her corner, or shop, or living room in which to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ's sacrifice and resurrection. Where is your corner, your shop, or your living room? To whom will you proclaim?
If you would proclaim, come see me. Join in our Wesley dinner group that always meets at 6:30 on Sunday evenings at the church and then goes out to dinner at some local restaurant. For the purpose of that group is to help you find your way, to find your own corner or shop or living room to proclaim Christ throughout our land.
In Isaiah, Chapter 6, Isaiah reports these words:
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
Who will proclaim?
If you would proclaim, come see me. Join in our Wesley dinner group that always meets at 6:30 on Sunday evenings at the church and then goes out to dinner at some local restaurant. For the purpose of that group is to help you find your way, to find your own corner or shop or living room to proclaim Christ throughout our land.
In Isaiah, Chapter 6, Isaiah reports these words:
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
Who will proclaim?
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