THE UNPOPULAR TRUTH
MARK 1:1-11
There is an old gospel song we used to sing some of you may know it. I’m running for my life, I’m running for my life, I’m running for my life. ---If anybody asks you what’s the matter with me, just tell them I’m saved, sanctified, Holy Ghost filled, and fire baptized and tell them I’m running, I’m running, I’m running for my life. Call it simple if you want but there is seriousness, an awareness that life is about more than fun and games that is conveyed to us in a song like that. There is however, something that has always bothered me about that song. Why would somebody have to ask what’s the matter with somebody who is serious about their soul salvation? It’s because when we are serious about who we are in God and who God is in us it will make you look strange to some people. It may even make you look strange to some people who you would think would understand because they are in church, and my sisters and my brothers it may even make you unpopular with some people.
Last week we had an absolutely awesome Family and Friends Day which was a great time to celebrate, and fellowship, play. Since nobody brought the pinochle cards the pastor found himself once again at the spades table. For the record ---- the pastor won. But when we look back at the week I think that we can say what I used to always hear in the church when I was growing up --- a good time was had by all. Christians ought to be able to have fun. Christians ought to be able to laugh and have a good time. There are few things worse than a sour puss Christian.
However, as we turn towards the Fall of the year we do understand that God has called us to serious and important work. The Bible says that John the Baptist was a serious person. Most of us would not have cared much to be around him. ---He didn’t like to play cards or drink beer. ---He didn’t like to laugh and joke and play around with people. ---- He was not a social butterfly. Nor was he a charmer or somebody who would make us feel comfortable to be around. Some of us believe that we are supposed to be comfortable all the time. We believe that the church is supposed to make us feel comfortable all the time. I personally would rather belong to a church where I can feel uncomfortable sometimes. Because when I am uncomfortable that will cause me make a change in my life. Haven’t you ever noticed that? If you sit down in a chair or sofa and it is real comfortable, you meant to get up and do some work, meant to get up and go get something, but it was just so comfortable. Sometimes I sit down somewhere and I get so comfortable that it’s just over.
We used to have a chair in the house in New Orleans in the living room and if you sat down in it was over. I saw that chair take many victims, on more than one occasion. I would get so comfortable in the chair that I would just sleep in the chair. It got so bad that one day my daughter told somebody at church, my daddy sleeps in the living room. They thought my wife was getting ready to put me out. It is dangerous when the church gets comfortable, with things that hinder us from becoming who we are in God. In the name of making people comfortable we get comfortable with all forms of sexual impurity, including homosexuality, adultery, and fornication. It may not be popular to say it but it is the truth. We become comfortable with lying, gossiping, and stealing the Lord’s money by not tithing. ---It may not be popular to say it but it is the truth. Isn’t it a tragedy when we as the people of God become comfortable with being lazy and irresponsible? Give me a church where I can be uncomfortable sometimes. Give me a church where my ears don’t just get tickled but my toes get stepped on sometimes. -----Give me a church where I don’t just hear everything I want to hear, but where I hear some of the things that I need to hear. I DON’T MIND IF YOU MAKE ME SHOUT, BUT I NEED YOU TO MAKE ME THINK ABOUT MY LIFE AND MY RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD AND MY CHRISTIAN WALK AND THE DESTINATION OF MY SOUL. Because when I am uncomfortable that’s when I will do something to change my situation.
John the Baptist did not have an inflated sense of who he was or how important he was in the kingdom of God. He was not one of these people who believed that if he stopped working, if he stopped giving, if he stopped coming to church, that the whole operation, the whole enterprise and activity in God’s house would somehow come to a grinding halt.
John would not fit in well with us today because John the Baptist would not pull any punches. He would not act like right was wrong and wrong was right. John would not work out well if he came among us today because John the Baptist was just so serious. He was too serious about his soul to worry about being popular. --------He was all about Jesus. It was as though long before, any of the court room dramas that arrest our attention today, John had been divinely and cosmically sworn in to take the witness stand. It was as though they had made John raise his right hand and asked him do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God. And it was as though John had taken that solemn oath and was bound to testify. It may not have made him popular, but he had to tell it. It may not have made people say how wonderful he was but he had to tell it, and it would eventually lead to his imprisonment and untimely demise, but he was bound to tell the unpopular truth.
I don’t think he would do what we preachers do today to stay relevant, and to get to people where they are. I was telling someone the other day we have another denomination in this city you may not be aware of. We have the AME’s, that’s us, the AMEZ’s, the Baptists, the COGIC and then we have high school football. You know high school football and basketball is another denomination within the city. Some people belong to the AME church, the Baptist church, the Cogic church, and some people belong to high school football and basketball. Now saying it may not make me popular but it is the truth.
My position has been to embrace it. Use it as a vehicle for advertising, make the most of it take out an ad in the journal, purchase television commercials when the games are on, because at least I know people are watching. But somehow I suspect that John the Baptist would not go about it just that way.
We have to reach a point in our life when we say I’m tired of crap. Where you say I don’t care what anybody else does or thinks or believes I know the Lord has made a way for me. I mean we have to reach a point in our life where we are able to say if nobody else praises Him I’m going to praise Him because God has been good to me. Whatever I may not know, I know that God is real, and I know that God is able.
John the Baptist would not fit nicely into our modern day religious culture because John was just a little too serious about his soul salvation. John was a little too serious about winning souls for the Lord. John was just a little too serious about who he was in God. So John did not go and join the Temple, because down at the Temple it was a social club. It was a social hour going on. The folks in the temple had forgotten why they came to the temple in the first place and they had started to believe that the temple and the positions of leadership in the temple belonged to them whether they did anything or not. The folks in the Temple had become religious --- even the priests, but they had lost sight of that relationship that makes everything else real. But John the Baptist heard a word from God. So he went out into the wilderness and preached the simple and unpopular truth to repent and be forgiven. He went out to the wilderness, a wilderness so dry and desolate, a limestone desert so devoid of life that the scholars say that in Old Testament it is also known as Jeshimmon, or the place of devastation. John went out there with the unpopular truth to repent and be baptized and be forgiven. You see for the Jews baptism was familiar. They had a whole series of ritual cleansings that they performed for all sorts of reasons every day. Symbolic washing and purifying was common practice for all practicing Jews every day during John’s time. So that when a person converted to the Jewish faith they had to undergo a three part process. They had to be circumcised, and we know Paul got into major arguments with his fellow Christians about that because they wanted to carry circumcision over into their new faith in Jesus as a prerequisite for non Jewish converts to the faith. Paul had to help them understand that the physical circumcision or peeling away is not nearly as important as the circumcision of the heart. Then, after they were circumcised, a sacrifice had to be made and some blood had to be shed to atone for their sins, and finally they had to be baptized. The purpose for the baptism was to be cleansed from all of their past transgressions.
Well this is what made John’s message so unpopular. John was telling other Jews that they needed to be baptized which was something that only Gentiles were supposed to have to undergo. As the Biblical scholar William Barclay puts it, “John had made the tremendous discovery that to be a Jew in the racial sense was not to be a member of God’s chosen people; a Jew might be in exactly the same position as a Gentile; not the Jewish life, but the cleansed life belonged to God.”
In other words, John said we can preach about it, we can sing about it, we can shout about it, we can dance about it, but we are all sinners and we must repent and be forgiven. We can put on white robes, white hats, white suits, white outfits, all we want but “What can wash away my sins, nothing but the blood of Jesus ----- What can make me whole again ------ nothing but the blood of Jesus.” It may be popular, but it is the truth. ----- So we may not as well to fix our face to say we have not sinned because Isaiah was right all we like sheep have gone astray. He said we may as well confess our sins ourselves and to God almighty and be forgiven. Because there is no feeling in the world like knowing that you have been forgiven. That’s what John was saying to the people, he was saying I know what y’all think about me. I know I am not at the top of anybodies social calendar. I know y’all think I’m crazy out here dressed in this outfit and eating locusts and wild honey, but I know I’m a sinner and I know I’m forgiven.
And I just believe that I have some people in church this morning who can testify, I didn’t come to church today because I’m friends with the Pastor. -----------I didn’t come to hear my name called. ------I didn’t come because my choir was singing. ------- I didn’t come because my parents were going to be here.---- I came because I know I’m a sinner but Jesus saved me anyhow. I came because when my load got heavy he picked me up. ------ I came because when sickness had my body the Lord delivered me. ----- I came because when that person walked out of my life Jesus made me know I was not alone. ------ I came because when I failed my test and didn’t get my promotion at work ------- he encouraged my soul. -------- I came because when my job got eliminated --- he had another door already waiting for me. ---------I came, because, when I think of the goodness of Jesus, when I did everything to destroy myself He told death to stand back and behave. ------- I came because if anybody asks you what’s the matter with me, tell them I’m saved , sanctified, Holy Ghost Filled and Fire Baptized and tell them I’m running, I’m running, I’m running for my life.
Church, it’s time to get serious, the days of just coming to church are over, and it’s time to start being the church. ---- The Bible says that John the Baptist did not go where the popular people were he went out into the wilderness. So many people today are living a wilderness experience. Right around our church living a wilderness experience. So many people today are barely making it, struggling to survive every day, living a wilderness experience. Even while the neighborhood is changing with nice new housing there are still so many right in this area who are living a wilderness experience. They are trying to figure out how are they going make it not even realizing what is going on around them. It is a wilderness experience right here in our neighborhood. Children from the school have to walk past that bar every day and look at liquor bottles and drug needles and used condoms thrown on the ground from the previous nights’ activity. I’m telling you it’s a wilderness experience. Senior citizens are scared to come out of their own homes for fear of what someone might do to them in this neighborhood, it is a wilderness experience. One lady told me who lives across the street from the church that she has been robbed at night twice in front of her house coming home from work, it is a wilderness experience. There is hardly any place to eat around here, there is no place to buy groceries, or a cup of coffee or get any of the basic services you need, so that if you don’t have a car you are at the mercy of whoever you can get to help you, it is a wilderness experience.
But Pastor why are you playing, because I may not live in the neighborhood of the church but pastor I am living in the wilderness myself. When I leave church today Pastor I’m going home to a wilderness experience. I know I look like I have it all together pastor but when the sermon, communion, and benediction is over I’m going back to a place that is lonely and empty and cold, I’m going back to a wilderness experience. The Bible says that John went out into the wilderness and preached the unpopular truth and the Bible says a strange thing happened. It says in verse 5 all the land of Judea went out to him and were baptized in the Jordan River confessing their sins. We are living in some serious times. These are times of war and rumors of wars. There is spiritual wickedness in the highest of places, and people are tired of being fake. People are tired of having to tell you that everything is okay in their life. Sometimes they want to say no, I am not fine I’ve got hell going on all around me and I feel like it’s closing in. But will be fine, because I going to keep on walking with Jesus. It’s perilous times and people are looking around for what’s real. Not what’s popular, but what’s real. Not what is entertaining, but what’s real. Because they have found out that only a real relationship with Jesus can bring peace into troubled souls. Pastor, what did John know that made him so willing to embrace the unpopular truth?
He knew that he had a purpose. His purpose was to prepare the way for Jesus. You need to know today that you have a purpose for being here. It is no accident that has brought you to this place. God created, designed and made us for a specific reason, and purpose. Isn’t that what Paul tells us and we know that all things work together for good for those who love the Lord for those who are the called according to his purpose? The challenge for us today as I have said on many occasions is to “find a need that breaks your heart and then break your backs to meet that need.” (Heart of a Great Pastor)
John also knew that he not only had to repent but he had to try to reform. He recognized his sin and his need to receive forgiveness. But he was also trying to live a changed life. We will not get it right all the time. But that does not mean we do not try. We will mess up and fall short along the way but for God’s sake try. The enemy will cause us to respond to some stuff in a way that we did not even think we were still capable of responding to in that way but we try.
Finally, John was serious, but he did not take himself so seriously that he didn’t realize it was not about him. John could have had the big head with all those people who came out to the wilderness to be baptized by him but he understood that it was about him. Do you know it will give you a new attitude at work when you are able to say it’s not about me? You can put up with some stuff better when you learn how to say it’s not about me. We can adjust to some things we normally would be unwilling to adjust to when we are able to say it’s not about me. I can be patient with some people who are really trying my patience when I begin to understand that it’s not about me.
John didn’t mind if he was popular, he didn’t have to be popular because it was not about him. There is a story that I first heard my father in the ministry the Rev. Reginald T. Jackson use. It is about a concert organist who was giving a grand concert. He came out to the audience and took a bow and then cracked his hands, sat down at the organ and played beautiful music. This was back during the time when the organs were pumped by air and someone had to be in the back pumping air into the organ for it to play. During the intermission, a little old man came up to the concert organist and said we “we certainly did give them a good show so far didn’t we?” The concert organist looked at the man in confusion and disgust, and asked just who are you? The little man replied I am the pumper. The concert organist then said well, Mr. pumper, what do you mean we? Were you there when I was taking organ lessons? Were you there when I was in college learning to play? Were you there during all my hours of practice and rehearsal? What exactly do you mean we gave them a good show? That was my hard work. ----- When the intermission was over, the concert organist went back to the stage, and bowed to the audience, cracked his hands and sat at the organ. Once again he began to play beautiful music, but this time nothing came out. He stood up and looked all around the organ, he checked the cord, he was satisfied that everything seemed to be in order so he cracked his hands, and sat back down to the organ and began to play. But once again nothing came out. Again he got up from the chair, but this time he went into the back off stage. Every one in the audience was wondering what had happened. After a few moments he reappeared holding the hand of a frail old man, and he came to the microphone and said ladies and gentleman, you have come to hear me play the organ, but I could not do it by myself, won’t you please join me in giving a round of applause for the pumper. And my sisters and my brothers whatever we do in life we must always remember don’t forget the pumper.
I just stopped by to tell somebody, that you are not here today by yourself, because of your good looks, you fine education, or your slick ways. We are here because God is the pumper in our lives who breathes air into everything we do that is worth doing, and no matter how much we achieve or think we have achieved we cannot forget the pumper. John didn’t have to worry about being popular because john knew who the pumper was in his life, and when we know that Jesus is the pumper in our lives, we can make it any wilderness that world hits us with because there is somebody behind us who is the real source of our supply.
