This is How You Go! Part Two (BFM #19)
Text: Luke 13:1-5, Matthew 14:22-33
By: Ken McKinley
(Read Text from Luke)
If ya’ll remember last week I referenced this passage while talking about the statement that Pat Robertson made about the disaster in Haiti. The reason I did that is because anyone who makes a statement like Robertson did shows that they lack a fundamental understanding of what Scripture teaches. And this passage sums up a large portion of the teaching of Scripture and it’s applicable to what we’ve been going over here on Sunday mornings – Article 11 of the Baptist Faith and message – Evangelism and missions. Now I want to read to you quickly article 11 once more so that we can be reminded of our point of reference (Read BFM article 11).
Now if our text were taking place today, what would happen? What would happen if people came to Jesus and said, “Jesus, did you hear about the earthquake in Haiti? They are saying 50 to 100 thousand people are dead.” And Jesus would look into their eyes, like nobody has every looked before and He would say, “Do you think this happened to these Haitians because they were worse sinners than you? I tell you, No; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
That is probably something we’re lacking today. I mean; how many of you today have ever had an encounter where you approach someone with some theological question and they look you right in the eye and say, “The most important thing is your own soul. If you don’t get right with God, you are going to perish.” When Jesus was presented with a problem He always dealt with the person.
Well that’s what we’re going to try to do today. If you remember last Sunday I said there were 5 reasons why people don’t share their faith and we covered two of those reasons.
I gave you all bulletin inserts with ideas and ways that you could share your faith… that list is nowhere near exhaustive; it’s just a short list to help you formulate your own ideas through prayer and your God given intelligence. And we looked at why fear should not be a hindrance to sharing the faith with others.
So today we’re going to be looking at the other 3 reasons why we don’t share our faith and witness. And they are: We don’t have the time, we don’t have the desire, and we don’t know any non-Christians to witness to.
Now in our text here; we see some pretty amazing implications about the way the world is, and about the way we think it is. Jesus tells these people who came and asked Him this question what was really at stake here, and that is that unrepentant people are going to perish. Verse 3 of our text is the main point of our passage, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
Those people who had come to Jesus didn’t say it outright, but they were thinking it… those people who died must have done something horrible for God to allow that to happen to them. A lot of people didn’t say what Pat Robertson said, but there are some who believe what he said. That’s how they reconcile their view of God’s love and God’s sovereignty.
If God is sovereign and God loves His creation, then why do bad things happen to people? Was it that the Haitians sin was so horrible and worse than any others sins that God judged them? Was it that Satan attacked Haiti and God didn’t stop him? Was it that God just lets the course of nature and natural events run without any intervention at all?
Was God powerless to stop the earthquake, or did He not want to stop the earthquake even though He could? Or was it simply that He caused it?
The problem we have is that we look at things like this the wrong way. The issue isn’t that so many die in tragedies every day all over the world, the issue is that so many are allowed to continue living. The sin of those in our text, and the sin of the Haitian people wasn’t extraordinary or more horrible than anyone else, it was ordinarily horrible, just like yours and mine. And if we haven’t repented, we too will experience a horrible end.
So the answer to that question, “Why do bad things happen to good people” is, “There are no good people.”
We all like sheep have gone astray; there are none who are righteous, no not one. We have all sinned and fallen short of the righteousness of God. So what should amaze us in our sin is not that some are taken in tragedy or disasters, but that so many are spared every day and given another day to repent. The amazing thing is not that guilty sinners perish, but that God is so slow to anger that you and I are here this morning and have one more chance, and we have been given chance after chance, after chance to repent and trust in Him.
Now I want you to look at our text again, specifically verse 3 (Read). When Jesus uses that word “likewise” He’s not talking about the same manner of death, He’s referring to the fact that the Galileans and those who died in the tower collapse, weren’t expecting what happened to them. Those people, and the people in Haiti, and the people in the twin towers on 9-11, and the people in the Asian tsunami, and the people in New Orleans when Katrina struck… they weren’t expecting sudden calamity to strike them. We all know we’re going to die someday. So what Jesus was talking about was that the horror of their end took them by surprise.
That brings us to reasons number 3 and 4, we don’t have the time or the desire to witness and share our faith. And the answer to those excuses is baloney! If we have the time to sit and watch the Cowboys get thumped 34 to 3 we have time to visit a neighbor and share the Gospel, or pick up a phone and encourage someone.
We say we don’t have time because we don’t understand the urgency of the need. You will all likewise perish! Write that on a card and use a rubber band to put it on the visor of your car, that way you will be reminded that everyone you’re driving next to on the road will perish. Tape it into your wallet so that every time you buy something you will be reminded that the clerk will perish if he or she doesn’t repent. Your children will perish, your parents will perish, your brothers or sisters will perish, your neighbors will perish, your co-workers will perish, your friends at school will perish.
Ya’ll this is not irrelevant “church talk.”
If we don’t make time, it’s because of one of three reasons; either - we don’t understand the urgency, we don’t prioritize the way Jesus would’ve prioritized, or we simply don’t believe what the Bible says. This is something that we as Baptists have historically believed and acted upon, but something has happened in the last 40 years or so, and it’s just not viewed as urgent as it once was. We might say we are, but the facts, the statistics and the evidence shows that’s just not the case.
What about a lack of desire? Again, I would say that this comes from either a lack of understanding or a lack of belief in God’s Word.
In Luke chapter 7 we are told that whoever has been forgiven much loves much. I think it is very possible that we have many people in churches today who don’t understand the gravity of their sin. They don’t understand what they have been forgiven of. They see themselves as “really not so bad…” Jesus just helped them out a little bit, but they were for the most part really good people who just needed a hand up.
But that’s the exact opposite of what the Bible teaches. The Bible says that without Christ we are spiritually dead. We are completely and totally unable to save ourselves. We are not sick with sin, we are DEAD WITH SIN! Without Christ you and I are just as horrible in the sight of God as Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Charles Manson, or Osama Bin Laden. Christians; we need to understand that we have been forgiven MUCH! If we want to be more effecting in evangelism and missions we must consider our own salvation, our own new birth. It’s because of the new birth that “the love of Christ has been shed abroad in our heats by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us, for when we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly,” and, “God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”
(Romans 5:5,6,8)
Now there’s one other aspect we need to consider in looking at evangelism and missions Let’s look at the story of the disciples and Peter walking on water again, so let’s turn back to Matthew 14:22-33 (Read). What we have here is a picture of the Law and the Gospel. The disciples were trying to be obedient to the commands of the Lord, but without the Lord with them, they failed. Now I want to show you what Mark says about this as well so let’s turn to Mark 6:45-48 (Read).
Jesus would’ve passed them by. They were trying to be obedient but they were trying to do it in their own strength. They had been out there struggling for hours against that storm but they were getting nowhere. In John 15:5 Jesus said that without Him we can do nothing, but Philippians 4:13 says we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. Jesus doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called. We see that over and over again in the Bible, Jacob tried to do things his way, but it wasn’t until he wrestled with God and was forced to lean upon Him that he gave up trying to do things his way and started doing things God’s way. Peter, in and of himself could not walk on water, he had to be with Jesus.
Turn with me to Acts 2:42-47 – this is a familiar passage if you’ve ever studied how the first church grew (Read Acts 2:42-47). Notice that last part? Who added to the church? The Lord! The Lord adds to the Church those who are being saved. The Apostle Paul said it this way in 1st Corinthians 3:6-8, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.” Do you see what Paul’s saying there? It doesn’t matter if you’re a pastor, an evangelist, and teacher, a layman, or even an apostle, we are one… but each one of us, though we are all to be planting and watering, will be rewarded according to our labor.
Let’s Pray!
