“12 Alive! Miracle in the Mine! They’re all Alive!”
Several weeks ago, during the first week of January, those were the spoken/written, vocal/visible words gracing the headlines momentarily in an instant of pomp, excitement & circumstance. These words were just a snippet of the newspaper headlines displayed across the nation and around the world—particularly (and for the most part) greeting Americans on their doorsteps January 4, 2006, Wednesday morning that purported and alleged that 12 miners in West Virginia had miraculously and amazingly survived a major, devastating explosion there in a West Virginian mine. On cable news channels, late-night viewers saw euphoria erupt in the black West Virginia night. Family members began to celebrate and breathe of relief. Anchors such as Anderson Cooper and Geraldo Rivera were swept up in the joyful scene while newspapers across the country rushed to update their front pages relating to the good news that had transpired.
That gleeful, exhilarating, delightful announcement—was joyful, dramatic, thrilling, utterly relieving. But, of course, flat out wrong! We would later discover that they had jumped pre-maturely to conclude that 12 of the miners were alive when in all actuality they were dead.
But, this is not the first time there was a glitch in the public media—for if we can just think back to George Bush’s election victory in 2000 had so many papers announced the wrong news. This reversal of the 12 miners also called to mind the Munich Olympics story in 1972, when the Israeli hostages were initially reported safe, when in fact all had been killed. This also calls to mind the instant when the United States waged a pre-emptive strike against Iraq for weapons of mass destruction which, to date, can not and perhaps will not be found.
Three hours later came the terrible truth: Only one man had survived, the mining company said. However, by the time that it had been confirmed that they all but one was dead it was 3 a.m., too late for many papers to change their initial front pages.
You probably already know, that as the painful, agonizing story began to emerge and unfold we actually discovered that all but one of the West Virginia miners was dead. And instinctively news organizations, reporters and journalists were faced and forced to ask the question: Have we gone too far in reporting the original, much happier ending?
We do this all the time. In fact, we love stories with happy endings. The ugly duckling in the family meets her fairy god-mother—goes to a Ball room with her Prada, Luis Vuitton and Anna Klein. She dances with the Prince and inevitably they fall in love. She runs…he runs after her…loses her…finds her…marries her…they live happily ever after.
Or what about Dorothy and Todo—Dorothy lives in Kansas surrounded by a nice house with a white picket fence by the hillside. She finds herself with some strange-looking creatures with a list of issues while being chased by the wicked witch of west. But like clock work—though she has her series of challenges of bravery and tenacity, she finds her way to the Wizard of Oz—he’s not real—but all is not lost—some kind of way—she finds herself back home—living happily ever after.
Or what about Hakeem who rather than settling for what appears to be the perfect bride decides that what he really desires is someone who will love him for him and not what he has. And so this prince destined to be a king leaves Africa, the motherland, to Queens to find his bride. Only to discover that he is a long way from home. However, at a distance he falls in love with Lisa McDowell, the daughter of a mega hamburger franchise magnet. Hakeem is met with a challenge for Lisa is involved with Darryl, the heir apparent to the Jerry Curl dynasty, Soul Glo. But some kind of way—Lisa falls in love with Hakeem. Hakeem gets the woman—they get married—head back to Africa and guess what they do? They live happy ever after.
It seems as if we love stories that end happy. After all, how many stories would sell if there was always a sad ending. How many CD’s would sell in the music industry if all they sung about was “I’m so sad…I’m going to die”.
Most of us like songs a joy…happiness…where in the end you win. We like to be the hero at the end of our story.
What is true in the entertainment industry is also true spiritually. We would like to believe that every good guy gets a good ending. We would love to believe that every good girl who does smoke and doesn’t chew and doesn’t do what bad girls do—will be a singing angel floating on clouds in the sweet by and by. We would like to think that we can prance and dance with the lions, tigers and bears like Dorothy—and eventually end up in some spiritual Kansas. We would love to believe that all good people get to go to heaven/every individual who dots every I and crosses every T gets a ticket saying Heaven-bound. But that is not necessarily the case. In fact, if that is what you think—you are clearly misguided and mis-directed and mis-informed. It is not as easy as being a good individual.
Titus 3:5 reports that it is ‘not by works of merit or righteousness or good deeds that we have done that we are saved…he saved us because of His own mercy, the washing of regeneration and the renewing of His Holy Spirit.’
• Good people are pleasant and delightful to live with; but their goodness is no assurance of an eternal guarantee. It is not even by how many people say that we are a good person—so much so that everybody wants to be your friend.
Matthew 7:13 ‘Wide and broad is the gate that leads to destruction; but narrow is the gate that leads to life’.
Your happy ending is inextricably tied to where you will spend your eternity. The scripture is also clear that the unrighteous shall spend eternity in hell; the righteous shall spend eternity with God in heaven.
Therefore your happy ending, on this earth, is not defined by your happiness but by your holiness.
• Let me say to you that innately there is nothing holy in you or about you. God is holy; man is unholy. We are unclean, filthy, dirty and depraved. But God is clean, pure, and untainted.
But that is why the gift of salvation is so very significant to you and me. Because even though I am an unholy sinner I can have a holy Savior. And that He invites me to identify myself with his holiness, not my unholiness. And it only comes when I do what He did—surrender myself, humble myself and take up my cross and follow him.
Luke 9:23 says ‘If anyone would come after me let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me’.
Does anybody in here today know that you are a follower of Jesus Christ? Does anybody here know that He saved you? Redeemed you? Healed you? Set you free?
Because the believer knows this, the Bible makes us to know that Christians of today are to be an aroma. A fragrance, if you will, of the glory of God and of the preciousness of Jesus Christ. But, of course, an aroma and a fragrance are no good unless your wear it. If you are told that you smell sweet (because of the cologne or the perfume that you wear) it is because you have unleashed it from a bottle and you have applied it to yourself. Far too many Christians and believers are Christians and believers with the cap still on.
The idea in the Bible is that people should really want to know what we have on because of our aroma—the scent of Jesus Christ that is surrounding us. Paul had this scent about him. Whenever he showed up you smelled Christ. And in his witness—though he was the greatest theologian like none has ever known that God, among all of the other men that He could have chosen selected the Apostle Paul as the spokesperson to lay down the groundwork for that which would under-gird the church of Jesus Christ since Pentecost—was fundamentally a missionary. This great, brilliant theologian spent all of his time introducing people to the faith and building churches in which they could grow. And so the Apostle Paul never strayed far from evangelism. He never lost sight of the importance of his witness. And the fact that others should be impacted by the message that hopefully has impacted us.
Paul gives here four reasons why evangelism, ought to be a part of who we are.
And the reason I say who we are is because if evangelism is simply something you do then it becomes a program. And once it becomes a program and you can become frustrated and distressed and you want to know ‘did I do my job today?’ For Paul, it was more of who he was. And so because his life was so wrapped up and consumed and wrapped up into Jesus Christ that sharing him, talking about him and witnessing to the faith was natural to his being.
The first motivation for evangelism is expressed in verses 9-11
I. The Fear of Christ
He says that ‘I know of the fear of the Lord’. And that fear of the Lord as reflected at the judgment seat is reason enough for me to persuade men. Now there are two things in the passage about the fear of the Lord.
1st of all—his fear of the Lord at the judgment seat wanted to make him to persuade men about the Lord. To appreciate that statement, turn to 1st Peter 4:17-18.
What Paul recognized is that—if saints are running into a hard time then what do sinners have to look forward to? If saints are going to be judged by Christ then what about people who aren’t in His family, the sinner. Paul knew about this fear of God—that God is to be taken seriously. If someone were to walk up to be and ask for a clear cut definition on the fear of God I would simply say—He must be taken seriously. And if you and I are going to take God seriously, Paul says that we are going to persuade men. We are going to do whatever is legitimately within our powers to make sure that on that judgment days that two things have taken place on our part that we have done.
1. That we have please Him
2. We tried to persuade others
Those are the two things that you must take seriously if you are going to be proud on that day.
Let me ask you a question: If you were to go and be with the Lord right now, how would your examination go regarding those two questions: Was your Christian life lived to please me? And, how many men or women did you persuade? If those two questions were asked (please God and persuade others) what would your record look like?
• You know why many people have trouble with that? Because many people don’t believe this day of examination is coming.
Many of you on your job have six month reviews or annual reviews—your day of examination. To the degree that you believe that that day of examination will come. And to the degree that you believe that that will affect whether you get a raise or a promotion. And to the degree that you care—is to the degree that you’ll work in advance of that day will be directed in a certain direction.
One day every Christian is going to stand at what the Bible calls The Bema: this was the place at the Corinthian/Isthmian games where the judges would rule on the winner of the races. Give the man the gold because he won legitimately. It was a time when the judges rendered judgment upon the winners and losers in this Olympic game. That the word, bema, that is used here for judgment seat—it was the place of evaluation.
Your life and my life will be evaluated by Jesus Christ as to how we lived our Christian life from the point of conversion to the point of death. The two areas that he points to that we will be judge about is did we live to please Him? (Verse 9) and did we persuade others? And we will never take either seriously unless we believe there is an evaluation day coming—when God will evaluate our lives to determine whether or not we were please to Him. Paul looked forward to that day because he knew that he lived to please God and He lived to persuade others and that He was actively involved in doing both because He feared God.
Scripture offers a specific crown for those who are involved in persuading others to follow Christ. It is called the crown of joy or the crown of rejoicing.
For example:
1st Thessalonians 2:19
For who is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?
Philippians 4:1
Therefore, my beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my beloved.
Let me ask you and me a question: If you were to die and go to heaven right now how big would your welcoming committee be if it were made up of people you led to Christ? Did you hear the question? If you died and went to heaven, how big would your welcome committee be—of those whose lives you impacted to come to faith in Jesus Christ?
Paul says, ‘You are my joy; you are my crown of rejoicing’.
There will be a reward at the judgment seat of Christ for believers who feared Christ enough and His justice and holiness to persuade men who were going to be condemned by that holiness and justice to come to faith in Jesus Christ. To those who take eternity seriously.
And the reason why we do it is because Timothy tells us that God desires all men to be saved.
And that because he desires that every man, woman be saved—it is our job to declare the message about the opportunity of salvation.
Question: When Christ asks you how much did you witness for Him, will you be ashamed by the answer you have to give?
You says—well I didn’t have time to witness. Will He then say, ‘But you had time to talk about everything else. You found time to talk about this television program/fight/problem/other things and other people that you thought were important’
II. The Love of Christ should motivate us to Evangelize Vs. 15
This refers to our love for Christ as a result of His love for us. We love Him because He first loved us.
The idea here is that when you fall in love with someone, what is important to them becomes important to you.
You will always know when a person loves you—because what is important to you will become important to them. Not because it is their priority; but they like being involved in what is a priority to you.
He says, ‘this love of Christ is controlling us.’ We fear Him. But we are not walking around trembling and scared—because it is balanced by our love.
And the reason we don’t talk about it more is because we don’t love Him more. Because anything you love you talk about.
• If you married people will think back long enough—you will know that is true. You used to walk around with pictures in your wallet trying to show them to people that didn’t want to see them. Because you were in love.
When you fall in love, you talk about the object of your love.
So it is, he says that the love of Christ controls us. And when the love of Christ dominates us, we are going to have the heart that he has.
• So the lack of passion for the lost is reflective of a lack of love for the Lord because the heart of the Lord is with the lost.
Vss. 14-15 ‘Those who have become alive should forget about those who are dead’ ‘I got mine, you get yours.’ Suppose nobody shared Christ with you. How can you have the good news and keep this good news to yourself? He didn’t save you to be selfish; but to share.
I am so excited because of what He did for me, that I wan’t to let other people in on this experience too.
• So he is dealing with Christians who have the wrong focus
• Heaven/Angels rejoices when people come to the Lord—that is what Paul means when he talks about this ‘Crown of rejoicing’. If heaven gets it’s greatest joy when sinners come to faith in Jesus Christ, then the only way that you are going to get your greatest joy is in finding that joy in the thing that gives heaven it’s greatest joy.
• Heaven does flips when people come to Christ. If that is what turns heaven on—and you are living a mundane, critical, shallow life—then you needs something that will turn you on. What turns heaven on is the conversion of a sinner. Then if you want the joy down here about what heaven is flipping about up there, then you’ve got to be flipping about what they are flipping about. And they are turned on about souls who repent.
And anyone who has ever led anyone to Christ knows what that feels like—the joy of seeing somebody’s eyes being opened. And they come to faith in Jesus Christ and you share their joy.
And if you are not doing that you are selfish. Because what you are saying is: I got mine, let them get theirs. God says that is selfish. That’s selfish. You get heaven; but forget about everybody else. So if we live selfish lives—we don’t have the joy of the Lord. Go and share Christ and you will have the joy of the Lord. The joy comes because you are giving out—and it is not just me, me, me.
He makes an interesting statement in verse 16—
Verse 16
Paul says, ‘I do now evaluate people any longer by any human earthly criteria. Since I have been a believer, I am longer looking at the flesh.’
• Because we have a tendency and proclivity to look at the things we see with our eyes and in our flesh and become enamored and consumed with a singleness of focus at what we see. We say: ‘Oh…look at the car he’s driving; look at the ring she has on; that’s a movie star; oh…he or she is this color or this race or of this culture or they have with this crowd and that crew or that class.’ Those visible things is what we have an innate tendency to relate to.
Paul says that if you are living your life on that level then you are totally and completely missed the entire point.
• He says that we no longer relate to people based upon the externals—we relate to people based on the eternals. We no longer relate to people based upon that which is physical—we relate to people based on what is spiritual. And God has made every man and woman in this room a spiritual doctor because there is a diseased world out there who is struggling with a terminal illness called ‘sin’ and we are not use secular measuring rods to determine who gets this message.
And guess who’s saying this? Paul, a Jew, who is writing to a Gentile church. Paul a chosen, promised person is writing to a socially rejected pagan. And Paul says that the reason I can talk to you this way is because I look at you with spiritual eyes, not racial, social, economic eyes. And if you have ever let race, culture or class to stop you from ministering to somebody—then you have missed the point. Because that man or that woman’s soul is the same color as yours. And it needs the same solution: Grace; the magnificent grace of God. You and I are to look at life through the eyes of God and never allow our distinction to cause us to miss the plan of God. And that plan is that we would win people, any person, to Jesus Christ.
III. The Power of Christ Verse 17
One of the reason why you and I should be motivated to give people the gospel is because the gospel can change a person’s life.
• And one of the things that we are missing is our faith in the power of the gospel.
The bible says that when a person comes to Jesus Christ—they are re-created; they become a brand new creation; like a new baby coming through the birth canal—like a newborn baby—a person who trusts in Christ receives a brand new creature.
Which raises a very fundamental question: If the gospel makes you new—then how come we have so many of us who don’t look too new? If the gospel has this much power to make a new creation, then where is the problem?
That is because we don’t understand how this works. If you have an old car that won’t work; and you put under the hood a brand new motor—the car has a brand new inside even though it is being escorted by a real old outside. Old car won’t work—but it has been given new life because you have put in a new motor. That new motor will get the car to where the car desires to go—but you still have a problem—because that new motor is in this old shell. When a man comes to Christ—a new nature is deposited into their old flesh.
You get a new life into that old flesh that has been well trained by sin. The process of spiritual growth is the process of growing the inner life so that it dominates the outer life that has been so in control all of this time.
• The more you grow internally, the more you have victory externally; the less you grow internally, the less victory you have internally. Because the old shell will still dominate even though there has been new life deposited within.
And that is why it is to the degree that you feed the inner man that determines who wins out in the decisions of life. Paul says that the gospel works because it gives a man a brand new life.
And that life must grow, flourish, excel. And in that life it will not be sinless. But it does mean that because of this new life, we do have new potential/power/peace.
• And that is what is so significant—to get that old person that they have a new life—and to bring that new life and that new way of thinking into this old shell that has been used to thinking a certain way.
This thing about being a new creation by God is very powerful.
You remember the Bible says that ‘in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…the earth was without form and void and darkness ruled. And the spirit of the Lord hovered over the earth.’ And when the spirit of the Lord took domination over the earth there was external transformation in the environment.
When God took over His creative process in Genesis 1, things changed: Darkness became light; the water was separated from the land; there was a re-creation due to the presence of God.
• What God did for re-creation in Genesis 1, He does for the believer today—He re-creates when the Spirit hovers. When the Spirit hovers over your inner life it re-creates the outer life.
• Interestingly, the re-creation was done by Jesus Christ (acc. to Colossians 1:16); and the re-creation of your own life is done by your own life.
So now we have the Trinitarian view—God saved us through Jesus Christ and through the power of His holy Spirit. And if the triune God can take the entire universe and re-creates, Guess what He can do with your little bitty life? He can turn it inside out and re-configure it radically. But unless you believe that; and by faith function in light of that—you won’t experience that.
But I can share that with somebody else—that once you allow Jesus Christ to come in—He will give you the power to deal with your sin. And when they did with their sin, they will fix the effects of their sin. The problem is that we try to band-aid the effect without dealing with the cause. But radical surgery has got to take place.
Paul believed that the gospel could change somebody. That the gospel could revolutionize somebody and make them a brand new person.
• The gospel is powerful
Can it change a drunk man? Yes
Can it heal a broken heart at a bus stop? Yes
Can it reach someone sitting in their home who needs a word? Yes
IV. The Ministry of Christ Vs. 18-19
‘That gave us’…the ministry of reconciliation
Look at chapter 6:1
We are workers together. God says, I am not going to do this by myself. I want to do this ministry with you. I am not going to simply let people walk through the doors without your ministry…I want to do this ministry with you. I have given you the ministry of reconciliation.
What is this reconciliation? Reconciliation is to take those who have been at enmity with one another and put them back in fellowship with one another. It implies that there is a rift or there has been a fight. It is a linking of those who have been estranged. It is like having a divorced couple re-marry again. They were divorced, separated but they have been reconciled.
We are ministers of reconciliation. Paul didn’t say it was given to ‘me’. Why? Because this is something that belongs to every Christian. Every Christian is a minister. Your job as a Christian. It may not be your full-time profession; but it is your ongoing responsibility. You are a minister of God for the purpose of reconciliation—bringing people into harmony with God. Why? Because God has already arranged is so that he can be in harmony with them.
He uses a word to describe this ministry. He says that we are his representatives—his ambassadors.
‘We are ambassadors.’
Ambassadors represented the home country, the Romans.
The ambassador represented that you are now on good terms with the Roman empire, now that they have come under Rome. So they were the linch pen between the world and Rome. And they had embassy and ambassadors between them and Rome. In the U.S., the Ambassador has the authority to speak from the U.S. to the foreign country. We are ambassadors for Christ as through God were intreating through us.
God says, ‘I give you the right to speak on my behalf. When you talk, I talk.’
Our job is to tell earth where heaven stands. When people hear from us, they hear from God.
• Luke 10:2 is very significant because it says that: ‘The harvest is plentiful’; ‘The laborers are few’; ‘The Lord of the harvest’; ‘He will send out laborers’; ‘to the harvest’.
God says that the work is really not in here (this is merely a place where the church gathers); but the harvest is not a place, the harvest is a people.
The true picture of the church is not Sunday! The true picture of the church is where we go and what we do Monday morning through Saturday night.
• If the church is going to BE the church then the church can only BE by Being. And our being is connected to our doing. Being a witness and being a Christian go together. A Christian without a witness is like:
- Kool-Aid with no sugar; a projector with no screen; thunder with no sound—It can work but what’s the point.
• I really think we major in the minors and minors in the majors. In other words, too many Christians have a lot of stuff in the front seat of their spiritual walk with God and we have let our witness take the back seat.
Let’s look at our front seat:
- convenience
- comfort
- selfishness
- laziness
- misplacement of priorities
• Here is it—if Jesus says that the harvest is plentiful and Christians are to be witnesses and laborers; and He said that because He is the Lord of the harvest—that He will bless the work of the laborers—then that means that we have God’s guarantee—that if we stop looking inward and begin to look outward—God, who can not and will not lie—will honor His word and bring people to Him.
• That is one of the things that we can think about when we pray ‘Lord…let everything that we touch to prosper’.
- Does that include healing? Yes
- Does that include abundant living? Yes
- Does that include financial increase? Yes
- Does that include relational peace? Yes
- Is that all it includes? NO
It means that when I touch my brother and be a blessing to him—He’s hungry and I feed him, He’s dirty and I clean him up; he just needs a helping hand and I am there for him; he just needs an encouraging word and I tell him that “Jesus Saves”—God says that if you do that long enough and you are faithful to go out into the harvest—I will bless your labor.
The issue is that I don’t think that we really believe that.
- Dee and I were getting ready to watch a movie; and I so happened to see a preview of a movie by Andre 3000 and Baby Boi. I like hip hop and I am really a fan of some of their work. In the back of my mind I asked myself—will they do well in the movie industry? It didn’t take long for me to conclude that Outkast is successful at everything that they do. We believe that they will continue to be successful.
- Last season they signed Roger Clements to a one year contract worth millions of dollars. Someone did the calculations and he was making over 200,000 dollars every time he threw a ball. Whether or not he goes for another year or not…some believe that he is worth it and will pay the price.
- The first picks for the NFL, including Reggie Bush and Vincent Young—will have millions of dollars wired to them in 24 hours just for signing a contract. And then they will do endorsements, etc. We believe that they are worth it.
We really believe all of that. We believe that rappers who cuss in their lyrics will continue to make more millions. We believe that Vincent Young and the other boys are going to produce. We believe that all of this stuff that is not necessarily about kingdom work is going to prosper and going to increase—much of which many of us act just as foolish about as unsaved people. If you and I can believe that they can prosper; then how much more should be believe that a God who made it all can increase what we do.
- We believe that Bush and Young and Carr are worth it; but do we think that the sister on the corner of Cullen is worth it? Do we think that the Muslim standing in the middle of the street on Reed with a bow tie is worth stopping and sharing with them what God has done for you? Do we think that the people who are on their way to Hell are worth putting on your tenny shoes, pulling back your hair, putting on some sweats and going into the streets and winning people to Christ?
• Our assignment is to be a witness & to bear witness
- We ‘be a witness’ by being…
Look at verse 21. God says, ‘I take your sins and replace your sins with my righteousness God takes care of the problem. He’s already done it. You are the announcer: God is not mad at you. Get the message out. Get the word out! Let people put their destiny in the hands of Jesus Christ.
• I don’t have to work it out. That has already been taken care of—I don’t have to work for it. It’s a done deal. And we are to spend the rest of our lives inviting people to get it—and to spend the rest of our days thank Him for His righteousness.
Illustration: Man on his deathbed awaiting his time—last few hours of life. Children were surrounding him as he looked at each one: ‘Good night Jim’; Good night Robert; Good night Sally; Trey…good bye.’ Trey responded—‘you tell each of them good night but you say to me goodbye?’ Trey…your brothers and sisters have confessed Jesus as their Savior and made Him their Lord—I told them good night because I’ll see them again. But, son, you have never repented of your sinners, accepted Christ as your Savior and made Him your Lord—I told you goodbye because chances are I’ll never see you again’.
• Don’t allow the people you see every day and the ones with whom you love play Russian Roulette with eternity. Because when it stops all bets are off.
If I my house was on fire. I hope you wouldn’t walk by saying to yourself, ‘I hope he gets out on time’.
Somebody’s house is on fire. For those people who don’t know Jesus—they are on death row/they have a warrant for death.
Conclusion: Luke 10
