Geneva Presbyterian Church

Weekly Sermon

November 26, 2000 - "Belong To The Truth"

Reverend Anne Benefield
Geneva Presbyterian Church, November 26, 2000

John 18:33-38

Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus answered, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" Pilate replied, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?" Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here." Pilate asked him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." Pilate asked him, "What is truth?" Prayer: Lord, today is Christ the King Sunday. May we listen for your word and accept your leadership in our lives so that we might be transformed and strengthened as your disciples. Amen. When I read this week's scripture to my husband John, he said, "Isn't that a strange scripture for this time of year-right before Advent?" Yes, it does seem like a strange passage, but let me explain. This is Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday on the official church calendar. Next Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent is the first Sunday in the church year. We always end the year celebrating Christ the King and the passage we just read presents a dramatic portrait of Christ the King. He is not the kind of royalty we are used to, and yet his power vibrates throughout his meeting with Pilate. He may appear to be on trail in the story, but he actually puts Pilate and the religious leaders on trial. The part of the story that fascinates me is Jesus' statement that he has come to testify to the truth and that those who belong to the truth hear his voice. A few minutes ago, we reaffirmed that we belong to the truth by reaffirming our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life. So today I want to examine the promises we restated a few minutes ago-the promises we make when we join the church. We said: 1. Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, in whom we trust. 2. We promised to be his disciples, obeying his word and showing his love. 3. We promised to be faithful members of his church, giving of ourselves. What does it mean for us to profess that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior in whom we trust? I believe it means that we make Christ our King. That is a radical idea. We're usually pretty comfortable with accepting Jesus as our Savior, but making him the Lord or ruler of our lives is something more. For example, Jesus cannot be Lord of my life as long as I am lord of my life. As long as I insist on being in charge, Jesus won't take over my life. It reminds me of a story that Lloyd J. Ogilvie tells about himself. He is a very talented man with wonderful preaching skills, but he admits that the most important day in his life was the day when he stopped relying on his own talent. Dr. Ogilvie says that until he stopped relying on his own talents, he himself was the Lord of his life. He controlled everything. Then one day, he just couldn't do it all any more. He reached his limit. On that day, for the first time, he truly turned everything over to the Lord. His life was changed. He went from being a preacher to being a witness. There is a big difference. What does it mean to accept Jesus as Lord? I believe it means handing over all the controls to him. Trusting him completely. That doesn't mean we stop working; it means we stop being the boss. We let Jesus be the boss and tell us how to use our talents. To do that we have to trust him completely. I read a story once, but I can't for the life of me remember where. It's a good story, so I am going to tell it, even though I can't properly credit the source. There was a tight-rope walker who was about to cross Niagara Falls on a wire. He asked the crowd it they thought he could do it. When they said yes, he asked them again, "Do you really believe I can do it?" When their shouts confirmed faith in him, he asked for a volunteer to ride on his back. That is trust. I don't think anyone trusted the tight-rope walker enough to ride on his back across Niagara Falls. Trusting Jesus is every bit as scary, but we have promised to try because we belong to him. Another thing we promised to do was to be his disciples. In his book called The Making of Disciples, Dr. Keith Phillips, the founder of World Impact Ministries talks about how his ministry in the ghettos of Los Angeles began. He writes: "I had no idea how to make the gospel relevant to the ghetto. The only approach that occurred to me was mass evangelism. So I started children's Bible clubs in Watts. Scores of kids came. They all wanted to 'accept Jesus'! And they all wanted to bring their friends. Mothers appreciated their kids 'getting religion,' and teenagers were anxious to know when clubs would begin for them. Within a few years, 300 Christian college volunteers joined me in teaching weekly Bible studies to hundreds of children. "We organized evangelistic meetings. Many people attended-some just to see 'those white folks.' I would preach a simple salvation message, and invariably almost everyone would raise his hand to indicate a desire to have his sins forgiven and to be at peace with God. Meticulously we filled out decision cards and faithfully sent follow-up material to each new convert, not realizing that many of them were illiterate. "I would pray with an addict or a neglected child, say, 'God bless you,' and leave. Since I could not possibly shepherd all these new Christians, I reasoned that the Holy Spirit would take care of them. "Hundreds of people in the Los Angeles ghetto 'accepted Christ.' My friends patted me on the back and assured me that I was doing a fine job. I wanted to believe them. And for a while, I did. "But as the months blended into years, I had to admit that there was a serious problem. With all of these decisions for Christ there should have been changed lives-hundreds of them. But as hard as I looked, I could not find even one! Something had gone wrong. "Partly because of pride, partly because of ignorance, I kept hoping things would somehow right themselves. But I could not shake the gnawing feeling that everything had been in vain. There was no lasting fruit. The turnover rate in my Bible clubs was too great. Different youngsters came every week. Teenagers who had learned of Christ as children were still friendly, but they had become pimps, prostitutes or pushers. Former Bible club kids were running with street gangs. It seemed as if the gospel had not worked. "I was discouraged. I almost quit. In desperation I went to God's Word. For the first time in my life I wanted to see what God said, rather than to prove what I already knew. "As I read Matthew 28:19-20, I received a startling revelation. Christ's commission to his church was not to 'make converts,' but to 'make disciples.' I had hundreds of notches in my evangelistic belt, but I could not locate one maturing Christian. I had proclaimed the gospel, but I had failed to make disciples." [Dr. Keith Phillips, The Making of a Disciple, (Fleming H. Revell Company: Old Tappan, New Jersey, 1981) p.13-14] As Keith Phillips struggled to understand the difference between converts and disciples, he found that being a disciple of Jesus Christ meant dying to self and living to Christ. It means accepting Jesus not just as our Savior, but as our Lord, the Lord of our lives. A disciples follows Jesus closely. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ means that in every decision, every action, every thought, word, and deed, we turn to Christ for direction. It is an awesome thing to attempt, but it is what we said we would do when we professed our faith in Christ. If we had to try to be faithful on our own, we simply couldn't, but we have been blessed with a community of believers that supports us. We are in this together. That is why when we join the church we confess Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We promise to be his disciples. And we promise to be faithful members of the church. We can't follow Jesus and be his disciples on our own. We need each other. Bill Wilson was a co-founder of AA, Alcoholics Anonymous. When I was in seminary I read his book Let Go, Let God. He told a wonderful story in that book about a minister who toward the end of his life was thinking about his ministry. When he was a young man, he saw himself on the banks of a river and all kinds of people were in the river. He was calling to them, trying to get them to pull themselves out of the river onto the bank with him. In mid-life, the minister saw himself on the very edge of the river, reaching to the people and trying to pull them onto the banks. At the end of his ministry, he saw things very differently. He saw clearly that he too was in the river of life. All of the people were trying to hold each other up, but beneath them all were the loving arms of our Lord, who was really the one holding them up. We reaffirmed our promise today to make Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior and to trust him. We promised to be his disciples. And we promised to be faithful members of this church and that last promise is the one that will help us stay afloat! Amen.