Turning Point - David Jeremiah

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
It used to be the source of society's shared values,
a powerful voice for salvation, morality, and social justice. Is
there still hope for the church today? On turning Point,
Doctor David Jeremiah continues his series Hope and Anchor for
Life with a reminder about the reasons the church exists

(00:25):
and why we must never forget them. Here's David with
the conclusion of his message, Hope for our.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Church say, I know that you see the statistics that
we all see about people not going to church as
much as they used to. Some of the articles that
I've read revel in the fact that when you sign
up to do something for a company, you fill out
a form they ask you about your religion, and one

(00:54):
of the options on the list is none of the above.
And they like to gleefully say that the people who
sign their research paper by checking none of the above
are the fastest growing group of people in the country,
that there are more people who say none of the
above than any other. And I don't know if that's

(01:16):
true or not, but however much it's true, it's a
shame because I don't know what life would be like
without the church. God gave us the church to be
a place of blessing and encouragement and joy and service
and ministry. And if you're not in a church like that,
my heart goes out to you, because that's what church
ought to be. And let me speak to those who

(01:39):
are church leaders. If you're not serving up the word
of God every week to your people, you're just you're
not doing the right thing. We're called upon to be
teachers of the Word of God. And when we nourish
people up in the good Word of God, they grow
and they're happy and they find hope. I know that
to be true, not because the Bible says it, but

(01:59):
I've been doing it for fifty years and I have
a tremendous life witness of this being God's way. So
today we're going to talk some more about hope for
the church, and I want you to listen, carefully, open
your Bible, open your heart, and we'll talk about it
in just a moment.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
A lot of American people want the Bible as long
as it doesn't interrupt their life. They want the Bible
as long as it doesn't inconvenience them, as long as
they can go on doing everything they've always done and
never feel uncomfortable and so over the course of this generation,
I have watched church after church where there used to
be a sense of conviction on an occasion just capitulate

(02:43):
to the culture, to the place where I had a
man tell me not long ago, I've gone to this
particular church for three years, and I've never felt the
convicting of the spirit of God one time in all
three years. And I finally decided I don't want to
raise my family in that kind of an environment. So
I say to you that the hope for any church
is that it not lose sight of its purpose. I

(03:04):
don't think any church ever starts out to compromise its
integrity and to move away from its purpose. But somehow,
if we are not careful in the words of the
Book of Romans, we allow the world to squeeze us
into its mold, and we become so much a part
of the world that we lose our distinct and unique voice.
And you all know I'm not a pulpe at pounding

(03:25):
radical fundamentalist in the mentality that some folks use those terms.
But I am concerned that the hope of our church
be addressed today. And I want to tell you just
two or three things that I think are going to
have to be true if our church maintains its purpose
and its hope. First of all, there is hope for

(03:47):
our church if we do not forget our motive. And
our motive is to exalt the Lord God. That's the
only motive. Not to have great numbers, not to have
a big building, not to have billions of dollars in
the budgets over the years. But our only purpose as
a congregation, if we understand the word of God, is

(04:09):
to exalt the Lord God. My life verse, I don't
think i've ever shared this with you. I chose it
when I was a young person. It's Colossians three, verse
twenty three, and it says, whatever you do, do it heartily,
as to the Lord and not to men. I've loved

(04:30):
all parts of that verse. If you know me, I
always do whatever I do with everything I have, and
people worry about my wearing out, but I don't know
any other way to live. Do it heartily. I think
that extends to the athletic fields, it extends to the
business realm, it extends to the music, It extends to everything.
Whatever you do, give it everything you have, but listen

(04:52):
to the rest of it. Do it unto the Lord
and not for men. And the purpose of the Church
of Jesus Christ in the day in which you and
I live, is not for us to parade stars across
the stage or get praise and glory when we sing.
When we lift up our voices and play all these
great instruments and play this organ, and we give it

(05:14):
everything we have, it's not so that we can hear
the applause, because we understand that applause to be just
a continuation of praise to God. We do it for
Him when we invite friends to come, when we reach
out in missions. All of the motive behind all of
it is for Him, for God to exalt Him through

(05:34):
expression in our worship and through excellence. We commit ourselves
to excellence. We don't always hit the mark, but it's
our purpose to do everything we can the best we
can do it, and when we fall on our face,
we get up the next day and say we'll try
harder tomorrow, because God deserves the very best. You don't

(05:56):
have to be a scholar to understand that. Read the
Old Testament and read the words of Malachi, the prophet
who scored the people of Israel, because when it came
time to bring God to worship. They took the sorriest
critter they could find in their flock, and they brought
it to God and said, here, God, this is for you.
And we've been doing that in our churches for years,

(06:17):
haven't we. We've been giving God the leftover of our time,
the leftover of our money, the leftover of our energy,
and of our abilities. And I believe that if there's
any hope for this church, it's going to be as
we understand clearly what our motive is and all that
we do. It's to exalt to Lord God and to
worship him. The Word of God says, by this is

(06:39):
my Father, glorified that you bear much fruit. John fifteen
eight one Corinthian six point twenty says, for you were
bought with the price. Therefore, glorify God in your body
and in your spirit, which are Christ's. We are here
fundamentally and primarily to exalt the Lord God, and I

(07:02):
hope we never forget that. And as we have been
able to do that, as we have succeeded in that,
then God has been blessed with our meeting. Secondly, there
is hope for this church if we do not forget
our mandate. What is our mandate? What are we supposed
to be doing. We are to evangelize the world. We
do not exist for ourselves. We exist for the vast

(07:26):
community that surrounds us. We are here for them, and
we invite them to come, and we encourage them, and
we reach out to them, and we want them to
know the Christ that we know. Let me tell you
what I understand about churches, friends, I understand that a
church that exists for itself is in the process of death.
I visit hundreds of churches every year, and it's a sad,

(07:48):
sad thing to see a church in the stages of death.
They're in the stages of death because they've forgotten the
Great commission. It's not the great suggestion, it's the great commission.
Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to
every creature, baptizing and discipling them. And that's what God
has called us to do, not just here in our community.

(08:10):
We understand that vision to reach around the world. There
is hope for our church if we never forget our mandate,
which is to evangelize the world in which we live.
I need to say something to you about the nature
of that task. It's not like it used to be.
I grew up in the church in all of the

(08:31):
old evangelistic tools, knocking on doors, telephone evangelism, crusade evangelism.
How many have ever been in a week long evangelistic crusade?
Let me see your hands? Many of us, and most
of us got gray hair. If we're raising our hands,
because those are almost gone, you don't see them anymore.
Evangelists don't have any place to go because no one

(08:53):
has week long meetings and no one goes out. In
very many places that I'm aware of, a knocks on
the door, it's a ready invitation into the home. How
are we to penetrate a culture that does not accept
Jesus Christ, that rejects the biblical mandate and thinks we
might be Jehovah's witness or full of brush salesmen. They
don't want us in their house. The world to which

(09:15):
God has called you and me and this church is
not the same world in which we grew up. It's
the post Christian world. I read something that helped me
grab hold of this as I never have before. Listen
to me and see if this doesn't touch you in
some place in your life. Let's imagine for a moment
that we are a child of this time. We have

(09:36):
given up looking for religious answers to life. It just
doesn't occur to us to think about God. We see
these things as part of the rubble of a crumble
institution of previous generations. What's important to us is life.
But we have concluded that there's only seventy years of
it and nothing beyond it, so we better get the
most out of it we can while we're here. Years

(10:00):
have gone by. Today is your fortieth birthday, that in
itself represents a major crisis. You are no longer in
your thirties. You are forty. Life is important to you.
Since seventy years is all you have, you realize that
sixty percent of your life is gone. It's time to
reevaluate things you think. You look in the mirror, and

(10:24):
sure enough, you're slipping. The hairline, the extra pounds, the
little creases that promise wrinkles to come. Your two children
are teenagers who have clearly communicated that they feel parents
are an unnecessary complication in their lives. Your career is set.
You know you will never be very rich, very famous,

(10:45):
or very influential. So here you are. You're stuck at
forty Now you've just gotten up in the morning. These
are the first thoughts running through your mind. How are
you going to react? You'll think life is getting away
from me. I've got to make the most of it,
enjoy it more. That's it. I've got to enjoy it more.
But how are you going to do that? How will

(11:05):
this resolution make this day any different? Within your existential
frame of reference? What is important is the question what
is there to look forward to, to give yourself to?
Not much, perhaps a good cup of coffee, a walk
in the park, maybe an extramarital affair. Many have tried
that whatever feels good to the senses. But whatever you do,

(11:28):
it will be accompanied by a sense of loss when
you realize that another day is gone. This little scenario
that I have just painted for you highlights the practical
difference between the Christian and the non Christian. The difference
is one of hope. Listen carefully. Ephesians two twelve says

(11:50):
you are separated from Christ without hope and without God
in the world. The forty year old man who wakes
up up one morning and realizes that his life has
gotten away from him, and he doesn't know where it's going.
And what there is to live for is the man
that the writer of Ephesians was talking about when he
says that without God, you are without hope. And I

(12:13):
tell you something, friends, that's the world to which God
has called us, a world that has basically lost its
hope and has turned itself on every narcissistic thing that
they can ram into their lives. They're running after drugs,
they're running after booze, they're running after extramarital affairs. They're

(12:33):
trying everything they can to fill the void because they
awoke one day and realized that there was no meaning
in their life. How do you touch a person like that?
Knock on their door. Forget it, Charlie, it isn't going
to happen. I'll tell you how you touch him. You
develop relationships with them in your communities. You reach out

(12:56):
to them as a friend. They may do things that
just totally blow your mind when you think of it,
but you love them and you minister to them, and
you don't always drop Christ in the first time you
meet them. But you keep loving them, and you keep
ministering to them, and you cultivate their relationship, and you
show them Jesus Christ living in you. One day they

(13:17):
will wake up and say where did he get all
of his hope? And in the words of Peter, you
will be ready to give a reason for the hope
that is in you. That's the world to which God
has called us. And the only way there's any hope
for this church is if we remember what our mandate is,

(13:37):
to reach a lost and dying world. Thirdly, the only
hope we have as a church is if we do
not forget our method. What is our method? It's very simple.
It's been so hard for me to get all of
this crystallized in these four things. But it's so simple
to me now. I wonder why it was so hard.
You know what the method is. It's to edify believers.

(14:01):
How do we do all that God has called us
to do? Exalt the Lord, evangelize the world. I can't
do it. And a lot of people interpret that passage
in Ephesians like that that the pastors to do the
work of the ministry. I can't do it. You know,
if I couldn't do it before, I can't do it now.
That's for sure. The way the church is supposed to

(14:21):
function is when it comes together, it is trained and
taught and build up and strengthened. And then we are
set loose as the church to go out and make
a difference in the world, to encourage and edify and
grow up the Church of Jesus Christ. And how do
we do it? The entrance of Thy words giveth light,
Psalm one hundred and nineteen, one hundred and thirty. The
one thing that has power is not the preacher, not

(14:45):
even the music. It's the Word of God. It is
God's holy Word that can change lives, that can strengthen
and build up. And I'm not going to change anything. Friends,
when you come to this church, I trust I will
be able to your life in some way through the word.
But it will always be through the word. I'm not
into the therapeutic gospel. The therapeutic gospel changes behavior. God's

(15:10):
truth changes character. We have a lot of people today
running around with the therapeutic gospel putting band aids on
the problem. But the problem is that we need to
be changed from the inside out, and only God's Word
can do that. I don't have anything to say to
you more profound than any other speaker on any other platform,
in any other church. But when I open this book

(15:31):
and I say, thus saith the Lord, and I'm true
to God's word, that has power to change who you are.
And that's why I'm committed to it. We're a strange group.
We're becoming more unique all along. Amos was right. There's
a famine in the land, a famine of the preaching

(15:52):
of the Word of God. But in this church, the
only way we will ever have hope, the only way
it's ever going to make any difference in your life
or mine, is if the Word of God is at
the center of all we do, and we preach it
and we live it out. Finally, there is hope for

(16:13):
our church if we do not forget our ministry. Our
motive is to exalt the Lord God. Let's don't forget it.
Our mandate is to evangelize the world. Our method is
to edify believers and grow them up in Christ. But
our ministry, we are servants. God has called us to

(16:37):
minister to a hurting world. It's the old adage, folks,
that says, nobody cares how much you know until they
know how much you care. We understand that you can
preach the word of God all you want. But if
people don't know that you care about the hurts they have,
they won't even hear what you're saying. And so we

(16:58):
have asked God to help us the needs of people,
regardless of where they are in their relationship to Jesus Christ,
and to begin with all of our hearts to try
to help them. We have support groups that people come
to regardless of whether they know Christ. I know we've
had people come to Christ through the support groups. They've
come to help because somebody told them, if you've just

(17:19):
lost a loved one, there's a group over there where
you can get together with other people who've been through that,
and they will pray for you, and they will encourage you,
and they will help you. God has given us a compassion.
This whole series on Hope has been a revelation to us.
We had no idea that so many people are so
filled with despair and hopelessness. We have the Food for
the Hungry program where we feed people who come here.

(17:40):
We don't sit them down and pound them into the kingdom.
We just feed them. And God uses the ability that
we have to minister to other people to give us
a hearing for the gospel. You know what happens in
a lot of churches. Sometimes it happens when they get bigger,
they get so consumed with their message they lose sight

(18:00):
of their ministry. The message is true, The message is unalterable,
It will never change. It is absolute. Friends, The ministry
goes on every day in your life and in mind.
In the ministry of this church. We are here to
be a place of encouragement for hurting people. You say,

(18:21):
I'd come to this church, but I'm not good enough. Well,
if you don't think you're good enough, you're probably right
in the mainstream of all the rest of us. If
you come to this church and you feel like you've
got too many hurts to be a part of it,
then you don't understand. Friend, you are in the middle
of it. We're all like that. We have hurts, and
we reach out to help one another, and God has
called us to a ministry of healing in this community.

(18:44):
I read a story that I think summarizes that whole thing,
and I want to end this discussion with you by
sharing it with you. On New Year's Day, nineteen twenty nine,
Georgia Tech played UCLA and the Rose Bowl. In that game,
there was a man by the name of Roy Riggles.
He covered a fumble for California. Somehow, Roy Wriggles became

(19:05):
confused and he started running sixty five yards in the
wrong direction. One of his teammates, Benny lumb outdistanced him
and tackled him just before he would have scored for
the opposing team. When California attempted to punt, Tech blocked
the kick, scored a safety, and that was the ultimate

(19:26):
margin of victory. That strange play came in the first half,
and everyone was watching the game and wondering the same thing,
what will coach Nibs Price do with Roy Wriggles. In
the second half, the players filed off the field and
went into the dressing room and sat down on the

(19:46):
benches in the floor, all of them but Roy Wriggles.
He put his blanket around his shoulders, sat down in
a corner, put his face in his hands, and he
cried like a baby. He has a lot to say
at halftime, but that day Coach Price was quiet, no
doubt he was trying to decide what to do with

(20:07):
Roy Wriggles. Then the timekeeper came in and told them
that they were only three minutes away from the beginning
of the second half, and Coach Price looked at the
team and said, simply, men, the same team that played
the first half will start the second half. Players got
up and started out, all but Roy Wriggles. He didn't budge.

(20:31):
Coach looked back and called him again. Still he didn't move.
Coach Price went over to where Wriggles sat and he said, Roy,
didn't you hear me? The same team that played the
first half will start the second half. Then Roy Wriggles
looked up and Price saw that his cheeks were wet
with a strong man's tears. Coach, he said, I can't
do it. To save my life, I've ruined you, I've

(20:54):
ruined the University of California. I've ruined myself. I couldn't
face that crowd in the stadium to say my life.
Coach Nibs Price put his hands on Wriggles's shoulder and
he said, Roy, get up and go on back. The
game is only half over. And Roy Wriggles went back.
And those Georgia Tech players will tell you they have

(21:15):
never seen a man play football as Roy Wriggles played
in the second half. When I read that, I thought,
what a coach, What a great coach, And I thought
of the times when I've been like Roy Wriggles, I've
taken the ball and run in the wrong direction. Nobody

(21:35):
had to tackle me. I stumbled and fell on my
own face. And when you do that, you don't ever
want to try again. Anybody else been there, and you
just want to stay buried in the corner with the
blanket over your shoulders, and you say, I'm not going
out for the second half. I made too much of
a mess of this. And God comes to us and
he bends over us, and in the person of his son,

(21:58):
he says, get up, go on back. The game's only
half over. And that's the gospel of the grace of God,
isn't it. Friends, That's the ministry of a church that
is after the grace of God. It is the gospel
of the second chance and the third chance and the
hundredth chance. I love what Scottish preacher Alexander White once
described as the perseverance of the Saints a theological term,

(22:22):
but he said, it's this. The perseverance of the Saints
is falling down and getting up, falling down and getting up,
falling down and getting up all the way to heaven. Amen.
Let me tell you something, folks, We're just people who
fall down and get back up and go out and
play the second half. There is hope. If we will

(22:44):
not forget our motive, it's to exalt the Lord God.
If we will remember always our mandate, that is to
reach this world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If
we will remember God has a method to accomplish that,
which is through encouraging and building up and edifying the believers.
And then if we will finally always remember that God

(23:09):
has given us a ministry, and that ministry is to
encourage one another to get back up and go out
and play the second half.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
Well.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
Amen.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
One last thought about hope begins tomorrow when we take
a couple of days to talk about hope for our families.
So hope for the nation, Hope for the church tomorrow
and Friday, hope for the family. Please join us tomorrow
for the final edition of this series on hope and

(23:45):
don't forget. You can get all of this in a
study guide in a set of CDs if you just
go to David Jeremiah dot Org. There you will find
all this material available. You can have it shift right
to your own home and be ready to share this
true with others. Our resource for the month of January
is a beautiful devotional book called The Whole Story, a

(24:07):
fifty two week devotional journey through every book of the
Bible two hundred and eight pages. Every week you can
read one of these chapters, and when you read it,
you will know something about the book that is featured
in that particular week's study. By the time you get done,
you will have done that for all sixty six books,

(24:28):
and you will know more about the Bible than you
did before you started, which is a great thing. It's
not important that you know everything the Bible says. It's
important that you know where everything it says is in
the Bible, and you can do that by grasping hold
of a tool like this as for your copy when
you send your gift to Turning Point in this month.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
Our message today originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and
doctor David Jeremiah, the senior pastor. Let us know how
this ministry is impacting you by writing to Turning Point
pobox thirty eight thirty eight, San Diego, California, nine two
one sixty three visiting our website at David Jeremiah dot org.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
Slash Radio.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
We're calling eight hundred ninety four seven nineteen ninety three.
Ask for your copy of David's helpful new book, The
Whole Story, a fifty two week devotional journey through every
book of the Bible, yours for a gift of any amount.
You can also view over twelve hundred of doctor Jeremiah
sermons on any screen anytime you like on our Turning

(25:38):
Point Plus streaming service for a monthly gift of any amount.
Visit Turningpoint plus dot org for details. This is David
Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue hope and
anchor for life on Turning Point with Doctor David Jeremiah