Fifty years ago - June 21, 1953 to be exact - I began full time ministry. I was appointed the week before to be the pastor of a small, attractive brick church in Wheelersburg on the Ohio River in Scioto County. The bishop had ask me earlier that spring what kind of setting I would like. I told him I had lived all my life in cities: Cleveland, Toledo, Philadelphia, Manhattan in New York, and even Cairo, Egypt while I was in the army. He assured me a church in the city could be arranged. After all he said, "Ohio has eight cities of over 100,000." But when my appointment was read it was "Wheelersburg". Population 891. The night before I preach my first sermon in Wheelersburg I was the quest of an old retired Methodist pastor who lived in the village of Wheelersburg. At breakfast that Sunday morning 50 years ago I shared with Rev. O. L Hall, I was very nervous. He assured me everything would go well and then advised, "Dick, stay focused on Jesus."
Stay focused on Jesus!
That is what Paul, the great missionary apostle 25 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus was saying to the Christian church in the Greek city of Corinth. He wrote, "So fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
Jesus is eternal, Paul was saying, so stay focused on Him!
The apostle Paul in his second latter to the church in Corinth reminds his readers of some of this trials: pressed on every side, perplexed, persecuted, struck down. But Paul assured the church in Corinth that he had not lost heart or hope and that he still had faith in the marvelous grace of God. Then he reminded those early Christians that because Jesus Christ has won the victory over death, we have eternal life. Paul is saying when we face troubles, suffering, and humiliation, rather than focusing on our trials we need to focus on Jesus.
I’d like to suggest that if we are to grow as Christians we must stay focused on Jesus in three ways.I. First, stay focused on Jesus as friend.
It is a shocking truth for many of us that the Bible tells us the Jesus really wants to be our friend.
Jesus said, "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." The above verse is found in John 15:15.
The Greek word FRIEND in that passage does not mean a casual acquaintance but a close, really intimate relationship. A relationship characterized by trust. The same word is used to refer to the best man at a wedding, to a king’s inner circle of intimate, trusted friends.
Two weeks after I started ministry in Wheelersburg fifty years ago, an 81 year old man in my church died suddenly. He was to be my first funeral in Wheelersburg. The man was prominent in the county and so it was a big funeral. There were so many baskets of flowers that the entire platform where the pulpit stood was completely covered. I wondered as I proceeded the casket down the center aisle how I’d get up to the pulpit. I found when I arrived at the front that there was just enough room for me to get up the three steps onto the platform and then just enough room for me to stand behind the pulpit. As I got to the top of the steps I accidentally hit one of the baskets, it fell to the floor with what seemed to be two gallons of water going all around the casket. I was humiliated. I was embarrassed. All I could think was "What a stupid, clumsy fool!" Fortunately for me, the first hymn we sang was "What a Friend We Have in Jesus".We sang: What a friend we have in Jesus,
all our sins and griefs to bear!"
Then those next two lines...they seemed to be written just for me:
"O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear"Jesus spoke to me that hot afternoon in the Wheelersburg Methodist Church. "Dick you are my friend!"
Paul writes, "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."Stay focused on Jesus as friend.... your very best friend.
II. Second, stay focused on Jesus as Lord.
Christ is Lord! That was our earliest Christian creed. And it is still the most positive and direct way of describing authentic Biblical Christianity. Jesus occupies a place in our heart, mind, indeed our entire life, that no one else can occupy. No person, no country, no thing. Pretty radical but that is what our faith proclaims.
Professor Albert Outler taught at both Yale and S.M.U. for many years. For about 25 years during the middle of the last century he was the best known Methodist professor. He preached at Union Theological Seminary one time during my student days. He was preaching on what it means to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
He described a church in Ystad, Sweden. Six hundred years old, long and narrow. The pulpit was on a pillar about a third of the way back from the main altar. On the pillar opposite the pulpit was a crucifix, life-size and life-like. Why this strange arrangement?
The story goes back to a visit to the church of the great warrior hero king, Charles XII of Sweden in 1716. The visit was totally unexpected. The pastor was so overwhelmed by the king’s presence at his worship service that he put aside his sermon manuscript and began a passionate and brilliant eulogy of the king and the royal family. A few months later, the church received a gift from King Charles. It was a life-size, life-like crucifix and with it these instructions: This crucifix is to hang on the pillar opposite the pulpit, so that all who shall stand there will be reminded of their proper subject."
Not only pastors need a constant reminder! Every Christian needs to be reminded to stay focused on Jesus as Lord.
St. Paul wrote, "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."Stay focused on Jesus as friend.
Stay focused on Jesus as Lord.
Finally stay focused on Jesus as Savior.
Paul writes in another one of his letters, "If you confess with your mouth, ‘ Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."
Those words are found in Romans 10:9.Why do you and I need a savior? Because we are sinners, because we have turned our backs on God, because we have not put God first in every area of our lives. C.S. Lewis describes us "as a zoo of lust, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of hatreds."
John Ortberg, A contemporary Christian teacher and author writes, "every time we are less than honest or fudge on our expense account or tax return or treat a 3 year old to harshly or make a cutting remark we shouldn’t or should speak truth in love but don’t, or gossip, or tell a racial joke or have sexually impure thoughts - such acts wound the heart of God. And every time we wound the heart of God we sin. Paul writes, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."That means you, that means me.
John Calvin, the Swiss Protestant reformer, one of the greatest Christians of all time, dictated the following words a month before his death in 1564. " I have endeavored in my sermons to preach God’s Word purely and faithfully, but I want to confess I have failed innumerable times to execute my office of ministry properly and I also acknowledge myself to be a miserable sinner."
The Rev. John Harper of Scotland was invited to preach for 3 months at the Moody Memorial Church in Chicago in 1912. Harper had an outstanding reputation throughout England and Scotland as an excellent preacher. He booked passage on a new ship. On April 15, 1912, the ship carrying over a thousand passengers struck an iceberg. As the Titanic started to go down the preacher from Scotland was given a life preserver but soon sensing a shortage he gave his to a young married man who’s wife was in one of the row boats. As the Titanic disappeared beneath the water, John Harper was seen swimming as best he could. He suddenly saw a man clinging to a piece of wood. Harper shouted, "Are you saved?" When the man answered no, John Harper quoted Acts 16:3, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved." A moment later, Harper slipped beneath the water, never to resurface. The man did put his faith in Jesus Christ and an hour later was rescued by a lifeboat. He later testified that he was John Harper’s last convert.Stay focused on Jesus as Savior.
God speaks to you and me this morning through his Word. "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." Amen