Sermon
The Full Disclosure of Being a Christian
December 30-31, 2000
Pastor Ron Walters

Take your Bibles and open them up to John chapter 16, would you, John chapter 16. It's always a pleasure to be with you. This is a fun group to talk to. I might tell you this in front of your Pastor, and I don't mean to embarrass him, but this is perhaps one of the easiest places to speak for me because you are so well taught. It's easy to go anywhere with you and you come with me, and that's kind of fun for a teacher. I go to some churches, and quite frankly, they haven't got a clue, and that is very difficult, but you folks are so well taught. And Pastor Don and Pastor Leighton I congratulate you for the enormous teaching that you do, and obviously the crowds speak to the effect that that's what the people want, so that's great. John chapter 16, are you there yet?

While you're finding your spot let me just kind of say that today is a special. It is the 51st anniversary. Did you know that? You see it was in 1949 at the Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California the United States Air Force put together some test experiments to find out what certain impacts on the human body would do. We had just entered into the jet age and they knew how to make a jet fly, but they didn't know how to protect the pilot under those kind of circumstances so they conducted some experiments in the Edwards Air Force Base down in Southern Cal to ascertain what kind of impact the G-force would be onto a human body, and the deceleration process on that same body. So they devised what they called a rocket sled, a rocket on a track, and they were going to shoot this baby down this thing to breakneck speed where it would actually get to the fastest land speed ever achieved by man at that time -- 621 mph. This is in 1949. That was not difficult. They had the jet engines. What they really had a tough time with is that they wanted to find out the decelerations, they wanted to find out what happens if you stop it real fast. So they devised a way to stop a rocket sled going 621 mph -- to stop it in 1.4 seconds. And when they devised that then they started looking for volunteers. (Congregation laughs)

And the lo and behold the volunteer was a man by the name of Major John Paul Stapp, s-t-a-p-p. Stapp was a guy who had broken many land speed records and he was a wonderful guy. He loved to the Lord by the way; he was the son of Baptist missionaries in Brazil. And I guess that's the reason he didn't care. He knew where he was going, you know, so it's all right. So he climbed in this thing and then they harnessed him with a vest, and this is the key to the entire experiment. This vest had 16 sensors that would decide, would show, what the impact to the human body was. The sensors were the brainchild of another Air Force guy, Captain Edward A. Murphy Jr., -- remember his name. So Captain Murphy designed this harness with all these sensors indicate that would determine the deceleration process and the G-force and so forth, and they lowered Stapp into this rocket sled then they launched him down these tracks and it shot down 621 mph in no time. And then all of a sudden when time was right they pulled the lever and boom they stopped that thing on a dime in 1.4 seconds. And the rescue team ran over to this rocket sled, opened the cockpit, looked in to see if he was still living, and if so in what condition, and they found that he was. The impact was incredible. His 160 pound body going at that speed and then breaking with that suddenness, literally, his 160 pound body then stimulated a three ton object, so that his ears met in front of his face. Blood streamed out his eyes and out his nose, and he was jelloed all over. And so when the rescue team went over there to find out he was okay his first words, Stapp's first words were, the sensors -- what do the sensors read? So they looked at the sensors all over his vest and they couldn't figure it out because the sensors read zero, each of them. So they called Captain Murphy over to find out what he could take of it, and he looked and he realized they didn't work. None of the 16 sensors worked. The entire experiment was for naught, which didn't go over real big with Stapp. (Congregation laughs)

And when Murphy looked at it he saw that his installers had put in every one of the 16 sensors backwards. To which he turned and looked at the installers and he said, and I quote, "If two or more things of any kind can go wrong, one of those will result in catastrophe and somebody will do it." Now we have paraphrased that thing down to a little line that says: If anything can go wrong it will go wrong. And today we call that Murphy's Law. Happy birthday Murphy's Law. Now the reason I bring that up is that I think Christians identify with that more than anybody. I think that's really a Christian principle. Here's what I mean; when people come to know Christ as Savior, in no doubt that the great majority of this audience, when we come to know Christ as Savior there's something that we really want to believe, and we want to really believe that now that we have the answer to life the problems are solved. Now that we have Jesus, the King of creation, the Lord of all, in our life somehow we're going to have a better life then we used to have. Do you know what I mean? Jesus equals cushy. (Congregation chuckles) That sounds good to me. And when problems come we don't get it. We don't -- how this is possible? And some people who love Jesus, and they face these problems, they bail out because of it.

Now here's the irony: Jesus never promised us that kind of a rose garden. He never promised us the Disneyland, ever. He promised us -- well let's take it out of His words. John chapter 16, are you there yet? Verse 33 it says this, look at the last half of verse 33 in John 16: In this world you will have, what's the next word, trouble or tribulation. You're going to have troubles. Here's the good news though, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. So we have good news and we have bad news. But let's start with the bad news. This is not an isolated teaching from Jesus to His disciples. It's one of those things that He continually hit over and over and over and over and over and over, and you wonder why they didn't get it -- probably because we don't get it either. He told them you're going to have troubles. Yeah, well, like what? Well let's find out some of the other things He said. How about over in Matthew 10:22 where Jesus says this: All men will hate you because of Me. All right? So were starting right out of the chute telling you that all men are going to hate you. Basically what He's saying is this, is that when Jesus came, when God came onto this plant and lived in the form of a body, He raised the curve awfully high, didn't He? He was perfect. He loved God. He loved his Father to the tune that He was always obedient. He was perfect, absolutely, and the people didn't like that. He intimidated them to the max, and they thought if we can just get rid of Him we can lower the curve.

Now God's children today also carry crosses. They come and they live the same type of life that Jesus did -- to, in this day, love God more than anything on the planet, or that's what He wants us to do. And when we do that, it intimidates the world and they feel like if we can just lower that, lower the standard, then we will be less intimidated by them and we will feel more comfortable because they will be like to us rather than they'll be like God. Let me show you some other things. In Matthew 10:38 Jesus says this, Any man who is not willing to carry his cross is not worthy to be a disciple. That, Matthew 10:38, is the very first time in all of Scripture that the word cross is found. The disciples understood it, I believe, better than you and I do. They understood what the cross meant because they lived in an era, in a generation, in which that was the capital punishment. And the Romans loved it, quite frankly. The Romans loved the crucifixion. They did not create it. The Assyrians created the crucifixion, but the Romans perfected it. They made it really bad. You thought it was bad under the Assyrians -- Oh, nothing compared. You see, the Assyrians just put people on the cross and they died. The Romans say well let's not bad enough. You're not making them punished enough. You've got to make them feel real terrible. So the Romans devised a plan by which you took the crossbar off the cross, you put it onto the condemned man, and had him carry it through town, and then ultimately they would lift all of that to the upright on the cross and that's where he would die. But they've extended the whole process of the cross in the Roman era, and the disciples understood that when Jesus says any man who is not willing to carry his cross is not worthy to be a disciple.

You say, well did He say that very often? How about Matthew 16:24, Jesus says, any man who would come after Me let him first deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. In Mark 8:34 it says, if anybody would come after Me let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. In Luke 9:23 Jesus says, if any man would come unto Me let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me. Are you getting the point? (Someone calls out yes) It is -- Thank you. It is (Congregation laughs) at least I've got one. (Congregation laughs) Thank you I needed it. This has been a long morning. Perfect. My mind was wandering now it's back. (Congregation laughs) That is the deal. Christians have to carry their cross. Now some of you know that better than I do because in your own home you know the cross you have to carry, and it has been painful to say the least. When we talk about the cross we're talking about that thing by which you're willing to die for. We're talking about your faith, your love for Jesus, and when all of a sudden you take that stand and the world hates you for it, and they mock you, and persecute you, and slander you because of your faith -- that is your cross. And some of you are going through that in your own home, or in your own job, or in your neighborhood and you know what that's like to carry the cross, and there's a tendency to want to just drop it. I don't need this. I mean, Christianity should be a whole lot more fun than that, and we want to drop the cross. And by the way, it is those people to whom the world says hypocrite. Hypocrite! And they're right; those who claim the name of Christ, but want nothing to do with bearing the cross. But it is the person who says I love Jesus so much if it means to carry a cross even as He did, I'll do it. I'll do it. To those people, the world, I believe, even though they mock at first, they ultimately will admire and follow.

I'm thinking of a man by the name of Charles Simeon. Some of your church historians may know the name, Charles Simeon. He lived in the late 1700s, early 1800s, and what he was, this is classic, because you can't understand, none of us can appreciate what he must have gone through as an evangelical who truly loved the purity of the Word. He was called a Puritan in the area of England when Puritans were basically outlawed. They had all mass migrated to the U.S. in those days, and the few that remained were under enormous attack. And here Charles Simeon was a Christian for three years and he was pastoring a church. The church that he was pastoring, get this, was not just out in some little hamlet, it was the Holy Trinity Church located in the center of Cambridge University. Cambridge is the think tank for England at that time. And in the center, if you know how the English schools -- they built up the universities around a church and that was the focal point for the institution of learning, and that church was where Charles Simeon pastored and he had only been a Christian for three years. And he brought to his teaching, his preaching, a faithfulness to the Word of God, and he preached confession and repentance, and obedience, and self-denial, and taking up your cross and following. And the people had never heard this before. They were used to a gospel of convenience, meaning that whatever felt good that's what they heard. Whatever they wanted to hear they got preached to them. For somebody to preach out of the Bible the sheer claims of Christ they had never heard this before. And there was Charles Simeon to this crowd and there was no response at all on their part -- none, except they rejected it.

In those days, maybe you know a little bit about the English churches, the old English churches, they had pew owners meaning that they paid for the pew. They owned it. That's how they built their churches, so people would have a pew and they would own this pew, and only they and their family or friends got to sit here. Well, they had gates and little locks and a little key and everything, and they kept people out. If we don't want to come, nope, we're going to Palm Springs this weekend. Nobody gets to sit in that pew. Here's the key, and so when they didn't like Charles Simeon they just emptied their pew, locked the gate, and left. Every pew in the church was empty and locked up, and nobody could come in. So Charles Simeon went and got some benches and brought them in and put them in the aisles in the front and the back, and as often as he brought them in the custodians came and threw them out. And he continued his ministry, and sometimes he would come to the church and Charles Simeon would find that the church was locked. He couldn't even get in because the people inside the church hated him so much. They would not respond to the gospel as he taught it, and he kept on being faithful even though he carried his cross.

The student body, if that's bad enough, the student body were worse. The young crowd that mocked, and jeered, and shouted obscenities to him. It was nothing for him to pass through the halls of the University and to be just jeered at and called names and mocked and so forth, and on more than one occasion he left with his face just covered with rotten eggs as they would bombard him. And the faculty, his peers, wanted nothing to do with him. He was ostracized completely from all of their functions, and outings, and gatherings. He was never invited to be a part. This went on year after year after year, and he continued to carry the cross. And after twelve years of that, can you imagine that? History tells us that he was so frustrated and so hurt and bruised personally that he took his Bible out into the woods outside Cambridge and he sat down there and he just, he wept and he opened his Bible randomly like sometimes we want to do, and he began reading a passage from Matthew 27 and it's the passage about Jesus going to the cross. And I'm going to read these verses to you and I just want you to listen, but remember the setting and who it is that's reading these verses about Jesus' crucifixion. It is Charles Simeon. And they stripped Him, Jesus, and they put a scarlet robe on Him. And they twisted together a crown of thorns and set it onto Jesus' head, and put a staff in His right hand, and knelt in front of Him and mocked Him saying, Hail, King of the Jews. Then they spit on Him and took the staff and struck Him on the head again and again. And after they had mocked Him they took off the robe and put on His own clothes to Him, and they lead Him away to crucify Him. And as they were going out they met a man from Cyrene named Simeon and they forced Simeon to carry Jesus' cross.

When Charles Simeon read this passage his heart burst. He wept and wept and wept, and he closed the Bible and he prayed, Jesus, lay it on me. Lay it on me. Lay Your cross on me and I'll be faithful to carry Your cross regardless of what the cost is. Well, things did not change dramatically at first, but something happened, and this is a sovereign thing. And this is what I'm trying to impress upon you is that God has a way of making things right to the faithful disciples who will carry the cross. Because all of a sudden, well, after a while anyway, things began to change at the church. The people who owned the pews said, you know, we paid for the stinking pew. We might as well sit in it. You can't go to Palm Springs every weekend. You know? And so they began coming to church and opening up the pews. The students began saying, you know, we've been egging this guy for years, literally. He's won our respect, I mean, the courage he has is awesome. Let's go hear what he has to say. The faculty began saying, you know the guy has tenure, you know, we ought to go hear him, and all of a sudden the people began coming and coming and coming. And the church began to grow and God began to do a mighty work at Cambridge in those years.

Charles Simeon served at that church, get this, for 54 years. I would have never done that. He served for 54 years, but the impact that he made on that community was so profound that when he finally died and his body lay in state in the front of that chapel, the mourners literally closed down all the shops in Cambridge, no business would be conducted that day. All of the classes, the lectures were suspended. No classes for that day. As the mourners lined up four deep all the way out that church and then all the way around Cambridge University to show their respects to this man who had preached so faithfully in the face of such opposition. There is something about people who faithfully carry their cross that God blesses them in ways we cannot understand. It happens all the time.

One of my favorite studies in the Bible is Joseph. You know Joseph? Not the Joseph of Mary and Joseph fame, of Bethlehem and your Nativity scene, that needs to be put away in a week or two. But it's the Joseph of the multicolored, you know, windbreaker in the Old Testament. Do you know which Joseph I'm talking about? I love him. And do you know what? In Genesis when the story is told, it takes several chapters, and when the story is told, 10 things are told about Joseph. Did you ever notice that? Ten things, and you put them in a line and it's uncanny how they go downward. We start at the top and progressively everything in the guy's life gets worse and worse and worse. For example, let me show you what these are, and yet watch, he so faithful. It begins, the first of these 10 things is the Bible says, and Joseph was loved by his father Jacob. That's the first thing we know about him. He was loved by his father Jacob. Isn't that great? Folks it only gets worse. Do you know what the next thing is? After he is loved by his father Jacob, the second thing we learn about him, he was hated by his brothers. Third thing, his brothers threw him in a pit wondering what should we do with the guy. Should we kill him or what? The fourth thing, they said we'll sell him to that Ishmaelite caravan going to Egypt. You say, man, this is bad news. Can this get any worse? Oh yeah!

He was put on an auction block once he got to Egypt. Sold as a slave. Oh, that's terrible. How humiliating. He can't even speak the language. Doesn't get any worse than that? Oh yeah! He was purchased by Potiphar. You say, is that bad? Potiphar was a chief executioner. He killed people for fun! You say, oh my, could it get any worse? Yes, Mrs. Potiphar! (Congregation laughs) She had a thing for Jewish guys, I don't know, and she chased him around the house and he would never give into her pleas and ultimately she made a charge against him and it wasn't true, and he was thrown into prison -- into the dungeon. You say, oh no, can it get any worse? Yes! He made a friend, the cup bearer of Pharaoh, who was going to be released, who promised I'll tell Pharaoh all about you. We'll get you out of here, and the cup bearer forgot!

Do you know the story I just told you took 13 years? And you kind of wonder, Lord, is it worth it to carry my cross when what's this all about? And yet that was only nine stages of his life. I told you there were 10, right? Do you know what the 10th one was? Number ten on his list was Joseph was made Prime Minister over all of Egypt. Now I've got news for you folks, I've hired a lot of people and that kind of a resume is not the kind I look for when I hire people. I mean how do you hire a guy who has had nothing but downward mobility in his job career, in his career path, and then all of a sudden you put him on top of the pile and he's the most powerful man that walks? How does that happen? It's a sovereign thing. God in His, I think, in His sense of humor, pastor, I think there's a part of that that's built into this thing, God sees the faithful who carry their cross faithfully because they love God, they love the Lord with all of their heart, even more than life itself, and their faithfulness will be rewarded. And I don't know how, and your story may be totally different, and your reward may be in heaven as Leighton was telling us earlier, it may be just in heaven not here are on earth, but whatever -- you will win in the end if you are faithful to carry your cross to its completion. That's a sovereign thing and that's how God works. Isn't that good?

But not only do you win in the end, here's a beautiful thought, you are protected through the whole process of carrying your cross. Even when you carry this cross you are protected, and I see glazed looks across your face. You are protected. Let me show you what I mean. Can you play pretend with me? Are you too adult for that? Can we play pretend for a few minutes? Let me, yeah, my one kid out there. Yeah, good, I've got no problems there. (Congregation chuckles) We're going to pretend because I want you to visualize a verse, a phrase from Colossians 3:3 that says this, for we are hidden together with Christ in God. Colossians 3, for we are hidden together with Christ in God. Got those words? For we are hidden together with Christ in God. Now I want to show you some pretend exactly to visualize this thing, and here's what it's all about. Here's my business card, just like that. It says Ron Walters on it. Ann's got some just like that with her name on it right? Ann Leslie down here. This is going to represent me. All right? Got that? My business card represents me. All right here I've got an envelope that on it says, what? Christ. Guess what the envelope is going to represent? Four of you know, well let me help the others. Okay? The envelope will represent Christ oddly enough. All right? And then the Bible is going to represent God the Father. Okay, you got it? All right, the envelope represents who? (Christ) card? (You) Bible? (God) envelope? (Christ) card? (You) Bible? (God) Okay, I think we've got it. All right. (Congregation chuckles) Now watch this. We're going to take those words - for we are hidden together with Christ in God - and I want you to see this. When we come to know Jesus Christ as personal Savior we take our life and the slide it right inside Him. (Places card inside envelope) That's the reason the Bible says we are in Christ, because we are there in Him when we come to know Him as Savior. And then, I love this, (licks envelope) early lunch, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. All right? And there we are, but not only am I hidden in Christ, watch this, I am hidden together with Christ in God. (Places envelope in Bible) See how secure I am. Now let's take this pretend one step further.

Let's pretend that you are the devil, and for some of you that would not be a stretch, I understand that. (Congregation laughs) So you'll understand this. And you don't like me. You don't like Ron Walters. You want to wipe him out. You want to frustrate, you want to condemn him. Who, devil, do you have to go through in order to get to me? (Congregation claps) For we are hidden together with Christ in God. Do you see how secure we are? And yet at the same time we've been asked to carry a cross, and there is frustration and pain and loneliness with that and hurt, desperation at times. But they can't touch you. They can't catch you because we're protected and we're blessed, and we're God's children. That's the reason why Roman 8 is so special at this point, where it says, who, who could separate us from the love of Christ which is ours? Could distress, or tribulation, or peril, or famine, or nakedness, or persecution, or sword? No, for in all these things we're more than conquerors to Him that loves us and gave Himself for us. And I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor heights nor depths, nor powers, nor any other created thing could ever separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus. (Congregation claps) Now what He's done though, I'm safe and I'm secure and I win in the end, but I've been asked to carry the cross. That's my duty. Let's not bail out. We don't go looking for persecution, but when it comes we're willing to do it and Jesus showed us how as He took His cross and carried it, Isaiah says, without opening His mouth. And He took it all the way to death. Let's be willing to do the very same thing. Okay?

When Jesus was talking to His disciples I know, I wish I was a fly on the wall that day, but I know what happened. When He was in Matthew 5 telling His disciples...remember this verse? Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for great is their reward in heaven. I am sure their eyes were glazed over. They didn't get it, because we're talking about them not us. It doesn't matter if we're talking about them, it's just kind of something away. Then all of a sudden I can just see Jesus pause and then He turned the conversation, and then He said, very next words, blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for My namesake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. And as a matter of fact, you're in very good company because they persecuted the prophets which were before you. Every man, every woman of God, who has ever served God has had to carry their cross. And you in 2001, if it doesn't come before then, will carry a cross of persecution or suffering or shame, but do it faithfully unto Him even as He carried the cross faithfully for us. Okay? All right. Let's stand. We're going to pray and we're going to get out of here and go have some lunch.

Lord Jesus, we love You today. We don't even know how to say it well enough. What You have done for us overwhelms us. The fact that You would carefully, tenderly carry the cross that would hold our sins and the sins of the world, and You did it so willingly. You knew that was why You were here, and You we are faithful to Your objective. And my prayer is for each of us that we too will be willing to carry our cross. We don't like to think in terms of that. We like the cushy idea rather than the cross, and so we pray this morning that today might be the beginning of not just a new year, decade, millennium, but it might be the beginning of a new life that we live for You. One that makes us willing to carry our cross, and in doing so we show ourselves worthy to be disciples for Jesus. Be pleased; be proud of us in how we conduct ourselves in this new year, that the world might see something very special. And even though they deride it, they criticize it, they shame it, they attack it, they'll never be able to say that it's wrong because the Spirit of God will use us in a marvelous way to bring to them the light of repentance, and for doing this we love You and praise You in advance. Amen? Amen. God bless you. Happy New Year to you. (Congregation claps)