37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Introduction
I always use this occasion to restate the objective, the purpose, and the mission of our church. George Webber said, “Any church that does not recognize the basic purpose of its existence is in jeopardy of its life. The predicament of the church in America is precisely that it does not recognize that it’s a mission situation.”
That is the exact predicament of most churches in America today. They have failed to realize that they are in a mission situation. Every once in a while we need to stop and look at our mission, our purpose, and our goal. Why are we here? What are we intending to do? We need to understand and recommit ourselves to that mission, purpose, and goal.
When I became your pastor several years ago, I said our goal was to build the greatest evangelistic church in East Texas. In some ways we have been able to do that. I felt that was a worthy goal because this morning there are 138,000 more lost people in the world than there were yesterday morning at this time. If you were to line up all the lost people in the world, 30 inches apart, they would encircle the globe not one time, not two times, not three times, but 30 times. And that line is growing at a rate of 25 miles a day. In light of that I do not see how we can think of anything less than building the greatest evangelistic church anywhere in this area.
But through the years as I thought about it, that “greatest evangelistic church” is a poor statement of our goal. When you start using superlatives, it makes it too competitive; it is almost as if I’m saying, “We intend to build one better than anyone else.” And that may not be sufficient. We may be better than someone else, but far from what we ought to be. Just to be ahead of them is not sufficient.
I’ve felt a need to restate our mission, our purpose, and our goal as best I can, and I’ve come to believe that it is to win our city and our county to Christ. I hope that you could in your own heart and mind come to the place where you could accept that the mission of this church is nothing less than winning this whole community to Jesus Christ. I don’t mean that our mission and goal is going to end there, because we ought to send the Gospel unto the ends of the earth. But we have to begin somewhere, and this is where we are, and I believe that first and foremost, God expects us to witness where we are and to win everybody within our reach to Jesus Christ. And so I think our goal ought to be to win Tyler for Christ. I think we ought to work as though we were the only church in this community preaching the Gospel. We ought to work as though we believed that the salvation of every last lost person in this county depended upon what we did. To that end and to that purpose I want to rededicate myself to God and to you. And I want to ask you to join me in that kind of commitment to the heavenly Father and to one another as a part of this fellowship.
I think it is right and proper that we think in terms of a citywide ministry that reaches everyone for Jesus, because that was one of the approaches that Jesus took. In the passage of scripture that was read a few moments ago, Jesus was lamenting over the city of Jerusalem in that last public discourse that he made before he went to Calvary, was resurrected, and ascended into heaven. You remember. Jesus had denounced the scribes and the Pharisees—the religious leaders of his day—because they had rejected him and everything that was true was right. He saw the rejection of the whole nation in these leaders, and because of that rejection, the judgment of God was going to come upon them.
Jesus could see that the city of Jerusalem would be left in desolation. He could see that in the year AD 70, Titus the Roman general would march with his legions of soldiers against the city of Jerusalem and leave it in complete destruction. One of the most tragic events in all of history was when Titus marched against Jerusalem. The population of Jerusalem was around 600,000, but that population had swollen because of religious pilgrimages that had taken place as people came there for worship and religious festive occasions. As Titus started his seizure of the city, people started trying to escape. They didn’t want to lose their jewels and their gold. Many of them swallowed their jewelry and their gold thinking that they could escape and carry it with them. The Romans hunted them down and when they caught them, they found the gold and the jewels. They began to crucify the people. They crucified as many as 500 a day. They crucified until all of the timber was gone. They stripped the Mount of Olives of its trees, and used the trees to build crosses. It is estimated that about one million people perished in this seizure. So many died that they couldn’t even bury the dead. The stench was more than one could bear.
Jesus saw all of this coming, and he knew that it was so unnecessary. It was coming because they had rejected him and in rejecting him, they had rejected God, and in rejecting God, they had rejected their only means of hope and salvation. Seeing all of this, Jesus lamented over Jerusalem.
In the words I read from Matthew chapter 23 when Jesus said, “Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou who killest the prophets and stonest them that were sent unto thee,” he was referring to the messengers of God who came with warnings and admonitions, and with teachings to turn the people from their sins and back to God. But what did the Israelites do? They killed the prophets. They stoned people who were sent by God. Finally God sent his Son, Jesus.
And Jesus said, “How often,” which means he went to the city of Jerusalem many times. He had offered himself to them many times. He preached and performed miracles many times.
Jesus also said, “How often would I have gathered thy children together.” And then he used a beautiful analogy. He spoke of how a mother hen draws her little chickens under her wings. If you grew up on a farm, or visited one, you can see the picture. The mother hen uses her wings to protect her brood of little chickens. When the wind begins to blow, she gathers them under her wings to protect them. Let the rain start to fall and she gathers her chicks under her wings. Let the nighttime come with its darkness and its fears of the unknown, and she gathers her brood under her wings. Let some danger come to threaten, and she brings her chickens in for protection, safety, and security.
And Jesus is saying, “That is what I wanted to do for Jerusalem. I wanted to reach out and put my arms around this whole city and draw it unto myself for protection, for security, and for salvation, but you would not have it.” The choice was theirs and they rejected the Savior. They said no to his sheltering wings, and no to his protective care. They said no to his offer of eternal life.
Jesus lamented because he knew that their rejection of God ultimately meant their destruction. We ought to have the same kind of burdens that Jesus had for our city. There was a sense in which Jerusalem was not his city. He wasn’t born there. He was born in Bethlehem. He wasn’t raised there. He was raised in Nazareth, but Jerusalem was the capital city. Jerusalem was the center of their religious and spiritual life as well as their political life and in a sense, Jerusalem was the city of every Jew. When Jesus spoke about Jerusalem he was really talking about his city. I think that if our Lord Jesus were here in the flesh today, he would be saying about Tyler what he said about Jerusalem. “O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matthew 23:37) And if we could ever have that kind of compassion and concern for our city, then we would get on with doing what God has ordained us to do.
There are four things that are necessary in order to reach our city and our country for Christ. First, we must preach the whole Gospel. Second, it must be preached by the whole church. Third, it must be preached to the whole person. And fourth, we must preach it with our whole heart. And if we could ever preach the whole Gospel by the whole church, to the whole person, with our whole heart, we could see our city won to Christ. Think about those things that are necessary for a moment.
1. The whole gospel. First of all, we’ve got to preach the whole Gospel. The Gospel in a word is Christ. Nothing more, nothing less. Christ, the Son of God. The virgin-born Christ. The marvelous preacher. Christ, the miracle worker. Christ, the friend of sinners. Christ, who died on the cross. Christ, who was raised from the dead. Christ, the reigning Lord and King and Master, boiled it all down to this: Christ, Lord, Savior, and King. The Gospel is explained in a verse: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
The Gospel in an event is Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. The whole of it is that we are sinners separated from God by our own iniquity. The only way we can ever reach God is through his love, mercy, and grace. Christ came to bridge the chasm of sin that separates man from God, and when he died upon that cross Jesus said, “It is finished.” He didn’t say, “I am finished.” He said, “It is finished.” The bridge is finished and now man and God can be reunited in fellowship and in life.
The significance of Jesus coming was not that he could preach marvelous sermons—although he did. And the significance was not that he could perform great miracles—although he did. The true significance was that he would die for our sins and make it possible for us to be right with God.
I do not understand how a Jewish carpenter dying on a Roman cross in the first century could have anything whatsoever to do with me today. But I believe that it has tremendous implications for my life—and not only for mine, but for the life of any person who would trust and believe in him and commit their life to him. The death and resurrection of Jesus are the most important events that ever occurred in the history of this world. We need to give our hearts and lives to Jesus and proclaim it to the world.
It is our responsibility to preach the whole Gospel. We are not here to bear witness to our church, as fine as it may be. We are not here to bear witness to our choir, although it is excellent. We are not here to bear witness to our building or to our program or to our staff, or to our pastor. We are here to bear witness to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the Savior of the world. That is what our community needs to hear about.
2. By the whole church. We must forever vanish from our thinking the idea that it is the responsibility of the preacher and the staff alone to bear witness to Christ. We must vanish from our thinking the idea that we can ever reach out and encompass the deacons and have fulfilled all our responsibility when that group bears witness to Christ. We must recognize that bearing witness to Christ is the responsibility of every Christian. The whole church is to be preaching the whole Gospel. That’s biblical. The scripture tells us in Acts 8:4, “They that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word.” That had reference not to the apostles. They all stayed in Jerusalem. That had reference to the laypeople—the ordinary people who were scattered abroad as a result of persecution. Wherever they went they witnessed for Christ. And that’s what we must do. I know that the word “witness” scares some of you because in your mind it conjures up all sorts of things.
I’m not talking about the kind of witnessing that buttonholes a man on the street and says, “Hey, buddy, are you a Christian?” I’m not talking about the kind of witness who offends, is obnoxious, or sits in judgment over someone else. I’m talking about the kind of witness who shares Christ in kindness, in consideration, and in love so that the recipient appreciates what you have done when you are through. That’s what we are all to do. That kind of witnessing begins by living the Christian life. The kind of life we live is the platform, the pulpit, or the stage of our witness. You know Jesus didn’t come just to keep us out of hell and get us into heaven. Jesus came to give us a new life. Paul said, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). That new life is the foundation for witnessing.
What does Christ do to make our lives new? Well, he gives us new purity. He gives us a new morality and a new standard for right and wrong. When a person has been made new in Christ, there are a lot of things they won’t do anymore. They now live their life on a higher plane. They have greater principles, there are more important values that dominate them, and they have a new purity. They also have a new power. They have the ability to stand against those old temptations, those old desires, and those old weaknesses. They have a power that they never dreamed they would have before.
I wrote a newspaper article some time ago. Perhaps you remember it. One of our men said to me one day, “Before I became a Christian, and that wasn’t too long ago, I drank a fifth of whiskey a day.” He was talking to another friend about it and he said, “I’ve been dry for a number of months now and the real miracle is that I don’t even want a drink.” He said, “In the past I was trying to quit because of my job. I was trying to quit because of my family. I was trying to quit because of my health, but now for the first time I’m quitting not because I feel like I have to, but because I want to.”
New power. New desire. New ability. Jesus gives us a new peace. In the midst of a world of anxiety, worry, and frustration there is a peace that is beyond human understanding. When the storms of life howl against us, there can be a peace within us. There can be a happiness and a joy that’s different from the rest of the world. And when a man is made new in Christ he not only has a new purity and a new power, he has a new peace.
If you don’t have those things, then maybe you don’t have that new life Paul was talking about. It is a life of not only new purity, power, and peace, but of new patience as well. The word patience means “strength of character.” It includes the ability to stand up to life’s hardships, difficulties, trials, and pressures without going to the tranquilizer, the liquor bottle, or to suicide. You know that if we removed from the market of America today all of the sedatives, tranquilizers, and alcohol there would be a suicide epidemic unparalleled in the history of the world because people are empty on the inside. They don’t have that strength of character that enables them to stand up to the hardships and pressures of life without going to pieces. But I tell you that Jesus can give a person that inner strength and inner character that enables them to stand.
Along with new patience, he gives us a purpose in life. A lot of people have no purpose. They are like the lady who said to me, “Preacher, I’m not living. I’m just existing.” They go from day to day and from task to task and there is no purpose and no meaning to all that they are doing. And because there is no purpose or meaning, there is no joy or fulfillment at all. But when Christ comes into one’s life, he makes them new in these kinds of ways. It is from that new kind of life that we bear witness to Jesus.
I’m not talking about living that new kind of life perfectly. No one lives it perfectly. The world doesn’t even expect us to be perfect. It does expect us to be different, however. It expects us to be sincere and genuine. If you aren’t trying to live that new kind of life, then please don’t witness. Maybe no one will know that you are a Christian. And if they knew, they probably wouldn’t have any faith in Christianity. But if you are living a new kind of life, then you are different. You are unusual to those around you, and they will notice that you are different—not an obnoxious or overbearing kind of difference. It will be a good kind of difference. It will be a delightful and winsome kind of difference. It will be the kind of difference that they want down deep inside because they don’t have that peace, power, patience, or purpose in their lives.
There are people who are walking around us in this community with expensive suits, fakes smiles, fine automobiles, and beautiful homes, and they are empty on the inside, looking for what Jesus Christ alone can give. When we know and experience the kind of life Jesus offers, they will see it and they will know that we are different. Maybe they won’t know why, but they will know that something is different about us, and that new life becomes our platform, our pulpit, and our stage from which we can witness and can tell them about Christ.
Peter says in his first letter, chapter three, verse 15, to “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” He is saying to us that we are to be always alert, prepared, and sensitive to those around us and to those who are going to ask us about our faith. They are going to inquire. They are going to notice there is something different about us, and when that opportunity comes, we are to be ready to share with them. We are to do it in meekness and in fear. That means that we do it in consideration, respect, and kindness. We are to share with them that if there is anything different in our life, it’s because we have come to know Jesus Christ as our Savior. That’s the duty of the whole church, and if we will share that good news, then God will bless it and use it for his great purpose. In the office, in the service station, in the classroom, in the club, in your social circle, in your neighborhood—wherever you find yourself, you are to be bearing witness for Christ.
A number of you ladies need to start some neighborhood Bible studies. I’m not talking about a Bible study where you invite your church friends and Sunday school class members to come over to your neighborhood and study the Bible. That’s a holy club. You become a religious clique. You sit there in the comfort and the security of your home with fellow Christians, and you study the Bible and feel like you are really doing something significant. But what you need to do is to reach out in the community where you live and find people from every church or no church who have a spiritual hunger, and together you begin to study the word of God.
The purpose is not to get people into our church. The purpose is to get people under the sheltering wing of Christ. If we are interested in getting people to Christ, the church will take care of itself. The quickest way to kill the church is to turn inwardly and to think only about ourselves—about building our church and getting more members to our congregation. What we need to do is to get people to Christ and under his protective wing instead of our own, and the church will take care of itself. People will come to the place where they are being fed and nurtured and taught.
3. To the whole person. The whole Gospel is to be preached by the whole church to the whole person. We are more than just a soul. The Bible teaches us that we are body, spirit, and soul. We are flesh and blood. We are body. We are spirit. Animals have a body, but we are more than that. We are also a soul. An eternal soul. There is something about us having been made in the likeness and the image of the eternal God that sets us apart from all the rest of the animals. The chasm between man and the most intelligent animal in the world is so vast that there is no way to understand it except to say that man was created as separate and distinct.
As a church we are to be concerned about the whole person—not just about his soul. We come here to teach the Bible. That’s our primary mission. We are here to teach it in Sunday school, to preach it in the pulpit, but our responsibility doesn’t end there, for people are more than just the soul. They are also a body, a mind, and a spirit, and the total person deserves some consideration. That’s why we have recreation programs. God created the body just like he created the soul. He is interested in both.
That’s why we have music programs, because God plants a song in our hearts when we become a Christian. We have to have some way to let it out. That’s why we have programs for little children. Jesus said, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14). That’s why we have programs for young people. They are full of energy and they have things that they want to do and are going to do, and it is not enough for us to sit around and curse the darkness. We need to light a candle so that young people have something decent and worthwhile to do. We can provide a program and a building and they still may not come. At least we provide an alternative, so as to say to them, “If you have a desire for the higher and better things of life, here is something you can do.”
There are lonely people in the world. I think a lot about marriage and divorce and the broken-hearted people around us. You know for a long time the divorcees were the social and spiritual lepers of the church, but they have needs and the church ought to meet them. Every once in a while, when visiting with a person who has been through some kind of traumatic experience, I ask them to write down their feelings and share them with me. I asked a man to do this some time ago and this is what he wrote: “Following a divorce you are pretty well shattered emotionally. You spend a lot of time questioning your worth. You have a sense of failure and you wonder what you did wrong. You are gripped with a feeling of loneliness. You don’t know where you fit. Your married friends and even your church friends really don’t know what to do with you. So you spend a lot of time feeling like you are a second-class citizen. You start reaching out to make new friends, but you have to go where you can meet people who are in a similar situation as yourself. Where do you go? Where do you start? You have to do everything for yourself. Cooking, laundry, shopping, taking care of yourself when you are sick. This is frightening. It is difficult to work all day long and then come home and do all of these things alone.”
Oh, the loneliness around us. Sometimes people are lonely in marriage. Lonely in the home. Somebody said that you can drive down the streets of one of our modern cities (and Tyler wouldn’t be any different), and every other house is facing a major domestic problem. Husband and wife not getting along. Parents and children are not getting along. Every other house represents a major domestic problem. If Jesus were here in the flesh he would want to reach out to every need in the city. He would never be content to set up shop on Sunday morning. He would never open up Sunday school classes and preach to a congregation and say, “That’s it. Get up and go home. I’ll see you next Sunday.” No, Jesus would want to put his arms around the whole city, every person, every need, and say, “God loves you and so do I, and I want to help.”
4. With our whole heart. We’ve got to reach out with our whole heart. I mean we need to use every ounce of energy there is in us. We must tell people about Jesus. We’ve been playing around way too long.
A man went back to his hometown after being gone many, many years. He looked around at various sights, came to a service station, and said to the attendant, “Where is that old church and the glory it once had?” The service station attendant asked, “Are you going to be driving around town some more?” He said, “Yes.” “Then after a while, go up that hill. You’ll see a sign, and that sign will tell you what happened to that old church and the glory it once had.”
Later that evening he started up the hill. It was getting dark and his headlights flashed on a sign. He had passed it before he noticed it. He put the car in reverse, backed up, focused the headlights on the sign and here is what it said: “Danger! Children at play.”[1]
One of our men stood there and gave a testimony. He said, “I played church for years and years.” He gave his life to Christ and he has been a new person ever since and our church has been a new place ever since.
Friends, we’ve got to live for Jesus with our whole heart, because I believe Jesus wants to put his arms around this city and to bring it under his sheltering wings. He wants you to be there. He wants all of us to be there. And he wants us to get involved in doing that work.
Early in his life James Gilmore heard the message, “Go to Mongolia.” But when he arrived, he discovered that he had been mistaken all the time. The message was actually, “Come to Mongolia.” Jesus had been there all the time waiting for him.
Christ is loose in this town. He’s working in people’s hearts. He’s creating a hunger and a desire for spiritual things. They want a new and better life. Jesus is not saying to you, “Go out there by yourself and work.” He is saying, “Come along with me, and together we shall put our arms around this city and bring it to eternal life.”
As best as I can, I want to do that. I’ve been trying to do that for a lot of years. But I want to do it better. I want to do it with more dedication. I want you to help me. Not for our sake, but because people need to come under the wings of the Savior.
[2]Will you? Father, you called us to a great work and we need to see it again. Help us to dedicate ourselves to it again.
[1]Illustration.
[2]Illustration.