STRIVING FOR BOLDNESS
#716 STRIVING FOR BOLDNESS
Scripture Hebrews 4:16, NIV Orig. 6/7/1978
Rewr. 6/11/1987
Passage: 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Purpose: To acknowledge the opening of SBC, and to speak to our long-standing plan of Bold Mission in reaching out to a lost world.
Keywords: Christ as Lord Grace Revival Cross Mercy Service
Introduction
The gavel will fall Tuesday morning at 8:30 opening the 130th session of the Southern Baptist Convention. The theme of the convention will be “Partners in the Harvest.” Matthew 9:37-38, Then saith he unto his disciples, “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.”
The best example of Bold Mission took place when the First Century church discovered it was to be the agent of gospel proclamation to the world. What an assignment! A poor, inarticulate, rag-tag confederation of followers of a man called Jesus, who claimed to be the son of God, expected to impress itself upon a superstitious, pleasure-sated age. But they did it! And in such grand fashion that the message they first preached is still being proclaimed accurately, and with power.
Dr. James Stewart, in his book, “Heaven’s Throne Gift1,” raises this very question. “Was it the 120 disciples in the upper room?” If that is the case, then we need expect no more such days until we are sure we have people like those people. He continues, “Though it is true, . . . there were fervent earnest prayer meetings, when the disciples prepared their hearts for the coming of the Spirit, nevertheless, it was the glorified Son who prayed down the Spirit.” He concluded, “I would not, for one single moment, minimize the necessity for our own heart-preparation for the fullness of the Holy Ghost in our lives, but I am zealous for the honor and glory of my blessed Lord, when I state unequivocally that it was in answer to His prayer that the Spirit came.”
Because He is still Lord, such bold striving is yet called for, as His prayer remains still for His people to touch the world.
I. Such Bold Striving Begins at the Altar of Our Crucified Lord. “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace.”
We must first locate this “throne of grace.” We spoke last week of Paul’s message to Colossae of God’s “mystery.” He spoke also to the Christians of Ephesus of the same concept. “mystery, . . . hid from the beginning of the world” now “made known” (Colossians 1:26f), (Ephesians 3:11) “according to the eternal purpose which he proposed in Christ Jesus” (3:12) “in whom we have boldness” (3:21) “unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.”
The Hebrew writer speaks unalteringly of this. “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into [the] holiest by the blood of Jesus.” That throne of grace, then, is the altar of the crucified Jesus. The Pentecostal church found power there. Understand: Not speaking denominationally. Any denominational power broker is a target for Satan’s wiles and human indiscretion. In that church, struggling, poorly equipped, thought by some to be culturally deprived, were the people of Pentecost.
God has not changed, and Jesus continues to pray for His church. Our power is still at this altar, at the cross.
We must grasp that this is not a “once-for-all” altar. We are to come again and again. Translated correctly, the passage says “Let us keep on coming to this throne.” Strange: We keep on “going” to our diversions. Text: compels us to keep “coming” to Jesus. Why many sacrifice textual preciseness. We are to find daily camaraderie with our Lord at His altar-throne.
Therein is Pentecostal power. It has to do with the quality of our coming. It means coming with full confession of sin. Psalm 51:3, “I acknowledged my transgression.” Daniel 9:4, “And I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession.”
It means coming in a truly worshipful spirit. Seeing myself as I am, and being sorry. Seeing God as He is, and being glad.
Read William Temple’s definition of “worship.”
“To quicken the conscience by the holiness of God.
To feed the mind with the truth of God.
To purge the imagination by the beauty of God.
To open the heart to the love of God.
To devote the will to the purpose of God.”
II. Bold Striving Discovers the Believer’s Guarantee of Mercy “that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help.”
Mercy is the key by which the door to grace is opened. The two concepts may appear indistinguishable. Grace describes God’s attitude toward the law-breaker and the rebel. Mercy defines God’s lovingkindness towards those who are in distress. An often-used phrase in New Testament is “mercy and peace.” (I.e., I Timothy, II Timothy, Titus, II John, Jude, Galatians.) “Mercy” is the act of God. “Peace” is the resulting constraint in human hearts.
Thus, there is this two-fold activity of God. To bring people to embrace the truth: Grace. To sustain those who have embraced: Mercy.
John Bunyan2 tells the story of his life and conversion in “Grace Abounding.” As he listened to a sermon from Song of Solomon 4:1, “Behold, thou art fair, my love,” he could not wait for the preacher to conclude. All he knew, all he cared to know, was that God loved him, and told him so. Imagine, such a witness coming out of the sensuous Old Testament story. There is the boldness of the word.
Ann was struggling through days just before surgery a few years ago, and shared a passage that she happened upon. Isaiah 43:2, “When thou passeth through the waters I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle thee.”
The greatest, boldest witness that can be expressed today, is the witness of God’s mercy as it is sustained (kept operable) in our lives. In The Ebb-Tide3, Robert Louis Stevenson has one character to say, “Everything’s grace, we walk upon it, we breathe it, we live it and die by it, it makes the nails and axles of the universe.”
John 1:16, “From the fulness of His grace, we have all received one blessing after another” (and find grace to help in time of need).
III. Bold Striving Rejoices in the Power Available to the People of God.
Assessing needs, we see a world struggling through the quagmire of its own self-seeking. Problems of American foreign policy are often laid at feet of greedy bureaucrats. Problems of third-world nations struggling under the influence of politicians not statesmen. Problems that befoul our constitutional democracy by greedy merchants of human flesh.
A Christian must be a giving person. My church the first, best instrument of my trust. I must pay better those who work, and do a good job for me.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn has written with deep insight of the tragic lack of political/intellectual freedom in Russia. He addressed the graduating class of an Ivy League school (Harvard?), and spoke just as deeply, and just as insightfully, of the “indulgent” freedom that he has found in America.
Assessing needs, God has called His church to address itself to world problems with the gospel. The heart of the problem is that we live in a secular society. 60/65% of Americans hold church membership. Little higher in Bernice. 38% of ours attend less than once/month. No cause for back-patting (91 of 306). Most of 91 have not been. Many of 306 are on slippery edge.
Arthur Rutledge (former Home Mission Board): “There is little opposition to religion, but if church attendance statistics are an accurate barometer, only a minority of our people take religion seriously.” Harvey Cox reminds us (The Secular City4) “Secularization simply by-passes and undercuts religion and goes on to other things.”
Assessing needs, the church will not ever be any more than the BOLD STRIVINGS of its people. We can exhaust our energies in power struggles. We can be what we are, the people of God.
Conclusion
Howard Snyder deals with this very thing in The Problem of Wineskins5. He says he is optimistic, that we have cause to be enthusiastic. I agree!!!
Harvard: https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/a-world-split-apart
Snyder: https://my.seedbed.com/product/the-problem-of-wineskins-40th-anniversary-edition/
1Stewart, J. (1971). Heaven's Throne Gift. Christian Literature Crusade.
2Bunyon, J. (1666). Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners: A Brief Relation of the Exceeding Mercy of God in Christ to His Poor Servant. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
3Stevenson, R.L. and Osborne, L. (1894). The Ebb-Tide. William Heinemann.
4Cox, H. (2013). The Secular City. Princeton University Press.
5Snyder, H. (2017.) The Problem of Wineskins. 40th Anniversary Edition. Seedbed Publishing.