Amazed: Part 1
Preached by Jimmy Seibert
8/24/2014
Well it is so great to have you guys here Antioch Family and especially I know there’s many new people here this morning. I am Jimmy Seibert and my wife and I, Laura, and our four kiddos and a group of friends started Antioch fifteen years ago. And it’s been an incredible journey of experiencing God’s love together and His transforming power. We have a little mantra that we use around here called “A passion for Jesus and His people in the Earth” and I often say that our prayer is this: that your time with us, whether it’s just today or for the next 20 years, that you fall more in love with Jesus because we’ve been together. Our prayer also is that you would connect to God’s purpose and plan for your life because you are not just a person floating around in this world, God has a purpose and a plan for you. He wants you to fall in love with Him and fall in love with His purpose and plan and live a life that is fruitful and full of joy and grace. And that’s our prayer for you here at Antioch in our time that we meet together.
Now, Um, this time of year is really a great time of remembrance for me because I remember coming to college myself just a few years ago…about thirty of them. In preparing to come to college, I had a couple goals, I was a new believer and so I did want to come and meet some new Christians and learn what it means to walk with Jesus, but I was also very committed to being cool. And so what I did was, I realized that cool people had cool cars. And I grew up middle class or kind of the bottom end of middle class so my parents were great to provide food and shelter and all that, but we just borrowed cars from our parents and we didn’t have our own cars and I was committed to coming to Baylor with a really cool car. And so what I did was I worked all summer between my senior year in high school and my freshman year at Baylor and I worked over 70 hours a week I worked driving Blue Bell route trucks. And loading them in the morning and unloading them at night. I had a great time there, I actually got a kidney infection from eating a whole box of ice cream sandwiches. But, it was a great time. So during this time I’m thinking alright all this works worth it because I’m going to have enough money to buy a really cool car at the end. And what I had heard, at least back in the early 1980s is that if you had cash, you had negotiating power. You could go down to a car lot and you could negotiate the best deal possible especially if you had cash. So I come to the end of the summer and I set $1000 aside for kind of extra stuff for school and I had $2500. Now back in that day, I mean $2500 bucks in 1982, you could buy you a good car. Alright, so I had $2500 bucks and I lived in Beaumont, Texas, but I knew the place to buy a car was Silsby, Texas. It was just 30 miles North and was called the “Car Trading Capital of the World.” Or that’s what they called themselves. And so I go to Silsby, Texas, but before I do, I’m walking out the door and my dad asks the obvious question, “Do you want me to go with you?” “No, Dad, I don’t need you, I got this. I got this, I’m a workin’ man, I got my cash, I know how to do this.” And he said, “Now you’ve never done this before, you sure you wouldn’t like me to go with you? I’ve done this a lot.” And I said, “No Dad, I got it. I’m a man you know, get out of my hair, I got this.” And he said, “Ok, you’ve got it then.” So I go up to Silsby, Texas, and I see this really cool car. 1978 Audi Fox…I think I’ve got a picture of that right up there. Alright! Yes! 1982, I know you are looking at those shorts and you’re saying, “that is cool!” Alright! [laughing] The car behind it is what I’m trying to focus on here [more laughing]. That’s my cool car and I’m a cool guy. Take that picture down. Alright. So I go and I make my deal and I play hardball and we negotiate it out and I get my car for $2500 bucks. Now before we did the deal, I had to sign a paper that said there is no recourse on this. I mean if you sign off in cash, you can not bring it back, there are no returns, no problems, nothing. It’s a done deal. I got this, yes sir, so I sign off on it. I’m driving back, I get about fifteen miles down the road and I hear the transmission, “RRRRRRRRRING.” Now I had test drove it around the block, but not enough, obviously, and so I pull over on the side of the road and I’m, I feel something dripping and I get down on my hands and I realize, “that’s transmission fluid.” And then I get, I thought, well I’ll just make it home, so then I make it home and I get under the car and literally just buckets, buckets the whole transmission, just the fluid flows everywhere. And so, here I am, my dad’s standing there, “You got it, huh Bud?” And I said, “Dad what do I do?” and he said “well, I’ll try to call them” and I said, “he said there’s no returns no anything” and my dad’s not a very confrontational guy anyway and I hear him talking to the guy back and forth and he comes back about five, ten minutes later and he says, “Son it’s a done deal. You own this car.” And so it’s one week before school now. And so I’m thinking “Ok, well maybe I can get it fixed” and at least in those days the foreign transmissions cost a little more in those days than the US transmissions and it was $2250 for the transmission. Two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars by the way and my parents their whole deal was like look you are in charge here buddy. And so I had to borrow money from them and then sell the car to pay for it and I had $250 bucks in my pocket.
Well, so here I am. So I am going from what can be to what isn’t happening and my parents have just an empathetic heart. And they think, well son, listen we know you don’t have the car now and you want to go to school with one and you need to be able to get around, so Mom and I have been thinking about it and we’re going to give you mom’s car to use this year. And I said, “Oh no.” They gave me, yes, the Orange Pumpkin. [laughing] Yes, there it is. A 1979 Ford Fiesta baby-a motorcycle with a helmet on.
And so when I pull up to Baylor, I kind of parked in the far parking lot, met a bunch of cool people with a bunch of cool cars, they finally found out which car was mine, they affectionately called it, “The Pumpkin.” And so I was known all throughout college as the guy with the pumpkin. So, a little humbling of God.
Now I could have alleviated some of this by listening to someone who was wiser than me. Someone who had been around the block a little bit, someone who had a little more perspective. And you know what? The Bible is written with that in mind. God Himself is wiser, He has a little more perspective than us. And Jesus tells a parable to try to get this point across in Matthew chapter 7 verse 24. He says, “Therefore anyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man that builds his house on the rock.” The rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew and slammed against that house and yet it did not fall. For it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who builds his house on the sand. The rain fell, the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against that house and it fell and great was its fall. When Jesus finished speaking these words, the crowds were amazed at Jesus and His teachings. They were amazed at Jesus and they were amazed at His teaching.
You see, the wise man built his life around Jesus, the person and His words. And the foolish man built his life around himself and the world. One, did work and one, didn’t work. And my prayer this morning is that we would come out of here being one of the wise ones and not one of the foolish ones. So let’s back up and let’s just kind of ramp up through the book of Matthew to chapter 7 and it begins describing Jesus as the Promised One. This person who is trying to get our attention, who has all of the wisdom that we need, his name is Jesus. And Matthew 1 says this about Him, Matthew 1:21-23, “She will bear a son and you shall call His name Jesus for He will save His people from their sins. And they shall call His name Emmanuel, which translated, means God with us.” There is One who has everything that we need, His name is Jesus, and He is the Promised One. There are two key phrases there. The first is that He is the Savior that will take away all of our sins. Do you know that everybody is looking for a savior? Do you know why? Because we were made incomplete. There is a missing part of us that only God can fill. We need a savior. This struggle of good and evil inside of us, this helplessness that we feel at times, this wondering what way is up and who’s in control, that, that thing inside of us is a result of sin of missing the mark of God. Jesus has come to be the Savior, to take out that pain, that stain inside of us and to fill that space with Himself so that we can be not only cleansed from our sin, but be no longer helpless, but have the helper of all time, Jesus Himself. He is the Savior of the world and there is no other.
The next little expression says of Jesus, “and He will be Emmanuel, God with us.” He not only saves us and cleanses us from our sin, but He also lives with us. He is not a distant God that says well now here is what you should believe. I hope it goes pretty well, just do your best. And standing in the stands, He doesn’t just clap when we do well and shake his head when we do poorly. He has become Jesus and He has stepped into our world to walk with us through the challenges of life, not just watch us do our best. This is HUGE you guys! Because in every other religion in the world they are grasping for God. The Muslims are saying oh will we please Allah? The Buddhists are trying to ascend and be like God. In Hinduism, there’s a god for everything and there’s no central god. But in all of them, people are grappling trying to reach God and in Christianity, the followers of Jesus, Jesus steps into our world. Not just to cleanse and forgive, but then to be with us. Always.
Now I’ve had the delight, Laura and I have had the delight of having four children. Actually we say we have five children because our daughter got married about eighteen months ago and the delight of having kids was not just providing their food and their lodging and their education. The delight was walking through life together. And we knew the way that they would make it and we would remain close was that relationship would be pre-eminent and that we would be in each other’s lives and that with-ness of God is so important and so we were kind of God’s agents to create love and relationship.
And one of these particular events that really solidified Abby and Me’s relationship (Abby is my oldest daughter) was when she just stepped into high school and she wanted to run cross country. And Abby always enjoyed jogging, but we never had done anything competitive running-wise and so she went out for cross country and you know the 6am runs, we talk about it and then came the weekend of her first cross country meet. And it was a 3.1 mile track and she is running on the JV team and I said Honey, I’m going to be with you the whole way, I’m praying for you and we talked about it and talked about our strategy and then I got out there and thought, you know what, this is like open land out here, I could run alongside of her. I could kind of go behind the ropes this way and that way and so the first mile, she gets about a mile into it and I meet up with her and run about half a mile and then I cut back across in the second mile and run about another half mile and then I run really quickly over to the stadium because the last part of it is you come into the stadium and run a full lap and a half to finish the race. And by the time she’s entering the stadium, she’s in third place. Now I’m a little more competitive than she is. And so I sized up who we had before us and they were maybe 300 yards ahead and I thought we can catch them for sure. And so oblivious to anybody in the stands or anyone else, I start running beside her and when she got on the track I ran inside the track and I said “Abby, don’t think, don’t feel, just stay with me. We’ll catch them! Yes Daddy, Yes.” So I’m running right beside her, she’s running right beside me, we get within about ten yards of this girl and I said you’ve got it from here and I ran as fast as I could to the finish line and I’m waving to her and she finishes and she beats that girl by ten yards. Boom! And then I realize, that little girl has a dad too. But anyway, we won the race or got second which is winning for us. But what was solidified to her and to me was that we’re in this together. You’re not alone. You’re not just doing your best. I’m going to be there for you, we’re going to do this together.
How much more God Himself, by coming as a man in the person of Jesus Christ says I’m with you always I will not leave you or forsake you. This beauty of the Promised One who not only forgives sin but then comes to live with us and walk with us always. Jesus is the Promised One.
Now He is not only the Promised One, but Matthew continues to describe Him as not only the Promised One, but as the Compassionate One. Matthew 4:23-25, “Jesus was going throughout all Galilee teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom. And healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people. The news about Him spread throughout all Syria. And they brought to Him all who were ill and those suffering various diseases, pains, demoniacs, paralytics and He healed them. Large crowds followed Him from Galilee at Decopolis in Jerusalem to Judea and from beyond the Jordan.”
Jesus. Jesus, He came as the Compassionate One. The word Passion means to suffer. The word Compassion means to suffer with. We’re passionate about whatever we’re willing to give our time and energy and life to, and we can experience compassion when we walk with people through the struggles and the pains of life.
Jesus came not only to proclaim a message of salvation, and even a message of friendship, but He came to proclaim a message of power. He said I have power to enter in to the broken places that are out of control, I have power over sickness, over mental issues, over challenges of life. I have power and I will be with you, I will compassionately walk with you in that and I will be there by your side.
We’ve had the privilege over the last 4 ½ years now of being involved in Haiti and in the Dominican Republic. When the earthquake hit, we sent teams for 11 straight weeks and committed for five years to be involved in the journey there of seeing whole communities restored and renewed, so it’s been a really cool story that we’ll be sharing at World Mandate, kind of the culmination of that. But I’ve been in and out of there a few times and one of the times I was in the Dominican and we were with one of the churches we had planted and we were with some Haitian leaders and they brought their, one of the leaders brought their sister. And said, will you please pray for my sister, it’s desperate. They don’t have a lot of hope for her and I said what’s the problem? And they said well her intestines are twisted, it’s like they’re knotted and they’re blocked and the doctors have said, hey there’s just very little we can do. Well obviously as the translator is there talking with me and I’m getting the story from the lady herself, it’s tears welling up in her eyes. And so they said will you please pray for her and I said, Jesus, how do I pray for her? You are compassionate, I know you love her no matter what, but how do I pray for her? And I just had in my mind, you know there’s just something blocking her heart not just her body. And so I asked her is there any unforgive-ness in her heart, something tragic that has happened in your life that has cause pain or unforgive-ness toward others. And then the tears began to flow even more and she begins to describe some abuse and some very difficult things that have happened in her life and I told her as we talked back and forth, I said Look, Jesus knows. That’s why He’s here. He loves you. He wants to come into your life and give you power, not just to experience His love, but to forgive those who have done you wrong. Well somewhere it all clicked for her! And she gave her life to Jesus and it’s just this sweet joy and smile on her face. And as we talked through how do you now forgive other people, she said Ok, Jesus you have forgiven me and now I forgive them and let them loose and free and it just seemed like chains were falling off of her right before our eyes. And of course then I prayed for her, God would you take care of whatever is twisted, would you make it straight? Well obviously her heart was lifted, the weight was lifted, she said she felt better, wonderful, but of course we didn’t have an x-ray machine or anything, so we just rejoiced over what God had done in her life and in her heart and were hoping that something more had happened physically. Well the next morning I leave back for the states and I get an email two days later. They said they went back to the Dr. and those twisted intestines were made straight. Wow! Way to go, Jesus!
The Compassionate One. Dealing with the heart and the body. Dealing with what is going on the inside because that is eternal and dealing with what is going on the outside because that matters to people’s lives.
Now some of you might pause at such a great story like that and say, I’ve prayed for someone and they didn’t get healed. But I didn’t see what I’ve longed for, to see a breakthrough in somebody’s brokenness. Why God? Why God? So let me just say this...The Kingdom of God is the already and the not yet. The already is that there is power available and we pray for the sick and we trust God to do the miraculous and then we have the not yet, we live in a broken world and we won’t see everything that we long for in this life. But Jesus Himself stands alone in all of eternity to receive every broken person forever and in a moment, whatever was healed or wasn’t made straight in this life, when you step from this life into the next, BOOM! The blow away will be no pain, no brokenness, no cancer, no sickness, you’ll be with Jesus forever. Eternity is for sure and healing is eminent for those who trust in Jesus. There is a space and a place in Jesus to experience compassion in this life and ultimate compassion before Him forever.
So, Jesus, this guy is trying to tell these people how to live should actually be worshipped. We’re amazed at Him. We’re amazed at who He is. He’s the Promised One, He’s the Compassionate One. And then He’s the Wise One. Chapter five, six and the rest of seven leading up to our parable, Jesus is giving this incredible wisdom that is often called the beatitudes and He talks on different levels, He talks to them about how to love and He said Look, Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. He said if you’re merciful to people, that’s who I am and when you are you can’t help but get mercy back. And He tells them this, He says, You know it says that you love the people that love you but you end up hating your enemies, I’ve called you to love your enemies and pray for them. And they’re blown away, what do you mean, we’re supposed to love our enemies? And then we’re to pray for them? He said, yes that’s who I am. I love even the enemies against me, I love them and I pray for them and I bless them and I want you to do the same. They’re blown away at this love that seems upside down from everything they had experienced in life. Instead of bitterness and anger and revenge, He’s just love and blessing and forgiveness. Then He talks about the heart, the purity of the heart. This little phrase He says, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. In the Old Testament, it was all about your behavior and the consequences of your behavior. If you committed adultery, then in the Old Testament law, they took you out and they stoned you. If you committed murder then you were killed as well. It was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
But in this these teachings of Jesus, these Kingdom teachings He said it’s not about murder, whether you murdered somebody or not, He said I want to talk to you about the anger in your heart. It’s the anger in your heart that causes the murder of others. It’s the lust in your heart that causes adultery. I’m not just talking about your behavior, I’m talking about your heart. And when your heart is brought to me, then you’ll see me like you’ve never seen me before and everything you are made to be will come alive inside of you because we are dealing with your heart and not just your behavior. Jesus called them to a radical love, an upside down kingdom, He called them to have their hearts before Him and not just their behaviors before Him. And then in Matthew 6, He has this little tyrade that He goes on, loving tyrade, where He says you’re so worried about what you’re going to eat or what you’re going to drink or what you’re going to wear. C’mon! That is not what life’s all about. Do I not clothe the lilies of the field, do I not feed the sparrows of the Earth? I can take care of your basic needs but seek first my kingdom and my righteousness and all these things will be added unto you. Jesus said, if you get it right, if you will honor and worship me, if you will follow me with all your heart, I’ll tell you how to work and get provision, I’ll tell you how to do family, I’ll tell you how to love people. I’ll tell you how to live free and not twisted, I’ll sort it all out and you won’t have to live an anxious life. You don’t have to live in anxiety, Jesus said you come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.
He’s the wisest teacher of all time. And I’m amazed every time I read His words. I’m amazed at Him. You know, for many of us in this room, we’ve heard a lot of these stories. But have you paused lately and just looked at Jesus again? The Promised One, the Compassionate One, the Wise One? And just listened for His words? You know when I was in college, that was my turning point in life, I came as a new believer and I was around the things of God. Because I wanted to be, I wanted to figure out who God was and what He was all about. But through some trials in my own life, I came a place between my sophomore and junior year one summer where I said God, if you’re real I’ll give you three months of my life, I got to find out who you are! And I decided to start in the book of Matthew and read a chapter and whatever God said to do, I would do. And whatever Jesus did I would do. I decided that Jesus and His words were going to be the center part of my life and I was going to see if it really worked. Well, I don’t know if you’ve read the Bible lately, but if you actually live like Jesus and love like Jesus, your life gets transformed. And I had an incredible summer of the nearness of God and the reconciliation of relationships and the loosening of materialism and my heart was getting free and I was getting in sync with Jesus. And I got in my car to come back, that is the orange pumpkin to come back to Baylor, and I was weeping uncontrollably and I thought what is going on? And it just seemed like God was so near…three months of just loving Him and learning from Him and as I was in the middle of that drive back a couple hours in I said, God what are you doing with me, what is all this crying about? It seemed to me that God spoke to me this simple phrase, “You asked me to show you that I was real. And I have come.”
This is the invitation of Jesus. Anybody who pauses long enough to see Him the way He really is, who pauses long enough to start walking His way instead of our own way, experiences what God intended. Emmanuel, God with us, the cleanser and forgiver, the Compassionate One, we begin to not just watch what Jesus does but step into who He is. The invitation is clear…we are to pause and to look at Him and follow Him.
Well, let’s go back to our parable, Matthew 7, where we began. Then we’ll land this thing. Back to verse 24, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine,” Jesus, wonderful Jesus speaking, “and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who builds his house on a rock. The rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew and slammed against that house and yet it did not fall for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like the foolish man who builds his house on the sand. The rain fell, the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against that house and it fell and great was its fall. When Jesus had finished these words the crowds were amazed at Jesus and at His teaching.” So let’s just break it down and we’ll end.
So this particular parable, the one who built their house upon the rock and the one who built their house on the sand, both people were hearing Jesus speak these words. Jesus had been speaking with both the foolish one and the wise one. They both heard from Jesus Himself. They both had the same opportunity to respond. Do you know that wherever you are and hear the sound of my voice, you have the same opportunity that I do to respond to God? I can just say “Yes Jesus” or “Jesus I’m yours” we all can pray from your heart, there’s nothing fancy. Any of us can respond to God if we want to. So both of these people, the wise one and the foolish one heard the same voice of God. They both had the opportunity to respond. And I think this part is really interesting, they both had the same trials. The rains came, the winds came, the floods came, they both had the same trials. You know, life is tough. Just because you are following Jesus doesn’t mean you don’t have trials. And just because you are not following Jesus doesn’t mean that’s the only reason you do have trials. We live in a broken world, that’s why we need Jesus. Right? And we all have trials. But one, the wise man said, in the midst of my trials, I’m going to stand on the rock, Jesus and His Word and He will carry me through because no flood will be greater than Jesus. The one who was foolish said I’m going to rely on myself and this world and I’m just going to do it the world’s way and they remain bitter and bitter and bitter and got washed away by the brokenness in this world. There’s a clear choice for us every day and again today. Will it be wise? Will it be foolish? Will it be Jesus or ourselves? But Jesus wants you to come to Him. Jesus offers Himself as the answer.
This past summer, we started off our summer on June 1st with what we called a Baptism Bash. It was awesome. In our services, we baptized like 85 people and it was beautiful. And people gave great testimonies of what God was doing and one of those testimonies was a man named Orvil Engle (sp?). He’s 84 years old. He wanted to be baptized for the first time. Orvil had had an encounter with God that was very unique and stirring and he shared it with us on video before he got baptized. And it was so impacting that it was worth a re-look. I want you to hear from Orvil what Jesus has done for him and how He has impacted His life because I think we’ll all look at our own hearts and say, “I want that too.”
“My name is Orvil Engle. My wife and I moved here from Minnesota in 1987 to be with our children and grandchildren at that time and since then we’ve become great-grandparents and great-great even. But a year ago, I went to Minnesota for a family reunion. This particular day in July, the 26th of July, the Friday and my sister Della said, I’d like to apologize to the rest of you for anything I’ve ever done and we all kid her and said Ah, we’re all done with all that, you’ve been forgiven a long time ago. And then my sister Arlene read an old scripture and started praying and then there He was. There was Jesus. I’d been away from Him for at that time 73 years. And He was waiting for me to come back and He did. I don’t know how many years I have left. Nobody knows that. But from here on out, it’s whatever I can do to please the Lord and to help His ministry. And to do whatever I can, that’s my mission for the rest of my life is to serve Jesus. Jesus loves you all, don’t ever turn Him away. A lot of years wasted. Thank you.”
Amen. Let’s all stand together please.
