Seize the Opportunity

Pastor Ron Burcham

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

The year was 1269. Kublai Khan sent a message from Peking to Rome . His message said, “Please send 100 Christian wise men to my country.” He went on to say, “And I shall be baptized and my barons shall be baptized and all of their subjects shall be baptized and, in the end, there will be more Christians here than in your parts.” You see, at that point in time in history, the Mongols were trying to decide between two religions for their country and they were wavering in between. Indeed, if the request would be made, history would be changed. It would be the largest religious movement in history until that time. All of Asia would be different. If 100 missionaries would come, then Kublai Khan and all of his officials would be baptized and all of the subjects would be baptized if the 100 missionaries would be sent.

But that's not what happened. Pope Gregory X, upon receiving the request, didn't send 100 missionaries. He sent two Dominican friars and those two friars made it as far as Armenia and decided the trip was too long and too difficult and so they turned around and returned to Rome .

A great missionary moment was lost. A great opportunity slipped through the fingers of the Christian Church. Pope Gregory X had decided, for whatever reason, not to send the 100 missionaries to Kublai Khan and over to Peking . Now, of course, he would have no idea of what would happen because of that but you and I know that today it is illegal to preach the name of Jesus Christ in China , that right now followers of Jesus in China are persecuted and, at times, put to death. Of course, Pope Gregory could never know the implications of that missed opportunity.

But that's how opportunities are. That's how special moments in history are. You never know what might have been, what could have been when they just slip through your fingers and they're gone. It's at that point, those points in history that we need to seize the moment, that we need to act upon that moment. Such a moment in history is recorded for us in the Book of Acts. Peter and the apostles are waiting for the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes on Pentecost and the Festival of Pentecost, and they seized the moment. They seized the moment when Jerusalem was filled with people. They seized the moment when the Holy Spirit came upon them. They went out into the streets of Jerusalem , and they preached Jesus as the Messiah. And they told the crowds this Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God and, through faith in Him, forgiveness of sins would be granted. Eternal life would be given to all of them and 3,000 people came to faith on that day. And you and I look back in history, and we trace the beginning of the Christian Church to that Pentecost celebration, that time when they boldly seized the moment to be a powerful and persuasive witness for Jesus. Because it didn't end on that day, for the Christian Church then grew. It grew out of Jerusalem into Judea and Samaria and, pretty soon, to the ends of the earth. Pretty soon until it reached you and me so that we also would come to faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, all because they seized the moment.

My Friends, you and I have been called upon to be powerful and persuasive witnesses. Last week, if you were with us, we discovered the same Holy Spirit that came upon the apostles on that Pentecost day is the same Spirit that called you to faith, the same spirit that lives in your heart and the same spirit that empowers you to be a powerful, persuasive witness where Jesus calls upon us. He says we will be His witnesses and He will empower us. If we're going to be the witnesses that Jesus wants us to be, that He calls us to be, we need to seize those moments in time, those moments in time He opens up before us so we can give a witness to our friends, our neighbors, our co-workers, and our fellow students, those moments when we can give a witness to the hope we have in our heart so other lives can be changed as ours has been changed. But it means seizing the moment and not letting it slip through our fingers.

If we're going to seize the moment, there are three things we need to do. The first thing we need to do is we need to be prepared. That is, we need to be ready if we're going to give a witness to our faith. If we don't do some advance planning, if we don't think about it in advance about what we might say or how we might act or what we might do, those moments will come and they will go and we will miss them because we will fail to act because we won't know what to do. We'll become tongue-tied or confused or scared or nervous and we'll let the moment slip by us. We need to be prepared.

We can take our cue from Peter and the apostles. They were prepared, and they were busy preparing themselves waiting for the gift of the Holy Spirit. If we take a look at Acts 1, we find out, after Jesus is taken up into heaven, remember, He leaves them and the angels say, “Why are you standing here? He's going to come back.” And it says the disciples all returned to Jerusalem and they did this: They all joined together constantly in prayer. They came together on a regular basis and they prayed to God, waiting for the time the Holy Spirit would come. They didn't know when He would come. They didn't know it was going to be 10 days later. Maybe it was going to be the next day, maybe 20 days, maybe 365 days but they weren't going to sit around twiddling their thumbs. They were praying to God. They were studying God's word. It also tells us they looked at one another and they said, “You know what, there used to be 12 apostles but now there are 11. Because Judas went off and betrayed us, because he hanged himself, there's a void in the group.” So they were busy and they elected Matthias to be the other apostle. What I'm saying is they were preparing themselves. They were getting ready when God would call upon them to be a witness. One can almost imagine the conversations they had, talking about the adventures they had with Jesus in His ministry, talking about the horror they felt when they watched Him die, the joy and the excitement when they saw He was alive again. They were getting ready so, when God called upon them, they could seize the moment.

You and I need to ready ourselves. If we're going to seize those moments, those opportune times when we can give a witness to our friends and neighbors, we have to be ready for that and we have to think about it in advance. Otherwise, it will slip through our fingers. I'm not saying we have to have theological training. I'm not saying you have to memorize the scriptures and be able to quote a chapter and verse. That's not what being ready to be a witness is all about. It's thinking in advance. “How is it I'm going to articulate and explain what I know and what I've experienced to be true?” Because that's what a witness is. A witness is someone who has seen or experienced something and they simply tell what they know to be true.

Peter tells us about that. Peter would be the logical one to tell us to be ready for that. After all, Peter is the one who stood up on that first Pentecost and gave his testimony. In the first letter that's recorded in scripture for us, Chapter 3, he says this, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you,” and here it is, “to give the reason for the hope you have.” Peter doesn't say, “Be ready and willing to teach the catechism.” He doesn't say, “Be ready and willing to quote scripture passage to them.” He doesn't say, “Be ready and willing to rattle off a memorized paragraph so they might come to faith.” He says, “Be ready to give a reason for the hope you have.” In other words, how has your faith changed you? What impact does your faith have in your life?

You know, if you're like me, I was born and raised a Christian. My parents brought me before the altar and had me baptized as an infant. I grew up in the church, which means, at times, I can take for granted all God has done. I don't mean that in the negative sense, but it's just that I know. And maybe you're like that. You've just known forever that God has forgiven your sin, that through the death and resurrection of Jesus all of your sins have been paid for and heaven is waiting for you and heaven is waiting for all your family that die in faith as well. It's just a part of who you are, which means maybe you haven't thought about it. You haven't been able to articulate that and tell somebody else what that means to you. If you're going to be ready, if you're going to be ready to give a witness, to give a reason for the hope that's in you, then take some time and think about that.

What does your faith mean to you? What impact does it have in your life? It might be helpful to think back upon your life and those moments when you felt really close to God or those moments when you really leaned upon God, that you really needed His strength and His encouragement in your life. I think back to my confirmation and I think, at confirmation time, I was really close to God. Was that a time when you were close to God? Think back to a time. I think back to when I lost my mother. That's when I really needed to lean on God. I needed some strength. I didn't know how I was going to make it through my second year of seminary and deal with the grief and all of that, but God was there. What's a moment in your life? What's a time in your life when your faith was just crucial to you, that you felt God in a powerful way in your life? Be ready. Be ready so, when the opportunity comes, you can seize the opportunity and you can share that with someone else.

And if you're ready, you need to recognize the opportunities. Recognize the opportunities that God lays before you, because there are probably more opportunities out there that have gone by that you haven't even seen, opportunities where you can be that powerful, persuasive witness. Obviously, the Book of Acts, the apostles recognized the opportunity. Now I'll give you this, if tongues of fire came shooting out of heaven and started landing on peoples' heads, I might also get the clue this is going to be a special day. But, the fact is they recognized the opportunity and they seized the opportunity.

For just a moment, let's think about what God did on that day as far as an opportunity is concerned. Scripture records for us now they were staying in Jerusalem , God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. And if you look at the list of all the places where people were from, it covered almost the entire Roman empire at that time. They were visitors in Jerusalem . They had come, more than likely, for the Passover which was 50 days earlier. And if they made the long trip to Jerusalem for the Passover, then more than likely they'd just stick around for seven weeks and also celebrate the Festival of Pentecost. We learn from the Old Testament, during the Festival of Pentecost, no one is supposed to work. That means everyone has the day off. The streets of Jerusalem are filled with people. Not only the people from Jerusalem , not only from the surrounding Judea and Samaria but you have people from the Island of Crete . You have people from Asia . You have people from Pamphylia. You have people from Asia Minor . They're all there in Jerusalem . God opens up an incredible opportunity to the apostles so, when they go out and preach the message, not only could they change lives for the inhabitants for Jerusalem but the message would spread out from there to the known Roman empire at that time, an incredible opportunity. And they recognized it, and they seized the opportunity, and they boldly gave a witness for Jesus and all He had done for them.

You and I, in our lives, need to recognize the opportunities. More than likely, tongues of fire are not going to come down on our heads. Could happen. I just haven't seen it yet. That means we get to keep our eyes and our ears open, open to those opportunities, those key times when the people we know and care about are more open to hearing about God or hearing about His love and anything spiritual. Key times, times in peoples' lives, like times of crisis. Times of crisis are times when people are open to hearing about God. Maybe they're going through a divorce. Maybe they're going through bankruptcy. Maybe they've lost someone they love. Maybe there's a serious illness. Maybe they're dealing with their parents. Maybe they're dealing with their children. But those times of crisis when people feel like their lives are spinning out of control and when they have no hope in their life, that's an opportunity. Because God says their lives are never out of control. God tells us there is always hope. Maybe that's an opportunity when you can share with them a time in your life when everything seemed to be falling apart but God was there to hold you up and give you strength. And even though you didn't think you could make it through, God saw you through that difficult time. That's an opportunity that needs to be seized, but we need to recognize.

There are times of change, which don't necessarily mean they're bad changes but there's just times in everyone's lives when things change. Maybe they get relocated and so they're in a new community. Maybe they just changed homes and they changed neighborhoods. Maybe it's the birth of their first child and everything is new and different. Or maybe their last child has gone off to college. But times have changed. There is usually a void in peoples' lives. They're looking for direction and guidance. God fills the void. God's love fills those voids for us, and God's word gives us that guidance and direction. What I'm saying is keep your eyes and your ears open so you recognize those opportunities, those moments in time when you can step in and be the powerful, persuasive witness God has called you to be.

And when that opportunity arrives, then we respond appropriately. We respond appropriately depending upon the situation God has presented the opportunity He gives to us. For example, let's look at Peter, how Peter responded that first Pentecost. Peter stands up with the other 11 and he addresses the crowd. Now there are many things Peter could address the crowd about. Peter could have stood up and said, “Do you remember Jesus of Nazareth? Do you remember just seven weeks ago, most of you here were watching Him die on the cross? And you know you've been waiting for the Messiah, well, Folks, you killed Him and you watched Him die.” I'm not sure that would have gotten Peter too far if he started out that way, true as it might have been. Instead, Peter meets the crowd where they're at. They're asking questions. All these different languages are being spoken. They said, “What does this mean?” Some said, “Well, I guess they're drunk. I don't know.” Peter stands up and he says, “Let me explain it to you. Let me tell you what's going on. They're not drunk, as some of you might think.” Knowing his audience, knowing they were Jews, knowing they would know the Old Testament and the prophecies, he says, “This is a fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel,” and then he quotes the prophecy. Immediately, he has a connection with them. He responds to their questions. He meets them where they are. If you read on in Chapter 2, he gets to the point where he says, “Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah and you killed Him.” He gets to that message. The law comes through but they were ready to hear it at that point and they said, “Brothers, what should we do?” Peter says, “Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,” and 3,000 of them did. But he responded appropriately. He met them where they were.

You and I, if we're going to seize the moment, if we've been preparing ourselves, if we recognize that moment, then we need to respond appropriately. Let's go by example. Let's say you're talking to a couple with their first child that's just been born. And they're sitting there looking at Junior and they're giggling and playing with him. They're not looking at you, of course. They're only looking at the child because he has all their attention. And you're talking to them. You have several options here. You say, “Ah-ha. That's a change in their life. This is an opportunity to be seized” and so you say to them, “You know, if you were to die tonight and stand before God, your maker, and He asked, ‘Why should I let you into heaven,' what would your answer be?” Now I'll give you that's a valid question everyone needs to answer in their life. I'm not real sure that's the opportune time, though, to ask it. How about, “Boy, your son is cute. He is adorable. I remember when my first daughter was born. Wow! That was an incredible event to see what God had done and all the special times you're going to have with him. I remember the first important event for that first child and every child, really, was at their baptism. We got to bring her into God's house and all the family was there and we had a party. But really, the comfort it gave my wife and me to know God had claimed her as His very own, to know that, yes, she was a part of our family, but she's a part of God's family. That was just really powerful to us.” That's responding appropriately. That's meeting them where they're at and answering their questions and opening up the doors of opportunity even more to talk to them about what God has done for you, for your child, and how He's changed your life.

It's seizing those moments in time, not letting them slip through your fingers. It means we have to be prepared. We need to recognize them, and we respond appropriately.

Last week, I gave you a challenge. I challenged you to identify someone you know who doesn't have a church home. Now maybe they have some sort of faith relationship with God, we probably don't know that, but they don't have a church home where that faith can grow and mature. If you've been thinking about that person and praying for that person, then let's build upon that. So here's your assignment for this week. Didn't think you were going to get assignments in church, did you? You'll get one next week, too. So here's your assignment this week. Your assignment this week is really twofold. The first one is I want you to think about yourself and your relationship with God. I want you to start to articulate, maybe write it down, maybe just think about it in your head, what is the reason for the hope you have? How is it your faith has impacted you and how has it changed your life and how does it make a difference through your life and identify one key moment in your life when maybe you felt really close to God because it was a joyous occasion or you really felt God's strength as He took you through a real valley in life. Identify one of those. In other words, be prepared.

The second thing I want you to do is I want you to think about this person and ask yourself where are they at in life? Are they single? Are they married? Do they have children? Are the children young or are they middle school age or are they high school age? Are they off in college? Are they empty nesters? Are they retired? Where are they at in life? What could be some of the changes in their life that could be happening? Or is there a time of crisis in their life right now? But think about that person so you can open up your eyes and you can be ready in case an opportunity opens up, you can seize that opportunity. Because God opens up all around us, and we don't want to let them slip through our fingers. We want to be ready. We want to recognize, and we want to respond. We want to seize the moment. Amen.