Jesus Only

Lately, I have been reading from No Little People (have I mentioned that!!!) by Francis Schaeffer. It's a collection of his sermons. The one entitled "No Little People" is great if you are feeling "little" and "useless". It's great even if you are not feeling little or useless!

Last Sunday, as is our habit, we headed for The Divine Grind (the coffee shop at Grace Church which I hear is run by Scott Pearson's brother...but I digress) to read while Bethie is in Sunday School. I read the sermon "Jesus Only". It was powerful and helped me a lot.

The sermon is on The Transfiguration. Remember when Peter, James, and John went up the mountain with Jesus and met there with Moses and Elijah? The account in Matthew goes on to say:

"While he yet spoke, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and behold, a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him. And when the disciples heard it they fell on their face, and were sore afraid. And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid. And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only."

Schaeffer says, "The passage is...saying, "Don't look at other men. Look at Jesus."

Here is a tidbit from the sermon under the title "Rivals to Jesus":

Having stressed that Jesus must be in the center of our lives, I want to mention four other things that we must be careful not to put there. The first is any totalitarian state or totalitarian church. If I have the perspective the disciples were told to have--"this is my beloved son...hear ye him"--there is no place for a totalitarian anything. Neither a church which puts itself between the individual and God, nor a state which demands primary allegiance has such a right. There is a legitimate place for both state and church, but not at the center. The center must be a Person.

He goes on to say:

The danger is more subtle in a religious setting, and especially in an evangelical setting, when manifested as a totalitarian, authoritative, human leadership. Because this too is often pressing upon us, we should be careful at every turn. There is to be human leadership in the church, under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, but it is wrong for men, even good men, to take the center for themselves. Paul's mentality, as we have seen, was not this. Neither was John the Baptist's. Only the triune God may be central. The danger does not have to come from a Hitler or Stalin. It can come from a Christian who gets so caught up in the mechanics of leadership, that, unwittingly or not, he puts himself where only God should be.

If you want to know what the other three dangers are, you will just have to run right out to your local Northwestern Bookstore and buy it!

Oh, and I'm sorry that I put another picture of a "studmuffin" in my blog today...