Have We Been With Jesus?
by Dr. Bob Smith
Dr. Bob Smith, after many years of pastoring, is traveling the country in full time evangelism from Arlington, Texas.
“And as they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them, Being grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them, and put them in hold unto the next day: for it was now eventide. Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand. And it came to pass on the morrow, that their rulers, and elders, and scribes, And Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, By what power, or by what name, have ye done this? Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel, If we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole; Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:1-13)
I want to use verse 13 as the basis for our message today. “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them,...” I hope this describes us, “...that they had been with Jesus.”
Never before in the history of the church have Holy Spirit filled Christians and Holy Spirit filled preachers been so urgently needed as today. Our text gives us a picture of the kind of Christian and the kind of preacher we need today -- those who have been with Jesus. When the preacher comes to the pulpit and the Christian comes to the pew, there ought to be the understanding that when we come together to worship Him, that each of us have spent time with Him. We’ve been with Jesus.
If we are to be effective for our Lord, we must realize that the work of the Christian servant and the work of the preacher of God is a spiritual work. The work of God cannot be effectively done in the energy and the power of the flesh. This work requires a power above and beyond the strength of man. Our work and ministry for God, whether it be the nursery ministry or the beginner class or the adults or the teenagers or here in this pulpit, the work for God cannot be effectively done without His guidance, His power. The One filling us and controlling us, I’m talking about the One who sees the end from the beginning, being in us and working through us.
Our preaching and our life must reveal a love, a compassion that overflows from the very heart of God, if we are going to do what God has given us to do. This world is not looking for meaner and tougher men and women and preachers. This world needs to see men and women who call themselves Christians, and act and talk like Christians, and preachers who grace the pulpits of our churches in America, whom the enemy can honestly say about them, “They’ve been with Jesus.”
The call of Christ to His churches and to His people in these last days is revealed to us in His letter to the Laodicean Church and it’s a call to repentance and revival. I’m afraid in our eyes, like the Laodiceans, we are rich and have need of nothing. Too often Jesus is locked outside of our life and our plans and our worship. I found, to our shame, that our churches are often pictures and reflections of the spirituality and the attitude of their pastors. Therein is where the problem lies. Our people are too much like us and we are not enough like Jesus.
“Well our job is to follow Jesus.” Dear friend, a new Christian doesn’t know how to follow Jesus. Paul said, “You follow me as I follow Christ.” As they learn and as they grow, following you as you follow Christ preacher, they learn how to follow Christ. They need to have someone to follow that has been with Jesus. Until we, who are God’s preachers, answer the call of revival and that is to repent and let Christ take charge of our lives and our ministries once again, we can’t expect our people to have revival. If revival is going to come to America, someone said, “It’s got to come in our churches,” and I believe that, but I know preachers. If revival is going to happen in our churches, it’s got to start right here in the pulpit with a man of God. It’s not going to happen until it can be said of him, “He may be unlearned and ignorant, but we marvel because he’s been with Jesus.”
By the way, how long has it been since somebody said to you, “You remind me of Jesus.” Every day a new daddy looks in the nursery at that new baby and hopes somebody will say, “He looks like daddy.” Reckon our Heavenly Father looks down at us and says, “I hope someday he’ll look like Me?” By the way, that is God’s plan. He is working, even now, conforming us to the image of Christ. He wants us to look like Jesus, have His attitude, His Spirit, His heart, His burden, His compassion, so we can do His work. After all, we as Christians are standing here in this world in His stead. Our job is to preach His message, do His work, lead His children, carry His Gospel to the uttermost part of the earth.
Acts 14:13 should be the desired testimony of every servant of God. As Brother Gilman so eloquently said, “When God writes our epitaph, it ought to say, ‘He spends time with Me regularly.’” We often talk about our heritage left us by our fundamental Baptist forefathers. I thank God for that heritage, but I wonder, what in the world are we leaving those who will follow us? It ought to be an example of a preacher and a momma and daddy and a Sunday school teacher and a Christian of whom people can say, “They’ve been with Jesus.”
Some of the greatest testimonies about Jesus came from those who were His enemy. Pilate said, “I find no fault in Him.” Enemy! The thief said, “This man has done nothing amiss.” The Centurion said, “Certainly, this was a righteous man.” Even today the cherished title of believers, Christian, came from our enemies. Christ-like.
When we get saved, we are a born again child of God. That’s free. But for you to bear the name Christian, I believe we ought to earn that. Christ-like. Salvation is free, but you don’t get Christ-likeness without some personal discipline and dedication and spending time with Jesus.
I’ve noticed over the years, as men and women have been married and lived together for years, there begins to be a corresponding of nature. They begin to look like each other, think like each other. My mom and dad were married 65 years and every time I looked at daddy I thought of mom and every time I looked at momma, I thought of daddy. Momma knew what daddy was thinking before daddy thought it or said it. Mrs. Smith and I have been married many years. She knows what I think, and I know what she wants me to think. We’ll be talking and we’ll answer the question before the question is finished. I know what she likes and I know what she doesn’t like. I know how to get her stirred up and I know how to keep her from getting stirred up.
If you spend time with Jesus, you’ll know His heart. You’ll know His burden. You’ll know His mind. You’ll know His desires. You’ll know His Word. We didn’t wake up one day and say, “We are going to be Baptists.” It was God that gave John the Baptist. Baptist wasn’t his last name. He was called the Baptist because he baptized. It was the enemies that called us Baptists because we believed in baptizing our converts and wouldn’t accept their alien baptism -- sprinkling and squirting and pouring and dry cleaning. Enemies gave us that name. But I’m proud of that name.
“Well, we’re changing our name.” I was driving down the road one day and saw one of the big Baptist churches out there removing the name Baptist from their sign. It upset me, stirred me. I went back to my office and told my secretary to order a sign that fit on our marquee, “Baptist Without Apology.” We’re afraid it will offend someone, when you ought to be afraid you’ll offend God! That ‘Baptist’ tells folks that we are identified with a body of truth known as ‘the faith once delivered to the saints,’ a body of doctrine that originated with God Himself. God help us to take a good look at our ministries and be willing to do whatever is necessary to bring our lives to the place where it can be said of us, “They’ve been with Jesus.”
The emphasis of Acts 4:13 is not their ignorance, or their great ability. Rather the emphasis is “They’ve been with Jesus.” I don’t know if you know it or not, but we are a distinct group of fundamental, independent, Bible believing Baptists. The secular world out there looks at us as unlearned and ignorant. I’ll go a step further. The intellectual world looks at us as unlearned and ignorant for believing this Bible is the very Word of God. I’ll go a step further. The religious world looks at us and says they’re unlearned and ignorant. The Convention and Fellowship Baptists today look at the fundamental, independent, Bible believing Baptists as unlearned and ignorant. I’ll go a step further. The aristocratic, fundamental Baptists look at us as unlearned and ignorant.
But instead of getting our feathers ruffled because of that, we ought to dedicate our heart and life to make sure that while they are talking about us being unlearned and ignorant, they cannot deny the fact that God is in us and God is on us and we’ve been with Jesus. Changes in our life will be very noticeable when we’ve been with Jesus.
Moses spent 40 days in the mount with God and his face shined while he talked to the people. He had been with the Lord. The disciples on the road to Emmaus said, “Our heart did burn within us,” because they had been walking with Jesus.
The early church in the upper room prayed for 10 days and the Holy Spirit of God fell upon them because they had been with Jesus, and 3,000 were saved and baptized in one day. They had been with Jesus. The great need of our ministries is to adjust our schedule so that we have time to spend with our Lord.
I’m hearing preachers say, “Well, I just don’t have the time anymore.” Or “Pray that I will find time.” You are not going to find any more time. There are just 24 hours in a day. God made it that way. There is not going to be 25 and a half. If you are going to spend time with the Lord, you’ve got to decide there are some things in your life that are not as necessary and make adjustments so you’ve got time to spend with the Lord.
I love sports. I love hunting and fishing. I’m competitive. I see two ants crawling across the road and I’ll root for one of them. But there are some things that are not necessary. I can do without if I’m going to spend time with Jesus.
The great need of our ministry is to adjust our schedules so that we have time to spend with the Lord. His presence and power, His breath on us is more needed than anything in our lives. We ought to be more concerned about that than how many points the rack had, or what our golf score was, or anything else. What size was that fish?
The most important thing we need if we are going to be what God has called us and put us here for, whether you be a Sunday school teacher or a layman or a Christian parent or a staff member or a pastor or an evangelist, our greatest need is to spend time with Him. How in the world can we know Him when we don’t spend time with Him? How can we be effective for Him when we don’t spend time with Him? How can we expect His power and His guidance on our life when we don’t spend time with Him? Some things will happen in our lives when we spend time with Jesus.
WE WILL REACH THE LOST
When we learn to spend time with our Lord Jesus, number one, we’ll go after the lost. You can’t spend much time with Jesus without getting His burden for lost souls. Follow Jesus through the Gospel. He is seeking souls. In fact, in Luke 19:10, He said, “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
In John 1 our Lord finds Philip and Nathanael. In John 3, our Lord reaches out to Nicodemus. In John 4, it’s the woman at the well and a great multitude in that city believed on Him. In the same chapter, a nobleman and his whole house believed. When it can be said of us that we’ve been with Jesus, then we too, like Jesus, will go after the lost. You used to hear a lot about it, when Dr. Joe Boyd and Dr. Carl Hatch and Dr. Jack Hyles were alive. You’d hear a lot about being soul-conscious, looking at people as eternal souls destined to Hell if they do not know Jesus Christ.
“But I don’t know who is saved and who is lost.” Ask them. They will tell you. “I don’t want to offend saved people.” Any truly saved person is glad to give you their testimony of salvation. If they don’t have one, they need to hear about Jesus. They are everywhere. When we spend time with Jesus, we’ll go after the lost like He went after the lost.
WE WILL HAVE HIS PHILOSOPHY ON CHURCH BUILDING.
When we spend time with Jesus, we’ll adopt His philosophy about church building. “Well, I’m out there trying to try to build a great church.” God hasn’t called anybody to build a church. Jesus said, “Upon this Rock, I will build My church.” He calls men to preach and to pastor His people, His flock, His church. We may call them ours, but at best we are just under-shepherds, standing in His stead. It’s His people, His church, His message, His power. He is our hope. He is our joy.
We need to adopt His philosophy once again. “Well, I just don’t know what to do. I just can’t build the church.” God didn’t call you to build the church. He’s called you to go out and gather material, and from that material He’ll build the church. You say, “Well, I want a few rich ones.” He didn’t tell us to go after the rich. “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15) It may be that one of those old boys on the wrong side of town gets saved and gets right and God begins to bless them and they become rich. God changed my life and my level of living like nothing else. Has He changed yours?
I remember when Cecil Ballard was a teenager and he got right with God. He didn’t get all new clothes. He’d wear his same shirts and blue jeans and all of his blue jeans had a faded out circle about that big around in the hip pocket and it wasn’t electrical tape. God changed his life. He’s not what he used to be. God saved Keith Gomez and changed his life. He’s not like he used to be. Jesus makes a difference. Nobody changes your level of living like Jesus. Nobody changes a life like Jesus changes it. Hey ladies, nobody has elevated the position of a woman like Jesus and Christianity. Oh, how we need to spend time with Him!
Gather people. Gather material. Be a soulwinner. It’s God through the Holy Spirit that gifts us and equips us to serve Him in various places. It’s the job of the man of God to be able to see that and make sure they are put in the right place to be able to use what God has given them. Just gather the material. Not everybody we win is going to be deacon material or preacher material or Sunday school teacher material. Maybe one day, but not necessarily then. We just gather the material and God makes them. God grows them. God builds them. God calls them. God gives them their gifts.
When I was a little boy, my daddy was a share cropper. We lived on another man’s farm, lived in his house. Daddy worked his fields, planted crops and was paid for it by giving him a share of the crop. Daddy was a hard working man. He worked for a good man named Oscar Pate. Mr. Pate said, “Mr. Smith, you are too good of a farmer to be a share cropper all your life. I want to sell you 40 acres of land over here, good land at $20 an acre.”
Daddy said, “That’s wonderful, but I don’t have money to buy it.”
He said, “I’m going to loan it to you with no interest.” He did. He loaned daddy $800 and said, “Mr. Smith, you can buy that property and you can farm my land and you can farm your land. What you get from that land you can use to pay off the $800 I’ve loaned you.” Daddy bought it. The first year he planted it all in cotton. It made enough cotton on his 40 acres that year to pay for it. He farmed Mr. Pate’s land.
He said, “Man, I’m going to do it again. I’m going to get another crop and maybe I’ll have enough money to build a house on it.” He planted it in cotton again. He made enough money to be able to buy an old house on Caney Creek, eight rooms. He and I tore that house down board by board. We hauled it out of Caney Creek on a wagon pulled by mules. I straightened the nails, separated them in tin cans. Some of them were square nails. That’s how old it was. We got the lumber out, stacked it, and daddy went through that lumber and said, “This we’ll use for the house. This we’ll use for the barn. This we’ll use for the smokehouse. This we’ll use for the outhouse. This is not usable. We’ll burn it.” Daddy gathered the material and from that material, he and I built the house.
That’s our job. Our job is to go out and gather the material. Win them. Baptize them. Get them in church. God says, “I’m going to use this one to be a Sunday school teacher one day. This one is going to sing in the choir. This one is going to play the piano. This one is going to be a deacon. This one is going to be an usher. This one is going to be a pastor one day.” We don’t know who we are gathering when we are knocking on a door, but the attitude of Jesus about church building is, “Go out and gather the material and I’ll choose where they serve and how they serve.”
I’m telling you when we do that, it sure takes a burden off of us because I am not God. God said it was His job to build the church. I can’t do it. When we win them, wet them, work them, grow them. You know the Great Commission down in Texas is a little bit different than it is up here. You win them, wet them, and work them. Down in east Texas, we win them, wet them, wean them, worm them, and work them! Because we’ve lost touch with Jesus, too often we go after offerings instead of the building material. I’ve been preaching for over 50 years. I’ve learned that in my ministry you win them, baptize them, teach them, and the offerings are the last thing that comes. If you go after offerings, you are going to be discouraged and disappointed. You’d better learn this and you’d better learn it good. Evangelists, missionaries, preachers, you’re not the source of supply; God is our source of supply. Our need is to spend time with Him so we know His heart and He knows our heart and our needs and our burdens.
WE WILL SPEND TIME IN THE BIBLE
When we spend time with Jesus, you are going to have to, of necessity, do some spiritual things. You can’t spend time with Jesus without it. For instance, you spend time with Jesus and you are going to spend time in His Word. The two disciples on the Emmaus Road said, as they walked with Jesus and He talked to them about His Word, beginning at Moses and all the prophets. By the way, that is Genesis and throughout the Old Testament. Jesus expounded unto them the Scripture. You’ll be amazed when you read this Book what Jesus will show you. He wants you to know His Word.
I was at an airport the other day. A pastor was there and said, “Brother Smith, you’ve always got a sermon. Where do you get your sermons? Do you use a book? Do you use some magazine?”
“No, I use the Bible.”
He said, “How do you get them?”
I said, “Read.” The most important thing you’ll do with the Bible is read it for your own spiritual nourishment. I find while I am reading it, the Author of the Bible, the Holy Spirit is teaching me and He’ll point out things that I’ve never seen before. The other day I was reading the Scripture and I saw in I Peter 4:2 what Brother Woodward pointed out this morning. What are you going to do with the rest of your time? I’ve got it written in my Bible. I used it in a sermon. I got it just reading.
You’d be surprised what is in this Book. Preachers, if you only open this Book to get a sermon, you are never going to know the Book. Read it. Sunday school teacher, if you open the Bible just to get your lesson, you are never going to know the mind of God and the will of God and the heart of God, but when you read it you’ll see unbelievable things in His Book. I promise you that pile of books Brother Corle has put together, he didn’t wake up one morning having dreamed it all. You’ll never find a book that has got as much Scripture in it as his books. Proper interpretations of Scripture interpreted in light of the context. You get that from reading. When you are reading the Word of God and God points out something to you, jot it down and keep reading. Come back and do a study of it. Don’t stop your reading to do the study. You are going to have to spend time in the Word of God. By the way, God didn’t entrust the Bible to colleges or governments or libraries. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth. That’s us.
Turn in your Bible to Luke 4. I love this. I found this reading the other day. Look at verses 16-19. “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” By the way, in this rendering here in the New Testament, Jesus stops in the reading from Isaiah 61 and doesn’t complete it. Look at verse 20. “And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down...” He said, “I wrote it. I fulfilled it. I’ve preached it. Now I’m going to die and go back to the Father. It’s up to you from here on out.”
Paul said in I Thessalonians 2:4, “But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts.” The thing that we ought to be asking today is this: Can God trust us?
WE WILL SPEND TIME IN PRAYER
If you are going to spend time with Jesus, you’ve got to spend time in prayer. Stop and think how many ways can you spend time with Jesus. When you open the Bible, you spend time reading His Word and thinking about Him. When we pray, we spend time with Jesus. He is our Mediator. There is no such thing as a prayer getting to God except it goes through Jesus Christ. If you are going to spend time with Jesus, you are going to have to spend some time in prayer. If Jesus felt the need to pray and He did, He prayed all night before He chose His disciples. He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane before the crucifixion. He would come apart from the disciples and the crowds to pray. If Jesus, the holy, holy, holy Son of God, God incarnate in human flesh, felt the need to pray, why don’t you and I? Our need for prayer is much greater. If you spend time with Jesus, you are going to have to spend time in His Word. You are going to have to spend time in prayer.
WE WILL SPEND TIME IN WORSHIP
If you are going to spend time with Jesus, you are going to have to spend time in worship, when we come together to worship Him. The average Christian today comes to church and they don’t worship. They come to church to get fed. We’ve got that, “What can you do for me today?” attitude. Have you ever thought about how we worship God together in church. We come together and worship God when we sing. The most important singing in the church is not the special, though it is wonderful, or the choir, though it is absolutely beautiful. The most important worship singing in the church is congregational singing because together we are worshipping God. We’ve relegated the specials and the choir too often to entertainment. We don’t know much about worship, but we’ve got 21 inch eyeballs and we know how to work a remote. You don’t have to do a thing to watch TV. It does it all for you. TV syndrome, that’s what most of us have. We come to church with the same thing. We sit down and the song leader says, “Take your song books and let’s sing.” We say, “No, you sing.” We just sit there and watch and we are not worshipping. Singing is when we spend time with Jesus. Worship Him.
Someone said, “Preacher, if everything, every book you owned and every computer program you have is taken away and you can only have three books, what books would you choose?”
One of those would be the Bible. Another would be a good concordance so I could find things I need to find in the Bible. The third one would be a good song book because we worship God in spirit and in truth and this is truth. We worship God in singing. Reading those song books, hearing the stories about the hymns, oh how they bless my heart. I’m not much good at singing. I whistle a lot. I’m worshipping God in music. I can carry a tune in whistling. I can even reach the high notes or the low notes whistling. We spend time with Jesus in worship. We worship by spending time in the Word. We worship by singing. We worship in praying.
Another way we worship is giving. When that offering plate is passed and you put something in it, that’s worship. I see people when the offering plate is passed who never put anything in. They come to church to get, not to give. Giving is worship. It’s Christlike. If you spend time with Jesus, you are going to have to learn how to give. Besides that, when I put in that offering, I give my tithe; I give my missions; I give my building fund; I give my benevolence fund; I give my special offering. Then every time it passes, I promised a long time ago, “God, if You’ll let me, I want to have something to put in there because I want You to know I’m for You. I’m with You and I love You. I’m standing for You.” We spend time with Him by worshipping.
WE WILL LOOK FOR HIS RETURN
If you are going to spend time with Jesus, you are going to have to look for His return. We get up in the morning and say, “I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to do that. My schedule starts here.” We go through the entire day and never give thought, “Jesus has promised to come again.” In the hour we think not. It’s the blessed Hope. He’s coming! He’s coming soon! I want to spend some time with Him every day just thinking about His coming.
The great need of our churches, as well as the unsaved world, is once again to see in us the truth that we’ve been with Jesus. We talk about Him. We teach about Him. We sing about Him. He ought to be reflected in our life. He ought to be seen in our way of life. Our dress ought to be a testimony of having spent time with Him. Our words ought to be a testimony of Him, spending time with Jesus.
WE WILL AGREE WITH HIM
If you are going to spend time with Jesus, you’ve got to agree with Him. There are so many different opinions and attitudes. Do you know what your opinion is worth if it doesn’t agree with that Book? Zero, less than zero, nothing. Nothing is a zero with the outline rubbed out. Amos 3:3 says, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” I want to learn what He thinks on any subject. “What does He believe? What does He think?” I want to agree with God, not the college professor, not the two-bit teacher that does not know Him. I want to know what Jesus thinks. You are never going to know what He thinks until you spend time with Him.
It’s about time we begin to think, “If I’m standing here in this pulpit for Jesus, if I’m representing Him in this world, then people ought to see Him in my life, hear Him in my speech, see Him in my character, see Him reflected in my home, in my words, in my habits, in my dress and my opinions and attitudes.” That’s never going to happen until we, as God’s people, dedicate time to spend with Him. These Pharisees and Sadducees, these God-haters marveled, took knowledge of them. They were unlearned and ignorant men, but they had to say, “They’ve been with Jesus. What’s happened today and that impotent man being healed, that was Jesus, because they have been spending time with Him.”
Do the people around us ever think that we have been spending any time with the Lord?
I want to use verse 13 as the basis for our message today. “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them,...” I hope this describes us, “...that they had been with Jesus.”
Never before in the history of the church have Holy Spirit filled Christians and Holy Spirit filled preachers been so urgently needed as today. Our text gives us a picture of the kind of Christian and the kind of preacher we need today -- those who have been with Jesus. When the preacher comes to the pulpit and the Christian comes to the pew, there ought to be the understanding that when we come together to worship Him, that each of us have spent time with Him. We’ve been with Jesus.
If we are to be effective for our Lord, we must realize that the work of the Christian servant and the work of the preacher of God is a spiritual work. The work of God cannot be effectively done in the energy and the power of the flesh. This work requires a power above and beyond the strength of man. Our work and ministry for God, whether it be the nursery ministry or the beginner class or the adults or the teenagers or here in this pulpit, the work for God cannot be effectively done without His guidance, His power. The One filling us and controlling us, I’m talking about the One who sees the end from the beginning, being in us and working through us.
Our preaching and our life must reveal a love, a compassion that overflows from the very heart of God, if we are going to do what God has given us to do. This world is not looking for meaner and tougher men and women and preachers. This world needs to see men and women who call themselves Christians, and act and talk like Christians, and preachers who grace the pulpits of our churches in America, whom the enemy can honestly say about them, “They’ve been with Jesus.”
The call of Christ to His churches and to His people in these last days is revealed to us in His letter to the Laodicean Church and it’s a call to repentance and revival. I’m afraid in our eyes, like the Laodiceans, we are rich and have need of nothing. Too often Jesus is locked outside of our life and our plans and our worship. I found, to our shame, that our churches are often pictures and reflections of the spirituality and the attitude of their pastors. Therein is where the problem lies. Our people are too much like us and we are not enough like Jesus.
“Well our job is to follow Jesus.” Dear friend, a new Christian doesn’t know how to follow Jesus. Paul said, “You follow me as I follow Christ.” As they learn and as they grow, following you as you follow Christ preacher, they learn how to follow Christ. They need to have someone to follow that has been with Jesus. Until we, who are God’s preachers, answer the call of revival and that is to repent and let Christ take charge of our lives and our ministries once again, we can’t expect our people to have revival. If revival is going to come to America, someone said, “It’s got to come in our churches,” and I believe that, but I know preachers. If revival is going to happen in our churches, it’s got to start right here in the pulpit with a man of God. It’s not going to happen until it can be said of him, “He may be unlearned and ignorant, but we marvel because he’s been with Jesus.”
By the way, how long has it been since somebody said to you, “You remind me of Jesus.” Every day a new daddy looks in the nursery at that new baby and hopes somebody will say, “He looks like daddy.” Reckon our Heavenly Father looks down at us and says, “I hope someday he’ll look like Me?” By the way, that is God’s plan. He is working, even now, conforming us to the image of Christ. He wants us to look like Jesus, have His attitude, His Spirit, His heart, His burden, His compassion, so we can do His work. After all, we as Christians are standing here in this world in His stead. Our job is to preach His message, do His work, lead His children, carry His Gospel to the uttermost part of the earth.
Acts 14:13 should be the desired testimony of every servant of God. As Brother Gilman so eloquently said, “When God writes our epitaph, it ought to say, ‘He spends time with Me regularly.’” We often talk about our heritage left us by our fundamental Baptist forefathers. I thank God for that heritage, but I wonder, what in the world are we leaving those who will follow us? It ought to be an example of a preacher and a momma and daddy and a Sunday school teacher and a Christian of whom people can say, “They’ve been with Jesus.”
Some of the greatest testimonies about Jesus came from those who were His enemy. Pilate said, “I find no fault in Him.” Enemy! The thief said, “This man has done nothing amiss.” The Centurion said, “Certainly, this was a righteous man.” Even today the cherished title of believers, Christian, came from our enemies. Christ-like.
When we get saved, we are a born again child of God. That’s free. But for you to bear the name Christian, I believe we ought to earn that. Christ-like. Salvation is free, but you don’t get Christ-likeness without some personal discipline and dedication and spending time with Jesus.
I’ve noticed over the years, as men and women have been married and lived together for years, there begins to be a corresponding of nature. They begin to look like each other, think like each other. My mom and dad were married 65 years and every time I looked at daddy I thought of mom and every time I looked at momma, I thought of daddy. Momma knew what daddy was thinking before daddy thought it or said it. Mrs. Smith and I have been married many years. She knows what I think, and I know what she wants me to think. We’ll be talking and we’ll answer the question before the question is finished. I know what she likes and I know what she doesn’t like. I know how to get her stirred up and I know how to keep her from getting stirred up.
If you spend time with Jesus, you’ll know His heart. You’ll know His burden. You’ll know His mind. You’ll know His desires. You’ll know His Word. We didn’t wake up one day and say, “We are going to be Baptists.” It was God that gave John the Baptist. Baptist wasn’t his last name. He was called the Baptist because he baptized. It was the enemies that called us Baptists because we believed in baptizing our converts and wouldn’t accept their alien baptism -- sprinkling and squirting and pouring and dry cleaning. Enemies gave us that name. But I’m proud of that name.
“Well, we’re changing our name.” I was driving down the road one day and saw one of the big Baptist churches out there removing the name Baptist from their sign. It upset me, stirred me. I went back to my office and told my secretary to order a sign that fit on our marquee, “Baptist Without Apology.” We’re afraid it will offend someone, when you ought to be afraid you’ll offend God! That ‘Baptist’ tells folks that we are identified with a body of truth known as ‘the faith once delivered to the saints,’ a body of doctrine that originated with God Himself. God help us to take a good look at our ministries and be willing to do whatever is necessary to bring our lives to the place where it can be said of us, “They’ve been with Jesus.”
The emphasis of Acts 4:13 is not their ignorance, or their great ability. Rather the emphasis is “They’ve been with Jesus.” I don’t know if you know it or not, but we are a distinct group of fundamental, independent, Bible believing Baptists. The secular world out there looks at us as unlearned and ignorant. I’ll go a step further. The intellectual world looks at us as unlearned and ignorant for believing this Bible is the very Word of God. I’ll go a step further. The religious world looks at us and says they’re unlearned and ignorant. The Convention and Fellowship Baptists today look at the fundamental, independent, Bible believing Baptists as unlearned and ignorant. I’ll go a step further. The aristocratic, fundamental Baptists look at us as unlearned and ignorant.
But instead of getting our feathers ruffled because of that, we ought to dedicate our heart and life to make sure that while they are talking about us being unlearned and ignorant, they cannot deny the fact that God is in us and God is on us and we’ve been with Jesus. Changes in our life will be very noticeable when we’ve been with Jesus.
Moses spent 40 days in the mount with God and his face shined while he talked to the people. He had been with the Lord. The disciples on the road to Emmaus said, “Our heart did burn within us,” because they had been walking with Jesus.
The early church in the upper room prayed for 10 days and the Holy Spirit of God fell upon them because they had been with Jesus, and 3,000 were saved and baptized in one day. They had been with Jesus. The great need of our ministries is to adjust our schedule so that we have time to spend with our Lord.
I’m hearing preachers say, “Well, I just don’t have the time anymore.” Or “Pray that I will find time.” You are not going to find any more time. There are just 24 hours in a day. God made it that way. There is not going to be 25 and a half. If you are going to spend time with the Lord, you’ve got to decide there are some things in your life that are not as necessary and make adjustments so you’ve got time to spend with the Lord.
I love sports. I love hunting and fishing. I’m competitive. I see two ants crawling across the road and I’ll root for one of them. But there are some things that are not necessary. I can do without if I’m going to spend time with Jesus.
The great need of our ministry is to adjust our schedules so that we have time to spend with the Lord. His presence and power, His breath on us is more needed than anything in our lives. We ought to be more concerned about that than how many points the rack had, or what our golf score was, or anything else. What size was that fish?
The most important thing we need if we are going to be what God has called us and put us here for, whether you be a Sunday school teacher or a layman or a Christian parent or a staff member or a pastor or an evangelist, our greatest need is to spend time with Him. How in the world can we know Him when we don’t spend time with Him? How can we be effective for Him when we don’t spend time with Him? How can we expect His power and His guidance on our life when we don’t spend time with Him? Some things will happen in our lives when we spend time with Jesus.
WE WILL REACH THE LOST
When we learn to spend time with our Lord Jesus, number one, we’ll go after the lost. You can’t spend much time with Jesus without getting His burden for lost souls. Follow Jesus through the Gospel. He is seeking souls. In fact, in Luke 19:10, He said, “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
In John 1 our Lord finds Philip and Nathanael. In John 3, our Lord reaches out to Nicodemus. In John 4, it’s the woman at the well and a great multitude in that city believed on Him. In the same chapter, a nobleman and his whole house believed. When it can be said of us that we’ve been with Jesus, then we too, like Jesus, will go after the lost. You used to hear a lot about it, when Dr. Joe Boyd and Dr. Carl Hatch and Dr. Jack Hyles were alive. You’d hear a lot about being soul-conscious, looking at people as eternal souls destined to Hell if they do not know Jesus Christ.
“But I don’t know who is saved and who is lost.” Ask them. They will tell you. “I don’t want to offend saved people.” Any truly saved person is glad to give you their testimony of salvation. If they don’t have one, they need to hear about Jesus. They are everywhere. When we spend time with Jesus, we’ll go after the lost like He went after the lost.
WE WILL HAVE HIS PHILOSOPHY ON CHURCH BUILDING.
When we spend time with Jesus, we’ll adopt His philosophy about church building. “Well, I’m out there trying to try to build a great church.” God hasn’t called anybody to build a church. Jesus said, “Upon this Rock, I will build My church.” He calls men to preach and to pastor His people, His flock, His church. We may call them ours, but at best we are just under-shepherds, standing in His stead. It’s His people, His church, His message, His power. He is our hope. He is our joy.
We need to adopt His philosophy once again. “Well, I just don’t know what to do. I just can’t build the church.” God didn’t call you to build the church. He’s called you to go out and gather material, and from that material He’ll build the church. You say, “Well, I want a few rich ones.” He didn’t tell us to go after the rich. “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15) It may be that one of those old boys on the wrong side of town gets saved and gets right and God begins to bless them and they become rich. God changed my life and my level of living like nothing else. Has He changed yours?
I remember when Cecil Ballard was a teenager and he got right with God. He didn’t get all new clothes. He’d wear his same shirts and blue jeans and all of his blue jeans had a faded out circle about that big around in the hip pocket and it wasn’t electrical tape. God changed his life. He’s not what he used to be. God saved Keith Gomez and changed his life. He’s not like he used to be. Jesus makes a difference. Nobody changes your level of living like Jesus. Nobody changes a life like Jesus changes it. Hey ladies, nobody has elevated the position of a woman like Jesus and Christianity. Oh, how we need to spend time with Him!
Gather people. Gather material. Be a soulwinner. It’s God through the Holy Spirit that gifts us and equips us to serve Him in various places. It’s the job of the man of God to be able to see that and make sure they are put in the right place to be able to use what God has given them. Just gather the material. Not everybody we win is going to be deacon material or preacher material or Sunday school teacher material. Maybe one day, but not necessarily then. We just gather the material and God makes them. God grows them. God builds them. God calls them. God gives them their gifts.
When I was a little boy, my daddy was a share cropper. We lived on another man’s farm, lived in his house. Daddy worked his fields, planted crops and was paid for it by giving him a share of the crop. Daddy was a hard working man. He worked for a good man named Oscar Pate. Mr. Pate said, “Mr. Smith, you are too good of a farmer to be a share cropper all your life. I want to sell you 40 acres of land over here, good land at $20 an acre.”
Daddy said, “That’s wonderful, but I don’t have money to buy it.”
He said, “I’m going to loan it to you with no interest.” He did. He loaned daddy $800 and said, “Mr. Smith, you can buy that property and you can farm my land and you can farm your land. What you get from that land you can use to pay off the $800 I’ve loaned you.” Daddy bought it. The first year he planted it all in cotton. It made enough cotton on his 40 acres that year to pay for it. He farmed Mr. Pate’s land.
He said, “Man, I’m going to do it again. I’m going to get another crop and maybe I’ll have enough money to build a house on it.” He planted it in cotton again. He made enough money to be able to buy an old house on Caney Creek, eight rooms. He and I tore that house down board by board. We hauled it out of Caney Creek on a wagon pulled by mules. I straightened the nails, separated them in tin cans. Some of them were square nails. That’s how old it was. We got the lumber out, stacked it, and daddy went through that lumber and said, “This we’ll use for the house. This we’ll use for the barn. This we’ll use for the smokehouse. This we’ll use for the outhouse. This is not usable. We’ll burn it.” Daddy gathered the material and from that material, he and I built the house.
That’s our job. Our job is to go out and gather the material. Win them. Baptize them. Get them in church. God says, “I’m going to use this one to be a Sunday school teacher one day. This one is going to sing in the choir. This one is going to play the piano. This one is going to be a deacon. This one is going to be an usher. This one is going to be a pastor one day.” We don’t know who we are gathering when we are knocking on a door, but the attitude of Jesus about church building is, “Go out and gather the material and I’ll choose where they serve and how they serve.”
I’m telling you when we do that, it sure takes a burden off of us because I am not God. God said it was His job to build the church. I can’t do it. When we win them, wet them, work them, grow them. You know the Great Commission down in Texas is a little bit different than it is up here. You win them, wet them, and work them. Down in east Texas, we win them, wet them, wean them, worm them, and work them! Because we’ve lost touch with Jesus, too often we go after offerings instead of the building material. I’ve been preaching for over 50 years. I’ve learned that in my ministry you win them, baptize them, teach them, and the offerings are the last thing that comes. If you go after offerings, you are going to be discouraged and disappointed. You’d better learn this and you’d better learn it good. Evangelists, missionaries, preachers, you’re not the source of supply; God is our source of supply. Our need is to spend time with Him so we know His heart and He knows our heart and our needs and our burdens.
WE WILL SPEND TIME IN THE BIBLE
When we spend time with Jesus, you are going to have to, of necessity, do some spiritual things. You can’t spend time with Jesus without it. For instance, you spend time with Jesus and you are going to spend time in His Word. The two disciples on the Emmaus Road said, as they walked with Jesus and He talked to them about His Word, beginning at Moses and all the prophets. By the way, that is Genesis and throughout the Old Testament. Jesus expounded unto them the Scripture. You’ll be amazed when you read this Book what Jesus will show you. He wants you to know His Word.
I was at an airport the other day. A pastor was there and said, “Brother Smith, you’ve always got a sermon. Where do you get your sermons? Do you use a book? Do you use some magazine?”
“No, I use the Bible.”
He said, “How do you get them?”
I said, “Read.” The most important thing you’ll do with the Bible is read it for your own spiritual nourishment. I find while I am reading it, the Author of the Bible, the Holy Spirit is teaching me and He’ll point out things that I’ve never seen before. The other day I was reading the Scripture and I saw in I Peter 4:2 what Brother Woodward pointed out this morning. What are you going to do with the rest of your time? I’ve got it written in my Bible. I used it in a sermon. I got it just reading.
You’d be surprised what is in this Book. Preachers, if you only open this Book to get a sermon, you are never going to know the Book. Read it. Sunday school teacher, if you open the Bible just to get your lesson, you are never going to know the mind of God and the will of God and the heart of God, but when you read it you’ll see unbelievable things in His Book. I promise you that pile of books Brother Corle has put together, he didn’t wake up one morning having dreamed it all. You’ll never find a book that has got as much Scripture in it as his books. Proper interpretations of Scripture interpreted in light of the context. You get that from reading. When you are reading the Word of God and God points out something to you, jot it down and keep reading. Come back and do a study of it. Don’t stop your reading to do the study. You are going to have to spend time in the Word of God. By the way, God didn’t entrust the Bible to colleges or governments or libraries. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth. That’s us.
Turn in your Bible to Luke 4. I love this. I found this reading the other day. Look at verses 16-19. “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” By the way, in this rendering here in the New Testament, Jesus stops in the reading from Isaiah 61 and doesn’t complete it. Look at verse 20. “And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down...” He said, “I wrote it. I fulfilled it. I’ve preached it. Now I’m going to die and go back to the Father. It’s up to you from here on out.”
Paul said in I Thessalonians 2:4, “But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts.” The thing that we ought to be asking today is this: Can God trust us?
WE WILL SPEND TIME IN PRAYER
If you are going to spend time with Jesus, you’ve got to spend time in prayer. Stop and think how many ways can you spend time with Jesus. When you open the Bible, you spend time reading His Word and thinking about Him. When we pray, we spend time with Jesus. He is our Mediator. There is no such thing as a prayer getting to God except it goes through Jesus Christ. If you are going to spend time with Jesus, you are going to have to spend some time in prayer. If Jesus felt the need to pray and He did, He prayed all night before He chose His disciples. He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane before the crucifixion. He would come apart from the disciples and the crowds to pray. If Jesus, the holy, holy, holy Son of God, God incarnate in human flesh, felt the need to pray, why don’t you and I? Our need for prayer is much greater. If you spend time with Jesus, you are going to have to spend time in His Word. You are going to have to spend time in prayer.
WE WILL SPEND TIME IN WORSHIP
If you are going to spend time with Jesus, you are going to have to spend time in worship, when we come together to worship Him. The average Christian today comes to church and they don’t worship. They come to church to get fed. We’ve got that, “What can you do for me today?” attitude. Have you ever thought about how we worship God together in church. We come together and worship God when we sing. The most important singing in the church is not the special, though it is wonderful, or the choir, though it is absolutely beautiful. The most important worship singing in the church is congregational singing because together we are worshipping God. We’ve relegated the specials and the choir too often to entertainment. We don’t know much about worship, but we’ve got 21 inch eyeballs and we know how to work a remote. You don’t have to do a thing to watch TV. It does it all for you. TV syndrome, that’s what most of us have. We come to church with the same thing. We sit down and the song leader says, “Take your song books and let’s sing.” We say, “No, you sing.” We just sit there and watch and we are not worshipping. Singing is when we spend time with Jesus. Worship Him.
Someone said, “Preacher, if everything, every book you owned and every computer program you have is taken away and you can only have three books, what books would you choose?”
One of those would be the Bible. Another would be a good concordance so I could find things I need to find in the Bible. The third one would be a good song book because we worship God in spirit and in truth and this is truth. We worship God in singing. Reading those song books, hearing the stories about the hymns, oh how they bless my heart. I’m not much good at singing. I whistle a lot. I’m worshipping God in music. I can carry a tune in whistling. I can even reach the high notes or the low notes whistling. We spend time with Jesus in worship. We worship by spending time in the Word. We worship by singing. We worship in praying.
Another way we worship is giving. When that offering plate is passed and you put something in it, that’s worship. I see people when the offering plate is passed who never put anything in. They come to church to get, not to give. Giving is worship. It’s Christlike. If you spend time with Jesus, you are going to have to learn how to give. Besides that, when I put in that offering, I give my tithe; I give my missions; I give my building fund; I give my benevolence fund; I give my special offering. Then every time it passes, I promised a long time ago, “God, if You’ll let me, I want to have something to put in there because I want You to know I’m for You. I’m with You and I love You. I’m standing for You.” We spend time with Him by worshipping.
WE WILL LOOK FOR HIS RETURN
If you are going to spend time with Jesus, you are going to have to look for His return. We get up in the morning and say, “I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to do that. My schedule starts here.” We go through the entire day and never give thought, “Jesus has promised to come again.” In the hour we think not. It’s the blessed Hope. He’s coming! He’s coming soon! I want to spend some time with Him every day just thinking about His coming.
The great need of our churches, as well as the unsaved world, is once again to see in us the truth that we’ve been with Jesus. We talk about Him. We teach about Him. We sing about Him. He ought to be reflected in our life. He ought to be seen in our way of life. Our dress ought to be a testimony of having spent time with Him. Our words ought to be a testimony of Him, spending time with Jesus.
WE WILL AGREE WITH HIM
If you are going to spend time with Jesus, you’ve got to agree with Him. There are so many different opinions and attitudes. Do you know what your opinion is worth if it doesn’t agree with that Book? Zero, less than zero, nothing. Nothing is a zero with the outline rubbed out. Amos 3:3 says, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” I want to learn what He thinks on any subject. “What does He believe? What does He think?” I want to agree with God, not the college professor, not the two-bit teacher that does not know Him. I want to know what Jesus thinks. You are never going to know what He thinks until you spend time with Him.
It’s about time we begin to think, “If I’m standing here in this pulpit for Jesus, if I’m representing Him in this world, then people ought to see Him in my life, hear Him in my speech, see Him in my character, see Him reflected in my home, in my words, in my habits, in my dress and my opinions and attitudes.” That’s never going to happen until we, as God’s people, dedicate time to spend with Him. These Pharisees and Sadducees, these God-haters marveled, took knowledge of them. They were unlearned and ignorant men, but they had to say, “They’ve been with Jesus. What’s happened today and that impotent man being healed, that was Jesus, because they have been spending time with Him.”
Do the people around us ever think that we have been spending any time with the Lord?
