On November 30, 1864, a very significant but little known Civil War battle was being fought on the Carter farm in Franklin, Tennessee, just south of Nashville.  Union forces held the farm and were being assaulted by a Confederate Army of some 30,000 men which included a Captain Todd Carter who had been raised on that very farm and had left it three years before to join the Army and fight for the South.  So, in one of those strange twists of fate that often happens in war, Todd Carter now found himself engaged in a battle that was being fought in the very backyard in which he had played as a little boy.

The next day, Captain Carter’s family came out of the basement of the farmhouse, where they had been hiding during the battle, found his mortally wounded body and took him back to the sick room.  The sick room, very common in those days, was a room separate from the main living quarters where people were taken during times of illness and also where mothers went to birth their babies.  It was in that room, the very same one in which Todd Carter had been born twenty-four years before, that he died of his wounds the day after his family found him.  And, so it was that Todd Carter lived his whole life only to come full circle for it to end, quite literally, where it had begun. 

Do you wonder, sometimes, if that will happen to you?  That you will come to the end of your life only to have traveled a big circuitous route and to find yourself lying down to die not far from where you were born.  That happens to more people than not.  Not just physically, but spiritually and intellectually, as well.  Were we not destined for more than that?  More than just to consume our fair share of commodities but never accomplish anything of significance? 

Some years ago, getting ready for a garage sale, I opened the garage door and found myself staring at boxes stacked upon other boxes full of junk.  Some of the boxes had been packed for so long I could no longer remember what they contained.  But, every time I moved from one place to the next I had to haul “the boxes.”  The containers that supposedly held everything of significance I was accumulating.  I found myself overwhelmed with a sick feeling.  Surely life is about more than this, I thought.  Surely I was meant for more than just to see how many boxes of junk I could collect only to sell them to some other box collector or, if nothing else, to leave to my children so that, after I died, they could sell them to some other junk collector and use the proceeds to buy their own junk to collect and store in their garages.

In his own way, Jesus was addressing that very issue in the prayer that we have recorded in the scripture for the morning.  Jesus knows he is about to die and to leave this world for a time.  His prayer centers primarily around his concern for those he will leave behind.  Specifically, he is praying for his disciples then and for all those who would ultimately choose to follow him.  Those who would repent of their self-centeredness (also known as sin) and, by faith, choose to follow him wherever he chose to lead.  “I ask not only on behalf of these (referring to his disciples then) but also on behalf of those who will believe in me . . ..”  And, this is specifically what he prayed.  That, though we would remain physically located here for a time we might discover the greater spiritual purpose of our existence in this world in which it is too terribly easy to get lost running in futile circles of meaningless living.  “And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world . . . I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.”

Not of this world, Jesus said, but in it for now.  And, at risk.  At risk of being overwhelmed by evil unless God the Father intervenes.  An evil that, personalized in Satan, “the evil one,” Jesus called him, sometimes presents itself in the form of grotesque temptation (adultery, fornication and so on) but, more often than not, in the form of an opportunity to just see how many boxes of stuff we can collect with our names on them.  It’s true, isn’t it?  He who dies with the most boxes full of junk, wins!  Or, is it more true, that he who comes to the end with the most boxes full of junk dies weeping tears of inconsolable sadness because he discovered too late that he was meant for more?

It was that something more to which Jesus called us and for which he prayed that we would discover.  First, he prayed, that we would come to discover there is something we must learn.  “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth,” Jesus asked the Father.  To be sanctified is to be made holy.  To be made holy is to become more like God.  Jesus was praying that we would discover the truth that would lead us to a holy God and his holy purpose for our lives.

This past week I got an email from a young lady who was once a member of a church of which I was pastor.  She works here in the Metroplex and her company is closing its office here.  If she wants to keep her rather significant position she must now move to Houston.  She was asking me to pray that she would know whether it was God’s will for her to move or not. 

So, this is what I wrote her.  I hope it doesn’t seem too crass.  But, it’s what I said, nonetheless.  You can judge whether you believe I was leading her correctly or not.  “You will make the right decision.  God’s will is not so much where you are as it is who you are.  If you are faithful, then, no matter where you are, you are in God’s will.  Since you want to be faithful, you are already there.”  I said that not because I think God is indifferent about where we live and what we do for a living.  And, I wasn’t trying to confuse her more about whether she should move to Houston or stay here and be unemployed.  I think God cares about those things.  But, I think he cares much more that, wherever we find ourselves, we are in the process of finding him. 

God’s will is not so much a blueprint for how to make perfect choices as it is a relationship in which we are committed to coming, in our imperfections, to know the only true and perfect God wherever we live.  Besides, sometimes, despite our best intentions, we find ourselves in places where, in retrospect, we should not be and we have to move again.  And, sometimes, life takes us places we don’t want to go and we can’t move.  Remember, Jesus said, “they do not belong to the world (but) I am not asking you to take them out of the world.”  “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth,” Jesus prayed. 

So, here is a very practical suggestion for those who want to find themselves faithful no matter where they find themselves.  Commit yourself to learning God’s word.  Read the Bible.  Study it.  Open your mind to it.  Every day.  Take the Bible with you, in your heart, as you travel the globe and, more likely than not, no matter where you end up it won’t be where you started.  His truth, His word, will lead you to him and to the purpose for which you were created, which is, to know him.  As an aside, one of the reasons our Baptist community is in such a state of confusion these days is because too many have left the responsibility of reading and interpreting the Book to too few so that their knowledge of God is distorted according to someone else’s distorted opinion.  And, one of the reasons the Mormons are able to recruit more from Southern Baptist ranks than from any other group is because so few of us can stand on our own two feet when it comes to what we know and believe. 

Something to learn, Jesus prayed.  Someone to love, too.  “I ask . . . those who . . . believe in me . . . that they may all be one.”  Jesus knew that leaving us in this world meant leaving us with many different kinds of people.  Different in so many ways.  In our sex, our age, our intellect, our skin color, our skills and even our tastes.  But, have you noticed the specific nature of Jesus’ prayer?  This was a prayer for his followers, that his disciples would love each other.  Have you ever noticed how, sometimes, it’s easier to love a total pagan with whom you have very little in common than to love a fellow-believer with whom you should have nearly everything in common?  Yet, Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  Which begs the question.  What difference does it make if I love everyone on the African continent who never heard of Jesus but turn a cold, indifferent and angry back to the brother who sits down the pew from me?  Jesus said, that kind of living sends the wrong message to a dying world.

You may recall that, about a year ago, Jack Ridlehoover preached in this pulpit. When I was on his staff, we called him “Brother Jack.”  When he wasn’t listening, we called him “B.J.” for short.  One time, his secretary, Richie, was given a puppy.  Affectionately, she named the dog, “B.J.”  One morning, when she was getting ready for church, “B.J.”, the dog, got loose out the front door and started running down the street.  So, though dressed only in her house robe, Richie gave chase to the dog down the street calling, “B.J., come back!” over and over.  At the same time, another pastor in the city who lived across the street and whose name was “D.J.,” was getting in his car to go to work.  So, here is pastor “D.J.” getting in his car with a woman dressed in a house robe running down the street calling, “B.J.” (too close to “D.J.”) come back!” 

Needless to say, she was very concerned that some of her neighbors might have gotten a mixed message.  Do our neighbors ever get a mixed message from us?  If, at church, we have called out, “My Jesus, I Love Thee, I know thou art mine,” and yet, the papers are chocked full week after week about how we Baptists cannot stand one another do you think it leaves them a little confused?

Listen carefully, as we prayerfully consider committing ourselves to Rebirth here at Cliff Temple, the single greatest challenge we are going to face is not what to do or how to pay for it or who should lead what.  The single greatest challenge we will face is, at all costs, protecting and even enriching the spirit of unity and love in this fellowship.  Our single greatest witness to this dying world is more in how we climb above our own self-interests to love one another far more than ingenious programs and buildings.  The world will hate us, Jesus said, if we love him.  (John 16:33)  But, this world will never listen to us if we don’t love when others hate.  If we fail to love then we’ve lost everything no matter what we do.  And, “the evil one” knows that better than do we.  And, let me rush to say, that, almost certainly, this call to love, trust me, has someone’s face and name attached to it.  In your case, whose face and name might that be?

Something to learn.  Someone to love.  And, something to do, Jesus prayed.  I sometimes wonder why Jesus keeps us here.  Why doesn’t he just come on back?  Again, his own words, “They do not belong to the world (but) I am not asking you to take them out of the world.”  There must be something for us to do that requires being here.  Almost certainly, it has something to do with his also saying, to his Father, “as you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”

Christians are sometimes accused of being so heavenly-minded that they are no earthly good.  I think when people say that they are, many times, actually saying, “Don’t just tell us how to live in heaven.  Show us how to live this hard life here.  What good is a faith unless it has value before you die?”  And, that’s fair, isn’t it?  Isn’t that the same kind of faith you want?  A faith that helps you live no matter how hard life may be and die no matter when death comes or how?  The mission to which Jesus has called us is to share with people a faith that helps them know how to live and how to die so that they can live again.

George Harris went to heaven this week.  But, not before showing us something, in his dying, about what it means to live here.  Though wracked with pain and struggling for long hard days he came to the end extending the love and hope of his faith to anyone who got close enough to watch.  I couldn’t help but think of him when I read this scripture this week.  In this world but not of this world.  I think George knew well what those words meant.  But, I think he fought as long as he did because God was answering Jesus’ prayer for him that he not lay down to die in the same place he was born.  George Harris’ faith took him to places most people only dream about. 

It’s amazing how far you can go, and where you’ll find yourself, and how full of joy you can be as long as you have something to learn, someone to love and something to do.  Only those who follow Christ will ultimately know that joy.