Introduction: This past Wednesday the Oklahoma Sooners defeated the Florida State Seminoles 13-2 for the NCAA National Championship in the Orange Bowl. The Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops led his team to a 13-0 record and the NCAA National Championship in only his second year as head coach. One of the things he did during his first two years to revive the Oklahoma Sooners team was to reemphasize the traditions that made them great. He dug out the six Orange Bowl trophies, invited Barry Switzer to be around the team as well as former players Brian Bosworth and J. C. Watts. Stoops knew that the strength of great traditions and values have the power to compel and inspire.

As we begin this new year it presents us with an opportunity to reexamine three basic core values that make First Baptist Church of Jonesboro who we are and what we must be. For three Sundays of this month I want to speak to you from my heart about people, purpose and commitment. These values have power to shape, compel and inspire our future.

The first value I want us to think about is people. Have you ever known someone who had one thing always on their mind? Ray Charles sings that Georgia is always on his mind. Some people always seem to have golf on their mind. A group of ministers I was with Wednesday were describing the lowest degree of temperature before they would not play golf. My response was, "It would have to get pretty cold because hell will freeze over before I will play golf." You can tell a lot about a person by what is always on their mind.

When you first met your spouse and fell in love you always had them on your mind. Parents of infants and those who have teenage daughters- 15 and 19 who stay out late, keeping their fathers sleeping fitfully till they get home and kiss them good night because they are in big trouble if they don’t- have them always on their mind. Business people will have the next deal always on their mind. The list is endless of people who are so consumed with something who always have that one thing always on their mind. You can tell a lot about a person by what is always on their mind.

So the question is obvious: Who or what is always on your mind? While we might wonder about what is always on our minds we don’t have to wonder or guess about what was on Jesus’ mind. What was always on Jesus’ mind? People. People were always on his mind. All kinds of people were on his mind: lost people, saved people, stubborn people, obedient people, sick people, well people, poor people, rich people—people were always on his mind. There has never been another person like Jesus who always had people at such a high level of priority as he did.

From the very start of his ministry Jesus let these know that to be on his team, to follow him was going to mean being in the people business. When Jesus saw Simon and Andrew fishing, knowing full well they were commercial fishermen, he called out to them, "Come be my disciples and I will show you how to fish for people!" (Mark 1:18 NLT). There’s nothing wrong with fishing but people are a much more valuable priority.

Yet that priority was continually difficult to communicate to the disciples. Over and over he tried to correct their misconceptions about people. When parents brought their children the disciples stood in their way but Jesus said, "Let them come." When people were hungry they wanted to send them away, Jesus fed them. When some tried to touch him they tried to keep them away but Jesus invited the contact. Over and over Jesus reminded them that people were always on his mind. Even on the cross he asked the Father to forgive those who crucified him, he provided care for his mother by giving her care to John and even the thief crucified beside him he assured him of a place in eternity. Never has anyone in all of human history displayed a greater preoccupation with people than Jesus. They were always on his mind. You can tell a lot about a person by knowing what is always on their mind.

Jesus would say to his disciples, "I and the Father are one." That means not only that to see and know him was to see and know God, but also that whatever were the passions, emotions, desires of the Father those were Jesus’ passions, emotions and desires. There was no loss of continuity or unity between the Father’s heart and Jesus’ heart.

The disciples didn’t get that. On one occasion when a Samaritan city rejected him from staying there the disciples wanted to call fire down from heaven. Yet Jesus knew that people were more valuable than their pride and rebuked them (Luke 9:51-56). The religious people didn’t get that for when he placed value on sinful people by spending time with them they reviled him for it. His response was to tell them in no uncertain terms that people were the Father’s unquestioned priority. He told them the story of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son. He said, " In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God's angels when even one sinner repents." (Luke 15:10)

What was the result of his knowing the Father’s heart better than anyone else? An attitude of being radically inclusive. When you read the gospels you see that Jesus was so radically inclusive that it disturbed the religious people deeply. Luke records a prostitute breaking perfume over Jesus’ feet, crying so deeply that she wet his feet with tears. Embarrassed, she tried to clean them with her long hair and she, instead, just kissed them over and over. While everyone else was repugnant, Jesus just told her, "Your sins have been forgiven…Your faith has saved you; go in peace." (Luke 7:36-50). No one in human history has ever had arms as wide as his.

Jesus said, "How do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?" Jesus taught and ministered against the backdrop of time. He was never apologetic about making it clear that every person’s days are numbered, that there is absolutely nothing that makes it from this life to the next but people and that at the end of time here will be an evaluation of all humanity as to where they will spend eternity—in heaven or in hell. Continually Jesus made it clear that the treasures we as people are to be consumed with are people not money. ("Lay not up…") Jesus knew that humans are so foolish to believe that time was on their side so he sought to make it unmistakably clear that time is not ours but the Father’s.

What was the result of this understanding of eternal realities? The result was a calculated sense of urgency. It was not a frantic, panicked urgency, but a deliberate, reason-centered urgency. It was an urgency that caused him to change his travel plans just to have more contact with people. It was an urgency that caused him to be unimpressed with the wealth of an individual when he saw how poor he was inside. It was an urgency that caused him to send out disciples like sheep among wolves, restricting their baggage because the urgency was so great. He told them to go because there were more out there who need the gospel. Never has anyone understood the eternal realities like Jesus.

When Jesus called Simon in Luke’s gospel he saw him as a fisherman but he saw more. For he said, "Don’t be afraid! From now on you’ll be fishing for people." I see in you someone far more valuable than what you are doing now. Jesus had the ability to see beyond who and what a person was to what they could become. (Zacchaeus, Mary Magdalene) He just looked at people differently. Do you remember when the disciples couldn’t imagine how different people could be redeemed? Jesus responded, "With God everything is possible!" (Mark 10:27). Jesus just saw people differently.

As a result of Jesus seeing such potential in people he displayed an irrepressible optimism toward people. He reaffirmed that there was hope for even the most desperate cases: The lost could be found, the blind could see, the sick could be healed and the dead could be raised to life. Where others saw the impossibility of a person ever changing, Jesus was filled with optimism that could not be restrained. Jesus had people always on his mind because he knew their potential unlike anyone else could ever know them.

In Romans 8:29 Paul said that it is God’s determined purpose that we are to become like Jesus. "Rom. 8:29." This means that the things that are true of Jesus are to be true for us. We are to be like Him. Max Lucado says, "God loves you just the way you are, but he refuses to leave you that way. He wants you to be just like Jesus." (Just Like Jesus, p. 3) If that is true then the reasons and results from Jesus always having people on his mind will be found in our lives.

Think for a moment about what would happen if this church—each individual member—decided they were in the people business! What would happen if the body language of our lives was not exclusive but inclusive with arms wide open? What if we said, "My arms are open to seek, serve, and pray for people? Is that the condition of your heart? Is your heart increasingly inclusive?

Surveys show us that the longer a person walks with God the less we have any contact with the lost. Scripture teaches just the opposite! Our arms may reach to heaven in praise but are to reach out to someone else in including them in God’s grace. It’s great for us to worship but the worship compels us to witness. The heart of our worship must be translated into being radically inclusive of people. I will confess to you openly that I am not the example of this as I desire but I do know the importance of trying.

We forget, my friends, that when it comes to life and death that the death rate is 100%. Jesus had such a clear grasp of time that compelled his urgency. We are all in danger of getting so absorbed in what we are doing that we forget that people around us are people who will spend eternity in heaven or eternity in hell.

Time is always short and it has never been on your side or mine. It is always running out! Real people, people you know will go to heaven or go to hell. There is a sense of urgency we should live with every single day of our lives. Who needs to pray, "I will go…"? For every one of us it is imperative that we never let the fire of urgency go out.

We see someone and say, "What might God do in their life? What does God have in store for that person?" What will it take for you and for me to see people as he sees them?

My friends, it’s all about people! People for all eternity. You need to understand that nothing else compares to the stakes that are at risk with people. That’s why I can say to some of you whatever it is you are doing or want to do God is calling you to serve him. That’s why I can say to you to stop hoarding your resources and get it out there where it will reach people. That’s why I can say to you to volunteer now to give yourself to him.

It’s all about people and it’s all about forever. May we become the people God can use.

Sunday, January 7, 2001

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org