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[Music] On dealing with those who take the "we" out of life. A message by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman. [Music] Let us continue in our worship by giving reverent attention to the reading of God's Word.

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As it is recorded in the Gospel according to John, the 11th chapter, beginning the reading at the verse which is numbered 38. Let us be upstanding for the hearing of God's Word. May I remind you that the scene is in the city of Bethany. Lazarus has died. Mary and Martha have called Jesus to the tomb. Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave and a stone lay upon it.

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Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days." Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. I knew that thou hearest me always,

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but I have said this on account of the people standing by, that they may believe that thou didst send me." When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out." And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Loose him and let him go."

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Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, "What are we to do, for this man performs many signs. If we let him go on thus, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation."

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But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all. You do not understand that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish." He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.

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So from that day on, they took counsel how to put Jesus to death. And may God bless to us this reading from his word. Please be seated. Let us pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

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The name of Haru Onoda reached the world's headlines this week. He was the Japanese soldier who surrendered in the Philippine Islands after having fought on for 30 years after the Second World War had come to its end. It's a remarkable story of how this man could live a life of fear for three decades after it was unnecessary to be afraid. Of how this man could give himself over to the past, who could tie himself so completely to what was over and done with,

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that the whole world could move on and he would be left behind. There's a very real sense in which he personifies a lot of people. A lot of people who entomb themselves in yesterday, who wrap themselves with the grave clothes of old ideas long gone for most of us. Who in fact mummify themselves with memories that are not really relevant to the living of these days.

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It is a sad thing to encounter people like this. People who have no "we" in their living. I think that Lazarus in a very real sense personifies these people. They, as a matter of fact, can be Christian, as Lazarus was Christian, owning Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

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And then they die as Lazarus died. Now he died in the flesh, but they die in the spirit. He was buried in a tomb, in a cave. They bury themselves in the grave of old ideas, of concepts that were part of yesterday but not part of today. In what they think will bring to them security and safety.

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And then Jesus comes. And he says, "Lazarus, come forth." Now two thousand years ago, Lazarus did come forth. But these people with no "we," no excitement, no thrill in their lives, these people who risk nothing in the service of Christ,

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these people, they either do not hear his voice or they ignore it and choose instead to stay comfortably in their cave. That's tragic. For they end up going through life like the mummy in those Class B horror movies of twenty years ago. Staggering along, trying to find somebody to choke, somebody to take the joy out of, just as the joy has been taken out of them.

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As I think of these people, I find themselves, I find them, well sometimes tied tight by the binding claws of fear. Did you hear the story of the man who was riding a cart to Constantinople? And as he traveled along the road, he saw a hideous old woman stumbling along the road, so he offered her a ride. And while she was in the cart, he turned to her and said, "What is your name?"

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And she said, "My name is Cholera." And immediately he was filled with fear. He ordered her from the cart, but he was afraid to touch her. She would not get down, but she said, "I will make to you this pledge.

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If you will take me to the city, I will kill only a dozen. And if I kill more than a dozen, then you may take this dagger, which alone can end my life, and plunge it into my heart, ridding me from the world forever." Well, he didn't want to do it, but he had no choice, so he took her to the city.

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And within a few days, hundreds had died. And he searched for her throughout the city, and finally finding her, raised the dagger to end her life. But she said, "Hold! I killed only twelve. Fear has killed all the rest." Well, there are a lot of people who are afraid to venture out into new life because of nothing other than fear.

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And then there are some people who are caught up in the funerary entanglements of emotional immaturity. There's a remarkable new book by Hugh Downs, the noted television personality, called Potential, The Way to Emotional Maturity. And in that book, he makes the suggestion that people who lose themselves in the past are really like children.

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Like children, they have only a few memories on which they focus all the time, and like children, they have no sense of responsibility for tomorrow. The mature person, on the other hand, Downs states in his book, is the individual who understands the value of the past to be exclusively in terms of its worth to the present,

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and who understands the future only in terms of that which the present is to prepare for. He lives in the now. That's the mature person. Now, that suggestion by Downs was very helpful to me, because throughout the course of the sixteen years of my ministry, I have wondered why it is

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that these individuals, these Lazaruses who have refused to come out of the tomb, these persons, when they are sick, when they are in hospital, or when they are shut in because of one ailment or difficulty of another, these persons show no emotional control. They break into tears, they cry easily, they lament situations which are not nearly as serious as the situations that some other people have to endure.

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And I've wondered why that was so. I understand now. The person who lives in the past is emotionally immature. There's not much else that you can expect of them. And some are caught in yesterday for that reason. And some are stuck fast in what used to be, because they cannot enlarge the size of their expectations.

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I heard about a fellow who was walking down a pier, and he saw a man fishing there. And the man was pulling a lot of fish out of the sea, and every fish that was over ten inches long, he threw back in the water. And every fish that was under ten inches long, he kept. And the fellow observed this for a while, and he said, "How come you're throwing back all the big ones and keeping all the little ones?"

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And he looked up at him and he said, "Well, you see, the bottom of my frying pan is only ten inches wide." Well, there are some people, you see, whose expectations built on their past experience are so limited that they can't even contemplate anything any bigger than what they have known before. Consequently, you see, they are entombed in yesterday.

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Now, make no mistake, these individuals are not limited exclusively to any one age group. I think it's important to notice that. I'm not saying that these people are older people, or middle-aged people, or younger people. They are, in fact, in all age groups. The most exciting, dynamic human being that I know is 78 years old. And one of the dullest personalities I've ever encountered happens to be 15 years old.

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Go down to Disneyland and stand beside the Matterhorn and look at the people who are lined up to go on that exciting ride. There are old and young there. And look at the people who turn around and walk away from it, afraid of the thrill of it. There are old and young who walk away. This kind of attitude is not limited to any age group in particular. And notice this also. Most of these people who are caught, who are still wrapped in the grave clothes of the past,

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old ideas and concepts, no "we," no excitement, no thrill in their lives, most of them are utterly unaware of their own circumstance and situation. It is recorded in the story that when Lazarus came out, he had a cloth wrapped around his face. That's the way these people are. And they are unable to see themselves.

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For the last few weeks we have been talking together about the joy which is to belong to us as Christians. And we've been looking at some of the things which militate against our joy. Remembering that Jesus said, "I want my joy in you and your joy to be full," we've been looking at the things that somehow pull the plug on our joy and let it run out of us.

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The first week we noted tension. And we remembered, as we thought about tension, that we ought to rest in God, that we ought never to verbalize our tensions, that we ought to rid ourselves of anger and bitterness, and we ought to give ourselves to prayer. Those things defeat tension. Then the next week we talked about what pressure can do to us.

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And we learned the importance of ordering our lives, denying disorder, so that we give ourselves enough time to go out into the world of nature and into the place of quiet to refresh ourselves and to relieve ourselves of the intensity of the pressure which is about us. And then last week we talked about emptiness.

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And how the answer to emptiness is to discover what God's purpose for your life is, and then to give yourself to that purpose in spite of the risk, and to hold on to whatever victory God has for you. Now, these processes will defeat the joyless experiences of tension or pressure or emptiness.

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But what do you do when you encounter an individual who constantly verbalizes his tensions, who holds all kinds of bitternesses and angers inside, who refuses to give himself to a devotion of prayer, to the individual whose life is crowded with a disorder unto death, who's not really concerned about God's purpose but only their own,

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and they see their own as to be utterly without any risk or adventure? Now, what do you do when you encounter that kind of person, ready to choke you of all the joy which is yours? We are to deal with them, you know. I think it's very important to notice that the first word that Jesus said after Lazarus came out of the tomb

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was not a word to Lazarus. It was a word to the crowd that was gathered there. He said, "Loose him and let him go!" So how do you deal with, how do you loose people who take all the "wee!" out of life?

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Well, I think the first thing you do is you love them just as they are. I think it's very important to notice that when Jesus got to the tomb of Lazarus, he wept. That's the shortest verse in the Bible, you know, there in John 11. Jesus wept.

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Just two words, but words that are packed with meaning. And they mean he has compassion for this one who is in the state of death. And we're to have compassion for these people who are still all wrapped up in the enslaving, mummy-like attitudes which deprive life of joy and enthusiasm and vigor.

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There's a physics teacher here in Southern California by the name of Floyd Baker, who teaches in one of our universities. And he teaches a difficult subject, and he teaches difficult courses within that subject. Now, he always used to begin his classes in the same way.

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He would say, "All right, here you are, and this is physics number so-and-so." "Understand that you will not be able to go on to any additional physics courses unless you pass this one." "Understand further that I am the only one who teaches this course, so don't think you're going to be able to go to some other professor who will let you by any easier than I will."

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"Understand further that the material in this course is extremely difficult, and you are going to have to study and study and study, and even then, 50% of you will fail." He had a remarkable record as a prophet. About 50% of every class failed.

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And then Floyd Baker met the Lord Jesus Christ at a church a little farther south in this state than our own. And he discovered there that when Jesus approached people, he didn't approach them like that. He approached them like this. He focused especially in his study on 1 Corinthians 13, the great love chapter.

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And he changed his whole approach to his classes. He would go in and he would say this, "Well, we're going to have a wonderful time together, but it will be difficult." "There's a lot of material that has to be mastered here, but I have been teaching this course for so many years that I can get it across to you."

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"And you and me together, nothing can stop us from passing this course." "And we'll have a good time along the way." Now, fact. Fact. Without changing his grading procedures in any way, shape, or form,

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the incidence of passing in his course has changed from 50% to 96%. Now, all he's doing is loving them just the way they are. And that's the first thing you have to do with a bound person, with you or Lazarus. Love them just the way he is.

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Now, he may have the stink of death about him, like Martha says, you know. And that's the way that King James has it, "But Lord, he stinketh." And some of them are pretty stinky. But the fact of the matter is that love is to be the attitude with which they're greeted.

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Now, the second principle to remember is this. Seek to bring them into relationship with some unbound people. Jesus says to those who are gathered about, "Loose him and let him go." He brings the one who is wrapped in these funerary trappings, in this dull life,

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he brings this one immediately into contact with people who are unbound and free. You see, people who are dead, people who are without any thrill or excitement in their lives, they have a tendency to congregate together. They think the only person who really understands me is the person who's like me.

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And so they reinforce one another's negativities. And if any of them does begin to get a progressive or idealistic thought, the others immediately help him out by shooting it down. So it's very important to get this individual into company with people

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who show him freedom and excitement and the joy that is part of the faith. I had an experience in Africa two summers ago. I landed at the Kinshasa International Airport. The Kinshasa International Airport is about one-half the size of Burbank Airport over here.

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And it happens to be the principal airport in Zaire, which is the new twentieth-century name for what used to be called the Belgian Congo. And I arrived there at five o'clock in the morning, and I was the only white on the plane. And I walked into a great sea of blackness.

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And there wasn't a sign in the airport. I don't suppose it would have done me any good to have any signs anyway, because everybody was speaking either Chaluben or Bakuta, and those don't happen to be languages with which I am familiar.

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Now, to further complicate the picture, you've got to understand that I had to catch a plane immediately to go inland to a place called Mbuji-Mai. And it's very difficult to catch another plane

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when there aren't any signs telling you where to catch it, and you've never been there before, and nobody speaks the language that you're trying to speak. And also, in a situation where there is no concept of the line.

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Now here, quite naturally, if a group of people want to get to a window, they line up. But in the Congo, there is no sense of the line. Everybody just converges. You just push in. That's the way they do it.

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And you wave your ticket, you see, trying to catch the attention of the ticket seller who was on the other side of the wall. So there I was, in the midst of these 300 people. At one point, I was caught between a 450-pound Chaluban woman, at least that,

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and on the other side, a magnificently pregnant woman from the same tribe. A few weeks later in Kenya, I saw a baboon trapped between two rhinoceri, and I knew just how he felt. And while I was there, in the midst of that situation,

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suddenly there was a tap on the shoulder, and a voice said, "I say, Yank, do you need any help?" And I'm sure he did not expect to be kissed, but he was, right there in the midst of the crowd. And he took me by the hand, and he led me to another room.

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This man had been going out and finding English-speaking people who were lost. There were others in the crowd, and taking them off into the other room. And there, when we got together, we were laughing at our predicament, laughing at each other, complimenting each other on having gotten that far.

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And after about 10 minutes of encouragement, one man, who must have been at least 75 years old, walked over to the door and said, "Come now, group, we shall plunge into the interior." And we did. And we did it joyously.

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We had been brought from the situation of being bound, and believe me, I felt very bound. When I was out there in the middle of that group, I was like a little kid, emotionally immature, lost, and not knowing which way to go. And I was filled with fear, and I had no expectations of ever being found.

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My frying pan was a lot smaller than 10 inches. But brought into the company of people who were laughing, and who were in charge of the situation, and who were dynamic and controlled and purposeful, well, that just flooded right into me.

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The second thing to do with individuals who have no "we" in their lives is to bring them into contact with people who will do what Jesus told those who gathered about the tomb of Lazarus to do, loose them, and let them go. The third thing to do is this.

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Be easy on Lazarus. The individual who's all trapped so that he cannot breathe freely and try new ideas, and can't accept newness or dynamism in his life, that person will be by nature defensive.

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So don't try to batter your way into their experience. It's very helpful, I think, to notice how Jesus dealt with the woman at the well, or with Peter, or with Matthew, or with that woman who came into the house of the Pharisee and washed his feet with her hair.

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All of these people came bound in one way or another, and Jesus met with them in a way of absolute tenderness and gentleness. Did you notice that when Hyrue Onada, this Japanese soldier, surrendered last week, that they treated his act with the greatest dignity?

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The President of the Philippines came to receive his surrender. It was on nationwide television. There was an honor guard that escorted him, and he ceremoniously presented his sword. And as soon as President Marcos of the Philippines received it,

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he presented it right back to him, and then put his arms about him and embraced him. I think that President showed great insight at that moment. He knew how hard moving out of being tied up into being free was going to be for this man. And he didn't make it any harder than it absolutely had to be.

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Don't focus on their mistakes in the past. Don't ridicule them because of their fears. Don't laugh at their timidities or their weaknesses. Instead of that, be tender.

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Did you notice that later in the gospel stories, Jesus repeatedly does kind things for Lazarus? The kindest one of all was that during the last week of his earthly life, he spent it in Lazarus' home.

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He was constantly ministering to the man and encouraging him in the new and free life which was his. This brings me immediately to the last point, and it's a crucially important one. When you are dealing with Lazarus, when you have loved him, and when you have brought him into contact with other free people,

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and when you have developed the art of approaching him in such a way that he does not feel defensive, but instead opens to receive you, beware that in that situation you don't get trapped in his grave clothes. You will notice from the story that Jesus didn't spend any time in that cemetery.

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He got out of there right away. The narrative closes with certain individuals planning from that day on as to how they were going to put Jesus to death. And as soon as you get engaged in freeing some people, and giving them the joy of that freedom, there will be other people who will resent it,

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and will resent you because you are doing it. And they will attempt to ensnare you in the grave clothes of their own closed lifestyle. Please turn your cassette to the other side. Please turn your cassette to the other side.

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Please turn your cassette to the other side. [static] [silence] This last Thursday night I was flying in from Seattle.

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I've been preaching in Tacoma and Seattle, Washington this last week. It really wasn't Thursday night, it was Friday morning, it was 2 a.m. And it was rather foggy, and we're coming into Los Angeles International. And because it was foggy I was looking out the window.

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I'd seen it been foggier on other occasions. And we came down and eventually I could see the lights through the fog, and then the pattern of the streets. And then we came over the end of the runway,

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and I could even see the brake marks from the airplane and the painted marks on the runway. And I turned to the person next to me. We were about, I would estimate, 100 feet off the ground at that point. And I turned to the person next to me and I said, "Well, we're home."

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And just then that pilot stood that airplane right on its end and soared up in that way. And everything up on the luggage racks came flying out, and we were thrown against our seatbelts so that I still have the bruises all about me here. Where suddenly I was slammed against it just like everyone else, screaming and yelling.

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Now I don't know to this moment exactly what happened. They brought us over to Burbank and landed us over here. But I do know that there are times when you minister to people who are dull and confined and dead and entombed. There are times when you can get down to the place where if you are not aware of what is happening,

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you will find yourself trapped there. And when you realize that that's going to happen, get out of there quick. Now I'll give you the danger signal. The thing to watch for in yourself is the moment

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when you decide that all the troubles in your life are being caused by others. At the moment that you begin to believe that kind of everybody's gathered against you in some kind of conspiracy and nobody really understands, at the moment when you want to go out and eat a green worm,

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at precisely that moment, watch out. That moment of self-indulgence, self-pity, that's the moment when you begin to retreat. That's the moment when you begin to crawl into your cave.

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And that's the moment that's to be avoided at all costs. That's the time to pull out, to get immediately into company with people who will help to lift you rather than to ensnare you, and to give yourself especially to God in prayer,

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to go to the reservoir of the Holy Spirit for the new life he imparts. I was kind of surprised in the first service this morning when I discovered that a lot of our young people don't remember the famous trial in New York City about 20 years ago when those 11 communists were brought before the bar of justice

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for attempting to overthrow the government of the United States. What the Chicago 7 did just a few years ago, and that which the kids readily remembered, was of course anticipated by a good number of years by what those communists did at that time.

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They did everything they could to disrupt that trial. It was being presided over, you will recall, by a man named Harold Medina. They were arrogant. They were belligerent. They were abusive. They were foul-mouthed. They did everything they could to cause that man, that judge, to lose his cool

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and to declare that trial a mistrial. For seven and a half months, that man sat in the courtroom subjected to that kind of treatment. During that seven and a half months, his own life was threatened,

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the life of his wife was threatened, the lives of all of his children were threatened. One day, there was a brief recess in the trial, and as he left the courtroom he suddenly was overcome with dizziness. He went off into a little ante room and stretched out on a cot there.

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And suddenly, the whole weight of this seven and a half months of rigid, doctrinaire belligerence and opinion, this being caught up in people who were enslaved by a system and were trying to enslave him with the same system,

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all of this pouring in upon seven and a half months of arguments, it just became too much. And he cried out, "God, I can't do it! I cannot go back into that courtroom! God, I am utterly unable!" And then, and he himself wrote about this later,

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without any roll of the drums or sound of the trumpet, he suddenly became aware of the presence of God's Spirit, and it flowed into him in absolute silence. And for fifteen minutes, he just rested in the arms of God.

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And at the end of that fifteen minutes, he got up, took up his gavel, finished out the rest of that trial, it was another month and a half long, and wrote one of the finest chapters that's ever been written in the legal history of the United States of America.

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At the moment when he was about to get trapped, he pulled out! Beware of that. That leads me to conclude what I share with you this morning with an expression of thanks.

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A thanksgiving to God, and a thanksgiving to a whole lot of you. Because so many of you are free and unbound and dynamic and vital and exciting and joyous people. And you know, there have been times when we together have confronted those who said,

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"It's no use. The time has come to crawl into your cave just as we've crawled into ours." I'll never forget in 1968 when I came, our church had a debt. There were some people that said we were in first class financial condition. As a matter of fact, we were in a debt and the bank was knocking on the door

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because we were behind. And there were a certain number of people who said, "We'll never be able to pay that." But the free people in the congregation said, "We will pay it," and we did. And then it wasn't long after that that some young families came and they said,

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"Look, we take our children up and we put them into that nursery on the second floor and there's only one wooden staircase going up to that nursery and there's no adult class nearby to help if there's an emergency and we don't think that's a safe place to leave our children."

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And the free people in our congregation heard that and they said, "You're right. We're going to change that." Now there were some people that said, "Of course, there was no way to do that. We couldn't afford that, and besides that, there was no place for it to be built."

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And you know what a bright and shiny and safe nursery we have today. And then somebody came along and they said, "You know, we're not doing an adequate job in the summertime. We only have vacation Bible school which lasts two weeks and we can only reach a few dozen children in that time.

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Why not have a program for young people that goes all summer long and which enlists many of our young people in its service?" "Oh, you can't do that." "Why, we could never expect it. We've never had that many before.

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How would we have that many now?" And the kids wouldn't want to give their time anyway, would they? And now we have hundreds, hundreds involved in that summer program because the free and the unbound, the majority,

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the overwhelming majority of the people in our fellowship said, "We can do it," and did it. And then someone said, "You know, our church has been derelict in its ministry to the blacks.

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We haven't really been concerned for our brothers and sisters whose skin pigmentation happens to be different than our own." "Oh, you can't do that in Glendale. I mean, you know, if you try to do that in Glendale, you're going to raise a lot of people.

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We'll be walking out of the church." And you heard H. and Terry a little while ago, and you know that that black ministry toward which we contribute more than any other church in the United States of America,

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the biggest black ministry in the state of Mississippi, is only one of five black ministries in which we as a congregation are engaged. And we are pleased to have blacks as members of the fellowship of this church. Some people said it couldn't be, but the free people said it will be, and it is.

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Well, then we had an earthquake, and there were a lot of people who rolled it all up then. Well, GPC had a great history for 90 years, and it was fine while it lasted.

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Let's pitch a tent and wait for the Lord to return. And there were others who said, "Uh-uh. No. The Lord's going to return, but when he returns, he's going to find us worshiping him in the beauty of holiness

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and building his kingdom. And the trust and the confidence and the joy and the enthusiasm and the freedom and the courage and the "we" of those people is standing right in front of you when you walk through those doors

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following this worship service this morning. And I just thank God that he has given me the privilege of being part of this fellowship of free men and women who have been willing to dream like that and do those things.

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It's great to be free, joyous. It's great to set other people free, too. So we must be dealing with those who have no "we" in their lives and giving to them the joy we already know.

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A few years ago, Los Angeles Times said of this church, "It is one of the alivest churches in the Southland." My message to the Los Angeles Times this morning is, "Los Angeles Times, you ain't seen nothing yet."

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Let us pray. O God, our Father, we thank thee that we have heard the call of Jesus to come forth and have come. And we beseech thee to enable us in love and tenderness,

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in patience and forbearance and loving kindness, to bring all those who have no "we" or excitement or dynamism or joy in their lives to the same power from thee which we have experienced. Do this for us that we might do this for them.

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We hear your word to loose them and let them go. Help us in that ministry for their sake and for our sake and most of all for the sake of that Jesus who gives us life and life eternal. We ask it in his name.

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Amen. (thuffs)