Beyond The Limits Of Our Own Abilities
COTR
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February is Black History Month in the US
Following our tradition and befitting the emphasis our church and nation has placed on this month allow me to tell you about a couple of people who helped to shape the American society, values and freedoms we all enjoy today.
We will use their stories to give concrete examples of the life principles Jesus lived, taught and expects us to embrace.
I. The Year: 1820
(44 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence)
(31 years after the ratification of the Constitution of the US and George Washington became its first president: 1789-1797)
(James Monroe had just won his second term election as the 5th president of the US while the Missouri territory had just been denied their application for admission to the Union as a slave state sending congress into two difficult years of political struggle before reaching the Missouri Compromise)
(43 years before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln)
A. The Place: A plantation in Dorchester County, Maryland.
B. The Person: Harriet Tubman
C. The Situation: Slavery An African American slave, Harriet Greene gave birth to a daughter born into slavery named Araminta. Araminta worked from early childhood as a field hand, woodcutter, cook, maid and nurse. In 1844 she married John Tubman, a free Black Man. Five years later she heard that she was to be sold off to another plantation and taken away from her husband and family. Araminta fled in 1849 as a run away slave and made it to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and took on her mother’s first name, Harriet. In December 1850 she left her safety and traveled to Baltimore and led her sister and two children to freedom. That would be the first of 19 increasingly dangerous forays into Maryland in which, during the next decade, she conducted over 300 fugitive slaves along the ‘Underground Railroad’ to Canada. Her extraordinary courage, ingenuity, persistence and iron discipline made her the most famous conductor of fugitives and earned her the title of “Moses of her people.” Rewards offered by slaveholders for her capture eventually totaled $40,000.00. From 1862 to 1865 she continued to serve her cause as a laundress, a scout, a spy, and a nurse for the Union forces in South Carolina. She became known as General Tubman. After the civil war she settled in Auburn, New York and began taking in orphans and the elderly. Some 30 years after her service the US Congress passed a private bill providing $20.00 per month as a federal pension for her Civil War services. Harriet Tubman died on March 10, 1913 at age 93. Her works continue to outlive her earthly struggles.
D. The Results: Lives changed forever.
II. The Year: 1955
A. The Place: Montgomery, Alabama
B. The Person: Rosa Parks
B. The Situation: Segregation The laws of Montgomery concerning bus segregation. A 42 year old woman arrested for refusing to move to a seat behind a white man who had boarded the bus and wished to sit in the row she occupied.
D. The Results: A world changed forever. 382 days later the US Supreme Court declared segregated seating on the city’s buses unconstitutional. Martin Luther King, Jr., President of the bus boycott became a nationally known leader of the new front for the civil rights movement in the United States leading to many of the freedoms and benefits we take for granted today.
Question: Where do people get this kind of courage?
Answer: Look with me in Mark 16:9-11
9 ¶ Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.
10 And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept.
11 And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not.
III. The Year: AD 28 or 29
A. The Place: Outside the city walls of Jerusalem
B. The Person: Mary of Magdala, earlier delivered of 7 devils and multiple infirmities and evil practices (Luke 8:2)
C. The Situation: Election Jesus has risen from the dead
D. The Results: Eternity changed forever. She became the first called, chosen and sent evangelist of the resurrected Savior, Jesus … but was not believed … nonetheless she responded in a day and time, in a situation and to a people that was unaccepting of her ministry and message. She did not ask for the job but she did respond pleasing to her Lord. Her pattern of being sent by Jesus is still the pattern which carries the gospel into all the world.
IV. Jesus Taught, Lived and Expected Others To Embrace 3 Simple Principles of Life: Laws Which Govern Life
A. #1: You Have To Use What You Have To Get What You Want
1. What you have is all you have
2. Who and what you are is all you are
3. Life deals the cards … you play the hand
A. Take Inventory of What You Have
B. Decide What It Is That You Want
C. Apply Yourself
B. #2: You Have To Start Where You Are To Get Where You Are Going
1. Life gives us the opportunities
2. What is in that room beyond the door of fear
3. ‘You can’t get there from here’ is stinking thinking
4. There is a road right in front of you that leads where you want to go.
C. #3 You Have To Attempt Things You Cannot Do To Accomplish The Things You Can Do
1. The principle of stretching
2. Press the envelope
A. four minute miles
B. motorcycle jumping … who started that stuff … (principle)
C. Test pilots
3. It was not possible for Harriet Tubman to change her situation … It was not possible for Rosa Parks to move the pen of the Supreme Court …
It was not possible for a consort with devils to become the first messenger of Christ … but they did!
4. We, as a church, cannot possibly
*proclaim the gospel in every nation in the world;
*stop the 30,000 people each day from dying because they don’t have clean water;
*equip and motivate Christians of the world to win souls on a daily basis;
*open up a country currently closed to the message of Jesus;
*birth and network with a dozen or more local churches in our own surrounding communities to enhance and advance the kingdom of God;
*go live online world wide with our weekly church services and kingdom expansion tools;
*operate a medical clinic staffed with Christian care givers in the form of doctors, nurses, counselors, nutritionists, prayer warriors and pastoral graces;
*build a Holy Ghost filled retirement center for our aging population;
*fund and build bible schools, churches, hospitals, orphanages and feeding centers world wide providing spiritual and humanitarian relief to millions world wide on a daily basis …
*but we will:
#1: Use what we have to get what we need
#2: Start where we are to get where we want to be
#3: Attempt things we cannot do to accomplish what we can
VI. Greatness lives inside normal people
A. Only those afraid can ever experience bravery & courage
B. Don’t let life push you around
1. Failures
2. Fears
3. Firsts
4. The fainthearted
C. Attempt the impossible
1. Use what you have, don’t wait for all you need
2. Start now to go toward where you want to be
3. Define your limitations, don’t let your limitations define you.
