Taking accurate notes on Adams sermon – from Paul’s comments on freedom in the
book of Galatians – was a futile exercise. Nevertheless, I want to take a stab at reflecting a couple of his several dozen points.Many people seem to feel that Christ is not sufficient, he said, “that we need some extra insurance just in case God’s love has lost its power.” So, Adams said, they changed the “hard period of God’s grace to the nervous semi-colon of rigid absolutism.”
But, Adams said, “God’s grace is sufficient, period. … Jesus has set us free, period. … God’s mercy endures forever, period.”
“We like to take God’s word and turn it into a “semi-colon, but …,” Adams said. “And then comes all the rules, regulations, qualifications, stipulations, conditions (and a half-dozen other words) created by our own insecure rejection of amazing grace.”
As a result, Adams said, “The living word gets straight-jacketed into someone’s particular interpretation of the written word.”
But that won’t work, Adams insisted. “You cannot control Jesus, … keep him down, … control his spirit. … He will not stay dead …He will not remain laid out in the tomb. … He walks on every sea and rides on every star for freedom. …
“Don’t let anybody tell you what you can’t do if you’re free in Christ!”
Adams followed with dozens of examples of things people think they can’t do – but he insisted they can do – through the power of Christ. On the heels of that, he ran through a roster of men and women who, alone with the power of God, made a difference in the world because of the “liberty, dignity, integrity and unity” that comes through Christ.
To express praise to Christ for the freedom we can know, Adams closed with a Gatling gun quick recitation of “thank you” in what seemed like at least 20 languages, closing with a furious skyward waving of his arms to interpret his idea of a “thank you” for the deaf.
When Adams collapsed in his chair after his sermon, he wasn’t the only one who was tired – just trying to keep up was enough to exhaust any listener – but well worth the effort.
5 comments:
Tony,
If your description of Mr. Adam's sermon is half way accurate, all I can think of is the words of Jude:
"For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."
Mark Osgatharp
Wynne, Arkansas
Having been present for this sermon, I can only say that the Spirit of the Lord in the room was a real as I have ever experienced. If what that man preached was not gospel, then I don't know what is.
Best sermon of all the ones I heard in Atlanta this week!!
I grew up when to be Baptist meant to be not Pentacostal and not Catholic. I have never attended a charismatic worship service in my life. However, while I hung on to my chair and sometimes sprang to my feet and understood every word Dr. Adams said (except for all the thank you's in foreign languages), I knew without a doubt I was hearing a man who had been filled with the Holy Spirit. He started off slow and dry--and then... Even his physical collapse at the end seemed Spirit-related. God was in the Georgia Congress Center Friday night in a powerful way. The music was powerful beyond human ability. We learned of modern martyrdom from the gentle Gaza Baptist pastor who testified before us.
Then Clinton, who was bound to be an anticlimax, was moved to discard his notes and speak from his heart. Then Carter discarded HIS notes and, with a sense of embarrassment, described a dark night of the soul when he went door-to-door witnessing, praying on his knees in the streets for those who dwelt within. In a final unscripted moment, the man presiding Friday night called Celebration leadership to the stage and asked them to join hands. Then he asked us--black and white, Asian and Hispanic--to join hands as we sang the old invitation hymn, "Have Thine Own Way."
This was God's work, not man's. You can hear all four talks at the Covenant site, but you won't be able to feel the wind of the Spirit that blew over all of us who listened, worshiped, prayed and sang.
As an afterthought, a New Testament scholar I know, a man who had a distinguished career at one of the SBC seminaries, called a pastor/scholar friend to say that Adams' sermon was the finest exposition of Galatians 4 and 5, freedom in Christ, that he had ever heard.
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