Remembering Pastor Chuck Smith

no it is always a little bit of an awkward thing being a pastor and when your birthday happens to fall on a Sunday because there's no kind of ignoring it but it's true fifty-one years ago today my mom gave birth to twins and so my older sister Diane was born first and as she just reminded me in a phone call between services she's 10 minutes older than I am so I am officially the youngest in our family but yes thank you for the birthday wishes and you know for me I mean I really believe that the best thing I can do on a birthday it's like a birthday present for me to stand a bunt in front of a bunch of people and talk to them about God's Word and God's works so I'm very grateful for the opportunity although I have to say we're doing something very different this particular Sunday morning because we're gonna take a one-week pause in our journey through Hebrews even though I have to say wouldn't you know it I'm doing it just before one of the most dramatic and controversial passages in Hebrews it's almost like I'm trying to build up the anticipation or something but I'm not um we're taking a week off to do something kind of special because this very week I'm Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa went to heaven on Thursday October it's uh third how about that I mean really the great news is that he passed away peacefully surrounded by his family having preached three services last Sunday preached three services Sunday and then did the radio program on Monday was feeling a little tired on Tuesday and before the Sun came up on Thursday morning he was with Jesus and again such a peaceful pastor now when I say that when you look at the picture and when you think about this you you made no and I appreciate there may be several people in this room you don't even know who Chuck Smith is and you know that's perfectly fine because you know we don't title ourselves nor do we think of ourselves as the church of Chuck Smith nor would he have wanted us to in anyway yet nevertheless um I just want you to know that this is a man who's had a significant impact on my life but not uniquely my life as I'll discuss through this morning I think literally on millions of lives but so much of it without any way of seeking to draw attention to himself or significance to his name he never appeared on the cover of Christianity today much less Time magazine or Newsweek or anything like that he didn't have the same you know celebrity status as some celebrity pastors do in our own day but nevertheless this man had I believe an absolutely historical impact on the church you know one things I do is I teach a class on church history from time to time and I've taught it many times before to Bible College I was associated with and you can't teach church history without giving some focus to significant men and women throughout the history of the church look I'm just telling you and I know I might be a little bit biased but I'm trying to be as impartial as I can Chuck Smith is a man who's going to stand in the history of the church as a very significant figure and so I think it's time and it's a good Sunday for us to consider a little bit about his life and what we can learn from it he was 86 years old and he had been the pastor of Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa for almost 50 years he'd been Christian ministry for some 65 years and even if you don't know who he is even if it's the first time you see his picture or you haven't read any of his books or listened to his things I think that he's probably had an impact on your life now I'm not going to do a regular exposition of Scripture this morning but I do want to start out by reading a passage of Scripture that I think is very relevant to what I'm going to talk about it's Psalm 78 starting at verse 1 let me read this to you Psalm 78 starting at verse 1 give ear all my people to my law incline your ears to the words of my mouth I will open my mouth and a parable I will utter dark sayings of old which we have heard known and her fathers have told us we will not hide them from our children from their children telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he has done for he has established a testimony and Jacob and appointed a law in Israel which he commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children that the generation to come might know them the children who would be born that they may arise and declare to them their children that they may set their hope in God and not forget the works of the Lord but keep his Commandments and not be like their fathers a stubborn and rebellious generation a generation that did not set its heart a right and whose spirit was not faithful to God Psalm 78 is a majestic Psalm but one of the great themes at least found in those first eight verses is this idea that the People of God should remember and recount the great things that God has done now we believe in that very strongly we do it a lot when it comes to the great things that God has done as recorded in the scripture and we love to do that time and time again on Sundays and midweeks and other things that we do we love to take a look at God's Word and talk about how it talks to us about the great things that he's done but you know what God didn't stop working when the Bible was completed and delivered to us in the 2,000 years that God has established his church on this earth God has been doing a lot of work he's done it through great men and women throughout the history of the church and one of those men is Chuck Smith and so I want to do something unusual as maybe a little bit vast thing should I do this or sure not I really want to teach the Hebrews passage but you know what I think I don't want to let this Sunday go by without taking a look at the life and the lessons that we can learn from this man Chuck Smith because he impacted the Christian Church especially in the second half of the 20th century like few other people have done directly and indirectly thousands and thousands of churches have been planted all over the world as a fruit of his war work directly and indirectly tens of thousands of pastors both in the calvary chapel movement and far far beyond have come as a fruit of his work i don't know if it surprises you but sometimes it surprises me oftentimes I'll meet pastors from all different church backgrounds Christian Missionary Alliance a grace Brethren Presbyterian Methodists Baptists and so many of them from my generation they'll say oh yeah I was a part of calvary chapel in my youth oh yeah Chuck Smith had a mass as influenced in me on my youth and it's his influence upon a generation of leaders has gone far beyond those who just sort of take the name or associated with calvary chapel directly and indirectly and I'm not exaggerating here millions of people have come to a saving trust in in a relationship with Jesus Christ and millions more have been led to Christian maturity through his Bible teaching and broader ministry I mean friends look do you think that God has done a great work through Greg glory and the harvest Crusades all that flows forth from Chuck Smith now look I'm speaking humanly here can we allow me just to speak humanly for a moment because I know God could have done things all different ways but speaking humanly just for a moment no Chuck Smith no Greg Laurie that's how it works so I mean it when I say directly and indirectly the worship environment of the contemporary Christian Church was essentially birthed through the Ministry of Chuck Smith and there are thousands of churches who are beneficiaries of that influence even though they don't even know the name of Pastor Chuck and the emphasis on the verse-by-verse exposition of the Bible as the center of the preaching and teaching ministry of the church has had a vast influence in and through Chuck Smith I don't know if you know but Chuck Smith was born and raised in Ventura but actually his family roots are here in Santa Barbara and Chuck loves Santa Barbara matter of fact shortly before a Chuck was born his family moved from santa barb down to Ventura and in some ways he always kind of thought of himself more as a cent to barbarian than aventurine no really I mean he loved this area every time he would come up for a visit or anytime I would have any personal interaction he'd want to know about Santa Barbara and the things that were going Chuck told me that his grandmother was one of the first white children born here in Santa Barbara and so he very much felt a connection to this area raised in Ventura his family moved to Ventura shortly after Cho shortly before Chuck was born and Chuck was here at the very beginnings of this church and he was here preaching from this pulpit as recently as July 2010 the chuck grew up in a Christian home under the strong influence of his godly praying mother and a father whom he described as being a very easy natural evangelist but it was in 1942 when Chuck Smith was 15 years old that he felt a call on his life to full-time Christian service before that he had oriented his life is just being one of these all-stars stellar excellent young men towards being a medical doctor that's really what he wanted to do and he believed that he could help people and do good in God's world by being a medical doctor but at 15 years of age he really believed that God was calling him to Christian service he grew up in the Foursquare Church in Ventura and he went to Bible College at the Foursquare Bible College in Los Angeles known as Life Bible College it was there during those years that he met his wife and married fairly young this wonderful woman who became his wife Kay and as they launched out from Bible College he was very much like many young men who are gifted who are talented who are capable coming out of Bible College they just kind of think that the world is waiting for them and it's going to be one success after another is that a very common youthful sort of feeling especially when a young man is as gifted and capable as Pastor Chuck was in those early years so his first pastor it began in June 1948 at Prescott Arizona he made $15 a week in his first pastor and their rent was $45 a month do the math on that but listen those were good years early years and the testimony of Chuck through those early years is how God always provided so after the pastor in Prescott there was another pastor in Tucson than in Corona but those years were tough for Chuck not just financially in trusting God but in ministry itself when Chuck Smith tank came to Corona he came to a congregation of 57 people two years later when he left the congregation there were 27 people and seven of them were his own family that hurts that's humbling it's humbling for a young man who believes that the world is kind of waiting for him and he genuinely is gifted and capable but you see Chuck was being taught by God in a very important way and one of the things he learned was he learned and his next stop which was Huntington Beach you see in Huntington Beach Chuck loved living there he loved the community he loved the lifestyle he loved to surf but there was a problem his pattern up to that point had been to move from Pastor it to Pastor it every two years why cuz he ran out of servants I mean basically he had two years worth of sermons that he carried with him from place to place now the problem was we said he was coming up to his two-year mark in Huntington Beach and he really loved living there how does he stay there even though he's preached up his two years worth the sermons then I believe it was God that led him through his desire to stay in Huntington Beach and surf God led him to the idea of look I can teach verse by verse through books of the Bible and I don't need to be confined to two years worth of sermons so the first book he started forward with a book of first John he taught through the book verse by verse to his people then he went to Romans and not only was God doing a revolutionary work in the church the church doubled in this time but God was doing a deep work in Chuck especially teaching him about Grace and a grace relationship with God because even though Pastor Chuck grew up in godly home the church environment that he was raised with as well a lot of people will recognize it was a environment that was very much marked by a works relationship with God there was a lot of guilt there was a lot of you know just pressure and it works mentality and it's through studying and coming into that understanding of the book of Romans that God set his heart free with an understanding of His grace I'll never forget what I heard Pastor Chuck Smith say at a conference once he said this and there was such emotion in his voice when he said this he said I was saved as a very young child I don't remember my conversion experience Chuck said but he said this I'll never forget my grace experience because God communicated something very special about the principles and the powers of His grace yet nevertheless all in all those 17 years of pastoral ministry before coming to Calvary Chapel were primarily about training Chuck Chuck said this quote unfortunately I saw no fruits coming out of my 17 years of hard labor I had invested in my new ministry I was discouraged and defeated watching as my strong youthful years passed and energy began to wane I finally abandoned my bright ideas every program and every contest that could be devised had been tried and failed miserably you see in the denominational background the Chuck was familiar with contests and promotions and programs were the big deal at least at that time and Chuck came to the place where he was just sick of it all he didn't want to be part of any of that he just wanted to love his people and teach them the Word of God without the weirdness without the competitions without dividing the congregation into the blues and the Reds and let's see who can bring more to church the next week now let's just love God and carry it on now eventually Chuck came back to Corona and was pastoring a small church there and face sort of a crossroads in his ministry and these were the crossroads he had a young family that he had to provide for but the ministry was small enough and difficult enough that it just wasn't paying the bills and he had a job at a supermarket and he had the opportunity to get promoted up in the job to go from part-time to full-time and go into management and through that he could provide a good living for his family that he couldn't seem to provide for his family through the ministry and it was a genuine crossroads am I going to go this way and stay in the ministry or am I gonna do the sensible thing and go this way and get a real jobs that I can provide for my family what am I gonna do so what did he do after a sleepless night he simply added up all of his outstanding bills they added up to four hundred and sixteen dollars and he said Lord this is it you know I need four hundred sixteen dollars I have no idea where I'm gonna get it I guess I got to leave the ministry and I got to go and take this opportunity to advance in the supermarket that day he got a call from a friend who completely out of the blue and not knowing Chuck's need at all said that he was gonna send him a check for four hundred and twenty six dollars the exact need plus ten dollars more well when Chuck got that call he was so excited he put down the phone he did a little dance with care around the kitchen floor was just great yes this is so wonderful and then as he recounts the story God spoke something to his heart right then it's really kind of a difficult thing God spoke this to his heart how do you know he's gonna send the cheque and Chuck's like fab Lord what what huh how do you know he's gonna send the cheque and Chuck's us what he's an honorable man he wouldn't call me up and tell me he's gonna promise and provide this need for me and then not do it and Chuck said you got so happy when a man a promise to provide for your needs yet when I promised to provide for your needs you couldn't sleep at night and this is what God taught Pastor Chuck that you got to trust God all the way that there's no halfway trust in God that you got to be all-in and trust the Lord well eventually a new Bible study group in Corona started flourishing and people started financially supporting Chuck and the work and it really prospered they engaged the cutting-edge technology of the time to extend the ministry the cassette tape and they were making all kinds of cassette tapes and distributing the teaching of chucks ministry they're in Corona and the church was growing it seems so exciting and they even have enough money to go on the radio and do a little radio program and it just seems so exciting so good it seemed like Chuck was finally going to come into the place of ministry that he always wanted to be right there in Corona yet in those years at that time and this is the mid 1960s very unexpectedly God spoke to Chuck and led him through a series of circumstances and guidances to come to a little Church in Costa Mesa named Calvary Chapel he left a growing thriving supporting work there in Corona to join a struggling I don't know if this is entirely fair but I'll risk the word dysfunctional Church of 25 people in Costa Mesa that were praying that this man Chuck Smith would come and be their pastor it seemed crazy it seemed like an insane thing to do why would I leave this to go to that but he felt like the Holy Spirit was leading him to do it you see this little Church in Costa Mesa Calvary Chapel it had been started in the Year 1961 by a man named Floyd Nelson Floyd Nelson was a man who started this as an independent church it didn't have any denominational ties but he himself was back from a Foursquare background sort of a Pentecostal background so they started this as an independent church and they just loved the Lord they started in a community room of a trailer park for elderly people but by 1965 they had had their own building and it was a small building it would seat about 90 people at the most kind of worn down but it was just a little good little you know Church of sincere people right there in the city of Costa Mesa but before Chuck ever came to that small Church there were people praying for him and there was a prayer meeting that gathered some of these 25 people from the church there and as they pray they believed that God gave them a prophecy and the prophecy without recounting it from word-for-word but just sort of the general idea of the prophecy the prophecy went something like this number one this man Chuck Smith is going to come and accept the call to be your pastor number two he is going to ask you to make changes to the church building and especially to the platform number three this man Chuck Smith God is going to bless the ministry that God gives him and this church is going to have a very wide influence and there's going to be world known for the influence that it is that's a pretty audacious prophecy from a struggling Church of 25 people well when Chuck Smith came to speak nobody told about the prophecy I mean who would but look they were delighted it was a good Sunday they went out to a restaurant with him afterwards they were just asking Chuck about things and then all out of the blue Chuck said you know I really love you guys his church but you know what if you guys made some changes to the sanctuary and especially to the platform and he started sketching some things out and the people were all big I they couldn't believe it now they still didn't tell him about the prophecy but Chuck couldn't understand why was they were so enthusiastic about making every change that he suggested and through that and some other circumstances Chuck Smith came in 1965 to this little congregation in Costa Mesa now it didn't start out immediately to be something amazing but the church was blessed and the church did grow right away I mean pretty soon they were maxed out filling the 90 seats that could be filled there but it was still a very traditional kind of service it wasn't anything remarkable it wasn't anything wow this is new it certainly wasn't anything that would connect with the amazing changes going on in the youth culture of that day which some people call the hippie movement what some people would call you know the the revolution that happened in the late 1960s but God was going to work something and Pastor Chuck too that you see to understand all of this you need to understand a little bit something about the Jesus Movement it's impossible to say exactly when and where the Jesus Movement began it's been called a lot of things some people call them Jesus freaks some people call them Jesus people some people call them Street Christians it wasn't Jesus Movement some people called it a Jesus revolution but it came out of the turbulence of the 1960s you know in retrospect people look back and they swell of course look at all the turbulence look at all the problems people were seeking of course it all makes sense they say that in retrospect at the time nobody was expecting such a mighty outpouring of the Spirit of God upon young people at the time the world has seen be going crazy you see the Jesus movement came from the baby boom generation those busy and prosperous years after the Second World War and there were some 76 million people defined in that sort of people group coming of age in the 1960s and two-thirds of that baby boom generation forsook the religious faith that they were raised in we hear similar statistics today I hear a lot of people despairing about similar statistics today don't you despair God can do something all over again in a very mighty way but in the 1960s it did seem like everything was going crazy television radio rock and roll rejecting parents values it was all about the spirit of the age there was protest against racial injustice and the civil rights movement was strong there was disillusionment as things turned violent with assassinations with Vietnam with riots and with violent protoss protests many many people felt that society was to coin the title of a song from back then the society was on the eve of destruction that's how it felt and in the midst of this kind of turmoil a vast number of young people probably numbering in the millions came to sincere and saving faith in Jesus Christ and nobody could figure it out now look the Jesus Movement was much much bigger than Calvary Chapel nobody should confuse the two and think that the Jesus Movement was equal to Calvary Chapel or Calvary Chapel was equal to Jesus moment no but God had a very special role for Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel to play in the Jesus Movement and this is the primary thing you see so much of those young believers in the Jesus Movement were anti-authoritarian they don't have anything to do with their parents square values and traditional things they were going to do things their own way yet God used Chuck Smith to connect these vital young believers with real church and real ministry and it's kind of like God used that to connect the vitality in the spiritual life of what was happening in the Jesus Movement to a church that would live on through the decades and continue God's work and not fade when that initial ember of the Jesus Movement began to cool but many ways Calvary Chapel was an unlikely place for this to happen you know in the first few years of Calvary Chapel the services were extremely traditional somebody playing the organ a piano player Chuck Smith leading the singing of three hymns every Sunday morning and three hymns with every single verse being sung at those hymns you better believe that and so that was just kind of the atmosphere there the first link they had with the counterculture with the hippie generation was through a church member at Chuck's church named John Higgins John Higgins was a former Roman Catholic who turned to atheist who became a Christian at the year 20 when he was 26 years old by reading a Bible in a hotel room in 1967 he ended up at a Bible study led by Chuck Smith John Higgins decided to grow a beard he decided to live out on the streets he decided to connect with young people because he felt like he could speak their language and bring them to Christ he asked Pastor Chuck about his plans and pastor Chuck said praise the Lord go for it all of this was incomplete synch with the increasing burden that Pastor Chuck and if I may say especially his wife Kay felt for what they felt was a lost generation they would look around and they'd see the drugs they'd see the immorality they'd see the broken lives they'd see the ruined people they'd see the anarchy from this young generation all around him and at first Chuck's attitude was kind of this get a haircut the job Kay's attitude was a broken heart and her broken heart came to influence her husband's heart and together they just said we want to reach this generation we want to do what we can well their daughter had a friend who had been part of the drug culture but was now committed to Jesus and so this friend said okay pastor Chuck I'm gonna bring to you a real hippie and that's what he did he brought a real hippie right to the door of Pastor Chuck when he first met Lonnie frisbee he had long hair a beard bells on his feet and flowers in his hair how stereotypical can you get I mean that's like the uber hippie right there I mean this was a man who had come to follow Jesus and very consciously modeled his appearance after Jesus but there was just something about Lonnie that immediately hit people Pastor Chuck said that that meeting on the doorstep with an 18 year old Lonnie frisbee was like this quote from Pastor Chuck I extended my hand and welcomed him into the house as we began to talk I was not at all prepared for the love that this young man would radiate his love of Jesus and his spirit-filled personality lit up the room we asked him to please stay with us for a few days and so they did they welcomed Lonnie in his home and one connection formed with another and they found out that Lonnie and John Higgins were these amazing evangelists and they set him and they turned them loose and hundreds and hundreds of young people from the counterculture from that hippie culture started coming to the Lord in those early days people were coming to the Lord and out of radical situations so fast that unusual things happened an old condemned hotel in Riverside became available and they started a house ministry you know who they chose to lead it to young men one 19 years old and another 17 year old they'd only been Christians for five weeks they became the elders of the house because they had been Christians longer than anybody else during the second week of their ministry there they baptized 65 young converts in a fish pond near the motel the fish pond was so shallow that they had to have them sit down and lean back I bet it was so gunky they probably had to some healing services after that as well hey that summer through that ministry in Riverside five hundred young people came to know Jesus Christ at that time Calvary Chapel had moved from its previous buildings to the little chapel that was there in sunflower Street and that could seat 300 and that was right in line with Chuck's dream Chuck's dream his entire ministry what he aspired to over 17 or more years was to have a church of 250 people he said if I can just get to 250 I'll know I have arrived and so he said what to get to 250 you got to have a room that will hold 300 because you know people don't like to sit so crowded so that's what we'll do I got a church of 300 I can have my congregation of 250 it will be perfect their very first Sunday there 350 people showed up now Pastor Chuck SOT looks our first Sunday a lot of these people are just well-wishers we're going to be okay we're gonna get right back down to our ideal congregation size of 250 the following Sunday 400 people came and that's how it started pastor Chuck said this God shattered my dreams that day and he's been shattering them ever since so with a mixture of faith and fear they bought 11 acres just up the street 11 acres in Orange County for the price of $300,000 don't think of it it'll torture you and on that property they put up a tent they eventually built a sanctuary when they put up the tent there they filled it with 1,600 seeds you can imagine the leap going from a church that seated 300 to 1600 and as they set up the seats on the Saturday night before they were going to have their first service Pastor Chuck looked out over the ocean of empty seats and he said to a friend he said how long do you think it's gonna take for the Lord to fill all these seats his friend looked down at his watch and he said I'd say about 11 hours and it was true when they started their Sunday morning services the place was over packed and hundreds of people were waiting outside a friend's it wasn't because of some brilliance or eloquence on the part of Chuck Smith so much as it was a man who was willing to be faithful to the Word of God open to the Spirit of God and who didn't want to touch any of the glory any of the credit for himself he was really willing to let the Lord do the work and he was willing to take a chance on the flood of the new converts who came in and to connect them with real church I mean one example of this was a 18 year old high school senior named Greg Laurie this young man came to Pastor Chuck after hearing a message of pastor Chuck's titled living water do you know what he did he drew out a cartoon evangelistic tract and he showed it to chuck what did Chuck say said great let's print up a bunch of these and he became an outstanding evangelistic tract and Greg Laurie started getting raised up in ministry and eventually he took over the communal home that Lonnie fries we had started in Riverside when Lonnie frisbee went to Florida in 1971 to be a part of another ministry Greg Greg Laurie took over for him in Riverside in 1971 you see God was doing something amazing not just with the youth culture but among everybody Pastor Chuck relates an amazing story about how in those early years now Kerry Chapel had moved into their sanctuary and they're having services there that there is a very distinguished surgeon who came to attend one of the services and you know if you don't connect with it you need to understand how uncomfortable it was for older people to be around these hippies and those it just seemed weird look you people were older now you know how you freaked out the old folks in your day it's just how it was well here was this distinguished surgeon sitting down and suddenly he finds himself sitting on a Pew surrounded by hippies and he's very uncomfortable and he's thinking you know if these kids really love Jesus they'd get a haircut if these kids really love Jesus they'd stop dressing like this and they you know they they get straightened up put some shoes on for heaven's sakes would it kill you to do that so this is how he felt until Pastor Chuck started the Bible study and said let's all open our Bibles to now the surgeon was a believer but he never brought a Bible with him to church so he's kind of like I don't really have my Bible all the hippies around him did then the hippies sitting right next to him said sir would you like to borrow my Bible so okay I'll take it from me I mean hope it doesn't have any insects on it or anything he took the Bible from him and as he started thumbing through the pages of that hippies Bible he could see it highlighted he could see it underlined he could see that pages were worn out from so much use he could see that whoever owned that Bible loved God and loved His Word in a way that mr. distinguished surgeon did not and God just broke his heart what does it matter what is the outward look matter if somebody really loves Jesus if somebody's really going to be committed to Jesus and to his word that unique and powerful atmosphere at Calvary Chapel made people feel welcome I love the words of a man named romaine who was an assistant pastor with Pastor Chuck for many years he said this quote we're not supposed to be thrown into hell because we're different or odd or weird so whatever God sends in the back door homosexuals bisexuals hippies or straights we tell him about the love of Jesus and that he died for them because they're worthwhile and in the midst of it all there was such an amazing spirit of discipleship looking there was a tremendous amount of evangelism going on in those days but it wasn't just about evangelism it was also about discipleship you know this was noted in a book by well a former professor at Westmont College Ronald n Roth this is what he said about a book written in the 1970s about the Jesus Movement he said this about Calvary Chapel quote the midweeks Bible studies are a Fire Marshal's nightmare and a Jesus freaks dream beneath the typical adolescent exterior one cannot help detecting a seriousness about their spiritual search God was doing an amazing work in and through Chuck Smith and the people that God gathered around him now in one sense the impact of Calvary Chapel is evident there's some 1500 churches planted all over the world and thousands and thousands of more literally thousands and thousands more that our Calvary chapel's not in name but just an association in philosophy of ministry for example there's a woman who did in early years ministry in China with the house churches she came and spoke at a couple of our pastors conferences her name was mother or mama Quan she said and look I don't know how this could be proven so if it's if it's double exaggerated still take it for what it is but I'll just tell you what she said she said that there's a million house churches in China that are essentially calvary chapels because of chucks mix the influence on them KP johann and the director of gospel for Asia whose planted so many churches there in the 10/40 window he said that in Asia and surrounding countries there are 30,000 Calvary chapel's that just don't have the name but they go out from the philosophy of ministry that Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel has had now impartial observers have come away impressed as they look at Chuck Smith in the Calvary Chapel movement you can read it if you take a look in the present day just look at the obituary that was for Pastor Chuck in the Los Angeles Times it quotes a man named dr. Donald Miller and I'm going to him from another book that he wrote a book titled reinventing American Protestantism where he said this Calvary Chapel can be viewed as the pioneer of new paradigm churches now note when he accurately said Calvary Chapel set the pattern for how a whole generation does Church and that influence has extended far beyond people who don't even know who Chuck Smith is additionally and perhaps even more importantly Chuck Smith started a resurgence of expository Bible teaching you see there are church pulpits all over the country and all over the world that now value verse by verse expositional teaching through books of the Bible because of the pattern set forth by Chuck Smith and calvary chapel ministries now i don't want to say for a moment chuck smith was not the only one doing verse by verse exposition other great men were expositors and also contributed men like rays Stedman and John MacArthur and others yet nevertheless he's certainly one of the few and one of the most influential there's a very distinguished professor from Princeton University dr. Hughes Oliphant old he said something about Chuck Smith that blows my mind and again he's not some you know nobody he's a distinguished doctor at professor of Princeton University and this is what he says about Chuck Smith quote Chuck Smith was reviving the systematic exposition of Scripture in our day he's one of the purest examples of a preacher who follows in the footsteps of a Chrysostom Agustin Bingley and Calvin you know what that's awesome and so today when just a few days ago Chuck Smith passed to glory I thought it's well ferrata for us to remember it and to just just say thank you God for what you did in and through this man you know Pastor Chuck passed from this world in peace there was no struggle it was remarkably peaceful he was surrounded by his family and as I said before he preached a week ago today three Sundays three services on a Sunday I should say how beautiful is that how wonderful is that to finish your course in that way and it's not to give glory to a man and we don't want to worship Chuck Smith good heavens no but I will say this maybe I should read this from Pastor Chuck himself he says quote Calvary Chapel is not an ambition fulfilled it is not the result of an egotistical desire to Pastor a gigantic Church I became too tired to imagine pastoring a congregation of more than 250 people the results you now see happen through the power of the Holy Spirit not by might nor by power but by my spirit says the Lord that's from Zechariah chapter 4 verse 6 you see we want to remember what God did through this man and as I look at Pastor Chuck Smith I look at him this way in some ways he was a very extraordinary man in other ways he was very much a normal guy he's this wonderful combination of the extraordinary and the ordinary and I think that God intended it that wave with us he was extraordinary enough to bear the load that God put upon him ladies John I could not bear the load that I think there are probably a few people on this earth who could bear the load and the pressure and the responsibility of ministry the pastor chuck bore so God made him extraordinary enough to bear the load but normal enough so that Jesus Christ would get the glory people would hear about the remarkable growth and influence of Calvary Chapel and they'd visit and they'd want to know the secret they'd want to know the thing how do you do what's the secret tell us the technique give us the program you know spell it all out you could big seminars all this and Chuck would say it's the Word of God and the Spirit of God yeah yeah yeah we know that but what's the secret what's the thing it's the Word of God and it's the Spirit of God see God just wanted to use a man who would trust him that simply I never had a close personal relationship with Pastor Chuck in the last few years I've got to know him better and better and I'm very grateful for that actually pastor Ricky Ryan my predecessor here at Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara he had a much closer relationship with Pastor Chuck than I did but I'm grateful for whatever contact I've had with him I was always kind of shy around pastor Chuck matter of fact I would have nightmares occasion I can remember two distinct times where I had nightmares I never have nightmares a couple nightmares I remember was preaching and pastor Chuck's presence and doing terribly that was a nightmare of embarrassment for me but you know in the last year I was so delighted a few times for Pastor Chuck asked me to drive down from Santa Barbara down to Orange County and be with him on an Internet television broadcast internet broadcast that he would do weekly world news update or something like that and it was just so wonderful to sit there and to talk with Chuck and discuss things are going and he'd always ask about you he'd always ask about how the congregation Santa Barbara is how things are in Santa Barbara cuz he loved this place and then I got a say you know a few conferences I've been at I would speak and a couple of times Chuck just said some encouraging things to me after the message you don't know just what a WoW Thank You Chuck I mean it's kind of thing that you got to say okay Lord keep me humble keep me humble if Chuck Smith said a good thing about a message I preached keep me humble Lord because you know what at the end of it all he was he's a man now he's a man who sees the face of Jesus face to face but God used him in a unique way and one of the great things that Jesus did through him was to communicate an approach to ministry so effectively so written on the DNA of the churches and the pastors and the people connected with him actually he doesn't have to be here to perpetuate it it's the work of the Holy Spirit and not the work of Chuck Smith I love how he's faithful to the end and it makes me saying I hope it makes you say Lord I want to be faithful to the end I want to finish well let's pray father father I fear that a morning like this would be too focused on a man and that somehow people would get the idea that we are too focused on this man but lord I eyes fell it's it's appropriate God for us to remember what you did in and through this man who's now with you in glory but Jesus all over again I just thank you for how you have worked through Pastor Chuck Smith we pray for blessing and grace towards his family now and those who were especially close to him who must be grieving in a way that's a bit distant for me or for others would you bless them Lord Father would you work in us that we could finish well it's encouraging to us when those that we know and love and respect when they're able to finish well it makes us confident that you can work in us to do the same thing Lord more than anything we just want to say thank you Lord for what you did in this man but we want to turn our attention all over again and back upon Jesus Christ lord your workmen come and go but your work continues and we're grateful for that let it continue God and let it shine brighter and brighter even in the midst of a world that in some way seems to grow darker and darker let your life grow brighter and brighter until the very end Lord you helping us it'll happen pour out your grace upon us in Jesus name you know it's really appropriate for us to come back now and put such a wonderful focus upon Jesus himself especially on what he did for us on the cross so pastor Nate's gonna come on up in just a moment prepare your hearts for community let's worship the Lord together

Channel: David Guzik

Views: 4,587

Rating: 4.9529409 out of 5

Keywords: chuck smith, calvary chapel, pastors, christian leaders, legacy, pastor chuck smith

Id: YnxqJEjKzk0

Length: 46min 7sec (2767 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 03 2018