Following Jesus in the Way – Apostolic Church of Akron

Scripture: Mark 10:52

And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way. Thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus in the way.

And followed Jesus. Everybody say, followed Jesus in the way.

With the help of the Lord, we want to talk about following Jesus in the way.

Opening Prayer

Let’s all pray.

Thank you, Lord Jesus. Your wonderful presence that we feel. Your, Lord, mighty touch, O God. That your faithful, Lord, to meet with your people. And be mighty in the midst of your people today.

Help me, O God, to declare your word with boldness, O Lord. Help me to take the word of truth and rightly divide it, God. That your people would be blessed this day in Jesus’ precious name.

Hallelujah, hallelujah.

A Lesson in Humility: Remembering Brother Chambers

I forget what year exactly it was, but it was, I believe, the early 2000s when we were going to the Rittman Church and there was a Brother Hart. Does anybody remember Brother Hart? And I forget which city he was sent to, but he had started other churches, if I get my facts right, my memory right. He had started other churches and he was probably a man in his late 40s or 50s, I think, at the time.

And I don’t really know what happened, all, everything that happened where he was doing a work. But I do know at the time, he was associated with Brother Nichols. And from that, there was some connection that Brother Nichols said, well, he wants some help up there. He’s having these rallies. Please, can you go up there and be part of the goings-on that are there.

And I remember going to the church and I found out that he had a Brother Chambers as a guest speaker there. And when I found out Brother Chambers was there, he was the superintendent of the United Pentecostal Church at one time. And he wasn’t doing that then, but I thought, this man, he’s been around and he knows the Word of God and he’s probably heard a million sermons and he’s going to speak and I want to be there. For, you know, to hear what this man has to say.

And I remember feeling the wonderful presence of the Lord. And I think Elaine and I were going to sing. And so I was going to testify before we sang. And before I even went up there, it’s like the Lord impressed upon me:

You’ve come up here to watch this man. And my presence is here, which is greater than anything.

And so when I did testify, I said, almost in humiliation and rebuke of myself, Jesus said that they came to hear the wisdom of Solomon and a greater than Solomon was there. And I came to hear the wisdom of Brother Chambers. And there was something greater than that that was there. And what we need to do and focus on is following Jesus.

Who Are We Following?

You know, the Corinthian church, they said Apollos or Paul or Jesus. And they were putting Jesus on a level of something that was just the apostles or Apollos. And really, he was saying:

Who was the one crucified for you?
Who was the one that was buried for you?
Who’s the one that rose again?
Who’s the one that remits your sins?
Were you baptized in the name of Paul?

No, there’s one that we follow. And there’s one that we have to hold to. And there’s one that this blind man realized he needed to follow.

Jesus said, go thy way. And he made his way Jesus’ way. He took the path of following the Lord. We need to follow the Lord in the way.

I used to have a Bible that says it was called The Way. Because there were so many scriptures where they said these were followers of the way. Jesus is the way and the truth and the life. And no man comes unto the Father but by him. There is only one way that we need to take the steps of Jesus, step by step, no matter what it takes. Whether it’s a path of humility that Jesus walked, we need to take that path.

The Faithful Footsteps of Godly Men

When I think of these great men, I started looking at Brother Chambers yesterday. And I thought even today I was looking up where it was under Brother Witherspoon. Does anybody know some of these people in Ohio? And the youth leader was S.G. Norris, who was the president of the school that I went to. And under S.G. Norris as the youth leader, there was Brother Chambers. And they crossed paths.

Because when we start walking with the Lord—and I’m having trouble walking today because I played tennis and I’m an old man—and if we start walking with the Lord, you’re going to find out there’s a lot of good people you’re going to be stepping with. Because those people are walking the way Jesus walked. They’re following in the way Jesus went.

And in that path of humility, I started looking at what S.G. Norris did. I remember, you know, he would teach. And they knew each other. And I didn’t realize that. But, you know, back then, I don’t think you could just pick up all this information that you can find on the Internet. But if you knew Brother Norris when he would teach, he was an old man even at the school. And he would sit down and he would go like this. And he said, listen to me. I mean, he had power. There was authority in this. You know, there was some power that went on every time. And you would feel the wonderful anointing of God. I don’t know if everything he said was right or wrong. But you would feel a walk with God that that man had.

Every time he would get up and teach. And he would, most of the time, he would sit down. I remember I got scared for him one time because he was talking about dinosaurs and creation days. And he was sitting on a chair that was kind of up on two legs. And he ended up falling down. And we rushed, you know, to make sure he was okay because he was so old. We thought, wow, you know, this is not good. But he got, he got, he said, don’t worry. He got right up.

And this is a man that I started looking at. And he started not, not, he was all, he wasn’t always the president of this school. And I looked up where in the history of the Manhattan, Manhattan Pentecostal Church, he began in 1929. It began in 1929 when S.G. Norris, who knew Brother Chambers, started a cottage prayer meeting on the Upper West Side and later moving to a historic brownstone church.

Eventually, it was him, Brother Norris, that went starting with just prayer meetings. You know, sometimes people come out of Bible school and they went, oh, yeah, I’ll take over a church if we got 1,000. I’ll take over a church if they’ve got 500. But what about the ones that really walked the path of Jesus? They started out with just talking to people, finding a place of prayer in a home somewhere, and then working that into, wow, we need to get some property. Now we need to have a preaching point.

He eventually passed this church on to someone else, and I wish I remembered all the details of it. But we got him and Brother Urshan that are coming together, and Brother Chambers, a very humble man that was actually instrumental when he was the one that built Hazelwood, Missouri, headquarters for the UPCI, and started Word of Flame Press.

And I thought to myself, I’m here at Brother Harts Church and just a few people, and I’m going to hear this man preach a message that’s going to awe me. And I was neglecting the thought that Jesus is here, and he’s the one that needs to awe me. He’s the one that I need to go, wow, the presence of the Lord. He has made a way where I can feel his awesome spirit.

And Brother Chambers, so he took his text, and he was getting old then, and you could tell he was saying, pray for me. Because his next steps in life were when he was going to be elderly, and he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Even at the end of service, he said, come up, he says, pray for me. Because he was still walking with the Lord, and he wasn’t sure what was going to happen. But he knew he was following Jesus in the way. He preached this message: To follow Jesus in the way.

The Blind Beggar of Jericho

And in Mark 10, and there’s other gospels that share the same story. As he went, Jesus went out of Jericho and his disciples. There was a great multitude of people that were following Jesus.

And Jericho, which was the city of Palms, was a very affluent place. It had springs, and it was like an oasis in the desert. And 3,500 feet below where Jerusalem was. And if you’re familiar with various stories in the Bible, you’ll know that there was a descent going down from the city that was set on the hill down to Jericho.

But here we see he’s in Jericho. And there was a blind man that was there. And the blind man saw the rush of the crowds coming. He didn’t see anything. He heard the rush of the crowds coming through. He inquired as to what was going on. And someone said, Jesus is coming through.

And when he heard that Jesus was coming through, when his focus was on, maybe this one that I’ve heard so much about can heal my blind eyes. Maybe this one that raised Lazarus from the dead, because that wasn’t too far from Jerusalem and not too far from Jericho. Maybe this same one can be my healer, can be the one that I can call upon.

And so he begins yelling out, “Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. Have mercy on me.”

And immediately the people that were in the forefront, they said, quiet him down. Hush him up. Stop him from talking, because he’s going to just disturb the master.

But you know what he did? He just pushed all the farther and screamed all the louder. “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. You’re the Messiah. You’re our salvation. You’re the one that can heal my blind eyes.”

And so he pushed through the people that were there.

Pushing Through the Hurdles of Faith

There’s always a hurdle. I’m telling you, there’s always a hurdle of your faith when you want something from God. Don’t think that we’re exempt from having to jump over hurdles when it comes to pushing through with our faith. Faith cometh by hearing. A blind man, but he still had his ears. A faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

And so he was believing that this was the Messiah. This was the one that could heal the blind eyes, could heal deaf ears, could make them speak. He’s the one that could even raise the dead. And he believed. He heard it, and he believed. And he knew he had to get and arrest the attention of Jesus.

And so they said, Jesus said, stop. He got the Messiah’s attention.

And it was like to this man, it was like he knew at that moment, he took his beggar’s robe, and we sing about it sometimes when we talk about, I took my old tattered garment. He gave me a robe of pure white. I’m feasting on manna from heaven. And that’s not a song that you’d sing in the morning. That had to come from the other side of the track somewhere, where it was always a night, a night song that happened.

But look at how he humbled himself. But still, humbling as a blind beggar, he still acknowledged the word of God, and acknowledged the identity of Jesus Christ.

Thank you for that teaching this morning. When we think about the Lord, we need to realize that he is the word that was manifest. And we need to realize that when there’s a promise on the way, Jesus was the walking promise, step by step. And we have to realize that we have to push over any hurdles that are in our way.

This church, if you want to excel in some way, being a soul winner, you have to push through things. Sometimes you have to fight principalities and powers. Sometimes you’re going to have to get to the root of the thinking of your family as I spent time yesterday.

And I don’t want to get too deep into it. I’m not going to say who, but it’s amazing to me, the apostolic Pentecostals that have strange things in their mind about, well, that was just cultural back then. And that’s what I fought with yesterday. I’m glad I fought through it with somebody that I knew that was apostolic, that you can’t just relegate everything in the Bible to, oh, that was just a cultural thing back then. You might as well just throw the book out. Throw it all out. Maybe the Ten Commandments were all cultural. You know, they would just start throwing everything out.

Uncompromising Faith and Inner Cleansing

What’s going on with the preachers anymore? You see, you know, people like S.G. Norris and Chambers, those old men, they had a humble walk, but they did not compromise on the Word of God. They were the preachers that would tell their congregation, you know what, if you don’t stand for something, you’re going to fall for anything. Those were the quotes you’d get from the old-time preachers. It’s not like they were arrogant. They were just walking in step with the Lord. It’s a straight way. It’s straight and narrow. And few there be that find it. And you need to be right with God. And they would preach right to the heart of men.

You know, I read about just the other day, and not part of this message at all, but I started reading where Jesus sat down because he was invited to a meal with a Pharisee. And so he sat down, but he neglected to wash his hands. And when he neglected to wash his hands, and they had their ceremonial, you know, they have to let the water come down. You know, they have to ring them in a certain way. And because Jesus just sat down to eat, they got mad. They said, you don’t follow the tradition of what we do. When you sit down to eat, you’re supposed to wash your hands.

And Jesus just laid into them to the point of they should have been ashamed of themselves, but instead of being ashamed, they got mad. Jesus said, you just wash the outside. Inside, there’s a bunch of corruption. And he started talking about people that walk, you’re just like graves filled with corruption that people walk over and don’t even realize. On the outside, you’re looking great, but on the inside, you’re filled with all types of filth.

And so, through it all, at the end of the chapter, it says, and because of that, they were furious, and they were seeking ways to trip him up so that they might get rid of him.

I want to be in step with Jesus. I want to follow him in the way. If I have to humble myself, no matter what it takes, I want to humble myself. And remember when we used to sing the song about, even though it’s humble, help my will to crumble, though the cost be great, I’ll work for you. Those are the type of people that just walk with the Lord. They walk with the Lord.

Miracles and the Decision to Follow

And I thought about some great men of the past. You remember Brother Young, Ronnie Young. You know, I was on a bus ministry with him back in before time, way back, when I was just a youth. And I remember that we would go out, and it was tough neighborhoods we went to.

And I remember they found this one family with a, I believe it was a daughter. The child had no, the ears weren’t formed. The inner ear was not even formed. And we ended up taking that girl to church, and she was prayed for, and she could hear. And the amazing thing was that they said, well, there’s no way you’re going to heal something because it’s not even formed in there. But then she started responding to sounds and had an amazing look, amazed look on her face.

And in spite of that, in spite of the parents knowing that it was a miracle of what happened, they still did not come to church. Isn’t that, to me, sometimes things amaze me that even though there’s a miracle there, and look at all the miracles that Jesus performed, but you still have to do what you have to do. You still want to follow Jesus because he healed so many people that never showed up on the day of Pentecost. We still have to be his hands and his feet.

What Do You Want Me to Do for You?

And here’s blind Bartimaeus, and he knew his whole life was going to be, even though it was a ritzy city, his whole life was going to be just in the place of being a beggar on the road and a worn out spot and listening to what’s going on around him and hoping that he can hear the clang of more of the change from people that would be generous.

But at this point, there was an option of healing. And his beggar robes that he had, those robes of a beggar, he cast away his garment, the Bible says, and he rose and he came to Jesus. Hallelujah.

And then he says to him, Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?”

I thought that’s kind of interesting, you know. He didn’t say, you know, you start praying, I want to win the lottery, you know. I want a lottery ticket. I want the, everybody can’t have the winning lottery ticket. You know. If all, you pray these frivolous prayers and everybody wants the lottery ticket, everybody can’t have the lottery ticket. And that lottery ticket has been a curse to a lot of people, that winning lottery ticket.

And so he asked the question though, “What do you want me to do for you?” You rubbed a genie’s lamp. And he could have said a lot of things.

It’s amazing how when we have, we don’t have that one thing that’s, you know, we have so much. I’m struggling with my knees, but I can walk. And I see, I saw people at this festival yesterday and some of them were in wheelchairs. Some young people, a young person was in a wheelchair. And I, and there’s things to be thankful for.

And this man wanted, not just his sight, he wanted to change everything. He was looking to, for a change in his life. He’s casting away this beggar’s garment. And when Jesus asked the question, the blind man said, “Lord, that I might receive thy sight.”

And Jesus said, “Go thy way, thy faith, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole.”

And immediately, he received his sight and he followed Jesus in the way.

Returning to Simplicity

We need to follow the Lord. You know, that simple message that Brother Chambers spoke was following Jesus in the way. I started thinking, he’s heard all these messages. He could have brought out, oh, expounded upon the Greek of anything, been intellectual or amazed me with his storytelling. But it was just so simple.

Sometimes we stray from the simplicity which is in Christ. We just think, oh, yeah, well, I go to church and this is, we can have our own traditions that are out of step with what Jesus wants to be done. And I know we’ve got Pentecostal traditions that are kind of messed up.

In my mind, when I see something like, well, so-and-so appointed so-and-so because it was his son and then so-and-so appointed that person because he was the heir apparent and he was the son and then they take over church and they’re not, they’re not called. They’re just, you know, as one man said, “Some were called, some were sent and some were just, just packed their bags and went.” But I’ve changed it to, “Some were appointed by their grandpas and went.”

To me, partiality is a sin, my friend. And when the Bible says partiality is a sin, that means that you don’t treat the church of God like your own family business. That’s not going to go over too well with most things. And if somebody hears it, they’re going to go, oh.

And I’m not saying that everybody that’s appointed that’s a relative is not called of God. I’m just saying you’ve got to be careful. You need to stay in step with what Jesus wants. Even though it’s humble, help my will to crumble. Though the cost be great, it’s walking with the Lord. You can expect, there’s a lot of things that hinge on us walking with the Lord.

And you need to follow what the scripture says because Jesus is the word that was manifest. We can’t ignore the scriptures. And any time things like that happen, it’s an affront to God and it’s a bad example for the people of God to see that we’re treating the church of God like it’s just my own personal family business.

Seek First the Kingdom

A lot of things hinge on us following the Lord. Jesus said, “Follow me and I’m going to make you fishers of men.” There’s certain things that we seek after the Lord. He’s going to supply all our needs according to his riches in glory. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things. That’s because we’re walking with God.

You know, I’m sure Brother Chambers with all the things that he did, being the superintendent during an amazing time in the history of the Pentecostal church, actually seeing two other organizations come together to form the UPCI. And we’re not a member of that, but we call people brothers if they believe in the Acts 2:38 message and they believe in one God.

And so when we see his life, I don’t think he was a man that was like, oh, look at me. Because what I saw in him was pure humility after that church service and the thought that I need to make my next step and step with what the Lord wants, me and my wife.

Now he passed in 2004 and I read all the various things that he did and I started thinking, you know, the paths that we have crossed with people, we might not even know the influence that has come upon us because this man taught that man, taught that man and they were all in step with what the Lord wanted in their life.

You say, well, what about, what about them? What about this brother over there? What’s going to happen with him? You know, we need to follow Jesus.

Wasn’t it Peter said, well, you know, I’m supposed to feed the sheep, okay, I’m supposed to feed the lambs, you know, I love you, Jesus. And then it came down to, but what about this guy over here? What about John?

And Jesus said, you don’t worry about that. Follow me. Just follow me.

Altar Call and Closing Song

Let’s all stand.

Follow, follow.

I will follow Jesus anywhere, everywhere.

I will follow on.

Follow, follow.

I will follow Jesus anywhere.

Anywhere he leads me.

I will follow on.

Follow, follow.

I will follow Jesus anywhere, everywhere.

I will follow on.

Follow, follow.

I will follow Jesus anywhere he leads me.

I will follow on.

I will follow on.

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Lord God, to follow you in the way.

Praise you, Jesus. Praise you, Jesus. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Praise God, praise God. Hallelujah.

Let’s all come forward and I’d like to, everybody to pray for one another.

You know, it doesn’t mention a lot of blind men, but this man was Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus. As if they knew he had link with the church at some point and when they wrote the gospel, he wasn’t just another blind man. He was the son of Timaeus that some people have suggested he was part of the church. He followed Jesus in the way. When Jesus said, go thy way, he made Jesus’ way his way.

Praise God.

Why don’t we lay hands on each other and pray for one another. God, that we would follow in your steps, Lord. Step by step, Lord God, in our lives. Jesus, whether by many or by few,