Sermon by Dr. George Bryant Wirth
June 1, 2008
CHRIST AT THE CENTER: OUR FIRM
FOUNDATION
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO DEMAS?
Scripture:
Colossians 4:2-18, Philemon 17-25, II Timothy 4:1-11
INTRODUCTION
In 1983, on the day after his
promotion to anchor the NBC Nightly News, Tom Brokaw was browsing through
Bloomingdales in
Wandering through the men’s
clothing department, Brokaw sensed that someone was watching him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a woman
peeking around the tie rack and drawing closer.
Brokaw felt a sense of pride at “being somebody” who was publicly
recognized, and then the watcher mustered up her courage, approached him and
with wide-eyed wonder she said, “Tom Brokaw, right?”
“So I am,” he replied with a
deliberately subtle smile. “You used to
do the morning news on KMTV in
Every now and then, I hear
people asking that same question with curiosity about other public
personalities: “Whatever happened to the Broadway star Liza Minelli? Whatever happened to the presidential
candidate Gary Hart? Whatever happened
to the comedian Flip Wilson? Whatever
happened to the televangelist Jim Baker?
Whatever happened to the Atlanta Braves baseball player Dale Murphy?
Sometimes, those who are in
the limelight actually do drop out of sight and we wonder, “Whatever happened
to them?” But today’s sermon is about a
different kind of person – someone more obscure and behind the scenes. His name was Demas, he’s mentioned only three
times by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament, and then he disappears from the
pages of scripture with this abrupt and rather distressing description: For Demas, in love with this present world,
has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica (II Timothy 4:9). There are no other words of explanation…so, Whatever Happened to Demas? As I think you will see, that question has
profound implications for you and for me and for all of us today.
I
As best we can determine, the
missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul began sometime around 46 A.D. as he and
Barnabas were commissioned by the church in
Luke, who wrote one of the
gospels, was a physician who traveled with and took care of Paul during his
three extended journeys. Moreover, Luke
also wrote the Book of Acts which records the events of those mission trips,
beginning with Chapter 13 on to the conclusion of Acts 28. Together with the letters that were both
dictated and handwritten by Paul himself, we have here the eye-witness accounts
not only of the places he went but also of the people who accompanied him and
joined his ministry team, some of whom are well-known to us: Barnabas, Silas,
John Mark,
Now with all of that as
background, we come to the final years of Paul’s life as he wrote from his
prison cell in Rome to the Christians in Colossae, to his friend Philemon and
to his beloved protégé Timothy, which was, as far as we know, the last letter
Paul ever wrote before his execution by Nero sometime around 67 A.D.
In the 4th chapter
of Colossians, Paul says Aristarchus my
fellow prisoner greets you, as does Mark the cousin of Barnabas…Epaphras, who
is one of you (from Colassae) a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you… (As do)
Luke the beloved physician and Demas…I Paul, write this greeting with my own
hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you (Colossians 4:1-18,
selected verses).
That’s the first time Demas’
name shows up on the Biblical radar screen, and we are told nothing about him,
except that he belongs to Paul’s inner circle of mission partners.
The second time we find the
name of Demas in the New Testament is in the Letter to Philemon, where Paul
again mentions “his fellow prisoner” Epaphras, and his “fellow workers Mark,
Aristarchus, Demas and Luke” (verses 23-24).
Once more, Demas is included in the loop and obviously considered a
trusted confidante and brother in the faith.
The last description of
Demas, however, is radically different than the first two references. In his second letter to Timothy, Paul writes
one of the most memorable and inspiring paragraphs in all of Scripture, and
then adds a sad and disquieting note:
As
for me…the time of my departure has come.
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the
faith. From now on there is reserved for
me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the Righteous Judge, will give
me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for His
appearance.
(So
Timothy) do your best to come to me soon, for Demas, in love with this present
world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica…
There is no further word
about Demas in the Bible, and we are not at all certain what Paul meant in
describing his sudden departure. So Whatever Happened to Demas?
II
With the time we have left in
this sermon, I want to offer three possible answers to that question and make
come connections that relate to our lives as Christians in the church
today. And then we’ll commission those
who are going on mission trips this summer and fall, and give all of us the
opportunity to say “Yes” to God’s call.
One possible scenario about
what happened to Demas is that he failed to count the cost of following Jesus
Christ, and when the going got rough, he just wasn’t committed enough to give
his life to the cause. Nero was the
Emperor in
Dr. Fred Craddock, when he
was a young boy growing up in Eastern Tennessee, tells about listening to
sermons in his church where the preacher would often speak about Albert
Schweitzer and other missionaries who had their feet frozen off in the tundra
of some faraway land. Craddock says “I
would just sit there swinging my legs over the pew, saying to myself ‘It’s a
shame you can’t be a real Christian in this little town. Nobody is chasing or imprisoning or killing
Christians any more.
Then I went away to summer
camp, and a night of consecration around the bonfire by the lake. We sang ‘Are Ye Able’ and I went back to the
cabin, lay on my bunk and said to God ‘Yes, I am able.’ And I pictured myself running in front of a
train to rescue a child, or swimming out and pulling somebody in who was
drowning.
Again, I pictured myself
standing against a gray wall and some soldier was saying ‘One last chance to
deny Christ and live.’ I confessed my
faith, and they said ‘Ready, aim, fire!’
My body slumped to the ground, the flag was flown at half mast, and
widows were weeping in the afternoon.
Later a monument was built on the spot, and people came with their
cameras, saying ‘Stand over there where Fred gave his life so that we can take
your picture.’
I was sincere then, as I have
been all these years since. However,
nobody told me that I couldn’t do it all at once, but rather day by day, week
by week, month by month, year after year… giving my life over and over and over
again.” (Adapted from “Craddock
Stories,” Chalice Press,
If Demas deserted and fled
from
Which leads to a second possibility
of what might have happened to Demas.
Perhaps he was committed to Christ, but because of the stress and strain
of serving the Lord, he ran out of steam and couldn’t keep up the pace any
more. So he dropped out and headed for
Thessalonica, which was a sea port, where he could get some rest and
relaxation.
If that’s what happened to
Demas, then I think many of us can identify with him today. This has been an exciting and also a
challenging church year, with some major and even painful staff transitions, a
capital campaign followed by an annual giving campaign totaling twenty million
dollars, and now we’re involved in extensive and much needed renovations – so
many, if not most of us are looking forward to getting away for a while this
summer.
But the problem with Demas,
as far as we know, is that he never came back, which meant that someone else
had to take up the slack.
I have a church newsletter in
hand with a column that bears the headline: “Sad News,” and this is what it
says:
“The church was saddened to learn this
week about the death of one of our most valuable members, Someone Else.
Someone’s passing creates a vacancy
that will be difficult to fill. Someone
Else has been with us for many years and did far more than a normal person’s share
of the work.
Whenever leadership was mentioned,
this wonderful person was looked to for inspiration as well as results –
‘Someone Else can get that done.’
Whenever there was a task to complete,
a class to teach or a meeting to attend, one name was on everyone’s list – ‘Let
Someone Else do it.’
It was common knowledge that Someone
Else was among the largest givers in the church. Whenever there was a financial need, everyone
just assumed that Someone Else would make up the difference.
Someone Else was a wonderful person,
sometimes appearing super-human, but one person cannot do everything. Were the truth known, everybody expected too
much from Someone Else.
Now Someone Else is gone, and we
wonder what we are going to do. Someone
Else left a good example to follow, but who is going to fill those shoes? Who is going to help accomplish what Someone
Else was willing and able to do?”
Let me remind you that there
are 2500 members in this congregation, and when we return from summer
vacations, I hope and pray that all of us will embrace and engage the new
church year which begins in September.
If, in fact, Demas burned out and never came back, then I want to
promise you that we do everything possible to make sure that does not happen
here. With “Christ at the Center” as our
ongoing theme, the care and nurture of our souls is the most important
thing. And when that is happening to us,
then the Lord will be able to accomplish great things through us here at the
corner of 16th and Peachtree, and all across this city and around
the world.
CONCLUSION
So, Whatever Happened to Demas?
The Bible says that he “was in love with this present world, and
deserted Paul to go to Thessalonica,” which in conclusion could mean this:
instead of giving his life to Christ and in service to others, he tried to take
and to make as much as he could for himself.
Thessalonica was a wealthy city, and maybe Demas went there in pursuit
of his own prosperity.
Nowhere in the Bible does it
say that having possessions is wrong.
But if that becomes the driving passion of our lives, and if what we
acquire begins to possess us, then Jesus Christ is on record saying What does it profit if we gain the whole
world but forfeit our souls? (Matthew 16:26, Mark 8:36, Luke 9:25) And He also said, To those whom much is given, of them will much be required (Luke
12:48)
Dr. John Claypool, rest his
soul and much loved in our church, told a story, an ancient Jewish parable,
from this pulpit many years ago about two brothers who inherited the family
farm from their father when he died.
Instead of dividing what they were given, they continued to work
together in a partnership, sharing the harvest equally. One of the brothers was married and had eight
children, while the other remained a bachelor.
One night, the bachelor
brother thought to himself, “My brother has ten mouths to feed and I have only
one. He needs more of this harvest than
I do, so I will take some of my grain and secretly put it into his barn at
night so he can have more for his family.”
At the very same time, the
married brother was thinking to himself, “God has blessed me abundantly. My children will take care of us when we are
old. My brother is not as fortunate. So I will take some of my grain and quietly
put it into his barn to build up a nest egg for the future.”
As you might have
anticipated, one night when the moon was full, these two brothers came
face-to-face, each on a mission of generosity.
And although there was not a cloud in the sky, a gentle rain began to
fall. Do you know why? It was God weeping for joy because two of His
children had gotten the point. The real
secret of human joy is in sharing what we have with others, rather than keeping
it all to ourselves.” (From “Stories
Jesus Tells Us: The Parables” by Dr. John R. Claypool, Cowley Publications,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1993, 2000, pages 34-35)
My friends, that is what we
believe in this congregation, and that is why we are involved in ministry and
in mission. So may the Lord continue to
bless us with joy for the journey as we celebrate here, and are called to serve
others out there in the world!
In the name of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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