This is Laurie, Allen’s wife. A few weeks ago, I felt led to start posting Allen’s sermons from the year 2000, the year that he accepted the senior pastorate at Fifth Avenue Baptist Church in Huntington, WV. So thank you for reading these words he wrote long ago. Since God’s Word is timeless, messages from even a quarter of a century ago are still applicable. So I plan to post one sermon each week, perhaps adding the original audio version of the sermon (once I figure out the technology!).
This sermon below, entitled “Faith of Our Founders,” was preached by Dr. J. Allen Reasons on October 8, 2000 at Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, Huntington, West Virginia. The text was Acts 3:1-9.
One of the influential people along my journey is someone whom I never met. He is my grandfather, my mother’s father. I never knew him. He died when my mother was just a young girl.
It is not that his life was that incredible, but it is that he followed a tremendous plan.
In the spring of last year, I was in northeast Tennessee on the campus of Carson Newman College. The school posthumously inducted my grandfather into its Sports Hall of Fame.
He was born on July 13, 1899. His father died when he was four, and his mother died when he was eleven. Orphaned and alone, he was shipped from uncle to uncle, home to home. Before he finished high school, he hopped from train to train, from place to place, looking for work in wheat fields.
He had no family left, had lost an eye working on one of the farms, and had no financial support. Life for him was worse than even an ordinary life.
Eventually, he was encouraged by another uncle to enroll at Carson Newman College. In the fall of 1921, he was playing on the Carson Newman football team when he hit an opposing player so hard that local newspapers claimed that they had to hide my grandfather in a hotel room for fear that the other team and town would retaliate after the game.
Since my grandfather was studying to be a minister at the time, or parson as the terminology of the day referred to him, Carson Newman was given the nickname, the “Fighting Parsons,” a name that stuck for many years.
After his college years, he became a minister, but then he died at the young age of 42.
When I attended the Hall of Fame dinner in his honor, it felt very special to be related to the man. What made the award so exceptional was that he was a rather ordinary man, from a very simple background, but a man who impacted very many lives along his brief journey.
Most of us lead very normal, ordinary lives. But some of these ordinary lives have been used by God in extraordinary ways. It is true of our Christian lineage.
The history of faith is replete with men and women who do not shake up or shape the world on the world’s terms. The world at large rarely recognizes the faith of ordinary people.
This book, the Bible, is made up of very regular people whom God used in extraordinary ways. It is true of today’s text as well.
The setting for the story is the Jerusalem temple. The temple has different courtyards, where various people are allowed to enter, based on what the religious leaders think they deserve.
The outer court is the place where the Gentiles can walk and mingle. It is not surprisingly called the Court of Gentiles. This area is not discriminating, for just about anyone is allowed here.
Walking up a few steps from the Court of Gentiles, however, signs read: “Gentiles, walk past this point, and you will be killed.” This is the temple barrier that separates the Gentile from the Jew.
There are nine gates between the Court of Gentiles and this next level of the temple, one of which is called, “The Beautiful Gate.”
One day, after the death, the resurrection, and the ascension of our Lord, Peter and John are going to the temple to pray. It is 3 o’clock, the hour always to be remembered as the moment the most extraordinary act of love was finished.
As they walk from the Outer Court of Gentiles into the next court, they prepare to pass through the gate named “Beautiful.”
The 1st century Jewish historian Josephus describes this gate as being made of Corinthian bronze, whose exquisite workmanship “far exceeded in value those gates that were plated with silver and set in gold.” The Beautiful Gate may not have been adorned with silver or gold, like the others, but it was magnificent in its own right.
Below the Beautiful Gate, Peter and John see a crippled man. He sits there, where he has sat since he was old enough to be left on his own. He stares blankly into the faceless crowd of worshipers hurrying on their way to be religious.
The words in the text describe him as seeing the passersby as mere forms, as random shapes rushing past him.
Thousands of worshipers have paraded by him over the years, most of them looking– but never really seeing–him.
But Peter and John see him; I mean, they truly see him. The crippled man is so accustomed to people never looking his way that he never tries to make eye contact with anyone. He just wants a little of their spare change. Peter has to call the man to lift his chin and look at them.
“Silver and gold have I none; but what I have, I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”
Underneath the gate that is named “Beautiful,” because of its resplendence without silver or gold, Peter gives the crippled man more than he ever thought he could receive. He walks, he jumps, and he dances. He even prances with them into the temple! He walks into God’s house, an act that he has never been able to do for the last 40-plus years.
At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, this man, lame since birth, is made whole.
After they finish their prayers, Peter, John, and the man walk out of the temple, probably right back through the Gate Beautiful, and to Solomon’s colonnade, the outer walkway of the Court of the Gentiles. There, the guards arrest them, apparently because they were too kind to a stranger.
When the story is told of these amazing men, the focus is usually on that powerful sermon that Peter had preached immediately before, where 3,000 people were converted. And that is an incredible miracle moment in the history of the church. There is no doubt about it.
Even so, the focus of the story is now on the healing of this man whom the crowd has seen everyday as a cripple. Now that is a miracle.
But the great miracle, the true heart of the story, occurs at the trial of Peter and John. The day after their arrest, Peter and John appear before the supreme court of the Sanhedrin.
Peter speaks to the court, “If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:9,10,12).
After he spoke, the Scripture says, “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).
The real supernatural occurrence of the story is that these ordinary men had been called by Jesus Christ to do extraordinary things. They became transformers of mankind, because they themselves had been transformed.
Witnessing the salvation of 3,000 souls, healing the crippled man, standing courageously before the court, boldly declaring their faith in Jesus Christ…all were made possible through the divine presence of the Lord Jesus at work in their lives. There is no training nor teaching that could have given them such powerful abilities.
I don’t believe this story is in this book so that we will merely understand some numerical figures of the early church. Nor is it told just to single out this healed individual, for there were certainly many who had similar stories of physical healings.
The story is here so that we will understand again that the miracle of faith is that God takes very ordinary, common people and transforms them to do very extraordinary things for Him.
Now, we come to Founder’s Day. This great church, which celebrates her 128th year this month, has a wonderful history. One of the first steps in my meeting you was to read your centennial history. After coming here, I have come to appreciate your history even more. It is now part of my history, as well.
Today, we owe much of what we know about our past to the excellent organization and studious work of our church historian, Miss Sally Cyrus. Sally read a few moments ago from the actual hand-written diaries of the church’s first pastor, Dr. William Parkinson Walker. These are his diaries on display today.
In preparation for this day, I have had the privilege of reading through each diary. The story is a fascinating one. However, one single truth constantly surfaced through every page of his scribbled notes: Fifth Avenue Baptist Church was founded by ordinary people, willing to be used by God in extraordinary ways.
Park Walker was born on May 14, 1834, on a small farm in Virginia. He assumed the regular farming duties as early as he was able. His only schooling occurred for four months in the summer in a one-room school house about 5-6 miles down the road. His father died when Park was only 9, so his mother moved the children to her father’s place where Park spent most of his childhood years.
After his mother remarried, there were problems in the house. So, at a young age, Park bundled up a few belongings on his back and left home. He wound up in New Orleans, where he began what seemed to be a career as a steamboat man.
However, on one of his trips back home, he met a young lady named Mary Jane McClung. They were married in 1855. The stir was not the fact that she was marrying a boatman, but that he was not a Christian. Her family and church tried desperately to convince her not to marry him, but to no avail.
The newlyweds settled down on a small farm on Mary Jane’s father’s land and began a very ordinary life together. But then, something extremely extraordinary happened.
In October 1857, the preacher was passing by Park Walker’s home in preparation for a series of services at the local church. Being good friends, they talked for a while. As the preacher prepared to go, Walker asked rather jokingly, “Are you going to try to do better at the protracted meeting?”
The preacher replied, “I don’t know, are you?”
Very positively, Park responded, “Yes, I am.” The preacher thought to himself that that was a rather strange comment coming from Park’s mouth.
On the first night of the meeting, Park stepped forward and accepted Christ as his Savior. Within a very short time, he was asked to preach a sermon.
He had practically no formal education, no Christian training, a very small knowledge of the Bible, and no time to prepare for the sermon. Yet, he was asked to preach before the most difficult crowd, his home congregation.
After beginning his work as a pastor, a telegram was sent from a group of people in Huntington to the executive board of the General Association, which was in session in Parkersburg in March 1877. It read, “Send Brother Walker to Huntington or the cause will be lost here.”
Eventually, W.P. Walker did come to Huntington and became the first pastor of Fifth Avenue Baptist Church. For almost three decades, he pastored the early founding years of this church. You can read that wonderful history in the book that chronicles our past. There are so many stories I could tell, and so many reflections of his on the stories.
However, for the purpose of this morning, it should be noted that this young man made an eternal impact on this church, this city, and the world– not because of anything else except that he allowed God to use him.
When Dr. Walker died at the age of 71, the sanctuary, sidewalks, and streets were lined with people a full hour before the funeral service was to begin. The crowd was not just composed of church members. Most of the town turned out for the service. Many were not believers, but they were people who recognized that this man was a man of God and, therefore, had made a difference in this world.
All the businesses closed, and apparently for the only time in the history of this town, even all the saloons closed during the funeral in honor of Park Walker.
Dr. J.W. Carter, a ministerial friend of 50 years delivered the memorial sermon. His final words were those said of Sir Christopher Wren who built St. Paul’s Cathedral in London: “If you would see his monument, look around.”
Dr. Carter pointed to the spiritual impact on Huntington and to the members of Fifth Avenue Baptist Church and said, “These are his monuments.”
Like the story of Peter and John, like the story of W.P. Walker, like the continuing story of every one of us who is sitting in one of these pews this morning, we face this primary question: how willing are we? The impact that we will make during our time on this earth in our families, in our work, in this church, in this community, in the Kingdom, will be a direct result of our willingness to allow God to take our ordinariness and make us extraordinary.
It is hopefully our response, as Walker’s response was that day in October when asked if he would be better: “Yes, I am.”
The theologian Paul Tillich once said that the saint is a saint not because he is good, but because he is transparent for something that is more than himself. May we be transparent for the image of God.
In my time of praying for this service today, I spent part of that time just inside the gates of Spring Hill Cemetery on Norway. The first graves are those of Dr. W.P. Walker and his wife. Two stone benches are part of the stone memorial that this church purchased for this founder. As I sat on one of the benches, I read the words on the marker:
“In memory of William Parkinson Walker who believed and told the story of Jesus Christ on earth. This monument was erected by some of those who were witnesses that he fought a good fight and kept the faith.”
May God use this legacy of our founders to remind us that He has called us to extraordinary things, as well. May we respond with the words of the Apostle Peter, “What I have, I give to you.”
