Thursday, January 11, 2001
Cox scheduled to be pastor at White Rock
Community Church in Dallas
Wesley Barrett "Barre" Cox, who
disappeared 16 years ago and has taken the name James Simmons,
is scheduled to become the new pastor at White Rock Community
Church in Dallas this month.
At its web site (www.whiterockchurch.org),
under the heading "Who We Are" the following explanation
is given:
"An evangelical Christian Church based
in Dallas, Texas. Founded in June 1991
to spread God's word to the Gay and Lesbian Community.
Our membership is currently about 700 men,
women, and children; gay and straight of every race. We believe that God loves us for who we truly are."
On Dec. 10, 2000, Simmons (nee Cox) delivered
a sermon to the congregation. Following is the transcript of that
sermon. The complete sermon can also be heard at: http://www.whiterockchurch.org/sermons/
Transcript from 12/10/00 sermon:
You have a very cruel director
of music. Does anyone have a Kleenex, please?
(Laughter)
I bring you greetings from California
... from your brothers and sisters there, and I feel very honored
to be here on the stage of Dean (Bishop? former minister?). He
called me up in the middle of the night and said, "I need
to ask you some more questions." He loves you more than you
know.
(Evidently receiving a handkerchief)
Thank you.
If God's love is even a portion
of what Dean's love for you is, then you cannot fathom what He
has in store for you.
Excuse me.
(Blows his nose. Laughter, applause)
I will tell you that I came in
September to visit your church, and I've been praying that God
will give me a country church in the mountains with lots of trees.
Small, intimate church. And I thought, well, I'm going to Dallas,
and I thought, maybe they'll send two hunky guys at the airport.
And they did. They sent the hunkiest guys they could ... they
sent James and Bob to get me here.
(Laughter, applause)
So I stayed with them the first
night, and after that I stayed up to the uptown with Chuck and
Jeffery, and you can imagine what that's like, so I was pleased
that you could acknowledge his leadership within the church. Is
Jeffery here?
I know he's here. Jeffery, I've
come up with your like verse for this year. It's from second Corinthians
12, It says, excuse me, second Corinthians 11:1, it says: "I
hope you will put up with my foolishness a little bit longer."
You've already been doing that for the last year. So please, know
that we love you and we affirm you.
I come before you to let you know
that if you've come to hear a preacher, you've come for the wrong
reasons. We are here to praise God. And I pray that if somebody
asks you "How was the preacher?" and you say "James?
He was okay," if you get anything from this today it's what
an awesome God we have.
Before I open the Word to you,
I ask that you join me in prayer not only for sermon here, but
also that the Spirit will abide with us ...
Dear Father, may we call you
...
Please hear us and please heal
the hearts that are wounded in the battle that is often unseen.
Dear Father, may we call you
Teacher, to our minds of confusion, not only about ourselves,
but about our world.
Please be Deliverer of all
of us that are in prison by change. Please set our spirits free.
Dear Father, we would call
you Father to so many souls that have been abandoned.
We would call you Friend to
helpless survivors in the midst of life. Please take away our
fears.
Dear Father, help us to see
as Forgiver to our inmost, unknown secrets.
May we see You as provider
of all that we need.
But most of all, dear Father,
let us see you as Messiah. To all of us. To me. Please be Messiah.
I ask that you bless the messenger
today. I ask that you forgive him of his sins, for they are many.
I ask that we would see Jesus,
and Him only. Through Christ I pray,
Amen.
In respect for God's word, if
you would, I would ask that you stand for the reading of God's
word at this time.
Three portions from Doctor Luke,
an old and dear friend of mine:
"And he stood before the
altar of incense ... and he was startled, and he was gripped with
fear. But the angel said to him, 'Do not be afraid.'
"And in the sixth month,
God sent an Angel named Gabriel ... the angel went to her and
said "Greetings, you are highly favored." The angel
said to her, 'Do not be afraid.'
"And there were shepherds
keeping their flocks by night ... and they were terrified ...
and the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid.' "
May God add a blessing to this
reading. Thank you, and you may be seated.
The holidays are very hard for
all of us. At least, for most of us. I love Christmas. But most
of us in this room, if we were very candid with each other, are
confronting a lot of fears in our lives.
Some are financial. Some are wondering
if your business will make it, or if you will make it for the
next three months.
Some of you have fears about relationships.
Is this relationship really what I want or need, or am I really
what this other person wants and needs?
Some people have a very real fear
about health matters ... about things that are going on with their
bodies. I have an adopted "mom" who is scared every
time she goes to the DMV that her driver's license will be taken
away from her, as well as her independence.
We have fears of death. We have
fear of family. We have fear of coming out. Fear grips our lives.
As I was studying for this particular message, I thought: "What
is the opposite of faith?" and I thought, "Belief and
unbelief, faith and not faith" -- but that's not true.
The opposite of faith is fear.
In the first story in the first
chapter of Luke, we see Zechariah. It states that Zechariah and
his wife were righteous, and blameless and obeyed all the commandments.
But they were well into their years. Zechariah was a priest, and
it came upon his particlar section to cast lots at his advanced
age and to come into the Most Holy Place, a place most could not
enter, except once a year. And there was a curtain, and the curtain
was the width of a hand, and it took five years to weave--very
heavy. They tied a rope around his waist, so that if anything
happened to him in there, they would not have to go in there after
him, but could pull him out.
For years and years and years,
he and his wife were seen as cursed because they had no children.
And then finally, an angel came to him and said, "Your prayers
are answered. You will have a son."
And he gave the answer that everyone
of us would give if we were confronted with God, "How? I
don't have the resources to do this. I cannot do this. We're old.
She is old and beyond having children at this age."
I want you to look very carefully
to the first response to the angel, Luke ? verse ?, "But
the angel of the Lord said to him, 'Do not be afraid.'" Would
you repeat that phrase with me, please? "Do not be afraid."
Have faith like Zechariah. For
years and years and years, Elizabeth had prayed to have a baby.
Yet look at the response, he goes back and tells Elizabeth, "We're
going to have a baby!" Yet look what happens. In verse 23,
he returned home and Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months
she remained in seclusion.
Why would a lady who had been
praying for a baby all of her life remain in seclusion?
Because she was gripped with fear.
Apparently Zechariah had not told
her what the angel told him: and what was that again?
(Audience answers: "Do not
be afraid.")
We have a very old woman, who
probably was not anything to look at; had no power nor fame, so
why did God choose her?
And way up north in Nazareth,
we have a lady who is very young. She probably is not rich; she
probably did not win a Nazareth high school contest. And yet what
happens? He comes her way... not because she has power, or prestige
or money, or knowledge, or spiritual maturity beyond. No, it's
one thing that God always seeks in everyone: It's not what you
do. It's who you are. It's your heart that God sees.
And the world tells you, "You
cannot be a Christian because of this and this and this,"
remind yourself that God looks at your heart.
As we look at Mary, it says in
verse 29 that Mary was "greatly troubled at what the angel
said." But the angel said to her ... would you repeat it
again?
(Audience answers: "Do not
be afraid.")
I want you to look very carefully
at the instructions after that:
"Mary you have found favor
with God, and you will be with child, and you will give birth
to a child, and you will call his name Jesus."
This woman probably did not have
a goal; had not seen any of the riches that we have not only in
our homes, but have seen in people all around us. She had nothing
to call her own, and she realized what this would mean: for the
community to look around and see "with child" but not
"pregnant" or "married" and begin to realize,
"Oh! Well, you haven't been married long enough, so apparently
you were 'intimate' before marriage, or you're a person who had
intimate sex with somebody else and you weren't married ... and
in either case, you should be stoned."
But I want you to look very carefully
at how God uses to people in fear to support each other.
The angel says, "Your cousin
Elizabeth is presently with child. Go to her."
Look very carefully at what Mary
did. Immediately, Mary got up and hurried to town, to the hill
country of Judea and greeted her cousin Elizabeth. Up unto this
time, Elizabeth had remained in seclusion. Was she uplifted by
Mary's presence? Look very carefully.
She "heard Mary's voice and
the baby leaped within her womb and she was filled with the Holy
Spirit."
God enables those people because
... we have it all backwards; we think God calls the enabled,
but He doesn't do that.
He called you in fear, but we
step out in faith, and He enables us in the journeys that He gives
us.
If you look very carefully, you
find in verse 36 that Mary stays with Elizabeth about 3 months
and then returns home. Can anybody tell me what six and three
are ... nine ...
How much encouragement do you
think Mary received from Elizabeth and Elizabeth from Mary? In
preparation for her for this birth of the Son of God?
We tend to take our Christmas
cards, and the cards themselves we take out of the envelope and
we see this beautiful manger. We see a peaceful and very calm
setting, with shepherds on one side, wise men on the other, with
clean white straw, and a star and an angel above it. Do you know
what times these were, what they were filled with? Do you know
how horrible Herod was? He had already killed two of his wives
and at least one or two of his sons. He was known all throughout
Rome as a murderer. They had Roman soldiers who could compel anyone
to provide them a home, a meal; could bind them with all of their
heavy, armor, their baggage, whatever they wanted. That's why
Jesus said, "If someone compels you to go one mile with them,
go two."
Everybody was displaced in winter
to go down from Nazareth to Bethlehem to talk about taxes... something
that we all hate. She was nine months pregnant, and she traveled
a hundred and ten miles just to get to Bethlehem and find that
there was no room at the inn.
These were not pleasant times.
You see shepherds living out in
the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks. And the angel
of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone round
about them. And they were terrified. But the angel said to them
... help me:
(Audience responds: "Do not
be afraid.")
And the angel said to them:
(Audience responds: "Do not
be afraid.")
I think Mary, as well as the shepherds,
needed encouragement, needed to be affirmed. Do you need to be
affirmed? Do you need to be loved?
So the shepherds said, "Well
what shall we do?" and, very quickly, it says when the angel
left them and went into heaven, the shepherds said to themselves,
"Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened
which the Lord has told us about." So they hurried off and
they found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger.
Watch very carefully the interaction that we find here:
When they had seen him, they spread
the word concerning what they had seen and about this child, and
all were amazed at what the shepherds said and what they'd been
told, and watch very carefully in verse 19, "but Mary treasured
up all these things and pondered them in her heart."
Was the message of the king for
the shepherds? Yes. Was it for Mary? Yes. Was it for the neighbors?
Yes. For the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for
all things that they had heard and seen. Everyone was amazed.
We've missed one verse I think
you need this week. I'll always try to, at least, install with
you a heartfelt verse for the week.
When Mary heard the fact that
she was going to bear this Son of God and an angel told her that
Elizabeth was actually giving birth to a child, "the Holy
Spirit will come upon you and power of the Most Holy One will
overshadow you, so the Holy One will be born to be called the
Son of God, even your cousin Elizabeth is going to have a child
in her old age and she who is said to be barren will be in her
sixth month, for nothing is impossible with God."
Did you roll right over that verse?
Verse 37: "For nothing is
impossible with God."
I think you have that in your
head and not your heart. And I apologize for getting so much response
from you, but would you please help me repeat that scripture:
(Audience responds: "For
nothing is impossible with God.")
I don't think I heard you.
(Laughter)
Is there something that's impossible
with God?
(Audience responds: "No.")
For ...
(Audience completes, louder: "...nothing
is impossible with God.")
In this season of Christmas, I
think we need to listen to the angels. The angels come to us,
and they say ...
(Audience responds: "Do not
be afraid.")
They say to all of us "Do
not be afraid." For ...
(Audience completes: "...nothing
is impossible with God.")
They told me about the bond issue,
and I said, "Oh my goodness, that is going to be such a burden
for us in the next three or four months." Do you know how
blessed you are? Do you know how much talent you have within this
community? And we look one more time and we say,
"We do not have the money;
we cannot do this."
And the angel says, "Fear
not, for nothing is impossible with God."
And we say, "We're just a
little bitty tiny church in Dallas and we're gays and lesbians
and all kinds of people and there's nothing impossible with God.
Fear not."
Look at the people that God chose
to surround His Son, an infant: A mother who had no spiritual
training, who probably could not read and whose heart was pure
and God said, "This is the person I choose."
He took a lady that was old, old
in her age, who couldn't even bear children, to bear the child
that would be the Proclaimer, John the Baptizer.
He chose shepherds in the fields,
common workers. And he chose foreigners who were not even Jews,
to recognize that. God chooses people that we would never choose.
And he reminds them, "Fear not, for there is nothing that's
impossible with God."
The next time that God comes into
your world ... and like the rest of us, you'd like to have him
in a neat little box in a closet and take Him out on Sunday ...
but when He challenges us with something so unbeleivable and you
say "I cannot do this" and He says "Yes! You cannot
do this! But with Me all things are possible. So step out in faith
and know that I love and care for you. I affirm you."
Some of you have been doubting
for years that God loves you. God is very, very, very, very fond
of you. And I'm sorry for the rest of you that think "I'm
something very, very, very special." It took Christ dying
on a cross to make a path to Heaven for you. So you couldn't be
too good.
(Laughter)
If there's another way, God would
have found it.
In closing, I would like to read
you ... the words of a song. It's by Chris Rice, a hymn, a Christmas
song that you probably have heard before. But I wish that in your
minds, that you would be maybe the shepherds ... or maybe the
innkeeper that let Mary and Joseph use this stall, the only space
left. And I want you to look inside the window, or maybe go around
the door, and I want you to realize that Mary would say, "Come,
behold the Son of God."
And as you hold the Son of God
in your arms, possibly some of these thoughts would come to you.
"Tears are falling, hearts
are breaking
How I need to hear from God.
You've been promised; we are waiting
Welcome, Holy Child.
"Hope that you don't mind
our manger
How I wish that we'd have known
But, long-awaited Holy Stranger, please
Make yourself at home.
"Bring your peace into our
violence;
Bid our hungry souls be filled
The world now is breaking Heaven's silence
So welcome to our world.
"The fragile fingers seek
to heal us
Your tender brow prepared for thorns
Your tiny heart, whose blood will save us,
Unto us is born.
"Yes. Unto us is born.
"So wrap our injured flesh
around you.
Breathe our air, and walk our sod.
Steal our sins and make us holy
Perfect Son of God.
"O, perfect Son of God.
Welcome to our world."
Would you pray with me, please?
God, we do not deserve Your
love. You emptied Yourself out and became nothing; a helpless
infant put in the care of paupers. And yet You trusted us enough
to know that the relationship You desired would bring us into
adoption.At this time and season, help our hearts to make room
for You, dear Christ. Be our Healer. Help us to be the ones who
are forgivers as You have forgiven us.
And once again, dear Father,
dispell our fear and give us faith. Because that is Your gift
at Christmas: our faith in an all-loving God.
Through Christ, the perfect
gift of life we pray,
Amen.
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