Christianity: The Road Less Traveled
When you are in youth ministry you have to be very careful what you say. Cause it will come back to haunt you for a long time. One evening at youth group I jokingly told the kids if they got stuck on their tests to just answer “Jesus”, because he is always the answer. For the next 3 years when I ask kids questions and they don’t want to answer.. I just get “Jesus” and there is nothing I can do about it.
So when some youth were asking me what I was speaking on this week, I told them “Jesus”.
Jesus Pictures of the Day
For the last 5 years I’ve spoken only once a year and it’s on graduation Sunday. I’m not sure why it’s only been once a year, maybe dad is scared for his job.. just kidding. I usually try and speak something in relationship to graduation, or what Jesus asks us to do as Christians. I’m not going to stray away from those topics today. The Christian walk is a life long journey. It takes an entire lifetime of ups and downs. I’ve broken down the Christian walk into three convenient points (I know original), and I’ll guarantee each one of you are somewhere along this path. No matter where you are along the journey, I hope that by the end of my message you’ll be a step closer in the right direction.
I also want to put a disclaimer here this morning. Everything I’m about to say is pointed directly at me. The more I preach, the more I realize pastors are probably just talking to themselves. If God happens to make you uncomfortable this morning, I am right there with you.
The Decision
Have you ever wrestled with the concept of God, with the idea of Jesus? The idea that the creator of this insanely massive universe cares so much for us that he sent his only son to die and somehow atone for all the wrong things we’ve done. We talk about it all the time at church, but when you really stop and think about the entire sequence of events it’s absolutely mindblowingly insane. And now that I have a son of my own, this act makes even less sense to me at face value.
Throughout my life I’ve had discussions with people about Jesus. A line I hear a lot is “well you see Jesus.. I can accept him a good moral teacher, but you know. The son of the God? That is really farfetched and too much of a mental leap for me.” Or “You know what Mary, was probably just a good liar.” There have been times in my life when I’ve pondered the truth of Jesus and really wrestled with Christianity.
Then at one point in my walk with God I decided to start reading C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity and there was one passage in that book that has stuck with me ever since. As a side note: There is a reason it’s a classic, and comes highly recommended from me no matter where you are in your walk with God, but especially so if you are struggling with doubt.
To quote: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
CS Lewis Quote – Mere Christianity
CS’s line of reasoning here has stuck with me. You either have to accept EVERYTHING Jesus said or absolutely nothing. I’ve made the personal decision that Jesus is who he said he was, and the ramifications of that are not light. So, why so often do we as Christians treat Jesus like just a nice moral teacher and not the true Son of God.
John 14: 5 – 10
5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know[b] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” 9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.
The Call
As I said earlier the more I get a chance to speak, the more I’m convinced that most pastors are actually just talking to themselves in more ways than one. I’m finding and realizing that usually whenever I take the time to write or speak about something it is because I too am dealing with the struggles of that topic.
Once you accept Jesus as the Son of God, and accept his forgiveness of your sins, you will soon realize that he has work for you to do. That is the call on your life. Each one of us has it. I’ve been struggling with the call on my life for a long time, and in my opinion I’m still not quite there yet in fully realizing it.
Jeremiah 29:11 The Message (MSG)10-11This is God’s Word on the subject: “As soon as Babylon’s seventy years are up and not a day before, I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.
Fear. It can be healthy or It can be life crippling. For reasons I’m unsure of, life crippling fear of is not something that I have had to deal with. But do you know one thing that truly scares me? That one day I’ll wake up at the end of my life and realize that I’ve let it slip by. The more I’ve experienced life, the faster it goes by.
I’ve been reading a book lately called “Quitter”. It takes a hard look at what is a huge problem in my generation. The author examines the phenomenon that whenever you meet people and ask them what they do for a living you will hear the phrase “I’m a Blank, but I really want to be a Blank”.”I’m a Project Manager, but want to own my company.”.. or “I’m a call center agent, but want to be a teacher.” Acuff(The author) touches on that in the moment when chasing your dream that many wish they were a different age. In 6 weeks I’m going to be 30… and as I pursue God for my next steps I wish for the days of just turning 20. No matter what your age is right now, if you are chasing God’s dream you are probably wishing you “knew what you know now when you were younger” or that maybe you wish you had the last 10 years back. The thing though that I’ve come to realize is 1) That if I was 20, I wouldn’t have the experience and “maturity” that I have now and 2) I definitely wasn’t ready then. Don’t let “only if I was younger” affect your dream or call.
I once read a study about this researcher that went into a first grade class and asked a group of kids to raise their hands if they considered themselves artists. Without fail almost every child raised their hands. They would then repeat this same question every year with the same kids all the way to grade 6. What they found was that each there was sharp declines in how many kids considered themselves artists every year. The annual rate of decrease held steady at about 50%. When the study ended in grade 6, there were only 2 kids that still raised their hands.
I once did this exercise where I had to list the 5 most important hobbies/passions in my life that I couldn’t live without. By process of elimination you had to whittle it down to two things that you just could not live without at all. After you went through the heart ripping experience of choosing one favourite thing over another repeatedly, you had to write a single sentence around the two remaining items. This sentence had to be written from the perspective of “If you had no limits on your life right now, what would you be doing?” My answer haunts me to this day in a very good way. I cannot escape it. And now I am pursuing it when I can. If you have some time, do this exercise even today.
What dream has God put on your heart? What has God called you to do? Have you let your inner artist die because someone said something to you? Have you let life slip by because you were too busy? Are you like me? Wishing you were 10, 20, 30? Years younger.. Saying to yourself, well I can’t because of this or that excuse. What lies have you let yourself believe?
If there is anything I believe about this crazy messed up world, and how God operates is that he has this crazy, insane plan for each of us. He has planted mustard seed inside each of us. The problem is we get in the way, we won’t die ourselves and REALLY let God have control. I’m convinced that if even a small fraction of people started REALLY doing what they were born to do this world wouldn’t have 40,000 kids dyeing daily from hunger.
For a long time I let myself off the hook of God’s true call because well “the professional world needs Christians” and I grew up believing that God only called only a few to do his work in full time ministry, and I don’t think I’m alone in this. The more I look deep inside my soul, the more I believe those lies straight from Hell to stop people from putting everything of themselves into what God really has planned for you.
Maybe this whole idea of having a purpose for your life given to you by God is a new concept. If it is, I suggest you make it the focus of your prayer time with God. You may even know it what it is right now. If you doubt yourself, another great test is that if you wrote about, or told someone about it would doing such make you cry? If the answer is yes, that is what God is calling you to do. If you let yourself dream and wonder it can be scary. Why not take the chance and let God lead you, if you do you might just be surprised with the results.
To end this point I’m show a quick clip of a guy who’s name is Francis Chan. You ever listen to a preacher talk and not forget what he said 10 minutes later? It’s only happened to me like twice ever and neither of them were my dad (ha sorry 
). Francis is one of those two people. I heard him speak at NYC in 2007 and what he said stuck with me for a long time. I’m in the middle of reading one of his books and it’s changing me. This clip puts a spear into my heart and I think sums up my entire point in a fairly dramatic way.
The Action
So now that you have concluded Jesus is really the son of God, you have accepted him as your personal lord and savior and you have heard his call on your life all in 10 minutes flat.. What is left to do? Nothing of course but to act.
Someone once told me that if you think Christianity is boring, you are doing it wrong.
One of my favourite of Jesus’ parables is the parable of the buried talents, simply because it calls out the people who are given so much and do so little with it. It speaks to God’s call on my life and like everything else I’ve talked about today gives a nice “gut check” to keep my own actions(or lack thereof) in line.
Matthew 25:14-30 14 “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. 15 To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag,[a] each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. 16 The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. 17 So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. 18 But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. 20 The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’ 21 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’22 “The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’ 23 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ 24 “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’ 26 “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27 Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. 28 “‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. 29 For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
I had mentor when I was fresh out University who lived, breathed and sweat the calling God had on his life. Every time I was in his presence he made me a better Christian and a better man. He was Jesus with skin on. His name was Derek Liebenberg. Some of you have heard me talk about him before. I wouldn’t be the man I am today if it wasn’t for him. He died of a heart attack a couple months before his son was to be born. Derek and his wife had been trying to have children for 12 years, and she finally got pregnant. While establishing and working in an AIDS orphanage in South Africa he passed away in the middle of the night, before he ever got to see his son alive. I have some big questions for God when I meet him, and asking him why that happened will be one of them. The man that in my eyes was as close as you could come to living out what Jesus was all about was seemingly taken from this earth too early. And it’s all because he acted on what God asked him to do.. nothing more.
Jesus also very conveniently summed up everything he asked us to do in one small passage Matthew 22:36 – 40.36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
So I ask you, what are you doing today to act on loving your neighbor?
Act 1: 7-9a7-8He told them, “You don’t get to know the time. Timing is the Father’s business. What you’ll get is the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world.” 9.These were his last words.
Conclusion
True Christianity is the road less travelled because it takes work and sacrifice. But when it comes to the end of the age and you are standing before the great Judge what do you want your answer to be? With that thought it leads me to these questions.
So what stage of the journey with Christ are you on? Are you still trying to make the decision on whether or not Jesus is actually who he said he was? Are you fighting against God’s true call on your life? Or are you struggling with the Action of it all? Are you not feeding the hungry enough, clothing the naked, or visiting those in jail? Each of you are somewhere along this path. What do you need to do in your life this week or even today to move yourself along the road closer to God’s will and plan for you?
Life Application
1) Where are you at this moment along the journey? What is stopping you from moving forward?
2) Is your Christian walk a little too safe? What is holding you back from living dangerously for Christ?
3) What is one thing this week that I can do, that will help me take a step in the direction God wants me to move in?
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