Series: Now to Live the Life #2

Temptations
James 1:12-18
6-Sep-09
“Making Sense of Hard Times”
INTRO
All of us are acquainted with temptation
- As the bumper sticker puts it, “Lead me not into temptation – I can find it myself”
But how do we deal with it?
- How can we get a grip on victory over this beast – that has some of us defeated?
- In 1:12-18, James shifts from his discussion on tests to the subject of temptation
- Giving the journey of SIN
- to WARN AND RESCUE
1 – First we need to see TEMPTATION’S SOURCE – vs.13
- James begins here, perhaps because…
A. OUR TENDENCY IS TO BLAME GOD FOR OUR MORAL FAILURES
- Maybe not overtly – But subtly, we do
- Like Adam – confronted by God for his actions declared – “The woman
YOU put here with me made me do it.” – Gen 3
- If I had not been made this way – with these obsessions and addictions
– I would not have sinned
Illustration:
Some time ago, Time ran an article on adultery – suggesting that it can be explained on the basis of our genetic make-up
- It’s not my fault – I’m genetically programmed to get in bed with numerous women
- Blame the Creator – He made me this way
- Like Aaron, we sometimes explain immoral behavior as something that just happened
- Ex 32:24 – “They gave me the gold, I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf”
- Must be Your fault God, after all you are in charge!
- Parents live with this every day
- I didn’t do it – it just happened
But James corrects such misunderstanding –
- God is not tempted by evil – and He cannot tempt anyone to do wrong
- Temptation is completely contrary to His nature
- It begins somewhere else – as we will see in vs.14 – It begins with us
James might be starting here as well, because –
B – WE TEND TO CONFUSE TEMPTATION WITH TESTING
- The reality is – GOD IS BEHIND OUR TESTS
- Gen 22:1 – God tested Abraham’s faith when He ordered him to sacrifice his son Isaac
- 2 Chron 32:31 – God tested Hezekiah’s humility – when envoys from
Babylon came to view his kingdom – to see what was in his heart
- And God will occasionally test us – bringing all kinds of events, trials, even hard times – to refine us, find how deep our faith is, how sturdy are our hearts
BUT THE POINT JAMES IS MAKING IS THAT HE DOES NOT TEMPT
- This belongs to another author with contrary intentions – the devil – who loves to confuse the two by hijacking God’s tests with his temptations
Have you noticed how they seem to occur simultaneously? Shade from one to another?
1 – God may test us through loss (job, relationship, loved one) – test our resolve to trust Him
– And Satan will tempt our flesh to lose heart
2 – God may use success to test our willingness to give Him the glory – congratulate Him
– While Satan will tempt our flesh to self-congratulate
3 – God may use difficult people to test our patience
– Satan will tempt our flesh to go ballistic
4 – God may use persecution to test our determination to hope
– Satan will tempt our flesh to become hopeless
5 – Hard times will test our desire to be intimate with God
– Satan will tempt our flesh to become distant
6 – Good times will test our dependence on God
– Satan will tempt us to forget God
This is because he (satan) offers nothing on his own
- he hijacks what is good
James warns – Make sure you are clear about the differences – clear about the SOURCE
Having established SOURCE – James now focuses on…
2 – TEMPTATION’S COURSE – vs.14-15a
- Moving into the interior – James reveals temptation’s progression
A. It begins with DESIRE – vs.14a
- Each one is tempted by ONE’S OWN desire, craving
- That is – each of us comprise a unique set of desires
- For some of us - there lurks a desire for alcohol
- For other of us - there remains a craving for donuts, or food in general
- For many of us - there is a hunger, a want for sex
- Some have a deep longing for wealth
- Others a want for recognition, attention
Hence we are all tempted in different ways
- The traps out there are “personality coordinated” – designed for each one’s set of wants
- And temptation sets its sights on these desires
B. The intent is to ALLURE, DRAG AWAY – vs.14b
- This is temptation’s course
- James uses a metaphor from fishing
- Temptation aims to hook up with desire, with one’s affections, passions in order to take possession and carry off
Then…
C. Once temptation connects with desire – there is the potential for
CONCEPTION – vs.15a
- When temptation has been given permission to enter into a relationship with desire…
- …the two procreate to make sin
In this verse – James is correcting some common misunderstanding regarding temptation
1 – While our tendency is to look externally – to blame someone else – to blame the other person, blame the circumstance, blame the devil, blame God…
– James wants to highlight, underscore individual responsibility for sin
– It’s not as if he is unaware of the deceiver – Satan will be mentioned later
– But James wants us to face up to our culpability
EVIL GAINS NO GROUND until WE FIRST GIVE IT
2 – While our tendency is to focus on temptations that lurk around us – the real focus needs to be on our desires
– What is going on inside our interior
– For temptations can go nowhere without desires
We tend to approach life like this --
– Watch out for credit cards – they can tempt you into all kinds of debt
– Watch out for pornography on the internet – it can really bring you down
– Watch out for drugs – they can mess up your life
When the real focus issue – what we must center on is OUR desires, affections, passions
– Prov. 4:23 – “ABOVE ALL ELSE” – for this comes first! – Watch over, PAY ATTENTION TO your hearts with all diligence – for from it flows the spring of life
– Which ones are we feeding? Which ones need to be starved to death?
3 – While our tendency is to refer to moral failure as “falling into sin” – much as a blind-folded party guest stumbles into a swimming pool
– James makes it clear sin is about an intentional decision to dive in
– head-first, eyes open
– To willingly give permission to temptation to come in and co-habit with personal desires
4 – While our tendency is to consider temptation as itself sin
– To assume that continued temptations are a sign that we are out of fellowship with God
– Temptation only becomes sin when it is invited to mingle with desire
Martin Luther – “You can’t stop the birds from flying overhead, but you can stop them from nesting in your hair”
The implication of course is this – When temptation comes, will you invite or resist, yield or withstand?
– Will you allow temptation to take its course – or close it off before it begins?
Finally –
3 – TEMPTATION’S FORCE – vs.15b
- When desire and temptation connect – when sin is conceived
- This birth is not a celebration of life – but the emergence of death
- While we might not always take sin seriously – that sin on occasion is okay
- As something to trivialize or glamorize
- The reality is – sin ALWAYS carries with it the sentence of death
- Once temptation entices and drags away desire …
- Once there has been conception, incubation, gestation, birth, and growth – sin possesses an appalling force
- We not only transgress and fall short …
- WE ALSO DIE
- Death, as Paul noted, becomes sin’s wages – Rom 6:23
- Spiritually, relationally, emotionally, even physically
- Wherever there is sin, some form of death takes place!
So what must we do?
– James is clear – DO NOT BE DECEIVED! vs.16
– Don’t be naïve, blind, brain-dead when it comes to temptation
1 – Don’t confuse the tests of God with the temptations of the adversary
TESTS TEMPTATIONS
Origin GOD Satan
Motive Good Bad
Objectives Refine Entice
Aim Perseverance Sin
Goal Life Death
Response Welcome Resist
2 – Don’t assume you can make it through this life without a Saviour – without spiritual disciplines
3 – Don’t assume you are the exception – that temptation is not out to destroy you
4- open your eyes, see where you are weak, ask God to help your with the desires of your heart, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

contagious stories, series developing a christian faith

06/09/2009
Real-life stories can be powerful. They can change minds, touch hearts, and impact lives. They can even reshape societies and redirect history.
Take, for example, the story of the hard-living, liquor-slogging, vulgarity-spewing captain of a slave ship in the 1700s who in the midst of a terrible storm cried out to God for deliverance from the wind and waves—and mercifully received it. His name was John Newton, and he later told of how that experience was used by God to dramatically reorient his entire life and perspective, including his views on slavery. His story and experiences became key influences in the life of William Wilberforce who, decades later, succeeded in abolishing the slave trade in the entire British Empire.
Or consider the celebrated story of the small but powerful woman named Rosa Parks, who one December day in 1955 refused to move to the back of the bus, as African-Americans were expected to do at that time in Montgomery, Alabama. Her story of defiance and bravery was told time and again, and it eventually helped fuel the entire civil rights movement—which brought sweeping changes to our nation’s laws and its attitudes toward minorities.
And here’s one you might not know about that also happened in the 1950s, though you’ve certainly heard about some of the results. A young missionary named Bob Pierce felt such compassion for a young Chinese girl whose widowed mother could not afford to send her to a mission school that he gave all he had to help: fifteen dollars. That was enough to enroll her in the school—and he committed to sending money every month for her continued support. When he later went back to America and began to tell others about the needs he had seen in Asia and the story of what he had done to help this girl, the concept of child sponsorship caught on and began to grow. Today the organization he started, World Vision, has over 500,000 people sponsoring children every month, supporting 100 million people in 99 countries, and it has become one of the largest relief agencies on the planet!
See why I say that stories can be so powerful? Just these three alone helped to stop slavery in the Western world, curb the injustice of racism and prejudice in the United States, and provide food and support to needy people around the world!
And guess what? When it comes to the theme of our series, “Developing a Contagious Faith,” stories can have a huge impact as well! That’s why the Bible is so adamant in 1 Peter 3:15 about our need to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”
All of us, if we’re genuine followers of Jesus, have an important story to tell. Not just those of us with dramatic details, but all of us with ordinary stories of life-change can have a dramatic affect on those we talk to. Our testimonies can be absolutely contagious in their influence and impact! As Chuck Swindoll said in his book, Come Before Winter: “The sceptic may deny your doctrine or attack your church, but he cannot honestly ignore the fact that your life has been changed.”
So let’s look at Acts 26 and a great example of how God used one man’s story. In this passage the apostle Paul is in prison for his faith, and he’s given the opportunity to speak in his own defence before King Agrippa. He tells his story in a clear and powerful way—one I’m confident we can all learn from.
Pretty exciting drama, don’t you think? Paul was obviously very effective in his communications here—and the way he went about telling his story left some great clues for all of us to benefit from. So for the rest of our time together we’re going to look at five principles we can learn from Paul’s example in order to help us all be more ready to tell our own stories whenever opportunities arise.
We’ve built these around an acrostic of the word “S.T.O.R.Y.” Let’s begin with the “S.”

The “S” in STORY: Start with the Other Person
It’s tempting to take the stance that says, in effect, “This is my story, so it’s gonna be all about ME!” Many Christians have taken that approach in the past—and lost the interest of their listeners from the very start!
Notice that Paul didn’t do that. Look back at verses 2–3 and you’ll see that he actually focused his attention and opening words directly on his listener, King Agrippa. More than just being polite or introducing a topic he wanted to talk about, he was very careful to establish areas of common ground that they had with each other on an ordinary, human level. They were both Jewish, even if King Agrippa was not observant in his Judaism. They were both well educated and aware of the details and nuances of the Jewish faith. And Paul spoke to him with great respect, even if he didn’t respect his values or lifestyle. Paul was establishing rapport, which earned him the right to ask at the end of verse 3 that the king patiently listen to what he had to say.
This was a great example of what Paul taught in one of his letters to the church in Corinth, where he says in 1 Corinthians 9:22–23: “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.” In other words, he was very intentional about relating his message in a way that would be understandable and relevant to the person he was talking to—without ever softening or compromising it in any way.
How about you? Most of us as Christians struggle with either not talking about our faith at all, or going to the other extreme and talking only about OUR faith and experience. But don’t fall into that latter trap of self-centered spirituality. Put the other person first. Ask questions and really listen. Get to know them and understand where they’re coming from. Then, based on what you learn, relate your story to their experience and situation. You’ll be much more effective and much more useful in God’s hands.

The “T” in STORY: Talk with Confidence and Clarity
Think about the situation. Paul was a prisoner, and he was actually brought into the room wearing heavy chains. It was a humiliating situation, standing in shackles before this king and his sister who, we are told in Acts 25, had come into the room with great pomp. Paul was seemingly at a huge psychological disadvantage in this interchange.
Yet it’s obvious that he was not intimidated or hesitant. As soon as he was given the opportunity to talk, he waved his hand to silence the crowd and then began to speak boldly. He talked about being “fortunate” to be speaking to the king. He laid out his facts clearly and concisely. He confidently appealed to the knowledge of his Jewish listeners at one point, and to that of the king himself at another. And he stood up to Festus when Festus called him insane, and asserted calmly that he was not crazy, and that in fact everything he said was completely “true and reasonable.”
Where did Paul get such poise and confidence when the odds were so stacked against him? Let me suggest a couple reasons for his boldness:
First, he knew who God was. Paul had long since learned about and experienced the truth about God and his Messiah, Jesus. He had carefully looked into all of the claims and evidence, and talked personally to some of the people Jesus had walked with. So Paul was able to exclaim in one of his letters, “I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day” (2 Timothy 1:12).
Second, he knew who he was: He knew he was a favoured son of the King of Kings—so he wasn’t going to let a mere human king intimidate him.
Knowing the truth about God and about himself gave Paul courage and strength even in the most difficult of circumstances. And guess what? The same can be true for all of us! I think some of us get timid about our faith because we’ve never bothered to read the right books, or come to the right classes, or do the homework necessary to really gain confidence in our knowledge of God and our standing in God’s family. And so we end up being, as Paul put it in Ephesians 4:14, “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching.”
That’s why we as a church work hard to provide high-quality teaching and to point you to great books that will reinforce your faith. We want all of us to be grounded in the truth, clear in our knowledge of God, and confident in our standing as his sons and daughters—knowing it’ll make us stronger in our daily lives and bolder in our witness for him.

The “O” in STORY: Organize Your Story Chronologically
You may have noticed that Paul didn’t ramble around in a random fashion when he told King Agrippa his story. He had obviously thought it through ahead of time and had organized his thoughts—in keeping with what Peter said in 1 Peter 3:15 about “being prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks.”
What he did was clearly and concisely relay his experience in the order it actually happened. Check him out starting in verse 4, where he talks about his experience growing up, before knowing Christ. He said, “The Jews all know the way I have lived ever since I was a child, from the beginning of my life in my own country, and also in Jerusalem,” and he continued in that vein through verse 11. We refer to that as the “B.C.,” or “Before Christ” part of his story.
But then in verse 12 he shifts into talking about his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, and he elaborates on that experience through verse 18. This is the middle part of his story, which we’ll refer to as the M.C. part, meaning “Met Christ.”
Then in verse 19, he goes on to the “A.D.” part of his story, which is what happened after he met Christ. He says, “So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven …” and he goes on from there.
Notice how the whole account feels so natural? That same approach works well today too. We’re all used to seeing before-and-after testimonials that illustrate how buying a product, or taking a medication, or getting on an exercise routine can make a difference in our lives. Only, in this instance, the difference is a deep, real, and lasting change that goes right to our very heart and soul—and lasts for all eternity!
You have, if you’re a committed follower of Christ, a B.C., M.C., A.D. story. And that story can have a huge impact on the people around you, even if it might seem kind of bland and unexciting to you. If knowing Jesus has changed your life, then a whole lot of people out there could benefit from hearing about it.
I can’t wait to hear how in the days and weeks to come God’s going to use many of your stories!
Also, before I go on, let me say a brief but important word to any spiritual seekers who might be among us today. You may be listening to all of this and thinking to yourself, “My story? What story? I’m still trying to figure out what all of this means!” Well, if that’s you, we want you to know we’re really glad you’re here. We’re confident that this church is a place where you can sort out what to think about God, and learn about how to take “next steps” on your spiritual journey. Nothing could be more important, so please come to the large hall to talk to us when this service ends in a few minutes, so we can talk about whatever questions or issues you’d like to discuss. Also, please do everything you can to be here the next two weekends, when we’ll go into much more depth on what this whole “M.C.” or “meeting Christ” part is all about. This is such a vital issue—and I’m committed, as is this entire church, to helping you move forward in your journey toward Christ. We hope that, with God’s help, you’ll also soon have a spiritual story to tell!

The “R” in STORY: Relate Your Experience to the Other Person’s Life
I love this one—and can’t overemphasize its importance. Let me start with a few illustrations:
One of the greatest mistakes a leader can make is to talk about what is needed in an organization, but then fail to ask people to make the changes necessary to actually make that need actually happen.
And one of the most common errors that salespeople commit is to present all of the details about their product, but then shy away from asking their potential customer for the order.
And didn’t we all hate it when a schoolteacher would talk about the importance of a subject, but then leave us fuzzy about what we needed to know to be ready for the test?
If all you do is tell the story of your personal encounter with God and leave it there, you’ll be like that ineffective leader, salesperson, or teacher. You’ll be an almost-Contagious Christian! You’ll have told some interesting spiritual autobiographical information, but you’ll likely not persuade your listeners to follow Christ.
But look at what Paul did in verses 26 and 27. He courageously said, “The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do.”
If effect he’s saying: “You’ve heard my story, you’ve got the information, you know it’s all true—NOW DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!” We need to follow Paul’s example, and not just tell others about our experience with Christ, but also apply what that can mean to them, and encourage them to act on that knowledge by seeking and following Jesus.

The “Y” in STORY: Your Mission: Point People to Christ
The reason Paul was so bold, so clear, and so persuasive was because he knew he was on a mission. His top concern was not to defend and preserve his own life—it was to save the lives and eternities of the people who were listening to him!
He knew this was not about mere spiritual autobiography—it was about evangelism! It was about being contagious with the wonderful message that Jesus Christ can change a life. He had changed Paul’s life, and Paul wanted the same for everyone listening to him, including those who were acting as his enemies. What a love-driven and inspiring example Paul was for all of us!
And notice that his hearers got the point. In verse 28 Agrippa said to Paul, “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?” Agrippa was feeling the challenge. He knew that Paul was on a mission, and that mission was him!
And notice, too, that Paul didn’t back down even an inch. He didn’t say what many people who claim to be Christians today would say:
“Well, I don’t want to try to change anyone’s mind. I mean, I’m just saying that the Jesus approach works for me. But you may have a different perspective—you know, your own truth. It would be presumptuous for me to try to tell you my way is right and your way is wrong. I’ll just pray that one way or another God will lead you in the right direction, whatever that might be, and let’s try not to offend each other—okay?”
Can you imagine?
No, Paul scanned the room from left to right, then looked King Agrippa in the eye, and, throwing caution and political correctness to the wind, said boldly: “Short time or long—I pray God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am,” and then he winsomely added, “except for these chains.”
In other words he was declaring that, yes, he really was trying to persuade the king and everyone else within earshot to move everything that was getting in their way in order to know and follow Jesus as their forgiver and leader!
Paul may have started on the defence, but he had quickly and decisively moved to the offence. The prisoner was passionately trying to take captives for Christ! The king felt the heat, and really had two choices: get right with God or get away from Paul! If you look at the passage, you’ll see that he unfortunately got up and left the room. I hope and pray that any spiritual onlookers here today will make a better choice than Agrippa did.
And I trust that all of us who name Christ as our leader will capture some of Paul’s tenacious spirit and get on the offence with the people around us who are dying to know the real Jesus.
Listen, you’ve got a story to tell, and God can really use it, so please remember:
• Start with the other person
• Talk with confidence and clarity
• Organize it naturally
• Relate it to the other person. And remember:
• Your mission is to point them to Christ, so they can begin their own story!
We live in a culture that relates best to stories. People want to know not just if Christianity is true, but whether it works. Your story powerfully illustrates that God is alive in your life and makes a marked difference in how you think, what you value, and how you live. This also reminds us why it’s so important, as we said in message one, to live an authentic Christian life—it’s our best argument for why others should follow Christ!
Please be sure to be back next week, when we’re going to talk about the vitally important subject of “A Contagious Message.”
I began this message by mentioning the story of John Newton, the former slave trader who called out to God from his ship in the middle of a storm and became a committed follower of Christ. He not only spoke and wrote often about his story, he also put it into a song—one that has become a favourite to millions for hundreds of years. Listen to the words of that song. It’s his powerful story, and it’s yours and mine, too:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see!

Series: Now to Live the Life #1

Trials
James 1:1-4
“Too Loving to Waste Pain”
Few years ago, one of the most beautiful parks in America took on the characteristics of hell
- Nearly one million acres of Yellowstone National Park were charred
- Despite the efforts of 10,000 firefighters - the park burned for days
But what appeared to be catastrophic turned out to be nature's signature, written with a grand flourish
- For the fire healed rather than ravished the forest floor
- Old deadfall was cleared out
- Seed cones that can only be triggered by heat opened and gave birth to new trees
- Plant species increased 10-fold
Ecological disasters sometimes end up as blessings
- But is such true in the lives of people?
- Can an unexpected cancer, an accident, a separation of friendship, the loss of a job, the pain of rejection, persecution of convictions be a good thing?
According to James 1:1-4 - it can be even more than good - giving us a structure for dealing with life's inevitable challenges – difficult times can, ironically, be one of the best things that ever happened to us
His readers were facing such challenges
- Described in vs.1 as "scattered" - uprooted, losing the security of homes, family
- Jewish believers forced out because of their convictions - leading to poverty and oppression
James wants them to know, us to know, that God is doing something in our lives that may even involve pain
- And He does not intend to waste it
- But it will be wasted if we don't respond rightly
How must we face life's challenges, life's pain?
1- WITH EXPECTATION - RATHER THAN DENIAL
- "When" - not "If"
- For trials are part of the human condition
- Job 5:7 - as sparks fly upward - so with the same predictability -- man is born for trouble
- Life can be counted on to provide all the pain that any of us might need
- So long as we remain in the body, there will be loss, bereavement, partings, griefs of a thousand sorts
- As Yancey puts it, “Everyone lives out a unique script of hardship”
- One does not get too far into life without realizing that no one gets to heaven - or hell for that matter - trouble free
- It is part of the human condition - a consequence, in part, of our flawed condition
- And no one who comes to Christ gets a pass from pain - this is at the heart of
James' message
- In fact-when God reveals His grace - trials can sometimes tend to increase
- Just ask Abraham, as he headed for Mt. Moriah
- Job, as he scratched at his boils
- David, hiding in a cave
- Elijah, moping in the desert
- Moses - who responded to the call of God and soon pleaded for a new job description
- The disciples - who each went through suffering for identifying with Jesus
- And many of you - who came to Christ and discovered all hell broke loose
- Paul - who declared in Acts 14 - "Through affliction we must enter the kingdom of God"
Tozer - "It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt deeply"
Such realities compelled Peter to write, “Don’t be surprised at the painful trial that you are suffering – as though something strange were happening to you.”
And yet - we treat them as strange - as unwelcome rather than expected guests
- As unexpected – as something that should not have happened to us
- Shifting to denial – cover up
- We privately ask God – why?
- And publicly present an image life could not be better – when often it could be
But James goes further – much further
- If God’s purpose is to be accomplished in our pain
- We must not only face trials with expectancy –rather than denial – face them…
2 - WITH JOY - RATHER THAN DESPAIR
- Consider – count it, regard tough times as joy
- This is hard enough – but here’s what trips me up – “full,” complete Joy with a capital “J”
- One wonders if James lost his mind
- How can there be sheer joy in traffic jams, delayed flights, flat tires, and cold food?
- How does one celebrate when there is financial reversal, hurtful words, loss of life, ruined health?
This seems so contrary to an age that places an extremely high value on comfort, personal happiness, self-fulfillment
- Our immediate response to suffering is to consider it pure bad news
- We have become too soft to scale such spiritual heights
- Evidenced by prayers absent of a vocabulary for suffering
- Our immediate response to suffering is to pray for healing - for the absence of pain
- We do not normally invite God into our pain - asking Him to show us Himself - to know Him in ways we otherwise could not
- Our immediate response to those facing suffering is to speculate as to what has caused the judgment – our first assumption is that something is out of sync with God
Illustration –I knew a godly woman who came down with cancer, but to her great anguish, her immediate Christian community saw it as something that must be immediately remedied by increased faith – something that must be faced with grief and guilt and despair and anger – if things do not change
- We're far more interested in God eliminating the complications rather than seeing Him work through them
- Want the crowns without the cross
- Translate salvation as deliverance from anything unpleasant
James suggests that our response may completely miss the point
- That His goodness goes far deeper than pleasure or pain
- That those who “use” God as a means of self-realization, comfort, escaping pain, finding pleasure, immediate healing – usually come away disappointed
- We must FIRST consider the work God might be doing – and rejoice in
whatever that might be – for it is always for good.
But James is not done – he adds one more –
- If God’s purpose for our pain is to be accomplished, we must face hard times -with expectancy – with joy …
3 - WITH SUBMISSION - RATHER THAN RESISTANCE
- James seems to be warning - don't interfere with the process
- There is a purpose behind all of this
- There are benefits that can be lost if we resist
Like peaches picked too early - that remain hard and never ripen
- Don't short circuit the process – and end up tasteless
In all of this, it’s as if James is saying – at times – we need problems more than we need solutions
- Failures can often be far better than success
- Pain can sometimes be healthier than comfort
Why?
- Why accept trials, why count it joy to suffer, why submit???
A – GOD IS WORKING OUT HIS WILL – SHAPING A LIFE
- That will likely not happen any other way
- Underscoring everything James is declaring is this - GOD IS TOO LOVING TO
WASTE OUR PAIN
- When He seems most absent, He may be doing His most important work in us
- God is most likely using, testing to work something needful to our faith - making alterations necessitated by sin
B – GOD IS WORKING PATIENCE – vs.3
- A term descriptive of steady endurance, persistence, tenacity, grit
- A spirit resolved, determined
- A Capacity to Endure – a willingness to remain under
- An enlarged ability to know God – which is a far greater joy than anything life serves up
- A life that will impact others
Think of Corrie ten Boom - whose trials produced in her a spiritual toughness
- A depth of character
- A detachment from self and an attachment to God
In his book, Great Souls, Aikman surveyed the 20th century in search of the greatest influencers – people with immense capacity – and settled on who, for the most part, were well acquainted with suffering
- Mandela – 27 years in prison
- Mother Teresa – who lived in the center of it
- Solzhenitsyn – in the Gulag – who at one point cried, “Prison, I bless you”
- For in the losing control of his circumstances, he was given what life on the outside did not give him -- Character
Oswald Chambers once wrote --
"When God wants to drill a man,
and thrill a man,
and skill a man...
When God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part
When He yearns with all His heart,
To create so great - so bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed.
Watch His methods, watch His ways
How He ruthlessly perfects whom he royally elects
How He hammers him and hurts him
And with mighty blows converts him…”
Tozer – “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply”
God may use a chisel or a jackhammer
- The choice is often ours to make
- In all of this -
C – GOD IS ABOUT MAKING US WHOLE – vs. 4
Ultimately - God intends that our lives do not lack
- Complete, Sound, Unbroken – AUTHENTIC
- Bringing us to Himself – to Christ – to a Savior who alone can reform and shape us.
- Completed lives attract the world
- At work - trials build character
This is the theme – the aim of the book of James: God’s Manual to Wholeness
CONCLUSION:
More important than the pain – is our response
-- Will we use it – or waste it?

contagious relationships

I’m fascinated by political satire and humor. Not everyone is, but I think it is an effective way to make commentary on what’s going on in society.
Like the comedian who does a routine about a teenager in Brooklyn who is trying to make up his mind about a summer job. So pretending to be this Brooklyn teenager, the comedian says, “I wonder what kind of job I can land this summer. I could probably land a job at McDonald’s, and if I worked hard for six hours a day, $5.15 an hour, I’ll bet I could bring home about a hundred bucks a week. Yep, that’s an option. I could flip burgers at McDonald’s.
“Or, let’s see. What else could I do for a summer job? Well, I could sell drugs. Let’s think about that. I could work for, oh, maybe an hour a day, make $10,000 a week, buy a BMW, go to the beach in the afternoon, and work the clubs at night. Hmmm. This is a very tough decision: flipping burgers all day, every day for $100 a week, or working an hour a day for $10,000 a week. BMW, beach, clubs. Hmmm. I wonder what I’ll do for a summer job?”
Now, I obviously believe that dealing drugs is a terrible thing for anyone to do, but it’s a penetrating commentary, isn’t it, on the awful choices that many young people are forced to make these days?
Well, if a first-century comedian were cracking jokes about easy ways to make a fast buck in first-century society, he’d be cracking jokes not about drug dealing, but about tax collecting—because if you had the taxing franchise in your region back then, you had the key to the bank.
You’d send out tax bills for whatever base amount Rome wanted to collect; but then you could tack on 10, 20, 30, 50, or even 100 percent—whatever you wanted to add on to the tab—for your own profit. And you could dispatch Roman soldiers to beat up anybody who wouldn’t pay up! You had a literal license for extortion, which is precisely why the Jewish people hated tax collectors so much. They were usually a sleazy, greedy, and deceitful lot, who profited off of everyone else’s misery.
Now, it just so happens that the author of the first book in the New Testament, Matthew, or Levi as he’s sometimes called, was a tax collector in his pre-Christian days. Matthew, as we’ll explore today, threw a party for all his tax-collecting buddies to announce that he was closing up shop and signing up for a tour of duty with a teacher named Jesus. What I want to do in this message is point out some of the highlights in this story and then draw out some applications that I think will be helpful to you.
The first highlight you can see is that Jesus handpicked Matthew and personally challenged him to follow him. We don’t know what Jesus saw in Matthew, but Jesus wanted him to be his disciple.
Now, we have to assume that Matthew had heard about Jesus and that the Holy Spirit had already been active in his heart for quite some time because, when Jesus said, “Follow me,” Matthew didn’t say, “Well, who are you?” or “What for?” or “To where?” or “For how long?” Obviously, Matthew had already been prepared.
Luke 5:28 says in one sentence that Matthew left everything to follow Christ, and “everything” to a tax collector was a whole lot of money, land, and material possessions. It’s widely believed that Matthew paid a higher financial price than any of the other disciples of Jesus. He walked away from a fortune to obey Jesus’ call; it cost him everything.
The very next verse, Luke 5:29, tells us that right after he accepts the challenge to be a follower of Christ, he throws a major party, a big banquet, the text says, for his fellow tax collectors and friends. I’m convinced, as are others, that the party was thrown not only as a kind of good-bye celebration to his colleagues, but also to introduce his friends and cohorts to Jesus and some of his other disciples that Matthew would be teaming up with in the future.
If you think about it, what Matthew was doing was throwing an evangelistic mixer, what I like to simply call a “Matthew Party,” hoping and praying that Jesus and his followers would be able to influence some of his tax-collecting buddies by just rubbing shoulders with them in a social setting. Maybe they would be able to build some bridges. Maybe they would even have some spiritual conversations that could be followed up on later.
But Matthew took a risk and crawled out of his comfort zone and brought these two groups together. And he prayed fervently that something significant might happen in the midst of his Matthew Party.
Matthew’s party says an awful lot about Matthew. His party shows us that Matthew had a tender heart toward those he knew who were headed to hell. He knew he was now heavenbound, but he wanted to hang on to as many of his buddies as he could and bring them along.
The second highlight of the story is that the Pharisees have a major problem with evangelistic Matthew Parties. Their primary objection is the guest list. They don’t feel comfortable with the fact that Jesus is rubbing shoulders with the likes of Matthew’s tax-collecting buddies. You see, in their eyes, tax gatherers and other irreligious riffraff did not deserve time and attention from Jesus or from any respectable religious leader or teacher.
The attitude of the Pharisees tells us something about the heart of the Pharisees. All they saw in Matthew’s buddies were profane, greedy, immoral, worthless sinners. Certainly no God-fearing person had any business rubbing shoulders with the likes of them. They were wicked, lost causes worthy of the damnation that was awaiting them. The hearts of the Pharisees were stone-cold toward them.
The next highlight is Jesus’ response to the Pharisees’ concerns by comparing himself to a doctor. Jesus appeals to the Pharisees’ logic by asking them how smart it is for a doctor to surround himself with only healthy people. It’s a quick way to ruin a potentially good medical practice, isn’t it?
Smart doctors, Jesus says, surround themselves with people who need their services. They apply their skills and services to those who are actually ill. Similarly Jesus said about himself and his own mission, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. Just like a doctor would surround himself with the ill, I surround myself with the sinful.”
Now, Jesus isn’t for a minute suggesting that the Pharisees are sin-free. He’s not suggesting that they don’t need intervention, his intervention, in their lives. Romans 3:10 tells us that there’s none who are righteous, not even one. And Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”—including these Pharisees!
What Jesus is saying is that some people are more aware of their sinfulness and their spiritual neediness than others. Jesus is merely announcing that he will always make time for those who carry a humble sense of their own sinfulness in their hearts. He will, like a smart physician, focus his attention on those who are sick, but open about it and anxious for treatment.
But those who steadfastly refuse to admit their fallenness, their sin, and their need, well, healthy people don’t hang around doctors very often, do they? So what’s a doctor to do? Obviously, this is a thinly veiled shot at the self-righteousness and pride of the Pharisees.
The central thrust of this passage is very similar to the emphasis in Luke 15, where Jesus tells the stories of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the wayward son—where the lost sheep matters so much to the shepherd, and the lost coin matters so much to the woman, and the wayward son matters immensely to the father. Jesus was teaching the Pharisees that lost people really do matter to the Father. Irreligious “riffraff” matter to God, they matter to Jesus and, he is saying, they ought to matter to you Pharisees, as well!
This story is dripping in irony. Think about it. Here’s Matthew, a mere rookie Christian who has only been a believer for a matter of days; and yet he is so concerned about the condition of his tax-collecting buddies that he takes a risk and throws an evangelistic party, trying to create some spiritual interactions that might just lead to a few of them finding God’s forgiveness and leadership for their lives. So Matthew will take that risk. He’ll pay the price. He’ll take the scorn of the Pharisees. It doesn’t bother him. He’s got a heart of love and concern for his buddies.
Contrast the rookie Matthew with the veteran spiritual leaders of the day, the lofty Pharisees—those highly educated, thoroughly trained, well-seasoned paragons of spiritual strength—who had just missed the entire point of what Matthew and Jesus and the other disciples were trying to do at Matthew’s party.
The Pharisees had become so obsessed with impressing themselves and others with their righteousness that their hearts had become calloused and cold toward those who, at least by appearance, needed spiritual help the most. They had reduced their faith to a self-improvement contest where they would score themselves and others in a competition toward higher and higher levels of superficial religious performance.
There’s a little dig going on here. Jesus says in the first part of Matthew 9:13 [my paraphrase]: “Look, you teachers, go and learn. Become students of the Old Testament book of Hosea, where the prophet says on God’s behalf, ‘I desire compassion, not just sacrifice.’”
Jesus’ point was that there’s more to the life of following and serving God than the meticulous carrying out of kingdom commands, as important as those are. Truly redeemed men and women must also have as a goal of becoming increasingly tender and concerned about the condition and fate of the lost, irreligious people in their world.
Do you understand Jesus’ lesson for us today? It’s so easy for us to fall into perfectionistic traps as we attempt to grow up in the Christian faith. It’s so easy for us to start gauging our spiritual maturity by how much we know, how much we serve, how many church events we attend, or how may sermon CDs we listen to.
But Jesus is saying, “Be careful. Those are all good things, but be careful that you don’t get so wrapped up in the doing side of the Christian life that you neglect the loving side of the faith—especially the loving of lost people. Don’t let your heart grow cold. Be careful as you mature in knowledge and in character and worship and repentance and giving and serving; be careful that you are also mature in compassion for those who are on the fast track toward destruction.”
You know, the longer you walk with Christ, the softer your heart should become toward spiritually wayward people, because you ought to see the whole world predicament more clearly. You ought to see Scripture more clearly. You ought to see eternity more clearly. You ought to see heaven and hell more clearly. The older you get, the deeper you ought to feel about the plight of people who don’t know God.
Bill Hybels saw a strong example of this some time back. He was in a meeting, serving in a consultant role for a Christian organization, and a man about twenty years older took him aside during break time and introduced himself. He told Bill how he and his wife loved to organize ski trips and hiking expeditions with non-churched people from the neighborhood.
He explained how they got five or six couples together, along with one or two evangelistically oriented Christian couples, for these outdoor getaways. The Christians fast and pray and trust that as they all rub shoulders and hang out together on the slopes or on the mountain trails for two or three days, the Holy Spirit will open some doors and some conversations that might bear spiritual fruit.
He told Bill about all the contagious relationships and conversations that grow naturally out of these kinds of settings. So Bill asked him, “Well, how’s it working?” The man said, “Well, my wife and I have been doing this for seven or eight years now, and I suppose we’ve led maybe thirty or forty couples to Christ.”
Think about that: thirty or forty couples!
Then this man said to Bill, “You know, we have two or three of these weekends coming up this summer. Would you like to come and play a role in one of those? Would you come and mix it up with a bunch of our spiritually seeking friends?” His voice was so full of enthusiasm and his eyes were so full of passion for reaching lost people that as he spoke Bill remembers thinking, “I wonder if I’ll be as fired up about reaching lost people twenty years from now as this guy is right now. I wonder if my heart will be burning like his heart is burning.”
According to what Jesus is saying here, if a Christian is growing properly, he or she will continually grow in compassion for spiritually off-track people. So are we all growing properly here at our church? No question that a lot of us are growing in knowledge, in worship, in character, in serving, and in giving. But are we also growing in tenderness toward lost people and in our desire to do something about it?
Are we aching a little more each year that family members and friends and colleagues who are headed for a Christless eternity might come to know him? Are we getting bolder and more creative in our personal evangelistic strategies? I mean, are we planning parties like Matthew’s? Are we crawling out of our comfort zones and taking risks, and maybe failing sometimes, but taking more risks anyway because the stakes are so high?
Are we devoting quality thought to how we can keep mixing with non-Christian people in the hopes that by rubbing shoulders with them we’ll be able to share Christ with them somehow? Or as is far too often the case, are we becoming increasingly isolated and cut off from the very people we’ve been called to reach?
At a pastor’s conference some time ago, the speaker asked about four hundred pastors, “When was the last time any of you have even had one dinner with a non-Christian? Has any pastor in this whole group had a single dinner with someone who was far from God in the last twelve months?” There were people looking for ink pens and blowing their noses and tying their shoes, and it became clear that it was an uncomfortable moment for many of them.
What about us? Are our whole lives revolving around the church—Christian service, Christian people—such that we just barely have contact with spiritually needy people anymore? If so, that’s trouble.
First of all, it’s trouble for us. I think I can pretty much gauge the voltage level of my Christian life by the amount of contact that I’m having with non-churched people; if it has been a long time since I’ve been in one of those critical conversations where all eternity is hanging in the balance, when I’m explaining the gospel and the guy’s asking and I’m answering challenging spiritual questions, when he’s saying to me, “Well, I don’t believe it,” and I’m saying to him, “You’d better believe it because there’s evidence for it.” And he says, “Yeah, what evidence?” And I say, “This kind of evidence.” You know, when you’re really sparring, going back and forth, and the guy finally says, “Is that really true? I’d like to hear more.” When that kind of thing’s going on in my life, I’ll tell you what, I pray with greater fervency, I fast with more regularity, there’s more intensity in my preaching. I mean, it really makes a difference to me if I’m involved with people who need Christ!
Some of you have a layer of dust over your soul about an inch deep, and you say, “I can’t seem to get it off. What’s the matter with me?” You just need to strike up a relationship with a spiritually mixed-up person and start spending some time hanging out with them, and praying for them, and starting spiritual conversations with them so you see what God might do. Some of you just need to throw a party like Matthew’s—to stir things up a little bit!
If we aren’t actively doing these things, not only is it trouble for us—it’s trouble for them. I don’t want to lay an undue burden on anybody, but you really might be the critical link for your friend. You might be the only respectable, high-integrity Christian some people in and around your life will ever know.
Some of you work in environments where you’re the only Christian. You’re the only Bible some people read. You’re the only replica of Jesus they ever lay eyes on. So if you’re isolated and cut off and have no real contact with them, it’s trouble. It’s trouble for them, and it’s trouble for you. It’s also trouble for the kingdom because the kingdom is only going to advance through the evangelistic efforts of people like you and me.
You see, somehow we have to strike a balance in our lives between contact with Christians—which is very important because we need to be in spiritually supportive relationships; we need to be on serving teams, and we need to be in the context of community so that we can be held accountable and be encouraged and all that—but it’s so easy to let that side of the scale go heavy and pretty soon we’re just imbalanced and there are no unbelievers in our lives!
Without a proper balance of contact with believers and unbelievers, it’s only a matter of time until our hearts start growing cold toward people outside of God’s family. We all need to take steps to develop and deepen contagious relationships in our lives—ones through which we can winsomely and infectiously communicate God’s love and truth.
I wonder what the temperature is in your heart toward spiritually wayward people right now? Is it where it needs to be?
With the time that remains in this service, let me try to seed your mind a little bit with a few ideas. The first is what we might refer to as becoming a contagious consumer. All of us buy gasoline, go to restaurants, dry cleaners, grocery stores, and other places for the necessities of life, right? With just a little forethought, those mundane errands can become evangelistic opportunities and adventures!
If you’d be strategic about going back to the same gas stations, restaurants, and stores enough to establish a rapport with the personnel there, it might just lead naturally to a spiritual conversation. And that might eventually lead to your bringing them to church and sharing the gospel with them—and one day leading them to faith in Christ!
Please give this serious thought. I’m guessing we have brothers and sisters worshiping here today who originally came here as a result of someone from the church coming into their restaurant or food store or retail establishment consistently enough to gain rapport, have a spiritual conversation, and eventually lead some of you to Christ. [Tell an actual story here, if you have one.]
The opposite side of the coin is true, as well. I know that we have some waitresses and clerks and salespeople who, with a little prayer and forethought, could cultivate contagious relationships with some regular customers that might, over time, lead to spiritual conversations and influence. It can go either way.
My main point here is some of us are coming into contact regularly with non-Christian people, but we’re not being heads-up enough to take advantage of those brief interchanges. Remember the words of Colossians 4:5, that tell us to act with wisdom toward outsiders and make the most of every opportunity? Let’s redouble our efforts to do this in all of our individual situations!
I’m guessing that some of you are thinking, “I’m around non-Christians all of the time, but how do you broach spiritual topics?” Well, what kind of things do you and your friends talk about? Are you in business settings, where it’s common to ask each other “What kind of year are you having?” If so, maybe you could answer with something like this: “Well, financially, my year has been so-so; family-wise, great; and spiritually, fantastic. Which of the three would you like to talk about?” That might get a conversation going!
Here’s something else you can say to people you see often. Start by asking the typical, “How’s it going?” They’ll reflexively say, “Oh, fine.” Then get a bit closer to them, and sincerely say, “You can tell me the truth. It can’t always be fine. How’s it really going?” Just that little line can open all kinds of doors. It lets the person know that you care about whatever is not going fine, that you have a listening ear and a sensitive heart. This can lead to incredible witnessing opportunities.
Another idea is strategic recreation and exercise. Many of you exercise and participate in sports in order to stay in shape and to have some fun. Often these activities lend themselves to including non-Christian friends. If you invite someone too quickly to a Bible study they might just get nervous. But if you invite them to a volleyball or softball game, or maybe to join you for a round of golf, they’ll probably say, “Hey, why not?” Then, as you spend time together and as God leads, you can move conversations deeper into personal matters, and finally into spiritual matters.
Recreation and exercise can form natural settings in which to engage and encourage your friends. So why not get a little more strategic about these activities? Use bike riding, running, weight lifting, or aerobics as ways to build relationships and deepen conversations with people who need Christ, praying that fruit will be borne along the way. [This could also be a good place to add a personal story from your life or from someone in your church.]
Third, strategic civic, community, school, or political involvements can produce wide-open doors for developing contagious relationships and conversations.
For too long many Christians have shied away from civic or political involvements, and the results have been unfortunate on a couple of levels: first, because when Christians stay away from these kinds of activities, the Christian value system and perspective are often not represented well in education or in government. So many of these groups are becoming increasingly secularized because Christians have pulled out of them and huddled in churches. But also, on the level that we’ve been talking about here today, because we miss key opportunities to hang out with non-churched people in those settings. Maybe some of you could kill two birds with one stone by getting involved in some of these groups as God leads you.
And how can we talk about rubbing shoulders with unbelieving people and not mention the workplace? How sad I feel when I hear sincere Christians bemoan the fact that they’re surrounded by non-Christians. I’m afraid they’re losing the biblical perspective on what it means to be salt and light. Salt has to have something to flavor. Light needs to be around darkness or it doesn’t make much of a difference.
I can sympathize with those of you who get tired of the deceit or perhaps the profanity, but what a fertile environment in which a Christian can make a difference! My suggestion would be this: don’t allow yourself to be overwhelmed with the fact that the odds seem to be against you. Instead, just identify one or two coworkers you feel some affinity with and in whom you sense some spiritual openness, and start taking your breaks or spending your lunch hours with them. Fast and pray and look for opportunities to have a spiritual conversation with them. If you can lead one or two of them to Christ, you’ll have a little nucleus within the organization. Then you can invite other people to join that little nucleus!
But you’ve got to break out of your comfort zone. You’ve got to stop isolating yourself and focus instead on lovingly reaching out. Take a risk or two. See what God does!
Finally, of course, we could talk about the opportunities that we have with people in our neighborhoods or in our extended families or among professional groups. Friends, there are opportunities galore. There’s no shortage of people we can reach out to.
As we come to the close of this service, I just want to remind you of a spiritual rookie named Matthew. Remember this despised tax collector who, upon his conversion, threw an evangelistic party in order to get Jesus and his disciples in there rubbing shoulders with his not-so-spiritual friends.
I’d love this church to develop more of the heart of Matthew. I’d love for there to be Matthew Parties springing up as the Holy Spirit gives you boldness and creativity!
And remember Jesus’ words that a doctor ought to be strategic with the use of his time. He ought to spend plenty of it with the sick. We should be strategic and balanced with the limited hours that we have to invest in the kingdom, and a portion of our time needs to be spent rubbing shoulders with people outside of God’s family.
How about it? Will you let the Spirit speak to you about these matters? I have a feeling you will.
By the way, don’t miss your small group [or Sunday school class] this week, as you talk further about ways to deepen your relationships and conversations with the people around you. And if you’re not in a group yet, get with it—today! You’re missing the very best part!
And if you’re a visitor with us today trying to sort out what to think of all of this, let me state what I hope is obvious: this church takes seriously Jesus’ mandate to do all we can to serve you and help you work through your spiritual questions. Get to know some of the people around you. Tell them where you’re at, and what you need to figure out. And if you play your cards right, you might get a free meal out of one of them! Good luck!
Next week in the service we’re going to talk about one of our greatest spiritual weapons. The title of the message is “Contagious Stories.” We’ll see all of you then.
Now let’s close in prayer …

a contagious heart

We begin week two of our “Developing a Contagious Faith” series with a story, Lee Strobel. Lee tells of a Christian friend of his named John, who had taken a routine business trip to Atlanta. John said, “Everything was going according to schedule, and I decided I would stop into this little sunglass shop at the airport and buy some sunglasses. So I went into the shop, picked out some sunglasses, paid for them, and started to walk out of the store.
“As I was walking out the door, I had one of those nudgings from God. I just knew I had to turn around, go back into the store, and talk to the cashier about Jesus. I just knew I had to do it. But,” he said, “how could I? On what basis could I get into a spiritual conversation with this stranger? I’d already made the purchase. So I ended up using the worst transition into a spiritual conversation in the history of evangelism.”
Lee said, “Uh-oh. What happened?”
John replied: “I went back into the store and picked up some sunglasses to try to buy some time while I figured out what to say. Finally, I said to the guy, ‘Sunglasses, huh?’”
“He was reading a newspaper at the cashier’s station. He looked at me and said, ‘Yeah.’”
“I looked through the sunglasses and said, ‘Uh, isn’t it great that, uh, these sunglasses can, like, um, protect our eyes from the brightness of the flames of the sun?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ Then I blurted out: ‘Well, wouldn’t it be great if we had something that could protect us from the flames of hell?’ As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I couldn’t believe I said that!
“The guy set down his newspaper, looked me in the eye, and said, ‘You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately.’ I was shocked! I said, ‘You have?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’”
So John started talking to him about Jesus. He talked about forgiveness and grace and eternal life, and tears started flowing down this cashier’s face. Then in a prayer of repentance and faith, right there at the counter of the sunglass shop, that man received Jesus Christ as the forgiver of his sins and the leader of his life.
John said to Lee, “It was unbelievable! The day started out so routine, so normal, so average. Who would have known that it would end up in such an adventure?”
That’s what the Christian life is like when you develop a contagious heart—that is, when you yearn to let God use you to reach others, and you make yourself available to talk about Jesus as opportunities arise and as the Holy Spirit prompts you.
This is the antidote for a dry Christian life. When you want to share your faith, that’s when your prayer life is at its most fervent, because you’re praying to God for help; it’s when your Bible study becomes its most intense, because you’re not just looking for abstract theological truths, but for wisdom that can help your seeking friend find Christ; it’s when your dependence on God is at its greatest, because you know that apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, there’s no way you can bring about the conversion of anybody.
This is the real adventure of the Christian life. So how can we live on the edge, ready to share your faith? One way is to think about how Jesus would reach out to others if he physically lived in our house, or went to our school, or worked in our office, or laboured on our job site. What could we learn from the Master?
Because Jesus would look at his neighbours differently than we often do. He’d see them through heaven’s eyes. And if we could see them even a bit like Jesus does, that would not only change us, but the result would radically impact our neighbours.
That’s what Dr. Jack Sternberg found. He was a cancer physician from a conservative Jewish background and was very far from God. Listen to what he wrote about an incident that occurred when practicing medicine in Arkansas:
“One woman with terminal breast cancer was in her early thirties, with a husband and young child whom she would soon leave widowed and motherless. Yet she seemed more concerned about my spiritual welfare—in my knowing Jesus—than the fact that she was dying. She saw my lostness, my separation from God, as a greater tragedy than her own illness. She trusted this Jesus, then and for eternity. God had allowed illnesses to ravage her, yet she still loved, worshiped, and followed him. She seemed confident about her future and genuinely concerned about mine. That overwhelmed me.”
Dr. Sternberg ended up giving his life to Jesus—and it makes me wonder, “What if I cared that much about my neighbour?” Because, you see, Jesus cares that much for you and me. He saw our lostness, our separation from God, as a greater tragedy than his own brutal execution on the cross. That’s why he was willing to die for us so we can be reconciled with God.
So how would Jesus reach out if he physically lived in my house? I think there are many lessons he would teach us. The first might be this: before talking to his neighbours about their heavenly Father, Jesus would talk to his heavenly Father about his neighbours.
In other words, he would pray, just as many of you prayed for your friends this week. This kind of prayer was the pattern throughout Jesus’ life—before he embarked on anything of importance, he spent time in prayer. In fact, John Stott has pointed out, Jesus’ prayers for lost people continued right up until his final breaths on the cross. As the imperfect tense of the Greek indicates, Jesus didn’t say it once, but he kept repeating it over and over again, all through the torture of the crucifixion: “Father forgive them; Father, forgive them; Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
And if Jesus lived in my house, I know he’d pray consistently, specifically, and fervently for his lost neighbours. The question is, “Are we?” Or have we given up?
Lee Strobel tells about getting ready to baptize a woman during a service at Willow Creek. He said, “Have you received Jesus as your forgiver and leader?” She smiled and said, “Oh, yes, I have!” Then Lee did something unusual: he turned to her husband, who had accompanied her, and asked, “Have you received Jesus?” He looked at Lee for a moment and then suddenly burst into tears, weeping and sobbing. He replied, “No, I haven’t, but I want to right now!” So right there, in front of thousands of people, this man repented of his sin and received Christ—and then Lee baptized the two of them together!
Afterward, a woman came running up to Lee in tears, threw her arms around him, and kept sobbing, “Nine years! Nine years! Nine years!”
Lee said, “Who are you? And what do you mean ‘nine years?’”
She said, “That’s my brother who you just led to Christ and baptized. I’ve been praying for that man for nine long years—and I’ve not seen one hint of spiritual interest all that time. But look what God did today!”
Lee said his first thought was, “There’s a woman who’s glad she didn’t stop praying in Year Eight.” But the truth is that some of you have been praying longer than that for a lost friend or neighbour or family member or colleague. And you’ve given up hope. That woman would say to you: Don’t stop. Keep lifting up that person to the Lord.
Now, I’ll admit I don’t know everything about prayer. And I understand that people have free will and can decide for themselves if they want to follow Christ. But I’m just naïve enough to believe James when he says that the prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective. I like the way Mother Teresa put it: “When I pray, coincidences happen; and when I stop, they don’t.”
Let me ask you this: who have you stopped praying for? Who did you once pray for regularly, but lately you’ve given up on? Bring that person’s face to mind—and then use this as an impetus to bring them back before the Lord in prayer.
Second, if Jesus lived in my house, I believe he would assure his neighbours that his door would always be open for questions.
I can’t think of a single incident in the Bible where Jesus put anyone down, who came to him with a sincere question. In fact, Gary Habermas has used the story of John the Baptist to make this point. If anyone knew the identity of Jesus as being the unique Son of God, it was John the Baptist. John the Baptist once pointed to John and said, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” John baptized Jesus and saw the heavens open up and heard the voice of the Father say of Jesus: “You are my son, with whom I am well-pleased.” John once said boldly and firmly about Jesus: “I have seen and testify that this is the Son of God.”
But then John gets thrown in jail. What happens when tough times come? Often doubts begin to creep in. So John sends a couple of his disciples to track down Jesus and ask him if he’s the One they were expecting or are they to look for someone else?
So how does Jesus react? Does he criticize John for daring to raise a question? No, he tells the followers of John in Luke 7:22: “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” In other words, go back and tell John about the evidence you’ve seen with your own eyes that convinces you of my deity.
Now, does this poison how Jesus looks at John? On the contrary, it was after that incident when Jesus declared: “I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John!”
It’s okay to ask questions. And we, as Christians, need to be ready to help our friends get answers. We’re commanded in 1 Peter 3:15: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”
Because when we’re not ready to help our friends with their questions, what happens? We shy away. Yet so often people have just a few questions that are sticking points in their spiritual journey.
The good news is that we have truth on our side! Willow Creek, the church I mentioned earlier, staged a major debate and allowed the spokesman for American Atheists, Inc. to have their best debater stand on their platform and proclaim the case for atheism. Then they had a Christian present the case for Christ, and the two debated each other—and then the church just let people make up their own minds.
They actually had people vote. Of the people who came into the auditorium that evening as atheists, agnostics, skeptics, or members of another world religion, after having heard the case for Christ and the case for atheism, more than eight out of ten said the case for Christianity was stronger. Forty-seven people walked in as avowed skeptics, heard both sides, and walked out as followers of Jesus! And not one person became an atheist!
Friends, we really do have truth on our side! I’m not saying we need to get into debates with people; instead, it’s much more fruitful to get into discussions, where we listen to their viewpoint and gently and respectfully present ours. Lee Strobel has written several books to help you learn the evidence for Christianity—such as The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, and The Case for a Creator—and his web site, www.LeeStrobel.com, has hundreds of free video clips in which experts discuss answers to the toughest objections to Christianity. We need to be prepared so we don’t become an obstacle to people’s faith, but we become a conduit for the truth of God.
Third, if Jesus lived in my house, he wouldn’t just share his faith; he’d show his faith.
In other words, talk is cheap. Jesus didn’t just say he loved the world; he showed his love by being servant. He served the blind by restoring their sight, he served the lepers by restoring their health, and in the ultimate act of servanthood, he gave his life to pay for the sins of the world.
And when we serve others as Jesus would, when we sacrifice for others as Jesus did, and as we put our love into action in tangible ways as Jesus modelled, this opens otherwise impervious hearts to the gospel.
Jesus said in Matthew 5:16 (TNIV): “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” The Greek word for “good” doesn’t merely refer to good as opposed to bad; it also has the connotation of “winsome” and “attractive.”
So Jesus is telling us: “Serve other people in a winsome and attractive way that causes their eyes to look heavenward toward the God who motivates you, against the grain of our me-first culture, to sacrificially serve them.”
When we serve the very real and tangible needs of other people, inevitably this opens up opportunities to talk to them about their very real spiritual needs that they may not even realize they have. People are more open to the gospel when we show them that we care rather than just say that we care.
So what if we all sort of got our “compassion radars” scanning our neighbourhoods, schools, and workplaces—searching for ways we can reach out to help people in need? Who knows how many spiritual conversations would result?
Finally, if Jesus lived in my house, he would be authentic in the way he related to his neighbours.
Jesus wouldn’t just communicate the gospel; he would live it out in front of his neighbours. There would be a consistency between his beliefs and his behaviour, and between his character and his creed. And the question is: is the same true of us?
If you’re a Christian, then you know your neighbours have their “hypocrisy radar” scanning your lives 24/7. What are they looking for? False piety. A holier-than-thou attitude. Hypocrisy. Saying one thing but doing another. What are they picking up on their radar screens? Because here’s the truth: few things can repel a person from God as efficiently as an inauthentic Christian.
That was especially true for Maggie. She was poisoned against God and the church because of the abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of people who claimed to be Christians. In fact, here’s how she put it in a letter
“The Christianity I grew up with was so confusing to me even as a child. People said one thing but did another. They appeared very spiritual in public but were abusive in private. What they said and what they did never fit. There was such a discrepancy. I came to hate Christianity and did not want to be associated with a church.”
Can you see how people repelled her from Christ? Well, something very interesting happened to Maggie. She read about the debate they had at the church between a Christian and an atheist. She came in order to see the Christian humiliated. But, instead, the Christian won. So she started asking questions. Finally, she got into a small group made up of two Christian leaders and several spiritual seekers who were investigating the faith. Listen to what Maggie wrote as she described what she needed the most from the Christians who led her group:
“When I came to the church and to my small group, I needed gentleness. I needed to be able to ask any question. I needed to have my questions taken seriously. I needed to be treated with respect and validated. Most of all”—now, listen carefully to this—“I needed to see people whose actions match what they say. I am not looking for perfect, but I am looking for real. ‘Integrity’ is the word that comes to mind. I need to hear real people talk about real life and I need to know if God is—or can be—a part of real life. Does he care about the wounds I have? Does he care I need a place to live? Can I ever be a whole, healthy person? I have asked questions like these. And I have not been laughed at or ignored or invalidated. I have not been pushed or pressured in any way.”
She added: “I don’t understand the caring I’ve received. I don’t understand that the leaders don’t seem afraid of questions. They don’t say things like, ‘You just have to have faith’or ‘You need to pray more.’ They don’t seem to be afraid to tell who they are. They just seem genuine.”
Then Maggie ended her letter with a poem that she wrote for the two Christians who led her group. But I think this is relevant to every Christian everywhere—because it’s the heart’s cry of someone far from God. What do seekers want and need from us? How can we best reach out to them? Listen to the words of this young nurse. Imagine she’s saying them directly to you:

Do you know,
do you understand
that you represent Jesus to me?
Do you know,
do you understand
that when you treat me with gentleness,
it raises the question in my mind
that maybe he is gentle, too.
Maybe he isn’t someone
who laughs when I am hurt.
Do you know,
do you understand
that when you listen to my questions
and you don’t laugh,
that I think, “What if Jesus is interested in me too?”
Do you know,
do you understand
that when I hear you talk honestly
about arguments and conflict and scars from your past
that I think, “Maybe I am just a regular person
instead of a bad, no-good little girl who deserves abuse.”
If you care, then I think maybe he cares —
and then there’s this flame of hope that burns inside of me
and for a while I am afraid to breathe
because it might go out.
Do you know,
do you understand
that your words are his words?
That your face is his face
to someone like me?
Please—be who you say you are!
Please, God, don’t let this be another trick.
Please let this be real this time. Please.
Do you know,
do you understand
that you represent Jesus to me?

It can be devastating when you first hear that poem, because you think of all the times you have been too busy or too preoccupied to be like Jesus would be if he lived in your neighbourhood. It’s convicting.
Lee was both convicted and encouraged when he read Maggie’s powerful poem, and wanted to read it to the entire church to encourage them to reach out to others. So he called Maggie and asked for her permission.
She said, “Oh, Lee, haven’t you heard?”
His heart sunk. He thought, “Oh, no! What inauthentic Christian has she encountered that has repelled her again from God?”
With discouragement in his voice he said, “No, Maggie, I haven’t heard. What happened?”
“No, Lee, it’s a good thing,” she replied cheerfully. “On Tuesday night, I gave my life to Christ!”
Lee couldn’t believe it! He was thrilled. He said, “Maggie, I’m just curious: what got you across the line of faith? What facts did you learn that convinced you this was true?”
She said, “It wasn’t like that with me.”
“Then what was it?” Lee said.
She seemed almost embarrassed. She sort of shrugged over the phone and said, “Well, I just met a whole bunch of people who were like Jesus to me.”
What a lesson for all of us! You know what? We don’t have to have doctorates in theology to reach out to the Maggies in our lives. We just need to have contagious hearts. Ones that long to be used, and that lead us to do what we can do for others—what Jesus would do. We can pray for people who are far from God. We can dialog with our seeking friends and help point them toward the truth of Christ. We can find ways to serve others so that the door might be opened to spiritual conversations. And we can simply be authentic about who we are—sinners saved by grace.
Before we end, let me urge you to be sure to be here next week, as we take the next step in “Developing a Contagious Faith,” and talk about how we can build and deepen what we’ll call “Contagious Relationships” with the Maggies of our lives. And be thinking and praying about who you’ll invite for the final weekend of this series, on [date]. It’ll be an outreach weekend designed especially for the friends and family you’ll bring.
If you are a Maggie, and you’re here figuring out what to think of Jesus, the Bible, or the Christian faith, I want you to know we’re so glad you’re here, and we’d enjoy meeting you and talking about any questions you might want to discuss after the service. Just go to [give details about where they can meet you or your team].
Finally, be sure to attend your small group [or Sunday school class] this week, where you’ll be in session two of the Becoming a Contagious Christian course. You’re going to be really encouraged as you discover ways that you can share your faith that fit your personality and your natural communication style. It’ll be liberating to you!
Let’s close in prayer …

developing a contagious faith

Without pretending to be a mind reader, I can make an educated guess as to what many of you are thinking about as we embark on this series entitled “Developing a Contagious Faith.”
I know some of you are delighted; you’ve been waiting for a series like this for years! You are eager to improve your personal evangelism skills and to learn some new approaches. Others of you are rather neutral on this subject, because you really don’t know what to expect. You are open to the Word of God and you’ve decided to approach this series with a teachable spirit and a willing heart. But school is, as they say, still out for you. And still others of you are dreading this. Just hearing the “E word” strikes terror in your heart! You have feelings of fear and pressure and maybe some guilt in the mix too.
Friends, I want to assure you at the beginning—especially those of you who might feel a bit fearful—that I have no desire to increase the burden or to fuel any pressure that you might already be feeling. But I am confident you can grow and learn how to become more effective in this area, despite what experiences you may have had. I have high hopes for what God might do in every one of our lives as a result of focusing today and during the next five weeks on this series.
But today I want to start by asking the why question. What motivation is there for putting energy into communicating our faith? I want to jump right in and offer you four reasons why every one of us should be motivated and stay motivated in his or her own mission of spreading the faith to the people around us.
The first motivation for developing a contagious faith is what I call the “Stockpile Factor.”
This comes from an Old Testament passage in the book of 2 Kings 6:24 (NASB), where it says: “Now it came about after this that [the King of Syria] gathered his army and went up and besieged Samaria. There was a great famine in Samaria; and … they besieged it until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver and a fourth of a [pint] of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver.”
You heard it right! We’re talking about a serious shortage of food in this city. Inflation is skyrocketing and there is very little food left because the enemy king has laid siege to the city. It’s so bad that verse 28 indicates that some of the people were actually resorting to cannibalism. This was clearly a disastrous situation in Samaria.
Now, look down at 2 Kings 7:3–5: “There were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate; and they said to one another, ‘Why do we sit here until we die? If we say, “We will enter the city,” then the famine is in the city and we will die there; and if we sit here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us go over to the camp of the [Syrians]. If they spare us, we will live; and if they kill us, we will but die.’ They arose at twilight to go to the camp of the [Syrians]; when they came to the outskirts of the camp of the [Syrians], behold, there was no one there.”
Second Kings 7:6–8 says: “For the Lord had caused the army of the [Syrians] to hear a sound of chariots and a sound of horses, even the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, ‘Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to come upon us.’ Therefore, they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents and their horses and their donkeys, even the camp just as it was, and fled for their life. When these lepers came to the outskirts of the camp, they entered one tent and ate and drank, and carried from there silver and gold and clothes, and went and hid them; and they returned and entered another tent and carried them from there also, and went and hid them.”
Do you see what’s going on here? These lepers had figured out that they were as good as dead. So they went out to the enemy camp, gambling everything in the hope of getting some food—but it was deserted because God had made noises in the night that confused the enemy into thinking they were being attacked! And so these lepers stumbled onto all of this provision in the middle of the enemy camp! They are half-starved to death and they go into the first tent and they find more food than they can put into their mouths! So they go into the next tent, and they find food and provisions there. And the next tent, food and provisions there! They are just stockpiling all of these provisions. They can’t believe it. It was like winning the lottery!
Then they said one to another in 2 Kings 7:9: “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, but here we are keeping silent; if we wait until morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come, let us go and tell the king’s household.” So, in verse 10 they went back to the gatekeepers of the city and announced that there was no one in the tents, that the Syrian army has deserted the camp, and all of the people came out and found food and provision—and the city was saved.
But what I want you to focus in on is that it was the abundance of the provision that led them to go back and make the announcement to the people back in the city. It was the fact that the provision was so large, the miracle so exciting, the news so wonderful, that they just said, “We’re not doing the right thing by keeping silent about this miracle: let’s go tell the others the good news.” Silence was an unthinkable crime at that point.
While running errands one day, a pastor ran into a man from his church who wanted to share something with him. The minute the guy began talking, he started tearing up. He said, “God did something in my life over Good Friday and Easter that was so rich, so cleansing, and so powerful in my life. I feel like I am just about ready to explode!” What he was really saying was that we have a spiritual stockpile that is so huge and so wonderful, it can hardly be contained.
When mature believers have a proper understanding of their spiritual inheritance, they can’t stop themselves from spilling over into other people’s lives! One of the most effective ways to develop a contagious faith is to stay mindful of the extent of our inheritance in Christ, the wonder of the character of the God we worship, and the magnitude of the miracle of transformation that has taken strangers and converted them into sons and daughters of God.
When you are living with an awareness of the size of your spiritual stockpile, you will find yourself saying to people outside of God’s family: “I don’t know about you, but I know that as for me and my house, because of who God is, because of how wonderful he is and because of how benevolently he treats me, I’m going to serve the Lord!” That has a way of finding a responsive chord in the lives of unbelievers.
More and more these days, I’m finding it difficult to watch people go from bar to bar, toy to toy, fun-fix to fun-fix, lover to lover, fad to fad, trying and crashing and then trying again and crashing again! I feel like telling every “scavenger” I meet out there: “Stop picking at rubbish piles! There’s a stockpile in the kingdom of God. There’s plenty of God’s grace, there’s plenty of his favour, there’s plenty of his love. It’s spilling over in my life and you could probably live happily on just the overflow, if you’d open up your life!”
Now, a word here: understand that Satan will do everything in his power to convince spiritual princes and princesses that they are, in fact, spiritual paupers. You see, if believers walk around unaware of the scope of their stockpile, unappreciative of the wonder and the glory of our God, and unaware of the extent to which they have been transformed and received a new identity in Christ as sons and daughters and saints and heirs and stewards—then they will walk around like fellow scavengers, instead of walking as spiritual prince and princesses should walk.
That’s why it’s so important to worship God regularly, worship him privately, and worship him publicly. List his attributes and thank him each day. Say, “Again this morning, I am living in a miraculous relationship with the God of this universe! I’m a child! I’m a saint! I’m an heir! I’m blessed! I’m saved, I’m adopted, I’m being sanctified, I have a spiritual gift. I have a wonderful future, I have heaven waiting for me!”
Every time I go over my stockpile I find myself living filled to the brim with this sense of spiritual wonder. And when we live this way, it makes for very easy evangelistic opportunities, because we just operate with the mindset that says, “How can you not want to be in a wonderful relationship with a God like the One we serve?”
So, please, friends, one of the best forms of motivation is for you to have that sense of wonder and gratitude about your spiritual stockpile. Protect it, work on it, preserve it at all cost.
The second motivation for developing a contagious faith is “the honour of being an agent of God!”
This comes out of the passage in Acts 1:8 where Jesus said, just before his ascension: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.”
We, as God’s witnesses, as God’s ambassadors, or agents, are “PLAN A” in his strategy for reaching the world. He chooses to use individuals like us as spokespeople for him. And God doesn’t even have a “PLAN B”! I’m “PLAN A” and you are “PLAN A.” In the middle of your uniqueness, your personality, your gifts, talents, abilities, and your particular arena of responsibility, you are called to be God’s spokesman, God’s spokeswoman, to speak on behalf of him to lost people who matter to him, but who need one of his agents out there in the marketplace.
I find that to be very motivating because someday I want to stand before the Lord and hear him say to me: “Well done, good and faithful agent of mine! You know, I carved out a group of people who desperately needed you. They needed your life, they needed your personality, they needed your witness, they needed your age factor, they needed your sense of humour, they needed you. I needed you, I filled you with my Holy Spirit, I commissioned you to be my spokesperson and you were a faithful one. Well done, good and faithful agent.”
I find it enormously motivating to go through my day, trying to figure out what serendipitous kind of occasion is going to surface in which I can be used by God to be a spokesperson for his kingdom. I try to pray every day: “Lord, I don’t know where you are going to put me today, what opportunities you are going to orchestrate for me to tell somebody that they matter, but, God, I want to be a part of it. I really do! And, if you don’t have any big plans to use—you know, Agent double-0-whatever my number is—today, that’s okay. I’m not pressing you, but I’d sure love to be used.”
And keep in mind; Jesus said that you are going to receive power. You’re not on your own. The Holy Spirit is going to make you an effective witness. I have found in my own life that when I’m humble, pure, in tune with the Holy Spirit, and living with a spirit of anticipation about being an effective agent, I have many opportunities to be used! But when I am a little off-base spiritually, not so tuned in to the Holy Spirit, when I am grinding out my own agenda and saying, “Lord, I’m sorry, I’m really not that concerned about what you have for me today, because I’m overwhelmed by what I have to get done,” then I find myself going for weeks at a time without having any opportunities to be a spokesperson.
So, my effectiveness as an agent is almost always tied to my being surrendered to the work of the Holy Spirit in my life—which I try to handle each day as I pray. I say, “Lord, I want to be an effective agent for you today.” I believe it’s an honour to be an agent. I’m motivated to think that God would entrust his great message to somebody like me for the purpose of spreading it to others!
The third motivation for developing a contagious faith is “the reality of hell.”
You know, I hate thinking and talking about this, but the plain truth is that hell is real and real people go there for eternity!
The reality of hell was a major theme in the ministry of Jesus. We read time after time how Jesus was saddened and sometimes would even break down and weep over various evangelistic situations. Jesus grieved when the rich young ruler refused to receive spiritual wealth in exchange for temporal wealth, because Jesus knew he was walking down the road that led to hell. Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem, because he said he could see them as sheep wandering around without a Shepherd, and that it was only a matter of time before they would go off the cliffs of eternity into the abyss forever.
Jesus confronted the Pharisees, the scribes, the tax collectors, and the politicians.
He confronted anybody and everybody with the basic message that unless you turn and put your faith in him you would die in your sins and face condemnation in eternity.
Why did Jesus teach from early morning until late at night? Why did he keep the pace he did? Why did he endure the ridicule that he did? Because Jesus knew that people were on the road that was headed toward hell. It broke his heart and it motivated him to spread his gospel of grace.
Let’s turn for a moment to Luke 16:19, which begins the well-known parable of the rich man, who lived in splendour, and a poor man named Lazarus, who was starving to death at his gate. They both died. The poor man Lazarus had received God’s forgiveness and went to heaven. The rich man ended up in hell.
In verses 23–26 we read: “In hell, where he was in torment, [the rich man] looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in this fire.’ But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’”
So then, forgetting about his own agony, the rich man went on to his second request—see verse 27—and said something very, very difficult to hear and to think about: “Then I beg you … send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.”
Five minutes in hell turned an uncaring unbeliever like the rich man into a committed evangelist! He was motivated. He was saying, “Somebody has to warn my brothers that hell is real and real people go there!” And in a way, the rich man is crying out to us today: “People of st John’s and king’s park Church: make a like an organist, Pull out all of the stops! Do whatever has to be done to keep others from winding up here with me!”
I’ve studied this passage so many times, and every time it cuts me a little deeper. Christianity is the greatest way to live and the only way to die! it’s an honour to be an agent entrusted with the gospel message. It’s fun to be used by God to spread it.
But, frankly, part of the reason I’m as serious about serving God as I am, is because I believe in hell. I really do! I believe in it consciously and I believe in it emotionally. I’m not neurotic about it, but I’ll tell you what: it impacts me every day!
The apostle Paul said in his first letter to the Corinthian church: “If there is no resurrection, if there is no heaven or hell, then let’s eat, drink, and be merry. If there’s no judgment, why do I risk my life? Why do I take beatings? Why do I suffer in prison? Why do I do all of this?”
You know, if there’s no resurrection, no heaven and hell, let’s all just party! If there’s no hell, then why all the backbreaking service around this church? Why all the energy output? Why all the giving, the praying, the pleading with people? Why all the work? Why all the blood, sweat, and tears? Why the multiple christmas/Easter services? WHY? I mean, if there’s no hell, then let’s just pack it up!
The stakes really are sky high, aren’t they? What we’re doing in this church, all the time and especially now in this series, is serious, serious business. We all need to develop attitudes that say, “Look, whatever it takes to help people understand how to get off the road that leads to hell and get on the road that leads to heaven! Whatever it takes is worth it!”
I need to tell you, I get so upset when I feel a complacency setting in about reaching people in and through this church! It’s so easy to slip into patterns of complacency—to think that the church exists only for us. To forget that we really are on a mission, that Jesus told us to go into this, our world, and make disciples. To become preoccupied with the question of what the church has done for me lately.
Sometimes you see people who used to be aggressive, spine-tingling, prayerful, personal evangelists looking for lost people to share Christ with, now complaining about the noise of the children, the modern hymns or that someone is sitting in their seat. And a few years ago, these very same people would come with friends on their arm, sit and pray all the way through the service, and go out to lunch afterwards, and just look for an opening through which they could lovingly share the gospel. What’s happening in some of our hearts?
May none of us ever forget the stakes are sky high! We’re not playing games! We’re not playing church! We’re not just going through the motions of religion! It’s eternal life and eternal death that hang in the balance. And, again, I’m not suggesting we get all neurotic about this. I’m just suggesting that we don’t put it on the back burner and become complacent about matters that Jesus said and showed were the highest priority.
I think of Jesus in utter agony on the cross, in his darkest hour, feeling the full weight of the sins of the world on his shoulders, and a common criminal asks him if there is room in heaven for just one more sinner. And Jesus, wracked by physical as well as spiritual and psychological pain, is so moved to be able to snatch one more sinner from the claws of hell, he says, “Sure there’s room. Today you’ll be with me in paradise!” He was just thrilled to snatch one more sinner off the road to hell.
The reality of hell should move all of us to do whatever it takes to develop a contagious faith.
I’ll close with one final motivator: it’s “the reward of leading somebody to Christ.”
I guess all I want to say about this point is this: just one time, have one person look you in the eye and say, “You know, I was heading down the road to hell, and God used you to bring me to himself.” Just have somebody say, “You know, I needed an ambassador! I needed a credible witness. I needed someone whose life matched his message, and you were that person for me! Thank you! Thanks for being contagious with your faith. Thanks for reaching out to me. Thanks for helping to answer my questions. Thanks for putting up with my cynicism. Thanks for putting up with my colourful language! Thanks for loving me at a time in my life when I wasn’t very lovable. Jesus saved me, but you led me to the cross where I found his grace!”
Just have one person say to you, “Thank you. Thanks for all of eternity!” Hear that once and watch what happens. You will be a motivated agent; you will feel a kind of spiritual adrenalin flowing in and through you; you will walk away saying, “I may have just experienced the greatest spiritual high I’ll ever have in this life!”
Why develop a contagious faith? Why share Christ with others? Why?
Because our relationship with Christ is the best thing to come in this life, friends. He’s it. He’s wonderful and he blesses us. We have a stockpile. Live in the awareness of that and let it spill over to others. Why share our faith? Because we’ve been honoured and empowered by God to participate in this grand endeavour to bring people to faith. It’s an honour to be an agent. Why share our faith? Because hell is real! It is. Why share our faith? Because, in finally having the privilege of helping lead someone to Christ we’ll experience a fresh awareness of the fact that the angels in heaven are rejoicing and Christ is rejoicing. And what an incredible moment to have somebody say, “Thanks for all eternity for leading me to the cross!” It’s the greatest contribution you could ever make to someone’s life and the most fulfilling and rewarding thing you’ll ever do!
So I trust you’re all in!
One more thing before we pray and end the service: Five weeks from today, in what will be the sixth and final week of this series, I’m going to give a message called “God’s Contagious Love,” designed to communicate the core truths about how a person can understand and receive God’s forgiveness and leadership through a relationship with Christ. This is a service we’ll all want to bring friends and family to. So would you start now by praying and asking God to use you to reach out to and bring at least one other person? And would you also be praying that God would prepare and lead us together to make that weekend one of the most powerful, highest impact weekends that we’ve ever had as a church? Let’s ask God to be here working in a powerful way—and then let’s invite our friends, believing it’s gonna really happen!
Oh, and by the way, if you’re one of those friends and you’re already here today, we’re really glad you joined us. I hope you see that we really care about you and your spiritual journey and want to do all we can to help you consider and sort out what it means to know and follow Christ. house groups, alpha, prayer after the service
This series will continue next week with a message called, “A Contagious Heart.” Now let’s close in prayer …