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.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
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!
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!
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
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?
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 …
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 …
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