ReThink: No Playing Games
ReThink
“No Playing Games”
Have them stand up and play the Simon says game (raise your hand if you have ever played?)
I don’t know about you but sometimes our approach to Christianity can be a lot like that game, but it’s not Simon says…it’s Jesus says. Jesus says stand up. Jesus says read your Bible. Jesus says pray. Look over there…wrong, Jesus didn’t say that the devil did…you are out. And what I was finding is that it was very hard to stay in the game, and when you were out you would feel guilty.
And I don’t know about you but I found myself getting out a lot, and eventually I just rather get out early because that meant that I didn’t need to play anymore and since I’m already out and I blew it, I might as well really blow it and sin a lot before I get back in again.
The other problem with the Jesus says game is that I kept meeting people who were really good at it and I felt like I would never be able to stay in the game as long as they do because they are just so good, but then I would go to church and hear a convicting message and I would get back into the game again…Jesus said raise your hand, Jesus said read your Bible, Jesus said don’t date her, Jesus said lose her number (and it would go on and on).
And then I would meet people who had never played Jesus says and they didn’t seem to have any guilt and they were having fun doing stuff that I knew was wrong but I was kind of envious. And then I would have people saying that I should be inviting people to play Jesus says, but since I don’t play it very well who am I to tell somebody else how to play this game?
See, for some of you, you might consider yourself not a Christian or a church person because that was how Christianity was presented to you…you just pray a prayer, stand up, sit down, do these four things, shave your head, drink some juice…and you found yourself not interested because as you looked at other people who were playing “Jesus says” you didn’t want to be like them anyway…so what’s the point?
Well here is the point…the Christian life is not a game of “God says or Jesus says or Bob says”, but the Christian life/being a follower of Jesus Christ/being a disciple is about a relationship between us sinful, make lots of mistakes human beings and an incredibly awesome holy God. It’s all about a relationship.
And this goes so against our normal way of thinking when we think of God and Christianity, but then again so much of what Jesus says to us makes us ReThink the norm. He says that if we want to first then we have to be last. If we want to be great then we must be a servant. Here was Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, God in the flesh riding in on a donkey…say what? That is why our new series is called ReThink because if we are going to be disciples and really follow after Jesus we can’t use our normal way of thinking.
See, when Jesus came to earth our whole religious world was in this mindless game of God says…God says thou shalt not kill, God says thou shalt not commit adultery, God says, God says…and the Pharisees had added even more laws and regulations to keep…And then Jesus comes onto the scene and says, “Hold on here. You are missing the point. This isn’t a game about playing “God says”. This is about a love relationship between God and you.
And when we forget that, our tendency is to gravitate towards playing this game again and then we think that God is mad at us because we didn’t keep his list of do’s and don’ts, but when Jesus showed up He didn’t have a list. He offered relationship.
Let me illustrate it this way…it would be like approaching marriage by saying, “My goal in marriage is to keep all the marriage rules, so I have a list…
o Make sure you say, “Hello honey”
o Make sure you say, “Your hair looks good”
o That dress makes you look skinny
o The food was great
o When can we go shopping
And what if Sue is over there playing, “Honey says…whatever honey says we do” (We should try that)
What if our whole focus was on keeping the rules of marriage? What kind of relationship would that be? See, for some of you you started out all lovey-dovey and relational, but now you are just trying to be a good husband or a good wife and you are committed to the marriage. But I don’t want Sue to just be only committed to our marriage…I want her to be committed to me.
And if you have been a Christian for awhile, the tendency can be for you to be committed to Christianity and you are committed to being a nice person and doing the right things, and I believe that God is saying, “Hold on a second. I sent My Son into the world to explode the myth of that entire system. I want you to have a relationship with Me and that is completely different than playing ‘Jesus says, God says or Honey says’…it’s a whole different deal.”
When Jesus was on the earth, there were different ways He would talk about this relationship. One time He talked about it like a shepherd with his sheep and God is the shepherd and we are the sheep and the shepherd doesn’t beat his sheep but protects them, cares for them, loves them and leads them and the sheep know his voice.
Another time He talked about it like a father and child. God is the father and we are the children…again very relational. And then another time He used the Vine and Branch talking about how we abide in Him and how the branch gets life from the vine…it’s relational.
And Jesus used two words that you can remember really easy and it gets us away from the “Jesus says” game and into the relationship that God desires and that Jesus died for. These two words could totally transform your life if you’ve never understood how to live them out.
If you have your Bible please turn with me to Matthew 9, and in this passage is where Jesus uses these two words for the very first time and then He uses them throughout His ministry to explain and give context to this brand new approach to God that Jesus introduced.
Jesus has just finished doing a miracle and healing people…Matthew 9:9-13 (NIV)
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. (Let me explain about tax collection because this is important to the story…back in those days you would actually purchase the rite to be a tax collector. You could go to the Roman government and you would bid and the highest bidder was given the opportunity to collect taxes, and as a chief tax collector you could hire people to work for you and you were given a region and you were accountable for collecting X-amount of money. And any amount of money that you wanted to add to that was your business. You could add a surcharge to the taxes and that is how you paid yourself. So, as you can imagine, these guys were hated by the Jewish people, because they were Jewish people who were taxing other Jewish people and it was going to the Roman government who had subdued and conquered that part of the world. And there were all kinds of taxes…bridge taxes, export and import tax, fruit tax, wine tax, food tax, border tax, and on and on. There was no rhyme or reason to it, these tax collectors would just set up booths and collect taxes so that Rome was satisfied.
So here comes Jesus and his gang and they come to either a bridge or a border or a city and all of a sudden there is one of these tax booths that you have to walk by and pay your tax. And so He walks up and sitting there is a guy named Matthew and he was probably one of those guys who worked for one of those chief tax collectors…like Zacchaeus. And if you remember, people hated tax collectors and they even had their own category…sinners and tax collectors…they were so bad they couldn’t even be grouped in with sinners…these people were despised.
And so Jesus walks up to this despised tax collector with His gang and He uses these two words…(reread)As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. (here it is)"Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
Do you know why that is unbelievable? Because I could almost guarantee that the last thing the disciples expected to hear Jesus say to this tax collector was Follow Me. I mean they would probably expect “Clean up your act.” They would expect him to say, “Repent” or “Stop collecting taxes” or “You dirty rotten traitor stop doing this to your own people.” I’m sure there were all sorts of things that came to the disciple’s minds that Jesus would say to the Matthew, the despised tax collector, but it definitely wasn’t…Follow Me.
“I mean c’mon Jesus, when you say, “Follow Me” you are talking about Us and we will be associated with him. I can understand that woman or that man but this guy? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
See, Jesus did something that once again caused his gang to ReThink what it means and looks like to really Follow Jesus.
And then Matthew does something out of the ordinary…He got up and followed Jesus. Now there were probably plenty of things that if Jesus had asked Matthew to do he wouldn’t have done…for instance: If Jesus would have said, “Matthew come follow me and be a martyr. I’m sure Matthew would have said, “I’ll pass but thanks. Next.”
He could have said, “Matthew, I want you to give up all you own and all your friends and family and follow me.” And Matthew might have said, “No thanks, keep moving.”
But see, Jesus knew where Matthew was and this is why I love this story is because Jesus asked him to something that he could do…Follow Me. Where’s the list? There is no list. Where is punch list of all the things that I have to get right in my life first? There is no punch list. Where’s the change order? There is none. Just Follow Me. And the Bible says that Matthew got up and did what Jesus asked him to do.
And here is why I love this story and why you need to understand what we are talking about…because that invitation of “Follow Me” has been offered to you and to me and it is extended to us every day of our lives.
And it’s not an invitation to clean up our act, or to make a lot of change or to stop, stop, stop or start, start, start, and it’s not an invitation to play “Jesus says” for the rest of your life, but it’s an invitation that is so unique and it’s so simple. Jesus says, “Follow Me.”
See, the question I have to ask myself every morning is not “How am I doing in the game? The question I have to ask myself is not “How am I doing compared to all of you?” The question I have to ask myself is very simple… “Am I following Jesus?”
Now there were some other people watching this and they were very disturbed by what was happening. They were probably thinking, “Wait a minute. How can you ask someone who has no holiness, no religion, no righteousness, and no good deeds to follow you? Shouldn’t you say, “Matthew, I would like for you to be my follower but first you need to quit this and quit that and get your act together and then you can follow me.” I mean c’mon Jesus, you’ve got it backwards. There needs to be some outward evidence of holiness or righteousness before you can be a follower.
Now look at what he says…[10] While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house (now I don’t know how this happened and I wish we had more details but Matthew gets up and follows Jesus and I imagine asking Jesus, “Jesus, where are we going?” And Jesus says, “To your house.” “Well this is easy, what are we going to do?” “We are going to have a dinner party.” “Who’s coming?” “Whomever you invite.” I like this following Jesus thing), many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. [11] When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" (In other words…this doesn’t make any sense. Shouldn’t he say to them, “Repent, change your life and then join me? Why is it that He would publicly associate with them before they’ve made any changes in their lives? He’s got it backwards.)
This is one of the reasons why some of you shy away from God. You’ve said, “I am working on A, B and C and once I get that area or areas of my life together…then I will (fill in the blank). And I believe that Jesus would say to you…Would you get rid of that faulty thinking and just follow me?
[12] On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick (In other words, I have come for people not a game, not for a list of rules). [13] But go (and this is kind of like an insult to the Pharisees because they claimed to know everything about the Scriptures) and learn (that means you are ignorant) what this means (and He quotes from the Old Testament the book of Hosea): 'I desire (this is God speaking) mercy, not sacrifice.' (He saying, “You religious people are so caught up in doing everything right that you have overlooked the needs of the people around you and I’m letting you know up front that my goal is not to have a bunch of holy little people and check the box and get everything right all the time…that’s not even the point. My goal is for you to reflect the character of your God and your God is into mercy, that is why as His representative I can say to someone like Matthew…Follow Me. I know your life is a mess but would you just come to me the way you are and you trust me and over time out of a relationship I will do a work in and through your life.) For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Do you know why this is such good news? Because we are all sinners. But what we want to do is make up our little righteousness scales and based on whatever you think is right and decide who is more holy (which drives me nuts) but the bottom line is that we are all at different places in our walks with God and the invitation is to all of us and it’s to simply be a follower of Jesus and to take the next baby step.
See, the issue isn’t how much you know, or how committed are you or are you a church person or not…but the issue is whether or not you are willing to take the first little baby step from wherever you are and say, “Jesus, Yes. I am willing to follow you. Please just don’t go too fast.” And I believe Jesus would say, “Don’t worry about it. Just trust me. I didn’t come to establish a game for you to play, or a bar for you to jump over in order for you to be acceptable to God. Jesus says, ‘I have come to establish a relationship with you.’ Just follow me.”
Now, let me take a little side bar for a minute and talk to some of you that have grown content with a religious routine. When Jesus says, “Follow Me” and you understand what He is really saying…this is going to be disturbing to you. See, if you have been a Christian for maybe 5 years or more there is a potential danger and that is that you will learn so much about the Bible and you can become very churched or religious that it becomes easy to settle into a routine and simply become just a nice person.
See, it’s not about that because following Jesus is an adventure and He will flat out mess with your routine. And churches all over this country are full of people who finally found a comfort zone…you’ve got God on Sunday morning, you give a little money, you’re a nice person and an upstanding citizen but are you reaching anybody? Are you making an eternal impact in anybody’s life? Jesus said, “Follow Me…let’s use those gifts and talents for my church instead of just at your job.” Follow Me…I want you to read something new. Follow Me…I want you to move. Follow Me…I want you to reconcile that marriage. Follow Me…I want you to seek forgiveness or offer forgiveness to that person who has hurt you. Follow Me…I want to spend more time with you.” And you are thinking…Whoa, hold on. I was content with just being a nice guy who didn’t miss church.
See, it’s disturbing to you if you have grown content with your spiritual life. Do you know what kind of people split churches? It’s not non-Christians. It’s Christians who quit following who mess up churches. It’s Christians who get caught in a routine and don’t want to go outside of their box and follow Jesus because they’ve never done that before.
See, when we get out of the Follow Me mode, here is what happens…instead of focusing on everything that we have yet to learn and instead of focusing on everything that we have yet to grow into and the things that God might call us to do…we get real content with where we are and what we are doing and just being a good guy. And the temptation will be for us to look at other people and start judging them for where they aren’t, because we become content with where we are and you’ve convinced yourself that you are following Jesus, even though you aren’t doing what God has asked of you.
Think of it this way…I want you to imagine for a minute what hung in the balance of Matthew’s decision to follow Jesus. He had no idea how God would use him. People name their children after him, he wrote a best selling book called—Matthew and here we are 2,000 years later reading it. God used him to impact people’s lives through the centuries because he said, “Yes” to following Jesus. And just like Matthew had no idea, we have no earthly idea of what hangs in the balance every time God calls us out of our comfort zone in order to follow Him.
See, in my line of work, I get to hear all the bad horror stories and the stories of regret, and here is what I know is true…if you would have been following Jesus He would have led you around that relationship. He would have led you away from that person. He would have led you away from all that debt. He would have led you away from all that regret. And do you know why I think that and know that to be true…because all my regrets have come from the times in my life when I wasn’t following Him. And I can tell you without a doubt that I have no regrets since I have chosen to follow Him.
I remember being at a leadership conference about 6 years ago, and a man named Howard Hendricks was speaking, who has had a profound impact on my life through his teaching and writing. And Dr. Hendricks is in his early 80’s, just had cancer surgery and had a huge scar on his head, had just buried his daughter-in-law that week from cancer and then he stood up before a group of a couple thousand pastors all under the age of 40 and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, since I was a teenager I have followed the Lord Jesus Christ and you are looking at a man who has no regrets.”
See, here is the bottom line…Following Jesus is going to cost you something, but refusing to follow Jesus will cost you a lot more. And the reason we shy away is because of that initial cost… “You mean I have to leave my tax payers booth? I don’t even know where we are going.” ‘Yes! But if you say ‘No’ to me Matthew, you have no idea what you’ve just given up and said ‘No’ to.
Following Jesus is going to cost you something, but refusing to follow Jesus will always cost you a lot more.
So my question is: Are you willing to follow Jesus because following Jesus is going to cause you to ReThink your purpose in life?