Sermon Tone Analysis

*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.”