No. 01. “Sometimes it’s Pretty Hard to Follow Jesus"
Aug 31, 2008 Bothwell & Clachan
Jesus Wants Me to Do What? - No. 01. “Sometimes it’s Pretty Hard to Follow Jesus”
Matthew 16:21-28
INTRODUCTION
Taboo Topics at Work
Sometimes it’s pretty hard to follow Jesus, especially if you would like to be able to share your faith while at work. In a 2008 Addeco survey, 1,807 U.S. workers were asked to identify issues they felt were off-limits for discussion at work. Here are the top five responses:
- Religion: 29 percent
- Office gossip: 27 percent
- Personal life: 16 percent
- Politics: 14 percent
- Money: 14 percent[1]
Doesn’t leave too much, does it? Sports? Even grandchildren may be off limits if they are included in the personal life category? We don’t want to admit too much. We don’t want to get too far into the discipleship business. It could be very costly.
It reminds me a little of a classic cartoon in Leadership magazine: two couples are seated in a living room engaged in Bible study. One of the women is speaking. "Well," she says, "I haven't actually died to sin, but I did feel kind of faint once."[2]
Scandalon
Some years ago Michael Card, a contemporary Christian artist, wrote a song called Scandalon. It is about the scandalous nature of the cross. The chorus goes:
He will be the Truth
that will offend them one and all.
A stone that makes men stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.
And many will be broken so that He can make them whole.
And many will be crushed and lose their very soul.[3]
HARD TO FOLLOW JESUS
In our Bible reading earlier, Peter found out how hard it was to follow Jesus. Why just before this he had gone right to the head of the class by giving the correct answer to Jesus’ latest quiz: “Who do people think I am?” Peter scored a 100% for his perceptive answer that said basically “You are God, Boss.”
But look how quickly the situation deteriorates and turns around for the worst. Peter understood the scandalous nature of the cross. It repulsed him. There was no way Jesus was going to go to Jerusalem and be killed. Peter could see Jesus being king and killing others but being king and being killed was not, in his mind, the Messiah's fate. By questioning Jesus’ determination to go to a ghastly death on the cross, Peter is now the class dunce and accused of being on Satan’s Team, of being a part of the Dark Side. You see, Jesus is very serious about this discipleship business. After all it will cost him his life.
Board Game Softens Discipleship
There are some in every generation who try to water down the cost of following Jesus. I don’t know if you ever came across the old Christian board game put out by the same company that makes Monopoly. Lee Eclov relates his experience with the game:
When I was a kid in the mid-50s, Parker Brothers came out with a game for church families like ours. It was called "Going to Jerusalem." Your playing piece wasn't a top hat or Scottie dog, like in the "worldly" game of Monopoly. In "Going to Jerusalem," you got to be a real disciple. You were represented by a little plastic man with a robe, a beard, some sandals, and a staff.
In order to move across the board, you looked up answers to questions in the little black New Testament provided with the game. I remember that you always started in Bethlehem, and you made stops at the Mount of Olives, Bethsaida, Capernaum, the stormy sea, Nazareth, and Bethany. If you rolled the dice well, you went all the way to a triumphal entry into Jerusalem. But you never got to the Crucifixion or Resurrection. There were no demons or angry Pharisees. You only made your way through the nice stories. It was a safe adventure, perfectly suited for a Christian family on a Sunday afternoon walk with Jesus.
It never occurred to me, while leaning over the card table jiggling the dice in my hand, that traveling with Jesus wasn't meant for plastic disciples who looked up verses in a little black Bible. If you're gong to walk with Jesus as his disciple in this world, you may need to change your expectations. After all, Jesus said, "Take up your cross, and follow me."[4]
Recently we were a part of the SonWorld Adventure Theme Park Vacation Bible School. In saying, "Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me," it is as if Jesus said. "Get on this new thrill ride with me. There will be many dangerous twists and turns in the tracks, but I promise you it will never be dull. It will mean putting someone other than yourself first, being concerned not so much with what YOU want, but what God wants for you. It won't be easy and sometimes it won't be much fun, but it will never be boring."[5]
Are We Any Better?
Instead of that Biblically based approach, pastor and author Max Lucado describes some of the weak views people have today about Christ:
For some, Jesus is a good luck charm. The "Rabbit's Foot Redeemer." Pocket-sized. Handy. Easily packaged. Easily understood. Easily diagrammed. You can put his picture on your wall or you can stick it in your wallet as insurance. You can frame him. Dangle him from your rear view mirror or glue him to your dashboard.
His specialty? Getting you out of a jam. Need a parking place? Rub the redeemer. Need help on a quiz? Pull out the rabbit's foot. No need to have a relationship with him. No need to love him. Just keep him in your pocket next to your four-leaf clover.
Many or us want Jesus to be an "Aladdin's Lamp Redeemer." New jobs. Pink Cadillacs. New and improved spouses. Your wish is his command. And what's more, he conveniently reenters the lamp when you don't want him around.
For others, Jesus is a "Monty Hall Redeemer." "All right, Jesus, let's make a deal. For 52 Sundays a year, I'll put on a costume—coat and tie, hat and hose—and I'll endure any sermon you throw at me. In exchange, you give me the grace behind pearly gate number three."
The Rabbit's Food Redeemer. The Aladdin's Lamp Redeemer. The Monty Hall Redeemer. Few demands, no challenges. No need for sacrifice. No need for commitment.
Sightless and heartless redeemers. Redeemers without power. That's not the Redeemer of the New Testament.[6]
Instant Discipleship
Unfortunately today we also live in an instantaneous world. We have instant on TV’s and microwave foods and all sorts of other time saving devices. And don’t get me wrong, I like microwave popcorn as much as the next fellow. All of these machines can be wonderful helpers. But sometimes we are tempted to mistake the gods of our surrounding culture for the truths of Jesus. This same spirit even motivates some of our religious discussions.
One pastor tells of a man who once appeared at his office door, asking for some bullet points on Christianity to help make sense of the dinner conversations he was having with his wife, a recent convert. He made it clear he was very busy, very successful, and didn't really have time to study her beliefs—just bullet points, now, please. The pastor writes:
It would have been easy to hand him a book or pamphlet. That can be good. But instead, I said, "I can see you are a very busy, very successful person, so I don't think this is a good idea."
"Why?" he asked, frustrated.
"Because," I said, "If I were to give you the bullet points, and you were to really understand them, they have a way of working into a person's life so significantly that your life could really get messed up. You would have to rethink the meaning of success, of time, of family…of everything, really. I don't think you really want to do that, do you?" It was an effort to raise his thirst, not to give him answers. (Fortunately, the good news is) In his case, it worked.[7]
REAL CROSS-BEARING
We need to be constantly reminded that to deny self does not mean to deny things. It means to give yourself wholly to Christ and share in His shame and death. To take up a cross does not mean to carry burdens or have problems. Warren Wiersbe says: I once met a lady who told me her asthma was the cross she had to bear! But to take up the cross means to identify with Christ in His rejection, shame, suffering, and death.[8]
Thomas à Kempis on Following Jesus
But many years ago a wise and devoted follower of Jesus named Thomas a Kempis reflected on the real demands of Jesus:
Jesus has many who love his kingdom in heaven, but few who bear his cross. He has many who desire comfort, but few who desire suffering. He finds many to share his feast, but few his fasting. All desire to rejoice with him, but few are willing to suffer for his sake. Many follow Jesus to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the cup of his passion. Many admire his miracles, but few follow him in the humiliation of the cross.[9]
Self-Denial
The late German theologian, pastor, and World War 2 martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer also wrote of that kind of spirit:
To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us. Once more, all that self-denial can say is: "He leads the way, keep close to him."[10]
This was a hard lesson for Peter to learn. Later on he was to discover this truth, to his embarrassment and sadness, when he tried to follow behind Jesus during the evening of Jesus’ trial. He tried to lurk behind rather than openly coming out and publicly admitting that he knew Jesus. This was a very costly mistake for he ended up denying his Lord three times before breakfast.
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY DISCIPLES
So I do not think that it is wrong to remind ourselves of the price that Jesus paid to secure our eternal freedom. If it cost him everything he had, is it too much for us to occasionally reflect on his sacrifice? We wisely and thankfully do something similar on November 11’s Remembrance Day. Then we remember soldiers who fought and died for our freedoms and for a peace that often ends too soon. What about our Lord who died that we might have eternal freedom—unending spiritual freedom and forgiveness? If they are wise, even those around us in this secular world do something similar.
How to Develop Priorities
Tim Sanders—former chief solutions officer at Yahoo! and author of Love Is the Killer App—shares the following thought about establishing priorities:
Take your life and all the things that you think are important, and put them in one of three categories. These three categories are represented by three items: glass, metal, and rubber.
The things that are made of rubber, when you drop them, will bounce back. Nothing really happens when these kinds of things get dropped. So, for instance (and I enjoy sporting events, so don't take me wrong here), if I miss a Seahawks' game, my life will bounce along real fine. It doesn't change anything and nothing is lost—my missing a game or a season of football will not alter my marriage or my spiritual life. I can take 'em or leave 'em.
Things that are made of metal, when they get dropped, create a lot of noise. But you can recover from the drop. You miss a meeting at work; you can get the cliff notes. Or if you forget to balance your checkbook and lose track of how much you have in your account, and the bank notifies you that you have been spending more than you have—that's going to create a little bit of noise in your life, but you can recover from it.
Then there are things made of glass. And when you drop one of these, it will shatter into pieces and never be the same. Even though you can piece it back together, it will still be missing some pieces. It certainly won't look the same, and I doubt that you could actually fill it up with water; because the consequences of it be being broken will forever affect how it's used.
But you are the only person who knows what those things are that you can't afford to drop. More than likely, they have a lot to do with your relationships. Your marriage, your family, and your friends.[11]
These are wise words from a secular leader. How much more as followers of Jesus might we apply that reasoning to our lives as followers of Jesus?
CONCLUSIONS
SO WHAT is the Point?
So what is the point? What does Jesus ask for? One of the wisest men of the past century said this: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."[12] That is as true now as it was the day Jim Elliot wrote it down. And it was that same all-out discipleship attitude that directly led to him and his four brave friends being speared to death beside a South American river. And yet, as many of you now know, even the ones who threw those spears would go on to become brave and effective missionaries for Jesus. All because Elliot had confronted the issues and knew the underlying and ultimate purpose of his life in Jesus.
Confronting the Issues
Stuart Briscoe once used these same verses in an interview with a young business—lady. He writes: After I pointed them out to her, she said, "You mean to say that Jesus Christ wants me to confront the possibility that I might be wasting my life?" I said, "Right!" "And you are trying to tell me that if I hold onto my life, I will waste my life?" I said, "No, I'm not trying to tell you. He said it. And not only that, he said the only way to make sure you really invest your life for eternity in the divine economy is to hand it over to him." She said, "No way."
That was last Tuesday morning. Sunday night she came to me literally trembling and said, "I've not been able to get that thought out of my mind all week: I might be wasting my life."
I asked, "Are you the same Pat?"
She said, "I'm the same one who rides her motorcycle at ninety-five miles an hour without a helmet and has never been afraid of anything, but now I'm utterly petrified.''
Why? Because she was daring to do what disciples of Jesus Christ do: confront the issues. She quietly submitted her life to the Master last Sunday night. Do you call yourself a disciple of Jesus Christ? Disciples of Jesus Christ confront the issues he raises.[13]
Jesus wanted to make sure that Peter learned that all-important lesson early on in his adventure with Jesus. So how much is Jesus a part of your life?
Are we continually asking ourselves:
- Is there any part of my life that I have not given to Jesus?
- What am I willing to do for Jesus?
- What do I need to give to Jesus?
- What am I keeping back from Jesus?
As we reflect on this lets join in singing together a hymn that asks this related question: “Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?”
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[1] Jae Yang and Veronica Salazar, "What Is the Most Taboo Topic to Discuss at Work?" USA Today (6-17-08); submitted by Van Morris, Mount Washington, Kentucky
[2] Mary Chambers, Leadership
[3] ChristianGlobe Illustrations, Brett Blair, ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc., 2002
[4] Lee Eclov, Vernon Hills, Illinois
[5] ChristianGlobe Illustrations, Johnny Dean, ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc., 2002
[6] Max Lucado, Six Hours One Friday (W. Publishing, 2004), pp. 89–90; submitted by J. R. Love, Rushton, Louisiana
[7] Mark Labberton, "Pastor of Desperation," Leadership Journal (Winter 2006)
[8] Warren W. Wiersbe in A Time To Be Renewed. Christianity Today, Vol. 32, no. 5.
[9] Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ; found in: Tony Lane, Timeless Witness (Hendrickson, 2004), p. 188
[10] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (Touchstone, 1995), p. 88
[11] Tim Sanders, www.sanderssays.typepad.com (8-25-06); submitted by Gino Grunberg, Gig Harbor, Washington
[12] Jim Elliot, martyred missionary
[13] Stuart Briscoe, "Ordinary Folks Make Great Disciples," Preaching Today, Tape No. 47.