The More Commitment Myth
Roll out those lazy, hazy crazy days of summer, those days of soda and pretzel and . . . you know. Every one of us looks forward to summer, a different pace and why wouldn’t we? People seem different in the summertime, more civil, less harried for the most part. The golf courses are open and no one is shoveling snow. School’s out and that’s pretty good for the first couple of weeks.
As for the church, it’s harder to find people in the summer. People tend to disconnect to a degree. Most find their way back in the fall. Those on the fringes of spiritual decision sometimes fail to make the trip back. That used to trouble me greatly. I have to remind myself that the business of people being drawn toward God is the job of the Holy Spirit. You and I have a part to play but it’s His job really.
Many Christians, whose desire is to serve God faithfully, wrestle with the summer disconnect. There are those who can’t understand the streamlining of programs during the summer. They believe that it is evidence of a lack of commitment among Christians in general and they cry for more commitment. Some disparagingly doubt whether or not the modern day Christian is really able to commit to God at all and kingdom interests.
I do believe that within the church at large today, there are those who want to find a “lite” version of faith. They want an easier, more convenient way to follow Christ. But I have to say that I wonder if what we need is really more commitment?
I have said to a few people that what the church really needs today is people who are less committed.
You see, most everyone that I know is over-committed already – far too busy. They have all kinds of ability and willingness to make commitments and to honor them.
Another thing that I see is the tendency that some have to try to keep their kids busy to keep them out of trouble. And so we are raising a generation of activity junkies. The problem with staying out of trouble is that it doesn’t seem to lead people any closer to God. For the Christian parent, it would seem to me that the valuable lesson that we need somehow to be teaching our children is that they can’t and shouldn’t be involved in everything. They need to learn to make choices. They need to learn that quiet is at times necessary and in the quiet they can hear God’s voice just a little clearer.
No, . . . what I think the church needs is people who are less committed to things that don’t matter and more committed to things that do matter.
And the church needs to be committed to the termination of programs and approaches that have outlived their usefulness. We need to stop asking people to give their time and energy to perpetuate things that are ineffective. To be effective we must present the greatest vision, which calls for the greatest efforts, to further the greatest cause in this world and the world to come. You see there is no greater cause than the task of inviting and leading people to the place where they make a personal commitment to Christ. Until we really believe this to be true there will be little significant change in the way that we create and structure programs and strategies for reaching our communities.
How do we accomplish this? If we just tell people to be more committed, that’s like telling them to try harder. Is that what commitment means, just try harder? I think that there is much more to it than that and that’s really the essence of the message today.
Let’s take a look at a story in the Old Testament. It describes a life-changing encounter that Isaiah had with God. I would say that this was one of those experiences that shaped his ministry and his message for the rest of his life. Perhaps there are some things there that might benefit us as well as we look at them this morning.
" In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”" (Isaiah 6:1-8, NIV) [1]
There are 4 perspectives that Isaiah gains in this portion of scripture. I’d like to share them together today and ask you if you have seen any of these.
They are:
[ A greater vision of God
[ A greater vision of his own sinfulness
[ A greater vision of the work of God in his own life
[ A greater understanding of his own calling
1. A greater vision of God.
Your understanding of God will determine the type of response or commitment that you make to Him. Most of us see God in a diminished perspective. Isaiah records in great detail, the vision that He had of the magnificence of God and it changed him.
“Every follower of Jesus Christ needs to understand that Christ has power over both life and death -- otherwise we have no news that is ultimately Good News. John Huffman in his book, Who's In Charge Here?, tells about Robert Dick Wilson, a great professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. One of Dr. Wilson's students had been invited back to preach in Miller Chapel twelve years after his graduation.
Old Dr. Wilson came in and sat down near the front. At the close of the meeting the old professor came up to his former student, cocked his head to one side in his characteristic way, extended his hand, and said, "If you come back again, I will not come to hear you preach. I only come once. I am glad that you are a big-godder. When my boys come back, I come to see if they are big-godders or little-godders, and then I know what their ministry will be." His former student asked him to explain, and he replied: "Well, some men have a little god, and they are always in trouble with him. He can't do any miracles. He can't take care of the inspiration and transmission of the Scripture to us. He doesn't intervene on behalf of his people. They have a little god and I call them little-godders. Then there are those who have a great God. He speaks and it is done. He commands and it stands fast. He knows how to show Himself strong on behalf of them that fear him. You have a great God; and He will bless your ministry." He paused a moment and smiled, and said, "God bless you," and turned, and walked out.”
Many people get what they expect when they come to church from Sunday to Sunday. I remember one man I particular who was fairly upset when we removed the order of service from the bulletin. It was something that simply took up space and we felt no obligation to abide by our order of service. We still feel no particular obligation to an order of service. The truth is that God can do whatever God wants to do on a given Sunday. When we come to church and expect to have things proceed that same as they have always proceeded, a soul-numbing that takes place. We want to worship a predictable God in predictable ways because that makes us feel more “in control”. I think that the services or the programs in which God is most in control are those in which we feel a lack of control. The more we want to control and order, the less room there is for God.
I have found myself disarmed in the last few years as I have come to see God as the Architect of the church. I have viewed my own best, most creative, plans as weak and anemic and something less than what God would have for us. If I could say it this way, I have wondered if my main job is to try to stay out of the way and let God do what God wants to do. Now we still plan and dream and scheme but I am careful to ask God if my dreams are too small or if my dreams are cheating His people out of something greater.
Do you know what I think? I think that if as a congregation we can have an Isaiah 6 encounter with God then we will have no shortage of people to do the work that God wants us to do. Do you know what else I believe? I believe that until we have it, we will do some good things, maybe even some great things but nothing that we can contrive or design or execute will compare to what God would do through a people who experience Him fully.
2. A greater vision of his own sinfulness
“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
We just don’t want to hear this message. It is a natural consequence of a true vision of God. When you’ve seen God, you’re not such big stuff anymore. You’re not such righteous stuff anymore. The funniest thing has happened to me as I have grown older in my relationship to God.
I see myself as weaker, less certain about things that were so clear to me in the early days of my faith. Do you remember days of zeal when as a new Christian you looked around and wondered at the complacency of other around you? You’d found it and you were excited and wondered why others didn’t seem to always share your excitement.
I believe that one of the marks of a truly spiritual person is that they wouldn’t consider themselves as extremely spiritual. They have a well defined God concept. As they have come to see the greatness of God they have diminished in their own eyes.
We come with an eye for the inconsistencies of others more than an eye for our own failures. We are busy with the issues of others and blind to our own.
" “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye." (Matthew 7:1-5, NIV) [2]
You know, it’s an absolute waste of time and energy to worry about someone else’s sin. It’s none of your business and you can’t do anything about it. If you truly love a friend who is heading down some dubious road the scripture calls us to warn them. But if you have no time for people apart from a point of confrontation then I would say that you have no right to speak into their lives. Only friends who invest in the lives of others have a right and a hope of being effective in this role.
A sense of self-sufficiency blocks our ability to see and experience God. We have this insistence not only to control God but to figure Him out, to believe that we know what God does and what He doesn’t do. Oftentimes this is further diminished by the theological package that comes to many of us with our commitment to Christ. You know, the Wesleyan package, the Baptist package, the Anglican package. Those things are full of untested assumptions. Things that we never question or take hold of. And many times they limit our experience of God.
3. A greater vision of the work of God in his own life
“Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
Do you understand what God has done in your life? He hasn’t given you a low interest loan. He has done something for you that you could never do for yourself. You can’t pay Him back but you can fall in love with Him. That’s really what He wants from you. He wants your love, His own returned to Him.
There is nothing that will help you to love God more than to gain an understanding of His grace. You’ll never understand it fully but you can experience it fully.
I have a picture in my mind of a young lady that I knew in Moncton. She came to us from another church as a regular part of our youth group. As she got to know us better and myself better, she opened up to the struggles that she brought with her.
She was 17 or so at the time and she told me one night that her father had sexually abused her since she was 9 years old. I took the information and went with her to social services. Her father, an active deacon in his church was arrested at work. Their family came unraveled at the seams. In the months that followed there was much pain and discouragement. She stomped up the aisle after an evening service one night.
“I can’t do this anymore.”, she screamed. “I just can’t live this life.”
My answer was not trite, but true and I’d walked most every step with her in the aftermath of this experience. I looked at her and said, “Congratulations, you’ve just discovered the gospel.”
Maybe you are at that point today. Perhaps there is some sin that holds you in it’s grip that you have faced again and again. Maybe you are inwardly giving up because you realize that it’s bigger than your ability to overcome it. At that point, you are closer to discovering the gospel of grace than the person who has never known that type of struggle.
Let it be God’s problem not yours. I remember at a point telling a young man who was struggling with a cigarette habit, that when we come to God we are pleased to give him the good things about us. We need also to give him the bad things. The things that we are powerless over. Those things are God’s problem not yours. If he asks you to trust Him it is because He can be trusted.
You see He has paid the price already for your sin. If you’ll come to Him and trust His grace to meet your need then you’ll find it plentiful enough to gain victory as well.
4. A greater understanding of his own calling
“Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”"
I feared God’s call on my life. I fought God’s call on my life. When there are people who seem to object to the fact and there rarely are, that I am a minister, I remind them that it wasn’t my idea, my chosen vocation. It was a calling that I couldn’t escape – for me an issue of obedience to God.
And we are all called, not vocationally but still called. That calling is fleshed out in all of life. It’s done in every activity, every pursuit. It should be able to be done with a degree of joy and spontaneity.
That’s the way that Jesus did it.
I think that Christ enjoyed life. I think that he was someone that other people wanted to be around. People were drawn to him and then they heard his message. I believe that part of the strategy to reaching people for Christ is to become a “contagious Christian”. He was invited to their parties. The people were amazed at his teachings. Why because he taught as one having authority – not as the scribes and the Pharisees. He was an authority on life.
As though Christ were making his appeal through us. Do people run toward God because of your life or do they run away?
Compartments – we have struggled as a church to define outreach through sports. Is it a legitimate outreach if we don’t have a specific time devoted to prayer or Bible Study and if we do then does it serve it’s purpose? Can I minister to people without reading the scripture to them?
From the beginning the faith was designed to be taught in the family in the ordinariness of life.
"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." (Deuteronomy 6:4-9, NIV)[3]
The greatest witness that the church has is in the ordinariness of life and it is not in what you say – words are cheap. It is in what you do. People are watching. Every trip to the grocery store is a missions excursion. Every day when you get up and go to work there is a kingdom agenda that is greater than your own. You won’t find this in your Palm Pilot or Day Timer. You’d never anticipate the extent or the importance of the plans that God has for you. In many ways it works better when He doesn’t tell you.
The role of the church is:
Worship – the quest for spiritual intimacy - closer
Growth – the pursuit of the likeness of Christ - deeper
Service – the call to serve - lower
Reconciliation – the commission to reach out – farther
The greater the vision the easier it is to recruit people to step forward to accept the challenge. The greater the degree of congruence between values and mission the easier it is to call for a level of commitment.
We need a vision so big that it demands everything that we have to give. The problem is that our vision is to small – of our own construction and consequently limited. A vision of God, a vision of our own sinfulness, a vision of His work in my life, a vision of my own calling – how does He want me to live?
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[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[2] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[3] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.