Raising the bar on influence

forgot to post this earlier in the week.  sorry.

our lives are to be different…influential…counter-cultural.  what does it mean?

• counter culture means revolution…but it’s more than fighting for legalistic ideals.
• the word of god calls us to become totally and completely different.
• our culture worships status.  the word of god calls us to be servants.
• our culture seeks fortune.  the word of god tells us to hold things lightly.
• our culture teaches us to look after self.  the word of god commands us to take care of others.
• our culture says to lie to get ahead.  the word of god calls us to cherish honesty and keep our word.
• our culture promotes cynicism and pessimism.  the word of god compels us to be agents of constant hope and faith.
• we are to love our enemies and bless those who persecute us.
• we are to stand up for the poor and the oppressed.
• we are to care for orphans and widows and the forgotten.

we are to be salt and light.  we are a city on a hill.

nothing less will do.

Raising the bar on generosity

honestly, i had an entirely different sermon planned for this past sunday.  as i was going over it late saturday afternoon, i felt compelled to change it.  we call that preacher prerogative.  maybe it was the holy spirit prompting me to change.  maybe it was just my uneasiness.  maybe it was just conviction.  

i had planned to preach some final words on money and giving, but i didn’t want to.  don’t get me wrong.  i don’t have a problem in the world with preaching and teaching about money.  stewardship of resources is one of the most important parts of discipleship…maybe the single most complicated part of following christ in the 21st century western culture.  

in the end, i guess i still did preach a lesson on giving.  just not the one i had planned.  i preached one that was more important.

figuring out how to be faithful followers of the simple king in the midst of a narcissistic society pushes the best of us.  greed, opulence, comfort, self-centerdness, and the pull of unmet want can be overwhelming.  but in the midst of it all, we have the call to faith.

not just any faith.  but faith in the one who took five loaves and two fish and fed multitudes.  faith in the one who took something small and multiplied it.

here’s the lesson to remember:  when we follow the savior, giving never depletes our resources.  it replenishes them.  simple as that.

Raising the bar on sacrifice

after studying the calling of the first disciples yesterday, i’m even more convinced that the lifestyle of the follower of christ is to be characterized by sacrifice.

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.  ”Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.”  At once they left their nets and followed him.  Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.  Matthew 4:18-22

i certainly think my childhood days of singing “i will make you fishers of men, fishers of men, fishers of men…” led me down a road where i completely missed the point of this amazing passage.

god is calling us to sacrifice.  sacrifice is not a thing we add.  sacrifice is about subtraction.  it’s what we let go of.  it’s what we do away with.  it’s what we say goodbye to.  it’s what we lose, get rid of, take away, stop doing, forfeit.

sacrifice is the essence of following jesus.  answering his call cannot be done without sacrifice.  if there is no sacrifice, there is no discipleship.

Raising the bar on urgency

i think this week’s sermon was a little easier to swallow than last week’s.  but it shouldn’t have been.

this whole issue of urgency should be of top-of-the-list importance in our lives.  when i think about how james writes about our lives, i’m humbled:

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”  As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.  Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.  James 4:13-17

my life?  a mist?  your life?  a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes?  this is weighty stuff.  we think of ourselves as invincible.  we think we have all the time in the world.  we think that nothing will ever happen to us and we’ve got control of our destiny and can plan for our futures as if there is some assurance it will happen.

and then james says we are nothing but a mist…here one day, gone the next?  this is humbling.  but it is the reality we need to live with.  we need to learn to ask a simple question.  every day.  all the time.  in every circumstance.  ”what does god want?”

that’s it?  ”what does god want?”  yup.  that’s how we are to live our lives.  asking the question “what does god want?”, and then spending our days doing our best to answer and then obey is the measure of a life well lived.

so how are you doing?

• are you faithfully asking that question, or are you living your life doing what you think is best for your life?
• are you seeking answers in his word?
• are you inviting wise counsel (the biblical kind) into your life?
• are you learning from your mistakes?
• does it matter to you…more than anything else…to be pleasing to god?
• are you really living, or merely existing?
• do you see the eternal destiny of those around you with a sense of urgency?
• why not?
• what are you going to do about it…today?