Max Lucado writes: “For some, Jesus is a good luck charm. The ‘Rabbit’s Foot Redeemer.’ Pocket-sized. Handy. Easily packaged. Easily understood. Easily diagramed. 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.” If you think he is off the mark, consider some of the Jesus junk I found on the Internet. There is the company which advertises “a huggable, washable, and talking Jesus plush doll.” The doll sells for only $15.95. Sporting fuzzy dreadlocks and a soft beard, Talking Jesus is said to recite “actual Scripture verses to introduce children of all ages to the wisdom of the Bible” when you squeeze his heart which he wears on his sleeve. But commenting on the product, Sojourners magazine reports: “When you squeeze his red heart his sayings include, ‘I love you, and I have an exciting plan for your life,’ and, ‘Your life matters so much to me.’ Which aren’t, um, exactly from the Bible.” But don’t despair, there is the Jesus bobble-head doll and the Jesus Action Figure with broad shoulders and hands rolled into a fist. Then there are the Jesus figurines which have Jesus playing soccer, basketball, hockey and even Jesus dancing with ballerina girls. And those are the best of the things I found out of hundreds of tacky Jesus junk that is available. If you would like a taste of Scripture, you can buy New Testa-mints.
In this culture of tawdry marketing, Jesus has become just another commodity. We have reduced him down to a comfortable, huggable Jesus who soothes us, a Santa Claus god who gives us what we want, or a god who plays golf with us in heaven. This is a god with few demands and no challenges. There is no need for sacrifice here or commitment. All that many people care about is getting their sins forgiven. They believe in God. They believe in the Bible, but don’t ask anything more of them, because that wouldn’t be nice.
Have you seen the Staples commercial with the easy button? Just press the button and get everything you need. No work, no effort, just push the button. That’s the kind of faith we want. Svein-Magne Pedersen is a new kind of techno-evangelist in Norway. He calls his innovation a telechurch. He told the newspaper Fædrelandsvennen: “Many have asked me to come to their homes to hold meetings. This is not always a practical possibility, but now you can take part in a healing meeting no matter where you are in the country.” “This has never been done before as far as I know,” Pedersen told the newspaper. The article states: “Every Wednesday the mission opens its teledoors for what Pedersen has dubbed the ‘Miracle Corner.’ Those who desire healing can press 0 on their phone. Diseases like cancer and arthritis are a few of those mentioned for the service. The telechurch also offers salvation at the press of a button.” The service costs the equivalent to $15.00 in US currency. How about a push-button Jesus. Need saved? Need a problem solved? Need a blessing or a favor? That was easy! No effort. No work. Just results. Need some sins forgiven before you die? Just shoot up a quick prayer before you go, and you’ll be fishin’ with Jesus on a heavenly pond before you know it. This is the innocuous Christianity that this culture has come to know and love. But is it Christianity at all? Does it even resemble who Jesus is and what he said? Are we treating Jesus like some good luck charm or superstitious magic? Are we allowing his words to penetrate any farther than our ear drums? Are we willing to really hear the words of Jesus and allow his words to truly transform us?
There is a great difference between those who simply hear the words of Jesus and set them aside as charming but irrelevant, and those who allow it to transform them. The first point is that: Doers of the Word hear with their wills engaged. The ancient Hebrew word for “hear” is shema. It included the idea of obedience. For them “to hear” was “to obey.” Hearing was not a matter of the physical ear, but a matter of the will.
The news carried the story of a schoolteacher who lost her life’s savings in a business scam. A swindler had spent a lot of time with her explaining why this was such a good deal. But when her money disappeared and her dream was shattered, she went to the Better Business Bureau. “Why on earth didn’t you come to us first?” the official asked. “Didn’t you know about the Better Business Bureau?” “Oh, yes,” she replied with her head hanging sadly. “I’ve always known about you, but I didn’t come because I was afraid you’d tell me not to do it.”
Maybe that is why a lot of people avoid church or don’t read the Bible. They are afraid they will be told not to do something they want to do. Even though it would be to their benefit and help them avoid something detrimental, they don’t want to hear it. They want to do it and their minds are closed. It doesn’t seem to matter what the consequences are, they are bent on doing it.
Jesus asked, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” That is really the question of the day. He went on to say, “I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete” (Luke 6:46-49). Some people build their houses on sand, even when they know that when the storm comes the house will not stand. And the amazing thing is that they will be mad at God when the house collapses.
The person who is a true follower of Jesus is willing to follow Jesus regardless of the cost or difficulty. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: “The cross is laid on every Christian. As we embark upon discipleship we give ourselves to Christ in union with his death — we give over our lives to death. The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” That death is the death of self-will and self-centeredness. It is the determination to follow God no matter what the cost or what we may have to deny ourselves. Usually, what we are called on to deny ourselves are the things that will destroy us or bring dysfunction into our lives, but we still don’t want to give them up.
A.W. Tozer once wrote: “Among the plastic saints of our times Jesus has to do all the dying and all we want is to hear another sermon about His dying.” But we have to die with him if we are truly going to follow him. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:24-26).
The second point is: Doers of the Word hear with their minds engaged. Doers of the Word of God seek to understand so they can obey and live. If you are old enough to remember W. C. Fields, you know that he not only played the role of a drunken scoundrel in the movies, but his public and private persona were much the same. At the end of his life he was critically ill and a friend came to visit him. He was shocked to find him reading the Bible. He said, “I didn’t know that you believed in the Bible? Are you looking for answers?” Fields said, “No. I’m not looking for answers, I’m looking for loopholes.”
When I think of Judas I think of a man with a closed mind. I am always amazed that here is a man who lived intimately with Jesus. Every day he ate with him, heard what he said, saw the miracles — people healed and even brought back from death. He ate the bread and fish that Jesus miraculously multiplied, saw him pray and experienced his love, yet somehow none of it got through. He had every benefit that the rest of the disciples had. Jesus loved him. Up to the very end the rest of the disciples assumed that Judas was one of them and was a devoted follower of Jesus. But somehow his heart and mind were bitter against Jesus, in spite of all that he had heard, seen and experienced. At the last supper, just before his death, Jesus said that one of the disciples sitting at the table was going to betray him. It is interesting that none of the others guessed that it was Judas. By all outward appearances he was one of them, but Judas’ mind was twisted against Jesus.
One day Jesus was having a conflict with some of the religious people of his day. They were angry with him because he was not following all the rules they had imposed on the people. He said to them, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain’” (Matthew 15:8-9). They claimed to believe in God and follow him. They had heard the words of Jesus, but their hearts were far from him. They never sought to really understand. Their minds were closed, and as a result their relationship with him was cut off.
The third point is: Doers of the Word hear with their hands and feet engaged. They actually follow through and act on what they know. They do not learn something and put it on the shelf. Their feet and hands are engaged in doing what they know.
Theologian Helmut Thielicke once quipped, “A salty pagan, full of the juices of life, is a hundred times dearer to God, and also far more attractive to men, than a scribe who knows his Bible. . . in whom none of this results in repentance, action, and above all, death of the self. A terrible curse hangs over the know-it-all who does nothing.” Somehow, all of this has to result in action. Just to believe in God, know the Scripture, and have your sins forgiven means nothing in the end if there is no obedience. Faith has to result in action or it is no faith at all. If there is no obedience you cannot call yourself a follower of Jesus.
Bryan Chapell writes, “A grace focus that undermines Christ’s own demand for obedience denies us knowledge of and intimacy with him. This is not grace. Grace that bears fruit is biblical. Grace that goes to seed uses God’s unconditional love as an excuse for selfish indulgence. Such egocentric living ultimately burdens us with the guilt and consequences of sin that God has designed his grace to remove. Resting on God’s grace does not relieve us of our holy obligations; rather it should enable us to fulfill them.”
So you believe in Jesus. So what? Belief has to have hands and feet. Are you living in obedience? Is your moral life a reflection of what you say you believe? Is your thought life in line with the mind of Christ? Are you indulging yourself and saying that you live by grace and not the law? Are you excusing your behavior and justifying yourself, rather than genuinely living the life that Christ has called you to live? Do you readily practice forgiveness or do you hold a grudge? Do you love your enemies and do good to those oppose you? Do you look for ways to serve?
The Bible says, “The man who says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did” (1 John 2:4-6). This is not learning how to talk the talk, but walking the walk. The Bible says, “Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them” (1 John 3:24).
Since 9/11 our nation has been on high alert. And although we have been spared from major incidents in this country, terrorists have struck elsewhere, and the fear is that they will strike here again. On March 11, 2004, terrorists exploded 10 bombs in Madrid, Spain, killing almost 200, wounding another 1,800. Two months later there was a scare in Philadelphia, PA. On May 5th a conductor for Pennsylvania’s transit authority discovered something that alarmed him on the tracks near Philly’s massive 30th street station. He had come across an electronic transmitter of some kind. It was positioned alongside the tracks in the commuter rail yard. Agents from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI cordoned off the area and investigated every inch of the rail yard. The suspicious electronic gadget they found ended up being a motion detector designed to send a signal to a nearby receiver. Tension mounted. Finally, a train mechanic stepped forward and admitted installing the transmitter. The FBI questioned whether he was a terrorist, or a disgruntled employee looking for revenge. Instead, the mechanic, who worked the graveyard shift, had installed the motion detector to sound an alarm in his work area whenever his supervisor was approaching. He wanted to be able to safely take a nap. If the alarm went off, he could get up and look busy when the boss showed up.
That is the way a lot of people live. The alarm goes off and they get busy only when they think the boss is going to show up. But the boss has shown up, and he says to us, “If you love me, you will obey what I command” (John 14:15). The Scripture says,
Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”
(Ephesians 5:14).
“And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed” (Romans 13:11).
Rodney J. Buchanan
September 3, 2006
Mulberry St. UMC
Mount Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
