No Compromise
Matthew 10:26-33
Before the world is ever going to take Jesus seriously, the church has to take Jesus seriously. Before the world is converted to a lifestyle devoted to Jesus Christ, the church must be converted to a lifestyle devoted to Jesus Christ. Mother Theresa was once asked, “What advice do you have for a young Christian?” And she said, “Follow Jesus and not the Jesus of people’s imaginations.” We have to re-discover the real Jesus who calls us to follow him in servanthood, and sacrifice and maybe just maybe persecution. Jesus calls us to be like him and join him in God’s sacrificial redemptive mission for the world. We are called to put everything we have on the line for God’s mission. At the age of 58, Tom and Elaine Samply cashed out their retirements and moved to the Czech Republic and opened a coffee shop called Common Grounds where he taught business principles to atheists. After they were there for six years, they had enough business that they planted the first church and today they have planted seven churches in the Czech Republic. At age 67 today they are still working for Jesus. How many 50 somethings are thinking about putting everything they have on the line for Jesus? I think of Sam Dixon who was the head of UMCOR and who died at age 60, doing what he loved to do: working for the welfare of the poor and rejected of the world in the name of Jesus Christ. His life ended before he could be rescued from the ruins of a hotel toppled by the powerful earthquake that struck Haiti.
Disciples give everything for the sake of Jesus’ mission. Jesus is not calling us to sit in the pews and soak in things for our own benefit. He is calling us to give everything in following him. The Gospel is a dangerous message and this is a dangerous call to follow Him. What we need to be careful and ever vigilant in is to make sure we’re not compromising the message of Jesus and reducing it to a comfortable Christianity that is all about me and my needs. Jesus calls us to follow him in God’s sacrificial redemptive mission to change the world. Listen to what Jesus says to us, “Do not be afraid of what I am calling you to do.”
What do we fear when it comes to following Jesus and living a life of sacrificial faith? Ask the congregation. Rejection. Ridicule. Lack of control in our life. Conflict. We fear what we have to give up. What is so amazing is that when Jesus was recruiting for a new movement of God, you’d think that he’d lay out the benefits. Instead, he tells us what the cost will be if we accept this mission. We will have ridicule, personal attacks, persecution, rejection by family and in verse 24 he says, he has come into enemy territory and because I am fighting to save the world. Guess what? Jesus says, what they do to me and they will do to you.
The danger is that we use God for our own purposes. God help me to get that job promotion. God, keep me healthy. Too often we try to use God for our ends rather than offering ourselves sacrificially for his purpose. That’s what worship is all about: we come here to offer all that we are and all that we have to God to do as he sees fit for his purpose. Go to Matthew 20, “Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him. “What is it you want?” he asked. She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.” This mother is asking iJesus to bless her sons with the highest positions of influence in the kingdom of God. Now Jesus said, “You don’t know what you’re asking for?” We have so subverted the Gospel in making it about us. It’s not just what Jesus did for us on the cross it’s about what Jesus is calling us to do which is to join him in a mission which leads to the cross. We’ve so sanitized the faith and even the cross because we took the most horrific death in Jesus’ time and made it into pretty jewelry. Preachers are just as guilty of this when they promise that God will bless you financially if you just give or if you believe. We are called to the cross, a call to sacrifice everything you are and everything you have, even to the point of death. This is the cost of following Jesus.
Disciples follow Jesus to the cross. Following Jesus to the cross isn’t easy. It wasn’t easy for Jesus either. In Matthew 26:37 it says, “My soul is overwhelmed to the point of death.” Even on the cross Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” And yet in all of this, the message of Jesus is “Don’t be afraid.” Tony Campolo shares that the pastor of his church in Philadelphia says, “If you’re going through Good Friday in your life right now, don’t be afraid because Sunday is coming!” That’s the power of the resurrection! When we realize that no matter what we are going through or what they do to us, even death, that resurrection for the faithful is the end result, that frees us to live into God’s calling.
Verse 27 says, “What is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.” Where are we going to get the information we need to be faithful to God’s witness? It’s going to come from Jesus. Where will the instructions come from? Jesus! For the disciples, it was easy because Jesus verbally told the disciples what to do. After the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, the disciples received their instructions through the Holy Spirit. And the same is true for us today. “Your old men will have dreams and your young men will have visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.” Joel 2:28 We have the ability to receive specific instructions from Jesus Christ today.
Disciples regularly listen for the voice of God. “What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight”? Now what did Jesus mean by that? Well, Mark tells us that “very early in the morning when it was still dark, Jesus went off to pray.” And this was the practice of Jesus every day in his life. So the disciples understood Jesus to say that you too are to begin each day in the dark in prayer listening to the Father. You need to listen to God to fully embrace His calling and fulfill His will in your life. Jesus said he never did anything apart from what the Father tells him. So in the disciples mind, you don’t even go out in the day until you make a specific commitment of your time and yourself in prayer to the Father to listen to God. The reason we call it ‘quiet time’ is that we are to quiet ourselves and listen for the instructions of God through the Holy Spirit so we can know the will of the Father. This is absolutely critical to following Jesus.
In Acts 10, it says, “At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly.” Cornelius is a Gentile soldier who is God fearing, meaning he was a believer in the God of Israel but was not allowed to participate in sacrifice or in worship. He could watch but not participate. Now he was devout and prayed regularly. Jews in Jesus’ day prayed three times a day, 9 AM, Noon and three in the afternoon. “One day at three in the afternoon, he had a vision, the time when he would be praying.” Whatever he was doing, he stopped to listen to God. God is always speaking, the problem is that we’re not always listening. It’s all the more difficult with all of the noise in our lives and the world. Is it any wonder that God can’t get a word in edgewise? That’s why it’s so important to have intentional times of listening to God. You have to learn to listen to God through you’re prayer time. “He distinctly heard an angel of God who came to him and said, “Cornelius…” God gave him directions and then in the ninth verse: “About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance.” What time did Peter’s vision come? Prayer time. It is absolutely essential if we are going to identify God’s unique and individual mission in our life, we have to set a specific time to listen to God. and then act on what He says. It’s not enough to listen for the voice of God, disciples are available to God’s purpose and act on it.
Disciples have a mission identity. “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.” Have you ever heard people say, “my faith is private, I don’t like to talk about it”? Faith is never private. It’s public because we are on a mission. How do we acknowledge Jesus? Two ways: Our words. All of you who know Jesus have a testimony to share. How is your life different with Jesus than before Jesus? That means too you have to have a dynamic, growing relationship with Jesus. Our lifestyle. Too often our priorities and our lifestyle are out of sync with that of Jesus. Changing the world and conforming to it are two very different endeavors. In fact, you cannot do both, because one absolutely negates the other. But we also need to realize that just living a Christ-like life isn’t enough. People today will not make the connection between your good acts and your faith. You have to make the connection for them. It is through our sacrificial love in serving others and putting them first that we acknowledge Jesus in our life.
Disciples remember whose love and acceptance really matters. When you’re going through hard times, when your faith is challenged, when you are being attacked in every way, when you are feeling rejected, remember whose love and acceptance really matters. “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” There are a lot of people sitting in church who have been deceived by the Prince of Deception and lost their soul. Remember who you are in God. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” David prayed to God in Psalm 139: “God, you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Your esteem and affirmation should not come from the world or other people but only from the one who created you. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. Say it with me: “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” In other words, you are a real piece of work! Verses 14-17 says, “Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God!” How precious to me are your thoughts, God! You see the only thing we should ever fear in this life is being disobedient to the One who created us and called us. To die without giving everything we have for God should be our greatest fear.
If this is the mission that you want to commit your life to, to give all that you are and all that you have, for the rest of your life to follow Jesus is his redemptive mission of the world, I want to ask you to come forward and join me in making statement of commitment and faith. Would everyone join me: “As of today, I am part of the church of the out of control. I have given up control to God. I trust and obey the Spirit. I have jumped off the fence and stepped over the line. I have pulled out all of the stops holding nothing back. There’s no turning back, looking around, slowing down, backing away, letting up, or shutting up. It’s life against the odds, outside the box, over the wall, the game of life played without goal lines, other than thy will be done. I live to please my Lord and Savior. I’ve stopped trying to make life work and started trying to make life sing. I no longer live by and for anything but everything God-breathed, Christ-centered and Spirit-driven. I won’t back down, slow down, shut down or let down until I’ve preached out, teached out or hauled out of God’s mission in the world, entrusted to the members of the church of the out of control. To unbind the confined, the overlooked and the unrepresented so that one day he will pick me out of the lineup of the ages as one of his own. And then it will be worth it all to hear these words, “well done, good and faithful and out of control servant.”
I just want to remind you of four disciplines. The first is to set aside time for God every day. Second is to give sacrificially. Third is to connect with other believers in this journey of faith. If you’re not in a sermon based discussion group where you can be encouraged in your growth, make the commitment to do so now. Fourth is to pick an area to serve God. Amen.
