The Great Pause
Notes
Transcript
Focus In
Focus In
Focus in, focus in, focus in.
Let’s play a game.
This is a picture of something close up. Something familiar, something you will recognize. What is it?
Coke can. A&W.
Every correct guess is worth at least 3 Jesus Points.
How about this one?
Battery.
Okay one more. Then we get SUPER serious.
Crayon. Scarlet.
Sometimes you need to get perspective. You need to step back, you are too close to the issue, too close to the problem, to the situation, to the moment. You take a step back and you see it.
In many ways, the last year has been this process for me. I love our church SO much. I am tremendously defensive when it comes to any and every criticism. I know your hearts and I love y’all. I love loving God with you, I love serving with you.
And so it was incredibly challenging as God started to draw my attention to ways where we were newly struggling and ways we have always struggled to be faithful to Him.
Recap - Next Step is Dying and Needs Revival
Recap - Next Step is Dying and Needs Revival
Last week was SO hard, to stand up here and say that Next Step church is dying… but that is our trajectory. We need revival. (I love that last song we sung last week. Still singing it.)
I hear the words of John to the church in Ephesus:
But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
Repent. Revive. Refocus. Return to our first love:
The love, whole-hearted love for Jesus.
The love, radical fellowship Koinonia love for one another.
The love, servant love for those in need: hurting, hungry and homeless.
The love for the lost.
Are we too focused in on the wrong things to see Jesus? Love for Jesus? Love like Jesus?
Are we too focused in on what we have been doing to see what He is calling us to next?
How do we gain perspective? How do we refocus?
Refocus on Jesus
Refocus on Jesus
Let’s look at things a different way:
Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them,
Jesus knew how to attract “great crowds”. He had been healing people all over the place. As a church growth expert, Jesus was the absolute BEST! He could pack a mega-church, no problem. 5000 people and the ability to feed them all lunch.
Then he gives them a nice softball sermon like this:
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
HOOOOOOLD UP! Pause!
Erase what little excuses and translations and caveats just went through your head that say you already know that Jesus doesn’t really mean that and he doesn’t really mean “my Mom” and “my kids”… I don’t “hate” my mom or dad or kids or brothers or sisters.
Does hate mean “hate”? Yup! Dangit!
How do we deal with this?
Are fathers a good thing? Yes. (Kids, church answers only right now!)
God himself is called our Father. He created families, mothers and fathers. He created the institution of marriage, so wives and husbands.
Father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters… those were all His idea. He loves it. It is in the Top Ten Words, the Ten Commandments: honor your father and mother.
And “hate your own life?” That’s bizarre!
Maybe he softened it after that.
Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
Recall, Jesus hadn’t even been to the cross yet, so this is coming out of nowhere for them. Whoever doesn’t pick up their “lethal injection syringe” and follow me can’t be my disciple!
This guy is crazy town, nuts!
And He is. Jesus makes it clear it is all in or nothing. You are His first and foremost, above all things.
The only thing that really taught me that lesson when I was a kid was Veggie Tales. They sang a song about the bunny in “Rack, Shack and Benny.”
The bunny, the bunny, woah I love the bunny. I don’t love my Mom or my Dad, just the bunny...
They changed the song later, because parents were freaking out. They changed it to something like I don’y love my soup or my bread, just the bunny.
There is no such thing as easy Christianity. Having Jesus as Lord of your life, it will cost you everything!
Far from “make it as easy as you can to become a Christian,” Jesus teaches us to count the cost before we commit. Count the cost of being a disciple.
So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
There can be nothing else on the throne of your life, in the center of your heart, save Jesus.
Another way to say this: What do you have to do say no to to say “Yes” to Jesus?
I think Matthew shows us some grace. I think he cleans it up a bit, honestly. I think Luke captures the insane emotion, the radical attention getting power of Jesus’ statement… the impact that made the crowd sit up and remember that forever… and made most of them go home.
Matthew cleans it up a bit. Or maybe he captures Jesus at another time where he was less provocative and more explanatory.
But it isn’t like Jesus backs off the absolute sacrifice talk.
In Matthew he says it this way:
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
See how he drops out the “hate” part?
It is so easy for us to say “Well, sure, hypothetically, I suppose I would choose Jesus over my mom… but it will never come to that!”
But this is our practiced habit, isn’t it? How do we talk around the text so that we can walk away from the text unchanged and unchallenged?
Jesus deliberately picks a provocative area to challenge… a challenge that his original hearers heard as SO challenging and ludicrous that 99% of them left Jesus and went home.
Anything
We must be willing to say “no” to absolutely everything else in order to say “yes” to Jesus.
Everything? Yes, everything.
What do I need to say no to?
This isn’t a one-off principle. Remember what He said to the rich man?
Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
Sell whatever holds you back.
This is not a principle that requires great explanation. It does not require great study to understand. In the first moments Jesus said “Hate your mother and father, your kids and your siblings...” they understood it.
In the first moment he said “sell all you have...” the rich man understood it.
In the first moment he said “take up your cross and follow me...” they understood it.
And most left discouraged. Some stayed.
And in the parallel story in John, Jesus asked of his inner circle: would you go too?
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
What did Simon Peter say? “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life...”
This does not require great study.
It requires great reflection, to allow Jesus to point at my riches, my family, my time, my sacred idols, my distractions… to allow Jesus to say “leave that… and follow me.”
It requires great reflection, great listening… and then great obedience.
To stop everything else and follow Jesus.
To say “no” to everything else and say “yes” to Jesus.
The Great Pause
The Great Pause
I have been doing some of this “great reflection and listening” for our church.
We want to say “Yes” to some radical things as a church. We want to say “Yes” to loving one another as the church is called, commanded and empowered to do.
We want to say “Yes” to serving the homeless as Jesus is leading us to do.
We want to say “Yes” to going forth as bold witnesses.
But in order to do that, we need to clear the slate. We need to clear the way. We need to focus our time, talent and treasure.
I propose that we “pause” all the things.
We don’t hold Advisory Board meetings. We don’t hold the October business meeting. We don’t worry for now about budgets and nominations and offices. We stop PULSE. We focus down to the absolute basics, we say “no” to all the elements of structure and process so that, for a season, we can absolutely focus on the few simple things God is calling us to focus on.
Time for me, as your Pastor, to walk through the vision with you of who God is calling us to be. A covenant people, whole-hearted disciples, doers of His Word.
Practically what does this look like? Callie keeps paying the bills as they come, Kelly keeps leading us in worship, Brandon keeps the building standing, Alice and the teachers keep loving on our kids, Katie T keeps leading our teenagers in youth… and everything else goes on pause.
And in two weeks we will have a special business meeting. (I recognize the incredible irony of calling for a “pause” of all process by calling a special business meeting).
With the support of the deacons, of the Advisory Board, and of the Pastoral Relations Committee I propose that we suspend all official meetings, offices and process until the January business meeting.
What do you need to say “No” to?
What do you need to say “No” to?
In light of what Jesus calls us to… this is a small start. This is a corporate start, we do this together… but it is a small start.
What else? What else do we need to surrender? As a church? As individuals? As families?
Jesus told the rich man it was his wealth.
Jesus told the family men it was their family.
What is he telling you?
And maybe you’ve got work to do as a disciple. And maybe you’ve got some things you have to go sell, or family to say goodbye to. But just in case you’re ready to leave all of that today, renounce it all and say “Yes” to Jesus… pray with me now:
“Jesus, I have counted the cost. I know what it means to have you as my Lord… it means you are my King, you are my boss, I do what you say, I live how you live, I love how you love… and as my King you died for me to rescue me from my sin and the punishment of death. I want to follow you, in this life and forever. Jesus, I know you are my Savior and Savior of the World, I know you are Lord of the Universe, please be Lord of my life.”