Feb. 23rd 2014 To Catch a Vision: Pt 7 “Loving Christ Above All”
Steven Furtick begins his book Crash the Chatterbox with a confession. He writes:
“I wish I had a little devil on my left shoulder. I could flick him off []l. Then I could fist-bump the
angel sitting on my right shoulder and get on with doing all the things God has called me to do.
That would change everything. I’d discover an unshakable confidence. It wouldn’t be borrowed
from the ever-changing assessments of others. I would instinctively offer my weaknesses as a
platform for God’s power instead of typecasting myself as someone God [can’t] use due to my
endless character flaws. I’d be unstoppable because the devil wouldn’t be able to dominate my
mind with the kinds of fears that control me a lot of the time. [] I would be able to move
forward in faith without being scared of failure or rejection or the sacrifice required to obey
God. [] …I would stop wondering if the sky was falling every time I faced a new challenge.
I’d see my biggest obstacles as my greatest opportunities… and all the other stuff you read on
Starbucks cups. Unfortunately, there’s no devil on my shoulder. What’s worse, there’s no angel
either. Instead, I’ve got this ceaseless war going on inside my heart and my head. [] I wake up
every day to the crow of the chatterbox.”i For seven weeks now in this sermon series based
on Peter Scazzero’s book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality we have been talking about
chatterboxes, especially the one inside each of us – you know the one that gets all bent out of
shape when someone else’s desires and beliefs aren’t the same as its own. The one that stays
up all night eating too many bags of fritos and drinking too many cans of…BBBarq’s or
Dr. Pepper because someone at work said the boss doesn’t like you. Or because your child or
grandchild just started dating someone who isn’t a Christian, but is a bi-sexual and has two kids.
Or because your highschool reunion is just around the corner and it’s highly unlikely you’ll fit
into the clothes you got for it, especially if you keep eating chips and drinking this Dr. Pepper!
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Feb. 23rd 2014 To Catch a Vision: Pt 7 “Loving Christ Above All”
And for seven weeks we have been talking about Catching God’s Vision individually and as a
Church– a vision which may get our inner and outer chatterboxes going because it is so
different from our own visions. We learned that in order to Catch God’s Vision we have to stop
what we’re doing and spend time in God’s Presence so we can know ourselves and know God
better. We have to wait on the Lord in the hope that He will share a glimpse with us of what He
is already doing in our community and in our world and then invite us to join Him. And we learn
from our scripture today that our preparation to Catch God’s Vision can’t begin until we ‘crash
the chatterbox’ as Furlick calls it, so we can hear God’s Voice above it. And that’s not an easy
thing to do, is it? In our passage from Matthew’s gospel this morning, however, Jesus - as
always - shows us how it’s done.
Here the peace of God’s presence is shattered when two sets of chatterboxes come to harass
Jesus. Instead of coming themselves, the first group – the Pharisees –send their disciples
instead thinking that Jesus will accept without question these young disciples’ pretense of
wanting to learn something from Him. They send along with their disciples a group of Herodians
who are actually their sworn enemies. The Herodians worship Herod and Caesar as divine,
something the Pharisees rightfully consider blasphemy. While enemies both groups consider
Jesus a threat to their power so, for a change, they work together to try to discredit Jesus. And
they think they’ve devised the perfect ‘no win’ question to trip Jesus up. They begin by pouring
false flattery on Jesus. They call Him ‘Rabbi’ and chatter on about coming to Him because they
know He is a man of integrity who teaches the truth of God. “You’re not swayed by the
influence or affections of men around you,” they say, “So you can be trusted.” They say it, but
they don’t believe it. They hope their chatter will rattle Jesus enough to put Him off His game.
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Feb. 23rd 2014 To Catch a Vision: Pt 7 “Loving Christ Above All”
Then they pull out the sure fire question the Pharisees gave them and ask Jesus, “Is it really
right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Now it’s not surprising that their question is about
money. The Pharisees are not alone in their preoccupation with money for money is, of course,
the currency of power in their time as many believe it still is in our own. If Jesus says ‘NO’, the
chatterboxes reason, the Herodians can report Him to the Roman governor who will execute
Him for treason. If Jesus says ‘YES’, the Jews can accuse Him of blasphemy and of disloyalty to
the nation of Israel. Jesus knows what they are up to and tells them so. He asks for a coin used
to pay the Roman tax and gets them to identify the portrait and inscription on it as that of
Caesar. Then Jesus responds: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”
What a powerful statement! What a brilliant answer! Jesus acknowledges the need for order in
society through government to hold back the chaos created by lawlessness and self interest.
He agrees to our need of a system of currency for the fair exchange of goods and services.
Money and governments are not evil in themselves, His answer suggests. We need them. But
Jesus’ answer also does several things to silence His chatterboxes and send them away.The first
is, His answer insists the things of man be put in their proper place relative to the things of God.
As we seek God’s Vision for us here as His church, we need to do the same thing. Financial
matters matter. Procedures and governance are useful. Doctrinal clarity is importance. But we
mustn’t lose perspective and give these things the attention and importance reserved for the
larger things of God! All must be kept in its proper order and place. It seems simple, but the
chatter created around these issues in our churches today is deafening. Furtick points out “[I]t’s
not just what this chatter says that makes it dangerous. It’s what it keeps us from hearing. Most
people go through life thinking God never speaks to them when in fact He’s always speaking. []
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Feb. 23rd 2014 To Catch a Vision: Pt 7 “Loving Christ Above All”
But we hear so little of what He says because our consciousness of His voice is obscured by our
mental static. What guidance was God trying to give you today that you didn’t hear because it
was buried by negative noise? What wisdom did God want to share about your future that you
missed because the [dialogue of doubt] was too loud in the background?[] Brennan Manning
wrote a line that perfectly describes what happens when the chatter gets the best of us:
‘Great deeds remain undone and the possibility of growth into greatness of soul is aborted.’”ii
If we actually want to Catch God’s Vision, if we want to grow into the great souls I believe
every one of us is called to be in Christ, we have to follow our Lord’s advice as given here.
We have to put and keep our ‘stuff’ in its proper place in relation to the things of God.
Yes, we have to keep God’s house organized. We have to keep it clean and well managed.
But only so we don’t trip over these necessary but lesser things, only so that they’re up and
out of the way when God arrives to show us the really important, heart driven, life changing
work He’s doing and to invite us to come alongside and do it with Him.
Jesus’ answer silences the chatterboxes by telling them to know their priorities affect their
purpose, but His answer silences them in a second way as well. By turning the tables on
them, Jesus reveals to everyone their hypocrisy. They are not the loving and respectful
admirers of Jesus they pretend to be. They claim to know Jesus well enough to evaluate Him
as a man of integrity, yet they have no integrity of their own on which to base it. They say
Jesus teaches the way of God in accordance with the truth, yet they are seeking to prove
Him false. So Jesus does something that lets people see behind the curtain so everyone can
see their claim to be devoted learners is a lie. Jesus does it with a single prop – a gold coin
used to pay government taxes.
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Feb. 23rd 2014 To Catch a Vision: Pt 7 “Loving Christ Above All”
On one side of the common roman coin of that day was a portrait of Emperor Tiberius. On
the other was the inscription in Latin “Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of the divine Augustus.”
The disciples of the Pharisees, who are trying to trick Jesus into uttering blasphemy, commit
blasphemy themselves by identifying Caesar’s image as the person described in that
inscription, as the son of the divine Augustus. Jesus’ words, “Give unto Caesar what is
Caesar’s” therefore has a double edge. It refers to the Herodians worship and allegiance to
Caesar not God, but it also refers to the Jews who, while claiming independence from Rome
and moral superiority to the Herodians, blaspheme themselves here and – by working with
the Herodians to trap Jesus - show that their true allegiance is to power not their nation of
Israel and not their God. The Jews show themselves to be image bearers of Caesar, not God.
And their allegiance to the power of men, not to the supremacy of God robs them of their
ability to discern what is of God and what is of man. They claim to know Jesus intimately
enough to evaluate His integrity, but they do not recognize Him as the Son of God standing
right in front of them. And, sadly, because they do not know God, they cannot see the image
of God in themselves or in each other. Their house is not in order.
As we wait on God to reveal His Vision to us, we cannot make the same mistake. The
chatterboxes, both out there in the world and inside our own heads, must be silenced or
their dialogue of doubt can set our own house in disarray. It can rob us of our own ability to
discern what is of man and what is of God. We may find ourselves flattering God outwardly
as we sing our hymns, as we go through the motions of worship and charity, but inwardly
losing touch with the image of God within us and others. Unguarded hearts open to the
influence of the chatterbox can turn us into charlatans too.
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Feb. 23rd 2014 To Catch a Vision: Pt 7 “Loving Christ Above All”
We’ll know when we start professing things that we no longer believe. When we start
reading the stories of Jesus to our children and grandchildren – but no longer as factual
accounts central to our faith rather as fictional flights of fancy that once upon a time gave us
hope but no more. In our ordering of the things of man and the things of God, more and
more people will see us giving greater importance to the things of man. More and more
people will see in us the likeness of man – of Caesar. Many churches have fallen victim to
the chatterbox. While they may still look like the real thing on the outside, everyone knows to coin a phrase – they can only offer fool’s gold.
The bottom line is, we cannot discern the will of God, we cannot Catch or share His Vision,
if we can’t recognize His image anymore – in ourselves, in others or in Jesus. What the
disciples of the Pharisees somehow knew was that their evaluation of Jesus’ character was
right for they left amazed at His answer to them. But their allegiance to Caesar – the God of
the Age – made it impossible for them to recognize Jesus as the true Son of God. They were
unable to rise above the chatter to recognize God at work and God, therefore, could not
share His Vision with them, a Vision He shared most perfectly in the Son they had just
rejected. “Through Jesus,” Furtick insists, “God has gone to the most extravagant lengths
possible so that He might know you and make Himself progressively and vividly known to
you. He wants to show you things about who He is and who you are that flesh and blood
cannot reveal and that trials and tribulations cannot diminish.”iii But we have to crash the
chatterbox to get the silence we need to recognize God. Jesus’ final challenge does just that.
It crashes the chatterboxes trying to trip Him up once and for all. And His final and ultimate
challenge to them is to ‘Give to God what is God’s.’
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Feb. 23rd 2014 To Catch a Vision: Pt 7 “Loving Christ Above All”
Now it’s important to understand what Jesus is not saying or doing here. Jesus is not saying
you can do whatever you want with your money, your material possessions, your property
and various kinds of wealth because it is yours not God’s. The Pharisees’ chief complaint
against Caesar was the imposition of the Roman Tax on top of the temple tax. Jews still had
to pay the temple tax. And Jesus’ words here are not in support of the Jewish tradition of
segregating the sacred from the secular; in fact, quite the opposite. While Jesus’ words do
stress the importance of discerning the things of man from the things of God in order to
keep them in their proper places in terms of importance, the challenge given to these false
disciples and to us today is not about finding balance in our lives between what we have to
give to God and what we can keep for ourselves. We are made in God’s image. And as His
image bearers, the challenge is to give all of ourselves to God. To recognize Jesus as God and
to love Him above all else. Oh, that challenge sets those chatterboxes a clattering, doesn’t it?
John Ortberg in his book The Life You’ve Always Wanted warns of listening to the chatter
of our own age where “the great quest is for a ‘balanced lifestyle.’ Ask most people [] in
society today what they are after,” he writes, “and they will say something about the need
for balance.” As important as balance may be in our handling of the things of man, -of those
things that need to be kept organized and in their place,- the idea of balance itself, he
suggests, is not the Holy Grail. “A balanced lifestyle is not an adequate goal worthy of our full
devotion. The problem with that goal is not that it is too difficult, but that it is too slight. The
quest for balance can contribute to a tendency to compartmentalize our faith. ..[] to think of
matters such as finances or work as ‘nonspiritual activities,’ [it] blinds us to the fact that God
is intensely interested in our every moment and activity. []
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Feb. 23rd 2014 To Catch a Vision: Pt 7 “Loving Christ Above All”
Balance tends to carry with it the notion that we are trying to make our lives more
manageable, more convenient, more pleasant.[] At a deeper level, the paradigm of balance
simply doesn’t capture the sense of compelling urgency worthy of human devotion.” Ortberg
says. “It is largely a middle-class pursuit. It lacks the notion that my life is to be given to
something bigger than myself. [God’s Vision for us and for the world is a Vision far bigger,
and grander, and more risky than that of a well balanced life! ] As George Bernard Shaw said,
‘This is the true joy in life, [in] being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one;
[in] being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; [in] being a force of
nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the
world will not devote itself to making you happy.’
[Oh, I sure recognize myself in that last description! I don’t know how or why God puts up with
me!] The quest for balance [Ortberg says] lacks …the call to sacrifice and self-denial – the wild,
risky, costly, adventurous abandon of following Jesus.”iv
But be careful here…while Jesus’ challenge is not a quest for a balanced life it’s not a quest
for an ‘unbalanced life’ either. It’s not about choosing to ‘flame out rather than rust out.’
Whether burnt out or rusted out, either way, Ortberg warns, you are still out. And our hope is
to be in God’s Vision for our future. No, Giving to God what is God’s is a goal that is achievable
even in the most desperate of situations and, in fact, is often easiest to do when we are at our
lowest points in life. It was found by Job in his distress, it was found by David as he hid from
Saul, and Scazzero tells us it is found by us when we hit the wall. Only by having the courage to
journey forward will our souls find what they long for: the life we’ve always wanted. “It is the
quest for what Augustine called a well ordered heart [one shaped by a rule of life] to love the
right thing, to the right degree, in the right way, with the right kind of love.”v Preparing to Catch
God’s Vision requires a plan of action, what early Christians called a rule of life.
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Feb. 23rd 2014 To Catch a Vision: Pt 7 “Loving Christ Above All”
These are the things of man but they create in us well-ordered hearts that give priority to the
things of God. And before any of you get upset over the idea of adding more ‘rules’ to your life,
remember what Jesus confirmed about our need for rules. Scazzero tells us the word rule used
here is the Greek word for ‘trellis’. It is not imposed to control us but offered to support us as
we seek to meet Jesus’ challenge to ‘Give unto God was is God’s.’ Theologian William Paulsee
advises that “we cannot deepen our relationship with God in a casual or haphazard manner.
There will be a need for some intentional commitment and some reorganization in our own
lives. But there is nothing that will enrich our lives more than a deeper and clearer perception
of God’s presence in the routine of daily living.”vi Our focus on prayer this year is an attempt to
introduce and encourage a rhythm of living and a rule of life that helps us all know God and
ourselves and each other better, that encourages us to go back to go forward, to grow through
loss, to journey through the wall together, to breathe in eternity and to love Christ above all.
And once you get in the rhythm, it’s not a rule of life at all. It is just life…as easy as breathing.
And sometimes, when we catch our breath we catch also God’s Vision of us and of His world.
I’ll close with a brief story where that happened recently. it was shared with me this week by
someone who has learned to breathe in life to the fullest. This friend of mine went to the
doctor to discuss a rather serious condition. The doctor was attentive, silent, compassionate.
He took time to really listen. So my friend thanked him and said, “You are a good Christian.”
The doctor smiled and said, “I am not a Christian.” To which my friend replied, “Oh but if you
were, you would be a good one.” Breathe in, heaven cracked open for a second, breathe out.
God’s Vision is that easy. And it is that sweet. Let us pray.
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Feb. 23rd 2014 To Catch a Vision: Pt 7 “Loving Christ Above All”
i
Stephen Furtick. Crash the Chatterbox (Multnomah Books: Colorado, 2014) 1.
Furtick, 9.
iii
Furtick, 11.
ii
iv
John Ortberg. The Life You’ve Always Wanted (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1997) 194-6.
Ortberg, 197-8.
vi
Peter Scazzero. Emotionally Healthy Living, 200.
v
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