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Story of double-sleepwalking.
Back in the days of PSU…the AY days. House, 9 dudes. Lance sleep-walker.
I knew that I had to get up that morning to leave to drive to work. Lance knew
that he needed to be awake to get a ride to his practice. We both knew what
we had to do, and were acting on it, but had no idea what was going through
our heads. We were going through the motions.
Are we sleep-walking, or walking with God? Are we robbing the Gospel of its
redemptive power by simply going through the motions because we’re so
distracted by all of the other joys the world has to offer? Is the Gospel not
making a difference in our lives because we’ve become so accustomed to
what the Christian life “should” look like. We are over-accustomed to the
Gospel. It’s just a story that we learned about a dying & rising Messiah? Our
walk with God has become more of a sleep-walk than an active, present focus
on God’s will for our lives.
What is “The Gospel”?
Before any other subject is undertaken, the foundation must be laid. If we
don’t have a proper understanding of The Gospel, none of the rest of tonight
will make sense. Spiritual sleep-walking will sound like I’m speaking
Mandarin. In fact Most important thing you can hear tonight.
Titus 3:3-7
For we too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by various
passions and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, detesting one another.
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But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love
for mankind appeared,
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He saved us—
not by works of righteousness that we had done,
but according to His mercy,
through the washing of regeneration
and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
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He poured out this Spirit on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ our Savior,
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so that having been justified by His grace,
we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life.
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Two parts of the Gospel. Verse 3 describes the universal state of mankind.
Deceivers; deceived. For some of us we hear “enslaved by passions and pleasures”
and instantly can identify within ourselves our own addictions, our skeletons in
the closet, our secrets we’ve withheld from everyone. But a layer deeper is that we
are deceived. Deceived by ourselves to convince ourselves that we’re really not
that bad. My shame is manageable. I really am a good person. But on honest
reflection, when we take account of our lives and lay it side by side with the moral
standards that we judge our peers, we don’t even live up to our own
standards…much less God’s standard. These layers add up to the conclusion that
humanity is broken, and guilty, and in need of a savior.
The second half of the Gospel is summed up in Verse 5&6. Jesus is the Savior. He
saved us. Important: it’s not by good works, “works of righteousness” that we
think can prove that we’re good people; it’s by Jesus’ one work of righteousness
on the cross. He took the penalty for our guilt. We were unable to accomplish our
salvation, yet God stepped in to do what we could not. He saved us according to
his mercy and great love.
Add this up, and I think this definition adequately describes the Good News of
“The Gospel”: Despite our moral failure separating us from God, He has
accomplished our rescue for us through Christ’s death and Resurrection - in
order to bring us into a relationship with Him.
So through the cross, Jesus rescues us from the penalty of sin in our lives.
What I wish was true is that the Gospel would also rescue us from the
presence of our sin. I wish I’d be able to wake up without the same old habits.
That my mind would think first “how can I serve God today with my life?”
Imagine if the next time your friend or roommate cursed at you and your
immediate thought was “I wonder what kind of painful family upbringing she
had that would cause her to react this way. I really hope I can dig into her life
and help her explore some of these old thinking habits and triggers.” Or
imagine if you saw a billboard of a scantily clad subject and your thought
automatically cause you to look away and mutter a prayer “God, would you
give that company the ability to advertise their product without tempting the
minds of young men & women? Would you forgive them for objectifying and
exploiting sex for the usage of their product?”
Can you imagine what it would be like if we were simply cured of any of the
presence of sin in our lives? Like I said, I wish this is how the Gospel worked –
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that Jesus wouldn’t just take away the penalty for our sin but the very
presence of sin in my life. I wish it were this way. But it’s not so.
The reality is, and we all know it, is that our minds are polluted with
thoughts, plans, ideas, temptations, addictions, depravity that goes against
the very life God has designed for us. It’s crazy that – though the God of the
universe died in our place to free us from the penalty of sin, I still can’t go a
day, even an hour, in living a life pleasing to God in gratitude for his provision
for me on that Cross.
Last week, sitting in a West Chester Cru team meeting, one of my teammates
made a comment about a big guy taking up space. That’s the only part I fully
caught. It really got to me. Now, weight is something that I’ve battled to keep
off a lot of my life. And right now, I’m not in bad shape, so that fact that I let it
bother me so much is even more ridiculous.
The comment was in passing. But the rest of the day I felt down and
discouraged. I was defensive. In my mind I was replaying everything to
deflect the insult. I play basketball every week in the rec center at WC and I
can hold my own with those college kids. Who cares if I’m a little out of shape;
I’m athletic!
And that slowly began to morph into anger. Anger that was directed at myself
for not being in better shape. Anger at my teammate for being insensitive.
Wondering how he would stab me in the back at one of my more sensitive
issues in life. I began to wonder, and then assume, that his comment was not
just insensitive, but intentional. That he went out of his way to hit me where
it hurts. That, I must’ve said something he didn’t like, and he lacked the ability
to confront me and instead resorted to passively offending me behind my
back. That, something in his own life triggered him to be a mean person that
looked for opportunities to cause harm.
I stewed on it for a week. It got me all out of rhythm. I didn’t concentrate on
my work as well. I was short-tempered with people. And finally, I couldn’t
take it anymore so I confronted the guy whom I had overheard making the
comment. All of that, messed up my week. And you know what the crazy thing
was. My teammate’s comment, when I confronted him, was clarified. He was
talking about the WC rec center basketball we played together! That my
defense on the basketball court. That, I was a big guy who takes up space in
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the paint, keeping people out of the lane. What was actually a compliment
behind my back, I let stew in my mind for a whole week.
There’s a lot to be said for that whole week. On one hand, my sin nature
caused me the fear of avoiding confrontation immediately. I could have just
asked him about the comment directly. But because of my own brokenness
and fear issues in my heart I chose to avoid him.
And I also could have chosen to assume the best in him. I could have
considered that maybe he was talking about me playing good defense instead
of assuming he was talking about my weight. But, due to the brokenness in
my heart, I took it to heart as the worst possible interpretation and blamed
myself for not being good enough.
I could have confronted him earlier in the week when the comment was
really eating away at me. But, due to my own sinful desire to be enraged and
blame, I sulked and road the emotional high of anger for a week.
I could have forgiven him in my heart immediately or worked towards
forgiving him through the week. But, instead, I chose to blame him. I chose to
make him into a monster in my head. A mean, cruel, broken, bully.
And worst of all, my response to myself, even after it was all clarified, was “no
big deal. I’m forgiven. There is grace because of the Cross.” Very little
remorse. Very little humble self-reflection. No repentance.
I’m broken. Don’t I wish that instead of having all of these automatic sin
responses to a circumstance, that the presence of sin would just be removed.
That my knee-jerk reaction would be love and forgiveness rather than blame
and anger. That, instead of shrugging my shoulders when I become so aware
of my sinful heart, that I would feel the remorse of what it cost Christ on the
cross, and commit again to respond the next time in a way that honors Christ.
But it isn’t so. I’m still a broken person, needing to choose to live in light of
the Gospel day in, and day out. A Godly response doesn’t flow naturally out of
my heart to most situations. We must be on guard. Our reality as humankind,
is that even though a life that has accepted God’s grace in the Gospel, there is
still a continuous need to pursue Christ first in our lives. If we aren’t on guard,
if we sleep-walk our way through life, we won’t see growth. We won’t be
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changed by the Gospel. Our lives will reflect our sin nature rather than a life
rescued by Christ.
So this is why the sleep-walking story started off. We can let our minds
default to auto-mode, where we run through life unaware of what we’re
actually doing, feeling, believing. Or we can be sharp, alert, focused, in looking
to where Christ wants to change us, heal us, grow us. Are we merely sleepwalking, or are we consciously walking with Christ?
Open up your Bibles if you have them to Luke 9. Starting at Verse 57. Jesus
gives some pretty direct instructions as to what it takes to walk with God.
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As they were traveling on the road someone said to Him, “I will follow You
wherever You go!”
Jesus told him, “Foxes have dens, and birds of the sky[x] have nests, but the
Son of Man has no place to lay His head.” 59 Then He said to another, “Follow
Me.”
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“Lord,” he said, “first let me go bury my father.”[y]
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But He told him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and spread the
news of the kingdom of God.”
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Another also said, “I will follow You, Lord, but first let me go and say good-bye
to those at my house.”
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But Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is
fit for the kingdom of God.”
Have you ever been around one of those people that just loves to speak in
metaphors. Like there is some analogy instead of a straight yes or no answer to
your question? At times that can be really funny when there’s always a clever
word picture loaded and ready. Sometimes it can also just be obnoxious. Just, give
me the answer straight for once.
Like it or love, that’s Jesus 101. Much more due to his Jewish roots and cultural
identity than personality, but that’s exactly how Jesus addresses hard questions.
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Look back at Luke 9:57-58. At the promise of “Lord, I will follow you wherever
you go!” Jesus’ response is very peculiar. Foxes have dens, birds of the sky have
nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” What is Jesus talking
about? Why doesn’t Jesus just say “Okay, here’s what it takes!”?
I think it causes us to stretch and lean into each passage. Jesus wants us to think
deeply. Many of us are in the same boat as this follower, saying in our hearts and
minds “I will follow you wherever you go Jesus!” But do we know what that
takes? Have we truly counted the cost? Or are we just gonna coast, sleep-walk
through our commitment to Christ?
I think what Jesus is saying here is not merely what he says on the surface. It is
true: that unlike foxes and birds, Jesus and therefore His followers, will be without
a permanent home. It may require moving among many temporary homes. We’ve
often used this verse to say, Go overseas. You’re a follower of Christ. He said we
can’t have a permanent home as a true follower. Some of us are called to spend
time overseas sharing the love of Christ with those who otherwise won’t have a
chance to hear. But that’s not what Jesus is trying to say.
This goes deeper than merely giving up your sense of home. The theme isn’t
sacrificing your home and sense of security and satisfaction from it, it’s the theme
of sacrifice in general. To follow Jesus, he’ll ask you to sacrifice many of the
areas of your life you clutch on to most closely for security and satisfaction.
Sacrifice. Are you willing to sacrifice maybe your career goals, maybe your life
goals, if Jesus asks you to? Do you begin to see the impossibility of following
Jesus if you’re just coasting through life? Sleep-walking won’t do – alertness is
essential. He asks that you sacrifice parts of your life – maybe significant parts –
to truly walk with God.
Look at the next 3 verses. “Let me first go bury my father.” Jesus’ response: “Let
the dead bury their own dead.” What in the world? More of this stuff. Jesus, what
the heck does that even mean?
Here the cultural customs help us make sense of an obscure saying. Does anyone
know the Jewish background of “burying your father”? Don’t suppose this wouldbe follower of Jesus is traveling with Him while his father’s corpse is waiting at
home, stinking in the sun. His father is not dead yet! If he had been, the son would
have been at home, sitting in mourning for a week exempt from all duties as was
the cultural norm. The son wishes to go home, live in comfort with aging but
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healthy father till his death – perhaps years hence, collect his inheritance and then,
after all of that, at his leisure, become a disciple.
He’s saying – this guy is basically spiritually dead. Or he’s certainly not awake.
This would-be disciple is sleep-walking through the motions. And Jesus says, let
the spiritually dead, those concerned with the benefits of this world, inheritances,
remain with each other in life and eventually bury their own physically dead. The
true follower of Christ must get his priorities straight.
Prioritize. See how this is turning? Jesus is ramping up the qualifications of what
it takes to be a follower. Sacrifice? Yeah, you’ll have to sacrifice some things that
you love. But it goes deeper. Those things that Jesus doesn’t ask you to sacrifice?
Yeah, you can keep them. But they still get prioritized after Jesus.
Verses 61-62 – the last two verses. “I will follow you, but first let me go say
goodbye to those at my house.” Similarly, what’s this guy really saying? This
doesn’t seem like an unreasonable request, right? Does Jesus really want him to
abandon those of his house permanently – not even go back and say bye?
Like the other verses, there is more going on here than what meets the eye. First
let me go back to those at my house. What we don’t realize, is that to be a
follower, a Disciple, was a position which, when you chose to follow your Rabbi,
was 24/7. There’s a whole other world of the rabbis and disciple that would take a
day to explain but would blow your mind if you ever look into it. But the reality
was that to follow your rabbi, to follow Jesus, you were with him 24 hours a day.
If this guy was already on the road with Jesus, the people at his house already
knew exactly where this disciple was – and they knew what he signed up for.
Because when he first began to follow his rabbi he had already said “guys, I’m
going to follow the Rabbi Jesus. It’s been real. Peace.”
So what’s this guy really doing? He’s making an excuse to take a break and go
hang. And Jesus is saying pretty frankly, “bro, no excuses.” But look how he says
it in verse 62: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the
kingdom of God.” This seems pretty off the wall too. First Jesus is talking about
fox dens & bird nests, dead burying their own dead, now he’s talking about plows.
This happens to be my favorite verse in the entire Bible. Is it wrong to have a
favorite verse? I value them all equally. But this on is my favorite. I learned the
meaning of this verse when I was 9 or 10 years old and it’s stuck with me since.
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It’s an agricultural metaphor that Jesus uses. Which we can expect, since it’s an
agrarian economy in 1st century Palestine. I grew up on a dairy farm – cow
handling & field work, since a kid. When I was 9 or 10, my grandfather taught me
how to plow a field. And he picked this verse to teach me how to plow, but more
so to teach me how pursue God.
There’s some total genius in this phrase. Let’s pick it apart the way my Grandpa
picked it apart that afternoon. Why do we farmers plow a field? Turn over the soil,
yeah. But it’s to make ridges and troughs in which to plant the crop for the
harvest. Do you know what’s most important about preparing the ground before
you plant the crop? Straight rows! You don’t wanna be trying to follow zigzags
with your team of oxen – tractor in my case - to keep going down in the troughs.
The easiest and quickest way to make straight rows? It’s the same as when you’re
behind the wheel driving down the highway, guys. You don’t look at the yellow
line right in front of you. Imagine it when you’re only looking at the part of the
road that’s right here in over the hood of your car. You’ll constantly turning,
turning again, overcorrecting to keep it between the lines. No, you look way out
far in front down the road.
That was Grandpa’s advice too. He said, pick something and drive straight
towards it. There’s a tree just past the edge. He said it has to be something beyond
the end of the field (you don’t wanna look at something halfway along the field,
then need to divert course and drive towards a new target). And has to be
something that doesn’t move (no use driving towards a moving target.)
Our life is the field. We need to focus on something beyond life that is
unwavering. Imagine if you make your focus in life just getting your degree.
Getting married. Having kids. Retirement. What do you do afterwards? Emptiness.
It’s sad. Turn back. Imagine stumbling and zigzagging the rest of the way through
life because you’ve picked a focus that only gets you part way there. Only God,
beyond life and unmoving, provides a focus worth living your life towards.
Focus. That’s the genius of Jesus. Following him means keeping our focus on him.
There’s no sleep-walking through life. It requires alertness, vigilance, and
perseverance. This short phrase ramps up the commitment level even more. Not
only will we sacrifice some parts of life we love to follow him, not only will we
have to prioritize Jesus first among our passions, but He asks us to solely focus on
priority #1.